Chapter Text
“What are you doing?”
“AGH—CURSORS—!” Green slams his laptop shut, partly out of shock but mostly out of defense. He leaps up when Red bashes in, and calms down when Red doesn’t attack him or something. “Red, what…”
“What are you doing?” Red repeats, this time coming closer to Green’s bed, arms folded across his chest, still using that same voice he uses when he’s caught Reuben sneaking through Blue’s kitchen. He tries to steal a glance at Green’s laptop, but Green hides it under a pillow.
“None of your beeswax,” Green hisses, face flushing red. “What do you want?”
Red gives him a look, but doesn’t ask anything more. “Blue says it’s time to come eat.”
Green’s shoulders drop. He’s currently in the middle of filling out a resume — sure, the second resume so far, but hey, at least he’s making an effort. “Alright, fine.”
Under Red’s watchful gaze, he slides off of his bed and makes his way out the door. “I feel like that’s all we do,” he mumbles as Red follows him out the door. “Eat, spar, sleep, repeat. We can never find anything interesting to do.”
Of course, there’s always the court trial that’s taking place in less than a week. But Red doesn’t need to know that.
“Be glad we get to eat at all,” Red shoots back.
Green sideyes him. This is the tone of voice Red uses when he feels there’s something going on. Something fishy.
Blue has prepared pizza for dinner. There’s three pies on the table and two more in the oven, and one that’s exclusively topped with cheese and netherwart is set aside on the counter for Blue to devour later.
Green stiffly takes his seat beside Red, not wanting to meet eye contact with everyone else. They’ll immediately tell something is up, and he doesn’t want to accidentally spill the news that Purple’s going to court and he’s hunting for a job.
He’s not going to give away the fact that Purple might be taken away from them. Forever. They might not see her again. Mr. King could lose this case. Navy could win. Purple will be taken away.
He also doesn’t want to give away the fact that something is bothering him. Because something is bothering him.
But that’s not—
“Green?”
Green jumps. “Eh! Eh, wha—?” He blinks and glances around. Everyone is staring at him.
“Are you… okay?” Yellow asks slowly. “We called you like three times.”
“Something on your mind?” Orange asks, spooning some salad onto his plate.
“No,” is Green’s all-too-rushed answer. “I mean, I’m fine. Perfectly wonderful! Nothing’s wrong.” He grins.
They continue to stare at him.
“O…kay,” Blue drawls. He helps himself to some pizza before passing it to Red. “Have some pizza.”
And suddenly all the emotions come rushing out, all at once.
“No thank you.” Green crosses his arms.
Blue doesn’t immediately look angry; just confused and concerned. Red stops chewing to widen his eyes.
“Green, don’t be silly. You love pizza,” Yellow says. “Eat before it gets cold.”
“I’m not hungry.” Green crosses his arms.
Red looks confused, but Green keeps going.
“All we do is eat, eat, eat, and I’m so tired of being stuck in this cursor-forsaken rut.”
Orange looks a bit upset now. “Green, don’t—”
“Eat! Fight! Sleep! Repeat!” Green’s losing control. “I mean, come on! Don’t you ever get sick of it!?”
He scans the table briefly. Red and Orange look outraged. Yellow and Blue trade glances.
“No,” Red says defensively, mouth still partially full of food. “I like this cursor-forsaken rut.”
Green laughs out loud. “You know you don’t. You know you’re sick and tired of it. You hate it, don’t you?” He snarls.
“Green, what in Alan’s name is wrong with you—?” Blue starts, but isn’t allowed to finish.
“Oh-ho! Nothing!” Green gives out another laugh, but this time he’s laughing through the tears that are starting to gather in his eyes. His heart is beating too quickly, and his voice is cracking dangerously. “Tell me, Blue, how would you feel if your girlfriend’s father was threatening to take her away from you, literally taking her and Mr. King to court?!” He notices the immediate terrified looks on his friends’ faces, but doesn’t stop. “Of course I’m doing perfectly fine, given the fact that I’m not even allowed to give my own two cents and just watch the love of my life being ripped away from me and—!”
Green suddenly stops when he runs out of breath and tears have started falling from his eyes, just realizing that he’s been yelling at the top of his lungs. He blinks and wipes them away and hides his face from the others.
Red gives Green a silent yet terrified look. “What do you mean…” His voice trails off.
“Green, is Purple okay…?” Yellow asks quietly, after a moment of heavy silence.
No one moves.
“No, I…” Shaking his head, Green pushes himself from his chair and stumbles out, choking on his tears. “I…I’m sorry…”
They just watch him leave, glued to their seats like someone’s strapped them there.
“I guess it’s your turn for an existential crisis.”
Green chuckles humorlessly. “I guess,” he mumbles. Then he glances up at Blue, who’s climbing into the treehouse. “How’d you know I was gonna be here?”
“Lucky guess?” Blue closes the trapdoor and sits against the wall, next to Green. “You come here a lot to think, and when you’re lonely. I figured I should look here.”
Green hugs his knees close to his chest, but doesn’t say anything.
Blue bites his lip in thought. “I find it kinda funny that exactly what we didn’t want happening is happening,” he starts. “We wanted Purple’s dad to leave us alone, but now he’s not.” He laughs awkwardly. “I guess we jinxed it.”
Green doesn’t look up. “That’s not really helping.”
The taller one lets his shoulders drop. “I know. Just laugh, dude, you look depressed.”
Green doesn’t laugh. “Maybe cuz I am?” He sighs. “I’m just… so mad. I tried to protect her, but… ugh.”
“It isn’t your fault, Green.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was.” He sniffs. “Purple is going to be taken away from me and I can’t do anything about it.”
“But… if Mr. King wins the case, everything will be fine…”
“Mr. King said he doesn’t have anything to help him win,” Green argues. “He hasn’t officially adopted her yet, and Mr. Navy is her biological father, and—”
“Hey, hey, hey.” Blue sits up so he can turn to place a hand on Green’s shoulder. “What happened to Optimistic Green? What happened to the guy who always thinks he can win, and he will win? What happened to the Green I know?”
Green wipes his eyes quickly and hides his face. “He’s stuck and doesn’t know what to do.”
Blue sighs. “I know how that feels.” He thinks for another moment. “Do you know what I like to do when I’m stuck or lost?”
“Eat netherwart.”
“No…” Blue stops. “Okay, well, yes, that, but that’s not all.” He scoots closer. “I like to think of my favorite person or people in the entire world and why they’re my favorite. Who’s your favorite person?”
Green thinks. “Other than you guys?” He smiles, just a bit. “…Purple, of course.”
Blue nods, prodding him on.
“Well, she likes chocolate and cats and…” He shakes his head. “This is silly.”
“No, it’s not silly!” Blue cries. “It’ll help you feel better, I promise.” He nudges his friend. “What else do you love about Purple?”
Green draws in a sigh. “Well… I love the way she sings. She has a really beautiful voice.” He pauses. “She’s really good with an elytra. She wants a cat someday, but Mr. King doesn’t like cats so she can only hope.” He chuckles softly. “She only wears one pair of elytra. She has several, but only wears one for some reason.
“She switches to French when she’s mad or excited. I don’t know why, but I like it. Her favorite actor is Freedom Guy. She likes Romeo and Juliet. She never…” He pauses again. “She never… backs down from a fight.”
Green takes a deep, shuddering breath, and finds he can hardly continue. “And… and now she’s gonna be taken away from me.” And then he breaks down into tears.
Blue immediately takes over, pulling Green closer into a hug and patting his shoulder. “Shhhh… It’s okay, Green.”
Green grips at Blue’s scarf, still sobbing like some sort of child. “I don’t get it,” he sobs. “This wasn’t supposed to happen, Blue.”
“I know.”
“Why is this happening…?”
Blue shakes his head. “I don’t know, Green. I don’t know.”
His words of comfort didn’t really work, try as he might. Despite the warm arms embracing him, Green sobs uncontrollably until all his tears are wasted.
one week later
It’s raining the morning of the trial.
Fitting, really.
Purple had cried herself to sleep the night before, staining her pillow with tears and smudging it with the little makeup she wore so she didn’t look so pale. She wakes up with a start when her phone’s alarm goes off, set at precisely 7:15 AM.
She doesn’t feel like getting up.
King will probably be here in a moment to wake her up, though he’s probably sulking in bed too.
Groaning quietly, Purple sits up to check her phone. Her notifications are flooded with messages and missed calls from her five loyal friends, all asking if she needs help or just curious about the trial. She wonders how the news got out to them in the first place, but doesn’t bother to ask. She scrolls through them, but hasn’t the heart to reply to them.
Green is the most anxious of them all. Texts like “call me when you get there” or “text me if you need anything” fill her notifications, despite the fact that her fingers refuse to reply.
She turns her phone off and flops back into her bed, sighing heavily. She wishes someone was here with her. Someone like Green or even Red or…
Mama.
Mama would know what to do. Mama would have the right words to say and comfort Purple. Mama would help.
Purple misses her. Terribly.
Before she can cry, however, Purple sits back up and rubs her eyes. Just as she’s slowly starting to come to her senses, there’s a knock on the door.
“Come in.”
King pokes his head in after opening the door slightly. “Hey, kiddo.”
Purple doesn’t reply.
“You getting ready?”
She glances around for an excuse. I don’t want to go. “I don’t know what to wear.”
King sniffs. “Wear something nice,” he says. “Something presentable.”
She thinks briefly of her not favorite vest and suppresses a groan. “Okay.”
“You need me to do your hair?” King offers after a moment’s silence.
Purple shakes her head. “No.”
King drums his fingers against the door for a few seconds before sighing. “Alright. I’ll have breakfast ready in a bit.” And he closes the door.
Purple closes her eyes and sighs, too. She hates how she’s been acting towards King lately. Every time he tries to comfort or talk to her, she pushes him away. Every. Single. Time. She doesn’t know why, obviously — perhaps instinct. But it isn’t an excuse. King’s only wanting to help her; she has no right to push anyone like that anyway.
Pushing it off for now, she stands and slowly gathers her clothes to prepare for the long, long day ahead.
The courthouse is nothing at all like Purple had expected. The exterior architecture reminds her of pictures of buildings from Washington, D.C. she’s seen on the web. Tall, white marble pillars, pretty carvings, and glass doors she’s afraid to touch in case they’ll get dirty.
Inside, there’s winding staircases with gold banisters and fancy pottery and antiquities. After giving the woman at the counter a file and signing some papers, she tells her and King to wait until someone calls them. Together, they sit down on some of the chairs in the lobby.
Purple gazes up at the pretty chandelier hanging overhead. They remind her of stars. Stargazing. Stargazing somewhere, anywhere but here.
“You want something to drink?” King asks. “They have a café nearby.”
Purple doesn’t feel like doing anything. She feels sick. “No thanks,” she mumbles.
“It’s okay.”
And then nothing else is said after that.
Purple fidgets with her fingers, turns on her phone, turns it off, and counts how many lights are reflecting off of the polished floor. (The number was thirty-five, not counting the chandelier.)
Just as she thinks she’s going to absolutely go insane and lose her mind, someone calls King.
King stands up. “That’s us,” he says, sounding every bit as nervous as Purple feels but keeping strong. Somehow. He looks back at Purple. “Let’s go.”
Purple gathers herself before joining him.
They’re led to big oak doors, shiny from polishing, and then into a large room that is everything you’d expect a courtroom to be like. A judge and witness stand in the front, a row of pews for onlookers, a place for the jury to sit, and two tables placed in front of the judge’s stand for the defendants to sit.
Navy, his attorney or something, and Ruby are in the room already, along with a police officer standing in the corner. Zinnia and Magenta are there, too, the only ones sitting in the pews. The lady leads King and Purple inside and gestures to the table that Ruby is sitting at. Then, she leaves.
Now entering, Purple feels sick. Even more than before.
And seeing Navy sitting at one of the tables…
He hasn’t noticed her yet, but that’s the thing. She doesn’t want him to.
Suddenly she feels like she needs to throw up.
Breath quickening, ears pounding, she nudges King’s arm and murmurs, “Excuse me,” before rushing back out to look for the nearest bathroom.
The bathroom she finds is a single room, which is better. That way she’s alone. She manages to keep it all together until she shuts herself in, locks the door, rushes over to the sink, and coughs up whatever needs to be coughed up. (Which is basically nothing, by the way; it had all been just a false alarm.)
Purple stands there for what seems like a million years, still feeling that dread that’s been plaguing her mind and thoughts. She closes her eyes, trying to get herself moving, but can’t. Something tells her to stay as far away from that room as possible.
Staring daggers at herself in the mirror, she mutters a few useless words to herself.
“Don’t you back out. You’re gonna win this.”
“You know you’re gonna win this.”
A tear threatens to fall.
“Don’t you cry. Don’t you cry…”
She bursts into tears.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. This feels like some awful, bad dream. I want to go home. I don’t want any of this. I wanna go home where it’s safe and with King and…
Purple feels worse now. Walking out of the courtroom like some sort of coward, sobbing like a child who didn’t get her way, and hiding in the bathroom from her problems. King’s probably wondering what he did wrong.
He’s done nothing wrong.
Feeling weak in the knees, Purple leans against the wall and sinks down to the floor, burying her face in her knees and crying all her tears out.
A knock at the door prevents Purple from nearly falling asleep. She blinks once, twice, and slowly gathers that she’s still in the bathroom. She has absolutely no idea how long she’s been in here. It’s probably been long enough.
Standing up shakily, she straightens her clothes and hair, and opens the door.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbles to the person standing outside. Then she looks up to see Ruby, eyes clouded with concern. “…Oh. Hi.”
“Are you alright, honey?” Ruby asks, reaching out to touch Purple’s arm. “You’ve been in there for a while.”
Purple nods. “Just felt a little sick. I’m okay now.” She really isn’t.
“Are you nervous?” is Ruby’s next question.
Reluctantly, Purple nods.
“Okay.” Ruby pulls her closer into a hug. “I know you’re nervous,” she murmurs, “but please trust me when I say I’m going to do my best to fight for you. We’re going to win this case. Okay?”
Purple sniffs and hugs Ruby back, wanting to cry but having no more tears to spend. “Thanks.”
“Come on,” Ruby prods gently, pulling away, “let’s go.”
Stomach still sick with nerves, Purple takes a deep breath and follows Ruby into the courtroom.
When Green walks into his room later that evening, he finds Red sitting on his bed, Green’s laptop open and on his lap. A deeply interested look is on Red’s face, mixed with deep horror and concern.
Green stops at the door, equally horrified. “What are you doing—?!”
Red shoots his gaze upward. “What is this?” he retorts, holding up the laptop to show the words job application, bright and bold on the top. Green sees it and practically rips the laptop out of Red’s hands, slamming it shut.
“What are you doing?!” he shrieks. “That’s private!”
“I thought we agreed that we wouldn’t keep any secrets anymore, Green,” Red cries. “This is definitely a secret you’re keeping!”
“It’s not a secret,” Green argues. “It’s private. There’s a difference.”
Red scoffs. “You’ve been looking for a job, haven’t you?” He crosses his arms.
Green hesitates. “…Yes. I am.”
“Why?”
“Because…” Because Navy said. No, how ridiculous would that sound?? Green starts over. “J-just because!”
“Why because?”
“It’s none of your concern,” Green mumbles. “Get out of my room.”
They stare at each other, both out of breath.
Red then speaks up, a whole lot quieter now. “Are you leaving us?”
A strange wave of regret washes through Green’s body. He turns his face so it’s hidden from his friend. “I don’t know. If I get a job far away… Perhaps.”
Red scoffs again, but this time it’s to cover a sob. “Green! You said you were happy here— why do you wanna leave us?!”
“I didn’t say I wanted to leave, Red.” Green takes a step closer. “Stop making assumptions.”
“I’m not making assumptions.”
“Yes you are—”
“I shoulda expected this sooner or later,” Red vents. “You, running off to follow your dreams, or whatever. You’re prone to do that, y’know. Cuz you’re arrogant and rude and—”
“Where did that come in?!”
“You keep secrets from us!” Red waves a finger at him. “You, boy, you make me so mad, keeping your silly little secrets about pretty much everything! You hide stuff from us all the time, don’t you?!” He scoffs louder. “Secrets, secrets, secrets! First about Purple and her dad, now this!”
“Red, I didn’t mean—”
Red pushes himself off of the bed, then pushes Green away. “If you wanna leave then pack your bags! See if I care!” He proceeds to storm out, the color of his cheeks matching his hair.
“Red, wait…”
“Shut up,” Red cuts in, then stalks out, slamming the door behind him.
Green is left there, stunned, still hugging his laptop close to his chest.
“…What was that??!”