Work Text:
Five tossed the ball loosely, the smile pasted on her face growing slightly as Three caught it and tossed it back precisely.
They'd been repeating the motion for a while now, and though Five was growing rather bored, Three seemed to have no intent of stopping. It was almost admirable, the way they seemed to get more into it with every throw and catch.
Five zoned out slightly, focusing on catching and throwing the ball, but when they looked up at Three to aim..
Three's expression was devoid of playfulness, an angry, intense glare replacing their usual smiling face. Their fist clenched and unclenched tightly, stretching each muscle in their hand.
It threw Five off her game. Why was Three so upset..? Sure, they get angry sometimes (a lot) but we all do, and nothing happening right now was something they didn't like, hell, they basically begged Five to play catch with them earlier, so maybe they wanted to stop? Still, Three would've said something, they're not the kind of number to wait around for others like that, so it has to be something else.
Five lost her grip on the ball, leaving it to bounce and roll away softly. "Hey-"
It happened way too fast.
One second, she was worrying about her friends wellbeing, the next, she's on the ground.
Three was a blur, leaping through the air towards her, pressing their hands on her shoulders. "The entire game is to not drop the fucking ball." They hissed, claws digging into her "shoulders." Five struggled, desperately trying to push them off. "Three, what- what the hell are you doing?! Get.. Get off!!" She stammered, sweaty hands betraying her as she tried to pry their fingers off her.
Surprisingly, Three did pull a hand back, and for just a second, Five could pretend this was a play fight, like this was just a stupid Three thing, like they would go back to normal soon.
That was, until the fist came down.
White hot pain shot across her cheek, teeth grinding together harshly from the impact. Her face felt torn, and she could feel blood slowly dribbling down from the wound. Dazed, she only half noticed Three's fist going up again, and in a second the sensation was there again, worse than before.
Five was painfully aware of the environment around her, of the shouts she was making, of the deranged, feral expression on Three's face, of the ground pushing into her head, of the blood sputtering out of her mouth. She moved to cover her face, but it didn't do much to soften to impact. The punches kept coming.
And coming.
All over some stupid ball?!
What was I doing wrong?
What was I doing WRONG?
WHAT WAS I DOING WRONG?!
Three doesn't act like this. Three laughs at Sevens jokes, stares ominously at Four, gossips about the other number with her, begs to play catch just to spend time with her.
Three isn't like this, ever.
So naturally, it had to be Five's fault.
After a while (was it a while? Or was her perception of time being messed with?) yells other than hers could be heard, and Three's weight was shortly (and suddenly) moved off of her.
Black spots danced across her vision, but she could just faintly make out Nine's face above her, face twisted with worry.
A hand was placed on her back, and she could see Nine's mouth moving with words she couldn't quite make out, before it was removed after a sharp reprimand from Six. Or, at least, she thought it was a reprimand. Again, hard to tell.
She was shaking. She realized that now. A warm liquid dribbled from her eye, and after a solid second of thinking it was blood, she realized that she was crying, too.
Finally, she could see Ten (Ten really showed up for this? What a nice guy!) as a hand returned to her back, firmer this time, before slowly sitting her up. Immediately, Five started coughing, blood splattering onto the soft green grass. The hand on her back quivered, seemingly with shock, before quickly and gently laying her down again.
She could feel her consciousness slipping, and as slumber overtook her, loud sounds could be heard be heard a short distance away.
I hope Three is okay.
That was her last thought before the world faded to black.