Chapter Text
Blue pulls on the door, a bell over the frame chiming as it swings open. He's immediately hit in the face with the warm smells of spices and coffee so strong he can almost taste it. He scans the room, smiling at the sounds of people chatting and ceramic mugs clinking on tabletops, at the bakery box at the order counter filled with adorable-looking pastries, and, best of all, at four people he knows like the back of his own hand waving at him from a round table in the corner.
"Hey guys! Long time no see!" he says as Orange envelops him in a hug from one side and Red on the other. Green and Purple stay seated, but his older brother wraps a friendly arm around his shoulders as he sits down between him and Red, and Purple gives him a sunny smile as warm as any hug.
"Where's Yellow?" Blue asks as he slips off his jacket and hangs it off the back of his chair.
Red waves a hand dismissively, his wrist wrapped tight in white bandages that loop around his thumb and disappear under the sleeve of his zip-up hoodie. "Probably working until the very last second, like usual. He said he'll be a little late. Something about a ham shaft or something. Dunno, way too many long words for me." He grins, showing off his chipped front tooth and pulls out his phone. "Sent a whole friggin' essay in the group chat." Blue leans over as his youngest brother displays his phone screen.
"He said 'I think the camshaft in my car is acting up. Pulling over to make sure it's not an immediate issue. Will be there soon if it's not,'" Blue reads, raising an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth into a smile.
"Oh, you know Red. He probably just sent back 'kay,'" Purple ribs from the other side of Green with a sideways smile, tipping back in his chair. "Not the whole word, just the letter." His hands are stuffed in the pockets of the bulky aviator jacket he's had as long as Blue can remember. One of his feet, tucked between the bottom of the tabletop and the decorative bar just underneath it, keeps him from falling.
"He did, in fact, just send back 'k,'" Orange confirms. "And then Yellow sent him back an eyeroll emoji, and then it devolved from there. I think there was a GIF of a dancing banana at one point, but that's about where I silenced it." He rubs at his eyes. "I might have to take notes from Blue and Purple and start with it off." Purple laughs, his head tipping all the way back as Red splutters about how his banana GIF was "actually friggin hilarious," and "none of you have any sense of humor." Green rolls his eyes and grins.
Blue turns around as he hears the little bell again, and in waltzes Yellow. His younger brother's face is red from the cold and are snowflakes caught in his hair as he stuffs his keys into the pocket of his butter-colored puffer jacket.
"Aw heck yeah!" Red yells, popping up from his seat, banana meme forgotten. "Gang's all here!" He crushes Yellow in a bear hug, knocking his glasses askew.
"Good to see you too, Red," he coughs out as everyone else laughs. Red finally lets go and Blue and Orange take his place, though they're much gentler.
"Sorry I'm late," Yellow says as he takes a seat between Purple and Orange, directly across from Blue. "Car was acting up. It should be fine until I get it home though. I've been thinking about doing some general repairs for a while now anyway…" His eyes light up and Blue can tell he's plotting something.
"Whatever, man, just as long as it doesn't blow anything up," he chuckles, remembering Yellow's usual track record with "general repairs." Yellow shows off his mad-scientist grin, giving them a look that was absolutely copied from The Dark Lord. Orange sighs, clearly both amused and exhausted.
Red's stomach chooses that moment to howl. His face turns the same color as his zip-up as everyone starts hiding giggles.
"I'm sorry, I've been here for almost an hour waiting for you all to get here!" he mutters, crossing his arms and sulking. Orange ruffles his hair, only to get swatted.
"Ow, man. You keep forgetting you're the only one who still fights," he says, shaking out his hand. "How's the arena, anyway? Not getting beat up too bad?" Red shrugs.
"It's going pretty good. I've almost saved enough to finish paying off student loans by the end of the semester, and this is the last one before I graduate, so it should only be a few more months. Well, maybe a bit longer if I can't find another job, but with the kind of money I'm making from this, I'll be able to tone it back from every few days to once a week, if that."
"Still just hand-to-hand?" Green asks.
"Still hand-to-hand. I got a buddy, Pearl, who does staves and is trying to get me to join them, but I take enough of a beating from fists as is. And anyways, I've had enough of those things since the whole Lucky Block thing," he jokes. "Anyway, I'm off for another week with this-" he gestures to his wrist "-which sucks 'cause it's my good hand, but I should be back to training it back up to full strength by the end of the week, so I'd say it's going pretty good, all things considered. I can still pummel any of you in a fight, which is all I care about." He grins wide and wild, showing off his back teeth.
"Speak for yourself," Green smirks. "I'll take any of you on any day and still dominate."
"Okay, Mr. Choir Teacher," Red snarks, countering with the speed of a fencer, likely anticipating his jab. "Whatcha gonna do, old man, strangle me with a red curtain? Hit me over the head with a music stand?" Green shrugs and leans back in his chair, crossing his arms faux-casually.
"Wanna find out? I also teach theater. You'd be surprised by how much Shakespeare loved his duels." Green has a supervillain-grin to rival Red's, a slightly unhinged gleam shining in his eye.
"As funny as that would be to watch," Purple cuts in, settling his chair fully back on the floor, "How about later, and not in this very nice café that we haven't actually been kicked out of yet?" He puts his hand on Green's arm and gives him a look that could freeze a live flame. Green sighs.
"Yes, Alan," he says. "I'll wait to beat the snot out of my little brother until we're not inside." His eyes shift to Red. You're so on, he mouths. Red cackles and cracks his shoulders, grinning like a lunatic.
"This is gonna be fun."
"Can we just order, please?" Orange asks, his head in his hands, smile still very visible.
"Oh, I suppose," Red says, leaping out of his chair. "We go to the counter and they bring our food back here, right? Like a Culver's?"
"Yes, Red. Exactly like a Culver's," Yellow says, rubbing at his eyes under his glasses. "Remind me… why do you like that place so much?"
"Why don't you? Their custard is amazing," Red shoots back.
"It's overpriced."
"Same difference." He sticks out his tongue.
"Okay, I think we're done here," Blue says, trying to hide a smile as he gets up. "Y'all coming?"
"Let me and my old-man-teacher-bones get up," Green says, flicking his fingers at him and groaning like he's seventy instead of twenty-seven. "You spry little younguns go ahead."
"Ah, you're not that old," Purple teases, helping him out of his chair. "I still got you beat by a few days."
"Not this again!" he complains. "For the last time, I don't actually know when I was born! I just picked a day!"
"And that was years before you met me. You have no one to blame but yourself."
"I picked the day Orange barged in!"
"Wait, really?" Orange says, surprised.
"You didn't know that?" Yellow asks, starting to laugh again.
"No! I thought I just happened to come in on his birthday!" Orange panics. "Not that he picked it because of me!"
"Don't worry, you were the best birthday gift I could've asked for," Green says, patting his slightly shell-shocked friend on his curly mop of ginger hair.
"Aww," they all coo. Red quirks his head and flutters his eyelashes, his grin taking a turn for the evil.
"How does Purple feel about that?"
"What does that mean?" Green asks. Only one of the five of them could be able to tell how he starts turning ever-so-slightly red.
"You know how all-out he goes for gifts and parties and whatnot," Blue cuts in, giving Red a pointed look.
"I know where I rank," Purple says, taking it in stride as he grins and rocks back on his heels. "I mean, higher than any of you suckers, obviously, but I will concede that I have never been able to do anything quite that grand. That being said, clearly the day he met me was the best of his life." He flicks his hair dramatically.
"Okay, time out," Yellow says, making a T with his hands as he smiles - a wry, making-trouble type of smile. "Didn't you, like, immediately throw him and Blue in jail? And then leave them to die in the End?"
"Oh, that's right, you did do that," Green says, grinning. Purple flushes, embarrassed, as he hunches his shoulders up around his ears.
"I was a messed up kid, okay? We all know this."
"S'all good," Blue drawls. "We bribed the heck out of that prison guard." Green wraps an arm around Purple's shoulders. Red raises his eyebrows, despite the fact that Green does that to everyone, not just Purple. (That being said, Blue won't deny the fact that Purple would've ducked away had it been anyone else.)
"And we all ended up fine; Red, Orange, and Yellow saved us. No harm no foul. We've been over this." Purple sighs, rolling his eyes and leaning into Green a little.
"Okay, food now?" Red asks. "Or do we still have lingering trauma from that time Purple tried to kill us?"
"Which time?" Yellow laughs. "It happened a lot." Purple turns redder.
"That time with the retextured water," Blue says, raising his hand.
"Okay, no one died. And anyways, I told you I'm sorry about that! I thought it would be funny to swim around in what looked like lava! I didn't know Green had thrown you into actual lava when he was being a total a-hole for a few weeks!"
"You didn't watch my videos?"
"One, why is that what you're latching onto here? Two, I saw the first few, but after that truly horrendous 'vlog,' I totally quit. Except for the one where you actually ate grass. That was funny. I think Orange sent me that one after everything went down with the kaiju." Green scowls.
"Fifteen years and I'm still being haunted by the stupid grass video," he grumbles. "By the way - y'all will get a kick out of this - one of my students found my whole channel last year. Do you know how many cool-teacher points I got docked because of that? I was the laughingstock of the entire district for weeks! They all call me Grass!The new PE guy we hired at the beginning of the year thinks 'Grass' is my actual name!"
Everyone bursts out laughing. Red and Yellow are doubled over, Blue is leaning on Orange, who's snickering. Even Purple, who still has Green's arm around his shoulders, buries his face into him - who's much more obviously red now - muffling his laugh into his sweater.
"All in favor of Green's new name being 'Grass'?" Yellow asks in between gasps for air, raising his hand. Everyone else immediately follows. Green (Grass) sputters in rage, his face going all sorts of strange colors.
"There, there," Purple giggles, his voice still muffled in Green's shoulder. Blindly, he reaches up and pats Green on the top of his head. "Your ego will live."
"The real question is, why didn't any of us come up with that first?" Red chokes out between wiping tears out of his eyes. "Because that is pure gold."
"Can we just order already? We're getting strange looks," Green (Grass) mutters, his face finally settling on bright red as its new permanent color. They collectively try to contain themselves - they really do - but then Orange's face goes funny and then they're all laughing so hard they forget how to breathe.
"Why haven't you just taken the video down?" Purple asks, mostly able to be heard around the fact that his face is still in Green's sweater. He shakes like he's crying, but the pure joy on the visible parts of his face tells a different story.
"Because I don't want the stupid kaiju to come back! That's how we summoned it last time!"
That sets everyone else off again, even himself.
"Okay, we really should go and order," Blue says after a while, breathing hard. He starts to giggle again, but manages to keep it down. He corrals everyone into the general area of the order counter as they bring themselves under control.
The stick behind the counter - Amber, if his coloring and name tag are anything to go by - raises his eyebrows and seems to be trying to hide a smile.
"What can I get you guys?" he asks, pen poised over a notepad to take their orders. Blue, who's been here before, goes first while everyone else looks at the menu.
"One second," Blue says, smiling at him. "It's their first time."
"Of course. Take your time."
"Anything you'd recommend?" Green (Grass) asks.
"Pretty much anything. Their wraps and sandwiches are good, so are their little quiche bites and soups, and the baked potato thing is to die for. Also, they make their own sourdough bread that, no joke, might actually be better than mine."
"Really?" Purple gasps.
"I always get a loaf when I come. It's always gone within the next twenty-four hours."
"Orange! You won't believe this!" Green (Grass) calls.
"What?"
"Blue admitted that this place's sourdough might have actually beaten his," Purple cuts back in.
"What?" Orange says, almost choking. "Blue said someone else's sourdough might be better? Am I dreaming?"
"Guys! I am not that bad!"
"Oh you totally are," Red adds. "No one can say anything bad about it without you angrily storming into the kitchen to make three more loaves, each slightly different in a way only you can tell, then make everyone else eat it until you get them to say nice things
about it. If they don't, you go make more."
"That's… oddly specific."
"Okay, do you legit not remember all the times you've done that? A couple months ago, you brought a sourdough loaf to that Thanksgiving that King hosted - for sandwiches mind you, not even for actual Thanksgiving - and King mentioned that he didn't like sourdough. We literally had to hold Thanksgiving dinner a day late because you stole the kitchen for two days straight, and by the time you came out on Thanksgiving day, Orange had already been dead asleep for two hours and we weren't gonna do it without him."
"I did not!"
"You absolutely did! Tell 'em, Orange!" Orange shrugs.
"You are a bit of a monster when it comes to your sourdough," he admits.
"Okay, but I'm not that bad!"
"Oh yeah you are," Green (Grass) says.
"Last year for Thanksgiving! I was not in the kitchen for two straight days making sourdough."
"Uh, you totally were. We had to do food and whatever on Black Friday. Yellow wanted to go shopping, but we told him no because we were going to actually have turkey."
"I missed so many good deals, too," Yellow sighs.
"I even told you beforehand that Dad hates sourdough," Purple laughs. "But no, you couldn't take it and just had to prove me wrong."
"Who hates sourdough?" Blue complains, hands up like he's being robbed.
"King, clearly." Blue sighs, covering his face with his hands.
"Can we talk about something other than my sourdough please?"
"Blue wants to stop talking about sourdough? Are you okay? Is something wrong?" Red asks, smirking at him. "You're not going to start regaling us with stories about your fancy starter or whatever?"
"No I'm not. Please stop."
"What did you name it again? Carmine?" Yellow teases.
"Leave Carmine out of it. Can we just order? Did any of you actually look at the menu or were you just razzing me about my sourdough?"
"I looked," Yellow says, shrugging.
"Great. You're with me," Blue says, dragging Yellow back to the counter and trying to get his burning face back under control. Red trails behind him.
"Can I get your Southwest wrap and a medium of the chai?" he asks the barista, not even looking at the board posted behind the barista's head as he fixes a smile back on his face.
"Sweet or spicy for the chai?" Amber asks.
"Spicy." He nods as he jots it down and Blue steps back, allowing Yellow to order.
"Can I get…" he trails off, double-checking the menu. "Can I get the Grilled Cheese Supreme and a cold brew with as many shots of extra caffeine as you're legally allowed to give me?" Amber has to hold in a laugh at that one.
"What size?"
"Biggest." He does start to laugh at that.
"Are you okay?" Red asks, looking mildly scandalized.
"I haven't slept in three days. I'm doing great."
"Yeah, we'd like to cancel the coffee," Blue interjects.
"Hey!"
"You need to sleep. No more caffeine. Maybe some tea instead? I think you used to like mint tea?"
"Fine. Black tea," he sulks.
"I said no more caffeine."
"Fine. Mint tea is good."
"Sorry about him," Blue chuckles, stuffing his hands into his pockets with his shoulders up around his ears.
The barista scribbles out the coffee and squishes mint tea in the slot with a laugh. "You're all good. Who's next?" Blue pulls Yellow out of the way as Orange steps up, asking the barista about the difference between two items, and then Red rattles something off that sounds like total nonsense to Blue, but apparently the barista understands. Orange comes back to stand with Blue and Yellow as Green and Purple step up to the counter.
"How's the show going, Orange?" Blue asks, desperate to change the subject before they get onto the subject of his breadmaking again. Orange thinks for a moment, looking Blue up and down, squinting at him like he's deciding whether or not to take the ramshackle bait.
"You're not getting out of this, but I will accept your miserable attempt to change the topic because you asked about my show," he decides. "But you're only getting a pass because I'm going to drop a new episode soon and I want to gush about it."
"Oh?" Red says, latching onto the new topic immediately. "New episode? How close are you?" Orange seesaws his hand. Green (Grass) and Purple come back, Purple holding a tan sticky note with the number 18 printed on it in black ink. The six of them start to head back to their table.
"I'm working with my neighbor to finish one of the voices and she has a cold," Orange continues, "but she only has two more lines, so it shouldn't be more than another few weeks." He chuckles. "I probably shouldn't have waited this long to do voices, but I always forget about it." They all sit back down, their wiry metal chairs scraping on the wood-patterned linoleum.. Yellow leans forward on his elbows, his glasses catching the light.
"Please tell me this is the one where you're gonna introduce the robot army," he says.
"What? No. Where did you get 'robot army' from? There's no robot army. It would take forever to animate each one."
"Aww…," he sags. "Can't you just reuse the sprites, though?" Orange gasps as though he's been stabbed.
"What corner-cutting shortcut backstabbery is this?" he demands, slamming his hands on the table and rising slightly out of his seat. "Why in cursor's name would I reuse sprites? That would be sacrilege, I tell you!" Orange looks like he's about to bust out the lasers and the café is about to go the way of the Rocket Corp. headquarters, but Blue manages to calm him down a bit, at least until his eyes aren't glow-stick green any more. Yellow, of course, looks completely unperturbed at the fact that he almost unleashed The Second Coming and keeps grinning.
Orange takes a deep breath and lets it out with a huff. "Anyway, I'm planning on finally introducing a character in this episode, and I think it'll be fun in the future. I'm really proud of her character design and the animation I did for her cape, so fingers crossed she'll go over well with everyone else."
"Ooh," Red gasps. "That sounds awesome. No spoilers though! Wait… is you telling me about the new character a spoiler? Gah, I should have been covering my ears!" He claps his hands over his ears and starts humming something that might be recognizable as a song if you put it through enough autotune.
They let him sit there buzzing for a while until he notices them all staring.
"What? Are you guys done?" It comes out a few decibels louder than it needs to be. They all nod collectively, a range of expressions from amused (Blue and Purple) to tired (Orange, but that's his resting face) to mock disappointment (Green). (Yellow had stopped paying attention and was studying the fan above their table, undoubtedly trying to mentally pick it apart.)
"Whew… I want to be surprised when new stuff drops! Unlike the rest of you losers who know in advance."
"Hey! We're helping him, thank you very much! I help edit!"
"And then I have to spend forever reining it back in when you start adding weird effects," Blue counters.
"Oh, that's what you do?" Red says. "I thought you were the beta-watcher."
"Nah, that's Purple. He betas and yells at Orange about weather and flight mechanics.
"Hey! I mean, fair, but hey!"
"My job is to keep Grass over here from making the stuff go the path of the first superhero video," he continues, reaching over to mess with Green's hair.
"Okay, no more calling me Grass," Green (Grass) says, trying desperately to fix his hair back into the just-got-out-of-bed-and-I-look-this-good tousle he had it in.
"Whatever, Grass," Blue says, smirking. He's saved from death by fork only by a waitress who saunters over to their table with a giant tray piled high with food and mugs balanced on one hand. A folding table rests on her opposite hip, bouncing as she walks.
"That was fast," Purple comments.
"Hello y'all!" she says, stepping between Blue and Green. She flashes them a giant grin. She seems about Red's age, maybe a little younger. Her voice is a bit raspy, like she has a cold. "Oh, hi Orange!" Four sets of eyes turn to Orange, who grins back at the waitress.
"Hey Olive!" This manages to pull Yellow's attention away from the fan, who starts in surprise when he sees the new stick. Orange turns to the rest of them. "This is my neighbor, Olive," he says, gesturing with his hands. "She's the one helping me with voices. Olive, these are my friends that I've told you about."
"Ah! Makes sense." Her smile hits her eyes, becoming a bit more genuine. "He's told me so much about you all. Hold on, lemme guess who's who." Yellow laughs.
"You can't tell already?"
"Ah. So you're the smart*ss," she starts. Yellow chokes, not expecting her to curse. She shifts her eyes over to Red, on Orange's other side. "Orange said one of you would fight a polar bear hand-to-hand for sh*ts and giggles. I'm guessing that's you?"
"Guilty as charged," Red shrugs. "I won. Granted, it was a Minecraft polar bear, so I'm not sure how I'd stack against a real one. Totally willing to try though." Olive laughs a bit at that. She unfolds the temporary table and sets down her platter, rolling out her shoulders and cracking her neck. A row of gold studs shine in a neat column up the side of her ears.
"Okay, two for two. What's left… if I remember correctly 'chill guy with a history of substance abuse-'" its Blue's turn to choke on nothing "-which based on reaction I'm gonna guess is you, living fountain of sarcasm, and guy who thinks he's hot sh*t." She pauses, looking between the two remaining contestants. Purple looks like he's about to explode laughing again. Red elbows Blue in the side, a snorting laugh half held back as he discreetly points to Yellow, who's still staring slack-jawed at the waitress. "Gonna guess sarcastic one is you," she says, pointing at Purple. "Which means you're the one with an ego you might float away on." This time Purple does lose it.
"You got him there," he cackles.
"Hah! Five for five," she says. Green (Grass) sputters for a moment.
"What is it, pick on Green day?" he asks, mock-outraged.
"Just for clarification, I did not tell her any of that, especially not in those exact words," Orange says, now more of a red. He's slid halfway down his seat, his shoulders now level with the table as he covers his face.
"Nah, those are just my conclusions after listening to him talk about y'all almost nonstop." She pulls a strip of paper from the pocket in her apron.
"Okay, would love to keep chatting with y'all, but I technically have a job. So." She checks a receipt. "French Onion baked potato and a dark hot chocolate?" Purple raises a hand, still snickering. Olive places a salad bowl stuffed with a potato slit in half, drowning in what looks like french onion soup, in front of him. "Bit bougie, but from experience, they're both delicious. Next up, the fancy-looking latte thing and the giant pile of cute mini pastries… that you?" She says, looking at Green (Grass).
"Me," Red says, raising his hand like a little kid.
"Huh," Olive nods. She sets down a plate piled high with various butter-loaded breakfast foods and a coffee that would put Starbucks' sweetest to shame in front of him.
"The pulled chicken sandwich and matcha latte is Orange's, I can tell," she says, not even taking her eyes from the order sheet. She sets a plate with a large sandwich topped with a toothpick with the end tied into a knot in front of him.
"How?" he asks, impressed. Olive looks over at him and winks.
"You seem the type. Also, when you invited me over to record the last episode, I saw, like, eight empty tins of matcha holding random junk and pencils and whatever scattered everywhere. Next up is the…" she squints at the list. "I think this says mint tea? Something's been scratched out." She holds it up closer to her face, trying to parse out the scribbles. Yellow sighs.
"That would be me. They said no to my coffee." He slumps over, sulking. Olive comes around the table to him with his mug of boring old tea and pats his shoulder.
"You'll live," she says, in a way that might be described as sympathetic if you happened to be completely tone deaf. She looks back to the list. "This grandiose grilled cheese yours too?" Yellow nods, slightly embarrassed. Normally the unflappable one, his face starts the journey to red.
"Respect. The bread here is phenomenal."
"I heard," Yellow says, all too glad to steer the conversation to someone else. "Blue says it might be even better than his, which is high praise, especially coming from him."
"Why are we talking about my sourdough again?" Blue says, matching Yellow's face coloring, though much quicker. "I thought we dropped that." Olive laughs.
"Don't tell them I told you, but their secret ingredient? Garlic butter. Like, a sh*t ton of garlic butter." She holds a finger up to her lips as she grins. Blue's eyes go wide, then start to glaze over. He looks in the direction of a window, but clearly doesn't see through it.
"Garlic butter…" he mumbles.
"Aaand we've lost him," Yellow remarks as Olive sets Blue's wrap and tea in front of him.
"Maybe this will snap him out of it?" she says, looking Blue up and down. He keeps looking at the window, undoubtedly planning out three more batches of sourdough. The food does nothing. She shrugs. "Or not. Wake him up before it gets cold." Blue shakes his head like a wet dog.
"What?" he asks.
"Oh, nothing," Olive says, waving him off. "All right, all we have left is… huh."
"What?" Green (Grass) says, the only one without food.
"Nothing. Just wouldn't have pegged you as the soup guy, much less minestrone." She shrugs, picking up his soup with a hot pad, passing him the steep-sided bowl. "Warning though, it's a little-" Green (Grass) takes the bowl and drops it with a yipe. The soup inside sloshes but doesn't spill. "-hot."
"Thanks," Green (Grass) bites out. "Now if you all will excuse me, I'm going to shove my hands in a snowbank."
He stands up sharply, then power-walks his way to the door, shoving it open with his shoulder, making the bell jingle.
"Huh. Didn't think he was serious about that," Olive notes. Orange shrugs. No one takes their eyes from the glass door.
"Hard to tell when he's joking sometimes," Red says. "He said he'd never eat grass, but he went and did that, so…." Green (Grass) looks around wildly, trying to find a patch of snow that hasn't been trampled to dirty slush.
"I'm not even gonna ask."
"He recorded it," Purple throws in. "You can find it on YouTube if you really try. I think he just titled it 'Eating Grass,' but you might have to scroll for a while. It's pretty old."
"Well, I know what I'm doing over my break," she says as Green (Grass) comes back in, his shoulders hunched, looking dejected.
"Nothing that wasn't all gross," he mutters, only barely audible over the background coffeeshop ambiance. He slides back into his seat, grouchy.
"Well, I think that's my cue to leave," Olive says, packing up her table and tray. She fishes six sets of cutlery, all wrapped in black cloth napkins, out of the pocket at the hem of her apron and plops them in the center of the table, taking the sticky note with their number on it in the same motion. Blue picks up his chai, blowing on it as Purple and Red race to grab a set of silverware first.
"Enjoy your meals!" she says as she walks back to the counter.
"Thanks!"
"Thank you, Olive!"
"Thank you!"
"You too!"
Silence.
Everyone turns to Yellow, who buries his face in his hands, the redness in his face jumping from levels two to two hundred in less than a second.
"Dude, 'you too'?" Green (Grass) says, half-laughing as he pulls a spoon out of his napkin.
"Leeme 'lone," Yellow groans, dragging his hands down and the skin of his face with it. "You all know I can't talk to cute girls."
Blue chokes on a sip of his chai. "What?"
Purple whistles.
"Oooh!" Red owls. "Someone liiikes her!" Everyone erupts into laughter again.
On his part, Yellow does his best to imitate a puddle and hide under the table.
"I have her number if you want it," Orange offers, half serious even though he's laughing harder than anyone. A strangled groan comes from somewhere under the table.
"Hey man," Blue says, putting his hands up like he's being held at gunpoint. "We're not judging! She seems cool." He's met with another Gollum-groan from the depths.
"Come on back," Orange says, pulling on his arm. "We won't tease you about it."
"Much," Green (Grass) mutters, a sharklike smile taking over the bottom half of his face.
It's only after a solid five minutes of pleading (Orange), two minutes of poking him with the back of a spoon (Red), and one promise for a small, small, cup of coffee after dinner (Purple, with approval from Blue) that Yellow finally emerges, redder than Blue's ever seen him.
A few minutes pass, uneventful as they all dig into their food, save for scattered comments on how good it is and Green (Grass) burning his tongue every thirty seconds as he keeps trying to eat his soup. Blue, who recommended the place, sits slightly smug in his chair, happy he found a place they all liked. Then, once Yellow's face has mostly returned to its normal color, Green (Grass) leans forward on his arms, lacing his fingers together and setting his chin on them.
"So," he smarms. "When you gonna ask her out?" He's clearly still teasing, even though his voice carries a tinge of curiosity, like he actually wants to know. Yellow goes bright red again and mutters something under his breath.
"What was that?" Green (Grass) prods.
"Green," Orange says, sounding tired. "We just got him back above the table. Lets not-"
"Oh, no no. Of course not," he says, waving Orange off. "I was just wondering what he said." He turns to Yellow again, fluttering his eyelashes and smirking in that way where he does his best to imitate an anime character.
"I said, I'll ask her out when you finally ask out Purple!" he shoots back. Green's face freezes, his grin stretching into a grimace, then slowly starts to go red.
Everyone goes silent for one beat…
Two…
Red can't hold it in anymore. He howls with laughter, spraying pastry crumbs clear across the table, half of them straight into the side of Green's face. Everyone else takes that as the high sign for them to start laughing again too, Purple included. Green (Grass) seems to be on pause, his face looking like it got punched back in a wind tunnel as he blinks rapidly.
"Well played, Yellow," Purple cackles, not at all humiliated as he returns his chair to its leaning back position. Green (Grass) shoots him an agonized look, clearly offended by his lack of embarrassment.
"Hey man," Purple says, mimicking Blue's hands-up gesture from earlier. "There's a very easy way out of this." Red leans forward, mimicking Green's pose, trying to keep his grin under control.
"Is it finally gonna happen? After all these years?" he crows, his eyes alight. Green (Grass) folds his arms on the table, burying his head. His ears and the back of his neck - the only things not hidden by hair or sweater - are incandescent.
"Whose side are you on?" Green (Grass) grumbles from inside his sweater fort. It's hard to tell who he's talking to - Red, who's been teasing him about this for a decade and a half, Purple, who isn't stopping it, or the rest of them, who are falling out of their chairs laughing.
"I don't think it's gonna happen, Red," Orange says, patting his shoulder.
"Aww…." Red slumps over and stuffs another bite of pastry in his mouth. "Can we like, make a fake note or something?" he says around his food.
"Well, not any more," Yellow points out. "Seeing as they're right there."
"And both Green and I can tell you four apart by handwriting," Purple reasons. "So not only would we know it's not from the other person, we'd be able to tell who did it."
"Hmph. Who here can copy handwriting?"
"Purple."
"Anyone else?"
"Nope."
"Dang it."
"I'm right here," Green (Grass) mutters, muffled through his arms. He lifts his head, glaring at Purple. "So is he, although he doesn't seem to actually care." Purple shrugs, completely unperturbed.
"Look man, I've tried like, eight times."
"WHAT?" Green (Grass) bluescreens hard. Huh, Blue thinks. So he can go redder.
"At least three of them were just me straight up asking. After that, I figured I'd let you work it out."
"WHAT?!"
"Hold on, hold on," Red says, waving his hands in front of him, like he's trying to scrub a counter with both hands at the same time. "You asked him? Like, straight up? And he somehow missed it?"
"Three times. Eight times total, over a span of a solid year," Purple confirms. Green's face contorts into something mildly horrified.
"How?" he asks.
"Why are you asking me that? I swear, you're the densest person I know. And I've met Chosen." He glances across the table. "No offense Orange, he's nice, but he is the most socially stunted person I've ever met."
"Okay, let's be fair," Orange says, trying to intervene on his brother's behalf. "The Dark Lord was his only form of social interaction for, like, seven straight years, even after they stopped going ballistic on everything."
"Yeah, from what I've heard, that would do it."
"Toxic apparently doesn't even begin to describe it," Orange confides, looking around like he's worried someone will overhear him. "For the most part, Chosen refuses to say anything, but I swear, some of the things he just casually says have me seriously worried about him. I can't get him to a therapist or anything though 'cause of the whole… y'know… all the stuff with The Dark Lord, but I've been trying to help him. It… hasn't been going all that great. His life's been pretty much one catastrophe after another. And I know your childhood was awful too, but-"
"I don't have many details," Purple interrupts, holding up a hand to stop him, "but from what you guys have told me, his life has been infinitely worse than mine. You don't have to justify anything."
"Well… I mean, it's not just what The Dark Lord and Alan did to him - although both were horrendous and have messed him up severely, but there was also that stint where he was renamed No One, which really made things worse. I mean, having his identity completely ripped away… it didn't help."
"Hold on, what? You never told us this," Blue says, leaning forward.
"Really? Back at Rocket? They took me and Chosen for a while, then…" Orange shakes his head. "You don't wanna know what they did to him while they were questioning him about Alan. They stuck a memory reader on him once he didn't give up Alan-"
"They scanned him too?" Yellow asks, scandalized.
"Memory reader?" Purple asks.
"It's like a VR headset," Yellow explains, miming putting one on his face. "They put it over your eyes and it scans through your memories and projects them on the wall." He makes a face and shivers. "It's got this weird feeling… like someone with cold hands is peeling your brain apart. Not fun." He picks up his tea and sips at it, like he can barely imagine being warm again.
"Yeah, they put it on him. And left it on." Yellow grimaces. "After Yellow came in, they took him back to where the showdown with The Dark Lord happened - both times, actually - and then victim phished Alan into changing his name to H4CK3R, and then renamed Chosen 'No One.' I really haven't told you guys about this?" Everyone else shakes their heads. "Oh. Well… it really messed him up. I mean, I can't even imagine…" Orange rests his forehead on his hands like he has a migraine. "Chosen told me once that his name, his title, was the one stable thing in his life. He was 'The Chosen One.' He had a purpose, even if he didn't really know what it was. That's what gave him the courage to stand up to The Dark Lord. That's what kept him going after he died. And then…" Orange blows air out of his cheeks, making a pofff sound as he flicks his hands open into starbursts. "Gone. Just like that." Orange pauses, searching for more words. "Agent ended up… not saving him exactly, but he didn't exactly stick with victim very long after The Dark Lord showed up. He brought Chosen back to the compound, and that's about when you guys found me and Yellow."
"Wait, so that's why he couldn't use his powers?" Red asks, horrified. "All they had to do was rename him?" Orange nods.
"They tried to do it to me, too. I'm not sure why it didn't work, but I think it might have something to do with the whole 'resistant to deletion' thing I've got going on. In any case, that only made everything worse for Chosen. We were able to get his name and his powers back, and I'm ninety-nine percent sure The Dark Lord is actually dead this time-"
"Knock on wood," Blue mutters.
"-but it's been a lot. I mean, it's been almost fifteen years since all that happened and he still only eats when I remind him to. I can't tell you the last time he's taken a shower, even though he claims he doesn't actually need one." Orange rubs the back of his neck, looking down at his half-eaten sandwich and empty cup. "Sorry for ruining the mood. It's just…" he sighs. "I'm just worried about him." Red lays a hand on his shoulder. Green (Grass) - no longer flaming red - looks like he wants to do the same from across the table. There's a quiet moment. Then Purple lets out a breath.
"Your brothers need some serious therapy." Orange chuckles.
"I know. victim's finally stable mentally - we have Agent to thank for that, along with that really good therapist or whatever that King recommended - but Chosen's a mess, which might be fixable if we could also get him some professional help, but he's an ex-terrorist, so…" he sighs. "There's not much I can do. I'm trying my best with, but I'm the only one he's even willing to talk to most days. Agent says he and vic tried once, and Chosen at least came to the door and looked… not happy to see Agent, but… I dunno. Marginally less miserable, I guess? But then he saw victim and he just slammed the door shut. I mean, I don't blame him, but…" Orange shrugs. "It's hard." Red wraps his other arm around Orange, giving him a slightly awkward sideways hug. "Thanks," Orange says, letting himself sit in it for a while.
"Do you want us to come with you the next time you visit?" Yellow asks, his eyes darting back and forth behind his glasses. "I don't want to overwhelm him, but it could be good to see someone different? I mean, even if he's asleep, we could… I don't know. Fix his place up a bit? Open some curtains, fix a leaky sink?"
"I could cook," Blue offers. "It'd probably be better than whatever he's eating right now."
Orange shrugs. "I'm gonna see him again tomorrow, so I'll ask him."
"How often are you visiting these days?" Purple asks. Orange glances around.
"Every few days. Usually every other. I gotta make sure he eats and stuff, so I can't stay away too long. Occasionally, I'll have Yellow baby-sit him if I have to go out of town for whatever reason."
"How's he been doing?" Green (Grass) says. "More recently, I mean. What does he do when you visit?" Orange thinks for a minute.
"He mostly stays on the couch. On good days, he has the TV on, or he'll be sort of half-reading a book, or something like that, but sometimes he'll just… lay there. He moves often enough, usually to go to the bathroom or get more of his tea, that I'm not worried about, like, bedsores or anything, but when you pair "doesn't eat" and "doesn't move," you don't get something pretty." Orange's hands move around in front of him in odd patterns only he can decipher. "I'm not sure how to describe it. You guys remember when we all met him the first time though, right? Well, not Purple, but the rest of you, right?"
"Of course," Red retorts. "That was one of the coolest days of my life."
Blue does too. He'd been stuck on the wall by that dumb spider, completely useless. He remembers wondering why he hadn't gone for his potions, though it was soon after Alan downloaded the game, and reaching for it hadn't become a knee-jerk reaction yet. The ViraBot had been creeping towards Orange, sharpening its pincers, when an explosion rocked the desktop. From it stepped Chosen; bigger, stronger, older than them, near-silent but with the confidence of someone in their element, a strange resemblance to Orange but radiating power even before his fists lit on fire. Then, in the Outernet, after fighting The Dark Lord, even when he was exhausted and swarmed by ViraBots - completely defeated by most senses of the word - he was strong. He had the quiet inner confidence of someone doing what they know is right and willing to die for it.
"Yeah," Blue says.
Blue also remembers what Chosen was like immediately after the whole Rocket incident. When he saw him, dragged into the compound, the once-powerful stick with the title of The Chosen One, slung over Agent's shoulder, soaked to the bone and more defeated than Blue had ever seen him. He seemed… duller. Smaller. Frailer. Even after the whole fiasco - after his name was restored, Blue realizes - and he didn't look frail anymore, he was still… fragile. He looked haunted. And that was years and years ago.
He kept himself going for a while, according to Orange at least, but it didn't take long for him to completely fall apart. Blue remembers visiting him once, and seeing a glorified skeleton on a ratty couch, staring blankly at the ceiling, an empty look in his eyes. A far cry from the once-proud Chosen One.
Blue had made him soup that time, had spiked it so much chili powder that his eyes watered as he stirred the pot and Orange had to step outside, and Chosen's nose had barely twitched at the smell as it filled his glorified shack by the cliffs, even though Orange said Chosen loved explosively spicy food to a near-unhealthy degree.
"Well," Orange continues, snapping Blue out of his worry, "He's not at his worst point, but he's not doing great. If I'm being honest, I don't think he's ever gonna get to where he used to be. I'm just hoping that I'll be able to pull him back to 'willing to leave the house' levels." He shrugs, then tries to smile. "I've gotten used to hoping. He hasn't tanked in almost a year."
"That's good, right?" Yellow asks. Orange nods. There's a small pause.
"I think he could do good by a visit from everyone," Purple says. "I don't know everything about him, or his triggers or anything, but on my bad days, it always helped to be around people I trusted." He looks around. "He for sure likes you two," he says, glancing between Orange and Yellow. "What about everyone else?" Everyone turns to Orange. He thinks for a minute.
"I'm not sure if it's 'likes' or closer to 'tolerates,' but he's fought alongside the five of us, which in his book usually translates to respect. If you want to come too, Purple, I can't promise he'll acknowledge you, but he knows you and knows we respect you, so I don't think he'll completely shut down, at least." Orange shrugs again, looking slightly helpless. "I can't promise anything, really."
"That's okay," Green (Grass) says. "You don't have to be an oracle."
"I just want to help him get better," Orange says, looking down at his lap.
It's quiet for a moment.
"Everyone enjoying their food back here?" comes a voice. Blue turns around in his chair. It's Olive again, another tray on her shoulder.
"All good here!" Orange says, pulling his smile back into place.
"It's delicious!" Purple assures.
"Still too hot to eat, but we're getting there!"
"So good."
"Psst," Green (Grass) whispers. "Yellow. Now's your chance." Blue slaps him upside the back of the head.
"Leave him alone," he says, giving him a look that he hopes conveys the message that any other time he would totally be on board with this, but now is the wrong time. He thinks Green gets it.
Olive laughs as she walks to another one of the tables, deftly navigating through the tightly-packed tables. Yellow lets out a breath Blue didn't notice he was holding, resting his forehead on the table as he groans slightly. Orange pats him on the back.
"You've got time," Purple jokes. "We're probably going to be here for a while."
"Thank you," Yellow snarks. "I needed that."
Conversation dies down a bit, and they all go back to finishing their food. Green (Grass) delights in the fact that his soup is finally at an edible temperature.
"So," Red says, after a moment, swallowing a bit of pastry. "What do you guys miss most?"
Green (Grass) looks up from his soup. "About what?" Red waves a fork in the air like a magic wand.
"Y'know. When we were younger. Minecraft."
"My elytra," Purple says instantly, sighing. He looks out the window where the winter sun has already set, up at the clouds shaking out a dusting of snow over everything. "Cursors, I miss flying." He lowers his voice conspiratorially, leaning in. "Don't tell anyone, but I still have them. It's in an item frame, hidden under my bed, which yeah, I know, is, like, comedic levels of illegal, but I still pull it out sometimes. I never fly or anything, I just wear them."
"I miss our competitions," Green (Grass) says, grinning. "Totally won that minecart race, by the way."
"You did not!" Yellow says, half-laughing. "You all tied."
"No, you wanted Blue to win, but when he didn't, you said it was a four-way tie so you at least wouldn't lose the bet with Purple."
"Okay, I did bet him on the outcome," Purple says, "but who says I bet on you? My money was on Orange. He's a much safer bet than you, who probably spent half the race trying to style on everyone!"
"He was," Orange says, the side of his mouth curling up. "Emphasis on trying." Green (Grass) gasps, clutching at his chest and tipping back in his chair.
"Oh I'm sorry for thrashing your backside and making it look good at the same time." His voice takes on an aristocratic accent Blue last heard when Purple ruled a village, tipping his chin up. "I guess we all can't be as naturally talented as I am."
"Naturally talented at inflating your own ego, maybe," Purple smiles, flicking the end of his nose. Green (Grass) flinches away in protest.
"What was that for?"
"Just trying to pop a hole in your inflating head before you float away on us," Purple smirks. "As irritating and oblivious as you may be at times, I would prefer it if you stayed with us."
"I miss my potions," Blue adds in before the conversation either spirals into a giant Purple/Green argument showdown or a Red teasing session. "Not for that!" he adds hurriedly, before Orange starts sniping at him for old habits. "I don't miss anything about that. I miss… the world slowing down when I took a speed potion, though. Drinking something and being able to leap over an entire structure or breathe underwater or… I don't know, run through fire if I wanted to." The old scars on his legs throb with a ghost of long-gone pain. "I miss being able to give someone a potion and heal them. I miss being able to fix things that quickly."
"Same here," Yellow says. "I could have a machine made in under an hour that could do almost anything. Or less than that, if I was able to use the command block, or the staff. I could make something out of nothing, or next to it. Here… I try, but it's so much harder. Like, sure, there's a sword 'recipe,' but it's not put two iron and one stick in a straight line in a crafting table, it's days of work melting and hammering and sharpening, and it'll probably end up crappy anyway unless you're good at all the steps." There's a short pause.
"I miss my old friends," Red says, fidgeting with his hands under the table, looking uncharacteristically uncomfortable, even though he brought it up. "I've kinda lost touch with them in the last few years since they graduated. I don't know where they are, or even if some random player has killed them by now."
"I miss…" Orange starts, trailing off. He looks at his lap too. "I miss how close we used to be. The five of us - the six of us, once we met Purple - I mean, we were inseparable for so long… and now…" Blue starts to see something wet in the corner of Orange's eye. "We do this get-together once a month and occasionally I'll see one or two of you and it's the two or three of us, but… it's not the same, you know." He looks back up at them.
"I miss how we used to be. I miss waking up in the middle of the night because of Yellow's snoring, and laughing with Blue, because he can't sleep either. I miss knowing exactly what Red's been doing for the last hour from nothing but looking at what kind of hair is all over his shirt. I miss Green running down the stairs, grinning like he just won the lottery, because he figured out a riff in a song he was working on. I miss seeing that look in Purple's eye and knowing he's going to ask me to time him as he tries to run through another course he made."
"I miss… just seeing you guys all the time. And sure, we could up things like this to every other week, or every week, or every day even, but it… wouldn't be the same. I feel like I'm… a slow computer, not able to get updates as fast as the program I'm trying to work with is changing. I used to get them every second, and now they're only once a month and I feel like I'm falling behind on you guys. I mean, if we were still how we used to be, you'd all know everything about me still, and I'd still know everything about you save something you wanted to surprise the rest of us with, and I miss that. I want that back."
He curls in on himself a bit, probably embarrassed by his confession. That more than anything makes Blue realize just how far apart they've grown. Orange never would have been uncomfortable sharing what he felt with them before.
"I miss it too," Purple murmurs. "I was alone for a lot of my life. And then I met you guys, and for the first time, I wasn't. And… now it looks like it's going back. I don't want to go back to that."
"What can we even do about that, though?" Yellow asks. "We're all adults now. We all have jobs. Lives. Not to mention, Red's still taking his vet classes. It's not like we can just go back to Alan's or to Minecraft and just… hang out for the rest of our lives. We have people depending on us now. I mean, I would love a solution that fixes everything, and I'm not saying that what you're telling us is wrong, or that you're the only one who wants to go back to the way things were, but…" he sighs. "I can't think of a solution that works for both us and all the people who need us."
It's quiet again, for a moment. Then, Red's head snaps up.
"Hey Purple? You still know where King keeps his spare keys?" Purple's eyebrows furrow.
"In the fake rock under the magnolia tree in the front yard. Why?"
"Well… I'm not saying it's a permanent solution, but… he still has that portal in his basement, right? I don't know about any of you, but I don't have anything until Monday morning." Around the table, eyebrows lift as they catch on.
"I mean, it's currently…" Green (Grass) pulls out his phone. "Five-forty, and tomorrow's Saturday, so…" He looks up at them, starting to smile.
"I think we might have time for one last hurrah."