Chapter Text
The meeting had been Parrot's idea.
Which, honestly, was very Parrot.
Two weeks out from the fall of The Law, the server still adjusting, and Parrot's response was to call everyone into the same room and check if they were doing okay. Like a king who had been crowned approximately fourteen days ago and was already trying to make sure his friends were eating properly and processing their feelings.
Flamefrags had shown up because saying no to ParrotX2 felt wrong. Also because Wemmbu had texted him and said if I have to go you have to go and that felt like a fair point.
So now he was sitting in one of the castle's side rooms, the kind that had comfortable, squishy chairs and a fireplace that Parrot had probably specifically arranged for him.
The fire in the hearth crackled. Flame watched it quietly.
He was thinking about Lettuce.
He'd been thinking about Lettuce for two weeks. Couldn't stop. The thoughts came in at the edges, quiet and persistent, showing up in the gaps between other things. When he woke up. When the fighting instinct kicked in and there was nothing to fight anymore because the war was over. When he lay in the dark with his blindfold pushed up and his damaged eyes looking at the ceiling.
They’d been standing ten feet apart in his own base and Lettuce had looked at him with those flat eyes and said—
I just wish, for once in your life, you would take accountability for your actions, Flame.
Flame had set something on fire in response. He didn't remember what.
But the words had stuck.
"—and then Mapic just grabbed him by the back of the neck," Spoke was saying, leaning forward with the energy of someone who had been waiting to tell this story for days, "full mother cat energy. I was being mother-catted, bro. Dragged out of a prison by my best friend because of a sword."
Parrot laughed. Wemmbu snorted.
Flame smiled. He was pretty sure he smiled. He was watching the fire.
Because of you. Because of you, everything happened.
He thought about why someone like Lettuce, who had genuinely wanted to protect the server, had looked at Unstable and decided that Flamefrags was near the top of the list of things that needed to be contained.
He thought about whether Lettuce had been entirely wrong about that.
"Flame?"
He looked up. Parrot was watching him. "You doing okay?"
"Yeah." Flame sat up. "Yeah, sorry. Zoned out."
"We were asking if you wanted more food."
Flame looked at his plate. Hadn't eaten much. "Nah I'm good. Actually—" He pushed back from the table. "Bathroom. Two secs."
Parrot nodded. Spoke immediately launched back into the story. Wemmbu's eyes tracked to Flame for a moment, catching the firelight, and Flame gave him a small nod that meant nothing specific. Wemmbu looked away.
Flame left the room.
He stood in the corridor. The bathroom was to the right.
The prison was down and to the left.
He stood there for a long moment. His hand on the wall. Feeling the faint warmth he always left on stone without meaning to.
He went left.
Flame moved quietly. He'd always been better at quiet than people expected, being ‘all brawn and no brains’. He pushed the prison door open slowly.
Lettuce was in the corner, huddled on the floor.
He looked up the moment the door opened.
For a second neither of them moved.
"...Flame," Lettuce said quietly.
"Hey bro," Flame said.
He stepped inside. Let the door fall shut behind him. He stood just inside for a moment, hands in his pockets, looking at Lettuce looking at him.
Last time they'd been this close they'd been trying to kill each other, and when Lettuce was defeated. The air between them had the memory of it.
Lettuce's ears were flat. His ruined tail lay motionless on the stone. He looked like he hadn't slept great, but less hollow than Flame had expected. Like something had shifted recently.
Flame moved away from the door and sat against the wall. Not close to the bars. Not far. He pulled his knees up, arms resting on them, and looked at the floor between himself and the cell.
"So, uhm," he started.
Stopped.
"I've been thinking about it," he said. "What you said. To me."
Lettuce watched him. Expression careful.
"The accountability thing," Flame added.
Lettuce nodded.
Flame exhaled.
"And then I kept thinking about it for two weeks and I couldn't—" He made a short frustrated gesture. "I couldn't drop it."
Lettuce said nothing. His ears shifted slightly.
"Because you weren't—" Flame stopped again. His jaw worked. He looked at the floor. "You weren't entirely wrong. And I hate that. Like I genuinely hate that, bro. Because you also did terrible things. You became something awful and I'm not sitting here taking the blame for all of that. That was you. Those were your choices."
"I know," Lettuce said.
"But." Flame's hands pressed together. The warmth of his own palms. "I've done things too. On this server. Things that—" He stopped. Started again. "Things that scared people. And I told myself they were just dust in the grand scheme of things, but I didn't really stop to think about what they looked like from outside. What they told people about who I was."
He looked up at the cell.
Water dripped somewhere distant.
"I'm trying to change it," Flame said.
He stopped immediately after. Rubbed the back of his neck. Looked at the wall.
"Okay that's—" He exhaled. "That's embarrassing to say out loud. Like it sounds stupid when I actually say it. But I'm—I've been like, actually stopping before I do something and asking if it has to be done that way. If there's another option.”
Lettuce was listening.
"It's hard," Flame said. "I'm not gonna pretend it's easy. It doesn't feel—it feels wrong. Like fighting with the wrong hand. The natural thing is just to escalate. Meet fire with fire. That's been my whole thing for years and trying to—" He gestured vaguely, going quiet.
There was something bigger that needed saying and he didn't know how to get it out. It kept sitting at the back of his throat like something he couldn't swallow down or push forward.
"I, uh." He started.
Stopped.
Tried again. "I heard you. Like. What you said. I actually—" He exhaled hard through his nose. "I heard you, bro. And I've been sitting with it and I still think half the stuff you did was—" He waved a hand. "You know. But I think you were right that it needed to be said. To me specifically.”
"And I—" Flame stopped again. His jaw tightened. He looked at the ceiling, which was just obsidian, which was unhelpful. "Look, I'm not great at—I don't really—"
He exhaled.
"Sorry," he said. Flat. Stilted. "That's—yeah. That's basically it, bro."
He said it to the floor. Not to Lettuce. To the floor, because the floor wasn't looking at him.
The word landed in the room and just sat there.
Flame's ears felt hot. Blaze hybrid thing, probably.
Flame thought about the vote. He'd been certain. Had stood in that circle with his scars aching and his hands still itching to fight even though the fighting was done, and he'd voted yes without hesitating. Had looked at Lettuce kneeling, and said yes.
He still thought it had been the right vote.
But sitting here was doing something strange to the certainty. Just—adding angles to it. Making it more complicated than it had felt in the moment. Which was maybe what changing actually looked like. Not becoming a different person. Just being willing to look at things from more than one direction.
"I should've said something earlier," Flame said. "To you. Directly. Before everything got to where it got."
"Would it have helped?" Lettuce asked.
Flame thought about it honestly. "Probably not. You were pretty far in by the time anyone realised how far in you were." He paused. "But maybe. If it was earlier. If someone had actually said it directly instead of just—fighting back, bro."
Lettuce absorbed this. His gaze dropped to the floor. "I told myself I would have listened," he said slowly. "But I don't think I would have. By a certain point I had convinced myself too thoroughly that I was right. I stopped letting myself have doubts."
"When did you stop?"
Lettuce was quiet. "I'm not sure. I don't know the exact moment."
Flame nodded.
They sat in silence.
"I can't promise I'm gonna be like. A completely different person," Flame said eventually. "Because I'd rather not make that promise and actually try than make it and fail. And I'm—" He paused. "I'm probably gonna mess up.”
He looked at his hands. "But I'm gonna actually look at it afterward. Instead of just moving on."
Lettuce said nothing for a moment.
"That's what it looks like," he said quietly. "Accountability.”
"Yeah." Flame looked at him. "You didn't do that."
Not cruel.
Lettuce received it the same way. Nodded. His head bowed slightly.
"No," he said. "I didn't."
Flame looked at the cell. At the ruined tail. At the bed that looked maybe slightly slept in now. At the torchlight catching the edges of Lettuce's fur.
"I think—" He stopped. Frowned. "Okay this is gonna sound—I'm not excusing anything. Like whatever I say next is not me saying what you did was okay."
Lettuce looked at him.
"But I think the idea was right," Flame said. "Like the—protecting the server. Someone actually trying to keep things from getting out of hand." He looked at the floor. "That wasn't evil, bro. That was you trying."
Lettuce was very still.
"Doesn't excuse it," Flame said quickly.
"I know," Lettuce said.
"Just—" Flame shrugged, uncomfortable. "Just saying. I think it matters. That you were trying, bro."
The silence that came after that was the softest one of the whole conversation. It settled over the room like something laid down carefully.
Flamefrags looked at LettuceK. The flat ears. The wrecked tail. Like two weeks in a cell with your own thoughts had broken something open rather than just leaving it to rot.
Lettuce lifted his head. Not fully. Enough.
And slowly, very slowly, a small smile crossed his face.
Not the old grin. Flame remembered the old grin. The wide brilliant certain thing that meant Lettuce was completely in his element. This wasn't that. It was smaller and quieter and had a lot underneath it.
But it was there.
Flame felt something loosen in his chest. Just slightly.
"You should go back," Lettuce said softly. "Your friends are up there."
Flame looked toward the door. Then back. "Yeah." He pushed himself up.
"Flame."
He paused.
Lettuce met his gaze properly. "Thank you," he said. "For coming down here."
Flame stood there for a second. His hands were warm at his sides.
"Don't make me do it again," he said. Not unkindly.
Something close to the smile returned to Lettuce's face. "I'll try," he said.
Flame nodded once.
He crossed to the door and pushed it open, stepping out into the corridor. The cool stone air met him. He let the door fall shut behind him, quiet this time, and stood there with his hand on it for a moment.
Then he straightened. Adjusted the blindfold.
Walked back toward the stairs.
He pushed open the side room door.
Spoke was mid-story. Wemmbu had his arms crossed, making the face that meant he was actually listening but would deny it if asked. Parrot looked up when Flame came in and his expression asked a question without asking it.
Flame sat back down. Picked up his fork.
"Bathroom took a while," Wemmbu said, in a tone that suggested he knew exactly where Flame had been and was choosing not to make it a thing.
"Got lost," Flame said.
Wemmbu's tail flicked once.
"—and THEN," Spoke said loudly, completely unbothered by any sidebar, "he had the actual nerve to say it was my fault—"
Parrot smiled. The fire crackled.
Flame ate his food.