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Jude and the others, of course, aren't happy when Braeden returns.
By the time the door to the hideout clicks, the terrified yellows have dimmed into hopeless blues and blacks. Rumor reaches for his weapon, but when the door opens, it's Braeden. He's roughed up and wincing with every step, but alive. He's alive.
Nyx throws herself into his arms and cries, and he hugs her back even though his regular blue is tinged red with agony. "I thought you were," she says, choked up, and can't go on.
Dahlia takes Nyx away from him and pushes him to sit down on one of the two beds in the small hideout, and kneels to patch up the gun wound in his side, gentle as anything. Rumor slaps Braeden's arm and says, "That was stupid," then helps Dahlia.
The whole group is a myriad of thankful greens and annoyed reds and affectionate pinks. Jude can't help but admire Rumor's red, much lighter than usual, as if weightless with relief. Dahlia's usual green has deepened with love and care for Braeden, while Nyx's grayscale is almost black, still reeling from the mere thought of losing her best friend.
And then there's Trick. Ever since Braeden forced the rest of them away, throwing himself at danger as if he intended to die for the cause (which, well, maybe he did), Trick's colors have been a mess. It's not often that they change so drastically away from violet, but with Braeden in danger, they've done so in a hundred different ways. White from shock one moment, orange in frustration the next, then it shifts to blue with sadness. And, again and again, the brightest yellow Jude has ever seen from him: fear. Blinding, overwhelming terror. No matter how much Jude rubbed his back or whispered that it would be ok, that yellow never drifted away for long.
Except now. Braeden is safe, even managing a few smiles and jokes as Dahlia and Rumor patch him up, and Trick's yellow is dissipating.
Jude flinches when he sees what it's being replaced by: the darkest, sharpest red Trick has ever had.
"Is he ok?" Trick asks, and Jude wonders if he's imagining the shaking in his voice.
"I'm fine," Braeden says, with a weak smile at Trick, but Trick doesn't look at him.
It's only after Dahlia says, "It just brushed him." She pats the new bandage wrapped around his torso, and he inhales sharply. "He'll be in a bit of pain for a while, but no lasting damage."
At this, Trick nudges Rumor and Dahlia out of the way, and gets onto his knees in front of Braeden. He reaches out his hands, and after a pause, Braeden puts his own hands in Trick's. Braeden's regular blue is much lighter than when he arrived, more relaxed and cheerful, but there must be something in Trick's expression that scares Braeden, because nervous yellows radiate off of his fingers.
Rumor comes to stand beside Jude, and takes his hand, squeezing once in a silent question. Jude just shakes his head, giving his attention to his brother instead of his boyfriend.
Jude doesn't hear Trick's whispered question, but he does hear Braeden's disbelieving laugh as he glances around at Rumor, Dahlia, Nyx, and Jude. "Well, no one else was going to," he says. "No one else should have."
Trick raises his voice a little, enough that Jude can hear him say, "So you should have? Why you? You should've let someone else-"
"I wasn't going to let anyone else do it," Braeden interrupts.
"I wouldn't have let you do it," Trick says, his frustration quickly tipping over into his voice- which, given his uncharacteristic scarlet, Jude isn't very surprised about.
Braeden takes his hands away from Trick's. "I was the best option."
"What? Why would you think that?! Just because you're Sara's son? That doesn't mean-"
"Mom- Sara has nothing to do with this."
"Then what? Why, Brae? Why would you do this?"
Braeden gestures to Rumor and Jude. "If one of them lost the other, it would kill them. And you think I would do that to either of them? You think I would do that to Dahlia? To Nyx?"
Disbelieving lime green flickers around Trick's shoulders, serving only to amplify his deepening red. For a long moment, there's silence, and Braeden raises his eyebrows, as if daring Trick to contradict him.
And contradict him, Trick does.
His voice is dangerously low, but in the silence of the room following Braeden's statement, everyone hears it. "What the hell is wrong with you?" A pause, as if Trick is at a loss for words. "You think losing Dahlia would destroy Nyx, but losing you would just be, what? Totally ok? You don't think that every single person in this room would be devastated if you were anything less than ok?" With every word, his voice gets a bit sharper, until he's spitting out the words in a furious temper.
Braeden shrugs off his words. "Well, yeah, but it's not the same as-"
"And what about me?" Trick stands, jabbing a thumb at himself, his other hand clenched into a fist at his side. "You think I'd be ok?"
Braeden wraps his arms around himself, looking up at Trick. He doesn't answer.
"I wouldn't! God, Braeden, do you even know what it was like?! When they told me that you were facing off with the commander of Sara's military? When they told me that there was nothing I could do about it?"
Braeden looks away, and Jude marvels that he's been able to meet Trick's eyes for even this long. "I understand that you-"
"No! You don't! Because if you did, you wouldn't have done it!"
"Trick, I had to-"
"How many times do I have to tell you?!" Trick leans over Braeden, getting all up in his face, and Braeden leans back. "I can't live without you! You're it for me, Braeden. You're my person, the one person I need. I saw you standing up against the general, and I considered-" His voice catches. "I seriously considered making sure that I died with you."
"Don't say that," Braeden whispers.
Trick jabs his finger into Braeden's chest, and Braeden flinches. "Then don't put yourself in danger."
He pulls back and walks off, and Jude thinks he's going to leave, but instead he goes around to the other side of the bed and sits down next to Braeden, facing the opposite direction as him.
For a moment, no one speaks. Trick's colors have returned mostly to violet, but still mixed with some angry red residue, and now, at last, the green relief that was missing earlier.
Jude is more surprised by Braeden's blue, which has deepened since Trick started his rant, and turned a more purple-ish color. Affection. It dances around his fingers, his legs, his head, almost overpowering affection and gratefulness.
Braeden rubs his eyes, trying to be discreet but failing, and he says in a shaky voice, "Y'know, most people storm out after…."
Trick reaches out and brushes his fingers against Braeden's. He's a bit flushed now, embarrassed lilac trailing over his arms. "I'm not leaving you," he says, more composed now, softer. "I need to know you won't leave me, either."
Braeden looks over at him, but he doesn't look back. It's Braeden who makes the move to scoot closer, leaning into Trick and wrapping an arm around Trick's waist.
As if Trick has been given permission, he doesn't hesitate to sweep Braeden up onto his lap (which makes Rumor, thinking of the still fresh wound, say, "Uh-" but Jude squeezes his hand to shut him up).
Braeden lays his head on Trick's shoulder and buries his face in his neck. The two whisper to each other for a few moments. The red entirely fizzles away from Trick, surrounded now by green and purple. Braeden's grateful purple seems to cover them both, until Trick, too, is full of fond, glad violet.
Jude wants to cry with how their purples mix, melding together, the two of them forming their own bubble in the world. If Braeden could see this, the effect he has on Trick's colors, there's not a chance he'd think he's the least loved.