Chapter Text
grizzy likes going around poking the crystallines' decorative crystals for fun. since there's no feeling in them, he can usually do it without alerting whoever it is. he has only become comfortable doing it to the other frouse guys, that being smii7y and pezzy. he has knowledge on what each crystal does and treads lightly. some crystals will cause too much of an issue if he goes undetected- pezzy's dark pink crystals are the most notable no-go.
one day, he gets spotted by none other than kryoz himself, who notices a little hand reaching out and booping smii7y's blue crystal from behind. it was bound to happen eventually, with how often john lingered near the two crystallines of the group, but especially near smii7y. john excuses himself from one of many random bullshit chats with smii7y and goes to chase down grizzy and ask what all that was about. embarrassed that he was caught, grizzy shyly admits that he does that to their crystalline friends from time to time. john knows the crystals do things, but thought they were almost all for an upper hand in some sort of altercation. clearly that isn't the case though.... he laughs it off and says he'll have to try it sometime, to which grizzy remarks that he should and it's fun to pull a bit of a no stakes heist on them.
big mistake on grizzy's part. maybe encouraging john to try it, or maybe just the fact that he didn't mention there were some crystals that should be kept off limits.
a few hours later, grizzy hears some sort of unknown commotion in the distance. he gets closer and finds it's john whining and screaming like he's on the most aggressive trip of his life. john has suddenly and inexplicably turned from a distant and shy man like grizzy to someone suffering the worst separation anxiety that grizzy has ever seen. grizzy enters the room to find hushed protests from smii7y, who has apparently been pinned to the ground and is trying with everything in him to not fight back while he wraps his head around the sudden personality switch from his best friend. he locks eyes with grizzy and they share a look of pure confusion.
and then grizzy fucking remembers. his confusion turned to horror, and he was certain smii7y noticed. he dashed out of that room as quick as he could, off to locate pezzy and get his help- since clearly smii7y was in no suitable state to reverse these effects at this point. finding pezzy was easy- john had started to scream louder at just the turn of smii7y's head to look at grizzy. pezzy was already concerned he would have to fight someone to the death to protect john, so he was more than a little surprised when grizzy approached him, rambling like a madman as quiet as he could muster.
"pezzy i'm pretty sure john touched the fucking pink crystal on your back at some point 'cuz he caught me doing that to smii7y and i just said it was kinda funny to me and i think he took that as permission and he tried it too but he didn't know i don't touch your pink ones and-"
the look of concern and horror had transferred straight over to pezzy at this point. firstly, grizzy had been secretly affecting himself with his crystals?? but more worryingly, john had too?! the two of them were a fucking mess. the only way to get grizzy to stop rambling and spilling all of his secrets was to pin him against the wall and cover his mouth- no words could get through to him right now. finally, grizzy had stopped talking. probably taken aback by the fact that pezzy had been able to manhandle him in literally any capacity? hell, it'd shocked pezzy too- he was absolutely expecting some sort of instinctual pushback from grizzy there. once grizzy had shut the fuck up for a minute, pezzy was finally able to get some words of his own in.
"okay, first of all, john is gonna be fine, so you can chill the hell out about that. can you breathe long enough to tell me who our unlucky victim is or nah??"
that one actually got a bit of a giggle out of grizzy. "take a wild guess who he's clinging to for his life, pezzy," grizzy managed to get out from behind pezzy's hand. the moment grizzy had finished speaking, said hand dropped to pezzy's side again and he leaned his head back so much pezzy could've sworn he'd seen upside down for a moment. of fucking course it was smii7y....
grizzy had finally managed to compose himself and led the way back to smii7y's temporary jail. as fucked as this whole situation was, pezzy couldn't help but desperately try to hold back one of the loudest laughs he'd ever done at the sight of these two idiots laying in the grass like they're trying to merge into one singular being. pezzy was fucking convinced that if john got given the chance, he would climb into smii7y's skin right now. unfortunately, pezzy was here to specifically prevent that from happening. kneeling down beside the two, he took a moment to assess how smii7y was doing. he seemed... fine with it? either that or he was trying to act like he was, and if so, he was doing a damn good job. john had stopped screaming at the very least.
pezzy hovered a hand over john's back and even that was enough to make him yelp and snuggle in even closer to smii7y, which pezzy didn't even realize was possible until it happened. "chill, I'm not trying to separate you guys... gay ass.." pezzy muttered under his breath. smii7y shot him a glare, but pezzy couldn't decode it. he was too focused on being as careful as possible to keep smii7y safe while... pacifying.. john?? there weren't suitable words to describe the situation pezzy had been put in here. being careful to not make it too sharp, he grew a small white crystal from his right palm and reached around to the most exposed part of john he could reach, that being his neck. pezzy prepared himself for the consequences for a moment, and then plunged it down into his skin.
pezzy didn't envy smii7y here. the sound that this version of john made on contact was so ear piercing he swore they'd all go deaf. despite grizzy's stupid decision to tell john to do this, he wasn't entirely stupid- he had made sure to close the door to this damn room behind them. thankfully, they were near soundproof. nobody needed to know what had happened here besides the four of them. it felt like forever, but john was probably only mimicking a banshee for 5 seconds max before he had passed out.
to pezzy's surprise, smii7y didn't try to get out from under john once he went limp... he just adjusted a little bit. the crystals on smii7y's lower back were definitely cracking from all the pressure at this angle, so that part wasn't shocking in the slightest. pezzy got up onto his feet and motioned to grizzy to leave the two alone. once they were out in the hall, pezzy started to speak again. "how many other people have you told to just go around touching our crystals without us knowing man?" pezzy questioned, incredibly concerned about what his answer would be.
grizzy immediately broke eye contact. "uh, just john. he asked me about it.'
pezzy scoffed. "you know there's no way in hell i believe you here..." grizzy nodded knowingly and went to explain. they chatted for a minute about how they definitely had to have a talk with john once he came to. droid did end up passing by and asking what they were talking about, but quickly backed off at the sight of them both jumping like they'd been shot. 'stupid idea to have a private conversation in a hallway..' droid thought to himself and snickered.
the door opened soon after. smii7y peered out from the crack in the door and met grizzy's eyes. silently, the two hallway dwellers stood up and entered the room, shutting the door behind them again. john was still clinging to smii7y's left arm, like he was afraid he would get lost if they ever stopped touching. after a moment, pezzy was the first to break the awkward silence. "so did i fail at fixing him or is he just gonna be like this now?"
the look of shock and horror that grizzy had become all too familiar with today flashed across his face yet again. john locked eyes with pezzy, a poorly hidden mischievous smile plastered across his face. smii7y just laughed. "oh don't worry, guardian angel pezzy.. it's the second one. you did fine."
getting pezzy to side eye you was an honor that smii7y had just been graced with. smii7y savored it for a moment, that feeling of getting under pezzy's skin, before he spoke again.
"ill be having to teach this fucking idiot," he paused for a moment to boop john on the nose, "...how crystal color coding works now. 'cause now he's embarrassed and wants to make sure something like this doesn't happen again."
"what, avoid clinging to you or avoid me having to interrupt?" pezzy remarked, speaking far before he thought about it. you could tell the moment pezzy realized he had said that out loud by the way he choked back a nervous laugh. "oh, shut up, pezzy." john fired back. "it's not like i hate you or something man. you're uh.. kinda the only reason i'm currently capable of coherent speech..." a smile flashed across grizzy's face as he turned to pezzy and whispered something in his ear, leaving both of them pulling away giggling about it.
"well, either way, i guess if this does happen again it's better that people know what the crystals do. maybe next time, you like... tell them first, grizzy?" pezzy responded, out loud this time, crossing his arms and shifting all his weight to his left foot. grizzy nodded in agreement until smii7y spoke up. "well, hold on, maybe just don't... don't tell people to do that at all?! what the hell, man?!"
pezzy clearly didn't consider that he could just request that. smii7y was a more intimidating presence, so it was probably better it came from him anyways.
the four of them eventually stopped thinking about the whole exchange. smii7y and john left each others side just a little less often, but nobody cared to comment on it. john did eventually approach pezzy about why he chose to display the crystals that he did. pezzy thought it was obvious- the pink looked good. john was more interested in the one blue on his right shoulder though.
ever since finding out about the color coding of crystals, john had become a bit obsessed with why each crystalline chose to display the colors they do. some of them were just purely cosmetic, but this one felt so out of place. pezzy having one that was meant to make someone more susceptible to being puppeteered by the user was a bit.... strange for pezzy to have, to say the least. when questioned, pezzy kept it vague. he said there was someone in his life that sometimes wanted to be certain they were being watched over and controlled by someone they trusted, and that crystal was there to remind that person pezzy would always be a safe space.
pezzy dodging naming or gendering this mystery person was certainly an attempt, but it didn't work on john. he could smell yumi's influence from universes away. clearly, yumi was in worse shape mentally than john had thought. he made a mental note to check up on his fellow nightshade, muttered a soft 'oh, okay cool. that's cute,' to pezzy, and took off. he hoped that pezzy wouldn't notice the concern in his voice or the way he walked as he left. judging by the silence, pezzy probably hadn't- or if he had, he'd decided it wasn't worth the trouble.