You scrubbed angrily at your cheeks as tears slipped down them. You took a deep breath, closing your eyes. Everything was okay. It was fine. You looked around at your surroundings, trying to orientate yourself. You were heading in the direction of your base. Okay, good. When you had left Pearl’s base, you had just stormed off in a random direction. You were mildly thankful that you had decided to run off in this direction. 

You kept walking towards your base. You wiped your eyes as you tried to keep your mind off what had just happened. It was supposed to be a short conversation to pass the time until Gem arrived, something that had been on your mind for a long time that you thought you should mention- the fact that you felt neglected, seeing as you lived on the opposite side of the map to your partners. It wasn’t something too serious in your head, just something you were mentioning because you missed them. Pearl had hummed softly, petting your head gently and saying that you were free to come over any time. Tango, on the other hand, had huffed out a laugh, commenting that it was your own fault that you were living so far away. It was a fair accusation. You had decided to live a bit farther away from your partners than normal. You frowned when he had said that, though, sighing.

“I just wish we could spend more time together. That’s all.” You said quietly, laying your head back against the couch cushions. Pearl nodded absentmindedly, as if she was about to fall asleep. Her eyes blinked slowly as she gave you a soft smile.

Tango rolled his eyes with a grin, “You could always just move back here. I told you not to move so far. It's not our fault you don’t spend time with us anymore. We’re almost always hanging out.”

Again, while it was a fair assessment, you felt a stab of hurt as you thought about it. He was right. He, Pearl, and Gem were constantly hanging out together since they were based so close together. Did they miss you as much as you missed them? You were so lonely where you had based, besides your few neighbors hanging out with you sometimes, but you had already started your megabase. It would be such a hassle to move it now and would send hundreds of hours down the drain. 

Pearl hummed absently, “You are a bit far.” She murmured. “We’ll need to visit more often.” Her eyes drifted closed and she buried her face in your shoulder. I nodded in agreement, turning to press a kiss to her cheek.

Tango scoffed, “I told you not to move so far away.” He repeated. “Your fault now.” It sounded harsher than he probably realized, but he didn’t correct his tone. You blinked at him softly, brows furrowing as you frowned at him.

“It was a pretty area and the things I have planned need a lot of room, you know that.” You said.

He huffed, rolling his eyes, “yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Your base and projects are more important than your partners.”

You paused. Was he serious or was he just making a really cruel joke? “Excuse you?”

Tango glanced at you. He had to be able to tell the sour mood he had inflicted on you. “You heard me! You moved all the way over there, even farther than freaking Joe and you didn’t even consider what it might do to our relationship.”

Pearl’s eyes opened, but you barely spared her any mind as you gaped at him in disbelief. “What it would do to our relationship?!” You repeated. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Am I wrong to assume that we’ll still be a loving couple even if I move a little farther than usual?”

“Oh, please, you had to know that it would strain us.”

You stood up from the couch, staring at him with pain-stricken eyes. Pearl glanced between the two of you with confusion, having not fully payed attention. The door opened and Gem walked in. She went to speak, but you spoke first, glaring at Tango. “You think our relationship is in a strain right now? What do you mean by that?” You hissed.

Gem stopped in her tracks, blinking in confusion. She moved over to the side, placing her things down. “Hey, woah, what’s this about a relationship being in a strain? We’re fine, aren’t we?”

Tango crossed his arms, “We would be if they weren’t so far away. If our relationship fails, it’s all their fault. Honestly, maybe we should just-” He quickly stopped talking, eyes wide as if he had said something he hadn’t meant to. His eyes snapped to yours.

You stared at him, frozen. Tears gathered in your eyes. You didn’t move. You couldn’t. Did he just say that? “Maybe you should just… break up with me?” You breathed, finishing his thought. “Is that what you were going to say?”

The room was tense. Pearl, finally caught up on the situation, looked at Tango with wide eyes. Gem was staring at you in panic. She spoke first.

“What, no! He didn’t mean that.” Her eyes darted to his. “Tell them you weren’t gonna say that! You were going to say something else, right?” He was quiet. His gaze moved to the floor. “Oh, oh, God.” She murmured, her tone filled with horror. 

“You- why would you say that?” Pearl asked quietly, leaning over to Tango. “Just because we are a bit… strained… doesn’t mean we’re going to break up with them.” 

Her words made you stare at her now. Has this been a conversation before? You let out a shaky breath, eyes darting between your three partners, “Have- Have you three been discussing the strain in our relationship?” You swallowed thickly. 

“No, no, no.” Gem assured. “We just- We’ve been talking about how we miss you a lot. Nothing about a strain.”

Pearl nodded slowly, agreeing. Tango pursed his lips and nodded before he spoke again. “We haven’t spoken about it yet.”

“Yet?” You repeated slowly. “So, it is a problem you need to talk about?” You wiped your cheek as a tear hit your skin. You shook your head. Your body moved before you could even react. It was childish, perhaps, running out into the darkness with no light or anything, but you did just that. As you ran, you didn’t even think about the fact that you had left your wings back at Pearl’s house. You didn’t think about how Gem and Pearl called your name from the porch. You did think about how you heard Gem turning on Tango, demanding why he had said those things to you. You tripped over a stick as you ran, slowing to a walk as you caught yourself. You had just messed up everything, hadn’t you?

Your house came into view and you quickly shielded yourself inside. You moved around quickly, completing menial tasks to keep any thoughts about Tango and Gem and Pearl off your mind. When you finished all your inside tasks, you huffed. You needed more to do. You scanned your house before your eyes fell on a blueprint you were working on. It was practically done, just missing a few small parts. You sat at your desk and worked on it diligently.

When you were done, you took a deep breath. Memories of what happened at Pearl’s base flooded into your mind and you bit your lip. More distraction was needed, it seemed. You hesitated before grabbing the blueprint and heading outside. The sun was slowly peeking over the trees around you at this point, providing enough light for you to see what was happening. You posted the blueprint on a post you had and started gathering materials.

Once the shulkers you had were full, you quickly began starting on the build. One block at a time. You worked quickly and diligently, focusing all your despair into your build. Your mind, admittedly, was not on the build at all, though. Your brain flashed with thoughts about the fight. Could that even be considered a fight? Was something like that grounds for breaking up? Were the three- your favorite people ever- going to break up with you? You hated that you didn’t know what was happening in people’s minds. You wished to know what Tango was thinking right now. Was he thinking of how to finally break up with you? Was he thinking about inviting you over and telling you he was sick of having to travel so far to visit you? That wasn’t like him, but you didn’t think he was capable of saying the awful things from last night, either.

Your heart stopped as your foot hit the end of the wall you were standing on. You slid off the side, yelping as your ankle twisted awkwardly. You fell off the wall. Hard. You groaned as you brushed hair from your face. You tried to sit up, but pain flooded your entire body. You laid still, groaning at the pain you were in. Great, now I’m going to die painfully. You thought to yourself. How could this day get any worse?

Apparently, the universe wanted to say a big fuck you. You raised your arm, ignoring all the pain you felt to try and contact someone on your communicator. With a swear, you realized your communicator was broken. A large crack down the glass on the screen that made it impossible to use. The screen was dark, too, so perhaps something else was wrong with it.

You laid there, trying not to cry. This had to be the worst day of your entire life. What could possibly be worse than this?

You had to stop asking yourself that.

The sky above you thundered and within a few minutes, rain started to pelt you from above. The sky, which just an hour ago was fully blue and clear, was dark and stormy. You felt the water soaking your clothes and making your hair wet. This was rock bottom. This was like bedrock, and nothing went farther than bedrock.

You laid there for a solid hour, in excruciating pain. You hoped someone would come by- a mob, even- to kill you. It would possibly take days to respawn, but at least you wouldn’t feel this much pain anymore. Alas, no such luck. Not a single zombie, creeper, or skeleton headed your way. 

You wanted to cry, scream, do something to help the pain. But nothing happened. The world around you was silent.

And then, you heard voices. Familiar ones.

“Tango, you are going to apologize to them so bad. I cannot believe you said something like that!” 

“It was stupid, I know! I’m sorry! I don’t know what came over me! I would never want to break up with them.”

“Yeah, well, tell that to them when we- Oh!” Pearl gasped, running over to where you were laying, “Love, what happened?” Tango and Gem’s eyes widened as they saw what Pearl was talking about. The two rushed over, kneeling beside you. 

“I was building.” You mumbled. You were exhausted right now. “I wasn’t fully paying attention because…” You trailed off. They knew what you meant. “And I tripped and fell off. It hurts so bad.” You let out a low whimper.

Pearl scanned you quickly before glancing at her partners. “Gem, grab their legs. Tango, make sure you keep their midsection up.” Pearl instructed. “We’re going to move you inside the house, okay, darl?” You nodded, too exhausted to even respond at this point. The three of them got in their positions and lifted you. The pain was horrendous.

It felt like years before you were placed onto the couch in your home. Gem sat beside your head, petting your hair gently as Pearl hurried to gather supplies to make healing potions. Tango hesitated near the end of the couch, eyeing your situation. 

It was quiet. The only sound was the low whimpering you let out every few moments and Pearl’s use of the mortar in the kitchen. Then, Gem spoke.

“You shouldn’t have done that to them.” She said quietly. You blinked tiredly, trying to figure out what she meant. “You made them leave us and now look, they're hurt.”

Tango was quiet before he sighed, “You’re saying it's my fault?” He didn’t sound angry at the notion. In fact, he seemed to accept it as the truth. “It was. I don’t- I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t know why I said those things.”

You wanted to say something. To tell him that it was okay. It hurt to hear him sound so defeated and in pain. But you couldn’t speak. After being in such bad pain for hours, you were too tired. Your eyes drifted shut and you fell asleep.

You woke up hours later to Pearl pouring a healing pot into your mouth. You sat up slightly to help it go down and you noticed a considerable amount of pain had left. You sat up fully, sitting normally. You peered around. Pearl moved to sit beside you and you noticed that Gem was leaning against the couch, sitting on the floor asleep. You bent over, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of her head. She stirred slightly, but ultimately, she burrowed into her sweatshirt. 

You glanced around the room. No sign of your fiery boyfriend. Your brows cinched. “Where is he?” You murmured quietly. 

Pearl hummed softly, placing the healing pot in your hand so you could drink the rest of it. “Outside. Said he needed some space. He… blames himself for you getting hurt.” She hesitated before sighing, “He didn’t mean it. He really didn’t. He told us he was overwhelmed and wanted to be with all of us, and then you started talking about how you missed us too and he just… I don’t know. He didn’t mean it.”

You nodded slowly. You downed the rest of the potion before standing. You wobbled lightly before you headed to the door. You walked out, finding Tango sitting on the steps of your base. His head was in his hands and he was mumbling to himself. You couldn’t decipher what he was saying.

“T?” You called quietly. You trailed over to stand behind him. His ears perked up, but he didn’t look up from his hands. You hesitated before moving to sit beside him. “Tango?”

He slowly pulled his head from his hands, peering at you. His eyes were rimmed with red. “I’m sorry.” He whispered, his voice cracking from crying. “God, I- I don’t- I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean any of it.”

“I know.” You replied softly. You moved slowly, leaning your head against his shoulder.

“You didn’t deserve that.”

“I didn’t.” You agreed.

It was quiet again. You heard the door open behind you and the two girls from inside appeared at your side. Pearl sat beside Tango, while Gem sat on the other side of you. Your hand reached for Tango’s. He hesitated before slipping it into his. Your other hand was grabbed by Gem, and Tango’s by Pearl.

“I love you.” Tango whispered. He was talking to all three of you. “I’m sorry.”

Pearl leaned over, pressing a soft kiss to his temple before smiling gently, “We all are.” She looked over at you. “We should have been better partners to you, Y/N.” She murmured. 

Gem nodded softly, “I’m sorry for blaming you, Tango. It was all of us.”

Tango shook his head, “You were perfectly in line to do that. I deserved it. I was an asshole.” It was quiet as we stayed there together. The rain had gone, leaving it slightly muggy, but it was peaceful. Birds chirped in the distance.

“We’ll get through this.” You whispered. “We always do.” Your partners all nodded. Tango and Gem squeezed your hand. “I love you.”