Partners In Crime: An Among Us Fanfiction

Chapter 30: Worth It? Probably Not.

~~~~~

Location: on the Skeld, heading to the planet Polus

Red

Red followed Maroon away from Navigation, and away from the others.

Wren followed them out, reaching for his father, and Red complied, picking Wren up.

While following Maroon, he allowed himself to have one quiet moment when he simply enjoyed having his son in his arms.

Wren snuggled into his shoulder comfortingly, and Red reciprocated the affection with a hug.

Ever since people started dying, the moments became quite rare, so Red savored this one while it lasted.

When he heard a sigh from Maroon after she checked Oxygen, Red knew the quiet moment was over, although his arms never left Wren.

He could tell she was emotionally shutting down, judging from her indifference to him and aggravation to the mild situation.

That can't be good.

He sighed, mentally bracing himself to talk to White. Their footsteps echoed through the hallway as they searched for where White had gone.

After checking Weapons and Cafeteria, they proceeded to MedBay, where they found White, starting the long task.

They entered the room, and without turning around, White said in a tired voice, "do you need something?"

Maroon looked completely and utterly done with White's attitude, so Red decided to take the lead: "White, are you feeling okay?"

"I think you can answer that question by yourself."

Red sighed deeply. "Look, if we're all going to work together on this ship, we need you to at least tolerate us, okay?"

Maroon gave Red a warning look. "I don't need you to do my job, Red."

Red held one hand up in surrender and backed away, hoping that Maroon would calm herself before saying anything that would make the situation worse.

To Red's relief, Maroon took a deep breath and assumed a perfectly calm persona. "White, listen. I get that you're stressed and on edge because of what happened to Indigo, but you need to stop taking it out on everyone else."

White sighed, and his face fell. "I just... If I get close to anyone else, I keep thinking that they're about to kill me, or that they're about to frame me for something they did. I just want to get home and forget all this."

Red felt a pang in his chest, his heart hurting for White.

He held Wren a bit closer, as if his son was a security blanket.

He could tell that Maroon was thinking of something to say, but he also knew that she wouldn't be giving encouragement in her current, shut-off state of mind.

So, he took the reins again.

"I- I feel the exact same way, White," Red said carefully. "But we still have to work together to find who did it, and make them pay for what they did. And we can't do that if you keep shutting everyone out - in fact, that makes everyone more suspicious of you."

Maroon gave Red another warning look, telling him to stand down and let her handle it, but in that moment, Red didn't care as much. It seems to be helping White, so I'm not going to step back this time.

Keeping himself and the others on Maroon's good side was important, but he also wanted to get on White's good side - or, at the very least, be on his neutral side.