It's been a month since Mischievous' ankle broke at the pond in the forest. Ages ago, Envy had helplessly watched Cowardice die in his arms.

Ages ago, he'd been broken.

He was shattered into a million tiny pieces, and people came and went to glue the pieces back together.

But he'd burst into slivers of fragile glass, a sight for anyone who saw it, like a firework show, igniting and exploding to produce lights that only lasted for a split second.

They'd pieced him back together, glued and tied and sewed him back. But some parts of him will always be missing.

These are those parts.

—

Fraudulent caught him staring at her hair.

She fixed her glasses, walked closer to him and snapped her finger in front of his eyes. "Earth to Envy," she said, trying to stop Envy from zoning out.

It worked. Envy jerked out of his stupor, blinking rapidly, body tensed as if he was ready to fight someone. "Huh?"

"You zoned out," Fraudulent explained.

"Sorry," Envy muttered. "Your hair... It's just like hers."

That's not the only thing haunting him, Fraudulent knew, his empty eyes weren't gazing just at her hair, it was gazing at everything else as well. The pools of magenta was vast and devoid of anything cheerful. He was reliving the war.

"Sorry," Envy said again, because repetition is the only thing that gets him through the days, and the others understand.

Fraudulent nodded, fixing her glasses for the millionth time. "It's fine." she assured him, because he needs forgiveness and not deflection of his apologies.

And because there was nothing else to say, she left and looked for Provoke.

"Can you braid my hair?"

The next morning, Fraudulent comes in with a bunch of thick, galaxy-colored hair weaved together in a simple fishtail braid, her hair never cascading down her shoulders like a waterfall anymore.

She found that Envy never zoned out at her hair after that change.

—

"Hey," Kindness asked softly, "are you okay?"