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Purpled gave Tommy a wave as he left their apartment to start his shift. His roommate nodded back to him, nose dropping perilously close to his bowl of cereal. Dumbass. It was rare for Tommy to still be up when Purpled left, as the idiot was typically already in bed after his night shift at the laundromat.

God knows why Tommy chose to work from eight to six washing other peoples’ clothes for pennies. Purpled, on the other hand, made the big bucks in the partnership. Youngest manager, and only employee, of Los Colchones mattress store, ‘come get your mattresses here, life guarantee or half your money back’. Purpled came up with that marketing himself. He’d even sold a mattress last month. Business was going well.

Purpled’s work was only a fifteen-minute walk from their apartment in Pogtopia, a notoriously deprived area of town. The tacky Las Vegas inspired sign proclaimed the dubious existence of Purpled’s workplace, wedged in between various other businesses teetering on the edge of bankruptcy in Pogtopia’s dingy commercial park. Purpled had faith in the Hobby Lobby though. If none of them survived, Hobby Lobby would.

Personally, Purpled thought him being the only employee meant that he should be able to change the name to something slightly less uninspired than just Spanish for ‘mattresses’, but hey, he didn’t own the place. He just got paid a hefty 25$ an hour to deal with this shit. Fiddling with his earphones and lining up his- ironically named, he swore- ‘Beast Mode’ playlist, Purpled ruminated on the possibility of getting a raise. Not many people needed to buy mattresses in Essempi it seemed, especially not in Pogtopia, the dingiest borough of the city. But, Purpled considered, his boss had practically no concept of normal salaries. The guy was fucking loaded; he could afford to pay Purpled an extra five dollars an hour to sit around and do mostly nothing.

Purpled’s work as manager of Los Colchones mostly comprised of playing games on his phone, occasionally dusting off (bouncing around on) the mattresses, and making awkward small talk with the randos who came in to speak to Quackity sometimes. As he clocked in this morning, after nodding awkwardly to Tubbo, who was fumbling to open the greasy burger store next door, Purpled made a little affirmation. Today, he promised, he would see no customers and-do-no-work-god-bless. Amen.

His hopes were dashed at having a completely chill day of Doodle Jump and Piano Tiles when just as he settled down behind the main desk, Slime barreled out of the back office.

Slime was... an interesting guy. A guy that Purpled had long since decided not to put much thought into. He was constantly cheery, and terrifyingly optimistic in a way that was probably more alien than his particularly gelatinous way of being. 

“Purpled!” Slime grinned, his glasses sliding goop-ily down his nose. Slime pushed them back up with a squilsh.

Purpled had figured out a while ago that the best way to deal with Slime was to just keep polite but withdrawn conversation until he got distracted by something else. He wasn’t that bad, Purpled acknowledged, especially compared to some of Quackity’s other friends, but the upbeat happiness was just too much to handle at nine in the morning sometimes.

Purpled watched out of the corner of his eye as Slime settled on a mattress and started bouncing merrily. Sometimes, when Slime decided to bounce on the mattresses, he continued to do so past the point where he was actively jumping, body contracting and elongating seemingly out of his own volition. Again, Purpled thought, he did not think about Slime too much. Don’t think about him.

“How are you on this fine morning!” Slime asked him.

Purpled huffed. What fine morning.

“It’s nine AM on a Tuesday, Slime, there’s nothing fine about it.” Purpled did a swivel in his desk chair, pre-emptively getting his phone out to play Doodle Jump while Slime chattered away.

“Well, that’s one way of looking at it!” Slime said, still chipper as ever. “Personally, I think mornings are something to be cherished, lest we ever forget times less tranquil.” Slime’s cheery demeanor slipped for a moment, a shadow of grave pensiveness casting over his face. That was the other thing about Slime. He said some wackass shit sometimes.

“That’s nice,” Purpled said, only half paying attention.

“But tell me, Purpled!” he exclaimed, “How was your weekend?”

Purpled sighed. Slime’s smile stretched across his whole face. Purpled wasn’t going to point out that that was far wider than average humans could smile, seeing as Slime was still stuck on thinking that no one was aware he wasn’t fully human.

In the department of hiding your inhumanity, some non-humans were better than others.

“It was fine.”

“What did you get up to?”

“Not much.”

Slime was undeterred. “Well, I went out with Quackity! We went to the club!”

“That’s nice,” Purpled answered. Honestly, his weekend was kind of fun too, for a given definition. Tommy never really took days off, but Purpled never bothered to go to work on Sundays. It wasn’t like Quackity really bothered to check up on the business of Los Colchones, and Purpled had taken the executive decision to give himself Sundays off. Technically, he was the manager, so he could do that. He thought.

This Sunday, he’d dragged himself out of their apartment and to one of the nicer districts in Essempi. It always seemed like the weather in Pogtopia was dreary as fuck, because after the subway took him further into the city, he had emerged into sunlight.

The city center had a few districts that were well known for their towering skyscrapers and bustling tourism, but Purpled’s favorite to visit on days off was a little to the east of the main city. It was a wealthy area, much quieter than it should be for its location, and enveloped in lush foliage and sprawling parks. If you walked up the hill to the east of the church of Prime Our Lady, in all its quartz grandeur, there was a public park. Rich people would come here to walk their stupid little bichon-friezes and their immaculately groomed golden retrievers.

As always, Purpled made his way to the Chinese-inspired rock garden bordered by some bamboo in the corner of the park. Past this was where Purpled had a spot that he used every so often to clear his head. This spot was probably his best kept secret- no one else had uncovered it, and he didn’t think Tommy even knew he left the flat on the weekends. Tommy hadn’t even found out about his secret stash under the floorboards, and they shared that bedroom.

Honestly, Purpled didn’t need much excitement in his life. Working six days a week and then taking a walk the other day was enough to keep him happy, mainly.

But maybe he should try out clubbing, or something. Could be fun.

He tuned back into what Slime had been saying.

“And then, Quackity was saying, like, ‘shut up or I’ll put this bullet through your head!’” Slime recounted, squishily bouncing up and down on the mattress still. Some of his slime was gooping off onto the display duvet. Gross, Purpled frowned. He’d probably have to clean that.

“So then Sam was like- blam! And then we had to leave because technically we aren’t allowed in those clubs unless we keep the peace, but Quackity said it wasn’t our fault so we-”

“Slime can you stop bouncing? You’re getting gunk all over the comforter.” Purpled said, still staring at where the blue sheets had gone slightly green. Would they come off with normal detergent?

“Oh! Oh my very normal human skin fell off! I’m so sorry Purpled it’s usually better at staying on,” Slime said, looking sort of concerned, his smile more like a grimace, melting slightly at the corners.

“Yeah, no, dude you’re fine.” Purpled said. “I’ll just take them to Tommy’s after this, he’ll know what to do with them.”

This was true. Tommy knew what to do with most things fabric-wise. Purpled was just glad he didn’t ever have to do the laundry, because Tommy always did it for free.

Occasionally Purpled would throw some pound coins in the washing machine coin slots when he visited the laundromat as his good deed of the month, but Tommy didn’t have to know this. It wouldn’t do to let his roommate know that he appreciated him. And he knew Tommy was always happy to get paid in his dumb British currency, anyway. Something to do with his crush on the Queen.

Purpled’s mind shifted to what Slime had been saying about the club. They got into a fight or something? Well, that was typical Quackity for you. The guy was as high-strung as a fucking trapeze artist. And if Sam was with them too that made sense. The guy looked like the fucking Predator. He was a nice dude, supposedly, but his demeanor could definitely give off serial killer vibes.

It was kind of funny to imagine Slime in a club though. If he got really hot under the lights and surrounded by so many people on the dance floor, would he just melt into a puddle? Or was it one of those fancier clubs, where there isn’t an actual dance floor, just rich people measuring their dicks by buying top shelf liquor and bragging about their sugar babies?

Purpled had considered working for something like that once, back when he was a server. But one week of working in a steak restaurant had convinced him otherwise. Some people were cut out to talk to assholes all day, and Purpled simply was not one of them. Los Colchones was the best job he’d ever had in his life, and he wasn’t about to switch it up.

He didn’t think he had the patience to look at those rich fucks and not immediately scoff in their faces anyway. Quackity was different, though, because Quackity was always jumping at the bit to gift Purpled whatever he needed. Case in point, last month’s purchase of a fully ergonomic swivel desk chair, so that Purpled didn’t get a bad back from sitting around doing fuck-all all day. Or that time he bought Purpled fifty more lives on Candy Crush.

The next moment Purpled looked up, Slime had disappeared. He’d probably gone to hide in the back office after his embarrassment of losing his ‘human skin’ on the mattress, Purpled thought. What a weird guy.

Quackity slammed into the shop at around midday, coffee flask in hand, and a frazzled expression on his face. He nodded quickly to Purpled before hurrying to the office, where Purpled heard Slime’s excitable greeting before it was immediately cut off. Purpled snorted. He’d be the first to say it: his boss needed to chill the fuck out. The man ran a mattress store for fuck’s sake.

Ok, well, obviously the man didn’t just run a mattress store. Evidence number one: the place was still open. Evidence number two: Purpled was fairly sure he also owned the Tubburger next door, which was presumably a bit more lucrative. Evidence number three: that back office had fantastic sound proofing.

At the beginning of his time at Los Colchones, Purpled had snooped around Quackity’s office. It was when he was in one of his more adventurous moods, when he was still interested in knowing about the goings on of Quackity’s obviously dubious business practices. One look around the dingy office had him convinced otherwise, however. Purpled did not need to know more about a man who had randomly decided to invest in mattresses and burgers, and somehow turn over a profit. Clearly the cabinet in the corner was just a cabinet. Not a hidden door that led to a distinctly less dingy corridor.

And even if Purpled cared to further analyze how Quackity had enough money to pay Purpled a fifty-grand salary despite them never selling any mattresses, he’d long since decided it was for the best that he keep his nose out of those things. Purpled was the embodiment of plausible deniability. And happy to keep it that way.

Purpled, now attempting his high score on Flight of the Bumblebee on Piano Tiles (he was almost to the second crown), was doing his best to ignore the muffled voices coming from the office, its door slightly ajar. It took only three more tries before he managed to get the second crown, by which time Quackity had stopped complaining about whatever it was that wasn’t going exactly how he wanted it this time, and exited the office to, presumably, come and talk to Purpled.

Quackity did this sometimes, where he did his best to act like a normal guy and not a slightly intimidating boss with far too much money to be reasonable for a mattress store (and burger store) owner. Purpled didn’t mind, to be honest. Quackity was a fun guy to fuck with.

“Purpled, my man,” Quackity drawled out, a big smile plastered to his face. “How’s it going! Sell any mattresses today?” He leant into the nearest show-bed, which was slightly too low to rest on suavely, even if you were as short as Q.

“Not in the past three weeks,” Purpled said, eyes still focused on his next challenge: the elusive third crown.

“Ahh, well, that was such a good one!” Quackity exclaimed. “Too many mattresses sold would be bad for business”.

“Yeah, then there’d be none left to sell,” Slime nodded sagely.

Purpled snorted. His finger slipped. The Bumblebee flies another day, he mused, picking Moonlight Sonata for a change of pace.

Quackity was still talking some sort of nonsense to Slime, and probably also to Purpled, too, but Piano Tiles was more engaging right then.

“Fuck!” Purpled had lost. To fucking Moonlight Sonata. Stupid fucking Beethoven. “Hey Quackity,” he said, looking up to acknowledge his boss for the first time that day. Now would be the perfect time to negotiate for a higher salary.

“Yeah Purpled, my man?” Quackity looked ridiculously happy to be spoken to. God what a loser.

“You know other store managers get paid thirty dollars an hour, right?”

This was only maybe true. Store managers in Pogtopia certainly didn't get paid a 60K salary, but they probably did elsewhere, Purpled assumed.

Quackity looked like he’d been slapped with a fish. Hm. Maybe that topic needed a bit of buttering up before dropping it in the conversation. Well, Purpled never pretended not to be blunt.

“Whatever,” he said, head ducking back down to beat the crap out of Moonlight Sonata again. Beethoven could get fucked, was all he was saying.

“No, no, no, go on!” Quackity practically shouted, clamoring to get Purpled’s attention again. “Are you tight on money? You and your roommate? Thirty an hour isn’t even that much; we can do that.” He immediately started whispering furiously to Slime, who started typing so fast on his phone that little green globules flicked off his fingers.

“Purpled, my man, literally don’t even worry about it. Never let it be said that Las- Los Colchones never pays its employees fairly, am I right?” Quackity was smiling widely at him, his one scarred eye stretched in a way that had gotta be painful. Purpled could even see the yellow ear feathers Q usually hid under his beanie peeking out, quivering to be freed.

Purpled would forever be amazed at just how crazy insane his boss was. What kind of idiot gives a pay rise that big out of the kindness of his heart? To an employee whose job is to play mobile games all day? But damn if Purpled wasn’t going to take advantage. Money is money, after all.

And money was precisely Purped’s life philosophy.

“Thanks,” Purpled said, bringing out the big guns to seal the deal: a smile. Quackity’s dark eyes widened in slight shock, and his face softened. Goddamn. Those eyes were intense.

“Anything for my favorite employee!” Quackity smiled, still kind of too sappily for Purpled’s comfort.

“I’m your only employee, man,” he responded.

Quackity spluttered, squawking “You-”.

Tommy woke up bright and early at six PM, ready to start the day. He had a pep in his step as he messily combed through his hair, gathered together his stuff for the day, and locked the door of his and Purpled’s apartment to start his shift. Unlike Purpled, whose work was conveniently close to home, Tommy took the bus. He would arrive at the laundromat at eight PM- Tommy Trusty’s, named by yours truly, and work until the earliest bus running in the morning, at six thirty. They were long work hours, but Tommy enjoyed it.

He owned the place! Practically. Some weird old man threw him the keys ages ago and never came back, so Tommy thinks that means he owns it. There was no opposition to him changing the name. Or the opening hours. Or like, any other thing he’d done since deciding to work there.

Tommy paid himself through the coins people used to pay for the machines. He had a funny little system of making everyone pay in British currency, or else having to convert their dollars to the equivalent amount in pounds. Some sort of Great British sadism caused him to chuckle seeing the Americans of Pogtopia struggle with their change. Would it be easier, and certainly possible, to upgrade to card payments instead of keeping with the coins? Yeah. But truth be told, Tommy just liked the aesthetic.

It was probably time to go to the bank soon, to get his latest haul of pennies changed into more usable currency, like notes, and if Tommy was feeling fancy, a bit into his bank account. Purpled had helped him set it up a few months back, and Tommy was still getting used to the idea of having one. It was nicer to have money easily available, in his opinion.

Last month’s rent Tommy hadn’t had enough to pay from his bank account, and the duffel bag of coins he’d handed their landlord had been slightly humiliating. It was mostly hilarious though.

That was the fun part of working in a laundromat: he never knew how much money he was going to have each week! Sometimes he got enough to buy a burger from that cool burger place next to Purpled’s work. But sometimes it would be Purpled buying all the food for the week though. Which was less exciting. But, Tommy reassured himself, one more good month and he was definitely going to be best friends with the kid who flipped the burgers soon enough. He could sense a fellow businessman in Turbo.

This week was looking good though! Tommy loved the bus, even if it was notoriously unreliable about arriving on time. He could jam out to his cassettes on his Walkman, and today there was space at the front of the top deck, so he got the best view of the roads as he went. Not that there was much to look at, to be honest, but as Tommy’s Trusty’s was just on the edge of Pogtopia, nearing L’Manburg, the buildings got a bit fancier in architecture and the streets got a little less rubbish crusted. Just a little, though.

Fifteen minutes or so on the bus later, and Tommy was jogging to Tommy Trusty’s. Ten metres away from the laundromat though, he paused.

There were three blokes just... loitering outside. Wronguns? No...

Wronguns wouldn’t be carrying laundry hampers on their shoulders! So, customers!

They were awkwardly stood like they didn’t know what to do with themselves, and in the middle of an argument.

“I’m just saying,” one with a posh English accent bitched, hands on his hips in an entitled stance that belied the fact he’d got their taller friend to carry his hamper for him. “That we should just give up already. It’s not like we can’t wash our own suits.”

“Really? Really. Do I need to remind you of the last time you tried getting blood out of your suit, George?” said one with a white bandana hastily tied around messy black hair. He was flinging his laundry bag around as he gestured. So, there was George, Bandana, and Hamper Man, who was hunched over slightly from the two hampers he was carrying. Tommy wondered briefly why this guy wouldn’t just make George carry his own hamper, but dismissed the thought immediately: George was a bitch, and Hamper Man was obviously a simp.

The Hamper Man noticed Tommy first. He smacked his two friends in the stomachs quickly. They snapped to attention, eyes a bit too worried for what was a pretty normal conversation to be having in a laundromat, Tommy thought.

“New clients!” Tommy beamed at them, putting on his businessman charisma.

“You- you work here?” The Hamper Man squeaked.

Tommy’s grin brightened. “I own the place!” He boasted.

This didn’t seem to reassure them, but Tommy was unbothered. He bent down to unlock the grate, and struggled slightly to push it up. It always got caught around two-thirds of the way up, and today was no different.

He grunted slightly, but then one small nudge from Hamper Man sent it flying up to the top of the window. Tommy stared at it in shock. That had never happened before! Hamper Man laughed shakily.

“Ta,” Tommy said happily, unlocking the main door and dashing inside to set up for this night’s shift.

“Well, welcome!” he said, business voice back on. “What can I help you with today?”

The three looked among themselves, waiting for a suspiciously long amount of time before answering. Tommy just stared at them, vapid smile hanging in place.

Eventually, Bandana sighed, and pushed the laundry hampers off Hamper Man’s shoulders and onto the floor.

“We got blood on our... Halloween costumes. And we don’t know how to get it out.” He said.

Immediately, George rolled his eyes, and the Hamper Man did that nervous laugh again. It made him sound a bit like a goose.

“Well, boys!” Tommy grinned. “You are in luck! I am an expert at getting blood out of clothes; it is yet another reason why the ladies love me.” He smirked, very self-satisfied at the choked laughter this produced from the trio.

It wasn’t hard at all to get blood out of clothes, Tommy realised early on in his laundromat career. This was something he advertised as a bit of amateur dry-cleaning, which occasionally earned him a bit more money from people who hadn’t also figured out how to get blood out of their clothes. If you bought TESCO’s knock off Vanish oxi-action powder, and soaked it with the fabric in cold water for a bit before washing (using a bit more of the powder), most stains came out without much trouble. He was gatekeeping this though, for business. Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss was Tommy’s professional motto.

He unloaded the costumes from their hampers straight onto the dusty floor, which two of the guys- Bandana and Hamper Man, Tommy registered in the back of his mind- protested. Tommy didn’t see how it mattered if they were going to be washed straight after, but whatever. Or maybe they were worried he’d see all their dirty underwear or something.

Well, shit-stained pants aside, Tommy pulled out a few lycra monstrosities from the bags.  The first costume was lime green, probably some type of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle in the base phase. It was a disgusting hue though, far too garish and bright for any kind of turtle.

“That is an objectively vile colour to wear, big man,” Tommy said.

Hamper Man startled, “Wha-”

His friends immediately burst into quiet laughter.

“It’s perfectly fine!” The guy retorted, spluttering. Clearly no one had ever told him about his bad fashion taste. Poor Hamper Man.

“Shame on you,” Tommy said disapprovingly, eyes on the guy’s sidekicks who were wheezing behind him. “Letting your mate walk around in that colour, that’s really not on.” They laughed harder.

“He,” George wheezed, “he’s not wrong,”

“HA!” barked Bandana, before shoving his face into the nearest washing machine drum to muffle his laughter.

“George!” Hamper Man cried out, evidently dismayed at this new knowledge. “Sapnap, come on,” He tugged his friend, who somehow had a weirder name than ‘Bandana’, out of the washing machine, and put his hands on his hips.

“It is not that bad.” Unfortunately, the hands-on-hips, angry frown combination gave the impression of a distinctly unimpressed toddler, and did nothing to stop the giggling.

“I’m sorry man,” Tommy said, staring sincerely at him, “But it really is. Have you considered changing to a nicer shade? Bit less garish?” The man scowled down at him. “A nice dark forest green?”

“Look- just. It’s not even... just sh- shut up.” His stance was beginning to look a bit more defeated. “I can’t change it now, anyway, so just.” He sighed, shoving the costume towards Tommy, and busied himself with separating their other clothes into lights and darks.  

“I mean there’s plenty of time before next Halloween,” Tommy said, confused. They were barely through January. If he wanted to make modifications it really wouldn’t take that long. “And it would be a lot more recognisable if you added some more details.”

The Hamper Man did a sort of more deflated version of the goose laugh. “Ha. Yeah, uh, well I kinda thought the green was good enough...” He trailed off. Tommy snorted. Some people just put no effort into costume-making sometimes. Not like him. Last year Tommy sewed him and Purpled matching Mario and Waluigi outfits. Purpled was Waluigi, obviously. He was surprisingly good at the 'waa's.

The other two costumes he pulled out were less garish, but Tommy couldn’t figure out who they were meant to be dressing as. One was black and white, so, a panda? He guessed that must be Spandana’s, as it matched. So at least one of these guys had a sense of style, Tommy humphed.

George’s was definitely the most interesting. It had a big tear down the side, and was soaked in blood there and in odd patches, like a splatter, but Tommy was distracted by how the shoulders were padded with really cool mushroom embroidery.

“Dude this is so cool!” Tommy exclaimed, thumbing the texture of the fabric fungi. Clearly a lot of effort had gone into this! He beamed up at the trio from where he had knelt down to get a closer look. The three of them shifted on their feet awkwardly.

He scooped up everything, which was surprisingly heavy for Halloween costumes. Lycra was probably only the outside then- he wondered what they’d chosen to line them with. Maybe they used the wrong fabric. It was kind of bulky.

The turtle and panda costumes he shoved in two separate washing machines and motioned for the men to put their money in.

“It’s a pound to use the washing machines, and two to use the tumble dryers,” he said, pointing to his own hand-drawn signs sellotaped to each machine. “Please feel free to wait around in the meantime! I have a speaker; we can play music! Make it a party!”

The mushroom costume he was already prepping a bucket for. The other costumes didn’t seem to have as much blood on, but the mushroom costume was kind of drenched. That rip down the side looked nasty. It wasn’t particularly uncommon though, especially in rougher areas of town like this, for there to be muggings that ended badly.

George was hovering over his shoulder kind of neurotically though, so Tommy huffed and pushed him away.

The other two were fiddling with the money slots in the machines- Tommy had sellotaped the conversion rate from pounds to dollars for the Americans, and they were taking their time, but slotting in the one dollar forty-two without complaint. Americans were so uppity about Tommy sticking to good old pound sterling, for some reason. It would really be so much more convenient for him if everyone just used the Queen’s money instead.

While he waited for the mushroom costume to soak, Tommy took his usual resting spot in the laundromat- wedged between the tumble dryers and the ceiling in the corner. It was kind of a hassle to get up there, as he had to manoeuvre himself up, planting one foot in the drum of one washing machine and pushing off a dryer by the other wall. He slowly spun around before clumsily wiggling himself into place.

It was kind of dusty, yeah, and he always emerged covered in dryer fluff that was kind of impossible to avoid in the laundromat, but it gave him a good vantage point of the shop and he could work the speaker he’d put up there.

It was less of a high-tech Bluetooth speaker like purpled had at home and more of an old CD player that had speakers. Small ones, but they got the job done.

The three guys gave him odd looks as he shifted around, getting comfy in his spot. To be fair, he probably did look kind of weird. But they were new! They clearly weren’t used to Tommy’s brand of laundromat yet.

They would be regulars before long, no doubt.

He took a moment to take in the appearances of his new regulars. Bandana (he’d already forgotten his name) and George had black hair, but Bandana had so much more swagger with it than George, whose hair was just kind of boring. Lego man hair, Tommy would call it. Hamper Man’s hair was sort of brown. Tommy wouldn’t call it blond, not like his, but he would bet all this week’s earnings that Hamper Man was the kind of guy to cling to that dirty blond label long after he’d grown out of it.  

Speaking of Hamper Man: he was tall. Maybe too tall- Tommy squinted. He wasn’t friends with anyone who was taller than him, as a rule. He was six foot three (emphasis on the three), so it wasn’t all that common. Purpled was the only other person that matched Tommy in height that he could stand, and Tommy didn’t know if he had room in his heart for another. He hummed. Taking into account that this was a paying customer, and with astonishingly bad taste in colour to boot, Tommy could make an exception. And the other two were super short so that made up for it.

Bandana peered up at Tommy- he had to crane his neck up, which was another perk of sitting up on top of the tumble dryers.

“What’s your name, kid?”

Tommy grumbled internally at being called a kid, but that was Americans for you. Always so patronising... and patriotic.

“Tommy Innit!” he chirped.

“Tommy Innit?” George asked, face scrunching up in confusion, or possibly derision.

Tommy humphed.

“Yes,” he said. Last names were cool, and his was the coolest. He’d chosen it himself and everything. It’s not like government documents mattered that much.

“Well, Tommy,” said Hamper Man, “This is George and Sapnap, and I’m, uh, Dream.” He winced.

“Ayup.” Ah yeah, Sapnap, that was his name. Still so weird. The trio looked sort of nervous again. Tommy supposed that they were maybe embarrassed by their weird names. George was fine, of course, but he figured that the other two didn’t enjoy the scrutiny they faced for their weirdo mums naming them weirdo names.

They traded glances with each other, seemingly reading each other’s minds in a silent conversation, lots of widening and narrowing of eyes and unsubtle elbow jabs. It would be cool if that was his power, Tommy thought. Mind reading. He wouldn’t want to read everyone’s mind though, that would be too much. Even big men can get overwhelmed. Tommy liked to stay at a perfectly average level of whelmed, normally. But it would be cool to chat to Purpled in his head on boring shifts.

Eventually the trio looked back up at him to speak again. They seemed to hesitate. Then Hamper Man- or, Dream, Tommy supposed- nodded at him, raising a thumbs up. Uh, what? Tommy nodded back, out of pity for the man’s awkwardness, he supposed.

“So, if we come here to wash our... costumes occasionally, you’ll keep that... on the downlow?” Hamper Man's voice raised in pitch at the end. Bless him, being so anxious for talking to a shop worker.

Tommy didn’t really get why he was keeping it on ‘the downlow’ but it wasn’t like Purpled was ever really interested in his shifts, nor did he have many other friends, so he guessed he was always on the downlow. What was the downlow?

But hey, he was not about to squander what was potentially going to be his most loyal customer base in Pogtopia. If these guys came back often enough, and if Tommy could coerce them into all using separate washing machines every time, he’d be rolling in the cash.

“If you pay, big men, I’ve got no complaints.”

The trio frantically went back to their freaky mind talk again. There was a lot of eyebrow raising and small gestures.

Tommy, in the meantime, was picturing lying in all of his future coins like Smaug. Hah.

After a moment George reached around to his back pocket and picked out a nice-looking wallet. Tommy stared, kind of confused now. He hadn’t really meant like, in a tipping way, he just meant, you know, paying the fee of using the washing machines. But, well, who was he to turn down money from a guy holding a wallet as nice as that? Tommy’s eyes zeroed in on the notes the guy was rifling through. The guy was probably a Tory, and it was practically a moral obligation to scam them. 

George ended up waving a fistful of fivers up at Tommy, unable to reach the top of the dryers. Tommy plucked them from his hand and counted them out.

This was... fifty pounds.

He gawped at the money in his hand, more than he’d make in like, a week sometimes, and immediately stuffed it in his front pockets. Not the back ones, where they could easily get stolen from. These would be going straight to his best piggy bank, the spotty one he kept underneath his and Purpled's bunk bed.

When Tommy’s brain had finally stopped yelling ‘MONEY MONEY MONEY’ in blissful glee, he peered back down at the three guys. Dream, Sapnap and George looked anxious to see if they’d... tipped well enough? Tommy sent them a massive grin, far more honest than his customer service grin, and they seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

They were weird, but Tommy decided he liked these Americans (and George). They obviously had such an odd sense of how tips worked, and one of them was a Tory, so if anything, they were the perfect cash cow for Tommy’s business. They’d gone from looking anxious to looking unsure at what was going to happen next, while they waited for their clothes to wash. Well, Tommy wasn’t going to wait around while they were being awkward. He turned to the speaker in the corner, and pressed play on his favourite disc, and bopped his head.

Dream, George, and Sapnap looked at each other in bemusement, before settling down on the bench in the middle of the room. It took no time at all before they were fully relaxed, chatting and vibing to the music.

Tommy grinned. This was the perfect shift.

In a break from tradition, Tommy and Purpled woke at the same time the next day. Despite having had only three hours of sleep, Tommy was as energetic as usual, and Purpled his quiet opposite. They sat across from each other at the tiny two-seater table by the window. If they put their bowls diagonal from each other, there was enough space for both of them to have breakfast.

Purpled seemed to take a few minutes to notice the irregularity. He looked up from his cereal, eyeing Tommy suspiciously.

“Why are you up,” he said.

“I thought you’d never ask,” Tommy sighed happily, to Purpled’s rolled eyes. “It’s Bank Day.” He grinned at Purpled, eyes raised, mouth wide open. A bit of milk dribbled down his chin. Purpled shook his head in exasperation, dropping his attention back down to his lucky charms, shovelling them doggedly into his mouth.

Undeterred by Purpled’s lack of enthusiasm, Tommy hummed as he ate his cereal (off-brand shreddies, from the local TESCO. Way better than Purpled’s American sugarfest, and cheaper too). Bank day was undoubtedly his favourite day of the month: the day he got to carry his giant duffle bag of various American and British coins (and the occasional euro) into the bank, dump them all on some poor clerk who had to then painstakingly double check his calculations and convert it into neat stacks of actually usable currency. It was so much fun.

The duffle bag was nearly too heavy to carry, and was close to ripping in various places from wear and tear. It wasn’t uncommon for Tommy to struggle with the weight to the point of dragging it along the pavement, and the bottom side of the bag was scuffed to bits. He had stitched on an assortment of patches in the hopes of not losing his income like breadcrumbs on the street. Some of those silly American pennies were small enough to slip through the seams, so he could never be too careful.

The route to the bank was a fifteen minute walk to the right bus stop, then a short ride to Prime Street, then another bus to the east for another twenty minutes. Thankfully the only landmark on that street was the bank, so the bus stop was right outside. It was an impressive building, all smooth grey stone and quartz pillars, and entirely much too big for how little of it was actually used. Unless there were some really massive vaults they were hiding in the back. That would be pog.

Maybe they actually had to use all the space they obviously weren’t using for the main floor to keep all of Tommy’s pennies, he thought. Heh.

About ten minutes into his walk Tommy started up the street Purpled worked on. Las Cushions was looking as stupid as usual, and now another bulb had broken in its stupid sign. Tommy huffed. No business sense. He frantically waved at Turbo, mopping up in Tubburger, who waved just as excitedly back. Or maybe Tommy did hear Purpled right the first time, and the kid’s name was Tubbo? Odd choice on his mother’s part, but ok.

Tubbo clearly had the taste for business, Tommy thought proudly. Tubburger was simple, catchy, and to the point. Las Conchas, on the other hand, was in a language that obviously wasn’t English, and therefore, not worth his time.

As he walked past Purpled’s work- which, shouldn’t Purpled be walking with him? To open up his shop? Terrible work ethic, his flatmate- he was nearly bowled over by some furry barrelling out of the front doors.

“Oi!” Tommy shouted indignantly, but the furry just shrugged semi-apologetically and carried on speed-walking down the street. If Tommy hadn’t been lugging around such a heavy bag of coins he would’ve clocked him, no questions. Fucking furries.

Tommy squinted at the figure dashing off in front of him. They were dressed all in black, baggy clothing, and were skedaddling away in a distinctly non-humanoid manner, little hops occasionally springing them further forward. Hm. That tail was waving erratically, and definitely looked more real than some human posing as a fox. Not a furry, then, but a fox-hybrid. Which was definitely a step up from a rando in a fursuit but altogether, they were obviously still a massive dickhead.

Tommy made it to the bus stop, finally. He didn’t have the heart to lug his duffel bag up to the top deck, so he just sat in the front seats where the buggies and prams usually go. He looked up when an old lady coughed at him. What? She coughed again, more forcefully, looking peeved, despite there being like, hundreds of other fucking seats available. What, did she own this one? So what if it had priority for the elderly? The bus was fucking empty!

Tommy humphed and slid his bag across the floor of the bus. Jerking when they drove over a pothole, he fell into a seat a bit further along the aisle. What a bitch.

When he finally arrived at Rose Street, Tommy’s good mood was flagging. Bank Day was fun, but it was also true that it was a bit draining just to make it to the bank in the first place. He took a few deep breaths. No matter. The bank was in sight, and he only had to drag his duffel bag a few more metres to the entrance.

Unfortunately the duffel was deciding not to cooperate today. The patch on one of the corners was in danger of ripping off completely, so he was cupping it carefully. He could feel the coins pressing against his palm- definitely a mending job once he got back home.

He was looking down at the duffel when he bumped the door to the bank open, bum first.  

So what if he didn’t notice the kerfuffle that was going on while he attempted to drag his monthly income to the available bank clerk?

Actually, the nearest assistant seemed to be cowering in the far corner of their booth. Huh?

“D-Dude. Seriously?” He heard from next to him. Tommy turned, ready to go off on one at the very rude person interrupting his Bank Day, when he took note of the balaclava. And the baggy black clothing. And the gun, pointed at the assistant in the booth in front of him. He looked back at the rest of the room. And the other customers cowering in the corner, right. And the other gunman holding them hostage.

Tommy stared dumbly at the robber, who stared gobsmacked back.

Brain kicking into gear, Tommy immediately swung his bag at the robber’s groin. The duffel slammed into them with the force of a thousand pennies, jingling mockingly as they choked behind their (oddly shaped- very square at the top) balaclava. The other robber, ridiculously tall and built like an Egyptian god laughed squeakily at his partner in crime. Unfortunately, the duffel bag was outmatched by the crotch. The already slightly loose patch came off entirely, and hundreds of coins spilt onto the marbled quartz floor.

Tommy stared, astonished. And distressed. That was his month’s savings, his source of income. How was he meant to pay the bills now?

He spluttered and immediately dropped to the floor, swiping large piles of pennies together, babbling indignantly the entire time. “I- I- cannot believe this! My life’s savings, on the ground in front of me!” He had managed to get about ten dollars’ worth of coins back in the bag, not taking note of a few sliding right back out the ripped seam.

“What...” the robber that had been threatening the assistant whispered. They shook their head, attempting to gather their robberly composure. “What? No. No, I’m sorry- who are you?”

“Tommy! Tommy Innit, pleased to make your acquaintance.” He was frowning very intently up at the stupid square faced criminal. Something about the pose was distinctly Gollum-like, knees bunched up to his chin, back hunched over uncomfortably, and arms gangling about in a futile attempt to recollect his precious coins. He was hoping he was getting across the fact that he was, in fact, not pleased to make their acquaintance.

“Okay, this is ridiculous. Kid, get in the corner. Get- Get in the corner.” The guy’s balaclava was twitching at the top. Suspicious, Tommy thought, eyes narrowed.

“Bitch! Who are you? I’m not going anywhere until I get my money!” Tommy went to stand up, but was pushed back onto his arse by the taller, significantly scarier goon. “Hey!”

“Kid.” The taller robber said, his admirably large biceps crossed firmly, gun tapping against his elbow. “Go sit in the corner.” His voice was devoid of the giggling he’d been struggling with earlier. Even his amusingly un-criminal-like squeaky voice did little to get rid of the rising tension.

Tommy figured that the only way to deal with this was to intimidate them back.  

“Fuck you, bitch!” Tommy shouted. “I ain’t no pussyhole!”

Unsurprisingly, the dodgy roadman impression did nothing to scare the guys with the guns, and the twitchy cunt in front of him seemed to lose the last of their patience.

They looked to be about to take revenge for the duffel bag of loose metal being slammed into their crotch, because they flipped the gun they were holding around before taking a menacing step forwards.

Taking note of the situation he was in, Tommy backtracked.

“He-Hey man- we can talk about this-” Tommy chattered anxiously, watching them approach. He could be polite sometimes, he swore. Usually around women, he was always so polite to women-

The butt of the gun came down roughly on his forehead, and Tommy was out.

In the grand scheme of things, he wasn’t out for long- just long enough to come back around once the police had arrived (as slow as usual), along with a few newbie heroes who were clearly not necessary for such a situation. The robbers had left, for Prime's sake. At least according to Tommy, if not to the hero agency, the time and place for superheroes was while the crime was happening, not once it had happened. Idiots.

From the looks of things, someone had dragged him into the corner where the other hostages were, most of whom who looked to have left already as well.

Tommy shot up from lying down. (Bad idea. Ow.) Had they- No. The scumbags. They’d taken his duffel bag! And left like, a million pennies!

The bank assistant was crying in the booth as she was questioned. The new heroes were obviously trying to calm her down and were generally terrible at consoling her. From the snippets Tommy could hear, the robbers had run off with ten thousand dollars in bank notes-

“And they stuffed them in that poor boy’s bag! And ran away!” She burst into tears. Tommy was astounded. The audacity of those hack robbers to take his duffel bag, and empty out his life savings onto the floor, as if they were worth nothing!

The three heroes took note of him then, jaws dropping. One of the heroes rushed to kneel next to him, hands wavering awkwardly in front of Tommy like he wasn’t sure what to do. The two others shuffled awkwardly as they tried to stop the clerk from crying.

“Hey, kid, are you alright?” Tommy’s vision was a little bit blurry, which was worrying. His head fucking throbbed. From what he could make out, the hero was dressed in a weird black and white costume, accented in red, with a stupid white cape that skimmed the floor as he knelt. His face was covered by a white bandana and a red mask, and he was staring earnestly at Tommy as he took in his head wound. Blood was crusted in Tommy’s eyebrow. Tommy reached a hand up to pick at it, but his first try only took out a few eyebrow hairs and a small bit of dried blood.

“Ow,” Tommy grumbled.

“Hey, hey, don’t do that! We’ll get you a sponge or some shit- something.” The hero held Tommy up and walked him over to the ambulance waiting outside. Paramedics were looking over a few of the other hostages, but it seemed most people had got out of the encounter unscathed. The hero began to press a damp sponge to his forehead, soaking away the dried blood clotted there.

Tommy’s other new admirers came to hover over him.

“Is there anything we can help you with?” One hero in a stupidly bright green suit asked, staring intently into Tommy’s eyes. The green was making Tommy’s headache worse. He averted his eyes with a groan. The other one, dressed in blue and red, looked unbothered. Maybe even bored. What a mood. The green one though, he was all up in Tommy’s face poking at the cut on his head. “How did this even happen?” He muttered, “The Las Nevadas guys are usually way gentler with stuff like this.”

“May have pissed them off,” Tommy mumbled. His day was starting to feel a lot less poggers, now that the adrenaline of the situation had definitely left him, and his head was throbbing like a cock with chlamydia.

He just wanted to go home now, and mooch as much sympathy off Purpled as he could. Purpled would give him some shit and not look up from his mobile games, but ultimately, he would get a blanket thrown on top of him and an extra helping of his stupid American cereal, and all would be well. Purpled was comforting in his own way, sometimes.

But going back to the first question this guy asked...

“I lost all my money too,” he said, looking up at the hero utilising his secret weapon. Purpled had told him once that his thinking face looked like an especially adorable goldfish, and that it was somehow more effective on bleeding heart saviours than even the puppy eyes. The fact that he probably had a concussion and he doubted he could even move his face without it hurting probably helped with the helplessness he was projecting.

The blue and red (and were they mushrooms? sick) superhero sighed loudly. “I mean it is clearly all on the floor,” he said, probably rolling his eyes behind his massive dickhead sunglasses. Tommy guessed he had those on just specifically to be more of a twat.

“Well,” Tommy said, offended, now utilising his second secret weapon: his Karen voice. “What’s your name, son?” He asked, eyebrows raised and bitch face on. That actually hurt, so he only kept it up for a moment, but it was potent. The hero’s jaw dropped.

“Four... 404”, he said, incredulously, as if he expected Tommy to keep track of the goings on of the hero agency. That place churned out heroes like butter, he wasn’t going to bother with all their stupid names, who did this guy think he was?

“Mm.” Tommy said. The hero in front of him gestured down at himself, still staring at Tommy like he was personally offended he wasn’t recognised.

“404... Literally you know me?” 404 got bonked on the head by the black and white one for that. Tommy winced in sympathy.

“Dude! They can’t know we bribed the kid! Shut the fuck up!” He hissed.

“You shut up!” 404 hissed back.

Tommy didn’t even know what they were talking about. His head hurt. The Karen voice was the last straw, and now he felt like he was about to throw up.

“Both of you shut the fuck up,” he muttered.

The green one looked concernedly up to his forehead, grabbing some stuff from the paramedics. Tommy swayed a little bit.

“Tommy- come here,” he said. Tommy was ushered to a stool next to the ambulance, Green holding on to his elbows and setting him down gently. It was like now that he’d acknowledged the head trauma, it had decided to be a lot more traumatic.

“Hey, Tommy, stay with us,” the hero said. “So, uh, if you didn’t know, I’m Stronghold, this is 404, and this is Blaze. We’re here to help you, anytime, you know?”

Tommy hummed, only vaguely paying attention. If he was going to throw up he hoped it wouldn’t be on this hero. He seemed nice.

“You good kid? Tommy?” Tommy’s head lolled onto his shoulder. It really wasn’t fair that he got a concussion on only three hours of sleep.

“Tommy!” The green hero shouted. Had he been using his name this whole time? How did he know that? Weird.

“Keep talking to him, D- Stronghold, he really shouldn’t be asleep right now,” the black and white one was saying.

“Right, yeah, so, uh...” he paused. “What about?”

“It doesn’t fucking matter Dream!”

It was then 404’s turn to hit Blaze in the head. Ouch.

“Superhero names!” He hissed, rolling his eyes and stepping forward.

“Um... do you know our powers, Tommy?” 404 asked. Tommy stared up at him for a bit, then shook his head. That was a bad idea. Stronghold held his head up so that he didn’t fall backwards off the stool. Oops.

“Ok, so, I’m good at finding things, Blaze can set things on fire, and Stronghold is just, like, strong and shit I don’t know. Ours are cooler because they’re not basic as shit.”- “Hey!”- “It’s why my name is 404. Like the error message?” Tommy shook his head again. He didn’t use computers; how would he know?

“What do you mean, no? You don’t know what 404 is?” The hero scoffed. He got another slap from Blaze.

“Bro why are you so fucking uppity, the kid is fucking concussed!”

“He doesn’t know basic internet shit! Why does this kid know our identities?”

“Surely you should be happy he’s not some fucking internet genius, dumbass, at least you know he’s not gonna hack us!”

“You don’t need to be a fucking hacker to know what error 404 is!”

Tommy groaned again. The arguing was hurting his head, and it didn’t make any sense anyway. Their words were floating around in his head, but it was too fuzzy to put the words together into sentences that he could understand.

And this time he thought he might actually be sick.

“Would you both stop arguing!” Stronghold snapped. The other two shut up, looking at least a little bit apologetic.

Tommy huffed a little laugh. These heroes were like, way more unprofessional than heroes were meant to be. He thought it was like, agency policy that they don’t swear, but these idiots had sworn like twenty times already.

Laughing was also a bad idea, though, seeing as the nausea got infinitely worse.

“Well,” he croaked out. He still needed to get his money back together, after all, and he had three perfectly good servants here to help him out. If they were going to be useless in stopping the bank robbery, Tommy figured they could at least help him pick up every one of his thousands of pennies. That seemed fair.

“Four oh four,” Tommy said. “If you’re so good at finding things, you can start with collecting all my money back up for me.”

Giving a smug little Karen smile was the last thing Tommy did before he threw up all over the hero’s suit. Ew.

He maybe found it a little bit less disgusting than 404, who was currently screeching and flicking his feet out, spattering little bits of vomit all over Blaze, who was also now screaming.

Stronghold patted his back.

Tommy didn’t want to deal with this anymore. He promptly passed out again.

Four hours later, once Tommy had woken up, got proper medical attention from the paramedics, and bullied the heroes into collecting all of his money, he was ready to go home. The money thing was more of a kerfuffle than he was anticipating, as the heroes had to go down the street to buy him a brand new (brand new!) duffel bag to put all the coins into, and then they still had to wait for the bank to exchange them into notes, which meant they had to wait for the bank employees to calm down and set their booths back up. The heroes stuck with Tommy for as long as it took to collect his money and get cleared by the paramedics, then waved him goodbye.

But once all of that was done, he was finally going home.

“How was the bank?” Purpled asked as he got in. Tommy looked up from where he had face planted into his bunk bed (the bottom one, because Purpled was an arsehole).

“Shit.”

Purpled took note of the cut on his forehead, and the developing yellow bruise around it. “You get mugged or something?”

“I got held up.” Held up, held hostage, what’s the difference, really?

Purpled nodded his head. 

“Well, I got a pay rise,” He bragged, like a wanker.

Chapter Text

When Purpled went to work on Friday, he was greeted at the door by one of Quackity’s newer friends, Foolish. The guy was built like a truck, and had all the intelligence of one too. Purpled assumed that if you pointed him at a target, he could steamroll over it in a matter of seconds, but leave him with no instructions and he would stall. No thoughts, head empty, that guy.

He obviously was some sort of hybrid, probably powered too, as his mouth was full of sharp, triangular teeth, and his skin had a vague sheen about it. But in the essence of people not asking Purpled for his full life story, Purpled had a policy to not ask other people about theirs. Also he didn’t really give a shit.

Today obviously no one had given Foolish anything to do, because he was just stood in the middle of the store like a lost lemming. Like he was an NPC that required player interaction before he could move or speak or think for himself.

“Hey,” Purpled greeted, nodding to him briefly before beelining to his desk. Foolish perked up with someone to talk to. Just like an NPC. Engineered to have no ability to see how unreceptive to social interaction Purpled was this morning.

Pogtopia was as beautiful as it was yesterday, which was to say: it looked Dog. Shit. The sky was just starting to unleash what would no doubt be a torrential rainstorm, and the commercial park’s mustard-salmon buildings were just the right shade of puke to complement the dark grey skies in a way that made Purpled want to escape this world forever.

Luckily for him, today Foolish had brought with him not only glimmering golden muscles wrapped in a muscle tee and Ancient Egyptian kilt-loincloth combo, but good news. (Foolish’s clothing was always interesting- usually some chaotic mash up of pharaoh and gym bro, but he pulled it off. Granted, Purpled thought, with a jawline like that he could distract anyone away from whatever catastrophe he might cobble together in the closet.)

“Did ya hear about the coffee machine?”

Purpled’s head shot up. He had been about to start a new game of candy crush, midway to putting his headphones in to shut off from any irrelevant conversation, but coffee? That caught his attention.  

“We’re getting a coffee machine?”

“Yeah! Yeah, Quackity thought, you know, to help out his favorite employees on the busier days-”

“Busier days?” Purpled raised an eyebrow. They rarely ever had cash in the register.

“Well, you know, the days you sell a mattress-”

“Favorite employees?” Purpled raised his other eyebrow as well. Foolish knew full well that Purpled was the only employee here.

Foolish blushed a little bit, which was amusing to see on a guy that built. His teeth poked down a bit into his lower lip as he smiled bashfully, bringing a hand up to scratch at the back of his neck. His golden-tinged bicep flexed. Purpled sighed internally. Foolish might be his favorite of Quackity’s friends. If only for the eye candy.

“Yeah, ok kiddo,” - Purpled wasn’t a ‘kiddo’. Foolish was losing his place as favorite as he spoke- “Q’s getting you a coffee machine. Thinks you need the boost of energy, or something.”

Purpled looked at Foolish, unimpressed.

“I don’t need a ‘boost of energy’” Purpled said, deadpan. He made sure to really suck the emotion out of his voice for the full effect.

Q could suck a dick. Purpled wasn’t low energy, he was just calm. And maybe a little apathetic, whatever, but Quackity was just too fucking anxious all the time that he probably saw that as a bad thing. It wasn’t a bad thing, it just meant that Purpled could ignore things that weren’t interesting enough for him to pay attention to. It was normal. And healthy.

“Well, w-, I mean- come on!” Foolish stammered. “He’s just looking out for ya, kid, you do come in here looking real tired all the time. Think he thinks you don’t got a great place to sleep, so, boom! Coffee!” The jazz hands really sold it, in Purpled’s opinion. He kept up his disdained stare.

Screw Quackity and Foolish. Purpled’s apartment was fine. The bunk bed situation wasn’t even that bad. Rent prices were just stupid in Essempi, and finding a better apartment was the last on Purpled’s priority list. His money was needed elsewhere.

He put his headphones in. If Foolish was going to be eye candy, he could be silent eye candy.

He got about an hour of playing candy crush, decidedly not sulking, and occasionally staring at the thickness of Foolish’s triceps when he needed a pick me up for a challenging level, before the quiet was shattered by a loud crash at the door.

Purpled reluctantly dragged his eyes away from absolutely pounding candy into the ground to see a giant crack in the glass door, with Slime and Fundy behind a giant coffee machine. It was one of those big standing ones that had cups down the side and pictures of all the options, and it had obviously proven too much to handle for both of their noodle arms. Or, goop arms, in Slime’s case.

Fundy was another of Quackity’s friends that he’d met only a few times. He was a fox hybrid with a kind of neurotic personality. It was no wonder he got on with Quackity, Purpled thought. Apparently he had some kind of gambling addiction, which was why he wasn’t around as often as the other nuisances. Spent all his time in a casino or something.

Foolish was still sat on the mattress he’d been on for the past hour. He gormlessly stared at the scene in front of him for a bit longer before Fundy hollered at him to come and help. He jumped up and opened the door in a flash. Which wasn’t particularly helpful because the coffee machine just fell forwards towards the floor.

Except that wasn’t a problem either because- yep. He’d just picked it up. The whole coffee machine that Slime and Fundy had presumably toiled and struggled to drag over from their parked van to the front door, just, up. In the air. Comfortably. Not that it’s any of Purpled’s business- but that man is definitely powered.

Fundy’s mouth was dropped wide open in indignation. Slime just smiled, as blithely unbothered as usual.

Foolish plopped the machine down with an ominous metal thud next to the door to the back office. Purpled snorted to himself as the other two descended upon it and immediately started to set it up. It appeared to take a lot of arguing, phoning Sam for instructions, Sam not answering his phone, going back to the van for the rest of the stuff that went in the coffee machine (like, coffee), finding a manual online, and going to the shops nearby to buy milk, which they’d forgotten to bring originally.

Well, at least Purpled would get coffee from now on at work. That was a win. Although, he thought, would this be another part of his job that he’d have to actually do? Presumably someone would have to clean it. Hmm.

Well, with his new pay rise he could manage changing a filter every so often. Maybe.

At around two in the afternoon- Purpled wasn’t really paying attention to the time he was trying to focus on beating his high score for Doodle Jump- Quackity joined the chaos. Fundy and Slime had by this point somehow managed to get the coffee machine up and running, and Purpled was sipping on his (kinda mid, but he wasn’t about to tell Slime) latte while he eavesdropped on the others’ conversation and played more mobile games. He wasn’t particularly interested in joining in himself, but he did like to judge them from his desk in the corner. They had some wild talking points.

Anyway, Quackity looked a little rougher than usual. The man was never particularly put together, per se, but that was usually in reference to his mental state. But no matter how stressed the guy was he at least usually had his tie on right, and his shirt neatly ironed. Today, however, his tie was loosely done and askew, and he was hiking his suspenders back up on to his shoulders. His shirt was crumpled, and half untucked from his trousers. And most disturbingly, his beanie was slipping off his head, uncovering his left ear feathers.

Now, Purpled knew that Quackity was a duck hybrid. Everyone knew Quackity was a duck hybrid. But Quackity himself seemed to believe that with a beanie and an overcoat, he could kid people into forgetting this fact about himself. It had always been a point Purpled had shaken his head at- if you were going to hide your hybrid traits, at least do it properly.

But what would have ruffled Quackity’s feathers enough to... ruffle his feathers? The guy was so anal about keeping his beanie on that it had to be for some traumatic personal reason that Purpled couldn’t be assed to poke his nose into. To have it slip off his head in his panic showed that at least this time, whatever he was panicking about was something big.

Maybe Purpled should be more concerned than he was, but honestly, he had honed his ability to not give a shit to perfection over the years, alongside his ability to keep his head down and mind his own business. Plausible deniability for the win.

“Boys! Boys we need to get to work we are in so much fucking trouble oh my Jesus fuck-” Quackity rambled, his voice high pitched and squawking. As soon as he had arrived, the rest of his crew had sprung to attention. Fundy was nervously flicking his tail from side to side, and pacing around as he listened to Quackity break down in front of them. Slime’s naturally affixed smile had slid down into a frown. He was hovering over by Quackity’s shoulder as if to provide assistance, but without quite understanding the situation. To be fair, it was pretty difficult to get an understanding while Quackity was just spewing random words of panic. Foolish, like the dumb fuck he was, was just stood awkwardly to the side, doing nothing but looking incredibly uncomfortable.

“I mean, why are you guys even here, why aren’t you at the fucking Casino like you’re meant to be? The fucking audacity of you guys- I can't believe- You fucking, fucking... I can’t fucking do this right now- chasing you over town-” Foolish opened his mouth as if to talk but was immediately shut down.

“I needed you guys right then- I just had to fucking do that all by myself, you don’t even understand- it’s like-”

“Boss-”

“Can I even, like, trust you guys right now?” Quackity's face was crumpled in distress, his ear feathers partially escaping his beanie and trembling. He looked both smaller and bigger than normal; his frame was puffed up in stress and anger, but overall, he just seemed... small.

“Boss-” Fundy was frantically side eyeing Purpled, who was still sat in his desk, now awkwardly swivelling in his chair. Ok, so this was something he definitely didn’t want to be involved with. But like, as the only employee of this poor mattress store; he wasn’t going to leave. This was his mattress store to manage, these fucks could get their own place to have their important conversations.

“What? Fundy, what!” Quackity snapped. Fundy meeped and tucked his head down to his chin. Slime had to poke Quackity on his shoulder and then point in the direction of Purpled’s desk. Quackity snapped his head back around and stared. For like, a while. Purpled shifted in his swivel chair, which creaked. Mm. This was chill. Totally chill, not at all awkward.

Eventually, Quackity took a heaving breath, and pushed his beanie back on his head properly. His mouth set into a hard line.

“Hey, Purpled,” he said, obviously trying to keep it together. It came out more as ‘one bad remark from falling apart’. He even had a little voice crack. “How’s it going, man? Any sales today?”

Purpled coughed. “Uh, no, dude.”

Foolish chirped up with “We got a new coffee machine though!”

Quackity sighed shakily. “Oh. Yeah. The fucking coffee machine.” His voice was still kind of shaky. He looked at the ceiling. “The fucking coffee machine.”

He shook himself, snapped his attention back to Slime, and then herded his little group to the office. Purpled did a full swivel in his chair, and waved back at Foolish as the office door shut. He could still kind of hear talking in the back room, but it quietened down fairly quickly. He’s fairly sure the last thing he heard was Foolish asking ‘was that why Sam wasn’t picking up?’

Well, it was time to switch it up anyway. He could try his hand at Clash of Clans this time.

By the time he got home, Tommy was still asleep. He probably wouldn’t wake up for a while yet. Nobody had ever left the office in Los Colchones, so Purpled had sent off a text to Quackity asking if he was still good to close. He got no answer until well past closing- a hasty ‘ye sure’, which was good, because if they had been inside still, they would have been locked in. It would probably be fair to say that Purpled wasn’t a patient person.

Part of him wanted to wonder about how they had left the building if they weren’t still in the office. The more sensible part of him said he didn’t need to know about secret exits through fake filing cabinets and left it at that.

Let it be known that if there was something Purpled had other than copious amounts of money, it was common sense.

Tommy walked a little bit slower to work than usual. Even with strongarming the superhero newbies to help with his money problem at the bank, he was short on his month’s budget. He knew Purpled had just got a pay rise, which, good for him! Tommy was genuinely happy for the guy. Even though his obsession with money was kind of concerning, to be honest. In fact, Tommy was fairly sure he hid most of it away in a little stash under the floorboards in their room. And Purpled did pay like, the majority of the rent, and the bills, and the food, but Tommy had his principles! He was going to be a big man, and provide for his household.

Except providing was a bit difficult when the money you make was in pennies from washing machines and you lose half of them in a bank robbery. Also, he still had a lingering headache from getting smacked upside the head. Either way, today Tommy was feeling a little bit dejected.

He heaved a big sigh as he got to the bus stop and realised, after fifteen minutes of waiting, he’d missed the seven-thirty bus. Guess he’d be opening the shop up a bit later than usual. In typical Pogtopia fashion, the buses were notoriously unreliable. It was hit or miss as to whether or not the scheduled thirty minute timetable would be followed or not.

In fairness to the buses, Tommy begrudgingly supposed, it was a bit difficult to do your job properly in a town with so many potholes and unfinished roadworks. It was like they put the railings up in the road just to take them back down after fixing fuck all.

And then, as if conspiring to make his day even worse, the wind started to pick up and bring with it an icy chill. Tommy shivered. It was annoyingly too late to walk back home and get a coat to get back to the bus stop in time for the next bus, even if it was late. So he stood there, wrapping his cardigan tightly around himself and shifting from heels to tiptoes. The laundromat had one space heater, but Tommy was uncertain about using it for too long. The thing often started to smell of burning hair and sometimes turned off randomly when it got too hot. Which wasn’t ideal for, you know, a heater.

As the next bus finally rolled around the corner, Tommy prepared himself for a freezing shift that he just simply was too tired and too uncomfortable to deal with. Prime give him strength.

After a drive filled with potholes, Tommy was forty-five minutes late. His hands were itching to open up shop. He couldn’t waste any time to make up his money! This was prime business he was losing.

He went through the motions of opening up- without the strength of hamper man Dream to help with the grate, this time. Tommy’s fingers were stiff and the metal dug into his palms as he struggled to get it all the way open. Setting up was a chore, not a joy, today.

Deciding to bite the bullet, Tommy took the space heater out from behind the cobwebs in the cleaning cabinet. It started up with a stutter, and he breathed in the musty warmth it produced gratefully. His fingers twitched with sensation returning. Chilblains weren’t fun, but at least he was warming up.

Crouched in front of the heater, shivering despite feeling warm, was how his first customer of the day found him. The guy slunk into the shop, standing awkwardly in the entrance for a few moments.

Tommy looked up, glaring.

“Would you close the door, man?” He shouted irritably.

The guy jolted. He shuffled forward and closed the door behind him.

He was, for lack of a better word, gigantic. Actually, Tommy did have a better word: he was hulking. The man loomed over his crouched frame, with shoulders as broad as the doorway, body packed with muscle. One hand was settled on his stomach like Napoleon. He was also, kind of obviously, a piglin hybrid.

His jaw jutted forward to compensate for the size of his tusks, one of which was topped in a gold crown filling. His pinkish leathery skin was scarred almost everywhere that was visible- his hands, his neck, but most prominently, over his snout. The guy was almost full piglin, to be honest. It took a honed eye to notice the only thing that set him apart from being a full piglin: the lack of floppy ears. Other than the, you know, ability to be in the overworld without being half green and moldy.

Well, to be fair, Tommy didn’t really know much about it, but he assumed a cure for zombification hadn’t been found in the time since he’d decided to live life a bit more low-key. He didn’t really have a working internet connection anymore, so like, who knew?

The guy was kind of unresponsive to Tommy’s welcome spiel, just shucked his laundry bag onto the floor and started loading one of the washing machines, hunching over with a grunt and squeezing his abdomen a bit tighter. He side-eyed Tommy as he one-handedly shoved various garments into the drum. Tommy just smiled innocently back.

Sometimes he liked to see what his customers were washing! Just yesterday some furry had come in and wanted their fursuit cleaning, which was way cooler than Tommy was expecting. To his horror, it had given him a new-found respect for the furry community. It was a bit of a challenge, making sure he could wash something and also preserve the quality, especially with all the various parts, and foam detailing. This guy’s stuff seemed only slightly less interesting: he had some long red cloak, and various white shirts, which- oh absolutely not.

“Oh no you are not! No, no, no, no...” Tommy dashed forward, and grabbed hold of the cloak. It was unpleasantly damp. He dragged it out of the drum, ignoring the piglin-hybrid’s open-mouthed stare and incredulous snort, and shoved it into the washing machine next to it. “You cannot mix red and white, you absolute plonker, that is the number one way to end up with pink shirts and, and... the urge to adopt three orphans! Haven’t you even seen Despicable Me?”

The guy’s stare had transformed into a glare.

“No,” he grunted. “I hate orphans.” He had an obnoxious American accent.

Tommy spluttered. “You can’t just- hate orphans!”

“I can.”

“You- you- that’s so rude!” Tommy had reason to take this personally, as an orphan himself.

The wanker in front of him shrugged. Clearly, he was unbothered by his social ineptitude. Hating orphans? And not watching Despicable Me? Who decided this guy was fit to walk around normal society? It was obvious he needed to be admitted to a psychiatric ward.

Tommy wiped his now damp hands on his jeans. They now just felt kind of... tacky. He looked down. They were red.

What is it with his customers recently and getting blood all over their clothes? He huffed and stomped over to where he kept his vanish powder. The guy, who had moved to leer over his shoulder in a stance that seemed kind of menacing but was probably just a by-product of being a seven foot tall dickhead, was blocking his way to the machine.

“Oi,” Tommy said, craning his neck up at him, “I need to put this,” he shook the tub up in his face- “In the washing machine. Because some people don’t know how to get rid of bloodstains!”

The guy waited for a few seconds more, as Tommy glared unwaveringly up at him. His arm started to ache from holding the tub above his head before he eventually took a slow step backwards. Tommy shoved his way past and scooped out the granules.

“You know, it’s lucky you came here when the fabric was still wet; you’re much more likely to get the stains out now rather than later. It’s once it’s dry that you have to bring out the big guns, usually.”

“There’s a reason it’s a red cloak, kid.” The guy grunted, a slight smirk rising his scar higher on one side of his snout. Tommy scoffed.

“As if that’s a good excuse for bad hygiene,” he retorted, fiddling with the settings on the machine. No higher than thirty degrees for this wash, he decided. It was really heavy as well, with it being probably three metres of fabric, so the guy would be here a while as it dried.

Tommy clapped his hands together once he’d set it all up. They peeled away from each other slowly, the residue from the blood still tacky on his palms. Ew.

He rubbed them faster on his jeans until the blood pilled up and flaked off. That was also kind of disgusting, but Tommy thrived in chaos. And it served to weird the bloke who’d come in out too, so he called it a win. It wasn’t like he couldn’t just wash these jeans, anyway.

As the guy stared at him in mild disgust, Tommy felt like he’d set the vibe perfectly. His misery at the beginning of the evening had evolved into a sense of vindictiveness, and he was happy to take it out on this customer. It was too cold to sit up in his nook on top of the machines today, so he huddled down next to the heater, pulling his jumper over his knees. The guy made no move to sit down on the bench next to him, and shifted awkwardly from on foot to the other.

He looked like one of those customers, the ones that Tommy liked the least because they were certifiably boring, who would leave their stuff at the laundromat and then come back for it later. They were the worst, in Tommy’s opinion, because he wasn’t like Purpled, who enjoyed absolutely no human interaction on his shifts. He needed conversation, mutual enjoyment of indie rock music, and on winter nights like these there was nothing worse than huddling on top of the washing machines and resigning himself to a cold night alone.

To Tommy’s surprise though, the guy just continued to stand there. Occasionally he grunted under his breath to himself, and he never shifted closer to the bench to sit down. He just stood there, guarding his two washing machines, as if at any moment someone would come to steal his weirdo cloak and poofy shirts from behind the locked washing machine doors.

This new customer in Tommy’s laundromat had got him thinking. It’s not every day you see a piglin hybrid, one who owns a red cloak, and one whose red cloak is practically drenched in blood. In fact, one might even call this, an uncommon occurrence. His usual clientele was the people of Pogtopia who didn’t own washing machines, or whose flat blocks’ washing machine was broken. There seemed to be an epidemic of this, where landlords refused to get anything fixed in a decent amount of time.

But, to reiterate, Tommy’s customers were mostly people down on their luck, living in the worst area of Essempi, struggling day to day to find a will to live among all the chores and work and toil that was necessary to even survive out here. This piglin hybrid, for all he ominously resembled one of the most notorious supervillains in the city- Blood God- was unique amongst Tommy’s other customers for one specific reason: he was very obviously rich.

The fact that he resembled a supervillain was a non-issue, as far as Tommy was concerned. His mum didn’t raise him to be racist. (His mum didn’t raise him at all, so really, Tommy’s prejudices- or lack, thereof- was really a testament to his own moral strength of character, so suck on that). But this guy, with his plush red cape and 100% cotton shirts, was so obviously rich it was outstanding.

This guy should never be hanging out in Pogtopia. There was no way he didn’t own like, ten washing machines at home. He probably had a whole laundry room in one of the fancy cabin houses in L’Manburg, that ridiculous gated community slash commune slash independent borough or whatever they were claiming to be now.

Tommy coughed, trying to get the guy’s attention. He made no move to acknowledge Tommy.

“So, uh,” Tommy said. It was awkward not knowing this guy’s name. “So, hey. Yeah, you, there’s no one else in here, idiot.”

The guy’s eyebrows were raised, shocked.

“What’s a big guy like you using a laundromat in Pogtopia for, huh?” Tommy asked. Part of his brain nagged at him not to push, in case the guy decided not to come back, but he ignored it. Fat chance of that happening anyway, this was probably a one-time thing.

The guy looked like he’d bluescreened. Well, bless him, they couldn’t all be blessed with the powers of social interaction. Guess they didn’t teach you that at rich people school.

“I... needed to wash these.” He answered.

Tommy scoffed. Fucking obviously.

“No but why Pogtopia. Not that I don’t appreciate your business, good customer sir, but surely you have a washing machine? You really look like you own your own washing machine.”

The guy didn’t gulp, Tommy wouldn’t say, but there was a definite awkward moment where he swallowed, trying to formulate a response.

“I... didn’t want my friends to see.” He said, wincing. Ah, so he’s someone who can’t lie in awkward situations.

“See the blood?” Tommy asked.

The guy’s eyebrows had lowered back down into their habitual glare. Maybe the blood was a touchy subject.

“Yes.”

A few more beats of awkward silence.

“So, what can I call you?” Tommy asked. It really was weird not knowing his name. He knew all his returning customers by name, of course.

“... Dave,” the guy choked out.

“Dave?”

“Dave.”

Tommy squinted dubiously up at him. He didn’t seem like a Dave.

‘Dave’ avoided eye contact.

Their awkward silence was broken up just a few minutes later when the door to the laundromat was open, blowing all the cold air back in. Rude! His space heater had just managed to get the room back to normal, human safe temperature! Tommy whirled around to greet the newcomers, who had stopped, staring dead straight at Dave, mouths agape and faces pale. 

“Close the fucking door, man! How many times!” Tommy shouted. “I’m freezing my fucking nuts off!”

The newcomers, were, of course, his new favourite customers, the Halloween trio. Dream fumbled with one arm behind him to grab the door and push it closed, never breaking his stare with the piglin-hybrid behind Tommy.

They were huddled close together, probably because of the cold, but were dressed haphazardly and definitely not befitting the weather. Sapnap seemed to be suffering the worst, what with wearing a pair of black cargo shorts and a white t-shirt that had ketchup stains halfway down. George was the only one wrapped up warm, but in a Prime-awful mis-match of colours that could only be described by him wearing something of Dream's, and not double checking beforehand if the colours went together. Dream himself was wearing- for some reason- a skin-tight cycling jersey and grey joggers.

All three of them were panting hard, and looked a bit scuffed up with bruises half-formed on their faces. Sapnap’s knees were grazed like he’d come back from the skate park. George was wearing some awful white goggle glasses that had one lens missing, which just added to the total ridiculousness of the entire scene. Dream, more worriedly, was walking with a bit of a limp.

Well, Tommy was officially concerned now.

“What the fuck is up with you lot?” He asked.

They didn’t respond. They just continued to stare at Dave like he’d personally offended them and shat on their mothers’ graves.

“Are you lot racist?” Tommy asked, still to no response from the trio. “Stop staring at him like that, man! Hybrids are people too!”

They didn’t seem to be breathing, probably out of their own shame. Tommy turned to Dave.

“I can kick them out, man, if they’re making you uncomfortable.”

Dave had been growling deep in his throat, Tommy belatedly noticed. It stuttered out when he addressed him.

The piglin hybrid stared at Tommy for a few more moments, then shook his head. He met the eyes of the trio head on, one by one. They definitely gulped.

“No, it’s fine. They can stay.”

His words should have been reassuring, and more generous than Tommy would have been, but they were delivered with the lowering of Dave’s head, making his golden tusk glint dangerously in the fluorescents, and a slow smirk, carving his face into a meaner, more intimidating shape.

The trio looked like they were about to shit themselves. Again, it was Dream who spoke.

“We, uh, we’ve got nothing against hybrids, Tommy.” He said, still warily eyeing Dave.

Well. Tommy sniffed. “Actions speak louder than words, big man. So stop acting like a bunch of dickheads and put a sock in it. What do you have to wash?”

With Dave still giving them a menacing grin, the trio stuttered into action. They pushed their hampers into a pile on the floor and formed a little semi-circle to keep the contents from view. Prime help Tommy if they actually had brought shit stained pants this time. Also Prime help Dave, who definitely had a better sense of smell than him.

“Hang on a minute, lads, what have you got? Remember to separate the lights from the darks if you don’t want them to stain,” Tommy said.

Sapnap turned around, the ends of his bandana fwipping him on the side of the face. Dream and George were hastily shoving everything into the same drum. “Nothing! Just, our...” He glanced at Dave again. “Just the same thing as last time!”

“Your Halloween costumes?” Tommy said, eyebrow raised incredulously. “Why the fuck do you need to wash them again?”

Dave snorted.

“We, uh, spilt stuff on them!” Sapnap said.

Tommy sighed, standing up from his bench, “What stuff?”

Sapnap’s nervous grin shook a bit. “Just, paint!”

“Paint?” Tommy screeched. “What kind of paint!”

Dream and George were elbowing Sapnap hard in the sides, and he was slapping them back.

Tommy was starting to think that they had not got paint on their costumes.

He shoved between them, and looked at the mess in the washing machine in front of him.

“Lads. Come on now. I can see the blood dripping down the front of the machine.” Tommy knew blood when he saw it.

The trio slumped in unison.

“Look, I get it can be kind of embarrassing,” -Dave snorted again- “When you ruin an outfit, but can we please be honest? I can get you some vanish and we can get the bloodstains out. Honestly paint is way worse than blood so I’m kind of pissed you even lied.” Tommy looked coolly at Sapnap, who was not faring well with being scolded. He scuffed his trainers on the floor.

Dave was chuckling now, a little wheezy giggle that echoed through the laundromat.

“Listen to the kid,” he said between laughs.

Tommy frowned at the trio. Each one of them had their jaw dropped, staring at Dave with incredulous expressions.

“In fact,” the piglin hybrid continued, mean smirk reappearing, “let’s call this a safe zone. You can chill out, we all got laundry to do.”

If possible, the trio’s jaws dropped further. George shook his head like it would bounce his braincells back into place.

“Some of us got more laundry than others, though,” Dave said, chuckling again, looking smug.

Sapnap and Dream scowled, but did nothing to retaliate.

Tommy wasn’t sure when the atmosphere in his laundromat got so tense, all of a sudden.

“Well, boys, now that we’re all best mates, I’m putting some music on!” He said, slapping his hands on his knees and grappling himself up to his CD player. “Any requests?”

He looked down to see the trio, still lost for words, and Dave, who was almost eye-level with Tommy despite him literally being squished against the ceiling. His expression had softened slightly, the mean set to his smirk melting away to something that could be described as amused.

“You got Pigstep, kid?”

Saturday morning had Purpled feeling a little apprehensive about going into work. After the clusterfuck that was the day before, he wasn’t sure that the new coffee machine was enough to disperse the tension that was sure to be festering in the store still. He pondered over his breakfast about the possibility of calling the day off. He just had a bad feeling about today.

But no, Purpled decided. He’d get his break tomorrow, and Saturday was peak mattress shopping day, anyway, that was like, basic mattress store knowledge.

The last time he’d sold a mattress had been four Saturdays ago, is what he meant.

He huffed. It wasn’t even a big deal, he considered again. He’d overheard some shit, sure, but Purpled was a pro at ignoring things he didn’t need to hear. He’d shrug it off. No biggie.

And then tomorrow, he could go to his spot, and clear his head of all this bullshit.

Unlike every other day this month, about an hour after Purpled opened Los Colchones, a customer entered. He scrambled to sit up straight from where he’d been playing Clash of Clans slumped down in his chair. Who said that just because ergonomic chairs were good for your back, you had to use them correctly?

About all twenty-six of his vertebrae in his spine cracked as he sat up. The customer, who had been shaking off his gigantic black umbrella, looked up to Purpled and winced. Yeah, he had clacky bones, sue him. The umbrella prompted Purpled to look out the window for the first time that day. Damn, it was raining pretty hard, huh.

More rustling dragged his attention back to the customer. He was shucking off his overcoat, a giant dark green woolen thing, which no doubt cost a shit ton. As he did so, huge black crow wings unfurled from where he’d kept them tucked close to his back. Sheesh. He probably didn’t want to get them wet in the rain, Purpled assumed. They were pretty sick.

“Do you need help, or are you just browsing?” Purpled asked. The guy just seemed surprised that he was being spoken to, which, fair. His wings puffed up a little bit as he stared. Purpled was the same type of customer when he was forced to be a customer. No offence, but he preferred shopping as a solitary chore.

“Oh, nah mate, I’m just waiting on someone,” The guy said. He had a northern British accent, Purpled placed. But not northern like Tommy’s, more like... Purpled didn’t know. Somewhere else. The guy was dressed all fancy, which Purpled found funny too. Who decided to go mattress shopping dressed in a black pinstripe suit and a wool overcoat? In Pogtopia, no less?

Regardless, Purpled could respect the drip.

This guy had tons of style. His hair was even done in some rich person fancy style, as if he was going to some red-carpet event, with dangly jewelry hanging below his ear feathers. Despite the huge wings giving him the illusion of height, the guy was actually pretty short. Short compared to Purpled anyway.

The guy moseyed about the store for a bit, eyeing some of the mattresses keenly. Purpled shifted when he saw him looking some of the older ones in the back of the shop. Maybe he needed to dust the place a bit more. It probably looked like they didn’t sell many mattresses if they were covered in a thin layer of dust, huh. He winced when the guy swiped at the faint green stain Slime had left on the show bed closest to his desk. Yeah, he’d forgotten to take that comforter home for Tommy to deal with. Oops.

“Hey, mate,” The guy said. He paused, eyeing Purpled with dark eyes. Jesus. Those were as intense as Q’s could be. Guess it came with being an avian, that way the pupils engorged almost the entire sclera. This guy’s looked ultra-bright though, with a thin band of electric blue encircling the darkness.

“Uh, yeah, what’s up?” Purpled asked. His mind swung back to yesterday, and mishaps re: coffee machines. Quickly, he cycled his brain back to the present. Plausible deniability, Purpled, focus.

“How is it working here?” The guy asked, peering intently into Purpled’s soul.

“Uh... I like it.” Purpled said. The guy was still staring. “Good pay. Uh, it’s kind of slow, but it’s fun.” The guy said nothing still. “Got a coffee machine yesterday,” Purpled offered.

The guy huffed a laugh. “Aha, I did hear about that,” he chuckled.

Purpled frowned.

“Do you know Q?” He asked. How would this guy know about the coffee machine?

“We know each other,” he smiled placidly. “Call me Phil, by the way, mate.”

Phil, huh. Kind of a boring name. ‘Phil’ was staring at Purpled again, as if waiting for something. Oh. Purpled cleared away the junk that had accumulated on his desk, until he uncovered the sign that read: Purpled: STORE MANAGER.

Phil ahhed in understanding. Then it was awkwardly silent again.

God, Purpled was right. He knew today was going to be tense for no reason, and now it was. It was like recently, his perfectly unextraordinary job was being turned into something more interesting than it was. He just sold mattresses for god’s sake. And not even that many!

“So, uh, are you waiting for Q?” Purpled asked. Unless Phil had arranged to meet with Quackity, there wasn’t a big change Quackity would be visiting Los Colchones today. He rarely did on weekends, and his appearances recently were more anomalies than the norm.

Phil hummed, which wasn’t really an answer.

“It’s just that, I don’t know if you’re gonna have much luck with seeing him today, man. He just owns the place, he doesn’t run it, you know?” Purpled said.

Phil hummed again.

“Tell me, Purpled,” Oh god, his name sounded ominous coming out of this guy’s mouth. “Have you seen anything around here lately? Something... out of the norm?”

Purpled blanked.

“Other than the coffee machine?”

Phil chuckled again. “Other than the coffee machine, yes, mate. I was thinking something more like, oh I don’t know, something that doesn’t... belong here.”

A chill went down Purpled’s spine.

“Well, I don’t know man, are you looking for something specific?” He asked. Purpled was kind of annoyed at how this guy was dominating the whole conversation. Man had intimidation levels higher than Purpled had ever seen. It was kind of unfair. At least he wasn’t reacting outwardly to it, Purpled thought. Not a voice crack in sight.

“Mm. Suppose you saw something, and you thought, well this definitely doesn’t belong to your little mattress shop, this looks like it may even have been... stolen.” Purpled gulped.

Okay, so- fuck. Did Quackity steal from this guy? Bad move, Q, bad move. Phil’s smile looked distinctly less placid, distinctly more murderous. Sheesh.

“Uh nope. Nada.” Purpled said. “I’m not gonna lie to you, man, I mostly just sit here and play games on my phone. And once last month I sold a mattress. There’s really not much else that goes on here.” Purpled thought he did a pretty good job of selling that, but just to be sure, he pulled from the best trick in the book: he ruffled his hair as if bashful, and when he looked up, he landed Phil with a toothy grin.

Phil’s eyes blew wide again. Yep. Gottem.

Purpled wasn’t sure what it was about avians that made them particularly susceptible to this, but he had his suspicions. Something about down feathers and hatchlings, and the especially gangly way Purpled was aware he looked. Ruffling his hair made him seem like innocent- like an avian child. And his smile was reportedly ‘adorable’. The combination of the two was avian kryptonite.

To rub in his innocence, Purpled cocked his head to the side.

“Are you sure you didn’t want to buy a mattress?” He asked.

He was feeling a lot more comfortable now that the tables had turned. This Phil guy didn’t hold all the power anymore. Purpled was practically living Tommy’s motto of gaslight gatekeep girlbossing, at this point.

“Ah, well, alright then,” Phil said, smiling like a doofus. Honestly, it was too easy.

Purpled stretched as he stood up, his spine cracking again. He pulled his hands out of his hoodie pocket and waved Phil over to the bare mattresses, ignoring how his skin felt clammy, a mixture of both hot and cool. He just had to keep his cool, and explain this shit.

Los Colchones had three varieties of mattresses, based on firmness. Soft, medium, and firm: soft being the comfiest, but the worst for your back in the long run. For avians, he explained, because of the wings, most prefer the soft kind, but really it was all a matter of personal preference.

Purpled eyed the guy again. He looked kind of old.

“Of course, if you’ve got a bad back it’s proven that firmer mattresses are better for that,” he said. Phil choked on a laugh.

(Purpled himself had copped two mattresses for him and Tommy’s bunk beds, better than the ratty micro glass foam mattresses that came with their shitty flat. Medium for himself, and firm for Tommy, who was a responsible masochist and found soft mattresses unsettling.)

And then, because nothing at Los Colchones can apparently stay calm for more than an hour at a time, Purpled sighed in exasperation, Quackity suddenly burst out of the back-office door.

What, had the guy actually been in there the whole time? Purpled nipped that thought in the bud. Do not think about secret cabinet entrances, Purpled. Do not.

“PURPLED!” Quackity squawked, frantically scanning the room until he registered Purpled in his view. He looked a bit more put together than yesterday, but only barely. His beanie was on, at least.

Quackity stopped short as he took notice of the other person in the store.

“Hey, Q, I’m uh... with a customer right now.” Purpled said, trying to uphold his unbothered appearance. Quackity’s gaze slipped back to him, eyes blown as wide as Phil’s had been before. His wings poofed up even more behind him. Was Purpled’s hair still ruffled up? It usually fell back into place pretty quickly.

Phil smiled at Quackity’s less than sophisticated appearance. If you asked Purpled, it made him look like kind of a dick. But nobody was asking Purpled.

“Ah, Quackity,” Phil said. “Your employee was graciously giving me a tour of your wares here! A delightful shop.”

Purpled was getting real sick of all these smiles.

Quackity looked dumbfounded, but was slowly kicking his brain back into gear. His eyes were flickering between Purpled and Phil, assessing Purpled for... damage? Signs of being recruited away from the mattress store to work for creepy rich avians? In contrast, Phil looked perfectly at ease, still.

“Yeah, uh Los Colchones, great to have your, uh, your business, Philza, for sure.”

“Huh.” Purpled muttered. Philza- that was a lot more interesting than just Phil.

He clued in to both the men staring at him again and winced internally. C’mon Purpled, don’t draw attention to yourself, dumbass.

“Uh, yeah, Phil- Philza?- did you decide which mattress you wanted?”

“Just call me Phil, mate,” Philza said, smiling warmly at him. Quackity’s wings ruffled- or rattled? It was an aggressively loud ruffle- glaring at Philza. Oh god, were they in an instinct-off? Did he overdo it on the baby-bird shit? This was so annoying already. Purpled’s throat itched with the urge to cough. He wiped his palms on the inside of his hoodie pocket.

Purpled looked at Phil, and motioned to the mattresses. Not moving from facing him, Phil waved a hand vaguely behind him. Was that the medium one? It could have been any of them, to be honest. Purpled frowned. He squinted at the mattresses on show. He’d go with the medium one probably. It looked the least dusty.

He moved back over to his desk to ring the guy up. Hopefully Philza had a big enough car that he could drive off with the mattress ready, but if not Purpled could probably fix up a way for the guy to pay a hefty amount for delivery using Fundy’s van. That would serve him right for making Purpled feel so fucking uncomfortable in his own store.

By the time he’d finished, Quackity and Philza were staring at each other, wings mantled over their shoulders. It almost looked comical; the way Quackity’s duck wings were so much smaller than Philza’s. He simply didn’t give off the same vibes of intimidation that Phil was capable of.

Purpled cleared his throat. “So, that’ll cost three hundred and sixty-nine dollars. How are you planning on taking the mattress home?”

Perks of being the manager: he got to price the mattresses. They all ended in the same number.

Phil and Quackity broke up their staring competition. Phil shuffled on his feet, looking awkward for the first time since entering the store.

“I have a large car, don’t worry mate.” He said, fishing his phone out of his pocket and furiously typing. So he obviously hadn’t used that car to get here, huh. Purpled peered out of the front windows and saw a sleek black three-door Porsche. Nice.

Although, now Purpled was even more annoyed he hadn’t managed to squeeze a couple more bucks out of this guy’s pockets.

Well, now they’d just have to wait for Phil’s bigger car to arrive. Purpled made himself comfy in his chair again, and got out his phone. Quackity could deal with this guy he’d obviously pissed off, probably stolen from, and Purpled would go back to not paying attention. Plausible deniability, he nodded to himself, repeating it in his head like a mantra.

Quackity motioned Phil over to the coffee machine, but didn’t actually open the door to the back office, which Purpled thought was a little strange, but whatever. Maybe he was the insurance in this situation- no murder to happen in the eyes of the baby bird, or something.

They whispered to each other for a bit while Purpled attempted, and failed, multiple times, to beat one Candy Crush game. So what if he was a little shaken up by what was happening? Sue him. He didn’t normally have to talk to probable mob bosses and pretend everything was fine. So what if he wasn’t on his A game?

“... Just saying, Philza, my man, I’m really not lying. We didn’t steal it! I, I genuinely don’t think I even understand what you’re looking for, I mean- alien tech? That’s insane-”

Purpled stiffened.

“Quackity, you know I’m not very likely to believe you on this,” Phil replied sternly. “You know I haven’t forgotten what happened last year, mate. And neither has Techno.”

Quackity let out a sound that, if Purpled wanted to get fired, he would describe as a whimper.

“I promise, dude, I am not fucking with you. We haven’t come across shit like that at the casino, we don’t even know what it looks like! And like, I swear-” Quackity shot a desperate glance at Purpled. “Did you really have to come here?”

Philza shrugged, jangling his jewelry, emerald glinting in the fluorescent light.

“Maybe the method of getting you here was a bit... uncouth, I can admit,”

“Uncouth! Uncouth- you- you fucking threatened-” Quackity’s voice dropped just low enough that even with his hearing, Purpled couldn’t make out the words. “...Bring him into this!”

Purpled shivered. His hands were shaking a bit too much to focus on Candy Crush now.

“I apologize for that, now,” Philza said smoothly. “I can see how that would be distressing.” He smiled as he mantled his wings high over his shoulders.

Quackity eyed the wings, eyed Purpled, then slumped in his stance a bit. “Look- I’m sorry that you lost whatever alien, fucking, power source shit that was so important to you. Okay? But we-” At this he motioned aggressively over to Purpled, who was clutching at his phone like a lifeline. “We had nothing to do with it!”

The sound of a car rolling into the parking lot drew everyone’s attention away. Philza took a slow step back. It wasn’t an admission of defeat, just disengaging from whatever mental combat they’d been playing at. Philza was still winning this.

“Some help, mate?” Philza said, smiling at Purpled.

Purpled stared blankly at him.

“With the mattress?”

Purpled shook his head quickly, blinking back into reality. He jumped out of his chair, and helped Philza lift the mattress into the trunk of the gigantic jeep by the front door. It was shiny and black as well. A petite woman got out the driver’s seat, and with her help as well the mattress was easily secured in the back.

“Ah, thanks, Niki,” Philza said. She stared back, face soft but unchanging. Finally, Purpled thought vaguely, someone who didn’t feel the need to smile all the time. It really was creeping him out. He jumped as a hand clamped on to his shoulder. Philza moved to stand in front of him, hand pivoting on his shoulder but staying in place.

“And Purpled,” he paused. Purpled brought himself to look the guy in the eyes. Yup. Still intense as fuck. “If you ever feel the need to find a new employer... call me.”

Purpled was frozen.

Somewhere in the parking lot, a crow cawed.

“How?” His voice was normal. A little bit quieter than usual, and perhaps his hands were shoved firmly in his pocket, but his voice was so fucking calm and collected.

“Oh, just call. We’ll hear you.” Philza smiled, this time looking... creepily happy. He was looking over Purpled’s shoulder, prompting Purpled to turn around.

There was a crow bobbing its head on the sidewalk. And... another crow on the roof of Los Colchones. And three more on top of Hobby Lobby.

Purpled looked back at Philza.

Fuck. He was talking to the Crowfather.

This seemed obvious in hindsight.

Once he went back inside, Purpled didn’t wait to pack up his things. Quackity was swarming upon him, checking for damages, making little quacking noises in his distress, but Purpled wasn’t having it. He couldn’t handle this level of attention.

“I’m going home.” He said, voice tight. Quackity nodded immediately.

“Whatever you want, whatever you want. I’m sorry, Purpled. I’m so, so, sorry you were dragged into this.” Quackity’s face was scrunched up in his distress, eyes pleading.

Purpled glared. “Keep me out of it, next time.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry-”

“I’m leaving.”

Quackity nodded again. His eyes looked suspiciously watery. “Whatever you need-” He breathed in shakily. “Can we do anything for you- “

“Leave me alone.”

Quackity looked a little bit like he’d been punched in the gut. Purpled was not going to feel bad about it.

He wanted to get out of here.

He grabbed his phone, pulled his hood up, and threw Quackity the store keys. He didn’t even care that it meant he wouldn’t be able to open on Monday. Quackity could deal with that too.

With that, Purpled stormed out.

After walking for more than twenty minutes, he realized that he wasn’t actually walking home. His feet were taking him further towards the Essempi city center. Makes sense. He couldn’t wait until tomorrow to go to his spot. He had to know now.

He caught a bus, and fiddled anxiously with his phone the whole way. Taking the stop off in the Holy Land, Purpled ran up the hill to the park. By the time he reached the top he was panting, skin purple-pink from exertion. He jogged the rest of the way, past the stupid fucking fake Chinese garden. It wasn’t made by anyone Chinese, that was for sure. Probably had all the wrong feng shui. Bamboo leaves slapped into his face as he bulldozed his way past them.

And then he arrived. To his spot, where, supposedly, no one else had found. To the one place on this entire fucking planet that he actually felt at home.

To the distinct, soul-crushing realization that someone had taken his UFO’s fucking core power source.

Purpled sat in the half-crushed control room and screamed.

Chapter Text

The morning after Purpled came home with dried tear tracks, hours later than his work normally ran, Tommy went to a burger shop. Purpled was tough to read sometimes, with the stoic apathy thing he had going on, but not much slipped past Tommy. His flatmate wasn’t the happiest person, he knew. Purpled’s range of emotions had forever seemed to be condensed into a small box, probably tucked under the floorboards with his secret stash of cash. He kept his heart far, far away from his sleeves.

The only thing Tommy did know about his reclusive flatmate was that he had left some kind of family behind in wherever he lived before arriving in Essempi. A brother, perhaps, but Purpled was distant and more closed-off than usual whenever Tommy asked. After a while, he had decided to not push further.

Tommy knew this was not a healthy thing. They’d both had shitty childhoods, Tommy had deduced early on into their friendship. Tommy had dealt with raising himself from a young age, living it up on the streets of Essempi, until he’d finally got lucky with that man who tossed him the laundromat keys. Purpled, on the other hand, had appeared in Essempi one day, looking for a flat and a job, and not particularly open to the idea of a roommate. It had taken a lot of begging from Tommy, whose entire laundromat’s earnings was going in to placing a deposit down for a grotty flat in downtown Pogtopia, to convince Purpled to live with him. And then he’d got the job at Los Chorizo and had the money to get a better apartment somewhere nicer, but had never left.

He showed he cared in subtle ways, which Tommy had to look for, but he always knew they were there.

In recent months, Tommy had been more and more aware of how Purpled’s calm exterior was not synonymous with happiness, or even contentedness. It was a lack of emotions entirely: apathy, plain and simple. It was clear that they had developed very different coping mechanisms; Tommy in attempting to return kindness to the world that had given him none, and Purpled in closing off from it.

But yesterday was the first time Tommy had seen Purpled like that. Like something had really distressed him. His face was blotchy, pink and purple, and he didn’t react to anything, walking through the flat and straight to his bed in an almost catatonic state. He hadn’t emerged from his blanket cocoon all evening.

Tommy was waking up slowly for his nightshift, aware that Purpled was home too late, visibly upset, and that this was incredibly worrying. And that he had no clue how to help.

So, in the essence of being a good friend and flatmate, Tommy was making a detour after work. There was a new burger shop across the street from Tommy Trusty’s, and it looked kind of tacky, and definitely not as good as Tubburger, but, conveniently for Tommy, they opened at six am. And on Sundays, too! Which was perfect for a post-shift pick-me-up, come present, come tentative attempt to get Purpled to open up to him.

Last night’s shift at the laundromat had been uneventful, with next to no one interesting entering the shop except from someone in a patterned balaclava at three am or so. All they’d wanted washing was several others of the exact same balaclava. But the night before, he’d been tipped another forty quid by his favourite customers, who had come back to fix up their Halloween costumes again. They were starting to come to Tommy any time they got rips or tears, as he’d proven his ability in patching them back up. There must be more fancy dress parties going on in Pogtopia than Tommy knew about.

Anyway, burger time. Tommy was determined to bring back home the nicest burger possible to Purpled, for his breakfast. Getting a good start to the day was important to Tommy, and, he presumed, it could maybe help Purpled too. And he’d chosen burgers because, well, primarily the convenience, but secondly, because Purpled was American (he thought) and Americans like burgers. It was just a fact of life. 

The burger shop, titled ‘Burger Van’, which made no sense because it was clearly wedged in with the rest of the terraced houses in the street, and no van was in sight, was slightly dingy and poorly lit inside. The door creaked as Tommy opened it. It looked like someone had tried to hook up a bell to ring when people walked in, but instead of jingling, it just sort of hung there and gave a pathetic little wobble and clank.

Even so, the guy behind the counter jumped out of their skin.

“Hello?” they shrieked, surprisingly deep voice cracking halfway through. They were lanky as shit, beanstalking up nearly to the posters displaying the menu above. Tommy didn’t know why they were so surprised to be getting customers, but whatever.

They were definitely a hybrid of sorts, perhaps even of the completely non-human kind. They had all the typical attributes of an enderman: tall, tail swishing nervously behind them, velvety fur. But their right side was entirely bleached of colour, white where the rest of him was black, scales where the rest of them was soft. Their eyes, too, were red and green instead of purple. All in all, they looked sick, but Tommy was still feeling kind of miffed about the fact they were way taller than him. He didn’t like looking up at people. Made him uncomfortable.

Tommy took note of the fact that the dude was obviously looking far more uncomfortable than he was, though. They were fiddling with the straps of their greasy apron, black and white to match their whole vibe. He cleared his throat. One shift at the laundromat and he’d lost all of his charisma, was it? That was unacceptable.

“Ay up!” Tommy said, maybe a little bit louder than he’d been intending.

The guy meeped.

“Uh...” he stalled. Fuck. He was normally so much better at social interaction. “You’re tall, big man.”

The guy stared, then nodded.

Yep. Good going, Tommy. This was definitely interacting socially.

“So, what’s the best burger here?” Best to get straight to the point.

The guy gulped, then turned around and lent back to stare up at the menu. Odd. Didn’t they know what they made here?

Well, to be fair, The Burger Van was pretty new on the street, so Tommy supposed he couldn’t blame them if they didn’t have the menu memorised yet. Even if it did show that they were definitely inferior to Tubburger.

“We have the... Big... Burger?” They said, eventually, voice strained from the odd angle they’d put their neck at peering up at the options.

Tommy made a face.

“Big... Burger?” he repeated, sceptical. What kind of basic bitch rip-off of a Big Mac was that?

“My... my boss named them,” they mumbled, looking down, fidgeting with their tail.

“What about the Big Bomb?” Tommy asked, eyeing the board. That one looked kind of interesting, had a load of red and yellow cartoon explosions around the name. Another looked like it had a load of hot sauce dripping out of the pictured burger. Also pictured was a stick figure holding a knife to another, slightly more anguished stick figure, screaming. Interesting visuals.

“I... don’t recommend it,” the burger guy said.

Tommy shrugged. Presumably this kid had better judgement than he did, considering he was working here. The menu looked kind of weird anyway.

Suddenly, Tommy gasped, startling the kid into hitting their scaled elbow on the till. Could it be that his end-of-shift exhaustion had rid him of all his manners? What would his mother say! (Nothing, she didn’t exist). He couldn’t keep calling this pathetic little kid ‘kid’, that was rude!

“I’m so sorry, big man, what’s your name?” Tommy delivered this with a wide, hopefully comforting, definitely polite, smile. The kid seemed to provide a shaky grimace in response.

“Uh... R... Ranboo,” They said. Their grimace widened slightly, to what could tentatively be called a smile, albeit they ended up looking a bit constipated.  

Tommy decided that he just needed to have enough social energy for the both of them.

“I’m Tommy!” he exclaimed.

“Nice... to meet you?” Ranboo squeaked. Tommy beamed.

“I will take one of your finest Big Burgers, please. Wait- two!” He had money for two burgers! Tommy couldn’t remember the last time he’d had so much dispensable income- the laundromat must be doing well. One for Purpled and one for him!

Ranboo nodded a few times, repetitively, a bit like a bobble-head.

“Uh, are you okay to wait for a bit?” At Tommy’s nod, Ranboo shuffled awkwardly back to the kitchen. Tommy leaned over the counter, intently trying to get a good look. Ranboo glanced back at him, then back to the ingredients they were unpacking out of water-stained tins and cling film. Then back at Tommy again, shuffling.

“Could... could you leave me alone? For a bit? It’s a bit off-putting.”

“Oh! Sure,” Tommy said, disappointment making a little dent in his enthusiasm. He’d wanted to see how a Big Burger was made.

He mooched over to the two small tables wedged in the corner of the shop. One had chairs, and the other had a chair and a cardboard box in place of a chair. Tommy sat on a chair.

The tabletops were a wank combination of dust and stickiness, resulting in an altogether grime that Tommy was adamant to not touch. This cardigan was newly washed and dried, as of today, thank you very much.

He sat and watched Ranboo shuffling about in the kitchen. They kept looking towards the door, attention anxiously divided between the spitting and sizzling of the burgers on the hot plate and the rather unimpressive glass door. In Tommy’s professional opinion, the guy seemed a bit sketchy. If they wanted to be a successful business owner, they needed to get their act together and cook burgers like they meant it. And clean their tables.

He drummed his fingers on the table for a bit, until he started to pick up some sort of residue on his fingertips and stopped. Gross. He sniffed. He kicked the table leg, but it wobbled precariously so he stopped.

He didn’t fancy putting his Walkman on, just in case Ranboo decided to be chattier and he missed it. He hummed.

Prime, waiting was boring.

The sound of sizzling meat fizzled out in the background of his consciousness, and Tommy listened carefully as Ranboo moved around assembling the burgers. He hoped that Purpled would enjoy them. The Burger Van didn’t seem as reliable as Tubburger with the quality of its burgers, and especially its interior, but at least it was cheap enough. Purpled was a bit of a picky eater at times, though, so you could never be too sure.

It was more a burger shop of convenience than of true foodie exploration.

Finally, Ranboo placed down a tray with some foil wrapped lumps on the desk.

“Uh, did you want a drink with those?” they asked.

Tommy, who had jumped up the second Ranboo had turned towards him, was already ruffling through his pockets for his money. He paused. In the left pocket, he had a pristine fiver from George. In the other pocket, he had an objectively less pristine handful of one dollar notes, ripped almost to shreds and obviously having inhabited that pocket for a long time. Altogether, three dollars and five pounds.

He peered up at the sign for the ‘Big Burger’. Two would be... seven dollars? Which was like, five pounds something? So, yeah! He could get a drink!

“Sure!” Tommy beamed. “What drinks are there?”

Ranboo shrugged. “Um.” They pointed to a drinks machine that looked slightly like it was about to collapse, or otherwise that it would leak radioactive material. There was something sticky oozing out from underneath it. They handed Tommy a cup.

Tentatively, Tommy walked over to the drinks machine, and squinted at his options.

Each of the labels were sun-bleached, but Tommy wasn’t even sure that he was reading some of these right. Was ‘red juice’ always a thing? He hadn’t heard of it before.

He decided to take a chance on ‘Dr Bebber’, thinking at least it resembled something he’d knew of. A thick sort of syrupy goo dribbled out of the machine, followed by some explosive spurts of soda, shaking the whole machine like it was an old man with a bad smoker’s cough. Tommy licked at a droplet that had landed on his hand. Hm.

Well, it didn’t taste like any Dr Pepper he knew, but. Maybe that was to be expected.

In his contemplation, he almost missed the door to The Burger Van open.

He was alerted by the disconnected tin bell giving a sort of clank-scrch as it bumped against the beanie-clad ducked head of the absolute beanpole of a man who had just walked in, and then fell to the floor. The man immediately trod on it as he swaggered in, long brown trench coat swinging behind him like a dirty mad scientist.

What was it with Tommy and being surrounded by knobheads way too tall for his liking? Hey, Prime? Give him a break.

Tommy sipped at his Dr Bebber silently, taking in the appearance of this guy. His eyes were wildly bright, eyebrows raising his crinkled forehead into the bird’s nest of dried out curls under his beanie. The guy needed a conditioner or something, for sure. Fitting of his unkempt hair, and the bird that probably made its home under his beanie, the guy had a streak of white hair hanging down to his nose, partly wedged under his round-frame glasses, like a bird had shit in it.

“Ranboo! Just the person I’ve been wanting to see! Have you made any progress on...” In the whirlwind of movement that had possessed this man’s entrance, he had swung a briefcase out from behind his right hand, and had gone to place it on the table Tommy was standing next to. He faltered, staring the teenager in the eyes with the expression of someone who’d been caught with bird shit in their hair.

Tommy smiled, sipping his Bebber again. It really did have a very odd aftertaste.

“Ranboo, why is there a child in the Van?”

“Not really a van, is it?” Tommy pointed out, taking another sip. “Also, I’m not a child.”

The guy sputtered. The briefcase, which had been hovering in the air for about twenty seconds now, thunked down onto the table-top with the last of this guy’s strength. Tommy was guessing that the many layers of clothing- shirt, jumper, inner jacket, trench coat, layered presumably in an attempt to dress fashionably but achieving a step below dark academia pinterest and hitting something akin to goblincore instead- worked to hide the lack of muscles he had. Or didn’t have.

“You-” The guy swiveled round to point at Ranboo, who stared back, chewing nervously on his bottom lip with his fangs. “Why is there a child in the Van!”

“He, uh. He wanted a burger.”

“A burger?” Tommy had no idea why this guy sounded so incredulous if he was in a burger shop. Was he Ranboo’s manager, or something? He did walk in kind of like he owned the place. But again, weird thing to be surprised about.

“Mhm,” Ranboo meeped.

“So, big man, who’s this idiot?” Tommy asked Ranboo, who squeaked.

“Excuse you, child, I am the proprietor of this restaurant!”

Tommy snorted. “It is hardly a restaurant, big man.”

The guy breathed in heavily through his nostrils, and swept his trench behind him so he could place his hands on his hips. What a drama queen.

Ok, to be fair, Tommy hadn’t intended to be antagonistic today. He really didn’t, he swore on Prime, he started the day out intending to do a good deed. But good god something about this lanky motherfucker was already testing his patience. This is what having too many tall people about does to his delicate sensibilities!

“Have you been to Tubburger’s, big man?” Tommy asked. “Way better burger restaurant.” The guy puffed up like he was about to screech in indignity. In his peripheral vision, Tommy saw Ranboo try to fold themselves behind the till.

“That shitstain?” The guy squawked, “I’ll have you know-”

“Save it, big man,” Tommy smirked. “Come back to the business when your briefcase isn’t glued to the table.”

The guy looked down, frizzy hair obscuring his expression as he looked at the situation on the table. He tugged once, then again, and the briefcase began to slowly peel itself off from the vinyl. Slowly. It obviously was quite old, as the seam began to open as he pulled at one corner, revealing a soft lilac glow coming from inside. Tommy peered at it curiously. He loved lilac. One of the prettiest colours, and not just for its relation to Prime Our Lady.

The man scoffed, derision thick in his tone, and he slammed the briefcase closed, squishing it further onto the table. “What is your name, child?” His eyes were sparking with fury.

Tommy shifted both his burgers between his arm holding the Bebber and his side, holding out his hand to shake.

“Big man Tommy Innit, at your service,” he said.

The guy eyed his hand suspiciously.

“Wilbur Soot,” He said in return, reaching out his own hand.

Before Wilbur (and what a perfectly fitting name that was- weird and twattish) could shake his hand, Tommy snatched his back in a flash, grinning.

“Ahh, sorry mate, I just don’t want to get your gunk on me! You might wanna wash that hand!”

Wilbur huffed sharply, shaking his neck like an affronted giraffe. He grumbled under his breath “Goddess give me strength” and reached into his trench pocket to pull out a vape, huffing on it angrily. Tommy noted his hand had various bits of fluff and crumbs stuck to it, post-pocket rummaging.

Tommy cackled, grabbing his cup and burgers, and standing up from his chair. This guy was way too fun to fuck with. Maybe he would be coming back to the Burger Van again. Although it did all depend on how these burgers fared after they went through the microwave when he got back.

“Anyway, I’ve got to get on, but you lads have fun!” Tommy yelled as he pushed past Wilbur and his candy floss cloud to get to the door.

His foot nudged something as he got one foot outside. Oh, the bell. Thoroughly dented, squished almost flat, it looked so pathetic it was almost cute. Hah, kind of like Ranboo. Tommy bent down and scooped it up. This was coming with him.

“See ya!” he shouted over his shoulder. Oh, manners. “And thanks for the burgers!”

Ranboo may have made some sort of squeak like noise that may or may not have been a goodbye, or maybe a ‘please never come back’, but Tommy didn’t take notice. Equipped with his bell, his burgers, and his Bebber, he was ready to tackle the depression monster festering in their bedroom.

Purpled groaned.

There was an incessant beeping sound at his head, drilling into his skull. He twisted, attempting to dig himself further under the pile of blankets he’d woken up in, but found he was just constraining himself like a spider wrapping its prey in silk. He suddenly felt very claustrophobic.

Struggling to escape, Purpled managed to reach a hand out from the sweaty tangle of blankets and reach for the beeping- his alarm. He thwacked at his phone, cushioned between his pillow and the railing of the bunk bed. It crashed to the floor and kept beeping.

What day was it?

Oh. Sunday. He must have forgotten to turn off his work alarm.

He sighed, and finally kicked free of the blankets. His eyes were crusted over, dried salt making his cheeks feel tight. Purpled rubbed a hand over his eyes, then paused. It had been so long...

Beep beep beep

He dragged his hands lower down his face. Normally, he had no issue ignoring them, but, with the dried tears making them itch... fine.

Beep beep beep beep

Like they were rusty hinges on doors long closed, Purpled’s second set of eyes opened. Slow, and blinking heavily even in the dim light coming from the closed blinds, he adjusted to having his full vision once again. These eyes, unlike his unassuming top set, blue like Tommy’s because that’s what he’d chosen after he’d met him, had been unchanged since he arrived here: black sclera, and purple irises. When closed, they lay completely flat against his face, no eyelashes and nothing that indicated anything was hidden beneath. But opened, and Purpled could see... everything.

It was a slow adjustment, all four eyes filling with tears at the difference in sight. Everything was... complete again. God, how long had it been? Weeks, definitely. Why hadn’t he opened his eyes in so long?

Purpled told himself he didn’t know, but really, the answer wasn’t so complicated. He’d been losing hope for a while now.

Beep-beep-beep-beep!

There was only so far money could take you when you were attempting to reconstruct your spaceship to take you back home. Without mechanics, without specific tech, his efforts had plateaued at a resoundingly unsuccessful ‘not as beat up as before, but nowhere near flight-safe’.

And now, without the core fucking power source, he was back to the beginning. Worse than the beginning, in fact. He was down to nothing.

Purpled curled in on himself, hugging his knees under the spiked protrusions that jutted out above the joints. His entire body felt twitchy, unused to being fully himself after so long hidden away.

Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep!

It was a specialty of his- of his species- to camouflage. To be entirely one thing, when containing another. It wasn’t hard for him to hide among the humans, and the hybrids, when he was so used to hiding among the tunnelling cave systems of his home planet, sneaking out in the dark to meet up at the skatepark with P-

It wasn’t good to dwell on old memories.

His phone was still beeping.

With a growl that came out more like a sob, Purpled flung himself off the top bunk, and jumped to the ground, wincing as he took in the impact through his elongated ankles. He picked up the phone, screen cracked in the top-left corner, and angrily pushed at buttons until the beeping finally stopped. (Beep! Beep! Beep! Bee—.)

He took in a breath, and sat on the floor.

Covering his face in his hands just meant that he could see every line in his palms in intense detail, every dent in every nail, how the ends were brittle and close to breaking, how his cuticles were sore from picking at them. How his blood pumped a shade too dark under his skin.

He closed all his eyes, and breathed. Like this, his head still rang with the memory of his alarm, but the world was a little less overwhelming. It wasn’t like before, where he barely remembered he wasn’t human, all traces of alien nature invisible even to himself, even when there was no one to hide from. He could now feel the movement of his second eyes under his eyelids, the slight burning of tears that threatened to escape.

God, but he really fucking missed his brother.

Like a scolded child still anxious to talk, his phone stuttered as it buzzed. A text.

Purpled pushed it further away from him without opening his eyes or uncurling from his ball. He clung to his bony elbows, their sharp spikes digging into his palms.

The phone buzzed again. And again, and again, and again, and for fuck’s sake Purpled was going to smash it through the window, when he finally opened his eyes and read the screen.

Ten messages from Quackity, and more incoming. A deluge of pleases, and so sorrys, and he’ll make it up to him, and another raise, and he’s really so sorry but could he please come in, to Los Colchones, because they really fucking need him, and he knows he promised Purpled he wouldn’t bring him in to this, but they really don’t see another way, and he’s so sorry, Purpled, please...

Well, fuck.

His first thought, trailing its icy hand down his spine and settling sick in his gut, is that they knew. They’d connected the power source to him, found its traces of energy clinging to his skin, or the mattresses, or something. Or they’d noticed something was off about him, that he was the thing that didn’t fit in, didn’t belong.

His second thought, sluggish brain assessing yesterday’s situation, was that the Crowfather was blackmailing Quackity again. Purpled was a master at ignoring things he didn’t need to stick his nose into, but he wasn’t stupid. Something had brought Quackity running to the mattress store yesterday, and it had most certainly been the Crowfather threatening his life to his boss. It wouldn’t be too out of the blue to assume that that was what was happening right now, either. Was that presumptuous? Purpled didn’t know.

Quackity had given up on texting, and had started calling him. Purpled let the first one ring through. Another call came immediately.

Hands cold, he answered.

“Purpled? Purpled!” Quackity yelled down the line. “Purpled are you there? Can you hear me? Purpled, are you safe?”

Purpled breathed.

“Purpled?” Quackity screeched.

“Yeah, Q. Yeah, I’m... safe.” Purpled responded. He could hear Quackity breath a giant sigh of relief, but his wings were clearly flapping a mile a minute in his anxiety.

“Purpled, listen,” Quackity started. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so fucking sorry. But... you understood what was going on yesterday? Tell me you understood, kid.”

Purpled took a breath. “Yeah.”

“You understood, that... Philza- the Crowfather- you get that he thinks I stole something? You got that?”

“Yeah, Q, I got that.”

“And I didn’t- I swear I didn’t, I swear I didn’t endanger you like that, I’m sorry Purpled, I swear I would never bring you into this on purpose, put you in danger on purpose, I swear- “

“Quackity, please, I get it! Just,” Purpled blew out a shaky breath. “Just, what do you want?”

Quackity sounded close to tears. “He wants to see you. He’s saying we need to meet up at the Casino.”

He said ‘The Casino’ like it was some well-renowned thing, like Purpled should know it, fear it.

“Boss, I don’t know where that is.”

“Oh. Right,” Quackity let out a hysterical giggle. “Purpled, my man, you must have figured it out, right? I don’t just own Los Colchones, man, I’m the head of Las Nevadas.”

A pause. Purpled closed his top eyes, lips curling up in a grim sort of humor.

“You... do know what Las Nevadas is, right?”

Hah. Purpled did know of the mafia, yes. Considering it controlled every petty crime in Essempi- bank robberies, drug dealing, you name it, it wasn’t something one could avoid, especially not when they’d just crash landed in a random city and had to build a life there from the ground up. And, Purpled supposed, they controlled gambling too.

“Purpled?”

“I’m still here, Q.” God knew why.

“Well...” Quackity hesitated, “it’s never a good thing to have the Syndicate on your bad side. And we’d just built our relationship back up with them, too, fuck! Look, Purpled, we’re in deep shit. And I know I said I’d never bring you into this again, but...”

Quiet, except for the frantic rustling of Quackity’s feathers, and the heaviness of both their breathing.

“What, Q?” Purpled said. Silence. “Q, spit it out.”

“... The Crowfather’s refusing to meet unless you’re there too.”

Well, that was really just fucking... great.

“Right.”

“Purpled, I’m sorry.”

“Save it, Q. I’ll meet you at Los Colchones,” he said, then hung up.

Purpled picked himself up off the floor. He was still dressed in yesterday’s clothes. Saves time on changing, he thought bitterly. Tucking his phone into his hoodie pocket, he pushed the door open from his and Tommy’s bedroom and opened it onto the kitchen. On the other side of the room was their tiny bathroom.

He splashed some water on his face, and stared at himself in the mirror.

He looked... human. Ish.

Humanish, but not like he normally did. Or rather, not like he had done for the past year. His skin was just a shade too blue for your average white boy, his second eyes not lying quite so flat against his face. He pressed his hands to his cheeks, hoping to set them back into place. Ah. The joints on his hands were looking just slightly too skeletal. His right pinky finger had one too many knuckles.

Well, fuck it. Who fucking cared? So what if he didn’t belong here, if he was the odd one out? He was fucking stuck here. If there was no chance of escape, no hope of going back home, then why should he care what people thought? They’d assume he was some sort of insect hybrid, probably.

His apathy felt like a physical thing, enveloping his entire body in a thick cocoon. It was like his feelings had to battle through a sheen before they made it to his head. He just didn’t care anymore.

He stared into his alien eyes. They reminded him of the nebulae he used to sit and stare up at, lying next to Punz in the skatepark. They’d sneak out of their caves, well after their parents had gone to sleep, and meet up where the porous rock parted, showing pockets of the sky, the constant night and its brilliant stars, and skate on boards that had taken months to save up for. They’d talk of their dreams of travelling through that sky, visiting each star and planet in their reach.

Punz had taught him how to skate. 

Punz had spent every weekend with him, mapping the stars and practicing tricks, until he was enlisted.

Punz had phoned him every week until Purpled enlisted too, lying on his enrolment form so he could join early. Then there was no need to phone. Punz and Purpled soar through the army together, rising in ranks, becoming the best in their division, in all the divisions.

The shooting stars, they had been called.

Punz had showed him where the spacecraft were. Punz had showed him how they worked.

Punz had taught him how to go into superdrive, how to bypass things like sound barriers, how to put physics behind him and fly.

Punz had warned him about glitching.

Punz hadn’t been there when Purpled glitched. Through time and space, the disc-shaped craft spinning madly, until a planet came into view, greens and blues and so, so different from home. Punz hadn’t been there when Purpled crashed.

Punz hadn’t been there when Purpled had had to stumble his way through life in this new world, put together the pieces of what was normal and what wasn’t, what was safe and what to avoid, until he’d finally clicked into place like a puzzle piece that needed an extra nudge to fit in the picture. Punz hadn’t been there when he’d met Tommy.

After bouncing between jobs, running for a gang that had picked him off the street until the mafia (funny how that worked out) had dissolved them and he’d run from that neighborhood, serving in a dingy restaurant, washing dishes for almost no money at all, he’d been walking through Pogtopia and found a mattress store in need of a store manager. He’d applied, he’d been offered the job instantly, no paperwork required. He’d met Tommy the day after.

Purpled emerged into their kitchen. He pulled Tommy’s to-do list down from where it was blu-tacked to the wall, and scribbled a message in the red glitter gel pen Tommy always used.

Needed @ work. Be back idk when.

And then, after a moment of pause, he added:

love u.

Tommy was his only friend here, after all. He always knew he’d miss him when he left. And now that he didn’t know he’d ever leave, well. There were still other ways to go. Let’s just hope today wasn’t that day, Purpled thought grimly.

Tommy got back to his and Purpled’s flat at nine in the morning, the sun just beginning to break through the ever-present Pogtopia clouds. He yawned as he fiddled with the lock, always so swollen in winter that it took a fair bit of force to turn. Once he was in though, he brushed his trainers against their homemade welcome mat (“fuck off if you’re a wanker!”) and called out for Purpled.

The lack of response wasn’t really surprising. Purpled liked his lie-ins on Sunday. It was funny because he didn’t even believe in Prime like Tommy did, and Tommy never took Sundays off as he was supposed to. Tommy just called out for him again, then busied himself with putting his stuff down on the counter tops and unwrapping the burgers for the microwave.

They did look kind of unimpressive, Tommy thought. Not the best burgers he’d ever seen in his life. He hoped Purpled would still appreciate the thought regardless.

It was when he thought to update his to-do list that he noticed something amiss.

Firstly, that his to-do list and his special red glitter gel pen were not where he’d left them stuck to the wall. Secondly, and more worryingly, was that they were left on the fold-up kitchen table, where Purpled had written A Note.

“Purpled?” Tommy called again. He dashed two steps across the room to open the bedroom door. Blankets strewn across the top bunk, hanging haphazardly down the frame. Nope.

“Purpled you’re not doing a shit are you?” He called to the bathroom. No answer.

Tommy sighed, then returned to the kitchen and sat at the table.

Ok, so now he was really worried.

The thing, Tommy thought, as he ran to Los Colchones, was the last line. The ‘love u’. Hastily written, in Purpled’s terrible handwriting, the red glitter ink smeared slightly like an ominous but camp bloodstain, detailing Purpled’s reticent affection for his flatmate. That was what made his alarm bells really ring.

He was a street away from the shopping park now, and running. Please, please, let Purpled be ok. In his panic, he had grabbed the burgers to take with him, and was squeezing them, one in each palm, as he ran, like stress balls.

Purpled never worked Sundays. The mattress shop never opened Sundays, because no one was there to open it, because Purpled was the only employee, and Purpled never worked Sundays.

Something was really wrong.

He careened around the corner, and ran straight across the car park, eyes latched on to the mattress shop’s sign, the lopsided diamond lined in blown out bulbs, the letters in need of a good clean. Panting, he skidded up to the entrance. Closed.

Tommy’s heart was pounding in his chest. He pressed up to the door, using the burgers in his hands to block the light reflecting off the glass. It was empty. He squinted at Purpled’s desk, cluttered just like their bedroom, but ultimately, empty.

“Purpled?” He shouted, just to be sure. “Purpled!” Yeah, still nothing.

Prime help him.

A bird aak-ed from above him. Tommy looked up, taking a few steps back from the entrance. There was a crow on the Los Colchones sign, peering down at him.

“You haven’t seen my flatmate, have you?” Tommy asked, kind of desperately. Maybe this was his spiral into insanity. Never had he been more distraught at being a powerless human. What he wouldn’t give for even the smallest power, like talking to animals, even if it was something stupid like only through morse code, or semaphore. Prime, that telepathy would be really fucking convenient right now.

The crow just hopped on the sign a bit, and croaked again.

Tommy sat down on the pavement, hard concrete cold against his legs, the squashed bell in his pocket clattering as it hit the ground.

Fuck, and it wasn’t like he even had any way of contacting Purpled, either. He didn’t even own a fucking phone, for Prime’s sake. He’d told himself it was because they were too expensive, but really, he knew it was because he was too used to being completely off grid. He’d run from that orphanage, and never looked back, and the fear of being dragged back to that hellhole still hung heavily over his head.

Really, Tommy? Not even a Nokia brick, or something?

The ground was too cold to sit on, and his legs were already going numb, so he got up and started pacing.

He looked up to the crow again, and saw it had started to match him, pacing up and down across the sign. It was kind of cute.

“You got any ideas, mate?”

“Mate!”

“What the fuck?”

Did that crow just talk to him?

“Mate!” The crow squawked again. Prime, that was freaky. It did a really good impression of a Geordie. Tommy had no idea crows were that intelligent.

“Tommy?”

Tommy stared at the crow again, frozen in place. How did it know his name? He didn’t even see it open its beak that time.

“Tommy?”

Tommy leaned back, face turning away from the mind-reading talking crow. Maybe... he could talk to animals? In his head? Or maybe he really was insane-

“Tommy!” He screamed as he was grabbed by the shoulders by some short guy in a blue supersuit.

“What the fuck are you doing here, I just called your name like four times!”

(Internally, Tommy sighed. So, definitely not powered, then.)

He looked at the person in front of him. They stared back, hands on blue and red mushroom-designed hips.

“... Five oh five?” He asked eventually, unsure. The hero groaned.

“How do you always get it wrong? That’s a song, you dumbass!” He groaned in frustration.

This hero sounded oddly familiar, to be honest, but Tommy couldn’t quite place the voice. Oh- 404! From the Bank Day That Went Wrong. Something still felt a bit off about it, but Tommy didn’t have the mental strength to delve much deeper. There were bigger issues at play.

“Anyway, Tommy-” How did 404 know his name, again?- “Why are you here?”

Huh? “Why are you here?” He asked.

“What? I’m on patrol, idiot.” 404 retorted.

“Mate!” the crow squawked again.

404 startled, staring up at the crow with a look of horror. He reached a wrist up to his face and started talking rapidly into it.

“Stronghold, Blaze, I’m going to need you to meet me at Las Nevadas' front right now. We were right about the others; we’ve got a fucking crow alert. And I’ve got Tommy here, too-”

Tommy could hear tinny shouting coming from 404’s fancy watch-gadget. He sighed morosely. If only him and Purpled had fancy watch-gadgets.

“Yes, that’s what I’m telling you!” 404 shouted. “And Tommy’s not as important right now,” (ouch) “I said there was a crow alert! They’re fucking connected, we have to move now, just meet me here. Prime you’re so fucking thick.”

A pause. Then a comet fucking blasted through the sky, smouldering the concrete. Blaze appeared out of the smoke, dusting his smoking hands off on his kneepads.

“You would think I’m dummy thick,” he said smugly. “Hey Tommy.”

“Shut up-”

“Hi Blaze,” Tommy said.

“Oh, so you remember his name?” George bitched, before him and Sapnap started to bicker.

Wait.

“Did you say Tommy was here?” Stronghold said, running around the corner and panting heavily.

Tommy sat down again, bum thunking down onto the concrete in a way that shuddered up his spine.

This... this made sense. Huh.

Turns out he was even more of a business man than he’d thought, considering he’d managed to blackmail a group of superheroes into using his laundromat for bribes without even knowing. Good going, Tommy.

“Tommy- Tommy, are you good?” Stronghold- Dream (Prime how did he not connect that eye-searing lycra before? Halloween costumes his arse) picked him up off the ground like he weighed nothing but a sack of dirty clothes, and placed him back on wobbly feet.

“I’m...” Tommy hesitated. How did he say this? “I think my flatmate’s in trouble with the mafia and I can’t find him.”

So, like that.

The trio stared at him; petty arguments forgotten.

Then they fell into a flurry of activity. Tommy was hurried away from the mattress shop, Sapnap taking one elbow and Dream taking the other. George jogged in front of them, babbling about patterns he’d noticed on patrol and how Las Nevadas was on the defensive, and the Syndicate was definitely preparing for something big. There was talk of some kind of egg, an auction, some big thing that lots of people wanted, it going missing, and obviously, if Blaze and Stronghold just opened their fucking eyes, they’d see George had been saying this whole time that it was all connected. Sapnap and Dream shouted over each other trying to defend themselves, that they’d noticed it too, but the hero agency gave them their orders and they couldn’t just fly off and stick their noses into other problems, especially not ones involving the fucking Syndicate-

Tommy’s head swam with all this new information. One thing though, that they kept repeating, was a casino.

“I bet you my left nut that it’s going to go down in the casino. I bet you! Karl said-”

“Oh, well if Karl said-”

“Shut your fucking trap George-”

“Casino?” Tommy asked.

Dream turned to him, still rushing him along like they were competing in Pogtopia’s most stressful three-legged race. “Las Nevadas operates most of their dealings out of a casino. We’ve never been able to find any evidence of anything actually illegal though, and we’re fairly sure Quackity has the entire police force under his wings, so it’s really hard to pin anything down,” he explained, still slightly out of breath.

Tommy took a moment. So that explains another thing. Did Purpled know he was working for the mafia, he wondered? Surely that was the kind of thing you noticed?

Suddenly the group of heroes paused.

“Tommy, where do you live by the way?” Dream asked. Had they been... dragging him along with no destination in mind?

“Gapple Street, but wait-”

George was looking at his gadget-watch again. “That’s in the other fucking direction, come on-”

“No, wait! I’m coming with you.”

The heroes paused for a millisecond, then burst into speech.

“Absolutely not.”

“Yeah, think again, kid-”

“Fat fucking chance-”

“I am! It’s my roommate who’s missing, and I need to be there for him! He’s going through a tough time right now!”

“Tommy, you do realise we’re talking about the Syndicate, right? Not just the mafia, the Syndicate?”

“Prime, why are we even trying, the kid already knows the fucking Blood God-”

“What?”

What?

“Aak!” That crow squawked again, like a twat.

“Tommy? Tommy, tell me you knew who that was the other week.” Sapnap said, voice rising at the end and finishing on an embarrassing voice crack.

The heroes looked horrified again.

“...Dave?”

Dream inhaled and exhaled slowly, holding on to Tommy’s shoulder like a lifeline. George started laughing hysterically, and Sapnap just sobbed.

“Oh my god he’s a fucking idiot,” George screamed quietly.

“Oi. Bitch!” Tommy scowled at him. “I’m not a fucking idiot. I am a good. Friend. And you are going to take me to this casino and I’m going to find Purpled and give him this burger and I won’t take no for an answer. Do you hear me?” He found that his eyes were tearing up a little, but Prime better hold him back if they didn’t take him seriously. He needed to find Purpled.

The heroes were staring at him again.

“Uh. Ok.” Dream said. George and Sapnap stepped in line with him, bracketing him on each side. They looked a little bit sheepish, and a little bit awed. “I think we need to take the X3 bus, then.”

Chapter Text

Purpled was standing in front of a grandiose building that he’d only ever seen from a distance before. White and gold and towering up into the clear blue sky, the casino was just as intimidating as it had always seemed, the few times he had glimpsed it. From up close though, knowing he had to go inside and dive headfirst into Essempi’s underground, nothing had ever looked more terrifying.

He had arrived at Los Colchones that morning at nine-fifteen AM, greeted by Slime at the door and happily ushered inside. Slime’s face had belied no stress for their situation, just his normal joie de vivre he always had about him. It had been a shocking juxtaposition to Purpled’s own internal turmoil.

Slime had brought him to the back office. The closing of the door behind them, sealing off any noise from the outside, had sunk Purpled’s heart even further down his gut, where it had stayed until now.

Purpled had had no energy to respond to Slime’s small talk as he had opened up the filing cabinet to the left of the door, revealing the gleaming metallic corridor behind. It was narrow, and a tight fit, more like a vent than a corridor, but Slime had shrunk himself down happily, and set off on a brisk walk down into the darkness. Purpled, hunching his back down so he didn’t hit the ceiling, had followed.

Had they not closed that office door, they might have been able to hear a certain British boy shouting out Purpled’s name as they descended into Las Nevada’s hidden passageway. Being as it was, however, they instead walked until they found Quackity waiting in a metal bunker lined with chrome cars, leaning on a limousine at the other end.

Purpled hadn’t bothered to listen to the mafia boss’s babbled apologies.

And then they had driven here, to the casino. Squished in the plush leather seats of the limo, between Foolish and Slime, Quackity sat facing backwards twiddling his thumbs, and Purpled had been debriefed on what was happening.

The Syndicate- the most dangerous group of supervillains in Essempi, consisting of the Crowfather, Blood God, and Nemesis- had agreed to meet to negotiate the issue of the stolen alien tech. It had appeared in the first place at an auction in the casino last week, presented by the Crimson Egg, a gang with a distinctly odd choice in branding. (“They’re not a gang, they’re a fucking cult,” Fundy had interrupted, and Quackity had flapped at him to face the road when driving.) The Syndicate had bought it instantly, and then promptly lost it. It didn’t take long for them to point the finger at Las Nevadas.

The conversation after that had gone a bit like ‘what do we do?’, ‘I don’t know, man, they really think we took it’, ‘you ok, Purpled?’, ‘we’re fucked!’, with the occasional curse word as Fundy drove the limo around corners at speeds limos should definitely not go. Road safety seemed to be a lot less important when you were aware you were likely to die in a few hours anyway.

Purpled hadn’t really been paying attention. Each time they swerved on the roads, narrowly avoiding curbs and pedestrians, his stomach swooped with anxiety, but his entire mind was buzzing, not about the Syndicate, but about the fact that he didn’t look human anymore. He didn’t not look human, but it was obvious he looked different to normal. And none of the others in the car mentioned it. He couldn’t tell if that was because they were too stressed to notice, or if they’d known the whole time. Oh god- what if they’d known the whole time?

He'd kept his head down and had tried not to panic too much.

And now they were here.

Quackity straightened his back, shaking out his nervously fluttering wings, for once proudly on display (or at least it was an attempt at pride- they still quivered nervously like they usually did when not covered by his jacket), and stepped forward to open the doors.

They swung open to reveal the odd contrast of lavish extravagance with no one inside to enjoy it. Being only ten AM, it was well before opening time for the casino, and the atmosphere was unsettling with the lack of people. The decadent red velvet draping, gold accents and marble pillars seemed cold and eerie.

The others strode right down the wide steps into the main floor, a maze of circular green tables, like they were perfectly at ease. Purpled just looked down at his feet and followed behind.

The main room ended with a double-sided staircase wrapping up to a gilded mezzanine, upon which a man in golden armor stood with his arms crossed firmly across his chest. Purpled hadn’t ever really spoken with Sam, but he was instantly recognizable. The heavy set to his face, his seven-foot-tall stature, and the gas mask, circular filters on each side whirring every time he breathed in, were both familiar and unsettling.

Purpled didn’t really have the same upbringing as someone like Tommy, someone born and raised- for a given definition of ‘raised’- in Essempi, and so he didn’t really have the same instinctual fear of creepers that others in the city did. To be a hybrid of such inherently destructive creatures must make Sam’s life extremely difficult, but Purpled wasn’t wary of him for that.

Even with his green fur, the way Sam held himself just reminded him a little too much of the brother he’d lost. He’d avoided Sam ever since he’d seen him.

“Quackity,” Sam greeted, face softening but stance unchanging. “Fundy. Foolish. Slime.” A pause. “...Purpled.” His face shifted back, and he drove a hard look at Quackity, who sighed.

“Sam...” Quackity began, then sighed again, wings fluttering defensively. Purpled hunched his shoulders, hoping not to be noticed.

“Why is the kid here?” Sam asked, unwilling to back down. Purpled didn’t have it in him to mutter ‘not a kid’.

“Sam, the Syndicate...”

“Yes, exactly, the Syndicate!” He shook his head with a rough, staticky exhale. “Quackity, you know I trust you, but this is dangerous. He shouldn’t be here.” Quackity was looking increasingly twitchy as Sam spoke. “You’ve never brought him into this stuff before. I don’t- I don’t understand... Kid-”

Purpled’s mind drew him to the humor in Quackity being called a kid before it was thoroughly distracted by Quackity’s outburst.

“You think I wanted to bring him into this? Fine! I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you’d get all... you about it, but if the kid isn’t here, they fucking blow us all to shit!” Quackity laughed hysterically for a manic two seconds. “Without Purpled, there’s no deal, and even better! No fucking Las Nevadas!”

There was something vaguely amusing in seeing the mafia shuffle awkwardly in the aftermath. Purpled just sighed. Somehow it wasn’t surprising that Quackity hadn’t told them of the Syndicate’s threat.

Sam was full on glaring now, looking just like the terrifying hostile mob hybrid people thought he was. His power, Purpled realized, was pushing out around them, light blue glowing bending reality until they were all encased in its shimmer. His face mask was whirring faster now, loud with his panting.

Quackity deflated, tugging with anxious hands at his beanie.

“I can promise, at least,” he said, looking up at Sam beseechingly, “that out of all of us, it is not Purpled who’s in danger here. This is just their way of putting us on the back foot because they’ll be on our territory. Philza’s always like this, you know? Sees a fledgling and gets all grabby. He wants to poach Purpled from us, he’s not going to endanger him.”

Sam’s mask whirred a bit louder.

“Our definitions of endangerment seem to be very different, son.”

Son? Purpled discreetly looked around to see if that had come out of left field to anyone else, but he just saw everyone staring at him instead. No one particularly seemed to be looking at him with accusation, but confusion, concern? Those, definitely.

Slime’s never-fading smile stayed in place, but his eyebrows were bunched together, and his eyes seemed far away. Fundy glimpsed at him furtively before looking away again, face scrunched up in confusion. Foolish just peered at him curiously. Quackity and Sam were staring in clear concern, which was arguably the worst.

“Are we... not talking about Purpled?” Foolish chirped up. Purpled immediately dragged his hood further down over his head. Fuck.

“Foolish, why don’t you go help Sam set up the conference room,” Quackity said quickly. He shot a nervous smile in Purpled’s direction, and then harassed the others into various jobs.

He really wasn’t such a bad boss, Purpled thought. But still- fuck.

Purpled’s hands shook in his front pocket. It didn’t help that he hadn’t had breakfast yet, and he was feeling kind of faint and dizzy, on top of his emotional breakdown earlier that morning. And the night before. Honestly, it had all been one long emotional breakdown, and now he was expected to try and act normal in front of all the people who were the literal causes of his issues? He could hardly be blamed for being a little shaken.

Quackity moved in front of him, crouching down so he could look up into Purpled’s hood and see his face. At least Purpled wasn’t the only one who looked like shit, he thought in reluctant amusement. Q’s face was sallow and sweaty, and his scar going down from eyebrow to jaw looked especially shiny in the low lights of the casino. It looked like he’d plucked out an ear-feather in anxiety, as a smudge of dried blood lay behind his cheekbone, hidden slightly by his hair.

“Purpled... kid,”

“Not a kid,” Purpled mumbled.

Quackity huffed a laugh. “I promise,” he said, staring earnestly into Purpled’s two blue-ish eyes, “that we will keep you safe today. And... I promise you’re safe with us. With the crew. Please trust me on this.”

Something told Purpled that his boss wasn’t just talking about the upcoming meeting with the most dangerous supervillain gang in the city. Just a hunch.

Purpled blew out a thin breath. It felt like his lungs were half their normal size.

Quackity stared at him a bit longer, then straightened up to his normal height. Purpled kept his head looking down. A touch to his elbow surprised both him and Q- he probably hadn’t been expecting to feel a bony spike extending the limb backwards, huh. Quackity’s hand hovered over his hoodie, after, his mouth slightly open in shock.

“...Talk to us, Purp. When you’re ready.” Was what Quackity seemed to settle on after a moment of deliberation. He fluffed his wings up and stepped away, nodding. “We’re here for you.”

Scuffing his trainer against the fancy carpet, Purpled coughed, and nodded in return, hoping to finally be left alone. Tough shit for Q if he thought now was a good time for a heartfelt confession.

He heard Quackity hurry up the steps to the mezzanine, and the heavy door open and close above him. He sat down on the steps, head resting on his knees, his bones digging into his hidden eyes. He breathed, not very well. He spent about five minutes in a little alien boy ball, on a fancy staircase in a criminal’s casino, thinking about how everything would forever be different, unfamiliar, and wrong, before his wallowing was broken by a rapid tap-tap-tap at the casino’s doors. It rang throughout the room, echoing off the walls like tapping a hollow log.

Shit.

“Shit!” Quackity screeched. The door to the room behind the mezzanine had burst open, each member of the Las Nevadas crew running out, each shouting various exclamations. “Are they fucking here already? They were meant to come at twelve!”

Foolish vaulted over the balcony, body morphing into a much, much taller one, his legs elongating as he fell so that what would have been a twelve-foot jump turned into a small step. He was glowing gold, crackling with some kind of energy that smelt like salt and death. So, damn. Guess the guy had hidden depths.

Sam’s forcefields were warping the air around them again, the blue haze swirling brightly. He descended the stairs to the right of the room swiftly, clutching his trident, face carved in a harsh frown.

Fundy and Slime had run down the left-hand stairs, but Fundy was clutching the banister and cowering behind its gilded spokes. In contrast, Slime looked like there was nothing at all to be worried about, and kept walking forward across the main floor.

“Slime!” Quackity yelled. He’d stayed up at the stairs next to Purpled, who hadn’t moved an inch. Clearly, he wanted to make good on his promise of protection. “Slime, what do you think you’re doing?”

“Quackity!” Slime responded cheerfully. “We have guests!”

Purpled snorted. Yeah, that was kind of the problem. Quackity let out an incredulous... quack, really, there was no other word for it.

More banging at the door. Fundy started mumbling something in fear to himself, and Sam and Quackity were yelling at Slime to stop walking further, but Purpled thought he caught something else in the cacophony.

“...Wait,” he said. “Wait!”

They all turned to him, and for once, he met Quackity’s eyes. “Everyone shut up.”

They shut up.

And yeah... Purpled was right.

He stood up, pushing through the cyan glow of Sam’s power, and the noise became louder. Less muffled. It sounded like...

“Let me in! Let me fucking in you fucking wankers!”

Purpled laughed. Quackity’s panicked whimper-mumbling ground to a halt. The casino resounded with palpable shock. They obviously hadn’t expected that sound from Purpled.

“I swear to motherfucking Prime you’re so dead! You’re all so dead! Give me back my fucking flatmate!”

It sounded like the shouting of an enraged, lanky, British idiot.

He could hear other voices too, attempting to quell Tommy’s anger. ‘Maybe don’t call the mafia... that?’ said someone in a frantic tone of voice. ‘Oh we’re gonna die’, said someone else. “AAK!” squawked some kind of bird, presumably.

Purpled turned back to Quackity. Las Nevadas just stared dumbly in the face of his smile as he spoke.

“Let them in,” he said. Q looked bewildered. “Trust me, Q.”

Quackity nodded, mouth wide open. Slime cheerfully moved forwards to the doors.

As soon as the lock unclicked, the doors burst open, letting in the bright, dazzling sunlight. Before his eyes could adjust, Purpled was tackled, breath knocked out of him as he was thrown to the floor, someone landing heavily on top of him.

Three other voices simultaneously went ‘uhhh...’, a pause, and then there was a confusing series of noises that sounded a bit like some people throttling a rabid crow before slamming the doors closed again.

Purpled didn’t really care though, as Tommy was breathlessly babbling into his ear.

“Dude! I was so worried for you, I mean- I figured out some shit, but I didn’t know you were in trouble with the fucking mafia! That’s dangerous shit, Purpled, you’re such a bitch for not telling me. Are you hurt?” His face was smushed up by Tommy’s hands- really greasy, for some reason- which he had to smack away before he got poked in the eye accidentally. There was more risk of that than Tommy was probably aware of.

“I’m not hurt, man,” Purpled said. “I’m not in trouble with the mafia, either. I just work for them. Apparently.”

Tommy sighed, as if relieved. What a weirdo. Why the fuck was that reassuring.

“Uh, Purpled? Are you good there?” came the words of an upside down, twenty-foot-tall Foolish.

Ok, yeah, maybe they did look a bit weird lying in a tangle of limbs in the middle of the casino floor. Tommy rolled off him with some pushing, then shot up and glared at Foolish.

“Oi!” he exclaimed. “It’s rude to interrupt! We were having a bonding moment!”

Purpled sighed, and sat up himself. There was no stopping Tommy from being Tommy.

Because he was Foolish, Foolish giggled.

“I like this kid!” he said, smiling happily.

Purpled stuck close to Tommy’s side as they stood up, and, blinking away the sunspots in his eyes, he got a good look at the people Tommy had brought with him.

“Well, you can’t,” said one of Essempi’s newest and most beloved heroes, Blaze, in a petulant tone of voice, staring up at Foolish with a frown. Behind him, 404 and Stronghold (as always, in eye-searing lycra), looked at each other with exasperation.

So, when did Tommy make friends with these guys, again?

“Can’t what?” said Quackity, eyeing Blaze curiously. “Can’t like the kid? Cause, I’m not gonna lie, hotshot, last time I checked that wasn’t a crime.”

“Unlike all your other crimes!” Blaze shouted.

“Hot... shot?” Stronghold murmured under his breath.

Was Q... blushing? He seemed to try to not-so-discreetly smack his wings into submission, puffed up as they were.

The heroes- affectionately called the Dream Team by Essempi’s public- were huddled in a tense V, obviously on edge and prepared to defend themselves. Parallel to them, Las Nevadas stood in a looser formation, Quackity taking point with Sam at his shoulder. Foolish, just to be contrary, Purpled supposed, had settled himself to sit on the mezzanine balcony, legs swinging so the tips of his sandals just skimmed the tops of the casino tables below. He had to hunch his head along the ceiling just to fit.

From their position in the middle of the room, Purpled and Tommy were caught in the crossfire of the glares that were darting from side to side. This was a little bit ridiculous. Purpled sighed. He nudged Tommy, who turned to him instantly, and stared at him wide-eyed until he nudged him again and whispered: “sort it out, then, dumbass.”

Tommy nodded rapidly, and then skipped up to the Dream Team (again, when did Tommy meet them?) and grabbed Blaze’s hands, dragging him forward, catching Purpled on the way, so he could pull them both along. Where one hero went, the others followed, until Tommy brought them to a mere meter away from the organized crime gang that were staring them down, hesitantly waiting out what was about to happen.

“Good morning, Purpled’s boss. I would like to introduce you to my very good friends.” He said this while squinting his eyes in an attempt to convey some sort of intimidation, or promise. “They are very important superheroes.” In response to this, Blaze puffed up his chest, and 404 smirked.

“I think,” Tommy added. Their expressions dropped again.

“Anyway. Just so you know, if you fight, then I will be upset and then Purpled will be upset. And also,” he turned to his new best friends, and stared them down with an equally ‘intimidating’ look. “If you arrest these... businessmen, then Purpled will lose his job and then I will be upset because we will lose our apartment and I will go back to living out of the laundromat.”

Purpled noticed, from his position next to Tommy and his heroes who were now holding hands as if Tommy convinced them to join a Prime prayer circle, that Tommy’s tactic actually seemed to be working. Sam and Quackitys’ eyebrows had shot up. Yeah, that’d get them, for sure. Suckers for poor little orphans, those ones were.

Presumably, Quackity got it from his dad; god Purpled was never going to wrap his head around that. Sam wasn’t even old, for crying out loud.

The heroes looked sheepish, shoulders a little too hunched for government narcs.

“Tommy...” Stronghold said, forlorn.

Tommy shook his head once, cutting him off. “Now. You are going to introduce yourselves, and then we are all going to be good friends, and sort out whatever has got everyone’s knickers in a twist.”

The mafia seemed to wilt a bit. It seemed that even organized crime units hated introducing themselves. God thank whatever intervention from the universe that made Tommy work by himself in the laundromat, because in another life he could have been an office’s most terrifying team-building-exercise-obsessed team leader.

They introduced themselves one by one, even Quackity, who Purpled knew Tommy recognized. At least Slime seemed happy about it, greeting Tommy with an enthusiastically wobbly handshake.

Sam coughed, static bursting through his face mask.

“I’m Sam.” He said, reaching for gruff but landing on awkward. “I think the main points are that we have arranged a negotiation with the Syndicate over the issue of the missing alien tech, which they believe we have stolen, and that we need to convince them otherwise.”

404 slapped Blaze on the arm, and Purpled caught him whispering a “fucking told you!”

“Well, let’s take the kids and leave you to it, then,” Stronghold said, stepping closer to Tommy. Quackity sighed in frustration and looked at Sam again.

“The Syndicate has refused a meeting without Purpled’s presence, I’m told,” Sam said.

“I’m not leaving Purpled!” Tommy shouted.

“Well, then we’re not leaving Tommy!” said Blaze, putting his hands on his hips.

“How the fuck are we supposed to make a deal with a group of supervillains with you idiots hovering over our shoulders, huh?” Quackity blurted out incredulously.

Blaze stuttered for a moment, but 404 took his arm.

“We’re not leaving,” he asserted, eyes narrowed.

“Yeah!” Blaze shouted.

Stronghold stood next to them, grimacing at his partners’ stubbornness. He offered a pained smile to the Las Nevadas side of the room.

“Um... I’m going to have to agree with my teammates, here. We, uh, we want to make sure nothing happens to the kids.” He stood up a bit straighter. “And, we, uh... we can protect you if the Syndicate decide to attack.”

“So suck these balls- wait what?” Blaze said. “We’re helping them? They’re the mafia!”

“They’re also, like, not as bad as the Syndicate, to be fair,” said Stronghold, sheepishly fiddling with the sleeves of his bright green suit. 404 nodded, conceding the point.

Tommy shuffled back up a step to stand close to Purpled, nudging him gently in the side. They met each other’s eyes, and Purpled’s hidden seconds blinked. He really wanted to open them again, after letting himself see after so long. But he resisted. Tommy didn’t seem to notice the glitch, he just ruffled around in his pockets, and then held out his hand.

Purpled looked down at a very squished, handprint-indented burger, wrapped in paper that was see-through with grease. He reached a hand out and took it. It was completely cold. Tommy rifled through his other pocket, and took out an extremely dented bell, put it back, and emerged a third time with another burger. Using the least greasy side of his palm, he pushed Purpled gently over to the stairs. They sat down, huddled next to each other, and started to eat.

It was borderline inedible, of course, but it felt nice.

Purpled’s attention drifted. The superheroes continued to argue with the mafia, and he wasn’t particularly interested. Of course, with his hearing it wasn’t like he could tune it all out (“Karl said-” “You know Karl?”- “Butt out! This is a private conversation, asshole!” “Wait... how do you know Karl?”), but he wasn’t interested enough to think about what was being said.

With Tommy right beside him, he felt a little calmer.

Well, these burgers were shit, Tommy thought as he chewed. It could have something to do with the fact that they hadn’t been warm for at least an hour now, or that they had completely lost all structural integrity from the way he had mashed them in his palms on the way here. Or that bit of gristle he just bit. Maybe a mixture. On top of that though, there was an odd aftertaste that wasn’t particularly enjoyable. Kind of burnt, maybe?

But he’d found Purpled.

He leaned a bit more onto his flatmate, soaking up the feeling of relief that coursed through him every time he felt Purpled’s hoodie against his arm. They’d never been much for physical affection, or affection at all, really, but Tommy relished moments like this: them sitting next to each other, sharing each other’s space, just feeling comfortable while minding their own business. Sure, would he like a hug more often? Of course. But Tommy was also just happy with as much affection as Purpled was happy giving. Not everyone was so clingy with their friends, after all.

Tommy finished scoffing his burger, and scrunched his greasy greaseproof paper into a ball, flicking it down the velvet stairs. Purpled took his half-eaten burger down from his face and turned slightly towards Tommy. For the first time that morning, Tommy got to see Purpled’s face fully, without obstruction from his hoodie or downturned gaze. For a moment, they just stared at each other.

Purpled’s eyes were bloodshot, and his face was pale. He could just about make out the slight sheen in Purpled’s skin where tear tracks lay, like salt crystals on the kitchen table that you really had to squint to see and sweep up. His hands clutching the burger were long and skeletal, and as Tommy looked closer, something seemed slightly off with them. The joints were a tad... wrong, like they’d been drawn by an AI, or something.

Tommy looked back up to his face, and Purpled blinked. But not just with his eyes.

With his... other eyes? What the fuck?

Purpled took another bite of his burger, all four (four!) eyes staring at Tommy.

“Bro...” Tommy said, brain failing to think of anything else to say. Purpled shrugged, face blushing blue.

He looked maybe a little bit self-conscious, so Tommy just nudged him roughly in the shoulder, and smiled. Purpled smiled back, a small, fleeting thing, all four eyes crinkling at the edges. Prime, how the fuck had he kept this hidden for so long? Tommy was assuming it wasn’t a recent development. And what even was Purpled? He didn’t resemble any kind of hybrid Tommy had ever seen before in his life, and although he had only ever lived in the dingy streets of Essempi, and purposefully didn’t have an internet connection so it wasn’t saying much, he did still feel like it said something.

Namely, that Purpled was not his human flatmate, unpowered just like him, but something else entirely. He squashed that little spark of jealousy deep, deep down. It was being a good friend time, not being a shitty, self-absorbed dickhead time.

“So you...”

“We don’t have to talk about it.”

“Ok.”

Purpled fidgeted with his burger wrapper. “I did kind of want to tell you.”

“Purpled, it’s ok.”

“Well, I didn’t really want to tell you. I was hoping no one would ever find out. But-”

“Purpled, it’s ok. I love you, man. Whether you’re an... alien or whatever the fuck.” Tommy laughed a bit, helplessly shaking his head, lost for anything meaningful or supportive to say, before turning to look at Purpled again. He was faced with his flatmate looking at him wide eyed, stunned, like Tommy had accidentally figured out the secrets to the universe. Wait.

“No,” Tommy breathed. Purpled’s top eyes winced. “You’re shitting me.” All four of Purpled’s eyes winced. It was funny, his whole face was scrunched. Like, a double frown. “AN ALIEN?”

“Shut the fuck up!” Purpled hissed, whipping around to see if anyone else was paying attention. He eyed the others suspiciously, but they were all wrapped up in their conversation (read: argument). Or at least, most of them.

Tommy caught eyes with the fox guy, the one who’d said a really stupid name that he’d already forgotten, and frowned. Something about him was just too... familiar. Hmmm. As if he sensed Tommy staring, he turned and looked at him, then visibly gulped, and jumped out of sight. HMMM.

But regardless, it didn’t seem like anyone had heard Tommy’s outburst, as busy discussing their impending doom as they were.

Purpled breathed a sigh of relief, and pulled his hood lower over his forehead. He slowly moved to put his face into Tommy’s shoulder. Tommy wrapped his arms around him, and for a while they just breathed, and listened to the ruckus in front of them.

“Alright, everyone shut up! I can’t hear myself think! Prime!” Quackity squawked. “So, say that again?”

“We stay here, but we hide-”

“Won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“They’ll know.”

“How the fuck will they know? I’m great at hiding!” Sapnap was spluttering little sparks out as he gesticulated wildly. Somehow Tommy didn’t think he’d be that great at stealth.

“Yeah, I bet you won all the games of hide and seek at your little birthday parties, hotshot, but I’m telling you- we’ve told you- that it won’t. Work. Philza’s got these crows, Techno’s got his sense of smell, and Niki’s got... whatever she’s got going on- I’m telling you- they’ll know.”

“It’s still weird how he knows their names,” George stage-whispered. “Isn’t it weird?”

“It’s a little weird,” Dream whispered back.

“Ok, so new plan:” started Quackity. He stopped, stumped.

“We could just pretend you’re part of Las Nevadas now?” Foolish said, smiling. The three heroes jolted in disgust.

“Fuck no!” Sapnap spat. George violently shook his head, and mimed vomiting. Dream’s lips just turned down in a little frowny pout.

“Ok, jeez, guess not.” Foolish shrunk down ever so slightly. Actually, come to think of it, Tommy eyed Foolish suspiciously too. The guy’s squeaky voice and bulging triceps were particularly familiar, and he wasn’t sure he was liking where this thought was taking him. HMmm.

“Ok, never mind, shut up, let’s go over our objectives:”

“Not dying.”

“Yep, that. But also, convincing the Syndicate we didn’t steal their tech.”

“Do we know who did?”

“Well... no.”

“Could we frame someone else?”

“That’s wrong!” Dream shouted. Him and Sapnap looked a mixture of shocked and disgusted, although Tommy noted that George seemed to be considering it.

“...Not with such little time.” Quackity shook his head. Las Nevadas nodded glumly.

“We could ask Tommy?” Slime suggested. Tommy smiled. Slime was definitely his favourite of Las Nevadas, he’d decided. Clearly he had a good head on his shoulders, even if it was precariously attached.

“No! Keep the kid out of this!”

“Didn’t you say that he knows Technoblade, from the Nether?”

“He knows him from the Nether? The kid’s been to the Nether?”

“No, that’s just how Slime remembers people, he- never mind. What?” Quackity broke the little discussion circle they had going to turn to the staircase and stare at Tommy. “Kid, what?”

“Ah, yeah.” Tommy coughed. “If you’re talking about Blood God, yeah. I thought he was called Dave, though.”

Quackity let out a breathy little giggle. It sounded kind of deranged.

“He was nice,” Tommy continued. “Um, I helped him with his washing.”

“So the Syndicate is trying to steal both the kids?” Sam said. “Is that what I’m hearing?”

“I don’t know about stealing...”

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t be locking them in the vault until this blows over.” Sam was frowning, his forcefields pushing out from his body. That was sick, Tommy thought absentmindedly. The guy looked like a charged creeper but without the impending sense of doom. Or, to be perfectly honest, maybe a little bit of the doom.

“Well, for one,” Tommy said. “I don’t want to be locked in a vault.”

“For two,” suspicious fox guy butted in, “they might be our only way of negotiating with the Syndicate.” Several heads swivelled to him. Sapnap looked about ready to send fireballs his way. He meeped, ducking their head lower, ears squashed flat to his head. “Because they have soft spots for them!”

“We said,” Sapnap growled, “no putting the kids in danger.”

“I mean,” George started, but then stopped when Sapnap turned his growling on him. Putting his hands up in surrender, George backed away, but Tommy saw his eyes roll the moment Sapnap took his attention off him. Not even a life-threatening situation could stop George from being a bitch, Tommy thought, amused.

Purpled was still mashing his face into Tommy’s shoulder, but he was fidgeting like the arguing was getting to him. Tommy wrapped his arms around his flatmate tighter, absentmindedly noting that Purpled’s elbows were pokier than he remembered them being.

Honestly, Tommy wasn’t feeling too worried. Like, granted, it was a bit concerning that the most notorious supervillains in the city were gunning for them, but Tommy was sceptical that it would really be as bad as everyone thought. Dave had seemed perfectly friendly at the laundromat the other day, despite being an evil supervillain, and Tommy was pretty confident that he could deescalate the piglin hybrid’s anger at whatever stolen nonsense was going on. With his pure good looks and charisma.

Or, alternatively, by attempting to emulate a bedraggled cat and hoping Blood God took pity. If it worked, it worked, and Tommy had a pretty good track record with these things. Lots of freebies from bakeries and such.

The other syndicate members- the Crowfather and Nemesis, who were supposedly named Phil Niki- were maybe some cause for concern, considering he knew nothing about them. Other than the basics, like, scary, death, blah blah, destruction etc. But, again, Tommy wasn’t worried. And as much as Purpled thought he didn’t, Tommy did have self-preservation instincts. So, if his gut instinct was that they’d be fine, well, then they’d be fine.

Anyway, a bloke named Phil sounded more like a plumber than a supervillain.

Purpled shuffled a bit more, and eventually he emerged from Tommy’s shoulder, keeping his second pair of eyes hidden. It was kind of cool, how when they were closed they were almost impossible to see.

“What’s going on?” he mumbled. Tommy glanced down at him. Maybe he was more out of it than Tommy had realised. The arguing hadn’t exactly been quiet.

“They’re being little baby bitches, Purp, don’t worry about it,” he answered. Purpled pulled a face, and he huffed.

“Tommy, it’s the Syndicate.” Purpled said, sounding defeated, which was not the right attitude to have, in Tommy’s opinion. “We’re fucked.”

“No, no, no, Purpled, my man, trust me.” Purpled grumbled, clearly not believing him. “You’re forgetting I’m friends with Blood God.”

Purpled’s head shot up, all eyes wide open, aghast.

“You’re shitting me. You’re shitting me, right?”

Tommy laughed. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Dave being Blood God, but it was funny to say.

“Well, not really, but he did come to my laundromat. I didn’t know it was him, though. But he was nice! So I’m thinking it won’t be that difficult to sort out whatever little situation is going on here.”

“And...” Purpled shifted uncomfortably. “What do you know of this... situation?”

Tommy wracked his brains for a moment. “The Syndicate got some super special thing that was maybe alien technology, although that sounds insane, and it got stolen from them but definitely not by your boss, and...” He trailed off. Oh.

Looking down at Purpled, whose face was back to his usual stony expression, emotions hidden behind a cold gaze, Tommy gulped.

“I’m guessing... you know something about that, king?” he said quietly.

Purpled blew out a long breath. “It was my UFO’s core power source. Without it, I can never get h-” He stuttered, but gulped it down like it wasn’t hurting him. “Home.”

Tommy’s heart broke.

Life was really just too unfair sometimes. Problems were too big for even burgers to fix. Tommy pulled Purpled back in to rest his head on his shoulder again.

“I’m sorry, man.”

It wasn’t enough, but Purpled shook his head ever so slightly anyway. He sniffed.

“Probably a lost cause anyway. I had nowhere near the tech or ability to fix the ship well enough to leave. Was a fucking idiot for thinking I could.”

“Hey, no,” Tommy whispered. Purpled shuddered, trying to keep his sobs quiet. “No, man, listen. It wouldn’t have been a lost cause. Dude, you’re like, so clever. Genius level, just like me. You’d have figured it out.”

Purpled let out a wet laugh. He was probably getting snot on Tommy’s cardigan. There was definitely double the amount of tears, with double the eyes, Tommy thought in guilty amusement.

“Sure.” It was clear he didn’t believe him. Tommy sighed quietly, and patted Purpled awkwardly on the arm. They stayed in their little huddle for a few moments more, before the hero-mafia group in front of them collectively shut up and tensed. Purpled, curled up woodlouse-style next to him, tensed too.

Tommy raised his head a bit, looking at what everyone could possibly be worried about. The lights in the casino started to flicker. An eerie coldness blanketed the room. Ok, so maybe Tommy could sense that there was something of concern here, just a little later than the others, on account of being just a boring human. Cock and balls. He got all the worst instincts.

Three knocks rang out from the main doors, resonating around the casino walls.

The heroes seemed frozen, twitching like they wanted to do something but too petrified to move. Las Nevadas seemed to steel themselves slightly, except for the fox guy, who let out another meep and scuttled behind the bar to hide. Sam let his forcefields expand to cover the entire back half of the room, so they were encased within swirling cyan bands of power.

Purpled, at his side, was unmoving, staring straight ahead. Someone needed to do something in response to the knocks, Tommy thought.

“Uh, is anyone going to get the door?” he asked.

“I am so sick of answering that door,” Quackity whispered.

Another knock came; more of a bang, really.

And then several things happened at once.

First: the doors to the casino came crashing down, the hinges mangled as the giant pieces of wood fell straight down onto the casino floors. Sunlight flooded the room from outside, making the haze of the TNT smoke glitter and dance.

Second: the heroes’ gadget-watch things started beeping in high-pitched alarm, and the trio frantically scrambled into a fighting position, communicating into their little gadgets that they were ‘on it’ and that they ‘love you, Karl’, which was odd, but whatever. Probably relevant. Maybe. Various people had screamed or were screaming, and the creeper hybrid’s forcefields sprung out around them.

And third: the Syndicate emerged from the rubble in the entryway they’d created for themselves. They walked down the makeshift ramps of the dark oak doors and stopped just before they came down onto the main floor of the Casino, positioning themselves just a little bit higher than everyone else, like dickheads. 

(Fourth, although no one was really paying attention to it, was a crow that squawked indignantly as it was finally let back in the casino. It settled upon the banister of the mezzanine, for the best view of all the action.)

Blood God, or Dave- or Techno, too, Tommy supposed- took the point, as the three figures stood in another menacing V shape (it was a very popular stance to take today, Tommy was noticing). There was a shorter guy with huge black wings to Blood God’s left, and an even shorter woman in a sick leather skater skirt to his right. Blood God himself, was dressed in what Tommy presumed was his freshly blood-free supervillain get up, red cape skimming the floor.

He was also, obnoxiously, swinging a mace with three wither skeleton skulls on chains at the end of it, and grinning like a madman.

“Quackity!” He exclaimed, his voice a cruelly cheerful type of mocking. He swung his wither-mace in casual swoops between his companions. His golden tusk glinted under the chandelier light.

Crowfather- or, alternatively, Phil the plumber- was the first to react to the slight too many people in front of him. Tommy glanced around him. Purpled was crouched close to him still, breathing heavily. Quackity was stood close to Sam on the main floor, with Foolish and Slime behind them, achieving varying levels of ‘intimidating back up’. The fox guy was missing, so Tommy guessed he was hidden behind the bar, and the heroes were attempting to make themselves smaller while still whispering furiously to each other.

Quackity, in response to Blood God’s not so welcoming welcome, was shaking visibly, clutching a handful of feathers from one slightly mangled wing in his hand.

“Who are your friends, Quackity?” Crowfather said softly. “I thought we agreed on a private meeting.”

Blood God narrowed his eyes, assessing the heroes who had shut up in favour of staring the Syndicate down. His smile deepened and he caught the eye of the woman on his right- Nemesis, Tommy thought absently- and they smiled to each other. But not in a friends being friends way, in more of a ‘murder is fun and guess what we’re about to do about that’ kind of way. They pressed forward, stepping down the velvet carpeted steps to the main floor.

Nemesis emitted a sort of death-like black aura that pushed the casino tables and chairs out of their way, and any that remained on Blood God’s side he just kicked. They crashed and clattered to the edges of the room until there was a clear path in between them and Las Nevadas (plus friends-slash-hangers-on).

It seemed like Las Nevadas had no clue what to say. Tommy considered that now may be a good time to step in. Calling upon a confidence he didn’t really feel, he leapt up, dodged Purpled’s outstretched hands and jogged down the stairs.

“Dave!” When in doubt, go big or go home. Tommy pushed through the small human barricade Las Nevadas had created, squeezing by Slime on his left and a baffled Foolish on his right. The left side of his cardigan came out slightly slimy, but he wasn’t mad about it. He had bigger fish to fry than freshly-washed cardis now.

“Heh?” Blood God blurted out.

He really did seem very different to the piglin-hybrid who had shown up in Tommy Trusty’s the other day, all dressed up ready to lay down death and destruction and poetic monologues in his flouncy shirt.

“Tommy, get back!” He heard a small scuffle behind him, but didn’t look back to see what was happening.

“Are you seeing this kid, Phil?” Blood God whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “There’s a kid, there, right? This ain’t you bringing some Victorian orphan back from the dead again, Niki?”

Maybe Tommy could see the resemblance to Dave, if only in their common lack of social ability. Also, what the fuck?

“That was only once,” she responded, rolling her eyes.

“My son is not a Victorian orphan, Techno,” Crowfather interjected.

“Just checking, just checking.”

“Nice to see you again, man!” Tommy said, pushing on in his attempt to de-escalate. Belatedly, he started to sweat with nerves, like his body was telling him this wasn’t quite as instantly effective as he’d thought it would be. “So! Will you be back to the laundromat any time soon? I’m always happy to help if you need any more bloodstains taken out!”

In a move that was distinctly more Dave than Blood God (or maybe a combination of the two- maybe this was the Techno that Tommy had heard about), the piglin-hybrid cut a hand across his neck and nervously glanced a look at the Crowfather. Crowfather, leader of crows and Geordie plumbers everywhere, whipped his head around to stare at him.

“Mate... when did you need bloodstains taken out of your clothes?” Tommy could sense the mother-hen instincts rising rapidly. All avians were the same, it seemed. Broody as fuck.

“I don’t even know what he’s talking about!” Techno said, his high pitch betraying him.

“Ohh, yeah. He had this one shirt, completely soaked in blood. I got it all out though, don’t worry!” Tommy said, fully aware that this would not make the avian worry less.

He was under the impression his distraction was working pretty well, but then:

“Let’s not forget what we came here for, gentlemen,” said Nemesis, eyes narrowed and face cold as she stared directly at Tommy. Her hands rested calmly on the pommel of a sword, dark grey with tempered netherite. He gulped.

“Yeah. Kid,” Blood God said. “Why don’t you move out of the way. We’ve got ducks to hunt. Good thing they’re all standing in a little row, now isn’t it.” He adjusted his hold on the wither skull mace, eyes scanning the line of Las Nevadas and the heroes behind Tommy. His smile was mean. Tommy’s breath stuttered in his throat. Dave wasn’t mean. But this guy was.

“Well, I work for them now!”

This at least, got the piglin-hybrid to pause, although Nemesis rolled her eyes in exasperation.

“You work... in a laundromat.” Blood God said, like Tommy had forgotten. Tommy nodded in his best impression of a nervous bobblehead.

“Makes sense, mate, those are always fronts for something.” Crowfather interjected.

“He does not work for us!” Quackity yelled. “Leave the kid alone!”

“You stay out of this, feathers. I’m talking to the kid.”

“Well?” Nemesis said, eyebrow raised, fingers tapping impatiently on her sword.

“Well, uh. Well, no I don’t work for them. But my friend does, and I’m here as moral support for him. And to tell you, that, uh. That no one’s stolen shit, so you can all bugger off and find someone else to blame.”

“Purpled?” Crowfather perked up. Tommy couldn’t see Purpled, from where he was standing, but he could hear that sharp intake of breath. Tommy narrowed his eyes at the bird man who was making his flatmate nervous. “Oh- I see you! How are you mate?”

Hmm. The bird man must be senile, if he couldn’t see the effect he had on Tommy’s clearly traumatised flatmate. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have had to ask that question because the answer was clearly ‘fucked up and terrified’.

“He’s very clearly not okay, Philza! You fucking traumatised him!” Quackity shouted.

Nemesis and Blood God both took a menacing step forward to the duck hybrid, whom Tommy felt had just earned himself a bit more respect. He appreciated people who appreciated Purpled, as a rule. Crowfather, for his part, just looked equal parts surprised and sad, like he hadn’t noticed that threatening the safety of a teenage manager of a mattress shop, especially one who had various other issues going on at the moment, would be something that might cause a bit of emotional damage.

Out of the corner of his eye, Tommy saw Slime whisper something to Quackity.

“Do, uh. Do you want to continue this in the conference room?” Quackity asked, looking a little bit like he wanted to die or maybe like he’d just farted in an inappropriate situation. Had he just farted? Slime whispered in his ear again. “Uh, Slime says he spent a long time decorating it, so.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want to put that to waste, now, would we?” Crowfather said in a way that made him sound like a massive patronising bitch, in Tommy’s humble opinion.

It was an awkward shuffle up the double staircase, full of pauses where one group waited for the others to move out of their way, or just cautiously maintaining a safe distance, until they were all finally up in the room behind the large dark oak doors.

Tommy looked around. Swanky.

A large dining table occupied most of the room, candles unlit in fancy golden candelabras hanging from the ceiling. The room was instead dimly lit from the edges, washing the table in a shadowy golden hue. Slime’s decorations seemed to be various party balloons stuck with, well, slime, to the walls, and hanging precariously from the candelabras. Gold foil confetti covered the table as if someone had dumped a whole load in the middle and taken about three seconds to haphazardly push it to the edges.

“Please, take a seat, everyone.”

Again, it was awkward. Tommy didn’t exactly have an assigned seat, so he just plopped himself down in a chair in the middle of the long edge, facing the doors. It was only when he looked up that he realised that, maybe, his choice of seating wasn’t the most strategic.

To his left, he had the Syndicate. Crowfather sat at the end of the table, wings spread out to surround Nemesis on his left, and Blood God on his right. Blood God, who was, of course, sat one empty seat away from Tommy, looked a little perturbed.

To his right, he had Purpled hovering anxiously over his shoulder. But beyond that, was the mafia. Sam had decided to sit in the seat closest to him, eyeing the Syndicate with apprehension, if not outright fear. Further along the curve of the table was Slime, next to Quackity at the other end. His wings, in comparison to Philza’s, couldn’t quite give the impression of intimidation and protection, so instead they just quivered nervously around his own shoulders. With Fundy and Foolish to the other side of him, the table then circled back around to the heroes.

They were obviously feeling as out of place as Tommy did, having pulled chairs out but not sat in them yet. It seemed none of them wanted to sit in chairs close to either the Syndicate or the mafia, and so were subtly-not-so-subtly trying to push each other out of the way to snag the spot in the middle.

The awkward silence remained until they eventually sat down, Sapnap to the Las Nevadas side and Dream to the Syndicate’s. George sat in the middle, looking obnoxiously pleased with himself.

“Let us talk about why we’re here.”

Quackity gulped.

“About that, bossman,” Tommy jumped in, unable to let the tension fester any further in the room. “I still think I’m a little fuzzy on this whole conflict thing.

Dark wings ruffled to his left. “A series of events, perhaps? Very well, I’ll begin.”

Blood God and Nemesis looked a lot like they’d prefer the speech to be over and the fighting to be beginning, but they sat back and allowed the Crowfather to talk.

“Nine days ago, rumour caught of the Crimson Egg possessing a particularly powerful energy source. In a move that was, presumably, to facilitate their cult evangelicalism, they quickly organised an auction. They had no interest in sources of power that did not come from their own god”- privately, Tommy thought: what the actual fuck is going on in Essempi- “and so they deigned to sell it to the highest bidder. Which was, of course, us.”

Patience waning, Blood God cut in.

“Until some upstart duckling with one too many eyes decided to steal it from us.” Quackity only had one eye, so that comment was a bit- oh. Right. Tommy made a noise in the back of his throat. His friend Dave was definitely not as nice as he had first thought.

“Until we found ourselves without the source that we paid several ancient debris and diamonds for, yes.”

“You paid the egg cult in netherite?” Blaze yelled, then immediately quieted, putting his hands up in response to Nemesis’s menacing glare. “As if they’re not pains in the ass already, is all I’m saying.” He mumbled.

“And uh, are we sure you haven’t misplaced it?” Tommy asked. Nemesis’s glare was levelled upon him, then. Blood God turned to him and just looked, in a way that Tommy was pretty sure said ‘don’t be such a fucking dumbass’. Okay then.

“We are confident it was stolen.”

“And you’re super sure it was by these guys?”

“I must say, Quackity, I never imagined your spokesperson would be a teenager,” Philza said, bitchily. “Getting children to do your dirty work, Q, my my.”

“Oh, like you’re one to talk Philza! Mr I’m going to refuse to meet unless we bring along a teenager I just threatened the life of the other day because I’m-”

“Do you really want to finish that sentence, Quackity?” Blood God growled.

Next to Tommy, Purpled shifted in his seat. It squeaked a bit, and he huddled down more. Tommy’s eyes narrowed on Philza.

“Purpled,” Crowfather began. Purpled made an effort to hunch down in his chair further, pressing back into the seat’s back so Crowfather had to crane his neck around to see him. “I must apologise if I have caused any undue concern for you. It was never my intention. I must admit the reason for your presence today was to ensure a... more peaceful outcome. And, well, you simply... intrigued me.” Purpled stiffened.

Ok, well Tommy had had enough. Purpled shouldn’t have to put up with deranged birdmen any longer.

“Excuse me,” Tommy said, in his most obnoxious Karen voice. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed George’s eyes widening in recognition. But Crowfather wasn’t quite paying attention to him, too busy trying to catch Purpled’s gaze with his stupidly sorrowful eyes, ginormous pupils and all.

“Excuse me, Phil,” Tommy said. The eyes of the syndicate landed back on him, in varying degrees of ‘excuse you, child’. “What did this energy source even look like? Are you sure you got it right?”

“Are you... doubting my ability to see?”

“Well, can you? I wouldn’t expect your eyesight to be all that nowadays, what with your age and all. Probably bumped into a few too many windows, too.”

Crowfather’s mouth gaped, ear feathers puffed up in indignation. Blood God looked at least a little amused, but Nemesis... Oh boy. Nemesis did not look happy.

Blood God answered him, seeing as Crowfather was too stunned to reply for the moment.  “A purple glowing crystal? Yeah, we’d recognise it if we saw it, kid.”

Next to him, Purpled let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a sob.

That was enough for Tommy to be ready to double down, to go full out attack mode on these bitches, until the words registered, and he paused. Purple... glowy thing?

“Now, can we get back to talking about how we’ve let your little organisation live for a little too long, Q?” Blood God smirked.

Quackity immediately sat up straighter, launching into a half-thought-out defence. Sam’s forcefields threatened to push out of his body again, and Tommy’s nose was starting to catch the whiff of gunpowder, which wasn’t the most calming thing to be smelling, to be honest.

“Hang on.” He called out, eyebrows furrowed.

“What now, child?”

“No wait, hang on, seriously. Do you guys know a Wilbur, at all?”

Silence.

Some of Slime’s goop sticking the balloons to the chandelier dropped onto the table with a small ‘plop’.

“...Shut the fuck up,” Quackity muttered under his breath, groaning. The Syndicate had frozen.

“A Wilbur... uh I think his last name was Scoot? Perhaps. He owns a burger shop in Pogtopia. It’s like, pretty shit but his worker was nice. Ranboo? Is any of this ringing a bell?”

With a stroke of comedic genius, Tommy pulled the dented bell out of his pocket and clanked it rhythmically on the table. It was less of a ring, and more of a dull tapping noise, but he couldn’t begrudge it. It was trying its best.

“Anyway, he had this grungy old briefcase with this purple glowy thing inside. Didn’t let me look at it, but he was a real twat. Are you sure it isn’t him who’s got your energy source?”

He looked around the table.

At the Las Nevadas end, Quackity was sitting with his head in his hands, mumbling to himself.

“Always that fucking asshole, why does it always have to be him? I simply cannot anymore, I can’t. And now he’s stealing my thing? Burgers are my thing, so now he’s doing burgers. Of course he’s doing burgers I just- I can’t-”

To the Syndicate side, the vibe Tommy was getting was ‘exasperated’, so he assumed they also knew Wilbur, and had had to deal with him before. Nemesis, however, also looked particularly disappointed, probably at the prospect of missing out on killing everyone here. Blood God, now slouched back in his seat, looked a lot more like the Dave he’d met in the laundromat, visibly drained at the prospect of prolonged social interaction, but hiding it with disdain. And Crowfather had finally let his wings droop. The vibe Tommy was getting from him, specifically, was ‘defeated’.

So who was Wilbur to these people?

“Um, is this Wilbur, like, The General Wilbur? Foolish piped up. The Syndicate spared him a glance, but didn’t answer. Quackity, too, was too busy commiserating his entire existence into his elbows to respond, so Sam sighed, and nodded. Foolish made a face like an exaggerated ‘ohh’ and then nodded, staring wide-eyed at his boss. The name rang a bell, but Tommy didn’t really know who the ‘General’ was, to be honest. It wasn’t like he had ever paid much attention to these things. He nudged Purpled, but he just shrugged.

“Before my time, probably,” he muttered under his breath to Tommy.

“Is this what your son’s getting up to these days, Phil? Burgers?” Blood God asked, eyebrows raised in distinct unimpressed-ness. Ok, so at least now he knew who Wilbur was, although it was hard to picture the pigeon-shit encrusted weirdo as either a general or as the son of this very fancy, very visibly wealthy supervillain. But it would explain why Wilbur spoke like a toff.

“Yeah, and not even good ones,” Tommy added helpfully.

“I thought it was a laundromat he had?” Crowfather said, unsure (which, rude. laundromats were Tommy’s thing).  “I don’t know what he gets up to, he’s not a child anymore,” His wings ruffled irritably.

“Well, he’s only been alive for one year, so I wouldn’t be too sure.” Blood God retorted.

Crowfather looked like someone had punched him in the throat.

“Low blow,” Nemesis giggled. “Although I swear Will told me it was a hitman business,” she said.

“A what?”

Purpled leaned into Tommy’s side and snorted. “You got us burgers from a hitman front.”

“It’s an honest mistake to make” Tommy whispered back to him. “It was literally advertised as a burger place, how was I supposed to know?”

“Surely they gave some signs?” Tommy could see the creases in Purpled’s cheeks where even his second eyes were laughing at him.

Tommy thought back to the stick figure of a man bleeding out and the ‘Big Bomb’ burger that was not recommended, and briefly considered that, yeah, maybe he wasn’t the most observant.

“Call your toddler, Phil.” Blood God said. Crowfather’s feathers rustled again, and he rolled his eyes.

“He’s not a toddler, Techno, he’s a grown man.”

“As far as Kristin’s concerned, he’s not.” Blood God muttered. Crowfather blanched. Like spinach. Damn, Tommy thought. He hit him with the one-two, two recently dead, recently revived son jokes to the throat. But Crowfather begrudgingly got his phone out and dialled.

The heroes, while all this was happening, had just looked very confused. This didn’t change in the five minutes it took for Wilbur to pick up.

“Will, son, do you mind coming to the casino? We need to talk to you.”

A pause.

“No- I.”

Tinny shouting emerged from the phone, but Tommy couldn’t make out the words, just the vague impression of Wilbur’s posh southern accent.

“Yes, Quackity’s here. No, he’s.... no, he hasn’t. Yes. Ok, son. I know, it does seem like he hates you too. Yeah, mate.”

From his end of the table, Quackity sighed.

“Please, Will, could you just come? Will. Wilbur. Wilbur Soot”

“Oooh Wilbur got full named.” Blood God whispered, snickering to himself. Even Nemesis struggled to hide her smile at that.

“OK. No, I do love you, Will. Ok, see you in a bit. Yep. Bye. Love you, son.”

“I can’t believe I just listened to that.” George whispered to Sapnap, still missing the mark on actually whispering quietly.

“I can’t believe a villain has a better relationship with his father than me.” Sapnap whispered back.

Purpled was trying very hard not to break down and start crying uncontrollably under this very fancy table, and personally, he thought he deserved more credit for holding it in for so long. They had been waiting for about thirty minutes now in varying degrees of silence for the supervillain’s son to arrive, and not one moment following the previous one had got any better.

Briefly, he had considered a few times if his dependency on Tommy to survive through these kinds of situations was crossing the line of normality. Regardless, he was grateful his roommate was there to shield him from the penetrating gazes of the Syndicate, and his attempts to redirect the conversation away from him whenever the Crowfather’s curiosity got too much to handle. He didn’t want to think about what might have happened had Tommy not been here.

What a fucking creep, anyway. What did Crowfather find so ‘intriguing’ about him anyway? Why couldn’t he just be left alone to die alone in a miserable hole with Tommy coming to check on him occasionally to give him food and blankets? That would be the best-case scenario for the rest of his life, Purpled thought.

Worst case was looking more and more like being the alien wonderpet of the worst supervillain trio in Essempi.

He twitched slightly in his seat, fidgeting with the sleeves of his hoodie. There was a crow perched on the candelabra. Had anyone noticed that? It was chewing at a talon, adjusting every so often to re-balance itself, disrupting the decorations slimed on to the brass. Purpled watched it, tuning out the awkwardness in the room and the other thoughts in his brain. Little bits of slime were flicking off the candelabra onto the table. If it moved any more off, then surely- yep. A balloon floated down, now untethered, and bounced on the polished dark oak below. It rolled over to the heroes, coated now in a slimy layer of golden confetti.

404 poked it, and it bobbled over to Blaze, falling into his lap. Purpled watched as he patted it a few times, then flicked it back to 404. They played a silent game of hot potato, attempting to hide their giggling under their breaths, until Stronghold leaned over and took it out of their hands, eyeing them like a scolding mother. They looked back, unrepentant.

Purpled kept staring until he caught the eye of the hero opposite him- Blaze- who looked at him like he was trying to figure him out. Purpled didn’t like that. At all. He dropped his head down to look at his shoes. If everyone could stop looking at him, that would be perfect. Thanks.

He stayed that way, head down, fiddling with his hoodie, until the room swung into motion again.

Purpled hadn’t been paying attention- had desperately been trying to do anything other than pay attention actually, other than to the insides of his knees- so he missed when Sam and Slime had got up to open the front doors for the newcomer. As it was, the first indicator of a new presence was the wafting odor of artificial watermelon that left a plasticky, acrid aftertaste in Purpled’s throat.

He coughed a little, and looked up. Standing in the entrance of the conference room was a fuzzy silhouette of a tall guy in a trench coat holding a briefcase. He was occluded by a large cloud of vapor. As it dispersed, a man with a disgruntled, even pouting, expression emerged. His loose, frizzy curls, struck with a shock of white hair, fell down into his face, persistently falling down into his eyes despite attempts to blow them out of the way.

Crowfather gracefully moved to greet him, wings aiding so he was at his side in a second. He immediately cupped the guy’s face in his hands and dropped a smattering of kisses onto his greasy hair-covered forehead. This was Philza in full brood-mode, Purpled thought. He could see he got off lightly at Los Colchones. The guy cringed away from his father, spluttering vague, blustering sounds that may have been words, in a British-gibberish type of way.

So this was Wilbur, huh.

The crow that had been perched on the candelabra in the center of the table flapped over to Wilbur and sat on his head. To his left, Purpled could feel Tommy, spine ramrod straight, let out a little ‘ha’. It might have been vindictive, it might have been Tommy simply enjoying the little things in life, or it might have been a mixture of both. Wilbur batted at it a few times, but it dug its claws in and held on. Eventually he gave up trying and just stood there, bearing the attention of both his father and the crow until Quackity coughed.

“Quackity!” Wilbur exclaimed, a sharp smile splitting his face. He spread his arms like he was welcoming an old friend and sauntered up to Las Nevadas’ end of the table.

“Wilbur.” Quackity, presumably used to this guy’s theatrics, crossed his arms, and leant back, refusing contact.

“Aww, what’s with the long face? Aren’t you happy to see me?” Wilbur leaned further into Q’s personal space. His tone was light, but his brow was furrowed in contempt, mouth twisted in an ugly smirk. His attempt at intimidation, if that’s what it was, was offset slightly by the crow gripping harshly onto his hair, slipping slightly to the side as he leaned in.

“Not particularly.” Quackity said, face curled up in a sneer.

“That’s too bad...” The way Wilbur’s face dropped; it seemed like it was too bad. It was like he both wanted Q to hate and love him, and either option was disappointing.

Purpled wasn’t sure exactly what was happening here. Did they hate each other? Were they flirting? Was hate-flirting a thing? God, he hated these people.

“Will, can you show us what’s in your briefcase, mate?”

“Why?” Wilbur retorted, eyes narrowing defensively.

“Prime help us from adult toddlers,” Quackity muttered under his breath.

“Why? Because your dad asked you, you ungrateful child.” Blood God said, huffing a derisive scoff. Crowfather reached a hand over without looking and patted at Blood God’s wither-mace, drawing back sharply before the withering effect could set in. Or maybe he was simply immune. Or maybe they all were? Considering they’d been sat right next to that thing for so long and none of them looked any worse for wear, Purpled wouldn’t put it past them to have gained a collective blessing from that death god Crowfather was associated with, whatever their name was.

“Techno, please.”

Wilbur wasn’t taking the suggestion gently. “Why do I have to show you? It’s my briefcase!”

“Because we’re trying to figure some things out, mate.” Crowfather said, tone gentle, staring at his son beseechingly.

“Because you’re trying to frame me for stealing this stupid fucking power source!” Quackity yelled over him.

“You can’t prove it!” Wilbur, with all his thirty-something-plus-one-extra years, stomped his foot on the floor.

“Mate. Open the briefcase, please.”

Blood God levelled the wither mace a little higher, and Nemesis continued to stare disappointedly, until Wilbur finally cracked, face pouty. He set the briefcase down in the middle of the table, pushing brusquely between the heroes until they scattered to either side of him. It was grimy, old, faded leather covered in bits of fluff and spots of discoloration. Purpled shuddered at the idea that his end crystal might have been housed in there for a week.

On one side, the clasp was stuck, and Wilbur fiddled with it to no effect for a moment, before scoffing and giving up, reaching for the briefcase handles as if to take it away again. Purpled’s breath caught in his throat.

“Guess you’ll never see,” he said, smug smirk returning. Purpled couldn’t fucking stand this.

“Wilbur.” Crowfather said, frowning. The crow, which had been resolutely hanging on to Wilbur’s hair until then, flapped down to the table, and at a nod from Crowfather, bit first Wilbur’s hand, and then crunched the clasp to pieces in one sharp movement of its beak.

Silence. The table was set aglow in a soft lilac light.

“...Wilbur, I cannot believe you.”

“Are we even surprised, Phil, really?”

“Oh no, Quackity, are you upset?” Wilbur cackled gleefully.

Quackity was squawking, his wings flapping indignantly in Purpled’s peripheral vision. “Upset? Upset!”

“Well, Phil, Techno, this has already been much more effort than it was worth. Shall we leave, now?” Nemesis said, unimpressed.

But Purpled wasn’t paying attention to any of that. He was staring intently at the end crystal on the table. The core power source of his ship, misshapen and lacking its previous skin-scorching heat, but his all the same. A purple crystal, glowing white bands orbiting it, sat in the grime of an old, moth-bitten briefcase, inner lining peeling off and spotted with mildew.

He could feel his breath start to pick up. That was his. That was his crystal. That was the one thing that could get him home. Without it, he was nothing. It was his, just in reach. He reached a shaking arm out. If he could just, could just take it... take it and run... maybe...

Purpled could feel his lower eyes blinking, but he barely registered the change of sight, nor the shocked noises from either side of him. The room was blurred, save for the object in front of him. In clear, crystal view. Hah.

But then, suddenly, the glow from the end crystal was covered. Wilbur, with both hands pushing down on the briefcase, glared at him across the table.

“Hands off,” he spat. “It’s mine.”

Purpled’s brain was screaming – it wasn’t his: it’s mine, it’s mine, it’s not yours, get your hands off it – but he found he couldn’t say anything. Mouth open, throat straining, he just let out a startled hiss-click. Even before crash-landing here, had he ever made that noise? Had it been too long for him to remember? Or had he never been in a situation that called forth such feelings of indignant, furious, despair?

He was sure he had caught the attention of everyone except the selfish asshole in front of him, their heads turned to peer at him as he revealed his inhumanity before all of their eyes. The presence of Tommy by his left did nothing to help the feeling of been scrutinized, being seen, not as one of them but as something other. Being picked apart as something that didn’t belong here.

He gulped, painful around the lump in his throat.

This was too much.

Purpled pushed his chair back abruptly, flinging himself back away from the briefcase, from what was inside it. He stumbled all the way back, until he hit the wall, sliding down it, his three-knuckled fingers grasping at his knees.

He didn’t feel like himself; his vision was blurring, graying at the edges, heart pounding in his ears.

His skin was itching, biting at him from the inside, scratching to be let out, to be flipped inside out, to splatter like birthday decorations on the walls of this godforsaken conference room. Purpled couldn’t think. He couldn’t even breathe.

It was like his heart was pumping twice as fast as it should and his head was spinning and there was a band around his forehead, squeezing tighter and tighter, pulling like G-Force on his skull. He needed to explode, to cease to exist, to just be anything other than whatever fucking thing he was right then.

Briefly, he caught flashes of reality, whipping past his eyes like the stars outside a spacecraft window. Tommy, at his elbow, gripping his hand tightly. His own fingers, sharpened and elongated, grasping him back just as tight. Soft whispers of reassurance lost to the fog in his brain. The fuzzy, crackled message of his spaceship radio. Messages from home, lost.

His chest felt so, so painful that he thought his heart might stop. His lungs were expanding and constricting, but no air seemed to really penetrate. It was like he pushed it out before he could even breathe it in. There was nothing to hold onto. He squeezed Tommy’s hand again.

Sounds were coming out of him. Not... human ones. His head throbbed.

Tears leaked out of his eyes, dripping down his chin, soaking the inside of his hoodie. It was itchy, it was too hot. God, get it off him, he couldn’t breathe. He fumbled with the sleeves, struggling and writhing to get it off get it off get it off. A noise like a staticky scream ripped out of his throat and he breathed out harshly. Hands reached out to help, and he smacked them away, but it was Tommy, it was Tommy, so he reached back out and let him help. Together, they got the hoodie off him.

Panting, weeping, left in just a pale purple t-shirt and jeans, he laid back against Tommy and thought, just one coherent thought in the midst of his confusion and terror. They know. Oh god, they know.

A hand was stroking his hair, shakily patting it down and across his forehead. Fuck, his forehead. It burned, the band stretching and squeezing down harder. He whimpered.

Well, if they knew, he may as well just fucking... let it all out. Let them see.

But still, it hurt.

Even in moments alone in the bamboo garden, just him and his ship, tinkering away in the quiet, he had never fully transformed back to how he used to be. For too many reasons: it took too long, too much energy, it was unnecessary, in a world with so much light, when he wasn’t in the gaping cave systems or gliding from island to island in the inky darkness. It was sacrilegious, it wasn’t safe, it didn’t feel like home. How could he be himself if he wasn’t home? It wasn’t right.

All that now seemed useless. What good were those excuses when there was nothing to hide anymore, anyway? What good was hiding himself away when he was never going back? When the rest of his life was going to be working for the underground, caught between villains like a plaything?

He grasped Tommy’s arms and wrapped them around himself. The band tightened, more, and more, until it snapped.

He screamed.

His elytra unfurled from their casing, fluttering weakly at the base of his shoulder blades. They were dark gray, shimmering pearlescent purple when they caught the light. His antenna lay close to his head still, as if wincing.

The room was silent, save for the squeaking of the candelabra as the crow perched on it shifted positions. Purpled’s ragged breathing was a harsh contrast to everyone else’s held breaths. There was nothing much to say, Purpled thought.

As if it had coated his brain in a thick, gray membrane, his apathy returned, blanketing his emotions. The panic receded, and he slumped. Whatever happened then, so be it. Purpled didn’t fucking care. Everyone could see him in his entirety: elytra, antenna, purple skin, lanky limbs and extra bones and spikes.

He kept his eyes looking down. He didn’t want to know what the others were thinking, how they were ogling him. He definitely didn’t want their pity.

And as always- god Purpled was going to cry- as always, Tommy got up, shimmied around to hide Purpled from view behind his gangly legs, and caused a scene. Not that Purpled wasn’t already crying, but... suck your mom. He could cry about this too.

“Oi!” He shouted, not quite achieving to grasp everyone’s attention away from the freshly transformed teenager that was everyone’s newest fascination.

“Is Purpled...” Sam said, whispering slightly like he might with a scared animal. Las Nevadas shifted awkwardly, and as Purpled hazarded a glance upward, he noticed Quackity staring at him, mouth agape and eyes wide open, unmoving. Purpled winced, his antenna moving with him, attempting to hide in his fringe.

“Um, Purpled-”

“Purpled is not free to talk right now, please leave your message with me, instead,” Tommy said, raising his voice a little higher. His hands were on his hips, and Purpled could see the rest of the room through the triangular gap between his skinny legs. It shielded him from most of their stares, but did unfortunately leave him with most of his vision obscured by Tommy’s ass.

“Aliens are real?” One of the heroes blurted out. Clearly the hero agency, with all its faults, had not given sensitivity training along with their free gym memberships. Or however it was that the heroes got trained.

Tommy snorted loudly. “Ok, I’m not kidding, man, were you not around when they discovered the nether? No? They called them aliens too, dumbfuck. So just because he whizzed about in space a bit it doesn’t mean he’s an alien alien, he’s just like... a Purpled.”

God, Purpled loved his roommate.

“Is that right?” Crowfather had walked around to stand directly in front of Tommy, and knelt down to look Purpled in the eye. He was obstructed slightly by Tommy’s ass, which Purpled appreciated. He was sure he had the better view. But still, piercing eye contact from a supervillain through his roommate’s legs was not the most comfortable, and Purpled’s elytra shivered. His antenna ruffled his fringe further into his human-like eyes.

“Something like that,” he mumbled.

Tommy squatted in front of him to block Crowfather’s view further, and then briefly locked into a battle of hovering and bending to obscure Purpled from view with the supervillain. Purpled sighed. The lengths his roommate would go to protect him were appreciated, but really, his head felt kind of fuzzy and his stomach was churning, and the faster he could get back to their apartment, the better. So he sat up a bit straighter, and tapped his foot against Tommy’s ankle.

Tommy disengaged from his dance battle with Crowfather and whipped his head around to look at him, eyebrows pinched in a question. Purpled shot him a shaky little lopsided smile, and took a moment as they stared at each other to mourn the fact their eyes were different colors again, now that his would be back to their original violet.

Tommy moved out of the way, coming to stand at Purpled’s side, stance still ready to jump in front of anything if needed. He was glaring at anyone who looked at Purpled too curiously.

Purpled eyed everyone in the room. Las Nevadas was still in a state of shock, verging more to concern than curiosity. He mainly had eyes for his boss, whose wings were as puffed up as he bet a duck’s could probably be, as if he had taken ‘shocked’ too literally and stuck a fork in a socket. The heroes, in comparison, had varied reactions of ‘what the fuck’ to ‘we can leave now, right?’, which Purpled could at least respect. He wanted to get out of here too.

Facing the Syndicate came first, though.

Tommy’s new friend Blood God was attempting to conceal his obvious intrigue in Purpled behind an expression of unmoved disinterest, but he gave himself away by flicking his eyes to Purpled’s elytra, and back to his wither-mace, or to his antenna, and then to the clasps of his cape, to Purpled’s second set of eyes, and then down to his sword.

Nemesis, similarly, was wide-eyed, but fiddling with her nail polish like she was aware she was intruding on something personal. At least one of the trio had common decency, even if it did come tempered by the fact she was literally evil.

Crowfather was, of course, still damaging his geriatric knees by kneeling in front of him. His eyes were exuding a kind of fatherly kindness that Purpled did not trust. His wings mantled high over his shoulders, spreading slightly in a way that obscured the rest of the room in a way that Purpled admitted, begrudgingly, was kind of soothing. If only because black-as-the-void was a kind of nostalgic sight, to him.

“And what do you call.... your home?” The supervillain asked. He stared at Purpled with dark, dark eyes. His attempt at an understanding expression failed to soften their intensity.

“The End.”

Crowfather nodded, bobbing his head like one of his crows. Which, Purpled supposed, he kind of was. “And you know what this is?” he asked, gesturing to the table behind them, the briefcase and crystal upon it. Purpled chewed his lip. How much information did he want to give them, really? Did it matter, now, if he gave away it all? Or could he still keep some parts to himself? Was secrecy worth the effort, now?

“We call them end crystals. That one... was mine.” They were what powered their space ships, among other things. Pretty powerful bombs, if treated incorrectly. Maybe that was the kind of information he didn’t need to share, he thought, glancing at the collection of people in the room.

“Is! Is yours,” Tommy chirped, ever looking out for Purpled. He appreciated it, in some small part of his chest, but it wasn’t particularly helpful now. It wasn’t like these people would let him see it again.

“It’s not his, it’s mine now.” Yapped Wilbur, through another cloud of artificial watermelon. Precisely what Purpled meant, although it was kind of denigrating to have his life taken from him by this guy. He remembered how his end crystal had looked, sat there in that tattered briefcase, chipped, and glowing a fainter shade than it should. Pathetic.

“Wilbur, now is not the time,” Crowfather murmured, still staring at Purpled. His knees must be close to breaking by now, surely.

In retaliation, Wilbur huffed on his vape and spluttered various indignant noises. Purpled coughed at the fumes gathering in the room.

He heard Q heave a sigh, and flap his wings in exasperation. “Your daddy loves you Wilbur, but I hate you, so would you please just chill the fuck out and act your fucking age?”

“Is he not?”

“Techno, please,” Crowfather muttered, finally breaking his stare at Purpled to shoot a quelling glance at Blood God. Purpled sighed a breath of relief, his chest feeling a little looser without that intense attention on him.

He didn’t have long to relax however, as the supervillain’s gaze was back on him soon after.

“So.” Crowfather began again. “You are... from a different realm.” It was great how they were just stating facts now, Purpled thought. “And you have... wings.”

Oh. Yeah, fuck. Purpled could maybe have foreseen this becoming a problem. His elytra shuffled awkwardly against the wall, and inwardly he cringed. Was he going to be as obvious in his emotions as Quackity now? How embarrassing.

Tommy, above him, crouched down sharply, almost shoving his ass in Purpled’s face. He dodged to the right just in time to avoid it on its way down.

“Oi!” Tommy yelled. “Featherbrain! Don’t go getting broody with my flatmate!”

Ah yes. Because the possessiveness of a crow-hybrid with a shiny new toy to play with was no match to that of his chaotic roommate. The supervillain looked perplexed, eyes bugging wide out at the sight of Tommy’s defiance. In the back of his brain, Purpled considered the fact that maybe this was not the most calculated response, as now the avian was confronted with two gangly fledgling-esque teenagers.

As Crowfather’s pupils continued to dilate, and he practically started to radiate ‘pushy adoptive father’ vibes, Purpled caught the sight of Quackity in his peripheral vision.

His boss was shaking, wings rattling, eyes locked on to the little scene in front of him.

“Philza.” He said, voice hard but calm. “May I remind you that Purpled is my employee.”

“You can relax, Quackity, I’m not doing anything to him.”

“Step away from him.”

To their left, Purpled noticed the rest of the Syndicate perk up, like they might finally get the fight they came for. Quackity’s fists were clenched at his sides.

“Why should I?” Philza said, mouth curling up in a smile. Purpled was really starting to get sick of this guy. And so was Tommy, apparently, as his roommate let out a screechy cry.

“I have had it! I’ve had it with the lot of you! Take a big step back, birdbrain, and think about how fucking creepy you’re being! I hope it keeps you up at night! I hope your wife divorces you!”

The birdman in question choked, but did, Purpled noticed gratefully, take a step back.

“Purpled,” Quackity said, “do you want to talk to us? I can shut this all down right now, you can go home, whatever you need.”

It was tempting, sure. But his end crystal was still there, covered by worn-down leather on the table, guarded by a vaping adult-toddler, and there was no way Purpled could leave just yet.

He narrowed his eyes. Now that he was getting used to them a bit more, he remembered one advantage of having double your average human amount of eyes. Simultaneously glancing left and right, he assessed the situation in the room again.

Crowfather was still a little close for comfort, but the Blood God and Nemesis were still sat in their seats at the left end of the table, albeit they did seem eager to get up and cause issues again. Las Nevadas, as now seemed to be their default, were sat or stood in a vague formation of protective to cowardly, Quackity and Sam being the closest to him, and Fundy almost hidden by the table from how much he had slouched down in his chair. The heroes, across from them, were sitting in their chairs like they had been glued down into them, paralyzed by the pure ridiculousness of the situation.

Tentatively, he dodged the Crowfather, and reached for a chair at the table. Tommy moved with him, like having another set of elytra hugging his shoulders, moving with him seamlessly. He sat down to Purpled’s left, reforming the barrier between him and the Syndicate.

Purpled weakly motioned for everyone to sit down again. The only one who refused to was Wilbur, who was now grumpily playing with the crow in his hair, and attempting to blow smoke rings.

That was fine. He could ignore him.

There was something so stupidly anxiety-inducing about having everyone’s eyes on him. Looking straight down at the grain of the table, Purpled began to talk.

Yes, he was from a place called The End. It was his home; he was in the military. Yes, he was a teenager, what about it? Anyway, he was flying a spaceship. He glitched, he crash-landed in a park, he got a job, he found Tommy, et cetera et cetera. This was old news to him, a painful story to tell, and he delivered it as such. He was trying to fix his ship to go back home. He needed that crystal to do so. He...

Purpled couldn’t hold it in anymore. He sniffed.

Immediately, he was bombarded by Quackity to his right, and Tommy to his left. Soft, sleek, duck feathers stroked his forehead and made his antenna twitch. They were ticklish. Tears continued to cascade down his face.

“Purpled...” Quackity murmured, his voice scratchy. “How do we get you home?”

A noise bubbled up Purpled’s throat without his permission. He hadn’t thought his boss would respond like that.

“Uh...” he coughed a little. “I need my ship to work, I guess. And then I need to... glitch back. Somehow. To the End.” Saying it out loud only made it seem even more like a pipe dream. Fuck, had he really been so naïve that he’d thought this was possible? Sure, he’d known he’d have to recreate the circumstances of his crash somehow, reverse engineer the glitch so he’d end up back home, but like... had it never occurred to him how fucking impossible that was?

The others were looking at him with pity, he could tell, even though he kept his eyes firmly on the table. His triple-knuckled fingers picked at his cuticles. He pulled too hard on one. It bled.

Tommy grabbed his hand suddenly, pressing his pinkish hands into Purpled’s blue tinged fingertips. The blue blood stained Tommy’s fingerprints, running through the miniscule crevices like dye. Tommy pressed harder until the bleeding stopped, but kept their hands together.

He tugged Purpled’s hand until Purpled looked up at him. Tommy’s expression was fierce, dark eyebrows furrowed above piercing blue eyes; mouth downturned. Purpled had never really seen his roommate look like this.

“Purpled.” He said. “You and I. We’re going to get you home.”

Purpled scoffed quietly.

“No. None of that!” Tommy snapped his finger right by Purpled’s ear, which hurt, fuck him, and glared until Purpled paid attention to him again. “We will get you back! You said it’s another realm, right? Then there must be another way of getting you home. The realms are always connected! Prime knows it took centuries before nether portals were common knowledge!”

Various murmurs echoed through the room, and begrudgingly, Purpled considered it. Sure, maybe. He didn’t exactly have a century’s worth of time though.

From atop Wilbur’s head, which had gradually become more frizzy until it really did resemble a bird’s nest, the crow squawked. Next to them, the Crowfather jolted.

“Dave?” he asked. “You don’t mean?”

The room stuttered to a halt.

“Did we know he could actually talk to the crows?” 404 whispered too-loudly, while Tommy stifled his laughter. He was looking right at Blood God, for some reason. Blood God himself shifted slightly in his seat, refusing to return Tommy’s gaze.

“What did the talking crow say?” Quackity said, eyebrow raised dubiously.

“Techno, Niki...” Crowfather said, ignoring the other half of the room. “The meeting room... the table...”

“The table?” Quackity said, exasperated. He returned his attention to Purpled. “We’ll get you home, Purpled, I promise. Even if it means inventing a new way of space travel, we’ll get you there. Right, Sam? We’ve got the resources, surely?”

Sam nodded, gas mask whirring. “I’ll look into it.”

“Hang fire, there, Q,” Blood God interrupted. “I gotta voice in my head kid, and he doesn’t turn up too often, so you gotta tell me... ever heard of a loser called XD?”

Purpled froze. It wasn’t like it didn’t ring a bell, it did, it was just more of a dull tapping of a squashed burger shop bell, than a clear resonance. It took him a few moments before it came to him.

“You mean... the god?” He answered, uncertain.

Look. It wasn’t like Purpled was religious. He didn’t ascribe to something as structured as Tommy, although to be fair, neither did Tommy, seeing as he never really had time to actually make it to Prime’s mass on Sundays. He was devout in his own way, Tommy was. But Purpled? Sure, he cursed using god’s name, which maybe was blasphemous or whatever, but it wasn’t like many people in the End really cared that much.

They’d mostly given up on their deities, trusting instead in the endless, inevitable expanse of the void. Religious groups had cropped up here and there, but they weren’t given much attention, especially not on his island.

But XD... there was a cult. Him and Punz had come across it a few times.

The people in the conference room were all staring at him. Again.

“One of those old gods that died out, had a new-age cult following who thought he still existed or something like that,” he elaborated. Everyone kept staring.

That fucking crow AAK-ed again. Purpled winced. He’d kind of forgotten how nice it was to have his elytra cover his back when he felt anxious, though.

Crowfather smiled.

“I think we may know how to solve your problem.”

Purpled raised a dubious antenna.

Chapter Text

Tommy was excited! They were going on a road trip to the Syndicate’s evil supervillain lair, and Crowfather seemed fairly confident that they could get Purpled home, so this day had skyrocketed from being one of the worst to one of the best in just a few short outbursts and arguments! He squeezed Purpled’s hand tighter, and flashed him a grin. They were on the high-speed nether rail, which Tommy had never been on in his life, but was enjoying immensely. He’d never actually been to the nether, seeing as he normally would never have had enough money to pay the fee for the train. And a trek through a hellishly hot, barren, landscape did not seem as enticing when you could have had air conditioning.

The Syndicate had even bullied a bunch of people out of this carriage so they could have it all to themselves! Sure, it probably wasn’t the nicest when Techno growled at that old blaze-hybrid with her shopping buggy, but Tommy couldn’t bring himself to care that much. It meant he got to spread his legs across to the seats on the other side, and that he could loudly talk about things he probably couldn’t bring up with other people listening.

They made for an odd collection of people, taking the train from the city’s main Nether portal to the penultimate one on the line. A group of popular rookie heroes, the inner circle of the mafia, the Syndicate, who had not made an effort to dress down for public transport, and two teenagers. One of whom was an alien.

It had seemed unlikely for a while in the Casino’s conference room that everyone would be allowed to come, but the heroes and Quackity had stuck up a big fuss about not leaving Tommy and Purpled respectively. The Syndicate had reluctantly let them come along. No one else had begged off going on this little school excursion through the nether, although the fox guy had looked about to. And Wilbur, who had rolled his eyes but followed after his dad like a grumpy little kid.

They took the train until the penultimate stop, then, much to Tommy’s disgruntled disappointment, they did have to trek at least fifteen minutes through the nether; down a rugged cobblestone pavement until they stumbled upon a private nether portal partially covered by a netherrack cliff.

They emerged into the overworld to the freezing shock of the arctic in midwinter. Fucking hell. Tommy suddenly bemoaned not wearing a tighter-knit cardigan. Or maybe all of his cardigans at once. One was not enough to withstand the icy chill of the arctic winds. All his sweat from their brief stint in the Nether’s infernal temperatures immediately froze to his skin.

The Syndicate motioned for them to move forwards.

Tommy clung to Purpled’s arm as they trudged through the thick snow, their trainers instantly soaked. Purpled’s wing- which, by the way, his flatmate had WINGS, what the FUCK- reached out and covered Tommy’s shoulders. The wind that had been whipping around his frame was buffered slightly, and he huddled closer to his flatmate in gratitude. As they continued over a small hill, Purpled struggled to keep his wing close to Tommy, the wind whistling under and around it. Over the peak, though, Tommy saw a settlement emerge beyond the white plains.

The far side was bracketed by a thick copse of spruce trees, and it was all encircled in a tall, dark-oak fence. There were maybe four or five smallish buildings- a few cabins, a stable, and some farms, from what Tommy could tell. He squinted. So the Syndicate lived in a cozy little gated community in the middle of nowhere?

He couldn’t deny he was slightly disappointed. Where was the evil lair? The drama?

So what, in their free time they lived out their communist dreams of goat herding and selling organic honey at the farmers’ market?

“Is this where you live?” Tommy shouted out across the wind, teeth chattering.

Blood God (Tommy still wasn’t getting over the fact that he’d stolen the name of a crow) turned to look at him, looking supremely uncomfortable. Tommy could understand why he had such a heavy cloak now, though. Prime, what he’d do for one of those right about now.

“None of your business,” the piglin hybrid said grumpily.

The group was herded towards the cabins, where there was, inexplicably, a pond full of coral and tropical fish under the bridge between the two houses. Tommy stared at the Syndicate, who had taken positions with Nemesis in front of them, and Crowfather and Blood God standing behind to pincer them into a circle. The heroes shuffled, uneasy, on the spot.

“So, um. Nice pond.” Dream said. He had his arms around a shivering George, and Sapnap was blowing fire directly onto his hands to keep them warm. If Tommy wasn’t so attached to having Purpled’s wings around him he might have gone to beg Sapnap for a mini campfire of his own.

Nemesis snorted softly, then jumped straight through it. She disappeared into the blinding light of the beacon, just as the two Syndicate members behind them began to push forward, glaring until people began to follow behind her.

“Hey. Hey!” Foolish screeched as he was next to fall down the chute in the pond. A warbling ‘scumbags!” echoed up the hole as he disappeared.

Ok, Tommy admitted. It wasn’t the secret entrance he had been expecting, but it was a secret entrance. So that was one point for the evil-cottagecore lair. One by one, they were funnelled into the pond, until it was just Tommy and Purpled left, shivering together in front of Blood God and Crowfather. Tommy reluctantly detached himself from Purpled and nodded to his flatmate. Purpled went first, drawing his wings under their shiny casing and slipping down.

Alright. Tommy’s turn. He could do this. Sooner in, the sooner out. Of a freezing cold pond in the arctic in the winter. Yep. Ok.

“Stop stalling, kid,” Blood God said from behind him.

“I’m not!” Tommy denied. “I’m just appreciating the aesthetics of this-”

His words were swallowed along with a mouthful of ice-cold salt water as he fell down. Why salt water? Ew. The sensation of his stomach falling out his arse was overwhelming as he fell through burning heat, and then landed safely in gelid water at the bottom. He spluttered, wiping his eyes with sodden cardigan sleeves. The Syndicate lair was back to having zero points, with a point taken off for having the secret entrance be a crock of shit. Purpled, waiting with the rest of the group in front of an ice track and a couple of boats, reached out to pull him up out of the pool he had landed in.

“Come on,” he muttered. “Before-”

Water splashed all of Tommy’s back and down the collar of his t-shirt as Blood God and Crowfather jumped down one after the other in quick succession. He glared at them, fringe sticking drenched to his forehead. RUDE!

Shaking off like a dog, Tommy squelched his way over to the boats. The sooner they got to this evil secret lair that had BETTER BE WORTH IT, the sooner they could go home.

And... the sooner Purpled would go home. Forever. And not back to their flat.

It was definitely worth it. Obviously. Tommy wasn’t going to keep Purpled here against his will. Especially not if all they had was a stinky little one bedroom in Pogtopia. It was just that... now that he was thinking about it, his heart ached a bit. Like indigestion, but more emotional. He grasped for Purpled’s hand again, and wished for the return of his wing to huddle under.

Tommy grasped at Purpled’s hand the whole boat ride to the evil lair. Overall, this experience was turning out to be extremely unimpressive. Why was the secret lair so stupidly inaccessible? They couldn’t put their nether portal right by their house- oh no, they had to put it miles away across the tundra. They had to put a water chute in the arctic, and then blast you with lava before placing you right back in the icy water. And now they had a stupidly long boat ride before Tommy could even see the secret lair.

They were doing way too much, in Tommy’s opinion. Like anyone actually cared about arresting the Syndicate anyway.

Well. Maybe his new friends the superheroes did. But it was pretty obvious they were too flabbergasted at being invited to even consider attempting to arrest them. Not like it would be very smart on their home ground anyway. Much smarter to gather intel and come back with the full hero agency in tow another day.

Come to think of it, them being here was probably part of the reason why Blood God looked so supremely uncomfortable.

“Oi,” Tommy shouted out. A few people turned their heads back. “Dream.”

Dream, squished in a boat with both Sapnap and George, because no one wanted to share with them, craned his neck around the other two to look at him.

“Yeah?”

“What do you actually do? Like, as heroes?”

Dream’s oar knocked into the stone brick wall. Fundy and Foolish’s boat, immediately behind them, couldn’t avoid them as the heroes careened into the other side of the tunnel. And then Tommy’s teeth rattled as him and Purpled bumped into them: a three boat pile up with the Blood God grouchily poking them with his oar from behind. It took some pushing before any of them got moving forwards again. Dream eyed the supervillains at the back of the pack uneasily.

“Uh... I don’t know if we should talk about it here, Tommy...” Dream said.

Tommy persisted. “Well, obviously I know you do bank robberies, but what would the hero agency make you do about seeing the inside of the Syndicate’s base?”

The heroes looked queasy, and not from motion sickness. Ok, so maybe Tommy knew he wasn’t the most tactful. But sometimes honesty and bluntness was the best way to get people to trust you. And Blood God had already started a little truce with the heroes at his laundromat, so maybe city-wide peace wasn’t too hard to achieve.

“No, I wanna hear this too,” Blood God grunted. No doubt he was doing one of his evil smirks. Tommy tried to discretely look behind Purpled. Yeah, yep. He was.

Before he turned back, Purpled tapped him with the end of his oar.

“What do you mean, bank robberies?”

From in front, Foolish let out a high-pitched giggle.

“Um. Well. Remember when I got held up at the bank?”

“You got a concussion, Tommy, it wasn’t just being held up!” Dream said. “You were delirious, you didn’t even recognise us.”

“Haha, yeah...” Tommy chuckled awkwardly. “That was definitely why.”

“You got a concussion at the bank?” Purpled shot a dirty look behind them, at a very intrigued Crowfather and Blood God. Crowfather held up his hands, plus oars, to signal his innocence.

“It wasn’t us, mate. Blame your boss for that one.”

Purpled whipped his head back forwards. Quackity was around the bend in front of them, way ahead with Nemesis, Wilbur, Sam, and Slime at the front of the group, too far ahead to yell at. Tommy shifted on his bench in the boat.

“It wasn’t that bad, Purp. They’re exaggerating. Anyway, they keep tipping so much for the laundromat I made my money back in like a week.”

“Tipping?” he heard George mutter, but ignored it.

“Wasn’t that bad?” Sapnap shouted back. “You threw up on 404!”

“Uhhh...” Foolish hesitated. Fundy was shaking his head in minute but frantic movements. “Yeah, actually Tommy, I gotta apologise to ya.”

Tommy narrowed his eyes.

“Boss asked us to grab some cash for Purpled’s raise, you were kind of collateral. Sorry, man!”

Vindication! He knew it! Didn’t he call it? Didn’t he call it as soon as he saw those shifty motherfuckers in the casino! Fuck them!

“Collateral?” He screeched, ready to milk this for as much as it was worth. “I knew you fuckers stole my money; I knew it!” Tommy yelled. Purpled, with his newly sensitive ears and antenna, recoiled from the noise. “You absolute bitches!”

Fundy squeaked, using Foolish’s massive build to hide in front. His bushy tail puffed up like he’d touched a live wire, the only thing of him visible over Foolish’s shoulder.

“I dunno how much of a raise that is if the money just went out of your household in the first place,” Blood God murmured. Purpled snorted.

“I’ll give you your money back, Tommy,” he whispered. Tommy slapped him lightly. “Also, next time you have a concussion, maybe tell me? Fuckass.”

“Don’t be a bitch, it wasn’t that big of a deal,” he whispered back. “Just get Big Q to beat them up for me.” They smiled as Fundy meeped up ahead. Foolish hastily paddled them forwards.

They were coming up on the rest of the boats now, the end of the tunnel in sight. Tommy looked around them. The walls were obviously built with care, but they looked old. Like really old. Some of the bricks were covered in moss or cracked slightly. Seriously, he was not impressed with the super evil organisation for putting their secret evil lair in some mouldy old sewers.

The doors in front of them at least looked a little bit ornate. As they picked themselves out of their boats, gingerly shaking out pins and needles from sitting in a cramped position for so long- and seriously, why did no one talk about how much of a workout ice boating was?- Purpled and Tommy were pushed forwards by the piglin hybrid behind them.

“What you see in here,” he said. “Remains a secret. If it was up to me, you would never live to see the light of day after witnessing this. So thank your lucky gods Phil has a bleeding heart for orphans.” Tommy huffed. “Still dunno why we brought you along though,” he said, glaring at the hero trio.

“Um.” Dream said. “Just, uh, in answer to Tommy’s question earlier,” he winced, “we um. We take our orders from the hero agency, but we, uh. We’re kind of new, so it’s like, small time stuff at the moment. We, um. Well.”

“Yeah, nobody cares.” Blood God growled. “Just know that nobody better hear hide nor tail of this...” he raised a threatening eyebrow. “Or on your backs be it,”

“Be what?” Sapnap whispered, eyebrows furrowed.

“Death, maybe,” George whispered back.

“Hide nor what?” Foolish piped up. Blood God snorted angrily, like he wasn’t used to people not hearing of his stupid nether idioms.

Tommy rolled his eyes. At least they weren’t at each other’s throats. He supposed that was all he could really ask for, for now.

Crowfather moved forward to the doors, relying entirely on his wingspan and general intimidating aura to push people out of his way. He turned around and nodded at everyone.

“It goes without saying that each and every one of you must keep our base a secret. We have our ways of knowing if you don’t.” He smiled, and a crow squawked from where it had appeared on his shoulder. Either Tommy hadn’t been paying much attention, or the man could just summon them out of thin air? Crazy. “This room is our meeting room. Please, take a seat.”

He waved the doors open, and Tommy stared at the room behind.

Its ceiling was tall, trussed with intricate decorations and floating candles, which gave the overall dark room a dim glow. Done up in greens and purples, it definitely gave off the vibe of a villains’ meeting room. Finally, Tommy thought, they’d got the main bit of the evil lair right. At least they hadn’t completely fucked it.

They gathered around the table kind of awkwardly, each one uncertain if the invitation to sit should really be taken up on. The table itself was kind of interesting too, Tommy thought. Like, what were those things on the edge? They gave off a kind of buzzy, tingly feeling if you sat close to them, just enough to raise the hairs on his arms. Purpled, by his side, looked even more uncomfortable, and stared at them with an odd expression.

Blood God eyed the two of them. Tommy grinned back at him, wondering why on earth he was the recipient of such a scrutinising gaze. Surely they were best mates by now? Did he have rights to call him Techno yet? Should he stick to ‘Dave’ to be safe?

“Please, sit,” Crowfather urged them. They took their seats, although a few people remained standing. The Syndicate obviously hadn’t thought to have chairs for everyone. Which was fair, considering they were a three-person organisation. Having nine chairs was probably already overkill.

As it was, it ended up being one side Syndicate (minus Wilbur, who was sulking in the corner of the room, away from the table), their left side Las Nevadas, their right side Tommy and Purpled, and opposite them the heroes. Across from Tommy and Purpled, the Las Nevadas side was pretty crowded, only Quackity, Sam, and Slime having sat down, and Foolish and Fundy standing (or hiding) behind. Serves them right for robbing his bank, Tommy thought. Was there one more chair on his side of the table? Yes. Would he be offering it to them? Absolutely not. Sitting privileges revoked.

Crowfather cleared his throat, and Tommy’s attention snapped to him again.

“When we first encountered these ruins a few years ago, we decided upon this room to build our main place of operations.” Tommy rolled his eyes again. He wasn’t really in the mood for a history lesson. Dream, on the other hand, looked ecstatic. Nerd.

“Do you mean-” Dream blurted out, looking immediately embarrassed. The Crowfather raised an eyebrow. Blood God snorted.

“Would have thought you’d recognise the place you named yourself after, kid,” he grumbled.

“This is a Stronghold?” George exclaimed. Tommy looked around the room with a new appreciation. It was kinda cool, he guessed. Even if he didn’t really know what a Stronghold was, just that it was old.

“One thing we stumbled across when constructing this room, however,” Crowfather started again, “was the issue of this table.”

Blood God snorted again, settling his arms across his chest. “Selfish, stuck-up ass of a god,” he muttered. Huh?

Crowfather tried to hide a smile. “We were visited,” he said, “by a god. Who did not want us under any circumstances to use this... table... for its intended purpose.”

Those around the table seemed intrigued, but collectively confused. So, was this what had lead them all here? The table? What did a god care about a table? Even if it did give off supremely creepy vibes. But Tommy felt Purpled reach for his hand, batting his wrist blindly until Tommy grasped him back. Purpled’s long fingers were white with tension, his nails digging into Tommy’s palm.

Obviously Purpled had figured something out before he had.

Crowfather’s gaze was trapped on Purpled, and for once, his flatmate was meeting that stare with one of his own. Knowing eyes fixed on petrified ones, and Purpled’s mouth dropped open slightly.

“...A portal,” he whispered. Tommy’s heart leapt. No fucking way. Seriously? Crowfather was nodding, smiling indulgently, like a prick-ass-bitch patronising teacher.

“XD appeared out of thin air and stared at us until we promised we’d never use it.” Blood God said, picking at his nails with a spike on his wither-mace. That was badass, Tommy’s brain whispered. “Was a little baby about it until we filled it in with wood and destroyed our endereyes. But I’ve never been one to let a prissy little god tell me what to do,” he grinned. Tommy began to smile. This Blood God seemed a lot more familiar to him.

And, he thought, thumbing the weird texture of the rocks bordering the ugly crimson wood on the table, this meant... there was a chance Purpled’s journey home could go two ways.

If it was anything like a nether portal, that was. Here’s hoping.

“So, this is a good thing, right?” Tommy blurted out. “We can get you home, and then we can come visit! And you can come visit us back, right?” Purpled wasn’t responding, so he nudged him. “You’ll let us use your base to come and visit him, won’t you?” he asked, looking at Blood God, whose face was twisted slightly.

Cold seeped into his gut.

Crowfather coughed, clearing his throat, but apologetic about it. “This portal- as far as we have researched- is different to those we already know of.” His voice was gentle, quiet. The rest of the room was silent. Sombre. Tommy’s heart ached a bit more.

Blood God stared at Tommy, his eyes as soft as they had been in the laundromat all those days ago. “Kid. XD’s guarding it. We’ll convince him to take Purpled back, but I dunno if he’ll be all that stoked about opening up cross-realm trade and transportation, you know what I mean,” he said, smirking slightly like he’d told a funny joke. Well, it went over Tommy’s head, whatever it was. Blood God frowned, pursing his lips around his tusks, looking awkward. “Uh... yeah. It doesn’t have to be today, but we’ll get your friend home.”

Tommy grit his teeth. Now was the time to be supportive, he reminded himself. Supportive. He studied Purpled. His flatmate was sat on his hands, head bunched down at a ninety degree angle to his back. He seemed tightly strung, and not at all like someone who was raring to go back home. Was that a good or a bad sign?

His cheeks were pale, and his four eyes were blinking a lot. Tommy breathed in slowly. He wasn’t really sure what the best thing to do was. What sort of comfort Purpled needed, and if he was even prepared to give it. How convincing could he be when all he wanted was for Purpled to never actually go back home, to just stay, with him, forever and ever, best bros living it up in the big city?

He was a bad friend.

“Yeah, Purp,” he said, smiling despite his sinking stomach. “It’ll all be fine. Fuck that X-Dickhead. We’ll... we’ll get you home.”

Purpled was shaking. Was it fear? Excitement? Was he simply overwhelmed from everything that had happened today? Probably, he thought. This was... this was unthinkable. That he could get back home, after so long, if they could get this portal up and running. It was.

Beyond anything he’d ever dreamed of.

It made him feel a bit sick.

He glanced a look out of the corner of his eyes to his roommate. Tommy was smiling, but there was something in the way he held himself, in the tightness around his mouth, that told Purpled he wasn’t feeling as happy as he tried to seem.

Purpled felt his stomach turn. He gulped.

“I’m sorry,” he croaked out, stumbling back from the table ringed in endstone, bumping the high-backed chair across the flagstones. Tommy reached out for him immediately, face contorting in concern, but for the first time since... since forever, really, since at least a year ago, Purpled flinched back from his touch. He could see as Tommy’s face flickered with pain and confusion, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

He was going to go home.

He was going to leave Tommy behind.

He turned behind him, ran straight to the first ornate pot he saw, and heaved the contents of his stomach into it. A hand rubbing his back, smoothing over his elytra casing with tentative, slightly clammy hands, told him Tommy had not abandoned him yet. He retched again.

“Oh that is disgusting,” said Wilbur, huffing up a cloud next to them, as he inspected his dirty trench coat for flecks of vomit. “That was an ancient vase from an ocean temple you just desecrated, you heathen.” Well, so-rry, Purpled thought. What a snob. Now that he was focusing on it, he could see that yeah, maybe it was a pretty nice prismarine vase. Next time he upchucked he’d try to aim for Wilbur’s clown shoes instead. What were they, size fourteen? He glared.

“Oh fuck off,” Tommy grumbled next to him, still rubbing Purpled’s back. “Prick.”

Purpled’s breath hitched. Tears sprung to his eyes, again, because this day just could not give him a break. He was getting a dehydration headache. Smacking his lips, he let go of the fancy prismarine vomit bowl, and grimaced. His mouth tasted like death. And stomach acid.

Tommy was at his elbow, staring at him. Purpled could feel the remnants of the pain at him flinching away still lingering in his gaze, and he winced internally.

“Purpled?”

He was reminded, again, that there were more people in the room than just him and his roommate. He swallowed a vomity gulp of saliva. Quackity had gotten up from his chair, and crossed the room to stand a few feet away from them. His ear feathers quivered a bit, betraying his uncertainty.

“We...” Quackity started, eyes flickering about Purpled’s face. “Purpled, man... we’ll get you home, yeah?” Purpled grimaced. “You wanna come hear what Philza’s got to say about this portal? Are you...” Tommy was gripping his elbow hard, and Purpled was grateful for the pressure as his stomach churned again. “Are you okay, Purp?”

Was he ok? Ha. Yeah, he was fucking peachy. Fucking... chorus fruity. He sniffed hard, nodding, as if trying to inhale all the pathetic-ness he’d just puked out. He was getting home. Once they rebuilt the portal, dealt with whatever dick of a god that was guarding it, and said goodbye. He’d be home.

He’d see his brother again.

He’d lose another.

“And what do you want in return?” Sam spoke up, voice quiet, but carrying in the tentative stillness of the room. The Syndicate whipped their heads around to turn to him. Purpled’s followed a bit more slowly. In return?

“Who said we want anything in return, Samuel?” Philza said, smiling. Sam’s gas mask whirred impatiently.

“You must be stupid if you think-” Sam started, but stopped as the Syndicate all reacted.

“You calling us stupid?” Blood God growled. Nemesis was beginning to exude that death-like aura again. Purpled’s antennae shivered.

“Techno, no one’s calling you stupid,” Quackity said. “But you have to admit, we can’t just assume that you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart. And it is suspicious that you invited all of us to your literal home, just for this.” Quackity stuttered then, looking at Purpled. “Not that this isn’t a big deal, Purpled, I’m just saying-” Purpled shook his head minutely, just a little twitch, his face unchanging. He knew what Quackity meant. Quackity shot him an anxious smile, torn, but turned back to the Syndicate.

Crowfather stared back at him, still pretending as if this was a perfectly pleasant tea party. “There truly is no such cause for concern, mate. We would only have a problem if any of you were to... step out of line.”

Nemesis had an eyebrow raised. “Well I, for one, am looking forward to the prospect of you stepping out of line.” She tapped her nails- painted black, but thoroughly chipped- on the pommel of her sword.

Quackity frowned, his ear feathers twitching. “But all of this... you break your word with a god, you lose the alien tech, you let us, and the heroes come to your fucking houses...”

“Oh, sorry, did we say we were letting the kid have his magic crystal back?” Blood God jumped in. Tommy scowled.

Purpled stopped breathing.

“You did so say that!” Tommy yelled.

“Uh, when, kid? When did I say that? Because all I said was that we’d get him home. And now that we have a different way to do that, I say I keep the alien bomb.”

“Because it’s his!” his roommate rebutted.

“Pretty sure I mined, like, a couple stacks of ancient debris for that, kid.”

“It’s his! You can’t just take it! What the fuck? You are such a... an astronomical bitch!”

Blood God growled.

“If I may...” Crowfather interceded. “To answer your concerns, Quackity, Samuel, we will require your discretion as to the whereabouts of our base-”

“Talk like a normal fucking person,” Tommy muttered, fuming.

“...Yes. Well. To answer your concerns, we will require you to keep your mouths shut-” he flashed a smile to Tommy, who scowled back- “but we will not require payment. The knowledge that we are helping a fledgling such as Purpled is enough.” Crowfather’s eyes were wide, in a creepy attempt at innocence that landed far from the mark.

Silence, from Quackity, until: “Bull-SHIT!” He stood, slamming his hands down onto the crimson wood of the table. “I know what this is!” His wings rattled.

Crowfather smiled at him knowingly, cocking his head to the side. A crow materialized on the back of his chair, and croaked. Quackity was practically vibrating in rage.

“You just want to steal them!”

Purpled was confused. They’d already established the Syndicate wanted to steal the end crystal. Multiple crystals? But they’d said only Purpled could go through the portal. Unless they were lying?

“Steal? Oh no, no, Quackity. I was honest when I said Purpled would return home.”

Steal Purpled? 

“So you’ll settle for his friend?”

STEAL TOMMY?

“Well I can only assume... with the absence of his housemate... and one who paid far more than his own share of the rent...” Crowfather’s eyes laid onto Tommy. Purpled stared at his roommate in horror. Because it was true, and he hadn’t even thought of it. The laundromat made just enough to pay for Tommy’s part of the rent, and Purpled covered the rest. The other two-thirds. There was no way Tommy’d pay for the rest by himself. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuck.

Blood God was staring at Tommy too. Purpled warily studied his face. His eyes were focused, but didn’t have that cruel glint to them like they did when he taunted Quackity or the others. His posture was relaxed, arms folded across his chest but leaning back in his chair like he didn’t have a care in the world. He huffed suddenly. “Kid. You’d be safe with us, you know. It ain’t a bad option. Think about it.”

Crowfather smiled. “Techno took quite the shine to you, it seems.”

“So you’re swapping one fledgling out for the other?” Quackity shouted.

“No one!” Tommy shouted, “is stealing me or Purpled!” He stood up, waving his hands in between the angry glares on the other side of the table. “And frankly, I am offended you had ever thought that was an option.”

The Crowfather and Blood God pouted and grumbled in unison.

“Now,” Tommy said, leaning on the End Portal-slash-table. “Here’s how this is going to go down.”

A bubble of pride welled up in Purpled’s chest. With two short minutes of rapid-paced talking- not quite shouting, not quite using the Karen voice, but some kind of amalgamation of both that ended up giving the impression of a displeased HR manager with shit to fix- Tommy had managed to harangue the occupants of the meeting room into order.

The Syndicate were setting about to prepare for the portal’s reconstruction. Nemesis was off getting enderpearls, Blood God was gathering blaze power, and Philza was half-heartedly hacking away at the crimson wood in the center of the table, looking for all the world like he would rather give up on the idea of helping Purpled if it meant he’d get his furniture back.

Las Nevadas, aided by the Dream Team on the other side of the room, were preparing for Purpled’s departure, so to speak. They were collecting various items that they considered essential for Purpled to take with him- in case the journey home was long, and he got hungry, or he needed to fly, or swim, even though Purpled assured them he would not need to swim, and a wetsuit was not necessary, being as The End didn’t exactly have water. Regardless, he felt that it was likely he would be lugging a whole shit-ton of things with him.

Sam, however, was tasked with ensuring Tommy would be okay when he left. Tommy’s order for this had been a mumbled ‘and yeah it would be cool if I didn’t have to go homeless again once he leaves’ at the end of his impassioned tirade, which had been immediately snatched up by the resident dad figures of the room. The Crowfather had been banned from following out on any of his promises, on account of being way too creepy about them.

So now, Purpled and Tommy were waiting for the other members of the Syndicate and Las Nevadas to come back, left in a room with the Crowfather and his degenerate son, and Quackity and Sam.

As awkward silences go, it was not the worst one Purpled had experienced that day.

“So... uh,” Quackity started, fiddling with his cufflinks. They glittered in the chandelier light, and a crow took interest, jumping down from a decorated plinth to peck at it. Quackity shooed at it. “Tommy,” he said.

Tommy looked up questioningly.

“Uh...” clearly Q was struggling for conversation topics. “How did you get to working in a laundromat?”

Tommy perked up. Purpled considered this too. It’s not like he didn’t know Tommy’s story, but his roommate had never actually explained how he got to be in possession of an entire building and business. It was old news to him that Tommy used to live in the shop for a while before their apartment, but what about before that? How do you go from living on the streets to having six washing machines and dryers to run?

“Oh some guy gave me it!” he said merrily. Out of the corner of his eyes, Purpled saw Wilbur look up, interested.

“Yeah,” Tommy continued, “it was kind of like a miracle, to be honest. One day, I was just sat there, chilling, wondering if it was worth it to wash my clothes in the river ‘coz they kind of stank, and then this guy!” his eyes were sparkling, reminiscing. “This guy comes by, and he’s totally drunk, he’s stumbling all over the place, and he just, hands me these keys! And I was like, woah wait, what are these for? And he sort of points over to this building on the other side of the street, and it’s this old laundromat, like all dusty and cobwebby. And he never told me I couldn’t work there, so I kind of assumed he just gave me it as a present. You know some people get weird around homeless kids.”

Tommy was smiling like this was common knowledge, that people would gift homeless children random businesses. It certainly didn’t happen to Purpled when he first arrived.

Wilbur, on the other hand, was staring, mouth wide open, vape dangling from his fingers. In fact, so were Quackity and the Crowfather, minus the vape. Purpled shut his mouth too, after a beat.

“You- you... you- I...” Wilbur stumbled over his words. “That’s how I lost those keys?” His voice was kind of screechy.

“Hey, what?”

“I... I- right after I came back! My plan! I was going to... It was going to be my big new set up! My base of operations!” Wilbur was yelling, gesturing wildly with his arms, trench coat billowing around his skinny frame. “I thought I dropped them when I took the bins out!”

“Um...” Tommy said. “I didn’t recognize you, man, it must have been some other guy in a trench coat.”

“Those were MY keys!”

Purpled rolled his eyes. “If you were so pressed about it, why didn’t you come back to the laundromat?” he asked. Wilbur spluttered a bit more.

“Because... because- that’s beside the point!” Wilbur yelled. “I didn’t give him the keys; they just fell out of my pocket!”

Tommy looked thoroughly unimpressed. “Finders keepers, bitch.”

Purpled felt a bit sorry for Tommy, whose scowl had transformed his face into something sullen and a little bit childish. Maybe it had soured his memory of that day slightly. Less of a miracle, more of a dubious coincidence. Oh well. Wilbur had his burger-hitman side gig now, and he probably had his work cut out for him with his full time job of being a man-child. He could deal without a laundromat.

Crowfather was glancing between his churlish son and the equally churlish teenage boy in front of him. He had nearly finished excavating the portal. The crows that weren’t interested in Quackity’s shiny cufflinks were helping by pecking away splinters at the edges.

“Uh, mate,” he said. Wilbur turned to his father, face ready to bitch and whine about the injustice a previously homeless teenager was causing him. “How about we give up on that one venture, hmm? I’m sure I can get you a different laundromat.” He smiled, attempting to placate his son. “What about in L’Manburg, hey?”

“I’m so done with L’Manburg, dad!” Wilbur whined. “I told you that!”

“Ok, then how about we get you something on Las Nevadas territory, hm?”

“Hey!”

“What about near that one tower, wouldn’t that be cool?”

“Yeah, it would be kind of cool,” Wilbur mumbled, then huffed a big sigh through his vape. God, Purpled really hoped he didn’t get second-hand cringe disease from that vapor cloud.

Quackity was looking supremely unhappy with how this had all turned out, which was fair. He already had to deal with this guy attempting to one-up him through dubious burger restaurant practices, he didn’t need to deal with him having a store directly in his land.

“When are the others getting back, Sam?” he grumbled. Sam glanced down at his watch; arms folded across his chest. He sighed.

“Another fifteen minutes, at least,” Sam grumbled right back. Purpled sighed in unison with his boss. Great.

Thankfully, the room descended into silence for those last few minutes before the rest of Las Nevadas and the heroes came back with everything they had collected. It ended up being, in total, three carry-on suitcases, one large duffel bag, what Purpled presumed was a bag meant to house a surf board, and several totes. They dumped everything in a pile at the entrance, huffing and panting.

“Ok!” Slime exclaimed. “So we’ve got everything you could possibly need, Purpled! And I know you said not to but Foolish chucked his wetsuit in anyway, because you never know!”

Purpled rolled his eyes. If the occasion ever arose that he felt insane enough to go void surfing, a rocket would help him more than a wetsuit. But he nodded and said thanks anyway. Slime beamed.

“What the fuck is all this?” a voice complained, hidden behind the group of mafia-slash-superheroes in the doorway. It seemed Nemesis and Blood God had arrived.

Bullying his way through the bags and suitcases, Blood God slung a knapsack onto the table. Or he would have, had Crowfather not hacked out the middle ten minutes earlier. As it was, the knapsack fell with a crunch onto a solid square of obsidian beneath. Blood God winced.

“Techno...” Crowfather said, exasperated. “You better hope they didn’t break.” Crowfather reached down into the ring of endstone and retrieved the bag, holding it out for Blood God to peer into.

“Uh... we may be missing one or two,” Blood God mumbled. “But I brought spares. So we’re good.”

Crowfather’s ear feathers twitched, but he moved on. “Niki?”

Nemesis reached behind herself and revealed a jar of bright orange-yellow powder, glowing like embers, strapped to her harness-thing she was wearing as some sort of fashionable-goth statement over her shirt.

“Fantastic,” Crowfather said. “Now, going off historical precedence, we’ll be receiving a visitor as soon as we make an endereye. So...” he trailed off. Then he shrugged his wings. “Well, just stay quiet and don’t interfere and it’ll be fine.”

Purpled was not particularly convinced. And less so by the ‘probably’ that Blood God whispered under his breath.

Everyone waited with bated breath as they huddled around the table, watching Blood God and Nemesis bring the enderpearls and jar of blaze powder together, like the world’s most anxiety-inducing show and tell. They combined the first endereye. Nothing happened. Glancing around the room, as if XD was hiding with Wilbur in his vape corner, they then shrugged before beginning to combine the rest. They were up to seven, when Purpled began to feel tingles up his arms.

He shuddered. Eight endereyes. His antennae perked up, alert.

Nine endereyes. Ten.

Purpled tasted a slight shiver of ozone in the air.

Eleven.

Darkness. The room was sent into a total blackout, like the end of a film on an old television. Just a sudden blink and all light disappeared. From the center of the room, an irritating buzzing increased in frequency, sending jolts of pain down his ears. Nobody spoke.

The buzzing, humming frequency increased in speed and pitch until it burst out into a glowing ball of mass, then formed a shape- vaguely of a person, though it was undefined and difficult to see. Purpled had to squint all eyes before he could focus. Waves of power radiated off it, and as it settled further into its form, it was obvious to Purpled who was in front of them. This must be XD.

XD took the shape of a human, though cloaked and face obscured, with circling rings of golden magic orbiting in an X across its face. Purpled didn’t like how it had changed the energy in the room. Not that it had made things uncomfortable, any more than it already was, but that the energy had literally changed. His teeth felt like they were vibrating, like he was too close to an outlet and in danger of being shocked. His antennae flicked with static against his hair, which was standing on end.

And then it spoke.

“Dare to form that last eye and see what happens.”

Its voice was- disturbing. Loud, rattling his eardrums, and broken across multiple wave lengths. It screeched and squealed over pounding bass, crackling through hundreds of layers of sound as it staggered its way through human speech. It was understandable, just, but it hurt to hear.

Predictably, at this point, although no less painful than the first time, Tommy was not intimidated.

“Says who?” Tommy shouted, hands on hips, face pale in the shining light radiating off XD. In the back of his mind, Purpled vaguely wondered if they were all going to get radiation poisoning from this encounter.

“Uh...” the deity made a sound like a record scratch. “Says... me.”

There was quiet in the room as everyone in the room considered the fact that a child was sassing an ancient god with the power to easily delete them all from existence. Even XD’s background noise had stuttered to a stop.

“XD,” the god clarified.

“XD, we must entreat you to permit us entry to The End,” the Crowfather said, jumping in before Tommy could further stick his foot in his mouth, the most stupidly formal he had sounded yet. “We must return someone who was lost.”

XD swivelled around the room, cloak floating around untouched by gravity or momentum. “Hm.” It peered at each person, then laid its eyes on Purpled. “Oh.”

Awkward with the quiet, Purpled waved.

“Ok.”

“...Ok?” Crowfather asked, unsure.

“Yeah, if it’s just the kid, that’s, like, fair, I guess.”

Stunned silence. Lit aglow by the deity in front of them, the people in the room’s shocked expressions were exaggerated. Green light cast their dropped jaws into dark shadows, eye sockets indented far into their faces. Purpled didn’t want to imagine how he might look.

His roommate, on the other hand, was beginning to grin. A wide smile crept onto his face, the eerie lighting splitting its lower half almost in two. Tommy’s eyes were wider than he’d ever seen them, the whites reflecting a bright green, like they were glow in the dark.

“Sick!” he whisper-shouted. “Purpled! Purp, my man, you can go home!”

Purpled smiled slightly, although at the same time he felt a pang in his chest. Tommy whipped his head back around to XD.

“But, XD, oh powerful god, are you sure you can’t let me come with him? For moral support?”

The god seemed frozen.

“For a holiday?”

“...No.” XD said.

“Are you super sure? Cross your heart and hope to die, I can’t come to visit my very best friend? Can you make an exception? Just this once? For me?” Tommy begged.

XD stared at Tommy, and although they couldn’t see its face under the cloak and bright shining golden halos, Purpled sensed that its expression was something like incredulity. In fairness, lots of people were shocked when they first came into contact with Tommy’s brand of audacity.

XD made a staticky sound, screeching overlaid with the sound of an overloaded microphone. Purpled winced.

“For little old me?” Tommy begged, giving the deity his best abandoned orphan eyes.

XD was, unsurprisingly, stunned. Unfortunately, as the seconds ticked on in uncomfortable silence, it seemed like the deity’s surprise was beginning to transform into anger.

It seethed, sucking in air in a deep hiss before exhaling in a short burst of static.

“You... child... DARE...”

The darkness that XD had spread out to the rest of the room seemed to get impossibly darker, like the edges of reality were tearing off. Purpled could practically smell the void, and his eyes teared up with a curious mixture of nostalgia and fear. Maybe he should step in? Being the only person here with any connection to the End, did he have more sway over, well, technically his deity’s mood?

Actually, was this a sign that he should become religious? Or did the existence of a god not necessarily mean you were obligated to follow them? Hm. Thoughts for later.

Before the whirring, squealing static could generate any louder, Purpled stood up, raising his eyes to approximately where the god’s face was.

“XD?” he asked, voice wavering only slightly. “Uh. Hi.”

The deity turned to him, calming down just a bit. Which was good. Maybe he had the influence to turn this around. He flared his elytra out a bit, and raised his antennae like he wasn’t about to shit his pants.

“Uh. So. My name’s Purpled. I um. I glitched here on my space ship. And I really would like to go home. But, um.”

He paused. God- or, hm... XD- this was going to be kind of awkward. He did not like to be open with his feelings on the best of days, and this certainly was not a best-of-day. It was kind of a worst of day if he was being honest. Right. Stop stalling.

“This is Tommy,” he said, then swallowed. XD didn’t look like the introduction to his roommate had helped a second time. “I live with him here,” he said, before pausing again.

“Get to the point,” the god growled. Ok, so it wasn’t like Purpled wasn’t aware of the rising tension the longer it took for him to speak, but this was difficult! He was trying, sue him!

“I know he can be kind of a lot to deal with sometimes,” Purpled started. Tommy had a small smile on his face, unrepentant, and kicked him in the ankle. “But... he’s always been there for me. For as long as I’ve needed. And...” Purpled looked at his roommate. Tommy’s eyes were wet, shining in the dim white-green light. “And I’ll miss him, when I go back to the End. And although I miss my brother there...”

Tommy gazed at him, realization and grief strewn across his face. Purpled’s chin wobbled.

“I’m going to miss my brother here, too.”

Three months later

Tommy slung his backpack over his shoulder. His stomach buzzed with nervous excitement. If this all went well... He could barely row his boat in a straight line, and Techno grumbled behind him and shoved him with his oar. He shot the piglin hybrid a sheepish smile over his shoulder.

The meeting room had changed a lot over the weeks. It still looked a lot like a creepy evil lair, but it had collected little scraps of evidence that suggested otherwise. Tommy’s cardigan, strewn over the back of a chair, a dog bed in the corner from when Tommy had bullied Techno into letting him cuddle one of his wolfdogs while they were having long meetings and he got bored, burger wrappers that he’d forgot to clean away after meeting up with Ranboo. And of course, the temporary IKEA table they’d set up right next to the ex-table-now-portal that occupied the centre of the room.

It was, now, open. The ring of endstone and endereyes encircled a dazzling pit of endless void, fizzing slightly with particles that smelt of ozone. Tommy’s stomach swooped.

Phil and Niki were already waiting in the meeting room, talking with Quackity. Although it had been three months, and the negotiations between the two groups had gone from bickering to what could almost be called casual, they still didn’t look all that comfortable in the same room together. But Tommy wasn’t worried. He was sure that given a few more months they’d get along fine. If Wilbur could resist the urge to be a pain in the arse.

Tommy’s new phone pinged with a text. He fished it out of his pocket, flicking at where the screen protector had already cracked off and the plastic beneath was peeling up.

All good? Dream had texted. Tommy smiled.

shitting myself but in a good way he responded. fuckign buzzing

His phone pinged again.

Safe travels. Came the message from George. And Sapnap says have fun. Except he blew up his phone again yesterday so he can’t tell you himself.

Dream texted back with a dubious great a few seconds later. Then, glhf - whatever that meant.

“Tommy!” Quackity exclaimed, breaking off from his conversation with the Syndicate and coming over to pull him into a feathery hug. “Are you ready?”

Tommy nodded vigorously. He couldn’t trust his voice not to come out all squeaky and prepubescent, but he tried to convey his excitement all the same. He was so ready.

Phil smiled at him indulgently, as Phil did often, and beckoned him closer to the portal with his wings.

“Remember,” he said. “Take a deep breath, and hold onto it until you are through. Make sure you are steady on the platform before moving. XD only allowed us to go through one at a time, so wait for at least five minutes and then one of us will follow you.”

Tommy rolled his eyes. He’d heard this all before, blah blah blah. Just let him through already!

“Good luck,” Niki said, smiling. Tommy grinned back. She’d changed a lot from three months ago, he thought absently. She used to be so much scarier. Now she just threatened to give him the burnt batches of cookies instead of the good ones if he annoyed her too much. And she would never be so bad at anything as to actually let something burn, so it was kind of a pointless threat anyway.

“Ok, then!” Quackity said, his ear feathers flicking in a way that belied his anxiety. But anxiety was kind of the duck-hybrid’s natural state when in the Syndicate headquarters, so Tommy wasn’t worried. “Let’s get this show on the road!”

Techno bumped his elbow against Tommy’s shoulder. “Kid,” he grunted. “Don’t slip off and die or something.” Well, thanks. He wasn’t planning on it. “And tell your friend he owes me an end crystal.”

“He doesn’t!” Tommy laughed. “Even XD said so! It made you give him it back!”

Techno’s face scrunched up. “Annoying stuck-up idiot god,” he grumbled under his breath.

“Ok, alright,” Phil said, cutting in. “Come on, Toms, step up.”

Feet on the edge of the portal now, Tommy gulped. He could feel the echoes of XD in the waves radiating off the void below him. He smiled. And stepped off.

If Tommy were to sum up the experience of travelling across previously unlinked realms in one word he would say it was disorientating. He didn’t fall, per se, no more than got his head through the portal; it was more like he was one moment aware of his surroundings and then the next, suddenly embraced in the black of the void. Miniscule stars spun around his head, but he didn’t feel like he himself was spinning. All at once he wanted to breathe in and fall back and never escape, and he wanted to scream out and explode and break free of the darkness. And he felt the urge to hiccup.

It was... a new experience.

A couple of seconds went by, until he felt his body return to its senses. His feet were standing on something. His eyes were open, but his sight was being returned to him only incrementally. His ears were ringing, which was odd, as the portal had been almost entirely silent.

He was standing on an obsidian platform, adrift in the void. Fuck. That was kind of mind-boggling. He was in The End. He was in Purpled’s home realm. He flung his sight around, feet frozen in place lest he accidentally fall off like Techno had specifically told him not to. Islands of endstone surrounded him on all sides, some further away than others. But...

The largest island had a bridge connecting to his platform. It was made of some fancy purply-pink bricks, and at the other end...

And coming closer...

Two figures, one swooping in shallow dives to soar closer, the other lagging behind in a slow walk.

His eyes welled up immediately.

“Tommy!” The figure yelled, as he finally reached close enough to hear. “Tommy!”

Tommy laughed in pure joy.

“Purpled!” He yelled back, taking a tiny step forward from the centre of his platform.

“Tommy!” They collided in a hug, Purpled’s elytra smacking him on the back with enough force to make him cough up a sob that he’d been trying not to bring up. They smashed their faces into each other’s necks and tried to muffle the sound of their very manly crying.

“Purpled, my man, Big P! I’ve missed you so much,” Tommy said, when they pulled away. Purpled’s eyes were shiny, and his face looked so much more... alive, than when Tommy had last seen him. His skin was a bright lilac now, which Tommy supposed was fitting, and his antennae were perked up instead of hiding in his fringe.

“I’ve missed you too,” Purpled said, a tear escaping him.

He turned back suddenly to the bridge behind him, and motioned the second figure to hurry up. All of a sudden, he let out a vwoop, scratchy and layered like a budget-XD soundboard, and grinned at Tommy, pointy teeth and all. Tommy grinned back.

“Come on,” Purpled said, grabbing at Tommy’s hands. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”