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When Purple was two, she tripped and fell and hit her head on a rock. Her parents took her to the ER, where she was diagnosed with a concussion and the need for stitches. Purple started crying the instant the nurse brought out the needle, and she didn’t stop until all eight stitches had been completed.
When Purple was eight, she had to have her tonsils out. When the time came for the nurse to insert the IV so that Purple could be knocked out, Purple panicked. Orchid would later tell her – years later, when the memory of the procedure wasn’t quite so awful – that Purple had squeezed her hand so hard, as the IV was put in, that she had left bruises.
When Purple was ten, she stepped on a rusty nail while she was training in their tiny backyard. It was Navy who took Purple to the ER that time, and on the way there he told her that she would need a tetanus shot, no question. And, he added, no tears allowed. Purple was a big girl. She wanted to be a brave girl, didn’t she? A strong girl? Purple had been a little preoccupied with the searing pain in her foot and the blood soaking through the dishtowel she had pressed against it, but she’d nodded. Slowly, but she’d nodded. When the needle came out, Purple was white and shaking. But she didn’t make a sound.
(She did cry, later, in her room, with her face stuffed into her pillow so that Navy couldn’t hear. But she figured that even strong people were maybe allowed to cry where nobody else could see.)
When Purple was eleven, her dad walked out on them.
When Purple was twelve, she came home from school to find her mother slumped, unconscious, on the couch. Purple had called 911, and her mother had been taken to the hospital, and then Purple had learned that her mother was dying.
(They didn’t tell her that, right at first. But she knew her mother, and in the weeks following that first ER visit, she could tell that something was wrong. Really wrong. And then she’d thought to google her mother’s illness one day in the library at school, and the school librarian had found a weak little coward sobbing with her head on the keyboard, a never-ending procession of g’s marching their way through the search bar.)
When Purple was twelve and three quarters, her mother collapsed and had to be hospitalized. And now Purple couldn’t pretend that the needles didn’t exist, that the little red dots on Orchid’s arm after doctor’s visits were just bug bites, because her mother was hooked up to machines, so many machines, and there was an IV all the time, and so many needles. She didn’t dare leave because Orchid looked so fragile, like she might break at any moment, and Purple couldn’t stamp down the fear that if she looked away Orchid might disappear with no warning like – like – that Orchid might disappear. And so she sat there, watching her mother, even when the nurse drew blood to run tests. Orchid never told her that right then, watching that, Purple looked decades older than she had any right to be.
Two days before Purple was thirteen, Orchid died.
When Purple was thirteen, she was put into foster care.
When Purple was thirteen and two months, she ran away and didn’t stop running. She lived on the streets, clawing her way through the months with a grim determination to survive. She didn’t cry. She had cried the night Orchid died, when her mother hugged her and told her “I love you”, but that was the last cry for a long, long time.
(She wouldn’t cry again for over four years, when another pair of loving arms would encircle her and another voice would tell her that she could be still be loved.)
When Purple was fourteen, she discovered Minecraft. And for once, she felt like she had found someplace that wanted her.
She was wrong.
When Purple was fourteen, she ruled a kingdom. (Well, a village.) And then she lost it, because of a stick named Green and his friends. (She knew that it was her fault. She did. But she couldn’t bring herself to admit it, right then, because then she would have had to admit that after years of struggling towards perfection and the person her father would have wanted, she was no closer than when she began.)
When Purple was fifteen, she met Green and his friends again. And she thought maybe, just maybe, these were people who wanted her.
She had to be wrong, didn’t she?
When Purple was seventeen, she knocked on the front door of a run-down house in the suburbs, wanted poster in hand. And when that door opened, she had no way of knowing that that moment marked a definitive point in her life. That moment would mean friendships broken – betrayed – and reforged. An old purpose discarded, an old mentality cast aside, and something new blossoming in its place. One father grieved but laid to rest, no longer the specter that had haunted her throughout the years, and another father found. And this time, Purple let herself hope that this place, and these people, truly did want her.
Her. Not for being strong, not for being perfect, not for being smart or brave or honorable. They appreciate those things in her, but they love her because she is Purple.
Just Purple.
And they care.
About her.
Which is why, Purple has to remind herself, King is telling her that she needs to go to the doctor. He loves her enough that he’s willing to risk triggering some of his old trauma in order to make sure she’s okay.
He doesn’t know the magnitude of what he’s suggesting. Purple hasn’t found the courage to tell him, yet, how Orchid died or why, exactly, Navy walked out on them. Their relationship is growing deeper with every passing day, but some things hurt too much to share right now.
Purple knows that she should go to the doctor. She’s been feeling like something the cat dragged in for weeks, and Blue has already told her that he thinks the problem is something a Minecraft potion can’t fix. But she can’t stop thinking that maybe if she just ignores it, and keeps going, she’ll push through on her own. Get her energy back, stop feeling like the mere act of thinking is an enormous, uphill effort.
Finally be able to get a good night’s rest.
She’s knows she’s wrong.
It takes two days for King to convince her. Or, rather, two days for Purple to psyche herself up to the point that she can tell him “OK”.
She feels a little guilty, some part of her suspecting, perhaps, that Green and the others would be horrified at the things she’s telling herself. Purple has a lot of self-hatred, and it’s still there. It’s deeper down, smaller now, almost invisible. Most of the time. It’s in survival mode, hiding with teeth bared and just waiting for her to stray too close so that it can pounce.
And, well, if Purple chose instead to walk straight into its lair and weaponize it against her own cowardice, it’s not going to complain.
King lives in the suburbs, about twenty minutes away from downtown. He and Purple don’t often go downtown together. They usually run errands separately, since they each have their own MO and like their relationship too much to risk quarrelling over the right way to speedrun the grocery store.
Green didn’t get it at first, when Purple tried to explain.
“You know it’s okay to disagree on things, right?” he’d asked. “It can’t change how you feel about each other. You’ll still love each other.”
Purple had nodded. “Yeah. I know. But…it’s just…we don’t like it.” It made King uncomfortable when he got angry (it reminded him of when he was King Orange) and Purple had been on the receiving end of anger too many times to be comfortable with casual fighting. “Like, I know you and your brothers do it all the time. It’s just bonding. But it’s different for us.”
Green had taken that in, and then changed the subject. He never brought it up again, but Purple doesn’t miss the way that he occasionally hisses at his brothers to reel it back when their banter gets a little too lively, their playfighting a little too realistic.
She appreciates that.
It feels really weird, then, when King drives her to her appointment. They don’t talk much on the way – King because he’s paying close attention to the road because driving in downtown traffic is beyond stressful for him, and Purple because she’s busy keeping herself calm.
Brave. She can be brave. It’s just a doctor’s appointment. It’s not anything unusual. There’s something wrong with her, sure, but it’s probably something stupid and tiny and easily fixed. She’s not dying, she’s not fatally ill, that’s ridiculous, she’s being such an idiot –
Okay, maybe something is wrong with her. Not physically, but mentally.
Such a surprise. Big whoop.
King mutters under his breath as he misses the turn, and Purple can’t help fantasizing about scrambling out of the pickup’s open window and booking it for the hills. She’s fast, and sneaky. They’d never catch her. She’s only got a twenty on her, but she survived on her own for years with no bank account and no job. A twenty can go a long way, if you use it right.
Yeah…she’s not doing that.
She’d miss King. And Green, and his friends, even if they drive her crazy sometimes and her stomach won’t stop doing this little flip-floppy thing when she’s around Green which is frankly embarrassing.
The pickup’s engine stops, and Purple comes out of her brown study to discover that they’ve parked.
“Finally,” King says, slumping back.
Purple musters a grin from somewhere, because that’s what she’d normally do. It does absolutely nothing to take the edge off the suffocating anxiety she can feel building in her chest. “You just gotta be more aggressive.”
“Right of way is given, not taken,” King says, frowning at her.
“Not downtown, old man.”
King mutters something about not old, but Purple can see a smile tugging at his lips. Her anxiety recedes just a little bit, and she allows herself to feel just the tiniest bit proud of herself. Mission accomplished.
There’s no way she’s going to avoid her own triggers today, but if she can do anything to help King avoid his, she will.
“So.” King exhales, and Purple can see that he’s feeling a little nervous. He’s pretty good at masking his emotions, when he wants to, but Purple is…better than most at reading body language. “Let’s get this over with, huh?”
Still, it’s kind of sweet that he’s trying to be nonchalant for her sake. And it’s also ironic, given that she’s doing the exact same thing for him.
“Yup,” Purple says, opening the pickup door. A wave of heat blasts her in the face, thanks to the blazing sun overhead. It does nothing to help with the cold knot of anxiety in her gut, or the nervous tremble in her knees.
Stupid treacherous legs, Purple thinks, trying to walk casually as she follows King into the squat building that houses the doctor’s office. She’s not sure how well her attempt at ‘casual’ goes, but King doesn’t seem to notice, so she’ll take it as a blessing. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, after all.
Unless, of course, it’s a gift from somebody who really shouldn’t, logically speaking, be wanting to give you gifts. Definitely look the stupid horse in the mouth then.
They sit in the waiting room for an eternity (read: ten minutes) before a nurse pokes her head through the door and calls Purple’s name.
Purple swallows (it takes her two tries to get the saliva to actually travel down her throat), and stands up perhaps a little too quickly. Black spots crowd the edges of her vision for a moment before receding.
That’s…probably fine. It’s been happening a lot recently.
It’s fine. Totally fine.
King looks suddenly uncertain. “…Did you want me to come back with you?”
Purple hesitates, equally uncertain. She’s extremely tempted to say yes. King’s presence is always reassuring. Around him is one of the few places she feels safe, even if she doesn’t always feel completely…not awkward. She may not always know just what to say, or how to say it, or when to say it, but she knows that he loves her.
But she’s a big girl. She’s eighteen. She’s far, far too old to be holding her dad’s hand just because she’s a little nervous. (She doesn’t notice, at the moment, that she calls King dad without even thinking about it.) And King has gone through enough doctor’s visits for a lifetime. He shouldn’t have to do that to himself for her.
She shakes her head. “No. I’m good.”
Her voice squeaks a little on the first word, but she doesn’t think it’s too obvious.
(King’s just looking at her like that because he’s feeling uncomfortable, himself. Obviously.)
“Well, I’ll be waiting right here. If you change your mind,” King says.
Purple nods, knowing full well that she isn’t going to, and follows the nurse to the examination room.
The nurse leaves her in the examination room, promising that someone will be by soon. Another eternity of waiting (read: eight minutes) follows, during which Purple stares very, very hard at the rather blurry picture of a sunset on the opposite wall and devotes most of her attention to ensuring that she keeps breathing.
(Her body has this awful habit of kicking out of ‘automatic mode’ when it comes to breathing if she’s really stressed or panicking or just, like, full on having a breakdown, and breathing is sort of important, so…)
When the doctor comes in, smiling and far too cheerful, Purple’s not sure if she’d like to kiss him for coming in and giving her expedient motivation for shutting down the panic attack that’s on the verge of happening, or kill him for coming in and, you know, initiating the thing that’s the reason for said panic attack.
Fortunately, despite his cheerful demeanor this doctor is all about business. He shakes hands with Purple, compliments her on her firm handshake, and then gets right down to brass tacks.
(“Don’t you mean copper pickaxes?”
“Shut up, Green, those don’t exist.”
“But they should.”
“How did I get sucked into this argument again?”)
Purple has already decided that she’s not going to hold anything back. She’s supposed to be brave, after all, and an inability to face the truth is cowardly, right? So she answers all of the doctor’s questions thoroughly and evenly, describing in detail all the ways she’s been feeling less than ideal for the past few weeks.
She pretends that her right hand isn’t clenched into a fist so tight that her nails are cutting into her palm.
“Well,” the doctor says, after he’s done questioning her, “my guess is that you’re low on something. Vitamin D or iron, probably. Maybe both.”
A tiny bit of tension bleeds out of Purple’s shoulders, and she realizes that she’s been wound up tight like a spring. That…that’s not so bad. Actually, that’s good.
Well, it’s not good, because she’s been feeling like crap. But this is so easy! She could literally just walk into the nearest grocery store and get some vitamins! Orchid used to insist that she take vitamins regularly, but after…everything, Purple just kind of…stopped.
“We’ll draw a little blood and send it off to be tested, see how you’re doing on all your vitamins,” the doctor says, smiling cheerfully. He keeps talking, something about needing to know what, exactly, Purple is low on, and the necessity of a higher dosage for a little while to get her back up to speed, but Purple’s brain has bluescreened and all she can think is needles.
She wants to throw up.
“Sound good?”
Purple blinks twice, focusing on the doctor. He looks slightly concerned. “You’re zoning out. Are you feeling all right?”
It takes Purple a couple tries to get her voice working again. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m…fine. Sorry.”
“It’s perfectly fine if you’re nervous,” the doctor assures her. “Having blood drawn isn’t pleasant.”
No, no it isn’t. Yes, that is the understatement of the glitchin’ century.
“If you’ll just wait here for a few minutes, I’ll send the nurse back in,” the doctor says, clicking his pen in a businesslike way. “She’ll get you taken care of, and then you can go back to enjoying your day. Sound good?”
He doesn’t wait for an answer, perhaps sensing that Purple would rather not talk right now, and instead leaves the exam room.
Okay, time for real talk. She still has that twenty in her pocket. The window in the exam room isn’t large, but she’s lean and flexible and she’s used to worming her way through all kinds of tight spaces. That window is barely an obstacle. So, open the window, climb out of the window, do a little recon to make sure nobody realizes she’s gone, chuck her phone into the river (they crossed the river on the way here, right?) so that she can’t be tracked, and start running –
Purple’s actually reaching up for the window latch when she realizes that she is being an absolute glitching lunatic right now.
Oh, yeah, she should be breathing right now.
Purple forces herself to take several deep breaths, which don’t help with the anxiety at all, but at least the room has stopped wobbling like King’s homemade Jell-O.
Hello, self-loathing. What a useful tool you are.
Purple slowly, slowly inches her way back to the exam table and hoists herself back up onto it. And then she stares at the floor, willing herself not to throw up and trying not to think about the needles.
She wants to crawl out of her skin and die.
When the nurse enters the room, Purple has to tell herself to stop evaluating the stick’s weaknesses, she is not your enemy, she is not attacking you, do not fight her.
“All right, dear,” the nurse says, giving Purple a smile. Her curly, coral-colored hair is pulled back into a low bun. It kind of reminds Purple of the buns Orchid liked to wear, and – no, no, bad topic, back off, don’t think about that. “Lie back for me, please.”
She hands Purple a rubber ball, telling her to squeeze it as she probes at the inside of Purple’s elbow with gentle fingertips.
“Try to relax, sweetie,” the nurse says, and Purple would laugh because how in the sticking world is she supposed to glitching relax, except she’s too busy trying not to panic. “And…there.”
The pinch of the needle is unbearable. Purple wants to scream. It doesn’t even hurt that bad, why doesn’t it hurt that bad, but she can feel it, and it itches, and it stings, and she can’t stop thinking about the blood leaving her body, sucked through the needle, and now her brain can’t stop thinking about stuff entering her body through that horrible silver shaft, unknown substances coursing through her veins, an invasion of something she thought was hers, and she is going to SCREAM –
makeitstopmakeitstoppleasemompleasemakeitstopohmommyMAKEITSTOPPLEASE -
“All done. You did good, sweetie. Are you feeling dizzy at all?”
Purple cracks open her eyes (when did she close them?) and blinks away the wetness coating her eyelashes.
The pinching feeling is gone.
Relief washes through Purple. She’s so hopped up on adrenaline that she’s practically shaking as she sits up.
“If you need to, you can lie here for a few minutes,” the nurse says, giving her a sympathetic pat on the arm. “You’re looking a little pale.”
Purple tries not to think about the weakness she showed. All she can think about is that the needle isn’t in her anymore, it’s gone, it’s gone, thank God it’s gone.
“I’m not dizzy,” Purple says, and it’s true. She’s not. She just really, really wants to get out of here. But she also kind of feels like she’s going to throw up still. “Can I use your restroom before I go?”
“Sure, sweetie. It’s right down the hall. Last door on the left.”
When Purple reaches the bathroom, she locks the door with shaking hands and slumps against the wall. Her entire body is trembling, although whether it’s from adrenaline or the blood loss, she can’t tell.
She doubts that it’s from the blood loss. She didn’t lose that much blood.
Although should the room be tilting like this?
Purple staggers across to the sink, jerking the cold water on and plunging her hands into it. Normally, if she’s feeling dizzy, the shock of cold water helps. But she’s still feeling dizzy, and – oh, she should probably tell the nurse, shouldn’t she –
She gets out of the bathroom somehow, and stands in the hallway wondering why the world keeps spinning. (Later, she will realize that the room wasn’t spinning, she was swaying in drunken circles trying to stay upright.)
No nurse in sight. Where did she go, again? Purple can’t remember. Her thoughts are getting kind of fuzzy, and the floor keeps tilting towards her and away from her and then back again, and would it just stop?
A short hallway leading to area behind the receptionist’s desk is right by the bathroom door. Maybe she can ask the receptionist where the nurse went –
Purple takes a step, and the floor kind of just swoops, and then she’s in an office chair somehow, and someone – no, multiple someones – are bending over her, and someone is touching her shoulder, and a voice, distant and fuzzy and kind of echoey, is asking her if she can stand up long enough to walk to an exam room so that she can lie down.
“Sure,” Purple mumbles. “Yeah, I c’n do that.”
Strong arms support her on either side, which is probably a good thing, because Purple opens her eyes and they’re in the exam room, so she must have blacked out or something on the way there. Sweat is beading her forehead, and she’s really hot, but someone is putting a cool hand on her forehead, and it feels good. Really good.
She’s not hot anymore, all of a sudden, and the world kind of snaps back into focus. She blinks, and there’s King, standing over her with a pale face, one hand gently resting on her forehead.
“Thank God,” King gasps. “You scared me.”
Purple licks her lips. “Didn’t mean to.”
“You were green,” King says, and Purple laughs.
“No, Green’s green.”
“You looked like you were dead,” King says, his breath hitching, and oh, that’s not funny. “You just toppled right through the doorway – ”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” King sighs, slumping into the chair that the nurse standing behind him helpfully pushes forward. He reaches out, taking Purple’s hand and clutching her fingers tightly. “You’re okay.”
“Yeah.” Purple winces. “I guess I should have stayed sitting longer. That’s my bad, old man, I was being stupid.”
“Do not call yourself that,” King snaps, and Purple freezes.
He notices almost instantly. “I’m sorry.”
“S’okay.” Purple’s feeling a little floaty right now, and whatever normally controls the connection between her brain and her mouth is maybe not working quite correctly, because the very next thing she says is “I’m a coward.”
King frowns at her.
“I cried,” Purple says dreamily, staring at their clasped hands. She picks at a loose thread hanging from her sleeve, aggravating what is quickly becoming a hole in the hem. “I guess I’m just…weak. Such a baby…”
She blacks out for a second, and when she comes back King appears to be struggling to determine what emotion he’s feeling.
“Why didn’t you ask me to come with you?” he asks. He’s giving her this sad look, like she sucker-punched him or something, and oh that idiot no that’s not –
“I trust you, old man,” Purple snaps. She has difficulty focusing on his face, so she lets her eyes roam around the room instead. They finally settle on the light fixture, and Purple absently notes that there are two dead flies trapped inside it. “’S just…not supposed to cry, y’know? Stupid to be afraid of needles.”
“Purple…”
“I’ll do better,” Purple promises, tearing her eyes away from the light fixture because she’s irritated that no one has cleaned that stupid light fixture and there are literal glitching dead bugs just trapped in there. “I’ll be brave.”
“Purple, you are brave.”
Purple blinks, wishing the world would stop going in and out of focus like this. “But you said no tears allowed.”
“What – ” King sounds absolutely bewildered. Then, suddenly, his breathing changes, his breaths coming faster. The air almost hisses between his teeth as he exhales sharply. “Purple, who ever told you it was cowardly to cry?”
The room does an extra weird shimmy, and Purple closes her eyes for a second. When she opens them, the room has settled down.
“I’m gonna give you two some privacy,” the nurse says, sounding very uncomfortable.
Purple blinks, surprised, as the door clicks shut behind her. The room is coming into focus now, and staying that way, and King is holding her hand, and he looks angry, and oh shit what did I do?
“Sorry?” Purple whispers.
King gives her a heartbroken look, one which Purple’s only seen a couple times. She doesn’t like being pitied, and he knows it. But he can’t always hide his Navy screwed you up GOOD and I sorta wanna go King Orange on him for it look.
“You do not need to say sorry,” King says, gripping her hand tighter. “Purple, crying is not automatically a sign of weakness. Crying is not wrong. Being scared is not wrong. And asking for help, or support, is not a sign of cowardice. Okay?”
“Okay?”
King sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. That’s the how do I help this abused child sigh. Purple hears that one a lot, though not as often as she used to.
“Purple.” King meets her eyes. “Bravery is not about being unafraid. Bravery is being willing to do the right thing even when you’re afraid. Strength is not about not showing weakness. Strength is about doing the right thing to the best of your ability and never giving up. And neither of those exclude asking for help as a valid option. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“You are the exact opposite of a coward, Purple,” King says. “Trust me.” His fingers brush Purple’s arm gently, and she looks down to see that he’s tracing one of the scars there from when she was blasted by his staff.
King knows her well enough not to push it. Instead, he simply sits there and lets her process it for several minutes.
Purple’s fingers twitch in his. “I wanna sit up.”
He helps her up, clearly afraid that she’s going to go toppling over again, but the room stays steady.
Purple takes a deep breath. “I glitching hate needles,” she says, and then she bursts into tears.
King doesn’t seem to mind when she leans into his shoulder, burying her face in his jacket. Even though she’s eighteen, and way too old to be crying about this. Even though she’s getting snot and tears all over his nice jacket. He just rubs her back gently, tracing circles across her shoulder blades until her sobs die away into hiccups.
King doesn’t even say anything about the curse, although there’s a definite possibility that he’s going to pull the swear jar out when they get home.
When Purple finishes her cry, she feels just about ready to keel over. She’s forgotten just how much a long, hard cry can take out of you.
“I think,” King says, helping her to her feet and putting an arm around her shoulders to help her stay upright, “that we need ice cream.”
“But – ”
“You just lost blood. You need some calories and sugar and fat in your system. Trust me on that,” King says.
“…Okay.”
(It’s not the last time Purple has to get her blood drawn. They make her go back, two months later, so that they can draw some more and check that her Vitamin D levels are back up to where they should be.)
(Purple tries not to be intensely irritated that she went through all that when she could have just gone to the grocery store and bought a bottle of vitamins.)
(But she asks King to come in with her, this time. And they both laugh when the nurse takes one look at her and says that Purple isn’t allowed to get up for a solid ten minutes after she gets her blood drawn. And when King takes her out for fro-yo afterward, Purple doesn’t even realize that her “Thanks, Dad” is anything out of the ordinary.)
(King maybe has to take a minute in his room when they get home. And if Purple wonders why he gives her the most bone-crushing hug when he’s done, that’s her puzzle to figure out.)