Chapter Text
Ever since finding that old bedroom, Purple has been finding it harder and harder to push down her dizzy days.
She still did her jobs well, and spent time with her friends on schedule, but the choking feeling in her throat, around her heart, kept swelling up at the worst times and she hated that it did that while she was around other people. She hated that it made her hands unsteady and her legs weak. She hated that it made her quieter than she normally would be. She hated how much effort it took to appear normal to everyone.
Because no one knew, and she was going to keep it that way.
Well, no one except…
Mango.
But she would accept an occasional day with Mango. Occasional. He knew how she acted during those times, and knew they helped her calm down to an extent, but for some reason he thought that made it okay to keep trying to make them happen. He was constantly calling her little pet names and ruffling her hair and speaking softly to her, in a tone she recognized from the hazy memories in a time where her head would float off to bump around the ceiling and her body would sit there, quiet and comfortable, curled up on the couch or in his arms.
Code, she shouldn't want that so much. She shouldn't want to be… vulnerable with him so constantly.
… Okay, it wasn't constant. Most times, when he started treating her like that, it was on days where she already felt a little dizzy, a little quieter. He'd been getting alarmingly good at telling when those days were, too. They hadn't talked properly about it since the first time, but…
"Whenever you need me, I'm here."
Cursors. Why would he say that to her? How could he have offered that when she was so much trouble normally?
So she continued ignoring her dizzy days, and staying in her house alone when she couldn't, either in the city or in Minecraft, and allowing Mango to do as he pleased when he caught her too deep in one. And she continued not letting anyone know what she was.
And then she found Red.
Red, her friend Red, the size of a toddler and wandering outside the Nether portal to his PC. He'd been acting so strange… but it was definitely Red. And he kept insisting he was little.
She'd tried not to think of what that meant. She tried to rationalize it away as a glitch with his code, or an effect of one of Blue's potions, not as… not that…
But, code, she didn't have time. She'd had to get him to Mango's house since the PC's portal blew up, and after that she just had to keep an eye on him the whole time, because the actual literal Angel of Death was in his house, and she couldn't trust him no matter how good he was with Red. There hadn't been a second where she wasn't near him or watching him, even when the Prism arrived, because her shoulders had been tense and her hands had been ready because she knew how fast both Red and the Angel could move. She also knew how fast she could move. She was just hoping she would be able to get him out of the line of fire.
She'd called the Angel "the guy on the posters." That wasn't the only way she knew him.
But the way he spoke, and the way he moved, and the way he indulged Red— the explanation he'd given when she had only barely started to dig for an answer? She'd had to stop herself from wincing at the pang in her heart. Why did he, of all people, know that? Why did he get to be the one who held that knowledge, and not anyone else? How dare he speak to Red in the same way she-
That train of thought was forcibly shoved off the rails. She would not dare think those words, that she wanted what Red had. Especially not from a terrorist. Especially not from the person that had burned her mother and her hands.
(Surely Mango had noticed. Surely he had seen the tension in her fists, in her jaw. Surely he had looked past her defensiveness and found the longing underneath. He was so good at it every other time.)
(… not this time. He'd been just as focused on Red, sitting and playing with the Angel of Death, as she was.)
(He hadn't noticed, this time, how much Purple was fighting not to follow in Red's tiny footsteps.)
They had all survived that encounter, though. The Angel seemed… not unwilling to use his fire, but rather, like he didn't need to. In all honesty, Purple had fully expected to have to run for her life from a burning house, with a toddler version of her friend in her arms.
Or maybe she would have failed, at that. Maybe he would've been able to set Red aflame before she could even do anything.
The thought had her holding back tears as she watched Red sleep, the same way she used to watch her mum, to ensure they wouldn't stop breathing. She would not fail this time. Moreover, she would not allow herself to get too dizzy to win. It simply wasn't an option.
Then the Prism emerged from Mango's basement, then Red woke up, then the Angel finished speaking with Orange, then she realized that her friends would understand if she was dizzy around them… if she was little.
That fact- That hope sent her reeling. Her body stayed perfectly still, save for her hands digging into her arms and her mouth twisting into a grimace, but her mind spiraled into a whole mess of scenarios where she was safe with them. Where they took care of her. Where they loved her.
It wasn't possible. It- it just wasn't. They already had Red. And she insulted his state of mind, earlier, it was doubtless that they'd want her to stay far from that part of their lives if they found out.
("You regret it, so it's fine." The exact words they'd said, again and again, to her after the League of Legends match, to her King after the war, to her every time she apologized too much for a mistake she'd made. If she regretted it… if she said she was sorry… would they…?)
But then they were talking with the Angel, and, out of everything, she had felt fear when Red said they were all his caretakers. The relief that hit when he corrected her role in that was unlike anything she'd felt this whole time; for a moment, she smiled. She wouldn't be good at taking care of him. She still slipped too easily. And when it happened, it was like sliding down a muddy hill— unstoppable, messy, and faster than she could manage.
No, she could not be Red's caretaker. She could not be around Red when he was little at all.
Especially not when the others reassured him so quickly after he apologized for causing trouble. Especially not when they claimed it wasn't trouble, not at all, that they loved him and they would do this for him without transaction or complaint.
"No matter who it was," they said. And Purple's arms had squeezed ever tighter into her silhouette, and she had glared hard in the opposite direction, at a speck of dust where the wall met the floor, and she ignored the tears crowding in, and she ignored the want surging in her chest, and she smothered the words in her throat hard until she forgot what they were.
She had glanced up, for a moment. Just for a moment. And her eyes met the Angel's. Out of all of them, why had he been the one to notice? Why had he been the one to look at her like that, so sad and worried and- and like he was looking at a friend, instead of a child he had almost killed?
She stared at the Prism, instead. In seconds, they'd all merged into a group hug, and it took a few moments of staring but not really seeing before she realized Red was staring back.
"Huh? Me too?" She'd asked, pointing to herself just to be sure. And Red had said yes, he wanted her in the hug, and so she had joined as carefully as she could.
Code, she was messed up at that moment. Just that… just the contact… she was already so close, barely holding her own against the downpour threatening to take her over in her mind. Thank cursors it had only lasted a moment. She didn't think she could've handled it when one of the hands rubbed her back like they knew.
She had stepped far out of anyone's range, then. As far as they knew, that was normal— her capacity for touch was worse than Yellow's, at times.
Then the Angel had pegged Red as being small again, and she couldn't help but ask-
"How do you know so much about age regression anyways? You were like, the last person I expected to know anything about this.”
The glare she said it with was meant to be a knowing one, an accusing one, an I know what you did.
She got the feeling he saw the shine in her eyes more than anything.
Then Red asked if he was the same way, code, no, please, no, don't put me- us- you in the same box as him, but then.
But then.
But then, but then, but then.
He said her friend's name. The friend that broke into her house on random occasions and cooked for her after using her medical supplies. The Machine of Destruction. The Dark Lord. Dark was the same? Dark was the same as her?
Maybe that was why they got along so well, she dared to believe for a second. Maybe they were tied together by this thing she couldn't control, and hadn't known about him. She'd have to ask him about it next time.
She kept her mouth shut now, though, and tried not to bruise her own arms, and intended to stay quiet for the rest of the visit. But then Green asked if she was okay, and she put on an intentionally strained smile and glanced at the Angel again and said, in an intentionally unconvincing tone, that she was fine. He'd pressed, as she expected, and so she told him, in quiet words and vague terms, about the Netscape attacks from when she was five years old. And she managed to keep herself perched on top of that muddy, rainy hill in her head, no matter how precarious her footing was, and by the end of it Green was glaring at the Angel, and putting a protective arm around her when she rubbed at her eyes, believing it was only from fear. The Netscape attacks were no secret. That, she could tell him.
She'd rather tell him that, tell him about the burns beneath her gloves and the ash in her mother's lungs, before she ever told him she sometimes went back to the days before it.
It had taken a few more hours before the Prism left, Angel in tow and all waving a grand goodbye. Purple had, of course, waved back, still smiling for their sakes and acting like the way they held and coddled and loved Red was no big deal at all.
And then they were gone. She listened and counted the portal's vwoops — one, twothree, four, five, six — before her hand and her smile finally lowered.
For a long moment, she and Mango stood in silence, together, staring at the trapdoor to the basement.
Then Purple pressed her hands to her face, and took a breath, and realized it shook far more than she wanted it to.
Cursors, she thought she was stable now. She thought she'd managed to stop the rain and the slipping, but now that they were gone and she was safe and Mango still hadn't noticed-
"Hey, sweetheart, you alright?"
Fuck.
She crumbled.
Her next breath came in short, and the one after, even shorter than that. She hunched into herself and gasped and sobbed, and she wasn't even sure if it was because the Angel had been here for so long, right next to her friends, or if it was because she hadn't been able to tell anyone.
They would understand! They would know, and they would still love her! Why had she resolved never to speak a word of it!? Why would she hurt herself like that!?
She barely heard a word that her dad said when she threw herself into his arms, wailing like a child, with a face as wet as the space inside her mind. She had fallen fast, even more so than usual. That unsteady footing was lost, and now she was sliding hard down the mountain, all covered in mental mud and screaming and terrified. How could she let the Prism know, when this is what they would have to deal with? How could she not, when hiding it was the whole reason she was stuck in a ditch like this?
So she cried, and cried, and cried, only half-hearing her dad's voice as he tried his best to soothe her.
"Shh, sweetheart, you're safe now, it's okay. He's gone." And then, "… oh. Oh, baby…" Purple sobbed again. He sounded so upset for her, so soft and sad as he realized just why she was crying, and calling her baby like he really meant daughter.
Her tiny self and her big self were in such constant war over this. When she was small, all she wanted was to stay small, to stay quiet and sheltered and protected and loved by everyone around her. Her tiny self had a steel sense of fairness that her big self lacked, and insisted it be followed. That fairness, that sense of safety, it had all been shattered as she grew up. Nothing in the world was fair. Nothing in the world was safe. Nothing in the world was sacred, her own innocence included. When she was big, the only way she kept herself secure was to get past the walls everyone else built up, while putting layers upon layers onto her own until her self was stuck tight in a cement box. Nothing reached it. Not rain, nor sunlight. Not a punch, nor a hug.
But when she was dizzy, when she was small, that box didn't exist. She showed as much of the self inside of it as she wanted to. When she wanted a hug, she'd simply go and take one. When she wanted to eat, she'd give Mango puppy-dog eyes until he brought her to the kitchen. When she wanted to tell someone she was small, she would do so whenever she could.
But her abilities when she was small were limited. She couldn't fly— she was too unsteady. She couldn't speak— her voice wouldn't function past a few hums. And her normal self was so careful, all the time, not to let that murkiness ever show. More often than not, she was small in a treehouse or in a horrible gray apartment with almost nothing in it. Alone. All alone. Always alone… until Mango.
So she clung to his sweater, and slotted her fingers into the lines between the wool, and soaked it clean through with her tears. There would be no telling her friends, not even now that she knew they would love her for it.
Code, she hated herself for that.