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"Knock knock," she said, and only knocked after.
The Dark Lord kicked the door shut and dropped her satchel on the couch, flopping down heavily and sighing.
The house was silent.
… Oh well. Purple must not be home. Whatever, she could sit here for as long as she damn well pleased. She honestly wasn't surprised that she was out, it was approaching rent week (whatever the hell that meant).
Dark slumped into the cushions, eyes closed and breath unsteady. Purple didn't like when she melted between the seams, so she didn't, but fuck was she feeling like it. Today hadn't even been particularly bad, it was just her burn that sucked ass.
There was quiet tapping, and then a chitter. Dark mumbled vaguely. The couch dipped next to her, and out of the corner of her eye, she watched a Virabot climb up next to her face and nuzzle into her cheek.
"Hey, Peony. She left you here?"
Peony hissed, and pointed upwards. Dark looked up.
There was nothing there but the ceiling. Well, nothing but the ceiling and the roof. The sixth floor was the highest, and Purple's was the only occupied apartment on it. There was a stairway to the roof, but the door was locked for some jive-ass reason.
… The Dark Lord jerked upright and looked to the right. The bedroom door was open.
The bedroom window was open, too.
Huh. Well, that answered that question. He hauled himself to his feet, stretching and groaning, and offered his arm to the Virabot. It climbed on readily.
Dark went for the open window.
His hovering worked just fine tonight, so he took a second to breathe in the night air when he slipped out into it. Then he boosted himself up to the roof.
It was flat, up there, with the smallest of walls to barely prevent anyone from falling over. He hopped over it easily, only two feet of air to clear from the intended side, and met Purple's eyes.
"Hey there, bug." He grinned, and strutted over to meet her. "You know, you didn't say hi to me when I came in. Pretty rude of you." He leaned on the wall, and she leaned away, just a smidgen. For a brief moment, Dark's eyes glanced over the way her legs dangled over the edge. She didn't have her wings on.
She also didn't say anything in response; just hummed, and scooted over an inch, patting twice on the space next to her. Dark took the invitation and swung himself up to sit. Peony chittered and crawled across his lap towards Purple's, settling in on her shoulder.
She seemed tense.
They sat there in silence for a couple minutes. Purple was gazing out into nothing, occasionally tilting her head upwards as if to look at the stars, like there were any in the city. Dark was gazing at her.
Okay. Maybe "gazing" was the wrong word— that implied a level of passiveness in his actions. He was observing her. Something was wrong, and he knew it, he just didn't know what.
The first tell was her voice, or rather, the lack thereof. She was usually so ready to banter with her.
The second tell was her eyes. She'd learned early that Purple's eyes had a habit of changing. What she thought were purely navy-blue ones had actually been a darker indigo, by default; she'd just been too afraid of Dark at first for the color to settle. Because that shade came out when she felt threatened, upset, angry at something. Navy-blue was not her default setting. But it was the setting that was active now.
The third was that she could hear her breathing. The fourth was her consistent rocking back and forth.
The fifth was her being up here in the first place.
"Hey." Dark bumped her shoulder and watched her rocking intensify like a bobblehead doll. "You wanna talk, or you just wanna sit here and stargaze?"
No matter how accusing her tone sounded, like she had come up here expecting Purple to spill her guts to her, it was an offer. It was an either-or. Purple knew this— or, at least, she hoped she did.
The other stick breathed in, sighed heavily, and opened her mouth a little.
"I told you about my father," were the first words out of it. Very quiet, and a little forced.
"Yeah. The jackass who kept you going to fight me, right?" She nodded. The confirmation wasn't needed, Dark's memory was perfect, but she'd never give up a chance to make her opinion on that man known. Purple feared her because she was a widespread threat, once upon a time. A threat that burned down homes and families and lives. Purple feared him because he was a threat in her own home, her own family, her own life.
It was different. It was so very, very different.
She was silent for a time, after. Dark let her be. Her mind ran slower than his, as every stick's did, but it was only her that he'd let that slowness slide for. "I got reminded of him today. A… client."
Dark hummed and nodded. He knew very well what her poster jobs could entail. Who could be on the other end of them. She'd ranted enough times about it for him to get the picture.
"I dunno. It was already bad." Purple pulled her legs up to rest her head on them. Her rocking did not stop. "My head… and then this shade of blue, turned out to be the person who put it up, and… they weren't really all that different. Much less… caring."
Dark scoffed. He didn't know a lot about her father, but he knew he had stopped making meals before she was 7. That was really all he needed to know.
"They wanted someone to bet on."
"… Bet on?"
Purple nodded.
"Like, in a tourney?"
Purple nodded.
Betting on tournaments wasn't much worse than gambling. Rigging the game in your favor, though, was something the police could get you for, both the better and the game piece. But Purple was good at her jobs, she wouldn't have let herself get caught.
"So they signed me up for one," she continued. "Jeered at me all day. Caught me and talked me down each moment, like my strategies weren't enough for them." Her hands started to grip each other tighter, and her eyes narrowed just a bit. (Dark wondered, sometimes, if she had Hollowhead blood in her— if that was why their color glowed in low light. His didn't, but Chosen's did, sometimes.) "Just like he used to do," she finally hissed. The Virabot on her shoulder hissed in tandem, sensing her anger.
"Didja win?" Dark asked, almost blasé with how she said it. Purple huffed the quietest little laugh, and nodded. "Good. Would've hated to see what that bitch did to you if you didn't."
Her hand jerked to her upper arm.
Dark blinked. Peony chirped. That was a… rather sudden move, to happen out of nowhere.
Purple breathed in and out a few times, loudly, like she was trying to keep herself together. Her grip did not loosen, but she did speak again.
"S-sorry. Sorry. He… he wasn't happy when I failed, either."
Failed. Failure. What an odd choice of words.
"I'm gonna take a guess here. Heee… dislocated your arm?" she asked with a snap and a point. Purple hunched a little further into her knees, and shook her head. "Kay… bruised you? Beat you?" She shrugged. Dark filed that response away for later, because she hadn't said no. "Broke your bones?"
Purple flinched. The Dark Lord braced herself, worried she might be about to fall off the edge of the roof, but she stayed where she was.
They were both very still. For a very long moment.
Then, Purple nodded. Once. Timidly.
The Dark Lord gripped the concrete in her hand.
Broken bones hurt like hell, even to her and Chosen, even if only for a split second. The pain dulled quickly, or, at least, their emotional reaction to it did, but even with their sped-up healing factors, those things took too long to set right and longer to heal right. And they left scars. Only for a few weeks, on them, but scars nonetheless.
Dark had no issues with showing his. Chosen had to, otherwise having things on them would bother him. Purple seemed to cover up as much of herself as possible, intentionally. So Dark had never seen most of the consequences of the things that happened to her.
He had seen the burns on her hands, though. The slashes around her neck. The lightning-bolt arcs stretching down her stomach. But she wore long sleeves and long pants and long socks and dark blue gloves and too much makeup on her face, and so seeing anything else was a challenge at best. And some of them were so old.
Was there a scar on her arm?
"Why… the hell… would he do that?" he asked, slowly. Purple's breath shuddered.
"… I was eight," she mumbled into her legs. "I wasn't good enough at a move he was trying to show me. Some way to escape, I dunno. He got mad…" She squeezed her arm ever tighter. Peony bent down just a little to tap at her shoulder.
Dark could extrapolate from there.
"Fuckhead," he growled. "You were small as shit when you were eight. Small and weak, 'cause kids are stupid like that." She did not laugh. "What was he thinking… like that would work. Bitch had no one to blame but himself."
The words stung at his chest. No one to blame but himself. But he shook it off, and focused the burning rage, the itch to destroy, on a man he had never even seen a picture of.
"That wasn't the first time."
Purple's whisper nearly snapped him out of it. But then he processed what she had actually said.
"… What?"
"He hurt me. Just because he was angry… wasn't the first time."
Her other hand moved. It grazed across her forehead and down one of her eyes, then tapped lightly on her throat, then rested over her wrist (that was still holding her arm like she had to keep it from falling off), then brushed her side, her guts, and trailed down to her right leg. The same side as the presumably-broken bone.
The Dark Lord's throat burned.
"Did you ever get treated for that? Uh- hospital, or whatever?"
She shrugged, jostling Peony a bit. "Sometimes. Sometimes I… stayed home. Took care of it myself. 'N mumma… she did her best."
The Dark Lord's hands begged to get around both her parents throats. Her father's, for everything he put her through for all those years. Her mother's, for being so complacent and not doing anything until it was over.
"I'm gonna kill that guy," she snarled, not even bothering to hide it. The Virabot rattled warningly alongside her. "He better fucking hope he doesn't come across me. That one will be personal."
Surprisingly enough, Purple smiled, as weak as it was. "… Green said the same thing. So did my King."
She laughed, cruel and bloodthirsty. "Oh, yeah? Either they get there first, or we tag-team him. If I find him on my own, they can't trust me to leave a single piece of him standing."
"You know, they would probably be willing to collaborate with you on that. I don't… want him dead, but… I wouldn't stop you."
The statement threw Dark for such a loop that he stared at Purple in silence for a couple seconds. "Shit, man, for real? He was that bad?"
"He- He wasn't bad, he-" She cut herself off, even without seeing the look he was giving her. (She refused to look at him at all.) "… everyone hates him."
"Yeah. For good reason," Dark added. Purple shook her head.
"No, but… he wasn't the devil. He had his moments."
"Moments among…?" He gestured to her entire self. She hunched in a little tighter, and did not respond.
… Dark turned away. The searing urge for destruction was starting to cool, and in its place was something… bad. Something sinking, and hopeless, and dark. Like the very bottom of the ocean. Like quicksand that he hadn't noticed until he was already half-stuck in it.
I couldn't help her with this. I can't help her with this.
He spoke again just to make the feeling stop. "Why were you out here, anyway? You don't even have your wings on."
Purple's eyes drifted downwards. She was looking at something. He leaned over— there was nothing she could've seen but the ground. And she was silent for an abnormally long time, even her breathing having quieted back to its usual barely-there breeze.
Finally, in a hollow, dead voice, she said, "Respawns don't happen out here."
Dark's throat closed up. He was smart. She knew he was smart. She knew he would get what she meant by that.
Normal sticks were so much more fragile than she was.
Fuck. She had to get her down from here immediately.
"Kind of a stupid way to go out," she snarked, leaning back on her hands. "I mean, you haven't even seen my house yet."
What the FUCK was she thinking.
Purple blinked. And looked up at her. "Wh… You have a house-?"
oh shit oh SHIT, KEEP GOING!!
"Pfft, yeah. Why wouldn't I? You calling me homeless?" Dark lightly punched her shoulder— above the spot she had grabbed, the spot that presumably held a scar too ugly for Purple to want to look at. The Virabot on her head clicked at her and moved to her other side.
"Nothing wrong with homeless," she bit back, and Dark heard the years she had spent as such behind her voice. "I just didn't expect someone who so constantly comes to my place to have one of her own."
"Well, you're wrong!" Dark threw herself backwards onto the roof and flipped up onto her feet. "And unless you wanna be a pussy about it, I can show you."
Purple huffed, and shifted one leg onto the stable side of the wall. "Fine, fine. If you're that desperate for company."
"Shut up." She grabbed Purple's outstretched hand and pulled her over to the locked door, clicking a couple times. Peony skittered across their arms to the doorknob and bit down. No more door. "After you," she said sarcastically, gesturing inside. "Grab whatever you need from the apartment and get going downstairs. I'll meet ya there."
Purple hummed, almost knowingly. But she followed along regardless.
There was that look in her eyes, that tension in her hands, that said I know what you're up to. But she didn't say it out loud. Dark was hoping that meant she'd be amenable to being stopped.
He did as he had said, meeting her down at the bottom of all six stairwells of the apartment building. She had done the same, a purse and his satchel slung over her shoulders and Peony on her arm. Dark smirked and waved his hand for her to follow.
They left the apartment building.
They left the city.
They left it all behind.
Dark's house was no more than two stories tall. It had three basements, but the space above the ground was what he was truly worried about. It hopefully wasn't enough for Purple to get too badly hurt if she fell from it, not unless she fell really wrong.
But she wouldn't. Dark would watch over her for the night.
Somehow, she seemed absurdly more relaxed now that she was away from the city, away from anyone and everyone who could hurt her except The Dark Lord himself.
He had four beds in this house.
Purple took one of them. He took the floor next to her. A mound of pillows and blankets accompanied both sticks. And it really did not take long for Purple to start yawning, no matter how late it was, and almost without meaning to, she had laid down with her Virabot in her arms and closed her eyes.
Dark, The Dark Lord, the Machine of Destruction, did not destroy a single part of her. Not a pixel would be harmed by her hand, whether through violence or inaction, not again. So she pulled a few blankets over her friend's shoulders, tucked some more pillows around her back and head, and settled in on the floor for the night. Purple so rarely got any good sleep. It was Dark's job to make sure she did.
At least for tonight.