Chapter Text
Purple slips downstairs in the dark, phone in one hand, a wadded up comforter in the other.
He squints at his phone screen. The clock in the top corner flips over to 11:32 while he checks it, but there aren’t any new notifications. He presses his finger to the start button and it unlocks, flipping to an awkward selfie with too many people trying to squish into frame. Smiling slightly, he taps the messages app. His most recent conversation - with them, always with them - pops up
He’s asleep, he sends, awkwardly thumbing in the letters with one finger. His phone hums as the text goes through.
Wait in the basement for me to come get you tho.
Dont want to wake him up.
He’s sent a flurry of responses in return, but silences them, laying his phone facedown on the kitchen counter.
It’s quiet at this hour, eerie. Faint moonlight seeps through the window over the sink, staining the room in shades of powder blue and throwing the stove into sharp shadow. He wraps the comforter around him like a massive cape and waits for the tell-tale popping noise that means his friends have come through.
Even with his silence-enhanced ears, he almost misses the sound. He nods to himself. There’s no way King heard that all the way upstairs and (hopefully) sound asleep.
Purple glides across the floor to the living room, using tricks he learned when he was little to keep his feet from making a noise.
Noise means they can tell where you are, an old voice mutters in his head, but he shakes it away, trying to forget whose voice it is. He tiptoes to the far side of the couch, where an end table is wedged between the couch arm and the wall. He lifts it straight up, careful to keep it from knocking against anything. He sets it down softly with a gentle thump, then immediately starts questioning his life decisions.
The Minecraft-precise hole to their “basement” is covered by a blocky trapdoor, one that is absolutely not at all quiet, even when surrounded by noise. In the hold-your-breath quiet of the house, it would be deafening.
Muttering, Purple creeps back to the kitchen counter.
Is breaking a trapdoor quieter than opening one? he asks the group chat as he makes his way back to the living room. He crouches down in front of it, his blanket-cape flaring around him and creating his own personal tent.
Yellow immediately starts to reply, the three dots bouncing in their little bubble.
Uh… no? Why? Is everything okay?
Cause the trapdoor is loud that’s why. I don’t want to wake King up.
Shoot. Hold on.
It’s a long moment before the bouncing dots come back.
Yeah, I got nothing. Checked the wiki too.
Amazing. Don’t come up unless I tell you it’s all clear, ok?
👍
Purple huffs a quiet sigh, then carefully sticks his hand out, bracing for the noise. As soon as he brushes the trapdoor it flips open with a sound like a padlock being opened, but broadcasted through a set of concert speakers. Purple cringes. That never would have flown with his- with Navy, who slept like a deer and never woke up pleasant unless it was midafternoon. However, from what Purple’s seen, when King crashes he could outsleep Orange, so he crosses his fingers and prays to whatever’s watching that he didn’t hear that.
After a tense moment of listening for footsteps upstairs, Purple shakes his phone, shining the flashlight down the hole and flashing them a thumbs up with his other hand. There’s a slight whispered scuffle, then a quiet creaking noise as his friends all climb up the ladder one by one.
Green’s the first one up.
“Everything alright up here?” he murmurs, softly enough that Purple has to lean in slightly to hear him over the sounds of Yellow grumbling as he pushes himself out of the hole.
“Yeah, we should be all good,” he whispers back as Red sticks a hand down to help Blue out. “Where's Orange? Is he coming?”
Green sighs and shakes his head. “Couldn’t wake him up. Tried everything. Like… literally everything. Red blew a horn in his ear, Blue was banging away on a bell, I tried electric guitar, Yellow… oh boy. Yellow sent him on an entire earsplitting roller coaster, but he was somehow still dead to the world.”
Okay, maybe King can't outsleep Orange, but it's close.
“Should we be concerned about that?" he asks.
“Probably, but later.”
Purple laughs under his breath, then turns to the rest of them.
"Okay, there's more blankets in the thing on the other side of the couch," he whispers. "It's not too cold, but you might want one to sit on. The ground can get kinda chilly."
"I call that really fluffy black one!" Red says, barely whispering as he dives across the couch for the blanket basket.
"Hey!" Green objects. "I wanted that one!"
"Well too bad, I called it first."
"Guys, shh. King's sleeping literally right up there."
Purple breezes past them to the back door with a laugh, his blanket floating behind him like a cape.
He tucks a bit of his comforter into his armpit to hold it around him, then carefully turns the lock on the sliding glass door, trying to move slowly so it doesn't clack louder than the trapdoor. When it moves far enough that the door wobbles, Purple turns back to his friends, who seem to be having a near-silent slap fight over - not even the blanket they both wanted, which is laying unfolded on the floor, but the ratty white one covered in yellow-orange sunburst patterns. Green's holding it above his head like a trophy, to the chagrin of Red and Yellow, who are trying to leap off the couch and snatch it from his hand. They land silently on the floor, but it's only a matter of time before one of them crashes.
"Guys," Purple says, getting their attention. "Cut it out before King wakes up. C'mon."
With a final huff from Yellow, rabbit punch from Red, laugh from Green, and weary sigh from Blue, the fight is over and the four of them scoop up blankets, tossing them over their shoulders and tucking them under their arms. Purple wants to argue that maybe they didn't need every one that he and King own, but decides it's not worth it.
He pushes the door sideways with his shoulder. A draft pushes into the still air as it opens, carrying the smell of the rain they got earlier that day. Purple stands guard by the handle, waving his friends through. It's another struggle to get the heavy thing closed again, but it seals with a heavy thud and he lets out a sigh.
"We should be good now," he says, closer to his normal volume.
"What did you want to show us?" Red asks, bouncing on his toes.
Purple just smiles and points up.
The sky tiles have gone clear, the Interspace shining with web-worlds like glitter poured on black paper. The clouds have cleared out, leaving only a couple of wispy tufts hanging high near the Grid, but if anything they add to the beauty. The moon droops low over the other houses in the neighborhood, a thick crescent that washes everything in more white-blue light.
"Whoa," Blue whispers, his eyes wide. His blankets drop to the grass, but he doesn't seem to notice. "It's so pretty." Purple smiles, his head tilted all the way back.
"There's so many," Green breathes.
"Look," Purple says, pointing to a cluster of sites. "That bright orangey one over there? That's Newgrounds, where I'm from."
"Really?" Red asks, sounding excited. "You're from a planet that isn't the Outernet? Does that make you an alien?"
"What- no. Newgrounds is where my animation was uploaded. It's like…" he thinks for a second, struggling to come up with a good analogy. "It's like if you guys were gonna move here, right? You'd live here, but you're from Alan's computer."
"Ohhh." He thinks for a second. "That didn't answer my question, though."
"No, I'm not an alien," Purple laughs.
"But you're not from the Outernet, correct?" Yellow cuts in. "Like, you weren't technically born here?" Purple sighs and unwraps his cape from his shoulders, laying it flat on the ground. This is going to be a long argument.
"Yes," Purple agrees, rolling his eyes and smoothing out the blanket on the grass. He knows better than to say anything he doesn't want thrown back in his face.
"Okay, and you are from Newgrounds, yes?"
"My animation is, yes. Just said that."
"Cool. And, you just pointed to Newgrounds in the sky, right?"
"Yes."
"So Newgrounds is a planet separate from the Outernet."
"That's not-"
"Yes or no, Purple."
"Technically it's not a physical part of the Outernet, no."
"So under that logic, you're from a different planet."
"Newgrounds isn't a planet, it's a website."
"Look at it!" Yellow says, gesturing wildly upwards, like he's trying to swat a cloud of gnats. "It's shiny and it's glowy and it's in the sky! It's not a star, you can't live on a star, so what else could it be?"
Purple stifles a yawn.
"Okay fine, it's a planet."
"So you're from another planet."
"Yes."
"And you are currently not on that planet at this moment."
"I guess."
"So you're an alien."
"You know what, sure," Purple says, rubbing his eyes. "I'm an alien. But wouldn't that make you guys aliens too?"
"I- hm…"
"Ooh! Ooh! Can I be an alien?" Red asks from where he's set up on his own blanket, waving his hand in the air like he's trying to get a teacher's attention. "I want a spaceship!"
"We're definitely aliens," Green laughs, plopping down on Purple's comforter, squishing between him and where Blue's laying on his back in the grass. He tugs at his hair, which he's trying to grow as long as Purple's and is currently in the awkward untamed-bush stage. "Look, I'm even the right color."
"Whoa, what's that?" Blue interrupts, pointing to a different patch of sky. "It kinda looks like… is that a cloud? It looks like it's made of stars."
Purple twists around on the blanket, trying to figure out what Blue's seeing.
"Oh! That's the Main Web. The Internet, which is in the Interspace, is kinda flat, right? Not entirely flat, but it's a bit pancake-shaped. And we're on the edge of it, sort of like how the human world is at the edge of their galaxy."
"Whoa," Blue breathes.
"So is this what Alan sees every night?" Red asks. "Lucky."
"Can Alan visit all of these places, though?" Purple asks, partially curious, partially smug that he found something cooler than the human world.
"Maybe not him specifically," Green says, his forehead bunched up. "He said he doesn't like heights and if I remember right you have to go really high to get to space, but I think he could if he wanted to. Or at least, that's what I understand from their movies."
"I don't know about other stars, but they've at least been to the other planets," Yellow says, nodding. "They made that whole documentary about that guy that got stuck on Mars. I don't know if they've gone further with anything but robots though…"
"Well, if we wanted to, we could visit any of those sites," Purple says, sweeping his arm up in a giant arc, gesturing to all of them at once. He leaves out the part where it's ridiculously hard and even more illegal.
"What?" Red says, eyes shining. "Can we go to one of them now?"
"Um-" Purple starts. Crud. Should've expected them to ask that. "Well, it's really late at night. And… um… I-I don't think they'll let us through without adult supervision," he stammers, hoping it sounds believable.
"Aww… would King take us to one of them if we woke him up?"
"No, dummy," Yellow says, smacking his brother on the arm. "We're not supposed to be here. If we woke him up, he'd just send us home."
"Okay, but what about if we asked him tomorrow morning?"
"It's a school night, Red," Green reminds him. "Purple and I have to leave tomorrow, and there's no way you're going without us."
"This weekend?"
Four pairs of eyes turn to Purple, shining at least as much as the stars.
"I- um. I can ask him?"
There's a round of excited cheering and Purple's buried in attack-hugs from all sides as Blue tries desperately to shush them. He's thrown sideways onto the ground under their combined weight, but bad memories don't even try to leak in as he laughs, doing his best to sit back up.
"Guys, guys, let me breathe," he says, grinning. "I don't know if he'll say yes."
"But there's a chance he will, right?" Green says, eyes sparkling as they all get off of him. "Ooh, where do we want to go first, another game?"
"I think we should try and find that one thing Chosen was talking about," Yellow volunteers. "What was it… crud I don't remember."
"Angry Birds?" Blue offers, not taking his eyes off the sites.
"No, not Angry Birds… gah, I don't remember! It's too late for this."
"Says the one usually up until two in the morning," Red giggles.
"Yeah, well, I woke up early this morning because someone decided it was a good idea to knock half the kitchen onto the floor while making waffles."
"That was not me," Blue insists, holding a finger up in defence, though he doesn't look down. "That was Red's stupid parrot, which got stuck in the pots and pans drawer and couldn't figure out how to open the door from the inside."
"She said she was sorry, okay!" Red cries, throwing his hands up. "She got mixed up and thought it was the one I keep her treats in! She didn't mean to get stuck in there. And besides, I wouldn't have been awake to let her out if Green had turned off his alarm instead of sleeping through it again."
"Well maybe I wouldn't have slept through my alarm if-"
"Guys," Purple interrupts, holding his hands up and trying not to laugh. "What's even the point of this argument?"
"To-"
"That was rhetorical, Yellow. I'm saying your argument was dumb."
"Oh."
"Can we just look at the pretty sites now?"
"Yeah, okay."
King sits on his bed, smiling at his open window. Voices seep through the screen, some of them quieter than others.
"Wait wait, is that thing moving?"
"That's a plane, Red."
"Oh. So not a shooting star?"
"A shooting what?"
"A shooting star! Is that just a human thing?"
"Maybe? We don't have stars, really, and the sites don't… shoot."
"Well, they're not actual stars," another voice says. "They're like… rocks falling through the sky that burn up from the friction. They make a pretty streak of light."
"Huh. Oh, we do have something similar! You don't see it much anymore, but that kinda sounds like Uploads."
"Uploads?"
"Yeah, when someone from a game or an animation or something is uploaded to a site and then they're brought here."
"Ooh! What does that look like?"
"I… it's been a long time. I don't really remember. Kinda like a site is crashing down from the web, I think, but like… greenish. It's been a long time since I've seen one."
"Oooh." That one comes out as a chorus and he stifles a laugh.
"Where'd you learn all this stuff?"
"I mean, some of it's just like… basic knowledge? But we learn about it in school."
"Dude, that's so cool! Has it always looked like this?"
"I mean, for the most part. Newgrounds used to be a lot bigger, and there's always more that keep forming, but aside from that, it's pretty much the same. The constellations are the same at least."
"Constellations? Like… star patterns?"
"Yeah, my mother taught me them when I was little."
"Your mother?"
"Oh. I…" King can hear his son's voice falter, break a little. He gives it a second, to see if he's ready to talk about those particular memories. "I-I…"
Clearly not yet. Time to intervene.
Throwing his window the rest of the way open with a ferocious screech, he takes a deep breath, channeling every ounce of parental authority he can muster.
"KIDS! GET INSIDE NOW."
King stands in his living room, trying very very hard to look stern. The lights are on and the five of them stand in a line in front of him, blinking in the light and wearing matching embarrassed faces.
"What were you all doing outside?" he asks, arching an eyebrow and crossing his arms over his chest like he doesn't actively find them endearing.
"Um… site-gazing?" Purple tries with a wobbly I'm-in-so-much-trouble smile. He doesn't offer up any more information.
"Okay… Care to explain why I had to chase Red down the street in the middle of the night?"
No one answers for a second, eyes turning to Purple, who they seem to have nominated as their delegate. He looks back at them with a betrayed look but opens his mouth.
"Because…" he starts, looking like he's trying very hard to come up with a good answer. "You scared him when you started yelling?"
"Hey, I wasn't-"
"Shut up, he's covering for you."
"Ow, no need to hit me."
"So you invited your friends to go site-gazing… at midnight… on a school night… without telling me first. Does that sound about right?"
"If I say yes, will that make you more mad at me or less?"
"Hm. And where's Orange hiding?"
"He's still at home. Apparently they tried to wake him up but it didn't work."
"Hm…"
"I'm sorry, Mr. King," Red says, shuffling his feet. Oh they think they're in so much more trouble than they are, King thinks to himself, trying to stifle another laugh. They only call him "Mr. King" when he's started going ballistic.
"Hmph. We'll discuss this again tomorrow. Purple, I'd like to keep talking to you. The rest of you, head home. Green, I'll see you at seven. I'm not sending Purple to go get you again, got it?"
They all nod hard enough to nearly pop their heads off and scurry down the hole, whispering way too loudly in relief.
"Good luck," Blue mutters to Purple as he closes the trapdoor behind them.
Purple looks up at him when they stop hearing footsteps on the ladder, twisting his fingers.
"Am I in trouble?" he asks quietly.
King lets the facade drop with a deep-throated laugh.
"Not at all," he says with a smile. Purple's brow furrows.
"But-"
"Now, I don't want to make this a habit," he says, raising his eyebrows, "but I don't mind every now and then, okay? I want to let you be a kid."
He still looks like he doesn't understand.
"Kids invite their friends over and get busted by parents," King says, trying to explain as best as he can. "Kids stay up late on school nights. Kids make absurd choices, and as long as those absurd choices don't involve burning the house down, I don't mind them every now and then. I want to let you have a normal childhood, Purple. I want one for them too, even with how crazy it's been for them so far, which is why I started off all 'angry parent' on them."
Purple's still silent, looking down at his feet like he's expecting the other foot to drop. King pivots, trying something else.
"When you first started staying with me, you were so afraid to do something you thought I wouldn't like. It worried me a little, I'll admit. I wasn't going to say no to you going to bed on time and doing all our homework, but when your kid never argues back, never tries to push for what they want, I started to worry that I'd done something horrible. Well, beyond… that."
"You didn't-!"
"I know that now, but I'm glad that I can see it occasionally."
He leans in a bit, conspiratorially.
"Look, you didn't hear this from me, but I'm glad you broke my rules. It tells me you're not scared of me anymore. So. How about this. Don't tell them, but I give you permission to break my rules every now and then. Nothing serious, but little things, like stealing an extra cookie after dinner, or talking back, or inviting your friends over when I'm not here. If you do something serious, or push it too often, yeah you're going to get into actual trouble. But if you want to take your friends site-gazing again? That's fine. Just save it for the weekends when you don't have to get up early the next day, deal?"
Purple brightens a bit, smiling a bit.
"Deal."
King smiles, ruffling his son's hair.
"Now head to bed, you still have school tomorrow."
Purple squishes him in a quick, tight hug, then darts off, his blanket under his arm.
"Love you, Purple," King calls after him.
As Purple disappears up the stairs, he thinks he hears a quiet love you, Dad.