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Purple checked the time again. 5:19. This was bad. This was really really bad.
"Look, they're probably fine. Don't those kids get into some new life threatening circumstance, like, every other week?" King rested a hand on his son's back, not looking sure of his own words, either, but still trying to be the put-together one here. It was more than two hours past the time Green and the others had agreed on to meet up at Purple's house, and there was absolutely no word from any of the other sticks. Not a text, or call, or trained messenger Minecraft parrot (Red had tried that once) - the beat-up phone screen was dark and still like a flatline, not conveying a single sign of life from his friends. Nothing. Radio silence.
Sure, the gang had gotten into... complications before, but it never took this long to resolve. And Green had always told him as soon as possible if they needed to cancel.
"Yeah, but they always get a handle on that pretty quickly, or Alan fixes things up for them before long. This is two hours, dad, this feels different, it's-" His voice caught. Had they finally gotten tired of him? They were always so much better than he was, at everything, and as people, and they had to have known that, after everything he did. How they still tolerated having Purple around, he didn't understand. Maybe they finally talked and realized how much worse he was and decided they didn't have to put up with him anymore-
"Hey, hey, hey, I can see you catastrophizing under there. We talked about this. These kids really care about you, they wouldn't leave you in the dark like this on purpose." King softened and took his hand off Purple's back, a subtle gesture that brought him back down to reality. His dad knew that touch made him panic worse when he was like this. The others knew that, too. They knew. And for some reason, despite how he could never fully bring himself to believe it, they'd already forgiven Purple.
He breathed in the crisp almost-spring air and tried to convince himself of that. He was enough for them by just being him, that's what Green always said. The clear sky reflected off his screen and Purple watched the dim impression of the clouds roll by.
"Even if it is something, they'll be okay. I mean, they took everything I threw at them," King tried to reassure with averted eyes. "I think they can handle just about anything at this point." Normally Purple would've taken the opportunity to try to break through King's self-loathing thoughts, too, but he was too focused on the situation at hand. Another breath. The worry subsided in place of a stubborn determination.
"I'm going to go check on them. Do you... want to come with?" He knew his dad didn't want to come with him. He could tell from the guilt in King's stance every time he was face to face with the other sticks again, how he distanced from them ever so slightly, how his gaze always lingered on Yellow for a fraction of a second too long before looking away. But Purple made the offer anyway.
"...No. I'll, uh, keep an eye out for them here." Purple could tell his dad would rather he not potentially put himself in danger, too, but that he also knew there was no way to stop Purple from going. "Just... promise you'll be careful. Here, let me give you one of my older staffs to take with you. They're less reliable, but they should still work in a pinch, at least." Purple smiled wearily, while King rose to his feet on the concrete steps and pushed open the door to the house.
---
Netherite Block-powered staff in one hand and fireworks in the other, Purple passed through the Nether portal and flinched, adjusting his eyes to the harsh blue light. He was more than used to portal travel by this point, but there was always an odd buzzing feeling under his skin when he entered his friends' PC that he'd never felt with the abandoned Mac he used to live in. He quickly shook it off and jumped to attention, eyes darting around as he braced for any threat, only to see... nothing at all?
The desktop was completely empty of any life. There were no leftover signs of damage or struggle. The cursor wasn't even here. All there was was the sticks' striped couch sitting innocently in the corner of the screen, a laptop left open on top of it, and a mostly-empty glass bottle of juice on the floor.
A snapshot of an ordinary moment. It was like they had disappeared.
They... they couldn't have just disappeared, right?
Hesitantly, he walked around to the other side of the couch, where he saw something even more worrying: Green's phone on the floor. That was... bad. Green would never, ever go anywhere without his phone if he could help it.
Purple paced and tried to think through anything that could have happened, anything he might be able to do to contact them, but he was coming up with nothing. He didn't know where they were, and he didn't have any way to send them a message. Shit. How could... Something bumped into his leg and he jumped back, staff raised and ready to attack whatever had- Oh. It was just Red's pig, Rueben. He leaned down and patted the little pig on the head, glad to at least not be alone.
Wait! Rueben!
He darted back over to where Green's phone was and picked it off the floor, holding it in front of Rueben for him to get the scent. The pig seemed to understand what Purple wanted immediately and sniffed around before finding Green's trail, leading Purple to... the seat of the couch, where he plopped his little legs down with a squeal.
But how could- That didn't- Oh, cursors, did they actually disappear into thin air?
He put a hand to his face and stood there for a moment, foot tapping and mind racing at nearly equal speeds. This didn't make any sense - but then, neither did most things that happened to his friends, if he had to be honest. With their track record, anything could have happened here. Maybe they had actually, completely disappeared. Maybe they were deleted, and Purple would never see them again.
He didn't get to say goodbye.
The even breathing of Rueben nearby was the only thing keeping him from falling into a full blown panic at that horrid thought. He tried to breathe in turn. He tried to focus. In and out. He didn't know anything about the situation, really, there was no reason to assume the worst, he had to stop thinking about it. He had to try to do something, figure something out. He surely wouldn't be able to stay back at home knowing his friends could be- Right.
He looked up at the canopy of files far above his head. Maybe he could find something that'd help...? Clues, or there was a chance the sticks themselves were even hidden somewhere in the files... He gave Rueben a quick pat on the head before launching into the air with a trail of firework sparks. Time to find a folder and start searching.
It must've been an hour or two of nothing but dead ends. He'd flipped through documents and dug through folders. There wasn't anything at all that was off about the PC's files, no signs of anything that could've happened to his friends, or anywhere they could've gone. It was all so worryingly... normal. Purple might've thought he was going crazy, that nothing bad had even happened, if not for the abandoned phone still clutched in his hand and the utter silence serving as a constant reminder that something was horribly, horribly wrong.
But... there wasn't really anything he could do, was there? He had no leads, no way to contact them, no way to look for them or even know they were alive. They were in danger, or worse, and he was useless. The realization clawed its way up his throat and burned on his skin like the familiar heat of a hand-shaped bruise, lingered in his palms like a frail and weakening pulse. He was useless.
...With King still keeping watch at the house, Purple supposed the least he could do was wait here for any sign of his friends. Yeah. He curled up on the empty couch and pulled out his own phone to text his dad.
---
Everyone had piled back into the house and settled in the living room with their new books about an hour ago. Now that he trusted them at least a little bit more to be left alone, Alan had gone back out to buy clothes and food for the five new people in his house - at his request, the gang were trying not to be too rowdy, though it looked like the prospect was causing Red severe pain with the way he'd laid down on the couch with crossed arms and a permanently bouncing leg. Orange and Green were presently poking each other around to "figure out how bones work", while Yellow and Blue read in silence, though Blue found his eyes scanning over the words without really reading any of it.
Blue, to tell the truth, was scared. He could tell they all were. They'd dealt with world-ending superweapons and maniacal villains, but this situation was at the same time better than those things and so much worse. There wasn't a way to charge forward firsts-first to deal with this. They just had to lay low and hope they could find a solution, knowing that they might be stuck in this unfamiliar world for days, or weeks, or... worse. They were trying to make the most of it, but the stillness was suffocating.
Blue sighed and closed his book. "Hey, Yellow."
"Yeah?" Yellow heard the seriousness in Blue's voice and looked up with a soft expression, sitting up a little straighter.
"D'you... want to go back up to the computer and try to mess with it again? I mean, I know we already did that when we got here, but you're super smart with this stuff, and everything. There's gotta be something we can find out. I dunno."
Yellow put his book to the side and fidgeted with a hand. "Oh, yeah... I was thinking we should probably do that at some point. I don't know how much I'll really be able to do though."
Blue elbowed his friend gently. "Come on! You're really really good at this kind of thing. And it's not like we've got a time limit, so, you can totally figure something out for us."
Yellow smiled, "Yeah, maybe," and the two rose up to make their way back to the PC.
Even just walking up the stairs was an unpleasant experience. Blue could feel all his joints and bones and blood and whatever moving around with every single step, not to mention the weird soreness in his legs from literally just sitting (why was he sore? Were humans that fragile?). He made it, though, and after following Yellow through the door he huddled over next to the computer with Yellow at his side.
Blue pushed the button to turn on the screen and soft blue light flooded the room, reflecting off Yellow's hair in an odd way. Yellow reached for the mouse and keyboard, seeming a little clumsy at handling it, but- Blue looked at the screen and froze.
There was a familiar purple stick figure sat on the floor against the PC's couch, tapping his foot anxiously.
"Yellow, look look look-"
"Yeah, I see, stop shoving me! Oh my gosh, he's so tiny..." Yellow muttered with a newfound curious energy. "Why's he here?"
Blue gasped. "Oh no, wait, that's right! We were going to hang out with Purple today! Shoot, he's probably worried about us, look at him." The stick figure in the corner of the screen didn't seem to have noticed the new humans' presence, which made sense since they hadn't even done anything yet. Yellow and Blue glanced at each other, seeming to be on the same page, which Blue took as approval to sprint straight out the room and down the stairs.
"Guys!! Purple's on the PC!"
Orange and Red immediately perked up with synchronized "what?!"s while Green seemed to reach the same realization that Blue had. "We were going to meet up with him today! Oh no, we-"
"Yeah yeah yeah, shush-shush-shush, come on and let's talk to him!!" Blue grabbed Green's arm and pulled him along without resistance, Orange and Red following close behind.
It didn't take long for all of them to pile into the room and huddle around the computer. "Oh my gosh, look, he's so small!" Orange gasped and held up a hand to the monitor, the others all shoving each other around to see the screen while Blue stood back.
"Yeah, that's what I said!" Yellow spread his arms and accidentally smacked Green, quickly muttering an apology. Green recovered quickly and leaned in to the monitor.
"Purple? Purple? Can you hear us?"
"No, duh, of course he can't, we could never hear Alan," Red butted in. "Gah! How do we talk to him??"
Yellow sighed and reached for the mouse, pushing the others out of the way with a smug expression. "Same way Alan talks to us, obviously. Let's get Animate open."
The program opened with a double-click and filled the screen with white. That got Purple's attention, the stick jumping up from the couch with flailing arms that grabbed onto a weird green staff and held it at the ready. He looked a little disappointed when he saw no one there except the cursor, deflating and turning to it with a nervous wave - Purple wasn't very comfortable around "Alan", of course.
Yellow switched to the text tool and pecked away at the keyboard.
"Hi Purple this isn't Alan, it's Yellow! We'rrklglllllll"
"Wh- hey!" Yellow shouted as Red shoved him out of the way mid-sentence.
"Purple its me red!!!!! All of us are here too sorry you probably got worried but we're ok!!"
Purple perked up and looked like he was trying to talk through the screen as well, before very quickly realizing that wasn't going to work and putting a hand to his face in thought.
"Okay, we can talk to him, but how's he talk to us? He can't talk on the screen like Orange could," Green mused, frustrated but resolute.
Blue's eyes widened. "Wait, wait! He could just use the pencil to write stuff out, yeah?" His heart stung a little at the idea that they could've all been talking to Alan this entire time, in such a simple way, but that wasn't important right now.
Yellow smacked a hand on his forehead, looking to be having the same thought. "Oh, man, that should work! That's so obvious, why did we never think of that..." Orange had already taken the mouse and plucked the pencil tool from its spot on the toolbar for Purple to catch.
"Here, you can write to talk to us and we'll just type, is that ok?" he added.
The tiny stick on the monitor fiddled with the pencil for a moment, adjusting it in his hands, before he began to write.
"where are you guys? what's going on? why aren't you on the pc"
"We're humans now!!!! like with alan"
There were a few seconds of silence as Purple tried and failed to process this. He raised up the pencil a couple times, speechless in writing, before eventually settling on,
"what the fuck"
Green cackled and took over the keyboard. This was going to be fun.
---
Text and writing piled onto the canvas in a tangled heap while they talked. Communicating everything was difficult, to say the least, but Blue could tell that everyone was relieved to see their friend again. He was glad - the tense air in the living room earlier could've choked him.
It was strange being the ones controlling the cursor for a change. They'd all known in theory that Alan was just a regular person like them, but he always felt like an otherworldly presence regardless, and now to be the ones on this side of the screen, sharing his view... The PC was their entire world, and it was so small here. So insignificant. Mundane.
"wow orange I guess the faces you made us weren't very accurate LOL"
Orange, currently slaving away on the drawing tablet trying to draw a picture of everyone's new appearances, gasped indignantly at Purple's comment and lunged for the text tool. "No they were totally accurate!! Artistic interpretation!!"
"oh yeah? who gave blue that weird face?" Purple was very clearly giggling, and Blue was a little sad he couldn't hear it. It felt like so long ago that Purple had left him and Green for dead in the End, and though it wasn't forgotten, it was more than forgiven. Purple had been nothing but kind to all of them since coming back from that portal with Green, not to mention he'd apologized for their first meeting dozens of times.
Blue grinned and grabbed the mouse.
"excuse you that is the face I DESERVE -blue"
He was promptly pushed out of the way by Green-
"I dunno I liked Orange's first attempt better :P -green"
"YOUTAKE THAT BACK -bkuekjjlgk;dfzdgjkfd"
Green smashed his hands on the keyboard and Purple doubled over in laughter. Even as these tiny pixels on a screen a world away from his friends, he looked so much happier than when Blue first met him, when that golden weight of a crown had rested on his head.
That's all Blue really wanted for any of them.
---
...Humans, huh?
Gliding through a peaceful stretch of the Nether, Purple pulled up his phone to look yet again at the photo the others took for him (Green had eventually realized they could just take a photo on Alan's phone and upload it to the computer). Green's casual wave, Red giving Yellow bunny-ears with a hand... those humans were undoubtedly his friends. They were safe, they were fine. A little out of their depth, but fine. He felt like an idiot for worrying so much about them - but then, how could he have predicted this? It really was something new with them every other week.
He was going to miss seeing them in-person, for however long this took, but at least he could still talk to them in a way. Alan had given Purple his phone number once he got back so that they could communicate outside the PC, and of course Purple could visit. Maybe he could even help them all figure this out...? He wasn't nearly as tech-smart as Yellow, or as talented as Green, but as a born resident of the Outernet he did know some things that his friends didn't. Maybe he could do something after all. Maybe.
His phone dinged with a couple text notifications from his dad - Purple had messaged him to explain the whole situation before leaving for the journey back home. Looks like King didn't really know what to make of this either, but he was relieved, at least. And he gave a tiny lecture about perhaps, in the future, not seeking out things like this that could be dangerous. Purple sighed, knowing he almost certainly wouldn't end up following that, but appreciating it anyway.
Then he yelped as he narrowly swerved out of the way of a basalt column - right, right, no texting and flying. He tucked his phone away and set off another firework, weaving between columns with the practiced ease of a route he knew by heart. Falling ash and white sparks danced together in his wake, the pressing heat of the Nether subsiding for a moment while he swirled through the air. He was used to the feeling of flying, but it was somehow different these days, flying out to see his friends or home to his dad. He felt alert. He felt alive.
It was going to be different for a little while, but it'd be okay, too, he told himself. He wasn't alone anymore.