White box

Tim or Marcus?

Purple was a bit taller than Marcus, but not as tall as Bill was. "But this is not a good place for a conversation of that sort." They were outside and surrounded by a lot of time-travelers and two elves.

Marcus let out a breath-- well, true, too many ears around.

"Do you mind entering Timothy's body?" Purple asked.

Marcus didn't think Purple would ask for something without a reason, so he nodded. "I need to bring it out of this domain for that," he said and turned around to head towards the house. Purple followed.

"You can't teleport it, can you?" Marcus asked, just in case.

"The only rooms I can teleport things from in this house are the kitchen, the room your parents are using and Stephanie's room," Purple said. "August has not summoned me yet, so I don't have permission to freely map his domain."

"About that," Marcus said as he stepped on the terrasse to head in, "Stephanie said to ask you for the reason she is sleeping when I do finally meet you."

Purple smiled. "It's easier to show," he said. "But you need to be in Timothy's body for that."

And then their eyes stopped on Mom, who had stopped in the middle of the stairs and Marcus had a feeling she had overheard both what Purple said and he had said just before--

Yet her expression wasn't confused, rather, a bit tired. "Kids in this house sure like to stay up late. I'm Jemma for Purple, but Marcus is welcome to continue calling me Mom."

Marcus looked over at Purple to find him looking towards him with the same amount of bewildered surprise as he was casting towards him...

A kid with cat ears, Kiri, ran past them, he had been in the toilet just now. There were still excited voices in the background and the campfire lights flickered casting long shadows over them. It felt surreal.

"I'll wake up Stephanie," Purple said.

Marcus nodded. Maybe there was something big he wasn't aware of yet and in that case... perhaps it was better to check with Stephanie first before doing anything rash.

"Can we head to Stephanie's room, please?" Purple asked Mom and Mom turned around to head upstairs.

Marcus and Purple followed only to find Stephanie up and in the hall and then there was a moment of all of them exchanging confused looks.

"I'll wake my husband up," Mom said and went past Stephanie.

Purple seemed to be concluding something to himself, while Marcus asked. "Did you tell them something?"

"They figured out I was dating Purple," Stephanie said. "But--"

If she mentioned that first, confused at that, then it meant that she hadn't told about him.

"They likely noticed the illusions," Purple said and Stephanie nodded at that, surprised he figured that out. "At this point, they are already seeing side people."

Huh? Both Marcus and Stephanie matched up with having 'oh shit' written over their faces.

"Come on in," Mom invited and the three did, soon sitting on the soft floor in a neat row of Purple-Stephanie-Marcus, Mom and Dad too picked to sit on the floor just leaning their backs against the bed. It was dawn so the lightening sky overpowered the flickering fire lights from the super late or super early barbeque party down below.

Stephanie sighed and had a potion appear. "Can I get a matcha latte?" and Purple asked if everyone wanted some and they did and for around a hour Purple demonstrated an excellent ability to lightly, politely, calmly and completely casually explain or shrug over mindblowing details.