Work Text:
Outside a makeshift hunt, the wind whipped the branches of the trees and shook their trees. Inside the hunt, it was much more peaceful. Quackity sat at a desk, mapping something out on a large paper. He’d been working for hours, after all the man had an important job to do at the moment. Not just anyone can create the map of a completely new city, especially not when you had the kinds of grand ideas he did.
The rain was a large inconvenience. Quackity didn’t know how other people planned their cities out, but he liked to sit on the tallest point he could find and stare out at his land, deciding in his brain which building would go where.
At the moment, the man was less than relaxed. It seemed like he just couldn’t get the proportions right. When he added a new building, the size might just be a little off and he’d have to redo the entire building after figuring out how he’d misjudged it. Some times, he’d draw an important building that was the same size as another building, upon noticing, he’d have to redo several other buildings and make sure he got the measurements right. Redoing the actual real life buildings would be even harder though, so he just strained his eyes and continued drawing.
There was a particular second that was the last straw for the man. He was working on the fountain outside of one of his hotels, when he realised he’d have to change the plumbing system even more for the pipes to reach that section. It was a really minor detail in hindsight, but right then, Quackity decided he was done for the day. He didn’t even want to get up from his chair or walk. What was it, three or four a.m.? Yeah, he wasn’t really going anywhere.
He did know sleeping in chairs was bad though, so he just laid on the floor. It was then that he zoned back in for a second, remembering that this was a makeshift shack, and that the floor was actually just grass and dirt. It was a struggle, emotionally and physically, but he took his jacket off, without moving much, to use as a pillow. It wasn’t the best, but it sort of worked.
He couldn’t help longing for a normal bed. His brain absentmindedly brought forth memories of le rapids. His eyebrows scrunched at first, regretting thinking at all, and wishing the memories away, but in a moment of weakness, he caved. He thought about the place, for the first time in far too long. It was the dangerous sort of remembering. It made him a little nauseous, for some reason, knowing he couldn’t go back to that time. Instead of shivering, he would be under a blanket. Instead of the clouds that had draped all across his land today, the sun would’ve shined down on him, and all of his friends.
Shit.
He looked at a piece of grass in front of his face and grabbed it. He focused on tearing the grass into little bits and even smaller pieces, until the bits were so small, he couldn’t hold them. He readjusted his beanie and turned his body. He listened to the rain outside. He wished he could fall asleep, but he knew he would cave first, for some reason.
So, for the first time in far too long, Quackity thought about his finances. Could he still call them that? He hadn’t seen either of them in a least a few months. Maybe he should’ve seen it coming. Sure, Karl went off on his own little adventures every so often, but it’d never as long as it was this time around. Sapnap usually didn’t have much to do, so it was odd that he wasn’t around much.
Then he talked to George. What’s a man to do when his two finances run off together, likely because they’re better off without him? He wanted to make some snarky comment about it. I mean, they should’ve told him so he could take the stupid ring off. He wouldn’t mean it thought, he actually quite loved the ring. It had, at one point, reminded him there would always be two people out there that cared about him enough to even consider spending their whole life with him. Sure, he had a rocky past with relationships, but he figured it would be different the second time around. At moments like these, Quackity was reminded of the scientific answer to these questions. He was the independent variable, the thing that didn’t change in the equations, but the experiment always turned out the same. In other words, he was the problem, he had to be. But he didn’t really think about this whole thing much. Not really.
But, at the moment, there was nothing but his five senses. He saw the grass in front of him, reminding him exactly where he was and subsequently, how he’d ended up there. The rain crowded his ears, a dreary note of the world outside his little shack. These combined made the smell of wet grass. It wasn’t horrible, but he wouldn’t exactly invite it in if it knocked on his door. The texture of the hard ground and the grass scratching his skin no matter how much he tossed and turned was different from the strong smell. He despised it. It made it worse, he’d never rest like this, feeling acutely aware of every single blade poking at his skin, each trying and failing to continue sticking up out of the ground and reaching for the sky they could no longer see. He wasn’t tasting anything at the moment, obviously.
It felt like hours had passed as he laid silently without purpose, knowing sleep was in unachievable goal. His mind slowly drifted back to the topics he claimed to hate, but returned to so often. It sort of reminded of him of pity, the word that little blond kid liked to throw around, but like, for himself.
It was times like these when Quackity felt he could indulge in the guilty-pleasure that is “self-pity” because sometimes it just feels good to make yourself feel like a horrible person.
Who was he to complain that Karl and Sapnap didn’t come around anymore? It’s not like he made the effort to seek either of them out. That was his fault. Sure, they were equally dimwited and sometime equally pretty plain stupid, but Quackity was sort of a glue. Someone to make sure Karls didn’t run off to catch a butterfly and Sapnap didn’t fuck off to eat a bug or something. It’s not like his was their fucking dad or anything, but he liked to take responsibility. It made him feel useful. So, he arranged dates and shit like that. It wasn’t too hard, and it was his fault for abandoning it. If he hadn’t wander off to do some stupid projects and spend hours on things of his own, maybe things would be running more smoothly. But he had, and now he was alone.
Why, though? He understood, he was the problem here, but what made it so easy for other people? How could they possibly balance work, interests, and romantic partners? Someone had to make this city. That’s how it started, and Quackity didn’t leave things unfinished. Then came Tommy’s death and the revive book. Now he had to add torturing a man to his schedule, and suddenly, he released his schedule was now full. It drove him, both things gave him purpose, but it wasn’t fulfilling, not like he’d hoped it be. Because when he came home, ate, and showered, it was surrounded by silence and a sharp chill, not the kind that came from a cold wind. He was alone, in a house built for three and it stung.