Chapter Text
When Quackity creeps into Schlatt’s office, the last thing he expects is a mess. Papers skate across the rug, and the palladian windows have at least a dozen panels ajar; the wind that flaps through books and curtains and ruffles the fire smells like ash. Through the glass, he can just make out the smoke from the white house. His chest tightens.
“Look who decided to show up,” says a shadow, and Schlatt wanders away from the bookshelf, fingers curled around a wineglass. “You’re trespassing, you know, technically.”
Quackity swallows, but shoves his hands in his pockets. “Technically, you’ve got my property, Schlatt. I didn’t come here to kiss your ass.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” He lifts his index finger from the glass. “Your tie’s crooked.”
“Yeah, that’s what happens when you try to stop someone from destroying a national landmark.”
And talk down the former president from blowing up the rest of the damn place-- but he doesn’t say that. Quackity expects a scathing retort, or a change of subject, but Schlatt laughs quietly, rounds the desk, and flicks on the lamp. He picks up a quill. It tap-taps against the inkwell. Quackity steps closer, wary.
Schlatt asks, “what is this property, exactly?”
My dignity, Quackity thinks, but forces himself not to scowl, and says, “books. You know, those things you look at for hours until you understand what they’re saying? You know, maybe I should leave them here, you might learn a thing or two.”
Schlatt scratches out the word Books. “Anything else?”
“There’s a chest of stuff in the lobby. And my jacket, on that chair.”
As Schlatt writes, he says, “I’m many things, Quackity, but disorganized is not one of them.”
“Yeah?” Quackity glances around the trashed room. “Is that why it looks like a fucking tornado blew through here?”
Schlatt sets the quill down, but when he looks up, his mouth is still stretched in a smile. “Do you know why I became a politician, Quackity?” He folds the paper, steps around the desk, and meanders across the rug. “It’s because there is one thing that will outlast kings and countries and regimes, and everyone in them. Something that will outlast property, and the exchange of… services.” He stops a foot from Quackity to hand him the paper. “Business, Quackity.”
“Is that what this was?” Quackity takes it, but doesn’t pull it from Schlatt’s hand. “An ‘exchange of services’?”
Schlatt releases the paper, still with that goddamn smile. “Goodbye, Alex.”
Quackity forces himself to walk at a normal pace out of the room. As soon as he reaches the end of the hall, he breaks into a flat run.
He gets his things from the staff department the next day, folded and boxed into a neat package. Like cashing in tokens at an arcade, he thinks, then shakes his head at himself, and pulls the boxes off the counter, carries them out of the double-doors and down the steps. On the curb, he sets them down, and realizes he has no way of carting all five to his house. He could slip one of the newspaper boys a few bucks, but there are none in sight.
Guess even headlines can’t motivate people to be around Schlatt. Quackity can’t blame them. He sits on one of the boxes and sighs, then pulls out a pack of camels and sticks one between his lips. Just as he remembers he’d lost his lighter in the woods somewhere, a cart pulls up beside the curb.
Someone calls, “need a lift?”
Quackity almost spits his cig onto the pavement. He stands, squints at the tarp-covered cart, and makes out a dim figure sitting in the corner. “Wilbur?”
Wilbur flaps his hands. “Sh! Shh, I’m undercover!” He points to the tarp, as if it’s not a centimeter of plastic separating him from the bounty on his head. “Come on, get in!”
Quackity doubles back to check the driver’s seat, but it’s no one he recognizes. He jerks his chin in their direction. “Who’s this?”
“I dunno. Threw him a few coins to get me across town. Are you coming, or not?”
Quackity paces in front of his boxes, glances at the gray and glass building that looms over the steps, and swears. He grabs the boxes and slides them in, and tries to make it look like he’d been waiting for the cart to show up, then, when he’s sure no one can see, he jumps into the back and scoots under the tarp to sit beside Wilbur. The boxes he --there’s no other word for it-- lounges on are scrawled with loopy handwriting and smell like a bakery.
“Whose shit is this?” Quackity asks.
“Niki’s,” Wilbur says, and takes a drag from his cigarette, then blows smoke at him.
“Gross,” Quackity mutters, to both. “Forgot I’m not the only one who jumped ship. You heard from Fundy yet?”
Wilbur lifts the cigarette again and says casually, “no,” but his fingers twitch, and a minute later, he stubs it out.
The cart rattles, and cobblestone passes through a gap in the slats. Quackity settles his shoulders against a stack of cardboard and tries to get comfortable, but the edges chafe his spine, and his neck curls at an odd angle. Wilbur pulls open a box, roots around in it, pulls out a pillow, and offers it. Quackity’s face scrunches up. Before he can say anything, Wilbur smacks him with the pillow.
“Ow,” Quackity says. “What the fuck?”
“We’re not like that, okay?” Wilbur says.
“Tommy said--”
“Tommy tried to breed Techno’s horse with a goat yesterday,” he interrupts. “Don’t take relationship advice from him.”
Quackity holds up his palms. “Yes sir."
“No, no--” Wilbur wags a finger at him, “--I already told you, in Pogtopia, everyone is equal. We don’t do-- that.”
“Well that’s not how it felt when you ordered Tommy to step away from fifteen pounds of TNT.”
Wilbur’s jaw clenches, and the smile that curls across his mouth is forced. “Look, do you want to be part of Pogtopia, or not? Because I can rescind my invitation.”
Quackity hisses. “Actually, Tommy invited me. What happened to everyone being equal, Mr. President?”
“We’d only excommunicate you if it was by majority vote. Isn’t that what you wanted? An expansion of democracy?”
Quackity throws up his hands and groans. Wilbur shoves the pillow behind himself and settles against it, but he crosses his arms over his chest. Shadows pattern across the tarp, and through the back’s opening, cobblestone turns into dirt; thatched roofs turn into a green canopy, and the sun chases them out of the place they once called home.
It’s a long ride out, still. Quackity shifts again, but after a minute, gives up.
“So did it work?” he asks.
Wilbur stares dully at the road. “What?”
“Breeding Techno’s horse with a goat,” Quackity says.
For a moment, Wilbur says nothing-- but then he bites his lip and covers his face with one hand, and bursts into laughter.