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Quackity was sitting at the top of the spire, overlooking the edge.
Slime had been watching people for a very, very long time. While communication and socialization might not be his greatest strengths, he was very good at recognizing patterns in others, and this pattern of Quackity’s was… troubling. Slime had, over time, learned that people tend to enjoy their privacy, free from any watchful eyes, even if those eyes were not eyes at all but instead goop that had evolved the ability to see. But people didn’t like to be watched, and Quackity especially valued his privacy, so Slime had granted it to him.
That didn’t mean he hadn’t seen a lot about Quackity before that point. And from his past observations he knew that Quackity only stood at the top of the spire staring out at the land below when something bad had happened.
“Hello Quackity, how was your day?” Slime asked as he approached the man from behind, keeping his voice as cheery as always while also ensuring Quackity wouldn’t be startled by his sudden appearance, so he kept his volume lowered.
The man turned around quickly, a flash of panic in his remaining eye, that softened into recognition as it focused on Slime. “Oh, hey,” he said, and Slime could feel the weariness in his tone.
Slime wasn’t the smartest sometimes, but you couldn’t spend millennia watching others without learning a thing or two about emotions.
“What are- what are you doing up here?” Quackity asked softly, as if he didn’t want to disturb the quiet that was only broken by the wind, and he sounded tired.
Slime shrugged. “Looking for you! You were gone most of the day today, I’ve just been wandering around and checking the places where I normally find you.”
Quackity made a strange face at Slime’s words, but it faded almost so quickly that it could have been a trick of the light, the setting sun illuminating Quackity’s features oddly.
He turned back to look out at Las Nevadas.
This was the tricky part. Slime cared about Quackity a lot. Quackity from Las Nevadas was the first person ever to treat him like, well, a person. He gave him a home and a life and a purpose, and had taught him so much, even if sometimes Quackity’s lessons didn’t seem quite true. But Quackity listened to him, didn’t dismiss him when Slime disagreed or didn’t understand, and he treated him as an equal. Quackity had given Slime everything, and Slime wanted to do the same in return. But even though he was good at recognizing emotions, responding to them was another thing entirely.
So he stayed silent, pondering what to say as he joined Quackity at his side, looking down at the illuminated city. The artificial lights glowed bright, but they weren’t as blinding from up here. It looked more like a painting, Slime thought. An empty city occupied by illusions of life.
It began to snow.
Quackity swallowed, gaze still pointed down to the ground, but it went further than Las Nevadas. He was staring at the horizon, and Slime wondered if he was truly processing what he was seeing.
“Do you remember what I told you about trust?” Quackity asked after the wordless minutes had grown long enough.
Slime nodded. “Trust no one, right? Except… we can trust each other, and that’s alright.”
Quackity just sighed and gave a small nod of his own. “Well, I told you that because I… I trusted people who hurt me.”
His right hand came to grasp at his left, in a motion Slime had seen Quackity do frequently when he was lost in thought; he would twist the two rings around his finger in a subconscious manner. It was one of those things that people did that Slime still didn’t understand completely. What was the point of it? Quackity had explained once that it felt calming, and even though Slime didn’t understand how that could be the case, he accepted it as something important to Quackity.
Tonight, though, the rings were gone. Slime watched Quackity freeze as his fingers brushed against the place where they should have met metal before dropping his hands back to his sides.
Should Slime ask about the rings?
Before he could decide, Quackity continued. “The reason why I built Las Nevadas was for them, at first. Before I met you,” and Quackity finally looked at Slime, as if he’d suddenly remembered that he was there. “This place… it was supposed to be for the three of us. But they left, they went somewhere else, and now, one of them sees me as nothing but a murderer -”
There was anger in that final word, and Slime remembered something. Karl and Sapnap from El Rapids, but El Rapids didn’t exist anymore. They were Karl and Sapnap from Kinoko Kingdom now, right? He remembered Karl from El Rapids dying, back when El Rapids was Mexican L’manberg. Was that what made Quackity a murderer?
Quackity had cut himself off, breathing heavily, before he shook his head and looked out at the horizon once more. “It doesn’t matter,” he muttered. “It doesn’t fucking matter.”
Slime was silent for several more seconds, watching as Quackity closed his eye and swallowed again.
“Quackity…” Slime really hoped he got this right. “I don’t understand why they would leave you, so maybe you’re right about- about not trusting people. But you seem upset, so… doesn’t that mean it matters to you?”
Quackity rubbed his temples. “Okay, but it shouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because-!” He cut himself off again with another deep breath, speaking softly again. “Because they left a long time ago now. They moved on, so I moved on too. Seeing them again shouldn’t change that.”
This felt like another lesson that Slime wasn’t sure was true or right. “Wouldn’t seeing them again just remind you of how they hurt you?”
Quackity let out a groan of frustration. “That’s the problem! It did remind me, and now I can’t stop fucking thinking about it!” He kicked the bottom of the barrier around the edge of the spire, but Slime didn’t react. It was typical for Quackity to relieve his frustration in ways like that, but Slime had been with Quackity long enough to trust that any violent acts towards property would never turn into violence against Slime. “I shouldn’t have fucking gone with Sapnap, I knew this would happen!”
His shouts echoed in the air for a moment, and Quackity wore an expression of anger and hurt and grief, and he breathed heavily as if his lungs couldn’t get the air humans needed.
“Who are you mad at, Quackity?”
“What?” Quackity asked, confusion joining the mess of emotions on his face.
“Who are you mad at? Yourself, or the people who you trusted?”
“I-” Quackity’s voice trailed off as he seemed to ponder Slime’s question. His shoulders dropped. “I guess… I guess both?”
“How come?”
“Well, they left me, and that isn’t fair , after all I did for them, right?”
Slime just nodded, encouraging Quackity to continue.
“But… fuck , I don’t know. Maybe they left because of me. Maybe I’m the one at fault, and Karl was right.” Something slid down Quackity’s cheek, a silvery line. A tear, right? “Maybe it’s because I’m- I’m not…”
He didn’t finish his sentence, and Slime waited a handful of patient moments before realizing that Quackity wasn’t going to add anything else. There were more tears falling from his eye, that wasn’t good, right?
Plus, Quackity was wrong.
“Quackity, I haven’t known you as long as they have,” Slime said slowly, trying to ensure that what he said was helping. “But I don’t think you’re right. You’re Quackity from Las Nevadas, and… you’ve done a lot of things to help me. You wanted me to be your spy, but that didn’t mean you had to teach me everything you have, or give me a home, or treat me like I’m human.”
“You are-” Quackity tried to cut in, but Slime kept going.
“I just think that if you were willing to do all of that for me, that means you can’t be a bad person. At least not all the way.”
Quackity closed his eye again and laughed. It wasn’t a humorous laugh. “I’m not a good person either.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t be,” Slime said, and he believed it. He wasn’t oblivious, he knew that Quackity had hurt people, and done some things that weren’t good. But mostly Slime just thought that Quackity was scared, and if he’s learned anything from his time spent observing, it’s that scared people will go to drastic lengths to feel safe.
He also knew that since he began spending more time with Slime, Quackity had stopped going to the prison. Slime didn’t know what Quackity had done there, only that he came back covered in someone else’s blood every day, and that it couldn’t be good. But he didn’t do it anymore. Did that mean that he felt safer?
Slime hoped so. He wanted Quackity to be safe.
They stood at the edge of the spire in silence for several more minutes as the snow spiraled around them. Eventually, Slime saw Quackity shiver, and he put an arm around him.
“Quackity, I can see that you’re cold.”
The man just let out a hum in response.
Gently, Slime guided him away from the edge and towards the tower exit. “Let’s go home, okay?”
Slime wasn’t sure where Quackity considered his true home to be. He slept in various places around Las Nevadas, never sticking to one specific spot to call his own. But Slime had his own space, and while he didn’t have many possessions to his name, he didn’t own anything before he met Quackity, so it was more than enough for him. And Slime didn’t technically need sleep, but sometimes when Quackity was up too late stressed over the details of Las Nevadas’s upcoming opening, working himself to exhaustion without noticing that the sun had long since set, Slime would gently guide him to his little dwelling the way he did now. And Slime would bring Quackity into his bed, and Quackity would fall asleep, sometimes pinning Slime’s arm down as he did so.
And Slime could just gloop right through him, if he wanted. But usually when that happened he stayed where he was until morning, making sure Quackity wasn’t disturbed by the nightmares he knew he had.
Which was what happened that night, the two of them ending up in Slime’s bed again, which was unused except in these moments, but this time Quackity didn’t fall asleep immediately.
“Are you going to stay?” Quackity asked quietly, and it startled Slime slightly.
“I don’t have to. Do you want me to leave, Quackity?”
The man shook his head. “Stay, please?”
Slime wasn’t sure he was fully aware of his words, but that didn’t matter. Quackity wanted him to stay, so he would.
“Okay.”
Slime didn’t sleep, but as Quackity’s breathing slowed into an even rhythm as he slept, holding Slime as Slime held him back, he was pulled into a calm meditation, and he smiled to himself.
Quackity didn’t have any nightmares that night.