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Quackity ignores the knock on his office door.
The last thing he needs is some stray showing up to his office and seeing him in this state. This state he was sure he’d gotten past.
This state was for someone else, not him. Someone long dead, probably killed by getting a pickaxe through his skull.
No . He hadn’t died then.
He’d died when he’d won that stupid fucking election.
He’d died when he killed his lover with a crossbow through the forehead.
He’d died when he watched an old ally destroy his home, some ghost town he’d built up for a bright future.
Most recently, he’d died when learning his exes had started a mushroom themed kingdom without him.
So, it was safe to say he’d died a long, long time ago. This state belonged to that of a dead man.
This state, one of being crumbled against the floor to ceiling windows of his luscious to-die-for penthouse office, sobbing his guts across the floor. He’s drunk and he knows it.
Quackity had vowed sobriety when Schlatt died, but if that Quackity was dead, then it didn’t matter. And perhaps opening a casino meant it was hard not to fall into the stereotype of a gentleman with slicked back hair and a fat cigar between his gold plated teeth; whiskey on the rocks being a simple accessory, rather than an indulgence. It’s no wonder Wilbur smoked a pack a day in the resistance’s ravines. Leaders need something to satiate the buzzing in their brains.
The knocking persists.
“ Slime ,” he slurs, trying to keep the words strung somewhat, “ Not now .”
“I’m not Slime.” a tiny voice replies.
In a drunken stupor, Quackity had skipped a key moment of his death.
He’d also died when he left a child to be blown to bits in front of an eager crowd.
And now the ghost, or the fleshy chunks left of that child, are whispering from behind sliver doors.
“Quackity?”
He’s carrying a million pounds upon his back as he drags himself from the floor and lumbers for the door. Trembling fingers can barely hold a glass steady, let alone open the door. Somehow he manages to jiggle the lock undone and mumble a message for the intruder. The hinges are usually silent, but tonight they hiss to announce an entrance.
“ Oh .” Tubbo’s voice is even quieter when he lays eyes upon the… thing in front of him.
He’s seen Quackity bad before, he can count instances methodically in his brain ( post podium explosion after being thrown into a frighteningly shallow pond, covered in gore from butcher army hunts, covered in coarse sand from building in desert heat) , but this look was all too familiar.
The unkempt hair gel slathered hair, the unbuttoned, sweat soaked shirt, the rosiness in his cheeks, the tear stains down to his chin.
“Tubbo,” Quackity tries, and fails, to set himself in a sturdy business-man position, “What do you want?”
“We- uh, we had a meeting to discuss the cookie outpost and zoning laws.”
“Ah? Yeah- yes, when? When’s the meeting?”
“Now. Tonight. We scheduled it for 8pm.”
Quackity indiscreetly looks around Tubbo’s shoulder to the clock on the wall. Sure enough, 8pm sharp.
“Shit, Tubbo, it totally slipped my mind-”
“I can tell.”
He hates that tone. And he hates the voice Tubbo mutters it with.
He gestures for the teen to sit down, and follows behind him. The air conditioned room is still thick with hot tension. Quackity shuffles through neatly ordered drawers, and slides a contract across the tabletop to Tubbo. He wordlessly reads through the paper.
Quackity decides quickly that he hates this. He hates the tightness in his chest when he looks at Tubbo’s facial scar. He hates seeing this kid in charge of yet another project; a country waiting to form.
Tubbo’s eye flickers upwards for a moment, meeting Quackity’s, before fluttering down with such urgency it nearly makes Quackity cry again.
“So, cookie outpost?”
Tubbo just looks down, scribbling his signature on the paper, “ Mhm .”
“ Don’t .” Quackity knows he’s drunk. He knows he’ll regret this, but the word comes out before he can stop himself. It feels stupid that such a short hum could feel like an arrow to the chest.
Tubbo’s eyes flash upwards with something for a moment, something Quackity knew was coming. Something that had been buried and waiting to be dug up this entire short conversation.
“I’m sorry?”
“Don’t do that. Don’t hum all dismissive like….like I’m him .”
Tubbo looks down again immediately, letting the pen go limp between his fingers. His boots shuffle against the floor as he shifts in his seat.
This entire time, Quackity’s been stuck staring at a kid in clothes still too big for him, wrapped up in a winter coat like it's supposed to be armor.
This kid who hasn’t healed, maybe physically, but he speaks just like he used to. He talks to him like he talked to another man in a suit who drank every night.
“I’m not mad. I didn’t mean it like that.” Tubbo still won’t look up. Tiny droplets of water drip from his hidden face to the floor. “ Tubbo-kid -”
“ Sorry .”
Quackity doesn’t dare place a hand upon the teen’s scrunched up shoulders, nor try to pull his chin gently to look up. That action mirrored one of a past colleague of theirs much too much. “Tubbo, it’s okay, it’s fine-”
“It’s not.”
“I said I’m not mad. I should be the one who feels bad for forgetting our meeting.”
“I didn’t even want to have this stupid meeting to talk about a-a cookie outpost.” He barely gets it out without his tiny voice crumbling, shouting it as an alternative, “I just wanted to talk like we used to.”
Suddenly, the one stunned into silence is Quackity.
Tubbo fidgets with the pen, clicking and unclicking it, “ I just - I just wanted to hang out like we used to. When he wasn’t around, or when he was passed out in the office, or when you could get away for a few minutes.”
“ Tubbo -”
“No don’t- don’t bother ‘cause it’s obviously not gonna work. It’s been nice, but I’ll just sign this and leave,yeah?”
“ No .” It’s a command and Quackity hates it. He attempts to soften his tone, “Please stay.”
Tubbo goes stiff, ears flickering. His fingers freeze though, no longer lax.
To him, Quackity could snap at any second, no matter how soft his latter tone had been. He’s seen this tactic in leaders before; in Manburg and Pogtopia.
Miraculously, when Quackity opens his mouth, he knows what he wants to say. And his voice doesn’t shake or quiver whatsoever this time.
“You’re the only one who knows what I went through. What I really went through. And I think I’m the only one who knows what you went through too. I want it to be like how it used to, but we…we both know it can’t be. And that it shouldn't .”
Tubbo shakes his head, “But if we try, maybe it can.”
“ I don’t want to go back to that. I don’t want to sneak around to hang out with you. I don’t want to force mountains of paperwork on you just to see you.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know. I just…I don’t…” Again, eloquence escapes him, turning into a tumbling of what’s been building as a dam in the back of his throat, “The me that you hung out with to survive died a long time ago.”
“I can tell.” He says it without spite, without anger, instead with guilt, as he slides the paper back over to Quackity. The chair screeches backwards as he stands, like it’s telling Tubbo to just listen and stay for a few more seconds.
He heads for the door, pausing with his fingers around the cool handle, and looks over his shoulder.
The pair stare eye to eye, even if just for a moment, “You might’ve died back then, but I’m still the same me. And I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t end up in the office of a drunk businessman again.”
“ Tubbo -”
“We can talk when your office doesn’t smell like his . Goodnight Big Q.”
The door slams.
Quackity cradles his face in his hands. His breath smells like bourbon.