Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Standing in front of a collapsing building and contemplating in agony on whether or not to use his cursed powers had to be the new number 6 on his list of bad days, right after getting married.

Quackity stared at the building, still shocked, mouth slightly open. A fight between a hero and a villain had damaged the building’s structure right in front of his eyes. Metal was shrieking, something was crumbling, and glass shattered. They had been so fast gone that Quackity didn’t even have time to recognize the villain or the hero.

Run, you need to leave, the part of his brain told him that kept him alive, and safe.

Quacktiy was no hero. He couldn’t afford to do anything. He had come to terms with the fact that using his powers only resulted in pain for himself. Because having the power to manipulate luck only sounded like a great power. It was not. Especially if the only way to use it was to increase the luck of other people.

He didn’t move.

The distant cries for help got drowned by the sound of fast arriving sirens.

There are children inside, his consciousness whispered. It was the part of him that was strong enough to drain the fear. The part that had registered that the building was actually an elementary school. What if Tubbo—

Fuck. His. Brain.

Quackity squinched his eyes shut. Tubbo was not here. Tubbo was safe and far away, and he needed to leave!

The throbbing at the back of his head told him, that he had already activated his powers. That he had reached out to the many lives still inside the building. He was too far away to do much, but he hoped that turning up their luck just a bit would be enough for them to get out. Or to be found by heroes and rescue forces.

Quackity’s hands trembled. It was not because of the pain—he was used to worse—but because of the panic lingering right under the surface of his mind. Almost two years of effort, not using his powers for anything major, actually not using them for anything except his night job, and he was washing it down the drains.

There had been a time when Quackity had liked using his powers. He had used them on his husband and on everyone he met who seemed like they could use a bit of luck. He had been so in love, and he had believed that he was loved just as much in return. Eventually, he had stopped using his powers for anyone but his husband. He had still been so happy, so willing to share everything.

Foolish, naïve fucking idiot.

A car came to a screeching halt right behind him and Quackity almost jumped out of his skin.

He’s here. He found you. Run!

Quackity stumbled away and called back the luck. The stench of smoke hung in the air. His head whipped around.

He expected to meet dark hungry eyes. He was ready to fight off the strong unforgiving arms, to go for the kneecaps and the eyes, to thrash and scream, even though no one would help because they were all occupied with evacuation the school.

The guy jumping out the car and coming to an abrupt stillstand was… it was not him. It was a hero, dashing black and red costume and everything. He was young, that much was visible even with the mask that covered most of his face. Maybe Quackity’s age or one or two years younger. Quackity remembered the white bandana that did nothing to hold back the black hair as well as the fire emblems. He’d seen the hero debut a few months back. He had been all nervous chuckles and softspoken on his first interview.

Now he reminded Quackity of his own feelings a few seconds ago. He was pale and looked at the scenery with wide, shocked eyes. He was still brimming with eagerness to help but he was force in place by the fear of running into a building that might collapse on him. Or by the fear of being too late. Quackity couldn’t tell.

A loud creaking came from the building, followed by frantic shouting, and Quackity turned his head back. The building shook dangerously while people tried to stabilize it. Dark smoke was billowing out of some windows on the first floor, illuminated by flickering orange light. That’s where the smell of smoke had come from. Firefighters were already trying to get it under control.

Quackity barely recognized any of the heroes present. Dream stood in the front of the building; hands stretched out while she stabilized the building with her telekinetic powers. The young hero with the green hoody and smiley face mask looked worn out. When the building shook once more her arms trembled.

The first few people got out, a teacher leading three children and carrying a fourth. Wide-eyed, disoriented, scared. He handed the children to the rescue personnel and had to be stopped from running straight back into the building. Taking it all in felt like an eternity. It had been seconds. The soft throbbing pain at the back of his head told Quackity that he had activated his powers again, instinctively. It wasn’t so much a decision than a realization: He wouldn’t leave.

But if he wanted to help, he might as well go all in. He pulled his cap deeper into his face and turned back towards the young hero. The man was still frozen. Quackity took a deep breath of the smoke and dust filled air and deliberately stumbled towards the hero. He wasn’t bad at acting and it hopefully looked like he was trying to get far away, and fast.

Honestly, the hero in front of him was not the best choice. He was young and inexperienced and judging by his costume his powers had something to do with fire. His name was Pyre, or Blaze or Embers, or something else that was fire-related. Honestly, not the best option for search and rescue. But he was the closest one around and Quackity’s powers worked best if close when activating them. Quackity brushed the hero’s shoulder—it was barely a touch—and sent him all the luck he had left, cranking it up to the max.

Three things happened.

The hero unfroze, shook his head like he needed to get rid of a strange thought, and sprinted towards the building.

At the same time the pain in Quackity’s head spiked up. It had been long since he had used his powers to this extend and it took everything from him not to whimper. He wobbled, almost sinking to his knees.

And then he felt the sudden pressure in the air, the shift as the universe listen to his call. Screeching and creaking came from the school building, followed by more loud and panicked shouting. Quackity wasn’t worried. The building had shaken, but he knew that it had only settled into a slightly more stable position. It would still collapse, eventually. But not on the head of the luckiest person on the planet, as temporarily as his luck may be.

Quackity staggered towards the nearest pole and leaned against it. He did his best at being as inconspicuous as possible. The pain in his head had wandered from the back of his head right to the front of his forehead. He watched through watery eyes how the fire hero came out of the building time and time again, bringing more children with him. Medics and other rescue forces were taking them from his hands. Quackity closed his eyes for a moment.

“—ou need help?” a soft voice right in front of him asked. An older medic was looking at him with worry.

Quackity immediately straightened. “No, no, I’m fine. I wasn’t even in the building.”

The medic wasn’t convinced. “You’re bleeding.”

Quackity’s hand moved to his nose. He looked at the red sticky liquid on his fingers. Huh. They were right. He was bleeding.

He looked back up at the medic and tried to come up with a clever retort when his gaze fell upon the fire hero. He was coming their way, fury in his eyes. No, not fury…

Cold panic struck its claws into Quackity.

The rational part of his brain would have told him, that the hero was coming his way because everyone had been evacuated from the school building and he himself was the only person still in need of help because he was a fucking idiot and burning himself out.

The rational part of his brain was dead.

All he could see was the glimmer in the hero’s eyes. It was the euphoria, the rush that the extraordinarily high luck caused. Glimmering dark. And hungry. He knew those eyes. He had to get away.

Quackity pulled in his powers in one swoop. He knew he shouldn’t do it this abruptly. He couldn’t stop himself. The fire hero stumbled and the medic between the two of them seemed to notice that something was wrong.

“Sorry,” Quackity rushed out. He wasn’t sure to whom he’d said it. He fled the scene, already pulling out his smart phone. His other hand fumbled with a tissue and pressed it to his nose.

‹›‹›‹›

The front door slammed shut behind him. Quackity allowed himself to take a deep breath.

He considered kicking off his shoes. Instead, he took them off with his right hand and carefully placed them next to the door. He had to know where they were in case, he had to leave quickly.

His left hand was still holding the phone, still scrolling through twitter. Only one casualty. The media were already calling it a fucking miracle. The St. Peter Elementary School Miracle.

God, he needed to leave. He needed to cover his tracks.

His head was killing him. He reached for his emergency backpack when he tasted iron on his lips.

Fuck!

Something wet was running from his nose. He was bleeding, again. No way was he getting anywhere like this.

He dropped the backpack. Sleep first, then leave. Then calling Charlie, maybe.

He stumbled towards his bed, barely pulling off his jacket and sunk right into the cushions.

This had been a mistake. He’d do it again, he knew that.

It was still a fucking mistake.

‹›‹›‹›

Chapter Text

“I’m home!”

Sapnap closed the door and tossed his key into the wooden bowl next to it. He was greeted by the delicious scent of his dad’s freshly backed chocolate cookies, and silence. He took a deep breath in. Smoke still lingered in his hair. Technically speaking that wasn’t unusual for him but today it reminded him of a collapsing building, and he wanted to shower and get rid of it as fast as possible.

“Dad?”

Sapnap waited a moment and listened. He only heard soft noises from upstairs. Wherever his dad had gone after baking, he wasn’t home. He was probably taking a walk, or back at the workshop. It was still a few weeks until the anniversary anyways, no need to worry. Sapnap left his shoes at the door and after checking the kitchen—just to be sure—followed the cookie-scent up the stairs, passing several pictures in old-school wooden frames. Most of them were family pictures, showing his two dads and himself. Some were pictures with friends. He did not look at them.

Muffled voices came from his room. It was no surprise that his friends had arrived before him. The most tiresome medical examination of his life had taken forever. Collapsing for a hot second after coming out of a burning building was a good reason for check-ups, sure. But he had known that he was fine, just like all the test confirmed eventually. He opened the door and the friendly banter between his friends surrounded him with all its force.

Seeing Clay and George in his room was no surprise. Clay sat on his desk chair. She had dark bags under her eyes from the exhausted use of her telekinetic powers but said green eyes still sparkled with passion.

George sat cross-legged on Sapnap’s bed, balancing a laptop on his knees, and nibbling on a cookie. The cookie plate was beside him on the bed. His googles were pushed up into his dark hair and he had a frown on his face. Unlike Clay and himself, George had not been at the St. Peter Elementary School because his powers weren’t suited for the help and rescue work. He only made people forget things, which, granted, was a scary power but only occasionally useful. And then again, occasionally, it really screwed them over. Like that one time when George had made a woman forget where she had placed her explosives while a timer was ticking down.

The one guy Sapnap hadn’t expected to see so early today was Karl. He was their teammate, the only one without powers, and he should have been in the analytics department all day today. Instead, he was leaning on George’s shoulder, his gaze jumping between the laptop screen and Clay. The discussion was between him and Clay, obviously. Despite the mild august weather, he was wearing his teal and purple colored hoodie that Sapnap loved for its soft fabric that was just made for cuddling. He was taking a deep breath and exclaiming “Nonsense—” when he noticed Sapnap and stopped abruptly. His face lit up in the most heartwarming way and his cheeks turned a soft pink.

“Hi,” Karl said.

Sapnap waved awkwardly, almost loosing himself in the most beautiful gold-brown eyes in the whole world, before Clay demanded his attention.

“Sapnap! What took you so long?”

He snapped out of it and shrugged apologetically. “Medical examinations. They wanted to figure out why I was out for a hot second.”

“You were unconscious?” Karl looked at him with worry. “Are you okay?”

“Don’t worry. Everything is fine. Probably just overdid it or something. And I told them I was fine, but they ran a bunch of tests anyway. I’m not kidding ya, they were unhappy I was fine.”

Clay gave him a friendly shoulder-bump. “They were just doing their job.”

Sapnap rolled his eyes. “I didn’t even get a scratch. Or a burn.”

“You never get burned, Snapmap.” Karl shot him a fond smile before returning his attention to the screen and mumbling something to George who had completely ignored Sapnap so far. It was true. While Sapnap was still working out how to use his active powers most efficiently—creating fire and inflaming things by bringing his own body temperature up or crying lava tears when sad—he was also very resilient to fire and smoke. A blessing on a day like this.

Which reminded him…

He gave Clay a stern look and folded his arms. “Why didn’t you wait for George and me?”

“Some of us are quick on their feet while others sleep all day.”

“Clay!”

The older woman sighed exasperatedly. “We got a clue on Bad. What was I supposed to do? Wait so he could get away again? Lose the one lead we have?”

“In case you haven’t noticed: The villain got away anyways and destroyed an elementary school on the run!” Sapnap felt his blood boiling again. “I know that you got your license a year before George and me but were supposed to be a team here.”

“Don’t be late then,” Clay snapped back. “It wasn’t my fault!”

“I wasn’t late, you were—George, say something!”

“Keep me out of your lovers quarrel,” the other man deadpanned.

“Fine!” Sapnap threw his hands in the air. It was no use.

He made sure that his hands were average temperature before dropping himself on the bed next to George. He didn’t want to burn his sheets, again. “I hope Philza tells you off for your stunt,” he grunted.

“I already saw the boss. He wants to talk to you as well.”

Karl chimed in. “He’ll probably give you a medal of honor. You were on fire today, baby.” There was a mischievous glint in his eyes because of the fire-pun, and the medal was an exaggeration, obviously. Sapnap blushed, nonetheless. They’d been together for a month now and he was still shy about Karl complimenting him. He probably always would. Time to change the subject. “What were you guys arguing about before I came in?”

“We weren’t arguing per se,” said Karl, while George said, “Clay believes in luck.”

“I don’t believe in luck, but I would say we were very lucky today.”

Sapnap wrinkled his brows. “If that’s what you want to call a three-story building collapsing.”

The woman exhaled dramatically. “I’m sorry, okay? I know I should have waited. Yadda yadda yadda. What I mean is… a three-story building collapsing with only one human casualty and otherwise minor injuries and burns? With all the children involved? I’d call that ‘damn lucky’.”

Sapnap thought about it for a second and had to agree.

“It’s impossibly lucky,” said Karl. He nibbled on his teal-colored nail polish in a way that Sapnap recognized as ‘I think I’m onto something, but I don’t want to say just yet.’

“There is no such thing as ‘too lucky’,” Clay countered, clearly picking up the discussion where they had left it.

“There is! Mathematically speaking—”

“Please, spare us the higher mathematics,” Clay exasperated.

“It’s basic statistics.”

“It’s not.” Clay said and turned to Sapnap. “What do you say?”

Before Sapnap could sort his thought on higher statistics or whatever, George said “Found it!” and everyone’s attention snapped to him. Sapnap slid closer to him to look on the screen while Clay sat down on the other side. Karl used the opportunity to leave Georges shoulder and snuggle up to Sapnap instead. They interlaced their fingers.

The screen showed the picture of a very naïve looking man in a white button-up shirt with green suspenders and a green tie. He wore square glasses and had short brown hair that was neatly brushed to one side. The description read ‘Charlie Slimesicle’ and he was apparently an employee at some place in the Las Nevadas district. They all stared at the picture.

Eventually Sapnap turned to Karl and George and raised his eyebrows questioningly. “What are we looking at?”

His boyfriend was back to picking at his nail polish. “When I analyzed today’s incident,” he began slowly, “something felt off, like I was missing a variable.”

“The impossible luck?” Sapnap asked.

Karl nodded. “We know which heroes were at the scene and there were no mentions of vigilante activities. Not even rumors.”

“So, you suspected somebody was there in civil?” Clay sounded displeased and Sapnap felt the same. Secret identities were secret for a reason. Unless someone threatened to blow up the whole city, you didn’t try to unmask others. It wasn’t right. Heck, they were encouraged to look the other way if need be. People were supposed to be able to live their private lives in, well, private. And apart from some douchebags, namely the Devil, even villains followed that code. Sapnap gritted his teeth at the thought of that villain before he turned his attention back to Karl.

His boyfriend shook his head. “Not initially, no. I suspected that one of the kids had a very early awakening due to the stress. Possibly something regarding probabilities and such. In that case I hoped to identify them so that they could get proper training and the usual hero TED talk about powers and responsibilities and what not. The one that we all got. Maybe even get them into an early hero program if wanted.” He trailed off.

Clay waved at the picture. “You don’t think so anymore, obviously.”

“Yeah. My second thought was that Bad is working with a partner that we haven’t identified yet. Only, it doesn’t add up. I talked to George about it before you came back from your talk with Mr. Minecraft. And he told me that…,” Karl exchanged a quick look with George and continued, “somebody told the Blade, that they had noticed a strange series of misfortunate events all over Las Nevadas in the last year and a half. They are all minor and to irregular to really catch any attention. Shop owners unfortunately forgetting to lock their shops on the one night they get robbed, casinos having incredible unlucky days and losing a lot to this or that random guy. Not enough to put a hero on the case with everything else going on at the moment, obviously.”

Clay jumped up and threw her hands in the air. “Okay, so we have someone with probability powers. They helped some kids. Case closed.”

Karl nodded. “True, true. Until you look at the extend of what they did today. If it was the same person.”

An uncomfortable silence settled in the room. If today’s event were an indication for the person’s power than everything they knew of so far, that were just peanuts. And it was the perfect power to stay hidden for forever. Or for however long until it was too late. Sapnap’s stomach twisted into a cold knot. They might find themselves facing an incident with comparable magnitude to the Devil’s Night from three years ago. He held Karl’s hand a little tighter.

“And that’s the guy?” he blurted out when he couldn’t take the silence any longer. His voice was rough, halfway caught up in his throat. He tried to clear it and jerked his head towards the screen.

George reached over him to take another cookie. “No,” he said, unfazed as ever, “that’s the guy you need to talk to if you want to meet the guy.”

“How do you even know that?”

“While it is part of your job to be hotheaded and burn shit, it is part of my job to be sexy and know people,” George quipped with a smug smile and took a crunchy bite of chocolate.

“Show-off.” Karl peeled himself off Sapnap, only enough to open a file in the hot bar. It looked like the report of an interrogation. Sapnap leaned in closer to read it.

“What’s it saying?” Clay asked, refusing to sit back down.

“There is no name or alias. You must be lucky to meet him in the first place. This guy here waited for a whole month to meet him. And they struck a,” Sapnap paused and reread, “a deal?” He looks up at the others and wiggled his eyebrows. “Very dubious.”

George shrugged. “Yeah, as far as I understand it you can pay with money, but this seems more common. You pay a price, get a set timeframe and then you make the best of it,” he waved at the screen, “or you don’t. The five people we got on this subject were very freaked out when they got caught and only two of them reluctantly agreed to talk about it.”

Clay chuckled. “Sounds like a deal with the devil to me.”

Sapnap stiffened. Suddenly, the air in the room was stuffy and suffocating. His head was filled with static noise.

He barely noticed that Karl drew soothing circles between his shoulder blades.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Clay mumbled.

It was okay. Sapnap knew, he knew that Clay hadn’t meant the Devil. He was okay, he was fine.

“It’s okay.”

No one disagreed with him.

He picked up a cookie. It burned where Sapnap’s fingers touched it. He registered the smell. He ate it anyway, very forcefully. His father hadn’t been the same since they… since the Devil’s Night. Only his baking had remained, his cookies and muffins and cakes. It was the reason why Sapnap still partially lived at home, why his friends met up at this place so often even though the four of them had found a nice place for themselves.

George shuffled away while Karl only held Sapnap closer. His stupidly adorable boyfriend would rather get burned than leave his side. And as much as Sapnap appreciated the thought he really didn’t want to hurt him. So, he took deep controlled breaths, like they had practiced, and counted to ten. It helped, a bit.

This time George broke the silence. “All right, what’s the strats?” he asked Karl.

Karl stopped his soothing motion for a second before he continued. “I want to meet the guy. No hero costumes, just plain old reconnaissance. We figure out if he could’ve been involved in today’s incident and if he’s working with Bad.”

“Whatever,” Sapnap waved at them, barely listening. “You get that sorted out, while I take a shower. I need to get rid of the smoke.” He shrugged Karl’s hand off, ignored the short moment of silence and headed to the bathroom.

Chapter Text

A train rattled past his window as Quackity woke in cold sweat. His head was throbbing, and he sat up slowly. The blood on his cushion was an ugly reminder that his nightmare had indeed been real. He checked the clock and stifled a sigh. Five hours. Five hours of sleep, and they had done little to calm his nerves. Well, at least his headache had numbed down to a soft prodding, or so he told himself.

He got up, cleaned his face of the dried blood, jumped into the first clothes he found in his closet, picked up his emergency backpack and glanced at his tiny but familiar apartment. The main room was bare: a bed, a small kitchen unit, a chair, and a desk with a new TV on it, and a patch of mold right above the window that he had not been able to get rid of for the life of him. For roughly nine months this place had been his, and it had been the first place to feel almost like home since… He shook his head. It had been his refuge as long as it had lasted.

His attention lingered on the TV for a moment longer. A luxury that came to bite him in the ass now. He had bought it because Charlie had urged him on forever to do something good for himself. Now he hadn‘t had enough money to get a new place immediately. Which meant he had to call Charlie. Which meant he couldn’t go into hiding straight away.

And that just meant he wouldn’t be safe just yet.

A new sense of panic tickled up his spine, ready to meet his irritating headache.

Quackity took a deep breath and straightened up. No use crying over spilled milk. The door fell shut behind him, and he never looked back.

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Calling Charlie was harder than it should have been, objectively speaking. After all, Charlie was his best friend. Granted, he was his only friend, but that was beyond the point.

The actual phone call was as short as could be: “Are you on night shift? Great, I’ll be there in ten.”

It took him fifteen minutes, but only because he had to hide three times in some alleys to shake an unidentifiable person who may or may not have been a fabrication of his anxious mind.

Quackity snuck in on the back of what he considered the most rundown arcade of the whole Las Nevadas district. It was called ‘The Ginger Palace’ though everyone who knew the place refereed to it as ‘The Dump’. The air was filled with cigarette smoke and the taste of depression. The place certainly tried to project some classy flair by being late teens and early twenties themed, 1920s that was, but Quackity couldn’t decide if the mechanical games, pinball, and slot machines were build fashionably nostalgic or were actually from somewhere around that time. Either way the furniture and everything looked old, like, really old, and not in a way that a collector would appreciate. The only good thing was the dim lighting that made the sorry state of the place less obvious.

Back in the locker room Quackity could already hear the snippets of conversations drifting between soft beats of music and the overly cheerful sounds of the old gaming machines. It was nostalgic in a way that made him ache for the time he had been employed here and secretly grateful that he wasn’t anymore.

He quickly changed into his former working attire, dark trousers, a white button-down shirt with suspenders and a red tie, to blend in with the others. His own clothes and backpack went straight into Charlie’s locker. After a moment of hesitation, he decided to keep his black cap on and left the locker room. The boss had never minded when his employees kept a personal touch to their attire.

Noise engulfed him and the smell of smoke and cheep booze got even stronger. Charlie wasn’t hard to spot. It was still early evening, and the arcade wasn’t full chaos, yet. He was kneeling in front of a slot machine, obviously trying to fix it, and obviously failing.

Quackity walked up to him, extended a tiny bit of his luck to his friend, and gave the machine a forceful slap. It sprung to life, lights buzzing on and the machine sounding a happy jingle. Works every time, Quackity smiled to himself, before he skipped all greetings and got straight to the point.

“Charlie, I need to crash at your place!”

Charlie got up and turned to him with a bright smile, pushing his glasses up. Still, it was not as bright as Quackity had grown used to.

“Quackity from Las Nevadas.” Dap me up!

The request didn’t follow. It hadn’t for some time and Quackity berated himself for still missing it, as well as their unnecessary complicated handshake. An awkward moment of silence followed, while Quackity waited for the usual phrase, gaze dropping to his hands, and Charlie waited for him to… say something.

Eventually, Charlie was the one to break the silence. “I’m sorry to say, but I still live in a—what do you call it? —hole in the ground.”

Quackity’s gaze shot up in surprise. “Why?” he whined on behalf of his friend. “What are you doing with your money?!”

Charlie smiled, wide and open. “Buying superhero merch.” Quackity wasn’t sure if that was sarcasm or not—you never knew with Charlie—and didn’t dare to ask. “Besides, I enjoy the cozily damp atmosphere.”

That had Quackity groan in exasperation. “Don’t tell me your tap is still dripping!” The unapologetic smile was enough of an answer. Even if he stayed at Charlie’s he wouldn’t be able to catch any sleep. That place was haunted. It was giving him fucking insomnia. He would be better off sleeping on the streets, behind a dumpster. “Dude, you need to get your fucking life together.”

Charlie wasn’t hurt by the words. He smiled with a happy glint in his eyes. “That’s rich from the man who tells me every other day that he wants to quit and that he’s done with this lifestyle, only to come back a week later. Like a clockwork.”

“It’s been a month!”

“And that invalidates my point how exactly?”

“Whatever. Do you or don’t you have someone on the list? I need something, anything really. Preferably cash.” It was unlikely that he would be paid with money. People who came to him in hopes of the casino gamble of their lifetime usually didn’t have a coin to spare. And it was truly a shame that while some of them left the night with a little fortune he only ever had enough money to afford a moldy little flat. Granted, not having proper papers might have been part of the problem.

“As your friend I kindly remind you that you want to stop this line of work.” Charlie looked at him sternly and expectantly, and Quackity raised an eyebrow. Charlie’s lips curled back into a smile. “As your partner in crime I am happy to tell you that there are indeed people in dire need of your special kind of help. I have one or two in mind that I can contact right now.”

Quackity returned the smile, happy to hear it.

Charlie paused. “Actually, three people came by earlier tonight.”

The smile dropped instantly and all of Quackity’s alarm bells went off ringing, loud enough to drown any reasonable thought. Was it a coincidence? It had to be a coincidence. It couldn’t be because of what he had done today. That would be to fast!

It took him a whole ten seconds to figured out just how to breath, all while Charlie looked at him bright-eyed and expectantly. Quackity’s hand clutched around the butterfly knife in his pocket. He wanted to flip it around to cool his nerves. Unfortunately, this was not the right place to draw that kind of attention.

“Who?” Quackity breathed. If it was someone he knew, someone he recognized…. He held the knife even tighter.

“Wilbur Soot—”

“Soot?” Weird name. “Is that how he introduced himself?” Or is it something you just now?

Charlie gave a short nod and continued without missing a beat, “from nowhere—”

Quackity held his hand up. “Skip him,” he interrupted, again. He had stopped trying to figure out how Charlie knew names and places, sometimes just city districts, sometimes down to a street name. It could be a power or a gadget. Quackity suspected that he had been from a wealthy family so either was reasonable. One thing he did know, however, was that being from ‘nowhere in particular’ was as loud a warning as he could get from Charlie. So, reasonable man that he was, he had made it his policy to deny them service. Them and anyone from Snowchester, really. The rich suckers could fuck off. Especially on a day like this, when it was too short noice to have Purpled around as a bodyguard.

Charlie didn’t question his decision, he didn’t even shrug. He simply continued, “The other two are an odd couple. Karl Jacobs form El Rapids and Sapnap Halo from El Rapids.”

“And that’s how they introduced themselves?”

“They didn’t give me their names at all. I think they are gay, and I think they don’t have any money.” It was said with the usual cheerfulness without being judgmental, and Quackity took it at face value. Charlie didn’t do slight or insults or said things with hidden meanings.

“But that is not why you think they are strange,” Quackity said.

“They came directly to me and asked to see you but when I wanted to know what they had to offer they started stuttering. Karl Jakobs from El Rapids said he would come up with something. I am unconvinced.”

Quackity pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to will his headache away. This was the part that was difficult. Charlie was a good observer, but he was hardly good at judging people. He was too honest and, sometimes, too naïve for that.

Not that Quackity was particularly good at it either.

“They are still here, at the pin ball machines.” Charlie did not turn around or gave their topic of conversation away in any other way.

Quackity used the reflective surfaces to look in the right direction. “Two men, one with a white bandana, the other with a hoodie in blue-green and purple, terribly out of place?”

Charlie smiled and nodded.

Quackity gave them a second short glance, and an absurd idea popped into his mind. Hm. Maybe he could work with that.

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