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Dan doesn’t remember much. That’s for certain.
He keeps himself propped up against the side of his counter, the cold hard surface pressed up against the side of his face.
He doesn’t remember the warmth of his husband’s hand on his face.
He doesn’t remember what his son’s laughter sounded like.
Of course, he would forget. He hasn’t seen them in months. He had told Maximus that he was going out traveling, a few days after they adopted Trumpet.
It was partly the truth. He wasn’t totally a liar.
He wasn’t, right?
No, no.
He always told the truth.
Always.
Right?
_________
He smiled at Trumpet’s messy, crayon drawing. It was a simple drawing of Dan, Maximus, and himself, the egg being in the middle, holding hands with his two fathers.
”Awee! This is amazing, Trump! Let’s hang this on the fridge for your papa to see when he comes home, okay?”
He watched his son nod, excitement in his big eyes. And so, he took the piece of paper and placed it onto the fridge with a snap of a magnet.
“This looks great, son,” Dan says happily, patting him on the head, ruffling his blue hair. As he did so, he heard Trumpet’s gentle laughter, his giggles sending his heart into orbit.
Originally, he thought about escaping the island a few days after he arrived. But ever since he got married to Maximus and got his egg, he couldn’t imagine leaving them behind.
If anything, he would try to leave the island with them, no matter what.
Yeah, that’s what he told himself.
_________
A hoarse cough brought him out of his faint memory.
The pain in his left ankle reminded him why he was leaning against his counter. It was hot in his dark lab, his body barely illuminated by the blue ceiling lights.
Why was it hot?
It was always cold in his laboratory, it was designed like that.
There wasn’t much in his lab, now that he really thinks about it.
There were large test tubes across from where he laid that contained the bodies of mobs from all around the island. The tubes were individually lit from the bottom of the tube, glowing a sea green color.
To the left of the test tubes, was his large cork board, red string connecting many photos together. They were photos of some of the members on the island, the English and Spanish people having professionally taken photos, while the newcomers were taken from a far.
His brown eyes slowly glance over at the cork board, his faded blue hair getting in the way of a good view.
Dan took a shaky breath in, exhaling softly.
Surely Cucurucho would come back for him and keep his promise? His friend wouldn’t just leave him like this, with a broken ankle.
He would come back for him at the end of the day, he told himself.
It hurts, yes, but he was a trusted member of the federation. He had been through worse! There was no way it would break his ankle and fire a gun in his own base, and leave one of the best federation workers to die.
No shot.
He promised.
_________
What was your name?
Diamond Porcupine.
Where did you live?
The Shady Oaks Retirement Center.
What was your best memory?
Spending time with Maximus and Trump.
What made you happy?
My friends and family.
Who was the person you loved the most?
Maximus.
He scribbled his answers down, his hand writing growing more messier as the pain in his lower leg grew. “There.” He shoved the book and quill into the white bear’s hands, his eyebrows furrowed. “Is that all you needed from me, asshole?” The scientist looked up at the figure, his back pressed against the counter.
The bear stared at him with a blank expression, before laughing robotically in his face. “Ha ha ha. You are apart of the QSMP Census Bureau. Thank you for your cooperation.” As Cucurucho turned to leave the basement of his laboratory, Dan sputtered before he asked a simple question.
“You’ll come back to get me, right?”
The bear slowly turned his body to look at the worker.
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
”Come on, you wouldn’t just let one of your best workers die, right?” Dan says, a smug smirk forming on his scarred face. ”You’ll come back to me, right Cucurucho?” He asks again, a few small coughs leaving his mouth.
”Maybe. Maybe.”
“..That’s a lot of maybes, Mr Smiley Face.”
There was a long pause from the bear.
“Yes.” They answered robotically.
”You’ll come back for me?”
Cucurucho didn’t say anything else, but nodded, and turned to leave the building.
_________
While he replayed the scene in his head, Dan put his hand into his pocket, feeling something unfamiliar. He took out a crumpled up piece of paper. What was this? He looked down at the small item in his palms, straightening it out with his shaky hands.
It was his train ticket to Quesadilla Island, with the numbers #0033 on it.
How could he forget that he had that in his pocket?
Looking at the ticket, a faded memory from a few years ago popped into his fuzzy head. The ticket was given to him by his good friend, iHasCupquake. His expression grew fonder the more he looked at the piece of paper.
_________
Dan woke up, a gasp leaving him as he jolted awake, quickly sitting up in his bed. The brunet flinched at the sudden, cold hand pressing on his shoulder. “Hey, easy, Dan.” A woman said to him gently, “You just woke up, you can’t be moving that fast.” A quiet chuckle left the woman as Dan finally glanced over at her.
“Tiffany,” He says, a sense of relief washing over him. Of course the great, kind IHasCupQuake was watching over him. She was one of the few people on the server that showed him kindness after everything he did. It warmed his heart to see that somebody still cared.
“How .. How long have I been out?” The scientist asked, scooching back in his bed. Tiffany pulled her hand away from his shoulder and ran it through her purple hair.
“Uhm, you were out for just about three weeks.” She frowns, her face shifted to show her concern for the man, weariness etched into her eyes. Dan noticed she looked tired, both physically and emotionally.
Dan looked around the large room they were in, and he recognized they were in the bottom floor of his skyscraper, the quartz walls numbing his anger, even in the dim light that glowed down onto the pair.
White always calmed him.
“James left with the cure.”
Dan froze at her words, and he turned to her, a look of bewilderment on his face.
“He what? ” He asked, sharp shards of diamond emerging from his skin.
“He left with the cure. I’ve been here.. taking care of you. I tried to stop him, I did, just like I did with Justin .. but .. I couldn’t stop him.” The woman let out a soft sigh, the hand returning to Dan’s shoulder.
“But uhm, you got something in the mail, Dan. You got it like, an hour ago.”
“What is it?” He ran a hand through his hair, instantly noticing how knotted and tangled it was.
“A ticket.” She took it out of the envelope she had in her hands, handing it to Dan. “To some place called Quesadilla Island.”
“I don’t want to go.” Dan said, reading over the ticket with an unreadable expression.
“Dan..” The woman beside him said in a gentle tone, causing him to look up at his friend. “You should go. You deserve a vacation, after everything.”
“You’d be alone.”
“I have Yammy. I have Ecko and Sparklez.. I’m not alone. You should take a break, relax. Don’t do it for me, do it for yourself.”
“..Okay. I’ll go.” Dan’s eyes watered, and he hugged his friend.
“Thank you, Tiffany.”
_________
He looked up at the ceiling, the buzz of the blue lights giving him comfort. It was a noise that he heard almost constantly, always in the background of his thoughts. His mind eventually found his way back to Maximus, as it almost always does.
Oh, how he misses his warmth.
Even in the short time he had known his partner, he knew from the moment he met him on the first day, he loved Maximus. Every time he looked at the theorist, he felt himself get swept off his feet.
It hurt him to leave.
The scientist put his gloved hand onto the countertop, and pulled himself up and off of the ground, the air still hot around him. It was uncomfortable, but the pain in his leg was even more uncomfortable.
He slowly limped over to his computer setup, gasps and groans of pain leaving him as he made his way to his chair, sitting down.
The man booted up his computers, the artificial light illuminating his face, showing the dried blood on his lip and chin. He clicked on a couple buttons on his keyboard, flicking the map onto his screen, scrolling around for Maximus.
Ah, he was at the Favela.
Luckily for him, he had placed several more cameras dotted around the island and the Wall when he was on duty a couple weeks ago. On duty, he was forced to wear one of those stupid construction worker outfits as per usual.
Everything had been going according to plan, hanging out with some of the islanders on the bridge, looking at Quackity’s wedding dress, talking to his friends.
Yes, there was that one day where he tried to stop Quackity from breaking the rules as requested by Cucurucho, and ended up getting brutally slaughtered by the duck hybrid, it was no big deal. His name hadn’t even appeared in the global chat, so it didn’t affect him all that much.
He pressed more buttons on his keyboard and his screen immediately shifted to show his several cameras placed around the Favela.
Just as he did so, he heard a voice speak from behind him.
“Please, follow me.”