Work Text:
"It's not that I miss him," Rincewind said, irritably.
The Luggage, sat on the floor facing him, said nothing.
"I don't!" Rincewind protested. "I just think I deserve a bit more of a proper goodbye, you know? He spent more than a year dragging me into one adventure after another, I nearly died more times than I can count, and then he just waltzes off again without so much as a how do you do? 'Thanks for the fun holiday, have a nice life'? Where does he get off!"
He kicked spitefully at the leg of his chair. It was technically a desk, he supposed: one of those combined ones, with a chair as stiff and uncomfortable as a rock twisting out in the front into a flimsy piece of wood so small you could barely fit a single piece of paper on it and trust it to stay. Rincewind had taken to skulking around in various classrooms when he wanted to be alone: they were one of the only places in the University he could guarantee no one else would go into.
So he kicked at the leg of the desk, and slunk down until he could rest his chin onto his crossed arms on its surface, sulking.
"Didn't even get paid," he groused. "Only went along with him in the first place 'cause of the money, and all I got in the end was you."
The Luggage glared. Rincewind glared back.
It won.
He looked away, scoffing. "Fat lot of good a traveling chest is going to do me, huh? I'm not going on any more adventures. You'd have to hold me at knifepoint."
He paused, and thought about this.
"Of course, that's pretty much what the Patrician did this time..."
A troubling moment passed. Then he shook his head.
"I tell you, that's the last time I try to help out some stranger in a bar. Try to save one idiot's life, and look where it gets you!"
He waved one hand out demonstratively, as though the gesture could take in the entire world.
"I was doing fine before he showed up! I was getting by! Then suddenly I'm getting dragged halfway across the world and back, all in the name of sightseeing, coming face to face with horrors beyond comprehension, falling off the world, having to drag his sorry soul back from the domain of Death himself, not to mention all the people who tried to stab, spear, spike, poison, or otherwise kill me so often it felt like they were just lining up for it-"
He was sitting up now, gesticulating wildly as he ranted.
"-And he just gets to walk away from it? Pack it in, call it a day, and go home? Like none of it even mattered?"
He slammed a hand down on the desk, making it creak.
"It shouldn't be allowed! He ruined my life!"
The words echoed in the empty classroom, fading into silence. Rincewind paused, and thought about what he had just said.
"I mean... I guess I'm not sleeping on the streets anymore," he muttered, lamely. "I've got a proper bed and everything. And a job at the University. I've even got my own hat." He fingered the brim. He was terribly proud of it, done up as it was in sparkles and stars. "I suppose I saved the world that one time. And I got that damn spell out of my head."
For some reason that Rincewind couldn't quite name, his jaw was trembling, and his eyes were misting up. "He made my life better," he whispered. "He made me better."
The Luggage nudged his knee. It had stood up on its hundreds of little feet and ambled over to him. Now it was looking up at him with no face and no eyes, and yet Rincewind could have sworn it looked... forlorn.
It looked, in fact, much like he was feeling.
Rincewind slid out of his chair, kneeling on the floor next to the box, and wrapped his arms around it in the best approximation of a hug that he could manage.
"I miss him," he whispered, against the rough grain of its lid, and pressed his forehead to the wood. "I miss him."
The Luggage said nothing. It did, however, lean slightly heavier into Rincewind's chest.
"I didn't want any of this," he said hoarsely, eyes squeezed shut. "Just wanted a quiet place to sleep and something to eat now and then. I never wanted to go on adventures."
He'd never wanted to, but he had: he'd seen the world, saved the world, and it had changed something, deep inside him. And he'd done all of that with Twoflower at his side, a somewhat annoying, but consistent, presence. The experiences they'd shared had brought them closer, and against his will he'd bonded with the strange little man. He'd grown used to having him at his side, and come to assume that no matter what happened, whatever the world threw at them, they would face it together.
And then Twoflower had left, as though none of it had ever meant anything.
"Suppose that's what bothers me," Rincewind mumbled. "All this time I've been looking forward to the moment I could dump him back on his boat home and get back to my old life. But when it comes down to it, he dumped me on the Morpork docks and sailed off, happy as you like. Back to his old life, and mine's changed forever."
He sighed, heavily, and leaned back from the Luggage, putting his weight against the desk behind him and staring into its brass fastenings. After a moment, he patted it gently on its lid.
"Guess we're in the same boat on that one, huh? Left behind..."
The lid creaked slightly. Rincewind couldn't help but feel it was agreeing with him.
He sniffed, rubbing his nose on the sleeve of his robe. "I hope he got home safe," he added after a moment.
Quiet settled. Through the thick walls of the University building, Rincewind could faintly hear the bells across the city begin tolling the hour. They continued for several minutes, with their usual scattershot approach to accuracy, and then, finally, fell silent.
He sighed again. "Come on." He tipped his chin toward the door of the room. "They'll be setting on dinner in the Great Hall."
Rincewind stood up, brushed off his robes, and headed for the door. The Luggage stared after him for a long moment, unmoving. Then it stood, shuffled around on its little feet, and followed him.