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Quackity puts the bowl of freshly rinsed strawberries down on the kitchen counter and shuts off the faucet. He doesn’t have much to prepare; dinner was only an hour ago, and he's not really hungry. Still, he finds a cutting board and a knife – razor sharp, like every knife in his kitchen. He doesn't cook for himself often, but when he does, he likes to have his utensils in pristine condition.
Chop-chop-chop-chop-chop.
It's buried in his muscle memory, even after all the other things his hands have learned to do. After the way they've trembled and bled. After clenching in fists and closing with white-knuckled fury around sword hilts, axe handles, gasping throats. After all the scars and bandages. After weaving into his own dark hair and clawing it away from stress. After throwing punch after punch after tooth-shattering punch. After all of the strange and horrible things he has learned to do with a knife, after practicing each cruel movement until it became second nature.
Chop-chop-chop-chop-chop.
Quackity’s hands still remember how to cut strawberries up into little chunks that can be scooped up more easily with a spoon. He doesn't even have to think.
Next come the peaches. They're still firm, with only a little bit of give to their soft, fragrant skin. Not yet as ripe as they should be; or at least, not as ripe as some people would prefer. It doesn't matter. Quackity likes them like this.
The fuzzy skin won't peel away easily this early, though; he leaves it on out of indifference. The fruit is halved, pitted, sliced, chopped. He tosses the pieces along with the strawberries in a baby blue ceramic bowl with a chip on the edge.
The night swirls with snow outside the kitchen window while he opens the refrigerator and finds a carton of cream to drizzle over the bowl, filling the cracks between the juicy yellow and pink bits of fruit. Next, he opens the cabinet to add a splash of vanilla extract and a generous sprinkling of extra-dark brown sugar.
His eyes fall on the spiraling neon lights that shine up to his ninth-story window through the haze of the snowstorm. The city seems to phase in and out of reality, as if separated from its owner by a sheer curtain which ripples mockingly in the wind. The sound of it matches the sigh that he lets out. Quackity is tired these days, body and mind alike. He's not sure if it comes from the presence of something heavy or from the absence of something light.
He looks down, disinterested, finding that his hands have continued their work and picked up a spoon to stir the bowl until the fruit is thoroughly coated with sweet, sugary cream. He places the bowl on the table, turning it so that the chipped edge faces the wall. Another habit that occurs without conscious thought.
There is a drink he knows; one that has always nagged him when he can't remember its name. He has enough bottles in the top cabinet for a couple of large glasses. This one he does have to think about as he pours, if only to change the ratio between the two. A little more milk and syrup in this one, a lot more bourbon and spice in the other.
He sets it all on the table, neatly arranged. Baby blue bowl with two spoons, a glass on each side.
Quackity stretches, wincing at the tightness in his back. He sheds his dress shirt and pulls the undershirt over his head, tossing both over the back of his chair where his suit jacket and tie already reside. Barefoot, he pads down the hall to tap on the bathroom door.
“Hey, you good in there?” he asks, and almost cringes at the tired scratching in his own voice.
“I'm good everywhere, Quackity from Las Nevadas,” comes the muffled reply.
“Are you human-shaped? Completely? Right now?” Quackity rephrases.
A short pause. “I am almost eighty-three percent human-shaped, as all normal meat humans are at times when they have had too much sun!”
“Sure, sure.” Quackity nods, the simple rocking motion quickly becoming a soothing sensation behind his eyes that makes him want to lie down. He really is exhausted. “If you're still kind of melted, that's fine. I made peaches and cream, with strawberries this time. Just c'mon out when you're ready, take your time.”
“Did you make the yummy drink that goes with the creamy peaches?” Slime's voice picks up a bouncy sort of excitement. Quackity presses his forehead gently against the door, feeling the cool wood against his skin.
“Hell yeah, I made the drink. I'm'a put on some music or something and wait for you, ‘kay?”
“Okay!”
Quackity takes a deep breath in before turning back down the hall. There is a record player in the living room, which is open to the dining room – a fashionable floor plan. He rifles through the records he has lying around on the shelf, eventually settling on one he hasn't listened to in quite some time. As he lowers the needle, the still air floods with a soft, colorful tune.
When Slime plods his way down the hallway, Quackity is lying draped over the low sofa, drink half empty in his hand. He looks up to see his friend dressed in the loose t-shirt and checkered pants that he lent him. Slime is almost human, the way Quackity taught him to be. He’s still sort of goopy, though he's properly colored to fit in with a crowd if you don't look at him for too long. He could probably pass for a human-slime hybrid, if such a thing existed. What's more, he's learned to blink every once in a while, lean his weight slightly to one side when he stands, and fidget just enough to appear casually idle. It's the little things. Quackity would be proud of him if it weren't for the debilitating wave of exhaustion that crashes over him as he absorbs his friend's expectant smile.
“It's on the table,” he says, doing his best to project a cheerfulness that mocks the heaviness in his chest.
“Come with,” Slime says, offering both his hands. Quackity uses one to pull himself to his feet.
“Lemme top this back up,” he replies, sipping his drink. “Just a sec.”
With his drink refilled and his best friend across from him, he sits at the small table.
“What are the red things?” Slime asks, poking at the bowl of fruit curiously.
“Strawberries, like I said.” Quackity scoops up a spoonful. “Try some, you'll love them. Here.”
He reaches his spoon across the table. At some point, his mind stopped registering moments like these as weird or silly – now, it's just Slime taking a bite of something he put together. His face lights up like a neon sign as he chews.
“That's good!” he says, almost in shock.
Quackity chuckles, “I told you so.”
“You need to try some!” Slime insists.
“I've had them before,” Quackity says, but he takes a bite anyway before picking up his drink once again. The first glass is already starting to hit him. Normally it would take more than this, but he took care to add a stronger dose of liquor than he usually takes. Slime is one of the only people he still feels comfortable getting drunk around, and he misses drinking for fun instead of for other reasons. Tonight, he thinks he might fall asleep before he gets the chance if he doesn't up his game a little.
Slime drinks his glass as well, although his is much less potent. Quackity is still unsure of where Slime's biological limits are – doesn't organic slime dissolve in alcohol? That can't be good for his insides – and as much as he likes to tease him about it some nights, he really doesn't want to find out the hard way. Besides, Slime doesn't seem to care one way or the other.
“Next time we need to get you an umbrella or something,” Quackity comments, watching a bead of emerald green slime roll down his neck and pause at his collar. His skin absorbs it, leaving a green stain for several seconds before returning to the pale, pinkish hue that serves as his disguise. “I didn't know you would go all liquidy like that.”
“Neither did I! I've never had that much sun in one day,” Slime says through a mouthful of fruit. “Many slimes stay underground for their whole lives, and the ones that don't are only outside in the nighttime.”
“I guess you're built more for the cold, huh?” Quackity hums, tipping his head back to rest his eyes. “Ice packs and a big hat, then.”
“A very big hat!” Slime seems delighted by the idea. Quackity smiles a little, imagining Slime in a comically huge, floppy sun hat. Funnily enough, it seems to suit him.
“Yeah. Might as well get you a big ass wicker basket and a little apron, too. We can go strawberry picking sometime.”
“Where does one pick strawberries?” Slime slurps a strawberry off of his spoon with a look of bliss so pure that Quackity feels the vague echo of happiness reverberate in his own chest as well.
“We don't grow ‘em in Las Nevadas, so we'd have to go on a bit of a trip,” he says, “There's a lot of berry orchards out in the country around Kinoko. Or, in the other direction, I remember seeing one or two around the server. Don't know if anyone's maintaining them or not, though.”
He can practically feel the energy draining out of him just thinking about the trip. It can wait for another time, when he’s up to it. And when he's not so busy. It's a miracle he's even been able to steal this one evening back from the endless highlighter marks filling up his calendar. He takes a long drink, letting the burn seep through his tongue and throat and cloud his brain.
Slime is humming along, poorly, to the music in the background as he chomps away at his peaches and cream. He’s just a little off beat, and it's annoying, but Quackity would rather throw himself off the needle than tell him to knock it off. He starts to hum along himself, and quickly finds that keeping hold of the rhythm is harder than he expected.
“Prime, I must be tipsy already,” he mumbles out loud.
“I always feel tipsy on these feet,” Slime announces. He stands up and ambles around a little as if in demonstration. “Two is a silly number of feet. It should be three.”
“Nah, man, that'd be so weird,” Quackity shakes his head.
“No feet then!” Slime concludes, holding his arms up in front of him and shuffling around back and forth. He looks like he's trying to perform some kind of dance. “Zero feet, and me and all my meat human brethren can just gloop around like normal!”
Quackity snorts, then watches him for a minute or two, lazily sipping away at his glass. Slime twirls around and takes a few steps back. He sways for a moment, then takes half a step forward and pauses. His brow furrows as he looks over at Quackity.
“What comes next?” he asks.
“Hm?” Quackity blinks. “What're you talking about?”
“In the dance. I forget what part comes next.” Slime watches him expectantly.
Quackity tilts his head. “What dance?”
“The dance you taught me at the barrel place,” Slime replies helpfully, “With the big basement.”
“Barrel place…” Quackity screws his eyes shut and tries to remember. “...with a big basement… cellar. You mean cellar. You're talking about the distillery?”
He took Slime with him to go and examine the aged spirits at a distillery in the South about a month ago. It was a gorgeous place, all fragrant cedar planks and tar. There was a party, as well, which they attended in honor. Late that evening, Quackity and Slime ended up slipping away from the group, wandering through a wide room lined with barrels and barrels of vintage ale. Piano music floated in from the room above - it was a familiar song, one Quackity could remember the tune of without quite recalling where he knew it from. In a moment of spontaneity, he started teaching Slime a dance that he had been taught, once. They didn't make it to the end before they had to rejoin the rest of the party.
“Right!” Slime says, “There's a step, and a step, and a turn, and a lean, and then…” He pauses, evidently expecting Quackity to fill in the blank. Quackity sighs and tilts his head back to look at the ceiling.
“It's… I don't even think I remember all of the steps. I don't know why I tried to teach you that.” He pauses. “It's supposed to be a dip. You need a partner for that dance, or else it doesn't work.”
“Hmmmm…” Slime puckers his lips and furrows his brow, a caricature of someone in deep thought. Casually, he inches over to Quackity's chair. “Maybe, if we just move this chair…”
He grips the back of Quackity's chair as if to slide it away, so Quackity grunts reluctantly and gets to his feet. Slime whisks the chair out of the way and takes Quackity's hand.
“There,” he beams, “Now I have a partner!”
Quackity blinks. He must be drunker than he thought, if he didn't see that coming.
“So what step is next?” Slime prompts, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.
“You… you don't just…” Quackity trails off. The music fades for a moment, then a new song begins. It's a sweet one, a sour one, one that hums through the air and sinks into his bones. It's a song to be danced to, if there ever was one. He's tired, and tipsy, and all it takes is one tiny little voice in his head saying why the hell not, and he surrenders. “Okay, well we should at least start this properly first. I'll lead since you don't know it. Here.”
He shakes off Slime's hand, then offers his own hand palm-up with a bow. Slime slaps his hand into Quackity's with a smile, and Quackity gracefully brings it up to press the knuckles against his lips before straightening.
“Now we just get in position… like… this…” He holds Slime's hand to one side, then guides Slime's other hand to his shoulder. “Although,” he amends, squinting slightly in thought, “I guess for this it usually works better if we're closer, more like…”
With his guidance, Slime slides his hand up until his arm is partially wrapped around him and his hand cradles the nape of Quackity's neck. This requires him to step in closer, and Quackity suddenly feels a little warmer than he was before. He blows a stray hair out of his face and ignores it. His free hand settles low on Slime's waist.
“Okay, so you remember the first step, right?” Quackity says, and Slime nods and hums an affirmative.
In time with the music – or at least, as close as they can manage in their current state – the pair moves. Quackity steps forward in long, slow strides, pushing Slime backward. Then, an abrupt stop.
“Plant one foot,” Quackity reminds, and Slime does just that. He places one foot firmly down, allowing the other leg to bend at the knee, toes grazing the ground weightlessly.
“And we turn…” Quackity turns a half-circle around him, stepping in a grapevine pattern that would be a lot more graceful if performed sober. Slime pivots wherever Quackity turns him, and then falls back on his other foot when he is pushed backwards again in another slow step… step… step…
“Good, hey, good job. Next part's the weird leaning bit.” Quackity twirls Slime around once, then releases him completely and spreads his arms to his sides. Slime, picking up on the signal that he learned last time, leans forward in a slow, rolling motion, before twirling off to one side. It looks for a moment as if his feet simply haven't caught up with his body, and he tips over, about to fall—
Quackity turns after him and lunges, catching him by the sides of his waist. He is behind Slime now, looking over his shoulder in anet unusual dipped pose before pulling them both back upright.
“Now…” Quackity bites his lip, trying to remember. “I think you just raise your arms up all slow and pretty, and then I spin you this way again. That sound right?”
“You're the boss!” Slime replies chipperly. He raises his arms up above his head, crossing his wrists with a little flourish before Quackity sets him twirling once again. This time, his arms come down while he spins, and Quackity tries to catch one.
“Slime, you can stop– hey, stop spinning now,” he says, catching him. “Just do one or two spins, then let me have your arm again.”
“But it's attached to me, Quackity from Las Nevadas,” Slime points out.
“I mean let me do this.” Quackity demonstrates by grabbing Slime's hand and pulling him in close. The move is clumsy, and they bump into each other and very nearly trip over the four feet below them. “I mean- shit- fuck. Okay. Let me try that again.”
The second time is somewhat less sloppy, and he manages to pull Slime into a close hold, their bodies hovering just inches apart.
“Okay, there,” he says.
“Just like a hug, but with air in between,” Slime observes.
“Exactly,” says Quackity. “So next, I think- I'm pretty sure the next bit is this footwork thing, but there's no way I'm remembering how to do that. It's like, we hafta kick our feet in the right order so they don't actually hit each other, but then there's a part where your foot is supposed to, like, hook around my leg, and then…”
His brows furrow under the weight of a foggy memory.
Just like this– pfft ha ha! Don't make that face, I didn't come up with it!
“...I dunno. I don't actually remember. We can just skip it.”
Stop it, you're gonna make me laugh. Are you paying attention?
“Next part is… next, um…”
C'mon, try it. You can do it, it's not so hard once you start going.
Quackity feels a hand guiding his own to rest at the nape of his partner's neck. Then, it wraps gently around his waist.
“Let's go again while you think,” Slime says, and Quackity belatedly recognizes that Slime has assumed the lead position.
He barely mumbles out an uncertain, “Sure,” before he is being walked backward in slow, smooth strides. Pivoted in a quick half-circle and pushed gently back again. Slime hums with the music, and Quackity's mind is too busy floating on the waves of intoxication that are beginning to hit him more strongly now to notice whether or not he's on beat.
A twirl, and a lean in close. A roll and another twirl away, fumbling a little in his attempt to fall gracefully. Soft hands encircling him, catching him around the waist before he can hit the floor. Lifting him back up. He can feel the cool sound of laughter dancing across his skin–
No, he can't. He blinks, furrowing his brow at the darkness outside the picture window. His reflection stares back at him, dazed. Slime stands behind, arms placed around him beautifully. Like a dusty, dilapidated oil painting in a pretty, new frame.
“Now you do the arms,” Slime prompts him. Quackity hesitates, then slowly raises his arms up, stretching them above his head to cross at the wrists with a flourish. His loosely-rolled sleeves slip a little farther up his arms as he does so. At a nudge, he twirls awkwardly in place.
When he has his arms lifted away from his body like this, it would be remarkably easy for his companion to hit him in a place that would strike some real damage – perhaps the throat, or the soft part of his torso just where the liver peeks out under the ribcage. He shudders as the thought runs through him, and his arms come back down. Slime simply catches hold of one of his hands. In a moment, the two of them are chest-to-chest, holding each other tight.
“I don't know,” Quackity murmurs as they stand still. The music hums on. “I'm sorry.”
“Make something up,” Slime suggests. It's like telling him to make up a new face for a longtime friend to wear in his memories. It feels disloyal, somehow.
“I… can't,” he says.
“Why?”
He looks away. “ ‘M not good at dancing. I'm just repeating what someone else taught me.”
“I think you're good,” Slime offers.
“No, I'm not,” Quackity responds.
“You taught me,” Slime insists.
Quackity announces, “We're both bad at it.”
Slime giggles and puts his hands on either side of Quackity's face, making eye contact again. “Just like karaoke.”
“Heh. Yeah, sure. Just like karaoke.” Quackity, despite himself, smiles back. “How d'you do that?”
“Well, you sing into the microphone—”
“No, I mean—” Quackity puts his hand over one of Slime's— “How do you do this… thing, like you…” He trails off. Slime tilts his head curiously. “You're so easy to be with.”
“I don't know,” Slime says doubtfully, “Somtimes Fundy says I'm impossible. Impossible is hard, right? So I guess I'm not easy all the time.”
A new song sparks to life, filling the space between them. Slime moves back into position to lead the dance.
“You're never hard for me to be around,” Quackity says, allowing himself to be swept back into the dance. “Sometimes it's complicated, or… I dunno, it takes some effort? Like to talk to you and not confuse you, or like, whatever. But it's not hard. Not for me.”
“That's good,” Slime says, “I think you're easy to be with, too.”
“You're the only one who thinks so,” Quackity sighs as he is twirled around and dipped.
“Really?” Slime says, “What do other people think?”
Quackity's brow twists. “Um… well, I'm– I'm a control freak. I don't trust people to do their jobs. And, um, I have a short temper. I'm a perfectionist, which I think is… well, other people think it's hard to work with. I talk too much, sometimes… there's kind of a lot of things that make me really difficult to want to be around.”
“I don't think you talk too much,” replies Slime. When they finish their little portion of the dance, he simply starts it over again. “I like it when you talk a lot. You have interesting things to say. Plus, it usually means you're happy about something.”
Quackity fumbles a move, but Slime recovers it by changing the step into a half-turn and restarting the sequence.
“I know I'm annoying sometimes,” he goes on cheerfully, “And I ask too many questions, because I need human things explained really simply to me—”
“But that means you don't fuck up all the time,” Quackity breaks in, “Because I end up explaining stuff that most people don't ask about, and then you know how to do shit properly instead of guessing. Yeah, it gets annoying sometimes, but like– that doesn't make me not want to be around you.”
Slime pulls him gently to one side, then the other, stepping into a new pattern of simple movements. Quackity follows his lead without really thinking about it.
“Well, you don't make me not want to be with you either,” Slime replies. “You always try to answer my questions. Or you tell me to ask again later, and then you answer the second time. And you're funny. And smart. And kind.”
“Only to you,” Quackity scoffs.
Slime giggles again. “Well, good thing I'm not anybody else.”
Quackity stops mid-dance step. “See, you always do that somehow. You make me sound so… good. Even when I'm not.”
Slime just shrugs. “What's so hard about that? It's easy to make you sound good, Quackity from Las Nevadas. You've always been good to me.”
“Prime, I hope I have,” Quackity murmurs in amazement. His drunk mouth keeps moving where he would usually stop, and a thought slips out: “I don't wanna lose you too.”
“Of course you won't,” Slime says, and the absolute confidence in his voice soothes him down to his bones. “I won't get lost. If I ever did, I'd come right back. I like it here, with you.”
For some reason, this puts a lump in his throat. He opens his mouth to say something, but he's not sure what. The music has stopped.
“This is when you usually say something like, ‘slimes don't have a very good sense of direction, though, do they?’ and then I educate you about slimeology,” Slime prompts helpfully.
Quackity shakes his head slightly to get the gears turning again. “Right,” he says, or maybe thinks. He blinks, then says it out loud again, just to be sure.
Slime hums a contented note and pecks him on the forehead.
Quackity processes for a moment and then looks at him in confusion. “What?”
“Bedtime,” Slime laughs. He takes hold of Quackity's hand and tugs him along, pausing only to shut off the lights. They make their way to Quackity's bedroom, which has been seeing more and more use recently now that Quackity actually bothers to come home every night to sleep. “C'mon. Get comfy first.”
He lets go of Quackity only to rummage in the dresser and find a pair of baggy, navy blue sweatpants. Quackity is at least coherent enough to get the memo, and he pulls off the creased dress pants he's been wearing all day. Slime tosses him the sweatpants to put on instead.
“We should make the pillows a nest,” Slime says, beginning to climb onto Quackity's vast bed.
“Are you sleeping over?” Quackity asks.
Slime looks over at him. “Am I allowed to?”
He thinks for a moment before replying uncertainly, “...yeah. Yeah, I want you to stay. Would you stay, please?”
“Of course,” Slime grins, and he holds out his hand to pull Quackity up onto the bed with him.
Slime is pretty good at turning the silk sheets, fluffy cotton duvet, and numerous pillows into a vortex-shaped nest, which the two of them huddle in the center of. Quackity feels like he might fall asleep just from touching the soft, deep bedding all around him. Slime doesn't seem tired, but then, he never is.
“Hey, Quackity from Las Nevadas?” Slime says as he crisscrosses his legs.
Quackity lies on his side, looking up at him. “Yeah, Slime?”
“Do best friends like to snuggle each other?” Slime asks.
“Some do,” Quackity responds. “Some don't.”
Slime furrows his brow and rolls his lips as if in deep thought. He twiddles his thumbs.
“So… are we the type of best friends who do, or don't?” he asks.
An odd feeling creeps up Quackity's spine, and he pushes his face into his pillow.
“Yeah,” he says, muffled. “I think we should be. Do you wanna?”
“Yes!” Slime yips immediately, flopping over on his side next to Quackity. He pulls a blanket over the two of them and scoots in close, wrapping his arms clumsily around the other. Quackity, already feeling sleep dragging at his eyelids, just rolls over on top of him and tucks his face into the side of Slime's neck. Slime squeezes him.
As Quackity falls asleep, he doesn't remember why he’s so tired all the time. And that's just fine with him.