Chapter Text
“Quackity?”
“Yes, Sam?” The founder of Las Nevadas looks up from the paperwork he had been fussing over that evening, dark rings under his cold eyes. He’s hunched over his desk with the posture of a decrepit old man. “Come in.”
Awesamdude leans out of the office door, distracted by the sight of his boss’s workspace across the room. Where sleek mahogany should be, papers, pens and pencils shroud the surface in unkempt stacks, and sticky notes of varying colors lay haphazardly atop that. It’s a color-coordinated system that only Quackity can comprehend, but all that comes to Sam’s mind is a terribly organized pride parade. Fitting for the season, at least.
“Right,” he says, eyeing the entity sat on the floor with its knees hugged to its chest, restlessly rocking back and forth. A puddle of green goop pools underneath it. “Hey, Slime.”
“Hello, Awesamdude from the Badlands!” Slime stands instantaneously, a bounce in its step. “Dap me up!”
“N-no, Slime.” Sam recoils away from the hand that extends towards him, dripping with slime. “Not right now. I still gotta get back to patrolling.”
“Dap me up!”
“Slime, not—”
“Just dap it up, Sam,” Quackity intervenes. “It won’t give it up until you do, you know this.”
“Dap me up!”
Sam huffs and reaches out to link hands. He resists a grimace when he takes back a moistened hand, green chunks clinging on. “Great job, Awesamdude from the Badlands!” Slime exclaims. “You are so good at dapping and being human and having meat and bones in your body. Just like I am!”
“Anyway,” Sam proceeds, not-so-inconspicuously wiping his hand on his pant leg, “I just came in to run something by you—” He interrupts before Quackity can, leaving his mouth hanging open. “And don’t worry, I got someone to cover for me before I left the toll booth.” Quackity shuts his mouth but keeps his expression deadpan, unreadable.
“I can run by you,” Slime pipes up. “Watch me!” It begins to run in place with exaggerated motion and terrible form. Did anyone ever teach it how to run? Maybe Sam should sometime. “How’s it, Quackity from Las Nevadas?”
Quackity turns slightly to chuckle at Slime, and Sam feels an alleviation; his boss might take the news easier now. “Yeah, Slime. Looks good. Great.”
“Jajajajajaja.”
“So, Quackity.” Sam adjusts his mask a bit. “There are some people at the toll. You know—”
He winces when Quackity faces him again, sharply.
“Karl and Sapn—”
Quackity clears his throat.
Shit. Right.
“Bitch… and… Asshole,” Sam struggles, “they’re here again.”
“And?” His boss violently picks up his pen and scribbles away. “That’s none of my concern. Turn them away. And if they don’t comply…”
“I know. But I just thought—”
“But you thought nothing. You weren’t thinking, Sam. There’s this thing called common sense—”
“Alright, I get it,” Sam speaks before Quackity can get any more passive-aggressive. “Just thought someone might’ve had a change of heart.”
“Someone?” He spits. “Who, Cat?”
Quackity nods his head at something behind Sam. Sam jumps when he sees a black-and-orange striped creature napping by the door. He keeps forgetting about Quackity’s damn pet, a tiger he’d adopted scatter-brained in the middle of grieving his breakup. He’d made seismic progress with his recovery, too— to the point where he wasn’t vaguely bitching about his fiances every other second— only for him to get blackout drunk one night, sob about missing them dearly, leave the bar hiccup-ridden, and return with a tiger an hour later.
He named the tiger Cat. Thought himself hilarious for it.
Sam feels his heart rate quicken at the knowledge that a tiger is right behind him, able to pounce at any moment. “Not Cat.” Despite his heart, he draws out a long sigh. “You might understand if you just listened, Quackity.”
He turns on his heel and rushes for the door.
“Don’t tell me to fucking listen, Sam.” Quackity’s desperate to get the last word. “Consider taking your own advice, fucker!” But Sam is already out the door. He slouches in his seat, rubbing at the growing ache in his temples.
“I’ll consider taking his advice, Quackity from Las Nevadas! Where is it?”
He flinches. He’d forgotten Slime was in the room with him. It’d been quiet, for once.
“Shit. You scared me.”
“Apologies, Quackity from Las Nevadas.” It goes to dig a hole in the floor.
“No, Slime!” He tenses in his seat, extending an arm out to it. “You can’t dig holes in here.” His chest tightens when Slime looks at him with a small frown. Would he ever learn to stand his ground against Slime’s innocent yet, unbeknownst to itself, debilitating charm?
“Look, you’re welcome to leave anytime you want. You don’t have to stay by my side. There’s lots of space to dig holes outside.”
“Oh, I know.” It carefully slides its glasses up its nose bridge. “I want to stay with you, Quackity from Las Nevadas. You’re my best friend.”
Quackity bites back a smile and starts at his paperwork again.
“Plus, I like it in here. It’s dark and cool. Like a really neat cave! Only it’s better ‘cause you’re here too!”
He can’t hold back and bursts out laughing. Slime the slime. It’d be the death of Quackity. “Thanks, Slime.” He doesn’t have to look in the mirror above his seat to know his cheeks are rosy from the embarrassing gusto of his laughter.
Once he calms down, he sighs and glances around his office. Slime was right; it is dark in here. He studies the only light sources in the room: a single window blocked by closed shutters which cast thin rays of evening light on the floor, and a desk lamp dimly directed at his work. He watches dust particles hazily float in the stuffy air, unhurried and careless, going cross-eyed when a particularly large one gets near his nose. It’d been a while since he’d stepped outside when the sun was still high in the sky, when he’d basked in its light, feeling it warm on his skin.
He shakes his head to stop his ruminating. Now was not the time.
“To answer your question, Slime, advice isn’t something you can take. Physically. It’s not tangible.”
Slime listens intently, a pensive furrow of its brows. “What is it then?”
“It’s…” He inhales deeply to gather his thoughts. “Advice is something you tell someone. It’s supposed to be helpful. To help someone through a problem they’re dealing with. By ‘taking it,’ one listens to what the other person has said, does as they have said, to solve the problem. Does that make sense?”
Slime is looking away, but Quackity can already see the gears working in its head. He knows there’s nothing he can do to stop Slime at this point, so he lets whatever it thinks needs to be said run its course. “Awesamdude from the Badlands said, 'You might understand if you just listened.' So he wants you to listen… to understand. But you said he should be 'taking’ ”—he makes quotation marks with his middle and index fingers— “his own advice. Why?”
“Well,” Quackity starts with a twinge of irritation in his tone. His answer comes easily. “He could stand to listen. For example, he left his post today after I specifically assigned this shift to him. I guess he’ll only understand the day something goes to shit.”
“He mentioned Karl Jacobs and Sapnap from Kinoko Kingdom.” Every unbidden name sends sharp pangs through Quackity’s chest, his breath hitching. He’s thrice-hit, and Slime continues as if nothing’s happened. “He wants you to listen to them, right? Why? To understand what?”
Quackity is targeted by a sudden rapid fire of questions, and he’s not sure he can handle it. Slime has offhandedly brought them up a couple of times in the past, but it’s never been so direct. It’s not like Quackity can stop it from mentioning them. Slime doesn’t even understand the nicknames he’s assigned those two; how could it understand the vendetta Quackity holds against them? Just as every time before, he opts to change the subject as quickly as possible.
“Uhm,” he says intelligently. “It’s not important. Not really. It’s something I’d rather keep between us.”
“Let’s get them in here then!” Slime claps its hands together excitedly. “So you can take the advice! In between you all!”
“No, it’s, it’s not something you can actually take. I told you this. It’s not solid.”
“Well, we should still get them in here. Awesamdude from the Badlands seems like he knows what he’s talking about. Sure made sense to me. I’d say it sounds like a pretty solid plan!”
“Oh,” Quackity gives an exasperated chuckle. “Was that a joke?”
“A joke! Was it good?”
“Y-you made it.”
“Did I?”
“Yes. You did. A pun, I thought.”
“Oh!”
“...”
“Jajajajajaja.”
“...”
“...”
Slime sinks to the floor. It lies down and stares at the ceiling before Quackity’s desk, where they are unseeing of each other. Quackity assumes it’s done, so he wearily closes his fingers around his pen. He’d kill for a smoke right about now.
“I remember you three,” Slime says out of the blue. Quackity’s stomach drops and only sinks lower when it mercilessly drones on. “It was Karl and Sapnap and Quackity from El Rapids. Well, first it was Mexican L’manberg. Then it was El Rapids.”
“Slime, I said—”
“They must’ve made some really good jokes back then. And a lot of them, too! You laughed a lot more then than you do now.”
“I disagree.”
“I’m just chillin’, in Cedar Rapids! That’s what you guys would say.”
Quackity is trembling. It’s uncontrollable no matter how hard he tries. This is not what he’d been expecting going into work today. His vision is blurring; it’s all sinking in too fast. The sun is out. He’s with the one who looks up to him the most. He can’t make a scene. Not here, not now. He furiously wipes at his eyes as teardrops begin to spatter his paperwork. Even far from their reach, those two are still finding ways to ruin his life.
“You thought El Rapids was your greatest creation. You’d sing about it, you’d write about it, you’d paint about it. I saw it all. Well, look at where you are now. You’re Quackity from Las Nevadas! And you have all this money and gambling and a toll and the house always wins. You wanna hear a good joke? I think it's pretty funny.”
Slime takes its best friend’s silence as admission to proceed.
“It all turns to dust. You, and your fancy buildings, and all the people in them. You want to go down in history, and maybe you will. I think you will. But there comes a time when all of it crumbles. History is nothing without people to remember it. When everyone’s gone, who’s going to remember all of this? No one. Not a single bag of meat. Except me. I’ll remember you, Quackity from Las Nevadas. Alone in a nice, damp cave. I could never forget my best friend.”
A screech of chair legs scraping against the parqueted flooring. It’s abrupt, and Slime sits up to see Quackity frantically rummaging through the shelf beside his desk. He grabs a strange box and stacks strange, thinner boxes atop it. He makes his way around his desk, setting his findings before Slime. He’s crouched as he unlatches the box with shaking hands. Slime’s witnessed humans in this state before. He must be cold. It asks. No, Quackity replies, he’s not cold.
“You remember how to use this, right? I taught you how.”
Slime inspects the boxes and does in fact remember. “I do! I do remember.”
“Good. You’re free to go through these vinyls I’ve left you. Just… try not to get too much slime on my record player. I’ll be out for a while.”
“Thank you, Quackity from Las Nevadas!” It is genuinely grateful, and wants to show its gratitude. Only he won’t meet its eyes. Instead, an odd liquid falls from his face. “Are you, are you melting? Oh no. We’ve got to get you to a cave, quick!”
“I’m not melting, Slime. I’m—” A vinyl slips out of his hands as he slides it out of its plastic sleeve. He recollects it and places it on the turntable. “I’m sweating. It’s hot in here. I’m going outside to cool off.”
“Okay,” Slime says unsurely. “Maybe I should go with you. I could… ”
Slime trails off when the speaker scratches to life and the vinyl begins to spin. It creeps towards the magic box, mesmerized by the catridge’s spiral path.
Quackity stands, grabs a pack of cigarettes from a desk drawer, and leaves.
What Quackity expects to stumble across when he returns to his office is a busted record player, green slime disrupting the inner components of the device. He’s simultaneously perplexed and pleasantly surprised when he finds the exact opposite. In lieu of a mess of sticky substance and mysterious gunk staining the floor, Slime lies there, chin propped up in its hands and legs swinging in the air, looking more human than ever. It was still dripping green at some selective bits but otherwise, the most critical gaze couldn’t tell its true class apart from Quackity’s.
Quackity half-expects Slime to jump up and greet him with open (and sticky) arms, and scolds himself for thinking so, determined to resist falling into the normalcy of daily greetings and familiar faces ever again. Slime lingers by the record player, quietly humming along to the music.
“Slime?”
No response. Quackity steps closer.
“Slime…”
Closer.
“Slime.” He crouches down to turn the volume dial down.
Slime’s eyes snap up immediately and dart around, painfully lost and confused. It backs away, like a mouse retreating into its burrow after being spotted by a barbaric home-owner. When Slime recognizes its friend from a further vantage point, it smiles meekly, pushing its glasses up its nose. “Quackity… From Las Nevadas.”
“You good there, buddy?”
“I’m excellent! Just been gooping around!”
Around? It looks like Slime hasn’t moved from its place since Quackity left it with his vinyls. And its goop is barely perceptible.
“Alright.” Quackity eases back up, skeptical. “Had fun with my vinyls?”
“Of course, Quackity from Las Nevadas! I loved them.”
“Good. I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.” Quackity digs his thumbs under his suspenders, shrugging them off his shoulders with a huff. He retrieves his cigarette box from his back pocket and pauses at the sound of a few remaining rolls rattling inside. “Sorry. If I smell like cigar, by the way.”
“What’s it like to smell?”
“Oh. Right.” He grimaces. “Don’t worry about it, Slime.” Quackity’s vain attempt to ebb away any more of Slime’s curiosity of unattainable topics is promptly skimmed over as it begins it’s never-ending line of questions.
Slime scurries to the opposite side of the desk from Quackity, palms flat on the surface. It’s begun dripping again, it’s once-congealed state reverting back to a gelatinous one. “What does cigar smell like? Is it fun to smell? Can you consume it? Bite down on it, like meat? Can I try one?”
Quackity scans the room and most everything in it to find something, anything, to keep Slime busy. He’s pulled to the record player, almost gravitated by it, but he decides against it. It can’t be good for Slime to spend so much time solely fawning over it. A silhouette shifts behind the blinds in Quackity’s peripheral, and he rushes up to the window, slipping his thumb and index finger between two shutters to force them apart and peer through.
Purpled is there, loitering under the faint moonlight with the tip of his sneaker dug into the sand beneath his feet. The glare of his phone’s blue light illuminates his face as he boredly taps on it. DogChamp is at his side, wagging his tail and pulling at the lead around his neck, ready to go. Quackity nearly rolls his eyes. Purpled could use a cutback on his screen time.
“Look, Slime.” He shuffles aside to let it see. “Go see what Purpled is doing. My orders. Keep him company for me.”
Slime nods eagerly. “Anything for you, Quackity from Las Nevadas!”
It bounds out the door and Quackity directs back to the window to see Slime appear beside Purpled in a matter of seconds. Though their encounter is mute to Quackity, he catches Purpled’s poorly-masked surprise, the short antennae at the top of his head shrinking back into his blond hair. Visible discomfort contorts Purpled’s features as Slime prods him with conversation, providing it brusque responses in return. Their exchange only lasts a few moments before Slime is back inside the office.
“C’mon, Quackity from Las Nevadas! Purpled from the UFO will be walking with his domesticated animal and has invited us along.”
“Us?” Quackity crosses his arms. “Did he say that? Or did you coerce him into saying that?”
“I did no such thing! Purpled from the UFO said we could come along if we’d like.”
He raises a brow, turning to the window. Purpled is still standing there, except now he’s staring right back at Quackity. Weird kid.
“I don’t know, Slime…” He glances back at his desk despairingly. His day had been a roller coaster of events, more so than usual, which was saying something. There had been numerous lows, but he could admit he’d been more productive earlier in the day than most days, before Sam had unapologetically thrown him off his groove. It’d been downhill from then. Maybe a walk would do him some good. Maybe he deserves to say “fuck it”and spend time with two of his most trusted confidants.
“Alright.” He sighs a breath he’d been debatedly holding. “Alright, you go on ahead. I’ll stay behind to close up.”
When Purpled had allowed Slime and Quackity on his and DogChamp’s walk, he hadn’t expected an entire band to form along the way. He curses himself for procrastinating disappearing into the forest by distracting himself with his phone beforehand.
Purpled hangs ahead with DogChamp, but the voices of the following horde drift into the open air and still manage to reach his ears. He pulls his hood over his head, trying to muffle out the noise. There’s an uproar of laughter behind him, and Purpled does not flinch and definitely does not worry it’s about him. Who would laugh at the most handsome and capable and smartest and strongest man on the server?
He clicks his tongue. Foolish and Sam had tagged along as they’d cut through the fluorescent streets of the nation. The familiar bustle of Las Nevadas had been slower today, since the casino was temporarily closed for maintenance. The two had been strolling by the central fountain, casually chatting about possible improvements on the country’s infrastructure, blueprints for future builds, and plans to expand Las Nevadas’s borders outward— in other words, boring stuff. Quackity had asked them to join and they’d gladly accepted. Purpled decided not to be difficult today.
They slunk by a few stragglers littering the streets, past the atrocious beginnings of Wilbur’s abomination of a country, and into the woods. It’d been fine. Adequate even. Frankly, Purpled had almost forgotten there was a crowd on his tail. Then, a figure had stumbled out onto the path, damp crimson fur covering its head to toe, smelling acrid, smelling metallic, smelling like the carnage at the Red Banquet that stubbornly tainted the underside of Purpled’s fingernails for days after the event.
Fundy. A personable spirit by default. He’d blinked away the unbridled alarm in his eyes and quickly evened out the shakiness of his breath. Fundy obviously didn’t want to pay it any regard, and as long as he didn’t bring it up, no one else would. That was just how they rolled. They all have their own smells, their own personal affairs, their own secrets they’d like to keep to themselves.
Fundy, the jokester that he was, carried the conversation with ease. Though shaken up at first, he’d quickly bounced back, now garnering the laughter and smiles of all shapes and sizes from the crew. The crew minus Purpled, that is.
“Here we are,” says Purpled briskly, loud enough to momentarily stun the rest into silence.
They stand at an opening of trees, where a dangerously steep overhang lies at their feet. Below, at the bottom of the chasm, there is a massive fir grove, leaves swaying as an unabridged whole in the biting, unharnessed breeze. The forest opens up a far ways ahead, birch and umber trunk morphing into a seemingly endless expanse of sea. Hanging just above the horizon is the crescent moon, which is a thousand times bigger here, shining a thousand times brighter before this cliffside, though Purpled never quite understood why. The moon’s light cascades upon the water generously, painting each languid ripple a blinding white. And although her beams greedily crowd the firmament above, she allows for a handful of the proudest stars to shine through, dotting the sky like holes sporadically poked through an all-consuming black cloak.
Purpled had been hesitant about bringing them here. Bringing anyone here at all. No one would understand how dearly he holds this place, the sanctity of it all, not that he expected them to. But when he’d recalled the image of Quackity sitting in a dark alleyway with a tall heap of used cigarettes beside him, coughing up thick clouds of smoke, Purpled thought Quackity might enjoy the fresh air up here.
Before Purpled can say anything else, Slime is running past him, straight to the edge. There are gasps at his rear and a shout on Quackity’s end, but Purpled lunges forward and grabs Slime by the wrist in the nick of time. He hurls Slime back from the edge, right into Quackity’s arms. He sighs and plops down on the grass as Quackity hastily explains that, no, Slime can’t go around jumping off cliffs whenever it pleases, because it has human parts now, and bones can break. The rest settle around him.
When Quackity finally gets through to Slime, he giggles, somewhat relieved, somewhat hysterical. He goes to sit next to Purpled, leaning back on his hands and sucking in a much needed breath through his teeth. They don’t speak for a while.
“Can I…?”
Purpled tears his gaze away from the view to face Quackity. His hand hesitantly hovers over DogChamp’s head in between them, presumably waiting for a go from Purpled. Purpled nods silently. Riddled with disbelief, he watches the man excitedly ruffle DogChamp’s gray fur. You’d expect more self-restraint from a man with nearly everyone on the server wrapped around his finger.
Purpled scoffs and turns away once more.
“Nice hangout you got here,” Quackity says.
“Thanks.” Purpled doesn’t find ‘hangout’ to be a very fitting word.
“How’d you find it?”
“Just did.”
“Oh. That’s… cool.”
Quackity uncomfortably shifts from side to side. “So what do you like about this place? What’s the big deal?” He chokes before adding on, “Not that I don’t like it. I’m curious. I wanna know what you think.”
What do you like about this place?
What does he not like about this place? Nothing. Every single part of it, every contribution to stimulating the senses, all of it constituted the perfectly imperfect whole. There was the low, mellow sound of the wind whistling through the thicket. The moaning of the trees as they slumped forward to sleep and only awaken when the sun rose again. The echo of a lonely owl’s hooting in the distance, patiently waiting for a companion to mate for life. A chorus of cicadas chirping all around, relentless in their raucous noise-making. If Purpled waited long enough, he’d hear it like a symphony, see it like a land entirely apart from the real world. He could listen to the earth’s music forever if the moon never left the sky again.
Not that he’d say that aloud.
“It’s chill,” Purpled settles on.
Quackity grumbles, unsatisfied with his answer. Purpled tries again. “I like… the view. Yeah, I like the view.”
The man hums. “Okay. If you like it all that much, we’ll call it ‘Purpled’s P—”
“Don’t,” Purpled interjects, surprising himself with the violent tenor of his voice. Immediate regret rises at the back of his throat. He hates to act rashly like this. Each move, every word, should be meticulously planned and logic-based; showing any sort of vulnerability in the face of an altercation was a weakness, a flaw that would only detriment the means.
He considers saying nothing else, simply leaving it at that one monosyllabic word. But then, a silver-sweet zephyr passes by, ruffling his hair, caressing his ears, tickling the nape of his neck, whispering, pleading—
“You can’t.” Purpled pulls the hood from his face. “You can’t just slap a name on this place and call it yours.” His arms incredulously gesture to the chasm below. “Just look at it! This isn’t just some— some fucking attraction you can charge admission to and close for maintenance whenever you want.” There’s so much more he could say, so many accusations he could throw Quackity’s way. But his voice is breaking and he’s stumbling over his words.
He finishes by stooping low, hitting where it really hurts, solemnly saying, “You can’t take anything away from me that wasn’t mine in the first place. Yeah, you got my UFO, my farm, my pledge of allegiance”—Quackity stiffens beside him— “but if you’re going to leave one single, fucking thing alone, let it be this. Please.”
Quackity says nothing for a few moments. Purpled feels the incoming regret again, the need to take his words back and blame his impulsiveness on an aching head. He swallows it down. Even if he half-expects Quackity to laugh it off or retaliate with a nipping tirade, he’s said what he needed to say, and he knows it's been like a punch to Quackity’s gut, maybe worse.
“I hear you, man,” Quackity starts uneasily. A hand gently claps Purpled’s shoulder blade, a fleeting pat. “Listen, I… I’ve said this before. I won’t say it again because I know you’re not ready to forgive me. You might never be. And that’s okay. Genuinely. But… look at me.” Purpled reluctantly complies, violet eyes meeting a half-scarred pair. “I’ve done shitty things to you. To a lot of people. And ‘shitty’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to make it up to you. But I swear, right here and right now, I’ll protect this place with everything I have. If I see construction tape anywhere around, I’ll tear it down with my own hands. If I see contractors scoping out the land, I’ll escort them out on horseback myself. If I see lumberjacks marching in with their axes, I’ll throw myself in the way. You hear me? I’ll preserve this place until the day I die.”
Purpled stares. He almost wants to push more, ask how he can trust that Quackity will live up to all these outlandish promises of defense and security. He knows Quackity’s words are an exaggeration, but then again, Quackity is not a force to be reckoned with. Purpled’s desire of keeping this Neverland on earth untouched is nothing without Quackity’s overarching influence in this kind of business.
“Okay,” Purpled decides. “Thanks.”
“Hey, no need to thank me, Purpled. It’s really no problem.”
“Alright.”
Purpled brings his hands into his lap, flexing his fingers and watching the muscles and tendons shift at his command. Maybe Purpled has to bite back a smile so wide that it pains his cheekbones. Maybe, just maybe, he has to blink back a certain bodily fluid that springs to his eyes. He’s glad when Quackity lies on the grass with a grunt so it’s easier for him to conceal his face.
“Lots of stars, huh, Slime?” Quackity asks the entity that had been sitting right beside them throughout their entire conversation. By the looks of the grass bits sprinkling its chin, Slime had been too preoccupied with shoveling dirt into its mouth to provide input.
“Stars?” Slime upturns its chin. “You mean those white things right there?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought that was called coke?”
“Uh. No. It’s not the same as coke. Stars are bigger, much bigger. But they’re farther away from us.”
“But they look a lot smaller.”
Quackity is not about to lecture Slime on the concept of distance perspective. It’s been a long day.
“Okay, forget what I said. There are these bugs called fireflies. Kinda like coke, except they can buzz around, and they don’t melt when they hit the ground. Their bodies can light up. You can really only see them when it gets dark though, like it is now.” Slime reaches a hand up, clawing at the open air. “You can’t touch them, Slime. They’re too high up there.”
Slime makes a noise indicative of its understanding. “They’re okay. They used to be a lot brighter.”
“They could be a lot dimmer too. Let’s try to be more optimistic, alright?”
“What is… op… tomestrist?”
“Never mind.”
Slime, sprawled out next to Quackity, gasps without warning. “Fireflies! I think I’ve heard of them before, Quackity from Las Nevadas.”
“Have you?”
“I have!” Slime begins to mumble a tune, only forming coherent words when it reaches cherry-picked lyrics. “...If ten million fireflies lit up the world as I fell asleep…”
“Hey, I—” Purpled chimes, but sniffles and swipes a hoodie sleeve under his nose before proceeding. His voice is nasally and the rims of his eyelids are gleaming, but Quackity pretends not to notice. “I know that song. I think I have it downloaded on my phone.”
“Downloaded?” Quackity asks. “What, are you paying for Spotify Premium?”
Purpled knocks on his head. “I’ll never understand how you all get by without antennae. I wouldn’t be able to survive without ‘em.”
“Jesus, no need to rub it in,” Quackity chuckles.
Purpled pulls his phone out and presses a few options on the screen.
“Oh! I can also do this.” Purpled’s antennae sprout upwards and glow a purplish light at the ends. He opens his mouth and from it emits a foreign voice, monotonous and seemingly belonging to a woman, his lips unmoving.
“Bluetooth has been connected.”
Quackity sits up. “What the fuck.”
Purpled taps the screen once more and music notes promptly fall from his mouth. Synth notes, short and sweet, but it’s a world-renown melody. Slime yelps and jumps forward, kneeling in front of Purpled.
Quackity worries; he’s heard this song enough times to know the lyrics are almost nonsensical, dancing around talk of bugs and fox trots and sleepless nights— Slime will be irrevocably confused. He is about to request that Purpled skip the song for one with less metaphorical phrases, but Slime sings, never wavering or missing a beat or word, singing like it understands.
“You would not believe your eyes…”
Slime’s eyebrows crease with intense focus, eyes shutting, nodes feeling out every line for themselves. It sings passionately, sings with an empathy that’s raw, and painful. It’s changing, morphing into something strikingly solid, human— strands of hair that lift with the wind, skin that suddenly looks as fragile as porcelain under the moonlight. Purpled and Quackity are awestruck to say the least, and they look upon Slime with great bewilderment. Slime, reciting the song as if it were an ancient proverb, is unbothered by their stares.
Fundy is listening too, his legs that dangle over the edge kicking along to the beat. Foolish hums quietly to the side, and Sam pretends to play the drums in the backing, slicing his fingers through the air as if they were drumsticks. All along, all side by side, all witness of the world at a momentary standstill before them, stretching for miles and miles on end.
Quackity’s eyes must be sparkling brighter than the stars above, his chest teeming with nothing but unadulterated pride and joy. He wasn’t looking for it at first, not at all. But he’s built something here, something more than casinos and wedding chapels and high-end restaurants. Never lost, not exactly, but found nonetheless.
Quackity, Slime, Purpled, Fundy, Foolish, Sam. All of them. Family.
Admittedly dysfunctional at times, but they’d work it out and persevere. Prosper. Rule the world. Quackity slides his beanie off his head. There was no doubt in his mind about it.