Chapter Text
On the first day of summer, Quackity breaks his toe on a refrigerator door.
It’s a string of one thing after another that morning. He doesn’t unlock the door until 5:02, which he put off a couple extra minutes because someone was already waiting outside and he felt petty enough to make them stand out in the dark a little longer. The phone rings inside, but Quackity fucking hates answering the phone, so he ignores it and pretends they’re still closed so he doesn’t have to pick it up. Instead, he focuses on getting the door open and acts like he’s just seen the regular outside for the first time.
When he pushes open the door, a weird noise plays. Something like a melodic series of notes, except that halfway through, the notes get possessed and start screaming instead. Q winces and looks up at the electronic chime above the door.
“Well, that’s not good.” His voice comes out still groggy with sleep. He flicks on another lightswitch he’d missed earlier. Whoops. “Morning, Vikk. Usual?”
“Mornin’,” the guy says. He’s already getting his self-serve coffee from the machines across the counter, all set to an automatic timer, which is good because Quackity will never be paid enough to get here early enough to have them turned on and brewing before unlocking the door. Quackity rings up the coffee, a pack of Marlboro’s from behind the register, and puts ten on pump two. Morning routine, step one.
The phone rings again. Quackity bothers to answer it the next time, in between the arrival of a small rush of customers and the eerie cries of a dying doorbell.
The gas station’s supposed to be quiet after the initial early rush, but for some unknown reason, every trucker, commuter, and early bird retiree in a twenty mile radius has decided that today, Tuesday June-the-twenty-first, is the best morning to visit this particular 7-Eleven off I-81. It’s as if the world just knows he got, like, four hours of sleep last night and wants to kill the next person who makes the goddamn door bell go off. Every time he hears it, it pushes him closer to homicide.
This is what’s going to cause him to snap. A bunch of customers at six in the morning and a doorbell on its last dying dredges of power. Every time someone walks in, the piteous buzzing gets more and more demonic. He’s even looked through a drawer at the counter for a screwdriver, although whether it’s to stab someone through the neck or pry the chime off of the top of the door, he hasn’t decided yet.
It probably needs batteries replaced. But Quackity doesn’t know how to do that, and he’s not bothered to figure it out, break it, and have the boss on his ass to replace it. He’ll pass. So he just ignores the sound and slowly grows more and more accepting of his impending future as a wanted criminal.
The final straw, and the moment it all goes downhill, arrives along with three dozen donuts.
There’s a glass display case right beside the coffee for them, and the small business donut shop down the street has a deal with the owner of the 7-Eleven–three dozen every morning, delivered fresh right at seven, and the donut shop owner gets, like, free gas or something. Quackity doesn’t know the details. He doesn’t need to know in order to steal a Boston Creme out of the boxes, line up the rest in the case, and call it a day.
That is not how it goes today.
A slow moment arrives a bit after six-thirty, and Quackity finally has a moment to breathe. He takes this time to empty a crate of bottled coffee drinks into the refrigerator aisle, carried up from the back because they’d run out of the caramel kind, and Connor always gets that flavor every afternoon right before Quackity clocks out, so he’d better fill it sooner than later.
So first, he’s holding two glass bottles full of cold coffee, one in each hand. Second, he’s not paying attention to the door, because there hasn’t been a customer in a good ten minutes, so he completely misses the fact that a miniature scuffle is happening right behind his back.
Third, the doorbell dies in one gloriously loud, loud screech.
He’s startled by the sound of the doorbell, and then he’s startled by the sound of three voices. Someone’s voice is loud-gruff-angry, and it raises the hair on the back of Quackity’s neck, shoulders going stiff at it. He whips around, hooking his foot to nudge the refrigerator door shut behind him, and–
“Somebody stop him!”
–And he collides, glass bottles and all, with a kid.
He tries to catch himself, stumbling back away from the person in front of him, but he forgets his foot is still caught by the refrigerator door, and he loses his balance instead. His foot swings against the bottom of the refrigerator, slams hard into the black plastic casing underneath, hard enough to hurt even through his shoe. Hard enough that a string of curses leave his mouth practically unbidden. He loses his balance entirely, and both glass bottles slide from his hand.
Desperate for something to catch his balance, Quackity’s arms flail out and latch onto the nearest semi-sturdy surface. This happens to be the kid’s arms, who promptly freezes in place with this deer-in-headlights kind of expression. He’ll deal with that later.
The noise is horrendous. Glass shatters, someone shouts, and above it all, that godawful doorbell just continues its dying pitch.
I am going to commit a homicide, Quackity thinks. It isn’t even a daydream anymore. It’s a fact. He hopes the bags under his eyes aren’t too noticeable in the mugshot.
The murder weapon is going to be the glass shards strewn all across the floor in front of the refrigerator, scattered amidst puddles of brown coffee. Quackity’s foot throbs in his shoe. The doorbell tapers off, muted cries finally cut off and silenced.
Quackity looks up at a finally-silent gas station and surveys his three potential murder victims.
The owner of the donut shop is holding three boxes, looking back across the aisles with a similarly bemused expression on her face. Some old guy he doesn’t recognize is glaring at the third person and has one hand raised in an accusing point in Quackity’s direction. Or, rather, in the direction of the kid whose arms are still clutched in Quackity’s grasp. He’s maybe seventeen, eyes wide and wearing a coat two sizes too big for him.
“Hello, Q,” donut girl says.
“Hey, Niki,” he responds, as if he is not standing in the middle of a broken glass crisis. He lets go of the kid. “How’s it hanging?”
“Fine,” she says. “I brought the donuts. Do you want me to get a mop?”
The story he gets out of all of them is this.
“I caught him stealin’,” the guy says. He talks with this sort of authoritative, self-righteous tone that pisses Quackity right the hell off. Combined with the throbbing in his toe, the fact that he really doesn’t give a shit about somebody stealing unless it personally inconveniences him, and the fact that it is still barely seven in the morning, all that does is make Quackity seriously consider walking right out the door, consequences be damned. Or, well, hobbling out the door. Whatever he can manage.
“Really,” Quackity says, flatly. “That true, kid?”
Ever since literally running into Quackity, the kid has barely moved. He’s stood silently right by the counter, arms crossed firmly over the front of his coat. It’s fucking June, so why on earth the guy’s wearing a wholeass coat he has no idea. But he sure is wearing it. In the time since then, however, his expression has changed from this terrified sort of trapped animal expression to one of stony displeasure.
Or, at least, what of his expression Quackity can see. Brown hair falls over his eyes. He burrows his chin into the collar of his coat. At this rate, there’s gonna be no face visible at all. “I didn’t steal anything.”
Quackity turns back to the old man. “Well. Sounds like he didn’t steal anything.”
The guy blusters. “I saw him put it in his pocket. Check right now, I bet he’s still got it–”
“Sir,” Quackity interrupts, and he sees the immediate offense on the man’s face at both the interruption and the tone that Quackity is not watching right now, “I really don’t give a fuck. Whatever he stole is definitely not worth nearly as much as everything I just broke and the damn doctor bills for my foot that you caused by knocking him into me. So were you going to buy something while you were here, or are you just here waiting to see if I break the other foot too?”
The man’s face goes increasingly angrier as Quackity speaks, but he’s wordless at the end of it. Instead, the only sound comes from the kid, who barely suppresses a snort. Quackity ignores him for now.
With a huff, the man turns on his heel and heads for the door, grumbling something about, “Service in here used to actually be good.”
Quackity half-waits for “Kids these days,” to follow, but it doesn’t. He calls just as the door swings shut – blessedly silent, thank god; the doorbell appears to have officially kicked it, “Cry about it, sir.”
Niki, setting up the donut case for him, says, “You are an inspiration.”
“I think my fucking foot is broken.” He falls back onto a crate that used to hold drinks, most of which are now shattered on the floor by the freezers. With a wince, he shifts his weight to pull the injured foot closer to himself. “Do you think I get workers comp for that?”
“I would think so.” Niki closes the case. “You okay? Want me to call an ambulance or something?”
“No, god.” Quackity contemplates taking his shoe off to inspect the damage. Purpled’s supposed to be in at eight, which is when he next break is. There’s no way he’s standing on this for an hour until then. Christ. He looks up. “I don’t have money for a fucking ambulance trip. If it’s still fucked up when I get off I’ll think about driving myself to urgent care or something, I guess.”
“I do not think driving yourself on a broken foot is a good idea.” Niki tucks empty donut boxes under her arms. “Call somebody to drive you.”
Quackity raises one eyebrow. “I do not have driving friends nearby.”
“I’m sure you can find someone,” Niki says. She does not offer. Quackity raises one hand to flip her off as she walks out the door.
The kid is still here. He’s still standing at the counter.
Quackity clears his throat. It’s loud enough to catch his attention, eyes darting back to his face. “Hey. You need something?”
“No,” the kid says. Which is the first time he’s spoken this whole time. “I’m good.”
“Okay,” Quackity says. The kid does not leave. “Are you sure?”
“I can drive,” he blurts out. “If you need someone to take you to, uh, get that checked out.”
Quackity stops. He blinks. “Oh. Shit, uh, thanks, kid. I’ll probably be fine, honestly. I don’t think it’s actually broken.” The bone-deep lancing pain has faded mostly to a vague throb at this point. Which probably means it’s fine. Quackity is simply very good at complaining very loudly over nothing.
The kid shifts his weight, like he’s not quite happy about that answer. Like he wants to push.
“I appreciate it, though,” Quackity adds. “I, uh, literally have no idea who you are, though. You probably shouldn’t be offering rides to strange adult men you’ve only just met.”
“Okay,” the kid says, “When you put it that way–”
“I’m just saying. I’m not sketchy as hell, but if someone was–”
“You have a broken foot. What are you gonna do, kick me?”
Quackity bursts out laughing. He shakes his head. “Okay, fine. You got me there. No idea why you care, but you got me.”
The kid’s posture has relaxed. He drops his arms back to his side, one leaning against the counter as he leans over it to keep his gaze towards Quackity. The line of his shoulders falls to a gentler curve. “I mean, you vouched for me earlier.”
“I’ll be honest, I was sorta just pissed off. It wasn’t about you.” He adds, “Also, even if you were stealing, there was literally nothing I could’ve done. I can’t stop you. I just tell you to stop and then I call the cops.”
“Oh,” the kid says. He considers this. Something flashes across his face, and then he reaches into his pocket and sets–a goddamn granola bar on the counter. “I was actually stealing, though. He was right.”
Quackity groans. “Okay. Don’t tell me that. You just got away with it, kid. How do you get caught stealing twice and then go and confess to the damn crime?”
“I’ll pay for it,” he says. “I feel bad now.”
“Don’t pity me just because I broke my foot. I’ll make you pay for the shit you made me drop too.”
“Okay. Sorry. I have no pity for an injured man,” he deadpans. He puts the granola bar back in his coat pocket.
“Better.” With a grimace, Quackity tests his weight on his injured foot. It holds enough for him to stand and consider hobbling to the back for a chair or something in the staff area. “Okay, how about this. I will not call the police on your for the heinous crime of stealing an entire granola bar, and in return, you get to mop up that mess over there until my coworker gets here and I can make my very honorable, not pitiable, exit to the emergency room.”
“That sounds like a fair deal to me,” the kid says.
“Hell yeah.” He sits back on the crate. Walking is not gonna happen. “Quackity, by the way.”
“Tubbo. Where’s the mop at?”
His toe is broken.
Two x-rays, a piece of tape, and one copay later, Quackity is sitting in the passenger seat of Tubbo’s van once again. Because of course the weird kid has a van. It’s the weirdest thing Quackity’s ever seen, and he’s been in both Bad’s minivan and Sapnap’s ugly orange pick-up truck. Tubbo’s van is old, clunky, and makes this weird grinding sound when he turns it on. Quackity does not know enough about cars to know what that means, but he’s very sure it’s not good.
“It just does that sometimes,” is all Tubbo has to say about it. The sound stops after they pull out of the clinic’s parking lot and onto the street. “It’s fine. It passed inspection.”
Quackity wants to ask, Which year? But he keeps it to himself. Instead, he says, “This is a big van to have all to yourself. What do you do with it?”
There’s some kind of equipment in the back, hidden between a divider that separates the driver and passenger seats from whatever is back there. Quackity had only caught the quickest glimpse of screens and shelves before it was hidden from his view again.
“Uh,” Tubbo says. He stops at a red light. “Investigating stuff.”
That… is not what Quackity was expecting. He blinks. “What, like–investigating what?”
The kid drums his fingers on the steering wheel. He’s lost the coat, tossed somewhere in the back with whatever other investigating equipment is hidden back there. “Bigfoot, mostly.”
Ah.
Bigfoot. Sure.
“Right,” Quackity says. He has about thirty follow-up questions, ranging from How old even are you? to How do you have the money to do all of this? And includes some other options like Do you ever actually find Bigfoot? and Where the fuck are your parents?
Rather than any of that, what he asks is, “Like those Bigfoot hunting shows?”
“Yeah, sorta,” Tubbo says. “But without the show part. I just look for him.”
Quackity nods as if he understands. As if any of this makes sense. Which–okay, listen, obviously there is something up with this kid. There are so many red flags going up all over the place. Quackity’s not stupid. He can connect a few dots.
But hey, maybe he’s just a rich kid with parents who are happy to fund their teenager’s eccentric Bigfoot-hunting van and aren’t bothered by him stealing from gas station at seven in the morning and then driving randoms to urgent care clinics.
Quackity sighs. It’s been far too long of a day to parse all of this.
“I, uh,” Tubbo says, “I’ve just been driving back to the gas station. Do you want me to take you home instead?”
“Gas station’s fine. Gotta get my car home somehow, and I should be fine to drive now.” He thumps his foot against the floor of Tubbo’s old van as if to prove a point, and then tries to hide the grimace that follows the bolt of pain that arcs through his toe and the whole arch of his foot. “See? Piece of tape fixed everything.”
“If you say so,” Tubbo says. He sounds amused. When Quackity looks up, he’s even half-smiling, nothing but a twitch at his lips belying the first bit of real expression Quackity’s seen from him all day. Besides that first wide-eyed panic in front of the refrigerator, Quackity has discovered that Tubbo is a painfully stoic kind of guy.
But he’s damn funny nonetheless.
“You better not be laughing at me. I don’t allow laughter or pity.”
“I would never.” The smile disappears; the serious face returns.
This time, Quackity lets silence settle between them, broken only by the click of a turn signal or the bump of tires on a pothole.
“You really don’t have anybody around here who can drive you to the doctor?” Tubbo asks it suddenly, blurts it out from nowhere. As if the thought’s been haunting him this whole time.
“Uh, not really.” Quackity flips down the sun visor in front of him, squinting as they turn onto a street that has the sun pouring through the windshield right into his eyes. “I don’t really live around here. Well, I mean, I do, but I’m not from around here.”
Tubbo steals a quick look at him, but he doesn’t say anything else. Quackity fumbles to fill in the silence. The familiar hum in his chest to justify this–to make an excuse for the space he fills–tinges his words with quick blood and vinegar.
“I’m, like–what’s the word. In a transitional period. Sorta figuring shit out here on my own before I head out wherever I’m gonna be off to next.”
“Oh,” Tubbo says. “Where’s that gonna be?”
“I dunno,” Quackity says. “Maybe out west. California or something. Just to see what it’s like on the opposite coast.”
Tubbo hums. He says, quietly, “Transitional period.”
“What about you?”
The van pulls to a stop at another light. The turn signal clicks. “I’m just looking for Bigfoot, honestly.”
“I meant if you lived around here,” Quackity says. He gives a little laugh. “You’re real dedicated to the Bigfoot hunting thing, huh?”
“I mean, I’m not really hunting him.” Tubbo turns the steering wheel. “Just looking. Like, there’s this whole animal, or guy, or something, and maybe he exists but maybe he doesn’t. Either way, nobody can really prove it one way or the other, so I want to. Just to know for myself.”
“Huh.” Quackity flips the sun visor back up to the ceiling. The gas station comes into view at the end of the street. “So you don’t actually believe one way or another already?”
“I have my hunches,” Tubbo says. “But I’m not gonna pretend I know the truth until the evidence is in my hands.”
There’s something in Tubbo’s eyes as he’s talking. They’re just talking about Bigfoot, but Tubbo’s expression is still every bit as serious as it has been all day. When Quackity finally looks over at him, his gaze is trained straight ahead with a quiet sort of solemnity. The casual voice he speaks with never reaches his eyes.
The van idles in the parking lot long enough for Quackity to hop out by his own car. “Good luck with finding Bigfoot. Thanks for the ride.”
“Thanks,” Tubbo says. “Good luck getting home without accidentally kicking your tire and breaking the other foot.”
“You are a dick,” Quackity says. Tubbo smiles with only his lips and raises one hand in an easy wave.
The drive home is easy. He has the rest of the day off, so he stumbles around his apartment trying to do the chores that he never seemed to be able to do before breaking his foot. Somehow, the knowledge that he should be sitting down is enough motivation to keep him doing literally anything else. He takes out the trash. He moves all of the dirty dishes from the counter into the sink, and he puts the clean ones on the drying rack into the cabinet where they belong. He even cooks dinner before finally crashing on the couch with an ice pack and the realization that he might not make it to his bed now that he’s sat down at all.
And he keeps thinking about Tubbo.
He’d somehow managed to never answer Quackity’s question about if he’d lived in the area. He’d answered none of Quackity’s questions, in fact, besides the ones about Bigfoot.
They’d said goodbye without a single way to keep in touch. Tubbo had made fun of him, and Quackity had insulted him in return, and then that was it. Quackity might never see Tubbo again. This might’ve been Quackity’s only chance to have said, Hey, by the way, kid, if you need somewhere to go–
If you need someone to feed you, or someone to look the other way when you steal granola bars, or someone to beat up an asshole for you–
Well, Quackity probably can’t beat anyone up. He’s five-foot-six with the physique of a particularly brittle twig. But he would give it his best shot, if Tubbo so required it.
He doesn’t know why he cares so much. Tubbo hadn’t even said anything particularly concerning. It was just…
It was the way he didn’t smile, Quackity thinks. The way he made jokes without laughing. The way he seemed fine without really backing it up. The way his eyes never caught up to what was coming out of his mouth. Like half of his face was moving and alive, while the rest had been lost somewhere else.
That’s the part he keeps thinking about. It settles uncomfortably in his stomach, somewhere between fear and familiarity.
Quackity knows what it feels like to be haunted.
He spends the rest of the night wishing he’d said something more.