“What the fuck.”

Ugh. He already has an awful headache from dealing with Wilbur and Tubbo and whoever else wants to threaten his nation—

—it doesn’t matter. He has a job to do.

<Quackity> WHAT THE FUCK

<Quackity> Foolish I swear to God if you’re pulling another prank

<ItsFundy> what 

<FoolishG> don’t look at me I didn’t do anything

(The other Quackity’s phone buzzes.)

His pager's still in his pocket, along with everything else he typically keeps in his pockets. At least he hadn't taken his shoes off yet. He'd even put on a jacket, since he was staying in for the rest of the night and the room was cold. Really, it could be much worse! 

<Quackity_V68> for whatever it's worth I have no idea what's going on either 

<Quackity_V68> where even is this

(He's in a forest, or at least what once was a forest; there are walls around him, of stone and dirt and wood and some other materials he doesn't recognize, one of which appears to be on fire? There are occasional heapings and outcroppings to let you climb over the walls, but it does take climbing. It's also extremely ugly.)

<BadBoyHalo> O_o

<KarlJacobs> Dream SMP

<Quackity_V68> cool cool cool

Quietly, he's grateful that his Games weren't in a forest. He has no idea where he is and Karl (??) seems to think 'Dream SMP' should mean something to him; he doesn't need to additionally be fighting off a panic attack. 

Okay. Climbing over the walls. He can do that. They didn't even put him in heels.

It could, he reminds himself, be worse.

Aside from the forest, he can see a strange structure in the distance, the outline of a rectangular...portal?...in obsidian, glowing purple inside. It looks like there's a path by it, too. (If he goes towards it he'll also start to see more structures: houses, towers, stone and wood paths.)

Sure. Okay. This might as well happen. Maybe on the other side there'll be people, and he can at least try to figure out what's even happening. Through the portal it is. 

The other side is... very red, and very hot. There are fewer signs of civilization here than there were on the other side. A strange sort of reddish rock which he recognizes as the one that he was unable to identify in the walls is everywhere here; in the distance he can see lava and... vaguely humanoid pigs?

Near him there are stone paths in the air. The ones that lead to nearby things seem to lead to... other portals?

Wonderful, a word which here means fuck this. He's just gonna try portals at random until he finds another person. 

Is he looking for humans only, or also humanoids? If he's including humanoids here's one: within a castle-y structure, there is an 8-foot-tall bipedal something in glowing purple armor tending to a small patch of wheat.

Humanoid works. Humanoid raises additional questions but it's not like it's more impossible than everything else. 

Q plasters on a professional-grade friendly smile and approaches. "Hi!" 

The being does a double take. (It--they?--are also not making eye contact.) "Oh, um, hi, Quackity!" They--he?--hold out a chocolate chip cookie like a peace offering.

Might have to do with the other person here apparently named Quackity. Might just be that everyone and their sister knows what he looks like. Probably not that second thing, he's almost one hundred percent sure at this point that they're not in Panem. 

He will... accept the chocolate chip cookie peace offering, and not eat it yet. "--this might be weird but where are we." 

"The... cookie outpost? Outside Las Nevadas? It's, um, in the Dream SMP, sort of?" ...Squint. "Did something happen?"

"I don't know of any of the proper nouns you just said. Something presumably happened but fuck if I know what. --and, uh, sorry, but I didn't catch your name." 

"Oh, sorry, um-- Ranboo. I'm Ranboo. You, uh, look a lot like someone I know. ...Fewer scars."

That professional smile again. He is so friendly and polite and pleased to be here. Fuck, he should have taken more caffeine while he was alone. "Ranboo! Nice to meet you. I don't suppose there's any chance you've heard of Panem, or know where the Dream SMP is in relation to there?" 

“Nice..to…meet…you…too…? I— no?” 

Is Ranboo just always that hesitant or is this something Q's doing. --well, either way. "Yeah, okay, fair enough, if I've never heard of your geography you've probably never heard of mine either. Thanks anyway." 

Pause. "Different question, do you happen to know where the nearest place a person could sleep would be." 

"Las Nevadas miiight have a bed? Sorry, I could probably get you one if you'd rather stay here and wait but I don't have one down right now. Or if you are good to go farther I know farther places that definitely have beds?"

He is not making extremely skittish guy buy him a bed. There are limits. He can keep running on stims, it won't kill him, just suck. 

"I can take my chances with Las Nevadas, but thanks for the offer. ...which direction do I go to get to Las Nevadas." 

Point. "It's, uh, past the big sign? Can't miss it. Quackity--uh, the, other Quackity--might ask you for a toll to get in. He doesn't take cookies, either, I tried. Sorry."

(The view from the window.)

...in his defense he is running on fumes and stims. "...right. Awesome. Thanks, man." 

To Las Nevadas. He doesn't have anything to pay a toll with except, well, the obvious, and he'd rather it not come to that, but here's hoping. 

Manning the toll booth is... someone who looks exactly like him.

Well, not exactly. The biggest difference is that he has an ugly-looking scar running from his chin to his eyebrow, cutting through his left eye and leaving it cloudy-white. He's also a bit taller, a bit broader, and he's wearing a starched button-up with suspenders and a neckerchief.

He's leaning, deliberately casual, against the side of the tunnel between Ranboo's cookie outpost and Las Nevadas. He doesn't move when the other Quackity approaches, although his eyes narrow slightly. "Foolish, this isn't funny, man. I know you've been messing with people but you can't pull that sort of shit with me."

Fact: Q is quite pretty, in the way of someone who has a nice face and also separately has a stylist team and is wearing a significant amount of makeup. He looks a little younger than this other Quackity, but not a lot younger; he's thinner, enough that it makes a difference to his face. He has no visible scars. 

Fact: Q is dressed like he recently left a particularly objectifying cocktail party, in sheer red and shiny gold. He is, on top of this, wearing a brown jacket that's much too large for him and doesn't go with anything else he has on. He did not take off his makeup before landing on the Dream SMP. 

Fact: Q has been doing things for the last eighteen hours and was supposed to finally be done and allowed to go to bed almost an hour ago. 

"I'm sorry," he says, and he's not even trying not to sound totally fucking exhausted anymore, "it's not a joke. I don't know either, man." 

"You know what? You're right. You're right, it's not a joke. You can tell because I'm not fucking laughing." He stands up straight, in the middle of the tunnel, blocking the other Quackity's path entirely. He summons, seemingly out of thin air, a pair of blood-covered shears, and then vanishes them again to summon and hold a glowing purple axe. (If the other Quackity is trained in weapons, he'll know that it's a good axe, and also that this Quackity absolutely does not know how to handle it.) "I don't know who the fuck you think you are, coming here dressed as--what? as a, a fucking parody? But it isn't fucking funny or cute or whatever you think it is. Get the fuck out of my country before I give you a scar to match your costume."

Unfortunately, Q's only weapons training is watching the Games every year, and he's not exactly taking notes on the combat form. He is vaguely aware that axes aren't usually glowing purple. 

He would like to have something enormously clever and also convincing to say. However, see above re: exhaustion, stims and fumes, etcetera. "Man," he says, "I am way too fucking tired for death threats. And I think to be a parody I'd have to know who you are." 

Quackity steps forward, forward, crowding the other man's space. He smiles and tries to calm his voice into a mimicry of a salesman giving a pitch and doesn't put the axe away. "You know what you're doing? You're disrespecting me. Now, I don't know who you are, but I don't like when people disrespect me. I--look, I like to think I can be reasonable. Okay? I can be reasonable. I don't want to hurt you. I'm tired too, alright? So how about, instead of talking back to me, you go home and--whatever sick fucking prank you think you're doing, you cut that shit out. And then tomorrow, maybe you come back and we can talk this through like fucking adults."

What space. Does Quackity strike you as the sort of person who is generally allowed to have personal space. Admittedly, getting this close to him would usually be a different kind of threat, and he should really shut up right the fuck now, but never let it be said that he isn't fucking stupid. 

"Do-- what do you even think is the prank here? Are you used to a world where people can just go home and put a different face on! Are you imagining that is a thing I can do!" 

"I know Foolish has been wearing Wilbur and Dream's faces, got them off DreamXD. I don't know how the fuck you're doing my voice but you're doing something and-- you know what? I'm tired of you talking back to me. Get out of my country."

He brings the axe down onto the other man's shoulder. He's not trying to kill, just to--injure him, scare him off, show him that he means business. 

Unfortunately, he doesn't have control of the axe, and the other Quackity is tired and weak and not wearing any armor.

Quackity_V68 was slain by Quackity.

Quackity_V68 doesn't leave a body behind, just a pile of items. So... hopefully it wasn't a canon death, at least.

He drops:
- Wil's Earbuds (Borrowed), a tangle of purple cords;
- Quackity's ID, a small piece of rectangular plastic saying that its holder is Quackity, Victor of the 68th Hunger Games, District 10, associated with the Victor Affairs fund tied to this twelve-digit number;
- Assorted Drugs, a box full of pills of a variety of colors and sizes;
- Schlatt's Jacket, a brown leather jacket lined with wool, which smells like someone smoked in it quite a lot but hasn't done so in more than a year;
- Notes, a folded-up piece of paper on which "note 2 self: do the thing for T, dipshit" is written;
- a cookie.

He keeps his pager and the non-jacket clothes. 

Back at the incredibly ugly not-quite-forest, Quackity yells "FUCK" at the top of his lungs, and then gets to climbing the walls again. 

What the fuck.

The president of Las Nevadas, who had been looking through the other man's stuff, drops Wil's Earbuds (Borrowed) and Schlatt's Jacket back on the ground like they burned him. 

Whatever. He's made his point. Quackity_V68 has five minutes to get his stuff back; this Quackity's not touching it. He turns on his heel and walks back into his country.

This time at least Quackity knows exactly where he's going; he ignores the buildings and the other portals and Ranboo's castle and heads straight to Las Nevadas. Picks up his jacket, puts it back on, and shoves everything else back into his pockets. 

...and then he's left staring at Las Nevadas.

He doesn't, in fact, have anywhere else to go. He is at this point kind of dead on his feet. He could tell Ranboo that actually things came up please can he stay at the castle; he could pop more caffeine and keep walking in a different direction. 

Or he could just curl up in the tollbooth and go the fuck to sleep. 

Yeah, okay, when you put it like that. He curls up in the tollbooth, under the jacket which he has (fucker), and he goes the fuck to sleep. 

The other Quackity calls Foolish in for a meeting, interrogates him until he's mostly satisfied that it wasn't him, at which point he sends Foolish away to find who the hell it was and pours himself a drink. 

He doesn't sleep much, these days. A little bit, enough that he's not dead on his feet. But he has to keep an eye on his country, with Wilbur's Paradise to the left and Eret's pyramid to the right and Tubbo's military fucking outpost right in front of it, with people walking up to his gates speaking in his voice and wearing coats named Schlatt's Jacket. (With Sapnap and Karl still--God knows where.) He drowses a little, with the help of the alcohol, but the nightmares get him back up and pacing soon enough, and he's awake most of the night. When the sun starts to come up he goes up the elevator in the Needle to watch it. Tommy's voice haunts him (--a good place to jump off and end it all--) and he tries to push it out of his mind. He's not as much of a fucking coward as Wilbur. Besides, he wants to live.

Still. He can't stop thinking of it. How he and Wilbur had both rushed to pull Tommy away from the edge. Jesus, the poor kid. 

He changes into new clothes not long after; Ranboo and whoever-the-fuck the new guy was may cause problems at night but Wilbur and Tubbo get up early, and he needs to be ready. (Not too ready. He can't give them--especially Wilbur--the impression that he cares too much, that he's easily riled up, defensive, overcompensating, weak. So he puts on new clothes and waits inside for news, doesn't go out to meet it himself yet.)

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh fuck Q slept through his alarm, didn't he. And he forgot to take his makeup off, his prep team will be annoyed about that, and-- 

wait why's he on the ground, what the fuck kind of choices and decisions--

He opens his eyes.

Right. Okay. Not just an incredibly weird dream. Something weirder. Possibly something worse, he hasn't decided yet. 

Quackity is probably not going to be allowed to stay in Las Nevadas. He isn't even totally sure he wants to stay in Las Nevadas; what seems appealing late at night after three back-to-back engagements and a bunch of wandering is distinctly less so in the daylight, especially now that he's had a minute to properly consider getting threatened with a battleaxe. (Relatedly: what the fuck.) 

He gets up. He brushes the sand off of himself as best he can, which is not very well. He leaves the tollbooth, and looks around. 

Las Nevadas: it has buildings. And sand. And snow. And a fountain. And a huge sign that says LAS NEVADAS.

The buildings include:
- a strip club, or at least a building advertising itself as one; it seems empty
- a restaurant, which does have someone (...something? it's humanoid but acts more like a machine than a person) behind the counter, advertising food in exchange for emeralds
- a tall tower with a column of water in the middle
- a particularly large and glittery building with the doors barred
- a small white building, open to the air
- something planned and outlined in stone on the ground but not yet built

Outside of Las Nevadas is Ranboo's castle, which has two main buildings and a courtyard; the courtyard has a few small farms and chests scattered around it.

He doesn't have emeralds. He has a combination ID/debit card, which is probably not accepted as legal tender outside of Panem. 

...eh, he'll give it a shot anyway.

The person(?) behind the counter just looks uncomprehendingly at it and then at him.

(There's also a chest in the room behind the counter; if he wanted to, he could just steal.)

You know what? Sure. He'll just steal. Thank you, person(?) behind the counter for not objecting to or impeding his stealing. 

He will also eat the cookie he got from Ranboo, since he's eating now. Thank you, Ranboo. 

The chest: has burgers in it. Hooray for theft!

(They’re solidly mediocre burgers. Maybe a bit below average. The cookie is actively good; not phenomenal, it’s dry and stale, but definitely homemade.)

Hey, man, food is food. Probably shouldn't stick around here once he's eaten, though, staying in other Quackity's front yard just sounds like it's asking for problems— let's check out the forest over this way? 

Across the river but before the forest starts in earnest, there’s a short stone ?column? with a circle in the middle and a wider base, like:

 |
o
 | 

Just past it is a small stone building labeled Fort Big. A blond teenage boy wearing a red and white baseball shirt, who Quackity may recognize as Tommy, the friend Tubbo volunteered for, is running around; he stops and waves when he sees Quackity approach. 

Yep, he sure does recognize Tommy. He's Tubbo's best friend, and they've been neighbors for eight months now, and Tommy does not exactly make himself difficult to get to know. It's just, like, oh shit, you know? 

Or, like, this makes sense, right. If there's an alternate version of Quackity, it stands to reason that there are alternate versions of other people also. Including, potentially, people he knows. Except--

--No, actually, he's not doing this right now. Shut the fuck up. He waves back at Tommy. 

“Eyyyyyyy big Q!”

"Hi, Tommy." He's close enough that the lack of scar will probably be obvious now?? Wow he is not looking forward to explaining his deal over and over. 

Tommy’s not going to ask why Quackity is down a scar, that just seems rude. Things happen. If he wants to talk about it he will. “And what are you doing today in Paradise, my friend?”

...yeah okay of course the universe has conspired to make him use his words. Why would he expect anything else. "Is that what this is called? I'm, uh, kind of new to... everywhere." 

"Hey, Wilbur named it, not me. I'm just the messenger. I am immune to bullets."

"Course you are. Completely bulletproof. --but no actually I meant that I found the ...Dream SMP... yesterday and I don't know where anything is." 

He is just simply not going to think about Wilbur. Or other-Wilbur having set up right outside other-Quackity's property. Or anything else along those lines! 

Tommy makes a confused noise somewhere between "HUUUUHHHH?" and "WHAAAAAAAAT?", as though he is trying to say both at the same time.

He takes a moment to consider.

"...So you don't remember anything? Like, not the cartel, not the sewers--"

"I was not here for those things. There's a guy who looks like me in Las Nevadas who I'm guessing was, but we didn't get much of a chance to talk." 

"So you're, like, not big Q...?" Pause. "Kinda weird that you look like him then, innit?" 

"Same name and everything. I don't fucking know, man." 

"So you're, like, his evil clone? I'm gonna be honest, that's kind of pog."

"...I'd like to think I'm not his evil clone. But, like, sure, I guess." 

"That is exactly what an evil clone would say." Pause. "Unless we have the evil clone and you're the good one from another universe come to see the terrible, terrible things that could have been."

He's a fucking professional. 

"I guess we'll find out!" 

"Well, if you are the evil clone, I would appreciate it if you would not kill me, because I am me. I promise I will not tell anyone your evil secrets."

"I would never even consider it. You are, after all, you. And immune to bullets." 

"This is true. You shoot me and the bullets will just slide right off of me like fish." (He's got a chestplate and pants of the glowing purple armor, but no helmet, and instead of boots he's got ratty white tennis shoes.) "I'm like a fucking waterslide for bullets."

Apparently metal is sometimes glowing and purple around here. Someone who isn't Quackity might be able to infer things from that.

"Course you are," he agrees. Steps back so he can get a slightly more proper look around Paradise. 

It's, uh, small. The stone building and stone...pillar?...are the two major things, and they're both tiny in comparison to everything in Las Nevadas. The stone building has a single chest in it; inside the chest is... more stone. There's also a hole labeled "prisoner hole" and surrounded by iron bars, which is... empty.

Near the building is a tree stump with a sign attached, which reads "rest in peace, Ghostbur :("; near the small pillar is a... jukebox? record player? something like that.

That's... approximately it.

It's empty. There is nobody in the prisoner hole. There's nobody there. It might even be a joke, he hasn't seen a single person who might plausibly be a peacekeeper-- although he's also only seen three people-- 

This place has Tommy and, apparently, also Wilbur. Maybe he should start drawing an actual map at some point, if he finds a pen. Maybe he should try to find Wil.

Or maybe he should shut the fuck up and figure out how to be fucking normal before he has to field more questions. 

(Tommy is still talking, though it's mostly to himself at this point. There are no fish in paradise, he scared them all off, women want him fish fear him, and women fish, well, he doesn't even want to get into what's going on with the women fish. He is different from Wilbur because he would never marry a fish even if she were a woman. He has so many wives he has to say ladies, ladies, please, you are all beautiful but I have a shovel at home. He is so glad she is safe again, safe with him, this is proof that gambling actually has no bad consequences because you can just go back and get your stuff back, all those PSAs were just fake news...

It doesn't seem like he's stopping anytime soon, although Quackity is welcome to interrupt him.)

Quackity does not actually want to interrupt him. Quackity mostly wants his brain to shut the fuck up. This might not really be in the cards but hey he can try. 

...in the meantime, it's kind of nice, just existing quietly in a place with another person. No being threatened with an axe, nobody terrified of the entire concept of him. 'S like having roommates again. He could happily spend some time waiting here. 

It doesn't take that long for Wilbur to show up. "Tommy! I was thinking, maybe we can--"

--He stops abruptly when he sees Quackity before resuming walking. He's feigning nonchalance about it and failing terribly. "--Oh, hello, Big Q. You look... different."

Quackity is abruptly much more aware than he'd like to be that he's still dressed like a fucking party favor. 

Probably Wilbur just means the scar, though. This Wilbur also doesn't have any obvious scars; it's weird, Q has never actually seen his Wilbur without them. 

"Hi, Wil. Tommy's theory is that I'm your Quackity's evil clone, which seems kind of far-fetched but I don't exactly have any better ideas. Good to see you, man." 

That last bit is either an understatement or a flat-out lie. What is a feeling and which one is he having, he has no idea. 

The scar, yes, but also the--everything. Not the clothes, they're a little unusual but not that unusual for Quackity--this Quackity is a bit thinner, shorter, younger, and he's pretty sure he's wearing makeup. Other than the hair, he looks more like the Quackity who had been Schlatt's vice president and less like the Quackity who told him not to enter Las Nevadas.

"Are you scared of me?"

"...uh, no? Should I be?" 

There's a beat of silence. Tommy takes in the situation and decides to take it as his cue. "Obviously you should be scared of us, bitch! We're big men and we're going to make the best damn city this world has ever seen!"

Wilbur had better fucking thank him for this later. (Tommy already knows that he's not going to.)

...yeah, okay, he'll take that bait. Maybe he's just stupid but oh well. He laughs, easy, unworried. 

Wilbur smiles too. "You're interesting. I like that."

It is a deliberate choice to take that at face value. "Thank you!" 

"So, Quackity number two, what's being an evil clone like? Should I be preparing to hide you from stray mad scientists?"

"Mad scientists in my experience are actually really nice! Very into making things out of spare bits of wire. Since I got here the greatest threat to my person has been Quackity number one, who seemed to think he was being parodied and didn't believe me when I tried to tell him that my face just looks like this and I can't actually go home and change it." 

"He said that about me too, you know. He'll get over it."

(Wilbur shoots Tommy a surprised look, which Tommy ignores.)

"Good to hear, I think? If he hits me with an axe about it again I'll be annoyed." 

"He hit you with an axe?"

Wilbur is vaguely aware that he should probably sound sympathetic rather than excited. He's even trying, a little bit. Not very well.

Probably he should not think that's cute. It just— it reminds him of home, okay. He likes Wilbur. A Wilbur. 

Fuck, he misses Wilbur. 

Shut up. 

"I mean, it didn't take or anything, and I got my stuff back? I'm not totally sure what he was even expecting to happen, honestly." 

“Well, it still hurt, didn’t it?” Sympathetic. Sympathetic sympathetic sympathetic. Not jealous or excited or eager or even afraid. Sympathetic. 

(Already, he can’t imagine anything except for how Quackity’s axe would feel, cutting through him. Not enough for a death, he doesn’t want to die again, he doesn’t, doesn’t want to risk going back to that fucking train station— but, but, fuck, if imagining Quackity like that doesn’t do something for him—)

"You are so fucking weird," he says, openly affectionate. (Shut up shut up shut UP.) "But if you wanna get hit with an axe that bad I am sure that by our powers combined we can make that happen." 

Tommy is instantly in between Wilbur and Quackity, his own axe drawn on Quackity. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

“It’s not— it wasn’t— you can put the axe away, Tommy.”

“Shut up,” he says, but he puts the axe away. He doesn’t move, though, eyes locked with Quackity’s.

"Joking! I'm unarmed, I'm sorry--" 

It is probably, like, bad, or something, how ninety percent of his brain has been replaced with shaky flight-or-freeze panic, notes the other ten percent. 

Tommy eyes him warily for another moment and then relaxes, steps back. “Sorry, mate,” he mutters to Quackity, and then turns to glare at Wilbur. 

“Awwwwwww, Tommy, you caaaaare! Isn’t he adorable?” His voice is pitched for babytalk. 

“Fuck off,” Tommy says, but the heat is gone from his voice. 

"Aha. Yeah. Very cute." He has maybe thirty percent of his brain running now? Having the weapon put away helped a lot. He sounds like he is maybe not really processing the words coming out of his mouth, which is correct, he isn't. 

He hadn't acted like this when other-Quackity threatened him, and that axe actually hit. Is he just fucking stupid, is that his problem? Maybe it is. Fuck. 

Tommy squints at Quackity and then hands him a piece of bread. “Have some pity bread.”

This is strange enough behavior from someone who just threatened you that it does, at least, get him to the point of being approximately all in running order.

Like hell is he going to go back to cracking jokes with Wilbur after that, though. He will take and eat pity bread. 

Tommy socks Wilbur in the shoulder (light, playful). “Now look what you did, he’s eating fuckin’ pity bread.”

“You’re the one who threatened him. Besides, nothing wrong with a bit of pity bread every once in a while.”

“Yeah there is, it’s fuckin’—pity bread. You’re just a fuckin’ idiot.”

Affectionate eyeroll. 

Quackity shrugs. "Hey, food is food, man." 

He actually kind of sounds normal! Low standards are a joy. 

“No. No. Absolutely not. Do you also put grape jelly on your sausage, like, oh, food is food! No!!!”

“You did that.”

“Yeah, when I was eight.”

“Look, I’m in favor of your food crimes, but unless you’ve changed a lot in the past seven months—”

“You’re changing the subject. Don’t listen to him, Quackity, he’s changing the subject. Everything I do with food is perfectly legal and I would never accept anything out of pity.”

Quackity, who is alive because of sponsor gifts, thinks, sure you wouldn't. 

"Duly noted. Absolutely no pity food for you, Tommy." 

“Thank you. See, Wilbur, Quackity knows what’s up.”

Gaining a new appreciation for why Tubbo volunteered for this kid. He is not fucking saying that. Couldn't drag it out of him with a draft horse.

Instead he casts around for a change of subject. Almost any change of subject would be good. Not flirting with Wilbur, brain, we are watching our fucking mouth around Tommy please and thank you.

"I— man, this is weird. In some sense I have known you both for ages and in some sense I met you, like, today." 

“Wait, do I have an evil clone too? That’d be awesome, we would do so many crimes together.”

"I would not say you have an evil clone. I would say you have a regular clone. He has never to my knowledge done anything evil. He names all of his and Tubbo's bees." 

“Someone can be evil and name bees. You can’t just assume someone’s not evil because they name bees. That’s, I mean, that’s Tubbo’s whole career plan. Name bees, do crime.”

"Okay but I have no reason to think he is evil! You can't just assume someone's evil because they're your clone!"

“You’re right. I’ve been very unfair to clones. I have— I have made a severe and continuous lapse in my judgement, and I don’t expect to be forgiven—” He struggles to get through the sentence, interrupting himself repeatedly with laughs. (Wilbur is laughing too, and looking at Tommy as though the kid hung the stars.)

"As a member of the clone community, I think we all need to hold each other accountable for, for clonephobic viewpoints, and--"

Yeah okay he isn't finishing this sentence either. 

"You know, it's kinda fucked up that you don't know you're a clone until you meet someone who looks like you. Anyone could be a clone and not know it. Mmmm. AMONGUS."

...yep, nope, context is totally unenlightening on this one. "Among us being.........?"

"SUS. SUS. AMONGUS. IMPOSTER. SUS."

When Wilbur gets himself to a point of "mostly composed and not interrupting himself with surprisingly high-pitched heehees", which admittedly takes a while: "A game, it was really popular for a while."

It is very weird watching this. Especially what with the thing where the Wilbur and Tommy he knows have probably never spoken.

"Thank you. I still don't have any idea what either of you are talking about but in a more enlightened way this time." 

Tommy does an over-the-top, theatrical bow. "Thank you, thank you, I am so good at enlightening. I walk into a dark room and suddenly it is full of torches because I am illuminating. I'm not lit, though, that's a different thing. Am I lit? No no, don't use drugs, that's what I always say."

"That is--that is just a lie. You literally--we literally started a drug van together." 

"Yeah, well, in Pogtopia--"

"Don't you dare fucking talk about Pogtopia with me. I've changed. I was in that bloody train station for thirteen years--thirteen and a half years--I fucking, I apologized! I did your shit, Tommy! I'm not the, the villain, anymore!"

"Yeah, well--"

"Shut up, Tommy." There's a vicious edge to Wilbur's voice. He puts a wooden platform down in front of Tommy, between him and Quackity, and stands on it, blocking them altogether. He was already taller than Tommy--6'5 to Tommy's 6'3--but now he towers. "And Quackity, this Quackity, he'll--"

(Tommy puts down a matching stepstool, this one out of stone; Wilbur puts down a matching one, now two steps above Tommy, and glares at him, hard, before turning back to Quackity.)

"Listen, Quackity, I want to apologize. I feel like--I feel like we got off on the wrong foot. I don't know what exactly I did wrong since we met, but I can tell I--I fucked up something. And I want to remedy that! I'm sorry. I promise to, to change. To be better. I can change! I can be--I can be better."

(Tommy puts down another stone step while Wilbur's not looking at him. Wilbur glares again.)

"Sorry, sorry, just trying to hear you better."

"It's not for you, it's for Quackity. And Quackity's still on the ground. Mine down, Tommy." Tommy doesn't move. "Mine down. That's an order." Tommy, reluctantly, does; Wilbur does too, so that he's back to only being one step above the ground. He turns back to Quackity. "Quackity. Quackity, look at me. I'm-- I'm sorry, alright? I want to get to know you better. As yourself, not just as--as Quackity's evil clone. And whatever I did, I promise, I want to make things right with you." He stops and looks at Quackity expectantly.

Ahaha.

What the fuck.

"...well, you can start by getting the fuck down." 

Wilbur, in lieu of a more normal reaction like "getting back on the ground", kneels.

If his Wilbur was doing this, it would be a bit. They've done this, as a bit; they did it a lot when Quackity was new enough at this that it would have been weird and uncomfortable to joke about him kneeling. If his Wilbur was doing this, it would be friendly, and it would be a joke, and it wouldn't matter, and if Quackity wanted to put that joke down and do something else he would be able to ask for that. He has asked for that. 

Imagine it's your Wilbur. You are comfortable with your Wilbur. You can ask for things from your Wilbur when you need them. You know you can do that; you've done it before. Also, be fucking normal. 

"...I meant get off the stepstool. Please." 

"Why."

"Wilbur--"

"Shut the fuck up, Tommy. I'm just asking a simple question. Quackity's a big boy, I'm not making him answer. I'm just asking a question."

It's Wilbur it's Wilbur it's Wilbur it's Wilbur you can ask you can ask you can ask-- 

"Because I do not like it when you make yourself physically more imposing when you're mad. So if you want to make things right with me, I need you to stop fucking doing that." 

"Okay. Thank you, Quackity." Aaaand he is standing on the ground now. He's still taller than Quackity, significantly, but he can always kneel again. "So were you lying when you said you weren't afraid of me, or is that new?"

"Man, if I was afraid of you I wouldn't have asked you for shit." 

“Hm.” Wilbur tilts his head slightly. “So you’re still saying you’re not afraid of me. But you were afraid, weren’t you? Just now but earlier, too, when you said you would hit me with an axe except Tommy wouldn’t let you. You were acting like you were afraid.”

"--yes. It freaks me out when we're talking and suddenly someone's pointing a weapon at me. Is that what you're flipping your shit about?" 

“Wouldn’t say that. Curious, maybe. Having a friendly conversation.” He spreads his hands out, palms up. “No weapons here. Promise. That was one of the first laws I made, did you know that? Got abandoned early during the first war.”

He's still a little shaky but he's coming down from it. He's normal. He's being so goddamn normal. 

(That went fine. That went fine. That went fine!!!!) 

"...nope, did not know that, and I can't say I'd ever imagined you'd be in a position to make laws. And, uh, the country I'm from hasn't had a war in seventy years." 

“—Seventy years?”

Thank fucking god for topics that are not 'whether or not Quackity is afraid.'

"Seventy years. Coming up on seventy-one, in a few months." 

“…How?”

They're in the woods, there probably aren't any mics around, but he can't check or ask or it'll be obvious there's something he doesn't want them hearing—

—wait, would that even matter, nobody here knows what Panem is, and Panem maps sure don't know where the Dream SMP is— 

—no. shut up. SHUT UP. 

"...I mean," he says, very carefully nonchalant about it (and by now he does a very good impression of nonchalance), "there's been, like, violence since then? But nobody who would want to pick a fight with the Capitol stands an actual chance, so— not war, not really." 

“Sounds like the Capitol’s lucky Technoblade isn’t in your world.” Pause. “My clone, what side is he on?”

"...no, we have a Technoblade. Other you is— Wilbur, there aren't sides. That's not a thing." 

Shrug. “You said there was violence. I’ve died for a hopeless cause before.” Then the rest of the sentence catches up to him. “—you have a Technoblade? How big even is the Capitol? Or is he helping them, is that why no one can touch it?”

Well, this is a completely different sort of not really feeling present in his body than usual. 

"The population of Panem-- that's the whole country-- is forty-five million and something. The population of the Capitol is, I think it was around a million? I could be wrong about that, it's been a while. The size of the military is classified, I could try to ballpark it if I had the budgets in front of me but I don't, it's at least a couple hundred thousand and it's probably not much more than a million.

I don't know Technoblade, I don't know his political leanings, maybe he has them, I doubt he's providing much military support. Please do not make me speculate on any treason my loved ones may or may not be doing." 

"Million?"

Okay. He is... recalibrating. He had figured the military had to be at least a hundred people, if Techno couldn't do anything, but-- wow. That is a lot of people.

"Okay. Wow. That's even bigger than hypixel, I reckon. ...I guess I've gotten a hundred thousand viewers before but that's not, like-- I should probably shut up before I offend somebody."

"Yeah. It's-- yeah."

There's a lot more that could be said. Saying it-- feels a little too much like a point of no return.

"L'Manberg was, what, five people? Me, you, Tubbo, my little furry son--Eret--no, six, wasn't Jack Manifold or someone there? --You get the picture."

"Your— your son?"

"...Fundy, yeah." (It sounds like it's maybe a bit of a sore spot for him. He doesn't look that much older than the Wilbur Quackity knows? His face looks mid-twenties, although there's premature white streaked through his hair.)

Yeah. There's white streaked through his Wilbur's hair, too, following the scar from his skin grafts. 

He... isn't totally sure he wants to poke at that. Wil went to quite some effort to make sure his marriage wouldn't, couldn't, produce any children. 

"...other Wilbur doesn't have kids. —also I don't see how you could possibly have a country with six people in it, six people is not a country it is a house." 

"We mostly had our own houses. Well. I didn't. Tommy did." He scowls at the ground and kicks a rock as though it personally offended him. "Anyway, Las Nevadas" --gestures-- "is the same, might even be less people."

(Las Nevadas does not look, to someone who's used to non-minecraft worlds, like the sort of area with six-maybe-less citizens. There aren't really houses, sure, but the buildings are plenty big. That said, it's definitely true that Quackity hasn't really... seen.... any.... people, in it, other than other-Quackity and the one ?person? behind the counter of the restaurant.)

He will take Wilbur's lead in not going down the Fundy-related conversational path.

"Isn't Las Nevadas also, like, one guy's personal property? The way he talked about it, it definitely sounded like it was other-Quackity's personal property." 

"...Kind of? I am pretty sure he has citizens."

"He does, yeah. Slime and Foolish, at least, I know 'cause they took Linda and then I took Slime so Foolish made a trade for Linda back but I scammed him 'cause I'm a big man."

"Yeah, no, I'm not calling that a country either. I'm willing to be consistent on this." 

Shrug. “Feel free to take it up with him. I’ve left my days of presidency behind me.”

"Hm. I think I will not do that." 

Pause. 

They are still, he reminds himself, in the middle of the woods. They are in, as far as he can tell, an alternate universe. Nobody it would be dangerous to be heard by can possibly be listening. That doesn't mean it's a good idea to speculate about treason— if nothing else he might go back the same inexplicable way he came, and he'd still remember even if nobody heard— but— 

"...and good for you, man."

It's... maybe a little too emphatic. Oh well. 

Well, that almost makes Wilbur feel bad about how much it is Not The Whole Truth. Telling the full truth probably would’ve been worse, though, so. And this Quackity doesn’t think L’Manberg was a country anyway! So it’s fine.

“Thanks, man. Means a lot. Like I said. I’ve changed a lot.”

"'S kind of weird thinking of it as something you can just-- put down and walk away from. But, I don't know, it sure seems better than our way."

“That’s the ideal, right? Everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid. Peaceful transfer of power. Not that I— I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say I put it down and walked away. That’s not really—the kind of person I am. …Was.”

And no one shall make them afraid. There's definitely a story there but next time he's alone he is going to cry about that, he can feel it. 

"That's—" 

His voice breaks. Fuck. 

…He’s torn between ‘what did I do this time, I didn’t even talk much about the bad part’ and ‘is this how everyone feels around me?’ “Well. It’s in the past now.”

Normal. We are being fucking normal. He can't even lean on professional skills for this part; not being present for the conversation would be easier but it would also be strictly worse. What a ripoff. 

"I admit to being curious what happened but you don't, like, have to answer that if you don't wanna," which is not even slightly about governmental philosophy or Quackity's backstory, and is a relatively normal opportunity to mention that he won't be bothered about not getting an answer. Also it just kind of sounds like Wilbur is fishing to be asked. 

“I blew it up. L’Manberg. Because I, I lost the election. And then Phil killed me. —I mean, don’t get me wrong, that me, he deserved it. But I’m glad to be back.”

That's so... specific. Like, it's not identical to what went down at the end of his Wilbur's games, not by a long shot, but the similarities are— striking. If Q was looking for a distraction from governmental philosophies that make him cry, he's found it. 

He does not particularly look more afraid of Wilbur, for whatever that's worth; he actually looks less afraid of him than he has since the attempt at apologizing. 

"...huh." 

"Okay, what's the punchline."

"Right, yeah, context, sorry— so, Wil and I are both Hunger Games victors. When he was in the arena his mentor was Phil, and— his whole thing was very much, playing to the cameras and the sponsors rather than to the other competitors? Anyway, he asked Phil for the parts to make a bomb, and he got them, and then he blew up himself and the other four remaining tributes, and he extremely improbably survived the explosion, and that's how he won.

And, like— it's not the same, right, there are some important differences there. But it's weirdly specific." 

"Oh, I bet he hated that."

Shrug. "Couldn't say, he doesn't really talk about it. He'd made his peace with it by the time I met him but that was five years later." 

"Five years'd probably do it."

"Seven, now! Almost eight.

...I kind of wonder if other-Quackity has some absurdly specific event that matches up weirdly well with something I did even though our circumstances were completely different, but I'm pretty sure if I asked I would not get a helpful answer." 

"Ran against me for president? Worked with Schlatt? Not sure when he started Las Nevadas but" --sweeping gesture at Las Nevadas-- "that happened, at some point."

"You could not fucking pay me enough to run for president, holy shit— wait no nevermind, your countries only have six people and the sitting president sometimes loses, I could see myself doing that actually. Doesn't obviously match up with anything, though." His hands go into the pockets of his jacket. "I guess if you said I worked with Schlatt that would not be wrong exactly."

"Schlatt won the presidency. You were his vice." 

"—okay, that on the other hand is just cursed." 

"You're not wrong."

"My situation, to be clear, was not that cursed. He was my mentor, he handled sponsorships and shit when I was in the arena, he's the reason I'm alive but he was never, like— in charge of anything." 

"...I dunno, man, Schlatt as a mentor sounds pretty fucking cursed to me. Maybe if he's just handling sponsorships, hey, whatever works."

His hands go deeper into his pockets. "Eh. It went fine." 

“Did he still have a heart attack and die, or did it go better than that?”

"Liver failure, and it took about four months to actually kill him. By the end of it I think a heart attack would've been a mercy." 

“I mean, I wasn’t that close to him at the time, maybe his liver was failing. He died of natural causes, despite my best efforts to the contrary.”

He doesn't make any sort of face about that, but he wants to. "Ah. Yeah, it was natural causes. Little more than a year ago." 

“Less than a year ago here. More if you’re me.”

"How's that work?" 

“When you’re dead, it— time goes slower. Nothing changes there but time, time still passes. It’s a month for every day, or thereabouts. Ask anyone else, I spent six months there, but my count was thirteen and a half years.”

Thirteen and a half years ago, Quackity hadn't turned six yet. His older sister was twelve. Wil was eleven, not even reaping age. George was fourteen, still in the academy. Tubbo was three. 

"Fuck, man." 

“It wasn’t… I don’t want to go back there. I— fucking, anything else. Fucking anything, man. Just no more of that fucking train station.”

'Totally inordinate amounts of train station', mark that one down on the list of things that don't match up exactly but are eerily rhyming. 

"Do you want, like— a hug, or something," is what he actually says. It seems strictly more helpful. 

Deep breath. Deeeeeeeep breath.

"Yes, please," he says, very quietly.

Okay. He can have one.

Working around the height difference is by this point something like second nature, and he's several years' worth of familiar with how Wilbur does and does not want to be touched. That's probably not all applicable to a different person with a different history but hopefully it's similar enough. 

This Wilbur holds himself very still at first, before slowly, deliberately moving his arms to reciprocate the hug. His grip is barely-there at first, steadily getting stronger until he's squeezing Quackity quite hard.

"Thank you," he says, when he lets go. He's smiling; his eyes are more than a little wet. "I--thank you, I needed that."

"I-- think I did too." Fuck, is he tearing up too? He is. Oh well. He smiles up at Wilbur anyway.

Tommy pokes his head back from wherever he had wandered off to. "ARE YOU TWO DONE KISSING OR WHATEVER."

"We weren't kissing, stop being ridiculous." Pause. Eyebrow raise at Quackity. "Unless...?"

"EW. GROSS. GOODBYE AGAIN."

(Fond laugh-smile directed towards Tommy's back, once he's far enough away that he won't see it.)

It's maybe a problem that Quackity's doing this much speedrunning of being comfortable and relaxed around someone who he technically speaking met today, but (he reasons) it's better than not having anyone he can relax around. This might be stupid but he is, as established, kind of stupid sometimes. If it bites him it won't kill him probably. "Cute. You guys are cute." 

Pause. 

"...also I did like the flirting, before there was suddenly an axe in my face. I would be happy to do more of that. If you wanted."

“Well. You know me.” Eyebrow waggle, and then he pauses, collecting his thoughts. “It’s not— he doesn’t have a problem with the flirting. Other than not wanting to be there for it. He’s just… protective. Like a yappy dog trying to protect me from the mailman. He’s harmless.” Another pause. “You don’t know me, not really. I could be dangerous. Could do worse than an axe to the face.”

It kinda seemed like he had a problem with it but hey, Wilbur knows Tommy better than Q does. He's not pushing.

"It's true. I don't. You could indeed be dangerous. Is there some reason this is not also true of everyone else? Because if you're trying to tell me you think I should go be a hermit in the desert or something and never speak to another person again I'm not fucking doing that." 

“I was trying to flirt, that time. Quackity all on his own with the big bad Wilbur, what will everyone think, what could happen next.”

"Well, in that case." There isn't an obvious change in how he's holding himself, but he does look different. A little more self-assured, maybe. "Oh no. I'm being threatened by a handsome man. What am I going to do." 

Wilbur giggles, a high noise, hee-hee-hee!, before lowering his voice and trying to sound cool again. "Well, that's up to you, isn't it, big Q?"

He steps forward, into Wilbur’s space, looks up at him through his eyelashes. "Is it?" 

“Well.”

Wilbur’s taller than Quackity. It’s true of his Quackity and it’s true of this one. He’s not sure if he’s stronger or not, but he can use that height; he backs Quackity against the stone, puts his hands to either side of him, caging him in. And then he bends down and bites Quackity’s neck, hard, until he tastes iron.

(Quackity hadn’t liked that, in Pogtopia. Then again, that was a very different Quackity.)

Wilbur is welcome to back him against the stone. He's even welcome to cage him in, although that's only true because Q is, as previously mentioned, kind of stupid, and Quackity's visibly nervous about it. But well before he gets to the point of drawing blood Quackity's going "stopstopstopstopstop," hands scrabbling up to Wilbur's hair to pull him away. 

Wilbur does, in fact, stop. Not only that, he immediately kneels and shoves his sword into Quackity’s hands. 

Okay. Okay. He's okay. He's okay. You can ask for things to stop and they will stop and you will not be hurt for it and they will stop. They will stop. 

He said stop, and Wilbur stopped. Both times, now, he's stopped. 

He points the sword down— still in his hands, not about to hurt anyone. "Okay," he says. Breathes deep. In, out. "Rule number one. Do not fucking do that. If— if you want to touch me, you have to ask." 

Wilbur had, at some point, squeezed his eyes shut. He’s not sure when.

He doesn’t realize he had been bracing for pain until it doesn’t come. He opens his eyes and he is still in Paradise, just outside Las Nevadas, and the sun is bright like a halo behind Quackity, and he is not in a train station. 

Good. He hadn’t wanted to go back, not— not really. He’s glad he’s out. 

(Quackity’s not pointing the sword at him. Half of him wants to grab it back. The other half wants to grab the blade, pull it towards himself until he’s impaled, except for how it’s not a fucking escape, nothing is, just endless fucking train station—)

He doesn’t grab the sword, hilt or blade. He blinks against the sun. Right. Yes. Quackity. Words. No touching. Huh, he had expected to get a fuck off, Wilbur, but not—huh. Well. Different Quackity, after all. Asked and answered.

“Like a museum piece.”

In, out. In, out. "No," he says, "not like a museum piece." His hands are shaking. Maybe he should not be holding a large object that is also a weapon. On the other hand he's pretty sure if he puts it down he'll immediately have a panic attack, so. "Like a fucking person. Who has preferences about whether or not you bite them, which you need to find out before you do it." 

Yeah Wilbur is also kind of out of it at the moment. “Are you going to kill me? I might come back, you know. Already did once. Haven’t— completed my character arc.”

In, out. In, out. Breathe. It's alright, love, you're alright, says the part of his brain that speaks in his Wilbur's voice— no, shut up, hey, babe, it's okay, I got you, says the part that speaks in Sapnap's— some part of him, wildly, stupidly, thinks it smells smoke— 

"I am not," says Quackity, "going to kill you."

“No? Gonna punish me? Come on, Quackity. Wouldn’t it be fucking satisfying?” He goes to grab Quackity’s wrist, remembers himself, leaves his hands hovering in the air, asking without asking. “Don’t you want to make me fucking suffer?”

That, at least, is easy to answer. "No."

Wilbur rocks back on his heels a little, like a marionette going limp. His hands fall to his sides; a gust of breath leaves him all at once. “Fine. Don’t dirty your hands, then. You’re— you’re interesting, other-Quackity. I stand by that.”

He puts the sword away, into his inventory. "Don't suppose I can get you to tell me what that means?" 

(It’s a stone sword. Not very good, but better than nothing.)

“I can’t tell what you think of me or how similar you are to— the Quackity I’m more used to.”

Look. He is not evaluating how good his weapon is. He has one. He hasn't been allowed to go around armed since the arena and now he is and that matters. 

"...guess that's fair enough. Hell knows I can't tell what you're thinking either."

“I know it’s not really fair, to be comparing, but it’s—hard not to, you know?”

"Yeah. I do." If Wilbur didn't have the face and voice of his closest friend— doesn't bear thinking about. 

“I’m going to stand back up now, alright?” He is minimally shaky about the whole endeavor, even. Plays it off casual, calm. The adrenaline’s pumping and it’s exhilarating, it’s awesome, he wants Quackity to be holding the sword again, he wants to stay on this high forever. He feels fucking alive.

"Sure." He does, however, step away from the wall. Having his back to something solid isn't worth being that easily pinned. 

That’s fine. Wilbur holds his hands up. “I’m unarmed.” (He’s got materials for another sword if he needs it in his inventory. And he has TNT and materials for a button. Not the point.)

"Wasn't worried about it." That's actually true. Wilbur has been many things but he has not put Quackity in physical danger. 

...however, Q is kind of thinking at this point that he should maybe find any other people he can talk to. "Different subject— I'm kind of wondering, there's another me and another you and another Tommy and so on, but we don't have everyone you've mentioned and you can't possibly have a version of everyone I know. Do you have, I don't know— a Sapnap, a George, a Leilah, a Dream, a Wiress—"

“We have a— Dream, Sapnap, and George. I don’t know any of the others. Tubbo? Ranboo?”

"Tubbo yes, Ranboo not that I know of but I wouldn't necessarily know it if we did.

Do you know where I'd, uh, find Dream and Sapnap and George." 

“Well. I know where you’d find Dream.”

He’s grinning like there’s an inside joke Quackity’s not in on. 

"...which is where?" 

“Prison. He’s in prison, they locked him up, for daring to stand against them. For stepping between them and power. They needed a scapegoat and— I’m lucky I was dead, or they would’ve found me. He resurrected me, and how is he repaid? Solitary confinement.

I’ve been thinking about visiting. I know Tommy did. I know Ghostbur did, poor pathetic Ghostbur.”

Quackity, meanwhile, has the distinct impression that he's just fallen into a pit of missing context.

".....okay?" (Who is they, part of him wants to know immediately. What was he a scapegoat for? He doesn't ask that, though, not out loud--) 

“I don’t know where Sapnap and George are. George is probably sleeping. Dream though, Dream is— Dream’s my hero, man. And he’s in prison.”

That... honestly, that just seems like a perfectly normal thing to have happen, to Quackity. Kind of weird that it's Dream who ended up in prison for it, the Dream who Q's familiar with loves his stylist team more than some people love their mothers, but different versions of people are apparently quite different and the circumstances wouldn't be the same at all-- or maybe it's just that he leaned too far into the scary supervillain image, made himself a target in a different way. Who knows.

Only one way to find out, and it's not to ask Dream, who wouldn't give a straight answer. It is not to ask Sapnap, who, for all his many virtues, is not exactly the kind of person you trust with the full context of your decisions or with any story other than the official one. 

...brain, please shut up about his Sapnap. 

"What did he do? Uh, that made them want to put him in prison." 

“Didn’t do what they wanted. Didn’t let L’Manberg—or anyone else, for that matter—come to power again. Kept my throne warm. Killed my ghost and brought me back.”

He glances, involuntarily, at the trees-- but if there are cameras around, which there still probably aren't because this is a forest, Wilbur casually declaring that Dream is his hero would be more incriminating than anything Quackity (who after all doesn't have context, and can very plausibly plead ignorance!) could possibly ask. 

"...who's they? If you can say." 

“Fucking— everyone. Everyone wants him there. They’re, they’re punishing him, for, for wanting power. It’s retribution. Biblical judgement. They want me in there too, they’re just waiting for, an excuse. But I’m not going to give them one. I’m not going to fucking give them one.”

Well, good luck with that, if you're going around declaring him your hero and saying he's only there because they needed a scapegoat out loud with your mouth words where people can hear you.

He's not saying that, it's incredibly rude. 

He is, however, noting the lack of real answer. Sometimes admitting you only aren't speaking because you're not allowed to-- admitting that there's something you're not allowed to say-- is the worst thing you can do. So. That's fun. 

"Right," he says, easily, which means absolutely nothing. 

"You get it," Wilbur says, totally oblivious to any subtext.

You have to understand: there are many, many things you can say about Wilbur. Quackity is absolutely not going to arrive at the hypothesis that oblivious to subtext might be one of them.

"I get it," he agrees. "...I should probably try to find Sapnap." 

"I have no idea where you'd find him. Tommy might know, other-Quackity definitely would know but might not tell us."

"...honestly I was just going to text him." He has his pager in his pocket, still. 

Quackity_V68 whispers to Sapnap: hi 

Quackity_V68 whispers to Sapnap: are you busy rn? 

Sapnap whispers to Quackity_V68: no

Sapnap whispers to Quackity_V68: why?

Quackity_V68 whispers to Sapnap: was hoping we could talk. where are you?

Sapnap whispers to Quackity_V68: kinoko kingdom

Quackity_V68 whispers to Sapnap: I... don't know where that is, sorry 

Sapnap whispers to Quackity_V68: where do you want to meet?

Quackity_V68 whispers to Sapnap: the starting point? I can get there in about 5 minutes 

Sapnap whispers to Quackity_V68: spawn? sure

Spawn! Cool. He loves knowing the actual names of things. 

Back to the outpost and through the portals etc. He's... not really sure what he's expecting, at this point, but. 

At spawn is Sapnap, in full glowing purple armor and a slightly wary expression that evaporates when he sees Quackity.

"Quackity! Good to see you, man."

Some things, apparently, don't change. Q's Sapnap wears his hair a little longer-- just barely enough to tie back-- but this one's the same age, the same height, wearing the same t-shirt over long black sleeves and the same dumb white headband. He smiles the same. 

There is something bubbling up inside his stomach and if he doesn't shut it down right the fuck now he's going to break down sobbing. 

In his defense, it's been a really long morning. 

"Good to see you too." 

"What's up! Wow, I haven't seen you in months!"

"--I, um. I'm like, brand new to the SMP, I got here yesterday, you have not actually seen me ever technically. Sorry. I don't know what's up with the names thing-- Tommy's theory was that I'm your Quackity's evil clone, I think that sounds kind of dubious but I don't exactly have a better idea--" 

Squint. "Names and faces, you look just like him. Different clothes, but those change, dude. You're really brand new, different guy?"

He really needs to find clothes he feels less self-conscious about. (That don't make him look like a party favor. That don't tell you he is a party favor. Shut the fuck up.) 

"Yep! He thought he was being parodied, didn't believe me that I wasn't doing it on purpose. --you look almost exactly like someone I know also named Sapnap, it's kind of a lot." 

"Huh. Weird. ...What did you want to see me for?"

I don't know anyone or anything here and I feel safe when I'm near you and--

I wanted to see someone who I liked and felt comfortable around who probably wouldn't suddenly drop everything just to scare me and equally suddenly turn gentle again--

I love you and I miss you and I am so fucking scared of what might be happening to you that if I let myself grieve I'm worried I'll never stop--

No. Absolutely not. Sapnap's treating him like he's new. None of those are something you can put on someone you just met. 

"Um. I have mostly been talking to Wilbur but he's incredibly bad at explaining anything to people who don't have context." 

"Sure, hit me. Uh, I don't really have very much context either, though."

He isn't here for emotional support. He's here for information. He has something he wants to find out so he looked for someone who could tell him. That's a success. This is a stranger who looks weirdly like his boyfriend, and if he expected anything else, that's on him.

If he makes it through this conversation without making it fucking weird, he can find somewhere to curl up and cry as much as he wants, how about that. 

Good. Now be fucking normal. 

"--um. Why is Dream in prison?" 

“Tried to kill Tommy and Tubbo.”

He guesses it makes sense that Dream and Tommy would have ever met. There's just fewer people here. Tommy and Wilbur are, like, best friends, or something. More to the point (and he is sticking to the point):

"Do you know... why? ...also I had kind of gotten the impression that death doesn't take, here?" 

“He had, like, a whole vault? And a villain speech? I dunno, dude, it was creepy. They’re on their final lives, and I really don’t think he was going to kill them noncanonically.”

"...right. Okay, thank you." 

So the real answer is probably in the vault and the villain speech. Note to self: ask someone-- preferably someone he can manage to not be this fucking weird about-- about what it means for a kill to be canonical.

"Um, I think that's it?" 

“Anytime. D’you want to see Kinoko?”

On the one hand: no, absolutely not, he wants to go and curl up into a tiny ball and sob his eyes out and not have to remind himself to treat this stranger like a stranger. 

On the other hand: yes. Please. I want to spend more time with you. I always want to spend more time with you. 

"I'd love to." 

"Awesome. Follow me."

Kinoko kingdom is beautiful and huge. It's mushroom-themed, to the point of a couple of the houses being shaped like mushrooms. There's a dragon statue and a huge yin-yang pool. 

"So this is the shroom shack," Sapnap says, "and this is Party Island, and this is my building for doing military stuff, we don't have any enemies or anything right now but I've gotta be ready, y'know? Gotta be in fighting shape. And those are empty houses, if anyone wants to join, and that's Karl and George's house, and that's my house."

It's also very, very quiet. Sapnap and Quackity's footsteps, Sapnap's voice, are the only noises.

"It's gorgeous." It is gorgeous. Maybe this is just what happens, if a country is five people and a military is just one. Beautiful architecture with nobody in it. "You... don't live with George?"

“Nah, I haven’t lived with George in—what, probably a year now? I mean, he’s still right next door, it’s not like he’s far.”

His Sapnap-- maybe? Nope, moved in with Dream and George right out of the arena, would've been in residential training before that, was a kid before that. He's never lived alone. 

"Huh." He looks up at the white-spotted mushroom tops of the buildings. "Fair enough." 

"The empty ones are open to anyone who wants to join. By the way."

"I've been hanging out near Las Nevadas but I will consider it!"

Actually, that might be a good idea even given the whole situation with his ability to be normal and the lack thereof; he still doesn't have somewhere to stay that has a bed. And doesn't super want to sleep in the tollbooth again. 

"What's Las Nevadas?"

"--uh, other-Quackity's place? It's-- if you take the portal from spawn and then the nearest portal to that, that dumps you out pretty near it, it's in a desert but like a fairly cold one-- it's got a giant sign, it's kind of hard to miss? I didn't spend much time actually in the place, he really did not want me there." 

"I-- it's-- oh. Okay. I'll... go check it out, I guess."

--ah, shit, he has fallen into a pit of missing context again and this time it's personal. 

"I can go with you if you want--?" Is that weird? Well he can't take it back now.  

"No, it's fine, if he didn't want you there it's probably a bad idea. Sorry, you seem cool."

"No worries, man." He's being so normal. So, so normal.

Sapnap too. "Let me know if you want to see anything closer up? Or you can just come here on your own, I guess. I might jump you before I see it's you, though, so watch out." It's mostly a joke; he smiles.

He smiles back. It's not even fake.

Please, part of his brain begs the rest, please, please just shut up. 

"...can I stay here for a night even if I'm not sure if I'm joining long-term? I, uh, don't actually have anywhere... else." 

"Of course, man. Stay as long as you need."

"...thank you." 

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck he needs to be alone right now is there somewhere convenient he can do that—

Sapnap's not stopping him from just walking off. Lots of empty buildings, corners, etc. Not to mention the ability to just dig a hole in the ground.

He is not going to dig a hole in the ground to cry in, that's stupid. He nods to Sapnap like a normal person and then he finds an empty building. 

And then he sits down on the floor and pulls his knees up close to his chest and just, fucking,

(everyone here is a stranger and sometimes they're unexpectedly kind given that but he can't rely on it and he's going to have to pay up at some point and, and he misses wil and sapnap and tubbo and george and karl so fucking bad, it's barely been a day since he saw wilbur but he misses him, he misses having anyone who knew him and he misses having any idea what was going on and also he just fucking misses them, misses them so desperately that apparently he'll cling to strangers who have the same names—)

(and it isn't going to be obvious to anyone that he didn't disappear on purpose, it's going to look to the capitol like he found a way out and it's going to look to his friends like he got vanished off the face of the fucking earth, and it's tubbo who's going to suffer for that and maybe sapnap too, and he doesn't want to think about this and he can't wrench himself away from it to think about anything else and—)

(and dream here is in prison and he still doesn't know why and apparently he is still in the sort of place where you aren't allowed to say even that there's things you aren't allowed to say, except he has no idea who's doing the allowing anymore, and he is so so so tired of constantly keeping his mouth shut and wil would get it but wil isn't here and—)

spends at least half an hour breaking down, and then another twenty minutes or so pulling himself back together. 

Quackity_V68 whispers to Quackity: you might have to have a conversation with sapnap soon

Quackity_V68 whispers to Quackity: it wasn't on purpose I just didn't realize he didn't know what las nevadas was

Quackity_V68 whispers to Quackity: so if there's a reason you weren't doing that I'm sorry

No response. 

Not long after he sends it, he hears yelling from outside. Other-him and Karl and Sapnap. (—what the fuck are you talking about? — sacrifices —  guys — what have you done for me — not funny — karl — what the fuck was El Rapids — bad fucking idea — murderer — not fucking joking — he blamed me — I don’t know — a murderer —)

Eventually, the yelling stops. 

Fuck. 

As the yelling is starting to die down he gets to his feet. Carefully, nervously, opens the door. 

Sapnap’s there and nobody else. His eyes are redder than they were. He smiles at Quackity anyway. 

"...is everyone okay?" 

Stupid question, maybe. It didn't sound like anyone got hurt, at least. 

…Shrug. “I dunno, man. I think something’s wrong with Karl.”

This is a fucking stranger. Don't make it weird. 

...but this is also a version of Sapnap, who has obviously been crying. 

"Do you want--" and then he cuts himself off. "Sorry. I don't know. You can tell me to fuck off, I won't take it personally." 

“…Yeah, uh, no offense, I don’t actually know you. Sorry. I guess it depends what you’re offering?”

"Yeah, nothing that wasn't gonna be weird. None taken." 

He goes back inside. 

There's a pair of headphones in his pocket and he's probably never going to be able to give them back, and there's a note reminding him to file some paperwork with the transport bureau as a promise to Tubbo that he's never going to be able to fulfill, and he will probably never speak to a Sapnap who knows him ever again, and his jacket is the only other thing left from anyone he has ever loved, and he has cried himself out already so how about instead he tries to get some actual sleep. 

Sure, he can do that. He has nightmares, but he sleeps. 

Yeah, he's had constant nightmares since he was sixteen. There's a reason he carries tranqs in his pocket. 

The next morning he's actually rested. Advantages of sleeping in a bed and not in a random place on the ground, he guesses. This house has a shower, which he uses, gets the two day old makeup off his face, washes his clothes by hand in the sink until he's satisfied he's gotten all the sand out, folds his jacket and leaves it neatly on the bed. 

He's still miserable but he's kinda numb about it. No time like the present, he guesses, to find out what's up with Dream. 

If he walks around the main area for a while, he will find:

- a small dirt hobbit hole of a house, built into the hillside and covered in flowers
- a couple abandoned shops
- a white quartz church
- a white quartz house
- an overgrown crater with an obsidian grid above it
- a very large prison. the main prison is a box, without any apparent way to enter, but there's another building a bit away from it in the same style.

Alternatively, he could talk to someone and find out things like "where the prison is", "how to enter the prison", and/or "how death works".

The last three times he's tried talking to a person it has been a mistake. Possibly the last four. How about that building a bit away from the prison in the same style. 

There's a portal inside, and a button.

He will... push the button. 

A moment passes, and then a man's voice comes through speakers: "Hello?"

The voice sounds familiar but he can't place it. Not someone he knows well enough to recognize immediately, then; it's cold comfort but it's anything. 

"Hello." 

“Oh, hey Quackity.”

Guy on the other end of the button doesn't sound surprised to hear him. Maybe he'll let other-Quackity take the fall for this one. "I was hoping to visit the prison," he says, projecting as much confidence as a person who isn't actually sure they've got the right building can. 

Well, shit. ...Then again, he doesn't sound angry. Maybe it's fine.

"Step through the portal. Let me know when you're on the other side."

The voice is almost entirely monotone; it's the voice of someone reading off a procedure.

Holy shit. That worked. 

He steps through the portal. "I'm on the other side." 

The other side is a small, entirely-enclosed room that doesn't connect to anything. A few seconds pass. "Okay, you can come back through now."

He does that. Very polite of prison visiting to involve things he can do, like stepping through portals, and not things he cannot do, like convincingly pretend for more than a sentence that he knows the procedure for visiting a prison. 

Room! Room with a man in it. Well. Sort of a man. Definitely not a human. A bipedal furry green creature wearing the same glowing purple armor as Ranboo and other-Quackity and Sapnap. He sighs. "You lost the armor I got for you again? Follow me." (He doesn't particularly sound like he's expecting an answer.)

(Meanwhile, Sam is registering that Quackity doesn't have a scar anymore. Well. If he's not asking Sam why Dream's still in the prison, he won't ask any questions either. He can go through procedure for Quackity visiting. He's good at that.)

He... will not answer, then. He follows. 

They go through several hallways, the man flicking levers and throwing books and entering passwords into invisible machinery to unlock new areas, until they reach an area in front of lava. While they wait for the lava to drop, Sam wordlessly hands over a full set of the glowing purple armor, as well as a glowing purple axe, a glowing purple sword, and glowing iron shears. He doesn't seem to think any of this is worthy of commenting on.

Ahahaha what the fuck. 

Okay. Uh. He... will put on the armor, put the weapons into his inventory, and stand there like this is entirely normal and not worthy of comment because he does it all the time. 

He is capable of looking unfazed. At least he doesn't have to talk at all. 

"Remember to walk with the platform," Sam says, all in a rush, once the platform beneath Quackity's feet has already started moving.

Shit okay he can do that!!!! 

Dream's cell is across the lava.

As soon as he sees Quackity, he runs and hides in a corner such that he's not visible.

When Quackity reaches the other side of the lava, there is a barrier up. The lava falls; once the escape route is cut off, the barrier separating him and Dream comes down.

This— 

No. This makes sense, actually. 

If someone is in prison for— he's glossing it as treason— then visiting them would either be forbidden, and mark you as a target if you tried; or it would be sanctioned, and be an opportunity to hurt them. This is clearly not the former. So it's the latter.

And apparently other-Quackity does this quite a lot. 

"Hi," he says, awkwardly. At least the weapons are in his inventory, not his hands. 

"Sam said--he promised he wouldn't tell you I was still in here--SAM--SAM--" Dream is shrunk as small as he possibly can into the corner. It's not a large cell.

"Sam didn't tell me anything." He's got his hands out, palms up, empty. Sam is— presumably the green man? If Dream expects he'll hear them? If anywhere in the whole place is being watched this cell is, but he's already letting other-him take the fall. This strategy won't survive his existence becoming common knowledge but it's okay he'll figure that out if it happens. 

(He's never actually seen Dream without the mask before? It's weird. It feels like something he shouldn't be looking at.) 

Dream without the mask: pretty scarred up. He's got green eyes and freckles and a nose that's been broken and set at least once. His hair is choppily cut in areas and burned at the tips in others.

"What are you fucking playing at!" His voice is high, almost hysterical.

There's no good answer. Literally everything he can think of to say sounds like a threat. 

"...to the best of your knowledge, are we being watched." 

"...Obviously."

That, at least, sounded like Dream. Score one for unbelievably stupid questions. 

"Cool. Hm." Sam... might or might not do anything to him. He's genuinely not sure. He notably did not ask any awkward-to-answer questions on the way in; he handed Q weapons, well-made ones from the look of them, without thinking about it. On the other hand, that's because he thinks he's other-Quackity. Breaking that illusion might not be the best of plans. 

On the other other hand, he does have to say something, and unless he feels like hitting Dream with a pair of shears(?) he's not going to be able to keep up an act as other-Quackity anyway. "Okay. Then I'm here to ask you some more unbelievably stupid questions." 

“I’m still not answering them.” If Quackity wants a sir he’ll have to ask for it. 

"That's cool." He sits down on the floor, which is not super comfortable in armor but it puts him firmly lower to the ground than Dream is. "But I think you might be underestimating how stupid they are. Why would you say you're in prison?"

…Squint. The lighting’s bad in the cell but it’s not that bad. “Why don’t you have your scar?”

Hm. If he's very, very lucky, Sam will think he's doing something bizarre and galaxy-brained, and then he won't ask other-Quackity what that was about.

"Very weird reasons which I expect you wouldn't believe me about. --I can go into it if you actually wanna know, I'm just, like, warning you that it's weird and you're not going to believe me." 

“Obviously I wanna know.”

He sounds like Dream again. Q doesn't look at his face, watches his hands instead. 

"Someone's theory is that I'm Quackity's evil clone." He's not naming Wilbur. "I've never had that scar." 

“Huh.” He’s not sure if he’s telling the full truth. Still. “And why do you think I’m in here?”