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Quackity is not known for his good decisions. It just isn’t something people talk about. Like, sure, they’d be like oooh, yes, Alex Careful Danger Quackity, he’s so cool and poggers, attracts all the women and men and non-binary people and also dragons because of the Booty Shorts, but Quackity doesn’t think he’s ever heard oooh, yes, Alex Careful Danger Quackity, he makes good decisions all the time. He’s just not remarkably renowned on that particular axis.
Doesn’t mean he’s known for his bad decisions, though. He was a trusted member of the Cabinet for a very long time, had presidents ask him for his reads on situations, on the best path forwards - doesn’t want to think about that right now, thanks, so. Moving on. He may be reckless, and he may make more use of the respawn mechanic than is strictly considered average, but when he actually thinks something over it’s never gone too horribly wrong. Mostly. Sometimes. Well, he has to tell himself this, anyway. Because if he doesn’t, then he’ll spiral, and then he can’t think at all, and nobody wants that. He’s nothing if he can’t be witty.
(He lives by the speed of his tongue, now. Doesn’t use his wings, so the only thing he has left to fly by is the seat of his pants. It’s whatever.)
Which is all a long and very involved way to remind himself that he has thought this through, and he has made a list, and he has put actual valuable brain cells into figuring out what his options are in this scenario. Option, singular. He’d love it if there were more, but things are what they are, and he has to do this, so why’s he sitting in a bush, then, one of the only pieces of vegetation on the open cold tundra? Why’s he shivering? He planned ahead, brought his warmest coat. It pins his wings uncomfortably against his back. Why’s he shivering, sitting here, if -? Oh. Maybe his hands are just shaking ‘cause he’s scared.
But he’s Big Q, and hey, maybe he can emulate the kid that gave him the name for a little. For long enough to be brash and loud and stroll into this little peaceful commune like he owns it. Not owns it, actually. They probably wouldn’t take kindly to that. Like he belongs, perhaps, which he knows he never will; he’s just gotta be there for long enough to execute his plan. Get in. Talk to Philza Minecraft. ???. Get his wings fucking sorted. Get out.
The ‘profit’ punchline would be weirdly inappropriate, given he’s about to walk into a thriving anarchist commune. He’s heard this is where Nihachu ended up. Ranboo too. Looks like the blood god and the old man are taking in strays left and right.
(Yes, he’s afraid of the blood god. That’s one thing they do talk about. Alex Quackity, self-professed coward; at least he’s honest with himself.)
So.
Quackity stands from behind the bush. Doesn’t bother squaring his shoulders. The first house is quite small, and he’ll knock on that door first. Just watch.
He’ll fix his feathers if it fucking kills him. He’s been too scared to fly for long enough.
Shockingly enough, Quackity gets lucky. It’s Niki Nihachu that opens the door.
Her hair’s pink now. He gets to be privy to the way she’s conflicted; emotions flash across her face, a spinning roulette wheel (just another addiction), and Quackity wonders if it’ll land on joy or wariness. If he’ll luck out twice in a row. He’s always been good at seeing what people are feeling, and it’s never really paid out in his favour. (Schlatt was hurting, all the time. It was real hurt, never feigned. It didn’t make it okay, Quackity reminds himself, in the voice he uses when his brain’s being a little piece of fuck, and watches Nihachu’s face continue - tap-dancing, or what the fuck ever.)
Finally, Nihachu’s expression settles on a wavering, cautious smile; Quackity resists the urge to punch the air. He likes celebrating loudly. Laughing while he can - that’s plenty. “Quackity,” says Nihachu, her voice as soft and gently articulated as ever. “What are you doing here?”
“Funny story,” says Quackity, because that’s how he makes people like him.
Nihachu’s face goes guarded, just a little more. “I hope you don’t have any weapons,” she says. “Because I have been practicing, but I don’t know if I am ready to hurt people yet.”
So it didn’t work then. Shit. “I need help,” Quackity says, direct and to the point in the way that always surprises people. “From your Mr Philza Minecraft. Also it’s really fucking cold, can I come in?”
Nihachu’s eyes flicker over him. She’s gotten cleverer since he last saw her, or maybe she’s just worse at hiding the fact that she’s checking for concealed weapons or hidden intentions because either way it’s obvious that’s what she’s doing. “You may,” she says at last.
“Aw yeah, ” Quackity says, grinning, and doesn’t miss the tired look she gives him - one step from an eye-roll. Ah, well. He skips over the threshold before she can change her mind.
She closes the door behind him. He doesn’t flinch, which he’s proud of.
Nihachu leads him into the main room of her little cottage. There’s a lump of what he assumes is bread sitting in a container in the corner, just vibing; he kind of wants to poke it. A netherite axe is resting against the table. She pulls out a chair for him, and waits for him to sit before she sits in her own, in the one closest to the axe.
So that’s fun.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, and has the audacity to sound concerned.
He laughs, stalling, and watches her eyes go just stormy enough to be dangerous. Well then. “My wings are fucked and I need another avian to help me out with them,” he says, and Nihachu’s face goes concerned-untrusting-sympathetic-guilty-cautious, still like she’s dancing between expressions. “And I’m really out of options, you know.”
Nihachu says, “How come you haven’t needed help before now, if you’re telling the truth?”
“I haven’t flown since,” Quackity says, and pauses, since Schlatt died, since everything broke, since I started thinking maybe I deserved my wings and I was terrified of fucking that up, “the day Tubbo became president.”
“What about before then?”
“I had other people who knew how to preen them,” Quackity snaps, and suddenly he’s done but he cannot let that show because Nihachu could make or break his presence here. Everyone adores her, after all. “Are you done with making me give you my life history?”
Nihachu bites her lip like she’s regretting pressing. “Yes,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Quackity hastens to reassure her. His heart is beating very fast.
She gives him a concerned look. “I don’t have much experience - Are you in pain?”
“Of course,” he says, and then realises that may have been the wrong thing to say. Shit. Oops. “I mean, not much. It’s fine.”
“I’ll go find Phil right now,” Nihachu declares, and before Quackity can say no, wait, please, I’m still quite scared of him and even though I’ve worked up the courage to enter his territory that doesn’t mean I’m ready to look him in the eye and ask for him to preen my feathers, she’s standing from the table and heading from the door.
Quackity sits in Nihachu’s house in the anarchist commune, eyes fixed on the bread which he still really wants to poke, and thinks, finding eloquence in the simplicity of it: Fuck.
Philza fucking Minecraft walks into the room, says “Oh,” turns to look at Nihachu, looks back at Quackity, squints, and adds an incredulous “ Huh” that would have great comedic potential if Quackity were a little less petrified with terror right that moment.
“Hi,” he says. His voice breaks. Well, this is embarrassing.
“Hi,” Philza Minecraft replies, quizzical. “Aren’t you our enemy or something?”
“I’ve elected to put politics behind me,” Quackity bullshits. The only response he gets is a slightly disparaging set to Philza’s jaw, which can’t mean anything good. He hastens to course-correct. “I know you don’t like me, which, honestly, fair -”
“Nah, mate, I don’t really care about you one way or the other to be honest,” Philza says.
Quackity gulps. He thinks this is a good thing? “But I really need your help,” he concludes, and sees a light to Philza’s eyes that might be curiosity.
Good. Quackity can work with that.
There’s silence, so Quackity does what he does best - he fills it. “As you may have noticed,” he says, “though I’m not entirely sure, it might have slipped your mind, but, ah - you, Mr Minecraft, have wings.”
Quackity sees the feathers twitch self-consciously; Philza’s wings are bigger than his, and thus more expressive. Philza’s face, though, is like a mildly baffled wall of stone. “I - do, yes,” Philza agrees, the ghost of a chuckle lighting his voice like he’s not sure how else to speak.
“Brilliant,” Quackity says, and grins.
Nihachu ushers Philza to the table and closes the door; this time Quackity doesn’t quite manage to stop himself jumping, but it’s a near thing, and, well, he tried. He doesn’t miss the concerned look that she gives him. “Phil,” she says, “he needs help with his wings. Do you think you could …?”
Philza blinks. “I, uh. Could try? What’s happened?”
“I’ve been on my own,” Quackity says. He’s aiming for magnanimous and loud. It comes out lackluster, and his voice breaks halfway through.
“Oh,” says Philza. He pauses. Seems to see the coat Quackity’s wearing, and take in his posture, and Quackity watches as Philza Minecraft goes stiff for a second, before his face crumbles into outright concern. “Oh, fuck - really?”
“It’s not that bad,” Quackity insists. “I could just … use an extra pair of hands.”
“Move the fuck over, mate,” Philza Minecraft says, all at once an aggressive mother bird who will not rest until he can Fix Things. It’s the bird-brain instincts. Quackity relates, because of all the times he’s wanted to run screaming away from fellow cabinet member Fundy who just happened to have teeth that were sharp enough to strike holy terror into his heart.
“Um. Okay,” Quackity says, and goes to pull off the coat.
Alex Quackity has died over five hundred times, coming up on six hundred now, and he’s seen some very weird shit. For fuck’s sake, he has attempted to seduce a dragon (who bore a weird similarity to Quackity’s acquaintance-turned-rival-turned-friend who went off the rails and blew up the country he built, the country Quackity spent months as the vice president of before - anyway, not thinking about that.) He’s found his way into many peoples’ hearts and many others’ on sight lists. He’s been through some very strange experiences.
Point being: this may just be the weirdest of them. He’s sat backwards on a chair in Niki Nihachu’s quiet cottage in an anarchist syndicate/commune in the middle of a tundra that people keep calling the Antarctic even though it literally is not Antarctic in any way, shape or form, and he knows that somewhere in the same commune is the blood god who’s the reason Quackity still panics at fireworks, and he’s got his sad dishevelled fucked-up wings out and unprotected for the first time in months, and Philza fucking Minecraft (who is best friends with the blood god and was the one to destroy L’Manberg that other time) is genuinely crooning over the state of his wings.
Which is … a lot to process.
“What the fuck,” Quackity says, because he genuinely didn’t expect this plan to work. He has his arms resting on the back of the chair and his head leaning on the table; he can feel Philza’s deft fingers working their way up his right wing, setting feathers back into place, dislodging the shed ones he never got around to picking out the last time he moulted, leaving a halo of grey and brown and gold on the floor of Nihachu’s cottage. Quackity has absolutely no idea what to do in this situation. He laughs incredulously, and gets a hand in the middle of his back for his trouble.
“Stay still,” says Philza fucking Minecraft, sounding preoccupied.
“Sorry,” Quackity says reflexively.
“You’re fine,” Philza dismisses.
Quackity stares at the wood of the table and tries to make sense of his life. It doesn’t really pay off. “What the fuck,” he says again, and then Philza sets a feather back into place that has been crooked and hurting for months, and suddenly it doesn’t ache any more, and he makes a sound that he will maintain until the end of his days is not a whimper. Fuck.
“You should have come here sooner, mate,” Philza says, “Jesus Christ, what the fuck have you been doing for the past five months?”
Quackity points out, “You blew up my country.”
“Well, yeah,” Philza admits, sounding mildly chagrined, “but it wasn’t personal. ”
“Oh, well, that’s all fine then,” Quackity snaps, and then promptly loses track of his bitterness as Philza tugs away at a feather that’s been itching him for weeks.
“You know,” Nihachu says, and Quackity jerks up his head because he’s suddenly remembered she’s there, was too caught up in the sensation of his wings actually not being in pain for five minutes to pay any sort of attention to his surroundings, “you could maybe stay here. They let me stay. Everyone is very kind, if you agree to let old grievances go.”
Quackity considers saying I wouldn’t describe the fucking blood god as ‘kind’ , but decides against it because Philza is still preening his wings and he really does not want him to stop. “I don’t think they’d want me,” he says instead, and then, startling himself, “I mean, people don’t tend to. I’m not the kind of person you want to keep around.”
“That’s not very nice,” Philza chides absently.
Nihachu is looking at Quackity with something like pity. He chafes under it, wants to jump up and prove how very okay he is but also doesn’t want to move any time in the next week. “I think it would be lovely to have you around,” Nihachu says, as if she’s treading on eggshells. “I miss seeing you, you know.”
Quackity blinks. “Um. Thank you?”
“You’re welcome,” says Nihachu, with a wryness Quackity didn’t know she had in her.
And, well, it’s really out of the question, isn’t it? There’s no way Quackity can stay. But for a moment, he dares to consider it. Just a little. Maybe he’d be safe, if he wasn’t the only one around to watch for mobs and gather crops and look out for his skeleton horse; maybe he’d be a little less tired if there were other people to help him, and maybe he’d be a little less furious with himself if he could help them in return. It’s a pipe dream, but a nice one.
“I’m glad you came,” Nihachu says, because apparently she doesn’t know when to just let things be. “If you were in pain.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” Quackity says dismissively, and then, when Philza gingerly nudges a primary feather back into place, “Holy fuck. ”
Nihachu blinks. Philza chuckles.
“I take it all back,” says Quackity, because he’s blinking hard, feeling more grounded in his body than he has in months, holy fuck, that’s been sore so long he didn’t even notice in it and suddenly he can breathe, can think. “It was. Bad. Mother fucking shit.”
“I could talk to Techno, if you wanted to stay here,” Philza says, like he’s talking about the weather. “Put in a good word.”
“A good word with the blood god,” Quackity says, “that’s funny.”
This is the moment, apparently, that his body decides it’s had Enough For The Day, Actually, which is kind of fair given he did travel for hundreds of miles through desert and tundra to get here and he’s really not built for extreme cold and also he hasn’t slept for a very long time because if he does then he dreams, and fuck, he does not want to dream. Quackity feels the wooziness coming, and makes a weird quizzical sound, because what the fuck?
Then he passes out.
The first thing Quackity processes, the moment he wakes, is that he’s not in any pain. The second thing is that he fucking passed out like a wimp.
The third is that he passed out like a wimp in the middle of the blood god’s settlement, literally in the arms of his most trusted friend, and Quackity sits up so fast he nearly falls off the - bed, which he is in, apparently. His pulse’s going through the roof. His mouth is dry. When he tries to extract himself from the covers, his hands are shaking so much that he can barely grip the blankets.
“Whoa,” comes a voice that’s a bit familiar, and Quackity can’t immediately put a name to it until it occurs to him - he knows the person, but he’s never heard their voice like this, loud and not afraid to take up space, with a slightly different accent like he’s been speaking another language more than usual. It takes Quackity about half a second to put this together, and then he jerks his head around, incredulous.
“ Ranboo? ”
“Hi! Yes,” says Ranboo, who’s standing in the doorway, stooping in order to fit. He looks more well-rested than Quackity has literally ever seen him look. “You’re safe - don’t worry. You can stay there if you wanna.”
“My wings,” Quackity says, because in his defense he’s been awake about thirty seconds and his brain is still waking up and he hasn’t yet remembered that it’s a bad idea to give people you shouldn’t trust, can’t trust (he doesn’t say don’t trust) information about your capabilities, “they don’t hurt.”
“Neat,” says Ranboo, then he blinks, eyelids shuttering sideways. (Quackity remembers that he doesn’t like eye contact, and looks quickly away just in case.) “Are they - supposed to? I mean, not - supposed to, but do they normally? Because that’s - I’m -” He falls silent, like he’s thought better of trying out that whole talking thing.
Quackity rubs his eyes. “How am I in a bed,” he demands, for want of something else to say. “Was I carried to a bed without my consent? Ranboo -”
“Apparently you passed out on the floor,” Ranboo points out.
“That’s a lie,” Quackity says immediately. “I passed out on the table.”
Ranboo chuckles; Quackity’s heart is in his throat. It’s hard to breathe. He’s fighting back the panic, grounding himself in the sensation of his fingers on the back of his hand; he’s afraid, he realises. At least he’s honest. Self-professed coward, and all that.
“Where’s Technoblade?” he says, conversationally. “I’d like to know, so that I can run screaming in the opposite direction.”
Ranboo blinks again. “Why? What’s up with Techn oh, he killed you that one time, didn’t you, um. That is very awkward. Uh. In that case you are not going to like what Phil sent me down here to tell you.”
“No, no, tell me,” Quackity says. His blood is ice in his veins.
“He says he’s making you and Techno talk,” Ranboo mutters, eyes fixed firmly on the ground. “And he wants you to stay.”
Quackity laughs; it’s all he can ever really do, being defenseless in this situation as he is on every single occasion like it. Not that defenses make a difference. “Why,” he says.
Ranboo snorts. “Direct quote: ‘bird brain’.”
“Well that’s fucking convenient,” Quackity mumbles, and then lets himself consider his options. He could run away - wouldn’t make it far. Not in the snow and the cold, and definitely not without his coat. He’s not earthbound any more, but doesn’t trust himself in the sky despite his newly functional wings - it’s been a long time and he’d probably have some kind of panic attack and plummet back to the earth in a blaze of underwhelming too-skinny hybrid in a beanie. So fleeing isn’t an option - annoying, given it’s Quackity’s go-to plan in any situation. If he refuses to talk to the blood god, Philza will know. And he doesn’t want to make Philza angry. He’s heard it’s very easy to do, under the right circumstances.
On the other hand. Having a conversation with - living in the same settlement as -
Flying away into the tundra is looking awfully convenient right now.
Ranboo clears his throat, and Quackity’s jolted so forcefully back into his body and the present that he nearly flinches. “If it helps,” Ranboo says, and then prevaricates, “which it might not, I don’t - uh, anyway. He’ll probably be just as awkward as you are. Techno’s really not great with social situations.”
“Right,” Quackity says, grasping for a smile to winch onto his face and missing. “Social awkwardness is the only thing to be afraid of here.”
He really hates being able to make good decisions, sometimes. Because it means that he’s always conscious of the fact that there are only bad options left to choose from.
Fuck. He’s going to have to do it, isn’t he?
Not that he - wants to stay, or anything. Not that something glows in his chest when Ranboo stumbles over his words and Quackity says something funny enough that apparently the kid is confident enough to let himself laugh at now; not that it’s very nice to trade smiles with Niki Nihachu as Ranboo leads him into the communal campfire area. Not that he feels far safer than he should, even though he knows the blood god isn’t far. Not that he likes being able to have his wings cared for; not that he’s almost desperate to return the favour, even though he knows Philza Minecraft has his own flock to go to for that.
Quackity tries to convince himself it would be a bad decision to stay. I’m terrified, he reasons. I can’t take two steps without noticing that my hands are shaking.
But it’s like that on his own, too. And he was never made to be alone.
Quackity, self-professed coward, is very well-acquainted with fear. Maybe it’s time he proves that he can make good decisions.
“Hello,” Quackity says. His voice has skittered up into the high ranges.
The blood god looks comfortable and unremarkable, almost like someone not worth being afraid of; he’s wearing warm dark nondescript clothing rather than his usual getup, which Quackity has always thought is suspiciously royal for someone who professes to hate the very concept, and there’s no crown in sight. Still he holds himself with that glacial grace Quackity knows all too well. “Hi,” says the blood god, and turns to look Quackity in the eye.
Quackity can feel his palms going clammy; the object of his fears is wearing nerdy glasses and his face is perfectly neutral, but the tusks are still there, and by all that’s holy does Quackity remember the smirk he wore as the pickaxe tore into - Anyway. “Hi,” Quackity replies, and realises he’s already said that.
The blood god doesn’t seem to even notice. “Well,” he says. “This is awkward.”
“Awkward,” Quackity squeaks, incredulous. He makes light of things in order to bring them to attention, like a bargainer placing an object on the table, and so: “You did slaughter me with a pickaxe. That would be a bit awkward.”
The blood god is still, and it is this stillness, this lack of motion, that terrifies Quackity more. “I’m not sorry,” he says, voice devoid of inflection.
Quackity laughs again. He’s keeping a safe distance between the two of them, but he knows it wouldn’t matter; if this man wanted him dead he would be dead in a heartbeat, his blood the blood god’s before the organ in his chest had any chance to pump it away. “Yeah, we started it,” Quackity admits. “So. That’s. That’s fair. I’m sorry, man.”
He talks faster than he thinks, sometimes. But that just means his mind needs a little time to catch up. He’ll get there.
The blood god, Technoblade, huffs lightly, like a boar lowing as it scuffs the ground with a hoof. Like the calm before the inexorable stampede. “You tracked me down and had me executed.”
“Absolute power corrupts absolutely?” Quackity offers, and realises as he says it that - Well.
Roulette wheels and bottles and what L’Manberg was built on, what Manburg prided itself on, round and round and round. Quackity got out. He’s out now. Schlatt’s dead; L’Manberg, Manburg, what the fuck ever - it’s gone. Bombed thrice.
He got out.
Technoblade eyes him appraisingly; suddenly, the urge to bully him for his nerdy glasses is almost stronger than the urge to flee in the opposite direction, but still Quackity holds his tongue. “You aren’t wrong,” Technoblade says, like a man weighing up pros and cons. Quackity knows the feeling well. He hopes this is the right decision. “And Phil said -”
Technoblade falls silent, interrupting himself with nothing. His eyes are pinned to Quackity’s.
Quackity swallows. This is the person who blew up my country, he reminds himself, and like a breakthrough, like diamonds glittering at the bottom of a chasm yawning in L’Manberg’s chest, it occurs to him: I got out. They’re gone.
“L’Manberg,” Quackity says, thinking as he speaks, dropping the levity, making himself vulnerable in front of the blood god who put a pickaxe through his teeth and his stomach and his heart, “was bad for all of us. It was a blessing in disguise. That you blew it up.”
Technoblade bares his teeth; Quackity’s heart leaps; he realises too late it’s a smile. “There you go,” Technoblade says, dry as desert earth.
It occurs to Quackity that this is Technoblade’s infamous wry humour.
He cannot say he hates it.
“How does it feel to be the funniest person on the server,” he says, and hopes Technoblade hears the stress he places, barely-there but cataclysmic, on the word person.
(It shouldn’t be as necessary as it is. Another wrong Quackity has to right, because no one else is fucking going to so it looks like it’s all his job, and, well - he’s good at making plans of action. Time to grit his teeth and dig in his hands to the mud.)
Technoblade moves, a barest shift in his posture; it’s like a glacier cracking, like ice plummeting into the sea. Like summer has come to the Antarctic. “Pretty great,” he says, and gestures to the door. “Want to take a walk?”
And so it is.
Quackity is not known for his good decisions. (Ranboo has been making fun of his middle names mercilessly ever since he decided to stay. Quackity protests half-heartedly that he changed them for the meme.) But he thinks that this might be one of them. His wings don’t hurt any more, and it’s strange - good - to be the norm because he’s more than human, rather than the exception. Philza, Phil, helps with his feathers. Quackity thinks he might teach others how at some point. That’d be nice.
He’s not made for being alone; it’s good that he doesn’t have to be.
And you didn’t hear it from him, but - it’s kinda nice that he’s not constantly flying by the seat of his pants. He can afford to be quieter, to slow his tongue, now that he’s not relying on his words to stay alive. Sweet-talking and screaming and talking, always talking, but now he doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to. It’s just his choice. That’s kinda nice.
Alex Careful Danger Quackity, he of the dumb fucking middle names that always bring incredulous grins to his new friends’ faces - he thinks he might have found a place. Somewhere he can make people smile. Somewhere he can laugh.
And so it is.