Chapter Text
The lights were dimmed with only a soft orange light shifting through the casino hall, everything turned off and dark. Quackity was sitting at the bar, newly refurbished, staring at a photo with yellowed edges. There was also a glass of amber liquor, probably brandy or whiskey, next to him. Every few minutes he would take a sip and new tears would gather in his eye. He had tried many times to get rid of the photo, but he just couldn’t seem to let it go.
The photo was of a time long past, back when he had first met his beloved fiances and almost husbands.
He grimaced but not from the alcohol and his hand shook slightly holding the photo. He clenched his other one into a fist and tried to take a deep breath. It never really came.
Anyways, the photo was simple. Sapnap had his arms wrapped around Karl and Quackity shoulders and Karl was giving Quackity bunny ears without him knowing. They were all laughing and full of something that Quackity hadn’t felt in a long time. Love or maybe just peace.
Quackity felt the tears falling faster as he reminisced about his lovers, but when the photo began to crinkle he set it down gently. He put a hand on his forehead and let out one ragged breath full of his unheard suffering. And he hated every second of it. It made him feel weak and powerless, to others and to himself.
He took a gulp of the liquor and felt the burn in his throat, warming something inside of him. He whipped the remaining tears away.
However, his wings began to feel cramped in their bindings as the heat began to spread to his cheeks and face.
No one’s around and they aren’t allowed in here, he reasoned, just this once.
He slowly pulled down his suspenders and unbuttoned his dress shirt. He pulled up his undershirt and started on the tight binding around his chest and stomach that held his small duck wings close to his body. Once done, he pulled his undershirt down and let his golden wings stretch out behind him as far and wide as they could go, feeling a deep satisfaction fill his body at the action.
Then he turned back towards the photo and they drooped behind him until he folded them in again.
He kept his wings hidden because until recently he had barely used them and they were short and stubby with fluffy down feathers instead of his matured ones now.
Sapnap and Karl would always tell him how much they loved them with kindhearted teasing in between.
While they would lay in their bed big enough for three, Karl would lay his head in Quackity’s lap and talk animatedly about all his favorite things and gush about how easily he had fallen in love with them. Meanwhile, Sapnap would carefully, with warm hands, run his fingers through the feathers and help him preen since he couldn’t reach some of the parts closest to his spine.
He didn’t understand how they could just leave him behind and create another country without even telling him or coming to say something to him. He hadn’t meant to leave to make this place for them for so long with no word, but he had wanted it to be a surprise and got carried away making all of this for them. This was going to be their forever home, a place to live out their lives while having fun and messing around.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
He had made this place where they had first met and had fun together. The eiffel tower was from the one that was made after they got engaged but got destroyed. The marriage arch to finally solidify and officiate the love they had for each other legally. And the strip club… for adult activities and so he could show them how much he loved them on their wedding night.
It had all been for them. But now it wasn’t anything but a shell. It felt empty without them despite all the people joining his country.
He downed the rest of his glass, grabbing the bottle from behind the counter. He didn’t want to remember this night or any of the ones before just like it. The ones where he cried into his pillow or screamed out from his balcony at the very peak of the needle or jolted awake from a nightmare or sobbed over a dream.
No matter what he tells himself around others, he still misses his fiances with a passion unlike any other, but it's tearing him to pieces without anyone else knowing.
Gently, he holds the rings he keeps on a string around his neck, one engraved with a fire symbol and the other with Karl’s swirl. He could still remember when they exchanged rings with eachother and held out their hands towards the setting sun, smiling. It was meant to be a premonition for a brighter and closer future for all of them, but the sun set just as their relationship had.
A coolness runs through Quackity’s bones, or at least that’s what he thinks, but all it is is a bone deep pain, a betrayal of the trust he thought they all had together with one another. He had never felt anything in his life like he did when George told him that Karl and Sapnap had left without him and never even came back for him. Not even the feeling he had when he realized that Schlatt didn’t and had never loved him.
He supposed that taking his second canon life over his power abuse would make him feel a bit less of anything but contempt. No one had ever realized it, but he had taken Schlatt’s third and final life as well. He had simply slipped a little poison draught of his own making into Schlatt’s protein shake for the day and he was none the wiser.
He took another long swig of liquor and started on the bindings for his wings, so he could stumble back to his bed for another night of restless sleep.