Work Text:
"Please..."
The young man woke up abruptly. His chest was rising and falling rapidly, and his eyes were fluttering as if they were about to burst out of their orbits. His vision couldn't even fully focus properly, and the boy had to move his hands to feel things to see where he was.
Something soft.
His vision came back to normal, and looking where his hand had been he saw a black blanket. It was invitingly warm, but the young man only realized that he was clearly not in the place he had originally been. Had he been dragged? And if so, by whom? He parted his lips, however, while beginning to mumble.
His voice was shaky. He was pathetic, and the black-haired man didn't even deny it. He didn't care what he sounded or looked like now, because in his dream he had seen something he would never want to see in reality. Even the thought of it was so frightening to him that his hands clenched the blanket until his knuckles turned white.
A cough echoed throughout the room, and then it sounded:
- Sir! - Nothing was heard from the beginning. It was as if he were alone, but suddenly there was a grim laughter that seemed to bounce off the walls and into Quackity's ears. - Can you hear me?
Again there was silence. There was nothing left for Q to do but get up from that warm bed and trivially mutter a meek curse to himself. When he lifted his head to look around, he noticed a single creature sitting behind a black monitor. It did not move, as if it was either frozen or was a statue.
Quackity looked at the whole thing with concern in his eyes, but he took a couple steps to his left, and was able to see three more employees. They were all the same, literally, they were no different from each other. Perfect employees. It was as if they had been reproduced in the same factory, except this factory was apparently the government itself.
- Hello? - No response. - Hello? - After saying that, Quackity decided to throw a bomb. Either out of habit, or still wanting to protect himself. The bomb immediately exploded and a couple things fell off or strangely enough disappeared. - Ouch!
Quackity stepped back, while starting to look here and there. Tension built up in his shoulders, and he immediately began to take a quick stride toward a place where he could trivialize the feeling of being less petty. It was a spot between some sort of bookcase and an obscure nightstand.
As the employee started walking, Q began to speak in a louder voice:
- Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me! - The employee didn't even seem to hear him. Or maybe he didn't want to hear him. He just headed towards his coworker sitting behind a black monitor. Quackity looked out from his hiding place, watching them tensely and warily. A couple seconds later, the same grim laughter was heard, and the employee immediately turned to return to his proper place.
- Listen! - Q gathered his courage and came out of hiding, while approaching the worker who was about to leave. - Please help me. Please. - The creature immediately left the room, closing the door behind it. Quackity continued to only mumble his pleas for rescue.
Once again, the disgusted, grim laughter.
Quackity no longer knew where to go. He turned to the employee who had been staring at the black monitor for the longest time. Question after question, and still no answer was heard. Quackity even tried to break the damn black monitor - but it wouldn't budge. Eventually, Q looked over to where two employees were standing.
One of them was the one who was constantly going in and out, and the other sat at his desk like an obedient worker.
Quackity threw another bomb in their direction, which immediately exploded. The two workers immediately went in his direction. They looked like little spiders that had had their cocoon crushed. Just as nasty, but fast creatures. They immediately turned back around, as if they had changed their minds and decided to rebuild again. One of them started laying out a rug.
Q followed in their direction, muttering:
- I don't understand. Do you see me? - He tried to hit the worker, but it was all in vain as the creature suddenly hit him back. - Hey! - Quackity took two steps back, with his back already feeling the bookshelf. The creature that hit him only sat quietly at his desk, writing something on a piece of paper. As soon as it finished writing, the creature immediately showed the writing it had left on the paper.
- Oh. "Let me work" - The writing on the paper read. The guy immediately stepped away from the worker while talking about how it was fine. He started to watch the other creature spreading out the carpet, and the young man stopped, as if determined to mess with the other worker's mood. - Look, I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going anywhere-
The worker walked off to the right side. Q decided to follow him, and the creature pointed to the lamp for some reason. Quackity only looked at the worker turn the lamp on, and he only turned it off. To be honest, Q didn't quite understand what he was about to be shown, but he only followed away from that creature, while even noticing that the doors had opened.
When he reached the doors, he didn't expect to see it. That black mask.
Quackity immediately shrieked, at the same time starting to run away and climb the scarlet vines that were hung on the wall, as if hinting at a possible rescue for Alex himself. Behind him, however, he could only hear the same frightening and grim laughter. Q climbed to the very top, his head resting against the ceiling and looking down, right where Cucurucho himself stood.
This was no ordinary Cucurucho. It was the one who had shattered him in his sleep, leaving no pieces for him to put back together again.
Q started muttering about leaving him alone so he could be alone. He started throwing bombs, and each time, that sickeningly gruesome laughter was heard, causing cold sweat and goosebumps to run down the back of the young man's neck. There were no bombs left in the end, unfortunately.
All that was left was Q, Evil Cucurucho, and the workers.
- If you join us, we will not harm those you love. If you betray me, we will kill those you love. - Evil Cucurucho's voice was loud. Too loud. It was like drums, a loud echo in a dark, closed room. It frightened Quackity himself a great deal.
He wanted to run away.
Q began to look around at everyone who was in this room right now. There were several workers here, some of them were looking directly into Quackity soul - others were just writing something down. One of them was just looking at his boss - Evil Cucurucho, who in turn was looking at Quackity himself.
- Who are you going to kill if he's already dead? - There was an awkward pause, after which Cucurucho's laughter was heard. Again. - There's nothing you can do, you bastard, and it's best if you kill me to end it all. Better kill me. - This laughter was already driving Q out of his mind. - You've got nothing else you can threaten me with. You have nothing.
Evil Cucurucho made a move. Quackity, on the other hand, mirrored the movement. They looked at each other as if they were not a scientist and a guinea pig, but as if they were acquaintances who had met for the first time. Except that Q's expression was filled with disgust.
- You know I'm right, asshole.
After that word, no one else said anything else. Evil Cucurucho just started walking towards Q, climbing up the vines, clearly wanting to get to him. Quackity began to beg and wheeze.
- Please, forgive me, please go away.... - He handed him the note, fueling it all with nothing but his already annoying, dark laughter. Quackity ran his eyes over the single scrawled line. "Your son." - Bastard, my son's been dead for a long time, and it's all because of you! Or because of someone out there, some bitchy guy with glasses, and you're no better than him. - Q's voice became noticeably sadder, you could even tell that dry sobs could be heard coming from his throat. Q pressed himself into the wall while Evil Cucurucho only glared at him, stepping closer.
- Kill me. It would be best if you kill me now. - That laughter. Q tried to fight, swinging his fist, but tritely the creature would not take any blow, as if even ignoring it. - What are you laughing at? - With that, Quackity began to look around, hoping for some hidden entrances or exits, peering into dark corners. He looked at Evil Cucurucho again, muttering quietly about whether or not he could leave.
But suddenly, like thunder - Cucurucho came at him, pressing him harder and harder into the wall.
- No, please! Let me go! - It seemed as if Cucurucho didn't even hear him. He simply ignored his words once again, coming closer and closer until there were a couple of measly centimeters between them. Q looked away, trying to avoid that smile that sparked with an angry red hue. Even breathing was difficult.
Quackity tried to maintain eye contact. His voice shook harder and harder until it went silent altogether. He could feel it with every cell of his being, and it disgusted him. Even as Cucurucho tilted his head slightly forward toward him, the young man tensed even more. It felt like his muscles were about to tear from this, but Quackity ignored it, trying to blend in with the wall and not feel Cucurucho next to him.
Gross. The way he regarded Quackity as an object he was interested in and decided to acquire for himself. Q wanted to scream a lot of things in his face, from swear words that were mixed with bitter sobs to questions about why him.
Why, of all the people in the server, was he the one?
His head was buzzing and going round and round. Quackity stopped looking into those bloodshot eyes, and only looked down at his feet. How long must they stand like this? When would Cucurucho give up and go off to do his own thing? Or would it go on indefinitely until Q himself fell to his knees and begged for death? Lots of questions, and the answer would only be laughter.
It was getting harder and harder. It was as if three large stones had been shoved into his lungs, forcing his chest to slowly rise and collide with Cucurucho's. The corrosive thoughts went through his head, intimidating him more and more, causing Q to press himself into the wall as if on instinct.
It was too stuffy. It was burning.
Quackity felt Cucurucho lightly touching his arm, and it immediately made the young man shudder. It was as if he woke up from his sleep, and now he looked at the one who decided to touch him with wide-open eyes.
He noticed the note in which Evil Cucurucho had scrawled in his seemingly elegant but rough handwriting, "Do you agree or not?"
Q immediately handed the note back, while muttering:
- You've got nothing better to do than kill me. Do me a goddamn favor, you bastard. Please kill me. There's nothing in this world I can protect. Better end my suffering and kill me already, please. - Quackity only hurriedly started searching for something in his inventory after those words, and eventually he pulled out a stick of dynamite, starting to hand it to Evil Cucurucho. - Look, put them here and finish them off. Kill me.
The dynamite immediately returned to the person who gave it to him. After a few seconds, Evil Cucurucho's laughter was heard echoing throughout the room, but immediately there was silence. This pissed Q off a lot.
- Do something already, asshole! Tell me something, you idiot! I don't accept, no, I don't accept at all! All you can do is kill me! And that would be better! I- - He was rudely cut off at the half-word by Cucurucho.
- See you around, Quackity.
Cucurucho started to walk off somewhere, while letting the worker calmly put some kind of rope on Q, leading him behind him. Quackity, on the other hand, mumbled pitifully about torture, that he didn't want to go back, that he didn't want this and he begged:
- Please don't torture me, please don't torture me.... - He tried to hide, to find a kind of shelter, but there were workers everywhere. They were like pieces on a chessboard, led by Cucurucho himself. - I don't want to work with you, I don't want to do anything more for you.
Quackity walked straight out of the room where the workers were set up. Q slumped against the wall while continuing, mumbling and muttering, feeling the way his eyes pinched. It felt like a fountain of tears was about to flow from his eye sockets. He didn't want to go back to that rotten place, the place where he had to face Tallulah's death. Where he had to set fire to what he couldn't give her. The feast.
But they didn't care.
He was led into this room once more, while being roughly pushed into the narrow space. Q immediately turned to the door, noticing that it was still open and that Cucurucho was once again scribbling something on a piece of paper. Why can't he just give him a chance at a happy, afterlife? Why does Quackity have to suffer?
- Are you going to take me to another place? Again? Just let me go and kill me. If you want to kill me, kill me. - He was handed the note in his hands, and he immediately looked at what it said. "Your son is waiting for you."
Q handed the note back. He looked first in the direction where the teleporter was and then back at Cucurucho.
His eyes filled with happiness.
- Are you going to kill me? You guarantee my death? Thank you... - Quackity locked the door, while looking at the door with a lesser view of Cucurucho's face. Laughter was heard. - ...Thank you very much. I knew you had a heart. They said you were a bastard, but I knew you weren't. - Evil Cucurucho moved closer to the door, examining Q's face as if he were trying to memorize it like a painting.
Like chaos art.
- Thank you and goodbye, cruel assholes. I'll say a few words before my death comes. - Q fell silent, gathering his thoughts, and then his deathbed speech was heard. - I never solved the question I had. Who brought me to this island, and why did they do it? Upon arriving on this island, I met people who were strangers to me before. I had a beautiful son-daughter. I never knew what it was all about. But I knew what it was to love someone.
Quackity lifted his head, looking back, back at that door. He noticed that Cucurucho continued to look at him. There was only his face, his blood-poured smirk.
- Never see you.
Q stepped onto the teleporter slab, feeling pain all over his body. His eyes were covered, and he felt nothing. It was as if he was surrounded by a void on all sides that guaranteed safety and comfort. The pain had already faded into the background and he was numb, floating in that void.
Was this really his end?
A moment later he felt a breeze, and when he opened his eyes, the sun was blinding him.