Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Now, Alex didn't consider himself the luckiest person alive, but he certainly didn't consider himself the unluckiest either. Though... he might have to re-think that now, because he'd say his current circumstances are pretty unlucky—and that was an understatement if he's ever made one.

Alex had gone to bed after streaming the finale with Grayson and Charlie, though not after chatting with the two for a couple of hours afterwards. They did great, at least Alex thought so—stream was good, no technical issues, and everyone's acting was amazing. After the stream, Grayson and Charlie kept re-enacting Charlie's death but with stupid voices and auto-tune filters, Charlie even decided to mimic the role of "distraught Quackity"—admittedly, it was hilarious, if only because Charlie had a high pitched auto-tuned voice.

Once they finished chatting, Alex was honestly so tired that he decided he'd just take a nap and then get some food once he woke up. So, he collapsed on his bed and fell asleep in just about record time.

And then he woke up here—wherever here was. Well, in the middle of a fucking desert, that's where here was, but other than that he knew literally nothing.

A rolling valley of sand stretched as far as the eye could see, glimmering like gold under the blazing light of the sun.

Alex had woken up lying in a fucking desert alone and with none of his things, which he learned after frantically searching his pockets for his phone. After his initial break-down, he decided to immediately take off his sweater cause he'd surely roast to death if he kept it on, and he also rolled his pants up to his knees. Roasting to death was not how he wanted to go out—not that he planned to die here either.

Aside from not knowing where he was and having no way to contact anyone, there was something else that was extremely concerning. With his thick, dark sweater one, he hadn't noticed it, but as soon as he took it off he saw it; blood. Vivid red stained his otherwise grey shirt and the smell of blood was so pungent Alex swore it had to have been festering for days. Worried that he was injured, Alex had taken off his shirt but, while there was blood on his skin, there was no actual wound. At least, not one that was fatal or anything...

On the centre of his front, not far below his collarbone, was a horrible scar; it looked vaguely as though someone had plunged their hand into him to try to rip out his heart, which was a disturbing thought. There was no lingering pain and the scar tissue was rough, so it had healed a long time ago—what didn't make sense was that, well, he never had a fucking scar. Actually, a lot of things didn't make sense! Like the fact that he was in the middle of a fucking desert! But he could dwell on that later, when he wasn't at immediate risk of roasting to death.

Alex slipped his disgustingly bloody shirt back on and remained sitting upright in the sand. Now what? Where does he even go from here? Sure, he could do 'direction roulette' and walk in a random direction and pray to whatever fucking god might be listening that he finds civilization before dying of dehydration or some shit; but that was too risky, because the risk of dying of dehydration or the fucking sun of all things was way too high for his tastes. The next option would be to sit here and hope one of his friends realized he was missing, and that somehow someone would find him in the middle of this desert.

That option seemed very unlikely. Not only did he not have a stream with anyone else planned until five days, but he was certain that there are no fully sand deserts like this around where he lives. Actually, if he had to guess what desert this was, the first one that comes to mind is the Sahara.

...Fuck.

The point is, wherever this desert is, the chance of someone finding him—even if they were actively searching for him—was low. On that note, how the fuck did he even get here? Was he kidnapped? He would have also had to have been drugged because there's no way in hell he'd sleep through his own kidnapping—maybe George would but he definitely wouldn't.

So, what? He got drugged and kidnapped and brought to god-knows-where just to be dumped in the middle of a desert equivalent to the likes of the Sahara?

...

"WHAT THE FUCK!?" Alex yelled, instantly regretting it as his dry throat protested with scratchy pain. Damn, he's seriously going to die of dehydration at this rate. He couldn't help but have a morbid thought: what will it be? Will he get his brain fried first, or all the water evaporated from his body?

Shaking his head to force himself out of his thoughts, Alex couldn't help but sigh. He needs to decide what to do—whether that be sitting here until either death or salvation, or walking in some random direction in hopes of finding civilization. Well, out of the two, walking somewhere would probably be better... At least that way he had a chance of finding someway to save himself.

With that thought in mind, Alex pushed himself onto his feet. He thought about leaving his sweater since he sure as hell wouldn't be wearing it now, but he could end up needing it later so he grabbed it and carried it, holding it against him so that it could hide some of the blood on his shirt. Alex decided he'd leave it up to luck and closed his eyes before turning in a circle—slowly, so that he didn't get nauseous. After a few seconds of slow spinning, Alex stopped and opened his eyes.

"Let's see if I really am the unluckiest man alive," Alex muttered as he took the first step forward.

As he walked, he kept switching between squinting and shielding his eyes with his hand. Was the sun always this fucking bright? Or was it just because he was in a desert, where the sand reflected the light of the sun so intensely that he swore it would glow. Probably the latter—it's like when there's pearly white snow and then the sun reflects off of it and blinds whichever miserable fuck has the misfortune of looking at it.

Every step Alex took was excruciating—both because his feet, which miraculously had shoes on, were sore and because his body practically screamed in protest with every movement he made. He just wanted to collapse into the sand and fall asleep, but he figured that doing so would make his sleep eternal. Hard pass on that eternal sleep, thanks. 

Yet another thing to add to his list of annoyances as he trudged through the desert was the weird pain in his right eye. For the most part, his eye was fine, but every now and then it would suddenly feel like it's either being burned or stabbed and ripped apart; the pain always caused him to stutter in his steps, pressing the heel of his hand to his right eye in hopes that it would stop the pain. It didn't, and each time Alex just had to wait until it subsided as if nothing ever happened—after that, he'd continue walking... it was either that or give up, and Alex would rather die than give up.

Maybe he will.

Alex wanted to will away his intrusive thoughts but at this point, nearly all of his energy was focused on making sure one foot went in front of the other. He continued to walk for some time—he didn't know exactly how long he walked, just that by now the sun had moved from the midpoint of the sky to about a bit over a quarter's way from the horizon. Maybe a three hours or so? Fucking hell this was awful—there hadn't been a single sign of any civilization the entire time he's been walking.

At this rate, Alex isn't sure if he'll live to see dawn—no, no, he couldn't think like that. Surely there would eventually be something that could help him. Maybe a tiny oasis or even a single tree that provided shade? He might take just about anything other than sand at this point.

The once periodic pain in his right eye had, at some point, turned into a continuous dull throb—honestly, despite it being annoying, he was just glad that it was a lot less painful now, it was easier to ignore that way. Mustering any ounce of willpower he had left, Alex forced himself to keep walking, and finally—finally—there was hope.

Closer to the horizon, over the crest of a rolling dune, Alex saw it—a large sign, like a billboard. He couldn't read it from this distance but that didn't change the fact that it was there—civilization, a place where he can get help and get some fucking rest and water.

With renewed vigour, Alex stubbornly trudged over the dunes, only slipping a few times, and towards the billboard sign. It felt like an eternity before he finally got close enough to read the sign, as well as see the black road that lead towards the city he was able to see hints of over the dune. Looking up and shielding his eyes from the sun, Alex read the words on the sign and...

Had such a thing been possible without dying, Alex was sure his heart would have stopped in his chest.

Written in big, bold, red letters was none other than 'Las Nevadas'—a place that, by all means, shouldn't exist, at least not outside of a fucking video game. Yet, here it was, looming over him. Las Nevadas, his creation, he supposed.

Alex attributed it to sheer subconscious willpower that he was able to remain standing while he gaped at the sign.

After a few minutes of staring dumbly, his thoughts nothing but a mantra of 'this is insane', Alex forced himself to start thinking productively.

Okay, so he has a few options: He can turn around and waltz right back into the desert and likely die of heatstroke, dehydration or exhaustion, which ever comes first. He can march straight into Las Nevadas and hope to god that things work out and that he either finds someone who could help him, both to make sense of everything and to get some fucking water. Or he can try going the fuck to sleep and praying that this is all just a nightmare.

...

As much as he hated it, he didn't want to bet on this being a hyper-realistic dreamscape and he didn't want to brave the golden expanse of the desert again, so that meant he only had one option left; go into Las Nevadas. Alright, so he knew (roughly) what he was going to do—he was going to go into Las Nevadas and get some damn help before he fainted or died. But...

...If Las Nevadas is real, then are all of the other 'characters' also real..? What if they're here? What if they see him? What will they do to him—will they do anything to him? Maybe they won't, maybe he'll be just another random person who happened upon Las Nevadas—he hopes that happens often. Would a scarily realistic version of Minecraft have a higher population of people?

Fuck, fuck! Just stop thinking and go! 

Gritting his teeth to ignore the pain in his right eye, Alex stepped onto the road and ascended the dune, and when he reached it's crest... Before him was Las Nevadas. It looked... better than he could have imagined; he was actually in awe. Everything, for one, looked real—and besides being fucking crazy, that was really cool. Las Nevadas, his own creation, was real! And it looked great! From what he could see, the fountain was a lot fancier than what he had in mind but it looked fucking beautiful. The Space Needle towered into the sky, it's polished white structure practically glowing in the sunlight. Oh, and off the left, even the restaurant somehow looked upgraded, definitely like it belonged to a city like this. Also...

There were people.

People milled about the street, entering and exiting buildings, going about their business. Before Alex could take in the scene any longer, a strangely familiar voice called out to him—or, well, his character.

"Quackity from Las Nevadas!" Not only did he know that voice, but he also recognized that pattern of speech; it was supposed to be Charlie's character, wasn't it? Slime.

Alex watched as someone achingly similar to his friend Charlie bounded up the street towards him, grinning cheerily. He was wearing a white shirt with suspenders—just like Charlie's in-game skin—and he looked... mostly human, save for the green slime oozing through his shirt on his right shoulder. 

Slime. Charlie. Charlie's character, Slime.

"Did you go somewhere, Quackity from Las Nevadas?" Slime, or Charlie... fuck, he looked a lot like Charlie but he also, so clearly, wasn't. "Quackity from Las Nevadas..?"

Alex nearly took a few steps back when Charlie suddenly came closer to him, leaning in close to to his face. The only thing that stopped him from retreating instinctively was the horrible, aching pain in his legs and the way his attention was so hard to keep focused; he was tired, he was thirsty, he was sore, this was all crazy and he felt like he was going insane, his right eye hurt like a bitch, Las Nevadas was real, Slime was real—fuck, all of it was just too much.

"Quackity from Las Nevadas... What happened to your eye?" Charlie questioned, curiosity so clearly laced into his voice. "Well, both eyes..?"

As much as Alex wanted to ask what he was talking about, he couldn't even attempt to speak—never mind the fact that his throat was probably so dry his words would likely come out as wheezes. As it was, Alex could only gape at Charlie in silence. Charlie, too, stared at him in complete silence, though his eyes were curious whereas Alex's were just outright disbelieving. 

Is there anyone who could blame him? Standing before him is Charlie—not the Charlie that he talked on the phone with, who made stupid jokes with an auto-tuned voice, no, not that Charlie. This Charlie was a character, a persona crafted and played like a puppet by 'Slimecicle', who was the real Charlie... Or maybe real wasn't the right word, maybe 'other Charlie' worked better?Ah, and not just that, this world's Charlie wasn't even called Charlie—at least, not yet anyways, because this Charlie was still alive.

Oh, fuck.

What time period was he in right now..?

"Are you okay, Quackity from Las Nevadas?" Charlie asked and the sudden question caught Alex horribly off guard; yet another thing he had to wrap his head around was that right now he was, sort of, Quackity—Quackity the character. "You look sick... Can I..?"

Charlie raised his hand, as if to reach out to Alex, but he paused before actually touching him. Charlie watched him expectantly but Alex didn't do anything—he didn't move and he didn't speak, his gaze just trailed slowly from Charlie's lingering hand back up to his uncertain gaze. Apparently that was enough of a 'yes' for Charlie, because next thing Alex knew, Charlie had taken him by the hand and was leading him down the street. He still held his sweater to his chest with his other hand, so that it kept most of the blood hidden; he's not sure what anyone's reaction would be if they saw him partially covered in blood, even if it was his own.

Charlie's hand was uncomfortably less solid than he was expecting—or maybe he should have expected that, considering this Charlie wasn't a human but rather a slime. Also, isn't the main road into Las Nevadas longer than he remembered? And were there those smaller shops tucked away along the sides of the road always there? Was it too late—did his brain already turn into a burnt crisp? He didn't have time to dwell on it because suddenly they were standing in front of the looming doors of the grand casino and Charlie was opening the doors to go inside; of course, Charlie kept a hold on his hand as he walked inside.

The inside of the casino was actually, surprisingly, mesmerizing. For one, it was completely finished—with more decor than he imagined. slot machines, pool tables, even a roulette table, they were laid all across the room, along with a counter at the front. And off to the side was a staircase leading up onto a balcony that overlooked the lobby. Also, there were even more people—people he didn't recognize. Rather than leading him further in, Charlie turned to the right and entered through a door, practically dragging Alex up the following staircase. Charlie brought him onto a higher floor and into a long hallway with red carpet, lit only by the faintly glowing lights along the wall.

There was a strange tingling sensation where Charlie's hand was clasped around his own, but Alex had neither the energy nor the mind to be concerned about it. He just followed dazedly as Charlie led him down the hallway until he stopped in front of a door. Contrary to what Alex expected, Charlie didn't knock—instead, he just opened the door and walked right on inside, pulling in Alex behind him.

Once through the doorway, Charlie turned to face him with a smile on his face. 

"Here we are!" he beamed. "You can rest here, that way you'll feel better and—"

"Slime..?" 

Alex stilled at the sound of the new voice, which came from within the room. It was a sort of instinctive dread that filled him, creeping into his blood and rooting him in place.

Meanwhile, Charlie turned his head curiously, staring at the dark wood desk within the room—or, more importantly, the person sitting behind it. And then Charlie looked back at him, and then back at the person behind the desk, and then...

"Wow! Quackity from Las Nevadas, I didn't know you could divide!" It was then that Charlie shifted, stepping just enough to the side that Alex could properly see into the room. And that's when it saw him.

Sitting within the room, behind that dark wood desk, was his 'character'; Quackity, his crafted persona in a Minecraft world, made to tell stories alongside the others of the SMP. Quackity, who had a horrible, jagged scar tearing through his left eye—which was a milky white.

Quackity... who, just for a second, looked just as shocked as Alex. That is, until that shock quickly faded away and a cold, jaded expression took it's place.

"I see I've been missing something. Thank you, Slime," Quackity said, all the while his piercing gaze never left Alex. "Now, I'd like to talk to him. Alone, if you will."

"Okay!" Charlie chirped, far too enthusiastic compared to the way Quackity sounded so threatening. Alex definitely didn't want to be alone with Quackity—gods this was getting way too weird way too fast, was he technically standing in front of himself right now? Part of his sluggish mind wanted to find a way to get Charlie to stay so that it wouldn't be the two of them alone, but Charlie was already gone and shutting the door behind him before he could even register that thought.

Alex stood in front of the closed door, his posture weary yet alarmingly rigid with tension. Across the room, sitting behind the desk, Quackity set down his writing quill and rose to his feet, eyes trained on Alex with piercing intensity.

"Now... Who the fuck are you?"

Chapter Text

Alex laid sprawled out on his back atop the covers of the bed, now dressed in dark pyjamas with his hair still wet from the shower he just had. For all his internal complaining about how exhausted he was, Alex couldn't even dream of sleeping right now. Every nerve in his body still tingled with adrenaline, like a little voice in the back of his head that told him 'it's dangerous' and 'you need to run'. Of course, he couldn't run—not when the door to his room was locked, courtesy of Quackity.

Ah, shit, just thinking about what happened barely an hour ago was making him feel sick to his stomach. There were a number of things that Alex would classify as 'most terrifying experiences of my life' but... that chat with Quackity? Top of the list—it would easily take first, second, and third place if that were possible. It all felt like a blur, and yet it also felt like that whole encounter lasted an eternity. In all honesty, it hadn't been that bad from a logical standpoint, he was alive after all—but, hell, Quackity was not someone he wanted to be around alone.

Even now, he could hear the sound of Quackity's cold, piercing voice—he swore it'd haunt him whenever he did managed to sleep.

"Now... who the fuck are you?"

Alex watched, frozen in place, as Quackity slowly crossed in front of his desk. Where earlier, during his trek through the desert, Alex's steps had felt lost and without destination, the way Quackity walked was as if each step was planned—done with the intent to scare him. And, stupidly enough, it did. Or, maybe it wasn't that stupid.

This was Quackity—the character he created for this world... and Alex would be a fool to think his own character wouldn't kill him right here, right now; or, at the very least, lock him away in the prison where he probably would never see the light of day again. He liked to think that he would have a good understanding of his character and he assumed it was fair to believe that, if he seemed to pose any threat of any kind, then Quackity would simply kill him. At best, Quackity might deem him useful by some miracle and let him live, and then he would be able to find some chance to escape—Alex didn't feel like Quackity was the best person to work for, so staying under his rule was pretty much out of the question.

"I asked you a question."

Ah, shit—shit—shit—shit!

Never mind the fact that Alex's tongue felt like heavy lead in his mouth, even if he could find the willpower to talk, what would he even say? 'Ah, yes, I'm you-but-not-you, oh and by the way I actually created you and helped some others create the world you're living in, so I'm basically a god, haha'...

No, nope, no fucking way. He'd die before he said anything like that. But then what does he say? If Charlie had mistaken him for Quackity, then their resemblance must really be significant—facing Quackity now, he could see that that was mostly true, at least aside from the scar—and since that's the case, he doubts he can just play off their eerie similarities as a coincidence. At least, not with someone as distrusting or paranoid as Quackity.

Alex barely had time to register the click of thick boots across the floor before he was being grabbed, an unnervingly familiar hand grabbing him by the front of his shirt and slamming him roughly against the door. Alex winced, groaning in pain as his head thumped against the hard wood—he didn't have much time to dwell on the pain, however, because next thing he knew, Quackity was far too close to his face and there was the cold press of a blade against his throat.

"If you don't speak, I'm going to slit your fucking throat," Quackity snarled, eyes narrowing in a way that caused his scar to pull at his face. And, fuck, Alex knew that was a promise.

"Y... You! Fuck, I'm you!" Alex yelped when the blade pressed a bit firmer against his throat. He wasn't sure what reaction he was expecting, but it wasn't... nothing. Nothing but the rise of a single brow as Quackity regarded him with a reserved expression.

Quackity tilted his head just slightly and Alex nearly felt like he was being mocked—maybe he was, he didn't fucking know; nothing made sense anymore.

"You're me?"

Quackity sounded calm, hell, he even looked calm—but who the fuck could be calm in this kind of situation? Alex sure wasn't calm. Shit, he could really die here, couldn't he? No matter what exact time period he was in, the Quackity that had been scarred by Techno was ruthless, and the Quackity of Las Nevadas wouldn't hesitate to get rid of any uncertain variables that didn't seem to possess any benefit to him. Fuck, would Quackity really kill him even if he thought he was some version of himself from the past? Wasn't there like a whole stigma about killing yourself from some alternate dimension or timeline, that it erases you from existence or some shit? Does Quackity believe in that? Does he believe in that?

"...Yes?" Alex replied slowly. The hesitance seemed to rub Quackity the wrong way, if the way he frowned slightly was any indication, but after a few more lingering seconds of anxious agony, Quackity let him go and took a step back.

Alex breathed a sigh of relief, only to shout in terror when, with the flick of a wrist, the knife Quackity had in his hand embedded itself into the door inches from Alex's face.

"Skittish," Quackity commented, eyeing Alex as if he was some sort of dish to be served and eaten. And then Quackity must have noticed something because his eyes narrowed again, only he didn't say or do anything about whatever it is that he saw—Alex was slightly grateful for that, but also mildly scared. Quackity was supposed to be more of a cunning-type character around this time, right? Calculating, intelligent, observant... Did he notice something? Did he know?

Oh, fuck, what if Quackity knew? Would Quackity kill him for having a hand in his creation, in every fucking thing that probably made his life miserable? The answer was a very strong 'probably'. But there's no way Quackity could know. He's just overthinking things. He is. He's just overthinking. Right..? There's no way...

"Feel like you're looking at a ghost, me?" Quackity's voice startled Alex from his thoughts and he blinked, looking up to find Quackity leaning against the front of his desk, still staring at him with an unreadable expression. 

Cool, collected—basically everything that Alex currently wasn't. Also dangerous, did he already make a mental note of that?

Alex didn't know what to say. Was Quackity trying to make a joke? He didn't know. Alex decided it was best to just not say anything, though he quickly began to regret that decision. As Alex stood tense in front of the door, and Quackity relaxed languidly against his desk, the silence that followed Quackity's idle comment was suffocating. Alex would even argue that it was worse than the blistering heat of the desert. Fuck, he'd rather be tossed back into the desert right now if it meant he could get out of this room—more importantly, away from Quackity.

While Quackity stared at him with excruciating intensity, Alex found that he could look anywhere but Quackity, his eyes flitting about the room quickly. It was an office, that much was clear from the second he walked in. The floor had a deep red carpet that fit in well with the overall dark coloured theme of the room—the dark walls and ceiling, the slightly lighter but still dark shelves of the bookcases that lined the right side of the room. Closer to Quackity's desk, on the left side of the room, was a table with some books and scrolls laying on it—he couldn't exactly be certain, but it looked like there were notes and pictures drawn on the scrolls, though he had no idea what they were about. 

There was a heavy sigh and Alex managed to bring himself to meet Quackity's eyes; it was a little unnerving how his left eye, the one that was blind, felt like it was staring through him and not at him.

"You're awfully spacey, aren't you?" Quackity sneered. The sudden disdain caught Alex off guard. What the fuck was his problem? Try waking up in a desert, only to learn that you've been transported to another dimension and are currently staring down some weird, twisted version of yourself.

Of course, Alex didn't voice any of his thoughts, and his overall countenance remained unsure and vaguely nervous.

Alex's gaze flickered to Quackity's hand as he pulled something from his pocket—another small knife, to be exact. Quackity began to twiddle the knife between his fingers lazily, all the while still staring at Alex.

"Pick a number from one to ten."

Alex blinked. "...What?"

"I said, pick a number from one to ten, before I get tired of your pathetic shit and kill you," Quackity hissed.

"I... Uh... Si—Six, I guess..?" Alex stammered, struggling to get the words out. His body felt simultaneously like a live wire and an unfeeling brick—electrified yet numb. It was enough of a hassle to try to get his thoughts in order, forget trying to speak in an orderly fashion.

Quackity laughed curtly and Alex decided that he did not like that sound. "Six, huh?"

Alex expected that knife to come soaring at him with a vengeance, but it didn't; was six the right answer? Instead, Quackity kept the knife in his hand and merely pointed it in his direction—or, more specifically, to the hand that Charlie had taken while leading him here.

"You should wipe that off." Alex looked down at his hand to find green, slimy residue on his there. Quickly and with a sudden flare of panic fueling him, Alex swatted the slime off his hand, cursing quietly under his breath when it tried to stick to his fingers. Shit—wasn't there some, like, some stupid lore Charlie mentioned about Slime's slime being somewhat corrosive? Fuck, would it burn off his skin or some shit?

"So, how old are you, me?" Quackity drawled, watching Alex with a hint of disgust as he furiously wiped the slime off of his hand. "That is, assuming you're from some point of time in the past."

Wow, okay, Quackity seemed to be taking the idea of him being a past version of himself a little too smoothly. Alex damn near had a heart attack upon seeing the sign to Las Nevadas and realizing he was in another dimension or some shit, but Quackity is talking about potential time travel like it's the weather.

Stop, stop getting distracted. Quackity asked a question and... Oh. Oh. Oh, no, what does he say? Alex felt it was safe to say that Quackity and him looked close in age, though maybe Quackity was a bit older even if he couldn't be sure by how long. How did time pass in this world? How old was Quackity and, more importantly, how would that affect Alex's answer? What if he said he was twenty-one, which he nearly was, but Quackity was also twenty-one? That would screw over the whole 'I'm you from the past' thing he was hoping to go with. But what does he say? Does he lie about his age? But then what if that's only digging his own grave? What if—

Alex saw the glint of the blade as Quackity tightened his grip on it.

"Twenty-one... I'm twenty-one."

"Twenty-one..?" Quackity hummed, almost curiously. Then he grinned, though it was far from a happy look. "So, probably right before the first shit-show, huh? How lucky," Quackity hissed venomously.

Shit-show..? The fuck did that mean? What was he talking about? There were a number of things Alex would consider as a shit-show in the lore, but Quackity specifically said the first... Is he talking about sometime around Pogtopia? Maybe closer to the time Wilbur blew everything sky-high; he'd definitely consider that one of, if not the, first shit-shows of the server. If so, then in this world he was around twenty-one at that time..? Then how old was Quackity now? A couple years older? Three years older? Longer? Or maybe it wasn't actually that long ago..?

Quackity pushing off of his desk was more than enough to grab Alex's attention, especially when Quackity began walking towards him. Alex moved to take a step back but his heel simply bumped into the closed door behind him; would he have enough time to open the door and run, or would Quackity reach him first?

"You're so fucking pathetic," Quackity snapped, reaching out to grab Alex's wrist in a bruising grip; so much for running. "It's disgusting."

Alex winced, inhaling sharply when Quackity's grip only seemed to tighten—tighten to the point that he was actually afraid Quackity would snap his wrist. Despite them being pretty much the same height, it felt as though Quackity were towering over him, making him feel impossibly small. Without any warning, Quackity pulled on his wrist harshly, yanking Alex behind him so that he could open the door, only to then proceed to drag Alex with him as he stepped into the hallway. Alex stumbled, following Quackity as they walked a bit further down the hall until they came to another door.

Glaring at Alex momentarily, Quackity let go of his wrist to pull a set of keys from his pocket which he used to unlock the door. Quackity then disappeared into the room, leaving Alex standing in the hall alone. This would be as perfect as a time than any to run away, but he had a strong, sneaking suspicion that he wouldn't get very far if he did run—also, that Quackity might break his legs or something along those lines. So, Alex waited in the hallway for Quackity to finish... whatever it was that he was doing in there.

He... wasn't supposed to follow him, was he? It didn't seem like it, Quackity hadn't made any sort of indication that he should follow him. What the hell was he even doing in there? Just as Alex mustered up enough courage to dare a peek into the room, Quackity stepped out and grabbed him again, this time firmly by the arm, and pushed him into the room, clearly uncaring for the way Alex nearly tripped and fell over his own two feet. From what he glimpsed briefly, it was a bedroom that Quackity had thrown him in, and a smaller one at that.

"You'll be staying here for a while," Quackity said gruffly, drawing Alex's attention back towards him. Unlike earlier, Quackity's expression was completely passive—showing no hints of anger or disdain. Not that Alex trusted his seemingly calm demeanour anymore; unpredictable prick.

Alex cringed when his wrist throbbed painfully. Looking at it, he could see that it was already beginning to bruise; right now it was just a splotchy red and faintly purple mark around his wrist, but just judging from the pain alone, he knew it would bruise awfully. 

Quackity—What a fucking bastard...

"Oh, and you should think of a new name," Quackity said nonchalantly. Had Alex been a bit more brazen and a little less concerned for his own well-being, he may have argued and even told Quackity to 'fuck off', but instead he bit his tongue and kept his silence. "Most people just know me as Quackity, but there are some who know my real name. So, pick a name to use in public—don't pick something stupid."

And with that, he was left alone in the room with his wrist throbbing in pain, his eye burning, and overall just feeling downright miserable; the sound of the door locking seconds after Quackity closed it was near deafening.

And now, here he was, trapped within this little bedroom. Actually, the bedroom wasn't bad at all, and there was even a bathroom attached to it; what pissed him off was the fact that his own alternate dimension counterpart had locked him in here without giving him anything to soothe the pain in his wrist—he hadn't even given him a glass of fucking water.

Alex sighed, hating how even that stung his throat.

Once Quackity left him in here, he spent a few minutes just standing by the door trying to make sense of everything. Then, once he realized that there was a bathroom, he decided he could do that in the shower, so he did. After his shower, he briefly looked around the room to see what was here. There really wasn't much, not like in the office. Just a closet with a few white shirts and pairs of dress pants, and a dresser where he found the pyjamas he's currently wearing. He doesn't know who they belong to but he can't bring himself to care, besides, it's Quackity's fault for leaving him in here unattended.

Alex yawned, wincing at the dry, scratchy feeling in his throat.

...Would it be weird if he drank water from the bathroom sink? That's not weird, right? There are weirder things out there, he's sure.

Groaning, Alex sat up, almost deciding to just give up and lay down again when every bone in his body felt like a stiff board.

"Fucking hell..." Alex breathed, running a hand down his face tiredly. It was then that he noticed something on the bedside table.

It was... a mask? Reaching to pick it up, Alex examined the mask.

It was like one of those theatre masks—the ones with the half crying, half smiling faces. The smiling half on the right was primarily black while the crying half on the left was primarily white, it was simple yet it still looked nice, in a weird semi-unsettling way.

Did Quackity leave it here? Actually, that would make a lot of sense.

Other people who would probably recognize the uncanny resemblance he had to Quackity, but with a mask to hide his face he could prevent that. Yeah, it would be best to hide his face; his relation to Quackity getting recognized could cause a few issues—what kind of issues? He's not sure, but he felt like keeping his odd connection to Quackity a secret was a good idea, and he felt like Quackity would agree. So, then, would he just wear this mask whenever he went out? That is, if he ever did go out; Quackity hadn't explicitly said anything about him eventually being able to leave this room, but the fact that this mask was left here (presumably for him) meant that he'd be meeting other people, at the very least.

Oh, yeah, and the mask just reminded him... He needed to think of a new name. How fucking annoying was that?

The answer was very.

He could just do it later... right? Thinking of a whole new fucking name sounded like way too much of a chore right now, at least when half of his brain wanted to shut down and die while the other half was going a mile a minute trying to process everything that's happened so far. Besides... If he tried to come up with a name now, then it would probably be some dumb shit and Alex definitely didn't want to find out what Quackity would do to him if he 'picked something stupid'.

Yeah, he'd just think of a name later. Setting down the mask, Alex got up to go to the bathroom.

The bathroom was also small but Alex wasn't about to complain. It had everything he may have needed, so why would he? 

Standing in front of the sink and debating on whether he wants to take a drink or just splash some water on his face, Alex was about to turn on the water when something reflected in the mirror caught his eye. Looking up, Alex stared into his own eyes—maybe if he had more energy, maybe if he wasn't already so mentally exhausted by every that's happened, he would have reacted more strongly to what he saw.

But, no, Alex just stared at his reflection blankly as he blinked slowly.

Obviously, Alex didn't have a scar over his left eye like Quackity did—he couldn't help but to feel a bit guilty about that, now that he thought about it. After all, he created Quackity... He was responsible for everything that happened to him, good and bad. That's something he could dwell on later, though; maybe when he actually had the emotional capacity to feel regret, among other things he felt like he should feel.

At least now he knew, roughly, why his right eye had been bothering him for the better part of the day; also why Charlie (or Slime?) commented on both of his eyes and, maybe, why Quackity looked at him oddly for a moment. His right eye wasn't injured or anything, at least he didn't think so, but it looked... very different.

What would usually be the white of his sclera was now a pale green, and his iris was just a more vibrant shade of that same green—though he noticed after some careful scrutiny that there were was a hue of yellow and even some faint hints of soft violet. Also, his pupil wasn't perfectly round like the pupil of his other, significantly more normal looking eye; at the top and bottom, his pupil thinned to a point, almost creating a vague resemblance to a diamond shape—actually, it reminded him of a cat's eye.

And, when Alex tried to focus more on the intricate details of his own, now green, iris—if only to put his mind to something so that he couldn't think of anything else—his pupil thinned suddenly, now looking much more like a snake's. Startled, Alex jolted away from the mirror, only to realize that after a few seconds his eye reverted back to normal... or, as normal as it could be.

Reaching up, Alex gently prodded around his strange looking eye.

"What the fuck..?"

His day really just couldn't get any fucking weirder, could it?

First, he wakes up in the middle of a goddamn desert with no idea how he got there.

Then, he finds civilization—only to discover it's actually Las Nevadas, a place created in a fucking video game, only now it is very much real.

After that, he basically gets interrogated, rather threatened, by... himself? His creation? He didn't fucking know—he just decided it was easier to think of him as 'Quackity', despite how strange that also felt since that was also technically himself.

And now, his right eye looks like a fucking eye of ender and he has not even the faintest of ideas as to why.

Refusing to let himself stare at his reflection any longer, Alex spun on his heel and marched out of the bathroom and straight to his bed, where he let himself fall face first.

He'd sleep, and when he woke up he'd be back home—all of this would just be some fucked up, way too realistic nightmare. Everything would be fine.

Everything was fine.

Somehow—by some miracle of the gods—Alex fell asleep.

Chapter Text

When Alex woke up, he didn't immediately open his eyes. Instead he lay there on the bed with his eyes closed, mentally praying that when he opened them he would see his familiar room from back home. After he finished praying, he counted down from ten in his head and opened his eyes at one.

Grey ceiling, maroon coloured covers, a mask beside the bed...

Alex groaned, rolling over and tangling his hands into his hair.

Why couldn't this all just be a nightmare? Why couldn't he wake up at home, in his cozy bed with his phone sitting by the bedside? Was he cursed? He must be cursed, either that or his luck is so shitty it found its way into the negative integers of infinity. For some time, Alex laid curled up on the bed; he really just passed out on top of the covers, huh? Well, at least the room wasn't cold, otherwise he'd probably be freezing. 

It was so quiet, to the point that Alex was sure he could hear a pin drop. The silence was deafening, but not deafening enough to drown out the thoughts that wormed their way to the forefront of his mind like slithering snakes.

He's all alone here. He barely knows the people here—he knows their names, he knows their lives, but he doesn't know them... and they don't know him. Alex knows their creators, he doesn't know the creations themselves; not only is he a stranger to this world and the people in it, but if any of them found out that he had a hand in this world's 'story' then they'd probably kill him, or maybe even worse. He has no allies here, there is no one that he can trust.

...Maybe he deserves it. He saw how horrible Quackity's scar looked—he never imagined it to be like that, he... he never imagined it at all. It was just a skin for a character, and the scar was just part of the small lore details, to make things a bit more exciting. But seeing it in person, he realized that was no longer the case. That scar was real, just as real as the pain and horror that probably came with it. Pain and horror that happened because of him. 

Fuck.

Alex pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes in an effort to stave off the tears threatening to spill.

He was all alone in an uncertain world that he created—alongside others, sure, but that didn't change the fact that he helped make it the way it was. He was stranded here, unsure if he would ever be able to go back home... Would he ever get to see the others again? Wilbur? Karl? Charlie? Anyone? Would he be trapped here forever..?

No, no, there would be some way to get back to his world. There had to be—Minecraft... Minecraft had magic, right? Well, enchanting and potion-making he supposed, but that was still kinda magical wasn't it? And since this world was clearly a much more realistic, weird dimension related to Minecraft, then maybe there was magic? Something that could help him get home? He wouldn't be trapped here, not forever, he'd find a way home... He would... He would find a way home.

A sudden, searing pain in his right eye caused Alex to hiss.

Fuck, again? Really? Now, he knew that his eye was weird and all but, seriously, what was wrong with it? He could see just fine so why did it randomly hurt like a bitch?

Also... Why didn't Quackity mention it? Quackity in the lore never had an eye that looked like an eye of ender, so if Quackity thought of him as his past-self, wouldn't he question why one of his eyes was different? He's sure Quackity noticed—there's no way he wouldn't have... so then, why didn't he say anything..?

Just when he thought he had enough to be concerned about at the moment, Alex's stomach grumbled. Right, it's probably been a while since he's eaten—actually, how long did he sleep? Also, could he get some goddamn water around here? Fucking hell.

He had a stomach ache, his throat was as dry as the desert he woke up in, his right eye hurt like a bitch, every fiber of his being wanted nothing more than to just lay there and become one with the bed—but Alex wouldn't have that; he needed to get something done, even if that something was just finding some fucking food and water. Maybe once he got that, he could think about what he'd do from now on and rest some more. With a deep breath, Alex rolled onto his back and sat up.

Man, he feels like he just slept for ages. Okay, he'd just wash his face with a bit of water to wake up before going to find something to eat—oh, and he'd probably need to find something more suitable than pyjamas to wear... there were clothes in the closet, weren't there? He sure as hell wasn't putting on his old clothes, they were soiled with sand, sweat, and even blood. Okay, bathroom first, then he could check the closet.

Alex got up, noting in the back of his mind that the lights were off—were they always off?—and went to the bathroom. Turning the lights on made him squint and only caused his eye to hurt more, if that was even possible, so he left them off and walked around in the dark. It was actually pretty easy to see, he could even read the logo on one of the shampoo bottles sitting on the wall shelf near the shower. Without much thought, Alex turned on the sink and splashed some cold—but not too cold—water on his face. Then he looked at his reflection.

It was him. Other than his fucked up right eye, everything about him was normal: his left eye was brown, his hair was dark, his skin was a lightly tanned color, and he even had his beanie on—now wasn't that a miracle? 

...He didn't have a scar on his face, he was still himself—it was stupid, because who else would he be besides himself? But... just seeing himself and realizing that he was, in fact, himself was relieving. There were so many things to worry about (so many things he forced to the back of his mind) that it was nice to be certain of at least one thing.

Alex splashed a bit more water on his face, uncaring for the way some of it dripped down his arms and dampened the sleeves of his shirt, before turning off the sink and leaving the bathroom. Now... right, the closet; get some clothes, then go get some food and water. Start with the small things.

Still in the the dark, completely unhindered, Alex opened the closet and glanced at the things inside. Just like when he briefly checked before, there was just a few white dress shirts and a couple pairs of dark pants hanging from coat hangers. It was kinda similar to the type of outfit Quackity would wear—or, at least what Alex's in-game character skin wore. If he had some suspenders and a red tie, and maybe a more brown shade of pants, he could probably mimic Quackity's appearance... though he'd have to cover his right eye, ah, but then there's his left eye...

Alex shook his head with a sigh. Why would he even want to mimic Quackity's appearance? Not only was he certain Quackity would be pissed (and god only knew what he'd do when he was pissed), but what if he encountered someone who knew Quackity? Was he confident that he could pull off a good impression of Quackity, good enough to fool the people of this world? Ironically enough, considering he was both Quackity's creator and puppeteer, he wasn't confident he could do that at all; not here, in this world where his audience would be staring at him face-to-face, where there was no boundary between actor and viewer to protect him if need be—where everything was suddenly far too real and he felt far too exposed.

...

Okay, just pick some clothes—it's nothing but white shirts and dark pants, anyway, it's not like theres much of a decision to make. Alex grabbed a shirt and a pair of pants, but just as he was about to close the closet, something in the corner caught his eye. Had he not been so curiously focused on the boxes, maybe he would've taken this chance to realize how unnaturally easily he's been able to see in the dark, but he didn't.

Tucked away in the corner of the closet were three small boxes, each one stacked on top of the other. Folding the shirt and pants over one of his arms, Alex picked up the boxes and brought them back to his bed.

Setting his clothes down and sitting on the bed, Alex opened the first box—it was bigger than the others, just by a little bit. He didn't really have any expectations, he had no idea what kind of thing would be inside anyway... but, of all things, he wasn't expecting there to be a vial of some strange, purple liquid inside the box.

Huh. Is it a potion? Potions in Minecraft were never really his strong suit... Was there a purple potion? The harming potion was kind of purple, wasn't it? But this didn't really look like what he assumed a splash potion would look like, and he couldn't think of any reason why someone would want to have a harming potion that isn't a splash potion. Well, unless they wanted to pour it into someone's drink or something, maybe.

...Actually, yeah, that seemed like a pretty good reason to keep a harming potion despite it not being a splash potion. Unsure if it was actually a harming potion or not but unwilling to test it out, Alex carefully put the vial back in the box before setting it to the side.

The next box had something more normal inside: a teardrop shaped earring made of gold. It felt cool against the skin of his palm, and the teardrop itself was smooth when he rubbed his thumb over it. It was simple yet nice; as much as he thought a little flair could make things awe-inspiring, he also believed things didn't have to be complex or extravagant to be beautiful. After rolling the earring around his palm for a few more seconds he put it back in the box—it's not like he'd wear it and taking it for no reason felt wrong. He didn't even know who this stuff belonged to. Did it belong to Quackity? Honestly, he didn't really see this room belonging to Quackity, and same goes for the stuff in it.

One box left.

It had... an eyepatch? Just a plain, black eyepatch—nothing fancy or special about it. Wait, couldn't he use this? Yeah, he could use it to hide his right eye! While he didn't think there was anything incriminating about the strange appearance of his right eye, now that he actually knew how odd it looked, he didn't really want people looking at it—it would draw too much attention and, honestly, that was the last thing he wanted for now. Not to mention the idea of people looking intently at his eye made him feel considerable uneasy. Though... he did have that mask, but he didn't want to wear it just to hide his eye; he felt like wearing a mask all of the time wouldn't exactly be comfortable.

...It'd be fine to take this, right? It was just an eyepatch and, judging by the way the boxes were practically hidden in the corner of the closet collecting dust, it didn't seem like it'd be getting much use. Yeah, it'd be fine; even if it wasn't, taking an eyepatch wouldn't be that big of a deal. He could just put it back, no harm done.

Alex left the eyepatch on the bed while he put on the more presentable clothes he picked from the closet, folding the dark pyjamas neatly and setting them on the edge of the bed. His black sneakers, which had felt a bit out of place earlier, blended in a bit more with the dark pants so that was nice. Though, the pants were a tad too long and the shirt was just a bit too wide around his shoulders—nothing he couldn't handle, but that didn't mean it wasn't annoying. After he was dressed, Alex put the other two boxes back where he found them in the closet and sat on the bed again.

Now, the main reason he got out of bed in the first place: food and water. Where exactly would he get that? A kitchen, obviously, but where the fuck would there be a kitchen in a casino? It made a little bit of sense for there to be a bedroom in a casino, maybe for VIP guests who got too drunk or some shit like that, hell if he knew—whatever it was, having a bedroom in a casino wasn't very far-fetched in his opinion. But a kitchen? He wasn't too sure about that one. A bar, definitely... He could make his way to the lobby to get a drink, he supposed...

But, for one he wanted water, not alcohol, and he couldn't be certain that they offered water. And he wanted food, which he also couldn't be sure that they offered down there. And... maybe most discouraging was the fact that the bar would be on the main floor somewhere in the lobby, the lobby that's full of people... yeah, he's not quite ready to deal with that right now, possibly later. He could ask Quackity—

Oh, shit.

He kind of forgot about Quackity. He was so focused on doing the simple tasks up until this point, so that his traitorous mind didn't stray elsewhere, that he actually forgot about Quackity. Was Quackity still in his office? He still wasn't sure how long he fell asleep for. He wasn't supposed to go meet him, was he..? Well, it's not like Quackity gave him any instructions after practically throwing him inside this room and leaving him to his own devices. Shit, he really didn't want to go confront Quackity again...

Alex's stomach grumbled.

...But he was also really hungry and he didn't have any idea as to where or how he could get food around here. Also water, he really wanted water that wasn't from the bathroom sink—he had no idea if sink water in this world was safe to drink and until someone explicitly told him that it was, he decided he wasn't willing to take any chances drinking it.

As much as he didn't want to see Quackity again, it'd probably be best to go find him and talk to him. He could ask for some goddamn food and maybe figure out what the hell Quackity was planning on keeping him here for—after all, Quackity wouldn't just keep him here for no reason, that he was sure of. Ah, shit, now the question was: what the hell was that reason? Surely nothing good if Quackity was the type of character Alex had made him to be around this time.

Getting up, grabbing the eyepatch, and heading to the door, Alex only realized just as his hand touched the handle that Quackity had locked the door before he left. Well, shit, is he just supposed to wait here, then? Honestly, at this rate he's just going to—

Beneath the weight of Alex's hand, the handle turned and the door clicked open.

...It was locked, wasn't it? It was, he was sure of it! He heard the sound of that door locking like it was a fucking canon, there's no way he heard wrong. So, why was it unlocked all of the sudden? Actually, no, fuck that—that wasn't important. He was free from his room now, wasn't he? Not for the first time since he's arrived here, the thought of running away, of getting as far away as he possibly could from this place, crossed his mind, but... 

Well, just like last time, he had that dreadful suspicion that he wouldn't get very far.

With a muted sigh, Alex walked down the hall and stopped before the door he remembered Ch—Slime brought him to. There was no nameplate, but there was the emblem of a gold poker chip on the door. Should he knock..? He knew that Slime just walked inside without any warning, but Slime was kind of a special exception. After all, Quackity would end up getting attached to Slime if he hasn't already—damn, really, what time period was it right now? Anyway, should he just knock then?

Fuck around and find out, he supposed.

First, Alex put the eyepatch over his right eye, and then he knocked on the door—not too obnoxiously but also not so quiet that it couldn't be heard. There was a couple seconds of silence where Alex started to think Quackity wasn't in his office, or maybe that he was ignoring him, but then he heard a voice beckon him inside.

"Come in."

And didn't that sound like his fucking death calling?

He knew no amount of mental preparation would prepare him for this... whatever this meeting turned out to be, so Alex opened the door and walked inside, letting the door shut slowly behind him. Just like last time, Quackity was sitting behind his desk. Though, there seemed to be a more noticeable amount of papers on his desk, which Quackity continued to look at while Alex stood uncertainly by the door.

There was a chair in front of Quackity's desk, but... Yeah. No.

Ah, man, standing here like this was giving him too much mental capacity to focus on things. Especially with the way his right eye began to throb annoyingly and distract him—it wasn't horribly painful, not like some prior instances, but it was easily a nuisance.

Also... Would now be a good time to ask where he can get food? Maybe some water, too? He didn't feel like it was. 

After a couple of minutes where Alex was forced to stew in his own anxiety, Quackity sighed.

"About fucking time you got here," Quackity spat, briefly lifting his eyes to glare at him before returning his attention back to the papers on his desk.

Seriously? What a fucking dick! If he wanted him to come here sooner then maybe he could have, oh, Alex didn't know, fucking asked? He could have at least given him some set time to be here—actually, wait, no, he didn't see a clock in his room so that wouldn't have worked very well.

Alex kept his silence, unwilling to voice his thoughts and risk incurring Quackity's wrath; he'd rather not taunt death, thanks. It was another few minutes of Alex just standing there while Quackity read the papers on his desk, sometimes frowning or scoffing as he crossed things out with his ink-dipped quill. Huh. Did they not have pens in this world? Alex wasn't exactly sure of this world's development but it seemed pretty weird—after all, Las Nevadas looked like any other modern place, but here Quackity was using a quill like it was the old ages.

Actually, now that he thought about it... Just what exactly was this world like? It's gotta be pretty different than his own, considering this world is born from a fucking Minecraft role-play or some weird dimensional shit like that, but how does everything work? Was redstone like modern day circuitry? Did food never go bad, or did they have to use ways to preserve it here? And, magic... There must be enchanting, and most likely potion-making, but was there anything beyond that? For the first time since coming to this world, Alex was intensely curious—he wanted to see more of this world, to see what it was like and how interesting it could be.

But that would have to wait for another time, because Quackity had set down his quill and turned his head towards him.

"I'll go over things quickly, I don't have time to waste on you." Sheesh, he could have just left it at going over things quickly. "So, what's the name you chose?"

...

Ah, FUCK.

For someone who was near constantly concerned for his safety when in the presence of Quackity, he sure made one too many fucking mistakes in front of him, didn't he? 

"Tell me you didn't forget—"

"Pyre," Alex blurted, making a conscious effort to maintain eye contact with Quackity no matter how much he wanted to look away. "...I'll go by Pyre."

What the fuck—What the fuck?!

Why was Pyre the first fucking thing he thought of?! Isn't that shit something you burn, usually for a ceremony or a funeral or something like that?! Why was that word even in his vocabulary?! Ah, fucking hell, and Quackity said not to pick a stupid name—what was gonna happen now?

"...Pyre?" For once, Quackity actually looked a little bit confused; the only other time Alex had seen a similar expression was the first few seconds when he and Quackity first met. But, just like its always been so far, he hadn't the slightest clue as to what Quackity was thinking or feeling. "It's... passable."

Alex breathed a quiet sigh, feeling a bit of the tension drain from his shoulders.

"Alright, Pyre." Immediately, the tension returned and Alex stood rigid while Quackity looked him up and down, gaze stopping at his eye. "Well, since you're so kind as to draw attention to it first; what's with your eye?"

If Alex had been a little more believing of Quackity's calm attitude, he would have felt relaxed by the somewhat casual tone in which Quackity spoke to him. But he wasn't. Actually, Quackity's laid-back demeanour only made him more nervous because now it would be more unexpected when Quackity suddenly got pissed or something. 

Quackity's eyes narrowed and Alex knew he hadn't answered quickly enough, so he rushed to correct that.

"I... I'm not sure..."

"You're not sure?" Quackity repeated, still in that easygoing, indifferent tone. Quackity tilted his head, resting his chin on his hand while he regarded Alex; not for the first time, Alex felt like it was imperative that he maintained eye contact. "Well, a problem for a later time, then."

Ominous, but okay. At least Quackity didn't get mad.

"Now, let's go over the rules I have for you," Quackity began. "They're simple rules, so even a dog like you should be able to understand them."

A... dog? What the fuck—

"To start, you'll be officially taken in as a personal subordinate of mine, but don't think that you have any power. You don't," Quackity said flatly, his attention now focused on a poker chip that he rolled between his knuckles. "It's just a pretense. You need to keep a leash tight if you don't want a dog to forget it's place, after all."

Is he seriously just going to keep calling me a dog? What the fuck was his problem?!

"Onto the next thing; I'll let you outside." For a moment, that single statement was enough to quell his festering irritation and replace it with surprise. "You can look around, go explore Las Nevadas, chat with people if that's what you want; you can even try to run away, if you so desire, just know that I will hunt you down, and I will catch you."

Okay then, note taken.

"On that note, wear your mask around others at all times." Ah, so Quackity was the one who left the mask in his room; well, it was expected. "Surely you're smart enough to understand why?"

Alex was seriously about to get emotional whiplash from how fast his emotions were switching between outright terror and sheer fucking anger at the way Quackity treated him. Seriously, why does he have to be such a condescending—

"Right?" Quackity growled, clearly expecting an answer. Like previous times, that gripping chill of fear seized him and all Alex could do was nod. Quackity scoffed with obvious contempt but otherwise didn't comment; then he was back to being eerily calm, despite his words piercing like knives. "I don't want anyone knowing who you are, understand? And while you're outside, don't cause problems and don't try to act like you know me—you're not me and I won't associate closely with a weakling like you."

Before Alex even had the time to register Quackity's words and get mad, Quackity continued. "I have a few ideas, but I've yet to decide on a use for you yet. So take it as some free time, but answer me when I contact you; now, give me your communicator."

Alex tensed.

...Communicator?

Quackity must have sensed his panic because his calm demeanour melted away like ice under hot water and a vicious sneer twisted his expression. "What, did you lose it?" Alex wasn't given the chance to answer because it seemed that the look on his face was answer enough for Quackity. "Pathetic and useless—of fucking course. When we're done here go to your room, Slime will bring you a new one, and don't lose it this time."

Alex nodded, almost too quickly; he didn't miss the way Quackity rolled his eyes, muttering something scornfully under his breath.

"Alright, so if you go outside..?" Quackity trailed off into silence, watching him... expectantly?

Oh.

Wow. Couldn't this guy just ask him to do things like a normal fucking person with some common decency?

That lingering irritation was outweighed by the consuming fear, so Alex easily bit back his sigh but he struggled to form words.

"Don't... Don't let people know who I am," Alex began, voice quiet; he pointedly ignored the way Quackity's expression flickered with a hint of disdain. "Wear the mask... Don't act like I know you, and..."

Quackity raised a brow.

Ah, fuck it, why not? A little, teensy half-joke wouldn't hurt. Yay for borderline morbid jokes in times when he feels like his sanity is crumbling!

"...And remember that if I run away, I might get both of my legs broken," Alex finished.

For a moment, it was silent, and Alex quickly began to think that he made yet another mistake. But he didn't, or at least he didn't think he did. Quackity laughed—it was short, and more similar to a huff than anything, but it was still a laugh.

"Well, at least you know how to read between the lines," Quackity replied, the barest hint of amusement laced in his tone. Then, as if Alex had the accumulated interest value of a fly on the wall, Quackity turned his attention back to the papers on his desk and said to him dismissively: "That's everything. Now, get lost.

Alex hesitated, stuck frozen in place.

...

...Is now the right time to ask for some water? Or to at least ask if the sink water was alright..?

Quackity glanced up, eyes narrowing at him as he snarled, his scar twisting his features.

"Get out, before I make you."

Yeah, he'd rather not take his chances.

Without waiting to see how long it would take before Quackity threw him out of his office, he turned on his heel and left. That, of course, resulted in him standing dumbly in the hallway. What now? Oh, right, Quackity said something about Slime bringing a communicator to his room... Whatever that was. Maybe he could also ask Slime where to get some food and water—Slime seemed more than nice enough to tell him. With that thought in mind, Alex returned to his room.

It was maybe an hour or so before there was a knock at the door. Alex didn't mind so much, as that hour gave him time to recollect himself. He also took part of that hour to try on the mask, just to see if it would fit, and he was amazed by what he discovered; when he put on the mask, it was as if it wasn't even there. Well, he could still feel it on his face (it fit well), but he could see through it as if it didn't even exist. There were no annoying blindspots or anything that normal masks would have created, it was just like looking through pristine glass. For a moment, he had actually worried that maybe people could also see him through the mask, but that would be rather stupid considering a mask was meant to hide a person's face—still, he had gone to the bathroom to check and, sure enough, what stared back at him was the half white and half black face of the mask; it was at that moment he also realized that the mask didn't even have holes for his eyes.

He decided that it must be enchanted, because how else would it work? Definitely some sort of magic... which was really fucking cool. He definitely wanted to learn more about that. 

...Maybe later though. Right now he should probably answer the door. Alex got up from the bed, deciding to just keep the eyepatch on and leave behind the mask—he doubted it would be anyone other than Slime or Quackity anyway, and Slime already saw his face so it's not like seeing it again would be a big issue.

Opening the door, he was met with Slime's smile and... a tray..?

Holy shit—

"You brought food?" Alex blurted before he could think... Vaguely, he realized how fucking sad it was that he was this surprised over seeing food, also was that a cup of water on the tray?

"Yep!" Slime chirped happily. "Quackity from Las Nevadas told me to bring you a communicator, and I was eating with Fundy so I brought some food, too!"

On the tray, there was a plate with a couple of sandwiches and there was a small glass of water to the side, and... the communicator must be that thin rectangular thing, right? It was about the size of a phone, weirdly enough, and it looked to be some sort of polished yet somewhat translucent piece of quartz. 

"Well, thanks..." Alex mumbled as he reached out, taking the tray when Slime enthusiastically handed it to him. "Really."

"You're welcome! Oh, and Quackity from Las Nevadas told me that you are not also Quackity from Las Nevadas, which makes sense because humans are fleshy and have bones and wouldn't be able to divide very well," Slime said. "Sorry for mistaking you for Quackity from Las Nevadas. What's your name? I'm Slime!"

Alex couldn't help but laugh quietly at Slime's words; both because the way he spoke was oddly endearing and because Alex was just so relieved to not feel like he was walking on eggshells while talking to someone.

"My name is... Pyre," Alex hesitated; he had to remember to use that name from now on.

Slime bobbed his head in a way that was just a bit too unnatural for a human.

"It's nice to meet you, Pyre from..." Slime paused, smile disappearing as he stared blankly ahead. Before Alex could ask if something was wrong, Slime lit up again with a bright grin. "Nowhere!"

Alex's breath hitched. From... Nowhere? Well, it was true that he was from nowhere in this world, but... Did that mean Slime knew? No... probably not; Slime wasn't someone who was omnipotent, it's just that he's scarily good at being at the right place at the right time and also not being seen (for the most part). Slime probably just called him that because he's never seen him anywhere before—hence, 'Nowhere'.

Alex stood in his doorway and Slime remained in front of him, just smiling and staring at him.

Okay, a little unnerving... Should he say goodbye and go back into his room? Or... Alex felt like it was safe to assume that Quackity's 'personal subordinates' were the characters of the people he streamed recent lore with—So, the characters would be Slime, Sam, Foolish, Fundy, and Purpled. And he guessed whoever else might work for Quackity in this world was more of a lacky or something? Either way, if Slime was a personal subordinate, then he'd probably have a pretty good idea of how things worked around here, right? He didn't want to suddenly find out days later that there was some obscure job he had to do that nobody told him about; that would likely lead to some trouble.

"Is there... anything I should be doing while here?" he asked.

Slime blinked, seeming to consider his question, before he answered in that same cheerful tone.

"Nope! Not unless Quackity from Las Nevadas told you to do something!" Okay... All Quackity told him was that he hadn't decided on a use for him yet, right? Aside from the fact that he didn't like that choice of wording, it meant that he had some time to himself. "Pyre from Nowhere, you're new to Las Nevadas, right?"

Slowly, Alex nodded. He was, sort of... He created this place but he's never technically been to it, not in the flesh anyway. Also, it felt safe to assume some things would be different given this was definitely a real, living world and not a Minecraft sever that was limited to blocks and a few people online.

"I can 'show you the ropes' if you want! Though, we don't have any real ropes here..."

Alex considered the offer, but... He didn't think he was ready to spend a lot of time around Slime, not yet... not when he looked eerily akin to Charlie and when they even had a similar sense of humour—even if Slime's humour was obviously unintentional.

Alex offered a weak smile. "No, thanks, that's okay."

Slime bobbed his head, seemingly just happy to have had a short chat. "Okay! Bye then, Pyre from Nowhere!"

...He was never going to get used to 'Pyre from Nowhere', was he? Alex watched Slime walk down the hall, noticing the vivid shade of green that stained the back of his shirt, and sighed faintly. He decided against calling out to Slime and instead shut his door, returning into his room to bring the tray with him to his bed; while he didn't exactly like the idea of eating on his bed, because he didn't want to make a mess, it's not like there was an adequate table in here. Oh, well, he could use the bedside table, he supposed.

Sitting on the bed, Alex grabbed one of the sandwiches.

Fucking god—the sandwiches tasted like the most divine thing on this planet and even the water felt like some mystical shit. Maybe that was just his hunger and his thirst talking, but he didn't give a shit. It was food and it tasted good. While he wanted nothing more than to scarf down the sandwiches and practically drown in the water, he took his time; he didn't want to upset his stomach and get nauseous or anything like that. Once finished, he left the empty plate on his bedside table and picked up the communicator.

It was cool to the touch, also impossibly smooth. When he put one of his hands behind it, he could just faintly see the blur of his hand through the object. He wasn't exactly sure how this thing was supposed to work... probably another form of magic like the way his mask worked. Oh, god, what if Quackity tried to contact him and he didn't know how to answer or reply—or, maybe worse, didn't even know that Quackity had contacted him in the first place? He... He's sure he can figure it out, it'll be fine. He's made it this far by some sheer dumb fucking luck, after all... despite how unlucky he must be to have ended up here in the first place.

Slipping the communicator into his pant pocket, Alex took off the eyepatch and grabbed the mask, fastening it securely over his face as he stood.

Well, since he finally got something to eat and drink, and he has his mask on...

...Should he go do some exploring?

Chapter Text

There was someone new around Las Nevadas—the swift-spreading whispers said that they were one of his new subordinates. They wore a white dress shirt and a black bowtie and beanie, dark pants and boots, and a black coat, as well as a mask—their mask was split into two halves: the white, crying half on the left and the black, smiling half on the right. Nobody knew their name, not yet, but they would soon enough. After all, very little stayed secret for very long in Las Nevadas. Gossip spread like wildfire and rumours grew like rampant ivy. This newcomer was like a tantalizing mystery, and the frequent visitors of Las Nevadas were all too eager to uncover more.

Alex was glad he came outside, the fresh air was a warm welcome. And, despite how he was dressed, he didn't feel like he was roasting to death at all; was it some sort of enchantment again? Ah, and the way he was currently dressed...

As soon as he had opened the door of his room, he was greeted by a pair of dark boots, a black bowtie, and an obsidian hued coat that laid neatly on the floor in front of him. Of course, there was also a small note on top of the coat that simply read 'be presentable'. Oh, wow, he wondered who could have possibly wrote that? Aside from grumbling about Quackity being a prick, Alex took the things and put them on. He was pleasantly surprised to find that the coat fit a bit better than his shirt, and that wearing a bowtie wasn't all that bad either—also the boots were more comfortable than his sneakers, shockingly enough.

And, well, he'd admit... He didn't look half bad. Though, the black and white color scheme he had going on was maybe a bit too unnecessarily mysterious for his liking—or maybe he just felt that way because his face was hidden by a mask. 

Anyway, after he got properly dressed, he left his room. He wanted to go walk around a bit, explore Las Nevadas and see what things were familiar and what things weren't. But, to get outside he had to go through the main lobby of the Casino... It wasn't a horrible experience, definitely could have been worse, but it was still unnerving. Nearly as soon as he stepped out of the door and into the lobby, the people closest to him turned their heads to stare at him—their eyes wide upon quickly realizing that he had come from the door that led upstairs, to where Quackity's office was. 

Safe to say that Alex got the fuck out of there with no time to waste, which led to where he was now: standing on the street in front of the fountain. Among the first things he did was take of the position of the sun in the sky; it was closer to the centre of the sky but on the side where the sun would eventually set, whereas last time he saw it, it was closer to setting upon the horizon... Did... Did that mean he was asleep for almost twenty-four HOURS?! Shit... Okay, maybe Quackity had a right to be pissed about when he showed up. Also, that was probably why it had felt like he'd slept for ages—damn, did he sleep on top of the covers, laying almost face down on the bed, for that entire time? Fuck, this whole alternate world shit hit hard.

Aside from the fact that he probably slept for nearly a whole day, there were other things to notice, too. Now that Alex was out here, and now that he wasn't half out of his mind after baking in the sun and just recently realizing he was in another world, he actually realized one very significant thing. Las Nevadas was a city—a proper one. It didn't just have one main street and a few buildings dotted around, no, this place was a fully fledged city. Aside from the places Alex immediately recognized, there was so much more: small shops sat crammed in between buildings and there were other buildings that towered above the rest and dazzled with dim neon lights. The street split both left and right in front of the Casino, and looking to the left (opposite of the Hotel), Alex could see how the city would sprawl out even more—like this was the hub of the city and everything would branch out from here, and that the rest had still yet to be seen. Street lamps and benches also dotted the sides of the streets, and there was an overwhelming sense of activity as numerous people came and went.

Las Nevadas was alive, and Alex found himself completely awe-struck without exception. If it looked as amazing as this during the daylight, what would it look like at night with all of its neon lights?

He almost couldn't wait to find out.

A loud voice drew Alex's attention to the right side of the street, not far off from the fountain. It was the stage next to the restaurant, and the seats were filled with people and there was a man standing centre stage. Curious, Alex drew closer; he didn't join the seated crowd, instead he leaned against one of the street lamps nearby and watched from there. It was surprisingly easy all of the sudden to ignore the curious gazes that would sneak glances his way.

Alex watched as the man would beckon people onto the stage, and those people would do various things. Some of them tried to get the crowd to laugh with jokes while others performed dramatic skits to capture the rapt attention of the people, there were even people who brought out instruments or started dancing. Huh. It seemed like some sort of talent show.

In a weird nostalgic way, it reminded him of the talent shows he'd do on Discord...

The aching feeling that bloomed in his chest made Alex frown beneath his mask. He hosted those talent shows with his friends... His friends who are currently in a completely different world than him. He wondered how they were doing, hopefully everyone was doing well. Had they... Had they noticed that he was missing? Did he want them to notice he was missing..? If they did notice, then they'd probably spend a lot of their time worrying and trying to find out what happened to him, but there's no way they'd ever figure it out. He didn't want them to worry, but he also didn't want them to just never realize he was gone.

...Either way, it wouldn't matter once he got back to his world. He'd just have to return quickly so that none of his friends got too worried if (when) they noticed he was missing. He could do that... Yeah, he could do that. He's not sure how, but he'll figure it out. 

But... What if he doesn't?

What if... What if he never figures out how to get back home?

...What if he's stuck here forever..?

Alex gripped his arm, digging his fingers in as hard as he could; the dull pain cleared his mind a little bit. Now wasn't the time to dwell on this kind of thing. He didn't know what would be the right time to dwell on it, but he knew that it just wasn't now.

Alex flinched at the sudden chorus of screams and yells. Quickly focusing, Alex looked at the stage to find... glitter? Pretty much anyone sitting in the first few rows closest to the stage was covered in bright pink glitter, and they didn't exactly seem happy about it from what Alex could tell. On the stage was just the host, there was no sign of whoever caused the glitter disaster. Alex watched in mild amusement as some people freaked out, some tried half-heartedly to clean themselves, and others just up and left—all the while the host took a couple minutes to get a few things back in order before calling the next person onto the stage.

As interesting as watching this was, should he go look around elsewhere now?

Pushing off of the street lamp, Alex walked over to the edge of the fountain. Aside from the fountain itself being artfully designed, the way the sun made the water glisten was mesmerizing. Alex caught movement out of the corner of his right eye and turned his head; the person who was standing next to him, looking at him, jolted visibly before hurrying away. Did he do something..?

Actually... quite a few people kept looking at him, pausing in their steps to stare at him until they quickly picked up their pace when Alex turned to face them. Compared to how anxious he had felt when he stepped into the lobby of the Casino, he felt... Well, he didn't feel much other than indifferent—maybe still a little anxious, but by no means as much as he had been earlier. He didn't know what was up with all of these people and staring at him, but as long as they only looked and otherwise left him alone then it wasn't that big of a deal.

Alex absentmindedly touched his mask.

...He wouldn't lie, with the mask on he felt a little less exposed. The eyes that watched him with thinly veiled scrutiny felt less piercing than he imagined—he felt more hidden, more protected, with the mask on. Once he realized that feeling of security the mask granted, he felt significantly more calm and considerably less nervous. 

Alex hummed, looking around at what he could see from where he was.

Should he go to the restaurant? He did have those two sandwiches, but he wouldn't be opposed to eating a bit more. Oh, but he didn't have any money. Actually, what was the currency people used in this world? Yet another thing he'd have to figure out on his own, since asking something so seemingly obvious would be suspicious as fuck, and Alex definitely didn't want anyone starting to figure out he wasn't from this world.

Alright, so maybe not the restaurant—he could save that for another time. Where else could he go... Ah, the Space Needle! He caught a decent glimpse of it when he first arrived here and, even from where he stood by the fountain, he could see it rising above pretty much everything else around it. Yeah, why not? The Space Needle looked pretty fucking interesting and it'd be nice to get a better look at it, this time from up close, too.

Alex started in the direction of the Space Needle, looking at different people as he walked by. Most of them looked at him, too, but he felt a strange sense of comfort that, while he could see them looking at him, they couldn't see him looking at them. All they saw was a mask. Alex walked at a languid pace, so it was easy to begin to notice that the people walking around weren't all just... people. Humans, that is. There were odd animal-human hybrids, some of them with horns while others had tails, and he even saw a few that just literally looked like animals but slightly more humanoid. He was both equal parts amazed and intrigued, and confused and freaked out.

He had a lot to learn about this world.

Steps slowing as he approached the Space Needle, Alex had to tilt his head up to see its top. From up close, he realized just how high it was—it was higher than he thought it would be, that's for sure. Turning his attention back down, Alex looked around the area. Around the base of the Space Needle, within the perimeter made by the short smooth stone wall, were a number of outdoor tables. There was a fair number of people here—not enough to make the area seem crowded, but enough to make it feel like there was little extra space.

Should he sit at one of the tables? There were a few that didn't have any people sitting at them. Eh, why not?

Alex moved past the people milling about to sit down at one of the tables closer to the base of the Space Needle, finding it rather easy to ignore the stares that came his way. Sitting down, Alex rested his chin on his hand as he looked around.

He could see the restaurant, the wedding hall, the strip club, a few other buildings he didn't recognize from the server—probably places that were entirely new, then. He knew that there would be some unfamiliar aspects to this world, but he wasn't expecting Las Nevadas to be as big as it seemed. Maybe he should have taken up Slime on that offer to show him around. On that note, just how big was Las Nevadas? He knew that he mentioned expanding Las Nevadas in the lore on stream, but did that expansion actually happen here? That seemed pretty plausible. He might have to set aside a whole day just to properly explore all of Las Nevadas, that sounded kinda fun actually.

Also, there was a lot of people around. That didn't surprise him anymore after the initial shock of seeing all of the people, but now he was wondering if it was like this all of the time. Would there be this many people at night? Alex imagined that places like the strip club and the Casino might stay open extra late, also the Hotel. Maybe there were other places around that would be open late, too. Actually, just what exactly were the places that Alex wasn't familiar with? Restaurants? Bars? Stores? Thinking about it, it could be nearly anything.

It struck him that, instead of sitting here pondering about it all, he could actually get up and go find out. He did come outside to explore, after all. But where should he start? The places he more or less knows, or the places he doesn't know? Even once he narrows it down that much, he'll still have a lot of places to pick from. Maybe to start... Wait, he's sitting at the base of the Space Needle right now. He could go up to the top and see over the city, maybe get a better idea as to just how big it is, and from up there he could choose somewhere that looked interesting enough to start his exploration.

Alex was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn't even notice the person who took the seat across from him, not until they spoke anyway.

"Uh... Hey?"

"Holy shit," Alex hissed under his breath as he startled, jolting in his seat. Quickly turning his head, he was stunned speechless to find... Fundy?

That was definitely Fundy...

"Hi..?" Alex's own voice sounded like it was leagues away because all he could focus on was, well...

Fundy was... He... he was...

He was literally a furry.

Fundy's ears flicked back before completely flattening atop his head, a guilty expression crossing Fundy's face. "Sorry for scaring you, I didn't mean to."

Forcing himself to stop thinking about the fact that Fundy was quite actually just a humanoid fox, Alex replied; "...It's fine."

I'm fine. This is fine. This is... normal.

At least Fundy was wearing a shirt and a jacket, as well as some pants, right? Could be weirder. Could definitely be weirder.

Fundy's ears kept twitching, and Alex would occasionally see his tail—a fucking tail—swishing behind him; it was making it very hard to pay attention, also to not stare at Fundy like he was some freak of nature. He wasn't, Alex reminded himself, not in this world that is.

"You're Pyre... right?" Fundy asked slowly.

Alex blinked behind his mask. "Uh, yeah, that's... That's me." 

In his scrambled stupor and surprise, Alex failed to think about how Fundy already knew his name and had enough of an understanding of his appearance to recognize him; and that he only told Quackity his 'name' around an hour ago, as well that fact that he's been outside for barely twenty minutes.

Was it because Fundy was literally an anthropomorphic fox that he couldn't seem to connect Fundy and Floris in his mind? In front of him was Fundy while, in his mind, Floris was a completely different person—a human, for one. Wow, Floris would be pissed if he knew his alternate world counterpart was basically a furry. Were furries a thing in this world? Like, would Fundy get offended if he called him a furry..? Probably best not to test that, he didn't want to piss anyone off when he just got here.

Alex's mental crisis on Fundy's animal identity aside, he was actually kind of glad to have met Fundy before any of the others he knew he would eventually meet. Out of everyone in the Las Nevadas crew, Fundy seemed like one of the easiest people to get along with—maybe aside from Slime, but Alex was still unnerved by his uncanny resemblance to Charlie. But Fundy, well, he looked nothing like Floris. Though he supposed Foolish might not have been so bad to bump into, and it mostly depended on whether Sam would be more stern or more easygoing around him, and... Purpled wasn't exactly on the top of his list for people he wanted to meet right now.

Alex focused his attention on Fundy, who had been weirdly silent. Fundy was staring at the table, frowning slightly as if in deep concentration. Well, Alex wasn't gonna judge; he's been spacing out a lot recently, too. Just then, Fundy looked up at him, appearing surprised to have found Alex's mask staring in his direction

Fundy's eyes flickered away to look elsewhere.

"Slime said he brought you some of the sandwiches," Fundy mumbled. "...I hope they weren't too bad."

Alex tilted his head slightly.

"The sandwiches?" Alex repeated; he hadn't even said anything remotely mean, but Fundy shrunk in on himself as if he'd just been sprayed with water. Ah, fuck, he looks like a kicked puppy. "No, no, they were actually great. Really."

Immediately, Fundy brightened—his ears flicked up and his tail wagged behind him, and when Fundy looked at him, Alex swore his eyes were practically shining with joy.

"Really?!" Fundy exclaimed and then, seemingly embarrassed, he quieted down; even despite that, the smile on his face never faded away—at least, Alex assumed it was a smile, it was hard to tell since Fundy had a snout; all he knew for certain was that Fundy's mouth curved open and Alex could see some of his canines, and that he looked happy. "I'm glad you liked them..."

"...Did you make them?" Alex asked curiously, though he already had a feeling that he did; why else would Fundy seem so concerned over the quality of the sandwiches?.

Fundy nodded, ears twitching. After a moment of silence, he added; "You, uh... Any chance you're still hungry..?"

Alex thought about it for a moment.

"Honestly, yeah."

And that's how, from a brief and unexpected encounter, Alex ended up on the second-to-top floor of the Hotel; according to Fundy (who had become considerably less nervous), all of Quackity's 'personal subordinates' had their own rooms on this floor. Meanwhile, Quackity had the entire top floor to himself—Alex couldn't even begin to guess what he did with all of that space he had up there.

When Fundy said 'room' Alex wasn't expecting, well... Fundy's room was like a very nice apartment. The door opened to a wide space which was more or less a living room area, with a couple of couches and a table in between, and the kitchen was more of an open style kitchen that allowed view to and from the living room. Also, the far wall was almost entirely made of glass, with a view that overlooked the city. Off to the left, opposite direction of the kitchen, there was a hallway that Alex presumed led to the bedroom and bathroom.

"Wow..." Alex breathed, lingering in the doorway while Fundy went inside. Upon noticing Alex wasn't following, Fundy turned his head towards him.

"You can come in and sit down, I'm just gonna get some food," Fundy said, already walking over to the kitchen. "It won't take too long."

Alex nodded and took a step forward, only to pause when he realized he still had his boots on. Should he take them off..? Was taking off your shoes inside proper etiquette here or was it just weird? Ah, well there was a pair of shoes next to the door, so... Alex slipped off his boots before finally coming inside. Rather than taking a seat on one of the couches, however, he went past them to stand in front of the window.

The view was breath-taking. The Hotel was definitely a rival to the Space Needle in terms of height, so it provided just as good of a vantage point over Las Nevadas, and, wow, that view was insane. Like he'd thought, Las Nevadas was definitely larger than in he made it to be on the DSMP server; it sprawled out further behind the Casino and off to its left into the desert. Alex had just caught a small glimpse of forest green beyond the Hotel while on his way here with Fundy, so he assumed that the desert stopped as far as the hotel but stretched further in the opposite direction. Yeah, it did, didn't it? After all, it was all desert leading up to Las Nevadas (he would know, he had to walk through it)—he didn't even see that 'cookie outpost' that Toby had made on the server. Did that not exist, then?

"Nice, right?" Fundy's voice caused Alex to turn his head slightly, watching as Fundy approached with a dish lined with an assortment of small snacks. "It's probably your first time seeing the city like this, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is," Alex replied, taking one last look at the city before sitting on the couch across from Fundy. Feeling relaxed and not like he was being interrogated, Alex admitted; "It's bigger than I was expecting."

"We just expanded a bit further into the desert last month," Fundy commented, picking up what looked to be an oat bar with red and blue berries in it. "Construction is pretty fast around here because of Sam and Foolish—oh, they're two of our co-workers. The other one is Purpled, and you've already met Slime."

He already knew that but Alex nodded anyways, more focused on eyeing the dish that Fundy brought. It seemed to just be an assortment of different homemade snacks: oat bars, a few cookies, what looked to be shortbread of some kind, and even a couple cupcakes. Alex reached for one of the shortbreads and used his other hand to lift up his mask—just enough so that he would be able to eat. Across from him, Fundy gave him a curious look but otherwise didn't comment on why he kept his mask on.

Noticing that the shortbread had a weirdly blue and pink tint to it, Alex decided to try it anyway. It... tasted really fucking good. Sweet, with the vague taste of fruit—though he wasn't sure what kind of fruit. Alex noticed how Fundy's ears were angled towards him and how his tail kept flicking expectantly.

"It tastes good, thanks."

Fundy's tail wagged and his ears twitched. "No problem, man."

Contrary to how he felt unnerved when he looked at Slime, he just felt indifferent when he looked at Fundy—not to say he didn't feel anything, just that looking at him didn't remind him of Floris, so he didn't really feel uneasy. He knew Fundy was Floris' creation, but he didn't feel like Floris by any means; definitely not in the way he looked, at least. It was... nice. He was vaguely familiar with Fundy through the portrayal of him in the DSMP but he also didn't bear much of a resemblance to his friend back home, it made it easy to feel comfortable around him.

Picking up another shortbread, Alex asked a question.

"If you don't mind me asking, how long have you been part of Las Nevadas?"

"Oh..." Fundy made a sound that sounded like a mix between a hum and a gravelly purr. "About a year now? Maybe a little longer."

Okay, so it's been about a year since Quackity recruited Fundy. That's helpful to know. But... He still doesn't have any other reference points to use for time estimation. Was L'Manberg's demise two years ago? Four years ago? Longer, or shorter? He wouldn't be able to try figuring it out until he had another time reference, or just have someone outright tell him. He could ask, since he actually is new around here and technically 'Pyre' wouldn't know about anything that happened. But, at the same time, how would 'Pyre' even know about the events of L'Manberg, and everything else that's happened here, enough to ask about it? That's the thing—he shouldn't know, but he's from another world and he knows most of what there is to know about the events that took place here.

As he thought, he'll have to be subtle about figuring out the timeline of this world. Great.

"So," Fundy began, pulling Alex from his thoughts. "Where are you from?"

Alex paused, tensing up.

It was obvious that Fundy noticed because his ears flattened and his expression fell, becoming oddly worried.

"Sorry if that was insensitive," Fundy rushed to apologize, which... Alex wasn't expecting, honestly. 'Where are you from' just seemed like a natural thing to ask... unless it wasn't a typical thing to ask around here? "Purpled doesn't like to talk about it either, even Foolish is a bit hesitant about it, and Slime... Well, I think Slime is just lying about being from the 'ground I crawled up from over centuries'!" Alex smiled a bit at Fundy's weird Slime impression, though he couldn't help but think to himself:

No, no, Slime really did just crawl out of the ground over the span of centuries.

Alex decided to keep that thought to himself, for the good of Fundy's sanity.

"Sorry," he mumbled. 

Fundy waved him off with a black paw. "It's cool, man, no worries. Not everyone likes to talk about it."

Deciding he was done with the food and feeling just the slightest bit on edge, Alex pulled his mask back down; he was grateful that Fundy didn't comment on it or seem all that bothered by it.

"Has Quackity given you a job yet?" Fundy asked.

"No, he said he was still thinking about it."

"Huh." Alex was worried he'd said something wrong, that maybe his answer was more suspicious than he thought, but Fundy didn't seem to think much of it. "Don't worry about it, I doubt it'll be anything crazy."

He sure hoped not...

"Quackity might seem strict, but he's a good boss," Fundy said suddenly. Just by looking at him right now, Alex could tell that Fundy admired Quackity. "He's competent and knows how to handle things, he'll pick a role for you that suits you best and where you can really shine! He might be intimidating at first but trust me, he's a good person who'll give you good opportunities."

Alex swallowed down his unease at the thought of Quackity, of the sharp voice and the press of a cold blade against his throat.

"...Alright."

Fundy seemed about to say something else when suddenly he froze, then he reached into his jacket and pulled out a familiar looking object: a communicator. Did they all look the same, then? Yikes, he wouldn't want to get his mixed up with a pile of others. Alex watched with rapt attention as the communicator glowed faintly in Fundy's palm; how did he do that? Did that mean it was on or something?

Fundy's ears perked up and he looked at Alex with a smile; the communicator stopped glowing and Fundy put it back in his jacket.

"I asked Sam earlier and he just said theres still a couple of empty rooms on this floor, and that you can take one," Fundy said. "Don't feel burdened by it, all of us that work directly under Quackity get a room on this floor—ah, I already told you this, didn't I?" Fundy laughed sheepishly.

Before coming into Fundy's room, he saw that there was a gold nameplate on the door that read 'Fundy'. Did all the respective rooms have their names, then? Would he also get a nameplate on his door? It'd probably read 'Pyre'... he wasn't too sure how to feel about that.

"You're room is currently marked by a gold spade on the door, but you'll get your name on it pretty soon," Fundy commented. "If you want... I could show you to your room? Or you could go on your own, it's really up to you."

"I think..." Alex tilted his head to the side, just enough to see the large window. He must have spent a lot of time either out and about Las Nevadas or chatting with Fundy, because the sun was low and it would be dusk soon; he wasn't exactly sure, but the days seemed a bit quicker here—maybe not by a whole lot, but enough for him to notice a difference compared to his world.

He wanted to see what Las Nevadas was like during the hours of darkness, when the lights would truly shine. And... part of him wanted to be by himself; Being around Fundy was alright, he was pretty great as far as first impressions go, but... 

Alex could practically feel the nagging thoughts he'd purposefully pushed to the back of his mind earlier today, like they were clawing at him from the inside in a vicious attempt to escape.

Somewhere where he could be alone would be nice... but not somewhere where he'd be totally isolated, like a closed room. Somewhere where he was on his own but could still see people—so he knew that he wasn't completely alone.

Ah, he knew a good place; he doubted anyone would be there.

Alex stood up and Fundy followed suit.

"If you don't mind... I think I might go on my own."

Fundy's ears twitched but he didn't seem upset, instead he just nodded and picked up the dish with leftover snacks.

"Sure—oh! Before you go, let's connect our communicators!"

Alex didn't move. Fundy's ears flattened to his head and his tail curled close to his legs.

"...If that's okay with you?"

Blinking rapidly a few times, Alex quickly snapped out of his daze. "Yeah, no, it's no problem. That'd be great, actually." Though, he had no fucking idea how to 'connect communicators' or why they would do that. Unless it was like adding a contact into your phone..? 

Alex decided that his best bet would be to just give his communicator to Fundy and let him handle it, also to watch closely and see what Fundy did. So, that's exactly what Alex did.

Fundy seemed momentarily surprised to be handed Alex's communicator, but he didn't say anything and put down the dish so that he could pull out his own communicator. Alex watched as both the communicators lit up with a faint glow, and—

Fundy tilted his head curiously. "You haven't gated your communicator?"

"Uh..." Alex hesitated. "No... I haven't."

Fundy hummed, the sound once again sounding similar to a purr. Paying attention carefully, Alex watched Fundy press the end of both communicators to each other which caused their glowing to momentarily intensify before it faded away entirely. Then Fundy handed him back the communicator; well, that seemed easy, the problem was he had no idea what Fundy just did aside from touch the two communicators together.

"You might wanna gate it, just to be safe," Fundy said as he put his communicator away. "People around here can be too nosey for their own good and too daring to for us to be lax."

Alex nodded, trying his best not to let his uncertainty show. "Alright, I'll do that."

For a moment, both of them stood in place, as if neither were quite sure what to do.

"Thanks," Alex was the first to speak, and also the first to step away in the direction of the door; as if on cue, Fundy picked up the dish and started towards the kitchen. "I'll... see you later?"

Fundy turned to him with a smile. "Sure thing, man! I'll call you sometime!"

Ignoring the small anxiety that came from the fact that he still doesn't know how the fuck his communicator works, he took that as the definite sign that it's acceptable to leave. Putting on his boots, Alex opened the door and left Fundy's room; he didn't say anything, he felt it'd be kinda weird to say goodbye since he already said he'd see him later.

Taking the stairs down—man, these stairs were a bitch to come up earlier, there were more than just six fucking floors—Alex soon arrived at the ground floor. There weren't many people loitering around in the lobby, not that he really expected there to be—most people would likely rather be in their rooms. There was only a couple of people working at the receptionist desk and it was surprisingly quiet overall. He suspected that it would be more lively on the second floor, where the more interesting features of the Hotel were, but he didn't want to go there right now.

Alex headed outside and was met once again with the numerous people around. As far as he could tell, there didn't seem to be more or less people around during this time of day—though it was very hard to tell when there were way too many people for him to keep track of individually. Ignoring the people and whether they stared at him or not, Alex made his way to his destination.

The 'Las Nevadas' sign at the top of the hill that marked the beginning of the city.

Just as he thought, there was no one around here; and, from the top of the hill, he could see Las Nevadas and many of the people wandering the street. 

Alex sat beneath the sign, before soon deciding to lay on his back. He debated taking his mask off but decided against it, someone could still come here unannounced, after all.

...Today was nice; getting a look around Las Nevadas was good, even if he definitely didn't see close to everything it had to offer. At least he had an idea as to how big the city was, and to what the environment was like—he wasn't sure if it was common for people to stare at each other frequently, but with the mask on it didn't bother him very much now. And he met Fundy, too. That turned out to be a pleasant surprise. It was easy to separate Floris and Fundy in his mind, which made it a lot easier to hang around Fundy without being reminded of home and feeling uneasy.

Ah... that's what it would always come back to, isn't it?

Home.

His world.

The fact that he was stranded here, with no clue on how to leave—to return back to his world, his home, his family, his friends...

Alex groaned when his right eye began to pulse with a faint, dull pain.

"Seriously?!" he complained aloud, smacking his hand into the sand to vent his frustration. It had been fine nearly all day! Why was it hurting now all of the sudden!? 

Sighing heavily, Alex crossed an arm over his mask.

At least he wasn't as sore as he had been before falling asleep, and that he also got some (good) food and some water; less things to deal with on top of an aching eye and a multitude of other concerns.

Like what Quackity might decide to do with him.

Or how he knows next to nothing about how things work in this world but he has to pretend that he does so others don't become suspicious of him.

Or maybe the small fear in the back of his mind that people will see his face and recognize his uncanny resemblance to Quackity—what will they do then? What will Quackity do then? 

Worse yet, what if someone discovers the truth? The best he could hope for was that nobody else would believe them if they tried to tell anyone...

And how is he going to get home? He's been telling himself that he'll figure it out with time, but... But how? Where does he even start? Magic, sure, maybe, but that's such an abstract concept and he doesn't even know the first thing about magic in this world. And it's not like he can ask for help because, again, suspicious—he has to figure it out on his own, with no help and no support and no one to understand him.

He may be surrounded by people, he may even make some companions during his time here, but he will always be alone. There will always be a divide between himself and the people of this world because they'll never know, they can't know... It's only Alex that will always feel the distance of worlds between him and everyone else.

"Fuck..." Alex breathed a shuddering breath before inhaling deeply as he tried to force himself into a calming rhythm.

In, and out. In, and out. In, and out...

...

It was beginning to get dark... soon he'll be able to admire Las Nevadas in all its bright glory.

Alex raised his hand, fingers splayed out against the darkening sky.

He thought about his mask, about the formal attire he wore—about his eye.

Why is he even here..?

He doesn't fit in.

He doesn't belong here.

"...Hello?"

With his hand still raised to the sky, Alex turned his head and—

Oh.

Oh, shit.

Of all the times for this to happen... did it have to be now?

"Oh my, I've never seen you before, now have I?"

A trench coat that has definitely seen better days, brown hair with a wild white streak, and a smile that seemed just a tad too dangerous.

Wilbur.

Chapter Text

Wilbur.

Should he just pretend he never heard anything? Ah, but he already turned his head to look at him—he could pretend to be blind... that's dumb.

He could just leave. He could say some stupid shit about having a curfew and then be gone before Wilbur could say anything. Curfew...

...Quackity wouldn't actually expect him to be back by a certain time, would he..?

He better fucking not—hey, now wait a fucking second... Quackity wasn't his goddamn dad, why should Alex have to listen to everything he says? Especially if he did something as overbearing as give him, a fucking adult, a curfew. Maybe because he could kill you? his traitorous mind whispered, but Alex stubbornly refused to listen to its voice. Now that he's actually met decent people (Fundy), he's sick of Quackity's shit and he hasn't even seen him in a while.

Potential curfew aside, there were a few, admittedly poorly thought, things that Alex could do to get out of this sudden and unlucky situation, but...

All Alex did was drop his arm onto his chest with a sigh and turn his head to stare up into the sky. He vaguely heard the shift and slide of sand as Wilbur approached. Shit, Wilbur wouldn't try to take off his mask would he? Fuck, he couldn't be sure of that; not when it was Wilbur he was dealing with, too unpredictable. Tensing, Alex was ready to shield his face just in case Wilbur tried to do anything; though, was he really confident he could fend Wilbur off if he did attempt to steal his mask..?

Unexpectedly, Wilbur laughed.

"Don't worry, I won't touch you or your mask. I wouldn't attack a man while he's down." Wilbur raised his hands, as if to surrender, and he grinned. "Unless he wanted me to, of course."

...

...Huh..?

Did he just..? Was that... Wait a minute... 

While Alex was stunned speechless, still staring up into the sky, Wilbur sauntered up next to him and sat down. Only, Alex didn't react. Wilbur hunched over, resting his chin on the palm of his hand while he watched Alex. 

Wilbur was sure he'd recall seeing someone as eye-catching as this, so that must mean they're new here. Interesting.

As much as Wilbur found amusement in the way they stared blankly into the sky, clearly having some trouble with their thoughts, Wilbur wanted to chat—he wasn't a very patient man, maybe he was at one point but not anymore. Abruptly, Wilbur waved his hand in front of their face, taking delight in the way that it caused them to yelp and reel back as they lurched up from the sand.

...Fuck... God, he nearly just had a fucking heart attack! Holy shit, Wilbur's hand waving in his face all of the sudden scared the crap out of him!

With his hands dug into the sand at his sides, Alex heaved for breath while his heart beat in his chest like some wild, crazed animal; his eye was hurting more now and this was really not the right fucking time for that. Glaring at Wilbur from behind his mask, Alex said nothing, instead much more focused on calming down his racing heart before it fucking exploded.

Besides... What would he even say?

It seemed at least one of them knew what to say.

"Y'know, I've never seen you around here before," Wilbur drawled, flicking some sand off of his arm. "And I'm quite proud to say that I wouldn't forget an appearance as striking as yours. So, stranger, what should I call you?"

Alex didn't immediately reply, he took some time to debate whether he even wanted to or not. Wilbur in this world, at this time, was not someone he particularly wanted to be around. Not only were Wilbur and Quackity at odds, which wouldn't go very well for him if he got close to Wilbur, but... well, where should he even start? The Wilbur of L'Manberg's early days was more predictable and would likely rather use words than swords, but this Wilbur..? This Wilbur was someone who went to hell and back, almost literally, and was now a very changed man; he was unpredictable, had some questionable morals, was prone to sudden aggression and maybe even violence. Wilbur was the kind of person who could laugh at an insult but get upset at a compliment—an enigma. One that Alex preferred not to entangle himself with. 

Wilbur—his Wilbur—had designed his character to be complex, Alex knew that; Wilbur's character would have worries and fears and reasons he did things, but that didn't change the fact that he was dangerous. Especially to Alex, who was hiding his identity and who didn't trust himself to win a fight if one were to occur.

Perhaps, the further from each other they were, the better.

Maybe he should have left earlier rather than stayed...

"Well, since it seems you won't tell me your name, should I just pick one for you?" Wilbur hummed, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "Let's see; I could call you sweetie, darling, dear, the apple-of-my-eye, sugar—oh, sugar isn't so bad. I like sweet things."

...Seriously...

What the fuck.

He knew... He knew this Wilbur was gonna vastly different from his Wilbur, and maybe even the way his Wilbur intended for him to be, but... What the fuck is up with this weird, this—this weird fucking flirty shit! He knew Wilbur had a habit of randomly acting all flirtatious with people, it was a skit he and Wilbur did a number of times, but did that just automatically translate to this Wilbur being a flirt or some shit? So, on top of having to be constantly wary of Wilbur, he also has to deal with this weird mushy attitude..? Alex focused, glancing at Wilbur.

Wilbur was smiling, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.

Alex suppressed the shiver that threatened to shake him to his core.

"What do you think, sugar?"

Alex didn't say anything—he was afraid to. What if he said the wrong thing and then Wilbur snapped at him or something? He's not exactly sure whether Wilbur would kill him or not just for making a mistake, but it wasn't something he wanted to test his luck on. How should he act? With Quackity, he learned it was enough to be quiet until asked a question, at which point he would probably answer positively or in whatever way he guessed would cater most to what Quackity wanted—he could do that. Sure, maybe he wanted to voice his underlying thoughts sometimes, but he could hold them back easily when it was his safety potentially at risk. 

But how does he act around Wilbur?

He felt like it would be a bad move to let Wilbur walk all over him—for a number of reasons.

Unexpectedly, he thought of Quackity; of his piercing glare, his sharp tone and biting words that lacked fear or hesitance, and the way he made Alex feel so, so small. And as soon as he thought of that, he found himself pissed because of how Quackity treated him—he was always being a condescending asshole. Seriously, what the fuck did he do to make Quackity feel the need to be a dick to him?!

Alex let that feeling of irritation wash over him; he let the persona of Quackity make its image in his mind, and he used his mask as the veil that kept his true face hidden, let him pretend, let him act.

After all, he was good at acting, wasn't he?

Huffing, Alex clicked his tongue.

"I think you're a fucking weirdo."

Wilbur stared at him, devoid of any noticeable emotion, and just when Alex was beginning to feel that horrible, spine-chilling fear creep back in... Wilbur smiled—it wasn't quite genuine, but at least this one reached his eyes... even if it held some sort of maniac energy that Alex did not like the look of.

"Sugar has some spice now, huh?" Wilbur drawled, seeming all too pleased with the fact that Alex just called him a weirdo. 

Didn't that just solidify the fact that Wilbur was, in fact, weird?

Alex breathed out a quiet sigh, crossing his legs to sit with his hands in his lap; may as well make himself comfortable if he's gonna stay here. He was still a bit anxious, the dull throb of his right eye certainly wasn't helping with that, and he couldn't help but fidget slightly with his hands—he kind of wished he had some gloves; the more he was hidden, the more he was safe. Should he get some gloves tomorrow? Where would he get them? There must be a store somewhere around here that sells gloves. He could ask Fundy, too! He wouldn't mind getting closer to Fundy.

Especially if he was going to be stuck in this world for the foreseeable future.

"Aren't you gonna ask me for my name?"

Alex blinked back into focus, his mask turning as he looked at Wilbur.

"Do I have to?" he asked blandly.

Wilbur scoffed, levelling him with an unimpressed stare. "You telling me you're not an upstanding person who doesn't possess the utmost of common courtesy?"

Says you, Alex wanted to retort, but he didn't. First of all, he wasn't willing to push his luck that far, and also 'Pyre' shouldn't know anything about what Wilbur's atrocities in this world.

Still, that didn't mean he had to play along with Wilbur's antics—he already played along with Quackity's and that was more than enough.

"Yep."

Wilbur gasped, scandalized. "Sugar. Are you..." Alex tensed when Wilbur leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially. "...a criminal?"

"What the fuck?" Alex hissed before thinking, tone full of vitriol. "No! Why is that your first assumption!?"

Wilbur grinned and Alex felt like a bucket of cold water was just dumped over him.

"So, you do have buttons to press. I thought you might be emotionally stunted or something, and that's just no fun now, is it?"

Alex was very thankful that Wilbur leaned back, returning to his original sitting position. Damn, Wilbur just fucking played him there, huh? 

...This is why, just by a little bit, Alex already had a feeling beforehand that he would be more willing to deal with Quackity as opposed to Wilbur. Because, where Quackity was direct with his insults and his attempts to get a reaction from Alex, Wilbur was... subtle, that would be a decent way to put it; Wilbur asked questions without outright asking them and he got answers not by hearing them, but by quietly piecing together small pieces until they made a bigger picture.

Alex turned his head away, looking towards the city—as if forcefully turning his attention elsewhere would make Wilbur disappear.

"Aw, sugar, are you mad? I'm sorry." That was the most insincere 'sorry' that Alex has ever heard.

Alex rolled his eyes despite knowing Wilbur couldn't see it. "Fuck off."

He ignored the sound of Wilbur's laughter, instead focusing his eyes on the city.

Ah.

The lights. 

It wasn't completely dark yet, but night would be upon them soon enough. Right now, it was dark enough for Las Nevadas to begin to shine—while the sun would set with the coming of night, Las Nevadas would rise like a new dawn in the dark. He could see the bright lights along the length of the Space Needle, the neon signs that hung from the sides of buildings and were plastered to the walls, even the street lamps had their own eye-catching glow. He briefly wondered about the lights in this world; what were they powered by? Magic, or something else? Maybe redstone?

"So, where are you from, sugar?"

Seriously—what was with people and names here? First Quackity calls him 'dog', then Slime calls him 'Pyre from Nowhere', and now Wilbur is here calling him 'sugar'!

At least Fundy refers to him normally.

"Where do you think I'm from?" He doubted Wilbur would let him get away with answering his question with another question, but it was worth a try.

"Oh, come on," for a moment, Wilbur's voice dropped to a low, dangerous tone, "Don't be like that."

"...Las Nevadas," he replied slowly. That felt... wrong.

He wasn't from Las Nevadas—he wasn't from anywhere in this world.

Outcast.

Alex grimaced when his eye pulsed with a brief yet piercing pain. Was there some sort of pain medication in this world that he could use for his eye? He'd seriously have to look into that.

Noticing Wilbur that had been peculiarly silent, Alex turned his head. Wilbur was quick to fix his expression, but Alex caught it anyway—dark, cold, eyes narrowed in a way that mirrored something akin to distaste. Alex probably would have missed it if he hadn't found Wilbur's sudden silence bizarre.

Wilbur smiled.

"Is that so? Y'know, not many people can say they're from Las Nevadas."

"Well, I wasn't born—"

"I know," Wilbur interrupted sharply. "Still, you're from Las Nevadas, and I find that very fascinating. Did you know that only the big boss himself and his little minions can live in Las Nevadas? Of course, people are welcome at the Hotel, but not without paying a price."

Alex grit his teeth, not replying.

Well, shit, he didn't know that. All Fundy mentioned was that Quackity owned the top floor of the hotel while the rest of those from the Las Nevadas group divided the next floor down amongst them. So, then he, Quackity, and the other few were the only ones who actually lived in Las Nevadas? Then what about all of the people who worked there? Where did they live? Or did they have to 'pay a price' as Wilbur had said.

Wilbur laughed mirthlessly, his gaze now piercingly sharp. "You're awfully careless with your words, aren't you?"

"Shut up," Alex hissed, but it was weak, and Wilbur knew it was weak—Alex could see the recognition in his eyes.

A predator.

Wilbur was a predator, one that lied in wait—waiting for his prey to come to him all on their own.

Fucking perfect.

"Why should I?" Wilbur purred.

He should go. He should leave now, while he still possibly can. He gets the feeling that if he doesn't leave now, then—

"You know, you should really take off that mask."

Alex's breath hitched and his hands curled into fists. 

"Why?" he grit.

Wilbur grinned. "Things that sound nice often tend to look nice."

Alex couldn't stop his mind from reeling because of that comment.

...What?

Did... Did Wilbur just fucking..? Again..!?

No, nope—he's not gonna think about it. Nows not the time.

"You seem flustered, cat got your tongue?" Wilbur drawled, a wide grin growing on his face. And then swiftly and without warning, Wilbur had moved—he was closer now—and Alex couldn't get away in time to avoid the hand that grabbed his shoulder. "I really do think you should take off your mask, though. I can even help you."

Alex tried to slap him away but Wilbur moved back, and then he surged forward, toppling both of them to the ground. Wilbur hovered over him, a hand reaching towards his mask. 

His mask—his protection, the boundary, the fragile thing that let him distance himself from everything; it helped keep him together when otherwise he's sure he would fall apart.

Alex remembered what Wilbur said earlier about how he wouldn't touch his mask and all he could think was—

"Liar," Alex hissed as he grabbed Wilbur's approaching wrist, squeezing tightly; it did nothing to stop Wilbur.

Wilbur's eyes darkened but he smiled anyway—it was like how someone would smile at a stupid mouse who took the cheese from the mouse trap.

"Try not to struggle too much, I wouldn't want to hurt you."

"Get the fuck off of me!" Alex yelled, trying in vain to squirm out from underneath Wilbur. Again, his attempts were useless and all he could do was crane his head away as Wilbur's fingertips brushed the bottom edge of his mask.

Don't.

Don't look.

"Found you!"

Wilbur's smile fell and his eyes widened before he quickly rolled to the side, just in time to avoid the trident that went soaring over his head.

Before Alex could get up, something grabbed him and...

...Now he wasn't touching the ground anymore..?

Alex was being held like a bag of potatoes underneath a golden arm—it was really uncomfortable, all of the pressure of his own weight was applied to where his abdomen draped over their forearm, which was fucking rock solid.

In front of him, Wilbur had his hands raised in surrender as he took a few staggering steps back.

"Hey, Foolish! My man, my friend! My good buddy ol' pal—" Another trident lodged itself into the sand inches before Wilbur, who had jumped back just in time to prevent himself from getting skewered. "Hey, hey! Listen, the glitter was a mis—"

Another trident, this one narrowly missing Wilbur's head.

How many fucking tridents were there?

Wilbur laughed, turning away on his heel. "I think I've overstayed my welcome! See you soon, sugar!" Wilbur called back cheerily.

"...I really hope not," Alex muttered under his breath. He watched for as long as he could as Wilbur slid down the sand hill in the direction of the forest, soon disappearing out of sight. Once Wilbur was gone, it was deathly silent.

It was obvious who was holding him right now, both because of the golden arm and the fact that Wilbur literally said his name: Foolish. 

Whats with him and unexpectedly meeting people? Can't he just meet people when he's ready and not have them surprising him out of nowhere?

It feels like a cliché fanfic or some shit, its annoying.

Also... Foolish was tall—not a giant like Noah was adamant on him being at some point, but definitely taller than anyone else he's met here as of yet. Alex could see the sand because of how he was being held and it was at least a meter's distance from him to it. Also, was Foolish gonna put him down or..? Did he forget that he was holding him? This position was starting to get really uncomfortable, and he doesn't want to be sore again.

Above him, Foolish sighed. "Aw, man, he got away... I should have gone after him..."

Maybe if he just asked Foolish to put him down...

"Hey, could you—"

Alex groaned in pain as he was dropped unceremoniously onto the sand.

"Oh, shit!"

Alex was hauled up suddenly by his arm, only to stagger once he was let go; golden hands quickly steadied him by the shoulders.

"You good?"

Alex had to look up—like, up—to see Foolish's face. A body that seemed to be made of pure gold, emeralds in the place of eyes, and blue and gold clothing that bore an odd resemblance to what Alex would consider an old Egyptian style—or something similar, he's not a clothing expert, or a time period expert for that matter.

Not the weirdest thing he's seen so far, but definitely high on the list.

"Yeah, I'm good," Alex replied; aside from the fact that his midsection throbbed with a dull ache now and that his eye was being a bitch again. "Thanks for, uh..."

Foolish let Alex go once he seemed steady on his feet, going to go grab his tridents. "Scaring away Wilbur?" Foolish questioned, twirling one of the tridents in his hand as he picked it up. "No problem, I'd gladly do it any day. 'Specially when he was the one who blew up a glitter bomb on the stage earlier."

Ah, that... That honestly seemed like something Wilbur would do—both in this world and possibly his own.

Don't think about it.

Foolish pulled out two blue crystals and Alex watched as, upon them touching the tridents, the tridents evaporated in a cloud of blue energy which then swirled and went into the crystal.

Okay, what the fuck was that?

Foolish spun around, a smile on his face as he outstretched his hand in greeting.

"Pyre, right? I heard about you from Fundy." Alex hesitated before he shook Foolish's hand; if Foolish wanted to, he could probably crush heads like soda cans with just his hand—okay, no morbid thoughts, please. God, he's so fucking tired; that encounter with Wilbur really took more out of him than he thought. "I'm Foolish."

Exhaling calmly, Alex recollected himself.

"Nice to meet you," he replied. "Again, thanks for helping out."

Foolish laughed. "Like I said, it was practically a pleasure."

Letting go of Foolish's hand, Alex re-adjusted his mask and made sure it was securely on his face; he couldn't help but shiver at the brief memory of Wilbur's fingers curling beneath the edge of his mask.

If Foolish hadn't shown up...

"You good? I have some healing potions I think..." Alex watched as Foolish grabbed one of many crystals dangling from the thin rope hanging around his waist, and then as Foolish crushed the crystal in his hand and a pink potion appeared in a swirl of colourful, shimmering energy. Foolish held the potion out to him but Alex didn't take it, he just stared at it silently.

"Uh... Pyre? You didn't hurt your head, did you?" Foolish sounded genuinely concerned but then, as if a switch was flicked, his tone dropped and his voice turned threatening. "Wilbur. When I get my hands on him, I'm going to—"

"...The crystals," Alex murmured dazedly.

"The crystals?" Foolish repeated questioningly.

Alex flinched, snapping abruptly out of his daze.

Ah, shit, so much for wishing to be subtle about knowing jack-shit about anything magic related. He's exhausted and he just couldn't fathom what the fuck those crystals did, and he ended up saying something stupid. Hopefully Foolish didn't think he was too weird or suspicious. Maybe he could just brush it off as the slip of the tongue..?

"Ah," Foolish mumbled, a pensive look on his face. "You must be from an old-era realm."

...

A what?

Foolish smiled, clapping a heavy hand on Alex's shoulder, seemingly unaware or just uncaring of the way Alex tensed.

"Don't worry about it, man!" he exclaimed, seeming far more happy and far less suspicious of him than Alex was expecting. "If you want, I can help you get the hang of things. I know how confusing the newer magic can be for first-timers."

"Could you?" Alex blurted. "I mean, help me..?"

"Sure thing!" Foolish stepped away, taking out a communicator. "I've just gotta deal with something first. I don't use my room very much, so can I catch up with you in your room?"

...Room—right, the rooms at the Hotel.

Alex offered a nod and that was all Foolish needed before he began to walk away, entering into the Gas Me Up gas station. Why, exactly, did Foolish go in there of all places? He had no fucking idea, and he honestly didn't care. Foolish could do whatever the hell he wanted, a free pass for helping him out... and maybe teaching him a bit about the magic of this world, which would be really fucking helpful. After seeing the weird shit with the crystals, Alex was positive he wouldn't be able to figure that kind of thing out on his own.

Did he know what Foolish meant by an 'old-era realm'? Absolutely-fucking-not. Did 'being form an old-era realm' apparently grant him a free pass for being whatever the magical equivalent of illiterate was? It absolutely-fucking-did.

Well, Foolish said he'd meet him in his Hotel room—he'd yet to actually see his room yet. Fundy said it was marked with a spade, right? He'd better get there before Foolish, it'd be pretty awkward if he didn't.

Alex began on his way back into the city, only to linger in his steps.

It was dark.

...Now Las Nevadas truly looked alive; beautiful, too.

It was a shame he just didn't have the energy to appreciate it anymore.

Chapter Text

"Sorry, but... what is this?"

Sitting cross-legged in front of him, Foolish grinned.

"Your learning materials!"

Alex's 'learning materials' were currently on top of the red blanket in front of him. The two of them were in Alex's room, which was pretty much a replica of Fundy's but without any personal decorations. Also, Alex had no idea how any of this constituted for learning materials.

Outside, the sky was dark and the stars glowed; while Alex was considerably tired and very much in need of a rest, Foolish apparently had things to do tomorrow, so that either meant they did this tonight or postponed it for some other time. The sooner the better; Alex would much rather learn anything he could about magic now, before he slipped up and exposed himself to someone much less forgiving. Rather than sitting on the couches, the two of them were sitting on the floor next to the large window that overlooked the direction of the forest—turns out his room was on the opposite side of the Hotel from Fundy's.

On the red blanket between them were Alex's 'learning materials'. Numerous crystals of various colours were clustered in a group, each one roughly the size of his palm; there were a couple of smooth oblong stones, one of lapis and one of quartz, and they both had some unfamiliar symbol on them; there were what looked to be small scrolls that were rolled up and stacked on top of each other; and finally...

Alex decided he didn't like the look of that book stack; piled up into a tower were five books, each one relatively thick—they wouldn't take ages to read, but it definitely wouldn't be quick either.

As if sensing Alex's direction of attention, Foolish laid a hand atop the books. "I thought these would be good for you! I got them for my kids, but they don't need them anymore, so you can have them!"

...KIDS?!

Wait, no—that's NOT important right now.

Dragging his fingertips lightly down each book, Foolish listed off their names; "You've got 'Complex Enchanting: A Beginner's Guide', 'Tips and Tricks for the Magical Arts', 'The Do's and Don't's of Teleporting', 'The Common Runes', 'The Defining Sigil Handbook', and—" Foolish crushed a blue crystal and Alex saw one thick-ass book appear in his golden hand "—'The Basics of Alchemy'!"

...That book was unnecessarily large... and did he say it was just the basics?! 

Holy shit. This was gonna be school all over again.

Foolish smiled teasingly; Alex couldn't help but notice how his teeth (which were also gold) were sharp, like a shark's.

"Intimidated?"

Alex looked at the stuff present before him and huffed, reaching a hand up to adjust his beanie; there was still bits of sand clinging to it from his brief scuffle with Wilbur, how annoying. He'll deal with it more thoroughly later, once Foolish left and after he got some rest.

"A little," he replied. A little was an understatement, but he'd keep that to himself.

Foolish laughed lightly, setting down the thick book atop the rest with a dull thump before taking out his communicator. 

Well, at least he knew what that was... Didn't mean he knew how it worked, though. 

While doing something with his communicator—Alex had no idea what, considering all he saw was a piece of smooth-as-fuck quartz—Foolish asked: "Ever had a communicator before?"

Now, if Quackity had been the one to ask him that same question, it would probably—most definitely—sound condescending; but coming from Foolish, it was just a question, nothing more and nothing less. Foolish had no idea how much he appreciated that... It was actually kind of sad that he appreciated something as simple as that. It also said a fair bit about Quackity's character—asshole.

Also, he should probably answer that question... It'd be fine to be honest, right? Well, better now than never.

"No," he admitted.

Foolish hummed. "Alright, so we're starting simple then." Somehow, Alex felt that everything about this was going to be anything but simple. Foolish motioned his hand towards him, as if expecting something, and it took Alex a second to realize he wanted his communicator; Alex gave it to him and watched as he did... something with it.

"So, what do you think of the city so far, Pyre?"

Huh. Small talk. Yeah, alright, he's fine with that.

Alex shrugged. "It's nice. Livelier than I thought, but nice."

"Yeah, took me a little while to get used to how busy the place was," Foolish replied, both communicators glowing in his hands. "Though I have to say, people really like to stare around here."

Alex shook his head with a weary laugh. "Agreed."

Foolish tilted his head. "Oh? You, too? Well, makes sense, you're new around here—people are probably watching you like vultures. Alright, here." The communicators were no longer glowing and Foolish handed both of them to Alex. Alex accepted them, holding one in each palm as he waited; it wasn't like he knew what the fuck he was doing with any of this shit.

"I noticed you're connected to Fundy," Foolish commented. "Did he do that for you?"

"Yeah."

"Alright." Foolish nodded. "So, you're gonna connect our communicators, then. And, so you know, connecting communicators is necessary for contacting people."

"Oh," Alex responded, looking uncertainly at the communicators in his hands. "So, if I don't connect my communicator to yours, for example, then we can't contact each other?"

"Yep."

Interesting to know. Didn't that kind of make communicators useless if they didn't have any connections to other communicators? Unless they had some secret function that he wasn't aware of.

...Also, he didn't know what to do. Other than the fact that he had to touch the ends of the communicators together, he didn't know what happened in order for them to connect. God, this felt like those weird puzzles that looked easy but were actually the most infuriating things in the world. Seemingly capable of sensing Alex's dilemma, Foolish began to explain.

"Touch the ends together." Alex did that and the communicators lit up with a faint glow. "Now, I want you to think of them connecting, visualizing it might help... man, this is harder to explain than I thought it would be," Foolish mumbled. "Think of it like theres two invisible strings at the end of each communicator, and you want to will those strings to tether together. If it's working, you'll start to feel the communicators warm up and you'll basically feel like something is trying to crawl into your soul." 

For a moment, Alex lost his focus.

Hold on, what? 

"Accept that feeling, don't push it away. Think of yourself as a medium; you need to accept the connection of both communicators before they can be connected to each other."

Shit, focus.

Connect the communicators... but, like, mentally..? Also physically, but mainly mentally. Right...

...Foolish may not be the best teacher he's ever had, but he's the only person here to teach him so he's not gonna complain any time soon.

Taking in a deep breath and closing his eyes, Alex willed himself to concentrate.

The communicators were actually quite light, but he could feel their presence weighing in his palms. Smooth to the touch and faintly cool, but gradually becoming warmer. He just had to connect them—tether them together so that they could reach no matter how distanced. Its like that 'red string' thing, though he supposed that was in terms of connecting people and not the magical quartz counterpart of a phone; thinking about it like that, he could imagine a red string that connected he and Fundy's communicators—no matter where or how far apart they were, they would be able to contact one another.

That was actually a rather comforting thought, knowing that there was a means of communication this powerful in this world. That even if he got lost somewhere within this world, he could still find a way to reach people.

If only he could reach the people of his world.

Oh. His hands were getting warmer, was that because of the communicators?

...They're getting really warm. So, its working, right..? But didn't Foolish say something else about—

Fuck—oh, fuck, what the fuck was that?

His hands were burning—not burning in the sense that they were on fire, just that they felt hot and there was this weird, uncomfortable tingling sensation crawling up his arms and under his skin and into his bones and through his blood and OH FUCK—

Don't push it away, don't push it away, don't push that godforsaken feeling away.

Entirely tense, Alex let out a stuttering breath and then...

That awful sensation that had been spreading up his arms spread out through his chest and clicked—it connected, became one, and as soon as that happened the sensation was gone and Alex was completely fine.

...Oh, god, that was a horrifying experience. It was like ants crawling beneath the surface of his skin, but worse. Fucking hell.

There was a short, cut-off laugh that caused Alex to flinch, and then to narrow his eyes at Foolish—who was clearly stifling his laughter.

"I can't believe you're laughing at my suffering," Alex sighed, finding himself more tired than irritated.

"Sorry, sorry," Foolish apologized and it sounded far more genuine than that half-assed apology Wilbur tried to give him. "It's just that I've gotten used to it already, so seeing how freaked out you seemed was a little funny. Again, sorry."

Alex sighed and set down both communicators on the red blanket. "...Does that mean it'll always feel..." Was there even a word for what that feeling was? Hell-spawned, maybe?

"Revolting?" Foolish finished for him, reaching to take back his communicator while leaving Alex's on the floor. "Unfortunately, yes. You'll get used to it eventually."

Just thinking about that awful sensation was enough to make him shiver, and he'll have to deal with it every time he wants to connect a couple of communicators? Shit, that's gonna be a bitch to go through again.

And now that he thought about it, Fundy connected their communicators without even batting an eye. Damn, Fundy either has the strongest will in the world or the best fucking poker face he's ever seen; either way, respect.

"If it makes you feel any better, that was the worst part of what you'll be learning for now," Foolish said as he pulled a small dagger from within his robes; he then looked at Alex with a sheepish smile. "Uh, if I could see your hand..?"

Alex tilted his head, definitely confused as to why Foolish would need his hand, but he decided not to question it. Foolish said that the worst part was over, and he also doubted Foolish would lie or do anything to purposely hurt him. So, without too much hesitance, Alex lifted up his hand and didn't flinch back when Foolish took his wrist. Foolish pulled Alex's hand towards him with considerable caution, likely aware that he could easily hurt Alex accidentally, and then—

Alex winced when Foolish cut a small opening on the pad of his index finger but he didn't pull away; instead, he watched curiously as Foolish held his bleeding finger over his communicator on the floor. As the blood steadily dripped down, the communicator absorbed it, turning a deep red before reverting back to normal. Rather than immediately of letting go of Alex's hand, Foolish used his other hand to grab and crack a crystal, producing a small vial of pink liquid which he then poured onto Alex's finger. Only then did Foolish let go, and Alex looked at his now completely unblemished finger with fascination.

"What we just did there was gate your communicator." Alex looked up from his hand, staring at Foolish before his gaze flickered down to his communicator. "Basically, we just made it so that nobody except you can use your communicator."

"Oh, that's kinda cool." Maybe a bit too much like some blood ritual shit, considering he had to bleed on his communicator in order to gate it, but whatever.

Foolish offers a nod as he picks up one of the blue crystals in the small pile on the blanket, then he says; "Oh, and to contact someone, just think of them while holding your communicator."

"Sounds easy enough..."

Foolish laughed lightly. "Great! Now that you can call me when Wilbur bothers you, so that I can kick his dirty ass—" Alex held back a snort "—should we move onto the more exciting stuff?" Foolish held up the blue crystal so that Alex could see it.

It was a crystal, nothing that looked very out of the ordinary. But, if the number of times Alex had seen it happen proved anything, then the crystal could summon something or conjure some shit—however the fuck it worked.

Foolish tossed the crystal to Alex, who managed to catch it without fumbling too much; holding it in his hand, he could feel something like a vague pulse of warmth. Taking another crystal, a pink one this time, Foolish started to explain just like he had with the communicator.

"They're called storage-crystals, pretty self-explanatory. They can store one item, and nothing that has living matter," Foolish said. "When a storage-crystal is 'full' you'll notice that it feels kinda warm, when its 'empty' it'll feel cold. So, to release what you stored..."

Foolish broke the pink crystal between his fingers and held his palm flat as a compass appeared in a swirl of energy—or maybe it was more accurate to call it magic rather than just energy. 

"Your turn."

Alex looked at the blue crystal in his hand, feeling the faint heat emanating from it, and then he clenched his fist; considering it was a solid crystal, it was surprisingly easy to break. Alex couldn't help but startle when, as soon as the crystal broke, there was a brief cloud of magic and then there was a gleaming silver dagger in his hand.

"...Wow," Alex breathed. Now this was cool, not to mention nowhere near as distressing as connecting communicators.

"I've got a few empty ones here and lots more extra at home, so here." Alex looked up as Foolish pushed three crystals his way.

"Are you sure?" he asked because, really, Foolish has already helped him more than enough. "You don't have to."

Foolish shrugged. "At least I'm giving them to you, Purpled always just steals them from me. Oh, and the dagger is also a gift, just in case someone gets a little too close for comfort."

A dagger—one clearly meant for more murderous intentions—given as a gift, huh? Alex flexed his grip around the handle of the dagger; he's never used a knife, much less a dagger, for much other than cooking before, but at least he has something to defend himself now. Though it went unseen, Alex smiled faintly and with warmth.

He never expected to be given a gift in this world, he's not quite sure why... he just never thought he would. He also hasn't even been in this world for that long, when he thought about it; it just felt long. After receiving a gift, he kinda wants to give one, too. Is there something Fundy and Foolish would like in particular..?

Damn, at this rate he's going to become sickly sentimental—he hasn't even been here for long!

Alex caught sight of one of the storage-crystals Foolish had given him; its green color contrasted starkly with the red blanket. Foolish said it was empty, right? 

It was just a hunch, but Alex picked up the storage-crystal and touched it to the edge of the dagger as he imagined the dagger dissolving into magic, which would then gather into the storage-crystal. Sure enough, the dagger did exactly that.

Huh. Magic seemed to have some odd connection with the mind, which he thought was both interesting and a little weird. Feels too spiritual or some shit.

"I had a feeling you'd catch on pretty quickly," Foolish said with a smile. "Since you figured it out, wanna pick what we look at next?"

Alex looked at the blanket to see what was left; just a couple of things. There were the small scrolls and those two smooth, oblong stones. While he was curious as to what the scrolls were about, he wanted to know what the quartz and lapis stones were, and if the strange symbol on them meant anything specific in particular. Eyeing the two, Alex chose to pick up the lapis stone, and Foolish followed suit to pick up the quartz one.

"I will say, before you do anything, you might not want to break these ones."

Alex huffed a laugh, turning over the lapis stone in his palm. "Okay, I'll keep that in mind."

It didn't emit any sort of warmth or anything else that was special; aside from the symbol on it, it was just like an ordinary piece of smooth lapis. 

Alex traced his thumb over the curving edges of the symbol, an action that didn't go unnoticed.

"That's called the defining sigil," Foolish said. Defining sigil... wasn't one of the books Foolish brought like a handbook on that or something? "It marks a way-stone both for identification purposes and to connect the way-stone to the corresponding waypoint, which will also have the same defining sigil."

"Way-stone?" Alex repeated curiously. It sounded like something from a video game, so much so that he had a pretty fair idea as to how it worked. "If I break this, will it teleport me to the waypoint?"

"Yeah? Yeah, it does," Foolish replied, clearly a bit surprised. "Did you have them in your old realm?"

Alex decided to give a vague, half-hearted shrug as his answer. He didn't know what kind of magic, if not this kind, that the 'old-era realm' Foolish spoke of would have, so he couldn't exactly give a good answer without risking exposing himself—and it's not like the world where he actually is from had any magic to go by.

He considered it lucky that Foolish accepted his answer easily. 

"I've heard a few old-era realms are beginning to integrate themselves with the magic of the newer age," Foolish said casually, as if Alex had any idea of what he was talking about; just as casually, Foolish moved on and the topic changed. "Since you seem fine with how way-stones work, theres just the talismans left."

Talismans..?

That also sounded like something that could pop up in a video game, or even a book or a movie. 

Alex put down the way-stone and accepted the few, small scrolls that Foolish handed him. Sure enough, when he unrolled one of them there was another unique symbol scrawled onto the paper in blue. Was it some type of lapis product, maybe? He only guessed that because in Minecraft, lapis was used for enchanting.

Across from him, Foolish didn't have a talisman and just opted to watch Alex. "Try tearing it."

Pinching the top edges of the talisman, Alex pulled until the talisman ripped down the centre; immediately, a gust of wind brushed against the face of his mask. 

Oh. Well, he was sort of expecting something like that to happen, but he wasn't really expecting that specifically to happen.

"Now, trying thinking of directing the magic somewhere when you tear it."

Ah.

Of course. Also, Foolish definitely chose to not mention that until after he tore the first talisman, didn't he?

Alex took another talisman and did the same as before, only now he thought of the magic expelling forward—in the direction of Foolish.

Another rush of wind was released, and this time it blew past Foolish's face. Though, just like it hadn't bothered Alex because of his mask, it didn't seem to bother Foolish since he was literally made of gold and had emeralds for eyes.

"They're all wind talismans," Foolish commented with a smile. "They're also fairly low quality. You wouldn't have noticed it because of how weak these talismans are, but they release magic when torn and that magic usually has a sort of... rebound effect, I guess. Basically, the stronger the talisman you use, the more of an adverse effect it could have on you."

Oh, great, more unpleasant sensations that he may have to deal with if he wanted to use magic in the future.

Alex sighed. Why was some magic so unpleasant to deal with in this world? Seriously, he'd rather take a bite out of a soap bar than connect two communicators again.

There were still a couple of talismans in front of him, but he didn't feel the need to use them, so he put them back onto the blanket. Well, that was it, wasn't it? They had gone through all of the things Foolish brought as learning materials—aside from the books, that is, but Alex would go through those on his own... eventually.

Alex glanced out of the large window to his left, only to find that the stars and moon were now obscured by clouds. How long had he and Foolish been here? It didn't feel that long, though he's not sure how much he trusted himself with his judgement of time recently. Especially with how tired he is; he managed to forget about his exhaustion once he had something to put his mind to, also after having received a rude awakening from that god-awful sensation regarding the communicators... but now that he realized that this was it, there was nothing left to really focus on, Alex felt that exhaustion weigh down his shoulders and remind him of the dull ache in his abdomen. At least his eye wasn't in pain.

"Pyre?"

Alex blinked, momentarily seeing his mask stare at him from his reflection in the window, before turning his head.

The red blanket gone, and so were its contents; all that was left was the stack of books and the three storage-crystals on the floor in front of Alex. Seeing that neither the blanket nor anything else Foolish brought with him was visible, Alex assumed he probably packed it all into any number of the storage-crystals that hung from the rope around his waist.

Foolish laughed lightly. "Since that's everything, I'll get going now. I've got some stuff to do early tomorrow and it seems that you're rather tired. I don't blame you, dealing with Wilbur even makes me tired—and I don't even need to sleep!"

Shaking his head with an unseen smile, Alex replied; "Yeah, I guess I am kinda tired. Thanks for the help, seriously, you're a life saver." 

Potentially more so than you think.

What would have happened if someone else—namely Quackity—discovered the fact that he knew next to nothing about magic in this world?

Foolish waved him off. "Don't mention it. Always glad to help out a fellow co-worker and friend." Foolish's other hand moved and that's when Alex noticed the smooth, oblong shaped quartz in his palm. "See you 'round, Pyre."

Foolish broke the quartz and Alex watched in shock and awe as a shimmering, glowing cloud of magic erupted from the broken stone and engulfed Foolish; when it cleared, Foolish was gone.

Alex laughed quietly and in disbelief.

"Magic, huh?" Alex ran a hand through his hair, pushing off his beanie in the process. "Never would've thought I'd be learning magic..."

As tempting as it was to lay down on the floor and fall asleep now, Alex gathered the crystals, put them into his coat pocket, and stood up. He grabbed the books Foolish left—having to take the stack and then grab the thick alchemy book separately—and put them on the table in between the couches. He also took that time to unclasp his mask, taking in a long breath once he did.

...

What a wild fucking day, huh?

Meeting Fundy was unexpected but nice; he was so clearly different from Floris that it was easy to separate the two in his mind, something that made it a lot easier to be around Fundy. Foolish was also a surprise, a welcome one, too—not only did he chase off Wilbur before things went past the point of no return, but he also taught him some crucial stuff about magic. Those two... He definitely wouldn't mind hanging around them more often.

Then there was Wilbur... Yeah, he could have gone without meeting Wilbur; at the very least, he wished he could have met him later. Though, he supposed things could have gone worse—if Foolish hadn't shown up, that is. On the list of people he'd rather not interact with, he's fairly confident that Wilbur was above Quackity—just for the fact that the only secret he had to hide from Quackity was in his mind, and he'd die before saying it aloud, but with Wilbur he also had to hide his face; and that just made things all the more risky. Also, Wilbur just unsettled him more—maybe it was because of his sugary attitude.

Alex yawned as he undid the bowtie around his neck, slipping it free from the collar of his shirt. He left the bowtie on the table next to the books while he brought his mask with him to his room down the hall; his 'room' really was just like an apartment more than anything. As he walked by, Alex flicked off the light switch, plunging the entirety of his place into darkness.

Despite how tired he was, Alex had the mind to recognize how strange it was that he could see perfectly in the dark. But, at the same time, he was in a world with magic and something unnatural was most definitely up with his right eye... so, really, was it that strange? 

If it was, he could think about it when he woke up.

Alex entered his bedroom, vaguely noting how it was entirely bare except for the decently sized bed at the centre of the room, the dresser beside it, and the closet off to the side. Taking off his coat along with the rest of his attire, Alex pulled a pair of pyjamas from the dresser and got changed.

Pulling the covers back and climbing underneath them, Alex fell asleep nearly as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Chapter Text

It was dark and there were thousands of glittering stars around him.

The stars felt so close... as if he could touch them if he tried.

Eyeing a particularly bright star, he reached out and...

Alex woke in a panic to a horrible, horrible feeling in his chest.

Or, maybe not just localized to his chest—rather, the feeling was everywhere.

It was as if his insides were vibrating, tingling with some wild and unknown force.

"Shit—WHAT THE FUCK?!" Alex yelled as he scrambled out of his bed, falling onto the floor as he frantically rubbed his hands up and down his arms and over his knees to down his legs. He couldn't get rid of the feeling—it was so fucking awful, like bugs squirming just beneath the surface of his skin.

Some unknown force whirling around inside him, buzzing with something, and... and...

...And Alex felt a strange pull to the dresser beside his bed. Specifically, to his communicator.

...

Driven by instinct, Alex snatched the communicator off of the table with a vengeance. As soon as it touched his palm, it glowed, and Alex felt a calmer sensation overcome him along with the feeling of the other, much more disgusting, sensation fading away. Alex breathed a sigh of relief as the tension bled from his body.

He wasn't expecting for a voice to snarl in his fucking head.

Took you fucking long enough.

"QUACKITY?!" Alex yelped, looking around wildly as if he would find Quackity lurking somewhere in his room; he wasn't, of course, and now Quackity sounded much more agitated.

Quit barking, you'll give me a headache.

Alex just sat dumbly on the floor, staring at the softly glowing communicator in his hand. All he could think was...

Wow... These communicators really are just like phones.

That is, ignoring the fact that the 'screen' was a smooth surface of pure quartz; that the 'ringer' was some god-awful feeling stirring up shit inside of him; and that the 'speaker' was his fucking brain.

He really wished Foolish covered this particular aspect of communicators in his 'magic tutorial'. It would have saved him at least a quarter of a five second long internal crisis.

At least it seemed that, while he heard Quackity's voice in his head (and likely vice versa), Quackity wasn't actually able to read his mind; he still had to speak for Quackity to hear anything. That was good, definitely good—Quackity was the last person he wanted hearing his thoughts.

Get your ass up here. I've found a use for you.

Alex winced as the strange feeling of connection between him and the communicator was cut off abruptly, momentarily making it feel like there was a cold void in Alex's chest before everything returned to normal.

Yeah, normal... best joke he's ever come up with.

...Damn, he didn't even have the energy to mentally cuss out Quackity for being a dick. At this rate, he's gonna become an old man like Phil.

Don't think about your friends. Not now.

Taking in a deep breath, Alex heaved himself off of the floor. He'd rather not keep Quackity waiting.

Alex forcefully threw the communicator onto his bed—as helpful as it was, he wouldn't say that he liked the thing, far from it actually. Alright, he'll just get ready quickly and then go meet Quackity, something he really didn't want to do but also didn't really have a choice in doing. Going off of the fact that there were already pyjamas in the dresser, Alex opened the closet. As he expected, there were clothes; actually, the outfits presented before him were just like what he wore yesterday: white dress shirts, dark pants, an extra coat, and even an eyepatch hanging from a hook. 

He had a feeling he knew who brought this stuff, that is, if the small blob of green slime on the floor was anything to go by. He'd clean that up later, maybe when he was less strict on time.

Alex shook his head with a sigh, grabbing what he'd need to dress appropriately, along with the eyepatch; as much as he wanted to wear his mask—and wasn't that a surprise to realize—he doubted Quackity would let him, call it a gut feeling. 

At some point while he gets dressed, his fingertips brush against the scar at the centre of his chest but he doesn't think about it. Everything just feels... distant, out of place, dream-like; as if his movements aren't quite his own.

He's just tired, that's all.

Buttoning up his shirt, Alex reaches his collar and realizes his bowtie isn't around. Where did he—oh, right, he left it by the books in the main area didn't he? He'd also left his beanie somewhere on the floor out there... And he hadn't cleaned off all the sand from it.

Alex groaned, running a hand through his hair.

What time was it even? Quackity better not have called him at some unholy hour of the morning...

Alex tucked the eyepatch into his coat pocket, deciding that he'd wash his face before putting it on. Alex left his room, walking through the dark, and entered the bathroom just across the hall; just like his bedroom, this bathroom was more spacious than the one in the Casino's room that he stayed in. 

He kept the lights off as he went to the sink.

The sound of rushing water sounded far away and even the feeling of the water he splashed on his face was mostly numb. Quackity found a comb and combed his hair, movements robotic and without much thought, before leaving the bathroom. As soon as he left the hallway and stepped into the wide space of the main area, he squinted; light poured in from the giant window overlooking the forest. Were there curtains or something he could get for that? He'd much prefer not being blinded in the morning.

Alex picked up his bowtie off of the table, also picking his beanie off of the floor and doing his best to brush the sand off of it before putting it on. Adjusting his bowtie, Alex glanced at the books on the living room table; maybe he could read one of them tonight? That would be kinda nice, something productive and distracting. Fixing his shirt and tugging down the sleeves of his coat to straighten them, Alex put on his eyepatch and his boots before leaving his room.

...Quackity didn't actually tell him where to go, he just told him to 'get his ass up there'; what an asshole. Well, he assumed 'up there' must mean that Quackity's in the Hotel on the floor above him. Not that he knew what room Quackity would be in, since Quackity apparently owned every room on the top floor, but he'd figure it out.

Hopefully he could figure it out quickly, too; he doesn't want to take too long and have Quackity get mad, he's too tired for that.

Alex went up the stairs and soon found himself in a hallway; similarly to the floor his own room is on, there were less rooms here. Probably because these floors were meant to be for specific people, and so that each room could have considerably more space. In this stretch of hallway, there were only a couple doors and both of them were marked by a gold diamond. Should he just pick one and open it..? Actually, he should probably knock first just in case Quackity is inside.

He chose the door on the left, knocking twice. There was no answer.

So, was Quackity in another room then? Probably. That means he should knock on the other door but...

He's kinda curious.

Slowly and carefully, Alex turned the handle, taking in a breath before cracking open the door. Immediately, a rush of warm air hit his face, causing him to squint.

If he had felt strangely numb moments prior, now it was as if he was bare and exposed to every emotion of shock and bafflement that assaulted him.

What...

WHAT THE FUCK?!

That was... That was actually a pool of lava.

A pool of FUCKING LAVA.

In the room was, indeed, a pool of glowing, hot lava. The tile around it was dark, shining with a faint iridescence; it was likely obsidian. There literally wasn't anything else in the room other than the pool of lava, and the room wasn't exactly large but it definitely wasn't small either. Why the fuck would anyone have a pool of lava? Let alone Quackity?

In his confused curiosity, Alex had opened the door further. Nearly as soon as he did that, the surface of the lava at the centre of the pool rippled... as if something was in it.

Yeah, no, nope—no fucking thank you.

Alex closed the door quickly, though he was mindful not to slam it; if there really was something in that lava pool, then the last thing he wanted to do was piss it off.

Okay... next door. 

Alex went to the next door and knocked, waiting quietly to see if there was an answer. There was no answer this time either but, unlike last time, Alex wasn't so curious. Without opening the door, Alex turned down the hall.

A couple more doors, only this time they were marked by gold spades. Just like in the first hallway, each door was on one side of the hall; not right across from each other but still fairly close. He went to the door closest to him and knocked.

This time there was an answer.

"Come in," Alex heard Quackity's voice, not from inside the room, but from a small piece of quartz he just noticed was embedded into the wall above the door. Okay... a little weird but also kinda cool. "I said come in."

Alex opened the door and stepped inside.

The place was just like Fundy's room, there was even the giant window overlooking the city; though, where Fundy had his couches, there was a desk, and that was all that was in this area of the room. Though he did notice that the kitchen was visible off to the right and there was a connected hallway to the left, just like in Fundy's room. 

Quackity's desk was near the wall, adjacent to the window—and, of course, Quackity was seated behind it. This desk was noticeably cleaner than the one he saw in the Casino. There were a number of papers in a neat stack to the side of the desk, a few objects that looked to be stamps lined up next to them, and a jar of ink with a quill beside it. Quackity had one of the papers in front of him and he seemed to be quite focused on it, considering that he didn't look up at Alex approached and stood in front of his desk. Unlike the office in the Casino, there was no chair in front of this desk... not that he'd sit down even if there was.

Huh. Quackity was wearing an identical outfit to last time. Well, Floris did a bit about him having numerous identical suits in his closet, so maybe that translated to this world. But... the clothes that Slime put in his room were all identical outfits as well; was there just a thing about outfit consistency here or something?

"I heard you had a little encounter with Wilbur," Quackity spat. "Bet you enjoyed that, huh?"

...Enjoyed?! 

Yeah, far fucking from it. Why the hell would he enjoy an encounter with Wilbur? He's borderline insane! Though, it's kinda hard to blame him when he spent some thirteen years in Limbo...

Quackity raised his eyes, glaring sharply at Alex.

Alex swallowed, shifting on his feet. "...No?"

Quackity scoffed, as if disgusted, and turned his attention back to the paper on his desk.

...Seriously? It was one thing to be a dick verbally, but did Quackity really have to keep him just standing here? Couldn't he just give him his job and tell him to get the fuck out? If it was like that, then maybe Alex could forgive him for being an asshole—only partially, though.

While waiting for Quackity to tell him what his job was, Alex turned his head and looked out the window. It overlooked most, if not all, of Las Nevadas; if he had to guess, he'd say this room was above Fundy's, or at least on the same side of the Hotel. It was a nice view, a really nice view—he could understand why Quackity would rather put his desk here than in an actual office. Overlooking the city would also mean Quackity has a nice night-time view; his own room overlooked the forest and he could barely see anything when it was dark outside, definitely not as nice as this view would be.

All of the sudden, Quackity spoke, but... it wasn't to him.

"What do you want?"

Alex turned his head to find Quackity with his hand resting atop his communicator, which was glowing. Someone called him..? He wondered who—he couldn't imagine anyone contacting Quackity of their own free will, but maybe that was just him.

"Obviously," Quackity scoffed, tapping his finger against the desk in an impatient rhythm. "What about it?"

For a moment, Quackity looked confused. "What? What do you mean he lost his—" Quackity shakes his head, frowning, and his tone becomes more snappish "—no, no, actually, tell me why this is your problem."

For a few seconds, it's silent, and then...

"Tommy, you—" A pause; Quackity's eyes widen just slightly before they narrow and he practically growls. "You what?"

If looks could kill, Alex would be a dead man—which is unfair because Quackity isn't even getting mad because of him, but he's the only one that Quackity could feasibly look at right now.

Quackity sighs tiredly, running a hand down his scar... and then his eye catches sight of Alex.

"Tell you what," Quackity says while keeping his gaze locked with Alex. "I'll handle it this time, but don't think this is more than a one time thing."

Quackity sighs and then the communicator stops glowing.

"Change of plans," Quackity says, reaching into a drawer in his desk and pulling out a brown bag; it's a bit bigger than his hand. "Take this."

Alex fumbles to catch the bag when its suddenly thrown at him, and he also hears a sound similar to clinking glass; the bag is full of many somethings, and Alex has a sneaking suspicion that those somethings are storage-crystals. After all, packing everything into storage-crystals for transport seems both very efficient and very convenient. 

"Take those to Snowchester," Quackity says flatly, and he then he tosses a compass at Alex which he also struggles to catch. "And come back here when you're done, I still have more work for you."

Snowchester?

Wait... SNOWCHESTER?!

This bag isn't full of time-rigged bombs or something, is it..?

No, no, surely Quackity wouldn't do something like that... right?

Las Nevadas and Snowchester can't be on that bad of terms...

"What are you doing?" Quackity snaps. "Do your fucking job."

As if possessed by the command, Alex turns on his heel and marches out the door.

Just as he's shutting the door, he hears Quackity's voice.

"Hey, Tubbo—"

Then the door shuts and it's silent; that's some pretty impressive soundproofing, huh?

After getting kicked out of Quackity's office, he's not really sure about what to do—well, he knows what to do, he just didn't know how to do it. Did Quackity expect him to walk all the way to Snowchester and back? There's no way that could be a short distance.

Luckily for Alex, he didn't have to worry about that for very long because he bumped into Fundy just as he was walking out of the Hotel (after grabbing his mask, of course) and... next to Fundy was a young, humanoid, white fox; they were wearing a blue sweater and grey pants.

"Oh, hey, Pyre!" Fundy greeted cheerfully, his tail swishing behind him excitedly.

"Hi," he replied, mask tilting as he nodded his head in greeting; he would wave, but he's got a bag in one hand and a compass in the other. The little fox held onto the edge of Fundy's jacket, looking up at Alex with curious eyes.

...Wasn't there something about Floris adopting an arctic fox as his 'son'?

Don't tell me...

"Oh, that's right!" Fundy exclaimed, and then he turned to the little fox clinging to his side. "This is Yogurt, my son! Say hello, Yogurt."

Yogurt's ears twitched and he spoke quietly; "Hello."

Yeah, you know what, he's not even surprised anymore; Foolish also mentioned something about kids, too, didn't he..?

"Hi, Yogurt," Alex greeted.

Then Fundy looked back at him, ears flicking with interest.

"Where are you off to?" he asked, and then more sheepishly added: "If you don't mind me asking, that is."

Alex shrugged. "I have to bring something to Snowchester."

"Oh? Oh—you're going to Snowchester?!" Fundy shouted, something that caught Alex completely off guard and caused him to flinch.

"Uh... Yes?"

Fundy must have realized he startled Alex because his ears flattened to his head and his tail curled close to his legs. "Sorry, sorry," Fundy apologized. "I don't know if its too much to ask, but... could you bring Yogurt with you? I was supposed to bring him there today so he could hang out with Michael for a few days, but something came up, so..."

"Oh," he replied dumbly; he wasn't really expecting that kind of question, especially since this was Fundy's kid and Fundy was asking him to take him somewhere. Isn't Fundy a little too trusting? Or maybe he's just good at judging people's character—after all, he wouldn't hurt any kid, let alone Fundy's.

Alex hadn't really thought of if he'd be willing to take Yogurt with him or not, but it seemed that Fundy interpreted his silence as a definite 'no'.

"Yeah... That's too much to ask, huh? Sorry, just forget—"

"No, no, it's fine," he interrupted; guilt was practically written on Fundy's face and it made Alex feel awful, despite the fact that he really didn't do anything bad. "I'm just dropping him off at Snowchester, right?"

Slowly, Fundy nodded, ears perking up hesitantly. "Are you sure you're okay with it..? You're probably busy..."

Seriously, Fundy didn't know the power he had right now—he looked like a kicked puppy and it was stabbing Alex through the fucking heart. He's never considered it before, but maybe he has a weakness for animals, and Fundy's animalistic appearance is not helping right now.

Honestly, theres no way he'd be able to say no—so, he didn't.

"It's fine, don't worry." Alex shrugged. "Besides, I wouldn't mind the company."

And that's how Alex not only ended up with Yogurt, Fundy's son, but also with a horse to ride across the desert; that was actually thanks to Yogurt, who asked if they were going to ride a horse or use a way-stone. Of course, Alex didn't have a way-stone, so that was out of the question, but he also had no idea where or how to get a horse. Turns out, according to Yogurt, there was actually a horse stable in Las Nevadas—which made sense, considering the number of people that came to and from here, most of who sure as hell didn't walk across the desert.

So, here he was now, on the back of a horse he didn't really know how to ride but was somehow doing pretty good so far, with Yogurt sitting in front of him. They'd made good progress, though they were still in the desert; during the time of their travel, neither of them had yet to say anything. Alex was fine with that, he just had to keep himself focused on his surroundings: the golden sand, the warm but not overbearing heat (he's sure his clothing is enchanted or something), the blue sky, the number of white clouds and what they're shaped like.

Anything to keep him distracted from his own thoughts.

Alex was so focused on a particular cloud, one that vaguely resembled a cat, that the sound of Yogurt's voice caused him to startle.

"Is your name really Pyre?" Yogurt asked.

Well, it wasn't his real name, but it was likely the only name he'd be commonly going by around here—whether he liked it or not. 

Alex nodded, though Yogurt was facing ahead so he wouldn't have noticed. "Yep."

"You have a funny name."

Alex decided not to mention Yogurt's name was literally yogurt. Actually, did they even have yogurt in this world?

"Mister Pyre?"

Mister?

Confused, Alex asked: "Mister? What's with that all of the sudden?"

"Dad said I should always be respectful, especially to his boss and co-workers."

Ah, yes, one of the early life lessons: respect. As long as it wasn't taught too little or too much, then it could be a good lesson—at least he thought so. "...Okay? Well, you can just call me Pyre. I'd actually prefer if you just called me that."

Yogurt's ears flicked forward and then back. "Pyre... Can I ask a question?"

"Sure." Alex had to tug lightly on the reins to get the horse to turn back into the direction the compass was pointing—turns out it points in the direction of Snowchester, though he was kind of expecting that. 

"Why do you wear a mask?"

"...To hide my face?"

Yogurt nodded, and then: "But why?"

Ah, children—what a joy.

"Because I don't want others to see my face," Alex replied.

"Oh," Yogurt mumbled as his ears twitched. "Okay. Are you ugly?"

Alex sighed heavily. "I'd like to think that I'm not."

"Then why do you not want others to see your face?"

Probably because I'm not from this world but am currently masquerading as my own alternate world's counterpart's past-self, and also because I bear an uncanny resemblance to said counterpart that I don't want anyone else to notice.

"It makes me uncomfortable," Alex said instead. It wasn't a complete lie, not necessarily. While the idea of other people seeing his face didn't really unnerve him very much, others not being able to see his face comforted him considerably for some reason.

"So, like how dad feels around Slime?" Yogurt asked curiously, a hint of confusion in his tone.

Oh, yeah, Fundy probably would be uncomfortable around Slime, considering their how their first meeting likely went—also, wasn't there a bit where Fundy inhaled a part of Slime or something? He couldn't imagine that to be anything other than traumatizing.

"Sure," he responds, and then the two of them fall into silence. 

The fact that he wasn't roasting to death really was a miracle, especially considering he was wearing the complete ensemble of his outfit—coat and all. Yogurt also didn't seem bothered by the heat in the slightest, and he literally had fur. There must be some sort of enchantment on the clothing around here that made it so heat wasn't much of a problem.

After riding in silence for a while, Yogurt eventually asked another question.

"Pyre, do you like my dad?"

Alex startled, pulling on the reins in a way that caused the horse to huff and shake its head; Alex quickly loosened his hold on the reins and composed himself. "Sorry?"

"Are you gonna be his friend? Can you please be his friend?" Yogurt's ears flicked back, flattening to his head. "Dad was really happy after meeting you; dad only bakes when he's happy."

Was Fundy... not usually happy?

"Oh... Yeah, sure, kid. Your dad seems like a nice guy, I..." Alex hesitated.

Friends.

Attachments to this world.

Meanwhile, his old friends back in his world, his home...

Enough.

"...I wouldn't mind being your dad's friend."

Yogurt's ears flicked back up and his tail swished, thumping lightly against Alex's side. "Really?"

Alex couldn't help but smile slightly beneath his mask. "Really."

It was harder to tell from behind, but Alex was sure he also saw a faint smile on Yogurt's face. "Okay."

Snowchester was... well, for one, it was cold; but it seemed even the cold was mitigated by whatever weird magic his clothes had.

There was a bridge they had to cross to get to Snowchester—an actual bridge, with two guards that had asked for their reason of arrival; as soon as he mentioned Las Nevadas, they let him and Yogurt through. He thought that was a little weird. In DSMP lore, Quackity and Tubbo weren't really enemies but they weren't exactly on very close terms either.

Then again, he did hear Quackity say Tubbo's name just before he left. Maybe things are a bit more different in this world?

He and Yogurt were walking around on foot now, having left the horse at a stable near the bridge. Quackity didn't actually tell him who or where to bring this bag to, just that he had to bring it to Snowchester. Yogurt said he knew where Michael's house was, so Alex decided he'd bring Yogurt there first and figure out what the hell to do on his own.

The place wasn't a city, definitely not like Las Nevadas was. It looked more like a developed town, with houses made of stone and cobble, and gravel pathways everywhere. It looked innocently deceiving, and he only thought that because of the fact that Snowchester was a militaristic faction. Also, there were people wandering about—not nearly as many as there are in Las Nevadas, but enough to be noticeable at a glance. They also didn't look at him for very long; once the passing people caught a glimpse of him they looked away, as if they simply didn't care. It was refreshing.

It was as he and Yogurt were following a path up a hill that a voice, a familiar voice, called out.

"Wow! If you were taller, you'd look kinda like Boo!" Both Alex and Yogurt turned around, and Yogurt's ears perked up upon seeing who had spoken. "Right now you look more like a depressed circus clown—I think it's the color scheme, you get me?"

Approaching them was Tubbo; Alex couldn't help but cringe in discomfort at how eerily similar Tubbo sounded to Toby. Though, if there was one thing that brought a little bit of comfort, it was the fact that Tubbo didn't look completely like Toby; not as much as how Slime looked similar to Charlie. On the sides of Tubbo's head were brown, furred ears, and atop his head were a pair of short horns, and his legs weren't even human legs—they were brown goat legs.

And the scar on Tubbo's face...

Alex barely managed to hold himself back from retching.

Tubbo took notice of Yogurt and smiled. "Hey, little buddy! Michael's inside right now, he's real excited to see you again. Why don't you go say hi?"

Yogurt's eyes shone with excitement but before he turned to run up the hill, he looked up at Alex as if to seek permission to leave.

Weakly, Alex nodded, and then Yogurt was running to the house atop the hill.

"Good kid, isn't he?" Tubbo asked as he approached; Alex couldn't help but notice he was wearing the official Snowchester attire.

"Yeah..."

He couldn't stop looking at the scar.

With Tubbo standing in front of him, and the fact that the hill was a relatively slow incline, it was easier to notice that Tubbo was a little shorter than him—not by very much, but still enough to be noticeable; and it was clear that this Tubbo was a teenager, just as he was meant to be in DSMP lore.

A teenager who went through all of that.

Fuck, if he let himself think about it, he was going to be sick.

Tubbo caught sight of the bag in Alex's hand and his eyes widened; it was hard to miss the way Tubbo's right eye still remained half closed, as if it was unable to open all of the way.

"Oh, that must be for me!" Tubbo exclaimed, taking the bag from Alex's hand and opening it to peer inside. "YES! Oh, man, I'm going to cause so much property damage with this!"

...Just what the fuck were in those storage-crystals?

Better yet, does he really want to know?

Tubbo looked up at him with a wide smile.

"Hey, give the chief girlboss my thanks, yeah?"

Did Tubbo just refer to Quackity as a fucking girlboss?!

"Also tell him he's a rude bastard for cutting me off when he called me," Tubbo scoffed and Alex nearly got whiplash from how quickly Tubbo's tone changed. "Oh, any chance you're interested in being a test dummy? Tommy bailed and Boo is busy, and I'd rather not experiment on the common citizens."

Alex blinked once, twice, three times before he managed to collect his thoughts long enough to reply.

"So, you're fine with experimenting on me?"

Tubbo looked at him with an expression that asked 'are you an idiot'. "Obviously. So, yay or nay?"

"I'd rather not," he replied wearily; he'd much rather keep all of his limbs and fingers intact, and also not face whatever potentially permanent damage Tubbo's experiments could cause.

Tubbo shrugged. "Your loss. Well, since you're one of Quackity's guys, we'll probably see each other again," Tubbo said casually. "So, I'll see ya next time!"

And just like that, his brief whirlwind of an encounter with Tubbo was over; he watched, stuck in place, as Tubbo headed back down the hill and towards the coast.

The image of Tubbo's scar kept coming to mind...

Stop it.

Alex sighed, wishing so desperately that he could take off his mask so it didn't feel like he was suffocating—but he couldn't, not here. Taking in a deep breath, Alex walked back to the stable to get his horse, barely registering as the guards waved goodbye as he left Snowchester.

The horse seemed to guide itself through the desert and, so, Alex had just... zoned out. 

If he decided to just stop thinking all together, then nothing would bother him.

It went pretty much like that until the horse stopped all of the sudden, huffing at something in front of them.

Blinking, Alex snapped out of his daze and leaned to the side so that he could see ahead, and...

Is that a fucking cat?

No... Maybe..? It was one of those hairless cats—a sphynx, right? Yeah, it definitely looked like one of those, but...

Well, Alex was fairly certain that, back in his world, sphynxes didn't have fucking wings. 

Folded on the sphynx's back were a pair of leathery wings the same color as its skin; they almost looked like bat wings. Also, Alex was pretty sure that the cat hadn't even blinked yet, was that normal cat behaviour? Cats were weird sometimes, so he couldn't be sure.

It was staring at him pretty intently, he knew that much.

What's it even doing out here, in the middle of the goddamn desert, anyway? Did someone leave it out here? That'd be fucked up.

But not the most fucked up thing he's seen today.

Don't think about it.

"You just gonna sit there or what?" 

The cat's ears twitched, but otherwise it didn't move. The horse also hadn't moved, and tugging on the reins didn't do anything; honestly, it had been a miracle Alex managed to ride the horse all the way to Snowchester because he didn't even know the first fucking thing about riding a horse. He'd like to say he did it in decent time, too; he had left Las Nevadas when the sun was still rising from the horizon, and now it was only quarter past the centre point of the sky.

Still sitting in front of the horse, the sphynx stared at him.

It felt like it was staring into his fucking soul.

"Don't fucking look at me like that," Alex snapped. "I'm not going to help you."

The cat blinked.

"I'm not."

...

Alex rode the rest of the way back to Las Nevadas with a winged sphynx.

What he found surprising was that the cat seemed pretty calm for riding on the back of a horse, and it didn't even panic when they entered Las Nevadas and Alex had to carry it after bringing the horse back to the stable. Just like any time he's outside, the people of Las Nevadas stared at him with poorly veiled scrutiny and intense curiosity; why couldn't people just ignore him like in Snowchester?

He didn't bump into anyone familiar on his way back to the Hotel, which he considered lucky because he was tired and... he just wasn't sure if he could deal with anyone right now. 

Which was unfortunate, because he still had to check in with Quackity—at least with Quackity, he could answer as minimally as possible and otherwise remain silent. 

First, however, Alex brought the winged sphynx back to his room; he doubted Quackity would appreciate having a cat in his office area... actually, were pets even allowed in the Hotel?

Ah, fuck, whatever—he'd deal with it later.

He also took off his mask and put on his eyepatch, then he trudged his way up to where he met Quackity earlier in the morning and knocked on the door.

"Come in."

This time, Alex didn't waste any time in opening the door and stepping inside. Nothing had changed since he arrived this morning, though he noticed that there were now two stacks of paper on Quackity's desk, one shorter than the other. Briefly glancing at the city outside, Alex stopped in front of Quackity's desk and turned to face him.

Just like last time, Quackity remained focused on yet another paper rather than immediately addressing him.

...Alex was tired. It felt like he hadn't even slept. At the very least, he supposed he could be thankful for the fact that he wasn't sore anywhere and his eye didn't hurt. But, really, is that even in the top five of his worries right now..?

He's in a world not his own, surrounded by achingly familiar sights and uncanny counterparts—but with just enough of a difference for them to actually be different than the familiarities from his own world.

He keeps telling himself that it's fine, that everything is fine... that it will all work out and he'll find a way back home... but what if he doesn't? Honestly, when he actually lets himself think about it for more than a couple minutes at a time, the chances of finding a way back home seem...

Impossible.

And then there's, well, himself—actually himself, not Quackity. Theres a scar on his chest that was never there before—he woke up in this world with blood on him for fuck's sake! And his eye! What the fuck happened to his eye?! Why is it so... different?! And why does it randomly hurt sometimes?! He doesn't know—he doesn't know anything!

He doesn't know how the hell he got here or why he's even here in the first place! He has no idea how to get home! He doesn't know what the fuck is wrong with him—because, seriously, something is wrong with him; if his fucked up eye isn't enough of an indicator, then he doesn't know what is.

He's confused and, honestly, he's fucking terrified. But he's been pushing it all back, throwing himself into anything this world has to offer just so that he can distract himself. When those horrible, anxious thoughts do surface, he forces them to go away and he knows... he knows it won't last...

He's been struggling to keep it all together; so far, he's managed to, somehow, push all of his worries back and lock them away... but that doesn't mean they're gone. They're still there, waiting... festering... and Alex knows it won't be good when he can't hold them back anymore.

He feels like, under just the right touch, he'll fall apart—he'll crumble to pieces and be consumed by his own mind.

But... what can he do? 

He's alone.

He's lost.

He's helpless.

He's afraid.

Could anyone blame him for not wanting to listen to his own thoughts? For wanting to just pretend... even if for a little while, just for as long as he can... that everything is at least a little bit okay?

Alex is forcibly ripped from his thoughts by the sound of Quackity's harsh voice and his fierce glare.

"Are you even fucking listening to me?"

And Alex wants to crumble—he wants to break and fall to pieces; Quackity has been practically ripping into him from the moment they first met and it's not been helping.

He wants to give up.

Alex takes in a shuddering breath, trying to do so as subtly as possible.

His heart is pounding in his ears and every nerve in his body is tingling like live wire, but Alex pretends that he's calm.

He's not going to fall apart... at least, not here; not in front of this asshole who would probably delight in his suffering.

But he won't function—not like this. So, he shuts down everything he doesn't need.

He shuts down his worries, his fears, his hopes—anything that could possibly be the weak link that breaks him.

The only thing he keeps is the simmering fire in his blood—the sheer fucking anger at everything about his god-awful circumstances—and the barest amount of self-control needed to keep himself in check.

Those are the only things he needs to keep going and they will be the least likely things to destroy him, so he doesn't lock them away.

"Yeah, I'm listening," Alex replies evenly.

Quackity raises a brow but, after a moment of silent staring, he doesn't say anything.

"Alright, then take it and get lost."

Alex doesn't move because he doesn't know what he's supposed to take; saying he'd been listening was a complete lie.

"What? Don't tell me you're so pathetic that you don't even know how to revise a contract," Quackity sneers.

I know how to revise a fucking contract, so stop being an asshole and get off your high-horse.

Alex's gaze shifts to the smaller stack of papers on the desk, the ones that are closer to him than Quackity. What a fucking... Quackity wants him to read through all of those, doesn't he? Fuck, probably—Quackity would do something like that, whether Alex knew how to properly read a contract or not. Of course, he knows how to read a contract—he'd better fucking know how, considering he was a law student. But, that many contracts? Sure, he can do it, but that doesn't mean he isn't pissed about Quackity giving it all to him at once.

It takes Alex a few seconds, but he realizes it's weirdly quiet; usually when he takes too long to respond, Quackity would snap at him or something. But he hasn't...

Alex lifts his gaze to find Quackity staring at him with widened eyes, as if he was taken aback by something.

...Did something happen?

He didn't think anything shocking happened... Did Quackity get a sudden call on his communicator or something..?

Well, whatever it was, it must not have been anything consequential because Quackity quickly fixed his expression into something cold and piercing and didn't say anything. Quackity pushed the stack of papers that Alex was just looking at more towards him, as if to urge Alex to take them.

"Make sure they're perfect," Quackity snapped.

Alex struggled to make sure an appalled, incredulous expression didn't reveal itself on his face; now, if he had his mask on, it wouldn't matter, but all he had to hide himself behind was a flimsy eyepatch. Alex could only stare at the stack of papers with a scathing glare, as if they were the things that had wronged him and not the man sitting behind the desk.

"What?" Quackity drawled, his tone mocking. "Can't do it?"

Without replying or waiting to be dismissed, Alex snatched the papers and turned, stalking towards the door without a backwards glance; he can only hope that he turned fast enough to hide the twisted, heated expression on his face. Quackity doesn't say anything, so Alex leaves in silent fury and with the spiteful promise to himself that these are going to be the best fucking contracts Quackity has ever seen in his entire goddamn life.

Quackity watched Alex leave with the stack of papers in his hand—not all of them were contracts, not exactly; most of them were actually fakes, just so he could see how Alex would handle them. He didn't expect very much from his past-self, back then he made some pretty costly mistakes while learning to deal with contracts and the like, so he thought giving fakes would be pointless... but now he's glad that he did it.

Quackity had made the quick judgement that Alex wasn't good at hiding his emotions—which he wasn't, not really. He was skittish and cowered too easily, he showed weakness seemingly without hesitation; it was disgusting to the point that often times he couldn't look at Alex without feeling some sort of scathing hatred. But... maybe he'd made his judgement a little too hastily and relied a bit too much on how he perceived his own past. Because, apparently, there was more to Alex than just his pathetic personality.

'I know how to revise a fucking contract, so stop being an asshole and get off your high-horse.'

And—wow—wasn't that a surprise? He certainly never expected for Alex to be harbouring such vicious thoughts and feelings like that. There was actually a moment where he was so caught off guard that he was at a loss for words, and it was then that he saw it—he could only see one of Alex's eyes because of the eyepatch, and Alex wasn't even looking at him, but... there was fire in his eyes, burning anger that was clearly the result of bottled up emotions; Quackity knew, he knew it all too well.

Then, sensing his silence, Alex had turned to look at him; and, just like that, the fire was gone and Alex was staring at him with confused uncertainty.

Alex didn't even know he'd just said his own thoughts aloud.

Interesting.

He never expected his weakling past-self to have this much fire boiling in his blood.

It was unexpected but not unwelcome—it was actually good. He was glad to have discovered this.

Now that he knew it was there, Quackity wanted that fire to grow—he wanted it to stop smothering itself already and burn, he wanted to watch it flicker without restraint and scorch anyone who dared to get too close. Right now, there was only a spark, but Quackity knew that spark could turn into an inferno—and Quackity knew just how to start a blazing fire.

Alone in his spacious office room, Quackity smiled.

Alright, little phoenix, I'll give you a proper chance—I'll even give you a little push.

So, let's see if you can spread your wings early, hm?

Chapter Text

It was dark outside—dusk passed about half an hour ago—and Alex was seated on one of the couches with a document in hand; the rest, of course, were on the table in front of him. His coat was hanging off the back of the couch and his mask was beside him, close enough that he could grab it and quickly put it on without struggle, and he had left his eyepatch in his room.

The lights were off and his right eye glowed faintly in the dark.

"This is so fucking stupid," Alex snapped, flicking the paper in his hand with a distasteful expression. "What idiot proposed this contract? First of all, it's shit—Las Nevadas would hardly benefit, if at all, from this deal. Secondly, there are so many loopholes I wish I could bleach my brain—do you think there's magic that can erase memories in this world?"

Alex turned his head to the right, looking down at the winged cat sitting on arm of the couch next to him. The sphynx blinked up at him tiredly, wings fluttering at its back.

"Yeah, that'd be a little too absurd, wouldn't it..?" Alex mumbled, turning his attention back to the paper. "Actually, I shouldn't jinx it. This place is all kinds of insane."

So far, he's managed to get through about fifteen-or-so papers, and there's still a little more than half of the stack left. Most, if not all, of these papers were poorly thought out and disgustingly written, with a lack of key binding terms, and a number of them had way too many loopholes. He had tried to mark and revise the first paper as he read through it, thinking there would only be a few important things to fix, but oh boy was that a mistake; after that, he ended up reading through each document before picking up the quill (which he had found in his dresser along with an ink bottle) and reading it again while he made changes. That, on top of how many mistakes there were in these things, was probably why it had taken him so long to mark even fifteen documents.

At first, he was beyond pissed at Quackity—and he still is—but part of him was also glad that he was given something like this to do. He was fairly familiar with contracts and similar documents, even if some of the terms used in this world were a bit new, so it's not something he had to struggle to understand; also, going through these papers took up so much of his focus that he couldn't think about anything else even if he wanted to.

Alex reached the end of the document and picked up his quill off the table before re-reading it, only this time he crossed out any unnecessary words or loopholes he found; after he does that, he'll begin to fix everything, clean it up, and make it better in general. 

It would likely be important to note that, aside from him doing this because of how distracting it is, he's also just doing it out of pure spite.

"Every single one of these fucking documents are going to be the most sophisticated pieces of shit that Quackity has ever laid his godforsaken eye on," Alex growled, pressing a bit too hard with the quill and causing a blotch of ink to stain the paper. It had definitely taken some initial adjusting, but he'd say he got the hang of using a quill fairly quickly... though, there were still times where he used too much force and caused too much ink to stain the paper.

Alex sighed, letting his head tilt back until it hit the back of the couch; he took a few deep breaths to calm down before lifting his head and getting back to work. 

He eventually got through the the document, adding various notes along the margins before setting it down on the table in the small pile of the documents he's finished. Without wasting any time, Alex picked up the next document, though... he'd developed a bit of a habit in the past couple hours and so, while he's beginning to read the document, Alex reaches out and pets the sphynx. The cat purred, a soft, rumbling sound that filled the silence.

It's nice.

This... strangely enough, is nice...  

His actions were repetitive and simple, but they're enough to keep his focus away from other things. Right now, his only goal was to go through these documents and make them better—nothing more, nothing less.

So, that's exactly what he does.

He fell into a rhythm like it's second nature, reading and then picking up the quill to mark as he reads, and then re-reading a final time while he jots down extra notes wherever he can. It's easy. It's distracting. It's perfect.

At some point, it's not just the soft purring of the sphynx that fills the silence—it's a song. Alex began to hum, the sound quiet and melodic. He hummed whatever came to mind, with no rhyme or reason... he was so focused that he barely even heard himself humming, actually. He only stopped humming when he finished one document and picked up the next... up until now, most of the papers had either been similar to a joke or just weren't that interesting.

"Potion manufacturing?" Alex questioned aloud. Well, that definitely seemed interesting and, if he knew anything about how any city of greed might function, it would be of interest to Las Nevadas. Of course, there was always a negative; in return for having a direct supply of products, Las Nevadas would allow one of this company's potion shops to open in Las Nevadas and they would be allowed to manage themselves independently. Also... they were to keep half of the profits they make.

Now, he wasn't a business man—he went to law school—but he'd say he knows enough about business to make some decent judgements.

He's not quite sure about the value of potions in this world, but considering how much of a popular place Las Nevadas seems to be, half of the profits seems like too much a daring proposition—definitely not in favour of Las Nevadas, that's for sure. Also, he didn't really know how Quackity liked to run things around here but, if he were to make a guess based on his judgement of him, he'd say that Quackity liked control—honestly, Quackity probably has tight leashes around any and all of the companies in Las Nevadas.

If that is the case, Quackity certainly wouldn't like the fact that this company wants to manage itself independently. Not that he really cared what Quackity liked, but this is his city, his nation, and so his interests and disinterests were basically that of the city's as well. Whether Alex liked it or not, he had to respect that—at least to some degree.

The next question was: does Las Nevadas have any potion related industries already? He doubted it—if it did, then there's no way someone would make a proposal as bold as this. 

But that also means that, if this one potion making industry is allowed into Las Nevadas, then they would pretty much have a monopoly over potion sales here. Logically, that should give Las Nevadas more grounds to demand more from their contract, since the company would already be reaping enough benefits just by being the sole group that sold potions in Las Nevadas.

For now, he'd assume that there's no other potion related industry in Las Nevadas, and if that's not the case then sue him—one shitty contract wasn't going to ruin the world, though it pissed him off a little that he couldn't make sure each one was perfect. Well, not his fault; Quackity didn't provide him with any information, something that would have helped greatly in revising some of these contracts.

Alex finished reading the contract and picked up his quill; as he continued to work, he unknowingly began to hum again.

He decided to take his time with this one, thinking about things longer and trying to make sense of as many of the unfamiliar but obviously key terms that he could. With what little he understood about this world's potion making, and what he assumed would be in Las Nevadas' best interests, he slowly went through the contract, crossing out some things and adding others.

The quill drifted along the paper smoothly, leaving sleek trails of black ink in its wake. There was even something comforting about holding the paper in his hand—about having that basic familiarity weighing lightly in his loose grip.

Honestly, this was nearly therapeutic.

While he certainly won't go asking Quackity for more work, maybe he wouldn't be so opposed if Quackity handed him another pile of papers to go through.

Alex was just finishing his adjustments to the final paragraph of the proposal when the sphynx sat up suddenly, wings ruffling and ears flicking up atop it's head, and... and he just has this feeling.

Someone is coming.

Alex put his mask on, adjusting it so that it was securely in place, and mere moments later there was a knock at the door. He slowly and quietly put the paper and the quill on the table, and he chose to remain on the couch, waiting to see if anything else happened. If he needed to, he could reach into the pocket of his coat to get a weapon—it turned out to be a good idea to have kept the green storage-crystal containing his dagger in there.

After the first few knocks, it was silent; he could't tell if whoever knocked simply left, or... if they were still standing there.

He should be afraid—terrified, even—but, at most, he just felt unsettled. 

He knew, he knew he should be scared, but... he just wasn't. That's probably dangerous—fear was an instinct meant to keep people alive, after all.

He doubted whether he tries calling out or not will change much—if whoever this was really was an intruder with bad intentions, then they're likely prepared for a fight, that's considering they're sneaking into a place like the Hotel of Las Nevadas... actually, as much as he didn't want to admit it (cause fuck him), Quackity probably implemented good security measures around here—he did stay in the Hotel, after all, and Alex doubted Quackity would stay anywhere considerably unguarded.

Perhaps against his better judgement, Alex called out.

"Hello?"

There was a moment of faint, unintelligible noise before a reply came.

"Pyre from Nowhere?"

The tension that had been building dissipated suddenly and Alex found himself dumbfounded.

"...Slime?"

"You are awake!" Slime's voice exclaimed, though the sound was muffled due to the closed door; it seemed that, unlike Quackity's room, these rooms weren't nearly as soundproof. "I had a feeling you would be!"

"...Okay?" he replied slowly, not really sure what else to say; of all people, he certainly wasn't expecting Slime to be at his door, much less at this late of an hour. "So, uh, do you need something..?"

"Nope!"

"Alright..." he trailed off, fiddling with the edge of his shirt sleeve before calling out; "Slime? You still there?"

"Yep!"

So, Slime was just standing outside his door silently... Not weird—not weird at all... Slime wouldn't just stand in front of his door all night, would he? He could if he wanted to, he didn't need to sleep, after all. That's definitely not disturbing.

"Do you... Do you want to come in?"

"Okay!" Slime replied and then the door opened. "Wow! It's dark! Do you like the dark, Pyre from Nowhere?"

"You could say that." Despite being across the room, Alex could clearly see Slime through the darkness; as soon as he saw his face, he couldn't help but think of Charlie, but... aside from feeling mildly uncomfortable, he just felt nothing. 

Right now, he felt next to nothing—his emotions were nothing more than a serene lake, peaceful and undisturbed; he felt calm, maybe unnaturally so, but he felt calm nonetheless.

"Can you see in the dark?" he asked curiously, noticing that Slime has just been staring blankly ahead, still standing by the entrance.

"Sort of! But I can't see you right now, Pyre from Nowhere!" Slime exclaimed, a smile on his face. "It's like the shadows are talking to me!"

Alex couldn't stop himself from smiling just barely as he shook his head, amused.

"You can turn the lights on, the switch is just to your left." 

"But, Pyre from Nowhere, you like the dark! I can join you in the dark, don't worry!" 

Before Alex could say anything, Slime was walking in his direction. Or, at least, vaguely in his direction.

"Stop," Alex said before Slime could walk into the table; Slime stopped, and Alex could only wonder how much he's actually able to see. It didn't seem like Slime was able to see much considering he's basically blundering around in the dark. Weird, he kinda thought slimes, or at least Slime, would've had pretty good night vision.

Then again, he was rather weird himself for being able to see so well in the dark.

He didn't want to think about right now.

Noticing Slime hasn't moved a single step, Alex tried instructing him; "...A little bit to your right." Slime sidestepped to the right. "You can go forward now." Slime took a couple steps forward before plopping down on the couch opposite of Alex. He didn't really pay attention to what Slime was wearing at first, but he wasn't surprised to find him wearing the same, formal outfit he was wearing the first time they met.

"Thank you, Pyre from Nowhere!" Slime chirped happily. "I like the dark, but it's really dark in here!"

Glancing out the window, Alex noticed that there were dark clouds blanketing the sky, blocking out the pale light of the moon and stars. Of course, he wouldn't have noticed it on his own since he can see regardless of how dark it is, but he could understand how that small difference in light might've helped Slime see better. He briefly surveyed the view outside but all he saw was a dark lake and the green expanse of the forest, so he turned back to Slime.

"Like I said, you could have turned on the lights," he replied, picking up a new document off the table; he'd made what adjustments he could to the potion related contract, so he'd leave it alone now—if he spent too much time thinking about it, he'd probably find some way to fuck it up and make it worse.

"But, Pyre from Nowhere, why else would you be in the dark if you didn't like it? I don't want to take away something you like!"

Alex glanced up at Slime, finding him staring straight at him.

"...Thanks? But..." Slime was staring at him, sure, but it didn't seem like his eyes were actually focused on anything. "...Can you even see me?"

Slime tilted his head, eyes narrowing in focus before his expression brightened again. "A little bit! I can see the shape of you! And your glowing eye!"

...Was his eye really glowing? Well, it could be weirder, he supposed.

"Right..."

With a sigh, Alex leaned back into the couch and began to slowly read through the new document. By the looks of it, this would be another relatively boring one about ore trades and territory. Earth wasn't so different in this regard—it had so many precious minerals, but they were limited and the spaces in which they were found were even more limited. Best case scenario, people learned to make peaceful exchanges for minerals, but worst case scenario... well, war, for one.

Alex shook his head, then tilting his head to rest in his hand. His fingers cradled his chin, pressing against the smooth surface of his mask. 

He still felt pretty calm, for better or for worse, and... well, Slime couldn't even really see him...

...It would be fine for him to take off his mask, right?

Even if Slime could see his face, Slime has already seen his face before, so what's the big deal? But still, he hesitated—not because he feared the repercussions of potentially being discovered for who he really was, but because the idea of being exposed, of being vulnerable... it made him anxious, it made his heart beat fast in his chest and it made his eye twitch with pain.

His mask was a shield that protected him from the prying eyes of the world around him but, more than that, it's what allowed him to hide his thoughts, his feelings—every little expression of fear, worry, or uncertainty. His mask let him put up an act and, without it, he risked his act falling apart—he risked falling apart.

But he took it off anyway.

For a moment, his anxiety swelled—tingling along his skin and pulsing through his blood. The thin wall of glass between him and everything he's pushed back cracked and he was distantly worried that it would break, that every bone-deep pain and worry would come rushing out to consume him.

But it didn't.

He's calm.

He's fine... for now, at least.

While Alex did his best to focus on the document, he'd already read four just like this one and it was hard to find himself interested; the only thing that prevented him from tossing it aside and being done with it was his spite—he'd promised himself he'd finish every single one of these and he'd make each one as damn good as he could make it, just to show Quackity he wasn't some fucking incompetent idiot. Still, he found himself dividing his attention so that he didn't die of boredom, and also because he had a particular question on the tip of his tongue.

"So... Why were you outside my door?" he asked, eyes not straying from the words on the page.

Across from him, Slime bobbed his head absently, as if acknowledging Alex's question. 

"Quackity from Las Nevadas says I should sleep, but I don't know how; I just stay very, very still with my eyes closed. But sometimes I don't want to do that, so I walk around," Slime replied. Feeling a little intrigued, Alex looked up from the document; Slime was staring curiously at his hands, which appeared as light skin-tone flesh—at least, on the surface that is.

For a moment, he wondered what it must be like to live in a body that is still yours, but just not quite; Slime was still Slime, obviously, but Alex was certain that he didn't naturally look this human... probably more, well, slimy.

Maybe he could sort of understand. After all, wasn't his mask somewhat similar?

He had a face to hide his own face and Slime had skin to hide his own skin.

Slime smiled, tapping his fingers together with seemingly no rhythm. "So, I walk around! Fundy sometimes takes walks at night, so I thought I'd do the same!" Slime chirped. "I was leaving my room when I heard noise from in here! This is a secret, but I have very good hearing..."

Seeing Slime's unnecessarily serious expression, Alex shook his head slowly, a smile twitching at his lips.

"Don't worry, your secret is safe with me," he replied with as much seriousness he could muster—which, admittedly, wasn't very much but at least it was enough to put Slime at ease. Which was kind of funny, considering that Slime's 'secret' wasn't that earth-shattering of a secret, yet Slime still seemed to be worried about it.

"Thank you, Pyre from Nowhere!" Slime said with just as much as a cheerful tone as always. After a moment, Slime tilted his head curiously. "Pyre from Nowhere, what are you doing?"

"Reading and revising contracts and other documents," he replied, a slight hum to his voice. Next to him, still perched on the arm of the couch, the sphynx relaxed, no longer bothered by Slime's presence.

"Why?"

Alex shrugged. "I guess it's my job now."

"Oh! My job is to spy on people!"

...It seemed Slime still wasn't very good at the whole 'spy' deal.

"Is that so?" Alex reached for the quill, dipping it in the ink before leaning back; it was kind of surprising how few times he's had to dip the quill in ink. Maybe its magic related. It probably is, now that he thought about it.

Slime nodded and that was it; silence overcame the room. Though... it wasn't uncomfortable. 

He didn't mind this. If Slime was content to simply sit in dark silence, then Alex was equally as content to do the same while he read through the documents. 

While Alex went through the document, eventually finishing it and taking the next one, Slime stayed seated on the couch, staring off... somewhere. He seemed to be zoned out or something. As Alex became engrossed in the reading of his current document, he began to hum again; the tune was soft and vaguely reminiscent of the music that lingered in his memories of home. His attention was too absorbed in the words scrawled neatly across the page to think about home, or to even realize what he's humming.

It went like that for a while; Alex humming as he read and altered documents, Slime sitting in front of him quietly, and the sphynx sleeping soundly.

He's comfortable—so comfortable that, just for a moment... this nearly feels like home.

"Don't you need to sleep, Pyre from Nowhere?" The sudden sound of Slime's voice caused Alex to startle, his grip on the paper tightening; though, upon realizing it was just Slime, he quickly relaxed.

Ah... Just how late was it..?

Probably pretty late... but he doesn't really feel tired.

"I'm not tired," Alex replied with a vague shrug. "Besides, I still have work to do."

He didn't notice it, too focused on the paper in hand, but Slime frowned. Once again, silence fell between them, only occasionally broken by the shifting of paper and the faint sound of the quill dipping into the ink bottle.

He could finish all of these documents tonight, but he might not be able to get much sleep if he did that... but still, he could do a few more, just until he actually felt tired enough to sleep. If he didn't fall asleep the moment he hit his bed... if he had to lay awake with his own thoughts, then...

Well, he didn't really want to dwell on it. So, he quickly chose to think about something else while he read over the words on the page.

Magic—magic was definitely something important to think about, and it was also interesting! Though, it could be unpleasant... he got shivers just by thinking about the communicator. But magic was cool, it was fun, and it was helpful; the storage-crystals especially. Oh, that reminded him, he still had those books that Foolish gave him... he moved those into his room, didn't he? Yeah, he did, because he wanted more space for the shit Quackity gave him to work on. Also... learning magic from Foolish was... nice.

It was nice.

Yeah, he could admit that; it was nice to have someone to talk to casually—he could also admit the same thing for Fundy. He... he liked Fundy and Foolish, he wouldn't mind being friends with them. Foolish even gave him a gift, and Alex doubted that storage-crystals were very cheap in this world—they seemed like the kinda thing that would be monopolized and sold at high prices. 

Gift... should he get Fundy and Foolish a gift?

It would just be a show of goodwill, so it wouldn't be weird, right? Like a 'thank you for being nice to me' gift—god only knows that Alex appreciated how nice they were after he had to deal with Quackity and Wilbur. Yeah, okay, he'll get them a gift.

...But what kind of gift? Ah, fuck, gift-giving was never really his strong suit. Sure, he could get good gag-gifts to make people laugh or piss them off in a playful way, but he wanted to get something more... meaningful? Maybe meaningful was a bit too strong; he just wanted to get them a nice gift. He didn't know what to get them, but maybe...

Alex glanced up at Slime. Slime actually looked shockingly human right now—usually there was a bit of slime that was visible on him, but right now there was none. It made him look even more like Charlie, but... Slime and Charlie were different. They were different.

They were different.

Alex cleared his throat and Slime tilted his head up, blinking in his direction; Alex still wasn't actually sure how much he could see.

"Mind if I ask a question?" Alex asked as he laid his document on the table, along with the quill; he also went to pet the sphynx, only to realize it wasn't beside him anymore. It must have decided to wander around the room or something.

Slime smiled. "Nope!"

"Any idea as to what... what Fundy and Foolish might like as gifts?"

For a moment, Slime was oddly silent—it was odd because Slime usually responded quickly and with perhaps too much cheeriness. Eventually, Slime did reply, though his tone was far more confused than cheery.

"What's a gift?" 

Oh, right, Slime was still very much learning about the world—about everything around him and about how and why people live the way they do. 

...In a strange sense, Slime was also learning how to navigate a new and unfamiliar world that he didn't quite understand, just like Alex.

"...To put it simply, a gift is something you give to someone," Alex began to explain. "Usually a friend or a family member, but it can be someone else, too."

Slime nodded and then, of course, asked another question; "Why?"

"Well..." Alex took a moment to think about his answer before continuing. "There's a number of reasons why you would give a gift to someone. Maybe because you want to make them happy—maybe they've been feeling down, or they're sick, or you just want to make they're day a little bit brighter... Maybe you've missed them, so you get them a gift to see their smile and to show them that you thought of them. Or maybe you do it as a formality; maybe someone does something for you or gets a gift for you, so you get a gift for them in return. There are lots of reasons to give gifts."

"Oh," Slime mumbled. "Then, Pyre from Nowhere, why do you want to give gifts?"

"I..."

Why did he want to get Foolish and Fundy a gift? To pay them back for their kindness, for one, but... it's more than that and he can't deny it; he wanted to give them something that would make them happy, like how a friend would do...

Logically thinking, he shouldn't get attached to anything or anyone in this world, because...

Just... later, he'll think about it later...

"I'm not too sure, I just... I just want to, I guess," Alex replied vaguely.

Slime nodded, silent for a moment as he seemed to be in thought. 

"What make 'good' gifts?" Slime asked after a pause of silence. 

"Usually things you know the person will like, but sometimes it's just enough to give them something memorable—maybe even something you've made yourself," Alex replied, voice quiet. In his room—his room back home—he had a number of random gifts and trinkets that were given to him by his friends; few of them were actually useful, but he still cherished them. "I personally like when gifts are made by the person giving them to me. It takes more effort on their part but it feels more special, it's... it's hard to describe."

Unexpectedly, Slime shook this head. "I think I understand," he said, and then he frowned slightly. "I'm not sure how, but... I understand."

Alex didn't question it; if he questioned even half of the questionable things about Slime, he's sure he'd confuse himself to hell and back. Slime's confused and... almost troubled expression remained on his face long enough that Alex felt the need to distract him with more mundane conversation.

"Do you also want a gift, Slime?" he asked. Slime was... well, he wouldn't lie and say it was easy to look at Slime, but...

Slime wasn't Charlie, he was his own person, and that was perfectly fine—it would just take some time for Alex to fully separate the two in his mind. And... well, Slime was a good guy, nice and friendly; maybe he wouldn't mind getting closer to Slime, either.

Slime tilted his head. "A gift for me?" Slime said quizzically, then he smiled. "If you want to give me one, then okay!"

"Alright, is there anything you want? I probably can't get you anything significant, though..." He still had no idea how the currency in this world worked, not like it would help even if he did; he didn't have anything that could be considered valuable enough to be currency.

"I want... whatever you want to give me!" Slime exclaimed, but then he seemed to have another idea; "You said personally made gifts are more special, so could you make me a gift?"

Alex blinked, a bit surprised, but then he smiled just a little bit.

"Sure, I can do that," he replied softly.

"Okay! I will also make you a gift!"

Alex wanted to tell him that he didn't have to but... Well, Slime almost always looks happy, but somehow he looked more happy right now; and so, Alex decided to keep quiet. Vaguely, he wondered what the hell Slime would get him, but decided he could think about it another time. Besides, it'd be more interesting to have it be a complete surprise. This time, instead of letting silence overtake the casual chatter between them, Alex decided to keep talking.

"So, Slime, what's your favourite thing to do around here?"

Slime smiled brightly.

"Well—"

The documents that Alex had initially been determined to remain focused on were forgotten, replaced with casual and lighthearted conversation with Slime. Slime was fun to talk to, Alex learned rather expectedly. They'd switch from topic to topic on a whim, usually when Slime became distracted and started talking animatedly about something else. Alex would add his own bits to the conversation but, overall, he was more than content to listen to Slime ramble—it was entertaining and there were even a few times where Slime said something that had him laughing uncontrollably.

During their conversation, Slime also gave him some ideas on what to get for Fundy and Foolish. Apparently Fundy lost his cookie cutters—which surprised Alex at first because he wasn't expecting Fundy to have cookie cutters, but then he remembered Yogurt mentioning something about Fundy baking. So, Fundy might want new cookie cutters, he supposed... though he had no fucking clue where he'd get cookie cutters in Las Nevadas. As for Foolish, Slime said he wasn't too sure but that Sam might have a better idea. He wasn't exactly sure what to do with that information because he wasn't planning on seeking out Sam just to ask what Foolish might want as a gift. Well, he'd eventually figure it out.

Alex wasn't sure how long they just talked for, but it must have been a while because eventually, as exhaustion crept in and took its hold, Alex fell asleep.

It's dark but the thousands of stars light up the void.

They glitter and they sparkle, like oh-so-precious gems.

He wants to reach out and take one—he feels like he can.

But before he can reach towards one of the stars, something shifts.

It moves, blanketing the stars with a black abyss, and suddenly everything is dark.

So dark that he can't even see.

There are no stars, there are no lights, but... he isn't afraid.

And then, through the abyss, something glows.

It's a faint green light, and it's glow flickers—it seems weak, fragile.

Then something reaches out towards him; he doesn't know what it is, just that everything aside from that faint green glow is dark.

It reaches, extending towards him, and he feels so, so small.

But he still doesn't feel afraid.

He feels...

...Warm.