"Guess I'm just better at dying than he is. What's his?"

"Seam down his face. From the skin grafts after he blew the arena up."

"...Huh. Guess it makes sense, for the explosions to--I mean, Tubbo has--not sure if he did a better or a worse job than I did, on that one."

"...man, I have no idea how I'd even start thinking about that." Or why, but that's a little rude. 

"--I mean, he has scars from the explosions and I don't, but he presumably lived out the day."

"I— yes, those are both true facts?" 

"...It doesn't matter. He's not me."

"...guess it doesn't." 

"I'm not--you can't expect me to be like him. We're different people."

(He's trying to convince himself as much as he is trying to convince Q. Maybe more.)

"And you're from different contexts, you have different histories— and Quackity doesn't seem to be much like me—" 

He hopes. He dearly, dearly hopes. 

"Exactly! Exactly."

Sapnap is the same, though, and Dream apparently remarkably similar for all that their worlds are entirely different. 

He isn't thinking about this. 

No, really, stop it, he isn't thinking about this. 

"I— honestly I should probably head home soon," he says, rather than continue to think about this. 

"Right! Yeah, of course, it's--honestly, I should probably go soon too, Phil'll be getting worried, especially since I didn't come home last night. Kiss for the road?"

"Now who's cute." He can have one, though. 

Sweater and trench coat: back on. Tommy and Phil: messaged.

Nether portal's the fastest way to get back to the arctic, so if Quackity's going to Kinoko they walk together that far, but once in the nether Wilbur goes down one of the winding cobblestone pathways that Q hasn't followed.

He makes a note of which pathway Wilbur takes, at some point he's going to have to learn where more than three things are around here. 

Kinoko is, as always, quiet. At some point he's going to have to stop avoiding Karl but this point is not that point, he's got enough things he's failing to avoid.

Nobody bothers him. Nobody does much of anything, really. Karl's watching cartoons; Sapnap's exercising; George is, as always, asleep.

Yeah. It's... yeah. 

Add that to the list of things he's not thinking about. 

In the meantime, though, he knew Phil and Tubbo existed here but he hadn't known about Ponk, and he's curious about the local Eret and Punz. And maybe he should ask around about a Vesta or a Menenius, if Punz exists here. 

He doesn't know enough to ask questions that connect to anything, he thinks, but it's not like there's a clock on this one. 

...he has a shirt from George, but while everyone is engaged in their respective favorite activities and disinclined to be interrupted, he steals a hoodie from Sapnap too. Which is embarrassing and weird and kind of pathetic and probably a bad idea but whatever, pride crumbles in the face of clothes that smell like his boyfriend.

Maybe if he's really, really lucky, he'll dream about Sapnap, and not about Schlatt, drinking but not drunk, saying what are you going to do? cry about it? 

He isn't that lucky.

Of course he's fucking not. He wakes up already sobbing, like he's fucking seventeen again and still thinks anyone will hear it and care.

At least he isn't so stupid that he still wakes up screaming like anyone's going to help. At least he doesn't share a bed anymore, small mercies. Now he just has to get up, lying in bed all day feeling sorry for himself hasn't been cute since he was six years old.

...No, really, he has to get up. If he's gotta cry he'll do it in the shower. 

Kinoko’s still quiet; they all tend to stay up late and sleep in late. Quackity’s the first one awake. 

He could spend another day hanging out with Wilbur. He could try again with Ranboo. He could find someone to ask about Punz. He could... Quackity mentioned Foolish, he could meet Foolish, or the other people who apparently exist in Las Nevadas. He could go back to the parts of the server that are busy and try to meet people there. He could stop avoiding Karl. (He is not going to stop avoiding Karl.) He could pick up another project, although he isn't really sure what it would be. 

Yeah, okay, he'll try again with Ranboo. 

Tubbo isn’t at the cookie outpost today, just Ranboo.  They wave to Quackity as he approaches. 

He waves back. 

"Hi," he says, still going for friendly and chill. "Uh— someone gave me a message for you. He didn't give me a name," which is a lie but it gives Q plausible deniability if he needs it, "and I'm not totally sure what it means but I figure you would probably know?" 

“Oh, um, okay. Sure. Yeah. Hit me.”