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Quackity had a little bit of a tight schedule, and by tight, he meant tight, He had lots of things to do--things to get done--he was a busy man. Very busy. And to be honest, this meetup he was doing, it barely even made the cut for his important business (what was classified as important is up to you). But hey! Introductions had to be made, and Quackity would prefer to be there for them.
Quackity just hoped that it wouldn’t take long. As mentioned before, he had things to do. But, he had little confidence. Just on their own, every one of his associates caused a little chaos, and by chaos, he meant chaos. All of them shoved into one place; one word--yikes.
“So, where are we going?” Slimecicle, the slime, as the name suggested, asked from beside Quackity. He was dressed differently from how Quackity had found him. As Quackity learned, Slimecicle’s clothes were not technically clothes. They were just his body, molded to look like clothes. So Quackity lent him a button-up shirt, hearts dotting the sleeves of it, with a green vest and red pants, mimicking the vibe of Quackity’s outfit. He thought he looked quite dapper and less homeless.
Anyways, he was surprised the slime man could even keep up with Quackity, as they were practically jogging through Las Nevadas, rather than taking a normal stroll. It helped that Slimecicle had intertwined their hands the moment they left, calling it another sign of human affection. Cute idea, horrible in practice. It was disgusting.
However much this “man” liked to claim he was human, the moment you even slightly touched him you figured the truth. And Quackity’s hand was completely gooped up. And it was no sweat.
He loved Slimecicle, he did, but the man got a little touchy. That was made clear from the moment he had met the slime, where he planted a kiss on Quackity’s cheek after being let out of his hole. If Slime hadn’t proved to be a useful spy, Quackity would’ve killed him. He swears upon it. Honestly.
Even if his heart is a little attached to the foolish “man”.
“We’re meeting up with a couple of friends,” Quackity answers, trying to let go of Slime’s hand, only to result in Slime squeezing a little tighter. Alright then. Holding hands for the rest of the walk. He could deal with this. Maybe. “You remember what friends are, right?”
“Sure,” Slime answered absentmindedly, “I definitely remember.”
Quackity looked over just in time to see the slime give him a very uncomfortably long wink. If you could call it that.
Maybe Quackity shouldn’t have been teaching Slimecicle about human hand and facial gestures.
He sighed, “It’s people you have positive interactions with. People you bond with. And these people, I’ve definitely bonded with, so we’re friends.”
If you ignore the part where two of them had threatened (tried) to kill Quackity, one of them had nightmares that he certainly had nothing to do with, and one that was just barely on his side.
Friends. Accomplices. Enemies. What’s the difference?
“Then I’m happy to meet them,” Slimecicle nodded.
Quackity slowed down his pace when he saw the fast-food building in the distance, coming to a complete stop when they were in front of the doors. He dropped Slimecicle’s hand, Slime not noticing when he was too busy observing the walls and whatever else he found interesting. In Quackity’s opinion, the building wasn’t anything special. It was really gross actually. The place was dirty, the food was horrible, it wasn’t a spectacular experience. Sam didn’t seem to be super offended by it, but who knew when the guy had a mask covering half his face.
Never mind the status of the place, he pushed open the doors (with a little more effort than he’d like to admit). When preparing for today, he was a bit uneasy that no one would end up showing, besides Sam. All of the people involved (besides Sam and Slimecicle) weren’t complete fans of Quackity, and none of them had said yes when he invited them to join Las Nevadas.
But after walking to the meeting place, he had calmed his nerves and was happy to see that a booth was crammed with Purpled, Foolish, Fundy, and Sam either way. Even if none of them looked ecstatic about their predicament.
Purpled wore a purple sweatshirt and jeans, hair in its usual style. The man was tapping his fingers on the table impatiently until the doors had swung open, and then he had stopped to glare daggers and Quackity. Maybe to intimidate, maybe to express his anger at him for blowing up his house, who knew. Either way, whatever effect he was going for--it wasn’t working.
Foolish was just sitting there, and Quackity would’ve thought the man would’ve been making conversation or something, but he was just sitting there. He couldn’t quite decipher the look on his face, but then again, it was usually like that. The totem was made of gold. And it’s hard to express emotions when your face wasn’t made to express emotions. At the moment though, Quackity could safely bet he was a little pissed. Just barely, but it was there.
Fundy just looked kind of nervous, to be honest. Nothing more to it than his tail twitching and eyes darting around the dingy place. Maybe it was because the lights were flickering, or that the floor was dirty, or maybe it was because Quackity was technically a couple of minutes late.
Sam wore his usual mask, but instead of his traditional chest plate, he wore a suit that was forced on him by Quackity. He felt no shame. It was for the greater good and said greater good was to make him seem more professional. Besides observing his clothes, he looked uncomfortable. He was previously pulling at the collar of his shirt, definitely not used to wearing a tie, and was now taking to quite obviously avoiding eye contact with anyone and everyone at the table, pointedly looking to Quackity to save him.
So things seemed to be going smoothly. Nice, nice.
Quackity was just about to approach the table and make his greeting, maybe suggest to sit somewhere else (because he was not about to get squished into a big meat pile + one slimy boy that would definitely get goop on his shirt), when Slime started speaking first.
Quackity was about to physically facepalm, even if he hadn’t even heard what Slimecicle said yet. Slime was kind of an enigma with what he said, especially with how little he knew about how normal people talked. For God’s sake, Quackity was able to convince Slime snow is called coke! It was hilarious, absolutely, but only proved the fact that Slime had no idea what he was doing.
“Hello, fellow humans!” Slime shouted, “I have many bones, just like you.”
“Uh… Quackity?” Sam asked.
“Guys, this is Slimecicle,” Quackity said, exasperated. “Slimecicle, this is Sam-” He pointed to the creeper, “-you might know him as one of the ‘two green guys’,” Quackity ignored the confused look Sam gave him and continued, pointing at each person accordingly, “That’s Foolish, he’s pretty cool, Purpled, you heard about him, and then you have Fundy! That’s everyone.”
“Nice to meet you?” Fundy asked. “I have a feeling he’s not actually human, is he?”
“Nope, you have the wrong idea. I’m 100% human.” Slime interjected before Quackity could respond. He pointed to some green parts of himself, “These are my human bits. Like I showed Quackity.”
“Uh, sure,” Fundy said. He didn’t look convinced, as he shouldn’t be. Slime was not particularly convincing.
They stood in awkward silence for maybe ten seconds until Sam interrupted it.
“How’d you meet Slimecicle?” Sam asked, which was pretty much code for, “Hey, I thought we agreed to discuss everything together, and this man was clearly not a part of any discussion we had; who is he, and can we trust him?”
“He was spying on me--”
“I was living in the walls and then Quackity of Las Nevadas saw me.”
Quackity rolled his eyes, “He saw things he shouldn’t have, but I realized we could use those spying skills to our advantage.”
“Spy means friend,” Slimecicle added.
“Did Quackity tell you that?” Purpled asked with a scoff.
“I didn’t know what it meant,” Slime shrugged, “But he told me. I also didn’t know what ‘friend' meant--but he also told me what that meant too.”
Purpled raised his eyes to Quackity, “You told him that ‘spy’ means ‘friend’?”
Quackity shrugged, “It’s true. Pretty much.”
Purpled only sighed, giving up on defining what spy means. Foolish took that as his cue to clear his throat and start a new conversation topic. Quackity thanked him silently. “So, why are we here, Quackity?”
Quackity pulled a chair out from a table to sit down. Slime stayed standing. “We’re here to discuss Las Nevadas, of course.”
“I get that, but specifics? I didn’t come here for no reason.”
“And I didn’t get my UFO blown up for no reason.”
“And I haven’t been getting nightmares for no reason either!”
“Calm down, jeez,” Quackity commanded, “I just want to talk about what we’ll be doing in Las Nevadas. What… you’ll all be doing in Las Nevadas”
He grinned, the smile not quite reaching his eyes. Time to execute his plan and assign roles to everyone, albeit not explicitly. It would be hard with multiple people in the room, managing so many people’s emotions at once was tiring, but it was time efficient having everyone there. And then, he’d be able to promote trustworthiness and hint at the power he had--
“Which is Uno,” Slime grinned, laying down a deck of Uno cards on the table.
“What the fuck?” Quackity asked, “No, no, we’re not playing Uno--”
“I’m amazing at Uno,” Purpled said, already making his way over to the cards, “Are you sure you want to take me on, Quackity?”
“I don’t want to take you on!” Quackity swiped the cards off the table, “We’re not playing Uno.” He turned to Slime, who was staring longingly to where the cards previously laid on the table. His heart twisted a little. “Where’d you even get these, man? You didn’t even know what a friend was, like a week ago!”
Slime turned to him with a devilish smile, that fucker, “I have my ways. Now, let’s play Uno,” He pulled out another fucking deck of Uno cards, and tossed them to Purpled. “Don’t let him take them,” He said, nodding to Quackity.
Quackity stared with a gaping mouth, “What the fuck-”
“I don’t know man,” Foolish shrugged, “Seems like he wants to play Uno, don’t you think?”
“I do!” Slime nodded.
“Sam! Take the cards away from them!” Quackity groaned, trying to reach for the cards Purpled held out of reach. “Guys, we can’t just play Uno. We have things to do.”
Sam--that traitorous bastard--grabbed the cards and started dealing everyone in, including Quackity, “What, can’t make time for a card game? Man, must be a busy guy.”
“I-” Quackity stared in awe as Sam finished dealing cards, who then grinned when he saw his cards. Slime grabbed his pile, which smeared green slime all over them. Purpled cackled when he looked at whatever was on his cards, sneaking a look at Fundy’s. Fundy hesitantly reached for his cards, keeping a careful eye on Quackity, and Foolish was probably tall enough he could see everyone else's cards, but he gave no evidence of it when observing his share. “We’re not playing Uno.”
“You’re in denial,” Foolish proclaimed, setting down a blue three.
“Listen, if you’re afraid to lose, you can just say it,” Purpled chuckled, setting down a blue nine.
“Is that a six or a nine?” Fundy asked, eyeing the card, “That’s a six, right?”
“Sixes have lines under them,” Slime said, “That’s a nine right there.”
Fundy nodded, and put down a green nine.
“How do you know that??” Quackity asked. All of a sudden, the man with barely any more intelligence than a rock was dishing out facts about Uno, of which he had two decks (why does he have two decks?? where did he even get uno in the first place??), possibly more, and Quackity was extremely thrown out of his comfort zone.
Slime looked at him, “I’m an Uno enthusiast, why wouldn’t I?”
“Why are you an Uno enthusiast?”
“Stop asking questions and play the game, Quackity,” Sam said.
“I’m not playing Uno with you guys!”
They ignored him, and Sam laid down a green draw four card. Slime groaned and pulled four more cards from the pile.
“Either you guys stop playing Uno, or I leave,” Quackity said.
“Then leave.”
“Oh! Get burned Quackity!” Purpled laughed, “How’s it feel to be epically trolled by Sam?”
“Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m going to play Uno when I’m supposed to be working,” He said, finally scooting closer to the table, picking up his cards. The table erupted into cheers, they seemed to be way too happy about him joining the game.
His cards weren’t too bad, two blue cards, a wild card, three yellow cards, and a red card. He could totally win this.
~*~
“Oh, fuck you!” Quackity yelled when Slime placed down a wild card that made the next person also draw four. “The least you could’ve done is make it yellow!”
Slime shrugged, and Quackity was left to draw three blue cards and a green six. He was going to lose and his reputation as #1 Uno Player Extraordinaire will be absolutely shattered. He knew Uno was a bad idea, he knew it!
“UNO!” Foolish yelled, placing down his second to last card.
“No!” Fundy yelled, “Purpled, Purpled, please, change the color to red. He doesn’t have red.”
“How do you know that?” Foolish asked, raising his card a little higher as if someone could seriously see it. “No, literally, how do you know that?”
Fundy grinned, “I knew it! Purpled, put down red!”
Purpled put down a red six, making Fundy smile, and also put down his second to last card. “Uno! I'm just too good at this game.”
“Bro, he got you,” Quackity laughed.
“Shut up Quackity! At least I don’t wear the same beanie every day,” Purpled glared.
“It’s called fashion--”
“Uno is the worst game ever,” Sam said, and laid down a red five, leaving him with sixteen cards left in his hand.
“Uno is fun,” Slime said and laid down a green five.
“That’s because you’re winning, Slime,” Quackity grumbled, placing down another card. Only eight more cards to go!
“He’s not winning,” Foolish said, drawing card after card to get a red one, “I was winning. And then Fundy existed.”
“You don’t like me because I’m a winner,” Fundy said, “Learn to cope.”
Purpled hesitantly placed down a red seven, “Fundy, think about what you’re about to do. You don’t want to place down that last--”
Fundy placed down his last card. “I win! In your face!”
“And the number one spot for Uno individuals goes to~,” Slime said.
“Shit!” Quackity yelled, throwing down his cards, “Purpled, why didn’t you change the color? You knew he had red!”
“I thought he was doing reverse psychology! How was I supposed to know his last card wasn’t blue?”
“Is that what reverse psychology is?” Foolish asked.
“Uno leaves no room for winners,” Slime said, “Just sinners.”
“Slime shut the fuck up.”
“Alright.”
