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It’s only a few weeks after Karl and Sapnap’s engagement when Quackity first finds himself suddenly acutely aware of his … interesting linguistic circumstances.
They’re all sitting together — he, Karl, Sapnap; George and Punz — having a picnic by the Waterfall of Metaphysics in El Rapids, after spending the day building staircases and stores, pathways and the foundations of new homes. The grass is damp and the shade is cool, in contrast to the smothering heat from the sun, and Sapnap has brought out a picnic basket, is rummaging through its contents — but when he begins to lay all the food and drink he’s brought along out on the gingham splayed beneath them, Karl groans in dismay.
“You said you were going to cook. You had me actually excited for real food.”
“I didn’t say I was going to cook,” Sapnap challenges. “I believe what I said is that I was going to bring something.”
“Just — wait a second.” Karl shakes his head, snatching the thatched basket out of his hands and starting to rifle through it, bringing out more and more baked goods — and the deeper he goes, the more comically disappointed the expression on his face becomes, until he eventually looks up, disheveled, gaze half-frantic. “Do you literally not know how to make anything that isn’t muffins?”
“… Define ‘muffins’.”
“What the hell do you mean ‘define muffins’?!”
It’s adorable — so Quackity laughs. “Ustedes son tan pinche lindos.”
You guys are so fucking cute.
George lets out a startled, breathy giggle. “What? What’d you just call them?”
And it suddenly strikes Quackity then, that his friends just so happen to have heard him do such a vast quantity of shit-talking in Spanish that they legitimately can’t tell the difference between when he’s being affectionate and when he’s being a jackass. Which should probably make him feel weird, upset or something. But instead, he pauses — suddenly struck with, what he honestly believes, is a genius idea.
“Hm? Oh. A couple of dumbasses.”
“You’re so fucking rude, man.” Karl rolls his eyes.
“Well. At least you’re not stuck with me like you are with this guy. Till death do us part, and all that.” Quackity gestures back at Sapnap with his thumb, who lets out an indignant grumble. “Aunque son bienvenidos a proponerme matrimonio si quieren. Estoy seguro de que será un gran momento para todos los involucrados.”
Although, you’re welcome to propose if you want to. I’m sure it’d be a great time for everyone involved.
Karl gives him a playful shove, reaches over to grab another muffin from the picnic basket and promptly proceeds to gracefully shove it into his mouth whole.
And Quackity grins. Because he’s suddenly realised, with a kind of dizzying power, that he can just say whatever he wants, with absolutely no consequences. And that includes teasing them about their dumb engagement that he honestly, doesn’t want anything to do with.
* * *
After that, he just begins kind of — peppering it into conversation. He can’t help himself. There’s no way they’ll be able to understand him, so …
“Dude — what the hell. Give back my fucking pickaxe.”
"Propónganme matrimonio a mí, entonces."
Propose to me, then.
“What are you saying, Q? Seriously.”
“It means ‘screw you.’”
* * *
“Hey, man. I’m about to go meet up with Karl to go to the Nether, harvest some blaze rods. You good here?”
“Yeah. Just working on this still.”
“See you later, then!”
“‘Later. Lleguen a casa a salvo, para que sigan en una pieza cuando finalmente decidan casarse conmigo.”
Get home safe, so you’re still in one piece when you finally get around to marrying me.
“Love you, too!”
“I said you should be careful out there, because between the two of you, you share a single teeny-tiny brain cell.”
“Close enough!”
* * *
“Man, you guys are so annoying. I hate engaged couples. You’re so … touchy-feely. PDA should be made illegal.”
“You sound jealous.”
“I’m not jealous.”
“Maybe we should just propose to you already?”
“I would rather die. Pero si insistes. Quizás no sería tan malo.”
But if you insist. Maybe it wouldn't be that bad.
“Okay, okay. Prime. I guess not, then. Huh, Sap?”
“I guess not.”
* * *
It’s only sometime roughly six months after Karl and Sapnap’s initial engagement that Quackity realises there might be just a bit more to the ‘jokes’ he’s making than he originally thought. They’re all lying on Sapnap’s enormous bed; Karl flipping through a book, Sapnap half-dozing, and Quackity idly sorting through his inventory; and it’s a Sunday afternoon, where everything is slow and quiet, save for the lethargic hum of bees outside the window. Sunshine streams onto the bed where they all lie, have been lying for the past hour or so, really not doing much of anything.
Quackity yawns, stretches sleepily. “Estoy aburrido.”
“What?”
“I’m bored.”
Karl scrunches up his face with a small, quizzical expression, shuffles closer to Quackity so that they’re nose to nose, his brunette hair fanning out on the mattress and tickling against his cheek. “Why do you always do that?”
“Do what?”
“Speak in Spanish — even though you know we can’t understand you.”
“What?” Quackity feels himself begin to smirk, his immediate impulse always being to deflect with a joke. He can’t help it. “‘You trying to make me speak in English? Huh? You think there’s something wrong with Spanish? Holy shit, dude.” He shakes his head and laughs, mock-scandalised. “Holy fuck. That’s … That’s just — I mean, wow. Just — wow, Karl.”
“You’re such an idiot. I’m asking a genuine question!” Karl shoves his arm, rolls onto his stomach.
Quackity raises an eyebrow. “Uhhh — I don’t know. It’s my first language, so … I just — do that. Seriously, I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“But, isn’t it weird that we can’t answer you?”
He frowns, and then shrugs. “I guess. But … There isn’t really anyone around that I can talk with. Unless you count Mexican Dream, but … I dunno. We’re not really on good terms.”
It’s strange. He never really thought about it before, but … Karl’s right. Sometimes it does get a bit — he doesn’t know: Strange? Lonely? — to not be able to speak and have people understand or answer back. It’d be nice to just speak freely for once. Plus, he just feels smarter in Spanish, honestly — which is actually frustrating as shit. Not that he’s a fucking genius or anything, but it’s just different.
“I know that it’s probably impossible at this point to lose the ability if I leave it but … Not using it just feels kind of crap, you know? I can’t explain it but — it’s like, when I speak Spanish I’m more … myself. Prime, that’s fucking corny as hell … Pretend I didn’t say that. I just feel like my personality’s different — than when I speak English. I fucking swear it is. I’m not making that shit up. Seriously. It’s weird.”
Suddenly the conversation feels like it’s getting much too personal. And he’s embarrassed, and it’s awkward, and Karl and Sapnap are watching him a bit too intently for his liking. They probably don’t think what he’s saying is as cringe-worthy as he feels it is — in fact, Karl mostly just looks thoughtful, a tiny notch forming between his eyebrows as he considers what was just said. At some point Sapnap has blinked a bit out of his nap, is following the conversation, looking back and forth between him and Karl.
“Anyway! Suck it up, I guess. It’s not my fault you guys are too fucking stupid to learn.”
Karl smacks him lightly over the head with his book and he yelps.
“Mierda — fucking, ow. Your books are always so fucking thick, dude. You’re gonna bludgeon me to death.”
Sapnap snorts. “They’re too thicc?”
“Fuck you both.”
Quackity rolls over and snatches up a pillow from beside Sapnap’s head, sinks his fingers into the cool material and flings it across the bed so that it whacks Karl in the chest.
“We all bicker like an old married couple, I swear,” Sapnap mumbles, still half-drowsy.
“Cuidado,” Quackity says, warningly. “Me casaré con ustedes dos. No me pongas a prueba. Fucking assholes.”
Careful. I will marry you two. Don’t test me.
Sapnap just rolls his eyes. And despite the fact that he knows they’ve got no goddamn clue what he just said, Quackity, for some reason, feels his face heat up. Which is stupid. He’s just making a dumb joke. But suddenly he feels like his delivery was a bit too genuine. This whole time, he’s been only teasing — but now he’s actually relieved he hasn’t been making these jibes in English because he’s certain they’d immediately have been convinced it wasn’t just a bit, just from the look on his face.
“If — If you were wondering what I just said right now, it’s that you’re both dumb as shit and I hate you.”
“Wow. Thanks for offering up that helpful translation, Big Q.”
“You’re welcome.”
* * *
“Hey, we’re about to head down to the mines. Anything you need while we’re out?”
“Nope. I’m good. Los amo chicos. Have fun. Wey, dense prisa y propónganme.”
I love you guys. Hurry up and propose.
“No — Wait, I know that one. ‘Amo’ means ‘love’. Who do you love, Q?”
“No one. I said I love how fucking stupid you guys are.”
* * *
As Quackity mills about the kitchen at Karl’s place in El Rapids — he sings. He doesn’t have his acoustic, a jukebox, or even a shitty transistor radio to accompany him, but enjoys the flow of his words as he spins around, splitting the soft shells of eggs, measuring out fluffy white piles of flour.
“No se sabe, ni se comprende
Ni se comprende.”
“Y yo ya no ni sé qué hacer con todo esto
Y no se sabe
Y no se sabe.”
“No ves que me falta paciencia
Si es tu amor?”
“What are you singing about?”
“Oh fuck.” Quackity startles, stumbles back to find Sapnap suddenly peering over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow and a quirked smile. “What are you doing here?”
“Wondering what one of my two wonderful best friends is up to.”
In lieu of answering, he gestures around at the glass bowls strewn across the kitchen. They glint in the light: pools of butter, sugar, sunshine-yellow yolks yet to be mixed in. The delicate shell in his hand drips egg-white onto the bench and he shakes his hands off, tosses it into the sink. “Uh, well, other than currently trying to recover from a fucking heart attack? Making dessert empanadas.”
“Huh. Empanadas?” Sapnap levers himself up, so he’s sitting on the bench alongside him, legs dangling over the side. He dips his finger in one of the bowls, swirls it around the brim, gathering a dollop of mixture on his finger, and then sticks it in his mouth before his eyes widen slightly in approval. “It’s nice!”
“That’s literally just sugar and butter, man. Not exactly Michelin-Star grade. But fuck it, sure. I’ll take it.” Quackity tilts his head to the side, fondness bubbling up in his chest at the way Sapnap laughs, slate blue eyes crinkling at the edges. “Empanadas are — uh, it’s … pastry. Something. ‘Turnovers’, I think? I’m putting canned fruit in these.”
“I didn’t know you could bake.”
“Fuck off.”
Sapnap throws his head back and laughs — like an asshole — before he looks back at Quackity and suddenly stops, frowns, eyebrows drawn together ever so slightly.
He’s looking at him so intensely that it makes Quackity a bit nervous.
“… What?”
“You’ve got …” Sapnap says, still frowning. “Just here.”
He taps his own cheek before reaching up, and Quackity’s gaze follows as his hand moves to cup his jaw, gently trails his thumb over his left cheekbone. He pulls back and holds up his hand, so that Quackity can see the faint dusting of flour across the tips of his fingers.
“Got it.”
Quackity laughs, ducks his head. “Thanks, man.”
He can still feel the place where the warmth of Sapnap’s hand met his face, tingling like it’s been ever-so-slightly charged with electricity.
Sapnap shrugs. “No prob.” And then a shy smile creeps across his face. “… Does that mean I get free empanadas now?”
“What — do you think I’m just baking so I can hoard them all for myself? Like a fucking selfish prick?”
“... That would not be outside of the realm of possibility.”
“You’re a jerk. I’m taking it back — I’m reneging on my promise. No more empanadas for you. Fuck you.”
“Q.”
“No. You fucked up. You were being an asshole and now you’re not getting any of my delicious baked goods. Do you smell that?” He lets out a stupid moaning sound and wafts a hand up from the oven, where he already has his first batch turning golden-brown. “What a shame, what a shame. So fucking good.”
“Quackity,” Sapnap pleads, dragging out the last syllable. “Please. I — I’m sorry. What can I do to make it up to you?”
“Pinche cabrones, propónganme ya. Se están tardando demasiado.”
Fucking propose to me already. You guys are taking too long.
Sapnap’s eyes widen slightly, before his expression quickly settles back to normal, and he just looks at him with a faint smile.
“… What?”
“Nothing.”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Hey — I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sapnap holds up his palms defensively.
“You know I just called you a prick, right? You shouldn’t be smiling!”
There’s a pause.
“Yeah, well.” Sapnap tilts his head to the side, considering. “I guess some people just have a weird way of saying, ‘I love you’.”
“Culero. You’re so fucking cheesy. Being engaged to Karl has made you all mushy. Your insides are just — soft — and squishy. Like pudding. Or fruit pulp.”
Quackity shakes a tin of peaches in his face to emphasise his point, liquid sloshing around inside, and Sapnap just laughs.
“Maybe it has.”
“You can make it up to me by helping with these.”
He shrugs. “Fine by me.”
They spend the rest of the afternoon side-by-side, chatting and laughing at stupid jokes, scooping little piles of peaches and apple swimming in syrup, sugar, and nutmeg out onto circles of sweet dough, fingers deftly working to fold them over and crimp their edges — even though Sapnap’s technique leaves much to be desired, filling spilling out the sides. This is coming from someone who literally has only ever been able to bake variations on muffins in way of cooking for his entire life, however — so he cuts him some slack. When they’re done, he, Sapnap, and Karl all sit and eat together on the banks looking out across Kinoko as they talk about what they did that day, fingers dusted with cinnamon.
* * *
“Hey, Q …”
A month later, Quackity is in Sapnap’s back garden, working on repairing some damage done to his trellises after a nearby creeper explosion, a project he’d been saying he’d get around to for weeks — and is elbow deep in soil and clusters of sunflowers, when Karl suddenly emerges from somewhere inside, honestly looking a bit on edge. Moments later, Sapnap also appears, hovering at his side, looking back and forth between the two of them, similarly tightly-wound. Which is … weird.
“What’s up?” Quackity tries not to be too anxious about what the hell this might be about, dusts the dirt off of his hands and leans back against the fence, squinting against the sunshine and trying to appear as casual as possible.
“Just — bear with me for a second here. Uh —” Karl clears his throat. “Tú … Or — wait. Los amo y … Quiero que seamos … felices? Juntos.”
Quackity blinks, completely taken aback at hearing Karl suddenly speaking Spanish? His accent is funny, and his pronunciation is weird, but … He laughs, confused. “What?”
Karl shifts from foot to foot anxiously. “Did that make sense?”
“You want to be ... happy? With me?”
“Queremos casarnos contigo.”
And suddenly Quackity’s heart is stuttering in his chest.
“Holy shit. Wait — Is this … Are you doing a bit right now?”
“¿Que demonios? Why would we joke about something like that? No.”
Quackity starts laughing properly, now.
“Dude.” Karl laughs back, shakes his head, still looking a bit anxious. He wrings out his hands. “You have to give me some sort of indication as to whether anything I’m saying makes sense right now.”
“Why are you —“ Quackity can’t stop looking between Karl and Sapnap in amazement, still laughing. “How are you speaking Spanish? What is happening right now?”
“… I mean, I think I — Wait — am I?” Karl tilts his head to the side and beams, eyes lighting up with excitement. “Did you seriously understand what I said?”
“You … You both want to marry me?”
Karl laughs triumphantly, while Sapnap turns to him. “Quackity.”
“… Oh shit.” Suddenly, his brain manages to catch up. “Wait — Wait —“
“Yeah.”
And then Sapnap is getting down on one knee.
And Quackity’s heart is racing — yet somehow he still manages to be tongue-in-cheek. ”Ay Prime mío. Pinche finalmente.”
Prime. Fucking finally.
Karl scoffs. “Hey! We haven’t been holding off that long.”
Quackity goes to open his mouth, to respond back with something stupid and glib (and obviously hilarious), when suddenly he realises something that makes everything within him grind to a stop. Karl hasn’t just memorised a few lines out of a textbook in order to propose.
In fact, it seems his friends have somehow learned enough of his language that they can understand him when he speaks instinctively, just off the top of his head, without trying to package his words for someone else’s benefit first. His own words. The ones he thinks in, in the music he listens to, the ones that crowd the pages of his favourite recipes.
“Wait. Wait — just hold on, hold on.” He shakes his head, is just so overwhelmed by everything. “You — Wait, what the fuck. You understand me? You actually understand me? ¿Entiendes lo que estoy diciendo ahora mismo?”
“Yeah. But not perfectly. Probablemente la mitad de lo que dices. If you speak slowly. Sapnap, too.”
“Holy shit. You … I …”
“Oh my gosh. Are you crying right now? Q!”
“No!” Quackity scrubs at his face, blinks the moisture from his eyes. “What the fuck? No. Screw you. Fuck you.”
Sapnap clears his throat, continues: “Come on, man. My knees are hurting here.”
“Oh?” Despite feeling actually dizzy with happiness, and embarrassingly emotional about the fact that his two best friends — soon to be fiancés — have been secretly learning fucking Spanish for him, Quackity can’t help a shit-eating grin from creeping across his face.
“Don’t,” Sapnap warns with weary amusement, having caught the glint in his eyes. “I swear to fucking Prime, if you make even a single ‘that’s what he said’ joke …”
“You’ll what?” A high-pitched giggle bubbles up in his chest. “Not marry me? Let’s go. Let’s fucking go.”
“Fuck off, man. Just — Just let me do this. Or I swear — you’ll be attending Karl’s and my wedding and the whole time you’ll be sitting in the pews thinking — shit, I wish I hadn’t been an asshole when they were trying to propose to me. Then maybe I could’ve been up there, too. Huh.”
“You’re so full of shit. You’ve been learning Spanish for me. You guys are fucking whipped.”
“Estamos enamorados de ti, pero aun así eres molesto. ¡Déjalo terminar!”
We may be in love with you, but you’re still annoying. Let him finish!
“Quackity,” Sapnap starts, adjusting the ring box in his hands. “You’re an asshole ...”
Quackity bursts out laughing, relieving a bit of nervous tension. “This is a terrible proposal. Holy shit, guys.”
Karl swats at his arm. “I said let him finish! ¡Cállate!”
“Quackity, you’re an asshole,” Sapnap says again with a brief eye-roll, as if they hadn’t both interrupted him, but despite his words, he sounds fond, affectionate. He smiles, getting back into his stride. “But that’s one of the many reasons why we love you, among them being that you’re whip-smart, funny, beautiful ... We love that you’re never afraid to speak your mind, that you don’t change yourself for other people. And we love being here with you. So — there’s always going to be room in my bed for all three of us, if you say yes. ¿Qué dices?”
Quackity takes his hand, threads their fingers together and yanks him up so that he’s standing once more, stumbles forward as he drags him into a bone-crushing hug, and then he ushers Karl in so it’s all three of them.
“So — what did it? What made you guys finally want to pop the question?” Quackity laughs into Karl’s shoulder. "Other than my devilishly good looks and — you know, all that other obvious stuff. How I’m funny and intelligent and beautiful and —”
“Well. You’d been asking us for long enough,” Karl says.
Quackity pulls back, frowning, looks between the two of them in utter confusion. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Just, you know. How you kept making about a million jokes. Slipping it into conversation.”
Quackity’s face heats up. Oh fuck.
“Wait, wait. Uhhhhhh —”
Sapnap is trying to stifle a laugh and failing miserably. “What is it, Q? Something you want to ask us?”
“... How long have you been learning Spanish, exactly?”
Karl glances back at Sapnap, putting on an affected, innocent voice. “Huh. What do you think, man? Maybe eight months? Give or take?”
“Hm. That sounds about right. We’ve just been studying up most afternoons, haven’t we? Hanging out in the Library, you know.”
Quackity buries his face in his hands in embarrassment, and the two of them burst out in fits of raucous laughter, unable to contain it anymore. Karl literally slaps his knee.
“What’d you think we were doing, spending so much time in there?” Sapnap wheezes.
“I don’t know! Fucking?”
“Q!” Karl sputters at the same time as Sapnap lets out an affronted, “No!”
And it’s Quackity’s turn to laugh.
“Well, go on, then,” Karl says when it appears he’s finally able to breathe again. “You’ve been pestering us for long enough, the least you can do is not leave us hanging.”
“What?”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“Will you marry us?” Sapnap presses the little ring box he’s holding into Quackity’s hands.
"Sí, sí. Los amo."