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Words were hard – most humans never said what they meant, and when they did it was layered beneath a pile of opposing emotions and expressions that seemed to change as fast as the tide. For all his age, he has always found words difficult. In some ways, he knows this has to do with the amount of time he has spent in the dark instead of under the sun. In others, he knows it is because he has never been like them. This, in the end, is something he knows will never change.
It doesn’t stop him from trying to learn.
Meeting Quackity came as much from chance as it came from his own choices. The walls had eyes, and Slimecicle had always found patience easy. The walls had eyes, and Slimecicle knew when to watch. Quackity called him a friend, and– he did not know what that meant, not when it came from the mouth of a man with hollow eyes and trembling hands and a ring around his neck that looked like it hadn’t moved in months. He couldn’t help his smile.
He didn’t know what Quackity meant, but friends— well. He had those before he let himself become one with the dirt, a very long time ago. Perhaps he could learn what that word meant again. Perhaps it would mean joy, like it had once upon a time.
He hoped so.
He truly, truly hoped so.
Quackity looked at him and saw something he could use, and truly? Slimecicle was glad. It had been a very long time since he was of use to anyone.
Slimecicle was not human. This, in every regard, was nothing but the truth. He chose to tell others he had meat, bones, and humanity, but he couldn’t hide it from himself. He was born of chaos and he had never been truly solid, and Quackity simply looked past that.
(“Hey, Slime?” Quackity asked, leaning against one of the poker machines. Slimecicle looked up, and he tilted his head in question.
“Yes, Quackity of Las Nevadas?”
“Why would you want to pretend to be human? There’s nothing good about being one.”)
(He hadn’t known the answer, then.)
Quackity worried him. And wasn’t that a strange concept? Worry. When Quackity didn’t think he was looking – and he was always looking – Slime saw his face fall. He saw him hold that ring on his neck like it was the last thing he had. Slime didn’t know how to cry, not really, but if he could he would do it for Quackity.
Quackity wanted to teach him how to run Las Nevadas if he ever left. Slimecicle didn’t have the heart to tell him that he would never let that happen on his watch.
He accepted. He would never do anything different.
(For Quackity, he would do nearly anything. Trust, Quackity had taught him. Keep those you care about close.)
This is his only regret: he lost his name when he lost what was left of his humanity, all those millenia ago. It hadn’t mattered to him before but—
He wished Quackity could have known him for anything other than what he was.
Legacy, Quackity taught him, and together they stood beneath the artificial lights of the great and grand city of Las Nevadas. It was more than just the city, more than just the two of them. He couldn’t help but wonder what the world would be like the next time someone like him crawled out from beneath the ground.
(He hoped it would be beautiful.)
He had left nothing behind when he left the earth and the damp and the dark for the first time. He chose to forget his name, chose to forget his humanity, chose to forget the world until it forgot him. There was no use in a legacy, not then. There was no use in leaving behind something for a world he had no longer been suited to.
This was different.
Quackity was different.
(Quackity was his friend, after all. And that meant more than words could say.)
Legacy meant more than words could define. To both of them. And this city, as grand as it was, could only be the beginning. He had more than a few jokes in the works for those who would eventually come and see what Quackity had created.
Quackity was so much brighter than the lights they stood beneath. Behind the bitterness and the scar on his face and his exhaustion, Slimecicle saw a brittle hope. And maybe that was wishful thinking, but Slime liked to think he was getting okay at this human thing. Quackity had already taught him so much, and Slimecicle could only hope to see what else the man’s careful hands would create with time.
There is a city in the desert, and it is the first home he has been given in centuries. It isn’t damp, or cold, and it certainly isn’t a hole in the ground. It’s home regardless. It’s where Quackity taught him to be human again. It’s where Quackity gave him his name back.
(Words meant little to Slimecicle — but legacy. There was a weight on the word that he knew he had to understand. Quackity didn’t deserve anything less.)
This, more than anything, is rebirth:
They called him a god, once.
He left behind carnage. He left behind broken homes and war torn land, and he learnt betrayal from his friends as they learnt the same from him. He doesn’t remember their names, but their legacy is ingrained in everything he has become. He likes to try and forget back then, simply because it’s easier, but it wasn’t all-too different to what the world was like when he finally re-emerged.
And yet, there is a difference:
Quackity extended a hand, and he called him a friend.
This is their legacy.
They called him a god, once.
(No longer. Never again.)
But his friends? Before the betrayal and the fire, before he exiled himself to the ground for millennia after millennia? Before Quackity? Words are hard, but names are something more.
In the Before, they had always called him Charlie.
(“I came up with a name for you! Charlie. I kind of like it.”)
(When he wakes, it is to the sound of his own name.)