Q didn’t like the way Quackity had said that last sentence, neither did he like the way he was looking at him, like a sculptor looking at a piece of marble to see where they had to start chiseling away.
He didn’t like the smirk on his lips, in fact if he was being completely honest with himself he liked that even less than the snarl that had curved his scarred lips not even a few moments before, nor did he like the glint in his eye.
It was disconcerting in the worst way, and while he was glad to not be pushed against a wall, with his already hurting wrists hurting even more, he also didn’t feel any safer.
If anything seeing his character smirk at him in that way made him feel even more in danger, as if he was treading through a minefield, not knowing when he’d step on the mine that would blow the entire minefield up and him to pieces .
Quackity’s smirk faded slightly and he tsked, clicking his tongue. “Oh, no, no, don’t get all pathetic on me again, little mouse,” he said, seemingly disappointed, and Q realized then that he had been walking backwards for each half-step, Quackity made forward.
“I-I’m not pathetic,” Q forced out, and cringed at the shake in his voice, and there went not sounding pathetic, at the way it cracked making him sound like a child.
Quackity cocked an eyebrow, tilting his head slightly to the side in a distinctively, almost, feline gesture. “From what I’m seeing, you are. All bruised and shaking, where is your fire, other me? Did you swallow it down like you did with your pride?” a disgusted grimace took the place of the weaning smirk, “ Among other things .” he whispered, tone forcibly light and off-handed.
And Q wasn’t an idiot, and he had started seeing the pattern in the insults the other directed to him, and while to him it was humiliating to be called, also via implications, in so many different ways to say call boy , it wasn’t as cutting as those remarks were surely meant to be.
And he really didn’t like the kind of picture his brain was starting to paint from those little information, he really didn’t like it at all.
You see, Q had always been good in noticing little details, which to be fair was a good quality to have when your dream was to become a lawyer, to notice all the little particulars people usually didn’t give attention to. He knew how to read a situation with the same ease he would a written book, and he really, really didn’t like the picture those details were painting right in front of his eyes.
In fact not only he didn’t like it, he disliked it, he hated the simple idea.
In passing in his mind flashed some information about old lore he had written up with Wilbur, some very old lore… and he couldn’t fucking believe he had forgot about it .
Suddenly the anger at his flinching, at his terror, the wall with ram horns in Quackity’s office… made a lot of sense .
Q let out a choked, stifled sound, at the sudden wave of nausea that hit him like a punch in the stomach as he fucking realized, as he thought of that vague lore, and realized that here it had happened , that from Quackity’s way to talk to him… it had been so much worse .
Oh, my God, what have I done?
He thought, his eyes watering up at both the suffocating sense of guilt and the nausea, the thought of ‘ what have I done ?’ repeating with the same horrified shock in his brain.
