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Years ago, when he first arrived at the server, Quackity had no problems with alcohol. It was a quick way to blissful ignorance, nothing more than a signifier of a good night. Drinking would always leave his head pounding and fuzzy but that was all the more reason to down another dark bottle and laugh off any pain.
When he first came here, going out for drinks was a normal Friday. The feeling of cool glass resting in his hand was familiar enough to never think twice. Rich scents from aged bottles only brought excitement and anticipation.
When he first came here, Quackity didn’t care about drinking. He had fun. It was just another cool thing to do with whoever he dragged out that night. Something to have flowing through his system as he cracked stupid jokes and laughed at his friend’s expenses. It hadn’t mattered that he would end up delirious and forgetful the next day. None of that mattered.
So when did it start to?
- - -
During the elections, Quackity liked drinking. Took the edge off.
He never did it extensively, always saved getting wasted for large gatherings and explosive nights with people he loved. Still, the burn of alcohol against his throat after pouring over drafts of speeches and potential plans was soothing.
On most occasions, he would do it with one or two friends. Solitude wasn’t something Quackity liked. He didn’t feel relaxed unless there was at least one other voice buzzing beside him or listening to his rants. So it was only fitting that he would try to bring someone, George usually if the man was around, to sip at the nearest toxic drink.
Quackity didn’t care about the scent of alcohol. Nor the high pitch sound of glass breaking when someone’s grip got a little too loose. It just came with the experience. He never thought it was anything special.
Soon the elections passed, soon he was Vice President.
- - -
When he was Vice President, a lot happened. People were banned, nations and rebellions formed, groups hid in the shadows and manipulated the world from them, and Quackity became engaged.
There wasn’t much to his engagement (and later marriage), just two people who found it beneficial to be partnered. The relationship felt like a joke most of the time, at least to Quackity. Not in the ‘kiss-the-homies-goodnight’ way, more in the ‘we-aren’t-meant-to-be-in-love’ kind of way. And truly they weren’t. There was no romance, no feelings of undeniable love, no butterflies or fireworks or whatever other corny shit people came up with.
The one thing that was present was Quackity’s ever-growing distaste for alcohol. He didn’t hate it, just was a little less fond of the thing. Where he would normally have gladly taken a drink to cool off from the day, now he politely declines.
Maybe his distaste came from how omnipresent the damn thing seemed to be. The dark brown of beer bottles would litter the White House, cheap whiskey bottles would be half-full in nearly every other cabinet. Everywhere Quackity went smelled like a shitty club. The odor permeated every surface. He started to scowl when he saw the bottles that would rest in his husband’s hand.
The smell and taste of alcohol gradually grated on his senses.
Then the sound of glass breaking.
- - -
The day Quackity stepped into Pogtopia, he had already decided he hated alcohol. He hated the smell, the taste, the feel, all of it. He hated what it did to people. He hated how out of control it made him feel, how helpless it made him feel. Long after he stopped drinking, Quackity still hated it.
His friends would probably have told him he was insane if he mentioned how grateful he was to be coated in a thin line of blood. They would have said he was a fucking sadist to be thankful for the blood of his ex to be covering his arms and chest. Maybe they would have shunned him if he stated how much joy he got from the feeling of his sword ripping through flesh. Or if he said he had run from the White House, doused in red, feeling happy and free in the sickest way possible.
It was a good thing he never said anything.
Because how could he have explained that the smell of copper and rust was infinitely better than the smell of whiskey that didn’t leave his skin for weeks. Quackity reveled in smelling and seeing something other than liquor on or around him.
But the blood washed off when the fear didn’t. And suddenly, he felt helpless again.
He felt afraid whenever he passed his allies (not quite friends sometimes) and saw them passing bottles back and forth. He started tensing at the sound of raised voices and intense arguments. He would get defensive at the slightest critique or questioning, started lashing out instinctually to the sound of judgment.
His breaking point was the high-pitched sound of glass shattering.
It started to matter now.
- - -
Quackity wasn’t sure how much time had passed between the shit show that was L’manberg and the creation of El Rapids. If he really thought about it, maybe he could give an answer, but he never cared to think about it.
El Rapids brought a lot of things, well the time around El Rapids did. For example, it brought him love.
His fiancees were everything he could have hoped for, as stupidly cliche as it sounded. They really, truly loved him. They made everything feel like it was fading away. Nothing else mattered but the three of them when they were together.
That was why Quackity seemed to forget his burning hatred for alcohol. Because why did it matter? He was loved, the smell was gone. The shouting didn’t make his head pound or his heart spike. Everything was okay for once.
So why would it matter?
- - -
It mattered towards the end. It mattered on the night his fiancees stumbled through the door laughing and reeking of liquor. It mattered when they started fighting that night, when he refused to tell them why exactly he was so fucking pissed. It mattered when he started crying but didn’t stop yelling.
It mattered when they left and never said why.
Quackity knew it mattered, always had and always fucking will.
It mattered because it hurt him.
Maybe that’s why he stared at the desert and city he created with nothing but anger. This city, his city, wasn’t going to hurt him. He wouldn’t let it.
So instead of visiting his newly constructed bars as he would have years ago, Quackity went to his office. He would stand on his balcony and feel a new kind of free. A vicious kind of free. He would stare at the buildings below him with a smile and finally feel something he thought he lost.
With freedom came control. And oh, how he had missed control.
- - -
In the years he had been in the server, blood had coated Quackity’s arms more than once. Hell, more than twice would be more accurate. None of those times was it his own.
He didn’t need the blood to cover the stench of whiskey or bourbon anymore; he took some anyway. Now the coppery smell was the only thing attacking his senses and every day he made sure of that.
No amount of blood would ever get rid of the sick feeling he got when he was forced to enter his bar. He found that it was okay, though. It was okay because he was safe. This was his city, it would never hurt him.
So he took to dampening his hatred for alcohol. Nothing got rid of the fear from it.
- - -
Months after he had sworn his city as his sanctuary, Quackity was hurt again.
Realistically, it was stupid to think he never would be. He had manipulated and achieved his goals way too unethically to think that nothing bad would come for him. He wasn’t a good enough person to never be hurt again.
That didn’t change the shock that the newest pain brought.
Which is why he nearly stumbled into the bar the moment he came home from Kinoko. There was something in the way harsh words and accusations repeated in his head that made Quackity ignore the rising disgust in his gut as he reached for a bottle. The fresh sting of being called a murderer by the person he once devotedly loved was enough for him to prevent a flinch at the smell of the now opened drink. A wave of hot, angry tears helped him blame the shakiness of his hands on rage.
The sudden strong smell of the liquor almost made him drop the glass, but the hurricane of emotions making his head hurt forced him to grip it tighter.
The tears, the hurricane, the sting, and the violent words didn’t stop him from slamming the drink on the counter and rushing to the bathroom to dry heave over the toilet at the first taste, however. None of it stopped him from crying and near-screaming on the cool floor.
Nothing could have stopped the way he desperately scrubbed at his skin later, trying to get rid of the imaginary scent of alcohol.
Months after declaring his city safe, Quackity was reminded of why he hated alcohol.
- - -
It had barely been a month since Kinoko when his city once again wasn’t safe.
The statement ‘karma’s a bitch’ had never rung more true than when Quackity watched his ally kick his now closest friend into lava. It really was poetic how equal the death was to the destruction Quackity caused.
Yet, he wasn’t a fucking poet. So while the hypocrisy of anger was not lost on him, the beauty that some would find sure as hell was. Instead, he saw it for what it was. Charlie’s death was the continuing cycle of revenge. It was the textbook definition Quackity himself had once laid out. His death was the final act in the play that was retaliation.
It was a play and it was a game. He stopped playing. He was tired of the game of revenge. There were many games he had played in the last few years, he could take a break from this one.
So instead of starting some grand plan against a former ally, he sat at his desk slumped over a book. The once incomprehensible letters and words stared at him. His own desperate, scratchy letters rested on the closest page. Burnt hands ached as they traced over the writing, softer than they ever have.
Out of some act of despair, Quackity had brought up a bottle of liquor to his office. It sat just out of arms reach innocently. He looked from the pages and turned to stare at the bottle instead. There was a light haze in his head as he stood up and grabbed it. His hands didn’t shake when he opened the bottle and his body didn’t flinch when the smell hit him all at once. He didn’t panic when the drink slid into his mouth and burned a trail down his throat.
But he did cry as he placed the glass bottle on the table. He did fall to his knees when the feel of the alcohol against his throat kept burning and the burns littering his arms and torso reared their ugly head. He did close his eyes and let out stuttering breaths as exhaustion and anguish swept over him.
Years after joining this server, Quackity remembered why he didn’t mind alcohol.
Years after being Vice President, Quackity remembered why he hated alcohol.
Years after loving someone for the first time, Quackity remembered why he shouldn’t.
God did he hate drinking.