Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Eggxile is lonely.

That was kind of the point, but it didn’t make it any less true: Slimecicle was lucky if he got one visit in a week from the mainland, and lucky was a stretch because every time someone visited they only showed up to criticize his mold problems, his rash, or his daughter.

His beautiful, wonderful, memory-deficient daughter Juannaflippa. His shockingly political, meat-loving daughter who’s a fantastic shot with rapidly declining spelling skills who never questions the code looking infestations and who encourages him not to either – because they’re only code looking – who loves him and keeps him sane and happy and does more than she could ever know, just by being alive .

His daughter, who is lonely too.

C@n 1 h@v3 @ fr31nd¿

He didn’t have to ask why she couldn’t be friends with the other hatchlings. Their gossiping bastard parents probably won’t let their kids anywhere near her, because she’s a “code monster” or whatever it was her writing impairment had those ableist assholes – it’s like they’ve never met someone with dyslexia before! – saying.

His heart broke a little seeing her shyly hold the sign up in front of her mouth. He got down on a knee to be at eye level and put his rash-covered hand on her shoulder – she liked that one more, for some reason.

“I don’t know how I’d do that, but I can try to be your friend! Or I can look for someone who doesn’t listen to the gossip, there’s gotta be someone else who can see how perfect you are.”

He ruffled her hair and she smiled before scribbling on her sign again.

Y0u c@n m@k3 m3 @ g3ggfr13nd¡

Something twisted in his stomach.

“I don’t know if i can, honey, I’m sorry. But hey! I bet I could get Mariana to listen this time if we talk to him again-”

C@n y0u try¿ Pl3@s3¿

Well, his therapist’s professional opinion had been “don’t trigger a primal slime fear response for a party trick” but a gegg clone hardly counted as a full split, he’s so small! Plus, this wasn’t a party trick, this was for Flippa! (Besides, all Roier had to say these days was that his daughter was a monster. Probably. He stopped going to therapy a while ago, Flippa didn’t like it when he went.)

“I’ll try.”

Flippa’s precious smile made the awful pulling in his stomach and his brain all worth it. Splitting is a bit like vomiting blood, except instead of your mouth it’s the entire side of your body you’re splitting from and every inch of you can taste it: It hurts, it’s deeply unsettling, and your brain is certain something must be wrong to cause you to do it even if it was just to make your daughter happy. 

The rapidly forming gegg is a little shorter than Flippa, so it wasn’t even like vomiting that much blood, and his brain should get over it if it means he can see her eyes light up like that.

Th@nk5, p@p@¡

“Of course, anything for you, Flippa. Now be careful with him, I know you like to play rough but he has a lot of soft spots.”

She grabbed the little slime child by the newly-defined hand and pulled him up the ladder to go play. Slimecicle smiled, stood up, and went to rustle up some slimeballs. The adrenaline rush of splitting wouldn’t last forever, after all, and he needed to get back some mass before he crashed.

It was worth it as long as Flippa was happy.

It was over a week before it came back up.

C@n 1 h@v3 @n0th3r g3gg¿

“Why do you need more than one? I don’t think they’ll be much more fun, they’d be exactly the same person.”

Th3 0ld 0n3 br0k3

… it broke? It's basically a slime-robot, but Slime figured she’d have a little more empathy for it. Then again, it wasn’t actually a child or a person, so his bright little huevo probably just figured out it was just a construct.

“Oh Flippa, I told you to be careful.”

She crossed her arms and pouted.

1t w@sn’t my f@ult¡ 

C@n 1 h@v3 @n0th3r¿

“Alright, but tell me when you’re done playing so I can reabsorb this one. I lost a lot of slime last time.”

By the time his vision unblurred from the pain, Flippa had already taken the gegg out and left a sign behind.

Th@nk5 p@p@, 

1 l0v3 y0u¡

Once he’d agreed to that much, he couldn’t exactly deny her the next time when she brought back a jar of fall-splattered gegg and asked for a replacement.

Or the next time a few days later, when gegg had been caught in an explosion.

Or a couple days after that, when gegg was stabbed by a zombie wielding a very, very enchanted sword.

Or the day after, when gegg was mauled by what must’ve been some vicious baby zombies by the size but surprising depth of the claw strokes.

Or the next day, when gegg was riddled with bullets by what could only be an extremely industrious skeleton.

Or the next day, or the next, or the next couple times on that one particularly dangerous day, or the couple times when the next day was just as dangerous, and the next days were just as dangerous…

And it wouldn’t be an issue – it isn’t really an “issue”, just a little thing! – if it weren’t for the fact that the jar always came back with a little less than Flippa left with. It was probably just because of lava, or water, or her missing some when packing it all up, but he was steadily losing slime, and he didn’t have the stockpile he needed to keep up for too much longer. 

Not unless he visited the mainland.

“Flippa! I’m gonna go out!”

The hatchling was already on the brink of tears, she had such terrible separation anxiety after her death. (at least, whenever he went somewhere. When she left him, she was ok.)

Wh3r3 @r3 y0u g01ng¿

“I’ve been losing a little slime with all the gegg clones.” He rushed to correct himself when he saw her eyes widen. “It’s totally not your fault! You can do no wrong ever, Flippa, I’m sorry I said it like that. But I do have to go out to the mainland to get some more.”

0k.

C@n y0u l3@v3 m3 @ g3gg¿

“Sure! Do you need something to eat?”

Just g3gg

1’v3 b33n d01ng my own hunting

“I’m so proud of you for embracing new things and am not at all concerned by your disregard for your previous morals!”

She smiled, but before he could start splitting she pulled out a sword.

“Oh hey, what’s–”

She sliced his leg off. The sword went through his malnourished slime a bit like a hot knife through butter, and he’s not ashamed to admit he screamed in pain.

“Flippa what’s– what’s up with that?”

F@5t3r

“Oh! You mean–” he strained for a moment to bring gegg-ly life to his detached leg. “Thank- thanks, Flippa, but I think the normal process will be fine in the future.” He shifted some of his slime to make a new leg, but had to give up an arm for it. 

The little hatchling was already cowered as if she expected to be hit.

50rry p@p@...

“Nonononono Flippa! It’s my fault, I'm sorry! I should’ve told you not to do that. It’ll be ok once I get some more slime, ok?”

0k…

“I love you Flippa.”

She didn’t respond.

“I- really, it’s ok! I barely felt anything, I was just surprised, ok, you- uhh” fuck it, he was panicked enough for this “you can cut a leg off anytime! It is faster, you clever little huevito.”

R3@lly¿

“Really.”

Th@nk5 p@p@¡

1 l0v3 y0u

The warp stone was heavy in his hands, although it’s unclear if that’s because of the fear of seeing people or the slime loss.

Who’ll give me a ton of slime with no questions?

Baghera probably wouldn’t have any, Quackity would probably kidnap him for the Federation to experiment on him, and Mariana…

Jaiden seemed like his best bet. Kind, accepting, willing-to-overlook-whatever Jaiden with limitless resources that she never uses would be his saving grace here.

As soon as he appeared at her house, however, he realized the flaw in his plan. Mostly because it happened to be standing right in front of him.

“Oh heeeeyyy Roier!”

Roier’s eyes - the human ones, at least, Slime never figured out how to read the spider ones - lit up and he immediately went for a hug.

“Slime! It’s been forever, man, what’s been– what happened to your arm!”

The problem was fantastic, tactile Roier who was absolutely not going to overlook a missing arm just because he asked nicely.

“I’ve been great, just running a bit out of slime at the house.”

“How?!”

“Just been using it more. There’s really a lot of great ways to apply the stuff, you know! There’s all sorts of cosmetics, redstone applications, environmental benefits–” he tried to slip into the house while he was talking, but Roier moved in front of the door. “-really you can’t go wrong with the stuff anywhere you put it, especially when you’re a slime hybrid–” and he had apparently reinforced the windows, so he couldn’t just break in anymore. 

“Slime. How.”

“Well I’ve been trying to tell you, you’d be better off asking “how not?” because there really is just–”

“Have you been splitting?”

“No! Of course not! I would never- what? I can’t believe you, Roier. How could you even bring that up after the presidential gegg horde? I’m traumatized! I think you should give me a bunch of slime as an apology–”

“You’ve been splitting, man.”

“They’re just geggs! And they make Flippa so happy!”

Roier’s face contorted into that horrible pity/disgust look Slime kept getting whenever he mentioned his daughter.

“Flippa’s been asking you?”

“Well it’s not like she can go play with her siblings when you guys are so paranoid and gossipy. I improvised.”

“Why can’t you just reabsorb the gegg?”

“Well it's a dangerous world out there, not all of the gegg makes it back! Flippa gathers up as much as she can and brings it back for a replacement. Look, I don’t want to stand here having this conversation all day, can I just get some slime, please?”

“Sure. If you come to therapy.” 

“Totally. I will absolutely do that. I’m not even lying right now.”

Roier sighed, but ultimately stepped away from the door.

“Ok.”

Dodging therapy can be future Slimecicle’s problem, because present Slimecicle would rather figure out how to convince Flippa to stop taking off his limbs without telling her how much it hurt.

Actually, present Slimecicle should talk to Flippa about collecting gegg’s remains better, because it's only been a day and he’s already almost gone through 10 slime blocks.

A sword silently tugs through his leg and severs it. He manages to keep the scream inside and animates the goo pile beneath him into yet another child-shaped construct for his beautiful, perfect daughter to play with.

Maybe, he thinks from the floor he barely manages not to melt into, present Slimecicle should take a nap.

It's barely been a week, and he’s already out of the slime from Roier.

He can’t go back to him, because he’ll force him to do therapy, but maybe–

An axe comes clean through his shoulder from behind.

“SHHhhey, Flippa! Sorry, papa can’t make a gegg right now. I’m all out of slime.”

C@n y0u g3t m0r3¿

He turned to her and sat on the ground – partially to reabsorb his slime, but also because this is a very important about boundaries he’s about to not have

“Well, not really. I can’t get more slime from the mainland, and I can’t get slime myself fast enough to keep up with what I'm losing in these geggs. I… I might have to…” boundaries, boundaries, put your foot down, “I might have to give up an arm or a leg to make it happen but I’ll get you a gegg!”

Flippa put up a hand to stop him. She put her hand under her chin and got that green glow in her eyes she got when she was thinking really hard. Eventually, she shrugged and started scribbling on a sign.

C@n y0u b3 my g3gg¿

Th3 0th3r 0n35 @r3 b0r1ng

N0t l1k3 r3@l 3gg5

Oh. Well. Roier had… complicated opinions on gegg. He didn’t think it was age regression, exactly , since gegg wasn’t really a child, but it also wasn’t quite like another personality either, and he kept the memories from gegg in his normal form but only some memories made it to gegg (they think?), and it was weird he could transform on command but only transform back on command sometimes and it’s really probably a whole new condition that only exists for slime hybrids, and a few days after Roier said he’d try to look into it Cellbit dragged him out of his house and said he was never lending Roier cork boards or red string ever again, to which Roier responded that therapy never sleeps and then Bobby pulled out a gun and–

He had complicated opinions but gave no specifically negative diagnosis, which is the important part. So there shouldn’t be an issue with going gegg. Not if it was for Flippa.

“Of course, Flippa! Real gegg’s smarter than the clones, so you don’t have to worry about him dying on you like the others!”

She gave a smile that had too many teeth in both the metaphorical and literal sense, which Slimecicle chose to see as positive and safe as he changed.

Flippa is here. Flippa is geggfriend.

“gEgg.”

Flippa smiles at geggvoice. 

Flippasign: g0 up5t@1r5

geggo. geggclimb. geggtriumph.

new Flippasign: 

5urv1v3.

Run.

geggsterstand: Flipparace. 

geggrun. geggjoy. 

Flippanoise then geggpain.

“geGG.”

sword in gegg’s soft spot.

geggsterstand.

geggrun. geggfear.

Flippalaugh.

geggtrip on tree, but geggrecover.

Flippalaugh is behind

Flippalaugh is ahead

Flippalaugh is in trees

Flippalaugh made of numbers. gegghurts brain.

Gun noise.

Bullet in gegg’s soft spot.

2 bullets

3 bullets

Geggcollapse.

(Slimecicle has been downed by Juannaflippa, to revive them…)

geggfacedown, Flippasteps–

“GegG.”

Claws in soft spots

“GEgg.”

Teeth in soft spot 

Teeth out of soft spot.

Soft spot out of gegg.

“GEGg.”

Teeth in shoulder.

Teeth out of shoulder.

Arm out of gegg.

Gegg is all soft spots.

Teeth in gegg.

Geggvision becomes soft spot

Teeth out of gegg.

“Slime! Where are you?”

“Slime!”

“Holy shit, is that–”

Gegg out of consciousness

Chapter Text

Slimes, perhaps unsurprisingly, don’t exactly have eyelids. It’s not something you’ve probably thought about, but if you were asked you’d probably have said they didn’t: it just makes sense.

Really, they barely have eyes, seeing as it’s all the same slime no matter where you look: they’re kind of nothing but eyes, and nothing but eyelids, in that horribly efficient way slimes are nothing but everything, all over, inside and out, as has baffled and terrified researchers for millenia to pass and surely millennia to come.

Therefore, slimes don’t sleep with their eyes closed, per se - although slime’s “sleep” is, of course a whole other can of worms we shouldn’t get into - but rather they sleep with their eyes off, as well as their tongues, their noses, and some of the other functions of their all-purpose everything.

And somehow, somewhere, this does something to the slime that makes that outer layer of slightly darker and less opaque goop turn the same murky green as the rest of them.

All this to say, even though Slimecicle’s humanised form had things that looked like eyelids, he didn’t exactly “open his eyes” as much as he slid into awareness - and that despite staring at his eyes for a sign of consciousness, Quackity saw the moment he woke up.

And punched him right in the slightly-melted shoulder.

“Hey asshole! What the fuck!”

Never let it be said Quackity is a comforting addition to the hospital environment.

Hospital?

Slimecicle blinked his bleary eyes - although that’s more of a habit than an actual response (see; slime “eyes”) - and took in the small, absolutely Federation room around him: white walls, white lights, white sheets, grey health monitor, grey chairs, no decorations of any color, and a relatively multi-coloured Quackity who - judging by the flared wings -  seemed to be wrestling with the urge to punch Slimecicle again even as he was on the floor scooping together the slime that came off in the first one.

“Uh, hey dude,” Slime started, still confused about the punch because what??, “What happened? Why am I here?”

That question seemed to tip Quackity slightly away from the “punch him again” side of his internal conflict. This is not to say he chilled out, but rather that his wings tensed open wider as he jumped up to stand in a transition from loud and angry to loud and worried: 

“You don’t remember?! Oh fuck, did you lose your memory? I’m calling the nurse!” He immediately scrambled for a button by Slimecicle’s bedside, dropping the slime he had managed to collect together. Before he could press it, he was interrupted by a now also panicked Slime.

“No dude it’s ok I have like my memories and stuff! Just, uh…what happened just before I conked out?”

Quackity finally relaxed his wings, mostly, and took his hand away from the so-called nurse button - that, with the white fill and the square smile design, looked more like a Cucurucho button. Wait, is it a Cucurucho button? Is the nurse Cucurucho ? Can’t the Federation get a second employee?? (Foolish doesn’t count.)

“We found you in the woods in Eggxile. You were in Gegg form, and the code monster was… eating you.” Ok, so, cool, what the fuck, “We scared it off, but you were in pretty critical condition, and then there was a bunch of slime biology stuff happening too about malnourishment and stress or whatever that I didn’t know fuck about, because I never listened to you,” oh god he’s about to start crying, “and so we brought you back to the island so someone could do something and Mariana just took one look at you and said,” oh, there are the tears, “he said you needed slime which like yeah obviously we got him slime you fucker how do we get him to eat it, and he said you couldn’t eat while you were unconscious which is stupid because why can slimes do so much insane stuff but not that, and then Cucurucho showed up like disfruta la Isla, llevando este pendejo al hospital and Cellbit tried to start a fight about it because of course he did and now you haven’t woken up in days and I haven’t slept in days because Cucurucho only let Federation allies have extended visits here and I’ll be fucked if I let fucking Foolish look after you, and now you woke up and I punched you and I got your slime everywhere!” He seems to remember this suddenly and gets back on the floor to pick up the slime he dropped, “and you’re still malnourished and I could’ve killed you and I’m sorry, Slime, I- I’m-”

“Is Flippa ok?”

Quackity, still crying on the floor, started coming back to the “I should punch this guy” end of the spectrum with that comment. 

“…what?”

Slimecicle, never to be called a coward, (not when it concerned Flippa, at least), pressed on.

“Gegg was playing with Flippa before I passed out, did she get away ok when the Code attacked?”

He tried to push himself up into a sitting position, but his slime was still thin and watery from malnourishment and he couldn’t lift himself. Quackity hardly noticed, fluffing his wings in agitation and gesticulating wildly, dropping the slime again into a blob on the floor.

“Did she get away- she got away alright!”

Slimecicle tried rolling out of bed this time, but was met with similarly exhausting and ineffective results. “Where is she? Can I see her? Is she with Mariana? I want to make sure she’s not too scared-”

“Scared?! What about Gegg? Is Gegg ok?”

Slime rolled his decorative eyes at Quackity’s squawking. “He’s literally me, kind of mostly, and I’m fine, is Flippa-?”

Quackity’s wings flared out again as the “punch him” side of his thoughts was finally defeated by a more aggressive option: “Flippa is the code monster, Slime!”  He came closer as he shouted. “It was covered in ones and zeroes tearing chunks out of Gegg with its teeth! It was disturbing before that you kept calling it your daughter, but now it’s hurting you, dumbass! She’s dead! How can you still not see it’s a fucking Code!”

It wasn’t quite silent. The fluorescent lights buzzed, the health monitor at the bedside hummed, and somewhere down the hall was a noise that might have been a door. Quackity was breathing, too. Slimecicle was not. He usually isn’t, but now he was silent like a slime might be in the wild.

Slimes are scavengers, foragers, filter-feeders, et cetera and so forth and anything at all as long as what they’re eating is even partially digestible. This includes, as the opportunity strikes them, being ambush predators. They might melt into the swampy ground or a porous rock wall or just inconspicuously onto the floor and gnaw on bugs and roots until something gets too close, until something messes up and the slime can simply pour out and close around it, crushing it.

Bigger things like players might break through the layer of slime easily and then tear the already spread-thin creature into enough pieces it died. However, the story is different for the smaller things. Take birds as an example: they survive by running, by looking ahead and flying away before the danger can reach them. But if they’ve already stepped into the center of the slime? They have all those delicate breakable pieces, and those precious liberating feathers that just don’t work when they get wet, and certainly not when the “wet” in question is trying to eat them.

A small enough, quick enough bird might escape anyway. Even from the center of the trap, they could feel the vibrations in the ground and lift off just in time: slimes are many things, but they are not aerial hunters. So for this strategy to work, barring outlying cases, there needs to be a balance between the size and the speed of the quarry. Something like an ostrich is just as bad as a player, but a sparrow wouldn’t be caught dead by a slime ambush.

The answer to this question is, strangely enough, waterfowl. Especially considering the swamps most slimes reside, where they might expect their webbed feet and waterproof wings to come in handy to move across what would be debilitating terrain for other creatures. Unfortunate ducks will spot a pond in a swamp when there’s nowhere else to stop and rest. Stupid ducks will land there, and fish, and preen, but then they’ll waddle out onto the surrounding mud and just keep waddling until it closes up around them.

Quackity has never been the luckiest or the smartest duck, though at times he’s claimed to be, but Slimecicle had still never wanted to reach around and crush his hollow bones as much as he did now, lying immobile in a hospital bed as he tried to convince him he killed his own daughter and she didn’t come back.

“She. Her pronouns are she/her, not it, not anything else. Just because my daughter plays a little rough, and she took a little hiatus, and just because she- she has a rash, that doesn’t mean you can talk about her that way. You can say whatever you want about me, that I’m a terrible parent and a terrible person, that I killed her and killed her friends, blame whatever you want on me because whatever it is- I probably did it. But she is perfect, and blameless, and better than you or me will ever be, and if you want to argue about it so bad you can have your own child miraculously return and I can kill them again.” He strained his arm for a moment, but he couldn’t even lift it. “Quackity, could you call the nurse?”

“I’m going to ignore that because I’m your friend, but you better watch -”

“Quackity! I am having a medical emergency and if you do not press that button terrible things will happen.”

The bird turned and slammed the smiley button, still scowling. Immediately, a Cucurucho pushed open the door and moved towards the bed.

“Cucurucho, I cannot move and my slime is on the floor. Could you remove the visitor from my room? He’s tiring me out, and I need to conserve my energy.” He glared at an angrily sputtering Quackity. “I think it would be better for both of us if he left now.” It nodded and knelt to collect his slime into a dustpan stored under the bed.

“Don’t think this conversation is over just because-”

“[adiós].”

“Just because you’re fucking delusional -”

“[goodbye].”

“And you won’t accept that-”

The Cucurucho stood and grabbed Quackity by the wing with an empty hand, beginning to drag him bodily out of the room.

“[adiós]. [disfruta la isla].”

“I’m fucking going, Jesus!” He pushed it off and headed for the door. “I’ll tell the others you’re awake, and I’ll tell them you’re being a bitch !”

The door slammed, rattling nothing at all because the Federation doesn’t even put boring stock art in their hospital rooms. The Cucurucho finished sweeping and shovelled the slime directly into his shoulder. 

It tilted its head questioningly at him. Slimecicle realised it was asking if he needed anything else.

“Oh! That’s all, Cucurucho. Thanks.”

“[goodbye]. [enjoy the island].”

The door opened and closed, much quieter this time.

The particulars of slimes’s sleeping is understood about as much as the rest of them - not much more than the knowledge-slash-supported-assumption that something like it happens - but anyone who knew Slimecicle, at least, could tell you he did not need more sleep right now.

Regardless of that, he didn’t want to be awake. If he could, he would leave and look for Flippa, but he was immobilised from her playing rough, or maybe just the geggs, or maybe something else, and so all he could do was wait.

Just wait. I’ll find you again soon, Flippa.  

He slept.

Knock, knock.

Slimecicle was already awake, going between counting ceiling tiles, counting floor tiles, and trying to hold his arms off the bed for as long as possible: he’d made it to a solid 10 seconds on that one, which was probably only just enough strength to press the Cucurucho button considering the effort it took to move his arm over to it as well.

“Come in?”

“Is that a question?”

The amused voice of Roier came through the door, and oh boy, it definitely is one now!

“Come in!”

Roier stepped in, looking completely unlike he had expected after their last interaction. Which like, yeah, sure, Roier’s his friend and it’s been like a week, but he’d still expected him to look a little mad. He actually looked great, did he iron his shirt? Wait, he never irons. Except for jobs. Wait a minute…

Slimecicle forced an uneasy smile. “Heeeey, Roier! What’s up!”

Roier’s smile was chummy, but not quite boisterous enough. Almost like he was about to– “Hello Slime. How are you?”

Oh my god that’s the therapy voice. 

Roier insisted he didn’t have a “therapy voice”. He said that if you put on a façade with your client, it doesn’t relax them: it just makes them feel like you don’t care. What Roier didn’t realise is that although he didn’t have a therapy voice, he did have the sense to approach delicate subjects calmly and sensibly. Unfortunately, coming from Roier who is almost exclusively one or the other, calm and sensible at the same time basically is a therapy voice. It wouldn’t be so obvious if he didn’t know all his clients personally, but with a community as small as theirs there wasn’t any way around it. Hence, a complete sentence at a level volume that makes ordinary sense, plus context (ie; hospital), was about as strong a signal Slimecicle could get that it was about to go down.

Not if I can help it!

“I didn’t realise we had an appointment?”

Roier grinned like a shark - a particularly terrifying expression with his extra eyes. “You actually made one last week, remember our trade? Slime balls for going to therapy?”

…he did remember. And Roier clearly knew it, too.

“Oh. Cool. Great. I love therapy.”

“That’s great to hear.” Roier sat down in the grey visitor’s chair. “Is there anything you’d like to start with?”

“I think this is an overreaction.”

Roier nodded.

The first time Slimecicle had come into therapy, it had been court-ordered: the judge figured that if his reaction to hearing his daughter was dead was to immediately start killing children, perhaps there was something there that needed working out. Annoyingly, all of his lawyers agreed, which he’d like to mention is not what he had been not-paying them for. 

When he sat down in the office, Roier had asked, as he always did after, if there was anything he wanted to start with. Slimecicle had responded that he didn’t think there was anything to start with, seeing as he was here under court order and thought he was fine. That didn’t really work seeing as Roier had not only been at the trial, he was also his friend: much like every one of his traitorous lawyers, he could easily supply his own examples of things that might be worth discussing in therapy.

And despite how that and every other session turned out, Slimecicle had never once thought anything was worth discussing before Roier brought it up.

“And why do you say that?” The “ This time ” was left unspoken, as always.

“I mean, she just plays a little rough. Don’t act like Bobby isn’t any more dangerous.”

Roier did not pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation at the instant passive-aggression from his friend, because he is a therapist right now and he can’t rise to the bait. Instead, he redirected: “Maybe, could you describe the past few weeks for me? I wouldn’t want to make any comparisons without knowing what happened.”

“Sure. From when?”

“How about… when did the splitting start up?”

“Maybe… a week before I asked you for slimeballs? Two weeks?” At Roier’s expression, he added: “It was hard to keep track of the days!” Roier nodded and Slimecicle winced internally when he realized that tidbit would make the rest of the story sound worse.

“Let’s start from there, then?”

“Sure. I’d been staring blankly at the wall for a few hours,” Roier clearly wanted to ask about that but had to shelve it for after the story- “when Flippa came up and told me she’d been lonely. We thought she could use a friend her age, so I made a little - tiny, really, I barely even noticed it - geggclone for her!” Slimecicle stopped and smiled, like the story was over. 

Roier wasn’t having it.

“And then?”

Slimecicle jolted slightly, as if this was completely unexpected. “Oh! Well, after maybe a week, and a bit, she told me the geggclone had been lost. So I made her a new one!”

“Could you not find the old one?”

“Eh, yeah, “Lost” is kinda a figurative term here.”

“What’s a less figurative one?”

Ignoring him, Slimecicle continued: “So anyways, you’ve been to eggxile, you know how dangerous it is, so naturally, the next geggclone I gave Flippa was also lost. She brought me back the body this time, so I could reintegrate some of the slime, but it’s understandably tough to get all the slime from a geggclone, especially given the state of the little guy when I got ‘em,” Roier successfully covered his unease with a nod, “so I didn’t really get quite as much slime back out as went in. And then from there, it was just rinse and repeat until I decided that Flippa would have more fun with the real Gegg!” Roier doesn’t need to know whose idea that was. “And then… Gegg was scared, and I woke up here.”

“Uh huh. Ok. This is very helpful, thank you, but I think I might still be missing some details. Would you be comfortable sharing why you were missing an arm when I saw you?”

Slimecicle nodded for just slightly too long while he thought of how to say it: “Mhm, mhm, well, uh, Flippa, the little genius that she is, figured out that I could make geggclones faster if we- if we took off the slime first! A little more like natural splitting, in the wild!” y’know, the threat response. “So I had just had my arm all gegged up when I went to see you.”

Roier’s eyes widened and his “no judgement”, “Slimecicle’s-daughter-is-normal” expression slipped slightly.

“...She asked you to cut off your own arm?”

Oh, that sounds bad!  

“No, no, she did it for me!”

Oh, that sounds worse !

“She cut off your arm?”

“Uh.” Slimecicle tried to smile under the scrutiny. “Isn’t she so clever?”

“I.” Roier quickly put his priorities together. “Did you consent to it?”

“Yup, right after!”

“That's… not really what consenting is.”

“She’s a brave, independent little girl, and I'm not going to stifle her! Would you make Bobby stop drawing just because he was using your blood?”

“I would get Bobby some red paint. If I asked Bobby to stop something because it was hurting me, he would.”

“ Wow, Roier, I’m trying to raise a child, not a robot, sorry.”

There was a deep breath from Roier. Slimecicle’s never an easy client, but this is another level. “So you were ok with her doing this?”

“Well, Flippa can make her own choices without me micromanaging her.”

“That’s not an answer. Did you ask her to stop?”

“No.” 

Roier’s face was in his hands at this point, and Slimecicle felt like he needed to defend his self-preservation a little bit: 

“I almost did! But she looked so sad when I told her it hurt, so I said it was ok. I can’t say no to her when she gets like that.”

Roier looked up, reset himself, and schooled his expression to something less judgemental.

“When she gets like what, exactly?”

“Sad. Happy. Angry. Tired.” He shrugged. “Anything, I guess.”

“Do you think you need to be able to say “no”?”

“I know I should. It’s not good to raise your kid without telling them no, I know that, it’s just…” He looked down at his hand and started picking at threads in the blanket. “She’s trying so hard, and she’s so perfect, and no one else is supporting her.” His face scrunched up a little: “Mariana hasn’t even visited since she came back, the bitch. And he says I’m unfit for parenting, when he’s been fucking absent for weeks. Anyway.” He shook his head out slightly, and smiled again. “I barely ever want to tell her no. She’s always right anyway. She’s so smart like that, she always knows just what to say. Whenever I get worried, or think I need to say something to her, she does just the right thing and I forget all about it.” He looked back up to Roier’s eyes again and smiled far too proudly for the sentiment: “That little girl’s going to rule the world someday.”

Roier chuckled uncomfortably:

That’s what I’m afraid of.

“Why don’t we move on. You mentioned staring at the wall for… hours? Is that common?”

It was late, but Slimecicle was awake. He didn’t have much to do but nap here, so his sleep schedule was getting nearly as bad as it was before Flippa came back: Sleeping the days away, spending the whole night awake, slowly dissolving into the bed or the ground or wherever he got to in his last burst of energy. Being woken up by stomachaches and headaches and heartaches, but never by the sun or by his family.

It wasn’t as dark as it probably should’ve been: there weren’t any lights on in his room, but the hallway never went dark and sterile white light leaked under the door. (Not to mention, the green spots in his rash were giving off a faint glow. As always.)

Suddenly, the green glow in the room increased as something… appeared? No, it must have dropped from the ceiling. Dropped from the vent. (The closed vent.)

The something made no noise when it hit the ground, and said nothing. (the static was only in Slimecicle’s head, just a headache or a hallucination, he was sure of it.) It was seemingly shapeless and shifting, a silhouette too dark to see, its only discernible details being green ones and zeroes flitting across its form as it seemed to have no limbs, then eight, then four, and then finally six. 

It stepped right up to the head of the bed, and despite the fact it came away from the door - the brightest light source in the room - it was like it stepped into the light as colors bled into its skin and the green spots disappeared - they were just tricks of the light, just reflected from Slimecicle’s rash - and he could finally see it clearly.

It was Flippa. Her wings twitched behind her nervously in the low green light to match her miserable expression, and any other questions all disappeared:

“Flippa! Oh my goodness, my baby, are you ok?”

She scribbled something on a notecard and hesitantly brought it in front of his right eye - a conveniently well-lit spot, courtesy of the glowy rash which had apparently spread to his eye somehow?

@r3 y0u @ngry¿

She was sad because of him? “No, Flippa, of course not! Why would you even think that?”

Y0u h@v3n’t b33n h0m3. 

N0 g3gg5. N0 f00d.

My f@ult¿

Reading the card made him want to be sick.

“I would never leave you, Flippa. I just… can’t move right now, and my friends brought me here to get better.”

C0m3 h0m3¿

“No, baby. I’m sorry. I need the doctors to keep giving me slime, or else I’ll be in trouble.” Technically he’d be in “danger”, but Flippa didn’t need to know that and worry. 

1’m l0n3l3y w1th0ut y0u

W1th0ut g3gg

She hesitated, then wrote on a separate card:

C@n 1 h@v3 @ g3ggfr13nd?

“Oh honey, I’m so sorry, but I can’t make a gegg friend right now.” 

Pl3@53¿

3v3ry0n3 h@t35 m3

1 m155 Tilín.

It was an overtly manipulative move, that even Slimecicle could register even as he was. She really is my daughter. 

“I really, really want to, but I have all sorts of monitors hooked up to me. The doctors would know I was splitting and they’d rush in here. You’d have to escape them while dragging along a gegg.”

She shook her head:

M0n1t0r5 @nd c@m3r@5 d15@bl3d.

Oh.“What? How?” Flippa shrunk back and Slimecicle cursed himself - he must’ve sounded accusatory. “You’re so smart, Flippa! But my friends would notice I'd split when they visited.”

She didn’t write for a moment while she thought.

D0 th3y h@v3 t0 v151t¿

“Well. Yeah. I can’t really…” Actually, Slimecicle probably could stop them. If he just told Cucurucho he didn’t want visitors, then…

Flippa pushed the note in his face again, insistent.

“I could tell Cucurucho I don’t want visitors.”

Flippa lit up.

50 1 c@n h@v3 @ g3gg¿

Compared to the dragon who started this conversation, anxious and afraid her father had abandoned her, Flippa was a whole different person. If all it took was being alone in his hospital room until he was healthy enough to go out and join her, then he’d do it in a heartbeat. He’d make a hundred geggs for her, if it made her smile.

“Sure, Flippa. You can have a gegg!”

The little girl's smile never shifted to anything less or more than perfectly innocent glee as she readied a blade.

As soon as she was gone, a monitor at his side started squealing.

Light flooded the room as a Cucurucho immediately entered and came to his side. It looked at him, then quickly pulled out a bucket of slime from under his bed and dumped it on him for him to absorb. 

With its medical duty done it moved to the next objective, freezing for a moment while it tried to check the camera footage before presenting Slimecicle with printed handwriting on a pocket notepad.

[Monitoring experienced difficulties. How were you injured?]

And, well. If they thought someone broke in, they might up security. He couldn’t imagine how Flippa managed to get here even as it was, and if they went on the lookout for her…

There was really only one solution he could think of:

“I did it.”

Cucurucho did not have any emotional reaction, of course they didn’t, they only stood to leave - presumably to prepare some sort of longer-term treatment, or maybe just to leave him to figure it out on his own.

“And Cucurucho,” the bear stopped. Slimecicle’s voice was strained from pain and from taking in a limbsworth of slime. “I am no longer taking visitors.”

The bear simply nodded and stepped out.