Chapter Text
It had been weeks, weeks of nothing.
Weeks since he'd walked out of that restaurant.
Weeks since he'd seen Quackity.
He’d thrown himself into his work, and tried to forget, his mind was frantic with new ideas for the burger van.
NFTs, a subscription service. Special offers, rewards for regular customers. Branding, advertising. Building the van up to be a real business, not just a guise for stalking Quackity.
He could admit that's what he was doing now.
Sue him, he’d had a lot of time to think.
His office was no longer filled with unread books, but now with stacks of printouts and folders, piles of sketches and mad ramblings pinned to the walls.
He'd spent many a lonely night in his office. He still didn't sleep much. He couldn’t. The dreams - nightmares, to be more precise - grew increasingly intense and unsettling with each passing day.
The dreams themselves had always harbored an underlying violence, but recently, they had taken on a new form. Instead of being stuck in a train station he was haunted by a glowing smile, just off in the distance, following him in the darkness.
Explosions trapped him in burning buildings. Burning flesh and damp rotting pits. He yelled and screamed, he cursed himself he cursed the world he cursed his hubris, his pride, the stupid things that had trapped him in that hell but nothing could awaken him.
His good dreams, as few as they were, were a dizzying cacophony of colour, and noise, movement that always tasted of cigarettes and felt like gold. Sharp teeth digging into tender flesh and casino chip eyes, as laughter and moans filled his ears.
Wilbur thought that those were worse than the nightmares.
If he wasn't in his office, then he was in the van. There was always something to be done. A new deal to make, a new idea to push.
Only during the second week of this endeavour had he brought Ranboo on board as part of his team.
This was a meticulously crafted strategy – a means to regain everything that he had previously lost. And what could possibly be more innocent and unsuspecting than an ordinary fast food van?
He ignored the looks Ranboo gave him, the way their eyes would meet and then quickly look away. It felt as if Ranboo saw past him, into the darkest recesses of his mind, delved straight into the hidden depths. This stirred an uneasy feeling within him, and yet he couldn't bring himself to send Ranboo away. After all, they were the only person who remained untouched by the ghosts of Wilbur's past life.
He was in his office, working on a deal with a new supplier. Someone who hadn’t heard of the name Wilbur Soot before.
"Wilbur!" Tommy called out, shattering Wilbur's thoughts.
Without any preamble, the boy stormed into the office as if he owned it, with no regard for Wilbur's current situation.
"Tommy, what do you need? I'm in the middle of something important right now." Wilbur said, trying to hide his irritation.
Tommy dismissively rolled his eyes, utterly uninterested in Wilbur's affairs.
"You're always busy. I was just coming in to tell you that me and boob boy are going to be taking some time off."
Time off?
"Why?" Wilbur looked up from the contract. His mind had gone blank.
Tommy had never taken time off before. Never even asked for it. Granted, back in the early days, back in L’manburg, there was so much going on that time off was a concept that was foreign to them.
But now? He was more than a little annoyed.
"I'm just taking a vacation. That's all." Tommy responded, his gaze stubbornly fixed on the ground below. His posture had become more hunched, and his dwindling confidence was evident as he nervously fidgeted with his hands.
"Tommy, what are you really doing?" Wilbur inquired, his voice betraying a rising sense of irritation. He could clearly see that Tommy was trying to hide something. Getting up from his seat, Wilbur approached the boy.
They weren't far off in height, maybe a few inches, but at that moment Wilbur loomed over Tommy. A towering figure that made Tommy look like a child again.
He looked up at Wilbur, nervous.
"Oh well I was just invited to a party." He took a step back, "I won't be long, maybe a day or two."
Wilbur squinted his eyes at him.
"No party lasts that long." Not anymore, the only party that lasted that long was the one they threw after they won independence from that green bastard.
"It's going to be really far away." Tommy said, voice stuttering.
"Who’s party." Wilbur stared deeply into the boy's eyes. Trying to see if the truth was hidden there.
Tommy mumbled.
"What was that?" Wilbur asked.
"Quackity’s." Tommy blurted out.
Quackity’s having a party. That's not really unusual, he lives in a casino themed country after all. No, there was more to this.
"Oh?" Wilbur feigned surprise, keeping his suspicions under wraps, for now.
"Yeah, yeah. It's going to be a super big party." Tommy seemed relieved to move on. "Gonna have everyone there and stuff."
"Shame I wasn't invited then." Calm, careful.
Tommy scoffed, regaining his confidence, unaware of what he just let slip.
"Ah, you wouldn't have liked it anyways. You’d have to wear a suit." He grinned.
"A suit."
"I mean duh, it's a wedding." Tommy`s eyes grew wide.
Whoops
Tommy stuttered. "I mean- not a wedding, did I say that? It's not that- its a... its."
Wilbur's heart stopped, cold ice ran through his veins Tommy’s voice became a low hum in the background.
A wedding?
Quackity’s wedding?
"Wilbur?" Tommy was looking at him with wide eyes, his tone soft and tinged with fear.
Wilbur ignored him.
He was out the door before he knew what was happening. Tommy's shout muffled by the door slamming behind him.
A wedding? Quackity’s wedding?
How hadn’t he known, he had been watching him for months, sure he had stopped, but that was recently.
Did it happen then, in the short time he had been busy.
Was it really all that short of a time?
He came to an abrupt halt, fixating his gaze on the frost-covered sand beneath him. The realization struck him - four whole months had passed by.
Wilbur felt an unfamiliar regret seep into his being, a sadness that he had not been there.
What else had he missed?
As he continued to traverse the sandy terrain, the sound of his boots crushing the icy particles echoed in his ears, his heart raced with anticipation and trepidation, and his mind went blank.
Sand bled into the streets bled into cold tile bled into the base of the needle.
Wilbur was quiet as he rode the elevator up to the top of the needle. There was a chance he wouldn’t be there, that it would be empty. Or worse yet it could be open, crowded with people.
As Wilbur emerged from the elevator, his clothes wrinkled and unwashed, he stumbled like a man driven to madness. With an eerie chuckle, Wilbur admitted to himself that perhaps he had truly lost his grip on reality.
It was fitting that the one to break him would be Alexis fucking Quackity.
He was there, sitting in the same booth as before, with the same confidence, the same cards, the same arrogance that made Wilbur's skin crawl.
Not with disgust, but with something else. Something that made him want to hide under a stone and cry, to yell and scream and punch the air.
"Wilbur." Quackity called out to him, raising his gaze to meet Wilbur's eyes. He could almost mistake the look on his face for concern.
"You look like shit."
Wilbur stood.
"I'm in love with you." Blunt and to the point, there wasn't any point in beating around the bush.
Any concern for him disappeared. Casino chip eyes glared at him, anger staining his features.
“Yeah and what do you suppose I do about it Wilbur?” His eyes were narrowed, eyebrow raised in a challenge.
“We can't just go galloping off into the sunset. I've moved on. I have fiancés now.” Wilbur knew that Prime he knew, it was a constant itch that had haunted him since before he had been revived.
“You missed your fucking chance.” He said, his voice laced with a potent combination of bitterness and something else, hidden just below the surface. Was it regret, perhaps?
Wilbur shrugged.
“I know.”
“Then why, the fuck, did you tell me.”
Wilbur shrugged again.
“Well that’s just dandy ain’t it Wilbur? You know what’s going to happen?” Quackity stood up abruptly, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He jabbed an accusatory finger in Wilbur's direction.
“Nothing. I’m going to ignore that this,” He waved a hand between them. “ever happened. I’m going to get married to my fiancés and you are going to stay as far away from my wedding as humanly possible.”
Wilbur felt vaguely ill, he knew that nothing was going to happen. That nothing could happen, there was still a traitorous part of him, deep down that thought that Quackity would reciprocate. And maybe he did, once. But now, Wilbur was too late for it to matter.
“Wilbur,” Quackity stated resolutely, “you've missed your chance. I've moved on; I've turned the page and begun a new chapter in my life. It's time for you to do the same.”
Wilbur wanted to protest, he wanted to get down on his knees and beg him to reconsider, that he was the only thing in his life that was worth living. On the days when getting out of bed felt nothing short of impossible, it was the thought of Quackity that spurred him into action. Stripped of everything else he once held dear, Wilbur found himself adrift in a sea of uncertainty – the likes of which he'd never experienced before. Amidst this chaos, it was Quackity who emerged as the lone anchor, grounding him and offering reassurance in an otherwise bleak world.
Instead he said.
“Can we be friends?”
Quackity stared at him pity reflected in dark eyes.
“I'll think about it.”
He left the needle. The overwhelming silence within the elevator seemed to engulf him, amplifying its presence with each passing moment. Unfolding before him through the transparent glass walls, the entirety of Las Nevadas made itself apparent—its twinkling lights gradually flickering to life as the evening sun cast its orange hue upon the country.
Stepping off the elevator, Wilbur couldn't help but release a weighed-down sigh from his chest, a bittersweet soundtrack to his current feelings.
The falling snow mocked him, placing cold kisses on his pale cheeks.