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When Technoblade had first picked Quackity up that fateful January day, Quackity had never thought that he’d find himself here, in the other man’s kitchen, watching as Techno cooks him early-morning coffee.
Especially since a month earlier, Quackity had come to this very house with the intent to kill the very person making him coffee.
He couldn’t complain though, life was good out in the middle of nowhere. Techno’s a gracious host, Phil seems to enjoy his company, and Ranboo (who he feels a bit bad about wanting to execute now, but that’s a whole other story) enjoys seeing him around the place, even though the half-enderman seems to prefer being in his little open-air shack instead of in the warm house.
(For the life of him, Quackity couldn’t figure out why. He already avoids the cold as much as he can, going as far as to downright refuse to leave the house when the wind is too strong or when it’s snowing a little too much, so the way Ranboo survives the way he does is just a complete mystery to him.)
It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, given that for the first week he had been in the house he had locked himself in the spare room Techno had given him and had refused to come out or let the other man come in to change his bandages or check his wounds. The amount of times Techno had had to call Phil to the house to help him with Quackity was a very large amount, and now that he knows Technoblade more (and is more aware of his healing skills) he slightly regrets it, but only slightly. If only Phil had been there when Techno had first found him he might’ve been spared the unfortunate nickname that came with Techno having seen his wings, and being able to have them hang out freely from the back of his shirt instead of squished under his jacket was not a fair enough trade for the amount of embarrassment being called Ducky caused him.
(Embarrassment that made his heart race in his chest and his cheeks heat up and his head get all fuzzy, but embarrassment all the same.)
In the end, living with Technoblade is miles better than bleeding to the death in the snow, covered in deep, precise axe cuts on his legs, arms, and chest, and watching as the sun sets and counts down the seconds ‘till the inevitable doom that nighttime in unlit places brings. Quackity’s glad his last life wasn’t taken by Dream and some random fucking mob. He’s…glad that Techno took him in.
That and Technoblade is one of the finest pieces of ass he’s ever had the pleasure of laying his eyes on, alongside his absentee-fiancés and maybe his ex-husband, but Quackity just tries not to think about that.
“Whatcha thinkin’ about?” Techno asks, pushing one of the mugs he’s placed on the table over to Quackity’s side along with the milk bottle. (The mug is half full, because Quackity Coffee wasn’t that unless it was majority milk. When Techno had first heard about this he’d drunk a sip of fully black coffee just to disgust him, and then had immediately rushed over to the sink to spit it out, because black coffee is fucking disgusting.)
“Nothing,” Quackity responds quickly, even though he knows his face is probably being dusted with the telltale pink that comes when he thinks of someone that may or may not be the object of his affections.
He picks up the milk and pours it into his coffee as Techno pulls out the chair across the table to sit down, pulling the milk over to himself as Quackity takes a sip from his own drink. He takes the moment to study this side of Technoblade he’s only seen over the past few days. The taller man is relaxed, his sleep shirt hanging low on his neck and exposing his collarbones and arms, the short sleeves hanging over sizable muscles that Quackity definitely didn’t stare at in his free time.
“Doesn’t seem like nothing,” Techno says, taking a sip from his own coffee. His voice is gruff, tired even. Quackity can feel it in the back of his throat.
“Damn, you’re right,” Quackity says, uncrossing his legs and leaning back in his chair. He narrows his eyes at Techno, who narrows them back in mock-challenge. Quackity fights a smile.
“Maybe you’re just too attractive,” Quackity says casually, just as Techno takes another sip of his coffee.
Techno doesn’t spit out his coffee (like Sapnap did), or blush violently (like Karl did), or even level him with a glare that means he’s getting three times the work he usually does and probably won’t be leaving the white house for another few hours that night (like Schlatt did). Instead he just hums and swallows his coffee, turning back towards the window in the kitchen.
“I think Phil’s gonna be visiting today,” he says, and Quackity blanks.
“Oh, really?” Quackity says calmly, brain still reeling. No reaction…what the fuck. What the fuck.
“Yeah,” Techno says. “‘Bout noon, he said.” He takes another calm sip of his coffee as Quackity’s brain slowly breaks down behind his calm façade.
What the fuck .
Sometimes, although Quackity fucking hates when it’s actually snowing, he enjoys going out in the snow afterward to leave large amounts of footprints in Techno’s front lawn, along with various snow structures that he’s found annoy Techno (“They tank my property value! My nice clean lawn!” “But they’re holding hands!”).
When he’d woken up that morning to see snow on the windowsills and covering the well-trodden snow around Techno’s house he hadn’t even hesitated to just throw on the newly-tailored version of his coat that Phil had made him a few days ago, not even bothering with his usual beanie. (The coat isn’t warm, it was literally just his old coat with wing holes in the back like all Phil’s clothes had, but it meant a lot to him all the same.)
He sees Ranboo on his way out, and waves at the tall teenager, who smiles and waves back, but gestures at the snow uncomfortably and heads off towards the nether portal over the hills. Quackity crouches down and picks up some snow with his hands, rolling it into a ball and placing it back down in the snow to roll into a bigger ball.
By the time the hour’s done he has three whole snowmen sitting in the front of Techno’s house, two larger adult-sized ones and one smaller child-sized one in the middle. He stands up, wipes his hands off on his coat, and gazes proudly at his work.
Well, he tries to wipe his hands.
They come into contact with the coarse fabric of his coat and he immediately pulls them away, the tender, cold skin protesting heavily at any sort of contact. He suddenly becomes aware of just how cold he is and of the fact that he is actually still in his pyjama pants, which are thin and definitely not something he should’ve gone outside to play in the snow with.
He turns back to the house in a slight panic, running slowly back and fiddling with the door handle before pushing his way inside only to see Techno stoking the fire in the fireplace. Quackity takes a short step towards it before being stopped by Techno wordlessly pointing at a small pile of clothes resting on the arm of one of the armchairs nearby. Quackity grabs them and— oh .
It’s one of Quackity’s own pairs of pants and socks, a thicker pair of sweatpants and some nice wooly socks he’d made from a stray sheep he’d seen, but Techno has given Quackity one of his sweaters. It’s a crewneck, and seems hand-knit, and when Quackity slips it over his head after he heads upstairs he catches the same soft earthy scent he smells all throughout Techno’s house. It makes him smile, even though his wings are slightly squashed against his back
He heads back down the ladder with a little bit more difficulty than he had going up. The warmer his hands get the more they seem to stop wanting to work, and he frowns stubbornly at them when they won’t let go of the rung he’s currently on.
“Hey,” Techno says from behind him, making him start slightly. “Jump down, I’ll catch you.”
Quackity glances nervously at the hole below him that the ladder continues down before looking back at Technoblade, who has his arms extended out under him, and lets go, landing snugly in Techno’s arms. The man lets out a soft Oof , but otherwise makes no indication that catching Quackity needed any actual effort to do.
Quackity flushes.
Techno walks over to the fire and tries to put Quackity down on the mess of blankets and pillows he seems to have just dumped on the ground, but Quackity uses his limited motor function to grab onto Techno’s sweater. It wouldn’t actually stop Techno if he really wanted to let Quackity go, but it’s still enough to have the man pause.
“What? I thought you’d want to warm up and all, seeing as you were out in your fuckin’ pyjamas,” Techno grumbles. Quackity lets out a small chuckle.
“Yeah, I do, but you should sit with me.
Techno hums pensively, but in a way that Quackity can tell that the next thing he’s going to say is going to be poking fun at him.
“Y’know, I don’t think I can, I don’t know if I’ve attended to the dogs today…” he trails off.
Quackity takes this as his cue to mock-complain. “Come on , Techno. You don’t really want to tend to the dogs. I think you want to sit by the fire. Come on. Please ?”
Techno chuckles, “fine, I’ve been convinced.”
He sits down gingerly right in front of the fire, and Quackity can almost feel the flames licking at his body as it slowly defrosts. He squirms a bit away from Techno to grab a blanket before shuffling back over to him and plopping down in between his legs, extending out so his feet are closer to his fire before throwing the blanket he’d grabbed over the both of them. From there he adjusts, shifting himself up so that his head is in the crook of Techno’s neck, face pressed into his soft turtleneck sweater. He wraps an arm around his shoulder blade and leaves the other resting lightly on his waist and then slots their legs together.
Technoblade almost radiates heat, so he pushes his face further into his neck the second he realizes it’ll make him warmer, almost pushing his entire body further into Techno’s warmth. He feels…nice. Like he fits here, in this exact spot, at this exact time. It’s nice, living in the moment for once. It makes his brain feel all mushy and warm and—
“You enjoying yourself there?” Techno teases, and Quackity realizes he can feel the rumble of his throat up against his forehead. His face suddenly feels uncomfortably warm.
“Yeah,” he mumbles, gripping the blanket under him in a vice grip.
“Seems like it,” Techno responds, and places one of his arms around Quackity’s waist.
“Mm,” Quackity says, and tightens his arms around Techno, slamming his eyes shut. He can feel his face absolutely fucking burning, but he can’t feel Techno’s eyes on him, so he takes that small mercy.
(Time starts to slow the longer he lays by the fire, and eventually both Quackity and Techno fall asleep, both being woken up by Phil lightly shaking their shoulders a few hours later. Quackity thinks back on how warm he was later that night, lying alone in bed, and adds about three more blankets to his ever-growing pile.
He doesn’t return the sweater.
Techno doesn’t ask for it back.)
Technoblade is a surprisingly good cook.
Quackity remembers living in Pogtopia for the short amount of time he was there and being sustained only by Techno’s potato farm and cow pit for a few weeks. After the extensive dinners and large amounts of baked goods that had been at his disposal in Manburg, it had been near torturous.
Here Techno doesn’t have potato farms, (only a bee farm, and god was Quackity surprised when he’d seen it) and the closest cow farm is Ranboo’s, but somehow they still had a wide variety of food, even in the middle of a literal tundra.
When he’d asked Techno had said something about being used to living in cold environments, which made little to no sense to Quackity, but Ghostbur (who had been there on a short lunch visit) had laughed slightly.
“ That’s putting it lightly, ” he’d said. Quackity doesn’t know what that means either.
Tonight Techno is making some sort of chicken pasta dish, freshly-made linguini sitting in small piles on the counter beside the furnace, waiting to be put in the pot that was boiling on top of it. There’s chicken cooking inside the furnace, and alfredo sauce simmering beside the pot of water.
Techno is washing his hands in the sink, scraping crusted-on flour and egg off with his long nails.
Quackity is sitting at the kitchen table, and is fucking bored.
“Just a bit longer,” Techno says in response to one of his many, many sighs. “Then I can pay attention to you.”
He sends a joking glance over his shoulder at Quackity, who stands up and groans, stretching his arms and wings behind him. A small smile spreads on Techno’s face as he grabs a towel to wipe his hands on.
Quackity heads over to one of the chests on the walls and pops out a disc, which he then slips into the jukebox sitting next to it before standing up and heading back over to Technoblade as the opening notes to Chirp flow out into the quiet house.
He holds out a hand to Techno as he places the towel he was using back onto the counter
“May I have this dance?”
“I was gonna put the pasta in,” Techno grumbles as he grabs Quackity’s hand, pulling them closer together and placing his other hand on Quackity’s waist.
Quackity freezes at the feeling, unlike the first time he had felt it, when he’d been cold as fuck and a little bit too cold to function. Techno quirks his head to the side at this.
“Get on with it, I’m only giving you one song,” he says, and Quackity reaches up to place his hand on Techno’s shoulder, pulling them into the rhythm of the song.
Quackity clumsily leads them around the kitchen, half-distracted by Techno’s hand on his waist and the feeling of Techno’s muscles under his hand, one that he (again) hadn’t appreciated enough in his more out-of-it cold headspace from earlier that week.
He’s so distracted by their soft steps around the kitchen and his physical connections to Techno, eyes focused on their feet (and not stepping on Techno’s) that he only looks up and realizes that they’re almost chest-to-chest in the last few notes of the song, looking up to face Techno as it fades out, leaving them in a soft, charged silence.
Techno is looking at him as well, and the air around them feels electric as they make eye contact. Quackity’s head feels with a light, buzzy feeling as he gazes into Techno’s dark red eyes and feels Techno’s hand around his waist unconsciously tighten. He feels his hand do the same on Techno’s shoulder. He feels their hands that are clasped together tighten as well, and he starts leaning forward, lifting himself up on his toes. Techno starts moving downward and—
The small timer beside the furnace goes off, startling both of them backwards. They drop their hands from each other and Techno turns away quickly, heading towards the furnace to check on the chicken. Quackity stands in his spot for a few seconds, face a brilliant red, before he also turns away to go to the jukebox, hands shaking as he places the disc back into the chest.
He doesn’t look Techno in the eyes all dinner.
After dinner Quackity tries his best to get as far away from Techno as possible as quickly as possible without making it obvious that that’s what he’s trying to do.
He brings his plate and utensils up to the sink, frantically pushing on the water to clean it off as fast as possible and getting them into the drying rack in record time. He determines that it obviously wasn’t fast enough when he hears the clink of a plate on the counter beside him.
He turns around just as Techno places an arm beside him on the counter, leaning at the exact right angle for Quackity to see down the large, flowy top he’s wearing. He tries to look away, but the only options are up into his eyes or very obviously to the side. He looks to the side.
Technoblade huffs.
“Quackity.”
His voice is gruff, and if Quackity had thought that his brain wouldn’t stop spinning after the earlier incident, he was almost completely unprepared for what hearing Techno’s voice after a completely silent dinner would do to him.
“Mhm,” Quackity can feel his ears heating up, and he fights the urge to bury his face in his hands. His only mercy is that his wings are pinned behind his back, so Techno can’t see his reaction from them. Unfortunately, even if his ears are covered by his beanie that won’t stop the red from slowly spreading to the rest of his face.
“Quackity,” Techno repeats, but this time he places a gentle hand under Quackity’s chin, guiding it so that they’re looking each other in the eyes again. Quackity feels hyper aware of Techno’s rough fingertips on the tender skin on the underside of his skin. He feels hyper aware of the fact that Techno’s thighs are pressing up against his, and feels hyper aware of both the blush that feels like it's dominating his face and the fact that he can’t look away from Techno’s eyes, as much as he wants to.
“What was that earlier?” Techno asks, and suddenly his fingers feel like they’re burning his skin. Quackity feels panic start to whirl around in his brain at the fact that Techno’s tone is completely indecipherable, and even though he had slightly leaned in earlier when Quackity had that doesn't mean that…that whatever stupid fucking thing that makes Quackity feel like he’s going to explode whenever Techno nudges him to the side when they’re both standing at the kitchen counter and that makes him want to follow Techno into his bedroom at night so that he doesn’t have to pile on eight million blankets to replicate one night spent by the fire is shared between the two of them.
“I can see you panicking, stop that,” Techno mumbles, rubbing his thumb lightly over Quackity’s cheek. Quackity feels his knees disintegrate into jelly.
Definitely just a him thing.
Techno sighs. “Alright, guess I’ll just ask then.” He raises his other hand up to cough into his fist, looking away for a second as he does as if to steel himself for what he’s about to do, before leaning in ever so slightly closer to Quackity.
“If you wanted to kiss me you could’ve just said, Quackity,” he mumbles, and this time Quackity does twist away, hands going to his head as he tries to crouch down on the ground to take stress off of his legs, which are shaking.
Techno wraps his hands around Quackity’s waist to keep him upright, pulling him into his chest. Quackity breathes in and just gets a full nosefull of Techno . He thinks that’s what finally makes him do it.
He pulls his upper half away from Technoblade and pulls both of his hands away from his face just to place them on Techno’s and lean in, shoving their lips together unceremoniously.
One of Techno’s hands moves from his waist to his face as he twists to make the kiss more comfy, and Quackity’s so overwhelmed with the sheer feeling of this is right that came when he placed their lips together that he has to pull away for a second, eyes closed with his forehead lightly pressed up against Techno’s. Techno rubs his cheek with his thumb and Quackity goes in for another short kiss before fully pulling away.
“You’re right, mi amor , I should’ve just asked,” Quackity smiles softly, squishing Techno’s cheeks with his hands.
To Quackity’s surprise, Techno’s face blooms a beautiful, bright red, and he glances away from Quackity’s gaze. A mumbled “You can’t just…” comes out of his mouth and Quackity giggles, pulling him back in for another kiss.
Yeah , he thinks, he really, really likes living with Techno.