Chapter Text
they end up gravitating together.
he wouldn't be able to tell you why for the life of him. he couldn't pinpoint the moment, he couldn't even pinpoint the month if you asked him. but if you asked; if you asked him-
there is a day, when a country dies.
there is a day, when a country dies, and to this country he gave all; gave his voice and gave his trust and gave the shaking of his hands. fought besides one of his nightmares and faced one of his mistakes and won, won, until he didn't; until they all lost, except fucking wilbur, or maybe especially fucking wilbur.
and in the aftermath he feels so numb he may as well be dead.
all he knows is that schlatt just died; all he knows is that he's supposed to have won. all he knows is the smoke rising from the crater that used to be home, all he knows is the blood on his hands and the ache of his bones, all he knows is his armor's uncomfortable weight and the count in his head, one two breathe one two breathe one two breathe.
all he knows is that when he looks up he is facing karl's house, and it is perhaps the most unfair demand of all, when he raises his hand and knocks at the door. when he closes his eyes and asks all the gods he's declared himself better than to give him someone willing to sift through the mess in his chest.
the door opens. karl is disheveled, eyes wide and red, hair singed; but he looks at him and says, "oh, quackity."
"my home got blown up," quackity rasps out with his cracks on display, with his aching bones and too-loud voice and stupid, stupid tears that he can't get to stop. "karl, it's gone ."
karl steps up to him hesitantly, almost reluctantly. "you'll rebuild," he reassures, and quackity's so fucking exhausted. it's just another fucking thing to do, when his brain can't stop replaying the feeling of watching schlatt die, of being sent into the air, of choking on dust and debries-
"sure," he chokes out. "you're right, i'll-" one two breathe - "i'll get right on that-"
turning away hurts, but he still has his armor, and he still has the ache of his bones, and his voice isn't gone at all, so he can survive it. he'll survive it.
"wha- wait-" says karl behind him, just as another voice says, "woah, dude, you're not going anywhere right now."
and he freezes, small and tired, before turning back to see sapnap, similarly disheveled, chin hooked on karl's shoulder. none of them are wearing armor, notes quackity, and feels like he might run out of air right here and now at the idea of doing the same.
"what?" he asks, and hates how wounded he sounds. give him back his anger. "look, i know it got fucking ruined, okay, you don't have to rub it in-"
"what?" asks sapnap similarly. "no, i'm saying you should stay here- karl, help-"
"of course you're staying here," says karl, finally moving, eyes wide and red and kind, "we're not about to throw you out- i was so worried- big q, where have you been?"
"i-" he starts to answer. his voice gets stuck in the middle of his horror and no, no, give it back, give him his energy and anger and words back - "i- i, i-"
sapnap frowns at him worriedly. "hey, hey," he says, in that fucking stupid soft voice of him that he uses when he thinks quackity's on the edge of breaking down, and fuck him for knowing that, fuck him for being comforting, fuck him for not having been there , for choosing another side - "hey, q, breathe. breathe, okay? s'okay, s'all okay, i promise, hey," he soothes as he approaches slowly, as he takes quackity hand in his, stupid warm and stupid soft and familiar. "it doesn't matter, okay? karl, we need to get him inside, it's raining," he hisses lowly, like he thinks quackity can't hear him, like he can't move himself, what the fuck-
"i don't know where i've been," chokes out quackity, which isn't what he meant to say at all. "i don't- i don't-"
"s'okay," repeats sapnap as he tugs on his hand. quackity flinches as it tugs on his cuts and burns, and sapnap looks down, swears softly. "big q, what- holy shit, dude, come on, okay, c'm'here, we need to take care of that- hey, keep breathing, okay? s'okay, s'okay, i swear it's all okay-"
"that's a fucking lie," sobs quackity against his will, and sapnap just shushes him gently. "quackity," says karl, soft and worried behind sapnap's taller frame, "why didn't you use potions?"
"i don't have any, karl , my house got fucking blown up-"
"but it's been hours," says karl, uncomprehendingly, "and you could have come to me- to us-"
"doesn't matter right now," interrupts sapnap a bit forcefully, a bit like schlatt, actually, and no, no, no no no, not getting on that fucking train of thoughts, quackity, don't- "he's here now," continues sapnap, unaware of the fucking mess inside of quackity's lungs, "and he needs- like, so many things, dude, holy fuck-"
"i'm fine-" gasps out quackity, and sapnap whirls back to him and goes, "shut up, no, you're not, come inside, you idiot-"
they step past the door's threshold. "do you want me to keep it open," asks karl, softly, like he knows there's a part of quackity that's always considering running, and when he shuts his eyes tightly and doesn't answer karl, still so kindly, how does he do it, says, "i'll keep it open."
quackity gasps out another sob.
"s'okay, s'okay," soothes sapnap. he stopped moving when quackity closed his eyes, uncertain probably, and quackity's such a fucking mess, right now, this is so fucking embarassing-
he can't get his tears under control. he can't wipe them because his left hand is clutching his sword so hard he stopped feeling it ages ago, and the other is being held by sapnap, which is basically his only tether to reality right now.
"quackity," asks karl worriedly. "i have- towels, and potions, and pizza, and like, hot chocolate, if you want-"
"yeah, yeah, good idea," breathes out sapnap. "potions first, i think- we should get him dry clothes-"
"i'm here ," bites out quackity tearfully. "don't talk about me like i'm not fucking here-"
"open your eyes then," retorts sapnap, familiar challenge in his voice underneath the distress, and quackity does, if only to glare at him. "there you are," comments sapnap, relieved, and squeezes his head in an absolutely disgustingly genuine display of affection. quackity would mock him for it, but he also feels like the hand in his is the only thing that matters right now.
"can you let go of the sword, big q?" asks karl. quackity shakes his head negatively frantically before he's realizing he's doing it. karl looks at him with something quackity hasn't been close enough to know in his eyes, and says, worriedly:
"okay, well, your hands are fucked, man, we need to get that- or we can start on the other, i guess-"
"give me a second," grits out quackity. losing sapnap's hand is absolutely out of the question but no way is he saying that out loud, so he forces back the panic in his throat and looks resolutely at the ground and pray they don't notice his breathing getting quicker when the sword finally drops out of his grasp and he's left unarmed.
"you're okay," soothes sapnap, who noticed, the fucker.
karl hums, a bit nervous but clearly making an effort, and starts cleaning up the soot and dust out of quackity's burns, cuts and scabs gently. the towel he's using isn't white, instead a deep purple, which does a pretty good job at hiding how fucked it must look after that. then karl throws it to the ground, gets out a potion and pours a minimal amount of it onto his hands.
"bandages?" asks sapnap. karl shrugs. "how does it feel?" he asks.
quackity tentatively flexes his hand. "fine," he answers, "better. hadn't realized that it hurt that bad."
sapnap and karl collectively frown at him. "okay, other hand," says sapnap, and karl slips his hand into the quackity's healed one just as sapnap lets his hurt one go, so the bastards have also noticed that.
"don't baby me," he snaps out, and karl frowns at him while sapnap gets the towel and gets to work. he says, "we were worried," like that explains anything.
"i'm okay," says quackity, "i'm fine, i don't need to be fucking- reassured and shit- i'm fine-"
"it's been hours, quackity," points out karl quietly. "we were about to turn in for the night-" and yes, looking at them, they're in soft clothes, clearly ready for sleeping-
"'m sorry for being a bother," lets out quackity, halfway bitter halfway genuine. "dude, shut the fuck up," says sapnap before retrieving the potion from the pocket of karl's hoodie. "we're glad you came here- there, is that better?"
quackity flexes his other hand. it's in perfect working order. "yeah," he confirms, vice still fucking shaky, he hates it, and sapnap nods and says, "okay, well, your face is fucked up, too."
and it's so little, it's so little, but it might be what breaks him; he just wants to sleep, he wants this to be over already, but his face is hurt and he has to clean it and he has to get out of his armor and ask if he can actually sleep here and what if they don't let him, what if he has to fucking build himself a house and a bed and just-
"quackity," says karl, " quackity , what's wrong, hey, hey, no, c'm'on, hey," in a soothing tone as quackity basically crumples.
sapnap makes a distressed noise. "wha- are you hurt, are you bleeding, big q what's going on -"
"'m tired," he whispers, shakes away karl's hand, presses his newly healed palms into his eyes, refuses to look at them. "i'm so- i'm fucking exhausted, i- fucking wilbur, fucking schatt -"
his voice breaks. he lets out a high distressed sound that might be keening and tries to speak and all of his words are stuck in his throat, and they've never saved anything anyway, where the fuck is his sword-
hands land on his shoulders and stick him firmly in place. "quackity," snaps out someone, and he flinches on instinct.
the hands still for a moment, then, very, very purposefully, relax their grip until they aren't even on him anymore.
"quackity," whispers sapnap with something like horror in his voice, and it snaps him out of it, the pity, the concern, he wasn't fucking here anyway-
"don't- don't fucking- i'm fine," he rasps out, hackles raised, shoulders tense. "i'm fine -"
karl shoves sapnap away and throws his arms around him. it's probably uncomfortable, given the armor that quackity's still wearing, the rain that hasn't quite dried off, the way he's shaking and gasping and fuck, this is so fucking stupid, he's not a fucking kid-
karl tightens his hold on him and quackity inhales all at once, like he's just realized he actually needed air to survive. the contact grounds him as much as it unnerves him. some part of him is screaming to run, the rest is yearning for sleep and temporary oblivion and the littlest bit of safety he can get his hands on. his hands come to clutch at karl's hoodie against his own accord. "i'm fine," he protests shakily, and forces his sobs down for the first time since he doesn't exactly know when.
"you are," says sapnap, eyes shadowed with something quackity doesn't feel strong enough to look at, right now. "you are. i'm getting you- fuck, pizza, a beer, i don't know-"
"no alcohol," asks quackity, bone tired. "please, just-"
sapnap studies him with something violent in his eyes, but directed inward, quackity thinks. it disappears as soon as it came. "no alcohol," he confirms, voice tired as well. all of them are so tired, quackity thinks with an odd sense of grief. "karl-"
"sorry," says karl as he loosens his hold carefully, like he thinks it might set quackity off again, like he might run away instead. he tugs gently at quackity's hands, and fight and panic and life beaten out of him, quackity follows until they're seated on a couch. "sap, get some water, please, and like, soap- bandages- potions- you know what, i'll do it myself," he decides. "just, uh- sit there, okay, big q, are you okay to sit there?"
"i'm not a fucking child," retorts quackity, but it lacks the bite. he very much feels like sitting alone on the couch is at the limit of what he can handle today. then again, being in a countrywide explosion was way, way past his limits, the withers even fucking more, and he survived that, didn't he?
karl studies his face, searching for some answers. quackity hopes he can find them because he wouldn't be able to help even if he tried; his emotions ran short and now the only thing left coursing through him is exhaustion.
"okay," he says gently, nervous energy very clearly coursing through him. "well, um-"
"i'm back," announces sapnap. "dude, don't you want to take off you armor at least? i mean, i know it's enchanted to keep us warm, but it's also really fucking uncomfortable."
he sighs. "my clothes all burned," he says. the thought that he'll have to go get some more reaches him and it feels unsurmountable.
"okay, well, we have a lot," shrugs sapnap. "and they should all fit you."
sapnap sits next to karl, and as soon as he does his fiancé scampers off. "getting more potions!" he announces. quackity eyes distantly the singed end of sapnap's hair.
"you there?" asks sapnap. quackity has not felt "there" since at least three hours, so he lets out a broken laugh and hopes that qualifies as an answer. sapnap frowns. "water," he says, and pushes a glass into his hands.
quackity drinks it. "i'm sorry for barging in here," he mutters then. "i know we're like- technically enemies, i guess- and karl is your fiancé-"
"dude, don't apologize," says sapnap. "no, seriously, don't, karl will get mad, he was so worried about you- well, me too-"
"why the fuck would you worry about me," laughs quackity. sapnap stares at him a bit and bites his lip. "well, we're friends, aren't we. we like you."
"gee, thanks," mutters quackity, and inhales as steadily as he can. one two breathe, one two breathe, "i'm so fucking stupid."
"you're not," says karl, arriving out of nowhere. "also, you're sleeping here tonight- either with us or on the couch, whatever you want-"
"wha-" says sapnap, then catches karl's eyes and falls silent.
"what?" says quackity, who is not karl's fiancé and as such has no telepathic connection with him. "dude, i don't wanna impose-"
"you can't leave," says karl, determination like quackity hasn't quite seen from him yet in his eyes. "tomorrow, sure, but you'd sleep- where, exactly? i'm not-" he inhales shakily- "i'm not letting you leave. q, i was so fucking worried- and you look hellish, honestly- and i'm not letting you go."
it should feel threatening, but karl's hoodie is still wet from when he hugged quackity back to sanity, and there are potions and dry clothes and bandages in his arms, and unbreakable, unfailing care in his eyes. he almost doesn't have to think about his inhales anymore.
"you can close the door," he says. "i- sure, i'll stay. i don't know-" he chokes on a laugh- "where i'd go, now-"
karl breathes a visible sigh of relief. "you have a home here, if you want it," he states softly, and pads over to the door to finally shut it.
he then sits next to sapnap and cuddles close to his fiancé, hands quackity a towel. "get your face and then we can go to sleep- in armor, if it makes you feel safe, i don't care, you can get changed and then put it back on-"
sapnap's hands finds his. he stops for a second, sighs low and deep, breathes out, "i'm glad you're okay, quackity."
"yeah," echoes sapnap. reaches the hand that's not in karl's towards him; quackity takes it without a sound. it makes wiping and spreading potion a little more awkward but he doesn't mind.
"thanks," he mutters. "for- letting me stay. answering the door in the first place."
" 'course," says sapnap. "like karl said- you have a home here, if you want it. no matter how fucked it gets outside, okay? we promise."
and outside, the rain pours on.
oOo
he wakes up to the sound of thunder.
wake up is a too-kind term. he startles awake, the explosion outside too reminiscent of another, and clutches the soft pillows he's buried under for a good two minutes, trying to get his breathing under control, before being able to move.
mercifully, he doesn't remember his dreams. the house is plunged in darkness; karl and sapnap tangled on the floor, where they insisted they'll sleep while he takes the couch. he blearily pulls himself up and groans as the events of last night come into his head, awfully clear.
his armor clangs against itself as he sits. his arms are heavy and his legs are heavier; he vaguely wants to go back to sleep for all of forever, but the bubble inside the house is small, unfamiliar but comforting, enough so that he clutches his awareness firmly and enjoys the feeling of breathing in air that isn't smoke-filled. the rain pours outside; fitting kind of funeral.
"okay," he mutters, more for the sake of hearing something than anything else. "okay."
wincing, he directs his fingers to the straps of his armor on his legs, unbuckling metal as softly as he can. he'd tied it too tight yesterday, still trembling with the after shakes of his panic, needing something to feel, and it's a relief to finally get it off; to finally be able to breathe without a chestplate on and not feel like he's going to die immediately.
he deposits it all on the side of the couch, and then climbs over to the other side, pads into the house in the darkness, trying not to wake either sapnap or karl. he's still weighed down, but the peace around him seems too precious not to hold onto.
there are empty potions and dirty towels gathered on the ground, that he almost trips over. he stares for a bit. his hands are free of bandages, but only because he insisted that he was fine; he's not sure where the roll ended up.
the hoodie that was shoved onto him is too big. he doesn't like how he almost drowns in it, how his movements aren't free and it could be pulled over his head and obscure his sight, but for some reason is reluctant to leave it still.
he looks down to the pile of empty potions, and the bloodstained, soot-covered towels. "fuck," he mutters. then, a little more wetly, "fuck."
he should be okay by now. he should be okay by now, but the soot and the blood are still there, his clothes so fucking ruined that he had to borrow others', and he's so deeply tired still.
the goal was taking back l'manburg; l'manburg died. what now, what now?
build what was destroyed, get back what he lost; he can see the list outlined clearly ahead of him. it calms him a little. "c'mon," he mutters to himself, and forces deep breaths, alone in this house that isn't his, faced with grief that he hadn't even tried to sort through yesterday, too overwhelmed with its weight and the panic that accompanied it.
"c'mon," he repeats, one two breathe, one two breathe, the mantra isn't going to leave him anytime soon. something simple to start with, just a beginning; he just needs to find a beginning.
his mind is going overdrive. he hates it, this isn't how he's supposed to work; schlatt ignored him and he struck back, wilbur blew it up and he screamed, what is this, the trembling of his hands and the quickening of his breath?
where is his anger? but there's nothing to be angry at anymore, he figures, except maybe techno, maybe wilbur, maybe schlatt. the first is too terrifying still; the other two are fucking dead.
what now, what now?
the room is too silent; the thunder booms all of a sudden and he startles, a full-body flinch and a quiet scream, more of a yelp really. the lack of armor feels incredibly stupid now.
"what the fuck ," says sapnap, waking up because of quackity, probably. "what-" he looks beside him and sees karl, apparently still sleeping, and ends his sentence in a whisper- "the hell is going on, who- oh, big q."
the tension bleeds out of his body; quackity envies him badly.
"sorry," he whispers. "got fuckin- startled by the thunder, that shit's loud."
"that's fine," says sapnap, as he tries with more or less success to shrug off karl's arms. "are you feeling better?"
quackity looks back to the towels. "yeah," he says, though it feels like a pretty bold lie. "yeah. sorry i used up your potions."
"we can just make more," points out sapnap.
"i guess. still-"
"i'd rather use it on you than have them at hand," says sapnap, earnest, with this sort of brutal care that's so fitting on him. quackity shrinks on himself.
sapnap looks at him with focused eyes, shadowed with something he can’t quite place. “quackity,” he says. “i know we were technically on opposite sides, at the end, but-”
“both of you,” says quackity. it feels dangerous but he’s never been a coward, despite what the shaking of his hands might say. “both of you fought against us- against me- for fucking schlatt - i don’t even know why i came here,” he laughs.
sapnap frowns at him. “well, you did,” he says, and in quackity’s mind it echoes as an accusation, but it’s probably not- he’d been around wilbur and schlatt too much, with their sick word games and their traps littered at every corner, the loyalty you were supposed to owe them but that they didn’t have to owe you. "and i'm glad you did. but- listen, are you okay?"
there is perhaps nothing more infuriating, thinks quackity, than the knowledge that he’s so fucking shattered that anyone can see it. he laughs darkly.
“yeah, just fuckin’- peachy, doing great, dude. i don’t have a house anymore and both of the fucking people i followed were fucking- monsters, i’m doing so good.”
“wilbur,” says sapnap, understanding something, which quackity isn’t sure isn’t the entirely wrong thing to understand. “yeah, that was- fucked up,” he finishes lamely. “but it’s wilbur, right? he’s always been a troublemaker, never cared about anyone- just wanted power.”
quackity shrugs. “fuck if i know, dude. never understood him- not that schlatt was any fucking better. ”
it’s aimed. sapnap frowns at him. “he seemed better,” he says eventually. quackity swallows a scoff. “i hope so, you fought for him.”
“i fought for dream,” corrects sapnap.
“that’s not fucking better. ”
“he’s my best friend.”
“he’s a psychopath,” retorts quackity. “he’s- he gave wilbur the tnt. he fought with us and then against and then with- he has no fucking honor, ” quackity spits out. sapnap grows visibly colder all the while, and the bubble bursts, the warmth disappears; this is just another fight and quackity’s so fucking tired of losing.
“he’s my best friend,” repeats sapnap.
“yeah, schlatt was my friend,” retorts quackity; it hurts so much to say it could be ripping him apart. his scars are bloody and numb and it’s almost as good as armor; strike him and he won’t feel it, scar tissue too thick. there’s got to be an upside, he supposes. “i wasn’t enough of a fucking coward to not do anything about him when he went- fucking crazy.”
“dream’s not crazy, ” hisses sapnap.
“they all are!” explodes quackity, voice rising above the rain and the thunder and the explosions in his head. “not one of them-” his hands are shaking- “not one of them cares! they all just want-” his eyes are blurring, tunnel vision as he focuses on sapnap’s face- “fucking power for the sake of control-” he’s not wearing armor, he’s not wearing armor - “they’re all fucking maniacs, they-”
“guys?” asks karl. quackity freezes; sapnap does the same.
sapnap turns from angry to apologetic. “karl,” he says.
“what’s going on?” asks karl. he’s standing behind the couch, eyes worried and tired and guilty; any other day quackity would rein in his rage, throw a joke over it, bury it deep where it’ll live with the rest of his resentment, but today he feels acidic. he’s handled vitriol; they can.
“you weren’t there,” he says. “you fought for- and sapnap i get, it’s dream, he’s always going to fucking choose dream, but karl, why the fuck would you side with schlatt?”
karl blinks. “i-” he says.
“he was awful,” continues quackity. “he was- a fucking drunk and a terrible president and a dick, and, and,” he’s running out of breath, “and i was on the other side. ”
and it dawns on him, that this is what it’s about. there wasn’t any good side in this fucking fight, so he can’t be tearing them down over that. sure, he went with wilbur because he was better than schlatt, but wilbur betrayed them, wilbur fucking blew up l’manburg with them still in it. he can understand why they wouldn’t join.
and anyway it’s always been wilbur and dream against each other, hasn’t it? always been wilbur and them as pawns, and dream and them as pawns, and fucking techno with the blood on his hands that everyone seemed to find worthy of respect instead of retribution- always been the people in power that used them as cannon fodder, and quackity’s just mad because he thinks he’s better than this, isn’t he-
isn’t he better than this?
schlatt’s voice and his mix in his head; his anger is back and with a revenge. “i was there,” he says, like a challenge. “and i understand him- ” he gestures to sapnap viciously, the venom feels familiar on his tongue- “really i do, but i thought you were my friend , karl! i thought i could trust you!”
karl, to his credit, doesn’t step back. “you left,” he says. “you left first .”
quackity falters.
“you- schlatt didn’t agree with you and you stormed off and you left ,” karl accuses, incensed and indignant and watery, “and i would have sided with you, quackity, i would have, but you weren’t there! ”
“you could have followed me-”
“where? when? you didn’t warn me, you didn’t-” karl’s hands come to his hair, clutch at the strands. “i was so worried , you could have been dead for all i knew-”
“i wouldn’t have died-”
“you don’t know that!” shrieks karl, and there’s abject fear in his eyes, there’s something quackity doesn’t understand. “you could have been dead and i was alone and at least sapnap was there, at least-” he breathes out once, twice, deliberate. “i’m sorry that we fought against you, i’m sorry that your home burned, i’m sorry schlatt was awful, i’m-”
sapnap steps forward to him, and quackity flinches at the sharp movement; sapnap spares him a glance and where he expects disdain or anger he just gets pleading. it shots him through the chest. “guys, maybe this isn’t the time for this,” he hears sapnap say, with steel in his voice, always this unyielding kind of care that used to be familiar. karl hitches a breath that sounds wet and out of all the things quackity cannot handle right now karl crying is at the top of the list, along with being a decent person , apparently.
“fuck,” he mutters, and feels vaguely like his body isn’t his own, like his voice is far away, like his limbs are floating away. “fuck, fuck,” and one, two, fucking breathe-
this cannot be happening again-
“come on,” says sapnap, taking his hand, and it startles him back at least, enough that he has the strength to hold onto it, enough that sapnap sends him a glance that morphs into clear concern that morphs into him squeezing his hand hard enough to hurt. he basically drags quackity over to karl, and then folds the both of them into a sitting position on the couch, carefully avoiding the armor quackity left on the side.
and then sits himself down on the side of karl and hugs him close while looking at quackity with the same worried look and fuck, fuck, fuck.
“i’m fine,” says quackity, angrily, and then, in the same breath, “i’m a dick,” and then, “fuck, fuck, fuck fuck fuck- ”
everything’s so- jumbled and messed up and he needs some sort of order, anything to fall back on that isn’t his anger that’s just fear turned poisonous at the moment-
“stop that,” asks karl tiredly. “dude, seriously, it’s fine,” which is a lie, that much is clear.
“it’s not,” he says. “it’s not- i’m being a dick.”
“you’ve had a day,” says karl. “we’ve all had a fucking day, karl,” he spits out, venom directed inward.
“okay, so maybe we just don’t tackle this right now,” suggests sapnap, who looks the most put together of all of them. “it was a bad situation and we all made decisions that weren’t ideal-”
“why are you talking like that, it was fucking disaster of a mess made by fucking bastards and i fucked it up utterly, all the way through-”
“-that weren’t ideal ,” repeats sapnap more firmly. “and we’re all more or less- uh- messed up about it.”
“yeah, we’re fucked-”
“quackity i swear to ender-”
“can we just sleep,” asks karl, small and defeated. “can we just- ender, how did it all go so wrong? why are people just- constantly tearing at each other?”
quackity laughs.
“that’s kinda our thing, karl.”
“it doesn’t make sense,” insists karl, but his shoulders drop. “let’s just- let’s just be on the same sides from now on, okay? the three of us. let’s just stick together,” he pleads.
“i’ve been here,” replies sapnap, eyes serious and focused on quackity, and it makes him realize that-
as much as they didn’t follow him, he didn’t either, uh.
he swallows past the guilt. “yeah,” he relents, “yeah, that sounds good. let’s do that.”
sapnap stays silent. quackity catches his eyes and finds hesitation in there.
“and don’t you pull your dream bullshit on me-”
“dude-”
“no, no, i think he’s a dick and that’s fine, ‘cause you think tommy’s a dick and i like him, so you can fight his fucking stupid battles if you want, that’s fine, but don’t fucking sacrifice us for his mess, don’t fucking betray - ”
his voice breaks.
“don’t,” he finishes miserably. “fucking don’t,” and it holds as much threat as begging.
“i won’t,” reassures sapnap softly. quackity isn’t sure if he can believe him, but he can try.
“let’s just sleep,” asks karl. “let’s just- this can wait until morning. we’re all here.”
“if it even lasts-”
“it will,” scolds sapnap. the certainty melts away after a moment. “i mean, it’s gotta, right?”
quackity sighs. “yeah,” he murmurs. “yeah. if we work together? nothing’ll take us down.”
sapnap smiles at him with an undercurrent of trepidation. “dream used to say that,” he murmurs.
“we’re definitely better than dream.”
“dude, shut up,” laughs sapnap, but he’s laughing, so quackity counts it as a win. probably the only one of the day.
karl, head on sapnap’s shoulder, yawns. “it’ll be better now anyway, right? with schlatt and wilbur gone.”
quackity shudders. “there’s still fucking techno,” he mutters. “can’t believe he fucking betrayed us- never should have trusted him.”
sapnap hums wonderingly. “and philza’s here, now.”
karl grimaces. “d’you think he’ll stick around? with wilbur-”
“well, there’s fundy,” reasons sapnap. “isn’t there?”
quackity scoffs. “call me crazy, but if he’s the type to stab his son through the chest, i don’t think philza’s going to play grandfather with fundy. and even less sure fundy would want him to, dude’s got issues.”
“eh,” mutters sapnap, and buries his face in karl’s shoulder. his voice comes out muffled when he says, “we’ll see. tommy said he had unfinished business with dream, that’s bound to bring on problems, ugh.”
“it’s going to be weird without wilbur,” muses karl softly. “for tommy especially-”
“can’t believe he’s actually dead,” confirms quackity. “can’t believe schlatt’ s dead. good fucking riddance.”
sapnap raises his head. “you seem to hate him a lot,” he says, which is a question without being one.
quackity shakes his head. “he was- a bastard, yeah. tubbo was terrified of him- fundy too, i think, at the end.”
“and you?” inquires karl softly.
quackity shrugs.”i’m-” his laugh feels dragged out of him. “i don’t fucking know, man.” the moment feels too safe for the usual panic to reach him, his friends in front of him, helping hands within reach. “he was- fucking awful. terrible. never listened to me- i hate being fucking ignored. but- i mean. i thought he’d be better than wilbur, at one point, you know? i trusted him. but then he started just- fucking drinking and throwing shit around. thinking he was owed everything-”
“yeah, he was a bitch,” agrees karl sleepily.
quackity cackles. “yeah,” he says, “that’s exactly it. he never scared me, i don’t think so- not like techno does,” he admits quietly. “but- i don’t know. at some point you get reflexes, you know? and then fucking wilbur didn’t help.”
“i’m sorry,” says sapnap quietly. “fucking pity does nothing, man,” retorts quackity. “he’s dead. he’s fucking dead, finally. that’s the best outcome, you know? i got rid of him. i’ve gotta be okay, now.”
sapnap hums uncertaintly. “i guess,” he relents. “don’t have to. ”
“you have us,” offers karl. “if you wanna- i don’t know, man. if you need us. same side and all.”
quackity exhales. “thanks,” he says roughly. “i- yeah, i’ll try to keep it in mind.”
“you have us,” confirms sapnap. “i meant it, what i said yesterday. you can have our home.”
and quackity sighs and holds off his tears. “yeah,” he whispers, “okay. i would say the same but- well, you know.”
“it’ll be okay,” reassures karl. “probably us sleeping would help, though, so shut up now.”
sapnap stifles a laugh and absentmindedly presses a kiss into karl’s hair. quackity averts his gaze awkwardly. “i’ll take the floor-”
“no you won’t-”
“i will,” he insists, and sapnap and karl relent easily enough when they hear the seriousness of his tone. he moves off the couch and lands into the pile of blankets and pillow karl and sapnap had moved into the room earlier. “‘kay. goodnight, guys.”
he hears them shuffling around, and then:
“‘night.”
“‘night.”
“see you in the morning, big q,” says karl, a smile in his voice somehow.
and the morning will come, so quackity lets sleep overtake him.