Work Text:
1. Quackity
Quackity startles awake, jolting upright in his bed. His jaw aches, and somewhere deep, deep down, he knows that this is another life gone.
That thought is all it takes to send him spiraling, panic and pure, unfiltered rage coursing through his veins. He shoots out of bed; the feeling of the fabric against his wings and hands is too much, right now. Revenge is all he can think of, even as his mind races in circles. He doesn’t have his netherite anymore, but that’s fine, he’s sure he can get a sword from someone. Technoblade may be able to kill him with ease, and Quackity may be doomed to die at his hands, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t go out swinging-
His train of thought is cut short by his legs, still weak from the respawn, giving out underneath him.
“Fuck,” he curses, even as he hits the floor. His voice isn’t loud enough for the shout to be satisfying, so he tries again. “Fuck!”
He just wants to hit something. He wants to hit something and get up off the floor and go and kill Technoblade like he was supposed to, but instead all he can do is sit here, a pain in his jaw and a shake to his hands.
Quackity is twice-dead, and he is afraid.
In lieu of trying to stand again, he settles for raking his hands through his wings, tearing out a feather here and there. Truthfully, he hadn’t noticed he’d started doing it. Once he does, though, he doesn’t stop. A keen builds low in his throat.
He doesn’t know how long he sits there crumpled on the floor, the small pile of stray feathers littered around him growing by the second. What he does know is that, after minutes or hours or maybe even days, the front door to his house slams open.
“Quackity!” someone yells, and two pairs of pattering footsteps approach his bedroom. Before he can process what’s going on, someone’s gently pulling at his hands, and someone else is pulling him into a hug.
“We saw the message in chat,” the second person - Karl, it’s Karl whose arms are wrapped around Quackity - gasps. “We - we got here as fast as we could.”
Sapnap hums from where he’s sat next to them, his hands clutching Quackity’s.
With his wings still tense and shaking, with his heart still rabbiting in his chest, Quackity lets out a sob, burying his face into Karl’s shoulder. Karl hushes him as he cries, rubbing circles into his back.
“It’s okay,” Sapnap mutters, squeezing Quackity’s hand once, twice, three times. “We got you.”
Quackity is twice dead and his jaw aches and he is afraid, but Karl is warm and steady even as Quackity’s tears soak his shoulder, and he can feel the ring on Sapnap’s calloused fingers digging into his own. He’ll have his fiances until the day the earth burns.
2. Karl
It’s night when Karl gets back to the SMP, landing heavily on the grass as as the portal that spat him out closes behind him. Groaning, he pushes himself up onto his forearms as the memories of his last trip come back to him one by one.
There was a mansion. He remembers that. There was a mansion, and a man with an (ironically apt) pig’s mask, and a red egg consuming everything. There was the taste of wine and a butler who had far too much milk and Sapnap.
Karl frowns, shaking his head. No, not Sapnap. James, his name was, although he looked just like Karl’s fiance. The resemblance was enough for Karl to mistake them at first, despite all logic, and it was enough for Karl’s breathing to hitch when he remembers the sight of James’ dead body facedown on the floor.
Scrambling to his feet, Karl rushes in the direction of his house. It’s irrational, and he knows this, but there is a yearning want in his chest to make sure that Sapnap’s okay. It pounds under his ribs as he runs down the Prime Path, slides through the doors of their shared house, and climbs the stairs to the bedroom.
He peers in, carefully so as to not wake anyone; as he probably could have predicted, Sapnap and Quackity are curled up on their bed, lit only by the moonlight coming through the window. Gently, Karl slinks inside, letting the door click shut behind him. He just wants to be sure that Sapnap’s really okay, that his chest is rising and falling as it should.
“Karl?”
The man in question freezes in his tracks. “Hey,” he whispers. “Sorry for waking you up.”
Sapnap, who is apparently awake, hums. “Wasn’t asleep. It’s okay.” He pauses for a second, and then continues. “Glad you’re back.”
Karl blinks, shifting guiltily on his feet. “How long has it been?”
“Week,” someone who’s not Sapnap mumbles. “Wh’t time is it?”
“Hey, Quackity. Sorry for waking you up,” Karl says, like a broken record. “It’s like the middle of the night, you can go back to sleep.”
Quackity grumbles, and Karl can see the faint outline of his raised arm in the moonlight. “Apologize by getting over here, asshole.”
Karl hesitates for a second, wavering on his feet, and then Sapnap waves him over too and he gives in, only bothering to shed his jeans before he slides under the covers. Almost immediately, Quackity lets his arm flop over his chest even as Sapnap gently rests his head against Karl’s shoulder.
The implications of the masquerade are concerning, and the egg will need to be dealt with, but all that can wait until tomorrow. For now, it only takes Karl a few minutes to fall asleep, warm and content in the arms of the men he loves.
3. Sapnap
Sapnap stumbles out of the prison, squinting against the light of the sun. He turns around to say goodbye to Sam, but the warden’s already gone, returned back to do whatever he does in the guts of Pandora’s Vault.
In his hand, he has the note Dream gave him. He’s already looked at it once, but he does so again as he numbly walks away from the prison. It’s still just a smiley face on off-white paper. Sapnap doesn’t know what he was expecting.
He doesn’t know what he was expecting from visiting Dream, either.
Sapnap wants nothing more than to collapse in a chair, or his bed maybe, but he’s apparently the most suitable person to play messenger boy for Dream. So, with a huff, he resolves to at least try to look for Ranboo.
That presents a problem, when, thirty minutes later, Sapnap realizes he has no idea where the hell the kid could be. Ranboo’s old house in L’Manburg is gone, obviously, and Sapnap hadn’t really cared to pay attention where everyone scattered to after that. What he does know, after a lot of trial and even more error, is that Ranboo’s not next to the Nether portal, or by the ruins of L’Manburg, or in the rebuilt Community House.
He does run into Karl and Quackity, though. They’re sitting across from each other in the Community House, idly chatting. When they see him, they must see something in his eyes or face, because before he can even say “hi”, Karl’s giving him a Look and asking if he’s okay.
“Yeah,” is Sapnap’s first instinctive response. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He clears his throat, holding the letter up. “Have either of you seen Ranboo?”
“Not in like, ages,” Quackity says, his brow furrowed. “Why?”
Sapnap blinks. How does he explain that his ex-best-friend who he kind of wishes was his not-ex-best-friend gave him a shittily drawn smiley face that he now needs to pass on to a teenager he’s talked to exactly twice, and that that hurts some deep part of him, the part that wishes?
He just shrugs instead. “Doesn’t matter. It can wait.”
“Seriously man, are you okay?” Karl asks again. Sapnap thinks for a second, and then sighs, letting himself collapse in the open chair and burying his face in his hands.
“I just got back from visiting Dream.” His words are muffled, but Karl and Quackity must be able to make them out, because he hears both of them suck in a breath. “It, uh. Didn’t go great.”
It’s quiet, except for the faint rustling of fabric, and then Karl’s rubbing his shoulder, and Quackity’s saying, “You wanna talk about it?”
Sapnap takes a shuddering breath, trying to sort through his emotions into something that even slightly resembles words. “I just… I just wanted closure, I guess,” he says. “It was awful, though. He wouldn’t even talk to me. But he wants George to visit him.”
Karl hisses in sympathy.
“Fuck him,” Quackity says, and it’s vehement enough that Sapnap looks up for a second in shock. “He doesn’t deserve your time of day, man.”
“I know,” Sapnap groans. “I just miss him sometimes, is all. Not… like this, but. You know. The version of him that I was friends with or whatever.”
Quackity takes the hand that Sapnap’s left lying on the table between them in his own. “I know. It sucks.” He pauses, and when he speaks again, it’s strangely vulnerable. “Just remember that he’s rotting in there where he belongs, and you’re free out here with us. You control when you have to see him, not the other way around.” It sounds like a speech Quackity’s told himself a hundred times over.
Karl nods in agreement, squeezing Sapnap’s shoulder. “We’re here for you, dude.”
And Sapnap, Sapnap manages a smile for the first time since he entered the prison gates.