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Quackity watches Schlatt go down, and thinks, nothing will change.
The bottle falls out of his hand first, and then his fingers seize, clenching around thin air, grappling for something – anything –
And Schlatt chokes, face purpling, perspiration beading at his hairline, and nobody moves forward to help. Later, after the day is over and the country is scarred and everybody’s hearts have shattered just a little more, this will be the moment nobody remembers, the moment nobody focuses on, but Schlatt’s face crumples and takes a knee to the floor and dies, right there, and Quackity watches it happen.
Quackity watches Schlatt die, and he knows then and there that nothing will change.
He’ll still have to hide.
They clear the debris and bury the dead. Philza Minecraft announces his arrival, and the looks his friends – enemies, maybe, he hasn’t had time to draw the line – give him behind his back isn’t unfamiliar. At first, Quackity thinks it might be the sword at his side, or the blood speckled on his tunic, but the lingering eyes on the man’s wings and thinly veiled disgust as he takes to air like a bird, as a bird explains enough. He wrenches his pickaxe into a jagged piece of rock, hard, and tries to focus on the sound of stone splintering under his hands rather than the snide comments his friends are making, because – because –
He had hope, alright? The status on hybrids in other servers – in most servers was unsavoury, to say the least, but he’d prayed Esempii was different. He’d knelt on the steps of Prime Church and held on to the shred of hope that maybe, just maybe the only reason the citizens of Esempii were hostile toward hybrids was because of Schlatt.
It had made sense, he’d told himself, hands clasped together infront of the purple stained glass windows and built-in sin; Schlatt was a tyrant. A horrible person – disgusting to everyone on the server. It would’ve made sense if his friends had a vendetta against hybrids because it reminded them of Schlatt, of his slowly strengthening methods and fists and – all things bad.
He’d hoped that once Schlatt died, that that hostility would fade.
Past tense, Quackity muses, bitter, and buries the glimmering head of his pickaxe in the stone. Wrenches it out again and swings it up over his shoulder, brings it back down. The ground shakes. He’d lost hope pretty quickly. Today’s events had only solidified Esempii’s beliefs.
The stone cracks in two. Quackity bends down to collect the pieces.Underneath his coat, his back aches.
He grits his teeth, and moves on. Schlatt’s dead, and nothing has changed.
The rock is unusually heavy in his arms.
1.
L’Manberg heals and fractures and heals – like a broken bone set wrong. Hurting, but still as complete as it’ll get, and the citizens seem to take that. People rebuild. Tubbo stands on the stage, eyes hard, jaw set, and Quackity’s back hurts. He reads out new decrees with a youthful voice and a shaky smile, too short to reach his shadow. People set to work building over the crater, burying the scarred ground, and Quackity’s back hurts. Philza Minecraft smiles, gentle, and asks if he could be of assistance, and Tubbo flinches away, and Quackity’s back hurts.
A month passes, and Quackity’s back hurts, and Sapnap knocks on his ramshackle door and says, “come with us?”
At his side, Karl peeks out. There is a shining gold band on his finger. There is a matching one on Sapnap’s, on Quackity’s own. It feels like a binding in more ways than one; a to-be signed deal that he can’t ever let his guard down, let his cover blow, and -
Quackity’s back hurts. The moments he has alone in his cabin, curtains drawn and door barred, painless, free – those moments are few and far between, but he hangs on to them dearly. He needs them, soldiers through the day because they are there when the sun goes down, waiting for him –
But so are Karl and Sapnap.
“Q?” asks Karl, all hesitant and shy grins and thousands of memories that Quackity can’t abandon, that he longs for, and Quackity’s back hurts.
He’s living a lie for most of the day. If he goes with them, he’ll never catch a break, but –
Karl and Sapnap are all he has, and Quackity –
Quackity loves them. He slipped the ring on for a reason, knelt down on one knee for a reason.
“Yes,” he tells them, and his back aches.
2.
Sapnap says, “let’s make a home,” and twelve days later, they have the outline for a country.
A stretching skyline prairie, towering over L’Manberg - high above the wreckage. On the first night, Quackity wakes to thin cloud and his bedsheets soaked with dew, but they fix that. They - he and Karl and Sapnap - fix that.
And it’s nice, despite everything. There’s an ever-present morning chill, and no matter how heavily he insulates the houses he’s cold, but the sunset in their country is beautiful, and his fiancés are beautiful, and everything else is kind of excusable. On the third day of living in their country, Karl ventures out to L’Manberg and comes back with his arms laden full of fabric. “We need a flag,” he says when prompted, and so they all huddle up in their house, in their bed, and sew. None of them are any good at it, and the finished product is lumpy and misshapen, but it’s - lovely. Sapnap drapes it over the three of them and slings an arm around his and Karl’s shoulders, and it’s nice. It’s nice. It’s theirs.
“We need a name,” Karl murmurs after a while, face pressed in the crook of Sapnap’s neck. Quackity inclines his head and Sapnap reaches up to scratch at it lazily, and Quackity bites down on the insides of his cheeks, hard, eyes widening.
Deep in his throat, Quackity can feel the stream of primitive birdlike noises brewing. Touch is a catalyst, and Quackity isn’t being careful enough. His chest convulses and he clamps two hands over his mouth, eyes watering. His back is aching. His shoulder blades are on fire.
“Quackity?” Sapnap whispers, quiet and hesitant and - scared. Quackity flinches. “Q, what’s wrong?”
Sapnap shifts forward, hand settling on the small of Quackity’s back, and he can’t breathe. The pain is innumerable - he - he -
He stands, wobbling, joints screaming, chest heaving, he’s in so much pain his back hurts why does it hurt -
Distantly, he registers Karl crying, Sapnap yelling. Some neglected part of his mind howls, begs for their comfort, begs for him to let himself free and stop hurting, please, but he can’t do that, because - because -
He shuffles a step forward and takes a knee to the ground. “Quackity!” Someone screams - and the scene cuts to black.
3.
He comes to quickly. He’s always been an early riser, a morning person - partly attributed to the DNA in his genomes, partly Schlatt’s own doing. Quackity blinks his eyes open, takes in the crisp sheets and spruce floorboards and L’Manberg air, and bolts.
“Woah, kid,” someone says, and then their hands are on his, fighting him back down. Quackity kicks up, fists flying, and the person stops. He scrambles back on the bed, reaching for something, anything - where are his weapons, where is his sword, you can’t hurt me Schlatt, I won’t let you - and blinks.
In the corner of the room, Philza Minecraft nurses a bruising eye.
“You’re not Schlatt,” Quackity says, before he can stop himself. Philza seems to soften, hand falling from his eye. “So - sorry.”
“Nah, mate,” Philza smiles, gentle and kind; not at all like the man that had whitelisted himself and stepped forward out of the ashes with his son’s blood on his hands. “Don’t be sorry. I probably should’ve account for past - issues.”
Philza stands, rising out of the armchair, and as he does, two great black shapes unfurl behind him; his wings. Quackity doesn’t think he’s seen them up this close before - even from across the room he can see their shine, the way they’re all perfect and unbent and slick. Each individual feather looks cared for; Quackity can’t see any trace of rust-brown blood, any missing feathers, any scratch or slightly bent feather or - anything. Philza stands proud, wings held high, and - Quackity looks away.
“Quackity, right?” Philza asks. His face takes on an abashed expression, and he curls his wings in a bit - not enough to hide them behind his back or pull them in under his skin, obscure them from the world, no - he folds them down so the flight feathers trail across the floor and lick at the dust between the floorboards. It looks almost comfortable, the position Philza is in. Quackity doesn’t know how he could ever feel that way.
“What do you want?” He says instead. Philza knows who he is; he’s only making small talk, and Quackity’s not having it. “Money? Weapons? Armour?”
Philza blanches. “What? Mate, no - I just wanted to talk to you.”
Quackity stares. “Right.” Philza isn’t fooling anyone. Everybody wants something.
“Seriously,” Phil affirms, and edges a little closer to the bed. Quackity readies his hands. He might be defenseless in terms of tools, but he knows how to fight. “You - you look like you could use someone right now.”
“Do I?” Quackity retorts. “Thanks, old man. You wanna be my therapist? Wanna help me through the long nights and be there when I wake up screaming?”
Philza shrugs, tilting his head to one side and shifting his shoulder up. The joke tumbles over his head and falls through the slats in the wooden floor. “Sure, if you want.”
“That was a fucking joke,” Quackity deadpans. He holds up his left hand. His fourth finger catches the light streaming through the open windows, glinting, and Philza leans forward. “Don’t need your help. Got my own.”
Philza raises a matching hand. The corners of his mouth downturn. “I understand you, mate, but I think you might need a hand.”
“Oh, yeah?” Quackity snarks. “And why is that?”
“Because they dropped you here last night.”
In his ears, Quackity hears his pulse quicken, deepen. One-two, three-four. Hears it bounce and beat, quarter and then sixteenth notes. He curls his thumb over his knuckles and readies his hands. “Wh - what the fuck are you on about?”
His heartbeat pounds faster. Philza steps forward, lips parting, and Quackity flies to his feet, scuttling back on the mattress and standing, and -
He trips. There’s an added weight on his back, unfamiliar and crushing , and as he stands everything aches, burns. He goes stumbling back, forehead clipping into the headboard, crumpling against the mattress. Philza is speaking soft words and something else - familiar noises, and Quackity is kicking, pushing at something, anything; he can’t have his wings out, he won’t let his wings out, he’s not safe, he’s not safe.
“Quackity!”
Just because Philza is a hybrid doesn’t mean anything. He’s had people turn on him before.
“Kid, I said stop - “
Quackity lands a hit. Philza hisses, and then there’s cold skin on his, wind under his feathers -- floor underneath his body. He blinks, scrubs a shaky hand across his face and raises it to his eyeline. There’s red under his fingernails. Quackity’s not sure if it’s his or not.
Still standing, Philza glares down at him. A small part of Quackity is pleased to note that behind the fingers nursing his jaw, Philza’s skin is bruising, dotted with red crescents. “Are you done?”
“You shithead,” Quackity snarls, and attempts to pull himself to his feet. He goes straight back down, knees knocking; probably a combination of his fucking wings, why are they out, and Philza pummelling him into the floor. “I’ll - I’ll - “
“You’ll what?” Philza deadpans, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’ll wait. You’ve got no weapons, you’re injured - I’d have you in seconds.”
Philza is right, and they both know it. He scrunches his eyes up tight and worms his way into the corner of the room. “Why am I here?”
“You don’t remember?”
“No?”
Quackity opens one eye, untrusting. Philza perches on the edge of the mattress. “Karl said you were screaming. You passed out, and they brought you here.”
“...right.”
Philza inhales, left hand caressing the bridge of his nose. “Quackity,” he says, “you can’t - you can’t hurt yourself like that.”
Quackity blinks his other eye open. “The fuck?”
“You know what I mean,” Phil chastises, voice tired. “Your wings, kid. You can’t hide them away like that.”
Quackity huffs, shaking his head. He presses both hands to the wall and tries to lift himself up, gripping onto the uneven wood. His legs are shaky, but - he needs out. He needs to leave. “You don’t know shit, Philza Minecraft.”
“Please, call me Phil - “
"Phil, then, doesn’t change shit - you don’t understand. You don’t get it.”
Phil shifts forward. “So tell me.”
Quackity laughs. “You - what? Phil, you’re an idiot. I can’t not hide. ”
“Why?”
“Why?” Quackity thunders, grip slipping. “Open your fucking eyes, old man - what am I?”
“A hybrid.”
“A monster.”
Phil hesitates, but he made his bed, and now he can lie in it. The words are flowing now, and Quackity doesn’t have enough fucks to give to stop it.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this server isn’t exactly kind to - people like me.”
“That’s not true, they’re fine with me - “
“Of course they are! You’re, like, a whole ass God, right? I’m Quackity. ”
“And?”
“And - you didn’t see how they looked at Schlatt. How they look at Tubbo’s fuckin’ friend - Ranboo, is it? How they look at Technoblade.”
Phil stands from the bed, joints popping. “Kid, this isn’t Hypixel. They’re not going to hurt you.”
Quackity laughs. It comes out bitter. Empty. “You don’t know that. You’ve been here a grand total of what, three seconds? I’ve been here years, dickhead. You haven’t seen the stares.”
Phil swallows. Ducks his head against his chest. A flash of something flickers in his eyes. Defeat, recognition - Quackity can’t quite tell. Underneath his shoulder blades, pain burns. “Fine. Just - tell your fianc é s. Please.”
He exhales. “I can’t. You don’t understand .”
The room falls silent. Quackity takes a step forward. Makes knuckles of his hands. Digs his fingernails in and tenses - his forearms, biceps, shoulders, neck. In one great movement, he forces his arms back, arches his spine, and pulls in his wings.
There’s - pain. For a second, Quackity’s world goes white - for a second, he feels nothing but the crying of his shoulders and the aching of his extra limbs. He feels himself gasp, feels his ribs convulse and arms jerk - feels another pair of hands settle on his shoulders, and then the white fades, ebbing away to a black and a final red-orange. He rubs his eyes with [aching] palms. The colour fades. Philza comes into view, eyes soft, smile loose. Worried. It looks natural on him, like he wears the expression often. Quackity - hates it.
“Mate,” Phil begins. “Please.”
Quackity inhales. “I’m sorry,” he tells him, and a small part of him actually means it. “But - I have good reason, okay? You’ve - you’ve gotta let me do this.”
Philza drops his hands. Unrestrained, Quackity turns away, fingers still pressed against the wall for support. From the doorway, he can see the ruins of L’Manberg - the spruce stage, the dynamite hills.
“Why?”
On the horizon, El Rapids - their affectionately named home - rises. Above the grass plain, Quackity can make out the silhouette of a house. He knows who’ll be standing at the kitchen window, waiting, peering out. He knows who’ll be at the door. There are only two people who’ve ever waited up for him, and -
“I can’t lose them.”
Phil goes quiet at that. Quackity takes it as his cue to leave.
4.
Quackity - doesn’t stop hurting. He climbs the staircase, muscles convulsing and burning under his skin all the way, and when he makes it top, Karl’s there, head resting in his palm, soft grin on his face - the one he gets when he’s thinking about something. It’s endearing, until -
Karl sees him. His head slips from his hand as Quackity comes into view, and in an instant he’s up and bounding toward him, face contorting in a frown. “Q - oh my god. You’re okay? What did Philza say? Are - what’s wrong? What happened?”
Quackity holds up his hands in mock surrender. “Woah, horsey - I’m fine.” As if to punctuate his sentence, his knee gives out. Karl darts forward, arms out. “I - I’m good. Sorry.”
“No being sorry,” his fianc é s chastises. It’s the kind of moment reminiscent of Karl fake scolding him for finding his hand dipped in the cookie jar, or something. Only - there’s no joking lilt in his tone. “Q, what happened?”
Karl wraps his other arm around his waist and lowers him to the grassy floor. It’s comforting, after a night of unfamiliarity and a morning of mental anguish. Quackity finds himself leaning into Karl’s embrace, tucking his head over his shoulder and looping his arms with his. Karl shifts to accommodate him, pulling Quackity closer.
“I dunno,” Quackity mumbles, voice obscured by Karl’s hoodie. Lying is second nature to him now, but lying to his fianc é s always stings a little more. He turns his head and buries it in the crook of Karl’s neck so he doesn’t have to look, loops his fingers in the fabric of his jumper. “Phil doesn’t know.”
“Really?”
“Mm. S’probably just - a bug, or something.”
Karl pulls away from him at that, moving his hands from where they were intertwined in Quackity’s hair to cup at his face. Karl’s eyes are - dimmer. There’s something deeper in them, and Quackity’s chest burns; he prays to any God that’ll listen that he didn’t cause it. Still, no matter how much it hurts him - he can’t say anything. He can’t -
“You’re sure?” Karl asks, searching his eyes. Quackity swallows. Nods.
You can’t tell them; you’ll lose them too.
“Yeah,” Quackity says.
With a small smile, Karl lets his hand fall from Quackity’s chin to squeeze his shoulder. Under his feather-light touch, Quackity’s fucking stupid primal instincts rear their ugly head again. Chirps rise in his throat, dangerous, brewing close to the surface. There’s only one way Quackity knows how to stop them.
He stands up, wriggling out of Karl’s grasp. The chirps cease. He offers Karl a tentative smile in return, and tries not to focus on the way his lover’s face drops. “C’mon, Carlos . Let’s go see Sapnap.”
He extends a hand out. Karl eyes it, hesitant. Quackity tries not to let his hurt show. If he looks at you like that now, what do you think he’ll say when he finds out?
Karl takes his hand. Quackity squeezes it thrice, I love you, and Karl mirrors his action with a grin.
He won’t, Quackity tells himself as they walk toward the sun. Inside, a face darts from the window. The door snaps open seconds later, teetering on its hinges. Sapnap fits into his arms almost perfectly. By his side, Karl giggles, and ducks into his chest, and it feels good. It feels really good.
Quackity holds them both close, and for a moment, they stay like that - just the three of them. Together, together. Overhead, the sun dips and ink blue unravels across the sky, and Quackity -
Closes his eyes. Drops his chin to rest on Sapnap’s head. Tugs Karl in close.
He can’t let them know. He’ll keep it a secret ‘till it kills him.
5.
Surprisingly, there’s a lot to do in a country you don’t affiliate with anymore; Quackity strolls into town one day, Karl clasping his left arm and Sapnap on his right, and a tired Tubbo races up with a stack of paperwork. “Please,” he says. “You were good as Schlatt’s secretary; help a guy out?”
Karl’s eyes are wide, pitying. He turns to Quackity, who promptly hits him over the head with the papers, because Karl knows he can’t resist his stupid doe eyes. Tubbo brightens and bounds away with a lighter step, and Quackity’s left - in the same position he was before.
It’s not as bad as it used to be, he finds. Every now and again, Tubbo drops off a couple of stacks of assignments - laws to be reviewed, changes to be made - and every now and again, Quackity complies. Fills them out, checks for mistakes. Helps Tubbo fix them up and build a better society. Even if he’s not directly a part of the change he’s making, he finds himself enjoying the work. It feels like - L’Manberg’s healing, properly. The country’s coming together again. Everything’s looking up, and Quackity couldn’t be happier, really, only -
His back aches. As the days pass, the pain worsens. He’ll sit around the fireplace, head in Sapnap’s lap, paperwork in hand, and Karl’ll call them out for dinner, and Quackity won’t be able to get up. When the sky dims and the cold winds settle in, Quackity’s joints lock up like he’s old and frail, like he’s Philza fucking Minecraft. He spends his time faking smiles and biting down on agony, back aching, body crying.
Everything’s good. Everything else is good, just this - small factor isn’t. And, Prime, how he wants it to be. Whenever he finds himself well enough to venture to L’Manberg, he stops and prays, begs to wake up the next dawn with a smile and no wings. It never comes. Quackity supposes he deserves it. In the end, it doesn’t matter if he does or doesn’t - all that matters is that he’s normal. All that matters is that he keeps up the pretense. Keeps Karl and Sapnap.
Everything’s good. Tubbo gives him an off-day for the first time in a long time, and Quackity spends the night before planning it out in great detail, laughing with Karl and Sapnap and play-fighting on what they’re going to do. “God,” Karl giggles, hand covering his mouth as Quackity writes down their itinerary, “this is nice. We haven’t done something like this in so long.”
“It’ll be fucking lit,” Sapnap agrees, and brings them into a hug, tugging Quackity away from his papers. “We’re gonna have the time of our lives.”
They fall asleep like that; Sapnap’s arms around Quackity’s neck, Karl laid out across them. They fall asleep happy, together, and -
Quackity wakes up crying.
His body is alight. This pain is - nothing like he’s ever experienced before; all encompassing and - and -
His vision darts in and out. He can’t think. Can’t breathe. Quackity reaches out an unsteady hand for anything, anything, Prime, someone please help, and something shifts beside him.
“Mm, wassagoinon? Oh, shit - Q? Karl, wake up - Karl!”
Quackity falls. Crumples from the couch and curls up, limbs twitching. He blinks, and his head feels like it’s about to cave in. He twitches a finger, and the Earth tilts on its orbit and plummets away.
“ - get Philza, text him on my comms; he’ll know what to do,” someone is saying - crying? Quackity hears a sob, or maybe a scream. Pain flares again, hot and red and fucking angry, and he cries out, loud. “Fuck, Karl - what do we do?”
“Phil’s coming,” Karl answers, voice thick with emotion. Quackity moans. “Big Q, it’s - we have to. I know you don’t like him, but - please . Fuck, Sap, where is he?”
“Here,” says a new voice. “What’s happening?”
Someone says his name. Two pairs of hands lay on his skin. For a second, it’s excruciating, and then - comforting. He finds himself leaning into the touch. Feather-light fingertips scratch at his hairline, soft. Quackity’s too far gone to stop the chirping.
“What - what’s he doing?”
“He still didn’t tell you?”
“Tell us what? Philza - “
“ - Phil, please - “
“ Tell us what? ”
The hand scratching at his hair stops, and dimly, Quackity realises he’s crying harder.
“I can’t tell you,” Phil says. There’s a rustling sound, followed by a pop - the unmissable noise of a potion uncapping. Quackity tenses. “I - Quackity? Mate, can you hear me?”
He pulls his head down, eyes scrunched. “It hurts,” he whispers. The sound of his own voice - raspy, emotional - scares him; he wasn’t expecting to be able to reply. The hand in his hair starts up again.
“I can fix the pain, mate,” Phil says. “Please?”
Quackity’s back snaps involuntary, arching against the pain. He grits his teeth. Forces himself to think. He knows what Philza’s asking, knows what it means. He’s too far gone for a healing potion, but regeneration. Regeneration would work, only - too well.
Underneath his skin, he feels his wings - writhe. Scream, cry. They want out, and Quackity wants in, but he’s hurting. Always has; doesn’t want it to be always will.
You’ll lose them, his brain tells him.
“I’m sorry,” he sobs. Cries. Sapnap bristles by his side, but he doesn’t know what the apology’s for yet. “I’m sorry, okay? Don’t - don’t leave - I don’t want to lose you two.”
“Phil?” Karl breathes. “What’s he - what’s he on about?”
Phil ignores them. “Quackity. You’re sure?”
“Mm,” he chokes out. “Just. Do it. Do it.”
I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
He hears the glass shatter first. The smell comes second; he breathes in the sickly smell and gags on the fumes, and then -
Everything is white.
1.
He opens his eyes, and nothing hurts. There’s no pain - not even a dull ache under his shoulder blades. He opens his eyes, and he’s free, and - his fiancés stare back at him.
Karl, open-mouthed, eyes wide, lips parted. Sapnap, mouth pressed into a steely line, eyebrows raised in shock. Quackity knows what they’re staring at before he turns his head to check.
His wings were never big things, but out in the open, unrestrained, they take up more space than he remembers. The left sticks out on an angle. His primaries and secondaries are gone - as are most of his feathers, replaced with a fluffy yellow down. Quackity traces a gentle finger through it. It’s strange. He supposes he’d done such a number to his wings that there wasn’t much the Regeneration pot could do.
“So,” Karl says. Quackity jerks his attention back, heart racing. “Um. You’re a - bird?”
“Hybrid,” Phil corrects gently from the corner. Quackity hadn’t even realised he was still there. “Some sort of - duck, if I’m correct in assuming?”
Quackity bows his head; he can’t look at his fiancés right now. “I don’t know,” he says honestly. “I - uh. I’ve been hiding - it. For a long time.”
Sapnap sucks in a breath. “That’s why you’ve been in pain, isn’t it? You were hiding, and it hurt you.”
“Fuck, Q,” Karl sobs. “You were hurting? All that time?”
Quackity stares at his hands. Breathes. “You - you can go now, if you want. Leave, that is.”
Karl makes a noise. “You thought - you thought we’d leave you?”
Quackity wipes his face with the back of his palm. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”
There’s a squeak of a chair skidding back and then a dull thud. Karl’s hands settle on Quackity’s jaw, gentle, soft. He tilts his head up so their eyelines meet, and smiles, genuine. Sapnap sinks from his perched position on their couch to the floor with them, own hand resting on Quackity’s knee. Philza coughs.
“I’ll be going then,” he says, giving a little wave, and ducks into the doorway. Quackity watches him take flight, watches him surf the wind effortlessly, brilliantly.
“Q,” Karl says. “Quackity, we - we’re never going to leave you. Not over something like this.”
“What he said,” says Sapnap, eloquent. Quackity laughs wetly. Sapnap curls an arm around them both. “We love you, Quackity. You’re not gonna lose us.”
And - fuck. If that isn’t good to hear.
“But the rest of the server,” he protests, fighting down a fresh wave of tears. “I’ve seen how they look at Ranboo. You saw how everyone looked at Schlatt.”
Karl shakes his head, and takes Quackity’s hand. His finger glides over the engagement ring there, and Quackity can’t stop himself from grinning. “It doesn’t matter what they think; you’ll have us.”
“No matter what,” Sapnap affirms. “Whatever happens, we’ll be here.”
Quackity takes a breath. “You’ll be here?”
“Always,” Karl says.
“Always,” Sapnap echoes.
Quackity grins. Always, he thinks.
He opens his wings.