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Quackity had honestly never felt stupider. The more he thought about his relationship with Sapnap and Karl, the more he realised he should've seen it before. If there was anything that relationship uncovered, it was that Sapnap and Karl had eyes only for each other. He was just a spare part they picked up. Even when they grew closer, they were closer to each other than Quackity. They had in-jokes and private places, couple things that neither of them shared with Quackity. It hits Quackity that, even as they built Mexican L'Manburg for the three of them, Sapnap and Karl were a unit. Quackity was just too optimistic to let it bother him. He was too bright to realise that they'd forget him at some point.
Now here he was, forgotten. Quackity was lying face-up on his office carpet in a country he made for Karl and Sapnap while they were off in their cottagecore utopia. It all sat heavy in his chest like a testament to being unloveable.
Quackity tipped his head to the side, the solid fibres scratching his neck and messing up his hair. Okay, maybe he could admit that there's more build-up to feeling unloveable. Schlatt alone proved it well enough. Then there was the mound of lost friendships that just came with living in the Dream SMP. Even Wilbur had left.
Quackity threw his arm across his head, attempting to block out the sanitised light of the white LEDs as his head began to buzz. Everyone assumed Wilbur had committed suicide again. Or something along those lines. He couldn't really talk clearly about it. Every conversation involving the words 'Wilbur' and 'died' usually results in a stake to the heart and another hour on some random office carpet letting corporate anonymity wash over him like antibacterial cream cleaning his open wounds. Still, it was generally assumed.
Quackity felt like he laid there for a long while, the buzz in his head steadily increasing until it was an unbearable splitting. Eventually, it got too much, and he pushed himself up so he could click the light off.
Quackity returned to the floor, and his eyes flickered to the frame left face-down on the desk. Then there was his family: Sam, who just got more numb with every day spent as the Warden (not that Quackity himself was much better), and George, his hypersomniac older brother, whom he barely saw anymore (and joined his exes in their mushroom kingdom). The list goes on. He sighed, letting his body sink further into the rock-solid industrial carpet. Maybe he was just a testament to being unloveable.
Quackity was on the precipice of continuing his spiral when a hollow knock echoed throughout the office.
The hollow knock on the office door echoed around the narrow passage. Wilbur rocked back and forth on his heels as he waited. Though the definitely-had-bones receptionist said Quackity was in, the darkness that swallowed the cracks around the door unnerved him, as did the silence that seemed to stretch every second into millennia. And it felt like many millennia before there was a muted scratchy shuffle then "come in", and Wilbur allowed himself a quiet sigh before letting himself in.
Wilbur first noticed the generic aesthetic upon stepping into the office, which struck him as the antithesis of the rival he was supposed to loathe. Then he saw Quackity. His shoulders drooped with the same burden as Atlas, and his hands looked heavy even to lift, let alone use. Wilbur would bet that his eyebags would be deep enough to challenge bin bags and win in the daylight. Nevertheless, he was almost impressed that Quackity's eyes still tracked him with a clenched jaw and hard eyes as he closed the door and walked further into the room.
"What are you doing here?"
Wilbur gave his best teasing smirk, "No 'hi'? No 'Wilbur, oh I've missed you so, my dear rival'?"
Quackity took a step forward. The look behind his eyes was unnervingly frosty. "Not after six months of radio silence. What the fuck do you want?"
"Am I not allowed to visit my dearest rival?"
Wilbur could hear the grinding of Quackity's teeth in the quiet of the building. He could also hear the barely repressed growl beneath it.
Wilbur couldn't help but grin. Bingo. "Y'know, Quackity, growling like that, you sound like a mutt."
"Y'know what?" Quackity's eyes narrowed into slits. Suddenly he was two giant steps closer, his hand forcefully clamped around Wilbur's neck, pinning him to the door. "Once I've heard the one thing you have to say, I want you out of my fucking office."
The wind was knocked out of him by the impact of the door. Wilbur's vision then slowly began to blur with the pressure on his windpipe. His breathing was stuttering and clogging his chest. Everything felt too much, like a boat on his chest, shining searchlights in his eyes and regularly using the fog horn. Still, he kept his eyes fixed on the glare aimed at him by his esteemed rival, made complete by his set jaw and the shoulders that Wilbur had watched bunch up as he teased him, and frantically nodded.
"I just- Quackity, I need somewhere to stay." Wilbur choked out, his voice scratching his throat like freshly-mined flint and steel.
The glare intensified, "Oh really? Don't you have like three other people who'd be willing to offer that?"
Wilbur grimaced, "Ah yes, what a great idea. The dad and his old friend and the disappointment of yet another apology, the younger brother with no house to spare and what I'm about 60% sure is distrust towards me, or the rival who might kill me, but that just makes him more attractive. Such great candidates. Which would you say is the best?"
Quackity's glare (and hand) eased as Wilbur spoke, then raised an eyebrow, still frowning, "Don't you have a van at the border?"
"That's still there?" Wilbur let his eyes go wide as he mentally reeled back, taking note of the cleaner voice after Quackity's hand loosened up.
Quackity shrugged, almost mild enough to be the Q Wilbur once knew, "Well, yeah, we didn't remove it if that's what you're asking."
"Wow, I would've thought you would've taken the first opportunity to get rid and ran with it."
Quackity's shoulders set back into the new, eyes hardening again, "Believe me, part of me wanted to, but it looked like a waste of resources."
Wilbur's lips quirked into a tiny smirk, "Ah yes, wouldn't want to waste resources in a fake desert, would we?"
Quackity's eyes narrowed, then he suddenly pushed his arm forward, tightening his hand again, "Which is why I want to know why the fuck I should let you stay."
A surge of panic rushed up through Wilbur's chest again. He clawed desperately to find some leeway to let himself breathe. Fuck, when did he get so strong? This time he couldn't focus on anything aside from the painful squeezing. If he didn't know his rival so well, he'd think he was about to die. His vision began to blur and blacken, and he whined desperately.
The hand suddenly let go. Wilbur sagged forward, desperately refilling his lungs in gasps, and slid to the ground. His head drooped forward as his vision clarified before wrenching it back up.
Quackity's eyes were wide, his mouth opening and closing like a goldfish. He'd taken a step back, and his hands were very carefully placed by his side. He looked stiff like that. Wilbur could also just about see the crease between his brows.
"Y'know, if I didn't know any better, I'd think you were worried about me." Wilbur could feel his tired smirk while he continued to refill his lungs.
Quackity's shoulders dropped as he let out a huff and a half-hearted "Shut up." His eyes refused to meet Wilbur's.
Wilbur's brow pinched even further for a second. Then his eyes slid towards where Quackity's choking hand was fidgeting slightly, and he felt his face flush as he made an educated guess as to why. Then, finally, he pushed himself a little forward and slowly reached forward before pausing to try and catch Quackity's eye.
"May I?"
Quackity's eyes shifted cautiously between the hand and Wilbur's face, which Wilbur was half-focused on keeping open and non-threatening. Quackity nodded shakily. Wilbur gently caught his wrist and then slid down to hold his hand. He then carefully guided it back to his neck, using his thumb to push Quackity's first two fingers down.
"I'm alive," He whispered, holding the remaining two fingers to his pulse point. "I'm alive."
Quackity's thumb brushed the top of Wilbur's hand gently as eyes flicked between their hands, "You're alive."
They settled in the moment. Then Quackity nodded and backed away slowly, tugging his arm away and back down to his side. The tender feeling that'd welled up in Wilbur's chest sank painfully, but Wilbur just tilted his head and let him go. If he were an idealist, he'd be sure that Quackity's cheeks looked slightly pinker, and he stepped back (not that his own were any better).
The silence that followed lasted a minute.
Wilbur watched as Quackity took a few deeply measured breaths. His eyes were closed. It felt like he was building up to something, and his mouth thinned further and further as his shoulders tensed.
Then the rains began again.
"Six months? I thought you were dead! Again! Fucking hell Wilbur, you would've thought that a brain like yours could've thought to fucking warn people? But apparently not!" Quackity's beanie was long gone at his feet, his hands combing through his hair at record rates as he paced through his tirade. " Tommy didn't even know where you were. How fucked do you have to be not to tell Tommy ."
Wilbur floundered, mouth opening and closing in an almost mirror of Quackity after choking him, eventually settling on "He would've followed me-"
"Yeah, well, you could've told me!" Wilbur's mouth closed with a click. Quackity's chest was heaving as he stopped abruptly in front of Wilbur, hands paused mid-gesture. "You could've told me. At least I could've told them you weren't dead ."
Quackity's hands were thrown back to his sides, fists clenched, while his eyes roamed Wilbur's face, searching for something. His mouth was pressed in a thin line before smearing into a sneer. He didn't seem to find it.
"I mean, fuck Wilbur , you could've at least sent a letter if you were that desperate to be alone. Anything, anything at all."
A moment passed. Silence. Wilbur went to reply but stopped before he could get a sound out. The downpour weighed heavy on the atmosphere; he could almost feel the water soaking their clothes. It only added to the Earth on Quackity's shoulders as he finally let his entire body sag, sighing. He was still regaining his breath from the tirade. Wilbur stopped trying and just blinked, distracting himself by admiring the clearing sky in Quackity's eyes. A clock ticked. And still, the moment hung between them on a string.
"Quackity..."
"Y'know what, Wilbur? I've had enough. I entertained your point. Save it. Get out."
Wilbur nodded mutely and watched as Quackity picked up his beanie and walked behind his desk. The dim light from the country below filtering in from the wall of windows behind him made him look damn near angelic—just another item to a list of newly misleading attributes.
Wilbur forced himself to look away and then picked himself up from the floor, brushing himself off. Then, finally, he turned around to the door.
"And Wilbur."
His hand paused on the handle, "Yes?"
"You can stay in the hotel. Room 209."
Wilbur smiled to himself, "Why thank you, Mr President, and if you want to talk, at least you'll know where to find me."
If looks could kill, Wilbur had a feeling he'd be back in Limbo with a shot through the back of his head. "Thanks. I won't."
Quackity's entire body felt tired as he watched Wilbur exit the building, pulling his ratty trench coat around himself to presumably keep out the desert cold. Still, his chest felt calm. The quiet, smooth kind of calm that settles after a satisfying cry and a hug from someone close. It was a calm he hadn't felt since the beginning of his relationship with Karl and Sapnap.
Tears pricked at the corners of Quackity's eyes, but he refused to let them fall. He couldn't help but hope that maybe he was just a little wanted by someone. Perhaps, suppose he's optimistic or just unjaded for the day. In that case, he could even hope that he's loved, even if it is by the bastard zombie who ran away for six months out of cowardice and blew up his own country.
Quackity shook his head at himself before tearing himself away from the window. After all, he had to make a call, so someone had a bed for the night.