Chapter Text
1/2.
Quackity’s slow exhale clouds the air before him. His vision blurs, and it makes him want to let out another heavy breath. He doesn’t. He stands stock-still for a moment, quieting his desperate lungs and the heart that beats too fast in his chest, then trudges on; he’s here for a reason, and he won’t be deterred from it, no matter how violently his organs threaten to give out on him. There’s nothing to be afraid of here. It’s only Tubbo.
It’s only Tubbo in this whole goddamn place, it seems – Snowchester is huge, especially with the mansion looming over the horizon, the prison nearly hidden out of sight behind it, yet only one house out of the many clustered around the icy cove has smoke puffing out its chimney. The air here is quiet; it reminds him of Las Nevadas in an eerie, unwelcome way. Las Nevadas in its early days, after Sam had gone home, leaving him to stroll the half-lit strip alone. Las Nevadas when Purpled had left for materials; when Slime had buried himself in solitude in some hole in the ground; when Fundy went to sleep and wouldn’t wake up. Las Nevadas when it snows.
Quackity hates the snow. He can’t remember why. Maybe it was the time it snowed in Pogtopia, and he’d huddled against the wall of the cave, wishing shamefully to go back to Schlatt. Maybe it was the days spent breathing in falling ash after Wilbur and after Dream in L’manburg. Maybe it was when he’d gone after Technoblade and got a pickaxe through his teeth as a parting gift. Maybe it’s how he now stands at the top of the Needle and stares down at his artificial country, reliving conversations from better days. Worse days. It all blends together now. Maybe the days weren’t as bad as he remembers them to be.
His boots crunch loudly in the snow, and the sound grates on his ears. His steps are heavy, too heavy. It’s still unsettling to him to wear netherite. Maybe he shouldn’t have worn it to come here. Tubbo was there when Wilbur, or Tommy, or whoever came up with that stupid no-armor law; maybe Tubbo doesn’t like armor either. Maybe it reminds him too much of executions and revolutions and coups. Quackity doesn’t know Tubbo anymore. Maybe he shouldn’t have come here.
He’s fairly certain Tubbo owns this place. Why, then, does he live in this little shack instead of the huge mansion a minute’s walk away? It’s his mansion, right? It’s gotta be. That’s Foolish’s work, he’s sure of it. And Foolish doesn’t work for free. Ranboo wore a crown. (A crown that Wilbur Soot blew to pieces.)
Quackity steps up to the door and hesitates. There’s a little mailbox on the porch. An old, withered flower sits inside it, along with a collection of water-stained papers. He doubts Tubbo’s opened it in a long time. That’s how Schlatt’s office looked on the day Quackity finally dragged himself up there to clean it out. Flowers that Quackity had given him months ago and ink blurred by alcohol. Finally, he knocks. He almost expects no one to answer. It makes his stomach lurch, then, when the door swings open, and Tubbo stands on the other side.
Tubbo is confusing to him these days. When they argued over the damn cookie outpost, his hair was long; it was messy and hung over his face. (Over his scars.) He had this look about him, this gleam in his eye that made the web of scars seem darker, made his redstone-stained hands look incriminating. He’d carried himself with a confidence Quackity could never quite replicate, and when he looked back at Ranboo as he and Quackity walked away to talk, Quackity swore there was something in his face that he recognized. He nearly mustered up the courage to ask. But then Tubbo showed up to work with his hair cut short and without the ring on his horn, and he looked a lot smaller. He signed his name the way he always had, and his face gave away nothing. So Quackity bit his tongue and simply told him to get to work.
The Tubbo that stands in front of him now is neither of those Tubbos; he’s not Wilbur’s terrified child spy, and he’s not Schlatt’s prodigal son. He looks at Quackity with one eye clear blue and the other clouded grey, mouth twisted into a scowl. He says, flatly, “What the hell are you doing here.” It’s not a question, but he expects an answer. Quackity has gotten pretty good at figuring out what people expect. When people want something from you, they never tell you in so many words.
“Hey, Twobo,” Quackity says easily instead. Tubbo’s expectations are frequently broken. He should expect that by now.
Tubbo looks like he wants to slam the door in his face. “Don’t call me that.”
“...Right.” Quackity clears his throat. “I heard Ranboo died.”
Tubbo peers at him suspiciously. Is he peering or trying to get a clear look at him? Sapnap told Quackity once, towards the end, that he gets all squinty when he tries to meet his and Karl’s eyes. He hasn’t been the same since the execution. Neither has Tubbo. “You killed him.”
“I didn’t kill him – Wilbur – “ Tubbo’s glare makes him shut his mouth. Wilbur fucking killed him with that stupid trap, not me. “I heard you were married,” he clarifies, as if either of them needs it.
“Who told you that?”
Quackity doesn’t respond. What does he even say? Sam, Ranboo’s killer? Technoblade, Tubbo’s killer? Tommy, Tubbo’s only friend left? (Dream?) None of them seem to be the right answer. None of them should have told him, probably, if he’s being honest about how fucked up this all is. If he takes a step back, now that he’s older and the clock has ticked on, he can look at Tubbo, at himself, at everyone and think about what they’ve all done. But it’s too late now. He knows. And now Tubbo knows.
Tubbo stares at him. Steps aside. He doesn’t say a word. Quackity strolls through the doorway like he owns it.
Tubbo’s little cabin is a mess. The floor is covered in chicken feathers, and there are cracks in the windows – the breeze brushes the exposed back of his neck, and he shivers. The whole place smells strongly of rotting meat. Jesus, this is why Quackity hires people to do things for him. (Schlatt really had the right idea on that one.)
He sits down heavily on a chest. Tubbo stays standing, arms folded, an inscrutable expression on his face. It barely even bothers Quackity anymore to be looked down on. When Schlatt did it, when Wilbur did it, he would always shrink back. Make himself smaller, because that’s what people who tower over you want to see. But now, when he gets into shouting matches with Wilbur on the burning pavement of Las Nevadas’ road, he takes pride in forcing Wilbur’s neck to crane down to look at him. “So this is your country, right? It’s… nice.”
“It’s a commune,” Tubbo says immediately before blinking and narrowing his eyes. “Don’t bother with lying to me, Big Q. It’s fucking empty.”
Oh, so you get to call me Big Q like we’re still in L’manburg, like we’re hiding from Schlatt in a spare office, bandaging each other’s wounds, but I can’t call you Twobo? “What happened?”
“Life,” Tubbo tells him. “Things happen.”
Things happen my ass. “Is that how your marriage happened?” Quackity asks. “‘Life?’”
Tubbo glances away briefly, then immediately meets his eye again. “None of your business.”
“No?” Quackity crosses his ankle over his other leg, rests his elbows on his knees. “I happen to have a vested interest in all of my employees.”
“Fuck you,” Tubbo says, scowl deepening. “Where are your wings, Big Q?”
He leans back, sucking air in through his teeth. Where are your wings? Tied down to his fucking back with wire because Schlatt’s ghost found a feather the other day and told him, with a hideous, bloodied smile (Quackity may have taken a bite out of Schlatt’s cold heart, but Schlatt sunk his teeth in deep and bled him dry) that he wishes he’d clipped Quackity’s wings while he had the opportunity. The kid always knows what words have the sharpest edges. Quackity’s never been good at that. He’s a thinker. Not so good at reacting. And that’s why they’re here now. “You know where my wings are, Tubbo. You know all about my marriage. What about yours?”
“Over,” Tubbo says. “It’s over. Your buddy Sam killed him.”
Marriage doesn’t end with death, Tubbo, don’t you remember? Don’t you remember how you and Tommy took Schlatt’s bones and played them like a xylophone, how I took his heart from his chest with my bare hand and sunk my teeth into it, how blood spilled from the corner of my mouth and stained my face and I was so far gone I didn’t clean it off for hours? Don’t you remember where the money for Las Nevadas came from? “I’m sorry.”
“You’re not.”
“Maybe,” Quackity says with a shrug. He’s not quite sure himself. Time has felt blurred lately. Everything and nothing changes so quickly now. “But I’m here, and I know what to do after your husband dies.” When Tubbo doesn’t reply, he asks, “He was rich, wasn’t he?”
Silence stretches between them. After Schlatt’s death, Quackity remembers, he’d told Tubbo, while high at his own husband’s funeral, that he didn’t want any of Schlatt’s money. That it was dirty. That Tubbo should take it, use it to rebuild L’manburg. But Tubbo didn’t want it either. So Quackity put it away and vowed not to use it. He didn’t use it for New L’manburg. He didn’t use it for the Butcher Army. He didn’t even use it for El Rapids because he wanted so badly for Karl and Sapnap to be better. He didn’t use it until he found himself alone, once again at Schlatt’s mercy, because even after death, the man was right. He is unlovable. And what is an unlovable man to do but exploit what few opportunities he has left?
(Of course, what Wilbur has for him, those emotions that flicker in his sunken eyes and make those cold blue lips curve into a smile, is not love. It's the sick and twisted obsession of a dead man who has also found himself to be unlovable. And Quackity wouldn’t have it any other way.)
“Yeah,” Tubbo finally says. “Yeah, he was.”
“Well,” Quackity says, “what do you want to do with it?”
“Leave it,” Tubbo says vaguely. “His ghost can have it.”
Quackity snorts. “Yeah? How does that usually turn out on this server?”
Tubbo looks at him for a second, and it occurs to Quackity that Tubbo might not know where the funds for Las Nevadas came from. Tubbo’s always been optimistically self-sufficient like that. But the implication isn’t lost on him, and realization still crosses his face after a moment, turning his gaze dark. “Ranboo was nothing like Schlatt,” he spits.
Quackity rolls his eyes with a scoff. “I said the same thing about Karl, and Sapnap, and, hell, even Wilbur! And what did they do? They left.”
“Wilbur fucking died, Quackity,” Tubbo says incredulously. “The hell are you talking about?”
“He didn’t die,” Quackity insists. “He left. Because he was a goddamn coward that couldn’t face consequences for what he’s done.”
Something that people tend to forget about him, Quackity thinks, is that he was as much of a part of the revolution as the rest of them. He ate Technoblade’s stupid fucking soggy potatoes around a fire, listened to Tommy’s stupid fucking monologues, and breathed in Wilbur Soot’s stupid fucking cigarette smoke, just like the rest of them. He wasn’t just a nobody. He was Schlatt’s vice, the reason the man even won the presidency, and he was supposed to be the key to taking Schlatt down. It was supposed to be a victory for Pogtopia when he turned traitor and joined their side. And people tend to forget that Wilbur wasn’t just a political opponent to him. Even though he seemed far too much like the president he had left behind in his last days; even though it made nerves settle in his stomach whenever Wilbur stood too close to him; even though Wilbur acted a little like Quackity was some sort of trophy he’d won in a competition against Schlatt – they knew each other. Quackity was there when Wilbur revealed his stupid fucking plan to blow L’manburg to hell. And it wasn’t just Wilbur, of course not – he would still laugh with Tommy, sit with Tubbo through the nights when neither of them could get Schlatt out of their heads, eat Niki’s cakes and mess around with Fundy and –
(And let’s not talk about Technoblade.)
Quackity’s not a nobody that showed up on the server one day, married everyone’s least favorite guy, then spiraled into a life of questionable behavior. He’s somebody. Y’know? He matters. His actions have consequences. When he shouts, people fucking listen. (And when Wilbur lost his fucking mind in a cave, Quackity felt it.)
There was a night, a little before the battle and after Quackity’s plan had failed, when the two of them sat somewhere in the dark in the depths of the ravine, the burning end of Wilbur’s cigarette the only light. Roasted potato dinner had come and gone, and the others were already asleep. Tubbo had had a nightmare the previous day about one of Schlatt’s worse days, and Quackity itched to go get up and talk to him. But the smoke wound around him, filling his head, and instead, he’d asked Wilbur if he could have a drag. He looked up at Wilbur at one point when the man wasn’t paying him any attention, staring off into the darkness, and he knew at that moment that Wilbur would press the button. He knew that he should’ve checked on Tubbo, but he didn’t. He kept sitting there, sharing a cigarette with Wilbur, shoulders pressed together, and he prayed to god that he could somehow make him stay.
Wilbur didn’t live with the consequences. When life got hard, he gave up. He couldn’t even go out in his own explosion. He couldn’t even take responsibility for his own death. It’s not Quackity’s fault that every man he’s ever cared about turns out to be totally fucking incapable of having a long-lasting, healthy relationship. Schlatt let the drinking and the violence take control; Karl and Sapnap left after the death of his country without even bothering to tell him. Quackity’s never done that. Quackity’s never changed. He only changes when they do. (And is it wrong to wish that Schlatt hadn’t slipped so far off the deep end, that he was still Schlatt’s bitch because it was so much easier back then, to not have to think? Yeah, maybe. But it’s not happening, so let a guy dream. He fantasizes about having a normal relationship with Karl and Sapnap sometimes, so he’s not completely fucked up.)
He shakes his head violently, fingers twitching. He can’t tell if he wishes he had a drink, a cigarette, or a weapon to wrap his hand around. Tubbo is looking at him with his head tilted, a curious look on his face. He looks younger when he’s not scowling. Maybe too young.
“Well,” Tubbo says, “he’s back now, isn’t he?”
“Who?” Quackity says absently. He could be talking about any one of those bastards at this point, and the kid wouldn’t be wrong.
Tubbo furrows his brow and frowns at him, but he doesn’t respond. After a moment, he asks, “How did you deal with – with me?”
“Huh?” Quackity reaches up with one hand to crack his jaw. It’s getting stiff. “In what way?”
He purses his lips and looks away. “Dealing with – I don’t know, a kid.”
My god, Tubbo doesn’t have a fucking kid, does he? “Well, I didn’t have to really deal with you, because you’re kind of, y’know…” He gestures vaguely at Tubbo. Adult isn’t the right word for what Tubbo was after the revolution, but it’s close enough.
Tubbo seems to get it. “Right, because I’m…” He trails off. “Yeah. But did you, I don’t know, feel responsible?”
Quackity’s not sure how he’s feeling about this sudden turn of attention on him, but Tubbo doesn’t seem hostile, so he’ll allow it. Maybe Tubbo will actually gain some insight from this little talk. “Fuck, Tubbo, I don’t know. I guess I wanted to keep an eye on you? Make sure you were safe? But I wasn’t… there for so much of New L’manburg, you know?”
There makes it sound like he was being a regular Georgenotfound, fucking off to some distant corner of the server and not caring about anyone’s problems. It wasn’t like that. Quackity was there, and he cared. Too much, maybe; Dream wasn’t entirely wrong when he said that Quackity was practically the president. But even Quackity can admit that he wasn’t at his best. That he said and did things that he never would’ve considered before Schlatt.
When he looked at Tubbo, when he saw the horns beginning to curl around his head like a crown, something confusing came over him. Because no matter how much Quackity lied and told people that Schlatt’s politics were the reason he left, he knew the truth. And they probably knew the truth, too – could see right through the fragile glass of the White House, could hear every word of Quackity and Schlatt’s fights, winced every time the sound of a bottle breaking or a hit landing echoed through the streets. And Tubbo – no matter how many similarities to Schlatt Tubbo displayed (if any at all; things have become so blurred now that he doesn’t even know what he meant when he accused Tubbo of such a thing), Quackity could only ever associate him with the Tubbo in the concrete box. The Tubbo that met Quackity’s gaze with raw desperation, the yellow stark against two sky-blue eyes. The Tubbo that Quackity could only weakly plead with Schlatt not to execute. Because nothing Tubbo could possibly do to L’manburg could compare to what Schlatt did to the two of them. Yet Quackity still managed to looked away from Tubbo-in-the-box and fix his gaze on an audience painted red.
Technoblade’s execution can be forgiven. There was a clear purpose. A moral reason for it all to soothe their psyches. (Quackity was left with a scar down his face and one pale, sightless eye as a reminder of his hubris. He saw his hands and his vision dipped in blood, felt the agony of death and rebirth, and when he looks in a mirror, he sees the shine of his gold tooth.) Besides, whether he admits it or not, Tubbo can be just as vindictive as Quackity. But Ranboo? Quackity should’ve fucking known better. He doubts Tubbo can ever forgive him for that, especially now that the kid’s a goddamn widow at the age of – what, seventeen? Eighteen? Whichever it is, it’s still too young. (Like I wasn’t?)
The point, to put it simply, is that Quackity was half out of his mind during Tubbo’s administration. He was high off the thrill of Schlatt’s death, high off the possibility of being loved again, high off actual drugs. The lows struck him anytime the euphoria faded long enough to almost feel normal – his life was a constant stream of things to do, people to talk to, documents to sign. If he stared at himself in shattered glass for too long, his body began to look like a sword that had seen too many battles and changed too many hands, covered in fingerprints and marked with blood – if he was lucky. The thumping in his chest would change if he wasn’t, an unsteady pitter-patter that came from having a heart that was not his own within him. And he swore he could feel Schlatt’s hands on his shoulders from behind, fingers digging into flesh, each slightest push forward with the potential to be the one to pitch him off the cliff.
(He’d asked Technoblade once, during their brief, uneasy teamup at the Red Banquet, which story he was most similar to. Technoblade said, simply and without hesitation, that he was Icarus. When he asked why, all Technoblade said was, “Wings.” Quackity’s wings don’t melt. Maybe if Schlatt really had clipped his wings, he’d see a resemblance.)
If Quackity is very carefully honest with himself, he can admit that the consequences of his relationships have disproportionally affected Tubbo. Schlatt’s abuse throughout his presidency; Quackity’s absence during New L’manburg in favor of his fiances; his and Wilbur’s feud now in Las Nevadas. Every time Quackity allows blood to flow in his veins, Tubbo suffers for it. But he doesn’t know what to do about that.
Tubbo blinks at him and says, quietly, “Yeah, I suppose you weren’t.” After a moment, he says, “It was because of tax benefits.”
“Huh?”
“Tax benefits,” Tubbo repeats. “That’s why me and Ranboo got married.”
“Tax benefits,” Quackity echoes, hysteria bubbling up in his throat and leaving his mouth as laughter. It latches onto his brain and squeezes, and he wonders if he’ll even be able to remember this by tomorrow. If it’ll all feel like a fever dream. “Tax benefits, Tubbo, really? Did you learn nothing?”
Something that people don’t tend to forget about him is that his marriage to Schlatt was impulsive. They did it on a whim because it was politically beneficial to the both of them, and they were already unofficially, weirdly together, so it wasn’t as if it would change much for them. He’d laid down on the floor of Philza’s house once, while the man was still on house arrest, and he’d lamented to him about the issue of Schlatt’s money, because Phil couldn’t go anywhere to tell anyone else about it. And he was old and had raised at least two kids (he gets confused about their family tree), so presumably, he had some wisdom to offer. But instead of offering any wise words, Philza had scolded him for treating marriage as a tool instead of a partnership. Quackity tried to explain to him that it was both , that he really did love Schlatt, but by that point Phil was sick of listening, and there was a meeting he needed to attend. So really, Tubbo should know better. Surely he heard how Quackity used to shout about how he deserved more power, how their coalition should never have given everything away to Schlatt.
Tubbo’s scowl returns, and it only makes Quackity want to cackle.
“It’s not fucking funny, Big Q,” he says sharply. “We’re not like you and Schlatt. We’re not. So stop it.”
“Hey, I never said you were,” Quackity says, raising his hands up in mock surrender.
Tubbo squints at him, then looks away. “How did you feel when he died?”
How did it feel? Fucking hell, what part? When they walked into the motherfucking drug van and saw the bastard lying on the ground, drunk off his ass in the middle of a war? When Schlatt finally lifted his head to meet Quackity’s eyes and the all-too-familiar expression of unwarranted betrayal crossed his face? When he started tearing apart Quackity’s allies with nothing but slurred words, like he had somehow ended up winning in the end and nothing they did was worth a damn thing? When his heart seized? Or when, with his last dying breath, he told Quackity that he was nothing? Throughout it all, the only clear thing Quackity felt was fear. Fear that Schlatt was dead, fear that Schlatt wasn’t dead, fear that his husband could look right through him and see it. Fear that the others could look at him and know that Quackity wasn’t as strong as the rest of him because he didn’t want Schlatt to die. Or does Tubbo mean later, when Quackity roamed the ruins of Manburg with a torch in hand, unnaturally quiet, grieving a loss he was too afraid to name?
Finally, Quackity says, “Happy. I was glad when he died.” You’re a fucking liar, Alex, Schlatt’s voice whispers.
Tubbo looks at him and nods like this is the answer he was expecting, like this proves his point. “And that’s the difference between me and you, Quackity. That’s it.”
And Quackity doesn’t know how to tell him that he’s wrong, that they’re more alike than Tubbo thinks. Maybe he shouldn’t. (He doesn’t.)
Tubbo kicks him out of the house shortly after, and Quackity goes without complaint. He’ll have to mark Tubbo down as on leave indefinitely. There’s a lot of work to be done.
The Tubbo that Quackity just saw, he thinks, isn’t an old enemy reincarnated. He’s not what Schlatt made him into, some cunning businessman that’s willing to hurt people to get what he wants. He’s not what Wilbur made him into, a too-young politician with the weight of the world on his shoulders and impossible-to-achieve goals driving him insane. He’s not what Dream made him into, a ruthless dictator free of attachment. If Tubbo, with his scarred face and single clouded eye and dead husband takes after any of them, it’s Quackity.
Look at our boy, sugar pumpkin, Schlatt says, low and threatening and the loudest voice in Quackity’s head. He’s going places.
Quackity stands on the Needle that night, leaning over the balcony, watching the snowfall. With one hand, he flicks Schlatt’s old, expensive lighter that he never had the heart to throw out on and off, but he doesn’t reach for a cigarette. With the other, he fidgets with the rings still hung on a chain around his neck. Las Nevadas seems coldly empty, now that Purpled and Slime and Sam are gone. Now that Ranboo is dead, and Tommy is grieving, and Wilbur hasn’t come to fight with him. The casino is dark. The strip club is dark. Tubbo’s burger place is dark. The chapel is dark.
He can’t help but hope Tubbo stays right where he is.