Work Text:
Saturday night and here Wilbur was wrapped up in Quackity’s office watching him fill out paperwork.
The other had a furrowed brow as he bit his lip, concentrating on whatever forms he had to fill out at his desk. His beanie was off and his mullet was tied back into a small ponytail, whether that was his small attempt at vulnerability, he wouldn't truly know but it suited him. As everything else about the other man did.
Wilbur would admit it was hard to tear away his eyes from the man before him as he sat on the balcony smoking a cigarette. Every so often he got a chance to just sit and watch instead of bickering and throwing death threats that were always too close to being genuine or too empty to mean anything. Now; however, Wilbur sat and stared as if this was a normal domestic setting.
He’d of course walked into the office as if he owned the place earlier in the day. It was nothing too unusual of him to waltz in and make his presence known to the other but what was a bit odd, Wilbur noticed as he was there, Quackity didn’t try to kick him out immediately.
Quackity was perched on the sofa in his office, reading what seemed to be a letter. He looked tired, as per usual, but this time it was a different tired. Not the same ‘I get five hours of sleep on a good night” but ‘overwhelmed’ tired. The way his normal expressive eyes were lidded and his fiddling had become almost impossible to not notice.
Wilbur, being himself, could’ve just poked and annoyed till Quackity gave a normal (typically angry) reaction and nearly killed him trying to get out of his raven-hair. Or, on a completely opposite end of the line, Wilbur could’ve left and waited another day for the odd attention he so often craves from the other.
But today, he’d approach him and do no more than offer a cigarette and open ears. Which may not be the best comforting tactic, hell not the best tactic for anything considering its nicotine and the ears of a man who’d gone insane and only spoke in metaphors that were often misunderstood.
Yet, Quackity hesitantly accepted one of the sticks and pulled a lighter out of his own pocket. No words were exchanged between the two for a few minutes. Both sat and smoked while looking out the glass window of the dim city. It was supposed to be bright and blooming, especially on a weekend, but there was a feeling in Wilbur’s gut that told him it was closed for the same reason these two men sat together.
“Thank you.”
Quackity broke the silence first after taking a slow drag of the cigarette. The ashes fell on his knee but he’d made no attempt to clean it, so Wilbur ignored it. “For what?”
Quackity fidgeted with the cigarette in his fingers and Wilbur couldn’t help but stare, as he always did in times he could. Wilbur would hate to admit the fact he's written about the beauty marks on Quackity’s face, the way he's compared them to stars on the nights he lays awake aching for someone who was in a high up office. Other times, comparing them to specks of dirt on a road he has walked all over millions of times when he wants to feel the other below him and powerless.
“For fucking,”, Quackity began running his hand threw his hair, “being here, I don’t know, dude.” Then he did that short- strangled laugh he did when he was nervous. It was shy and unsure and for a moment he felt he was back in Pogtopia before the big bang that restarted both their universes.
Wilbur had just given a solid nod and said something with the words ‘of course’ because this is always their start and beginning regardless of their many lives they lived.
Now he sits peacefully and smokes on the balcony to give space to the other while still being around. He’d taken the smoking outside when Quackity got up and announced he needed to do more work but allowed Wilbur to stay (he would have regardless of the other’s wants).
Wilbur starts to lightly hum a tune that plays in the back of his mind, something familiar and distant. It feels fitting for the quiet atmosphere of papers shuffling and cigarette ashes falling.
“I haven’t heard that from you in a long time”, a voice comes near quiet from the desk a few feet away from him.
Quackity meets Wilbur’s eyes with a soft tilt to his head. “I assumed you weren’t in a chatting mood, Big Q.”
“I didn’t mean speaking wise, Wilbur. I meant uhh, I don’t know. Humming, anything involving music.”
Wilbur waited a second before responding; however, Quackity continued after a beat. “I just knew you used to enjoy that shit. Music and all.”
Wilbur smiled lightly at the ‘music and all’ phrasing but something pressed his smile down. He did enjoy those things, but to be honest he hasn’t played the guitar in a long time. Since the explosion of his employee.
It felt wrong. To enjoy the simplicity of living while it's his fault that another life was lost.
“I suppose it has been a while, hasn’t it?”
Quackity had stretched with a light yawn at his desk and Wilbur’s eyes flicked down to his torso and how the fabric pressed against it.
He looked away.
“I remember when you fucking wrote those songs. You’d go around playing notes and singing random lyrics.” A reminiscent side of Quackity seemed to take over. “I’d ask you what you meant and all you did was smile and walk away. Asshole.”
Regardless of the name calling, it sounded affectionate and Wilbur hated how his heart did a flutter at his fucking age, but he does remeber. He remembers walking around and humming and strumming. Writing about his terrible mental health and the guy before him.
Those sick love songs that he’d play around Quackity, saying how if anything might’ve been able to stop him from jumping off the edge it would've been him. At least that's what he used to think to himself as he sang in riddles.
“Quackity, I recall you enjoying those ‘random’ lyrics and notes.” Because he did, and Wilbur would always smile and play more.
“I think you recall wrong, Soot.”, Quackity lied.
An almost playful smile danced on both of their lips and it felt nice. Familiar and kind of- dare he say - comforting.
Wilbur put his cigarette out against the railing before walking inside. It was chilly and his trench coat could only keep him warm from the chill of outside for so long. He closed the balcony doors before making his way back to the sofa.
“Quackity, are you calling me a liar?”
It was a joke, a slip of playful tongue. He remembers that’s how Quackity used to be. A slip of tongue in more ways than one back when there was a soon to be war and the boys had no dictatorship. His face flushed at his own thoughts and memories of the nights they shared kisses and near silent whispers.
He moved his hands to rest in his lap, leaning against the back of the comforter.
The other man in the room stood after a moment. He’d put his papers into a folder and into his clean white desk. The only noise Wilbur received was a ‘tsk, tsk, tsk’ while sitting on the other end of the sofa. He brought his knees up to his chest while resting his arms across his knees.
“I’m simply saying your memory could be failing you.”
Wilbur rolled his eyes, and tried to think of his words carefully. Here they are reminiscing and not trying to claw each other’s throats out. It was nice, calm, and he supposed late nights were a perfect excuse for character breaks.
Wilbur lightly poked Quackity’s knee with his foot. “Don’t doubt me, I remember things remarkably.”
And it wasn’t a total lie but it wasn’t a total truth. After spending years in the train of limbo, memories blur and everything he tried to repeat to himself just slurred aloud.
Quackity seemed to be lightly dozing off but he folded into himself and Wilbur knew this would be a memory he’d remember regardless of nothing huge happening. Fireworks didn’t explode and the earth didn’t shake, but that doesn’t make a memory more memorable than the rest does it?
It felt too vulnerable to see Quackity so peaceful and sleepy , like he used to in Pogtopia. When he’d play around and make others laugh till he was tired or he’d tire himself out from the stress of a possible war. Back when those could co-exist.
“Things would be easier if we were young again.”, Quackity says after a moment, his chin resting on one of his arms. “Don’t you agree, Wilbur?”
“What would be easier, Quackity?”
“Everything.”
They sat in a small silence, and for as much thinking as Wilbur has thought tonight, his mind went blank as he tries to study Quackity’s face.
A face that was so full of life and excitement now tired and scarred. Just as scarily beautiful as he was on day one of them meeting, and he hated how it’s the same yet so different.
After a silent beat, Wilbur cleared his voice. “Why didn’t you kick me out today, Quackity?”
He expected a reaction that would lead to him having to leave or one that wouldn’t really answer anything and they’d sit in silence till he was asked to leave with a quiet tone.
Quackity sighed and searched for something in Wilbur's eyes. They seemed tense and maybe doubtful but they poured into Wilbur’s own. It’s always been his big fucking eyes that made Wilbur hesitant, but he was going to let himself be looked at. Just for right now.
“I missed having someone around. I don’t have the best track record of keeping people here, if you can’t tell.”
It was honest and straightforward, and Wilbur was gone for a few years but Tommy had updated him. Shlatt, Karl and Sapnap, and there was a memorial in a casino for a creature that was far too naive to deserve bad, that Wilbur knew would die from the moment he laid eyes on it.
The smp always did that to things like the green friend Quackity used to have.
“Wilbur, can I ask a question?”
Not a beat later, “Of course.”
“Why are you here?”
It wasn’t accusing or angry. Just a question that was like his. It was much heavier though and it was far too late to answer the question in all its capacity, and maybe that’s too much to answer anyways. After all, its the equivalent of asking why he keeps trying for something that has no end goal.
“I don’t know when to quit.”
Quackity paused for a moment before nodding. It was quiet. No ashes falling, no papers shuffling, and no breeze to distract them. Just each other’s presence and the breathing. Wilbur could’ve gotten lost in the silence they kept falling into, In fact he almost did until the movement of the other startled him.
Quackity moved to sit next to Wilbur and rested his head on Wilbur’s chest directly. Wilbur nearly jerked back and a part of him almost couldn’t fight the natural urge to move and flinch away because no one ever touches him anymore. No one ever views him as human anymore, not enough to hug him, to lay with him.
He wouldn’t have ever expected it coming from the one that is tucked into his side and with his knees to his chest still. His raven hair brushing the bottom of Wilbur’s chin. The feeling alone was enough to make his throat hurt, a cry threatening itself.
“I missed you, Will. Thanks for not leaving for now.”
How Wilbur wishes for nothing more in the moment to reassure Quackity that he’d be there for as long he could just to get the feeling of someone touching him, but he knew it’d be worthless.
Because in the end, no one ever sticks around long enough for promises that get lost the second Wilbur spirals again, whenever that may be.
Wilbur rested an arm over Quackity’s shoulders. “I missed you too, Quackity.”
And he did, and a part of him always will.
So in a simple, maybe two second thought process, Wilbur dips his head down and Quackity looks up, a chaste kiss shared. Just the press of two lips, a seal in Wilbur’s mind to wrap this up.
Because nothing ends well, no matter how hard either would try. Regardless of a kiss shared tonight, tomorrow they’d be back spitting in each other’s faces’ and that’s how it always will be.
Tonight he will enjoy it until it is taken away tomorrow when the world starts to spin again.