Chapter Text
“We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?”
—Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti
With his nose scrunched and his lips turned to disgust, Tommy tugs on the collar of the white dress shirt he’s been done up in. His reflection glares back at him in helpless commiseration. According to Quackity, a tailored suit is supposed to fit like a glove. Comfortable, stylish.
Tommy hates it.
“I hate it.”
“Shut up,” Quackity says, eyes narrowing on Tommy’s tie. He holds up a different one to Tommy’s face, nods to himself, and motions to the tie Tommy is wearing. “You’re tall, and you’re there tonight to fill the room. Tall furniture isn’t supposed to talk.”
Tommy huffs as he begins to undo the tie that Quackity had knotted at his throat just five minutes earlier. When the stupid thing is free, Quackity reaches up and loops the new one around. This one is a soft emerald green that shifts to blue when the light catches it right.
As he works, Quackity speaks. “If you can make it through this entire evening without embarrassing me in any way, I will pay you triple for today.”
Tommy’s jaw clicks shut, silencing the complaint bubbling up about the new tie. With that kind of money, Tommy wouldn’t have to come back to this stupid place for a whole week. What the fuck is he going to do with a whole week off? Fuck knows, but the idea is so enticing he’s actually considering sewing his mouth shut to prevent any chances of his mind going off on its own.
Quackity finishes the knot and steps back. “Good,” he says with a nod. “Fundy’s in charge tonight.”
Tommy tries and fails to suppress a groan as Quackity picks up his own suit jacket and slides into it. Tommy leans against the back of the guest chair in front of Quackity’s desk. “What about Foolish?”
He knows Foolish is…not normal. But he’s more fun than Fundy, and as long as Tommy keeps him at arm’s length, then he can trust that Foolish is at least less deadly than the rest of his kind. Less inclined to be deadly, Tommy amends in his head. They are all equal levels of “super deadly—do not touch”.
“Foolish is doing something else for me,” Quackity explains, leaning over his desk. “Fundy will give you the cash, and you go on home.”
“How cryptic.”
Quackity shuffles the papers on his desk, casting about for something in the barrage of note pads and receipts. It’s an unusal mess for someone who usually keeps things fairly tidy. Tommy swivels the chair around and throws himself onto it, rumpling the suit in the process, and earns a sharp look that he ignores. Curiously, he asks, “What plans you got, big Q?”
“Just a business meeting.” Quackity finds whatever he’s looking for, a small paper the size of a sticky note. He tucks it into a pocket. “I’ll be back late.”
“A business meeting? ” Tommy waggles his eyebrows. The two gold bands on Quackity’s ring finger glint as Quackity flicks his hair from his face and gives Tommy a withering glare.
“Can you do this for me?” he asks with all the air of a parent who rarely gets their way. “Can you stay pleasant tonight? Keep an eye and ear out for anything odd and go home when I tell you to?”
“Sure thing, boss. Anything else?”
“Don’t lose that fucking tie tonight or I’m taking it out of your paycheck.”
Tommy cringes as his evening plans of slacking off and not giving a fuck begin to slide through his fingers. “Yeah, yeah. Am I free to mingle?”
Quackity stares at him for a long moment, eyeing him from the tips of his stupid shiny shoes to the gold curls rangled into something pleasant. “Yes,” he finally says.
Tommy descends the casino toward the main ballroom, taking shortcuts through the employee halls and the kitchens. He knows them like he knows his own home, his youth spent roaming these hallways like they were caverns to explore. Here is where he knocked over some priceless bust of some old dude and shattered it all over the floor. Here is where he slipped through Quackity’s fingers at the tender age of 13 and got his hands on alcohol for the first time, getting so plastered he wound up throwing up his guts in a bathroom stall. Here is where he hid in a closet for hours after a fight with Quackity until Fundy had found him.
He passes through the main kitchens that are bustling with activity. He ducks around cooks and slides under hot pans lofted up over the crowd. One of the senior bakers holds out a pastry to him and he pops it in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully as he goes. He throws up two thumbs over the bustling kitchen staff from the door, and the baker gives him a happy thumbs-up back.
He finds Fundy at one of the employee entrances to the ballroom, the sounds of the party already filtering through the swinging doors. Next to him stands a young boy in a suit, no older than six, with a little pale blue tie on. Tommy smiles at the kid, and the kid smiles back with brilliant white teeth, just barely whiter than his snowy curls.
“Tommy!” the boy yaps happily, hands fluttering with excitement.
Tommy glances at Fundy incredulously. “You brought your kid to a fucking casino?”
“Plenty of people have their kids at these galas,” Fundy answers as he fusses with the child’s hair. “Plus he needed out of the house.”
Tommy swoops down and hauls the kid up into his arms. He’s getting big, almost too big for Tommy to do this consistently.
“Hello, Yogurt,” he greets as Yogurt digs his fingers into Tommy’s shirt, rumpling the collar Quackity had so painstakingly set. His little grip has always impressed Tommy, but he’s never had many other kids to compare the strength to.
Yogurt begins chatting immediately, an unending stream of words that Tommy half listens to. Fundy checks his pocket watch—a pocket watch, christ, what year is it?—and glances up the hallway.
“Are we waiting on something?” Tommy asks him. Fundy just glances at him and then pushes the door open a crack, peering in.
“Quackity said go in at 6:28.”
“Ah,” Tommy responds, returning his half attention to Yogurt. Very specific, but Quackity has always been odd.
Fundy checks his watch again.
Tommy asks, “What time is it, then?”
“6:27.”
Tommy hums a response, his foot bouncing. Yogurt has gone quiet, messing with the bowtie at his throat. He tugs on it and pulls it completely free. Tommy tuts his tongue.
“Stop,” he says, reaching up with his free hand to pull the bowtie from his grip. “You gotta leave it on.”
“Why?” he whines.
Tommy puts on his best Quackity impression. “‘Because it looks respectable,’ apparently.”
“What does ‘re-spect-ta-ble’ mean?” Yogurt asks, sounding out the word with surprising accuracy.
“It means we look like fucking muppets.”
Yogurt giggles. Fundy throws him a withering glance, then back to his watch. Tommy tosses the bowtie into a nearby potted plant and Yogurt beams.
The lights overhead flicker for a brief moment. Tommy and Yogurt glance up at them as Fundy says, “It’s time.”
He pushes into the main room and Tommy follows, still holding Yogurt, immediately veering off away toward the snacks table. Quackity’s solstices and equinox galas are the biggest of the year. Everyone who is someone is always here, and Quackity has prepared for the occasion. The main room is dripping in yellows and golds, with huge red curtains lining the walls and glittering chandeliers suspended far above. Flowers explode from every corner, filling up the tables and arching over the stage where the band plays. They cascade down the curtains and poke out from the crevices of the chandeliers. Overall, it makes the room feel like an overgrown garden and fills the air with the sweet smell of roses in bloom.
The clothes of the patrons glisten under the light and the smells of sweets and food mingle with the flower scent. To one side of the room are small tables for guests to sit, and along the wall opposite of the band are slot machines and other casino games for people to play. Quackity is never one to miss an opportunity to part people with their less-than-hard earned money.
At the sweets tables, Tommy manages to silence Yogurt for a few moments here and there by giving him copious amounts of baked goods and chocolates from the long spread of finger foods. It’s been quite a few weeks since Tommy has gotten to see him, and the kid has been up to a lot since. Something about tromping around in the woods, and new imaginary friends, and a toad he’s found that’s been hanging around the house. Apparently Fundy took him to a market at some point and bought him some sweets that “Don’t even compare to these, they were so good.” Tommy grins at the way he talks in that voice that kids use when they are trying to sound like an adult and just end up sounding like the nearest adult who raised them.
Someone brushes past Tommy at the sweets table. He steps aside with a quiet apology but the woman barely pays him a glance. She reaches out, stretching far, and he sees her sleeve ride up.
Beneath the loose fabric, scaly, mottled skin winks at him under the light. The woman snatches the treat and skitters away without acknowledging him in any way.
Tommy notes it, grabs a few more treats, and carries Yogurt away.
Keep an eye and ear out for anything odd.
There’s not much odd here; it’s a standard gala. He thinks it’s odd that Yogurt is here, but Fundy has always been a little weird, and Quackity has never minded seeing the child run about. Mostly he thinks it’s odd that Yogurt is afforded the freedom that Quackity never let him have—filling Tommy’s head with warnings of creatures stealing young children away into the night—but little jealousies aren’t worth the effort. If Fundy is okay with letting Yogurt run around the woods, who is Tommy to judge him?
He thinks it’s odd that the band plays such boring music, and that the guests lap it up like dogs.
He thinks it’s odd that Quackity has always warned him so strictly, and yet lets creatures into his galas without a care.
He’s always sent to these things to look for odd things , and Tommy knows what Quackity means by that, even if he never says it outright. They always show up, slinking along the edges of the room to poke at the food, and for some reason Tommy has a good eye to catch the little things. Every one of them has something different that gives them away. Some are obvious; weeds tangled into their hair, or an inhuman flash of their eyes. Some are more subtle—their teeth are too sharp when they open their mouth, or their fingers have one too many joints that is only noticeable when they’re negligent. Tommy once even saw a slender tail poke out from the bottom of a dress.
They never do anything, and then they leave, quiet as they come. Tommy tells Quackity and then pushes it from his mind. The less he thinks about it, the less chance they have to bother him.
Fundy has long since disappeared. Tommy keeps feeding Yogurt treats as he keeps his eyes peeled until Yogurt decides, in that child-like way, that he suddenly needs down right now , and Tommy relents, watching him slinks immediately between the dresses of some guests. He stands up straight and glances at the time on his watch.
“You’re Tommy, right?”
Tommy pushes down a groan at the unfamiliar voice and tries his best not to grimace as he turns toward the stranger. His proximity to Quackity means that more people know Tommy’s name than the other way around, and every interaction is annoying at best.
But as he turns and finds the source of his voice, the hairs on the back of his neck rise and a chill catches his spine.
The man’s eyes are sharp and unrelenting, and Tommy knows in an instant what he is. He may look normal, may look human , but the stir in Tommy’s stomach knows better than his perception.
Tommy is tall, but this man has even a few inches on him. He sticks out from the lavishly dressed guests like a sore thumb in a yellow sweater, black slacks, and a long leather coat. The light catches on a wrangled mess of soft brown curls and the shot of white through the front. But other than the unnatural stillness to him, Tommy can’t quite find the one thing about him that would make him certain, the one little catch that would confirm his suspicions.
He forces his muscles to uncurl and his jaw to loosen. Scraping up every ounce of etiquette Tommy has managed to hoard over the years, he plasters on a pleasant expression—just shy of a smile—and says, “May I ask who you are?”
The words fall off his tongues like rocks, stiff and chipped. There is a bell in his head and his instincts are ringing it violently, drowning out all other noise except for the stranger’s words.
“Wilbur,” he says, holding out a hand. His fingers look normal, if a little pale. Tommy cautiously shakes his hand and finds it warm. “I’m an acquaintance of Quackity.”
His voice is sweet and charismatic, and Tommy can hear the gentle lilt to it that sings as it speaks.
He holds back an even ruder response and says, “Plenty are.”
The man—Wilbur—looks infinitely amused. He takes his hand back and slides it into the pocket of his jacket, standing relaxed and casual. Someone nearby glances skeptically at him, eyes tracking from head to toe in silent judgement of the outfit, but Wilbur doesn’t seem to notice. His gaze is captivating in its intensity, and he’s got Tommy caught like a worm writhing on a hook.
“What do you do here?” Wilbur asks.
Tommy rolls a few answers around in his head before says, “I’m a guard.”
It’s the closest thing to the truth. Wilbur’s brow rises and he gives a short disbelieving laugh.
“What do you guard?”
This conversation should end here. Tommy can’t help it. He motions to the party and says, “The guests.”
“Are you good at it?”
“Very.”
The vague delight never leaves Wilbur’s face. “What kinds of things are a danger to the people here? With their riches and their drinks?”
Tommy pries his eyes away despite every bone in his body begging him to remain vigilant. His gaze bounces to two people at the edge of the room sitting at a table. One tilts her head and Tommy catches the sharp point of an ear.
“Plenty of things come out of the woods,” he responds. He feels his throat tangle around itself and stick, feels his stomach tighten and condense into a hard lump in his gut. He’s feeling out the conversation, certain he is right in his assumption but still unable to pinpoint exactly where Wilbur’s tell is. The height is surprising but not unnatural—Fundy is just as tall, if not a bit taller. He has the right amount of joints in his fingers and his teeth are blunted. His eyes, his palor, his hair, all plain, the glamour well constructed. Maybe he has hooves for feet and has expertly hid them, or a tail curled around his leg that the jacket hides. It certainly does a good job of obscuring most of his body.
Wilbur follows his gaze. He watches the two people laugh for a moment, and then back to Tommy.
“Quackity doesn’t talk about his personal life much.”
Tommy holds his breath and looks over out of the corners of his eyes. “And what about it?”
Wilbur shrugs. “I just wanted to come meet the kid that can see the things that don’t want to be seen.”
Tommy’s heart is hammering in his chest, and he knows Wilbur can hear it. Tommy has seen many strange things at these parties over the years, many strange things on the street, but none of them have ever approached him so directly—other than Foolish, and that was always because Quackity had pushed the two of them together for some task. If he found himself interacting with one, he was always able to maintain the illusion that he could not tell what they were.
And now one has stepped out of the crowd and all but admitted to it.
He unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth and says, “I don’t know what you mean.”
Wilbur’s lips quirk up. He turns his head just so, and with a ripple, his eyes are different. One moment they are soft, brown, human, and then the iris blows up to fill his eyes with soft gold. The lights overhead catch on his slitted pupils.
Tommy blinks and Wilbur’s eyes are once again brown and human. He glances around at the gala and says, “I haven’t ever gotten a chance to come to one of these. Quackity knows how to wow his guests.”
Tommy’s nerves are rattling to a boiling point. He stares at a distant point on the wall, trying to figure a way to get out of this conversation. And then, because the universe hates him, he blurts, “Who dressed you?”
Wilbur turns an inquisitive eye on him. “Hm?”
Tommy cringes internally. He wasn’t joking about sewing his own mouth shut sometimes, but something about the man is irritating him, pulling all of his thoughts to the surface. Oh, well—go big or go home.
“You’re at a fancy party and you’re dressed like you’re…” he tries to think of something derisive. “I don’t know, like you’re starting an indie band or something.”
The man laughs, softly and lightly, like shards of glass falling together.
“I dressed myself,” he responds. “I don’t intend on staying long, no point in getting all fancy.”
“Why are you here, then?”
“I’m picking up our guest of honor.”
Tommy turns to him fully, on high alert. He’s taking someone.
He opens his mouth to protest and Wilbur beats him to it. “Don’t worry, I’ll return him at the end of the night. Quackity can handle himself.”
Tommy hesitates.
A business meeting.
Quackity can handle himself. There’s always been more than enough evidence for that.
“How do you know him?” he asks, trying and failing to not sound like he’s fishing for information.
“Oh, we’re old friends.”
Wilbur offers up nothing else. His eyes wander the crowd, and they glimmer—simple, brown, but too bright.
“Tommy,” he says, “Would you do me a favor?”
“Sure,” Tommy responds, and jolts at the immediacy of the answer. What the fuck is wrong with him?
“Don’t tell Quackity I came down here. He’d hate to know that I might have ruined his good image.”
Tommy holds his tongue, nodding, and then it strikes him very suddenly—Wilbur’s tell. It’s his voice. It is too sweet, too charming, as if he could point and make anyone do as he pleases. The simplest questions become damning.
Tommy doesn’t like him. Quackity taught him early on to respect his intuition and the gnawing in his gut. Whether thats coming from humans, or the things beyond.
He takes a step back. “Sure, I can do that.”
Wilbur tilts his head toward him. “Lips sealed?”
“Yeah, big man, sure. Well, it’s been fun, but I have a job to do.”
Wilbur gives him a slight, amicable nod. “Of course,” he says. “Wouldn’t want to keep you.”
“Have a good night, sir.”
“You as well.”
Tommy backs away, not quite ready to turn his back on the stranger, and only when the crowd folds around him does he let his guard down. There’s a reason Quackity didn’t let him attend these galas until he was older. Danger lurks in every corner, from the hungry eyes of the older wives to the occasional scam artist that makes their way in, to the glinting eyes of a person who doesn’t seem quite right.
Wilbur disappears in the crowd, presumably off to collect Quackity. Tommy tries to locate him and keep tabs on where he is but he is simply gone, vanished among the people.
The rest of the party goes by simply, although Tommy has never been on such high alert. He stands to the sides and does his rounds, and sometimes a person shows up at his side to mingle. He sees a few regulars who know him and tug him along into their groups, a lot of older men and women enamored with Quackity’s youthful employee. Tommy smiles pleasantly, is just rude enough to be funny, and then pries himself away from the conversations before it takes turns he doesn’t particularly like.
A few kids of barons find him, some young, some his age. They chat with him, one of them invites him to a party that Tommy accepts, and at one point he finds himself with a group of kids talking with Yogurt.
The night passes quickly without any other sign of the strange man. Around 4am people begin to filter away, and by 5am, the place is nearly cleared out. Fundy finds him then, holding Yogurt in his arms, the little boy passed out.
“Here,” he says, holding out an envelope. “You’re free to go.”
“I didn’t cause any problems,” Tommy points out. “Quackity said he’d pay me triple.”
He waggles his brow and Fundy waves the envelope at him. “It’s all there, asshole. Go home.”
Tommy snatches the envelope from Fundy and relishes in the weight of it. He gives Fundy a salute. “Got it, boss!” he says, shoving the envelope in the inside jacket pocket and slinking away toward the back hallways.
He does not go home. He rises up the stairs, tugging the tie free and slinging it around his shoulders. He pulls the bottom of the shirt from his waistband and unbuttons the awful top button. Anything to be free of the fabric for just a moment.
At the top of the stairs, he uses his keycard to get past the most secure doors. The various night crew don’t even give him a glance. He’s been wandering these halls too long for them to care.
He scans into Quackity’s office, walks to the desk, and sinks down into the chair.
Peace and quiet. He leans his head along the back of the chair and throws his feet up on the now clean desk, pushing lightly to turn the chair back and forth. The half moon glows brilliantly outside the window, throwing long shadows across the ground.
He was instructed to return from the party with any report of odd things, and Wilbur was certainly pretty high up there.
Tommy shoves down the twisting in his gut. Quackity will return. He has to. He’s the strongest person Tommy knows, and a couple of fucking faeries aren’t going to get the best of him.
But Wilbur was so strange , even as far as faeries go. The glow of those eyes are still seared onto the back of Tommy’s mind. He imagines them staring at him from the dark trees, peering through bushes, hunting him as he walks. Tommy glances out the large back window at the woods on the edge of the casino property.
He does not have to wait too long. At a little after six, with the sky already brightening with sunlight, something shudders deep in the woods. A flock of birds rises up from the tree line and spiral into the air.
Tommy hears the door at the far end of the hallway open. He moves to sit up, about to call for Quackity, when two distinct voices drift down to the office. Tommy freezes. A few steps closer, and the words begin to take shape.
“I should have let Sapnap bring me home,” comes Quackity’s voice. The other one does not respond immediately, and when it does, it’s an inaudible grumble.
Two silhouettes appear in the doorway and abruptly stop, the mysterious voice cutting off. The shorter figure of the two reaches in and flips the switch, illuminating the office.
“Tommy,” Quackity greets, dropping his hand. “You were supposed to have gone home.”
Tommy’s heart is beating hard again. With a foot on the floor, Tommy swivels the chair back and forth and eyes the man next to Quackity. Tall and lanky, his figure cut by a long brown trench coat and dark slacks. The man from the party. Wilbur . Except now, Tommy can see all the reasons why speaking to him set him on edge. Wilbur grins at Tommy’s scrutiny, and Tommy doesn’t need the sharp teeth and the cat-like pupils to be sure of what he is.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Tommy says, tearing his eyes off him to look at Quackity. “Wanted to ask how your meeting went.”
Quackity sighs and steps into the office. He shirks his blazer as he goes, tossing it behind him at Wilbur. “Your mom won’t be happy.”
With a flutter of the fabric, Wilbur’s glamour falls back into place. The eyes shift, the teeth blunt, and the pointed ears round out. Wilbur catches the jacket with a smooth motion, but the dim bewilderment on his face has him looking away from Tommy. It’s just enough time for Tommy to swallow the What? on his tongue from Quackity’s words and school the confusion from his face.
“I’ll be home before she wakes up,” he responds.
“I’ll have someone escort you home.”
If the fae man wasn’t here, Tommy would cry out in indignation. But the fae man is here, and Tommy’s skin is crawling.
Wilbur drops the blazer on the ground and ignores the way Quackity stares back at it despairingly. “Our meeting,” he begins, “went very well. Thank you for asking, Tommy.” He walks toward the desk with the sort of grace reserved for the most talented of ballerinas—and his kind. He stops just short of it and holds out his hand, a mock mirror of the party. “I’m Wilbur.”
Tommy stares at the hand and wishes he had gone home today. Politeness is not his strongest suit. Quackity knows this. It’s probably why he had sent Tommy home in the first place.
He leans forward, playing along with Wilbur’s game, whatever it is, and clasps their hands. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Quackity has come up to Tommy’s side and he makes a shooing motion at him. Tommy rises, letting go of Wilbur’s hand, and dances away from being smacked.
“Go home,” Quackity instructs. “My driver will take you.”
A protest dies on Tommy’s lips. He backs up to the door, hoping his body language looks loose and calm enough. He looks to Wilbur and says “Have a good night.” Then, to Quackity, “’Night, boss.”
And then he leaves.
Tommy does not go to the front entrance. He goes out the back, skipping past the patrons and the valet, and follows the edge of the woods that back up to the casino. Thin moonlight filters down and separates the trees from the pitch black. Something rustles in the bushes and the intense feeling of being watched prickles over his skin. Nothing new. He pulls his thin spring jacket nearer to himself.
So Wilbur wasn’t lying. Quackity seems familiar enough with the faery man, and most importantly, Quackity returned . Safe, intact. But what kind of business meeting involves the fucking fae?
At the end of the street, Tommy turns toward downtown, following the familiar paths until he is at his small, squat apartment building ten minutes later. He climbs the stairs two at a time and then glides down to his door. As he pulls out his keys, he hears something shift behind him.
He turns. He smiles.
“Hi, mum,” he says, reaching out to the cat on the bannister and scratching her behind her ear. “You didn’t have to stay up for me.”
She meows at him and leaps down. He unlocks his front door and feels her brush against his leg, then follow him in to the small apartment as he pushes the door shut.