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“You should join my lobby tomorrow night,” Karl tells Quackity, for the third time in the roughly ten minutes that they’ve been talking.
“Karl, again, I don’t know if I have time. And if you’re going to be playing Roblox there’s no way I’m even considering it –”
“Aw, come on! We won’t play Roblox if you join, okay? I have another game we could play. I miss hanging out with you, it’s been a while.”
Quackity sighs. It has been a while. But although Karl seems to think otherwise, Quackity doesn’t feel like playing games together on stream counts as hanging out, really. That’s work. That’s him cracking jokes and doing bits and putting on a show for the viewers. That’s not when he can be soft and vulnerable and honest, like he can be on the phone with Karl right now.
“I might join for a bit, alright?” he concedes, just to make Karl stop asking. He’s already pretty sure that he isn’t going to join. He’s got a lot he has to do tomorrow as it is.
It’s well past midnight, and Quackity knows he should be sleeping. He has shit he needs to do, has to wake up early tomorrow for a meeting he’s got, doesn’t really have time to just be lying around talking on the phone.
But he hasn’t had enough time to talk much with Karl recently, and God, does he miss it.
“I’m going to tell everyone that you’ll be there,” Karl tells him gleefully. “I’m going to tweet it on my priv: ‘Quackity will be on my stream tomorrow’! Then you’ll have to join.”
He huffs out a breath that’s halfway to a laugh. “No, I won’t. It’ll just look worse for you when I don’t, if you do that.”
“You’re all talk. You wouldn’t do that to me.” Karl sounds way too smugly sure of himself, and it annoys Quackity a bit. Mostly because he’s right.
“Yeah,” he whispers, and his voice comes out softer than he’d intended it to.
Karl’s quiet for a moment on the other end of the line, and Quackity can hear him shifting in his bed. He curls his hands tight into the fabric of his sheet.
“Are you doing alright, Alex?” Karl asks him after a moment.
Quackity runs his tongue along his retainer sharply enough that it hurts a little, tightening his hands where they’re clasping his bedsheets.
“Why are you asking me that?”
“You sound, I don’t know, sad?” Karl replies, careful, tentative. He’s always so careful and tentative with him. It’s infuriating.
“Well, I’m not,” Quackity replies, and it’s not a lie exactly. He isn’t sad. He doesn’t feel sad very often, not unless he makes the mistake of stopping for a minute and letting himself think too hard about the wrong things, about the cross that hangs heavy around his neck and about the search history he’s deleted one too many times and about the fact that he wants to hold Karl Jacobs in his arms and never let go.
“Okay,” Karl says doubtfully, and he sounds tired all of a sudden. It’s nearing four in the morning for him, so it’s really remarkable that he’s awake at all, but he hadn’t sounded the slightest bit sleepy to Quackity until right that moment.
“I’m not sad,” Quackity insists, and it tastes like a lie. There’s a long silence, and Quackity listens to Karl’s breathing, slow and steady, and worries his retainers with his tongue.
“You know I’m here for you, if you ever do want to talk, yeah?” Karl says eventually. Then, after a pause, he adds, “I’ll always be here for you. I’m your friend, don’t forget it.”
“Karl?” Quackity asks after another long moment, watching the moonlight ripple across the ceiling above his bed.
“Yeah?” Karl murmurs in reply, clearly half-asleep now.
“What if I wanted you to be more?” he whispers. His tongue feels heavy, and as the words are dragged from his lips he wonders if maybe he’s only dreaming and none of this is real at all.
He waits with baited breath, but Karl doesn’t reply. He must have fallen asleep.
He should feel relieved, considering the magnitude of what he’d just stupidly admitted. Instead, though, he feels as though invisible chains around his heart have just pulled a little tighter, constricting his chest that much more.
It’s only barely perceptible, but it gets harder to breathe.
Quackity doesn’t join Karl’s stream the next evening, or the one he invites him to the following week, or the week after that. He’s busy, he’s got shit to do. He has his own streams and meetings and events, and he has homework and he’s got to call his mom, she misses him when he doesn’t – his days are so full with things he has to do, actually, that it’s frighteningly easy to ignore Karl, and to ignore the fact that he’s intentionally ignoring Karl, and to ignore the reason why he’s ignoring Karl in the first place.
It doesn’t mean they’re not still close friends, if they don’t exchange more than a few sporadic texts for a couple of months. It’s nothing odd. They’re both busy, they don’t have much time to talk, it doesn’t mean anything.
He must be right, for what it’s worth, because Karl doesn’t show any sign that anything’s amiss. His messages are completely normal, when he does message him.
Maybe things can stay this way. Maybe nothing has to change.
And then the day comes when he can’t keep it up.
It would have been easily avoidable, what puts a stop to his evasion of Karl in the end. That’s the most annoying thing about it. Quackity didn’t have to agree to go to the awards show, but he had, and by the time it occurs to him that Karl will be there too, it’s too late to change his mind.
It’s a Saturday evening, and Quackity takes an Uber from his house to the event. He normally would have driven himself, but he plans to be drinking tonight. He tells himself that’s the only reason why he doesn’t want to drive, and tries not to think about the way his hands are shaking around his phone as he stares down at the message he’s received from Karl.
See you soon, he reads, again and again. It’s three simple words, it’s nothing the least bit odd, but he just can’t bring himself to type out a response.
He replies to some emails instead to keep himself busy while the Uber weaves it’s way through the thick LA traffic, trying not to feel bad for ignoring Karl yet again. Anxiety buzzes in his chest as he thinks about how he’s not going to be able to do that for much longer.
Eventually, the Uber pulls up in front of the hotel where the show is being held, and Quackity pays and makes his way inside. Luckily, it’s not the kind of event where they’re taking photos or have fans gathered out front, which is a relief considering that he’s not really up for being much of a spectacle today.
Once he’s inside, he’s immediately swept up in a flurry of action. There are lots of people who recognize him and come up to say hi, and he’s so busy talking work and making new connections that he almost forgets that Karl’s in the room too somewhere.
Until he feels the firm bump of a shoulder against his arm, and then he’s right there. It’s only in that very moment that possible negative effects of avoiding Karl for months suddenly occur to him, because his breath catches in his throat.
He hadn’t been avoiding Karl because he didn’t want to talk with him or spend time with him. He’d been forcing himself to do it, despite his desires otherwise, because he was afraid. He’d been trying to run from his feelings, but now he realizes with abrupt and terrifying clarity that all he’d been doing was ensuring that they’d catch up to him right at this moment.
Right now.
Right now – in public – with Karl still pressed up against him, a wide grin on his face. His mouth is shaping words, but Quackity doesn’t hear them, too focused on the heat of his arm that he can feel even through the layers of both of their suit jackets.
He’s sure he looks like a deer in headlights, staring up at Karl’s pretty face with wide eyes and a gaping jaw, but he can’t for the life of him snap himself out of it.
Unsurprisingly, after a moment Karl pauses and blinks down at him in confusion. “You good?” he says, and finally Quackity can hear the words.
“Um,” he replies, intelligently.
Karl takes a small step back, but it’s only so that he can turn to face him properly, placing one of his hands gently on his elbow.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asks, and Quackity is staring down at the hand that’s touching him. Karl’s gotten his nails done professionally, in white and pale gray with the occasional glimmering red jewel, and the colours pop against Quackity’s black suit.
He mouth is dry. He needs to say something, he knows. “I’ve been avoiding you,” he blurts out after a too-long pause.
Karl’s eyebrows shoot up and his grip tightens briefly around Quackity’s arm. “I was hoping you were just busy,” he admits, looking chagrined. “Did I do something?”
“No,” Quackity replies quickly, fiddling anxiously with one of the buttons on his suit jacket. “No, it’s just – it was just something with me. Not your problem.”
“It sounds like it’s my problem,” Karl starts, but he’s forced to break off as a voice echoes around the room telling them that the show is about to start and they should make their way to their seats.
Quackity sinks in on himself with relief at the interruption, but Karl’s mouth twists down into a frown. “Sit with me,” he says, and doesn’t really phrase it like it’s optional. Reluctantly, Quackity follows Karl to a table and sits down beside him, twisting the seat around to face the stage.
They’re joined at the table by several other streamers, but no one that he’s particularly close to, so he just nods politely and then focuses on the MC as she introduces the show. They’re brought complimentary wine throughout the event, and Quackity drinks more than he probably should have, enough that his head feels a little fuzzy and his anxiety is dulled by the time the awards have all been handed out a couple of hours later.
Neither he nor Karl end up getting any awards, which is too bad, but he hadn’t really been expecting to win anyway. Karl seems a bit unhappy, but that might be entirely unrelated to the awards and more connected to the fact that he’s been trying – unsuccessfully – to subtly get Quackity’s attention for the past two hours. The fact that he’s had absolutely no luck is wholly intentional on Quackity’s part, of course.
“You’re coming to the party, right?” Karl asks as soon as the MC finishes talking and the lights brighten, before Quackity has a chance to make a run for it.
“What, Ludwig’s?” he asks, remembering vaguely that Ludwig had messaged him with an invite the day before. “I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Well, you’re planning on it now!” Karl tells him, grinning widely. He reaches out, probably trying to rest his hand on Quackity’s arm, but he scoots his chair back so he’s just barely out of reach. Karl falters, smile fading.
“So, uh, before they started the awards-” Karl starts, and Quackity winces at the realization that he’s reminded him.
“Fine! I’ll come,” he interjects, trying to redirect the conversation. He has to consciously stop his knee from bouncing before the whole table starts shaking from it.
Karl brightens again, then stands up abruptly, gesturing for him to do the same. “Let’s get going then, I think everyone’s heading straight there.”
Quackity glances around the room as he stands up too and is surprised to notice that the majority of the other attendees have already dispersed. As he follows Karl out of the building, he wonders if there’s any way he can take it back now and get out of going without it seeming odd. Karl is talking animatedly about the party, though, and his eyes are bright with excitement and Quackity can’t bear to make the smile fade from his face again.
He just couldn’t bear to say no to him in general, he realizes with an uncomfortable lurch. He’s never really felt that way about anyone before, and it terrifies him.
When they get to Ludwig and QT’s house, it’s already full of people. There’s so much going on that Quackity can’t quite get his bearings straight, but Karl grabs his hand and pulls him through the crowds until they wind up in the backyard, on a large patio by a pool.
Karl starts talking to a streamer who’s a friend of his, someone who Quackity doesn’t really know, and though he’s trying to follow along, the music is so loud that he can hardly hear what they’re saying.
It’s hard to pay attention, too, because Karl never let go of him and it’s distracting. He feels a bit sick to his stomach, as well. Probably because he’d been drinking wine without having eaten much. Not because Karl is still holding his hand. Definitely not.
He spots Tina, sitting with Rae by a fountain on the other side of the pool, and gives her a wave. She waves back at him, smiling, and Karl turns to look.
“We should go talk to Tina!” he yells into Quackity’s ear. His breath is hot on his cheek, and his heart skips a beat. Deliberately, he pulls his hand free from Karl’s, reaching under the collar of his dress shirt to fiddle with the cross hanging from around his neck.
The metal is cold against his hand, which is warm from Karl’s touch.
He casts a helpless glance back at the direction they’d came from, wondering if he could slip away while Karl was distracted, head home and go back to avoiding the glorious butterflies and the awful dread that accompanies them.
“Where’d they go?” Karl says, and Quackity turns back to look at him, then follows his gaze back to where Tina and Rae were before. They’ve disappeared, so he just shrugs and shifts awkwardly, overthinking the amount of eye contact that it is appropriate to make more than he ever has before.
“Hey, come dance with me,” Karl suggests suddenly, inclining his head towards where there’s some empty space on the patio near the DJ booth.
“Absolutely not.”
“Oh, please?” he practically whines, and Quackity has to avert his eyes. He looks too damn good in the soft purple light from the lamps around the yard.
“No,” he reiterates, but it’s weaker now, because the truth is, he wants to say yes. The part of him that’s wild and wanting and stupid wants to say yes more than he’s ever wanted anything before in his life.
The truth is, he’s getting awfully sick and tired of doing the exact opposite of what he really wants to do all the time because he’s trying to follow all of these stupid rules that aren’t written anywhere other than in his own head.
So when Karl raises his eyebrows and offers him his hand, a knowing expression written kindly into his smile, he gives in and takes it.
Karl interlocks their fingers again, the same way they had been before Quackity had let go earlier, and pulls him across the patio to the area by the DJ booth where people are dancing.
It's club music, really, loud and fast and not the type of music you'd dance romantically with someone to, but Karl settles his hands onto Quackity's waist anyway as though they're going to slow dance, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet.
After a moment, Quackity hesitantly places his hand on Karl's shoulders, struggling not to shiver as he feels him shift under his touch.
"What are we doing?" he asks with an awkward laugh, trying to keep his voice light. He must not have spoken loudly enough, though, because Karl only grins at him and starts spinning them in circles, still bouncing a bit.
Calling what they're doing dancing feels like a real stretch, but Karl's hands are on his waist and his eyes on his face and Quackity feels like he's flying anyway.
After a few minutes, Karl starts switching things up somewhat, stepping in and back out again, spinning him a few times - in a way that's only the faintest imitation of a playful joke - and then eventually dropping him into a dip.
Their faces get awfully close together, and for a split second Quackity legitimately thinks that Karl is going to kiss him.
It would only be as a joke, or if not, meant entirely platonically, but Quackity doesn't even care anymore with how badly he wants it.
Karl doesn't kiss him, though. He pulls Quackity back up to his feet, laughing. He lets himself be pulled, but then stands still, staring silently at Karl as people ebb and flow around them.
The invisible chains around his chest - around his heart - are constricting painfully tight right now, and somewhere in the back of his mind he's sure that the only possible way he could make them loosen would be by kissing Karl.
His brain quickly becomes so full of the thought of it that he can hardly remember the multitude of reasons that he's listed out time and time again as to why he shouldn't.
Why shouldn't he?
“You okay?” asks Karl, voice a low murmur that’s barely audible over the music that’s still pounding loudly in his ears.
They’re closer together now than they were before, he realizes, although he doesn’t remember it happening. Karl’s fingers twitch where they're still resting against his waist. He doesn’t breathe.
Very, very slowly he lifts his arms again, but this time he raises them up past his shoulders, cupping Karl's face in his hands instead. His cheeks are warm and mostly smooth under his touch, but he can feel the texture of bumps worked into his skin where his fingertips are curving back around his jawline.
God. God. He wants.
"Alex?" Karl whispers. His voice is soft, but they're close enough now that Quackity can hear anyway, can make out the confusion threaded through his tone.
It's enough to snap him out of it, at least a little. Karl doesn't want him the same way Quackity wants him, he reminds himself.
It's the only thought in his head - he doesn't even think about all the other things, like how he doesn't want to be gay and he doesn't want to be in love with Karl Jacobs and he definitely doesn't want the whole world to know that he's gay and in love with Karl Jacobs - but it's still enough to make him tear away from him as though he's made of red hot molten metal.
He stumbles back a few steps, nearly tripping over his own feet and sending himself crashing to the ground.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. He was so close to ruining everything, to making himself and everything that he’s ever built tear apart at the seams.
He's still too close to doing so. Karl looks concerned, and beautiful, and he's taking a step towards him. Quackity pivots on his heel and pushes his way through the shifting crowd, bumping into several people as he goes. A couple of people try to talk to him as passes, but he stubbornly keeps moving after he notices out of the corner of his eye that Karl is chasing after him.
He heads back into the house, where there are far fewer people, and starts making his way down the hallway in the direction of the front door. He's hoping that he can just slip out and go home and cry with his head under his pillow until he couldn't possibly cry anymore, and then go back to ignoring Karl and his feelings and the fact that this dumb party ever happened.
"Where are you going?" Karl calls incredulously from behind him, and then Quackity realizes he's exhausted. He's sick and tired of this. Ignoring, hiding, running.
He’s pretty sure that Karl will still follow him, but he’s been running away from him for so long – though it hasn’t ever been physically until right now – that he just can’t be bothered to do it any longer, so he turns and slips into one of the empty bedrooms along the hallway.
He pushes the door shut behind him, but Karl has opened it and followed him inside before it even clicks shut.
“What the hell, Alex?” he demands, waving his hands in wide, exaggerated motions as he speaks.
Quackity kisses him.
He jolts forward so fast that it hurts, takes Karl’s face in his hands, and presses their lips together with such force that Karl crashes back into the door, which slams shut behind them.
He didn’t mean to, he really shouldn’t have done it and he’s well aware of that fact, but he just kind of…breaks.
Karl doesn’t kiss him back, but he doesn’t push him away either, and his hands come to settle, tentative and careful, against Quackity’s waist.
He hates it.
After a few seconds of pressing his lips to Karl’s unresponsive mouth, Quackity pulls away, reality crashing through his temporary adrenaline soaked haze with terrifying immediacy.
Karl looks stunned as he steps back and looks at him, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. Even though Quackity's moved to give him space, he stays pressed flat back against the door, unmoving, hands laid flush on the wood.
"I should have kept avoiding you," Quackity chokes out, after a moment passes in shocked still silence.
"That's why you were avoiding me? Because you want to kiss me?" Karl asks, limbs finally relaxing a little, though he remains flat against the door.
Karl doesn't understand, Quackity realizes. Karl kisses people all the time, enjoys doing it, doesn't mean anything by it. Quackity swallows. "No. No. It's more that, like, it's because I want to be the only one who kisses you."
Somehow, that still doesn't seem to be enough. No light of recognition enters Karl's eyes, and he still keeps staring at him with confusion and a kind of indulgent patience.
Quackity draws in a deep breath. Fuck it. It's too late to get out of this now. "I've been avoiding you, Karl, because I think I'm in love with you."
He doesn't even recognize his own voice, echoing back quiet and afraid in his ears.
Remarkably, Karl's face still doesn't change. "That's why you've been avoiding me?" he asks. He doesn't sound angry, just mildly curious. Quackity figures he must still be in shock. He's sure the anger - or at least discomfort and awkwardness - will come soon, so he squeezes his eyes shut as he nods.
He's so unprepared for it when he feels gentle hands against his cheeks that he jumps with surprise. His eyes fly open only to find Karl's only about an inch or so away, directly in front of him.
They're so blue. He can see himself, small and terrified, reflected in the black of blown wide pupils.
"You’re an idiot," Karl tells him, and then he kisses him.
It's impossibly, infinitely good. Karl holds his face in his hands like he's something precious, like he matters, and he kisses him so soft and slow that Quackity thinks he might melt into a puddle right there in his arms.
He ends the kiss slowly, too, leaning back in for a couple more quick pecks before eventually pulling away.
Quackity blinks his eyes open again, staring up at Karl. Every part of him feels frozen - his mind has ground to a halt, his heart has stopped beating in his chest, he's forgotten how to breathe.
Then Karl's lips curve up into a soft smile, and it's tentative and careful but Quackity doesn't hate it at all. He feels a smile growing on his own face as well, and he reaches out for Karl with one shaking hand, rests it on his elbow.
"Why did you do that?" he asks, hushed, watching the way that Karl's eyes flicker rapidly over his face like he's trying to imprint the image of him on the back of his brain.
"Because I love you too," Karl says simply. "And I wanted you to know that."
This proclamation does not help Quackity's already failing body, and every part of him that was frozen suddenly bursts into overdrive - mind racing, heart pounding, breath coming in sharp, short gasps.
"Hey," says Karl, placing his hand over the one that Quackity had put on his elbow, holding him in place. "It's okay."
It's okay. It's okay. Quackity thinks this might be the first time in his entire life that he’s actually believed that. It’s hard not to, when Karl’s the one saying it to him.
He's always known theoretically that there's nothing wrong with what he's been feeling. But there's a huge difference between logic and Karl Jacobs looking him right in the eyes and telling him that it's alright.
"I love you," he says out loud again, trying to turn the words into a tangible thing. "I think I'm gay," he adds, for good measure. It feels extraordinarily weird to say it out loud, but good, too. Better even than kissing Karl, maybe, and that is saying a hell of a lot.
"Thank you for telling me," Karl says, and then his hands are looping around Quackity's waist and finally he feels steady, heart not beating too fast or too slow. He draws in a deep breath and lets himself realize that he can have this, that he can have what he wants and that he doesn't have to be afraid of it.
He reaches up and settles his hands flat against Karl’s chest, index finger tracing the loop of his red tie, just because he can. He can feel his warmth through the soft fabric of his dress shirt, and it makes him feel insane.
Karl's lips look distractingly pink and enticing as they quirk up at the corner into a smirk, and then his grip tightens on Quackity's waist until he's pulled in so that they're pressed flush together. “You wanna be mine, Alex?” he asks, voice low and rough all of a sudden.
He shivers. “Yeah – yes, Karl,” he breathes, beginning to worry that he might fall to the floor, since his legs feel like they’re seconds away from giving out.
Karl’s hands hold him steady though, hold him right where he belongs. He stares at him, trying to take everything in all at once, and notices for the first time that he’s got a pair of dangly red earrings on to match his nails and tie, glinting sharply in the light of the room. He stretches his hand up to touch one of them, and the thin metal chain is warm under his fingers.
“What are you doing?” Karl asks with a little giggle, and he hesitates.
“I don’t – know. I don’t know,” Quackity responds, absently trailing his index finger up the helix of his ear. “Just. Wanted to touch,” he admits.
“You can,” Karl tells him, gentle. “You can.”
He can. He slides his hand around the back of Karl’s head and buries it into the soft strands of his fluffy hair. Then he raises himself up on his toes, tilts his head up, and kisses Karl again. This time there’s no fear or slamming against doors or complete and utter confusion.
There’s only the fuzzy swoop of butterflies in his stomach and the flutter of his pounding heart as Karl’s lips slide smoothly against his. He thinks he must have died and gone to heaven without noticing, somehow, because he's never been this happy before in his entire life.
He’d been a complete fool to try to keep himself from having this, he realizes now. And he knows that there’s more they need to talk about – about specifics, how they’re going to make this work when they generally don’t live in the same city, if they’re going to try to keep it secret or let it get out – but he also knows that they are going to make it work. He’s going to make it work. He’s going to do anything and everything that it takes to make this work. He's going to keep doing that for a long time. Forever, hopefully.
He breaks the kiss and inhales, long and slow. “You want to come back to mine?”
Karl grins. “Yeah. That sounds good.”