Archive of Our Own

Wilbur was having, to put it mildly, a shit day.

It was one of those days where every single thing seemed to conspire against him to create a perfect storm where every single action and moment combined to make him feel like complete and utter shit.

It was a bad day to start out with, really, one of Wilbur's trademarks Bad Days. Where his brain won't shut up and there are shadows in the corner of his vision that aren't actually there and all of his joints ache like a rain's coming. His wrist refused to work no matter how many times he popped it, even when his wrist ached from trying over and over again. The brace hadn't dried from the last time he had gotten caught in the rain with it on, and the overly dry parts scratched against his skin and made him want to rip it off.

He tried to muscle through it. Knowing full well it was a bad idea, he still tried. Wilbur had done it all the time in L'Manburg, and he had done a good enough job of fooling everyone then. He should be able to do an even better job now, with less eyes on him and less people who even care to think about it. No one would think twice about the crazed terrorist ex-president of L'Manburg stumbling around his broken down burger van that no one went to, except maybe Tommy.

But Wilbur had barely been able to hide anything from Tommy before dying, and he didn't exactly have the energy to try and trick his younger brother anymore. That was for when he was a much younger man.

(Though Wilbur isn't even sure he aged. Limbo was nothing but stasis, how could he have aged when nothing else changed. He wasn't sure if he had changed, no matter how much he wanted to.)

Whether forty or twenty-five, Wilbur was tired. The old aches and pains from three life-scars were bothering him; from the sword and arrow from Punz to the large sword slash on his chest from his own father. Each had their own distinct pain that made Wilbur feel like doing nothing more than calling the day a wash and rolling over in bed to see if tomorrow would end up being better.

But there was a Burger Van to run and he needed to at least pretend to have a store in order to excuse why he was paying Ranboo an exorbitant amount for doing absolutely nothing. Wilbur was a good business owner, mostly because he barely owned a business and just used it as a front to put money in Ranboo's pockets as a sort of apology for having to deal with him.

(Also as payment for all the times that Ranboo had to quite literally take a weed whacker to him in order to cut off the moss that seemed insistent on dragging him to a grave that he never got.)

The cane by his door was necessary to get through the day, Wilbur had known that from the second he climbed out of the mattress that he called a proper bed. His knees ached something awful, almost sending him crashing back down to the floor when he tried to put his full weight on them. He could just barely get himself to the door, his house wasn't that big and he could easily cross the width of it in a few strides.

Wilbur supported himself on the wall, bony shoulder digging into the wood that he had cut and constructed himself. What sort of son of Philza Craft would he be if he couldn't even make a simple house to keep himself safe from the mobs? A piss poor one, that's what.

His hand--still wearing the fingerless gloves, of course--closed around the handle of the cane, thumb automatically going to rub at the small carving on the underside of it. Wilbur wasn't sure what it was supposed to be, Tommy had been the one to carve the entire cane and had literally chucked it at his head instead of handing it over like a normal person. He was pretty sure it was supposed to be discs, or maybe a flag?

The only thing that Wilbur thought when he touched it was about how much effort it must have taken for Tommy to carve this for him. The only thing he thought about was how Tommy always got a smug sort of smile on his face when he noticed that Wilbur was using it, puffing his chest out a bit and never mentioning it verbally.

(Wilbur wasn't sure where he stood with his younger brother, he didn't usually like to think about it. Especially on bad days, though it wasn't like he gave it much mental attention on good days either. There was too much there.)

Leaning heavily on the cane, Wilbur made his loping way towards Paradise. A sort of ironic name, considering the state of it. Wilbur only barely had the energy to keep the grill clean, let alone do the upkeep on the seating area. So the wooden benches and tables were nearly overtaken by weeds and flowers--which were technically more weeds but Tommy insisted on calling them flowers and Wilbur had never broken that habit.

It wasn't like anyone actually went to Paradise, not to eat there and certainly not to stay long enough that sitting down would be necessary. Wilbur wasn't blind and he knew that there would occasionally be groups of teenagers on the outskirts of what he had claimed as his land. Giggling between themselves and pushing-shoving whoever had been dared to run up to the window and ask Thee Terrorist Ex-President of the defunct city-state of L'Manburg for one of his burgers.

It took three times of the same thing happening for Wilbur to realize that it was all just a joke, and he had taken to putting Ranboo in charge of greeting the customers. He was a friendly person to greet the new customers, and after the humor wore off they usually found themselves trapped in ordering something because of Ranboo's excellent guilt tripping skills.

Wilbur could respect a man who could guilt trip teenagers into buying burgers that were always either severely overcooked or dangerously raw. There was no health association that Paradise respected, unlike Las Nevadas where they couldn't serve you raw meat because of 'prion disease' and 'food poisoning'. Bunch of cowards that they were.

It wasn't that he was exactly trying to make them raw or overcooked, but he just had a horrible method of telling time. Which was hoping that he hadn't disassociated for too long and served them up.

(Wilbur himself had horrible taste buds, Tommy refused to eat his food outright no matter what it was, Ranboo just preferred to swallow the burger whole without chewing, and the only other person who had actually eaten his food was Technoblade. Who told him that his raw burgers actually tasted wonderful.

Wilbur knew that Techno was an outlier and could not be trusted as a reliable source of feedback. It did not stop him from using him as an excuse and defense of his cooking.)

When he got to Paradise, Ranboo was wiping down one of the tables and completely ignoring the weeds that wrapped around the legs of it. His tail swished behind him and Wilbur tried to keep his eyes on the van and shove down all of his instincts that are telling him to jump on it. He was better than his instincts, he had spent his entire life shoving that down deep inside of him and he was doing just fine!

(He tried not to think about it too hard.)

"Ayup," Wilbur said, voice scratchy and sounding worse than ever. Even Ranboo flinched upon hearing it, ears flicking back and pupils narrowing automatically before he relaxed.

"Oh, hey Wilbur. Are you-" Ranboo paused, head tilted to the side as he stared at Wilbur. It didn't take a mind reader to know that he was being judged, and Wilbur tried to not take it too personally. "Should you even be here?"

"Where else would I be, Ranbus? This is my job." Wilbur gestured magnanimously with his free hand as he leaned his weight onto the cane. Like always, it held firm and kept him from tumbling forward and eating shit.

"You could be sleeping, maybe you'd end up looking better." The worst thing about Ranboo's cheery voice is that he is excellent at back handed compliments to the point where Wilbur can't call him on them. It at the very least makes operating hours of Paradise a bit more entertaining when they have something to talk about.

Wilbur waved him off, trying not to obviously lean on his cane too much. "I'm fine, Ranboo, I'll feel better once I get working." It was a lie and both of know it, but neither of them mentioned it. That would be against the rules of their little game and Wilbur wasn't going to be the one to break them first. Ranboo pretended that Wilbur was fine, and Wilbur pretended that he didn't know that Ranboo was a liar in all things.

Ranboo let out a doubtful hum and muttered something under his breath that Wilbur did his best to not pick up on. He failed, and knew that Ranboo was saying that he was being contradictory, but he didn't care. Ranboo could think what he wanted and Wilbur would know in his heart that he was wrong and very stupid and also a centrist. Absolute worst employee--if you ignore all of the rather kind things he does for Wilbur, and the fact that he's good at flipping burgers when he needs to be, and sort of everything else about him.

The day seemed like it was going to be a bad one weather-wise as well. Heavy clouds hung over the forest and while it hadn't started raining yet, Wilbur figured that the ache in his knees had to come from somewhere. He wasn't going to let that stop him, of course! Wilbur wasn't going to let himself get thrown off track by a few aches and pains or some rain!

His confident stride up to the van is just barely ruined by the fact that his foot caught on the top step and sent him sprawling into the van. Wilbur laid on the metal floor for a few seconds, face pressed into the cool tile as he just let himself sit in his failure for a bit. He took a few steadying breaths like Phil always told him to do, felt absolutely no better, and forced himself back up.

The good part of the van's ridiculous size was that Wilbur didn't have much trouble navigating with his cane, and there was room at the grill for him to have a stool to lean up against so he wasn't on his feet all hours of the day. Ranboo's station at the window also had a chair, but that was mostly because Wilbur wanted to make it obvious that he put his employees over his customers.

(Which was also why he encouraged Ranboo to play on his phone during work hours. Though, recently Ranboo had stopped constantly checking his phone the same way he used to. Wilbur wasn't quite sure who had stopped texting him, but it was clear that something was going wrong in the Enderman's life.

Secretly, he hoped that Tommy had stopped messaging him. Just because he was pretty sure that would be funny.)

The work day started as it always did, with Ranboo at the counter and Wilbur sitting at an empty grill. There was no reason for him to grill up burgers for customers that might not even show up, they needed to make to order. Halfway through the first hour, Wilbur started telling Ranboo a story from his past.

"You see, Ranboo, there were a lot of things that I got up to before the founding of L'Manburg. None of the history books will tell you this, but really I didn't just pop into the universe being ready to be a revolutionary. My past is full of an array of sordid details--wait you're what, nineteen? Okay I can't tell you about most of them, but that's fine. I can abridge it." Wilbur waved one hand through the air, leaning his weight onto the stool with his back to the grill.

Ranboo made a soft hum from his seat, one arm on the counter and hand supporting his chin. Wilbur figured that he probably didn't care that much, but that just meant the had a captive audience. He's used to Tommy being his captive audience, and really he preferred his brother to be the one who was listening to his stories because Tommy at least engaged with him.

"Now, I don't remember exactly when it was, but it was before Fundy was born and I don't think Tubbo was born either."

Ranboo jolted at the mention of his...whatever. Wilbur had no idea what sort of relationship they had, he just knew that there was one--or at least had been. "Why is Tubbo important to this?"

"Oh because this was before his bigamist of a father tried to kill me and ran off. Really, I'm just sort of pissed that he took the ring with him. I was going to use that for my next relationship, but no, he just had to steal it. I don't know if he pawned it off to pay off debts or if he kept it, but I've never seen it again."

Ranboo's face, somehow, paled. Eyes wide and glowing in the badly lit van, he rested a hand over the breast pocket of his little suit. "You- were married to Schlatt? President- Schlatt? The dictator?"

"Yeah, oh god--did Tubbo not tell you that Schlatt's his dad? Ignore that, I don't want to be the one putting Tubbo's personal life on blast, just forget I ever said that."

"No--no, I knew about the Schlatt thing, but the ring. The ring you gave Schlatt, that ring, what did it look like?"

Wilbur frowned, head tilting back as far as he dared with the grill behind him. It took a bit to call to mind the image of the ring, usually all of those memories of the infamous Summer of Schlattbur were kept tightly locked away in a box. "I made it myself, actually. Phil taught me how to do metalworking when I was younger and I just kept up with the hobby. So it's not exactly perfect, a little lopsided, made of rose gold and diamonds and emeralds. Honestly not my best work in any...sense of the word."

Wilbur's words trailed off as he watched Ranboo reach into his pocket and pull out his ring.

"This is...the ring that Tubbo gave me. When we got engaged." Ranboo's tongue darted out, licking at his jaw in the utterly unnerving way of his. "When I asked where he got it, he just laughed and said looting. Do you think he took it off of Schlatt's body?"

That made Wilbur burst into a cackle, supporting himself on the grill as tremors ran through his body. It was the sort of laugh that went on just long enough to start to hurt, especially with the aches of the day already present and ready to consume him. His lungs seized inside his chest, stopping their function as Wilbur wheezed in a breath and refused to let it go.

He banged his fist on a solid surface, which happened to be the hot grill. Wilbur couldn't feel the burn but he knew that his skin was already bubbling with the beginning of burns if Ranboo's horrified gasp was anything to go off of. He couldn't focus on that with the ways that his muscles spasmed and refused to let him breathe. All he could get in were gasped out rough inhales and nothing breathed out.

(This would be a shit way to die, he though vaguely as he tried to force the breath out of his frozen lungs. He was brought back to life after a father-assisted suicide only to die laughing at the fact that his engagement ring had ended up in another fucked up gay marriage.)

Ranboo was talking to him but the words swam over his head, out of reach and unintelligible as he tried to force himself to breathe. The world swam in front of his eyes as tears sprang unbidden and trickled down his cheeks--not from sadness but from the physical exertion of forcing himself to take in air. Ranboo was nothing but a blurry shape in front of him as Wilbur blinked away tears and shuddered where he was.

He could distantly feel Ranboo take his hand off of the stove and unfurl the fingers. Like it was from down a long tunnel, he heard Ranboo make a pained little noise in the back of his throat before watching the black blur move across the van to the first aid kit.

"Uh, Wilbur? When was the last time we restocked the first aid kit?"

It was such a simple question that it knocked air back into him. With a wheezing exhale, Wilbur hung his head as his shoulders rose and fell. "I don't think I ever did in the first place. But I'm fine, I'm fine." Despite what he said, as he waved his hand through the air to dismiss him he gasped in pain. He held his injured hand to his chest, cradled slightly against his yellow sweater even as he avoided looking at it.

"You're bad at lying, I hope you know that." Ranboo shuffled towards the door. "I'm going to get Quackity."

"You will fucking not be doing that," Wilbur gasped out as he shoved himself up, fumbling with his good hand to grab the cane from where it was leaning against the grill. It never burned, no matter what it came into contact with, Tommy was very proud with how he had made it out of nether wood in order to make sure it would last. Like the man who made it, it was sturdy and reliable and Wilbur would not let it get damaged.

(He knew that he was putting too much worth into a gift from his brother, but that never stopped him before. He put too much worth into a country he made for his brother and his son and his step-son and he still didn't learn a lesson from it.

Wilbur just couldn't help putting his whole heart into things.)

He shambled towards the door, stumbling over his cane as he kept his injured hand from hitting anything. "I'll get him myself, you stay at the van." Wilbur didn't exactly care whether or not Ranboo actually stayed, he just needed to be the one to find Quackity. If Ranboo found him, there was no telling what the kid would tell his rival. He couldn't be seen as weak by the other man and he refused to let anything be up to chance.

If Quackity was going to find him lacking, he would at the very least do Wilbur the grace of looking at him first.

Even with his cane and his injured hand, Wilbur quickly overtook Ranboo. Cutting him off right at the door, he shoulder checked the teenager and stumbled down the steps. "I'll be back soon, Ranbus, just keep a watch on the place and make sure no one throws a brick through the window again!"

That had been a bad day, though not a Bad Day like Wilbur was currently living through. It had just been an averagely rotten day, glass sprinkled on the inside of the van and a brick with a very mean note attached. Wilbur had burned it on the stove to feel better about it and had stopped any glass shards from making their way into any of the food. He never told Quackity about it, he wasn't exactly sure if the man had been behind it and he didn't want to find out.

Ignorance was bliss after all, and Wilbur needed all the bliss he could get.

The faux desert that his rival had made for his faux city was absolutely inaccessible and Wilbur planned on complaining to the man about it. If he wanted to get petty about it, Wilbur could claim that it was all a ruse to make him unable to enter--despite the fact that it had been built before he had even been revived. The sand shifted underneath his weight, making it impossible for his cane to get a purchase.

His bad leg had to take too much weight and by the time he reached the concrete road he felt like he was about to collapse. At the neon sign, he took a break. His spine cracked uncomfortably as he leaned against the pole, just barely out of the sun's rays. The trench coat was fine for the tundra, was fine for Wilbur's normal freezing body temperature.

It wasn't fine for the desert that Quackity had constructed in the middle of the tundra. It wasn't fine for Las Nevadas.

After a few breaths, Wilbur forced himself onward. The ghost city of Las Nevadas was shining and bright to the point that Wilbur's eyes ached even behind his sunglasses that were specifically meant to keep his eyes from hurting. There was no one else there, though Wilbur knew that Quackity had hired at least four people to work it. He knew that one of them was his son, but the less he thought about everything that had happened with Fundy the better.

Every time he thought about reaching out to his son, the memory of Fundy publicly disowning and disavowing him played behind his eyelids. He didn't blame his son, Wilbur wouldn't claim himself as a father either, but the pain was still there. His son didn't want him as a father, and it wasn't Wilbur's place to try and insert himself back into Fundy's life when he had made it clear that he was not wanted.

So he just had to make sure that he stayed to the back streets of Las Nevadas until he came to Quackity's offices in the casino. Halfway on his way there, Wilbur realized that his usual way of getting into Quackity's office was entirely off the table. There was no way that his legs would be able to hold up to scaling the sheer brick of the office building, and even if they could Wilbur would be down a hand in trying to climb.

He'd rather not end up falling to a second death because he couldn't be a normal person and take the stairs.

Wilbur grimaced as another old wound began to ache, the arrow wound on his arm that never seemed to fully heal. It was on the opposite arm as the one that got injured, meaning that every single step Wilbur took with his cane hurt. His breathing caught in his throat again and he felt something shift inside of his arm that shouldn't be shifting. He never had the chance to really care for it, ducked away from care that Tommy showed and said that he was fine.

(Wilbur knew that his brother had stopped believing him long ago, it didn't stop himself from lying.)

The arrow had been taken out, but that was because Wilbur had ripped the shaft out of his arm with little care to the arrowhead. The bandage had gone from being wrapped over his trench to being wrapped underneath and people stopped asking questions once Tommy had sewed up the patch. Wilbur remembered when Tommy was still learning how to sew, how he would wake up and some of his clothes would have lines of a different colored thread randomly spaced in there as Tommy practiced his stitches.

Wilbur's hands were too shaky to make neat stitches, and he knew that Tommy wanted to do it for reasons that neither of them would ever name. So they sat in the living room of Tommy's house, Wilbur talking about stories (fabricated whole cloth) as Tommy stitched up all of the small slashes and rips on the trench coat. It had almost felt like old times, if not for the fact that the coat stunk of smoke and gunpowder still.

It was close enough, and Wilbur's coat came out the other end decorated in yellow and red and white lines.

There was an annoying lack of air conditioning inside of Quackity's office, which technically wasn't open to the public and Wilbur did in fact pick the lock to it. It was Quackity's fault for having the same lock after all of this time, one would think that he wanted Wilbur to show up and bother him.

"Hey Quackity, my beloved rival!" Wilbur yelled out, almost stumbling as he ran out of breath. He tilted his head back and inhaled deeply to almost scream out Quackity's name again.

It took a few more times of Wilbur bellowing out Quackity's name at the top of his lungs before he heard noise from a few floors above. He could hear Quackity stomping around and slamming his desk drawers loud enough that Wilbur knew that he was coming. There was the very loud sound of a door slamming and Wilbur waited patiently in front of the elevator.

He twiddled his fingers, rocking slightly as well as he dared without risking falling over. Quackity's office was high up, but the elevator was fast enough that Wilbur didn't have to wait for too long. Before he could even arrange himself in a completely casual pose, the chrome doors were opening to show him his beloved rival.

Quackity's handsome face was screwed up into a harsh sneer, the side of his mouth that had been cleaved apart by a pickax rippled as he stormed up to Wilbur. He had to look up at Wilbur, their noses almost touching as Quackity jabbed a finger into his chest.

"Did getting blown up make you have memory loss? How many times do I have to tell you that you're not welcome in Las Nevadas." Fluorescent light glinted off of Quackity's sharp teeth and Wilbur didn't bother to stop himself from smiling.

"You tell me that I'm banned, but the fact that you never throw me out tells a very different story. You're a well armed man, I know you can fight well, and you know full well that I'm not in my prime anymore. I'm no spring chicken at this point, you could easily keep me out if you wanted to. But I don't think you do, Quackity. When it comes down to it, I think you enjoy my company more than you let on." Wilbur leaned in a little closer.

Apparently, it was close enough for Quackity to shove him backwards. Normally Wilbur would have been able to catch himself, but as his hand flailed backwards to catch him on the wall he forgot about the burn. His vision whited out for a second and he could hear someone screaming in the distance. He was worried about Ranboo for the briefest of moments before realizing that it was him who was screaming.

When his vision cleared, he was crumpled against the wall with Quackity in front of him. His injured hand being cradled in his hands, Quackity's own calloused fingers carefully avoiding touching the burns.

"Jesus, Wilbur, how long have you had this?" Quackity's tone had lost the anger that Wilbur was used to so fast that he felt like his head was still spinning. "This better be new or I swear to God-" he cut himself off, muttering something under his breath as he yanked Wilbur none-too-kindly to his feet. "I'm not playing our game while you're injured."

A bit of a thrill ran through him at the acknowledgement that it went both ways. That this wasn't just another one of his one-sided ideas that would end with him getting utterly hurt and left in the dirt.

"Technically I'm always injured, but that hasn't stopped you before." Wilbur attempted to joke, though the facade was quickly thrown to the wayside as Quackity glared at him.

Calling it was a glare was probably too much, there wasn't enough anger and too much confusion to be a proper Quackity HQ glare. "What the hell are you talking about, Wilbur?" A pause as he dragged Wilbur into the elevator. "I know about your limp, if that's what you mean."

"Don't really consider that an injury, Quackity, it's just a sort of aspect of myself that I live with at this point. No, I was talking about my arm."

"Your...arm?" Quackity punched in his floor without looking, too focused on scanning over Wilbur like an injury had been missed. Impossible, from Wilbur's perspective, Quackity spent more time looking at him than Wilbur spent looking in the mirror. "I thought you got that healed up, the bandage is gone."

"I just wrapped it up underneath the coat, I don't even know why I wrapped it over in the first place, probably Pogtopia not having the supplies for bandages." Wilbur gestured airily with his injured hand, his other one white knuckled around the handle of his cane. "But now we don't really have to worry about that do we?"

"Wilbur take your jacket off."

"Why, Quackity, I'm not used to you being so forward. Normally I'd be a fan of it, but really I'm down a hand right now I don't think I'd be able to impress you."

"Not like that jackass, take your coat off so I can see the arrow wound. I want to make sure that it's not infected."

Wilbur tilted his head, narrowing his eyes behind the red lenses of his glasses. That was interesting, a new thread of the quilt of their relationship to tug at until it all unravels. "Now why would you care about that? Wouldn't me having an injury just make me easier to get out of your hair." Still, he shrugged his coat off, moving around a bit in order to get the coat off and be able to shove the sleeve of his jumper up enough to show off the bandage.

Something must have happened, maybe one of his trips or stumble that day had reopened the wound. The white bandage had been soaked through with red and as Wilbur stretched his arm, he felt the arrowhead dig into him. The movement made him gasp in pain, leaning a bit heavier on his cane despite that being the bad arm.

"Wilbur how isn't this healed yet?" Quackity moved closer, close enough that his breath was hot against Wilbur's collarbone as he held his arm out. "You're supposed to be good at making potions, don't you know how to make a healing potion?"

"Of course I do," Wilbur raised his upper lip in a little sneer as he yanked his arm out of Quackity's grasp. He bit down on the inside of his lip to stop a gasp of pain, though he knew it showed on his face. Quackity's expression dropped to low, too close to something like pity for Wilbur's liking. The elevator car dinged to Quackity's office floor and Wilbur couldn't get out of it fast enough.

Quackity was his equal in all things, and for as thrilling as it was to match wits with someone who could hit him back line for line, it meant that Quackity knew too much about him. Most of it was Wilbur's fault, he had a few moments of weakness during Pogtopia and Quackity was the only one to see it. He was there when Wilbur needed to be dragged away from the button, during that day where there was no one that would be hurt other than him and Schlatt. He was there when Wilbur was positive that he was nothing but dust in the wind. He was there during Niki's birthday party, and that night held more memories than Wilbur preferred to recall.

"Into my office, Soot." Quackity's voice offered no out for Wilbur to take, so he let his cane tap out a beat as he clicked the door open and paced inside of the office.

It was an unfairly gorgeous office, rich mahogany desk and a beautiful look over the expanse of (completely fake) desert. The carpet was a beautiful cream and Wilbur tried to keep himself from feeling bad for the marks that his boots left. If Quackity didn't want marks on his carpet, then he should've demanded Wilbur take his boots off. There was a completely stocked liquor cabinet, though Wilbur would bet money that it was only for show. He may not have had anything to do with Jay Schlatt for a while, but he knew that some people just don't change.

"Sit down." Warm hands gripped his shoulders and forced him down into one of the leather chairs. Wilbur blinked before realizing that Quackity had slammed down a first aid kit on the desk and was beginning to unwrap the bandages around his arm. "I swear to god, if this is some sort of disgusting, festering wound I'm going to throw you out the window."

"Throwing someone out a window is referred to as defenestration," Wilbur commented idly. He couldn't really focus on anything other than Quackity's warm hands gently poking and prodding at his wound. There were pinpricks of pain, but those faded into the background as he focused on Quackity's face. He was a handsome man after all, and Wilbur wasn't blind.

The false eye he had in was one of his more casual ones, almost identical to his real one aside from the intricately done markings around the rim of the iris. You had to look close to even notice that it was different, and Wilbur was a huge fan of looking closely. It wasn't his favorite false eye, that had to be the gold and black one that had a poker chip where the iris was supposed to be. The scar running down the side of his face had healed well, puckered though it was, and the gold tooth that poked out from where the lips had pulled away from his skull was just a sharp as the rest of them.

Wilbur had the vaguest, most fleeting of fantasies of leaning forward to kiss him.

Those fantasies were quickly destroyed as Quackity stuck his stupid fucking fingers into the wound and began to dig around in there. Wilbur gasped like he had been punched, almost jerking his arm out of Quackity's grasp. "Christ, Quackity, be a little gentle will you? If this is how you treat all men, I can see why-" before he could get out a mean comment about one of Quackity's many failed relationships, Quackity jabbed his fingers deeper.

"Wilbur, is the arrowhead still in here?" He looked up at Wilbur with something like horror on his face, though Wilbur didn't really understand why he was so concerned all of a sudden. "Did you just rip the shaft out, didn't even try to deal with the arrowhead?"

"I figured it would just heal around it, wouldn't have to worry about it."

Quackity mouthed words at him, silently staring at him for a few moments before hanging his head and muttering something in Spanish. "How are you still alive?"

"Well I wasn't for a solid six months," Wilbur said, rather cheerily. Quackity didn't seem to find the humor in him, only responding by shoving him back against the chair and rummaging around in the first aid kit with his other hand.

"I'm going to have to take this out, just so you know. That's probably why it hasn't healed yet, because it's not going to heal around a goddamn arrowhead." Quackity grimaced as he probed inside of the wound with his finger. "The best way to do this is to push it through to the other end."

"Can't you just- I don't know, stick some tweezers in there and yank it out?" Wilbur shivered slightly at the thought of having another hole in his body, especially if it left him needing to use his other hand to walk with the cane. "I mean I think the bigger issue is my hand-"

"-Your hand is just burns, I can deal with that with some magma cream and fire rez and bandages. An arrowhead? That's been stuck in your arm for what--how long has this been in here?"

Wilbur's cheeks flared a rare red as he averted his eyes. "Well, I do believe that's one of the arrows that got me when Tommy and I were originally exiled from L'Manburg. Not the one that killed me, obviously, but one of Punz's."

"So this arrowhead's been in you for well over six months, closer to eight?" Quackity's voice peaked up high as he stared at Wilbur with wide, round eyes. Wilbur was honestly surprised that the false eye didn't pop out. "And I can't just yank it out because it's barbed, so if I tried to take it out the way it went in, it would just cut you up worse."

"Worse than pushing it all the way through?"

"Yes, don't argue with me or I'm not giving you a weakness potion to numb the pain."

Wilbur scoffed, flicking his hand dismissively. "We didn't have weakness potions during the revolution or during Pogtopia, I don't need them."

Again, Quackity gave him another strange look. Eyebrows drawn together in the center of his forehead with the barest sort of frown on his face, head tilted on a slight incline towards him. He still looked handsome, of course, he doubted that any expression could take that away from him. "Whether or not you need them, I don't want to preform minor surgery on you without them."

"And here I thought you were going to leave me high and dry." Wilbur let out a little laugh, reclining back in the seat as he watched Quackity move around the room. There was some secret safe in the wall, Wilbur couldn't see how Quackity accessed it but he could see it swing open and could hear the sound of glass bottles clinking together. It made sense, potions were a bit of a rarity at this point.

No one had the time to brew them and even less people had the proper supplies to make them correctly. The server had changed severely in the six months that Wilbur had been dead, and somehow Wilbur kept getting surprised at the differences. For all that Pogtopia couldn't spare weakness potions on small things like painkillers, they had potions. Wilbur made sure that Tommy and Tubbo knew how to make the best sort of potions that could be made by man, he made sure that they knew why things worked and why things didn't.

(It had been his obscure way of making sure that they could protect themselves after he was gone.)

Quackity carefully dipped a knotted up cloth into the weakness potion, letting it drip back into the bottle before moving back in front of Wilbur. "Here, bite down on this."

"Now, Quackity, if you wanted to gag me I'm sure there are easier methods to-" The rest of Wilbur's sentence was cut off as Quackity jammed the soaked cloth into his mouth. Whoever had brewed the weakness potion knew what they were doing, the second that Wilbur had a chance to process the potion it was already hitting. His eyes felt just that much heavier and he sank into the chair further.

Even the pain of the day faded to meaningless background noise. His wrist didn't feel like it was about to pop off at the joints, his knees no longer felt like they could barely hold his weight. He wasn't stupid enough to think that he no longer needed his cane, even on good days he carried it around just in case a wave of tiredness came over him. But his body no longer felt like it was being weighed down by sandbags, his joints no longer felt like they were barely connected to each other.

Wilbur let out a long sigh of relief as he tilted his head back, gazing glassy eyed up at the ceiling and letting Quackity's voice wash over him like a calming river. He was probably narrating everything that he was doing, guiding Wilbur along so he wasn't surprised by anything that happened, but Wilbur didn't really care. He was barely in his body, floating so far above he was barely tethered down.

A small sensation barely got his attention, Wilbur tilted his head back down to see Quackity looking at him with a bit of a bemused expression on his face. Quackity patted his cheek again and Wilbur pressed into it without thinking about it. The other man was just so warm against him, and Wilbur's heart no longer beat fast enough to keep his body temperature high enough that Quackity's touch didn't feel heavenly.

He let out a happy little sigh, tilting his head until Quackity was cradling his chin. His eyes slipped half shut as he waited for Quackity to just get a move on and get the arrowhead out. Sure he didn't exactly know how Quackity was going to do that with only one hand, but he didn't care so long as Quackity kept the hand on his face right where it was.

"Wilbur," Quackity laughed a little and Wilbur found it a very lovely sound. "I need that hand if you want to get this arrowhead out."

He let out a wordless groan, shaking his head and pressing further into the hand. "Arrowhead can stay in."

Quackity muttered something that Wilbur couldn't exactly hear and wasn't paying attention to as he slowly drew his hand away from Wilbur's cheek. "I can do it quick, I just need you to stay calm and with me, okay?"

Which was a pretty tall order if you were going to be asking Wilbur, but Quackity didn't seem to actually be asking. His warm hands adjusted Wilbur's head until it was resting on the back of the chair, supported entirely by the backrest so his neck didn't get sore. He couldn't see his own arm, he could barely feel his own arms actually, but he figured that was for the best. If he couldn't feel his arm then there was no way that he would be freaked out when the arrowhead pushed through to the other side.

"You're so nice to me." The words came out with Wilbur barely thinking about them, but he didn't find them incorrect. He cooed out a quiet little Quackiteee instead of anything else, feeling just hot spots of sensation as Quackity took his arm into his hands. There was a bright spark of something that would have been pain as he felt Quackity carefully push the arrowhead through.

There was a constant rush of words surrounding him, even as he mindlessly bit down onto the gag in his mouth to stop himself from biting his tongue. Quackity didn't stop talking, never let Wilbur have a second of silence where the pain could find a crack to slip through. If Wilbur didn't feel like he was melting into the chair, he would have raised a hand to card through Quackity's hair.

He knew it would be soft, it was soft in Pogtopia and now he had this whole city that he could use to keep his hair in perfect condition. It was probably even better now. But he couldn't move his arms and one hand was burned and the other needed to stay still so Quackity could patch him up. There was the strange sensation of something being pushed out of his arm and he could hear Quackity breathe a sigh of relief.

"Alright, there we go." Quackity hummed, and even though Wilbur's eyes were stuck on the ceiling he could smell the over-sweet fruit scent of a regeneration potion. The sign of a good one, if Wilbur's memory served him, the ripest melon with the freshest of nether gold with a very careful focus on the heat. The smell was strong enough to fill the entire room even with the smallest bit.

A warm cloth was placed on top of the wound and then wrapped around, soaked through with regeneration potion. The healing set in like pins and needles, nullifying part of the weakness potion to the point where Wilbur could finally feel his extremities again. He waggled his fingers, grimacing as the numbness was slowly receding from him.

"What's the diagnosis, doc? How long do ya give me?" Wilbur grinned, slow and lazy as he let his head loll forwards.

"I need you to give me a solid ten more minutes before the drugs wear off so I can get your hand wrapped up." Quackity waved him off, grabbing a tube of magma cream from the first aid kit as well as a fresh roll of bandages. Though his mind was still a bit slow from the painkiller, Wilbur could respect Quackity's efficiency. What he would give to have had someone like that in the first war for L'Manburg.

Lives probably wouldn't have been saved, but they would've gotten out of the war with a lot less scars than they did.

The weakness potion was still in his system just enough that he could feel Quackity's quick hands gently massaging the magma cream into his burns but not enough that he could feel the pain of his hand before the burns healed. There was just enough of a numbness to make him feel nice, but no longer was his brain hazed over to the point where he was likely to say anything else embarrassing.

Once the cream had been worked into his hand enough that they were set to heal, Quackity began to wrap the hand carefully in bandages. Making sure to leave Wilbur the use of as many of his fingers as possible, not mummifying his hand in bandages unlike someone did. After he was done, Wilbur stretched his hand and waggled his fingers.

"You really know how to take care of a guy, Quackity." He grinned, leaning forward in his chair to get closer to him. "I'm sort of flattered."

"Did you just come to annoy me or is there something you need?" Quackity stood up, grabbing the first aid kit and moving to put it away. Before he could get out of reach, Wilbur grabbed his sleeve with his unwrapped hand.

"Seriously, Quackity, thanks for this." Wilbur couldn't look him in the eye, but he let his hand slip down from the sleeve to hold onto Quackity's hand. "You didn't have to do this for me."

"I don't need an ulterior motive to be nice to you, Wilbur," Quackity sighed. With his gaze fixed right to the left of Quackity's eyes, Wilbur could see his shoulders rise and fall with the breath. "When was the last time you slept?"

"Last night, why?" It was only partially a lie. Wilbur did in fact lay down in his bed with all of the lights off and wanted to sleep, he just didn't exactly get all the way there. He laid fully clothed on his mattress and stared into the darkness as his mind tormented him with things he did and didn't do--things he should have and shouldn't have done.

(He is a man made of his regrets, and Limbo did nothing to cure him of that. It just gave him more time to look over ever single action with an even more critical eye than before. In Limbo he had forever to find new ways to hate himself, new ways to twist his psyche into an even more complicated pretzel.

Wilbur still hadn't gotten the hang of needing to sleep regularly, which had only resulted in three small fires at Paradise. He counted that as at least a partial victory.)

Quackity fixed him with a look and once again Wilbur was reminded at how thoroughly he was known by the other man. He could lie to a lot of other people; he could lie to his father, he could lie to Techno, in a few cases he could even lie to Tommy, but he couldn't pull the wool over Quackity's eyes. Quackity knew full well that he wasn't sleeping, the same way that he knew in Pogtopia.

"Alright, you're coming with me." Quackity took hold of his uninjured bicep and began to drag him upwards. Considering their height difference, Quackity was incredibly strong and Wilbur couldn't deny he enjoyed the remind that the shorter man could give as good as he got. "I have a completely empty casino and you need to sleep on an actual bed."

"I do have an actual bed!" Wilbur gasped, somewhat offended at the implication that he couldn't provide for himself. "I'm not just sleeping on the floor, Quackity, I don't think my back could take it."

"Knowing you, by bed you just mean a mattress that's seen better days." Quackity's hand slipped from his bicep and carefully held his bandaged hand. "We're getting you an actual bed that you can get some actual sleep in."

"Big Q, look I'm flattered and you're a very handsome man-"

Wilbur's voice died in his throat as Quackity met his eyes. There was something fundamentally tired in his eyes as they coasted down Wilbur's shoulders until they landed on his bandaged hand. "Just let me do this for you, Wilbur. Just let me do this without the jokes."

He couldn't verbally reply to that, a joke bubbled inside of his throat and he swallowed it down in favor of nodding his head. He would have squeezed Quackity's hand but his hand just wouldn't flex that way with the bandages. "Show me the way, Q."

Quackity gave a wan smile, barely a flicker across his face that made the scar ripple, before dragging Wilbur back into the elevator. The ride down was much quieter than the previous one up, neither of them willing to look at each other and neither of them willing to be the first one to let go of the other's hand.

The silence stayed as Quackity dragged Wilbur into the casino, though the awkwardness of it immediately fled his mind as he was struck by the sheer opulence of Las Nevadas. He had composed that poem of course, he knew that there was gilt everywhere, that everything was shiny to cover up a hollow inside, but he had to admit something.

Quackity sure knew how to cover things up.

The lobby of the casino was made out of quartz and glowstone, shining like it was lit from within. Polished blackstone checker marked the floor leading up towards the elevators, but a wide stairway (currently closed off) led to what had to be the games room. Even with all of the machines offline and the lights shut off, Wilbur could easily imagine just how overwhelming it would be with everything flashing and ringing.

Though he almost wanted to see the city come alive just to see something new (just to see what Quackity would do when in control of a country), Wilbur couldn't help being relieved that it was just as dead as it had ever been.  He wasn't sure if he'd be able to handle all of the noise from his small shack barely three miles away. He knew that the noise would carry, that the light would carry, and he already had enough issues with sleeping.

He didn't need a city with an active night life close by to make it harder on him.

Wilbur was also rather pleased at the fact that he had all of Quackity's attention to himself. There was no business that he needed to run, no distractions that Quackity would have. There was only Tubburger and there was only Paradise, there was only Quackity and Wilbur. Perhaps he was being a bit of a romantic about it, a little delusional if he was going to be mean to himself, but he enjoyed being able to do their game together.

No distractions leading either of them astray, no one who would come in between their strange psychocompetitive relationship. They could both play the game for as long as they wanted to. For as long as either of them had the inclination to.

Quackity rubbed a persistent circle into the base of Wilbur's thumb, the divot cutting through the pad of his own thumb evident with each turn. They entered the elevator together, Wilbur blinking against the shine of the chrome and lights as he entered. Unlike the elevator in the offices, this one was purely for the glamor of it all. The shine of everything hurt his eyes, the warped reflection he cast on the walls alien to him as he focused on Quackity.

"Why are you doing this?" It was something that almost mystified him. While he appreciated it, it was completely away from their usual. When Wilbur approached the shining city, he expected to get into a battle of wits with the man and leave with a thrill in his heart and a freshly stocked first aid kit. Perhaps maybe with a bandage covering up his hand, but nothing more than there.

"I told you, Wilbur, I don't need a reason to be nice to you." Quackity sounded utterly exhausted and Wilbur almost wanted to call him out on his hypocrisy. He doubted that Quackity was sleeping anymore than he was.

"Then I don't need a reason to be nice to you, either." Wilbur grinned and leaned over him, supporting himself on his cane to lean over onto Quackity without worrying about collapsing. "You're getting some sleep with me."

"What? Wilbur I don't need to sleep, you're the one who looks like a corpse walking. I have a city to run."

"You have a ghost town of a city that basically runs itself, you don't need to be working tonight." Wilbur teetered on the edge of saying something he wouldn't be able to take back, and swallowed it down. "Why don't you just stay with me? I would have thought that you'd be worried about about me doing something illegal, maybe stealing something from the room."

"And do what with it? Put it on the floor of your empty shack?" Quackity nudged him with an elbow as he looked up at him. The strange sort of pity and horror had dropped from Quackity's face and tone, leaving him relaxed and calm at his side. "Besides, it's not like I'm going to be putting you in the honeymoon suite, I don't have all the rooms set up just yet. The best thing that's there is the bed, I have nothing to worry about."

"Oh so you don't trust me."

"It's less that I don't trust you and more that I just don't want you in the honeymoon suite."

"Why, is it reserved for someone?" The second that the words were out of his mouth, Wilbur recoiled away from Quackity and averted his eyes. "That was too far, you've been cordial to me today, I shouldn't have said that."

Quackity opened his mouth and shut it a few times, Wilbur only being able to tell that from the click of his gold tooth against his teeth. "It's fine, Wilbur. I don't mind."

Baldfaced lie, both of them knew it, neither of them called it.

Wilbur accepted the lie with a nod and continued on. "I wouldn't steal anything from you anyway, I doubt that you'd have anything of worth here. I bet it's all fools gold and plastic paint."

"I'll have you know that everything here is pure, you have no idea how long this took to collect." Quackity easily dropped back into the game, scoffing and pushing his chest out as he looked up at Wilbur. "Have you ever done that sort of manual labor?"

"I never needed to," he said. We never had the time, is what he doesn't. "L'Manburg had everything that we needed."

Quackity stared at him, and Wilbur knew that the lie was clear for both of them to see. The elevator was silent until the bell dinged and the doors opened.

"Well, lets get you to sleep. And into new clothes."

"New- my clothes are fine," Wilbur said, knowing full well that his clothes were in an utterly terrible state. There was only so much that one eighteen year old tailor could do with a needle and thread, and Wilbur hadn't gotten around to cleaning his clothes. It was enough of a task to keep himself in working order, let alone anything else. He wasn't sure what sort of clothes that Quackity had in mind, but he figured that it was nothing more than a bathrobe.

Surely the man wasn't under the delusion that any of his clothes would fit him, right? Though Wilbur wasn't sure what the laundry circumstance in the city was, for all he knew his clothes could be out of the wash by the time that he woke up from a long overdue nap. That would require Quackity being awake to do it, though, and Wilbur was dead set on making sure that Quackity got some sleep.

Worst case scenario put him lounging in the almost nude around a luxury hotel room as he waited for his laundry to finish after a relaxing nap. When put that way, Wilbur really couldn't see a reason to reject the offer. Even if he was scared that nightmares would shake him awake screaming and he would have to explain to Quackity what exactly was making him react like that.

(It wasn't the idea of Quackity seeing him vulnerable, God knows that Quackity had seen him in much more pathetic of states. It was some unnamable sensation that curdled in his gut and made him want to turn away from him.)

Quackity snorted, patting him on the back and jolting him out of his reprieve. "Your clothes look like they're about to dissolve, but I'll have it go on a gentle wash. Maybe you'll still have some threads left over." He chuckled again, shaking his head as he led them both to a door. From his pocket, Quackity drew out some sort of master key--an obscenely ornate thing with a bejeweled end that had a quartered design of all four card suits. Each of them done in either ruby or onyx, as if the golden key wasn't enough.

The room was a bit more understated than the casino as a whole, not that that really said much about it. The bed was a four poster with a gauzy canopy and white bedspread, but there was no extra design or decoration on the sheets or the walls--which were colored a gentle cream color. It was easier on the eyes than Wilbur had expected it to be, and he drifted over to the oak dresser to see if there was anything in the way of clothes.

As expected, there was nothing that would ever fit him, but there was a fresh set of boxer shorts. Which saved him that sort of awkwardness of having to keep the robe wrapped tightly around him during his nap at the very least. There was an en-suite attached to the room, so Quackity was probably lying about not giving Wilbur one of the better rooms. Considering the view out from the window, Wilbur would be surprised if this wasn't near the penthouse rooms.

"Is there a robe already in there?" Wilbur held up one of the boxers and inclined his head towards the door.

Quackity's face colored bright red, the scar standing out even more as he averted his eyes. "Yeah, it's in there. I'll uh- are you okay? Can I go? I can take your clothes to the laundry room if you leave them outside the door, I'll turn around."

"Sit on the bed, Quackity. If I'm getting sleep then so are you." Wilbur gestured vaguely with one hand towards the bed. "These bandages better be waterproof, or I'm about to undo all of your work."

"Of course they're waterproof, I'll explain the enchantments to you after you've slept." Quackity sat down on the edge of the bed, obviously not relaxed and Wilbur wouldn't put it past him to get up the second that he fell asleep. At least, that was probably his plan. He definitely wasn't expecting Wilbur to be a clingy sleeper, for good reason, Wilbur never let anyone see him in such a vulnerable position.

Not on this server at least.

A hot shower was in fact just what the doctor ordered. Wilbur cranked the temperature the hottest it could go and stood underneath the spray as steam clouded around the room and obscured his view of the dirty water running off of him. After a solid minute of the water still being just as hot as it was, Wilbur began to scrub viciously at his skin with the wash cloth.

Scrubbing away a few layers of skin as he lathered himself up with some sort of sweet scented soap that he couldn't read the label of. It smelled nice at least, worked into a nice lather as Wilbur worked the washcloth over him and let the water wash away everything that couldn't be scrubbed away before. It was somewhat cleansing, in a way that Wilbur would never admit to in front of his father.

Phil would get all up on his high horse about giving applicable advice that made him feel better and Wilbur would never live it down.

His hair was a bit of a different story, and Wilbur grimaced at the feeling of the greasy locks running between his fingers. He tried to put the physical feelings out of his mind as he ran his fingers through his hair and scratched at his scalp with his nails. Wilbur allowed himself to get lost in the monotony of cleaning his hair, the repetitive motions of running his fingers through his hair and washing out the shampoo, and then brushing through his hair with the conditioner in it washing away all thoughts.

It was only when the water ran clear down the drain and Wilbur realized that his feet were flushed bright red from the steam that he turned the water off and stepped out of the shower.

The room was entirely filled with steam, the mirror fogged up beyond belief and his glasses as well. It was for the better, in Wilbur's opinion. He didn't exactly want to see how much of a stranger he would look when clean. As much as he mocked Quackity's luxury, it certainly felt great when Wilbur wrapped himself in a towel that felt more like a cloud than anything that had been woven by mortal hands.

A few minutes later and Wilbur was polishing the steam off of his glasses and walking out of the bathroom. To his surprise, Quackity was still sitting on the bed.

"I'm surprised you didn't take the chance to bolt." Wilbur speaking must have startled Quackity, because he just about jumped out of his skin and gave himself whiplash looking at Wilbur.

"Wilbur! I had Foolish come and put your....your clothes in the laundry." Quackity gestured, haltingly, at the door, eyes stuck on Wilbur. If he wanted to be a romantic about it, maybe he would call Quackity starstruck.

Wilbur was beginning to get tired of not being a romantic about things.

"Well thank you for that." Wilbur flashed him a wide, showman's grin as he moved to climb on top of the bed. Just barely restraining himself from making an obscene sound at the feeling of climbing onto an actual bed for the first time in....years. It had been years. Not even counting the decade of limbo, it had still been years since Wilbur had laid on top of a bed this comfortable.

He turned over on his side, pressing his newly clean face into the fresh pillowcase and groaning at the knowledge that he wasn't going to wake up with even more aches and pains than usual.

Quackity laughed softly, shifting on the bed to pat Wilbur's shoulder. "You good there?"

In a clean move, Wilbur took a hold of Quackity's wrist and rolled over. "I'm perfectly fine, I think it's about time for both of us to go to sleep."

Quackity frowned, beginning to tug his wrist out from Wilbur's grip. "I told you, Wil, I have a city to run."

"You're going to run yourself into the ground if you keep working the way that you do." Wilbur tilted his head, grinning up at him as he rubbed his thumb against the soft inside of Quackity's wrist. "Why don't you stay?"

"There's only one bed."

"You're short enough to fit." Wilbur's laugh was quickly cut off by Quackity delivering a swift, but relatively gentle, hit to Wilbur's gut. "Oh- ow, Q you really got me good there, look. You work too hard, I don't sleep enough. I have a solution that will be better for both of us in the long run."

Quackity wavered, gaze slowly drifting towards the door before Wilbur reached up to turn his head back to him. "A short nap, that's it."

"That's all I'm asking for." Wilbur shifted back on the bed, leaving ample room for Quackity to lay down with neither of them touching. As they climbed under the covers, Wilbur grinned at him as he put his glasses on the side table. "Sweet dreams, Big Q."

Quackity just snorted and shook his head, turning around and curling up on his side. Wilbur stared at the back of his head for a few moments before curling up on his side of the bed.

Despite both of their efforts, the nap was not short and they didn't stay on their own sides of the bed. Foolish came into the room three hours into their "nap" only to see them both curled up tight enough that it was hard to tell whose legs were whose. Wilbur had his face pressed into Quackity's chest with Quackity's arms wrapped around him. Both of them were dead asleep.

Foolish was a good enough worker and a good enough friend and above all he didn't want to get in the middle of this, so he set Wilbur's clothes (that had thankfully not dissolved in the wash) on the dresser and left the room without anyone being any wiser that he was there.