Chapter Text
“Try this,” Karl reaches out his hand, holding the bite-sized blueberry muffin to Quackity.
“...You didn’t bake these right?” Quackity frowns at the innocent pastry.
“What’s that supposed to mean? I can bake,” Karl pouts.
He’s not the best cook or anything, but he knows the basics of putting flour and sugar and all that other stuff in a bowl. Maybe he needs a little more practice making sure he doesn’t burn his food, but it’s always salvageable.
But Quackity only stares at Karl instead, with silent doubt on his face.
“For the record, I did buy them from Niki,” Karl admits.
“Okay, good,” Quackity leans into Karl’s outstretched palm to eat it right from his hand.
It’s so sudden that Karl forgets to be annoyed by the continued narrative that he can’t cook for shit, and instead finds himself weirdly turned on by the situation.
Karl doesn’t have the time to decide if it’s normal to feel this way when they're in the middle of a picnic. He’s barely had the time to know if his crush on Quackity is serious or not.
For now, Karl’s keeping his beating heart to himself, especially not letting Sapnap know. Karl's certain his fiance will panic about it.
“Fuck,” Quackity pulls out his comm and glares at it. “I gotta start heading back Karl, before I’m late.”
Karl sighs and looks at all the food he put together, most of it untouched, but says, “Alright, but are we still on for next week?”
“Of course!”
As Quackity speaks, he rolls up one of the sleeves of his blue jacket, revealing a red angry mark around his wrist.
Karl doesn’t hesitate to softly touch Quackity’s arm right above the mark.
“What happened?” Karl thinks it could have been a burn of sorts. And it looks so fresh, it couldn’t have happened more than a day ago.
“Oh, this. You know how Schlatt gets sometimes. It’s not a big deal,” Quackity laughs and it sounds genuine, but practiced.
Everything Karl hears about Quackity’s and Schlatt’s relationship makes him want to fight Schlatt more and more by the day. But Karl knows he isn't strong enough to do any real damage and it would only cause more trouble for himself and Quackity. Probably Sapnap too.
And it’s that powerlessness that brings Quackity’s wrist to Karl’s lips for a gentle kiss. It’s all he can think to do to make things at least a little better.
“What are you doing?” Quackity asks, he doesn’t seem upset though. Just confused.
“Sorry,” Karl drops his wrist. “It looks like it hurt.”
“Well for the record, it didn't, promise. I just bruise easily.” Quackity still doesn’t look upset, but his face is a little flushed.
And Karl has his doubts, but it’s not like he’s going to press the matter. If it gets any worse though, he won’t hesitate to confront Schlatt, consequences be damned.
Quackity looks at his comm again and scrambles to get up.
“I’ll see you later Karl,” he blurts and starts to run off in the direction of the White House.
“Later Quackity!” Karl shouts after him.
Thinking about how he’ll spend the rest of his day, Karl thinks that practicing his own baking can keep his mind from Quackity’s pink face.
“Shit!”
The sound of Karl’s yell carries through their house and Sapnap jolts up from laying on the couch.
“What happened!” Sapnap runs in the kitchen and sees Karl flailing his hand.
“Touched the pan by accident,” Karl winces.
Sapnap sees the full tin of baked muffins with oven gloves carelessly thrown to the side. But from the look and smell of them, they were well burnt.
“You okay at least?” Sapnap says, ignoring the expected failure of Karl’s baking project, and focuses back on Karl’s injury.
He takes Karl’s palm, fingers curled up and slowly pries them open. The red mark doesn’t look too bad so far and as long as he gets ointment for it, the burn should heal nicely.
“Here,” Sapnap says, turning on the sink to run some lukewarm water. “Keep your hand under and don’t make it colder or else it'll make the burn worse. I’ll be right back.”
Karl agrees and looks over his failed project.
“We can make some new ones later,” Sapnap says, as an attempt in encouragement.
“I guess,” Karl sighs.
It’s upsetting to see him all sad like that, but knowing Karl, he’ll cheer up soon enough. Especially if they can make some more muffins for them to enjoy later.
Sapnap makes haste to grab a small jar from their bathroom medicine cabinet, returns to the kitchen and has Karl sit at the table.
He methodically spreads the ointment on Karl’s palm, careful not to be too heavy handed and cause Karl any pain.
When Sapnap’s done, he gives Karl’s hand a soft kiss for good measure.
“So what were the muffins for?” Sapnap asks.
Karl hasn’t said much, probably upset at not only a tin full of burnt muffins, but with a matching burned hand.
“For Quackity, you know how we hang sometimes,” Karl reminds him.
It’s not a secret and in fact, Karl tries to get him to come along with their little weekly picnics, but Sapnap’s just too busy hunting and training to do much more during the day.
“Actually, could I tag along next time?”
Sapnap can push some things around and plus Karl’s still pouting and he’ll do just about anything to put the smile back on Karl’s face.
“Really?”
And luckily, that seems to do the trick and Karl’s face brightens up like the sun rays Sapnap desperately lives by.
“Yeah. And how about we clean up and then I can break out my dad’s recipe and we can make another batch together,” Sapnap suggests.
“Okay,” Karl gets up with a smile.
Setting everything right again.
Quackity watches Sapnap clean an iron sword, giving it a few more seconds of polish, but the dull iron is looking too much like a lost cause.
"Hold on," Sapnap tries in vain to fix up the only rusty weapon Schlatt hasn't confiscated from him
Because according to Schlatt, he doesn't want Quackity accidentally hurting himself. He handed him a wooden sword instead, one that was barely holding on to its hilt.
During a bit of rummaging through forgotten chests, Quackity had come across the old beat up sword that Sapnap has now.
It's better than wood or stone, so Quackity had accepted it like a blessing, thinking he could fix it up later, enchant it even. But the fact that the best fighter he knows, or at least the best one he's in good standings with, can't fix it, it's probably time to throw in the towel.
"Hey Sapnap, it's fine. I didn't realize this would be a whole fucking thing. You don't have to keep trying to fix it," Quackity tells Sapnap. There's no need to waste his time any more.
"No, let me try one more thing," Sapnap's eyes are focused even more on the shitty sword.
"Okay," Quackity sits back and watches Sapnap struggle, but it's kind of nice.
Sapnap's sleeves are rolled up, showing off his arms.
Quackity only stares a respectful amount of time. This is Karl's fiance after all and he's no homewrecker. Not to mention, he's not the biggest fan of the guy.
Sure, Sapnap's nice, protective, and stupid in a cute sort of way, but Quackity often finds himself thinking about a different universe where he isn't with Schlatt and Karl isn't engaged.
He doesn't let his thoughts go much further than that though, because Quackity loves Schlatt. The two of them had their struggles, but what couple didn't.
So even if his mind wanders, thinking about what it would be like to truly be with Karl, Quackity's content with his life.
Sapnap and Karl are cute together and clearly love each other a lot and if Karl's happy, Quackity's happy.
"Fuck!" Sapnap sharply yells and pulls his hand back from the sword's blade.
"What happened?" With blood running down Sapnap's hand and arm, Quackity sees the answer to his question before Sapnap can voice it.
"Blunt blades. My dad always warned me to be careful with them," Sapnap grumbles, looking about ready to rub dirt in his cut and wipe the excess blood on his shirt.
Quackity rushes to reach in his pocket for some bandages, before that happens.
"Here, it's probably not going to be a good permanent solution, but it's something."
Quackity pulls Sapnap's hand to himself and gets a better look at his injury. It doesn't look deep and imagines it'll stop bleeding pretty quickly.
"You just keep a first aid kit with you at all times?" Sapnap asks, presumably just making conversation while Quackity wraps his hand.
"Yeah, it's useful." Quackity's learned quick to have this stuff in arms reach at all times.
Not that Sapnap would know why or would even be interested in knowing.
When he's done, The white cloth has soaked up enough blood that Quackity can't see it through the wrapping.
Quackity has a thought pop in his head, probably because he's thinking about Karl.
And he plants a kiss on the bandage of Sapnap's palm.
"Quackity, has anyone told you, you're a weird dude," Sapnap says with a chuckle.
He shrugs.
"Not in those exact words."
"Hmm, well I guess this thing is a lost cause," Sapnap hands the sword back to Quackity. "Sorry."
"No, you were doing me a favor, plus it's not like a family heirloom," Quackity tells him. Sapnap looks defeated, even with the smile on his face.
"Oh well in that case, did you want me to make you a brand new one?"
"You don't have to, it's fine." Plus Quackity wouldn't know how to hide a shiny fresh sword.
"You want it out of diamond or netherite?" Sapnap asks, ignoring Quackity completely.
"Did you hear me? It's fine Sapnap," Quackity repeats.
"Diamond then?"
He must be choosing to disregard Quackity's protests.
"If you have to," Quackity gives in.
"What? I want to pay you back for the bandage," Sapnap raises his hand. "And the kiss."
Quackity can feel his face heat up from the sudden call out. Calling it a kiss felt too strong for what it was.
"Don't let Karl catch you saying things like that," Quackity tries calling him out too.
"Nah, I'm sure Karl would be fine with it," Sapnap says while he pulls out the raw material, preparing for Quackity's new sword.
He wants to ask what Sapnap means by that, but Quackity likes being in this undefined space of feelings with Karl. Anything more than that had no chance of being good.
Quackity has Schlatt and Karl has Sapnap and that is what's good.
He reminds himself of that over and over while Sapnap works by the furnace and anvil.
