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Wilbur’s gotten into painting since he was revived.
He’s not especially good at it, but it’s all he devotes his time to in the dead hours of the night when he can’t play music, and it’s not like he doesn’t have an abundance of free time in the witching hours. He’s not found himself able to sleep for days on end since he returned from the train station, and he supposes that’s to be expected. He’d practically conditioned himself to never shut his eyes in those early days at the beginning of his fourteen years, watching the matrix display grow sparse with communication minute by minute until eventually, gone.
He watched the dot matrix every hour—or maybe every week, he lost his sense of time on the station platform—voiding itself of entries, dissipating quietly, carefully, like steam into the cold air.
And sometimes that’s how Wilbur himself feels, even now back in the material world. He can’t keep track of time, staying up into the late hours, thoughts racing; he can’t sense his body much anymore—pain is the only thing he knows he can truly, deeply feel—even when he tries desperately to feel alive; in fact, he’s not quite convinced—no matter how many times Phil hugs him or assures him it’s okay—that he even is material more than his ghost was, roaming the earth for a matter of six months that on the train station platform was so many lifetimes ago.
So that’s how Wilbur feels sometimes. Just as mentions of his name on the material plane became sparse and hesitant and slowly faded away, so too does Wilbur feel that at points he’s nothing more than vapor in the air, drifting meaninglessly in an unfamiliar place, searching more than sightseeing in a new world for something he’s not sure he’ll ever find.
And thus, in these quiet moments in which his sense of time is scrambled, and he comes upon yet another week where it seems he’ll not get a minute of sleep, he stays up into the dead of night, and he’s taken up painting. He’s not especially good at it, but he taught himself impressionism. And though the shadowy figures of nothing but dots and blobs may not look like anything meaningful to anybody else, when he goes back on each one of his paintings, he can remember so clearly exactly what painful emotions he felt to put those colors to canvas like words to paper; somehow so telling while meaning nothing at all.
The moon shines its beams into his still and silent loft in the attic of Phil’s home. By now, his father is probably fast asleep having sweet dreams like Wilbur could never hope to. He doesn’t dream much anymore, but when he does, it’s nothing but the slow, steady shoo of the wind being cut as a train speeds past.
Under the moonlight Wilbur loses himself to the colors on his palette: mostly homemade from the dyes he can find on his seemingly endless excursions wandering the greater SMP aimlessly.
And since his return, too many of his canvases have led themselves back to one place, and two faces. Endless portraits of two dead men he used to know. So, of course, that’s what he does now, pressing a paintbrush to the canvas, muted white-and-blue dots lighting up the dark cavern with the glow of soul lanterns. The dappled lighting casts a quiet longing over the abstract faces of his two characters, pressed together.
A perfect portrait of two desperate lovers, never in love, never feeling or longing, but always craving a bitter-soft escape. Soot covered trench coats and black suits with the scent of fine wines wafting off around the twisting tunnels.
Pogtopia. That’s where Wilbur truly lost it all. Himself, his nation, his family, his friends, and later, the burning touch of a kinsman which since his revival he’s not felt again. They were so young, then. Fragile and naive with worlds ahead of them which they just couldn’t conceive. Now, Wilbur’s older and sullen from years of limbo while his former flame remains bright and elastic, though his face still saddened with months of abuse and suffering that Wilbur will never know the true depths of.
But then: then, they were so young.
Wilbur finds himself wondering, often, since his revival if there ever was truly anything there: in the fleeting touches and desperate kisses and long nights sobbing into each other’s arms, never in love but always wanting, and always yearning for somewhere better.
Wilbur knows Quackity never loved him—how could he? In the dark and hopeless time in which they shared their most vulnerable moments, how could Quackity have ever loved him more than the safety his touch provides? Because where back in the White House, Quackity’s husband awaited him with empty bottles and sharp words, in the cavern, Wilbur sat day by day listening for soft-pattering footsteps which would announce a momentary return to the comforting familiarity of Quackity’s embrace. Maybe Quackity loved something during that time, but it was not Wilbur: it was escape, and that’s all it ever would be.
Wilbur finds his mind drifting back to those quiet moments in the ravine, where the rebels would all be asleep on their cots, the stars shone not into the dark tunnels of stagnant, recycled air, but where despite everything—all the discomfort, all the war, all the grief, all the heartache and hardship—he and Quackity would manage to find some brief joy to light up in the darkness.
And that’s all it ever was: but a spark that parried out after its fuel spent. Maybe in that way, he and Quackity are more similar than they know. Quackity is something of a dying flame gasping for oxygen to keep himself alight until one day his ashes rise off into the atmosphere, never to be seen again. And in that way, in the way in which both of their own beings are the cause of their destruction, maybe in that way, they’re just the same. In the way in which a fire blazes bright and dissipates, and steam burns off a boil into the air and dies.
So from that thought, Wilbur wordlessly dots a spark of yellow between his shadowy figures’ heads: a spark burning bright in a moment of quiet, innocent vulnerability.
Had Quackity ever loved Wilbur in those days? No, certainly not. But had Wilbur ever loved Quackity? That’s a question he’s toyed with painfully since his very first year of limbo, and even now. Did he love Quackity? Does he love Quackity?
Whatever they had lifetimes ago in Pogtopia was not love, it was self-destruction. The beautiful feeling of watching one another be destroyed from the inside out and knowing they were each other’s worst influences. They tore at each other piece by piece with every gentle touch and feather-light kiss, with every calming embrace and silent moment shared together in each other’s arms. It was a delicate thing they had in that ravine, never too rough and never bruising but always, always ripping one another apart at the seams.
For Wilbur, it was because this love was something he could never truly have. When he cupped Quackity’s face in his hands, wiped his tears, kissed his cheeks, there was forever in the back of his mind a subtle and desperate longing for it to be real; for them to be two men in love with their lives ahead of them instead of two men on death row clawing at the walls for some form of relief. Wilbur broke himself to pieces over the knowledge that no matter how he clung to Quackity in the late hours of the night, come morning he’d have dissipated, remnants of himself scattered around the dark caverns, and a ghost of what he could be stuck in Manburg, standing beside a man he’d never love.
And Wilbur knows that Quackity was equally torn apart by their nights together in Pogtopia, even if he’d never been able to puzzle out why. Maybe it was the understanding that this safety was fleeting, this chilling familiarity temporary.
Wilbur brushes black across the top of the canvas: the infinite abyss of the high ceiling of the ravine taunting him with its many questions.
But no matter how much he tries to focus on anything else, his eyes are drawn back to the shadowed figures at the bottom of the chasm. Himself, sitting on the floor, leaning back against the wall with something like a tear dripping down his face, and in his arms, in his lap, crying into his chest, Quackity, with his hands clutching at Wilbur’s coat and head hung.
Wilbur's hand is threaded between black locks of hair, staring up at the ceiling in bitter bereavement.
He remembers this moment perfectly. The day before the final confrontation in which Quackity begged him not to kill himself. “Because who will I have left?”
He doesn’t know if Quackity will ever forgive him for leaving him behind.
Wilbur bites down on his nails and the skin at his cuticles and draws blood, and with a resigned sigh, he puts his palette and brush down and lays back in bed, staring up at the ceiling.
He’ll try to get some sleep. Try in vain, but try.
-
Wilbur doesn’t know how he found himself here, at the top of the Needle in the middle of the night picking the constellations out of the sky.
He never used to bother with such things, but Tommy taught him the shapes of every piece of art in the slowly moving void of stars, and since then, he’s paid special attention to each one on clear, cloudless nights. It makes his heart ache, always; maybe because of how he knows that somewhere far away, those stars have already died. Like the two dead men subject of all of his paintings, those stars he sees are somewhere far off in the distance, always in sight but never in reach.
He shakes his head and pulls a cigarette out of his pocket. Thirteen years of withdrawal makes for quite the craving, and he’s not been able to satisfy it quite yet. At times, he can go through a pack every day, and that’s without mentioning his consumption come nightfall.
It brings him back to Pogtopia, sometimes, the smell of cigarette soot. It was a bad habit then, and it is now, but it’s comforting in the way that the idea of killing himself always has been. Whenever it gets tough, he knows he possesses the strength to simply leave it all behind.
He cups his hand over the end and strikes his lighter and takes a deep breath. Ash fills his lungs and it feels like the very first time.
“What are you doing?”
Wilbur perks up at the familiar voice. He doesn’t turn around as he responds, “Can’t sleep.”
“And you’ve come here?” Quackity asks. Wilbur hears steps behind him, and out of the corner of his eye sees his adversary sidle up to the railings, looking down over Las Nevadas. He crosses his arms over the railing and settles in.
“No better place to be,” Wilbur speaks, and Quackity scrunches his nose.
“Home, for one,” he remarks. Wilbur lets a breath of smoke out.
“Then just what are you doing here?” he asks. Quackity doesn’t answer for a quiet second. “Since it’s so much better to be home.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” he says, and Wilbur nods. “Can’t sleep much at all these days. Haven’t been able to for a long time,” he admits.
“If I didn’t know better I’d suppose that between us, maybe you were the dead man.”
“Haha,” Quackity says without humor. “I may feel it, but you certainly look the part.”
Wilbur chuckles breathily and coughs through lungs of ash, and Quackity turns his head to him, but says nothing. Wilbur chokes on the soot for a long moment before gathering himself together again.
“I’ve looked better,” he says.
“True.”
“You flatter me.”
“You flatter yourself. You look like a wreck.”
“And before?” Wilbur prompts. Quackity sighs.
“A wreck, but a less tired one,” he says. Wilbur smiles.
“I’ll take it as a compliment.”
“You always do.”
“What’s that meant to mean?”
Quackity lets out a heavy breath into the air and shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says, then repeats, “I don’t know.”
It’s silent again before Wilbur says, “Care for a smoke, Q?”
Quackity casts him a sideways glance, looking down to the cigarette in his hand with a scowl. “I thought you’d killed yourself enough for one lifetime.”
“Two lifetimes, if you think about it.”
“I generally choose not to.”
So he has thought about it before?
“I don’t know,” Wilbur grumbles. “Something about the control feels nice.”
“What do you mean?” Quackity asks, raising a brow.
“When shit gets rough, I can always hurt myself. No one can fuck me up as well as I can,” he admits. Quackity snickers and shakes his head.
“Dude, you’ve got issues.”
“In good company with your own,” Wilbur retorts, and Quackity laughs lightly.
“I’ve heard misery loves it,” he says. Wilbur raises a brow.
“What?”
“Company,” Quackity repeats. “I’ve heard misery loves company,” he says.
Wilbur looks at him, and they meet eyes for a split second before Quackity turns away. “Is that what this is, then?” Wilbur asks.
“What what is?” Quackity says, and Wilbur gestures widely in front of them and shrugs.
“Has misery found his company?” he asks, giving Quackity a pointed glance.
Quackity sighs and holds out his hand, shoulder slumping. “I’ll take that cigarette, now,” he says, and Wilbur laughs.
“They’re bad for you.”
“Pot.”
“Kettle.”
For a blissful second, they both laugh together, more genuinely than Wilbur has laughed for a long time. Wilbur feels right at home, back in playful banter with his adversary once again, and when their laughter drops away into silence, he lights Quackity’s cigarette, and they stare out across the Las Nevadas sand.
Before Wilbur can even process that he’s said it, “Do you ever think about Pogtopia?”
Quackity stills. “Which part?” he asks.
Wilbur heaves out a breath. “You know,” he says. Quackity is silent for a long, brutally painful moment.
“The part where I was grasping at straws for attention?” he asks.
“My attention,” Wilbur emphasizes.
“It could’ve been anyone’s,” Quackity responds.
“But it was mine.”
They breathe in the same tempo for a short second.
“But it was yours,” Quackity whispers. He drums his fingers on the metal of the railing and sighs. “Yes,” he says.
“Yes?” Wilbur asks.
“Yes,” Quackity repeats. “Yes, I think about it,” he goes on. “A lot, actually.” He’s quiet again for a second before he says, “I wonder just what the fuck it is we were doing.”
“Surviving,” Wilbur answers, and Quackity cocks a brow. “Misery loved company.”
“Ha,” Quackity laughs and shakes his head. “Which one of us was which?” he asks, and Wilbur freezes. The air around them shifts as they go quiet once more.
Wilbur doesn’t know if Quackity quite understands exactly what he’s just asked, but he asked it regardless. And fuck it, Wilbur’s already thrown so much caution into the wind tonight. “I suppose I must have been Misery,” he returns before taking a drag from his cigarette. Quackity taps his own and the ashes fall all the way down from the Needle to the sand.
“Is that right?” Quackity asks. And clearly he did understand what he asked, because his next words rattle in Wilbur’s head. “And here Company thought he was all alone.”
Wilbur sucks in a breath and pivots on his foot, turning around. “I’m way too sober for this,” he says.
“Wilbur,” Quackity addresses as he starts to walk away. “Wilbur!” he calls, but Wilbur presses the button on the elevator, eager to get out of the charged night air and away from whatever lay ahead of him after this moment of weakness. Then, he feels a hand grip the sleeve of his jacket. “Wilbur,” Quackity addresses a final time, quieter, and Wilbur turns around.
Their eyes meet, and the world stops spinning.
“What?” Wilbur breathes. Quackity’s brows furrow.
“Did…” he hesitates. “Did Misery love Company?” he asks, and it knocks the air from Wilbur's lungs. He lets out a heavy breath into the night.
“Yes,” he confesses. “He did.”
“Does he—”
“You don’t want to ask that question, Quackity,” Wilbur warns, and Quackity stares.
“Well…” he starts, “You still haven’t heard Company’s thoughts on the matter,” he whispers. They look deep into each other’s eyes for a beat where Wilbur’s certain neither of them so much as breathe. “Wilbur, stay with me,” Quackity pleads, and a deep breath escapes the older.
“Quackity, we can’t do this again,” he says, and Quackity shakes his head.
“Wilbur, please—”
“We’ll just hurt each other again.”
“Does Misery still love Company?” Quackity demands.
Wilbur searches his eyes desperately but finds nothing but pleading, longing. For a moment, it feels like nothing on earth moves but the slowly quickening beating of Wilbur’s heart. He feels almost certain Quackity can hear it, too.
“I think he might,” Wilbur answers quietly, and briefly, hope flashes behind Quackity’s dark eyes. He lets the grip on the sleeve of his jacket drop down to Wilbur’s hand and tucks his smaller fingers between Wilbur’s.
“Stay with me,” Quackity begs. “Just for tonight. And we can go on like nothing’s changed tomorrow, if you want to.” Then, in a watery voice breaking at the edges, “I can’t be alone again.”
Wilbur places a hand on his cheek and captures his lips with his own, squeezing their intertwined hands, and it feels just like the first time. Wilbur’s not sure how he ever let him go in the first place, the way they fit so perfectly together, the way his body lights up with sparks of electricity at the touch.
When they pull apart, they lean their foreheads together and breathe one another’s air.
“Si te quedas,” Quackity whispers into their space, “prometo quererte más que ayer.”
Wilbur laughs. “I don’t speak Spanish, love,” he whispers back.
“Just say you’ll stay,” Quackity says. “Please.”
“Okay,” Wilbur says, pressing a kiss to his temple. “I’ll stay.”