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Quackity gets the call on a Thursday.
It’s four in the afternoon, and he’s got a grocery bag digging into one forearm while he tries to dodge under every awning along the street to avoid the raindrops and traffic spray of a sticky July storm. Which is what he gets for thinking he could beat the rain, probably, but he was running dangerously low on both toilet paper and drinking water, so here he is in all his damp hubris — cane in one hand, plastic bag turning his other arm red, and his phone buzzing in his back pocket.
He swears and ducks under the next storefront just in time for a car to speed by and launch a spray of dirty puddle water over his feet. He doesn’t have a free hand to flip them off, so he settles on a glare instead and finally gets his phone free, answered, and up to his ear.
“Hola,” he answers, casual, expecting Karl.
It is not Karl. A woman’s voice that he does not recognize asks, “Hello, is this Alex Quackity?”
Ah, dammit. If he’s just stopped for a telemarketer… “Uh, yep.”
“Oh, good. I’m reaching out on behalf of your cousin, Tubbo.”
The rain fades to a background drumming as Quackity hones in on the all-too-familiar conversation instead. He knows this phone call. He’s heard this phone call a dozen times, or at least one half of it, distantly audible from wherever a caseworker deems acceptable earshot.
“Shit,” Quackity says. “Is he okay?”
“Well,” she starts, hesitantly, and Quackity’s stomach drops. “We expect he’ll make a full recovery, but we can have that conversation a little later. For now, we want to ask if you would be willing to—“
“Yes,” Quackity says, before the question is even out. He already knows what she’s going to ask; that’s the whole point of this call. The point of however many calls she made before this one. And wherever Tubbo’s sitting right now, Quackity’s not letting him sit there wondering where he’s going next for another second. “Of course. I’ve got an empty room in my apartment, you guys can swing by for the inspection any time. When does he need to move in?”
The answer to that is tomorrow, or maybe Saturday if the doctor wants to keep him in longer. And Quackity’s stomach twists further at that, but he focuses on getting home — raindrops be damned — and tidying up before the social worker stops by.
“Third degree burns,” the social worker tells Quackity later when she's at his apartment for an inspection, like she’s warning him, finding some balance between clinical and gentle. “Centered on his cheek, with less severe patches across his eyelid, forehead, mouth, and areas on his neck.”
Quackity feels sick. He squeezes the handle of his cane and tries to focus. Clinical. Professional. He can do this. “You said he’ll make a full recovery?”
She nods. “He’ll have scarring, likely permanent, but he retained full vision in his eye and most of the mobility of his jaw, so his speech should be mostly unaffected, after the healing process is done.”
She goes on a little longer, talks about physical therapy and treatment schedule, passes him a folder with documents and information. Quackity flips through the papers and tries to take it all in.
It’s at the end of their meeting that he finds the nerve to ask. “How did—What caused the burns?”
She’s professional. When her tone comes out cautious, it’s only polite, not sad. “A stovetop burner.”
Around the ringing in his ears, he catches fuzzy words — was pushed and hit his head and still-hot-burner. Hears something about an emergency room visit and overnight hospital stay, and he tries to file away all the information. Tries to hold it together.
And he does. He holds it together long enough to shake her hand and say Thank you, and to walk her to the door and close it behind her. He holds it together, and then he throws up in his kitchen sink.
He’s rinsing it all down the drain, eyes and throat still burning, and he’s already thinking he’d kill someone for this kid. He’s thinking he wishes it was that easy to fix something like this.
The last time Quackity saw his cousin, Tubbo was twelve and he was eighteen. Just graduated from high school, not a dropout quite yet, which Sam was real proud of so he invited all of what little family hadn’t already cut them off cold. Despite the mildly disastrous two weeks Quackity had spent sleeping on their office floor, his aunt and uncle turned up with their kid, a card, and a crisp twenty. They even managed to smile like they didn’t completely hate being there.
In hindsight, Quackity keeps wondering if he’d missed something that day. Maybe if he’d looked a little harder, he would’ve caught—well, any sort of red flag. A look in Tubbo’s eye. The way his parents spoke to him. Something anyone had said, which might’ve sounded like normal conversation at first, but really meant, Hey, this kid’s in fucking danger, if anybody had stopped to listen.
Quackity feels like he should know better than anyone to catch signs nobody listens to.
But he hadn’t caught anything. Three years ago, Tubbo sat at Sam’s big dining table, and Quackity walked by and said, Hey Two-bo, and Tubbo said, Hey Big Q. And Quackity said, School good? And Tubbo said, You’re lucky you’re done already. I still have another month. So Quackity laughed, and then Sam was calling him, and he’d waved at Tubbo and hadn’t seen him again.
And now Tubbo’s standing in the doorway of Quackity’s apartment, suitcase dragged behind him and a swath of bandages covering half his face, and all Quackity’s thinking is, How did I miss this?
“Hey, you,” Quackity says, trying to sound normal. Casual. Like they’re still just sitting across from each other at Sam’s dining table. “Let me carry that suitcase for you.”
“I’ve got it,” Tubbo says. Or he says something more like, “I go’ id,” with each word blending into the next one. “Fucked up my face, not my arms.”
Quackity laughs, but it sounds nervous even to him. A sound made to fill a gap. “I guess that’s true. Come on, your room’s that door—on the left.”
It isn’t much – the mattress and bedframe George left behind when he moved out, a dresser Quackity thrifted in a hurry yesterday afternoon, a pile of blankets and pillows in a shade of green that Quackity really hopes Tubbo still likes. He’d been making his best guesses at the store, picking out the absolute essentials so the room feels a little less… Hotel-like. Impersonal.
Tubbo stands in the middle of the room and looks around it, and Quackity looks at Tubbo. He’s taller than the last time he’d seen him, but not by a whole lot. Neither of them have escaped the short genes.
“It’s a little plain,” Quackity says, to fill the silence if nothing else. “I figure tomorrow or Sunday we can go shopping, get you whatever you need to settle in. Food you like and shit.”
“Okay,” Tubbo says. “I’m not picky. I’ll eat whatever.”
“I mean, that’s good for my budget.” Quackity laughs. “But I, uh, I get government money while you live here. And for this.” He bumps his cane against his knee, gently, just to illustrate. “So. I really don’t mind if you wanna spend the government’s money on whatever cereal you like best, y’know?”
Tubbo’s eyes follow Quackity’s gesture, linger on his knee for a long moment. His expression is hard to read, half-hidden as it is, so Quackity has no idea what he’s thinking. He’s about to ask, when Tubbo speaks again. “Okay. Where’s the bathroom at?”
“Oh. Back through the living room, opposite wall from the kitchen.” He points back the way they’d come in, and then he takes a step back too. “I can show you. Or you can, uh, you can find it yourself, get settled in on your own time.”
This whole time, Tubbo’s voice has been quiet, muted, and hoarse, like he’s tired or like he’s making himself small. He’s polite, of course, because that’s the Tubbo Quackity’s always known. He says, polite and small, “That would be nice.”
He backs out of Tubbo’s door. “Okay. I’ll get a start on dinner, pasta okay with you?”
There’s a nod. That’s it.
If Tubbo is making himself small, Quackity thinks he might be making himself obnoxiously cheerful. He understands why that happens now. “You got it. Take your time, I’ll see you whenever you’re hungry. Door open or closed?”
Tubbo says, “Whichever.”
Quackity closes the door.
“So, um.” Quackity broaches, hesitantly, after dinner, “I got a paper from your doctor, for changing your bandages and, you know, all that.”
“Me too,” Tubbo says. “He showed me how to do everything at the hospital.”
“Okay,” Quackity says. “Okay, good. Do you–Like, do you want me to help? I don’t know, if, an extra set of hands makes it easier, or–”
“I can do it,” Tubbo says. “It’s fine.”
“Okay. Okay, yeah. If you need me–”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
Tubbo disappears into the bathroom, box of bandages and supplies in one hand. Quackity empties the dishwasher, and he tries not to think about it. He dries the dishes, and he puts away glasses on the shelf above the sink and plates in the cupboard over the stove, and he doesn’t think about it. Fills the dishwasher back up with two plates and a handful of silverware, rinses out pots and pans. Sits on the couch by himself in the living room, and he looks at the still-closed bathroom door, and he…
He feels so out of his depth.
How long does he wait? Should he ask again? Fear of letting Tubbo struggle alone clashes with fear of overstepping boundaries. What he wants is for Tubbo to trust him, and what he wants is for Tubbo to have him, and the bathroom door is still closed and quiet.
When Tubbo opens the door, Quackity has turned the tv on just to have something to fill the silence. It plays in the background while Tubbo looks back at him, new bandages over his cheek, his chin, his eye. The visible half of his face is redder than it was twenty minutes ago. His eye is puffy.
“Hey,” Quackity says, gentle. “If you wanna watch something, I can change it to whatever.”
Tubbo doesn’t answer. He walks back to his own room, and the door closes behind him.
Quackity wakes up Saturday morning to three text messages. Two from Karl, one from Sapnap, all in the group chat the three of them use.
Karl: hiiii q bb xxx miss u
Karl: dinner date 2nite or 2morrow?? 😍😳🥵❤️🔥
Sapnap: let us know if you need anything at all <3
Propped up on one elbow, Quackity smiles sleepily at his phone, and then he notices the timestamps on previous messages in the group chat. From last night. From yesterday morning. All unanswered.
Shit.
He starts to type a response. Stops. Starts again.
How does he put all of this into words? Hello, my wonderful boyfriends who I have ignored for the last two days by accident, so sorry for that, love you both. Also my cousin lives with me now and I don’t know when I’m ever going to have free time again?
Finally, he gives up, rolls onto his back, and hits the call button at the top of the screen instead. It rings twice before one of them picks up.
“Is that my Quackity?” Karl’s voice, surprisingly bright and cheery for how early it is. Usually, Karl has to be dragged out of bed by the ankles if he’s up before eleven. And it’s up to Sapnap and Quackity to do it, at least on the nights that Quackity sleeps over.
“The one and only.” In the background, he hears Sapnap’s muffled voice calling his name and a few other distant words. “Hi, Sap.”
“He’s cleaning the fridge,” Karl says. “Something in the back spilled and grew mold, like the green furry kind.”
“Ew.”
“It’s kind of awesome. I might put it in a jar and keep it as a pet. Name it Harry.”
“Harry.”
“Yep. For the fur.”
“You have fun with that.” A distant Sapnap voice says something like, You are not keeping pet mold. Quackity laughs. “Sounds like a great start to you guys’ weekend already, then.”
“You know it. There’s only one thing I can think of that’d make it even better.” Even without any visual, Quackity can see the eyebrow raise and dorky grin that accompanies that phrase. He can just picture it. “You busy today?”
“Uhh,” Quackity says, slowly. “Yeah, a little.”
“Okay, so cancel your plans. Come to dinner instead.”
He laughs, a little huff. Well. Here goes. “That’s uh, there’s kind of a whole thing about that, actually.”
Karl pauses. There’s a moment of heavy quiet. “About… dinner? Or…”
“No, about–There’s something I gotta tell you guys.” He sighs. “Can you put me on speaker? So Sapnap can hear?”
There’s a rustle, and then Karl’s voice comes back a little more muffled. “Okay. You’re on speaker, and you’re freaking me out a little. Are you breaking up with us over the phone?”
“What? No.” Quackity sits up in bed, groans only a little at aching in his knee as he shifts back to lean against the headboard. “Absolutely not. I’m not breaking up with you.”
“Oh, thank god.” Something squeaks – a chair against the linoleum of their kitchen floor, maybe. “Okay. What’s up, then? Sap, get out of the fridge and pay attention.”
There’s a distant thump. “Ow.”
“Did Sapnap just hit his head on the fridge?”
Sapnap sighs. “I did.”
His heart flutters just a little as he laughs. God, he’s fond of these two. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” Another chair moving. “You’ve got our attention, my love. Talk to us.”
“This feels so dramatic,” Quackity says. “It’s not that big. Well, I mean, it’s kind of big, like, for me. Just less big for you guys. Well. No, big for you guys too, I think, but it depends on–”
“Quackity.” Karl.
Quackity rubs his forehead and he lowers his voice; he doesn’t hear Tubbo moving around in the rest of the apartment, but just to be safe, he’d like to avoid having him overhear a conversation talking about him. He knows from personal experience how awkward that feels. “You know my little cousin, Tubbo?”
“No,” Karl says, and Sapnap says, “Sure.”
“Well, I have a cousin, and his name is Tubbo. He’s fifteen. And he, uh. He moved in with me last night.”
“Oh,” Karl says. “Like–Like permanently?”
“Maybe.” Now that he’s started, the words come out easier. “There’s gonna be a long process of figuring out if–if his parents get to have him back, if Tubbo even wants to go back, all that. Uh. Abuse situation.”
“Oh,” Sapnap says this time. “Oh, fuck.”
“Yeah,” Quackity agrees weakly. “Fuck.”
For the first time since he got that call on Thursday afternoon, a prickling feeling starts up at the back of Quackity’s eyes and squeezes in his throat. He stares up at the ceiling, willing himself to not start crying on call. Not now. Deep breaths.
“So, I’m like, his temporary guardian for now. Closest family member. He’ll stay with me during all the early shit, court and legal stuff until everything’s squared away and we know whether he needs somewhere permanent to stay, and then… You know, we figure it out from there and everything…”
He trails off. For a moment, the calls sits in silence.
Karl is the one to break it. He says, “Are you gonna be okay?”
The question takes Quackity aback. He’s ready to answer so many other things – details, or concerns, or anything they want to know about Tubbo himself, but this – that’s a question he wasn’t ready for. The confusion bleeds into his answer. “...Yeah?”
“That doesn’t sound convincing.”
“No, I wasn’t–I’ll be fine. I am fine. I’m not, like, the one who had to suddenly pack up all his shit and start living with a family member he hasn’t seen in three years.” It’s been a long time since he was that kid. “I’m okay.”
The conversation reaches another lull. Quackity finally moves to get up, blankets pushed aside and feet on the floor. Finds one of Karl’s hoodies on the back of a chair and pulls it on. He’ll have to give this one back soon, he thinks. Trade it out for another one.
“So, uh.” Sapnap's voice is distant again, muddied and echoing. Gone back to the fridge, probably. “So I guess that means we should look for–probably something different for this fall?”
Quackity bites down the bitter urge to apologize. He and Karl and Sapnap have had – well, not plans, exactly, but ideas. Daydreams. Whatever the stage right before the plan itself is called. Ideas for an apartment for the three of them, somewhere nice, somewhere close to Sapnap’s work and Quackity’s school. Ideas of a big bed and a sunny kitchen and nobody needing to go home alone at the end of dates.
Ideas that very distinctly do not involve Quackity’s fifteen-year-old cousin.
And the truth is, there was always part of Quackity that knew it wasn’t going to work out for the three of them anyway. A little fearful part of him that’s breathing a sigh of relief now that Sapnap’s said it aloud.
It feels like both relief and defeat when he says, “I guess we’ll have to figure that out when we get there.”
“We could get a two bedroom,” Karl suggests. “If we need a place for Tubbo.”
Sapnap's voice is quiet. Quackity barely makes out the words. “Q’s right. We’ll figure it out when we get there.”
Somewhere in Quackity’s apartment, a door closes. Bathroom, maybe.
“Okay, I hear Tubbo’s up,” Quackity says. “I’m gonna go make breakfast. I’ll talk to you guys later. Maybe we can do dinner next week?”
“Yes please,” Karl says. “It doesn’t even need to be a date. We can just hang out. Say hi to your new kid.”
“Not my kid,” Quackity says. “Just my cousin.”
But he’s thinking about it. Tubbo will have to meet them at some point. Just… Maybe after he’s settled in a little bit, first.
“Love you!” Sapnap calls from the echoing depths of their refrigerator.
“Love you guys,” Quackity says. Karl makes kissy noises into the speaker until the call ends.
It feels like closing a door when Quackity puts his phone down. It feels like opening a different one.
“You a rice crispies or a frosted flakes kinda guy?”
Tubbo shrugs. He’s standing beside their shopping cart, wearing a new forest-green hoodie that’s so big it’s almost swallowing him up. Picked it out himself, two-sizes-too-big and all. “I’m not picky.”
“Okay. But do you like one better?” Quackity laughs a little, leaning into lighthearted. Striking out, probably. “Or we can just get both, I guess.”
There’s a brief moment of fear in Tubbo’s eyes. “No, you don’t have to. Whichever one you want.”
“I don’t really eat breakfast,” Quackity says. Tubbo frowns. “So you pick, or–”
“You made breakfast for us this morning.” He interrupts to point out the inconsistency. “What about that?”
“I made breakfast for you,” Quackity says. Tubbo looks skeptical, but he doesn’t push it. He drops two boxes of cereal into the shopping cart. “Spending the government’s money, remember? We’ll get ‘em both.”
He’s been able to weasel out that Tubbo still likes mac-and-cheese, a childhood staple that Quackity remembers very well from the days where the kid wouldn’t eat anything else. Christmas dinners, maybe a decade ago before everything had gone really to shit, had Tubbo turning down ham and potatoes for his own box of Kraft. It was funny back then, Quackity remembers. Sitting around this full meal, aunts and uncles and the one grandmother they’d still had kicking back then, and Quackity couldn’t have been older than ten, and there was his four-year-old cousin in a high chair refusing to eat a thing but bright ass orange pasta.
He remembers, with a jolt, standing over a pot full of boiling water, that it had got less funny after too much longer. Remembers nobody laughing anymore and a rule of You eat what’s on your plate, or nothing at all. The tension that went with it, even though there was always tension at these kinds of things. Knows it’d only get worse, til they stopped happening at all after a few more years. Not enough family left around to hold ‘em.
The vice around his chest tightens, two more clicks. He pours dry noodles into boiling water.
Over paper plates piled high with concerningly orange pasta, Quackity asks, “You have any plans this summer, kid?”
Tubbo shrugs. “Not really.”
“What, none at all?” It’s not that Quackity doesn’t want Tubbo around, but it’s summer. Quackity thinks it’s probably not great for a fifteen-year-old to spend their whole summer cooped up in an apartment that takes all of twenty seconds to walk from one end to the other. Quackity thinks it’s not great for either of them to be in here nonstop. “No sports? Activities? Like, a camp or something you wanna go to?”
He shakes his head. He takes a bite of mac and cheese.
Quackity says, “Okay. Anything you want to do? Anywhere you wanna go? I don’t drive, but I’ve got–my boyfriend, uh, Sapnap, he’s got family that lives out by the beach. We could do a daytrip.”
Tubbo shrugs. He says, “I didn’t know you were gay.”
Quackity blinks. “Didn’t you?”
“Nope.” Another bite. “I am too.”
“Oh,” Quackity says. “Well, shit. Hell yeah. You’ve got a guy, or just like–you know, generally–”
“Just in the abstract,” Tubbo says. “Men.”
“Men,” Quackity agrees. “I actually have two boyfriends.”
“Goddamn,” Tubbo says. “Leave some for the rest of us.”
Quackity barks a laugh. For a brief moment, he sees Tubbo’s mouth twitch; just one corner of it, unobstructed by tape and gauze, turning upwards. It’s like a small victory, watching that. Like a beam of hope on whatever dismal battlefield this is.
He tells Tubbo about Karl and Sapnap. Not too much, just the basics. Karl’s a nerd and has a vintage comics collection and works at an antiques store. Sapnap's got weird hours and works as a firefighter, which means he’s kind of awesome all around, and his parents are rich as fuck.
Tubbo says, “Damn. And they’re both, like, cool?”
“Cool as hell,” Quackity says. He laughs a little. “Too cool for me and my track record, probably.”
Tubbo nods. He thinks about it, and then says, “My mom said that you’ve got an issue with putting yourself in bad situations. Actually, she said that a couple times.”
Quackity laughs again, but strained this time. “Well. Your mom never really liked me, so. Not sure I’m gonna take her words to heart, necessarily.”
“Yeah, don’t,” Tubbo agrees. “Don’t take it too hard. I don’t think she likes anyone.”
“Misery does run in the family,” Quackity jokes.
“Cheers to that.” Tubbo picks up his plastic cup of ice water. It leaves a ring of condensation behind on the table. Quackity plays along and bumps his own cup against Tubbo’s. “Misery forever.”
Maybe this isn’t something to encourage in a teenager, but Quackity gets it. He’ll be a responsible guardian some other time; tonight, he’s just Tubbo’s cousin. “May we make your mother miserable to the very end.”
Tubbo snorts. He takes a sip of his water.
After dinner, Tubbo gets up before Quackity does to load the dishwasher. “You can sit, I got it.”
Quackity starts to get up. “How about you load, and I’ll wash the pot.”
Tubbo glares at him. He snatches the paper plate and fork away from Quackity’s place, and he points at him with it. “No, you stay there, and I will take care of it. There’s basically nothing to do, and you’ve been–”
He cuts off. Quackity raises an eyebrow.
“You’ve been doing a lot today,” Tubbo finishes. He opens the dishwasher. “I got it.”
Quackity gives in. It feels weird, watching Tubbo move around his tiny kitchen, while he sits and watches and occasionally tells him where to find sponges and dish soap.
“You’re allowed to ask,” Quackity tells him, after a moment. Tubbo pauses, soapy sponge in hand, and he looks over. Quackity bumps his knee with his cane. “I’m not gonna, like, be offended that you pointed it out.”
“I know that,” Tubbo says. He gestures at himself. Soap splatters on the floor. “You’re allowed to mention this too.”
“Okay,” Quackity says.
“Okay,” Tubbo says.
Above him, the kitchen light flickers, one lightbulb on the verge of burning out. He makes a note to replace it, later, when he can bother to climb up on a chair to reach it. Water runs behind him as Tubbo rinses the pot. He closes the dishwasher.
“You didn’t have a cane or anything last time I saw you,” Tubbo says. “Is it–like, an injury, or–?”
“Injury, yeah.” Quackity picks at a piece of dried cheese sauce on the table. “Don’t worry, no dormant bad leg genes for you to worry about.”
“I’m not worried.” Tubbo tilts his head. Chews his lip. “Is–”
“I can tell you the story,” Quackity says. “Feel like it needs to come with a warning sign though.”
Deadpan, Tubbo gestures at the bandages on his face. “I think I can handle it.”
Quackity thinks about throwing up in the sink. Thinks about how it doesn’t really get easier to listen to, just gets easier to shove the weird parts down and make it through with a steady voice. He says, “My ex slammed a car door on my leg. Shattered my knee and it healed all weird so now it’s, like, fucked up forever, mostly.”
“Jesus Christ,” Tubbo says.
The light flickers again.
“On accident?”
Quackity laughs. His therapist pointed it out, once, that he laughs when people ask him about Schlatt. Or at least, the last therapist he’s had for long enough to count as anything. He’s not sure how many months can pass between a meeting for it to stop counting as having a therapist. But the point is, she wanted to know if it was genuine or if he was making light of it to make it easier to handle. He didn’t know how to tell her he hadn’t even realized he’d been laughing before that.
Tubbo’s looking at Quackity, soap melting into wet spots on his hoodie, and he’s got this unreadable look on his face. Doesn’t laugh with him.
“It was awhile ago,” Quackity says. Gentler. “I’m fine now.”
“What about your ex?”
Quackity says, “Jail.”
“Cuz of–your leg?”
“Oh, no,” Quackity says. This part’s the funny one, so he means the chuckle that sneaks out this time. “He was embezzling from his job, made out with like twenty grand before they figured it out.”
“Holy fuck, Quackity.”
Quackity admits, “Maybe your mom was a little right about me.”
Tubbo shakes his head, back and forth, slowly. “Your new boyfriends better be really fucking cool.”
“You can meet them,” Quackity offers. “Decide for yourself.”
“Maybe,” Tubbo says. “Yeah, okay. Maybe.”
(When Quackity offers for Tubbo to watch something with him tonight, he says yes this time. Tubbo picks out a movie — animated film, dragons, something Quackity’s only half-seen in the background before. It’s sweet.
“I did have a plan for the summer,” Tubbo tells Quackity halfway through the film, knees pulled up on to his chest and blanket over his shoulders on the couch. He doesn’t look away from the television screen. “Me and Tommy, we were gonna do sleepovers and start a business selling–I mean, doesn’t matter now. Doesn’t work if we’re not next door anymore.”
On the tv, the viking is making friends with the dragon. Dancing in circles around each other. Music swelling, a little at a time.
“Tommy?” Quackity asks, quiet.
“My neighbor,” Tubbo says. “Or he used to be. My best friend.”
Quackity’s looking at Tubbo instead of the movie. “You can still see Tommy, if you want. If his family can pick you up, or I can ask Sapnap to drive you.”
“It’s okay.” Tubbo repeats, “It doesn’t really work anymore.”)
On a Wednesday, Karl and Sapnap bring dinner.
The plan was to cook, Quackity on some sort of side and Sapnap bringing the rest, given he’s the only one of the three of them who knows what he’s doing outside of a box or hastily searched up online recipe. Quackity’s knee had other plans today, though, which did not involve standing in the kitchen chopping vegetables, and Sapnap worked an hour late. Instead, they scrapped the cooking plan, and Quackity meets them at his apartment door with arms full of paper bags.
They’ve brought Chinese takeout. Quackity barely contains a laugh. What a first impression.
Karl’s dressed up anyway, he notes; tan slacks and purple sweater, the lightweight vintage one Karl prizes and only wears for special occasions, to keep it from wearing out. One gold earring flashes under the flickering kitchen light.
“Don’t you look stunning today,” Quackity says, and Karl beams instantly at the simple compliment. Attention whore, he thinks, but he doesn’t say it because Sapnap will say, takes one to know one. He’s said it before. “Cute sweater.”
Karl dips down for a quick kiss. “Do you think the rings are too much? I asked Sapnap, but—” He lowers his voice, stage whispers, “He doesn’t have our taste.”
Sapnap’s squinting up at the light fixture, takeout boxes still in hand. He looks lovely too, of course, but in the way of being able to see the outline of his biceps under the sleeves of his t-shirt. “I can hear you over here, you know. Where are your extra lightbulbs, babe?”
“Bathroom cabinet, over the sink.” Quackity turns back to Karl. He’s wearing a ring on almost every finger, and each one presses against Quackity’s skin when he squeezes his hand. “I think the rings are very you.”
Karl grins. “So they are too much.”
He winks. “Let me get Tubbo from his room. He should be—”
“No need.” Tubbo’s voice comes from behind Quackity, further into the living room. He’s standing in the hall, hands in his hoodie pockets, taking in the man in front of him. Quackity makes a note to turn up the air conditioning in here if both Tubbo and Karl are gonna insist on extra layers. “You’re Karl, right?”
“Depends on who’s asking,” Karl says. Quackity swats his elbow. “Which! Which, since it’s you, that’s to say, yes. And you’re Tubbo.”
“Nice to meet you,” Tubbo says. “Quackity said you’re a comics collector, right?”
Karl’s eyes go bright. “Oh, sure. I’ve been since I was a kid, kind of just never grew out of it.”
“I have a few old DC issues at home,” Tubbo says. “Superman, mostly.”
Which is probably one of the best things Tubbo could’ve said, Quackity thinks, because Karl’s all but clapping his hands in delight. He’s asking Tubbo something else, but the conversation fades into background noise as Sapnap pats Quackity shoulder on his way past him, lightbulbs in hand. Kitchen chair squeaking against linoleum floor.
For a brief moment, all of the air in Quackity’s lungs freezes.
Orange light slants through his kitchen windows, gold and shadowy where it meets white fluorescents, finally steady and unblinking. Sapnap's standing on a kitchen chair to screw the last lightbulb into place. Karl’s leaning against the counter, talking with his hands as much as his mouth, and Tubbo’s listening with a half-smile. Both corners of it are visible now, swathes of bandages swapped out for some gauze and tape along his jaw and cheek. More of his face than Quackity’s seen this whole week, so far.
It’s the whole atmosphere of it, from takeout smells to the sound of Karl’s laugh and Sapnap climbing down from the kitchen light fixture, that’s sticking in his chest funny. Squeezing at him.
Sapnap comes up beside him. When he speaks, it’s like poking a hole in a plastic wrap cover, lifting the lid off of a boiling pot, steam curling up out of it. Pressure falling out of his lungs with a hiss. “You okay?”
He smiles. His chest aches. “Yeah. I’m glad you guys came over.”
“For the lights?” Sapnap jokes. “You know I’ll do your household tune-ups for you any time.”
“My hero,” Quackity says. He leans his head against Sapnap’s shoulder. Tubbo glances over just then, just in time to raise one eyebrow. Teasing. Quackity rolls his eyes at him.
The moment’s not over, but the pressure’s been let out of it, so Quackity squeezes one arm around Sapnap’s waist, and then he lets go and claps his hands. “Okay. Karl, paper plates on the fridge. Tubbo, you wanna grab cups and drinks?”
Sapnap and Karl brought board games. Quackity thinks he should’ve thought of board games way sooner, to fill the empty space between him and Tubbo on the nights where they watch tv and aren’t sure what to say to each other. The ones that remind him Tubbo has anything else to do.
He’s got to get this kid hobbies.
With a clatter, Karl drops the stack of boxes on the kitchen table. He plops back into his seat and begins sorting through them. “Our options are Rummikub, Catan, Monopoly—”
“Are you trying to get us to all hate each other?” Tubbo asks.
“No, I think we should play Monopoly,” Quackity says, grinning. “I think it’ll be so fun and nobody will even throw any game pieces.”
“There’s Uno.” Karl moves the last two boxes. “And Candy Land.”
“I vote Candy Land,” Sapnap says. “That sounds least likely to cause lasting hatred.”
“You underestimate my power,” Tubbo says, at the same time that Quackity says, “You’ve clearly never played board games with either of us before.”
Karl stops. He thinks about it. “Have we really never played board games together?”
“No board games?” Tubbo stares at them in exaggerated horror. Beside him, Sapnap sets up Candy Land on the kitchen table. “What kind of relationship is this?”
“A board game-less one,” Quackity says, “Apparently.”
There’s a short argument over who goes first – consulting the game rules states youngest first, which Tubbo delights in and Karl mopes about.
“Sucks to suck,” Tubbo chirps, and then flips the top card over. He moves his piece exactly one space ahead. “Oh, come on.”
“L,” Karl says.
The game settles into a rhythm, cards flipped over and pieces bumped ahead little by little. Very little, for Sapnap. Despite the initial warning of cousinly rivalry, Quackity’s happy to watch Tubbo warm up to Karl in their own competitive way, the two of them quickly taking the lead in the game. They’re having fun.
Or, they are having fun. Until Karl all but wins the game less than ten minutes in.
“Ha!” Karl crows in triumph. He slaps his newest card down, face up. “Queen Frostine.”
“No shot,” Sapnap grumbles. Karl just smiles sweetly as he moves his piece to the endgame stretch of the board.
“Don’t get too confident,” Tubbo says. He jumps two yellow spaces. “That’s the first skip card we’ve gotten all game, wait til you draw Plumpy on the next turn. Or the peppermint guy.”
Sapnap makes a sound like he’s about to start sobbing. He slides his piece backwards and drops a card. “Well, it won’t be peppermint guy.”
“I feel bad for Sapnap,” Quackity says. “Maybe we should give him a pity turn.”
“I don’t want your pity.”
Karl says, “He should try playing better.” He jumps two blue spaces.
“What the fuck,” Tubbo says. “You stacked the deck or something, didn’t you?”
“Sapnap shuffled,” Karl says. “And if he was trying to stack the deck, he did a very bad job of it.”
Sapnap levels a glare at Karl. Quackity snorts, and the glare turns to him instead.
“Hey king,” Tubbo interrupts. He slides his piece onto the same space as Quackity’s piece. “Have you ever considered a strategic alliance of gingerbread men?”
Sapnap moves while Quackity ponders this. “What kind of alliance are we thinking?”
“Oh, you know. Cousin and cousin, working together, uniting their forces for the greater good. Taking down the man.”
Karl scoffs. “Are you gonna take your turn or what?”
Quackity ignores Karl. He leans towards Tubbo, voice lowering conspiratorially. “I’m listening. Go on.”
“You give me your turns,” Tubbo says. “We combine to be one player, and move ahead at double the speed.”
“Genius,” Quackity says.
“That is so against the rules,” Karl says.
Tubbo knocks the blue gingerbread man on the floor. He points at the one remaining. “No, actually, you’re allowed to do that if you land on the same space as another player. This is completely legal.”
“Yeah, that’s how it works,” Quackity agrees. He picks up a card, flips it over. Double orange. “Maybe you just aren’t caught up on the Candy Land lore, Karl.”
Sapnap laughs. Karl grabs the rules sheet out of the box and leans back in his chair, intently staring at the pamphlet in his hands. “The fucking lore? That’s against the rules, look, it says, uhh… Right here, here–”
While Karl is reading, Tubbo swipes the lowest card out of the pile. Quackity has no idea how he knew it was there, but when he tips it slightly, he catches sight of Plumpy, the plum character sitting at the very beginning of the board. Tubbo sets it on top of the deck, and then leans back in his chair.
It’s so smooth, and the whole action takes mere seconds. It’s a little terrifying. Sapnap doesn’t even notice.
“Two players can occupy the same space,” Karl reads out. “That’s it. That’s the entire rule on being on the same space.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tubbo says. “You’re definitely allowed to play with fusion rules.”
“Nope,” Karl says. “Not this game. My copy of the game, my rules.”
“Rule follower,” Tubbo accuses, and in the disapproving, scathing tone he uses, it sounds like the worst insult anyone could be called.
“Sore loser,” Karl fires back.
Tubbo sticks his tongue out.
“Okay, okay. Bit’s up.” Quackity fishes his piece back off the floor and skips ahead his two orange spaces. He turns to Karl. “Your turn.”
Karl draws Plumpy.
Quackity shows Tubbo the roof one night when it’s clear and not too hot. Ten at night, sundown, sitting on camp chairs where you can’t see the stars too well behind the city lights and smog, but it’s close enough. Tubbo tells him about a telescope in Tommy’s backyard. Quackity says they’ll drive out to the country sometime and see the stars better.
“I need to ask you something,” Tubbo tells him, into the silvery streetlit July darkness. “And I need you to not think I’m like, sad and pathetic for asking it.”
Quackity laughs, softly. “Okay. Promise.”
“Why did you let me move in with you?”
“Because I want you to be safe,” Quackity says, immediately. He doesn’t have to think about it.
“Why?” Before Quackity can answer, Tubbo goes on. “I know you have to have other plans. With Karl and Sapnap, or something–don’t–Don’t you want your own life?”
And that makes him stop. His own life.
He doesn’t know what his own life would even look like – an apartment with Karl and Sapnap? Going on like this, hopping from one place to the next like he’s done since he was even younger than Tubbo is now?
What Quackity says, finally, is, “Kids like us gotta look out for each other.” Because nobody else will, he leaves unsaid.
“It’s weird thinking of you as a kid,” Tubbo says. “You’re not really that much older than me.”
“Not really,” Quackity agrees. He feels ancient next to Tubbo sometimes. “I’m young and sprightly. Youthful.”
Tubbo laughs. It’s a good sound, quiet as it is, and it’s one Quackity hasn’t heard from him yet. Hasn’t heard it from him in three years, or maybe longer. He finds himself smiling along.
Quackity dreams of burning flesh.
It’s his, this time, and in the dream — in the nightmare — he doesn’t know that it shouldn’t be him feeling the burning. It’s just him, and a hand on the back of his head, and the oh-so-familiar fear taste of copper sharp on his tongue. Flooding it until his mouth is so full it’s dripping, droplets sizzling on the burning stovetop.
And, of course, there’s Schlatt.
Fear is something that never gets easier. Fear that tastes like blood, that strips his lungs down until they’re so bare the air won’t stay in them. A low voice in his ear and angry enough to stay there.
It’s the kind of fear that is less of terror and more of knowing. That he’s going to die here. There’s nothing else but this moment and the fear and the forever of it.
He wakes upright, already sitting up and chest heaving. For a moment, everything bleeds together — he feels it all at the same time, the darkness and the burning, blankets tangled around his legs and a hand on the back of his head, his lungs aching — and then, slowly, it falls into place.
“Fuck,” he whispers. Breathes hard. Fuck. He hasn’t had one this bad in a long, long time.
(There used to be nights it wasn’t Schlatt, would be some vague interpretation of a long-gone boogeyman that Quackity’s brain’s blocked out the name of. Trauma response, according to his once-therapist. You don’t remember ‘em, but your body does, so it sends you little reminders while you’re passed out. Like, hey! Just so you know, that’s still in here. Don’t forget!)
Quackity’s not forgetting any time soon. No worry of that.
He grabs his cane from the floor by the nightstand — must have knocked it over at some point, and the fact he can’t remember hearing it fall is another point of concern — and staggers to his feet. His knee twinges, the kind of spasm that serves as a warning, but he ignores it and leans heavier on the cane.
Breath still ragged and heart still pounding, he stumbles out to the living room. Thumps his way across the carpet, catches his shoulder on the kitchen doorframe and —
He flips the switch. At the kitchen table, Tubbo looks up, squinting like a mole in the sun.
“Oh my god,” Quackity says, eloquent. Pretending his heart did not just skip a beat at the sight of a figure sitting at his kitchen table at two o’clock in the morning.
Tubbo’s got his hand in a box of chips. He lowers both of them, like he’s trying to hide behind the lip of the table. Eyes wide and shoulders tense enough to back up the story. He blurts out, “Sorry.”
“No,” Quackity starts, stutters, tries again. “No, no, I mean—You’re fine. What do you have to be sorry for?”
Tubbo bites his lower lip. He puts the chips on the table and folds his hands in his lap, and he shrugs. “Whatever makes someone not mad at me anymore, I guess.”
The ceiling light clicks. “I’m not mad.”
“Okay.” A beat. “Do you want to sit down?”
Quackity’s knee gives another warning twinge. He grimaces. “Yeah, actually.”
Tubbo kicks the other chair out, then seems to change his mind and hops to his feet instead. Drags the second chair further from the table and gestures to it without fanfare before he goes back to his own spot.
With a final relieved ache, Quackity sits. He leans his cane against the wall, and then looks at Tubbo.
“You know,” he says, “You’re allowed to eat the chips. I got them for you.”
“I know,” Tubbo says. Defensive. Backs up, pretends he isn’t. “You just startled me, man.”
“Well.” Quackity shrugs one shoulder. He leans forward, elbows on the table, chin on one hand. “Makes two of us, then. I had a roommate, uh, couple months ago, before you moved in, but he was like—Kinda never around too much? Did his own thing all the time. I rarely saw him.”
Tubbo nods. He closes the box of chips.
“I’m adjusting,” Quackity says. “To actually living with someone again.” And, gently, he adds, “Living with someone who doesn’t know how to use light switches, apparently.”
“I didn’t wanna wake you up,” Tubbo defends.
“You didn’t.”
Tubbo says, “I mean, that was obvious.”
It startles a laugh out of Quackity’s mouth. “What do you mean?”
“You, like…” Tubbo shrugs. He looks suddenly like he’s trying to judge his next words very carefully. “You knocked something over in your room. I heard it from out here.”
“Oh,” Quackity says. He finds a spot to look at behind Tubbo’s head, two dark reflections on kitchen window glass. Something in his chest sinks. “That all you hear?”
Tubbo shrugs again. He doesn’t say any words. Quackity figures he doesn’t really need to.
The silence settles over both of them, tucked in over Quackity’s shoulders like a heavy blanket, all at once comforting and suffocating. He never did find weighted blankets soothing. Never could escape feeling like it was something pinning him down.
“Well,” Quackity says, finally. Awkwardly. “You like hot chocolate?”
It’s Sapnap’s method, the way he makes it, which is Sapnap’s dad’s method, technically. Cinnamon and vanilla and chocolate chips over the stovetop. Quackity drags a chair over so he can sit while he stirs. Tubbo watches him, still quiet.
“I didn’t know people actually did this,” Tubbo says, somewhere in the midst of melted chocolate chips scraped from the pan with a rubber spatula.
Quackity says, “Did what?”
“Hot chocolate,” he says. “Like, it feels very—I don’t know. It’s the kind of thing that happens in kids books. You have a bad dream and your mom makes you a warm drink to feel better, or whatever.”
“Huh.” Quackity thinks about it. “I guess.”
“It’s funny to see it happen in real life is all.” Tubbo gets to his feet and opens the cupboard above the sink. “Which mugs should I get?”
“Grab the blue ones,” Quackity directs. They’re wider at the base, a little oversized, but good for this batch of hot chocolate. He’d definitely made a little too much, which is preferable to not enough.
Tubbo puts them on the counter by the stovetop. Quackity turns off the burner with a click of the knob.
“You’re supposed to enjoy the little things,” Quackity says, when he puts Tubbo’s mug in front of him. “It’s like, uh, this whole thing. Focusing on what’s in front of you, grounding, shit like that. Think about what you have. Not what’s behind you.”
Tubbo blows steam from his mug. “Is this ‘whole thing’ a therapy thing?”
“I mean.” Quackity half-grins, sheepish. “I wasn’t ever that great at therapy, I’ll be honest with you. Accidentally ghosted the last one, and haven’t gotten to, uh, get back to it.”
“You ghosted your therapist?” Tubbo raises an eyebrow. “How do you even do that?”
“Forgot to email her,” Quackity admits. “She sent a follow-up and I didn’t respond and then it was too late.”
Tubbo almost laughs. It’s this sound halfway between it and an incredulous huff, almost into the station of humor. It’s on the right line, if nothing else.
“But,” Quackity hurries to add. “But! I remember shit she said, so I’m managing. I got the big things out of the way.”
“Like hot chocolate,” Tubbo says.
“Actually, that came from Sapnap,” Quackity says.
“So I should get a boyfriend, not a therapist.”
“Not at all what I’m saying.” He shakes his head. “You know that is not what I’m saying.”
Tubbo huffs again, low. “Lead by example, man.”
Quackity rolls his eyes.
“I really am supposed to talk to somebody though,” Tubbo says. He turns the mug around in his hands. “Uh, trauma counselor or whatever. Saw her at the hospital. So I guess you’re giving me a head start. The therapy cheat sheet.”
“Oh, god,” Quackity says. “Please don’t listen to me over her. To be clear. Do not take my advice first.”
Tubbo smiles again, that little curve of a grin. “I dunno. Maybe hot chocolate is the way to mental stability.”
“It’s a cheaper way than therapy,” Quackity jokes.
“Mm.” Tubbo sips at his mug. “Gonna tell her you said that.”
“Do not.”
“Hi, licensed trauma counselor? I actually have this whole recovery thing figured out. It’s about hot chocolate and eating chips in the dark at two a.m.”
Quackity laughs. “Please do not say that to her.”
“I’ve made up my mind.” He shakes his head resolutely. There’s a line of chocolate left behind on his lip. “She’s gonna love hearing from me every week.”
A spike of fondness runs through Quackity chest. There’s something so familiar about this; in spite of all the weirdness, it’s still his cousin. This is the Tubbo he’s always known, sitting at the kitchen table, deadpan and cracking jokes. A little older, a lot changed, but it’s him.
It’s still both of them.
