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Here's the thing. Fit is happy that Wilbur's back. Really, he is! Everyone is happy that Wilbur's back. Tallulah, of course, is overjoyed. Fit doesn't think he's seen the young egg leave Wilbur's side once since he reappeared at spawn. Their reunion was exactly the kind of overdramatic, sickeningly sweet scene that everyone imagined it would be. Tears were shed, there was music, all of that shit.
Phil, too, has been visibly relieved by Wilbur's homecoming. It had been a little rocky for the old bird at first, as it took him a while to stop thinking that Wilbur would disappear every time Phil turned his back. But Phil quickly adapted, as he always did, and in time he managed to quell his worries.
Everyone is excited that Wilbur is back. Chayanne is excited. Tubbo is excited. Quackity is excited.
Even Pac is excited.
Here's the thing. It's not like it's a big deal that Pac is excited that Wilbur's back. Pac hadn't gotten to meet Wilbur before he managed to escape the island to go on tour of all things, of course he'd be excited to meet a rockstar upon his return.
But there's something odd about the way Pac has been behaving around Wilbur. Something that makes Fit's skin itch and his stomach twist and makes him want to do nothing but work in the elevator shaft with Ramón so long as Wilbur is online.
He wants to blame it on some kind of Federation-mind-altering bullshit, but in his heart he knows that's not the case. Wilbur is the same as he's always been, Fit knows the guy well enough for that. Nothing's changed with him, he's only returned to the island with more stories and, frankly, much less trauma than the rest of this people on the island. Fit kind of envies him for that, he'll allow himself that much.
But, no, it's Pac. He's the only one who's acting different. The way he looks as Wilbur, it's like the guy may as well have stretched up with all six-and-a-half feet and hung the sun in the sky. Fit remembers when Pac used to look at him like that, like Fit hung the stars for only Pac to see.
Not that he's seen Pac in the day or two since Wilbur got back, except from a distance. Every time Fit thinks about venturing out from his elevator shaft to go talk to him, he's always with Wilbur, he's always hanging around Wilbur and Tallulah. So it's back to just Fit and Ramón, like it's always been since the first week of his son's adoption. Like it always should be.
Except there's a problem. Well, there's a lot of problems on this island, but it's one more manageable than the shitty connection on this island and Pac's strange behavior. Ramón is tired of working in the elevator shaft, and he wants to go see Tubbo and all the crazy shit he's been working on. Now, that's a problem Fit can solve. He can drag himself out of the elevator to go visit his friend Tubbo while Pac and Wilbur are on the other side of the map. That's not going to be a problem.
Tubbo and Ramón are more than happy to catch up and ramble on about Create machines and all the stuff Fit still doesn't fully understand, even after spending a month learning from Tubbo in the span of time their eggs had gone missing. Fit, for his part, mostly stands by to observe and make sure Tubbo isn't about to accidentally blow his beautiful baby boy up. He's also periodically checking the map, but that's neither here nor there. Neither of the two mechanics need to know about the close eye he's keeping on Pac, Wilbur, and Tallulah, watching as their dots on the map move steadily over toward the Tubhaus waypoints.
Fit's jaw tightens as the group draws nearer, and he's a split second away from telling Ramón they have to leave before he stops himself. Stubbornness takes root in his chest and has him planting his feet in the ground as he sees Wilbur's brown curls rise over the hilltop. He has just a right to be here as anyone else, after all. It's not like Wilbur is trying to chase him away, either. He's not even particularly threatening. Fit is pretty sure he could crush Wilbur into dust if he was given the opportunity.
He doesn't want to think about how many times he's imagined that opportunity.
He also doesn't want to think about why, despite Wilbur's lack of threat, Fit still feels the urge to turn tail and run every time he and Pac draw near.
As soon as the trio crest the hill, Pac's dark eyes immediately find Fit. The smile on his face grows even wider, somehow, as Pac waves emphatically down toward Fit. "Oi, Fit!" he shouts, the call carrying down into the valley of warehouses and industrial machines.
Fit returns the wave, feeling a smile crack his lips despite his sour attitude. "Oi," he returns, eyes darting back to Tubbo and Ramón before returning to the approaching group. "Pac, it's good to see you."
"Oh, my god, it's been so long since I've seen you, Fit, where have you been?" As always, Pac sounds just short of breath as he comes to a stop before him, bouncing on the balls of his feet and beaming up at Fit.
Scratching the back of his head, Fit chuckles. "Oh, you know, just doin' some work on the ol' elevator shaft with my boy, you know how it is. Besides, I didn't want to, uh, intrude on your time with Wilbur here. Hey, Wilbur. How're you doing?"
He's proud of himself for keeping most of his ire out his voice as he switches to address Wilbur, who is peering around a column to peak at what Tubbo and Ramón are up to.
"Fit MC, I am doing absolutely splendid. How are you? I feel like we haven't gotten a chance to catch up since I've returned." Wilbur turns on his heel, walking back toward Fit with Tallulah skipping at his side.
"I'm fine," Fit says brusquely. "I see you've been quite busy, haven't you? Catching up with Tallulah, probably getting a tour of this island? From Pac?" He can't quite help the way his voice dips into an accusatory tone at the end there, but Wilbur's face betrays no indication that he's noticed.
"Oh, yeah, I have been showing Wilbur around as much as I can!" Pac says emphatically, also missing Fit's derisive tone entirely. "Tallulah has also been a huge help, we've gone to so many places."
"I had no idea there was so much I'd missed," Wilbur says, sounding faintly distressed.
"Yeah, well, that's what happens when you're gone for several months," Fit says bluntly. "You tend to miss a lot of important shit."
Wilbur's placid smile tightens, ever so slightly, as does his grip on Tallulah's hand. "Can't be helped, I suppose," he says. "At least I'm back now, that's the important thing."
Fit hums, but doesn't give Wilbur anything more to build off of. He just crosses his arms, and leans back on the stone pillar.
There's a furrow in Pac's brow as he looks between them. "So, uh— yeah, how are you, Fit? What are you up to with- with Ramón?"
"Oh, Ramón's hanging with Tubbo today. I'm just mostly supervising the kids, you know how it is," Fit says with a tight smile.
"I heard that, asshole!" Tubbo shouts from the doorway of the warehouse, smearing oil across his forehead as he wipes sweat away. He lifts his goggles off his face, and at his side, Ramón copies him, which Fit has to stifle a laugh at. "Pac! Wilbur! Tallulah!"
Shaking herself free from her father's hand, Tallulah runs up to Tubbo, but stops just short of a hug. Her nose wrinkles as she puts down a sign. why are you covered in oil?
"Just what happens when you're in the guts of the machines, Tallulah," Tubbo says, emphasizing the word "guts" with a lunge toward the kid. With a squeal, Tallulah runs and hides behind Wilbur, who seems to have trouble deciding whether he should take Tubbo's lunge as a serious threat or not. He relaxes quickly when Tubbo leans back, though. "So, seriously, what are you guys doing here? Wilbur, you need anything from the factory? Wood, iron, avocado toast, anything like that?"
"No, no, I'm fine. Thank you, Tubbo. Phil kitted me out with that. I think I'll get sick of avocado toast before I finish it all," Wilbur says, looking vaguely ill at the prospect.
"Oh, you've just got to get the feeding upgrade on your backpack. You don't even taste it after a while, I swear," Tubbo says. Wilbur goes from looking vaguely ill to genuinely nauseous.
Fit inclines his head toward Pac, intending share a humorous glance over this whole exchange. When he looks, however, he finds that Pac is still staring at him with a puzzled expression, like he's trying to pry his way past Fit's smooth, bald head and find out what's inside.
Fit wishes him good luck with that. Even he doesn't know what he's got going on inside his head most days, but lately it's been even worse than usual.
He misses the reason Wilbur gives for being over here in his glance toward Pac. Fit doesn't really care anyways. It's none of his business where Wilbur's touring on the server, or who's giving him a tour, even if it's Pac.
"I guess we should get back to the tour now, right?" Pac finally suggests. "Fit, do you want to come with us?"
"What? Oh, no, I wouldn't want to— intrude." Fit stifles a noise in his throat. He's not sure if it's a cough or a laugh that he catches back there. "I've got my supervising work cut out for me over here with these two. You guys go on ahead."
Disappointment flickers over Pac's face, but he relents. The group exchanges their goodbyes, and as the last of the three dissipate into purple particles, Fit finally relaxes the grip on his golden carrot launcher. He hadn't even realized he'd started to raise it.
"Are you alright, Fit? You seem tense, my man," Tubbo says, giving Fit a strange look. Too many people are giving Fit those kinds of looks these days. He wished they'd knock it off.
"I'm fine," Fit says, hearing his own voice clip this time. "Tubbo, you got any projects I could help with? Like, you got any, uh, sheets of metal I could hammer out for you or some shit?"
Tubbo's face draws back, wildly perplexed. "You mean, like, the sheets of metal I pound out with my machines?"
"Yeah, can I, uh, just do that, but manually?"
"Wha— Fit, that's what my machines are for. So you don't have to do it manually." Tubbo squints at Fit, face wrinkling as he starts to draw his conclusions. "Something's up with you. You haven't been hanging out with the morning crew recently, you've been spending all your time indoors, and now you're, what, trying to work out your aggression by hitting metal ingots into sheets?"
Fit snorts. "I mean, it's not like there's been much of a morning crew recently, what with Pac showing fucking Wilbur every square inch of the island."
The instant he finishes speaking, he knows he's said too much. Tubbo's eyes widen, and Fit wonders if he can dash forward quick enough to throttle the kid before he speaks.
"Fit MC," Tubbo says slowly, and Fit has time to move, but his feet feel glued to the ground. "Are you jealous of Wilbur Soot?"
"No." Fit blinks, clenches his jaw, and blinks again. "No, Tubbo, I am not fucking jealous of Wilbur Soot. That's stupid."
"You're not? You're not at all jealous that Pac is always hanging around Wilbur now, that he's basically obsessed with Mr. Lovejoy? That doesn't, I don't know, upset you at all?" Tubbo asks with wide, imploring eyes that Fit kind of wants to shoot two golden carrots into.
"Who Pac spends his time with is his fuckin' business," Fit says in a carefully controlled tone of voice that he suspects isn't actually that well contained, judging by the raised carrot launcher.
Tubbo's hands raise in quick surrender. "Woah! Take it easy, Fit. Don't take your jealousy out on me. Take it out on Wilbur. He's the guy who's stealing your man, after all."
Fit does shoot two carrots at Tubbo, just on principle. He avoids the eyes, though. He's a nice guy like that.
It isn't too long before he sees Pac and Wilbur again. Fit's over by spawn, coming back from another janitorial job. Life on the island is starting to fall into a pattern of normalcy again now that the eggs are back and, despite everything, Fit finds himself comforted by that.
The only loose thread that remains, aside from all of the other more obvious loose threads, is Pac.
It took Fit a few days to sit comfortably with the conclusion Tubbo had drawn from his words. But, finally, he's ready to admit to himself that yeah, maybe he is a little jealous. Friends can get jealous of other friends hanging out! That's a normal thing to feel. Fit's pretty sure about that.
Just like it's normal to feel pure, unbridled rage at the sound of guitar notes floating on the breeze, as Fit rounds the corner to see Pac and Wilbur sitting at the bench by the river. Richarlyson and Tallulah are dancing to the music on the grass in front of them, but all Fit can see is Wilbur's arm brushing Pac's as he strums his guitar, and then all he sees is red.
Now, Fit knows hes an asshole, but he at least has the courtesy to wait until Wilbur finishes his song before taking an action he thinks he might regret. The instant Wilbur puts his guitar down, however, just as Pac starts clapping and cheering, Fit pulls the trigger on his launcher.
A golden carrot wallops Wilbur in the back of his head, causing him to lurch forward from the force of it. As he yelps, Pac whips his head around, finding Fit immediately.
"Whoops," Fit says, the word leaving his mouth flat and affectless. Pac looks back at him with that same puzzled look he had given Fit at the warehouse. "My bad."
Rubbing the back of his head, Wilbur finally straightens again, and starts to turn to look behind him as well. "What the hell was—"
Fit's finger slips, or squeezes, depending on how you look at it. Another carrot glances off the back of Wilbur's shoulder. "Sorry, misfire."
Wilbur scrambles to his feet, laying his guitar at the side of the bench. "Fit? What the fuck are you doing, man? I'm just trying to—"
Another carrot. Fit continues walking toward the bench, face still that same, flat expression.
"Oh, yeah, this happens sometimes," Pac immediately agrees. His apologetic tone would probably be more meaningful to Wilbur if he wasn't trying covering the smile on his face with his hands, but that just makes it all the more meaningful to Fit. "His launcher, you know, it's got a really easy trigger."
"Yeah, sorry, Wilbur," Fit says as he launches one last carrot. Approaching the bench, he immediately sits down where Wilbur had been sitting, and leaves it at that. He knows better than to kill Wilbur in front of Tallulah, even though he kind of wants to anyway. Again, he's not that much of an asshole. "Faulty mechanics, been meaning to get this one checked out for a while."
"You should have seen what he did to Tubbo," Pac adds on, leaning over Fit to look at Wilbur pick up his guitar. "He shot him into the water and killed him, just because he started to dance the Casulonas on top of me."
Rubbing his newly-bruised shoulder, Wilbur gives both of them an odd look as he straightens up with his guitar. "Alright, right, I get it. Look, I didn't take you for such a possessive guy, Fit, but I'm not coming onto your man or anything. Don't get me wrong, Pac's a lovely man, but I've got no interest in being a homewrecker."
Fit doesn't have anything to say to that at first. He's too busy reading the signs that Richas and Tallulah have been exchanging, which are currently discussing Fit's jealousy in frankly embarrassing detail. He glares at Richarlyson, but the kid only wiggles his eyebrows at Fit in return, giving him a big, gap-toothed grin.
Pac speaks up for both of them, in the end. "What?"
Fit takes the baton and runs with it. "Yeah, Wilbur, what are you talking about?"
Wilbur blinks. "Wait, are you two not— you— what?"
Now, Fit laughs, forcing all the embarrassment out of him and back onto Wilbur. "What, you thought I was shooting at you because I was fuckin' jealous?"
"Hey, man, you're the only one who's brought up jealousy, here." Wilbur points out.
"That's true," Pac agrees.
Fit turns back to him with a snap of his shoulder. "Woah, woah, whose fucking side are you on, Pac?"
Pac breaks into a fit of laughter. "Your side, Fit, I'm on your side."
With a scoff and a smile, Fit turns back toward the water and the kids cleaning up their signs. "Well, you've got a funny way of showing it, Pac." His arm aches from holding up the launcher, so Fit stretches it across the back of the bench, just shy from laying around Pac's shoulders.
"Tallulah!" Wilbur calls. "I think Fit's giving me a sign to leave, darling. Let's walk back home."
"Richas, vá brincar com ela," Pac commands. Richas looks at Pac with wide eyes, but walks off to join Tallulah. Fit pointedly ignores the intense side-eye the kid gives him as he leaves.
"So, Fit," Pac begins when they're alone. "Are you actually jealous of Wilbur and being around me?"
Fit sputters, searching for an answer that doesn't make him feel like he's tearing his ribcage open to offer his heart up for dissection. "Uh, I mean— shit, yeah, I guess, I was a bit jealous, seeing you walk around with him all the time. He's like, a big fucking fancy music star now, so like, I get it. I get it."
"Oh, yeah, I mean, I guess I do really like Wilbur's music," Pac says with a nod and a thoughtful hum. "But it's not like I'm, like, in love with him. He's not really the kind of guy I find attractive, anyways, you know?"
"Uh...yeah." Fit's eyes dart over to Pac, taking careful note of his flushed cheeks and how Pac is staring dead ahead at the river bank. "Yeah, I...that's good to know, Pac. That's really good to know."
"Is it?" Pac turns to smile up at him, just as the sunlight breaks through the leaves above them to catch in his brown eyes, melting them like warm chocolate. Fit's pretty sure he's never seen anything more gorgeous in his life, and it causes every word he wants to say stick to the inside of his throat. "And why is it that it's so good to know, Fit?"
"Uh," Fit says, with all the intelligence of a drowning man. "Well, uh, you know, Pac, it's just— it's fucking, uh—"
Pac breaks into laughter, saving Fit from his floundering. "I need to go catch up with Richas," he says as he stands up. Disappointment swoops through Fit's stomach like a diving phantom. "But you know, you don't have to be jealous, right, Fit? So you don't need to keep hiding from me."
An embarrassed chuckle passes through Fit's lips as he rubs the back of his neck. "Yeah, I— I hear you, Pac. I hear you."
"Good." Pac stands over him, bracing on hand on the armored plate of Fit's shoulder. Fit's eyes dart between the hand and Pac's face, so close to his own, and he feels his heart start to beat inside his own eardrums. He feels frozen, like a statue, but it's not like Fit's trapped. He's just afraid that if he moves, the second he so much as twitches, this moment will be over, and Fit will never be able to get it back.
He doesn't have to wait too much longer though. In the same moment all those thoughts pass through Fit's mind, Pac leans forward and plants a kiss on Fit's cheek, just shy from the corner of his lips.
"See you around, Fit," Pac says as he pulls his face and his hand back. His brown eyes sparkle in the light, and his cheeks are flushed with warmth, though Fit can't pretend that's from the sun any longer. Purple particles start to float around Pac as he grips tightly onto his warpstone.
"Bye, Pac," Fit says, voice warm with an overwhelming amount of emotion he doesn't know how to process. In a subtle flash, he's gone, leaving Fit with his own painfully blushing cheeks and the gentle breeze of the afternoon.
"Shit."
"So, you two worked out your lover's quarrel yet?"
Just like last time, Fit hefts his golden carrot launcher and shoots Tubbo into the water without another word, laughing as the young mechanic gasps for mercy.
"You know what, Tubbo?" he tells the corpse as it breaks the surface. He's still smiling. He can't help it. "I think we might just have done exactly that."