Work Text:
Quackity doesn't see the inauguration, but he does hear the screams. The guards tell him later that it was a bright day. Promising. Cheerful. Certain to end in fireworks.
Just like the young man standing at the podium.
The rest of the story comes in bits and pieces. Sparks. Explosions. Technoblade’s voice booming across the crowds—that part, like Tubbo’s screams, he heard for himself. Nihachu stepping forward, trying to talk the enraged god down from destroying everything they’d spent the last month rebuilding.
Quackity was absent for those repairs, too. After the battle, the Pogtopians gave him his precious sanctuary in the form of a cell in the prison he’d built for the rebels. Even as he was marched in, once-captured Pogtopians streamed out around him, cheering. There were fireworks, the sound of celebration mixing with the echoes of the war’s last strikes.
The cell he lives in now was originally for Wilbur, or maybe Tommy: spacious enough to befit someone of his status, secure enough to keep both assassins and aid from getting to him, and equipped to secure his wings when he entertains guests.
Which is what happens a week after the inauguration. Two guards enter and put the shackles at the joints of his wings. They’re shaped like pieces of wide pipe bent ninety degrees, too snug to open or close his wings more than a little, and the old L’Manburg charter classifies them as torture implements if they’re not supported. The guards make sure to support them, chaining his wings to the wall and his wrists to the wings.
Quackity stands, dignified as he is able, as L’Manburg’s new president enters and the guards take their places between them. There is furniture, well-made and comfortable. Nobody touches it.
“Niki!” Quackity greets, deliberately overfamiliar. “It’s good to see you. How was the funeral?”
“There has been no funeral,” she tells him. Her back is straight, hair neat in a bun, a far cry from the frenzied ash-covered face he saw when he gasped out a plea for amnesty. She has already survived two assassination attempts. Quackity isn’t supposed to know that. “Tubbo isn’t dead. Technoblade would have done it then and there.”
“Technoblade doesn’t give quick deaths,” Quackity corrects her. “Trust me, I know. You’re thinking of Philza, the Son-Slayer. If Technoblade took Tubbo, you’re never seeing him again.” He’s come to terms with it, or at least come closer than Nihachu. He’s accepted that his stepson is gone, even if he hasn’t stopped crying.
In a twisted way, he owes Tubbo his life. They knew Technoblade was coming for them, Emperor and Consort and Crown Prince, Archbishop and cabinet, but Schlatt reassured them all. The Blood God was on his side, he told them. Didn’t their Archbishop come from a family of devotees, didn’t he worship the Blood God above even Prime? Quackity felt protected. Then Schlatt called down the wrath of Techoblade on Tubbo and Quackity realized the danger. If he could try to kill his own son, nobody was safe from Schlatt. If Tubbo had turned traitor, nowhere was safe from Pogtopia.
Quackity and Fundy exchanged a few words later, quick as two ships passing in the night.
Whatever happens, Quackity, you and me—we’ll lose, won’t we?
The only way either of us stay alive is if we give everybody a reason to keep us alive.
Quackity heard later that when the invasion force passed into Manburg, Fundy stole Schlatt’s physician’s notes and marched out to the Pogtopia camp with a white flag and the face of the rebel leader’s son.
For his part, Quackity already knew the invasion plan for the royal family was to barricade themselves in the most secure room in Castle Camarvan and set guards outside. He already carried a knife at his belt, just as decorative as the rest of him.
Pogtopia wanted him dead. But even in the heat of battle and the anticlimax of targetless fury, they didn’t want it known that a man with a tyrant’s blood on his hands, hazy from the weakness potions they threw before they dared enter the room, had asked for a promise of safety and been killed.
Quackity is an HQ besides, an ancient and prestigious lineage even with no remaining land or money. All he has ever had to bargain with is his hand. He offered Eret a ring for their wealth. He wed Schlatt for a promise of power.
Now his hand is L’Manburg’s to barter. Now he waits in his own prison while Nihachu’s council offers him to any local government that has the faintest chance of allying with their fragile war-impoverished country.
Boomerville lies to the south, ruled by old men who have never wed and don’t seem likely to do so now. An ocean god lives in the far north, unlikely to refuse anything that sounds like an offer to help him build, but if Quackity knows Nihachu at all she wants him close enough to know if he tries to drum up an army.
He won’t drum up an army. He doesn’t expect he’ll do much more than try to survive.
The Greater SMP is the largest threat to L’Manburg besides the gods, but has few serious contenders for a marriage. Eret, sovereign over the largest country in the known world, has too much political and financial power to risk with a kingkiller. They say the SMP’s general has eyes only for a gorgeous prophet Quackity once called a friend. Punz is the SMP’s only lieutenant that isn’t engaged.
The Badlands are owed a thank-you as well, though the leaders are soul-bound to each other already. The two ladies and one unwed lord he can remember of the Badlands seem the only safe options.
Quackity lies awake nights wondering what will happen if everyone refuses. If he’ll wait in the cell for someone to want his name until he dies, or if Nihachu hates him enough to offer him to the Arctic and the gods that reside there. The gods won’t bother with alliances or weddings; instead, they’ll kill him for a sacrifice and leave his bones for the Angel’s crows. They have already killed three of L’Manburg’s greatest hopes, men and boys who had far more sentimental value to the gods than Quackity does.
Even if Nihachu hates him as much as he fears, though, she won’t dare: L’Manburg is duty-bound to protect him so long as he remains among them. Knowingly handing him over to blood-crazed anarchist war gods is a violation of that duty.
She stands before him now, her face calm, and he is afraid.
The bonds are tight on his wings, no such thing as a comfortable way to keep wings half-extended for long unless one is lucky enough to be a cormorant.
Quackity is a blue-winged teal. They aren’t known for much except prettiness.
His wing twitches against his will, one chain jangling as it pulls tight against the wall and the other chain tugging his left hand out with it. Quackity lets it happen; he’s learned to keep his arms limp and let the twitches happen as they will. Nihachu is less used to it. Her eyes follow the movement.
“That hand will have a ring on it next week,” she remarks. “Do you want to know whose?”
There’s a smile on her face now. She’s savouring this. He can’t even blame her. In her place, he would do the same.
“Whose?” he asks, thinking, Awesamdude, HannahxxRose, even Punz, just not a god.
“Lieutenant Sapnap of the Greater SMP.”
Quackity freezes, staring at her for proof of the lie, the joke this has to be, but Nihachu’s smile stays in place as if pasted.
He didn’t even consider Sapnap. They say he lights foxes on fire to watch them burn. They say his human mother summoned his father from hell and was disappointed.
“But he’s engaged,” is what Quackity says. “Karl’s my friend.” More than that; they considered marrying one’s name to the other’s fortune before Sapnap made a better offer and they lost touch. Karl is a light. He’s bright, talkative. He wears the brightest colours he can when he’s happy and clashes them on purpose when he doesn’t want to be somewhere.
Or—by the expression of sincere regret on Nihachu’s face—he used to.
“The engagement is no more,” she says. “I heard his fiancé was badly burned. I didn’t know his name.”
The news is a mercy and a cruelty, a death knell both for Quackity and the young man he once knew.
“The wedding is Saturday at three in the Greater SMP’s Church Prime,” Nihachu tells him. “We will set out on Thursday.” She hesitates, just long enough that Quackity thinks she’s about to apologize. Then she turns on her heel and walks out the door, bodyguards in her wake.
A prison guard comes in a minute later to unlock the shackles. Quackity, mind going in circles, still has enough presence of mind not to make sudden movements until they’re out the door. Then he sinks to his knees, wings folding in front of him so he can pretend he’s somewhere else.
Sapnap.
The half-demon pyrokinetic who kills pets, who leads Dream’s battalions with a bloody sword, who killed a man that both he and Quackity loved.
Nihachu isn’t allowed to kill Quackity, but clearly that won’t stop her trying.
Something old: a favourite hat, made of fine black wool. He is in mourning for Schlatt, for Manburg, for the soldiers and civilians that lost their lives. For Tubbo. For Karl.
The hat is delivered to him the day after Nihachu’s visit, by his request. He wears it all week.
Something new: the suit. The rebels set fire to Schlatt’s rooms when they reached Manburg’s capital, taking trophies and riches before turning the rest to ashes. This means that most of Quackity’s wardrobe, including the tailored suit he wore at his first wedding, is gone. The clothes on his back, including the hat, were packed in a chest in Camarvan, left untouched by the rebels in their shock. Quackity thinks it was returned to him not out of pity but because the bloodstains made the guards uncomfortable; after all, it must be harder to dislike someone when you can see a reminder that he killed your greatest enemy.
He doesn't miss the old suit. It was the height of fashion at the time, of course, and daringly tight in all the impressive places, but fashion has moved on and so has he. A nobleman whose only two bargaining chips are his name and appearance can't wear something years out of date to his own wedding. A seamstress comes to fit him for a new one. She’s a little old lady, blue quills turning gray, escorted in by a guard who sets her bolts of cloth on the floor and takes up a post by the door to make sure neither of them attacks the other or tries to pass on information. Quackity never asks for her name under the guard’s eyes, but by the colour of her quills she’s related in some way to Connor.
The seamstress complains about how little time she has, and how the feather-like embroidery on the collar doesn’t look at all the way she wants it. She tells Quackity about the way her building was made to Schlatt’s building code instead of the original nonexistent L’Manburg standards, and how it’s weathered the war so much better than the older buildings on her street. Then she pats his hand, gathers the cloth and all her endless pins, and Quackity is left to think about building codes and unspoken thanks.
Something borrowed: Nihachu, as the new head of state, will be formally passing him from L’Manburg to Sapnap. Her bodyguards surround them as they wait in a small room in the Greater SMP’s largest Prime church. Tonight, Quackity knows Nihachu will sit in a council meeting with her advisors and the lords of the Greater SMP as they decide on the terms of the alliance Quackity hopes will last after his death. Now, she pulls something out of her pocket: a wide bracelet, made of gold. She opens it and holds it to Quackity’s wrist, asking a question wordlessly, and he nods. Once she’s fastened it closed, he lifts it to the light to look at a small mark and realizes the bracelet has been engraved with the lyrics to the old L’Manburg national anthem.
“I don’t want you dead,” she tells him.
“I’m not sure you mean that.”
Niki, for in that moment she isn’t President Nihachu but a woman with too many unwanted burdens, inhales and says nothing for a moment. She doesn’t look him in the eye, but her expression speaks of months of tears and sleepless nights, years of battles fought against everything Quackity and his Emperor found themselves standing for. “Neither am I,” she admits, weary. “I’ll need time and distance to convince myself.”
He thinks maybe he should thank her. He doesn’t.
“I want the bracelet back after the wedding,” she tells him, and offers her arm.
Something blue: Quackity folds his wings as he takes Nihachu’s arm. Behind his head, parallel to his spine, his marginal covert feathers shimmer blue.
From these four—his love, his people, the most unexpected of friends, and himself—may all else follow.
The music, one of the sixteen sacred songs, swells as they step out into Church Prime. The seats are packed with many of the most important people from two nations, Sapnap’s father BadBoyHalo of the Badlands officiating, politically advantageous parties standing by the altar to support each groom, but Quackity doesn’t see them.
Sapnap stands in something close to military attention, shoulders back, one hand on the hilt of a sword Quackity prays is more decorative than his own knife was. Medals dot the chest of his uniform. A white bandanna holds his hair back from his face.
When he meets Quackity’s eyes, he smiles.
Quackity puts one foot in front of the other until he stands at Sapnap’s side, a lifetime of practice keeping his smile appearing genuine.
BadBoyHalo reads out the ceremony, but Quackity can’t pay attention when a madman who’s killed one lover already is smiling at him so happily.
His attention finally catches on the bright clothes of Sapnap’s best man, and Quackity’s breath catches in his throat.
It’s Karl.
Quackity hasn’t seen him in years. His face and hands are badly burned, he’s sitting in a wheelchair, and there’s a tear in his eye, but his smile is as bright as ever.
Karl is dead. Isn’t he?
Yet here Karl is, lifting one hand to blow Quackity a kiss. His clothes go together perfectly. Even the chair is lavender.
Quackity knows that Karl dresses in clashing clothes when he doesn’t want to be somewhere.
Karl wants to be here.
Quackity lifts his gaze back up to Sapnap in confusion. His fiancé still smiles back at him. This time Quackity dares to hope that there might be kindness in his eyes.
They exchange rings before the handfasting. Quackity hasn’t heard of anyone exchanging rings outside of old plays, but they told him Sapnap insisted. The seamstress gave Quackity one small pocket, just large enough for a little solid-gold ring with a snail-like spiral instead of a set. A messenger delivered it the day before the wedding. He manages to pay enough attention to what BadBoyHalo reads out, slipping the ring onto Sapnap’s finger. It’s the first time they’ve touched, and Sapnap’s hands are hot. Quackity’s, as he receives his own ring, are trembling.
A long ribbon is produced, the royal purple of Prime, and the couple joins hands. BadBoyHalo holds the end in place and starts wrapping the ribbon around their hands, symbolically binding their lives together. He pauses to look to the best men, and Sapnap tugs Quackity closer to Karl. Karl smiles at them both as he wraps the ribbon a few times more. His hands are burned badly, Quackity sees, two fingers almost completely missing. Whatever happened to him must have hurt even worse than Tubbo’s branding. Jack, Quackity’s best man, gives him a tight smile as he does his part. Others step up, too. Fundy. Nihachu. George, whom Quackity recognizes from many years ago. Skeppy, whom he recognizes only by reputation. Dream. Each brings the ribbon around the couple’s hands once or twice more, as their loved ones and allies recognize the union.
At last, Bad ties the two ends of the ribbon together and straightens to his full height, horns high enough that the ceiling would be in danger in any standard building. He asks the couple to promise eternity.
They could have prepared personal messages. Instead, each of them swears the standard vow of eternal love and faith and patience. Quackity has preemptively decided to use the older version, the one with the word obey. He’s facing Sapnap, looking into his eyes.
Quackity steels his nerve when BadBoyHalo gives them permission to kiss. He puts his free hand to his husband’s waist, steps in close, and Sapnap’s free hand cups the side of his face.
Their lips meet. It's a simple kiss. Lips sealed, performatively affectionate, lingering just long enough that the guests can pretend they didn't meet at the altar. Sapnap’s lips are as warm as his hands. If he wants to, he could ignite right now. Is that what happened to Karl?
Something flutters in Quackity's stomach, though in spite of everything it isn't just fear.
Fundy yells a wordless cheer, startling them both into breaking apart to look to where he sits in the front row with the rest of the L’Manburg cabinet. Somebody further back starts clapping. The silence breaks, chatter bubbling up as the crowd starts to rise. The finance minister, flushed from forehead to gills, tries to shush the young archbishop, but there’s little he can do against someone who grew up alongside Tommy and Tubbo. Fundy makes eye contact with Quackity and pumps a fist in the air before vanishing behind the Boomerville ambassador.
BadBoyHalo steps forward, placing his hands on Sapnap’s shoulders and kneeling to look him in the eyes.
“Prime’s blessing on you,” he says. Quackity can see heatwaves rising from where he’s touching Sapnap’s shoulders and manages not to pull away: it would be the height of rudeness, even taking Karl’s state into consideration, to shy away from two demons’ gesture of simple familial affection.
He still can’t help but flinch when BadBoyHalo breaks eye contact with Sapnap and reaches out to Quackity and Karl, who remains waiting by Sapnap. BadBoyHalo’s hands land on their shoulders, not seeming to notice Quackity’s rudeness, simply smiling at one and then the other.
“My blessing to all of you,” he says. His hand on Quackity’s shoulder is cool. Sapnap is holding Karl’s hand, the four of them connected in a ring.
“Thank you.” The tears in Karl’s eyes have finally spilled down his cheeks. Quackity stares at him, searching for signs of pain, for heatwaves over the demons’ hands in his. Which of them is hurting him now?
There is nothing.
BadBoyHalo finally lets go and reaches to the ribbon still handfasting them, but Sapnap draws back.
“Not yet,” he says. BadBoyHalo smiles as if at a determined puppy; perhaps a headstrong son is the same thing to him.
“As long as you return it,” he acquiesces. Sapnap nods, looking relieved.
They descend from the altar hand in hand, Karl and BadBoyHalo following them out of Church Prime. A flower field just down the street has been made their banquet hall, tables laid with more food than Quackity has seen in one place in years. The wars left Manburg pinched, and while as the Emperor Consort he had access to the best there was, Schlatt never threw such public feasts. His philosophy was never to invite more people than he could control, and he didn’t mind that this made everyone consider private meals with him as an honour.
As the assembled nobility notices the newlyweds, eyes turn to them. Sapnap squeezes Quackity’s hand and leans to his ear, breath hot.
“We’ll retire immediately,” he whispers. “We have a lot we need to speak about in private.”
Quackity doesn’t have the stomach to eat right now, but he still looks longingly at the serving dishes as he goes with Sapnap to the waiting carriage, breathing deeply as he passes dishes with flavours he hasn’t tasted in years. He looks forward to the Greater DreamSMP’s food, if nothing else.
As they go, Quackity watches the crowd for Nihachu. Returning her bracelet will be easier if he doesn’t have to trust a servant to deliver it, and he isn’t sure if he’ll ever see her again after today. He doesn’t notice Fundy until the boy is at his elbow.
“Did you like kissing him?” Fundy has to stand on his tiptoes to whisper in Quackity’s ear, his own ears pricked, smile wry. Quackity notices the way he shifts to keep Quackity between him and Sapnap at all times. Even with the blood on Quackity's hands, Fundy trusts that he'll stand between him and a threat.
Quackity holds out his wrist so he won’t have to answer.
“This bracelet was borrowed from President Nihachu,” he says. “See that she receives it. Tell her-” He pauses for a moment, trying to think of a way to say thank you without saying it. Fundy doesn’t wait for him to finish.
“Does she know you borrowed it?”
Quackity wonders how Fundy expects him to have stolen a solid-gold bracelet from the best-guarded person in the country when he’s been in the Manburg Prison for a month.
“Yes, she does,” he says. “Tell her I said thank you.”
Fundy unclasps the bracelet, cautiously bows in the general direction of Sapnap, and vanishes into the crowd again. Sapnap smiles.
“I don’t think I’ve met the Archbishop before,” he says. “He must take after his mother.”
“There isn’t a living soul who knows who Fundy’s mother is,” Quackity tells him. Sapnap doesn’t appear surprised. “I don’t believe any of the stories, and you shouldn’t either.” He carefully avoids talking about Fundy’s father; the war is still recent enough that the memory is fresh. He and Quackity didn’t hate each other, not really, which makes it all the worse. They say he didn’t really have enough firepower to destroy the capital. They say he died instantly. They say the Angel of Death stood over his body, his son’s blood on his sword, and wept.
Quackity doesn’t believe any of the stories.
The carriage ride is silent and, mercifully, short. Sapnap picks at the knot of the ribbon, unwinding it from their hands before carefully coiling it and placing it in a breast pocket. Quackity doesn’t ask why. Such silence has never come naturally to him, but it’s a skill he’s learned.
They disembark, Karl climbing down from where he was riding next to the coachman. Quackity decides that the question of how much Karl is capable of moving is very close to the bottom of the list of questions he cares about, especially when Karl’s gaze immediately skips past him and Sapnap. Quackity turns to follow his gaze and immediately breaks his silence by using several of the words nobility aren’t supposed to know.
Several guests have followed them. Some appear to be drunk already; either they were drinking ahead of time or they can’t handle their wine. A bawdy song rises above. At the head of the line, Fundy dances.
“We’re being heckled,” Karl observes.
“I’m beginning to revise my opinion of your archbishop,” Sapnap tells Quackity, and heads for the door.
Quackity has been in crowds like that. The people of the SMP—Greater and otherwise—are usually down for a party, and always ready to laugh at people. It’s something of a tradition to follow newlyweds home and tease them until they give you a reason to stop. With what he knows of Sapnap, that reason to stop could either be the usual bribery or it could be threats of violence. He himself would much prefer to fly away, or possibly put his hands over his ears. Fundy is there. At least the cell was safe; at least there were guards constantly around whose job description included keeping him alive. At least there were no vulpine children taunting men who kill foxes for fun.
Quackity follows his husband and old friend into the house and up a grand staircase. They go down a hallway, through a door that is (to Quackity) indistinguishable from every other door in the corridor, and into a private sitting room. Karl immediately takes a couch, pulling Quackity down beside him. Sapnap pulls off his suit coat, rolls his shoulders back with a sigh, and heads through a door in the corner.
“I'll send away the hecklers,” he says. Now that the door is open, Quackity can see the corner of a bed and hear the cheers more loudly. He prays Fundy is smart enough to flee. “Karl, where are the emera- oh, never mind.” Jewels clatter.
He’s bribing them, not killing, so Quackity focuses on what is in front of him rather than Fundy. Now is his chance. It might be his only chance. He takes Karl's hand as tightly as he dares.
“Karl,” he whispers, “what did he do to you?”
He can hear the pwing of a slingshot, Sapnap's voice telling everyone to go home. Karl has never looked so confused, even the time George woke him up with a snowball to the face.
“Who- Q, what did they do to you?”
Quackity won't be deterred.
“Your burns,” he says, “your engagement. You've been replaced but haven't left. What has Sapnap done?”
Karl's mouth opens, eyes widening as he realizes something Quackity doesn't understand. He reaches out with his other hand, the one burned the worst, and squeezes Quackity's hand.
“Sapnap never hurt me,” he says, an oath of safety that Quackity can’t trust. “These burns were from Technoblade’s fireworks.”
Quackity remembers a day on the podium—not so long ago, really—when he lost all faith in everyone but himself, Schlatt laughing as fireworks went off overhead, Tubbo trying not to let anyone see him cry. But when would Karl have met Technoblade?
Karl keeps talking. “The engagement- I wanted to break it. Sapnap and I love one another, but I’ll always regret leaving you with Schlatt.”
Quackity darts a look at the door. Their voices are low, but Sapnap could be back any minute.
“I regret leaving you with him,” he tells Karl. “I-”
He doesn’t dare say I love you, Karl. Maybe he’ll save them to be his last words, for when Sapnap can’t do anything but burn him faster, one final insult.
Maybe he won’t burn at all.
From his grin, Quackity thinks Karl understood what he couldn't say.
There’s a hand on his cheek. Quackity’s husband is so close, just on the other side of a door throwing emeralds into a crowd of wedding guests with a slingshot, but he lets himself be pulled closer and closer, looking into Karl’s eyes until his own slip closed and-
For the first time in years, Quackity kisses somebody for love alone. He is gentle, like Karl will break if he isn’t careful. He thinks Karl is treating him with the same caution. He thinks that it might be too late for both of them, that they are already broken.
Then it really is too late for both of them.
Karl draws back a little, which makes Quackity open his eyes. The first thing he sees is Sapnap, leaning against the doorway, watching them with a fond smile.
Quackity panics, pushing away from Karl, who lets him draw away into the corner of the couch. His wings draw as tight to his back as they can, pulling in close to make a smaller target. Schlatt never touched his wings or his face in anger, but Schlatt never set a fox on fire or walked in on Quackity kissing another man.
“Go ahead and kiss,” Sapnap says. “That- really, that was our plan.”
“I meant to tell you,” Karl says. He’s also smiling. “You distracted me.”
“I’m sorry,” Quackity says, heart pounding. They have to be playing with him; there’s no other way for the day’s events to make sense.
“I’m not,” says Karl, voice tinged with smugness. Sapnap’s expression has turned to a dawning realization and dread.
“Quackity?” he says, stepping closer. He stops when Quackity flinches at the movement.“I’m not upset with you—or with Karl.”
There is nowhere left to go.
“Quackity, look at me.”
Quackity obeys Karl, staring across the couch, gaze like a lifeline to a drowning man.
“I was afraid for you,” Karl tells him. “When I heard you killed the emperor, I was lying in a field hospital struggling to stay alive, yet I cried for what that country made you. When your hand was offered, all I could think was that I wanted you to be safe.”
“He suggested we break off our engagement so I could keep you safe,” Sapnap says. He’s retreated back to the doorway. “I promise I’ll do so. I promise that we’ll never kiss again unless you want to.”
“I’m here as- a favour to Karl?”
Sapnap smiles. “Call it a rescue mission.”
There are a multitude of reasons not to trust this tale, reasons for Quackity to sit still and close his mouth and do what he is told. However, such a state will come to a breaking point sooner or later, and Quackity broke too recently in the secure room of Castle Camarvan. The blood on his hands is almost still tangible, drying tacky, the fractures in his core still healing and ready to break again.
Before he can lose his nerve, Quackity stands. His feet carry him across the room, hands rising to Sapnap’s shoulders, leaning up just enough for their lips to meet.
The kiss in Church Prime was for the sake of witnesses. This is for the sake of Quackity, for the sake of Sapnap. Sapnap, like Karl, kisses like he thinks Quackity will break. Quackity doesn’t break.
When he steps back, he’s a little bit out of breath. Karl appears at his elbow to smile at him before pressing his lips to Sapnap’s in turn. Quackity feels none of the jealousy or fear he expected: they have both claimed they won’t hurt him or drive him away.
Sapnap draws the coiled handfasting ribbon from his pocket.
“The three of us,” Karl says.
“The three of us,” Sapnap agrees.
They sit on the couch at Karl’s suggestion. Three hands link haphazardly. Three more twine a holy ribbon around and around, binding them together. There are no priests, no witnesses, but that doesn’t matter to Quackity. Looking at the joy in his husbands’ eyes, Quackity smiles back, thinking, for the first time in months, that he just might be able to count on surviving.
For the first time in months, there is hope, and there is love.