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Quackity can’t love Slime, but… God , it’s nice to be loved again.
To be loved.
Again? Has he ever been loved?
Surely, yes. Surely, he has, because he was engaged once. Surely Karl and Sapnap had loved him, even if…
Quackity looks to his side where Slime is sleeping. He’s not sure slimes really sleep, but he’s always been more human than a normal slime. He somehow manages to solidify more when he needs to, and he looks human in the dim light. Really, Quackity wouldn’t mind letting Slime get his— well, slime on Quackity’s covers, they can be washed, if it meant not sleeping alone, but he’d be lying if he didn’t appreciate not having to send for dry cleaning every morning.
Slime is fast asleep now, breathing slowly, his chest rising and falling gently. Quackity almost smiles but he doesn’t, there’s a pang in his chest before he can.
Careful not to wake the sleeping slime he reaches over to his nightstand and slips it open quietly, pulling out a small box. He sits up, opening it and dumps its contents into his hand. He turns the matching rings over in his hand, rolling them between his fingers. He’s not sure why he kept them, after everything that’s happened. But here they are. They don’t fit him anymore, his fingers are calloused than they used to be and they were already a snug fit at the time. It doesn’t matter, because no matter how often he holds them he refuses to try them back on.
He’s so deep in his thoughts he doesn’t notice Slime stirring until his empty hand has fingers in the spaces between his own.
“It’s dark. Shouldn’t you sleep?”
Quackity thinks Slime sounds more human when he’s tired. He wonders how much of his alien-like bubbliness is just a front he doesn’t have the energy to put on at night.
“Not tired,” Quackity responds gruffly. It’s a lie, and he’s not so sure Slime is as unaware of it as Quackity pretends to believe.
Slime just hums. Quackity can feel his eyes, the gaze burning his clenched fist with the cold engagement rings pressed inside.
“I’ll stay up with you then, Quackity from Las Nevadas,” Slime yawns, sitting up. His hand shifts against Quackity’s, but doesn’t let go.
“You don’t have to.”
“I don’t have to sleep either,” Slime shrugs, “I only do so I can sleep with you.”
Quackity gives him a quizzical look. “You shouldn’t phrase it like that,” he snorts after a thoughtful silence. Slime smiles. God, Quackity loves his smile. It’s the first thing he’s loved without it being a reminder of Karl and Sapnap.
Is that loving Slime?
He doesn’t. Can’t. He’s engaged.
Was engaged, he reminds himself belatedly.
“You know you don’t have to add ‘from Las Nevadas’ every time you say my name, right? You’re… you’re from here too.”
Slime tilts his head, “I’m not from here, I came from somewhere else.”
“So did I,” Quackity sighs softly, “But if this is home for me, it’s home for you too now.”
“‘Slime from Las Nevadas’…” Slime tries carefully. Quackity smiles slightly, slightly cringing.
“It’d probably roll off the tongue better if you had an actual name, huh?”
Slime laughs, bright and real and unlike anything else in Quackity’s life, “Yeah. But Slime’s good. It’s what you call me, so it’s good.”
“You put too much… too much of everything in me, Slime. I told you, it’s not good to trust people and let them close.”
“But you’re not any people, you’re Quackity from— Quackity. Of course I trust you!”
He says it like it’s simple. Like it’s obvious. Unlike anything else in Quackity’s life.
“You’re— you’re so different,” Quackity practically chokes on his words. Slime tilts his head. Quackity could’ve sworn Slime’s eyes flick to his clenched hand hiding the engagement rings.
“Different from who?”
Quackity feels like he’s grasping at straws for an answer to that. Different from Karl? Sapnap? Sure. Yeah. Different from Dream, Schlatt, and Wilbur? Different from Tommy and Tubbo? Different from George and Bad? From Sam and Techno?
Different from L’Manburg?
Different from El Rapids ?
“Everyone. Everything.”
“Is that bad?”
Quackity shakes his head before he can think about it, “No. It’s good. I lo— like that about you.”
“Oh,” Slime smiles again, hand holding Quackity’s hand just a little tighter. “I’m happy. I like you too.”
That’s not what Quackity said.
He doesn’t correct him.
It’s not what he meant.
He doesn’t tell Slime that either.
He should’ve. Should’ve told Slime then and there that he loved him.
Should’ve said it in the lava at least.
“Thank you for showing me what it’s like to be human.”
Quackity should’ve been thanking him.
Thank you for showing me what it’s like to love and be loved, as broken as I am. The words will die with him now. He couldn’t even say them when the slime was incapacitated in the library. Now he’s gone.
When Quackity sits awake now, he’s alone, and the rings are buried in some trash. He threw them out a long time ago. Instead, he holds the book with Slime— with Charlie’s handwriting in it. He traces the words gently and fights the urge to cry, worried about damaging the paper if it gets wet.
This late, in the echoing silence of the land that was nuked and burned and is void of life, Las Nevadas seems to echo with memories so loud Quackity can almost hear them.
That’s why he doesn’t realize the knocking is real at first.
It’s a little freaky, if he’s honest, creeping down the stairs to the front door of the small house he’d built in Las Nevadas—finding it too painful to live in any of those buildings and just as painful to leave—having not heard from anyone in nearly two years.
It’s dark, and the knocking is constant and makes his ears ring. Old habits die hard, and he opens the door with a defensive stance, ax in his dominant hand, book still clutched in the other.
“I’d say sorry to wake you,” that familiar blinding smile makes Quackity think he’s dreaming, “but I have a feeling you weren’t asleep.”
All Quackity can do is stare. His hair is a bit longer, and he looks a bit older. He seems to have figured out how to completely solidify into a human, and his skin is slightly more tanned than Quackity remembers.
But it’s him. Undoubtedly. Not even Quackity’s desperate imagination could conjure up an image so vivid.
“You’re different,” Quackity gasps softly, voice suddenly hoarse.
“Am I?” He tilts his head with a smile. Quackity sighs in relief so deep it seeps into his bones.
“No,” Quackity admits, “but I don’t understand, you— why are you here?”
“I’m from here, aren’t I? That’s what you said,” He grins, “Charlie from Las Nevadas.”
Quackity drops his ax and the book, and drags Charlie into a firm embrace, one hand tangled in his hair and the other grasping the material of his shirt, face pressed into his neck.
“Welcome home,” he chokes out. Charlie hugs him back just as tightly, pressing a kiss to the side of his head.
“I’m home. Sorry it took me so long.”
Quackity shakes his head, “No, it’s okay. You’re here now. Don’t apologize, or I’ll start apologizing, and we’ll be here forever.”
Charlie laughs, “There’s no one else here, I’m surprised you stayed.”
“Had to make sure you could find your way home.”
“I’d always find my way home, no matter where you went.”
Quackity pulls back hesitantly, just enough to make eye contact, “But then you’d be here alone.”
Charlie sighs, smiling softer, “Las Nevadas was never home. Quackity from Las Nevadas is. You’re my home.”
Quackity cries. It hits him suddenly and without warning, a few years ago he would be able to hold himself together, but he can’t. Not now.
Tears stream down his face, and he lets them because Charlie cups his cheeks and wipes them, and it’s worth it.
“You should get back to sleep,” Charlie urges. “Come on.”
“Wait!” Quackity cries out, holding them in place, the wind whipping them through the open doorway, “I— I have to tell you. Charlie— Charlie, I— I love you.”
“I love you too.”
He says it so naturally that Quackity thinks he misunderstood.
“No. No, Charlie, I love you. Love you love you.”
Charlie nods, “I love you too.”
“You’re not getting it, I lo—“
Quackity is cut off by a soft and sweet kiss, bright and loving like Charlie has always been. He only freezes for a moment before he presses back desperately. Charlie pulls back.
“ I love you too ,” he says firmly, “so can we go to bed so I can hold you? I came all the way here.”
Quackity nods in a daze.
“Y— yeah. Yes. I— yes.”
Charlie laughs, leading him by the hand to bed.
“I love you.”
“I love you too, Quackity.” Charlie practically pushes Quackity into the bed, tucking them both in.
“ You love me.”
“I know, Quackity,” Charlie holds him close. Quackity clings back. “I’ll be here every night and every day, so get some sleep. We’re not running out of time.”
We’re not running out of time.
“I love you,” he whispers again, just because he can now, “I love you… Charlie from Las Nevadas.”
Charlie laughs, his bright and genuine laugh. God, Quackity missed that laugh.
“I love you too, Quackity from Las Nevadas.”