Archive of Our Own

Quackity is seventeen going on eighteen, and he's standing looking at the casket that holds his dad and trying to sort through the complicated mess of emotions that form a knot behind his ribcage. Somewhere in that tangle is what he's supposed to be feeling, what all the well-wishers expect him to feel, and he's pretty sure it's sadness, but right now, he can't afford to untangle that knot and figure out which one of those strands applies to said emotion. If it unravels even the slightest bit, his perfect facade will crack, and fuck knows what'll happen then.

This is the third funeral he's been to. The first one, he hardly remembers. It was his grandma's. His mom took him and his sister down to Mexico; his father refused to go. The memories of that trip cling to his mind in bits and pieces: Soft fingers running through his long hair. Hot pan dulce pressed into his hand. The smell of street corn. A heavy squall sweeping down the road. Colorful fabrics flapping in the breeze. The sound of the choir in church. Rosary beads in his hand, counting out his third Hail Mary.

The second funeral belonged to the two people he went to Mexico with. That one, Quackity remembers clearly. Twin caskets. He wasn't numb then. Then, he was fifteen; he felt everything too much. It hurt. He remembers begging to the Lord to take him instead, hunched over those caskets with palms spread against them, as if that would wake them up, or bring them back; as if he could pry the death from their skin and lay it across his own. He would trade himself for them, in a heartbeat. He was a delinquent teen without a future, living off weed, soda, and a dream. Sixteen, he'd planned to get a job, start finally contributing to the family so that maybe once his little sister was old enough, she could go to college and make something of herself. She never got the chance. She was only eight.

Quackity is seventeen going on eighteen, and this is the third funeral he's been to in his life. All of them have been for his family. This is the first one he doesn't think deserves his grief.

The priest is speaking. Quackity barely hears the words. His father was well known and liked in the Church; the congregation will mourn him. They know nothing of the real man who lurked behind that charming, white-toothed smile. They will never know about the bruises, the screaming, the lighter burns scattered across Quackity's wrists, the flame burning beside his cheek, threats hissed into his ear too close as his heart beats like a cornered prey animal. His mother was a silent soldier, pinning up her hair and rolling down her sleeves to hide the burns and bruises, and likewise Quackity learned to do the same. He hid them well over the years. No one knows, and no one will know. Clint has already taken the secret of his abuse to his grave, and Quackity will follow in his wake.

He doesn't know why. There is nothing stopping him now. He could so easily expose him to everyone, and watch him go into the earth with sparser prayers, and maybe he wouldn't be the only one at this service who knows his dad isn't going to heaven. Maybe they'd even believe him, maybe they'd realize that Clint's arrest last year was more than just a misunderstanding; that Quackity hadn't been simply having a lark when he spent three months hiding out in the woods letting everyone believe he was dead.

So, why hasn't he got up there and told the whole of them that his father was not a man of God, that he abused his wife and children, that he almost killed Quackity last year in a fit of mindless rage? Why not tell them all that he suspects his father of setting the fire that killed his mom and sister? Truthfully, Quackity doesn't know. God help him, he wants to. He hates the priest's sincerity as he prays for Clint's resurrection, hates the sorrow on the congregation's faces, hates the toll of the bell, mournful and sad, haunting the world with grief for a man without a soul.

He cannot bring himself to speak. Maybe some rotten corner of his heart still cares for his dad. Maybe he does not wish to disturb the holiness of the Church by condemning even one who deserves it. Maybe a lifetime of stilling his tongue has made it impossible for him to speak.

Quackity is seventeen going on eighteen, and he doesn't know what to do.

His mom didn't let him watch his grandma get buried, but Quackity watched her and his sister be lowered into the earth. It wasn't even them, anyway. The bodies were never recovered. But there was still something to it, there had to have been, because he'd held himself together, fragile, till then, and when the first shovelful of dirt hit his baby sister's empty casket, he lost his mind.

It's blurry, but he knows he grabbed the shovel and flung it aside, and dropped down beside the grave, crying her name over and over. Hands reached to comfort him or drag him away, and Quackity lashed out at them all. His tears reached the point of incoherency, and he's been told that he climbed into his sister's grave and lay there, begging to be buried with her. It was a long time before he was worn out enough to be dragged away, still weakly objecting through tears.

He hates it, looking back. His mother had always taken everything life threw at her with warm acceptance and grace. If she wept, she did so quietly. At an hour that should have been about her, and the honor of her life, Quackity had made it about him. Everyone would remember that morning as the morning Julietta Delgado's son threw a fit at her own damn funeral when they should only be remembering her.

Even in her death, he disappointed her.

Yet, he knows he could not help it. The only thing he could have done in that moment is grieve wildly and violently. There's nothing soft about the way he grieves, he has found. It is undeniably, irreverently loud. Quackity has always been exceptionally good at shoving everything down, but when it comes to grief, he fails. His lungs contract, and he cannot breathe until he screams. He has never, never been able to grieve quietly.

Now, Quackity silently watches his father's casket be lowered into the soil, and he feels nothing.

Eventually it's time for the worst part of the funeral; namely, the reception. A fucking party at a funeral service, where Quackity is expected to talk to people, to put on the facade of the grieving son and accept the condolences through a false mourning. It's like some kind of torture ritual, shaking hands and smiling like he cares, like he's torn up at the death of the last family he has. The priest himself tells him he's sorry for his loss. Quackity doesn't really know how to respond.

It's been about thirty minutes, and he's sat at one of the tables, fiddling with the cloth. No one's come to sit by him, no surprise, grieving people aren't much fun to be around. He's not well liked, anyway. The care presented to him is superficial, an offshoot from their sickly adoration of Clint; in a few weeks, things will go back to how they've always been, and they'll all go back to hating Quackity. Maybe they'll look on him with a little false sympathy, call him a poor boy, but for the most part they'll think of him as a rat, just another orphaned ditch kid with shitty luck, something to be forgotten and hushed up-

His gaze catches on a tall figure in the corner. Ah. Wilbur came. There he is, for lack of a better word, lurking around the outskirts of the event. He's pale, dressed all in black, which is probably why he hasn't been questioned yet, as it is proper funeral attire. He's certainly never been to church before. Quackity would know.

The two of them haven't spoken in about a month. It's the longest they've gone since their volatile, fucked up mess of a relationship began almost what- three, four years ago, a relationship consisting mostly of screaming, making out, and such general violence. After their last argument, Wilbur had stormed away, promising never to speak to Quackity again. His presence at the funeral is a little confusing.

Quackity finds himself standing, crossing the room, drawn by some morbid curiosity, or perhaps by his own desire to feel something. Wilbur has always made him feel things, so many more things than he wants to. He's never wanted to love someone the way he loves Wilbur. Least of all a man. It's sinful, he knows that. It doesn't mean he can stop.

The first time they'd kissed, he had screamed at Wilbur afterward, even though he'd pulled him in. The second time, he had initiated the kiss, and by the third time, Quackity knew he was in too deep. Nonetheless, he made sure Wilbur knew this couldn't be any kind of permanent thing, Quackity wasn't gay after all, this was only- a way to pass the time, they had agreed. Quackity can't deny that before the fight, he had wished for more. Maybe he still does.

"You know this is a funeral, right?"

The other looks at him, dark eyes narrowing, curious, as a sharp white-toothed smile splits his face, "Oh I'm aware, Q. They always have the best food."

Quackity looks between him and the plate of cheese and crackers he's holding. "You only came for the food?"

"No, I came to observe the ridiculous rituals we mortals take on in a pathetic attempt to rationalize Death's relentless grace." He sighs when Quackity stares at him blankly. "Of course I came for the food. And to see you. He was your dad, after all."

"You know I hated him," Quackity mutters, low enough for only Wilbur to hear. The response is a widening smile. There's something unnerving about it.

"I know. I'm glad to see you don't grieve. I wasn't sure if you would. As you've said before, he's still your dad."

"No, I'm glad he's dead." Quackity glances around, anxious at being overheard, but no one is really paying attention. He turns back. "Well, you've seen me. Can be on your way now, hm?"

"Q, don't be like that." Wilbur leans towards him, far too close, especially for such a public place. "Come on now, let me apologize. I know I was in the wrong."

"Fuck off," Quackity growls, taking a step back. Wilbur relents, and doesn't push the boundary of personal space, but continues to watch him with sharp dark eyes.

"Just give me a chance. Don't let it end like this, sweetheart."

The petname that gets him every time.

Quackity is dizzy. He needs air, he thinks. With a mumbled excuse to the other, he turns and stumbles towards the door, our into the chilly night where the church windows cast long, warped shadows across the grass, and crickets chirp in the undergrowth. It's summer, but there's a faint chill in the air, and he pulls his jacket closer around him as he wanders towards the side of the building. He doesn't want to go back in, back to the stifling air and falsified glances. He doesn't want to go back and hear whatever Wilbur has to say. Yet where else can he go, really, but back to Wilbur?

He sits, leans back and closes his eyes, rummaging in his pocket for a cigarette. He hasn't had one all day, maybe that'll calm the jangling of his nerves, still the uncomfortable prickles under his skin, like there's something watching him, eyes embedded in the sharp steeple of the church. He puts the cigarette between his lips and lights it, ash and embers flaking down to land soft against his jeans.

Smoke curls in his lungs. He holds it in for a long moment, reveling in the burn. It feels good. He's never bothered to try and quit, nicotine and weed's pretty much the only thing that keeps him from running himself right into the barbed wire fence around the graveyard. That'd be pretty. Long sharp wires tearing his flesh, blood soaking into the earth as he laughs at the pain, gaze fading, fixed on the sky… It sounds nice.

Quackity hasn't thought about his own death in a long time. There is a morbid comfort in it, like the returning of one's steps to a familiar path.

There is a shadow next to him, dark and tall. Viscerally, he reacts, flinches back as spidery fingers lift the cigarette from his hand. Round glasses glint in the dim light cast from the church's windows.

"Pretty night," Wilbur remarks, from above him.

Quackity swallows fast to hide the quickening of his breath. "Christ, you scared me."

"My mistake." There's a dangerous edge to it, and now the static feels like the minutes leading up to a lightning strike, something heady and threatening in the air. Wilbur sits down next to him and blows the smoke into his face. Quackity drags it in. It tastes good.

"What do you want?" he says.

"Your forgiveness, darling." Wilbur tilts his head, faint church light reflecting off his glasses. "I shouldn't have said what I did. It was wrong, I know that. You're not like your dad, you never were. You're not a good person, of course, neither of us are, but you're not like him. You could never be anything like him."

As usual, there's no way to really tell if Wilbur means it. Even if he does, he can mean a lot of things, mean them from the depth of his heart and the switch up hours or weeks later, change his mind, say he never meant it at all. Unpredictable and vague, with jagged edges that Quackity cuts himself on if he gets too close, Wilbur is like looking in a mirror, the yin to his yang. Quackity says, "I shouldn't."

"Shouldn't what?"

"Forgive you."

"You shouldn't," Wilbur echoes him. "But you will, won't you?"

"I will."

There's a long moment of silence. Wilbur touches him then, a hand against his cheek pulling him close and says, "I love you, Q. More than anything. I love you."

"I love you too." He's never stopped. Quackity has hated Wilbur, but he's never really stopped loving him. There's a push and pull to it, and it's not something he can help.

Wilbur kisses him, and he kisses back. He always will.

Spring tumbles on; Quackity turns eighteen. He and Wilbur graduate, somehow. And then they have the summer before college, college that Quackity somehow scrapes together enough funds for, thankfully having been the only inheritor of Clint. That summer is something he will look back on for a long, long time as the one moment, standing like a beacon in the middle of the storm that is his life, where things were truly good.

It's dark. Cold air rushes over skin, strikes the barren flesh that burns where one touches the other, sharp and hot, like a wildfire in the blood. Dim moonlight filters through the clouds and turns the tops of the gravestones silver, outlines the cross at the top of the low slanted hill. The air is still, the kind of stillness that is only found after midnight. The world is a silent, sleeping beast, and the town spread out all around them, silent mostly, save perhaps the distant rumble of an engine, or a ship's horn blowing out on the sound. It is as if they are the only two beings alive. It is as if it all belongs to them.

The lighter in Wilbur's hand clicks softly. Fire flickers to life, illuminating their faces, much too close, and he smiles when a gust of wind makes the flame briefly touch against his skin. The end of the cigarette flares up and Quackity inhales, sharp fumes raking the walls of his lungs. It feels good. Not as good as when Wilbur drags him forward by the front of his shirt and kisses him, stealing the smoke before he can exhale.

"Tastes better out of your mouth," he murmurs against Quackity's lips. Quackity stumbles back dizzy, and Wilbur plucks the cigarette from his fingers, puts it between his own lips and drags it in with a wicked smile.

"So," Quackity says, watching that glimmering cherry burn away slowly, ashes flickering to the dewy grass. "You gonna put that out on me?"

"Always, sweetheart."

There's a few minutes of silence, in which they look at each other like they're everything, and Quackity thinks he would burn the world for Wilbur, if that was what he wanted. Quackity would die for Wilbur. He knows Wilbur would die for him. He's not sure if Wilbur would live for him, that's a different thing, an uncertainty that's always hovered between them and made it all feel temporary. There's a risk to it, a sort of living on the edge that comes with this thing they have. Quackity has learned to accept that, for one reason or another, Wilbur will not be there forever.

It doesn't make it easier.

"May I have your arm, my dear?" Wilbur asks, putting out a hand, and Quackity holds it out willingly, breath short in anticipation. Gentle fingers pull his sleeve up, and Wilbur touches the pristine skin reverently. "Breath in."

Quackity obeys. The next moment, the ember is pressed into his skin, gentle, yet still sharp with violent pain, and he gasps, his free hand shooting over to clench into Wilbur's shoulder. Fuck it hurts. It hurts so much, but it feels so good. Nothing new there, he's a masochist, pain caused by his lover just as pleasurable as a kiss, if not more so. There is something intimate to it. To letting someone hurt you. There is a deep trust involved, such a deep fucking trust, that Wilbur will not hurt him unless he asks for it. And that means a lot, because Wilbur could hurt him, could kill him, so easily, as if he were nothing, as if this was nothing.

(And Quackity knows he wouldn't fight.)

"You okay?" Wilbur murmurs, taking Quackity's face in his hands. Quackity nods eagerly, looking up into his eyes, and he feels drunk off pain and the look on Wilbur's face, feels out of his mind. Wilbur bends down and kisses him and it feels like something otherworldly, like the touch of God.

"I love you." Quackity says it like a prayer. Long fingers take his chin and tilt it upwards, white teeth gleaming in the moonlight as Wilbur smiles.

"I love you too."

Somewhere around a year and a half later, Wilbur leaves.

It comes at the end of a long string of problems: paranoia, distance, arguments with both his family and Quackity. Wilbur claims there's something deeper going on, something bigger than any of them realize. That it's terrible and no one will realize it until it's too late. He puts "clues" together that have no business being related, things with absolutely zero correlation, and calls them proof of his delusion. No amount of medication or therapy, what little he allows, will soothe his mad beliefs. Quackity fights him every step of the way, hates that he can see the man he loves more than his own life going down a path that takes him farther and farther away. Deeper into insanity.

The worst of it is that they were something before this all started. They had gone to college together, and it was the first time in maybe their whole lives where they were actually stable, largely influenced, Quackity thinks, by being out of that town— Quackity, away from the church; and Wilbur, away from the overbearing, yet neglectful mess of a father that is Phil. It was good. Things were good.

And then it all went wrong.

Wilbur's always been paranoid. Quackity's never seen him this way. It comes to a head finally, with an argument, the worst they've had yet, and then Wilbur leaves, cuts all contact with everyone he's ever known and vanishes off the face of the earth. Within two months the search for him is called off and he is presumed dead.

Quackity is forced to move on, but he does not forget.

Some six or so years later, Quackity sits in a low ceilinged kitchen, alone, and wonders how he got here.

There are dead flies on the windowsill. There's no telling what killed them. It's not as if anyone set out honey to keep them there; nobody trapped them between the glass and the screen. They landed there of their own accord, and somehow, they never flew away.

What kept them there until they no longer had the strength to fly? Quackity doesn't know. He thinks that he's a lot like those flies, sometimes. He stays in the dead stagnance of the house and the more of its air he breathes, that rotten air laden with the stink of alcohol and the worst sort of cigarette, the more he feels as if he can't leave. No matter how much he wants to. He is like one of those flies. Not dead, yet. There's nothing that really traps him there, but his fate is already sealed.

He doesn't want anything to drink. It's the third time Schlatt's asked him tonight. Quackity has to figure out a different way to refuse each time, because Schlatt doesn't like it when he says no. That's a red flag, but Schlatt's been a red flag, Quackity knew that from the start he just… ignored it. Maybe because he naively hoped there was some good in the man. Or maybe because he feels he deserves it. I mean really, Schlatt is the best someone like Quackity can hope to get; he has a fair amount of money and connections and things are pretty set. The alcoholism and… everything else is fine, Quackity can deal with that, it's not like Schlatt's always horrible, he can actually be pretty decent at times.

"Why so blue?" There's a wine glass at his elbow. Quackity looks at it dully. He doesn't have a choice about drinking it. Schlatt is laughing like he said something hilarious. "Babe, what's wrong? You're… quiet tonight."

"I'm fine," Quackity says. He takes a sip of the wine. It's not too bad. He feels sick. "Sorry."

"Did someone say something to you?" Schlatt rests a hand on the small of his back, right between his wings. "I can have a word with them."

"No, no." Quackity suppresses a flinch at the touch. "Nobody said anything, Jonathan. I'm fine."

It's a little ironic how protective Schlatt is, considering he's hurt Quackity more than any of the bitchy words the man's coworkers throw his way. However, it's likely not out of real care, and more borne of the rough possessiveness he exhibits on the daily. That hand tightens, and Quackity's wings twitch in response.

"Pretty little bird…." Schlatt mutters.

"I'm tired," Quackity says, pulling away from his touch. "Don't you have a meeting soon?"

"Right… yes. Unfortunate," Schlatt mutters, with narrowed eyes. He sets down his empty wine glass. "Make sure the dishes are done by the time I get home. They're piling up. And if the kids aren't back by nine, tell 'em they're looking for trouble."

"They're at a sleepover. Remember?" Quackity says. "You agreed to it the other night."

"When I was tipsy?" Schlatt glowers. "I told you not to let them ask me for shit when I'm out of it, dammit Alex."

"Sorry."

"Better be." Schlatt turns on his heel. "I gotta go. Don't wanna be late."

"When should I expect you back?"

"Hell if I know. Not till at least two in the morning," is the brisk response. "We're going out drinking after."

That means he might not be back at all. "Don't forget your coat," Quackity says, with the semblance of care that he's managed to scrounge up for the man; if Schlatt froze in a ditch, it's true, he would grieve, though it would be a very strange grief. He receives no answer save a pissed-off grunt, and a moment later, the screen door slams. Quackity puts his head down against the cold marble of the counter and wonders how he got here, to this low-ceilinged house with its long hall, the television a constant background warble, broken bottles on the floor, smell of leftover beer mingling with the smell of applesauce; attempts at normalcy for the three kids who share this house, three innocent souls who deserve a better foster father than Jonathan Schlatt. Oh, Quackity does his best for them, to be sure, but there is only so much he can do to prevent the broken glass, the screaming, the bruises; much as he's tried — god, he has tried.

Quackity thinks a little bitterly about the town he grew up in, all the people who watched him with suspicion, or disgust, or mocking pity. They wouldn't be surprised to see that this is where he ended up. Of course the delinquent with the dead family ends up trapped in a shitty relationship. Surprising that he even made it to adulthood, honestly.

He remembers when he met Schlatt. They met outside a bar, fittingly. Quackity was drunk, nearly off his head, and slumped against a wall trying to remember the way to his apartment. A couple of guys found him like that, dragged him into the dark of an alley and tried to force themselves on him; and it was Schlatt who stopped them, who held out his arms and took Quackity, shaking and mumbling, into them. Who asked if he was okay, who brought him home. The next morning Schlatt made him food. Quackity hadn't had anything like this since Wilbur (except it wasn't Wilbur and everything about that was wrong but who gave a shit about a dead man).

About a month later, they met again by chance, at a theater. Schlatt took Quackity out for lunch after, and there was something so sweet about it, about the way he placed his arm over Quackity's shoulder, that the dangerous glint in his eye didn't seem important. They began seeing each other properly after that, and maybe five or six months down the line, Quackity ditched his apartment, moved in with Schlatt, and proceeded to let his new partner methodically, dramatically, and completely ruin his life.

He still remembers the first bottle; the broken glass against the wall, the palm that struck his cheek. He screamed at Schlatt for it, genuinely went off, and the apology he got seemed genuine enough that he stayed. That time, and the next ten, fifteen, thirty times. And then it was too late. He was trapped, and he's still trapped, by nothing but himself, his own sick desire for pain, the bitter fucked-up way he loves this. Loves Schlatt, loves their relationship, loves being hurt and abused because it makes him feel special. Schlatt cares enough to hurt him, Quackity must mean something. Schlatt loves him. Schlatt wants to put a wedding ring on his finger, keep him here, and the worst part is Quackity will let him. Quackity will say yes, he will promise himself right into forever, and then it will be entirely his fault. He will agree to spend his life in this cycle. He does not want to escape.

He knows someday it will end and he knows how. Not because he scrapes together the strength to leave, but because Schlatt will one day die in a pool of alcohol and spit, dead eyes staring at the low ceiling that leaks when it rains, and Quackity will revel in that hour. Quackity will smile.

There is a knock on the door.

Quackity startles up, his elbow hitting the wine glass. It tips, red liquid spilling across the countertop and onto the floor. He can't be bothered to clean it yet, too curious on who could possibly be visiting. Perhaps one of Schlatt's business partners?

He already knocked over the glass. No ignoring the knock. Ah well, he can put up with it this once. He gets up and crosses the room, picking his way between a few piles of clothes and toys. The dead flies in the window catch his gaze again. Kindred spirits, he thinks with the tug of a smile.

Quackity opens the door and finds himself face to face with a ghost.

At least, that's the most plausible explanation. There's no other reason that a man who allegedly died six years ago would be standing on his doorstep, skin so pale it's almost gray, with a smile made entirely of teeth, long fingers playing with the chain around his neck as Quackity chokes out, "Wilbur?"

Wilbur. The shadow to Quackity's light; a haunted presence in his life ever since he was fifteen. They met in school, some stupid class he can hardly remember, when Wilbur made it his very mission to see how much he could annoy Quackity before he snapped.

It didn't take long. Quackity still remembers that fight—one fist clenched in Wilbur's hair, one driven violently and repeatedly into his face, and Wilbur laughing under him, blood trickling from the edge of his mouth where one of his teeth were knocked loose; that wide, vicious grin before he surged upward and then it was Quackity who was slammed into the pavement. They were pretty evenly matched. Quackity was used to fighting, he was a ditch kid after all, but Wilbur had the height advantage and a decent bit of strength. In the end neither won, as they were separated, but it would've been Quackity because Wilbur didn't put up as much of a fight as he should have. Wilbur's father came to school to fuss over him, while Wilbur's twin—the boy everyone feared, with the long pink braid—stood on the side and fixed Quackity with a death glare. Quackity flipped him off, and a little later walked home in the dark with a black eye because of it; and two weeks of detention. That was their first impression.

He would never have guessed at the time that less than a year later he would be sneaking under the nose of Wilbur's father and his own, with the specific purpose of making out with the rich kid he professed to hate. The universe worked in mysterious ways.

"Long time no see," Wilbur says softly. "You look like shit."

He really does not have room to talk, given how loosely his clothes hang from his frame and the pale grayish complexion of his skin. Quackity does not comment on this, however, looking him up and down with increasing disbelief.

"What the fuck are you doing here. You're dead- am- am I dreaming? Am I fucking hallucinating here?"

"Afraid not."

"I- What?" Quackity sputters, before trailing into a stunned silence as he gapes. To his irritation, his first though is that Wilbur is just as pretty as the last time Quackity saw him. His hair is longer, and less well kept. He wears a long, somewhat tattered trench coat, buttoned over a yellow sweater, and his typical beanie, probably not the same one, but similar enough that Quackity is struck through with a jolt of nostalgia.

"I didn't die," Wilbur chastises, stepping forward into the house, and forcing Quackity to step back. The door clatters shut behind him. "Did you see my body? No. So why would you think I was dead?"

"Six years with no contact? Everyone assumed."

"Well, I'm sorry." He sounds like he means it, too; but there's no way to know. It's Wilbur, after all. "Listen, I had to leave, alright? It was for everyone's safety."

"Right." Quackity scoffs softly. "All you do is lie, Soot. You let everyone, including Tommy, think you were dead. You didn't try to contact any of us, and you think I'll just welcome you back into my life with open arms? Fuck you. That's not fucking happening."

"I'm not naive enough to think it is." Wilbur looks at the spilled glass of wine on the counter. He rights it with a touch, and licks the drops of wine off his fingers. Quackity ignores the gesture despite how hot it is and snatches the glass away from him, and in the movement, his ring glitters gold on his finger; and Wilbur inhales sharp.

"Who's ring is that?"

"My boyfriend's." It's not an engagement ring, just a gift, but Quackity will let Wilbur think it is. Maybe he's a little petty, but he deserves it. Six fucking years. Wilbur, gratifyingly, looks shaken. "What, did you think I would wait around for you?"

"I- I guess not. It would have been foolish to expect you to," Wilbur says quietly. "Part of me hoped, I suppose. Who is it? What's his name?"

"Jonathan Schlatt." Quackity looks at him through lidded eyes. "Hey, at least he's been around."

"I had my fucking reasons," Wilbur says, with an unsteady breath and the barely noticeable curl of his fingers. "Is he good, at least? Is he fucking good to you- is he someone worth this?"

"None of your business."

"Too bad. I make it my business. Unless you want me finding him the way I found you, and I don't expect it would be very hard."

There is an edge to Wilbur's tone, and it makes the hairs on the back of Quackity's neck stand up, reminds him that at the end of the day, he doesn't really know Wilbur, not anymore. It's been years. Hell knows what's happened during that time. "He's nice enough." He wants to crush the hesitancy from his own voice.

"Has he hurt you?"

"You've hurt me."

"You have a bruise, there." Wilbur touches Quackity's face and Quackity shivers involuntarily at the brush of his frigid fingers. "Where did you get it?"

"It is not your fucking business," Quackity spits out. His throat aches, but not in the angry way, more as if he's about to cry. He turns away. He's fine— it's fine. Schlatt is good sometimes. Wilbur doesn't get the right to care.

"I swear to you I will kill him- I will murder him. Slow and painful. I'll pull his eyes out- he will regret the day he laid a fucking hand on you."

"Calm down." Quackity reaches for him for the first time, a warning hand against his arm. Wilbur melts into the touch. "You don't need to do anything extreme."

"He- but he hurt you," Wilbur spits out. Quackity feels his heart wake back up as the other takes Quackity's warm hands into his marble ones and pulls them to his chest. "He hit you. Let me kill him."

"You don't have the right to care about what he's done to me. You left." The response is blunt, and offset dramatically by the way that Quackity moves towards him, like a moth to a flame, unaware of its own destruction. "He's all I have."

"You have me now."

"Do I, Wilbur? Have I ever had you?" Quackity hears the bitterness in his own voice. He doesn't bother to mask it; Wilbur deserves it. "Or were you waiting for the day you could abandon me, and all of us, to go chase whatever tainted nightmare you were curious about this time?"

"I swear I did not want to leave."

"I don't believe you. You've spent all the years I've known you lying about one thing or another."

"I know. I don't expect you to trust me, or to forgive me—but let me into your life again? Just a little. It's all that I ask." He pulls Quackity's hand up to his lips and goes to kiss it, and finally, Quackity resists him, stepping away.

"Wil." The nickname is soft, a shaky breath murmured into the silence between them. "We can't. I'm engaged."

"I smell the alcohol in the air. I see the bruises, Quackity, he doesn't treat you good."

"Neither did you."

"Not like this. Our love- it's a dance. We both hurt each other. This is- you don't deserve this."

"On the contrary, it's exactly what I deserve. Where else would I end up?" Quackity gets a cloth out of one of the kitchen drawers and uses it to wipe up the wine, blood red soaking the towel. Wilbur doesn't understand that this is his fate, the only one that makes sense for him.

(Wilbur doesn't understand that he loves it.)

"Please," Wilbur says quietly. "I won't interfere. I won't kill him, but let me… please? I will make up for leaving, I swear, just let me into your life again. I am better than him, I won't hit you… you know I won't. I can't guarantee I won't hurt you again, because-"

"Because that's what you do," says Quackity. He takes Wilbur's hand and this time he does not resist the kiss pressed against his knuckles. "I know."

There is no spoken agreement, but the next moment his face is pressed against the other's chest. Long arms fold around him, and Quackity breaths in the faint scent of smoke and shadow and Wilbur, and it feels like coming home.

And for awhile it's like that, the dance, hand in hand, together but not. It works because it's them, a relationship built on lies, held together with duct tape and a dream. Anyone else would fall apart, but they don't. They never quite do, caught in one another's orbit, never quite able to pull away or break free. And Quackity doesn't mind. He likes it. He likes having Wilbur back in his life, even if he's cheating on Schlatt, but he can't really bring himself to feel bad, not with the way Schlatt is. And sure Wilbur isn't good, but he's better than bruises and broken glass, and yelling any time Quackity makes a mistake, at least his touch is gentle and Quackity doesn't have to fear its change.

And he loves Quackity. Quackity doesn't think Schlatt loves him, Loves to use him maybe, loves him as an object, a prized possession, something shiny you keep around to look at and touch. Not as if he actually cared.

At least Wilbur cares.

And so it goes like this: Quackity lives as he normally does, and tries to appease Schlatt, and inevitably that doesn't work, or he does something stupid like runs his mouth. Schlatt gets pissed off and hurts him, or at the very least yells at him, maybe a light slap, sometimes a lot worse, it really depends on his specific mood. And then he'll leave for work and Quackity will run to Wilbur, into the comfort of his arms and the scent of his coat, dry wood and cigarettes, and they'll smoke together, and kiss, only Wilbur can't put the embers out on the skin of Quackity's arm, or mark him at all, because Schlatt will know.

They manage it for awhile, this quiet operation right under Schlatt's nose. After some time, though, he finds them together, thankfully not doing anything sultry, only smoking on the porch, but it ends in him beating up Quackity anyway. That night Quackity has to talk Wilbur down from killing his boyfriend for the second time, lets him bandage up the bruises and cuts as he soothes him, It's really not that bad Soot I mean I've only had to go to the hospital once really.

After that, Quackity has to be a hundred times more careful, can't even let Wilbur come to the house for awhile because he's ninety percent sure Schlatt's installed perimeter cameras. He doesn't want to know what would happen if Schlatt caught him in the act of what he already very much suspects. He knows it would hurt. Sometimes, he's a little afraid Schlatt will kill him; he doesn't think he would mind dying really, but he can't leave the kids, and he can't leave Wilbur to get sucked back into whatever awful thing had taken him for six years.

As it turns out, he doesn't get a choice on that front. He's never had a choice.

It ends, as it had begun, in a way, six months ago: With Wilbur showing up at the door of the shitty low-ceilinged house, desperation and weariness on his face, and a wary slant to his stance.

Wilbur has always been the type of man to make promises with his whole chest and proceed to methodically break them as easily as glass. Quackity has known him since they were both fifteen and he's watched Wilbur fail to keep nearly every promise he makes. This is the first time Quackity has ever wanted him to break one.

It's been almost a year since Wilbur showed up on his doorstep, or rather Schlatt's, with nothing but the clothes on his back, a couple packs of cigarettes and his pretty words, sweethearts and darlings and all the other pet names that used to have Quackity on his knees, slipping easily back into his life and stealing his breath like autumn air stole the summer. Who cared how long he'd been missing? Who cared that he hadn't bothered to reach out— hell; who cared that Quackity had a boyfriend? Of course Wilbur was welcome back in his life.

One of the first conversations they had after his return began with Quackity asking if he planned to say, and Wilbur's very clear response being no.

"I can't," he had said, with a hand on Quackity's in a manner not at all chaste, "It's not safe— I'm going to have to leave one day. I'll stay as long as I possibly can sweetheart but forever isn't in the cards."

Quackity had cried then, and long gentle fingers plucked the tears from his cheeks like dewdrops, only serving to make him sob harder because he knew that they were leaving.

Over the course of the months, he had come to hope that Wilbur would break this promise as he had broken others. That forever would be a possibility, someday, when the kids were grown and Quackity had the chance to drag himself out of the house sunk half into the ground with sweat and bruises and beer cans. That one day the ring on his finger would be one Wilbur put there. That Wilbur would stay.

It was a naive hope. Wilbur shows up that night, with a limp cigarette hanging from his lips and that deep weariness in the bags below his eyes. And Quackity knows it then, knows it by the slope of his shoulders and the way his hands shake, knows down to the rotten marrow that it's ending and he's leaving.

He pretends otherwise because what is this fucked up thing they have, if not a constant game of pretend, and says, "Hey, Wil, what's up?"

"I have to go," Wilbur says bluntly. Quackity had hoped to keep up the facadę a little while, but it's tempered glass, isn't it? He doesn't drop the smile, but it turns bitter.

"Go where?" Playing dumb doesn't get you anywhere. He will do it anyway. He doesn't want Wilbur to leave. He doesn't want to let go of the one thing that's made this place actually somewhat bearable, kept him alive on the nights that he hated Schlatt, hated his life, hated himself and thought too hard about the gun under the bed. He doesn't want it to be over.

"Don't be stupid Quackity." Wilbur takes his chin in his hand and looks at him with all the misery in the world, and a deep kind of resignation. "You know where- away. I have to leave. It's not safe anymore."

He should close the door. He shouldn't say any of the words in his head. He does anyway. "Just tell me you aren't happy here. Cut it out with the unsafe bullshit."

Wilbur looks like he's been slapped again. "I'm not- Jesus Christ, Q. I don't want to leave."

"Then don't."

"It's not that simple." He steps inside and the screen door swings shut, its double thump like the uncertain beat of Quackity's heart. No one is home, thank God, but the empty darkness of the house behind him rears like it's ready to swallow him. "I would stay if I could, I swear."

"Yet you've never really explained why you have to leave."

"Because it's- it's dangerous Q, it's the most dangerous fucking thing I've ever known of, and I shouldn't even have come back in the first place but I just needed to see you." Wilbur drags a hand through his hair. "Trust me, I don't want to leave but I- I'm afraid there's no way to get around it."

He's stammering, and Wilbur never stammers; he is the most eloquent man Quackity has had the pleasure of knowing. His way with words can soothe or rile, has brought Quackity to tears just as it has made him shudder with desire. The distinct lack of eloquence carves a hollow pit in Quackity's stomach. He isn't used to it. Something is terribly wrong.

"But Wil, it's been-" He swallows and almost chokes on it. "It's been almost a year. I was going to bring you to dias de los muertos, Schlatt never wants to go it- it coulda been nice- can't you stay just a bit more? It can't be that bad, why now? Why now when things have been so good? Why suddenly now- I don't understand."

"Quackity, calm." Wilbur holds up his hands as if trying to quiet a feral dog. "There's no reason to work yourself up, it helps nothing."

"No reason?" Quackity sputters, and is greeted with a long finger against his lips, that flash in Wilbur's eyes that borders on dangerous.

"Shh."

They stand as such for a moment, with Quackity's breath coming shallow. He isn't afraid exactly, but he feels close to it, and he loves it and hates it, how alive Wilbur makes him feel. Wilbur leaving will be like a death, because he will never feel so alive again.

"Believe me," Wilbur hushes close to his ear, "I don't want to leave you. I can't control your opinion on me, if you take my words as gospel, as you always do. But know this, however much you want to understand, I can't tell you anything. It's not safe and it would only end in both our deaths."

"Fuck off," Quackity says shakily. "It's conspiracy shit- it's bullshit. You always find some fucking reason to leave. You always do."

In a moment he's forced back against the wall, Wilbur's weight against him as the other man rakes up the sleeve of his trench coat and shoves his arm in Quackity's face. The pale skin is a tapestry of faded scars and cigarette burns, some self inflicted, others that Quackity's own fingers have pressed into place, and among them a littering of short brisk puncture marks as if from some unknown tool, and noticeable recent burns.

Quackity says, "What?"

"Do you call this conspiracy bullshit?" Wilbur spits. "I'm involved in something genuinely horrific. Half these scars exist because of it. The evidence is on my skin, alright? How are you going to deny it?"

"I- because I don't want it to be true, Wil, I don't- I- I guess I've got it in my head that if it's fake it can change. It has to be able to change."

"It can't. Quackity, I told you at the start that I had to leave. Like when we were kids and you told me what we had could never last, that it had to be temporary. I warned you this was temporary, Q."

"Yeah and I regretted that." Quackity feels dizzy, he wants to hurt Wilbur, he wants to strangle him, punch him, leave the way he does, but Quackity will never be able to leave him first, no matter how much better it would be for him, or how tired he grows of the push and pull. "I- I wanted something with you, it just took me awhile. I still want something with you."

"Give it up." There's a crack to Wilbur's voice, in the same breath as it hardens and turns cold. "We're never going to be something. We can't. It was temporary then, and it was now, and it's not my fault you can't come to terms with it. I warned you."

"So what? I was supposed to believe that you meant it, that it wasn't just some- disclaimer in case this got too much for you?" Quackity wishes he was normal, that he could hold Wilbur and kiss him one last time, bid goodbye with grace, but he's never been good at graceful goodbyes. "You haven't ever kept a single promise. Why would you keep this one? How am I meant to take a single word from your lips as truth when you've lied to me so many fucking times, Wil?"

Somewhere in the distance, the church clock strikes 4am. The air feels dead. Wilbur looks at him with glistening miserable eyes, and takes his face reverently into his hands. Quackity thinks he might cry. "I know I've lied. I'm sorry. But I tried to warn you this time, staying was never in the cards- this whole thing was never in the cards, alright? We were never in the cards, Q."

"How can you say that," Quackity whispers brokenly. He is crying, he hadn't recognized the warm dampness on his cheeks till now. Words scrape raw from the back of his throat. "You're everything."

"I know, I know." Wilbur kisses his forehead. Quackity wants to hit him, push him away, but he leans into the touch and shakes instead. "You know you mean the world to me, sweetheart. I love you more than my own soul. I would die for you, and kill for you, you know that. But I can't stay for you. I'm sorry."

"Why not?" It's not a real question because he knows why, there's something bigger than both of them going on here, something great and terrifying, impossible to run from. He says it more for the sake of putting words to the choked up feeling in his chest. "Wil, I can't- I can't lose you. I don't think I can do this alone again."

"You can." Wilbur kisses his cheeks and Quackity shudders deep in his bones, though he doesn't know why. "I know you can. You're so strong love, you can make it a little longer, you'll get out of this house, okay? You'll be away from him one day."

"Stop it," Quackity cries, finally has the strength to push him away. "You don't have the right to comfort me when you've hurt me. You- y-you- you're awful, for coming back just to leave again. I wish you hadn't come back. I wish you hadn't come back."

He's crying properly now. Wilbur looks at a loss for words, his expression hard to read in the grayish moonlight, some mix of hurt and guilt and sorrow. "I only wanted to see you again. I missed you, Quackity."

"Well I didn't fuckin' miss you." Quackity hurls the lies like they'll bruise, like they're not the most blatant lies he's told, like he didn't lie awake hour upon hour every day of those six years wondering if he could have done something different, if they could have had forever. "I was glad you were gone. You ruined my life and now you- you come back, make me care again and now you're going to ruin everything again. We could have had it all. We could have had everything."

"No we couldn't!" Wilbur shouts back, hands clenching into fists, but not the way Schlatt does, not the angry way that means pain soon, at least not pain for Quackity. "There was never a chance, do you understand me? It's a miracle I was able to stay this long at all."

"Of course there wasn't a chance. There's never a chance with you, is there?" The words burn in his throat. He can't swallow them down, much as he wishes he could. "You- you did this to yourself. You could have had me. Things were good, you just had to be an idiot and get yourself into stupid shit."

"I'm sorry." It seems genuine. but Quackity cannot even begin to comprehend forgiveness. That makes him a bad person. He knows he's a bad person. Does Wilbur? With the way he looks at him, he must. It's always been their thing, two sides of the same coin, two shitty people who love each other more than they should. "I wanted it to work, I really did. I shouldn't have looked into any of it."

"No you shouldn't have." Quackity hates when he gets like this. It's always been an issue, how mean he gets when hurt, and Schlatt's only made it worse. He says, "You had everything. You had me, you had your brothers, you had a future. You have no one to blame but yourself now."

"I didn't want this." Wilbur rarely sounds broken like this. He tries to take Quackity's hands, and Quackity snatches them away. The sound Wilbur makes is raw and miserable. "Q, please—"

"Don't- don't," Quackity says. The silence falls like a shovelful of dirt on a grave. Quackity feels like he's found himself at another funeral.

"What do you want me to do?" Wilbur says.

"I- I don't know. I don't fucking know."

"I don't want to make it worse—"

"Well you are!" He chokes on a sob, swallowing it down as he curls in on himself, nails digging into his arms. "You always make it worse. You make everything fucking worse, I wish you had actually died, it would have been easier just to fucking grieve you than- than whatever the hell this is- I wish I'd never met you in the first place. I don't want to be stuck with this fucking- shadow. You're going to haunt me for the rest of my life. I can't shake you off. You make me feel alive, and then you suck the life out of me. You're poison, Wil."

Wilbur looks at him stricken, with something like genuine regret. "I just—"

"No, no!" Quackity pushes at him. "Enough with the excuses, maldita sea! 'You just, you just, you just'- fuck off with it! It doesn't mean shit from a liar like you. Fucking mean something for once in your life, you bastard-"

"I love you!"

Such raw and miserable desperation from Wilbur is rare and it cuts Quackity to a sudden halt, makes him look up into the sunken eyes of the other. Wilbur has taken a half step towards him, shaking. Quackity doesn't step back.

"I love you," he goes on brokenly. "I have never loved someone the way I love you. If my choice was to give up loving you or die, I would die, and I would be happy to do so because it meant I would be laid to rest with my heart still belonging to you. Quackity, I would pledge my soul to you if I could. I would do anything for you, anything at all, except stay. To stay would mean your death too, at hands other than mine. I don't think I could live with that."

"But my life is meaningless without you," Quackity says. "I meant it, you make me alive. I don't want to die."

"You'll be alright in the end." How the tables have turned. When they were children, it was Quackity who would so confidently state that Wilbur would be fine when they had to go their separate ways. Now he understood the wretched denial that used to have the other clutching at his hands and begging him to stay. Now it feels like a cruel echo of his own flippantness. "You'll move on eventually. You'll forget me. It might take awhile, but one day I'll only be a passing thought, and your life will be good, and you'll be glad you're away from me."

"No, no Wil that won't happen." He doesn't get it. How can he speak so calmly? "I'm going to die here. Without you what incentive will I have to go on once the kids are grown? I'll let myself rot- please don't go."

It comes out more vulnerable than he meant it. Wilbur takes his hands. This time, Quackity doesn't pull away, though he shudders a little when he looks up into Wilbur's pooling dark eyes.

"I don't have a choice, Q," he says softly. "For your own sake, forget me."

"I can't—"

Wilbur's grip tightens, and he steps forward, once again pushing Quackity up against the wall. His breath rasps against Quackity's ear as he whispers, "Forget me. I mean it. Burn any photos you have of me, any gifts I gave you. Leave this town, find somewhere new that carries no memories of us. Let it all fade behind you. Let me become a tangled path you walked for too long, and finally found your way out of. Anything- any method, just forget me, carve me out of your life like I'm a parasite. Please."

"No," Quackity cries. "No, Wil, no. I can't."

"You'll have to." The smile on his face is so wrong it makes Quackity's skin crawl. There's nothing happy about that smile. "After all, I'm poison, didn't you say? You need to cut me out before I infect everything."

"I don't want to. I don't want to. Don't go." He cries out, pressing into Wilbur's chest, and he feels the sharp double thud of the other's heart beat against his face. A hand comes up to stroke through his hair, gently detangling knots and sweeping the mess of it back into something neat and soft, apologies murmured against it.

"I'm sorry Q. I'm sorry you love me. I'm sorry you ever met me. I hope you'll forget me, I really do, I'm so fucking sorry."

They stay like that for a little while. Quackity doesn't know how much time passes. He doesn't know anything. Eventually, he feels Wilbur straighten and softly push him away.

"I have to go, Quackity."

(He's never been good at graceful goodbyes.)

With a shaking hand he latches onto Wilbur's sleeve and begs childishly, forgetting his dignity in his panic because fuck, he can't really be leaving he can't, they're never going to see each other again if he leaves now, it has to be Quackity's fault he did something he's rotten to the core he's a curse- "Please don't."

Wilbur looks at him for a long moment, then steps forward, pulls him in by the front of his shirt and kisses him deep, hand on the back of his head and tongue in his mouth. Quackity kisses back, tastes the salt of his own tears, and thinks if he bites a little at the other's lips, he can catch Wilbur's blood in his mouth and swallow it down, so that he will never forget, he will never forget, he will never forget.

"Don't go," he whispers.

"I'm sorry." Wilbur pulls his hand away and takes a few steps back. At some point the fog has risen and the street outside looks eerie, like a misty underworld waiting to swallow him. Like Wilbur's already a ghost. Quackity curls in on himself even more, choking on air, choking on his tears.

"Fuck you," he screams. "Fuck you, fuck you."

"I love you," Wilbur says. The door closes between them, like the sound of a coffin lid thudding closed. Quackity will hate himself afterward, and maybe forever, because he didn't say it back.

He goes to the dias de los muertos festival alone. He can't make an alter at home, because Schlatt will get pissy, but he visits the town cemetery even though no one he knows is buried there, wanders paths lined with flickering candles and stops in front of weathered gravestones, tracing a hand over worn out letters, mostly unreadable now. He wonders detachedly who it was.

After awhile he sits at the base of a tree, rests his head against the dull bark and closes his eyes, breaths in the scent of evening frost and magnolias. It's autumn, fading slowly into winter, and Quackity usually likes this time of year the best, but now he can only hate it because Wilbur is gone.

He hunches in on himself, hands in his hair, wings over his head, and he wants to scream or maybe sob but he does neither, only breathing, hard, big and shuddering, as he silently begs for God to make it hurt less. There is no answer. Quackity's prayers have never been answered, no matter how much he begs to an unforgiving sky.

He wants to forget. More than anything, he wants to forget, he wants it to hurt less. Yet, he will not. He will never let himself. In fact, he will remember Wilbur all the more, with a viciousness of spite and maybe longing, a hope that if he doesn't forget, maybe one day, unlikely as it is, he'll come back.

Quackity won't forget. He will remember and remember and remember, until it feels like his heart is bleeding and his lungs are closing up. Until his very last breath. Until the end of the world if he has to.

He will not let Wilbur disappear again so easily.