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Quackity lands on the mushroom-cap late in the evening. He’s half hoping they’ll all be asleep, knows better than that despite it all: Sapnap hasn’t slept reliably for as long as Quackity’s known him, and in the letters he mentioned that Karl’s been sleeping less and less recently, staying up to pore over his books. Quackity doesn’t think Sapnap even knows he gets the letters. He’s been gone for almost a month now - run away, like he’s set on making his heart match his wings even though for the last goddamn time they are neither chicken nor duck but a pattern unique to Quackity’s own soul - Point being, he’s been gone for a while, trying to find somewhere and someone else to be, but he’s been returning every so often to the place where his letters are delivered to, just east of the giant fucking crater.
He never writes back. Quackity’s good with words, used to live off of them; he knows this time they wouldn’t be enough on a page.
But Sapnap mentioned a kingdom, this time, and. Quackity’s afraid enough to know the name’s a bad idea, even if Sapnap insists it’s just for the alliteration; he’s heard talk of the Syndicate in the tundra, and he’s frankly fucking terrified of the firepower they have behind them. Tubbo got a visit the other day, he heard. From fireworks and feathers and flint-and-steel and forgetfulness; this is how Quackity spends his words, these days, on pretty phonetic patterning. No more writing laws or letters. He hasn’t written back to Sapnap in a month and he misses his fiances and there’s the letter F again, for failure, for freak, for falling short of everything he promised he wanted to be.
Quackity lands on the mushroom-cap late in the evening and gathers his wings around him against the cold. He may be a teetering stack of F-words, but he’s facing this tonight.
The house is built into one of the great pale stems and the side of a hill, and Quackity feels his breath catch in his throat at the glittering of the lights all around it, hates the way he still dissects the scene for threats and exit routes. He’s always lived by the nearest means of escape, made a home right by the door. There’s a path that leads up to the great front doors of the house-in-the-mushroom, and Quackity doesn’t fucking like the idea of setting foot on it, but he’s doing this right or not at all.
He knows they’re awake. The question is whether they’ll answer the door for him.
A man who disappears for a month is not fiance material, no matter the promises they made to each other when they were brighter-eyed and more naive; Quackity ran away because he wanted to know who he was, when he wasn’t in the shadow of the great monolith that was L’Manberg and all of its presidents, past and present both. He ran away for the sake of his future. Here he is now, grounded in the present, and -
He flares his wings, glides to the ground. He can fly again, so he doesn’t hate travelling by foot quite so much any more.
The path is a winding one of flattened grass, sculpted carefully by determined hands; Quackity wonders who forged it as he crosses it like a river of golden-brown blades. Sapnap, with quenched-ember eyes and a set to his shoulders that used to be anger but has been exhaustion for as long as Quackity can remember? It could be something different by now. Karl, who Sapnap has written about like he’s always looking over his shoulder, draped in glittering things and bright colours because they make him feel like he’s always dancing? Maybe he wears the kingdom’s regalia now; Quackity wouldn’t know. Maybe he’s abandoned the colours. Maybe it was George, who Quackity hasn’t seen since that trial that cast a kid from his country and started the world’s downward spiral into what it is now. Apparently he’s taken to the mushroom hat with glee. Quackity wonders if this red-and-white home, too, will be burned.
He treads the path towards the door, and doesn’t bother squaring his shoulders before he knocks. They’ve never loved him because he’s a hero; if they love him still, it’s because he’s got the grit to look his fear in the eye, welcome it home, and still have the guts to laugh in its face.
He’s good at calculating without even knowing he’s doing it, and so he doesn’t realise he’s counting the seconds until the door swings open at exactly the moment he mouths an absent 0 to himself. Sapnap is wearing pyjamas and no armour; he hasn’t shaved in a couple days and there’s a nick on his jaw from what must have been the last time he tried, as though his hands were shaking too much to hold a razor steady. His eyes don’t glow like they did when all of them were younger - they are not sparks - but they do hold a steady light, hearth-warm like a coal in a fireplace that casts a dim shadow over the things it does not love. The gentle glow from his eyes spills over the doorstep into the night; Quackity looks down at his hands and can see them as clearly as if at midday under a cloudless sky.
Sapnap moves as if to engulf him; Quackity flinches. The two of them regard each other in the limbo between hurt and hope, and slowly it dawns on Quackity that he is going to have to be the one to break the silence.
His throat is dry as he swallows, but there’s a steadiness to his heartbeat that he hasn’t felt in months; he knows why he’s here. Sure he’s absolutely terrified, but that’s never stopped him before. “Hey,” he says, and then, softly, “Sorry I didn’t write.”
Sapnap’s eyes widen, and the light emanating from them burns impossibly brighter. “You’re alive,” he says, choked-up.
Quackity’s first instinct is to laugh. He knows perfectly well how much that would sting; Sapnap hates when the way he loves, protective and fierce, is made light of. “I am,” he says, and can’t resist some jazz hands. “You know I’m shatterproof, baby. Like Spider-Man.”
Sapnap says, voice breaking, “That metaphor makes no sense.”
“Neither does running off for a month because I was too scared to talk to the people I love,” Quackity says, shrugging - looking his fear in the eye, certain his own hands are shaking, and yet daring to dart around its feet with a grin on his face - “and yet here we are.”
Sapnap lets him in, openly crying by the time Quackity steps over the threshold.
Quackity is worthy, then, of one of the two rings he still keeps tucked away underneath his shirt, on the necklace he’d rather die than have cut from him. The blackstone can be called his again, with its quiet ember. The knowledge leaves him shaky at the knees, but he still has another heart to earn the right to again, so he pauses for a moment to steady himself before following Sapnap further into the homestead.
It’s a pretty sprawling build with all warm tones, and Quackity can see Karl’s trademarks all over it, knows without understanding how he knows that it was Karl who laid these floorboards, that when he takes another step and it creaks he is treading on the work of ne of the loves of his life. Sapnap glances over his shoulder at the sound - he avoided the creaky step effortlessly, with the ease of practice.
“Karl’s awake, I’m pretty sure,” he says, and Quackity clings to it: this one thing that he was able to predict. He is not gone from their lives yet, not entirely. He has a place yet - or a chance at one.
“How’s he been doing?” Quackity says, and doesn’t bother making himself sound brash or constructing a clever joke somewhere in there - Sapnap always has and always will hear him as he is, with softness to his voice and his concern unclothed. “You mentioned he seemed different, in your letters.”
“You got my letters?”
“I came back for them,” Quackity confesses, and means I came back for you.
Sapnap stares at him, hurt and relief chasing themselves in an endless dance across his face, like the sun and the moon as two celestial wolves. Sapnap’s always put Quackity in mind of mythology - he’s solid and real, though, like a god of the earth rather than a distant uncaring sky. Sapnap’s care is unceasing. “He has been acting different,” Sapnap admits, his eyes darting to Quackity’s jaw as though his eyes are too much of a battle for him at the moment. “Antsy. Spending all his time writing - he doesn’t let us into his room, but it’s full of books.”
Quackity’s mind itches to untangle this, rabid for something to solve; his heart cares more about Karl’s wellbeing than his secrets, and he reminds himself firmly which he plans to listen to. “Does he come out if you knock,” he says, and fights the urge to fidget.
“Sometimes,” Sapnap says. He still won’t meet Quackity’s eyes. “The door’s up there, if you - I don’t think it’s my place, you know? I love you to death, dude, but he might be angrier than I am.”
Sapnap’s anger reaches terrifying peaks, and he can carry it for eons if he chooses, but mostly it bends inwards, burns the inside of Sapnap’s own throat rather than explode out in fire-flares. Karl is not easily angered, but his is fiercer. Like a thousand glittering knives he never lets you see. “I might deserve it,” Quackity says honestly, and then flares his wings. “Can I -?”
Sapnap’s eyes widen. “You can fly?”
“What? Oh! Right!” There’s a familiar beginning of a spark, kindling at the bottom of Quackity’s stomach and surging up to draw him into a grin; he keeps a solemn face, but it’s close. He’s sure Sapnap can hear the wild surging joy when he speaks. “I figured out what was stopping me.”
“What was it,” Sapnap exclaims, and his eyes are glimmering. He knows full well what it cost Quackity to be grounded.
There are a number of answers to the question, and none that Quackity can give quickly except perhaps the simplest; he gives the answer which is a behemoth, a great lead weight, one president clipping them and another forbidding their use. “L’Manberg,” he says, and spreads his wings, and claws his way into the air with feather and truth and stubbornness. He’s going to do this right, or not at all.
The door that is Karl’s is high up, accessible by a long winding staircase or if you’re Quackity. He wonders if that was an intentional design feature - or if he wanted his room isolated, and didn’t even consider the idea that Quackity would be coming home.
The familiar anxiety-worry-fear bubbles up in Quackity’s throat, and he sighs, lets it in, acknowledges it - gives himself ten seconds before he knocks on the door, and knows they might be a damn terrifying ten seconds but he will do it once they’re up. Ten, he thinks, and.
Well, he knows exactly why he’s afraid. No point dissecting it, and yet -
Nine, and he thinks, frantic, What if I’ve ruined everything. I had to leave - I found myself, my wings, my truth, I can fly again and I don’t second-guess every word to leave my own -
(Eight -)
- mouth, any more, but what if finding myself comes at the cost of losing him?
This is the cusp of the matter. He doesn’t know which he would choose if he had the choice, but he hates being trapped even more than he hates the idea of choosing, and -
Seven, and he thinks, If I could go back and do it again, I would, I needed to leave, even if it means he can’t forgive me of it.
It all depends - six - on whether Karl is truly angry. He would have every right to be. Quackity’s heart thuds in his ears, tidal, as he counts - five, four, three - and on two, he reaches out. On one, he almost hesitates.
On zero, he goes to knock, only to have the door open at the exact moment that he begins to move. He startles - stumbles - steps forwards, trying to catch himself, and feels the collision with Karl’s body like the moment in flight that is freefall made beautiful.
The hoodie is white. He’s cold, and when Quackity can tilt his head back, there are dark circles under his eyes. For a moment that knocks the breath from Quackity’s chest, Karl’s eyes scan his face dispassionately, glacial and analytical and with none of the fae-spark they always bore, a marsh fiend to Sapnap’s loyal lantern.
Then recognition dawns - a second too late, Quackity tries not to let himself think - and Karl tugs Quackity closer to him. He’s thinner, Quackity notices, and wishes he hadn’t. He’s definitely colder than he should be. The two of them are shaking as much as each other, and then Karl pulls back - unlike Sapnap, he does not shy from Quackity’s eyes - and says, lightly curious, “Where’ve you been?”
The lack of fury is completely unexpected, and Quackity feels, for an unsteady moment, the same way he did when he was concussed. He takes two startled steps back. “All over the place,” he bullshits, “it was - I know I should’ve told you guys I was leaving. I know. I’m sorry.”
“What? How long has it been?”
“I was gone for about a month.”
“What,” Karl repeats, and his eyes widen just enough that Quackity catches it. There’s technicolour spinning in the brown again, but the kaleidoscopic refraction is more frantic than it used to be, like the lenses are out of alignment. He turns as if to head back into his room, before aborting the motion. Pausing. Looking back at Quackity.
There’s something in his posture. Like he’s simultaneously all too found and hauntingly lost. Like he knows his duty but doesn’t want it; Quackity knows the feeling.
Doesn’t know how the hell he recognises it, but his bones are all screaming at him, and he knows better than to call them liars.
“Just come out for a minute,” he implores. “Take a break.”
It’s as if Karl wavers, like tightrope-walking on a tripwire. His gaze clears. He takes one step towards Quackity, and then a slow second, reaching out, and then they’re stumbling backwards together - Karl’s arms tight around him, and he says something Quackity barely hears in the rush of motion, something like I have seen you die so many times, which would check out, Quackity does tend to do that - and then the two of them are losing their balance and tumbling straight over the railing into the main room of the build, and Quackity flares his wings out just in time, and when they hit the ground they’re bruised but not broken and Karl is looking at him as if he hung the stars.
“You can fly,” he says.
You remember, Quackity wants to shoot back at him, because the way that he paused - he’s seen that expression before. Doesn’t like to think about where. Instead, he chuckles - a little breathless - and rolls over onto his back with his wings sprawled proud about him.
“I can,” he agrees, and feels his rings against his chest - always warm, so close to his heart, but right now it’s like they’re burning.
Karl looks jittery, and Quackity doesn’t miss the way he scans the room as he stands up, but he says “I’ll show you around” as he offers Quackity a hand up and a home.
Quackity takes it. “It’s, like, eleven at night,” he says, and means thank you, I love you, I’m not strong enough to say it.
Karl’s grin widens, somehow. “We can go look at the stars,” he says. “Sapnap will already be out there.”
Huh. Yeah. That whole confrontation lasted maybe two minutes, and yet Quackity glances around and Sapnap isn’t anywhere he can see from here - it stings that Karl knows Sapnap’s habits and Quackity doesn’t, not any more, but he shoves that away and promises himself to learn them again. “I love you,” he says, startling himself.
Karl laughs. “Any askers?” he teases, fae-bright, and when Quackity looks away, subdued - he’s not prone to these unhedged declarations, likes to soften and joke and deescalate before he makes promises he can’t keep, and something in him winces at the way Karl shrugs his rare honesty away on the tail of a quip - “Hey. Hey, I love you too. Let’s go find Sapnap.”
Oh. “Yeah, let’s do that,” Quackity says, his heart a teetering stack of F-words - forever, finally, forgiven - in his chest.
True to Karl’s word, Sapnap is waiting, outside, in a grassy clearing surrounded by giant mushrooms. There’s enough space for the air itself to breathe, and Quackity feels better the moment he sees the sky; it sprawls wide and star-studded, and he loves the wideness of it, domed and dark. At the sound of their footsteps through the grass, Sapnap turns.
“Look who’s back,” Karl says, grinning, and lifts the hand holding Quackity’s into the air between them - like Quackity’s a victor, or just like the contact is a victory. “God, it’s cold.”
“I saw, yeah,” Sapnap says - there’s the gentlest bite to his tone, and Quackity knows it means he’s forgiven. He doesn’t deserve it, but he’s not going to argue. “Come here, both of you. Idiots.”
“Your idiots,” Quackity dares to say, and his heart thunders at the way Sapnap smiles.
“Come on, hurry up, ” Karl says, and he is antsy but this time it’s in the way he’s always been, rather than a mantle that sits uncomfortably on him and makes his eyes go cold. He hurries towards Sapnap and the centre of the clearing, dragging Quackity behind him. “Sapnap, I swear to God, you better warm us up.”
“I like your nails,” Quackity says suddenly. He didn’t notice them earlier; he is preoccupied, now, with Karl’s hands.
“Huh? Oh.” Karl lifts one to his face, examines them, even as Sapnap places an arm around both of their shoulders like the very contact is a mortal ambrosia. The nails are bone-white. “Could’ve sworn they were magenta, but - eh. I think they look pretty.”
“They do,” Sapnap assures him. His voice carries as much warmth in it as the fires beneath the earth; Quackity nestles into his side, unsure of his welcome but desperate for touch, and is pleasantly startled when Sapnap sits abruptly down and drags the two of them with him. “C’mon, guys, we gotta cuddle.”
“Cuddling with the homies!” Karl chimes, too exuberant for this hour of the night, like he’s running on a different clock. It’s one of the things Quackity has always found endearing about him; it seems stronger now, somehow. More pronounced. But still.
“Cuddling with the boys,” Quackity agrees, trying to muster an energy to match Karl’s and falling short - he’s exhausted and he’s pretty sure it’s showing. A chill sweeps over him, and he shivers.
Sapnap, ever the MVP of the cuddle pile, draws him closer. “Cuddling with the fiances,” he says, and then - as Quackity’s heart threatens to goddamn overflow in his chest - “Fuck, I didn’t mean to make you cry. Are you okay?”
“I’m not crying,” Quackity insists, but he fumbles as he tugs the necklace with the rings over his head, and his vision’s a little blurry as he undoes the knot, pours the rings off into the trough of his hand. They’d all done two rings for the others, and gotten two in return - it wasn’t the most convenient arrangement but Quackity would rather die than change it. “Here, could you - Could you two put these on me,” and his voice isn’t shaking, isn’t breaking, isn’t.
“Of course,” Karl says immediately, as Sapnap takes a great shuddering breath that Quackity can almost feel. He pops up onto one elbow and takes the silver ring from Quackity’s hand, with its opal inset, slips it on to Quackity’s finger like it’s a foregone conclusion. “Next time you go travelling, don’t bother taking it off.”
It means more than he knows - Quackity’s a creature of the sky and he has to go, sometimes - and he shuffles over to face Sapnap, certain he’s getting grass stains on his elbows, his heart a tsunami. “Are you gonna -” he begins, and can’t continue.
“Yeah,” Sapnap murmurs, and it’s not of course but it’s stronger than that; he takes the blackstone ring with its low bronze glow, eyes shining more than enough to match it. Firelight scatters across the starry clearing. “Here,” and he takes Quackity’s hand, warm and familiar, and the ring clinks as it makes contact with the other one. “There you go,” he says, low and quiet, “all how it’s supposed to be again.”
Quackity clears his throat. “Thank you,” he says, and manages to get it out without sounding like a strangled cat.
Karl tugs insistently on Quackity’s shoulder until he rolls over onto his back again, in the middle of the two of them. The movement makes him chuckle. The sky-dome is wide and bright and endless, and even though the air is cold it feels like magic; beneath him, the grass is soft. Sapnap fumbles for his hand first, but Karl does the same only a moment later. One is steady-warm. Another worryingly cold, but that can wait.
“Welcome home,” Quackity says to himself, and no one contradicts him.