Chapter Text
Pac is running to the Order the minute the message pings on his comm. Or, more accurately, two minutes after. Because one minute he spends staring, processing the words that Phil has sent to him and the next is spent nearly falling over himself on the way out the door of Chume Labs.
Ph1Lza whispers to You: Fit’s back. It’s not good. Come to Order quick
Back.
Fit’s back. Pac hadn’t even scratched the surface of realizing he was gone. That he might as well have truly disappeared. After he had vanished out of thin air, not unlike their own kids, Pac could barely manage to wrangle together coherent thoughts in his head– much less understand the passage of time around him as it pertained, restrained him, to an ‘ after’.
After Fit went missing. After Pac saw his base empty. After Phil told him there was no sign of him even on the island. Pac was stuck in the before and now Fit is back.
He stands in the dew grass outside of Chume Labs, overlooking the crashing waves surrounding him. It’s been raining for the past few days now.
His fingers are numb around the warp stone. He’s unsure if it’s from his grip or the cold rain dotting his hands. He’s holding it far too tight, to where the blood is pushing away from his fingertips and knuckles and pales them a ghastly color.
He squeezes his eyes shut, clears his mind, and envisions the tricolored buildings surrounding the grand statue of the Christ Redeemer; Favela, he whispers.
The world warps around him, bending inwards and out. Pac lands on cobblestone, by the Favela’s notorious fountain.
The second after his sneakers brush the stone, he’s off like a shot across the greenway and careless to the foliage trampled in the way. Throwing open the Order’s above entrance door hard enough to hear the beginning of it’s wooden frame clattering against the impacted wall.
He takes two elevators, crosses the office, a third, and the air goes from a stale humidity to a cold underground chill that follows throughout the Order’s halls.
There’s a clatter, a sharp noise that is nearly drowned out by the Order’s sliding doors that open before him. He catches the tail end of the sound of something being tossed about, the muffled sound of argumentative voices.
Pac is breathless from his run, feeling the sweat cool tacky on his skin, and has to shove himself off the closest wall to make the final run towards where the activity lays. Where Fit might be. Where Fit is.
The thought is so tantalizing that he opens his mouth, Fit’s name tumbling off his tongue when he turns down the Order’s hallway Bellum.
It’s a process caught short when someone comes tumbling into the hall from the infirmary. That someone, namely, being Cellbit. He stumbles backwards from the threshold on unsteady feet, just barely catching himself on the furthest wall before he cracks his head open on it.
Pac stares blankly at him, feeling almost useless as the man struggles to straighten himself. For all their history, he weakly calls; “ Cellbit? Ta bem–?”
“ Listen to me– Hey!” Phil says with that stern needled tone that Pac knows well from seeing him properly scold the kids or others. It’s quick to draw his eye from Cellbit, instead to where he’s standing in the doorway. His arms extended and shoving himself firmly as a barrier between Cellbit and the inhabitants within.
Phil’s palms are outstretched. He takes a breath and his voice softens, though it maintains a stern edge that he can’t seem to shake off with his usual calm demeanor; “We’re friendly! We’re friendly– Fit, c’mon man–”
“Fit?” Pac pipes up, pushing forward towards Phil now with a soaring hope in his stomach, “Where–? Where is he?”
Phil, startled by Pac’s approach, spins on his heel to stop him and, by no means of his own volition, reveals the mess of an infirmary.
Beds upturned, curtains torn, an I.V. toppled and smashed. The room looks like a warzone, or a hurricane’s aftermath, and its central eye is Fit.
Fit. Pac’s Fit. Same scars, same clothes he saw him in last, same eyes, clay dark and narrow– There’s no world where Pac would forget him or his many eccentricities.
Yet his posture is different. Stilted. He’s hunched at the shoulders, one palm to a weeping cut on his skull. He’s heaving with breath like he’s run a marathon, eyebrows bent down and lip curled into an unpleasant twisting visage.
And the moment he feels his gut drop is the same one where Phil yanks him out of sight.
“What’s wrong– What hap- What happened with him?” Comparative to the dull emptiness he’d felt before today, Pac is full of thoughts now. As if his body remembered he was alive not by him running out his breath on the way here, but from the startling realization that everything was too real.
That, of course, Phil had said it was bad, and things never go Pac’s way, and of course, that means things must go the worst way. An all too accurate turn for his life to take.
Pac barely notices Phil pushing his arm in front of him, gently guiding him out of the entrance, further from view. He’s not sure if Fit sees him through the blood slowly slipping down his face, into his eye.
Cellbit speaks up from behind Phil, pushing off the wall with a weary sigh to respond to Pac’s unanswered question; “We don’t really know. He was out of it– Like fully passed out near spawn. Phil brought him here, told me to come, and I tried to see what happened, but he woke up and–”
“He’s injured?” Pac asks, glancing between the two, “Did– Was that there?”
“ No .” Philza says, stiffened but with his back still to the others. His eyes, in fact, never leave Fit, who turns to pace the room like a furious caged animal judging by the legs Pac can see under Phil’s sleeve, “He woke up and we had maybe a second to react before he started breakin’ shit. Tried to take a swing at Cellbit and instead took out a bookshelf, knocked his I.V bag over his head–”
Pac peers over Phil’s extended arm, “Is this… like Mike? Or Quackity? Are we sure it’s him?” His heart sputters when he locks onto Fit once more. Bedraggled, looking bent out of shape. His pacing has turned into glaring at the lights, the walls, the beds, accompanied by his clenching and unclenching fists.
Cellbit grunts as he shakes his head, “I don’t think so, right? Those two tried to acclimate or replace the originals but he didn’t even try. If he’s trying to blend in, it’s not working.” He says with a bitter laugh, “Maybe it’s– Like after El Quackity. The original, who couldn’t read, he’s our Q, but the Federation did something to him. Messed his brain up.”
Phil flinches downwards as something is thrown, a metal bowl clanging off the wall next to his head. “I thought maybe you might have an idea. Currently being our expert in… getting people back and all.” Phil says through gritted teeth, “I think he knows us, cause he’s not killing us but he’s certainly not communicating what the fuck he’s doing this for! ”
He shouts towards Fit, who gurgles a noise that confuses all three of them.
“Maybe we should– We could try… um…” Pac trails off, worrying his lip between his teeth. His mind drifts as he wheedles on his toes for another view of Fit beyond the wall Philza places between them.
Maybe Pac is a bad judge of who’s who. He thought the Other Mike was the one he knew for a bit. But something about this rings Fit in his gut. Even in this strange, aggressive, manner. It’s– He can’t put his finger on why–
But it’s his Fit. It’s his Fit. He knows it like the way he knows breathing. That coupled with Cellbit’s cobbled theory has him latching onto the concept with an iron grip. It has to be him.
He catches a brief sight of Fit as he backs towards a corner. For a moment, he clutches at his head, dirty palm pressed against the wound. His face pinches in pain as confusion washes over his expression like a bad fever.
He doesn’t plan, nor think. He breathes and moves, ducking under Phil’s arm. Pac can see the second he catches in Fit’s peripheral. When his shoulders shift and he twists in place in the direction of Pac.
What he doesn’t see is the hand Cellbit reaches out to catch the back of his hoodie, “ No, no– Pac!”
He’s yanked backwards with a small yelp. His hands out in front of him like a trailing blaze as he goes opposite of his momentum. A direction which is then all of his momentum when a body barrels into them all at top speed.
He falls backwards into Cellbit, he thinks, then rolls off to the side. A fistful of his hoodie is still in Cellbit's hand.
Legs kick out, teeth gnash behind Pac’s spine. Cellbit releases him with a shout and Philza is drawing his sword– However Pac only feels weightlessness. The floor is left behind, arms tuck around his middle and he’s dragged backwards into the infirmary.
Mind rattled by the back and forth, he watches Phil and Cellbit in the entrance and wonders how he’s moved if they’re over there.
A scowl rattles him, the chest pressed to his spine making it feel like the noise echos into his lungs. A deep, angry, sound that Pac has only heard made when dealing with unpleasant enemies or mobs in unlit parts of the island.
“Fit–?” Pac rasps, wiggling in his arms. A chin hooks over his shoulder, biceps flexing as they work to hold Pac firmly in his grasp.
“Careful– Jesus, Pac, careful!” Philza shouts, “Fuck dude! Stay still, fuck–” He takes a tentative step towards them–
Fit snarls. An honest to god snarl. The rasping hiss and snap to it resounding in his ribs. It’d be comical if it wasn’t so honestly terrifying in how it shook him.
Phil takes three steps back. Cellbit’s gaze dances between the two of them, gears turning in his head.
“It’s okay!” Pac calls, nerves twinging his words, “It’s okay, Philza. I know what I’m doing, it’s fine–”
“I don’t think you fucking do!” Phil seethes. He holds his place, though, a little behind the threshold and watching them like a hawk.
Pac presses on his feet to try and push around to be chest to chest with Fit’s front. A difficult feat, considering Fit’s high and tight approach to the hold making it so Pac’s feet are, while touching the ground, lifted enough that traction is hard to snatch. Unintentional. Probably.
With a dig of his toe into the linoleum, he manages to wrestle around and get a better view of the man holding him.
Fit’s staring down his nose at Pac at an awkward angle for all of a few seconds before he’s back to flitting his gaze around the room, to the entrance, to the walls. Okay. So Pac can move, just not out. And by his nervous flickering eyes, there’s a reason for that.
“Hey Fit,” Pac breathes, not bothering to smother the tch that pulls at the end of his name.
No response. The words don’t seem to hold or be heard. Fit’s narrowed eyes are still flitting about with dark irises filled to the rim with an expanded pupil.
“It’s me. Do– Can you hear me?” He asks.
It’s in one ear and out the other. He can’t tell if Fit’s not understanding or not listening. He wagers on both, in some aspect, because Pac for once can read a naked fear engraving the lines on his face.
Strange.
Either way, Pac needs him to listen or understand and for that he must be a little more direct.
He wiggles his arm out from his pinned side, much to the crowing warning from Cellbit and Phil behind him.
“Fit, hey– ” He says quietly, raising his hand till he can rest it on the curve of Fit’s jaw, “ Fit. ” Pac repeats, trying to mimic the stern notes Philza had done earlier.
It works. His head whips to Pac, nostrils flaring. The moment he notices Pac’s approaching hand, he recoils like he’d swung at him. The movement jostles them both, but Fit doesn’t let go.
“It’s okay!” He says, hushed and trying to dampen the panic in his voice from nearly tipping over in Fit’s tight hold, “It’s okay, Fit. It’s me –” He speaks like he’s hushing a wild animal, he finds, and his tone goes gentler still.
He lays his hand on Fit’s shoulder instead. The touch still catches him off guard, but draws his focus solely on Pac. The room holds it’s breath.
He keeps his voice low, gentle, “It’s Pac. You know me.” He says, near demands, holding Fit’s gaze locked with his, “You’re okay. It’s okay now– You see? It’s me!”
There’s something like recognition in his eyes, Pac thinks. Nothing obvious, not like he had forgotten and quickly remembered, but a slow thing instead. His shoulders seem to dip, breathing slowing a touch. He knows him. More importantly, he sees Pac more clearly now that the initial panic recedes its waves.
It’s the rest, Pac finds, that worries him.
He’s been on this island a long time. He knows not many people outside of the Brazilians know any Portuguese and is well acquainted with a certain scenario; Pac will speak Portuguese to someone who doesn’t know it, and their face will go blank. A sort of balked terror that comes from hearing what you know are words, but not their meaning.
Fit’s expression is the same. Lip down turned like his words are a puzzle to be decoded, brows knit together in confusion. He’s been like this before, Pac knows, a few times when he’s spoken Portuguese to Mike. Where Fit has turned to him with this face and looked remorse to ask ‘ What did he say?’
Only he’s speaking plain English.
Pac digs his teeth into the inside of his cheek, unable to keep his expression from sinking.
It’s not fair. It’s not fair. They leave, they come back but it’s never the same. Pac can never have anything for long enough to cherish, only enough to have and hurt when he loses and it’s not fair.
He wants to dig his heels in and scream until something goes their way.
But that’s not how this works. It never is.
Maybe the Federation just hates him or maybe Pac’s just that unlucky, but he’s never gotten anything to go right when he threw a fit and cried about it. It didn’t work for Mike, it didn’t work for Richas– At least here he has Fit close enough to touch and work with. And he has to believe that’s enough.
He drags in a deep breath. Exhales. Ignores the shake to it. “Okay. Okay Fit,” He sighs, “What’d they do to you?” He starts a small repetitive drag of his thumb under Fit’s collarbone.
He crawls his hand up to his jawline once more, moving an inch at a time. However selfish it is, he doesn’t know nor care. It’s dawning on him that this is Fit, truly him, and he disappeared. Pac couldn’t do anything about it. For any of them.
Fit seems transfixed with him, not looking away as he cautiously lets his cheek fall into Pac’s hand.
He holds still and Fit follows his nose, burying his face into his palm. There’s still a stiff nature to his muscles but whatever comfort he derives from Pac’s touch is enough to let his eyes lid ever slightly. To lean towards and over Pac, like he was drawn to him.
“It’s only me, right?” Pac says, with a deprecating, quiet, laugh, “There’s nothing to worry about.” And that feels like enough said until something bubbles up through Pac’s chest to add, thickly; “I missed you.”
To his credit, Fit’s eyes lift and search him like he’s really really trying to understand. There’s an adorable crease between his brows that remind Pac of their little detective ventures, where both of them were stuck for all the cleverness between them.
Then, with a small huff, Fit seemingly gives up to nuzzle deeper into his touch with lidded eyes.
Pac raises his shoulder to wipe his face against it. He sniffs, the rough cotton against his face almost grounding.
He’s refusing to cry, so all his grief goes into his quivered words as he speaks not to Fit, but to the ones behind him; “He doesn’t understand anything that we are saying.”
Pac thinks, with a sigh, of course they knew that. They all did, as soon as they knew Fit was trashing the room. He’s a man of quiet patience and thoughtfulness, at least these days he is. Not to mention, he knows the three of them and trusts them. Maybe not completely, but enough to not attack on sight. Enough to not threaten any of them. Not to mention that Cellbit, Philza– They’re smart.
So, of course, Pac knows that they knew that. But he also knows they wouldn’t start working off this idea unless Pac was the one to break that news. Bring the thought to reality.
“Anything?” Phil asks after a beat. The noise makes Fit’s face twitch, but he smothers it by folding over Pac further.
“Anything.” Pac says, “I don’t know… I’d have to watch him for longer, you know, but nothing is… I-I can’t see him understanding anything I’m saying. It’s like… it’s blank . He gets tone, though, I think?”
“Maybe it’s one of those unknown potions, the ones we get in dungeons.” Cellbit says, “They give a lot of weird effects.”
“Isn’t our best theory that this is some Risus thing?” Phil says under his breath.
“Risus doesn’t do this. ”
“It’s the Federation, we know that at least.” Phil says, bitter, “This shit has them written all over it. Mind altering little shits. ” His voice cracks, strained.
“I’ll figure it out.” Pac says, though it’s unclear whether he says it to them or if he even believes it, “I-I made the cure for Risus. I can make the cure for this too.”
“You won’t do it alone this time either.” Cellbit adds, “I’m here. The whole Island would be too. We’ll– We’ll figure this out.”
Pac nods instead of replying, letting his head bend forward till he’s resting on Fit’s sternum. It’s not a selfless act by any means.
Fit offers no complaint, nose buried into his hair.
Pac turns his cheek till his ear presses against it, wraps his other arm around his shoulder and listens to the steady beat of his heart beneath his ribs. He’s here. He’s alive. And he desperately hopes he can fix this.