Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Quackity!”

Wilbur launched himself on the villain, suffocating him in a hug before he’d even taken his mask off.

“Madre de puta, Soot, get the hell off me!”

Wilbur’s hands instantly fell to his sides, and he took a step away, still bouncing and grinning even as he kept a respectful distance from the villain.

“Sorry. Anyway- how was your day?”

There was something wrapped around Quackity’s head that gave Wilbur a bad feeling, but he didn’t comment on it. Not yet.

“It was good.” Quackity smiled tightly, unhooking his mask. “How was yours?”

“Do anything fun?”

Wilbur helped Quackity get his coat off, letting his tail swish happily as he hung it on the rack.

“Not… particularly.” Quackity sounded like he was answering carefully, and Wilbur gave him a worried look. “Nothing. No. Nothing interesting.”

Wilbur paused. Tilted his head, slightly. Quackity looked away, with the eye that wasn’t covered by bandages wrapping around half his head. It looked tidy, yes, but something wasn’t right about it. Quackity came home with injuries all the time. So why did Wilbur have such a bad feeling about this one?

“Really?”

“…yes, Wilbur, really.”

Liar. Wilbur could feel liars, a sourness on the back of his tongue that he couldn’t shake. He was glad it was just a taste. That was just overspill, really, a shadow of what he could do, and he’d kill himself if he ever did it to Quackity.

Still, he let the villain have it, skipping back over to examine his shirt, pointedly ignoring the bandages. At least those were clean.

“Ok! Oh- you’ve got blood all over you again.”

“It- it’s fine, Wilbur, you don’t need to-“

“I don’t mind. I like washing things.”

“Wilbur, is there anything you don’t like doing?”

Wilbur’s cheerful bubble burst, everything screeching to a stop as Quackity’s question pierced their charade of happiness.

Then he shook it off, ears perking up as he smiled again.

“Nope! I like helping you, darling.”

“…no you don’t.” Quackity muttered, then took a deep breath, composing himself. “Ok. We- we need to talk.”

Wilbur went still. He didn’t like people saying that. He really didn’t like people saying that. It didn’t fit right, wasn’t something he knew how to respond to. So, he defaulted to the next best option he could find.

“Did you see Sapnap today? You said he was chatting with you last week, and you… seemed really excited…”

Wilbur felt his stomach flip as Quackity didn’t move, didn’t smile, just carried on staring in a sort of guilt ridden pity. He floundered for a second, before shutting up entirely, lowering his gaze to the floor and standing as dead still as Quackity was.

“I- I didn’t have a good day.” Quackity sounded hoarse, like he’d been crying, not the fake cheerfulness he’d been trying to comfort Wilbur with. “I- really need to talk to you. About quite a lot of things. Can we- sit down?”

Expression blank, Wilbur nodded, and lead the way to the sofa. Quackity sat down immediately, then looked up at the cat, and sniffed.

“You can sit down. Please. I- I can’t-“

Something in him felt like it was aching, as Wilbur watched Quackity cry quietly, but all he could really feel was a blank sort of confusion, then obedience as he sat robotically next to the villain. His villain, normally so confident and loud, sniffling and trying not to look at him as he hugged his knees, injured and not explaining why.

“Is… something… wrong?”

His voice sounded wrong. Stilted. He could hardly even pretend to sound human. Quackity buried his face in his knees, sobs muffled by his bloodstained trousers.

Wilbur watched him, eyebrows slightly furrowed in something between worry, panic, and curiosity. He could… stop Quackity crying. It would be easy. Misery felt like something slippery on the back of his neck, it would be so easy to just wipe it away, wipe whatever was upsetting his villain out of his mind.

But if he did that, he might as well throw himself out the window, because he could never live with himself. He wouldn’t be able to survive, knowing he’d done that to Quackity.

So Wilbur waited, counting his breaths, picking up right where he’d left off three months and two weeks ago. His fingers found his collar, not his old one, which Quackity still wouldn’t let him have back, but a new one he’d begged the villain to get him. He tugged at it, the one nervous tic he had left, which he’d stop in a heartbeat if it looked like someone was noticing. If Quackity noticed. Quackity was the only person he really saw, these days.

Eventually, finally, Quackity calmed down. Wilbur hadn’t done anything to help. He didn’t dare, when one wrong thought could ruin everything.

“O- ok. Sorry. Ok.” Taking a deep breath, Quackity sat up, pushing himself to the back of the sofa as he unfolded his legs. “I… saw Crow today.”

Wilbur perked up for a moment, then frowned.

“That’s- bad?”

Crow probably missed him. Maybe he should go with Quackity to talk to him. But Quackity nodded so fiercely Wilbur decided to just be quiet until the villain finished.

“Yes. Wilbur, I- he wanted to talk about you. He still wants you back, and- he really wants-“

“He threatened you, didn’t he?”

Wilbur tried to soften his voice, match Quackity’s humanity, but it came out flat anyway. Quackity still nodded, touching the bandages vaguely as he chewed on his nails.

“Mhm. And- look, I- I knew I was going to get shit for having you, and- and I knew Crow wouldn’t let you go, but- holy shit, gato, he- fuck.”

“Did he bring Blade?”

He was trying to push gently, ease Quackity through an explanation, but Wilbur had the horrible feeling he was making everything worse.

“Yep.” Quackity smiled bitterly, eye fixed on nothing. “Blade was- was definitely there. Oh, the things I do for you, gato. Not that they’d leave me alone anyway.”

“You don’t have to.” Wilbur felt the sudden need to volunteer the option, even if it hurt. “You’re- doing a lot already. You don’t need to get hurt for my sake.”

“Already have. Wilbur- who do you think you are?”

Quackity looked at him, with such desperation in his visible eye Wilbur felt like flinching. He was left silent for a few seconds, frantically searching for an answer Quackity would accept from him.

He couldn’t say he was a weapon. He couldn’t say he was dangerous, or a hazard, or something powerful. That would make him sound so much more important than he’d been feeling recently.

He could say he was nothing, he was a tool, but that was out too, really. Quackity had told him he couldn’t call himself that, screamed it, more like, after Wilbur knelt next to his kitchen table for the second week in a row. He hadn’t believed it then. Things had ended up broken. Wilbur hadn’t been the one to break them.

So what was left? When he’d never been a hero, when he couldn’t be human, when he was no longer a weapon, what was left to call himself?

He’d been trying not to think about it, really. He was good at not thinking about himself. But now, with Quackity staring at him in increasingly horrified disbelief, Wilbur felt himself speaking after too long in his own head.

“I- I’m yours.”

Quackity closed his mouth, then opened it again, then pressed a hand over his mouth and let out a high pitched sort of choking noise, sitting back against the back of the sofa and staring at nothing.

“Or-“ Wilbur could hear desperation in his own voice now, that last, trembling emotion that was all he had left aside from compliant enthusiasm. “Or I’m a villain? Or I- I can be a hostage, or your partner, or- or-“

“Stop!” Quackity was practically yelling, and Wilbur could see it, taste his need to be away from him, yet the villain forced himself to stay. “Please, just- just stop it.”

Wilbur stopped. Immediately. And he could hear Quackity’s guilt as a shrieking cry coming from inside his head, so forced himself, hesitantly, to disobey. Just slightly. Then the questions came quicker, and he still limited himself, because he couldn’t let go this quickly.

“I- I’m hurting you, aren’t I? What… happened to your eye?”

He didn’t want to hurt Quackity. Other people hardly came into it, they might as well not exist, he doubted he’d noticed if he killed them. But Quackity. He couldn’t hurt Quackity.

“…Blade did.” Quackity sniffed, burying himself a little further in the cushions, and shooting Wilbur a look that could have been reproachful, more pity, or maybe just despair. “It- it’s ok. I got it healed up. As much as- as much as they could.”

Now, it was Wilbur’s turn to stare at Quackity, tasting his own emotion this time. It was something hot, and painful, and stuck in his throat as his mind whirred, searching for ways to kill himself or kill Blade, fuck everything he’d been to him.

“He… Blade…”

“Only half blind.” Quackity offered a wavering smile, then gave up, hugging his knees again. “But still…”

Wilbur stood up. He couldn’t breathe right. He was running before he knew where he was going, ignoring Quackity’s yells as he stumbled through the apartment. He’d never tried to kill himself before. He wasn’t sure if he could. Maybe he couldn’t die. Maybe no one would let him die.

Still, he knew where Quackity kept his knives, and he knew the way to the balcony. Everything was burnt into his mind, every distance memorised from the first few days, when he still couldn’t believe he was somewhere new. He’d been stupid to think he could survive something normal.

“Wilbur! What- oh fuck no, put that down!”

Wilbur’s hands shook as he adjusted his grip on the handle of the knife, not trusting himself to look at Quackity as he walked towards the balcony. He should have done this a long time ago.

“Orpheus, put the knife down!”

Quackity’s voice broke, and so did something in him. Wilbur felt the blade drop from his fingers, narrowly avoiding grazing his leg as it clattered to the floor, leaving him with a rapidly tightening throat and a blank mind.

Then Quackity was right there, garbled apologies and reassurances and pain rushing out as he took Wilbur’s hands, dragging him back to the sofa.

He was unresisting, tail curled between his legs but otherwise pliant to whatever Quackity gestured for him to do. His eyes were empty, settled on nothing as his mind focused only on what was being asked of him. He was well trained. He didn’t resist, even as Quackity forced him to sit down, then hesitated, then sat next to him. Not even as the villain pulled Wilbur closer to him, arms wrapped around his shoulders as if he’d never let go.

He could hear what Quackity was saying, if he concentrated.

“I’m sorry.” Another sniff, this time so much more broken than earlier. “I’m so, so sorry, gato. I want- I want to help you, then- I don’t know if I can do this. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Quackity carried on with the mumbled apologies for a while, resting his head on top of Wilbur’s, folding his ears uncomfortably. Every point of contact felt like a strange sort of fire, like acid pricking at his skin, but Wilbur didn’t pull away. Not when it might hurt Quackity.

He wished he’d been allowed to kill himself. It would be easier, so much better for everyone involved, if he’d spared Quackity having to kill him later. Because he would have to. Wilbur knew that now, seeing how he hurt people when he didn’t even try. The only way to keep anyone safe was for him to die.

But Quackity’s guilt tasted like salt and seaweed, and Wilbur didn’t need it to remind himself he was drowning out here, without any sort of purpose.

“I’m sorry too.” His voice sounded hollow, an empty mockery of human empathy. “You don’t have to deal with me.”

Quackity wasn’t even using him for anything. That was what was really unsettling him, leaving him searching for any purpose he could find. He wasn’t useful, wasn’t working, wasn’t even part of the experiments he’d been endlessly run through anymore.

“I know, gato.” Sighing, Quackity ran his fingers through Wilbur’s hair, scratching behind his ears despondently. “Trust me, I know. But I couldn’t leave you then, and I can’t leave you now.”

Wilbur could sense Quackity’s restraint like a hand on the back of his neck, tugging lightly on his collar, and purred a soft encouragement, nuzzling into the villain’s shoulder.

“You can be mean. I won’t mind.”

“I’ll mind. But…” Quackity sounded so defeated, so tired as he curled a little tighter around the cat. He sighed, voice on the edge of breaking as he spoke quietly, as if Wilbur wouldn’t be able to hear. “You’re just so useless, gato. I- I almost want to be able to trust you on your own, but- I don’t think you could do it.”

Wilbur whined softly, curiosity getting the better of him. Quackity’s hold on him was, probably, too tight, but he’d worked out the villain liked it when he was close and unprotesting. So he’d stopped protesting, and quickly. Besides, Quackity might be strong, but he wasn’t nearly tall enough to actually restrict his movement.

“I still don’t know half of what they did to you. I don’t know if they’d let you survive, without anyone.”

Quackity’s voice was so quiet Wilbur thought he might be falling asleep. Still, he understood. He wasn’t stupid. He knew he was broken, or broken in some way Quackity had decided he’d figured out. He wasn’t made to be on his own, he was trained to help and behave and support wherever he could. He needed people. Someone, at least. Someone to belong to.

“I still love you. Whatever you are.”

And there it was again. The same thing Quackity had told him months ago, before Wilbur had even known his real name. He’d never been in a position to reprimand it, not when he hardly knew what love felt like.

“I- I love you too.”

Even if he didn’t know when to let go of something that hurt him.