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Quackity barely hears the knock the first time.
The second time he chalks it up to the wind, swirling snowy through the streets of Las Nevadas. It's not a friendly night by any means, even the clattering and flashing bright lights of the casino are dark tonight, shut down a few hours early, too understaffed to keep it open during a storm like this.
But the work never really ends for Quackity, not really, come rain or snow. He works late and more often than not, he finds himself catching what little sleep he does in his office, slumped over his desk, accidentally dozing off in the middle of going over yet another waiver crisis or order for another crate of champagne, ink staining his cheek.
Tonight is no different, and so that’s where he finds himself when the third knock at the door comes, eyes slipping closed against his will, pen doing its valiant best to keep moving as his chin slumps into his palm.
"Calm down Fundy, I'm coming!" Quackity yells, shoving on an overcoat and unhooking his axe from the wall. "I'm coming I said!" He yells back at the frantic rapping on the other side of the door.
It’s probably nothing, just a standard patrol or even really just the wind!
Can’t hurt to be safe though.
He slings on a netherrite chestplate over his rumpled uniform from the hook it hangs on by the wall, slips his axe into his belt.
Bang, bang, bang
“I’m coming, I’m coming, okay!?” Quackity yells back, giving his armor straps a final tighten. “Give me a fucking second!”
Grumbling, he swings the door open, fingers tight on the handle on his axe, tensed and ready for a fight.
He is not expecting to see Sapnap, standing there on his doorstep, pale and bloody in the porchlight. There’s a deep cut running across his left cheek, his hair sheered off messily at his ear on that side, like someone had tried giving him half of a haircut with a dull axe. If the thin pink line curving just under his ear is any indication though, Sapnap was lucky to get away with only a haircut. He smells like smoke, burns and sword nicks scattered up his forearms. His eyes are dark and tired, and he carries himself like his limbs weigh as much as the sun.
“Sapnap?” Quackity’s arm sinks, hand slowly drifting away from the axe at his belt, fingers uncurling in quiet shock. “What are you doing here?”
Sapnap blinks suddenly with a soft shake of his shoulders like waking up from a trance, like he hadn’t quite expected Quackity to even open the door.
“Q,” Sapnap breathes, the line of his shoulders falling, almost collapsing in as the light from the doorway falls across his face.
He looks even more battered up close, slightly favoring one leg and holding one arm unnaturally tight to his side. His battered leather chestplate is practically falling off him, straps messy and secured haphazardly. There is a bruise on his cheekbone.
“What are you doing here, Sapnap?”
“Dream came to Kinoko for m- For his armor.” Sapnap says, words painfully steady, taking a quiet second to steady himself. “I wasn’t ready for it, the defenses weren’t prepared. I couldn’t hold him off, and- And Kinoko’s gone now.”
(That explains the smoke that was trailing up and over the bay that afternoon, heavy and thick and acrid. Quackity’d slammed his window closed at the smell, fiercely cussing out whoever’d had the mind to burn shit on such a nice day to his empty office. The irony of it twists heavy in his gut now, like a lukewarm washcloth.)
“Kinoko’s gone?” Quackity repeats dumbly, and Sapnap gives him a tight, controlled nod.
“Dream’s still hunting us,” Sapnap says, quiet, eyes focused on Quackity’s left ear like it’s the only thing left in the world. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
The words hand between them, throughout the night air that still smells slightly of smoke, even this far away. The silence isn’t quite awkward, but its not comfortable either, buzzing with words unsaid and promises unkept and offers more cordial than anything else.
Sapnap seems to steel himself then, and continues, words flooding out fast and insecure into the darkness.
“I hate to ask this of you, Quackity, I do. I’m really sorry, but. There’s nowhere for us to shelter in Kinoko, not anymore. They’re all beat up right now, and I don’t even know whether Dream’s after us still or not.” He hesitates for a second, before dropping his voice to a shaky whisper, like he’s trying to make sure no one will hear, so quiet Quackity has to lean in to hear him. “They wouldn’t make it if he was.”
Quackity hesitates, half surprise, and half quiet revolt, surprise. “Why did you come here, Sapnap, to my country? Why me?”
When Sapnap speaks again, his voice is barely a whisper, choked quiet with tears.
“You’re the only other person I trust to keep them safe. I- I can’t do it on my own anymore.” Sapnap says, voice quiet. “Please Q. Let them stay here. Just for one night, and then they’ll be gone, out of your hair. I need to know they’re safe.”
“They?”
Sapnap squares his shoulders and nods once, tight and certain. “I need to go find Dream before he does anything else.”
“Tonight? Sapnap-”
Quackity eyes Sapnap up and down, the bloody bandage tied tight under his battered leather chestplate, his black eye, the way he favors one leg, and the exhaustion in every line of his set shoulders, much as he tries to push them back, an imitation of strength that Quackity might be fooled by had he not known Sapnap better than he knew himself, once upon a time.
“You’re going to get yourself killed, Sap.” The words are flat, but not unkind, just a simple statement of fact.
“I still have one more life on him, Sapnap says, setting his jaw, voice steady. “I need to do this now Quackity. Every second he’s out there is one more person he could be hurting.”
(The math there doesn’t match up and Quackity knows it’s not what he needs to be focused on, knows that there are so many bigger issues at hand, but there’s something wrong here that he can’t work out.)
“Only-” Quackity questions, but cuts himself off two syllables in with a soft sound of understanding as Sapnap rocks back and forth on his heels and his armor shifts, showing the edge of a fresh scar twisting up his collarbone, shimmering with the void stars that only come with the unnaturally quick healing of a canon death. His hand drifts up to his own cheek.
“Oh.”
Oh Sapnap.
He’s quiet for a second, thinking, and Sapnap stands there and waits, eyes downcast, all steel and hope, breath a cloud in the desert chill. The snow has lulled a little now, but Quackity has lived here long enough to know it will be back before they know it, that they don’t have time to waste.
“Okay.” Quackity sighs, clapping his palms together, decision made. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You can stay here as long as you need, all of you. I’ll let you stay in the Nevadas bunker, give you all the food and medical supplies you need.”
Sapnap’s eyes light up slightly, shoulders relaxing in ever so slightly in a way that makes Quackity’s chest twist.
Quackity’s not finished there though. “I will let all of you rest here for as long as you need. On one condition. You stay here and rest too.”
Sapnap opens his mouth to protest, eyes pleading and full of reckless, painful determination.
Quackity meets Sapnap’s eyes then, for the first time that night, and lets his voice soften, stepping down onto the front step so the two of them are eye to eye. “I’m not going to let you get yourself hurt again tonight, Sapnap, alright? I’m not going to do that.”
Sapnap holds his gaze, eyes brimming with unspoken protest and saltwater, glinting in the porchlight.
“Quackity-” Sapnap starts, voice catching. And Quackity knows if he hears Sapnap out now, he won’t be able to hold to this any longer, knows that the second he lets Sapnap protest in that soft voice with desperate tears in his eyes, he will listen, even after so long.
“It’d bad for business if you died under my watch anyway.” Quackity drops his eyes, locking the door with a click and brushing past Sapnap on the way out.
Behind him, he practically feels Sapnap stiffen up slightly, and a second later, spin to follow him without another word, boots crunching slightly into the cold sand.
It’s still snowing slightly as he leads the way through the dessert, flakes catching in icy little flecks on his cheeks and tangling into his lashes.
“Get the rest of them,” Quackity says, turning over his shoulder to look at Sapnap again. “Get everyone and bring them back here in about five minutes, got it?”
Sapnap nods and heads off, and Quackity follows his form with his eyes until he makes it over the hill of sand at the border and he’s out of view again. Quackity lets his gaze linger on the faint footprints in the sand that he left, for just a second longer, then turns away with a self-conscious little shake of his wings. The snow is coming down harder now, wind whistling all around his shoulders as he bends down to unlatch the trapdoor to the bunker, with a small shiver.
Quackity tightens his wings tight to his back and descends into the bunker, hand over hand on the ladder, flinching slightly at the cold metal.
He’s been in here only once, with Foolish, who’d walked him through everything in the bunker in that cheery way of his.
It’s different, coming down here now for real, in the middle of the night, Sapnap’s face still hanging in his memory, battered and exhausted and Quackity’s heart beating anxious butterfly wings in his throat. His fingers dance across the latch robotically, automatically, his brain not really processing a second of it until the door slides open, a whoosh of warmer, climate controlled air relaxing the tight hold of his wings just a little. His communicator buzzes at his hip.
Sapnap whispered to you: we’re back
Sapnap whispered to you: right where you left me
You whispered to Sapnap: come down the ladder
You whispered to Sapnap: lock the trapdoor behind you
They come down one by one, Tina first, who greets him with a subdued nod and hello, George right after her. Sapnap brings us the rear, Karl passed out around his shoulders in a fireman’s carry.
Quackity doesn’t look at Karl doesn’t look at Karl doesn’t look at Karl. (He feels like he just got kicked in the chest.)
George jumps up behind him right as Sapnap gets to the bottom of the ladder, just barely catching Karl off Sapnap’s back. George gives Sapnap a look and Sapnap pretends not to curl in on his injured shoulder, looking a bit sheepish. They turn to look at Quackity, all three of them
“I’m guessing you guys would like to stop by the medbay?”
Some tingling little instinct in his gut is jumping up and down, begging for him to ask about Karl, even now, but he does his best to ignore it, stiffly leading them down the sleek, modern halls to where he remembered Foolish showing him the medbay last time, pointing out each room as they pass it with a quiet, authoritative tone. He sounds cold, even to his ears, and it stings a little. He deals with it. (He doesn’t.)
“Here’s medbay, if you want to grab some bandages. Bunks should be just down the hall.”
“We’re going to take Karl to rest for a bit.” George says. It’s the first he’s spoken tonight, and his voice is subdued but steady. He heaves Karl’s slumbering form over his shoulder again with a quiet huff. Quackity notices him whisper something to Tina as he passes her, and then the three of them are gone, and it’s just Quackity and Sapnap again.
He almost turns to leave with them, he does. He even makes it a few steps towards the door. Then he turns around. Just a quick glance back.
And Sapnap’s still standing there, looking down at a roll of bandages in his hand, a strange, helpless expression on his face like he doesn’t want to watch Quackity leave. He looks out of place in the bright white and stainless-steel med bay, small and dirty and banged up, an imposter in a world made for perfect, spotless giants.
Quackity turns back to him fully, and for a second, just stands there, halfway to the doorway. The fifteen feet that separates them feels like an ocean, cold and suffocating and lonely.
“Hey?” Sapnap breaks the silence with an awkward clear of his throat, voice quiet and lifting slightly at the end like a question.
“Hey.” Quackity parrots, folding his shoulders back again and forcing himself to step forward. Once he starts moving, autopilot taking over and guiding him to the medicine stock in the cupboard without a second thought.
“You don’t have to stay with me if you don’t want to anymore, man,” Sapnap says with a soft, little polite half laugh. “I can take care of a few cuts on my own.”
Quackity stops and turns to fully face him. “Don’t be fucking stupid, Sapnap.”
“I really will, its fine,” Sapnap says, voice a little too strained and desperate for Quackity to believe him.
Quackity grabs a final roll of bandages under his arm and walks over to Sapnap, dropping everything onto a cot behind them. Sapnap watches him anxiously, like he’s not sure whether to protest again or not. Quackity turns up to look at him, a fresh sort of sadness stinging in his head at the cut crossing Sapnap’s cheek, somehow both smaller and worse in the bright light.
“Sapnap. I know Dream took one of your lives, and even if he didn’t, you look dead on your feet, dude, come on.” Quackity says, trying to keep his voice detached and firm, because he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he can’t. Sapnap is in front of him looking like he’s only barely holding himself together and he died today, and Quackity hasn’t seen him in months.
Quackity shouldn’t care anymore, he shouldn’t. They’re barely fiancés, barely friends anymore. But he does, much as he’s tried and tried and burned photos and torn the roses out of every garden in Nevadas until his palms were more thorns than skin. He cares. Still.
“Please let me help you, Sapnap. Please.”
Sapnap meets his eyes with a small nod, looking a little like he’s about to cry.
Alright.
There’s not really anything to be done for the canon death scar, twinkling with regeneration void and curling across Sapnap’s shoulder and collarbone. Quackity learned the hard way that messing with that is asking for trouble. His eye twinges.
He can take care of everything else though, provided Sapnap hasn’t broken anything big.
“Hold out your arm.” Quackity commands gently, guiding Sapnap to sit down on the cot and catching his arm so he can clean up the slash up his forearm as gently as he can.
Its not as deep as it looks once he gets the blood off, but its jagged and painful looking, dirt ground deep into it in a way that could only have been intentional.
(Quackity has to bite his tongue so hard his mouth tastes of iron to keep himself from scrubbing too angrily at Sapnap’s arm when he realises that, imagines Dream kicking Sapnap to the ground and grinding mud into his wounds.)
Sapnap doesn’t cry out as he cleans it out though, even when he scrubs, just stares down at his other hand curled in his lap and worries his lower lip, statue still.
“Up a little bit,” Quackity says quietly, nudging Sapnap’s arm so he can wrap a bandage around it.
Sapnap complies silently, and Quackity wraps up his arm, carefully as he can, ties off the bandages and scootches over to look at Sapnap’s other arm.
Sapnap stops him though, fingers hovering just above Quackity’s, like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to take them or not. “Quackity, I- I’m sorry. For making you do this, for just showing up here. You really don’t have to help me anymore if you don’t want to.”
Quackity breaths out softly, looking up at Sapnap again. “Don’t apologize for coming to me for help. Don’t.”
Sapnap is quiet, but he doesn’t look away again, and Quackity thinks that’s something.
“Okay?”
Sapnap turns his hand and takes Quackity’s fingers in his own with a small squeeze. “Okay.”
And so Quackity fixes him up, wraps bandages where they’re needed, washes away mud and dirt and dried blood as carefully as he can.
(Once upon a time, he might have sealed the knot on Sapnap’s bandages with a kiss to make them get better faster, and they might even have laughed. Not because he was hurt, but because they were together, and they were happy.)
Quackity leans in, dipping the rag in the bowl of water at his side one last time and rubbing it ever so gently at the dirt on Sapnap’s nose, the gash cutting across his cheek, softly holding his gaze when he looks up.
They’re so close Quackity can feel Sapnap’s warm breath on his cheeks. He smells like bread, bread and rain soft earth and soot.
And he’s not sure when it happens, but then Sapnap is crying, fast and silent like a summer rainstorm.
“Shh.” Quackity whispers, letting his hand slip down to cup Sapnap’s cheek. And slowly, he presses a kiss to the pad of his thumb and brushes it to the scratch cutting across Sapnap’s cheek. “You’re okay, they’re safe, you’re safe.”
Sapnap just slides his eyes closed and leans into his palm like it’s the only thing keeping him upright, and maybe it is.
Quackity lets him cry, wiping the tears away as they come.
They stay like that for a long time, until Sapnap’s run out of tears and Quackity’s ran out of cuts to bandage, and maybe just a little longer.
(Neither of them wants to pull away, really.)
Quackity forces himself to break away first, rocking back slightly and letting his hand drop into his lap.
“Alright,” he starts, and the little word echoes in the silent room. “You should rest.”
He moves to stand, gathering the empty roll of bandages and ointment off to the side.
“You should stay down here too, Quackity,” Sapnap says softly, eyes sliding open, red-rimmed. “It really late.”
“Oh, Sapnap,” Quackity sighs, and the fondness leaking through the words surprises even him.
Its sweet of him to be concerned, it really is. But Quackity can handle himself. He always has, always will. And he has a country to take care of now too. “I need to take care of some things tonight. With Dream on the loose and all that.” Quackity says, suddenly conscious of his other hand still tangled in Sapnap’s. “You stay here and rest where it’s safe, so I don’t have to worry about you. Please.”
Sapnap pouts slightly, and Quackity almost giggles. (Only because it looks funny, not because the way he wrinkles up his nose is kind of cute, not in these circumstances.)
“Stay until morning at least.” Sapnap says quietly, tightening his hold on Quackity’s hand. “You’re not safe on your own, not with Dre- Him out there.” He looks down at his feet. “I couldn’t live with myself if you got yourself hurt for us. For me.”
When Quackity speaks again, his voice is soft. “I’ll be okay Sapnap, promise. Nevadas is fortified for this, we’re prepared. I’ll be safe.”
Sapnap shifts back again, half letting his hand drop from Quackity’s hand, but the tips of their fingers still linger, interlocked. The two of them are quiet for a long moment, avoiding each other’s eyes.
Sapnap breaks the tender silence between them this time, voice raw with unshed tears. “Please don’t go just yet- Q, I- Fuck.” He pulls his hand back and looks up, slowly shaking his head to himself. “Sorry.”
Quackity doesn’t quite know what to say, doesn’t know how to help this, can’t fix anything, but he reaches out and catches Sapnap’s fingers back in his and doesn’t let go.
“You should get some sleep,” Quackity says finally, and scoots in next to Sapnap on the cot, pulling him down to lay his head in Quackity’s lap with a gentle arm.
“What about-” Sapnap says with a soft sound of protest.
“I’ll get Foolish or Fundy to look over everything dude, don’t worry. It’s going to be okay.” Quackity doesn’t know this. Quackity doesn’t know anything, but Sapnap is sinking into his arms with an unconscious, sleepy familiarity that makes Quackity want to cry for some reason.
He holds him close.
Sapnap breathes an unsteady sigh, breath shaking.
“Shh,” Quackity says, as soft as he can, and smooths his fingers through Sapnap’s jagged, sword cropped hair. “Go to sleep. I’ll be here.”
I’ll be here.
The words catch on Quackity’s tongue, tangling it into silk slippery knots, tangled and stinging down the pit of his throat.
They shouldn’t be reassuring. They shouldn’t even be true. He left that right behind long, long ago, with a padlock on the doors of a dusty wedding chapel and burnt photographs and blood under his nails.
Quackity isn’t a man who loves like that anymore. Isn’t a man who can afford to love like that anymore. Why wait up to make sure someone falls asleep safe when they’ll leave you before the sun rises in the morning? Quackity’s been left alone with no one but the morning sunbeams too many times for him to do anything but learn to keep the company of the moon.
But here he is, with Sapnap’s head in his lap, half dozing with his hand on Sapnap’s bandaged cheek, their breaths practically in unison.
He can feel the exact moment Sapnap slips into sleep by the way every inch of him relaxes, melting into Quackity like chocolate in the sun, so close that Quackity can feel his every breath. Its painfully familiar, the feeling of it, so much so that he can’t understand how he’s gone so long not knowing it.
He looks fragile, asleep, the tension run out of his limbs like a starched shirt left in the in rain, the stiff, determined set of his jaw practically melting under Quackity’s fingertips.
It’s a different face than the one Quackity knew, once. New smile wrinkles crinkle around his eyes, a sort of kind warmth Quackity recognizes as inherently Sapnap as even his name, but there are deep worry lines creasing his forehead slightly too, even in sleep.
Quackity wishes he could fix it, wishes he could go back in time and save Sapnap from the pain crisscrossing his forehead, the cut across his cheek from a brother’s sword.
But he can’t. He’s barely enough to keep his claws from scratching Sapnap’s face worse than he found it trying to put ointment on his cuts. Sapnap will be gone like dew when the sun rises, and the tentative little thread of necessity and hurt holding Sapnap in Quackity’s arms right now will snap, and they will fall back apart, two ships taking shelter for the night in the same harbor for a storm.
There’s nothing he can do.
So, he cups Sapnap’s cheek in his palm and smooths the worry lining his forehead with a ghost soft thumb, runs his fingers through the messy snarls in Sapnap’s hair with as much care as his hands can hold.
If this is all they have, Quackity would like to use it well. (And maybe that makes him selfish, greedy, cruel, but the snow is falling in roaring gusts above them, and down here, it is warm.)
He curls over onto his side, wings open around them in a soft tent of feathers, and lets his eyes slip shut too, fingers half unconsciously still brushing little circles onto Sapnap’s cheek.
He’s almost asleep in his own right when Sapnap stirs slightly, cracking his eyes open and shifting so he can meet Quackity’s eyes.
Quackity startles, blinking back awake, feeling an awkward sort of shame for his hand still tangled in Sapnap’s hair, for holding him like it’s their last night alive.
(He’s woken up like this what feels like a thousand times before, in another life, and he’s not sure if that makes it better or worse.)
“Sorry- Uh, I-” Quackity says, starting to pull back his hand, as he feels his cheeks redden slightly.
Sapnap catches Quackity’s palm at his cheek, eyes soft and full of sleepy sincerity. “Thank you.” And each syllable is every word in the English language, tangled together into a bouquet and pressed into his hands with a look that is worth more than anything in the world. “For- this.”
“Anytime,” Quackity whispers, brushing his thumb up Sapnap’s wrist, praying that Sapnap can feel the weight he’s tangling into the words too.
Sapnap smiles at that, small and almost delicate, eyes already slipping back into sleep. He sinks into Quackity with all the trust in the world, and before he knows it, Quackity follows him.
-
They are both there in the morning.