Somewhere inside his chest the ugly pathetic glowing thing curls up and purrs; it's warm and nice and awful and he wants to starve it until it shuts the fuck up and he wants it to never stop. 

Out in the real world, he squeezes Wilbur's hand. "I said you were my friend, didn't I?"

"...Yeah. But that's--I'm not your Wilbur, I'm--the closest you had? I guess I just thought--I mean, that's great, I, I appreciate it, I just--wasn't expecting it, now that you've got the real deal. Guess I was wrong." He smiles, a little, tentatively.

"I mean— I'm not your Quackity, either, am I? But I'm not— or, I mean, I hope I'm not just the closest you had? I didn't think I was, anyway." 

It's pathetic, it's fishing so obviously, can he for five goddamn minutes stop fucking whining— 

"I mean-- they're, um, very different, I don't think my Quackity likes me, if I said half of this to him he'd laugh in my face. There are--things I appreciate about him, don't get me wrong, I enjoy his company very much--and it goes both ways, you know, like, if I blew up your restaurant you'd probably go 'hey what the fuck I thought we were cool'--but, correct me if I'm wrong here, I was under the impression that your relationship with your Wilbur was, um, more ... traditionally positive, than all that?"

"It— it is, yeah. We, um, we are not very much like you and Quackity at all." Thank fucking hell, and also several other things. "But it's still not... the same as you and me? I was sixteen when I met him, and I mean obviously I'm glad I did meet him then, but— it's definitely not the same thing as only knowing me as, the way I am now." 

"I suppose." Wilbur considers this. "What were you like? Forgive me if I'm being too forward."

"I was..." 

...christ, that's a hell of a question. And not one he can really truthfully answer, not without getting way more into the specifics of his life than he wants to. 

"I mean, I was right out of the arena. I didn't really have friends, then— or, I'd had friends before the arena, but afterwards they moved me to a new neighborhood and a new job, and I was just different, suddenly, in a way none of the people I'd known before really knew how to deal with. So they stopped trying, and I did too. —I'm not mad about it. I get it. We were all really fucking young. But I was living in this tiny quiet neighborhood I didn't know, with Schlatt. I was— god, I was a fucking idiot then."

He lets go of Wilbur's hand so he can shove his face into his palms, press down against his eyes. "I didn't know what I could and couldn't fucking handle, and I had to be taught what I couldn't get away with, and I still screamed in my sleep like some kind of—" 

Here he cuts himself off. Stop fucking talking. Don't admit to that shit, what are you, stupid? Can you for ten goddamn seconds quit whining? 

"Hey, hey, Q, it's alright. It's alright." ...His instinct is to give Q a hug but he's not sure if grabbing Q is the best idea? Very tentative aborted motions towards Q. "You're here now. It's okay."

"I know where I am, you don't have to—" 

Heavy sigh. He takes his hands off his face, sits up straighter. "I'm fine, Wilbur. I know where I am." 

It feels like he's stepped wrong again. He pulls his arms back towards himself. "Right. Yeah. Of course."

"I— shit, I'm sorry. I don't want to be— I'm sorry. I was being a bitch. You didn't do anything wrong." 

Pause. 

"...anyway. It doesn't matter. I'm not that person anymore." 

"No, it's-- I get it." He does, is the thing. Not all of it, but-- he's not the person he used to be either. Or at least he doesn't want to be. "I'm glad you had him, man."

"...yeah. I am too." He's starting to relax again, leaning into Wilbur's side. 

...Hug? 

(I love you. I love you. I love you.)

"So you're still--we're still--" He gives up on the sentence, leans his head on Q. He hasn't fully processed it yet, it doesn't feel real. Probably won't for a while, if it ever does.

Hug. It's... nice, just getting to be hugged. Whatever it was he expected to happen, it doesn't seem to be happening. 

"Yeah. We're still— whatever it is we are." 

"Good. That's--that's good."

(He's not sure what it is, exactly, that they are. Friends, certainly; not allies, certainly. Friends-and-not-allies doesn't really seem to cover it, that's what he is with Fundy. But boyfriends is what he is with Sapnap and arguably Karl, and lover has the opposite problem, that means Schlatt; there isn't really a better word. 

...but if he's promising to continue being Wilbur's friend, it's probably some sort of problem that they aren't allies. And— he really doesn't want his Wilbur to see the way he talks to him and start making faces about lives being livable. 

This is, he thinks, an incredibly fucking contemptible reason to rethink a relationship. But, you know, that isn't news.) 

He spends the night in the Arctic, and a chunk of the next day, and then goes back to Kinoko. He's not avoiding his Wilbur; they text each other. But it takes a couple days for him to work up the willingness to be in Paradise, let alone Las Nevadas. 

Las Nevadas is very, very quiet. 

It's weird, not having anything he's supposed to be doing with himself. ...but nice being left alone. He'll take it. 

And a couple of days later, Wilbur shows up in Paradise.

He talks to Q and Ranboo about L'Manberg's independence, which was apparently a year ago; they go to the museum; they go to the crater. At the crater, Wilbur sees Tubbo and starts running towards him, waving and shouting his name.

He reaches out for Wilbur's wrist but Wilbur is, apparently, faster than him. Shit. Okay. Now what. 

...now he takes out his comms. 

Quackity_V68 whispers to WilburSoot_V63: hi im sorry do you know where the crater is

WilburSoot_V63 whispers to Quackity_V68: yes o7

Right. Awesome. Thank you Wilbur. Q makes his way towards Tubbo, slower, but honestly he's not optimistic about helping or even about Tubbo wanting him to. 

Wilbur picks his way around the crater towards Tubbo, chattering excitedly as he goes: that they haven't seen each other in a while, that he's excited to see him, that Tubbo's wearing his suit, that Wilbur's a changed person. Tubbo seems... unhappy; he's being polite about it but it's not hard to pick up on the fact that it's not genuine even if you don't know him too well. He's shaking a little. Despite this, Wilbur is clearly not picking up on it. Ranboo is following at a distance, studying the dirt and trying very hard not to exist.

Tubbo has just finished asking a question when another Wilbur comes into view on the horizon; the native Wilbur says "Hold on just a second" and turns around to excitedly wave him down also.

Quackity, when you asked for an intercept, I was not really expecting it to be this.

"—am I interrupting something?"