Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Bad was in the bathroom, brushing his teeth looking through his foggy mirror before he heard ringing coming from his living room. He sighed before finishing brushing his teeth, who the hell would call him at this time of the night? There was no way it wasn’t past 12 am already. 

Nonetheless, Bad made his way out to find his phone half-powered, showing a missed call from Quackity. Quackity? They had never really talked late at night, with the exceptions of streams [usually on Quackity’s alt, Quackitytoo].

He clicked on the voicemail left behind.

“Hey Bad. I’ve been having a pretty shitty day. It’d be nice if you call me when you get this, or, don’t, I guess. It doesn’t matter anymore.” A sigh could be heard before the voice-mail cut off.

Bad replayed the message once again, pacing around his 4th-floor apartment, trying to figure out the tone that Quackity had used. He couldn’t exactly put a finger on it.

Exhaustion?

Sadness? 

Border-line desperation even? - It almost sounded like he just gave up at the end. It was so unlike Quackity- giving up was not something he’d ever say Quackity could even do.

Bad saw snow falling out the windows [even though it was nearing the end of March], but the snow falling reminded him of the fire Quackity had always held in his eyes, the fire that makes it seem like it could never go away. Determination was a big trait of Quackity, one that Bad could say he deeply admired.

He replayed the voice message again, hearing the sigh at the end almost broke Bad’s heart. He quickly went on the phone app to check how long ago he had missed the call, hoping, praying even, that it wasn’t too long ago.

2:12 AM, his phone showed, so he checked the clock above his couch, which showed a blaring red 2:15. He’d just barely missed his call.

He dialed Quackity’s number and waited for the ringing to give way to silence again.

             “Quackity?”

A sigh, eerily similar to the last he’d heard, came out, “Yeah, hey Bad.”

Dejected, Bad figured out. That was the tone.

             “Q? What happened...?” Bad quickly replied, worried for his friend.

“Nothing. It’s just… Too damn late, Bad. My mind keeps on saying that nobody likes me.”

Bad doesn’t take the time to language him, so Quackity just continues,

“I know... I know that people say it’s not true. But my brain just keeps sending me so many… Scenarios. Where they would. Where they do .

I usually just go on drives to calm myself down.”

Quackity paused again, letting Bad reply, “… Why didn’t you go on a drive tonight Quackity?”

He darkly chuckled in response, “I did. Technically I’m still on it.”

Bad’s face contorted in confusion, there were no noises of wind going through the phone, “Why did you stop?”

             “My tire popped.”

“Oh.”

             “Yeah. By the way, I’m so sorry to bother you at such a late time of night Bad. Thanks for calling back. You didn’t need to.”

Bad smiled, a bittersweet feeling worked his way into his chest, “Of course Quackity. You know you can call me whenever. I have your calls go through on Do Not Disturb on my phone, you know.”

Quackity laughed at that, “Really Bad?” One could basically hear him waggle his eyebrows through the call, “Do you have anybody else’s call go through, or are you just obsessed with me?”

Bad sighed jokingly, mostly just glad Quackity could still joke around, so he was probably feeling a little bit better.

    “I have… Skeppy’s calls go through. That’s it though, just you and Skeppy.”

“Oh my god! I’m as special as Skeppy! Let’s goo!”

Giggling, Bad stopped pacing and sat on the couch. A wave of exhaustion hit over him, and he yawned.

“Sure, Quackity whatever you say,” Bad added jokingly, still hoping to raise Quackity’s mood.

“HEY! You can’t take it back now that’s ruuuuuude.”

Badboyhalo rolled his eyes, “I didn’t even say that in the first place”

Quackity yawned in response, and joked, “Baad! You just made me yawn too. What was that for?!”

             “Sorry, Quackity… I’m just a bit tired is all.”

             “Of course, you are, it’s fucking 2 am,” Quackity said, hoping to bait Bad with the unneeded swear.

However, Badboyhalo, on the other hand, was way too exhausted to try to correct his poor language, “Yeah, that’s true Quackity. Do you want to talk about what you said earlier, or do you want to talk about something else to distract you?”

             “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay Q, well what do you do when you’re bored- other than driving?”

Quackity paused, letting a gust of wind be heard over the phone, “Sometimes I read books, or… study I guess. But that’s more out of necessity than anything else.”

“I doubt you need to do much studying, Quackity, you’re a very smart potato- “

Bad got cut off from Quackity’s laughter, “I’m sorry- It’s just. SMART POTATO.”

Playfully sighing, Badboyhalo murmured a response, “It’s just the way I speak, you muffin-head. And I really do think you’re smart enough to not need to study.”

“I will not admit to BADBOYHALO, of all people whether I enjoy studying or not.”

Bad snickered, “Quackity, I never suggested you liked studying… But now that you have mentioned it…”

“NO! BAD! I don’t like studying.”

“Mhm… Okay, Mr. Quackity.”

 ------------------------------

Bad woke up at 10 am with a phone at 10%, and 2 messages from Quackity.

The first one: “I hung up bc u fell asleep”

The second one: “I thought it’d be better to just let u sleep u seemed tired”

Bad briefly remembered what had happened, Quackity changing the subject from being sad, and they started talking about all the things they like doing.

Quackity had asked Bad if he ever had gone to an amusement park and, “Of COURSE I have, Quackity”, and Quackity said they should go to an amusement park someday. Bad had been amused at how childish Quackity was, wanting to go on all the rides.

Maybe they should go to an amusement park, with how excited Quackity was just from mentioning it. The only thing Bad looked forward to in amusement parks, when he was younger, was eating the cotton candy and lemonade.

The lemonade is the thing he most liked about malls as well, you could take him to the biggest mall in the world, and all he’d look for is lemonade stands. To quite an annoyance of his friends, and especially Skeppy, however, because they would try their hardest to bring him to stores he’d like.

At least, Bad mused, one could always find him at a lemonade stand when they lost him in the mall. That, or, if he was lucky, there could be a cotton candy stand he could run off to.

Quackity doesn’t quite seem like one to drag him to a mall though.

Deciding he should probably get up off the couch, as his shoulders and neck were most definitely sore now, from the weird posture he had slept in, so he stretched his arms out behind his back, which slightly lifted his shirt up.

He suddenly shivered from the coolness [although it should’ve been expected from the snow yesterday night] hitting his skin and let his arms drop back down to his sides.

Lucy had lied across from him on the couch during the night, which was apparent by how she was just barely staring at him with her head in her paws.

“Hey, Lucy! How are you doing, little pup?” Bad crouched down beside her, scratching behind her ears as she slightly leaned into it, causing Bad to giggle, “You’re such a cute doggo.” Lucy wagged her tail, moving her head to lick Bad before she jumped off of the couch, going to her water bowl. She circled it a little before Bad followed, and he filled it so she could get water from it [but also

And, yeah, Bad recognizes she might be a little spoiled, with dog beds, treats, and toys littered all around the apartment for her, but she was a good dog! And the cutest! So she deserved everything in the world, it shouldn’t be that hard to understand.

Though there were incessant jabs at her for bits, or by some fandoms, his fandom, and more specifically happytwt, loved her. Adored her. It was one of the things that he loved about it was that it was almost always a very safe [and, slightly ironically, happy] space for everyone. He could recall several instances where they almost seemed like they were a fan of Rat herself, with several profile pictures being Rat, asking for Rat to be their Valentine, and defending her to the end of the Earth.

He turned away from Rat, deciding to message Quackity back, telling him that he should’ve definitely woken him up because now he’s sore, essentially telling him off, as most jokes with him go. He smiled, swallowing the temptation to laugh at his own little joke, secretly hoping it would be funny enough for Quackity to laugh as well.

It was one of his greatest joys, making people laugh, whether he had to do that by making himself the joke or not, it was one of his favorite things to do.

And, for some reason, Quackity’s laugh had a way to make his day shine a bit brighter.

Chapter Text

“ BAD! Baaaaaaad! ” Quackity shouted at what seemed to be the top of his lungs as if Bad couldn’t hear him clearly enough through the discord call.

It was a Saturday now, four days after Quackity had first called him at a late time of night, and Bad had been talking to the younger almost consistently throughout the days [though some of it was out of worry, most of it was just enjoying the other’s company]. He felt that they had grown closer after Quackity called him, though they had not mentioned it at all.

Maybe he should, but he didn’t want to scare Quackity away.

Nevertheless.

“Oh my god, QUACKITY. What is it?”

Quackity laughed [with malicious intent, but Bad didn’t need to know that], “I’m boooored. Entertain me, Badboyhalooooo.” Bad huffed at that, taking a bit to respond while getting his hair out of his face.

“And how do you suggest I do that, big Q,” Bad warily replied, not sure what Quackity would suggest [and if it’d be a moment to language, or not]. 

“Let’s read fan-fics together!”

A mental screech went off in Bad’s mind, like a car sharply hitting the brakes, “NO. No. We are NOT reading fan-fiction,” Bad sharply paused, “What kind of fan-fic would we even read anyway?”

Quackity giggled, “Fan-fic of you and I. I promise it won’t be that bad! What are you scared Bad?”

Bad knows that his feelings are affected easily by everything, and anything, so he never reads any fanfiction of him and any of his friends in relationships. It’s risky.

But he’s not scared.

“Nothing! Let’s do it.”

“Perfect! That’s what I thought you’d say Bad! Let’s find some on Wattpad.”

Bad laughed, “I thought all the fancy kids used AO3?”

Quackity, most likely rolling his eyes, responded, “Yeah? And? Do you have an account, Bad?”

Bad puffed his face out, because, no, of course, he doesn’t, he just expected Quackity to have one, for some reason. “..No.”

Quackity clapped, “Alright! What should we start with first?”

“A fluffy one please, like cotton candy?”

“What the fuck is your obsession with cotton candy. Seriously, man, it’s not even that good.”

“LANGAUGE! And it’s just really good, alright?... Almost as good as muffins.”

Bad heard the distinct sound of Quackity slapping his forehead, “Okay, time to get to reading, before you go on a stupid tangent about muffins.”

“But muffins are-”
Quackity cut him off before he could say anything else, screen sharing a fic to him on discord.

“Okay. Here’s how it’s going to go. I’ll read my POV, you read yours, and we try not to be brain dead by the end of it.”

“Quackity! I doubt their writing is that bad, don’t be mean.”

“..Have you seen anything on Wattpad before?”

---------------------

It did, in fact, make Bad feel like he lost a few brain cells in the process of reading it [though the idea of him having any, to begin with, was very funny- or maybe he was just way too mentally exhausted from trying to read the fan-fic]. He did have to admit it was kind of funny, in the way of reading weird things to your friends always is

“Okay, but that was totally unrealistic. I can’t believe you just made me read that with you, Q.”

Bad rolled his eyes, hoping, actually, praying , that Quackity wouldn’t make him read another.

“OK, yeah, but it was fun, you have to admit.”

“I will never ever admit to reading fan-fics with you at all,” Bad crossed his arms in a sign of defiance.

Quackity gasped, the kind of gasp where you can tell he had gained an idea, “Ooo, if you don’t read another one with me, I’m going to tell the viewers that you were reading it!”

“ Fine! You better not, Quackity! They’ll accuse me of being ‘sus’ or whatever…”

Quackity scrolled to another fan-fic, one indicated with a smut tag, “Okay, this one’s good, right Badboyhalo? The one called ‘In Your Dreams’?”

“I mean- yeah, sure. But this is the last one.”

“Perfect! Okay, so, exactly like how we read the other one, alright Bad?”

Bad didn’t respond, just letting Quackity start reading to him. It started off rather dumb, where he and Quackity were streaming and play-fighting the whole time [which, while that does happen, he didn’t see how it was relevant to a story ]. 

“Bad sighed, ‘You are so dumb Quackity’.” He added nothing to the acting element of it, honestly just waiting it out until he could relax his brain from the gymnastics it did to make everything make sense, probably go to the gym, and turn off his brain for a bit.

“‘OK, well FUCK YOU, Badboyhalo.”

Bad bit his tongue back from a language from the curse, and instead, decided to just read, “‘In your dreams.’ WHAT. NO LANGUAGE!”

Bad’s face slightly flushed red from the language-worthy implications, “QUACKITY WHY ARE WE READING THIS.”

“Chill, Bad! Let’s keep reading, it’ll be fine.

M-’Maybe that is what happens in my dreams’-” Quackity burst out into laughter, clearly trying to say something, but remaining incoherent in the midst of his giggles. Bad just sat there shocked.

And left the call.

Ping!

“Sorry bad :[“

Ping!

“I hope it didn’t make you uncomfortable”

Bad messaged Quackity,

 “No! I just didn’t want to bear the language anymore muffinhead >:0”

Though maybe it did get to him a little, not… Uncomfortable, just the whole fan-fics with him and Quackity was getting to his head a little bit. Of course, he would be embarrassed at the weird happenings in it, it wasn’t anything else.

------------------

Bad searched up AO3 later, honestly just curious as to what it was like. And maybe he would read ‘Heatwaves’, just to mock Dream. He found out, that, no, he did not actually need an account to access most fics, but, yes, he would need an account for fics like Heatwaves that are private.

Thinking of how Quackity was wrong, he called him on discord.

“HEY BAD!!! I’M-”

“QUACKITY. You were wrong you don’t need an account for AO3!” Bad huffed out, interrupting him.

Quackity laughed, really hard, “BAD! I’m LIVE.”

“ Oh, ” Bad paused a bit, before realizing how to save it, “Quackity and I were planning on pranking Dream with a DNF fan-fic of course!”

Quackity visibly rolled his eyes on the stream, which Bad had then pulled up, and replied, “Way to ruin it, Bad. Maybe I should make you read fan-fic with me on stream now.”

“NO! I actually need to help Skeppy with something, whoops! Must’ve forgotten about it!”

Bad then ended the call.

Of course, he didn’t actually have something planned with Skeppy, but he figured he could at least give Quackity a bit before leaving his stream.

Since he was already up, he decided to take Rat on a run, walking over to her and patting her on the head.

“Hey, Lucy-lu! You want to go on a run?” She instantly recognized the word ‘run’, prancing around and running over to her leash.

Bad giggled at her excitement before clipping the leash to her collar and bringing her out.

He just had to hope Twitter didn’t guess at why he was actually talking about fanfictions, because that’d be just a tad bit hard to explain…

Chapter Text

Okay, so, here’s the thing. Bad always knew he had the ability to have a crush on guys- he liked people regardless of what gender they were but usually, they didn’t manage to meet all of his standards. In fact, not many girls fit his standards either [though it is wholly possible that he grew up in a bad area].

The problem wasn’t that it was something new, the problem was that it was something way too reminiscent of the old.

But he didn’t have time to think about it- or maybe he just didn’t want to give himself the time to, either way, he was too busy with other things to give it much thought. He found himself going to the gym more often, for one. He even offered to escort some of his female friends, to save them from weird creeps that would go as soon as they saw someone who looked mildly threatening.

That didn’t stop them from jabbing at him, teasingly calling him an innocent charming boy with too many muscles to do anything with. He would roll his eyes at them, telling them if they said that again he’d make them handle the weirdos themselves.

He would also go on a lot of walks, too. Rat definitely was tired more often than not now, just from the incessant amount of late-night walks he would take her on.

He also streamed- really anything to keep him away from his thoughts until it was too late at night to do anything but sleep.

Today, though, Quackity interrupted him from his work-out at the gym.

Panting between words, trying to catch his breath, Bad answered, “Hey, Quacky, what’s up?”

Quackity paused, “Are you working out right now, Badboyhalo? Fucking hell Bad, do you ever take a break?”

Bad wiped his forehead on the back of his hand, slightly overheating, “Uh… sometimes..?”

“Whatever you say, Bad. Call me whenever you’re done working out, or whatever.”

He sighed, “Yeah, okay, I’ll talk to you later, Quackity.”

A click signaled that he hung up.

Badboyhalo groaned, knowing he’d have to deal with a worried Quackity after his workout, before putting his phone away in his bag.

For now, he wouldn’t have to think about it, he could just focus on whatever he was doing instead.

Except, he did think about it. A lot. In fact, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. It wasn’t even just the fact that Quackity would probably be hard to deal with, but it reminded him of something. ...Someone, actually.

Someone who he had only ever told Skeppy about, and, well his family just knew.

~-~

Today was going to be the day. He was finally ready to tell his best friend how he felt. It took long enough for him to understand how he felt, and long enough for him to actually accept it.

I’m in love with you. No, that wasn’t special enough. You make me feel like no one else has before, the butterflies are flying all across- He really shouldn’t be planning out a whole script for this.

He glanced at the photo he had framed of them together at an amusement park.

His good luck charm, because surely he would need it, with how clumsy he managed to be all the time.

He ran down the steps, though jumping may have been a better adjective, skipping so many as three at a time.

“Mom! Dad! I’m going to go over to my friend’s house real quick!”

~-~

Oh, how distraught he had been when he saw the moving van, filled with boxes.

“BAD! Pay attention to me!” Quackity snapped his fingers at him through the call.

Badboyhalo almost dropped his phone to the ground, how long had he been on call with Quackity for? “Sorry Quacky! What’s up?”

Quackity’s voice softened, “I said, you need to take better care of yourself, Bad. Working out is healthy and all, but not if you don’t take breaks to just calm the fuck down. You need to balance out your work and play better.”

“No offense Quacky, but I have been doing this for way longer than you, I know what I’m doing.” Bad resisted an urge to roll his eyes, it was sweet of him to worry though. Really.

“Just because you’ve been doing something one way for several years doesn’t mean you have to stick with it…”

Bad paused.

He always had a hard time doing nothing, purely because it made him feel like he was wasting his time, but it made sense. Quackity’s logic never fails, it seems his lawyer schooling did him well.

“... I suppose you’re right there.”

“GREAT! I think the best outlet for you would be cursing in your streams! What do you think, Badboyhalo?”

This time Bad really did roll his eyes, “Yeah yeah, nice try Quackster."

Chapter Text

He ended up taking Quackity’s advice.

    Not the swearing!

He decided to lay back on overscheduling himself.

Though it left time. So much time.

    Way too much time.

                        ...What does one do with so much?

Apparently, the answer was letting his mind drift off with Quackity’s videos in the background. In his defense, the voice of his best friend was comforting. Especially after they started having meaningful conversations, it’s a lot more comforting to Bad than it would be to most people.

    Though most people wouldn’t find Quackity’s videos relaxing- not because it wasn’t- but because of the screams he’s prone to do, or because of the high energy.

He was really just wasting his afternoon away on the couch, not having any streams scheduled anytime soon. Though his fans certainly wouldn’t mind an unexpected stream, he wasn’t really feeling up to it.

He wasn’t feeling up to doing anything, now that he’s slowed himself down, he found that he didn’t have a ton of motivation, or inspiration for that matter , to create content right now.

While he let his mind wander around the jungle, he definitely didn’t let it go too far..

And he certainly didn’t think about the person who moved away a long time ago.

Or how he had a crush on that person, and Quackity shared so many characteristics of him.

...Why would he?

    It didn’t have to be significant.

His phone started vibrating next to him on the couch, knocking over the pickle chips he had in the process.

Bad sat up straight, slightly startled from the sudden noise and movement that toppled over his complicated Jenga game [of pretending certain things didn’t exist], and picked his chips up. Once he made sure none had spilled where Rat could eat them, he picked up his phone.

Speak of the devil. Or rather, think. Or think about not thinking of the devil.

He swiped to answer the call, quickly putting it on speaker phone and setting it back down.

    “Hey QuackQuack! What’s up?”

He heard an [exaggerated] exhausted groan crackle from his phone, “I’m fucking stuck with a certain place in lore again.”

Bad stifled a smile- even though his friend couldn’t see it, it still made him feel bad-, “You can do all your lawyer work in school so well that you don’t have to do the final essay, but god forbid you have to write lore. For a Minecraft roleplay.”

    “Well for your information, a lot of people happen to care about this Minecraft roleplay! And being a fucking lawyer and creative writing aren’t exactly correlated!”

Giggles poured out of Bad like ice cream drips in the summer heat, and he could only imagine Quackity’s unamused face, only making him double his giggles, “I know! But you’d think writing stupid lore for a Minecraft character would be way easier.”

Quackity sighed- leaning into his know-it-all-you’re-so-dumb voice, “Well it’s not like I don’t get stuck in schoolwork too, dumbass. And the reason it’s so fucking difficult is because it’s not stupid lore! I actually have to research this shit!”

    “... Why in the world. Would you bother to do research? ”

Quackity slightly laughed at Bad, “And people think I’m the lazy one out of the two of us.”

“I’m not lazy, I just don’t bother researching things for a Minecraft roleplay, idiot,” Bad scoffed.

    “Don’t call me an idiot! You’re the one who calls a dog named Rat, Lucy!”

Bad resisted the temptation to smack his forehead, “Her name IS Lucy! Don’t get started on this, Quackity.”

“When will I meet him anyways, I have personal business to take care of with Rat.” Quackity spoke in the most serious tone he could muster, which didn’t even begin to sound serious to Bad, but he could tell there was an effort.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure you have personal business with my dog, that you’ve never met before.”

“I really do! I need to perform an epic move, and it needs he-him to complete it.”

Bad slowly blinked, “Do you misgender my dog on purpose..? Whatever, you can come over anytime after this Friday until, like, a month. If you want.”

He heard excited clapping over the phone, causing him to lift his hand to cover a smile, “Very epic Badboyhalo! I will come over on Friday to perform the 180-kick-rat!”

Bad smiled, “Yeah, and then I’ll perform the 180-kick-quackity. I’ve gotta go now, if you don’t mind.”

    “Oh, go ahead, I’ll talk to you later.

And see you on Friday!!!!”

Click . 

Okay, so saying he had to go was a slight stretch of the truth, but he did want to go see somebody before Quackity came over.

--------------

“Bad? I haven’t seen you in-person in a while. What's up?”

He hung his raincoat on the coat rack before answering, “Nothing much ‘Geppy. I hope it isn’t too inconvenient for you to make dinner for the two of us? I don’t want to impose on you.”

Skeppy grinned hugging his friend, “No, cooking is pretty easy anyways. Here,” Skeppy led him to his kitchen, which connected right to his dining room [though the table there certainly gains a huge amount of dust], and pointed at a stool, “You can sit there while I make some spaghetti, Bad.”

    Bad smiled gratefully, “Thanks! Do you remember that boy I was friends with, who moved away?”

Skeppy chuckled, now putting angel hair spaghetti in his pot, “Of course I do, not even canonical Ranboo could forget, with how much you bring him up. Have you remembered this dashing boy’s name yet?”

Bad sighed, “No! Obviously not. It’s just that ever since Quackity and I have gotten closer-”

    “-Ooh~ How close have you gotten to Quackity, Bad?”

“Shut up ‘Geppy! It’s not like that,” Bads ears tinged a slight red, “It’s just that Quackity reminds me so much of that boy.”

Skeppy rolled his eyes, pouring sauce into the pot, “Maybe Quackity is your dream boy, dumbass.”

“No! I’d for sure remember if he was Quackity. I’m not that stupid!” Bad crossed his arms defensively, before murmuring, “Though it’s not like I haven’t thought about it before.”

Skeppy raised his eyebrow, “Well besides that, do you like Quackity himself?”

“I me- I mean I really don’t know. I’ll have to think about it while I spend time with him this Friday.”

Chapter Text

It was a bit anxiety-inducing. And though many things are, this was a special kind of anxiety. Maybe he was just making it out to be more important than it needs to be, but, honestly, who isn’t at least a tiny bit scared when they meet their crush for the first time?

Nevertheless, spending time at their house. Quackity clearly hadn’t been thinking of that before asking him to meet up - but he’s always been an impulsive person, so that was no surprise. 

He found his way to the luggage claim, the murmuring of everyone waiting for their suitcases distracting him. Luckily, his suitcase was already out, so he ran up to the conveyor and picked up his suitcase [which he tagged with a yellow bandana, just to make it jump out more], and started walking out.

Remembering that he definitely needed to text Bad, since he said he’d pick him up, he messaged him.

Hey Bad, i’m at the luggage claim now, meet at the food court?

Quackity saw a quick ‘ yehp owo ill be at the subway ’, and started on his way.

    How hot and humid it was when he had just gotten off of the plane, versus the cool air conditioned part he was in now, was a bit of whiplash, though that is definitely just a Florida thing, so it wasn’t surprising.

What is surprising, is that Bad had agreed to meet up with him, because everyone knows that it’s difficult to get the man to see you in person.

    So he didn’t think he’d agree , like anyone wouldn’t. It took him several fucking years to meet up with his best friend, Skeppy, and that only ended up happening because Skeppy moved so close to him.

Quackity, once again, got interrupted in his train of thought, when there was a suddenly high amount of people around him. Meaning he must’ve gotten out of the actual drop-off part, and into the main part of the airport. He quickly moved to the side of the crowd [who seemed to know exactly where they were going], and looked along the walls, searching for a sign pointing to the food court.

    “Excuse me sir, you look lost, do you need help?” a short, pink-haired girl came up to him, with a taller girl following.

With a lack of response, the taller girl rolled her eyes, “We’re locals, and you’ve got that tourist vibe going on. Where are you headed?”

“Well…” Quackity saw no malice in the girls, so he might as well let them help him, “The food court, I’m meeting up with my friend.”

    “Oh we’re going there as well, so we can just lead you right there.” The tall girl squinted slightly at him, stepping a bit closer. “I’m Kara, and this is my girlfriend Cassie,” She stopped and pointed at the short girl, “It’s nice to meet you, Quackity .”

He sighed, of course he got fucking recognized due to his poor knowledge of Florida airports, “Thanks, I’ll just follow you there.”

He walked behind the pair, reflexively adjusting his beanie in an effort to calm himself. The closer he gets to the damned subway, the more nervous he is.

Kara turned to look back at Quackity, “Who are you meeting? You seem pretty nervous.”

    “Well, I can’t tell you guys, please, you might leak it. You can’t put too much trust in strangers, “ Quackity suppressed an eye roll.

“ Guys please! ” Cassie joined in with an annoyingly high pitch voice, snickering.

    “I swear to fucking GOD, do not get started with that.”

“No, I think I need to tweet that, actually. Just met Quackity in person and the first thing he said was ‘guys please’.”

Quackity groaned, “Are we close to the food court yet?”

Cassie and Kara both laughed at that, “Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry, iPad kid, it’s right there.”

    “I’m not a fucking iPad kid!”

“I don’t even watch you, and I know you’re an iPad kid, Quackity.” Kara giggled, looking back at him again, “Something about ‘do you have games on your phone?’”

“Yeah, yeah. Thanks for bringing me to the food court guys, have a nice day.”

They waved and left, disappearing into the crowd, leaving Quackity alone in front of the food court. Luckily it didn’t take him too long to spot the Subway and start heading over to it, weaving through the crowds of people and tables.

“QUACKY!” He managed to look up and see Badboyhalo before being suffocated by a hug.

“Mmmf. Jesus fuck, hi Bad.”

    “I knew that you were secretly tiny. I can’t wait to show to the fans that I was right.”  Quackity looked up [embarrassingly] at Bad, still looking a bit skeptical himself.

“What the hell, Bad? Are you wearing platform sneakers or something?? There’s no fucking way you’re this tall.”

Bad rolled his eyes at Quackity’s overdramatics, “I don’t know why everyone always thinks that I’m tiny.”

Quackity grinned, patting Bad’s back, “Don’t worry, I’ll never underestimate your size.”

Badboyhalo’s face went slightly red at that, “QUACKITY! We’re in public , you can’t just SAY THAT.”

Quackity just giggled, winking at him, “Don’t worry, I know you’ll save the show until we’re in private.”

Bad covered his face, presumably smiling at Quackity’s bad joke, “Whatever, Q, let’s just head home.”

“You mean we’re not actually getting Subway??” Quackity pouted at Bad.

“No way! Subway sucks, stupid.”

_____________________

Quackity: Can’t believe Bad just fucking denied me subway and then said it was terrible. This is why i will be performing the 180-kick-rat as soon as possible.

-----Badboyhalo: You will not be doing that to my poor Rat >:0

---------Quackity: Not while you’re watching.

______________________

Quackity curled into Bad’s couch almost immediately after unpacking, with the TV turned to a random channel. It was surreal to actually be hanging out with Bad, after so many late night calls, and play fights on streams. He could almost feel his heart pounding out of his chest at any given point, melting at the little sweet things Bad would do.

    “Quackity!”

Quackity looked up, only to find Bad looming over dangerously close to his face, causing him to yelp and fall off of the couch.

“BAD! WHAT THE FUCK.” Quackity glared at Bad, only seeing a smile on the latters face.

Bad walked over to Quackity offering a hand, “Sorry Quackster, maybe try being less of a scaredy-cat next time.”

Quackity rolled his eyes and slapped Bad’s hand out of the way, “I’m not a fucking scaredy-cat! I’m very Tall and Strong.”

Bad giggled at Quackity, leaning over to where he was, and picked him up.

“Ah yes, very tall and strong, but also can get thrown over my shoulder no problem.”

Quackity tried to wriggle out of Bad’s grasp, to no avail, finally just accepting it.

    “Fine, fine, you win. It’s not my fault that you’re incredibly fucking jacked, damn.”

“What do you want for dinner, Quacky?”

    “To get put down.”

Bad quickly put Quackity down, leaving Quackity to find his balance again now that he was on the ground.

Quackity leaned against the counter, “How come you have so many nicknames for me, but I only can come up with Bad.”

Bad looked at Quackity strangely, “I don’t know.. You can call me Badboy, or Halo too, y’know.”

Quackity perked up, Bad having fallen directly into his trap “Or I could call you sexy!”

“That’s it Q. PREPARE TO DIE.” 

Bad chased Quackity around his apartment, Quackity squealing and running away from the man who completely towered him. It was certainly a way to tour the apartment, running around chairs and couches, and past rooms, trying to escape.

“OKAY FINE. I fucking give up. Just let me eat cereal.”

Bad stopped at once, glaring at Quackity, “There’s no way you just said that the only thing you want to eat is cereal.”

Quackity threw his hands up, “I did! But in my defense, what cereal someone has says a lot about a person.”

“It does not?? There is no connection between cereal and personality, Q.” Bad patted Quackity’s head, rolling his eyes.

    “Maybe you just have a really bad taste in cereal Badboyhalo .”

“I DO NOT. Don’t insult my honey nut cheerios.”

    “I can, and I will. They taste like shitty cardboard with sugar thrown in.”

Bad stuck his tongue out at Quackity, “I think you’re the one with a bad taste in cereal, muffinhead.”

    “Speaking of muffins, where’s Rat?” Quackity asked, swinging his head around comically.

“Safe from you. She’s hanging out with Skeppy right now so that you don’t get any ideas,” Badboyhalo laughed, “Also because she’s having a playdate with Rocco.”

“AND LUCY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MUFFINS! YOU FLIPPING IDIOT.”

    Quackity giggled at Bad, “I don't kn ow it took you so long to say that…”

“DO YOU WANNA GO QUACKITY??”

    “You know.. Now that I know how fucking jacked you are, I’m actually somewhat scared of those words.” Quackity paused, before starting to run, “But you’ll NEVER CATCH ME IF THE DOOR IS LOCKED!”

    “QUACKITY.” Bad sighed, “I’ll eat all your cereal if you don’t come back!”

“NO. NOT MY POOR CEREAL.”

Bad laughed as Quackity came running back, and watched as he got his cereal and sat down.

______________

    “Okay, so I have this couch that you can sleep on, or, because I honestly don't care, you can sleep with me in my bed.” Badboyhalo started explaining, after Quackity’s questioning.

Quackity just raised an eyebrow at him, “Did you just offer that I could sleep with you Badboyhalo? I think Twitter needs to hear about this.”

    “QUACKITY. YOU BETTER NOT TWEET THAT.” Bad scoffed, “You and your insistence of spinning all the words I say into something else.”

“Fine. I won’t tweet it. But you have to share all your blankets with me, because I’m not sleeping on a dumb fucking couch.”

    “You almost did ear- Okay, you muffinhead. Let’s just get ready for bed, so we can plan everything tomorrow.” Bad smiled at Quackity, before leaving him to go to one of his bathrooms.

Luckily, he had two bathrooms, and Bad had told him earlier about how the only reason he doesn’t have a guest room is because he had changed it to his office. Which is pretty reasonable, in the end.

    Quackity started brushing his teeth, and then the rest of his nightly schedule.

And if he was thinking about if Bad would let him cuddle with him, or if Bad was usually warm or cold, or if he was a light sleeper or an early sleeper, who would be there to tell? And if the teasing banter they had back and forth was making it increasingly difficult to make it so he didn’t impulsively confess..?

No one would ever know..