The pharmacy would be less suffocating if Wilbur’s ex wasn’t currently across the aisle from him, staring at a bottle of Dayquil with a tissue wrapped tightly in his grip.
He never expected to be back in his hometown, but life was a funny thing like that. It always threw curveballs that one never expected. He certainly never had any expectations of leaving, but when his band started to pick up, he was simply along for the ride, excited to see where life took him outside of his bleary little town.
It took him pretty far, too. Farther than he had ever expected to go. He played to sold-out stadiums, to crowds of screaming fans, alongside some of the bands that he had listened to growing up, that had inspired his love of music from the beginning. He worked his ass off to get there, but he had reaped the full, ripe fruits of his labor. Playing and recording and touring and partying and laughing—It was everything that he could’ve hoped for and more.
And then life threw him another curveball.
He’d had a bit of an accident that had shattered the bones in his arm from his shoulder to his wrist. Accident was a kind word for what had happened because the whole incident had been entirely his own fault. His stupid, reckless decisions were solely to blame, and that somehow made it all worse. If it was just some bad luck, then Wilbur would be able to deal with that, but he had nobody to be angry at but himself.
Luckily, he had made enough money to pay for the surgeries, for the little metal bars to be put in place to keep his arm from falling to pieces at any little bump. There was enough in his savings to pay for his medications, which there were a lot of.
But he wasn’t able to play his guitar anymore. The current tour he was on was cut short, and he had to deal with the knowledge that he had disappointed so many people who had been looking forward to seeing him and his band play live. They were still able to record music, of course. He was still able to sing if nothing else, but that could be done remotely.
Wilbur had no choice but to go back home, to drive down the streets that he had walked with his friends from high school, to pass the café where he’d had his first kiss, to walk back through his father’s front door with a sick feeling in his stomach that he had ruined any chance he had of living his dreams. After seeing what the world had to offer and then coming back to the small town he had grown up in, it had never felt so suffocating as it did while waiting in line to pick up his prescription painkillers and seeing his ex.
Quackity had been there from the beginning. He had been at Wilbur’s first paid gig. He was there when Wilbur wrote his first song. He was there when Wilbur left, kissing him on the cheek and telling him that he would see him soon.
He wasn’t the first person that Wilbur had disappointed, but now, he was hardly the only one.
Quackity was still staring at the bottle of Dayquil, unaware that Wilbur was mere feet away from him, studying him. It was quite obvious from the pale skin and red nose that Quackity was sick. He was bundled up in a heavy coat, but even Wilbur could see that he was still shivering.
The musician’s mind had gone blank as soon as he saw the other man. It had been years since they had talked, and Wilbur was rightfully panicking. Did he speak up? Did he try and say hi? There really wasn’t a manual for how to reconnect with one’s ex-boyfriend in a pharmacy when he was very clearly running a delirious fever, and Wilbur was nearly tearing up from the pain in his arm strapped tightly to his chest.
Maybe he just didn’t say anything. Maybe that was the move here. Maybe if he pretended to not have seen him at all, then—
“Wilbur?”
