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Mazes are complete bullshit, Fit decides as he trudges behind his group, walking around corner after corner only to have to spin on his heel and go back the way he just came.
The only reprieve is Pac’s laugh that bounces from each and every dead end, each laugh somehow more endearing and beautiful than the last.
If Fit really admits it to himself, Pac is the only reprieve of the whole damn evening - yes, he turned up to the ball to support the Kingdom - and to show off how well he cleans up, even if it’s in a suit jacket that scratches against his arms and a pair of suit bottoms that he stole from someone else’s wardrobe in the castle - but he still wishes he was anywhere else. But definitely not anywhere alone.
Though, his appearance made Pac do a double take when he entered the ballroom, and that is a core memory Fit has already locked away for a rainy day.
Sneeg’s voice is gradually getting more frustrated as it pours through Fit’s earpiece - which rests uncomfortably in his ear upon insistence from the Keepers, having confiscated everyone’s technology upon entry to the maze to prevent cheating, with only an earpiece in exchange with a direct channel link with the other members of his group.
“This is bullshit,” Sneeg sighs. “Are you even still here?”
“I’m still here,” Pac replies, voice chirpy and cheerful as ever. “But I don’t really know where here is, you know?”
Fit smiles. He wipes at his eyes in a desperate attempt to try to remove the blindness inflicted upon him (and everyone else) by the Keepers, he wants to see Pac, he hasn’t stared for anywhere near long enough yet.
“So how are we doing?” Foolish asks. He’s exempt from the rules of the maze, having assisted in creating it. Also being the King probably gives him some form of immunity, Fit presumes.
“I’m losing my damn mind,” Fit replies with a dry laugh. “How long did you spend on this?”
“Well, you know,” Foolish clicks his tongue. “I mainly just supervised.”
“Like a true king,” Sneeg adds.
“I think you’ve done an amazing job, King!” Pac says.
“Thank you Pac,” Foolish replies. “You should wake up more often.”
“True that,” Fit says without missing a beat.
He then sees a pair of shoes enter his field of vision from where he’s focused on the stone floor to try to remember the patterns of where he’s already been (and failing), and a warm hand takes his.
And he has no instinct to pull away, he knows exactly who the hand belongs to - it is the one that fits in his own like a glove, after all, as cliche as it is to admit, but he made his peace with that a long time ago.
“I’ve got you, Fitch,” Pac whispers, not speaking through the earpiece.
Fit disconnects his own earpiece. “You always do, huh?”
Pac chuckles. “Always, big boy. Now come on, the next room is this way!”
And Pac leads him past a door to another room filled with countless buttons.
“So,” Pac lets go of Fit’s hand to rest his hands on his hips. “Where do we start?”
He looks around the room.
“Well,” Fit shrugs. “We can talk about what happened in the ballroom.”
Pac takes a step closer, now in full view, not at all obstructed by the blindness. And he is indeed still just as breathtaking as Fit remembered, the beauty sleep Pac has woken from definitely living up to its name.
“A lot happened in the ballroom,” Pac taps his chin, and grins. “You might have to remind me.”
And Fit lets himself daydream, remembering earlier in the evening - when he, fuelled by the complementary booze, brazenly kissed Pac in the middle the ballroom, effectively stopping Pili and his gossip at the source; not that Fit was staking a claim at all, but the fact that Pac immediately pulled him in for another kiss, longer and slower, did fill Fit with the warm sensation he’d been missing whilst Pac had been asleep for months prior.
And it, as usual, scratched a familiar itch that maybe in a past lifetime they were together just like this, uncaring of who saw them together, proud to say “that’s my boyfriend”. Maybe with little footsteps running around alongside them.
But back in the ballroom, his blush gave him away, gave away how strongly he feels about the man that was stuck to his side like glue, smiling from ear to ear.
Pili looked between the two of them with an amused smile, before holding up his hands, and admitting he must have been mistaken regarding the rumours of Fit and Sausage.
Pac linked his pinky fingers with Fit’s at that moment, and Fit felt a wave of comfort from his head to his toes.
It was a wave that was still coursing through him from even earlier in the night when Pac was surrounded by the other residents of the Realm, being pulled into four different conversations at once, eyes filled with rising anxiety - a roaring fire that ebbed into a bright spark when his eyes met Fit’s.
Now in the present, in the room of many buttons, Pac waves his hand in front of Fit’s face.
“Are you okay?” Pac asks, eyebrows slightly furrowed.
“Yeah i’m good,” Fit nods. “You’re here, so i’m good.”
And Pac laughs, the beautifully bubbly sound that Fit adores.
“You’re going soft on me, Fitchie!” Pac runs his hands down Fit’s arms. “I like it.”
And Fit feels the heat rush to his face, and dips his head.
The motion causes the novelty crown on Fit’s head to slip off, which Pac catches effortlessly. He feathers a finger under Fit’s chin to tilt his head up, and fixes the crown back in place.
“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Pac smiles, and leaves his hand against Fit’s cheek for a long moment, and Fit leans into the touch. “But i’ll be here when you do.”
“I do,” Fit nods. “I just,” he pauses. “Did you get a feeling like, I don’t know, it’s not the first time we kissed?”
And Fit watches as Pac smiles.
“I know what you mean,” he says, and leans in closer, dropping his voice to whisper. “Maybe we were together in a past life, you know?”
And though he’s obviously joking, it makes Fit feel like his veins are filled with molten lava - it’s exactly how he feels. Like there have been so many iterations of himself and Pac, where the only constant has been each other.
“But I quite like this life,” Pac adds, resting his forehead against Fit’s. “And I quite like that you kissed me in front of everyone earlier like that.”
“Yeah?” Fit smiles. “Me too.”
Pac runs his fingers down the lapel of Fit’s jacket, deliberately slowly. “Good.”
The maze around them is silent, only with extremely distant shouts and laughter. He licks his lips and takes a small step back.
Pac eyes him curiously.
“You know what I heard?” Fit asks, leaning back in conspiratorially.
Pac gasps dramatically. “What?”
“They deliberately made the corners of these rooms dark to make it harder to find the right buttons. Apparently you can’t see anything, especially with the blindness.”
Pac flicks his gaze to the corner of the room, and Fit watches as a smirk spreads across Pac’s lips.
Wordlessly, Pac grabs the lapels of Fit’s jacket and tugs him to the corner of the room, and pulls Fit against him, then wraps his arms around Fit’s neck, and pulls him into a fiery kiss, and Fit practically melts into him.
It lasts until they need to break apart for air, and Fit pulls Pac back in as soon as his lungs allow him to.
Somewhere in the distance an alarm sounds, probably signalling that someone finally won first place and got out of the maze, but Fit couldn’t care less.
It’s only when a Keeper appears in their room as if from nowhere, startling the two apart, and Fit immediately misses the feeling of having Pac pressed up against him.
The Keeper tosses a book at his feet.
‘A winner has been crowned. Make your way out of the maze.’
“Dude couldn’t you, like, knock or something?” Fit subtly gestures to Pac, and the Keeper doesn’t move.
‘We know what you’ve been doing.’
“Well it doesn’t take a fucking genius, I told you the only reason i’m here is to get-“
Pac coughs loudly, cutting him off.
Fit winks at him.
The Keeper, still unmoving, tosses another book.
‘Out of the maze. And turn your earpieces back on.’
The figure then disappears.
“Well that’s kinda killed the mood, huh?” Fit laughs, rubbing the back of his neck.
Pac hums. “Kinda,” He nudges his arm against Fit’s. “I enjoyed it whilst it was happening, though.”
“Of course you did, big boy,” Fit chuckles.
Pac winks before switching back on his earpiece, and Fit follows suit.
Almost immediately, Sneeg informs them that they’re some of the last people in the maze, and asks what happened.
He doesn’t receive an answer that makes an ounce of sense.
Tubbo - the first one to exit the maze - announces through the earpiece’s Realm-wide channel that everyone needs to leave the maze urgently to watch him receive his prize, and Sneeg helpfully chips in to explain that his teammates are two of the only people left in the maze.
“This is gonna go well,” Fit mumbles, and Pac laughs.
Sure enough, Tubbo shouts and pretends to gag.
“Get them out right now,” he demands to, most likely, one of the Keepers.
Fit rolls his eyes.
“Suppose we can’t hide in here forever,” Pac shrugs.
“Suppose so,” Fit agrees.
As if on cue, the door to the room swings open, granting access to the next room, and so on.
Pac smiles and takes a step towards the door, but Fit grabs his hand and tugs, causing Pac to spin clumsily into his arms.
They both erupt into laughter, but Fit quickly presses his lips to Pac’s. It’s an addictive habit he’s developed.
“I swear to fucking god if they’re still in there making out or something i’m killing everyone here and then myself,” Tubbo continues ranting through the earpiece. “I’m not having it happen again-“
Fit switches off his earpiece.
“As funny as it would be to see him get his ass handed to him if he tried to kill anyone,” Fit pauses for a moment to imagine it, “We should probably…”
Pac nods. “We should.”
And they make their way out of the maze deliberately slowly, and both burst into laughter upon their first sight with the blindness removed is Tubbo with his arms crossed over his chest, tapping his foot.
“Morning Crew, i’m disappointed in you,” he sighs. “Right, everyone’s here, crown me,” he clicks his fingers at a Keeper, and he’s promptly met with a bolt of lightning from seemingly nowhere.
“Some things never change,” Fit muses, watching as the ball descends into the inevitable chaos of setting up for musical chairs whilst Tubbo runs around dodging bolts of lightning.
“I don’t know,” Pac links his fingers with Fit’s and shuffles closer. “I think change can be a good thing.”
—