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Quackity grew up in a small house in the middle of a large town. It was the kind of house you couldn’t find unless you were looking, the kind of house where the fire escape was the least dangerous method to get to the fourth floor. Both because the stairs were covered in the sticky mess of stale alcohol and various bodily fluids and were missing a few steps here and there, like someone had violently thrown a dozen cannon balls down them, and also because every floor had a gangbanger collecting money or just hanging around, gun in hand.
His mother loved him dearly, tried her hardest to get food on the table; his father was way past his ears in debt with every dealer within a dozen city blocks, and also cared little for the mouths to feed huddled behind the heavy apartment door. The fire escape was safer.
The apartment was not homely by any definition. The sole bedroom had only a full bed and a beat up bullet-riddled wooden dresser. Cobwebs covered every corner, most abandoned, and an old ratted green couch rested against the wall of the living room, always looking ready to fall apart. That was where Quackity slept most nights.
When he was bored and confined to the house for one reason or another, he would take the knife from under Mom’s pillow and pry as many bullets as he could from the wood of the dresser. He kept the mottled metal, long since cooled, in his marker-stained pillowcase, hand gripping them like they could protect him from the very real monsters lurking somewhere outside the front door. Rolling the bits between his fingers distracted him from the hunger pangs twisting his stomach, at least.
By the time he was six, he had learned to spot where the gun was within seconds. In father’s belt, in his front pocket, in the dresser drawer (the slight sag of the left side of the top drawer gave it away.)
He also learned to tell from Mother’s eyes how much food they would have for dinner. If they were sad, there would not be anything. If she smiled when her eyes were sad, there was a little, which she would insist on him eating. He would always leave at least a little for her and insist he wasn’t hungry anymore. She ought to eat it for him. On the rare day, when her eyes were alight with joy, he knew there was enough for the both of them.
Quackity had one comfort, besides the handful of bullets and Mother’s kindness, in all this horror: the white downy wings on his back, kept clean only by meticulous cleaning. They weren’t strong enough to fly yet, but they had to be soon, as soon as the down feathers were replaced with stronger, stiffer ones. That’s what the book on birds at the library had said, he was sure.
He liked his wings, burying his fingers in the soft fluff when he wanted to cry, hiding them away when Mom had to leave and Father was angry. He didn’t like leaving them folded under his long t-shirts and jacket when he went out, but Mom said to always keep them hidden. He understood when he was eight, watching other boys throw rocks at a woman with wooly hair and sheep ears.
Father had added a whole handful of bullets to the dresser, and the men outside had decorated the door and doorframe with them. Quackity wondered if he could pry those from the wood later, and see if they were different from those in the dresser.
For now though, he remained under the bed as close to the corner as he could get without touching Mr. Redeye’s web. He didn’t want to ruin the spider’s home just because Father was angry.
If he had had more time, he would have climbed through the window onto the rusty red-painted stairs, and run up the metal barefoot to the roof. But it had been sudden. Mother was in the kitchen, trying to placate him with what little food they had. By the familiar sound of a breaking bottle, he knew it wasn’t working.
Mother cried out. He couldn’t see the kitchen from here, the door only ajar, letting the dim light flow in but not wide enough to see anything but the stained off-white wallpaper of the hallway.
Father yelled, words too slurred to understand. Another crash and another scream.
Father stumbled into the bedroom eventually, Mom’s screams fading into whimpers as she trailed after him.
He would go to sleep now, and Quackity could crawl out and see if Mom is alright. (That wasn’t what happened.)
Instead, a bony hand reached under, and yanked Quackity out from under the bed. His head hit the wood floor hard enough to send stars through his vision. Whatever happened next, Quackity couldn’t remember.
By the next morning, it had faded into a mess of screaming (from him), yelling (from Father), and pleading (from Mom.) It ended quickly and sharply with the resounding bang of three bullets.
One hit Mother’s chest.
One embedded itself into the wood of the floor, the paneling apparently thin, with concrete underneath, because the bullet was still clearly visible in the floor.
The third ripped through Quackity’s hand. (At least he won’t have to pry that one from the wood with a knife later.)
Father stumbled into bed. Quackity didn’t remember screaming, if he screamed at all. Mom was crying, he distantly realized. He watched Mr. Redeye eat a fly, completely uncaring of the violence occurring mere feet away.
The room smelled like alcohol and cigarette smoke. It always had, and likely always would.
(He woke in a hospital. Mom was dead. They said it had been a break in gone wrong. No one listened to Quackity, with his downy white wings.
The bullets collecting in his pillowcase grew a lot, once he got home and his hand healed enough to be used again. The bullets in the door frame were a lot bigger than the ones in the wardrobe, he found. He liked them better.)
“It’s not his fault.” Mother had whispered once, stroking his hair softly as he fell asleep. “It’s only because he drinks. He wouldn’t hurt us if he didn’t drink.” Years later, Quackity still couldn’t quite convince himself it was a lie.
Technically, he knew it wasn’t true.
Logically, he knew that Mom had only wanted him to love his father. He knew that she had been blinded by her love for him.
And he knew that it was a lie because Father had hit him at twelve, when he’d been sober for two weeks. It had been a lie, but it was so easy to believe, if only because he wanted to.
Quackity met Schlatt at the endorsement speech of the election. The man had smelled of starch and cologne and familiar-but-slightly-not-quite-the-same cigarettes, with dark horns curling around his ears, exhibiting an aura of power. His grip was firm, and his eyes burrowed into Quackity. He had felt small, but not in a bad way, like he felt inferior to the other. He had felt small, because the other man was dangerous and powerful, and while Quackity was by no means weak, he wasn’t quite that strong.
He had been mesmerized by the other man.
When Schlatt suggested pooling their votes, Quackity agreed almost immediately. He hadn’t wanted Wilbur in power, and what better way to ensure that? (Or at least that was what he told himself. It wasn’t because when he’d agreed, Schlatt had smiled, almost all cunning and triumph, but with a spark of genuine joy in his eyes as well.)
He spent a lot of time with the man in the days leading up to the election. George was gone more than he wasn’t, and Schlatt apparently had nothing more important to do.
They didn’t talk of politics, or of much, really, occasionally swapping stories of their time in other servers over drinks.
Quackity remembered when he told the other of his wings. It had been an accident. He’d been a few drinks past tipsy, recounting an adventure in a desert temple, forgetting that he’d used his wings to slow his fall. Schlatt, slightly less drunk, had interrupted immediately.
“Wings?” It had taken Quackity less than a second to sober, panic gripping his heart, because he hadn’t meant to say that, hadn’t meant to tell anyone. But Schlatt was a hybrid, so maybe it would be alright. Quackity took a leap of faith.
“Yeah, I, uh, I have wings. I’m a duck hybrid.”
“Really?” Was it his imagination, or did Schlatt’s eyes harden. “Why do you hide them?”
Quackity shrugged with forced relaxation. “I don’t know. My mom made me hide them when I was little, and I guess I never stopped.”
“Was she human?” He poured himself another glass of wine, and drank the whole thing before answering.
“I don’t know. I doubt it, cause my dad sure as hell wasn’t the hybrid one, and the hospital didn’t give a fuck when she died, but I never saw her with wings.”
“How old were you?” Schlatt’s voice was almost soft, gentle around the edges. Quackity found himself staring at the scar on his hand.
“Six.” His eyes pricked with tears. “I really miss her sometimes, y’know?” Decisions inhibited by the alcohol in his system, he let himself mumble, “Dad really hated my wings.”
Somehow, they ended up sitting side by side on the couch, where they definitely hadn’t before. His head was on Schlatt’s shoulder, and the ram hybrid’s hand was caressing his hair, beanie somehow abandoned, and Quackity was rambling drunkenly about random details of his childhood, the ones he could remember without the fear and grief attached to them overwhelming him.
He woke alone on the couch, with a painful headache. He pulled the beanie back on, hiding his not-quite-human ears.
He couldn’t remember most of what had happened the night before, but fear gripped him tightly, because he knew he’d said too much, and he could only hope Schlatt didn’t tell anyone.
Schlatt hadn’t, and when Quackity asked, he insisted that they had spoken in confidence, so naturally they shouldn’t speak of it to others.
And maybe Quackity let himself fall a little harder for a man who wouldn’t spill his secrets even though he hadn’t asked them to be kept.
They spent quite a few nights after that just chatting, alone, and maybe it evolved into light touches, and soft caresses, and gentle kisses.
Later, after the election, after Schlatt was inaugurated as president, with Quackity as his vice, and after Wilbur and Tommy were officially, but not quite fully, banished, they sat together once more.
Wilbur and Tommy were still hiding out somewhere in L’manberg, something Schlatt seemed furious at. But it was alright, because they could drink away their problems for the night.
Schlatt’s anger didn’t fade with the alcohol.
Quackity was hyper aware of the gun in the newly elected president’s pocket, but it remained firmly there the entire night. Schlatt ranted and yelled, but not at Quackity, and he didn’t raise his hands to break anything.
Maybe Quackity was wrong for seeing his father in Schlatt sometimes.
Schlatt was different from Father, after all. Quackity began searching for all those little differences, just to reassure himself. (He was just getting over his trauma, making sure it wouldn’t affect any more of his relationships.)
His office still reeked of alcohol and cigarettes, but neither was quite the same because while Father had always liked beer, Schlatt preferred wine, and Schlatt didn’t buy the same brand of cigarettes that Father had. (The difference was never enough for him to forget, but it was enough to let him know there was a difference between the two.)
Only when Schlatt was completely lost in his anger did the bottles start flying. And it wasn’t at Quackity, so it didn’t matter. The horned man was clearly making an effort not to hurt Quackity, even when he couldn’t control his anger.
The glass in the carpet was darker than the shards that had covered the floor at home.
And even if Schlatt ever did start throwing the bottles at Quackity, the ram hybrid didn’t hold the same kind of power over Quackity that Father had. Quackity had three full meals every day, regardless of what Schlatt did.
Father hadn’t been a hybrid; Quackity had inherited his wings from Mom. Maybe she had lost hers, or maybe she had different traits. Schlatt couldn’t even hide his horns.
In private, Quackity allowed his wings a little freedom, letting Schlatt see that they were not so different. The feathers didn’t make the man angry. If anything, he seemed pleased to see them. (Schlatt wasn’t like Father. Not at all.)
Schlatt got angrier, consecutively every night, and maybe he began losing the minimal self-control that had kept Quackity clinging to his lies. (Schlatt wasn’t like Father. Not quite.)
When Schlatt was angry, he didn’t pull Quackity’s feathers.
(The grip on his hair was tight, pulling his head to the side so Schlatt could whisper drunkenly in his ear. His wings were left alone. That was what Quackity decided to focus on.)
The bullets in Schlatt’s gun were different, he was sure, despite never having dug one from a floor or wall or dresser.
(He stared down the barrel, completely aware that a single bullet would rip away one of his lives. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, a near-painful reminder of the fear gripping his heart far too tightly. It was the only discernible emotion he could feel. Whatever clouded in Schlatt’s eyes though, was barely even anger, as Quackity obediently dropped to his knees.)
Schlatt didn’t drag a million additional threats behind him; he didn’t have a couple dozen gangbangers after him on the regular for debts he hadn’t paid yet.
(Dream turned, and Quackity was certain he was eyeing the bruise under Quackity’s right ear, that everyone except maybe Tubbo knew what it meant, before turning back to Schlatt.
Quackity’s face didn’t burn in shame or embarrassment. His shoulders just curled inward a little. Dream didn’t hold the axe to Quackity’s throat, like he had expected him to do. The admin knew a liability when he saw one, and knew Quackity would never be that for Schlatt.)
On the good days, where Schlatt only smelled of cigarettes and cologne, he smiled and it wasn’t manipulative. His eyes sparkled with joy when he glanced at Quackity, as he launched into the explanation of a plan for Manberg.
Quackity smiled back, focusing more on the fluffy ears and the joyful expression than the words being spoken.
Some days, Quackity might even call it love, both if he was asked and in the private recesses of his mind.
When Schlatt wasn’t angry, he hesitantly reached for the white feathers, no longer downy like they had been when Quackity was young, but still silky, and waited for a nod before burying his fingers in Quackity’s wings. He would whisper about how soft the feathers were under his touch, as Quackity melted into a puddle of warmth and comfort.
(When he was, Quackity kept his jacket zipped to his neck and pulled his shirt down as far as he could, and Schlatt spat insults Quackity had hardened to by the age of ten. It didn’t mean they didn’t hurt anymore, but being called a whore was far from new.)
When he wasn’t angry, on late nights when his breath was still tinged with wine, but not enough to be frightening, he let Quackity play with his hair and stroke his horns. He told Quackity of the years before he joined the Dream SMP, of years spent climbing his way to the top, despite the pain his horns brought him. (When he was angry, he said that Quackity was weak for hiding his wings, that any hybrid in existence would be ashamed of him for hiding something so integral to his identity.)
When he wasn’t drunk, his lips were soft, if still sure, and his touch was gentle, his grip not bruising. When Schlatt wasn’t drunk, Quackity craved it, addicted to kindness that would flip on its head like a coin the moment Schlatt reached for a drink. (He’d never realized quite how easy it was to blame the bottle instead of the hand throwing it.)
When Schlatt wasn’t drunk, he whispered of how much he cared, of how gorgeous Quackity looked that night, of how happy he was to have Quackity on his side.
Quackity let himself fall in love and let himself care. (He blamed the bottle for the pain he endured, and let himself forget when it was out of sight.)
Quackity wasn’t guarding Schlatt’s office door from the corner of the hallway. Nope. Definitely not. When Tubbo stepped towards the door with some papers, a stack of forms he should have finished the day before, Quackity was there only by chance.
“I’ll take them in for you.” Only because he was already going in. “Why don’t you go work on the walls with Fundy, okay?” (The walls were too far from the office. Tubbo would be very far away from Schlatt.)
(Inside the office doors, Schlatt was too drunk to even stand up straight, but he stumbled towards Quackity regardless, gun in hand. The duck hybrid reached back to lock the door.)
(If Tubbo’s papers were found later where they should have been the day before, hidden under today’s pages, it was called efficient organizing.)
“Tubbo, where the hell have you been?” Schlatt had had one glass of wine, Quackity was sure. His voice was stern, his words firm, not slurred.
His breathing stopped for a short moment, as he moved towards the office door, Fundy beside him. Schlatt was seated, hands folded in front of him, eyes sharp with anger.
Tubbo fidgetted, fingers twisting with each other as he refused to meet Schlatt’s eyes.
“Well, um, well, Schlatt, you see…” He stuttered. The boy wasn’t nearly as sneaky as he had hoped, and his constant disappearing was suspicious even to those who weren’t working with him directly.
Contrary to the apparent popular belief, Quackity wasn’t stupid. He knew exactly where Tubbo had been. It hadn’t mattered, really. What could Tubbo possibly do to hurt Manberg, when it was only Wilbur, Tommy, and Tubbo on the opposing side.
Schlatt couldn’t know though. Schlatt wouldn’t see it logically, would take it as a personal betrayal instead of an unwillingness to lose his closest friend.
“He was with Fundy. I sent him to help with the wall so it would be torn down ahead of schedule. And so we could spend some time together, you know?” He winked at the sheep hybrid, setting down his papers. He turned slightly, so Schlatt couldn’t see his face, and glared at the fox hybrid, daring him to disagree.
“Yes.” Fundy nodded, glancing between the three in confusion, a certain fear flickering with his ears. “It’s all gone, by the way. We just finished.” Quackity wondered if the fox could smell the wine like he could. (Schlatt’s gun was under a few pages, easily in reach, safety on but loaded.)
Schlatt seemed to believe him. (If Schlatt ever found out, Quackity would be in serious trouble. He wasn’t going to let Tubbo get hurt though.)
He watched the man he had let himself love fall into an angry spiral, where he was drunk more nights than he wasn’t.
Still, nothing could quite prepare himself for the Festival. (Worst of all, Schlatt wasn’t drunk, not even slightly tipsy. His breath was still tinged with smoke and nicotine, but not wine.)
Quackity stuck to Schlatt’s side for nearly the entire festival. Later, he wouldn’t know for sure why. Maybe he’d known, instinctually, that something would go terribly wrong, or maybe he’d known that a sober Schlatt was unpredictable, or maybe Schlatt being sober was just a harbinger for whatever he had planned.
Still, it was completely unexpected when Tubbo was trapped on stage, and Schlatt was calling Technoblade up to the podium.
Technoblade was a hybrid, but he was the kind of hybrid who emulated everything that humans insisted hybrids were: angry, uncontrollable, violent, dangerous. He was the kind of man that had been called a monster, and proved them right. Quackity didn’t really hate him for it, after all, Technoblade wasn’t the reason people hurt Quackity. They were roughly the same age, how could he be?
But Quackity needed to protect Tubbo here, and Technoblade seemed so ready to give in and kill a child.
“Schlatt, please don’t do this. He’s just a kid, okay? He’s only sixteen. Kids mess up all the time. That’s how they learn. But you can’t kill him. He’s a kid.” He pleaded, his voice a whisper, because if anyone else heard, then it wouldn’t matter. “You have him trapped, and we can imprison him, but please don’t kill him. He’s a hybrid like us.” Maybe Schlatt didn’t care at all, because he just glared.
He glared like Quackity was only in his way, eyes colder than Quackity had ever imagined they could be. He wanted to sink into the floor and die, just to escape Schlatt’s gaze. But Quackity couldn’t afford to back down. Not when it was Tubbo’s life on the line.
“Come on, man. He doesn’t deserve to lose a life this young.” He tried, meeting Schlatt’s gaze with his own determination. Schlatt swung once.
It hit Quackity’s cheek, sending a jarring pain through his head. It would bruise within the hour.
Quackity had been hit a lot growing up, after Mom wasn’t around to take the blows for him anymore. The punch hurt, and smarted like the skin had broken from Schlatt’s ring, because it likely had. But it wasn’t anywhere near the pain he’d endured for weeks when his hand got infected and he’d nearly had to have it amputated. It wasn’t anything Quackity couldn’t take unflinchingly.
He wasn’t a little kid anymore, who would topple from a slap on the side of his head, tears flowing like rivers from his eyes.
His head snapped violently to the side from the punch, and his neck ached from the force, but he didn’t even stumble back. He was lucky that he didn’t, because he would likely have fallen from the podium onto the ground below, through the glass and into the water.
And every instinct in his body told him to back down and run, because Schlatt was going to hurt him, but he couldn’t leave Tubbo to the man’s wrath. He wasn’t going to abandon the kid. (Was this what Mom felt when she protected him? The need to run and flee, but to be tethered to the pain by a child they couldn’t bear to abandon.)
(But this wasn’t Tubbo’s fault. He wouldn’t blame him.)
“Please don’t do this, Schlatt.”
“Kill him Technoblade.”
The explosion rang in his ears, quickly followed by a second one. His skin and wings burned, and he cried out in pain, in that last moment before he respawned.
Consciousness came suddenly, like a large wave crashing over him, choking him with its suddenness.
He was still burning, exploding from a firework, but he didn’t have time to waste. Tubbo would respawn in the festival, and Quackity wasn’t sure that Schlatt would be satisfied with one death.
He grabbed a bag from under his bed, waving automatically to the spider in the corner, and ran. (He didn’t have it for any particular reason. Everyone had a bag filled with clothes, canned food and basic supplies under their bed. Just because. Not that he’d ever need to run.)
The Festival was chaos. Quackity didn’t know for certain who was on what side, so he avoided everyone, making a beeline to where Tubbo would respawn, hopefully not screaming.
The brunet was gasping, hands clutching his chest, frozen on the bed. He would be in no state to travel.
He was running out of options. Schlatt or one of his friends would come any second to find them. He pulled off his suit jacket and shirt, barely stretching his wings before he scooped up the panicking boy and flew.
It wasn’t euphoric, like it had always been before. Quackity was operating more on the post-respawn adrenaline daze than actual thought.
“It’s okay. You’re alive. He’s not going to hurt you.” It was all meaningless, but Tubbo seemed comforted by his words, so he kept speaking. (He’d endure his own panic from the death later, in the dark hours of the night, alone, but he couldn’t leave Tubbo to suffer like that alone. “You’re going to go live with Tommy now.”
Quackity didn’t know the way to Pogtopia, but he knew how to find it, if he took the tunnel and dug around enough. It wasn’t as easy as it looked. All the walls looked the same, stone, and andesite, and granite, and more stone.
And he had to walk, because the tunnel wasn’t high enough, and he might miss it if went too fast. Tubbo was heavy in his arms, despite clinging to him like Quackity was his last lifeline.
“It’s okay. You’re almost home.”
Tubbo found the wall, as it turned out. Quackity slipped through, and set Tubbo down on some steps with the bag.
“You’re home now, Tubbo, okay? Tommy will be here soon, and it’s going to be okay.” He ruffled the boy’s hair, avoiding the small horns hidden in the fluff.
“Where are you going?” Tubbo asked, as Quackity moved back to the tunnel.
“I have some stuff to take care of.”
“You’ll come back though, right? He hurt you.”
“I’m okay. He was just really mad. It wasn’t your fault.”
“But it was my fault.” Tubbo protested. And Quackity could see himself telling Tubbo the same lies he’d been told every time he asked about Father’s anger.
(It’s just because he drinks.)
(He doesn’t know what he’s doing.)
(He didn’t mean to.)
“No, it wasn’t. You were just helping out a friend.”
“I betrayed Manberg.” His eyelids fell closed for a moment. Quackity smiled.
“It’s okay. You were just helping your friends.” He didn’t wait until Tubbo was asleep, though he wanted to. Instead, he slipped back into the tunnel and patched up the wall before flying back to Manberg as fast as he could.
(He might need to pack another emergency bag soon. Just because everyone else did it too, and no other reason.)
(Tubbo was safe. Quackity didn’t need to worry about anyone but himself now.)
Quackity’s steps were near silent as he crept to his bedroom. The house was silent, until his bedroom door creaked open as he stepped through.
He flicked the light on.
Schlatt was sitting on the bed, with all of the calm arrogance he always projected. The pride Quackity had admired in him.
“Where have you been.” Schlatt said slowly, his voice hard. Quackity didn’t know quite what to do in this situation.
“I was out looking for Tubbo. I figured we would want him out of L’Manberg so he didn’t take anything on his way out.”
“Really.” Schlatt glared. Clearly he didn’t believe him. “Then explain to me why you were always covering for Tubbo when he was missing. Explain to me how you somehow always knew where Tubbo was. You have your wings out. You never take them out! You betrayed me!” Quackity saw the fist coming, but he didn’t dodge on instinct. It would only make Schlatt angrier.
He wasn’t supposed to take this lying down anymore. He had promised himself that, hadn’t he? He had wanted to run, but he couldn’t because Tubbo would be in danger. But Tubbo was safe in Pogtopia now. (Why didn’t Quackity want to leave)
Quackity wasn’t the best at fighting. Growing up where he had, he’d been in his fair share of fist fights, and even a couple of knife fights. But he’d always been better at running. Throw a few punches, rip off his jacket, and shirt if he could, if he couldn’t he’d just rip it, and fly away. Or just run if he didn’t have time. If he was too outnumbered.
He was good at running. He’d done a lot of it, running from his dad, from a particularly pissed dealer, random kids from the neighborhood who had seen his wings and knew they could get away with pounding him into the concrete if any officials bothered to get involved, said officials who would always blame Quackity for the fight, random store employees when Quackity was hungry enough to try shoplifting again.
He was quick and nimble, even without the wings, and if he really needed the exit, well, there was always the sky.
If Quackity was cornered, he could throw a punch, and he could almost always take a few back.
Schlatt was more of a diplomat than a soldier, but his pride had never let him turn tail and flee. He’d learned to work his way out of an evenly matched fight, if he couldn’t talk his way out of it.
When Schlatt started fighting, and Quackity resolved to fight back, he still knew he would lose. (Maybe that was why he lost. If you think you will fall, you will fall, and all that?)
It didn’t come as much of a shock when he found himself pinned to the ground, with Schlatt above him, still throwing a fist towards his face. He went limp.
It was another one of his stupid habits that he’d learned. If he went limp, they would stop, because murder was serious enough of a charge to go on their record, even if Quackity was a hybrid.
It had almost always worked in the past, and it did this time too. The fist met his broken nose, but the blows stopped after that.
“Don’t you dare fucking play dead, you stupid idiot.” His eyes snapped open at the sound of the safety of a gun flicking off.
He found himself staring up the short barrel of Schlatt’s Glock to meet the angry brown eyes of the President.
This wasn’t like every other time he’d stared down the barrel. His life was actually in danger this time. (Maybe. Schlatt had never shot him before, but this was different than those other times.)
Quackity watched his finger move towards the trigger; he had only a moment to react. He grabbed the barrel and forced it away, slamming his head up to meet Schlatt’s.
He twisted the gun from Schlatt’s hold as hard as he could.
He wouldn’t survive if he didn’t succeed. The gun fell into his hands, and he scrambled to hold it in Schlatt’s face. His hands were clammy against the cool metal, trembling visibly. He gripped the gun tighter to try and make it stop. It did nothing.
For once in his life, he wasn’t on the receiving end of the gun. He found he hated this just as much.
His back was still to the carpet, Schlatt still on his legs, wiping away a small trickle of blood from his nose.
“You’re a lot more like my dad than I wanted to admit.” He glared, more out of fear than any anger he could hold toward Schlatt. “You’re not human like he was, but you’re just as horrible. You only hurt and use the people who love you.”
“Quackity.” Schlatt’s eyes flashed with what Quackity could almost mistake as hurt. But it was only hatred. (If he let himself believe that Schlatt cared, he would only get hurt. Like Mom had.) “Give me the gun.” He didn’t seem scared. Like he knew Quackity wouldn’t, or maybe he knew he still had another life to fall back on. “You don’t want to do this.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” Quackity snapped. Schlatt was dangerous. He couldn’t be trusted. If Quackity listened for even a moment, Schlatt would take the gun, and he’d be trapped and unarmed beneath Schlatt.
(He wasn’t going to give in. He wasn’t going to look at Schlatt’s eyes, because no matter how much anger and hatred he saw, he would only see hurt and love.)
(Wasn’t that the real problem here? That Quackity saw love where it didn’t exist, and an open wound where it had long festered and scarred.)
“Come on, baby. I wasn’t going to shoot you. I never have before. You know that.” (That was true. Quackity could attest to that. He’d always known Schlatt was dangerous, but who had told Quackity that Schlatt was dangerous to him?)
(Was he really all that dangerous? He’d never seriously threatened Quackity’s life. Not like Father had.)
“Just put the gun down and we can talk about this.” He looked at Schlatt, seriously, for the first time since he’d gotten home.
Blood was smeared under his nose from where Quackity had slammed his head, he had a small bruise on his jaw, and his lips had split a little. He was still the picture of power and grace, even with his suit wrinkled. His hair was still perfect, his smile still charming, his eyes still gleaming dangerously.
(He didn’t look as angry as Quackity had expected. He was still clearly angry, and there was no way in hell he would tolerate Quackity’s behavior without some form of punishment, but he didn’t look like he wanted to kill him.)
(Quackity would know that, right? He’d stared in the faces of people who had genuinely wanted him dead before. It had been more common than any other expression in his youth, hadn’t it?)
(He could apologize here, give over the gun, and everything would go back to normal. Schlatt wouldn’t kill Quackity, and Tubbo was long gone, so what was the harm?)
(Wouldn’t that be giving up, though? Giving in to Schlatt, and losing any shred of self-esteem he had left?)
“If I put down the gun, do you promise you won’t kill me?”
(What kind of idiot did he need to be to try and bargain with this man? This was far too dangerous. He needed to escape now. Schlatt couldn’t be trusted.)
(Schlatt had always kept his secrets, without ever needing to be asked.)
Of course, baby. You know I could never kill you. I love you. Besides, you’re way too pretty.” (Schlatt wasn’t even drunk right now. That had been half the danger, hadn’t it? He had smelled of apple and cologne and cigarettes, but not a trace of alcohol, when he’d entered the room.)
(Schlatt had hit him when sober. He’d done it less than two minutes ago.)
(But that didn’t count, because Quackity had hit him back, evident by the blood on the President’s face. It was just a fight.)
(He ignored that blood was definitely still dripping from his own face, that his bruises would be significantly larger and darker in the morning, that copper was all he could taste or smell now, that he likely had a few cuts on his face from Schlatt’s ring.)
“I promise.” Schlatt looked trustworthy, and Quackity could put his faith in that, couldn’t he? If he tossed the gun into the hallway, there wouldn’t be any danger anyway.
It clattered against the wall, echoing in the empty hallway, though there was no one else to hear it.
“Now, why don’t you explain to me where you were, and why you didn’t tell me Tubbo was the traitor.” Schlatt didn’t move from where he sat on Quackity’s legs, didn’t suggest that maybe they should clean off the blood and patch themselves up.
(Maybe that meant it would be pointless, because there would be more blood to follow. Maybe it just meant Schlatt was impatient to know what had happened.)
(What did it really matter? He didn’t look murderous anymore.)