Chapter Text
xi.
He thought he was done with caring about the cameras once he'd moved into the victor's village and gotten that same plastic circle Schlatt wore punched into his side.
But he stood across from Schlatt in the narrow hallway of his walk-in refrigerator attached to his greenhouse clutching onto a document he'd been given. A script. A statement. Requirements. A contract he'd never signed. He saw a score on the top right. He'd lived there three days so far, he saw that score every time he woke up. The number had stayed steady.
He had avoided Schlatt. He'd avoided leaving his small home altogether. He thought he could just stay there and obsessively scrub at his hands and avoid looking at himself in the mirror and finally let every painful corner of his body catch up to him.
But he saw that score. Dreaded it would get lower. He received the instructions. And he finally sought out Schlatt.
In the refrigerator, Schlatt was reorganizing the shelves nearby. His breath huffed out in cold smoke from his nose and mouth in the chilled air.
"I don't understand," said Quackity finally. He lowered the document. "Are you saying it's not over?"
Schlatt pushed a box on a higher shelf with a huff. "Entertainment doesn't end at just the games," he said. "Gotta keep 'em fresh until the next one gets real popular."
"So what you're saying is for a whole year- I have to…" He didn't want to say it outloud.
"Better than prostitution," said Schlatt. He stuck his hands into the front pocket of the apron he wore.
"Look, I don't think you understand, Schlatt. I have to let you fuck me." Quackity smacked the paper with a hand. "Literally it's what's on the tin. I don't- Jesus Christ- I don't want that. That was all just to win. I'm done with that. I'm done with this." He held the document up for emphasis. "I don't care about this stuff anymore."
"What, uh-" Schlatt leaned against some shelving his hands still in the apron pocket. "What exactly do you think happens if you don't keep your score up, huh?"
"I don't know, alright. Why do we have a belonging score anyway? What- what the fuck is this? I thought I was. I'm a victor end of story."
Schlatt had turned back to the shelving. He was flipping up labels to read them better. He fished in his apron pocket and took out a pair of fogged reading glasses.
"Schlatt, this is serious, alright," said Quackity. "You have to tell me what happens."
They both looked up to the cameras in the corners of the refrigerator.
Schlatt sighed. He took the glasses off. "Fine, come on it's cold as dick in here anyway."
They headed out to the warmed body of the small greenhouse. A clear paneled roof overhead let the sun in.
"I've been there you know," said Schlatt. "If your scores low and all. It's like a center for people who are threats. It's not like a prison on the outside, you know. They treat you like you're mentally unfit and all that shit. They fuck with your head. I met a uh- a guy there who I would rant to about all the stuff I was expected to do after I won. My script was it was fucked. For a year I had to be well-" Schlatt gestured at Quackity. "You know I told you. I had to be some fucking trophy guy and this- this guy in the center. Holy shit. They fucking killed him. There was nothing behind his eyes. He's a permanent resident, you get that? Dude won the games and they fucked him. So I left that shit hole and did what they wanted and fucked who they wanted me to. I even acted how they wanted me to. And now things are you know," Schlatt ran a hand through the curls of his hair. "A little more okay," he said, sighing.
"But you can't get that time back. I mean they made you, Schlatt. You were forced to do all that. To- to do this." He held up the document.
"Jeez, no fucking shit. God, Quackity look at where you're standing right now."
Quackity looked down at his feet like the answer might be there. Like he wouldn't see a drain ran across the hard floor or dirt and fallen leaves at his feet.
"You see the kicker is you won. Great, fucking congrats, you're a real god damn victor. You survived. You live in this place now. But you know what- I think it's all a fucking power play, you know. You'll never actually be one of them." Schlatt gestured to one of the opaque walls of the greenhouse where the village where the rest of the Capitol waited beyond it. "I mean, Jesus, look at you- lift your fucking shirt, big guy and take a look."
Quackity lifted his shirt. He leveled a stare at Schlatt.
"They got yous tagged and chipped like cattle for fucks sake. That's a symbol, alright. You're stuck with the rest of us. You don't got to worry about a thing as long as you dance a little bit right?"
"Jesus, Schlatt- this isn't exactly fucking paradise."
"Naw, the first year isn't." Schlatt mumbled back.
He picked up a broom leaned against the table tops that held the younger, nursing berry bushes.
"Welcome to the land of the eternally damned, Quackity." Schlatt swept at some of the leaves.
Quackity stared down at the paper in his hands. At the score.
He was done with scores. He'd been done with scores.
"Don't get me wrong," Schlatt said as he swept some fallen leaves into a pile. "It ain't all bad. District life is a helluva lot worse." He paused. He rested his arms on the broom and watched Quackity. "I think about it like this. I won my games. I chose to be here. So I paid up for a year. And now it's your turn," Schlatt gestured with an open hand at him.
"Jesus," Quackity was lost for words.
Schlatt stood up straight. He held the broom by his side as if he was going to simply walk off with it. "So, what's it gonna be?'
"I don't know. I'd rather do literally anything else."
Schlatt shrugged. "There's always getting your brain fucking blasted, I guess."
"Fine." Quackity made his decision. It was only one year.
"Fine?"
"Fucking fine. I'll do it. I'll do what they want. But- I need a way to have some control, alright. Like otherwise- I'll just- I'll check myself into that god damn center, alright."
"Okay," Schlatt said, speaking slowly.
Quackity swore he looked like he was blushing. A light pink dusted high on his face. It might have just been the humid heat of the greenhouse. It might have been the alcohol he'd seen him drinking before he'd followed him into the walk-in refrigerator.
"So what?" Schlatt continued not waiting for Quackity to speak. "You wanna figure out where there's no god damn cameras?"
And they did. There were a few spaces. The shed of Schlatt's greenhouse. And the bathrooms in their private living space. And the balconies that hung off the low tower at the center of victor's village.
In those spaces Quackity could be himself. He smothered Schlatt against the must and dirt of the shed floor as he felt that device punched in his side beep as his heart rate climbed. He could dig his nails into Schlatt's scalp and hold him down and in place as he spat insults at him.
They didn't use the balcony for those types of meetings. They only talked there. And Schlatt was allowed to bandage him or clean him or hold him in a way he wasn't supposed to in front of the cameras. Mostly they'd just sit side by side. Quackity would grab Schlatt's wrist. Grab the drink in his hand or the cigarette and let it seep liquid smoke and fire into his lungs.
It was not unlike the sting he felt back in the arena.
This game he had to play for a year however, it was different.
In the shed. In the bathroom over hard tile. Schlatt was the only one who was stripped and made naked. He was the one meant to be degraded and underneath Quackity. He seemed blank and too soft when he was at Quackity's feet.
Outside those spaces Quackity was the one to go limp.
He'd let Schlatt stay mostly clothed. Let him randomly start. Even if they were in the greenhouse or in the middle of simply talking. He'd know when to suddenly go quiet. He knew when to watch Schlatt warily and shed his clothes. He'd let him push him over nursery tabletops. He'd hide his face and the anger he wore when he just wanted everything to be over. He would never let Schlatt see his face.
Schlatt didn't care.
It was mutual. Something clinical and wiped clean. Stripped of much feeling besides Quackity breathing harshly in phantom pain and Schlatt trying to muffle how it felt to be inside of him.
Every time it was over they didn't touch each other at first. Often Schlatt drank too much. The first several times Quackity stone walled him with silence. He wouldn't even meet his eyes.
Other times the second Schlatt dragged him into a bathroom or the shed Quackity would suddenly stop letting himself be dragged.
He would punch and tear and throw Schlatt against the wall. Against a shelf. Against a towel rack or a sink counter. He'd stand there and watch him fall and stay unflinching when everything smashed and shattered onto the ground.
He never moved to help Schlatt. He never pushed broken glass away from him.
Schlatt would just lay there and stare at him in the seconds before Quackity would roughly haul him back up on his feet. Standing again. Quackity immediately and roughly pushed him back down to his knees each time. Hard onto the shattered glass or hard floor or into the dirt.
Quackity would pull cruelly at his hair and Schlatt would just look at him or bury his face and hide his expression against him as his hands clutched around the back of his thighs and his shoulders shook.
Often he'd curse and tear Schlatt's hands off of him. He'd leave and be turned on and break whatever he could find at the frustration he couldn't touch himself, couldn't even get off alone without it being painful. And he'd enter that space again. Walked over bathroom tile or a dirt shed floor again. He'd find Schlatt waiting like he expected him to come back. And he'd make him undress. Strip him of his clothing and push him, bent over against the ground.
And Quackity would leave first. And they'd do it all over again.
Eventually in those moments outside the cameras they were just calm. They laid on the floor or sat opposite to one another in the bathroom of one of their small homes.
Quackity had learned to relax at the right time when Schlatt would roughly grab him and turn him. They both stopped making a sound. Stopped feeling anything at all.
It made the aftermath easier. It made sitting with Schlatt and talking to him easier too.
Once they sat across the bathroom of Quackity's home.
Schlatt spoke first. "It feels like I'm just raping you. Every time. You don't even move and I fuck- I just I'm literally- I sound like a god damn animal. And you just go limp."
Quackity stared at Schlatt's hands where he clasped them over his lap. The knuckles were strained white.
"Like you're fucking dead," Schlatt said before going quiet.
"You are raping me," said Quackity. And he didn't think it was worth it to say anything else when no one was watching.
It didn't hurt to say. It was only fact.
It would be a year of fact for him.
On the day after the conversation Quackity pushed Schlatt to the floor of the greenhouse shed. Schlatt laid among the dust and earth smell, curled like maybe if he didn't move he wouldn't have to get up and make Quackity bleed anymore.
Quackity stood and watched him as the dust swirled everytime Schlatt breathed over the ground.
"I don't want to, you know," Schlatt said. "I don't want this. I know the Capitol is like-" He trailed off. He looked small as he curled in on himself more.
Quackity turned. He walked away casually. He couldn't watch him or face him anymore. Instead, he picked up a stack of pots from the ground. He hauled them up to a small cluttered work bench press against the wall and begin to try and pry them free from one another. It was one of many small chores that often went neglected on the tiny berry farm.
The door to the shed wasn't latched. They hadn't closed it entirely behind them. It clacked against the wide frame where it was ajar. The only other sound was the small AC unit whirring at the single window of the shed.
Quackity finally seperated the innermost nursery pot from the rest. Long since trapped water and dirt wiped across his fingers. He shoved it to the back of the work bench.
He heard a sigh behind him. "I know they're all backwards fucks."
Quackity grabbed at the rim of the pots still fused together. He didn't tense at Schlatt's voice. He grew frustrated quickly. His wet fingers clawed and pried. He stayed quiet as Schlatt kept speaking.
"Or traditionalists or whatever the fuck else. But I just-"
Quackity slammed the conjoined pots down cutting him off with a loud bang against the wood work bench."What? Just say it, Schlatt."
He was starting become fatigued at the anger he felt Everytime after. He wished he could turn around. He wished it was possible for him to kneel beside Schlatt and say that it hurt too much to do anything else.
He let go of the pots. Gave up on them and turned around.
Schlatt's back faced him. He was covered in dirt, laid out on his side.
Quackity watched his ribcage rise and fall with each exhale.
He looked small and wane.
Quackity wondered when Schlatt had stopped eating.
"I'd rather do what you want to." Schlatt clarified. His back still turned. Quackity watched him shift. Watched his shoulders and the shoes he wore drag across the shed floor. "I don't actually have a problem getting hard. Trust me, I know it's funny as fuck to make fun of me. It's hilarious," It was like he'd tried to jump into being teasing. But realized he was curled up laid on the ground unable to face Quackity and his voice dropped and wavered again. "I uh don't. I don't. Unless I drink a fuck ton, you know. I lie about it cause I don't like the reminders of it all..."
Quackity turned and grabbed the pots again. He wrenched at them. Hit them against the table. He got them free and tossed them to the back of the workbench. All three of them collided and scattered away. He grabbed for one and clutched the plastic. He wanted to make more noise. He wanted to see Schlatt flinch where he laid down because it was the only time he was allowed to do tha. He wished he could do it outside of small corners where the Capitol couldn't see.
He wished he didn't have to.
He turned back around and held that pot and it was quiet. The metal lock on the shed clacked as the door swung closed and open in tiny movements. The AC fan whirred as he watched Schlatt's back. He swore he saw it move more than just a breath. He saw Schlatt's shoulder shake.
Quackity wanted to make noise. He didn't know what else to do.
He wanted to be the only one in pain.
Quackity sat down on the ground behind Schlatt's shoulders. He didn't touch him or move to brush the dirt off. He didn't make him turn.
When Schlatt finally spoke again he said, "I wish my body wasn't like this…" It took awhile for him to speak again. He dragged himself away from Quackity a fraction. "If it was different I wouldn't have to, they wouldn't want to see it."
Quackity stared at the sliver of open door. To the small greenhouse, the berry farm that waited outside.
He said nothing.
A month passed.
Quackity had found a headspace. He thought about his birds as he was fucked into the hard stone floor. He hated that he saw Schlatt above him if he turned his face to the side.
Another day in the shed and Quackity cleaned the dirt off his forearms. He stood away from where Schlatt had his arms curled around his knees. He was on the ground where he usually was.
"What do you think about when I'm-" Schlatt breathed out a sigh. The words must have been hard to find. To form. "Like you look…"
"The birds. The one's back home."
Schlatt didn't make further comment.
That night all Quackity heard was him puking after he invited him to stay in his home. They hadn't touched one another. They had merely talked more. Schlatt had drank the whole way through.
Quackity found Schlatt shaking and sweating curled on the ground in that space no camera could find him.
Quackity sat near him. He didn't touch him. He wished he could tell him he also felt the same. He wished he still had the capacity to feel sick.
Maybe he lost that part of himself before the games. He knew he had lost the rest of it after.
He tried to imagine who he would be in a year. What would be left of him.
xii.
Quackity hadn't met the other victors. He stuck to his home in the village. He was at least given his own little home. Every victor stayed in the village. They had their own little town like an island away from the world. They didn't need to step onshore again; they could remain offshore for a whole year. They were expected to.
Quackity thought about Sam often in his lonely home. He wondered when the Capitol had changed the rules when they had become jealous of the districts taking back their little victors. He thought about the districts of higher numbers. He knew their victors were always central in rebellions.
They were now all locked in the Capitol like prized jewels in a vault. They were rendered harmless. Snipped and lazy and obsessed with belonging scores and hiding away and drowning themselves in whatever made them forget their families who waited back home and the arena.
Quackity at least had Schlatt. He had him in the way the capitol wanted and a way they could not take away from him.
They couldn't taint or take away the moments when he and Schlatt simply talked. Together perched on balconies trapped by steel bars, a cage so they couldn't throw themselves off the edge.
"They've thought of everything," mumbled Quackity on the balcony one night.
"Yeah, yeah," Schlatt had a cigarette. He'd never seen him smoke during the games. He watched the end ignite and glow orange in the half darkness. The capitol was bright and well lit the tower seemed to sway under them the little home of the village the victors stayed in waited below. Schlatt's splicing greenhouse. A much bigger botanical garden. A large and empty pool. It was paradise. There was always food. They could ask for whatever they needed.
But the people, the victors, dispersed like shy ants. They dodged around one another or hung out in pairs and trios or solo.
"Who's the uh- the weird near dead looking guy with the yellow sweater by the way? I'm trying to learn all their names or remember them from old games. I just don't remember him at all."
"He's from the year before mine," said Schlatt. He was looking at the stars. The Capitol's lights almost washed them out. "You should know him, he's also from district 2. He's Wilbur Soot."
"Wait the Wilbur Soot. Dude, every career I knew over sixteen was always talking about that guy. They'd fucking fawn over him like- like they knew him. Like they'd win the games and date him or something."
"Yeah, mm, not gonna lie to you, that's pretty cringe. Did uh- you have a crush on him too?" Schlatt casually asked.
"What the hell? No. Never. I wasn't into the- that sort of thing. Also he looks literally half-fucking dead."
"Yeah, yeah. Just stay away from him. Dude's got a massive fucking complex."
"You say that about everyone."
Schlatt took a hit from the cigarette. There were no cameras here. He looked tired. Quackity kept his distance where he sat. His hips hurt when he shifted in his chair he'd dragged onto the balcony. He winced and looked down and pulled at his loose pants dragging them down until they were clinging to his upper thighs.
Schlatt looked down at him. Just a red-brown glance. He stubbed the cigarette out like it didn't matter and entered the tower through a sliding door behind them.
Him and Schlatt hung out on the floor with a gym most nights.
Quackity's home was too empty.
Schlatt's was too full of all the things Quackity wanted to forget.
He'd started noticing claw marks in the furniture in the simple upholstery of his couch. He'd put his clothes back on and stare at them and he'd find Schlatt in the bathroom of his home and they'd begin the silent ritual away from the cameras in the corners of his worn home.
When they left. Sometimes alone. Mostly together like Schlatt didn't know what else to do but silently followed and silently grieved beside him, he'd glance over at that couch. And Quakcity knew he would see the deep lines being torn from the fabric.
When Schlatt came back he had a tube from the first aid kit that hung on the wall.
He had him stand.
He tugged at his pants and Quackity instantly struck out against. "What the fuck are you doing?"
"They've got a numbing agent, god Quackity. Just let me-"
"What if I wanted to."
"What?"
"What if I wanted to feel it, alright."
Schlatt huffed and pulled the tube closer to himself. He looked down at him. Searched over his face. Quackity pulled his pants back up.
"Like I said," Schlatt sounded as tired as he felt. "Everyone's got a complex here."
"That includes you too, Schlatt."
"Yeah," said Schlatt. "Yeah guess it does, huh."
The next day Quackity woke up. He saw his low belonging score. He felt it like an insult as he hissed at the hot water of his bath and he glared at the wall. At the panel that told him everything he needed to know. The weather. The time.
He thought about Sam. He thought about his mountain home. About one before he could hardly remember and how it smelt of smoke. He thought about the cameras. He thought about how in a small house nearby Schlatt shared the same dreadful thought as him as he poured himself his first glass of the day and lit a cigarette.
Quackity thought maybe Schlatt wished his heart would just give out one day.
Quackity hoped his heart would too. Would follow right after.
When he stood from the tinted water of his bath he would looked down and he saw bruises across his lower half.
Sometimes he wanted to walk out of his home naked. He knew it'd shatter his score so low he'd end up strapped to a bed in that center meant for victors who couldn't play nice. He'd wondered if the other victors would peek out of their homes or from out of their garden hiding places and see him and bare their own scars too.
Quackity opened the door to Schlatt's small greenhouse. The air was ripe with growing berries pungent even on their branches. He was alone. He watched dust settle to the floor.
He was alone for only a moment. He watched a kid crawl out from under one of the long rows and stand and blink at him with stains all over him.
He had clear blue eyes. Yellow hair. A band aid across the bridge of his nose. A bandana around his neck. He looked like he was ready for the games. He looked like he had been battered by them too. He didn't look like a victor supposedly living among paradise.
Quackity had never seen him before.
The kid immediately shouted a question at him. "Oi, big man, you wouldn't happen to have any of those ram berries would you?"
Quackity didn't talk at first. He tried to connect the dots on why the kid had been stealing. He glanced up at the cameras.
"O my god the fucking- hey!" The kid shouted loudly. "Come on nobody cares about the cameras, sad boy-"
"Hey, what the hell did you just call me?"
"You're sad boy. The sad boy. Mopey boy. The emo man as they say. Woe is me and all that fucking- god. Tubbo told me about you. And uh Wilbur Soot. But he's not exactly one of them truthful ones you know what I'm saying, sad boy. He's a bit of a wrong'un now. Come to think of it, everyone's talked about you. The Badboyhalo his boyfriend Skeppy. Punz. Sapnap," The kid pronounced the odd name slowly. "His friend Ugly Sweaters. Furry boy. Dream boy. God Gogy, fucking Gogy too." At this point Tommy held out his hands and had started haphazardly counting off his fingers while rattling off odd names. "And the Eret. God- that one. You should stay away from Eret, big man-"
"Who- wait back up Wilbur Soot? Like the Wilbur Soot? You hang out with Wilbur Soot?"
The kid was prying berries from bushes. He scowled. "You a big fucking fan are you?"
"No, god no," Quackity hadn't been like the other careers who learned every victor's name and winning strategy. He wasn't interested in celebrities. He figured he was less so now that he lived infamy. He could never see how knowing them intimately would have helped him win. Wilbur Soot was a name often said around district 2. "Hey, can you stop? You know you don't need to steal them right? There's literally a ton of food and the ripe versions of these berries in this goddamn place."
The kid looked at him eyes wide. He spat the berries on the ground at his feet. "Not ripe. Innit, supposed to be a big berry farm, big man? Why can't I just take them?"
"Alright, that's it come on-" Quackity marched forward to grab the kid and drag him out. He grabbed the kid by the scruff. By that bandana.
He was taller than him. Of course he was. Nearly every victor he saw in passing was.
"Hey hands off, sad boy." The kid jumped away. "You know who I am, do you? Know who you're pushing around, sad boy?"
"Hell no, I don't give a shit who you are, alright." Quackity tried to grab for his arm again.
"You're real fucking persistent for being Schlatt's little bitch, sad boy."
"Alright don't call me either of those. Just don't. I'm neither of those things." He pushed the kid.
The kid casually picked up a tool. A spade. A trowel He dropped each one. He was shoved. He touched a water line. He snagged a few berries. He was pushed by Quackity again.
Some of the berries dropped to the floor.
The kid was covered in stains by the time Quackity pushed him out of the entrance.
The kid hadn't even fought back. It was like he wanted the attention.
"Stay out of here, alright. Unless you want to help Schlatt. The- the god damn cameras pick up everything. You've got to have a belonging score that's rock fucking bottom, pal."
The kid smirked. He held his shoulders proud. "A low belonging score is only something Schlatt's bitch would have."
Quackity was pissed. He mentally prepared for waking up in the center. For having his brain fucking swiped because he was going to kill a fucking kid right there.
"Hey, boss man, you better let go of my friend there," a voice said. Quackity looked up to see another kid staring back. Familiar red-brown eyes watched him. "Tommy's my friend. Only I get to push him around like that."
Quackity let go of Tommy.
Tommy had looked happy at first to see the other kid but he instantly soured and crossed his arms. "I'm no one's bitch, Tubbo. I'm not your friend," Tommy stretched out the phrase as if it needed to be carefully spelled out. "I'm just Tommy. And I hang out with my mate, Tubbo."
Tubbo smoothed a hand over his wrinkled button up shirt. He looked too much like Schlatt. Like a smaller much younger version. Dark curls and the same mouth and eyes and the same knit to his brows when something annoyed him. "Okay well now you're implying I'm your friend, Tommy. What if I didn't want to be yours."
"Fuck off- fine-" Tommy sighed and uncrossed his arms.
Quackity didn't care. He didn't care about this argument happening right outside Schlatt's greenhouse.
"Hey, whoa I don't care. Tommy, Tubbo, who's who's god damn bitch just shut up, alright. Both of you. Stay out of that greenhouse unless Schlatt let's you in okay? That's it. End of discussion."
Tommy's clear glare landed on him. This kid had a god damn attitude problem. "Real nice to see sad boy's just a rule boy. A big fucking walk the line kinda man. God you're a fucking boring one. Tubbo told me you'd be crying by now. I'd rather seen you crying."
Quackity was livid. He wanted them both gone. The morning sun was just starting to turn the air too warm. He could have been sat in the greenhouse right by one of the small fans by then. It was at least some solace from anything but the prying cameras.
The cameras didn't talk back.
A hand on his shoulder stopped him. He smelt smoke. Felt that ridge of raised flesh through his thin shirt. A scar across the middle of a palm.
"I'd rather see you leave, Tommy," said Schlatt beside him.
"O fuck off," said Tommy as if he had to automatically be rude back.
Schlatt flipped him off and took a hit from the cigarette he was working through.
Before Tommy scampered off he grabbed Tubbo. "You coming, big man." He spoke softer. Too calm for what Quackity had seen. Tubbo and Tommy exchanged a look. Tommy glanced back to Schlatt and glared, clear eyes narrowed, his lip curled down some.
"Yeah, yeah," said Tubbo. He hesitated.
They both ran off down the cobblestone path.
He could hear Tommy already talking excitedly.
Schlatt threw the cigarette down right outside the greenhouse and smashed it under his foot.
They both didn't speak to one another. They both knew what came later that day anyway.
The only discussion they ever clearly had about it was where it should be. Where it was convenient. It was never about when or where it was comfortable. Comfort wasn't possible for either of them.
The door slid open loudly as Schlattt shoved it aside. They both stepped into the greenhouse. Quackity looked behind him at where he'd stood and yelled at Tommy and Tubbo.
"He looks like you," said Quackity. He'd wanted to ask about Tommy. Instead he opened his mouth and put his foot in it.
"Hope you're talking about Tubbo and not Tommy," said Schlatt with a slight cough.
"Yeah, just- it's kinda fucking uncanny actually."
"He's from 10."
"Wait? I thought the other victor- she died, right?"
Schlatt's face shifted. "Yeah," was all he said.
"Alright. Look you understand what I'm getting at right? Why were you the only mentor for my year when there was actually someone else from 10 that makes no sense-"
"He had a low score. A low, you know. He just- the other victor- she was. Look, I'm not going to talk about it too much. But she got him all, god, all messed up in the head. They disappeared her to god knows where and he was admitted to the center. End of story. One mentor is plenty for two tributes anyway."
"Oh, right that's- alright that makes sense. I mean it probably would've been awkward to have that kid following you around with uh-" He dragged a hand over the back of his neck. "With everything that happened and all."
"Yeah, wanna clarify on what happened, huh, Quackity?" Schlatt had paused to bring a crate up to the top of the work table to smirk at him.
Quackity searched over his face. He didn't bite the bait to change the topic or get annoyed. He had another question.
Tubbo looked too young to be a tribute.
Schlatt sighed. "Before you ask anymore questions I volunteered for his guardian."
He said it gruffly like it didn't matter much.
Quackity started trying to mentally calculate a conclusion in his head. It wasn't coming out right.
"We're not close so get that out of your head right now. He's not my fucking kid, stop trying to figure that out, Quackity, god. That makes no fucking sense at all. I didn't even know they had a kid until I watched Tubbo's reaping."
"Yeah, I mean, it really doesn't… like at all. I mean he could be though. Like not really, alright, cause of the ages and the reaping at 22. Listen, listen- what I'm saying here is he looks literally exactly like you." Quackity held up his hands in mock surrender when Schlatt huffed out a breath and looked at him from across the small shed at the back of the greenhouse.
Quackity went back to swiping at cobwebs on the stacked pots.
Later, in the safety of his small home, Schlatt apologized in his ear when he came. Quackity wrapped his arms around him and held him there. His legs trapped around him. His back hurt. Quackity was stiff from laying across the couch and staying completely still and limp. Schlatt laid across him, still stuck between his legs. Still inside.
It felt like a reluctant handshake at this point.
Quackity had long given up trying to clean himself thoroughly.
Schlatt shifted and apologized again and the words brushed against his hair and naked neck. He wrapped his fingers in Schlatt shirt and dug in and felt the ache in his legs and his hips and felt it all sit sour and sickly in his abdomen.
Schlatt breathed warm and harshly against him, still coming down. He hid his face, buried his nose in his hair more. He kept apologizing as if he could finally speak again once it was over.
Quackity felt him move to get up. Felt his shoulders flex and Schlatt grunt out a breath.
He held him in place. Schlatt went limp.
Quackity held onto that feeling of making Schlatt give up so easily.
"Did you want him?" He asked Schlatt looking up at his plain ceiling.
"Can I at least pull out?" Schlatt answered with a question.
"Not yet."
Schlatt breathed against him. A sigh. A curse. "Yeah, yeah. Fuck. I wish you could tell me what to do the whole time like that, god."
"Did you want him to be your kid, Schlatt?"
Schlatt didn't answer.
Quackity felt his chest push against him as Schlatt breathed. Felt his stomach too. Felt his own heart hammer against Schlatt's.
"I don't know." He paused after answering. He said it like he'd never thought about answering that question.
When Quackity stood in the bathroom. Schlatt at his feet and curled and not looking at him like he needed time to repent for grabbing his hips and grunting and not being able to stop his body from responding- Quackity heard him say.
"I didn't want him to mine. Not like that, god, no. I knew him though, like his family. No one else is from 10 here anymore. Maybe there was something before all this. Like I don't know- mentorship. Make the kid a little sheepherder. But I don't want him to know me now, you know."
Quackity watched Schlatt curl in on himself more.
"I hope they were smart. I hope they never told him about me before he got reaped."
Quackity sat next to him on the ground. Behind his turned back. He tried to imagine if Schlatt had never been in the games.
Quackity imagined he'd be dead without Schlatt. His corpse buried in district 2.
He imagined their lives would be better that way.
xii.
Later, Schlatt asked about his victory tour. It was randomly brought up. They had never talked about it prior, not even when Quackity had finally approached Schlatt with his low belonging score and a script in hand.
They existed either in violence or painful sex or tense silences marked by one of them clawing at the other or puking up their guts. Other times they existed in silence. Schlatt always under him or beneath him. Kneeled at his feet and hugging his legs and quiet and still as if any exchange of words would do nothing for either of them.
He asked if Quakcity had stopped by to see his birds while he pruned the younger berry plants in his greenhouse.
Quackity didn't answer. Instead, he asked Schlatt if he'd visited his flock when he returned to district 10 after he won his games.
Schlatt had just shrugged a pair of pruning shears in his hands. He cut a few suckers away from branches and held the cut stalks in his gloved hand.
Finally he said, "I didn't want to."
"Why?"
"Cause they'd see me you know."
"But I mean you're doing better than you were there right? I mean relatively, of course. So they'd see you as all healthy and wealthy. How's that bad?"
"You visit anyone when you went back to 2, Quackity?"
"I mean- no not really." Not even Sam. He'd been on duty elsewhere.
Schlatt picked up the bucket he'd been throwing everything he'd cut from plants inside. "Then you wouldn't understand."
He started to walk away down the row and solid ground to the shed at the back of the greenhouse.
"I wait-" Quackity followed him. "I visited my birds."
"Your birds? You what, you own them?" Schlatt held the bucket at his side. He had stopped in his tracks and turned around. His tone was sarcastic.
"No, Jesus Christ. No. I mean they're from my district. My old district."
"So? They're birds not people." Schlatt turned as if to walk off again.
Quackity raced up to him. He grabbed the hand that Schlatt held the bucket with. "And your flock is sheep." Quackity let go of him. "Listen, I saw it. They didn't even recognize me. They just looked right through me. They didn't even sing and they always do. I just," He couldn't explain it better. He looked down at his hands. He wiped them on the front of his shirt even though there was no dirt on them.
He heard Schlatt set the bucket down against the floor. Schlatt stepped up and grabbed his hands to stop him.
"That goes away eventually." He let go of Quackity.
"What?"
"The feeling that they're always dirty." Schlatt picked up his bucket again.
"Wait, Schlatt do you think your flock would look at you like that too? Like right through you?
"I mean they're all dead by now. You know, sheep and all. I don't even know if they still herd 'em out there. But I know they would of, yeah. And I don't want to see that shit."
"Do you think they missed you?"
"They were all a bunch of fucking babies. So yeah, I'd guess so." Schlatt passed his bucket to his other hand. He grabbed a leaf nearby one that was hanging loosely. He snipped it and added it to the bucket. "But uh, they don't miss me, right. Like uh, one day I got up on the stage and that guy my sheep would've been falling all over for he was gone. And now there's just well me."
Schlatt hadn't faced Quackity again. The fans along the sides of the greenhouse whirred. Mist fell. It clung to the curls of Schlatt's hair.
"You think your birds miss you?" Schlatt asked.
"No."
"Not like you," Schlatt faced him. He gestured to all of him with the needle-tip of the pruning shears. "Not this. I'm talking about the you know- the version of you before you got up on the god damn stage."
"Yeah," Quackity shook his head. He shoved his hands in his pockets. Schlatt handed him the bucket with leaves. A silent offer asking if Quackity wanted to to help. Quackity took it and looked down inside at the green shoots and crushed fruit.
"I mean of course they do." He said. "Nobody else hung out near the butcherbirds. They're probably lonely without him." He looked up from the bucket. At red-brown and mist curls. He thought about the butcherbirds' song. "I bet they'd sing for him too."
0.
The only people Quackity celebrated with after winning the career lottery were the birds. He climbed up the rafters when the career school was dismissed. The corridor, the commissary and the halls were finally empty.
Sam had to return home right after. Had apologized for going so soon and told him to meet him at home later.
Quackity balanced on the beams. He carefully slid onto the thick shelf of concrete just under where the pitched metal roof of the school began it's slope towards its highest point in the middle.
He sat next to their nests. The birds cooed softly. Some of them started to sing loudly.
He looked at the chip in his hand after he got it out of his pocket. He held it.
The birds cooed more and tilted their heads.
He showed the nest closest to him. A broad chested dove-shaped bird stood and shuffled its wings. It hopped close to it. It pecked at it and tried to nibble the edge with a sharp, pink beak.
Quackity brought the poker chip back towards himself. The numbers looked up at him.
"What do you think it'll be like?" he asked the birds.
They stared and cooed.
Quackity imagined it would be better when he won.
xiii.
Everything was on fire in the victor's village. The tower. Every one of its windows shattered. Glass covered the cobblestone streets. Tommy and Tubbo had already gone. Had already run with Puffy down into the transport tunnels below the Capitol.
Before Schlatt had passed out. Before he'd blinked and said, "Fuck I can't see shit," and his head had lolled to the side, he'd glared at Puffy and tried to stand.
"Thought the Capitol had executed you," he had told her.
The former district 10 mentor had crossed her arms. "Like I'd let those guys get the best of me."
"Why'd you pull Tubbo into your shit, Puffy?"
Puffy hadn't answered his question.
Schlatt had dropped to his knees promptly after slurring the question out. Quackity had grabbed him and helped him lay down over the glass and falling ash. A wound on the side of his head bled out. He could feel Schlatt's too rapid pulse under his fingers.
Puffy had looked down at the two of them. Tubbo and Tommy shouldered bags. Others Quackity had seen before stood beside them and watched him hold Schlatt passed out over his lap.
A district 4 victor, Dream, wore a mask with a smiley face.
The one who had come from outside the Capitol wore a mask as well. A pig mask over his face. He also watched them.
They all stayed quiet.
The thick iron cover to the tunnels below the Capitol had been blasted away. Some of the victors had started to help lower one another down into it. They would leave the Capitol behind.
The victor's village continued to burn around them. Flames climbed higher. Quackity knew the berries were burning away.
He knew people had died in the assault carried out by the outsider with the pig mask. He wondered if he was meant to die as well. If Schlatt was too.
If it was meant to be a mercy he'd lived.
He had not talked to Dream until the moment the man had grabbed him and dragged him from rubble. Prior to the explosions he'd seen him sometimes in passing.
He looked different, less human with that mask on as he stood above him and Schlatt.
The pig mask left. Puffy did too. Tubbo and Tommy followed.
Tubbo handed Quackity a cup-shaped flower before he went.
"It'll help Schlatt some," he said and ran off. He slid down into the tunnels and disappeared.
The tower creaked behind Quackity; he felt the heat scratch the back of his head. The air was stale and stagnant. He knew peacekeepers would descend on them soon.
Dream remained.
"What? Aren't you going with them, asshole?" asked Quackity staring up at him from the burnt ground.
"What? What's wrong with you? I- I literally saved you. No I actually saved you, Quackity. I- I saved everyone. You should be thanking me right now." Dream's voice was muffled behind the mask.
"You- you and your friend fucking pig face and the god damn furry blew up everything. What the god damn hell do you mean saved me?"
"What- what you- you think that your life was good? Did you like letting him- oh my god did you like letting him fuck you? Did you like letting them-" He pointed towards the smoke plume towards the greater city. "You liked them telling you what to do didn't you?"
"Shut up, Dream. Shut the hell up, alright. You don't understand."
Dream took out a knife from a pocket on the side of his pants. He held it in his gloved hand. "You're two, Quackity. You're actually two years old sitting here crying about the past. You're- you're just an idiot if you think this was better."
"People died, Dream. You killed people. None of this had to happen at all. It was fine, it was just fine. And now what? We can't even- do we even have a choice? You've done so much fucking damage and what do you plan on doing next? I'm tired of fucking bombs, alright. What? You're going to go blow up the next place. And then the next and kill more fucking people until everyone gets the picture."
"Yes, what the hell? Yes, that's literally the point. Nothing- okay, look nothing will get done otherwise."
Schlatt moved in his lap. He shifted. He blinked and coughed.
Quackity clutched the flower.
"Shut the fuck up, Dream," Schlatt devolved into coughing after he spoke. He closed his eyes. He pushed his face into Quackity's legs and groaned. He grabbed at his pants. His fingers clutched at him.
More embers fell.
"No both- both of you shut up! You two- you like it so much here. Then fine- fine. You know what, Quackity. Here," Dream stepped forward he held out the pocket knife.
Quackity glared at it. Dream stepped forward and grabbed his hand and shoved it into his palm.
The metal was warm.
Quackity glanced down to the shattered trackers behind where Dream stood. Those circles that had been punched into all their sides. The ones that used to flash and blink with a faint light.
Dream's own green outfit was stained on the right side. Red and wet and growing.
The trackers were dark. None of them flashed. All of them had been ground under a boot heel and deactivated. They would be buried under rubble and ash and be lost.
"Your choice, okay." Dream said. "You- you want to be the world's biggest idiot and stay then fine. Make the choice and follow us or don't. Once you dig that tracker out it's final though."
Quackity stared at it. "What about him? Schlatt doesn't even have a choice. He can't even fucking choose right now. I can't just take that thing out of him, Dream. What if he wanted to stay?"
Dream stared silent. He crossed his arms.
Schlatt breathed heavily against him. Quackity could see the cold sweat on his forehead. The blood in his hair.
He held the flower in his other hand.
Dust and ash fell and filled his lungs.
Dream's mask watched him and he could hear the man's breaths heavy against the back of the plastic face.
He cupped the flower in his hand. He brought it up to Schlatt's nose and mouth.
He pulled Schlatt's shirt up. Schlatt went limp. He stared up at him. Quackity was sure he didn't see him anymore. His stare was blank. He'd seen it in the arena on the tributes he had killed.
He dug the knife into his side.
The tracker clattered bloody across the ground.
Dream picked Schlatt up. Hauled him up to his feet.
Quackity stood with the bloody knife. He looked at the embers, the burning leaning greenhouse and small homes. The tower creaked, its steel structure groaned behind him.
He heard sirens. He saw lights through the thick, dark smoke.
He looked at the blade.
His own tracker clattered bloody to the ground. Quackity stepped on both his and Schlatt's. They shattered under his heel.
The wound in his side hardly hurt as he followed Dream down into the transport tunnels below the Capitol.
0.
"I think it'll be so much better and bigger," Quackity told the white birds.
They cooed again. Watched him with dark eyes and pale hooked beaks. Up close he could see the dried blood on their feathers. He could see the tiny bones from the catches they kept among their downy and intricate nests.
The carcasses of their kills littered district 2. Small colorful lizards and smaller greyer birds. They were impaled on fence spikes and the thorny trees that the district had let sprout throughout the western portion.
The birds would go back to collect them. And bring them to the career school where they left only the clean milk bones near their nests.
Quackity had to finally leave them. He pocketed his poker chip. He descended. He hit the solid floor and the sound echoed.
He glanced back up at the birds.
They sang as if wanting him to climb back up to their nests.
xiv.
Quackity entered the center most room of the bunker stronghold he had called his home for the past two months.
Wilbur no longer occupied the office.
Nor Dream or any of his team he'd taken with him when Schlatt had taken over after the elections had reached their conclusion.
The nation-state Wilbur had established and tried to desperately keep ahold of in the district 10 stronghold had long since fallen to Schlatt.
It had been several weeks since the new flags had been put up throughout the underground network. Black and blood orange. A simple X slashed over into the design.
The original flags Wilbur had proposed and Tommy had helped sew all dip dyed and painted over.
As the new leader Schlatt had already made changes. He had already exiled anyone who disagreed like Tommy and Wilbur or simply showed those he was neutral to the door like Dream and his allies.
Others like Technoblade and Niki, a district 11 victor, had stayed even if they were factionless and ideologically opposed to the bunker being state-controlled.
Quackity remained wary of the man with the pig mask. He figured the only reason he didn't make a move was because he was free to come and go and him and Schlatt had once known one another back in district 10.
Quackity only knew him as the one who had caused the explosions at victor's village.
He was just another face who destroyed another home he thought he had found. Every place except district 2.
Quackity was the face and the hand that had taken district 2 from himself. He could never return without secrecy. Without being caught a criminal to the Capitol. He could never belong.
It was why he had felt pride when him and Schlatt had won the elections.
He had been the first to stand up to Wilbur about a lack of vote when the man had asked everyone to come to the room they called the nest. They all had stood in that large, tall room within the intricate bunker, a place everyone could gather at once, when Wilbur had grabbed the railing of the catwalk high above where his subjects stood and announced his continued presidency.
Everyone had gone silent when Quackity had challenged Wilbur.
He thought it was only fair they hold elections.
On that day as Quackity stood on top of one of the long tables in the belly of the nest, he held his shoulders high.
Technoblade who had sat with a large purple Capitol-grade sword on the table in front of him had spoken. His voice was deeper than Quackity had expected it to be. "Come on guys, I was hoping for at least like a little time off here. Can't a guy get a little vacation from toppling governments? I mean just one short vacation, man."
The entire gathering in the nest ignored him.
Wilbur agreed to hold elections with a pointed look at Tommy next to him on the catwalk. Wilbur had already publicly claimed Tommy was his Vice President.
Tommy had tried to speak. To say Wilbur's name.
But Wilbur had just held up a gloved hand.
For once Tommy was silenced.
Wilbur had glared down at Quackity.
Schlatt had scoffed and announced he would also run. It had felt like betrayal at the time. Schlatt had avoided him since they'd descended down into the bunker.
Niki and a fox-faced districtless kid named Fundy also announced their challenge against Wilbur.
And later, when Quackity had made the deal with Schlatt the day before the election was called to a finale, when he'd won with those pooled votes- he had felt proud.
He felt like he would be able to save this one. He would be able to make sure this home wasn't destroyed as well.
Immediately Schlatt had demoted him to vice president and started to orbit him again. Quackity had thought he'd be alright. He hadn't noticed how much the distance of three weeks had changed him. Had allowed for his bruises to fade. Had allowed his anger and his desire to clench his fists and break the world around him fade as well.
It all came roaring back when he became another piece in Schlatt's cabinet.
He was still proud. Still tried to be when he was ordered around. When he watched the beacon of choice he thought he had claimed taken from him once again.
He was proud.
But it had begun to falter. And as he stepped into Schlatt's office a month into his presidential reign he felt less proud when he smelled the familiar smoke and closed the heavy hatch door behind him.
As the vice president of the new leader Quackity had watched Schlatt quickly grow paranoid. He was often drunk. He was too hammered to make a proper decision on his second day of his presidency after he had promptly announced himself as president and Quackity as his vice. Days after he would often and continuously fall ill from more than just alcohol. Quackity had seen him continually visit the bunker's Capitol-defected doctor, Ponk.
Quackity himself had yet to properly speak with Ponk. He had yet to properly ask about Sam after he'd first arrived.
As he held onto the heavy wheel of the hatch door Quackity thought about how it was odd to be invited into Schlatt's office so casually.
Schlatt was often alone in his office.
He had only let Quackity into the small space with him alone by the second week.
After he only seemed to like Quackity in his space. He constantly sought him out. His counsel. His thoughts.
Quackity wondered if that's what Schlatt wanted. If he wanted to take everything that was him. If he wasn't done yet with hollowing him out and taking what he could.
Schlatt didn't look up at him when he entered and the hatch closed with a loud echo. He merely stubbed his cigarette out. He was looking over a rolled out map. A glass and bottle within hands reach.
Quackity approached slowly. He could read the map. Could see the nation spilled out over it.
He held his shoulders in a rigid manner. Weeks with Schlatt as a leader had made Quackity more tense.
He had never considered how obsessed with control Schlatt might become.
He could see the evidence on the black suit jacket Schlatt wore. A sewn on red patch bled in stark contrast on his right side.
It was settled right where that tracker would have been buried in Schlatt's side.
Often Quackity had stared at it.
It had appeared on his clothing after Schlatt had won the elections and taken control of the bunker on the high catwalk of the nest.
Quackity never brought it up.
Schlatt never did either.
Quackity never wanted him to.
He wanted to ask in that moment of quiet if they would fight.
They fought a lot more without cameras always watching them. Quackity had been naïve to think anything would be different.
Schlatt would let him push him down. He goaded him on and called him a pussy if he didn't hit him hard enough. But Schlatt would also stop him and hold him too tightly and come up beside him when he was checking supply charts in the lower sections of the bunker and tell him he didn't like the way he talked to him. During their morning meetings, even with the rest of the cabinet, with Fundy and Tubbo present, Schlatt would stop everything to tell Quackity he didn't like how he treated his input.
He had always said it softly. Had said it gently. But he never let Quackity come up with an excuse or defense. He'd shut him down with the truth. That Quackity wouldn't be there without him. That he'd be dead. That Quackity owed him some real fucking respect.
So Quackity always held his tongue. He did so once again as he waited for Schlatt to speak.
Schlatt was right about him being nothing. Quackity would be nothing without him.
He wouldn't be a victor. He wouldn't be a co-leader of his new bunker home.
He'd be a long since dead corpse without Schlatt.
Schlatt finally met his eyes like he'd only just noticed Quackity had walked into the room.
Quackity saw his hands flex. Saw the right hand, the straight scar reach out and wrap around that crystal glass.
He could only think about how they would fight. How others would hear like they always did whether it was in the kitchen or the nest or the deep purple garden greenhouses or that centermost office Schlatt occupied.
This fight would end the same way as it always did. Schlatt would start crying and Quackity would just stand there and watch him and hardly recognize him.
"Did you hear me Quackity?" Schlatt asked. He waved a hand as if trying to snap Quackity out of a trance.
"What, Schlatt?" Quackity spoke automatically. Like all he could manage with Schlatt was a script he hardly had to rehearse in his head anymore.
Schlatt looked unimpressed. He sighed and picked up the glass at the edge of the rolled out map.
"You know when I ask for these meetings it's under the assumption you're the only one in this place with a couple braincells left. God these," Schlatt kicked the glass back. He hissed at the contents and slammed it back down. "Look I'm not asking these other idiots to come by my office and chat me up. Show some gumption, Quackity. Act like you want to be here."
"Look, sorry, Schlatt-" He didn't have a real excuse. "Could you just repeat yourself, alright? I wasn't paying attention."
"Wow, that makes you sound really fucking honored."
"Shut up, Schlatt that's not even- we're co-leaders man we literally-" Quackity stopped himself. He wouldn't get into a fight so quickly. "I'm not going there okay. Come on, man. Just spill."
"Fine. But you know I hate repeating myself."
"Okay whatever, Jesus, my bad Schlatt you want me to grovel too?"
Schlatt brought the glass back up to his lips. He looked over him silently. He drank. He sat it down closer to the map.
He said it simply. Like it didn't hold as much weight as it should. He stared at Quackity as he did. "I think we should execute Tubbo."
"What?"
"You gonna act fucking deaf again, big guy?"
"I'm not- holy shit. I'm serious. Are- are you serious?"
"Do I look like I'm making a fucking joke, Quackity? Look the ways I see it I think the kid's working for the wrong people. It's not the Capitol, but Wilbur Soot- he's worse. He's a pain in my fucking ass."
Quackity stood next to the desk. Next to the rolled out map of the nation. Of the autonomous zones around it. He stared at it.
Schlatt kept going on like he'd already agreed. Like it really didn't matter what Quackity's opinion was.
Quackity could only look up. He could only stare at the red patch on the side of Schlatt's suit jacket as he went on.
"We'll do it in front of everyone like in the nest. That balcony, you know. And make everyone stand below. How's that sound? Listen, I wanna be honest with you. I've only got you and that trigger happy kid Fundy to confide in. And god, I mean really confide in here."
"Is that- is that the safest option though?" Quackity thought about everyone left in the bunker. About how best to keep the bunker afloat after he and Schlatt had won the elections.
Besides Schlatt things seemed fine. Tubbo had seemed fine to Quackity until Schlatt had pulled him into his office and shown him the evidence of betrayal. He thought Tubbo liked it in the bunker. He often saw him in the greenhouses.
Quackity asked smaller. Less sure. Less able to stop whatever outcome he was barreling towards. It always ended in explosions. In fire. In more dead bodies. Quackity asked. "Would that be best for everyone?"
Schlatt searched over him. He turned and sat up on the desk.
Quackity crossed his arms.
"Come here," Schlatt said. He had his legs open. It was innocent when he gestured for him to get closer. "No funny business just come here you look tense as hell. You look fucking scared of me, Quackity."
Quackity uncrossed his arms. He tried to loosen his shoulders. He tried to imagine what his face might look like.
Quackity approached him. He let himself be pulled in between his legs. Quackity held onto him. It was easy. Nearly familiar. He held onto Schlatt's hips as he glanced down to that red patch.
He could smell smoke. Alcohol.
"You know what," Schlatt spoke close to him, his nose pushed into his neck. "I decided I'm way too fucking wasted to make the decision on what to do."
Schlatt pulled away. He glanced at the patch Quackity couldn't stop thinking about.
Quackity grabbed at him. His hair. He held him. Schlatt stared right at him. Quackity wanted to apologize.
He wasn't sure what for so he just held him.
Quackity could still feel the blood from the incision he had made over Schlatt's skin. He thought it would feel the same as his time in the arena. But when he'd made that cut. When he felt Schlatt flinch but stay silent, his eyes blank, it had dirtied his fingers with betrayal.
"You understand you're the only one I'd let choose for me when I'm like this, right Quackity?" Quackity splayed his fingers over the back of his head and his hair. Schlatt closed his eyes. He shifted his legs pressed to either side of Quackity. "So yes or no? What's it gonna be huh?"
Quackity could smell alcohol. It burned against his skin.
He could smell smoke from the stubbed out cigarette.
He wondered if there would be more smoke when Tubbo died.
xv.
Schlatt and him talked aboveground the night after the execution. Schlatt had said it was safest. He shoved a bow and quiver of arrows at him and asked him to watch his back on their walk.
Quackity had slung the quiver on and tested the bow.
He knew the bunker arrows were modified to shoot down Captiol drones. They were heavier at the tip. They'd travel differently than the arrows Schlatt had watched him shoot archery with before the games. The high sweeping winds of the prairie land would change them. Gravity and the torque of the bow would too.
He'd only glimpsed the drones. He had only ever shot at targets. Hardly anything living. Not even an animal.
He followed Schlatt out of the bunker and into the silent night above anyway.
Back before the games Schlatt had talked to him about targets. He'd complained they weren't real enough. He'd claimed they weren't good enough.
"You know where the best target on a person is, hotshot?" Schlatt had asked from the sidelines after Quackity had loosed an arrow.
Quackity had grabbed another one from the quiver instead of answering.
He had lined it. He had drawn it. Had held his breath. And then relaxed.
"Where?" He had asked as he looked away from the target.
Schlatt had merely tipped back his thermos after he answered. "Everywhere,"He had said.
On the solid ground above the bunker Quackity stepped after Schlatt.
Schlatt walked light down the stretch of an old trodden cattle path. The grass swayed around them. The flower fields were a few miles away. In their natural habitat the petals closed in the dark.
They were safe from their pollen.
Above them the stars were the brightest Quackity had ever seen.
He couldn't remember if they were like this back in the autonomous north. The bunker was placed in the fields where it used to stand.
He liked to imagine it was the same sky his younger self had seen.
When he glanced over to Schlatt as they walked. He saw him staring up at the sky too.
Schlatt had probably seen many nights like this as a shepherd.
Finally Schlatt spoke.
"You miss your old man? The uh- the fuck was his name?"
"Sam." Quackity wanted to see Sam. Even if Sam cursed his name and cuffed him and led him straight to the Capitol to die on his knees by rifled execution.
"Sam," sighed Schlatt into the night air. "He's a cop right?"
"Uh, yeah, yeah, Schlatt he is- I mean technically he is a peacekeeper."
"Yeah… a cop," Schlatt scoffed. Quackity watched Schlatt look out towards the distant lights of the heart of district 10.
They both went quiet again. They kept walking.
Quackity waited for Schlatt to speak.
"Do you think-" Schlatt started to say and seemed to reconsider. "You uh- think everyone's happier here? Like happier than there?"
Quackity didn't know. He really didn't know.
He only had Tubbo's face as reference. The same face he made as Technoblade aimed right at him and pulled the trigger.
Quackity had hauled the body away the burn marks on his arms and chest stinging as he did.
Ponk had taken the body from him. Had pushed him away and raced down the corridor towards the bunker's clinic.
Quackity was sure Tubbo was dead. He had to be.
After the execution anyone who saw him in the bunker watched him warily, like if they looked at him wrong he would kill them too.
Quackity wondered what Sam would say if he knew what he'd done. Quackity wanted to know if he was alright. Or if Sam had also made choices he had to.
Quackity had often thought about going to the clinic.
He wanted to ask Ponk if he knew. If Sam was still a peacekeeper for the Capitol.
Last time he'd talked to Ponk to pick up meds for cuts and bruises Schlatt kept accumulating; it was the same as any other. It was short and polite.
Only once had he suddenly asked Ponk how Sam was. If he knew.
Ponk had asked him the same and waved his wrapped forearm. The hand missing from the wrist up.
He left still thinking Sam might be the same as he remembered in spite of what he'd done to Ponk.
Quakcity knew Sam wasn't.
He was afraid Schlatt wasn't.
He knew he wasn't.
Quackity looked down the cattle path to see Schlatt's back to him. Schlatt looked up at the stars, his eyes closed like he'd paused to simply breathe as Quackity had fallen behind.
Quackity grabbed an arrow from the quiver. He raised the bow.
He aimed it at Schlatt's back.
Schlatt spoke without turning around. The grass swayed and rustled around them. The lights of district 10 stayed silent.
"You know choice is really important to me, right?"
Quackity felt Schlatt's words sit dry in his throat. His heart hammered. He pulled. He leveled the head of the arrow with the true center of Schlatt's back.
Schlatt turned around. He stared at him calmly from his position down the cattle path. Quackity knew he saw that bow and quiver and the arrow not yet loosed in his direction.
Quackity's eyes fell to the bandage underneath Schlatt's eye. There were more that creeped up his neck crawling up from under his collar white and smothering the burnt column of his throat.
Schlatt didn't move. He sighed. "Maybe you should think about that for awhile under your fucking stars, huh."
Schlatt walked right past him, his steps loud over the loose and small stones of the path.
Quackity only lowered the bow once he was gone.
He stayed and stared at district 10.
He only followed when he was certain Schlatt had long since re-entered the bunker.
Once inside he set the bow and arrow down. He left the quiver and walked to the nest where there were still burn marks against the walls. It smelt of smoke.
He saw a black flag on the ground that had fallen from the high catwalk. He bent to pick it up.
He stood and clutched it. It was a small one that had ignited at the end after Technoblade fired the firecracker charge at Tubbo. It was a weapon rarely used by even Capitol agents due to its unpredictability. It was hard to solely hit the desired target.
Quackity had been caught in the crossfire. So had the tiny flag in his bandaged hands.
It looked like that black napkin he'd once seen Schlatt clutching.
It looked like fear.
xvi.
When Schlatt died Quackity was there.
He set the black flag that burnt- the one he'd kept since the day he thought Tubbo had died on the chest of the corpse where it lay on the floor.
He sat with it. Sat with him.
For a whole day. For a whole night as Wilbur Soot reclaimed the nest and the bunker system at the edge of district 10 and named it his underground nation-state once again.
On the first night he'd been caught in the blasts. Felt the whole world shake and had left only to check the doorway to push open the hatch to the center office of the bunker and find a rubble collapsed corridor in either direction.
Quackity believed he had been trapped with the body.
So he stayed. One more whole day and one whole night beside him.
He heard voices on the third day. He heard footsteps in the hall and the thud of rubble being pushed.
Tubbo was the only one who approached him once the door was opened. The room had begun to smell too bad and his stomach hurt too much from a lack of food. And he couldn't think clearly. Water was handed to him first. He heard more rubble being cleared.
He wanted to ask why they didn't leave him with Schlatt after Wilbur and Technoblade, neither working together and both with different goals, collapsed half the place in after the takeover.
They would have buried them both. Left the two failed leaders to rot together.
They were too nice to him. Someone handed Tubbo food. Tubbo handed it to him.
Tubbo helped him stand his hands burnt with scars- his face worse off and still raw.
Even still Tubbo didn't hesitate to speak to him. Or look him in the eyes. Even if Quackity had been the one to goad Technoblade on to pull the trigger at his execution.
Quackity was ultimately left alone to deal with Schlatt's body. Ditched with it wrapped in white and placed on a wheeled cart above ground. Above the bunker.
It was his risk. It was his choice to dispose of it with a burial. So he would do so alone with only a shovel as his aid.
He wheeled the cart his breath huffing hot through the face mask he wore. Sweat collected at the brim of the duck-billed hat on his head as he pulled the cart southwards through the flatlands of district 10. Through what used to be his old home before district 2.
It had been flattened. It had become home to wild fields and desolate hills full of the cup-shaped flowers used to sedate animals and people alike.
He came upon a far stretching field. One where cattle or wild birds didn't roam anymore. It was silent. Devoid of bugs. Of any animal calls or life.
He stood at the edge of the cup-shaped flowers. The warning radios the residents of the bunker wore beeped. It was a regular sound.
There was no hovercraft from the Capitol overhead. No other spying eye from the Capitol nearby.
He dug. He wondered when the flowers' pollen would finally kick in as he rolled the body in and covered it with dirt.
He dropped his shovel and laid down among the colored cup-shaped flowers. He watched the sky.
He wouldn't be seen easily anymore.
He turned to his side. He could see the disturbed earth of the grave. The absent funeral party. A dictator sent to rest without eulogy.
Quackity watched the swaying flowers. A multi-colored curtain that concealed him in the field. They hid his shovel and the grave he'd dug for Schlatt and the body those flowers would eventually grow over.
He closed his eyes.
He heard Schlatt say his name. He felt a hand on his shoulder. A scar across the middle of the palm.
The hand shook him. It was a small movement. A gentleness he still remembered. "Hey, why the hell are you just laying on the ground like that, Quackity?"
He opened his eyes.
0.
"Sam will probably tell me not to go. He's such a goddamn hardass," Quackity told the birds in the nest closest to him. He let his heels brush against the rough concrete wall below the ledge he sat on.
He looked over his shoulder and narrowed his eyes at the frosted glass of the window behind the birds' wide perch.
He could feel the warmth of the sun on his back where it filtered through it.
"He says the Capitol is worse. That I'm lucky to have never been reaped. He says it's lonely there. How the hell could it be lonely?"
Quackity turned the poker chip over in his hand. He swiped a thumb over the carved numbers.
925.
He glanced over to one of the butcherbirds who cooed and watched him with dark eyes. It pecked at the cleaned skeleton of a small lizard.
"Listen, I know he's wrong," said Quackity with the utmost conviction. "He's just goddamn jealous. I know he wants me to stay with him… What- what does Sam even know about the Capitol anyway?"
A few birds answered, trilling a soft song.