#schlackity

LIVE

Vaguely a part of my Snapshotsduet.
cw for domestic violence, slapping, verbal abuse
[ao3]

“Schlatt!” calls Quackity, stumbling after him down the halls of the White House. His face is pale, hands shaking. There’s blood on his starched white shirt. His jacket smells of gunpowder. He keeps seeing Tubbo’s face behind his eyelids every time he blinks, shocked, scared, childish, from the moment right before the fireworks hit. “Schlatt, what the fuckwas–”

Schlatt ignores him. Doesn’t even so much as slow down. He’s walking with a confidence and clarity of purpose Quackity’s never seen him move with before. It’s a little frightening. It’s a little unnerving.

It’s a little like discovering that the lazy old mutt you’ve had living out in your back garden for months is, in fact, a purebred wolf.

When he finally catches up, he grabs Schlatt’s elbow, shakes it. “No, Schlatt, look at me, seriously, what the– what the fuckwasthat, because you just– that was murder, Schlatt! That was an execution! You just, we just, that was a citizen we just killed! He’s a kid! What–”

Schlatt backhands him.

The blow knocks Quackity to the floor, leaves him sat on his ass and staring up at Schlatt in shocked bewilderment. His lip has split, badly, dribbling wet crimson down his chin. His cheek throbs in time to his heartbeat, turning pink to red to almost-purple with a rising bruise. His brain can’t quite work out what’s just happened. Schlatt’s hit him before, of course, but– not like this. Not properly, not with actual power behind it. Not like he means it.

Schlatt starts advancing. He still looks like he means it.

Quackity starts doing his best to crawl away, one-handed, still on his back, not daring to take his eyes off Schlatt. “Schlatt–” he gasps, a hand pressed to his cheek, his forearm held awkwardly over his face.

“You fucking pussying out on me now?” snarls Schlatt, still advancing with a predator’s prowl, matching Quackity’s desperate scrabbling inch for inch. “Are you? Are you?” He raises a fist and grins when Quackity flinches, all big teeth and whiskey-breath. “Fucking answerme when I’m speaking to you, you little shit!”

“I, I, Schlatt, I–” Quackity stammers out– something, terrified, eyes wide. When words fail, he whimpers, more of a sob. He starts trying to cover his head rather than just his face as he scrambles backwards.

His efforts at self-defence are for nothing. Schlatt catches him, as easy as a dog with a rat, hauls him up by his collar to backhand him again.

Quackity’s nose starts bleeding, profusely.

“You wanted this, sweetheart!” snarls Schlatt, face inches from Quackity’s bloody, bruised one. The grin is more of a snarl, now, bared-teeth and nasty and mad. “You agreed to be my fuckin’ vice, you agreed to run this goddamn shithole of a country, and now you want to fucking pussy out on what it takes to be a leader? You got cold fucking feet?”

Another backhand. Quackity’s face is a mess of red, his pupils blown huge with fear, his mouth half-open and his swollen lower lip trembling.

“Oh no, pumpkin, oh no. You do not fucking get to do that. You hear me? You don’t get to do that. We’re in this together, to the end of the fucking line, sugar plum, and if you- if you start trying to do whatever the fuck thisis, then I’m gonna get real fucking mad. Okay?“

He shakes Quackity, hard enough Quackity’s teeth clack together. Hard enough his brain feels like it bruises against the inside of his skull.

“Sch– Schlatt. Schlatt.” Quackity’s hyperventilating, voice quiet, blood dribbling down from his nostrils over his lips and staining his teeth pink. He can taste it on his tongue, hot salt and copper, feel it dribble thickly down the back of his throat. “Schlatt. Please. You’re hurting me.”

“Do I look like I give a shit?”

Another shake. Quackity makes a high, terrified, hitching noise. His bloodied head lolls on his shoulders.

“Do I?! Answer me, you stupid little bitch!”

“N– no, Schlatt– no–”

“Good. Because I fucking don’t.”

Schlatt pauses, something odd passing over his face. He raises the hand not around Quackity’s collar to stroke from one corner of Quackity’s lower lip to the other, smearing blood across it like lipstick, obscene, copper-salt bitter.

Quackity’s chest is heaving like there’s not enough air in the room.

“Listen real fucking close now, sweetheart,” says Schlatt, eventually, and sticks his thumb in his mouth. Quackity watches as sucks the blood off of it, absent, thoughtless. “Because I’m only gonna ask this once. Are you with me, or not?”

Not trusting his voice, Quackity nods, jerky, frantic. There is no other answer here. Even he, stupid little bitch that he is, knows that much.

“Good.” Schlatt sets him back on his feet. His knees nearly buckle, breath leaving him in a wheeze as he locks them in a desperate attempt to stay standing. Schlatt does not try to help steady him. “Good boy. That’s what I like to fucking hear

Quackity’s nose drips blood onto the marble floor of the White House in hot, wet spatters. His head rings, his cheek aches. He can’t get breathe properly. He can’t breathe.

It’s only when Schlatt walks away, steps into his bedroom and slams the door behind him, that he manages to drag in an unsteady inhale. When he brings a hand up to cover his mouth and nose, gasping, and is surprised to find tears mixed in with the blood that puddles in his palm.

He thinks, for the first time, that he might be in over his head.