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Quackity wears a crown of thorns in the center of the ring. It bleeds from his hairline down to his cheeks, into his eyes, over his lips and to the cup of his throat. The tangles gather at his shoulders– a mantle, a red pact woven and burning at the nape of his neck, the shroud of a dead man walking.
And the dead man walks forward. He limps on broken legs until he stands in front of the red pact, and he spits through his bloody teeth, through the thorns, and says, “You win again.”
You win again. You win again. You win again. A mantra he repeats under his breath, in the back of his mind, buried under his tongue with the lies he keeps himself awake with.
He feels a hand on the back of his neck, and it’s Schlatt’s, and it’s cold. It holds Quackity there frozen in place as he feels eyes drawn back to him.
“Good man,” comes Schlatt’s snide remark, and it makes Quackity wince around the split in his lip.
“See, that’s how you take a punch!” He turns to the audience, spread out thinly over a set of bleachers, amusement painted on their faces with a dry brush. Schlatt lets go of Quackity, and he relaxes into his own skin, but the other man is still moving, swinging his arms around in some vague, theatrical gesture. “That’s how you take a punch!”
He turns back to Quackity with a malicious glint in his dark eyes. “Like a bitch.”
And Quackity swallows again, but this time it’s the lump in his throat, and it doesn’t quite go down the way it should, like there are shards of it still stuck, fractured into broken pieces, piercing all the wrong places.
There’s an indistinct muttering that drips down his back from the crowd, some uncomfortable laughter. Quackity forces his own laughter through the wet iron welling in his mouth. It comes out dark and humorless, but Schlatt doesn’t seem to notice — or maybe doesn’t care — because he doesn’t react.
Instead, he pulls his arms to his sides and folds his hands neatly behind his back. From his side, Quackity can see that they’re an ugly purple where his knuckles are swollen, still red where the blood hasn’t quite dried. His fingernails are caked with black and yellow powder. His palms are stained with it.
“Alright, who’s next?” Schlatt asks into the audience. There’s a moment of silence as their eyes flit to one another, casting curious glances, murmuring encouragement where one person shifts and another shoves his friend.
He makes a show of looking through their faces, like he might find some worthy champion in their midst. His eyes narrow to slits, his dress shoes strike the ground with a steady tap, tap, tap . Finally, Schlatt croons, “Where’s my right hand man? Where’s that Tubbo fella? Is he still kicking around somewhere?”
“I– I’m right here, Schlatt.” The voice comes from behind them, and Quackity turns to see a small shape rise from its position at the corner of the boxing ring. The noise from the crowd pauses as new intrigue breathes into the space where he’d appeared.
Tubbo waves.
“Tubbo!” Schlatt is smiling, but his eyes are focussed intensely, and the slits of his pupils are razors, thin and keen. He strides forward. “Tubbo, where’ve you been? We missed you up here. You know, this boxing ring you built–” he pauses to stroke the cords that separate the two of them. “This is good stuff. You really do a lot for this country.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” he says. His voice shakes, and it makes something go sour in Quackity’s stomach.
“You worked so hard,” Schlatt continues, spinning back around in a lazy arc to face the crowd again. “And you really should enjoy yourself.”
Quackity thinks he might be sick.
“You’re up next, kid.” Schlatt walks towards the bleachers, not sparing a second glance in Tubbo’s direction, even as he stutters out some noiseless reply.
As he passes Quackity, time seems to slow. For one breathless moment, there’s an understanding that passes between them, violent and cold and unforgivingly bitter. Schlatt leans in, and his lips barely move as he says, “Show him a good time, will you?”
Quackity wears a crown of thorns in the center of the ring, but he is no martyr. He breaks and he falls and he dies again and again, and the red pact watches and the shroud tightens at his neck, but he is no martyr. His fingers are caked with black and yellow powder. His palms are stained with it. He bleeds all the same.