warnings: torture (non-explicit), blood, insanity, brief alcohol
i sat down at my computer, blacked out, looked up at 3 am and this was here. please enjoy. (idea from this one comment on this one tiktok that suggested that quackity uses the shape shifting powers some people hc him to have to torment dream. i’ll see if i can find the tiktok!)
Quackity knew what broken glass felt like. He knew how it felt slicing up his hands, his face, being kissed into his skin. But this was the first time he knew what it felt like in his soul. Yeah- that's what this feeling was.
Quackity didn’t turn around when he heard footsteps getting closer. He knew who it was already. No one else would be in this wasteland he’d built, anyways. No one was ever here.
“Q?” The rumble of Sam’s voice was concerned, almost hesitant. Quackity grabbed a bottle from the rack. “Quackity- you said it was urgent. What’s going on?” He turned, and the liquor slammed onto the counter. He might’ve relished the way Sam startled, on a better day. Quackity’s hands found the shot glasses, twisted the cap of the bottle. The neon blue that sloshed from the cup reflected the thunder in his gaze.
“Quackity, it’s still early-” But he tipped his head, knocked back the burning liquor. This time, Sam didn’t jump when the glass crashed down next to his hand. Quackity splayed his palms on the cool granite and leaned across to level his gaze with Sam’s.
“I need to visit the prison, Sam.”
Sam had the good sense to nod.
Maybe this was the wrong way to deal with things. Maybe strapping on armor and sharpening his knives wasn’t a healthy way to process his ex-fiances showing up trying to- what? Apologize? Make things ‘how they used to be’? If that was the case, they really were just mocking him. Nothing would ever be the way it used to.
It ended in a fight, of course. It ended in his already cracking heart fully giving out, splintering into a thousand shards like shattered fvcking glass. It ended in him envying Schlatt, because at least when his heart broke down he got to leave.
Quackity’s stuck here, with this void in his chest that keeps him floating oddly outside his body as Pandora swallows him whole.
They don’t even bother signing the waivers anymore. It would be ridiculous, at this point, especially since Quackity’s fully decked out in armor and tools. He guesses Sam’s just realized Quackity won’t be the reason Dream gets out of the hell they’ve so carefully crafted for him.
Levers, keys. The threshold to the heart of the prison is as claustrophobic as ever, but Quackity embraces the suffocating heat. There’s not much for his mind to wander on, here. There is the wall of lava, and there is the rasp of his boots on obsidian, and there is the rough leather pommel of his sword. There is, on the other side of the fire, a sacrificial lamb. Quackity grins and it hurts as the lava simmers down.
“Dream…” He leans on the butt of his axe, looming, and his ears are still ringing with screams. “Wouldn’t it be so much easier to give me what I want?” He kneels next to the ragged lump of man on the ground and grabs his chin, forces it up. “C’mon… I would leave you alone then, right? I wouldn’t come, wouldn’t have to hurt you- you would get so much peace and quiet… you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Quackity makes his voice honey, his hand gentle. Gods, he thinks he even sees Dream lean into the touch. It’s pitiful, what the admin has become. One of Dream’s acid-green eyes is bloodied and purple, swollen shut, and a cut on his face oozes crimson. His mouth is positively dripping with the stuff, courtesy of Quackity’s pliers and some molars that were just begging to be yanked. He can hear the ragged, wheezing breaths of the man in front of him and Quackity has never felt so sickeningly alive.
“Heh…” Dream flicks his working eye up to hold Quackity’s gaze. “No-” He coughs violently, wheezing and convulsing. The hacking subsides and he forces out; “No peace in death, Big Q. You’ll know that s-soon.”
Quackity’s lip curls. He stands abruptly, taking little satisfaction in the way Dream’s chin cracks against the obsidian.
“You’re pitiful.” This was supposed to help. He thought it did- when he funneled all the glass inside of him into the swing of his axe, the cut of his knife. When the voices in his head were drowned out by the screaming. But Dream was on the ground, bleeding and broken and still acting like he had the upper fvcking hand, and it turned out the glass had grown only sharper.
He paces to the back of the cell and yanks a tattered book off the lectern, flipping through it with a scowl. He’s about to chuck the thing in the lava--just to see if it’ll get a reaction out of its’ author--when a name catches his eye. Gingerly, he thumbs back to the page it was written on. Quackity feels so sick he grins when he finds it.
It’s not just one name. It’s hundreds. Some he doesn’t recognize, but most from this server. In fact- it looks like everyone who’s ever stepped foot in Dream’s land has been scrawled on the black-bleeding page. Quackity even thinks he sees his own name in there somewhere. They cover the page almost entirely in ink, written and rewritten and scribbled over each other.
George, Sapnap, Karl, Tommy. Tommy seems to be in there a lot.
Dream must have sat here for hours, scribbling the names of people he would never see again, alone in his personal hell. It’s sick. And something in the back of Quackity’s mind sparks.
“Dream,” He says, as the start of an idea appears. “How would you like to see your friends again?” He sees the confusion in the prisoner’s eyes and has to fight to keep from grinning. “Or… your old friends, I suppose. But I bet they still care about you, don’t you think?” He sets the book down, pacing towards the heap of blood-streaked orange jumpsuit with mock sincerity plastered over his face. His mouth twitches at the look in Dream’s eyes. There’s fear, suspicion, pain… but also, delightfully, hope. He can see Dream trying to crush it, but it’s there. Gods, Quackity could get drunk on that look. Maybe he already is.
“How do you think,” He leans over Dream, hands folded behind his back. “They would feel about you if they saw you now?”
Quackity really is grinning now. The axe wasn’t working, the knives weren’t working, the pliers only made Dream more determined. It was time for a new tactic. He feels that spark in the back of his mind and fans it, turning away from Dream as it grows. He hasn’t dipped into this ability for a long time--people don’t much like his kind--but the only person to see him now is barely human himself. Quackity closes his eyes as the fire washes over him.
When he turns around, he almost breaks character at the shock in Dream’s eyes.
There’s so much raw hurt in his voice- gods, why didn’t he think of this sooner?
“Dream…” Quackity says in George’s voice. “Gods… what happened to you?”
“I mean, everybody says you deserved it.” Quackity makes sure the revulsion is clear on his--George’s--face as he steps closer. “I guess you did… Still, though… this is a new low for you.” Dream is actually trying to push himself up now, trembling on wounded arms. “I mean, don’t you remember how things used to be? When we were all together? And now you’re… this. Not to be rude, Dream, but it’s kind of no wonder no one’s broken you out.”
“Stop, you’re… you’re not even real, I…” Dream screws his eyes shut, chest heaving. Aw. It looks like he’s starting to catch on.
“We were all happy, before.” He continues, letting the glass, the anger, slip back into his voice. “Like a family. And then you ruined it. All you’ve ever been is a parasite- it’s just amazing we didn’t notice sooner.” Quackity snarls with George’s face and he knows Dream can’t separate the illusion from reality. “You know what everyone says? They say good fvcking riddance.” Quackity--George--takes a step toward Dream with every word, until he’s sneering directly down at him. “I used to defend you. Down to the very end, I’d defend everything you did- all the wars, all the hurt, broken promises and broken hearts. I was loyal to you.” He shakes his head in disgust. “Not anymore. Now, I say good riddance with the rest of them.”
Quackity doesn’t know much about George and Dream’s history, but he knew they were close. And Dream, for all his boasting about cutting ties, has never truly let go. “I loved you, Dream. And look where it got us. You’re bleeding out in a cell, alone and powerless, and I…” Quackity turns. It’s a damn good thing he’s an amazing actor, or the look on Dream’s face might just make him lose it. It’s the same look he’s seen on just three people’s faces before; three people with worthless rings and broken promises to tie them together.
(“Didn’t you ever love us?”)
But Dream was right about one thing. Attachments are dangerous. And Quackity can wield them like a sword.
“I’m leaving. I don’t need you, Dream. And neither does anyone else.” His lip curls. “You’re worthless, Clay. I hope you rot.”
Dream has pushed himself against a chest by now, heaving and trembling.
“Stop. Stop this, you’re not him, you’re not-” Another coughing fit seizes him and he hacks up blood.
“Wasn’t it a good performance, though? I think I was spot on, Clay.” Quackity leers, in his own voice now. Gods, that was exhilarating.
Dream rests his forehead against the chest, face contorted. “What do you want?” It sounds almost like a sob. Quackity’s smile drops.
“Oh, you know exactly what I want, Dream. You know exactly why I’m still here, and why you can barely stand.” He cocks his head, lip twitching up into a smile. There are a thousand names scrawled into that book, all of them knives sharpened to cut. Quackity’s just gotten started. “Let's see if someone else could encourage you more.”
Dream barely has time to look afraid before the fire has washed over Quackity again.
“...You always wanted to be remembered, huh.” Sapnap’s voice says. Dream closes his eyes, breath hitching. “You’d always play the hero, when we were kids. Make George and I be the villains every time.” His eyes have been on the ground, but he lifts them now, stares down the figure in the corner. “Look where that fvcking got us.” And this hurts both of them, Quackity knows- because he knows Sapnap’s voice, his mannerisms, the way he sounds when he’s devastated and the way he sounds when he wants to burn the world with rage. Slipping into his skin is as easy as breathing and feels like suffocating all at once.
“You promised me- you promised me this would be our world. That we’d stay together, that we’d finally be happy.” And it is too easy to let that heartbreak bleed into his voice, sprinkle it with the rage and hate of wasted memories.
(“You promised me we’d be happy together.”)
He paces towards Dream with a glare like wildfire. “Well guess what, Dream. I am happy now. This whole server is happier now.” Quackity yanks the man in the orange jumpsuit up by the collar and snarls at his whimper of pain. “Without you. Without your sick fvcking games, without your wars, without your broken promises!” He’s shouting now, and he can see the whites of Dream’s eyes, like a horse near a fire. Quackity drops him with Sapnap’s hands like a rat he’d been holding by the tail. “Do you remember the promises you’d make, Dream?”
And now Quackity feels himself shifting again, almost involuntarily. His voice pitches higher and demonic horns scrape the obsidian above them. “You promised me peace.” Quackity says in BBH’s voice. “You said we’d be safe, that we’d win the wars!” It’s almost sickening to take the form of someone whose mind he knows is long gone. Worth it, though, to watch Dream squirm. “Is this what peace looks like to you, Dream? I can’t even remember what your face looks like!” There’s desperation in his voice, though Quackity doesn’t even know if what he’s saying is true. For all he knows it could be. “I can’t remember,” He takes a step towards Dream, glowing eyes wide with horror “What my own face looks like.”
“Bad-” Dream’s voice is almost pleading. He doesn’t want to hear this.
"Every time I look in the mirror-” Quackity’s breath hitches, just for dramatic effect. “All I see is red. Crimson. I’m poisoned, Dream. Because that’s what this place does to people.” The fire is back, transforming him. Quackity doesn’t even try to control it this time.
“That’s what you do to people.” Ponk’s voice rings throughout the cell.
“You poison them.” Alyssa.
“You tear them down.” Fundy.
“You think you’re so powerful,” Punz.
“But in reality-” Skeppy.
“You’re. Just. A. Parasite.” Karl hisses at the god on the floor who bleeds red regret instead of ichor.
Quackity doesn’t know where the words are coming from, now.
(“This country- it’s like a parasite, Q!”)
His breaths come ragged. When the fire sweeps through him again, Quackity nearly burns away himself.
Sapnap’s voice is tired when he speaks with it.
“You were never the hero, Dream. Turns out, you were never even part of the story.”
And Dream is left a crumpled mess of grief and blood at his feet as the fire dies to ashes.
Quackity’s tired when he leaves the cell that evening. It’s the bone-deep exhaustion that comes from more than lack of sleep, and it drags at his limbs. Sam does not look at him, and Quackity wonders if he knows what horrors were used in that cell today. He somehow can’t bring himself to care.
It was cruel, he knows. He slipped into their skin and cut Dream to shreds with the broken glass at his fingertips, ripped open his soul instead of his flesh and took pleasure in just tearing something down. It was cruel, but so is (was) Dream, and so is the world he created. Everyone gets cut and everyone bleeds, and the only thing to do is hope that your weapon is sharper than theirs. He’s had that lesson seared into his mind and cut into his skin too many times. So today when Quackity leaves a trembling mess behind the wall of fire, he cannot see Sam’s eyes- but if he could, he thinks they would hold something like fear.
So he steps out into the night, and he smiles, sharp and painful as broken glass.
pixelskylines
areudirty
blakekathryn
andulkaphoto
2087
