"I mean really, it's pathetic how fucking obssesed you are with me." Dream's cold gray eyes glinted in the light of the lava, sunken into his hollowed-out face. Even after a month of torture now, and nearing half a year of imprisonment and starvation, he was just as much the arrogant, needling asshole he'd always been. It was infuriating.
"Shut up." Quackity's voice was hard and flinty. Brandishing a pair of rusty shears, he stalked towards Dream, trying to appear threatening. Dream merely grinned up at him lazily from where he lay on the floor, sprawled almost comfortably on the obsidian like some pale panther. As though the cramped, boiling cell was some kind of great place to relax in. At least he was lying down. Quackity hated it when Dream was standing; the man was nearly seven feet of jackass and even after months in the prison, he was still entirely too big. Quackity, more than two feet shorter than him, had always absolutely despised how small he felt around him, now more than ever. He could see the glee in Dream's scarred face, his grin made gruesome by chunks of missing flesh. Not Quackity's doing--no, those were older. From what, he didn't know, and presently didn't care. What was bothering him was that stupid smirk on Dream's stupid face. Quackity held all the cards here, had been literally torturing the man almost daily, and Dream had the audacity to treat it all like it was a big joke. Like he was some kind of joke.
"Well, I'm not wrong, am I?" Dream's deep, almost melodic voice had lost much of its smoothness here in the cell. Inhaling too much smoke had turned his baritone rough and gravelly, but there was that same familiar note of venomous honey, dripping and grating. "Showing up every day almost like clockwork. I can hear you arguing with Sam, you know, demanding he let you into the prison again. 'Ooh, it's been long enough!' Can't stand to be without me, hm? But you've never been good at doing things on your own, have you?"
Quackity breathed slowly through gritted teeth, willing himself to remain calm. His small, stunted, completely useless wings buzzed against his back like wasps beneath the binder under his shirt. Being reminded of their existence only made him angrier, made him feel stupid and pathetic. As if Dream wasn't doing a good enough job of that already.
"No answer?" Dream noted, his tone verging on pure vindictive joy at the sight of Quackity starting to steam. Goddamnit, he knew what he was doing, he was baiting him, just fucking baiting him like he always did, Quackity knew that, and it still worked on him every single time. "Cat got your--"
"I said shut UP!" The last gossamer-thin strand of Quackity's self control snapped, and he smacked Dream hard across the face, open-handed. The sharp crack echoed in the tiny cell, a satisfying red handprint already blooming on the near-white canvas of what little unscarred skin Dream had left. Quackity stalked forward, grabbing Dream's collar with one hand and wrenching his head up, pressing the shears to the other man's dry, cracked lips with the other. Veins stood out in his forehead, throbbing in time with his massive Dream-induced headache. "God, you don't ever stop talking, do you?! Talk, talk, talk! Always getting in people's fucking heads and trying to drive them completely fucking mad, like it's some kind of game for you. I'm done with it, you hear?" Quackity leaned close, baring his teeth in a mirthless imitation of Dream's own crazed grin. "I swear, the next time I hear you say anything that isn't 'yes, sir,' or 'no, sir,' or 'I'll give you the Revival Book, sir'--" he pressed the cold tip of the shears into Dream's bottom lip, a ragged metal edge drawing a small bead of blood. "--I'll cut your tongue right out and you won't be able to say anything at all. You hear me? You're gonna talk only when I tell you to."
Dream stared coolly back at him with those steely eyes, all kinds of things flickering in their depths. Amusement, which was enraging, and hate, which was satisfying. No fear, which was enraging again. And something else, that calculating light Quackity had come to recognize, this bastard planning something like usual. Quackity readied himself for an attack; Dream tried one every now and again, and usually managed to display a disturbing capacity for violence.
Instead, Dream leaned forward and licked a long stripe up the side of the shears, then took the tip into his mouth. Making intense, almost sensual eye contact with Quackity, he moved his mouth slowly, the look in his eyes saying he found this completely and utterly hilarious.
Quackity choked on air, pulling the shears back and planting a boot in Dream's chest to kick him away. "What--what the fuck was that?!" His face was burning, he could tell, and the feathers behind his ears were stiff and puffed up. Humiliating.
Dream made no response, too busy lying on the floor, cackling like a maniac.
