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“You’re a mess.”
Dream didn’t look up.
“Don’t know what I expected.”
He was still staring at his knees, counting every thread in his ripped orange jumpsuit. It wasn’t hard.
“Well? Aren’t you going to talk to me?”
No. He knew what was coming. He didn’t need to give Quackity any help. Either it would happen, or the world would stop turning and pigs would fly. Techno. He missed Techno. He missed a lot of things.
An axe forced itself under his chin, and Dream went limp, letting Quackity tilt his head up to avoid cutting his neck. The avian’s expression was the same as always, bitter irritation mingled with disgust. Nothing had changed. He was beginning to think nothing would ever change.
Quackity didn’t speak for a long moment. Dream tried to keep eye contact, he really did, but it was so hard to keep his eyes from wandering. Not because there was anything to see- the same obsidian box as always, forever- but just because he could never break the habit of having something to hide behind.
“Look at me.”
For the first time, Quackity’s voice was soft. Not mocking, belittling, not even falsely comforting, although that had never been his style.
Dream blinked, eyes frozen on some random corner. It was strange, hearing that tone from the avian. It didn’t feel real, but nothing let real these days. Just one day of agony to the next.
Quackity didn’t even need to torture him, not really, not anymore. Moving was bad enough. He could barely stand, not since Sam’s last visit, and even lying down felt like his already-broken ribs were puncturing his lungs slowly. He’d just been sitting against a wall for the last indeterminate period. Waiting.
“Dream. I want you to look at me. I’m not trying to hurt you.”
Of course he didn’t trust the kindness. Dream wasn’t an idiot, even if he doubted himself so often it felt like he was living a lie of his own creation. Of course, Quackity was probably just looking for another reason to punish him for crimes he could barely remember.
Dream forced his eyes to move, dragging his gaze agonisingly over to the avian’s good eye, the other one fake, a pure milky white. He really did miss Techno.
Quackity looked him for a long moment, really looking at him, dark brown eye roving across Dream’s injuries for the first time. Not quite like he was human, but maybe an animal. Something worthy of some base empathy, perhaps. Still, Dream didn’t expect to see pity or guilt in the avian’s eyes, and nor did he. Good. He wasn’t sure he could handle change, after so long of nothing at all.
“Sam told me what he’d been doing to you.”
Dream didn’t feel embarrassed, not anymore. Just the faintest pang of something that could have been an emotion, before they were beaten out of him. He didn’t care if Quackity knew. The whole server probably knew, we’re probably glad Sam was teaching him a lesson. If the warden was, Dream wasn’t sure what he was meant to be learning. So far, all he’d learnt was how to swallow his gags and lie still.
Too late, he realised that might have been a proposition. Dream moved for the first time, trying to make up for his hesitancy by undoing the buttons of his jumpsuit as quickly as possible, fingers shaking even on the first one. He was only using one hand. The other’s fingers were so ruined he knew it was no use.
“Don’t do that. I didn’t say I wanted you to that.”
There was something dangerously flat in Quackity voice, emotionless in a way that could only be unnatural. Quackity was a bird made of emotions, anger and passion and arrogance driving everything he did. Dream didn’t like hearing him speak like Sam did.
Slowly, he lowered his hand, exhaling slowly enough to be unnoticeable. It wasn’t relief, only in so much as he was glad he didn’t have to bother. He’d stopped caring about what people were taking from him a while ago. Sam. What Sam had been taking from him. Quackity… Quackity had never gone quite that far.
“How- how often did you think I was going to do that?” Emotion was creeping back into Quackity’s voice, raw in all the wrong places, making him seem too human for Dream to feel comfortable. “Were you scared every time?”
It was making sense, ticking away in the back of his mind, but he barely gave any thought to it. Just an instinct he’d never shaken, the insatiable urge to understand. Quackity was angry. Apparently not at him. Part of Dream wondered how he hadn’t know what Sam was doing. Part of him didn’t care. Sam had done it anyway, and he’d never expected Quackity to stop it.
In regard to his question, Dream just shrugged lamely. He didn’t talk much. Another thing Sam and Quackity and this box had stolen from him. No use in words when they only things listening were the clock on the wall and the lava just metres away.
“Of course you were.” Quackity answered himself, almost bitterly, fingers twitching around the handle of his axe, now by his side. “Of course you were. I- I didn’t know. I know that doesn’t help. But I didn’t.”
It was all wonky. But everything was in here. Another realm, one of bubbling lights and darkened edges. Cut off from the rest of the world. Dream had learnt things like the truth and kindness rarely made it past the walls in here.
Quackity started pacing, up and down the cell, fingers drumming against his leg. Dream watched in his periphery, lacking the energy to actually look up. It was another instinct, the evolutionary urge to know where danger was coming from. But it was no use when the answer was everywhere, and he had nowhere to go.
“He just- he just told me. Like it was an offer. Like-“ Quackity cut himself off as his ranting rose in pitch suddenly, voice nearly cracking. “Like you- you were just a plaything. Like I should have known already.”
Dream knew Quackity wasn’t smart. Not like him. Then again, he didn’t put much faith in his own intelligence, these days. Techno was smart. Wilbur too. Not many other people. They were probably lying low. Intellect was rarely a gift around here.
“Did you think that?” The avian rounded on his suddenly, eyes wide and wild as he gestured manically, his composure rapidly dissolving. “Did you- what do you even think anymore? Because- because you wouldn’t have stopped me. And Sam- he- he wouldn’t have either. Why didn’t you say anything?”
Dream just stared at Quackity with dead eyes. Dead, dying, every death he’d caused weighing on his shoulders. He hadn’t minded. That was what he told himself, every time Sam watched him get undressed. It was a distraction, if nothing else, a challenge to make himself enjoy it, or just a chance to practise ignoring the pain. Normally the latter.
The avian stared back, so alive, so emotional, so clueless to the ways this world worked. Winners and losers. Dream had ended up a loser in his own game. He was fine with that. He’d keep telling himself that, until he stopped caring at all, or died for good. Maybe those were the same thing.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
The repetition didn’t help, because it had been a ridiculous question the first time, and it was a ridiculous question now. Dream didn’t bother to answer. He wouldn’t waste his breath on something that wasn’t going to kill him.
Quackity took a deep breath, still eyeing Dream in something that was half horror, half anguish.
“I didn’t know.” His voice was a raw whisper, terror in his eyes as he stared at Dream, impassive on the floor. “I- I was going to hurt you, sure, but when Sam- he was talking like you were an animal.”
It was almost funny. It was the sort of thing he would have found hilarious, back when he still remember how to laugh. Such misunderstandings, just further proof that these people couldn’t handle themselves. Such differences of opinion, tearing them apart every time. Now, Dream couldn’t even smile, just watched Quackity with all the fear of a prey animal who’d been cornered for too long to dread death.
“Talk to me!” Quackity’s voice rose to a surprisingly high pitched yell, desperation leaking in as his small wings fluttered, agitated. “Why- why are you- please. Why aren’t you talking? Why aren’t you talking?”
It was fascinating, if he was being honest. Watching Quackity’s whole persona unravel, cracks in his facade splitting down the centre as he paced in small circles, hands buried in his hair.
“I- I didn’t know, I- I swear, I thought- I just wanted the book. That’s all I wanted. It was never meant to- I didn’t ask Sam to- oh, I don’t even fucking know anymore.” Throwing his hands in the air, Quackity looked around, finding only the same blank walls Dream could carve into his own skin by now. “You’re not an animal. You’re- I don’t even know. I- I don’t understand- why would he even- why?”
Quackity glanced at him, eyes wide and pleading, practically begging, and he was just an inexperienced vice president again, searching for anyone to give him a clue about why the world worked as it did.
And- for the first time- Dream could only smile. A shattered, derisive, broken thing that betrayed no joy, merely the satisfaction of watching a child realise nothing came for free. Quackity stared back, the horror setting in as he understood just what Dream was telling him.
“You thought I wouldn’t care. You thought you deserved it. Fuck- fuck, we weren’t meant to-“
So close. So wrong. This was why Dream had tried to rule them. They would never stop making mistakes, no matter how much power they had. It was a mercy, really, letting himself take all the falls.
He closed his eyes, resting his head against the wall. Maybe Quackity would take pity, leave him some potatoes or something. Dream rather hoped it wouldn’t be something the avian thought he would enjoy more, like cookies or something. He’d grown accustomed to blandness, had found himself starting to crave it. Despite the walls, he was free in here. Free to not care. Free to let people take what they thought they and he deserved. Free to suffer his consequences, and never worry about anything new again.
“I’m sorry.”
Dream opened one eye, eyeing Quackity with exhausted suspicion. Probably lying. When he was happy with that conclusion, he closed his eye again, letting his thoughts drift.
“Please- Dream, talk to me. I’m sorry. I- I didn’t know. He wasn’t meant to…”
He could comfort Quackity. Tell the avian he didn’t mind, that Sam was kind sometimes, that he couldn’t have stopped the warden anyway. But prison meant Dream wasn’t anyone else’s problem, so he refused to deal with other people’s.
After a minute of silence that was probably agonising for the avian, Dream felt Quackity sitting down beside him, fidgeting against the hard wall.
“I’m sorry.” His voice had softened again, still raw, but more like a final defence than a shattered plea. “I’m so sorry. I would have helped you.”
And that- that was funny. Funny enough Dream couldn’t stop himself laughing, a small, huffing sound as his lips quirked. Because even after all of this, Quackity still thought he could gain something from Dream’s favour. He still thought the universe traded in wishes and good deeds. He still thought failed promises made up for broken morals.
“Dream?” There was desperation again, and Quackity shifted, so close to him, but Dream couldn’t even feel scared. “Dream, are- are you ok?”
Maybe that was what was wrong with them. After it all, they still thought the best morals in the world, even one single line they would never cross, excused every awful means along the way. Maybe it was excusable, to kill and maim and ruin lives, as long as you had that one rule, squirrelled away where no one could ever find it, telling you over and over that you were a good person, by your own code.
“Dream, please. I’m sorry. I- I won’t hurt you again. I’m done, I- I don’t care about the book anymore. Glatt can go fuck himself, I- there’s some people. That I need to talk to. I’m sorry.”
Would you look at that. Maybe he’d start a new era of peace and enlightenment, even from within a cell. Or maybe Quackity would leave, get over his own morality, and just try to forget all about Dream, like some nasty secret they could all ignore hard enough to stop him existing.
After a few minutes, the avian seemed to realise Dream wasn’t going to reply. Quackity got to his feet, shaking, staring down at Dream in something that was horrifyingly close to understanding.
“I’m sorry. It’ll be ok. I didn’t know. Fuck- I’m so sorry, Dream. You’re not an animal.”
Quackity looked like he had more to say, but he forced himself to walk away, across the cell, onto the waiting platform. His shoulders shook as it began to move away, fingers moving over his comm at lighting pace.
For the first time, Dream watching him all the way to the exit, meeting his eyes for only a moment before the avian disappeared into the labyrinth.
He smiled, just for a moment.