Chapter Text
By the time Quackity was able to crack his eyes open, he had to prop himself up on an elbow to rub away the sharp pieces of gravel embedded in his soft cheek. His whole body ached as if he’d been using healing potions, causing the tender edges of skin and muscle to fuse back together in a sudden, agonizing growth spurt.
He glanced up and reeled back in shock as a clear image of a treeline formed in both eyes, nothing like the partially blurry images he was used to. Quackity raised his hand to hover over his bad eye, brushing his fingertips underneath over what should’ve been puckered skin, only to be met with a smooth surface.
What the fuck.
Quackity braced his palms on the ground and pushed himself up, swearing at the low thrum of pain in his arms. He paused. That wasn’t the way his voice usually sounded. There was something yellow and annoying hanging in his face, so he swatted it away and froze at the sight of a pale, freckled hand.
What the FUCK.
Quackity fell back onto his ass as he inspected his arms, flipping his unfamiliar hands over as if they’d somehow revert back to his regular hands. The fingers were too long, and the fingernails were chipped and caked with dirt. One of his wrists had a puffy, shiny scar on it.
He gave a sudden exhale to try and remain calm as a breeze blew the curly, straw-yellow mess in his face once again. Blond hair.
A thought finally occurred to Quackity and he attempted to flex his wings only to be met with nothing in return. It was as if the muscles had never existed, and his back couldn't quite move in a way that followed his inputted commands. His stomach heaved with revulsion and he turned to one side, swallowing back bile. This wasn’t happening.
Back when Schlatt had offered to chop off his wings, Quackity had wrapped them so tightly to his chest that he couldn’t breathe. Even after Schlatt’s presidency, Quackity refused to leave them out in the open where they were vulnerable, delicate enough that one flick of the wrist could sever them in a burst of golden feathers.
Waking up without wings was akin waking up without arms. Quackity felt violated. He ran a hesitant hand over the empty line of his back, and the horror surged up in him until he couldn’t stop himself from doubling over and puking.
“Get up,” A shadow fell over him. Quackity ignored the command until they fisted their hand into the back of his shirt collar. “Get up, Tommy.”
Quackity gasped, jerking his head up to come face-to-face with an eerie smiling mask. A shudder ran through him. In that brief moment, he studied Dream and noted the way his body tilted to one side, arms fully encased in thick bandages from fingers to his biceps.
In all honesty, most of the details Quackity knew about Dream had been relayed by George as they were building El Rapids, but the two of them had never spent a significant amount of time together. And yet, looking upon him now, Quackity knew without a shadow of a doubt that there was something deeply wrong with the Dream in front of him.
His initial suspicion came from the way Dream was standing, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet in a way that emphasized his restlessness. Then, Dream’s fingers skittered over the hilt of his sword and he tilted his head at Quackity. Not to mention the scorch marks fraying the edges of his clothes, making them look charred and stained. It created a ragged, messy appearance that spread to the white bandages, coating them in dark smears. It was the deranged look of somebody who would stop at nothing to achieve their goals. That’s why Quackity kept his mouth shut and stayed still as Dream hauled him up to his feet by his shirt collar.
“I need to check on you,” Dream’s voice was clinical as he pulled out a blaze rod, angling the glow to shine in each of Quackity’s eyes. Quackity winced, expecting the usual headache that would follow, but nothing happened.
The sharp heat reminded him of the last time something this dangerous had gotten close to his face, causing his bad eye to throb with phantom pangs. Quackity grit his teeth and forced himself to remain still until Dream released him and pulled out a notebook and quill, scribbling on the page.
“Dream,” Quackity’s voice cracked, and his hand shot up in alarm to hold his throat. The tone was all wrong. His height was nearly comparable with Dream’s, making him feel even more unsteady as he swayed to find his balance with the lack of wings.
Dream straightened up in surprise and put away the book to grasp one of Quackity’s shoulders. “Tommy, what’s wrong? Can you stand?”
There it was again, Tommy. This had to be some new type of nightmare. Quackity shoved the hand away and bared his teeth. “What’s it to you? Get the fuck off of me!”
Dream’s hand hovered in the air as he regarded Quackity with the exasperation of a babysitter dealing with a tantrum-having child. His voice was tight with incredulity when he asked, “Are you mocking me?”
Quackity stared back at him in confusion until Dream elaborated. “The American accent. That’s not what I sound like, Tommy.”
Months of mocking the way George spoke still hadn’t prepared Quackity for this. He cleared his throat and gave it a shot. “No, no I’m not mocking you,” aaaand cringed immediately. The accent was wrong. Dream seemed to recognize it too, planting his hand back on him to give Quackity’s shoulder a rough shake.
“Why are you talking like that?” His voice was flat, unamused.
Quackity attempted to form his lips around the round syllables in his head, tapping into some distant folder that contained his knowledge of what Tommy Innit sounded like. All he came up with was a less-extreme version of his typical George imitation.
“Talking like what?” Quackity mocked, in his not-George accent. It definitely wasn’t right, but it was something. Unfortunately, Quackity didn’t know enough about British accents to tweak it. Quackity steeled himself, preparing to commit to the bit.
He leveled his gaze at Dream in defiance, something he recalled Tommy doing many times before. It was easy to let the disdain seep into his expression, but Quackity also tried to convey the hurt he’d seen there. Dream released his grip slowly and stepped back, drawing a dark, leather-bound book from his inventory and muttering at it like a weirdo. While he did some light reading in the middle of their conversation, Quackity held his tongue in favor of inspecting their surroundings.
It was an unfamiliar forest with few defining features aside from the edge of a wall peeking out beyond the clearing they stood in. The only objects in Quackity’s inventory were a compass and a few blocks of dirt. Meanwhile, Dream’s limbs flickered with the faint outline of netherite armor every time he moved them. Even if Quackity decided to run, he had no doubt that Dream could catch and kill him.
At the forefront of his mind, there was a single question: If Dream knew it wasn’t Tommy, how would he react? Quackity decided to test the waters.
“Dream,” he spoke. “I want to visit Big Q.”
Dream glanced up from his book fast enough that Quackity swore he saw the glint of his eyes through the mask’s holes. The book snapped shut with a quiet thump and disappeared. There was a tense silence.
“You know we can’t do that,” Dream’s matter-of-fact tone made his hair stand on end. “Come on, Quackity? Really. When was the last time he even spoke to you?”
Quackity grit his teeth and stood his ground as Dream paced around him like a vulture plotting out its feast. The lecture continued, “You really want me around Quackity? The last time I saw him, he threatened me, Tommy. He’s been out of control ever since Schlatt died. Griefing my stuff, making threats… well, at this point, digging out his other eye would be justified.”
A wave of anger and dread washed over Quackity, who couldn’t stop himself from replying, “Yeah? You could try.”
Dream turned to face him as he drew his sword but Quackity remained stock-still, refusing to flinch or cower. With a tilt of his head, Dream switched it out for a diamond pickaxe.
“I wonder what Technoblade said when he split his face open. It was probably something intimidating or clever,” Dream twisted the wooden handle in his hands. “But I’m not Techno, and if Quackity were here, he wouldn’t have the luxury of recovering from what I’m about to do for you.”
Despite the warning signs, Quackity was still caught off guard when Dream swung the pickaxe down across his face. It was the opposite motion than Techno had made, and instead of hacking out his jaw, it cut deep into his forehead and missed his eye completely.
Quackity shouted and fell back, raising his hands in front of his face. For a moment, he couldn’t tell whether Dream or Techno was standing over him. The blood ran down into his eye, causing him to blink rapidly through the blur. Then, the figure raised the pickaxe again and brought it down onto his head in a sharp burst of agony unlike anything Quackity had ever felt.
One second there was an intense, mind-melting pain as the pick punctured his skin and punched a shattered hole into his skull. Everything began to move in slow motion.
A surge of panic snapped through Quackity as he thought about his unfinished plans, his new recruits, his fiances. And in that moment, Quackity also thought about Tommy: where he was, whether he was okay, sending a prayer out into the universe that at least one of them would live, even if Quackity had to die in a crumpled ball at Dream’s feet.
It was like a lightswitch flicked off.
The world was dark where Quackity sat in place, the ground hard and cold. His breaths came out in pants as he forced himself to untense his muscles. Quackity shifted onto his knees and doubled over to slam his fist against the firm darkness.
“Shit! ” His scream of frustration echoed through the void. There was no pain regardless of how hard he beat his hands against the ground, and the absence of it put a pit in Quackity’s stomach that threatened to swallow him up whole.
It was an unfair death, a stupid death that yanked the rug out from under his feet just when he’d finally begun to do something meaningful.
His hand was out of focus when Quackity tried to check whether his body was his own, and he beat his fist against the ground in frustration once more.
He seethed in the colorless world as his vision adjusted to the absence of light, illuminating confusing, arching shapes and long paths over hills in the distance. After a while, Quackity went quiet, flinching at the distant sound of yawning groans. The despondency that came over him was like a leaden weight in Quackity’s chest, pinning him down and sapping his will to move. He stretched out on his back with his hands folded on his stomach and officially gave up.
Quackity couldn’t remember the last time he’d given up. It was in his nature to dig his teeth in and claw his way back over and over again, but even he knew that there wasn’t a way back from this one. He wondered if he wouldn’t be here if he’d managed to stop Wilbur the second time he rigged the explosives, or if he’d prioritized helping people instead of coveting powerful positions. Even now, staring out into the vastness, a sick part of Quackity didn’t regret chasing after his ambitions.
The sky above him was a wide, gray spectrum filled with hairline cracks. There were no stars nor clouds, only gaps that leaked dark sand onto the hills with the hiss of an hourglass. Quackity laid there for hours, possibly days, stewing in his burnt out resentment towards the projects he could never see through. The itchy dread of an oncoming panic attack crawled through his chest, but he was too detached from this body to fall into it.
There was something about this place that left him struggling to comprehend anything past the faint ache where Dream had chiseled a new hole into his head. Even when the bright, twisting figures in the sky circled overhead, Quackity could only twitch his fingers without any real urge to sit up and see what else was happening.
A thready whistle broke through the endless oblivion, along with an approaching pair of footsteps. When Quackity leaned his head up and squinted, he could just make out the outline of two tall figures shuffling in his direction.
“Hello?” he called, figuring he had nothing to lose. The silhouettes straightened up and shifted as if they were looking for the source of his voice. One of them responded.
“Is that my sugar pumpkin?” The familiar voice sent hate bubbling down Quackity’s spine.
He snapped, “Oh, shut the hell up, Schlatt. You’re probably glad I’m dead.”
Schlatt swore and stomped his foot once he realized that it was, in fact, Quackity replying to him. “Fuck, FUCK! Of course I’m not fucking glad, we had a deal, birdy! You were supposed to find that book and revive me.”
“Yeah, well. Some higher power thought it would be funny to trap me in Tommy’s body like a sausage, so it wasn’t exactly first on my priority list. And besides, it’s not like I wanted Dream to kill me.”
A second voice, loud and rough, erupted from the shorter figure beside Schlatt, “Yo, you got killed by Dream, man? Ese cabrón killed me too!” The edges around their bodies blurred into the world around them, making them difficult to distinguish.
“Y quién eres, pendejo?” Quackity asked, with a hint of irritation.
“You guys don’t know each other?” remarked Schlatt. “I always figured you two were related.” The unamused silence spoke for itself. “Welp, Quackity, I’d like to introduce you to Mexican Dream.”
The lanky figure shambled over to him until it was up close, and Quackity could almost make out its features in the strange, drained lighting. Mexican Dream stuck out their hand for Quackity to dap up, so he stood and obliged. Their fingers were ice-cold.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, hombre,” they greeted sincerely. “Always good to meet a fellow Mexican. I guess there aren’t a lot of us in Hell.”
Quackity rolled his eyes and took another look around. The grayscale colors on the ground shifted like rolling plains of grass, and the faint paths continued for what seemed like miles over featureless hills. He tensed up as Schlatt came closer to stand on his other side, but thankfully, Schlatt made no move to touch him. Instead, he gave an exaggerated sigh, reaching up to drag his hands down his face.
“Why’d you have to go and get yourself killed, Quackity? I was so eager to be alive again. You know every day alive is like a month spent in this place? I’ve been here for years.”
“If I have to spend years with you, I’m actually going to kill myself for a second time.” Quackity deadpanned, causing Schlatt to turn and face him.
There was an air of indignity in Schlatt’s posture as he argued. “Well, you loved the idea back when we were running a country together. We even went and got secret-courthouse-married to make it official. As far as I’m concerned, you’re still married to me, bucko.”
Quackity gaped at him. “...No way, no, that is such horseshit. Death definitely counts as a divorce,” his eyes narrowed. “Plus, you barely let me touch the country, let alone run it. There’s no point in trying to manipulate me now, Schlatt, so stop trying to change the story.”
Schlatt raised his hands. “Okay, sure. But you should realize that if you had only been a little less selfish, maybe we could’ve made something a little more impressive out of Manburg.”
“Selfish? When have I ever—”
“Guys, guys. Do you hear that?” Mexican Dream interrupted as they swiveled their head. Quackity and Schlatt fell quiet to hear the distant sound of something cracking, sending faint trembles through the ground beneath them.
The sharp sounds were punctuated by low groans, like a melting glacier in its final hour. Quackity shifted his stance to steady his feet on the trembling ground, batting away the supporting arm that Schlatt offered.
He looked up and flinched when he saw the cracks in the sky split open to a dark, curving pit that unleashed a waterfall of black sand. Schlatt braced his arms and Mexican Dream screamed as it washed over them. Quackity didn’t have time to brace for impact as the wave crashed over him, slamming him down onto the ground and pinning him as his eyes, lungs, and mouth filled with a thick grit that stuffed his senses until all of the air was devoid from his body and he could no longer move or breathe.
Suddenly, there was a vicious tug on Quackity’s chest, like a hand twisting a locked doorknob until they finally snapped through it with inhuman strength.
Quackity woke up laying on his back.
He sat up and clutched his chest, gasping for ragged breaths that came easily, even as the sensation of sand lingered in his burning nostrils and throat.
“Easy,” someone coached, and Quackity bent forwards, digging his nails into his thighs for some semblance of control. They wrenched his hands away and when Quackity glanced up, he was met by a smiling mask that made him flinch and recoil.
“Go fuck yourself,” he tried to snarl, but it came out thin, as if he’d forgotten how to put words behind the air. Quackity swung his fist at the mask and took a vicious satisfaction from the way it managed to connect before Dream could fully pull away, knocking it askew enough to see the scarred, grimacing lips underneath.
Quackity scrambled away on his hands and knees, but when he planted a foot to stand, he found himself yanked onto his stomach by the ankle. A boot slammed onto his spine, knocking the air out of him enough to stun him out of trying to writhe away.
There was a ‘tsk,’ the sound someone would make at a disobedient dog. “Oh, Tommy,” Dream sighed, digging his heel into Quackity’s lower back. “You just don’t get it yet, do you? I have all the power here. If I want to cut your stomach open, I can fillet you like a fish or cut through your spine and simply revive you again.”
Alarm bells were blaring in Quackity’s head as he fervently searched for a way to get out of this situation. Where the fuck was Tommy, and how the hell was he supposed to stop Dream from killing him?
Dream knelt down on Quackity’s back and took a fistful of hair that was too long, yanking his head up in a jolt of pain that shot through Quackity’s neck before he continued speaking.
“I was going to wait, but what’s the point when you’re already being a disobedient brat? We’re going to learn so much together.”
And although Quackity knew what was coming, he couldn’t help but try and twist away from the sword as it pressed against the curve of his neck and cut into the blond fuzz that was pre-stubble.
“Wait wait wait, not again not again—” Not again, not again, not again—!
Dream huffed and re-adjusted his grip on Quackity’s hair. A swing, a sclurrp, and suddenly the sharp edge was buried in his soft, spilling jugular.