#and quackitys been here six months and still doesn’t have one | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

peninkwrites · 7 months

Text

Karl and Quackity (don't) Date - Ch 15 of ?

Tubbo is brave, Schlatt is paranoid, and Quackity is fed up with both of them.

[CW: abuse, alcohol, violence, guns]

crossposted to ao3

Ch 1

Ch 14

Mafia AU

The progression had been so gradual. From the earliest days of their relationship, Schlatt only giving him a slap only at the peak of a heated argument, giving backhanded compliments alongside seemingly genuine ones, on bad days withholding affection even when Quackity was so obviously starved for it; to now, where Quackity is not only afraid Schlatt will kill him but has certifiable near misses to back it up, he doesn’t know how that shift had passed by so unnoticed. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so tolerant in the beginning, like a frog in a pot of boiling water, but it’s too late for that now.

Not to say Schlatt hadn’t figured out ways to hold onto him early on, well before the need for all out death threats. Over the course of the first six months of their relationship, Schlatt sunk his claws in deep. He would be sweet and caring and give Quackity the attention he was so starved of; intermittently he’d cut off that attention until Quackity was panicked over what he’d done, desperately vying for affection, which Schlatt would finally give. Then, Schlatt would threaten to leave him, and Quackity would beg Schlatt to never let go, to sink his teeth in if it would help him hold on tighter, because he was already convinced that he needed Schlatt to survive. Not just physically, but Quackity needed Schlatt’s touch like he needed water, he needed his praise like he needed air, and he’d found he didn’t need food as much as he thought he did.

Two years on, Quackity was beginning to accept that while he had changed far more than Schlatt had, Schlatt still had a hold on him in more ways than one.

So Quackity goes to the hostage exchange, because why wouldn’t he? Why would it be a big deal if nothing happened, right? Fuck, Quackity is praying Schlatt lets this go. It’s already unnerving that he’s clearly had this shred of paranoia stirring for weeks before now. What if it’ll remain under the surface until he finds he needs another excuse to fuck him up?

The setup is typical. Guns watching their backs, Tubbo waiting gloomily to count the cash. One of the men ringing the room is the same one tasked with following him; Morelli. He avoids Quackity’s gaze. A bold choice on Schlatt’s part. What if Quackity recognized him and connected the dots now? That, or this is Schlatt’s way of testing how good of a job the guy was doing, staying out of Quackity’s sight. Quackity is good at pretending not to recognize people.

“Alright, let’s get this over with,” Schlatt snaps his fingers for them to open the doors. They don’t.

“No one has showed yet, Boss,” the man standing to the right of the door speaks up, and with the uneasy glances he gives his nearest comrade, he’d been nominated to give the bad news.

“The fuck do you mean no one has showed yet?” Schlatt scoffs. “Do they think their fucking wife, their fucking mother, their apparent loved one,” he says the word mockingly, “is just feeling all nice and cosy in the cellar?!”

The man knows better than to speak, watching Schlatt with bated breath.

“Fucking hell… fine, fine, I guess we’re killing her then! Their loss!” Schlatt says it so loudly Tubbo flinches.

“Boss, I mean, shouldn’t we wait for a minute? Just to see?” Quackity asks.

“Why the fuck would I do that? I gave them the time, and if they’re not here, they’re not here–” Schlatt is cut off by the front door being forced open. “What the fuck is this?!” He snaps as eight armed men enter, one for each of them. Considering one of their numbers is a kid, they’re still outnumbered.

“We’re here for Jennifer Bartlet and we’re not leaving without her,” the man at the head of the group calls out as the others aim their guns at Schlatt and his following.

Fuck. Quackity hates a shoot out. Why the fuck would these morons waste their hostage fund on mercenaries?!

“Yeah, and I gave you a fuckin’ price tag.” Schlatt laughs, unafraid to the point of suicidality. If Quackity were a bit more suicidal himself, he’d smack him. There is a weighted pause wherein no one bends to Schlatt’s whim. Schlatt seems unperturbed and shrugs. “Fine. Kill ‘em, then we kill the hostage.”

Quackity doesn’t know who shot first, but both sides are definitely fucking shooting now. Quackity is well versed in hitting the ground fast. He sees Tubbo has done the same, hiding himself behind the stairs. Quackity sees his ingenious partner has remained on the steps, high up and an obvious target, but he’s not the one firing a gun, so the mercs are more occupied with his dogs.

Quackity thinks he’s coping relatively well. And he thought he saw Tubbo duck behind the banister, but evidently fucking not anymore since he’s currently standing between Quackity and the barrel of a gun.

“Whoa whoa, stop!” Quackity yanks Tubbo behind him, and they get lucky. The man hits the ground in a spray of blood from a rogue bullet, dead or alive, he won’t be doing any more damage.

“What the fuck?!” Quackity hisses frantically to Tubbo, pulling him back behind the steps. “Are you fucking kidding me, Tubbo–?!” Quackity is distracted by Tubbo grabbing onto his tie and dragging him around the corner into the hall, “whoa whoa whoa, what’re you–” Quackity narrowly missing a bullet piercing the wallpaper above his head.

“We should– We should get the lady out,” Tubbo says, a tremor in his voice but shockingly steady. He’s let go of Quackity’s tie, trusting him to follow. “While he’s distracted, we c-can–” Tubbo flinches and ducks when the sound of another gunshot echoes down the hall, but it wasn’t toward them.

“What are you talking about?!” Quackity is almost shouting at him.

“The lady in the basement!” Tubbo snaps.

Quackity laughs, high and frantic. “Are you fucking kidding me, Tubbo?! The only leverage against the people currently trying to–” Quackity sees someone turn the corner at the end of the hall and drags Tubbo into the kitchen. “To kill us?!”

“If we don’t you know he’s gonna kill her!” Tubbo snaps back, rushing to the cellar door.

“If we don’t get the fuck out of here, Tubbo, something is gonna kill us!” Quackity grabs onto Tubbo’s arm, dragging him back. He desperately tries to think. Tubbo seems to be doing the same. Quackity grabs a stool.

“Oh, good idea!” Tubbo grabs one as well, to Quackity’s continued bafflement.

Quackity wedges the legs of the stool between the wall and the door handle, barricading it best he can in the circumstances and spins to the back wall of the kitchen, pulling his beanie down tighter and bottling the urge to throw a fucking fit. “Okay, okay, we get out the door into the alley and we run for it–”

Quackity is distracted by Tubbo making one stupid decision after another, as he’s taken his barstool and has started trying to bash it against the padlock on the cellar door. Quite loudly. “What the fuck are you doing?!” Quackity lunges to grab the stool from him before it can make another thud giving them away. So far he thinks the gunshots have covered for them, but it’s not going to last if Tubbo keeps it up.

“Me?! What’re you doing?!” Tubbo says fiercely. Quackity is taken aback. Tubbo is different. Tubbo stares up at him, affronted and unyielding, wrenching the stool back from him. “I’m not leaving when I know what’s going to happen, and neither should you! At least not until we get her out with us!” He nods back toward the cellar door and gears up for another swing.

Quackity flinches when Tubbo bashes the stool against the lock once more. It’s scratched the paint, it’s starting to loosen the screws on the latch, there’s no way of them hiding this happening at all now but if they get the fuck out of here, they can blame it on the mercenaries.

Tubbo stops when there’s a dull thud against the kitchen door. Both of them freeze, staring at the door handle as it rattles. Rather than freezing up, rather than that meek, rabbit in a headlight panic Quackity expects, to his continued exasperation, Tubbo starts attacking the lock with far more vigor.

“What the fuck is wrong with this door?!” Of fucking course it’s Schlatt’s voice. He’s a goddamn cockroach. It’s like he’s allergic to bullets.

Tubbo flinches at the three sharp bangs against the door, but he remains resolutely focused on breaking the lock. It’s starting to tear away now, the wood is splintering, at the same time, Quackity is the one frozen in the middle of the room as he watches his makeshift door jam rattle ominously against the doorhandle.

“Who’s in there?! Unless you wanna eat lead, I’d start fucking talking!” Schlatt shouts against the wood.

“I-It’s me! Schlatt, it’s me!” Quackity doesn’t say Tubbo’s name. There’s no fucking hiding what they’ve done, but maybe he can shove Tubbo out the back and take the stool so Schlatt thinks he was busting the door down. Maybe he can even lie and say he was trying to get to the hostage first. Maybe that will even work and he’s not about to kill himself or, if he’s being optimistic, just sign himself up for some egregious harm. It won’t fucking work if Tubbo keeps hitting the fucking door.

“Aw, guns too scary for you, sweetheart? I thought you’d stopped being such a pussy,” Schlatt’s patronizing drawl doesn’t sound suspicious, but certainly irritable. “Open the goddamn door.”

“One sec! It’s stuck!” Quackity calls back. He doesn’t even think he’s buying them time, because Schlatt is already trying to ram the door open, but anything to make Schlatt think they weren’t defying him deliberately.

Tubbo pauses once, staring at Quackity, daring him to open that door. Quackity stares back, daring him to hit the lock again. Tubbo maintains eye contact with Quackity as with one last hit, the lock finally clatters off the cellar door and Tubbo drops the barstool with it. He’s opening the door now. He’s seriously going to try to run downstairs and get that woman out the back door before Schlatt can get his dogs to break the fucking door down, which they’re bound to do any second.

So Quackity does something he hopes Tubbo will eventually forgive him for. He grabs onto Tubbo by the collar of his shirt and yanks him away from the cellar.

“What’re you doing?!” Tubbo cries out.

Right in time for the other barstool to finally clatter loose and for the door into the kitchen to bang open. Even then, even as Schlatt enters the room followed by four gunmen, Tubbo is still trying to get to the cellar, Quackity can feel him trying to pull away even as he cannot comprehend what’s possessed him. Quackity grabs him by the shoulders, shoving him against the fridge. “Stop trying to act strong! Stop trying to act strong!” He shakes him roughly, Tubbo’s eyes widen, stunned, mouth hanging open in wordless fear that Quackity has to ignore. “You’re just a fucking kid!” Quackity shouts in his face, harsh as he is terrified. He can deal with Schlatt, he doesn’t know how to cope with Tubbo being unpredictable.

Tubbo doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t even look as Schlatt sends someone down into the cellar. He just stares at Quackity, and once more Quackity cannot bury the thought that he needs to teach Tubbo how to have any semblance of a poker face, because right now, that kid’s miserable fucking expression bleeds hurt. All that fear and confusion as he stares up at him, and it’s so raw Quackity feels like he needs to cut the kid’s heart out before it crushes him.

“You’re a fucking kid,” Quackity snarls again. It’s all he can do. And all of his terror on Tubbo’s behalf comes out vicious and cruel, his hands still pressed to Tubbo’s shoulders, refusing to let him move.

Quackity doesn’t know. He doesn’t know that three days ago, Schlatt had told Tubbo something. Utterly matter-of-fact, Schlatt had told his son that he’s not allowed to get out of this family alive. It doesn’t matter when, or even if he turns eighteen, because Tubbo knows too much now. He’s signed into this family for life and it’s over Schlatt’s dead fucking body that he runs away from this.

That changes things for Tubbo. All he had been able to hope for was running away the moment he turned eighteen. In four years time, it will change things even more.

Quackity lets go. Tubbo doesn’t try to get to the cellar.

“The fuck were you two playing at?” Schlatt cuts in.

Quackity turns back to face him, and Schlatt glances between them.

“My idea, Boss. Thought it was best we get to her first,” Quackity says dully. There’s a gunshot in the basement and Quackity flinches. He doesn’t look back at Tubbo.

“And you kept me locked out why?” Schlatt sneers.

Quackity shrugs and pretends his heart isn’t still pounding in his ears. “Didn’t react fast enough. Sorry.”

“I guess I’ll pretend to believe that bullshit, but what gives you the fucking right to go running off making decisions behind my back? Eh?” Schlatt steps closer, towering over him like always. “We’ve discussed this, baby! Your job is to stand there and look pretty while me and the boys do the actual work. Somehow I seem to find myself tripping over you instead. When you should definitely know not to get in my way.”

Quackity is already running on too much adrenaline. “Maybe you shouldn’t start a fucking gun fight without any fucking caution next time!” Quackity shouts in his face and he knows what happens next. He braces, but it still hurts, Schlatt’s gaudy rings digging into his cheek when the man backhands him hard enough he stumbles. His cheek stings and he wonders if it was enough to draw blood but he doesn’t reach up to check. He refuses to react at all. None of this satisfies the frustration boiling in his chest.

Schlatt tuts him. “Why the attitude, Quackity? If you want me to hit you so bad, how about you just ask next time? Didn’t know you were into that.”

“Come on, Boss. Lay off. He’s just… he’s freaked out from the fire fight. Maybe cut him some slack?”

Quackity looks past Schlatt to Morelli, who had dared to speak, stunned. Schlatt scowls at Quackity’s expression, before turning back to the man.

Schlatt laughs in his face. “You’re lucky I don’t cut out your fucking tongue. You don’t have the fucking right. Why the hell do you give a shit, eh? You don’t know him,” Schlatt sneers very deliberately, a warning, daring him to fuck this up.

Morelli has the survival instinct to back down, turning on a dime. “Sorry, Boss. Didn’t mean to overstep.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I fucking thought. Now, if you’d meant to, I’d just fucking kill you.” Schlatt says. “You know better than to mouth off.”

Morelli just nods. He does not acknowledge the obvious threat, nor the indignity of a grown man voicing any thought being referred to as mouthing off.

“Get this cleaned up and get out of my sight,” Schlatt waves them off. He grabs onto Quackity’s arm tightly, dragging him back into the hall. Quackity doesn’t look back at Tubbo. He doesn’t want to know what that kid’s face looks like after that woman was shot. Quackity sees only four dead in the front entryway, a couple of them are theirs, the other two from the mercenaries. The rest must have decided it wasn’t worth it and fled. Schlatt stops behind the stairs, cornering him against the wall.

“What was that about, Quackity?” Schlatt finally lets go, staring at him, sharp and accusing.

“I told you, I was just trying to get to her first and the kid followed, I wasn’t trying to keep you out, it just–”

“No, not that– not whatever,” Schlatt waves him off dismissively. “You don’t think they give a fuck about you, do you?”

Quackity stares up at him, baffled. “Uh, who?”

“The boys!” Schlatt gestures irritably toward the hall. “My boys.” He paces for only a moment before turning back to close in on Quackity. “You’ve got no idea the shit they say when we’re not in the room. You think that son of a bitch is any different? Huh? He’s acting like a goddamn gentleman right now, but you think he’s not laughing along with all them?” Schlatt says it like an accusation, and Quackity knows his answer matters, but he’s just so startled. Quackity hadn’t viewed Schlatt as the jealous type until recently. In the beginning he acted like giving Quackity any attention was a chore, like Quackity being allowed to grace his presence at all was something Quackity had to cling to like a lifeline. This is certainly not that. And it sure as hell isn’t better.

“I mean…” Quackity laughs, and has yet to partake in caution. “How would you know what they’re saying if you’re not there either?”

Schlatt smiles. “Because sometimes I am there, and I can tell them to shut the fuck up, or I can join in.” Schlatt reaches out and pinches his cheek.

Quackity’s irritation is finally replaced by hollow disgust, which is exactly what Schlatt had been hoping for he presumes. Quackity doesn’t want to know. He does know they’re not all like that. Schlatt acts like such a fucking know it all, but Quackity knows it means something when they look at him different, like he’s an actual person. He won’t hold it against them for laughing along when Quackity has done the same thing.

“Right,” Quackity laughs and it sounds strained. “Is that supposed to make me feel better, Schlatt? Doesn’t exactly paint you in a very good light, now, does it?”

Schlatt startles him by grabbing onto his shoulders, not too tightly, but unnerving nonetheless. “You know I’m the only thing standing between you and those animals?” He expects Quackity to look him in the eye, demanding he not merely listen but understand Schlatt’s point. “You think I’m harsh, or… or demanding–” Schlatt cuts himself off with a brief, wet cough that makes Quackity shut his eyes. “Or whatever it is you bitch about all the goddamn time, do you have any fucking clue how much worse it could be? I am the only thing keeping them off of you. They don’t care if you fucking live or die. I weren’t here?” Schlatt leans in closer, hissing a warning, “they’d be on you like fucking wolves. You’d be dead by tomorrow.”

Quackity buries a shiver, hitting the wall behind him as he steps just another inch back. He wants Schlatt to let go, so he nods. Even if he refuses to believe Schlatt in entirety, it still makes his skin crawl. It’s bad enough when they agree with Schlatt and just call him cute or stupid.

“Good. I’m glad you understand,” Schlatt says, and that illusory calm returns. He brushes out the wrinkles from Quackity’s shirt. He continues, voice slow and measured and raspy. “Now, we’re gonna go back in there, and the brat is gonna explain to me why he wanted to bust into the basement so bad.”

Quackity’s heart drops to his stomach. Schlatt glances over his shoulder as there’s some well-timed shouting from down the hall; Quackity is more distracted by what Schlatt has said.

“Schlatt, that’s not–”

“You’re gonna tell me that’s not what happened?!” Schlatt cuts him off harshly, voice rough and weakened. “Because it sure as hell wasn’t you, not from the way you were chewing him out.”

“I-It wasn’t– He–” For once Quackity can’t think of a lie fast enough.

This seems to confirm whatever suspicion Schlatt had, as he gives Quackity an almost understanding nod, and heads back toward the kitchen.

Someone else had the same idea as Schlatt. Tubbo’s title as a mob prince gives him no authority nor apparently protection. In the brief period out of the room, something must have gone down, because Tubbo is currently hunched over the kitchen sink and two of Schlatt’s dogs seem seconds from a brawl.

“Whoa whoa whoa, the fuck is going on in here?!” Schlatt barks. “Which one of you fucking rats hit the kid?!” He glares between the two of them.

Quackity goes to Tubbo, without a word getting him to turn to face him, revealing a bloodied nose still pouring into the sink. Quackity tilts his head back so he can assess the damage. Not broken, he doesn’t think, but Quackity sees Tubbo failing to hold back tears. Quackity turns away from him to wad up some paper towels to stem the flow of blood. Schlatt waits for an answer.

“Hello?! Can you two not fucking hear or some shit, I asked who fucking hit my kid?!”

Quackity goes to the freezer to dig up some ice, glancing back at the pair of them. He doesn’t give a shit what happens to the man responsible. He’s for once grateful for Schlatt’s rage, because if Schlatt hadn’t started talking, Quackity would’ve gotten himself hurt doing something instead. Morelli and some prick Quackity doesn’t know the name of stand in silence. Quackity thinks Morelli isn’t a snitch. He also doesn’t think the guy is the type to hit kids, hence, they’re waiting for the other man to crack.

“You saw it, Boss! He must’ve been trying to–”

“Ah, ah ah!” Schlatt silences him with a tut and a raised hand. There’s a long pause, and Quackity has a feeling the old man is holding his breath to dodge another coughing fit. It’s easier to hide the other symptoms, the fatigue, even the dizziness, but that cough, that’s harder. “I didn’t ask you what you fucking thought he did, I asked if you fucking hit him.”

“I…” The man struggles to defend himself.

Schlatt sighs, grumbling half under his breath as he gets out his revolver.

“Hold on! Hold on a sec!” The man shouts hoarsely, backing up toward the back door.

Schlatt pays him no mind. He snaps open the cylinder and sighs more loudly. “Anyone got a bullet?” A pause. None of them are going to stop Schlatt, but maybe there’s some semblance of comradery there as no one replies. “Quackity. You didn’t shoot, correct? You ran for it with the kid?” He says snidely.

Quackity nods. He knows it makes him look weak, to immediately act as if on Schlatt’s side after the man hit him and dragged him out for a lecture, but he doesn’t give a shit. He’s on Tubbo’s side, not Schlatt’s. He unholsters his own revolver and feels a hand hold on tightly to his arm.

“Big Q,” Tubbo says, voice thick and muddled.

Quackity doesn’t respond. He hands Schlatt his gun.

“Big Q,” Tubbo says again, and Quackity knows he sounds horrified behind the blood in his nose.

“I– He disobeyed you! It was the kid! He was the one trying to get downstairs! Come on, Boss, wouldn’t you have done the same fucking thing-?” The man falls silent, holding out his hands as if to stop a bullet that way and flinching back as the gun goes off. A bullet is embedded in the cabinet to the man’s left.

“Apologize.” Schlatt says coolly.

“I’m sorry! I– I wasn’t tryna go behind your back–”

“Not to me.” Schlatt cuts him off.

Despite the gun on him, the man still grimaces at the thought of being made to apologize to a child. “Sorry, kid.”

“It’s fine!” Tubbo says, voice strained and high.

“See? Was that so hard?” Schlatt sneers. “Are we all clear, here? Crystal? None of you get to hit him. None of you.”

One of the few good things to say about Schlatt is he never flat out hits Tubbo. If Quackity thinks about it, the most he thinks he’s ever seen him do was throw something near him or shove him or hold on too tight. For a brief, wild moment Quackity thinks that’s better. He knows that’s ridiculous. Harm is harm. Schlatt is still a hypocrite.

Schlatt waits until there are a few nods of ascent before proceeding. “Good.” He glances back at Tubbo, and then again to the man responsible. “Somebody break his nose.” No one moves. “Am I speaking fucking French? Can you not hear all the sudden? You, you already gave it your best shot, eh? Try again,” he gestures with the gun for Morelli to hit him.

Morelli winces, but he does as he’s told. Quackity sees Tubbo turn back to face the sink when there’s an awful crunch, and the man hits the ground, sniveling like a coward. Tubbo’s nose isn’t actually broken, but he still took a punch better than this prick. Tubbo meets Quackity’s gaze and quickly looks away, but from that glance, Quackity knows Tubbo is upset with him. Quackity doesn’t fucking care. He does care, but nowhere near enough to regret it. He didn’t sign up for this shit, but he’s in it now. Has been for years. He keeps Tubbo safe. From Schlatt and all else. Quackity is startled when Schlatt turns and offers his gun back to him. Quackity is quick to holster it, relieved that he hadn’t shot the guy if only because Tubbo would’ve taken it personally.

“Come on. While these fuckin’ morons clean up, I want a drink.” He nods Quackity to the door.

Schlatt has his drink. Then another, then another. Then another. Unsurprisingly, that’s how the evening goes. When Quackity finally drags him back upstairs, he’s all but dead weight. Quackity thinks he might be trying to sedate the cough out of himself deliberately, but getting fucking wasted does nothing to help with the dizziness, as Quackity well knows from Schlatt leaning away from him before staggering back onto him.

Quackity finally dumps Schlatt onto his side of the bed where the man remains upright, barely. Quackity takes a pause to catch his breath. He’d stopped after two drinks when he realized he’d have to drive them home from the speakeasy he’d bullied into hosting them. Not Niki’s, of course.

Quackity recovers somewhat, and sighs as Schlatt remains sitting there, making no effort to go to bed. Giving in, Quackity leans down and undoes the laces on Schlatt’s smarmy oxfords. He feels Schlatt clumsily try and run a hand through his hair and brushes him away, pulling off one shoe as if undressing a toddler.

“That fuckin’ kid, he’s always been scared as shit. Freaked out by gunshots before he knew what they were…” Schlatt mutters.

Quackity pauses on the laces of the other, looking up at Schlatt. “What?”

“The… the kid! You know the kid,” Schlatt scoffs derisively.

“Tubbo?”

“Yeah, unless we got another one running around I don’t know about,” Schlatt says drolly. He’s coherent enough to talk, apparently, but he doesn’t do anything to help or stop Quackity from slipping off his other shoe.

Quackity gets up, deigning not to be on the floor for the rest of this ordeal, and reaches out to unclasp Schlatt’s belt. Schlatt starts trying to undo the buttons on Quackity’s pants.

Quackity smacks his hand away. “Nope.”

Schlatt moodily returns his hands to his sides. Another benefit to Schlatt’s growing weariness is he’s quicker to tolerate a firm no. He’d always grudgingly get there eventually, but Quackity appreciates that it’s less of a fight.

Schlatt resumes his tangent like there was never any pause. “Y’know, took him three years to say a word, and he skipped right to complete sentences! Took me by surprise, I was about to call him a dud and have the boys put him in a sack and toss him in the river, y’know? Like a bag of kittens,” Schlatt laughs wetly, Quackity pauses, staring at Schlatt in stunned disgust. “I’m kidding, Jesus fucking Christ, you think I’d kill my own blood? Why d’you think I’ve kept him around this long?”

Schlatt meanders back to his original topic, while struggling drunkenly with the buttons of his shirt. “First… first words were shut the fuck up. Ha! Probably heard it from me. He didn’t say it to me, to be clear, otherwise I’d have smacked him for getting mouthy and then he probably would’ve been mute for another three years. Made me laugh, though. Y’know…” Schlatt seems to struggle to think something through, enough so that he has to pause with his shirt buttons to focus on it. He lets Quackity pick up where he left off.

“I dunno who actually taught him to talk. Must’ve just picked it up from the boys, I guess. He had a nanny for the first two years or so, but the turnover rate was so fucking high. None of ‘em had the guts to stick it out––Actually, one of ‘em tried to take Tubbo with them. Some… some former military type, an old Captain or some shit and decided he’d rather deal with diapers?” Schlatt scoffs. “Thought he wouldn’t be a pussy about my business with that kind of history, but nah. He tried to run for it. With the brat. Bastard should’ve drugged him or something, you can’t smuggle out a crying baby!” Schlatt points at him intently, as if he’s offering pertinent advice before once more drifting off, hands slack at his sides. “That was probably the last one. Not gonna risk someone stealing my fucking blood. So, at that point… I dunno.”

“Wait!” Schlatt snaps his fingers. “I remember! I think… I think it was some British pricks, I dunno. They thought it was funny trying to make him repeat the shit they said, especially after his first words were so fuckin’ ridiculous coming out of that tiny mouth. They had that kid swearing like a sailor by the time he was three. And… and they’re responsible for the fucking accent he’s got… back then I had a whole ring of Brits running around with me… probably saw him more than I did...”

“That’s how the kid learned to talk?” Quackity asks, his initial disgust traded for curiosity as he pulls Schlatt’s shirt off of him, leaving him in a white undershirt disturbingly damp with sweat. “How does he sound like the fucking Queen now?”

“Fuck if I know, sometimes I think he started with the– the saying please and thank you and sorry, sir!” he says each phrase mockingly, “just to… just piss me off…”

“Right,” Quackity says dully, tossing the shirt to the floor and moving to leave.

“It’s his birthday soon, you know,” Schlatt actually puts a hand on Quackity’s arm to stop him, as if what he’s saying is important. “He thinks I don’t know when it is, but it’s… it’s this month. He’s still my kid, even if I… I didn’t really want a fuckin’ kid, y’know?”

Quackity knows when Schlatt gets into one of these rambling moods there’s no use dissuading him, better to just listen until he talks himself to sleep, but Quackity can’t help it, pulling away from Schlatt and going to the other side of the bed. “No it isn’t, Schlatt.”

“Huh?”

“His birthday. It’s not this month.”

“The fuck are you talking about? How would you know?” Schlatt sneers. “It’s… it’s the 21st. The 21st of March,” Schlatt nods resolutely.

Quackity kicks off his own shoes and starts loosening his tie. Maybe if Schlatt had been anywhere near close, the right month, or maybe even the right season at least, Quackity might’ve just moved on. It’s too fucking much, all of it. Every word Schlatt has said tonight. “December.”

“Huh?”

“It’s in December.”

Schlatt scoffs. “And you would know? Like you know and I don’t?”

“Yeah, actually. Yeah, I do,” Quackity says stiffly. He flinches when Schlatt clumsily hits him over the back of the head, just enough to startle and sting.

“Shut the fuck up…” He mutters Tubbo’s first words and slumps over onto his pillow, and Quackity stops trying.

#my writing #mafia au #I don't mean to proceed 'business as usual' but if I don't write I'll lose my mind.#it's not relevant to this fic but I don't think I'll be writing c!Wilbur any time soon.#I know it's a character not the creator.#but just my own personal comfort with writing him is just gone.#this fic includes abuse like always so please read with caution

4 notes · View notes

commaclear · 1 year

Note

If it’s okay with you can we put like,, happy hc we have of btp? Like the previous ask sort of

Just stuff that would’ve been nice to see in the ending? /nf

Absolutely!! Here, since I'm not going to finish the series, I'll share the notes I had for where I was planning to go with part 3, and you guys can go nuts with filling in the blanks, cuz I do want to see the story finished, I just can't do it myself! (It was gonna be called Skeleton Keys)

It’s been almost six months since Close to the Bone.

Quackity’s life is in pieces. He’s a PI now, and he barely makes enough to keep a shitty one-bedroom apartment. In a moment of weakness, he fell back in with Schlatt, and now he’s kinda trapped because of a desperate need to feel wanted. Tubbo hires him to find his missing husband Ranboo; he takes the job because Tubbo’s offering a lot of money, even though he fully believes that nothing nefarious is going on, and that Ranboo actually just walked out.

Meanwhile, Wilbur is finally getting his life together. He has gotten himself a therapist. He’s meeting with a tattoo artist to make plans for a scar coverup, and he uses shea butter on his stomach everyday to help his scars heal. He doesn’t keep alcohol in the house anymore, and when he drinks with friends, he never gets wasted. Work is tough but rewarding, and he’s much closer with his colleagues. In his spare time, he’s working with Techno to track down Tommy, and when Phil and/or Mumza are in town, they meet at Wilbur’s apartment to have a nice family dinner.

Wilbur and Quackity run into each other during their respective efforts to find Tommy and Ranboo, and both of them are shocked at how the other is doing. Wilbur tries to show Quackity that life is still worth living, and that he needs to live it for himself. This is a healing arc with actual hurt/comfort instead of hurt no comfort.

#anons my beloved #bone to pick #skeleton keys

5 notes · View notes

fluffallamaful · 2 years

Note

Something admittedly does rub me the wrong way about pet!Dream apologizing to Quackity for “misleading” him. Like, the whole timeline is that 1) Quackity’s torture assisted in damaging him so much that he had no choice but to revert back to this form for an extended period of time, 2) Quackity finds him in the middle of nowhere and decides to keep him as a pet, 3) Quackity and Dream bond in a weird little dynamic where Dream is under the impression that he will be murdered brutally and painfully if he is found out and 4) Dream escapes the moment he has the chance. Frankly, I’d even say that he’d be completely in the right even if he took advantage of Quackity’s hospitality entirely instead of escaping as quickly as he could. He never really did anything to Quackity except for his (failed) attempt to destroy Las Nevadas (he blew up a path and a wall and was swarmed by an army of slime men — Charlie is the only one who actually got any sort of victory that day a la taking back his own personal autonomy from the guy who tried to shape him into his own image). And even that was in response to three months of daily torture so brutal that Quackity frequently left covered in his blood (which apparently felt like six months to him, according to Punz — and I don’t see why either of them would lie about that since I don’t think Purpled gave a shit about the actual duration — especially since it’s already been established that his sense of time had been completely screwed up in the prison) (no clock).

If I may make an alteration:

Dream is huddled beneath a bush, letting out squeaky little hiccups as the rain pours down around him. His cover is blown, his taste of family has just been shot to bits, and he’s pretty sure people are going to be coming after him soon. Which is really bad because he still hadn’t recovered fully and he certainly can’t run faster than any of them.

He hears footsteps. He recognizes them as Quackity’s immediately and begins to panic — especially when the man halts right in front of his bush. There’s no way out. He’s caught. He wonders if he’s going to make it quick and then disregards the notion entirely: Quackity enjoyed his visits in Pandora.

But instead of reaching for him, Quackity — sits down. And he begins to sing quietly.

It’s an old tune. Something cheesy and sweet, the kind of thing you’d expect to hear in an old movie about candy and flowers and true love’s kiss. The kind of thing you’d hear from your grandmother as a baby. Maybe it’s in Spanish and Dream doesn’t even know what any of the lyrics mean, but melodies are universal so it doesn’t matter.

It takes a while. But eventually Dream pokes his head out, just barely. He’s wet and he’s cold, and if Quackity reaches for him now there’s no way he’d be able to run in time, but nothing happens. Quackity glances at him with soft eyes and then averts his gaze again, continuing to sing.

Maybe he’s being stupid. Maybe he’s naive — maybe Quackity being nice to him these past few weeks has turned his brain to jelly. He’ll regret this, probably. But he stays until Quackity finally begins to trail off the melody, transitioning to watching him in silence.

It’s quiet. The rain has stopped.

“I’ve got some soup back home,” Quackity finally says. “It’s still warm. …And if it’s not, I can always heat it up again.”

He knows it’s a stupid move. But he’s tired and he’s wet and he’s cold, and Quackity’s offer is so much more tempting now that he’s had a taste of it. So he accepts.

The man sneaks him past the clearing full of people. They are still arguing.

As it turns out, Quackity was telling the truth. A bowl of hot soup is waiting for them back at his house, and he doles up a bowl and moves to sit down. He takes a spoon and carefully lifts out a bite, holding it out for Dream to take.

It’s good.

(To be clear: I’m not trying to make a personal attack against you or anything! Just something I was thinking.)

ok you have very excellent points here and yes don’t worry i understand where you’re coming from and love love love hearing your thoughts on the lore :D

(discussion nelowww)

🦙🦙…

i think that it’s kinda almost the same as the tommy apology to dream?? like i didn’t really see it as blob dream forgiving quackity,, i saw it almost as him apologising about that fact that he had hopped around to so many different server members,, and didn’t tell quackity about what was going on. but i also think that i put it in there as almost a vulnerable moment for dream. he shouldn’t really be the one apologising at all :(( and yet he’s wet and cold and there’s a million thoughts rushing through his head and he feels like he’s lost something that he actually enjoyed. and so the pitiful squeak is all that comes out of him

but i do actually prefer your ending better where dream is far more scared of quackity. where quackity has to coax him out more because dream is genuinely scared of him. perhaps there’s a moment where quackity actually makes the connection that the majority of the reason as to why the blob is beaten up in the first place is because of him. like he starts off by crouching down and being hurt about the fact that dream lied, but then suddenly realises throughout his monologue that hang on wait,, why would dream tell the truth? what could he have possibly done for dream in the past that would cause him to trust him?

like having a moment for quackity in the rain where he just goes through a mass self-reflection,, with dream still panicked, sopping-wet, and holding his breath from beneath his bush. but i guess it’s like one of those moments where characters realise that dream is just a human like the rest of them,, and really they’ve all done bad things. if what punz said about dream motives is true then quackity doesn’t really have the heart to just leave him out here

he starts singing his song (cute 🥺),, im tempted for it to be a song that he used to sing to slime? or something like that. either way the image of quackity singing a song while both of them are drenched and miserable in the rain is :( but perfect.

i also like your touch of dream crawling his way out and not being fully trusting of quackity, just feeling like he’s got no other choice. the promise of soup does sound nice.

i think that quackitys character has promise for self reflection and change. which is why it’s still cute that he’s the one that brings dream back to the community house. but perhaps it takes dream a little longer to fully trust him

🦙🦙🦙…

#llama asks #your points are always so well thought out they’re so cool #lore with llama #soup the destroyer #Soups Pet Blob AU

3 notes · View notes

cdroloisms · 3 years

Text

uhhhh ,, , hi ??

i feel bad bc i havent been here in. LITERALLY forever lmao - hope you guys r all doing good!! ive been working on some stuff but it’s been pretty slow going, and school is also A Thing, so i definitely havent been writing as much as i’d like.

as an apology, have this? really self-indulgent feel-good syndicate + c!dream centric oneshot bc i felt like writing this so u know. why not.

tws: implied torture, abuse, self-harm, disordered eating, starvation mentions, prison arc themes - overall everything’s just blink-and-you’ll-miss-it mentions, not too much angst here for once! c!sam and c!quackity critical, sorry guys but we r still in the prison arc and they still r on their “fuck human rights” arcs.

Dream leaves.

It’s a surprise - or maybe it isn’t one, Niki isn’t quite sure. She’d never grown to quite trust the man, she knows, and she can’t really tell if the bitter twist of emotion that swells up her chest when Phil comes to her city with the news is betrayal or resignation - what can she say. She’s gotten more than her fair share of broken promises. They don’t exactly faze her anymore.

None of them seem all that surprised, save Techno, who entirely fails to hide the worry that flickers over his face when he calls the Syndicate meeting to officially inform them of what’s going on. She shares quick, careful glances with the other members when his back is turned - despite how many times he’s been burned, Techno still seems so adamant at holding onto every thread, trusting all too easily those who would use and leave him behind without a second glance. He can handle himself, she knows. Still, that’s not going to stop her from slapping Dream upside the head for being yet another worthless person to betray her friend’s forgiving nature.

Nothing much changes in the next few weeks. Niki has to admit, it’s strange without Dream around - he’d not been an ally, much less a friend before dipping completely, but he had been some sort of constant - and Niki is self aware enough to know that she misses him, a little, the same sort of way you might miss an old routine once it’s gone, if only for the familiarity. She still visits Techno and Phil with various baked goods, knowing that Phil would have his hands full just keeping Techno from running himself ragged - makes sure to check on Ranboo, whose nerves have inevitably returned with Dream’s disappearance. To be honest, she doesn’t worry as much as he does - ally or not, she’s spent enough time with the Dream that had left prison to expect that he won’t exactly be able to get himself very far should he come for the four of them, and doesn’t particularly care about he might pull with the rest of the server - if things get bad, she’s sure Phil and Techno will have it handled. She asks Phil, once, what happened, and he shrugs.

“I don’t know, mate,” he heaves a chest to the side, pulling out a stack of stone blocks that Niki gladly holds for him. “One day we woke up and he was just- gone. Everything. Was like he wasn’t ever there at all.”

Niki hums. “Why’d you think he’d do something like that?”

“If I could understand half of why Dream does what he does, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now, would we?” He smiles at her from behind a crate. “Shall we bring these things upstairs and start on dinner?”

Niki laughs, knowing that the conversation about Dream is over. “Of course, Phil.”

Dinner is a welcome distraction; all of them have gotten better at cooking in recent months, between her baking and the veritable library of recipes Phil knows that she’s never even heard of, but Phil is still the only one she really trusts to hold his own behind the stove - Ranboo is still a little too nervous around water, and fire, and much of everything, and though Techno can be a perfectly capable cook, he’s been distracted as of late. She has a strong feeling that left to his own devices, he’d just grab a stack of steak and disappear for another few weeks, searching the server for information.

Honestly, she’s a little thrown off by his behavior - he’d not done anything like this with Tommy, if she remembers right, and had hardly seemed affected by Wilbur’s betrayal on the Sixteenth at all (then again, she was a little too lost in her own head to notice if he was.) She tosses her head over to ask Phil, who’s leaning over a few carrots he’s slicing to throw into the stew he’s making, and the man pauses, frowns.

“From what I know,” he starts, words slow, careful, “they’d spent three months in there together, and the conditions weren’t exactly- stellar. According to what Techno said, I’d assumed they had come to some sort of understanding.” He goes back to the carrots, expression dipping into shadow and out of sight. “Guess I was wrong.”

Niki hums. She can see it, sort of - spending months together with someone, no matter how insufferable, probably would end with some degree of attachment - she thinks back to plotting through sleepless nights with Jack, anger and grief leaving them simmering, crabs in the same pot of boiling water, remembers looking into his dead-eyed gaze and seeing her own stare back - and feels a brief pang of guilt. Besides, Techno is Techno. She’d never met someone so willing to forgive, understand, reach out despite everything that’s happened - for Dream to take advantage of that feels almost too obvious. Of course he would - what were they all thinking?

“He’s Dream,” she says as if that explains everything, flipping open the oven door and feeling a wave of heat blast her face. Phil hums lowly, understanding. “I hope Techno will be alright.”

“He’s tough,” Phil cracks a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, “And he has us on his side. He’ll get through.”

Niki opens her mouth to reply, only to be interrupted by the front door slamming open. Outside their quaint little cottage, the wind howls - it sounds like the beginning of a blizzard out there, flurries painting the world in a thick blanket of white. In the door, Techno strides into the entrance with loud, decisive movements, shutting the door loud enough to make the walls shake. Inadvertently, Niki finds her eyes drawn to the small pile of snow that he’s tracked into the house - Techno’s usually so careful to kick it all off on the porch, never liked it much when there was a pile of melting ice and snow dampening the floorboards and soaking into his shoes. He huffs harshly, stripping off a snow-dusted scarf from his face - a long, multicolored abomination that had been the product of her attempting to teach Ranboo how to knit. Phil has reached his side, hands splayed over his upper arms, eyes soft in the corners from concern.

“Techno, mate-” his tone is chiding but his movements gentle as he brushes snow off of Techno’s signature cloak, “you’ve gotten snow everywhere. What were you doing, dueling a blizzard?”

Techno shakes his head, not meeting Phil’s banter as usual, fur sticking up from the snow melted into it. His voice is gruff and holds little humor - unconsciously, Niki feels her shoulders tense.

“Phil, call a Syndicate meeting.”

---

Phil, per usual, is unrelenting, so it’s not until a quick dinner and some hurried messages to their final member later that the Syndicate is gathered in their meeting room, Techno pacing the length of the room as they wait in their respective seats. He looks less frazzled than he did when he first entered the house, in part due to Phil’s sitting him down to eat and picking through his fur to smooth it out of its windblown spikes and tangles - Techno had grumbled at him to stop preening him, but looked a lot more relaxed by the time they were all finished with their food. Still, his ear flicks periodically, twitching toward ssome sound that Niki can’t hear, movements tighter and jerkier than she is used to. He’d always been a little flightier after the prison, but not quite like this - everything here feels like that but dialed up to eleven. Inexplicably, it reminds her of Dream.

“Techno?” Phil gestures towards his seat, prompting, and he settles into it with an obliging huff.

“Y’know, Phil, the code names are kinda pointless if we never use ‘em,” he says, words carrying no real heat - he looks back at the rest of them, lips thinning into a line. “Anyway. I called this meeting because I found a couple leads on Dream.”

“O-oh,” Ranboo stutters, tail lashing behind him.

“You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to, mate,” Phil reminds him gently, a sentiment that Niki affirms with a determined nod.

“There’ve been some reports- rumors, really,” Techno says, calling their attention again, and they all turn towards him, “of increased activity around the prison again. The Warden spending more time on its grounds, movement seen around the walls and around the portal- so I decided to go check it out for myself.”

Niki frowns, and watches as Phil does the same beside her - Techno had seemed to avoid the prison if he could help it, save for when he went on the initial mission to break Dream out. It was no secret to them that he didn’t exactly like the place.

“We could’ve helped if you asked,” Phil reminds him, and Techno shakes his head.

“I know, Phil. It’s just- that place is bad news. I’d rather keep you guys away from there if I can-” his hand goes to his head with a poorly hidden wince. “Sorry, Chat’s a little- worked up, at the minute.”

“Sorry, we’ll stop interrupting you,” Niki says, cutting off Phil before he says anything else. “So you went to the prison?”

Techno takes a second to gather his thoughts, mumbling quietly in the way that usually means he’s telling off Chat. “Right- I decided to stake out the portal. The rumors were right- Sam has been hanging around there, entered and left the prison four times yesterday. And today-” he hesitates, expression visibly darkening. “This morning, about an hour after the Warden arrived, Quackity came to the prison and went through the portal. He left the grounds about six hours later.”

“Quackity?” Niki frowns, eyes flicking over to how Phil has stilled in his seat. “What is Quackity doing at the prison?”

Phil ignores her question, reaching towards Techno, something indiscernible in his gaze. “Mate…”

“He smelled of blood when he left,” Techno says, words sharp, and Niki feels her heart skip a beat. “Warden left about half an hour after, and I came back here.”

Ranboo clears his throat, sounding tentative. “Okay,” he drums his hand on the table when they turn towards him, eyebrows drawn, “but what, exactly, does this have to do with, uh, Dream?”

Techno and Phil trade glances, one of their bouts of unspoken conversation that Niki’s grown extremely used to. They seem strangely hesitant, she notes internally, Phil looking towards Techno with a question written clearly in the planes of his face. Techno sighs, a long puff of air through his lips as he closes his eyes and turns his face towards the table.

“You know how Dream was- injured,” he starts slowly, looking back up at them. Niki shifts uncomfortably - of course she noticed, it was impossible not to - if not the bandages that peeked under his sleeves and the cuffs of his pants, then how skinny he’d been, all skin and bones curled up uncomfortably in a pile at the corner of Techno’s couch. She’d not know the extent, by any means, and had always assumed that they’d been self-inflicted - she’d been in a bad enough place on her own before to know how your head can make you want to hurt, sometimes, how eating food can feel like choking on sawdust and the world could feel so much smaller when focused into delicate pricks of pain. Phil’s eyes are trained on Techno - on his face, then on the pinkish raised skin of a still-healing scar along his forearm, and she feels understanding settle like a rock in her gut.

“The Warden had apparently been lettin’ Quackity into the cell to torture Dream for the revive book,” Techno trails off, eyes narrowed and seemingly fixed on a random point of the opposite wall. “By the time I go there, it’d been goin’ on for months.”

“But wait,” Ranboo’s tail moves even more erratically behind him, “You mean you think he’s back- there? How?”

“He has to be back in the prison,” Techno points out. “I can’t imagine anyone besides him that the two of them are goin’ to just start torturin’- Sam had been iffy about the whole thing when Quackity started in on me. It has to be Dream in there again.”

“But how did he get in there, then?” Ranboo asks, visibly confused. “Last time it took the entire server to lock him up!”

“There were no signs of a struggle,” Niki points out, matter of fact. “I believe you, Techno, but I don’t really know how they managed to drag him back so easily. I can’t imagine he was jumping at the chance to go back in there.”

Techno shakes his head with an uneasy sigh.

“I have a feelin’ of what might’ve happened,” he says quietly. “And I really hope that I’m wrong and he’s less of an idiot than I think he is.”

---

They set out to investigate - and maybe attack - the next day, Techno and Phil taking on the bulk of preparations as Ranboo stays behind. He’d been understandably uneasy about the whole mission, so they’d left him back by the Syndicate room to set off their pearls in case anything went wrong. (“By the end of the day,” Techno had said, giving Phil a look with the corner of his lip quirked upwards, “don’t be like Phil here and think I meant the end of the month, alright?”) They’d all be supplied with armor and weapons, thanks to Phil, but she’d been handed the bulk of their potions, arranged neatly in her inventory by type in case they’d be needed. She lingers in the back of the room as Phil and Techno chat amiably over the sound of making last minute repairs on their armor, listens to Techno’s ceaseless reminders for Phil to be careful, watches as they make sure that their stasis chambers are properly prepared should they need them.

(She watches as Phil nudges Techno’s shoulder when he lingers behind a certain chair, empty as long as she’s been part of the Syndicate, the fountain behind it bubbling quietly without a pearl inside. Techno sighs, expression strange.

“Should’ve set him up with one,” he says, quiet, and Phil pats him on the back.

“You couldn’t have known, mate. We wanted to wait a little before telling him about the Syndicate, remember?”

Techno hums, noncommittal. “Still.”)

They Nether travel to the site of Techno’s lookout, which ends up being a little shambling thing with dirt walls dug into a small hill looking towards the prison portal, having hardly enough space to fit the three of them. Phil looks at it with no small amount of apprehension, and Techno shrugs lightly, wearing an expression that makes Phil turn to him with a look that makes Niki break into giggles. Techno crosses his arms- “in my defense-” and Phil looks up at the dirt ceiling with a long-suffering sigh.

“You couldn’t have made this a little roomier, mate?” Phil asks, voice dry as kindling, and Techno raises his hands by his head.

“Hey hey, it’s discreet, it gets the job done, it’s perfectly structurally sound-” the sound of the leftmost wall crumbling, along with the cloud of dust that puffs from it and fills their tiny space, undermines the tail end of his statement and leaves him sputtering, Niki falling into another fit of quiet giggles. Underneath it all, Phil sighs again, raising his wings behind him.

“...these are going to take so long to clean out.”

To his credit, Techno looks sheepish. “Sorry, Phil.”

They sober up quickly; Techno turns around to the opposite side of the hill, where he’s hidden some peepholes inside the dirt - Niki settles herself by one, leaning forwards to put her eye to it and catch a glimpse of the prison looming over the water. It’s been repaired since the breakout, she notes, the gaping hole in the roof completely gone and replaced with obsidian, as intimidating and undamaged as it had been before, if not more so. Phil makes a considering sound from behind her.

“Same plan as last time?” He asks, and Techno shakes his head.

“They’ve probably reinforced it, and Dream’s blueprints won’t include anything new the Warden’s added. I wouldn’t be surprised if they moved Dream to a different location completely. We don’t want to draw too much attention, either, we were cutting it pretty close during the breakout.” He narrows his eyes. “I was thinking we’d try something a little stealthier, this time. “

He gestures at Niki, who blinks back at him with wide eyes.

“You got a couple of invis potions for us?”

She distributes the potions among them all, one regular and two splash potions of invisibility each, and Techno points towards the prison once she’s done.

“The most important thing is to get through the portal,” he says with a grim expression. “Worst comes to worst, once we’re inside we can always blast our way through - but gettin’ through that portal is our first priority.”

Phil narrows his eyes at him. “The portal is locked, though. We’ll need to follow someone else inside- and I’m pretty sure Sam uses pearls, so he’s out.”

Techno nods. “Which is why I’m bankin’ on the prison gettin’ another visitor today. We’ll just have to wait.”

Niki swallows. “Do you mean-”

“Quackity?” Techno turns away, not quite meeting her eyes. “I’m not totally sure, but he’s not exactly the type to just give up on his goals. He’s pretty predictable- an empire needs an emperor, always needs something new to rule- you know the type,” he says, tipping his head towards Phil. “He’ll be mad at Dream for disappearin’ on him and won’t miss the opportunity to prove he has the upper hand again. I’m not sure that he’s going to come today-”

“-but you wouldn’t really be surprised, either,” Phil finishes for him, eyes steely with cold determination. “I trust your judgement, mate. Just stay safe- from what I’ve heard, Quackity has been...erratic.”

“When is he not,” Techno huffs a short laugh, shaking his head. “I’ll be fine, Phil. Just be careful, both of you. Don’t get too close. And if things get messy- which is what we’re tryin’ to avoid, by the way- then don’t do anything too risky. Our priority is gettin’ in and out alive.”

“We can handle ourselves, Techno,” Niki reminds him with a small smile. “And Ranboo is there in case anything goes wrong.”

“Alright, then. Here’s the plan.”

---

It takes quite a long time for Quackity to arrive, long minutes that Niki spends fidgeting in the corner of the room, brushing her hands over seams of the netherite plates that Phil had shoved into her hands, back at the Syndicate room. The set is inexplicably light - not weightless, by any means, as it is still netherite, but not nearly as bulky as any set of netherite armor she’s owned or seen in the past. The runes are precise, lines thin and exact, written with graceful strokes of lapis.

“Phil’s the best metalworker I’ve ever met,” Techno tells her with a small grin, catching her in the middle of tracing what she can make out as an Unbreaking rune along the metal strapped to her forearm. “But then again, he’s had the time to practice.”

“Are you calling me old again?” Phil huffs, and Techno flashes a smile her direction before looking at Phil with a slight grin.

“Well, Chat is,” he says, lips twitching when Phil glares back.

“You can’t just blame Chat every time you insult me, you little shit,” Phil groans, and Techno only grins wider.

“Phil, my ad revenue,” he complains, a dramatic lilt to his voice that has Niki stifling a snort, and Phil’s glare only grows deadlier.

“You’ll have more than your ad revenue to worry about if you keep this up,” he mumbles, going back to keep watch at one of the peepholes and stilling as he does. “Shit- Techno, Quackity’s here.”

Techno straightens up, hindered slightly by the low ceiling of their room. “Alright- we all know the plan, right?”

Niki nods in the affirmative, pulling out a splash invis and letting it settle in her hand, the glass cool beneath her fingertips. She reaches into her inventory and lets her armor fade into it, takes a deep breath and watches as the two across from her do the same. She doesn’t wear armor often, but so close to the prison, feeling mining fatigue settling deep into her bones - she’s never missed the security it offers more. Techno keeps watch, waiting- drops his arm in a signal. Now.

Niki throws the potion at their feet, flinching back at the sound of shattering glass and feeling its effects seep into her skin. When she opens her eyes, she can’t see anything but the inside of the room that they’d holed themselves in and the faintest of wisps rising from where their feet must be, curling around the grass.

(Please let this work, she begs to no one in particular as they walk towards the prison. And if you can hear me- please keep us all safe.)

She hardly breathes as they follow Quackity across the path, holding someone’s hand in her own - Phil’s, by the feel of it - careful to muffle her footsteps in the grass and stand still whenever Quackity’s eyes come a little too close. Thankfully for them, he seems focused, hardly stopping or looking around at all as he walks towards the prison’s portal, movements stiff as he walks forward. He punches the button on the wall particularly harshly, and Sam’s voice comes crackling through a speaker a second later.

“I’m here for my visit,” Quackity says, punctuating the sentence with a snort of laughter that doesn’t sound particularly sincere. Niki hasn’t seen him in a long while, not after everything that happened in Pogtopia, and she feels a chill worm down her spine - this man looks nothing like the one that had laughed and danced and sung at her birthday party what feels like an eternity ago. What happened?

Sam sighs, the sound turning into a sharp burst of static through the speakers. “Hello Quackity,” he says, voice deep and tired. “Please step into the portal after I tell you to and then wait on the other side.”

“I know the drill, Sam,” Quackity rolls his eyes. “Just because the bastard was gone for a few weeks doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten how this damn place works.”

“Just going through protocol, Quackity,” Sam replies, and something about this response has Quackity exploding into a brief fit of laughter, the sound grating against Niki’s ears. She feels her grip tighten on Phil’s hand, air caught in her throat.

“Protocol- ha. Whatever you wanna tell yourself, pal.” Quackity smiles, cold and cruel, and Niki tries not to think about how she’d seen that same grin on Wilbur, eyes sparkling from the light of the lanterns hung from the bridges and walls of their ravine, remember how she’d looked into them and realized her old friend wasn’t there, anymore. Quackity disappears into the portal, and after a second, the hand around her own pulls her inside of it too.

On the other side, Quackity taps his foot impatiently, crossing his arms and waiting- Sam’s voice comes through the speakers again, words clipped.

“Go through the portal,” he says, and Quackity does- once again, they wait for a second for his body to disappear, then go within it themselves, pressed close enough together within its frame for Niki to feel the warmth of a wing wrap around her shoulders for a quick second before they’re out of the hot, stifling air of the Nether and into a large, neatly made lobby of blackstone and quartz. They duck into a corner, watching as Quackity moves towards the front counter, the Warden waiting there with his arms crossed over his chest. He looks- tired. His movements are slow, footsteps loud against the floor, shoulders tense and back hunched. He walks around the counter, sword strapped to his belt, and Niki feels her breath hitch at the sight of dried blood still stuck to the blade in patches and splatters.

“He ready?” Quackity asks, holding his hands out - Niki catches a flash of metal as Sam drops something into them, watches as Quackity raises what ends up being a pair of shears, dangerous-looking and gleaming with enchants, to the light.

“Yes,” Sam says, side-eyeing Quackity with a small glare. “You know, it’s supposed to be your job to clean those things off when you’re done with them.”

“I told you, busy day back in Las Nevadas yesterday,” Quackity waves a hand- “I’ll do it, alright? Don’t get all pissy now. What happened to being partners?”

“You said we’d be done with this months ago, Quackity,” Sam sighs, and Niki feels a light tug on her arm as Quackity and Sam begin to walk towards the wall to the right of them, breathes in slow and deep as she follows Techno and Phil towards the others. The wall yawns open with the hiss of redstone firing and pistons pulling blocks upwards, opening into a dark hallway that feels like entering the maw of some sort of giant, insatiable beast. They step inside as one, and the door shuts behind them.

“We’ll be done soon enough,” Quackity says, and Niki feels hairs rising on the back of her neck. “Trust me.”

They stalk forwards through a labyrinth of blackstone, Niki brushing the palms of her hand against her clothes when it goes clammy from adrenaline. Halfway through, she pauses to tip back a second potion of invisibility, careful to keep her movements slow and steady as not to make a sound - the liquid is silvery, cool and light on her tongue, and she lets the effects wash over her with her breath caught in her lungs before moving forward. The tunnels are simpler than she’d expected, bearing little obstacles or checkpoints - Quackity makes a wry comment a second after (“Guard tunnels today, huh? Appreciate the hustle, pal-”) that confirms her suspicions. Despite the potion particles still whirling around their bodies and the sounds of their footsteps, too loud in her own ears, they manage to make it forwards without much trouble, entering a large room with a doorway filled completely with a curtain of lava.

“Set your spawn,” Sam says, still stoic, and Quackity rolls his eyes again before doing as told. Niki keeps looking back at the lava flowing past the wall, its heat filling the room and making her already slick palms even worse, and Sam moves to the side to flick a lever, eyes trained on the lava slowly bubbling in front of him.

“Give me your tools?” Quackity asks, and Sam sighs before doing so - Niki watches as he hands over a netherite axe, then potions, then a few raw potatoes that Quackity accepts and puts into his inventory. Sam raises an eyebrow once he’s done, hand tight around the handle of his trident.

“You bring your own sword, today?” He asks, seeming irritated, and Quackity shrugs.

“Sorry pal, I need to make a new one. Guess I’m borrowing yours again.”

Sam sighs again, louder, and hands over his sword as well, watching as Quackity swings it a few times experimentally. The blade skims a little too close to her on one swing and she can’t quite help the squeak that escapes her lips as she throws herself out of the way, feels her heart hammer in her ears as she backs up against the wall. Please don’t hear that please don’t hear that please don’t hear that please don’t hear that-

“Quackity, wait.” Sam raises a hand, ear twitching as he looks over in her direction with narrowed eyes. “I think I heard something.”

Oh fuck.

“Well, guess show’s up then,” Techno drawls, and both of them whirl towards his voice, giving Niki enough time to pull her armor back on, scrambling to get her sword and shield in her hands as Phil does the same besides her. Pieces of armor appear where Techno is standing, then a bucket of milk- oh, why must her friends be so dramatic- and Techno’s standing there, smiling sharply, with Orphan Obliterator held loosely at his side. “Let’s get this done, then.”

As one, Techno and Phil blur into action - Techno moves forward to catch the prongs of Sam’s trident on his blade as Phil parries Quackity’s blows with his own sword- they move fluidly, easily covering each other’s backs as the room devolves into chaos. Niki remembers their guidance as she flits in and out of the fight, scoring quick hits to keep the Warden and Quackity off balance while remaining out of range from their weapons, and it’s not long before both of them have fallen with a spray of items and experience orbs scattered all over the floor.

Techno moves over to block off the exposed face of the bed with a block, looking over at the two of them with an uncharacteristically severe expression. “They’ll be back soon- we have to move fast. Niki, you have those fire res, right?”

She nods as she reaches into her inventory, finding the potion’s orange-pink glow and smashing it at their feet. They dive into the lava together, Niki scrambling to keep up, her arms struggling to move through the thick lava, loses sight of both until she flails into something directly in front of her and hands are pulling her up out of the lava.

“There you go, mate,” Phil smiles down at her as hauls herself to her feet, making a face at the feeling of the lava clinging to her clothes. “Yeah, swimming through lava isn’t exactly fun. You good?” She flashes him a thumbs up, and he laughs- “Niki, you’re still invisible.” She flushes pink- right.

A few sips of milk later, she gives him a proper thumbs up, and he laughs, loud and bright. She looks past him to where Techno’s crouched over something- someone, she realizes with a start, in the corner. Dream’s back in prison clothes, ragged and ill-fitting, and he’s curled up with his back towards the front of the cell, shaking enough to be obvious even from where she’s standing. Techno speaks lowly, voice barely more than a deep rumble in the air, almost inaudible.

“You there, Dream?”

She watches as Dream turns his head, looking up with wide, bleary eyes. His hair flops in front of his face, and something within her itches to brush it out of the way. “T-Techno?”

“Yeah nerd, who else?” Techno smiles, and Dream seems to blink awake, drawing himself up with a shuddery breath.

“Techno- it’s a trap- what are you doing here?” he hisses, and Techno gives him a look, deadpan.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s a trap- come on, Dream, we’ve been over this by now, bro. You have to know that their traps aren’t goin’ to do anything to me by now,” Techno rolls his eyes, reaching forward to steady his hands on Dream’s shoulders when the other man sputters and struggles to breathe. “Easy, now. Geez, you wanted to prove me wrong about being homeless bad enough that you came back here? We could’ve just made you a house, you know. You didn’t have to go this far.”

“I- they were gonna kill you,” Dream breathes, face twisted up uncomfortably, and his eyes flick past Techno’s face to where Phil and Niki are standing at the opposite wall of the cell. “All of you- they said-”

“And that’s what I thought you’d say,” Techno groans. “Come on, you idiot, I thought you were smarter than this-”

“They were right there, Techno!” Dream fires back, eyes alight. “You- they were right there, what were you thinking, they could’ve-!”

“And my best friend is a necromancer, remember?” Techno shakes his head. “Come on, Dream- Sam and Quackity? You know we can handle them in a fight, especially when you can just revive us if anything goes wrong. You don’t have to do this whole self-sacrifice thing, bro- there’s only so many times I can break into the same prison, y’know.”

“You’re so stupid,” Dream huffs, but he leans in anyway, head just barely settling against Techno’s shoulder. “I- I can’t believe. You’re so dumb.”

“Hey, don’t be sayin’ that to the guy that’s breakin’ you out of prison,” Techno laughs, slinging Dream over his shoulder with an easy motion and laughing harder when it makes him yelp. “That’s just bein’ ungrateful. You’re making Chat sad, man, and when they’re sad they don’t subscribe-”

“I regret this entirely,” Dream says, voice muffled against Techno’s shirt, tone completely flat. “Put me down- you idiot- I’m staying here. You’re worse than Quackity.”

“Rude. Now you’ve really made Chat mad. I demand an apology-”

“Boys, boys.” Niki can’t help giggling, watching the way their gazes snap towards her, rolling her eyes as she moves forward with a few potions held loosely in her hand. “Dream, do you want a health pot?”

Dream seems to deliberate for a second, before nodding at her, expression slightly strained. “...sure.”

“You two can finish your argument after we’ve broken out of the biggest maximum security prison on the server,” Phil drawls from behind her, arms crossed at his chest. “Come on, now, before Sam gets back.”

“Isn’t this the only maximum security prison on the server?” Techno asks aloud, an amused expression on his face - one that only gets worse when Phil glares at him with one ice-blue eye.

“Shut-” he sighs, shaking his head. “You two are chaotic little shits, you know that?”

“Don’t compare me to him, Phil,” Techno complains, Dream mirroring his words with muffled protests of his own, and Phil breathes another drawn-out, long-suffering sigh as he rubs at the bridge of his nose.

“Niki, give us some fire res please?”

She finds the potion bottle between giggles, throwing it to the ground as she tries to choke down the laughter rapidly bubbling up her throat. “Of course, Phil.”

She looks back at Techno and Dream before jumping into the lava, the two of them once again lost in some sort of argument, Dream draped over Techno’s shoulder. He’s breathing easier now, she notes, and Techno looks looser too - a little less tense, leaning back with a perpetual quirk to the corner of his lip as they fire insults back and forth. This is familiar, she recognizes with a soft twist in her chest, the same way that Phil and Techno can finish each other’s sentences and look at each other with laughing eyes sharing the same memories of the past, the same way Ranboo watches Techno’s every step as he adjusts his stance and lifts his sword and Techno laughs and calls him a main character in turn, the same way she and Phil will settle together on the porch over cups of tea and sit at each other’s sides for hours. The rhythm between them is one well-established, the road well-worn - she imagines them, huddled in this dingy cell for months together, and breathes in slow and deep.

“Come on,” she smiles, making sure to keep it on her face when Dream meets her eyes with wide, startled ones of his own. Dream still isn’t an ally, and isn’t a friend.

But - she watches as he smiles back, something inexplicably warm in her chest - maybe, one day, he could be.

#tw torture #tw abuse #tw self harm #tw disordered eating #tw ed #tw sh #prison arc #pandora's vault #tw starvation #c!sam critical #c!quackity critical #my writing :D #> my writing

328 notes · View notes

ruby-whistler · 3 years

Text

Why c!Dream should (and probably will be) redeemed

Hi! I’m bad with intros. You’ve read the title, so, let’s start with the definitions.

In this essay, we are considering the popularized definition of “redemption” instead of the classical one, which is, as per the Oxford Dictionary, “the act of saving or state of being saved from the power of evil; the act of redeeming.” That’s not however the way the word is used in fandom and media.

/dsmp /rp

The definition of redemption I’ll be working with in this essay is not forgiveness by the people who c!Dream has hurt, nor is it removing himself entirely from his past actions, but moreso the decision to change for the better and abandon destructive mindsets for himself and others.

A “redemption” in a narrative sense would be circumstances and a character arc that would allow that kind of healing and betterment.

I’d like to start this off by the fact that being “irredeemable”, in this sense, also doesn’t exist; redemption is a thing of conditions and choice, not of being allowed by someone else. You can’t gatekeep healing from people who seek it, just to be clear, and that even goes for people who have done terrible things.

Since I understand there is a lot of concern for c!Dream’s past actions, here is a post from people who are much more fit than me to speak on the matter, about the way in which they see a possible c!Dream redemption arc.

Another disclaimer, I am not going to be considering c!Dream only from the perspective of c!Tommy in this essay. c!Dream appears in other people’s perspectives and he himself has his own, unseen perspective. As a character, he is an individual person in his own right rather than just the antagonist of c!Tommy’s story, and so I do not have much concern for their narratives intertwining too much should this writing choice occur.

I’d also like to note that redemption is, in this sense, always a positive thing for everyone involved - someone who’s been prone to doing bad things in the past deciding not to do them anymore and try to change, or just simply heal enough to consider it, isn’t going to have a long-term negative effect in any of the characters, but rather the other way around. Healing is an unlimited resource, and the victims do not have to heal first for the person who hurt them to consider being better.

Here’s a well-written thread on Twitter that elaborates a bit to finish off this point, and let’s move on to actually talking about redemption in the context of the Dream SMP, and c!Dream specifically.

Why a c!Dream redemption arc is not only a good writing choice, but in this case the only good writing choice;

c!Dream, as we all know, has been subject to mental and physical abuse to the point of straight up torture by both c!Sam and c!Quackity (to different extents). He has been in indescribable amounts of suffering for the past 74 days at the time this essay will be published. That is six and something times the duration of the entire exile arc in canon.

Whatever the interpretation of his words in prison is, what is undeniable is first of all the fact his mental stability is absolutely crushed at this point, second that no human being could possibly ever deserve to undergo this, and third, his stay in the prison is showing off his humanity and making him out to be sympathetic.

Now, consider this; how would it feel if c!Tommy died at the end of the exile arc? Empty, there would be no catharsis to such an end, especially because of all of the hurt he’d gone through. Objectively, a bad writing choice.

Let’s compare, narratively of course, this situation to the prison arc. Even though I would never say one of them is “better” or “worse” than the other, since both are terrible and undeserved, c!Dream’s current state checks off all of the boxes that would make his death unsatisfying in the storyline; even if people want him gone, there would still be the dissatisfaction at the current build-up and why they even did it in the first place (it really wasn’t necessary to anyone else’s story to make him out as a victim, and yet they did) if they were planning to kill him off anyways. And since the prison arc is naturally meant to induce sympathy, even from an angst perspective it would simply not make sense within the themes and writing of the plot.

So, c!Dream can’t die, and he also can’t stay in the prison forever - the build-up must lead to something, which is logically a breakout. Great… what now?

Well, the Dream SMP prides itself in accurate representation of trauma and mental instability, specifically cc!Tommy and cc!Dream who have pulled it off incredibly during the exile arc.

Now, undoubtedly, after the prison, c!Dream is going to be just terribly traumatized- considering the writers’ past creative decisions, would it make sense for him to play the role of a dangerous, heartless villain in other people’s stories, while completely ignoring the logical fallout of what he’s been through?

In my mind, no. The most possible result is that cc!Dream is going to rightfully portray someone who’s been hurt so much he is broken, scared and tortured into submissions over months of agony and slowly stripping away of his agency, his dignity, his humanity. And that is… not going to be pretty, nor is he going to be in any way the same as before.

After everything, I’d be surprised if he can properly look at shears without shaking. That’s not villain behaviour, that’s the behaviour of someone who needs help.

Which leads me to another point, which is relatability. Believe me or not, there are people out there who heavily relate to c!Dream because they have been through things that allow them to see themselves in the character - abandonment, mental illness, etc. - or who have had destructive mindsets they have struggled to let go of in the past.

To them, as well as to the viewer, redeeming c!Dream could actually be a very good example, showcasing that anyone who has done bad things or has been hurt in the past can learn that it is possible to be better, to move on, to not be stuck in a loop but to actively seek help and then use that support to find the path to healing.

Making c!Dream a better person, who in a way, wins over his past, over his trauma, over the hurt he’s caused, and manages to actually get better… is inspiring, in a sense. It shows that you can abandon unhealthy mindsets, you can find a support group of people who care about you, you can make your life better simply by deciding to be better and then sticking to that, no matter how difficult the process.

This is why I believe that redeeming c!Dream would not be bad writing, but quite the opposite, and that the prison arc is an obvious set-up. Alright, but how does that work with the character? How could someone so widely hated mentally improve in such a seemingly violent and terrible environment? Would it even make sense within the context of c!Dream’s character so far? Well,

Why c!Dream has the capacity for healing and the Dream SMP the ability to provide it;

First of all, let’s remind ourselves that through c!Dream’s entire spiral he wasn’t ever directly given a chance to change. He was regarded as someone to defeat in order to accomplish a happy ending, or as someone who needed to be removed in order to achieve power on the SMP. Ever since the 16th, which is when the corruption of the character is the most obvious, there have been no attempts to reach out or to help him. I do not blame the characters for this - I am simply pointing out that since it has never happened before, we do not know how he would respond, and that, after everything he’s been through, any bit of kindness or compassion towards him will be a new concept he will have to learn to deal with somehow.

This point is especially driven home by the fact that both c!Quackity and c!Sam would often tell him he is a monster who deserves nothing but to suffer, and that what he’s going through is never going to amount to all the hurt he’s caused - basically removing any possibility for ever getting better (because by this logic, he doesn’t deserve support, and he doesn’t deserve to get better) from his line of sight.

He also hasn’t had a support system since shortly after the 16th, when his friends left him over c!George’s dethronement and made no effort to mend their relationship afterwards. c!Dream isn’t used to having allies and people on his side, but to being hated; again, wouldn’t that mean positive reinforcement could very well be all he needs to make the choice?

His bad mindsets - attachments are weakness, ends always justify the means, people will consider you a bad person no matter what you do - have been continuously proven right by his environment, even in prison. Any kind of subversion, plus an explanation as to why they are wrong, could be of great help to c!Dream.

Just another disclaimer; I do not believe c!Dream would change thanks to the treatment in prison, but rather despite it. His mental stability is non-existent at that point, and in order to get better he needs genuine emotional support from the people around him as well as to heal before he can redeem himself.

Alright, but… c!Dream has hurt a lot of people. Who would be fit to help him?

Let’s start off with the worst option and why it’s impossible the writers would even attempt this; c!Tommy.

c!Tommy has no responsibility to help or ever forgive c!Dream - not to say he could. The two, as it is, would drag each other down instead of helping in any capacity, and only make matters worse. The two of them shouldn’t even interact in the best case scenario - the best thing for both of them would be if they got enough healing and support individually that they could live around each other and not get their trauma or toxic habits triggered when interacting for whatever purpose of the plot.

So, if not c!Tommy (and c!Tubbo neither by extension), who could redeem c!Dream?

Well, he can’t do it on his own for sure. Being in nature with animals is nice, but further isolation from other people would merely help with the prison trauma, not with the state of his tendencies when interacting with others. He, once again, needs positive reinforcement from other people for him to heal properly.

There are two main options for this in my mind, and then there’s a few individuals he could also find comfort in, including people from both groups or those unaligned.

1) Kinoko Kingdom

From the people of this new country, c!Dream has never negatively interacted with c!Karl before, he has never hurt c!George and he hasn’t directly harmed c!Sapnap. Although the relationship with his old friend group could be difficult to rekindle, none of them have grudges against him that are too personal, and they have been canonically close friends since the beginning of the SMP, so it would be very much possible to rebuild burnt bridges. They’d be familiar, and with the addition of c!Karl they could be a good source of comfort for c!Dream after he either breaks out or is released from prison - just gotta convince c!Sapnap not to kill him first.

2) The Syndicate

From the Syndicate, c!Dream has never directly interacted with c!Nikki, and from what I know of her character she never seemed to be very affected by his actions - even doing his work for him when he was planning to burn down the L’Mantree. c!Techno is an ally who doesn’t have anything against him, and as for c!Ranboo, here is why I believe c!Dream being in the Syndicate could be positively influential on his character arc as well;

c!Ranboo and c!Philza have had a conversation about change, during which c!Ranboo made it clear he thinks everyone can change except for c!Dream; who, in his mind, is “too deep down the rabbit hole”. c!Philza replied that he thinks anyone can change if given enough time.

… you see what I’m getting at?

c!Dream has been implied to be an ally to c!Ranboo’s enderwalk state (or the state when he has access to his full memory), and hence would most likely not behave negatively towards him at all. While it might make it more difficult for c!Ranboo to deal with his own issues, it might also give him more motivation to get to the bottom of it as well, especially since he now has access to the person who, presumably, started this all. While this is going on, c!Dream would show himself in a much different light than c!Ranboo sees himin, which could lead to confusion, realization of the flaws in his own logic, and hence, positive character development.

Here’s a great post about why c!Techno as a character could be a great asset in c!Dream’s healing process & redemption, and why there is not much need to worry about him not knowing or finding out about c!Dream’s actions.

Of Kinoko Kingdom and the Syndicate, as far as I know, neither c!Tommy nor c!Tubbo have ever been directly involved with these groups, nor are they planning to.

Another important point to make is that, while c!Tommy needs to be kept away from c!Dream in order to heal properly, the same goes for c!Quackity and c!Sam in c!Dream’s case. While c!Quackity has high chances to interact with either Kinoko Kingdom or the Syndicate in the future, there’s an even higher chance, in that situation, that c!Dream would be offered protection, which is also important; there is no healing from trauma without the knowledge of safety, to some degree.

So, this was an essay as to why I think c!Dream’s recovery and redemption (one needs to come before the other, naturally) is not only extremely possible but also could be pulled off well and have a positive impact on both the characters, and the audience.

#dreblr #dream smp #c!dream #c!dream sympathetic #c!quackity neg #c!sam neg #dsmp analysis #tw torture #tw abuse #long post #i really should start writing longer essays #i need more material #anyways #hope y'all liked this #just joining the debate #:]

393 notes · View notes

dreamsclock · 3 years

Note

Au where Dream would be killed until he complied

au + idea taken from @/stabbysideblog :)) there’s a new tag for dark writing that i’ll use to tag anything like this in the future !! heed the warnings on this - this whole au is p c!q + c!sam neg, but they’re soooo fun to write (u know how much i love writing c!q LMAO),,, enjoy !!

warnings: death, sleep deprivation, dehumanisation (extreme), emotional distress, abuse, abuse of power, dark themes + content, c!dream hurt, c!sam neg, (implied) c!quackity neg

Lesson One: dogs are expendable.

His eyes are dry and aching with the strain of being awake and active for forty seven hours. It won’t hurt him to close them. It won’t hurt him to rest them. It won’t hurt, just for a moment, to...

(Strike one: putting self-care before duty.)

Lesson One: a dog is expendable.

Dream’s eyes fly over as something swishes through the air, dropping and rolling just in time to avoid the sword whizzing past where he’d been only moments prior. “Stay awake,” the Warden says crisply, “you still have thirteen hours left.”

“This isn’t fair.” He hasn’t used his voice in so long. It comes out croaky, more of a groan than speech. “I can’t- perform at the top of my game if I’m- if I’m tired, Sam.”

(Strike two: talking back.)

Behind the Warden’s mask, his eyes crystallise cold and unempathetic. “Start the routine again.”

Dream’s legs buckle as he pushes himself to his feet. “Sam...”

Both of them know he physically can’t.

“Start again. Now.”

Sam doesn’t seem to care.

And he’s not an idiot, he’s not, so despite his trembling limbs and bleary double vision, Dream begins the routine: a two hundred metre run, parkour across a series of ledges, a two hundred metre swim, and then at the end - Sam waiting, armoured up and weapons out, ready for Dream to fight against to try and beat him. He’s ran it so many times now, been awake for hours and hours, alternating between the routine and helping Quackity: and it proves too much for him here.

Dream makes it to the parkour and collapses at the beginning of it.

(Strike three. The worst strike and his original sin: failure.)

(Failure is not an option in Las Nevadas.)

The Warden looms over him. Dream can’t get up, can’t even focus enough to listen to the commands he’s being given. Incoherent, he almost welcomes the sword at his throat, almost welcomes the by-now familiar blossoming pain of death, that grows, grows, grows-

Blackness.

(Six months later, Buddy flinches back at the sight of his old training grounds, a whine tearing itself from his throat. It’s nothing compared to the lengths he can go now, but it makes bile sit in the back of his throat and a shiver roll down his spine.)

(Lesson one, he can almost hear in his ear, dogs are expendable.)

(Sir calls his name in the distance, and Buddy is happy to go to his side.)

#> writing !!#> guard dog au #> dark writing !!#tw death #tw sleep deprivation #tw dehumanisation #tw abuse #c!sam neg #c!dream hurt

71 notes · View notes

teddy06writes · 4 years

Note

Could I request a romantic karl x reader x quackity x sapnap fic where they were all out on the town and stuff and suddenly the reader saw something she liked and the boy didn't noticed and kept walking and when the reader looked back she didn't see the boys and started panicking(you can decide the rest!) It's okay if you don't wanna do this!

sapnap x Karl x quackity x reader

trigger warnings: swearing

premise: literally whats in the ask I have it as a flea market, which if you’ve never been to one is like a mix of antiques, vintage stuff and preowned stuff at a bunch of stalls and in my area they fill up huge fields of them and ours is like the biggest in the northeast and holy hell I miss it and covids a bitch (we’re pretending it doesn’t exist)

(y/n/n)- your nickname

(y/h/c)- your hair color

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Why are we here?” Alex whined.

You grinned, looking around at the rows and rows to flea market stalls, “It’s not fall if you don’t go to the flea market.”

Karl giggled as you all started moving down one of the rows, pointing at one stall, “Why are they selling clown paintings?”

“Why not?” Nick chuckled, “We should get one and send it to Clay.”

“Send it to George with a note that says ‘this is u’.” Alex countered.

Karl laughed, grabbing onto his hand, as you all moved closer to a different booth selling wall hangings.

You continued to wander through the fields making jokes and looking at various things, Alex even trying to haggle with a vendor for a big letter board sign he thought would fit in the back of his set up, already planning to put ‘casa de putas’ on it.

As you moved on from the stall, letter board in hand he continued to grumble, “There’s no way this thing was 20 bucks market value.”

You laughed. “And yet you still paid for it.”

“I needed it!” He exclaimed.

“Thus is the way of the flea market.” Karl chuckled.

Nick snorted, leading the way over to another stall selling katanas.

“Minecraft in real life who?” Karl peered over into the cases, looking at the pristine swords.

“Look at that one,” You pointed to one with a deep orange and black handle wrap, “It’s matches the aesthetic.”

Nick chuckled moving out of the way of another person looking at the stall, and tugging at your wrist, “Come on, I don’t need a katana.”

“There goes my epic warrior boyfriend then.” Karl huffed dramatically.

“Hey, you still have me!” Alex said.

Karl eyed him, “Ehhh, no.”

Alex gasped dramatically and Karl grinned, “Cause your my epic lawyer boyfriend!”

You chuckled, turning to look at another stall with paintings as you passed.

A particular painting caught your eye and you paused, looking at it further; it showed a thunderstorm, layer upon layer of dark clouds covering the top half of the canvas, a raging sea at the bottom.

You didn’t notice as the boys kept walking, disappearing into the maze of stalls and crowd of people, as you approached the stall, examining the painting further.

“You like that one?” the vendor asked.

You nodded, “It is very beautiful.”

The woman smiled, “That’s one of my favorites too. Took the artist nearly six months to get the clouds right.”

“How much is it?”

She lifted it off the display shelf to check the sticker on the back, “The artist wants 32.”

You nodded, reaching for your wallet, “Well worth the price.”

The vendor quickly wrapped the painting so that it couldn’t be messed up, and took your money, “Have a great day!”

“You too.” You smiled, turning away from the stall, Guys look at this...”

You trailed off, realizing your boyfriends were gone.

Biting at your lip you raised on your toes to look over the crowd, trying to push away the panicked feeling rising in your chest.

Quickly pulling out your phone you tried to send a text to the group chat, already starting to wander deeper into the stalls.

Soon enough you were entirely lost, full on panicking now, trying to focus mainly on finding the main road, trying to push away the overwhelming feeling of the people on all sides.

~~ “Well you know they didn’t just stay still!” Nick exclaimed as Alex suggested going back to look for you near the katana stand.

“Yeah, especially if their panicking.” Karl agreed.

Nick sighed, “Well still, we should go back there first and look from there.”

The other boys nodded, and started to head back that direction, keeping an eye out for you.

“You boys looking for something?” The woman from the stall where you had bought the painting asked once they had gotten that far.

“We’re looking for our partner,” Alex said quickly, “They wandered off or something.”

She squinted at him “Oh! You were the ones walking with the one who got the storm painting weren’t you? With the (y/h/c) hair and a blue jacket?”

Karl nodded, “Did you see which way they went?”

“Down that way,” She pointed, “Looked really panicky.”

“They don’t do well in crowds without people they know,” Nick explained, “Thank you.”

They all quickly headed off in the direction she had pointed, now stopping to ask other vendors if they had seen you, Alex still trying to reach your cell, “I can’t tell if its the crappy signal or if they just aren’t checking there phone.”

Two more calls and you picked up, frantically asking, “Guys, where are you? Why’d you leave?”

“Hey, hey,” Alex said calmly, “We didn’t realize you had stopped, where are you baby?”

“Uhh,” He could hear you looking around, “Back near the food trucks we saw near the parking lot.”

“Okay, we’ll be right there okay, (y/n/n)?”

“mhhm.”

It pained Alex to hear the panic in your voice and still end the call, but he had too, tell Karl and Nick.

“Their near the food trucks.”

“Lets go then.” Karl said urgently.

Nick nodded and not to much later they were coming up on the area you said you were in, and Karl called, “I can see them!”

They hurried over to where you were pacing near the back of one of the stalls, “(Y/n/n)!”

You were damn near tears as Karl pulled you into a hug, Nick quickly grabbing your hand and Alex murmuring apologize.

You sniffed as they pulled away, “Thought you guys left.”

“You wandered away.” Alex pointed out.

You pulled out the painting, carefully unwrapping it, “It was so pretty.”

“It is, but did you really need to wander off?” Nick asked.

“You guys are the ones who walked away!” You protested.

“Whatever.” Alex said grabbing one of your hands.

Karl quickly took your other and for the rest of the day you stayed holding hands with at least one of them to keep from wandering off again.

#mcyt x reader #mcyt imagines #sapnap x reader #karl jacobs x reader #quackity x reader #sapnap x karl x quackity x reader #teddy06 writes

625 notes · View notes

dreamsmp-au-ideas · 3 years

Text

Oh, that bit about Karl’s powers and XD’s company at the beginning of the overwatch timeline made the karlnapity brain go brrrrrrr, bro!! Very long post ahead!!!! And I know the chatfic is coming soon, and I totally understand if you wanna reserve the blog’s attention for that once it comes out because I am also extremely excited for it, so publish this whenever you want!! Also good luck with the title and summary!!

So like, it’s a few years after Overwatch fell, and Sapnap, Quackity, and Karl are more or less content! They feel for Sam and the other original members, they do, but Overwatch and the omnics honestly weren’t a very big part of their world. They all made it through the omnic crisis just fine, and now they’re just going about their lives in the relative peacetime. They’re even engaged, vague plans of a marriage someday cobbling together bit by bit, but they’re in no rush. They’re happy!

And then Karl finds out about this interesting experiment that’s looking into real, live, actual time travel. Like!! Karl was psyched enough when space travel started getting big again; he knows just about everything there is to know about Horizon One for someone who’s never been there. If time travel turns out to be real? Karl wants in, and he wants in now.

Sapnap and Quackity are half-convinced it’s a scam or a gimmick or something. Sure, they personally knew what amounted to a superhero team a few years ago, but there’s a difference between a small group of skilled fighters and literal time travel. Especially since it’s an XD-sponsored endeavor, Quackity is certain there’s some catch. If nothing else, it’s probably a way to waste a lot of people’s time and money to get XD some good press again.

But Karl is so excited to check it out, neither of them want to try particularly hard to shut him down. They decide they’ll keep an eye on it, obviously, just in case, but they wish Karl good luck and a good time. So he heads out with high hopes and a little suitcase, promising to call every night and to see them soon.

And for the first few days, it goes great! Karl does call them every day and talks for at least an hour about everything he’s learning about this theoretical time travel and how it’ll work: a ship called the Slipstream, which is supposed to use teleportation technology to travel between places in negative time, thus creating functional time travel. Sapnap and Quackity reserve their doubts, but Karl’s having the time of his life either way, and they’re glad to hear him so happy. Especially when he tells them that he gets to get in the ship and take it on a test flight tomorrow - not to try out the time travel yet, but just to make sure he knows how to fly it. Karl gets to fly a ship!! He’s gonna be an actual pilot!! He’s so excited!!!

Karl hangs up that night, clearly over the moon, and Sapnap and Quackity resolve themselves happily to at least four hours on the phone tomorrow night, hearing all about the flight and how it went and what Karl is looking forward to.

And the next night, the hour comes, and Sapnap and Quackity settle on the couch with snacks and drinks, ready for a good long listening session. They wait for the phone to ring. And wait. And wait.

After an hour, they reason that maybe the test flight took longer than expected. Maybe Karl is tired out from flying it. Maybe Karl got distracted. Maybe he forgot to charge his phone. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Either way, it’s not like they had agreed that he’d call at this specific time. So there’s no need to worry. They’re not worried.

Another hour passes. And then another, and another, and soon midnight finds Sapnap and Quackity, sitting in the kitchen with mugs of tea long since cooled, watching a phone that won’t ring. Looking up the experiment or the Slipstream doesn’t bring up any bad news, which sets them both a bit at ease; no news is good news, right? At least for now?

Uneasily, they decide to go to bed. Karl will have to have called or at least texted by morning, surely. And if not, they’ll call him, and then they’ll call the number they were given for questions about the experiment. There’s no reason to worry.

Despite having no reason to worry, when morning comes without word from Karl, Sapnap and Quackity worry. When they call Karl, it goes straight to voicemail. When they call the number for the experiment, it’s disconnected. When they look up the experiment and the Slipstream and XD in general, they notice what they hadn’t last night: not only is there no news, there’s no mention of the experiment. The website Karl had learned about the experiment from is gone. XD’s website makes no mention of time travel. Even with all of Quackity’s investigative power, as far as the world wide web is concerned, there has never been a ship or shuttle with the name Slipstream.

It’s like the whole project never existed at all, and Karl Jacobs along with it.

Thus begins Sapnap and Quackity’s investigation. They call anyone who will listen, telling them that Karl is missing and it’s almost certainly the fault of XD and his company and please please please help them find out what happened. They become the most annoying thorn in XD’s side in months, calling every division in every company several times over, demanding answers. At one point, they’re discreetly contacted and offered hush money if they just drop it, and Sapnap has never screamed so loud in his life as when he told them exactly what they could do with that money. Quackity immediately tries to follow up, tracing the offer to gather proof that something must have happened if they’re trying to cover it up, and only runs into a brick wall. XD is infuriatingly good at covering his tracks.

What finally marks the turning point in their investigation is XD’s most common underestimation: common human decency between strangers. Quackity and Sapnap are anonymously contacted by someone who was working in the experiment’s division and heard about their search, someone who has access to Slipstream plans and blueprints. Through them, Quackity and Sapnap learn that Karl vanished because he was pressured into activating the time travel function on his test flight, despite the fact that it wasn’t ready yet. They’re also given early blueprints for the Slipstream, which include some of the plans for the time travel mechanism.

It’s this mechanism that Sam is able to study and rework and reverse engineer, eventually leading to the development of the chronal accelerator, which should, in theory, bring Karl back.

And it had been a rough time for Quackity and Sapnap, spending nearly all of their free time trying to gather resources and to find the truth and then to help Sam however he needed. They’ve undergone their respective breakdowns, supporting each other through them: Sapnap kept Quackity from burying himself too deeply in his work and his research, getting him to sleep and eat regularly. In turn, Quackity made sure he was available for Sapnap to talk and vent to, redirecting his steadily burning fury to constructive outlets. They’ve settled into an uneasy but manageable rhythm of getting through the days, haunted though they are by the uncertainty of where Karl is and when (if) they’ll see him again. And with the invention of the chronal accelerator, they’re both struggling with just how much hope they can afford. If this doesn’t work - if they get so close to finally getting Karl back, only to fail… it’s not something they want to think about.

So when Sam calls them down to his workshop, saying that he thinks he has a working model to recover their fiance, they arrive hand-in-hand, Quackity guarded, Sapnap cautiously optimistic. They gather around the workbench, surrounding Sam’s invention, a mechanical-looking harness with a glowing, green-and-purple spiral at its heart. Sam looks to them, hovering one hand over the activation switch, waiting for their signal.

They share a glance. Sapnap squeezes Quackity’s hand, steady and secure. No matter what, it promises. No matter what, I’ll still be here. I’m with you.

They both nod to Sam, and he flips the switch.

The harness hums and crackles to life, its spiral glowing brighter and starting to spin. Sam stands at the ready, watching six different monitors to ensure nothing goes wrong. Sapnap and Quackity lean on each other, nearly holding their breath, eyes glued to the accelerator.

Slowly, a figure fizzles into existence. Half-transparent, arms curled close to their chest, they glance around the room, looking lost and unsure, until they meet eyes with Sapnap and Quackity. Then their eyes go wide, one hand rising to their mouth, hanging open in shock.

Sapnap? says the ghost of Karl Jacobs. Quackity?

And in the next second, the ghost comes back to life, lungs filling with air, color rushing to his cheeks, solidity returning to his form. And Karl gasps, coughs, leans forward with one hand clapped over the accelerator, and his gaze doesn’t leave his fiances for a second. He extends one shaking arm, reaching for his fiances with an open hand. The tension shatters.

Sapnap closes the distance in half a second, Quackity barely a breath behind. The fiances collapse against the table as the two of them all but tackle Karl. Because Karl is real, Karl is alive, Karl is here in front of them. The lingering doubts that have dogged their footsteps vanish. The fear in their hearts that three engagement rings would become two wedding rings dissolves. The aching absence they’ve felt between them for months melts away in tears and sobs and bone-crushing hugs, the three of them relishing the hard-regained closeness, pressing together as the weight of the world lifts from all of their shoulders.

They’re together again.

#dream smp #dream smp au #overwatch au #quackity #karl jacobs #sapnap #awesamdude #submission #an anon #oh god this is amazing #i love this so much #i'll cherish it forever #long post

58 notes · View notes

24-guy · 4 years

Text

A theory on the reviving c!Wilbur situation.

/rp

/dsmp

Warning, swearing.

So... Let's start from the first important thing.

Wilbur died. We know this.

Then wilbur speaks to tommy after the disc confrontation, we know that Ghostbur and wilbur are different from each other.

Wilbur is told tommy wants to revive him.

Wilbur doesn't want to be alive again.

So now we move onto the main point of this theory.

Tommy dies, and talks to wilbur in the afterlife. Immediately, they're like.. already fighting.

Says there's 8 more eons. Which is 80 billion years.

But then wilbur starts with his competative solitaire. And I'll probably link back to this in a second, I don't know. These theories are just my train of thought as I write things down. I don't have a plan. Just a main thought and I expand on it. So yeah. Wilbur talks about solitaire.

And tommy declines, proceeding to blow raspberries.

Wilbur spends "six hours" setting out the cards.

And tommy despises the fact that wilbur is glad tommy is dead with him.

Wilbur said he knows that if he gets brought back in some way, the server is going to go to shit in some way.

But then wilbur is happy he's death.

And then tommy is brought back.

Now. Dream says he's going to bring wilbur back to break him out of the prison. And in all honesty, I don't think wilbur will be doing that. This wilbur is crazy and bringing him back to life will pull him away from that brink of clarity he had left when he blew up l'manberg. There will be nothing left of the wilbur that dream or anyone else knew.

So why would he help dream? Dream has a point, wilbur would owe him his life. But wilbur isn't Technoblade. Wilbur might not hold up on the promise to pay dream back.

Now onto tommy. Tommy begged dream to not bring wilbur back to life. That wilbur had terrible, terrible plans for when he was brought back.

I've got two to three possibilities of what the meaning behind this begging could mean.

1, tommy is using this to help wilbur stay dead, knowing that his brother-figure wants to stay dead with his solitaire cards and jschlatt and mexican dream. This, however, is clearly failing.

Or 2, tommy knows that if he shows weakness around dream, dream will use it to exploit him. Tommy has had months of time to sit and plan with wilbur what is going to happen. And tommy might still want his brother back. So.

Tommy acts like wilbur terrifies him. Like wilbur isn't playing competitive solitaire somehow and he's got big plans for the server, playing into Dream's want for manipulating tommy and, if I'm honest, I think he also wants to see the world burn.

However. Maybe this is false. We saw tommy and wilbur arguing at each other before, and plus wilbur is sick in the head. There is a possibility that he knows the silly little solitaire is getting at Tommy's nerves because he's annoyed easily.

Or 3. "Come back in any way".

Wilbur has put himself onto tommy again. Maybe it wasn't physical. But due to talking to wilbur again, tommy is influenced by him. Kind of like how ranboo thought he had gotten rid of the dream voice because he hadn't been talking to dream enough to remember what he sounded like.

What if that's what's happening here?

It would play into the "don't become this person" trope that they're playing onto the kids. Tommy shouldn't become wilbur, tubbo shouldn't become jschlatt, ranboo shouldn't become dream. That kind of thing.

Now tommy has listened to and been around wilbur, tommy is being influenced in some way.

Maybe the bit that's influencing tommy is the small bit of wilbur that's left that's terrified about what could happen if wilbur is revived.

But. Now a part of wilbur has been revived within tommy.

And we look around and realised how much lore is going on.

Techno streamed, phil did lore, ranboo took a break from tubbo and michael and did lore and is now panic brewing potions, foolish has done lore for the first time, the egg is having a crimson banquet, puffy has done an origin story where apparently she's lost memories as well, we had another tales from the smp episode set in the near future. And that's only the ones I've been able to find and watch as they're my main streamers I watch. I know niki was involved with the syndicate now, and jack manifold is getting grief. I know something is happening with quackity. I still dread the day sam does lore because that's gonna break me if he still thinks tommy is dead.

The lore seems to be picking up and in a more... Disastrous way.

And it's due to the egg.

And I link back to solitaire. I swear. I will link these two together.

Competative solitaire is weird because solitaire is a single player game. So what if the point of "competitive solitaire" is who can get the most cards in the right order, or something? Or who can clear the board of cards first? Gain every card?

The definition of solitaire is, after all, "any of various card games played by one person, the object of which is to use up all one's cards by forming particular arrangements and sequences." And yes. I looked this up for a minecraft theory. I'm insane. I know.

So. Competative solitaire.

And wilbur knows things will go to shit if he gets brought back in some way.

Competative solitaire between tommy and the egg.

Tommy currently has the upper hand. The egg doesn't know he's back as far as we're aware, I don't think.

The question is, who's going to make the first move? Who's going to move that first card?

But as with solitaire, there's always a possibility that you won't win. Or in this case, nobody wins. There's always a chance.

So what happens if this chess game that dream is playing, turns into one of cards? Where each player has completely different cards to each other? We know wilbur has been playing solitaire in the afterlife, perhaps tommy brought that knowledge with him when he was revived?

Maybe the begging for wilbur was his first card being dealt.

I don't know anymore. Cards? Chess? Eggs? Block men? Who would have thought that our lives during this would bring us here.

But yeah. Just a weird train of thought that I went on. It seemed a little weird that competitive solitaire is a thing that wilbur repeated more than a few times.

We know cc!wilbur is back with writing the plot now. Who knows what that man could bring us all.

#dsmp #dream smp #dsmp theory #dream smp theory #tommyinnit #tommyinnit theory #dream #dreamwastaken #dream theory #wilbur soot #wilbur #wilbur theory #revival #swearing

43 notes · View notes

hermits-that-craft · 4 years

Text

Staying With The Traitor - Chapter One

A Reluctant Agreement

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26695042/chapters/65115157

“Gentlemen I believe I could provide you sanctuary.” Eret says quietly, appearing around the corner. Wilbur moves in front of where he thinks Tommy could be, though he can’t see the teen.

“Eret how fucking dare you!” Tommy yells, his voice falling from besides Wilbur.

“I have value still.” Wilbur spits towards Eret, who flinches away from the ex-president of L’manburg.

“You’ve been betrayed, I can help you.” Eret says, offering his hand to Wilbur.

“Eret the fucking nerve of you.”

“We know we’ve been betrayed.” Wilbur glares at him. “For a second time.”

“Whoever you’re mailing won’t come for a few weeks, even if they leave the second they get the letter.” Eret points out, and Wilbur nearly crushes the letter in his fist. “I can offer you sanctuary in a place that Schlatt won’t look for you, so you don’t have to run constantly.”

“We can run, Eret.” Tommy says, the potion slowly wearing off. He pulls out another invisibility potion, his form flickering as it comes into view.

“You shouldn’t have to run, Tommy.” Eret says sympathetically. “You’re just a kid. This shouldn’t have happened to you.”

“I’m not just a kid!”

“You’re only sixteen, you shouldn’t have been thrown out of your own country, political opposition or not.” Eret looks to Wilbur. “You know where to find me, just…

Consider it.”

---

Dear Technoblade, Do you remember how you said that it was a bad idea for me to hold an election? So soon after becoming president? You were right. Of course you were right. Schlatt became president. He kicked me out - which is fair, I ran against him, I should have expected that. But he also kicked Tommy out. Tommy! A child. Tubbo’s working for him, Tommy says that he doesn’t want to but I’m not so sure. Tubbo doesn’t appear to be harmed, though. We can’t get close enough to tell. We’re on the run. We’re going to be on the run for a while, we need your help. We need to take back L’manburg. Please Techno, please come to help. Thanks, Wilbur Soot (Though this is mainly Tommy’s idea. I don’t want to get betrayed again get you mixed up in all of this)

---

Tommy shivers in the little dirt house they had made, dug down and buried six feet under a tree. Wilbur sighs, wrapping a blanket around Tommy’s shoulders, not saying anything as they listen to rain and footsteps above them. Quackity shouts directly above them, and Tommy flinches, a bloodied bandage over his arm. Wilbur lifts a finger over his mouth, reminding Tommy to be as quiet as he can as Wilbur attempts to bandage his leg. They can’t make out anything, and soon the footsteps leave, but Wilbur doesn’t relax, even as he watches Tommy drift off into sleep.

It’s too quiet.

Not like L’manburg, or Manburg, with the sounds of potions brewing and people whispering off into the night, or owls flying and bats screeching. There was alway noise to keep him company on long nights.

Now, the only sound is Tommy's breathing, slow and steady. A beat to keep the time. Wilbur tucks Tommy into the bed, promising to himself that tomorrow night, he’ll ask to sleep in it. Just like he promised to himself last night, and the night before.

“I’ll be back soon, I’m just going to get some food for us to have tomorrow.” Wilbur promises the sleeping teen, creating a small hole for him to climb out of. They’ll need to find a new base soon.

The cold night air nips at Wilbur, and he is quickly drenched by the rain. Wilbur shivers, imagining the warmth of L’manburg on a night like this. Tubbo, Tommy, Fundy, Jack, Nikki and himself all around a fire, laughing, telling stories. Eret, maybe, if Nikki brought him with a small comment about a big, cold and empty castle. A few comments about betrayal and a trade of wine later and the room would be singing again, the two teens trying to get wine from Fundy or Jack while Eret tells Nikki and himself about how his kingdom is going. Wilbur doesn’t blame Eret for the betrayal, even if the wound is still so fresh that it stings. Who wouldn’t betray the side that appeared to be losing for a kingdom to rule over? Eret did seem to enjoy being the king, and he was fairer on his people then Dream was.

Wilbur frowns, catching himself thinking about Eret in the past tense. He can’t remember when that started. Eret should still be king, and he should still be a fair and just ruler.

Wilbur pulls himself out of his memories and buries his yearning for the past under a need for food. Tommy will need food in the morning, and so will he. Neither man can afford to starve out here, so far away from civilisation.

Not far enough, it would appear.

“This is Dream SMP land, Schlatt.” Eret’s voice cuts through the forest, and Wilbur freezes, pulling the brown coat he found around him as he ducks behind a tree. “I sincerely hope that you aren’t breaking our treaties.”

“I’m simply looking for two outlaws.” Schlatt’s voice sends cold terror down Wilbur’s spine, and he looks to the tree that Tommy is sleeping peacefully under. Tommy could die tonight, if Schlatt finds him. Or worse.

“From my understanding, you exiled them. They are no longer in your land, in Manburg, so you are breaking the treaty that was signed for your protection.”

“Oh please,” Schlatt laughs. “Do you mean to tell me that the treaty signed by outlaws is still in effect? In any case, those two are also in Dream SMP land. They’re breaking the treaty as well, unless you let them in.”

“They have citizenship of Dream SMP, because unlike some democratically elected leaders, I don’t allow children to be country-less.”

“But they are homeless.” Schlatt laughs, and Wilbur freezes, mulling over the new information. They’re under Dream SMP rule again. “Why are you out here, Eret? I thought that you would want to stay inside your big empty castle.”

“I heard your men shouting for a hunt, I was concerned for my citizens and came out here.”

“So you know where they live?” Schlatt’s voice is light, the question darker than his voice portrays it.

“Why does that matter to you.” Eret’s voice goes dark, as though he knows the danger that the question poses, the fear it sparks in Wilbur.

“I'm looking for them. I want to talk.” Wilbur holds his bow tighter, not prepared for a fight but ready if he needs to be.

“With netherite weapons.” Eret’s voice is incredulous. “I don’t believe that it will remain peaceful.”

“What's your point?”

“Go home, Schlatt. You have a country to rule, leave my citizens to me.” Eret growls, and Wilbur hears a twig snap as one of them moves.

More twigs snap, and Wilbur can hear Schlatt grumble under his breath as he walks away. Before he can move, before he can even release the breath he didn’t know he was holding, Eret sighs.

“I’m sorry I can’t do more for you two.” Eret mumbles, and Wilbur can hear the sorrow in his voice. “I’m trying my hardest. I really am. I’m making sure everyone is doing okay, I’ve hidden Nikki from Schlatt and his lackeys and they’re none the wiser. If only I could convince Tubbo to join Nikki, then at least I could say that he’s okay.”

“Thank you, Eret.” Wilbur whispers, and Eret takes in a sharp breath.

“Wil? Are you alright? Are you hurt? Where’s Tommy, is he okay?”

Wilbur steps out from behind the tree, and he sees Eret for the first time in what feels like years. The king has bags around his eyes, his crown discarded for a netherite helmet and armour glistens in the rain. Hair pokes out from under the helmet, and behind Eret’s sunglasses his eyes glow so bright that Wilbur can see them before he sees the bags that appear so prominent. His cape isn’t on, his regal attire clearly exchanged for more practical wear. As though he thought a fight would break out. A sword rests in its sheath, and Wilbur can see the glow from the enchantments on it. Eret, despite the bags under his eyes and the concern written into his features, looks regal, put together.

Wilbur knows that he must look like shit next to him. Covered in dirt and mud and blood from not being able to stop for a moment to clean himself, bags under his eyes from days of sleeping on dirt or stone floors, and messy hair hidden under a saturated beanie. Wilbur’s probably the most clean that he’s been since the election, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t look like a drowned rat.

“Tommy’s alright.” Wilbur finally answers, his voice barely above a whisper. “I mean, he’s hurt, they haven’t stopped hunting us, but he isn’t dead. Asleep, right now.”

“You left him by himself?” Eret doesn’t sound like he’s judging Wilbur, just asking him a polite question, but Wilbur can’t help the rage that leaps into his throat.

“Someone has to feed him. We need food after all. It’s safest to hunt at-”

“I know, I’m not judging. Just wondering if the person who you wrote that letter to arrived.”

---

Dear Wilbur Soot, I’ll come as soon as I can. I need to do some things with Dad Phil first, but I should arrive in about a month. Maybe two months, if I can convince Phil to come with me. Don’t die, Techno

---

“My offer still stands, you know.” Eret says, walking towards Wilbur. “If you’d like to, I can set you both up a room tonight and you can come in the morning.”

“How would I tell Tommy?” Wilbur sighs into his hands, sitting on the leaf covered grass. “I promised him freedom from tyranny, and now a dictator is hunting him and our only refuge is the country that we started a revolution against.”

“I think he’d be more happy to be safe,” Eret suggests, and Wilbur glares at him. “I mean, he’s just a kid. He needs the safety.”

“Could we go to your castle now?” Wilbur asks, his voice small. Guilt eats at his insides as he looks to the ground. Selling Tommy and his freedom for safety. Selling their freedom to a traitor. Sure, a friend when Nikki invited him in, a person they took pity on in a lonely castle, but someone who would sell them out to the highest bidder, just like last time.

“Of course, do you want me to wait here?” Eret asks, and a smile forms on his lips. Wilbur glares at the grass, weighing his options.

“No.” He says, standing slowly. “Unless you don’t want to crawl through a one by one block dirt hole.”

“I don’t care.” Eret shrugs. “As long as I can make sure you’re both safe.”

Bastard. Wilbur spits in his mind, but he keeps his mouth shut as he walks towards the small hole. How is he supposed to tell Tommy, especially with Eret in the room with them? How can he let the boy down?

Wilbur kicks a stone, sighing to himself. It’s for the best. It’ll keep Tommy safe.

---

Dear Tommy Innit, Sup, I know Wilbur doesn’t want to go through another betrayal, alright? He isn’t that good at hiding what he writes on letters. Look, I know you both. I care about you both, so I’m going to ask you a favour. Make sure Wilbur is alright until Phil and I get there, okay? Thanks, Techno.

---

“Thank god you’re alright!” Tommy says, slowly standing up. He limps to Wilbur, checking the man over for injuries. “I thought that you were hurt, you shouldn’t have left someone could have found you, or followed you back or-”

“Tommy we’re going now.” Wilbur says as Eret steps into the room. “We-”

“What? Why?”

“We can’t stay here.” Wilbur swallows his pride, sorrowful eyes meet Tommy’s tired ones. “We have to stay with Eret until Techno and Phil come, alright?”

Taglist:

@octosghost @firefly464 @surohsopsisofclouds @chromations @magpies-and-glitter @wwwwwelcomegays @asmoljay @ribineran @hawheckin @violet--majesty

#Staying With The Traitor #SWTT:1 #wilbur soot #tommyinnit #eret #jschaltt #technoblade

131 notes · View notes