void // dsmp

void

"Quackity, please! You don't have to do this!" The words rang off of the rocky cell walls, reverberating through the skulls of the two occupants.

Quackity laughed. "Are you gonna give me the book, then, Dream? Are you finally gonna hand it over?"

There was a moment of silence, where all that could be heard was panting as Dream tried to catch his breath. Slowly, he pushed up from the ground, gingerly resting one arm in his lap as he moved into a kneeling position. His mask angled upwards until the smile and the dead eyes were pointed straight at Quackity—who shuddered and glanced away.

"Never," Dream mumbled softly.

Quackity shook his head. "Then I guess we continue the hard way. Give me the damn book."

"Never."

"Dream."

"Never!"

"You know what?" Quackity said. He let the question stretch into silence as he inched closer, footsteps echoing in the space. "I've always wondered..." Slowly, he curled a finger around the edge of the white mask. Dream flinched slightly. "...what's under this mask of yours?"

"...Quackity," Dream said hesitantly, raising his uninjured arm to weakly swat at Quackity's hand. "Don't." There was a hint of terror audible in his tone.

"Why not, Dream? Y'know, throughout all of this, there's one thing you've never let us touch, and it's this damn mask. I wonder why?" He wrapped another finger around the edge of the porcelain mask, feeling the smooth exterior. "I wonder what's under it? What could possibly be so horrible that you want to hide it from the entire world?"

"Don't do this." Dream's voice wobbled as he shuffled backward a bit in a feeble attempt to escape. He bumped against the wall, hissing in pain as he cradled his shoulder. Quackity wasn't bothered in the slightest, stepping forward with him. "You don't want to do this."

"Are you going to give me the revival book, Dream?" Quackity asked again, voice hushed.

There was a moment of hesitation—short, but obvious—before Dream shook his head. "Never."

Quackity's fingers tightened around the edge of the mask. "Then I guess it's time to finally see what's under here."

"Quackity, stop—"

Heedless to Dream's cries, Quackity wrapped his left hand around the other side of the mask and gripped it tightly, feeling the porcelain squeak under his glove. "Are you ready, Dream?"

"Please, don't—!"

Quackity yanked backward with such force he was afraid his arms may fall out. Dream let out a scream, unlike any noise he'd ever uttered before. Quackity had heard the prisoner make some interesting sounds in an attempt to endure the pain of torture, but he'd never heard anything like this. It was almost...primal.

Strangest of all, the mask didn't budge. Not even an inch. It remained secured to Dream's face as if it had never been touched.

Dream leaned over, bending his head over his torso as if in pain and Quackity followed, refusing to let go of the edges of the mask. Confused, he tugged again, mouth agape.

Dream yelped once more, moving his arm from its place cradling his shoulder in order to pry Quackity's fingers off. He curled his trembling digits around Quackity's one by one, peeling them away from the mask. Quackity made no move to stop him, breathing heavily as he stared at the white mask in front of him.

"It doesn't come off, Quackity," Dream whispered, voice hoarse, as he clutched his shoulder once more. "It never has."

Slowly, Quackity shook his head. "That's ridiculous," he breathed, laughing faintly, "it has to come off. There's gotta be something underneath it."

Dream slowly looked up. The dead eyes of the mask seemed to bore into Quackity's very soul. "Nothing."

"It's just...void?"

"...some sort of ink." Dream laughed, a horrible mix between a cough and a wheeze. "It sticks to anything it touches. That's why I keep the mask on. So nobody has to touch it."

Slowly, Quackity shook his head, scrambling to his feet. "You're...you're...not human," he finished lamely.

The smile on the mask seemed to widen ever so slightly. "I never claimed to be," Dream said quietly, "you all were the ones that assumed that. And, hell, it made my life easier, so why argue? No one ever questioned it."

"But all this time, we..." Quackity ran a hand through his hair before pulling off his glove. There were strings of a black substance left on it, and he tossed it to the cell floor in disgust. After a moment of silence, he spoke again. "You hurt like a human. You bleed like a human."

"Actually, I don't," Dream said, his voice tinged with sourness. "I've just gotten lucky. Haven't been hurt that bad, until prison at least, and you all never looked that closely even when I was ."

"I can't...process this."

Dream struggled to his feet, pressing his uninjured shoulder against the wall for balance. "You could've just asked, it's not like I was keeping it a secret. But no one ever actually cared enough to try."

"Is it really stuck?" Quackity took another step forward, reaching for the mask despite his revulsion.

Dream flinched backward, pressing himself into the corner of the cell. "Stop," he growled. "It hurts." Quackity pulled his hand back, spooked. "Yes, it's really stuck. Haven't taken it off since the last time I saw Callahan, which was...god, over a year now. Long before I met Tommy and my life all went to hell."

"Callahan?"

"Long story. The point is that I don't remove the mask anymore." Dream shook his head, hand cupping his shoulder. "Not ever. Not for anyone."

"So your...your arm." Quackity motioned to Dream's injured shoulder. It was likely dislocated, judging by the yell Dream had let out when Quackity had hit him. "Is it just gonna, like...goop back together?"

"I'm not like Slime. I don't just heal," Dream said shortly, voice cold. "It still takes time for the ink to knit back together. It's just that I'm less likely to get badly injured in the first place, since I have a bit of...elasticity."

Quackity shuddered. "Which means...?"

"Mostly it just means you're a lot stronger than you think you are." Dream barked out a laugh and, in doing so, winced as he doubled over again. "Probably just made things worse for myself here on out with that piece of information, but..."

Here on out. Right. He'd come here for the revival book, not to...make friends. Or, whatever people would call this. Quackity shook his head, blinking as if to remove the image of that mask from his mind. It didn't work. He knew it wouldn't. Not for a while.

"Well," he said, voice much calmer than he felt. "I suppose we can pick this up tomorrow, then."

Dream looked up, the mask's dead eyes blinking up at him. "Tomorrow?" His voice broke on the end of the word and he cleared his throat—a horrid, ragged noise.

Quackity nodded, turning away from that freakish mask. "Tomorrow. That's a promise." He paused, thinking. "And Dream? Don't think I don't realize what I've learned today."

"And what might that be?" A hint of the brattish, teasing tone he usually reacted with was once again present in his words, broken as he might have been. For some reason, that put Quackity a bit more at ease. Honesty had never come easily to him.

"A secret. One that could wreck the world if it got out." There was a moment of silence and Quackity smiled as he opened the door of the cell. "So you'd better consider handing over that book. Or you could have much bigger issues on your hands than little old me and my axe."

There was a dry rattling laugh from behind him, one that swept a chill through his bones. "Quackity, I don't care if you never let me out," Dream said softly, sounding suddenly sad. "I'm going to outlive you anyway."

~~~

hope you enjoyed! :3also, if you want to keep up with my random retweets, nonsense (/affectionate) with my mutuals, and chapter updates for all of my fics, check out my twitter!@youphoria_ao3 [ https://twitter.com/youphoria_ao3 ]