Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Sir!”

Inwardly, Quackity cursed. Outwardly, he smiled and backed further into the elevator cabin, allowing the man to rush in with an armful of papers which threatened to topple over whenever he moved.

He bumped at the floor selection panel with his elbow a few times before giving up and giving Quackity a sheepish look.

“Er, could you…?”

“Yeah,” Quackity edged past to get closer to the panel, “which floor?”

“Fifteen. Thanks, sir,” the man adjusted his stack and grinned widely at him, far too sunny for someone working at Ram Enterprises, “I gotta get these up to HR. Someone jammed their printer.”

“Right.” Quackity really could not care less what happened in HR. A glance at his watch told him he was three minutes late, which, with Schlatt, was the difference between a nice, civil conversation and a screaming match with lots of booze.

To his annoyance, the man went on, crashing through every known law of elevator etiquette like a bull in a china shop.

“I really don’t know why they need the physical documents as well, seems like a waste of paper, honestly. What about you? Where’re you headed, sir?”

Why the fuck is he calling me sir ? He reminded Quackity of a golden retriever, tall, blond, overly friendly.

“Board meeting,” he lied smoothly, “First day on the clock?”

The intern positively lit up.

“How’d you know?” 

I have eyes. There was a sticker on his shirt that read New Intern. Say hello! Along with a bright yellow smiley face.

When the elevator shuddered to a stop at the fifteenth floor, Quackity could have cried from relief. Instead, he gave the intern-Dream, he thought the guy had introduced himself as at some point-a polite nod. 

“See you around.”

Dream smiled the same too-wide smile as he had earlier, and Quackity noticed something strange about his teeth. They were neat and straight enough for a toothpaste commercial, but the canines were unnaturally sharp, as if someone had filed them down.

“You too, Quackity.”

Quackity didn’t recall telling the guy his name, but he cared more about getting the hell to Schlatt’s office as soon as possible than some college intern possibly recognizing him from the press. “Sure.” 

The doors started to open, but Dream reached down, letting a few papers drift to the floor, and pressed a forefinger to the close door button. Quackity stared.

“This is the fifteenth.” he said.

Dream ignored him.

“You are Quackity, right?”

A chill of foreboding went down his spine, but he sneered to cover it up.
“What’s it to you? Look, I have places to be getting to-”

“No, you don’t,” the intern cut across him cheerfully. “Mr. Schlatt has had an urgent medical emergency. He’s not in the state to be discussing anything, I don’t think.”

The words tumbled in one ear and rattled in his brain like casino slot machines. Medical emergency? 

“Twenty-three stab wounds in his lower torso, a punctured lung, and a heart attack,” Dream’s eyes seemed to be on fire, blazing with a feverish sort of glee. Quackity realized he’d spoken aloud. “It’s crazy, what drinking can do to someone. Tragic, really.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

“Tragic.” Quackity echoed. His eyes found the security camera, its glossy black eye, silent and cold. 

“You think so?” Dream let the papers drop with a dull thud. “I knew Wilbur Soot, Quackity.”

“You did, did you? Then you know Soot was a goddamn bastard,” the words swelled in his chest like a balloon, filling him with hollow courage. “A bastard , and he cared about that fucking company of his, cared about L’Manberg more than any living person.”

“So you burned his house down.” Dream wasn’t smiling any longer. He stepped forward, and despite himself, Quackity cowered under his gaze. “I knew Sally and Fundy Waters, too. A swimming coach and her six-year-old boy. Were they bastards as well?”

A six-year-old boy. Quackity’s throat closed up. He remembered the sound of the fire. Soft at first, the sparks from his lighter hissing as it fell on the gasoline-drenched lawn. Then, it had grown all at once, jumped from one patch of unkempt yellow grass to the other, licked at the dark windows with a roar of hunger. The screaming came next, probably, but he’d walked away before it did, anxious to catch a dinner reservation with some wealthy clients.

He made himself speak. 

“What do you want? An apology?” A high-pitched laugh bubbled out between his lips, and Quackity felt half-mad. “For me to scream and curse myself to hell? That I can’t fall asleep without seeing his ghost?”

I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry.

He shrugged. “That sounds nice. Wilbur appreciated a bit of groveling, but I doubt that’ll mean much to Fundy and Sal. You didn’t even show up at their funeral.”

Quackity thought that the last sentence might have borne the first real emotion Dream had shown.

“No, Quackity. I’m here for revenge,” he tilted his head and the overhead fluorescents made his hair look brittle white, and highlighted the gauntness of his cheeks, the gleam in those poison-green eyes. No. He is the mad one, of us two. “And the money Wilbur Soot’s father has out for your head. But mostly revenge.”

Quackity realized he was shaking, and he clenched his fists to hide it. I will not beg. I will not scream. Hadn’t he seen death, often enough? Granted, the ones he himself arranged were usually cleaner, impersonal, harder to trace than Schlatt’s preferred spectacles, their eyes slid neatly shut, blood wiped away by the time the police showed up. 

He remembered reading an article on the sanitization, or lack thereof, of elevators, and had to fight not to throw up thinking about his brain matter splattered over the mirror walls.

A scalpel was produced, one of the disposable kinds with plastic handles. Not a gun. Quackity guessed a gun would be too large to smuggle in.

I will not beg. I will not scream.

“Go on, then. Make it quick.”

Dream smiled then, all of a sudden. This one was serene and close-lipped and no less insane.

“Wilbur took three days to die, and Fundy woke up long enough to scream for his mother before following a week later. Fourth degree burns on fifty percent of his skin. You could see the bone, Quackity.”

The blade of the scalpel flashed on its way down, and Quackity screamed.

George screamed when the elevator doors slid open. Inwardly, of course. Outwardly, he swore and punched his best friend in the ribs. 

“Ow!” Dream doubled over and wrapped his arms around himself protectively. “What’s that for?”

“ What the fuck is that? ” George whisper-shouted, pointing at the mess inside the elevator. 

Blood on the walls. Blood on the ceiling. Blood and- other things on the floor. George fancied the slumped form within was down a few fingers, but he couldn’t be sure. It seemed to be missing a lot.

Worst of all, there was blood on the button panel, and he just knew it would be seeping into the cracks and drying there, and becoming a stubborn bitch to get out.

He punched Dream again, on the arm, and his fist came away sticky and red from the contact with his shirtsleeves. Oh, god. Another perfectly good shirt. George had ironed it specially for the mission.

“What did you even do to him? You know Sapnap’s still dealing with your dumb Brutus moment upstairs? Those carpets were gray , Dream. Light gray. And expensive.”

Dream pouted at him, but his adorable and incredibly manipulative kicked-puppy eyes didn’t do anything to make George less pissed. 

“I’m sorry! I got carried away, alright.” 

He draped an arm over George like some kind of tree snake.

“Come on, it’s my birthday soon, I get to get carried away. Besides, Callahan disabled the cams, right?”

“He did,” George admitted begrudgingly. “Still. Can’t you vent your homicidal rage in a different direction?”

“Georgie, this is the different direction.”

“There’s always therapy.”

Dream’s eyes shuttered off, and George regretted it instantly.

“I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

Dream nodded in silent acknowledgement. They stood for a moment.

“I’m sorry, too,” he said quietly, squeezing George tighter, “I shouldn’t have-I know I shouldn’t have gone that far. I made things harder for you and Sap.”

George hugged him back. An apology from Dream was rarer and worth more than gold.

“We can go out for dinner tonight, just the three of us, once I see Philza Minecraft for the bounty.”

That got Dream to smile. George loved his smile, and the way it made his eyes crinkle at the corners. He looked more like a normal twenty-something year old when he did, and less like one of the most feared assassins in the past decade.

“That sounds nice.” 

His head fell onto George’s shoulder. 

For once, George allowed himself to not duck away. Let it stay there, burning a path of warmth straight through his chest.