#god that fic gives me so many brain worms its crazy

[bedazzledpiss]

walks out of AO3 covered in blood

God I love redscape

[sparxwrites]

@manoessay​ replied to your post:

This post activated my brain harder than most so even though you arent gonna make a fanfic i will add, Dream testing how many times you can bring a person back on quackity once he gets out.

(i absolutely fully got possessed by this idea, and then wrote this self-indulgent and weirdly experimental fic feverishly at like 1am last night. this is... probably not what you were imagining, but it’s what fell out of my brain, so! enjoy? written to “innocence” by madeon.)

cw moderately graphic torture / gore, mental breakdown, mind games, temporary character death

[ao3]

-

“How many times have you died now, Quackity?”

The words flash hot through his skull, but don’t translate into meaning. Don’t translate into anything other than noise. The floor is cold beneath his palms. Russet-brown flakes up beneath his nails when he claws at it, chest heaving, lungs trying to remember how breathing works.

His first inhale gurgles, wetly, makes him jerk on his belly like a worm on a hook. His throat is raw from disuse, from screaming, from the sword that had sliced through his trachea like a knife through so much butter. When he tries to speak, the only thing that comes out is blood.

It goes like this, every time Dream drags him back from Limbo: his ears full of a high ringing, his lungs not working, his body numb. The link between flesh and brain is faulty, sparking wrong – like the battered neurons take a few precious minutes of life to rewire back together fully. It fixes itself a little less each time, the link; he’s permanently numb down most of his left side, now. The fingers on his right hand are going insensate in terrifying inches.

“How many times?”

Crooked mask, ragged voice, cracked porcelain smile. Dream looks better than Quackity feels, but not much – crouched low on a stone floor that’s caked in layer after layer of old blood, watching Quackity like a bug under a magnifying glass. His hair’s a greasy mess, his mask dirty-white and chipped, his clothes spattered with weeks of gore. With Quackity’s gore.

There’s blood dripping out from beneath the mask, though, fresh and hot. His hands shake. The knuckles clenched around the hilt of his sword are white, the skin beneath his fingernails faintly purple-blue.

The eyes behind the mask are just a little too green.

“Can you even hear me?” There’s a giddy slur to the edge of Dream’s words, the manic lilt of a man high off the same shit that’s melting his brain out through his nose. That feeling was familiar to Quackity, in another life. “Quackity. Hey, Quackity. Anyone in there?” He laughs, short and cruel and batshit crazy. His eyes are the colour of battery acid. “Have I finally broken you?”

There’s no response – because Quackity’s still trying to remember how his lungs work, remember what ribs are, remember how to do things that aren’t screaming and curling in on himself and rocking – and the amusement in his voice turns angry, sour. “I said tell me how many times, Quackity.”

Dream stands, unsteady, swaying as he does and leaning heavily on the sword for balance. His hands are still shaking. The blood’s stopped dripping, but there’s a sickly tinge to it, and when he wipes at his chin with the back of one hand it leaves a smear that’s more brown than red.

There’s a flicker of something, as his knuckles touch the half-inch of exposed face – dirty white light, bridging the gap between skin in a static-shock flash. There and then gone, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it.

The eyes behind the mask glow a little brighter. A little greener. A little less human.

The point of Dream’s sword sinks into Quackity’s shoulder, splits open an old scar. Quackity’s covered in them, now, more scar than skin. More ruined than not. He spasms, chokes, bleeds wet and red and fresh over the dried blood that carpets the floor. The noise he makes is animal, leg-in-a-bear-trap high and thin and dying. Barely alive five minutes, and he’s bleeding out again already. It’s almost funny.

Dream laughs, and leans on the pommel of the sword. It pushes in another inch.

“Month!” manages Quackity, forcing the word out through the wetness in his lungs, through the broken-bone grind of his throat. If he weren’t so many shattered parts, pasted back together by unholy power and Dream’s capricious whims, it might have been a howl. As it is, he barely has the energy to sob, the words raw and hoarse and threadbare. “A month, a month– thirty– haha, thirty-six days in, in, in Limbo, fuck, please, please–”

There’s wet on his cheeks. Tears? Blood? Worse? He can’t tell any more. He can’t even feel the left side of his face.

He grabs for Dream’s boots, presses his forehead against them, gasps for air that doesn’t seem to bring any relief from the cold ache in his lungs. One of his hands finds an ankle, a strip of bare skin between shoe and pant leg. Dream’s skin is fever-hot, sickly, bottled lightning gone past its sell-by date.

The shock of the contact knocks him silent for a second, though. They won’t touch him, in Limbo, the ghosts – or can’t, or both, can’t and won’t. Because they’re bastards, because they hate him, because he isn’t one of them. They can’t-won’t touch him, can’t see him, won’t see him, won’t speak to him– and he’s left, alone, in a room full of the faded impressions of people he once knew, once loved, once was loved by. A room full of people who do not see him, and do not touch him, and do not hear him when he talks.

(When he screams, when he swears at them, when he tries to claw their eyes out with unsteady hands that don’t make contact– when he begs, when he pleads, when he wheedles and bribes and bargains to deaf ears– when he wraps arms around himself, when he rocks himself back and forth until the blood rushes in his ears, when he whispers to himself until his voice fades to nothing, and tries to pretend it is the same thing as being loved and held and comforted–)

“Please, don’t– hahah, don’t kill me, fuck– please, look, look, hurt me, please, hurt me– anything, anything, I don’t–” He doesn’t have the breath for this. Doesn’t have the energy. Doesn’t even really have the words any more, after screaming for thirty-six fucking days straight, after talking to himself for so long his vocal cords wore out and left him mouthing silence in a desperate attempt to keep himself company. “Don’t, don’t send me– not, don’t send me back, please, fuck, anything, ha, haha, don’t, don’t–”

“I said I’d make you beg for death,” says Dream, amused, bored, manic. “Not torture. Not that I’m complaining. It’s just kind of funny. Don’t you think? I think it’s funny.”

He pushes the sword in, another inch. Quackity sobs, desperate and pathetic, and feels no shame for it. Presses his face to Dream’s boot, clings to his ankle like a lifeline, and feels no shame for it. Shame was beaten out of him, bled out of him, several lifetimes ago. “But that’s not what I asked, though. How many times have you died now, Quackity?”

The sword in his shoulder twists, and Quackity screams. Something severs with a pop, and then another, and then another, until the joint is little more than a hot ball of pain and wet meat, grated bone. Until he can no longer scream, gasping desperately through the pain, weeping like a child. Another twist, and something else severs, something vital, a second’s resistance before a give and a spray of warm blood.

He bleeds out between one sob and the next, tumbling into darkness, the golden net of the respawn reaching up to catch him as he falls.

He wakes up three feet away, sprawled out on the filthy bed that occupies one corner of his cell, still sobbing. The respawn clings to him like a second skin, like weights around his ankles, frightening and familiar all at once. It fades slowly, reluctantly; slower each time he dies, he thinks. Like it’s getting used to holding him. Like it doesn’t want to let him go.

It’s only barely gone by the time Dream crosses the space between them, two short steps, no time for him to flinch, no time for him to hide–

Dream grabs him by the wrist, wrenches his body up from the bed, and slots the sword neatly through the front of his throat. The broad, well-used scar carved across it parts for the blade like an old friend, swallows it whole – and Quackity dies for the second time in as many minutes, choking on his own blood.

The respawn catches him. Drags him down into darkness. Drags him back up to the surface of reality, deposits him back onto a bed now sodden with crimson. He’s shaking. He should be used to it, but he’s shaking so hard his teeth clack together, so hard he’s not sure it will ever stop.

Dream drags him off the bed, back onto the floor. Back onto the filth, the layers and layers of dried gore, a carpet constructed from every time he’s been slaughtered like an animal in this tiny, lightless cell.

“Dream,” he begs, quietly. “Dream, Dream–”

Even to his ears, it sounds more like a prayer than a plea.

“It’s a simple question, Quackity. How many times have you died now? Properly died. How many times have I brought you back? I just want a number. Just a number.” The mask obscures Dream’s mouth, but his grin is audible. His eyes are so bright, they hurt to look at. “How many times have I proven to you that I’m a god?”

Quackity tries to curl in on himself, but Dream is in the way, one boot by his shoulder and the other pinning his wrist to the floor beneath its toe. He’s not surprised. Dream is everywhere, always, omnipresent. His free hand seeks out Dream’s ankle onces more, curls around that curdled-lightning skin, desperate and needy. It grounds him, touching the only real person in his whole entire world, and he hates himself for it.

“…T- ten?” he tries, and knows as he says it that it’s wrong. The panic rises like the respawn, choking him. He can’t breathe. “Ten, ten times– maybe eleven– fuck, fuck, Dream, please–”

The sword-tip finds his back, finds the space between his fourth and fifth rib. Finds the ropy scar there, beneath the rags, soft from re-use – like a zipper, easy to pry open right down to his weak, wet heart.

“Good guess,” says Dream, quietly. “Closer than before. But still not right. You need a little longer to think about it, I guess. But– hey, you know what? I’ll be nice, and give you a hint.” He pauses, and Quackity’s world stands still. “You’re guessing too low.”

He pushes the sword down. It slips between Quackity’s ribs like an old lover, lodges in the crusted filth and stone below, pins him still against the floor. His heart beats once, twice, a butterfly-flutter around the diamond skewered through it. His body convulses. He falls still.

The blood from his mouth dyes the toes of Dream’s boots crimson, as the light leaves his eyes.

He wakes in Limbo, on his knees, in a room full of people – full of impressions of people, like the ghosts of a faded photograph. He sees them all there, their backs to him, as they move amongst one another, as they talk amongst one another. Tubbo, and Schlatt, and Fundy, and Wilbur, and–

Sapnap, who looks right through him. Karl, whose eyes skate over him. They hold each other’s hands. The rings on their fourth fingers gleam weakly in the strange, nebulous light of the afterlife. They do not hear him when he says their names, ragged and desperate, like a plea. Like a prayer.

And then they, too, turn their back on him. And Quackity – still raw, still bloody, still skewered open right through his butterfly heart – screams and screams and screams.

[yan-twst]

CYOA - Twisted Wonderland

aaand here it is, finally! Chapter one of my choose your own adventure fic for twst! This is the very first chapter; it’s a bit of a slow start, establishing the plot and all, you know? As was decided by the poll, the reader is in Diasomnia (however, I’m sure y’all can probably figure out a way to worm out of the dorm quickly and meet more characters). Anyways, without further ado, here’s the fic!

You sometimes wished that your dorm wasn’t so… Gloomy. Sure, Diasomnia had some cool things; the whole “Valley of Thorns Castle” aesthetic was cool, and the fact the hallways were lit with green torches always looked cool at night, not to mention the TVs and games in the common room, but… As you tried to study for the upcoming quiz, you quietly cursed the controlled climate. Yes, you knew that rain and storms were natural in the area; but didn’t the school control the dorm’s climate with fae magic?! It was way too difficult to concentrate on your potions notes when the rain outside felt like it was lulling you to sleep as it fell against your windows.

Your roommate was snoozing in his bed- either he’d already studied, or he’d given up on the quiz. Either way, you couldn’t deny that it was alluring to just forget the damn thing and go to bed. It wasn’t that late, but you’d been going to sleep at awful hours lately, and your body sorely demanded you get some sleep. And yet, glancing down at the recipe for the minor memory erasing draught you’d have to concoct tomorrow, you knew that if you went to sleep now, you’d be dealing with Crewel’s biting critique and a terrible grade tomorrow.

A snore from your roommate broke your concentration, and you glared at the sleeping boy. Usually you and him got along just fine, but in this moment, it felt like he was testing you, as he slept sweetly and your sleep deprived self stressed over a notebook. Hearing another snore, you decided to move to the common room- maybe there you’d concentrate a bit better, and also not be tempted by the siren’s call of your bed. Picking up your phone and your notebook, you left the room, closing the door softly so as to not disturb your roommate, and made your way down the eerie halls of the dorm.

“Vice dorm leader…?” immediately, you noticed that Lilia was in the common room. After that your nose registered a smell so odd it almost made you turn around and leave. It wasn’t a bad smell, just… Incredibly odd and off putting: and you quickly pinpointed the source of it to be some charred, blackened and bizarre dish that your vice dorm leader was holding. 

“Oh? Hello there.” he said with a chuckle. You wouldn’t call Lilia a close friend by any means, but you did know him well. As a vice dorm leader, he did his best to help out the Diasomnia students, and he was also fond of pulling small pranks here and there; you’d been a victim of his tricks and also gone to him for help a couple times in your two years of being at NRC. “It’s an odd hour to be hanging out… Or could it be the smell of my cooking that brought you here?”

“Your… cooking?” so that charred thing he was holding was… food? You’d been warned- mostly by your fellow second year Silver- that Lilia was not a good cook (in fact, Silver had made it seem like his food was somehow a health hazard), but you’d imagined the usual cooking oopsies. Too much salt, not enough seasoning, maybe burning some of the food; the usual mistakes people made when cooking. However, looking at the blackened and mysterious substance in the plate he held… You wondered if perhaps Silver had been right in making Lilia’s cooking sound like some sort of biohazard.

“Indeed, I’ve been cooking some cookies. I wanted to cheer Silver, since he’s been studying hard for a quiz. And there’s nothing quite like some cookies to snack on while studying, right?” said Lilia. Cookies…? You walked closer and squinted at the plate; so those were Lilia’s cookies…? You were pretty sure you could see eggshell shards on the otherwise charcoal black pieces of what you hoped was dough. Did he… Did he not see the problem with them?

“Oh, the potions quiz for tomorrow? Yeah, I’m sure he’s been studying… I doubt Crewel is going to go easy on us.” You said with a nervous laughter, trying to divert the topic from the so-called cookies. The last thing you wanted was for him to ask you to taste test or something. A bite of those cookies would probably take you out of commission for a good week or two, and while being sick to miss class tomorrow and avoid the quiz was tempting, you really weren’t sure if it was worth it to risk some crazy horrible food poisoning for that. 

“Fufu, you’re also working quite hard, I gather? Did you come to study here?” asked Lilia, pointing to your notebook. You nodded. 

“Mhm, my roommate was being a bit loud, so…” you shrugged with a smile. You weren’t gonna throw your roommate under the bus and tell Lilia he was snoring like a train and that drove you out of the room, you were at least kind enough to omit that particular piece of info. “Well, I’m probably just going to look over the notes a bit and then go to sleep. I can only study so much to make a potion without actually being at the lab, after all.”

“Ah, Silver did mention that Crewel was making you all make a draught from memory.” Lilia hummed. “Are you having trouble with this? I can always try to help, after delivering these delicious cookies to Silver.”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly bother you with this, it’s ok, vice dorm leader!” you said, quickly shaking your head. You didn’t want to waste Lilia’s time; he was a third year, after all… If your work was hard as a second year, he was probably drowning in schoolwork and studying, right? Not to mention you kind of felt like you should show more respect to him: he was an ancient fae and you were pretty sure he was a war veteran despite being in high school. 

“Oh, please call me Lilia. We’ve known each other for too long for you to be using titles, (name). I still remember the day the magic mirror sorted you into Diasomnia, right after my dear Silver was sorted.” he said with a smile, his pointy fangs catching your eye. “You’re close friends with Silver, aren’t you? I’m quite grateful you spend time with him, he’s a good boy.”

“Oh, um, well… Then I’ll call you Lilia, if that’s really ok…” you said, a bit bashful. You didn’t miss how he talked about Silver; you knew that the 2nd year did constantly refer to Lilia as ‘old man’, but you’d brushed it off to perhaps him being close enough to Lilia to use that as a nickname, but… The way Lilia spoke, it almost sounded like a father being happy his son had found a friend. “Yes, me and Silver are close. We’re in the same class, I usually give him my notes when he falls asleep in the middle of lectures. He also helps me study, sometimes.”

“Oh, you do? I must thank you, then. It’s quite kind of you.” Lilia said with a smile. “Oh! How rude of me, I haven’t offered you a cookie, have I? They’re freshly baked, you should try them. It’s the same recipe I made for Silver when he was younger.”

“Er-!” you paled. Crap, this was what you’d been fearing. The stress of the request made you not even stop to think about the odd wording of ‘making cookies for Silver ever since he was younger’ or the implication Lilia had somehow raised Silver; your brain was blaring alarms telling you to NOT put those… Things anywhere close to your face. But at the same time, Lilia was smiling so happily as he picked one of the charred objects and stuck it out in your direction.

“Lilia. You shouldn’t be giving that to humans.” a deep voice made you freeze before you accepted the cookie with a reluctant hand. You quickly turned around to spot the dorm leader entering the common room, arms crossed as he stared at Lilia. “You’re going to kill them if you make them eat that.”

“Oh, come on Malleus, don’t say that! My cookies are delicious.” Lilia sighed, taking back his baked treat and taking a bite for himself. You internally cringed at the noise of what you now absolutely knew to be chunks of eggshell and god knows what else in the object. “Don’t you see you’ll give (name) a bad impression of my cooking if you say that?”

“... It’s my duty to protect my dorm members.” said Malleus, walking closer to you and warily eyeing Lilia’s cooking. You held back a sigh of relief- yup, he’d definitely saved you. If even Malleus Draconia was scared of Lilia’s hellish cookies, you probably would have keeled over and died if you’d put that in your mouth. “Besides, it’s late. Why were you baking?”

“I was making a treat for Silver, since he was studying. This little one just happened to walk in when the cookies were ready- they’re studying for the same quiz Silver is cramming for.” said Lilia, gesturing to you. “It seems Crewel is having his fun in stressing out the first years, fufu. What potion is he making you all make?”

“Oh, um, it’s… A minor memory loss draught. It’s got a lot of steps and ingredients, and it’s way too easy to mess up, so…” you said, a bit nervous. You felt… A little bit silly now, for stressing so much over it. Right now, you were surrounded by one of the strongest mages in the world- who was also the prince of the dark fae- and an ancient and wise fae who had probably fought in great wars and aided the Valley of Thorns royalty. To them, making a weak potion was probably as easy as blinking. 

“A memory loss draught… That does indeed have many steps to its preparation, if I’m not remembering wrong.” said Malleus. His words made you relax a little- you’d half been expecting some comment like a minor memory loss draught? That’s child’s play, why are you stressing out? or something. Your dorm leader was known to be a bit haughty at times. “You look exhausted. I assume you’ve been studying a lot?”

“Wait, I look tired…? Crap, is it showing in my face?” you said, cursing internally. You had a few friends in Pomefiore and you just knew they’d be fretting over you if your eyebags and exhaustion were so evident your dorm leader, who was not too good at picking up clues, could notice.

“I’m afraid so, my dear. You look like you’re ready to drop any second now- I know you’ve got a lot of work, but perhaps you’re pushing yourself too hard.” said Lilia. You grimaced; great, now you’d somehow managed to worry the two of them. It felt… Wrong to have two powerful and important beings even express concern over your wellbeing: you were just… Some puny human who got sorted into Diasomnia, you weren’t even particularly close to either of them. Hell, you’d only spoken to Malleus a couple of times before, for fuck’s sake.

“Hmm, Malleus, could it be that you still remember how to make that potion?” said Lilia, tilting his head. The taller fae nodded, making Lilia hum in understanding. “I see, I see. Well, (name), I’m sure you’d get an amazing grade if you were to study with Malleus. He’s quite good in potionmaking when he concentrates, I promise you. Besides, it wouldn’t hurt at all for him to get closer to his own dorm members now, would it?”

“That’s-!” you visibly stiffened, looking at Malleus. Sure, you weren’t as scared of him as some of the other students were, but…! You still couldn’t just treat him all willy-nilly like some random kid; he was one of the most powerful mages in the world and crown prince from the Valley of Thorns. The mere idea of dragging him off for a study session that benefitted only you made your gut twist. Although the idea was anxiety inducing, you couldn’t help but notice a spark of… Curiosity? In Malleus’ eyes, almost as if he was entertained by the idea of it all; still, you couldn’t just accept something like that.  “I couldn’t possibly-!”

“... or you could go study with Silver. I was going to go check up on him, so you could come with me.” said Lilia, perhaps sensing your panic. 

--- time to make a choice! vote in the poll linked below to choose how to advance in the story!

poll: https://www.strawpoll.me/20971117