#war anon

For a while, Q was predictable--he visited every day, as promised, and he wanted the book, and Dream wouldn't give it to him. Lately, though, Quackity's been missing days, and he doesn't ask about the book so much, and he spends some of the time he's in Dream's cell typing messages to someone else. Dream asked who it was once and caught the handle of an axe to an already-broken nose for his trouble. It's almost healed since then, although Dream suspects it's crooked now.

And then there's today. Dream's accustomed to something more sadistic and slow, but today Q was just mad. No sharp objects or sharp words--just kicking Dream around the cell with his shiny black dress shoes and muttering things to himself.

Dream's staring at the ceiling as he ponders it, lying on the ground where he landed when Quackity got bored and left. He can see Bad's nametag moving around above the cell--Bad's been back at work for a week, and Dream knows now who was leaving him food and books. He recognizes Bad's cooking from when he was a kid; he's missed it. He misses a lot of things. He wishes Bad would come into the cell, he wouldn't even care that he hasn't visited in ages, he'd pretend Bad never promised him anything, he just doesn't want to be alone.

He also wants to ask if Bad ever passed along the messages Dream had asked him to. He's been privately hoping that Bad never told George that Dream wanted him to visit, if only because it would explain why George never did.

-War anon

it's not so much an actual au but more of an idea that war anon was thinking about when thinking about Rewind? they want to write it but they can't presumably because they're already occupied with another fic or just busy so i'm letting war anon spit out stuff about their coalition/war idea to me whenever they want to.

Tommy and Wilbur are living in that little shack across the river and have chosen no sides, in large part because neither wants them. Tommy grumbles about it--it's not as though he wants to fight, but he can, and unlike Quackity, he could win a fair fight against an armed opponent.

Sapnap doesn't know what he's talking about. Quackity hardly fights at all, he spent most of Doomsday hiding behind Sapnap's shield.

Tommy looks around and then leans in with an air of confidentiality and tells Sapnap what he's heard: that Quackity has been torturing Dream in prison for months. Q denies it, but Tommy trusts his sources.

Sapnap doesn't believe it, and he tells Quackity as much--does Quackity know that someone is out there slandering him like this? It's ridiculous; everyone knows that they don't even allow visitors at the prison anymore...but Quackity and Sam are sharing glances and Sapnap's certainty is wavering and the evening ends in a shouting match over who is worse and who is right and who abandoned who. Sapnap storms home with Karl and leaves Quackity alone again.

Bad goes to the prison the next day with a clock to put in the dispenser, feeling a little bit better after the visit with George. While he's in the mechanism above the cell, he can hear Dream calling to him--not like before, not tentative or hopeful, but weakened and truly desperate.

Bad drops the lava and ender pearls into the cell and gags. There's a deep gash through Dream's left eye that runs down through his upper lip; it's got a wad of fabric torn from the sleeve of his prison jumpsuit pressed against it, bloodied all the way through.

Bad breaks one of the protocol rules when he goes to get a water bucket--it could be used to make a path back across the lava, but Bad's not about to use the cauldron water, which has only been changed a handful of times, to clean a wound that deep. He breaks another rule removing his prison-issued armor inside the cell so that Dream can lean against him comfortably while Bad winds the bandage over his damaged eye.

His most egregious breach of protocol, however, is when he marches across the cobblestone path through the nether, over the snowy crags of a certain far-off tundra, to a pair of cottages on the server frontier, knocks on the door, and offers his keys to the prison to the first anarchist that answers. Bad thinks they may help Techno make good on a favor he owes.

-War Anon

"Tommy and Wilbur are living in that little shack across the river and have chosen no sides, in large part because neither wants them." OMG NONNY YOU DID THEM SO DIRTY SHASHSHSHA

omg c!SAPNAP KNOWS NOW OMGOMGOMG

You asked in the tags if c!George says anything to anyone, and yes, he does.

Not to Karl or Sapnap: Quackity makes it clear that if either of his fiances find out, he is going to put a sword in Dream's left eye and leave it there. George can't tell them, and he doesn't really have anyone else to talk to, but Bad asks him to come look at a new statute one day, and George decides he wants to have a word.

When he gets to the mansion, Bad is proudly posing next to a new statue and definitely not expecting to be admonished by George of all people. George doesn't care: Bad was the oldest, back in the day, patching up scraped knees on Hunger Games servers when they were all kids, and George trusted him. Dream trusted him. He knows Bad works at the Vault, he has to know what fucked up--language, messed up stuff goes on in there.

But Bad doesn't, honest. He's been preoccupied with his recently defeated cult; he has no clue what Sam and Q have been doing in there. When George stalks off, Bad's left with a familiar feeling of dread: once again, he's neglected something important in favor of the Egg.

Muffins. He didn't even get George's opinion on the statue.

:ooo

He's not sure whether Dream told Bad--Bad has access to the main cell, he could've spoken with him--or whether George did. It doesn't matter to Q one way or the other, really.

His visit with Dream runs overtime and he's late to a war meeting. When he wanders back into Las Nevadas, his allies are scattered around the premises, and Karl has wandered a little too close to the little quartz chapel he built, and Slime tells him that, since he was 15 minutes late to the war meeting, Purpled said they were "legally allowed to leave."

George finds him on top of the Needle and tells him that the bloodstains on the cuffs of Quackity's shirt had better be old, because they had a deal, and George has done everything Q wanted.

Quackity still doesn't know for certain that George is the one who told Bad, but he still responds, bitterly, Not everything.

-War anon

nooo war anon you can't live me hanging here! I need to know what happens next! D: how's c!Dream??? :cccc