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Despite the fact that everything sounded distant and underwater as Dream came to consciousness, the oh-so-familiar popping of lava was unmistakable. Fuck. He went to let out a groan of frustration, but it died in his throat as soon as the conversation happening over him became clear enough to understand.
“-sick of this! Fuck the revive book, Sam, we have to kill him!” That was Quackity, without a doubt. Dream couldn’t forget that voice if he tried.
“We can’t, if-” And Sam, of course. Unsurprising given the circumstances.
“If he can get out once he can do it again, Sam. We can’t afford that, Las Nevadas can’t afford that. He’ll hunt me down and kill me just like he did to you. Are you telling me you want me to die? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“No- he won’t get out; I won’t let him-”
“He already did!”
“That was a unique case-”
“Sam!” Quackity snapped, causing the Warden to go silent. The only sounds in the room were the endless popping of lava and the heavy breathing of both men. Dream couldn’t help but be suddenly aware of his own breathing and steadied it to feign sleep. “I’m not waiting any longer. I can’t do this.”
“I don’t know, Quackity…” Sam’s voice was shaking.
Quackity sighed in response, and there was the sound of clothes shuffling as he rose to his feet. “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you-”
The sound of Quackity’s retreating footsteps paused. “I’m getting his pickaxe. Same one he killed you with, right? It’ll be… poetic.” As Sam breathed out a shaky “yeah…”, Dream cracked an eye open just in time to watch Quackity vanish around a corner.
They weren’t in the cell, that much was obvious. Had Dream not been living in the prison for the past couple months, he may not have recognized that they were in the lever room, the one right across from the cell. And thank goodness for it, too, because it made it much easier to track Quackity’s movements through the prison. That was something he’d gotten quite good at while serving his time, during the months he spent dreading the man’s arrival every single day. It wasn’t something he’d been able to do with Sam – despite his massive size and clunky armor, Sam was nearly impossible to hear coming. Quackity, however, always moved with loud, solid purpose. It was easy.
As soon as he couldn’t hear footsteps over the sound of Sam suppressing a panic attack, Dream launched himself upright, earning a startled hiss from the Warden. Before Sam could properly react, Dream lunged for him and grappled him by the shoulders. “Please, Sam, please, you have to get me out of here!”
Sam blinked blankly at him, stretching the scar tissue over his damaged eye as his eyebrows raised. “Why- why would I do that?” A puff of gunpowdery smoke blew out of his mask as he caught his breath.
Dream bit his tongue to stop from calling the guy a fucking idiot. Sam already knew that anyway; he didn’t need to be reminded. “You heard him, he’s going to kill me!”
“…Maybe he should, Dream.”
Wow. Okay, harsh. Dream bit his tongue again. “You don’t really believe that.” He hoped he sounded more confident in that than he really was.
Sam frowned in a way that was a little more unsure than Dream would’ve liked. “If you get out, you’re just going to do more bad things. You’ll go after Quackity, after Tommy-”
“I won’t! I swear, I’ll leave you, all of you, alone! I mean it.”
“I- why would I believe you? I have no reason to believe a word you say.”
Dream let go of one of Sam’s shoulders to gesture to the lava blocking the cell, shifting his other hand to grab the collar of Sam’s shirt. “I let you out of the cell! I promised I’d let you out of the prison, and I did!”
“Not before you killed me!”
“You deserved that. Hell, you probably deserved to rot in that cell! But because I’m nice, and because I keep my promises, I let you walk free.”
The mangled half of Sam’s top lip lifted into a snarl. “You’re- You’re not nice, Dream. Don’t even say that… And that- that was a deal we made. What could I possibly gain from letting you go?”
Dream didn’t actually have a great answer that question. But Sam didn’t need a great answer; he just needed a push. “Remember what I said, when you were in there? About you and me – about us? This is your chance to redeem yourself. This is your chance to prove that you’re not like me! You’re not like Quackity, or Wilbur, or Techno, or Schlatt. You can be better. It’s not too late for you!”
His words must’ve done something, because Sam went suddenly silent. Silent enough for Dream to hear footsteps beginning to approach.
Sam opened his mouth to reply, but Dream cut him off. “This is your chance to not become one of us. You can finally be redeemed, freed from that guilt of letting that asshole in here to torture me, day after day. This is your only chance.” The footsteps were getting closer, and Dream dropped his volume to a harsh whisper. “There’s no time, you have to make your choice now! It’s now or never.”
Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Sam let out a shaking breath, his gaze flickering just a moment to the passage Quackity would walk out of in under a minute. He was hesitating, shit, he was hesitating-
And then Dream felt the cool touch of glass in his hand. The hand that wasn’t holding onto Sam was still hovering in the air, and together he and Sam held opposite sides of a potion of fire resistance.
“Did you close up the hole Techno got through?” Sam asked, his eyes unfocused. He didn’t meet Dream’s eyes, staring at the potion so strongly that Dream was sure he’d poke a hole in it with just his gaze alone.
“No,” Dream replied in a breathless whisper. Sam nodded, then tilted his head towards the lava.
When Dream hesitated, Sam opened his mouth and screamed. “Shit- Quackity!”
The footsteps, the stomps, grew louder and faster. Dream didn’t hesitate then, uncorking the potion and chugging it in one fluid motion, that of a man who had done this hundreds of times before. He pushed himself off of Sam and dove into the lava.
---
When Quackity rounded the corner, he found Sam pressed against the wall, breathless and panicked. Dream was nowhere to be seen. Quackity rushed forward and grabbed Sam by the collar (and Sam noted that it was not unlike how Dream had held him just moments before).
“Sam, please, for the love of whatever fucking god-”
“He disappeared.” Sam stared into Quackity’s eyes with nothing but pure horror. “Just like Techno did. He just…”
“Pearled?” Quackity asked, shaking the Warden. Sam could only nod. Quackity shoved him away, causing Sam to slam into the wall as he paced away from him. “How- who the hell would’ve saved him? How did we- How did you let this happen?”
“How did I?” Sam’s voice returned full force, anger filling his veins as guilt and regret washed away in an instant. “How dare you- He wouldn’t have gotten out in the first place if it weren’t for you, he wouldn’t want us dead if it weren’t for you!”
“And yet you’re the one who keeps letting him slip through your fingers!”
Sam rose to his feet, suddenly towering over Quackity. If asked, the leader of Las Nevadas would swear on his life that he did not cower, but it would’ve been a lie. The room reeked of gunpower. “Go find him yourself, then,” Sam growled, smoke puffing into Quackity’s face as the Warden leaned down to stare him in the eyes, “go kill him yourself. You are nothing without me. Your plan to get the revive book would be nothing without me. Las Nevadas would be nothing without me. Am I wrong?” Quackity said nothing. “Prove me wrong. Do something for your damned self and kill Dream. I’m done.”