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Sapnap liked to believe he wasn’t impulsive. This was a decision he pondered for weeks. Surely. Somewhere in his head he’d known this was a possibility.
It. Wasn’t.
Something he considered.
Consciously.
Until George sighed and sat next to him. He was rubbing his eyes. His leg bumped Sapnap’s armored thighs. Sapnap glanced at their legs. It was something so small. Such a little detail. It didn’t matter. But George’s pants were ripped.
Before…before all of this, Bad would mend their clothes. He wasn’t great at it, but the point was they’d have laundry days, and they’d all work together, and talk and clothes would get clean and mended. His dad would beam at them, claws holding a tiny needle as they threw wet garments at one another, the washing boards forgotten.
But, George was never awake and Karl was never…it wasn’t the same. Sapnap did everything alone.
His netherrite leggings shined. He polished his armor daily. There wasn’t anything else to do.
George didn’t have armor again. Sapnap’s lips pursed. It’d been such a funny joke months ago…no—a year ago. He’d always warned George he couldn’t depend on Dream to get him new armor; eventually Dream wouldn’t be able to—funny how it worked out.
Real funny.
Sapnap’s teeth clicked. A deep well of bitterness filled him. He pat George’s thigh, sorrow joining the murky bitterness in him. A dark, unwelcome thought crept from the well, hooking fang and tooth and claw into the brittle stone and pulling its way out.
Sapnap didn’t want to admit it, but he was starting to feel less and less like there were things to live for. To fight for. And everyone he loved was suffering.
And maybe he could fix it faster.
The thought had taken shape as George settled next to him, all but resting his head on Sapnap’s shoulder. Despite the exhaustion that clung to George, George rested on one of his hands to keep from pressing his weight into Sapnap. Another echoing clang of loathing fell into the well of bitterness and sorrow, over the head of the dark thing crawling out of it. George would have rested on Dream. Hell, George would have pressed up against Sapnap long ago, but now he held back. So had Quackity before he left. Maybe George was planning on leaving too.
In the slight chill of the air their breath hung in front of their faces, slowly dissipating.
Sapnap felt the weight of the death book in his pocket.
Dream hadn’t left the prison for weeks. And when he did, he used stasis chambers—Sapnap’s traps were being avoided. Hell, he wasn’t even sure if Dream had seen them. It was insulting.
But. Surely. Dream was still Dream. And they shared a commonality.
George.
Sapnap gripped George’s thigh tighter and glanced at him. George’s eyes were mostly closed, his eyelashes ghosting against his cheeks. There were bags under his eyes. Lines of stress on his face. George looked worse by the day. More worn out and roughened up, and he missed when George looked happy.
He loved George. He loved Dream too…or used to—his friends meant the world to him. It’s why he had to do this, while they weren’t all completely fucked. Sapnap felt like he was the only one seeing clearly. He’d told himself they all three needed to go. It…it was the only wat to fix it. He’d get rid of Dream, and George could finish him with the book. That easy. And well, then George would die probably. George was clearly sick or something already. The sleeping shit wasn’t…George didn’t used to be this bad.
Sapnap reasoned he was giving George a faster and more humane end; George was already dead...practically. He felt colder. Distant. Always asleep. Sleep was like death, wasn’t it?
Sapnap stared at the prison. It was so dark and foreboding. It had nothing on the thing in him pressing out of the well of awful, wretched emotions and into his throat where unspoken words he itched to say bubbled.
“Is he in there again or something?” George asked, yawning.
It broke the silence and Sapnap’s thoughts. The fanged monster of the well paused, claws sinking for a moment in Sapnap’s throat. Sapnap swallowed and coughed, as if it could shake it, “Yeah, George, he is,” Sapnap said truthfully. A dark, unhappy laugh. “I’m waiting for him to leave. To kill him.”
George shifted next to him. A soft, barely audible sigh and then another yawn. “I don’t blame you. I’m mad at him too.” But it didn’t sound honest. Sapnap knew George. He knew George’s nonchalant tone damn well—George wasn’t being entirely open. Always this neutral response. George wouldn’t ever say, “I support you” or “Sapnap, you’re doing what’s right.”
“You miss him,” Sapnap accused. He gripped the death book where it was in his satchel, his fingers tracing the edges of the book. It felt as cold as a cemetery in the winter, the smooth stone offering no warmth, the ground unlikely to be broken until spring.
Phil would tell horror stories to anyone who listened about the damn victims of the Antarctic Empire left frozen, dead bodies strewn about like grotesque decorations until it thawed enough on a ‘warm’ day when it peaked barely above freezing, and they’d drag them off to pyres.
The book radiated the same coldness and hostility his voice carried, painted the same imagery.
“…yeah,” George said. George huffed and jostled Sapnap’s arm away from his book as he leant back where they were perched, digging his heels into the wall to keep from falling. Sapnap studied George.
He didn’t know what he expected to find. Maybe he expected George how he used to be. A poise about him, like a refined cat, prim and proper.
George’s brown hair was messy, ruffled in the wind. It was getting long again. Quackity had always been the best with shears and scissors. He’d cut George’s hair in El Rapids. And before New L’Manberg. “I do miss him,” George said quietly. A sideways look to Sapnap and George’s tone drifted into a sarcastic lilt. “But he’s an idiot. And I’ve heard the whole ‘I’m going to burn down Kinoko’ and ‘I want my armor back.’ Dream’s…” George paused; his eyes fixed on the prison then they dropped to his lap. “An idiot.”
It was more than he expected of George these days. He had expected cluelessness. Purposeful ignorance.
“Who caught you up?” Sapnap asked, glancing over at George. George shrugged. Either he’d already forgotten or he didn’t know. Sapnap was starting to think George was sharing Karl’s memory issues.
It was so fucked up lately. Sapnap knew this was the best way to go. It wasn’t like he had much left anymore. Quackity was… He wanted to be angry at Quackity or upset, but he felt nothing anymore. And Karl…Sapnap wasn’t sure he even had him. When Karl was around he wasn’t all there. Sapnap had felt like giving up long before the death book was thrown in his lap. At least now he could fix it.
Or fix some part of it.
He couldn’t go back to Kinoko with the taste of failure anymore. Couldn’t stop by Karl’s room and remind him to eat, his fiance’s eyes glazed over, this distant, faraway look that took over him. Karl’s nervousness and anxiety, mutterings about futures and timelines and people from different places when he was fully coherent that Sapnap couldn’t follow and when he was out of it, he couldn’t get Karl to talk about any of his feelings or where his memory might have gaps. Karl would get upset.
“Sapnap, I don’t think I’ve forgotten anything. Stop—stop asking. Look, I love you. Let’s—there’s cartoons. George and I are just going to—”
“Karl, there’s more important fucking things to do then sit on your ass and—” Sapnap stopped himself when he saw Karl’s eyes fall. A weighty breath and Karl’s hands wrapped around his arms. “Fuck,” Sapnap said and pressed his fingers to his temples. “No, fuck—it’s not your fault. I’m sorry. You—you do a lot. The…you just came back from time travelling again. You told me before it’s…stressful.”
And that’s all Karl told him. Nothing else. Nothing more. No explanations. Quackity. George. Karl. Who wanted to fucking tell him how they actually felt?
It hurt most when Karl would cup his cheek and lean in to kiss him. Karl would shush him and pull Sapnap against his chest, a quiet, “Sapnap, you’re fine. I know you don’t mean it. Just relax. You’re just as stressed, baby. You put so much weight on yourself.” And Sapnap wanted to shake him and George. He put all this weight on himself, because they didn’t seem to care. And it hurt. It always hurt to feel Karl against him. Because he couldn’t do it anymore. Karl wasn’t living a good life. George wasn’t living a good life. Hell, who was on this server?
He could fix it.
He just had to kill Dream.
It’d fix it all.
It had to, it was the only thing he could think of. And he was the only one that could do it.
Tina or Boomer or someone could take care of Karl. Maybe it’d work like a cure. Dream dying would fix Karl.
Or at least Sapnap wouldn’t be around to see when Karl stopped remembering anything. Or never came back from time travelling.
And George?
Sapnap sat on the wall, his mind racing. George didn’t want to kill Dream. Not like he did. George wouldn’t even see why they had to do it. The more he thought about it, the more he realized how stupid his original plan was. George likely wouldn’t finish Dream off, because George didn’t care. He didn’t listen to Tommy or anyone else, but Sapnap did. Sapnap knew how everyone else felt. He was doing it for the good of the community. George wouldn’t see it that way. George was selfish.
It made it even easier to consider. His hand drifted back to where the book was in a satchel on his belt. All he had to do was pull it out. It’d only take seconds.
George was selfish. And…George didn’t deserve to keep suffering. Sapnap reasoned he was doing it, because he cared. He ignored the part of him that was angry. The creature of the well, the well overflowing with bitterness, loathing, sorrow, grief, anger and heartache slunk from his throat to his heart and gripped it.
Why was it he had to do it all? Why was it no one else cared out of his friends? Punz pretended to care to Sapnap’s face, but he had a sneaking suspicion he couldn’t count on him. George cared less about the harm Dream had done to the server, and more about how Dream had personally hurt his fucking feelings.
And maybe it was fucked up, but he was mad at Karl and Quackity for leaving. He didn’t understand the fucking time travel shit, but he did understand Las Nevadas popping up and one of his fiancés preferring to hang out with two dead men. Rivalry his ass, he’d heard from Karl about that birthday party Wilbur had also attended alongside Quackity.
Sapnap told himself what he was doing was out of love. That the well inside of him was filled with painful love and empathy, and what he was doing was an act of nothing, but selfless love.
It would hurt, but it was for the greater fucking good.
George yawned again. “Sap? Do you want me to grab you something to eat? Think I’m going back to Kinoko.”
Sapnap pulled out the book and idly flipped it open, his eyes on the prison. “No.” A dark laugh. “You’ll just fall asleep before you can come back.” Despite the anger coursing through him, there was another feeling, of emptiness, like whatever ‘love’ was in the well inside of him—whatever filled it was draining away, rushing out in torrents like blood from a wound as he felt the warmth of George’s body draw away as George dropped from the ledge smoothly, stretching idly on the ground where he stood.
“Do you think it’s warm in the prison?” George asked.
“It’s covered in fucking lava. I’d hope it is,” Sapnap said and he pressed the pencil to the paper, poising to write. A feeling in the back of his mind came soaring through, begging him not to do it.
“Sapnap?”
Why the fuck was George looking at him like that? George was standing on the ground, his eyes staring up at him, concerned. Confused.
“George, Dream isn’t ever coming out of there. He doesn’t care about you anymore,” Sapnap snapped. “It’s why you came over here, isn’t it?”
G. e. o.
“I came to check on you, idiot.” George’s eyes narrowed. “You know, Karl isn’t stupid. He knows you’re obsessed with revenge right now. He knows Dream’s out,” George drawled. He crossed his arms across his chest. “Compared to your stupid obsession, I don’t care about Dream.”
r. g. e. N.
“Why are you even lying to me, George?” Sapnap said. The monster of the well tore into his heart, ripping it to shreds. The flood of the draining well felt like it was coming out through his cheeks in a heat, through the corner of his eyes, through vapors as he felt himself heat up, flame and smoke rising off of him like steam. “You care about Dream more than you care about anyone else. You care about Dream as much as…Bad cares about Skeppy. Except, unlike Skeppy, Dream’s a fucking monster.”
o. t. F. o.
“Whatever, Sapnap,” George said, rolling his eyes. He turned his back on him. “As you said before, Dream doesn’t care about ‘us.’”
u. n.
“It’s better this way, George. If he cares about you…well, guess we’ll find out,” Sapnap said, and he wrote the last letter.
d.
George’s name was printed semi-neatly in the death book on the fourth line after all his other failed attempts. Sapnap wasn’t sure how instant it would be. He was breathing so heavy, the flames rising off of him dying down as his chest heaved as if it’d lost something, as he felt a deep, painful emptiness in him.
“XD?” George said, his voice filled with a slight dread and apprehension. He was staring at something Sapnap couldn’t see. Someone. XD. Sapnap felt any remaining dark feelings begin to dissipate as George took a step back, staring up at something.
There was a pause. In retrospect, what always struck Sapnap was how little fear George showed for the god. Not out of bravery, but an over-familiarity that was ruined in an instant. “What are you—”
And Sapnap felt his anger disappear into deep, aching regret when George fell back, screaming. A wound blossoming in his chest. Like his chest had simply…been shredded open. And George’s scream broke off into hiccupping sobs, as he clutched the wound then. A stillness. Then he jolted awake and again—the wound gone.
Two lives remaining.
“XD—I don’t understand.” George is standing slowly, trying to put distance between the god still invisible to Sapnap and himself. There’s a hesitation. A way George almost seems to be pleading. Why would he trust the god—why would he think the god wouldn’t harm him? Something strikes George and he crumples.
George’s wide eyes had turned to Sapnap. This confusion. This hope and imploring look. Sapnap couldn’t recall a time he didn’t go to George’s side. “Sapnap. Sapnap,” George begged. “Help me, please. Help—” George’s eyes go back to the god, cowering. “Stop, stop—I’m sorry—”
His words were cut off in a gargle. This time it was his throat. Slashed open. Sapnap felt horrified. Unable to move. A paralysis pinning him to where he sat on the wall. The pencil still tight in his hand. George was clawing at the grass, desperate to get away from the unseen god.
But eventually he stopped moving. His chest heaved as he drowned in his own blood.
Then.
It stilled.
One life.
When George woke up again, he was already crying. He was inching backwards best he could, one hand braced for something. Then, a cry. “Sapnap, help—Sapnap—” A sound Sapnap knew well. A sword going through flesh. The sword was visible, even when the god wasn’t. It was sticking out of George’s torso, blood pooling around the opening.
George gripped it, his breathing taking on a panicked, terrified note. “No…no. Sapnap.” But Sapnap didn’t move. The sword was gripped by another force and pulled out. George choked on blood. He tried keeping his hands over the wound, trying to save himself. George’s eyes met his.
He couldn’t watch George die.
So, he wasn’t going to look. Sapnap turned his head.
“Dream,” George cried out weakly. “Dream…”
But the rasping cries yielded no one. Sapnap only looked up when it was silent. George’s hand was outstretched, gripping the grass. He’d given up holding his wound, his bloody hand reaching for the water near the prison.
Reaching for someone he’d never get.
XD appeared fully now, his head tilted.
“You finally used the book. I’m impressed,” XD taunted. “Though, a rather boring target. He wasn’t doing much—”
“Shut up!” Sapnap barked.
He was crying. He wiped at the tears with the back of his hand, smoke running off of him.
Part of him felt like abandoning reason. If he shook George enough, George would wake up. If he pinched himself, it’d just turn out to be a nightmare. Sapnap had to tell himself he did this for a good reason. It hurt now, but it’d stop hurting eventually. Because he had to do it.
“If Dream cares about me or George, he’d revive George,” Sapnap said aloud to the god. He wasn’t sure the god even cared his reasoning. “And fuck it, if Dream—if Dream doesn’t get why I had to do it, it’s because Dream wouldn’t come out and just fucking die. He needs to die. That’s all that matters. I want—I want Dream to know that…” But the action was feeling empty now. What? Would Dream know that Sapnap meant business? Would he simply lie down and let himself be killed?
The god’s eyes glittered, but it didn’t seem to care. It was only a spectator to this sporting event.
“Interesting. I’m sure he’ll eventually notice the dead body. You know,” XD shrugged. “Or not. Because Dream isn’t exactly sight-seeing. Maybe you should go leave a note.” The god was mocking him.
“It isn’t just anybody I killed,” Sapnap shouted. “It’s my—Dream’s best friend.”
“Great,” XD said. “His ‘best friend’ was asleep the last year and he was in prison. Sure they’ve done lots together,” XD said sarcastically. The god hovered over George’s body, staring down at it remorselessly. Sapnap couldn’t look at George. It hurt. It hurt so bad to see him broken on the ground. XD looked to Sapnap, the mask glowing faintly. “I don’t care. I think it’s entertaining. I certainly will like keeping this one’s soul on my finger. He’s been kinda bothersome. Always bugging me.” Sapnap’s heart thudded. “I mean, be kinda disappointing if he’s revived. I kind of wanted a pet. I have one in the overworld, but you know, a kind of—purse dog would be nice.”
The god was drifting away, starting to fade and Sapnap lunged for him.
“George isn’t anyone’s—don’t—” But he goes ignored. XD only paused, its mask tilting.
“I almost forgot. Your payment.”
Sapnap felt something pierce through his chest and awoke breathing heavy in Kinoko, his bed warm and familiar. For a moment, there’s a stab or relief. It was a nightmare. His armor was on its stand—or rather Dream’s armor Nightmare, but it’s his now—a reassuring sight at all times. If he’d lost a life, none of stuff would be here, Sapnap reasoned.
There’s one other way to check. Sapnap with heavy apprehension slid out of bed and knelt on the ground. He reached under his bed for the panel where he’d hidden the book. It was there. Sapnap pulled it out and flipped it open.
He didn’t need light to be able to read it.
Not when there were four lines filled out.
Sapnap’s heart felt like it’d taken a leave of absence. He swallowed. Then, he put the book back. And crawled back into bed.
He’d only done what he had to do. George was—George was going to die eventually anyway. Hell, Dream probably would have killed him for some fucked up reason. Or George would have died from his sleeping issues, or—or you know what, Dream deserved this. He was always all about attachments. There. Now one of his was gone. That was all this was. Needed. A lesser evil for the greater good.
George would get it. They’d had to do this shit before, right?
And besides, George wasn’t really living. He was just—barely able to stay coherent and awake most of the time. He wasn’t really living. Sapnap put him out of his misery. And if George was revived, George would get it.
He had to do it.
If Dream revived George, then he proved he at least had a consciousness still. And then Sapnap could at least feel like he killed Dream while Dream wasn’t entirely fucking gone. And if Dream didn’t—then he didn’t let Dream get out of control.
No matter what way Sapnap reasoned it, he was right. He had to do it. This had to be done.
He doesn’t even break the next day, when Karl pressed a kiss to his cheek and then glanced back to their house. “Sap, he didn’t come back last night. I heard from Bad he’s been really tuckering out all over the place. We should probably go make sure he didn’t fall asleep somewhere silly. I thought he said he was getting you, but…you know, I was watching cartoons so maybe I uh…” Karl won’t ever say he forgot something.
“What am I? George’s keeper?” Sapnap snorted. “He’ll turn up. Eventually.”
Sapnap missed Karl’s smile falling and Karl’s hands anxiously twisting his sleeves.
Sapnap would go back to his resource gathering, talking with people allied against Dream and waiting, for Dream to leave the prison.
And Sapnap would miss Karl staying up at night. Waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting.