Chapter Text
As it turned out, tree-people hibernated.
They dragged his half-frozen body into Sapnap’s house with little fanfare, not caring enough to brush the snow off before entering and bending as little of his body as possible in case there were adverse effects after being on ice for so long. His limbs were still and difficult to move anyway, the same temperature as the world outside, which thawed in little beads of moisture soon after burying him in blankets.
When George first pulled off his mask, his face was so screwed with cold that he put it back on almost immediately, but after stealing Sapnap’s bedroom and lighting the fireplace, his body slowly but surely warmed and became looser, spreading out and taking up more room on the bed. It seemed, then, that they would have to find a different place to sleep.
George didn't let go of Sapnap that first night, holding his head against the other man’s chest and squeezing his eyes closed as if to forget all the things he’d seen, and Sapnap, as if he understood what George had been through, just petted his back and held on. Sapnap forced George to leave Dream alone for the time being, given how his friend looked close to death himself, and forced him to join him against the furnaces in the other room.
“It’s just me here,” he explained, “and you and your friend now, too. Something went off in the old world, like a piece of dynamite or something. I haven't seen anyone else, but I guess they could be somewhere.”
“Did you make the house?”
“Partly. It was broken and I fixed it, apart from the bit eaten by moss. Lots of long days and nights.”
“Did you go out in the dark?” George felt anxious asking it, just thinking about what might have happened if Sapnap hadn't known or noticed it if something was out there.
“Yeah,” he said, “It gets really dark in the forest at night, and sometimes things spawn but it’s not too bad. Just cold, a bit spooky. Nothing I can’t handle, I’m a big boy.”
“Did-” George cut himself off, but Sapnap was looking at him now, “I’m going to sound dumb.”
“Go for it. I love being dumb. You should know that it’s my favourite hobby.”
George’s mouth twitched at the attempt at humour, but the solemness didn’t leave him. “Did being in darkness hurt you?”
“No, just standard old darkness. Why? What was your old world like?”
George swallowed. The fire crackled and Dream’s body didn't move, but as if Sapnap could tell what he was thinking, he asked, “was it something to do with him? He didn't hurt you, did he?”
“No, no. He, uh. He basically saved my life. Not basically. He did.”
Sapnap’s face was an open book at the best of times, and George had no problem in seeing the demand on his face. Explain?
So George settled his nerves with a breath and talked. He talked about the forest and the rain, about waking up and seeing Dream’s mask in the bushes and about him disappearing. He talked about the village, how it was abandoned and about how Dream forgot his mask when George was chopping wood. He talked about hearing things, about seeing things, about falling asleep and finding the door open and about finally meeting him. He repeated the things Dream told him about the woods; about garlic and crocus, about horse-chestnuts and cornus and poison ivy. He talked about wielding a stick like a sword, as if he and Dream were children playing make-believe rather than training to fight a real threat, and about whittling axes and pickaxes to sharp points, about him disappearing.
He talked about being too scared to leave the house. He talked about the nights he spent pressed to the glass of the window, wide eyed with worry as if the darkness was able to reach through it to get to him. He described the feeling of hunger, deep and unsettling, sinking deeper and deeper into him like a stone, or a burrowing creature that he didn’t want.
And then he stopped for breath.
The cave, the iron, the movement, the noises.
Breathe.
The smelting, the axe, the glint of glass, and-
Sapnap looked pale.
“Another you?”
“An evil one, yeah.”
“What did he want?”
“It wanted to kill me and replace me.”
“What the fuck.”
And then George went on, about Dream appearing, about their incomprehensible conversation, about the knife, the blood, the water. Then darkness. And finally he talked about the brightness of snow, the travel southwards and the lava. Then about walking for days on end, and the grim and bitter act of survival against a world that wanted them dead, and finally, about Dream. About who, what, he was.
Sapnap was silent for the rest of George’s conversation, never interrupting but nodding occasionally in a way that made George wish he actually understood without having to go through the same things, and then when he had finished talking, he sat with both hands in his lap and waited for Sapnap to say something.
“So he became the person he killed,” Sapnap said, but his voice didn't sound too frightened.
“I think so. He didn't have a choice, apparently.”
“Do you…” Sapnap trailed off, his face worried, “do you think there’s one of me?”
“Have you felt watched so far?”
“No, just a normal experience. No bites in the night, no rustling trees. The strangest thing I've seen so far is you and him around that campfire. Other than a fox holding a shoe in its mouth.”
“Then I don't know. I really, really don't.”
Sapnap seemed to accept the answer, and he adjusted the hold on George to be tighter.
“Here’s hoping not,” he said, and they remained quiet for the rest of the night.
Dream breathed in and out steadily, his hand still curled around the glowstone piece as he lay stretched out and warm. He occasionally shifted to roll over or move his leg in his sleep, but only did so after three or four days in Sapnap’s house. He would probably be waking up mid-winter for food, since he hadn't had a chance to stock up before falling asleep, and even though he was fine, just asleep, George stayed with him.
Sapnap often came too, sitting on the chair he dragged in the first time because sitting with him and Dream on the bed was, apparently, ‘I don't know, implying something’. George couldn't find it in him to care, and took to lying on the bed in stride. It was just another part of his life now, he guessed.
Eventually he did take off the mask, too, or really Dream removed it himself after rubbing his face into the pillow for about twenty minutes straight. There was something else to focus on after that point, no longer having to listen to his breathing, George could watch his face instead. It was smoothed out now, fuller looking, and more alive.
His eyes didn't open for a long time, but then one week the weather got warmer.
Snowdrops peaked their heads out first, emerging from the thinning snow with green stems and fresh smelling flowers, and then the birds flew overhead through the gaps in the trees, calling their return the whole while. Sapnap said the fish returned to the river further west, and that the ice had melted from on top so they could try and reel them in. They no longer had to rely on stray boar for food, or even the foxes when times got desperate, and George took great pride in the leeks and chard he had planted, which sprouted for the first time when the snow melted. Sapnap had made fun of him for making the garden in the middle of winter, but in a matter of weeks he was seeing results, so it hardly mattered.
And one evening when George was sharpening an axe and Sapnap was out collecting saplings, Dream twitched on what was now his bed, his foot rolling from side to side and his head moving to look off the side of the bed. George held his breath, waiting, watching, and he felt his heart beat faster.
His hair had grown back slightly from when it had frozen off in the winter, reaching his ears again and turning a soft green colour, the same as the budding leaves on birch trees. His clothes, somehow, had become a light green too. His skin was no longer the sickly white of snow, and looking at him didn't remind George of when he was half buried in snow anymore. But as he watched, pausing his hand movements, Dream looked at him and smiled gently.
George couldn't help it - he grinned, because Dream’s eyes were green in spring.