Chapter Text
his hands are empty.
that’s the most jarring thing, he thinks. not the way the prison cuts through the sky, and not the way he is so irremediably, unendingly alone; and certainly not the ache of his fists, the lull of his grief.
his hands are empty. he's run out of things to burn, and out of things to destroy, and out of homes to build and out of hopes to have, all at once, or maybe achingly slowly.
his hands are empty. he stepped out of the portal and felt vaguely like he had lost everything all over again, nevermind that it’d been stolen from him, nevermind that he’d given it up willingly.
his hands are empty. his hands are empty. his hands are empty and they’re not shaking, they’re just cold.
he’s not shaking; he’s just cold. sam stayed inside the prison and dream didn’t say a word, and sapnap held an axe to his throat, and his hands are empty; litany of facts he could make into prayers, if he tried hard enough.
but he’s never been good at words, always been clumsy, maybe even scared of them, when fear had been allowed. he wields them hesitantly, too softly-spoken when it matters, too rash when it doesn’t.
so here he uses his silence as barricade, a faulty, idiotic one, and sits down, feet in saltwater, and watches the prison. two hours ago he was waiting behind a portal; two hours ago dream was still free, and still his friend.
and now, and now; obsidian cuts through the sky and his hands are empty. sam looked at him with what could have been pity.
"thanks," says tommy, sitting heavily next to him. sapnap turns his head to look at him and immediately wishes he hadn't; the teenager's clothes are ripped under his stolen armor, his eyes red for all that they won, and the weight of the world is clearly still balanced on his shoulders.
"for what," says sapnap, empty hands trembling. he doesn't mean to let his bitterness show, but it seeps through his clenched teeth and beaten-down words anyway, poisons the ground like he spit out blood after being punched in the gut, ungraceful metallic reminders of his failures.
"for coming, asshole," says tommy, unfazed. children are used to poison, these days. "i know- he was your best friend."
sapnap laughs. it sounds choked up even to his ears. his throat must be full of brambles and nettles; if you'd crush it in a paste maybe it'd be useful, maybe it'd heal anything , that'd be so fucking nice. but it'd be burdensome to sift through the rot and flesh attached to the thorns, and his hands hurt already.
"he sure didn't think of me that way anymore," he says.
tommy glances at him, things shadowed in his eyes. there's something like pity in the way he opens his mouth and closes it again, in the way he glances down and thinks up a lie he could say, like he didn't mean it or he loved you or i understand .
"i'm sorry," he says finally. "i- i'm really fucking sorry."
"well, i should've chosen better." his hands don't tear at the ground when he answers, because that'd be fucking weak, and he just stood in front of his- of- of him, and aimed an axe at his neck, and watched him die. "tubbo was a good choice, see? even at his worst he wouldn't- wouldn't have-"
and here the brambles claw their way up around his teeth, on his cheeks, up to his eyes. here the bleeding starts up again, the world tastes like iron and betrayal and bile. he stops.
"thank you," repeats tommy. "for coming- for going against him."
"what else?"
what else, he says, and he means it as a laconic response but ender, it could be begging, it could be a prayer, it could be some sort of request for atonement. what else, what else could i have done, is there anything i could have done? his feet are rooted in place and the words climbing his way up his throat like red ants; if he could set fire to the whole damn forest he would, and cry of relief, or grief, one or the other.
tommy looks at him like the ants have had their ways with him, once, and the maggots too; and the wasps are still buzzing mockingly in his ears and dream was green, green, green, it'd be so easy to burn him down, it'd be so painful to burn him alive.
"hell if i fucking know," says tommy. if sapnap looks closely he thinks he can still see the stinging left behind, the scars and rashes and thorns just under the skin that you never quite manage to get out, shrug, you'll have to live with it.
you'll have to live with it.
"you shouldn't thank me," sighs sapnap. "took me forever to come around, like he still cared- like he ever did-"
he cuts himself off. there's blood pouring from the cut on his throat, he's drowning in it. it tastes like payback.
the rope burned his hands but it’s still tied around dream’s.
"i'm sorry," says tommy, with such heavy grief in his eyes, it could be an anvil that's crushing him; it could be an anchor that's dragging him down; it could be care. "he's a monster."
and sapnap still bristles at that, isn't that funny?
there's ringing in his ears, some sort of requiem for something that never existed and the fool that believed in it still. "well," he says, and swallows the red ants, the brambles, the nettles. his tears get lost in the mess, he swallows them down and they burn like acid; not much longer now. "well."
"you came," states tommy. "you all fucking did- i've been such a fucking prick, i didn't think anyone would, i thought i'd killed him with all my fucking mistakes. you saved him, and if it'd been me- i've been nothing but a bastard to you."
sapnap shrugs like his armor doesn't weigh heavy on him, like his eyes can still close, like any of this is honorable and good and right instead of a fucking waste. "had to. was the right thing to do." blood on the ground, poison the land.
tommy stares at him, wary. sapnap doesn't know if he wants to get rid of the forest, if it leaves him so guarded; but he made his choice already, didn't he.
"hey tommy, hey." he laughs through scratched out voice, scratched out eyes, scratched out mind, just cross him out of the story already. "do you think he ever loved me?"
empty bucket, and a sign in a stupid fucking room.
"he stopped when you asked," offers tommy. it's not an answer and they both know it, but children, poison, brighter, crueler. you know the drill.
"ha," says sapnap.
tommy looks so fucking sad for him. there's a hole in sapnap's pocket, there's the memories of sam's stare when he asked burning through his skull, there's the lingering feeling of their last hug engraved in his bones. he wishes he could talk to george.
the prison in front of them looms so dark.
“you shouldn’t be alone,” says tommy. sapnap glances at him and the empty space around them, the stolen armor stained with blood, the stolen potions and stolen items and borrowed time.
“ you are,” he says. he doesn’t deny the facts, doesn’t try to throw a rug over the gaping, unknown void in front of him. this home is littered with craters these days, and people will hardly bat an eye.
“you shouldn’t be alone,” repeats tommy, heedless of the retort. he looks weighted down. sapnap hopes it’ll go away.
“well,” he says, and gestures towards the prison. “i would ask for company,” he laughs, and his mirth breaks halfway through, miserable mockery of a lie.
tommy looks uncomfortable, and pissed off, and sad. it’s an amusing mix at least. “are you going to call them, or should I?” he asks.
children. children, and kinder, brighter things made from poison. this is too much to ask and he set light to the forest. sapnap stays silent; the wasps buzz and buzz. maybe he’s more scared of the idea of stinging than the actual pain.
tommy taps on his keyboard quietly. silence is the best approximation of a plea sapnap knows how to utter, and when the teenager gets up, eyes set on the prison like it’s another planned betrayal, sapnap doesn’t follow suit.
the water is weighing him down.
“thank you,” repeats tommy. he’s good at caring but clumsy with it, observes sapnap distantly. “they’ll be here soon,” tommy mutters, foot digging into the muddied dirt absent-mindedly. “don’t move.”
the water is weighing him down. “i won’t,” he says.
tommy looks at him for a while, uncertainty bleeding into the movement of his hands, as he folds them into fists and relaxes them in turn. “okay,” he accepts finally.
sapnap dredges up the courage for a half-hearted second, musters up a smile that’s probably just pathetic. he’s on the edge of tears and it’s unfamiliar, awful in its vulnerability. he doesn’t know what to do to stop it, how to breathe through it, or when biting his lips hard enough to bleed stopped being enough to chase them away.
out in the open and the prison stands and the prison looms and tommy steps away, quietly. out in the open and empty hands and empty excuses and such a fucking waste.
such a waste of a faith and such a waste of a hope and such a waste of a home. dream had it all and he methodically shed it, placed it in a pile, and set light to the entire stack. at least sapnap knows what shouldn’t be touched, that’s why they built the community house out of wood.
the air hangs heavy and the water weighs him down. is this my fault? swims away in circles around him and closing his eyes feels like admitting defeat, so he lets the cold sink and sink and sink in. muddied ground and pristine black and is this my fault?
empty hands and the harsh knot of betrayal he can’t seem to detangle, who betrayed who? was it him or was it dream? was it the both of them?
why did tommy ask for his help? why didn’t dream?
empty hands and sapnap isn’t good at not being a tool, at not having a goal, at not having an anchor. empty hands, empty hands, empty hands. who betrayed who?
the rope burned his hands but he’s immune to fire, and the forest is burning burning burning. he’s inhaling the smoke, they both are, in their solitary little misery. what a pathetic pretty tragedy they make, he thinks, and the bitterness of his disappointment covers his grief unpleasantly.
bitter, bitter. his hands are empty; they’re not shaking, he doesn’t feel the cold.
karl arrives first.
it’s fitting, in a sense. he rushes to sapnap’s side in a breath, whirlwind of colors, and slows down near the water, worry painted all over his face like ugly bruises. sapnap tries to drag strength out of somewhere , tries to get himself out of the circles, but he’s spiraling and spiraling and has nothing but a distant fascination for how far he’ll go, for how deep this runs. can you learn to breathe underwater? would you care to?
“sap,” whispers karl. “sapnap, hey.”
his hands are empty. karl sits next to him and presses against his shoulders and sapnap lets out a long, shuddering breath.
“sorry,” says karl, soft and regretful. “sorry, i should have been here. i should have known.”
“i-” says sapnap, and cuts himself on the edge of his voice, jagged and too honest.
karl waits for him.
“i-” tries sapnap again, if only for the depth of karl’s faith that he can. “i- i wish-”
the words are being dragged out of him. you wish on burning stars and the smoke covers the night sky.
“ karl, ” he gives up in a plea. he’s built himself a new home but the trees in the forest were centuries-old, and they are burning.
“i know,” soothes karl, with the same sort of grief in his eyes, with lightning quick regrets and slow, unthreatening movements. a survivor, through and through. “i’m sorry. it wasn’t your fault.”
the words are nice but they ring hollow nevertheless. let them drop in the void, see if they make a sound; see if they ever reach a ground. “sap,” calls back karl softly, and gathers him in a careful embrace when the only response he gets is an awful, choked-up sound.
it’s nice. it’s nice, and it solves nothing, but it’s nice. “i’m here,” says karl. “i should have been here earlier. i’m here.”
sapnap’s never been practical, never been logical; that was what george and dream shared, that, the kind of delighted curiosity they kept for everything and everyone. it was theirs and he has no right to it but he reaches desperately nonetheless. his thoughts are a trap and if he lets himself be still the ground will crumble at his side, and he will fall down, down, down.
keep moving, quickfire second-degrees burns along his fingers, awful, twisted scars he survived.
“i’m trying,” he says, halting and out of breath like trying to sort through poison, “i’m trying to see- i’m trying to know whether he betrayed me, or not. i’m trying to see if he wanted to betray me- if he even thought about me- if it’s better if he did, if i’d rather he hadn’t- if he thinks i betrayed him- ”
karl hums softly, doesn’t offer input. presses closer.
“i’m trying to see,” laughs sapnap, a laugh made out of broken glass and razor edges, “if- if he failed me, or if i failed him. ”
karl slips a hand in his. sapnap chokes on a sob and hides his face in the other’s shoulder, the tears unstoppable, the shaking impossible to deny.
“i don’t think it’s about failing,” karl says, with something sharp in his voice, while sapnap utterly fails at enduring. “i don’t think he meant to hurt you.”
“that’s worse , isn’t it?” cries sapnap, hates the way he clings to voices and contact and presence. his mind is a trap and he’s so bad at not jumping headfirst into them. “he just- fucking forgot about me- completely- he just fucked off and decided i wasn’t even worth a fucking thought- that’s worse, that’s worse. ”
he tries to summon anger but its fizzles out when it reaches him, turns into acidic incomprehension that carves through his flesh and reaches his lungs. he chokes on it and doesn’t even have the strength to pretend he isn’t so completely, utterly desperate for dream to have thought he mattered.
karl stays silent for a short while, rubs circles into sapnap’s back, feather-light. “i don’t know if it’s worse,” he admits. “you loved him,” and sapnap tenses, “and he loved you, of course he did,” and his sob comes out of him like an animal’s dying breath.
karl tightens his hold. “if he did-” ender, he hopes- “if he did,” chokes out sapnap between trying to hold back his tears, “then why the fuck- why’d he go after tommy? why’d he never come back? why-”
karl hums soothingly. he doesn’t have an answer and it’s unfair to ask him for one, so sapnap just focuses on getting his breathing back under control. one thing at a time.
“i’m sorry,” eventually says karl, sheepishly. “i’m sorry he chose to do this- and i’m sorry we didn’t see it. and i’m sorry- i’m sorry you’re hurt.”
sapnap pushes away from him reluctantly. “it’s not- thank you,” he settles on. wipes at his face. they’re still in front of the prison.
karl gathers his hands carefully, intertwines their fingers. “you’re wonderful,” he says softly. there are shadows in his eyes and he’s never been weak enough to let them win, not like dream was. “you’re a good friend and an incredible fiancé, and,” he barrels on, “ i love you, and quackity, too. which doesn’t solve everything, and it’s not meant to,” and there, his brilliant, warm fiancé falters. “but... but i hope it helps.”
the prison in front of them, and their feet soaked with saltwater, and hands in his. sapnap gets hit with a wave of gratitude for karl, and the way he is here, and the way he has been here, and the way he has promised to stay.
he doesn’t say that, of course; he just blinks rapidly. “it’s helping right now, apparently,” chimes in an amused, fond voice, and when sapnap manages to stop staring starstruck at karl for a second, he looks over to see quackity’s smaller form standing behind them. “hi,” he says, soft in that rare tone of his that’s sapnap’s and sapnap’s only.
which does wonders for his emotional stability. sometimes sapnap thinks he loves them so much he could choke on it. “so, evil bastards friend that betray you, uh,” laughs quackity, teeth crooked, honest and uncaring where karl is hesitant and gentle. together they are fearless and sapnap is so, so lucky.
quackity sits next to them, feet in the water too nevermind that it’s almost nighttime, that it must be freezing. karl splashes some at him and he shrieks, almost goes into a monologue, but stops before he can launch into it, seems to shake himself into a more serious skin. “sorry,” he says, warm still, pressing into sapnap’s side, since sapnap’s hands are captured by karl’s. “i was- uh, checking up on tubbo, actually. sent tommy on over to him. but i should have been there.”
“it’s fine,” chokes out sapnap, feeling himself escape the spiral of his mind a little bit more with every press of skin against skin, with the warmth of people around him and the reminder that dream isn’t his whole world, no matter what he once had been, and no matter what sapnap sometimes wishes he would be.
“i’m- i was just- it’s dream,” he finishes lamely, but at least he can say the name out loud, now, surrounded, stable ground under his feet once more. he’s never been good at being alone, never been good at being unable to sound out his thoughts to someone.
quackity softens. “i’m sorry,” he declares. schlatt’s shadow will never not hang over him. “i’m sorry, dude, that sucks. i know.”
“you didn’t even like him,” scoffs sapnap. “you didn’t even-”
karl squeezes his hand. quackity sighs, long and winded and a bit bloodstained. “yeah,” he admits, “but he was your friend. your best friend, basically, that you’ve known for- well. he turned out to be shitty, but he was still your friend.”
“he still is,” protests sapnap, and feels unsteady almost instantly. “i think. i don’t know- i don’t.”
“you don’t have to have it all figured out right away,” advises karl. “i’m conflicted too. it’s confusing, sap, it’s not- you knew him more.”
“i already made my choice,” he protests.
“yeah, sometimes the choices we make are the fucking wrong ones, believe me, babe,” says quackity, bitterly amused. “and we realize that later. remember how i followed schatt, then wilbur? bad series of choices. should have gone back on those.”
sapnap frowns at him. quackity flashes a grin at him, unfazed. “point is,” he clarifies, “you don’t have to always see things through. sometimes bailing halfway is smart, too, if the other option’s better.”
“you are such an opportunist,” laughs karl.
“hell yeah i am,” retorts quackity, fond fond fond. “got myself two fiancés like that, too.”
sapnap laughs at him. “sure,” he agrees. “i- i guess i’ll see. about him.”
“you could visit him, right?” asks karl, still careful. “tommy said he would- so you could, too. you can see him, and talk to him. if you want.”
does he want to? does he want to? you could learn to breathe underwater; would you care to?
how much is too much effort? how much is too little?
he stays silent. quackity hides a frown and karl lets his worry be clear. the water around them is muddied with their movements and he observes it with much more attention he should, if only to steal some time.
“i’m tired,” he says finally. “it’s- i’ll see. i don’t want- he didn’t ask. i-”
he curls in on himself. it feels cowardly, when he says, “i would have stayed, if he’d asked.”
karl looks so sad. quackity shrugs with one shoulder, and says, fierce and unforgiving, “he doesn’t deserve that.”
sapnap will never understand, how quackity can be so tangled in strings, so tied to someone, and somehow one day decide to burn the threads without setting himself on fire. it’s dangerous and awe-inspiring, and perhaps even a lie, if the pain in his eyes when he calls schlatt a friend is to be trusted.
“it’s not about deserving,” interrupts karl. “it’s about- a chance. doing something. trying to make things better.”
“well,” says quackity, vicious, and stops himself again, looks hesitant. shrugs. “i guess.”
sapnap inhales. it’s wet and pathetic and he hates it but he doesn’t mind it, not really. karl and quackity fall silent when he laughs, a bit brokenly, and leans into the both of them more insistently.
“we should get out of here,” suggests quackity. “it’s almost night.”
sapnap sags. says, “i don’t want to move. sam hasn’t come out yet.”
“you think he had any trouble?”
“no, dream was just- following along. not fighting. i-”
his voice breaks. he bites the inside of his mouth and tastes blood. “sap,” calls karl worriedly, and even more so when his shoulders hitch.
“i don’t want to move,” he mumbles. quackity sighs but gives up the subject, murmurs a reluctant, “okay.”
“well you can go , if you want,” accuses sapnap. “you don’t have to stay, i-”
“stop,” orders karl, before quackity can retort further than an incredulous, “what?”.
“sap, he’s not leaving. none of us are,” continues karl, halfway between reassuring and disapproving.
it’s a good effort. “yeah, well he did,” retorts sapnap, and immediately wants to bite his tongue and bury his resentment. maybe he’d just settle with understanding the mix of emotions in his chest, the anger-sadness-disappointment-guilt. that would be fine, that would be enough, to know which one is right. as it is he is balancing on a tightrope and he’s never been good at acrobatics, that’d always been-
and it all fucking comes back to him. that’s the problem, except it’s just because sapnap’s thinking about it, but how can he not? the prison in front of him and he isn’t cold, he’s just shaking.
“babe,” calls quackity, earnest and worried. throws an arm over his shoulders and tugs sapnap, forcefully, more into him. karl doesn’t relinquish his hold on sapnap’s hands.
“i fucking hate him,” mumbles sapnap. his anger is a shitty firework and it blows up into the side of his ear, where he can still hear all the fucking bullshit dream had spewed to tommy, never once adressing them.
karl looks sad. “i’m sorry,” he says, looking off at the prison. it’s unclear to whom he’s apologizing, sapnap or sam or dream or the whole fucking world, who knows with him and his too-precious of a heart. “i don’t-” he shrugs helplessly. “i wish.”
he falls silent, defeated, for the slightest moment. and then: picks himself back up, the way karl does, putting all the pieces of himself back together by some impossible feat of strength and kindness.
“are you sure you want to stay there?” he asks.
“sometimes it’s better to just fucking run,” suggests quackity. sapnap laughs lowly.
“i think it doesn’t count as running. i think it’s just called giving up.”
“that’s okay,” declares karl. “you have to pick your battles.”
“yeah,” agrees quackity, who has picked his battles, and chosen all of them in fact, and lost nearly all of them, and decided that was just more reasons to continue picking them all.
“come on,” pleads karl. “it’s dark and it’s cold and it won’t do you any good.”
“and it’s not going to make him better,” concurs quackity. “he’s not- you don’t have to give up on him completely. you haven’t, though fuck if i know why. but you- it’s not you and dream against the world, babe. he didn’t ask for it to be and that’s the one thing he didn’t fuck up. don’t- you have us. of course you have us.”
sapnap stares, immovable, at the prison, its high walls and darkened interiors and the fact that dream hates being inside and trapped.
“i feel like i should do something,” he murmurs, “but i put him in there.”
he is so bone-tired.
“it can wait until later,” says karl. “we’re all wrecked. c’m’on, please.”
sapnap blinks and blinks and blinks; when he stops nothing is fixed. “i guess,” he drags out of himself. “i don’t- i don’t want him to hate me. i want to hate him. i-”
he feels very small. he feels very useless. he feels selfish- there are two people here for him, and he should be better, should be fine, nothing even happened to him.
“sapnap,” calls quackity. “hey, dude. you won’t figure it out right now.”
“and maybe there’s nothing to even figure out,” points out karl. “you’re allowed to- to be sad, or feel betrayed, or wish it had ended better-”
“or be fucking pissed at him, or at anyone, or want nothing to have to do with the politics for a while,” concurs quackity. “you don’t- you don’t owe him fucking shit, man. anyone.”
“i know ,” retorts sapnap. goes to dig his nails into his palms and forget they are still in karl’s hands, so he settles for biting the inside of his mouth not to lash out. quackity looks mournful and karl tugs at his hands, gently, until the tension he holds dissolves, for the moment.
“i know,” he whispers. “i just- sam is still in there. what if something happens? what if something has happened? i have to stay here, i have to-”
“you can’t make excuses for people that don’t want to be saved,” scolds karl. “they’ll never thank you for it.”
“that wouldn’t be the point, ” hisses sapnap. “i just want to know. i have to know. what if-”
“he’s not going to ask,” says quackity, straight to the point and almost cruel in his honesty. “and you can’t save him because he made his fucking choices , okay. it’s not yours to fix.”
“i know that ,” retorts sapnap.
“then walk away ,” challenges quackity, teeth gritting and gaze so mournful, a mix of frustration and grief. “walk away, before he kills you-”
“i went,” says sapnap. he is so inevitably cold. “i went and i watched him die. i’ve walked away.”
karl watches the both of them with terrible, worried eyes. quackity and sapnap clash easily and with no small amount of venom between the two of them, send sparks flying through the air, bits of shrapnels that inevitably end up doing so much more damage than they ever meant.
unsurprisingly it’s quackity that backs down, that questions, “have you?” and sighs when sapnap tenses and sets his jaw.
karl looks at him reproachfully. “you never liked him,” he reminds.
a pause. “i know. sorry,” quackity says after a bit.
“we’ll stay here all night if we have to-”
“but you’ll have to move eventually, and it’ll be nicer if we do it during daylight, honestly-”
“ q. ”
quackity falls silent. sapnap opens his mouth with the intent to reassure him and finds himself drained.
“you can be afraid,” reassures karl. “and you can hate him, or not. you can wish this’d never happened and it’s okay.”
there’s a weight on his wrist, like manacles, like his axe broke his bones.
“i want to know,” says quackity, “that you won’t go and sabotage yourself for him.”
sapnap gestures at the prison emptily. there was blood on dream’s collar; sam hadn’t allowed him a change of clothes, the manacles had been cold, they had burned. tommy had sliced his throat and he had been afraid and sapnap had done nothing, which was what he deserved and so terribly, completely excruciating.
“and do what?” he asks restlessly. “i’m not about to- to- manipulate people, or- whatever it was that he was trying to accomplish,” he finishes lamely.
“i want to know,” repeats quackity, stubborn, “that you won’t go and destroy yourself over him.”
sapnap shrugs. “i’ve been fine without him.”
“do you- or george-” karl bites his lips. “would you want george here? do you want to go see dream right now? do you want- we could talk with sam, we could-”
“he deserves to be in here,” reminds sapnap, and it rings true but cruel, and unfitted to his voice. “he made his choices- quackity said so, and he was right.”
there’s a silence. quackity sighs, and says, not unkindly, “then why are we here?”
karl doesn’t say anything. the question hangs in the air.
“because maybe he’ll ask,” says sapnap. “maybe- maybe. ”
it’s stupid. it’s idealistic. sapnap breathes in, and says, “he stopped, when i asked. so if he asks in return- i’ve known him so long. if he asks- if he asks-”
the corners of quackity’s mouth turn down, his face hardens. it’s karl, however, that tugs at his hand and whispers, “sap. we mean it. don’t go and destroy yourself over him. what if it’s too late?”
sapnap blinks out his tears. “it’s never too late,” he pleads, and karl looks at him with something indescribable weighing him down, making him look thousands of years older.
“often we’re too late,” he answers. “more often than not. and you have to learn to walk away, before it kills you- you have to, sap. please.”
“you can never give up, if you want,” says quackity. his anger lasts very long, and his kindness isn’t as rare as some would make it to be, but his compromises are as rare as miracles. sapnap looks at him wonderingly.
“you can visit,” he continues. “no one will stop you. but if he didn’t ask before, then he won’t fucking do it now.”
sapnap curls him on himself. “he was afraid,” he says.
“and before he was cruel,” shots back quackity, and when karl straightens makes an effort to soften his tone. “look, sap, i can believe that he wasn’t always like that, okay? but it’s not your fault that he became a dick. it’s not because- because you left him alone, it’s not because you didn’t check up on him. you can’t take on all the responsibility- babe, he knew what he was doing.”
“you can’t save the whole world by yourself,” concurs karl, voice so soft.
“he’s not a world,” laughs sapnap. “he’s just one fucking person.”
“yeah,” says karl. “yeah. but sometimes saving even one person is already so much.”
“historically we haven’t been very good at it,” mocks quackity. “historically, we’ve been absolute shits at it. or, well, i have.”
“real comforting,” says sapnap, miserable.
“you’re better than me,” says quackity with utter and complete certainty. “so maybe if anyone can get something worthwhile out of this asshole, it’s you.”
“if you want to,” reminds karl. “but you don’t have to. it’s not your duty.”
he looks hesitantly at sapnap before adding, carefully, “he hurt you.”
it’s useless to even try and muster a denial. the smoke in his eyes, the wasps and explosions at his ears; the rope burning his hands, the brambles and nettles and red ants in his throat, in his lungs, over his skin. quickfire burns on his fingers. grief coloring all of him.
at some point he stopped shaking.
“so maybe before you try and heal him,” suggests karl, “do that yourself.”
sapnap coughs. “i can’t walk away,” he pleads, and quackity’s hands come up to his shoulders, tug him back, awkwardly given the angle of his fiancé against sapnap’s side. he has to lean away a bit to do it.
“we can,” he says, “and you can follow us. and if you want to come back tomorrow it’s what we’ll do.”
“and if sam has anything, we’ll let you know,” adds karl. “but babe, you’re shaking, and the water is freezing, and you’d be better at home.”
maybe. maybe.
you could breathe underwater; would you care to? you could swim to the surface; would you care to?
you could stay stagnant; wouldn’t that be so cowardly? you could drag them both down with you, they'd go willingly; wouldn’t that be despicable?
you could swim to the surface. you could swim to the surface.
you could turn away from the blood on your best friends’ clothes, and the cracks of his mask, and the needles carvings of his fear.
“i’m sorry,” whispers sapnap. karl doesn’t let his shoulders go down, quackity doesn’t let his worry turn sharp; they are better than that. they settle against him.
feet in the water and watching the prison.
“i’m sorry,” he repeats, and dislodges quackity and karl as he gets up, looks away from the prison.
choices have already been made. the wasps buzz angrily and the brambles shift in his throat and karl and quackity get up after him, relieved and warm. the setting sun obscured by the obsidian, almost.
choices have already been made. the forest is burning; his home is fireproof, for one night more.
maybe one day he’ll dive down; maybe he’ll see clearly, maybe he’ll breathe. maybe.
“oh, we’re leaving,” breathes quackity. “fuck yeah.”
“home!” triumphs karl.
maybe.
and in the meantime: they will be there.