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Okay, so maybe Sap should have thought it over a little more before he decided to become a high-school Algebra teacher for three reasons. One, he barely got his teaching and Algebra degrees. Two, he has to wake up at six in the morning on weekdays and weekends now. And three, Thomas Watson.
Okay, the last reason is a little vague but it's a fair reason to have in his humble opinion. Thomas isn't a bad kid, per se, he just gets into a lot of trouble. Even before Thomas had began his first year at L'Manberg Public High-School, Sap heard stories from the teachers at the Junior High about what he got up to. He was quiet, but an absolute force to be reckoned with that you couldn't leave alone for five minutes without something bad happening. It was intimidating, to say the least, and Sap would be lying if he said he wasn't worried when he got Thomas on his roster for his third year as the Sophomore Algebra teacher.
Until the first day of school actually came around and nothing happened. Nor did anything happen the next day, or the day after that. All Thomas ever did in his class was take notes, and talk with two of his other students, Tubbo and Ranboo. The only thing he did that could be considered disruptive was his constant tapping on his desk, but that was an ADHD thing, as Thomas had explained, so he couldn't really help it.
Thomas was pretty much the exact opposite of what everyone described him as. He was well mannered when he wanted to be, studious, and tended to keep to himself more than anything. The only time Sap had ever seen him be even remotely close to what he'd been described as was the second week of school when he brought a poster board that said 'Tubbo Is A Pussy' and carried it around all day.
So you might be thinking why he's number three if he's so easy to handle, right? Yeah, it's cause he's not easy to handle in the slightest. Quiet as he may be, he somehow always finds a way to reek havoc on the classroom. Whether it be by kicking someone's chair and blaming it on someone else, or throwing food at someone in the cafeteria and starting a food fight (something Sap was sure only happened in movies), and, one that will forever go down in school history, putting seven layers of duct tape over every single door and window of the school over spring break and taking credit for it when they came back to school an extra week later.
So, no, Thomas isn't a bad kid. He's just an absolute lunatic.
It is entirely not Sap's fault that he was too tired to tell Thomas Watson and his friends their seance was a bad idea. And by that logic, that would mean the seance that Thomas and his friends held in the school cafeteria that ended with it being set on fire was also not Sap's fault. Apparently no one else believes him, which is why the current point he's trying to make to the school board, as well as the L'Manberg Police Department, is that anything that Thomas and his friends do is one-hundred percent not his fault.
Really! It's not! He'd done his best to wave off the idea, he vaguely remembers mumbling that it was 'irresponsible, Thomas' and then watching Thomas scurry out of the room with a grin on his face. He'd only gotten two hours of sleep the night before grading tests, Ranboo's grade being the highest as usual. He figured that, for once, Thomas would listen. He really should have known better.
It only took half an hour after Thomas had told Sap about his idea that the fire alarm went off and everyone still on campus was evacuated into the field. Black smoke filtered out of the cafeteria as the sirens of the fire department grew nearer. Thomas, Tubbo, and Ranboo came stumbling out of the gym covered in soot, red paint all over their clothes and a box of matches was in Thomas' left hand while he gripped a lighter in the other. A pair of police officers walked up to the boys, and Sap figured that they were asking standard questions and that he would be allowed to go home soon, but then Thomas pointed at him, and then to the lighter in his hand, and the officers shifted their focus to him.
When the officers started making their way to him he saw Thomas go from innocent to smug, pointing at his right pocket to signal for Sap to do the same. He reached into it, finding a piece of paper folded up. It read, in Thomas' shitty hand-writing, 'just call me tommy'. He's not sure how Tommy got the note in there, exactly, but he has a feeling he doesn't want to know. He's also charged with assisted arson, but that's surprisingly not the most shocking part of the day.
When he asks Tubbo why he did it on Monday, he says that his dad wanted to see if they could get George Washington's ghost to show up. He doesn't bother asking again.
One of the best things about Eret is that they never back down from a challenge. Coincidentally, this also happens to be the worst thing about them and it pisses Sap off to no fucking end. The 'thirty dollars you won't get a kid' bet had been meant as a joke. A simple haha funny. Nothing more, nothing less. And then Eret showed up at his doorstep at eight A.M on a Sunday with none other than Tubbo in their car with adoption papers in hand demanding thirty dollars. Sap may or may not have slammed the door in their face.
Either way, Sap is glad to have Eret in his life! They're fun, and generally pretty cool, and they don't care when he smokes in their living room and then eats all their snacks. Plus, they're just nice to be around. Eret's place is probably one of Sap's favorite places to go to and just hang out. Or at least it was before they took kid bet seriously, and now Sap can't stop walking in mid whatever the fuck it is that Thomas, Tubbo, and Ranboo get up to in Eret's kitchen. Thomas calls them seance's, but Sap thinks that's utter bullshit.
It apparently, was not bullshit.
It was a perfectly normal day in November, halfway through Thanksgiving break and Sap thought that it would be nice if he were to surprise Eret and Tubbo with some cranberry juice with a piece of paper that says 'I hate Americans' taped onto it. As a sort of 'happy holidays' and because Eret is his best friend. He didn't bother knocking, just opening the door and walking in like he always has, and he immediately regretted it.
Eret was stood in the kitchen in the middle of a pentagram made of red paint, surrounded by candles while Tubbo, Tommy, and Ranboo were settled around them. Chanting something Sap could only assume was Latin. They're all dressed in normal clothes, jeans and t-shirts with converse or vans, and Tubbo is on his knees in front of some sort of chalice and pouring a red liquid into it.
The air shifts, just slightly, and three other people appear in the room standing around in casual positions. Well, he says 'standing' loosely, because the only one standing is the one with long, pink hair wearing a crown with some form of bandage wrapped around his eyes standing next to Ranboo.
The one next to Tommy is floating in a laid back position, strumming on some sort of medieval instrument and humming the tune to 'Hayloft' by Mother Mother. He's dressed like some kind of serf, if you don't count the beanie with brunette hair sticking out from under it that Sap has to assume was a recent addition, and he isn't wearing any shoes.
The final one shares a resemblance to Tubbo. He's sitting on the table with one his his legs having over the edge while his other leg is bent to rest his arm on it, holding a bottle of bourbon. He's wearing a rumpled suit, and he looks like he wants to be anywhere but here. Sap can relate to that sentiment.
"What the fuck is happening?" he asks, gaining everybody's attention. Tubbo sits back on his knees, wiping sweat from his brow with a smile.
"Hey Mr. Naplin!" he says, Tommy cringes at seeing his Algebra teacher outside of school while Ranboo seems more focused on something that the man in the crown is whispering something to him. He can see Eret in a similar position of his own, gaping at the sight of the three new (or had they always been there?) additions to the room.
They seem to snap out of their daze, turning to Sap still shocked, "They, wanted to do something so I could see the ghosts they were talking about... and I went along with it to keep them occupied while the macaroni bakes, and now we're here."
"Not sure how it worked for you, though." Tommy says, arms crossed, "You weren't even standing in the pentagram with Eret."
Ranboo finally tunes into the conversation, leaning around the person standing next to him to look at Tommy, "Technically, you just need to be in the general vicinity. I just thought it would look cool if he was in the middle."
"That's fucking stupid. Why would you make them stand in the pentagram if they didn't need to?"
"I already told you. So it would look cool."
"Can we focus?" The one on the table says, taking a swig of bourbon. Tubbo rolls his eyes at the sight before standing up and dusting his knees off.
"Right," he says, pointing to the one on the guitar, "That's Wilbur, but we call him Wil. The one next to Ranboo is Techno, if he doesn't really show any emotion don't take it personal, he's just like that. And that one on the table is Schlatt. My... dad." Sap nods along, although he isn't really processing the information. He's too busy trying to wake himself up, or convince himself that this is just some elaborate prank. He looks around the room for some kind of projector, but he can't find one. There's obviously no strings holding Wil up, and unless three people gained super speed and somehow no one has heard about it, they all showed up within a millisecond.
Then he remembers the sympathy that passed through the distract about two and half years ago when Tubbo's father died, and he realizes that this isn't a prank. That all those times Tubbo had said 'my dad passed out on the couch again last night' weren't just denial.
"So," Tubbo says with a smile, "Any questions?"
Sap leaves the house without another word, his cranberry juice still in hand.
"Hey Sapnap." Tommy says as he walks into the class a mere seconds before the late bell. It's the first day back from Winter break, and somethings already going weird. Sap looks up, confused, but Tommy sits in his usual seat like nothing's off. He narrows his eyes slightly, looking at the open door that Tommy is staring out of with a small smile on his face. He can only assume that it's Techno and Wil fighting again, something that happens often if the boys are to be believed.
He figures it was a one off, given that the nickname was something that Eret had given him in the Junior year of high-school ("Your name fits you." "How?" "Because you're a sap, Naplin. You're Sapnap.") and that there wasn't really any way that Tommy didn't just come up with it one day on his own, he's got a very active imagination, and writes it off in his mind.
Then Tubbo walks in three days later, recovered from the Flu, and says the same thing before handing him a small note that just says 'pay me back bitch - Eret' and he realizes that this is just going to be happening now. Eret had obviously told Tubbo about the bet, who in turn definitely told Ranboo and Tommy, and the name Sapnap probably came up in that story.
So that's great. Totally fucking great.
It starts off small, just them giving him notes from Eret reminding him that she wants her money, before it escalated. He would unlock his class every morning he showed up to school to find his entire desk covered in sticky notes that all say 'pay Eret back', and eventually she started sending them all to school with Victorian style letters asking for her money. They started to write 'you owe eret $30' on the backs of their tests, too. They even spent money every single month to send him mail that says 'Pay Eret Back' in big letters.
One of their pranks that he will never quite get over is when they spray painted 'Owes Eret 30 Bucks' on his car in the middle of the night. He didn't even have the money to get a new paint job at the time, so he had it on the side of his car for nearly two months. Tommy broke down laughing on the side-walk every time he say him driving to or from school.
Graduation day was a mess for three reasons. One, Ranboo's valedictorian speech started with him hassling Sap to pay Eret back. Two, Tommy kept throwing his hat up into the air and catching it, so much so that the principal had to interrupt himself multiple times to ask him to stop. And three, after they threw their caps into the air and were taking pictures, Tommy, Tubbo, and Ranboo forced Sap into the picture they had George, the librarian, take, they unbuttoned their gowns to reveal they were all wearing shirts that said 'Give Eret back his $30'.
They only took three pictures of the event.
In photo number one, Sap looks absolutely scandalized as Tommy towers over him, laughing so hard that he's a blur. Ranboo is looking up at Tubbo, who is nearly falling off of his shoulder where he's sat, frantically trying to change his footing so he won't fall. Eret stands next to Tommy, not even looking at the camera as he looks at the group with a small smile.
In photo number two, Sap has an annoyed look on his face, although he's still smiling, and Tommy's grin is so large it hurts to look at. Tubbo is safely position on Ranboo's shoulders now, holding up two peace signs with a wide smile as Ranboo gives his trademark soft smile. Eret is looking at the camera this time, but his facial expression is exactly the same.
The final photo is one of just Tommy, Tubbo, and Ranboo. It was a candid, but it came out surprisingly well. They have their arms thrown around each other, Tommy looks as content as he possibly could as he looks at his friends, Tubbo is talking about something, looking up at the sky with squinted eyes as he does so, and Ranboo looks like he's about to laugh.
Whenever he looks at that picture he realizes that he's going to miss having them at school everyday, and the sticky notes that he's not even sure he's found all of them because of how well hidden they are, and their energy whenever they came to his office hours. He's going to miss Tommy always finding time in his school day to say hi, even after he'd no longer taken his class. He's going to miss Tubbo saying that he was the best teacher he'd ever had, right before calling him a little bitch for still not having paid Eret back. He's going to miss Ranboo giving him a new drawing or sketch at the end of everyday. He's going to miss them.
If he were to tell you that those three photos weren't framed and on his desk, or that the letters from Eret and Ranboo's drawings weren't pinned to the wall behind his desk, or that he didn't tell his students stories of Tommy, Tubbo, and Ranboo until he retired from teaching at the age seventy-five, he would be lying.