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The sky bleeds red at the end of the day.
Dream rises from the sweltering heat of the furnace and glances out the barred windows, wiping the sweat from his forehead. Before him lies six setting arrows. They’re made of gold and created with the last of their feathers. It may not be enough.
No – he can’t afford to think like that. It will be enough. It has to be.
He sets them off to the side to cool, then dips an obsidian spoon into the remaining gold and drops letters across the table. First G, then e. The letters are rough and scrawly, more chicken scratch than cursive, but Dream continues anyway. An o comes next, and a r soon after that. The gold hardens before he can write anymore. Geor will have to be enough, too.
A groan sounds from beside him. Low and scratchy – guttural.
Dream turns towards the cage beside him. Inside it, a zombie grabs at the iron bars. His skin is a sickly green and scabbed all over, but that’s nothing compared to his clothes. They are tattered, and dirty, and absolutely ruined. There is no white left on his bandana, no semblance of human inside of him.
Still, Dream cannot bring himself to kill him.
He considers it for a moment, hand falling along the chipped diamond axe at his waist. He feels the sharp blade and the dried blood on it. He feels the danger, the threat.
Then he remembers himself.
His hand lifts from his axe, moves to the oil lantern beside him instead. He leaves the shed without saying a word, beginning on the short walk to their home as he tries to remember what life was like before the zombies.
The first zombie was reported two years ago, and it was like they were suddenly everywhere. In his state. His town. His apartment complex.
He’d run away after he saw his landlord eat his neighbor, and he was on his own for a while. Two months in, he found Sapnap, and five months later, George.
Then Sapnap went out for firewood.
Then Sapnap got bit.
Then George and Dream lured him back home and locked him in that awful cage.
It’s been George and him ever since. In the cottage Sapnap found, working in the furnace he created.
(“The thing about fire is that it burns,” Sapnap tells George, hands plunged deep into blue-tipped fire. Curling around his fingers, crackling against his palms, Sapnap moves in the flames with his invincible hands, molding iron into blades and gold into arrowheads.
“It doesn’t burn you,” George says. Dream watches from the side as the flames lick up Sapnap’s wrists, his forearms, snake-like and gentle as a mothers touch. Dream looks at Sapnap, and he thinks friend. He thinks brother.
“And it never will.” Sapnap grins, big and wide. Fireproof, firestarter – the flames have belonged to him from the beginning.)
Dream tries not to feel guilty as he enters the house, but it swarms him anyway. It clogs his throat, moistens his palms. He stumbles out of his boots, and when he removes his axe, the handle slips from his palm and clatters to the floor.
“Dream?” he hears, called from another room. Dream kicks his axe aside and walks through the house. He finds George hunched over the dining table. There’s an assortment of jars in front of him, all at least half empty, some completely. They’ll need to go on another supply run soon.
“I’m here,” he murmurs as he crosses the room. He stands by George’s side, hands already outstretched in front of him. A feather light touch turns his palm skyward, runs a thumb over every inch of the skin. George takes special care around the flat of his hand. It was where Sapnap got bit, and now it’s a sort of Achilles heel for the two of them, a reminder that even the strongest of them can fall. Sapnap was their best friend, their firestarter. Without him, the flames fade faster and the undead growl louder.
George finishes with one hand and lifts the other, fingers searching his skin from wrist to fingertip. “Is he doing okay?” George asks, and Dream does not have to ask who. There is only one he in their lives, only one lingering ghost.
“Same as always. There’s a new sore beneath his eye, but it went away once I gave him the pig,” Dream reports, and George nods, lips set in a frown. Dream uses his thumb to push the corner of his mouth up. “What are you making?”
George swats his hand away, but he doesn't let go. His hands linger on Dream well after he’s completed the check, fingers curling into Dream’s open palm, into the space between his fingers. They settle there. Soft, gentle. Loving.
“Hopefully strength,” George answers. “The labels rubbed off. I don’t know which is blaze powder and which is glowstone.”
Dream uses his free hand to knock the vial of orange powder aside.
George smiles, soft and private. Dream didn’t know him before the apocalypse, but he likes to think that smile is shown to him only.
“Replace the labels for me?” George asks, quiet and gentle, like it’s the biggest hassle in the world.
“I’ll think about it,” he says, and sweeps the unused vial into his hand. He takes his seat in his wobbly chair and starts to write out glowstone. “I left a gift for you in the shed, by the way.”
George stiffens, then relaxes. “Am I going to like it?”
Dream shrugs one shoulder.
“You wrote a message for me in gold again, didn’t you?”
Dream looks at him. There is a half-moon smile on George’s face, like he’s trying to keep it away. Dream winks, and George loses his composure.
“It’s a waste of supplies, Dream,” George says, the way he always does.
“It was barely anything.”
“You said that about our table, too.”
Dream looks down at the table in front of them, at the gold letters in the top right corner. George , it says. Dream. And beneath that, tinged in blood and soot, Sapnap.
Dream remembers the day they found the table, remembers how he had them all huddle around it. It felt like Christmas, almost, as they all took turns writing their name with piping hot metal. George was against it the entire time, but he’d gotten so excited about it once the gold was in his hand, so giddy. Dream and Sapnap always reminded him of it whenever George got like this.
Only Dream does, now.
George releases his hand. Dream blinks back to reality.
“How many arrows did you get out of that last batch?” George asks.
“Six.”
There’s a beat of silence. Slowly, George says, “I could always try making harming potions again.”
The three of them had tried that once before. They dropped one vial on accident, and an ugly red haze rose. The effect took over the whole house, until it felt like they were inhaling glass with each breath. There’d been so much blood on the ground – coughed up, dripping from their eyes and noses, like they were melting from the inside out. All they could do was lie on the ground and wait for either the effect to wear off or for death to finally set in – whichever came first.
“No,” Dream says instantly, standing. “It’s too dangerous.”
“We have the shed now. We can just–”
Dream whips towards him. “And force Sapnap through that pain?”
“You know it’s not the same for him.”
Maybe George is right. Maybe it’s not the same for Sapnap. But they don’t know that. They don’t know if Sapnap will feel the glass in his lungs, the melting in his head. They know nothing about zombies, or undead pain, or even Sapnap, anymore. They shouldn’t tempt fate. They shouldn’t even risk it.
But George is looking at him, and he has a plea in his eyes – a prayer. Dream cannot say no, so he leaves the room and says nothing at all.
Later that night, the sheets wrinkle beside him.
The bed shifts and sinks as George takes his spot. He kisses Dream’s bare shoulder, flattening against the mattress a moment later. Kisses between them are not as sparse as they once were, but they are still uncommon enough to make Dream’s heart beat inconsistently.
George lays facing him, so close that Dream can hear his breath, can see the rise and fall of his lungs. Dream knows these things like he knows his own beating heart, his own name.
George pulls the blanket clear over his shoulders, up to his rose-tipped ears. Dream reaches out, runs his finger over the curve of George’s helix. It’s cold to the touch.
“You went to the shed?” Dream asks, soft as he can. He doesn’t want to fight. Not now, not here, not when they’re curled up in the one place they’re truly safe.
This bed – it’s always been theirs. This cottage only has two bedrooms, and when they first found it, they drew sticks for the single. Sapnap pulled the longest one, so he got the solo room. Perhaps Dream and George should’ve created a space for each of them, perhaps they should have searched for a cot or mocked up a bed on the floor, but it just never happened. Time flew by so fast, and the exhaustion set in even faster, and there’s nothing quite like crawling into bed with the one you love.
“No,” George answers. Dream’s hand drops to the space between them, curling into crumpled sheets and George’s t-shirt. “I was farming the nether wart.”
“Still trying for harming, then,” Dream says.
“I’m not trying for anything. But if I were, Sapnap would–”
“What? He’d understand? He’s not himself, George. He doesn’t understand anything.”
“He’d want us to do whatever we could to survive. Even if it means risking him. And that’s assuming we drop a potion, which we won’t. We know what we’re doing now. We’re careful,” George tells him. A lump forms in Dream’s throat as he shakes his head against the flat pillows. The risk is just too big. If they slip, if that potion falls… Dream is simply not prepared for the pain it could cause. To them. To Sapnap.
Dream watches George’s dark eyes, and he recalls every other night spent in this bed, looking into those very eyes. He remembers pressing flush to George, and the warmth seeping into his skin, liquid and comforting like heated honey. They have laid together hundreds of times, have whispered promises in the dark with clasped hands and intertwined ankles, all night, until the sun broke through the pitch. In all those nights, Dream does not remember a hardness in George’s eyes – a determination.
“Do you remember the day we met?”
Dream closes his eyes. “I do.”
(His fingertips slide against the last slat of a soaking roof. Zombies groan from beneath him. One at first, then another. An entire cohort has gathered below him to watch his demise. One tugs his shoelaces loose, and an undead friend beside it takes the worn leather boot clean off. Flies buzz in his ears and through the sky, the ultimate sign of death and decay.
Seven months into the apocalypse, and this is how he dies. Alone, in the rain with no one to help, all because he tried to steal eggs from city birds to stave off the hunger in his stomach. He’s going to die right here, succumbing to the one thing he swore he’d outlive. Who will tell Sapnap?
Like clouds parting on a stormy day, a voice comes from above. It is clear and crystalline, and Dream is sure he has died. He is sure that he has slipped and fallen and died to those terrible zombies, to this terrible world.
“Hang on,” the voice says.
Arrows whizz past his ears, coming dangerously close to his throat. He does not flinch, he does not shake. He can only stare at the array of blue and green and red, at fresh-scrubbed cheeks and squeaky-clean clothes – an angel. This man is, without a doubt, an angel.
The zombies fall with groans and grumbles, until they’re nothing more than a limp mess on the soaking floor. The angel leaves his perch in the trees and kneels by Dream’s fingers on the roof. There is a clear sack hanging off his belt, full of speckled eggs. He pries Dream’s fingers off the roof and yanks him up until they’re sat and settled with their knees pressed together and their hands still clutching, red and pale, wet and sore, two humans at the end of the world.)
“You trusted me then,” George says. “Why can’t you trust me now?”
Dream looks away. His fingers find George’s under the covers, and he tries to memorize this feeling. The weight of George’s hand in his, the scratch of his calluses, the pulsing in his own chest. He remembers first feeling it months ago, before Sapnap was bit, before their world was reduced to just the two of them. There are no labels at the end of the world, and no need to create any. That feeling remains untouched, unsaid, but it stays between them like a living thing. It beats when Dream beats. It turns when George turns. Dream has never been able to ignore it before, and he cannot ignore it now.
“I trust you,” he whispers, heart sinking into his pit of a stomach. “I trust you.”
“I don’t understand why you need to be with me while I do this.”
Dream stirs the obsidian spoon in melted gold absently. “Because,” is all he says, biting into an apple slice.
“You’ve never been interested in potion-making before. What’s different now?”
The risk is what is different. Before, George was just making potions with positive effects. Sometimes George’s eyes shined too bright after drinking too much strength, and sometimes Dream became extra jittery after his third speed pot of the day, but those effects wear off. They go away. But damage? Death? It cannot be reversed.
That is one of the reasons why he is here. The other… the other is that Dream does not want to live in a world without George. He has already lost Sapnap – he cannot lose George, too. He would rather bleed out with George on the dirty shed floor than live a day without him.
“I don’t think you want me to answer that,” Dream says, propping his arm on the table. His elbow lands between the gold e and r.
George, despite his initial reaction, won’t stop tracing over the metal letters, won’t stop touching and fawning, even as he steals an apple slice. “I do. Tell me,” he says through a full mouth.
Dream sprinkles a pinch of spider eye over the brewing stand, into the bubbling water. George steps in closer to him, between Dream and Sapnap’s terrible cage. Sapnap groans and grabs George’s shirt tight, pulling him against the bars. George dislodges himself while he knocks Dream’s hand away from the brewing stand, not even fazed.
Sometimes, Dream thinks George has forgotten the dangers of this world of theirs.
Sometimes, Dream thinks it's because they’ve let him.
(“We can’t do that again,” Sapnap says, collapsing against the living room wall. He leaves behind a smear of blood and dirt, soot and ash. It collects on his skin, sparking and burning when two live tinders touch.
“We need to be more careful on our next nether run,” George says, taking a seat on the floor between Dream’s legs. His nose spills crimson, his lip split, and his face a whole mess of blooming blues and purples. There’s dried blood in his hair, and dirt on his cheek. He is clearly in the worst state of them all. He plunged right into the abandoned fortress, fighting off zombie pigmen left and right, all so he could get blaze rods for his precious potions.
Too close, Dream thinks. Too, too close.
What if he were too late? What if they hadn’t gotten out of that zombie-ridden hell fast enough? What if, what if, what if…
Dream takes George by the jaw and kisses him, because he doesn’t know when he’ll have another chance to do it. With that kiss, he admits to himself what he’s known for so long. He will protect George, at the end of this world and through to the next. Not because he owes George for saving his life or because George is too weak to protect himself. No – he will protect George because he wants to, because he can. Because their partnership is eternal. It was born in blood and death, and it will remain until they, too, succumb to blood and death.
“Finally,” Sapnap mutters when they part a second later. He watches them through half lidded eyes and smiles with bloody teeth, wet and shining. “Fucking finally.”)
“Tell me,” George says again. Dream blinks, then stirs the gold with an apple slice. He does not have fireproof hands, so when the white fibers leech the heat and burn his skin, he tosses the slice to another part of the room entirely.
“I don’t want you to die,” he finally answers.
George looks at him with unmasked concern. “So you think I’ll die doing this.”
Dream does not want to lie, so he settles for a half-hearted shrug.
“If you think I’ll die, then you shouldn’t be here. Only one of us has to die because of my mistakes,” George says, and the hurt in his voice is like paint on concrete; blood on snow; blade between ribs.
“You know I won’t leave you.”
“And why not, Dream? This is my choice. It should be only me that dies, if things go that way.” George moves away. The bitterness coming off of him feels suffocating. It gathers in Dream’s throat, clogs his mind. “You said you trusted me.”
“I do,” Dream says quickly.
“You say that, but I’m not seeing it. You still think I’ll fail,” George says, back to Dream. Bottles clatter noisily. He must be trying to distract himself, the way he always does when he’s upset.
Dream steps behind him, lays a hand on his waist. “I don’t think you’ll fail. I just– I don’t want you to. And in the case that you do fail, I don’t want you to be alone.”
George turns in his arms, but he looks wrong. Hurt and offended, when he should be happy and smiling. “You don’t want me to be alone.”
“I don’t want to be alone,” Dream admits. “Sapnap is gone and I– I can’t lose you, too. I won’t. If you are to die, I will go with you.”
George looks at him for a moment. His eyes are serious, framed by dark lashes and slightly sunken skin, like he’s had one too many sleepless nights. The threat of being defenseless must be affecting him more than Dream thought.
“I’ll be careful.” George’s hand finds his. Thumbs press to knuckles, running over and over, a litany, a vow. A promise, formed by words and sealed with a kiss to Dream’s mouth, quick and assuring. He slides out of Dream’s arms after that, but he does not let go of his hand. He peers over the lip of the bottles, staring down at the purple liquid for a moment too long.
“What?” Dream asks. “What is it?”
George hesitates before he speaks. “What color is that?”
“Purple.”
“What did you add to this?”
“Spider eye. Like you said.”
George looks at him, and that’s how Dream knows he’s messed up. “Which spider eye?”
Dream points to the vial full of pink pieces. George turns it so that he can see the fresh label. Written there, in Dream’s handwriting, is FERMENTED with a little drawing of a spider.
“That’s not–”
“That’s not the right one,” George says, shaking his head. He starts flipping through his notebook quickly. Pages flash, full of daily entries and recipes and diagrams of zombies. When George’s hand finally freezes, Dream holds his breath.
“Okay,” George says.
“Okay?”
“We can’t fix it, but it won’t be a complete waste. It’ll make weakness. It should damper the zombie’s attacks,” George explains, grabbing the gunpowder. He pours the remainder of it into the brewing stand. The liquid swells and pulses, a dazzling purple.
Dream steals a potion. He peeks down into it, swirls it around a couple times. It doesn’t look harmful. It doesn’t smell harmful, either.
“Are you sure this is weakness?” Dream asks.
“I’m positive.”
Dream stares at it for a moment longer, then passes it back to George. George’s fingers go too close around the neck, and Dream lets go of the rim, but the timing is off. The potion slips from their fingers and falls to the ground between them. A purple cloud rises up, and his bones feel too heavy. He reaches for George and crumples completely, too weak to move. Together, they fall, into the purple mist and onto the dirty floor.
“You drop–” George cannot even get the words out. His eyes are near closed, face strained. Dream tries to take his hand, but he doesn’t have the strength.
Sapnap groans. Dream can barely turn his head to look, but he still manages. Sapnap’s eyes are closed and sunken, and his mouth is rimmed in gold. His fingertips are stained in it, too, and they’re growing more pink-red by the second.
At first, he thinks his eyes are deceiving him. The green of Sapnap’s skin is changing – flushing with blood, with life. That can’t possibly be right.
But no, it is. Sapnap’s eyes are dark one second, and a bloodshot hazel the next. They open wide, hazel on red-white, encased in pinking flesh. His not-green hands clutch the bars. Weak, at first, then with that firestarter strength. He shakes them with one hand and reaches out with the other, until his hand is on the lever and pushing down. The bars slide apart with a sickening creak, and Sapnap steps through. Not a zombie, not a monster, but Sapnap.
(Two months into the apocalypse, Dream breaks into a corner store in search of resources. Half rotted bodies litter the ground, packed so tight that Dream cannot even see the floor. He crunches finger-bones and noses as he walks, one hand on his pack, the other on his shitty stone axe.
“That’ll be us soon,” someone says. The sound– it hurts his ears. It’s been so long since he’s heard anything but grunts and groans.
Dream turns, swings his axe in a wide arc. It whistles through the air, and hits nothing at all. The speaker simply stares at him from six feet away, out of the axe’s range. “Do you treat all your friends like that?”
“My friends?” Dream asks, eyes wide.
The man laughs, quick and boisterous, head-splittingly loud. But not entirely unpleasant. “Sapnap,” he offers.
“What?”
“My name is Sapnap.”
Dream lowers his axe. “I’m Dream,” he says.
Sapnap, his new friend, smiles and tosses something through the air. It lands in Dream’s hands – a sealed water bottle.
“I haven’t seen anyone here in months. Except for, you know,” Sapnap gestures with his hand.
“I haven’t either,” Dream says, and a sort of understanding passes through the air.
“I suppose it’s a good thing we found each other then.”
“I suppose it is.”
“Together to the end?” Sapnap asks, raising his own sealed bottle.
Plastic crinkles as Dream clinks their bottles. “To the end.”)
“I’m–” Sapnap’s voice dies in his throat.
“You’re–” Dream tries to say.
“Human,” George finishes.
Sapnap is human. They’ve cured a zombie. They’ve changed the world.
But that doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Not more than Sapnap, not more than George. Not more than them being together again.
Together.
They’re together.