Work Text:
There was a witch on the server, and Sapnap knew she was gunning for him.
It started with her hammering a note to the door of his house. Lots of swearing, which Bad wasn’t particularly fond of. Lots of fairly graphic threats. Some of them were so graphic (thankfully not that kind of graphic, just basically recipes for how she was going to grind him up into soup and eat him and how she was going to do it, all the various ways she wanted to kill him [which included but were not limited to: defenestration, whatever that meant; tearing his throat out; tearing his eyes out and shoving them down his throat so that he could see her tearing his intestines out; strangling him with his own hand; removing his teeth and wearing them as a necklace; that kind of lovely thing], and also her telling him exactly where to find him) that Ranboo passed out upon hearing them. Then, of course, because they were loveable and protective idiots, Tubbo and Tommy went after her and proceeded to get themselves cursed. Techno, Wilbur, and Phil picked up on the fact the pair were being idiots. They got cursed, too. Ranboo realized that none of them had come home. And—no shock there—he got cursed, too.
So now they had a wailing baby Philza Minecraft, who was thankfully being cared for by his wife Kristin who wasn’t shocked. (Apparently this wasn’t the first time, which raised a lot of questions but sadly no answers. For the moment.) Wilbur couldn’t walk without it feeling like someone was stabbing him in the feet and joints with glass shards, porcelain knives, basically every sharp and uncomfortable thing around. Everything Techno said came out in song, which wasn’t bad except he had to sing to the tune of “Blitz” and only “Blitz”. Tommy’s curse had attacked his blood pressure, which was already off the rockers sometimes, and so he’d be fine one second and passed out on the floor the second. Which was why he was confined to a bed. Tubbo was coughing up flowers, sneezing bees, and crying jewels that cut at the corners of his eyes and meant he was also crying blood. Ranboo apparently had something along the lines of reading other people’s minds, except not their actual thoughts so much as what he was worried they were thinking.
When Sapnap found this bitch, he was going to rip her apart using her own recipes and descriptions.
Hurrying into the medical bay, he hurried to Wilbur’s side and touched his arm. Meeting his gaze, Wilbur smiled weakly. Niki was on his other side, massaging his arm while Tommy was curled into Wilbur’s side and sleeping fitfully. Sapnap laughed, ruffled Tommy’s hair and kissed his temple as he slept. Ducking to the side, he checked in on Techno. The Blood God signed a greeting, and Sapnap returned it.
“How do you feel?” He asked. Looking at him flatly, Techno snorted. Then, he glanced over at Tubbo, who was wrapped up in blankets with bandages around his eyes and dried blood on his cheeks currently being wiped away by Puffy’s delicate hands and a wet cloth.
“Better than some of the others. They won’t let anyone go and see Ranboo.” Techno snorted at that, nose wrinkling.
“Well, killing a witch stops their curses, right?” He asked. Nodding, Techno looked at him. There was a frown on his face. “ Don’t let anyone know that I’m leaving. I’ll be back in a while.” With that, Sapnap slid over to the window where the others couldn’t see. “Yeah, sure, Tech, I can open the window for you.” He announced.
“Don’t involve me in this.” Techno fired back angrily, fingers jerking a bit more than they normally would from the annoyance. Smiling, Sapnap sat on the window sill, kicked his legs.
“ Sorry. Gotta make it convincing and not suspicious.” With that, Sapnap added, “ See you later. Then you can scold me yourself.”
With that, he tipped backwards.
+++
The fight was not going as planned.
Thorny vines wrapped around his ankles, and Sapnap was yanked into the air. The world rushed by around him. His shoulder slammed into the nearest tree trunk. Oak bark rushed up to meet his cheek. Stars danced in his vision. Dropping down, Sapnap wheezed in a breath. Let himself stay there, pebbles and twigs and scattered dirt pressing into his bloodied palms. “Oh, Sapnap. Haven’t you learned? You’re playing with magic.” She scoffed.
Looking up at her, Sapnap replied, “And you’re playing with fire.” He threw an arm out, let the burning in his blood loose. Bright golden-orange flames roared up along his arm and shot through the chilly night air. Fire spattered across the clearing as she threw her own arms up, a shield of protective vines shooting up from the loose swamp dirt. Using the nearby oak tree, Sapnap pushed himself up. Raised his chin.
There was a bit more than what the others knew about Sapnap’s relationship with this witch. See, she wasn’t a bitch because she was a witch. So what if she used magic and plants and shit like that? Sapnap certainly didn’t care. No, she was a bitch because she played with others’ feelings carelessly and especially played with Dream’s. She lied about him and Sapnap couldn’t count the amount of times that Dream would show up from hanging out with her with the wrong kinds of bruises and this pained look on his face. With bruised or broken ribs, his heart likely in the same state and excuses on his lips. So Sapnap had told Dream to stay where he was and proceeded to chase her off with threats to give her back every wound she gave Dream tenfold. No one touched his brother like that.
And she just loved to hurt his family, didn’t he?
Flames licked over the dried grasses in the swamp. Velvet would need to come by with Hannah, repair the damage done to the land around them. In the meantime, though, Sapnap would do anything he could. The earth would understand. Besides, it was high time they did some controlled burns in this area.
Too bad BitchWitch didn’t know that.
Lunging forwards, she grabbed a weapon from the ropes at her hips. A bone blade gleamed ivory in the moonlight. Ducking, Sapnap twisted and grabbed her arm. She turned and sank her teeth into his hand. Switched the knife to her other fingers, slammed it back. The blade landed in deep in the flesh above his left hip. A stinging sensation followed, then the usual pain as she twisted it to rip it back out. Grabbing her wrist harder, Sapnap jerked to the left. There was a nasty sounding crunch as her shoulder and elbow broke. Screeching, she let go of him and wheeled, bloody knife in her hand. There was murder in her eyes. It sounded stupid, it sounded like a literary device, but she genuinely looked like a child who was experiencing the feeling of “fuck you” without the actual words.
“You bastard. You’ll pay for that!” She yelled.
“Uh-huh, sure Karen.” He replied. Screeching, she lunged for him again. Swung the knife. Grabbing her wrist, Sapnap held it over his head and headbutted her as hard as he could. She kept going, the two of them falling back. Slamming a knee into the back of her legs, Sapnap twisted and rolled them both, then dodged to the side and got his feet back under him. Snapping, he gestured for the fire to circle around them, focused on it specifically to roar up in a trap. Raising his hands, he stared her down. She lunged again. Still had the knife.
Swinging her knife hand up, she yelled something. Sapnap moved for that hand.
Something slammed into his ribs.
Little crack-crick-cracks shot through his chest, followed by pain rolling through his nerves like a tsunami over a beach. Gasping, Sapnap stumbled back. An elbow slammed into the back of his head. He was thrown to the ground. Grabbing him, she threw him onto his back, reeled back a fist and started punching. Stars burst in his eyes—and not the good kind of stars, either—as her first couple of punches landed on his nose and eyes. Yelling, he thought. Okay, okay.
Quickly, he slammed his knee into her back like he had with her legs earlier. Immediately thrown off-balance, she threw her hands forward to catch herself as she pitched off of him. He grabbed her, ducked his head, and rolled. Once he was on top, he let go and kicked off of her, stumbled back and caught himself. Blood streamed from his nose. His eyes were burning, tears blurring his vision. Groaning, he wiped at his eyes. Looked up.
She was back on her feet and rushing at him, broken and unbroken hands extended for him.
Dodging back, Sapnap grabbed her by the unbroken wrist and swung her around to force her to run away or fall over. She twisted and kicked him hard in the shin, slammed a punch into his gut. When he doubled over, she smashed her knee into his face.
Uh, ow. He thought, stumbling back again. Something wrapped around his neck— oh, great. She can control roots, apparently. The root whip tightened. Raising his hands, panicked, Sapnap closed his eyes and shook his head. Alright then. Fire beats plants. Grabbing the roots, feeling rough plant fiber cut into his already bloody fingers, he thought one thing.
Burn.
A hand wrapped around his throat. Choking, Sapnap opened his eyes. In the fire and moonlight, dramatic shadows were cast in black against the gold and silver highlights beaming down on her face. She lifted him. “You owe me.” She hissed.
“Sapnap!” George’s voice reached his ears. Squeezing, face twisted angrily, she stared at him. Lifted her other hand.
“I’ll be back. Just you wait.” She snarled. Held his gaze.
Then, she drove her hand into Sapnap’s chest.
Gasping, feeling her fingers wrap around his heart, Sapnap kicked at her. Clawed at her hand. Focused all the power he had and burned. Inwardly, he knew she wasn’t grabbing his heart. She was grabbing his magic. Kicking and gasping, unable to breathe, Sapnap felt the skin under his hands warping and burning from the heat. She gritted her teeth.
An arrow struck her in the eye, blood spattering from the injury as Sapnap’s vision went black.
Screeching, she dropped him. He slammed into the floor. “You get away from him!” Dream roared, voice shifting as he lunged forwards. Blinking, Sapnap stared up at the sky. He couldn’t breathe. But he could see the stars. For a moment, shiny black scales and deep, emerald green wing membrane obscured them. Then, they were gone with a burst of wind as Dream charged at the witch, anger thundering through their little swamp clearing.
One of Sapnap’s hands, both of which had landed across his stomach, was picked up with gentle, smooth hands. In the corner of his vision, he saw George appear. Molded leather armor clung to his shoulders, clumsily thrown on and some of the pieces crooked or barely strapped on. Gasping, Sapnap flicked his eyes from the few visible stars flecked across the canvas of the night sky to George’s eyes. The flames reflected gold against dark brown eyes.
“Hey.” He croaked out. Winced at the tone of his voice. Stroking Sapnap’s hair back with a gentle hand, George started feeling for breaks in his skull or spine almost immediately.
“You are lucky, you moron.” George replied after a moment, once he had finished checking Sapnap over. Closing his eyes, hearing Dream approach a little slower than usual—he had killed someone, or maybe taken their magic away, his footsteps had the cadence they did when he was sad—Sapnap hummed and smiled.
“Definitely. ‘m gonna pass out now. Thanks for saving my ass.” Sapnap replied.
True to word, he blacked out.
+++
He woke up in Dream’s nest of a bed.
Now, it used to be a bed. He used to have an actual bed with the frame and the sheets and everything. Then Sapnap had joined him. Then George did. Bad. Ant. Sam. Velvet. Punz. They moved to the server. Alyssa, Callahan, Connor, one after the other. They got a bigger bed. Skeppy joined the pile. The bed broke after a thunderstorm where they all ended up huddled together and then they had to help Punz extract a giant spike of wood bedframe from his thigh as Connor passed out from the sight of blood and Velvet and Ant discovered they weren’t just gay but they were gay for each other and Bad yelled at Skeppy and Sapnap as they tried to repair a broken window and Sam cried in a panic attack because Connor had passed out and he thought he had died. Alyssa and Callahan were apparently the best at responding to emergencies. Where was George in all that? Asleep, of course. It was a long night.
After that…chaos, Dream had moved his bed to the floor with a couple of mattresses. Tommy and Tubbo joined. They added more mattresses. Wilbur and Jack and Niki and Eret joined, which meant more mattresses. Now a good half of Dream’s floor space was covered in mattresses with blankets and clothes from various people’s closets. Even where he was just lying there, surrounded by snoring that he knew wasn’t just Dream and George’s so apparently the others were worried enough to join the three of them as well, Sapnap could feel one of Puffy’s old jackets, a scarf that Niki had helped Tommy knit one night when his head was being a dick and wouldn’t let him sleep because of nightmares. One of Jack’s soft blankets that he rarely shared with anyone after the fiasco that was the Magma Cream Incident. They did not talk about the Magma Cream Incident.
Speaking of Dream and George, they were awake. Raising his head, Sapnap glanced around and ignored them. Dream, who had had his face smushed into Sapnap’s chest, grumbled irritably. As for George, who had his arms around Sapnap’s waist (and Dream was hugging the both of them to his body because he had arms that long) and his a leg thrown over Sapnap’s hip to trap him to the bed, he just shifted slightly and moved one arm up around Sapnap’s shoulder. Wincing at the feeling of his bandages being tugged, Sapnap tipped his head to the side. “Yo, bitch, go easy. I’m still hurt. Clingy-ass…” Shaking his head, he continued his head-count.
Wilbur was thrown on top of several people, wings acting as a blanket. From where he was, Sapnap could see Tommy with his nose buried in Wilbur’s feathers, as well as Ranboo’s tail sticking out from Wilbur’s wing. So, by his guess, Tommy and Tubbo were being chaotic and weren’t sleeping since they could talk again without having to worry. Tubbo probably still had his bandages on, judging by how Sapnap could see a hand with plasters on the fingers that was too small to be Ranboo or Tommy’s and Purpled wasn’t normally a trouble maker unless those three were perfectly fine. So Tubbo had been grabbed by Ranboo and pulled close to his chest, and Wilbur had flopped on top of all of them and trapped them with his wings.
Wilbur’s head was in Kristin’s, Phil curled into her side and sitting up. She was resting her head on Phil’s shoulder, his head resting on hers as her fingers remained in Wilbur’s curls. Techno was slumped with his back to Sapnap, facing the door with Steve’s giant lump of a body there as well. The polar bear was snoozing, content and dozing peacefully. For most people, the idea of keeping a polar bear as a pet was stupid. They killed people regularly. But Steve…probably wasn’t a normal polar bear beyond the usual “oh but he’s not like other bears he’s different” bullshit. Sapnap was pretty sure he literally, physically was not like other polar bears. Like, “this bear was once a dog and a magic experiment went wrong” style.
Niki was wrapped around Puffy and Jack at the same time, not in a romantic way but in a “these people are mine and no one can touch them”. Punz and Ponk had Purpled and Sam. Skeppy and Bad were close by Sapnap and his boys, Karl and Quackity at Dream’s back with Quackity’s wings stretched out and a soft smile on his face as he snoozed. Charlie was wrapped up in blankets. Callahan, Connor, Alyssa, Eret, Fundy… everyone’s here. They’re all okay.
George hummed and shoved his freezing cold nose into Sapnap’s neck. “Sapnap. Go to bed.” He mumbled softly, rubbing his hands up Sapnap’s stomach under Dream’s arms. Humming softly, Sapnap laughed. “You’re warm and my hands are cold.”
“I can tell.” Sapnap replied. “Am I just your personal heater?”
“Not my fault you’re a blaze hybrid.” He replied softly. Humming, Dream basically just rubbed his face into Sapnap’s sternum, shifting his shirt. For the first time, Sapnap realized that his and George and Dream’s legs were all tangled together. George’s hands wormed their way to the bandages taped to his stab wounds, and he closed his eyes.
“Fine, fine. I guess I can sleep.” Sapnap replied, chuckling softly. Dream stirred and raised his head. Reaching up, he started petting Sapnap’s hair and then kissed his forehead. “She gone?”
“Powerless. Maybe not gone forever, but she’s off the server and effectively harmless.” He replied. Smiling, Sapnap nodded and sighed.
“The others?”
“All good. We just gotta worry about you for a bit.” Dream replied.
“Good. Good.” Sapnap replied. Sniffed. “Can you…” He tapped his fingers against Dream’s back, felt a smile against his forehead as Dream pulled him and George closer.
“Yeah, sure. Just get some rest.”
Nodding, Sapnap pushed his face into Dream’s neck and sighed softly.