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George's tongue tastes like battery acid. There's an acrid squelch as he smacks his mouth open, his morning breath feeling heavy, a debris of sleepy dust from the back of his teeth to the back of his throat.
He stifles a yawn, grimacing at the high noon sun.
Everything is untouched. Everything that he had once mightily destroyed with the intent to build back up sturdier has now resumed to be dirtied, not yet cleaned by George.
“Sapnap?” he whispers, looking around. Where was he? He was in Kinoko before… all that, wasn't he? He must've been. Where else would he have slept?
God was playing games again, and this time, the joke was on George.
George tries to swallow, but the gulp is instead a dry click and he has to roughly clear his throat again. He can see the Prison in the distance again. He already has his armor— as pathetic as it is now. He was beautiful before, wasn't he?— so that part must've been real… Or, no. Perhaps Dream never killed him in the first place.
Kinoko, then. If it was destroyed, that means he told Dream. If it was untouched, then perhaps Dream and he had yet to reconcile. Solid.
George expects his eyes to give him something of a warning beforehand, but the salty water escapes them, falls down his cheeks, effortlessly, and slips down his neck, soaking the collar of his shirt. He sniffles, and the mucus in his throat grows.
“Dream,” George whispers, just to say it. He's long gone, but was he ever even here? George doesn't feel like he's died. Would there even be a difference? He was shot in the shoulder, but when he touches the firm and thin muscle there, it doesn't feel stiff. Not even an ache or tender bruise. No blood on his shirt or a crack in his armor. He is as untouched and made up as a doll, propped up and tucked in his bed in the woods. More like a mannequin then, maybe.
The walk back to Kinoko skips through George's mind, like a lag or a scratched DVD. One moment he's on the prime path, the next he sees the familiar red caps in the distance. It's not a silent walk back either. It's muffled, sure, but the sound of bustling people and crowds of pairs doesn't elude him. He just ignores them. They weren't there before. They weren't there when the world was silent.
They weren't there when he was a god and could smell the gunpowder, feel the blackened chars on his skin and his callous aching with every flick of flint against steel.
Sapnap looks stressed again, but still smiles to greet George.
The shorter man doesn't get much words out, doesn't even get to utter a sound of greeting, before George latches onto him.
He doesn't particularly like hugging people, especially sweaty ones, which is the state Sapnap is in right now. His cheeks and neck are a flushed pink, sweat has built up on his hairline and falls down his mandible.
George continues walking, forcing Sapnap to walk backwards until his knees hit the pond's ledge. Even then, George doesn't let up until Sapnap has sat on the bowl of stone. With each leg caging in Sapnap, he sits on the man's lap, hands over his shoulders as he holds him down into the constricting hug. His stronger armor digs uncomfortably into George's exponentially more weaker armor.
“Uh, George. What the hell are you doing?” Sapnap asks softly, as he reaches forward and pushes George's head into his shoulder, holding him by the nape of his neck like George is a skittish kitten and might run away if Sapnap doesn't hold him down, caressing the loose strands of hair there.
George doesn't realize he's trembling like an autumn leaf, until Sapnap is there to steady him. He has half the mind to think of Karl— Sapnap's fiancee might find this position a bit scandalous, or he might be totally into it, but then George gets angry. Karl got into his way, didn't he? On his ascent to godhood, wasn't Karl wearing some gaudy get-up and telling him numbers and getting in his way ?
But then Sapnap is there, interrupting his thoughts by running his hands, scratching into George's scalp while the other rubs small but firm circles into the small of his back.
Sapnap didn't stop him. His best friend wouldn't dare to get in the way of George's happiness, and he was happy, wasn't he? If Sapnap had gotten in his way then-
But, no, this was Sapnap. What would George have done? Killed him?
He startles when he remembers he killed Quackity. He killed Karl, too. And Dream, arguably someone of equal status, held to the same adoring pettastel as Sapnap. He killed them all.
George holds onto Sapnap more tightly, more desperately. “I don't want to go back to sleep,” he whispers.
Being so close to Sapnap, he can feel the man's face stiffen in a concerned frown. “You get the nightmares too?”
George shrugs, but it makes Sapnap's armor dig into his shoulders more and he quickly drops his shoulders. “Something like that.”
Sapnap pauses. “You should move in with Karl and me. We have this guestroom and… it helps, sometimes. Being close.”
“No, it doesn't.” George knows about Sapnap's night terrors and Karl's sleepwalking.
Karl… the doctor called it Dementia. The deterioration of Karl Jacobs. George sometimes forgets, but Sapnap can't. He lives with the guy, helps him get dressed and bathes him when Karl does nothing but stare and smile, and tries his best to go along with whatever Karl wants to do when he's in a better mood, when he's running around and laughing loudly. George joins him sometimes too, when he feels so out of it that, yeah, playing tag with the sick guy seems like the best idea in the world. The two of them can share cloudy smiles and staggering steps any day.
Karl was so lucid when he was in George's world. Sapnap would've loved to see that.
“And I'm not moving in,” George continues. “You're supposed to be in your honeymoon phase. Or whatever phase you guys are in.”
“I wouldn't mind the extra company.” Don't leave me , is all George hears. Sapnap wants another month to feed, another responsibility to take care of. If he's not giving his all to someone, then what is it worth, right? He's such an idiot.
George shakes his head. He's losing his goddamn mind. “I think I saw Dream, but I don't know.”
It makes Sapnap freeze and tense, and changes the subject. George shifts in his lap.
Sapnap grips George's hair for a second, before quickly correcting the action, resuming the soft pets swiftly. “You hafta stay away from him. He's not… he's different. He's not our Dream anymore. He hasn't been in a long, long time.”
George licks his chapped lips. “I know, but… I miss him. Maybe, I don't know what I'm feeling. I woke up, but I don't feel like I've slept. I don't…” His sentence drags out into a pathetic silence. He doesn't feel alive. Or maybe ‘real’ is the right word? He doesn't… feel anything right now, actually. He was angry, but before that he was God. Now, though? What is there to feel? Does it matter? Truly? When he can destroy the world and use it's flames to fan his ego, all for it to disappear as his eyes open, does it even matter?
He sags into Sapnap's hold, leaving him to support their weight. Sapnap doesn't mind, probably likes feeling like he can control George's happiness by offering his steady stream of comfort.
“I feel so tired,” George whispers, cringes when his voice cracks and buries his head into Sapnap more, where shoulder meets neck. He smells like sunlight and warm metal.
“Then, sleep. I'll be here when you wake up. Right here.” He arranges his arms to more securely hold George.
George thinks he could probably grab the sword on Sapnap's hip and kill him with it quickly. Sapnap is a strong fighter, probably as strong as Techno and Dream, though nobody ever wants to root for the underdog here and admit that. But. But, he's relaxed. He's still quick to trust, despite his best friend stabbing him in the back repeatedly. It's one of the many things Dream hasn't completely carved out of Sapnap— the man's desperate crave for companionship and his undying urge to please, even if he has to bend himself over backwards. His kindness, too. Dream didn't take away that either.
But, this is Sapnap.
George can't trust him to be there when he wakes up, but here, and now, he can feel the man's presence, his broad shoulders are under his arms, lulling side to side with every sturdy breath, rocking like a boat, a cradle in the sea.
So, with Sapnap under him and the sun setting behind them, George closes his eyes, wondering if when he plays at god, will Sapnap stop him this time? Or, will he wake up like a doll and continue to play house? The games, the plays, the false gods, a Dionysion conundrum.