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The fighting was loud. So loud the screeching and screaming as the Egg was burning itself away that Sapnap couldn’t tell if it had ended or if he’d simply lost the ability to hear.. As the Egg died and lit on fire with the power of the Admin shredding it all apart. Ripping its code from the inside out and incinerating it from the world and the servers code. Purging it from the people it had corrupted and controlled. The screams of the Egg and the screams of the people it had taken merged into one horrible sound.
It had been so loud.
It’s why the silence scared him so much in the wake.
Sapnap felt his limbs shaking. They’d been fighting against the Egg for a day. Dancing around back and forth trying not to hurt the people it was using and trying to figure out a way to get the parasite away from their home. The full fight against it had lasted months. More and more people falling under its control and command. The crimson vines webbing and winding around the server and making things sick. Their crops weren’t growing and their wheat was starting to tint red. Their animals were getting ill and dying. They were being starved out. They had to do something.
It was Sapnap who argued the point that they might need Dream for the fight. That as the Admin of the server he would have the ability to get into the code in a way that none of them could ever hope to do. That in itself had been a fight. Trying to convince them to allow Dream out of Pandora for the sake of saving everything.
If Dream escaped after the fight or in it, if he refused to help them he would be killed.
Sapnap agreed to those terms.
Still, Sam had vehemently denied letting Dream out of the cell. It only made Sapnap push for it harder. Dream was still his brother, still his best friend. As much as he had agreed to letting this happen if it came to it, he was worried about Dream. He hadn’t seen him since he’d gone to visit him months ago. He’d tried to talk to him and the only word he’d gotten out of Dream was a croaked whisper agreeing to the promise.
He’d promised if Dream ever escaped he would be the one to take his last life. He’d promised him it would be him he would die to.
It wasn’t a threat. Not in the way a lot of people thought it was.
It was his attempt to mercy for him.
If it was Tommy, if it was Techno, Sam, Quackity, if it was anyone else on the server who killed him they would taunt over his corpse. They would laugh over him and they would mock him. Tommy would probably try to keep his body at this rate and claim it like a possession right along with his disks. At this point he wouldn’t be surprised. At this point he wasn’t sure if it really was Dream or Tommy who was obsessed with controlling everything. Dream would be mocked, used, abused in his death and insulted.
Sapnap didn’t believe he deserved that.
He promised to be the one to kill him so that Dream would die to a blade that cared for him. He promised to be the one to end him so that he could hold his brother in his arms and tell him he still loved him. So that Dream would be cradled when he took his last breaths and be close with someone again. So that he wouldn’t die alone. So that he would go with assurance that he would be missed and cared for. He promised to kill his other half so that he could make sure his body was safe.
He would bury Dream in Kinoko. He would plant roses around his tomb so that he could enjoy them. He’d go talk to him and if he was lucky enough to have a ghost Sapnap would make sure he was safe. He would protect him in death in the way he’d never fully been able to in life.
Seeing Dream being walked into the Egg’s cave before the fight he’d noticed he was limping. He’d noticed he was moving slow and that his uniform looked new. He hadn’t seen his face, his mask every so stubbornly still in place, but he saw his hair had grown a bit. Sam hadn’t given him armor. Likely as a way to try to make sure he didn’t try to escape but he didn’t have a weapon and he didn’t have armor. He was left defenseless in a fight that all of them had struggled with.
“He can fight with the code, can’t he? Isn’t that why he’s here?”
Dream hadn’t said a word to any of them. Not until the fighting started. Taunts and insults were spewed out at Dream from the people meant to be his allies for this fight. They heard the Egg rumbling. They heard it trying to call out for a new victim. Sapnap saw the vines going for Dream.
The power of an Admin would be all it needed to take the server forever. The Egg prayed on people who had lost something.
He’d thought it was trying to call to Dream for a taste of power again. He’d been ready to have Sam get Dream out of the fight before he made the choice to become what he was before.
Then Dream had ripped open the code in front of all of them. Reaching in and gripping the parasite with more Admin panels than any of them had ever seen.
It was a testament to his power. His skill. Something so uniquely Dream that Sapnap felt the pang of nostalgia and regret in his chest for how long it had been since he’d seen him doing this. Since he’d seen Dream’s strength as an Admin. Since he’d been able to fight on his side. Helping him and running as his second like nothing ever could change between them. Knowing how to read him. Knowing what he was thinking just with a glance.
He thought Dream looked hurt. He looked tired. He didn’t have the excitement or spark he should have had by being outside.
The cave had nearly rattled down on top of them by the time the screaming stopped. The vines withered and lost all their color. The victims of the Egg crumpled and collapsed to the ground around the room. All that was left was the ringing silence.
Sapnap laughed when he saw the rotting husk of the Egg. He laughed when he realized that all of the crimson of the room was gone and destroyed. Burned away and killed by Dream. He laughed when he looked around the room and saw all of the fighters getting up from where they’d ducked for cover. Standing and laughing themselves that it was all finally over. That they’d all survived and they’d made it through another fight.
It was over.
All of it was over.
When he heard the sound of rubble shifting and soft footsteps he turned back to where Dream had been standing. His prison jumpsuit was covered in dirt and ash now. There were burn marks on it too. He could guess the Egg had tried to stop him. He didn’t see blood though so he’d take that as a good sign. They had done a good enough job keeping the rest of the parasite away from him. They’d given him enough room to work.
They’d protected him.
So why did he feel like something was wrong?
“Dream?”
His steps were wrong. Dream walked with strength and pride in his steps. He moved like he knew exactly where he was going and what he was doing no matter where he went. He had confidence in anything he did and Sapnap had never seen anything change that. Not anything in his temperament at least.
But the way Dream was walking now reminded him of something.
One single time they’d been playing a manhunt and Dream had taken a hard fall. He’d caught himself with a teleport but he’d put the coords wrong for his landing point. He’d gotten himself half stuck in the ground and they’d needed to dig him out. They thought the shake and the confusion after was the adrenaline of what had happened.
It was starting to scare him that he was seeing that same kind of shake in him now.
“Prisoner.”
Sam’s voice was so cold. It wasn’t anything like what their friend normally sounded like and briefly Sapnap wondered if this was all Dream had heard for the last months he’d been in prison. It had almost been a year. Sapnap didn’t like this.
Dream wasn’t responding. He was just stumbling his way forward. He didn’t look like he really knew where he was. He looked like he was starting to sway on his feet.
He really didn’t like this
“Dream?”
He saw Sam put his trident into his hand. He saw him go to take a step. But this wasn’t an escape. This was not an escape. Dream was walking deeper into the cavern. He was walking towards the Egg. This wasn’t him trying to run, this wasn’t even close.
Dream didn’t deserve to die.
He didn’t deserve to die today.
Something was wrong with him; he needed help.
“Dream? Hey.”
He started to go to him before Sam could. They’d made their deal. Sam would let him go in for now. He’d think he was moving to kill him. He was going to try to make sure he was alright. He didn’t like that he could hear wheezing as he got closer.
Dream used to wheeze when he laughed. He used to go so hard he was gasping and wheezing and his laugh made all the rest of them laugh. Dream used to be the brightest out of all of them. Now Sapnap wasn’t sure where that Dream went. Now the wheeze he was hearing was grating and painful and something he recognized from people breathing their final breaths in Bad’s clinic.
Dream made it to the Egg. Sapnap watched him reach for it. He watched his hand graze against the husk. He watched him reach like he was trying to find something on it. He watched his shoulders moving with his breaths. He saw his head falling first. His body tilting and his knees going out as he dropped to the ground.
Sapnap ran.
He slid to the ground beside his brother and tried to turn him onto his back. He looked for a pulse first. Praying to XD that he would find one and that Dream wasn’t dead even though the way he’d fallen was only telling him he would find nothing under his fingers.
He felt the pulse. The dull thumping that felt like it was skipping and jumping around instead of being in one steady beat. He could hear the faint wheezing. Short and shallow and not enough air for him to be sustaining himself.
“Don’t fall for it Sapnap. He’s—”
“He’s not faking this!”
He wasn’t going to let Sam or any of them tell him Dream was faking this right now. He could feel his body shaking. He’d manhandled him into his lap and he could feel how warm he was. There was something wrong with him. Something that couldn’t be faked.
Doing his best to hide his head from the rest of them he muttered a fast apology and pushed his mask up. He’d need to see Dream’s face for this.
What he saw broke his heart.
Dream’s eyes were open. Glazed and distant and so, so dark. There were rings under them that made him look like he hadn’t slept in weeks. He was too pale. He was used to Dream being tan and he’d known that he was going to lose color being in the cell all the time but he was meant to be taken out to a courtyard for air and light every day. He was meant to be cared for but that didn’t match what he was seeing right now.
His face looked thinner. He could feel bones through his clothes and pressing against his skin. He’d never been able to do that before. His face had never seemed this flush without him being sick or hurt. There was blood running from his nose too. His whole body was shaking.
Sapnap brought his hands to his face. He lowered his voice so they wouldn’t be heard. He tried to swallow his fear.
It didn’t work.
“Dream? Hey man, can you hear me?”
His eyes looked like they fluttered. There was yelling from the others behind him that it was a trap but Dream wasn’t faking this. They were so determined to call him a liar that Sapnap felt the seed of guilt and shame at how much else wasn’t really a lie. How many other times had he condemned Dream right alongside the others when he hadn’t actually done anything wrong.
“Dream?”
His eyes were starting to move like he was trying to look around. He saw pain starting to come onto his face but it was more of a reaction than what he’d had before so he’d take it.
“Come on, you can do this. Come back.”
He groaned. His breaths hitching and his arm jerking before dropping back limp at his side. He saw his eyes start to flutter. He saw them start to close. He heard his breathing slowing down. Another check to his pulse. He felt it dropping.
“Dream. Dreamie, hey, no. Wake back up. You’ve gotta wake back up.”
Too much magic? Too much work after being stuck in a box for almost a year? He didn’t look like he’d been being fed. This would have been a hard fight for him when he was in peak condition but fighting like this? Pushing back against the parasite like this?
It was a miracle he wasn’t already dead.
“I need potions!”
He’d used all of his already. He didn’t have any left he could use.
No one behind him moved.
“He’s dying! I need help!”
None of them moved. They were going to let him die like this. They were going to just use him and kill him. They didn’t care. They didn’t care if he lived or if he died. They got what they wanted.
He was nothing more than a tool.
They’d all truly forgotten that he was a person too.
But wasn’t that why he’d promised to be his killer? So that he would die as a person and not a monster? So that he would die by someone who still loved him? He’d known this was how it would go. He didn’t get to claim innocence. He had no right to claim that ignorance.
“Come on Dream.” He was rubbing a hand over his chest. He was trying to encourage him to breathe a little deeper. “Come on, don’t do this.”
The building pressure welling up his throat and behind his eyes. He felt it building and building and he couldn’t get it to stop. He was going to suffocate in his own body if he couldn’t get Dream to breathe again. He felt his heart trying to regulate. He watched his body jerk a few more times.
Sapnap yelled to the server.
“Save him! He’s your Admin isn’t he? Save him!”
He had nothing else he could do. He had nothing else he could try.
He heard Dream cough. Small and choking but then again and immediately Sapnap was helping him onto his side so he could get it out. He watched the clogged blood splatter onto the ground but he felt Dream breathe deeper after. He heard the soft groans and whimpers through his pants but he saw his eyes cracking open again.
He was dazed. He wasn’t really with him but he was awake again and Sapnap was going to take it.
Wiping the blood from his nose he kept a hand cupped around the back of his head to try to keep him stable.
“Dream? You with me?”
He saw his eyes lock onto him. He saw him trying to blink away haze and trying to focus on him. Sapnap ignored the tears running down his face. He only cared that he was looking at Dream and that Dream was looking back at him.
“S’p?...”
His name came out garbled and broken. His voice giving out in the middle and not really even completing the word but he recognized him. Sapnap still knew what he’d said and he laughed again.
Laughed in the wake of the screams and the wake of his own tears.
Because they’d survived. They’d both survived. And he wasn’t killing Dream.
Dream’s sentence was served. His purpose was used.
If they didn’t care if he died then they wouldn’t care if he went free. Clearly keeping him in the prison wasn’t worth his life. He wouldn’t recover in a cell.
He’d recover in Kinoko.
Sapnap would see to that.