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amaranthinecanicular · 1 year

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calypso

The shore is rocky. Sapnap climbs and claws until the sea is behind him, and the rough stone beneath his hands turns to sand and sharp beach grass. Coughs up the bowl of his stomach, all sea water.

His arms are still steaming. When it clears, he stares down at volcanic rock in the jagged shape of a palm and five fingers. He doesn’t recognize his own hands.

Far above him, a lighthouse looms. He waits for the keeper to notice him. He waits for the lighthouse to flash and spin. He waits for anything.

He waits.

(Calypso: alone on his island.)

[my pinch hit gift to bee @edgarallanpoestan for the @mcytblrholidayexchange! i’ve been wanting to write this for so long, so thank you for letting me. and i am SO sorry it is a few days late, i got way too into it and this whole thing got. SO away from me]

[a gentle karlnapity horror, for the retelling of a gentle myth. alternatively read on ao3.]

chapter one.

He fights his way out of the water, legs hissing, then crackling. The waves wrench him back. He catches himself on his hands, submerged up to the elbow, and chokes on the rush of steam.

The shore is rocky. He climbs and claws until the sea is behind him, and the rough stone beneath his hands turns to sand and sharp beachgrass. Coughs up the bowl of his stomach, all sea water.

His arms are still steaming. When it clears, he stares down at volcanic rock in the jagged shape of a palm and five fingers. He doesn’t recognize his own hands.

Far above him, a lighthouse looms. He waits for the keeper to notice him. He waits for the lighthouse to flash and spin. He waits for anything.

He waits.

It’s a small island, with one lighthouse and one cottage and nothing else. About a mile long, or so Sapnap estimates, by the time it takes him to walk the length of it (twenty minutes). Three sides drop sharply into broken-teeth black rock. The last slopes into the sea more gently, like someone took a thumb to the end of the island and smeared it into the water. There’s a tiny beach on that side, more pebbled than sandy, dotted with scrubby tufts of beachgrass, and the rusted, long-drowned remains of traintracks that trail out of the water like a tongue.

The cottage is derelict, and gives him the impression of an old man’s rugged face, busted up and perpetually snarling from a life of unforgiving seas and barfights. Windows are smashed, and the door hangs wrong in its frame. The roof sags in like a furled brow.

The lighthouse is too sturdy for breakdown, so instead it just looms, watchful and dark.

It’s an unfriendly place. He’s not surprised it’s been abandoned. The sky is gray like iron and the ocean dark like wine, and the climate, already cool, turns lashing and frigid in the sea spray. It’s nothing like the oppressive heat and humidity of Sapnap’s childhood, but the rugged inhospitality is familiar, and welcome. He thrives in a challenge.

It’s hard to believe, but the cottage might be uglier on the inside than the outside. It’s just one drab rectangular room, with a coal-burning stove, a cluster of cabinets, and a small wooden table packed in on one side, and a soggy couch cramped up around a fireplace on the other. The fireplace might be cool if it weren’t dripping rainwater, which has clearly spent years soaking into the rug laid out in front of it. He can feel and hear the whistle of at least four different drafts. The ceiling droops and the floor warps and sags in places, concerningly soft. There’s a door set into the kitchen-side of the room that leads to a bedroom, equally sodden. The only other door leads to a rickety wooden path which itself leads to an outhouse, stood on stilts and drunkenly tilted. It is absolutely the most depressing thing about this whole island.

He steps back inside the cottage. Looks around. Cracks his neck.

“Fuck it,” he says, to no one. “Let’s go.”

His dad was always trying to instill him with good habits. Productive directions to channel his energy. Most of them were boring, so most of them didn’t take, but he’s retained bits and pieces. Cleaning, tidying, and organizing were examples of this: a practical life skill, his father said, like he was trying to sell him something, and a fun hobby!

Some of it’s easy. He may not be a carpenter, but he’s handy—fixing the flue and the set of the door in its frame are simple affairs. He can beat out the cushions and fabrics, sweep away the dust and muck, open what windows can be opened and air out the place properly. The damp is burrowed into the walls and the floorboards like a cancer. The scent of rot. Taking care of the bad wood itself is going to be intensive, but the solution to the musty stench of decay is fairly straightforward. Just kind of tedious.

A fun fact from his father: with enough controlled heat, you could burn almost anything clean. You could boil away impurities. You could kill viruses and spores. You could preserve wood against the elements—wind, water, rot, insects, even fire. Isn’t that cool?

I guess, Sapnap had said, and then dashed outside to burn some shit under the guise of “cleaning.”

Sapnap cramps himself into the newly non-dripping fireplace and cranks up the heat. Up and up and up until the air shivers and his body is glowing and his arms and legs crackle with red veins of magma. He’s careful not to burn the place down. Soon enough it’s more of an oven than a cottage, rolling with the kind of heat that would cook human flesh. He holds that for about three hours, folded like an accordion and twiddling his thumbs. When he pulls himself from the fireplace, all his joints cracking, the place smells nothing like mold and entirely like charring. He imagines anyone else would complain, and tells himself that’s another reason why it’s good that he’s alone.

And hey. No one was around to see him shoved embarrassingly into the fireplace. That’s good too.

Something he didn’t expect: there’s a cellar.

He finds it when he peels back the unsalvageable rug in front of the fireplace, beneath which lies a square hatch with rusted hinges. It opens onto a ladder that dips down into blackness. The smell billowing up at him is dusty, but not dank, and descending into it is like dipping down into a well of ink, or a drum of tar. Or a tomb.

He’s on the ladder for longer than he expects. He keeps waiting for his foot to meet solid ground, and keeps waiting, and keeps waiting, and suddenly the ground is there rushing up to meet him, a jarring surprise. The storm up above is muffled and far away. He sets both feet down and leaves one hand cautiously on the ladder, peering around with squinted eyes, but it’s no use. It’s dark and cool and he can’t see a thing. He imagines, briefly, an unseen hand grabbing his ankle. He imagines a hand grabbing for his ankle and passing through it, because suddenly it feels like he doesn’t have a body. Like he doesn’t exist at all.

He scoffs, and breathes a flame to life in his palm. Shadows jump back from him to reveal stone floors and empty shelves. No food, obviously. A big barrel of salt. A smaller barrel of what might have once been coffee grounds. A drum of coal. Some hurricane lanterns, without oil. Two canning jars half-filled with cloudy, indeterminate liquid. A coil of rope and a handful of blunt, waxy candle stubs, maybe half a day’s worth of burning left between them. Blanketing everything is a layer of dust so thick it eats sound, consumes and absorbs it. It gets under his skin, a little. He tries to stomp his way through the room, rattling and rustling with more force than he might have otherwise, coughing and sneezing, but nothing seems to penetrate the silence. It feels a little like he’s burning up all the air in the room. The flame curls in against his fingers, slowly suffocating against the weight of the dark.

Stupid. He rolls his eyes and shakes it off. The little golden light brightens under his coaxing. On the other side of the room there’s a cistern with pipes snaking up and out, likely collecting rainwater and lead poisoning that he’ll definitely not be drinking. And, of all things, a loom.

It’s an old school wooden thing, enormous and skeletal. He only recognizes the frame from his father’s lessons as a child. He has no idea how someone got it down here, or why. The hatch isn’t that big. And weaving doesn’t seem imperative to lighthouse keeping.

He runs his fingers over the well-preserved wood. It looks like a piano stripped down to bones.

“People need hobbies, I guess,” he mutters.

He doesn’t trust the cistern for shit, but there’s more than enough dinged up pots to sit outside and collect rain, which never seems to end. Water taken care of. Food next.

Farming is out—there is no workable soil on the island, only sand and stone and salt. There don’t seem to be any animals burrowed in secret, either, which he knows because he spent a few hours sniffing for them like a bloodhound. No birds, which seems unlikely, though he’s not sure how he’d catch one anyway. Maybe this is why the previous lighthousekeeper abandoned ship: they stopped getting food from the outside, and couldn’t hack providing for themself. If Sapnap were any less stubborn, he might come to the same conclusion. Luckily he is bullheaded as shit.

There’s shellfish in the sand, and clinging to the black rock. They’re easy to miss if you’re not looking. When he clambers down the craggy sides of the island to harvest them, his legs nearly disappear, the gradient of flesh to volcanic rock just below his knees vanishing against the ground like some sort of partial camouflage. Which, as far as camouflage goes, is completely useless, and luckily not needed for hunting molluscs. They’re ugly things, oblong and irregularly contoured, with pearly silver insides. Oysters, he thinks, while the ones in the sand are paler and broader. Scallops, maybe? Clams? He doesn’t know or care. What he cares about is how annoying it is to pry the oysters up from the rock. He thought it would be a simple twist and pull. It isn’t, because why would it be easy? Fuck him is why.

“Come on,” he grunts, drenched and scrabbling at the cluster of shiny black shells, “come on, you little bastards, come oh shit son of a bitch—”

He slips into the water no less than three times before he figures out that it’s less about pulling than it is about chiseling and chipping. Luckily his new hands are perfect for that. He probably takes more satisfaction than he should from cracking them open and slurping them down.

But better than clams and better than son of a bitch oysters: there’s fish. Small, at most four pounds but usually less. He finds that when the weather is miserable, but not so miserable that the sea bashes him against the shore, he can stand in the shallows and wait for the fish to come to him. Hunting is familiar, and patience is necessary. Eventually they swim back, weaving between his legs, only to be caught on the sharp spears of his fingers.

He’s never had much sympathy for animals. He should have; there’s no real reason he shouldn’t. His father had a little white hellhound that Sapnap grew up with, and he loved it, like all kids love their childhood pets. He was deeply attached to a goldfish once. But when it comes down to it, they’re just animals. If you’re starving you butcher it. If it’s rabid you put it down. A dog is just a dog.

With his basic survival bases covered, he develops a routine. He likes routine.

Wake up in the small hours, still dark. Light a lamp or a candle. Eat the last of yesterday’s fish. Warm up with some swordwork—he doesn’t have a sword, obviously, but the iron poker for the fire is basically useless when he’s got fireproof hands, so he melts it down and beats it into a blade, however crude. By the time he hikes down to the water to hunt for the rest of the day’s meals, dawn is dripping through the cloud cover. Molluscs when the weather is at its worst; fish when the weather is awful but bearable. That usually kills three or four hours, and then at least two more while he guts, cleans, salts and stores the catch. Crisp one up for lunch. Eat in silence. Break the silence by focusing on the storm and the sound of his chewing.

Spend an hour and a half patrolling the perimeter of the island. He doesn’t really think he’s going to find someone hiding among the rocks, no matter the shadows he sees out of the corners of his eyes, but things wash up on the shore sometimes. Seaglass. Bottle caps. Bits of driftwood, weathered and sanded. He stores the things he thinks he can use later in the cellar. The rest he either skips on the water or burns for fun.

Devote a few hours to whatever house project he’s working on at the time. Thatching the beaten roof with beachgrass. Replacing rotted floorboards with wood from one of the empty shelves in the cellar. Scrubbing down the horrible goddamn outhouse.

A third meal in silence. Lie awake in bed afterward, in the dark, listening to the wind shriek. Try not to let the shadows sink into the grooves of his skull. Try not to think. Try not to remember.

Clasp one hand to the other until he can forget that it’s his own. Let this fantasy soothe him. Sleep. Don’t dream.

Wake up in the small hours, still dark. Repeat.

Sometimes the wind sounds like moaning. Sometimes it sounds like screaming. Sometimes he’s sure it’s a person, and he roves around in the dark like a blind, sick dog, hunting for someone to fight or to rescue.

Most of the time it just sounds like wind.

Sapnap’s never been an overly anal person. Like, he’s neat enough—when things get too messy he cleans. But he’s comfortable in a certain level of chaos. Things feel warmer, more lived in that way. Still, he’s diligent about keeping up the cottage. It’s the only way to keep rot from creeping in and breaking everything down further. He beats out the sheets and cushions every week, dries up the damp that’s settled in the corners every day. He washes himself in the ocean with a scraping stone, and tumble dries his clothes between his hands. Sand and muck are regularly dragged into the cottage so he regularly sweeps them out. He doesn’t let dishes pile. It’s all a little more sterile than he’d prefer, but he’s proud of it.

He has this vague idea of writing letters to friends and family and inviting them to a house warming party. Which is ridiculous. He doesn’t intend to stay here.

But there’s an old lighthouse keeper’s journal that he could use for invitations. He imagines rolling them up into green glass bottles, which he doesn’t have because none have washed onto the beach, and chucking them into the sea, inexplicably arriving at the correct locations. He imagines sending one to his dad, who doesn’t live on the water. He imagines sending one to George, and setting up a spot for him to crash on the couch, as though George wouldn’t immediately claim the bed and kick Sapnap out into the living room. As though George would ever step out of his house to visit him. He imagines sending them to others, too, but he can’t quite picture their faces.

He keeps his room especially tidy in the event of a surprise visit from his father. Somehow it seems plausible that he might just show up on the doorstep, glass bottle invitation or no, with a basket of muffins balanced in the crook of his elbow. He was all about dropping in unannounced, before—

Well. Before.

A week passes, or a month, before Sapnap realizes he could be keeping track of the days. He considers the idea for all of thirty seconds before he discards it. He’s here now and will keep being here until he’s not. Carving tallies into the wall like some idiot slowly losing his mind won’t make the days any fewer. And he’s a week or a month behind anyway. Too late to start now.

There’s one more part of his daily routine. After dinner and before bed, he climbs down into the cellar and he weaves.

Or, like. He tries to. At first he didn’t try at all; weaving never interested him. His dad taught him when he was young—another good habit he tried to pass down. Sapnap whined and tantrumed like he always did, but his dad, usually a pushover, had insisted. He adopted his schoolteacher tone and rattled off something about culture and tradition and blah blah blah. Sapnap didn’t get the point. He still doesn’t. Demonic fireweaving is a dead art; what was once vital and necessary is now obsolete, driven to extinction by canny flame resistant enchantments, sturdy textiles produced more efficiently by modern piglin means, and access to overworld trading.

It’s tradition, his father had said, meeting Sapnap’s childhood skepticism with infinite patience. There’s value in knowing where you came from, and the people who came before you.

It takes too long, Sapnap complained.

There’s value in taking the time to do something well, his father said. Sometimes you need to slow down. Clear your mind. Center yourself.

Is there value in being a smelly assbutt? Sapnap said.

Language, said his dad, but laughed through it.

He walked Sapnap through it step by step, weaving one panel and then another, and another. It took forever. This is boring, Sapnap said, and it was, but mostly he’d said it because he was annoyed, and he was a shit kid with no empathy who wanted to hurt his father.

I’m sorry you feel that way, Bad said. If he was hurt he only smiled.

I don’t think this is boring. I think there’s value in spending this time with you.

Eventually they had several white rectangles of different sizes that Sapnap didn’t know what to do with. Then his dad stitched them together and like magic, he had a shirt. Light, soft, flame resistant. And when Sapnap clutched it to his chest and grumbled that weaving was still pointless, Bad only said, I don’t think it is. Now you have something to keep you warm when you visit your friends in the overworld, and I got to make something for my favorite little panda.

Later, at Sapnap’s request, Bad embroidered an orange flame onto the front. That shirt lasted Sapnap years and years.

Now he sits in front of the loom, unsure how to begin. Or maybe it’s less that he’s unsure how to begin and more unsure how to begin. The strange, daunting hurdle of starting, no matter how prepared you are. The frame is both bigger and smaller than he remembers. After his father’s lessons sunk into his brain he promptly got to work never using them again. Honestly he’s surprised he remembers as much as he does now.

The first thing his father did was tease out the yarn. The warp, he called it.

He lights a flame in his palm, clean and steady gold. What you want, his dad said, is incomplete combustion, and an even line of smoke. He produced a flame that burned magnesium-bright, which in turn produced a delicate, dove-white ribbon that unfurled toward the ceiling. Sapnap had been so bored when his father showed him, had wanted nothing more than to go out and jump in a geyser to see how high he could fly. Now he can’t help but marvel at the grace of his memories. How swiftly and nimbly Bad drew out the thread and fed it into the loom, as though it was easy, second nature.

It isn’t easy, and it sure as hell isn’t second nature. It takes an embarrassingly long time to figure out how to get his flame to do what he wants, but eventually, a thin line of smoke threads up from the edges, soft and gray. He catches it between his fingers. He’s already sweating.

Too eager. The smoke dissipates half a dozen times against the jagged ends of his fingers before he figures to stop pinching it and start winding it around his thumb instead, looping it over and over until he’s got less of a thumb at all and more of a bobbin. He’s panting, the skin at his temples tight with concentration. His own fatigue shocks him, but not nearly as much as the satisfaction does.

Sapnap shuts his eyes. Breathes deep. Steadies his hands.

He starts dressing the loom. Slowly, clumsily, and with great care.

By the time he finishes he’s the kind of exhausted that aches in his teeth and spine and the roots of his eyeballs. He has no idea what time it is, or how long he’s been working. He shears the weaving free with one swipe of a finger—his dad showed him how to remove the warp from the loom properly, how to tie off the ends, but all that can come later. For now he lays it flat in his palm and appraises his work.

The first thing he’s ever woven is a misshapen gray square, the weft pulled too tight in some places and too loose in others. It looks like shit. It’s not even a pretty gray, just a muddy, sooty not-quite-black and not-quite-brown like dirty water or smog. He grimaces. His dad would be ashamed.

No he wouldn’t. His dad would have been proud. So proud he’d have clutched the tiny square to his heart, cried a little, and then framed it. That’s what his father would have done.

He makes a lot of coasters. That’s what he’s calling the gray squares. So, so many coasters. Does he need that many coasters? No. He doesn’t even need one. But it makes him feel better to think of them as something with a name and a purpose, and somehow, despite himself, he enjoys making them. It’s easy to fall into a rhythm. Throw the shuttle. Feed the cloth. Switch the treadle. Throw the shuttle. His head gets quiet, but in a way that still feels grounded in his body. Distant and present at the same time. It’s nice.

It’s nicer when he starts finding actual uses for his coasters. They make for excellent insulation. He lines the thatched roof with it, and the windows with whistling air. Plugs up every draft he can find. When one soaks through with rain, he replaces it with another. Soon there’s little handmade squares sticking out of every nook and crevice. That’s cool, he decides. He likes that.

Sometimes, when he’s down there weaving, he hears the creak of footsteps up above. He used to creep up the ladder, limbs coiled and ready, but no one was ever there.

He lets it go, now. Doesn’t let it interrupt his work. It’s just the old house settling. He tells himself that.

The days are growing shorter, he thinks, but just as often he thinks they’re growing longer, so really what the fuck does he know. The temperature stays the same, as does the muted palette of the landscape. The rain never feels summer warm, but it never feels like ice, either. It’s just cold. Cold, and dreary, and colorless, and wet. He misses the sun. He misses the searing embrace of moistureless heat. He misses a lot of things.

But it’s loud. That he appreciates, if nothing else. If it’s going to be wet and cold all the time, he’d prefer a full-chested, go-big-or-go-home storm over a half-hearted drizzle, even if the drizzle allows him to get more done. If a storm were something he could tune with a dial, then the perfect volume would be quiet enough to allow him to be productive, and loud enough to drown unwanted thoughts, unwanted silences.

He just wishes the wind wouldn’t scream.

He doesn’t dream anymore. He’s not sure why that is. The last dream he had, or remembers having, was one where he died and the meat of his body kept waiting to break down but it never did, because he was so alone that not even the bugs wanted him. He woke up laughing. It was the most pathetic dream he’s ever had.

He thinks he’d take that now. He thinks he’d take anything but the seamlessness between sleeping and waking. The complete lack of feeling or memory or thought, the passing by of the world around you, unhurried, impassive, without your knowledge. He may as well not exist for hours. He may as well fall out of the world the moment his eyes fall shut and then reappear, spontaneously, six hours later, when his eyes snap open. He has no way of knowing that’s not what happened. No proof he existed at all in that time, not a single sensation to hang the weight of his being on, not even in dreams.

His weaving gets better. He thinks it gets better. His stitching is nearer, and he can weave colors into his smoke if he controls his breathing and burns the right flame. His panels get bigger and bigger until he’s making—blankets, he thinks. He drapes one over the musty couch. Uses another as a comforter in bed. A third he lays in front of the fire to cover the ugly water stain from the last rug. The rest he folds up and stores in the cellar, on the shelves he didn’t repurpose.

There are some he keeps under his bed. One that he wove with burnt-copper hints of green that he keeps on the bottom of the pile. Another with speckles of red on the edges like embers. The next one he weaves to match it, but with pinprick stars of pale blue. He fucks up the next blue one, but the fact that it’s so ugly makes him laugh, so he keeps it.

The one after that is perfect. It’s downy soft and the color of ash, but tilting it this way and that under the right light reveals a subtle, iridescent sheen of navy, like the hidden colors on the wings of a bird. He loves that one. He uses it a lot, even when he doesn’t need to.

The one he’s working on now is probably his best. It’s also probably the most frustrating—he keeps undoing it and restarting, because it’s so hard to maintain the right colors. As he’s weaving he lets the shade shift at will—green to purple to yellow to turquoise—which is fine. That’s right, even, that’s good. The problem is that it’s so easy for the colors to get muddled. All the other blankets are smoky, but this one needs to be bright.

He’s pretty sure that when he leaves the island, he can sell some of this stuff. He’s sure there are pretentious assholes out there who would pay out the nose for classic demonic fireweaving. He could probably make a killing.

He won’t sell these ones, though. These are gifts. He runs his fingers over them and thinks about people he doesn’t know.

He climbs the lighthouse only once. He thinks he sees someone up there.

Gripping his poker-turned-short-sword, he ascends a rattling iron staircase, round and round and up and up, until he gets dizzy. There are landings and there are windows, but not enough of either. Great stretches of shadow separate each watery square of light, playing tricks when he looks up or down, giving the illusion of no beginning and no end. Like he’ll be climbing these stairs forever.

He makes it to the top uninterrupted, and no one is there. The lens of the beacon is smashed. Sapnap circles it slowly, looking out, seeing what there is to see.

Which is nothing, of course. No buoys or mainland. No ships coming or going. No fish jumping. No gulls crying. Just choppy black ocean, all the way around, vast enough to swallow him whole if he looks too long.

The lighthouse is quiet, and empty, and hollow. He doesn’t know what he expected.

He stands up there for an hour, waiting for nothing at all.

That night, he runs out of candles. He only realizes that because the storm bares its teeth after sunset, beating at the walls and stealing into the cottage through cracks too fine to stopper with coasters. The candle on the kitchen windowsill goes out while he’s in the middle of dinner. He looks up with the fish halfway to his mouth and frowns at the waxy puddle left on the sill.

There’s barely any wick left, so he scrapes the mess away and heads to the cellar to find a replacement. There isn’t one. He could bring up a hurricane lantern, but he already uses those to illuminate the bedroom and the outhouse and the cellar with his weaving—

The solution comes to him in his father’s voice. He climbs back to the surface and retrieves one of the canning jars from the cabinets, washed out in his first cleaning spree and yet to find a use. It doesn’t feel exactly accurate to say his dad taught him this. After the hours and hours he’d devoted to teaching Sapnap to weave, this seemed more of a neat offhand trick. Sapnap lights a flame, snips a bit of smoke from it, nips the end of his tongue, and then slicks the thread in blood. A demon’s soul weave is inflammable; a demon’s blood is combustible. Put them together, his dad said, plus a bit of soul flame, and voila: a perpetually burning wick, no wax or oil required. At most it might need another drop of blood every now and again. He called the wick an elegant bit of demoncraft, if a bit macabre.

Sapnap punches a hole through the lid of the canning jar and feeds the wick through. Snaps a flame to life over his finger and lights it. He’s pretty pleased with his work: the new candle is brighter and sturdier than the last, unlikely to blow out under a stray breath or draft. The wind kicks up from a moan to a screech as though to test this, and the candle doesn’t stutter once. Maybe he could sell these too, when he gets back. They’re way less effort than fireweaving, anyway.

The wind screeches again, and Sapnap frowns. He likes a loud storm. He doesn’t like when it screams. It gets him thinking there’s a person on this island, as so many other shadows and whispers have, when he knows there’s not. There can’t be. He’s checked a thousand times. He’s alone here.

The house rattles around him when he tries to sleep. The wind is a banshee. He squeezes his eyes shut and clutches his own hand very hard.

The next day, he has a visitor.

In the morning the world is back to a bleak staticky rumble, but mellow enough in context to count as a good day. He eats two small filets of fish. Drinks some water from the full pot outside. Scrapes the bottom of the coffee barrel for a few grounds to crunch between his teeth, just to taste something different. Grabs his sword to run through his warm up exercises and then walks out to the beach, skin steaming gently in the rain. When he gets there he strips off his shirt and pants to tuck beneath a rock where they won’t blow away.

“Good morning!” says a voice, and Sapnap jumps out of his fucking skin.

There’s a little sailboat at the end of the beach. A little past the end of the beach, actually—not far enough to smash against the rocks but not close enough to pull in gently against the sand either. It’s exactly in between, beached like a whale, no holes in the hull as far as he can see but at least a couple decent scratches. A little ways from the boat, sitting on the beach proper, is a young man.

“Hey there,” he says, in the cheerful manner of one who has not just been shipwrecked on a remote island. If the dingy can be called a ship.

“Fuckin. Hey,” says Sapnap.

He’s got a wet mop of brown hair and a colorblock oilskin coat as ugly as sin. Sapnap stares at him, and remembers belatedly to scowl. Why didn’t he bring his sword? He should bring it everywhere. “Who the hell are you?”

“Rude,” says the young man, not sounding offended at all. “Going for an early morning skinny dip, huh? Aren’t you cold?”

Because he’s practically naked. Sapnap feels a sudden and uncharacteristic flush of self-consciousness, which is annoying, because before he got here he was never insecure about this sort of thing. He’s always been comfortable in his skin. George said he should have more shame, which was hypocrisy at its finest, while his dad said it was a good way to be. But he’s been alone so long now that he’s forgotten how it feels to be seen by big gray eyes when you weren’t expecting to be seen by big gray eyes.

It’s also annoying because who the hell does this guy think he is, okay, this is Sapnap’s shipwrecked island and this clown can fuck off and find his own.

He yanks his clothes from their hiding spot. The young man politely looks away as he redresses.

To the sky, he says, “That storm last night sure was something, huh? I thought I was going to drown out there until I saw your lighthouse. It really saved my bacon!”

Saved my bacon. “It’s not mine,” Sapnap says curtly. Fully clothed, he feels much more sure-footed, and crosses his arms over his chest.

The young man looks back at him. “What?”

“The lighthouse. It isn’t mine.”

He absorbs this. Cranes back to take another look at the lighthouse, and then farther back to look at the cottage, and then farther still to look at Sapnap, with new eyes. Suddenly he stands. It’s more fluid than Sapnap expected, strangely graceful. Graceful doesn’t fit him, all stacked with pokey, bony angles. The guy looks like a child’s drawing: a stick figure with clashing colors. He’s seriously all leg.

He says, “So the light I saw must’ve come from your house. I guess you really saved my bacon.”

Sapnap raises a brow. “No way you saw some two-bit candles through that storm.”

“Handsome and modest. And a hero! You’re like some kind of triple threat.” He bats his lashes. His grin is sweet and honeyed. “I’ll have to find some way to thank you.”

So the guy’s a freak. No other word for someone whose first instinct after washing up on a deserted island is to flirt about it.

Sapnap seriously considers leaving him there to get his sword, but then the stranger’s eyes go bright and round, and without another word he’s bent double in the belly of his boat. He emerges with his arms weighed down by a wooden crate. It looks waterlogged, but otherwise intact.

“How about I make you breakfast? I’ve got wine and salted beef.”

Sapnap almost does a lot of things. He almost tells the guy to piss off, and he almost ignores him and walks away, and he almost kills him to claim his shit for himself. In the back of his head a little voice that sounds like his father chides him; that last one would be rude. The same little voice disapproves of wine at ten in the morning, but Sapnap can’t be bothered to give a rat’s ass about that.

The stranger is beaming at him. Sapnap thinks looking directly into the sun would be less blinding.

And, well. It’s been forever since he’s eaten anything but fish and son of a bitch oysters.

“Come on,” he sighs, and turns to hike back to the cottage. The stranger whoops behind him, and then Sapnap hears the scuff of his feet in the sand.

“I’m Karl,” says the stranger, coming up beside him. His hair is drying into a sandy halo of curls. Sapnap tears his eyes away. “To answer your earlier question. Karl Jacobs.”

Tearing his eyes away doesn’t do much, turns out. He doesn’t need to look to know Karl is struggling because Karl doesn’t bother to hide it—he huffs and puffs, swatting aside the tallgrass without much success and kicking up great clouds of sand that sting the backs of Sapnap’s knees. He readjusts his crate every other second, the contents inside clinking and sloshing sadly. Sapnap ignores it for all of thirty seconds before it starts to get annoying. He rolls his eyes and snatches the crate, hoisting it onto his shoulder.

“Sapnap,” he says to Karl’s wondering eyes.

“You’re strong.” Karl fans a hand in front of his face. “I’m swooning.”

Sapnap rolls his eyes harder. “There’s something wrong with you.”

“Or something very, very right,” Karl counters. “Maybe I did die in that storm. Maybe this is heaven.”

Sapnap barks a laugh. He can’t help it. “This isn’t heaven.”

Karl goes quiet, which Sapnap appreciates. Then he switches tack, which Sapnap also appreciates, though not as much as the quiet. Still, it’s better than what they were talking about.

“Sapnap,” Karl says, “I like that name. It tastes good.”

Sapnap laughs again, but this time it feels genuine. “What the fuck?”

“You’ve never found a word that tastes good?” Karl asks, as though Sapnap is the weird one. “Wow, that’s kind of sad for you? Sapnap. Sapnap Sapnap Sapnap. Sadnap. Snapmap. Snapchat.”

Sapnap sticks a foot out and trips him. “Shut up, loser.”

Before they enter the cottage Sapnap shakes off as much sand as he can. “Like a dog,” Karl giggles. It’s this funny, tripping sound that reminds Sapnap of the spiral staircase in the lighthouse.

Karl shakes himself out too, scrubbing his hands through his hair. Buckets of sand rain down.

“I can’t believe you just called me a dog,” Sapnap muses. “Look at you. You’re like one of those mop dogs.”

“A Komondor?” Karl says, and then answers himself, “Komondor, I hardly know ’er!”

He grins shamelessly through his hair. It’s everywhere, Sapnap can’t even see his eyes.

“I—that’s—that was so stupid. That made no sense.” Sapnap splutters. “And isn’t that a bird?”

Karl hoots. “That’s a commodore, dingus. A Komondor is a sheepdog.”

“Komondor. That’s what I said.”

Karl sweeps his hair back off his forehead. “Sure it is.”

“Fuck off, Jacobs. Your jokes are dumb. I’m going to make myself breakfast and you can stay out here and starve.”

He ducks inside and closes the door on Karl’s indignant yelp. While he struggles with the latch, Sapnap sets the crate on the tiny table and pries it open: two bottles of wine and, miracle of miracles, dried jerky. It’s been cut into strips and spiced, a fragrant, savory scent wafting up even through the overwhelming tang of the sea. Sapnap’s mouth waters. He tears into it and closes his eyes with a moan.

When he opens them again, Karl is waggling his eyebrows.

“Shut up.”

“Hey man, I didn’t say anything.”

Sapnap only has one chair, which he offers to Karl. He’s got a few cups though, so he takes two down, uncorks a bottle with his teeth, and pours some wine. Karl accepts one with painted nails.

“Did you make this?” Sapnap asks, referring to the jerky.

“Yep. How is it?”

Sapnap slurps pointedly at his wine. Karl reels back, a hand pressed to his chest.

“You wound me this way? After I shared my meal with you out of the goodness of my heart?”

Sapnap smirks around the lip of his cup. “I didn’t say anything.”

“I see what you did there. And I heard that borderline pornographic moan, it couldn’t have been that bad.”

“You would have had the same reaction if you’d eaten nothing but fish and clams for—” He doesn’t know how long. Maybe he should have kept track. “—as long as I have.”

Karl’s gaze turns critical. “You think you could do better?”

“Yeah,” Sapnap says, honestly.

“Okay then.” And he drops his chin in his hand. “Impress me.”

“What, now?”

“Unless you want to put me up until you can impress me at dinner, sure, now. Go for it, master chef.”

Sapnap grins. He thrives in a challenge.

He takes a few strips of jerky and clasps them tight. Soon the air is rippling around his closed fists, magma glowing in his wrists and the cracks of his knuckles. Karl ogles, and Sapnap abruptly recalls that he hasn’t spoken to another person in weeks-or-months. How the fuck do you conversation again?

“So.” Sapnap clears his throat. “What brings you out here?”

Jesus. Karl muscles back a smile and lets him have it. “I’m looking for someone.”

Sapnap waits for more, but Karl only smiles. Asks with a curious tilt to his eyebrows, “What about you? What are you doing in a lighthouse that isn’t yours?”

“Washed up here. Like you.”

He doesn’t offer anything else. Graciously, Karl doesn’t press. Instead he smoothly steers the conversation to the safer subject of cooking—does Sapnap like it, how long has he been doing it. He does, and a while. It surprises him to say. He’s been focused purely on the utilitarian while he’s been here; flavor, enjoyment have never entered the equation. But he does like cooking. His father’s a baker, but Sapnap enjoys the savory. His meals were something even George would grudgingly compliment.

After half an hour of trading recipes like they’re two normal people who aren’t marooned on a deserted island, Sapnap’s hands crack open. “It would be better if I’d had a few more hours,” he says, feeling gruff and oddly bashful.

Karl won’t hear a word of it. He plucks at the jerky, hot enough that he has to juggle it awkwardly between the tips of his fingers, before he takes a small bite. The meat tears away easily. His eyes pop open.

“Dude. If this is what you can do in under an hour, I’d kill to know what you could do with a day. Did I just watch you smoke this? In your hands?”

Sapnap grunts a yes, unsure what to do with the swelling pride beneath his breastbone. Karl beams.

“That’s amazing.”

They eat, and drink. When they’re done, Sapnap is left with the certainty that he should give Karl something in return, and the unfortunate truth of what little he has to offer. His preserved fish is purely for survival, blander even than Karl’s attempt at jerky. But what else is there? He runs through his stores in his mind. Stands up straight when it comes to him.

“Hey, hold on, I’m just gonna grab something.”

“Sure,” Karl says, easily, slouching into the little wooden chair like he means to bed down there. Sapnap crosses the cottage, pulls the hatch, drops into the cellar. Returns with one of his weaving projects. A shawl. No undertones of navy or purple, but the stitching is tight and even. He returns to find Karl, still at the table with eyes far away. He’s looking out the window. The set of his mouth soft and wistful. It’s more quiet, more still than he’s been in the brief time Sapnap’s known him.

“Here.” He holds out the shawl, and Karl turns to him, the wistfulness slipping back beneath the surface of his expression. “As thanks for the meal. Wrap it up under your coat. Should keep you warm in this shitty weather.”

Karl accepts it with a reverence that makes Sapnap feel embarrassed. His pretty fingernails stand out against the fabric, stroking gently. Sapnap has the absurd thought that he could be a hand model. “Did you make this?”

Another grunt.

“It’s beautiful. I’m serious, Sapnap. This is—wow.” He eyes rove over the shawl, and Sapnap startles to see that his irises match the shade of the yarn exactly. “Is this fireweaving?”

“Yeah.” Sapnap reassesses him. “You’re familiar with demoncraft?”

“Sure. I read a lot, and I’ve known a few demons in my time, friend and enemy both. Did you think I wouldn’t?”

Sapnap doesn’t answer, asking instead, “And it doesn’t scare you?”

“No. Why? Did you think I’d think you were spooky? Because you’re not human?” His smile turns small and secret. “I’m not human. Not completely, anyway. Do you think I’m spooky?”

His lashes flutter when he blinks. The shadows they cast over his cheeks, there and gone again, look soft as smoke.

Sapnap shakes his head and pretends it’s not just an excuse to break eye contact. “I think you’re weird, is what I think. I’ve been here for a while, and without a doubt today has been—”

“The most interesting day of your life? Magical? A dream come true?”

“Sure. If this was a fever dream, and you were some manic pixie dream girl hallucination.”

“You calling me your dream girl?”

Sapnap huffs. “Man. You don’t quit, do you?”

Karl’s eyes glitter a lively blue. They weren’t blue a second ago. “My charm is a blessing and a curse, I’m afraid.”

“It’s something, alright.”

Karl hugs the shawl to his chest. Sapnap gathers the cups to wash.

“Thanks for this. Seriously,” Karl says to his back.

“Don’t mention it.” He glances back over his shoulder, but Karl’s not looking at him. He’s looking at his hands. “You’re staring.”

Karl has the good grace to flush. “Sorry. It’s just, you’re the first demon I’ve seen with arms and legs like that.”

Washing the cups really just means rinsing them in rainwater from one of the pots. He flicks them dry and puts them back in the cabinet.

“Demons have a molten core,” he says. “Sometimes we can push that outward. Other times our emotions get the better of us and it pushes out on its own. When it cools naturally, our skin usually goes back to normal, but if it cools too fast you get…this.”

He wonders if the circumstances of how his arms and legs cooled too fast are obvious, but he appreciates that Karl doesn’t ask. Instead, when Sapnap turns back to him, he tips his chin towards Sapnap’s arms and says, “May I?”

Sapnap considers him. He thinks he’d back off if he said no. For some reason that’s why he says yes.

Karl takes one of Sapnap’s hands, drags it close to his face. His touch is curious and oddly gentle.

“Wow,” he breathes, and somehow his big bright eyes go bigger and brighter. “This is so cool. But also really weird? You’re kind of like a freak of nature?”

He says it so sweetly, so utterly without guile, that Sapnap knows in his heart he’s being a dick on purpose. And he laughs, charmed.

“You’re the freak of nature, Jacobs,” he says. “Now get the fuck off my island.”

Karl Jacobs gets the fuck off his island. Sapnap helps him push his boat back into the water and watches him go from the shore. He snorts at how Karl turns and waves whenever he isn’t steering, these big goofy pendulum swings of his arms. He waves back, albeit more reserved.

All the color in the world seems to drag behind the boat like a banner. And then it’s just Sapnap and the monochrome sea and sky, all varying shades of black and white and gray. He’d think the whole bizarre morning was a dream, if he still had those.

He resumes his daily routine. He’s a few hours behind so he throws himself into it. At some point it begins to rain, and it occurs to him, for the first time, that the storm may never end. Not in any meaningful way. This isn’t an earth-shattering thought. It’s not even particularly surprising; there are lots of places in the world where the weather is static. He thinks he’s known as much, in the back of his head, operating under the assumption that this is just the way of it: an island and a lighthouse and a storm, and Sapnap, weaving and working away, until eventually he leaves.

Which he will, some day. But the storm won’t. He thinks the storm will never end.

He’s wrong.

At first he thinks it’s the silence that woke him. The whitenoise of the sea is gone—every sound is gone. He stares at the dark of the ceiling and thinks that not existing would sound like this.

He sits up fast. The bed creaks, and the world exists again.

Outside the window the sky is a clear, velvet blanket, pinned in place with stars. The sea doesn’t exist. It’s just more sky.

He steps outside. Out on the beach, a mile away, a train is waiting on the night-sky water.

He goes back inside and picks up his sword. Walks a mile that feels much less. He can barely hear his own footsteps, the scuffing of rock on rock. He can barely hear his own breath. He huffs hard as he goes and he can still barely hear it.

Just at the sand he stops. The train waits a short walk into the water, a hundred glowing eyes reflected in the water and all of them watching him. Waiting.

A muscle in his jaw jumps. His mouth tastes like blood.

“No.” He says it through his teeth.

Nothing happens. Nothing moves. As if Sapnap doesn’t exist at all, as if his voice and his touch and his living are trapped somewhere and cannot affect the world around him.

A silhouette cuts into the frosted glass of the door at the end of the train. A man’s shadow. The door starts to open.

Sapnap turns around. Stalks back to his cottage and his bed. He sleeps. He doesn’t dream. He wakes in the small hours, still dark.

#dsmp fic #dream smp #sapnap #karl jacobs #karlnapity #quackity does not feature yet but don't worry he's waiting in the wings #badboyhalo #dadboyhalo #only mentioned but he is felt in this fic #ran's writing #ran’s writing #i really hope you enjoy bee! thank u for your patience!!

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dreamersdivine · 2 years

Text

I choose you!

Pairing: PokemonTrainer!Sapnap x gn!reader

Written: June 7, 2022

Warnings: awkward conversations, cussing,

An: dude idk i don’t write sfw anymore- T^T

"I still can't believe Dream," Sapnap grumbled, kicking a few pebbles out of the way. "He promised my chimchar would be strong enough to beat that stupid squirtle,"

The top of the pokecenter peaked out at him over the hill. "Now I missed out on a shiny," his frustrated mumbles continued as headed towards the building.

Poor pebbles on the ground became the target of his irritation, kicking them away from his path as soon as he was close enough. Sapnap pushed open the double doors, adjusting the hat on his head. He rummaged in his pocket for his pokeball. "It wasn't a bad fight, but I just need a quick heal," he said, placing the ball on the counter. Then he looked up. You were staring at him slightly amused. "You're not the usual nurse here?"

"I am not," you agreed, smiling.

Oh. That smile made him melt into a puddle. You moved a strand of hair out of your face before glancing at the clock. "I can help you in just a few minutes okay," Sapnap nodded silently, taking his pokeball and sitting down nearby.

You headed into the backroom collecting a few pokemon to return to their trainer's care. Sapnap watched you give the healed creatures back some with a stern frown and others with a smile that made him feel oh so gooey inside. How long had you worked here? How come he'd never seen you before? Lost in thought Sapnap didn't even notice you waving for his attention, your lips moving to say words he didn't understand.

"Hm?" He blinked.

"Name?"

"Oh, Sapnap,"

You gave him a puzzled look. "Your Pokémon's name is Sapnap?" You asked slowly.

"Wait no!" He stood up out of the chair. "I- I'm Sapnap. My chimchar doesn't have a name, not yet at least," you set the clipboard in your hand down.

"Okay well I'm ready to heal up your pokemon now Sapnap," you chirped. "H-here," he fumbled with the pokeball handing it over.

"Great let me just make sure this is the right pokeball," you hummed opening up the scanner next to you. "Okay, just wait here a few moments and I'll be right back with your pokemon," you hummed leaving the brunette at the counter.

You were quicker than he expected. Less than 10 minutes later you were already headed back to him, pokeball in one hand and small fruit in the other. "Here you are, all healed," you grinned. Sapnap took the items from your hands. "Make sure he gets that,"

Sapnap looked down at the berry confused. "I thought he's all healed though?"

"Oh, he is. I just like to send them home with a treat; kind of like when you get a lollipop from the doctor," you explained.

He pocketed both of them, handing you some cash. "Thank you, I'm lovely," you both blinked at each other. "I mean you're lovely! I'm...leaving," he muttered practically dying inside. He tugged his hat down more, hiding his face.

"Remember to give him the berry," you reminded as he stepped through the double doors.

"Right I will. I'll see you tomorrow," Sapnap waved over his shoulder. "Well, not tomorrow just- yeah. Bye,"

You giggled as he tripped over his own words. The brunette finally left having made a fool of himself, making a beeline for Dream's house.

Dream had just been trying to enjoy a nice sandwich when Sapnap kicked down the door.

"I have something to tell you- also wait fuck you for telling me to do that battle. Punz's pokemon was way stronger,"

Dream allowed himself to be dragged off by the collar by the brunette who continued to complain the entire way up the stairs and to his bedroom. "Dude you should have seen them," he gushed.

"Calm down Romeo you just met them and said like 5 words," Dream rolled his eyes. He let Sapnap continue to ramble though, taking amusement in his friend's new infatuation.

Unsurprisingly Sapnap was indeed back at the pokecenter the next day. You peeked out at the lobby through the doors as you were scooting past, pausing as you spotted Sapnap. He was standing at the counter aimlessly flicking a pamphlet around. You watched as he perked up making eye contact with you.

"Hey, back so soon? Not getting into any more fights are you?" You asked approaching the counter.

"Uh yes. I mean no!" He shook his head rapidly. "I'm- I was just- my chimchar missed you,"

"Your pokemon missed me?" You slowly asked, a grin pulling at your lips.

Sapnap pulled out the familiar pokeball and pushed it into your hands. "Yeah. I mean. He needs a check up- or something," he waved his hand dismissively, clearing his throat. You blinked before offering him a small smile.

"Okay then Sapnap, I'll go make sure your pokemon is in perfect health," you pressed the ball allowing his chimchar to be released. "Come with me, you have an odd trainer," you admitted softly to the small chimp as you led it to the back.

Sapnap watched as you took his pokemon through the doors. As soon as you were out of sight he started formulating his next move. What was that piece of advice Dream gave him? Right. Compliments. That's easy, right? You came back out with his pokeball gracing him once again with your etheral presence.

"Here you go, nothing was wrong and he's in very good shape," you reported, handing it to him.

"Thank you," He cleared his throat. Okay, here he goes. He's got this. "I like your um- I like the way you heal my pokemon," what was that. His confidence was quickly squashed by your soft laugh.

"No! I mean. I like your laugh," he mumbled. His cheeks burned as an embarrassed blush overtook them.

"Thank you,"

he took his pokemon from you and turned quickly to leave. You waved goodbye to the blushing flustered man. Sapnap was mortified. Some advice Dream gave.

"Your advice was shit," was the first thing he said, kicking down the blonde's door for the second time this week.

Dream looked over at him from his usual spot in the kitchen. "Really? A compliment didn't work?" He frowned. "Are you sure you said it correctly?"

Sapnap threw himself down on the couch. "Of course I did,"

"Right...Well if a compliment didn't work how about talking about favorite hobbies and interests?"

Sapnap grimaced, shifting uncomfortably. "Have any other advice?" He asked after a brief awkward pause.

Dream flipped around staring at him with an accusatory glare. "Sapnap,"

"What?"

"You've had a decent conversation with them right?"

"Of course I have! I'm just- looking for a more flirty route," Sapnap exclaimed knowing very well he can barely talk to you without dissolving into a mess.

"Try a pickup line this time. Anyways, what kind of compliment did you use?"

"..."

"Sap?"

"I like the way you heal my pokemon..."

"What's wrong with you?"

At Sapnap's silence, Dream began laughing, wheezing even. "You're an idiot," he said between gasps of breath.

Sapnap groaned attempting to be swallowed by the couch cushions. "Yeah yeah laugh it up, but seriously Dream you gotta help me," the laughter was extinguished quickly.

"You just said my advice was shit,"

Sapnap turned to peer over the back of the couch. "Dude cmon please,"

"puppy eyes don't work, they just look weird," Dream said, frowning.

"I'm serious, help me out, I'll cook for like the next week," "Your cooking sucks,"

Sapnap rolled his eyes. "Okay then... I'll feed patches! For like- the next month. And I'll do some extra chores," Dream crossed his arms in disbelief. Even if he were to help Sapnap there was no doubt that Sapnap would just mess up again. Oh well. At least he'll get fewer chores to do, seems like a win-lose to him. Dream fought the slight smirk on his lips.

"Fine deal, you take care of patches for the next month and extra chores that I tell you and I'll help you plan what to say to them,"

"Deal!" Sapnap exclaimed, shooting up.

It was a genius plan. Sapnap would walk in, go to the counter, see you, toss out the pick-up line Dream told him then immediately lead into the big question. Dream had him repeat it several times. "Would you like to go out to dinner sometime," that's it, super simple stuff.

Yeah. It took him two weeks. Two weeks to gather the courage to even think of asking. But today was the day! Today Sapnap was going to ask you on a date and goddammit he was going to say it right.

Late afternoon Sapnap confidently walked through the pokecenter doors and right up to the counter where you stood with your clipboard.

"Sapnap!" Your face glowed as you saw him. "It's good to see you, how can I help you today?"

Sapnap leaned on the counter mustering a charming smile before speaking "Did I hurt when you crawled from heaven?"

You giggled "What?"

He shook his head. "No! That's not- um-"

Oh god, oh no. That went to shit. What was the next step? Um, a compliment. Wait no it's- walk into the pokecenter! No! It's asking for a date! Ask for a date. He's got this.

"Would you like to-" Sapnap shifted nervously.

Anxious thoughts had begun to fill his head. What if you said no? Or already had a significant other? His eyes darted around searching for a question, any question other than the one his lips refused to let pass. You tilted your head confused.

"-Show me how you take care of the pokemon," he blurted out.

Great job. At this rate, he'd get a first date. About um. Never.

Your eyes lit up as he finished his sentence. "Of course! I could show you-" you began rambling off words that Sapnap could only dream of understanding. He flinched as warmth encased his hand.

"Cmon," you smiled, tugging him towards the back doors.

Butterflies made him almost sick. You were holding his hand as you lead him to your work area. He was ashamed to admit he didn't understand much that you said but dear god he was hooked on every word you chirped.

The way he was looking at you had you fumbling over your words. Like you were the most perfect thing he'd lay eyes on. His company felt- nice.

Sapnap glanced over at the time, heart dropping when he realized hours had passed and he still hadn't asked what he wanted.

"Well it's almost time for the night shift, so I should probably head home," you hopped down from your seat on the counter. He was silent as you walked with him to the front doors. "I know you didn't understand a word I said," you smiled half-heartedly. "But it was nice to have someone to talk about it with,"

Sapnap offered a bashful smile in return. "I guess I'm not the best actor,"

"No, No you are not," you giggled.

"Bye," he said, turning away.

You both headed off in different directions. But the guilt and a voice screamed "do it now!"

Ask. Ask. Ask.

Before he could stop himself, his feet halted, body turning to face you and he called out. "Wait,"

You turned confused. "Hm? Is something wrong? If you forget something inside I'm sure the night nurse can-"

"No, earlier, there was something else I wanted to ask," he said walking closer to you.

Nervous energy was beginning to eat both of you up with every step he took. "I loved talking about the pokemon but that wasn't what I wanted to ask," Sapnap took a deep breath before blurting out a jumbled mess of syllables and noises that made you giggle.

"What was that?"

"Oh for fucks- I wanted to know if you would like to go out..with me..to dinner sometime?" You took a few moments to answer, Sapnap being sick to the stomach with anxious butterflies.

"Of course," you grinned.

"Dinner would be great for a second date,"

Wait a minute. Sapnap blinked. "Second date? When- when was the first?"

"Just now," you waved laughing, as you turned the other way once more. "You're pretty cute Sapnap," you added as you left him standing in the road shocked. "See you tomorrow!"

Sapnap made a sharp noise in celebration, he couldn't wait to run home and tell Dream about what he did without his help.

Damn. Dream's advice really sucks.

#sapnap x reader #mcyt x reader #onyx●scribbles

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