Chapter Text
Dream’s farm wasn’t anything too impressive from what Sapnap had seen. He had a few small fields, mostly just for beans and other things that grew close to the ground, as well as a single young calf in the barn in the back.
For as long as Sapnap had known Dream, he hadn’t been a farmer or even had a green thumb. As kids, the two had spent countless hours inside together, playing and coding games on whatever half-off, bargain bin computers they could make.
That didn’t mean they never went outside, they scrapped their fair share of knees and tumbled down enough hills they shouldn’t have been climbing, but they’d both loved computers.
That early exposure to technology was probably what led Dream down the path of getting a job in computer science and engineering. It was a growing field and Dream was early on the mark, so it wasn’t exactly a surprise that any income the farm brought wasn’t needed to keep the lights on. Maybe if he’d needed more money, he would’ve actually made something out of it.
What was impressive, however, was how unlucky Dream was.
"I swear, they promised— promised me —that I had this weekend off." Dream groaned loudly, slamming his hastily packed suitcase shut.
Sapnap leaned against Dream’s desk, watching as his friend straightened out his bedsheets. "You should tell 'em that you can't go. I mean, they can't summon you halfway across the country out of nowhere."
Dream didn't reply as he looked around the bedroom, scanning over the overstuffed bookshelves to the box of computer wires in the corner to the desk. Facing Sapnap now, it was obvious how exhausted he was, black circles under his eyes and a split in his lip from where he’d been chewing on it—but given that he now had to be on a plane within the hour with no warning, Sapnap wasn't gonna comment on it.
Dream sighed and marched over to Sapnap’s side, grabbing something from behind him on the desk.
"It's my job." Dream said, stepping back with his laptop charger. "And I can't lose it."
"You have to complain!"
If Dream wouldn't, Sapnap certainly would. He and Dream had planned weeks ago to have this get together, it was just unfair for something like this to get sprung on them twenty minutes after Sapnap had arrived.
Karl and Quackity were both visiting family for cousins’ birthdays, and while Sapnap had been okay with using his vacation days to visit Dream and not all three of them, it was a slap in the face for Dream to have to leave too. That just left Sapnap in this town he didn't live in.
And with Tommy, of course—though while he was a cool kid and fun to hang out with, Sapnap would've preferred getting to actually see his friend and not just babysit his adopted godson.
Still, despite it all, Sapnap was gonna keep his mood up. He was determined to at least enjoy his trip, even if he wasn't gonna do much. God forbid he wasted his vacation days.
"Oh, I'm gonna complain, but I still have to go." Dream laughed, the corners of his eyes creasing.
Dream slammed his suitcase shut once more and clicked the locks, pulling it off of his bed. Hastily, he turned and Sapnap followed him into the hall, pausing for a second to look back at the room.
"So if you're gone and I don't have a key for Karl and Q's—"
"Don't sleep in my bed." Dream snapped his head back, face squished into a glare.
Sapnap raised his hands up defensively. "I'm just saying,"
Dream went down the hall rather than to the entrance of the house, and Sapnap followed him to the furthest, already half open door. Without as much as knocking, Dream pushed it open and stepped into the small bedroom with Sapnap by his side.
Tommy was awkwardly splayed out on the floor, chin pressed into a pillow as he stared at a notebook placed in front of him. His head shot up as the door creaked, his pencil dragging on the paper.
Before he could get a word out, Dream crossed his arms with a sigh.
“Tommy, what have we talked about?” He chided, titling his head as Tommy simply rolled his eyes.
“It’s more comfortable—”
“I do not care.” Dream stepped across the room and bent down, pulling Tommy’s pillow out from under his chin. He held it up and frowned at the kid. “Now, this needs to be washed. And what else have we talked about?”
Tommy groaned, letting his forehead hit the carpet as he turned his head to the side to rest against the ground. Sapnap huffed a chuckle, reminded all too well of his own parents and how he’d refused to listen to them.
“Tommy.” Dream stressed, and Tommy looked back up, eyes pulled into a glare.
“Do my homework at the desk, I know. ”
“Don’t talk to me like that.”
Tommy rested his cheeks in his hands, smirking as he looked between Sapnap and Dream. “What are you going to do about it?”
Dream paused for a moment, just briefly snapping his gaze towards Sapnap from the corner of his eye, before he sighed and tossed the pillow onto Tommy’s back.
“Clean that, and behave while I’m gone, okay?”
Tommy's expression shifted quickly, his eyes widening as he sat up and let the pillow fall back onto the floor. "Wait, you're going?"
"It's just for a few days." Sapnap cut in with a smile, a teasing tone already tempting to slip from his lips. "I'm gonna be your babysitter."
"What? I'm thirteen, I don't need a babysitter. "
Dream shook his head with a soft laugh, turning and patting Sapnap on the shoulder. He looked down at his suitcase. "I've got everything I need. I should go if I want to make my flight."
Sapnap nodded, turning as well to follow Dream before his friend paused and glanced back at Tommy.
"You're gonna behave, right?" Dream tilted his head. "You know I've got eyes everywhere."
Sapnap held back the urge to roll his eyes, very used to the light tone and harmless threat that his mother and every teacher he'd ever had would say at any given chance.
"I know." Tommy answered, turning back to his homework with a resigned sigh.
Dream smiled and continued out of the room and down the hall to the front door, leaving the house with a wave which Sapnap returned. With that curt goodbye, Dream was gone.
The entrance hall was small, open to a room on either side, and as the fall air rolled in through the open living room window, Sapnap sighed.
He didn’t have a single clue as to what he was going to do. It wasn't like he could go sightseeing in a town smaller than a dot on a state map, and even if he wanted to, there'd be no point. He had been around Melba enough to know practically everything of note.
Maybe he'd stop by Quackity's shop and see if Charlie had anything cool to offer him. Last time, he had spotted a very enticing sword, nothing practical but quite the decor. Maybe he'd even get a friends and family discount, too.
But for the time being there wasn’t much to do. It was already late; from the window, Sapnap could see the distant September sun starting to set.
Sapnap thought about it for a moment longer, eventually settling to act on the fact that he was a bit hungry. He hadn’t had much of a lunch considering he’d been driving all damn day.
Maybe it'd be best to start dinner. Sapnap was not much of a cook but he had survived on his own for most of his uni years—he’d only ever gotten food poisoning once George and Dream had moved in. Once they'd hit third year, it had been George, Dream, and Sapnap; the inseparable dream team of passable cooks.
Of course Quackity and Karl had joined in just a little later, and the five of them together was insane, but there'd been something special about just George and Dream and Sapnap.
They'd clicked, instantly, in a way Sapnap hadn’t known except for one occasion—when he’d first met Dream.
A little league baseball game where after a crushing victory, Sapnap had spotted a kid from the other team crying. And for some reason, when he saw that one kid, he didn't want to gloat or lord his win over him. Sapnap had instead marched over and given him his popsicle—a peace offering.
Of course, in the long run it meant nothing, as that kid had been crying over the fact that he'd just found out he’d just lost both his parents to a car crash, not that he'd lost a game. But to some little league baseball players, it was a temporary fix.
And so, Sapnap and Dream was born. And years later, George and Dream and Sapnap.
Strange how despite the team and the bond they’d had, Sapnap found himself alone now, babysitting.
Speaking of babysitting—
Sapnap hurried back to Tommy's room, rapping his knuckles along the open door. Sitting at his desk now, hunched over his blank notebook and chewing on his pencil was Tommy, who looked back at Sapnap.
"You got any suggestions for dinner or are we freestyling it?"
Tommy shrugged. "We have—like—pasta."
"Eh, anything else?"
"We have frozen pizza?"
Sapnap snapped his fingers. "That's good."
Sapnap spun around and returned to the kitchen and began to root around in the freezer. Sure enough, at the bottom, there were three frozen pizzas. Sapnap skipped over the other simpler types and grabbed a cheeseburger pizza—a bit of a treat.
There probably had to be some chips around, and if there weren't, the general store was only a couple minutes away. Dream was always insistent that Tommy was too hard to handle when he was hopped up on sweets, so to avoid any upset, Sapnap got pop and chips and jerky. Junk food, yes, but not sweets.
Man, Sapnap used to rebel in cooler ways. Getting a bunch of unhealthy food against his friend’s wishes was fun, sure, but his prime days of messing around had passed.
Free running, tagging, he and Dream had even once hotwired their dean’s car—they were caught immediately by the dean ten seconds after turning the engine on, and luckily got off with just a slap on the wrist, but still—Sapnap used to be the coolest.
Of course, he grew up, and the majority of those things went from being the ‘cool rebel activity' to a serious crime punishable by fines that Sapnap didn’t want to have to pay.
It kind of sucked, being an adult adult. Sapnap was in his thirties but he still felt like a twenty two year old.
His best friend had a son who was technically a teenager, he’d been engaged for ten years —Sapnap would’ve married Karl and Quackity a long time ago, it already felt like they were married, but they’d made a promise to each other that they’d all live together before they got married. Which, given how Quackity had lived in Nevada for a long time and now Sapnap’s dogshit excuse for a boss, didn’t pan out.
It still felt weird to have hindsight on growing up. It felt weird to see someone like Tommy, a grimey and loud thirteen year old, and see him like a cool friend, a godson he wanted to take care of rather than a brat who bothered him all the time.
Maybe Sapnap was just cooler than the adults he’d met in his teenage years, or maybe it had something to do with how much cooler Tommy was than most kids. The kid was an excitable little dude, when all was said and all was done.
Had Dream not decided to be strict with how he was raising the kid, Sapnap would've taught him everything he knew years ago. Everything from how to sneak out to parties to how to pick up girls—a skill that Sapnap had been surprised to find he never ended up using. Either way, Tommy would have learned it all, and maybe one day he still would, when or if Dream backed off a bit.
The oven timer beeped and Sapnap grabbed the tray with his bare hand, moving and spinning the pizzas around.
That was another thing on his mind, actually; Dream's parenting. It was clear that he was strict and a bit overbearing, but Sapnap couldn't help but see it as loving. Sure, he didn't let Tommy go out to parties—hypothetically, since Tommy didn’t get invited to parties—but he was making sure the kid would have a good future.
Even now, as Sapnap brushed his hands off and looked around, he could see the proof that Dream cared. Just to his left on the side of the fridge was a photograph, held up by the same magnet holding up a shopping list. It was one of the few personal items Dream kept around the house, the minimalist ass that he was. His house looked like shit, if Sapnap were to be crass, but the photo was sweet. Candid, too.
Taken by Karl, it was of Dream kneeling beside Tommy on a dock, the two of them with bright smiles as they held up their fishes to show each other what they'd caught. They seriously looked like father and son, despite the fact that they both despised those titles, all dressed up in their matching lifejackets.
That photo had been taken on a good trip. Sapnap couldn't remember the last he'd seen Dream smile that much. And Quackity and Karl had laughed and played along to the games and stupid activities—it was warm, really. That was all Sapnap could find to describe the memory.
Mentally, he marked down that they'd have to take another trip out to that lake soon. He couldn't believe it'd been years—Tommy must've only been nine or ten.
Tommy had smiled and laughed just as well.
The timer beeped again and Sapnap shook himself from his thoughts. He moved the pizzas once more and flicked on the TV, letting his brain fall into the comfortable background noise of his favourite show.
"So," Sapnap began, tapping the side of his plate. "Any last summer plans before school?"
"Not really," Tommy mumbled through a mouthful of chips, his other 'clean' hand scrolling through the piles of Blu-rays in front of him.
“No? No… friend meetups? No drug deals or shootouts?”
Tommy held up the case for an animated movie, looking back at Sapnap expectantly. Sapnap didn’t recognize the movie and shrugged in response.
Tommy threw it back down. “Nah, I’m not getting into any shootouts or buying drugs. I sell the drugs, Sapnap, people come to me.”
Sapnap hummed and took another bite of his pizza, leaning forward to look at the pile. “Ah, you’re the supplier, very nice.”
“Hell yeah!” Tommy smiled. “And I don’t get into shootouts because nobody wants to kill me. I’m too hot! Plus I’ve already killed anyone who did want to.”
“Oh, really?” Sapnap drew his words out, watching as Tommy proudly nodded. He chuckled softly. “What if I was here to shoot you?”
“Then I’d kill you. Stupid.”
“How would you do that?” Sapnap raised a brow.
He watched as Tommy pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes, grabbing another movie from the pile and looking over it. When the boy seemed stumped for an answer to his question, Sapnap chuckled softly and sat back against the couch, letting his eyes trail to the clock on the wall.
It was already half past eight, and everything in front of them was at least an hour and a half. It’d be better if Tommy went to bed sooner rather than later, just so that Sapnap could also pass out.
He glanced back at Tommy, ready to tell him to hurry up his selection process just a bit, before he was struck in the face by a blu-ray case. The spine smacked into his nose bridge and fell to the ground.
“Agh! Tommy!” Sapnap shouted out in shock, grabbing his face as he glared at the kid. Tommy, in turn, was clearly laughing and covering his smile with his hands.
“That’s—” Tommy squeaked a laugh, “—that’s how I’d kill you!”
With a groan, Sapnap sat up straight and set his plate and bag of chips down on the coffee table. He rubbed his nose and the pain dulled after a moment or two, but the righteous and exaggerated fury in him didn’t.
“You little shit!” Sapnap barely contained a chuckle as he leapt off the couch. Tommy was too slow to dive away and Sapnap managed to grab him, hoisting the flailing mess of limbs up into the air.
Sapnap struggled to keep Tommy in his arms as the kid tried to free himself. He fought against the boy, tossing him up and over his shoulder. He threw on his best announcer voice as he began to march around the living room with Tommy demanding to be released.
“Who's that with the ball? It’s number seven!”
“You’ll never take me alive!” Tommy laughed.
Sapnap continued to march around the coffee table. “He’s at the fifty yard line—twenty five!”
Sapnap rushed over to the couch, shouting out as he heaved Tommy up into the air and slammed him down onto the cushions. “And touchdown for Sapnap Panda!”
He continued to cheer for himself as he stood back up straight, flexing his arms as he posed. Tommy, from where he was laughing and catching his breath on the couch, instantly kicked a leg out and nailed Sapnap in the stomach.
Sapnap doubled over, a sharp strike of pain wracking through him as he clutched his front.
“Hey, legs are cheating!” He groaned.
“Nuh-uh! There’s no rules in murder!”
Sapnap shoved Tommy’s legs to the side before making the ingenious choice to sit down on top of them.
“Oi!” Tommy began to whack Sapnap with his arms.
Sapnap easily fended him off. “No rules.”
After another moment of struggling, Tommy conceited defeat, letting himself go limp against the cushions. “Whatever, you suck anyways, prick.”
Sapnap smiled softly. “Did you pick a movie yet?”
“No,” Tommy answered sheepishly as Sapnap moved off of his legs. “I’ve seen them all, like, six hundred times. They’re fucking boring , Sapnap. I want new shit.”
Sapnap considered it for a moment. It was way too late to go ask one of Tommy’s friends—assuming he had them, the kid was really sheltered—to borrow a movie, and Sapnap didn’t really feel like driving to see if Charlie had anything to offer them.
Dream didn’t have any streaming services, and Sapnap couldn’t hook his phone up to the TV—plus, Dream took his laptop with him. They didn’t exactly have any other choices.
"Well, I think we're stuck with 'em. How about you pick your favourite and if I haven't seen it, we'll watch it?"
Tommy huffed but crawled off the couch, pulling some action movie out of the pile. Sapnap didn't know it, so Tommy quickly put the disc in the player as Sapnap gathered up his plate and bag of chips from where he'd put them down on the coffee table. A moment later, Tommy joined him on the couch, snacks and supper in hand all the same.
The movie was fun—Sapnap couldn't say it was a marvel of cinema but it was silly and full of explosions, and most importantly he and Tommy both seemed to have enjoyed it.
Sapnap didn't have to look at the clock to know it was late. He could feel it in his eyes, how each blink was heavy and revealed a dark and cold world with a menu playing over and over again.
Sapnap turned the TV off with the click of a button and gently shook Tommy, the boy already half asleep.
"C'mon kid, up and at 'em. You gotta brush your teeth and get to bed."
Tommy mumbled something incoherently but slid off the couch and onto his feet.
Sapnap shut his eyes and let his head fall back against the couch, patting Tommy on the back as he walked by. He sat in the empty and dark room, listening for a few minutes to the sounds of the house—the fridge humming, the cicadas outside making a loud racket, a cricket from somewhere in the kitchen that Dream had complained about for hours on the phone.
Tommy's footfalls were surprisingly soft on both the carpet and hardwood, and Sapnap listened as Tommy closed a door, turned the tap on and off as he brushed his teeth, and finally opened a door again, muttered a soft goodnight which Sapnap returned, and closed another door—his bedroom.
Sapnap slid down on the couch, briefly glancing at the crumpled chip bags, dirty plates, and empty soda cans strewn about. Things for the morning, he figured as he shoved a pillow under his head and closed his eyes, falling into the silence.
Sapnap waited, for an amount of time he didn't feel like counting, to be greeted by sleep.
Though his mind wandered and he grew heavy as though he were being dragged into unconsciousness, Sapnap remained awake.
It was around forty minutes later, as read the clock on his phone, that Sapnap decided he wasn't going to sleep like this.
It wouldn't be the first time he'd struggled to fall asleep, but it would be the first time in a while.
Maybe it was the couch. Give him his own bed back home or the bed he would share with his fiances whenever he came to Melba and he'd be out like a dad in an armchair. Maybe the couch just wasn't familiar enough, or the smell of Dream's house was too foreign, or knowing he wasn't alone was keeping him up.
Either way, Sapnap sat back up, tiredly turning the TV on and keeping the volume all the way down. He flipped to the satellite channels, scrolling until he found a suitable one—a sports channel showing football highlights.
The harsh and bright light of the screen was hell on his eyes, but Sapnap just squinted and kept it on. The quiet droll of the announcer combined with the clips made for entertainment, which was really all he wanted. Even if the plays they were showing were real bottom of the barrel; not all games could be highlight worthy, which was probably why they stuck these ones at the two AM slot—Jesus, two AM?
Sapnap sighed. He really had lost track of time after sitting up. He might have passed out for a few minutes too, every now and again.
Maybe Dream had melatonin or something in the kitchen.
Sapnap stood with a groan, palms pressed hard into his knees as he wobbled for a moment. He made it into the kitchen and began to check the cupboards, searching for a sleeping pill in the light of the TV creeping over the half-walls.
The show really wasn't loud, and from the kitchen, Sapnap easily heard the sound of a door opening from inside the house. He paused for a moment before returning to the hall, finding himself facing a rather startled looking Tommy.
"Oh—hey." Sapnap muttered, looking the kid up and down. "You, uh… is something wrong? Is the TV too loud?"
Tommy shook his head after a moment, turning to face the living room. He paused and stared at the TV.
Sapnap couldn't really get a read on Tommy right now, and his mouth decided what to do before he did. "Yeah, sports channel. It's pretty boring at this hour, but—you know, prime time games are awesome. You like sports?"
Tommy shrugged. "I've never played any."
"Oh, you'd kill at long jump. Volleyball too. Look how—long you are!" He exclaimed softly, tapping Tommy's arm. That got a laugh outta the kid, which Sapnap was a bit glad for. He didn't know why Tommy was awake, but Dream had mentioned something about the kid having nightmares recently and Sapnap wasn't equipped for something like that.
"Yeah, I'd be the best at all sports." Tommy said, walking around Sapnap into the living room. "'Cause I'm so fucking big. Biggest man out there. They'd all cower at the sight of me."
His voice seemed to lack the regular bravado it had, but Sapnap blamed it on the hour. Sapnap laughed along softly and glanced back at the cupboards, deciding to end his unfruitful quest to find sleeping pills. He joined Tommy on the couch, sitting down as Tommy continued to ramble about how he'd be stronger than all his competitors one day.
Sapnap nodded along, enjoying the strange minute of peace, sitting and watching shitty sports with Tommy.
After a moment, however, the room fell to the silence of the announcer speaking, a sound that barely felt like one.
Sapnap thought they were both just tired at first, but as the minute stretched into two then three, he began to feel an awkward tension growing.
Before he could ask about it, probe further into why Tommy was awake, Tommy spoke.
"You remind me of my brother," he mumbled, eyes still transfixed on the bright screen in the dark.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. He was cool like you. Super fucking cool."
Sapnap smiled softly. "Well, I'm glad I remind you of him."
While he wasn't lying about being glad, hell, maybe even proud, Sapnap felt a worry creeping up on him. Why was Tommy bringing this up?
"Can I ask you something, Big S?"
"Fire away," Sapnap yawned, settling back against the couch.
Tommy paused for a moment, hands firmly sat in his lap, his bright eyes illuminated by the blue glow of the screen.
"Let's say you had a friend, and they were secretly doing something bad and you found out. Would you still like them?"
Weird time for hypotheticals, but Sapnap shrugged. "I guess it depends what they're doing."
"Well—" Tommy paused once more, this time looking at Sapnap. "They're really well liked in your friend group and everyone else thinks they're cool. But you know that they're… bullying someone else. What do you do?"
Sapnap decided to play along with Tommy's game, blinking himself awake as he tried to figure out what Tommy's angle was.
"So, we're kids?"
"Sure—and the kid that's being bullied is, like, in the grade below."
Sapnap hummed. "Well, it depends. How is he bullying the kid? Does the kid deserve it?"
Dream would probably hate Sapnap for that one. Teaching a thirteen year old about to go to school for the first time that sometimes it was okay to be a bully probably wasn't a lesson he was looking to teach.
Tommy tore his gaze away from Sapnap for a moment, staring blankly at the couch cushions before he settled on an answer.
"Yeah, he deserves it."
Sapnap brushed past that, too tired to focus on whatever it meant. "M'kay, how is he being bullied?"
Another pause. "Your friend punches him and takes his lunch and pushes him into—tiny lockers."
"He deserves that?"
Tommy nodded after a moment. “He does a bunch of shit ‘n—he’s really annoying too. Loud.”
"Alright," Sapnap continued. "I'd probably tell my friend to leave him alone and say sorry. And if he didn't stop, I'd stop hanging out with him and tell him to fuck off, I guess. Beating someone up is a lot for school drama."
"Okay." Tommy muttered, turning back to the TV like he hadn't said anything.
"Can I ask you something, Big T?" Sapnap echoed Tommy’s words, watching the kid’s expression subtly shift.
"Sure,"
"Why are you asking me about this?"
Tommy once more hesitated in giving an answer, stuttering for a minute before he eventually decided on simply explaining that he was worried about school.
"That's such a specific situation to worry about."
"I'm a specific guy, what can I say?” Tommy laughed sharply, his voice cutting through the softness of the night unpleasantly. He seemed to notice how Sapnap’s expression soured if how he cut himself off was any indication.
Sapnap sighed. In any other case, he would’ve just assumed Tommy was in that exact situation, but considering once more that the kid had never even set foot inside a school as best he knew, not to mention he didn’t have any friends to have such a situation with, Sapnap was a bit at a loss for what to do.
And why was he asking? The school thing had to be a lie.
“Well, I never got bullied.” Sapnap lied, straightening himself. “But if you’re really all that worried about it happening to you or a friend, it’s really easy to deal with.”
“Yeah?” Tommy’s voice was low and soft, a contrast to that shouty and squeaky kid Sapnap had been messing with a few hours ago. Strangely, Tommy sounded kinda hopeful, like this really was a deep concern of his.
Sapnap simply nodded, continuing on. “Yeah, real easy—tell someone.”
Tommy stared at Sapnap for a moment, the slight joy on his face fading into a look of annoyance. “You’re so dumb, Sapnap. Nobody tells people. I'm not a little snitch, that’s loser stuff!”
“Hey, no, it’s really not.” And if Sapnap even tried to play along with Tommy for the joke, because it would be much more fun than a serious conversation, Dream would have his head. “It’s what you need to do. Seriously, man!”
Sapnap reached out, setting an arm down on Tommy’s shoulder. “You gotta understand, little dude; if someone is actually punching you and stuff, you need to tell someone, alright? It doesn’t make you a loser to tell on someone.”
“Adults don't do anything.” Tommy grumbled, and despite his words being something only a child could say, they sounded like the words of someone much older. “They let people get away with stuff like that and then I’d just be the loser who told and—and then they’re gonna hit me more. I thought you’d just tell me where to punch them to win a fight 'cause I thought you were cool.”
"I am cool," Sapnap said, “and cool people pick their battles. It's not snitching when they're punching down."
Tommy lifted his legs onto the couch and pressed his face into his knees, grumbling to himself as he stared out at the TV.
The room once more lapsed into silence and Sapnap returned to watching TV. After a few minutes, Tommy began to mumble once more.
“Hmm?” Sapnap glanced at Tommy, seeing how his expression had once more become something vulnerable, eyebrows knit together as he chewed on his lip.
Tommy huffed a sigh, looking at Sapnap from the corner of his eyes. "I said—you said—it's good to tell people when… something bad's happening."
"Yeah?"
Could this be it—an answer to why Tommy was awake? Maybe he was willing to tell Sapnap about his nightmares or whatever was bothering him.
Dream did say he never spoke about them but Tommy had just compared Sapnap to his brother—that was something pretty personal for him. The kid rarely talked about his family and Dream said the pure mention of them could send him into a spiral. It was a lot, and Sapnap felt trusted.
He hoped he was trusted.
"Dream…” Tommy began roughly, his voice shaking as he breathed. “Sometimes, when things… he—"
The kitchen phone rang.
Sapnap shot up at the noise, Tommy's words falling flat under the sharp ringing. The kid quieted himself, barely half a word more escaping him.
Sapnap excused him and hurried over to the phone. Who the hell would be calling so late?
Picking up the landline, Sapnap read the name and number, grumbling softly when he saw 'DREAM - Cell' in bright green letters. He held the phone up to his ear, facing the wall.
"Let me guess—you forgot your phone charger."
Dream sighed loudly, a clear exhaustion dragging his words down as he spoke. "No. I forgot that a paper I've been working on doesn't have a digital copy."
"How is anything at your job not digitised yet?"
Dream simply groaned and ignored Sapnap’s words. "I just need you to go into my office and find the page with the blue trim, and tell me the account numbers."
Sapnap hummed and walked into the hall, quickly entering Dream's office and flicking on the light. He grimaced at the brightness, rubbing his eyes with one hand.
"Dude, aren’t you ahead of me? What time is it there?"
Dream sighed. "It's six am. I really need that paper."
"Yeah, yeah, I'm getting it."
Sapnap continued his search of the desk, eventually finding the page much to Dream's delight. Despite how his tiredness blurred the tiny words, Sapnap managed to read out the right numbers before he and Dream shared a quick goodbye.
Sapnap returned to the kitchen, exhausted but glad to be in the dark once more. He set the phone down and glanced back at the living room, surprised to see nothing but the glow of the TV.
Weird. Had Tommy gone to bed?
In any other case, Sapnap would've shrugged and turned the TV off. He would’ve walked right back over to the couch and fallen asleep, content with believing that Tommy had just been worried about school. After all, who wouldn’t have been in his position? A thirteen year old boy with no friends or family who’d been born into an abusive and broken household, homeschooled and raised by a man he didn’t trust—it was surprising Tommy was even taking it as well as he was.
But Sapnap didn’t. He stopped in the hall and looked down towards Tommy’s bedroom.
Because in between the mumbled words of a half asleep man and the confusing ramblings of a tired boy, there’d been one little thing that managed to slip through. It was not Tommy’s worries about the future nor his fear of making and losing friends, but the last sound that had made its way into Sapnap’s mind before the phone had overtaken the room.
Hits me.
Sapnap may have been distracted by the phone’s yelling, and Tommy may have fallen silent, but that didn’t stop that one little sound from slipping out of his mouth before it could be stopped.
Hits me.
Sapnap was sure he misheard. He was tired. He hadn’t been paying attention and the phone and TV had been on the forefront of his mind.
Maybe, even if Sapnap heard it right, Tommy had been making a really shitty joke. It was always possible.
Though Tommy knew better than to joke about something like this too. He had lived it.
Sapnap sighed and marched down the hall once more, stopping in front of Tommy’s door and rapping his knuckles against the wood.
“Tommy?” He asked, listening as a muffled response came after a moment. “Can I come in?”
“Sure thing, big man.” Tommy mumbled through a yawn, and Sapnap pushed the door open.
Tommy was in his bed, practically buried under the sheet and blanket and barely visible except for a few puffs of blond hair. Sapnap left the lights off and walked over to the kid, sitting down on the bed.
Tommy remained under the blankets, not looking back at him. Sapnap sighed, unsure where to start such a conversation.
There was no way Tommy had actually said that, since there was no way Dream would do stuff like that. Still, just hearing it put Sapnap on edge.
He’d be irresponsible not to pursue further, not to mention that Quackity and Karl would probably give him hell if he didn’t have a full story to tell of his weird night at Dream’s.
“Sorry about the call, Dream just needed a paper for work.”
Tommy yawned again, shimmying up a bit. “All cool.”
“Yeah—you were telling me something, though?”
Tommy paused at Sapnap’s words, his eyes just peeking out from behind the blanket. He stared down Sapnap in the dark, the golden light from the hall shining against the soft blue.
“Did you—did you hear what I said?”
“Not really.”
“Oh,” Tommy chirped, sitting up properly and letting the blanket fall off of him. “I just, uh… I’ve got it rough, big S. I have to go to school .”
Sapnap nodded, not really listening as Tommy started up his ramblings, this time going on a tangent about his thoughts on school and how it would take up his time.
Once Tommy reached a pause, Sapnap cut in.
“I just thought I heard you say something about Dream, like, uh—” Sapnap breathed sharply. “Hitting you.”
“Hitting me?!” Tommy nearly shouted. “No! No way in hell, Sapnap, what’s wrong with you, man? I said ‘pitting me’ .”
“What does that mean?”
Tommy rolled his eyes at Sapnap’s quite reasonable question, if he could say so.
“You’re so stupid, man. He’s pitting me against the other kids at school! Look at all the work he’s giving me.” Tommy gestured to his desk full of books and papers. “It’s like he wants me to be as good as them but he knows I’m gonna be behind. It sucks.”
Pitting.
That was a relief. God forbid Sapnap hadn't misheard.
Finally able to breathe again, Sapnap sighed and slapped a hand down on Tommy's shoulder. "Alright, well, glad to hear that."
"That Dream is treating me like I should be as good as the people who have headstarts?"
"Well, not… that." Sapnap winced, thinking for a moment. "Look, I can talk to him, if you want."
"Nah, man. I can handle it. I don’t wanna make it a whole thing, I just… he’s a bit of a dick sometimes." Tommy answered.
Sapnap stood, nodding along to Tommy’s words. "Yeah, but he’s doing his best. He cares. He’ll lay off it if you ask nicely."
Maybe Sapnap should've pushed a little harder, but he was exhausted and Tommy seemed fine. Besides, Dream was stubborn but he was understanding when it came to it. If the work was too much and the stress was getting to him, Tommy hopefully knew could speak to Dream.
The trust might not have been there, but Sapnap knew it would be when it mattered.
After all, Sapnap trusted Dream despite how much that trust had been tested. Tommy could learn to do that too.
“Where have you been?!” Karl asked quickly, sounding strangely out of breath as he shouted.
Sapnap adjusted the phone on his shoulder as he flinched back at the yelling, unprepared for the intensity. Sure, he’d missed a few calls and a phelora of messages, but this felt extreme.
“My phone died yesterday, sorry. I had to buy a new charger, I actually couldn’t find mine.” Sapnap laughed softly, looking over the sea of cardboard boxes in his living room as he tapped yet another one shut. “Babe, I’m almost done packing. Can this wait, like, ten minutes? I’ll be on the road and see you guys soon enough.”
“Dream was arrested!” Quackity shouted through the phone.
Sapnap’s hands stuttered, the tape dispenser crossing over itself.
“What?” He asked incredulously, staring at his phone like that would make the response come quicker. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, it’s all anyone is talking about.” Karl replied, quickly cut off by Quackity.
“It’s fucking insane, man!”
Sapnap struggled to find a single thing to ask. He’d just been preparing to move in his fiances and have a great Christmas, everything was fucking perfect, what the hell was this?
“Do we—like, arrested? Do we need a lawyer or—or bail money?”
“Oh my god.” Karl exclaimed softly, clearly speaking away from the phone. “Quackity, the—”
“Holy shit.”
Sapnap ran a hand through his hair, doing his best to keep his hands from shaking. “Guys, what’s going on? I need you guys to explain shit right now.”
“Turn on the news.” Quackity muttered.
“That’s not—guys—”
“Turn on the damn news!” Both of them shouted through the phone, the sound peaking loudly. Sapnap groaned and held it away from his ear, finding his TV remote as quick as he could, glad that he had left it to the end to be packed up.
Sapnap flicked through the channels to the news, listening to his fiances’ panicked ramblings as he tried to understand them.
“Karl, Quackity, what the hell is going on?”
“Are you watching?” Karl asked, to which Sapnap quickly confirmed he was.
The news channel flickered to life, a bright red breaking news banner across the bottom. As the word Melba passed by, Sapnap felt his blood run cold.
“—found not by the police, but his brother who he’d been secretly contacting. We’ve yet to be told how he did such a thing, but police and the victims’ family are refusing to comment.” The female reporter spoke, glancing at her co-worker.
The other reporter quickly took her place, continuing as the call fell silent.
“That’s right, but we have received insider information from local sources regarding this case. It first began in 2007 when the victims, aged two and eight, were taken from a park in southern Nevada and kept in north-west Washington state. The elder of the two boys managed to escape captivity after several years, but the younger of the two, Thomas, was considered legally dead. Now marking fourteen years after the original kidnapping, he has been found in the care of a man by the name of Dream, believed to be the perpetrator. We haven’t received a last name for this man, or any crucial information, but—”
Static echoed through the phone.
God knows how long after simply staring at the screen, the empty hum of the reporter’s voices filling the air, Karl spoke. His voice was hollow, a tense pressure in Sapnap’s head that stopped him from even hearing the words.
“Sapnap?”
Sapnap’s phone slipped from his hand and cracked against the floor.