most of you chose to open the gift — enjoy some soft c!snf for your choice :] one more interaction with sapnap, and then george has one last person to talk to before we move to task three with c!dream :DD choose wisely again!
He opens the gift. Obviously. Sapnap’s gift can wait: it’s George’s time to get something nice. Ripping open the paper of the large present, George’s smile drops.
Sapnap bursts into laughter. It makes his eyes shine and nose crinkle in a way it hasn’t since they’d been kids. “Dude, your face.”
“You’re a prick,” George says primly, shoving at his best friend and tearing open more paper, “this is so dumb. You’re so dumb.”
There’s five layers of thick gift wrap, which Sapnap finds hilarious each and every time George rips one off, but eventually George gets to a wooden carved box, and Sapnap’s laughs peter out. All of a sudden, George is nervous.
“Let me guess,” he says dryly, to cover up his tension, “another box inside.”
Sapnap scoffs, but his face is too gentle for it to be a trick. “Open the box, Georgie.”
Georgie. God, it’s been years since Sapnap had called him that. Stifling his resolve, George pulled the lid off the box carefully, and pauses in stunned silence at the sight.
“…D’you know what they are?” Sapnap blurts out, when George’s silence stretches on. He’s unbearably close, and it’s too much, but for some reason, it’s only that close proximity that coaxes a strained breath from George’s lips, hitching just slightly. “I mean… I really didn’t know what to get you. The socks are just a dumb joke in case you need, like, a fake-present. But the pickaxes…”
“I know.” It’s hard to keep his voice even. “Yeah. It’s— the first ever pickaxes me and— me and him ever used.”
It’s like a kick to the teeth, seeing these again. Does he laugh or cry? If Dream hadn’t been pulled back to life, George knows he’d be horrifically embarrassed at his own inevitable tears. Now, he half wants to laugh at the horrible sadness of it all. Dream is alive. George is alive. But the people that made and used and abandoned these pickaxes are long dead. Nothing of them remains.
“If it’s— If it’s a dumb present, I can take them back.” Sapnap says quickly. “I just thought— I dunno. I was walking past what used to be the museum, and I saw one, and I just knew, right, I just knew the other would be close by. It felt… right. It sounds cheesy as hell, but it just felt right.”
George takes a moment to compose himself. When he speaks, it’s through a gaping chasm in his chest. “I like it. I like them. I— No, it’s not— It’s…” He fumbles with his words, and then pulls Sapnap’s present out of his pocket, suddenly flustered. “You’ve made me look like the worst friend ever.”
Sapnap takes it curiously, pulls open the wrapping paper, and bursts into startled, indignant laughter. It thaws the ice immediately. “You dick,” he grins, with no heat in the words, “you’re such an asshole.”
George helps when his present is thrown at his chest, clutching it dramatically. Sure, gifting Sapnap a cheap knockoff MCC trophy after he’d come in third almost this last entire year had been mean, but in his defence, last Christmas Sapnap had gotten him a Jesus-body-pillow.
(“You can pretend you’re hugging that XD guy or whatever,” Sapnap had told him cheerily, laughing at George’s frosty scowl, “Merry Christmas, George.”)
“Merry Christmas,” George sings now, but it ends up sounding softer and sincere when he looks down at the pickaxes again, “thanks, Sapnap. This is a pretty cool gift.”
Sapnap grins. “Thought you might like it. After— Well. After what came to light this year, what with Quackity and…”
Neither of them fill the silence. Sapnap shifts closer as a chill brushes by them, and he’s warm enough to keep them both protected from the icy cold. George cradles the pickaxes close, stares off into the distance in soft silence. Faintly through the mist, he sees the flower field.
S.1. -> BREAK THE SILENCE.
S.2. -> LET SAPNAP BREAK THE SILENCE.
origamiaround
romaincrisis
andulkaphoto
ellievsbear
discoholicmusic
2087
snowghoul
stormborns
