another revealed truth

missed opportunity

trigger warnings listed in opening author's note

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sapnap puts his almost-full water bottle down in front of all the drinks, letting his eyes scan over the options he has as he pulls his phone out of his back pocket.

currently, his water bottle is filled with just lemonade, but the ravenette intends to add some sort of alcohol into it. he's going over to dream's, and being with other people is always more fun when you're tipsy. plus, sapnap's mind has been a little dark today, so being a little intoxicated sounds great about now.

he has to open up his 'i am sober' app first though, so he can rest the timer before having a drink. he'd made an agreement with george and he's keeping to it, despite the fact that he thinks it's sort of unreasonable.

he tries not to think too hard about the three-hour timer on his screen, dismissing how short of a time that really is.

though, right as he is about to reach for some of his dad's orange gin, he pauses at the sound of someone entering the kitchen behind him. he settles instead on picking up the lid to his water bottle to be discreet, seamlessly powering off his phone to hide the sobriety count as he looks back over his shoulder.

"hi sap," his stepdad greets as he makes his way further into the kitchen. the ravenette man walks over to the fridge.

"hi skeppy," sapnap replies, voice a little mumbled. he can't help but be disappointed by the older man ruining his plan, though he doesn't want to show his anger since, in skeppy's point of view, it would be unprompted.

instead, he settles sadly with just screwing the bottle lid back on.

"i feel like we haven't spoken much since you got back, just the two of us, i mean," skeppy says, closing the fridge with a bottle of water in hand and leaning against the counter.

sapnap's brain curses him by whipping up the thought of 'yeah, well i haven't been able to speak to my mom either.' he doesn't say it though, obviously, because his step-dad has nothing to do with his mother's death, and it would be an utterly unreasonable comment. still.

"i've been busy," he says, picking the bottle up and turning to face the older man.

sometimes he feels bad for disliking the innocent man so much, but he can't help the betrayal he feels every time he sees the ravenette. seeing skeppy makes sapnap constantly think about how his dad replaced his mom after she died, even though that's hardly the case.

sometimes he thinks it's a little bit better because skeppy's a man, so it's a little less like bad tried to replace her, but sometimes his gender makes sapnap feel even worse. the ravenette often wonders why bad decided to spend the rest of his life with a man, and sometimes he manages to convince himself that the reason his dad moved on so quickly is because he never loved his mom in the first place, because she's a woman.

he doesn't care that it took his dad three years to start talking to skeppy romantically, or the fact that they were only so close because the ravenette man helped his dad out of his grief and depression.

he doesn't care, he just wants his mom back.

"maybe we should do something when you're free, just the two of us?" his stepdad suggests, stupidly hopeful.