Lionhearts ||Skephalo||

12

This time, it's Skeppy who jerks awake from Bad's plight, not with a scream like George, but with a whimper, in a cold sweat.
He looks around the wagon, searching for any explanation of the touch he had certainly felt. Not finding anyone, he leans back, and then realizes- he's not finding anyone touching him. Including Sapnap, who had fallen asleep leaned against him, but is now gone.
Skeppy closes his eyes, leaning on his hand.

...He probably is sick again.

Slowly, he inches out to the darkness outside of the wagon, looking around for the other.
There's nothing but a smoke-tinged breeze that blows through, causing Skeppy to cough softly.
He searches around the wagon for his friend, and after several minutes, he finds nothing, no sign of him.

As he heads back into the wagon though, he collides with someone who seemed to be running- and of course, it's Sapnap, who yelps before sprawling back, covering his mouth, luminescent eyes wide and rapidly dimming to brown once more.

"Sapnap, what the fuck?" Skeppy hisses, pulling him to his feet, "Why were you-"
Sapnap punches his arm, none too gently, and holds a finger to his lips. He points in the direction he'd come from, and Skeppy stiffens, seeing some outlines of staggering zombified beings that had invaded the village. Sapnap drags him into the wagon, and whispers,

"They're mostly blind. They hunt by touch, sound and vibrations. I had to go out when I was throwing up, and I saw them up there. I think they're after the kids. So shhhhh."
Skeppy clamps his mouth shut, watching them stagger by. He does whisper to Sapnap,

"Shouldn't we kill them? They could kill some innocent traveler and that would be horrible."
Sapnap shrugs.

"We're not the ones getting eaten in that scenario."
The other's selfish, amoral take on it stings, and Skeppy draws his sword.

"They're easy to kill, it won't be hard," he insists, and Sapnap grabs his wrist in a virtual chokehold.

"If you kill them, they'll know that we were here, and that the targets are also here," he growls, "They'll send more. The risk of some travelers getting their faces ripped off is nothing compared to the situation of us actually being targeted for protecting them."
Skeppy grumbles, the idea of allowing them to roam freely and wreak havoc as they please not sitting well with him.
But he has to admit Sapnap has a point, after all...he isn't ready to fight against something powerful. He pauses.

"...why would he send people after those two?" Something about it doesn't make sense, doesn't seem clear cut enough for him. "Weren't they friends?"
Sapnap's mouth curves into a wry grin, and he says quietly,

"Go to sleep, Skeppy. Don't trouble your pretty head over this all, I've got it handled."

The condescending tone he uses is a gauntlet thrown down between them; a challenge, a dare, tempting him to snap back and fight Sapnap, and at the same time, he knows he should let it go. Let sleeping dogs lay and all that.
He swallows his pride and mutters an insult to himself, curling back into his position, hand now on his dagger.

Ready to draw if needed.

For some reason, the way Sapnap perches, silhouetted by the dim light outside, sets Skeppy on edge. They're friends, but somehow Skeppy has no doubt that if Sapnap needed to kill him to fulfill his goal, he would be dead on the ground in an instant.
His friend has a grey moral code at best, he concludes, closing his eyes, drifting back into an uneasy sleep.
He dreams of mouths full of fangs, dripping saliva, and creatures lurking.
He feels like at some point he opens his eyes to see something staring at him, but it's hard to tell- his dreams are oddly real and uncomfortable.

* * *

Skeppy comes to in the morning to feel a little tongue lapping at his cheek; he's slumped to the ground in his sleep, and Fundy is insistently licking his cheek in an effort to rouse him. Tubbo is tugging on his shirt, frantically babbling,