suffocation | dreamnotfound

may 13th/18th

sapnap landed in florida, his hands shaking. it all felt so surreal and anxiety dawned on him that this may be the first and last time he saw dream in person. he had one opportunity.

dream met him at the airport, staying inside his car the entire time and just texting sapnap where to meet up. when sapnap approached the car, dream couldn't help but grin and sapnap got into the car with a whoop.

"woah, there's a stranger in my car!" dream joked around, laughing quietly.

quickly, sapnap retaliated, "yeah, no georgenotfound am i?"

"low blow." dream said but chuckled still. the car ride back to his house was filled with excitement and their plans for the week. they were quite restricted as dream couldn't do anything that would make him lose his breath or cause him to cough, but sapnap was all okay with that. his goal was to make dream see that there was still beauty in the world, enough to make him atleast consider surgery. he wouldn't be upset if dream just admitted his feelings for george either.

the first night was all catch up and sapnap being in uncomfortable awe of the bizarre disease dream was harboring. the petals and blood were a mess, the mood swings gave sapnap whiplash, and dream's emaciated form was hard to look at, but sapnap would be lying if he said he didn't rush to dream's side at every cough or make sure he ate enough food and stayed comfortable.

"you fuss about me just like my mom." dream couldn't help but connect, and sapnap just rolled his eyes.

all throughout the week, the boys visited multiple tourist attractions in the state, with dream often sneaking to the bathroom to cough up the bane of his existence. it didn't help that sapnap tried to make everything more cheesy than it needed to be, and that he somehow was able to connect everything to george. dream thought even he didn't mention george as much as sapnap had on that trip.

but dream would be lying if he said that sapnap didn't get into his head sometimes.

three days into the trip was the first time it happened. the two were sitting in a park that was only a short walk away from dream's home, swaying back and forth on rusted swings. the sun was setting, beautiful oranges and pinks decorating the sky.

"i wish george could see how beautiful sunrises and sunsets are sometimes. i think he'd appreciate them." dream sighed, bringing up the topic of george for sapnap. hey, it saved sapnap from having to do some of the work.

"he'd find them gorgeous i think. he would love sitting here with us watching this if he had his glasses...maybe another time?" sapnap probed, trying to sound nonchalant.

dream shot down his request instantly, melancholy being portrayed in his tone when he responded; "there's not going to be another time. plus, george behind here would make things so much more punishing. i don't know if i can bare to see him in person at this state."

"you know, we could do this as friends. just sit here and be happy, all three of us. if you got that surgery, we could practically live together!"

"yeah but would i even be living? would i be content? if i never loved again, would i be able to deal with my choice?" dream put his head into his hands, rubbing at his eyes violently. "every day, i think about how much george has impacted my life. would i forget what all of this felt like; even though this 'crush' has doomed me, i liked feeling so happy around him."

sapnap couldn't persuade him into surgery, but if he cared so much about george, surely there was some way to get him to say that to george's face.

"what would you do if george felt the same way?" sapnap questioned, looking over and watching as dream's face contorted into a painful laugh.

"what do you mean? i would be ecstatic obviously, over the moon, and if he felt the same way then we'd be in a relationship but it's just not realistic under this period of time. unrequited love, nick. it's a terrible fucking thing."