behind the streams | dnf

thirty six | cafuné

GEORGE

"You ended?"

"Yes."

"A hundred percent?"

"Yes."

"Alright, just checking." Dream hovers away from my shoulder, where he previously leaned towards the second monitor. The clearly displayed offline status of the channel boldens out as us.

Sapnap puffs out an audible breath, slipping his hand off the mouse onto his lap.

There's a stretch of thinking silence, only disrupted by the noiseless turn of his head towards us.

And his expression; just the mere way he tosses it to us, the mix of annoyance and droll laughter and I have the uncontrollable urge to smile before he even says anything.

"'We're not gonna tell the stream', huh?"

From over my shoulder comes the wheeze, easily mistakable for something deflating and the challenge of not laughing has just increased tenfold. I clap a hand over my mouth, hearing the pitchy sound put on hold by a very clear "fuck you."

"Right, right, 'yeah, we're not gonna tell the stream, we're gonna hide it for now, no, no, we're keeping it a secret-'" Sapnap churns, egged on by the reactions he's receiving. "I swear, I thought you guys were better actors than this."

"George isn't-"

"Shut up."

"Neither of you are, come on."

Dream pushes out of his chair, hoisting himself on the bed with a heave. He makes a face. "We weren't that bad-"

"Oh, no no no," Sapnap immediately cuts him off, with a briskness I can't help but laugh at. "Twitter's gonna have a field day with this one."

"They always do-"

"Yeah, but this time they're not 'overanalyzing' it because it's true-"

I watch their back-and-forth, the smile growing easy and unaware. "...it was funny though."

Sapnap sighs back against his chair, hands thrown in the air.

"It made the stream better." I grin at the expression he flings at me.

"So much better," Dream jumps in, earning an identical look from Sapnap. "At least more interesting than watching you fail at GeoGuesser."

"Oh, ha-ha, you're funny. I'm not even that bad."

"You suck ass."

"Sorry I don't play this game like a maniac-"

"Come on, you don't even know the flags-"

So prompts another series of arguments, talking in circles, a dynamic almost identical on and off-screen. They jump from topic to topic and revisit more; it's dizzying to listen to yet years of knowing them have made it surprisingly easy to follow.

Eventually they do wear out as well, slipping into a content silence we couldn't afford a moment of in the past few hours. I slump further and further against the back of my chair, occasionally passing short conversation but mostly unwinding in the feel of the camera off.

"Hm." Sapnap locks a hand onto his shoulder, yawning into the hoodie bunch-up at his elbow.

He flicks his gaze upwards, half his face still buried in the fabric. A somewhat subtle grin crinkles up the edges of his eyes. "I'm gonna go take a nap."