Atlantis // DNF

Midnight

George's POV

It takes two cups of the peppermint tea this time to make my thoughts slow down and my mom hugs me through it and tells me all about my sisters adventures in school and all the friends she has made. And i feel happy for her, i just wish that she wouldn't be so far away.

My mom sleeps in the guest room and at around 2am i open Twitch and start the Christmas stream. I hope i can share some of the love that i have received today with them too.

I log on the smp and i notice that no one is online which makes me smile, i hope that they are enjoying time with their loved ones. Twitch chat is especially lovely tonight and i feel my cheeks hurting from all this smiling, i wonder if next year will be like this. I wonder what i will be doing next year.

As i'm doing my thing I notice the chat speeding up and it catches my attention because tonight it's easier to read, as most people are doing something else.

'DREAM' is the first thing in notice and my breathing stops and i want another tea, or bath, or my mom. But i smile at the camera and keep running, pretending that my cheeks aren't burning and i'm not thinking about my choice of clothing or the way my hair looks.

I hope he knows. I hope he doesn't but i hope he does. He has to know. I cant hold myself any longer and i just want to know what he's thinking about, what is he doing.

I wonder if he tells his family about me. I wonder if he knows that i talk about him all the time. Is he different in person, does he turn off this world and forgets about me as he should? Or maybe, just maybe, he's making the mistake of letting the two worlds mix together and flow together like a tea with honey.

Maybe he's thinking about me too and i wonder if we could ever do that. I wonder if the plane ticket is worth thinking about and why we have never made it a plan. Why are we holding off?

I'm excited to see Sapnap too and travel around their favourite places. I want to see the places that they call home.

It makes me wonder what I would show them. Where would i take them?

The next morning i'm up early and after i take my mom home and say my goodbyes i make my way to a store, it takes me about fifteen minutes until i finally find a school supply section and soon enough i'm holding a map of England.

I choose one with roads and places, it's a detailed map of the bottom of England and i like the way i can see roads. I buy another one of Brighton only and now I can actually see specific buildings.

I find a pack of pins and make my way home.

I'm sitting on the bed and it's only a day after Christmas and it's already raining, i put on music and make myself a cup of tea. I pin the two maps on my wall besides the bed and i can't help but smile as i step back.

As i'm picking out the blue pins I can finally think back to every single time i've felt at home, every time i have been truly happy.

The first blue pin i mark on my apartment building, because that's a home I have made myself.

The second one i pin down on my mom's house, because that's a home i have always known.

The third one I place in the cafe, where i can get the peppermint tea and i place one in the park i have to walk through. I place the fifth one on the library and make sure to put it in the buildings left corner.

I place another one on the map of England, marking Brighton.

I place one more on the animal shelter where i got my first cat and last one on the beach.

There is only one pin on the map of England but i guess that's because i don't have time to travel that much. I'm excited to place more when the time comes.

It takes me a few minutes until i find the world map that i took down from the walls in my old room and when it's hanging on the wall i have four more blue pins left and i place one on England, one in Texas for Sapnap and one in Germany for my sister.

I have one more left and as i drink the last drops of tea and the song skips and starts playing familiar notes i place it in Florida, because even if i don't have a physical home there i have something that feels more like home than any other place before and i wonder if it's just my imagination or it starts to rain stronger. I wonder if it's just my imagination or the last drop of tea tastes sweater and i think it might be my imagination but my stomachs warm and fuzzy and the feeling turns in a cloud .

I wonder if it's my imagination or my thoughts explode in blue fireworks and it blasts my ears so badly that i loose my hearing and i can hear just the calming sound of underwater and some sort of talking. Some sort of calling.

I wonder if that was me crashing beneath the waves and now i have to know how to swim.

And i do know how to swim, i remember my mom holding me on top of the water as my sister demonstrated what i have to do with my arms in the sea when we were little and i remember us laughing when i finally got it. I know how to swim and i have been swimming so much, especially lately. And i still feel myself sinking and i'm not fighting back.

I must be sick. I must be going insane and just fucking up everything that i could possibly fuck up and i have no idea what to do when i'm gonna leave the Dream team and I will have to make living out of something else. He's going to ask me to leave.

The sound of my phone wakes me up and I look at Sapnap's picture and when he's happy voice fills up the room I can't complain anymore. I'm still falling and i have not hit anything, i'm still here and i'm still fine.

"We should all stream together some time soon. We have been kinda off lately, we haven't done anything together for so long."

Or maybe i'm fine for now but i have no idea how to act anymore and i'm sure i won't be fine soon.

God damn it we should have drawn the line thicker.