Mark My Words || DNF Soulmate AU

Chapter 5

George forgets completely about the "ass incident," as he's come to call it, and moves on with his life.

His soulmark still gives him trouble, but he's found a solution to the problem by putting a bandaid on top of it so he doesn't see the design, only the edges of the top and bottom circle. That way, he won't get enthralled by the crossing lines and colors and spend too much time thinking about the whole concept of soulmates and how he still hasn't found his own.

Admittedly, George hasn't spent a lot of effort trying to find his soulmate, and now at the age of almost 25 it makes him a bit nervous. He's not old, that's for sure, but he's not young young either.

The majority of people find their soulmates before 27, and after that the chances go down by half, and then even more each decade afterwards.

George can't even imagine the hurt those people have to deal with, to be half of what could have been perfect. Now he has to face the fact that he may be one of them.

The thought sends panic through his body and shaves hours off of his sleep, when he lies awake and stares up at the dark ceiling to contemplate a life by himself.

He doesn't allow himself to call anyone during those times, too afraid of being vulnerable and wide open for them to dissect and take apart.

Even Dream, who's literally offered to talk about it with him, George avoids. On multiple occasions he puts on his headphones as the moon hangs highest in its orbit and hovers his mouse over the call icon that would mean he can reach Dream. That would mean his calming voice and soft tone and concerned words that make him forget about whatever it was he had been worried about to land himself in a cushion of comfort.

But he doesn't. He grabs handfuls of his blanket and squeezes as if that would somehow get rid of the growing black hole that consumes his very existence. He empties his mind and stares at a wall so he won't have to deal with feeling and existing.

He tries every (unhealthy) coping mechanism and pretends that they work.

George comes to hate the sight of the moon: the promises of emptiness and loneliness and such deep longing he wants to split himself open to drag it out by the neck.

His friends and streams become the only escape, and when he's with them and laughing so hard his cheeks hurt, he doesn't even remember the gaping hole in his soul.

Like now, when he, Dream, Quackity, and Sapnap have teamed up on the SMP to annoy Bad as much as possible with innuendos and curse words and autotune that makes their voice sound ridiculous.

"Fucking motherfucking muffinhead," Sapnap yells as Bad chases his character in-game with a netherite sword, "Shit fuck dick!"

"Language!" Bad screams as he clicks furiously in an attempt to kill Sapnap's character, as if somehow that would shut him up in real life.

"Bad," Quackity calls out of nowhere, the echo and autotune filter on his voice ripping a literal separate dimension in their little call, "Muffin-fuck."

"Hey!" Bad yells, turning around to chase after Quackity, who immediately combat-logs, "Stop it you two!"

George is laughing as he prepares to join in on the fiasco himself, finding a suitable voice-changer as he listens to his friends bother Bad.

"He's mad, he's mad your honor!" Dream chimes in, voice high-pitched and excited, "He's pissed off."

"Of course I'm mad!" Bad says, exasperation lacing his every word, "You guys keep cursing!"

"Do words make you mad, Bad?" George makes his voice go up and down with the voice changer, like some sort of wacky sound rollercoaster as he talks.

"It rhymed," Quackity's laughing punctuates the word as he hiccups through his words, "Quick, George, write a rap."

George is getting hyped to improvise some bars with the help of autotune turned to 200%, already bopping to the beat Quackity pulled out of nowhere as he adds ad-libs here and there.

"Skeppy," he drags on the last syllable extra long for autotune to do its work, "yeah, yeah, yeah."

Quackity cheers him on and George starts his first verse, as Bad's protests are drowned out by the music and the boisterous noises everyone is making.

"Skeppy went to Bad's house, yeah, quiet as a... mouse," George is already offbeat, but he doesn't care as he continues to pick up random words in an attempt to rhyme.

"He baked those muffins, uh..." he completely misses the next beat, unable to think of anything that rhymes with "muffin" despite his frequent usage of the word.

"Wooo, George!" Sapnap screams and almost bursts everyone's eardrums.

"And then he got on the bed, yeah, about to give h-, yeah," Quackity chimes in to save the day, slurring his last word to save Bad the worst of it and laughs hysterically afterwards.

"HEY! LANGUAGE!"

The whole group is falling over, everyone but Bad bursting into laughter as the beat runs forgotten in the background.

"Oh my gosh," Bad sighs, "I literally hate you guys."

"Yeah, okay Bad," Dream says between breaths, "We get it. You hate us so much. We're the worst friends. Oooh."

"Okay," Bad suddenly says, voice gaining an edge of confidence out of nowhere, "Well at least I didn't ask my best friend to send me pictures of my... butt."

There's a dramatic gasp from Quackity and then the beat gets cut off a few seconds later.

Complete silence in the call.

---

Kang's Note: Hi! Another one. There's actually some sort of plot for this one so I'm hoping I can capture that well. I never write long-form fiction so bear with me here :)) I hope you like it! Do let me know what you think, feedback keeps me alive. Thank you for reading!