not actually there || dnf

chapter 2 ✰

when george awoke at nine in the morning, his first thought was to check on dream. he still didn't obviously know who dream was, and he didn't know if dream had left during the night.

george pushes off his covers and steps down onto the cold hardwood floor. slowly, he makes his way across the hall to his guest room where dream was safe and sound, sleeping like a baby. george smiles softly to himself before shutting the door, not wanting to wake dream.

he walks down the hall. "maybe i should just check on him again to make sure..." george thinks inside of his head.

slowly, george makes his way back down the hall to where the guest room is.

dream looks out among the sunset, the warmth of the sand below him burning up his feet. he looks down to see the running river water below him, the rocks peeping through the water.

suddenly, he feels two hands on his back. the hands push with a lot of force and he loses his footing. he starts free falling into the river below.

"HEEEEELP!" he tries to scream, but nothing comes out. he's helpless.

his legs glaze over the rocks below and-

"good morning, how'd you sleep?" george asks, watching dream sit up in a cold sweat.

it was all a dream.

"y'alright?" george follows up with, noticing dream's dramatics.

"yeah, just a bad dream. this bed is super comfortable, though."

"oh okay, um, well i'll be in the living room if you need anything."

"thanks. i'm just gonna sleep for like 5 more minutes."

"alright." george says, shutting the door behind him.

george walks to the living room and pulls out his phone from his hoodie pocket to scroll on social media. he answers a few misread text messages from the previous night that karl had sent, then continued to scroll through his social media until dream woke.

about 10 minutes later, george hears the door crack open down the hall, followed by shuffling.

dream stands in the hallway, rubbing his left eye. his other eye looks to gaze at the television george was watching, then back down at him. he looked so peaceful. it was almost cute? no, that's not right. dream's straight.

george turns around to face dream. dream gets embarrassed for gawking at him for so long, and he flashes his eyes at the tv.

"ah! good morning! here, come sit." george says, tapping his hand on the seat next to him, signaling dream to come sit.

dream sits, noticing george lightly bouncing his leg up and down, and since the couch was only a love seat, dream reached over and put his hand on george's knee.

"you're okay," dream smiles, rubbing george's thigh. "is something bothering you?"

"n-no," george stutters, looking down at dream's seemingly veiny hand that makes george's heart skip a beat, then up at dream's freckled face. "it's just an anxious habit."

"okay," dream nods and removes his hand.

george swore he could feel the phantom of dream's warm and delicate hand on his knee. dream had proceeded to turn on the television and flick through the cable channels, from the news, to some adult cartoon, to more news.