Comfort in Silence // dnf

Offline

He grabbed various items to restock his pantry, getting a new box of cereal, a carton of eggs. Basic food items you could find in any house. He grabbed some fruit to keep in his kitchen for snacks and made sure he had everything he needed before heading to the self checkout.

This required no talking and he could just scan and go. He carefully ran his items over the machine and watched as his price increased with every new money amount that was added to the bill. He payed and grabbed his bags, silently making it out of the store and into the parking lot. He walked and stared at the same sidewalk he walked down to get there.

The quick 5 minute walk was slowed down by the heavy grocery bags he carried, but he didn't mind the extra weight. Once he got back to the house he flipped through his keys and unlocked the doors, being greeted by Patches. He set the large brown bags onto the counter and started to sort the items out so that he could put them away properly. Once satisfied with the organization of his kitchen he decided to check on his phone, it had to be charged by now.

Clay walked up the stairs and saw his phone where he left it. He pressed the power button and saw the flood of notifications, most being from George who seemed overly worried. He opened up their conversation and remembered the message he sent late into the night after Nick had raised his voice. His heart dropped. He made his friend worry, and he left it that way for hours.

"Yeah, I was just about to go to sleep though, did you need something?"

"Dream it says your still online."

"Are you messing with me?"

"Its been a few hours are you alright?"

*Two missed call messages*

"Dream you definitely would be awake by now please say something?"

"I told Sapnap, he tried to call you and you didn't answer. What's going on he's about to drive to Florida for you, he said he made you hang up does this have to do with that?"

The messages stopped, the last one having sent about 30 minutes ago. Clay hoped that Nick didn't get in his car and start driving. The last thing he needed was to see his friend in person.

"Sorry. I fell asleep after I sent that message and my phone died. I didn't see your messages until now, I didn't mean to make you worry." He sent, hoping that his reply didn't seem to generic and therefore look like an excuse. He subconsciously raised his hand to his mouth and started biting his fingernails, hoping that George wouldn't freak. He couldn't handle another friend yelling at him, through text or otherwise.

He waited, a few minutes, hoping for some response so that he knew that they didn't drop everything to show up at his house to make sure he was alive. But that quickly turned into nothing more than and idea when George finally replied.

"You scared me half to death Dream, thank god you're ok."

He sighed in relief, knowing George wasn't mad was comforting. Assuming everyone was mad at him probably wasn't healthy, but it was another one of those irrational habits.

"Did you want to talk about what happened last night?" George added. Clay smiled at the message, he still cared. "Not really, it was just a little panic attack. I didn't want to complain about Sapnap to Sapnap so I thought that maybe you would still be awake. I'm okay now though thank you :)"

What Clay couldn't see, was Georges small smile as he stared at the message. He went from thinking the other hated him, to knowing that he was close enough to talk about personal issues even if it was over text and nothing more.