The thousands of viewers quickly pile into the stream. Sapnap and Karl wait patiently in their seats, sending the occasional glance to the empty seats next to them. Their stomachs twist just thinking about addressing the situation.
Not much was said since the incident at the door, they had nothing to say. They simply left them to deal with themselves. They had faith that it would all be okay.
Karl greets the chat and takes a sip from his Monster. Sapnap nods along, reading the chat.
"Where's George?" He reads aloud, "Dream and George might be a little late today. They were in the middle of something, but they should be out soon."
Karl scratches the back of his neck and puts on some music in attempt to hide the awkwardness. Sapnap begins to talk about random things to pass the time.
A moment later, footsteps approach from behind the door.
George slowly opens the door and scans the room. Karl turns his head around on the palm of his hand, flashing him an unamused glance. George gulps.
At the noise of the door opening, Sapnap reaches to turn off the camera without paying them any attention. He continues on with his sentence, trying to act as normal as possible.
George quickly shuffles into the room and Dream follows closely behind him. They settle into their spots, Dream pulls his legs up and nervously fidgets with his pants. Sapnap turns the face cam back on. He sends a look to George, expecting him to explain his and Dreams absence.
George lifts his head higher and sits up straight instantly. He clears his throat. "Sorry I'm late guys, I woke up like thirty minutes ago and was still getting ready." He feels a pressure in his throat. A pang of guilt and embarrassment.
Everyone looks to Dream, wanting to hear his excuse. Dream isn't sure what to say, none of the possible responses flashing through his mind seem quite right. He picks a random one, not really knowing what is going to come out of his mouth. He just lets the first things come out that his mind thinks of.
"Yeah, George and I accidentally slept in today," he quickly says. He immediately feels a a wave of warmth come over him. His heart plummets as he bites his tongue. Out of all the things to say, he said the most suspicious one. George and I. We. Together.
Dream darts his eyes around the room, begging them to move on. George and Karl turn back to the monitor, nodding their heads slowly. But one set of eyes remain which goes unnoticed by Dream. Sapnap's eyes trace down his neck, landing on a purplish-red mark just below the drooping collar of his shirt.
"Anyways," Sapnap suddenly breaks the uncomfortable silence, startling and grabbing the attention of everyone. Dream watches as Sapnap's eyes leave his neck. A small scowl forms as he realizes. Shit. He reaches a hesitant hand up to his shirt and pulls it higher, resting his eyes on the floor in udder regret. "As some of you guys know, we will be doing a Q and A stream. We have had lots of requests to do this and since we didn't have a plan for this stream, we thought 'why not?'"
"It's probably gonna be shorter stream than we anticipated because we have to deal with some stuff," Karl explains to the chat. He unintentionally stretches out the last word, each letter like a smack in the face to George and Dream. He sends a look towards George.
George shifts awkwardly in his seat, flushing a light pink after locking eyes with Karl. He faces his head down, praying that it will go away.
"We are all going to put something up on our stories for you guys to respond to," Sapnap looks around, signaling them to grab their phones and do as he is explaining. "They should be up in a few minutes."
The group sends out their post. Responses pile up immediately and they get down to answering them right away.
An indescribable gloom floats over them. They are all aware of the conversation lingering just around the corner; the thing the will have to address as soon as they end the stream.
~~~
The mood picks up slightly. As it turns out, they are better at acting like everything is normal than they thought. Dream isn't quite sure if it even is acting, maybe everyone is just accepting or forgetting what happened. Deep down he hopes that it won't be brought up.
Occasional giggles escape from his lips as he relaxes and becomes less tense. George clearly feels better as well, although he barely acknowledges Dream. His actions don't necessarily help Dream's nervousness that remains. Maybe he's just trying to keep his mind off of things.
"Is everyone getting along?" Karl reads off his phone with a goofy smile. The group laughs.
"Yes, we are all really enjoying each others' company, it's just been great," George explains through broken laughs. Sapnap glances down at his phone to answer the next question.
He doesn't quite register what he is reading until it leaves his mouth. His words slow and he contorts an eyebrow upward.
"Are Dream and George behaving themselves?"
Instead of cheerful laughs, nervous laughter fills the room. The laughter eventually grows into real laughter, at least from Karl and Sapnap. George and Dream join in, even though they don't want to. That question could not have been worse considering the circumstance. George and Dream glance at each other for a moment, a fake and confused smile plastered on their face.
"What's that supposed to mean?" George questions. Sapnap just shakes his head as his laughter dies down.
A scowl remains on George's face as he goes to read his question. He reads it, but he doesn't pay attention to it at all. He blocks out that portion of the world. Instead he focuses on the mix of emotions inside him: the butterflies swarming his stomach and tying it into knots.
~~~
The stream ends shortly after. They don't mention anything to one another, they just leave the room quietly.
Dream hurries off into his bathroom. He scrolls through Twitter, catching up and seeing the responses from their stream. He grabs an empty glass from his counter and fills it up with water from his sink. Water splashes around due to him not paying attention. He turns the water off with his pointer finger and brings the glass to his lips. The water slowly trickles down his throat as he reads.
One post catches his attention. He glances at it, scrolls past it, but immediately scrolls back up. It catches his eye for some unknown reason. He reads over it.
It states:
"Did anyone else notice today's stream was little weird? Here's what I noticed:
1. The energy was "off," especially in the beginning. Everyone seemed awkward and uncomfortable and not like their normal selves.
2. The situation with Dream and George in the beginning: Sapnap said that they (as in together) were in the middle of something. Then, when Dream and George joined them, they said they slept in (does that mean together?) you could clearly see a panicked expression on their faces and then a very uncomfortable moment of silence followed.
3. Karl mentioned that the stream would be shorter because they had to deal with "stuff." He was vague (which is fine, it's their business. But due to the context it seems like it involved the situation). And it's hard to tell due to their positioning, but it seems as though Karl is looking over at George and Dream. You can even see George lock eyes with him for a moment.
4. When asked if Dream and George were behaving, we received lots of laughter like normal. But what what wasn't normal was that Dream and George didn't seem to be apart of the joke and almost seemed uncomfortable. Normally, they are the one initiating the jokes. They never answered the question either, they just moved on.
Anyways, that's my take on today's stream. This could be nothing, but it did raise a few questions. I will link clips down below. What are your guys' thoughts?"
Dream runs a hand across his forehead, feeling his pressed and tight skin that subconsciously grew as he read over it. His hand also grew into a tight fist, his knuckles remain white for moments after. He clicks on the thread after taking a deep breath to see the kind of response it was getting.
"Y'all are using any excuse to ship them, you need to chill," one response read.
"I thought I was the only one that noticed some of that stuff, something is def going on."
"Of course this is the stream I chose to not pay attention to :/"
He scrolls through various mixed responses. Some positive and agreeing, others annoyed at how much they cared.
"What if they did the nasty😳." He feels his face squish together in disgust as he reads that. They're not exactly wrong but it doesn't seem right to see it written down.
He reads a response to that one, "let's not do that, don't be gross😬" finally, a sane person that stays out of our business.
He scrolls through Twitter some more, seeing the instant response the last stream got. This is gonna be interesting to address.
A voice calls for him from the adjacent room.
"Hey Clay, can you come out here please?"