George thought it would have been difficult to asleep, but two tumbleweeds of empty thoughts rolling across his mind later, he finds himself falling under.
Waking up is a relatively regular event, George checking the time to see that about an hour had gone by since he tucked himself into the comforts of blankets and unconsciousness. He drags a heavy palm down the side of his face and throws off the blanket, relinquishing the final layer of warmth coiled around him.
It's instinct to immediately make his way to the desk and turn on his computer, and George only stops himself halfway through inputting the password. His right-hand curls loosely into a fist as he debates going online or spending some time alone with his thoughts.
In the end, he deletes whatever characters he had entered into the computer and pushes himself out from the desk. He stretches his arms and legs out with a yawn, and makes his way to the kitchen aimlessly.
Making a quick trip back to his set-up to grab his phone and the latest Mr. Beast cup he had depleted of water, George scrolls through social media as he sets the cup into the sink and grabs a new, refrigerated cup. He sips, his eyes never leaving the screen, and drinks in small gulps. The cup is set down on a nearby table as George then walks to his couch, all the while expertly navigating his way through walls and obstacles.
Having gone through the rest of what Twitter and the rest of its kind has to offer, George refreshes a few more times hoping for something that will keep his attention, and gives up in due time. He traces his eyes over the room and falls back against the couch as his eyes rake a vertical line of sight all the way up to the paper-white ceiling.
"Okay, fine," he says to the ceiling, as if finally having been convinced after great struggle, "I'll think about it."
The words leave his mouth, but his mind isn't entirely ready to set out on the journey yet.
It lingers on the transitory period before thoughts truly form to coherency, and spends a little too long dallying in the gray space.
George doesn't like ambiguity, doesn't like art forms that are difficult to decipher, doesn't like passive philosophizing that results in more questions than answers.
He prefers accuracy, the crispness of one correct answer, the clean-cut method of deduction.
Why waste your time doing something that won't ever really have a "right" answer?
When the stretch of his neck bent against the back of the couch gets too uncomfortable, George tilts his head straight again and brings one of his legs up to hug against his chest as he reluctantly delves through the situation at hand.
He sighs as he allows all the information to surge to the front of his mind.
George has a soulmate, a stranger fitted perfectly to him, someone who could potentially be aware of his existence now that Dream has matched their information.
He was supposed to have found this person some time, somewhere, and they should have danced off into the sunset as bubbles of love trailed in their path. It would have been an experience of magic, of the ingenuity of fate, of the sophistication that plaits and braids the strings of destiny.
It would have been perfect, as soulmates and soulmarks and love were expected to be.
But perfection's greatest fear is reality, and even the most steadfast tapestries fray when subject to the trampling footsteps of time.
Dream's ghoulmark, the wild-card that unexpectedly unleashed its full powers of disruption, stirred the placid surface of what should have been George's simple path to love.
If only George didn't enjoy that interlude more than the promise of the actual symphony.
Now that the situation has been fully laid out for him, George can no longer remember if he ever caught on to Dream's feelings and simply convinced them into nothingness or if he really was just so oblivious he couldn't tell the romantic interest of his best friend from simply close affections for two whole years.
At one point, he must have suspected Dream as his soulmate, but the thought eroded away as nothing ever advanced beyond their deep bonds of friendship and they stayed away from discussions of soulmates. George must have become numb to any abnormalities in their intimacy and simply dismissed any suspicions until the day they resurfaced full force and sent him crashing into futile hopes of love and security.
Dream is such an idiot, George thinks as he pouts involuntarily, If he told me earlier maybe things would have worked out.
He doesn't even really know what he means by "worked out."
It's a headache to comb through the knotty situation at hand, and George thinks even another ten hours of complete mental concentration won't help him reach the perfect resolution.
He's simply not built for the moral-nitpicking necessary to reach a comprehensive, well-informed decision, and despite the gravity of the situation, George finds his thoughts losing traction and his attention bouncing between objects in the room he had seen a million times already.
Having decided enough is enough, George makes his way to the computer and puts on his headphones.
He'll chew through the rest of the situation later, when he's up for it. Right now, he'd like a break from the intensity of soulmark turmoil.
...thinks George through the rest of his week as he busies himself with work and streaming.
It's easy to join a friend's stream and mess around for a few hours, and maybe spend an hour poking around social media and sparing the elusive but coveted "George notice," then send a few new ideas for merch in the designers' group chat, and negotiate a meeting time to discuss and bring it to reality. George doesn't much mind spending his time like so, caught up comfortably in the daily rotations of being a streamer.
These days, he finds one-minute chess with Sapnap at the top of his priority list, the two often engaging in intense screaming matches that rival the bloodbath on the gaming board. George wins most of the games, naturally, but Sapnap's confidence is like a tilting doll that refuses to fall after multiple blows, and what he doesn't quite master in chess he makes up for with persistence and shit-talking. All the better for George, who sits in amusement until he finds that he himself was outsmarted in one of Sapnap's winning matches, which inevitably leads to allegations of cheating and more screaming.
It's always like this with Sapnap, who hasn't lost the sort of boyish impetuousness and charm that clings to him as the youngest member of the Dream Team. If George had to say, he'd point to Sapnap as the inspiration for a lot of his immaturity.
"How is this man the youngest of the Dream Team?" or "How is he 24?" or questions such as "Are we sure he's 24 and not 2.4?" can all in part be answered by George's association with Sapnap.
He himself is already a somewhat unruly figure, often finding fun in mischief and the little rush of adrenaline whenever he goes against what is told of him. Paired with Sapnap's instigator tendencies, the two are truly unstoppable in the stirring-up-trouble and getting-into-arguments department. They have their civil moments, but anyone who has known them for even a day's time can tell you such moments are short-lived and all too often disturbed by a wayward comment that sparks fearsome contention.
So to spend a few days just screaming and arguing with Sapnap after the weirdness that was his "business partnership" with Dream and the eventual confession, George thinks maybe he can just keep on never thinking about anything else and go on with the rest of his life filling that void with one-minute chess.
After all, the past month has adequately trained him to spend time away from Dream. It doesn't mean it's any less hollow and off-putting, but definitely more familiar. The same empty feeling emerges watching Dream's name slip lower and lower on his direct-messages list, the same helplessness making breathing difficult when wanting to spend a few hours talking about nothing but knowing it won't be how it used to be, the same worries and wants that are worsened as the situation continues to unfold. They stick around, but George has gotten better at shrugging them off and moving on.
Yet still the constant feeling that there is something uncanny turning the cogs of time and ticking uncomfortably into George's picture of serenity, threatening instability.
During moments when George finds himself with nothing to do, the responsible adult in him urges him to stop delaying the inevitable and simply face his problems instead of ignoring them. It's effective to a certain degree, and at one point George even takes himself to the official soulmark servicing website to finally "meet" the destined person.
In the end, it doesn't happen because it turns out George has long forgotten his password for the account, having registered as a teenager and never thought about it ever again.
He doesn't make an effort to find it.
The days drag on with chipped, fragmented thoughts here and half-epiphanies there.
-
A good six days after Dream last called him, George texts him with nothing short of immense irritation.
George
bedwars?
Dream
right now?
George
why? you're busy?
Dream
not really
George
then call me
Dream
why?
George
will you just call me you stupid idiot
"George?"
George thinks he's going crazy from the sudden bout of irritation that hit him early evening as he attempted, once again, to sort out his situation. He gets grumpy sometimes, sure, but the unreasonable anger at needing to figure out the situation currently corroding away the last of what he treasures as normalcy got the best of him. It was either call Dream or fume by himself, and George didn't even need to think about the answer.
Why should he have to sit through this entire situation alone and frustrated when the whole thing is really just Dream's fault?
He's probably ten times better at figuring out these types of situations anyway, and George is not about to let resources go unused.
"Get on the MCC practice server and join battle box," George ignores any sort of timidity in Dream's voice and gets straight to the point, "Right now."
From the hurried clicking on Dream's end, he can tell the man is already working to get there. Still, the questions don't cease, "Why? I thought you wanted to play Bedwars?"
"I changed my mind," George replies simply, "Are you on yet? Join red."
Perhaps reading the room and realizing that George did not call to mess around, Dream follows George's instructions with no further protest and the two start up a match a moment later.
It's the classic lava map, for easier access to death and thereby the end of a match. George thinks he'll actually freak if he has to fill in the middle every single time he wins.
They waste no time in getting started.
"Catch this arrow, you idiot," George spits as a ding indicates bull's-eye from his crossbow, "You're going to lose."
"What?" Dream sounds taken aback by the venom in George's voice, "Why are you so mad at me?"
George doesn't answer, making a streamline for the harming potion on the side of the map and narrowly avoiding an arrow from Dream's end. He stays silent in concentration, finding ways to do damage without getting hurt himself, and after a partially-successful potion throw, races toward Dream with his crossbow charge and sword at the ready.
He's beaten in a matter of seconds and screams bloody murder.
"How many hearts were you on?" he demands, "You had to have been so low."
"Two hearts," Dream replies, and listens as George slams his desk repeatedly.
"No fucking way, get back into the game we're going again," George slams his mouse against the table with more force than necessary and makes his way to the teleportation station.
Dream joins wordlessly.
"I hate you I hate you I hate you," George chants as he sprints away from Dream in the next round and attempts to regain health points, "Stop chasing me."
"No," Dream refuses as he loads a crossbow to the shock and horror of George, "I'm killing you."
True to his word, Dream kills George in an explosion of blue a few seconds later.
George is silent as he joins a new round and selects the crossbow option.
He stays silent through the rest of the game, even up until the end when Dream hits him with a disgustingly accurate harming potion and kills him.
"New round," George says simply as he suppresses the urge to throttle someone, "Get on."
"Why did you text me out of nowhere to do battle box practice?" Dream asks again as he jumps into the opposing team and selects his weapon of choice.
Especially given our circumstances remain unsaid but understood.
"Prepare to die, idiot," George ignores him completely and moves his character from side to side as he waits for the new round to begin.
"I'm not going to die," Dream says like he has powers of divinity, "Not sure about you though."
George gets a good crossbow shot on him before Dream can even finish the sentence, and climbs down the tower in an air of triumph, "Shut up you suck you're literally dog water."
"Toxic," is all Dream replies as he moves behind the structures to protect himself.
It's 3-0 by the time the round ends, with Dream in the lead.
Then it's 4-0.
5-0.
6-0.
7-0.
7-0 again because George accidentally walked into lava and it didn't count.
8-0.
9-0.
10-0.
George's voice is hoarse from yelling, and his palm stings from repeated, forceful contact with the desk. He probably has a crazed look in his eye, and his hair can't be in good shape from the number of times he's pulled off his headset in a fit and put it back on.
Dream remains relatively undisturbed through their rounds, eventually giving up on figuring out why George was suddenly raging at him at 4 in the afternoon and accompanying George's losing streak with a sympathetic but unyielding attitude.
He even finds it in himself to laugh at George's defeat a few times, which just sends George into a new wave of anger that prompts him to make reckless decisions in the next round.
Ten matches in and no sign of victory for George still, the two have completely forgotten what even took them to such an event in the first place. Dream is so caught up in defending himself and defeating George while needing to endure his loudness that he can't think of much else, and George has frankly been blinded by rage too long ago to have remembered the start of the temper tantrum.
Despite the tension in their matches and the lowering temperature of George's tone every time he demands a new round, neither side is as anxious as when they first started. In fact, it's simply another part of their routine that has gone neglected for too long and is experiencing a sudden revival from George's spontaneity. It feels familiar, and that's all George clings on to these days.
11-0.
12-0.
13-0.
George has gone through every single possible reason for why Dream is winning every single round today, including better sleep, improved diet, and sunny weather, but comes no closer to winning or finding out Dream's secrets.
"Are you taking drugs or something?" George asks half-seriously, "You have literally never won this many rounds against me before."
"What," Dream lets his incredulity show as he picks up a potion and re-situates himself behind a tower, "No I'm just good and you're just trash."
"Suck my dick, Dream" George seethes as he circles around the map and shoots a missed arrow, "You're just lucky."
"Okay," Dream acquiesces easily, "Whatever the sore loser has to say."
George pounces with the damage potion and watches it hit its target perfectly as he rushes forward to finish the kill.
This might be it, he thinks as a light rekindles behind his eyes, Die, Dream, die.
Dream must have been a cockroach in his last life, because he seems immune to all efforts devoted to killing him. Not only does he not succumb to the force of George's intense wave of sword-swings, he manages to evade all of George's attempts at hunting him down and survives by a thread as his health slowly fills up again.
Eventually, it's him who hunts George down and defeats him.
The reversal would be an enhancer to anyone's ego should they ever experience it in their lifetime.
14-0.
It's a wonder George's computer is still intact from the way he's gotten the pressing urge to throw it out the window and extract himself from the situation he created in the first place.
The keyboard, on the other hand, is most likely due for a renewal after the tornado of forces it experienced throughout its matches from all the aggressive jabbing and occasional slamming.
George only feels partially sorry as he starts the new game and does his best to keep his emotions under wraps to make room for strategizing and quick reactions.
It's an intense round filled with silence and the occasional sharp intakes of breath, as George furrows his brows and puts his all into winning the game.
He gets the harming potion before Dream can, but in the process gets shot and loses a good three and a half hearts. In his panic, he races to the other corner of the map, where Dream will have more difficulty reaching him, and waits for his health to repair itself.
There's a few dreadful moments of suspense where George can't tell where Dream has hidden on the map, and the feeling only intensifies as he inches his way to the other harming potion located opposite his previous location.
The second he hears the little "pop" indicating its retrieval, he sees a sliver of what should be lime green disappearing behind a tower.
Checking that his health is at a reasonable level, maniacal laughter seizes him as he charges full-speed ahead with the two harming potions in his inventory ready to hurl. The first potion doesn't quite render itself successful, but the second potion makes up for the attempt with a blow that can only be described as beautifully satisfying.
In that instant, George could probably fly should someone ask him to try.
Dream's little life hangs by a thread.
George is almost delirious from the promise of a win, and his mouse has most likely never experienced such ferocious and fast-paced clicking in its inanimate existence as the sword chases Dream with increased enthusiasm.
Dream makes a leap to the center of the map, but blunders in the process and drops down into the lava.
"FUCK," he shouts as his character starts sliding down, the sound of frantic keyboard-tapping filling George's headset.
"No!" George screams as he follows in Dream's footsteps, "Stop!"
After all this work, it's the lava that will stain its unworthy hands of Dream's blood?
Bullshit.
George's sword connects with Dream's falling avatar a second before the fire damage can start its murderous consumption.
Red fireworks explode into a circle of sparkles.
"Dream was killed by GeorgeNotFound." pops up on the bottom left of George's scream.
14-1.
"YES!" George screams like he has never had a moment's thought for the state of his vocal cords, "Take that you fucking idiot you're literally trash and dog water and I'm so much better and you actually suck idiot you're absolute trash and I hate you and you're gross and you are an idiot and so annoying and I hate you."
Dream's groan transitions into something of a laugh as George keeps rambling with insults, seemingly endless with the things he could say to shit on his friend.
"That's the actual first time you've won today, idiot," Dream reminds as a smile nevertheless colors his tone, "You literally won't win again I promise."
"I'm never playing with you again," George replies as he takes a sip of water for the first time in what feels like months and quits the game, "Suffer from the consequences of your loss, stupid idiot."
"I literally won 14 times, George," Dream says, "Think about that ratio."
"Think about..." George trails off as rationality grabs hold of him from nowhere and stifles the two words that were about to exit from thought to speech, switching to something else quickly, "Think about me literally never playing Minecraft with you ever again, dumbass."
Dream laughs in response and doesn't answer.
George mutes on Discord and stretches, clearing his throat with slight discomfort as the adrenaline dies down and he regains awareness of his surroundings.
So that was a good outlet of his emotions, and probably made him a lot more reasonable in the discussions to come, George thinks as he massages his ears before reinstating the headset over them and returning to the call.
He's exhausted himself of all the fight that could have made him grouchy and mean to Dream should they touch on the relevant topics, and in the process he's also loosened the tension between them. He'll call it a win-win-win between the battle box victory, his original purpose, and the bonus side-effect.
"Okay, Dream, you idiot," George begins even as his throat scratches uncomfortably with each word, "Now we can talk."
---
Kang's Note: when you spill your guts to your crush and do what you believe is the painful but right thing and you don't talk for a week and the next time you two interact he makes you play minecraft with him and screams at you the whole way through.
the cool-down chapter to help rest your minds before we get back into action :D or maybe the author is just really bad at getting to the point and accidentally wrote another filler. on a completely unrelated note, every time i think i'm getting somewhere with my writing i read a chapter of helium and get humbled so hard i physically fall to the ground and cannot get up. this chapter was written horizontally. i'm so in love with the writing it's just T^T nyom nyom my love. dakota has my whole heart.
thank you so much for reading!! i hope you enjoyed this chill chapter before we go back into the *plot* >:D also I've discovered that now whenever i comment i get a little tag that indicates me as the writer so i can't blend in with you guys. how am i supposed to pretend to be confused about my own intentions now?? okay i'm so off-topic today sorry sorry but i really hope you have a great day with even better weather! see you next chapter!