SYDNEY POV
"Guys, like the week after we get back Corpse is staying with us for a few days." I said, looking at everyone, "any chance y'all wanna come to stay with us too?"
"Oh fuck, I kind of forgot about that," Mina sighed. "I was just going to ask if we all wanted to go somewhere before George has to leave. I feel bad that we didn't actually go to Miami."
"I know, I forgot too," I admitted. "I thought we had a little bit more time in between, but if anything this works out better because you guys can come if you want." I gestured to the guys.
"I'm down," Nick said, and George nodded in agreement.
"Me too, I'd love to see him in person," Clay said, but I could tell he really wasn't that excited.
"I can change my flight home," George was already pulling out his laptop to change his tickets around. He only needed to add an extra day or so to his trip, so it wasn't too big of a hassle. "There's a chance my paperwork will be done or close to done by then too, so after I can just head home, pack, and then move here."
"Do you think we could get anyone else to come? Maybe Karl?" Catherine said, leaning her head onto George's shoulder.
"I invited Karl, Quackity, and Rae -- but Rae said she probably won't be able to make it," I said, frowning a little. "Karl and Alex said yes, so they're coming too for sure. If you guys want to invite anyone else, feel free. Space might be a slight issue, but if people are cool sharing a room then we can make it all work. There are also a few houses in our neighborhood that are AirBnBs, so we could rent one of those out if we needed to."
"Wait, won't everyone find out about whatever is going on with you two?" Nick asked, pointing to Clay and me. "Are you ready for that?"
"I didn't really think about that," I grimaced a little.
"I don't care if you don't," Clay said to me, shrugging. "I actually want them to know."
"Do you think they'll accidentally slip and say something on a stream or something though?" I asked, as he put his arm around my shoulders and kissed my temple. "I want all of our friends and stuff to know but I'm not sure if I'm ready for like... everyone to know."
"I feel like Karl would be the one to fuck it up," Mina laughed, and we all got a good little giggle out of that. "Or maybe Alex."
"Yeah definitely Alex," George said, shaking his head a little. "That boy can not keep a secret to save his life, but neither can you two."
"I think everyone knows anyway, the denying isn't doing much to convince people otherwise," I admitted, looking at Clay.
"Should we just tell everyone when they get there and then just announce it on a stream or something to get it over with?" He said, first looking at me then glancing at everyone else to get their feedback.
"I almost feel like you shouldn't even announce it," Catherine said. "None of us have, and so far it's working out well."
"Yeah, I agree," Mina said. "I feel like announcing it is more of a hassle than just letting people figure it out themselves."
"Are you guys ever going to officially announce?" I asked. "Or will you just keep doing what you're doing?"
"Eventually, yeah," Nick shrugged. "I feel like we're all in a little bit of a bubble right now and it's nice to not have to worry so much about the public side of things."
"We still all have some degree of plausible deniability right now," George laughed. "The second one of us confirms anything, everyone will know that we're all up to something."
"That's true," I said. George and Nick had good points. "Let's all stay in our little bubble until something pops it."
"Sounds good to me," Clay said, pressing a soft kiss to my lips. It felt so nice to be able to be affectionate around the others, and I appreciated that they dropped the teasing. It took a lot of the pressure off.
"How are we even getting to New Orleans?" Clay was acting like it was a foreign land on another continent.
"How long is the drive?" Nick asked, about to pull out his phone to map it. "A road trip could be fun."
"Too long," I laughed. "Just fly, it'll be way easier and faster, I promise you."
"We'll pick you guys up from the airport," Mina added, "fly in a few days early so we can all hang out again before everyone comes. Corpse gets in early-ish too but he's working for the first few days and staying in a hotel for that part of the trip, so we won't even see him until everyone else arrives."
"Will you guys take us out on the town?" George asked. "I've seen New Orleans in movies and TV shows and I thought it looked so cool. I want to go to Café du Monde."
"Wait, can we take you guys on a tour like for real?" Catherine looked so excited. "And it is cool and beautiful, it's the best city in the whole world."
"This tour will be so good y'all will want to move to Nola after and be little swamp creatures with us," I beamed. I truly did love New Orleans, and I still wasn't exactly sure that I wanted to leave. I felt so certain about leaving after the phone call with my dad, but I knew I'd always miss it with all of my heart if I ever left. I'd be lying if I said I didn't hope that Clay fell in love with the city and wanted to move there.
"Does Sister Maria still work at your old school?" Nick asked. Mina had told me that Nick was quite fascinated with our school. He had gone to public schools his whole life, so the concept of a private, Catholic, all-girls school was fairly unique to him. It was kind of funny how common charter and private schools were in New Orleans. I'd only known a handful of people who didn't attend one, so it was normal to me. I think he was most fascinated by the religious aspect of our schooling, especially considering that we were all quite open about not being practicing Catholics anymore.
I'd always been an atheist, except for a few brief stints over the years where I'd desperately try to feel as close to God as my peers claimed to. I wanted to have the faith that my friends did, but I could never seem to find it. I'm sure part of that came from my home life -- it was hard to believe that there was a higher power when my life was such a raging shitshow. By the fifth grade, I'd given up entirely on trying to find God. I wasn't entirely atheist simply because it was impossible for me to know either way and staking such an intense claim without the evidence to back it up didn't make much sense to me.
Mina held on for longer, but she too had drifted away from the Church by middle school. Her family had never been religious, so I think she just felt like she didn't really have as much of a connection to it anymore. She loved religious iconography and the ritual of it all, but she didn't feel like there was anything more to it than that for her anymore. Catherine had always been the most dedicated to her faith out of the three of us. Her disillusion reared its head our junior year of high school and grew at a slow, but steady pace since then. Nothing really happened to make her re-evaluate things, aside from simply being a rebellious teenager. She still wasn't sure what she really believed, if she believed in anything at all, but she knew she didn't want to be part of a church or any type of organized religion. She still referred to herself as Catholic at times, but it was mostly out of a lack of another term or for comedic effect.
"Yes, do you want to meet her?" Mina laughed. "We're all still close with at least one teacher so I'm sure we could swing by for a visit. I don't exactly want to go back and be that girl, but I'd do it for you." Nick gave her a quick kiss.
"I actually saw her at Walgreens like a month ago and she pretended like she had no idea who I was," Cat said. She looked genuinely offended and I couldn't help but snicker a little. "I went up to her all excited and she was like 'I'm sorry, do I know you?' and I was like.... 'it's Cat, from the class of 2016?' and she looked mad confused but I could see it in her eyes that she knew me. I was honestly a little insulted, it was a very humbling moment. To be fair, I was holding my birth control prescription and three bottles of wine so that might've played a role."
"That was definitely part of it. She was also so used to seeing the three of us together, maybe seeing you alone wasn't enough to trigger a memory," Mina said. "But I know that lady remembers us, there's no way she doesn't."
"She fucking hated us, she does not want to see us again," I laughed. "Plus, I don't think they'll want degenerate streamers in their vicinity. If any of those girls watch us they're going to snitch on us for sure. They'll tell them what we get up to and the administration probably like, rescind our diplomas and put our names on a wall of shame or something. Sister Maria will make sure of it."
"What did you guys do to that poor woman?" Clay looked amused and a little scared. "And yeah, I feel like we'll all start burning once we get within five feet of that school."
"Honestly, I think her constant anger and irritation comes from a lack of dick in her life," Mina shrugged. "Or pussy. Either way, she probably needs to get laid. Kinda like Syd needed to get laid, she's a real peach now that you two are fucking." I flipped her off and tried to ignore the way Clay was looking at me.
"Mina!" Catherine gasped. "I mean, I kind of agree... but damn, she's a nun! Let her live her celibate life in peace. We're going to rot for this conversation, I can't believe this. I can't believe I'm participating in this."
"Catherine, honey girl, you're already going to be rotting in hell for quite a few different reasons. This conversation doesn't even rank in the top ten, so it doesn't really even matter. The impact is negligible in the grand scheme of things," I teased. She couldn't help but laugh at that one, but she did manage to flip me off. "I always thought she wanted to sleep with or has slept with Father Romero, I can't even lie," I shuddered a little at the thought.
"You're psychotic," Mina rolled her eyes. "He's definitely gay. I caught him literally caressing the Jesus statue one day when I had to clean gum from under the pews."
"Because he's sexually repressed and that Jesus statue had an hourglass waist and child-bearing hips," I countered. "That thing was thick as hell and very womanly."
"Honestly, it kind of was," Catherine agreed. "I honestly always thought it was originally a statue of a woman and they just painted over it because they were too cheap to buy an actual Jesus one."
"See!" I yelled.
"Okay, now we need to meet her and Father Romero, I need to see this for myself," Nick said. "And the Jesus statue. I'm really curious about that now."
"I hope at least one of you catches the vibe, I swear she looks at him like she wants it really bad or has already had it," I laughed.
"Did the Jesus statue have tits?" Clay asked. "I think that would definitively answer the question."
"Either that or really well-defined pecs," Cat replied and I nodded.
"My school experience feels very boring now," George looked a little shocked by what we had just unloaded. "I could listen to these stories all day though, Americans are so weird."
"We had way more drama than the average school," Cat explained. "Our school was like, known amongst all the other high schools as being where all of the crazy girls went. And it's true, our school had some really wild people."
"That was only compounded by the fact that everyone who went there was actually pretty smart -- like you had to test to get in and all of that stuff, so we were all super competitive with each other. Everyone wanted to be top of the class," I said. "And most of us had been going to schools like that our whole lives so we knew how to play the game, so to speak. We all used it against the teachers and each other and shit went down almost every day it seemed like."
"We tried to keep to ourselves, and we mostly did. We were three of like maybe seven scholarship kids, and we were always ostracized from the other girls. We also literally could not afford to hang out with them anyway," Mina added with a bit of a laugh. "We had some issues with them, but we mostly beefed with the staff."
"Only staff members that weren't teachers though, so it wouldn't affect our grades. We found out that the administration office or whatever never actually transferred behavior infractions to people's permanent records because someone fucked up while digitizing things so we basically got off scot-free for everything we did. It was great," Catherine laughed.
"We probably would've been fucked during college applications if it ended up on our records," Mina shook her head a little. I tried to picture how long our list of infractions was, but I couldn't. We were in trouble for something almost every other day it seemed.
"No chance in hell I would've made it onto the soccer team," I nodded. "Or at least not a scholarship spot."
"You played soccer?" Nick seemed surprised.
"It's called football," George interjected, playfully rolling his eyes.
"You're in America, George, speak American," Nick responded with a laugh.
"Yeah, for three years in college," I nodded.
"What school?" He asked. "Same as Catherine? Did you guys all go to the same place?"
"Yeah, Tulane," I smiled a little. I remembered being a little girl and watching the Tulane soccer girls and how badly I wanted to be them. I worshipped the ground they walked on, and it was always weird to think about the fact that I somehow managed to become one of them.
"D1? Damn okay," Nick chucked a little bit. "Flex on us."
"She also got a giant nerd scholarship too," Mina leaned forward to kiss my cheek. "Such a well-rounded gal, you love to see it."
"You and Cat got them too. Plus, you got a bunch of nerdy grant money for your nerd research and stuff and Cat got that nerd award at graduation for being the most prestigious nerd in her program, so let's have a round of applause for that!" None of us liked to bask in our achievements, but we really were a fairly impressive group. The success of one member of our group always inspired the other two to get their asses in gear and it helped to push us to become better. "I kicked a ball around and got nerd money for being the biggest nerd that kicked a ball around, which is objectively way less cool. Anyway, George, you went to college too, right?"
"Yeah," he nodded. "I went for computer science. Things really picked up for me on YouTube in the last year of my program and I almost dropped out, but I forced myself to finish. I'm glad I did, I would've regretted leaving with so few classes left. Plus, someone has to fix all the coding that these two botch."
"Sometimes I wish I went for like, the experience," Nick shrugged. "But overall, I'm glad I didn't. I don't think I would've stuck with it and it would've been a waste of time and money."
"I might go," Clay announced. That excited me, to be honest. He'd mentioned going the other night, but I wasn't sure how serious he was about it. "I've been thinking about it for a while now. Not anytime soon, but maybe in the next few years."
We decided to hop on a stream later in the afternoon. We only had two days left on our trip, and we hadn't been making nearly as much content as we had aimed to. Nick, George, Mina, and Cat were all sitting in front of the camera, and Clay and I sat off to the side with our own microphone. At some point, the conversation switched to fanfiction. People were asking about our boundaries and if we minded them being written about us.
"I honestly like them," I shrugged. "The creativity always blows my mind. I'm a big advocate for fanfiction."
"Is there anyone you guys would rather not be paired with?" the robotic-donation voice ran out.
"Not for me," George said shaking his head. "I mean, no minors or anything but other than that I don't care."
"Ditto," Nick said. Cat and Mina nodded their heads.
"Don't pair me with Squid," Clay joked, squeezing my thigh. "Just kidding. I don't really care as long as the person you're pairing me with is cool with fanfiction too."
"I don't care either," I replied. "I've actually read one about you and me, Dream. It was quite the emotional rollercoaster. I'd be lying if I didn't cry a few times."
"Really? It was that good?" He laughed, seemingly surprised that I had read something about us.
"It really was. I read it back when I wanted to strangle you," I teased. "Fictional you is a lot nicer."
"Oh come on, ba-Syd," he winced a little as he corrected himself. "Sorry, I almost called you 'bitch'. Force of habit." That was a genius coverup, I was proud of him. He reached for my hand after, seemingly nervous I'd kick off at him.
"Okay, don't get all riled up you two. We all get along now, remember? Play nice." Mina played along expertly. It really was easier to have them in on it, we could all cover for each other.
"We're just joshin'," I gave her a smile, grateful for her quick thinking.
"Ew, I hate when you say that," Catherine scrunched up her face. "It reminds me of my weird uncle."
"That's really nice of you, thank you," I rolled my eyes a little. "Remind me not to save you from his conspiracy theory rants at the next family gathering."
"Syd does give off some uncle energy," George was trying to stifle his laughter but couldn't.
"I don't know how to explain but... honestly you kind of do," Nick's comment made George and the girls explode with giggles. "I wouldn't say weird uncle, though. More like the fun uncle."
"She gives off more auntie vibes, my sister's..." Clay started, his eyes lighting up as he went to tell the story of his sister's son. I cut him off with a harsh glare, eyebrows raised. "...The same way?" I wanted to punch him. That was the stupidest attempt at saving face I'd ever seen.
"Literally nobody asked," Nick wheezed. I could've kissed everyone for saving us yet again.
"Fuck you," Clay tinged red, clearly embarrassed by his incapability to keep his mouth shut about us.
"Who wants to do shots and read some of that fanfic we were talking about earlier?" I asked, standing up to go get us some booze. If anything, that was probably a really dumb idea, but we needed a distraction.
"Me!" Mina yelled. "I want to read that one about Nick and George."
"There's fanfic about me and George?" Nick looked appalled. "Jesus Christ."
"Yeah, it was actually really good. We would all gather around on update day and take turns reading it out loud to each other," she laughed. "Such a beautiful love story. Will you guys act it out for us?"
"Leave us alone," George scooted his chair further away from her. "You girls are sexualizing us. I'm a human being, not a piece of meat!"
"Give me your meat," Nick cooed, grabbing George and kissing his cheek.
"I'm going to go get us some vodka, do you want any water or anything?" I leaned over to whisper in Clay's ear.
"No, I'm okay. Thank you, baby," he said back, his voice low. He gave me a quick kiss on the lips. When I looked up, I realized that the mic was much, much closer to us than I had remembered. I prayed no one had caught it.
I retrieved the vodka and six shot glasses and made my way back up to the others as quickly as possible. They had already started reading and they had seemingly jumped right into the worst of it.
"Oh good, you're back," Cat smirked. "We're reading one about you, Dream, and George. It's your turn to read." She passed her phone to me, and I knew I was about to have to read something wildly embarrassing.
"Oh my god, I can't read this out loud, you guys," I was laughing so hard I almost couldn't breathe. "This is literally about Dream taking a little trip to my downstairs, I can not read this."
"It's fine, I don't care if I get a temp ban, just read it!" Catherine was crying too. "It's worth the potential punishment."
"'Then, Dream plunged his tongue...'" I was literally screaming over this. "'Into Sydney's wet hole...'" everyone screeched again, and Clay was damn near choking. "I swear to you guys that's exactly what it says, I swear on my life I am reading word for word."
"Is this by the same person who called my butthole the same thing?" George wheezed, and I couldn't even speak. "Why do they always make me the bottom?"
"George, the terminology is really crucial here. If I recall correctly, they called your 'bussy' a 'wet hole'," Catherine screamed, and we all lost it again.
"WAIT, THIS IS ONE THAT GEORGE KILLS ME IN!" I screamed, scrolling a little more. "George, it's your POV now, so you have to read this part." I threw my phone to him so he could read next.
"'I ran into the room. I couldn't handle the noises anymore. I couldn't handle knowing that he was doing things to her he should have been doing to me,'" he read, trying to keep it together. "'I raised my gun and pulled the trigger, and Sydney fell to the ground.' I don't want to read this, I don't want to kill you, Sydney! I would never do this!"
"It's funny, George, keep going," I laughed, jumping up and down a little. "They call it fiction for a reason."
"'As soon as she hit the ground, Dream turned around to face me. I thought he'd be mad but he looked so happy it almost scared me.' Jesus Christ, guys, I can't do this," he laughed, tossing my phone back to me. "Give me one where I don't have to murder Sydney and I'll read it."
"I'm going to find a less murderous DreamNotFound one, don't worry king," Clay teased.
"These are so action-packed, it's kind of insane," I scrolled through the rest of the chapter quickly. "Whoever wrote this, I actually kind of like it, I can't even lie."
"I wish we got the fun ones, ours are always so angsty," Mina laughed, throwing an arm over Cat's shoulder. "And Cat and I never end up together in the end, which is just rude."
"I'm sure there are hundreds more, we'll find a good one for you guys," I laughed, pouring us each a shot. I handed them off to everyone, and we each downed them. I poured us a few more as we bantered back and forth. None of us were drunk, but we were definitely getting tipsy.
CLAY POV
The vodka had started to hit me a little. All I could think about was Sydney and how badly I wanted her right now. I leaned over a little, wrapping my arm around her shoulders and pulling her in. "I'm going to plunge my tongue into your wet hole tonight, baby. I won't let George kill you though."
"Ew!" She squealed, slapping my arm a little. Her smile made me feel physically weak. "Real you is better in bed than fictional you, I'll give you that."
I smirked at that and pressed a kiss to her temple. "I can't wait to fuck you again."
"Tonight," she said, looking up at me innocently. I wanted to end the stream right now and take her upstairs, but I knew we needed to keep streaming. We'd been neglecting that side of things the last few days.
We kept streaming for another hour or so, and I knew I'd gotten even more careless at the end with my word choices. As soon as we ended the stream I started to get a little nervous. Sydney and I couldn't see the chat the entire time, so I had no idea if people had heard us. I knew that even if we had somehow managed to escape the scrutiny of the live viewers, there was still a large chance that people would hear it when it was saved and could play it back. Against my better judgment, I opened up Twitter to check. I didn't see anything immediately that indicated that the viewers had heard, but I decided to do a search to make sure. My hopes were dashed almost immediately. My search query had consisted of "Dream Sydney", and I was greeted with dozens of tweets that showed me that people had in fact heard.
I was also made aware of the fact that I had apparently called her baby quite a few times over the course of the stream. I really wasn't sure how I'd be able to get out of this situation. There really was no escape in sight -- people had already heard it, and it would only pick up steam once the people who hadn't seen it live got a chance to watch.
riley // @ilovethegals
is it just me or did anyone hear dream quote the fanfic to syd around the 2hr57min mark? does anyone have more context for that or am i hearing things
— jordan // @catminsyd
i heard it too! i was like... did he really just say that
— riley // @ilovethegals
AAAHHHHH omg did you hear anything after?
— jordan // @catminsyd
i could only hear her say ew so i think they were just joking around but... tbh... i hope it wasn't a joke lol
— riley // @ilovethegals
i would simply scream and pass away if they ended up being together, literally a wattpad fantasy come to life
— rachel // @rachlovesdream
clearly they are together at this point, but they shouldn't be. i don't think he even likes her, he seemed so irritated by her.
— jordan // @catminsyd
who asked you
erin // @sapnapstan
sydney and dream didn't even confirm anything please chill out everyone lol... even if they were together they probably wouldn't tell us because we act like this
— leila // @leilanotfound
for real, people are reaching !
— kayla // @dnfforevr
wait what happened? i couldn't watch the stream :(
— erin // @sapnapstan
basically, everyone thinks they're together but the only evidence is him quoting the fanfic they read on stream to her at the end and it sounded like a joke
— rachel // @rachlovesdream
he also almost called her babe a few times and kept trying to cover it up, they're together. i feel like he got so annoyed with her the whole stream though.
— erin // @sapnapstan
are you delusional? please seek help, girly... if they are actually together then clearly he doesn't hate her anymore and she doesn't hate him.
taylor // @taylordnf
am i the only one who thinks this syd and dream thing is like... not cute in the slightest lol
— harley // @dreamyweamy
she has like no self-respect dude, how are you going to get with a dude that still hates you
— rachel // @rachlovesdream
that's exactly what i thought dude, you can tell he still doesn't actually like her
— taylor // @taylordnf
so pathetic lol, he was so spot on about her hooking up with streamers for clout. she's doing it now with him, i hope he can see it.
— jordan // @catminsyd
she doesn't need the clout, lmao she's fine on her own
— taylor // @taylordnf
found the syd stan... go away
The tweets were pissing me off; mostly because they reminded me of how much of an asshole I was. I hadn't expected this much of a negative reaction so quickly, and it really got under my skin how everyone painted Sydney out to have no self-respect for being with me, but then I realized that I was actually the one who was to blame. I had been so fucking mean to her and the impacts were more far-reaching than I understood at the time. The guilt was getting more and more overwhelming the more I scrolled. I wished I had never spoken to or about her the way I had, but it was too late.