The three notes indicating an outgoing Discord call ring once, twice, and almost topple into its third rotation before being rudely cut short. The previously dimmed profile picture lights into its full saturation as a gentle wave of white noise sets the tone for the call.
Perhaps a blow to the Discord composer's musical talents, the interruption of the melody is anything but upsetting for George, who sits to full attention as he leans closer to the screen.
"Dream?"
"George? Hello?"
The gentle tug on the corners of George's lips transition into a full smile at the familiar greeting, and a little part of his brain lights up at the presence of Dream.
"Hi," George replies, careful not to channel too much of his excitement into his voice, "How are you?"
"Eh, good enough," Dream replies, a lazy half-smile tainting his lips as he rubs at his face, "How was your meeting?"
George doesn't let himself be pulled into the primary reason for the call just yet, instead taking time to notice that Dream is talking slower than usual, his voice lower in pitch to match the pace change. The detective in him takes a second to conclude it must be from sleep.
"Did you just wake up?" George asks, "You sound tired."
"Really?" Dream clears his throat a little self-consciously, "I woke up half an hour ago."
George quirks an eyebrow in interest, never one to miss an opportunity to tease.
"Sleeping in the morning?" George tsks playfully in admonishment, "Are you turning into me?"
Dream laughs at George's self-deprecating jab and rolls his eyes, "I'm not turning into you. I just have a bad sleep schedule. You know that."
"Well if you think about it," George ponders, suddenly caught up in the matters of analyzing his and Dream's sleeping patterns, "I sleep a lot and at weird times because of you, and you have a bad sleep schedule because you're turning into me. So we're causing each other to be more unhealthy and prone to sudden death."
"What?" Dream utters his customary reaction to unexpected information, "First of all, I'm not turning into you. Second of all, why would you remind me that having a bad sleep schedule actually has a long-term effect on my health."
George giggles, "Because you should take care of yourself and not die young."
"Okay Mr. Always-Awake-at-the-Ass-Crack-of-Dawn," Dream rebukes, almost laughing through his own wordy invention of a nickname, "Whatever you say."
George nods loftily, the way a king might acknowledge the presence of some second-tier aristocrat, "That's more like it."
Their banter dissolves into a more casual conversation that, in George's later memory, sounds more like jumbled amalgamations of words than any actual intellectual exchange happening. Still, it's comfortable, and George settles into the mood snugly.
"So, the meeting?" Dream brings up once again after light chatter and random small-talk, "Update me on what happened after you panic-texted me at the shop then told me I was of no help."
Still buried in safe and happy feelings and infinitely less jittery than when he was at the coffee shop earlier in the day, George decides he'll be nice for a change, "I'll admit maybe you were of a little help. But I did not panic-text you. That was a very logical and rational decision made in the best interest of my meeting."
If George had a conversation with a clone of himself, the truth is, he's pretty sure they would never actually get anywhere, always more interested in picking little fights and dissecting minuscule matters of importance rather than following the main path of discussion. He already has a slight idea of how that would work out.
Prompt: George, please discuss the topic of beetles with George.
George: Um... okay. What do you think about beetles?
George: I dunno. They're kinda cool, I guess.
George: (making a face) What do you mean "They're kinda cool." Do you like them or not?
George: I just said, I don't know.
George: Well that's not answering the prompt then.
George: Then what do you think about beetles?
George: Uh... They're kinda cool, I guess.
George: That's what I said!
George: Yeah maybe because we're literally the same person, idiot.
George: Idiot yourself.
George: I am.
George: I don't want to talk to you anymore.
George: I'm literally you.
And so on and so forth, until the end of infinity, even as every other life form has long been reduced to its most elementary form, and the conceptual beetle has long been forgotten.
Fortunately, George doesn't often find that he needs to talk to himself. Instead, he has Dream, whom he decides is a more pleasant conversationalist, a trained professional ready to rescue any trainwreck of a conversation, perhaps because he is accustomed to dealing with George's frequent strayings from the actual topic at hand.
"Alright, sure. Let's say I believe that," Dream smoothes over quickly, "What's next?"
"Wait, wait, hold on," George insists out of nowhere, "Why are you asking all the questions? I have a question too."
"Yes, George," Dream allows indulgently, "What is it?"
His willing compliance is both annoying and sweet to George, who wants him to put up a fight so they could argue a little more and yet, at the same time, cannot resist the thought of Dream being so endlessly patient with him. George decides to pipe down for the time being.
He'll always have more time to get on Dream's nerves, especially if today goes right.
"You remember our conversation some time ago?" George brings up with anticipation tinged with a tiny jolt of nervousness, "On the server?"
"That time I beat you in Battle Box like 50 to 1?" Dream gloats shamelessly, "Yeah, maybe I do. What about it?"
George fumes at the embarrassing row of defeats that he has tried and failed to erase from his memories, "You're an idiot. I'm unfriending you."
"You brought it up!" Dream points out quickly, "Maybe I just happened to remember that part because it was so memorable. It's not every day you get put onto a call with your best friend and he just yells at you for an hour straight while losing every single-"
"Stop!" George yells as he attempts to cover his ears before realizing headphones get in the way of his palms, sliding down his chair in defeat as Dream recounts the events, "I was going to talk about actually important things and now I don't want to talk to you ever again."
"Aww, George, come on," Dream coos fondly, "You can't not talk to me. We're trying to turn each other into each other, remember?"
"Merge into one person," George concurs as he slides back up his chair and emerges back from his shell of mortification, "Like that one tweet I made of our Minecraft characters glitched and merging into one."
It takes a second for Dream to remember the reference, as George allows the silence to sustain a moment longer before bursting into hiccup-y laughter that in turn gets Dream to start laughing.
"That wasn't even funny," Dream squeezes out before promptly dissolving into another bout of giggles, contradicting his original point exactly.
"DNF is always funny," George disagrees, "Except the one time you wrote it on my face."
Dream hits his desk as his laughing becomes so high-pitched it cuts out for a few seconds, "DNF is dead! I'm banning DNF jokes from now on. You psycho."
George folds over as he laughs, shaking so hard he has to steady himself against the edge of the desk. He inhales a large intake of breath as he tries to calm himself from the laugh attack, before falling over again and succumbing to the Power of Humor©.
We'll see about that, Dream, George thinks to himself, We'll see about that.
And so as George's moment of shame is temporarily washed away with the random burst of laughter, the two return to the topic at hand in the aftermath.
"I don't even remember what we were talking about," George says as he wipes away the remnants of what could have been a tear, "Oh! Right, okay. I had a question."
"Yes, please ask away," Dream replies graciously as he pats down his ruffled hair.
"After the Battle Box thing, whatever," George starts, trying to quickly overlook the Battle Box situation, "We talked about stuff."
"Yup," Dream confirms, "We definitely did."
George nods along, though his movement would go unseen by Dream, "Do you remember what we talked about?"
The topic borders on being uncomfortable, but George decides he'll take the venture and test the waters. Whatever concerns there were should be resolved by today, George just needs Dream to tough it out a little bit for this moment. Communication is important, as the two have learned the hard way.
He fidgets with his wrist and awaits the answer anxiously.
"I do, it was pretty important and pretty recent so," George can almost see the way Dream shrugs here, "No reason not to remember."
"Right, and all the more reasons to remember things you yourself said," George adds, sensing that Dream is open to talking about past conversations and pushing a little more.
A grimace zips quickly across George's face as he realizes his words sound confrontational as opposed to the sort of smooth transition he was hoping for.
"That sounded mean, it wasn't supposed to," he corrects quickly, trying to clear the air with a laugh, "I was more trying to get the conversation to a certain point."
"I got it," Dream reassures, "And what was the point?"
"Oh- just, you know, we talked that day," George suddenly can't seem to remember anything he had wanted to say, his heart stuttering as he realizes that maybe he was the one not quite prepared for this conversation, "Something about, you know..."
Dating each other, George finishes in his thoughts.
The thought doesn't make it to the light of day, as he trails off and winces. He's heating up for no reason at all, still ultimately unable to talk openly of feelings without wanting to disappear forever, "Nevermind, forget it. Let me tell you how the meeting went."
Why is he always short-circuiting in the most important moments? What happened to the bold George who once had the audacity to assume Dream was his soulmate, who asked him out at the drop of a hat not a week ago?
"Okay?" a confused Dream strings along, his mind working at full capacity to figure out what George intended to finish the sentence with, "Yes. Tell me."
So George launches into the story of his meeting with Julia, doing his best to recount events from the nice, cozy warmth of the shop. His memory is hazy and riddled with gaps, but as he works through the story, details come back and his often fragmentary tale doesn't end up too badly.
He tells Dream about Julia finding him at the table, about his first impressions of her, the bag he couldn't identify because he was colorblind.
"She recognized me, which was super weird," George recalls as Dream listens attentively, "She just went 'Are you GeorgeNotFound?' and I had no idea how to respond."
"Just ask her if she's subscribed," Dream jokingly suggests.
"Pfftt, no!" George shoots down the idea, though not without conjuring up a comedic alternate universe in which his first consideration for his soulmate is whether or not they've subscribed to his YouTube channel, "That's such a red flag."
"A red... bag?" Dream jokes, and chuckles when George protests against the attempt at making a pun, "Okay okay, fine. But it was a little funny."
George ignores him and continues on, flipping through his memory folders and mentioning the peppermint hot chocolate with a generous swirl of whipped cream, piecing together the soulmark viewing for Dream, noting the faded quality of Julia's mark to Dream's immense chagrin.
"The first time you see your soulmate's mark should be romantic," Dream remarks guiltily, "I'm really sorry. That must have been awkward for you two."
"It doesn't have to be romantic, you've just watched too many movies," George counters, unwilling to let Dream reach too many conclusions before he tells him about the most important information he's held back during the call.
Maybe he should have started the conversation with that and let the rest follow along in reverse chronological order, like newspapers often do.
Something like "Extra! Extra! Read All About It! George's Soulmate Julia is Married So Now He Can Feel Free to Pursue a Relationship with His Best Friend of Six Years Without Feeling Crushing Guilt About His Decision!" and then after Dream gets over the initial shock of the situation, they can have a more productive conversation about what to do. Perhaps then he can spare Dream all the unnecessary pain of listening to other people finding their soulmates while he still remains alone.
But for some reason, George cherishes the feeling of knowing he can change Dream's entire perception of their future in a positive way. It makes him feel useful and helpful for once, instead of playing the part of the burden, the unknowing, the confused.
George thinks that a lot of the time, what makes something horrible is the build-up that leads to the actual event.
If someone came and chopped your head off, you'd be dead, so you probably wouldn't care all that much.
If someone came and chopped your head off, but warned you about it a day in advance, then you'd be gnawing on your nails and dreading the event until the eventual unbecoming death.
So, reversing that logic...
What makes something good is also the build-up that leads to the actual event?
Well, George doesn't really know where he's going with the whole thing, but he's somehow made the decision to delay relaying Julia's marriage to Dream to bask a little more in the pre-climactic climate that promises a brighter future.
Things could go horribly in upcoming weeks, but at least for now, George can believe that the future is bright.
He can fix everything, once and for all.
Or maybe he's delaying it because he's nervous.
Maybe George isn't ready to talk about it yet.
"It doesn't have to be romantic," Dream brings George back from his musings, "But it should be. That's your soulmate, and that's the soulmark that initiates the relationship. I feel like it's a pretty monumental moment."
Should I tell him? George hesitates as the urge to just catch Dream up increasingly blossoms to a pressing desire, I want him to know. I think he should know. Dream deserves to know what's happening.
Dream rambles on, unaware of George's inner turmoil, "I mean, that's the person you're spending the rest of your life with, that's your-"
"Dream, I gotta tell you something," George blurts out as he finally relents to his incessant thoughts, "But you can't get mad at me."
Dream narrows his eyes, "What did you do?"
"You have to promise not to get angry at me," George insists.
"That's for me to decide whether I get upset or not," Dream answers, "But you should tell me regardless."
George makes a show of fretting over his decision, "You can't get upset."
"We'll see."
"Well... Okay. Fine. I told Julia I liked someone else already," George confesses, "After we did the soulmark viewing thing."
Dream facepalms so loudly the smack probably echoes a little in the emptiness of his room, and George freezes in the silence that ensues.
"George! Why?" Dream questions, very clearly upset despite George's request, "I thought we went over this already."
"We did!" George points out, "And I still decided to tell her because I think it's probably important for her to know."
Dream exhales slowly, "To know that her soulmate likes someone else?"
"Yes?" George answers like it's obvious, "If my soulmate liked someone else I'd want her to tell me too."
"No! Well, yes, I guess, but," Dream lifts his hands up in an attempt to find the right words to grasp his true feeling, "But you know that can be overridden by recovering your soul bond."
"Sure," George concedes, "But I still told her."
"You..." Dream presses his temples and sighs. After a moment of self-conciliatory silence, he says, "Okay. You're your own person, and this is your own relationship. Whatever you do, fine. I support you wanting to be honest with your soulmate."
"Aww, that's nice of you," George leans on his desk and scratches the surface lightly, "I knew you'd understand."
"I don't understand," Dream corrects, "But whatever works for you, I guess."
"You're acting like the subject of my affection isn't you," George points out, the burst of confidence he had lacked earlier suddenly finding its way back, "And you're acting like you aren't secretly delighted by the news."
"I am not," Dream denies as he continues fuming. And maybe a light flush takes over his face, but that would be lost to the darkness of his room, "I'd rather you get along with your soulmate than... whatever."
"I am getting along with Julia rather well," George rebukes, "We're great friends."
"And you will be greater friends if you didn't bring up liking other people in front of her," Dream grumbles, "Much less other people that should be getting on and moving on with their lives."
"I'd like to disagree," George says, almost a little coyly, " In fact, there's actually something else I gotta tell you."
"Oh God," Dream groans, obviously not as excited by the prospect of more news, "George. Are you trying to kill me?"
"If I wanted that you would have been dead long ago," George jokes, though Dream can't help but feel a chill down his spine, "But currently the answer is no."
"Yeah and let's keep it that way," Dream suggests, "You're scary sometimes."
"Good," George remarks as he smiles sinisterly, adding an echo effect to his voice last minute, "Remember your fear."
"You are an idiot," Dream decides to say, though George would like to believe it was more fearful than playful, "Now tell me."
"Fine," George retracts his previously weird expression and turns off his voice changer, "Okay. You have to promise not to be angry with me."
"George," Dream laughs like he doesn't even know how to react to George's endless antics anymore, "Just tell me."
"Fine, fine, I will. And I was messing with you, this is actually some pretty good news," George lets the hint of a smile shape his lips, "But just listen to me, 'kay?"
"Okay," Dream answers dutifully, settling into silence as he lets George take center stage.
George balls his hands into a fist and then releases it, watching the fabric of his sleeves crumple with the action.
"I wasn't just being impulsive when I told Julia that I liked someone else," George explains, "I genuinely felt like that was information both of us would appreciate. Not just because people appreciate the truth, but because something wasn't quite right with Julia."
George doesn't take the time to dispel whatever concern Dream might feel hearing the last sentence, choosing instead to head forward with the story and let him understand that way.
"See, the thing is, Julia didn't seem all that upset about her mark being so faded," George continues, "She wasn't nervous or eager to see me, though she was definitely very pleasant still. She didn't immediately ask to see my mark, she barely brought up our status as soulmates. So on and so forth. The evidence piles up. All this amounts to her seeming quite uninterested in me as a partner."
He might start rambling if they don't get to the point soon, and George hastens his storytelling pace.
"What I'm trying to say is, there was no romantic tension between us. Neither of us was really even trying to facilitate romance or whatever," George explains, "And that made me feel like telling her about me liking you was something I could do. I felt like it was a reasonable decision to make given the circumstances."
Dream probably has an interruption just dying to be spoken into the world, but he holds his tongue. George doesn't test Dream's patience as he gathers his thoughts to finish the rest of the story.
"And I was right, my judgment turned out to be correct," George may be just a little self-satisfied and a little bit cocky as he says this, perhaps a side effect of spending so much time around Dream, "Because as it turns out, Julia is married."
Something akin to a crash goes off on the other end of a call, and before George can ask, Dream is assuring him he's fine.
George raises a skeptical eyebrow but continues on per Dream's request.
"She's married to the owner of the coffee shop, Lisa, who is very nice and also happens to be a fan of my content..."
George only sounds a little too proud of himself.
"...and they are definitely in love and together and happy."
A thick silence wafts in the air as George purses his lips through a grin. He can almost hear the way Dream's brain is trying to process the news, "This is probably a lot of information, so I'll leave you with that to digest. We don't have to talk about it right now, and I'm way too tired either way."
"George, holy shit," Dream murmurs, still dazed as he collapses back into his chair.
"I know," George laughs, "Take some time, think about it, we'll talk about it tomorrow probably. By then I'm sure we'll have lots to discuss."
Dream nods slowly, as if trying to measure out the sensibility of George's decision as he agrees, "Let's do that."
"Okay, well then Dream," George claps his hands together, "I'll probably go to sleep now. Before I do, there's just one last question left."
Dream's head snaps up, quickly calculating possibilities of just what exactly George could be ending the call on. Each time his brain ends up in the same place, the one thing that seems most obvious and yet so impossible.
No wonder George had asked about their time on the MCC server, he was trying to remind him of the event that had gone down just recently. The call that ended with Dream finally persuading George to pursue his own relationship, but officially cutting ties with a remnant of the past he'd clung on to for too long.
That day had been building up since day one, and Dream had pictured it faintly for two whole years. By the time it actually happened, his imagination had worn it so dry that he barely felt the worst of it. He had to do the right thing, and by that point, it was all he needed to do to fixate on that thought.
How ironic that George had offered the very thing he had been wishing for, and in the face of the desideratum Dream refused.
His leg bounces anxiously under the desk as he holds his breath without meaning to.
Oh, but how things change.
It isn't really clear if George snapped him back to his senses after declaring Julia's marriage, or sent him right into another avalanche of emotions, but he is sure as hell ready to listen.
George smirks, the impish expression going unseen as all cameras are off. Dream is his poor, unsuspecting victim.
"So... Dream," he starts, dragging out the syllables to build tension, "You'll be paying for the plane tickets to Florida again, right?"
"Oh fuck off! You are such an idiot."
George cackles loudly as he waves at the camera and disconnects from the call.
Dream watches George's profile picture slip away. He's alone in the call, accompanied only by the row of settings lining the bottom of the call window. He blinks, as if confused by the past hour, and slowly lets out a breath. The answer poised on his tongue is spoken easily, though now it echoes like an empty afterthought.
"Yes, I will."
---
Kang's Note: That's right. I'm back! And I present you another fantastical chapter of... basically nothing happening. Give it up for your favorite DNF writer!
Leave it to me to miss uploading on Christmas, the last day of 2021, and the first day of 2022, to instead upload right smack in the middle of nowhere on January 3rd! But I hope all of you have had a wonderful beginning to 2022 and enjoyed your holiday season! To readers who have been here in a while, I've missed you to pieces and I'm so excited to be here again. To new readers who boarded the ship while I was on my little hiatus break thing, I promise I usually don't take a month to upload a new chapter.
That's all for now, thank you so much for being here, I appreciate your presence like nothing else, and I hope you're ready for future (probably) more exciting chapters!! Cheers to a new year of watching our favorite idiots do things and cheers to you for being your awesome self. See you next time!