*shaking you violently* Babe, wake up. New It's Called: Freefall chapter just dropped
Lmk if there are typos!
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Dream just listens in silence to Wilbur rant angrily for about ten minutes. He holds the phone away from his ear a bit, his mind racing. He's thinking more about George than he is about Wilbur, which is an oddly easy task, despite the fact that Wilbur's the one currently chewing him out for killing a guy.
"I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have-"
"Damn right you fuckin' shouldn't have! Techno and I are going to have to deal with so much shit for this. We gotta take care of this and make it look like this guy disappeared. Ran off or something. Dream, if you get in trouble for this you're going down alone. Techno and I have our brother to fuckin' worry about, and I'm not taking any fucking chances of getting arrested for this."
Dream winces a bit. "I know. I know... I wasn't thinking at the time. I'm sorry. I got wrapped up in this, and... Wilbur, you don't get it. This guy really, really deserved it."
Wilbur sighs. "That doesn't fucking matter. You off who you're payed to off. Not random man who cut you off in traffic or something, and you got pissed and showed up at his house to kill him!"
Dream scowls. He naturally goes to defend himself, anger boiling in his gut. "This wasn't some petty shit, Wilbur. I didn't just kill someone. I don't have anger issues or something," he shouts.
Wilbur says nothing, and the silence makes Dream realize that he wasn't exactly proving his point by getting upset. He takes a deep breath, and lowers his voice, speaking evenly. "That guy did something bad to someone I care about, and I took matters into my own hands." Dream's almost shocked by his own words, but they're out and in the air before he can think twice.
Dream can almost see Wilbur roll his eyes over the phone. "And that's the problem. You don't do that. You kill who you're hired to kill. You don't just go around stabbing people when you think they deserve it. Don't go acting all moral, alright, Dream? If anyone deserves this kind of death, it's probably us. You're in no position to do this. You are a bad person. I'm not insulting you— It's the truth. I am too. But don't go all vigilante because you can't cope with the guilt." Wilbur takes a deep breath, clearly trying to calm himself. "Techno's taking care of most of this mess, and he's gonna leave me to do most of the disposing. He excused me so I could call to yell at you."
Dream rolls his eyes, prepared for another angry bout of yelling. Instead, Wilbur sighs, and that almost makes him feel worse. Dream caves. "I know I fucked up. But you seem, like... really upset about this. Is there something I don't know about that'll get us caught or something really, really bad?"
There's silence on the other end of the phone for a long pause. Dream's about to check if the call disconnected when Wilbur finally speaks up again. "There are cameras. He had cameras in his house. They're routed to somewhere. Some database, some computer. Something where all that shit is held, filed away. And Tech and I don't know how to access it. And you could call Sapnap for help with the evidence bit, but I know he doesn't really fuck with technology," Wilbur finally says, his voice even and serious. There's a somber tone to his words.
Dream doesn't like how resigned Wilbur sounds. "That doesn't mean I can't get away with this. We can figure it out." Dream paces back and forth in his room, drumming his fingers against his phone as he holds it back to his ear.
"I don't know, honestly. Neither does Tech. I'm sure you can figure something out, with all your connections. All we know is that the footage and cameras are connected to some weird database that we can't track. And all the footage from the crime is there, and probably wildly incriminating." Wilbur sighs. "You need to figure this shit out before someone gets suspicious and the cops search his house for evidence of why he "ran away", and they find the cameras. This isn't my department. Figure your shit out, Dream," Wilbur says sharply, hanging up suddenly.
Dream looks at his phone for a moment, before tossing it onto his bed. He runs his hands down his face, sighing deeply. "For fuck's sake" he mutters. His mind is suddenly brought back to George, as it's tended to do a lot over the last few weeks. "Shit." He'd just left George for a good fifteen minutes. And who knows how much he heard. Dream rushes over the the door, swinging it open and making his way to the living room. He scans over the couch and then the table. He looks in the kitchen, sighing as he realizes the T.V. is turned off and George must've gone back to his room.
Dream glances at the clock on the oven.
4:55
He really does need to go to sleep. Maybe George was just tired. Dream consoles himself and returns to his room. He wonders if George would ask about the call in the morning. Dream honestly doesn't know if it would be worse if he did or didn't.
He sits on the edge of his bed, thinking for a moment about how he was meant to deal with all of this. He was dealing with the consequences of his choices, and he was hating it. How was he meant to recover video evidence without any knowledge of where it was filed or anything? By morning the police could already have the footage as well as a suspect. It'd draw a lot of attention for sure.
All he knows is that he won't be able to figure it out if he dies of fatal insomnia first. He falls asleep by 5:00.
***
(about half an hour earlier)
"Yeah, I know you fucking hate me. You've made that much clear. All I'm asking is for somewhere to stay. Just for the night, and then I'll find somewhere else."
"Get a hotel room!"
"You think I have the money for that, dipshit? I don't know how long I'm not going to be able to go back for. That's not sustainable right now."
"You really aren't convincing me by refusing to elaborate as to why you can't stay at your house at 4:30 a.m."
George sighs, getting even more frustrated. "I can't tell you, but it's bad enough that I'm just staying away for a bit to figure something out."
"I'm not giving you any money or anything like that."
George scoffs. "When have I ever asked you for money? You keep saying that shit, but I have literally never asked you for money! I'm poor because I got fucked over by you. But I've never asked you for money. I know this isn't an ideal situation, but I don't know what else to do. You think I'm gonna call Quackity? Fuck no."
"Fine. Whatever. For the night. And then I want you out."
"I don't plan on staying for longer than I have to. Trust me." George hangs up the phone.
He had listened quietly to Dream for a few minutes, talking in hushed tones with Wilbur over the phone, and he had decided he didn't want to hear any more. He couldn't get the idea of what Dream must've done to piss off Wilbur. George knew he was exhausted, but he didn't want to stick around the apartment while Dream got scolded by one of his murder colleagues (He's pretty sure that's just an accomplice).
He just needed a little bit to think. And he was utterly exhausted. George was practically dead on his feet when he arrived at Karl's. George didn't know anyone else who lived close-by enough for him to walk there and crash for a few hours.
He knocked on the door around 4:55 a.m., and Karl answered with a displeased look on his face. "You look like you haven't slept," he commented, opening the door wider.
George frowns. "I haven't." He has to stop himself from walking right down the hall and into his old room.
"Okay..." Karl's eyebrows furrow and he frowns a bit. His look of indifference opens a small wound on George's heart that he hadn't thought contained the ability of reopening. "Well you can crash on the couch for a bit. It's like 5 a.m., so I'm actually gonna head out in like, an hour and a half."
George just nods silently and drops his bag on the floor, and practically falling onto the couch. His eyes are closed in record time, but that doesn't stop his mind from pulling him down useless trains of thought. Does he feel bad for begging Karl to let him stay for a few hours? Yeah, sure. Just a bit. But he really wasn't sure of what else to do.
His mind wanders all over the place, thinking about what Dream could've done, to if the blonde was actually possibly a threat, to what he would do upon discovering George had just left.
He laid on the couch, his back turned to the rest of the living room. Eventually, he heard the door close, and Karl. Only then did he fall asleep after the longest 24 hours of his life.
1553 words
Guys I swear this won't morph into a KNF fic. This is all for the plot. Trust 🙏🙏 More problems shall arise. Out of fight/flight/freeze, George will choose flight or freeze 99% of the time.