George woke up with zero missed calls. Now he couldn't ignore the nagging feeling in his stomach anymore. He felt sick and increasingly worried. Dream couldn't just... disappear. George knew that missing people were far more common than people thought. Normally, one had to pay the ransom and was free again. In 68% of the cases, to be exact. Well, if there had been a kidnapping. In Dreams case, an abduction since he wasn't a kid anymore. But time was essential, moving fast and communicating with the kidnappers mostly went well and got everybody what they needed.
Suddenly George remembered something, a phone number Dream gave him years ago. Back when he was still living with his parents, which always sounded like hell.
„It sounds so stupid, but I'm going to give you the number of my parents." George had laughed back then, „You know, something can always happen! I want you to, you know, know when I die of a heart attack in Minecraft."
„Sounds very on brand ", George had answered and written down the phone number on a post-it. Then he had put in somewhere on his desk. His body got a rush of adrenaline as he got out of bed and started ruffling through his paper on the desk. This was going to be a long search.
George tried hard not to get too worried, Dream was 20 years old after all – he could look after himself. Maybe he just went out, partied hard and passed out after. No, Dream was not the party animal. His body grew increasingly hot with worry as he tried to have a systematic look for the number. His hands started shaking, he felt his heart galloping in his chest.
'What the fuck', he thought to himself noticing he was on the brim of freaking out, it wasn't as if they never had a day without talking to each other. Well, it didn't happen often to be honest.
He finally found the small post-it and started dialing the number on his phone. His finger hovered over the call button before he finally pressed it. It started ringing, but someone on the other side of the line hung up on him. George stared at his phone. What did that mean? Dream was safe and didn't want to talk?
His own phone rang. Maybe it was Dream? Maybe I wasn't? He needed to calm down. He went to his bed and answered the call without looking at the screen.
Mr.Panpas was on the line and gave him no time to get lost in his thoughts any further. He sounded urgent. Very urgent.
„We need you in the office right now. Its highest priority, you have five minutes! Understood? "
A new case already? George snapped out of his panic the moment he heard „highest priority ". The thought of Dream missing was pushed to the back of his brain as he answered a rushed yes and RAN in his bathroom, throwing his phone on his bed in the progress. He couldn't brush his teeth, so he just threw water in his face, further waking him up. He threw on a shirt and his jeans from yesterday.
When he struggled too much on his socks, he left them crumpled up and threw on his shoes over them. He grabbed his keys, a jacket and left the small flat he lived in. He threw the door closed, not bothering to struggle with his keys to close it, it was too time-consuming. The bureau was down the street, normally he went with the subway, but one glance at the display of the train times informed him that the next train came in five minutes. Cursing, he turned to his electric scooter (wich reminded him of Dream).
Panpas greeted him when he came in. He stood in front of the door talking with a stern-looking woman wearing a suit.
"Mrs. Jackson, this is Mr. Davidson, our IT-expert. Mr. Davidson, this is Mrs. Jackson, federal agent –"
„Good Morning Mr. Davidson. We need you to locate this cell phone ", Mrs. Jackson interrupted. George noticed that the office looked drastically different. The tables were moved so a large whiteboard could fit in the middle of the room.
Men and Women wearing no uniform Geoge knew were all over the place, talking to each other in small groups. George knew what this meant. Someone important was missing. He took the paper from Jackson and went to his usual space in the back of the room. Turning on this computer, he studied the details. It was everything he needed. The number looked strangely familiar; he was irritated.
He took a deep breath and concentrated on his task ahead.
Two hours later, he finally got the location out of the my-phone-is-missing-Google function.
As soon as he handed the results in, everyone seemed to get moving.
„The phone is near Tonbridge, this is its position ", George explained to a team of swat policemen, „I suspect it's in this house in the forest."
Panpas took over. „Inform the local authorities, I want the roads under surveillance! No one gets into this forest without us knowing!"
The team started to do their job.
„Who is missing, anyway? ", George asked Panpas.
„Rich kid, Father is a diplomat, ransom sum is set to 3 million US-Dollars. Go talk to Mrs. Jackson, she is the lead federal agent of the case. It's international, the case."
George made a noise of agreement and walked over to listen to Jackson briefing her team. When she was finished, she turned to George.
„Is there anything I can help you with? ", George asked and instantly regretted asking such stupid question.
„Not right now, but I need you to stay sharp. The kid is important, and we need to get him out of the hands of the terrorists before the situation escalates."
„How do they negotiate? Did they send anything trackable, maybe I - "?
„In person."
George was taken aback. What did she mean, in person?
„They want us to send somebody with the money in, but the victim needs to know the person to make sure we don't send one of our star-swats in there. Whoever we send, they are going to get themselves and the kid killed ", Jackson shook her head, „Never heard of that strategy. Awful. "
„Have you found somebody fitting and willing to go in? ", George asked, still visibly confused by this way of negotiating.
„No, it would be a suicide mission. We don't have an official location, anyway. I don't get their plan. No matter how much think about it, why would they want their victim and another person in there? Well, except you shoot them both and don't want to risk the money transfer... "
„Amateurs? ", George suggested.
„Doesn't feel like it. Well, I got to get on the phone with the local cops. "
„Sure."
George went back to his desk. He wanted to check Dreams socials. Maybe he had posted something. He reached into his jacket and realized he forgot his phone. Cursing, he sat down. He was pretty sure he couldn't use his computer for personal research.
He did it, anyway, feeling like a criminal in the middle of a police department. Dream hadn't posted anything. George was worried. He wanted to ask his friend if they heard anything from him, but he couldn't call them, because he forgot his damn phone.
George needed to stay in the office to finish the paperwork and keep a close eye on the location of the phone and so he did. He tried not to think about Dream.
But he couldn't keep himself from missing him. His stomach did a funny flip when he thought of their last stream together, they were just messing around, having fun testing a new plugin George had programmed. It made them teleport to a random location whenever they ate something. He remembered Dream wheezing like a teapot, as he always did. George could never stop the smile from spreading on his face whenever he heard Dream laugh. He desperately tried to think of anything he could have said to cause Dream to not want to talk to him anymore. In his memory, everything went perfect, they had fun.
Dream seemed happy, making fun of his attempts of trying to teleport inside a safe-house Dream had built out of obsidian in creative. When he finally got in, he had made a joke about placing his Minecraft bed next to Dreams. They hade a laugh, had been flirty as always – no no no, where did that thought come from? Dream was certainly not flirty, this was just his sense of humor! George caught his traitorous body had been staring at the same spot for some minutes now. His cheeks felt hot and he was smiling.
Struggling to regain his concentration, he updated the position of the phone.
It was when he was informed several hours later that they hadn't found the missing kid in the forest that he made a decision.
"We are not sure if he's still alive. No sign of him anywhere, just a room that could be used for kidnapping-purposed. But well, thats pretty much every basement ever. Don't know if we're going to find him, these guys are way ahead of us! We have to send someone in!"
"May I remind you that we don't have someone who knows him and is willing to risk his life?! I'm not letting you get my man killed for nothing!", Jackson had angrily replied to Panpas.
"They have set a timer. We need someone in until Tuesday, if we don't find anyone, they are going to kill him!"
"Well, he has to have some friends. Get his computer delivered to us, I want to talk to his friends. His parents said he is spending lots of time in front of it-"
George felt his blood pumping through his body. What if Dream had been taken, too? He knew how essential time was. He swallowed and looked down at his computer screen. He made a decision. He was going to find out Dreams location, ultimately betraying his best friends trust by hacking into his phone.
Oh, what was he thinking?
---
[notes:
Decisions were made.
Since the fandom is rather small, i would love to hear your thoughts on the story so far :))
And because I dont watch sapnaps videos, i didn't want to write him as an "official" character, so i wrote his name backwards and called it a day lmaoooo]