Chapter Four
The sun shone through my window and I tried batting the rays away with my hand before realizing how stupid that looked. I woke up my phone and saw that my alarm never went off. I had missed my 8am computer applications class. Honestly, it didn't really matter. He didn't care if you showed up or not, as long as you got the work done and you were happy with your grade. I had an A+ in that class right now, so I wasn't worried.
I checked my notifications and saw that my Twitter had gained a few thousand more followers since yesterday. That was most likely because of Dream and his little bet. I was trending on Twitter and I beat a world record yet again. I was almost at one million on the bird app now. The only other class I had for the day was an art class at noon. I was taking an honors minor and it was for that. However, I do occasionally dabble in drawing and sketching so it actually wasn't terrible.
While I had three hours to kill until class, I started scrolling through twitter. That was cut short when the text notification pinged on my phone.
iMessage Chat
bitch boy
hop on discord
I invited you to a chat room called dt1
rude, no pls? No how did you sleep?
It's always "i invited you to a chat room" never
"i invited you to talk about your feelings"
sad boi hrs
gn streaks, dhmu
I downloaded the discord app on my phone while I waited for Dream's response.
iMessage Chat
bitch boy
it's morning
gn streaks my ass
you're an asshat
I laughed at his responses. I was glad he wasn't one of those people that didn't know how to take a joke or play into a joke. It was nice knowing I could say things like that and he'd understand, then gauge a response.
When I logged into my discord account, I clicked on the notification of the new chatroom that I was invited to. As soon as I entered, I heard Dream screaming.
"Okay ow, a headphone user warning would've been nice. Thanks," I seethed
Upon hearing my statement, Dream's scream turned into his signature tea kettle laugh. He was laughing so hard that it sounded like his lungs were deflating and the pitch got higher as each second passed.
"HA!" He screeched, as loud as the scream when I first entered the chat room.
"You're so fucking annoying, god damn," I laughed.
"Stop, stop. I need a moment to calm down."
"I'll give you a fucking moment," I rolled my eyes as I sat up in bed. That remark only made him laugh more.
"O-Okay," he stuttered as I heard him intake a giant breath.
"Are you calm now, green bitch?"
"He—," he began to giggle. Yes, I mean giggle, "Yeah."
"Okay," I sighed, a content smile on my lips, "So what's up?"
"Well, I wanted to stream on my SMP and wanted someone to talk to. I had my friend in here but I kicked him from the room. I didn't know if you were comfortable with meeting my friends yet."
"Wow, didn't know your bitch ass was able to be thoughtful."
"Oh shut the fuck up!" He half yelled, half laughed.
I chuckled, "Your friend was in the room first, you shouldn't kick him from it. You can bring him back in here. I'm okay with it."
"Are you sure?"
"Um yeah. Don't make me regret it."
He laughed, "No promises. My friend is kind of stupid."
"Who is it? Wilbur? Greg?"
His wheeze sounded again, "Greg?"
"Oh shit is that not his name?" I laughed along with him.
"Ge-orge?" Clay stuttered through his wheeze.
"Ha, yeah that kid," I replied, "Oh yeah also I have a—"
There was a ping that sounded signaling that someone entered the room.
"You're a bitch, Dream," A British accent said.
"Thanks," Dream laughed, "What were you saying Cal?"
I smiled at the fact that he remembered to call me by my social media name and not the stupid nicknames he's been calling me. Although, Captain Crunch and Chloramphenicol (pronounced clor-em-fen-eh-coal) are fan favorites of mine. Honestly, I'm pretty sure he was googling words that started with 'c' after an hour because there's no way he even knows what chloramphenicol is. I only know what it is because I'm a Pre-Med major who learned about Typhoid fever.
"Uh, I was just saying that I have a class in three hours. So if you're planning on streaming longer than that, I'll have to dip."
"I usually only stream for two hours so that should be fine."
"What're you studying in school?" The British friend asked.
"Um," I hummed, trying to find a way to remove the spotlight from me.
"So Cal, this is one of my friends George," Clay spoke up, reading the room.
"I'm George," the British cheerfully introduced.
"Hi, I'm Cal. I don't know if you've heard of me but—"
"Oh I've heard of you alright," George said.
"You are so annoying, oh my god," Dream affirmed, the typing of his keyboard being picked up by his microphone.
"Well if you know me, um, I apologize for not knowing you."
"You're good," George said.
"Okay I'm starting the stream," Dream advised, "Hi!" He greeted his audience.
I went to my setup and pulled Dream's stream up on one of the monitors. I had my sketchbook open on the desk as I pushed my keyboard away. I might as well finish up the portrait drawing I was working on. It was a realism sketch of Tom Felton, the actor from Harry Potter. He has a nice face structure and the picture made it easy to add contrast with shadows and light.
"Hello," George said.
"People are not completely in the stream yet," Dream commented, completely ignoring George.
"No one likes you anymore."
"I'm irrelevant. I haven't uploaded in three weeks. I fell off the face of the earth."
"It's okay, we forgive you."
"Who's the we in this instance? Because I definitely don't forgive this green bitch," I contested. I started shading the neck of Tom. I usually work like a printer. I start at the forehead or eyes and make my way down the face. Eyes are my favorite part to draw. Mostly because they're my favorite part of anyone's face.
"I was speaking for the audience, Cal, god," he feigned an annoyed tone.
"What audience?" I responded, causing George and I to laugh.
"Stop!" Dream shouted.
George and Dream started talking about how he had zero views because he lost a fight with Technoblade. I rolled my eyes. He's so overdramatic. George went to Twitter and tweeted out the idea Dream had since Dream was streaming and couldn't do it. I stayed mostly silent, afraid to speak up in his stream. I didn't know how a completely different fanbase would react to me being here. I'm sure some of our fans overlapped since we're both speed runners for Minecraft. I just didn't know how solo Dream fans would react. I'm kind of regretting agreeing to this.
"The notification went out," George informed Dream.
"Oh hi! Hello! How is everybody?" He asked.
I took my phone and sent Dream a quick message.
iMessage Chat
bitch boy
um how exactly does your fanbase react to new people?
i haven't even been on twitch for a year, i can't get cancelled for something i didn't do quite yet.
"Oh hold on guys, I got a text," Dream spoke. He went silent for a minute before I saw the chat bubbles typing. Then, I read through his message.
hey, you can leave at any time, okay? Talk as much as you want or don't talk at all.
I released a tiny sigh and went back to my drawing.
"Okay, we have a goal today. I wanna pull up this post," he clicked his keyboard, "This guy that has the reddit account random builder in MC, that's his reddit account, he posted a post and with a, with a video and also a um a screenshot of a remodeled house of our main house on the SMP," he paused, "So that's what we're going to do."
I listened to their conversation, occasionally looking up at the screen to see what Dream was doing in Minecraft. Him and George threw a little banter at each other, but within a minute, Dream already started working.
"And when we're doing this, can we get rid of all the crafting tables?" George asked.
"Yeah, yeah we will."
I wanted to ask what was up with all the crafting tables but I kept my mouth shut and kept drawing. My eyes darted from my sketch to the reference photo to the stream like a cycle. Whenever George made a little joke or something that made him chuckle, Dream would match his enthusiasm and throw out a little laugh. It was much more pleasing to hear than the ear splitting HA! that I received when first entering the call.
"And yeah I'm sending letters back to everyone that sends me letters and stuff. It's chill," Dream said. I looked at the screen and saw he received a $25 donation and a voice didn't read it out. He must've disabled it.
"So if I send you a letter, thee real DreamWasTaken from Florida will send me back a handwritten letter?" I questioned, feigning excitement.
"Oh shut up, Cal," Clay laughed.
"I'm going to send you a letter," I giggled.
"Fuck—I mean, frick you, Cal."
I burst out laughing, "Oh wittle dweam can't swear?"
"You're so mean to me."
"Deal with it, bitch," I said.
"Cal!" Dream laughed.
I forced ninety percent of my attention back to the drawing. George and Dream began bickering for the third time since he joined the chat room. There was a dono that told him to take a nap because it was nine in the morning. Apparently Dream hasn't been awake for that long.
"Hi from Ava and Greg from Australia," Dream read out the dono. He snorted, "Ha, Greg. That's an interesting name, isn't it Cal?" Dream addressed me.
"Clay I swear to fu—"
"What's so funny about Greg?" George asked.
"Wouldn't you like to know," Dream sassed.
"Uh yeah, that's why I asked."
"Don't do me dirty," I pleaded, but alas, he told George the story anyway, "Ugh, I'm never going to hear the end of this."
They went on for fifteen minutes dragging out the fact that I thought George's name was Greg. I am literally never going to live this down. I'm going to feed into the joke and call George Greg from now on. Nothing else, just Greg. Let's see how much he loves this joke when I "forget" his real name.
"I'm going to get food," I spoke. They had started to say something, but I already muted my mic to pretend that I had left.
Dream suddenly asked for clay and that alone made me laugh. I'm sure Dream would make fun of me for laughing at that but what can I say? My sense of humor is both dark, sarcastic, and just plain stupid. I poured myself some orange juice and popped bread in the toaster. I jumped when the toast popped up and I pretended like I didn't get scared. Instead, I lathered some butter on and took my things back to my desk.
"I'm back," I unmuted.
"Oh my god, I just made two slabs. I'm not meant to be a builder, I'm too unorganized."
"I could've told you that, Cl—Dream," I responded. I know I've said his real name on the stream like ten minutes ago, it felt weird being the only one calling him it. I took notice in how George only addresses Dream by his username. Before anyone could mention anything about what I said, I heard a monotone "buddy joined the channel" and another male voice sounded, unfamiliar from what I've heard. But of course, I've only met George from Dream's friends.
"Hi George," he said.
"Hello," George responded.
Suddenly, I heard George address the boy by Sapnap and I recognized the name from Dream telling me about his friends yesterday. I continued working on my piece throughout the next hour until I was finished. Throughout this time, I found out that Sapnap giggles a lot and he seems very soft. He makes very corny jokes and almost resembles a child at times. Honestly though, so does George. The brit spent an entire ten minutes trying to trap Sapnap and Dream in netherrack.
I only really talked when I was addressed because I was so hyper focused on finishing my portrait. They had been streaming for almost two hours when I finally finished. I had to figure out what color I wanted for a background but other than that, it came together quite nicely.
"Okay Sapnap, you're kicked out of the dream team," Dream said. I looked up at the screen to see if anything happened but he was just replacing glass with stone.
"Yeah, we're replacing you with Cal," George laughed.
"Yeah, why're you so mean to George, Sapnap?" Dream asked. I couldn't quite tell if his question was serious or not. They laughed it off though, so by context clues, it was obviously a joke.
"You're quiet, Cal," Sapnap said.
I looked from the screen to my phone as if I was FaceTiming them, "Sorry, I'm just focused on something. I tend to go quiet when I'm focused."
"What're you doing?" George asked.
"I plead the fifth," I surrendered.
"What?" George asserted, sounding more like an 'o' than an 'a' in his accent.
Dream sensed that I didn't want to share, so he changed the subject quickly and the boys—having short attention spans—forgot about the previous topic at hand. I had a half hour left until my class so I just watched the stream and talked whenever I saw fit.
Suddenly, I heard drowning noises, then a "Tubbo you saved me!". Next thing I know, it went dead silent. I looked at the stream and saw a death message in the chat. George gasped loudly, Sapnap started to giggle, and I couldn't help but burst out laughing. There was just silence on Dream's end and I didn't know whether to laugher harder or be scared.
"Sapnap!" George screamed.
"OH GOD!" He replied.
"Oh it's over for Sapnap."
Okay, so what I'm gauging is that I should be scared of the silence and not find it humorous? Finally, Dream spoke but it was eerily calm and collected. George tried to get Dream to be mad at Sapnap, but Dream shrugged it off. That made me laugh a bit harder and Sapnap giggled with me.
"You two fight like siblings and it's like Dream is the dad," I suddenly said, not meaning to exactly speak my mind. All three of them burst out laughing and the iconic Dream wheeze poked through.
I left to go fill up my orange juice without telling them and I left my phone on the desk. When I came back, they were in a different scenery and the first thing I heard was Dream telling everyone to do the WAP.
"I'm sorry, what!?" I exclaimed, looking at the gameplay with wide eyes.
They all started giggling like school children, "Worship and Prayer, Cal, Worship and Prayer, God!" George screamed.
"I'm, uh, going to tune you guys out," I said.
They laughed yet again. For the next seven minutes, they stood in the church ringing the bell and going on about praying. I'll tell you, I knew they were weird. Now I think they're extra weird. I feel like I'm left out of a fandom joke while watching this bit and a big wave of FOMO washed over me. Soon enough, it cleared up when Dream ended his stream.
"Alright guys that's enough for me. Um, that was a lot of fun. Thank you guys for coming, and uh, that is that. Thank you for all the donos and all the subs and all the primes guys—"
"You love me?" George asked.
"Yes, I do," Dream replied.
"You love me?" Sapnap asked.
"I do," Dream replied, his voice sounding soft.
"Aw that was cute!" Sapnap gushed.
"Alright guys! I'll probably stream more this upcoming week. I'll see you soon. Love you guys see you soon!"
There was an array of bye's from Sapnap, George, and I as Dream tried to end the stream. Suddenly, George rang through loudly with a bYeEeEeE before the stream abruptly cut off from my side of the screen. There was still ten minutes until my class so I stayed in the call until anyone said otherwise.
"So Cal, I'm Sapnap," he formally introduced since it would've been awkward to on stream. I felt an urge to be sarcastic with him, but I held it back. He acted like a child the entire two hours, so I felt like I'd hurt his feelings if I said anything even slightly mean.
"Hello Sapnap, I'm Cal."
"Is that your actual name?"
"Sap," Dream said in a warning tone.
"Uh sure," I responded.
Sapnap giggled, "Okay," then his tone turned into one of attitude, "I was just asking for her name! God Dream."
"Is Sapnap your actual name?" I asked, even though I knew it wasn't.
"No it's Nick."
I hummed, "Okay, Nick. Greg, Nick, and Clay. Sounds like a great trio."
"Greg?" Sapnap asked quizzically.
I said bye to them all and after I left the room, I'm sure Dream explained the Greg story to Sap. Which really wasn't that funny or amusing, but these three will take anything and run with it. I mean, they spent five whole minutes laughing about a hole in the wall of their Minecraft house. They are a bunch of children. It scares me that they're all adults, some older than me. I wonder if all of Dream's friends are like that.
The rest of the afternoon, I received an assignment from my art professor and spent most of my time coming up with an idea and starting it.