GEORGE
Anger is an incredible thing. It comes up unpredictable, it comes up quick, it can twist anyone's benevolence into something dangerous.
It rises out of my slackened jaw as I listen to him disregard Dream's problems to dust. Stirring me out of an appalled paralysis even as the untouched part of me pleads that Sapnap doesn't know, he never has, he doesn't understand and it's not his fault.
And then it consumes that as well. And words, awful words, are rising up and dragging me along with it.
"Complications," I repeat, and it sounds ridiculous. "That's sugar-coating it."
He hesitates.
"Okay?" I check with half-hearted consideration. "You asked for it."
"Get on with it already," he mutters, and it rubs me the wrong way as the anger climbs higher.
"What you don't know," I bite. "You don't know half of what I do." The words hurt and it feels wrong, so wrong, to say them.
And then I remember his scorn, the disdain in his voice and suddenly the regret burns away.
"You don't know how bad it's been," I continue. Anger, it makes wrong seem right.
Leaning back in my chair, I grit my teeth and seethe. "You talk about both of us like that. Like we're overreacting, when you don't even know." The silence fuels me in a twisted, ugly way. "You don't even know. Dream never told you."
His voice is quiet and for a moment I almost, almost falter. "Told me what?"
My gaze bores into the opposing wall as I make sure to let my words last. "What the past months have really done to him. What they've actually been like."
He's silent. I don't expect anything more.
"But he didn't tell you that, did he?" I continue as the pain begins to curl. "No. No, he just told you the simplistics. Social media's an arse, the hate's bad and all, but do you know any more than that?"
"I don't," he snaps with a briskness I don't expect. "I fucking don't. Stop rubbing it in."
I let out a huff of a breath. "What were you saying earlier then? He's just streaming? Just a stream, that's his job, complaining about how I wasn't interesting enough for your viewers?"
There's an audible fume from the other end. "Well, I didn't know anything," he lashes with painful mockery of my own words.
"Any of this," he adds, and I'm not sure if it's accidental but his words end on a waver.
I break. Slightly. A vulnerability I've seen so barely, a number of times I can count with one hand and still have some leftover.
I force myself back together.
"I was texting him during your live," I mutter, maintaining an edge but allowing a lower inflection. "Just to make sure he was going to be okay. For a stream. It wasn't even what he used to do. Can you imagine how bad it's been, that I needed to do that?"
He doesn't respond but I know I've struck something.
Fury forks into bitter recollection. "Absolute hell." My eyes close and shut out the night, the night that looms outside halfway curtained windows, signifying how I should be asleep several hours by now. The night, resembling so many previous, the nights that've become a safe space for countless calls, texts, unimaginable moments of weakness as he voiced confessions that no one could know, they mustn't.
My eyes open. "So when you just... brushed it off like that." There's no need to complete the sentence as its implication weighs coldly on the call.
The stillness is painful.
"What do you want me to do, George?" he finally manages. "Apologize?"
I begin to respond and then realize I've begun to burn out. "It was pretty insensitive."
"You're not exactly a saint either," he muddles.
"Why? Because I care?"
The regret slams into me like a wall, but too late, much too late; I immediately wish to return to before those words were said, drawing in a hiss that doesn't draw them back. He seems likewise stunned as the call plunges into gaping silence.
I sink in my seat.
"Okay." He sounds defeated, words heavy with exhaustion.
Shit.
I press a hand to my forehead and feel the guilt trailing along the skin.
What do you want me to do?
"Okay," I echo flatly.
Apologize?
The concept seems unreachable.
There's a final maintain of a shared breath, one that's thick with layers and layers of awful double-sided resentment, the aftermath of what truths that are better unsaid look like.
He disconnects. The notes of the alert thud hollowly in my chest as the silence begins once again, and now there's nothing to end it.
Anger really is incredible. It's something awful, and yet I find myself wishing for it.
Wishing for it to whisk me away into the fervor, instead of falling away coldly to feel the long-overdue remorse of what have I done?
~
I've been on Quackity's stream for about 3 hours. He's been dragging me around the SMP, making me the star of his show, asking a bunch of nonsensical questions and even more so objectives. Flaunting endlessly with his new autotune feature, I find myself wondering how I ever found it funny as the painful vocalizations and his cheerful demeanor becomes too loud.
A sleepless night, a textless day. Jumping on the stream invitation with eagerness I begin to question as another high-pitched note screeches through my headset.
I indulge in the fact that I'm merely a guest on his stream, not my own. Relishing the freeness of not having the camera on me, not having to assume any sense of presentation. I look like a mess; features humorless and dull, hood tugged messily over hair I don't care enough to brush out.
Standing in place, I watch Quackity's character dance around mine, on the beat of whatever freestyle he's on, and catch glimpses of Bad as he begins to follow him. I reach for the mouse, forcing my avatar to take a few steps forward to escape their dizzying swarm.
A hand massages half of my face as I lean back in my seat again and draw the hoodie sleeves over my palms. I fumble with the strings and pull so the hood compresses, reaching up to tug the fabric in-between my ears and my headset.
I'm exhausted. Rubbing my eyes, my vision does funny swirls.
The painful remembrance of my call with Sapnap, keeping me up no matter how badly I wanted to forget. Tossing and turning restlessly as the blankets constricted my movements, until scanty sleep finally claimed me. Waking up with nothing to look forward to, feeling the cold shoulder even an ocean apart, a frustrating deficiency of notifications with the so very few that trickled in on my phone screen.
My eyes slit open and I allow some of the chaos in again. It's muffled against the hood. Thankfully.
I let out a strained, silent breath that I make sure the audience doesn't hear. This stream feels like more of a punishment than an escape now.
My hand reaches out through the darkness, grappling blindly at the desktop until it lands on my phone. Figuring there's nothing better to do, I blink blearily as the screen glares its artificial glow.
I take one look at the top notification and immediately jolt. Any sense of fatigue flies off as dizzying energy races through my limbs. My eyes tear over the name, again, again, and again as the realization settles through the evaporating mist.
Dream.
There's actually relief coursing through me.
Dream. Finally.
It's an offer to call. The excitement is ridiculous but at the moment I can't really find it in myself to care.
I type out a confirmation with embarrassing enthusiasm. He responds almost immediately and it's so utterly stupid to say that I could faint from happiness but there's no better way to put it. It's only a testament to how disappointing the entire day has been.
I can't leave the stream fast enough. Putting up a show for 10 more seconds, making up an excuse of how I'm tired, making sure the apology is laid on thick. I guess I try to make it believable but I definitely think I disconnect from the voice channel before I even finish the last syllable of my words.
The silence is beautiful. I let out a freeing breath in the peace.
Carefully my eyes sweep over the screen when the call lights it up. Finally.
As I put my headset on and my thumb hovers over the button to accept, I'm halted by... excitement. The same I've been feeling, in amounts that I've labelled as ridiculous.
Ridiculous.
I stare at the screen and it dies. An uneasy realization takes place.
A lot. I felt a lot. Maybe too much.
I force my finger to press the button. No, the day's just been rough. He's my escape.
But that isn't normal either, is it?
~