Chapter Text
Dream woke up earlier than usual, feeling refreshed as he had fallen asleep much earlier too.
He stretched as he glanced over to his phone, reaching to turn it on and check the time which read 7:46am.
He yawned as he grabbed his phone before laying back down, letting his fingers trace the screen before choosing to open twitter.. mistake number 1.
Twitter was super confused over George being so dead-set on there being a Florida cutout during the manhunt. Some tweets were concerned while others laughed on him. It was a broad mixture to say the least.
He sighed, knowing George would be calling him as soon as he awoke from his slumber, throwing questions at him about the cutout since Patches had decided to put his secret out in the open, and to put it lightly, Dream was not looking forward to it. at all.
Don’t get him wrong, he always loves talking to George, he’s his best friend after all? who doesn’t love talking to their best friend?
But at this specific moment, he wanted nothing more than for George to forget he exists.
The whole situation was still fresh in his mind, he had no answers but so many questions. So many unanswered questions swimming in the endless sea of his mind, searching and searching for the answers that have seemingly vanished from existence and given no explanation.
What was he supposed to do? What could he even do if given the information that George could stay in the paused realities? What would he do? Be like “oh cool.” and move on with his life? How could he be so sure that his whole life was affected? But then again, what if he’s getting worked up for nothing, and as predicted, nothing really changes upon confirming this theory?
All this thinking was giving him a headache, he needed to get moving, get his mind off of this.
And so he did, he finally got out of the welcoming sheets of his bed and ready for the day, even adding a short walk around his small Floridian town in somewhere.
As he did this, he paid no mind to the ringing off his phone that he had left on the arm of his couch.
~*~*
“Ugh he won’t pick up? What the hell? Dream always picks up?”
George whined as his call went unanswered, just like the previous 5 attempts.
“Maybe he’s finally moved on, George! this is your divorce arc.” Quackity joked as he let out a laugh, Karl soon joining.
George rolled his eyes, “Yeah, yeah very funny.. but he usually always answers.. has anyone heard from him today?”
Sapnap piped up, “He was active on twitter earlier this morning. Liking tweets and what-not.”
George seemed to relax hearing this, “ah- right. Worried for nothing.” he let out a nervous laugh at his previous useless worrying.
the others laughed at his sudden change, “worried about your dreamy?” Quackity teased once more,
“Ugh, i just wanted answers! i could’ve sworn there was a power cut in Florida for a bit.. Dream even said it himself! he told me! now if he’d only pick up his goddamn phone...” George went to go and call again before hearing a long, exaggerated sigh come from Sapnaps end. “something wrong, Sapnap?”
Sapnap, who obviously knew the real reason behind all this distress, had been trying to deter the conversation for the past hour, but seemingly to no avail. George still wanted answers, and god knows George is a stubborn son-of-a-bitch when needed. “Does it really matter that much? None of us remember it and it was already late for you anyway, maybe it was one of those things when you’re half asleep, half awake, you know?” He had suggested this option multiple times already, with George denying the possibility each time, claiming it was simply ‘to real to even be half asleep’... whatever that even meant.
Dream owed him big time for yet again covering for his mistakes.
George pressed the button to ring again, “I told you Sapnap it’s no-“ and then finally, after getting used to the ringing sound of his phone, it was refreshing to hear the connecting sound in its place. “Hello? Dream?”
“George? You ok? i have so many missed calls from you?”
He kinda felt guilty for that now, but the show must go on. “Ok, getting straight to the point-“ He paused for a second as he switched to speaker, putting his phone close to his mic so Sapnap, Quackity and Karl could also hear this. “You remember yesterday during the manhunt when your internet cut out for a bit?”
The call went silent for a second before he received a reply,
“No? I dont?”
oh.
George deadpanned as he heard the laughs of the trio of boys ring in his ears from his defeat.
But.. he could’ve sworn it happened?
~*~*
Holy fuck.
At first, even if he wouldn’t like to admit it, he did think George was being kidnapped or some shit assuming from the multiple missed calls he had come back to, but he couldn’t tell if the fate that awaited him when he rung back was a worse possibility or not.
ok, overstatement again, of course he didn’t want George getting murdered or something, but even after a long walk, he still couldn’t get his mind to steer completely away from his situation.
So, purely based on the fact he still didn’t know what to do, he decided to deny all knowledge of it! because everyone knows if you ignore your problems they’ll disappear too!.... he knew it was a dumb plan but he was at a dead-end, and as ironic as this sounds, the one thing he needed was time. He needed time to figure out just what this meant.
The one thing he could control, had become his mortal enemy.
Though the walk hadn’t resulted in complete failure, he had decided that because of his previous findings of needing more of the one thing he had an infinite supply of, he would deny it ever happened, which came to a conclusion of:
“You remember yesterday during the manhunt when your internet went out for a bit?”
“No? No i don’t?”
Dream deserved a fucking trophy.
The whole situation he was enduring was still unknown territory to him, he had never been this close to someone finding out his abilities before, and he really didn’t want to mess it up now after years and years of perfecting his secrecy skills, the Sapnap incident being the only exception of course, this couldn’t possibly be the end.
George out of all people couldn’t possibly be the one to ruin his years worth of work.
After George’s ‘disappointing’ defeat, he had begrudgingly invited Dream to join their call as Karl and Quackity had left to attend to their own respective errands for the day.
Once dream had joined the call, he already knew he had to test it again. Even if he didn’t know the point, or what he would do with said information that George has this ability, he still felt deep inside of him that he needed to find out. It felt unfair to know if a possibility of this, yet keep this information away from George, information about his own abilities locked away for him to never see.
He knew if someone did that for him he would be pissed, so who was he to do the same to George?
After they had some usual chit-chat, Dream sent a quick message to Sapnap to indicate he was going to try again, in which he received a “good luck, man.” in response. Though this seemed like it was the make-or-break moment for Dream, a moment that could possibly change his future, it would be less that a second for sapnap, and for a moment he even envied that.
But there was no more time to think, he closed his eyes, and felt the feeling that he had grown accustomed to over the years of perfecting his powers: the air getting slightly heavier and the breaths slightly more effort.
When he opened his eyes again, no one was speaking in the call. He nibbled on his lip slightly out of nervous habit, before glancing behind him out of his window to see the frozen birds and cars patiently waiting for his mark to start up again.
Time was definitely paused.
And with this newfound information, he called out to his subject.
“George? You there?”
“obviously, idiot, where else would i be?”