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Dream glanced at the digital clock on his nightstand. It flashed back and forth, a mocking 4:07am written in red light. It was late and Dream was exhausted, but he couldn’t fall asleep just yet. George was on a call with him, rambling on about nothing and Dream was doing his best to comfort him in his tired state.
This was how he had spent his last several nights, curled up into his pillow while George ranted through his phone speaker. Dream would occasionally hum in agreement or in protest, varying on whatever George was saying. Every night it was the same subject: the vlog.
To be fair, it had been Dream’s idea first. George was going to meet up with Wilbur, and Dream had made so many jokes about flying out to the UK to see them as well. Of course, that wasn’t possible. There was a global pandemic, if Dream hadn’t flown out to see George in the years they had known each other, he certainly wasn’t going to do it now.
When Dream had first said, “What if we convinced everyone that I went to your meet up, too?” he had said it with a laugh. George had protested the idea with a laugh as well.
“That’d be mean. They’d hate us.”
“It would make a banger video, though.” Dream had replied, and then it was settled. George was still wary over the idea, even with Dream telling him every five seconds that it would all be funny in the end.
It had spiraled from there, and now, three months later George was stuck with an uncontrollable amount of anxiety and Dream was trying his best to listen to him.
Dream did feel guilty. He never wanted George to feel so anxious over an inside joke. Deep down, he really didn’t mind listening to George babble in the middle of the night because it calmed the guilt he felt. This had started as Dream’s joke, and now George had thousands of people breathing down his neck, all wondering why they hadn’t seen a video that didn’t even exist.
“Dream? You still awake?” George’s voice was suddenly direct and Dream’s attention snapped back to his current reality.
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“S’alright. Sorry for bothering you all the time with this.” George sighed, and his voice dropped,“I just don’t want them to hate me. “
“Nobody’s going to hate you, George. Half of them think it’s fake anyway. It’s going to be fine, I promise.”
George didn’t respond for so long Dream had begun to think he had hung up, “If you say so.” George mumbled.
The next day, Dream woke up and knew what he had to do. He was sick of feeling guilty over a dumb joke, he was sick of George feeling anxious because of some stupid vlog, and he was sick of staying up until the early hours of the morning trying to solve both of those issues. Dream waited until he knew George had fallen asleep before logging onto Twitter. He didn’t want George to get caught in the crossfire.
dream2 - 1:45am
@dreamwastaken2
-the vlog was a joke
His fingers hesitated before impulsively pressing send. He immediately started writing a second tweet.
dream2 - 1:45am
@dreamwastaken2
-the vlog wasn’t a joke
Maybe it was better to cause some chaos. He could always ask for forgiveness later. Five minutes later, he typed an explanation. The guilt finally started to alleviate when he pressed send. His timeline was a mess, his notifications had gone up in flames, and Dream didn’t even want to check his messages.
A small smile played on his lips. George wasn’t going to be happy with him. At least just for today, he hoped. George wasn’t going to go through the anxiety of having to reveal his lie now. That’s the entire reason why Dream did what he did anyway. He could deal with the hate and the stans, but he knew that it would kill George to see that kind of reaction.
It would kill Dream to see George get that kind of a reaction.
At 2:09am, George called him, which surprised Dream. He hoped that George’s notifications hadn’t woken him up. But, maybe it was better to deal with this now instead of in the morning.
The other end of the call was silent, before Dream heard a small “Dream.” from the other end.
“Hi, George.” Dream paused, wondering how much George knew, “Been on Twitter recently?”
“I’m on it right now.” George stated, his voice monotone.
“Hm.” Dream hummed, “Maybe you shouldn’t be.”
George was quiet on the other end, “ Dream,” he whined, “Why would you tell them. They’re going to hate me forever, you know.”
Dream laughed, “ George,” he mocked the other man’s whiny voice, “They don’t hate you. They hate me, that’s kind of the point.”
George whined again on the other end, and Dream heard him set his head on his desk. “Thanks.” It was muffled, but he could definitely hear it. Dream smiled back, even though George wouldn’t be able to see him.
Dream scrolled through the replies under his explanation tweet. It was mostly people upset, but nobody was actually mad. Most of the replies were made up of obvious jokes or sad reaction memes. Dream wanted to tweet again, wanting to tease George a bit, but ultimately just decided to tweet out a picture of Patches.
“I feel better, a little bit.” George said, his voice still muffled.
“That’s good. That was mostly my intention. That, and to get you to stop calling me in the middle of the night.”
George scoffed on the other end, “Please. You love me. ”
Dream laughed breathily in return. As he scrolled through his mess of notifications, he thought to himself,
Yeah, I must really love him.