Chapter Text
Dream woke up in a cold sweat, finding himself laying on his back in the cold, dew-ridden grass with nothing but a pair of shorts and a pair of mixed-matched socks on.
“What the fuck?” he muttered to himself, slowly regaining consciousness as he tried (and failed) to stand up and regain his balance. Unfortunately for Dream, this was not the first time he had found himself in such a situation. The same thing had happened yesterday… and the day before that, and the day before that, and so on. Dream, although unsure why he continued to find himself in such strange places, decided to brush it off.
Reluctantly, Dream allowed himself to check his phone to see what time it is. His bones ached of exhaustion, and he was hoping to be able to catch at least 4 or 5 more hours of sleep before he was scheduled to stream tomorrow. It had been nearly a month without Dream streaming, and although he missed interacting with his fans, he was honestly quite content with the free time. This being said, Dream couldn’t help but feel ashamed for thinking this. He constantly reminded himself ‘these people are the reason I am where I am today, so I should not disappoint them.’
His phone read “5:47.” Shit. Dream realized the sun would be rising within the next dozen or so minutes, and going to sleep now would have ruined his sleep schedule he so valiantly tried (and failed) to keep somewhat healthy. Dream decided he would just stay up- what’s another 16 or so hours?
Dream realized he had almost 20 unread Discord notifications. Cautiously, he opened them, only to find it was George and Sapnap bickering on who Dream thought was funnier. Oh my god, Dream thought, snickering to himself, while the sun slowly began to rise.
The small pebbles of daylight slowly flooding over the horizon reminded Dream that he should, although it pained him to say, be getting ready to do actual work. With a light scoff, he carried himself back into his house, and slowly dissolved into his brown, leather couch.
He looked back at Discord.
georgie: no sapnap… you are literally wrong.
sap: shut up GOGY
georgie: dont “gogy” me….
sap: gogy
gogy
gogy
gogy
georgie: not funny. see, this is why dream thinks im funnier.
sap: oi mate! this why dur-eam tinks ayem fahniea!
Dream lightly giggled at Sapnap’s light teasing of George’s accent. Out of all the things Dream could make fun of George about - and trust him, there was a lot - George’s accent was one of the funniest things to tease. George would start arguing back, but by doing that, it just gave more material he had to make fun of George for. Just thinking about it made Dream’s stomach feel warm- he loved to make his friends laugh (even if it was at their own expense).
Dream got knocked out of his trance when he heard a familiar purr uncomfortably close to his ear. “Patches, you scared the crap out of me,” he said (not really to her per se, but more to himself - he knew she would never understand what he was saying) and stroked her fur. Dream decided this was his cue to fix up Patches’ breakfast, so he headed towards his kitchen.
Dream really wasn’t very hungry, so he simply fixed himself a cup of tap water. He decided to pass the early morning hours, nothing was better than scrolling aimlessly through social media. While taking sips from his glass, he opened twitter. He read a tweet from user “@GeorgeNootFound” (George’s alt) and immediately spit out his water.
@GeorgeNootFound: hey @dreamwastaken2 … i know i already did a love or host, but if you decided to do one, i might just have to apply. 😉 /j
Dream felt a warm punch in his stomach, but breathed a sigh of relief after reading the “/j” (a tone indicator meaning “joke”). Why the hell would he tweet this? Dream thought to himself, trying to think of a witty response that would calm down the stans that had flooded George’s reply section.
He settled on tweeting “@GeorgeNootFound you wish. sorry, gotta save it for my minecraft girlfriend.” He then decided to text George on Discord as to what motivated him to tweet such a strange, strange thing.
greenboy: lmao wtf was that tweet
He waited, rather anxiously, for a response. He hoped he wasn’t coming off as rude, but he was (and quite rightfully) concerned. After a few minutes, he saw “georgie is typing…”
georgie: LMAO
why….
i thought it was funny XD
Dream snickered at this. Of course he thought it was funny.
greenboy: of course you did
georgie: what’s that supposed to mean?
greenboy: oh… nothing.
georgie: hmmmmmmmmm i see. any more questions?
greenboy: nah.
georgie: hmm… okay then. talk to you later.
Dream didn’t reply, and went on with his day. To be honest, he felt as if this flirtatious teasing out of the blue was just… a bit strange. Obviously they did it for bits while streaming, but something about George’s recent flirty attitude on other social media sites somewhat irked Dream. He would bring up his distaste for it, but it was ultimately a joke, and Dream was a lot of things, but “soft” was not one of them.
______________________-----______________________
It had been around half an hour since George had replied to Dream, so he assumed Dream just left him on read. No matter, George thought to himself, I better check on how my tweet did.
Aversely, he opened Twitter. His notifications were overflowing with jokes about his ‘Love or Host’ tweet, as he expected. George understood what he was doing - he knew all of his fans would certainly get a kick out of that. Plus, Dream seemed to enjoy making especially flirty jokes on stream, so George hoped Dream would find it funny too.
Clearly, he didn’t.
George paced for a minute through his apartment. It was just a joke, he reminded himself. Why would Dream be mad at that? He thought back to his blunt Discord discussion with Dream. “oh… nothing” Dream had said. Why did he seem so distant all of the sudden? He considered texting Dream to ask him what was going on. Against his better judgement, he hit send.
georgie: hey :) are you.. ok?
George held his breath, but quickly exhaled his worries out when Dream almost immediately began typing.
greenboy: idk
George didn’t know what to reply to this.
On one hand, he most definitely did not want to intrude on his friends’ personal life. After all, he knew how Dream felt about people being overly pushy. On the other hand, he knew he had to be there for him.
georgie: do you want to talk about it?
George placed his phone on the other side of the room where he still stood pacing, getting more and more anxious until he heard the familiar sound of a Discord notification after a few minutes. And then another. And then another.
greenboy: uh sure ig
so um idk why and ik i sound like a prick rn but somethinng about that twee tmade me
uncomfortable.
Im sorry lol i dont want to sound stupid iidk its just something felt wweird,, uh so do
you think you could maybe talk less like that? Idk
sorry.
George felt a painful twinge of guilt in his ribs. He noticed Dream’s spelling mistakes - was he okay? Was he rushing to type this? It didn’t matter- he knew that Dream’s comfort was of utmost importance, and he needed to address that.
georgie: dude omg im so sorry i didnt know :(
if u want i can take it down tho
you dont have to apologize for feeling uncomfortable btw- thats totally valid
so uh yeah im so sorry again
ugh i didnt mean to make you uncomfortable :/ im sorry :(
George hoped Dream would understand where he was coming from
greenboy: no need to apologize haha, just felt like should share.
also,, taking it down would make twitter go crazy.
georgie: let them go crazy then ;)
George paused and immediately regretted sending that. His message, completely accidentally, had quite flirty undertones. Well shit. He was so used to joking around like this that completely stopping would be incredibly difficult. It was obviously a joke, and he hoped Dream would see that, but nevertheless, he felt on edge.
greenboy: lmao george - you are something else XD
George’s heartbeat slowed from the relief. Thank God Dream realized it was a joke.
_______________________________________________________________
Dream decided streaming might be a good way to get his mind off of things, for once. He, albeit cautiously, hit the “begin streaming” button. Within minutes, thousands were flooding his chat with kind “welcome back,” messages.
Dream laid back in his chair, slowly taking in all of the warm words coming from dozens of thousands of people he didn’t even know. For someone who had convinced themselves they didn’t miss streaming, going back was a wakeup call as to just how much he loved interacting with his community.
He quickly snapped out of his trance, saying “Hello, everyone! I know, I know, it’s been a while. I missed you guys too.” He glanced over at chat and could not help but see “GeorgeNotFound” under the list of online viewers. He gulped, and continued welcoming the viewers back into the stream, until he got the same familiar notification George did just a few hours prior. He opened his phone to find messages from George and Sapnap in their group chat.
sap: YOOOO YOU’RE STREAMING??????????????????? POG
georgie: why didnt you tell me you were streaming ?1;/1:?!!?!@>#@
sap: DUDE WHAT ARE YOU STREAMINGJ
georgie: if its speedrunning im leaving
Dream snickered to himself, as he cheerily announced, “today… i decided to do a speedrun stream! It’s been a while, but hey, why not live a little.” Quickly, the chat erupted into various keyboard smashes and cheers. Dream smirked to himself, and began his timer.
georgie: DREAMMMMM
Dream laughed, louder this time. “One sec chat, I’ll be right back,” he said, muting himself.
greenboy; vc?
He quickly started a call in their group chat, and within seconds, both other boys had joined. “Ok chat, I’m back!”
George and Sapnap, knowing they were on stream, said their own various introductions to the chat, and within seconds, Dream felt himself heating up. After all, it was Florida in the early fall. He (reluctantly) pulled off the sweatshirt he was wearing, now playing in just a white tank top and black sweatpants. He desperately wanted more speed-running practice, and he couldn't let his clothes get the better of that.
_________________________
Dream had been streaming for a little over an hour when Patches walked into his office. Patches began climbing onto his desk, getting closer and closer to his keyboard and stream setup. Unfazed, Dream stood up, trying to grab Patches before she could accidentally screw something up. Patches jumped onto his keyboard, landing on a few keys before promptly jumping down and exiting Dream’s office.
He thought nothing of it until his chat began spamming various arrays of “WTFJSDHFS” and “OMG”. Dream glanced over at OBS and realized his camera had been turned on. He nearly instantaneously cleared the screen so he was no longer visible. Luckily, only his torso was shown to the camera - his face was unseen. Dream rather pathetically sighed in relief, although he still exposed much more than he had meant to.
He tried to play it off as cool as he could. He muted discord so it wasn’t audible to the stream. All the stream could hear or see now were the various sounds of his minecraft game and the visuals to go along with them.
George quickly yelled at Dream through the Discord channel. “DREAM! DREAM! YOUR CAMERA IS ON DUMBASS!” Dream choked out something, which he himself couldn’t decipher as either a laugh nor a cry. “DREAM, DREAM, ARE YOU OKAY?” Sapnap added.
“Guys, guys, I’m fine,” Dream supplied, although he didn't even believe himself after saying it. “It’s fine. No one could see my face. They’ve seen my torso before in merch pictures. Could be worse.” George and Sapnap attempted to give verbal agreement, however they both seemed rather phased.
Dream smiled wryly, although the stream obviously couldn’t see it, and he unmuted, trying to reassure his fans.
“Guys I know, I know. That was um… quite the mishap. ” He chuckled dryly. “It’s okay guys, at least I looked good.” He tried to joke in order to break the awkward silence that he himself had created. “I’m going to go ahead and end the stream early, I guess. Hope to see you all soon!” He tried to say cheerily, although his voice came out flatly. He ended the stream, and that was that. He promptly checked twitter. His notifications were going crazy.
@LilyWasTaken69420: OMG DREAM IS SO PRETTY AHHHJSDFHSDK HE LOOKS SO HANDSOME AND FOR WHWAT????
Dream scoffed. He was just praying there wasn’t excessive hate. After all, his tank top fit him especially snugly, and although he was quite fit and in shape, Dream, like all people, was not the most secure with how he looked (especially when he didn’t plan on even having people see him in that outfit).
Surprisingly, almost every single tweet he had seen were all compliments.
@JamesnotfoundXD_YT: Dude Dream is ripped. How tf does he get like that streaming minecraft all day. I bet this bitch speedruns cardio or some shit.
@sandyinnit1234321: i havent seen dreams face yet but judging by the torso reveal in today’s stream, i just kNOW hes handsome.
Dream let himself have a few giggles, before drafting up a tweet on his second account.
Hey guys! I’m sure you all saw that accidental camera moment on stream today. Lmao no worries, it was time for a proper torso reveal that isn’t in my own merch anyways.
In the tweet, he included a picture of himself, cropped to just the torso, which he had taken a few days prior at the gym. He let himself admit that he did objectively look good in the photo. He swallowed his fear and hit “tweet” and that was that. Soon, tens of thousands of people had replied, complimenting his physique. He was understandably shocked, but more so felt validated. Soon, his friends began responding to the tweet.
@The_Eret: Proud of you dude! Pogchamp!
@KarlJacobs_: Sapnap may be my fiancé but id risk it all for you dream 🙄
@Sapnap: I think this one was meant for the DMs to me, hehe.
@GeorgeNotFound: :) proud of you /srs
Dream couldn’t help but feel pride for his audiences’ warm response to his camera mishap. But, he especially felt good after reading his friends’ responses, or rather one specific friends’ responses. Just as he thought this to himself, he once again got another discord notification.
georgie: hey clay
can we talk :)