Chapter Text
Dream’s finger stops above the left side of his mouse before joining the call once he sees Technoblade’s name on the list, along with George's and Sapnap’s. They were probably playing in the SMP then. Dream wonders if it was okay to join even though he’s not on the server and has no plans on joining right now.
Sometimes George and Sapnap like to stay to talk in one of the SMP Discord’s voice calls when they’re just too lazy to move to a private call, even though they wouldn’t be playing anymore. Dream joins them on those days, 'cause he knows they’re not doing anything of importance, then.
Dream shakes his head. Of course, they want him there. Why wouldn’t they? And not like Technoblade has it it in his heart to genuinely dislike someone as nice as Dream.
Plus, George would never turn down a chat with Dream.
Dream's eyes linger on George's name in the list of people in call.
He wonders what his friend is up to, how he's doing after a full day of not talking to Dream. He wonders how the weather is in England now that winter is nearing.
The cold of winter is an experience unique to George in their little trio, with both Sapnap and Dream living in the warmer parts of the states. Dream thinks it's an unpleasant one, and he's expressed this to George. George disagreed with him, then.
"I like the cold, though," he said. "You dress up warm, get a hot drink and it's so relaxing. I prefer it over feeling like I need to peel my skin off for survival."
(Dream still thinks he was lying. Nobody actually likes the cold.)
"So you admit it! You don't like the cold, you just prefer it over the alternative!"
And then George rolled his eyes at his camera as if Dream was another pesky bug splat dead on his clear windshield of life. "It's the same thing, isn't it?"
And no. No, it was not the same thing. Dream had won that argument and George's stream agreed with him. It was a win for Dream.
Dream shakes his head as if to shake all of these random thoughts out his head. Who cares what the weather's like? And he can ask George how he's feeling once he joins the damn call.
Dream clicks the button to be brought into the call.
As soon as he connects, Dream’s greeted with a collective and terrified: "AHHHHH!!" The sound is loud enough to make Dream flinch away from his PC.
“What are you doing Sapnap?! Just kill him!” George’s desperate voice sounds through Dream's headphones. It sounds intense, whatever his friends are doing.
“Why don’t you kill him, George?!” Sapnap shouts back. “This isn’t a one on one!”
“How many enderpearls do you have?” Technoblade’s bored voice sounds, and Dream smiles. It doesn’t surprise him that Techno’s not that excited to be fighting his friends. “Doesn’t even matter.”
“Are you fucking kidding me,” Sapnap huffs, voice frustrated. “We could’ve taken him if you didn’t run away from me, George,” he blames his friend.
“You know both of us would’ve died if I had stayed!” George defends his cowardliness. And it’s a good reason, really. Dream knows he’s right as much as Sapnap or George would like to deny it.
Technoblade seems to agree with Dream’s thoughts. “He’s right, he’s just cutting the losses,” he answers. “Come get your things. Actually, no, I’m taking that. And this too.”
“Hi.” Dream finally greets them when there’s a moment of silence. None of them have greeted him yet, meaning none of them even know he was in the call. “What are you guys doing?” He asks, voice almost curious.
“Oh, hello,” Technoblade greets him first, audibly surprised to hear Dream. They must have missed the little sound notification from Discord telling them another user has joined because of their own screams.
Maybe Dream shouldn't have joined, after all.
“When did you join the call?” Sapnap asks, “I didn’t even hear you.”
“Dream's such a stalker…” George says. Dream physically forces himself not to roll his eyes at him.
“A little while ago. I heard you guys get owned by Techno,” he answers instead of getting verbally violent with his beautiful friend.
“And you didn’t even come help?!” Sapnap shouts. “Some friend you are.”
“Are you guys streaming?” Dream asks instead of answering why he wasn’t there for his friends. He was busy with other stuff and things.
Like stretching his arms and cracking his fingers. He woke up just a little while ago. The white cup with a little blue fire on it still sits steaming on his desk. He reaches for it.
He got it just a couple weeks ago along with the rest of Sapnap's merch. It's become one of Dream's favourites as soon as he took it out of the box.
He's sure George could also appreciate the vibrant blue color of the flame. He'll have to remind himself later to ask George if he got Sapnap's merch yet.
George and Sapnap both answer no, while Technoblade decides to complain. “No, but I totally should be. George and Sapnap? This is free views! I’m never streaming when something interesting happens. It's a curse.”
“It doesn’t sound very interesting. Just sounds like you killed Sapnap, a fifth grader could do that.” Dream waves his hand at Sapnap's name on Discord to prove his point to him, even though can’t even see him.
“Hey! What the hell… It was an ambush, of course he killed me…” Sapnap reasons. And it does sound like a good reason.
Or at least it would if at least one person in the call believed Sapnap could take Technoblade on even if it was a direct attack.
“Ambush? You were in my house.”
“You weren’t supposed to be there,” Sapnap answers, frustrated.
“You see, Sapnap, when you click Tab, you can see the people who are online on the server, usually,” Techno explains and Dream can’t help but laugh a little at how Technoblade enjoys rubbing salt on the wound. “My name is right there on the bottom of the list. You couldn’t have waited 'til I logged off?”
“You never log off though.” Another fair point from Sapnap.
“I can’t log off, 'cause once I do suddenly everyone’s brave enough to pick a fight with me.”
“That’s why we did it while you were online. We tried a different strategy,” George tries to explain after a minute of letting Sapnap talk himself into another stupid corner.
“It didn’t work very well,” Techno points out.
“Dream, back us up here!” Dream’s forcibly pulled away from his comfortable observer position when his name is called by Sapnap.
“Huh?”
Suddenly, the window seems very interesting to him. The green of the trees rustles so pretty when there's a slight breeze outside.
Maybe Dream should go outside to enjoy it for once instead of rotting in his gaming chair.
The Minecraft home screen is still bright on his main monitor.
“Tell him!” George commands.
Dream laughs. “What do you want me to say? I’m not even there.” And it’s true. He doesn’t even want to be there, to be honest. Something about picking a fight with Techno for no reason just doesn’t sound that pleasing to him.
Maybe it’s the fact that it’s actual PVP with Technoblade, and Dream has to put in real effort into it and that kind of stresses him out a little.
It's nothing like PVP with George who just keeps getting folded by Dream every single time they fight with one another in one of their testing servers.
“Then why did you come at all if you didn’t plan on helping us?” Sapnap questions.
“I didn’t even know what you guys were doing. I just came in to chat,” Dream answers lightly. “What, I can’t come in here to chat with my friends?"
“Should I leave? I’m leaving," Technoblade speaks, feeling out of place in a call with Dream Team and no one else. It feels too personal for him, like he's intruding on something private. "Sapnap, your stuff is on the ground, hurry up before it despawns.”
And with that, there’s a sound from Discord signaling everyone that a person has left their call. Dream watches Techno’s name disappear from the list of people.
“Yeah, yeah," Sapnap tells no one, voice so annoyed. He feels like he has to share how unsatisfied he is with the group.
“And… he’s gone,” George lets his friends know as if they Discord didn’t already tell them.
“Well that was… interesting,” Dream talks, “what were you guys even trying to do?”
“George found Techno’s base, so we went in to look for something to yoink.” Sapnap explains, which doesn’t answer the lingering why though at the back of Dream’s mind.
“How’d you even find it?” Dream asks, 'cause as far as he knows that base was very secret. No one on the server besides Techno himself knew where it was.
“I just found it on accident. I was going far out to look for a mooshroom biome and stumbled upon it.” George shrugs in front of his turned off camera, sounding so disinterested.
Dream doesn't see George shrug, sadly, but he knows he does.
He also knows George would sound much more annoyed if he stayed to fight and die like Sapnap did.
Dream likes George's voice the most, then. When his smooth voice has slight undertones of anger and his mind is fast, but words slow, because he is so careful not to cuss out the root of his problem.
Dream admires the ability a lot.
And it's not that Dream doesn't think before he speaks-- he does, and he still thinks about it late after what's said, but he wonders what it would be like not to lash out at every small inconvenience thrown his way.
He remembers today's morning, when he rolled out of bed and put on sweatpants to go to the kitchen to get his morning coffee ready, but realized his pants were inside out after he had already pulled them on.
If Patches understood English, the cat would be traumatized.
“What would you even need a mooshroom biome for?” Dream still asks, because who ever needs a mooshroom biome?
“I wanted to have the only mooshroom on the server. They’re cute."
Dream has to agree.
“They are cute,” he says, going to click at his Minecraft server list.
And it's only then that it hits him. Dream had just woken up. And George was here.
Dream glances in the bottom right corner of his monitor to check the time.
“Wait, George. Isn’t it it like 7AM for you?” Dream asks, already having memorized the difference between their time zones.
He still takes his phone to check the world clock. His eyes fix to the top of the list where he's placed George's time zone.
The clock reads 7:32AM and the glow of those numbers on his screen almost feels offensive to Dream. He frowns.
George should be asleep.
“Um... yeah,” George answers, a little hesitant. He knows Dream hates it when his friends don't take care of themselves. "Well, it's actually half past, so it's not that early," he adds, as if half an hour changed anything.
“What do you mean not that early? Did you sleep tonight?” Dream asks, because those thirty-two minutes, like George suspected, didn't matter at all.
“Yeah, I woke up a couple hours ago.”
“What the hell? Go back to bed, George.” And the amount of disbelief in Dream's voice is almost comical.
“I’m not tired,” George argues, though his low voice and slightly slurred words say a different story.
A pang of guilt pricks Dream for not realizing it sooner. The tiredness is so clear in George's voice now that he knows it's there.
“How are you not tired? Go to sleep.” Dream demands, though his tone of voice is not as angry as Dream would want it to be.
It's obviously not George's fault. Nobody past the age of 13 wakes up at 5 in the morning and decides they want to play Minecraft.
“No chance, dude. I’ve been trying to put him to bed for the last couple hours,” Sapnap says, reminding Dream that it's not only him and George that are in the call.
It's a nice reminder, though, because now Dream has someone else to blame for why George isn't all cozied up in bed and sleeping.
“You’ve been here with him since the beginning? You should've told him no and forced him to bed."
“He messaged me on Discord as soon as he woke up, asking me to join him, Dream. I'm not his mom to tell him no."
And as much as Dream wants to argue with his best friend for not putting George to bed, he really can't, 'cause he knows Sapnap is right. George isn't a child, and everyone has bad nights.
It's not even that big of a deal, Dream can't figure out why he cares so much. It's not like George is a late sleeper anyway, he'd get two, maybe three more hours of sleep at most if he went to sleep now.
So Dream decides it's time to stop with his mothering act, and the best way to do that is to joke.
“He messaged you and not me? That’s mean, George,” he says, voice lighter than it was a minute ago, even though now he found another minor detail to be annoyed about.
He can't accept the fact that George messaged Sapnap instead of him, especially now that they haven't spoken in a full day. Dream is always George's first choice.
“You’ve been going to sleep late, Dream. I didn’t want to wake you up.” And his annoyance is once again gone. He can't stay annoyed when George knows a little thing like that about him.
And not like Dream has complained to George about it. George must just have noticed it himself; noticed how Dream has been going to bed later and later each night.
Part of the problem is George, if Dream's being honest. He doesn't want to go to bed when he knows George is still going to continue his day without him in it. He doesn't like the idea of not spending as much time as possible with George.
And it's so unlike Dream to be genuinely jealous, but he also doesn't like the idea of George spending his day with someone else. Someone physically closer to himself, in England, like, say, Wilbur. Someone who he can meet up with and see whenever he wants. Dream's envious of that, of how simple it was.
This feeling of envy was something that was reserved to George and no one else.
But that's a secret, Dream would never admit that to anyone. And it's not like he can help it. He finds George's presence the most comforting, even when the two just sit in silence or listen to music without speaking for hours on end.
Another part of the problem (and George isn't even an actual problem, so this is really the only problem problem), a much bigger one, is the feeling of loneliness that crawls up Dream's spine the second he's alone.
He partly blames Sapnap and George for that, along with the entirety of the Dream SMP and even his fans. Moving into his new house hasn't helped it either.
There are always people online from all these different time zones ready to chase Dream's loneliness away. There is always someone to talk to, always someone to entertain and be entertained by.
He's grown used to it, to all of this attention and want. It's the stem of Dream's desperation for attention. He's not used to being all alone anymore.
Turning off his computer and locking his phone, Do Not Disturb mode on, and laying down in his bed is really the only time he's completely alone. The feeling is not something he enjoys, if he's being honest.
It's just too much for him. Too quiet, too cold even with the Florida heat heavy in the surrounding air, and the crickets outside that never shut up keeping him company through a distance. All the twisting and turning in the world couldn't save him.
His phone is his remedy, then. The side effect is Dream laying in his bed wide awake 'til 4AM.
Dream shakes all these thoughts out of his head. “Suuuure. Just tell me you hate me.”
“Wha--" George's words of disbelief get caught in the back of his throat by the sudden sense of childish betrayal. He didn't wake up at five in the morning to be bullied. "Fine, I’ll go back to bed.”
A sense of pride swells in Dream's chest once it hits him that he's convinced George to get his rest. “Wow! You hate me so much you can’t even talk to me?” he continues, sounding as offended as he possibly can.
“That’s not what I said at all.”
“I see how you feel, George." Dream nods. "Alright. Don’t talk to me then.”
“Do you not want me to go to bed?” George asks, annoyed once again.
Dream can't help but be thankful for how easy it is with George.
“No no no, go." Dream shakes his head, sad to lose George for a few hours but happy knowing that he is getting his hard-earned beauty sleep. He looks so ugly I bet, he thinks. "I don’t want you to be sleep deprived. Just message me first instead of Sapnap this time," he adds for good measure after seeing Sapnap's name still in the call.
"Hey! Let the man message whoever he wants, you big baby," Sapnap tells him, angry, and Dream laughs at the reaction.
"Bye, guys," George says with a well-timed little yawn.
"See ya."
"Sleep well, George." And with Dream's final goodbye, George's name disappears. The small bubble by his profile picture turns gray.
Dream finds himself slipping into the emptiness George's absence has left. He tries to slow the process by picking up his phone again and shooting a quick message to George i hope you actually went to bed and not just said that
Sapnap's here to help his friend out. "He listened to you and not me? That’s not fair,” he huffs a second time in the past half hour.
Sapnap's efforts become insignificant when George's response comes a few seconds later I'm in bed dream. Stop nagging at me
Dream smiles. The goodnight was already said, and the talk to you later implied, so he locks his phone and puts it down.
“Why would he listen to you? He obviously loves me more," Dream answers him with a roll of his eyes, obviously picking a fight as if they were siblings arguing about who their parents loved more. "I just know how to talk to him," is what comes out of his mouth next. Dream isn't quick enough to stop it.
“Yeah yeah-- wait, what’s that supposed to mean?” Sapnap asks, his tone a mix of questioning, offended and curious.
The sentence seemed like a fact to Dream. He doesn't really have a way to explain why it did, but he'd argue it was true. Dream just felt as though if George had to pick between Sapnap and Dream, he'd pick Dream. George had always favored him more, no matter how much he'd get annoyed by all his cheesy flirting and just general childishness.
There are a couple beats of silence, one quick blink that feels awkward to Dream. He didn't like the change in the tone of the conversation, so he brings it back to what it was before the offbeat statement by saying, “exactly what I said. Now come fight me for your honor.”
He joins one of their testing servers. Sapnap will see which one he's in.
"You're so on."