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Seven years. A lot changes in seven years. He smiled slightly as he felt Patches purr in his lap. His eyes were too focused on the rain outside to give her the attention she wanted. But it was a while since the last time it rained and the soft splatter of drops against the window was a welcome break from the silence of his house.
Maybe that was why he liked being on the SMP so often. Even if it was with Tommy to move the storyline forward, or just playful banter with George and Bad. It filled his life with noise. And even if there were days where exhaustion soaked into his bones and soreness bled into his eyes. Days where he wanted to run from the millions of eyes watching him. The craving for that energy would ignite again when he was alone, laying in his bed, wrapped up in his thoughts.
"Dream?"
He closed his eyes, his smile only growing as the Discord ping sounded faintly from the headphones at his neck. A second ping followed shortly after. He heard his name again, only much groggier. That was definitely George. It was only eleven here in Florida, but after Dream's birthday, George somehow fell out of sync with the Florida time zones. Guessing from how croaky his hello was, he was probably just waking up now.
"Dream?" That was Sapnap. "Man, George, do you think he fell asleep on call?"
He laughed slightly, nudging Patches between the ears. The rain was letting up, the soft drops of water growing fainter the more he listened. Guess wishing for a whole week of rain in the middle of a summer was asking for a little too much.
"He's not you," George mumbled. That much was true. After getting his AirPods, Sapnap was taking Discord to bed most nights now. Waking up in the mornings, it was fairly normal to see the little fire icon all by itself in the voice channel. Occasionally, either he or George would pop in to the channel, just to play something for Sapnap to wake up to. Once it was the entire Shrek movie in Spanish, a suggestion from Quackity. Another time, it was a ten-hour medley of all the Minecraft discs.
"Why are you being so rude? You literally just woke up," Sapnap cried, words dripping with fake hurt. He was getting good at it. But not as good as George.
"Okay, well if Dream doesn't answer," George stopped to yawn before continuing again. It was difficult to hear, but with Patches on his lap, he didn't want to put his headphones on just yet. "I might just back to sleep."
"What? You're just going to leave me all by myself?"
George groaned into his mic. "I can barely keep my eyes open."
"Aww. Little baby is sleepy."
Patches meowed, almost as if she heard what Sapnap said, jumping out the chair and hopping onto the bed. Well. There was that. Guess that was his sign to join the call.
"Shut up."
"Okay that's it," Sapnap said, followed by static and a soft bang sounded on his end. "Maybe I should trying calling him."
With a fast wink at Patches, he yanked his headphones off his neck and tugged them over his ears. "I'm here! I'm here!"
"Oh my God, you're so loud," George said, groaning again. Dream tried to imagine him wincing but it was hard, when his Discord was his noot noot face.
"Dream!" Sapnap called. More banging followed. What the fuck was he doing? "Hurry up and get on."
"Why are you yelling at me?" Dream said, his eyes squinting as his monitor lit up. He jammed his finger against the key to lower the brightness of the screen. "George isn't even out of bed!"
Not that Sapnap cared. “Hurry and get on!”
"Get onto what?!"
It always started like this. Plans were made to get on call, but none of them had ever pitched ideas for what to do. George was either late or tired when he did get on and it was a toss up between Dream and Sapnap for who had the most energy. It was a miracle how any of them ever managed to upload a video. Looking over at the door, he squinted his eyes. His room was dim, but the switch was too far away, and his legs were getting comfortable
There was a very clear pause. "Good question." Sapnap paused again. "I don't have a good answer."
Dream snorted, falling back into his chair as he mentally flipped through things they had discussed doing before. Chess? Maybe. He and George still needed to fix the code for the newest plug-in, so they would have to table that for another day. JackBox? No. Quackity was sick with the flu, and he would definitely kill them if they played without him.
Well. "George, you can choose."
A loud groan followed by, " Dream. I just woke up and you're giving me responsibility?"
"Yes. Now get out of bed."
He could hear Sapnap snickering faintly. "Yes, Gogy. Listen to Dream and get out of bed."
"Do you guys want to watch a movie? I don't think I have the brain capacity to do anything right now."
"I'm down," Sapnap called immediately. "I just saw this horror movie on Netflix."
"Fine, fine, whatever. You can just host it."
After arguing with Sapnap over what the movie was called, a Netflix party was started.
Morning sun was hitting his window when he finally collapsed into his bed, Discord open on his laptop instead of his computer. Sapnap was still ranting about the movie, upset that it turned into a romance not even halfway through, as if the movie hadn’t been hinting at it the whole time. George stopped commenting on the movie thirty minutes in, soft mumbles falling into nothing. If Dream listened for it, he could hear George's faint breathing.
"That movie was actually terrible, Dream. I feel like you and me could do a better sex scene."
Dream smiled, staring at the ceiling through the spaces between his fingers. But then he started giggling. And when Sapnap started laughing, it was impossible to stop his wheezing fit. "Stop. George is--George is going to get jealous."
"No one said he couldn't join in."
“You’re disgusting.”
“You love me.”
He thought about it. Thought about a witty retort. It was second nature by now, bouncing insults off each other. But there was always tomorrow for that. Fuck, there was today for that if he and Sapnap managed to wake up on time for George’s stream.
“Yeah, I do.”
A pause. “Heck yes, you do.”
“Not as much as George, though.”
Sapnap groaned. “All right, just for that I’m going to sleep now.”
Dream moved slightly so that he could look at his laptop screen. The mute icon popped up next to Sapnap’s name. He liked to say that he snored, and even if he did, Dream and George had never heard him. Still, it was funny to hear the slight panic in his voice when he woke up and noticed that he accidentally forgot to mute himself before he slept.
His eyes drifted to George’s noot noot face. It glowed green every so often, consistent, like a laggy heartbeat. He watched it, sticking his hand under his pillow as he started to feel the exhaustion hitting him.
And maybe a lot does change in seven years. And maybe his house was just a little too quiet for him to be alone sometimes. His head just a little too hostile for him to stay too long. But he was happy--grateful that a lot stayed the same too. Sapnap and George were still with him. Still his.
Filling his life with noise.
Call it fate or fortune. Foresight or free will. Everything or nothing. Whatever it was. It was good.
And he loved it.