Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Is this George? Please hold." Dream sounds actively unhappy, something clattering against the phone. "Either stop repeating yourself or shut up."

George's about to answer, feeling a little hurt by that, but then someone starts yelling in the background, a high shriek about to escalate into broken-voiced wailing any second now. "You cannot try to function and continue to keep me at arms length like this!"

"I'll function any way I please." George has never heard his voice that cold. "You lost every right you had to tell me what to do-"

Voices rise, overlapping, shouting and swearing, howling, until Dream yells, shockingly loud, "Get out!"

The screamer doesn't stop. "You will die like this, I swear it! You will die a lonely death, and if you don't listen to me-"

Dream snaps for them to get out, again. The screamer keeps howling about trust and mental health and George keeps feeling like he should hang up, that he's intruding on something too personal, but not quite willing to.

After a particularly violent outburst, George gives up and finally just texts Sapnap.

george: hey so im on call with dream rn , n there's someone in the bg, who is it?

[derogatory]: oh that's probably fundy, dream's fiance. he moved in with him a while ago. y? 

So, 'Fundy' is the one snarling so bitterly at Dream in the background, then.

Wait. Dream has a fiancé??

Or. Had.

Uh.

George raises his suspiciously quiet phone to his ear, just in time to hear a door slam.

"Hey, George?" Dream asks, and his voice starts to tremble. "Can I crash at your place for a while?"

 "Sorry for the short notice." Dream chuckles, and George can hear it getting a bit watery, even through the distortion from the speaker.

"Of course, you can stay as long as you like!" George replies instantly. "Do you need a ride?"

"Nah. I can walk."

"Suit yourself."

"Do continue to talk to me while I walk, though, please! Unless you don’t want to. In which case I’ll just hang up--"

"No! Ah.." George hesitates. "I'm not sure.."

Dream's voice has shifted into a shade of faux-cheery that just seems wrong when it’s coming out of his mouth. "Ah, what? I do owe you an explanation for accidentally dragging you into things without warning, at the very least. "

George wonders exactly how Dream's staying on such an even keel, what had happened with Dream's things, if Dream had always had a fiancé, and a thousand other questions.

The one he picks is:

"What even started it?" George asks, honestly perplexed.

"Which part?" Dream says, and a bitter laugh crackling through George's phone speakers, before he clears his throat with a hacking noise.

"He tried to look under my eye patch while I was asleep a couple months ago." Dream answers, brutally, casually honest. "He didn't even ask, just did it.

"You don't deserve to have Fundy pulling this sort of shit with you." George says instantly, because he doesn't know what else to say to try to take the sting out of the situation. Dream doesn't deserve it.

Dream huffs neutrally into the mic, a burst of white noise following after. "Nothing's ever about if someone deserves it or not." Dream replies cynically. "That's kinda the whole point of morality and philosophy ‘n spirituality. To find out. Y'know?"

"Yeah. That logic about deserving it applies to a lot of things." George accepts the subject change with grace, and makes a mental note not to prod at that emotional landmine any time in the near future.

Dream groans, loud and long, and replies, "Ugh. Healthy coping mechanisms, whatever shall I do?."

"Can’t relate, my life is great, now come over already." On the contrary, George thinks he must be the most tired he's ever been, at this point. Dream’s teakettle laugh sounds genuinely happy, though, so he deems the spent effort worth the result. 

“Dude, dude,” Dream cackles, “How the fuck did you make that rhyme. That was absolutely off the cuff1 Tell me your secrets!” 

George pretends to examine his fingernails (don’t say anything about how Dream can’t even see him, okay, it’s necessary for the character he’s trying to put on!) and smugly replies. “Sorry, honey, it’s just how I am. Couldn’t keep a secret if I tried!”

“Now, that I can believe!” Dream says, and from the sounds in the background, he’s stepped onto a bus. “Hey, can you wait on a minute? I’m in company and I don't want to be rude.”  

George consents, and hears Dream put him on hold.

Instantly, he switches to his text messages and starts typing frantically.

george: subpoena help

[derogatory]: you mean me??? 

george: fuck autocorrect but SAPNAP HELP I THINK DREAM JUST BROKE UP WITH FUNDY??? what do i do

[derogatory]: WHAT

george: AND HE ASKED IF HE COULD CRASH AT MY PLACE??? HE’S ON A BUS RN

[derogatory]: WHY??

george: IDK THE WHOLE STORY APPARENTLY FUNDY DID SMTH??? AND SO DID DREAM???

[derogatory]: omw I’m 10 minutes out he should take like 20 to get there if he’s taking the bus

george: fuck man it sounded like it was really bad dude

[derogatory]: what happened do u know

[derogatory]: give me the briefing chief

george: IT SOUNDED LIKE SOME TRUST STUFF BUT I’D RATHER YOU TALKED TO DREAM ABOUT THAT IT’S NONE MY BUSINESS

[derogatory]: i’m almost there, if he somehow gets there before me

[derogatory]: he’s going to be analyzing his own actions SUPER HARD do not give him any ammunition 

George winced.

george: kinda too late for that

[derogatory]: fine then if he gets there before me do not force a conversation if you don’t want to talk

[derogatory]: he can tell and he will not like it. he will appreciate the effort but he doesn’t like that ur forcing urself to talk to him

george: whaaat? I would never

[derogatory]: wait what is he already here what did u mean "too late for that".

george: no, he's not here

[derogatory]: thank fuck, you nearly gave me a heart attack, i'm outside

There’s a knock at the door in the melody of the Mario theme.

George opens the door and Sapnap breezes past him. “Okay, as soon as he gets here he’s just gonna crumble like an overcooked cookie. If you don’t know certain things about him, he can come off terribly like this, and if you do know, it’s just sad and terrible. Silence is bad, bitching is good, for judging how upset he is. I’ve dealt with him before, he’s going to be super mopey. Leave it to me, you can swoop in after.”

George stares after him blankly and tries to process all... that. After a minute, he just gives up and decides to follow close behind so Sapnap doesn’t demolish his house too badly. 

Sapnap digs through his closets, unearthing blankets and pillows that George didn’t even know he had . He piles it all up on the L couch in the front room, and George has to hold himself back from being sucked into it, that’s how comfy it looks to be in. 

“Hey, why don’t you ever make these for me?” George asks plaintively, and Sapnap doesn’t even look up from fluffing a pillow as he answers. “Go through a major emotional event, then we’ll talk.”

George whines for another second, but ultimately elects to call a retreat. They’re going to revisit this conversation, he promises himself. Later, when there isn’t an emotionally unstable Dream about to drop on their heads, but still! This conversation is not done. 

There’s another knock at the door, and George opens it without being prompted. 

Dream is here.

He looks… unsettled, George decides. Like as if he was a bird that had gotten its feathers ruffled the wrong way, and now they’re sticking out in every direction. He's still got the phone call going, George notices. Dream looks down, realizes it, and presses the hang-up button. "Sorry. I didn't realize-"

"No, it's alright-" George replies, and then cuts himself off. Dream bounces back from it easy enough.

“Thank you.” Dream tells George earnestly, and George startles, straightening his spine. Dream doesn’t move to go past than the welcome mat. As if he’s afraid that now that he’s actually here , George will retract the offer and leave him standing there, and George is honestly too tired to reassure him beyond, “You’re welcome.”

Sapnap allows the awkward standoff to continue for about five seconds before he finishes with the couch and stands up with all the subtleness of a bull. “Get in here.”

Dream hesitates again , and Sapnap comes over, reaching past George.

“You dumbass.” Sapnap adds, sounding more than a little fed up, grabbing the front of Dream’s hoodie. He yanks, and George trips a little as he tries to back up and make room. Sapnap drags Dream into the house and chivvies him towards the couch. 

“Sapnaaaap,” Dream complains. “Knock it off, I haven’t been a kid for years , come ooooooo ooooooo nnn…”

“Nope!” Sapnap replies, brighter than the sun at noon. It’s like 3am. What. "You're going to sit down here, and talk to me about what you think happened, and I'll help decide what we're gonna do, m'kay?"

George is too tired for this.

Sapnap echoes his thoughts. “Onto the bed, now.”

It's a couch, actually, George thinks, but because Sapnap's on a roll, he decides against actually voicing it.

Dream throws his hands in the air and decides to give up the fight, allowing Sapnap to herd him into an amalgamate of what must be nearly every blanket and pillow in the house. 

George didn’t see Sapnap take his, so they don’t count.

George decides to leave him to it and heads to his bedroom. He peels back the covers, worms in, folds them back over. He drags over a pillow, yells, “SAPNAP YOU BETTER FIND SOMEWHERE TO SLEEP, YOU ASSHOLE,” and then covers his head with the pillow.

If Sapnap replies, George doesn’t hear it, as was his intention.

Maybe George would wake up tomorrow and this would turn out to be some weird hallucinatory episode because he'd had something off. Everything's just too surreal, and he's too tired, and in combination... Yeah, that's it. Dream doesn't have a hidden fiancé, nosiree. Time to go to sleep and wake up fine tomorrow and none of this has happened. 

Chapter Text

fundy: i bet dream’s already moved on and fine without me. he was never going to trust me completely, i think i can be sure of that much 

wilbur: That’s rough buddy. I have ice cream left over from sally?

fundy: yes, please. i’ll be right over

wilbur: ur welcome, son /hj

Today’s a good day, Dream thinks. 

Dream’s scraped together enough energy to do things, instead of wandering George’s apartment in a foggy daze. 

Sapnap’s visiting, sitting with George in the living room. They’re practicing their music, Sapnap with his new fiddle, George, with his drums. Sapnap’s probably ended up sprawled over the couch as they play. Makes Dream’s back ache, just thinking about it. 

Fortunately, although Sapnap had shown up without notice, he'd been thoughtful enough to try to make it up by bringing over a pineapple. The repetitive motions of cutting it up to make into smoothies is almost… soothing. 

The knife slips, accidentally cutting into the core, and Dream clumsily corrects his grip.

He finishes separating it from the rest and throws it away. He’s washed his hands out of habit and is nearly done with cleaning the knife when he remembers he still needs it.

Sheepishly, he chops the pineapple into smaller chunks with the same knife, dumping the results into the blender and the knife into the sink. He’ll clean it later. 

George’s drums die away, and Sapnap starts an impromptu fiddle solo. It’s nice. Dream’s glad Sapnap’s gotten more confident with it. Maybe Sapnap’ll even be as good at fiddle as he is at guitar, one of these days.

Dream snorts, and shakes his head at himself. Sapnap was practically married to his keyboard and guitar, so last Dream’d checked, it wasn’t likely. 

He opens the freezer and, after locating the ice bag, fishes out the cubes that the smoothies call for. They go into the blender, too, with a series of plink ing sounds. Dream swings the freezer door shut, returning to the mixer. He picks up the lid and fastens it tightly. It’d be terrible if Dream made the smoothies, only to spill them immediately after. Dream hovers his finger over the start button, and pauses. He’s forgotten something. He just knows it. It's itching at him to deal with whatever it was, but… Eh. If it was important, Dream wouldn’t have forgotten it, as his dad used to say. 

He presses the start button in pulses, following a long-ingrained pattern, until the chunks of pineapple and ice have melted into a slurry. He pops the top off and shimmies to the side, reaching up into a cabinet and grabbing three mugs by the handle. His wrist droops with their combined weight, and he sets them on the counter, quick as can be. 

Dream spends another ten minutes filling them gradually. There's still some smoothie left, so Dream puts it in the fridge for later.

Dream straightens and bends his fingers, grimacing at the feeling of juice trying on his skin.

Dream reaches into the sink to wash up, rubbing his palms together, and feels warm steel bite into his flesh.

Oh. He thinks distantly, static buzzing in his ears as he stares down into the sink. I forgot to wash the knife. 

Dream tears his eyes away from the reddening water and robotically finishes cleaning up. He can’t hear Sapnap’s fiddle solo anymore. Fuzzy static drifts across his vision, clotting into large swaths of blindness.

Dream swallows, and he can taste bile in the back of his throat. 

His hand hurts. 

Dream should probably tell George.

George is in the living room.

Dream needs to get to the living room.

Dream manages as far as the hallway between the kitchen and the main room before the lightheadedness creeps in. Forced to lean against a wall until his head stops spinning, Dream swallows, attempting to convince his stomach to retreat from where it’s risen into his throat. 

Eventually, Dream straightens, and staggers onward. Black starts leeching at the outer parts of what he can see by the time he manages to steady himself on the living room doorway.

Dream doesn’t know how long he just stands there, swaying in place as black waxes and wanes on the edges of his vision, before he can think clearly enough to continue.

Dream raises his head and calls George’s attention to him. “George?” 

George cranes his head back to look at him. Across from him, Dream can see Sapnap’s eyes have gone half-closed, fully lost in the sauce that is music. 

“Yeah?” Dream can barely hear George’s response through the fizzing in his ears. 

Dream wobbles the next few steps closer, and feels like he’s being drawn towards George with a string. 

Once he gets close enough, Dream raises his hand for George to inspect. “Help?”

George sucks in a breath of dismay. 

Sapnap opens his eyes. Dream can see him pause for a moment, as if realizing that George had been addressing someone, before following George’s line of sight. 

Sapnap’s fingers fumble mid-chord, the fiddle eeking out another sour note or two before Sapnap takes the bow off the strings entirely. 

Dream flinches (the staticky, fizzing sound in his ears swelling louder in response) as the bow is raised, and Sapnap drops it like a hot poker. Dream thinks the bow bounces off the couch cushions a couple times, before coming to a rest on the farthest cushion. Thinks. He’s kinda occupied with George, though, so it’s hard to be sure. 

George is staring at Dream’s hand. His eyebrows have lowered, pinched together, and his lips purse with concern. His eyes flick up to look at Dream’s face, and, in a moment of perfectly coincidental timing, accidentally catches Dream’s with his own. As if he could tell that Dream had been staring at him. 

Dream shifts his eye away, breaking the moment of stillness, and if he could just curl up and die , right now, that’d be great, thank you. 

George says something to Sapnap, and Dream vaguely registers Sapnap nodding, and leaving the room.

His eye hurts.

He tries to prod at it, but George catches him gently by the wrist. 

“Hey.”

Dream slowly turns his head to look at George. 

“You alright?”

Dream nods, and it feels like moving through molasses.

George ‘hm’s, and asks, “Can you sit down and wait here for a bit, for me?”

Dream responds with another nod. Quicker, than before. 

“Okay, good.” George says, relieved. “Would you like any help?”

Dream thinks about the ordeal it had been just to get over here, and is honestly tempted. But, he’s too proud to take that easy route, apparently, so he shakes his head, squeezing George’s hand. George responds by nearly crushing Dream's finger bones.

“So, you want to do it yourself, but using me as a guide?” George, thank fuck , is pretty quick on the uptake. 

Dream nods emphatically.

"Okay." George breathes out, his constrictor-strength grip easing up a little. "Okay, we can do that." 

Dream restarts his wobble across the hardwood floor, George's hand in his for second.

Dream's other hand reaches down, choking the couch's upholstery in a vice-like grip. 

Dream stumbles, three-fourths of the way through the advance. He bangs his knee on the side of the couch, makes a noise, and tries to correct. George gets involved, his other hand on Dream’s shoulder, he manages to get his center of balance back. Dream takes another step, and ends up half-falling, half-baseball sliding the rest of the way. 

Dream’d jinxed himself with that earlier comment, and he knows it.

George makes an exasperated noise in the back of his throat. "Stop that."

Dream turns over on the couch. "Stop what?"

His voice is husky, rusted and chipped like a badly handled package, but it's not like he'd been using it for much lately, so he isn’t surprised. 

To his credit, George only requires a beat of surprise before replying. "Self-flagellatization, ing, whatever it's called. Beating yourself up."

Dream raises his hands in surrender, letting go of George's hand as he does. "I swear, I wasn't doing some self-flag-el-iz-ing." Dream replies, and he knows that he pronounced that so goddamn badly, and that he should probably correct himself, but he can't quite muster up the energy to try.  

Gods, he’s fucking pathetic, but Dream just. Can’t , right now. 

He’d freaked out over nothing , something that’d been his fault in the first place, and he’d had to get George to help him with it, instead of dealing with it himself.

Dream’s gaze drops to his hands, laying limp in his lap. They’re flushed, red with heat, one bleeding sluggishly.

He squeezes them into fists, and the flare of pain in his right grounds him, slightly.

Fuck , is he broken, or what? 

Dream jerks his vision away from his hands, and Sapnap hollers, “Dream, you’re kicking a dead horse so hard, I can tell from a whole ‘nother room . Stop that.”

Sapnap comes back, Medkit in hand, and Dream can feel himself flush, heat crawling up his neck and pooling in his ears. How much had Sapnap heard?

He glances back at George for a second, and George stares back, frowning disapprovingly. 

Dream can feel himself wilt in response. He escapes it by looking down at his lap.

“Fine.” Dream says, quieter than a mouse, and offers up his bleeding hand.

“Thanks.” George chirps, and Dream hears Sapnap sit down. Sapnap pops open the buckles on the Med-kit and exposes the contents to air. 

“I’ll need antiseptic, gauze, bandages, and some medical tape.” George reports, and Sapnap replies, “Bossy,” rifling through crackly packaging. 

George smacks his shoulder with a free hand and Sapnap passes him the requested baggie. Hunched over Dream’s hand to see better, George cleans the wound thoroughly, Dream twitching every time it tugs on his scab. When George is finished, he balls the used wipes up and pockets them. 

“Bandages, next,” George requests, palm extended. Sapnap smacks the package into his hand  and says, “Right here.”

George peels the paper off the adhesive with one hand and pinches the palm skin together. He  slaps it on, centered over the cut, and then lets go. The skin stays pinched. George pastes on a couple more, and calls it good.

George makes ‘gimme’ hands at Sapnap, and he relinquishes the roll of gauze.

George wraps it up, tight but not too tight, and Dream watches George’s eyebrows furrow as he inspects his work.

George holds out his hand again, and Sapnap sticks a strip of tape to each finger. George tapes the end of the gauze to itself, so it won’t unravel, and then starts attaching the edges of the gauze to Dream’s skin, so it won’t slip off.

“Is that alright?” George asks worriedly, straightened up from his slouch. “Is it restricting, or anything? I learned this during a first aid class for being a summer camp instructor, so, I don;t really know how good it’s going to be - ”

Dream flexes both of his hands thoughtfully. His range of motion in his right, as compared to his left, is a bit inflexible, but other than that, it’s fine.

Dream gives George a thumbs up with his injured hand.

“Good,” George’s ramble ends with a sigh of relief, “Sapnap, if you could put the stuff back - ”

“On it!” Sapnap shoots back, quickly redoing the medi-kit buckles. He clambers over the couch, and out of sight.

George clasps Dream’s hands in his, gently bringing Dream’s attention back to him. “Stay here, please? While I go get the smoothies?”

Dream nods.

God, he’s - 

Dream catches that line of thought by its collar and takes it out back to be shot. Repeatedly .

He was being too fucking self-pitying, right now, and he shouldn’t be doing that. Moping doesn’t fix shit, he remembers someone telling him. Just do what you’re told and shut up about it. 

So Dream is going to keep his ass planted firmly on the couch and calmly wait for George to come back. Without panicking. Or devolving into another spiral.

Should be easy, right?

...

Right.