Work Text:
1.
George sighs as a familiar dono message appears on his second monitor, the monotone text to speech voice reading out the words as if they meant absolutely nothing.
“George, tell Dream that you love him.”
“I’m not doing that,” George flatly responds, hoping that this time Dream would just let it slide.
“George,” Dream whines. “Come on, tell me you love me.” Dammit.
“No, I don’t have to do that,” George replies. Please, Dream, please just let it go.
“George,” Dream repeats. “I love you, tell me that you love me.”
“Stop,” George chokes out, feeling his face heat up with embarrassment. He curses the fact that he decided to use a facecam for this stream and prays that Dream doesn't have his stream open and notice. He knows though, that the viewers will instantly pick up on the red tinge to his cheeks and he'll see the clip all over twitter later today.
Another donation chooses that perfect moment to pop up on the screen. “George, why can’t you tell Dream that you love him?”
“Because I don’t,” George feels a little guilty as the words leave his mouth. “I don’t want to,” he corrects quickly, but the chat's already racing, disbelief coating every message and demanding George tell the truth. George begins to feel a little overwhelmed, and he almost falls into a ravine, distracted by the chat.
“Guys, it’s okay, he just doesn’t love me.” Dream’s voice sounds small and sad and George is instantly flooded with guilt. He knows that Dream is just playing it up for the viewers’ sake, but he can’t help but feel like he’s hurting his friend by not saying anything. George knows that Dream likes words. He’s very outspoken and blunt, often expressing his emotions out loud, whether good or bad, whereas George doesn’t like to talk about how he feels at all.
“Yeah, sorry guys,” George forces himself to say, reluctantly playing along to Dream’s joke but still feeling the guilt swirl in his stomach with the words. Dream laughs and the topic is dropped for now, although the chat keeps roaring with demands, and George prays that no one will donate about it again.
An hour later George ends the stream, relaxing back into his chair and pulling out his phone, the earlier events completely forgotten. Their TeamSpeak call sits in comfortable silence for a minute before Dream speaks. “George?”
“Yeah, what’s up, Dream?” George absentmindedly replies as he scrolls through twitter.
“I, uh,” Dream starts hesitantly, “I’m sorry if I was pressuring you to say you love me.”
“What?” George asks confusedly, setting his phone down on the table and diverting his whole attention to Dream.
“During the stream,” Dream clarifies. “I was just messing with you for the viewers, but I’m sorry if I pushed it too much.”
“It’s fine, Dream. I know it’s just a joke for the fans.” George furrows his eyebrows. Did Dream actually feel guilty about this? They tease each other all the time on camera and although sometimes George will feel embarrassed, it’s never a big deal.
“I know, I know, it’s just…” Dream sighs, seemingly trying to collect his thoughts. “You don’t have to tell me you love me, you know that right?” George stays silent, the guilt from earlier rushing back despite Dream’s words. “George?”
“Yeah, I know, sorry,” George mutters, clearly not convinced Dream is completely fine with it.
“I’m serious, George,” Dream pushes. “It doesn’t matter to me. I know that you… care about me, I don’t need you to say it out loud.”
“Thanks.” George hesitates, “I’m sorry I can’t say it.”
“It’s okay, George. Seriously it’s fine,” Dream confirms. They sit in awkward silence for a moment and George can feel the tension over the call. “I have to go now, I promised I’d record a video with Sapnap once we were done streaming.”
George struggles to convince himself Dream isn’t trying to get away from him. “Okay, no problem.”
“I’ll talk to you later, George.” Dream hesitates, “I love you.”
“I know,” George jokes, the tension between them finally lifting, even while the guilt still sinks into George’s chest. Dream wheezes before ending the TeamSpeak call, leaving George alone to reflect. Why is it so hard for him to tell Dream he loves him? George knows he cares about Dream, Dream’s been his best friend for 5 years, he’s like a brother to George, of course, he cares about him. But does he love Dream? George just doesn’t know. And he’ll never be able to say anything to Dream until he knows for sure.
2.
“Hey, Dream, guess what just came in today,” George enthusiastically greets when Dream picks up his discord call.
Dream hums and thinks for a moment before exclaiming, “Oh, the Enchroma glasses!” The company emailed George a few days prior letting him know that they had sent the glasses and George had excitedly forwarded the email to Dream, only waiting until after he had read it himself. “Have you tried them yet?”
“No, not yet, I was gonna make a video about it and I wanted my reaction to be genuine on recording,” George explains, although he had almost put them on five times before he made the walk from his front door back to his room.
“And you obviously wanted me to be there,” Dream jokes and George laughs.
“Yeah, sure. Are you free to get on Minecraft and record right now?”
“Uh, yeah, give me a sec.” George hears a rustle from Dream’s end as he moves to his computer and George does the same, the familiar Mojang loading screen popping up on his monitor.
“Your webcam’s recording, right?” Dream checks like he usually does before they start every video.
George sighs. “Yes, Dream,” he replies, joining their server. He’ll never admit to Dream that he quickly glances up to make sure he sees the little blinking red light on his webcam. “Okay, you ready, Dream?”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
George jumps right into the video, knowing that he’ll record his typical voiceover telling everyone to subscribe and such after they're finished recording. “So as you guys know, I’m colorblind. I think it’s called Protan or Deutran... basically I have trouble telling greens, yellows, and reds apart; they all look like yellow kind of.” Dream’s character runs over and punches his a couple times. “But I just got these colorblind glasses that should make me be able to see color, thanks to Enchroma for sending these out for me, and I figured, what kind of youtuber would I be if I didn’t make a video of me trying them out?” George lifts up the glasses, showing them to the camera.
“Unfortunately, they do not look like clout goggles, sorry guys, I tried to get him to ask for some but George kept saying it wouldn’t be practical,” Dream laughs. “Which is true, I’ll give him that,” he adds and George rolls his eyes.
“Okay, I’m gonna try them on now I guess.” George hesitantly lifts the glasses up to his face. “I’m kinda nervous,” he admits with a shaky laugh.
Dream wheezes, “Come on, George, you haven’t stopped talking about how excited you were to try the glasses since you found out Enchroma was sending them. Just put them on.”
“Okay, okay.” George takes a deep breath and places the glasses on his face, blinking a few times before furrowing his eyebrows and squinting at the screen.
“George?” Dream asks, when he’s silent for a moment. “Did you put them on? What’s it look like?”
“Uh, I don’t know.” George takes the glasses off and wipes the lenses with his shirt before putting them back on again. “It kinda looks the same,” George admits, confused.
“What, do they not work?” Dream asks.
“I don’t know. It just looks the same I guess” George replies and George hears Dream typing.
“Yeah, it says they only work for 20 percent of people,” Dream reads and George feels a sudden rush of sadness. Dream hesitates, “I’m sorry, dude, that sucks,” Dream says, his voice genuine and caring and George finds himself blinking back tears.
“It never even occurred to me that they wouldn’t work,” George admits, taking in a shaky breath, placing the glasses on the table next to his keyboard.
“I’m sorry, George,” Dream says again and George leans back in his chair, pressing his palms over his eyes.
“It’s fine,” George forces out. “I’ve lived with this for 24 years, what’s the rest of my life gonna make a difference?” Dream inhales a sharp breath and George struggles to keep his emotions in check.
“We’ll find something else, George,” Dream reassures and George sighs. “There has to be some other company or something else we can try-”
“It’s okay, Dream,” George interrupts. “I mean I wasn’t even going to get the glasses at all until Enchroma said they’d send them for free. I guess I just got kinda excited, I mean it sounds pretty cool to see color.” George blinks and curses as a tear drips down his cheek. He reaches up his hand to hastily wipe it away, as if Dream can see him crying from all the way in Florida.
Dream sighs, somehow sensing the change in emotion. “I’m sorry, George,” he helplessly offers.
“It’s not your fault, Dream, you don’t have to apologize.”
“I know, but I love you and I know you were looking forward to this and I’m just…” Dream pauses. “I’m just sorry.”
George takes a deep breath, forcing himself to sound happy. “Seriously, it’s okay Dream. And you’re right, we’ll find something else.”
“We’ll find something else.”
George leaves the call without another word. Feeling the lump forming in his throat, he knows he wouldn’t have been able to say goodbye to Dream without bursting out into tears and even though Dream was his best friend, he still doesn’t like crying in front of him. George slowly looks around his bland room, decorated with blacks and whites as it doesn’t matter if it was colorful anyway, George wouldn’t be able to see it. And now who knows if he ever will. George squeezes his eyes shut as tears roll down his cheeks, dripping onto the table in front of him. He had thought he was so close, but in reality, he hadn’t even moved a single step forward.
This is so stupid, he tells himself, wiping the tears off his cheeks. I didn’t even care about this a week ago and yet now I’m acting like it’s the most important thing in the world.
George feels a surge of gratitude for his best friend. George is crying over essentially nothing and Dream had never judged him nor scolded or pitied him, although he wouldn’t be surprised if Dream let up on the colorblind jokes in the future. He feels the urge to pick up his phone, call Dream again, and just spill out everything he was feeling, but he doesn’t. Even though he knows Dream would make him feel better as he always does on the very rare occasions where George opens up to him - Dream being the only person George could open up to - he still doesn’t.
George picks his phone up from the table in front of him and stands, preparing to go take a shower where he can calm down and get ready to face his parents for dinner in a couple hours. He’s about to turn and walk to his bathroom when he catches a glimpse of the glasses sitting innocently next to his keyboard, staring up at him, mocking his faulty eyes. He pauses for a second, staring back at them, the tinted red frames which Dream had helped him pick out looking like a dull yellow. Without a second thought, he picks them up and throws them in the trash.
3.
George yawns, leaning back in his chair and rubbing a hand down his face. He smiles satisfactorily and clicks upload on his new video. Having not spoken to Dream since he began editing almost 5 hours ago, George picks up his phone, pressing the call button next to Dream’s discord profile. George sits his phone down on the table beside him as it rings, closing his eyes, relieved that he had finished editing and therefore Dream would finally talk to him as Dream had said that he wouldn’t answer him until his new video was uploading.
“You’re done editing, right?” Dream checks as soon as he picks up George’s call.
“Well, hello to you too, Dream,” George laughs. “And yes, I just finished. The video should be up in a bit.”
George hears a rustle and a sharp inhale as Dream shifts positions. When Dream speaks again his voice sounds tight. “Good for you, George.” Dream sounds out of breath. “Next time don’t make me have to force you,” Dream wheezes, but his laugh cuts off with a groan.
George furrows his eyebrows, “Dream, are you okay? You sound like you’re in pain.”
“I’m fine, George. I just…” Dream hesitates, “No, nevermind, it’s nothing,” he dismisses, his voice still sounding tight with pain.
George feels his heart start to speed up, his concern quickly growing. “Seriously, Dream, you don’t sound okay. Are you hurt?”
There's a pause before Dream shakily sighs. “George, I’m fine. I don’t want to worry you.” George opens his mouth to reply but Dream cuts him off, “So, I was thinking that our next video should be another ‘Minecraft but’ challenge because we’ve done a lot of manhunts recently. Any ideas?”
George hears the plea for a change in conversation loud and clear, but Dream’s voice still sounds thin and a little… scared? Something is obviously wrong and George knows that his worry will never dissipate until he knows what. “Dream, what do you mean you don’t want to worry me? Did something happen?”
“George, I just-”
“Please, Dream, tell me what’s wrong. I’m kinda going out of my mind here not knowing,” George laughs nervously, his hand rubbing the back of his neck, attempting to play off his obvious concern.
Dream sighs, seemingly resigned to the fact that he wasn’t going to be able to get out of telling George. “I got mugged earlier today while walking back from the store.” George’s breath catches in his throat. “But I’m fine,” Dream is quick to reassure, “They just took my wallet and ran off. I’ve already called my credit card company and canceled my cards, they only got whatever cash I had in the back of my wallet.”
George straightens up in his chair, his heart thumping loudly in his chest. “What the fuck, Dream. What the actual fuck? Are you okay? Did they hurt you? I swear if they hurt you I’m gonna-”
Dream cuts him off, “George, I told you I’m fine. It’s really not a big deal, you don’t have to be worried.”
George doesn’t feel reassured. “Dream, I can practically hear you grimace every time you move, you’re not fine,” George snaps. Dream doesn’t respond which for George is an answer in itself. George sighs, attempting to calm down, “I’m sorry, Dream, I’m just worried about you,” he begins much softer than before. “Please, just tell me what happened,” George pleads.
George could almost hear Dream’s reluctance over the phone. “They pushed me against the wall pretty hard,” Dream starts. “I’m fine though, just a little bruised up. I’m mostly just shaky though because…” Dream hesitates, “They had a gun, George. Obviously, everything turned out okay, I’m not seriously injured, but, you know.”
George feels his breath speed up as the reality of this situation dawned on him. They had a gun. Dream could have died. His best friend could be lying dead on the side of the road and he would have no idea. George feels tears well up in his eyes and he sucks in a sharp breath, willing himself to not start crying. Dream’s fine, idiot, stop overreacting. George desperately tries to blink the tears out of his eyes.
Dream, sensing George’s distress, is quick to attempt to reassure him, “Hey, George, it’s fine, I’m fine, a little shaken up but I’m okay. Seriously you don’t have to worry.”
“You can’t keep that shit from me, dude,” George says, his voice shaky.
“I know, George, I’m sorry. I just knew that you would worry and I don’t want you to,” Dream replies guiltily.
George wraps his arms around himself, swallowing around the lump in his throat, Dream’s reassuring words having no effect on his rising emotion. “You can’t keep that shit from me,” George repeats, his voice cracking. “I mean what if you had died? Dream, I don’t know what I would do if you died. I don’t know if-” George rambles, his voice trembling and near hysterical.
Dream shushes him, “George, hey, dude it’s okay. I’m fine. I’m still here, I’m not going to leave you.”
“I just,” George takes in a shaky breath, “You mean too much to me, Dream. I can’t lose you,” George admits, dangerously close to tears.
“You’re not going to lose me, George,” Dream reassures. “Not now, not ever.”
That’s when the dam finally broke. George attempts to stifle a sob, tears spilling down his cheeks and dripping off of his chin. “George, please don’t cry, seriously I’m okay. They didn’t hurt me.”
This only makes George cry harder, his mind swarming with all of the worst-case scenarios where Dream is dead and George is alone all the way across the ocean.
“God, I wish I could hug you right now,” George faintly hears Dream say. He sounds so guilty and scared and shit now George is making Dream feel worse.
George takes a deep breath, attempting to calm down. “I’m sorry, I’m just overreacting.” George wipes at his eyes. “I just… care about you. And you have to tell me when this shit happens, I don’t care if I’m in the middle of editing or if it’s fucking three in the morning, you call me immediately, alright?”
“Okay, George, I will,” Dream still sounds guilty. “I’m sorry, next time I’ll call you, I promise.” Dream pauses, “I love you too, George. Thanks for caring about me.”
George giggles, the weight on his chest finally lifting. “I don’t love you, Dream, I never said I loved you,” jokes George, a small smile on his lips. “Now go tell Sapnap what happened right now or I will.”
“Okay, fine, Mom.”
George just laughs in response, the crushing fear that had firmly gripped his heart loosening and beginning to drift away. “Okay, bye, Dream.”
“See you, George.”
+1.
“Are you ready, Dream?”
Dream apprehensively peeks out at the huge crowd standing in front of the stage, waiting for them to walk out and for Dream to simultaneously finally do his face reveal. Dream throws on a cocky smile although George can see straight through it. “It’s now or never. Let’s do this.”
The crowd screams as they walk out on stage, their phones all out and pointed at their faces, snapping photos and taking videos that George is sure are going straight up on twitter later. George smiles shyly and squints at the crowd past the bright lights. Looking a little uncomfortable, Dream gives a small wave and walks up to his mic. “Hi, I’m Dream,” he says and the crowd erupts, screaming and cheering even louder than before. He turns to look at George and he gives an overly bewildered shrug. Dream laughs as he turns back to the mic and George can see him visibly relax with each question they take from their fans, his smiles and laughter becoming more frequent and genuine as his confidence grows.
They talk and mess around on stage for an hour, Dream thriving from all the attention on him now that the initial nerves of his face reveal have passed. Even though George has always been a little shy in front of large crowds, it’s almost a disappointment when their time with their fans is up.
It came out of nowhere. One minute Dream is lifting up a hand to wave goodbye and the next George hears a deafening bang before Dream’s head brutally snaps back and he collapses to the ground, his mic falling limply from his hand and rolling from his unmoving fingers. People begin to panic and scream, pushing against each other while frantically trying to run, but George is frozen, staring at Dream’s body, deathly still, lying on the floor.
George feels the world around him fade away, the screams quieting to a dull white noise ringing in his ears, his periphery vision dimming to black. “Dream?” He asks shakily and he doesn’t understand even as he watches the blood pool around Dream’s head, staining his dirty blonde hair a rusty red, his open, glassy eyes staring off at nothing. This doesn’t make sense. People are screaming and Dream’s lying unmoving on the floor and nothing makes sense. “Dream?” He asks again and his mind is helplessly blank as he stares at Dream’s body incomprehensibly.
George takes a step towards him and his foot lands in something wet spreading across the floor. Blood. He yells and stumbles backwards, leaving red footprints in his wake and his mind slams back into place. He’s dead. Dream’s dead. George begins to scream and scramble back towards his body, his knees sending small ripples through the blood pooling around Dream’s head. He reaches out for Dream’s shoulders, desperately shaking his limp body. Strong arms wrap around him from behind and start to pull him away as he begs Dream to please just wake up. Dream’s head lolls to the side lifelessly when they rip George’s hands from his shoulders, dragging George offstage as he kicks and screams and sobs out Dream’s name.
They leave Dream there, lying alone on the ground, until they’ve evacuated the whole building. They pull George outside too, struggling and hysterical and repeating Dream’s name over and over again in between strangled sobs. They take him to the hospital even though he’s not hurt and they leave him curled up in a waiting room chair, his throat raw and his eyes puffy, haunted by the image of Dream’s glassy eyes staring blankly at him. He doesn’t cry anymore. He just sits, arms wrapped around himself, shocked and trembling and completely overwhelmed. When some doctors eventually come and tell him that Dream’s dead, he just nods blankly. He’s known Dream was gone ever since he watched his head snap back as the bullet pierced his forehead. Even as he stood prone on stage, confused and helpless, he knew there’s no way that Dream could’ve survived that.
They call him a taxi back to Dream’s house and he hesitates at the door before deciding to just sit on the stairs out front, not wanting to go inside. He sits there for what feels like hours, staring blankly into the distance, until he’s shaken from his trance by his phone buzzing in his pocket. His phone shakes in his hand as he looks at the contact. Sapnap. He hesitantly picks up, holding the phone up to his ear.
“George!” Sapnap yells as soon as George answers his call and George wishes he had let the call go to voicemail. “What the hell is going on? I’ve been trying to call you and Dream for the past hour! Everyone on twitter is freaking out and I think I heard a gunshot in someone’s video and neither of you were responding, are you guys okay?” Sapnap rambles, sounding absolutely panicked out of his mind. George feels a tear drip down his face and he stays silent, desperately searching for something to say but coming up completely empty handed. “George?” Sapnap asks, his voice cracking, and he sounds so small and scared and nothing like Sapnap at all and George takes a deep breath.
“Dream’s dead,” he says blankly.
“What? That’s not funny, George,” Sapnap lets out a little laugh seemingly unsure of whether George is telling the truth or not, but when George begins to cry he hears Sapnap suck in a sharp breath.
“What happened?” Sapnap whispers, his voice thick with tears and confusion.
“Someone shot him,” George says, the image of Dream’s head snapping back flashing in front of his eyes. “Someone shot him in the head and they killed him.” George hears Sapnap sob and he knows he’s being too blunt but he can’t bring himself to comfort someone else. Not when he needs all of his willpower to not break down on his dead best friend’s front porch.
He sits silently on the call for a few minutes while Sapnap cries and swears and screams, and begs George to tell him that this is all just some sick joke and that Dream is listening to this call and laughing at how gullible he is. All George can think about is how Dream would know exactly what to do right now. He would know exactly what to say. But George isn’t good with words like Dream is. Dream had always liked words.
“What do we do now, George?” Sapnap finally asks, and George wishes that they weren’t hundreds of miles away from one another.
“I don’t know,” George answers and he honestly has never felt more lost in his life. Not only is his best friend gone, but there’s no way that either of them can continue making Youtube videos or even play Minecraft ever again without being reminded of him and, oh shit.
“I never got to tell him I love him,” George realizes and Sapnap falls silent. George’s voice cracks. “I love him. God, I love him so much,” he sobs, “and now he’s gone and I’ll never get to tell him.”
“Don’t worry, George,” Sapnap responds without hesitation. “He knows.”