Chapter Text
george remembers the moment his world shattered, right down to the minute.
he remembers feeling the warm breeze of florida wind sneaking into his room, right past his curtains. he remembers hearing distant cars, hums of traffic that filled his apartment with white noise. he remembers cracking his knuckles, stretching with a yawn because of the ungodly hour of night. he remembers going to check the time, to see how warranted his exhaustion was. the 2:27 from his phone taunted him, and he almost wanted to stick his tongue out at it before he realized. that’s his phone.
an equally tired voice murmured in his headset, in tones he wasn’t meant to hear, surely.
“what’s up, i’m on call,” george’s friend mumbled. george lifted his head some. “no, i’ll be in bed in a minute, love you.”
george wasn’t tired anymore. “who was that, dream?”
“who was what?” he earned in reply. and what a sufficient reply, too. thanks, dream.
“who were you just talking to?”
“oh, that? that was... um, patches.”
george wanted to laugh at that, he honestly did, and maybe if he was slightly less sleep deprived he would find the decency to laugh about it and not be awkward.
but he wanted answers just a bit more.
george swallowed dust on his tongue, ignoring the goosebumps licking his arms.
“dream? who was it?”
“... your mom.” george could almost hear a plea, a sewn in beg that the response would throw george off his tail. but george’s head was caked in salt and snow, fear and nerves. he probably knew the answer before it was said.
“dream.”
“alright, alright,” dream let up, and george caught his breath, waiting. his monitor had tiny numbers in the corner, 2:28 AM.
“that was my girlfriend.”
george hates broken glass. it scares him when it shatters, takes forever to clean, and if you aren’t careful, leaves splintered shards on the floor to step on for months to come.
broken glass hurts. broken glass means a mistake.
george inhaled broken glass.
“oh?” he said. “your girlfriend?” george stared holes into his ceiling. the wearing paint peeled at the corners, where the wall met the ceiling. george swallowed broken glass.
“yeah,” dream half-chuckled. “we’ve been together about a year now. she’s upset i’ve been playing for, like, four hours now.” george bounced his leg, keeping his eyes up. he closed them for a minute.
“ah. i’m happy for you.” george spoke through broken glass. he let out a deep sigh, and turned his face back to the blue light of his monitor.
“thanks,” dream said.
bees swarmed the backs of george’s eyes. he wiped hastily at the moisture gathering over his lashes, and cleared the broken glass in his throat.
“it’s kind of late, isn’t it? you can go to bed now, if you want. i don’t want to keep your girlfriend waiting. we do this every day.” some car in the distance started honking, and george heard tires shriek against pavement.
he waited for dream.
“well, yeah— but i wanna stay on call with you.” dream pouted. “how about half an hour more?”
george bit down on broken glass.
blazing butterflies carried the irreparable shards of his heart, tossed them around like leaves in autumn. george felt like dead leaves.
he wanted to say i’m tired, dream, we should sleep.
he wanted to say no, dream, go back to your girlfriend, we can do this tomorrow.
he wanted to say i can’t, dream, i don’t know if i can keep myself from crying on call, and that would be just as embarrassing as admitting to you why i’m crying.
instead, all he could breathe out through slivers of knives on his tongue, was, “okay. half an hour.”
“3 AM, and you can go to sleep,” dream assured.
“okay, 3 AM then.” george ignored the sand in his eyes, the sand in his thoughts.
“thank you, george,” dream sighed, and george hated, hated, hated that he could hear the pretty smile through his headset.
“of course.” george was walking through, breathing in, and eating broken glass.
and he would keep doing it. if it was for dream.