Work Text:
It all started with a tik tok.
With a blurry, frantic recording scrolling through Dream’s phone.
“Guys, you won’t believe what I just saw,” The robotic text-to-speech reads out.
The recording moves shakily over someone’s Minecraft starting screen. “Look at my Minecraft today.”
Dream is about to scroll away when it catches his eye.
The splash text next to the Minecraft title has been edited.
it says, DreamNotFound is Real.
Dream, As a proud plug-in coder and general connoisseur of Minecraft, titled by fans and non-fans alike as one of the best players of the game, knows (of course) that it’s possible to change the splash text on the Minecraft starting screen.
He knows this and yet there’s a twist in his gut at the words.
DreamNotFound is Real
This is just a creative way that someone used Minecraft coding to troll fans he tells himself.
Just to troll.
Just trolling by implying that him and George are in a relationship.
Which is normal and funny because they flirt all the time. Because they pander to fans and encourage the implication.
That’s all
And yet, Dream’s stomach swoons at the yellow text. It looks so official against the in game background, over the slow rotation of a serene image of the nether.
Implication that even Mojang themselves thinks-
Dream abruptly shuts off his phone and carelessly tosses it on his bed. He hopes his sheets will swallow the device up whole.
Alright, that’s enough tik tok for today
After bothering Sapnap about recording, feeding Patches and making dinner, Dream ends up back in his room.
He’s slumped over in his gaming chair, staring blankly at Minecraft, eyes glazing over. He’s unable to find the motivation to actually start the game when-
Ding!
Dream’s phone chirps from under the covers. He fishes the device from his sheets and hastily unlocks it.
“Guys, you won’t believe what I just saw,” The TikTok from before replays loudly.
Dream huffs, moving to exit from the app when he notices it again.
DreamNotFound is Real
Dream glances over curiously at his opened Minecraft starting screen.
Just for fun. This’ll be funny, he tells himself.
Dream pulls up his Minecraft.jar file and begins editing the code
Funny for who exactly Dream’s not sure.
It’s quick work to locate the splash text files and edit them. Dream finds himself hovering over his keyboard unsure.
DreamNotFound He starts, unsure where to go from there, He tries to think about what would be funniest. What should he, Dream himself display about him and George’s ship name.
<3 Dream adds. For some reason the heart makes Dream’s face go red, he feels like a kid doodling his crush’s last name next to his own. Like he's writing silly hearts all over his notebook and letting out dreamy sighs dreamily at the thought of his crush, eyes filled with puppy love.
Dream finishes the command and feels giddy when he restarts Minecraft to see the new text.
DreamNotFound <3
Hours later Dream sits at his desk editing their latest recording when Sapnap barges into his room.
"Hey, why didn't you answer my text earli-" Sapnap stops himself when he steps next to Dream's chair. “Are you serious?” he raises his eyebrow judgmentally.
“What?” Dream absentmindedly continues to fiddle with a clip, “Do you think I should cut the part where you and George made those dick jokes? They’re funny but I wanna make sure that the video is moneti-”
“Dream, that wasn’t what I was talking about,” Sapnap grabs the back of his chair and spins it around so he can focus on his middle monitor where the Minecraft starting screen has been idly playing for the past hour.
Dream searches the screen for any anomalies but everything seems normal, “What are you-” his eye catches on it. “Wait-” He begins, scrambling for a defense.
Sapnap beats him to it
“You put ‘DreamNotFound heart’ as your starting screen?” Dream’s face burns as he stares at the splash text . He hopes the red wash of his screen covers how hard he’s blushing right now.
“I know you had to custom code that in,”
“Listen-”
Sapnap barrels on unbothered by Dream, “You can’t even say this was supposed to be ‘pandering’ because only you see this.”
“I don’t know, I just thought it was funny,” Dream defends nervously.
“Funny my ass, Dream, this isn’t something normal people who have no romantic feelings for their best friends do.
“Sapnap, I-”
“Dude, I’m just sick and tired of seeing you two dance around each other like this,” He presses a finger to the center of Dream’s chest, “Figure it out.”
Dream glances over at his monitor, the slash text bobbing innocently on his screen and comes to a terrifying realization.
Maybe, I like George
Dream feels a flush crawl up his neck after he ends the stream.
Oh god, they saw
It had been weeks since he edited the splash text and he'd completely forgotten about it. It had become familiar on his starting screen, burrowing a home of soft melty feelings in Dream's gut whenever he saw it.
which is why of course it came back to bite his ass.
He had been so careful to switch screens every time he changed servers, acutely aware of all the eyes on him. Of course, he knew messing up was always a possibility, knew it was inevitable when streaming but to leak something so embarrassing-
A small part of him hopes that no one notices, that maybe this one thing will go undetected by the thousands of people watching his every move.
That hope is shattered the moment he logs onto twitter.
GUYS, WHAT IS THIS????? Dream???? Attracted to the tweet is a screenshot from Dream’s recent stream. There, plain as day in the few moments Dream took to switch servers, shows the incriminating text.
DreamNotFound <3
Dream scrolls through the replies, which are filled with confusion and exclamations of excitement.
10.2k likes
Dream groans, Sapnap’s words echoing in his head. 'You can’t even say this was supposed to be ‘pandering''
I’m so, so, fucked
The sound of an incoming discord call interrupts his thoughts.
George
Dream quickly picks up.
“Hey,” George begins.
“Hey,” Dream echos timidly, his heart beating out of his chest.
I like George
George snickers at how awkward Dream sounds. “You’re such an idiot.”
“Yeah, But I’m your idiot,” Dream replies, mindlessly falling into their comfortable banter.
“Is that why you made your Minecraft splash text DreamNotFound?” George teases back.
Dream feels his face heat up immediately, “Wait, that’s- that’s not- uh,”
“Oh my god, Dream, are you embarrassed?”
‘this isn’t something normal people who have no romantic feelings for their best friends do.’
“Uh-” Dream hides his face in his hands, he can feel how hot his cheeks are right now.
“You so are!” George mocks gleefully, “Aww, did wittle Dreamie accidentally confess his undying love for me on stream to 30k people?!”
“George,” Dream whispers, pained with embarrassment.
“Dream?” George sounds taken aback by how actually affected Dream sounds by his light teasing. “Dream, are you good?” George asks, concerned.
Dream groans, “I don’t know, I just saw this stupid tik tok and it had the stupid splash text and I guess I thought ‘oh, it’d be funny if I did that.’ Because you know, ‘Dnf haha’ but then it was more like, ‘Dnf actually’ and like- yeah- so here I am now,” Embarrassed words spill out of his mouth slightly muffled by his hand.
“Do you actually mean that?” George interrupts before Dream can continue to spiral.
Oh,
Dream peaks out between his fingers to look at his monitor. George’s discord icon is replaced by video feed of an equally flushed George, mirth shining in his dark eyes.
He gets it
“Yes” Dream breathes