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the world has always been silent. george awoke one day, alone, left to stew in the silence. he can't remember anything before, can't remember anything other than his name. all he knows is that the nearby forest's trees tower over him, looming over him and asking him to come in.
so that's what he does.
he goes through the motions, chopping down a tree. it oddly satisfies him when the whole tree comes down to logs. he's going through the motions now, making tools in order to survive: a sword, a pickaxe, and an axe.
(when did he learn to do this? he can't quite remember. his hands just go through the motions as if it's the most natural thing in the world.)
the forest isn't interesting.
what's interesting is the tent and campfire on the other side of the forest. two men sit around the campfire, clad in green and white respectively. george doesn't see much of them, because one moment, the two strangers are sitting as if they're waiting for something, and the next moment, they're both standing up and looking directly at him.
george winces, putting away his sword as if to show that he's not any harm. for a moment, he regrets this, because these people could be looking to harm him. instead...
"there you are!" the unknown masked man leaps to his feet, advancing towards him with his arms out, as if he's going to wrap him into a hug. george flinches back. he doesn't know him. he doesn't know these two people. who are they?
but the other stranger is faster than him, stopping the masked man from advancing too far. "what are you doing?" he hisses to him, and suddenly george feels like he's witnessing something too personal, something he's not supposed to see.
"i'll just..." george moves to turn around, gasping at his makeshift bag. "i'll just leave..."
"no!" the masked man cries out, then coughs when george stares at him wide-eyed. "i mean, no, don't. we're not going to hurt you, i promise."
"yes, it's just been a while since we've seen anyone else." the man with the bandana shrugs. "we're just excited, i guess. at least, he is."
"i'm sorry," the other says, and george knows that they're strangers, but still, he feels like he can trust this man. sure, he's wearing a mask, and he was acting weird, but there's just something about him that makes george want to trust him with his entire heart.
so he does.
george advances towards them slowly, sitting at their campfire. as he puts the bag down besides him, he notices that from where they're sitting, there was always room for a third person here.
"my name's dream."
george looks up in surprise. the masked man holds out his hand; his mask is a smiley face, but george doesn't doubt that he's smiling underneath it.
cautiously, he takes his hand. "my name's george," he says nervously.
"and i'm sapnap," the other says, holding out his hand. george shakes his hand too. "nice to meet you, george."
"yeah," dream pipes back in. "it's really nice to meet you. really nice, actually."
george flushes slightly, looking at the campfire, so he misses sapnap shooting dream a glare.
so that's how he meets his two best friends. well, they're his only friends, but that's not important. he quickly grows adjusted to being in this group, almost as if they were meant to meet and befriend each other.
dream likes to chase him, yelling, "oh, george!" as they run over the hills. he doesn't know exactly where they're going, but he doesn't think that the other two do either. sapnap keeps up with the two of them, yelling out snarky remarks since he's somehow possible of coming up with a coherent train of thought, running at top speed, and yelling out his thoughts to the two of them.
sapnap likes to mess with the two of them, enough that sometimes instead of george himself, dream runs after sapnap instead. in this situation, sapnap has a chance to be the one to babble incoherently instead.
dream tends to win; parkour is one of his best skills, so he sometimes tries to give george tips so that he has a chance to win against dream on level ground. sapnap calls them lovebirds once, and george doesn't know what that means, just knows that dream goes visibly red from the skin not covered up by the mask, and god, that feels good, to have dream himself flustered right in front of him.
(it doesn't work as well when george calls themselves lovebirds. he said it to dream once, as they looked at the sunset from the mountaintops, and all dream did was tease him until he was the one flustered. he wonders if dream thinks it feels just as good when he flusters george to redness.)
sometimes, though, things aren't fun and games. once in a while, on their journey, they get trapped in hoards in monsters, where they can't sleep as they're bombarded from all directions with all sorts of dangerous creatures.
creepers are, by far, the worst. they like to creep up behind him and scare him. sometimes it's not even the damage; it's the jumpscare that does more psychic damage than anything else. (and don't even get george started on the endermen.)
sapnap teaches him how to aim the bow, getting awfully close to his face as he teaches him how and where to aim. sapnap's breath on his skin should feel weird, but all it does is give him goosebumps and keep him awake at night.
all that aside, in the depths of battle, sometimes they get injured. when george got injured on one of the first nights, not expecting any sort of monster at all, he's doted on during the entire next day, and he wonders why they care so much when they've only known each other for a day.
(months later, it feels like a lifetime.)
the monsters aren't even the worst part.
the worst part is the villages.
george was excited when he saw signs of civilization, running off before he could hear what dream and sapnap had to say. he made his way down the dirt path and into the village center, stopping to talk to one of the villagers.
the villager had looked at him, and opened his mouth, and george had absolutely no idea what came out of his mouth. he was just standing there in shock, even after the villager had walked away muttering something under his breath. Even after dream finally caught up to him, george wasn't even sure what to say, how to react, what to do.
"they don't... talk like us," dream said lowly, pulling him away. george nodded numbly, staring at the ground. "we don't understand them."
a group of villagers stopped and stare at them. sapnap had moved to stand in front of them, looking at george with an expression that he never wants to see on that pretty face ever again. that expression doesn't belong there; it's something of sadness, pity, regret, all sorts of things that george doesn't want to decipher or understand or see.
"and they... don't understand us," sapnap said, avoiding eye contact. "that's how it's always been. we can trade, with visual cues, but language-wise... they don't understand us."
so george walked away with a heavy heart, knowing that in this empty world, it's just the three of them.
in a boundless world, possibilities are endless. there's no end in sight; the three of them find more and more new places, where george exclaims and gasps in awe at every new thing they encounter. sapnap and dream look at him amused, sometimes explaining what they can.
sometimes, they can't.
"i don't know why," dream had said, handing him his newly enchanted diamond sword. they had gone mining before and found diamonds, but when dream started doing something with obsidian, george couldn't help but ask, but dream didn't have an answer. "it's just something i know. it's an ancient ritual, i guess."
"what does this say?" george pointed towards the text on the enchanting table, as dream put it. "i can't read that."
dream just looked at him with wistful eyes.
"i don't know either."
even sapnap didn't have any answers. in fact, it was more annoying than asking dream, because not only did george get the same answers, but at least dream was nicer about it, even if he did have that weird look filled with pity that george always hates to see.
"sometimes things just come to us, in... in instinct." sapnap shrugged. "no way to explain it. do you ever get a feeling that sometimes, you know things, know how to do things, even though you swear you have no idea how you got that information? that's what that is."
george squinted his eyes. "that... doesn't make sense. i've... felt that before, kind of, but it just made sense to make a sword, even if it's a simple wooden one. but that?" george frowns. "that was some sort of ancient design."
"sometimes you just remember things," sapnap practically growled, and this is the sapnap that scares him, because it's not the sapnap that he befriended. it's someone scarier, because it's not the friend that laughs when he pulls pranks, not the friend that cackles when he pulls any sort of mischief. from here, it looks as if he's years older, eyes hardened with years of knowledge that seem to have appeared out of nowhere. "maybe you don't understand remembering things, but we do. we just remember."
george remembers that sapnap and dream had argued that night. they tried to speak in hushed tones, but eventually they were whisper-yelling as george tossed and turned in bed, trying his best to get enough sleep that night.
he can't remember if it worked.
the next day, everything was back to normal, but dream's smile was a bit too wide and sapnap's grin was a bit too forced.
the world was full of possibilities. endless terrain to wander and explore. the three of them wandered the land in search of nothing and everything at the same time.
and though wanderlust can never be satiated for long, the three of them started building a house in the middle of a giant lake. at first, george thought it was a temporary setup, but once decorations and actual planning came up, he knew that it was more or less permanent.
and it didn't bother him: it would be impossible to search out and discover every single thing in this seemingly endless world. it's a world not bounded by limits. a boundless supply of new lands and new areas to explore...
it's not like they can't explore either. they discovered the nether a while back. well, george says discovered, but he's pretty sure that dream and sapnap know more about this place than they let on. sapnap loves to spend so much time there that george thinks he has some sort of affinity for the strange, hellish, otherworldly fire and lava dimension.
dream had called it the nether.
he's not sure why.
sapnap disappears for days at a time. george knows that when he isn't aware of sapnap's presence within the first ten minutes of being awake in the morning, that he's gone and went into the dimension. dream has always struck him as the wanderlust type, so to discover that dream is nearly always at their house while sapnap is the one gallivanting and exploring the nether... is weird.
then again, it's not like their house is particularly interesting to begin with. sapnap has always been the type to go looking for interest when he can't find it where he is, and their house isn't exactly the most interesting house. george isn't much of a builder; when the three of them were putting together the walls, he remembers that he had nearly fallen off the very top.
dream forced him to get off the roof immediately -- and safely.
dream does his best with expanding slightly, mostly underground. dream's a bit messy, so he set aside a storage area where george cleans up the messes as dream makes them.
that's another thing, too -- dream is a whirlwind. he may not seem like much, but he's certainly nothing to scoff at either. parkour may be one of dream's best skills, but dream's pretty much good at everything that george can even imagine. dream's talented with his hands, making masterpieces out of what george would have considered scrap or food for the cactus trash-can.
(a part of him wonders if dream can make him into a masterpiece, if dream is already doing that.)
dream is something of a whirlwind. george is nothing more than a passing breeze. to get swept into this world was something of a miracle that george would never take back. to succumb himself to the hurricane that'll rock his entire world? well, if anything, that'd be george's pleasure.
and then sapnap comes back, and everything's different, but a good different.
sapnap adds something extra to their dynamic. george isn't quite sure how to put words to it. if dream is a force to be reckoned with, then sapnap is the passionate fire that quells all doubt and worry. he's never afraid to speak his mind, while dream thinks before he speaks. there's a fire that brews in sapnap's heart, one that burns with passion and desire. george doesn't know if he'll get burned by this flame, but it's not going to stop him out of fear. after all, if sapnap can be fearless in the face of uncertainty and danger, then george can be as well. george doesn't know his place in the world, doesn't know much about himself other than his own name, but george knows that with sapnap by his side, there's nothing that he can't do if he puts his mind to it. sapnap is so many things that dream isn't, yet somehow george likes him all the same. it's in a different way, but who says different can't be similar?
sure, waking up with amnesia in the middle of nowhere wasn't exactly george's idea of a good life, but with sapnap and dream in his life, there's not much that he can really complain about.
no, this is everything he could ever want, everything he could ever dream of.
"kiss me," dream gasps, asking him while they're both in the depths of darkness. "kiss me," he says as if he couldn't live without one. "kiss me," dream's words echo, the only thing that dream has ever asked of george. when his hands come up to his face and the mask gets tossed to the ground, george can't just say no to him. the desperation is laced into his voice, and it's the only thing that dream has ever asked of him. dream has always tried to act cool in front of him, to put on this front of being mostly apathetic, but george knows him better than that.
dream loves the world with his whole heart. and he knows that he loves george with his whole heart, too. to be held so highly in his heart...
george doesn't say anything, just leans in.
the mask stays off. sapnap takes one look at dream's face the next day, and he just laughs.
"missed that pretty face of yours, dream. glad to see it again."
somehow, eventually, sapnap settles in with the two of them. sapnap's passion is through the roof with the two of them, and it's no surprise that they all end up dating.
there's no defining moment - george just woke up one day early and thought to himself, maybe i should make my boyfriends breakfast.
and that was it.
sapnap kisses like there's going to be no tomorrow. george's memory has started to be a little shaky, but he remembers that kissing sapnap is like kissing a storm. sapnap pulls him closer, seeking something more; george doesn't know if he can really give sapnap that something more, but sapnap chose him, wanted him, and really, that's all there is to it.
dream's kisses are more withdrawn, with a bit more caution. while sapnap threw all caution to the wind, dream's patience knows no bounds, even in the face of george's impatience. george calls him out for teasing, but dream continues to take it slow, take it easy, and take his time showing george how much he loves him.
he's loved.
it's the most wonderful thing in the world, to be loved like this. sapnap is the turbulent sea, dream is the steady current washing onto the beach, and george is the lucky one to ride the waves and to take in the beauty of the crashing waves.
they fit together like puzzle pieces.
dream drags him to a flower forest. even though george discovers that the others can see more colors than he can, dream does his best to point out colors and to present him with flowers.
"they remind me of you," dream would say, a small smile on his face, holding out the flowers. the other flowers may not be the color that dream can see, but they're still just as pretty in his eyes. they highlight the sharp blue color that he actually can see, and...
they're beautiful.
and george takes them, saying in turn, "funny, isn't it? because these remind me of you."
on other days, sapnap will take him to the nether. dream waves them off when george expresses his concerns about leaving the other alone. "you'll bring back some cool stuff, won't you? besides, it's not like i can deny you two your alone time."
sapnap's not much of a words or a gift person. he's much more brash, but he shows his love in different ways. he shows george all of his favorite places in the nether. one of which is the dangerous Nether Fortress, but sapnap escorts him and wards off all of the enemies if they even take a look at george.
and while he doesn't quite understand the place, sitting atop the bastion, he can see a sort of beauty in the place. the forests are their own little special places, where sapnap is sure to point out the curious little plants and mushrooms.
and when they come back, they both get to greet dream with a few presents as well as a few kisses. the parting isn't ever fun, but it makes the reconcilation that much sweeter.
but then george gets weaker.
and weaker.
george can't make any more trips to the nether, but that doesn't deter sapnap. he brings back more and more treasures each time he goes, and he starts spending more time at home.
(ah. it's a home now. not just the house he lives in. not just their house. but their home.)
sapnap sets down a potted warped fungus by george's bedside table, just smiling in turn when george shoots him a wobbly grin.
on the other bedside table, there's a bouquet of flowers from the flower forest. it's been there for a while, but george has the sneaking suspicion that the originals have died long ago -- and dream just continues to replace them over and over again.
if only health were that simple. then george could get up, explore the world at his boyfriends' side. to run after dream (or be chased by him) over the fields while taking in the beautiful sights of the overworld's nature... to be led around by sapnap through the dangerous terrain of the nether and somehow think of it as a romantic journey.
instead, george spends most of his time in his bed, resting. sapnap and dream don't mind; they love sleeping in and cuddling until the sun's directly above them. george loves to be in the middle, but all three of them switch out, so that everyone gets a chance to be in any position so no one feels left out.
one day he wakes up and he feels completely strange. he sits up, awake, next to the snoring bodies of dream and sapnap, as he feels a sensation that he's never felt before in his life. dream's eyes blearily open in question.
"i feel... weird," george admits, then holds out his shaky hands. "i don't feel right."
"oh," dream says, then he pauses. "oh," he says again, but more serious this time.
"dream?"
dream just gives him a pained grin. george shifts towards him, looking for comfort; dream has never been able to deny him that.
he reachs out to hold george's face in his rough hands. "no, no, no, no. not now... why now?"
"what's going on?" george says softly. "i'm scared."
"don't be scared, sweetheart," sapnap whispers softly on the other side of him, petting his hair just the way he likes it. he woke up on the other side of the bed, immediately going to comfort george. "everything's going to be okay."
"yes..." dream sniffs, then presses a gentle kiss to george's lips. it feels like paradise, tastes like heaven. "i'll see you soon."
sapnap turns his head, kissing him chastely on the lips as well. "until then, my love." it feels like a goodbye, tastes like forever parting.
"okay, dream, sapnap..." george mumbles softly, laying down between them, in both of their arms. he just feels so tired, feels as if he hasn't slept in years. he doesn't even feel real anymore. in fact, he doesn't even feel like he has a physical form anymore. in fact... this feels...
weird.
he calls out once more.
"dream?"
george awoke, alone, stewing in silence. he's right on the outskirts of a forest, the darkness within almost... drawing him underneath the looming trees.
he goes in, hands ready to grab some logs from an unfortunate tree.
(after all, something's... or someone's waiting for him at the other side of the forest.)