Chapter Text
Everything is gone.
His house, his fish, his nice little bridge. Everything he owned has been destroyed because of some war he never even wanted to be part of, and just when he thought things were taking a turn for the better, the person he trusted the most took it all away.
“You should have been here to protect me.”
“I can’t be here all the time.”
George digs his nails into the dirt around him, blades of grass unearthing.
“You would be safer.” As if that was what Dream cared about.
Heat stings behind his eyes.
“Give me the word,” said Sapnap, and George was tempted. But he was a good king, and he was going to prove it right up until the moment they ripped the crown from his head.
George slams his fist into the ground, and it barely makes a dent.
“The only reason I’m saying this is because I care about him.”
He never asked to be king. He just trusted Dream’s judgement and took on the responsibility without question.
Dream claimed he was doing this to protect George, but he could see straight through that lie. If that was truly the reason, Dream wouldn’t have even considered Eret as an option. George would have happily given up the throne if Dream had a good point, or even just named someone else who could have been a better ruler. But after all the lying and self-contradicting and guilt-tripping, George saw this for what it was: cold, ruthless manipulation.
“Just say you hate me.”
What has the last year been? What was the fucking wall that Dream had built around L’Manburg because he was high on righteous fury after the griefing of George’s house? Was all of that just manipulation too?
George has to get out of here.
Right now, “here” is the hill across from the Museum, which is probably not the best place to be. Quackity and Sapnap had advised him to stay under the radar, but he’s kind of inviting someone to come up and kill him.
Now that everything he thought he knew has turned out to be a lie, does he even care?
He stands. The ground beneath his feet is uneven as he trudges down the hill, thrown off balance by the empty hands and empty pockets that he has yet to get used to.
“Hello?”
George flinches so hard that he has to grab a bamboo stick to keep himself from falling. He knows he was alone just a moment ago, but even though that voice sounded like an echo from a cave a million miles away, it came from right behind him.
The voice that has been haunting his nightmares.
“George.”
Slowly, George turns to face him. He is prepared to tell Dream that he doesn’t want to talk to him—that he can’t manipulate George anymore—but the words die in his throat. The thing standing in front of him is not Dream.
They have the same long, green cloak, the same imposing presence, and even the same white mask. But instead of a simple smiley face (the two dots and a line that George watched Dream paint onto the porcelain, hands moving with the expertise of someone who had done this dozens of times before), George is staring up at a wide, toothless grin and an X where the eyes should be. The mask and cloak completely conceal even a hint of the person underneath, but it cannot hide the fact that this thing is at least on the upper end of seven feet tall.
Against his better judgement, George squeaks, “Dream?”
The air prickles with heat, and George feels the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
“Wrong.” The voice is deeper now, and it sounds like he is running it through a blender underwater.
Everything is still so warm that George starts to sweat, aided by the sticky humidity that seems to have come out of nowhere. He feels lightheaded.
“Who are you?”
Just like that, the heat is sucked from the air. George takes a deep breath, collapsing against a pole of bamboo.
“I am DreamXD, but you can call me X.” His voice has returned to its previous echo.
“Can you—stop that?” George pants between breaths, wiping the residual sweat from his forehead. “You’re scaring me.”
X ducks his head, presumably staring at the ground, and he is reminded of the way Dream would look away whenever George told him he was taking something too far. He can almost imagine the sheepish smile behind the mask, but it’s hard to remember Dream’s face when he has only seen it once.
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to scare you.”
George closes his eyes. “What do you want?”
“I want…” A brief pause. “Your acceptance.” The voice is directly in front of him.
Hoping that maybe he won’t die if he just pretends this isn’t happening, George keeps staring at the back of his eyelids. “I don’t even know you.”
“I want you to.” The path of X’s voice leads down, closer to George’s face. “I’m God, George. I want to be your friend.”
Through his laughter, George says, “God wants to be friends with me?”
“Yes.”
When George opens his eyes, X is leaning down into his space. For a moment, all he can see is that white mask, and upon closer inspection he notices that the X shape isn’t painted on at all. It’s just two jagged cracks running diagonally across the mask, meeting directly in the center.
He is reminded of the last time he was in this position with Dream, almost an entire year ago; his mask split open, face left completely exposed for the very first time as Tubbo’s house burned to ash behind him.
"There is no mercy,” Dream had said, and George didn’t think for a second that maybe he was in too deep.
George blinks the memory away. “You’re not at all what I thought God would be like.”
X laughs. “What did you think I would be like?”
“Well, I didn’t think there was a God until just now, so. How do I even know you’re telling the truth?”
“I know things.” X moves closer, ever so slightly. “I know things that I shouldn’t know.”
George wants to roll his eyes. “Yeah? Like what?”
“Quackity’s house is on fire,” X says casually, and George’s stomach drops. Even if X is messing with him, this isn’t something he is going to take lightly. If there is a chance that anything has happened to one of his greatest allies, he needs to know about it.
“What? Is he okay?” He looks around, hoping to find some sort of makeshift weapon in case a fight is going down. “I need to get over there right now.”
X reaches a gloved hand out to touch George’s shoulder. “I apologize. I should rephrase: Quackity’s house burned down. Hours ago, actually.”
Narrowing his eyes, George stares up at the split in X’s mask. “Is he alright? Who did this?”
“Quackity is fine, yes. As for who set the fire, well.” X shrugs.
George huffs impatiently. God or not, this guy is extremely unhelpful. “Where is Dream?”
X removes his hand from George’s shoulder, laughter slightly muffled. “You don’t know?”
Frustration reaching its peak, George waves his arms around haphazardly. “Of course I don’t fucking know! I don’t know anything anymore. My home was destroyed, my allies were isolated, my friends were cast out, and my—my—Dream betrayed me! I have no idea what’s going on half the time—all the time—because all I can fucking do is sit here and wish I never even met him!”
His chest heaves as he catches his breath, plopping down in the grass once again.
“Them,” he corrects dully. “Wish I never met them, like, all of them, because I just—fuck.”
X sits down beside him. “‘Your Dream,’ huh?”
He looks away.
“He didn’t feel the same way about you, you know.”
George pulls his knees up to his chest. “I’m aware.”
“He did that on purpose. Made you like him. He thought he had you.”
Tears sting George’s eyes once again. “He did have me.”
“He thought he could do anything and it wouldn’t matter to you. But you showed him you’re stronger than that.”
“I showed him I’m stronger than that by losing everything.”
“You don’t need everything. You have me.”
George clenches his jaw. “Where is he?”
There is a moment that passes between them, almost like an understanding. He feels the sympathy, and the sorrow, and the pity rolling off of X in tidal waves, but he doesn’t feel judgement.
“He’s in prison.”
A sob rises to the surface, and George doesn’t know if the tears that follow are from an overwhelming sadness, relief, or both. Whatever it is that he’s feeling, it hollows him out.
He leans against X’s side and allows X to put an arm around his shaking shoulders. The cloak envelops George, and he should probably be asking all sorts of questions like Why does God have a physical form? You look and feel like a normal person, so why hide underneath this cloak? Why are you so warm? Can you hold me tighter? But all he can do right now is listen to the pieces of his heart scatter across the ground.
“You need to let him go,” X whispers, moving his free hand to rub a gentle circle on George’s wrist. “He’s not who you thought he was.”
George hides his face behind his knees, pulling his legs as close to his chest as he possibly can. He feels like he’s suffocating.
“Nothing is what I thought it was. Nothing is real.”
He feels X shift, reaching for something.
“I’m real,” he says, barely audible.
When George opens his eyes, X is holding a green flower out in front of him. Hesitantly, he takes it.
“It’s a dandelion,” X helpfully supplies. “To remember me by.”
“Remember you? Are you going somewhere?” George wipes the tears from his face, sitting up to look at X properly.
With a shrug, X raises a hand to pat George’s head. “Go to sleep, now.”
And just like that, he wakes up.
The very first thing George thinks is, Not again, but then he just feels the rage return. Every single time he thinks he has a grasp on what’s going on around him, it’s all a fucking dream. How ironic.
He’s back in the forest, surrounded by trees and flowers and silence. The voices of people who used to be his friends chastising him for sleeping through everything fill his head, unwavering and unforgiving.
He is so caught up in his angry pacing that he almost doesn’t notice his fist is squeezed around a dandelion.
Almost.
⁕ ⁕ ⁕ ⁕ ⁕ ⁕
He spends the day running.
There is nothing left for him on that entire continent—not in Dreamland or whatever the fuck they’re calling Dream’s old territory now, not in El Rapids (even though George founded the place), not even in Snowchester or the Badlands or that weird egg cult. So he runs, clutching the wilted dandelion close to his chest.
The forest never seems to end.
⁕ ⁕ ⁕ ⁕ ⁕ ⁕
George is leaning against a tree to catch his breath when he hears the voice.
“You were asleep for a very long time.”
He sighs and slides to the ground. “How long?”
“Weeks—maybe a month.”
X steps out from behind a tree, looking exactly the same as the last time George saw him. He doesn’t try to come any closer.
“Did they nuke each other yet?”
That earns him a laugh. “They came close, but no. A lot happened. El Rapids dissolved without you.”
George huffs. “I’m sure Karl, Quackity, and Sapnap will have a lovely time without me there to fourth-wheel. They probably want to start Weddingburg or something so they can get married in peace.”
X just stares at him (supposedly—it’s hard to tell with the mask).
He has never felt uncomfortable with silence, but he is inclined to fill it for some reason: “When it was the five of us together, I thought we could do anything. I thought...Everyone thought that if any of us were going to, you know, it would be me and. You know.”
“I do know.”
“But somehow, by some phenomenon, it was them. All three of them. I didn’t even know they could...I wasn’t aware that was a thing. But it makes sense now. And I thought that he would realize—that Dream would realize that just left the two of us.”
“He realized.”
“Yeah, and he used me because of it.”
X comes over to sit in the grass in front of George. He slides a hand out from underneath the cloak, and George finally gets a good look at the spotless white glove that had touched him twice before. It’s nothing special—just ordinary silk fabric—but it makes George wonder why a god needs hands.
“You still have it,” X says, and George blinks at him. “The dandelion.”
“Oh.” He uncurls his fist, staring down at the very nearly dead flower in his palm. “I do. It’s the only thing I have on me, really. I figured I might as well keep it.”
X reaches out and cups George’s hand with both of his, and George watches the dandelion immediately perk up as if reversing time itself. Color returns to the florets, the stem straightens out, and life is restored.
“Where are you going?”
George doesn’t take his eyes off the mini miracle in his hand. “Somewhere far away.”
X traces a tiny circle on George's wrist. “Why?”
“So I won’t hear the sirens.” This is a half-truth, but it’s the only part of his plan that he knows how to explain.
“How do you know about the sirens?”
As he laughs humorlessly, George rubs his face with his free hand. “I’m not stupid. Dream is powerful, and his escape is a possibility no matter where they put him. They’ve got to have dozens of sirens scattered all over the continent.”
“And you don’t want to hear them.”
“I don’t want to know if he escapes,” George corrects.
X slowly tilts his head. “You would look for him. To help.”
George snatches his hand away from where it had been comfortably resting in X’s palms. To so casually mention something that George had been shamefully shoving down this whole time was insensitive, and X has to know that. Apparently, he knows everything.
“It’s not your fault, George. He is good at manipulating people. He still has a hold on you, but you can break free from it.”
The bark of the tree stings where it presses into George’s back. He wants to close his eyes, but he won’t. Not around X again.
“Why do you want to be friends with me so badly?” he asks, voice uneven. “I’m stuck on someone I know will never feel the same, I run from everything, and I’m just...some guy. You’re a god.”
X leans back, hands splayed out in the grass. “Maybe I want to help you let go of him.”
“Why?” George asks, exasperated,
“Because you are not ‘some guy.’ You’re George. And my George knows he is worth every second of a god’s time.”
Apparently this god has a habit of talking in circles, but George can’t find it within himself to argue. He just looks away, heart thumping in his chest.
“Make a wish,” X says, gesturing to the flower in George’s hand.
To his surprise, the head of the dandelion has bloomed into a puffy, white ball. Back in Dreamland, they never let dandelions live to see their transformation; they were always immediately harvested to be stored for recipes or used as decoration. Dream always said making wishes was useless when they already had everything they needed.
George takes a deep breath.
I wish I was far away from here.
He exhales and watches all the little pappi float away.
“What did you wish for?”
“You know. You know everything.”
X laughs. “I don’t know everything. I only know what I observe.”
“You must be very good at observing me, then.”
“I am.” X scoots closer like a child trying to wiggle their way next to a friend during storytime. “One could say that reading you is my specialty.”
George feels the blush rising before he can force himself to control it. “It’s unfair that you can read me so well when I can’t even see your face.”
Laughing harder, X reaches up to tap his mask. “I technically don’t have a face.”
“But there’s something behind there, right?”
X shrugs. “Who knows. Maybe I’ll show you, maybe I won’t. It depends.”
“On what?”
“If I eat you first.”
George’s eyes go wide, but X motions to the grin on his mask.
“I’m joking. You’d know that if you could see me smiling.” Another dandelion springs to life from the ground between X’s fingers, and he plucks it from the dirt to hold in front of George. “Take this as an apology.”
Reluctantly, George tosses his empty stem away and exchanges it for the new one. “Why do you insist on giving me green flowers?”
“Green,” X says, nearly a question but not quite there.
“Yeah, green,” George repeats. “They’re the same color that Dream wears.”
“They’re the same color that I wear, actually. Think of it like that.”
“I don’t think I can divorce the concept of green from him. Nobody can. That’s, like, his thing.”
X folds his arms. “That’s my thing too.”
“You’re God. You don’t need a thing.”
They’re silent for a moment, and then George remembers the whole reason he’s still in the forest.
“I need to keep going,” he says without getting up.
X finally completes his extremely slow journey to inch closer to George, sliding an arm around his shoulders to mark the victory. “I wouldn’t suggest wasting your time on that right now.”
George furrows his brow and stares at the ground for a moment. “Why not?”
There is a very long pause. So long, in fact, that George eventually realizes that X is just not going to say anything.
Slowly, George draws his conclusion: “I’m dreaming, aren’t I?”
X sighs. “You passed out while you were running.”
“How is it that I never remember falling asleep?”
“I think your mind makes you forget. You come here as a defense mechanism, and if your subconscious can make that decision on its own, it can definitely block out certain memories while you’re under its influence.”
George pinches the bridge of his nose, hoping to relieve some of the pressure building up in his head. “So my subconscious made you up as well?”
With a scoff, X gestures to the dandelion in George’s hand. “Absolutely not. I’m just as real as you are.”
“Am I going to wake up with this again?”
“Yes.”
He shakes his head. “I still don’t get it. What makes me so important?”
X leans back against the tree. “If you still don’t understand, maybe it’s time for you to go to sleep.”
“No, X, I just don’t—”
“You’re tired.”
George’s eyes fall shut, and then he’s gasping awake on the forest floor.
God. Fucking. Damn it.
⁕ ⁕ ⁕ ⁕ ⁕ ⁕
He spends an hour trying to figure out where he is. He woke up a few feet away from where the forest dissipates into a short strip of plains, a desert just on the other side, but this is definitely not where he fell asleep.
George remembers passing out now: lightheaded as a very blurry, very green forest spun around him. He knows he was nowhere near the edge.
This has happened a few times. Back before George built his own place, he and Dream would hop around between their friends’ homes. They would stay together in whatever guest room was available, and occasionally, Dream would tell George that he tried to get up and walk around in his sleep.
“Don't worry; I protected you.”
At the time, that made George blush and tell him to shut up, but now it just feels like a lie. Dream only ever “protected” him in his own self-interest.
But this feels different. He supposes that if he can dream after passing out, he can probably sleepwalk, but something about that just doesn't make sense. He would have run into a tree or fallen down a hill or something.
After a little while longer of trying to find landmarks along the treeline, George determines that he must be way outside the border of Eret’s map, let alone the territory of any established nation (unless he slept through some major expansion).
There is no point in dwelling on it, so he tucks the dandelion into his pocket for good luck and sets out across the desert.