Chapter Text
Dream's twitch channel had been inactive for months. All his social media sites hadn't been updated for weeks. To his fans, it was like he disappeared, and nobody knew why. Well, nobody except George.
Months had passed since Dream had confessed to him in their separate call on Discord, and he had done the same. Months later, his mind would return to that conversation.
George knew he had killed Dream internally when he ended the call like that, but Dream didn't know that George lost a bit of himself when he did that.
George struggled with expressing his feelings, and Dream made him feel ambivalent. Dream was the reason he was still streaming, the reason he looked forward to creating content.
Dream was the reason George believed in love.
He'd never believed he was capable of caring for someone he met online and spoken to only on Discord, then facetime and finally through daily texts to the extent he'd fallen for them, but Dream made it possible.
Yet, he knew he couldn't date Dream. He didn't even know why he had pushed Dream away but, it seemed like the best thing to do.
Initially, George struggled to resist the urge to call Dream and apologise, tell him he wanted to try something with him, but, soon, he could go hours and even days without thinking about Dream. He even managed to score himself a girlfriend, and he was very happy with her, at least that's what he made himself believe.
Dream, on the other hand, had completely fallen apart. He'd lost the only person he wanted to live for and all for some silly crush.
He blamed himself constantly, punishing himself by starving himself, and even filming apology videos for George. He couldn't send them though, George had blocked him.
On social media, however, things looked normal. George and Dream were still following each other, and George interacted with fans as per normal, but Dream, he barely opened Twitter and Instagram, was something he barely used anyway.
Dream had lost all control of his life, going days without eating or sleeping. All he'd do was lie in bed, torturing himself by thinking of George. It seemed that the overwhelming anguish brought by thinking of George somehow still kept him breathing. Who knew what he would have done otherwise?
Dream hadn't even spoken to his other friends, including Sapnap, who constantly called him despite not knowing what had happened. He'd ignored his calls, not wanting to speak of it to anyone.
He stayed confined to the four walls in his room, depressed and lonely.
Worrying his mother wasn't an option either, so he'd occasionally send texts or flowers to her, letting her know he was fine. He couldn't risk letting his mother know how much of a mess he was.
Dream's once well-built body had withered into this skinny, frail frame hidden under his hoodies. He was lost, without George, he had no motivation to play Minecraft, and streaming had become nothing more than a chore.
"A large pepperoni pizza, no pineapples and don't be stingy with the olives," Dream said into the phone, mustering up a chuckle in response to the laugh he'd received from the other end.
Dream had given in to his hunger and ordered a pizza; the order was more than familiar to him. He'd recalled George mentioning how he hated pineapples on his pizza, and since that day, Dream stopped taking them on his pizza as well.
He cursed under his breath, he realised just how much of an impact George had on his life to the point Dream had changed his regular pizza order just for him. He couldn't even tell whether he'd done so subconsciously or not.
"Stop thinking about George," he tried telling himself as if it would make a difference.
He had to do something about that.
"Hi, I just placed an order about a minute ago?" Dream called the pizza joint once again. "My order number is 36. Yeah, could you add pineapples? Sorry, my friend likes pineapples on his pizza, I'd completely forgotten."
He'd mastered the art of lying to people, he'd done that for years, lying to his mother about lousy test grades, lying to his friends about having homework when he'd spend the day playing Minecraft or building his PC from scratch.
Lying to George about his feelings for him.
Dream screwed his eyes shut, letting his phone drop to the ground as he drew a deep breath in. He needed to stop letting everything go back to George.
He trudged back to his room, dropping onto his bed, running his hands through his hair. He tugged at the roots of his hair, almost ripping them off, but stopped. What good would that do?
Dream flipped over, so he rested on his stomach, which growled again. He let out a sigh- he was so used to not eating in the past few months he didn't understand why he started feeling hungry again.
Come to think of it, he started feeling things again. As this realisation sank in, he got up abruptly, frowning as he recalled the events from the past few days.
He felt hunger for the first time in months even though he'd only gone two days without eating, excluding the chocolate bar he'd found in his fridge.
He felt lonely while watching the Christmas movies his mother had sent him, even though it was nowhere near Christmas.
He felt pangs of jealousy watching happy couples stroll past his house through his window.
Emotions he'd thought he'd left behind started filling him up again. Was that what he got from pretending they didn't exist for so long?
More importantly; why were they coming back?
He'd avoided feeling anything so he wouldn't hurt as much as he used to. After his fallout with George, he'd gone numb, void of emotions, but they were slowly catching up to him, a harsh reminder that he was still human, and he still had feelings.
He knew those feelings would kill him if he dwelled on them, so he fought them. He kept fighting them till they stopped showing up. Dream had done a good job of keeping emotions at bay until recently when he started feeling again.
He felt weak.
"Stay away from me," he mumbled, falling back onto his pillow, barely audible.
He was weak from not eating regularly; maybe that was why his body stopped resisting those emotions.
Or maybe, it was George?
The sudden appearance of George in his mind could have caused his mind to feel again. George made him that way, vulnerable to emotions he thought he'd trained himself to ignore.
And even then, he could not bring himself to hate George. Sure, he might have been the reason Dream was hurting but, he knew nothing George did was intentional. He hadn't meant to push Dream away after confessing similar feelings to him, right?
Wrong, barked the voice in his head, the rational voice some might even say. This is all a game to George, and you're his pawn.
"He would never hurt me on purpose," Dream argued, his voice cracked slightly as he spoke.
He was exhausted, drained of the sole thing that made him human- emotions. Yet, that was how he chose to be. Emotionless.
Dream turned to his side, his gaze fell on a piece of paper that stuck out from his bedside drawer. Curiosity overrode his exhaustion as he reached out toward it and grabbed it.
At first glance, it seemed like a blank piece of paper, but Dream noticed the string of numbers at the bottom right-hand corner of the paper, hidden under his finger. Memories came flooding back to him as he realised what it was.
"Dream if I win this round, you have to give me your mum's number," the British boy reminded, his soft giggles followed.
"Well, you're not gonna win," Dream replied, confidence lacing his tone.
They counted down from three before their Minecraft characters started chasing each other around the arena, seeing who'd be the last one standing. It was a small game they'd decided to play, and the winner would walk away with the loser's mother's number. It seemed childish, but that was their way of having fun.
"HOW?" George screamed as his screen turned red while Dream cheered in the background.
"I'm just awesome. Now give me her number," Dream teased, smirking at George while he rolled his eyes, texting Dream his mother's number.
Dream had quickly written it down before George could have deleted it. Proud of his achievement, he kept the paper with George's mother's number beside his bed in his drawer, waiting for the right opportunity to use it.
The smile on Dream's face as he recalled that incident felt wrong. He didn't want to think of those happy times with George; he knew it would kill him more.
On the other hand, he wanted to speak to George, ask him how he was doing, maybe beg him for another chance? It might not work, but he knew that as selfish as it was, he needed George in his life.
"I'm gonna regret this," he mumbled to himself as he picked up his phone and the paper, dialling the number on his phone.
He held his breath. Dream never called George's mother despite having her number for so long, mainly because he wanted the first call to her to be about George moving to Florida or that they were dating. Now, it just seemed wrong. He didn't even know what he was going to say.
"Hello?" An older, feminine voice came from the other side.
"Is this George Davidson's mother?"
"Yes, this is her. Who are you?"
Dream exhaled instantly, relieved he was talking to the right person. He could hear her British accent as well.
"I'm a friend of George's. We, uh, lost touch but, I was wondering if he was alright?" Dream asked, his heart pounding in his chest.
"He's doing good, well, better than good ever since he started dating Mia."
Mia?
"Who's Mia?" Dream knew the answer even before he asked.
"His girlfriend. He didn't tell you?"
"No, we haven't spoken in a while."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
The silence that followed was too much for him to handle.
"I'm sorry, did you want to speak to George? He's out right now, but if you tell me your name I, can let him know you called."
He hung up on her. He knew she was trying to be nice, but another mention of George's name and he would lose it.
He tried fighting back the tears that had started forming in his eyes. Dream crumpled the piece of paper and tossed it across the room. He brought his knees to his chest as the same few thoughts circled his mind.
George had a girlfriend.
He'd moved on.
Guess George found pleasure in hurting Dream.