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Episode 3
The room is dark except for the digital clock on the nightstand that blinks 2:58 AM.
It's quiet, not even crickets nor the wind outside the window sounding through the dead of the night's still ambiance.
It's quiet, except for a slight creaking noise that sounds deafening in the silence.
The sound is more of a mix between a silent creak and a dull slide. And then there's a frustrated sigh.
George hasn't let out even the slightest exhale ever since he got woken up by the noise.
There is currently someone in his room.
There is a stranger, hopefully not a killer, probably a robber, inside George's room, and he is pretending to be asleep, tucked in his stuffy comforter.
Heart beating out of his throat and head pounding through his skull probably due to a bad case of a hangover, through the dark, he squints at his baseball bat located on the other side of his nightstand.
It's a far reach because his whole body feels paralyzed from fear, but his mother didn't raise a quitter.
Or less, someone who can't throw a nice swing. He can probably get away with a dead body under his rug, or maybe even in court if he pleads his case right. As he feels the bullets of sweat go down his forehead, he vaguely remembers Quackity, his friend who majors in law, telling him about murder through self-defense and how it could technically be manslaughter without repercussions. That is if done right. Or if George even remembers it correctly.
What was it called again? Justifiable homicide, that's right.
Someone broke into his house and is either planning to kill him or rob him of his very limited riches, and George did only what any sane and definitely not a sleep-deprived person would do when put in danger. Break his assailant's ribs with a baseball bat he impulsively bought from a holiday sale at Target.
Right. Okay. He can do that. He can deliver a mean swing.
But. Problem is, he doesn't know how huge his assailant is. He's seen people do it in movies — gain momentum superstrength in their fists when threatened. Hell, Thanos wiped half of everyone with two fingers. Who knows what this stranger is capable of?
Okay, maladaptive daydreaming won't save his life this time — as expected of course since it can't stop a malicious stranger from doing something malicious, but it's a coping mechanism that works too well against the inescapability of possibly unexisting, so cut him some slack.
Still, hiding under his covers sounds far better than actually going through his plan of defense slash offense.
Right then, a tearing noise suddenly pierces the air and without a second thought, George swipes his comforter away, stands up hurriedly with shaky legs, grabs his baseball bat, and throws it as hard as he can towards the barely visible, cloaked, dark figure on the other side of his room.
In brief hindsight, that is definitely not how you use a baseball bat.
"If you're here to rob me, you came to the wrong flat because I'm really really broke and the only thing of value in here is my late grandfather's clock over there but the pendulum sounds weird so I can't even put that as collateral for anything because collectors have already told me it sucks because it can't be fixed so you came to the wrong house except if you're trying to murder me then I guess I get it because I'm hot and jealousy is a poisonous drive but who doesn't want to die in this economy right not me though, I swear, I still haven't gotten revenge on my ex yet and I’m not even sure if I want to, please, please don't kill me — oh my god , are you dead?"
George sucks in a huge breath from his whole spiel but the stranger stays silent after the dull thud that he heard right after he threw the baseball bat. Hesitantly, he flicks on his lamp.
The room lights up and George locates a man on the floor, clutching his head in his hands as his body curls up in itself like a melting puddle of what was once a snowman.
Blond hair. Stolen bracelets from his dresser.
Belatedly, George realizes it is not a cloaked figure at all. It's his godforsaken (pun not intended) roommate covered in the thick comforter George lent him.
"Dream, oh my god, is that you?" George tentatively asks, bare feet careful in approach.
Again, belatedly, he realizes the man wasn't actually silent, instead, he was groaning mutely as he rubbed his fingers around the reddening spot in the middle of his forehead.
Their eyes meet when Dream suddenly shoots George an ugly glare.
"This is the second time you have gone for my head with a weapon, deathbound, and be thankful I am in no state of decimating you to ashes. Do it once again and you will be fulfilling the prophecy of your inevitable mortality."
"Oh god," George falls to the floor in relief, shoulders sagging tiredly, fingers clutching his chest, "It is you. Jesus Christ, I thought I was going to die!"
"One of these days, I swear to the Nether, one of these days, you will." Dream groans, sitting up carefully, expression twisted in pain.
"I'm sorry," George says without any sincerity, ignoring the persistent thrumming at the back of his head, "I thought someone was going to— wait, what the hell were you even doing in my room in the middle of the night?"
George hugs himself angrily, and then his eyes land on his drawers left open and a suspicious packet on the floor.
His eyes widened. " Dream. " George hisses accusingly.
"What? My toes were cold and I was looking for some of those feet sweaters of yours." The man explains as he turns towards the mess George was pointing at, making an attempt to touch the bruise in his forehead, fingers suddenly recoiling when he hisses in pain at the contact.
"Some of my what?"
"Must I always repeat and elaborate myself to align with your denseness?" Dream groans. "Feet sweaters. You slot them in your feet to prevent them from touching the cold floor."
"You mean my socks?" George asks incredulously, headache probably worsening from this conversation.
"Socks. Silly human terms naming their ornaments unrelated to their use," Dream whispers to himself. "Yes, I needed them because, as I stated, I awoke from being too cold during the night."
"Well, why didn't you wake me up if you needed socks? Clearly, that's the polite thing to do instead of sneaking into my room in the dark!" George chides, wiping a frustrated hand all over his face. He shifts in his position on the floor, inching backwards until his back meets the foot of his bed. He rubs a tired hand on his temple, relieving it tension gained from his horrendous roommate.
"You get irritable when woken up, you insolent fool." Dream says as a matter of factly, and in a bad habit he seemingly adapted from George, he rolls his eyes.
Before George rebukes his roommate's totally baseless claim, his eyes then land on the opened packet again.
"If you were here looking for my socks," George says as he cuts Dream off from another one of his meaningless threats, "tell me why exactly am I looking at an opened condom packet?"
George looks at the torn packet of foil and the pathetic lump of rubber on the carpet of his bedroom.
“Is that what it is named?” Dream asks ignorantly. “I was wondering what it was called before I eat it.”
“Before you what ?” George exclaims, and then as if he remembers it’s in the middle of the night, he lowers his voice down to a hissed whisper, “you were gonna eat it?”
“Is it not one of your sweet treats? It is wrapped as so.” Dream shrugs, crawling to fetch the thing. He places it in the palm of his hand, both the foil and the rubber, and innocently pokes the material of both. And then like a child discovering a new toy, he curiously unwraps the condom, stretching it to its length, much to George’s growing mortification.
“What type of candy is wrapped like a freaking condom?” George asks, throwing his hands in the air as he regards his roommate in equal amusement and disgust. “And you don’t eat those.”
Well, you can put them in your mouth— Ooo- kay , George, stop ,’ he thinks, shaking his head mutedly to rid himself of inappropriate thoughts.
“What are they for then?” Dream asks, as if his questions aren’t making George question his existence enough.
This must be some sort of punishment.
No way is he awake at almost three on a Monday morning, figuring out how to explain to a god who is also his roommate who is also kind of his sugar ‘roomie’ what a condom is for. On top of all that, he is probably nursing the worst hangover of the millennia. No fucking way.
But Dream — covered in George’s thick comforter, his long blonde hair a mess on top of his head and falling all over his face and shoulders, his usually sharp green eyes wide with innocent curiosity as he looks at George patiently while he sits cross-legged in George’s bedroom floor — is kind of hard to resist at this exact moment.
So, he tries, “It’s for protection.” George says vaguely.
“Protection from what?” Dream tilts his head.
Closing his eyes in agony, George sighs, wracking his pounding head for words that can be comprehensible for the god. “From getting infections from other people. You know, unlike gods like you,” George points at him, to which Dream nods curtly in agreement, “we humans and mortals and deathbounds fall sick to… various diseases and. I don’t know, it’s a common saying that prevention is better than cure.”
“Like Advil!” Dream supplies brightly. “I have heard and seen you take those a lot for your headaches. Although I do wonder what makes your head hurt so often when there is nothing in there but air.”
“Are you calling me dumb?” George grimaces, displeased at the mere mention of headaches.
“Aha, you are learning, mortal! That is good for you, but very much better for me.” Dream reaches his hand out and pats the top of George’s head in a patronizing manner. Eyebrows furrowing, George flicks it away, wondering since when the distance between them shrank to a reachable one.
“Shut up.” George frowns. “And no, it’s not like Advil. Those are medicine. They’re the ‘cure’.”
“It’s more like, uhh,” George looks around the room as if he can find the answer in the four walls of his bedroom. Then, his eyes landed on his drawer, where some of his socks were visible.
“Condoms are like sweaters,” George says, face stoic. “Yeah. Sweaters.”
Dick sweaters, really George?
“Sweaters protect you from the cold, right? In order for people to not get sick from the cold, they wear sweaters! And condoms are kinda like that. In order for people to not get sick from other people, they use condoms.” George smiles hesitantly, taking the god’s confused look in stride.
“What kind of people would purposefully make other people sick?” Dream asks then.
“Well, sometimes, especially in these cases, it’s not purposeful. They’re just the kind of people who are simply bad at keeping themselves safe from other people as well.” George shrugs.
“So, bad people?” Dream questions.
George scrunches his nose in consideration. “It’s hard to explain,” He sighs, the tiredness making his body sag further in the bed behind him. His head pounds against his skull painfully. Maybe he shouldn’t have gotten drunk with Bad and Quackity on a Sunday night, knowing full well he has a 9 AM lecture.
“And besides,” In a brief moment of pain and sleepiness suddenly pulling him back to oblivion, his eyes and mouth move on their own accord. “I don’t think that'll fit you anyway.” He says before he could think the words through, his eyes moving from Dream’s entire frame to the box at the top of the drawer, aware that it labels the product with a big letter M.
“What?” Dream turns to George, confused.
“I mean, objectively, you’re a huge guy, you know? Statistically, how does size relativity work? Although maybe it differs because I’m not really that tall but—”
“Deathbound,” Dream says grimly, “what are you mumbling on about?”
George shakes his head but instantly regrets it when doing so further worsens his headache. He feels drunk. Maybe he’s more tired than he thought. “My point is, you put that—” he points at the objects in Dream’s hand, “in your dick.”
Dream frowns. “In my what?”
Horridly, George makes a foul gesture with his hands.
“Oh, how crude!” Dream suddenly exclaims.
“I’ve seen this in the shows on the television. Why are you being improper, mortal?” Dream adds, ignoring George’s tiny, ‘ That’s crude? You should see my glass collection. ’.
“I’m not.” George defends himself. “It’s basic anatomy. It's a whole thing. Although I don’t think you’re well-versed in the concept of sex and gender.”
“No, I am. I have heard of it from a triangle-pierced square that contains countless of moving images that show me all there is to know about your realm.” Dream explains, and George nods, in a daze, arm going under his head as he leans towards it sideways.
“I am a god,” Dream prompts.
“Uh-huh?” George nods again, blinking sleepily.
“I am beyond your mere concept of gender and sex. I am everyone and I am no one because no one is greater than me.” the man boasts, to which George sleepily replies with a small ‘ sure you are ’, as he yawns to himself.
“On this topic, why do you foolish humans fight about every subliminal thing except for the things that matter?” Dream rambles, “I’ve seen it. Your world is burning and flooding all the same and all you fools worry your tiny little minds about is how someone dresses and what they put in their faces. This is why not anyone, not your lesser kind, can be a god.”
“Damn,” George scoffs, yawns, and says, “do you guys take applications then?”
“What?” Dream asks.
“To being a god.” George clarifies. “I get to be powerful and genderless and be the cockiest mother trucker out there, calling the kindest people ‘deathbound’ and sneaking in their room at the devil’s hour. Sounds pretty legit to me.” George shrugs.
“You’re spouting nonsense again.” Dream quips. “You don’t have what it takes to be a god. What will even be your purpose?”
It takes George a few seconds to register Dream’s words, sleep already pulling him to dreamland.
“I dunno,” George hums, “Growing mushrooms or something? Do you guys want a god of sleeping? I think I can do that.”
Even before he gets to hear Dream’s reply, his breathing evens out, eyes slipping shut as everything falls to black.
Reel
There is someone banging on his door.
Groaning, George opens his eyes to blue sunlight filtering in his empty room, pain registering on his neck.
He huffs, realizing that he fell asleep on his bedroom floor, head leaned down on his bed minutes-prior for who knows how long. A tired glance at his clock tells him it’s 6:45 in the morning.
He remembers last night (or was that considered earlier today?) when Dream snuck in his room looking for socks which spiraled into a whole condom fiasco that George doesn’t remember how the conversation even ended. He’s not even sure how he explained it to his roommate.
Either way, he somehow got a few hours of sleep, and thankfully his headache is not as bad as it was earlier.
A loud knocking captures his attention again, reminding him why he woke up in the first place.
Begrudgingly, he trudges the dark corridor of his flat, bare feet padding across the cold floor, stopping by his front door.
The world is quiet, still asleep in its blue state, and George would have appreciated getting a few hours more of slumber himself, except that apparently there is an idiot knocking on his door.
“What do you want, Nick?” George grumbles, opening the door to his best friend that he just saw last night. The smile on the other’s face almost blinds George, bright and warm, as if they weren’t getting trashed the night before.
“Good morning, George! How did you sleep last night?” Sapnap beams.
“Why are you acting like a functional friend? That sentence shouldn’t even exist.” George grunts, opening the door sleepily.
“I’m here because I need your laptop." Sapnap grins.
"Where's yours?" George frowns.
"Broken. I'll get it checked soon but I have an 8 AM presentation, so…" Sapnap's expression is sheepish. “I promise I’ll take good care of it as always.”
“The first time you borrowed it, you downloaded porn and got it hacked.” George deadpans, but Sapnap is already three steps inside his flat, heading to the room adjacent to the foyer, the dining room, where he knows George usually keeps his laptop.
“Come on, that was like a decade ago.” Sapnap beams easily, finding the device in no time.
“It was actually just two years ago.” George groans, flicking on the kitchen lights absentmindedly.
The sight that meets both of them definitely wakes him up.
Sometimes, George forgets he’s rooming with a god.
Sometimes, he forgets that god is an idiot.
All over the kitchen, in the counter, in the table, in the sink, is a variation of objects placed haphazardly everywhere, and all of them are inserted inside thin rubber wraps. The tip and the skin-colored material lets George know exactly what’s covering his kitchen utensils. Condoms.
It’s everywhere. Everything is covered in condoms. His spatula. The handle of his ladle. His kitchen shears . Each leg of the tongs. Probably his whole knife set. A whisk . The entirety of three separate bananas . An apple. A fucking apple fully inside the rubber.
George’s eyes meet his best friend's. Dread sinks to the bottom of his stomach at the same time that the horror rises to his face.
“Okay, listen, it’s not what it looks like-” George starts, but Sapnap is already unstoppable.
“Oh hell-fucking- no George, you did not just lecture me about porn when you’re over here, shoving whatever these are to god knows where—”
He suddenly stops when a third voice permeates through the air.
It’s quiet, barely above George’s desperate explanations and Sapnap’s aghast rambling, but they both hear it nonetheless.
“Shut up.” Dream groans muffled from his made-up bed on the couch by the living room, buried in a mountain of blankets.
Sapnap’s mouth falls open.
His index finger comes up, wide eyes looking back and forth at George and the lump in the living room before he clamps his mouth shut. Pointing his raised finger towards George accusingly, he opens and shuts his mouth again and again, but no words come out.
Then his phone rings.
With his right index finger still pointing towards George, his left hand fetches his phone, swiping ‘answer’ on the first ring.
“I- yeah, sorry what?.... Oh, I’m definitely on my way… Is everyone else there?... Yeah, we can review a few final things… No, I had it saved on a flash drive… Okay, I’ll meet you guys there.” Sapnap pockets his phone the moment the call ends, spending the entirety of it staring emptily at George.
“Nick, look,” George starts, but Sapnap instantly raises his already-raised hand higher, effectively shutting George up.
“I looked. And... wow , I’m just—” Sapnap laughs incredulously, like a madman reexperiencing insanity for the first time. “You know what? I’m going to pretend I didn’t see anything nor hear anyone .” He declares.
“But!” He adds, giving George a pointed look, “we are going to talk about this, George. We are going to talk about this—” Sapnap gestures all around the kitchen, and then he points towards the living room, “and that next time, alright? I need to go.”
And then he’s storming off towards the door, not even giving George the chance to explain whatever Sapnap is definitely misunderstanding.
Sapnap slips on his shoes and is two steps outside the flat when he suddenly turns around and gives George the most hostile look ever. “Actually, we don’t talk about the apple. We should never talk about the apple.”
Then he’s turning around and walking along the hallway of the building, his final words ‘ Jesus fucking Christ, I need coffee in my mouth and bleach in my eyes ’ echoing across the walls.
The door closes behind George, who stays frozen for who knows how long.
-
“Why did you put condoms all over everything in my kitchen?” George hisses angrily .
Dream flicks through the channels nonchalantly, hair sticking up in odd angles. “You told me that they were for protection. If sweaters can be put on felines I see on this screen,” Dream nods towards the TV, “then condoms can be put on tools I see you use often when you cook food for me. Who knows what sickness you carry. I may be a god but strangely, you measly-bag of flesh seem to have a different effect on me. I don’t want to catch anything you burden yourself with.”
George massages his temples, not in the mood for any of the god’s riddles. He pulls his backpack strap closer, sighing for the nth time that day. A glance at his wristwatch tells him he’s about to be late.
“Just leave the condoms alone, I’m going to throw them away later since I guess I don’t really need them anymore,” George says bitterly.
“Certainly.” Dream shrugs, eyes firm on a nature documentary showing on the screen. “Can you bring home those fruit-infused ice treats?”
George sighs again, unplugging his phone from the charger, letting the condom topic go. “You mean popsicles?”
“Popsicles.” Dream nods, not really paying attention to George, eyes on the frogs swimming in a pond on the screen.
George rolls his eyes, slipping on his shoes.
“You were cold earlier.” He points out.
“Did I ask for your opinion, deathbound?”
George groans. “Fine. Blueberry or melon?”
“Green one.”
“Melon it is.” George makes a mental note to get some after his part-time job later as he steps out of his flat’s door. But upon remembering something, he slots his head in the space between the door and its frame, calling out to his roommate.
“Oh and Dream?”
The god doesn’t answer.
“I know you heard me.”
No answer still.
“So no popsicles later th—”
“What do you want?” His roommate is instantly by the door, face scrunched into a frown.
George grins. “Stop watching TV, idiot. You’re going to rot your brain.”
Dream’s expression twists. “Did you just call me—”
George shuts the door to his roommate’s face, a successful grin leaving behind an irritated scowl.