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For the most part, Dream and George can take the distance. It’s how they’ve always had to deal with the gaps in time and space, with long Discord calls and Spotify listening parties. It sucks, but it’s never been the end of the world.
There are things that make it worse, for sure. Like when Dream has a panic attack over the fact that he can’t go watch the new Spiderman movie in theaters and George can’t do anything to help him.
“I’m sorry, Dream,” He tried his best to comfort. “Nobody will know it’s you, I promise. I know I’m just saying things and nothing I say is going to change your anxiety, I don’t expect it to, but you don’t have to be scared. If this is so important to you that you’re crying and having a panic attack over it, maybe you should just go and try to enjoy it.
“If you have to leave because your anxiety gets to you, that’s okay. You can watch it again sometime, but you should go and watch it in theaters anyway, if you think you can go, go.”
Dream ended up going to see the movie. It went well and he enjoyed it. It was nice to get out of the house for the second time in such a long time.
Dream’s trip to the movies didn’t go so well for George. Despite never having met Dream in person, and no, he’s not clingy, the hours Dream is out and George is alone are really rough.
It’s not necessarily separation anxiety, but he’s like a cat. He doesn’t care to have Dream fussing over him constantly, but he wants him around, and the fact that he’s suddenly gone in the middle of the day is like the ultimate betrayal.
He handles it fine. He wants to take a nap but he doesn’t, he can’t fall asleep so he picks some random streamer and debates doing literally anything other than editing the several video files on his computer that are metaphorically piling up.
By the time Dream ought to be almost back, he’s almost beat the urge to go on a walk, and Sapnap calls him.
“Where’s Dream?” Sapnap asks almost immediately after George answers. “He told me he was leaving and I think I blacked out.”
“He went to go see Spiderman,” George replies like it’s a normal thing for their faceless creator best friend to do; to leave the house to watch a movie like it’s nothing.
“At a theater?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he buy the whole thing out or is he being an idiot?”
“Are you the reason he’s so fucking stressed about things like this?” George snaps. “Nobody’s going to recognize him, let him be a normal person for once. You are literally one of five people in the world who can connect his name to his face. I can’t even do that.”
“What if someone heard his laugh?”
“Just stop.” George is having none of it. “He had a panic attack on call with me about this earlier. If I hear you say anything even remotely similar anywhere in his vicinity or in any way that he could possibly hear, you’re dead the minute I get to Florida, got it?”
“I’m just looking out for hi-”
“He’s plenty cautious as is, he doesn’t need you telling him he can’t be a person.”
“George,” Sapnap is clearly frustrated, “I’m not saying he can’t be a person, you know that. I just know that it’ll be so much worse if something were to happen and someone were to recognize him.”
“He doesn’t need you to baby him.”
“I’m not babying him. You’re not here, you don’t know what he’s like in person.”
“If I were there, this wouldn’t be an issue, because he’d have face revealed and we’d be over all this bullshit by now. If I were there, we’d all be going to see the new Spiderman movie in person and you wouldn’t be being such a bitch about Dream going to do basic things that nobody else cares about.
“Nobody’s going to recognize him, and even if there’s some crazy coincidence that there’s a person who pieces it together, nobody is going to believe them if they also happen to post it. You need to chill so he can.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“What makes you so sure you’re right? You go out and do things and unless you’re in a group and streaming, you rarely get recognized. I barely get recognized and I use facecam almost every time I stream. You can be paranoid on his behalf if you have to, but you better do it fucking quietly.”
“Better do what quietly?” Dream asks, joining the call out of nowhere. He sounds happy, like it went well. George analyzes every little thing in a split second.
Sapnap panics. George doesn’t. “You don’t want to know.”
“I do,” Dream says.
“It’s Sapnap,” George giggles, trying to play it off, “what do you think we’re talking about?”
“Oh.” Dream draws his own conclusions. Assuming his conclusions are what George wants them to be, his plan worked.
“How was the movie?” George asks, moving on.
“It was really good! I really enjoyed it!”
“That’s epic,” George smiles, “did you dress up like Tommy to go see it or did you go full Spiderman costume like a real TikToker?”
“If I wanted the least amount of attention on me as possible,” Dream rolls his eyes, “why would doing either of those things be the answer?”
“Just thought I’d check.” George takes note of the fact that Sapnap is practically biting his tongue off trying not to say anything unhelpful in their conversation. It’s an effort, but it annoys George that he can’t even add something the slightest bit intelligent when it comes to something Dream is excited about.
“It was really fun,” Dream sounds happy, which relieves a lot of weight from George’s shoulders. George fixes his posture, suddenly more aware of the way his mood has been affecting the way he’s been sitting.
“I’m glad.”
“Thanks for convincing me to go, George.” Dream sounds really grateful, like he couldn’t have mustered the courage to have his mom drop him off at the movie theater to see Spiderman without George’s help. “It won’t be an everyday thing, but it was nice to get out for once.”
“I’m glad you had fun.”
“Is Nick AFK?” Dream asks, assuming the conversation is over. Sapnap’s mic isn’t muted, but he still hasn’t said anything, and that leads to the logical conclusion.
George knows he’s not, unless he left without saying anything, but doesn’t want to bring up the fight. “Yeah, I think he went to the bathroom or something.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Yeah, or maybe he got jealous and went to go see Spiderman, I don’t know.” George jokes sarcastically. Dream laughs and all the fighting and anxieties of the past hours are pushed away with a wheeze. It’s easy like that sometimes.