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George paces a prowling, angry circuit in the privacy of his room, goggles askew in his hair and fists clenched by his sides as he seethes. He can’t believe the audacity of Dream taking the crown from him and giving it back to Eret, of Dream acting like he’d become a liability, like he was suddenly dead weight Dream couldn’t wait to cut loose.
It’s not like he cares about the crown or the station, not really, not when it meant very little to the wider server and was far too much work for far too little gain. But he’d been comfortable where he was, wearing a crown placed on his head by Dream’s hands and confident of having Dream’s favor, of having Dream at his back. To lose that assurance, to lose that connection to Dream, to be treated to scorn in his best friend’s (are we still friends?) voice as his mantle was ripped away from him? With nothing but a paltry, utterly lacking reason? He didn’t see it coming and it’s the principle of the whole thing that counts most.
If he had nothing else on this server he at least had Dream—or so he foolishly thought.
When he gave that weak point targeting jab—just say you hate me—the expectation was for Dream to capitulate, to give in, to cede ground (as Dream always did when George pushed). And then Dream didn’t and the last piece of solid foundation beneath George’s feet crumbled away to leave him floundering, causing him to double down instead to save as much face as he could.
He whirls around and snags the nearest thing to him, one of his armor gauntlets, and throws it at the far wall with a shout. The satisfying clang-thunk clatter of metal on wood has him imagining being able to throw it as hard as he can at Dream’s head instead, the picture of which has him suppressing a bitter smile.
Chest heaving and eyes burning he chokes on his next breath. George staggers backward and slides down the wall to the floor, burying his face in his hands. “You asshole,” he rasps, suddenly so, so tired. He folds his arms across his knees and leans his forehead against them, mind buzzing but blank, static filling his ears.
Drifting as his fury simmers low, banking to leave him bereft of its warmth, he rouses out of his daze to find it’s fallen into late evening. He rests his chin on his arms and peers across the room at his chest, considering. It would serve Dream right for him to stew and follow Sapnap’s example—leave Dream to suffer the consequences of his words and actions alone. Pettiness is George’s middle name, so he’s fairly sure between his own pride and Dream’s they’d be stuck in an endless cold war, neither willing to budge and apologize.
But…George’s eyes narrow.
Is he actually going to leave it like this? Is he not going to worry over Dream being out doing who knows what surrounded by people who’d gladly be rid of him with or without cause? Is he going to try and be at peace living day-to-day getting news about Dream’s whereabouts second or even thirdhand? Is he going to be content never knowing when that news will be Dream’s deaths?
(because there was no one there to watch his back, to look after him, to keep him from hurting himself)
He heaves himself to his feet so abruptly he has to fumble to catch his goggles when they fly off his head. A little embarrassed but no less resolute he strides across the room and opens his chest hard enough to dent the wall behind it. “Oops,” he mutters and winces, gaze falling into the opening as he mentally resolves to fix that later. Shifting items around in the exact pattern needed to unlock a hidden compartment for this specific treasure, he finds what he’s looking for and pulls it out into the dimming sunlight.
The shine of a well-worn compass curls a smirk onto his lips.
“That bastard owes me answers,” George hisses, tracking the compass needle as it twitches.
If the needle’s moving it means he has a chance to catch Dream before the asshole vanishes off into the wilds of the server for who knows how long. He watches it closely as he gathers his armor and slaps each piece into his inventory for later—just in case, he’s not stupid enough to forget that even with the crown on Eret’s head he’s still an appealing target. Truthfully he always will be unless he deliberately and loudly divorces himself from Dream by decrying him in front of half the server.
George pauses mid-step with a foot lifted, gears beginning to turn. “He…wouldn’t, would he?”
“No,” he scowls, moving to hook his bow onto his back and situate his quiver, “he would.”
Ducking out of his house he flicks his goggles back down over his eyes, checks the compass’s direction, and then starts dutifully following where it points, “I am going to wring his stupid neck.”
It’s the least he deserves, he thinks as charitably as he can…which is to say, not very.
He’s careful not to flaunt the compass, vigilant of his surroundings as he walks. Not only does he not want to bring attention to a proven way of tracking the most notorious person on the server—there is absolutely no way it wouldn’t just get Dream killed and regardless of his ire right now he doesn’t think he could cope with causing that—but he’d bet everything he owns that accidentally bringing an audience to his confrontation will muck things up enormously.
Unfortunately his resting bitchface is wasted when he comes across no one to intimidate into not speaking to him, but at least he can let out a relieved sigh once he’s crossed beyond enough tree cover to be considered off the grid. Out this far he’s unlikely to meet anyone else except his target, so on the upside he’s also not likely to end up spooking Dream or attracting unwanted attention if either of them end up yelling.
Well, George is going to yell even if Dream doesn’t.
He doesn’t break stride even when a creeper sidles toward him from the left, his scowl and the force of his glare enough to send it scurrying quickly in the opposite direction. From the corner of his right eye he notices a second creeper’s awkward one-eighty turn to follow the first’s example. Good, at least something respects him like it should.
Night has well and truly fallen by the time he slows his aggressive march to match the compass’s indication that he’s approaching his target’s precise coordinates. Although loudly bursting through the trees suits his desire for dramatics he does not actually want to test Dream’s well-honed reflexes by startling the man. Better to observe the situation first just in case his entrance risks a crossbow bolt or an axe to the face because he got a little too careless.
With careful, quiet movements he slinks through the undergrowth toward a break in the tree cover, soft-footed as he calls upon all his experience hunting to not give himself away too soon. The compass needle swings the tiniest amount in a rhythmic back-and-forth which, when he peeks between the leaves, matches the tight line that Dream is pacing in the clearing he’s found.
George watches using the light gaze he typically employs to prevent Dream from feeling seen, since otherwise Dream’s senses are often too good to let George’s attention go unnoticed. It’s hard to look without looking, and even more so before the moon’s light is bright enough, but he can pick out some details of note. The first of which is of course that Dream is in fact pacing almost as angrily as George had been in his room, each step and turn sharp and abrupt. The second is that Dream is visibly unarmed, with only netherite greaves in terms of worn armor—somewhat jarring when he’s accustomed to Dream’s (practical and paranoid) habit of wearing full armor. The third is that Dream’s hood is down, which allows George to clearly see shoulder-length loose strands of hair, the bulk of which is actually tied back in a small messy ponytail, that otherwise frame Dream’s face.
…Dream’s bare face.
Because the fourth thing George notices, when Dream turns toward him again, is the ever-present white mask shunted off to one side of Dream’s head so that Dream can run his hands over his face and through his hair.
It stalls him in his tracks for a moment, wide-eyed and honestly more than a little startled.
He knows that Dream is a person with thoughts and feelings but he hasn’t seen his (ex?)friend so vulnerable, so human, in a very long time.
No, he chastises himself, don’t get distracted.
Brusquely he brushes aside that sobering observation and psychs himself up again with short, silent fist pumps in lieu of a noisy tried and true self-slap on the cheeks. What he wants are answers and Dream is the only one who can give them to him so by the void he’s going to get them.
He shifts his weight, inhales, then bursts through the trees into the clearing proper.
“Dream!” he forcefully calls, his creeper-frightening scowl in place when he and his shout gratifyingly cause Dream to whirl around to face him.
Judging by how Dream’s arms briefly twitch into a crossbow stance, had there been a weapon in those hands George’s chest would likely be sporting at least one bolt in the half-second it took Dream to react to his presence. With his eyes kept mostly on Dream’s face from behind the safety of his goggles, he tracks a flicker of genuine surprise across Dream’s features. That surprise is followed by a quicksilver-rotation of emotions he can’t quite grasp (was that relief he saw? was that longing? is he seeing what isn’t there because he hopes to?) before Dream’s expression shutters and new tension straightens his previously casual posture.
“George,” Dream greets, flat and unamused.
George cuts him off when he goes to say something else that will most likely be irritating, “You owe me answers, Dream!”
Hooded gaze assessing George where he stands, Dream’s lip curls to flash a glimpse of canine. “Owe you?” he echoes, voice dipping deep and dark in obvious warning. “I told you—”
“If you think I’ll accept that absolute nothing you told me you’re an idiot,” George interrupts, ignoring how close he came to doing so before he talked sense into himself. “If you didn’t want me to hunt you down for an explanation you should’ve just told me to piss off!”
Dream tilts his head back slightly and starts to turn away, “Piss off, then.”
The intent to dismiss him, to disengage, to halt George’s search for answers in its tracks is crystal clear in the sharp, acidic delivery of Dream’s words. And if he was willing to concede defeat at this point it would be tempting to do exactly that, but he’s not. This is where he digs in his heels and makes his stubbornness Dream’s problem just to be as contrary and obnoxious as possible.
Gritting his teeth in annoyance, George rolls his eyes at this unsurprising behavior and then shoves his goggles back up into his hair in order to fully display his incredibly displeased expression. “No,” he snaps and relishes in the visible discomfort on Dream’s face when his friend startles at the venom in his tone.
“No, no,” he repeats, nostrils flaring, “it’s far too late to tell me to piss off. What, you think I’m just going to go ‘oh okay’ and walk away after chasing you down? I would never give you that satisfaction.”
A wary cast settles onto Dream’s features and all George can think is good.
(remember that i am not a soft-bellied herbivore who cowers and flees)
“Tell me,” demands George, “why you really took the crown from me and gave it back to Eret—you took it from them before!”
Dream is still and silent for a long moment, to the extent that he suspects either he’ll get no answer at all or there’s a half-cocked reason being spooled together until it tumbles out as clumsily as the last.
He’s not about to let Dream dodge the question or stay quiet, “What am I supposed to think, Dream? You show up, demand that I hand over the crown and tell me you’re giving it back to Eret! You told me the exact reasons why you took it from them in the first place! And then you just show up, feed me some bullshit, and act like none of that mattered to you at all!”
George’s fury takes him two menacing steps toward Dream, the hand not holding the compass pointing emphatically up at Dream’s face. “When I tried to get you to answer me—”
(when i pushed you and you bit back, you shouldn’t have bitten back, you should have backed down, i expected you to back down but you didn’t…you didn’t)
“—you acted like I’m the greatest disappointment you’ve ever known! Like I’m worthless! Like I failed some test I didn’t know I was taking and I didn’t meet your expectations! Like you couldn’t wait for me to do you the favor of getting out of your life! How the hell is that fair to me, Dream? I thought I was at least worth the consideration of an actual explanation behind you retaking the crown,” removing the one constant connection remaining between them, he doesn’t say, even as the truth of it burns, “because we were friends. But I guess that was stupid of me to assume. Right, Dream? You told me to hand over the crown and sit down and shut up and not question you.”
Frustration flickers across Dream’s eyes but George isn’t quite done yet.
Voice dropping soft he presses on, “What am I supposed to take from that other than you obviously care more about Eret than me?”
Real, nearly tangible anger colors Dream’s expression as he mirrors George’s two steps forward, gestures harsh but contained and words vehement in refutation, “I don’t care about Eret!”
“Really?” George drawls, cocking a brow. “Could have fooled me.” He’s very thankful nobody but himself is aware of just how hard his heart is beating. He isn’t…afraid of Dream but he is definitely playing with fire here.
“Yes,” hisses Dream, a faint implication of confusion at this fact not being obvious carried in the drawn out sound, “Eret means nothing to me.”
“Then why did you give them the crown again?” He may be poking at this point a little too much—it’s not about the crown itself inasmuch as it’s about what it represents—but he wants, he needs to know….
A wordless, subvocal noise of vexation emits from Dream’s throat as he pivots to pace several strides backward, hands running agitatedly through his hair, and then pivots again. “I did it to keep you safe,” he yells, regaining the ground lost and dropping one hand to his side, the other resting against the middle of his chest. “To keep you safe,” Dream repeats in a whisper like a damning confession of the most heinous sin.
Oh, thinks George, a bit dumbly. A bit surprised. A bit unsurprised. He had an inkling—a tiny ember of hope—and yet he still hadn’t expected the admittance. Not when Dream seemed perfectly willing to pretend otherwise for the rest of time.
“…So you do care about me…,” he murmurs, his pointing hand falling to grip his bow strap and a knot loosening in his chest where his doubts had begun to root and fester. His ire is, despite his best efforts, cooling now that he’s heard confirmation of Dream’s motive.
“Of course I do,” Dream says with a disbelieving huff of air. As if George is the idiot for ever thinking that to be anything less than true since apparently Dream has decided he may as well go all-in rather than continue to feign indifference.
“Then Eret…?” George trails off, brows furrowing.
Dream sighs heavily, face turning toward the spill of moonlight into the clearing. “I don’t care about Eret. I don’t care what happens to Eret. I care about you. And Eret was a threat to you…is a threat to you.”
While more confirmation that Dream does care gives him the warm fuzzies, George blinks and barely holds back a scoff at the last remark, “Seriously?”
“Yes,” Dream evenly states. It’s a familiar tone that brokers no argument. It carries the underlying thread of how dare they when dealing with all manner of opportunists attempting to hurt George in Dream’s presence. That, more than anything, causes George’s amusement to sputter.
He isn’t dumb enough to not consider himself a target but…really, Eret, too?
“Eret cares about the crown,” continues Dream after a searching glance at George, “Eret cares about power. So obviously they care about the power and respect they can get from having the crown. And they care so much they thought nothing of not only stirring up dissent but also attempting to contract assassinations on you themselves in order to get their hands on it again. They were ready and willing to kill you for it. Even if they didn’t kill you by their own hand their main goal was for you to die so they could decisively dethrone you. I already had to stop attempts on your life and I can’t—I can’t be everywhere at once, George.”
His name is said with a soft weariness as Dream’s attention falls to open, spread hands as if to find strength in empty, calloused palms. “I trust you to be able to protect yourself but without—with just you and me it was only a matter of time before either of us slipped up. And it’s you who’d pay the price,” Dream’s mouth curls into a brief unhappy smile, “maybe—likely me, too. Eret was…determined, and I may be good but I’m not good enough to keep you safe by myself forever. Eret only needed to get lucky once. The odds weren’t with us.”
Unsettled, George exhales shakily, caught off-guard both by the full breadth of Dream’s words and by how blind he’s been to miss scheming and danger on that level. By some metrics he can kind of respect Eret’s commitment to the crown despite his own ambivalence to the station…but at the same time that focus is, well. Stupid. “But the crown….”
“Means fuck-all,” Dream bites out, “without my support, George. You and I both know that.”
Which is…true. Most of the power gained by any server ‘offices’ is actually through the allowance of others to that power, such as L’manberg gaining legitimacy only as far as other server members gave it. Without that external support, it was essentially declaring a title and demanding respect for absolutely nothing. Thus the crown and the throne matter only as much as the server plays along—and by the void does the server change if and how and when it plays along. The crown and throne’s legitimacy is supported by Dream first and foremost, with non-aligned SMP members’ support being not even secondary but tertiary at best.
George’s reign as king was legitimized greatly by Dream at his back. He had more power than Eret did in their first tenure because he had Dream blatantly and unequivocally in his corner.
Dream was his sword and shield, was his safe harbor, was his nuclear deterrent while he sat on the throne.
Without Dream’s support, without any support, every self-important title on the server may as well be the Nether for all the water they hold. With no support, claims of leadership and power are worth less than nothing. Except in cases of definable prowess. Technoblade is undeniably skilled, but Technoblade isn’t running around claiming presidency over a pile of dirt expecting to be taken seriously for no other reason than a title he gave himself.
“You gave Eret the crown but not your support,” he concludes aloud despite said conclusion very much being a duh moment.
Dream nods a little absently, gaze faraway, “Since Eret wanted it so badly I gave it to them, but I would never support anyone who tried to have you killed. They can live with the consequences when the respect they do have runs out; I won’t be the power behind their throne. Eret gets an empty title and a crown to sate their thirst for power while you get a target removed from your back. I don’t care what they decide to do with it from here as long as you’re safe.”
(but who is making sure you’re safe, dream?)
“…Did you have to go about it the way you did?” George asks.
“How else should I have, George?” Dream rebuts, tone returned to its flat affect. “The crown was one target on your back, not all of them.”
George refrains from the unhelpful urge to grab Dream by the hoodie and shake him. “Aren’t you supposed to plan better than that? I don’t know! You didn’t have to say you hated me!”
(you weren’t supposed to say you hated me)
Fists clenched at his sides, Dream twists to face George head-on again, teeth bared and eyes burning with a (helpless and despondent; Dream is spiraling) fury, “What else could I have done to make you let it go, George?! I know you! You would have picked and nagged and kept going just to be difficult! How else was I meant to make you leave it alone and go home if I didn’t lie to your face? The whole point was to keep you safe and I can’t do that if you’re dead! Be pissed all you and Sapnap want—I am willing to do and say anything as long as it means you’d be alive to be mad about it!”
“Dream, that’s—!” Taken aback by the sheer vehemence of Dream’s rant he takes an involuntary half-step back.
“No, George! The best way to keep both of you alive is to cut ties! Loudly. Publicly. The server is itching to get rid of me and you know they won’t care if you go down with me,” all of Dream’s anger drains as fast as it appeared. “As long as people have reason to believe we’re friends neither of you are safe! You’d easily be collateral when they next decide to host an execution festival as a trap. Threats, blackmail, killing you? They’d do it in a heartbeat to get to me! It’s not foolproof but…if they have no reason to think we’re still friends due to a dramatic falling out then, well, all I can hope for is that they conclude you’re not worth the effort.”
Dream tiredly scrubs a hand across his face and leaves it there, eyes closed between his fingers. “I can’t…I can’t keep either of you safe,” he admits, a tremble threatening to crack his voice. “I’ve tried but there’s too much happening and I don’t know what to do. I keep making mistakes that won’t just hurt me. I have to—I have to do what I can to protect you both from the fallout.”
George is cast adrift, disassociated from the ground beneath his feet as he digests what he’s learned. He hadn’t…he hadn’t realized the extent of Dream’s worries. Sure he was aware of his friend’s soured reputation and the seriousness with which Dream took many of the server’s spats but for George most of that was background noise at best. Even when he was annoyed by the goings-on in the server enough to get involved he didn’t take it all that seriously—primarily due to it being so boring—and now, hearing this, perhaps he should have.
Or at least he should have kept a closer eye on Dream before things got so twisted up.
“You didn’t have to make us think you hated us,” he quietly reproaches.
Sapnap is hotheaded and George is petty but surely, surely Dream could have smoothed things over with them? Well, actually…he tries not to grimace at the idea of attempts to talk with them after the fact. Sapnap would just get madder and vicious in tearing Dream down for trying and George himself would shut down whatever came out of Dream’s mouth with no inclination to listen.
He wants to claim that yes, of course they’d listen and try to understand even if he’s nowhere near that foolishly optimistic.
“…Maybe,” Dream slowly returns, skepticism honey-stuck to the word. “You have your answers, George.”
I do, he supposes, grudgingly, but it’s not—
The answers aren’t enough. What he really, truly, at the greedy heart and core of him, wants is not just the answers denied to him hours ago.
What he wants as he watches his friend—his best friend who still cares for him—regain composure piece by piece is a future in which Dream is by his side, at his back, stalwart and constant and his. In which his secrets are Dream’s and Dream’s secrets are his. In which Dream smiles and laughs and says I love you as easily as breathing. In which Dream is safe and happy and alive.
But the sentiment strangles itself between his ribs.
Dream regards him with something approaching sadness, “Goodbye, George.”
A melancholy gaze traces slowly over George’s features as if painstakingly committing every inch of his face to memory.
And then Dream turns toward the far trees in dismissal before George can even fully process the farewell. Dream lifts a hand to replace the mask over his face and pull up his hood. A step away is taken and then another and another, strides sure and even, and George’s chest tightens until his ribs ache. His fingers are white-knuckled and sore from how hard he’s gripping the strap of his bow and the compass, still, and he knows down to the very marrow of his bones that if he lets Dream walk away now both of them will be marred by soul-deep regret for the rest of their days.
(no, no, i can’t—)
“Wait,” he calls, somehow managing to gasp the word through the knot in his throat.
His eyes start to burn with cresting, unspilled, horrible, horrible tears when Dream stops.
“Come home with me,” George implores, voice cracking, “please, Dream.”
(please just come back home with me, i miss you, i miss you, i miss you)
Deafening silence stretches fog-thick across the clearing. George stares helplessly at the turned back of his best friend (his best friend who is determined to slip through his fingers), standing at the edge of a bedrock-deep ravine. One wrong move, one wrong word, one push too far and he knows, he knows that he’ll lose Dream, that something irreparable will break between them and take Dream beyond reach of his desperate, grasping hands.
As much as he wants to just march over, grab Dream by the collar and drag his friend home ignoring protests for him to stop, George knows exactly how contrary and stubborn Dream can be. That kind of action, while satisfying in the short term, would almost certainly rile Dream’s anger enough that he’d puff up, hiss, and vanish into the trees to nurse his wounded pride like a cat having its fur rubbed the wrong way. And much the same as an irritated cat George would then be lucky to catch hide or hair of Dream afterward, compass or no compass—Dream may forgive but the man does not forget.
And the likelihood of recovery after that would be so very slim. George’s instinct is to manipulate, to injure, to wield words that should usually have Dream doing exactly what he wants. But Dream already proved that’s not the way to approach this, not if he doesn’t want to fail. They are both such petty and prideful people at the worst times and George can admit, self-aware and self-deprecating, that neither of them would back down even if they might want to. It’s not in their nature. He used to be able to cajole Dream into doing what he wanted, he used to be able to talk knowing Dream would always listen to him, but there’s a wall there that sprung up when he wasn’t looking. He used to have Dream’s ear and confidence and be assured it was always going to remain that way—be assured that he was one of if not the highest priority in Dream’s life.
That luxury is barred from him these days, leaving him lost in a tide of uncertainty underscored by a lament for things to go back to how they used to be.
All he can do now is ask, is try.
(and hope and pray and beg in his heart of hearts)
It has to be Dream who chooses to stay, to come home.
His heart jumps in his throat when Dream moves slightly, head turning toward him over otherwise preternaturally still, straight-backed shoulders, white mask gleaming under the light of the moon. Off in the trees a spider hisses, the sound fading as it wanders out of the chunk.
George wets his lips, pulse loud in his ears, “Dream,” he whispers, “please.”
(please don’t let me lose you, please stop running away, please don’t leave me behind)
A gossamer-thin thread hanging between them quivers beneath a readied sword.
A hand trembles over the death-fall scored into the earth, held out in offering, hopeful and aching.
Dream shifts his weight and turns—he turns, he turns, he turns—toward where George stands rooted in place. George’s hand hovers out in front of him in quiet welcome, fingers outstretched and palm bared as he scarcely dares to breathe.
“…Okay,” Dream says, voice low and scraped raw, “okay. I’ll come home.”
Relief nearly sends George to his knees, his wide eyes wet over the ghost of a smile on his lips. He’d been so afraid, coiled in dread-filled inevitable readiness to mourn the loss of his best friend if his gamble, his plea, failed. But it didn’t fail (it didn’t, it didn’t, it did not fail)—Dream is choosing to stay and all George can feel is an exultant, dizzying giddiness entwined with a weary thankfulness.
And when Dream approaches, surefooted and slow and silent, mask shadowed ominously beneath his hood but a new lightness to his aura…when Dream’s gloved but unarmored hand slides into George’s own his touch is both gentle and warm.