Archive of Our Own

Dream's laugh is particularly wheezy today.

Tea kettles don't make that noise where he's from because they're electric, but George understands the reference enough to know why people say that's what it sounds like.

"Water's boiled," Sapnap says.

They've never caught that one in a video, which is a shame because it has peak meme potential. Mainly, they never get to include it because it sends George into a fit of laughter every time and if the three of them are losing it that much they usually have to take a break.

This time, Dream collapses into a coughing fit that goes on way too long and the laughter fades out.

"You good, bro?" Sapnap says.

After a few more rough coughs, Dream clears his throat one last time and George can hear the tinkle of glass bottles on the other side of the world.

"Yeah," Dream says, finally, swallowing water. "I think I'm getting sick."

"You have like the shittest lungs, man, you're always sick." Sapnap notes.

"I think it was the pool," Dream says. "Yesterday."

"You're just bitching 'cus you lost, don't blame it on being sick, I'm just superior."

"You just said you know I've got bad lungs," Dream points out. "How is that my fault?"

They bicker back and forth and George tunes it out. He's heard all about the competition they had to see who could hold their breath longest underwater twice already and he's a bit bored of hearing about it.

"George?" Dream prompts when he hasn't said anything in a while. "You still there?"

George hums in the affirmative and then adds, "Are we going again?"

"Yeah," Dream says, cloaked in a yawn. "Can we make it fast though? I'm tired."

That isn't like Dream at all. He'll push through any amount of tiredness to keep working, usually, so it strikes George as odd. Still, he's not going to complain about getting to do less work today than originally planned.

"Alright, bet," Sapnap says.

Dream yawns again, coughs one final time, and George doesn't think much of it.

☙

They fall asleep in sync, but wake up out of it. At first, George thinks he is the one that's overslept but it must be Dream. There are no notifications waiting for him, no random thoughts that Dream has decided to leave in the care of his inbox, carrying on their conversation regardless of whether George is awake to participate in it.

It's an unbroken thread, a constant link across an ocean. They go back and forth, try to stay in step as much as they can from five thousand miles apart. Until now.

Which is why it's so distressing that as the day draws on, George hears nothing.

He sends messages of his own, obviously. What are you doing? and did you see this? followed by links to tweets and one news article. He resorts to sending memes by the time he's been awake several hours and tries not to think too deeply about why Dream isn't answering.

It can't be the first time. He's sure at some point in his memory they didn't keep up such a consistent pattern of messages, but definitely not for a while. What finally causes the itch of worry to start in the back of George's mind is logging into Discord. Fine, his phone is quiet, Dream isn't using Snapchat or iMessage to talk to him and that's unusual but nothing to cause concern. But Dream's icon stays grey and offline the entire day and that hasn't happened in a long time.

The alarm bells don't start until he realises Sapnap's is the same.

☙

No one has heard from them. Karl and Quackity think he's gone off the deep end and make sure to tell him that they thought Dream was the clingy one but what the hell is wrong with their little trio that they can't go a day without being attached at the hip.

"I don't care," George says, trying to impress upon them that he doesn't even when he does. A bit. "I just think it's weird. Don't you think it's weird? When was the last time they weren't online at all for a whole day?"

"Maybe they had something to do today they just didn't tell you about?" Karl suggests.

"They'd have told me," George says. "Plus Dream doesn't— You know, he's always online."

"People have lives George," Quackity says. George can hear the rumble of his car in the background. "Maybe they're out getting laid."

Karl laughs, high-pitched and clearly directed at George and how weird he's being about this. They're probably right and there's no reason for one day of silence to be all that remarkable. But it feels remarkable, it feels like something to worry about.

"Whatever," George says, rolling his eyes even though they can't see him.

He hangs up on them, their laughter disappearing from his headset. He checks his phone one more time. Still nothing.

There continues to be nothing until George has gone nearly twenty-four hours with no word at all. And then he gets a text. Two, actually. From Sapnap.

Sapnap: Dream's in the hospital

Sapnap: he's fine but they say he's got a collapsed lung or something. Shit is really busy but I'll catch you up later

George's vision swims. A collapsed lung. Fuck. That sounds like something way too serious for Sapnap to have just thrown into a text like that.

Dream had been coughing and stuff, and he said he didn't feel well but— this?

He dials Sapnap's number straight away but after a few rings it goes to voicemail.

"Sapnap," he almost shouts. "Call me back, what the hell is going on?"

He stupidly tries Dream's phone next, not really knowing what else to do, but that goes straight to voicemail without even the obligatory ringing out first. His work phone does the same.

George hates this. He paces up and down his flat, feeling every single one of the five thousand miles that separate them and all the silence that sits in between.

He wants to shout, to throw something. He wants to invent a teleportation device that would make him appear in that hospital and by Dream's bedside instantaneously. Mostly, he wants to talk to Dream. To see that he's okay.

He Googles again, then reads the correspondence from the embassy, but it all tells him the same thing he already knows. Even if he were to do something as impulsive as get a flight out it would be detrimental to his application.

The US doesn't take kindly to people entering the country they're trying to immigrate to, like they think he'd try to out stay his welcome.

Then he thinks of getting there, of seeing Dream - sick or well - and having to turn around and come back again.

Maybe the US government has a point.

Out of options, all George can do is wait it out. His stomach churns, his focus shifting, unable to settle on anything as he chews his lips raw and waits for an update on a situation he is powerless to fix.

☙

The four walls of his flat are driving him to distraction. Sapnap had said he'd get back to him about everything later but he still hasn't called.

George has been awake for around thirty six hours. His sleep schedule has never been anything to write home about but now he feels like he can never sleep again until he gets some answers.

Sapnap isn't answering, Dream's phone is obviously dead or turned off, and George has been staring at a final number in his phone for about ten minutes deciding on whether it would be going too far to ring it.

This has got to be way more upsetting for her than it is for him, and she doesn't even really know George at all. So even though he knows it's selfish, even though he knows that their priority will never be to update the guy on the other side of the world, he hits call.

"Hello?" she says, a little breathless like she'd run for the phone.

"Um," George says. Good start. "Hello. This is George… I'm… I'm Clay's friend."

"George?" Dream's mum obviously knows who he is, the same probably couldn't be said if Dream called his mum.

There's a voice in the background, it could be Sapnap but it's hard to make out.

"I'm sorry for calling," he says. "I just— Nick said that Dream is… that Clay isn't well?"

Using their real names feels weird. Their usernames are basically nicknames at this point, their real names feel like something formal, dragged out only when necessary. It's necessary now.

"We're at the hospital," she confirms. "Didn't Nick ring you?"

"He texted me," George says. "Earlier. But only to say that you were there he hasn't… Is Dream okay?"

She makes a disappointed sound and this time George is positive he hears Sapnap in the background saying 'my phone died'.

"I'm sorry no one rang you, George," Dream's mum says. "Clay is alright, he had a collapsed lung but they got a needle in there to release the pressure and he's going to recover. He's a bit drowsy at the moment so he's sleeping, and they're going to keep him in for a few days to try and work out why it happened, but the doctor said it might just be a one-off thing."

It's a lot of information, a lot to take in, but he's going to recover is on a loop in George's head. He can breathe, letting it out in one long stream. By the time he's finished, he feels like he might cry from the relief of it all.

He won't though. He doesn't do that.

"That's good," George says. "That he's going to be alright I mean."

"It was a bit scary though, right?" she says.

George clears his throat. He's not going to cry. That would be stupid. "A collapsed lung sounded like a big deal," he says.

"It is," she confirms. "But they've got it under control."

George doesn't know what to say now. It all seems very dramatic that he's called his friend's mother to get an update on his health when everything is fine.

George doesn't often feel self-conscious about things, and he doesn't really feel that way now. He just feels mad. Mad that he let it get to him, that he'd done all of this and paced around like an idiot. He should have just waited. Sapnap would have called eventually.

"Are you alright, George?"

She sounds too nice, too worried about him when she should definitely be focussed on Dream.

"I'm fine," he says. "I'll speak to Nick later. Sorry for disturbing you."

He gets off the phone as quickly as he can. Dream is going to be okay, she'd said. She sounded fine, there was no reason to panic.

So why does George feel so unsettled still? Why does his mind refuse to shut off even when he lays down to go to sleep?

He stares at the ceiling in the silence, his mind turning over and over everything. And then he realises.

There is no Dream in his ear, no soft sounds of another country drifting from his phone. He can't remember the last time he went to bed without talking to him, without aiming to stay in sync.

Now he has no idea whether they're in sync, no way of knowing, because even though he now knows that Dream is going to be okay, he still hasn't spoken to him.

George doesn't think he'll be able to settle until he does.

☙

Sapnap finally calls him the next day. He sounds worn out, a little grumpy, but also sheepish enough to admit he should have called earlier.

"You idiot," George says. "You can't just text me Dream has a fucking collapsed lung and then dip."

"I know George, chill. He came to get me in the middle of the night and I had to drive him straight to the hospital. It was fucking terrifying, alright? I got it together enough to text you after the first doctor had seen us, when they kicked me out because they had to put the thing in his chest. I'd have called you once we got everything set up in his room but my phone died."

George is still pissed off, but he can concede that as scary as it had been for him, it must have been just as bad for Sapnap. He can't imagine Dream coming to him in the middle of the night unable to breathe properly. He doesn't want to think about it at all.

"How is he now?" George settles for asking.

Sapnap has popped home to get changed and George can hear him shuffling around as he talks. George must be on speakerphone.

"Same as when you called before," Sapnap says. "He was awake when I left but they took him for tests. I'm taking him a phone charger and stuff but they think he might be able to come home unless they find anything serious."

"Did they—" George bites his lip and adjusts where he's sat in his computer chair. The screen isn't on, he can't bring himself to look at Dream's offline icon any more than he has to. "His mum said it might just be a one-off thing?"

"Yeah, it's fucking weird," Sapnap says. "Like it could just be a random thing that happened. Apparently some dudes are just at risk. I think they said 'cus he was tall?"

"Tall?"

"Yeah, or something. I don't know. I was kinda trying not to listen cus it didn't seem like it was any of my business but Dream wanted me to stay."

"Weird," George says, making a mental note to actually Google that later because Sapnap has clearly got it wrong.

"They said that if it is a one-off thing he should be back to normal in a couple weeks though," Sapnap says. "So that's good."

"Yeah," George says. "That's… that's really good."

It seems like such a short amount of time. A collapsed lung and he'll be back to himself in a couple of weeks? It doesn't seem possible. But then, George could be playing all of this up in his head because he still hasn't spoken to him. It's driving him a little crazy.

"He's doing alright," Sapnap says. "Like, when he's awake and stuff he's fine. Just tired."

"Will you—" George coughs, playing for time while he summons up the courage to ask for what he wants.

"I'll keep you updated, bro, don't worry," Sapnap says. "Sorry I ghosted you earlier, things were just— but no sweat, I'll let you know if anything happens. He's gunna be fine."

"Yeah," George says. He decides to just ask, so what if Sapnap makes fun of him for it? "Can you also, um, tell Dream I checked in and like, get him to call me? Like, as soon as he's feeling well enough."

Sapnap chuckles. "George," he says. "Obviously he's going to, I don't need to tell him."

"Tell him," George repeats, firmly.

"Yeah George, I will."

And with that they say their goodbyes, and like all the other days since this happened, all George can do is wait.

☙

George can't take it. Usually being in his flat by himself doesn't feel too bad, he gets a little stir crazy sometimes, but he's never felt lonely before. Not with his friends in his computer, not with a thread to Dream in his pocket or his headset.

Now he feels bereft. Ansty. The waiting is killing him.

He goes for a walk.

Honestly, it's a last ditch effort and about ten minutes into it he knows that this is not for him. He's not the type of person that can be calmed by physical activity, he wants to turn around and go home but he knows if he does he's just going to be faced with the silence and the waiting.

He goes to the shop.

He picks up apple juice, and strawberries, and a jar of nutella even though he has nothing to put it on. He gets a kebab on the way home even though he doesn't know if he can face eating all of it but it feels like the right thing to do. It feels like he needs to keep busy.

The streets are grey, lit periodically by streetlamps and the neon sign of the kebab shop. His flat looks drab and empty when he gets back home, lining his shoes up against the wall instead of kicking them off where he stands.

Mechanically, he goes to the kitchen, puts things away, puts his food on a plate, waits to feel any sense of accomplishment but nothing comes.

He's still thinking about Dream.

He's getting sick of himself for being like this, if it were anyone else he'd roll his eyes and tell them they were being an idiot and yet—

His phone rings.

Dream's name lights up on his screen and he fumbles to answer so fast he almost drops it.

"Dream?" he says, instead of hello.

"George."

Dream's voice sounds thin. Tired. A bit croaky. He doesn't sound like himself but god has George missed him.

"Took you long enough," George says.

"Yeah," Dream says, and even through this new version of his voice George can hear the smile. "I heard you were worried."

"Not worried," George retorts, stubbornly. "Just wondering why you were being an idiot."

"Admit it George," Dream says, sounding more and more like himself with every passing second. "You were worried about me."

"I wasn't."

"You were. I bet you cried."

"I absolutely did not," George says.

"You called my mom, George." Dream is laughing. It's wheezy as fuck but it's there.

"Shut up," George says, unable to hide the way his own smile is fighting its way onto his mouth.

Dream is okay, he tries to tell himself. He sounds tired, and he obviously still has some recovery ahead of him, but he's still Dream, still making fun of him the way he always does.

"No," Dream says. "Deny it all you want George. I know you were worried about me."

"Idiot," George says. "You have a collapsed lung."

"They inflated it," Dream says. "Or, they removed air so it could inflate itself."

"Do they know why it happened?"

Dream coughs once, twice, and when he speaks his voice is strained again. "No," he says. "They did a bunch of tests but they said they don't really know."

"Are you staying in hospital a bit longer?"

If he needs to stay then George wants him to, he wants whatever is best for Dream to get better. But he'd be lying if he said he didn't want Dream to go home so he can have him back on call.

"Just tonight," Dream says. "And then I can go home."

George hums. He wants to ask all manner of questions, he wants to affirm that Dream is okay because for some reason it isn't really sinking in but he's not sure what will make him believe that other than time. Time and Dream losing the tired, shimmery quality his voice has taken on.

"What have you been up to?" Dream says.

And isn't that ridiculous? George breaks out into a manic peel of laughter, shaky and followed by a rush of emotion underneath that he can't really explain and doesn't want to examine closely enough to work out how.

"You're asking me what I've been up to?" George says.

"Yeah, George," Dream says. "You haven't been just sitting around worrying about me so, what have you been doing?"

"Oh you know," George says. "Massive party, clubbing, just kicked a supermodel out so I could have some peace."

"Well I'm sorry to disturb your moment of quiet after such a busy few days," Dream laughs, "You want me to go?"

George wants to laugh too, he'd love to stretch the joke out long enough for it to have some effect on him, but what comes out is far too serious. Nothing like he'd usually allow himself.

"Don't go," he says. It's quiet, barely letting the words out at all past his own self-regulation.

"No?" Dream says. He too is quiet now, laughter gone but the croak in his voice still there.

George leaves a gap and listens to Dream breathe. There's a constant wheeze, a point where his inhale catches and the exhale pushes past something that should not be there. George wants it gone with every fibre of his being.

"I was worried," George confesses, as if it will help.

"I'm alright, George," Dream says. "Just tired."

"So sleep," George says.

"You want me to go?"

"No. Sleep and I'll— I'll stay with you. I'll sleep too. If you want. Whatever."

His food can wait. Everything can wait. He is bone-deep tired, the stress of the last few days catching up with him. When was the last time he slept? He can't remember. Even if he managed to close his eyes it isn't the same without Dream on the other end of a call.

Not that he'd ever admit that.

Dream chuckles. It's breathier than usual. George needs to stop cataloguing every tiny shift in how Dream sounds but he can't seem to, it gnaws at him.

"Alright," Dream says.

There's rustling on the other side, the sounds of Dream getting comfortable in his hospital bed.

George has no idea what hospitals are like in the US, but he's picturing crisp white sheets, too-hard mattresses, scratchy blankets. Monitors that beep all night, staff coming in and out.

Dream deserves to be at home, comfortable in his own bed.

"Are you getting in bed, George?"

George snaps himself out of it, puts away the food that he wasn't going to enjoy anyway, and takes himself off to his own sheets. His duvet is twisted where he left it after wrestling with sleep hours ago. He hadn't been successful then, he's got no way of knowing if he will now, but he's willing to try. For Dream.

"I'm in," he says when he's stripped his jogging bottoms off and pulled the duvet up over the t-shirt he was already wearing.

Dream coughs a little in return, making a groaning sound.

"Does it hurt?" George asks.

"Yeah," Dream admits. "A bit. But they said I'll be better in a few weeks, so."

"That's good."

"I wanna go home though. Hospital sucks."

"Well, hopefully they will let you go tomorrow and then you can rest up at home."

"Think I can get Sapnap to look after me?" Dream laughs.

George wants to tell him that he would help if he were there. That if he could somehow get himself to Florida without putting his visa in jeopardy he would do everything in his power to make sure Dream got well again.

But there wouldn't be any point in saying any of that and anyway, it would be weird.

"You'll have to pay him," he says instead.

"Fuck that, I'll survive on my own."

You shouldn't have to, George thinks.

"Your mum will help, right?"

"I can't believe you rang her," Dream says. He sounds sleepy. George recognises the way his words are fading together, voice deep and quiet.

"Sapnap let his dumb phone die and just sent me a text saying you were in hospital with no more explanation. It's his fault. "

"She likes you," Dream tells him.

George doesn't know what to do with that information.

"She was nice about it," George says. "Tell her I'm sorry for, like, bothering her."

"It's not bothering her, George. She knows how much you mean to—" he coughs. "She knows you'd want to know."

"You should go to sleep," George tells him.

"This bed is awful. And I want ice."

"Can't a nurse get you ice?"

"They said it was too cold, too much shock or something. Also they said I shouldn't be eating it anyway. Did you know anaemic people sometimes eat ice? They tested me though. I'm fine."

"Dream," George says, interrupting him. "Go to sleep."

"I didn't—" Dream interrupts himself with a yawn, a small, pained noise emitting when it's over. "I didn't speak to you for ages so I, like, wanna… you know, catch up."

"I'll be here tomorrow," George says.

"Promise?" Dream asks.

It's a stupid question.

"Yeah Dream," George says. "I promise."

☙

George should feel more settled now that he's heard from Dream, but he doesn't. Even now, as he watches the clock and knows that Dream should just be getting home, even as he re-reads the text message from him that morning confirming it.

Dream: I get to go home today!

All of that does nothing to quell the sick feeling he's been carrying around.

He can't remember feeling like this when anyone else has been sick. There is the added complication of the distance, so that probably accounts for the majority of it, but there's something else too. A kind of fear he hasn't felt before. It could have been over. Dream was seriously unwell and it could have been— and all he would have had is a text message from Sapnap to let him know.

He hates it immensely.

He often feels ineffectual on this side of the world, bound by bureaucracy to spend his days thousands of miles away from the place he knows that he should be. It's like he's staring at his life through a sheet of glass unable to get at it. To touch it.

Not that he wants to touch Dream. Well, maybe it would be nice to give him a hug, or like, sit next to him while he recovers. He'd press a hand to his forehead to check his temperature if he needed to.

Dream might ask to hold his hand, maybe, and George thinks he'd probably be okay with that. And, like, the idea of sleeping next to Dream so he can keep an ear out for changes in his breathing is quite appealing. He wouldn't need to go down the hall then like he had with Sapnap, he could just roll over and George would be there if there was a problem. It only makes sense.

Dream is probably one of those octopus-type people who cuddle pillows in their sleep, which probably means that George would be subjected to cuddles whether he wants them or not. But Dream is tall, and probably warm, and he probably smells quite nice so it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

To be cuddled by Dream. To cuddle him back, maybe. To keep him safe and cared for.

George would do that.

He's thinking about it all when the familiar discord tone sounds in the headset he's wearing even though he's nowhere near his computer. He dives out of the sofa, stumbling over the hard rise of his green screen, and swipes his mouse over to answer it.

"Dream?" he says, having not even checked who was calling.

"Hey George."

He sounds a little better, or maybe it's just the background that sounds more familiar; no beeping machines and the low hum of other people talking somewhere close by.

"Back home then?" George asks.

"Yeah. I'm so glad I get to do what I want now instead of people telling me I have to just sit still and do nothing."

George frowns. Dream can't see him, but he hopes it translates into his tone. "You do have to rest though."

"George," Dream says.

"Dream," George parrots back. "Seriously, don't be an idiot. You had a collapsed lung."

"I'm fine."

"You won't be, though, if you do too much too soon."

Dream laughs at him but it isn't as loud or raucous as it usually is which just goes to prove George's point, really.

"I'm serious," George says. "Do as you're told."

"Or what?" Dream says, challenging. "You gunna spank me?"

"What?" a laugh is shocked out of him, sharp and sudden.

Dream sometimes just says things and George knows it's to get a rise out of him. He's usually a bit better at not giving Dream the reaction he wants but this time he's failed spectacularly.

"For misbehaving," Dream explains, like it's obvious.

"Oh my god," George says. "Shut up."

"But if I don't have consequences how will I ever do as I'm told?" Dream says. "I'll never learn."

Dream coughs a little, and the noise that he emits when it's over makes it obvious that he's still in a bit of pain.

"Dream," George says, suddenly very serious. "Please don't go off and do a bunch of stuff and make it worse. You said it yourself, they don't know why it happened so it could happen again."

"That's true, but it'll be true in two weeks too," Dream points out.

George closes his eyes. Dream is infuriating. If George was there he'd knock some sense into him. Turns out he'd have to stay by his bedside just to keep him on lockdown, maybe George would be the one forcing Dream into a cuddle just so he could get his arms around him and stop him from moving.

George scoffs at himself for how dumb that is.

"Will you just—" George exhales. "Please, Dream."

"Fine, fine," Dream says, voice softening. "I'll behave."

"Good," George says.

"I can have a bath though, right?" Dream says.

"What?" George says. "Why are you asking me that?"

"You're the one that seems to be all obsessed with what I can and can't do," Dream says, "so I thought I'd check."

"Shut up," George says. "You're such an idiot."

"Alright, well, don't say I didn't ask."

Dream really is a menace. It's probably only going to get worse now he's forced to slow down, a build up of all that mischievous energy has to go somewhere.

George swings around in his chair, props a foot up onto his desk. He can sit here for a while, he's used to lounging in a desk chair for hours at a time. Maybe he should switch to his phone, but sitting here he can pretend things are the same as they always are a little bit.

There's a loud crunching sound on the other side of the phone. Honestly it's awful, but George is the last person that can complain about chewing sounds, god knows he's always subjecting everyone else to them all the time.

"Ice?" he says instead. "I thought they said no ice."

"Give me something, George," Dream says. "If I have to be confined to bed until you say I can get up then I'm going to have my ice."

"Fine," George concedes. It's a small price to pay, and really he's being ridiculous by getting so weird about every little thing. Dream says he's fine, so he's fine. "Whatever."

"What are you doing anyway?" Dream says. "Please say something exciting, I'm so bored."

"Nothing," George says.

"Ugh," Dream scoffs. "First you sentence me to two weeks stuck in my bed and now you're not going to entertain me?"

"What do you want me to do?" George says. "Go live just for you?"

"You could," Dream says.

"I am not going on Twitch right now."

"Not Twitch," Dream says. "For me. Share your screen."

"And do what?"

"I dunno. Play Minecraft, chess, whatever. Give me something to watch."

George is already sitting up and clicking open his game, but if anyone asks he'll say he didn't give in quite so easily.

"Fine," George says. "I guess I'm just your personal streamer now."

"Aren't you always?" Dream asks.

And yeah, he isn't wrong.

☙

Two weeks feels like an age. Dream gets the rest of his test results toward the end of the first one - thank goodness for private healthcare or whatever they call it in the US - but they can't find anything specific that could have caused it. It's just a "weird health thing" as Dream says when he's shrugging it off.

"So your lung just collapsed out of nowhere?" George says.

They're in a call again. They always are, but usually they're co-working or doing separate things. Dream is still in bed and George is sharing his screen while he bops around in Geoguessr. He hasn't done anything productive this week but he feels even less guilty about it than usual because Dream is sick and the only thing he can do to help is keep him company. So that's what he's going to do.

"Well, maybe the pool thing brought it on," Dream says. "They don't know, is the thing."

"So could it happen again?"

"Maybe," Dream says.

George must make a noise because Dream is laughing at him.

"What?" George says.

"You're just so… worried," Dream wheezes.

"I don't see how you're not."

"Because what good would it do? I'm not trying to be all… Philosophical or something I just, like, I'm not going to live my life thinking it could happen any moment."

"You could stop doing stupid competitions with stupid Sapnap," George says.

"Okay. One, it isn't his fault and two, it was a very specific, freak thing."

George doesn't reply. He makes a guess as to where they are in the game and loses.

"Fine," Dream says when he doesn't get a response. "I promise I won't do a breath holding competition with Sapnap ever again. Happy?"

"No," George says. But he is, a bit.

☙

A week later, Dream is just about ready to riot if he has to spend one more day in bed.

"They said two weeks, George. Just let me sit in my office," Dream whines. "I'm fed up with trying to do stuff on a laptop when my set-up is infinitely better."

He doesn't sound croaky today, his breathing hasn't been wheezy in a while - no more than it usually is anyway. But George still feels hesitant.

"Come on," Dream continues because George has a chance to refuse. "I'll play Minecraft with you."

They've played hundreds - if not thousands - of times before now and yet it still makes George long for it at the suggestion. They haven't ever gone this long without playing, not when they've been talking every day.

Minecraft is like their lifeline, the place they go to be with each other even though they can't be physically together. George is feeling the absence of it.

"If you start to feel bad you'll go straight back to bed, right?" George asks.

Dream is already moving. George can hear the tell-tale sound of Dream's bed sheets rustling, the soft pad of his feet down the hall. He knows well the sounds of a house he's never stepped foot in, what the background acoustics sound like as Dream leaves the hall and enters the soundproofed walls of his office, even when he's saying nothing at all.

"Eager," George notes

"Can you blame me? I've been held prisoner in my bed for two weeks."

"Prisoner," George repeats, with a scoff.

No one has been keeping him prisoner. George has been insistent, sure, but it isn't like Dream listens to him usually so he's got no idea why Dream is acting like George has any sway over him all of a sudden.

"Yes," Dream says. "Because you were being a baby."

George hears the familiar click of Dream's mouse, a few keys pressed on his keyboard. He's self-aware enough to admit that he missed those sounds.

"Realistic," George corrects. "Collapsed lung."

It doesn't matter how many times he repeats it, Dream never seems to grasp the seriousness.

"I'm fine."

That's what Dream repeats, over and over, it's become their daily back and forth. Even though the wheeze is gone and Dream has been back to his usual annoying self for a while, George can't divert from it.

"You realise you need a lung to, like, live," George points out.

Dream hums, and ignores him. "Are you getting in-game or what?"

George logs on. Not because he's happy to let the subject drop, but because it feels futile to keep pressing the issue when Dream won't listen. He's trying to see it from Dream's point of view, to accept that maybe Dream knows best about how he's feeling, especially as George is so far away. But he can't shake the lingering terror of hours without news, how distant and helpless he'd felt.

He wants to be there, to never have to wonder about Dream's welfare ever again because he'll always be within arm's reach.

He tries to stow it away. Keeping things to himself is a skill he's perfected over the years, it isn't usually a hardship to stop himself showing something if he doesn't want to. But it only takes him two hours to break on this one.

They're messing about on the server, jumping around and talking mostly, but then George cracks a joke and Dream laughs a bit too loud and too long, his well-worn wheeze making itself known.

And then it doesn't end.

His breath catches, Dream coughs once, twice, three times, and then George stops counting them and just feels panic wrap its icy fingers around his throat.

"Dream?" he says.

"I'm—" Dream says, then coughs again. His words squeeze out and around a soft choking sound. "I'm fine."

"No," George says, unable to see anything but the blind terror gripping him. "You're not, you're— I'm calling Sapnap."

"George," Dream snaps. He isn't coughing now, just clearing his throat and sounding slightly croaky. "Stop. I'm fine."

George's hand pauses where he's already gripping his phone, ready to call someone to Dream's side when he can't be there. His muscles are rigid, fixed in place by the dread flooding his veins. He doesn't want to do this again, he cannot stand on the sidelines while the person he loves hurts.

The person he loves.

He's not an idiot. He knows this, has known it, but every now and again he's reminded of it like this, stark and unforgiving, and it hurts just a little.

It pales in comparison to the idea of losing him though. George would rather go on loving him from all these miles away than not having him at all.

"George?" Dream repeats, his voice cutting through the blind panic. "I just swallowed wrong. I'm—"

George hates this. He doesn't want to be this clingy mother-hen, but he also wants Dream to understand how this isn't a joke. He nearly lost him.

"George?"

George realises he hasn't said anything in a while. His own breathing is erratic, face angled from his mic.

"Yeah," he says, which isn't an answer to anything.

"Are you okay?"

"Me?" George says, a singular scoffed laugh jumping out of him. "You're an idiot."

"You're actually— okay." Dream's chair squeaks and George assumes he's repositioning himself. "I just thought you were being annoying to be annoying."

"What?"

"You're actually like, super worried about me."

George doesn't want to answer. It feels like a confession or something. "You could have— you were sick. Are."

"I'm fine," Dream says, and it feels like the hundredth time he's said it over the past few weeks and still it won't settle into George's bones.

He's catalogued hundreds of facts about Dream over the years, his childhood memories, the varied cadences of his voice, all his reactions to George's particular brand of friendship, each of them filed away in his mental encyclopaedia. Each new one he adds he slots into the space it fits, mapping the full picture of his best friend, but he can't make this one work.

He doesn't believe it.

"What will make you believe me?" Dream asks, as if reading his thoughts.

"It's not that I don't believe you," George explains, each new word is looser than the last, the lump in his throat still there but no longer choking him. "Like, obviously you know more about how you feel than I do. I'm, like, thousands of miles away."

Dream lets a beat pass and then he hums, thoughtfully. "Ohh," he says, as if solving a puzzle.

"What?"

"It's because you're not here," Dream says.

"What?" George says, hating how exposed this is making him feel. "Shut up."

"No," Dream says. He's doing that serious thing, where his voice gets all deep and George wants to wriggle out from under how heavy it feels. "I get it, it must have been scary."

"If Sapnap had just called—"

"I know, George," Dream says. "But soon you'll be here. And then you can look after me in person."

"I'm not waiting on you hand and foot," George says. "You'll be fine by the time I get there."

"Yeah," Dream says. "I'm fine now, too, though."

George flexes his hand, fingers moving as he wants them once again. He puts his hands back on his computer and jumps around in game a bit as if shaking it off.

Dream joins him, bridging over a gap, mapping a path between one point and another with his usual ease.

"I could though," George says, after a while. After enough time has passed that his words have space around them, silence he can squeeze deniability into if he needs to.

"Could what?"

"Make sure you're—" George clears his throat. "When I'm there."

"You could."

"You'd let me?"

Dream chuckles, "Do I have a choice? If these past two weeks are anything to go by I can only imagine you'll be even worse in person."

"Whatever," George says.

George follows Dream across his bridge, meeting him on the other side. He doesn't even shift, just runs across the path he knows is safe because Dream has built it for them.

"I'd let you," Dream says. "I'd like it, I think."

"Idiot," George responds, reflexively.

But somewhere in Dream's brain is a catalogue of George too, so he must know that it means I'm glad, or I was so worried, or maybe I love you.

In the game, George runs past Dream for a few blocks before turning back to look for him.

In real life, Dream yawns.

"Are you tired?" George asks. "Do you need to go back to bed? It's okay if you need rest."

"I'm fine," Dream repeats. And George doesn't believe him, exactly, but it feels like less of a lie than usual. "Let's play a little longer?"

"Okay," George says. "Just for a bit."