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“You know, we haven’t been in a call, just the two of us, in a long ass time,” Dream tells him.
They just finished filming a video for his channel. It’s 2:18 AM and they’re both in their offices. Sapnap had already left—he told them that if he didn’t sleep the second they stopped filming he would pass out on his desk, so now it’s only him and Dream left in the call.
The first time in a really, really long time. George can’t seem to remember when the last time was. Probably before he knew what Dream looked like, before he even flew 4,000 miles to move in with his two best friends. Almost six months, if his count is accurate.
Dream’s words bring in a sudden wave of nostalgia, and he can’t help but to inhale sharply before letting out a soft chuckle. “Why? D’you miss it?” George asks.
“Yeah,” Dream says, his voice quiet in George’s ear, probably from sitting back from his chair and away from the microphone. They use the same one now, and it’s much better than the old Blue Yeti Dream used to have that George wanted to throw against the wall.
(It was decent, but George liked to hear every detail of Dream’s voice.)
But now they both have the same microphone and the same monitors, the same chair and the same room. They share a house, and a country.
And yet they’re in a Discord call.
“I don’t miss it,” he says frankly. And it’s the truth: George knows he won’t ever miss it because what came after was far better than whatever they were doing before. He prefers seeing and talking to Dream in person than hearing him through his headphones for hours on his chair.
Dream’s voice is louder now. “Why?” he asks.
The answers swim in his mouth. He can enumerate all the reasons why in his head—some are perfectly reasonable, while others are completely selfish and self-serving. He wants to say, because I can see you, touch you, but George is afraid to be honest. He wants to, but he’s terrified.
So instead, he says: “I would’ve stayed in London if I was content with just hearing you talk.”
Dream laughs weakly. “But I miss it, though. So don’t hang up just yet,” he says.
George wants to ask why, but he fears that he isn’t quite ready to hear that yet.
“Fine, I’ll shut up,” he surrenders. George rolls his eyes despite knowing that Dream won’t see him, but Dream calls him out on it, anyway.
“Stop rolling your eyes at me,” Dream smugly says. “It’ll be just a minute, hold on.”
He laughs at just how much Dream knows him, but he shuts up as he hears a glass bottle being opened and chugged at, then closed and placed where Dream usually puts it: right beside the mic arm on the far right corner of his desk. Dream gets up from his chair—the creak giving it away—and his mic makes these crinkly sounds that start as soon as they stop, almost as if—
“Okay, I’ve moved my mic closer to my bed, and now I’m about to lay down.” Dream tells him, and George can hear Dream’s body flop onto his bed. “And then you’re sitting on your stupid chair complaining ‘cause you don’t have a bed in your office, like how your PC was in your living room before, remember?” he says quickly, fumbling over some words with how fast he’s talking. “Just like old times,” he adds, and George knows Dream’s smiling and proud of himself for that.
It’s dumb, and George doesn’t say it out loud, but he smiles at it anyway.
This is one of the things he likes about Dream: the way he clings onto memories and while he might not remember your favorite flower, he’ll instead remember a crazy conversation you both had one random summer night, and how stupid it was, and how he’ll lock it somewhere in his head and bring it up randomly.
And for some reason, George finds that he, too, misses it.
“You’re such an idiot,” he breathes out. George lets himself get more comfy in his chair: he lifts his legs to prop them up somewhere and he reclines his chair. “Can you hear me properly?” he asks, as his mic’s far away from his face.
Dream hums. “Yeah, you’re fine.”
“Cool, then—“
“Wait, no, move your microphone closer,” Dream tells him quickly. “I can’t hear you clearly.”
George grunts before he pulls his weight up again to yank his microphone closer to his mouth. “There,” he breathes, “is this good enough?” he asks, enunciating every syllable in the sentence.
Dream’s laughter is confirmation that it is, in fact, good enough.
“You’re so dumb,” Dream says through his chuckles, a slight wheeze coming out as he breathes in air. “Yeah, no, that’s perfect, thank you, George.”
George joins in shortly, and they both laugh like idiots over the stupidest thing. It doesn’t take long, though, for it to dissipate, and then they’re both quiet, not knowing just what to talk about and what to do.
It’s a different feeling, especially when George compares it with how it was before.
Usually the conversation starts itself: they finish filming, or streaming, and they talk about whatever chaos transpired for a few minutes. Then Sapnap dips—he always leaves the calls the earliest—and when all who’s left are the two of them, tones change from playful to serious, from casual to intimate, and George almost always starts the rest of the conversation. Those times were for when he wants to complain about a friend, or when he wants to rant about Twitter, or how much he hates his fucking flat, and if George is being honest, Dream being faceless helped him become more open, because he didn’t know how Dream looked while listening back then.
But now he does, and he so greatly wishes that he were right in front of Dream—just to see his listening face—instead of on call with him a few doors away.
He doesn’t say that though. What he does say is, “I really don’t wanna edit my video,” because it’s the truth.
“I’m not gonna edit your video for you,” Dream immediately answers.
“But you said just like old times, so why won’t you?” George asks, knowing full well just how much of a smartass he sounds.
Dream laughs deeply, before he says, “No, I’m not doing that. We just filmed for-what, three hours? That’s so short, I can edit that in a day.”
“Do it then,” George quips, his voice mirroring the wide grin he has on his face. “Edit my video for me.”
“No,” Dream tells him. “In fact, I’m really sleepy right now,” he fakes a yawn, “I might just fall asleep and leave the call.”
“Wait, no,” George quickly pleads. “Don’t leave. You wanted to stay on call, idiot.”
“Fine, I won’t go,” Dream says. “Edit your video then.”
“What, right now?”
“Yes,” Dream breathes. “I can keep you company, then we can, I don’t know, get some food or something.”
George doesn’t take a few seconds before he agrees. In fact, it’s good for him to edit, anyway, especially since he has some ideas on how to do it in his head already. “Okay. Don’t sleep though,” he tells Dream. “Go sit in your chair, too.”
“No.”
George takes what he can get. “Fine, I’ll edit my video. Or do a rough first cut, or whatever. Just don’t fall asleep on me, ‘k?”
“‘Kay,” Dream says.
xxx
It takes Dream just a few minutes shy of thirty minutes to say, “I’m bored.”
“Then edit this stupid video for me, then.” George tells him. “I’ll provide company. You’re much better at it than I am, anyway,” he says.
Dream huffs in his mic. “No, I’m not. Well, I am, but—it’s different. Mine is like an action movie, it’s structured. But yours is more thoughtful, like—”
“Like a poem,” George finishes the sentence, knowing full well just what Dream would say, because he’s said it before. “I don’t see it though, and I like your editing way better, so please,” he pleads. “Edit my video for me.”
He says it desperately—the past half hour he was fighting sleep so hard he barely remembers what he just edited—so much so that he sounds like he’s whining.
Dream doesn’t talk for a while, but he can clearly hear someone sitting on a chair, and then Dream says, “Just the rest of the rough cut, okay?”
George almost shouts with joy, but he doesn’t. He gloats quietly in his office before he starts moving the footage to their server. “I just moved it to the Videos folder, do you see it?”
“That was quick,” Dream quips. “How much have you—ok, nevermind, you did two minutes. What were you doing the past half hour?”
George yawns. “I don’t even know, I’m just tired.”
“Me too, but here I am editi—”
“Editing my video for me, yeah, thank you, Dream,” he finishes the sentence sarcastically. George thinks of something he can do in return, and he lands on: “I’ll feed Patches later, I promise.”
George can almost see the smile when Dream says, “Fine.”
“Fine,” he repeats.
xxx
It’s 3:26 AM when his stomach grumbles while watching Dream’s screen share.
“Was that your stomach?” Dream casually asks.
He’s shy to admit it, but, “yes. Aren’t you hungry?”
It’s been seven hours since then—he counted—and George is in dire need of a snack, literally anything to fill his stomach.
The last meal he ate was with Dream and Sapnap. They all went out for burgers, and he got a vanilla milkshake —which he spilled all over the table. It got all sticky even after Sapnap used all the napkins they were given, and Dream called him gross after he ate a fry that fell on the dirty table. Afterwards, they all piled up in the Tesla before going into their respective offices to record his video.
“I have a box of protein bars in my office. Didn’t you buy some snacks last time?” Dream asks.
George starts rummaging through his stuff, but he knows there’s nothing in his office. The last of the snacks he bought were long gone, and the singular bottle of water in his fridge won’t help, so he says, “I have nothing in this dumb office.”
The line goes silent, and George hears the familiar creak of Dream’s chair. A door opens, and footsteps from outside his door grow louder.
By the time he gets to his door, it’s too late. And there are two protein bars and a bottle of peach iced tea on the floor.
George shuts his door a little louder than usual, and he stomps his feet to let Dream know that he got his “package.”
“Thanks, but you could have just gone in my room, you know?”
Dream laughs. “Well that defeats the entire purpose of this call, then.”
“And that is?”
“Just like old times,” Dream reminds him. “Me editing and you ordering food.”
George laughs at the absurdity, because it’s true. It’s exactly how they were before. Dream used to share his screen and edit while on call, and George would watch while ordering a pizza, or some Nando’s, or a burger. Sometimes Dream orders him something else, something healthy with a salad or some sushi if it’s lunchtime. Dream almost never eats on call, though. He had Sapnap to eat with, or sometimes his mom and sister.
George had no one.
And this bit was reminding him of how sad he was back then.
“Dream.”
He gets a hum in response.
George wants to tell him; he thinks that maybe if he tells Dream, he might understand how different the past was for the two of them. He wasn’t the one stuck at the other side of the country, all alone. They both have different memories of what before was, and while some of it was nostalgic (in a good way), most of it was just depressing.
But unlike before, his food is hand-delivered by the very same person he wished to be with. And just for that, he chooses not to say anything.
“Nothing,” he says, a protein bar in hand. The packaging crinkles as he takes a bite, and he says, “thanks for the protein bar,” while chewing.
“You’re gross,” Dream tells him. “But you’re welcome.”
xxx
Dream sends him the rough cut an hour after their little protein bar bit.
“How are you finished? Like, how?!” he exclaims, even if he watched every single minute of Dream editing it.
“It’s just a rough cut, George,” Dream answers dismissively. “‘S not that hard, y’know.”
“S’not that hard, yeah, you’re so humble, Dream,” he jokes. “Why don’t you edit all my rough cuts for me?”
Dream laughs dryly. “Nice try, but no. This was just…a one-time thing,” he dismisses. “Besides, you’re still gonna change some stuff around, I just know it.”
“No I’m not,” George says defensively. “I’m sure this is fine as it is.” He pauses, then says, “thank you, Dream.”
It’s as sincere as he can get. George isn’t, and has never been one to be sincere, but he takes it upon himself to try every once in a while. It’s the least he could do, especially for everything that Dream’s done for him.
“You’re welcome, George,” Dream says warmly in response.
Dream yawns, and George follows shortly after. He takes a quick look at the time and it says that it’s almost 5 AM.
George remembers when Dream woke up the day before, because they did it at the same time. He does the math in his head before realizing that they’ve both been awake for 19 hours straight, and probably why they’re so tired.
“Are you sleepy?” Dream asks him.
George rubs an eye, and he yawns again. “Mhm,” he hums. “We need to sleep. It’s almost 5,” he tells Dream.
“It’s not, it’s only 4:30.”
“Piss off,” George weakly laughs. “Aren’t you tired?” he asks. He knows the answer, but he wants confirmation regardless.
“Piss off? Someone’s missing England, huh?” Dream teases.
“Not really,” George answers quietly. “I like it better here,” he says under the weight of his fatigue.
He hears Dream exhale from the other end. “Really?”
He nods, even though he knows Dream won’t see it. “Yeah,” he rasps. “I’m not alone here.”
Saying it out loud makes George feel a thousand times lighter. It feels good to let Dream know that he’s happier here; especially since he doesn’t say it much. It’s a bit too late to take it back and make it a joke, so he waits for Dream’s response instead.
And then he hears snoring.
George smiles to himself. He ends the call, and closes his computer to brush his teeth before bed. It takes him a few minutes to fix his stuff before going out of his room to quietly knock on Dream’s office, where he’s peacefully asleep on the daybed right next to his setup.
George taps Dream’s arm, and he opens his eyes slowly. “Move,” George says. “I’m sleepy.”
“Oh, did I fall asleep?” Dream asks him. “Sorry,” he murmurs as George lays down right next to Dream.
“Go back to sleep, idiot,” George says. “I’ll be right here when you wake up,” he promises.
Dream lightly chuckles. “Just like old times?”
George nods. “Yeah,” he breathes into Dream’s chest. “Now go to sleep.”