Archive of Our Own

The streetlights give the road a warm yellow glow as Sapnap traipses back to his dorm room. His laptop and several textbooks are tucked under his arm. It’s his own fault for not investing in a bag, but in his defence he’d thought it would be an easy ten minute walk from his room to his lecture and back again.

Then Sam had invited him and Hannah to grab dinner with him, and Sapnap had texted Dream:

getting dinner w sam and han do u want anything

nah im good thx

Dream responded quickly, and had apparently taken Sapnap’s message to mean, ‘you should take advantage of the briefly empty room to invite your boyfriend over and have some fun with him’.

As such, Sapnap really hadn’t had time to dump his stuff when he got back, and had instead turned sharply around and stomped around campus trying to find a cafe that wasn’t shut.

They were all shut.

His wandering has, at the very least, drained a decent amount of time away, probably enough that it’s safe to go back to the dorm. Or so he hopes, at least.

He knocks very loudly on the dorm room door.

There’s a sheepish, “Come in!” from within, and he heads inside, dumping his bag and flopping down onto the bed with a huff.

“Sorry about earlier,” Dream says. He’s sitting on his bed, fingers drumming awkwardly on the sides of his laptop. It’s annoyingly impossible to stay pissed at him.

“You’re fine, dude, I’ll remember to knock next time,” Sapnap waves it off. “Looked fun.”

“Okay, we don’t need to make awkward small talk about it,” Dream says, scrunching up his face as Sapnap laughs.

“Just saying, if things don’t work out between you and Karl, you should give him my number.”

“He has your number. And you have his.”

“And we both have your mom’s number, funny how it all works out.”

“Speaking of, though…” Dream trails off like he expects Sapnap to telepathically understand what he’s trying to segue to.

“Speaking of me and your boyfriend and your mother?”

“No, just, like, the whole having to knock thing. Me and Karl were kind of talking about maybe… if we could swap roommates. So you don’t have to keep… walking in on us. And we could just chill and stuff, it would be nice to be able to sleep together. As in, fall asleep together. It would just be more convenient for all of us, I think, don’t you?”

“Dream.”

“Sapnap, I know what you’re —” Dream begins, all fumbling hands and earnest eyes.

“Karl’s roommate is a fucking dick, I wouldn’t room with him if you paid me a million dollars, I would literally rather Karl just move in anyway and I stay here, sharing with both of you.”

“That’s literally such a lie.”

“It’s literally not.”

“George isn’t that bad, you just have to get to know him.”

“Well, I don’t want to get to know him.”

“You realise that you’re the asshole in this scenario, right?” Dream says, amused.

“I’m not — whatever. Whatever. Fine. I’m not moving, though. I’m situated here, I’m not moving all my shit to room with someone I have a mutual hatred with.”

“I feel like maybe you don’t hate George,” Dream says thoughtfully.

“I don’t hate him, I’m just reciprocating his distaste in me,” Sapnap says.

“Big words for such a tiny guy,” Dream says. “George just has good taste, I guess.”

“You’re the worst, dude,” Sapnap says, throwing his pillow at Dream.

Dream and Karl stay up on call late into the night. It sucks. They suck. They should both go jump off a bridge or something.

To be fair, Sapnap is also up, sipping on an energy drink stolen from the 4-pack Karl left in their dorm room at some point. It’s kind of gross and he’s drinking it mostly out of spite. He’s working his way through some coding problems his professor set. They’re pretty easy, but fiddly enough to make them methodical rather than boring.

Dream is considerate enough to have his back to Sapnap, keeping his voice fairly low, though he gets distracted and excited all the fucking time when he’s talking to Karl, which is cute and all, but it means he sporadically bursts into little fits of loud rambling.

Sapnap’s familiar enough with Dream’s voice to zone him out pretty effectively, though, so it takes Dream throwing a pillow at him — Sapnap’s pillow, in fact, that he’d flung earlier — for him to notice Dream trying to get his attention.

“We have a problem,” Dream says. “George is saying you need to move into his room.”

“Okay, well, isn’t this room his room now, technically? So I’m already moved in, basically,” Sapnap says. “I’m busy, I have a bunch of shit due in the next couple of weeks, I don’t have the time or energy to move. Either he comes here or we just wait and switch properly next semester, and I can file for a different roomie. Punz will probably have me.”

“Punz and Foolish are literally joined at the hip, idiot,” Dream says, moving his phone so he’s talking into it as well as to Sapnap, “Tell George I’ll give him fifty bucks or something.”

Sapnap rolls his eyes and turns back to his work.

“George says one hundred,” Dream (presumably) repeats for Sapnap’s benefit. “Fifty and I pay for his Starbucks the next time we go. Okay, awesome.” He tells Sapnap, “He’s coming here. He’ll probably move in this weekend, I guess, so you have a couple of days to mentally prepare or whatever. Fire up your spiteful little heart.”

“Awesome,” Sapnap repeats, dripping with sarcasm. “How does Karl feel about George being your sugar baby?”

“It’s not that, idiot, it’s literally a bribe. A negotiation. A business deal. We’re business partners. You know George took the same courses as you, so he can probably help you. I’m doing you a favour, Sap. Two favours, in fact. Probably several. This will probably be the greatest thing anyone’s ever done for you ever, you should be grateful.”

“Give me fifty dollars and pay for my next Starbucks and also shut up and go to sleep and maybe then I’ll be grateful,” Sapnap says, his annoyance only vaguely genuine.

“I can buy you Starbucks,” Dream says. “Or I can buy you lunch tomorrow if you want.”

“I’m holding you to that. Now shhhh, I’m studying.”

George moves in over the weekend. Sapnap stays out for the whole of Saturday, tagging along to get lunch with some of his friends. He tries to stay positive so he doesn’t drag the mood down, but then Foolish brings up the whole George situation and everyone seems amused while he complains about it so it’s fine anyway.

“Basically,” he winds up with, “He’s just annoying, and he hates me for literally no reason, except maybe because he knows I’m better than him, and he’s just… stupid. In general.”

“I feel like you’re projecting,” Sylvee says, reaching over to steal one of his fries, laughing as he tries to snatch it back.

“I feel like maybe you don’t hate him,” Tina says teasingly.

Sapnap squints at her. “Dream said that as well.”

“Dream is one of the girlies,” Sylvee says sagely. “It makes sense he would understand.”

“What does that even mean, though?” Sapnap says, bewildered by the way they’re all nodding in understanding.

“You know who I think is stupid, Sapnap?” Tina asks. It’s clearly a rhetorical question, but she waits for him to answer, gazing at him with a false, deceitful innocence.

“Who do you think is stupid, Tina Kitten,” Sapnap says, rolling his eyes.

She doesn’t even answer though, just quirks an eyebrow and squishes her lips to the side. Sapnap makes the same expression to annoy her, but she just laughs.

“I think you probably know, Sapnap,” she says.

Down the table, Foolish is arguing with Hannah about whether or not he’s an idiot for thinking Gemini and Millennial were comparable in any way.

“You’re projecting,” Sapnap tells Tina; she just laughs. Sylvee steals another handful of Sapnap’s fries.

When Sapnap gets back, George is conked out in Dream’s bed. His bed, now, Sapnap amends. It’s stripped of sheets, his uncovered duvet on the floor. Sapnap hovers at the door for a moment weighing the pros and cons of turning the light on — it would be funny to wake George up, but he also doesn’t want to have to deal with George right now. In the end he leaves it off, settles into his own cozy, blanket-laden bed, and slips into sleep.

George is still asleep when Sapnap wakes up the next morning, a good nine hours after he fell asleep. He’s not usually one to rush out of bed but he does today, scrambling to get dressed and get out. He’s not scared of George, or anything like that, he just wants to spend as little time with him as possible. Because he hates him. Dislikes him. Whatever.

He doesn’t have any plans for the day so he texts a couple of people asking if they want to hang out; Sylvee immediately replies with yes! but Sapnap hesitates as he recalls her comments from yesterday. He’s not really in the mood to be bullied today.

Generally he and Sylvee have a mutualistic bullying dynamic, where they both verbally shit on each other and have a great time throughout it all, but today he’s feeling like the main object of her teasing would be the boy currently sleeping in his room. The phrasing of that thought alone puts him off replying to her until he gets confirmation from Punz that he can meet up for a late breakfast, and Sapnap invites them both to get McDonald’s with him.

Fortunately, Punz has slicked his hair back in a stupid way and Sapnap and Sylvee gang up on him for most of the meal. Punz brought his board, so they migrate to the skatepark and rotate around on it, the pair not on the board taking turns playing mobile games on Sylvee’s phone if she’s there, and aggressively wrestling if she’s not.

Eventually, of course, Sapnap’s luck does turn and Sylvee asks how George has been so far.

“He’s just been sleeping the whole time,” Sapnap shrugs. “I’m not complaining, he’s better unconscious than conscious in my opinion.”

“You should carry around a frypan to knock him out when he’s annoying you,” Sylvee says.

“Doesn’t George literally have a baseball bat that he threatens people with? I reckon I heard that at some point,” Punz says. “Sylvee, your turn.”

“Teach me a trick or something,” she says. “I want to stay near here so Sapnap can tell me all about the wondrous George.”

“Gorgeous George,” Punz says.

Syvlee’s suspicious stare swivels over to him.

“It’s alliteration!” he says.

“It’s literally not, dude,” Sapnap says. “Guh and Juh. Totally different sounds and noises.”

“Guh and Juh,” Sylvee mocks. “Sounds and noises.”

“I hope you fall off and shatter your kneecaps,” Sapnap says.

“I bet if you asked George really nicely he’d give you his baseball bat to do the honours with,” Punz says.

“I bet if you asked really really nicely he’d give you something else to do,” Sylvee says.

“I bet if you mention George one more time you’ll end up in a hospital,” Sapnap says.

Sylvee just laughs.

When Sapnap returns in the evening, feeling guilty for squandering the whole day, George is sitting at his desk, typing rhythmically. He ignores Sapnap, who returns the favour.

Except George doesn’t really ignore him. There’s music playing, so quiet that Sapnap didn’t even notice it when he first walked in, but as Sapnap settles at his own desk to catch up on his own studies, George turns it up.

Sapnap glances over at him but George seems intently focussed on his work, so he wonders if maybe the song just changed, from a soft one to something louder.

But then it keeps getting louder, in careful increments, minutes between the changes. It's definitely happening though. George is slowly cranking up his music to annoy Sapnap. He’s a fucking bitch. Less than twenty minutes and he’s already shown his colours, not bothering in the slightest to hide them, not trying to make a good impression or act as a good roommate towards Sapnap.

He tamps down his disappointment with disgusted rage. Why had he expected anything different?

At least George is honest about it, though as soon as the positive pops into Sapnap’s head he quashes it, because he knows that George is a snake as well. He’s basically Regina George. Which makes sense. Given his name. It’s kind of funny, but not funny enough to distract Sapnap from his irritated train of thought.

George’s music gets louder again and Sapnap chokes back a scream.

George isn't much for quiet entrances. He likes to make his presence known. He slams the door closed, sighs and scoffs his way across the room, collapses onto his bed with as much noise as possible.

Sapnap ignores him. He's petty, he has younger siblings, he knows how to keep his head down, eyes averted, uncaring. For all his theatrics George, thankfully, doesn't try to engage him much in conversation beyond the occasional basic greetings.

He is, however, a stickler for personal space. Which Sapnap is fine with, he gets it, he's happy to neatly divide the room and never look at or think about George's half ever again. Except George is a fucking hypocrite. He's left-handed, so he often carries a drink in that hand and his bags or books or laptop or whatever in his right, which is fine, except that facing inwards from the door Sapnap's room is on the right. Which means that George practically always dumps his shit on Sapnap's side of the room and then just leaves it there to rot or become mouldy or whatever. Sapnap kicks it over the boundary when he notices, and doesn't kick up a fuss. It's not that big of a deal, George probably had the right side of his old room that he shared with Karl, it's just force of habit.

Then there's a jacket left on his bed, and it's definitely not his. It's denim, pretty simple, but not at all something Sapnap would ever wear. He blinks down at it, bewildered, and then takes in the way it's wrinkled. A crumpled ball partially open, like someone scrunched it up and chucked it onto his bed. Why George would throw one of his jackets at Sapnap's bed is a mystery to him. Maybe he aimed it at the wrong one, maybe it was another mistake caused by an unswayed habit. Maybe he was annoyed or angry and threw it at random. Maybe it was purposeful. Sapnap doesn't really care. He snatches it up and chucks it onto George's bed, then sits down at his desk to study. He has an assignment due next weekend that he really needs to get started on.

George arrives back a couple hours later, by which point Sapnap has given up on studying and is just leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling, music blasting in his ears. As such he doesn't hear George come in, doesn't notice him beyond a vague, unimportant flash of movement out of the corner of his eyes. He wonders if George is still huffing and puffing his way across the room even though Sapnap is quite clearly wearing headphones. ‘If a tree falls in a forest’ or whatever, he thinks distantly.

Then, something falls onto Sapnap's face. It's rough and heavy and disorientating, blocking out his vision, metal smacking against his lip. He lets out a shout of shock, a hiss of pain, a general yell of enragement, ripping it off his face along with his headphones as he stands to confront George.

"What the fuck was that for?" he yells, brandishing the weapon of choice. Sturdy to the touch, the colour a washed out blue -- it's the jacket, the same jacket he'd found on his bed earlier.

“It's yours?" George says, with a bark of laughter that's hard to pin an emotion to. It's certainly a negative one, though, that much is perfectly clear.

“No it's not, literally when have I ever worn this?" Sapnap scoffs, wiggling the denim jacket at him.

"We've been rooming for about a week, I certainly hope you have more outfits in the rotation than the few I've seen." Another partly amused, partly something else laugh.

"Says you," Sapnap spits. He's a shorts and hoodie guy, George is a t-shirt and sweatpants guy. Neither of them are about to win any fashion awards.

He chucks the jacket at George as hard as he can, grinning at his squeal, and then goes to sit back down.

“Don't throw things around, what are you, a child having a tantrum? Take your stupid jacket and shut up," George scoffs, kicking it across the floor to land in Sapnap's half of the room.

“You started this, bitch," Sapnap says. He could stay seated, stay out of this.

Or.

He could stomp across the room to punt the stupid jacket back to where it belongs. Or as close to hell as he can actually get it, at least. George practically growls as the jacket re-enters his space. "What the hell is your problem?"

"You keep putting your ugly-ass jacket in my space! Along with all your other shit that you dump all the time, so that I'm forced to move it out of my area and into yours. I've had enough. You were the one who made the rule, stop being a fucking hypocrite and actually abide by it yourself.”

"I've never broken the rule," George scoffs.

“Yeah, you have, I have to move your bag and shit across to your side of the door like every time you come in," Sapnap says.

"I don't," George presses, petulant.

Sapnap jabs a finger towards the door. George's eyes follow the direction and a disgruntled expression flickers across his face.

"Every time you come in you just drop your shit and I kick it over to your side. I don't really care about it, it doesn't bother me that much, but you can't do that and then lay into me and fucking throw things at me when I didn't even do anything. That's not my jacket, I've never seen it a day in my life. It was on my bed earlier, I thought you'd just chucked it onto the wrong bed or whatever so I moved it over."

There's a moment of tense silence, during which Sapnap stares at George and George glances between his bag by the door and the jacket by his foot.

He scoops it up gingerly, and then mutters, "It's Dream's."

"Huh?" Sapnap says, caught off guard by the shift in tone and volume.

"I've seen Dream wearing this jacket. I guess it might be Karl's, I don't know. He probably left it here by accident and I just randomly uncovered it. I assumed it was yours."

"Oh," Sapnap says. "Mystery solved, I guess. I'm watching anime with Karl tonight, I can confirm with him. No harm no foul. Next time — not that I think there'll be a next time, but you know — don't fucking throw shit at me, you nearly busted my lip open with the buttons on that dumb jacket."

“Maybe I should've aimed better, it might've made you shut up a bit," George says. He holds out the jacket for Sapnap to take with no fuss, and then turns to grab his bag from its place by the door.

"Are you gonna try to stop doing that now that you're aware that you're doing it?" Sapnap asks. "I've been kicking with increasing intensity, eventually something's going to break.”

“You overestimate your strength. And I'd make you pay for the replacement. No harm no foul. You said you were leaving, right?”

"Not for another hour or so, why—?”

“You said you were leaving. Right.”

“You're a spoiled little bitch, George," Sapnap says, settling back into his chair, tugging his headphones on, turning his music up.

Sapnap’s eyes are burning in his head like molten glass, being reformed into some kind of hideous shape. Crystalline swans, maybe. Little dolphins leaping out of angular, blue tinted waves.

The assessment is due tonight, though, and his work is full of holes he can’t figure out how to patch and he’s scoured his textbooks and notes trying to find explanations but he’s just going in circles. It’s a mess, essentially, and he’s exacerbating his stress by trying to push through rather than just giving himself a break to reset, rest his aching eyes and soothe his clotted head.

But.

Maybe this time he’ll spot the error.

As if to directly spite him, at that very moment the door slams open and George saunters in. He’s chewing gum with loud smacks and pops, collapses into his bed with a dramatic sigh, the kind that means he wants attention and he’s going to be a fucking bitch about it.

Sure enough, his voice grates through the air, scraping against the few remaining solid sections of Sapnap’s melted brain. “Sapnap. Sapnap. Sapnap. Sapnap.”

“I’m busy, George, shut up or fuck off.”

“What are you busy with?”

He doesn’t reply. If he just ignores him, George will get bored and wander off to find someone else to bother.

“Sapnap?”

He deletes a line and types out the exact same thing again, just to give himself something to do.

George sits up, bed squeaking as he kicks his legs against the edge of the frame. Sapnap can hear George’s fucking spit as he chews at his stupid gum. It sets his hackles up.

George stands up and crosses the room to stand behind him. Sapnap copies the line and then sets a rhythm of pasting and deleting it.

“Interesting techniques,” George says. “Scroll through it?”

“Fuck off,” Sapnap mutters. George’s presence is heavy behind him, like he’s radiating heat or something. Radiating actual radiation, more likely, poisoning Sapnap’s already damaged head and body and everything.

“Scroll through it, I want to see what you’re doing,” George insists, so Sapnap swipes through it obnoxiously quickly. George still seems to gather what’s going on, because he hums for a moment and then says, “Do you want to borrow my notes?”

“No, fuck off,” Sapnap says. “Actually. Go spit your stupid gum out and leave me alone.”

“Okay,” George says.

Sapnap’s shoulders lose some of their hunch. George pops the gum a couple more times before slinking across the room to spit it into the trash can. He settles back onto his bed with no sigh this time. Sapnap glances over at him; he’s staring up at the ceiling, hands clasped over his stomach, fingers absently tapping. He rolls his head to smirk at Sapnap.

“Change your mind?”

“No,” Sapnap huffs out, turning back to his laptop.

“Okay,” George says, mocking his disgruntled tone. And then he loads up YouTube or TikTok or something and starts watching videos with the volume cranked right up.

Sapnap slams his laptop shut and leaves, seething. He makes his way to Punz’s dorm, but no one answers his knock, then to Karl and Dream’s, but they’re out too — unsurprising, given that it’s the middle of a lovely day.

In the end he just settles in some cafe and orders a black coffee to match his black mood.

When he gets back, there’s a blue spiral-bound notebook sitting on his bed, prominent against his pale sheets. It’s not his, and Sapnap is vaguely confused until he remembers the comment George made about giving him his notes.

He grabs it and is about to fling it across to George’s half of the room, but then he notices the stickers decorating it and he pauses. He wants to see what they are. He has an idle curiosity about the psyche of a man as terminally bitchy as George.

There are two cats stuck overlapping in the corner so it looks like they’re curled up together, a couple of cartoon suns, and a few scattered stars of various colours, the kind you get in first grade when you do well. There’s also a few doodled smily faces, barely visible against the navy colour of the cover.

Sapnap flips to the first page. George! is written in what looks to be felt tip pen, scrawled in a messy blue cursive. There are a couple more cat stickers, a handful of hand drawn stars, a smiley face in the o of his name. It’s annoying. It’s all annoying. Sapnap brands over any other adjectives that threaten to pop up.

He sits at his desk flicking through it idly — always a couple of doodles drawn around notes that are thorough but not necessarily meticulous. Enough that it makes sense without cluttering the page. Sapnap recognises a lot of the content, as he has the same notes typed out on his computer, but George has taken the liberty to make extra notes in blue ballpoint, elaborating on certain things and making comparisons and giving examples. It’s not on every page, but most of them, enough of them that there’s no way George added them for Sapnap, who regardless has a twinging irritation that the extra information might actually be helpful.

He finds the page with coursework similar to one of the sections that he’s struggling with, and reads it through carefully once, and then again glancing between the problems on his screen and the notes scribbled in the book.

He’s torn between reluctant relief and annoyance as he finally sees what he’s been missing. He has to frequently compare with the notes for the first couple of problems, but then he gets the hang of it and corrects the rest without looking.

Though satisfied, he’s no less sore when he finishes, head and eyes having picked back up the throbbing ache that had been soothed by the break. Once he’s read through the code one final time and submitted the assessment, he collapses straight into bed, pulling the blankets over his head and fading away unusually fast.

George is out when he wakes up, which he’s glad of. He really doesn’t want to have to thank him for the notebook. Maybe he can just pretend it was utterly unhelpful, though he’s worried his gratitude may be greater than his pride.

He wants to get a nice breakfast or brunch or if he’s honest just plain lunch by this point to celebrate his successfully submitted assessment, but he’s also kind of tired out and doesn’t want to get out of bed.

He’s been mulling over it for a while, scrolling twitter and sending random memes to Dream, who is his go to for spam-texting random crap, when George arrives.

He enters the room really slowly and suspiciously, which is kind of bizarre and kind of hilarious, and then for some reason he loses all his hesitancy when he catches Sapnap’s confused gaze.

“Oh,” he says, shutting the door like a normal person. “Hi. Did you get your assessment in?”

“Yeah,” Sapnap says. “Thanks. For the notes. They were useful.”

“Good!” George says, sounding genuinely pleased, and not even in a malevolent way. “I brought you breakfast. Well, it’s technically lunch, really, but whatever. It’s yours.”

Sapnap sits up in his bed as George sets a plastic grocery bag down on it. George just stands there expectantly, so Sapnap drags it onto his lap and peers inside. There’s a couple brown paper bags Sapnap recognises as coming from a local bakery, and a can of —

“How do you know I like carbonated melon milk?” Sapnap asks, bemused, pulling it out of the bag to make sure he’s not just seeing things.

“I asked Dream,” George shrugs. “It was a bitch to find, so you’d better be grateful.”

“I am,” Spanap says. Pauses. “Is it poisoned?”

“No? Don’t flatter yourself, you’re not annoying enough to be worth getting arrested. I’m being nice, Sapnap,” George says, smiling. It feels like a joke, as well, is the thing. Like a joke that Sapnap is included in rather than the butt of.

“Okay,” Sapnap says. “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome,” George says, finally settling onto his own bed, cross-legged and still staring at Sapnap, who takes out the bakery bags as well. There’s some kind of muffin, apple and cinnamon maybe, a glazed doughnut that’s lost most of its sprinkles to the depths of the bag, and a couple of different danish pastries.

“Thanks,” Sapnap says again.

“I wasn’t sure what you’d want so I just got a couple of different things, because I know you’re a nice person and you’ll give me one back in return.”

“Alright, fine, what do you want?”

“You can pick, idiot.”

“But what do you want? I really don’t mind, but maybe there’s only one that you actually like,” Sapnap says. “Maybe you’re allergic to muffins. Or doughnuts.”

“I guess if you insist I’ll take the pan au chocolat,” George says, rolling his eyes like it’s a great burden.

“Of course. The panna shocker. Yeah. For sure,” Sapnap says, peering into the bags again. There’s a latticed pastry with blueberries tucked inside, a chocolate croissant, the doughnut and the muffin. He decides on the doughnut for himself. Glazed and sugary and far too sweet. He puts the other three back in the bag and folds it carefully before tossing it across the room.

“You’re too kind,” George says, amused, shaking the chocolate croissant up so he can take a bite, keeping it in the bag to keep the crumbs from spilling. In an absurd American accent, he adds, “Chocolate croissant!”

“You’re a bitch,” Sapnap says. It’s the first time he’s ever called George that with some level of affection behind the insult. “A bitch.”

“You know it,” George says, grinning as he takes another bite out of his pastry.

"Your shoes are on my side of the room," George says as he enters the room, the door banging shut behind him. Sapnap's friendly greeting withers up and dies on his tongue.

"Oh," he says instead. "My bad.”

“Yeah," George says. And then he's slumping down onto his bed, the conversation clearly over.

Sapnap stands up from his desk to kick his shoes over to the correct side of the room, moving slowly, slightly sluggish, as he tries to figure out what to say.

Eventually he settles on, "I thought we were good."

It's pitched up into an offer, an almost-question.

George rolls over with a groan.

"What?"

"You bought me the — the doughnut and stuff yesterday," Sapnap says. He's weirdly nervous.

“Yeah? That doesn't mean you get to leave your shit all over my side of the room, though," George scoffs, and then rolls back over onto his stomach, tucking his pillow over his head.

“Oh," Sapnap says, again.

Things are the same as ever. They don't talk, and when they do it's clipped and short. George still tries to distract Sapnap from his work, still relents pretty easily when he's not thrown a bone. Sometimes he'll just talk to Sapnap anyway, rambling about all the hardships of his day, and Sapnap often has to tamp down smiles. George is charismatic, he knows how to twist a boring day into a million interesting anecdotes, he knows how to make sure he's got all the attention on him.

Because he does have all of Sapnap's attenion.

Whenever he's in the room Sapnap is captivated by his every movement, his every word, his every breath. It's annoying. It's awful.

George is a flashing neon sign and Sapnap is slowly being blinded. Sapnap refuses to give him the satisfaction of knowing that, though, so he keeps his eyes firmly away from George even as he listens intently to every word, every inhale and exhale, every wiggle and fidget, all of it scratching and grating at his ears and brain.

George can't stay still for the life of him, and he certainly can't stay quiet.

Sapnap, he'll drawl, spinning around in his chair while Sapnap is at his own desk, trying to focus on studying.

Sapnap, he'll snap, flinging some random accidentally discarded item at him.

Sapnap, he'll whisper, late at night, startling Sapnap out of his drifting sleep.

Shut up Sapnap will answer, brusque and low and angry regardless of what he's actually feeling. Sometimes he tacks on a bitch, just for fun, not the slightest hint of affection evident in his voice.

Unlike George, Sapnap is always pretty diligent with keeping his half of the room contained. If he notices something spilling over the edges he'll pick it up, unlike George, who will sometimes nudge items across the border while Sapnap is right there, grinning utterly unperturbed at his tight-lipped threats and insults as Sapnap kicks it back across.

He always was pretty diligent, at least. In his defence, he's got two more assignments due, both of them on the same day, both of them painfully, painstakingly difficult, and he's been struggling to keep his head screwed on straight let alone keeping track of the mess building in his half of the room.

So some of it slips over the barrier, and sometimes he notices but is too busy or focused on something else, something more important, to grab it right now, so he leaves it for later but later arrives either never, or after he's forgotten.

Because of this, George is pissed at him more often. He takes it out by being bitchy, working harder to annoy Sapnap, and now that they know each other at least a little bit better he has better tactics and tricks to draw Sapnap into a proper argument.

It's awful, it's annoying, and Sapnap finds himself flicking his shoes off into the wrong side of the room more often than not and he doesn't even really know why.

Each time they fight, George's insults sharpen, his annoying attention-seeking habits increase, and his cheeks bloom brighter pink. The last one is a little weird to make note of but Sapnap is certain that it's true.

He takes it as a success, as a physical sign that he's annoying George, which is precisely what he wants. He's sick of sitting silent and taking George's jabs and hypocrisies and idiosyncrasies. He's fighting back, making it a proper war, making sure George hates him as deeply as Sapnap hates him.

Sapnap caves and texts Sylvee in the middle of the night. It’s like 3am and he’s trying and failing to sleep. As in he’s curled up on his side playing random mobile games and fighting back a headache and lots and lots of terrible thoughts.

George isn’t quite snoring, more just breathing very loudly, but it’s prominent enough that Sapnap can’t zone him out. His headphones are on his desk and he’s too comfy in the warm cocoon of his bed to grab them so he’s just suffering through it, cycling through his dumb games, rage-quitting every five minutes and switching to the next because he’s too tired and distracted to actually play well.

So eventually he caves, scrolling through his list of contacts, teeth worrying his lower lip.

In the end he texts Sylvee, who he trusts to be honest but also to keep a secret if he asks her to, given that he’s got a couple of her own he can blackmail her with.

He sends a simple but cryptic message:

I need help can we get breakfast together tomorrow, text me a place and time i’ll be there

Then, he switches off his phone and tries to sleep, shivering away his wriggling anxiety.

His alarm wakes him at eight. Really it’s George yelling at him to turn it off that actually wakes him, but either way, he’s crawling out of bed, opening up Sylvee’s reply.

lol, she’s written, and then airdropped a breakfast diner. There’s no time, but it was sent about twenty minutes ago. He dresses quickly and heads straight there.

“I got you bacon pancakes,” Sylvee says. “You’re welcome, they should be out in a second. So what’s the deal?”

“Let me wake up a bit,” Sapnap mutters, pouring himself a coffee and dumping several spoons of sugar in it. He thinks over how to phrase his… confusion as he takes a sip, hissing at the heat as it sizzles over his tongue.

Sylvee laughs at him and starts talking about her day, complaining about a paper that she’s struggling to understand the rubric for.

“Just fucking ask, bro,” Sapnap says. “Anyway, shut up, this is about me and my issues and problems and struggles, shut the fuck up and show a little sympathy.”

Sylvee laughs again but falls silent, staring at him intensely. Sapnap stares right back, refusing to let her intimidate him.

“Your eyeliner is a little uneven,” he lies. “You know that sexist thing where it’s like, if a boy is trying to annoy you it means he secretly likes you?”

“Yeah,” Sylvee says, seeming amused.

“I think I might be doing it by accident.”

Sylvee blinks. “Huh.”

“Don’t ‘huh’ me, you’re supposed to be helping me,” Sapnap says, his loud annoyance fading quickly halfway through the sentence as the waitress brings their food to the table. “Thank you. Could I get a glass of orange juice as well, please?”

“Sure, I’ll bring that right out for you.”

Sapnap swivels back to glare at Sylvee as soon as the waitress turns to leave. She’s cutting her French toast into neat pieces, smiling like a vicious little angel.

“So,” she says. “Elaborate.”

“Well there’s this — this person. Who I’ve… disliked. We have a mutual dislike. My tactic has always just been ignoring them when they try to annoy me, but lately I’ve been trying to piss them off. Which I never used to. But now I’ve been doing it on purpose and I was trying to, like, think of what’s changed, and… yeah.”

“Okay,” Sylvee says. “The charge for this advice session is the price of the meal, by the way. So you’re confused about whether you like them or whether you hate them?”

“Yeah,” Sapnap sighs, slumping in his seat.

“And you think you might be annoying them because you want their attention and you don’t know how else to get it.”

“He doesn’t talk to me unless we’re arguing,” Sapnap says, stabbing at a piece of bacon.

“Right,” Sylvee says slowly. “Okay. So you used to have a requited hatred but now you might have an unrequited crush.”

“I don’t think it’s a crush,” Sapnap scoffs through a mouthful of food. “Sorry. I’m just getting tired of him being a bitch all the time, but it makes no sense because I’m also now being a bitch which is like, counterintuitive.”

“Right,” Sylvee says again. Her confusion seems to be leaching back into amusement. Sapnap can’t help but feel like she knows more than him which would usually annoy the hell out of him but right now he’s kind of glad, so long as she’ll deign to share her wisdom with him. “So when did the shift occur? Or was it, like, gradual.”

Sapnap glares at her. She smiles sweetly back, taking a small sip of her coffee.

“He bought me doughnuts and carbonated melon milk one time,” Sapnap sighs out eventually. “And I thought it meant we were friends, but apparently he still just hates me.”

“What the fuck is carbonated melon milk? That sounds so gross,” Sylvee says, scrunching her nose up.

“Shut up, it’s good. Like really good, it’s my favourite drink.”

“If you say so. Where do you even buy it?”

“I don’t even know, they don’t have it in supermarkets I don’t think, I just have it when my stepmom gets it. I used to have it after school and stuff.”

“Huh,” Sylvee said. “If this guy hates you, how come he knows about your weird esoteric favourite drink?”

“I think he asked Dream what he should get for me. I was, like, stressed about this assignment and he gave me his notes to borrow and then bought me doughnuts and the drink the next morning,” Sapnap shrugs. “Which I thought was a weirdly nice thing to do, so maybe we were friends, but I guess he just took pity on me or something.”

“Huh,” Sylvee says. Her fork darts forward to stab a piece of bacon and steal it off his plate. “Taxation. So do you like this guy or do you like like him?”

“I don’t know! That’s why I’m here, grovelling at your feet!”

“You’re not grovelling enough,” Sylvee says. “What do you like about him?”

“Huh?”

“Why do you want to be his friend?”

“Because — he’s, like, really smart. He’s very quick witted, like he always knows what to say and he’s really funny. I think he’s funny, anyway. He’s very… passionate, but he can be really chill as well. When he’s excited or, like, mostly I see it when he’s angry, his — never mind. He’s funny and clever, basically.”

“No, go on, finish that sentence,” Sylvee says, insistent.

Sapnap rolls his eyes but humours her, muttering, “His stupid fucking face goes, like, red. I dunno.”

“You like him because he blushes when he’s excited. Or angry. And you’re not entertaining enough to excite him so you settle for making him angry. Okay, so you do like like him. Right?”

“I’m entertaining,” Sapnap says, vaguely hurt. “Bitch.”

“I find you very entertaining, but I guess George doesn’t,” Sylvee says, her grin flicking into a deep pout.

“I never — it’s not — I don’t like George,” Sapnap says. The defence sounds weak even to him.

Sylvee arches an eyebrow. “I guess the question is, does George annoy you for the same reason that you’ve been annoying him?”

“I — what?”

“So we’ve figured out that you like George. The next step for you is to figure out if he likes you back.”

“Does he?” Sapnap asks, incredulous. George is a lot smarter than him, a lot funnier, a lot prettier, though Sapnap would never admit any of that out loud. Especially not the last part. But the point is, George is truly and definitively out of his league.

“That’s what you need to find out. I suggest, and this may sound crazy to you, but you should talk to him. Properly, like a big boy, without being a pussy about it.”

“No,” Sapnap says, immediately and repeatedly. “No, no, no way.”

“Okay, well, maybe you could bring him something that he likes. He got you doughnuts and milky melon or whatever, you could find out what he likes and return the favour,” Sylvee suggests. “Yeah?”

“I guess that could work,” Sapnap says begrudgingly. “Probably not but it’s worth a try.”

“If it doesn’t you can come back to me for more ideas, if it does you can buy me a coffee or something as a thank you gift,” Sylvee says. “Are you nearly done? I’ve got a lecture in half an hour, if you hurry up and finish we can walk there together and you can get me a doughnut from the Dunkin on the way. And then me and Tina and Dream are going to get mani-pedis if you wanna join us.”

“Okay, firstly, I’m not buying you your stupid thank you gift until after your dumbass idea has worked, which it won’t, and even if it does I probably won’t. Secondly, do I look like a person who would enjoy getting a manicure, Sylvee?”

“I mean, yeah,” Sylvee grins. “We can gossip. You’ll love it.”

“I’ll come with you to get a doughnut for myself,” Sapnap says, as if he’s not much looking forward to another half an hour spent in Sylvee’s company. “And I guess I’ll get one for George. Wait, no, he wanted the stupid pretentious chocolate croissant thing. Does Dunkin have croissants? Probably not, right? I guess I’ll find a fucking bakery or whatever. Maybe. No, he’s gotta like doughnuts, surely. Or I could get him a doughnut and a croissant. And then if he doesn’t want the doughnut I could have it. He got me a drink as well, I should get him a drink. It’s pretty early, I could get him a coffee? Like an iced coffee? Or he always has those stupid pink drinks. Would that be a strawberry lemonade, do you think? I don’t know any other pink drinks. I could get him a coffee and a strawberry lemonade, I guess.”

“Jesus Christ,” Sylvee says.

George is still sleeping when Sapnap arrives back, precariously balancing three drinks and two paper bags. He has one of those cup holder things, at least, so it's not too bad, he just had to put it down every time he wanted to open a door. George is merely a lump on the bed, though Sapnap can see the faint glow of his phone shining through the dimness.

"Hi," Sapnap says, hushed. "Can I turn the light on?"

George makes a noise that could be generously interpreted as no.

"I have a drink and a doughnut for you, I'm turning it on," Sapnap says. He nearly spills the drinks as he's angling his elbow up to bump the switch.

George huffs out a disgruntled noise but sits up, leaning over to fumble the curtains open.

“Thanks," Sapnap says, giving up on the lights and crossing the room to set everything on his bed. "So. I have strawberry lemonade and a chocolate iced coffee. The espresso is technically mine but you can have it if you beat me in an arm wrestle, which you won't. I also got a couple doughnuts, from Dunkin if that matters. I’d like to have the strawberry one but if you want it that’s fine too I guess. And I got you a panna- whatever as well if you'd rather that. So... yeah. Pick your poison."

"Unlike you, I'm not immediately suspicious of bodily threats," George says. He's still in bed, cross-legged Sapnap thinks, though it's hard to tell with his legs still under the blankets. He's sleeping in a shirt that's really too big, the neckline sagging to reveal pale collarbones and the slightest sliver of dark chest hair.

"Well, they are poisoned, so..."

George snorts. It's barely a laugh but the satisfaction of it blooms warm in Sapnap's chest.

"I'll take the iced coffee, I guess. And the strawberry doughnut," George says, reaching out for the bag. Not even making a beckoning gesture or, like, grabby hands, he's just assuming Sapnap will get the hint and deliver.

“Okay," Sapnap says. He'd kind of chosen the strawberry doughnut for himself, but he supposes he did technically offer it.

As such he picks up the bag and the drink with no complaint and takes them over to George's bed.

George takes a loud slurp of the drink as he peers into the bag, reaching in and pulling out the doughnut glazed with brown icing rather than pink.

"That's the chocolate one," Sapnap tells him. He's had his fun fucking with George's colourblind eyes but he's trying to be nice, or whatever. The word seductive pops into his head and he hastily shoves it away, disgruntled.

“I know," George says, taking a delicate bite. He quirks an eyebrow questioningly and Sapnap hastily averts his eyes from George's jawline and the light stubble adorning it. "So what's the deal."

"I just -- never paid you back for the melon milk and stuff. And for giving me your notebook.”

“So it's a thank you? Or a pay back?"

"I guess it's like... a bit of an olive branch. If you'll take it," Sapnap says, shaking the strawberry doughnut out of the bag and into his hand, then taking a hefty bite.

“An olive branch," George repeats.

“Yeah, like, an offering for peace."

"I know what an olive branch is, Sapnap," George says. It's not very harsh, though, more amused. "When you say peace. What does that mean.”

“Peace is like, harmony between people. No war, no fighting, all that stuff. I can pull up the dictionary for you if you need it," Sapnap quips.

George's lack of edge is easing some of his nervousness enough that he thinks it's probably safe to be jokingly mean. He hopes so at least.

"Are we at war?" George muses. "Why do you eat so... ravenously.”

“Hungry," Sapnap shrugs.

"Didn't you just go out for breakfast or something?"

"Yeah, but I get hungry when I'm stressed, I don't know," Sapnap says, frowning at George's still mostly intact doughnut.

George hums and takes another bite, chewing and swallowing before saying, "Why are you stressed?"

"I'm... not? Or like school stuff. I suppose. Assignments."

"You have my notes. Feel free to utilise them," George says. Sapnap can feel that he's staring at him. He keeps his eyes on his hands, cupped around the espresso.

"Yeah," he says dumbly.

"For sure.”

“Unless you're not actually stressed about school," George says lightly. He slurps his drink, loud and obnoxious and it should be annoying, it is annoying, but... not really. Not enough.

“Actually, I was -- so like I went out with Sylvee. For breakfast. Not a date! To be clear. I needed advice. I mean, not advice -- like school advice, I needed school advice. Anyway, she said this thing and it reminded me of you. It was like, you know that thing where it's like... if someone doesn't know how to talk to someone in, like, a normal way, they might try to piss them off to get their attention. And I feel like you try to piss me off a lot. So I was wondering, like, is that a thing that you do? Or are you just a bitch for fun?"

There's a moment of silence broken harshly by the slurp of George's drink.

"Mostly for fun," he says.

"Oh," Sapnap says. He's not sure what to make of it. "So you're just a bitch to everyone?"

Another silence. Sapnap is still too afraid to look at George. He's moved on to examining the pattern of his own sheets.

They have the Eiffel Tower printed on them over and over, and he's never much thought about it because he's always just had them but it's kind of horrifically cringy now that he is thinking about it. They're the kind of sheets a mom would pick out for their little daughter or something which is probably exactly what happened, Sapnap just happened to get given them for whatever reason and he didn't care enough to argue. And then he bought them to uni and it was fine because he was rooming with Dream, his best friend who'd already seen them whenever he came to hang out at Sapnap's house.

But now he's with George -- now he's rooming with George, and he's had these stupid Eiffel Tower sheets on his bed the whole time and they're white so they catch stains, like the patch of red in the corner where he'd spilled a gatorade one time.

"Are you trying to ask if you're special, Sapnap?" George drawls. It's hard to place his tone, so fucking hard to figure out if he's poking fun to be mean or just to be funny or if he's even poking fun at all, so Sapnap risks a glance.

George obviously wasn't expecting it, if the rapid reconfiguring of his face is anything to go by. Sapnap isn't smart enough to catch the expression before it's replaced by an amused neutrality, but there's definitely a tension in George's body that Sapnap has never seen before.

"I guess so," Sapnap says, light enough to be playful. "Am I?"

There's another silence. George takes a slow sip of his drink and then shrugs. "What if you are?"

Sapnap's heart trips over inside his chest.

"What does that mean?"

George sighs, heavy and exaggerated. "You're stupid. Annoying and stupid and irritating. Weak and kind of pathetic. So, what, did you have a little freak out and call up Sylvee for love advice?”

“No?" Sapnap says, squeaky and scared. "What?"

"If I tell you you're special it'll just make your day, won't it, Sapnap," George says thoughtfully. "I don't know if I want to give you that kind of satisfaction.”

“I mean... I'll take other kinds of satisfactions," Sapnap grins.

George rolls his eyes, slurps his drink again. "I kind of wanted to taste the strawberry doughnut, I've never had it before. It's like what they have in The Simpsons.”

“I mean I guess so, though mine had, like, strawberry frosting in the middle as well. The Simpsons ones just have a hole in the middle."

George blinks. "I'd like to have a taste of the strawberry one."

Sapnap squints at him. "I already ate it? There's strawberry lemonade, though, which is probably sort of the same, i guess.”

“You're fucking stupid," George says. He slurps his iced coffee and then says, "Would you like a taste of my drink?"

"Sure? I've had it before, though, I'm not much of an iced coffee guy.”

“Sapnap," George says, smiling very sweetly. "I'm asking you to kiss me. I'm losing patience. Rapidly."

"Oh," Sapnap says. "Oh. Right. Okay, yeah, no, I can do that."

He nearly faceplants as he stumbles off his bed, hovering awkwardly for a moment before realising George isn't going to stand. Instead Sapnap settles on George's bed, heart jumping wildly.

"So I just -- yeah?" he confirms coherently.

"Yes," George says.

Sapnap is close enough to see his freckles, pale brown and scattered on his cheeks just under his eyes. He can also see the flush blooming on said cheeks, rosy and inviting. George's eyes are sharp, intense, but they flutter closed as Sapnap leans in, his hands coming up to frame George's blush.

The kiss is soft, or at least Sapnap tries to make it soft. George has other ideas, lips pressing insistently against Sapnap’s, teeth nipping sharply, tongue demanding entrance. It’s a lot and Sapnap is more than happy to let George take the lead so he doesn’t have to think about anything other than the pleasure coursing sweetly through him.

Eventually they pull apart, both panting, Sapnap’s hands falling to loop around George’s neck, George’s hands tangling through Sapnap’s hair.

“So I am special,” Sapnap says, breathless.

“Yes,” George says, rolling his eyes. “You’re so special and wonderful and brilliant.”

“Good, I’m glad you think so. You’re okay too I guess. Though I do still think iced coffee tastes absolutely terrible.”