Archive of Our Own ^beta

The birds chirped excitedly, while the wind whistled happily past him. His lungs expanded fully, before collapsing into themselves. The air was crisp here. Untainted.

The ponds were full of fish; little pods with all their babies, deers traveling upstream. One lone fawn sat and grazed the grass, contently. He smiled warmly at how excited they looked.

bang

The fawn fell over. He desperately tried to jump up, to run over to see what happened. His body didn’t move. His muscles weighed heavily and he sunk back into himself.

He squeezed his eyes shut tighter as he fell deeper and deeper into his own internal purgatory. His ribs ached, and his lungs stung. His mind felt foggy, a constant blur lately as time kept ticking slowly. George rolled over to his other side. Dragging all the blankets with him as he sighed heavily.

His eyes stung, as he slowly blinked them open, salt tracks lined his face as he wiped at them hopelessly. His phone sat uselessly a few feet from him.

He hated days like these. He hated the way he knew just by opening his eyes what kind of day it’d be. And it wasn’t a good one.

”You didn’t say goodbye, and a part of me believes that means you’re coming back.”

He spends the first few months after everything goes down, and his messages start to become ignored watching their streams. He scrolls past memes and funny posts and has to physically restrain himself from sending it by default to them.

Him and Sapnap are watching an anime on the TV for the hundredth time, and one of the characters says asshole, and the letters are pronounced a little too familiar. George mocks the pronunciation by muscle memory, and then nudges Sapnap with a bright gleeful smile on his face.

“Remember when we used to watch this all together, and every time it’d get to the one part, we’d all take turns mocking it! Holy shit we need to do that again.” George feels the way his brain catches up with itself after the fact. His body curls into itself as he relives the pain, the grief, the confusion.

Sapnap nudges his ankle into George’s, trying to get the point across that he’s here for the other, without having to verbally say anything. George just presses his face into his own knee. The rest of the time on the couch is painfully silent.

It isn’t until they’re at an event, same venue and everything, and they walk past each other. George refuses to let himself look at them, no matter how badly he wants to. He has to pinch himself and focus on the feeling of it, while looking in the opposite direction to keep temptation far away.

He’s lying in bed and sees someone has posted the video of the whole thing on twitter. Some expressed hurt that the group clearly don’t even tolerate each other enough to interact at the same venues. Others, laughing at it, split between laughing at George and his friends for being ignored by them, or laughing at them for being ignored by George and his friends.

He feels nauseous. His stomach lurches and rolls around itself, as he forces himself to rewatch the video, quietly hoping that if he mentally screams at the other to turn or just peek once, so George can take it as a sign to send another message. After the 100th rewatch, he closes twitter.

He lets himself melt into his mattress, hoping if he stays still enough, he’ll be able to never have to exist ever again.

George finally presses the block button on everything when his messages continue to deliver, but never get read. He spends hours arguing with himself over it, until he finally decides it’s been more than enough time for him to put his adult pants on.

When he presses the block button, he holds his breath for over a minute after the fact. He fights himself from immediately unblocking them. Telling himself it’s way too late to try and undo what he’s done.

George scrolls and sees a post from them, updates on their life, plans for streams, discussions of new plans, and fun activities to add to their calendar. George presses the like button on it before he catches himself. He deletes the comment he had typed out and ready to send, then unlikes the post and hopes that they don’t notice that he liked it in the first place.

-

He used to speak Spanish back in secondary school, everyone was required to learn a second language, so he went with the easy one. Besides, when would he ever speak French, or Japanese, or Mandarin in his day to day life?

At one point, he was extremely happy that he’d learned Spanish, finding it a good inside joke to always know what was being said during the Spanish only streams while the rest of his friends were confused, and scratching their heads. He never told the truth about knowing Spanish though, he’s not sure why. Maybe some weird fucked up form of self-preservation was trying to save him the inevitable heartache.

George always thought learning other languages was a smart idea, he’d off handedly told himself he’d need to learn more. It’d help him understand and communicate better with everyone, giving him more perspectives to base his ideas on.

How stupidly naive of him.

”One day I woke up and we no longer spoke the same language. I haven’t heard from you since.”

Why is it always at 3am that your head gets so loud. You spend the rest of the 21 hours of the day, ignoring, feeling strong, resilient, and telling yourself they hurt you. Not the other way around. Why should they ever deserve you? You didn’t lose anything, they lost you. But then the clock chirps that it’s a new hour, and your bed spread feels suffocating. But the dark air around the room feels like a predator stalking its prey, so you sit, not breathing much as your head attacks you, while your defenses are at its weakest.

Your head bashing every mistake, every action, every flaw you’re made up of. That voice gets louder, and it begs for them back. The same person who caused you nothing but inescapable pain. Your shoulders still ache from constantly carrying the old friendship, but your heart feels distant and cold. Your fingers numb, and your eyes are dim.

When your brain is exhausted and you feel your blood pressure drop to its lowest, your brain decides to attack. It’s stupid, and confusing. It’s times like that when your hands have minds of their own and you’ve navigated back to their pictures, photos, videos, messages, screenshots, and memories.

You hear static in your ears to fill the silence of the air around you. Even the nightlife seems to be holding their breath, waiting to see if you’ll do the same thing you always do. Mentally torturing yourself by visiting old memories that used to bring comfort, now only bringing pain.

If you strain your ears hard enough, you’ll hear a small scoff in the distance as the sound of old videos of you guys play on the phone. You’ll hear snickers as tears slip from your eyes and you zoom into old pictures, back when smiling was automatic, and laughter came easily.

What's it like to lose friends that you had nothing but genuine love and care for? Ones that you gave nothing but love, compassion, your heart, and soul to. What's it like to know that you stopped being friends because you had to. Not because you wanted to?

Everyone tells you that how they treated you was horrible, and that you deserved better, to be treated better, but you just wanted for them to be better. Where the memories of them brought you comfort, but the person in front of you, brought you pain.

Heartbreak is stupid. Why does it cause this aching consuming feeling of loneliness? Why does it have you missing people who treated you horribly?

George hates his own head. It’s worse than how it treated him back in England. Sometimes, on the really bad days, he catches himself wishing he could go back to them. Before he learned what it was like to have everything he could ever want, only to have it ripped away.

It makes him feel the most guilty when he thinks about how much pain his past self went through, it feels selfish to take away from the friends he lives with now. He cares about them, from the bottom of his heart, he does. He just wishes that their group hadn’t gotten cut into 1/8th of the size.

He knows fault didn’t lie on any of the people he lives with currently. They couldn’t prevent someone ghosting them. He just can’t understand what he or the others did so horribly that caused them to not care about their friendship. To be able to just stop talking to them all. To act like the years of laughter, talking, gaming, advice sessions, bits, jokes, messages, hugs. To think all of it meant absolutely nothing to them, that they could just easily toss him away; George has to bring a hand up to his chest, gripping at his shirt as his nails dig through the fabric and into his skin. It hurts so badly, his heart physically aches.

It kills him to think that he’ll genuinely never know if he did something to cause them to hate him. He’ll genuinely never know if he was the cause of something; it eats him alive.

His skin burns from the inside out, his heart weeps, and his eyes feel painfully dry. He keeps finding himself begging for a chance, just one chance to fix everything, to do differently, to change, to just understand why he didn’t deserve them.

He wonders if punishing himself by staying holed up in his room is enough to make fate change her song. He presses his face into his pillows, letting his body fight aggressively just to continue filling and deflating his lungs. His bed definitely has an indent in the shape of him, pathetically curled up, and hurting.

Florida was supposed to be a new start. His depression wasn’t supposed to follow him here, it definitely wasn’t supposed to increase ten fold.

George stares at himself in the mirror, splashing more cold water on his face, as he looks at his reflection he thinks to himself—not for the first time—that he truly hates the person staring back at him.

He despises himself.

-

The same old empty fridge stared back at him, mockingly. Laughing at his misfortune. His stomach felt empty, but still he didn’t feel any hungrier as he stared into the bright hollow space.

He spent most of his time in his bed or just staring off into space, even in his sleep his face was frozen with a permanent frown in his features.

People started noticing the decrease in his weight, his face slowly sinking in more, his bones becoming more prominent. His mom kept stressing over him, asking him what was wrong, and begging for him to just talk with her.

He kept pushing her away.

He kept pushing away everyone and everything.

All time ever does is pass, all I ever do is grieve.”

It’s been weeks since George stopped isolating himself in his room, and beating himself up over the loss of people in his life. He’s started accepting it, moving on—In the way that people who hate change move on. So really, painfully slowly—he’s accepted he can’t change anything.

He’s stopped torturing himself and watching the streams and huddling himself into a cave, it only took over 7 months. He was in denial for the first couple. He’s now finally started sleeping again, but his dreams are empty. He used to have a vibrancy to them. It’s why he slept so much in England. To avoid dealing with reality. Now, sleeping feels impossible, his eye bags have grown larger and his patience has thinned.

Instead, he’s angry now. He feels almost more angry than exhausted. He hates them. He hates that they treated him like that. He hates that they could just throw away friendship like that—throw away him like that. He tortures himself now by avoiding everything as much as possible.

He’s drunk, again. He’s been drinking a lot lately, he can’t sleep sober, but drunk, he manages to eventually crash. When he does, he hits the floor hard.

“Sa’nap, believe you what won’t I’ve seen?” George’s words slur, and his body bumps into the other hard.

“Are you drunk again?” Sapnap asks, exhausted by him.

Everyone is exhausted by him. He’s exhausted. Maybe they’d be happier without him. Maybe he should go back to England and let them be happy.

“Hello?” Sapnap is waving a hand in his face. George has to blink quite a few times to try and unblur some of his vision. “George? Are you even listening to me?”

George dumps the last of his cup's contents into his mouth, swallows harshly then laughs, but it’s lacking any joy. It’s empty and sullen.

He feels empty and sullen

“I’m drunk not your fine.” George mumbles out, as he tries to go look for more to drink his arm catches on something when he goes to tug it, he almost tumbles so he turns back to Sapnap, about to ask for help when he realizes there’s a hand on his arm, his head lethargically moves upwards and follows the shoulder to the Sapnap’s face.

“George, c’mon. Let’s go home dude.” Sapnap tugs George towards the closest exit, snagging a trash bag on his way. George trips over his own feet, and stumbles behind Sapnap. He wants to argue but his mouth is too heavy to move and words feel so far away.

The room is fully spinning by the time they make it to the driveway of the house, Sapnap looks around conflicted, their car is parked a few blocks over, for privacy purposes, but George doesn’t look like he’ll make it more than 5 feet and Sapnap doesn’t want to leave him by himself.

He grabs George’s phone from his pocket, his face flashes with slight pain as he reads the new quote George has pinned in a widget on his home screen.

Just so you know—I will never forget, not for as long as I live. I know you didn’t love me, but I really thought that you did. -unknown

“Fuck it.” He mutters. He moves his arms to wrap around George’s hips. “I swear to fucking god George, if you barf on me, I will ship you back to england in a damn Amazon box.” George doesn’t hear much of what Sapnap’s saying, the world’s spinning too much on its own, so he accepts the trash bag pressed in between his fingers.

Sapnap heaves George over his shoulder, similar to a sack of potatoes, cursing under his breath about checking George into therapy himself, or never going drinking with him ever again.

George watches the ground move past him quickly, and starts giggling while watching Sapnap’s ass move beneath his basketball shorts. They’re slightly tighter than normal, George tries to tell Sapnap about the joke he has connecting Sapnap’s ass while walking to a basketball on a court, but all that leaves his mouth is incoherent words and a stream of giggles.

Sapnap shakes his head as he walks, trying to fight the smile from growing on his face as his friend laughs. It sounds abnormal; it pains him to think about how maybe a year ago, that laugh would’ve been heard all the time. But now, he rarely ever gets to hear the pure joy George is feeling right now. He pats his hip in consolation.

By the time they make it to Sapnap’s car, he carefully moves George from his shoulder into his car, making sure not to hit the other’s head on anything, or give him whiplash. George is quiet, and compliant the whole time, nearly asleep by the time Sapnap buckles his seatbelt.

Sapnap lets out a harsh breath as he finally falls into his car. Pulling away from the curb they head back home. Sapnap shoots off a text to Dream on the way, so he can have some Tylenol and water at the ready.

George goes in and out of consciousness staring out his window, he thinks about all the arguments he and Sapnap have had recently. They’re ugly, and filled with hate. He feels like they took major steps back from before he had moved to Florida, before comfy chat, and before they started repairing things. He thinks about the fact this is the first time they’ve hung out in a long while, and how badly he’s ruined the whole thing.

George doesn’t even realize he’s crying until he snaps back into reality seeing the house come into view. His whole body is shaking, and his chest is heaving. He’s hiccuping, and his nose is running a marathon down his face. Sapnap hasn’t said anything to him, just quietly parks the car and unlocks the doors, when he opens George’s, he lifts his arms up ready to be picked up again, but Sapnap just drops onto the ground on his knees and wraps the other into a hug.

George feels safe here, it feels different from the comfort of memories or passing words in the hall of banter. This is real and in his face, George lets himself continue to break down into Sapnap’s arms. When George remembers he can talk, he starts spouting out everything he possibly can.

Most of it is apologies, others are him expressing how much he likes it here, begging the other not to send him back, and the last parts are even harder to hear, but George keeps saying it until Sapnap stiffens when he finally understands.

“I love you, please don’t leave me. You can’t leave me.”

Sapnap hugs him tighter, he hears the sounds of Dream opening the front door to the house, he probably saw the life360 notification of them arriving home, or heard the camera alert go off.

Sapnap doesn’t let go of George, even as Dream comes closer.

Dream is confused by the fact Sapnap and George hadn’t come inside even though they got home over 5 minutes ago, at first he figured Snapnap might've needed help getting George inside, that the other was being difficult. But his confusion morphs into concern when he sees Sapnap kneeling on the ground and hears George’s sobs.

George wraps himself tighter around Sapnap, his words still short begs of “don’t go.” and “stay”. The three just stay there, completely still as they let George feel everything he’s been avoiding. He’s gotten quieter as the three just stay there. Eventually, Sapnap’s back starts to ache softly from the awkward angle, he tries readjusting his grip on George to stand up and get George inside, but the sobs grow harsher.

“No!” He yells, right into Sapnap’s ear, and George feels the other cringe from the abrupt noise.

“Hey, it’s okay. We’re just gonna go inside, aren’t you cold?” Sapnap tries talking to George how he would his little sisters when they have to do something they don’t want to.

George moves his legs to the opening of the car door, wrapping his arms around Sapnap’s neck instead, Sapnap lets out a disbelieving laugh as he reaches his arms down to grab under George’s thighs. He guides them around his hips, and manages—with Dreams help—to stand up, with George holding onto him like a koala.

George presses his face into Sapnap’s neck, refusing to let go, no matter how childish he feels, and how he’s sure the two will bully him about this in the morning. He’s exhausted, he’s always exhausted, but this time he needs someone to take the weight from him. He can’t do it by himself right now.

They make it inside, and Sapnap drops himself and George onto Dream's bed. Just the sight of the stairs knocked all the air out of his lungs, so he chose the safer option. Dream brings in the Tylenol and water for George, before wrapping the both up in a blanket that he just ran through the dryer. He knows George falls asleep faster when he has a warm soft blanket.

-

George hates how soft Dream and Sapnap have been with him lately. They’ve been holding him more often, initiating more movie nights, trying to pull him out of his own head. He just wishes that he weren’t so stubborn, digging his heels in, and scratching his own arms raw.

They spend George’s birthday inside, watching all the Harry Potter movies, and eating all of George's favorite sushi. They stay inside, away from the rest of the world, and don’t do any of the streams they had planned for his birthday. Everyone’s aware that it’d be way too much for George to deal with right now. Besides, he hasn’t streamed much at all this year, why waste his time starting now, trying to put himself back together for a measly stream.

Everyone would have too many questions, wondering where he’s been, why he hasn’t streamed, asking why he chose now to break his non-streaming-streak.

The truth was, he didn’t have the same excitement and passion for streaming and content like he used to before, now it felt more like a chore rather than the exciting and happy experience that he used to get from it before. Nothing felt the same anymore.

It was all too much for him. He was exhausted, always exhausted.

”The hardest part about walking away from someone is the part when you realize that, no matter how slowly you go, they will never run after you.”

George drops off the face of the universe. He stops recording, stops gaming, stops streaming, stops everything. With zero notice. Sapnap and Dream are worried, they express concern, and try to talk to him. But his door starts getting locked and the key never gets left outside.

George starts leaving his room only when he knows they’re out of the house, or locked in their rooms sleeping. He goes for long walks, in the rain in the middle of the night when it’s the loudest in his head.

He stopped the heavy drinking after the night Sapnap had to carry him inside. He hated how vulnerable he was. He hated that they saw him in that state. He tells himself he’ll never allow himself to be pitiful in front of people. Not after he bared his soul to someone and they just threw him to the side like trash.

Like he was nothing. Like he didn’t matter. Maybe he is nothing. Maybe he doesn’t matter.

George started going for the walks because he couldn’t trust himself to sit inside the house with access to so many sharp things. So he walks along empty roadways where no one ever drives. He won’t actually ever kill himself. No matter how badly he doesn’t want to be here. He can’t put the pain he feels onto his friends or family. He knows that. It’s why his friends never had to worry about him in England.

Well, it’s why he told them to never worry. It didn’t make them any less anxious, in fact it caused Sapnap to cancel a bunch of his plans to get the next flight to visit George.

He walks until his legs feel tired and sore, then he makes his way back the way he came, and he eventually makes it to the house. He changes his clothes from the wet itchy ones, and traces the old scars along his arms and legs. Most of them are on his shoulders or thighs, it’s easier to hide.

But on the really really hard days, there’s a couple really raised marks on his forearms. He always feels self conscious of those at fan meet and greets. He’s just lucky no one has posted about them yet. He can’t begin to imagine how that’ll blow over.

He lets himself collapse into bed after closing the door behind himself, he triple checks that it’s locked so he doesn’t wake up to unwanted visitors.

It’s a few weeks later, and George has definitely walked a world record worth of steps in the past few days, but Sapnap and Dreams' sleep schedules have fallen out of sync. When one’s awake, the other’s asleep, and they’re always outside of their rooms when they’re awake. Which means, George can’t leave for his walks.

His head progressively gets louder and louder as time drones on, and he finds himself breaking one of the few streaks he cares about.

He’s even more exhausted and numb feeling than normal when he’s collapsing exhausted back into his bedsheets. He’s showered in the attached bathroom, and keeps inhaling sharply when he bumps or rubs his shoulder on anything.

He’s so exhausted that the second he reopens the bathroom door, and pushes at his room door, he immediately flops into bed. Feeling the pillows calling his name. He promptly passes out on his mattress.

It isn’t until the next morning, when he wakes up to Patches on top of his chest that he feels himself freeze with pure dread. His stomach is already in knots from the guilt of breaking his streak, but the additional knowledge of knowing his room is cracked open slightly, and there’s a furry mass on his chest he panic-checks his shirt to see if it is covering everything. His breaths even out when everything looks fine.

It isn’t until he’s searching everywhere for his spare room key, and he can’t seem to find it that he feels himself grow angry. It’s an exhausted anger, one that you feel deeply, but don’t quite act on, because of being way too exhausted to deal with it right this moment.

George gives up on the self isolation and leaves his room. Sapnap and Dream must not be as out of sync as he remembers, because both of them are in the kitchen, and they have mirroring upset expressions.

George coughs into his wrist, trying to announce his presence, but also because the lack of water he’s drunk and the amount of crying he’s done is making him dehydrated. He grabs a glass of water, and downs the whole thing. He knows the other two are watching him, intense faces. Dream looks slightly angry, and Sapnap looks conflicted.

“I thought you said you stopped.” Dream is the one who breaks the silence first.

“Clay-“ Sapnap starts, only to get interrupted by George.

“Excuse me?” George asks.

Dream moves his body to face George head on, he’s upset as he bluntly continues. “Cutting yourself. You told us you stopped.”

Sapnap smacks Dream on the back of his arm, his face moving from conflicted and concerned to anger towards Dream. “You’re being an asshole.” He checks the taller one.

George feels at a slight loss for words, he had a feeling they’d noticed, a twisted part of him wonders if they saw from his shirt being moved out of the way, or if he stupidly left his stuff on the counter in his bathroom.

“I did.” George interrupts the argument occurring between Dream and Sapnap, speaking more confidently than he feels.

“Doesn’t look like it.” Dream rebuttals.

He sounds angry, and looks pissed. But George has known the other for almost a decade now, he knows that Dream isn’t angry with George, he’s angry at himself for not knowing sooner. He’s pissed that he couldn’t stop George from breaking his streak, and he’s pissed that his friend is in pain and he can’t stop it. Dream can’t stand not being able to fix things, or being able to control the outcome.

Sapnap has known Dream for over a decade, and to anyone else, they’d think he was stupid checking Dream as often as he did, but George knows it’s what Dream needs. He needs someone to check him occasionally, they all do.

“It was the- Last night was the first time that I’d done it since- Florida.” George hopes they understand what he’s saying, he hopes they believe him. He has nothing but his word to give.

Sapnap comes over first, and wraps his arms around George gently. He’s careful of his shoulder, he understands, in the quiet, yet constant way he always does.

Dream doesn’t join the hug, his worries of causing more damage is glaringly obvious.

“Get the fuck over here Clay, you’re acting stupid.” Even Sapnap can tell how Dream is feeling, without even looking at him.

Dream is overly cautious as he hugs the two. He’s quieter than normal, and George can feel that he’s stuck in his own head, he knows all of this but is still shocked by the feeling of something wet on his neck. He tries to turn his head to look at Dream, but the other burrows down further.

“Don’t. It’s not about me, it’s about you. You’re the one who’s been in pain for a while now.” Dream softly speaks, trying extremely hard to not let his voice shake. “Please let us in George. It’s killing me to see you hurting and not being able to help.”

George takes a deep, shaky breath, and nods. Sapnap presses a feather-light kiss to George’s shoulder. They’ve got a long way to go.

-

Thump.

His hand jolted to his chest, dropping his phone onto the floor as his fingers tightened around his shirt. Subconsciously desperate to stabilize the stutter radiating through his arteries, and veins. He quickly jumps out of his chair, going to the kitchen to yank an ice cube from the freezer. His fingers clench at the fabric, wishing that he could reach into himself and cradle his heart from its own panicked state.

Thump thump.

His eyes squeeze tight as a sharp ache radiates outwards towards his shoulders. His breaths come out in short desperate gasps. The floor moves around beneath his feet, half of it because he’s actually stumbling around, half is the room moving on its own. He moves like a fawn on ice for the first time as he tries to focus on the things around him, attempting to keep himself upright.

Thump.

A sharp buzzing noise thunders in his ears. The room starts blurring around itself as he bounces around, looking for.. Something. He shoves through a door, cringing as the static breaks for a second to hear the loud slam of it hitting wood. The prickles on his body radiate through him, his head spinning, and pressure building as the bright light makes him wince.

Thump thump.

His shoulders cave inwards, attempting to protect his chest, and block off the outwards threats from him. His lungs shiver and shake, as oxygen feels thick as molasses. He locks the door behind him as he hears a door creak open somewhere in the hallway. He shuts the light back off, giving his already straining eyes a much needed break. He moves past the sink, flipping the shower on, and moving his ankle under the cold stream. Letting it smack against his pulse points.

Thump.

He swallows excessively as saliva builds in his mouth, as he feels his stomach lurch. His throat contracts as his body jerks. His free hand jumps up to his mouth as he staggers a few feet forward to the toilet. Banging his elbow against the granite as the static roars louder, and his heart feels like it’s attempting to rip out of his chest. He shoves the lid open, clawing at the biting porcelain.

Thump. Thump.

His body collapses to the floor as his stomach jerks itself inwards, his shoulders cave, and his body shoves out his stomach contents. He coughs, attempting to clear his throat from the stomach acid and old food he ate a long while ago. His throat and nose burns. His mouth tastes rancid. He spits a few times into the murky water.

“‘eorge?” The static radiates as his body heaves a few more times, ridding his body of everything left over. He feels sweat dampen his forehead, and back. He’s sure he’s got stains by his armpits to match. His arms and legs pinprick as his brain talks to his nerves, checking to make sure he still has his limbs. The water splashes against his shorts, as a small amount of water has managed to gather on the floor outside the shower.

“George?” He coughs, spitting into the toilet, before swinging his limp arm upwards to yank down the handle. He watches distantly as the water swirls, until it becomes clear and fills itself back up again. His heart slows its aggressive song, blending into a largo paced lullaby. He takes a few deep breaths, while the adrenaline leaves his body.

“Mm?” He croaks out weakly, hearing the worried voice still outside the door. He stares loosely at the failed piece of ice he’s gripping in his one hand, slowly dripping away as the static slowly starts fading. He closes the toilet lid and rests his head against the top of it, eyes shut tightly. The feeling of his body running away from its host fades, he feels the pressure of the limbs, and the weight his head has against his arms.

“..okay..pretty abruptly.. looked panicked..” The voice is concerned, the handle attempting to be jostled a time or two, followed by another couple knocks. He gives a half hearted hum, it’s weak, numb as his body slowly comes to the fact it’s managed to expel all its energy. His limbs weigh himself down, his breaths slow his lungs managing to expand fully, and release the oxygen from it.
Once his breaths are even, and his heart has slowed down he moves weakly to the shower, cupping his hands and sipping out of them. He swirls the water around in his mouth before spitting it out into the drain. After a few times of doing so, he gets enough strength in his limbs to stand up, then shuts off the shower. Moving to the sink and grabbing a cup of water, and drinking it. Feeling his shoulders slump and a small sigh leaving his lips as it coats his throat, soothing the harsh burn.

He brushes his teeth quickly to remove the bitter taste still occupying his mouth. Once he finishes up, he splashes some cold water onto his face. He slowly moves over and opens the bathroom door. Switching the fan on in the room. He’s met with two pairs of concerned green eyes. One a dark moss, the other a dark olive.

He moves past them, and drops his heavy body into his bed. A shiver rolls up his body as a heavy hand sets comfortingly onto his back, rubbing the area between his shoulder blades. Another runs loosely through his messy dark curls. Untangling the knots sitting in them, and massaging his scalp. Helping release the pressure that hugs his temples.

He lets his body relax between the two of them. Letting them hold him up when his body has given all he could. He lets them pick up the pieces left over of him and slowly tape him back together again.

“Love you.” It’s so impossibly small, he isn’t sure how it managed to make any noise. It felt like he mouthed it, but he felt a hand pat his back 3 times, and another tap the fingers against his scalp 3 times. Repeating the message back to him easily.

”I wasn’t beautiful anymore. Now I looked like what I was, a raw wound.”

George picked at his own lip, it was already dry, chapped, and peeling from him biting or picking at it previously. If Dream or Sapnap were here they’d yell at him. But he can’t help it. He’s trying, he really is.

It’s been 2 years since George has been in Florida. It’s been roughly 1 year since he agreed to let Dream and Sapnap in and stop locking his door. He’d started therapy roughly 11 months ago. He finally found one he liked, and felt comfortable with 8 months ago. And he’s been trying. Genuinely trying.

He feels less exhausted than he used to, but he still feels like everything aches sometimes. He still walks into therapy tense and leaves feeling raw, and exposed. But Dream and Sapnap take turns bringing him and get him ice cream and sweets afterwards. He knows it’s a small bribe to keep going. To try and keep him positive when thinking about therapy itself. He’s exhausted though.
He’s spent a lot of the last few weeks in Dream or Sapnap’s rooms. Bothering the other two by being glued to their sides. If it bothers them, they don’t show it. Just quietly holding onto him, and distracting him when his head's too loud.

It feels like it’s always too loud.

He gets really bad one night again, he stares at the shaver left on his bathroom counter, it’s one that’s much harder to deconstruct in hopes it’d be too much for him to try and use when he’s already exhausted and tired and feels like breathing is too much effort, let alone trying to take apart something.

He sits on the floor in the bathroom, the door isn't locked, but his back is to it. He picked it up and dropped it multiple times before he reached for his phone. Dreams contact stares back at him. Sapnap’s live at the moment, and he’s trying so hard to be quiet, but he’s exhausted, and everything hurts, and he knows how to make the noise shut up for a little bit, but it’d make all his progress come to a screeching halt.

“Hello?” Dream’s voice sounds groggy, and half awake. George didn’t even realize he’d called the other. He hiccups aggressively, and then coughs when he tries to inhale too fast.

Dream lets out a soft hum into the phone, “Oh, George..” It sounds like he’s in genuine pain listening to George gasping through hiccups for air, and panicked breaths. He hears the sound of a bedroom door being opened somewhere downstairs and socked feet jogging their way upstairs.

He hears the sound of a message being sent right before soft knocks hit his bathroom door. “George, can I come in please?” Dream's voice sounds so soft, and gentle.

Everyone would call it the Patches voice or his fond voice, George just calls it Dreams voice. He uses it for all the cats, George, and even Sapnap.

George scoots away from the door, leaving enough room for Dream to squeeze in. His eyes bounce between the shaver that’s sat on the bathroom counter and George who’s curled up in the bathroom corner by the door, as far away from it as possible. He takes a second to triple check it’s all in one piece before scanning George from head to toe for any blood or marks.

George almost offers to remove his shirt just so he’d know that he didn’t do it, he didn’t let it win this time, so maybe Dream would hold him faster, maybe he’d keep George safe from all the noise in his head.

Dream wraps the other up into his arms, managing to carry him out of the bathroom. George felt stupid and small on the cold hard floor, but he feels warm and safe in Dream's arms. He hears Sapnap’s door open as he and Dream are leaving his own room. The three go downstairs, George is placed on the couch, and Sapnap is wrapping George and himself into a blanket.

Dream goes to the kitchen and makes some hot chocolate and heats up a few chocolate chip cookies for them to eat with a movie. Giving George something else to focus on.

The three huddle on the couch for the next two days, just trying to feel whole again.

-

“Sapnap?” George’s voice is so soft as he calls out to the other, his eyes are closed as he wills the image in closer. Soft plastic lining held up by metal, and ropes softly sway as he sits, his thigh touching the younger’s, a soft movie idly playing in the background.

“Yeah?” Thunder rumbles in the distance, the animals run into their own shelters, as the air pauses, awaiting the first drop of water to release from the floodgates.

“Do you ever feel like no matter how hard you try to run in the opposite direction, time always swallows you whole?” George murmurs.

He feels the first drop of water hit his arms, his hands open, turning them upwards towards the sky. The mesh top of the tent allows the water to slowly fill the space. A downpour starts, and George feels his eyes burn.

“I dunno, I guess sometimes, yeah.” Sapnap’s voice is so soft, gentle as the water rises slowly. George feels his heartbeat speed up slowly as the water reaches their waists. Sapnap looks unbothered by the quickly filling tent.

“I think I’m going to die in this house.” George says it so softly, he doesn’t even think that Sapnap hears him. The water rushes up, covering George’s face as he wraps his hand into Sapnap’s. Trying to keep him close.

“At least you won’t be alone.” Sapnap offers.

”It’s about who stands in the rain with you, when they also have a choice to be dry. Remember that.”

It’s been 3 years since George came to Florida, it feels weird saying that now. Time has passed yet he feels like he’s wasted so much of it grieving a person who’s still alive, just not in his story anymore. He’s finally found his way through a lot of the mental gymnastics he’s been put through these past few years. His therapist kept telling him that age doesn’t determine how or when he grieves.

He thinks it’s still slightly stupid. Sure, there’ll be times he feels sad, that’s part of life. But he isn’t as depressed as he used to be. He thinks like he never really stopped being depressed from England. That it was just lurking and waiting to pop up again. Maybe he did need to go through therapy and unpack his abandonment issues from his father, and the way his sister became estranged made him feel.

Maybe at the end of the day, losing those people was a good thing. Maybe it was the last shove he needed to force his stubborn ass into therapy as Sapnap would say. It certainly made them all closer. Friendship lines started slowly but surely blurring, but he wouldn’t change it for the world.

They don’t need a label to describe what they mean to one another. They’ve held each other up through thick, and thin. Heartbreak and heartache. George would go through it all over again, just to have another chance of being with them. They’re his people.

They agreed that they weren’t going to pursue anything between them until George was okay again. Sapnap admitting between tears and anxious truths that he couldn’t handle losing either of them after just getting them. Dream was the same, admitting that even though it was already killing him not being able to help George as it is, it’d be even worse if they were together.

So George and them spent time away from one another. George stayed at the house, Dream visited his mom for a while, and Sapnap went to La. George hung out with Sam, and Tony, talking with them occasionally, but his messages with Dream and Sapnap remained fairly empty. He drove himself to therapy for a few weeks. Continuing his routine as normal, even if it felt a tad emptier. He learned to love the time he spent by himself, and learned to love his own company.

His head became less of an enemy and more of a companion, a duo, someone who understood his pain. After a couple months of time apart, Sapnap finally flew back, Dream drove back, and the three of them had a very long conversation with each other.

Sometimes breaks are crucial to any kind of relationship. Their friendship felt stronger afterwards, having a new understanding of their own feelings and limits. Their feelings for each grew stronger rather than dulled. And after George finally decided he was comfortable decreasing his therapy appointments to once a week, and he started getting back into his routine of properly recording videos and editing them, they finally went out on their first official date.

“I just feel like it’s too tight.” Dream whines, stressing to Sapnap that he’s definitely going to rip his suit.

Sapnap scoffs at the other, and pinches his bicep. “We get it, you have muscles, now stop flexing your arms and showing off or you will actually end up ripping the suit.”

Dream giggles softly, relaxing his arms and back, he pats the side of his hair, about to make another comment on it when George finally shuffles into the room. “This stupid fucking tie is dumb and idiotic. I hate it.”

Dream smiles softly as he drags George closer by the ends of his tie. He fixes his collar and ties it perfectly before smoothing it out on the other's chest. “Well, I think you look handsome.”

George flushes red, and kicks at the leg closest to him.

“Ow! George I didn’t even say anything.” Sapnap huffs. He jumps up and down rubbing his shins in dramatized pain.

George waves at the other, but presses a kiss to his cheek in apology. “You’re okay.”

Dream smiles so wide watching the two, George feels himself getting possible lockjaw from just the sight alone.

“Okay, idiot, shut up.” George mumbles.

“I didn’t say anything!” Dream defends.

“I could feel what you wanted to say though.”

“Wha- George that doesn’t even make any sense!” Dream wheezes.

-

They tried to do a baking stream for Christmas, giving the fans something to watch with the three of them, since George had been mainly MIA for the majority of the past year and a half. It started off normal, making gingerbread houses, a little bit of mischief as they started to make cookies and frosting from scratch. But the real chaos came after they had been mostly finished with frosting the cookies.

Little Christmas trees, Santa Claus’s, Reindeer, and Snowmen with messy frosting stared back at them while they let them dry on the sides. George went to eat one that was definitely underbaked if the way the middle of it was so mushy was any indicator. Dream poked the cookie with a fork, cringing at how mushy it looked.

“Heh, forks…” George looks at the camera for comedic effect, He also looked behind the camera, smirking as he locked eyes with Dream's sister, Carmine who was helping Ken, their manager with recording the stream for the viewers, it took two people and quite a few cameras to keep their chaos on the screen. “I remember the lore of the great, oh so powerful forks.”

Sapnap giggled as he dove for a fork that was left unattended, chasing after Dream and trying to stab him with a fork, Dream screeching back at him “No! That’s a d- That’s a nasty fork! It’s nasty! Don’t touch me with that!”

Sapnap catches up to Dream, going to softly stab the other with the fork, before Dream grabs his wrist, starting to wrestle the fork out of his grip. They push at each other, and knock more things over as they continue to fight back and forth. Eventually, Dream manages to get the fork away from Sapnap, he sets it on the counter away from him, then decides to get his revenge on George by tickling him.

George screams like a banshee as he bolts away from Dream, sprinting as fast as possible to get away from Dreams fingers. “Ohhhh, George!” He taunts as he continues to run after the other.

Carmine tried her hardest to move the camera around to follow the whole event. Giggling softly as she watched them interact. Ken sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose, watching as they bumped into the counter, and knocked over a bowl of frosting they’d made earlier to frost sugar cookies with.

Sapnap eventually started throwing both flour and sugar at Dream to try and “save his discord kitten.” Dream grabbed the extra frosting and started smearing it all over the others cheeks. In the process, some got on Carmine's nose, which made her jump into the chaos, dual wielding forks as she chased them down. She stabbed them with frosting covered prongs, letting out occasional battle cries as she smeared more onto their arms, and legs.

While cackling maniacally at the scene, Ken moved the camera around, following the group. He kept mumbling about just how dumb they were while showing the mess they left behind. Bowls flipped and turned, spatulas on the counters, a paper towel roll unraveled across the table, Patches stepped over some of the mess on the floor, twitching her paw as she cleaned her other one after stepping in some of the flour on the floor.

She turned her nose upwards at the absolute chaos they were causing, just watching them wreck the open living room next, Milo and Naomi scampered across the floor, knocking things over of their own on their way around. Patches and Ken exchanged a glance before she jumped up onto the counter, and then his shoulders to get away from the grimey flooring.

George licks the frosting off his fingers as he smiles widely at the other two in the kitchen. The stream has since ended, and there’s a mess of crumbs, sticky frosting, and dirty silverware everywhere. George gasped, his heart fluttered happily in his chest. Dream and Ken groaned in sync as they looked back at the mess, fork shaped frosting marks all over Dream and Sapnap’s shirts, arms, legs, necks, and faces made George and Carmine exchange a look before they fell over with laughter. Flour and sugar dusting the cabinets and floors.

”I never used to let people come too close. And then there was you, that came in and settled in the depths of my soul.”