Chapter Text
Dream’s mother used to joke about how one day he’d grow old with a lover, buy a house near the water, and become so lazy that he’d never work on the maintenance. He’d let the mildew grow, allow the humidity to pour through the cracks in the window, watch his bill go up and up until he was knocking on his parents’ door, politely asking for help on how to remove the residue.
He was stubborn back then, sure, with whatever adolescent attitude and free-spirited wish to be rebellious soared through him. But at some point he tightened his hands on a lawn mower and helped his father outside, washed the dishes when his mother had left for the day.
He’d spend hours dusting, accidentally breaking a frame or two, trying to get around the tops of the metal racks in his home, just to get a pat on the back and a grin from his parents.
Dream grew up with a good grip on his shoulders and constructive arms around his belly every time he felt himself slip.
And as Dream got older, he stayed close to his family. He’d stream, he’d treat them to what they deserved, what they had wanted to have. But every day, they’d joke about it—growing old with that lover, that house near the water.
But absolutely no one in Dream’s life had expected this.
Tiny, wet hands that cling to his legs as he turns up the volume in his headset. A babble, a giggle, strands of hair that press to his knee as Dream looks up at Sapnap’s icon on his computer screen.
“I mean,” Sapnap says, voice low. “A fuckin’ daughter, man?”
Dream takes a deep breath, holds it at the bottom of his lungs until he finds the energy to let it out, softly and cautiously from his nostrils.
His fingertips fade over the top of his daughter’s hair, disappearing near her ears. She looks up, flutters her eyes shut like she knows there is distress somewhere far beyond the front that Dream gives her.
He frowns at her.
“Yeah,” Dream clicks his tongue. “A daughter, Sap.”
Her eyes brighten. And when they do, Dream feels the innermost part of his chest lift. He’s exhausted. It’s raining. He has spent the past ten hours ignoring Sapnap with his entire being, hoping that he hadn’t heard the mutters of his mother when she had stumbled into his house last night with an apologetic voice and worry laced throughout her.
She had asked, god, she really asked him if he was going to be busy last night. And Dream told her the truth—that his schedule was free. No recording. No streams. Just him, an empty bed, and the heat of a well-deserved shower.
Which is why she had originally laid a kiss on Dream's head, promised him she’d take the young girl for the night, and leave Dream with the quietness of his own home.
But when sleep hadn’t called him, when Dream hadn’t dared to slip under his covers—a mix of missing his daughter for the night and already having a fucked up sleep schedule, he called Sapnap. And for hours, they talked. They had talked about nonsense, about space, science, about the fact that Sapnap was looking back into online classes for when he officially moved in with Dream.
Dream had felt so lazy in his chair that he even thought about telling him about his kid—the one thing he hadn’t done for years, now.
His muscles had relaxed. He lazed further into the leather that he never saw his mother’s texts. Not one.
And he regrets it now as he thinks about it—how it could’ve been an emergency, how his daughter could’ve been hurt while he was sitting somewhere, laughing about nonsense, swearing and chuckling and being a fool. Fuck.
He had noticed the ring of the front door first, quick and loud. And once he had, he turned his phone over to reveal the front door alerts, along with the other text messages.
Sweetheart, I got called into work.. I need to bring E by. Is that okay? She had first written, followed by another ten minutes later, Clay. Are you asleep? Your sister is out. I already asked if she could watch her.
I’m on my way. Gonna have to wake you. Sorry, love.
Dream remembers the way his heart had sunk at the familiarity in her messages, the sweet, caring tone she had given him every time he needed her advice. He remembers brushing his thumb over the missed calls. His stomach had sunk.
Dream knew he had been too stunned to hit mute on his mic, too shocked at the revelation of his mother’s arrival. The way she had pushed on the door once she had heard silence, once she stepped through with the words, “I’m so sorry, but I need to drop her off, I’ve got work, dear.”
Even his daughter’s active voice, excitement and warm eyes at the late hour as she saw her father, her voice already muttering out for her father.
And Sapnap, sitting quietly and curiously, had heard everything.
Dream hadn’t slept the entire night after he had hung up, shooting Sapnap an, I will explain later, text. Instead, his eyes bore into the paint of the wall, glancing from his bed—where his daughter had slept—back to his computer screen, where Sapnap’s icon rested offline.
For hours, Dream thought about calling him again, pouring his heart out, explaining. But none of his words could even get to the tip of his tongue. And therefore, he let it rest.
Until now, when Sapnap’s busy mouth asks question after question.
Dream listens, of course.
It’s his decency to, and he’s spent so long holding this back from Sapnap that he wants to talk to him. There’s just a part of him that wishes Sapnap could already get it—from the painful eating of guilt to the crumbling anxiousness, all the way to the trembling sadness revolving around the situation. He wishes Sapnap could know why he’s hid this from him.
But he doesn’t. And that leaves Dream here, holding small fingers in the palm of his hands as he rolls back and forth in his chair.
On his desk are papers of different sizes, some of them in wooden frames, some laminated. They’re drawings that his daughter has perfected, blues and yellows and reds, her favorite colors, all mashed together. Dream keeps every single thing she makes. He understands her need to create. She must have that desire to do something, even if it’s pressing too hard with crayons on paper and poking holes and proceeding to get wax on the couch. He keeps it all.
She keeps busy now, murmuring to herself as Dream talks to Sapnap. She stands by Dream’s legs, crayons in her hands as she tries not to bump her head against the desk. Dream watches her thoughtfully, dips his fingers underneath the desk when she goes from the ground and then up.
“Does she,” Sapnap clears his throat. “Does she look like you?”
Dream has this heat that grows at the bottom of his spine. He looks down, feels digging into his calf. He grins.
“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters before he looks up at his webcam, closed off, like it’s quietly watching him despite being covered. “Do you wanna video call?”
If Dream sounds forceful, he doesn’t know. If Sapnap is not taking this well, he doesn’t know. But he knows he is trying, stepping forward onto these hot stones that are hardly enough to get the two of them on the right track again.
“I’d love to,” Sapnap whispers.
Dream can hear the way he sits up further in his chair.
He must be running his fingers over the front part of his desk, scraping crumbs off. He’s cleaning up. Dream chuckles when Sapnap swears through his mic. He apologizes, but Dream fills him in with a, “she’s not wearing the headset, Sap.”
Dream doesn’t give a thought to the way he’s dressed. He only lifts his daughter onto his lap and switches his camera on the moment he finds Sapnap smiling softly at him through the warm tones of his room.
“Hey,” Dream whispers as his camera loads. “One sec.”
“Take your time.”
He sounds nervous. And Dream’s fingers shake as he pulls on the front part of his daughter’s shirt, fixes at her messy hair and the drool dribbling at her chin. Dream knows it’s at his knee as well, but he doesn’t wipe it off.
They’ve had such a lazy day, so it’s expected for the both of them to look like they haven’t left bed. Sapnap will understand.
“Here, sweetheart.” Dream notices the camera turning on, but he doesn’t look up. He pulls the collar of his own shirt to wipe her face a little smoother. “Jesus, E. What is this?”
“Cookie,” she tries to tell him, but winces and pushes his hand away when Dream tries to wipe her face.
Dream is stalling now. He’s too shy to look up, too scared. Part of him wants to pretend his camera is broken, but he knows it’s on, it’s working, because Sapnap is here, and he’s looking at the two of them.
“Sorry,” he chuckles, “she was eating like, chocolate, or something.”
As his face tilts up, and as his eyes meet the screen again, Dream swallows hard. Sapnap is his best friend. Dream has spent hours staring at his face, but somehow, after all of his time, he looks much more intriguing. Dream looks from his eyebrows to his nose to his mouth, searching for any sort of twitch, any raise of emotion. And already, his gut turns as he imagines what Sapnap will say.
Dream’s hands rest on his daughter’s belly as he turns her fully, his chin soon sitting just on the top of her head. She gives a frustrated grin. Dream copies her.
“Holy shit, Dream,” Sapnap whispers. “I just got like—I got butterflies in my stomach just from seeing the two of you.”
God. He can’t help it.
Dream chokes on a sob.
His face hides in the warmth of his child’s shoulder and he tries to hold his tears back, but he hardly even registers that Sapnap is crying, too.
There’s a glossiness in his friend’s eyes, and a rush of sadness goes plunging through Dream. He feels trapped in his emotions, the cough in his throat coiling around inside of him. It’s buried so deep, all the pain and worry and regret, but Sapnap looks at him like he wants Dream to let it out already, and Dream can’t help but tremble in his seat.
His lip curls down.
“Kills me,” Sapnap sniffles, voice on empty and running low, “to just know you did this all alone.”
The sounds that echo back through his headset are too weak for his heart. He thinks of the first four months after his daughter was born—how miserable he was every time he’d log onto Sapnap’s streams, onto George’s. How he’d sit in the calls with tear stains down his cheeks and with an unfamiliar burn down the center of his chest.
He ponders momentarily about how tired he’d be, half asleep but still restless to be involved with his friends. Or how he’d cry with a muted mic when he thinks about his frustrated fights with his mother—or even his sister when she’d tell him to get rest, and when he’d disobey, when he’d use his free time to work.
Then there were the oblivious features of his friends, who made joke after joke in their streams, in their calls. Alone, away from fans, they’d talk about life, future, and every time, Dream would bite his lip, wishing he could break his tension and just,
Tell them, tell them, tell them, he’d cry to himself. But month after month would pass and Dream would bare his teeth, sink his claws into the air, and still have nothing to grip but the loneliness of time.
“I could’ve,” Dream admits. “So many times.”
Sapnap stays quiet a moment, and while Dream sniffles, the little girl in his lap turns, taps against his face like the tears are common. Dream kisses at her hand, promises her he is okay.
He acts like nothing is wrong. Like Sapnap isn’t crying in front of him when he should scold Dream, when Dream should accept his harsh words for keeping such a serious thing from him.
“Why didn’t you?” Sapnap asks as he swipes the back of his hand over his nose. “I mean, not even George?”
The mention of their other friend brings Dream into a new reality. Soft, brown, messy hair on his screen, a grin that laughs and cheeks that turn rosy any time Dream teases him. A light squeal into his headset at the late hours of the night, once Dream is alone in his tranquility. George, the rough paper that sands Dream down. Warm, fluffy bread. Fuck, Dream thinks. George.
“No.” Dream has a hard time spitting out the word. “And I—”
He stops himself.
What? Does he think George is just never going to find out?
Sapnap’s low chuckle is more sarcastic than Dream thinks he meant it to come off.
“You don’t want him to find out, or what?” Sapnap asks. “You don’t think George is into dads?”
Dream wants to swear at him. Some aching swirl in the pit of his stomach wants to reach into his screen and grab Sapnap by the collar to tell him to mind his business, or to watch his mouth. But Sapnap is joking. They’ve always messed around like this.
“Funny.” Dream dares to let the word tumble past his lips.
Sapnap doesn’t catch on to his struggle. He only looks back at the screen and sighs.
The air shifts, and Dream scoots further up in his chair as he inhales a deep breath. It’s quiet, and for that, Dream is thankful. Peace is ease in such a tense moment, but even like this, Dream can’t take these seconds for himself. He squeezes his daughter’s finger softly when she wraps her hand around his pointer.
“So many reasons, Sapnap,” Dream starts.
Start talking then, Dream is sure Sapnap wants to snap.
But he doesn’t. He sits back and plays with the strings of his pants, so mindlessly, as though he’s ready to listen.
And Dream says it all. He tells Sapnap about privacy issues, his fears of being exposed, of his daughter’s identity being poured online like some simple joke. Fans, friends, people taking her for their own. Businesses, podcasts, interviews, all sorts of companies—all of them ready with vicious, open arms about how one of the most popular Minecraft streamers has a kid on the other side of his computer.
Then—then, there was the view of whatever supposed relationship he could be in. His daughter’s mother. People eating that up like fucking dessert. Dream swallows his nervousness when he gets on the topic, but Sapnap says nothing. He only listens.
And when he bites on the end of his lip, when he feels as though still his words aren’t enough to explain why he couldn’t have told his best friends, Dream shrugs.
“Dunno, Sap,” Dream whimpers softly. “I’m so sorry.”
After a couple of moments to himself, Sapnap brings his face to the camera.
“You never told me her name.”
Dream can see the flicker of warmth that Sapnap tries to share through the screen. He’s got this tinge of a smile, just creeping up the longer he sits there, alone and waiting for Dream to reply.
But Dream can only mess with the edge of his pants. He can only bite on the tip of his tongue as he stares at the brunette hair in front of him. He chuckles, runs his fingers over the small forehead until all of it comes back.
“You’re going to laugh, dude,” Dream says right off the bat.
“Laugh?” Sapnap—well, he laughs. But he stops himself and then takes a breath. “Oh god, Dream. What did you do?”
The way Dream holds a little girl on his lap, bumping her up every couple of seconds with his knee, is gentle. Sapnap watches with deep-set eyes of curiosity, cocks his head to the left as he looks back and forth.
Dream takes a deep breath and then licks at his lips, and for whatever reason, the air doesn’t taste as burnt anymore. It comes into his body a lot smoother, much gentler.
“I named her after something in Minecraft,” Dream admits.
Sapnap doesn’t laugh. He raises his brow.
“After a block?”
“No.” Dream forces out a laugh. “I, uh—no. I really love her name, so I hope you do too.”
He lifts the little girl’s right hand up, pushes his pointer finger into her palm, and snickers at the way she immediately closes around his finger. He uses both of their hands to wave at Sapnap.
“Tell me, motherfucker.”
“Not with that mouth.”
Sapnap slides down in his chair. “She can’t hear me!”
The smile melts onto Dream’s face, and he drowns in the easy fire of warmth for a moment, just looking between Sapnap and his own camera on the screen. His head shakes from side to side as he disapproves of the words from his friend’s mouth.
“This is Elytra,” he says confidently, then whispers down to her ear. “Say hi to Sapnap.”
She grins and swings her hand, repeating the word “hello,” every time that Dream squeezes at her side.
Again, Sapnap says nothing.
Dream waits, feels that force against his chest. He swallows thick worry, feels it scrape against the walls in his throat. But he doesn’t know why. Maybe because this is Sapnap he’s talking to, maybe because this feels like he’s walking through some sort of approval like how it went with his mother, when he brought up the idea with his sister—who only grinned wider than Dream had ever seen her smile before.
“That’s. Dream, that suits your little family,” Sapnap smiles, turns his cheeks into a rosy, pleasant tone of red.
Dream wants to giggle.
“Elytra,” Sapnap repeats. “Hi Elytra. Hello, uh, Elytra. E—”
“Okay, Sap, okay,” Dream laughs this time, genuine and kind from the deepest part of his belly.
Dream rubs his nose against his shoulder. He’s shy now, turning the same embarrassing shade of red that Sapnap is just on the opposite side of the screen.
When it’s Sapnap’s turn to become shy again, Dream just watches. He thinks about where he’s at, how he’s gotten here, and what sort of steps are forward. There’s so many, some of them worse than the others, but Dream wants to lie in bliss for now.
His desk is all sticky, and he wants to clean it, but there’s a little too much on his mind. So instead, he sighs out a rough, low grunt, and looks at Sapnap with a soft shrug.
“I want to come sooner,” Sapnap tells him.
Dream doesn’t stand up to deny him. He doesn’t roll his shoulders forward to tell him no. Sapnap doesn’t deserve that—and Dream doesn’t want that. Dream wants him here sooner. But with Elytra on his lap, with a sudden humidity in the air, Dream already feels like he is here.
But whether he likes it or not, Dream is scared.
Scared of the world disagreeing with his friends moving in, with Sapnap coming earlier than he should be coming.
All Dream can give him is a smile, something as genuine as he gives him when it’s just the two of them, like he does on their late night calls. Because hidden behind it is his intensifying panic. Behind the tautness of his lips and the bone of his teeth is the word, George.
The world around them is all easy.
The weather is sweet, not hot to a blaze where it makes sweat drip down Dream’s back. Not like the incoming months of summer when Dream worried about whether Elytra would get too hot and grow a sunburn when they brought her to the beach for the first time. There’s a breeze, despite the humidity as they shift into early May. And Dream doesn’t have an excuse for his cloudy thoughts.
But Sapnap sees right through him.
Even when Dream agrees with him, tells him to come sooner, says yes and yes and yes, Sapnap knows Dream is thinking beyond that. About how George will wonder why he’s moving sooner than he should be.
The two of them talk for another hour. And when Elytra falls asleep against Dream’s shoulder, drools onto the skin of his neck, Sapnap chuckles.
“I’m afraid he’ll hate me,” Dream whispers. “I’m terrified.”
The sincerity in Sapnap’s eyes is enough to draw a pathetic and unspoken whimper from Dream’s lips.
“You had a kid, Clay,” Sapnap says. “You didn’t grow another seven arms.”
“I’m thinking that might be less scary.”
Sapnap’s smile is playful, and his head shakes from left to right as his eyes flutter to a close.
“George loves you,” he whispers, and when his voice drops even lower, Dream thinks he might die. “You know that.”
Love.
Dream’s palm flattens over his daughter’s back. She lies still against him, as always. Dream is grateful for how good of a sleeper she is, always tucking so tightly into his side, against his chest, only waking at certain times to poke her fingers into his hair, to rest her hands on his belly. He does the same—turns to find her, nuzzles in close, pulls her to a more comfortable position, lifts the blanket up to reassure that she is warm.
And he’ll just watch. He’ll let his careful eyes drift shut in soft blinks as the backs of his knuckles touch over her skin—and he’ll think.
Sometimes, he wonders if Sapnap will do the same, if George will.
The thought makes his stomach turn. He doesn’t know whether the feeling in his stomach makes him feel failed, to know that he terrified for his friends to show up, to all sit close to him, to look at him with these eyes of wonder, to look at him like he’s some crumpling wound trying to heal, holding a soft-boned child in his hands.
Elytra keeps him strong. For that, Dream is thankful.
“I know,” Dream nods.
“Go to bed,” Sapnap says. “You need rest. Talk to him when you’re ready.”
Dream looks up toward him, helplessly. Sapnap is a sudden light through the darkness in his room. He smirks at Dream, sprouts a wild look in his eyes and then licks his lips.
“Let us in, Dream,” he says. “You’ve done so much by letting us move into your home, so let us into this part of your family. We’ll be honored, so fucking honored to be there with the two of you. I promise.”
Later that night, when Dream bathes Elytra somewhere around three in the morning, he cries again.
He lets his tears fall in a sloppy way, wet and far from graceful, dripping down his cheeks as he surrenders to his emotions that he's been holding back. The faucet in the bathtub runs, hits the warm water underneath his hands, against Elytra's body in a way that shows sadness. She knows, as she always has, the emotions that rain from her father. And Dream wishes that maybe sometimes she wouldn't know him this well, that they weren't the same blood, that she didn't have to see him weep in the humid bathroom under the light of what three in the morning looks like.
"You'll love Sapnap." Dream brings his nose down to Elytra's. "And George. You'll love 'em. You will."
His fingertips lather shampoo into her hair, soft and steady as he hums to her. She hardly pays attention, most of her focus on the colorful cups that she fills with water, that she dunks underneath to stare at.
Dream hates thinking back to her first year, when he was getting good at all of this, when his hands felt like bricks every time he touched her skin, when he feared that every cough meant something worse, when he'd slip away from his bedroom to call his mom with a sharp, spiraling, desperate voice. But every time she was there.
Things make sense now, he thinks as he wraps her in a towel.
"Uh oh," Dream makes a face at her, "we forgot pants."
"Uh oh," she says back to him.
He's tired.
Fuck, he's so goddamn tired after today. And he knows that a nap would have been ideal between hanging up with Sapnap and between Elytra's random waking in the middle of the night. But he didn't sleep, and now his eyelids are heavy, and the younger one in front of him is growing sleepy, and all Dream wants to do is lie down with her and feel the night close in on him. He wants to think about how he's going to tell George and how that is going to feel, how the threat and the tightness in his throat will squeeze at him.
Maybe if he thinks hard enough, he can prepare for it.
Elytra makes a sound with her mouth, and when Dream looks up, he gets that familiar sense of worry. She coughs, and then groans, kicks her feet out a couple times out on the counter. Then she looks up at Dream and laughs.
"Pants," she says.
He nods his head in solidarity.
"Pants."
They always repeat to each other like this.
Dream craves a deep sleep that night, but as far as he remembers, he doesn't rest but for thirty minutes, especially when he can't get the thought of George out of his mind. Sleep is afraid of him—as it is almost every night.
When Dream closes his eyes, all he sees is George.
✩
Truthfully, Dream has never really been scared.
He’s had bundled up tension before performances back in middle school, has been worried over stupid things like fights with his family. He’s felt the panic up in his lungs over stuff with Elytra, but all of that would fade out only moments after it had started.
Relief always feels good.
But as he sits on the edge of his bed, as his phone sweats in the palm of his hand, Dream comes to realize that he’s never felt such immobility from fear.
George said he would be available to talk almost twenty minutes ago, but then sent a text telling Dream he needed to shower right before.
Dream shrugged it off, assured him it was fine. To George, this was a simple call. But to Dream, he had already been walking on glass shards for hours, swallowing them down before his mouth was even open.
Even on a good day, Dream would call this stinging in his heart dreadful. His lungs were on fire, and all he could picture was George’s newly wet hair, his overly fitted sweatshirt and his weak smile turning foul, his squinted eyes glaring at the wall as Dream tells and tells and tells him this thing he’s held back from him.
Betrayal, George would think. Hatred.
He doesn’t bother with Discord, and for this reason, Dream supposes George knows it’s somewhere on the serious side. But if he knows, then Dream hardly understands why he’s pushing it off. It’s causing his chest to tighten and sizzle and squeeze.
Dream takes a deep breath through his nose when he sends another text.
You almost ready?
It doesn’t take but a second for George to type.
i was just getting comfortable; he writes. i’ll call you now?
A chilly spew of tension curls underneath Dream’s chest. He swallows, his throat too dry to fill his silence with a sigh.
Sure.
facetime?
No, no, Dream texts back. Just audio if it’s ok.
course :)
The same fear that’s been sitting underneath Dream’s lungs has seized flight and has landed up in his throat. When George’s name comes across his phone, Dream’s body freezes to a halt. His nostrils are too clear, and when he takes a deeper breath in, his eyes burn. They burn red and give him a hazy vision as he stares at the screen. It rings and rings and Dream’s fingers tingle as he accepts the call.
“Hey!” George says, voice dry. He groans as the blankets on his side of the phone shift around, “sorry, I was showering—” he yawns, “—I figured we’d be on here for a while, so I wanted to get that over with first. How are you?”
It’s only then when Dream realizes they haven’t actually spoken like this for a while now. It’s been hardly any texts and catching each other on streams for over a week now.
And now that Dream thinks about it, he’s texted George so suddenly with, “can we call, there’s something I’d like to talk to you about,” and—
“Dream?”
“Yeah?”
George chuckles.
“I asked how you are doing.”
Dream stares at the pattern over his knitted blanket. “Oh.”
The night is getting longer, and Dream is stalling. He is stalling, and George is already worrying and Dream is fucking this entire thing up.
“You okay?” George asks.
There it is.
It’s a pathway, clear and open and ready.
But Dream is so uneasy that the rise and fall of his chest has become too unpatterned, and spit pools under his tongue, slips out on top, encouraging him to swallow, edging him to take a breath, to keep his throat from getting too rough.
“Dream,” George says again, this time lower, softer, but more dangerous. “What is going on?”
He knows.
“I need to talk to you about... something.”
The call moves quieter this time. Much softer breaths, less tension. Dream has finally let it out that what he needs to tell George—that little doubt pestering in his head—is something important.
George says nothing, he hums down the line like he’s already accepted it, like he’s already taken in every ounce of doubt in Dream’s brain. But Dream knows it’s a lie.
“Okay.”
Dream’s fingers curl at his blanket.
He sighs, allowing the breath against his chest to settle his nerves.
If only he could whisper these words, if only George could hear him, see him, take in what he needs to say by just looking at him. Maybe then George would get this a lot easier. His face hardens into something like clay.
He wants George to take in this information, to know that everything he’s saying is real.
If anything, George will be upset with him, and Dream will deal with it, and he accepts that. He knows that. It’s his own fault for driving this far along saying nothing, and now as he lies alone in his bed, with his phone resting against his rib cage, he thinks that time must heal.
And he’ll do whatever it takes to heal with George.
“I, uh,” he takes a breath, “I have a kid, George.”
A sudden, dark stillness goes rushing down the line. Dream can feel every hair stand up on his body like someone has blown air against his neck. But the trees still sway outside his window, the rain still bleeds, and the moonlight still sings. Everything is still normal.
Except for George. He says nothing.
And Dream knows silence. He’s so familiar with it, loves it, but this? He can’t take this.
“Did you hear me?”
“I heard you.”
Oh.
George needs time. He needs time, Dream reminds himself.
“Do you need a minute?” Dream dares to ask.
“Do I need a minute?” He snickers. “You’re not kidding about this?”
George leaves another laugh at the end of his sentence.
And suddenly, Dream’s defences are up. His chest has risen with heat, his nerves turning when the ball of tension drops from his heart to his stomach.
“I’m not joking around when it comes to my family, George,” Dream fumes through his teeth.
George pauses for a second.
If Dream could see his face right now, he’d assume that there’d be a crimson, vivacious color painted on George’s face. Because as he opens his mouth, Dream swears he’s never heard such blood from him.
“Oh, you’ve got a family now, have you?”
The air in Dream’s bedroom goes hot. His mattress becomes too warm, and the sweat forms along the nape of his neck. He shudders when the words repeat past his ears again. George’s tone.
Dream wants to forget he ever called him.
These spoken words taste sour.
His defenses are up, but Dream feels too weak.
“Don’t ever talk to me like that again,” Dream says in a voice barely above a whisper.
George never oversteps like this, but Dream can tell he’s mad, too. George’s fingers must be splayed over his sheets, gripping hard as he bites on his lip or his tongue to prevent another spray of feverish words.
As Dream hopes, George says nothing in return.
“Okay.”
Dream wants to give everything up and go back to yesterday, back to the bath he sat in, back to dinner with his mother and sister and Elytra, when his face had gone all wine from laughing. That was better than whatever the hell this is.
Does he hang up?
Dream doesn’t know what to do. He just taps his fingers on his knee and gnaws on his lip. He’s like the walls of an old building in foul weather, wearing down slowly. Is George the rain?
“Are you, uh, in a relationship?” George asks.
“No,” Dream answers immediately. “I haven’t seen her mother since the hospital.”
Hopelessness crowds him. And Dream wonders if he should say something this time.
“You have a girl?” George says softly.
“I do.”
Silence.
“You said you haven’t seen her mother since the day she was born. How...” George pauses a moment. “How long ago was that?”
Dream feels his pulse throbbing at the base of his skull. It’s inched its way around his head, caught onto the edges of his jaw, to finally hold him against his bed. This—this question George is asking, is what’s been coiling up in his belly. And Dream is terrified to answer.
“She’s two, George.”
Dream understands the silence, the deep-rooted reaching that George must be doing. Dream pauses, for just a moment, and stares off at the wall where one of his canvases lies—it’s got the sunset on it, taken from a beautiful place somewhere along a beach. Dream wishes he were there, far from this gut wrenching feeling he has in his body, much further away from the weakening gulps he swallows down.
“Two,” George says, still somewhere between breathing and sighing. “You’ve had a child for two years.”
Dream turns his cheek. He presses skin to his pillowcase, hopes desperately that his feverish feeling will disappear.
“Yeah,” he says aimlessly. “There’s so many reasons I haven’t spoken about this, and even when I told Sapnap, I—”
“Sapnap knows?”
Dream wants to die.
He’s suddenly thrown back against his walls, and the breath goes screaming out of him. There’s so much frustration in this tiny moment, and all Dream wants to do is remind George of who they are, what’s next to come. Because he’s always been like this. He’s always been positive, filling trapped moments with light that leads them to success. But this time, Dream has felt the surrounding pressure, and needs the assistance out.
“Yes.” Dream throws a hand up, lets it fall back onto his mattress. “I told him the other night. But only because he overheard my mom. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I wanted to—”
“Were you just gonna let it slide? Not tell us? Hope it played off as something else?”
Something moves behind Dream’s fingertips. He twitches them twice, lets them hesitate over the end call button. He even clenches his hands into fists as he stares off at that canvas against his wall.
“You’re pissing me off, George.”
“Maybe you should be pissed off,” George says lowly. “How did you expect me to react to this? Good? I don’t even know what to think, Dream. You just threw this on me.”
The tenseness in Dream’s shoulders has already made his neck hurt. It aches, just listening to George talk like it’s Dream’s fault for having this conversation.
Dream doesn’t want to argue. He doesn’t want George to grit his teeth, to bite with his bark, he wants him to listen, to understand, to hear him out. But this life isn’t meant for that.
Their friendship isn’t as simple as roasting marshmallows on a hot summer evening. They’ve spent years building this, years promising each other to stick like glue, like mud. But Dream has lied to him, has kept something from him, and he wants George to walk into this conversation and say, “congratulations Dream! I’ll be there soon.”
He almost whimpers at his own thoughts, almost rolls his eyes at himself. It’s not what he wants, but fuck, if he could have it.
“I know,” Dream says, voice soothing. “I know I brought this to the table so suddenly, George. I know it came out of nowhere and it’s scary. I’m terrified right now. I’m fucking scared to be talking to you. I’m mad, too. But, I don’t want you to think that I was going to... just say nothing.”
George goes silent.
If Dream could see him, he swears that maybe he’d see hope. A chance within George’s eyes. Because he hears a croak, so light as he whispers, “then why haven’t you?”
“George, please.”
Dream stops breathing for a minute. Because this is where he gives George his all. This is where he tells him about the deepest, most hidden parts of him, the reasons he and Elytra have been so hidden with their lives for the past two years. But all he can think about is George and his beating heart in a bed across an ocean.
All Dream can think about is the fact that George is supposed to be moving here, with him, with his daughter, and his mouth is running like it’s on fire.
“If you...” Dream begins, starts like he doesn’t want to lose. “If this is going to change your mind about moving here, then please tell me now.”
Dream takes a breath, gazes at the screen that George’s name lights up with. The number increases with the seconds that go by.
“Are you—You know what,” George chuckles low. “Never mind, Dream. Fuck you for thinking that low of me. I can’t do this right now, goodnight.”
Dream watches the room light up when George ends the call. The clock on his phone tells him it’s hardly nine in the evening, but to him, it feels far past four.
That night, Dream falls asleep with the weight of tear stains against his cheeks.