redamancy || georgenotfound

nineteen

I never enjoyed silences to begin with, but this one in particular made me want to crawl into the ground underneath me.

After a very aggressive goodbye to Dream, George smacked the mouse in a manner that made me slightly recoil back as he exited out of Discord. The silence loomed ominously like the sky's forbidden eye laughing at our impending situation.

George's paling over quickly was replaced with a dark red that only added onto my embarrassment. His eyes darted everywhere in the room while avoiding me, which I could understand. I thickly swallowed as I chewed my lip, unsure of how to break the pressurizing silence enveloping the room.

"I- I'm sorry, about that." Surprisingly, George was the first to speak, finally taking the knife and slicing through the tension. He chuckled nervously and remained stiff in his position, his eyes still bouncing off the walls.

"It's fine," I managed to reply without shouting out the millions of questions buzzing over my head. I fought back the urge to pace around and remained where I stood, a couple feet away from George. "So..."

"Yeah, uh, sorry," he exhaled. "It was just, a joke between Dream and I. I- I didn't think he'd, you know, say it out loud." He laughed nervously in what I assumed was an attempt to lighten to atmosphere, quite similar to sticking a band-aid onto a bullet wound.

"So, it was just a joke, then?"

He slowly nodded, chewing on his lip. I nodded as a confirmation of my understanding, swallowing the guttural cry crawling up my throat. "So... do you want to play Minecraft? We could PVP," he suggested out of the blue.

I smiled, and dragged my feet out of the graphing quicksand it was drowning in. "Sure." I steadily made my way over to his desk, where he had pulled his chair out.

"Sit," he instructed, making my brows crease and hesitation increase. He seemed to notice my dubious expression and rolled his eyes. "Come on, it's not like there's some bomb under the chair."

I scoffed in response before grudgingly sitting on the chair, the wheels spinning as George pushed the chair in so I was sitting straight at his desk. I remained with my hands in my hoodie pocket as he leaned over my shoulder to open up Minecraft. His breathing was loud in my ear and echoed through my brain, almost causing me to squirm uncomfortably as the waves of the sound began to crawl their way into my nerves. I forced myself to stare straight ahead and to not give into my brain screaming at me to admire George's side profile as he focused on the bright screen of his computer. I could finally breathe again once he succeeded in opening a new server that displayed desolate plains biome.

"Ready?" he asked, as if it were an exam that would make or break my success in the future.

I nodded, and used every cell of willpower to ignore George's warm hand over mine as he helped navigate through all the controls.

•••

GEORGE

George slumped exhaustedly against the wall after slamming the door shut behind him. His hands harshly rubbed at his eyes as if it would erase the regret slowly blossoming in his chest that he had pushed down for the past couple hours.

He pulled out his phone, and groaned when he scrolled through the fifteen notifications from Dream, from missed messages to missed FaceTimes, each phrase being repeated over and over like a mantra. George ran his thumb along the edge of his phone as the ring quickly turned into the familiar ding, indicating that Dream was on the other end.

"Dream-"

"George, I'm so sorry," The blonde sounded panicked, his breaths coming out in short bursts George didn't like. "I had no clue she was there, I'm so-"

"Dream." George's assertive tone made Dream go quiet instantly, and he heard his best friend take a long breath in and out before clearing his throat.

"I'm sorry," mumbled Dream once again. George was starting to get really sick of hearing those words. "What... happened after?"

The pit of guilt began to creep up higher and higher in George's stomach, giving him the same feeling that he got before he puked. His lips slowly parted as he tried to come up with an answer that wouldn't cause Dream to lash out again, or more, that wouldn't cause himself to finally realize the extent of his mistake.

"I said it was a joke."

The silence did it for George, whose legs had given out from under him as he slid down to the ground. He could feel the ache in his arm from holding the phone, and perched his elbow on his knee as he waited for Dream's response.

"George, what?"

"I said it was a joke." His heart burned in his chest, twisting within itself, something he hadn't felt since Adriana.

He could hear shuffling on Dream's end of the call, and assumed it was Dream's pacing he did whenever he needed to think. "Tell me everything."

George found himself wanting to resist, but the words he had been holding back for however long it had been flowed out of him faster than he could build the dam.

•••

DREAM

He listened to every word crawling out of George's throat for the next two hours. He made notes of every sniffle, cough, choke, or cry he heard escape from George. His heart ached for his best friend, and he wanted to punch himself for what he had unknowingly done.

His scheduled stream could wait. Of course, the guilt only cut deeper into him, but the internet could wait a little longer. George couldn't.

He listened to every word that escaped George's mouth, sat on the edge of his bed with Patches snuggled to his chest. He didn't know what to say, but it wasn't necessary. George just needed to get everything out at the moment, and Dream respected that. 

•••

RIA

Ria wasn't an idiot. She knew something was very wrong when her little sister slammed the door so hard it rattled her easel with her newest canvas perched onto it. Frustrated, she set her paintbrush down onto the palette and scrambled to her door. 

When she exited her room, her mouth fell slightly agape when she found Aurora pouring herself a glass of the large Scotch bottle Ria had specifically told her was off-limits.

"Hey, what the hell?"

"Just shut up," Aurora took a long sip of the Scotch, her face scrunching into a sour look as she exhaled after gulping it down.

Ria's brows raised at the sudden change in her sister's usual demeanor. Slowly inching her way over to the counter, her surprise only increased when Aurora clutched another glass in her hand, pouring some of the alcohol halfway before sliding it over to where Ria stood.

"Drink," she commanded, tapping on the glass before taking another gulp out of her own. "You and I are getting drunk tonight so we can forget today."

"Well, what happened today?" asked Ria as she hesitantly brought the glass to her lips, downing some of the strong Scotch.

Aurora laughed, and breezed over to the couch where she slumped down on, hand blindly searching for the remote. "I can only say once I'm drunk so that I don't remember anything tomorrow."

***
a/n
this may seem very dramatic to some people but love is pain you know

ALSO! ap exams are in two weeks and i am extremely unprepared so i probably won't be as active as i used to be on this app for around the next two weeks cause i have to get good scores on those tests :-) thank you all for sticking around take care of yourselves! <3