"Yeah, of course we are."
"Really? Nothing more?"
I clenched my hands behind my back as he took in the surroundings of the house. He walked around the room, messing with the small random gadgets and things lying around the room. I stayed planted where he left me.
"I don't see how you can make this room a party room, Sapnap," I said, scanning around the almost completely empty room. Aside from the random old toys in the corner and the broken down kitchen that didn't even take up a quarter of the room, there was nothing but sand.
He snickered, "Imagination, Clay. We just pretend. We can also make a sand castle cake, kind of like what we did for our thirteenth birthdays, you remember that?"
I nodded.
"But, don't try to change the subject. You have a thing for the poetry boy."
I tried to retaliate but all that came out were some random sputter of words. Not even I knew what I was trying to say. My entire body heated up like a candle, my eyes were wide with surprise that Sapnap would make such a bold statement when the poetry boy in question was only a wall away and an empty doorway away.
"Well?" Sapnap pushed as he started kicking some dirt into a pile. "Do you?"
"I-I don't know," I said, kicking more dirt into the pile. Adrenaline pushed through my veins, and it took everything in me to not act on it. "You couldn't wait until we left to bring this up?"
"What do you mean 'I don't know'? Do you want to grab him and kiss him?" He asked, purposely ignoring my question.
"I don't even know how kissing works, Sap."
He laughed to himself. "It all makes sense now. The sneaking around, not bringing your gun with you, not blowing his brains out when you've had dozens of chances. How long have you had a thing for him?"
"I don't—well—I don't know," I stammered. "It's confusing."
"Oh yeah, you fell for the poetry boy." He sat down in front of the dirt pile he made and began to create what I assumed to be some deformed birthday mud cake. "Now what was it you told me when Karl was a common? Oh yeah, you're being such an idiot right now. God, you're so irresponsible."
"Oh, my God," I mumbled, sitting down across from him.
"This won't end well for you, Clay," Sapnap continued, snickering with his giddy grin. "It's illegal! Techno's going to kill you, and Wilbur's going to go on a-a twenty-minute lecture when they find out. That sound familiar, Clay?"
"You are so annoying," I replied, and he laughed.
"You only say that because now it's happening to you. Had this been the other way around and I fell for this poetry boy instead, you would have already shot him dead."
"You're not shooting him," I immediately snapped before I could fully process what to say.
Sapnap's eyes widened. "Chill out, I'm not planning on it. You act like I don't care about how you feel. If I didn't, I wouldn't have let this go on for as long as it is."
He stacked up more sand and pulled out a match. He only ever used them during special events. Mainly because he only had a box and chose to use it sparingly rather than self indulging himself and burning all the sticks all at once. A small flame lit the end of the match after he swiped it across the box, and he stuck it on top of the pile of sand he created.
"Alright, go get George," He said, somehow finding ways to put finishing touches on his sandcastle.
When I entered the other room, George was sitting, not on his bed, but next to it. He sat on the side away from the door, not even noticing me enter.
"George, your party's ready."
His eyes poked out from the other side of the bed. I wasn't sure what he was doing, but there was a rustle of his backpack and it zipped up before he stood up without even picking the bag up.
"I don't even remember the last time I celebrated my birthday," George said.
"I can. Right now." I held out my hand for him, and he took it without hesitation.
"I swear, you care more about my birthday than I do."
I shrugged, "Birthdays are special to me. While we all slowly decay from the radiation, at least I can celebrate yet another year of not sprouting some third arm out of my forehead or something."
He laughed softly, "That's true, I suppose."
We entered the room to Sapnap adding more sand to George's birthday sand-cake.
"Well, happy birthday, George," I said, sitting him down next to me. "You've survived two whole decades, one decade since you were supposed to die with the rest of America but didn't."
"Just when I thought you were up for a fun party you kill it as always," Sapnap remarked. "Let me give him birthday punches."
"Birthday punches?" George asked, looking to me. I could see light worry in his eyes despite birthday punches being nothing more than just light nudges on your arm.
"He gives you a punch in the arm for each year you've been alive. In this case, you're getting twenty."
"I don't want birthday punches." We both glanced at Sapnap.
"I can give your punches to Clay instead."
"Okay."
"What—" Sapnap lunged over George's sand cake and punched me not only on my arm, but everywhere else that was above my waist and not my face. Even though they were light punches that would only hurt for a few minutes, it still made me realize how old George was. I felt his age.
But he laughed, and suddenly my twenty different throbbing punch wounds became a mere tingle each.
"Okay, this is fun now!" George teased. "Clay takes my pain and I get imaginary cake, this is great!"
Sapnap laughed, "Exactly. Clay, get up. We have to sing happy birthday."
The thing about the ritual of singing "happy birthday" to someone was that when being sung to, no one never knew what to do. Do you dance? Do you smile? Do you just sit there and hope they catch the memo and stop? Well George sung. He sung it as if he wasn't the one supposedly being sung to. He sang it louder than I did. He even added the "cha, cha, cha"'s At least after all these years he still knew the words.
"Blow out your candle," Sapnap said. "And make a wish too."
George glanced at me and smiled. I couldn't help but smile back like his smile was some kind of virus. He blew out the candle, and I wondered what he wished for. Would he have wished for the same thing I would have? What if he did? Maybe if we both wished for the same thing, it'd come true.
"Time to open presents," Sapnap said.
"Presents?" I inquired as Sapnap crawled over to the nearest corner and pretended to pick up a box.
"Yeah. And they're mainly from you." He tossed the "boxes" to us and crawled back to his seat. George grabbed one of them and proceeded to open it.
"What's in it?" Asked George.
"I don't know. What did Clay get you?" Sapnap answered.
My eyes widened as their's landed on me. "Whatever you wanted, George," I quickly replied.
"Ah," George said, glimpsing up at me before looking back down at the piece of air that was supposed to be a present. "A blanket. It's a blanket."
"A blanket?" Sapnap said. "Clay got you a blanket?"
George met my eye again, and this time he didn't let go so quickly. The longer he stared, the harder it became to breathe. Like he was closing my airways just by looking at me. And yet I couldn't bare to look away.
"I got you a blanket?" I asked.
"Mhm," He nodded. "Because you should know how cold my room gets and how thin the blanket I have is."
"Uh yeah. True." I turned away.
"Here's another one," Sapnap said, tossing George another "gift". "It's also from Clay."
George pretended to open it. "Nice! It's a camera. Now I can take pictures of all the beautiful things in my life." He pointed his imaginary camera at me and pretended to take a picture. "Just testing out the lenses," He said when he saw my face creep pink.
"Here's one more from Clay," Sapnap said, handing over what looked to be a small gift. It had to be the size of Sapnap's hand based on how he carried it.
George grabbed it and opened it. "It's..." He glanced up. "A stamp. An Alaskan stamp because I've always wanted to go there."
"Wow, very thoughtful gifts," Sapnap said.
"I'm a very thoughtful guy, apparently," I replied.
"Here's one from me," Sapnap continued, handing over one more gift. When George pretended to open it, Sapnap explained, "It's a book, because based on what Clay has told me, Gogy's a nerd."
George laughed, "Gogy?"
"Yes, Gogy. Do you not have pet names?"
"Well, I never really thought of any," George replied. "What? Does Clay call me that behind my back?"
"What? No. No, I don't," I quickly interrupted as I saw the look on Sapnap's face. "I don't have any nicknames for you. Sapnap came up with that all on his own."
"Here, Clay, I nickname you, in the most affectionate way possible, my Sad Sloth."
"Sloth?" Sapnap laughed. "Did you make that up? Where did you come up with that?"
"Your Sad Sloth?" I asked, Sapnap's remarks flying right over my head.
I had never seen George so taken back. His entire face heated up, and he tried laughing it off. "Well Sad Sloth because you're a sad sloth. I only said my sad sloth because you can be like a pet at this point. You're like stuck to me like one."
"A pet?" I repeated slowly.
He nodded, "Yeah. Your nickname is Sad Sloth, effective immediately."
"Sad Sloth. I like that," Sapnap said. "Can I call you that too, Clay?"
"No," I replied. "That is George exclusive."
"Sad Sloth!" George repeated in a sing-song voice. "Slothie! It's fun to say, and now I'm the only person allowed to use it. Not even Sloth can say his own nickname."
I smiled softly. "I mean... when would I refer to myself as Sad Sloth?"
"When you realize how cute of a name it is."
As if I hadn't already realized.
"Is that it? That was a nice celebration," George said.
"Did you see the balloons?" I pointed around the room. "They're blue. That's your favorite color, right?"
"Yeah! How'd you know?"
"You live in a blue house, you have a blue backpack, and you're wearing a blue shirt. It was a lucky guess."
His laugh was contagious. It was always contagious. And he laughed so much. What was even better was that he was laughing at what I was saying. I didn't even think what I said was that funny, but he still laughed like I actually had a decent sense of humor. Or maybe I did and he wanted me to know that.
Or maybe I was reading too much into it. Trying to read him the same way we always read poetry together: between the lines, interpreting it in a way that would fit our mindsets rather than what it actually objectively meant.
And in this case, I couldn't help but wonder why exactly he laughed. Would he have laughed if Sapnap said the same joke? Did he laugh only because I said it to him, or just because the joke was actually funny? Did he actually find me funny, or did he just feel bad?
"Well, we should go," Sapnap said. "It was nice meeting you, George. I can see why Clay talks about you a lot. You're definitely a character."
George's eyes lit up. "Thank you! Yeah, Clay's really good at picking the people to allow into his life."
"Yeah. Let's go home, Clay. We've got things to do."
George turned to me. "Bye Clay. Can you come over again tonight? It's okay if you can't, but last night was fun."
I nodded. "Of course."
"Thank you for the birthday party. It actually did lift my spirits a bit! Maybe next year I'll actually celebrate my birthday on the actual day."
I smiled and nudged him softly. "No problem. It's not much, but I hope it's enough. Is it enough?"
"I didn't even think you'd care at all. It's more than enough. It's always more than enough." He hesitated before pulling me into a hug. My heart froze for a moment, my entire body not quite processing what was happening for a brief second before I wrapped my arms around him.
"Happy-uh-belated birthday, George." I pulled him closer, feeling his body heat mix with mine. It was enough to take my breath away, something he indirectly did to me enough without the sudden contact.
I didn't let go until he did, and even then I found myself reluctant to do so. When was the next time I'd get that close to him?
Sapnap led me out of the house and out of the Slums. I couldn't help but ask him, "Well? Do you still want to shoot him dead?"
Sapnap furrowed her eyebrows together and hummed as he thought of what to say. "After seeing the way you look at him? Nope, never."
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Ello!
This is prolly the first chapter in awhile I'm actually content with. So that's pretty pog. Dnf romance arc is finally picking up pace incase you guys forgot this is dnf LOL
I never tease my chapters buuuuut next week's Valentine's Day ;) and it looks like Dream and George don't have dates :0 (fanfic dream and george, not actual dream and george LOL)
Sooooo I'll see you guys next week with a new chapter! I haven't written it yet, but I know it's one you don't wanna miss!
(Also this chapter's name was a line I edited out, just thought you'd want to know that LOL)