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George prides himself on being completely put together when it comes to the whole mess with Dream. He keeps his feelings under wraps and when they end up showing anyways he plays it off as a joke, and it works. It always works. He doesn’t go on bouts of ice cream and rom coms and self pity, he doesn’t let himself read fanfiction or linger too long on ship art in his twitter feed, he doesn’t lament about the lack of reciprocation or cry himself to sleep wishing for love. He doesn’t do that.
But sometimes.
Sometimes a stupid little thing pushes him over the edge. Sometimes his friends or his fans or Dream himself will do something that makes him break down. Sometimes he can’t hold it all in.
Like today, for instance.
It should have been a joke. It was a joke, it was funny, it was. It should’ve been funny to George, too.
George knows he’s attractive, and he knows Dream knows it too, and he knows that Dream doesn’t care, can’t care, no matter how good he looks. He knows that Dream thinks he’s pretty, and he knows that Dream thinks that as a fact, an observable truth that George aligns well with what people think looks good or whatever the fuck it means.
But something about Dream saying that about him, about him as a girl, about someone he could actually like…
It’s different. It feels different.
It hurts.
That’s his face Dream’s calling hot. There’s plenty of filtered adjustments, but it’s him. George wonders if he should try wearing makeup. He chucks his phone across the room as soon as he processes that thought. It lands with a dull thud on the carpet. It might be cracked. It’s probably fine. George doesn’t care.
Why the fuck is he so jealous of a picture of himself with a stupid snapchat filter? Why is this the thing that brings him to tears?
Actually, it’s not really that. It’s not jealousy, per se. It’s his own thought that ruined him, the one that rang through his head like a gong when he saw that tweet and Dream’s reply.
If I was her, I might really have a chance with him.
If George was a girl, or if Dream liked guys, or whatever alteration could make them work, Dream might actually like him. He’s never let himself wonder about it. No point in considering the impossible. But it’s true, isn’t it?
Dream loves him as a friend. He loves him as a person, he thinks George is hot and he likes who George is. And if who George is was someone he was capable of being into? Wouldn’t there be a chance, a good chance, that he would be?
If George was the girl in the picture they might be together right now. They might be holding hands on some stupidly perfect beach in florida, sharing secrets and kisses and feelings. They might be lying in bed together, listening to each other’s breathing as they fell asleep knowing they’d wake up next to each other for the rest of their lives. They might be on a date in one of those amazing restaurants Dream is always telling him about, eating pasta and staring into each other’s eyes and being so fucking in love that it almost hurt.
It didn’t almost anything right now.
ngl…
Not gonna lie, if that was really who he was I might love her back.
George is not put together tonight. He does not blink back his tears or ignore his feelings with an endless flood of youtube videos and minecraft.
George cries himself to sleep tonight, but he'll wake up calm and collected.
There’s no point in considering the impossible.