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April bleeds into May and they don’t talk much about it.
There’s a new level of apprehension between them, a long term game of chicken, racing to hold out on admitting- well, admitting something . Or maybe it’s just that they settle into a new normal of their relationship where they aren’t quite boyfriends- boyfriends holy shit- but also not quite just friends either.
Things change of course! Okay, maybe they don’t change that much. It’s just that their late night 10-hour calls now have this tension but also this quiet agreement between them. And when George streams Dream can now pull up his stream to watch his facecam unashamed. When Sapnap walks in on Dream during these moments Dream never feels the need to find excuses. It's a nice, comfortable, unspoken understanding. They haven’t talked about it but they both seem on the same page.
Maybe.
Dream hopes they’re on the same page.
They just have other things to think about at the moment.
Like MCC! On its return for season two Dream and George (the iconic duo!) are placed on the same team.
It’s an obvious match.
Okay, so maybe Dream bribed Scott a little.
See, all he did was recommend Scott to put them on the same team, it was just a suggestion considering his amazing marketing skills to maybe put them on the same team for publicity reasons only of course.
And sure, Dream’s PayPal isn’t in the best shape after this little favor but it’s nothing his AdSense money can’t handle.
Scott caved under two simple conditions: One, they have to carry the burden of the Captain’s Curse and hopefully finally score Sparlkez a long-awaited win. Two, have Quackity -who is serious once in a blue moon and even then only when it’s convenient for him- as their fourth team member.
No matter the hit to Dream’s gamer pride it’s all worth it to play on the same team as George.
~0~
Dream slumps over in his chair, raking a hand through his hair and groans running a hand over his face. He’s been replying to business e-mails for the past hour. His eyes flicker over to Quackity’s stream, it’s been playing in the background while he works.
Dream smiles at his friend’s antics, Quackity’s running a ‘mini MCC tournament’ on the practice server (with a monetary prize as usual). They’d recently moved to dodgebolt from parkour tag and Dream finds himself absently smiling as George’s character spins around and punches the air.
Fuck, he’s cute.
Fuck, he just thought that a Minecraft skin was cute.
George’s avatar crowds Quackity, oversized glasses filling the screen, pixelated white rims the only thing visible on screen. Dream finds himself helplessly endeared.
Dream gives in and tabs out of his e-mail to open Minecraft.
He restlessly taps his fingers against the table as the red wash of the Mojang logo spills from his monitor. He places his hands in their familiar place over his mouse and keyboard when the game loads when he notices it.
DreamNotFound <3
Dream hovers his mouse over the text and he feels his face heat. He hadn’t had the heart to change it.
He hastily logs into the practice server.
“Wait, what? Dream’s here,” George is the first one to notice him. He quickly takes advantage of Dream joining. “Come on Dream,” George directs them to the red team, “join my team.”
Cotton candy fills his brain at George’s attention. He joins red, crouching at George to show his enthusiasm.
He wonders if George finds his skin cute too
Dream slams his head against his desk in frustration. Why is he thinking about the cuteness of Minecraft skins???
“Yeah! Dream’s on my team guys!” Quackity boasts while they ready up.
“I hate to do this to you, Dream, but you’re going down!” Sapnap goads as the game begins.
It takes less than a minute for Dream’s arrow to land perfectly and explode him into a shower of blue. He wordlessly feeds the next arrow to George as Sapnap complains.
Dream hums happily to his quiet room, the comforting whirring of his PC and the soft mechanical clack of his keyboard and mouse the only sounds breaking the stillness. He likes playing like this, on the outside of an energetic stream, with no expectations from thousands of eyes.
Like this, he can exist softly in private and lazily indulge in the dumb soft fuzzies that he feels for George.
He deliberately misses so George can score the final shot
“You’re so bad Dream! Another point for me, Quackity.” George crows triumphantly.
Quality begins protesting and arguing with George about the intricacies of the point system they came up with twenty minutes ago.
Ding! A notification breaks Dream’s concentration
You wanna join the call? It’s a message from George.
Dream chuckles quietly to himself and opens discord on his third monitor. He sees that he’s already been added to the voice call.
Dream quietly basks in the overwhelming loudness of his friends. happiness fizzes throughout his body, root beer with an ice cream float on a summer afternoon, sticky and sweet.
He must have been quiet for too long because he hears Quackity call out his name.
“I’m here, I’m here,” Dream says, watching the chat fill up with delighted greetings from the audience.
“Dream’s just nervous.” George teases.
The happiness fizzes into a laugh bubbling over and spilling out of him.
Quackity lets out a shout when he gets hit by a shot from Bad. Just to be petty Dream cuts George off from retrieving the arrow.
“Let me shoot first and then you can get the second one.” Dream reasons.
“I can do this, I can do this,”
“No! Let me shoot first you’re going to miss one,” Dream counters George just for the sake of it.
“No, Dream,” George puts down the bow to look at him. “Take that back.”
“Give me one!” Dream feels his cheeks hurt from smiling so much. “You’re going to miss one! You’re going to miss one!”
“STOP FLIRTING AND DO SOMETHING!” Quackity yells over their bickering. Dream hands the arrow over to George.
~0~
So, Dream might be a little pathetic.
“I just don’t want to edit it”
Because somehow somehow through George’s whining and complaining about doing his fucking job Dream still feels soft for him.
“Why not,” Dream knows that he never should’ve never let George promise the video by Tuesday. Maybe he shouldn't have brought the editing issue up on stream.
“I just don’t want to,” George misses another slime block jump. “I’d just rather have you edit for me.”
Dream scoffs but the worst part, the worst part is that he’s actually considering it.
George with his fucking bullshit sixth sense for Dream’s feelings seems to realize he has an in because he says, “Please? I don’t ask for much.”
And then, “You said you could edit it better than me anyway.”
Fuck
George is a bastard for appealing to Dream’s ego.
It’s works
“You know what, George?” Dream signs himself for his doom. “Upload the file.”
“It’s already uploaded,” George answers giddily, high-pitched giggles tumbling out of him.
~0~
Dream leaves the call early
Sapnap’s sitting at the kitchen counter when Dream comes downstairs. “Dude, you wanna go to that Thai place we were talking about last week?”
Dream takes a mental recount of the work he needs to do. “Sorry man, but I have to edit George’s video.”
Sapnap stares at Dream “There’s no way you’re actually editing his video.”
“What do you mean, I promised him on stream-”
“I cannot believe that you’re actually this down bad.”
“I'm not down bad,” Dream protests.
Sapnap scoffs “Okay, then will you edit my next video?”
“What? No, fuck off do that yourself.”
“Exactly!” Sapnap exclaims, “What’s the difference between me and George? You’re just down bad for him.”
Dream ears burn, “Shut up.”
“Caught in 4-fucking-K,” Sapnap gloats. “Lemme know when the wedding is Clay,”
~0~
They’re on the practice server again.
Dream shoots an arrow at George’s feet, close enough to seem like a convincing attempt but far enough not to hit him.
For some reason, the well of sugary feelings he feels for George has manifested itself as throwing games for him.
And Dream hates losing.
But George's triumphant smiles and unfiltered laugher are worth it.
Maybe Sapnap is right.
Maybe.
Dream stands practically still when George fires his next shot. It lands perfectly.
“You’re so bad!” George gloats. “I’m the best!!”
“You’re doing really well George.”
Dream tells himself it’s to build up George’s confidence for the event.
So Dream lets himself lose 3 rounds of dodgebolt.
“I think we should switch to Battle Box,” George announces after Dream's 5th loss.
“Sure,” Dream thinks he’d do anything that George wanted.
“Here, I’ll get Punz to join us.” George’s character pauses and Dream can hear his keyboard as he types in chat
GeorgeNotFound: BB
How could Dream let this opportunity go? So with sweet cream settling thick in his brain Dream feels himself respond.
Dream: yes?
“No,” George says exasperated. “Battle Box” George repeats slowly to clarify.
The saccharine affection bursts out of Dream in a laugh.
George scoffs at him, “Such an idiot,”
Dream convinces George to 1v2 them, he has a plan.
The game starts and Dream immediately rushes towards George, Dream pretends to swipe at him twice before “falling into lava.”
Apparently, George is actually bad because he actually falls into lava moments later.
It continues like that for a while. Dream will fight George, swinging around him ineffectively, not even bothering to time hits, and then simply die because of a missused splash potion or a slip into lava.
There’s a thrill to the whole ordeal. A level of secrecy to sneakily showing his affection, playing just poorly enough to die but not so much that anyone catches on. Dream watches George’s stream carefully to see if he’s picked up on Dream’s obvious throwing but his face remains neutral.
There’s a problem with this plan
Punz
Because Punz is here and a skilled PvPer and unlike Dream -he’ll admit it- not down bad for George.
Punz who keeps on taking George down every round and kind of ruining Dream’s plan to- well, he’s not entirely sure what his own goals are here.
He can feel Punz’s judgment through the screen when he starts rushing the harming pots on the sides to splash the both of them.
He hopes it reads as “leveling the playing field” and not “doing everything within his power to let George win.”
Punz’s character shakes its head disapprovingly at him when he empties his inventory of arrows onto the wall next to George.
Dream just can’t help it. There’s something exhilarating seeing George (think) he beat these impossible odds. The grin on his face after winning 1v2s against two of the best PvPers in the tournament is addicting. Dream wants to see more of it.
He throws himself into lava again.
George must catch on because at this point Dream has stopped caring about being subtle. He can see chat spamming a confusing combination of “Dream’s throwing” and “Why is Dream bad?”
Dream can see George give a small when Dream swings wildly, missing George’s hitbox entirely. “You’re so bad Dream,” George says knowingly.
Dream grins, he feels like ice cream in the sun, lazy and warm and melting sweetly at George.
Eventually, Punz gets fed up and starts cursing Dream out in-game chat. Dream feels only a little sorry for him.
They say their goodbyes and George raids Punz, which is only fair after all of the cross-teaming Dream did for the past hour.
~0~
“Bye guys! Go say hi to Punz!” George waves enthusiastically as he ends stream.
“Phew,” Dream leans back in his chair. “That was a long stream, are you tired?”
“You’re such an idiot, Dream.” George interrupts
Dream doesn’t know if this sugar rush will ever go away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You walked into lava right in front of me.”
“Nah, it was knockback, you pushed me off.”
“I didn’t even hit you that time.” George’s sounds fond.
“Hmm, maybe I was just so taken by your beauty that I fell off.” Dream toes the line of what they usually say.
George giggles, “Wow, didn’t know you were such a flatterer Dream.”
Sweet endearment rushes through him, “Only for you.”
“Well, next time maybe you shouldn’t be so obvious. Chat knew what you were doing the entire time. I don’t want us to be public yet.”
Us
Maybe they are on the same page.
“Okay,”