December 25th, 2032
02:36:13 AM
"Okay well, I'm heading to bed." The monitors shine barely lights up the person sitting in front of it, the ring light behind the desk already doing a fine job. "I need to feed patches anyway."
"Yeah, go do that." He laughs, typing something into his keyboard- presumably going to his Spotify to play music. "Goodnight clay." As the page finally loads, discord dings- telling him that he's now the last one in the call. A sigh of relief leaves the man's lips. It's not that he doesn't enjoy streaming and spending time with his friends, it just really drains him sometimes.
Pretty soon he's found his normal playlist and it's playing out of his headphones. He falls back into his chair, eyes closed, completely allowing himself to drown in the music.
"Smoking cigarettes on the roof..."
He had finished up his stream about an hour ago, specifically a special jackbox stream with Dream, George, Karl, Sapnap, Tommy, and Ranboo. On the last day before Christmas, he decided to make it a charity event where all the money made from it would go to the Trevor Project. Everything made he would double, and so when the goal of 500,000 dollars was reached his wallet started to throb.
That was okay though, knowing that kids that grew up just like him could be helped. It made it worth it.
"My girl, my girl, my girl, myyyy girl."
He hadn't slept the night before, and right now after using all of his energy to hype up the charity stream, he was more than tired enough to pass out in his chair right about now.
Things start to go quiet, and the music starts fading into nothing but background noise. More things turn into the void, and his breathing slows. God how he wants to sleep, to let himself fall into the endless darkness for hours.
And he would have too if the discord ding didn't ring again. Someone joined the call.
It jolts him awake, the sudden high-pitched noise bringing him back to reality more than a face full of water would have. "Wh- what's up Dream?" His voice is raspy, groggy even. He pulls his chair back up to his desk, hand resting on his forehead. "Did you forget to tell me something about the stream? Something about MCC?"
A voice comes from his headphones, and for a minute he can't recognize who it is. When he does, tired shock sets in. Wide eyes, hitched breath.
"Danni?"
They hadn't talked in days, maybe even a week now. The awkward tension became too much, and both of them stopped trying to contact each other. Even though it drowned both of them in everlasting fire knowing that they weren't on good terms, neither of them was brave enough to strike up another conversation.
Until now that is.
If only he had left the call when Dream did.
"Hey, zero." Hearing his voice again after so long makes him freeze up, making his cheeks heat up even just hearing his voice come out of his mouth. Fuck.
Danni pauses, you can hear the hesitation in his hitched breathing. "Obviously you know we need to talk." He says. Zero's eyes shut close, and the temptation to just leave the call and block him is stronger than ever- but he can't do that. Not to them.
"I don't- I don't know what you're talking about." Liar. You know exactly what he's talking about. He swallows out of nervousness, eyes still sewn shut as if they were pieces of fabric.
"Listen, you know that I know about the message. I know about the song, and the rain, and the flowers that someone accidentally left at your doorstep. I read it and- and you know that. I'm not trying to say you don't." Heartburn. Bile rising to the back of his throat. The pit in his stomach was about to explode. He cant find the words to say, the things to tell himself to be able to comprehend what he's been told.
The past week he's tried convincing himself that it was a glitch. That Danni didn't read the long, heart spilled message. He's learned that all the convincing was for nothing.
He can only make himself say stutters- one-word answers that give no information on anything but how scared he feels. It's like all of a sudden everything did a 180. Gone and turned off the lights, made everything but the person on the side of the call more than the word 'worthless' can describe.
"And I've finally I've up my mind about you, and what I'm going to do." It seems like everything's moving so fast and yet so slow. He doesn't want to hear what he has to say, what he thinks about him.
It seems like the silence lasts for hours, when in reality only lasts for a few seconds at most. Every outcome rushes to the front of his brain, and when Danni finally speaks up it's like a brick to the face.
"I don't think we should be friends anymore." The past week had been hell, knowing that he had read the message but he had been able to tell himself it wasn't that bad. That everything would be fixed in a week. That they would stream Minecraft again soon and the meet-up would go as planned.
That's right. The meetup.
Danni bought a plane ticket to Florida a couple weeks back, set for new years eve. All the scenarios Zero's made about the day they meet also come to the forefront of his mind, and it utterly breaks him.
Hearing the official words of a depart, the unmade memories that kept him going- it shatters him to the core. Hot tears stream down his face. This was like a forest fire- that one spark, that one sentence, sent everything spiraling out of control in this ugly, burning mess.
He reaches for his headphones to throw them off- to slam on the desk so hard maybe it'll break his entire PC so he never has to sit there again. But he hears another sentence come through them.
"-Because I want to be more than that."
