all we have is now / feral boys fanfiction

~35~ george

~george pov~

Karl wants to stream tonight for some reason. He just came downstairs and told us that's what he wants to do.

I make eye contact with Quackity immediately. He gives me a shrug and tells Karl that we'd do it if that's what he wants to do. It feels weird though.

We all make our way upstairs for the stream. Quackity goes to his room to grab a beanie, and Karl is setting up the stream. We're only streaming on one account for thirty minutes. That's all I think we could handle.

Dream pauses in front of Nick's room. He glances over at me before raising his hand to knock, and just as expected there's no answer.

"We're going to stream if you want to join," he says through the door. Again, no response. He sighs before going to his room.

Quackity and I share my computer since he didn't bring his own set up. Karl and Dream are in two other separate rooms.

"Are we sure about this?" I ask Quackity before we join the discord.

"Absolutely not," he says, "but we got to do it eventually."

We take a collective breath before joining the call. We stay muted and listen to Karl start his stream. He's telling them what happened, minus some details. We're here to listen carefully. We weren't given a game plan of any kind, so it would be nice to get a forewarning.

"Hey chat," Karl doesn't have his streamer voice on. It makes me wonder why he's doing this right now. What made him want to do it? He's obviously not fine even though he pretends he is.

I wonder if it has something to do with that phone call.

"Yes, we are back," he chuckles a bit, "but we have something we need to talk about. That's why we're in just chatting."

My heart races. I read chat just like he does. They're all welcoming him back, asking for the feral boys.. And asking for Taegan.

"Um, where's Taegan?" Karl reads out loud. "Taegan is actually...."

"Should we unmute?" I whisper to Quackity.

"Not yet," he shakes his head, "He wants to do this on his own."

I glance at the chat. I notice Nick is watching the stream. I hope he's okay.

"Listen chat, I'm going to get serious with you for a second. Um, Taegan was in a bit of a car accident. There was a, uh, drunk driver, and she... she didn't make it."

He pauses for another moment. The silence is pure agony. The chat fills with rip taegan and condolences.

"I'm going to his room," Quackity whispers as he stands up. I just nod. Karl needs it more than anyone.

Karl's face says it all. This is too much. Telling people is hard. What are we even supposed to do after it?

"Um, thank you all for respecting her. She was an amazing sister and friend. We should all look up to her."

And with that, he ends the stream.

I sink back into my chair. This was too much. It was progress, but it was too much.

I don't know why Karl thought he would be ready to stream again, and I don't know how he would've expected that to last thirty minutes. It barely lasted three. Maybe just taking that first step into a bit of normalcy is what we all needed. Maybe it was just breaking the ice, and the silence we've all had from the internet.

I turn around in the swivel to see Celeste laying on my bed. To her left is an indent. I sleep on the right side with Celeste on my feet, so the indent doesn't belong to me.