parted lips | ✫

︲𝟣𝟣

Become the Warm Jets , Current Joys —

Quackity hits Georges feet, glaring at him with a raised brow.

"What?"

"You need to keep it together, dude." Quackity shrugs, and the four-foot — approximately — Mexican stands to his feet, "It's Dream you're staring at. Not Ruby. Right?"

"What!? No! No. No—" George cuts himself off, shaking his head and breathing out with unbelievable laughter. "We're not even, friends?"

"Sure you are. You sit together at lunch, you talk to each other, you share notes, he walks you to the cafe and stays there till closing —"

"Okay shut up. Wait, how do you know that last one?"

"Tina." Quackity deadpans.

"Of course."

"The rest are Karl's observations."

"Are you guys talking about Dream and I?" George asks, putting his helmet down on the bench, he listens to the whistle screaming on the other side of the field.

"Well, yeah? Obviously." The four-foot Mexican scoffs, and with a quick look to Dream, he waves, he nods goodbye to George, and he's running back across the field.

George slightly hates himself. If even blind-as-a-bat Quackity can tell he's staring at Ruby's boyfriend and not Dream's girlfriend, he's got to up his game. He frowns, he thinks.

≐

"You coming, dude?" Sapnap calls back, turning to look over his shoulder.

George pulls his shirt on, hair damp still and he resists the chill with a sweater that feels too thin for Fall's era. It rests over his hips, slightly large and yet comfortable.

"In a second, go to lunch without me." George yells, and he can hear Sapnap shout out ' bitch something something' before leaving.

He stands there, waiting for a moment as the door slams shut, slapping against the lock and George forces a sigh. Hands slide down his face, grazing cheeks and his fingernails don't meet his skin, he'd cut them recently.

Theres voices outside the locker room, Sapnap; laughing and before long is he gone, the other voice he's not sure about. It doesn't seem to follow with Sapnap's. Though George doesn't care enough, and so he files things away, slamming them in lockers before grabbing his duffel bag and hauling it over his shoulder.

He prolongs the walk to the door, but not long before theres a reflection met with his eyes, his own browns portraying sweet sorrows and sad sunshines. Saccharine casts through windows and he squints, stepping out of the light before sighing again.

Here, before him, was a boy of many things, hardly a man, and barely a boy. Hardly decent and barely breathing. Brown eyes that told stories to siblings when the parents fighting was too loud, underneath sheets where it was warm. And smiling lips that quirked with sarcastic queries.

George wonders if others see him like this, or if they look a little closer. Notice that his eyes always seem to droop, lips cracked, eye bags providing a sense of lost sleep, paling skin where the flush of the bitter breezes vermillion doesn't catch him.

He wonders if anyone knows how tired he is. In the sense of problematic households, where theres far too many things going on, far too many words shared.

With a sigh, through parted lips, and readjusting the duffel bag on his shoulder, he decides he hates looking at himself. And he guesses there's always just going to be a letterman jacket hanging off his shoulders and a duffel bag secured to him. He supposes that's all he'll be.