some persuasion required

chapter 2

Weeks passed and they didn't acknowledge the two devastating days following the visa news.

Though, that was mostly due to them hardly speaking to each other at all. Dream always had something else to do, George always just missed a possible opportunity by keeping his messages closed and unsyncing their sleep schedules by going to bed instead of dealing with Dream and whatever they would be when they talked next.

And, honestly, it was probably the boredom that pushed George to stream. A rare occurrence, surely. He didn't even have a plan in mind, just mindless wandering from game to game and topic to topic. It didn't really matter, as long as his mind was away from the charge Dream dropped on him.

What would persuading someone to fall in love with you even consist of?

How would he make it believable?

What would it mean for them with George convincing them into a relationship and trying to inspire feelings between them?

And most terrifying, what if.. they actually did?

What if both he and Dream got so far into this that they ended up just completely and utterly in love?

George shook his head at such errant thoughts, such stupid, idiotic thoughts. All of them that he knew were far too close to reality for his own comfort. He focused on the stream at hand, the one he had let get away from himself, delving off into tangents to keep him entertained and not even succeeding.

He let out a breath, unimpressed eyes flitting over his screen, knowing why he felt the way he did. There was no denying it, George missed-

Dream asked to join the call.

It was mostly instinct, on how he clicked to allow permissions, George giving Dream access without any thought, his hands moving to do what he had done so many times before and letting Dream join him whenever the other requested to do so.

"What are you up to?" Dream said casually, disregarding their previous weeks of radio silence in one simple sentence.

George already felt his nerves jump, even as he tried to fight them, answering in easy flippancy, "Streaming, obviously."

"Ha," Dream laughed sarcastically, "You're so funny, George. What have you been doing? Just fucking around, I'm guessing?"

"No," George defended uselessly, "I've been super busy, this stream has been planned for weeks, months even. Someone like you, you wouldn't understand."

"Someone like me," Dream mused, thoughtful, "Which is?"

George let the grin roll from his lips onto his tongue as he taunted, "A streamer who can't even call himself one. When was the last time you went live? Has it been two months now?"

"Oh," Dream murmured, "So, you've been keeping track now, have you?"

George gave the other an eye roll, his jaw moving slightly to the side in hardly held back exasperation, "Don't start with me. Especially when you have been watching this stream ever since I started and still had the audacity to ask what I've been up to when you clearly knew."

"Always good to scope out the competition," Dream teased.

With a rising brow, George responded, "We're against each other now, are we? What happened to us, the Dream and George team?"

"Pretty sure it's just the Dream team."

"Mm," George hummed, "We can leave Sapnap out of this thing. This is just us, just you and me, Dream."

Dream mused for a moment before speaking up, "I guess that's true, he'd be third wheeling anyway. Now that I'm hearing there's an us."

"You're such an idiot," George scolded, light and nearly on the edge of soft laughter.