Double Whammy: A Two-Fic Special (DNF)

Finding a Rose in a Garden of Irises, Love's Not a Game But His War (pt 1)

It was more obvious in hindsight, but in the present, it wasn't. It had grown and formed slowly, like a deep-rooted weed growing hidden in a full and flush garden. Only, it wasn't a weed, but a rose. A single red rose in a garden of blue irises.

Dream should've acknowledged the signs, should've seen them face-to-face and realized what they were hinting at. He should've realized he was falling for his best friend a lot sooner. But he had turned from them in casual denial, and only dug a deeper hole for himself. He ignored them, forgot about them. It was strange, just how much he forced himself to remain blissfully ignorant to.

The way he missed his heart rate beginning to rise when he watched George stream with his facecam on, the way it almost fluttered when his smile grew or he shied away from a donation asking him to say something he didn't want to say. Missed the way the back of his mind unconsciously commented on how attractive he found him, how much he'd love to run his hand through his short hair or kiss him all over. Missed the way his stomach felt jittery like a swarm of butterflies had been released each time he heard name came from George's mouth, or when his laugh hit just the right note. He kept all of it at bay, hidden under the carpet and away from his consciousness, away from his front thoughts.

But as it often happens, it didn't say like that forever. The dam had to break at some point. The truth was to be realized eventually.

And it finally seemed to come to him on one seemingly random night. The night he noticed the rose in the irises. The night he opened his eyes and took in the hinting signs. The night his denial caught up with him. The night he realized he was in love.

He had been at an old friend's house, celebrating his birthday. They had been friends since what felt like birth, having been neighbors for the first decade of his life. He was offhandedly sitting with vaguely familiar faces, friends of his friend, each of them taking turns to play music on the TV in front of them.

That entire night, half of his mind was on the party, but the other half kept continuously drifting back to George. He truthfully wasn't having that much fun. He wanted George to be with him, so he had someone he could talk to without the distant fear of judgment or his social battery dropping too low too quickly. Someone to brighten his night up as if it was day, someone he would part with and feel like everything was right and perfect in life.

Normally those thoughts wouldn't be so clear in his mind, but someone had stealthily spiked the punch he was drinking, and all the barriers and filters he had in his mind had been temporarily torn down as the small amount of alcohol settled in his system, not enough to make him tipsy, but enough to make him think.

It was enough that when it was his turn to chose a song, he picked one that reminded him or one of his favorite memories with George as they played and talked together with random songs from a music playlist George had faintly providing background noise. It was enough that while the song played, he felt his heart clench in the slightest way possible, and clearly heard his mind ask him 'Why am I thinking about him so much?'

It was enough that the answer lept forth easily concealed with a question, without the usual resistance to stop it.

'Do I like George?'

His heart dropped at the same time his stomach rose, as his thoughts silently went radio silent and all motions stilled. Because as soon as that thought had finished, another thought had eagerly shoved its way forward, the answer to his question bursting its way into the front of his mind like a bout of bad news being delivered by a sadistic villain. A single, proud word.

'Yes.'

In order to ignore what it would mean if that were true, Dream spent the rest of the party pointedly ignoring his own mind, choosing to constantly distract himself by other people and to dodge the recurring thought of 'I think I like George' that kept trying to invade his consciousness. Dream didn't want to face it, didn't want to stop denying it. He didn't want to come to terms with what he had thought, with what he knew deep down was true. He wasn't ready to open that door.

While he was spared at the party, he wasn't at home the night, arriving after slowly trudging half an hour down the sidewalk with what normally was a fifteen-minute walk. With no other person to distract him, no loud music or random snack food to indulge in, Dream was left with nothing more than his own thoughts, hungrily waiting to attack him when the moment came.

He was able to hold them back while he changed clothes, while he brushed his teeth, but when he laid down in bed and tried to drift off to sleep, he found those wretched thoughts swirling unwantedly in his mind. He frustratedly forced himself to think of other things, to ignore them, and it worked.

Until he began to drift, and found those thoughts had spiraled into one as his subconscious combed through his feelings and hit a realization, and a deafening thought was released, one that abruptly shot through him and caused his eyes to snap open and for him to sit up quickly enough to give himself vertigo.

'I like George.'

The rest of the night was spent sleepless, the thought blasting through his mind on repeat like a broken record player.

In all honestly, Dream was terrified. He didn't want this, he didn't want to stain their friendship with something dangerous.

He didn't know what to do next, didn't know how it was going to affect him and George. Didn't know what George would think or react if he knew. Didn't know if this would cause him to lose George.

That was what terrified Dream the most. Not being in love with his best friend, not him knowing. It was how George could react that scared him the most, and the possibility it would ruin their friendship, and he'd lose George as a friend.

Because that's all he wanted with George, right? He just wanted his friendship, just wanted him to be in his life platonically. Right?

His heart panged when he ignored the whisper of thought disagreeing with him, a faintly dulcet voice being drowned among a rapid or frantic yelling.

Another pang of dull pain echoed in Dream's heart, and he found himself tearing up in the dark. What was he going to do? He was so confused, so scared. In all of his life he never suspected this to happen, or for love to be this horrifying and painful. He never felt so uncertain about his future in his life, and he dropped out of school to pursue a career of being a social media influencer for fuck's sake.

As more fearful and pained tears gathered and blurred his vision, the could only think of how whoever said love is a game is a liar, because his love is a war, and one he was afraid of losing.