warmth [dreamnotfound] | ✓

chapter nine. hold me just because.

George hadn't dreamt in years.

He woke up in a house very similar to his own. The large flat-screen television was in the center of the wall and the long glass windows behind him let a dull, grey light into the room. The only thing to indicate that it wasn't where he had grown up was the fact that it wasn't empty.

The floors were coated in hundreds of thousands of yellow flowers. He wasn't quite sure, but George thought they were carnations. He wondered if they were a hallucination, noting that this wasn't the strangest hallucination he'd ever had.

Over in the corner, where the door to his parents' bedroom normally stood, sat a circle of people. They were all around his age, but he couldn't see any of their faces. He recognized a few from behind. Sapnap. Quackity. Karl. Niki. BadBoyHalo. Wilbur. Most of them were strangers though.

The people were talking, but George couldn't hear a word they were saying. He just heard mumbling and when he tried to move, he realized it was because there were carnations in his ears. The yellow flowers coated his body as well as the expensive floors. He briefly wondered how he would get them all out before his parents came home.

One of the people finally noticed him and turned to wave him over. It was Dream, who was wearing his usual sunglasses. He smiled and shot the other boy a quick wave, shouting something that he couldn't hear but remaining seated.

"What?" George called. He still couldn't hear. He tried to stand to join his friends, but found that he was immobile. He pulled at the flowers, but they kept him tied down like fitted sheets on a bed. "Dream! Come over here and help me out!" Dream didn't move, just continued to wave and yell. "Dude, stop being a dumbass and come get me out of here!"

He wanted to run over to them. He wanted to say something, anything, to get them to notice his situation and help him out but they seemed to have flowers in their ears too. George could feel himself running out of breath. It was like he had run a marathon when he hadn't taken a single step. He sucked air in and out of his nose, shouting now but still completely silent and perfectly still.

"Dream! Karl! Sapnap! Wilbur!" George tried to shout their names but it took too much breath. He felt as though if he were to run anymore, he'd pass out. It was like he'd ran the pacer test from middle school, about ten miles, and all the way to his childhood playground, but he swore he hadn't actually moved. He begged himself to stop doing whatever it was that caused his lungs to collapse on themselves, but nothing could be done.

Finally, Wilbur, Sapnap, and Niki stood up. Sapnap was the first to turn around, but it wasn't Sapnap. His face was that of George's father and George gasped, screaming silently for no one to hear. Niki held his mother's disappointed expression on what definitely wasn't her head. Wilbur was the last to turn, but he was different from the other two. He had Dream's face, but Dream was smiling. His eyes were absent of his usual sunglasses. The other two looked nothing but disappointed.

Wilbur/Dream had one flower on his whole body and it rested over his heart, clinging to his shirt as he moved. It was a daffodil-like plant with tube-shaped leaves and a cluster of yellow petals. He cowered in his spot as the other two approached him, scooping up handfuls of the flowers from the floor.

"Please! What's going on? I don't know who you are or what you what but please, just talk to me!" George tried to reason with them as his parents got closer, hands filled with yellow carnations. "Stop! Help!"

His mother filled his open mouth with the plants and he struggled to spit them out, noting that they tasted of nothing at all. His father dumped his bundle over his head and soon both were piling the petals around his face, all whilst Dream grinned behind them. "Dream... Wilbur... please..." George pleaded, sputtering on the petals going down his throat, "help me!"

Soon his eyes were covered and he was left with darkness and the sounds of his labored breathing. He could feel the air disappearing from his lungs and being replaced with flower petals as he started to lose consciousness.

The last thing the teenager could think was "I can't believe my murderers are my own fucking parents" and then he was gone.

George sat up in the passenger seat of the black car, his busted speaker playing muffled music beside him. He thought he might be screaming, but he wasn't sure. Either way, the brunet clawed at his neck and lungs, struggling to breathe.

"Oh my God! George!" Dream whirled around, taking his hands off the steering wheel to try and help the smaller boy. "What's happening? Are you okay?" He tried to reach to grab any part of George, but the passenger was shaking too much. He was paying no attention to the road.

George's eyes never met his. They squinted shut and he scratched at his face and rubbed his eyes and screamed like he had witnessed a murder. Something really bad had happened while he was asleep. "George George George George, what happened? Talk to me here, please-"

"THE ROAD!"

"No no no, the road is fine. George, are you alright?"

"DREAM! THE ROAD!" It was then when he finally turned back to watch the country road turn into grass as the car careened off the path and into the ditch. The only thing he could think to do was scream.

"HOLY SHIT!"

Dream grabbed George's arm and held on tight, watching in horror as the black car bounced over long grass. It splattered across the windshield until they couldn't see out it anymore and George was shrieking something about hitting the brakes.

"Shit! You're right!" Dream's foot slammed on the brake as they emerged from the grass and just about slammed into a tree at the edge of an endless forest. The front of the vehicle bumped the tree trunk lightly and it sputtered to a stop.

It all took a second to process. For a moment neither boy said a word. Both just sat and stared straight ahead at the tree and the grass and the forest. The music was still playing.

Finally, Dream flung off his seatbelt and turned to George, who was shaking even harder than before. He wasn't crying, but his face was red and blotchy and his eyes were wide. The brunet turned to Dream. It felt like everything was moving in slow motion. Neither boy said a word when the driver flung his arms around his old friend and pulled him in tight.

Dream was crying. If asked why, he wouldn't even have a good answer. Luckily, George didn't ask anything of him. He just let him sob into his shoulder, hugging him back with just as much care. The two sat in the quiet, holding each other like the world was ending because maybe it just might be.

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my computer decided to just fucking die today for some reason so this update is brought to you by my iphone! wooo!

anyway, another kinda short chapter for you but it's definitely a departure from the main story structure so that's cool i guess :) i have one more chapter planned that's kinda a shift from the main plot but it's not until like the very end so that's exciting... hehehehe...

anyway, just wanted to say that the song this chapter is titled after, hold me just because by madeon, is an absolute underrated jam and fits the ending of this chapter very well and you should stream it because it makes me cry and reminds me of the boys :,) (also here's the spotify playlist for this story again because i added more songs: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5fM4R4qIUtTJOJuospUDGm?si=wYVrUG8QS2aj36Xyzp8lYQ )

bonus fun fact: in my first draft they never crashed the car, but i thought that was boring and decided to ruin my initial plot ideas even more than i already had so here we are :)