behind the streams | dnf

ten | monotone

GEORGE

Him.

Both hands wrap around the back of my neck, fingers clutch, dragging my head down with a force that shouldn't be as heavy as it is.

His voice bounces throughout my headset as both of them continue in a topic I've long ignored.

Part of me is frightened by the clarity. The consequences of letting my mind wander, and it wishes I could go back several minutes, and forget.

The other feels like I always knew.

It hits me in a dull ache. I always knew, didn't I?

A breath shudders out. But to what degree?

At some point the call ends, and I hardly even realize. I accidentally spend a few minutes in the voice channel by myself before my senses kick in and I frantically click out.

But to what degree?

With the silence I feel the thought cultivate and the realizations pour. Slowly, slowly, and they consume me for the rest of what feels like a never-ending afternoon.

Painfully I force myself to list them off, there's no more hiding. 

More than his... therapist. More than an already above-average friendship.

I sink into cotton comforters and ebbing sunlight. I want to be more.

A thing of secrets, the voices in my head that hush and whisper after I let the confession finally run free. And yet I still feel like I always knew. 

Eyes fluttered shut, I retrace through the past months and try to pinpoint when. It's a blur of incredibly concealed build-up and late nights hampered by the distance. Only recently it's begun to spill.

The night after Quackity's stream. A day and a half of feeling like shit, to be immediately forgotten after I saw his name on my phone. Remembering the bizarre excitement that I've been too afraid to question, until now.

Another realization sinks, heavy as everything else. Did I know then, too?

I'm supposed to be the one helping him-

Falling for his vulnerability. My eyes open slightly. Over the past months, building beautiful trust and to know that I'm his comfort-

-and instead I found this.

One hand reaches out and I look over its blurry outline against the off-white ceiling. For a moment I speculate the warped view before I cover my eyes with the palm. The warmth of my cheeks sears into the seams of my fingertips.

How he chooses to tell me things like nothing else, with no one else. Through that, through the sense of uniqueness that I was something to him... I wanted that.

But more.

And I know it's truly why I couldn't bear the thought of the conversations losing its solitude, losing its real meaning. Him, I couldn't lose him, the version of him I get to see, who reminds me of what we have.

My heart pounds as I manage to scrap together a breath of relief. It's not Sapnap. It's not because of Sapnap.

But that only leaves him. A shaky sigh sinks my chest.

The sun begins to sink below the horizon as a one-toned sunset casts blinding beams into the room, and the enormity of the situation begins weighing on me.

How do I view him the same way? With self-confrontations as blunt as this, demanding truths in which I had turned a blind eye to before?

My eyelids begin lifting with a slow-acting worry, not enough to stir me from immobility. I did this to myself. How do I look at him again, after figuring all this out?

The walls welcome me plainly. Letting my head loll to the side, I'm slightly taken aback at how dim the sky has become.

Silhouetted rooftops, outlined by streetlights and moonshine. It must be still evening in Florida. But late autumn shortens the days and it won't be long until our skies look identical.

I crane my neck and my eyes land on my phone, still face down on the nightstand. A stiff smile tugs at my lips as a happier memory resurfaces; a period of a week or so when the sunsets in America were abnormally beautiful, and both Sapnap and Dream sent me picture after picture of the horizon that looked as frustratingly similar as any other. I remember the exasperation I had been driven to that I had forced them into a call, just to hear them flaunt over how successful their prank had become. But their laughter was all too contagious and I eventually gave up into their banter even as they continued to gloat.

The grin I didn't even realize was growing, it snaps off my face.

Now the thought of reading his name on my phone, the memory of turning the screen face up and seeing the welcomed notifications; I feel something twist in my ribs and not just because I know the messages will be filled with his quiet disapproval, gentle chides of what I said to Sapnap.

A hand rises to brush lightly against the chest area of my hoodie, feeling the muffled thumps of my heart. The... the realness of it all, it dawns on me and begins to press, it presses. I push against it and sit up in a jolt, breathing heavily into darkness.

It's late.

My head spins from the abrupt stir of movement. I walk like a ghost, slinking silently throughout the house and scraping together what would hardly be considered a meal. Only having appetite to reheat meager leftovers, down a few snacks and even with the skimpy amount, it still takes a momentous effort to finish it all. This dinner - midnight snack? - sits grossly in my stomach as I miss the light switch of the kitchen several times.

The nighttime darkness is whole. Feeling my way through the hallways with one hand skimming lightly on the textured walls, my fingers trace and bump over several patches of unevenness but eventually I find my room with relative success.

My monitors are still on. The curtains are still tugged apart. They both spill bright glows through the room, slanting across the bed and casting angular figurations on the walls, on the ceiling.

It's only now I realize how much I'm dreading sleep. If the past few attempts have been so unsuccessful, I can only imagine the frustration tonight.

The last time my sleep was sound was the night I called Dream. Even though the hour was absolutely ridiculous, at least I was... happy.

My feet carry me to stand behind the desktop chair and my hands rest on the slope. I was happy, just talking to him. I was happy, staying up for him.

Because he's the fucking highlight of my day and without him I don't know how to act anymore.

The material below my palms is expensive, I tell myself, and it's the only reason I don't grip it into creasing.

Turning around to face the rest of my equally impending room, the dread is heavy. I don't know how to act. Taking a few steps forward, I sit tersely on the edge of the bed, surveying the achromatic realm. The hints of color on my lock screen are freakishly saturated against it all.

I pull up a blinding list of contacts, forcing myself to scroll past his name even as it reaches out to me tantalizingly. For a moment, I'm tempted, so tempted because I hear his voice even though my headset isn't on, the sound of safety, the sound I've come to know and love and only now, want.

The blur of names drags to a complete stop. The room swims in my vision as a muffled stir arises from the black-and-white accents.

Help. The screen begins moving again. 

A name scrolls into view. I want to help, too.

My mind tells me, he's the last person I want to call, but I slip out of reach of rationality, I can't think of anyone else, and that puts him at first. 

~