"I understand. You heard the place you loved was in trouble, so you came back, but I don't-I just-why didn't you take me?" Here it was, at last. Catharsis, or something close to it. "I would have hunted them down with you, Philza, the people who did that to your town. I would have given you your vengeance on a silver platter. I would have given you the world." Philza didn't look guilty. He just looked tired. "I didn't hunt them down, though." // Or, that fic where Techno and Phil are old immortals, and Tommy and Wilbur are decidedly... not. Angst ensues. //

They're friends, right? Friends make jokes like they do all the time; you can make inappropriate jokes about your friends and not mean it. You can joke about how much you're in love with them, right? Right? Dream and George have been and will always be friends, even when George smiles like that, and laughs like that. Even when every word he says adds another butterfly to Dream's stomach. Life without George would be unbearable, but living like this, every day in agony, can he stand that either?