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He wakes to someone standing over him. Something, actually. It’s way too close to his face, the perpetual grin not quite as unnerving as it used to be. He rolls over on the mattress, trying to block it out.
“Go away.” He says, and the thing shakes its head.
“No.” DreamXD says, and George knows it’s going to be a long day. The bed is still comfortable under him, not quite to the point where he feels like he’s melted into it yet.
DreamXD stands patiently on the other side of the room, waiting for him to move. George wonders what it would do if he pretended to be dead. He’s good at pretending.
If he closes his eyes, he can pretend for long enough to dull the pain in his chest, a mixture of sadness and anger that’s ever present. He can pretend that this thing is his friend, and that he’s not alone on this godforsaken server.
“Did you fall back asleep?” The thing all but yells, and George opens his eyes. The knot in his chest returns, and he swings his legs over the side of the bed, getting up for the first time in a couple days. If he doesn’t move eventually, the thing will just pull him onto the floor anyways.
He stumbles, his legs feeling like liquid under him. DreamXD goes to catch him, but George smacks its hands away before it can make contact.
“Don’t touch me.” He snaps, bitter. The thing steps back and watches as George pulls on different clothes, something other than what he’d been wearing for the past week. His glasses go on and he feels somewhat better, without having to make eye contact with the eyeless face.
George isn’t sure why this thing keeps following him around, other than protection, as the thing says. But with his list of allies constantly dwindling, he needs it, along with whatever the thing is willing to offer him.
It’s his only friend, after all.
If it reminds him of Dream, then no one needs to know. Dream isn’t dead, but he might as well be, locked inside the inescapable prison that looms over the rest of them, an implicit threat. Dream, the one that George knew, is gone, if the broken mask that Sapnap gave him is any indication.
He likes to think that Dream is just thinking of a plan to escape, that it’ll be over soon and he can pretend it was all a nightmare, but as the weeks pass he isolates more and more, and he’s not entirely sure if he even counts as a person anymore. He guesses he doesn’t have to be, if Dream and Sapnap are gone anyways.
He hadn’t gone to help save Tommy, but he knew what had happened. It was the only thing anyone would talk about for weeks after, and there was no escaping it. Sapnap had gone, knowing what had to be done. George was too much of a coward. They’d fought about it for weeks, one too proud to go back, the other knowing that he was in the right.
George had spared himself the hardship. He didn’t want to see Dream’s downfall, the way that he had been spiralling coming to a head. Didn’t need to see dull green eyes as the mask finally fell, revealing nothing but a person underneath. Someone desperate grasping onto thin straws, who used to be his friend.
“George?” DreamXD says, and George moves on. He has nothing to do today, but he can’t stand to sleep when that thing is in the same room as him, even when he knows it’ll just come watch him sleep once he’s already asleep anyways. George is good at pretending.
So he sets off around the server, waving to whoever gives enough of a shit to wave at him. There aren't many people that will these days, but Puffy gives him a wave, and surprisingly enough, Fundy.
He and Fundy were the only two who refused to go to Dream’s arrest. They had a mutual understanding afterwards, especially once the server came after them with interrogations as to why they had missed it.
“I was asleep.” George had said, the age old excuse he used for everything. In all honesty he probably had been. He did a lot of sleeping these days, an easier way for the days to pass.
Because it was so much easier to sleep when there was either too much or not enough happening around him. Most of his friends were gone, disappeared or alienated. The few that remained he shut out, preferring to play pretend with a god. It was his fault, really.
DreamXD was bad company, but it was better than nothing, something George resented. The thing wouldn’t let him sleep for longer than four days, dragging him out of his bed whether he wanted to or not. After the first few accidents he started agreeing to move on his own.
Healing potions only did so much, and without a respawn, only so much could be fixed. George was just waiting for the day when the thing tired of potions and patching him up after and just killed him on the spot.
And if this thing just killed him and no one noticed, then he wouldn’t have to explain anything to anyone. Could just loop the same logic in his head over and over, and as long as it made sense to him, then it didn’t matter. DreamXD would continue to have its way with him and he would continue to ease the ache in his chest.
Dream wouldn’t hurt him, but DreamXD didn’t know what it was doing, leading to awkward encounters and worse injuries.
But it didn’t matter, never mattered, because the thing would fix him with an unending supply of healing potions, or regeneration, or fire-resistance. If George’s eye never worked right after that, or if his finger was bent a little bit the wrong way, it was fine.
No one was around to notice, anyways.