Heatwaves - dreamnotfound fanfic

Chapter 8 : You

Notes from the writer :

Warning in this chap: angst/depressive behavior

Okay everybody. Let's do this.
I started this fic just for my own fun, not expecting anyone beyond the 15-20 original commenters to see, let alone the CC's involved - but I get it, this is the internet, stuff is spread like wildfire and I should've seen it coming. It's been passed around everywhere I look. I've had my inbox flooded with the kindest, most supportive messages about my writing I think I'll ever receive - I'm beyond grateful that I could reach your lives in this way.
This was my plan. To finish it, all of it, and then decide if I should keep uploading. I love you all.
All I ask now is that you stop spamming stream chats with Heat Waves related things, stop referencing it in donations, stop berating others for liking it or not liking it. You, as a reader, have a responsibility to be respectful not only to creators, the author, and each other - but to the MCYT community as a whole.
The CC's already know, and don't care. So screw it.

Dream's shoulders ache.

He sinks into the grass of his backyard under the midday sun. It's humid, and bright, and noiseless. The soil smells like shit.

His sore muscles relax into the cradle of green blades and soft earth, stinging his skin. Tangles of roots and shredded weeds collect beneath his desperate fingers.

He stares up at the white clouds slowly crossing the blue sky.

The repairman had visited two and a half days prior, and ever since the brittle flow of cool air returned to bite at his feet and trace goosebumps down his neck, he's felt empty. He finds himself wandering in blankets and hoodies, or sitting in the shower steam, clinging to the heat that escapes him.

He's grown weary of chasing after that which destroys him until he's left in raw silence, burned to the core.

He sighs into the sunshine.

Only his dreams have offered a double-edged break from the solitude that consumes him. He's swallowed by images of ankle-deep, red water and the numb swinging of his lawless axe. He wakes with fear of bruised hands until he turns on the bedside light, and sees his bare knuckles trembling.

He's been winning. Over, and over, and over.

He woke up in the kitchen this morning, with his cheek pressed to the tile floor and a carton of milk near his chest. He didn't remember falling asleep there. He didn't want to remember sleeping.

You reach for me, George had said between peaceful bedsheets and comforting touches.

Tweets and screenshots flood his life. Questions of where he's gone, endless hours of "I miss Dream"'s, hundreds of fans wondering why, for days, his Spotify has been stuck to one song on repeat. Why he sits in his dark room, on his empty couch, in his spare bedroom listening over and over to heat waves heat waves heat waves.

I'm reaching, Dream poured into his horrid collection of notes one night when he'd been too tired to eat, I can't stop reaching.

His phone hums in his pocket. He lets go of the dirt.

Okay Dream, he reads from Sapnap with his phone held high to block the clouds' glare. Get back to me when you can.

He's numb to the guilt by now. Sapnap's relentless concern has slowly ebbed into silence as time passes them by.

He scrolls up, and sees the days-old messages he's poured over with scrutinizing commitment. At first, it was every ten minutes that he'd obey the nauseating pull to reread George's undoing, then every thirty, then once an hour. It's as if he expects the words to change, somehow, for the letters to melt off the screen and reveal new secrets that he missed before. It blurs together too much for him to know.