melancholy

it was raining.

dream laid on his side in his bed, facing the window to see the storm raging past the glass, making trees sway and roads close. he felt like the rain; making everything darker when he touched it, weighing things down.

a soft laugh escaped his lips, a bitter one. how could he be so selfish to even think to blame other people at first? now he knew everything was his fault, it was him who built up these walls around him and lied to everyone. he felt something inside him twist with regret, with the realization that he did this to himself and hurt others by doing it. he didn't ever want to be the reason others were hurting, never. he wanted to make people happy, but the only person he knew at the moment who still enjoyed his company was sapnap.

sapnap, the perfect, funny, beautiful, too good for him, sapnap.

but he just couldn't wrap his head around the fact that someone who was way better than him in all aspects would even look in his direction. he was baffled that sapnap was his best friend.

before he knew it, his cold hands were fumbling for his phone on the nightstand, and dialing sapnap's number. his heart beat faster every second that the raven didn't answer the phone, his hands shaking even more as they held the device to his ear. three rings, four rings, five. still no cheery voice on the other side of the line. whenever the voicemail started playing, he stayed there for a moment, listening to the sound of his voice in the recorded message. then he hung up.

he didn't know how long he laid there, his phone laying next to his face on the pillow, hoping for a call that wouldn't come.

only whenever he saw the sun start peeking up from behind the clouds did he sit up and rub his tired eyes. he didn't know the last time he had gotten a decent amount of sleep. he pushed himself out of bed, forcing himself to go to the kitchen and get a drink of water, maybe try to eat something. but he could barely even hold the water bottle without the liquid sloshing out, his hands were shaking so bad. his eyes held back tears that so desperately just wanted to fall.

what if sapnap had finally stopped caring about him, too?

that's when the dam broke and tears started pouring out of his eyes. he dropped the water onto the floor, not caring when it splashed everywhere as he leaned against the counter to support himself so he wouldn't fall over. the thought of sapnap not liking him anymore was terrifying. he couldn't imagine not having the raven in his life anymore, and he didn't think he'd be able to bear it.

after hours of sobbing on the kitchen floor, he finally stood up, wincing at the stiffness in his legs. he went back into his room, ignoring his phone completely as he heard the notification sound for whenever he got a text, and went into the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror. he looked like shit, to say the least.

the bags under his eyes were darker and he was visibly thinner from spending hours alone in his room, staying there and not moving for days, not even whenever his stomach growled and his body ached. his dirty blonde hair was messy and one side was pressed flat from laying on one side in bed, and it looked greasy. he probably needed to take a shower.

but instead of actually taking care of himself, he walked back into his room, and practically collapsed onto his bed, curling up into the warm comforter. his bed was his only safe space, but also the worst place to be. whenever he was alone in his bedroom, he would stay up and let his thoughts consume him. he couldn't stop it, anyway, his thoughts were too loud, telling him just how he wasn't good enough and no wonder no one liked him. he tried to convince himself otherwise, but always ended in that rabbit hole of misery.

he was buried in his thoughts and his own melancholic sadness.

distinctly, he heard his phone going off, ringing the tune he had set for whenever sapnap called.

oh.

his brain took a moment to register it, too hazy with sleepiness and negative emotions to think properly. he picked up the phone, stared at the caller name for a second, before answering.

"hello?" ouch, his voice sounded rough. scratchy from crying and croaky from underuse. apparantly sapnap could tell, "hey, man, what's up? are you okay? you called me at like, four in the morning. i was asleep or i would've answered."

he didn't respond immediately, just took in sapnap's comforting voice and words. so, he hadn't done it on purpose. of course he hadn't, dream thought, he's your best friend, he cares about you.

he felt even worse.

he had called at a completely unreasonable hour, then gotten upset when sapnap hadn't answered. how much more selfish could he be?

"oh, um─ yeah, im fine." the lie was rather easy to say. perhaps it was because he'd been lying about how he felt for months. "i guess i was just.. bored. wanted to see if you were up."

"well, im up now, we can talk for however long you want." he was thankful that sapnap believed him.

a small smile passed his lips for the first time in days. "great, looks like we've got a lot of talking to do," dream said, and answered sapnap's 'about what?', "about making plans to hang out. we haven't in a while, and honestly, i miss you."

that wasn't a lie, he did miss sapnap and he wanted to see him as soon as possible. but what worried him was if sapnap saw him like this.

they talked for a little longer, laughed and cracked jokes, until sapnap said the words dream never wanted to hear. "well, it was nice talking to you dude, but ive got some stuff to do right now. ill call you back later, yeah?" dream hummed acknowledgement into the phone and said goodbye to sapnap, but didn't press the end call button. he didn't want sapnap to go, even if they would talk later. he wanted to hear his favorite boy's voice to keep him distracted from scary thoughts. but whenever he heard the three beeps from the other end, he knew the raven had hung up.

and he was thrown into a pit of melancholic sadness again at the suffocating silence, his eyes moving back to the window.

it had stopped raining.