Forever

Chapter 4

The next morning, George was distant, and Dream hated it. Every time he made an attempt to talk to him, George would respond with quiet hums or short responses. And if Dream came near him, he was quick to busy himself with something or just step away completely.

It was driving Dream crazy. And by late afternoon, he couldn't handle it anymore.

They were in the kitchen, and Dream was leaning back against one of the counters while George busiest himself at the sink. He was watching him closely, and a quiet sigh slipped past his lips as he finally said, "George, what's wrong?"

George shrugged causally, throwing a glance over his shoulder as he answered, "nothing, why?"

He turned away, and Dream responded, "it's not nothing, clearly. You've been acting weird all morning. Are you still mad about last night? Because I'm sorry, I am. I was jealous, and-"

George silenced him with a scoff, turning the faucet off and finally spinning to face Dream. He looked mad, heat burning behind darkened eyes as he muttered, "I don't care about that."

Running a hand down his face, Dream finally spoke the words he had been avoiding for months, "fine, then do you want to talk about why you're actually pissed at me?"

George raised an eyebrow, head tilting questioningly as he asked, "sure, and what would the actual reason be?"

There was a moment of tense silence in which they both were seemingly sizing each other up. With a slow exhale, Dream kept his gaze leveled on George and said, "I'm the one who technically killed Technoblade, and you're upset that it wasn't you."

George's face was unreadable, but he scoffed quietly and shot back, "you put a bullet through his chest, Dream. There's nothing technical about that. You murdered him when you knew it was the only thing I wanted to do."

Another beat of silence, and Dream searched George's face for some hint as to what he wanted to hear. Finding nothing there, he tried, "I didn't have a choice, George. You were hurt, and he was about to stab you. I did what I had to do to help you, or you would've ended up dead."

George rolled his eyes, and Dream could already tell this wasn't going to be resolved as easily as he had hoped.

"You didn't have to do anything, Dream," George responded, "he was already injured and weak, you could've stopped before you pulled the trigger. I could've still done it."

Dream sighed, because he knew George had a point. In his mind, he could recall his own hand closed around Technoblade's wrist to stop the blade from piercing into George. Technoblade was already weak from blood loss, he'd barely put up a fight.

"I wasn't thinking, okay?" Dream spoke quietly now. He hated seeing so much anger behind George's eyes, and it was all directed towards him.

"You're lying," George pushed away from the counter to step closer, "you were thinking, and what you decided was that you deserved to kill Technoblade because of what he had done to you."

Dream stayed quiet, and an accusatory finger poked into his chest as George dropped his voice lower and said, "admit it, Dream. You did it because you wanted to be the one to kill him. You did it to get your own revenge."

It was only partly true, because first and foremost, he had done it to keep George alive. The revenge had come second, but it was still a huge driving force in his decision.

Rather than admit that, Dream answered, "it doesn't matter, George. He's dead and I can't take it back. It doesn't matter who did it, all that matters is that he's gone."

George scoffed again, brow furrowing as he muttered, "if you think that's true, then you're a fucking idiot, Dream."

Dream's jaw tensed again, and George's expression shifted suddenly, voice dropping softer and sounding a bit more pained as he said, "you know exactly why I needed to do this. He murdered my father, Dream. That was my only chance at getting any sort of revenge for him. He may have made your life hell for six months, but he's been making my life hell for a whole lot longer than that. He took everything from me, Dream. I had nothing."