Charitable - DreamNotFound

S i x

Tuesday, 1.50pm

"You ready to start?" Dream called out from under the table. He found himself trying to plug in all the different leads for George's setup, which was proving to be a  physically demanding task.

"Yeah, don't start until 2 on the dot. though." George dragged over three gaming chairs and opened the Twitter app on his phone, ready to tweet out the stream link as soon as it began.

"Clay!" Sapnap called as he entered the room, carrying a pair of sunglasses and a mask. Dream suddenly raised his head upon hearing his name, accidentally bumping his head on the table with a loud thump. He let out a shriek which was followed by a chorus of chuckles from George and Sapnap.

"You okay?" George couldn't help but laugh. Dream stood up, aggressively rubbing the top of his head as he winced.

"Yeah, that hurt like a bitch."

"Will this cover your face enough?" Sapnap handed him the sunglasses and mask. Both were plain and black in colour. Thanks to the pandemic, masks like that were far easier to find. Sapnap just had some lying around his room, but he figured black would be the best option.

"Sure." Dream carefully put the accessories on, making sure that every inch of his eyes, mouth and nose was covered. He definitely didn't want any sort of accidents on stream. 

"I don't get why you can't just, like,  show your face already," George scoffed. If he had even a fraction of Dream's beauty he would flaunt it at any given opportunity. In George's eyes, he was perfect and he couldn't possibly think of anything that he would want to hide.

"I'll face reveal soon, I swear," Dream's expression was hidden beneath his disguise. "I just don't want to yet, you know? It's fun being faceless but I can only do it for so long. I wanna do vlogs and stuff with you guys eventually."

George nodded, glancing down at his phone. "It's 2." 

"Okay, let's do it." Dream grinned. He started the stream on George's account and let it rest on the 'STARTING SOON' screen. Upon seeing George's brittle expression he lifted his glasses to give him a playful wink of reassurance. "It'll be okay, Gogs. Nothing bad's gonna happen. I promise."

The trio tweeted out the stream link and Twitter was already going crazy; they had basically just confirmed all the rumours that George was in Florida and fans were loving it. The chat in George's stream had picked up on it too, as they were spamming "dreamteam meetup" and "dnf meetup" in the chat.

"We have 200k already.." Sapnap blinked in astonishment. "It's only been, like, five minutes. Should we just start it?"

"Yeah, sure." George turned on his facecam and the three spent a minute awkwardly looking at themselves in  the facecam. Chat went nuts at the sight of Dream's covered face. He didn't wear a beanie, therefor his blonde hair lay out for all to see. It wasn't enough to give away his identity, but it was enough to drive the stans crazy, for some reason.

The boys spent an hour reacting to media shares, answering questions from chat and speaking about George's upcoming charity campaign. George made the sensible decision not to look at chat; even though the majority of messages were positive he didn't want to risk seeing anything he didn't want to. His mood was always delicate during streams; he loved the job more than anything but it caused him more anxiety and distress than good.

Despite Dream's face coverings (which provided their limits) he managed to be the comedic relief the room needed. He always was; he knew how to light up any dark room he managed to find himself in. Although Sapnap and George remained somewhat dreary, he did all he could to lift their spirits and keep everyone entertained and happy. He made a special effort to ensure that George wasn't uncomfortable. Anytime he noticed him fidgeting anxiously, he'd tap his foot against his and crack a joke to clear the air. Everytime the British boy let out his familiar laugh his heart would grow and heal just a little bit more. 

Dream found himself spending the entire stream trying to get George smiling. He loved how the brunette would flail his hands in excitement everytime he'd get carried away with something, or how his eyes would squint to nothing but almond slits as he grinned, his cheeks blushing a shell-pink. Dream was falling in love, he just didn't know it yet. He was capable of understanding the emotions of everyone around him, but never his own. 

"ItsJadya donated 20, thank you!" Sapnap read out the donation, leaning forward to read the message attached. "She says, 'are Dream and George gonna kiss?'" He chuckled at the joke before looking at the pair, expecting a reaction.

"Yeah, we are." Dream answered playfully. 

"Shut up, Dream. That's not funny," George's face turned a deep scarlet as he narrowed his eyes at Dream. 

"Who said I was joking? If I didn't have this mask on we'd be kissing by now, chat. Live on stream."

"Dream, seriously. Cut it out." George's face seemed to turn a darker red, as if that was even possible. He felt the stab of humiliation as the chat started to go crazy. He knew, deep down, that it was just a joke, and a funny one at that, but he also knew that everyone would take it and run with it. He didn't want everyone thinking he was gay-

"Okay, on that note, I think we are going to end stream," Sapnap laughed, his eyes flicking over the goodbye's in chat. By this point they had 350k viewers, but the trio was growing tired and Dream's joke that didn't land seemed to dampen the atmosphere in the room.

They said their farewells and turned off the stream. The second the cameras were off, George turned to face Dream with a look of outrage. "Did you really have to say that? Now everyone's gonna think we're together."

"Relax, George. They know I'm joking. Even if they don't, who cares? Let them think what they want to think," Dream scoffed, grabbing his phone from his bedside table and aggressively scrolling. "Well, you weren't wrong."

"What?"

"Everyone does think we're together." Dream burst into a fit of laughter upon seeing George's face.

"Oh my God. Fuck off," George exasperated, storming out of the room without another word, leaving Sapnap and Dream standing alone in the spare room.

"You not going to go after him?" Sapnap glanced at his roommate. 

"Nah. He needs a minute. He's in denial, Sapnap, internalized homophobia," Dream snorted, tugging off his mask and glasses to reveal his features.

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"What does what mean?"

"Internalized homophobia?"

"Oh, don't worry about it."