safe with me - dnf mafia au (english)

>23<

George POV.

Ever since the night Dream came into my room looking for refuge and closeness, I haven't really been able to sleep well without him.
Of course he spent his time back home after a while to adjust his lifestyle without a girlfriend, but that also meant that he would only be with us when he really needed to, which was a surprisingly low amount of time.
He spent his nights by himself in his double bed at home and was becoming more and more accustomed to sleeping alone with no one by his side, while I would wake up sometimes more than twice every night screaming, crying and panicking from this recurring nightmare of the past, which seemed to haunt me every time I closed my eyes and it would end up robbing me of any kind of rest.

The others noticed my change of behavior, but nobody spoke to me about it.
The dark circles under my eyes and the physical weakness from my lack of sleep were definitely noticeable, but no one said anything.
Maybe no one wanted to risk doing anything triggering by asking what was going on, although it made me feel like they just didn't care how I was doing.
I was aware that this wasn't the case, they were my friends and also made it clear how much they cared for me, but a little part of me just wouldn't give up believing that they were doing it on purpose and that my excuses for them weren't true.
I didn't feel like it and was honestly just too tired to wear any of the nice clothes I now owned and just always wore oversized hoodies and pants.

I didn't tell Puffy about any of it, she seemed concerned enough for me and it made little sense for me to burden her with it as well.
It was probably just my sleep deprived mind making those stupid assumptions, but for me it seemed logical and like the right thing to do in my situation.
My trauma, my trust issues, and my fear of the hawk's return were enough subjects for therapy without having to deal with daily nightmares of the same events.
It's not like I could've just told her one day
'oh hi Puffy, how're ya doin? Good? Good. Cause I wanted to tell ya that I've actually been dreaming about being tortured, raped and killed by that guy Jason and the Hawk for the past couple of weeks. Why I didn't mention it? Oh yeah, no, just didn't feel like it, you know?'.

She was already doing way too much for me, I didn't want to put too much on her shoulders.
River was still intern with her and Puffy did her best to support them with their studies, they in turn did their best to help Puffy in any way if she needed it.
River once confronted me about my behavior and looked at me with concern and a bit of uncertainty on their face while I half-heartedly explained that I had just gone to bed late that day.
River nodded, but I knew my excuse wasn't believable.

I didn't care for myself anymore after a while and started to 'forget' to eat.
I only did it when I absolutely had to, but otherwise I just didn't care if it hurt me physically not to eat much as I was too distracted by my mental suffering.
My brain also kept telling me that I was undeserving of food and just disgusting if I dared to want to eat something, and I was too tired to question my own thoughts.
After a while I found it difficult to fall asleep entirely.
I was afraid of the nightmare that kept coming back, afraid of the panic attack that always followed after I woke up, afraid of the memories that kept coming back to me and afraid of the tears that ran down my face every night.
I was terrified of sleeping and the pain that always came with closing my eyes.

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(Point of view switch, because I'm cool and quirky like that)
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Dream POV.

I missed the feeling of having someone lay next to me at night, but I was okay with living alone again and got over Samantha pretty quickly.
My visits to the headquarters diminished a bit as I wanted to distract myself for now and focus on myself and my life.
I had to function well to lead a team, act for the good of the group in difficult situations, and be careful not to bring feelings of love between myself and my work.