Chapter Text
Dream was bored. He’s always bored. Everything seemed bleak, tasted like water and sugarless Jello.
He hauls himself up from yet another futile attempt at sleep at midnight and turns on his computer, not bothering to switch the lights on.
He decides to go on Youtube. The night is less lonely when there’s sound for company.
The website takes a few moments to load - he glares half-heartedly at the dark screen as he fiddles with the hem of his shirt.
It finishes loading. He scrolls through the page, looking for… something. Something to stave off the unending well of boredom in his chest.
Minecraft, Minecraft… and more Minecraft. Dream sighs. He likes Minecraft, but sometimes he just wants something different.
A video catches his eye. Not Minecraft (some kind of mobile game?), uploaded ten minutes ago with two views. Must be a smaller channel. Usually his videos would get a few hundred thousand views by the five minute mark. Curious, he clicks in.
He doesn’t know why he expects an intro, maybe someone speaking, but there isn’t one, rather, the video starts immediately, and right in the middle of the (rather intense)level.
Looks like a rhythm game. He distantly remembers his sister playing something like that a few months back.
The level is paused and restarted. Dream props his head on his hands. He’s starting to get drowsy, but he knows that he still won’t be able to sleep just yet.
He doesn’t expect the barrage of music and notes to happen, and he’s jerked awake by it.
Holy shit.
He stares, gaping, at the screen. The person on the screen doesn’t even seem to be fazed by it, fingers practically vibrating on the screen.
Holy fucking shit.
He hasn’t recovered by the time the video ends, and thankfully he has autoplay switched off, allowing him to gather his thoughts.
Okay. Wow. He has to comment something.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard, before he decided on “hey i just saw this in my recommendations and??? what??? are you even human anymore? /j””.
This should suffice.
He subscribes, too.
He hopes that George (the Youtuber) and his viewers don't recognise him.
Well there went his hopes.
In the three hours he slept, the comment absolutely blew up, taking the video and its creator along for the ride.
Twitter went wild about it, the hashtag #dreamscomment trending in the United States.
Hopes dashed and thrown in the paper shredded and lit with a match.
He likes his popularity, but sometimes he wished he never uploaded that first video. This is one of the times.
Someone went viral just because he wanted to comment on a video he was impressed in. Not that he didn’t want the creator to get famous (such skill!), but he resented the fact that couldn’t participate in things outside of what he was known for without the whole internet turning its eyes on him.
He hated it.
George sleeps in on Saturdays, waking up around ten. It’s the only day he could, after all, working three jobs and being a Youtuber at the same time didn’t give much in the way of free time. He had a shift at twelve, too, so he had to hurry.
He checked his phone briefly, noting the time (eleven fifteen, looks like the extra hour spent awake wasn’t doing him any favours).
His Youtube had a big red 999+ on it.
Huh?
The alarm rang half-past eleven.
He’d check it later.
George returns home from his shift. It was awkward, to say the least. People stared at him in the restaurant, whispering among themselves as his back was turned, sometimes not even bothering to hide.
What happened that he became popular all of a sudden?
He regrets wishing to be popular that one time he saw a shooting star back when he was seventeen. Maybe “a steady income” would have been better.
His phone buzzes in his pocket.
Sapnap.
“George! You’re trending on Twitter!” he yells, something raucous playing in the background. Is he at the band rehearsal? Certainly sounds like it.
“Yeah, Sapnap. How did it come about? I didn’t have time to check,” he asks, settling on the couch.
“Well, y’know that video you made? Dream commented on it, and everyone went and watched it. ‘S more because of Dream, but they apparently were impressed by you too,” Spanap said.
“What.”
“I know! Dream himself! Man, I’m so envious of you, think you can get him to comment on ours?”
“You have more than a million views each video, Sapnap, and I barely have ten thousand my last five videos added up - well, if what you’re saying is true, the second to last five videos,” George said, smiling into the phone. “Anyway, did he really? That’s unbelievable.”
“Go check for yourself; I’ll wait,” Sapnap almost sounded smug.
He turned on his laptop, opening Youtube.
...Okay. Wow.
That was a sudden spike in viewers, and the most well-liked comment on the video was from Dream.
Dream: hey i just saw this in my recommendations and??? what??? are you even human anymore? /j”
Dream, the Minecraft Youtuber with a few million subscribers, commented on his video.
He knew DanceRail’s BPM=RT was impressive to full combo, and Dream probably just wanted to leave a comment on it, but his mind couldn’t fully process it.
After some time, he spoke.
“What the fuck.”
Sapnap laughed. Dammit, he could hear the man’s grin.
“Look at that! Little George finally growing to be popular!”
“Shut up, Sapnap,” he said, though there was no heat in the words. “What do I do now? I think I should reply? What should I say?”
“Hm. Well you probably shouldn’t be too excited, nor should you be too cold… maybe thank him and say that you’ve never had a video this popular before? No, that won’t work. Uh… just thank him?”
“Great advice there, Sap.”
“Should I ask Karl? H-” Sapnap was cut off by George.
“Ah- maybe I could DM him on Twitter?”
“And?” he prompted.
“And- and maybe I could talk to him there, so nobody happens to analyze it or something?” George didn’t sound too sure of himself.
“Ooh, that could work- Karl, I’m talking to George- alright, alright - come pick up my corpse, George!”
He stifled a laugh. “Go get your things done, Sapnap. Karl, good job for wrangling him, but don’t be too harsh on him.”
George hung up and buried his face in his hands.
All those plans and none of the courage.
He opened Twitter. Thankfully he didn’t link his Twitter to Youtube, but knowing the power of the internet community it would probably be found out in a matter of days.
That is, if this continued. He hoped not.
George stared at the screen, wondering if he should just ignore the buzz and carry on as usual. As if nothing happened. As if one of the biggest Youtubers didn’t comment on his mediocre video. He could still stay silent about it. Maybe then nothing else would happen and the sudden popularity would just die out.
Twitter pinged.
dreamwastaken: so about the comment
George flinched and nearly dropped the phone. With shaking hands, he opened the chat.
dreamwastaken: i forgot i wasn’t on my alt acc
dreamwastaken: im really sorry
Well.
That definitely didn’t come out wrong.
Dream leant back.
That could be taken as “I didn’t want you popular”, right? Was that condescending? Did he make a bad first - no, second - impression on him?
georgenootfound is typing…
georgenootfound is typing…
His fingers were shaking.
Was he that bad at talking to new people? Technoblade did say that he was quite awkward at first.
He always did end up saying the wrong things.
George didn’t know what to say.
What should he say?
Thanks, like what he had planned to? No, Dream messaged him first, it would look bad as that could be construed as he really wanted to be popular and that he was just a stepping stone. It could also come out as sarcastic. No, no, he had to think of something polite.
well that was unexpected but yknow things happen and-
No. Too verbose, sounded like he was rambling and that wouldn’t do.
I really like your vi-
Don’t change the subject, George. Don’t act like an overly-obsessed fan.
ah its fine accidents happen
He stared at the short line for a long while.
He clicked send, then followed up with dw im sure itll die down after a while.
Was that alright? Did he need to rephrase his words?
Oh well. Spilled words and milk.
He’s still uneasy when he returns from showering.
Dream chewed on his lip.
What… what should he reply with?
He could feel beads of cold sweat running down his neck.
Dammit, this was why he didn’t converse with virtual strangers.
After some time, he typed out thanks for understanding
It seemed too cold. Maybe he should be slightly more friendly?
wanna be friends?
No, not that friendly.
Still… it’d be nice to have a friend that wasn’t on Minecraft, nor steadily popular. Not that he didn’t like his current friends. It was just that sometimes he felt his every move with them scrutinized, picked apart and classified somewhere.
And having more friends is good, right?
dreamwastaken: wanna be friends?