The celebration went on, admittedly, way too long.

Tommy took an extraordinary amount of screenshots, they jumped around for at least twenty minutes and she stayed on call, on stream, with Dream for a further half hour.

"You were amazing," he told her for the thousandth time, "George didn't even know what hit him, idiot" it was affectionate.

"I still can't believe I did that" she commented, sitting back in her chair, phone in hand.

The second they'd won Niki and Sophie had ran in from the living room, where they had been watching the stream together, bombarding her with a concealed confetti cannon and big hugs.

Only a few minutes later had George messaged her a short congratulations, emoticon smiley face and all. Niki had peaked and seen, the knowing smile on her face made Astrid glad she hadn't written his full name in the contacts, after that she soon pushed them out.

"Against George too, it's like he was gunning for you the whole event" Dream commented, a certain tone to his usually calm voice.

So it wasn't all just in her head, he'd seen it too. That meant their streams had as well.

Why George would go after her wasn't really the question on her mind, it's why he'd make himself such an easy target during dodge bolt that plagued her.

Astrid had seen George play Minecraft on multiple occasions; from his streams, their own world, when sitting on his bed or his lap, and she knew just as well as he did that he could have avoided that all together.

He could have run to the arrow and shot her before she had the chance, or kept moving instead of stopping right in front of her.

Whilst she would appreciate it in some ways if he had purposely stopped to give her a crying chance, the idea that he thought she couldn't do it on her own wasn't a nice one.

Sure, she'd complained to him on a few occasions about how scared she was, how she couldn't handle the hate if they somehow lost because of her, but that gave him no right to throw the game for his own team just for her.

Astrid wasn't angry, she was grown enough to know there was an obvious explanation that she could find out without screaming at him. She also knew that if he had thrown the game it would be out of the kindness of his own heart.

But a little bit, deep down, she was irked.

George didn't think that she could have shot him without his help.

He clearly thought that if he kept moving he'd win, which admittedly would be true. He didn't have faith in her to win on her own terms, and that hurt.

Two days later, she was back in his bed.

His arm felt natural around her shoulder, finger running along the same path as always, surely indenting her skin.

His breathing soothed her, engulfed her in its rhythm so that they beat as one.

Her hand trailed his stomach, seeing him unconsciously flinch at her cold hands.

They hadn't spoken in a while, George sucked into his phone, scrolling Twitter and replying to messages as she watched.

There was one odd thing though, some messages purposely left unopened that he'd scrolled quickly to skip over, almost as if he didn't want her to see.

She caught the name, which eased her mind at least a little bit, but was still confused why he'd be ignoring his best friend.

But, before Astrid herself could bring it up, he had.

"You talked to Dream recently," she lifted her head to see him, but his eyes stayed trained on his phone.

"Not really," she laid her head back, "just here and there, why?"

Curiosity go the better of her.

He only hummed, biting his lip in silence.

"He um..." it was a struggle with himself, "he seems to think that I dislike you"

"What?"

That hadn't been what she was expecting, she sat in instantly, his hand falling from her shoulder as he shut off his phone and rubbed his eyes.

"Why would he think that?"

She knew why.

"Who knows... apparently I was 'gunning for you the whole event'" a direct quote, the words Dream had said on her stream only a few days prior.

"I don't think that's necessarily true" his eyes finally met hers.

"'Necessarily'?"

"You were, kinda, going for me." His eyes boarded into hers, "but it's fine, I didn't mind"

The boy sat up as well, rearranging himself to be sat in front of her, face to face.

"I wasn't doing it to be cruel" her eyebrow raised.

She stayed silent, whilst she had her suspicions on why he had been going for her she's like to hear it straight from the source.

"You were scared," he started softly, hand running along her knee in a comforting fashion, "I thought if you didn't make it to the final you couldn't, y'know, blame yourself"

"I appreciate that," she spoke just as slowly, hand meeting his, "but, I'd rather know why you threw dodge bolt"

He looked caught off guard.

"What?" He deflected, "I didn't- I didn't throw"

A knowing smile came to her face.

"Really?"

"Yeah, my-my game lagged or something, trust me," he met her eyes again, a soft smile on his lips, "that was all you"

Astrid could see through him like glass, but if he wanted to tell her he would.

They both knew the truth, it didn't need to be spoken out loud.

—————

Written: 19th December 2022

Published: 25th December 2022

Ik I concluded that rather quickly, and it may seem rushed, but theres truly nothing I hate more than characters having a big fight about something they could literally just talk rationally about. So thats what i made them do.

Sorry if you wanted a big fight thats just not me hehe