Chapter Text
In hindsight, Sapnap probably should have noticed sooner. Dream is his best friend. Well one of, anyway. Dream and George are basically all he has. They’ve been inseparable since that first week of practice, when they’d made a crazy sequence of passes to each other during a scrimmage. They’re just in sync, like they’ve known each other for years instead of half a semester. They’re unstoppable on the field. The Dream Team, people called them. The freshmen who just seem to read each other’s minds.
It helps that he and George are roommates, and that they’ve all been playing lacrosse since high school. It makes it easy to fall into a friendship that feels as natural as breathing. Once they found each other they hardly spent a minute apart outside of classes.
So really, Sapnap should have noticed sooner.
Dream is always the last person to leave practice. Most of their teammates dip after stretches, going back to their dorms to wash up and start homework. Dream always lingers, talking to his teammates, begging for one more toss. Even when the last person has finally left and Sapnap and George are shivering in the cold, he still seems so full of energy, dragging the pair to the dining hall or the library or the quad. Eventually Sapnap and George just started taking him home with them. They all shower in the communal bathrooms and then hunker down in George and Sapnap’s shared room, working on homework or, more often, playing video games late into the night.
At this point what must be half Dream’s wardrobe is stuffed somewhere in their dorm, not to mention that he’s constantly forgetting homework and pens and snacks that he leaves behind like shed feathers. He’s practically a third roommate, except for the fact that he never stays the night.
That’s been a constant since they started hanging out. No matter how late he stays or how tired he is, even when most nights they put the controllers down at 2am, even when he’s practically dead on his feet and Sapnap and George have an extra toothbrush and his morning class is right next to their dorm; no matter what Dream always goes home.
It’s odd. He clearly wants so badly to be with them. He always drags their hangouts out as long as possible. But by the time they go to sleep he’s always gone.
It’s like he’s running from something.