Astrid and George hadn't spoken since the MCC teams were announced, granted that was only hours ago. She tried not to get worked up about it, George rarely messaged her just to chat, he could be sleeping or calling Dream or just about any other rational explanation there is.

Or, he could be avoiding her.

Looking at their messages and scoffing, deleting her number and forgetting every fun night they had. Dotting on their downfall as a team, hoping Dream would hate her so he had a reason to stop the insanity of their situation. Maybe he was realising that, when it came down to it, he would choose anybody but her. Regretting everything.

Or she was being crazy, either way, the feeling wasn't nice.

Team Red Rabbit training, however, was going swimmingly, albeit only three-quarters of the team were actually in the VC. Dream opted to train alone for a while, though she doubted he wasn't in a call with somebody else.

Besides that, they were doing great.

Tommy's gritty commentary and Wilbur's casual banter, and the dynamic they had together, was really settling her mind.

"Ace race" Wilbur spoke deeply, an effect on his voice no doubt, "my old nemesis"

"There's no fight," Tommy countered, speeding through the air about Astrid's head, yet again she'd fallen into the water, missing the platform, "you just suck"

"Oh, alright, Ace Race God" he quipped back, using the sarcastic voice he usually did.

"Thank you for using my full title" Tommy spoke back in a 'high and mighty' all-for-show voice, loving their friendship just as much as everyone else.

It's something Astrid admired about the young boy, on and off screen. He carried himself well, didn't let much affect him, and always had a good time no matter his situation. They hadn't spoken much, she was definitely closer to Tubbo despite the age difference, but the few times they had she always had fun, he was even great at talking people through crises' and always seemed to know when something was wrong, perhaps fearing it was his own actions.

She remembers a time from a couple of months ago, maybe the second or third time she had met up with George alone, still swimming in the menial thoughts of where is this going and could this be a relationship by now she knew the answers, well sort of...maybe, but at the time they'd burdened her mind way more than they do now, and Tommy had helped her.

Sensing something was wrong in a voice call full of people, messaging her privately just to make sure she wasn't feeling too down, promising her 'Tommy time' right as the chat ended and called her immediately after for a long talk. Though, maybe not self admittedly, Tommy had little experience with girls he did really help, shouting of jokes of 'man ain't shit' to brighten her mood, which it did successfully.

Overall, Tommy was a sweet kid with a future ahead of him wise beyond his years and she was just excited to watch him grow.

Wilbur was much the same, however with a much more subtle tone. Randomly asking if she was okay, dragging her into hour-long calls if she didn't feel like getting out of bed, noticing her eyes light up when her phone chimed just to deflate again when she looked at it. He wasn't stupid, he'd gone through the same thing many, many times, he knew what was up and what to say to keep her mind off the situation.

Much like Niki and Sophie, he knew just enough to know why she felt the way she did, but not enough to actually help.

To them there was a secret lover, a boy she didn't want to talk about yet, with endless nights together and memories she kept firmly to herself. But what else could she do, explaining that the person she was seeing didn't want to tell people about them because she was secretive was easy, harder to explain was that he wanted to keep it to themselves because he feared the backlash of a whole community.

She dealt with enough backlash, simply being a female creator in the same space as these people were enough for hateful comments and unhinged DM's sent her way.

Maybe it was for the best they didn't speak up, or maybe it'd be better if none of this happened at all.

——————

Written: 24th July 2022

Published: 25th July 2022

Realising more and more that my style of writing is just thoughts, like I am terrible at dialoug I cannot do it