MCC was only a few days away, that Saturday she'd be in front of hundreds of thousands of people from forty different streams. That scared her. The idea that it wasn't only her own viewers that would see her, but also people that have no idea who she was. That this would be their first impression of her.

Astrid had had to buy some of that horrible tasting stuff to put on your nails to stop her from biting them, reminding her of her early childhood a bit too much. It was childish, sure, but really worked for her - for a few days. Now, however, much like it had in her childhood, the taste didn't bother her much and wasn't really stopping her from biting them.

Dream had suggested getting her nails done, but with the upcoming Minecraft competition and how she'd need to type specifically put her against the idea. If anything was gonna stop her from doing good, it definitely wasn't going to be fake nails.

He'd even offered to pay for them, jokingly suggesting she got little dream blobs on the ring fingers to support the team. She had laughed at that, considering doing it, with each finger being a different member of the team. But maybe that would have been overkill.

Also, she doubted George would like to see her nails with, not only his best friend, but a minor whilst they had their fun. It most definitely would ruin the mood.

But still, it kept her mind off of her nerves, even only for a short time. Unfortunately, her nerves were also taking her mind off of other things. She hadn't seen George in almost two weeks, spending every spare minute she had practicing. The number of times she'd done the same jumps just to fail them in the end was embarrassing.

"Almost there" Dream's voice spoke in her ear, forever encouraging.

"I know I can do it, I've done it before" she was mostly speaking to herself, convincing herself that this was easy, she'd done it a thousand and one times so messing up now, this close to the game day, was insane.

Niki told her she was overtraining, that by now she was so good at parkour she could only go down. It was niceties, she knew the blonde was only saying it to be encouraging, but it still helped.

"So you can definitely do it again!" His voice cheered her on, his green body flying around her head as she got back to the beginning, jumping from one to the other before getting to the block she'd just missed, falling just short of it once again.

"One more time, one more time" he continued, speaking louder to be heard over her heavy sighing.

"Last time, then we're moving on"

"What, no, you can't give up"

"I'm not giving up," she assured, "I'm just moving on and I'll come back later"

"Okay, okay" he sat back in his chair, the little squeak well known to her by now, "just one more time, then you can move on"

She didn't reply, egging herself on silently as she set off again, this time, however, she didn't stop on the block before she used her pent-up speed to keep going, finally reaching the block.

"Yes!" He almost screamed as she kept going, making it all to the end, "amazing! I knew you could do it"

She just couldn't stop smiling, her chair goes flying as she stands up, jumping around her room and shouting, the boy on the other side of the call, and the world, shouting just as loud.

He'd been there the whole way, this was just as much his achievement as it was hers, he maybe wanted it even more than she did.

In all the excitement her phone was thrown to the floor, she didn't even bother to pick it up, too enthralled in the game, in talking to Dream for endless hours.

She hadn't even noticed the message sat on her home screen, a message that she wished she had seen, missing the time she spent with George more than ever.

But this was important, she didn't want to look like an idiot live on stream, and if that meant spending, admittedly a bit too much, time with Dream. Then that's what she'd do.

And if she just so happened to gain a new friend throughout the experience, then that was just an added plus.

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Written: 5th October 2022

Published: 17th October 2022

Sorry it took so long!!! I've been busy and just didn't want to write lol

Thank you for 100k!! Woo