(send me a word on retro and, if it's in the sd12 draft, i'll post the passage it's in):

That feeling of unbearable loneliness has returned to him, flailing in his chest in horrific juxtaposition to the sweet half-smile on Dream’s lips as he rounds the end of his kitchen countertop and approaches with two plates, piled high with notice.

His meal is gingerly placed down in front of him, rotated just slightly so that the orange segments are in the top right, lined up with his water glass. “Thanks.”

Dream just nods as he sits heavily in the chair opposite his and for a long, devastating moment, he’s sitting here three weeks ago, in a graveyard of forgotten styrofoam, when the overheads seemed to cut through his retinas and half-wilted hyacinths struggled between them as he clung to the edge of the table with a white-knuckled grip. He has to shake it from his head, trying to burn this image of Dream, his curls still wet and pushed back by a headband and sleeves worn from where George knows he mindlessly fingers them out of nervous habit, into the back of his eyelids instead.