I felt homesick a lot whilst in England, but some days were worse than others. After calling my parents, I felt completely drained. All I wanted to do was give them a hug and it was only made worse when they sent me a picture of Moose laying in my bed at home.

The part that hurt the most was knowing that technically I could go home to them, but the danger surrounding it was too much. Every time I set myself a time I hoped to get back by, I was left hurt. Originally I was hoping that I might've been able to move back in time for Thanksgiving, but my new goal seemed to be Christmas. Thanksgiving was a strange goal since my family didn't celebrate it, but it had become a tradition for the Jacobs family to invite Bea and I over.

I sighed into my pillow. The idea of returning to America felt more and more unrealistic by the day. I'd been here eight months with this idea that I'd go back soon. Soon would've been eight months ago.

  These thoughts of home kept me up. I tried to distract myself with planning new outfits and doing my makeup, but nothing helped. I found myself just staring at my ceiling while I laid in bed.

  I picked up my phone and noticed the time, four in the morning. These dumb thoughts had me up at four in the morning with nothing to do. Will had always let me vent to him in times like this, but he should've been asleep.

  I had always refused to vent to Bea and Sean about my homesickness because they would only make it worse. I missed them like hell.

  Everyone I had here in England, plus Niki, would be asleep and my friends from home would only make the situation worse. I needed a distraction and nothing was working. I only had one more person I could really go to and I'd missed his call today because I couldn't eat.

Medusa
Hey are you busy?

Sapnap
Are you okay?
What are you doing awake rn?

Medusa
Can't sleep
Can you call?

  My question was answered by a Discord call, which I immediately picked up. "Hey, Sapnap." I greeted him.

  "Hey, you can't sleep? Is there a reason?" Sapnap's concerned tone poked through.

  I shook my head to myself and took a deep breath. "It's just overthinking."

  "Overthinking what?" He questioned. "I mean- if you want to talk about it."

  "Just some homesickness." I admitted. "I talked to my parents today and it put me in a funk."

"What can I do?" His voice was soft.

His question caught me off guard. "What?"

"What can I do to help you?" He rephrased his question. "Like, do you want to talk about it or do you want a distraction or anything else?"

I looked at my phone. I can't remember anyone asking me that. They always just chose for me. "I- I don't know."

"Maybe we should focus on trying to get you to sleep?" He suggested. "Whatever's gonna help with that."

I looked back up to my ceiling in thought. I didn't really have trouble getting to sleep often. The issue for me was getting up. "Can you talk? Like you normally would, since we missed dinner tonight."

"Yeah. I can do that." Sapnap started to tell me every detail about his day while I closed my eyes. He told me about how he had been online with Dream and George. He told me about how his mom nearly killed him when he was late to dinner because George wouldn't stop talking. He told me about how Karl was gonna get him online for something later that night.

I listened intently to his stories as sleep slowly caught up to me. He could've talked about anything and it would've been calming to me. Something about his voice felt homely and comforting. It was the perfect thing to have gotten me to finally sleep.

~Sapnap's POV~

I had been talking nearly nonstop for around twenty minutes when I heard a light snore from my phone. Medusa was finally asleep. I muted myself and decided to stay on the call for the time being.

When she had messaged me at what would've been four in the morning for her, I was instantly concerned. Medusa wasn't someone who stayed up all that late, which was good for her, but bad for me. There weren't enough hours in the day where both of us weren't sleeping or doing anything. We got an hour or two most days and that just wasn't enough for me.

I couldn't get enough of Medusa. Everything about her drew me in. I felt like I was lucky that she even talked to me at all. She was so unapologetically herself and it caught my attention. The fact that her unapologetic self was incredible was what kept me hooked.

She and I had gotten close fairly quickly and it made no sense to me, but we just clicked. I felt like I could tell her anything and she'd listen to every detail. I could say the same about anything she told me. Something about her commanded attention and I was happy to give it to her.

I didn't really know what to do once Medusa had fallen asleep. I'd have to hang up eventually, but I felt like I needed to stay. I wanted to stay.

I ran a hand through my hair and let out a sigh. I was absolutely screwed.

-=-

~Medusa's POV~

That morning, I was surprised to find that Sapnap had let the call go for four hours. That must've been when he went to bed, like two in the morning for him. Considering his sleep schedule, that didn't seem too bad. I couldn't help but wonder why he waited that long to end the call. I had decided to just not bring it up.

  It had been a couple days since I had fallen asleep on call with Sapnap and I was feeling a lot better about my homesickness. Even right after I slept, things felt a bit better.

  I had decided today was the day I'd finally split dye my hair and found it quite funny when I realized just how faded my hair had become. It was orange instead of red. At least it was fitting for the month of Halloween. I hadn't told anyone what my plan for the day was, so I used the opportunity to surprise people. The first thing I did was force Will to bring me food.

I heard the familiar noise of my door being unlocked and came out of my room to see Will as he entered.

He was turned around as he closed the door. "I brought you a muffin since you wouldn't..." He turned and looked at me. "Nice hair." With that, he walked over to my table and set the paper bag down.

I snorted. "Thanks. You're being forced to take pictures of it."

He groaned. "I brought you food. Why do you ask this much of me?"

"Only like one picture if you do well." I bargained.

He rolled his eyes and held his hand out for my phone. "One."

I giggled and handed him my phone before standing against the wall for a good background.

"Why is it orange? Did you dye it orange?" Will questioned as I heard him take a couple pictures for me.

I turned and took my phone from his hand. "No. It just faded and the black made it look a lot more orange, I guess."

"My question is why did you dye half your hair black at like 10am on a Thursday?" He walked over to inspect my fridge.

"Don't question me." I started to look through the couple pictures he had taken. "Potatoes to the right on the second shelf."

Will nodded and took the container out to heat some potatoes up for himself. I had made them two days ago, so they needed to be eaten anyways.

I went to call Sapnap on Discord to show him my hair. I didn't bother messaging him before calling him.

Will gave me a quizzical look when he heard the noise of the Discord call. "What are you doing?"

I ignored him and looked at my phone. Sapnap took longer than usual to answer, but I thought nothing of it.

"What's up?" Sapnap's voice was heavy with the rasp of sleep. If I was being honest, it was quite attractive.

My eyes widened when I realized my mistake. "Oh, fuck. I woke you up."

"Did you really expect me to be awake at six in the morning? In what world would that happen?" Sapnap chuckled at me.

Will started laughing at me once he realized what had happened. "You forgot time zones existed!"

"I forgot time zones existed." I admitted with a nod. "Sorry for waking you up. You can go back to sleep."

Sapnap stopped me before I could hang up. "Well, I'm awake now. Why'd you call?"

"I wanted to show you something." I glared at Will as he continued to laugh at me.

"Alright. Show me, then." I could hear Sapnap move around in his bed.

I turned my camera on with a slight smile. "I dyed my hair."

He took a second to process what was going on. "Oh! It looks really good!" He responded with about as much enthusiasm as someone who was just woken up for no reason could.

I snickered. "Thank you! Now, I'm gonna hang up. Please go back to bed, babe. I know you only got like four hours of sleep maximum so far."

"Alright." He mumbled. "You look pretty. Talk to you later." He hung up before I could and I didn't blame him. He sounded tired as hell. I felt extremely bad for waking him up.

Wilbur cleared his throat and I looked over at him. "What?"

He smirked at me. "What was that?"

I bunched my eyebrows together in confusion. "What was what? I wanted to show him my hair because he knew I was gonna do it, just not when."

"Yeah, you know that's not what I'm talking about." He turned and took the heated potatoes out. "I'm talking about you calling him babe and him calling you pretty. Don't think I didn't notice that you were blushing."

I held a hand to my cheek to feel if there was any heat that had gone unnoticed. "I wasn't blushing. It's just a dumb nickname and we compliment each other all the time."

"You wanna talk about you practically swooning when he first spoke, then?" He glanced at me with a sly smile as he grabbed a fork for himself. "Is there something you're not telling me, Mel?"

I rolled my eyes. "No. There isn't anything going on. We're just friends. Will, you can't seriously do this to me and then act the same way with Niki as Sapnap and I do."

"Niki and I have almost known each other for a year. You've known him for a little over a month and have been actually talking for even less time. That's the difference." He leaned against my kitchen counter and started eating the potatoes.

"You said yourself that I make friends with people quickly." I pointed out. "Don't do the thing."

"What thing?" He raised an eyebrow at me.

"The whole protective thing." I gestured to him. Will had a trend of getting very protective over his friends and I happened to be one of the worst victims of it because he saw me as a younger sister. I'd seen him do it plenty with Tommy as well.

Will waved me off and put his focus on the potatoes on his plate. There was no convincing him that nothing was going on, so I'd just have to make sure he didn't go into his protective mode all of a sudden.

  I sat down at my table and tweeted out one of the pictures Wilbur had taken.

Medusa🌙 @MedusaBites
  I look hot and I won't be taking criticism.
  You can't criticize facts 😌😌

  I started to scroll through my timeline liking random tweets when I felt Will's eyes on me. I looked up at him. "What do you want?"

  "You didn't give me picture credits, Mel." He deadpanned.

  I snorted. "Do you want me to reply saying you took the picture?"

  He nodded. "Yes."

  I shook my head at his behavior and replied to my tweet.

  Medusa🌙 @MedusaBites
    Picture credits to @WilburSoot
    He forced me to do this someone help pls
  |
User @User1
    Did Wilbur kidnap you??? What??
  |
Medusa🌙 @MedusaBites
    Weird tall man in my kitchen. He took my
    potatoes and won't leave send help /hj
  |
User @User2
    Somebody call 911
  |
Medusa🌙 @MedusaBites
    Shawty fire burning on the dance floor 💃🏻🔥
  |
User @User3
    I- the fact that she's just responding to fan
    accounts while Wilbur is in her kitchen.
    What is happening anymore?

-=-

  I heard my phone ringing from the kitchen and ran to my room to get it. I launched myself at my bed and picked up. "Hi, Sapnap!"

  "Wh- Hi? Why are you so out of breath?" Sapnap seemed thoroughly confused.

  "I didn't wanna miss your call so I ran from the kitchen." I explained before collapsing the rest of the way onto my bed.

  He laughed. "Why were you so stressed about missing my call? You could've just called me back."

  "Because you picked up when I called you at six in the morning." I let my face drop onto my mattress. "And I feel very bad for waking you up."

  "I fell back asleep after." He chuckled. "No stress. You were just excited to show me."

  "Yes, but I'm a stupid idiot head that forgot time zones exist." I complained.

  He let out a loud laugh. "It was a minor lapse in judgement, stupid idiot head."

  "No! You're supposed to say I'm not a stupid idiot head." I joked. "Sorry. My head is empty."

  "Doesn't that make you a stupid idiot head?" He teased.

  I groaned. "I get enough shit from Will. I don't need you to bully me too."

  "What was his reaction to the hair?" Sapnap questioned. "Did he find another character to mock you with?"

  I snickered. "No. He said 'nice hair' and stole potatoes from my fridge."

  He laughed. "Did he actually?"

  "Well, he took pictures in between that, but yeah." I chuckled.

"Since he stole your potatoes, what's for dinner?" He questioned.

I picked my phone up and started walking back to my kitchen. "Just pasta."

"With nothing on it?" He sounded disgusted.

"Sapnap, I have nothing in my house. I don't know what you expect from me here. I'm gonna put butter on it. I'm not a heathen." I shook my head as I approached the boiling pot. I only had about one more minute until it was done. I glanced at the calendar I had on my fridge and realized the date. "Oh, I forgot to say it because we missed a couple days this week. Happy one month." I joked.

  "I- what?" I could tell Sapnap was confused.

  "I said what I said." I smirked and turned the hob off.

  "Wh-what? What are you talking about?" His voice cracked in his confusion.

  I snorted and took out oven mitts to take the pot over to the strainer I had set in my sink. "One month since Love or Host, babe." I had used the term on multiple occasions to try to get a reaction out of him, but I was sure it would work this time.

  I was met with a moment of silence. I held back my laughter as he took a deep breath. "Why do you do that?"

  "Do what, exactly?" I picked up the pot from the hob and strained the water out into the sink.

  "You know, the babe and the saying things just to make me freak out." He spoke timidly.

  I glanced at my phone and put the pot back on the inactive hob. "It's cute when you get flustered." I answered honestly. "It's harder to get a reaction out of you, so it's adorable when I do. You should try it some time. It's quite fun."

  Sapnap stayed silent for a bit and I assumed that my honest answer had taken him by surprise. "What was that last part?" His voice was quiet.

  I raised an eyebrow in confusion. "You should try it?" I didn't know what he was getting at.

  "You want me to make you flustered?" He asked for clarification.

  I shrugged. "You can try. I wouldn't say I'm easily flustered." I opened my drawer to look for something to serve my pasta.

  "Your new hair makes you look even hotter than usual, Medusa." He made his attempt.

  I smirked and held back a laugh at his awful attempt at flustering me. "Thanks! I know."

  "Damnit." He muttered in defeat.

  I let my laugh escape past my lips. "You're gonna have to try harder than that, Sapnap. You're not too easily flustered like George and Wilbur when I first met him, but don't think I'm at that level too." I took a bowl out and started to serve myself the pasta. "I can't believe you thought that would work."

  "Well, I don't know!" He complained. "How the hell am I supposed to know how to make you flustered? You're the one that gets the reaction out of everyone."

  I smiled and reached for the butter in my fridge. "I have that effect on people. I'm just too fucking sexy for people to comprehend." I joked.

  "Fuck yeah, you are." Sapnap made another attempt.

  I froze in surprise. I didn't really expect it, but I wasn't flustered. I looked over at my phone on the counter. "If that was your second attempt, you still suck at this."

  He groaned and I giggled at his reaction. His determination towards such a dumb thing was thoroughly adorable.

-=-
A/N

My Pinterest is gardenof3d3nn for everyone who's asking for more Medusa outfits. All I'm going to say is don't be too surprised if one of those pictures show up later in the story. So, if you wanna see the type of outfits Medusa wears, I made a public board for it.

We also hit 2k reads on this book! I'd like to thank you guys for your support as per usual and I hope you guys are enjoying this as much as I enjoy writing it.

Have an amazing day/night!! <3