Chapter Text
“What will I do with all this stuff?”
Dream’s answer is quick. “Well, you can have two set-ups, one here and one there, so when you go back to the UK you’d be able to...”
George doesn’t hear the rest of his words, too lost in his own thoughts.
When you go back there.
To be fair, they haven’t really discussed the details, have they?
“Ah,”
George hopes that chat didn’t pick up on the disappointment laced in his small voice. (But because he’s bitter, a bit self-centered and maybe a bit selfish too, he hopes Dream does).
He thinks of something coherent to say. “Well, I guess maybe I’ll just leave my setup here and then if I ever wanted to come back I could…” A small sigh escapes his lips. “still do stuff here.”
It takes a short second too long for Dream to mutter out a “yeah.” So simple. So uncomplicated and easy.
They don’t talk about it after the stream ends, even when the loud absence of the dreaded conversation tugs at the sleeve of George’s mind.
Alright, Dream. Have things your way.
It's 3 am in London and 10 pm in Florida. Both boys are lying on their own separate beds, in their own separate wastelands with a phone beside each of their pillows.
“It'd be really nice to have you here with me right now”.
They always do this. Conversations in the dead of night, the kind of conversations that rise up in their chests like soda pop, fizzy and excited with child-like hope. The illusion of night helps with this. Some things are just easier said and done in the dark, after all.
George smiles even if Dream can’t see it.
They’ve been talking for eight hours. No breaks.
“Yeah. I’d really—” he tries not to whisper out another really, knowing it would make him sound desperate – but he’s not. He’s not that desperate. Right? “like that.”
It takes a while for Dream to reply back, but he doesn’t mind. That’s the thing with them, anyway. They can let the silence do all the talking.
Perhaps when you’re with the right person, silence becomes communication in of itself. And it spreads out and grows like an evergreen forest in your room, sprouting and tangling around your ankles, your bed frame, your ceiling…
The silence can be beautiful. George watches the greenery grow.
Finally, Dream whispers out “I’ll get to do the stuff I can’t do to you right now”.
It takes a moment for the words to really register. There are many things he wants to say in this moment – a tease, maybe a suggestion, a confession -- but he decides on carefully choosing the words: “like what?”
“I don’t know. I wanna hold your hand, I guess”.
He’s just joking. “And?”
Dream giggles. “Make shitty pancakes with you. I wanna try that 123 method you use”.
“Wait, are you implying my pancakes are shitty?”
“I don’t know, guess we just have to see, don’t we Georgie.”
George rolls his eyes. “So high and mighty aren’t you. What else do you want to do?”
Dream doesn’t ever miss a beat. “Play with your hair” The motherfucker giggles a second time.
My hair?
He can feel the heat rise to his cheeks, but Dream doesn’t need to know that. “You want to play with my hair? What, so you can braid it? Put flowers?”
Dream laughs. “Alright, sure! I’ll braid flowers into your hair if it’ll annoy you so much”.
George imagines that. He imagines big, tanned and freckled hands messing up his overgrown curls. Would he be gentle, cautious and kind, afraid to hurt him? Or would he be rough, wanting to tug and pull and see just how much George can take? He thinks of flower petals. Stems. Hands, always hands.
God, it’s deadly. These thoughts get deadly at night.
“I’d let you”. The words slip out without a thought. Maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe it’s the worst thing.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I’d let you do that to me”.
George can hear the smirk in his lips. “What else would you let me do?”
Stop it before I dig myself a deeper hole.
His voice drops to a whisper. “I guess we just have to see”.
A heart beat passes. Maybe two.
“Okay. Come to me, then.”
George pauses. “What?”
Dream only laughs, then whispers just as gently, “I said come to me. In Florida.” This idiot must be drunk, surely.
Nevertheless, George finds himself giggling with him, infected by the blonde's lack of senses.
“So you can braid flowers in my hair?”
“And make pancakes with you. And watch The Office with you. And stay up all night with you, and —“ Dream pauses, collecting his breath. “And do all the things you’d let me do with you.”
They haven’t talked about the details. George still has unwashed mugs in the kitchen from last night. He lost his beige sweater and he planned to search for it after he’s slept. He still hasn’t learned that pasta recipe he’s been wanting to try and he still hasn’t replied back to his mom.
They haven’t talked about the details.
But Dream whispers, “George. Please.”
They say no one ever says no to George.
“Yeah, okay. Okay”.
But Dream always gets what he wants, and that’s just the same.
So maybe they’re made for each other. Maybe it’s as simple as typing out “Florida tickets” in google and booking the earliest flight there.
So maybe it’s just that simple.
Dream’s eyes search for a 5 foot 8 London boy in the Florida airport. It turns out that it’s easier than breathing. (There he is, light blue suitcase in hand. He’s wearing his grey hoodie and his hair is a bit of a mess. He’s breathtaking. He’s real. Oh god, he’s real)
He wishes he never spotted him. He wished he walked out of the airport George-less. That would stop his heart from palpitating. The thought is cruel, but he has to admit that George has this way of making a cruel, selfish coward out of him. He doesn’t want to acknowledge how much that scares him -- how much power George has over him. Sometimes it’s unfair, really.
He wishes he never spotted him because the brunette being here only proves that he’s really here. Right now at this moment. same as Dream. Both of them amongst the same strangers walking past them, the same sounds of terminals notifying said strangers of their flight schedules and the same smell of packed airport snacks and coffee. He’s here, and Dream doesn’t know what to do with his hands.
You made this happen, you caused this. You asked him to come and so he did. It gives Dream a bundle of electric wires in his stomach, the kind of nerves that give him a sort of electrifying shame .
Shame?
The night he asked him to come to Florida felt like a lifetime ago. Really though, it was only a week. It was a moment Dream told himself existed outside the slow ebb and flow of time. It was a moment that was supposed to be just that – a moment. A moment of no consequence.
What the fuck was he thinking?
But well. There he is. And there's George.
Dream calls out to him.
George looks around, his head spinning in circles to search for the source of his familiar voice. When his chocolate brown eyes meet his forest green ones, that bundle of electric wires shoot up Dream's body like an overwhelming wave. When George smiles and runs to him, Dream thinks it’s over. This is where the world ends. This is where the world starts. And this is Dream, the biggest damn fool in the universe who caused the apocalypse.
George is in his arms and Dream cradles his body. He can’t help but think to himself he’s so small.
Isn’t this what you wanted ? He asks himself. That’s the thing.
They stand there at the center of the airport for what feels like ages, holding each other. “It’s really you,” whispers George, head buried in Dream's arms. His voice is muffled yet so much clearer than all those late night discord calls.
Dream wonders what they might look like to the passersby’s, what versions of them exist in other people’s heads as he squeezes the boy in his arms.
He’s everything I wanted.
Dream can’t sleep. He stands up from the bed and stretches, cracks his knuckles. It’s so dark in here, and his bedside lamp feels roads away from him.
Dream decides that the darkness isn’t so bad. Right now as he contemplates what to do next, George sleeps in the spare bedroom beside his, steadily breathing the same air Dream breathes. Even with him being in a completely different room, Dream can’t shake the feeling of his presence. It itches all over him.
Maybe all it takes is a glass of cold water to calm himself down. Yeah, that sounds like a plan.
When he enters the kitchen and turns on the lights, he does not expect to find the boy himself, sitting on the counter with a bowl on his hands and a mouth full of spoon.
George blinks. Dream blinks back, and the yellow light above their heads watches the two boys with a critical eye.
Then –
“I couldn’t sleep.” George says this quietly.
“Yeah, me neither.” Dream goes and sits on the counter beside him. He makes sure their arms don’t touch and regards the bowl sitting on the palms of his hands. “I see you found the fruit loops.”
“They’re good fruit loops.”
“Thanks. I did a real good job picking em,”
George laughs, and as he does, a strand of brown hair falls out of place and covers his eye, consequently ruining Dream's view of the boy.
Now that just won’t do, Dream thinks to himself and reaches an arm in the space between them to —
Wait. What the hell do you think you’re doing?
Dream retreats his arm. George didn’t notice the small gesture, his eyes still crinkled shut in laughter. Dream wonders what’s so funny.
Now, the brunet slowly opens his eyes and looks down to where the heels of his feet thump against the cupboards. He sighs.
Thump. Thump. Thump .
No words are said between them for a long, peaceful while. Just two boys in a dark kitchen, breathing, waiting for the other to crack a joke, whisper a secret, or blurt out a confession that could potentially ruin everything and more.
“I came here to get a glass of water.” Dream announces suddenly, like he’s reminding himself why he’s here in the first place.
George looks at him. “Cold water?”
“Cold water.”
“Regular cold water?”
“Um. yeah”
“on a glass?”
“of course on a glass, George.”
He snickers with a mouthful of cereal. “You’re so boring. Get fruit loops instead and talk to me.”
They ended up finishing the cereal together as they talked about everything. Absolutely everything.
It’s been about five weeks of staying with Dream now, and George finds his living room couch to be the safest place in the whole damn world. It isn’t like the spare bedroom is uncomfortable – the opposite is true, actually. It's only that the living room feels more intimate, and Dream never stopped him from taking his afternoon naps here.
He accidentally sleeps on the couch whenever they would watch some stupid Netflix rom com. After poking fun at those cheesy movies, George would eventually lull off to sleep. (He tries not to obsess over his secret knowledge of Dream tucking the blankets over his shoulders, thinking George was unconscious. He tries not to think about Dream sitting down on the couch for a second or minute too long. He tries, and god is his witness).
He pretends he was a caterpillar rolled up in his own personal chrysalis. It’s easy to think he’s at one with the rest of the elements of his best friend's living room – the picture frames of his family, the potted plants on the window’s ledge, the shelves of pretentious books and the Percy Jackson series.
(Dream made fun of him the other day, saying how ridiculous he looked in that chrysalis. Now he can’t seem to want to stop doing it).
So George lays there on the couch with blankets all over him, his eyes trained on his laptop screen.
His mind doesn’t follow along with Grey’s Anatomy’s plot though.
There’s this inexplicable need inside him that wants to watch and understand the appeal of this stupid fucking show, but his upscale standards for media prevents him from doing just that.
Really, he can’t comprehend why Dream likes this show so much that he makes references to it whenever the opportunity presents itself in conversations with friends. George sighs and replays the episode, making sure the volume isn’t loud enough to wake the sleeping boy in the other room.
Like the picture frames, the glass vases, the soft whir of the AC, and the trickle of water dripping down from the kitchen faucet, George is another perk in Dream's living room, the presence that makes Dream’s apartment his apartment.
Or at least George likes to think so. It’s a nice thought, after all.
George hears the door to Dream's bedroom creak open.
Then he hears the shuffle of socked soles on wooden floor boards.
Then –
“Jesus fuck.”
George tightens his hold on his blankets and laughs. “Did I wake you up?”
Dream has a hand on his heart like he’s trying to catch it. The other hand is balancing a MacBook. “No. You scared me though.” He tilts his head towards George's direction, seemingly trying to catch a glimpse of what’s on his screen.
George catches the subtle upturn of his lips.
“Since when did you watch greys anatomy?”
George shrugs.
Dream positions his laptop towards him to show the title screen of greys anatomy. “Look! I’m watching it too!”
“oh my god,” George laughs out loud, unapologetically loud this time. If Dreams neighbors knock on their door tomorrow morning with a complaint, it’ll be theirs to handle together.
“Our minds are Bluetooth connected!”
Dream places his laptop down on the counter and tiptoes his way to George. Messily, he positions himself behind him on the couch so he can properly spoon him.
George stiffens.
Oh. This is new.
When Dream notices the creeping tension coming from George's lithe body, he asks in a worrisome voice, “Is this okay?”
He’s such an idiot.
“You’re such an idiot”. Of course it's okay. It's so, so okay.
George grabs Dream's hands and wraps them around his waist. He looks behind him, and the back of his head brushes against Dreams stubbled chin. “Let's watch it together?”
George thinks Dream's eyes are wide and sparkling. He places his chin on George's shoulder. “Yep. Let's go”.
George presses the spacebar.
You know, maybe this show isn't too bad after all.
“We’re all out of alcohol”. Dream says as he gets the coca cola from the fridge.
George takes it from his hand, careful not to let his fingers slip from the condensation. He gently places it on the dining table
George gestures to the conglomeration of Chinese take out food and sushi. “Are you sure we can finish all of this?”
“We can save some for tomorrow”.
They are celebrating George’s first full month in Florida.
George takes his seat, waiting for Dream to take his. Alas, he remains in the kitchen, now rummaging around the cupboards
He hears him mutter out, “I know I had some wine somewhere…why can’t I find it, what the fuck”.
With the heel of his hand on his cheek, George has the audacity to deadpan. “How long will this take you?”
From where he is sitting, he can see the tan muscles flex through Dream's white shirt.
“As long as it will take. I wanna get drunk tonight”.
I can get behind that, George thinks.
Maybe that’s why he pushes his chair away and goes to stand beside Dream, opening the unopened cupboards to help him find invisible bottles of wine.
Dream looks at him as they both go through unused kitchen appliances and years worth of collected dust. “Alright then. Guess I’m not the only one”.
George gives him the roll of his eyes and Dream gives him a chuckle in return.
George continues the search. “Are you sure you aren’t just imagining things?”
“I really could have sworn I had one…you know what , fuck it”. Giving up, he places his two hands on both sides of his hips. “Baby, can you check the convenience store downstairs and ask how much the wine…” his voice trails.
The mistake is made, and then realized. So now, the word stays there between them, hanging like a dangling hook in the air.
The innocent nickname seemed to paralyze George into place. He looks down on the floor, finding something interesting to latch onto.
“I mean..” Dream tries to pick up the pieces of the conversation. “I didnt-- i”
A shot in the dark. A quick turn to the opposite direction just by the decisive decision to lift the corners of his lips into something like a tease. George mocks, “What did you just call me?”
“I -- I didn't call you anything” Dream takes the gambit.
“No, no you definitely called me something”.
He starts walking towards Dream like a challenge, and Dream walks backwards like a retreat.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about”.
“No, no I think you know”.
“It was just -- it was”
“Yes?”
He laughs. Then, as he grabs ahold of George's hips to stop him from getting any closer, he quietly says, “Shut up”.
He doesn't know how he got here, but his forehead is pressed against Georges, and the amazing thing about that is that George didn't even move an inch away.
“Lets forget i ever said anything, yeah?”
George bats his lashes because he can.
“What a shame then.”
He walks away, leaving Dream with now empty hands.
The room is painted in a thick blue light and there are people on the sofas catching up and laughing. There’s good music playing in the background and paper napkins and red solo cups everywhere and for some odd reason Dream imagines the room to be void of all this loudness and revert back to its original nature – an empty room. There’s nothing that depresses him more than an empty party room, so he doesn’t know why his brain does it, only that it does what it does and there’s no stopping it sometimes.
Oh, and everyone here loves George.
He watches from the barstool as some guy chats up his best friend. He watches as his best friend laughs at all his jokes, maybe out of kindness (because George is the sweetest person he knows) or maybe because he genuinely thinks his jokes are better than Dreams (which is totally cool of course. That’s completely fine with Dream).
And then George glances at him. Dream looks away to avoid it.
Suddenly George is beside him, dragging his arm.
“What are you doing?”
He continues to march them into the bowels of the party until a second later, Dream finds himself in the presence of George’s company.
“Jace, this is Dream. Do you remember a really awkward blonde from your class?”
Dream wants to run away.
Jace regards him with a swift look, then his eyes are back to George. “I can’t say I do, sorry.”
“Really? You don’t remember him from any one of your classes at all?”
Jace shakes his head.
George looks to Dream. “I thought you went to high school with these people!”
“I literally dropped out of high school. I’m just here for the punch bowl.”
“You promised me you would introduce me to your friends! You’re actually such a loser!”
Dream scoffs. He looks down at his shoes and says with a smile in his voice, “The biggest fucking loser.”
Jace is completely irrelevant at this point. “Hey, wha—”
Unexpectedly grabbing George's hand, Dream bids Jace a much needed farewell. “Well, anyway. We’ll be on our way now! Bye Jace!” he starts dragging his best friend away from him. Yep, that’s much better.
Meanwhile, George looks around the room like he’s searching for a person he knows. Dream wonders how easily George has managed to blend into the environment. All their mutual friends think he’s an introvert, and while they aren’t wrong, they underestimate how much power George’s got over everyone he meets.
“Surely there must be one person here who knows you. How about that person who invited you here?”
“Okay, about that –”
George whips his head around to face Dream.
“No. Don’t tell me—”
“No one invited me here”
“Okay so you’re saying--”
“Listen—!”
“You literally trashed someone’s --let me finish! You can’t just trash some strangers' parties because you wanted a drink! This is why I keep reminding you to buy the alcohol downstairs, you absolute idiot!”
“Okay, but—but!” Dream points a finger to George when the brunet looks ready to give a look meant to reprimand. “I'm your idiot, right?”
Instead, George gives Dream a blank stare, one that says you’re unbelievable. This makes Dream laugh so much, his stomach folds and he clutches his stomach.
George starts to laugh alongside him. “Oh my god”.
It takes a minute for Dream to calm down. Maybe 2 minutes. Nevertheless, he tightens his grip on George's hand. “Do you wanna get out of here and play some badminton in the parking lot instead?”
George stares at him with a confused smile and furrowed brows. “I’m fucking sorry?”
Dream nods his head to the direction of the badminton equipment leaning on the wall near the entrance of the strangers apartment. He noticed it while he was on wallflower duty.
“Well? What do you say, London boy?”
“I say no wonder people didn’t want to hang out with you in high school.”
Dream laughs at that. “Why not?”
“You’re so,” George tries to find the words. “Unpredictable. And impulsive. ”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
“No. I think that’s my favorite part about you.”
Something inside of him wilts. Or maybe something inside of him changes. Perhaps being infatuated with someone is like losing a part of yourself and gaining something out of It.
But what does Dream know? Dream knows nothing.
The soft yellow lights of the lamp posts spill across the parking lot like warm wine, glistening in the twilight.
Dream and George both stand a good distance away from one another, the shuttlecock passing between them in rapid succession.
With the night above him and George laughing and shouting for Dream to “miss already! Just miss already you dumb Floridian fuck!”
Dream thinks he’s already missed this moment before it’s ended.
If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of the cicadas.
He thinks this is what it's like to be happy.
Then, he thinks , oh god. I’m so happy.
George wonders if he’s falling too fast. He finds that falling feels a lot like flying, anyway.
When they go home, giggling like stupid children and sweat clinging to their backs, Dream takes him by his waist.
“You’re blushing,” George notes, not realizing he’s blushing himself. “I’m making you blush.”
Dream kisses him, and all George could think of is that he finally belongs to somewhere safe.
He thinks they walk on a tightrope after that.
Lingering glances in the kitchen. Light hearted jokes on the couch. Coffee in the middle of midnight conversations.
They never talk about the kiss, but something changes in the intervals of silence between them.
One night, when George wakes from a nightmare, he makes his way to Dream's door and knocks, looking for something to cling to. Dream opens the door and his eyes instantly soften.
He whispers into the dark, “I can’t sleep.”
“It’s okay. Me too.”
Their voices sound hazy.
“Can I lie down with you?”
“Of course.” He widens the door for him to enter.
Dream's living room is warm, but his bed is so much warmer. Heartier and welcoming. “Do you want a glass of water?” Dream asks from beside him, letting George take most of the blankets. “Fruit loops, maybe?”
George laughs. “I’m just really tired.”
“Gotcha.”
And then George feels Dream lean closer and for a foolish second he thinks he’s about to press a kiss to his forehead. He doesn’t. Instead, he settles down on the bed sheets with George’s back facing him.
A moment passes where they lay there, unmoving. George thinks Dream fell asleep.
He’s about to fall asleep himself when the boy behind him whispers his name.
A heartbeat passes.
“you’re my best friend.”
Another heartbeat. Then —
A soft, petal-like kiss on the shoulder. George tries not to shudder from the touch.
This is the moment he realizes his best friend is in love.
His brunet curls fall perfectly into place on the pillow sheets.
Dream thinks George looks peaceful here. Docile and kind and loving.
He waits for his breathing to even out. With a strange look on his face, he whispers to the landscape of George’s back, “You’re my best friend” and hopes it can translate to “I don’t want to ruin what we have” in midair. It doesn’t. Words can’t do that. Sometimes they can’t do what you want them to do.
He places a soft kiss on the boy's shoulder.
Tomorrow, when he wakes up, he’ll find his bed empty. He’ll trudge to the kitchen to find George making pancakes, and when he puts a plate down in front of Dream, he’ll tilt his chin upwards to meet his lips before Dream can reach for the syrup.
After that soft, delicate and sweet kiss, George will softly murmur “I don’t want to be your best friend”.
He covers the landline with his hand as if that would block out any noise from their side. “George!”
“Yeah?” George calls from their bedroom.
“It’s your mom on the phone!”
A beat of silence. “Okay, hold on!”
Dream puts the landline back to his ear. “He’ll be with you in a sec, Mrs. Davidson”.
He secretly wonders if George ever talks to his mom about him. Well, not that there’s anything to talk about. Hey mom, remember my online friend? Yeah, we fuck now. My boyfriend? Oh, no, no. You’re getting the wrong idea. He finds it impossible to picture George having any sort of conversation like that.
Now he wonders what kind of conversations he does have with his mom. He’s never seen her face before.
George pops out of their bedroom – is it their bedroom now? -- and takes the landline from his hand. George mouths , thank you to him with a smile . He takes that as his signal to leave.
George finds himself standing outside the door of their shared bedroom. A fist hovers over it. The fist hesitates, then drops back down, admitting defeat. Its weight feels like that of a heavy stone.
He takes refuge on the couch instead, and bundles up in warm blankets that ought to be warmer. Whenever his mom calls, there was always this hole or fracture inside of his body that always seemed to remember itself, and what it remembered was a dull hurt. The dullest of the dull. Like a leg-break that never healed right.
George thinks real hard about this hurt.
He thinks about how badly he needs to have it fixed.
The popcorn ceiling gapes at him from above and he feels the eyes of the clay potted plants, the modern coffee table and the four eggshell walls on him. It’s impossible to tell if these objects want him gone or if it’s all in his head.
Amidst the warm and domestic living room, George is a foreign object.
Suddenly, like dreaming with his eyes open, George imagines Dream lifting him up from the couch as he slathers kisses on his forehead, melting him up like butter.
All George would have to do is look him in the eyes and he would know. And then he’d plead for George to stay with him forever.
But first he’ll take him to their bed. They wouldn’t kiss. Dream would hold him by the waist like that one night they went home from the parking lot and he would lay there with him, contented, Dream smoothing out his hair. George would let him.
Then Dream would say “I’ve got you. I’ve got you. It’s alright. I’m right here” and it would be an invitation enough to weep and cry and sob into his t-shirt. George doesn’t believe in holy things, but maybe he might start now if only to think he might still have a chance at being clean again.
Maybe part of the appeal of loving someone is that George felt so completely unloved and Dream loved him.
Maybe that’s it.
Yeah. That’s got to be it.
The restaurant Sapnap picks is jam packed with people. Apparently it’s one of those mainstream places mainly known for its eye-catching décor and pleasant ambience. Sapnap happily hops on the bandwagon.
“You’re completely missing the point! I swear to god the food is worth it.”
“It’s so pricey, Sapnap.”
“It’s not that pricey for you! I’m telling you guys. You’re gonna love the milkshakes so much, no other milkshake would ever be good enough for you,” he said through Dreams phone on speaker. “George, you’re going to love the strawberry one”. George perked up from beside him. He turned to Dream. “We have to go.”
“Of course you betray me like this”.
So here they are.
“I’m so glad I decided to visit you guys,” Sapnap says with a mouthful of fries. “I don’t ever have to pay for shit. My broke college student wallet can finally rest.”
“Yeah, Sapnap would definitely be the type to freeload.” George says this to no one in particular. Dream laughs.
“Um. Says you? You’re literally living in Dreams' apartment and you don’t pay his rent!”
“or the food in the fridge” Dream pipes in as he grabs a fry from Sapnap’s plate despite the man's complaints.
George nudges him on the shoulder. He nudges back.
“Whatever,” grumbles George, then says “it’s better I’m here in Florida anyway. What with the whole Youtube thing.”
“Yes!” Sapnaps whole face lights up instantly, passionate and full of excitement as both of them are about their new careers. “Have you seen Dream’s last video? The viewer count? Dude, its fucking insane.”
“Yeah, crazy how that whole video was 100% all my idea”.
“What? No it isn’t!” Dream exclaimed. Though his eyebrows are scrunched up, there is an unmistakable smile on his face.
“I think I’d remember if it was my idea.” George says in the nonchalant way he says most things.
Dream scoffs, stretching his arms and subtly laying one behind George’s seat, his hand just shy of touching the boy's shoulder. “Yeah, okay, sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night, pretty boy.”
George crosses his arms. “If you’re so concerned with whatever helps me sleep at night then share the damn blankets.”
“I do share them, you moron! You’re the one stealing all of it in the middle of the night!”
“You literally don’t!”
“Okay, now you’re just lying”,
“Every night with you is a tug of war”.
“Oh yeah, I'm so sure”.
George sticks out his tongue and Dream does the same.
“So are you two fucking?” Sapnap looks between the both of them.
This gets the two boys to shut up.
They simply stare at their friend, both of their cheeks flushed a bright red. Dream retreats his arm from the backseat of George’s chair. George doesn’t say anything about it.
“What the hell is wrong with you, dude?” Dream is the first to speak. “That’s like -- It's like –like—telling me to sleep with my cousin!”
Sapnap snickers. “Ew, bro. Your cousin? ”
“You know what I mean!” His tone has changed from playful to plain irritated now.
Sapnap must have noticed, because he raises his hands in mock surrender. “Damn alright, dude, sheesh! It was just a question!”
“Yeah, think about your questions before actually saying them.” He says this in a low voice, picking at his potato chips.
“You’re so defensive”. Sapnap laughs, maybe in a pathetic effort to ease away the tension a bit. “Listen, I don’t care if you two are, just –”
“Sapnap!”
“Okay!”
George gets into the car before Dream does. When Dream climbs into the driver’s seat, he sees that George’s already got his seat belt buckled.
Dream turns the key in the ignition, and the car comes to life.
It’s when George doesn’t make a move to turn on the aux does Dream start to wonder if somethings wrong. Before he gets to speak though, George mutters out something he didn’t quite catch.
“What did you say?”
George purses his lips, like he’s trying to hold back the words.
What are we?”
What’s that drumming noise in his ears?
Is it the aux? No, no George didn’t open the aux. Right. Jesus.
“What do you mean?”
Georges got his arms crossed. He turns to look at Dream and he tries not to read too much into the glint of hurt in his eyes
His voice is quiet. “You know what I mean”.
The urge to fiddle with something has never been so strong. “Well, does that really matter right now?”
George seems to search for something in Dream's face. Then he turns his head to the window, having not found it.
“I don’t know. Let’s just go to the apartment”.
Dream doesn’t make a move to pull out of the parking lot, though. “Okay well. How bout business partners?”
George furrows his brows. “What do you mean?”
“We’re business partners! You know, partners but…business.” He tries to lighten up the mood, hopefully to solicit a laugh out of the boy. All it does is make him internally cringe at himself, though.
George offers a small smile, then leans his forehead on the glass pane again. Something tells him that that’s all he’ll get out of him.
That drumming, beating noise inside his head doesn’t stop, not even when they enter the apartment.
It’s a bad one.
Well, all of the phone calls are bad, but this particular one was bad, bad. Maybe it’s because George has gotten softer somehow. Softer around the edges, much more subjected to the burn and stab of the sharpened words from his mothers mouth.
Dream is to blame for that, perhaps.
Because George is content. He’s putting down roots.
Mothers have a pretty wicked sense of timing in that way.
God, thinks George now, as he finds himself standing outside Dream's door, not knowing what else to do, not knowing what he used to do when he didn’t have the privilege to be standing outside the blonde's door before.
Dream opens the door before George could knock or walk away.
“Oh. Hi George.” He says, rubbing his left eye with the heel of his hand. Then when his eyes adjust to the sight and state of the boy in front of him, his voice takes a sharp turn towards concern.
“George?”
That’s when he finally breaks.
“I just…” A broken sob manages to pry out of his mouth without his permission.
I just don’t know what to do anymore, he wants to say. I just don’t know what to do anymore and I feel so fucking hopeless and im so sick of it im so sick of feeling like this. Instead another sob escapes him, and then another, until he’s full on crying in front of Dream.
Everything is slipping away from him.
“Shhh,” Dream soothingly whispers to George's ear. He’s close now, so close. He smells like cedar.
George does not know when Dream wrapped his arms around his lithe body, or when he buried his head on his broad shoulder, or when Dream's familiar hand held his head to smooth out his hair.
“Shhhhhh, baby. It’s okay, It’s okay. You’re alright. What happened?”
George grasps Dream's white t-shirt in a tight grip and wonders when was the last time he let himself hold someone like this, hold on to someone like the world was ending and they could possibly share some of the burden.
The next time George opens his eyes, he’s sitting on Dreams bed with Dreams fingers wiping away streaks of tears from his cheeks. George clenches his eyes shut again, and Dream presses his forehead against his with soft whispers of comfort he couldn’t hear from the sound of all his walls crumbling down.
It’s a hopeless situation. He lets himself crumble.
Then, he lets Dream pick up the pieces.
Minutes pass. Then centuries.
Somewhere in the building, walls away from Dreams bedroom, George could hear the sound of a couple arguing. The fan hanging from the ceiling continues to turn, and its slight creaks draw patterns of sound in his head.
Yet, sweat sticks to the back of his shirt. After all these months, he still hasn’t gotten used to the Florida heat.
George clenches the ruffled sleeves of Dream's shirt. He digs his head deeper into his embrace to find a home somewhere there.
He’s found it. He’s sure of it, because he’s visibly calmed down a bit, reduced to only whimpers. Dream remains the same. A pillar to lean on.
His hands never falter as he continues to smooth out his curls.
“It’s my mom”.
Now Dream's hand falters. “Is she –”
“She’s fine”. George says, voice low, head still in his arms and eyes refusing to meet him. Dream continues to stroke his head encouragingly. He tightens his grip around his body for good measure, and a small part of George kind of hates how it works.
Cause it’s got him saying, “She thinks I’m a monster”.
“What?”
“I said”, George lets go of his hold on Dreams shirt to allow for some space between them and looks him right in the eyes. “She thinks I’m a fucking monster”.
“Why –”
“because maybe I fucking am, Dream. I don’t know anymore. But I’m tired of feeling like a monster”.
Dream tries to reach for him, but George continues, heated up now. “You know, there was one time she tried to kick me out of the house. All I said was shut up. Shut up! And I don’t fucking take it back. I just wanted her to just shut up for once!” He starts to choke up. He clears his throat, determined to make some worthless point. “But she made this whole – whole fucking spectacle out of it! She called my grandmother and told her I was going to be living with her. And guess fucking what! I DID! SHE ABANDONED ME, DREAM, SO WHY CAN’T I DO THE SAME?”
“George –”
The thing is, it isn’t even that one instance alone. It was a conglomeration of instances, all big and small, that created the ravine between son and mother.
“No! Don’t try to touch me! Why can’t I leave her too, huh?” tears are running down his cheeks as he shouts these words. “Why can’t I do it to her too? Show her what it feels like to get fucking discarded.”
Dream’s expression is unreadable. “ George…Is that why you came here?”
“What?” George sobers up from his rage. Just a little bit.
“Is that why you came to live with me? Because of that?”
“God, no! Of course not! I came here because you’re my best friend and I – I –” I love you. Just say it, George, before you ruin the last good thing. “When I’m with you I don’t – I don’t feel like I’m a monster, you know?.” Close enough.
And then George sees it. The glint in his best friend's eyes are actually tears, and now they spill down, mirroring George’s own tears. “I love you so much, George”. Dream chokes out. “I’m sorry I –”
This time, George willingly falls into Dream's arms. “I know. I know.”
“You don’t deserve this”.
“I know”.
“And I don’t want you to keep holding this shit. I love you, George. I love you so fucking much, you don’t even know.”
Quietly, “I know”.
There’s a murderous instinct climbing up from somewhere deep within Dream that might have scared him if he didn’t care so much about the crumbling brunet. What kind of sick freak would do that to you? He wants to ask. How could you carry that pain with you and not say anything? For all those years?
Dream wants to tear up the walls. He wants something or someone to hurt. It's only right. It's only penance for hurting George.
It's only right.
Like a pill, he swallows the animal instinct to protect. He’s not that kind of person.
He focuses everything he has in him to build George right back up.
“I love you, George. I love you so fucking much”. Suddenly he’s an expert in saying those three words.
Suddenly he’s really got something to lose now. It almost shocks him, really.
He’s really got George in his arms crying like he never saw George cry before. He’d be lying to himself if he said it didn’t scare him.
His mouth continues to move on its own accord, hell bent on saying the magic words to vanish George’s pain. “No one will ever hurt you again, baby. No one will ever hurt you. I promise”.
And maybe it’s a sick thought to have at a time like this, but an astonished voice in his head says you’re mine.
Later that night, Dream whispers, "Are you real?"
George is under him, trembling from his touch. His eyes are closed and his consciousness seemingly drifts from their grasps. Dream watches it all happen as he slathers kisses down his throat and whispers again, "Baby, are you real?"
George only moans back, but Dream needs an answer. He moves to his ear lobe so he can't escape his raspy voice -- "George".
"I'm real" He finally replies back. "Fuck -- yes. I'm here. I'm here, Dream".
Dream believes him.