desiderium - Chapter 4 - Anonymous (2024)

Chapter Text

George can’t find Dream, and it’s starting to get on his nerves.

He knows this house has always been big, but it’s only now that he’s starting to truly understand the sheer size of it, especially when it only houses three people and three cats. He supposes it’s another adjustment thing, considering he was living in a shoebox in London just over a month ago.

Sapnap had been no help, sleep-deprived from an all-nighter stream. When he asked, all he had gotten was, “Bro, I didn’t even know he was in the house,” much to George’s exasperation.

“You’re useless,” George had retorted, and that was that.

The idiot had promised him to go for a convenience store drive earlier this morning, and it’s all George had been looking forward to the whole day. It was a bit challenging, having to focus on lines of code in his stuffy office when all he’d been thinking about are dye stained tongues and calloused hands on wheels.

If he doesn’t get his mandatory chocolate milk soon, he is going to castrate Dream.

Deciding to make one more round in Dream’s room – he heads upstairs and right over to the door, where Patches is already there, scratching at the wood and meowing pitifully.

“Hello, Patchy,” George coos, leaning down to pat her head for a second, “Are you looking for him, too?”

Patches, the most responsive feline in the household, answers with a quiet mewl. When George twists the doorknob open, she immediately darts toward her favorite cat toy, left laying on the floor.

But there’s still no Dream.

Milo and Naomi are there, though. Sleeping peacefully in between Dream’s sheets. George doesn’t have the heart to pet them, afraid he might disturb their slumber. He does, however, settle on the empty space of Dream’s bed, gently maneuvering himself so as to not disturb the cats. George figures he may as well just wait here until Dream comes back from wherever he is.

This is only the second time he’s been back in Dream’s room – the first being just a half hour ago, but he’d only scanned the area to check for its resident – and George soaks in as much as he could, looking for differences that weren’t there before.

It’s admittedly a little reassuring to see that not much has changed in his bedroom – his LED lights are still hung and lit, the cat tree remains situated in the corner, his OU posters are still taped to the wall, and old computer parts are scattered in one corner of the room.

George had always heard that one’s bedroom is a reflection of their character, it’s nice to know that his surroundings still feel familiar, almost more familiar than his own.

When George diverts his attention to the large white board that stands proud, filled to the corners with Dream’s messy handwriting in marker, it incites an intrigue in him. It’s almost impossible to try and read what’s written on it, but he knows it’s nothing YouTube or Minecraft related, because the few things George can read out are city names and dates. The rest are downright illegible – but based on the way they’re structured into stanzas, his best guess is that they are song lyrics.

He wants to know so badly, to familiarize himself with this whole unknown facet of Dream’s that he’s yet to share with George – especially knowing that this is an important part of himself that Dream holds close to his chest. His patience is running thin, and the fact that he only knows as much as the fans do drives him to near insanity.

But he’ll have to wait – until Dream finally decides to open this side of himself for George, he’ll hold himself together. He doesn’t know if Dream’s reluctance to divulge this vulnerable side of him is because of the time and distance that separated them, or if it’s simply because it’s something he still feels self-conscious about.

George snaps out of his thoughts when his phone rings, loudly. He checks to see who it is, and when he finds that it’s his father again, he declines the call and puts his phone on DND.

“George?” Dream’s voice suddenly emanates through the area. His voice is muffled, but it doesn’t sound far from where he is.

George perks up, an involuntary smile already making its way on his face, “Dream? Where are you?”

“Bathroom!”

“Oh,” George makes a small noise of acknowledgement, “I didn’t know you were in there, I was calling for you.”

“Well, I had airpods in, get in here.”

George chokes, “What? No way, you’re like, naked in there,” he tries to sound as disgusted as possible. He hopes it sounds believable.

“I’m in the bathtub, you idiot,” and he can hear Dream rolling his eyes.

“With bubbles?” George asks just to make sure, he doesn’t want to enter that bathroom and immediately become a flustered mess.

“Big, foamy bubbles.”

True to his word, Dream's entire body is covered from the neck down with sudsy bubbles that smell of lavender and something so distinctly him. He’s wearing a shower cap that completely covers his hair, and it would look stupid if it weren’t so endearing.

“You promised me treats,” George grunts as he approaches the side of the tub, pouting, “I just spent all day, slaving away in front of a computer without rad-protection, and I still don’t have my chocolate milk.”

“To be fair,” Dream drawls, holding his arms up in defense, though only his hands poke out, “I thought you were coming home later, you said you were working overtime.”

George sits on the step stool by his feet as he protests, “That was not what I said at all, I said I didn’t wanna end up working overtime. Obviously. What happened to your listening skills, Dream? Are your ears wearing out from age?”

“George!” Dream laughs, “You’re literally turning thirty in months, you’re not one to talk.”

George sniffs in offense, “I’ll age like fine wine, though. You and Sapnap will shrivel up and look all wrinkly like those raisins.”

“Sure, I believe you,” He says in a tone that suggests he does not, in fact, believe him.

“You should,” George asserts, “I can tell the future, you know. In fact, I can predict exactly what’ll happen to you in the next,” he looks at his wrist for his non-existent watch, “two minutes.”

“Oh yeah? Humor me, then. What’s gonna happen to me?” Dream gibes, his eyes sparking and crinkling in the corners.

“I… can’t tell you,” George shakes his head in feigned solemnity, “Or else it won’t come true.”

“That’s the worst cop out you could ever think of, oh my God,” Dream cackles, his whole body shakes with laughter that some water comes spilling out of the tub. Some of it splashes on George’s shirt, but he can’t bring himself to mind when Dream looks this content and relaxed.

George scoops a handful of bubbles, careful to keep his hand away from Dream’s body, and plots it on his head. Dream shakes it away like a dog, and the action is so sweet he has to restrain himself from caressing his face, or worse.

“Fine then,” George jeers, “In two minutes, you were going to get slapped in the face by an unknown force.”

Dream squawks, cupping his cheeks in defense and– God. He always looks so cute when he does that, “Don’t slap me! You know I bruise like a peach.”

“Well, I already said it, so it’s not gonna happen,” George grumbles, “You can’t just interfere with the rules of time and space, Dream.”

“We get it, you’re a genius,” Dream snorts, “Funny you say that though, that’s literally what I’m watching right now.”

He points to the TV hooked on the wall with a soapy hand, and George turns to find the screen playing a documentary about quantum theory and aerospace phenomena.

“You’re such a nerd, why are you watching that?”

“It’s interesting!” Dream argues, “Science is cool, George.”

“Oh my God,” George mutters, “That was so cringe, and you’re already a Minecraft YouTuber.”

Dream makes a small noise of disagreement, “Eh, I don’t think a lot of people really consider me as that anymore.”

And that– that only makes the itch in George’s brain that’s been there ever since he found out about Dream’s lack of Minecraft content all the more irritable. It’s like a hangnail that George can’t peel off, and he can never rest until he takes it out.

It’s not even just the guilt that vexes him, it’s the fact that something so inherent to Dream’s character is missing from him – and he’s reminded of it every day.

“Okay, turn around, I’m getting out,” Dream pipes up.

George turns around swiftly, but not before dragging a rug by his foot to wipe away the water on the tiles – paying no mind to the icky feeling of his socks being wet. Once the floor is dry enough, he leaves it by the edge of the tub for Dream to step on.

As Dream dries himself up, George eyes his collection of bath bombs and body scrubs, and the row of skincare products – which George can’t even name most of them, let alone know what they do – lined up by the foggy mirror. Dream’s always smelled and looked fresh – anyone who’s met him can attest to that. But George’s favorite scent on Dream has always been when he’s at his rawest – no cologne or product, just him.

Dream, clad in a towel around his waist, walks past him and stops in front of his mirror. He wipes the surface of the mirror with a towel, revealing his own reflection. He immediately grabs a bottle of… something. “Lemme just do my skincare and we can head out.”

“So tomorrow?” George quips, but hauls himself up to sit on the counter and observe Dream’s little rituals.

“Don’t sass me,” Dream mumbles as the gel on his face begins to emulsify with his rubbing, “Or else I’m not paying.”

“You’ve made that same exact threat to me only about a million times, and you’ve never gone through with it,” George smugly reminds him, “I’m so scared.”

Dream doesn’t bother with an answer, instead he huffs and rinses his face with water. His skin looks so soft, and he knows whatever product he puts on there isn’t the cause – it’s just a Dream thing. He wants nothing more than to feel it under his fingertips.

“I’ve spoiled you too much,” he says, and grabs a bottle of what George knows is toner.

“Can I put that on you?” George asks without thinking, and he nearly slaps himself when he realizes what he’d just said.

Before he can take it back, though, Dream holds out the bottle to him and says, “Sure.”

George hesitates for a second, hand trembling in a way he hopes goes unnoticed by Dream, but he takes it anyway, he inspects it in his hand like it’s a mess of tangled wires he’s dreading to untangle.

“Just put a little bit in your hand,” Dream says, “Like, two pumps.”

George does as told, and looks up to Dream, who is already leaning slightly into him, bending down so his face is perfectly in line with his, “And just pat it gently on my face until it’s like, all over.”

He rubs the slippery liquid between his palms and goes to touch Dream’s face, and it feels as plush as it looks. It’s not the first time George has touched Dream’s face this intimately. He’d once wiped whipped cream off of Dream’s cheek while they were making pancakes (not crepes) one day – and the phantom touch stayed with George to this day. He remembers how the softness of his skin makes the cool whip feel rough – the fact stays true today.

He moves his fingers across the planes of Dream’s skin as delicately as possible, afraid the ridges of his fingerprints are rough enough to blemish it.

Then he pats on his face like he’d pat a piece of raw meat.

“Not that hard!” Dream complains, “You’re practically slapping me.”

“You said to pat you, so I’m patting you,” George argues, flicking him on the forehead.

“Ow! That’s it, you ruined it,” Dream chides, turning away from George to face the mirror. From the way Dream smiles, though, George knows he’s far from mad, more amused than anything.

George snickers. “You’re the one who let me,” he says, staring fondly as Dream silently continues on with moisturizing his face.

The documentary playing from TV above the bathtub suddenly fades into a stop, then it auto plays an old manhunt, the volume blasting with, “This video, I try and beat Minecraft while my friend George tries to stop me–”

From Dream’s mic quality, he can easily infer that it’s one of the first manhunts, just over six years ago. An inundating surge of nostalgia washes over George then, and he can’t help it when he treks over to the front of the TV, watching with wistful eyes.

They were so young, he hardly recognizes his own voice, the accent more prominent than it is now.

“You sounded so different,” Dream chimes in, voicing George’s thoughts.

“So did you,” George says, “you sounded… less confident.”

“Did I?” Dream questions through a tilt of the head, “I’ve always thought I’ve been confident since the beginning, I was doing the whole ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ schtick.”

“Mm, maybe,” George hums, “I don’t know, I guess I just saw right through you. No one else seemed to notice.”

He bites his lip, unsure if he should have admitted that. It’s a testament to how attuned George is to everything Dream. Years of practice led George to master his tones and inflections – matching them up to certain emotions he’d be feeling. 99% of the time, he’d be right – it was why it was so easy for him to get used to living with Dream the first time.

He thinks if Dream had ended up being just a disembodied voice floating around him, George would still have been satisfied – his face is just a nice bonus. A really nice, good-looking bonus, but at the end of the day, George had moved in for the voice who would comfort him at night.

Dream makes a small noise of agreement, “Yeah, you definitely did,” he says, then begins to chuckle, “You were always the one who was able to like, catch on to my bluffs in the later manhunts, you could always tell when I was lying.” The words sound like a complaint, but the tone at which Dream says them sounds… almost proud.

“You make it easy,” George laughs, turning to find Dream already looking at him with a sheet mask on.

“If I made it easy, then why did I win most of the time, huh?” Dream muses.

“‘Cause you’re a cheater, you cheat, Dream. Like you did on that speedrun–”

“–You’re such an idiot, I knew you were gonna say that, I knew you would,” Dream interrupts with a snort of laughter, before sighing pensively, “That was such a fun time, though, I miss it.”

“Yeah,” is all George can say. As Dream pivots back to the mirror, the remorse lingering over his head makes itself known again, it’s been following him like a personal rain cloud, putting a damper on his good mood every time it creeps up on him.

It’s then that George lets himself think about the fight again, giving in to his overthinking nature.

Some of the ashes leftover still stick to his skin like scabs, the wounds not quite ready to heal themselves yet despite Dream’s nursing.

It’s moments like this that has George wondering if he really should have left in the first place. It’s a thought he’s been pushing down, afraid to realize the gravity of his mistake, too big to fully retract. He was just so convinced Dream would be better off without him.

It just seemed like the most viable option at the time – that extracting himself like a patch of mold was the best case scenario. George couldn’t imagine living in the same country, let alone city, as the guy whose heart he’d broken. We would have haunted each other, he convinced himself, and he’d felt like staying out of Dream’s vicinity was the most respect he could have given him.

Florida was Dream’s, and the moment he’d left him alone at that lake, the surge of emotions telling him he’d just lost himself a home rang in his ears like a mantra.

It’s starting to seem like it backfired, though – but it doesn’t give way for a better solution in George’s eyes. What else could he have possibly done? It just looks like he was always destined to ruin the path Dream created for himself, no matter what choice he makes.

The hazy words Dream spat at him that night resurface like bubbles, he’d been too blinded by anger to actually digest the words, but now that everything has calmed down, he remembers them clear as day, like it’s a memory suddenly unlocked.

You ruined, destroyed everything we built.

He knows Dream wouldn’t want him dwelling on it, he’d argue that they’d nullified the fight, there’s nothing to take away from it knowing most of what was said was fueled by spite and blind rage.

Also, Dream had said he didn’t mean them, and had assured George of that once or twice. But that does not efface the possibility of there being truth in the words. Because while he thought he was doing him a favor by removing himself, he just… burned everything to the ground.

That was not how he had wanted it to go. That wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

George did the math. If he had stayed any longer, Dream would be desolated in front of him. By taking himself out of the equation, there would be nothing holding him back. After all, what had George contributed?

And Dream did flourish, yes, but George had taken his passion away. It’s as unforgivable of a sin as pride and gluttony.

He decides, right then and there, he could have a shot at fixing this at least.

“You should do Minecraft again.”

A beat of silence, and Dream makes a noise of confusion, like he hadn’t quite heard him right. “What?”

George repeats, “You should make Minecraft content again.”

From the reflection, George can see Dream raise his eyebrows at that, the action shifting the sheet mask on his face. “George,” he laughs, wryly, “where’s this coming from?”

“Just–” George pauses, trying to articulate this in a way that could be compelling enough for Dream to hear him out, “I’ve seen the state of Minecraft YouTube. It’s practically dead without you.”

“G,” he sighs, like he almost doesn’t want to say his next words, “I… You know I love content creation, but I’m not doing it if I’m not– completely 100% all in, y’know? I wanna love doing it. Forcing myself to is just going to burn me out.”

“But– but Minecraft is your thing. And I– it can’t be taken away from you,” he says, a mirror of his words from that night.

Dream stiffens, and turns to George. Even though the mask, he can tell a frown has etched its way onto his perfect face. “Is this about that night?”

Caught, George sits on the porcelain edge of the tub, not caring for the leftover drops of water. “Dream,” he says, like a prayer – because he knows now that when everything falls to ruin, it’s Dream who stays.

“George,” he inches closer to him slowly, as though George is a deer about to make a run for it.

“You didn’t,” he puts his fingers up to make air quotes, “‘take away’ anything from me.”

George parts his lips to argue, but a raised pointer finger closes it back up.

“Listen,” Dream continues, “don’t get me wrong. Minecraft will– it’ll always be a part of me. It’s where I met you, Nick, Bad, everyone. I still play it when I can, and it changed my life forever. And– and everybody knows I’d be nowhere without it,” he takes a deep breath in. “But the same goes for you, too.”

“Dream…”

“Please don’t feel guilty for any of this. I told you,” Dream pleads gently, resting a damp hand on George’s shoulder, and he feels its weight more than anything else. “Or anything that happened the last two years, actually.”

It’s hard not to when he’s the direct cause of all this, not even inadvertently. And he’s just supposed to take it in stride? He understands now more than ever why Sapnap had resented him so much.

He’d basically taken away what made Dream Dream.

Dream sighs, “I know… I know this is a lot to take in, but I really genuinely believe I’m like– not incapable per say, but– I just know any Minecraft content from me, sans you, will just– it’ll never live up to my standards. That’s a choice I’ve made and it’s one I stand by.”

“Your IRL render series f*cking like, it had glizzed up numbers, though. I saw them,” George argues weakly.

Dream chuckles a little, “Yeah, that one was a bit of an outlier. I was already working on it with you and the fans were expecting it, so. Couldn’t let ‘em down.”

George knows Dream is doing everything in his power to console him, he does. But the knot of guilt has made a permanent home in his heart, and he’s certain it’s not going away any time soon.

In their periphery, the Dream and George on the TV scream in unison, much happier than their present day selves, and the sounds seem so far away.

“G,” Dream says when George has yet to respond, grabbing both of George’s shoulders – urging him to face him, “whatever happened happened. You– we can’t stay hung up on the past forever. We took our own paths, but we found our way back to each other. The only thing we can do from this point is move forward. Just–”

“Press ‘W’,” Dream and George both softly utter in unison.

In the back of George’s mind, he’s secretly preening that they still seem to be on the same wavelength.

And, because Dream has always had this inborn secret talent that can pull George out of his head, he smiles. A mirrored grin breaks out on Dream’s face when he says, “Exactly. Like my earring!”

“That was so cheesy,” George laughs as Dream’s hands slide off of him. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t miss the gentle yet secure touch.

“Not cheesy,” Dream faux frowns, “It’s creative, George.”

“Sure,” George scoffs as Dream peels off his mask and removes his shower cap, releasing his unruly curls.

When he returns to his vanity, Dream takes his chain, which was laying idly on the tiny jewelry dish along with all his rings, and holds it up to George, “Put my chain on for me?”

George nods wordlessly before taking the gold and twirls the links around his pointer finger, taking note of the way it still looks very shiny and well taken care of.

Dream’s back is already turned to him, so he goes on his tiptoes to reach around his neck. He hopes Dream doesn’t notice the way he’s taking longer than normal, as his hands are a bit too shaky to get the clasp on. When he does, he resists the urge to trace the chain along his skin.

“All done.”

“Thanks,” Dream says as he ruffles his curls, “Did you still have yours on?”

“My what?” He doesn’t know why he’s stalling.

“Your chain,” Dream answers, “the one I gave you,” he adds, as if that needed any clarification.

He feels oddly exposed, even when he knows he shouldn’t be, especially when Dream is right here, proudly donning his. Instead of a verbal response, he pulls the collar of his shirt downwards until Dream can see the string of gold wrapping around George’s own neck, its place of residence for the past three or so years.

It’s the one piece of Dream he’d brought with him to London, he’d never even entertained the thought of taking it off. It was practically a part of his own physical body. The thought of not feeling the weight of the gold on his skin had almost made him sick, like he’d be committing the highest degree of betrayal to himself.

It’s just something he instinctively puts on every day without fail, and without having to think about it – like one would with a pair of eyeglasses.

Dream’s countenance melts into awe, it shines in his eyes and melts George’s heart.

“You kept it,” He whispers, sounding too soft for George’s own good.

“Of course I kept it,” George says, queasy and vulnerable And, because he’s a little sh*t, “This thing is a thousand dollars, I’m not letting it go to waste.”

Dream laughs, and all is right in the world again. “Never change, G,” he says, golden like daylight.

“And you change,” George says, gesturing to Dream’s half naked body. “Change your clothes. Heh, Change my Clothes,” he snickers.

Dream shakes his head in amusem*nt, curls bouncing gloriously. He then gives George the keys to his Tesla, “Go wait in the car, I’ll get dressed then we can leave.”

“Fine, but don’t take too long. Or I’ll drive off by myself and you know how that could end up,” George threatens with a raised finger pointed at Dream.

The last thing he hears before he closes the bathroom door is the cadence of Dream’s mellifluous humming.

ꕥ

Now that George has finally settled in the house, now he isn’t preoccupied with the quest for earning back his place in Dream and Sapnap’s lives, now that there’s a silent peace after the mess of the last few weeks, all he has to do know is control his untamable feelings for Dream, because he can’t have them chewing on their restraints.

But the can of worms he sealed tight are being poked open, tiny holes breaking through the metal. His thoughts – poisonous and unwanted – are adamant on staying plastered to the forefront of his brain, no matter how hard he tucks them away.

He desperately tries to patch the holes with tape, reminding himself that a relationship with Dream is a bad idea. He knew this before and he knows this now. Time hasn’t changed the fact that Dream is meant for someone who actually deserves him.

One thought sticks out like a sore thumb: after everything he’s been blessed with, he’s still greedy. He still wants more. He still wants Dream.

He should be relieved, happy even. George had gotten more than he expected – deserved, even – he has Dream’s friendship, he has a roof on his head, food to eat, and a job that pays.

George had gotten himself a second chance.

So why does he feel that same, heavy, rotten feeling in his chest from all those years ago? Why does he still feel a bottomless pit in his stomach that screams I want I want I want? Is he really this ungrateful? Or do his feelings for Dream hold more weight and impact than he’d thought?

It’s not lost on him, how vital Dream is in his life. But the gravity of it is so crushing that it’s almost painful. His love for Dream has the power to overtake any feeling or notion George has going on within himself, it’s like his chemical composition is made entirely out of cells that long for his best friend.

His brain reminds him that he can only ever be the best friend Dream needs, not the partner George wants to be. You would drag him down with you into the cycle of shame, and he’s too good to have that fate. It’s a lost cause.

His heart tells him otherwise: Prove to yourself that you can be good for him, be the person he deserves. Nobody understands him like you do.

In the end, his brain wins over. Reality washes down on his heart like a bucket of ice water, because even if George did let his desire run free, it would be futile, leading itself to a dead-end.

Because the revelation that Dream doesn’t love him anymore sticks to his heart like velcro, and though he knows it should be a good thing – Dream dodged a bullet, George should be glad he no longer has a fighting chance of ruining him – disappointment manages to work its way into his heart, melding into an emotion so strong it almost brings him chest pain.

Vaguely, George recognizes the emotion as heartbreak.

The feeling is too raw, too red, and he squashes it down as hard as he can.

It’s the reminder that Dream is George’s best friend before he is anything else that gives him a new sense of determination. This is his golden egg, don’t lose it.

He has to focus on something more realistic, like securing his friendship with Dream, one he isn’t willing to lose again. If that means he has to kill himself trying to mangle the tendrils and knots in his heart, then he will die trying to do so.

So long as Dream doesn’t get hurt again.

ꕥ

There are leaves that managed to get caught in between the curls of Dream’s hair, its color – though dull to George’s eyes – go hand in hand with the copper gold.

George has been watching him, enraptured, for the past five or so minutes.

It should look funny, but George relishes the way nature loves Dream. It’s like the world was made and melded according to his best interest, and it bends for him in a way that makes it look like his beauty is one with the trees, the skies, and the flora surrounding his feet.

Seeing Dream under the sunlight is a privilege George is unworthy of, and he basks in it until he’s no longer allowed to.

Part of him wants to pluck the leaves off of his windswept hair, and an even more insane part of him wants to pick off the wildflowers on the grass and place them in his hair in the form of a crown. He’d look good in that.

He worries his lip, knowing that if he were to voice any of this out loud, he would surely come off as way out of propriety. This isn’t exactly the “pushing his feelings down” he was planning to do.

George wishes, for a moment, that he had the talent for painting, so he could capture this picturesque version of Dream – relaxed and free from the shackles of the world’s demands from him, spots of his face being speckled by the shadows from the tree’s leaves above them, chain around his neck gleaming under the daylight – into something tangible for safekeeping.

They’re at an abandoned park, clean but secluded from tourist attractions and local hotspots. The party consists of him, Dream, Sapnap, and Gia – who will be flying back to New York in a few days. It’s a place Sapnap likes to go to for his skating escapades, and he had assured Dream while coercing him into coming that nobody else other than him frequents here.

It had been Gia’s idea to have a picnic, and it was Sapnap who suggested making a skating stream out of it.

(“Come on, Sueño, you don’t have to be on camera, just come with us,” Gia insisted, bumping her hips against Dream’s.

To Dream’s credit, he looked apologetic as he replied, “I don’t know, I just– have a lot to do.”

Gia pivoted towards George after stealing Dream’s cat beanie for herself, “What about you, Jorge?”

A little caught off guard by the long retired nickname, George had hastily replied, “Sure,” even though he’d much rather stay home with Dream.

“You know what? I’ll go,” Dream chimed in then, eliciting a cheer from Gia. She then made her way to their kitchen – to gather ingredients for their food, George assumed.

“But Dream,” Sapnap cut in, eyebrow raised and sending Dream a knowing look in his eyes, “I thought you wanted to work?”

“I mean– yeah, but… I can move it around,” Dream stumbled on his words, “And– if George is coming with, then I gotta make sure you keep him alive,” he rushed out, voice rising an octave.

“Right,” Sapnap replied, shooting him a pointed look before retreating up to his room to collect his skateboards.)

Secretly, George is grateful for their idea. It’s nice to see Dream get some sunlight every once in a while. God knows he needs it.

Gia has also been warmer towards him, which is something that George is immensely relieved for – it hadn’t occurred to him how much he’d missed hanging out with her until earlier this morning when she asked him for help with their egg salad sandwiches and fruit slices.

Right now, it’s just Dream and George on the picnic blanket – the blue plaid one that Dream insisted on using because he somehow knew this was the only one that didn’t irritate George’s skin – and Sapnap and Gia are off at the ramps, streaming live for the past hour and a half.

They’re sitting across from each other, legs spread to a ‘V’, socked feet touching – bracketing their phones and the wicker basket they brought from home.

“They’re gonna have to end soon,” Dream comments as he inspects the tupperware containers in the basket. “I don’t want the food to spoil from the heat.”

“Or we can just eat theirs,” George snorts, leaning forward to make sure that– yes, his apple slices are still in there.

Dream laughs, gentle enough that the sound sways with the grass around them. “You’re evil,” he replies, but the face he wears with the statement suggests the exact opposite.

George adjusts himself on the picnic blanket and picks off a few blades of grass off the ground, “I’m hungry, Dream.”

“Then we’ll eat when they decide to eat.”

“But I’m hungry now,” he whines, sprinkling a few blades of grass on Dream’s jeans just to annoy him.

Dream wipes them off with an indolent hand, too used to George’s antics.

“You can have an appetizer,” he suggests instead, sliding the basket closer to him, “I packed a bag of chips for you in there.”

When George opens the flap of the basket, he goes straight to the packet of Slim Jims he knows Sapnap has an otherworldly obsession with.

“George,” Dream chastises through a laugh. “You don’t even like Slim Jims.”

“I do now,” George rebuts, but returns it anyway. He fishes out the cheese crisps Dream brought for him from an international snack shop and shoves a handful into his mouth.

Dream rakes his fingers through his hair, causing some of the leaves to fall onto his lap. Distantly, he can hear Gia and Sapnap yelling at each other as they attempt a trick that George hadn;t bothered to learn the name of. He refocuses on Dream, who looks at him in a way he never looks at anyone else – intense, but oh so gentle.

“So listen,” Dream voices a few minutes later. He toys with the stray leaves, bunching them together into his palm and making a fist, eliciting a crunching sound, “I have to be in LA next month. For two weeks.”

“Oh?” George queries, crumpling the cellophane packet, “whatever for?”

“Promo. For the album.”

“Right,” he says, and he notices how Dream’s countenance holds a look of trepidation, like he’s dipping his toes in the water before making sure it’s safe to fully submerge.

Honestly, the revelation bums George out more than he can admit. He’d just gotten him back – really gotten him back. He was just starting to get used to his presence every day and suddenly he’s about to lose him to LA for two whole weeks? Half a month? Fourteen days? Call George clingy, but Dream is just the kind of person to have this magnetic pull that nobody can even attempt to resist.

He’s not about to express any of this though, because he vowed to himself long ago that he can’t hold Dream back. His neediness and endless desire to attach himself to Dream’s side 24/7 is better off hidden within the walls of his heart. Plus, he respects Dream too much to get in his way, it’s a hard-learned lesson.

“And I was thinking,” Dream continues, “would you wanna come with me?”

And– what?

George’s brows furl together. He feels like his brain just short-circuited, because– that was the exact opposite of what he was expecting to hear.

“You actually want me to come with?” George finds himself asking in disbelief, like Dream had just told him he gained three heads.

“Of course.”

“Is Sapnap not going?” George asks.

Dream’s smile is still there, though the light in his eyes dim a little, “Uh– no. He has NRG videos to record here. I thought you could use a vacation, though. Like– explore LA while I do press stuff.”

It’s… an enticing offer, but a dangerous one. George’s inhibitions are already hanging on a single thread, and he’s doing everything in his power to tread the line between them carefully. If George wants to keep Dream in his life, he should hold him close enough to reach, but within a safe distance so he doesn’t trip on his two feet and fall onto his heart.

He doesn’t think spending two weeks alone with Dream is going to be of any help. If anything, the trip would loosen the screws in George’s head and he’s… way in over his head here.

On the other hand though, he wants nothing else – this is the kind of thing George had been craving since he boarded that plane to London. Any second spent with Dream is worth more than gold. His mind takes him back to their LA trips in 2023, how fun they had been – trying new things together, sojourning in a city they were both unfamiliar with, seeing the city lights shining in Dream’s eyes – the memories crumble his resolve in an exponential pace.

Plus, it’s LA – his favorite city in the world, and he misses the vibrance of it.

George must’ve been quiet for too long, because doubt starts to color Dream’s features, his smile slowly melting into a frown.

“Why? Did you not want to–”

“No! I mean– yeah, but,” George stammers, “I didn’t think you’d–” I didn’t think you’d still want me around then.

“George,” Dream begins in a voice too soft for the harshness of the daylight, “I just got you back. You really think I could go two whole weeks without your annoying ass?” Dream says, echoing George’s thoughts from earlier.

Oh.

f*ck it. He’s going. f*cking Dream and his enthralling magnetism and his boyish charm and his stupid, hopeful eyes. George seriously has issues.

“Fine,” George sighs, like he’d been terribly inconvenienced, “I’ll go, if you insist, God.”

“Shut up, I can tell you’re excited about not having to work,” Dream retorts, a little too perceptive for George’s liking.

He ignores the jab, “And you can’t survive a day without me, apparently.”

He realizes the implications of the joke before he’s able to take them back, and bites his lip hard enough for it to be painful. Thankfully, Dream has the thickest skin known to man, because he laughs it off in surprised delight before replying,

“Yeah, I really wouldn’t,” he gives George a smile he hasn’t seen directed at anyone else, not even Patches.

This jolts something in George from within, and when he looks at Dream, really looks at him, he discerns something new.

He’s been different ever since that big fight, though it’s not obvious to those who don’t know Dream, not really. He seems lighter somehow, more himself. If George didn’t pay attention to him in the degree to which he usually does, he wouldn’t have noticed.

It’s like there’s been a burst of newfound energy that’s revitalized him, making him look younger than he is, because he’s absolutely glowing – and it’s not because of the sun.

When Gia and Sapnap return to their spot under the tree, they’re sweaty and hungry for lunch.

“If the sandwiches are bad, it’s because Jorge helped make them,” Gia announces before taking a bite, and George takes that as her version of welcoming him back.

George is too happy to quip back a snarky reply, content to sit next to Dream’s warmth as he oozes the smell of flowers in the spring.

He is also delighted to discover that while Dream had packed everyone water bottles, he’d only put ice cubes in George’s. He preens as he sips his crispy cold water, palm wet with condensation while Sapnap complains about his being lukewarm.

“Did your fancy fridge just happen to run out of ice?” Gia interrogates with an amused smile on her face.

“George was just in London, he gets hot easier,” Dream defends, arms raised.

Sapnap and Gia share a look, which George doesn’t even want to know what that’s about. He easily forgets about it when Dream hands him a napkin to dry his hands.

He also gives George his share of the dessert, his aversion to anything with sugar prevalent. He swears Dream’s cookie tastes just a smidge sweeter than his own.

ꕥ

George clicks “Confirm Leave Request” on his computer before logging out of his office account and leaning back on his chair with a relieved sigh.

His bosses were surprisingly lenient with him randomly taking a two week leave on such short notice, but they’ve said they’ll allow it only because George is the strongest in their team, which is a compliment he gratefully receives – if it means he gets to hang out with Dream in his favorite city in the US without meetings and deadlines looming over his head.

Feeling the excitement coursing through his veins, he gets the sudden urge to jump out of his seat and tell Dream the good news, like he always used to do.

He makes the short trek from his office to Dream’s. He almost barges in, too used to being welcomed in whenever he likes, but distantly remembers him saying he had a planned stream for today, so he knocks, just to check if he’s done.

“I’m live!” Comes a muffled reply from the door.

George pouts, and not for the first time, he detests the fact that the fans are getting Dream’s attention and not him. He gives so much of himself to his audience already, and it’s a recurring thought of George's, to worry if Dream still has enough left for himself.

He pulls out his phone and opens up his text message thread with him.

George

facecam?

Dream

No lol

You know i still don't do facecam

George’s hands wrap around the doorknob, but hesitates. Does he really wanna go in and risk exposing himself to Dream’s thousands of viewers? Is he ready for that kind of scrutiny and the attention he’ll receive again? It’s a gamble, especially knowing that one noise from him could pique the viewers’ curiosity. He doesn’t feel like being alone right now though, and he hasn’t seen Dream all day. If George were a sensible person, he’d wait for an hour or two for Dream to finish up.

But George has never been patient.

Dream’s presence just has this almost magical effect on him, one that can’t be explained but still makes the most sense. It’s something so deep rooted into George’s molecular makeup, something so natural as the sky being blue – it’s just one of those things so ingrained in fact that nobody questions it. Water is wet, grass is green, and George loves having Dream around.

He’s abstained himself from Dream’s company for so long, and he’s merely making up for lost time.

And, like it always does, his need for Dream’s company triumphs over anything else.

He slowly turns the doorknob, and when Dream is in view, he sees that he’s playing a round of Geoguessr. He’s talking softly into the mic, the sweet lull of his voice immediately relieving any sort of tension George didn’t even know he had beforehand.

He creeps toward him, grasping on the back of the chair to grab his attention. Sensing the movement, Dream turns and smiles brightly at him, pausing his commentary to his chat and effectively losing the round. Based on the sparkle in his eyes, he doesn’t seem to mind.

Tapping the mute button on his mic, he greets George, “Hey, G. Need anything?”

George shakes his head in a silent no. He’s aware that they’re muted, but he doesn’t wanna talk in case the mic magically unmutes itself.

“You wanna sit back there and watch?” And that’s all the invitation George needs.

He crawls up to Dream’s office bed and perches himself beside Patches, who is looking at him with judgmental eyes, as if berating him for invading her space.

He pets her head in apology, which she seems to accept, if the purring is anything to go by.

After shooting him one last look, Dream returns to his stream, “Sorry guys. A certain little cat wanted my attention.” George resists the urge to whack him.

Instead, he glares daggers at the back of Dream’s head, and he continues on with his cheeky voice, “Yeah, Patchy’s like, obsessed with me.”

When Dream pivots back to him, George immediately shoots him the finger, to which he bursts out laughing before he catches himself.

“Sorry, guys. Patches just– she just made this face, it’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen,” he explains to chat, wearing a paltry smile.

Not wanting to take this slander any longer, George lies back in bed and opens up TikTok, he puts it on mute so as not to disturb Dream and his stream.

If George pretends hard enough, this could be just a regular day for them back before everything. Just him, free to enter whenever he wants and Dream always welcoming of his presence. Just Dream and George doing their own things – but together.

Occasionally, he’ll hear soft laughter resonate from Dream’s lips, a curse or two, and some soft humming of songs he doesn’t recognize. The sounds are better than any white noise machine George could find. He scrolls through Twitter with the peaceful background in his ears, content to be part of the audience for once.

The timeline is full of Tweets from the stream – clipping parts of it or quoting Dream’s words. It fills George with pride to see people remain loyal and supportive to him, even from a distance. After every obstacle Dream has worked through, he deserves this at the very least.

Maybe an hour or so passes until Dream sighs loudly, “Alright, I think that’s enough gaming for me today.”

Chat must not take it well because Dream huffs another breathy laugh, “I’m not ending, I’m not ending. I just thought we could sit and chat for a while – ask me some questions or something.”

A beat, “Yeah, hashtag Ask Dream, sure.”

When George refreshes his Twitter timeline, the fans are already spamming the tag. They’re all pretty standard, useless questions that barely hold any substance to them. This is why George hated doing Q&A’s, if they weren’t asking him to choose his favorite somethings – which he despised in particular because of his indecisive nature – they were asking him questions that were borderline invasive.

He doesn’t know how Dream does it, so willing to share details of his life that George wouldn’t for himself, gun to his head. He supposes it makes sense, his best friend has always had the penchant for establishing a connection between him and his community. It’s another thing to admire about him.

“Let’s see…” Dream hums as he scrolls through his timeline on his own phone, “Do we get to hear sneak peeks of your new album? We will see… I know, I know, I’ve been all hush-hush about this one, but I really do think it’s worth the wait, I just don’t wanna give too much away.”

Immediately, an influx of tweets pop up, all variations of crying about how Dream keeps gatekeeping – and honestly, George resonates with them.

“Do we have a release date already? Funny you say that. Keep an eye on my accounts next week.”

George almost chimes in, almost goes to brag about how he knows, but stops himself. He doesn’t want Dream to face a plethora of demanding questions he wouldn't know how to answer.

The rest of the questions are all about Dream’s upcoming album and tour, some of which George himself doesn’t even know the answer to, like the number of tracks, what they’re about, and what they sound like.

And then, Dream reads a different question, “What upcoming projects do you have after your album releases? Honestly, guys, I don’t know. We’ll see, I guess,” he answers with a tired sigh.

That makes George pause, the sentence is said with a bit of weight into it, and before George can discern it any further, Dream suddenly claps his hands, “Alright, I think that’s it for now. I will see you guys soon. Love you guys.” He ends with a series of high pitched goodbyes before finally shutting off his stream.

Once he clicks the end button, he sinks into his seat, like the life had just been drained out of him.

He seems… off. George can’t exactly pinpoint it, but he knows he wants to fix it right away, reach into Dream’s head and pluck out whatever weeds are bothering him.

Dream has always been an open book – to George at least – easy to read, easy to gauge on what he’s feeling. This is why it takes him no time to spot the signs of stress in his demeanor. It’s something he’s practiced over the years, finding the inflections in his tone that suggest anything troubling.

He’d thought it would take him a bit to relearn Dream’s quirks and mannerisms after seeing his face, but after discovering how expressive he is, it had been no problem at all.

George immediately decides he doesn’t like seeing him like this: frowning and pensive and trapped in his head. An onslaught of silent urgency overtakes him, prodding him to fix… whatever it is.

“What’s up?” George dares to ask, “Suffering from success?” He starts off lighthearted, knowing easing Dream into it would give him a better chance of opening up. He’s an expert at this, he’s had years of practice. George knows what sets him off, he knows how to get him comfortable enough to talk.

Dream lets out a breath, “You could say that,” he hums.

“I just said it,” George points out, pulling out a laugh from Dream, though it sounds tired and wry.

It’s a few beats of silence, then Dream sighs to himself, “I feel like I’m– like I’m in a rut. I’m just… kinda lost right now.”

That makes George frown, a knot tying itself in his throat, suffocating him slowly and dully, “What makes you say that?”

Instead of answering, Dream simply exits his browser with a few swift clicks and climbs onto the bed, disturbing Patches – who meows in protest and jumps down to hide underneath. He leans his back against the wall, slings his legs onto George’s lap, and covers his withdrawn face with his pillow.

“I’ve just… never felt a burn out like this,” he says then. Though his voice comes out muffled, the words still affect him like a punch to the gut. It’s the defeat in Dream’s tone that falls onto his skin like dust, creating an itch he can’t scratch.

George is at a loss of what to say, but his brain is running a mile a minute, telling him to hurry the f*ck up and say something to assuage Dream’s adversity.

Dream continues before he can voice anything of substance, as if he hadn’t realized George hasn’t said anything in the past two minutes, “I wish I could just like, flip a switch in me or something– and I’d immediately become productive again.”

George pushes away the guilt that’s trying to eat him alive, because Dream’s well being is his top priority. He lays a palm on his knee and says, “I… Is there anything I can do?”

“Listen to my yap session?” Dream asks, a meager smile painting his face.

Humoring him, George makes a fist as if to hold a pretend microphone and holds it up to Dream’s face. His smile widens, and he wraps his hand around George’s forearm. He ignores the warmth and tingling it brings him when Dream starts to speak.

“This is probably the first time in my career where I don’t have this… groundbreaking, exciting project in my backlog. There’s like– nothing I have planned after I finish my tour,” he begins, his grip on George’s arm slightly loosening the more he talks.

“And it’s not like I’m not interested anymore, It’s like– something is right there,” Dream says, gesturing with his hands, “but you can’t seem to get a hold of it. Do you get what I mean? You have the drive to do anything fulfilling but you just… can’t bring yourself to actually do it? Because you’re–”

“–coming up blank here?” George finishes for him, tapping his head.

“Yeah…” Dream “Exactly. Ever felt like that?”

George mulls the question over, “I think so. Maybe in my university years?” He cringes at himself at having nothing anecdotal enough to aid Dream in his predicament.

“Well, it’s like– I love content creation, in all forms. I know that, you know that, obviously. But… I feel like I’m about to get in a slump, G.”

“I know what that feels like,” George mumbles.

“Yeah? How’d you get over it?”

I didn’t. “Just… y’know, it depends on the person I guess.”

Dream seems to accept the answer, because he continues, transferring his hand to his lap, and George brings his own back to himself.

“You know, even when it was annoying at times, I miss when my ADHD brain would just like– go haywire. I’d have so many ideas and I just… I miss it– I miss feeling motivated and inspired and creative, and– I miss loving it. I want to love making content again,” he utters, looking heartbreakingly downtrodden.

As soon as the sentence hits George’s ears, he subconsciously brings a hand to his chain to fiddle with, the gold links grounding him, only a little bit.

This feels so wrong. Dream is the most driven, motivated person George has ever met. Even in the height of controversy, nothing was able to deter him from drilling himself to the ground working on his projects. Not a day goes by where he wasn’t firing off idea after idea – the guy almost always had something creative up his sleeve, and it’s breaking George to see this version of him, even worse knowing he’d most likely played a part in his conundrum.

He wishes he could have something helpful to say; advice, encouraging words, anything. But words have never been George’s strongest suit, his love language is far from words of affirmation. He hopes his comforting hand on Dream’s knee is enough to placate him while he comes up with something good enough to vocalize, even if it would only ease Dream’s distress a little.

“Remember when you reached one mil subs?” is what George manages to ask.

This prompts Dream to smile, “Yeah,” he sighs longingly, “t’was the second best day of my life.”

“Second?” George questions, “Didn’t you always say it was the best day of your life?”

“Mm, maybe I did at one point,” he says, twirling his finger on the corner of his pillowcase, “then I met you for the first time.”

No force in the universe is able to stop the blush rising to George’s cheeks, he immediately brings his head down to hide it, “You’re an idiot,” he murmurs, picking a piece of lint off of Dream’s jeans.

“It was a good day, though,” Dream goes on, “That’s when I really believed that sh*t, I could actually play Minecraft for a living, this is so f*cking cool.”

The words strike something in George, and as if he was hit by lightning, a wave of conviction takes over his body, jolting him like an electric shock.

“You know what,” George interrupts, determined. He’s been wanting to do right by Dream, make up for the mess he made, and put Dream back on course. If this is the very least he can do, then so be it. “Get in VC.”

“I–” Dream blinks. “What?”

“You heard me, get on Discord and wait for my call,” George clarifies, already backing away to the door.

“Okay…” Dream says with furrowed brows, not doubtful but definitely confused.

George, overcome by an intense surge of steadfastness – erratic like he’d downed six shots of espresso – makes a mad dash to his office. He practically dives into his chair and almost falls off, nearly knocking out Naomi who was napping under his desk, and scrambles to turn on his computer.

He doesn’t know why he’s so hasty, so brash as if he was being chased by the demons of his contrition – but if he has to look at Dream’s dejected face one more time, he’s going to lose it.

The first thing he opens is Minecraft, and while it’s loading, he opens up Discord next and calls Dream.

He picks up on the first ring.

“So can you tell me what exactly it is we’re doing–?” He immediately hounds George, tone exasperated with a poorly concealed twinge of humor. George clings to it, uses it as a source for his confidence.

“Get on Minecraft first.”

“George, what?” Without having to see him, he knows Dream must be bewildered, peering into his monitor as if he could see George right through it. He knows for certain, because if he knows anything like the back of his hand, it’s Dream’s voice.

Only now, he can also picture what his face looks like – furrowed brows and squinted eyes, fist on his chin and rubbing it to keep his hands busy.

Just to be a little troll, he cups his hands around the mic and speaks directly into it, “Open. Minecraft. Now.”

“Okay, okay! Jesus, George,” Dream relents, “You’re so bad for people’s ears, you know that?”

“I do, actually. Ear doctors don’t recommend me,” George chortles.

“You mean otolaryngologists?”

“Well, I don’t know all doctor names – and for all I know, you’re just making that term up,” George huffs, “Also, stop stalling. Open Minecraft.”

“It’s not– whatever. And I am! The stupid thing is still loading up.”

George groans exaggeratedly, like he’s just been cursed with the biggest inconvenience in the world, “Tell it to go faster,” he commands, already starting up a survival LAN world. He spawns in a plains biome with a Savannah off to the side.

“Do you also boss around your coworkers like this?” Dream asks, amused.

“Only the stupid ones.”

“Right,” Dream snorts, “Okay, I’m in.”

“Finally,” George grunts, “Join my server with the IP.”

“What IP?”

“The one I sent you in Discord, idiot.”

It takes a few seconds, but right in the middle of George’s screen, Dream appears in all his lime green (piss yellow to him) glory. It hits George then, like a sudden freight train coming straight for him, that this is the first time he’s seeing Dream’s Minecraft skin again in… he doesn’t even know how long. It’s a bit pathetic to say that a smiley face blob made of pixels can render him stumped.

“I’m in,” Dream tells him, spinning his character around on its axis.

He must be so miserable that the sight almost brings tears to his eyes, he blames it on the glare of his screen even though no one’s around.

“George? I’m in. Can you not see me?” Dream asks, snapping George out of his reverie.

“I see you,” George murmurs, still staring at his monitor. He really did miss seeing it, and when he watches Dream crouch and move around the world, it makes the ache in his heart press deeper in his chest.

It’s so easy to pretend that they’re back to where they all started, Teamspeak calls and only seeing each other through Minecraft skins, with dreams of making it big and untainted hope for meeting up.

For a moment, he’s twenty-two years old again – just starting to fall in love with Dream and greedily taking anything he gets from him – the cadence of his voice and the staticky sound of his laughter. He’s twenty-two, and he’d just given his entire heart to the boy across the Atlantic, letting him do whatever he wants with it. He’s twenty-two, and the only thing he wants is to stay on call with him a little longer, losing sleep just to keep talking to him.

“So what now?” Dream queries, coming to stand in front of George – who was yet to move – and crouches.

George quickly gathers his bearings and clears his throat, “Now, we’re going to speedrun.”

“We?” He could practically see the way Dream tilt’s his head at the statement.

“Yes, we,” George confirms, “I know you’re washed, Dream. Admit it. You need all the help you can get.”

“I’m not admitting to anything because there’s nothing to admit. I’m not washed.”

“Too bad, you’re washed,” George tuts, “And I’m better than you.”

“Whatever you say, Georgie,” Dream moves off screen to chop on an oak tree, “Whatever you say.”

“You sound like you don’t believe me,” George mutters, following him to cut down the tree next to Dream’s.

“You calling me a liar?”

“I’m calling you an idiot.”

A scoff, then, “How is this a speedrun exactly, if we’re not using a timer?”

“It’s a slow run, then,” George reconsiders, “Don’t worry about the semantics or– whatever. Just play, stupid. No horsing around,” he says, punching a nearby horse.

“Fine,” Dream concedes. “There’s a village nearby, let’s head over there.”

“Wait,” George interrupts, “Lemme just add this in…” he mumbles to himself, typing in commands in the chat box with practiced ease.

“What–”

“Here,” he replies, tossing Dream a lime green dyed leather cap before opening his inventory and putting his own on – dyed in blue.

It takes a few seconds, but when Dream’s skin adorns his cap, he feels the tightness in his chest loosen.

“Now we’re ready.”

ꕥ

George doesn’t know how they get here, doesn’t even know how long they’ve been in game – it could be the next day for all he cares – but one minute they’re raiding the village, with George almost dying to the iron golem without any of Dream’s help, who was too busy laughing at him. The next, they’re fighting over the hay bales and crops. George spends extra time trying to tame a cat only for Dream to accidentally kill it the second little hearts start to pop up around it. He gets his revenge by pushing him into a ravine.

This is the most fun George has had in a while, and it’s strikingly reminiscent to when they would f*ck around while testing plug-ins. For a while there, he forgets they’re adults who have real life responsibilities, he forgets the past two years, and he forgets the impediments that aged them. Dream’s laughter is enough to erase his wrinkles and soften his edges.

It’s a relief to discover – that he and Dream are still able to just do whatever and manage to have fun with it, never a dull moment between them.

They don’t even make it to the nether. In fact, they give up on speedrunning altogether, because the two of them are too preoccupied with chasing each other and killing each other with stone weapons. It’s when George suggests they build a house that Dream starts gathering flowers for their garden.

When Dream returns from the flower forest, he tosses George a single cornflower. He hovers his cursor over the item.

“A cornflower?”

“Mhmm. Your favorite.”Of course he'd remember that.

“Yeah, that’s– that’s right,” George hums. “And yours is–”

“The allium,” they finish together.

George goes to place it on a flower pot in their shabby house, but decides to move it to his offhand instead.

“Looks good on you,” Dream comments airily.

“Everything looks good on me, Dream,” George quips, feeling floaty all of a sudden.

Belatedly, he realizes that it’s been a while since he’s seen Dream’s face. He oddly misses it as if he hadn’t just seen him a few hours prior, as if he isn’t literally talking to him right now. He doesn’t know what triggers it. Maybe it’s the nostalgia of them playing their favorite game, but he’s reminded of leaky apartments, rainy days, a disembodied voice promising him that it’ll be all over soon.

Almost too quickly, the happy memories of coding plug-ins together, running around worlds while they talk about nothing and everything are replaced with quiet Discord calls, looking at an empty mailbox every day, and the sound of a tired voice in his ear, trying to be strong for George but sounding so weak.

“Turn on face cam,” George blurts without even thinking about it. He bites his lip, so hard it turns red. He’s about to take it back when–

“Okay.”

Then relief rescues him when his second monitor shows Dream’s face – pixelated and a little grainy, but still so beautiful.

George likes to think he’s hard to perturb, unable to deter, and he wholeheartedly believes this most days. He’s easy to annoy, sure – but it takes a lot to make him truly stumble or falter. But here, presented with the monitor displaying Dream’s face, George finds himself defenseless by the mere look he throws at him. A small gust of wind would be enough to knock him down.

The twinkle in his eyes is luminous enough to reflect on George’s own. He decides right then and there, he’d do anything to prevent the shine in Dream’s irises from ever being clouded.

“Hello, idiot,” George greets, turning on his own camera as well. He makes a reminder to himself that Dream can see him now, he has to make sure his lovesickness and fondness that may show on his face remain unseen.

Distantly, he thinks if he’d had this – Dream’s face, the access to seeing it virtually – before the VISA, he’s not sure if it would have relieved some of the pain of waiting, or if it would have just made it worse. On one hand, he would’ve had more than Dream’s voice, something to picture at night. On the other, it would have been another thing George couldn’t really have until he stepped foot in America.

It’s just– it’s a good face, that’s all. A really good face.

“Hey, stupid,” Dream greets back, the crow’s feet in his eyes visible due to his smile. Then, his exuberant countenance melts into something softer, like his hugs and his touch.

“I had fun, y’know?”

That sets something alight in George’s heart. The sense of accomplishment consumes him, knowing he did that – he put that gratified expression on Dream’s face. He’d just spent hours playing Minecraft with George without any real go and he had fun.

It feels like the first step in the right direction.

“Did you?” he asks, jutting his chin at him.

“Mhmm,” Dream leans back into his chair languidly, “Most fun I’ve had in a while.”

It’s as sweet as it is heart wrenching, “Me too.”

“Thank you.”

It’s said so quietly that George almost doesn’t hear it. “What for?” he asks, because he doesn’t think he’s done anything to warrant any degree of gratitude from Dream.

“For, you know– being here. For today and stuff,” he answers, voice velvety smooth and soothingly deep.

It means a lot more than Dream is aware of. George can be awarded with gold medals or break Guinness World Records, but none of them can compete with the rush of pride he gets when Dream thanks him for something, even if it’s as mundane as this.

Praying the camera can’t catch the way his eyes mist over, he looks down. And Dream, always in sync with George’s emotions more than he himself is, seems to sense George’s sudden coyness and spares him by changing the subject.

He clears his throat, “You need a haircut, I think.”

Snapping his head back to face the monitor, George hums. “Is it that long already?” he mumbles to himself, carding his fingers through his hair.

“Well, no– but,” Dream starts, resting his chin on his palm, a look of wonder in his features, “It’s just a little wonky on the sides.”

“Wonky,” George repeats.

“Yeah,” Dream affirms, eyes directed above George’s head, “They didn’t cut it right the first time.”

Just when George is about to make a remark about Dream’s fixation on George’s hair, he sees the door opening from behind him, “Bro, let’s go out for dinner– you’re playing Minecraft?”

It’s Sapnap, strutting towards Dream’s chair.

“What about it, dude?” Dream asks, in that mocking Texan voice he uses to make fun of him.

“You–” Sapnap splutters, “Whatever, let’s go have dinner. I’d eat two whole George’s if I could.”

“What the f*ck?” George exclaims in comical surprise. “Tell Stinknap I can smell him from here,” George butts in.

“I’m not telling him that, George,” Dream admonishes, but he can see the mirth lining his face.

“Is that George?” Sapnap asks, “Tell him he looks like sh*t. Sopping, wet, sh*t.”

“You guys are so–” Dream mutters, facepalming, “Did you say you wanted dinner?”

“I’m so hungry, bro,” Sapnap moans, “Let’s go out.”

“Dream. Dream,” George says into his mic, loud enough to distract Dream, “Let’s get sushi. Tell him we’re getting sushi.”

“Sushi good with you?” Dream asks Sapnap.

Sapnap groans as soon as Dream says the words, “Bro I swear– we’ve been getting sushi like, three times a week ever since George got here. Surely you’ve gotta be sick of it.”

If George were feeling nice, he’d let Sapnap have his way, opt out of taking advantage of Dream’s favoritism for him for once – but he’s not, and the prospect of getting sushi had already planted its roots in his mind. And, more importantly, giving Sapnap a hard time is simply woven in George’s DNA.

Plus, now that he and Sapnap are somewhat in a truce, he can freely poke fun at him as he pleases.

“Dream, don’t listen to him,” George urges, “He’s just gonna drag us to that greasy burger place he keeps yapping about.”

“You haven’t even tried that burger place,” Dream laughs, much to Sapnap’s chagrin.

“Idiot, don’t tell him that–”

“What the f*ck is George saying? I swear to God–” Sapnap petulantly demands, grabbing the back of Dream’s chair to roll him away, shoving his face right in front of the camera, the angle so ridiculous George snickers before taking a screenshot to use as blackmail for the future.

Sapnap must’ve disconnected the headphones where George can’t see, because he accuses, “What are you laughing at, freak?”

“Just your ugly mug.”

“Dream, what did he say to you?”

“I said that you’re–”

“–George didn’t say anything. He’s just being an idiot,” Dream cuts in, “We’ll get dressed in a minute. Go get the car.”

“Fine,” Sapnap huffs, “But no sushi.”

“No sushi,” Dream agrees as he gives Sapnap’s arm a squeeze, eliciting a groan from George.

When Sapnap shuts the door closed, Dream swivels back to the camera. “We can go to a place with an international menu, so you can still get sushi,” Dream offers. It sounds like a reassurance.

George preens. “I knew I was your favorite,” he smirks.

“Nope, we are not doing this again,” Dream denies, raising his hands in surrender, “I don’t play favorites– actually– Patches. Patches is my favorite.”

George knows he’s treading a fine line here. What he’s doing right now? It’s borderline flirting, and while it’s comparatively tame in relation to the jokes they used to share, and while they did share a flirty dynamic for most of their friendship, that was before feelings were put on the table, before feelings – Dream’s feelings – went out in the open.

Renewing that specific aspect of their friendship wouldn’t be frivolous anymore, knowing the risk he would be taking. The risk being: George could get carried away with it to the point where he’d know no boundaries anymore – he’d tear a hole in the fabric of the reality of their friendship. What’s even worse, there’s a possibility that he’d confuse, or worse, hurt Dream.

He doesn’t want him to think George is toying with his past feelings. Making a mockery of Dream’s heart would be the greatest mistake a human could ever make. That’s the last thing George wants to do.

He doesn’t wanna tip the careful balance they’ve got going on here, doesn’t wanna blow wind to the house of cards they’ve only recently built together. There’s just so much history to factor in that one mistake could bring forth enough severity to throw them off course.

But at the same time, Dream doesn’t harbor feelings for him anymore, and he still doesn’t know George is in love with him – and it will stay that way if George has anything to say about it. So really, where’s the harm? What difference would it make? As far as Dream knows, George is just trying to create a semblance of their past friendship.

This, suggestive jokes and playful banter? That’s Dream and George’s thing – it’s a pillar of their friendship, the oil that gets their machine going. He can’t give that up. As long as George is careful, so long as he pushes his feelings to the depths of his heart, a little flirting never hurt nobody.

George sighs dramatically, “I guess you’re right. Patches does trump over anyone else. But I’m after her, right?”

Dream giggles wholeheartedly, then, in a voice soft enough that George wouldn’t have heard it if he wasn’t wearing headphones, he says, “Yeah.”

ꕥ

George won’t lie. Dream is confusing him.

Just a week or so ago, the guy had made it pretty clear to him that no, he is no longer in love with him. He’s moved past it, George has nothing to worry about anymore, verbatim.

But there he goes, letting George touch his face, calling him his favorite, and going out of his way to get him sushi – it’s just… it’s messing with his head.

And George knows he isn’t even doing this on purpose, the perplexity of the situation is entirely self-imposed.

Their interactions have him wondering, has Dream always treated him this way? Was this out of the lingering effects of romantic love or simply a byproduct of Dream’s extreme care for his friends?

He thinks back to years before, looking back on their friendship, Dream has always treated him like this, like George was something precious to him.

It doesn’t help that George has no idea when Dream started falling in love with him, so he can’t pinpoint a time period where there may have been a shift happening unbeknownst to George. But he can’t just go up to Dream now and ask out of the blue, he immediately rules that option out. He can’t go to Sapnap or Gia either, not just because it’s a question that could tick them off, but also because he doesn’t know to what extent their knowledge of Dream’s feelings go.

He rules out Chloe as well. Though she’s the only one he’s 100% sure knows about his pining, he’s not sure what seeking advice from her – a girl a decade younger than him who also happens to be the younger sister of the guy he’s in love with – would do to his dignity. He has to be a lot more desperate before he has the guts to dial her number.

George is a logical thinker. He knows math, he knows science, he knows code. He can explain how things work, why these numbers add up to this number, he can look at lines of computer language and figure out what the error is. He knows how taxes work – both American and British. And most of all, he knows Dream.

At least, he thinks he does. He has to. The idea of not being the person who knows Dream the most is George’s biggest threat. If anyone dares try to push him off his spot of being the Dream Expert (hereinafter, the Drexpert), he might just bite their head off.

George knows that Dream loves certain fruits, but won’t eat them in smoothie form. He knows that Dream likes to give Patches a cuddle at least twice a day – after waking up and before bed. He knows that Dream likes to chew on ice, but only on the cylindrical ones, because the cubed ones have sharp edges that hurt his gums. He knows that when Dream gets an idea, he scrambles to scribble it on his whiteboard to make sure he doesn't forget it.

He knows that Dream barely spends money on himself, but would put a dent on his savings just to cater to his friends and family. He knows that Dream rarely cries, but when he does, he embraces it, because he thinks it’s good for emotional release. He knows that Dream finds it easy to forgive, but finds it hard to trust. He knows that when Dream loves, he loves with his entire being, and he will keep loving even when it hurts him and scars him.

George knows Dream best, more than anyone.

So why can’t he, for the life of him, figure out the mainstay of how Dream truly feels for him – then and now? It’s like for all their lives, there's been a blindspot in Dream’s heart that is obscure enough for George not to see. A blindspot tiny but significant enough for George to only discover now, when he’s decided to reflect on his entire relationship with him.

It’s like there’s no one else to come to for Dream advice, no one he could recommend other than himself. There’s Clara, but George thinks even she hasn’t seen the whole picture of how Dream views George.

How does George know for sure he’s not simply wearing rose tinted glasses? How does he know for sure that by dissecting every interaction he has with Dream will procure any reliable information?

The obvious conclusion is this: Dream loves George, but not in the way he wants him to, not in the way he could ever hope to. Not anymore.

He can’t use Dream’s acts of kindness as a basis for George’s skewed theory that the guy may still be in love with him, precognitive biases aside. Dream is Dream – he’s kindness and he’s gentleness and he’s love. And even when the results come out positive, what then? If he somehow gets solid confirmation that his feelings are still reciprocated, what is he supposed to do with it? George asks him out? He’ll just go up to him and say, hey, I know I rejected you all those years ago but I’ve actually loved you this whole time, though I genuinely don’t think a relationship with me is what you need. I’m still so f*cking scared sh*tless so I don’t know why I’m even telling you this.

It’s stupid, he’s stupid. He’d promised himself that he’d never be another person who broke Dream’s heart, and he’d already f*cked that up once. He doesn’t want a round two.

Sometimes, in the depths of his mind, George wishes he’d have met Dream organically. Maybe it would have been a meet-cute at a tea shop, not a coffee shop because they both hate coffee. Dream would spill boba on George and he’d only pretend to be mad because this guy’s actually really cute when he’s flustered and apologetic. He’d give Dream his number so he can “make up for it,” and they’d go to dinner and end the night with a kiss – simple but effective enough to start a relationship from a blank, clean slate.

There’d be no will they, won’t they, no internal conflict because he’s too good for you, you can’t date him – you’re going to drive him away and ruin everything you built together, no history to fall back on, and nothing to lose.

But then he takes it all back, because he doesn’t want to expunge years of playing Minecraft with him, and he doesn’t want to give up the most important friendship of his life. It’s Dream – and any time spent with him is time to be cherished. He’ll take what he can get. George thinks, with an aching heart, that if you’re in Dream’s life as anything but an enemy, you should count yourself as lucky.

George doesn’t like to settle. But for Dream, he would – because when it comes to him, anything is better than nothing. It’s a bit self-deprecating, he knows. When compared to Dream however – the man who gives too much and receives too little – it doesn’t sound as bad.

He repeats this to himself like a mantra until it plays on loop even in his sleep.

ꕥ

“Mom’s asking how apartment hunting is going, by the way.” Dream suddenly inquires from where he’s leaning against the foot of George’s bed, fiddling with a stray ping pong ball he’d found on the floor and bouncing it against the wall.

George nearly jumps at the question, his fingers stilling, hovering over the keyboard of his Macbook. Truth to be told, he hasn’t even made any progress finding a place to stay in Orlando. If he’s being even more honest, he hasn’t even looked up apartments online.

He’d actually forgotten his place in Dream’s house isn’t permanent, that soon enough Dream will come up to him and ask when he’s packing his bags. The idea of that happening anywhere in the near future sends a trickle of anxiety running down his veins.

The question poses an upheaval in George’s inner peace. It’s just another reminder that he’s walking on unsteady ground here, and any moment, it could give out and George would fall within its cracks.

He’s not a resident here anymore, he is merely a guest.

He supposes until the time comes for him to move out, until he’s on the brink of overstaying his welcome, he’ll just have to make the most of it here. He’s been doing a lot of “making the most of it while he can” these days.

“I… I haven’t really looked into anything yet,” is the answer he settles with. “There’s not much good sh*t in the market.”

“There’s no rush,” Dream assures as he tosses the ping pong ball again, ricocheting off the wall and landing on the bed.

And there’s another question George refuses to entertain, another thing that attributes to his confusion regarding his best friend: If Dream was so willing to keep George in his life, was so willing to argue with Sapnap to let him stay here, why not welcome him home permanently? Is this an unspoken boundary that he’s putting between them to establish a healthier friendship? Is this his way to remind George that although their friendship has been rekindled with patchwork, the threads that bound them together are still detached – a parallel to the fact that their lives may be adjacent, but are no longer woven together?

Dream has never given him reason to think he would want space from George, though – the man seeks him out constantly, whether or not he’s working. Exhibit A being forty minutes ago when Dream burst through his door just to hang around in his room while George worked.

He’d seen people describe Dream as a man of contradictions: tall and broad but sweet and gentle, exceedingly smart but also an idiot, moves with grace but clumsy as hell, charismatic but reserved.

Dream loves George the way a best friend would, but touches him with the tenderness of something more, looks at him with eyes in the shape of his heart beating loudly in his chest whenever he does so. Dream loves George the way a best friend would, but he makes George feel like he could be so much more.

Maybe he’s just being delusional. It wouldn’t be the first time.

George waves off an indolent hand, deleting another line of code and shaking away his thoughts, “I’ll get around to it soon.”

Dream jumps onto his bed suddenly, the weight of him plopping onto the comforter jostling the Macbook on his lap. “George,” he whines, dragging out his name. “I’m bored.”

“That’s a lie,” George objects, “it’s never boring with me.”

A pause, then, “Yeah, you’re right.”

George smiles to himself, delighting in the way he does when Dream helplessly concurs with him, not even bothering to argue. “I’m always right.”

“I don’t have anything to do today, though. I need like– stimulation.”

“And what do you want me to do about that?” George asks, but he’s already saving his work and hovering his cursor over the exit button of his program.

“Let’s go out,” Dream suggests, nudging the sole of George’s socked foot with his own. He’s pretty sure they’re wearing each other’s socks, they must’ve gotten them mixed up in the laundry. He softly nudges back, eliciting a fluttering feeling in his chest.

“While I’m working? You’re such a bad influence, Dream,” George admonishes, even though he’d already closed his program and opened up Tetris. He just likes riling Dream up, making him whine for George’s attention, it always made him just a touch more wanted and special, sue him.

“Since when have I ever been a bad influence?” The answer is always. The amount of times George had blown off university work just to play with Dream is uncountable – but it’s not like he ever complained about it. Nights meant for studying were instead filled with laughter and yelled curses through microphones – and to this day, George looks back at them fondly.

He kinda missed having young Dream follow him around like a puppy.

“Since always,” George snorts. From behind his monitor, Dream is pouting. Sapnap would call it stupid, but George thinks he looks rather cute.

“Alright, alright. How about this,” Dream begins, “When have you not turned down work for literally anything else, huh George?”

“I’ve never–”

“Remember that one time? I cleared out one day in your Google Calendar just so you could edit your video, but you went out with Sapnap anyways to get chicken nuggets–”

“That was one time!” George stifles his laughter, “Are you really this desperate?”

He stretches his legs out, and Dream doesn’t hesitate to sit criss-cross between them, like the position they’re in is in no way intimate at all. Maybe it isn’t to him, maybe this is all just casual closeness between friends and George is being delusional.

Dream just levels him with an empty glare, “Fine. If you don’t wanna hang out I’ll just call up Sa–”

“Fine, fine,” George pretends to groan in exasperation, closing his Macbook and setting it aside, “Where are you dragging me to, idiot?”

“You know what?” Dream says with fervor, straightening up, “Let’s go get you that haircut I was talking about.”

Ever since Dream first commented on George’s haircut the other day while they were playing Minecraft, it’s like a dam has been broken, because he can’t seem to stop reaching for George’s hair with delicate fingers and complaining about how his stylist had messed up his hair. While he would inspect the strands between his fingers, his soft breaths would hit George square in the face, and it’s not helping his case at all – with Dream’s face millimeters away from his own, he has to physically restrain himself from jumping across the line they had drawn in the sand.

And then he does it again, he reaches across the small distance and gently grabs a tuft of his black curls, thumbing through them like he would Patches’ fur.

He quickly steels himself before answering in the most steady voice he could manage, “Okay, my hair can’t be that bad. What is it you’re seeing that I’m not?”

Dream hums, and the vibration reverberates through his veins. “It’s too short on the sides, but too long in the front – here,” He takes a bunch of strands in between his pointer finger and thumb, lightly tugging at it for emphasis. He delicately maneuvers it so George can see it through his obscured vision. “Your hair is still dry enough that it’s creating split ends here and there. It needs a trim– maybe some treatment while we’re at it.”

“You’re so passionate about this,” George muses.

“I’m a passionate hair expert, G. This isn’t exactly new information,” Dream snorts before leaning back away. George misses the proximity as much as he feels relieved by the distance.

“And the current state of my hair is so urgent that you just need to have it done today?”

“Of course,” Dream answers, like the answer is obvious. “Let’s also get our nails done. Right now. Let’s make a spa day out of it.”

George can’t help it anymore, he bursts out laughing. “You’re so lame,” he says with possibly the fondest voice he can muster. He hopes Dream is too preoccupied to hear it.

Now without the Macbook obscuring his view, he can appreciate Dream’s beauty in all its glory, his milky legs exposed by his shorts, and the way his shirt hugs his shoulders just right, and his hair looks extra fluffy today.

“It’s not lame,” Dream huffs, “It’s maintaining your hygiene, George. Though I don’t expect you to know about that, Mr. Only Showers Once A Week.”

George ignores the insult, knowing how many times they’ve bickered about this before, “You’re doing a really good job convincing me here, Dream.”

Dream kicks George’s knee with his socked foot, it doesn’t hurt, but George pretends to moan in pain anyway, “What if I told you they serve free green tea there?”

“But I don’t drink green tea,” George frowns, just to be difficult.

“I know you don’t, but I also know you like free things,” Dream accurately points out, and f*ck him for knowing George so well. He sounds and looks proud too – like him knowing George as much as he does is the world’s greatest accomplishment. George can relate to that sentiment.

“Ugh, whatever,” George mutters, refusing to admit defeat. He leaps off the bed and stretches his arms out. “Let’s go.”

ꕥ

With freshly manicured nails and an upgraded hairdo, George hops over every line and crack in the pavement that he and Dream walk on as they pass by a strip mall.

“You’re gonna trip yourself if you keep doing that,” Dream tells him with a bemused smile, but does nothing to stop him.

It’s late enough in the afternoon that it’s not too hot, and they’re well into the weekday so no one on the younger side can spot them. Most normal people are either in class or work, so the streets are mostly empty, only an occasional motorbike or sedan passing by. They both take the time for a little stroll before going home, appreciating the mid-April spring air.

It looks very much like a date, especially in a stranger’s eyes. Like Dream’s nail tech from earlier, funnily enough. It’s a special kind of torture George is wholeheartedly subjecting himself onto. The hurt is there, knowing it can’t get any farther than this, but the smiles Dream sends his way are enough to cushion the blow and dull the sharpness.

George would gladly penalize himself to walk side by side with Dream forever, if it means no one’s taking him away, if it means they get to keep their peace between each other, nevermind the unrequited feelings stewing in George’s gut – that doesn’t matter, not to him. He’ll let them swirl around in his heart so long as Dream continues to regard him with gentle eyes and soft hands on his back.

George passes a familiar building and points it out without thinking, “That’s the gym me and Sapnap used to go to.”

When Dream’s eyes follow George’s finger, he hums, “Oh yeah… you should come with him next time.”

“Uh,” George hesitates. While he and Sapnap have been in somewhat of a truce, they haven’t really gone out of their way to spend time together one-on-one. They’ve only really been around each other when Dream is present, and when he isn’t, they keep to themselves – Sapnap in his stream room and George working in his office.

“Have you not been hanging out?” Dream asks with a disappointed frown, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. George isn’t sure if that’s a conscious decision.

“Well– we have. But only when you’re also there?” George states as if it were a question, like he’s unsure if that’s an answer Dream wants to hear.

“George,” Dream laments, shoulders drooping, “I hate seeing you guys so… distant from each other.”

“It’s been better,” George tries to ensure, bumping his shoulder against Dream’s. “We’re… polite.”

“You guys have never been polite with each other once in your entire friendship.”

George purses his lips. He can’t argue with that. The basis of his friendship with Sapnap includes play fighting and lighthearted competition. Affection was passed on through compliments disguised as insults and light punches on the shoulder. One of the rare times they’ve gotten serious with each other was when they’d just started being friends, and that was well over a decade ago.

That being said, he won’t lie when he says it’s awkward to rekindle things with him. There’s still so much in the air between them, and though they both seemed to have moved past their animosity towards each other, it doesn’t magically efface the effects of the distance that stretched between them.

It’d be easier to just flip a switch so they’d shift back to the easy dynamic they had going on – back to when they decided to have a healthier, more genuine friendship. Dream didn't need to be their arbiter as much anymore, and they had really started to actually enjoy each other’s company.

They had been doing so well.

“Right,” George concedes through a murmur, still lost in thought.

They take a turn around the block, the car park visible from afar. When Dream notices the pensiveness on his countenance, he taps George on the shoulder. “What?”

“Remember how you two became friends in the first place?” Dream reminds him with a paltry smile, regarding him with encouragement in his face.

“Which time?” Because there’s two of them: the first being when they were teenagers, the second only a couple years ago: when George had decided enough was enough and declared to fix his friendship with Sapnap.

“The first time.”

“Well, duh,” George scoffs.

It’s not a memory he thinks about often– but it sustains itself in the back of George’s head, and it remains clear as day when he does try to recall it.

It was the genesis of the summer of 2015, and it had been a good year so far for George. He and Dream met a few months prior, and had just implicitly declared themselves best friends. The first night he arrived back home, he was excited to kick off his three month vacation by playing Bedwars with his teenage friend from across the Atlantic.

George remembers jumping into Teamspeak, only to find Sapnap online instead of Dream. At that point, they were acquaintances at best – and they found it awkward to be around each other without Dream there as a buffer, the air between them rather stiff.

Admittedly, he’d found him a little annoying, but so were most pubescent fourteen year olds. When Dream had first introduced them to each other, they’d gotten along just fine – one would say they’d clicked, really – until George started teasing him a little too much and Sapnap had been a little too offended.

George didn’t dislike him per say, he was just hilariously easy to poke and prod at, a trait he took advantage of every time they were in the same call. He can still hear the way Sapnap’s squeaky voice would shout in agony whenever George would kill him in game unprovoked.

They had had an unsteady balance as two guys with one mutual friend, that is, until that one specific call – where Sapnap had ripped into him out of nowhere.

(“You’re trying to steal Dream from me! Do you seriously think I don’t see it?”

“What?” George had asked, dumbfounded.

“You’re always taking up his free time. Every time I wanna hang out, Dream’s already playing with you. Whenever all three of us are on TeamSpeak, you keep like, referencing inside jokes only the two of you know. And all you’ve done since we’ve met was push me away.”

George swallowed the ball that had formed in his throat. “That’s– that’s not true.”

“It is,” Sapnap had insisted, “And it’s not like I can do anything about it because Dream likes you so much for some reason and he wants us to get along.”

When George was rendered too speechless to come up with an answer, Sapnap had continued,

“It’s always been just the two of us. And then you showed up.”

George finally gathered himself, a newfound certainty in his voice. “I never actively tried to ‘steal’ him from you. I just… he’s my best friend.”

“He was my best friend first,” Sapnap had grumbled, and it was such a childlike thing to say, George couldn’t help the laugh he’d let out.

“There, see! You’re making fun of me right now.”

“Because I like making fun of you,” George pacified, “And that’s just it. It’s not because I have some secret vendetta against you or anything. Plus, I make fun of Dream all the time, haven’t you noticed?”

Sapnap was silent for a moment, then “Huh, I guess I didn’t.”)

It’s a well known fact that George hated being excluded, so he supposes that’s what drove him to set things right. He knew what it felt like to be on the other side, on the shorter end of the stick.

He also knew what it was like to be the cast-aside little brother in every social setting, so he’d done what he wished his older sister did for him when he was a kid.

“I’m gonna teach you Bedwars strats that even Dream doesn’t know,” he’d offered, and Sapnap had gladly taken the olive branch. The moment he sensed that Sapnap was feeling his inclusion, a switch had flipped, and they were exchanging jokes left and right, and George had thought, this kid isn’t so bad.

When Dream had finally joined the call, he’d ended up being coalesced by his two best friends – who had just formed a new friendship outside of him – using the new monsterco*ck strat George had been teaching minutes prior.

Dream didn’t seem to be upset about it, though.

George is too immersed in his memories, unaware of his melancholic smile and aimless strolling until Dream suddenly pulls him away from the lamp post he was about to walk into. He blinks himself out of his stupor. Had he really been that zoned out?

“Woah,” Dream breathes out in relief, “what’s going on in that head of yours?” he asks, tapping his pointer finger on the top of George’s head.

“Huh?” George dumbly replies. “Oh. Just– reminiscing.”

Dream’s smile softens at that just as the sun starts to dip below the horizon, painting him golden, “I know you miss him, George– and I know what you’re gonna say,” He cuts George off before he can even interject, and puts on his sarcastic George-voice, “I literally live with him, idiot.”

He gives Dream an empty glare, but he continues, “He misses you, too.”

George ducks his head, unable to handle the wistful look Dream is casting upon him.

“Hang out with him, join him at the basketball court when he’s there,” Dream urges after a few minutes of silent walking. “I kinda miss having you guys gang up on me.”

“Oh, Dream.” George laughs, “Those words will come back to bite you in the ass soon enough.”

“Maybe it will,” Dream hums, and because he’s the most sincere, wholesome person George has ever met, he adds, “But it’ll be worth it. You two have a relationship I’ll never understand, but… you two can’t fool me. You love each other, you guys are just too puss* to say so.”

“I gave him that sandwich that one time!” George protests. “I even paid for it.”

Dream cackles, his body shaking that he accidentally nudges George’s side, “So stupid,” he sighs, breathy.

“So stupid,” George mocks with his fake American accent.

Dream only giggles. “Come on,” he gestures to the Tesla, now only a few yards away, “Let’s go home before it gets dark.”

The rest of the walk passes silently, their arms brushing together which sends a trickle of tingling up and down George’s arm. It isn’t until he feels Dream’s palm rest on his back that the fluttering in his belly turns into a swarm of butterflies. The hand stays there until they reach the car, but George still feels the remnants of the touch all the way home.

ꕥ

Saturday morning finds George still lethargic in bed with tousled, sleep-mussed hair and the crust in his eyes almost obstructing his vision from Sapnap, who is leaning against his doorway – wearing basketball shorts, a loose shirt, and his signature hat.

“Wha’ d’you say?” George lisps out, rubbing the last vestiges of sleep off his eyes with his knuckles.

“Dream said you wanted to join me at the gym,” Sapnap says teasingly, co*cking his head to the side. George is still too sleepy to try and decipher his mood, but he can tell the guy is surprisingly upbeat.

“Did Dream put you up to this?” He mumbles, unwrapping himself from his blanket. “What else did that moron tell you?”

“That you miss me and wanna hang out with me so bad,” Sapnap smirks.

“Shut the f*ck up, I did not say that,” George groans, leaning back against the headboard.

“It’s what he said, bro,” Sapnap shrugs, inviting himself into his room, “And Dream never lies.”

“Yesterday, he lied about not reading your text when I saw him open it and exit the message app,” George bites back, and takes satisfaction in the way Sapnap frowns.

“Ugh, he’s such a dick,” Sapnap mutters. He adjusts the hat on his head before looking back at George with raised eyebrows, “So you coming? It’s a limited time offer, Georgie, take it while you can.”

George thinks about it. Dream mentioned last night over takeout pizza that he’ll be busy all day today – his dad wanted him over at his childhood house to help him clean out the garage. The cats aren’t here either – Tony had taken all three of them to the vet for their annual general check-ups.

He really doesn’t feel like hitting the gym, in all honesty. He hasn’t been to one in a while, the last time he went was with Sapnap in LA. Just thinking about weights and treadmills makes him nauseous, and he detests the aching soreness he gets from exerting muscles he hasn’t pulled in ages.

“Working out sounds exhausting at this time of the day,” he says when he checks the time on his phone, it reads 9:09.

Sapnap shrugs halfheartedly, “Whatever, man. We can just go on a drive.”

George groans, “Ugh, no, I hate going on drives.”

“But you and Dream do it literally every other day,” Sapnap points out with a raised brow.

How does George tell him that it’s not exactly the drive itself he likes, but the specific person driving it? Even if he writes out the motion sickness he’s prone to – because Dream drives in a way that rids him of it – George just doesn’t see the appeal of sitting in a car, unable to move, for a prolonged period of time, especially with no particular destination.

But with Dream, he manages to actually make it enjoyable for him. George doesn’t know how he does it, but just like the way Dream is able to uplift the mood of an entire room, he has the same power to transform George’s aversions into something he could appreciate.

That, and clandestinely, he takes pleasure the way Dream looks when he’s on the wheel – in his element, calloused hands in perfect view – and the thrilling rush he gets when Dream puts his hand on the back of his George’s headrest.

He just sighs instead and cracks his knuckles, “Fine, let’s just go to the gym.” Maybe it could be rewarding after exerting physical effort for the first time in… however long.

“Get in my car in five minutes or I’m leaving without you,” he threatens with a glare that only makes him look silly.

He gets into Sapnap’s Porsche twelve minutes later. When he shuts the passenger seat beside him, Sapnap immediately huffs, “Took you long enough.”

“I had to take a sh*t,” George explains, fastening his seatbelt.

“Bet it stank the entire house,” Sapnap replies, then he plucks an opaque water bottle from one of the cupholders and hands it to George without taking his eyes off the windshield. “Here.”

George tentatively takes it from his hand. It’s cold, drops of condensation dripping down the surface of the plastic. “What’s this?”

“Banana protein shake,” Sapnap answers, pulling out of the garage.

“You poisoned it, didn’t you?” George asks only half-jokingly, twisting off the cap and sniffing its contents contemplatively.

“If I did, that would be a little counterproductive of me cause I already drank some of yours,” Sapnap says.

“So you’ve got your disgusting cummies all over it, is what you’re saying,” George cringes. He takes the face towel hanging off his shoulder and wipes down around the lip of his jug.

Sapnap only snickers before hitting the gas.

The drive from their house to the gym is relatively peaceful – as peaceful as it can get when having Sapnap as a companion. He keeps the windows down and blasts his music so loud that George is pretty sure their neighboring cars would be able to hear them. He pays it no mind as he obnoxiously sings along. If Sapnap swerves and nearly drives into a ditch, Dream isn’t there to scold him for it.

It’s not long before George is back at the gym he’d pointed out to Dream only a couple days ago. Now that it’s the weekend and early in the day, it’s a bit more crowded than it was the last time. It reeks of sweat and body spray – one thing George never liked about this place. He had grown too used to Dream’s mellow scent that the sharp stench of a bunch of men who probably don’t wear deodorant almost overwhelms him.

He imagines if Dream were here, he’d settle for the treadmill. George knows him well enough to know he would spend the next hour and a half walking it endlessly as his eyes stayed glued to the TV hooked on the wall – playing a reality show he knows is a guilty pleasure of his. He remembers a while back, when Dream was still faceless, and George would call sometimes to catch him in the middle of his workouts. They’d talk listlessly and in the back of his head he used to wonder what Dream would look like; glistening with sweat, hair matted down, and the flex of his limbs.

Sapnap drags him to the stretch zone before he can get too deep in thought, “Come on, you’re following my routine.”

“Do I have to?” George groans, “I was just gonna stay on the bike.”

“Yes, because you’re my chaperone,” Sapnap says, and before George can begin to protest, he continues, “and I’m telling Dream that you wouldn’t participate in our kitten bonding session.”

George scrunches his nose up at those last words. He pretends to hate it, “Fine.”

He reluctantly follows Sapnap to a vacant corner, and from the ceiling height mirror facing him, he looks rather awkward and out of place, he shakes himself off and tries to mimic Sapnap as he does one of his bodybuilding routines that he just wasn’t cut out for. The moves and stretches he can’t name for the life of him are in no way suitable for someone who hasn’t worked out in over a year.

He’s going to need a long hot shower and a ten hour sleep after this.

It’s the image of Dream waiting for them at home, curled up on their sofa, all gangly limbs, soft cheeks, warm hands, that gets him through the rest of the routine. Nobody has to know except for him.

ꕥ

(George would rather take a nap on a railway before ever admitting this out loud, but it’s some of the most fun he’s ever had with Sapnap. When Sapnap trips all over himself, George laughs loud enough to garner the attention of anyone within their vicinity – and they’d both found it too funny to care. When Sapnap struggles using the leg press machine, George snaps a 0.5 photo of him and immediately sends it to Dream. Sapnap snatches his phone away before he can collect any more material for blackmail.)

ꕥ

“I am never doing that again.”

George still struggles to get his heart rate down to its normal level, sinking his damp face into the cloth of his towel.

Not for the first time today, he fantasizes about what Dream would look like if he were here. He thinks he’d look glorious, under the dim, amber light of the private sauna room, glowing with sweat and steam.

“You’re being dramatic, it wasn’t that bad,” Sapnap scoffs as nestles further into the bleacher opposite of him. He looks dumb without his cap, George notes.

“When did you become such a gym bro?” George asks instead as he adjusts the ribbon of his bathrobe. If he looks into a mirror right now, he’s certain he’d look disgusting, and he’s pretty sure his face is purely blotchy and flushed. Maybe he should be relieved that Dream isn’t seeing him in this state.

“‘M not a gym bro, bro,” Sapnap huffs. “I’m just living a healthy lifestyle. You should try it sometime.”

“I’m gonna outlive you,” George snarks. “Just you watch.”

“What a bold ass thing for you to say. You’re like, pushing thirty– and that’s not even an exaggeration anymore!”

“Shut up,” George says, refusing to admit defeat. “You’re ugly and stupid. I’m so much better than you, anyway. Take the L, idiot. Get sh*t on.”

“Wow,” Sapnap drawls, muffling his laugh. “You’ve really regressed, kitten. I’m disappointed.” He sighs loudly, “I guess that comes with age.”

Instead of saying anything else, George balls up his damp face towel and chucks it at him, but Sapnap manages to dodge it, much to his dismay. He counters it by blowing a raspberry – there, that’ll show him.

It’s a few moments of silence, before Sapnap begins to chuckle out of nowhere.

“What’s so funny, dumbass?”

“Nothing, nothing. It’s just,” Sapnap prefaces. Then, he regards George with a look of what seems to be nostalgia. “You haven’t really changed much. You’re still… George.”

George gnaws his inner cheek as he digests the words.

He honestly begs to differ. He has changed since he’d left Florida – he’d become a sullen, brooding version of himself. A shell of a man if you will, at least that’s what he’d thought of himself before. It’s nothing unexpected – leaving the life you’ve yearned so long for with a guilt-ridden heart will do that to a person.

The last two years were just a continuous cycle of waking up, eating soggy cereal, going to work, declining any invitation from his coworkers to go out, going home at five on the dot, eating take out, going to bed, repeat.

The fact remains unseen because no one was just really around to see him like that. Not anyone who mattered, anyway.

And then since coming back, since reconnecting with Dream to be more specific, he sort of just… came back to himself. Like a missing wheel magically screwing itself back to a car, like slipping on an old shoe to find out it still fits. Trying to guess what could have attributed to that is not rocket science.

George has come to accept the fact that Dream just holds an integral part of his spirit – point blank, not having asked for it, but was willingly laid on his palms by George himself. It’s beyond his own control and understanding, but George wouldn’t have had it any other way. Even if it hurts him.

“And you just became an even bigger loser,” George says instead, because that’s what he does, he veers away from any hint of sincerity. He starts fidgeting the fuzz of his robe absentmindedly, as if that could do anything to protect him from Sapnap’s scrutiny.

“That’s the third insult you’ve thrown at me the past five minutes alone, you know,” Sapnap says, undeterred. “That’s how I know you’re deflecting.”

f*ck, he’d sort of forgotten how emotionally intuitive Sapnap is. Has he always been like this?

“You’ve…,” George worries his lip, “You’ve actually grown up. A lot.” Admitting it out loud is like pulling teeth, but he knows he has to get it out there. It’s the first foothold on what he hopes is the slowly repairing bridge that connects them.

In the midst of Sapnap’s anger towards him, George hadn’t had the time to compare what he knew about him before and what he didn't. Now that everything has died down, he can see the signs of change in him.

It’s not a complete distinction from the Sapnap of two years ago, but there’s an edge to him that wasn’t there before.

He can see it in the way he stands straighter, the way he holds himself with more confidence, how assertive he is. He sees it in his countenance now, self-assured yet guarded.

“Did I?”

“Mhmm. You have the certified George confirmation,” he adds, hoping to lighten the mood.

That draws out a breath of a chuckle from Sapnap, “I guess that’s true. I had a lot of growing up to do.”

He immediately catches on to the implications of the statement, even though Sapnap probably didn’t intend on making them known. George is, on some level, cognizant of the scars he’d left, but it’s an entirely different thing to see them for yourself.

With George gone, Sapnap was one of the only few people left in Dream’s support system. He’s dreading to find out the intricate details of how they both dealt with it, how they probably had to lean on each other. Sapnap most likely had to fill the role George had left behind – the one Dream leans on when he can’t carry his burdens himself, the one who listens to Dream’s twilight rambles, the one who brings back the smile on his face when Dream can’t do it on his own.

It’s no wonder he’d matured so quickly. He’d had to carry the weight of two hearts instead of one.

The atmosphere between them grows thicker than the mist of the sauna, it’s not exactly tense nor awkward, but the tangibility of the space around them is apparent.

Gathering the courage to voice out some of George’s ruminations, he says,

“You have to know that I… I really appreciate that you were there for Dream. When I wasn’t.” It’s said through a quiet susurration, but it conveys the message across, because Sapnap’s brows unfurl.

“I didn’t do it for you,” Sapnap replies, but not coldly. It’s not meant to offend, he just states it as a fact. “And there’s no universe where I wouldn’t have.”

That goes without saying, but it still sheds a weight off of his skin.

“No, I know,” George assures. “Just– thanks, anyway. He… he deserves to be around people like you.” Loyal to a fault, protective, selfless – it’s what Dream deserves from people but receives so little of.

Sapnap purses his lips, then, “We really missed you, you know?”

The feeling that takes over George is a lot like a thousand needles piercing into his skin. “Me too,” he whispers.

Sapnap leans forward, as if to lock George in his gaze, “Listen, I know I gave you sh*t ever since you showed up, and I honestly don’t regret all of it, not if it meant being there for Dream. But… I do feel bad for– for treating you like that. And Dream didn’t put me up to this, just so you know.”

George averts his eyes to the stone pit in front of him, making it his focal point.

It’s not exactly an apology, but it’s an admission of guilt – and it’s more than enough for George. He can tell Sapnap’s been eager to get that off his chest, based on the drop of his shoulders as he trails off his sentence.

Remembering Dream’s words, you guys had a friendship outside of me and I’ve seen how special it was. Please don’t let it go to waste, George gathers his bearings to say, “I guess I never got to… I didn’t really get to apologize,” he mumbles out, “for leaving.”

Sapnap furrows his brows, “I think Dream should be the one to–”

“–No,” George cuts him off. “I already– I did that already. To him. But not to you. I feel like we– I glossed over it,” he clarifies. I never apologized for leaving you, too.

It’s something that’s been lurking in the recesses of George’s mind – the guilt catered to Sapnap specifically. It stays dormant in the hidden parts of his consciousness, eluding him, too preoccupied with doing right by Dream. It crashes into him in waves, now that it’s just the two of them confined to this one tiny space where nobody can look or listen in.

He had really done him a disservice, didn’t he?

Because when it comes down to it, he didn’t just leave Dream. He’d abandoned Sapnap, too. Sapnap, inauspiciously caught in the middle. Sapnap, who had nothing to do with Dream and George’s… falling out, for lack of a better word. Sapnap, who probably came home a few days after George left to find Dream shattered and broken, confused as to what was going on. He was blindsided just as much as Dream was.

When George left Orlando to spare Dream a lifetime of resentment, he’d deserted his other best friend in the process.

He must’ve been so lost, trying to navigate a world where everything he’s known since he was a kid was suddenly disillusioned right in front of him.

The likely possibility of Sapnap having to disregard the gravity of George’s own estrangement from him in favor of Dream’s sake burns a hole in his heart. George of all people knows the extent to which Sapnap’s loyalty for him goes – it’s a no-brainer that he’d absolutely put his brother first. He can see the toll it’s taken on him – watching a childhood best friend going through heartbreak must’ve felt like vicarious suffering.

Remorse floods him even more when Sapnap is stumped in surprise by his half-assed apology. Is George this much of a terrible person to the point where any degree of contrition from him is a shocking concept?

“Oh,” Sapnap haltingly breathes out, at a loss for words. George knows it takes a lot to render him tongue-tied like this. He’s a fiery spirit, and to see his flames doused like this is unsettling.

In this one moment, he’s never looked so young. It’s like for a fleeting second, a flash of his teenage self had come back to his body, quick and elusive. It drives George to utter his next words.

“So, um– yeah,” George stumbles, “I’m… really sorry. Like, actually.”

That seems to snap Sapnap out of his stupor. He blinks once, twice, then he gets up from his seat and slides over next to George, a respectable distance between them. “It’s… we’re good. We’re good, George.

It’s a bit awkward, George won’t lie. He doesn’t recall ever having a conversation as serious and heartfelt as this with Sapnap, save for that one TeamSpeak call that springboarded their friendship as they know it.

They just don’t do this type of stuff – and this is where they both differ from Dream. While their friend would be down for a long, in-depth talk, he and Sapnap stray away from it.

But now, for this, he feels like working past the mesh that blocks the words from ever escaping his brain would be beneficial.

“I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand why you felt like you had to leave,” Sapnap speaks up after moments of silence, “but I’m ready to move past it. Not just for Dream’s sake.”

The hurt is still there, George can tell. He can see it in the way Sapnap looks downwards, away from him, the way his shoulders are hunched in and he can hear it from the rasp in his voice.

Belatedly, George realizes he must have left a permanent mark on Dream and Sapnap. Even two years later, the cuts and gashes are still open and bleeding. George coming back must’ve been salt to the wounds – he tries not to think about that or he might go insane.

“I don’t plan on– on doing that again,” George says decisively. It’s the first bandage to a large injury. It’s not much – it still needs treatment and more healing time, but it’s a start. “Ever.”

Whereas George remains unknowing of the aftermath of his departure, unenlightened to what his friends have dealt with, Dream and Sapnap will never never be able to comprehend the misery of the self-inflicted prison George put himself in, will never understand the emptiness of coming back to a city that, while having housed the ghosts of his childhood, never called his name, never labeled itself his home.

He regards George for a moment that lasts for minutes, eyeing him as though he’s studying him, looking for something in his features that could suggest he’s saying anything but the truth. He must find none, because his face softens, and then contorts into something with humor.

“Is that a promise or a threat?”

That gets George to bark out a laugh, which surprises him, because Sapnap is never funny. “Both.”

“Good,” Sapnap says with finality, granting George a meager but very real smile. “I don’t need to know why you did what you did – I know you have your reasons, and I can tell it’s still f*cking you up. I just needed to know you’re here to stay. Obviously, there’s still some sh*t we have to work through, but… I think we’re gonna be okay.”

We’re gonna be okay. George would really, really like to believe that.

“Friends? No memes?”

“Friends.”

The conversation that follows is lighthearted, much to George’s relief. Talking about feelings and sh*t always manages to drain him, but he can’t deny the way the dormant tension resting in George’s insides bleed out from his pores along with his sweat.

It doesn’t take more than a few minutes for George and Sapnap to revert back to their natural, playful banter. It’s the first sign of spring – wildflowers starting to blossom again after a harsh winter season. It feels like a revival, it feels like forgiveness.

It feels like reuniting with an old friend.

When their time inside the sauna is up, George stretches, eliciting a loud crack from his knuckles. He tightens the bath towel wrapped around his waist to secure it.

Sapnap stands up and then turns to George, “Wanna get smoothies before we go home?”

“You paying?”

“No way, dude,” Sapnap lets out a scoff, “Maybe try paying for yourself for once?”

George pouts, “I don’t have any cash on me though.”

“Nice try. Pout all you want but that’s not gonna work on me, I’m not Dream,” Sapnap blusters. “Online payment literally exists, too.”

“Fine,” George grumbles. “Let’s get out of here. The place is starting to stink of your glizz.”

“Shut your cummy ass,” Sapnap quips, but follows George to the locker rooms anyway. As soon as his chain wraps around his neck again, he feels the last vestiges of tension seep out of his pores. After a quick change of clothes, they’re out the exit.

The heat outside, coupled with the warm sweat clinging to George’s skin is unforgiving, but he powers through. The drive windows down to the smoothie place he and Sapnap used to go to isn’t far, not even a ten minute drive.

Instead of turning on the stereo, George and Sapnap dive into a heated gossip session, with the latter giving the former the scoop of all the CC drama George had missed out on. It’s nice, it’s liberating – to be carefree with Sapnap, to feel like they're still joint at the hip. It hits him again how much he’d missed just doing stuff with Sapnap, whether it’s just getting food or wandering around Orlando.

As Sapnap continues to rave about the he said she said’s, George feels something warm settle in his bones, going as deep as the marrow.

He’s been here for almost two months and this is the first time he’s felt truly and wholly welcomed.

ꕥ

It’s late afternoon by the time they get back from getting their mandatory smoothies. The place they went to is the same one they frequented years ago – a favorite of theirs. They also serve some of the freshest acai bowls, so George had demanded Sapnap to buy one for Dream with diced mango on the side. It’s sitting snug in a plastic bag hooked on George’s fingers.

They’re still in the middle of their mindless chatter by the time they step foot into the foyer, and the cadence of their voices lures Dream out of his studio cave. The second Dream sees them, his face softens into dandelions, features relaxed and golden eyes crinkling at the corners.

George likes to think he did that.

When Dream regards George, he immediately comes to his side to wrap an arm around his middle. He then brings Sapnap in with his other arm, looping it around his neck.

“Did you guys have fun?” Dream asks, but his eyes remain on George.

Remembering their karaoke session in the car, their little smoothie brigade and even though their conversation in the sauna was draining, it was a massive weight off his shoulders and coming out from it, he’d felt closer to Sapnap than he’d had in ages. There’s an answer and it’s obvious.

George is rarely ever honest, and on any regular day, he’d say, no, being stuck with Stinknap for hours is the highest degree of punishment, but something in Dream’s eyes pulls the truth out of his lips.

“Yeah. Yeah, we did.”

The beaming smile Dream directs at George makes him want to be more truthful, if only the truth were as sweet as this.

“Good,” Dream tells him, tightening his arm around George slightly before letting go of both of them. “Is that for me?”

George short circuits for a second before zoning back to reality, “Oh yeah.” He practically shoves the plastic bag onto Dream’s torso in a haste, nervous for a reason unbeknownst to him.

When Dream ruffles through the plastic, George blurts, “It’s that acai bowl you like, but I had them put the mango to the side because I know you like to munch on them separately–”

“Thanks, G,” Dream grins at him, and it’s enough to make George preen. He eagerly opens his smoothie bowl and moans when he takes in his first spoonful. “I forgot how good this is.”

He licks at the wooden spoon like a puppy and George tries his hardest to contain his grin. The soreness from his earlier workout catches up to him and he lets out an involuntary groan when he feels a crick in his neck.

Dream immediately puts his bowl down and comes closer to George. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” George says, tilting his head back in an attempt to alleviate the discomfort, “My neck is just stiff, that’s all.”

Without warning, Dream brings a hand to caress the juncture where his neck and shoulder meet, somehow finding the irritated spot and rubs tender circular motions around the area. It relieves the inflammation and concurrently makes George’s heart swell, throbbing so loud he’s surprised Dream doesn’t hear it.

“You probably strained it too much,” Dream mumbles, the warmth of his breath barely hitting George’s skin. “Nick, did you make him do your routine?”

Sapnap looks up from where he’s crouched on the floor, coddling a squirming Milo. “Yeah, so?”

“So,” Dream frowns, but the movements of his fingers don’t stop. George soaks the touch like a sponge would with water. “You know he hasn’t been to the gym in a year, he’s gonna be all– all achy now,” he admonishes.

“Yeah, Sapnap,” George bites without heat. “You’ve deliberately put me in physical pain, I should press charges on you,” he says, pulling out a laugh from Dream.

“It’ll go away by tomorrow, dumbass” Sapnap reassures with an eyeroll, “Just slap a couple pain patches on him. That’s what my step-mom does.”

“Do we still have some from when your parents came over?” Dream asks, stepping back from George and taking away his source of comfort. George tries not to pout.

“There’s still some in my bathroom drawer.”

“I’ll go get them,” Dream says, heading for the stairs. “Stay there, G. Try not to turn your head.”

With a final squeeze on the shoulder, Dream leaves them in the living room and once his footfalls fade away, George can feel someone else’s eyes on him. He turns to his left and there Sapnap is, regarding him with a look he can’t begin to read.

“Bro,” Sapnap shakes his head in mocking pity, “You are so down bad.”

ꕥ

George wishes he had an old school flip phone right now so he could slam it closed with as much force he could exert. Clicking the sleep button of his iPhone isn’t satisfying enough.

The anger pulsates within him in ripples, continuous and only seems to accelerate even with nothing to provoke him anymore. The resentment wraps around his chest like a vice and refuses to let go, and honestly – George doesn’t feel like breaking free from it, either. He feels the strain in his temples and he alleviates it by rubbing them with his fingers.

It doesn’t work.

He tries pacing around his room, but the space is too small for him and the action only adds a dizziness to his already pounding headache. He resorts to flopping on his bed face down and lets out a muffled groan.

He’s on the cusp between wanting to get rid of the tangled mess of fury unraveling in his brain and refusing to calm down, letting himself revel in the mess he was subject to.

As if sensing George’s distressed state, he hears a tentative knock on his door. He knows with certainty that it’s Dream – not only because of the three rhythmic raps he likes to do all the time, but also because he’d be the only person here to actually knock. Sapnap would just come and barge in without warning.

He almost doesn’t want to entertain him, instead giving in to the self-sabotaging desire of being left alone to his own misery – but George has never been able to resist Dream.

“It’s unlocked.”

The door opens with a creak to reveal Dream, looking fluffy and cozy in his sweater and black cat beanie. George is immediately overcome with an all-consuming need to hug him, nestle in his chest and wrap his arms around his middle. He forces it down as soon as it comes.

“Hi,” Dream softly greets, coming to sit next to George where he’s still laying on his stomach. A hand settles on his back, and George swears Dream’s touch has calming properties.

“What’s up?” George croaks, voice a bit raspy from the continuous stream of expletives he’d let out only minutes prior. He clears his throat and rolls over so his head is right next to Dream’s thigh. He resists the urge to lay his head atop of it.

“You okay?” Dream inquires.

“Fantastic,” George mutters into Dream’s shorts.

“Mm, is that why I heard you stomping from downstairs?” Dream asks with a teasing lilt to his voice.

Okay. He didn’t realize he was stomping that hard. Or maybe the flooring is just thin, Dream really needs to choose better wood paneling next time.

“Ugh. It’s my dad, I just got off the phone with him,” The truth escapes out of George’s lips without even thinking about it. It’s frightening how easy it is sometimes for George to be honest with Dream – he really needs to get a hold of himself. If he unravels too much or lets slip the wrong thing, he might trample all over the careful line drawn between them.

If there still is a line, that is.

“Your dad?” Dream purses his lips. “I haven’t heard you mention him in a while. Thought you guys were close.”

“Yeah, well.” George huffs. He hasn’t been mentioning his Dad for over two years. This isn’t really news.

When George doesn’t say anything else, Dream prompts, “Wanna talk about it?”

That question directed at George should be rhetorical, because when has George ever said yes to that question? Dream always asks anyway, like he expects the answer to one day be different. George wonders if he would ever stop.

George buries his face between Dream’s thigh and his comforter instead of acknowledging it.

Dream takes the hint, “Alright. Take your time.” Dream brings a gentle hand to his hair and runs through his curls with slender fingers. “I’ll be ready to listen,” Dream tacks on, because he’s always able to understand George and his complicated nature when it comes to words and feelings and emotions.

George doesn’t think there’s ever been a time where Dream hasn’t been able to meet George at his level. Time after time, he’s compromised with his own confrontational and direct manner of communication and set it aside just so he can learn George in a field he’s unfamiliar with – full of run-on sentences, half statements, and cryptic words that most people can’t even bother to look into – all so that George can feel comfortable with him.

He’s always known Dream loved to read. He also knows it’s him that Dream loves reading the most.

Dream studies him like he’s never studied his own school textbooks, he reads between George’s lines and always manages to catch what’s there. He comprehends George the way a professional linguist would with the English language.

Bottom line is: With Dream, George feels so seen, so known.

He’s not sure if it’s the comfort Dream brings with his hands alone, or if it’s combined with the words, but George feels like crying. Maybe it’s a culmination of the phone call and Dream altogether – Dream and his soothing hands, woody scent, and gentle warmth. Dream and George’s hopeless longingness for him, his stupid pining that he can’t seem to put to rest, his near irresistible urge to just grab the guy’s face and kiss him without caring for the consequences.

Even when his current problems revolve around something else, his mind always drifts back to Dream. It’s an illness he welcomes.

He can’t cry. Not because of this. He’s been making an effort not to let himself cry so easily. George knows once a tear makes its escape the rest will follow, he can’t have that. Not when Dream is here.

It’s not that he’s ashamed to cry in front of Dream, he’s done that once or twice – for less grim reasons, though. But it’s just another burden to lay on his shoulders, another inconvenience to put Dream through and George doesn’t want to add to his already full plate.

On the other hand though, if he voices any of this, he knows what Dream would tell him. He’d say something along the lines of it’s never a burden if it’s you or I’d make room on my plate for you G, you know that, in that selfless way he always does and then George will just feel worse about it.

He just gives in to his earlier compulsions and lays his head on Dream’s thigh. He pats Dream’s knee as a thank you, he’ll get it. When Dream looks down at him to smile, George can only mirror him. He should look silly from this angle, but Dream always manages to bypass all known facts and theories of the universe because he looks ethereal.

To save himself from doing something stupid and impulsive like kissing him, George brings a finger up and pokes Dream in the nostril.

Dream scrunches his face up at the contact, “What the hell?” He laughs so hard he almost brings back his long gone wheeze. “You just poked me in the nose!”

Because Dream’s laugh is infectious, George giggles, “Get poked, idiot.”

“You’re so…” Dream trails off, still looking at him with that sparkle in his eyes.

“What?” George asks, and it comes out airy.

A pause, then, “Nothing,” Dream answers with a shake of the head, his earring swinging along with the movement. He ruminates what Dream was going to say before he hesitated, ponders if it was anything of substance, but Dream cuts off his thoughts.

“Have I ever told you the story of how I patched things up with Dad?” He says as he scritches at a particular spot in George’s scalp that makes him go docile like a cat.

Resisting the instinct to nuzzle back into Dream’s palm, George replies, “I don’t think so.”

He was already best friends with Dream when he reconciled his relationship with his father – he was the listening ear to Dream’s teenage vent sessions whenever his dad ripped him a new one, but he never really bore witness to the nitty gritty details of such.

George would love to say that he’d helped, but there wasn’t much he could’ve done at the time besides listen from a continent away. How could he have given him sound advice when his relationship with his own father at the time was relatively smooth?

The most he remembers was that one day, Dream had excitedly hopped on call with him to retell his day of fishing with his dad, raving about how well it went and how the heart-to-heart talk they had really put their mess behind them.

“Well,” Dream sighs breathily, “It was actually you who gave me the guts to like– move things forward.”

George moves to sit up at the statement, regretfully slipping away from Dream’s comforting hands, but his surprise overtakes him, “Me?”

“Yeah.” And then Dream, strangely, giggles. “You were talking to me about physics, of all things.”

“Say that again?” George asks incredulously. This is the first time he’s hearing about this, and George weaves through his memories to pinpoint the exact moment in time this happened. He comes up empty handed though, because he’s made a habit of rambling bouts of physics and mathematics to Dream much to his annoyance, which only encouraged him to do it more. He’d always thought they’d fallen onto deaf ears.

He should’ve realized Dream’s always listened to him, even if he never quite understood what he was saying.

“Why have you never told me about this before– you know what, whatever. Tell me. Tell me what happened.”

Dream giggles at George’s burst of excitement. “It’s not that long of a story. It was just something you mentioned to me in passing that got me thinking about it.”

“Tell me anyway,” George presses, grabbing Dream’s arm and tugging at it. “Dream. Tell me, tell me.”

“Alright, I’m telling! Chill,” Dream laughs, wrapping his free hand around George’s forearm and instead of detaching it from his trapped arm, he rubs circles on it almost subconsciously. George pointedly tries to ignore it.

“You were like– you just got off your last final, before you were about to graduate,” Dream begins, and George softens when he sees the reverie in his eyes.

“And you were ranting about a question that your classmate supposedly got wrong, and– don’t ask how I remember this word for word, but you said, This stupid idiot forgot the basic laws of motion Dream, I’m telling you. Law of Inertia literally states that an object won’t move unless acted upon by an external force. The word inertia literally means idle,” He retells it in an obnoxious British accent, the one he uses as his George-mocking-voice, which he makes sure to look unimpressed by. “And… I don’t know.

“Maybe it’s because you said it, or how you said it, but for some reason, I connected it to Dad– and– you know him. He’s stubborn as f*ck.”

“Just like you,” George cuts in. Dream’s obstinance is one of the best and worst things about him – it’s what gave him his success but also prolonged his problems.

“Just like me,” Dream concedes with an eye roll, “But yeah. He was stubborn like a rock. An unmoving rock, y’know? And then I thought– f*ck, so am I. So if we were both unmoving rocks, what was gonna push us forward?”

“You?” George finishes for him with a quirked brow.

“No,” Dream refutes. “It was you. You know, ‘external force’? Literally and figuratively.”

George’s eyes widen a little at that. Externally, he’s sure he looks flabbergasted. But internally? There’s a f*cking hurricane going on in there.

His heart is not doing so well right now. If someone were to open it up, it’d be filled with Dream’s name. He has been the only one able to touch him like his, stroke his heart in a way that ripples throughout his whole chest – pleasurable but almost unbearable.

“And then? What did you do after?” George asks softly, and he takes his hands off of Dream’s arm to rest on the comforter. Dream’s hand follows.

“I arranged a fishing trip with him that weekend by our lake house. We hadn’t done that since we moved so he was too shocked to say no. Then I just started talking, then he also started talking–”

“Law of Action and Reaction,” George interrupts.

Dream scoffs at that, “Sure. But… that’s pretty much it. We made up.”

“Did he ask why you decided to patch it up with him? Surely to your dad it looked like you just did it on a whim.”

“Well–” Dream starts, then hesitates. “I may or may not have told him you had something to do with it.”

“What did he say?” George asks.

“He said,” Dream laughs bashfully and brings a hand up to scratch the back of his neck. “He said that you’re a smart one and that I should keep you around.”

The words sink into George the way Dream sinks into his mattress, like an anchor to the sea. And once it hits the ocean floor, something clicks in George – it looks a lot like glee.

“So what you’re saying is…” George trails off, “I get all the credit?”

As soon as George says the words, Dream groans, falling back onto the bed and muttering, “I shouldn’t have told you–”

“This is so epic,” George cackles, because the ridiculousness of it is just too much. “I indirectly made you like– respawn your relationship with your dad?”

“Respawn–”

“I’m so awesome,” George doubles over laughing, “I’m the glue that holds your entire family together.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that–”

“Your mum loves me, Chloe basically worships me–”

“She does not–”

“Admit it, Dream,” George says, tugging Dream’s arm again to pull him upright. He lets himself be dragged like a blob of jelly – the puffs of his hair are lopsided and askew, it shouldn’t be cute. “Admit that I’m the best.”

“Nooo,” Dream moans, but he’s never looked this light and carefree.

“Come on, I’ll even pay you to say it.”

“You would never pay me for anything!” Dream protests, ruffling his hair only to mess it up more.

“You’re right, I wouldn’t. But you should say it anyway.”

Because Dream has always been known to listen to George and be at his beck and call, he sighs in feigned resignation and says, “You’re the best, George.” He says it begrudgingly but the smile and the crinkles in his eyes say otherwise.

Seeing the happiness radiating off of Dream almost makes him forget about his phone call earlier. Keyword almost, because he delfates again. Dream takes notice immediately.

“Hey,” he says then, placing a hand on George’s knee. “Wanna play on our survival world again? I wanna actually build a house this time.”

It’s a different tactic to make George feel better. A swerve Dream tends to make when his first attempt at distracting George isn’t successful. George decides to go along, because indulging himself in playing Minecraft with Dream always had the capacity to distract him from pretty much anything bugging his mind.

“Sure,” George says. “Let’s add Stinknap to the server.”

“Really?” Dream asks, surprised but very much delighted.

“Mhmm,” George looks down to avoid the sincerity of the conversation, he’s reached his quota for the week. “I wanna show him I can still beat his stupid ass.”

“Of course you do,” Dream laughs fondly. “Meet you on Discord?”

“Yeah,” George replies, already heading to his office. And because he’s feeling impulsive today, he shouts just before Dream leaves his room, “Turn on your facecam!”

ꕥ

“Guys, this was meant to be a peaceful survival,” Dream admonishes uselessly as George and Sapnap continue to fist fight each other.

They’ve been going at it pretty much since Sapnap joined their world. George’s armor was burned when Sapnap had stolen a flint and steel from Dream, and he hasn’t let up once – wanting to beat Sapnap at his own game. George isn’t as competitive as Dream and Sapnap, but the latter just pulls something from within him that makes George refuse to lose against him.

“He started it,” George snorts as he crits Sapnap with a piece of steak.

“Finish it then,” Dream says snippily, but when George sees his little facecam on his second monitor, he’s grinning brightly – so George continues to hit Sapnap.

“Bitch–” Sapnap shouts, “I’m gonna punt you–”

Then Sapnap pulls out an iron axe, coming at him swinging. George screeches loud enough to create static, and he yells, “Dream, help!”

He runs as fast as his little Minecraft legs can carry him, and hides behind Dream, who is harvesting wheat at their little makeshift farm.

He tramples all over their crops but he pays them no mind as he uses Dream as a meat shield.

“George–”

“Stop hiding behind Dream like a puss*!” Sapnap yells through his headphones.

On his monitor, Dream throws his head back onto his backseat with a groan, and in a flash, he crits Sapnap with an enchanted netherite axe in one fell swoop, killing him instantly. George cheers, firing out endless insults to Sapnap, who won’t stop cursing.

“Try and kill me now, idiot. I have Dream as my own personal bodyguard,” George goads.

“That’s the only time I’m doing that for you, George,” Dream warns, but George is too distracted by his smile to care.

He sort of wants to resent Dream for still managing to look so beautiful despite the quality of his camera. Even so, the camera could never do Dream justice. It’s the first thought that popped into his head when he first met him in real life outside this house all those years ago. He’d thought he’d have time to prepare, to be less overwhelmed after those first few Facetime calls. He’d been terribly mistaken though, because for how beautiful Dream looks through the lens, what he saw right in front of his 20/20 vision was almost enough for his knees to buckle.

On screen, Sapnap comes back to the farm to pick up his lost items. Jumping around in front of Dream and George’s characters.

“Bro!” Sapnap shouts, still reeling from his kill, “What ever happened to loyalty?”

“Disappeared along with my patience for you,” Dream derides with barely contained laughter. “We’re no longer friends. I’m kicking you out of the house.”

“In Minecraft?”

“And in real life.”

“Dream, baby, come on. We can work this out.” Sapnap begs dramatically, circling around Dream’s green skin.

“That’s disgusting,” George cringes. He replants the wheat seeds he destroyed as Dream giggles at Sapnap’s antics, enjoying the satisfying sounds as he walks along the farmland.

“I suppose I can give you another chance,” Dream sighs heavily. Through the monitor though, his smile is fond and cottony. He maneuvers his character so it looks like his skin is hugging Sapnap’s.

Sapnap, to George’s horror, makes gut wrenching smooching noises at Dream, who plays along. George makes sure to gag loudly at the most abhorrent scene he’s witnessed. “You freaks are revolting.”

He’s only mildly jealous. Mildly. It’d be pathetic of him to be jealous of Dream and Sapnap’s Minecraft characters to pretend to kiss in a block game. It’s stupid, he’s stupid.

“You’re revolting,” Sapnap counters.

“Don’t make me kill you again,” George quips, crafting a stone axe on a nearby crafting bench.

“You’re both pretty,” Dream cuts in, “I’m tempted to turn off PVP just to get you guys to chill.”

“Maybe you should, bro,” Sapnap says, “George wouldn’t have stood a chance against me.”

George scoffs, “Yeah, I’m so sure.”

“I’m serious, dude,” Sapnap leans back in his chair, putting his arms around his head. “Imagine Minecraft followed real-world physics, I would’ve kicked your ass to next Tuesday.”

George is about to hit back with another counterargument, but from his peripheral vision, he sees Dream with his chin resting on his fist, as though deep in thought. Then, like a cartoon, can practically see the imaginary light bulb pop up above Dream’s head as he registers Sapnap’s words.

“What if it can?” Dream ponders, eyes flitting everywhere on his screen. He’s probably on Reddit already.

“What do you mean?” Sapnap asks.

Dream doesn’t bother elaborating. On his monitor, Dream’s Minecraft avatar remains motionless, but from the clicks and clacks coming from Dream’s mic, it’s not hard to guess that he’s typing something rapidly. George knows the gears in his head are turning and churning like a well oiled machine, each part working in tandem and bringing a side of Dream he hasn’t seen in so long come back to life.

George isn’t sure if Sapnap can see it for himself, but a spark seems to have come back to Dream’s core, revitalizing him. He can see it in his eyes – bright and powerful. It looks like the clouds parting for the sun to shine through the darkness.

It feels like the moment a main character of a movie gets an idea that could change the trajectory of their story.

“Uh, hello?” Sapnap questions. “Dream? You good, bro?”

Dream is shaken out of his stupor as if he’d forgotten George and Sapnap were still on call. “I’m gonna head out,” he rushes out. “I gotta write this down on the whiteboard or I’ll forget it.”

Without another word, Dream exits the call, and his lime green skin disappears from the server. Dream left the game pops up on the chat box and George can’t even bring himself to be mildly offended at the abrupt exit. He chuckles to himself, pride running through his veins.

Sapnap blinks. “What just happened?”

George grins, uncrossing his arms and wringing his hands. “Dream is back.”

ꕥ

@Dream · 1h

It’s been a long time coming – my first official album “Letters Going Nowhere” out everywhere on May 15. Go presave :) dreammusic.link/to

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@DreamMusicTaken · 1h

This is probably the most personal piece of music i will ever put out, this was kept very close to my heart and i'm glad to share it all with u :) <3

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@sapnapalt – replying to @Dream · 57m

Proud of you brother

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@dreamwastaken – replying to @sapnapalt · 54m

<3 <3

ꕥ

“How many shots, Dream?”

“No shots,” Dream protests with a shake of the head, tapping his fingers on the marble of the counter. “You do all the drinking tonight.”

“Oh, come on,” Sapnap pouts. “It’s in celebration of you and your album, you have to drink!”

“Nuh-uh,” Dream says. He snags a water bottle from the fridge and wiggles it in his hand. “This is the only thing I’m chugging.”

“You’re no fun. Do you really expect me to drink all this by myself?” Sapnap exclaims as he gestures to the counter island.

The surface is littered with way too many drinks for three people. The alcohol in question all range from light beers to gin and vodka. If George didn’t know any better, he’d have thought they were having a rave party in here.

“You should, actually,” George says from where he’s perched on the barstool, elbows planted on the edges of the countertop. “I wanna see how hungover you get.”

“Do not listen to him,” Dream immediately interjects, though he says it shakily as though he’s on the verge of laughing. “I don’t wanna have to clean up after you.”

George had fallen victim to being a prime witness of Sapnap’s hangovers once – back when he visited him in London. It was not fun, and he’d been forced to clean it all up before the landlord of their AirBnB came to inspect the place.

“Wow, Dream,” Sapnap says, “Not because you care for my physical well being? You wound me.”

Dream laughs halfheartedly, “Can’t we just chill with pizza and one of your anime shows?”

“But we do that every night!” Sapnap whines, then he comes around the counter to wrap his arms around Dream’s middle from behind. Dream, helpless to his friend’s affection, hugs him back.

“Dream, come on. This is supposed to be for you! I didn’t buy all this for nothing,” Sapnap beguiles. “When was the last time you had a drink, anyway?”

Dream sighs dramatically, “Fine. But I’m not going over four shots.”

Sapnap whoops, “It’s a party!”

“A party of three losers and their three loser cats?” George snarks.

“And their drinks,” Sapnap adds. “You know what? I’m gonna get my speaker from upstairs so we can play music.”

Without another word, Sapnap darts up the stairs. Dream shakes his head exasperatedly, the fondness only one could have for a lifelong friend oozing from his countenance.

“I’m going to regret this aren’t I?” Dream mutters to himself, coming to sit on the barstool next to George.

George, not for the first time today, observes Dream. He looks relatively happy, if not a little drained from the last minute meetings he had to tend to today. The exhaustion still lingers in his eyebags and the droop of his shoulders needs some lifting. Maybe a fun night drinking is just what he needs. So long as he doesn’t get white girl wasted, as the people online call it – which, George hates to say, is a possibility.

“Probably,” George sympathetically bumps his shoulder against Dream’s, though, due to the height difference, he ends up colliding with his bicep.

“You’re gonna help me out here, right?”

“Mm, no. I don’t think I will. I’m gonna make you chug this entire bottle of Chardonnay, actually. And drink all the vodka shots.”

Dream giggles, the vibrations of the action reverberating over to George. It only ignites the flutter in George’s stomach further. “Wow, you’re my hero,” Dream snides.

His face looks so sweet up close like this. If George were braver, he’d bring a hand to squish one of his cheeks.

George purses his lips, “Do you seriously not want to drink? ‘Cause I can just tell Stinknap to f*ck off–”

“Nah,” Dream waves him off. “I’m not too opposed to it, it has been a while, though.” He fiddles with a cold bottle of beer, its condensation soaking the paper label. “You can sit this out if you want. You mentioned you don’t drink much anymore–”

“No, I’m staying. I– I don’t like missing out.” George cuts in.

It’s one thing to be left out of things in general. He hated not being invited to a classmate’s party in primary school while his friends had. He detested not being able to go on family vacations because he had tennis during the summer. He despised watching all his male friends gush about their female crushes and partners while he… didn’t.

It’s a whole other thing to be left out of something that involves Dream.

He hated when he woke up to the man streaming with people that weren’t him. The day Sapnap moved in with Dream is still a sore spot in his heart, a fact he refuses to admit. He secretly brooded whenever Dream and Sapnap would effuse their kitchen escapades together – basically rubbing in the fact that they were together in real life while George was still stuck in another continent. Dream was hospitalized for his lungs and kidney stones and George didn’t know about it until he was already at the ICU – he’d flamed Sapnap for not telling him sooner.

People would call it obsessed, George couldn’t care less. He’d physically leech onto Dream if he could. He’d turn into a parasite and lodge himself between the arteries of Dream’s heart, enjoying the way it would pump continuously in endless thumps, reveling in the fact that he’s alive and breathing.

“Okay, good,” Dream grins, all teeth and eyes crinkled. “Because this night would infinitely suck if you left me here.”

“Shut up,” George punches Dream’s shoulder, evading the blood rushing to his cheeks.

ꕥ

Unpredictably for Sapnap, but unsurprisingly for George, Dream gets white girl wasted.

He’s a lightweight, after all. Plus, Dream had been too lenient with the drinks Sapnap would offer him despite his protests at the beginning of the evening.

As Travis Scott and Quadeca continuously play on Sapnap’s Bluetooth speaker, Dream languidly sways along to the music, too slow to keep up with the upbeat melodies. George has been recording him all night for safekeeping. And also blackmail.

Sapnap drinks a good amount, enough to be tipsy and carefree enough to dance along with Dream for a good hour. George stays true to his self-imposed alcohol pact and drinks no more than two beers. He observes the two from his seat, happy to sit back and watch the spectacle in front of him.

It’s a whole three hours of Dream singing like he never had vocal coaching, and dancing like nobody was around but his showerhead to watch him. He’s floaty and light and boneless in a way he hasn’t been these past few weeks, chained tight enough to be immobile by work and the stress that comes with it. George, for the whole duration, watches him laugh at himself with a fondness not usually meant for a drunken man.

By the time two a.m. rolls around, Sapnap retreats to his room, claiming tiredness and a relatively early stream tomorrow, or well, later.

“I’m turning in, boys,” Sapnap says with a fist bump to George. “You good to keep him busy?”

“Yeah,” George says. “‘M not that tired anyway.” He actually is kind of tired, his bed is calling his name, but he can’t let himself go upstairs knowing Dream is still awake and is yet to sober up.

“‘Kay. Your funeral.” Sapnap tells George. He then pulls Dream in by the arm, who has calmed down to a loopy kind of drunk, for a hug. He lets himself be dragged languidly, giggling into Sapnap’s shoulder.

Sapnap ruffles Dream’s already messy curls in affection. “Night, bro.”

“Night night, Nicky,” Dream slurs, leaning in and putting all his weight onto Sapnap, who stumbles. George dashes from the couch to pull some of his weight back in, dragging Dream upright.

Dream registers the presence beside him, and, “George! Hi.” He retracts his arm from Sapnap to wrap around George’s torso as he exclaims, a little too loud considering they’re attached at the hip, but George pretends his ears don’t hurt.

He’s helpless to the giggle he lets slip, “Hi.”

When Sapnap is free of Dream’s embrace, he trudges up the stairs with one last yell, “Take care of him!”

“I will,” George promises, but what Sapnap fails to realize is that he doesn’t just mean tonight.

When Sapnap disappears to the second floor, Dream cheers, “And then there were two.”

Most of the alcohol was probably burned off by now, but there’s just enough that Dream is still lucid but also having the right amount of blitheness. George knows there’s no chance of Dream throwing up, he never really did when they drank together – he’d stay awake just long enough for the claws of sobriety to claim him before crashing.

If George were to guess, this would be the only part of the night Dream might remember.

“How drunk are you?” George asks even though he pretty much knows the answer, just to be sure.

Dream makes a noise of acknowledgement, “Hm, I– Like– I think I’m coherent enough. Maybe a little tipsy.” He plops himself on the couch, dragging George down with him.

At a certain level of drunkenness, Dream becomes an affectionate drunk, that much is known amongst fans. When he really breaks it down to the details though, Dream turns to mush, point blank. He’s cuddly, he’s clingy, he drapes himself all over him, his tongue loosens enough that he spurts out compliments flowery enough to make George feel covered in pollen.

And that’s exactly what Dream’s doing now, sprawling himself on George’s lap, the weight as comforting as a heated blanket.

George can’t resist the urge to run his fingers through his curly locks. He takes liberty in it, now that they’re alone and knowing Dream won’t really question it due to the state he’s in. He gives in to his impulsiveness and enjoys it for as long as he can. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s gotten his hands on Dream’s hair – and God does he miss it. The pads of his fingers glide along the silky strands, savoring the sensation while he can.

Dream nuzzles his face into George’s sweatpants, his nose slotting into the gap between George’s knees, it tingles him as much as it endears him. “Stop, idiot,” George tries to force out, “That tickles.”

“You know,” Dream sighs airily, ignoring George’s words, “you have such nice skin. It’s so… milky.”

George should be used to this, Dream’s affectionate nature when intoxicated, but any compliment that comes from Dream’s mouth, George holds close to his heart. He lets himself bask in Dream’s tenderheartedness while he still can, while Dream still willingly discards his inhibitions to actually let his heart out more than he should.

This is dangerous territory, George is aware, but he couldn’t care less.

“Milky?” George laughs, grabbing a bunch of curls and lightly tugging at it. If Dream is affected by the action at any means, he doesn’t show it.

“Mhmm,” Dream rolls over so he’s facing George from where he’s laying on his thighs. “It’s– it’s really smooth and– and it's, like, unfair.”

“What?”

“You don’t even exfoliate or– or moisturize.” Dream elaborates, tracing a line with his pointer finger along George’s bare forearm. It shoots up tingles in the wake of his touch, George tries not to squirm. He hopes his goosebumps aren’t as visible to Dream as they are to him. “But it’s still perfect. Why are you always so perfect, George?”

Dream is so… he’s a romantic, that’s what he is. He is without even meaning to be most of the time. Dream has a way with words, everyone knows that, but there are times when he just says things like this that makes George’s heart all gooey, where he’s borderline waxing poetic but he articulates them in a way that carries such casualness to them, as if the words weren’t heavy for him to carry over from his brain to his mouth – not that he says them without meaning them, but that he says them like it’s in his nature to be so verbose with his words.

“You are the corniest person I’ve ever met,” George says instead.

Dream makes a noise of offense, “I like to think I’m… what’s the word– eloquent. Yeah.”

“Sounds like ‘elephant’,” George snorts.

“You’re funny,” Dream tilts his head, or rather, tilts it as much as he can while he’s horizontal. “Have I ever told you that you’re funny?”

“Many times.”

“I’m gonna say it again,” Dream declares. “George. You’re– you’re funny. A funny person.”

George can’t contain his cackle anymore, “You’re actually such a freak, Dream.”

“I like the way you say my name,” Dream blurts, eliciting an eyebrow raise from George.

“What, is it my nearly faded English accent?” He asks, ignoring the thumping in his chest. This is too much for him to handle. He’s not built to sustain compliment after compliment from Dream, his poor little heart can’t manage it.

“Mmm, no. You say it like… like it’s my real name.”

George hums. He’s not sure if he’s talking in circles because he’s still drunk or if there’s a subliminal message here, something that’s eluding him, a profound thing that’s yet to be revealed.

“Well, it is your name.” George says, unsure of how else to respond.

“Nooo,” Dream whines. “I mean like, you say it like it’s not a title,” he elaborates with disdain in his drunken voice. “You make me feel like I am Dream.”

If George is being honest here, he really doesn’t know where Dream is going with this. He brushes it off as drunken babbling, but it’s too cute for George not to giggle at him.

“It’s crazy how you just say things, unprompted.” He voices his thoughts out, never gotten used to Dream’s outspoken nature, despite their years of friendship.

Dream doesn’t say anything else, whatever energy he had to chatter dissipates. He just closes his eyes contentedly as George continues to scratch his scalp. The peace is short lived though, because all of a sudden, Dream sits up from George’s lap, brings his face to his level, and pokes at George’s left eyebags with his pointer finger. It didn’t hurt, but George scrunches his eyes up anyway.

“Hey!” George squawks, swatting his hand away, “What was that for?”

“I don’t know,” Dream shrugs sluggishly, eyes lidded and voice slurred. “Your eyebags are big.”

“Gee, thanks,” George says dryly, only a little offended. The humor of the situation outweighs everything.

“That’s not an insult, Georgie.” Dream pouts when he sees George’s look of indignance. “They suit ya’…” he trails off, his eyelids becoming heavier and heavier.

“Are you falling asleep on me, Dream?” George asks, amused. He looks good like this, soft, malleable, and relaxed. It’s the same feeling of having a cat show him its underbelly, a sign of trust and a display of vulnerability, only ten times more in intensity. When Dream blinks slowly at him, he’s starkly reminded of Patches when she lays on George’s chest, seconds away from slumber.

“Wha’? No,” Dream mumbles, “‘S just… I can jus’ let go when you’re around. You make things… easier.”

And then… sleep finally claims him in an instant, dropping onto George’s chest with a soft thud. It’s not painful, but the breath still gets knocked off of him. The first drops of drool are gathering in the corner of his mouth, some of it dampening the fabric of his shirt.

Frozen, George replays Dream’s last words before he fell into unconsciousness. His heart beats so loudly in his chest it’s starting to sound like the rhythmic sound of drums, a continuous beat that relentlessly pounds in his head.

I can just let go when you’re around.

You make things easier.

He’s known for forever that George is important to Dream. It’s different to hear it implied through Dream’s own words, though. It’s vindicating, rejuvenating to have it confirmed by Dream himself that yes, he doesn’t have to put on a mask, physically and figuratively, in front of George. To be the person that he feels most comfortable with? To be the one he can easily be himself around? That’s better than anything George could ever hope to achieve.

He knows now that he still has Dream’s trust, that George is still on the top of the podium in Dream’s heart. Dream’s trust is something delicate, given to him so easily but devastating when lost, so he keeps it close to his heart and cradles it tenderly like it’s made of thin glass.

Belatedly, George realizes that even after everything, after what George had done, Dream still chose to keep George in his circle, to lay his heart onto his dirtied palms. It’s a testament to just how good Dream is, something that George could never be. It’s undeserved, but he will do his damndest to earn it.

It’s also living proof to George that their friendship can in fact withstand anything – something that time, distance, silence, and rejections can’t destroy. The foundation is too strong, too well constructed, it’s a late revelation, but at least he knows now.

George tries not to jostle himself too much to keep Dream in his slumber. The Lord knows he needs it more than anyone. He doesn’t know how long he remains in his spot, letting Dream sleep on his stomach. The wall clock is too far from him to be able to read it, but he’s well aware he’s been stagnant in this position for more than half an hour.

He thinks he’d like to stay here forever. Just George and Dream. Dream and George. Laying against each other with only layers of cloth separating them (he’d rather have no cloth at all, but that would be presumptuous of him), hands on hair, legs tangled, cheek on stomach. He’d die happy here. Like this, George can pretend Dream is his, like he’s the only one ever allowed to have him like this, comfortable and himself. No one else. He lets himself live in his fantasy for the next few minutes, soaking up the warmth that bleeds from Dream’s pores, memorizing the sound of his breathing, in and out.

But he knows he’s on borrowed time.

So, when enough time has passed, George gently lifts Dream’s head off of his stomach. He thinks the shape of Dream’s head will forever be carved into the skin of his abdomen, a permanent reminder that he was once there, that even though he will never return to it, at least there are remnants in the form of memories and phantom touch for him to hold onto. George tries not to think about it too much as he slowly maneuvers himself so he’s entirely removed and untangled from Dream’s endless limbs.

It feels like a heavy, gaping loss.

But it’s a loss he needs to take in order to have Dream permanently. A sacrifice for the longevity of their friendship. It’s something you subtract from that eventually gets added back so you won’t mess the entire equation up.

He allows himself a minute or two to observe Dream’s face – he’ll never know, anyway. He looks peaceful when he’s asleep, free from the day’s worries and the troubles of life burdening him. Like this, he looks younger. Like this, he’s being graced with the moonlight’s blessings.

He’d leave Dream here on the couch to sleep if he were a worse person, drape a knit blanket over his body and call it a night, but he knows Dream’s back ends up aching whenever he falls asleep here. He’s complained about it once or twice before, saying the cushions are too firm and the throw pillows are too rough.

This means he’ll have to carry Dream to his bed.

He thanks Dream, the heavens, and the stars that he chose to have his office on the ground floor with a bed installed, because George thinks he’ll do a very bad job at carrying a six foot three man up the stairs and down the hallway.

Rubbing his palms together as though the action would give him extra strength, George slips his arms under Dream’s armpits and hauls him off the couch as gently as possible. His feet land on the throw pillows George had slotted under so his heels don’t end up hurting.

He’s surprisingly light for his height and build, even when he’s weighted by sleep. It doesn’t take long for George to drag a sleeping Dream from the sofa to his office, his socked feet glide along the marble tiles smoothly.

Actually getting Dream on top of the bed is a bit of a challenge, but George pushes through. He places the upper half of his body on the mattress first before quickly lifting his gangly legs onto the bed. He makes sure one pillow is centered under his head, and the other is nestled between his arms, like a body pillow wrapped in a hug. George also turns Dream so that he’s laying on his left side, having heard from a TikTok that it’s healthier to sleep in that position.

A normal, good friend would leave it at that. Dream is on a bed, sleeping peacefully, his job is done.

But George loves Dream to an obsessive level, so he grabs Dream’s favorite blanket that’s draped on his office chair and goes to cover him with it from the neck down. When he hovers the hem of the blanket over his collarbones, he sees the chain, glinting under the ceiling light. He doesn’t know if Dream sleeps without it, considering he takes it off for his baths, but he decides to leave it on.

For selfish reasons.

He takes Dream’s water flask, sitting idly on the desk, and goes to the kitchen to fill it up with water and ice.

Once the flask is secured on his desk, George savors Dream one more time, taking in his peaceful form. Impulsively, he brushes a bunch of curls away from his forehead, and plants a featherlight kiss on smooth skin – too soft for Dream to feel even if he were sleeping lightly.

Before he shuts the light off and exits the office, George whispers quietly enough for no one else but himself to hear, “Good night, D.”

ꕥ

George is just about on the precipice of insanity.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep his feelings at bay. He can feel them bubbling to the surface, waiting to boil over. His proximity to Dream and the fact that he spends every day with him does nothing to simmer them down – but George is too feeble to pull away, no matter how much the heat gets to him, creating blisters on his soul.

He’s been trying, genuinely – but the average man can only do so much before succumbing to Dream’s irresistible charm and even more enchanting disposition. With every interaction, the touch of a hand on his back, Dream only becomes more and more intoxicating, and the deeper he sinks. It’s almost impossible to remain headstrong when met with Dream’s golden eyes every day.

If George poses as an immovable object, then Dream is, in no doubt, the unstoppable force.

Looking back, he’d known agreeing to live with Dream and Sapnap again, albeit only temporarily, poses an imminent danger – because how long until everyone and then eventually Dream finds out about him? Chloe already knows, he’s pretty sure Sapnap does, too. It’s not going to take long before Dream finds out for himself.

He knows he makes stupid decisions and yet, he continues making them.

And now, the morning after Dream’s album announcement, only mere hours after tucking Dream to bed with a kiss that still tastes syrupy sweet on his lips, he makes another stupid decision.

It starts with waking up earlier than he’d intended to on a Sunday morning. Dawn is just a touch away from turning into day, the sunlight greeting him with golden beams through the window.

Last night’s memories still plague the forefront of his mind, and he’s unable to think of anything else. Reliving it is like an out of body experience, all senses overcome with Dream, his touch, his smell, his voice, his honest, vulnerable face… The weight pressing onto his abdomen leaves a warmth that still remains. It’s almost as if the essence of Dream is still right here with him, and yet here he is, under white ceilings, sunken in memory foam, and alone.

Well, not quite alone.

Patches – sweet and lovely just like her father – is sitting on the corner of his bed, regarding him with wide, inquisitive eyes. Notably, it’s the first time she’s invited herself to his room since his return. George counts this as a milestone.

“Hey Patchington,” George says in a hushed whisper so he doesn’t scare her off. Her tail flicks and swishes back and forth as he beckons her over to his side with a few pats on the comforter, “C’mere.”

It takes a few seconds, but she follows his palm, butting her head into it as soon as she makes contact. Within seconds, she’s purring. It’s a respite in his book. At least with her, he never has to question anything.

Without meaning to, he falls asleep again – the last thing he sees is Patches, curled up on the pillow next to him, and when he wakes up again, it’s late morning and the daylight is brighter, more blinding. Patches is gone, but the imprint of her body that she left on his pillow is still warm.

The chain around his neck digs into his skin a little, leaving sleep marks. He’s used to it though, it’s a discomfort he takes pleasure of, a constant reminder that the gold is right where it belongs.

It’s the scent of lavender and vanilla upon descending to the first floor of the house that wakes him fully.

When George reaches the kitchen, he finds that it’s Sapnap’s lit candle, sitting idly on the countertop. The latter is on the stove cooking up a poor excuse of scrambled eggs if the burnt smell is anything to go by.

“Usually, eggs are done cooking long before they start smelling like that,” George says in greeting, not bothering to hide the amused lilt in his voice. His intrusion makes Sapnap flinch, but he doesn’t bother looking at him.

“Shut up,” Sapnap replies gruffly, “Protein is protein.”

“Except this one will have a bitter flavor to it. Tell me, do you enjoy being bad at everything?”

“I won’t hesitate to hurl this at you,” Sapnap threatens, lifting his pan up in defense.

“You won’t,” George smirks confidently. “‘Cause you’ll have to clean it up and you’d hate that, wouldn’t you?”

A few seconds, then, “Whatever.”

George snickers, then on muscle memory, blindly reaches for the space on the corner of the countertop. That’s when he notices.

There’s no glass of apple juice waiting for him. George pouts without thinking about it.

“Is Dream still asleep?”

It’s a miracle up to this day that George gets his customary apple juice from Dream, despite his incredibly inconsistent sleep schedule, so it’s an oddity that the routine should stop now. George hopes it’s only because Dream is still in bed, sleeping off his drunkenness from the night before.

“Hm? Oh, no. He’s awake,” Sapnap says, scraping a burnt layer of egg off the frying pan. “I saw him out in the back through my window.”

Oh.

So he is awake. He’d just conveniently forgotten to do the simple, mindless task of pouring liquid onto a glass. The one minute it takes to do so must be so taxing for Dream on this particular morning, the morning after their little… whatever it was. It can’t be a coincidence, can it? The one night they’ve become more intimate than the rest of his days here, despite the alcohol flooding Dream’s system, he suddenly withdraws? Surely not.

Unless…

Had he taken advantage? George thought he’d known Dream’s level of lucidity when it came to his intoxication, but what if he wasn’t as aware as he thought he was? What if George was too lenient with Dream’s inebriated actions and words, and made him uncomfortable?

He probably feels used, mocked. It makes him a bit nauseous.

“The back? As in, the backyard?” George chokes out, trying to brush off his pesky, overly anxious thoughts.

“That’s what I just said,” Sapnap says with a mouthful of toast. His countenance is calm and collected, everything George is not on the inside.

“But he never goes out there,” George says doubtfully. He can’t f*ck this up. Not now. Not when Dream and George had just slipped back to how they were, not when they’re both each other’s persons again. He’s already on the cusp of unraveling, he needs to tighten his grip on himself and on Dream – he can’t let him slip through his fingers because of his recklessness. He can undo it, lie a little, and maybe he can keep him just a little longer.

Anything to pull the tether tying him to Dream away from the planes of fragility and back to safety.

“And now he is,” Sapnap says, blissfully unaware of the tornado stirring up George’s internal organs. “Just go to him if you wanna talk to him so bad, what’s stopping you?” He waves his fork around and goes back to scarfing down his breakfast.

George mulls that over. It’s no secret that he is one of the only few people who can pull Dream from the recesses of his mind. He has the rationality to consider that whatever is keeping Dream out there could be completely unrelated to what happened last night. He was probably dead to the world as George was tucking him in. Right?

(It could be the last remnants of his waning optimism fighting for its life, but whatever.)

“You know what, I will,” George says determinedly, turning and heading for the door. “You look dumb without your hat, by the way.”

When he finds himself on the back porch, there Dream is – sitting on a sunbathing chair that overlooks the forest behind the house. There’s nothing remarkable to look at, just the outer layer of trees curtaining the rest of the forest and the occasional flock of birds flying by.

As George walks toward him, he notices a bowl of fruit resting in his palms.

“Hey.”

Dream jumps a little, and when he turns to face him, George is awestruck to the way the morning glory blesses his face – golden and glowing. “Hi, you’re all groggy.”

George snorts, “Groggy. Gogy.”

Dream rolls his eyes good naturedly, but he doesn’t bother with a remark.

“What are you doing out here?” George asks, fidgeting with his hands to look less awkward.

Dream reaches an outstretched arm and drags another sunbathing chair towards his own. He pats the surface. “Sit,” he says, and George can’t gauge the tone. His brows are relaxed but he’s yet to see him grin.

He sits, regardless.

It’s silent for a few moments, and it feels charged somehow. He doesn’t know what to do with it. Dream continues to chew on his frozen mango and he watches the way his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows.

“You didn’t get me my apple juice,” George blurts out without thinking.

Dream pauses as he puts a strawberry into his mouth, pink, glossy lips, encasing around the red fruit. George tries not to look. He puts the strawberry down and bites his bottom lip.

“Oh,” Dream murmurs, “Oh yeah, guess I forgot.”

The frown deepens on George’s face. “You forgot?” He says flatly, “People don’t usually forget something if it’s part of their routine.”

He tries not to sound bitter, or affronted, he really does. But his tone makes Dream flinch and he looks away from George’s scrutiny.

Dream sighs after a beat of quiet. “I really can’t hide anything from you, can I?” He laughs humorlessly.

“That’s ‘cause you suck at lying,” George scoffs.

Dream ponders this over for a moment, setting aside his fruit bowl and discarding them on the side table. He cracks his knuckles and only then does he look at George again.

“I…” He prefaces, “There’s something that’s been going on in my mind.”

George tries to keep his composure and stabilizes his voice. “Oh?”

This is it, he’s going to confront him about last night isn’t he? He’s going to apologize for taking advantage of George even if it was the other way around, and establish more boundaries between them, then keep him at arm’s length, George is so f*cked–

“Yeah,” he breathes. “I– I don’t know how to go about this,” He trails off then stops, then just looks at him.

Dream studies George in a way that makes him feel exposed, naked – not quite like he’s seeing him as though he’s transparent, but rather in a way that he seems to be memorizing every detail on George’s countenance. He’s regarding him with a heavy, glazed-over look in his eyes. If George were to describe it, he would say it’s doubt. But that can’t be right.

“I’m just– I’m confused,” he says.

George’s heartbeats echo around his skull with a loud thump thump, it almost deafens him. He waits with bated breath in anticipation for Dream’s next words, but his impatience gets the best of him. He can’t handle the uncertainty and that something else, on his features any longer. George has to know.

“If this is this about last–”

“I wanna ask you if–”

They say and stop at the same time, always so in sync even within the walls of perplexity.

“You go first,” George says.

“No, you go,” Dream insists.

“Dream,” George presses. “What I was gonna say doesn’t really matter anyway.” Because it shouldn't. It was a miscalculation, a misstep.

Something changes in Dream’s face then. It contorts into an expression that George hasn’t seen before, one he can’t quite infer. When he opens them again, whatever film that was glazing them is gone. Something churns in George’s gut, but he doesn’t know why.

“I– Okay,” Dream takes a deep breath after a pregnant pause. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and now that I’m sure of it– well… there’s this idea I have.”

George furrows a brow, “Yeah?” Spit it out.

“I think I wanna go back to Minecraft content.”

And– what?

“What?” George echoes his thoughts, dumbfounded and frozen and… confused.

“Mhmm,” Dream says, and it’s as if he’s mustering up the courage to do so, he squares up his shoulders. “And I want you to be a part of it.”

“Me?” George asks eloquently.

There’s a sinking feeling in George’s insides that this isn’t what Dream originally wanted to talk about. There was something more pressing clouding his mind earlier, George is sure of it. And for some reason, he just decided to disregard it and change the subject completely. Dream can’t be brooding and angsting over something like this. He doesn’t know how he thinks so, but it’s a gut feeling, an intuition.

Regardless, he has to set it aside for now, especially when Dream is looking at him with a newfound determination in his eyes and asking with hope in his voice. At least, he knows he isn’t lying about this. He’d know if he was. He can see the excitement – tentative but genuine – building in his countenance already.

Maybe he can ask him again later.

“Yes, you,” Dream huffs. “Who else?” He asks, as if George was his only choice and considered nobody else.

“But–”

“–You don’t have to be in the videos, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Dream reassures. “That is, unless you want to, but–”

“Dream–”

“–Point is,” Dream says, “I want you to be the head developer.”

“Wait, slow down for a second,” George squeaks, putting a hand on Dream’s left pectoral to keep him from overloading his brain. The firm muscle under his palm makes him falter a little, but he prevails. “You wanna do Minecraft again?”

“Yeah? That’s what I just said?” Dream asks nonchalantly, as if this isn’t the most exciting news George could ever hear, as if this isn’t a big thing, or a thing, at all.

“And you want me to– to work on it with you?”

“Yes,” Dream chuckles. He thinks this is so funny now, this idiot.

“As your head developer?”

“Obviously. Who else would it be? You’re the most intelligent person I know, you have to know that at least,” Dream says, and George pushes the blush away, his mind racing.

“And you– you still want me in your videos?” George asks, just to make sure. Everything is still spinning around him, Dream being the only clear image.

“Why would I not?” Dream questions with a tilt of the head to the side, like the idea of George not being there with him, through every step of the way, has never occurred to him.

“Dream,” George says, because his name is all he can say, apparently.

“George,” Dream counters, smiling brightly in a way that could rival the sun above them. “So, you coming with me or not?”

I cracked the code, George. I’m gonna blow up. Come with me.

This means… This means this is another thread tying him to Dream. Something tangible to keep them together other than free will. It’s a guarantee, a promise.

This is them planting roots in rich soil.

“Yeah, I’m coming.”

Okay, let’s do it.

Dream grins at him in delight, and suddenly any ambivalence George may have had dissipates in an instant.

“Really?” He asks in disbelief, eyes twinkling and his hands come to hold George’s. He hopes Dream doesn’t feel the sweat in his palms nor the tremble in his fingers.

“Worked out the first time, didn’t it?” is all George can choke out.

It must have been the right thing to say, because almost impossibly, Dream’s smile visibly softens. “Yeah, yeah it did,” he whispers in wistfulness.

Dream is still holding his hands, that George is aware of. He doesn’t want to pull away, ever. Not from him.

The hands detach themselves from his, though, because the moment is over too soon. The culprit is Dream’s phone, vibrating harshly on the glass side table.

Quicker than George would’ve liked, warmth and calluses are replaced by cold and emptiness, and Dream diverts his attention to his phone. Normally, George would appreciate the view of his broad stature and sharp shoulders, but right now he really wishes Dream was still looking at him. When he checks the screen, he sits up eagerly.

“It’s the record label,” he chirps happily. “I gotta take this, I’ll be right back. Thank you, G.”

It happens too fast. One second, Dream is standing up from his sunbathing chair and dusting off his sweatpants. The next, he’s leaning over and planting a light, delicate, but electrifying kiss on George’s right cheek.

But then, time moves at a glacial pace. That one second seems to last for longer, the only thing George has ever known are chapped but soft, plump lips against his skin. It’s warm, it’s tender, and it’s everything to him. In actuality, it probably lasted for only half a second, but to George, it’s a millennium.

And then it’s over.

George feels like he barely had the time to savor it before Dream is pulling away – and they’re both anchored back to reality.

When they look at each other, Dream’s cheeks are dark and his lips – lips that were just on his skin a few seconds ago – are plush. George is certain he looks just as affected as he is, just as flustered.

“I– erm,” Dream stammers, face only flushing even more. “I’ll go get you your um– apple juice. Yeah. Stay right there. I’ll– I’ll be right back.”

Dream clumsily trips on his own footsteps as he reenters the house, and it’s just too endearing for George to laugh at. He just smiles, openly fond because no one’s there to see it. He’s so f*cking cute.

In the few minutes of reprieve Dream has given him to collect himself, something settles in his heart – painful but dull – and he knows for sure. There’s nothing he can do, he accepts it wholeheartedly now.

You can’t hide something as big as a continent, even to the simplest of minds.

George is in love with Dream, that is a fact as true as the grass is green.

George is in love with Dream, and it’s impossible to hide. It’s a fact that refuses to be labeled as a theory.

No matter how desperately George had tried to cover it up with dirt to make room for daisies to grow, its roots are still too firmly planted into the soil – it still stems out from the ground and it flowers into daffodils, spreading like an invasive species in the ecosystem of George’s heart.

The fact looms over his head like a storm cloud, waiting to rain down on him.

George is in love with Dream, and it’s only a matter of time until he finds out.

He is so screwed.