Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Dream, trust me, get in the car,” there’s something authoritative in Sapnap’s voice that Dream doesn’t hear often—that one MCC survival games where Sapnap took command and reeled him back from making stupid decisions, that’s the most obvious event in his mind that he’s heard it. 

It’s interesting watching your friend grow into a man before your eyes, seeing him flourish and put on his self-confidence like a comfortable jacket. Dream likes how it looks on Sapnap, he’s filled with immense pride along with the apprehension already taking up room in his stomach.

Nodding his acquiescence, Dream sends one last searching look at the car and drops into the front seat. There’s something off about all this, but he can’t put his finger on it. 

For one thing, this is all completely out of the ordinary. Sapnap doesn’t get him out of the house. Ever.

And not for lack of trying—when he first moved in, Sapnap came up with all sorts of plans to keep Dream’s face safe and also allow them to spend time together outside of the house, plans involving driving separately, masks (the regular kind), a wig borrowed from his sister’s drama department, they became more and more elaborate the more desperate Sapnap became. It hurt Dream just as much as it hurt Sapnap to keep saying no, a little piece of something breaking between them every time. Dream greeted the day Sapnap stopped asking with bittersweet acceptance.

They had to wait for George.

“Where are we going?” Dream asks when Sapnap doesn’t say anything for a couple miles. He’s headed toward the interstate, that’s all Dream can tell. This area of Orlando is still new to him, and with no car of his own, he hasn’t bothered to explore. There’s a park nearby, he knows that much. 

“Bro, just trust me,” Sapnap says, refusing to look at him. He’s a good driver, at least when it’s the two of them. Dream can see having Karl in the car, or Quackity, or heaven forbid, both of them, would be a recipe for disaster. But just them? Sap’s calm, observant. Here’s another example of the man underneath starting to surface. “You’re going to be happy with this. Call it an early birthday surprise.”

“You didn’t have to get me anything,” Dream says and he means it. He loves giving gifts, but he doesn’t need his friends to get him anything, just for them to spend time with him. 

“Like you didn’t need to get me $20,000 worth of pokemon cards? Okay, Dream, shut up, man.”

“Sap—”

“I got you a present, and technically,” he moves his head back and forth like he’s hedging and Dream wonders what he can possibly mean, “technically I guess it’s a present for me and George, too.”

Now he’s more than intrigued. He says, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ll see,” Sapnap says with another secret smirk on his beard covered face. Dream remembers the Snapchats when the hair started growing on his jaw—proud pictures of Sapnap with shaving cream on his face proving he’s manly enough to shave. 

Taking the hint, Dream gives in and enjoys watching Florida blur outside his window. It’s a hot day, no surprise there. August in Florida is miserable, the humidity alone. Something about August fills him with a melancholy deep down to his bones—the elation of his birthday isn’t enough to battle the leftover sword of damocles that is the first day of school. And no, it doesn’t matter that he hasn’t had a first day of school since he was sixteen. It’s stuck under his skin like a tattoo. Maybe one day it’ll fade, but until then he’s stuck with it. 

Palm trees, green grass, swimming pool after swimming pool, bright pinks and brighter yellows—there’s something magical about Florida. He takes the jokes people make, “Florida Man,” the backwards politics, the dichotomy of the elderly population vs the cast mates of Disney and accepts them with grace, but this is still home. He loves it. 

He’s going to love it more when George is here. Then it’ll really be home.

“Do you think we should take George to Clearwater when he comes?” Dream asks when he sees a sign for it on the interstate.

This earns him a sideways look from Sapnap, the most interaction he’s had in fifteen minutes. “Maybe, bro. It’s up to him, I guess. He doesn’t really strike me as the beach type.”

He’s not. He and Dream have that in common, have talked about it before. “He could surprise us,” Dream says instead of explaining. 

In all honesty, Dream has no idea where they’re headed. Sapnap drove past the turn off for the mall, past the exit for Downtown Disney, not that he thought they would go there, that’s a disaster waiting to happen. He’s taking him to the other side of town and Dream trusts Sapnap but that doesn’t mean he’s not starting to get nervous.

“Almost there,” Sapnap says, perceptive to Dream’s restlessness.

“Just tell me,” Dream says, starting to lose his patience. This is turning into a whole thing. They’re at least thirty minutes from the house now. No, he doesn’t have anything else going on today, just staring sadly at his Discord while he talks to George and tries not to think about spending another birthday without his best friend. At least at home, he’d be talking to George.

He checks Discord on his phone and sees George is offline. He lets him know their best friend kidnapped him and to send help. 

To his surprise, Sapnap pulls into a Walmart parking lot. It’s early and there aren’t many cars, and almost none at the far end where Sapnap glides into a spot.

“You brought me to Walmart?”

“No, shut up,” Sapnap says and Dream can’t help but laugh, because they’re literally at Walmart, he’s looking at the sign right there. What is he— “This is just a pause, not, like, the real surprise.”

“A pause?”

Sapnap opens up the glove department in front of Dream, hitting his knees already scrunched into the seat not designed for someone as tall as him. He pulls out an official looking envelope. A horrifying familiarity claws over Dream. He’s seen an envelope like that before, months ago. A joyous occasion, then, the tool delivered to take Sapnap over to George. 

“What’s that?” Dream asks even though he’s pretty sure he already knows. 

Sapnap smiles softly at him, nervously, and Dream thinks he better be nervous. This is huge. “I think you know, Dream.”

“How did you—”

“Remember I made you go with me to get the passport pictures done?”

“That was ages ago! And you made such a big fuss about them.” Dream remembers that day back in February, a mopey George stuck in London with a permanent rain cloud over his head and Sapnap making the decision to go visit him since he can’t come to them. Hours of negotiation from Sapnap and he finally agreed to accompany him with the caveat that if they saw anyone under the age of thirty he’d go wait in the car. Once at the Walgreens, Sapnap convinced him he might as well get his own passport photos done too, why wouldn’t he? One less trip for eventually. They were already there, weren’t they? Dream agreed just to shut him up and then spent the next week annoyed at him for every little thing he did. “How did you—”

“With your mom’s help. A lot of help from her, actually. We had to get your license sorted, too, you idiot. I may have pretended to be you over the phone. Also, your mom told me your social security number so, full disclosure. I also got to scan your birth certificate. Big baby, huh?”

“What?” a gnawing realization settles over him. Why else would Sapnap have gone to such an epic length to get Dream’s license and passport sorted out? He takes another look out the window to see where they’re going, but he needn’t have bothered. A jet plane blasts over them, noise pushing obscenely into Dream’s ears and he knows.

“No,” he says, the first word to come to his mind. “No no no no no no—”

“Dream,” Sapnap says and he doesn’t want to hear it.

“How could you—why would you—” the words won’t come out properly and that makes Dream angry. His hands turn the envelope over without his permission, eyes betraying him by looking down. That’s his name on the outside. That’s his address.

He takes a deep breath and rips it open.

Blue. Rectangular. Fancy silver decal on the front. He opens to the first page and—that’s his face. 

His passport.

“Your license is in my wallet and your ticket is in your email.”

“Fuck,” Dream says and hits his head against the window. He saw a movie once a long time ago with his mom and sister about a girl who lives in Walmart, even has a baby in Walmart. He doesn’t even have a baby. He could make it work in Walmart, surely. Just abandon everything there and go borrow a tent nightly in the outdoor aisle and siphon off the dumpster for food. That sounds okay. He could do that.

Does Walmart have wifi?

Somehow he thinks the answer is no. George has wifi, though. Reliable wifi.

“Sapnap.”

“Dream,” Sapnap replies in the same voice. They can say a lot with little, a lifelong friendship forged online and cemented in person, Dream can read Sapnap. He’s a sneaky little shit, but he can read his emotions, his intentions. Sapnap loves him. “Go to him.”

“I can’t—”

“Enough bullshit,” Sapnap demands, the man is talking to him now. Dream perks up and listens, that little schoolboy dreading a new school year sits up and responds. “I’m tired of the excuses, bro. You want to see him. He wants to see you. You’re going to be miserable over your birthday without him and I’m going to be miserable knowing that nothing I do is going to make you happy, nothing but somehow give you George. Well, I can’t bring George here without fucking everything up, but I can make you go to him.”

“Nick.”

“He doesn’t know either, just so you know. I kept it hidden from both of you in case something fell through,” he says, smirk starting to gain confidence now that he can tell Dream is crumbling. “You’re flying first class, by the way. I took as many precautions as I could to keep you hidden, okay?”

“What am I supposed to wear?” Dream asks, looking down at his hoodie and basketball shorts. This will work fine in Florida, the hoodie a bit much outside of the air conditioning, but he can’t wear this the whole time he’s there. Fuck, he didn’t even shower today.

“I thought of everything, bro,” Sapnap assures him and then, to his surprise, jumps out of the Tesla. “Come on, get out here.”

Shaking his head, Dream gets out and follows him around to the trunk. Sapnap pops it and sitting there is a black suitcase. He really did think of everything.

“Open it up and look and make sure there’s enough there,” Sapnap tells him. “If I missed something we can just go to Walmart real quick, right? Or, you could always just buy it in London.”

Dream doesn’t even know what to say. He mechanically but meticulously combs through the suitcase and it looks fine to him. Clothes, chargers, his favorite toiletries, his body scrub. There’s even a pocket dedicated to the things he wants to bring to George. Sapnap missed a couple things in that camp, but to be fair, they weren’t things Sapnap ever knew, just whispered promises shared across an international Discord call. 

He notes that Sapnap packed him a drondom, though. Dream lifts it and asks, “Why, Sap? Just why?”

Sapnap laughs even as he shrugs, “You never know, bro. Better safe than sorry. It’s not like George’s dry ass has any at his apartment. Trust me, I snooped.”

“Of course you did,” Dream says instead of focusing on George not having any condoms. It’s not his business. And it’s not surprising, either. They spend so much time on call together, he hasn’t had a chance to go out or bring someone over to his flat without Dream knowing. 

“He has lube, though,” Sapnap says, shattering Dream’s world for the second time today. “Make of that what you will.”

“Sapnap,” he admonishes. 

Shamelessly, he says, “What? Just saying. He has lube, he’s an adult man. He could use it to jerk off, it doesn’t mean he’s fucking himself—”

“Sapnap!”

“—but it doesn’t mean he’s not not fucking himself, either, you know?”

“Oh my god, I can’t stand you. How am I even friends with you?”

“Because I’m the best friend ever, bro, and you know it,” he says and Dream feels the vulnerability in the statement. For as much confidence Sapnap has played this with, Dream knows this is the breaking moment. He’s still burgeoning into his manhood, he’s not always there yet, neither of them are. This is the boy in Sapnap seeking validation from his older brother, making sure he didn’t fuck everything up. 

Dream walks over to Sapnap and ignoring the trepidation on Sapnap’s face, pulls him roughly into a hug. They aren’t big huggers, they hugged when they finally met, when they won MCC15 together, and that’s about it. But this—this feels like a hugging moment. 

“I love you,” Dream tells him earnestly. “I’m still a little mad about this because I’m all off kilter and not, like, mentally prepared to meet him, but… but thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Sapnap says as he pulls back, smile bright on his face. 

“Fuck, now I know what you meant when you said it’s a present for me and George.”

“And me,” Sapnap says, “now I don’t have to hear you mope around the house.”

“Shit, what time is the flight?” Dream asks, realizing he has no idea. 

“We have plenty of time, but I should drop you off,” Sapnap says, slamming the trunk and throwing himself inelegantly back into the driver’s seat. Dream takes a calming breath after a beat, and joins him in the car, new passport lying haphazardly on the seat. He picks it up like it’s a golden ticket. 

“Before we get going, let me hand you your license,” Sapnap says, awkwardly lifting his hips and pulling his wallet out of his back pocket. He opens it up and slides the plastic over to Dream. It’s… shiny.

“Thanks, bro.”

“Yeah, well, don’t tell anyone I technically committed fraud and we’re good.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” Dream says and Sapnap backs the car out and takes them back to the main road, a tad busier now as the people wake up around them and start the journey to work. A growing frisson of excitement churns in his gut. Oh, he’s nervous as fuck, too, but there’s something to be said about having everything taken out of his hands. He’s nervous for a couple hours until he’s at George’s apartment, not the weeks and months leading up to this moment. In some ways, Sapnap saved him hours and hours of turmoil.

“So, George doesn’t know, either?” Dream asks, letting the idea of flying internationally take hold of him.

“No idea, bro. I kept that shit on lock. I didn’t even tell Karl.”

“Well, to be fair, Karl can’t keep a secret like that to save his life,” Dream says and it’s only partially true. Karl would keep it a secret, but he’d have to hint that he knew about it. And that’s the worst thing when taking George into consideration. George is known to do drastic things when secrets are kept from him.

“No leaks, bro. Just me and your mom,” Sapnap says, putting a song on so that the beat plays lightly through the speakers. It’s not until then that Dream realized they’d been driving in complete silence. “I’ll text you his address.”

“I know his address,” Dream says, almost offended that Sapnap thinks he wouldn’t know. He’s sent stuff to him before, looked it up on Google maps when he’s deep in his feelings watching George stream with four of their closest friends without him. He knows where it is.

Sapnap raises his hands off the wheel as they come to a stop at a red light, “Damn, bro, okay okay. Sorry I dared to question you on your George knowledge.”

Dream rolls his eyes.

Another jet takes off overhead and Dream looks up at it, wondering how he’ll feel when that’s him up there—one step closer to George.

Bored.

That’s how he feels after the initial rush of take off.

There are no movies tempting enough for him to watch on the in-flight entertainment and he didn’t have enough time to download anything he actually wants to watch off the airport wifi, mostly because he spent the majority of the time texting George and pretending to get sleepy so that it wouldn’t be weird when he disappeared for eight hours and also the amount of time it’ll take to get across the city to George’s little flat.

The more he thinks about it, the more his heart beats. He has got to chill.

It really hits him that he’s doing this while they’re thirty minutes into the flight. Like, there are so many things he hasn’t considered. How long is he staying? 

It’s a one way ticket that Sapnap bought. No end date. Whenever George kicks him out, that’s when he’s got to come back. He doesn’t have his setup, but he can use George’s to stream if needed. He can always buy another temporary one, too. Which is… sad. But he has the money and if he has the need, he’s not above it. He can always leave it with one of the British creators when he returns to the states so it’s not wasted in the long run. 

They’ll figure it out. 

He hopes George is happy to see him. 

He will be. He has to be. At least Dream can blame all this on Sapnap. He’s just as much a victim as George is! More so, really.

He also has no idea where he’s going to sleep. He can crash on George’s couch at least for tonight. George will grant him that much. If he needs to, he can find an Air BNB or something. Hopefully George will just let him stay with him. He’ll promise to be better behaved than Sapnap, no threats of leaving… um… things… around the place. Maybe they can pick up a blow up bed or something?

They’ll figure it out. Together.

Together.

Dream lets the warm feeling settle over him. He clicks on a random movie, Mean Girls, to drown out the sound of the baby crying behind him. He doesn’t sleep, but he closes his eyes and imagines the next week.

Customs goes quickly, he finds his suitcase in the bottom half of their plane, but that’s fine. He’s not in a rush and there are several business suits impatiently checking their watches, so he considers it a win that he even gets his luggage in the first place. 

He’s not the only person to not take off his face mask, but he’s still watchful of anyone staring at him too long. There’s one girl outside the Starbucks who stares a little too long while he goes through his phone to find George’s address before he orders an Uber and it gives him a strange feeling. 

Does she recognize him? He’s already on edge with the traveling and surprising George thing, he doesn’t need his face reveal to be leaked, too. 

Her gaze travels up and down his body and—oh. 

Now there’s a surprise.

She doesn’t know who he is. She’s just checking him out.

Fuck, it’s been too long since he’s been in public and, though he’s not interested, he’s very flattered. His fingers fumble over his phone and he finds the address easy enough, copies it, and transfers over to the Uber app.

He doesn’t want to text George yet, happy to let him think he’s still sleeping which isn’t unusual for Dream. He tabs over to Sapnap’s name and lets him know he got in okay and asks if he’s been in touch with George. Apparently they’re playing chess, so, at least George is for sure at home. 

Dream ponders ordering a pizza briefly, he’s starving. The plane food was disgusting and he didn’t bother to grab anything at the airport because he was so anxious and while his stomach is still in knots with nervousness, he knows he’ll about die of hunger as soon as he settles into George’s flat.

There’s a local place that George likes. He searches while the Uber driver drives in complete silence. The name comes to him in a flash of inspiration and it’s only a couple buildings over from George’s, another discovery on his Google maps adventures, so he puts in an order for a black olive pizza and a regular pepperoni for George, who probably hasn’t eaten yet today, and then settles into the security of doing something. 

The car sways slightly, the driver cursing loudly as another cuts him off. London traffic is different from Orlando traffic, but there’s something calming in the familiarity of cars coming and going, even if they’re on the wrong side of the road. He peeks out of the window and watches huge buildings pass by him. 

He’s here. London. 

His fingers tap incessantly against his locked phone and the driver not very subtly turns the music up. Hint received and ignored. 

Twenty stressful minutes later, Dream arrives at George’s building and once he grabs his suitcase out of the trunk, thinks maybe he’s bitten off more than he can chew. He can’t drag his suitcase and two pizzas along this sidewalk. The Uber takes off from the curb and Dream takes a second to think.

Coming to a decision, he pulls up George’s name and presses call. 

“Dream?” George answers on the second ring. 

“Hey, need you to do me a favor,” Dream says, resting his suitcase against the side of the building. Several bystanders walk by, paying no attention to the strange man with his mask and bag. It’s late and he could be sketchy and they just keep walking. Dream loves big cities for this reason. 

“What is it? I’m playing chess and kicking Sapnap’s ass,” George says, half his mind on the game, Dream can tell. 

“Well, kick his ass quick and then I need you to walk down to that little pizza place you’re always talking about.”

George scoffs and says, “Dream, why? What stupid thing did you—”

“Well, I can’t carry two pizzas and my suitcase, so I need your help,” Dream says with butterflies in his stomach. “Come meet me, idiot.”

And then he hangs up with a sick grin on his face. He loves getting the last word. More importantly, he loves when George doesn’t get the last word. 

Predictably, his phone lights up with George’s derp face he set as his contact photo ages ago. He ignores it and walks inside the pizza shop, the smell of fresh sauce and cheese hitting him and piercing hunger rages inside him. Yeah, this was a good idea. 

He talks briefly to the person at the counter and picks up his order for take away without worrying about them recognizing him. George comes here all the time and he’s never had a problem. It’s 11:45 and they close in fifteen minutes, so Dream’s happy to take his pizzas and awkwardly balance them against a table close to his suitcase while he waits for George. He steps outside, determined not to miss the moment his best friend arrives.

A familiar figure steps hesitantly out of the building thirty feet up the sidewalk, right under the street light so he looks like he has a halo. Fuck, even at this distance he looks gorgeous. A couple seconds after he spots George walking quickly in this direction, George finally spots him back. He stops mid-step.

Dream waves cheesily. George starts walking again and then sprinting until suddenly he’s right in front of Dream, breathing heavily, cheeks flushed. “Dream?” he asks, unsure and yeah—that makes sense, he’s never seen Dream’s face and Dream has yet to say anything. He’s just… speechless. He’s been waiting for this moment forever.

“George,” he says because that’s all there is to say. That’s the only word reverberating around his brain. George. George. George.

George’s face transforms from uncertainty to… to something prepossessing. No words can describe the happiness on his face except that it’s mirrored on Dream’s. 

“Dream!” George says, throwing himself into Dream’s arms. He’s small, fitting perfectly into the crux of Dream’s chest. His hair smells faintly of pine, like he hasn’t showered in a while either and Dream squeezes him tightly. He feels… right. Settled. “You’re here.”

He has yet to let George go, despite the cooling pizzas, despite the late hour, despite everything. He could hold George forever and it wouldn’t be long enough. 

“I’m here,” he repeats.

“What are you—” George begins, pulling back to examine Dream’s face. “Take your stupid mask off I want to see you.”

“Let’s wait until we’re back at your apartment,” Dream says, glancing up and down the street. There aren’t many people here but George has a very familiar face and it won’t be hard for an eagle eye to put two and two together and come up with Dream.

“Then let’s go,” George says, turning around to head back.

“Hey, idiot,” Dream says, pulling him back by the material of his over sized t-shirt. “There’s a reason you met me here. Grab either the pizzas or my suitcase, I don’t care which one, but I can’t carry both.”

“Why’d you order pizza, anyway?” George asks as he sizes up the pizza boxes and the luggage and ends up grabbing the suitcase and wheeling it behind him and back out the door of the restaurant. 

“Starving,” Dream answers.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” George asks as he leads the way to his building.

“Well, okay, actually—” Dream says, “to be fair, I didn’t know I was coming until about twelve hours ago. You can blame Sapnap if you’re mad about it. He put it all together.”

“Why would I be mad about this?” George asks, incredulous look on his face, like that’s the most absurd thing he could ever imagine. 

“I dunno,” Dream says, shrugging as best as he can while carrying two pizzas. “Kinda putting you out.”

“Dream, shut the fuck up, this is the greatest thing ever,” George uses his keys to open the door and starts up the stairs, lugging the bag behind him. 

“You’re sure you’re not mad?”

“Of course not. This is, like, epic.”

George shoulders his apartment door open and suddenly they’re there. Dream’s in a little flat in London he’s spent more time thinking about than any other place in the world. It’s white, bland, smells a little musty, but mostly it’s delightful because it’s George’s.

“Oh shit,” George says, coming to a standstill in the lounge area of the flat. Dream catches a glimpse of his setup, but he’s still at the top of the stairs and his vision is limited and the only light is coming from the PC and the kitchen.

“What?” he asks, curious about what could cause that reaction. 

George throws the suitcase down and moves to the kitchen, letting Dream follow him and plop the hot boxes on the counter. George doesn’t answer, yanks the refrigerator door wide open to see the very bleak insides. 

There is one thing, though. 

George pulls out a box and when he turns around, he has the biggest grin on his face. Dream could get used to that face being made because of him. 

“Now take your stupid mask off,” he demands, placing the box on the counter next to the pizzas and when Dream catches a glimpse of it, he almost starts crying right then and there.

Happy Birthday, Dream!

“You bought me a cake,” Dream says, voice thick with emotion. He reaches up to take the face mask off, breathing deeply for the first time in hours in more than one way. George stares unashamedly at him, eyes tracking across every flaw and Dream feels big and small at the same time. He has no idea if he stacks up to George’s idea of what he looks like. 

He reaches a hand up like he’s going to touch Dream’s cheek, but freezes and eventually drops his hand. Dream doesn’t know how to tell him he can touch, he can touch anywhere, do anything, blanket permission. 

“I was going to eat it on call with you later, but this is—Dream this is so much better,” George says with a nod to the cake. 

“George,” he says, but what he means is thank you, I love you, you mean everything.

“C’mon, it’s almost midnight and then it’s your birthday,” George opens a drawer and digs around for an abandoned candle from his own birthday stream when they thought they had mere weeks before he could move to Florida, now it’s been ten months and there’s no approved visa in sight. 

Candle acquired, he now looks around for a lighter and comes up empty. 

“I guess I could use the stove,” George says with a sheepish smile.

“That’s a horrible idea,” Dream says, trying to come around into the kitchen but it’s so small and he’s such a big guy. George throws an elbow up to stop him.

“No, you’re here to supervise so you can step in if it gets bad, but Dream, c’mon, you have to have a lit candle for your birthday.”

Dream takes a deep breath because he’s not immune to hearing that George counts on him to come to the rescue, it feeds into some sick white knight fantasy Dream didn’t know he had. “Fine, but I’m not saving you if you’re just doing something dumb. Light the candle and turn it off. I mean it.”

George rolls his eyes but takes his victory and carefully turns on the gas stove, lights the candle, and transfers it to the cake with the other hand cupped around the flame to protect it. He turns off the overhead lights so that the candle takes up the entire focus of the room.

It’s Dream that turns the eye back off.

“Should I sing to you?” George asks, the light of the candle bouncing off his face and making his dark eyes deeper, his cheekbones sharper. Dream thinks he’s the most beautiful person he’s ever seen. Fuck, he didn’t think it could possibly be that different in person, he should be immune by now for all the times he’s seen George stream, Snapchats from him, fuck, even the face of profile pictures of his fans online. He should be used to this face, but it’s somehow different in real life. His skin looks soft, freckles scattered across his nose so lightly that Dream thinks he’s imagining them. 

“You don’t have to sing, George,” he eventually finds himself able to say, voice pitched low. They’re both standing over the cake, staring at it in between stealing glimpses at each other. Dream wonders what the candle light is doing for his own face, if it’s bouncing off the scar along his jaw. “We should send a picture to Sapnap, though. Prove I got here okay, and, like, thank him, I guess.”

“Sure,” George says, “your phone or mine?”

“Mine’s newer,” Dream says and pulls up the camera app. George slides into the frame, faces close enough that Dream can feel George’s stubble on his cheek. It’s an awkward angle, though, so he pulls George’s body back against his own so that they’re both comfortably in frame, George’s back pressed up against his front in a way that lights him up more than the candle. 

Dream snaps a picture of them and, damn, they look good together. Happy. George’s eyes crinkle in his smile and Dream’s teeth flash in his mouth. 

“Get one of the cake, too,” George demands, but he doesn’t move out of Dream’s embrace. If anything, he leans into him steeper, pressing into Dream’s hoodie hard enough that he can feel the heat through all the layers of clothes between them. 

Obediently, Dream takes a picture of the cake with one hand while the other uses George to steady himself and decides he’ll probably tweet it out at some point, but hedge around the fact that they’re together in person. 

“Should we eat pizza first or cake?” George asks, turning slightly to pitch the question over to Dream. 

“Pizza first,” Dream decides, “before it gets cold. Cake will still be good but pizza is so gross after it’s cold.”

“You’re wrong, but whatever,” George says and when he shrugs Dream can feel it. Neither of them are moving. “You still have to blow out the candle, though. You have—” he pulls out his own phone to see the time, it’s 11:59pm— “probably a couple seconds. Are you going to make a wish?”

This almost stops Dream short. Make a wish? This is his greatest wish come true right here, can’t George see? He’s reaching a life’s goal in this moment with George’s physical body under his hand, standing in this kitchen, manifesting himself into London. A snort escapes him, while his hand twitches on George’s waist.

He feels daring under the yellow light. 

“What would I possibly wish for?” Dream asks into George’s temple, letting his nose graze against the skin the barest bit. “You’re right here with me.”

George nudges him with his elbow but Dream can feel his satisfaction. He still hasn’t moved away. Dream is going to grant himself permission to read into that. George says, “There’s got to be something else you can wish for.”

“I don’t dare wish for more,” he whispers and finds he means it.

“You could,” George says, voice matching Dream’s, laced with something he’s never heard before. He turns in Dream’s personal space until he’s looking up at him. “Anything you want, Dream.”

Dream meets George’s eyes, candle light dancing crazily in them, and they’re staring right back. It’s like there’s a force keeping them in place, faces inches from each other. 

George’s phone clicks over to 12:00am and a notification pops up that says “Dream’s Birthday” which causes Dream to smile in fondness. 

“Happy birthday, Dream,” George says softly across the distance between them, space intimate and warm. Dream’s entire body tingles, the hairs on his forearms stand on edge like they know something important is about to happen. 

“Thank you,” he says, still staring at George. Why would he ever look anywhere else when this man exists?

A tentative hand travels upwards and this time it lands on Dream’s cheek like it was always meant to, like Dream’s cheek grew specifically to meet this hand, through chubby childhood then slimming down in puberty, rounding with all the smiles George has caused for the years of the friendship, shaping itself specifically for this moment. George’s fingers gently trace the lines of his face, over his jawline to his nose, making it twitch. Dream holds his breath while his heart kicks into a higher gear.

The fingers travel lower until they discover Dream’s lips. He can’t help the gasp that leaves him, splitting his mouth open and George traces the lips individually. Dream thinks he’s going to pass out. The air between them crackles and Dream’s lips tingle where George touches, which is everywhere.

“George,” he croaks and he doesn’t know what he’s trying to say, a question, a plea, a request, it’s everything. His favorite word, welcome within his mouth.

George gets even closer in his examination and Dream lets his head fall further down so he can reach more of him, giving permission for everything. He feels George’s breath fall on his skin and it’s renewing. “George.”

“Dream,” George says in response, eyes meeting Dream’s this close and it’s intense, more intense than anything else he’s ever experienced. Nothing could have prepared him for the way George’s proximity makes his heart race under his ribcage. “It’s your birthday, Dream.”

“Yeah,” he says, the words only needing millimeters to reach George.

“You should,” George says, licking his lips, drawing Dream’s eyes down to them, so plump, so tantalizing. “You should probably get a birthday kiss, huh?”

Arousal shoots down his spine and belly flops into his gut. “Really?” he hears himself ask. “And who’s going to volunteer?”

George looks around facetiously, ending with his face even closer. “I don’t see anyone else around.”

“Hmm,” Dream says, pretending like this is a problem. “I guess you’ll have to do it, then. It’s my birthday, after all.”

“Yeah,” George says, eyes stuck on Dream’s mouth and it’s such a powerful feeling, lightning flows freely through his body and when George’s lips finally touch his, the lightning sparks between them.

Soft. George’s mouth is soft. His lips move shyly against Dream’s, like he can’t believe this is happening either. Dream’s heart drops and his stomach rises until they meet forcefully, echoes rippling out to every millimeter of his body, the effects felt down to his fingernails. George breathes harshly out of his nose as he pulls back. “Wow,” he says, leaning his forehead against Dream’s.

“Yeah,” Dream sighs, feeling George’s hips under his hands and wondering when they landed there. “It should be my birthday every day.”

George giggles and he’s even more beautiful. “You’re such an idiot.”

“So’re you,” Dream says, looking back again and wondering if he can get away with another kiss. 

“Blow your candle out, Dream,” George tells him, confidence blazing in him. He lets his hand fall from Dream’s face and grabs Dream’s, letting their fingers tangle without saying anything about it. 

“Okay, fine, I’ll blow it out,” he says, gathering breath to make it memorable. When the candle flickers and dies, they stand in charged darkness. The light of the moon shines in through the skylight, a detail Dream never knew about the kitchen here. He spent so many hours on call with George, dragged along on video to every inch, every cranny, he feels almost betrayed to know there’s a skylight here. A skylight that draws the moonlight in to fall so gorgeously across George’s face. Does he even have a bad angle?

“I hope your wish comes true,” George says after the silence starts to become unbearable. Dream’s hand dwarfs George’s where he’s still holding it and staring at him and wondering how lucky he is that so many factors in the universe had to come together to not only create this human but also bring him into Dream’s life.

He’s agnostic, but maybe there’s something out there. Something that believes in true love or soul mates or—George. Dream can understand that, at least. He believes in George, too. 

“It did,” Dream dares to say, feeling bold in the lack of light.

“Should we…” George begins, pulling back away a bit. “Should we eat the pizza? You said you hated it cold.”

“Yeah,” Dream agrees, reaching around for the light switch he saw George flick earlier. He flips it and it’s like the blanket of the darkness takes the mood with it. Back in the harsh white lighting of the kitchen, they’re them again. Dream doesn’t hate it—he can’t, it’s them. But he can’t get the other George out of his mind, the yellow George. 

“Plates?” Dream asks, clearing his throat. George opens a cabinet and pulls out two plates. He only owns four and none of them see regular use.

“Should we—” Dream chucks his head at the lounge couch, the only place big enough for both of them to sit. The kitchen is built to support bar stools, but George never bothered to buy any, just another detail to sort out when he leaves the country, another obstacle keeping him from Orlando, from Dream.

“Yeah,” George says, “grab your own pizza though, I’m not some servant.”

Dream huffs out a laugh, a little harsher than would normally follow such a not funny comment, but he can sense George is scrambling to recover their usual dynamic and he’s not going to do anything to make George uncomfortable. He’ll play along, even if it’s not the direction he wants to go. “Not even on my birthday?”

“You’re going to be very annoying about this, aren’t you?” George asks, mind already made up. And, well, it’s not like he’s wrong. 

“I fly all the way out here,” Dream talks like he didn’t hear him because this is what pre-kiss Dream would do. “Bring you pizza from your favorite place on my birthday, no less, and you—”

“Shut up, stupid idiot,” George says, stealing Dream’s plate back out of his hand. “I have to do everything around here.” A flash to George volunteering to kiss him plays morosely behind Dream’s eyes and he tries to shrug it off. George’s shoulders tense and he knows that George hears the parallels, too. 

“Wow, what a host,” Dream manages to say, sounding semi normal. “Barely has to do anything when I provided everything, including my company and still finds it in his heart to serve me two pieces of pizza.”

“Go sit down, idiot,” George scoffs. “Do you want water, too? I have—” 

“I’ll take a Mr. Beast cup full of cold water, yes, George, thank you.”

Dream walks to the couch, feeling strange to see the walls of this apartment without a screen. He hears the sounds of George fiddling in the kitchen and uses the space between them to tell his heart to calm down. 

What was that, really? It was George’s idea to kiss him, and then—and then he backed off, like so fast.

Was Dream a bad kisser? He discretely smells his breath but he bought himself some gum at the airport and that’s kept his breath pretty fresh up until he spit it out right before the Uber ride. 

“Black olives?” George yells from the other side of the flat. “You got black olives on pizza? What are you, like, a serial killer, Dream?”

“What? What’s wrong with black olives? They’re good.”

“They’re disgusting. They’re vile, like, actually.”

“Well, you don’t have to eat them,” Dream laughs, falling comfortably into this back and forth with George. “I got you your own pizza. Basic pepperoni, just like you.”

“I’m not basic,” George argues, bringing a plate and a Mr. Beast cup over to the couch and placing them in front of Dream on the coffee table.

“You’re a little basic,” Dream says. “Objectively, I mean.”

“I’m not objectively basic. And I’m not arguing over what ‘objectively’ means again, Dream, I can’t do it.” He comes back again with his own pizza and water while he speaks and Dream admires him, watches the way he walks, so awkward in his gait. He’s no ballerina, George. But there’s something poetic in the way his sweat pants move with his legs, how they’re long enough to almost trip him up several times. It’s so rare for Dream to see the lower half of his body, he can’t help but stare.

“Whatever,” Dream says. “Bring napkins.”

“I don’t…um…”

“You don’t have napkins?” Dream asks, and has to laugh at the disgruntled look on his face.

“Well, I didn’t exactly know I was going to have guests now did I?” 

“George,” Dream says in the tone he reserves for when his best friend is acting like an idiot.

“I’ve got toilet paper and you’re lucky I’ve got that,” he says, plopping down next to Dream on the couch with plenty of space between them, like suddenly now he can’t be too close.

“That reminds me,” Dream says picking his pizza up for the first bite. George’s sang this place’s praises for so long that he has to admit his expectations are pretty high. “Can I sleep here tonight? I didn’t exactly have time to book a hotel or anything since Sapnap—”

“You can’t leave,” George interrupts and Dream picks up an actual note of panic in his voice before he carefully covers it up, fiddling with his plate. “I mean, you’re staying here. Sapnap needed a hotel room because he’s Sapnap. You’re you.”

“He’s Sapnap and I’m me,” Dream repeats the facts. “That clears everything up, thanks.”

George tears into his pizza and groans at the taste. Dream shivers a bit at the groan and decides he needs to have a serious talk with himself later about appropriate reactions. George doesn’t swallow before he says, “You’re welcome. And, really, though. Like you’re welcome here. I—” 

Now he decides to chew the rest of the pizza in his mouth before he swallows. Dream wishes he could say this is unusual behavior and he can’t. He’s heard George chewing for years now and it no longer bothers him, he’s immune. He chose a long time ago to accept the bad with the good, and really, so much good outweighs the bad. 

“Well, thank you,” Dream says because he’s not really sure what else to say. He pats the couch cushion like he’s petting a dog. “Me and old Bessie will get along fine.”

“Bessie? Who the fuck is Bessie?” George asks, raising his pizza for another bite.

Ignoring George, Dream turns to the couch to speak directly to her, they’re about to get very familiar with one another. “Don’t mind him, Bes. He doesn’t understand what we have together.”

“You’re so stupid,” George says, but he’s amused. Dream can tell. “You can’t just come in here and name my sofa.”

“I can and I did,” Dream says. “And if I’m staying here, then I’m buying napkins, too. Like, this is ridiculous. How do you live like this?”

“I don’t,” George says wiping the grease from his mouth on his sleeve and they both freeze when the words sink in. “I mean…”

“It’s okay,” Dream says, used to helping George when he gets too vulnerable. It’s like his full time job at this point. “Bessie and I will keep you company.”

“How long are you—” George asks, losing steam at the end of his question. They’ve talked about this before, many times. Neither of them can say bare to say good-bye at the end of it all. George wants to know how long before they break both their hearts.

“It was a one way ticket,” Dream answers for him, open ended. He’ll pick up the implications. “And it’s not like I have any obligations I can’t handle from here.”

George shakes his head, like he can’t wrap his mind around having Dream here for longer than a couple days. Neither of them have ever dared to think they could spend a significant amount of time together before the permanent move. He asks, “What about your family?” 

A pain shoots through Dream’s heart, but, fuck. This is kind of the first time he’s thought about them in the grand scheme of his adventure here. He takes a bite of his pizza while he thinks about it and how to answer George’s question.

“I’ll miss them,” he decides on. “But I can facetime them. I made it work with you, didn’t I?”

“And I didn’t even see your face,” George grumbles. 

“Oh, c’mon now,” Dream says, “you knew what I looked like.”

“Not, like, all at once.”

“You’ve seen pictures, though.”

“Not when you’ve looked like—” he waves his hand up and down Dream’s side of the couch and he doesn’t really know how to take that.

“I’m pretty sure I sent you a picture like a couple months ago at the latest,” Dream argues because they like arguing. They’re both good at it, stubborn. 

“You’ve never sent the whole enchilada,” George says, emphasizing enchilada with a Quackity voice. Dream rolls his eyes.

“You’re not allowed to call me ugly on my birthday,” Dream says, hoping George will be kind to him. He knows George isn’t cruel, isn’t mean hearted but sometimes he can take things too far if he doesn’t know they’re serious. 

“Hey,” George says, looking over at him and for a moment he’s the same George who stood in the candle light, the one who kissed him for his birthday. “That won’t be a problem.”

Dream nods, suddenly unable to talk through the emotion choking him. He disguises it by taking another large bite of his pizza.

“Do you want to watch ‘Better Call Saul?’” George asks after a minute or two. Dream’s thankful for the subject change. 

“Yeah.”

Familiar voices boom from the speakers that match the projector George has set up and Dream has to admit that it’s awesome. They talk about mundane things while they watch and finish their pizza, like neither of them can handle any sensitive topics right now. 

Several episodes into their marathon and Dream’s eyelids are drooping. 

“You’re tired,” George observes. “I guess you didn’t actually sleep today like you said you were.”

“Sherlock George,” Dream says illogically. 

“Did you get any sleep on the flight?” he asks instead of bothering to tell Dream how stupid his comment was. 

Dream looks back at the projector and shrugs. 

“C’mon,” George says, standing up and turning the projector off. It’s dark again in the flat, the moon must be behind a cloud or Dream’s eyes haven’t adjusted or something because it’s darker than it was before when the lights were off. “Dream, get up.”

“What? Why?” he turns to lie down fully on Bessie searching for the most comfortable position. Sure, his legs are too long to really find a position he can rest in properly, but he’ll do anything to stick close to George, to be able to make him breakfast in the morning. He’ll have to leave and find a store for actual food, but he’ll make it happen. He can do that much.

“Get. Up,” George says, emphasizing the words with a light kick to Dream’s hip. “You need to get ready to sleep. Brush your teeth. Did you forget how to be a human?”

“Don’t want to,” Dream says, nosing into the rough material, still warm from the heat of George’s body. 

“You’re not sleeping in my bed unless you brush your teeth, Dream,” George says softly. It takes several seconds for the words to register in Dream’s brain.

“But I thought I was kicking it with Bessie.”

George heads towards his bathroom and Dream gets the feeling if he doesn’t follow now, George might rescind that invitation. He’s not missing out on that, the chance to sleep next to George, hear his soft breaths in real time, feel the heat from his body, find out definitively what position he actually sleeps in, talk back to him when he sleep talks. 

No matter how sleep weighs him down, he jumps up with adrenaline and trails after George. “Well, let me find my tooth brush, I guess.”

“You do that,” George says, turning the sink on. Dream finds his suitcase where George threw it earlier in the evening and he tears it apart looking for his toiletries bag, everything a bit mixed up after the travel here. The pocket with George things calls to Dream, but there’s plenty of time for that. 

He places the pizza boxes in the fridge and the cake with two pieces carefully cut out of it on the shelf above them. They cut around the words so he still sees the words “Happy Birthday, Dream” written in generic cake writing, but knowing the sentiment comes from George, that he went out of his way to get that cake when he was going to be here alone. Something flips over in his heart. 

“Dweam!” George calls from the bathroom through toothpaste suds. “Hurry up.”

“I’m putting the food away,” Dream calls and yeah it needs to be done, but part of him is so scared to walk into George’s bedroom, to lie down on that bed. Will George want him to touch him? Will George want them to put up a pillow boundary? How are they supposed to— It’s not like it’s a large bed. Dream’s familiar with it from countless video calls to George from that exact spot. Gray sheets with red stripes on them, a navy blue comforter. It’s always looked cozy and so boyish, like even with all the resources in the world, George could only pick something he would have liked as a kid.

It reminds Dream of baseball, which is absurd because George doesn’t care anything about baseball. 

His toothbrush feels small in his hand, maybe that’s the London in the air—making things feel smaller. Or making Dream feel larger. He’s not sure. He hasn’t been here long enough to investigate. 

George spits out the last bit of toothpaste as Dream walks into the room. The space is small, cramped. He doesn’t know this room as well, aside from one visit to the toilet earlier in the night. It’s as blank as the rest of the flat, the only pop of color a burgundy towel hanging on the towel rack.

“Do you have any extra towels?” Dream asks once the question occurs to him. Sapnap didn’t pack him a towel, but he’s also not an all knowing god. There are bound to be things that slipped his mind. 

“One, but it’s dirty,” George says. “I spilled take away the other day and used that to clean it up, remember?”

Dream does remember. Three days ago George spilled soup all over his desk, almost reaching his keyboard and had a full on conniption until they, well, he, was able to clean it up. Dream hadn’t realized he grabbed his bath towel to do so.

“This wouldn’t be a problem if you had napkins,” Dream says while trying to keep his worry over the towel at bay. “Then your other towel wouldn’t be used.”

George rolls his eyes. “If you want a shower that bad, just use mine. I’ve only used this one once, it’s practically clean.”

“You haven’t showered more than once in three days?”

“Why are you surprised?” George shoots back, and yeah, that’s very on brand for him. Dream really shouldn’t be surprised at this knowledge.

“Whatever,” he turns the faucet back on and steals some of George’s toothpaste since he forgot that out in the suitcase.

“Take a shower, Dream. Get the smell of airport off you and then come to bed, okay?”

Come to bed. 

Come to bed. 

Come to bed.

Dizziness overcomes him in this tiny little bathroom, hand moving on autopilot to clean his teeth. He uses that as an excuse to merely nod in reply. It’s definitely not because he can’t find words to speak. Definitely not that. 

George, though. George gives him a shy smile, rare between them, and taps his fingers on the door frame like he’s not sure if there’s anything else he needs to say. 

“Help yourself to my soap, or whatever.” The tapping continues and he watches Dream brush his teeth, teetering on leaving.

Dream nods again, trying to decide if it’s been two minutes or ten seconds of teeth brushing and ending up realizing he doesn’t care. That’s enough of that. He spits into the sink and George chooses to take that as his cue to leave.

He forgot clothes, is the thing. 

The burgundy towel is bone dry, at least, and Dream doesn’t think about where on George’s body it’s been, telling himself it’s fine because George was clean from his own shower the only time he’s used it. He doesn’t think about how soft it is, or how this cloth has now touched his naked body against George’s—thinking like that is going to make him go insane. Dream’s starting to think it’s inevitable he’s going to go to insane at some point during this trip. Maybe that’s the real reason he’d been reluctant to come here, beyond not wanting to say good bye.

There’s nothing for it. He has to leave the bathroom to get to his suitcase and find more clothes. At least George will be in his room and he can avoid him. 

The door to this bathroom has always been finicky. Dream remembers countless times George complained about it, even once or twice when Sapnap visited. This is the same shower that George tried to record Sapnap naked. He smiles despite the uneasy feeling in his stomach, and wrenches the door open. 

Well, so much for George being in his bedroom. 

“George,” he says, watching George gather his suitcase together. The towel comes around his waist tighter, fingers white with his grip.

“Hey,” George says, adam’s apple bobbing as he stares at Dream’s chest. It makes him want to cover himself, get one of those monk outfits—no nun outfits—and cover his entire body except his face. The way George looks at him ignites him, brings the blood to the surface and turns his skin pink. “I realized we might as well, uh, put your suitcase in my room, right? So, you, like, have access to it.”

Dream nods longer than necessary, using it as an excuse to not immediately say anything. “Smart.” It’s lame, but it’s honest.

“And you need clothes, I guess,” George remarks, eyes trailing shamelessly down Dream’s chest. He doesn’t have abs, there’s no breadth of muscle or anything like that. He plays Minecraft for a living and hardly exercises outside a few times a month when Sapnap gets into his mind that he wants to lift weights. He’s not super satisfied with how he looks, chest hair stuck to his skin with moisture when all the men he sees in advertisements are hairless. 

“Clothes would be nice,” Dream agrees. He wants to stare at George forever and also never look at him again.

“C’mon,” George says with the suitcase thrown out behind him now, set on its wheels and ready to move. “Let’s go to my room.”

Dream follows him, feet padding quietly on the carpeted floors, slightly chilly in the draft. It’ll get hotter soon. There’s another heat wave rocking through London at the moment and George has been vocal in his complaints recently. 

“Here we are,” George says unnecessarily when they reach his bedroom. There’s the navy comforter, thrown into a ball at the end of the bed because George isn’t the type of person to make his bed unless someone is going to see it. And he didn’t think Dream was going to see it today, though he doesn’t care on video call. Dream spares a second to wonder if George did know Dream was coming over and that he was going to offer his bed, would he have made it?

 “No shirt,” George says and then clears his throat. “It’s going to get hot, trust me. Might as well not bother.”

The suitcase gets thrown into a corner of the room and Dream flinches, hoping the things for George aren’t crushed or broken, even if he can blame it on George himself for ruining his presents, but still. He’ll find time to sort it out tomorrow when he’s not exhausted and on edge. Hopefully he’ll be able to sleep lying next to George, the smell of his sheets an answered mystery. He grabs a pair of boxers and joggers, hoping that’s enough to meet George’s standards and quickly steps into them under his towel while George is distracted.

Back turned to Dream for a semblance of privacy, George unballs the navy comforter and spreads it out, throwing the material up into the air and whipping it down. The blanket flies outward and covers the bed and George must consider that good enough. Dream watches as he goes through his nighttime routine—phone plugged into the built in lamp charger, a habit ingrained from sleep calling until their phones run out of battery, he makes himself at home on the left side of the bed. Funny how he made a big fuss, but George is keeping his t-shirt.

George carefully studies his phone while Dream approaches the bed, like acknowledging his invitation would be too much, like if he can pretend this is just a more immersive sleep call, things won’t be weird or awkward. It sort of works.

Dream slips under the covers and George continues scrolling. Over his shoulder, Dream can see it’s Discord. “What’s everyone up to?” he asks around a yawn. Now that he’s horizontal, the sleepiness is returning.

“Who?” George asks.

“Whoever you’re talking to,” Dream answers, wondering if he should turn on his side away from George.

“Just Sapnap covering for us in the group chat and bragging in the DMs,” George explains, “same old.”

“Hmm,” Dream hums, the smell of the pillow alluring and warm. The same pine that can be found in George’s hair and shower, and most recently, on Dream himself. He’s starting to like pine. “Can you turn the light off? ‘M sleepy.”

“Sure, Dream,” George says and flips the lamp. The darkness is indistinguishable to Dream’s closed eyes and without much effort, no calming playlists or meditation sessions required, he drifts soundlessly into slumber.

It’s still dark out when something awakens him. A change in air temperature, a sound on the street below, or the fingers tap dancing up his shoulder, any of these things could have woken him. 

“George?” he mumbles, hoping the fingers belong to his best friend and not some strange British boogeyman. 

“Sorry,” George whispers, fingers stalling. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“’S okay,” Dream slurs, brain not firing on all cylinders but focused on George. He turned in his sleep, face inches from George’s, knees knocking slightly under the navy covers. It’s warm. Too warm. In his sleep, he pushed the covers down to his waist, leaving his chest bare to the room and upon looking closer, he can see the poor light reflecting off of George’s skin, too. At some point he shed his shirt and Dream missed it, too busy sleeping like a life changing event wasn’t taking place two inches from him. Maybe he should never sleep again. 

“You alright?” Dream asks later, when George’s fingers don’t start up again and wilt onto the bed below them, the dead man’s land of space between them. 

“I—” George starts and Dream recognizes this George, this lights off George. He’s only met him once in the kitchen, heard rumors of him on the phone over the years, seen peeks and inferred here and there. This George—he’s a different breed. He says things regular George won’t, does things regular George won’t. 

“I keep thinking I must have fallen and hit my head,” George finally whispers into the night air. The moon gives a pale glow to the walls around them, glinting off the whiteness of the barren structure around them. George forgot to draw his curtains and Dream never knew them to be an issue. 

“Why?” he dares to ask into the room. He can guess. But he wants George to say it, verbalize it. He wants that George who reaches for his mouth to speak on it.

“You know why,” George says and doesn’t complain when Dream’s fingers capture his between them. He’s had enough of this not touching thing.

“I’m that dreamy, huh? Fantasize about me a lot?” Dream lets the humor fill the air, gives George an out if he needs it, never wants to pressure him or make him uncomfortable.

It’s to his surprise when George answers, “Yeah.”

But oh he almost forgot he was dealing with darkness George, the one unafraid to say and do what he’s thinking. Oh, Dream could like getting to know him.

“Really?” Dream says, playing it up, pulling George’s fingers up to his mouth to press kisses lovingly against them. 

“You’re too good to be true,” George says so quietly that Dream thinks it wasn’t meant for him, but some ghost of George’s, the same thing haunting him.

“Well, what am I doing in these fantasies?” he dares to ask, holding his breath in his chest until it tightens into a ball of steel. “What can I do to, uh, give you the full experience?”

“I’m not—” George sighs hard enough to blow the hair out of his eyes. “Are you sure you want to know?”

“I’m asking, aren’t I?” Dream counters, using his thumb to brush the skin of George’s palm. He leans in closer, bringing their bodies closer together. It’s already warm in the room and the closer he gets to George the hotter he becomes. “Tell me, George.”

“We’re lying like this,” George says, voice low in a way Dream isn’t sure he’s ever heard it. Not calculated, not sick, but like arousal billowed like black smoke and took him hostage, lending a smoky edge that has Dream torn between keeping his breath in his chest and panting full out.

“And what else?”

“I dunno,” George says, more unsure than teasing.

“You don’t fantasize about us staring at each other in the dark, surely. There’s more to it,” Dream says, sure in his assessment.

But George has been known to surprise him, it’s what keeps everything from becoming stale. He merely says into the stillness of the room, “I sort of do, though.”

Dream’s not sure what to say to that. The boldness that came over him to wrench some kind of confession, a way to put them on equal footing and making George feel as off kilter as Dream does, it fails him. He stares across the expanse of the bed, George’s face both closer and further than it’s ever been. 

George’s other hand comes to the lock of hair falling into Dream’s eyes and rakes it back, George’s gaze following the movement like something else is controlling the hand, a betrayal. “Your face, Dream. It’s—”

“It’s what?” he asks, tension filtering through every ligament in his body until he’s tight as drum. The hand lingers on his cheek, a welcome weight. Once again Dream imagines his cheek grew for this hand alone, a pillow for it to rest.

“It’s—I just always wanted to see it,” George ends up saying, finally bringing those hypnotic eyes to stare into Dream’s. “I mean, in person. Like this. I wanted to see you, know you.”

“I want to know you, too, George,” Dream says, more honest than he’s ever been in his life. 

“It’s your birthday,” George says, thumb copying Dream’s and stroking the skin beneath his eye. “But it feels like my birthday.”

“George.”

“Like this is a gift for me. You. Here, I mean.”

Dream gets what he’s saying and he’s not even surprised he needed to wait to say this under the cover of darkness, it’s not something he ever would have pried from George’s lips over the phone, across an ocean, without the weight of his soul streaming out of his eyes and into George. He knows that. 

Dream’s always been the bold one of the two of them. He was the first to message George, the first to ask to VC, the first to send a friend request, never afraid to reach out. He never wants to overstep and he’s learned over years of friendship with George to know how to read him, the press of his fingers is new, but the tremble in his voice isn’t.

“If it’s your birthday,” Dream says roughly, voice strained with emotion that he’s so scared to unleash, “then you deserve a birthday kiss, huh? I hear that’s an important tradition.”

“Dream,” George says, tone a mixture of things Dream can’t decipher, a little reticence, a splash of nerves, threads he can’t unravel in the darkness. He decides to pick a string and pull at it until the entire knot breaks apart or he’s made more of a mess.

Slowly, enough to telegraph his intentions and give George a chance to retreat, to back away, to say no and mean it, Dream pushes his face closer, until their noses graze and Dream thinks how strange it is that he’s never thought of his nose touching George’s in all the years he’s spent longing for him, yearning to reach out and meet the mortal construct that houses George’s soul. 

He doesn’t back away.

“Do you want your birthday kiss, George?” he asks before letting his lips fall onto George’s, wanting verbal confirmation before he delves into them again. The stark difference between a kiss between friends in the kitchen and a kiss between two people thoroughly enthralled by each other lying horizontally in a bed is… massive.

“It’s not really my birthday, though,” George explains and Dream isn’t sure how to take that, if it’s a panic response, or a way to turn him down. He doesn’t think so, though. George wouldn’t have moved them in this direction if he wasn’t a willing participant, wouldn’t have started the kissing in the kitchen, wouldn’t be staring at him with more pupil in his eyes than iris.

Still, Dream isn’t going to take any chances on this friendship. It’s the one thing he can’t lose and if George needs more time, that’s something he can grant. “Well, I don’t really have to kiss you,” he says and retreats the smallest amount.

George follows him across the bed, hands tightening on his face and waist, grabs his pants where they meet across his hip and clings. “No, you—” his breaths come out heavily, pained, almost. “You do. You have to kiss me. I need you to.”

Dream smirks.

“You need me to?” Dream says but he’s already zeroing in on George’s mouth, his new favorite flavor, the place he wants to set his permanent spawn. 

“Yes,” George says, a fire burning behind his eyes. “So kiss me, idiot.”

“Always with the attitude,” Dream manages to get out before the words are swallowed by George’s kiss. This isn’t anything like the kiss in the kitchen, this kiss heats up without help of the candle, George pushing for more more more and Dream giving in, like he always does.

George’s tongue greets his like a husband home from war, like it’s been dreaming of this reunion, starving for Dream’s touch. Dream lets him take control of it, happy to fall into whatever George will grant him until it becomes obvious that George has no direction, only passion, and he wants Dream to take charge. They’re like this, give and take, communication made easy by a deep, holy, understanding of each other, complements. 

Dream reads the signals from George and pushes him harshly onto his back, earning a gasp of arousal in return. He’s on the right track. George glows in this moonlight, skin porcelain white from eschewing the sun, no hair on his chest at all until Dream’s fingers graze his belly button. 

He can’t stay away from those lips for too long, they draw him back in, a starving man going back for seconds, thirds, gorging himself. George meets him, head bent at a strange angle to be closer to Dream and it makes his heart ache, to be wanted so badly in return, for George to choose to be uncomfortable just to chase his pleasure with Dream. The idea is nice, but Dream forces him back with his bigger body and George follows, allowing Dream to rain over him, press him lightly into the mattress, their mouths moving effortlessly together.

Heat and fire and whatever burns hotter than fire, starlight, maybe, churns between them, soaks them. George’s body lies delicately beneath his and Dream feels a powerful responsibility for him, always has, but especially in this moment. Smaller, physically weaker, he places his hand on George’s wrist and drags it up over his head to rest on the pillow above them and he could snap that wrist in two if he wanted. He wouldn’t, but the knowledge that he has to keep George safe is there. He has to protect him, use his strength and size to ward off predators. 

Dream’s getting almost animalistic in his thinking, that’s what George brings out of him. He’s not alone. 

“God, you smell like me,” George pants, hips grinding heavily onto Dream’s, “that’s so fucking hot.”

“Wanted to smell like you,” Dream tells him, eager to have nothing spared between them. “Want to bathe in you, have you sweat on me, come on me, anything.”

“Fuck,” George hisses as he grinds up on a particularly hard thrust. Dream hates that he can’t feel him properly, that there are still layers between them. Sweat slicked chests rub together, the friction of his chest hair against George making his nipples puff out pink. He needs those in his mouth, too. There are so many parts of George he wants to devour, to learn the shape of as if he’s a toddler, acclimatizing to their world through their mouth.

Breaking away, Dream lets his lips target a nipple and then licks tentatively over it. He’s used to women, used to nipples bringing pleasure to his partners, but there are some men that it does nothing for, or so the internet tells him. George seems to like it, if his back arching and the sounds coming out of his mouth are anything to go by. 

“Dream,” he moans and his free hand cards into Dream’s hair, to keep him there. The pinpricks of pain against Dream’s scalp make it feel more real, ground him. He moves his lips around, sucking lightly, biting enough to tease, backing away to breathe softly across them, goosebumps prickling around until he’s satisfied. “Enough. I’m going to die, Dream.”

“Well, don’t do that,” Dream laughs at him, “I was going to blow you next and I want you to be around to enjoy that.”

“Fuck,” George moans, his hand abandoning Dream’s head for his own, dramatically. “You’re going to be the death of me. Death by sexiness.”

“That’s not a thing,” Dream says, endlessly amused.

“It’s a thing and it’s happening in front of your eyes, Dream,” George whines, hand hiding his eyes like the visual stimuli of Dream caterpillaring down his torso to reach his hips is too much for him.

“Watch me,” Dream demands, tongue poking out to lave at the waistband of George’s boxers, teasing him. “Uncover your eyes and watch me, George.”

“Can’t,” he says, “I’ll die. I’ve already said.”

Dream reaches up and moves George’s arm off his face, getting a thrill at being able to maneuver his body like this, that George will let him. He brings the wrist off to the side and pins it with their fingers tangled, their hands already matching fettered on the other side. He’ll need his hands again soon, but for now, he holds George down the way they both seem to like.

“You’re so strong,” George says and it’s more of a whine, more of a complaint. “Bet you could just hold me down and fuck me if you wanted to.”

“George!” Dream exhales sharply over his hip bones, the shock of hearing those words making harsh waves rise in his belly. 

“And I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it,” George continues, eyes tilted downward to stare at Dream, show him how much he likes the idea. 

Dream noses at George’s dick through his boxers until his hips arch, and then says, “We’ll be having a talk about boundaries and safe words before anything like that happens,” George’s hips twitch again under him. “But I’m not, like, opposed or anything.”

“Fuck,” George gasps. “Need you, Dream. Please.”

“My mouth?” he asks, breathing hot, moist air over his clothed cock. “You want my mouth on you? Let me suck you off?”

“It’s your birthday, I should be sucking you off,” George says but he brings a newly untethered hand down to push at his boxers, like he can’t wait any longer.

Dream lets his other pinned hand go and helps, throwing the material off towards the pile of other dirty laundry George is letting stack up in the corner of the room.

After spending a lot of time thinking about penises as, like, an abstract concept—if he would like them, touching them, potentially letting them inside him, faced with George’s cock, Dream is happy to announce he’s a fan. Theoretical knowledge that he finds some men attractive is one thing, to stare down the gauntlet of the dick of the man who caused the sexuality crises is another. 

He stares at it a moment, wanting to memorize the way it looks in case George changes his mind after this and he never gets another moment alone. He’s not circumcised, which is already intimidating enough. Sparse pubic hair in a way that suggests regular grooming, balls and shaft smaller than his own, Dream takes in the lay of the land. He hungers for it, mouth starting to salivate and it’s just—that doesn’t seem like it should be a thing.

“Are you going to touch me at any point or just, like, give me some kind of complex?” George asks when Dream stares a little too long.

“Like you mind when people stare at you and call you attractive,” Dream grouses, but lets his hand close around the shaft and take in the minute differences between his own dick and George’s—skin is skin, but somehow George’s is softer, a shade paler, his veins are slightly off from Dream’s own.

He loves what his touch does to George, how his head falls backwards at just that, how he huffs little quiet breaths into the air above them, like he’s trying to keep them quiet, keep himself controlled. And he can’t.

Dream wants to snatch even that ability from him—he wants George heaving and writhing under him, he wants to be the best George has ever had, has ever thought about having. 

With that in mind, he pokes his tongue out and more than licking, lets the tip of George’s uncircumcised penis hit his mouth. This catches George’s attention.

“What are you doing, idiot?” he asks, looking down to see Dream lathering George’s dick around his lips like he’s putting on chapstick. It’s not weird—okay, it’s totally weird, but he wants the full experience, he wants the precome to fall on his lips and taste it before he dives in. He wants George to remember this, damn it. “Just stick it in!”

“Starting to see why it’s been so long for you,” Dream mumbles, now daring to poke his tongue into the slit at the tip of George’s dick. “’Just stick it in’ honestly.”

“Well?” George asks, thrusting his hips closer, like he can entice Dream that way. It doesn’t not work. “Are you going to?”

“Oh my god, you’re so impatient. Fine. I’ll ‘stick it in,’” he says with a roll of his eyes to show George he’s just teasing and not actually mad. He settles himself between George’s thighs, lightly dusted with fine hair, and uses one hand to anchor George’s hips. The other he keeps on George’s cock, bringing his mouth down around the head. A hiss sounds from above him, George’s reaction to the feel of Dream’s warm mouth and, yeah, he gets it. He gets why people do this. He feels powerful, larger than life.

With growing confidence, he pulls more of the cock into his mouth, taking care to swirl his tongue around, all the things he likes on the receiving end. It’s working on George, that’s all he knows. His right hand lets George’s hip up in order to carefully hold his balls. He’s heard from other guys that they like that in a blow job. It’s never been a game changer for him, but he wants to find all of George’s tells, wants to learn all the triggers to elicit the highest pleasure from him, so he’ll give anything a chance.

George squirms harder when Dream plays with his balls. Maybe they’re more sensitive when they’re smaller, he’s not sure. He loves how they feel, though, a weight that feels right in his hand. 

Meanwhile, he takes more and more of George into his throat, feeling bold under the mewls George voices above him, almost more encouraging than any words he could say. Dream hits the back of his throat and, yeah, feels the need to gag, coming up gasping for air, eyes watering. He still likes it though, likes the sting and the way it alights his nerves.

“Y’okay?” George asks, finding Dream’s cheek with his fingers, checking in on him. 

“Yeah, yeah ‘m fine,” Dream says and then dives back in, this time knowing what to expect and prepared to push through it.

He hums a little to himself, a curious sound not meant to entice, though he would have if he’d consciously thought of it. The vibrations make George go crazy—his chest heaves with loud breaths, the hand on his cheek flies backward to grab Dream’s hair like talons, and George’s hips thrust wildly, too wildly.

“George, you idiot, stop trying to fuck my throat,” Dream says, panting as he pulls off, “I am very new to the blow job game and I’m not ready for that.”

“How new?” George asks shakily into the room, hips practically vibrating with their need to move, but he holds them in place. 

“Long time lover,” Dream snorts, laughing before he can even get the rest of his thought out. “First time blower.”

“Oh fuck that’s hot,” George says, half laugh and half whine. Boil the two of them down to their essentials and Dream feels like it would be that—humor and passion. 

Instead of thinking about it too hard, he could cry thinking about how special this moment is, he makes himself stay in the moment. They haven’t talked, he has no idea if George—he has no idea what this is. If he only ever has one shot at this, he’s going to savor it. He’s going to keep the taste of George beneath his tongue.

No warning, Dream slips George’s dick back in his mouth and starts a good rhythm, for the first time with the intention of making him come. He’s teased him long enough. His balls tighten in Dream’s grip, hips barely restrained under his chest, George being careful not to hurt him and Dream appreciates it. 

“I’m close, Dream, god, you’re so fucking good at this,” George says. “How did you learn this so fast?”

He just knows George, that’s the only secret. He can read him, knows every emotion by his breath alone. He can tell if a move is right by how George breathes, how crazy is that? 

“Dream, I’m going to—” he warns again and this time Dream’s ready, letting go of his balls to push his hips to the bed so he doesn’t choke again. George can’t hold himself back any longer and he comes down Dream’s throat. He tries to swallow, wants to be a trooper. A small bit escapes and he sits up on his knees and wipes it off with the back of his hand. He looks down at George, flushed with arousal, sated and panting, looking so unearthly beautiful in the limited light of the room. 

Darkness George has him in a chokehold.

“Let’s get you now, birthday boy,” George says after a moment, and for the briefest second Dream’s confused. Until George sits up partially and pulls him with a hand on his cock through his sweats. Suddenly his own need hits him like a truck, his heart pumping fast in his chest, dick harder than it’s ever been in his life. Just from blowing George and a little kissing. Damn. Surely George feels this too, surely he’ll want this again and again and again and— 

He has to, right?

George flips them with much effort, until they lie on their sides, back to chest. “You want to fuck my thighs, Dream?”

Well, now he does.

“Are you sure—”

“Dream, I asked you, idiot,” George says with exasperation. “Obviously I’m sure. But, if you’re not sure, I’m not going to—”

“No, no,” Dream cuts George off, letting his dick rub against George’s ass, showing his interest. “I want to.”

“Yeah?” George asks, pushing his ass back into Dream’s dick to make him groan, pull the sound out of him. He can practically feel George’s satisfaction. 

“Where’s your lube?” Dream asks, remembering at the last second not to mention Sapnap knows about George’s lube situation. Talk about a mood killer. 

George turns his head over and indicates the nightstand on Dream’s side of the bed, “Drawer.” 

Dream takes the chance to kiss him again, he can’t get over those plump lips and how they feel against his. He keeps it brief with the idea of thigh fucking on the horizon. He pulls away and leans back to grab the lube out of the top drawer. There, lying almost provocatively, is the drondom he mailed to George eons ago, its twin sitting comfortably in his wallet. 

He can’t help it. He laughs.

“What?” George asks, turning around again, too nosy by far. Dream picks it up and waves it around in his face.

Heat boils over somewhere inside him, replacing the humor. That’s his avatar. That’s his color. That’s his. “I’m going to fuck you with this condom with my brand on it at some point,” he promises, voice low and sultry. 

George goes lax, back falling against Dream’s chest again. He rushes to get out of his pants and underwear, dick hard as a rock. He throws them somewhere, flings them out into the abyss, it doesn’t matter where. Because the only thing that exists right now is this bed—Dream, George, this bed, and this lube.

“Not right now,” Dream continues, bringing his hand down to George’s hip and padding at the bone, skin stretched tight and sensitive. George shudders into the touch and brings his hips back to meet Dreams’. His dick falls against George’s crack and he’s this close. He can’t help giving a couple weak thrusts against it, the anticipation for finally fucking George is going to kill him, but he can wait. George only put his thighs on offer. Also, the lack of showering thing. “Not right this second. Right now I’m going to fuck your cute little thighs, slide myself between them while you squeeze and I’m going to come all over you.”

“Dream,” George whimpers and lets his legs form an opening so Dream can put lube between his thighs—probably too much. He’d rather have too much than not enough, he doesn’t want to hurt either of them. He takes the remainder and coats his dick a couple times, not that he needed the stimulation, and lines his chest up against George’s back again. They fit together so perfectly, it just feels right.

It feels even better when George reaches between his legs to pull Dream through, to get him right where he wants him. He pushes his thighs together, tightly, until Dream’s vision almost whites out in pleasure.

“George,” he pants, unable to say anything other than his name, unable to think anything other than his name.

“Fuck me, Dream, it’s okay,” George encourages, reaching his hand back awkwardly to grab Dream’s hips and pull him forward. It’s almost too much.

Almost.

“Oh my god,” Dream lets slip, moving his hips just the tiniest amount now, unwilling to spill early. No, he wants to milk every second of this, the greatest moment in his entire life. Happy birthday to him. 

He can almost feel the hair on George’s legs and the idea makes him go crazy. It doesn’t slip his mind that he’s a man, these thighs are his best friend’s and there’s no one else he’d rather be fucking right now. He’s hit the jackpot. 

He no longer has control over his hips, it cedes over to George, careful hand still placed on him to direct things. It’s all tight, warmth, the smell of pine in his nose, eyes rolled back in his head, George’s body welcoming him in every way. There’s a thought that he can’t let go—that George’s hole is just right there, the only thing better than his thighs. 

Dream’s orgasm hits him like that bus hit Regina George. He comes inelegantly all over George’s lower back, the come sinking into his crack while Dream watches and he thinks about bringing his hand up to wipe it in, make his mark seep into George’s skin, like maybe that will be what lets him keep George. Like maybe George could belong to him like he’s starting to realize he belongs to George.

Sleep comes easy but rest does not.

Dream wakes up with George’s hair in his mouth. It smelled like pine yesterday, a smell Dream now shares, but man. If George hasn’t showered in four days now, he really needs to.

“George,” he says, spitting hair out of his mouth. He usually only deals with Patches’ hair, a hazard of owning a cat and one he accepts with grace. 

George doesn’t respond, only nuzzling closer into Dream’s neck, his breath hot on Dream’s tacky skin. He’s not doing anything to beat the George is a cat allegations today. Dream thinks he’s unbearably cute. 

“George,” he says again, nudging his bed partner gently in the shoulder only to be met with moaning, and not the kind he heard last night. “Ugh, fine. I’m getting up without you, then.”

Helping himself to a quick shower, ridding himself of the sweat and leftover come, he laughs that he’s been here less than twenty-four hours and he’s already showered twice in this shower. More than George has in the last week. 

The little burgundy towel goes back on the rack and Dream straightens it while he brushes his teeth. George’s toothpaste is a different brand than his own, but he doesn’t hate the taste. It’s kinda nice to explore different toothbrushing flavors, branch out a bit. 

George still isn’t awake by the time he makes it back into the bedroom to find clothes. He rummages through his suitcase and finds something to suit the weather and cringes knowing he’s going to look so American. Sapnap packed and if Dream had been able to pack his own suitcase, he wouldn’t have included only basketball shorts. But here he is, in London, with the taste of his best friend seared into his memory and he’s not going to complain. Not today.

There’s still only pizza, cake, and condiments in the refrigerator when he opens it later, not even the Mr. Beast cups were replaced by fridge fairies. Sighing, Dream wonders if his bank knows he’s going to be in the UK and then realizes he spends enough money here that it probably won’t matter if he purchases something at the Tesco at the end of the street. He texts George that he’s going out, grabs his face mask abandoned on the counter, and doesn’t lock the door behind him, no telling when George will wake up. 

In the cool air of the London morning, Dream walks with a spring in his step. He picks out some staples at Tesco, manages even to score a very scratchy towel that he’s going to force George to use later, and carries the bags back to George’s flat all in under thirty minutes. 

Thank fuck there’s a frying pan hidden away in one of the cabinets, because Dream didn’t even think to look for one of those at Tesco. He recognizes it as one George bought for a cooking stream, likely only used the once. No, he knows it’s only been used the once. Throwing together ingredients for pancakes, Dream starts making breakfast. 

“Dream?” he hears when he’s flipped the second set of pancakes. The first one was a little wonky so he put that one on his plate, let George have the better looking ones. 

Floppy hair, red rubbed eyes, George walks into the kitchen in just his briefs. Dream notes the bruised skin on George with pride and greets him with a smile he can’t hold back even if he wanted to, a shy, private smile, vulnerable in the daylight after the switch back and forth of George last night. He holds his breath to see which George he’ll encounter this morning. “Hi, George.”

George walks up to him at the stove and hugs him from behind, keeping his arms loose so that he can still man the hob. “You weren’t there when I woke up.”

Dream laughs lightly in relief, in fondness, in many different ways. Oh, his George. Maybe there never was a Darkness George or any other version. They’re all just him. He grabs George’s hand with his free hand and squeezes him. 

“You were sleeping so hard,” he says, “I tried to wake you like four times and then I stomped all around the apartment, like, I wasn’t being quiet. Not my fault you didn’t wake up.”

“You should have woken me,” George complains, mouth speaking directly into the gray t-shirt of Dream’s back. 

“Oh, like that would have gone over well,” Dream says, plating the current pancake and reaching over for the mixture delicately so as not to dislodge George from his back. 

“Depends on how you woke me up,” George says, nosing deep into Dream’s back like a cat trying to get its scent on him. Point taken, George.

“Oh?” Dream asks, pouring more pancake batter into the frying pan. He likes where this conversation is going now. “How should I have woken you up?”

“A blow job never hurt nobody,” George says and Dream feels him press harder again his back, hard enough Dream has to let go of his hand to catch himself on the counter. 

“I blew you last night, idiot,” Dream says, breathless. “And it’s my birthday. Why do you get two blow jobs and I get zero blow jobs, huh?”

“Your birthday this,” George says, “your birthday that… get a new line, Dream.”

“What, like ‘just stick it in?’” Dream teases. 

“Okay, shut up,” George says.

“Hey, why don’t you go take a shower and I’ll finish breakfast?” Dream suggests. If they keep this up, it’s going to be Dream that lights this place on fire and he can’t let George have that over him. He’ll never hear the end of it. “I got a new towel at the store, so you should have a clean towel.”

“What if I don’t want to shower?” George asks, but he’s already unwinding from Dream and stepping away. 

Dream checks the bubbles on his pancake and decides it needs another couple seconds before he flips it. “George, you have to shower. It’s been four days and you’re covered in come.”

George rolls his eyes like somehow Dream is the one being unreasonable here. “I washed it off with my t-shirt last night,” he argues, “and it’s your come, anyway, so like, what’s the problem?”

“George!”

“What?” He makes his eyes big and his lips pout and he absolutely knows what he’s doing. And Dream isn’t going to let it work on him. 

He shakes his head, indulgently, and says, “go shower.”

“But I want you to come with me,” George whines. “It’s so boring.”

Dream likes the sound of that, but that shower is microscopic and there’s no way they’ll be able to indulge the way he thinks George thinks they’ll shower together. “Then speed run it and maybe, just maybe,” he holds up the syrup bottle newly purchased with this morning’s cache of gods, “I’ll let you dirty me up later.”

George laughs uproariously at him. Not exactly the response he was looking for. “That was awful, Dream. I’m not licking syrup off you. It’s going to get all in your chest hair and your pubes, like, just trust me that’s not a good idea.”

“Well, way to ruin the fun, George,” Dream says, feeling the frown mar his face. He’s seen pictures of it, it’s not his favorite look. 

“I’m just saving us some trouble—”

“Go shower, George,” Dream says more demanding this time, spatula pointing at him before he sweeps it down to flip the pancake. 

“Fine, maybe I will,” George says, incapable of letting anyone else have the last word, whether he’s in the right or not. Doesn’t matter, not to him. Dream rolls his eyes again, harder this time, until he feels like his eyeballs are going to pop backward into his head.

The shower starts in the bathroom and Dream smiles to himself. It’s the little victories.

They share a lovely breakfast, Dream’s insides turning warm to be able to provide food and a home-cooked meal for George. 

“So,” he says when he’s thrown away the paper plates they used, syrup stickiness too viscous to bother with real plates, lest they want to spend precious time scrubbing them. He leans against the bar of the kitchen, overlooking George’s setup. “Are we going to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?” George asks, too casually. Dream can see right through him. He decides to have mercy on him, because technically, there’s multiple things they need to discuss. He can leave the sex alone for now. They can always circle back. 

“I think I want to face reveal in the next few days,” Dream tells him and by the way George’s head shoots up to study Dream, he can tell he’s surprised him. Genuinely. There’s not many times outside of Minecraft gameplay that he gets to surprise George, and vice versa. Well, besides traveling to London to see him. But that was Sapnap’s fault.

“You’re going to—really?”

“Yeah,” Dream says, the idea solidifying in his mind. It has the timbre of the other iconic ideas of his life—online school, working for Apple, giving Youtube a real shot. 

“I want to stay here,” Dream says, “with you. Until the visa comes through, I mean. And then go back to Orlando with you. Together.” 

He watches George’s face carefully, trying to read him, trying not to offer his heart up for slaughter. George doesn’t give anything away, almost like he’s waiting for the entire story, like he knows Dream has more to say. Fuck, it’s Dream, they both know he always has more to say. 

“And if I’m here for, let’s face it, a while—” he looked up in the airport at his gate that he can stay in the UK without a visa of his own for six months. That’s a long time, but then again, not long enough if they need to re-apply after a rejected visa. Not that it’s going to get rejected, just— “then we’re going to need to be able to leave your apartment, you know? I want to see shit. I want to see shit with you, specifically.”

George stays silent and it’s starting to annoy Dream. This is their lives. As much as it sucks, Dream’s face reveal affects George, too. They go hand in hand. Dream’s face reveal ushers in a new era of content for George—IRL videos, vlogs, things that Dream knows will launch him even further into the spotlight. He just has one of those personalities. It’ll happen. And soon. 

“All I ever really wanted was you there,” Dream explains. “I just needed to meet you first and now I have. So, I’m ready.”

“You’re really okay with not doing it in Florida?” George asks after a painful moment of silence, his hands are interlocked in front of his chest, fingers playing with each other. Dream hasn’t seen him do this very often, he hates that there are still things he needs to learn, and by the same token, he loves that there are still things to learn. 

“Yeah, I really am,” Dream says with as much reassurance as he can. “Orlando would be ideal, sure, but only because I want you there so bad. I want—”

“What?”

“I want us to start our life together and we agreed a long time ago it would be in Orlando. That’s the only reason I pushed for it for so long. But I can start our life right here, too,” he says, heart hammering in his chest to put himself out here like this. What if George says no? What if George wants to live their lives parallel to each other, but not combined the way Dream aches to? What if George doesn’t have romantic feelings for him? What if last night was a weird lust, pity, birthday sex thing? 

Dream swallows nervously. Maybe he should have thought this through more—he’s light years ahead of George. He’s messed this up. He went and ruined the best thing he—

“Here’s good,” George says, reaching a fiddling hand out to meet Dream’s. As small a gesture as it is, it speaks volumes. George is a loud guy, but not with emotions. Those he keeps safe, guarded, sometimes Dream thinks, even from himself. 

A smile breaks out over Dream’s face, he can’t hold it back, like waves on the sand. Smiles like this one, even once it does fade, it’ll leave an imprint. “Yeah?” Dream asks, slipping his fingers between George’s confidently. He likes the way they fit together here, too. It’s everything about George—their personalities, their bodies, their hands—they just fit. 

“Yeah, I—” George says nervously, stepping closer to Dream, into the safety of his personal space here in this kitchen. “We’re talking about the same thing, right?”

“I think so,” Dream says. “I hope so.”

“You said ‘our life.’”

“I did.”

George looks questioning up at him, nerves and self-conscious awkwardness written into every line on his face. Dream adores him. “What does ‘our life’ look like to you, Dream?”

“Anything so long as you’re next to me,” Dream answers truthfully. 

“But what do you want it to be?” George asks earnestly, rare for him and all the more precious for it. Dream doesn’t want to mess this up. God, he hopes he isn’t. “Your ideal version.”

“You’re really going to make me—”

“Yeah,” George says, eyes turning mischievous and glinting with hope. Dream shudders. “Say it, idiot. Answer me.”

“You,” Dream says. “Me. Together.”

“How?” George asks, and Dream’s starting to get annoyed now. It’s obvious what he’s saying, why is George doing this to him? It’s so easy for him to sit there and look at Dream with those big brown eyes, like he’s pinning a butterfly up on a board—a lime green butterfly with a smile blob on it. He feels like he’s under a microscope, his secrets open viewing.

George lifts his eyebrows up as if to prompt Dream to answer and Dream, well, Dream loses the modicum of sanity he’s been hanging onto, ever since he came here, ever since the candle in the cake, really, ever since that kiss.

He’s only a man. A fallible, deeply human, man.

He explodes, “I don’t know George, for us to belong to each other? To wake up like I did this morning, but not have to question what it means. To call you mine and hear you call me yours. Boyfriends, husbands, what the fuck ever, I just—” he slows down, curious at how much he let spill, how much George can pry out of him. “Is that what you want to hear?”

“’Husbands,’ Dream?” George asks but even through the haze of annoyance, Dream can tell he’s pleased, amused, even. The space between them twiddles down until George’s chest is pressed against his rapidly beating heart. 

“Not, uh—” Dream stutters, thrown off by George’s closeness and his lack of real response to Dream’s word vomit. “Not immediately. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” George echoes, eyes pinning Dream in place. He’s like a snake charmer and Dream, the poor hapless snake. “But eventually? You want that?”

“I dunno,” Dream admits. There are a lot of variables that would go into such a major decision. He’s thought about, is the thing. They’ve laughed about it on stream, talked seriously in private about using it as a way to get George to the states sooner, it’s inevitable that he’s thought about it. George has too. He’s never hated the idea. “Maybe.”

Marriage to George sounds doable in a way that it was never going to be an option with his ex. No matter how much he cared for her, it was never a card on the table. George, though. God, he’d give George the world.

“Well, you’ll have to ask me properly one day, won’t you?” George asks and, oh, he’s delighted. Dream’s been stuck in his own head, his own emotions, but George is pleased and—

“What would you say?” Dream asks as George’s hand runs up his arm. “if I asked you? One day. Can you see yourself married to me?”

His hand winds around Dream’s neck and he loosens the other in Dream’s clenched fist to meet its half. They’re secluded like this, as if the boundary of George’s arms are keeping everything else at bay, keeping them safely inside. Dream likes the comfort it brings, the security of George’s touch. 

“Now that I know the sex is off the charts,” George says, mouth tantalizingly close to Dream’s, how is he supposed to think in this conversation if George is this close? “And I know you’re willing to make me breakfast, yeah, I guess I could see myself saying yes to you. You’ll have to just settle for being my boyfriend for the time being, though.”

“Boyfriend?” Dream sputters. It’s not cool or cute or anything like George, but it’s honest. His hands rest easy on George’s waist and he draws him closer, their hips kissing.

He can’t help but feel a flicker of disappointment through all the happiness. George still hasn’t managed to say it, say anything about how he feels about Dream. He gets George, understands him fundamentally on a level that most people never have the pleasure of knowing another human being, so he knows that big confessions of admiration and fondness have never been George’s thing. 

Dream’s fine with that. Mostly.

It’s just… if they’re going to start this off right, truly begin a life together, he might need a bit more. He needs to hear George admit to having feelings for Dream, he doesn’t want to navigate blind on this. He needs definitive words, something he can point back at one day when George, inevitably, drives him crazy, something grounding.

As the giddiness of being George’s boyfriend fades while this realization sinks over him, Dream turns serious. 

“George I want to try this with you. What we had last night was… so good I can’t even find words for it,” he holds him closer, the heat from George’s arms seeps into his skin while the pressure of their weight draws his face closer to George. He doesn’t fight it, he goes willingly. Dream needs confirmation, but he’s not unwilling to compromise. He’s always been able to negotiate with George, barter time and truth, and he finds in this moment, that love is no different. He can offer his own up first for an equal trade. “So, I’ll say it first, I can do that for—”

“I love you, Dream,” George says, eyes filled with delight and love and mischief. “Boom, beat you to it. In love. Romantically. Take the L, Dream.”

“George,” Dream croaks out between the shock of the words and George’s willingness to give them so easily, he can barely talk. “Really?”

“Yeah, you idiot,” he says, bringing Dream’s face down enough to place a delicate kiss to the corner of his mouth. He pulls away an inch and Dream can barely look at him, he’s so heart-stoppingly beautiful. “Of course I do. And you love me.”

“Yeah,” Dream says, realization slowly dawning on him that he’s one of the lucky ones—everyone is going to hate him even more for this. The average man will never experience this type of love and happiness in their life and here he is, his entire universe between his hands. “I really, really, do.”

It takes little convincing for Dream to get George to take him somewhere easily recognizable as London for his face reveal picture. The two of them catch an Uber and Dream only feels slightly ridiculous typing in the address for Big Ben into the app for their destination. The driver raises an eyebrow at George’s accent, but one look at Dream’s basketball shorts and his face morphs into realization. Dream laughs it off, asks him about his day, winds up learning his entire life story.

George holds his hand on the seat between them and scrolls twitter with the other. It’s nice that they can use their non-dominant hands to stay close and not handicap the other. Turns out there are some benefits to George being left handed. 

The sun is starting to set in the sky when they hop out of the car, Dream wishes Ahmad a good evening and to say hi to his nephews, and then he’s staring up at the stupid tower. 

“You still want to do it?” George asks, maybe sensing something buried deep down in the bog of Dream’s fears and insecurities. Their shoulders are brushing, standing side by side in front of this stupid tower on the wrong side of the Atlantic. 

But they’re together.

“Yeah,” Dream tells him, as George pulls out his phone and sets it to selfie mode. He pulls his mask off nervously, watches George do the same through the camera, and then they find the right angle.

Big Ben. George.

Dream, no mask.

Georgenotfound: for my biggest fan !! here’s the pic i promised, it’s too bad you left your phone at home. nice meeting you :]

Dream: ‘Biggest fan’ because I’m so much bigger than you, or…?

Georgenotfound: happy birthday, dream

Dream: Best one yet <3

The flat transforms in the weeks Dream calls it home—several new, fluffier towels reside on the towel rack. There’s a stack of napkins hidden in a drawer in the kitchen. Dream’s clothes drift into George’s wardrobe, both of them too lazy to bother separating them after tackling the laundry. The pots and pans of the kitchen slowly start to show more wear as Dream cooks for them a couple times a week, usually while facetiming Sapnap or his family.

 George’s setup has two sets of passwords memorized for streaming, and for all their accounts. Once Tommy knows Dream is in London, they’re brow beaten into a trip to Brighton to see him. They meet fans and friends alike and Dream marvels in the impact he’s made on the internet, he encounters it in person for the first time and he’s proud to have George by his side while he does.

They meet George’s family out for dinner, Dream shitting bricks beforehand but leaving with George’s sister’s number and a promise from his mom to send George’s embarrassing baby pictures. His dad shakes Dream’s hand and calls him ‘son,’ and Dream finds another way to fit with George. 

It’s fun.

Everything he does with George by his side is fun. An adventure.

And when an innocuous envelope arrives in George’s post box when they return from Brighton, they both cry. Dream escorts George to the house in Orlando, but he can’t even think of it as home any longer. Because home is just George.