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Like most things lately, Sapnap blames it on the pandemic.
He's just spent almost a year living alone and then he's moved in with another guy who's done the same and, well, something was going to happen, right?
That "something" happens in the form of watching The Wedding Singer together on the living room couch together, because when the credits roll, Sapnap and Dream realize they've ended up snuggled together far more closely than necessary, given that there's a whole other half of the couch available. Half of Sapnap wants to sit bolt upright from where his head is resting in Dream's lap and pretend this never happened, but that half is kicked to the curb when Dream quietly asks, "Is this okay?", and hell, Sapnap's not about to lie to his best friend, so he says, "Yeah" just as quietly and Dream nods and moves to run his hand through Sapnap's hair which he enjoys a totally normal amount. And now that that particular boundary has been crossed, they leave it all the way behind them and move on, and cuddling on the couch during movies becomes a regular thing. And cuddling on the couch without movies. And cuddling on the floor when they're too tired to get up. And so on and so forth. Hell, they're both crazy touch-starved, what could anyone expect from them? Everyone gets cuddly with their friends every once in a while. At least, Sapnap is pretty sure they do, probably.
Sapnap is aware they're pushing up on another boundary in their friendship - emphasis on friendship, thank you very much - when Dream can't sleep because of a nightmare or panic attack or something like that, Sapnap doesn't ask because it's not his business, and he shows up in Sapnap's room at midnight, silhouetted in the doorway and lit up by moonlight. Sapnap definitely doesn't think he's beautiful or ethereal or any other word like that. That would be ridiculous, because they're friends. Definitely friends.
Dream doesn't need to say anything for Sapnap to know why he's here. He pats the bed, and Dream smiles gently in a non-adorable way and slips all the way into the room, shutting the door behind him. He slides under the covers and buries his head in the crook of Sapnap's neck.
"You okay?" Sapnap asks softly, trailing his fingers through Dream's unruly hair.
Dream nods, smiling into Sapnap's neck. "Yeah. I am now."
(Sapnap definitely doesn't stay up thinking about what those words mean and staring down at his sleeping friend - friend! - with eyes that aren't at all full of adoration. Absolutely not. He would never.)
From then on, they end up sleeping together every night. Somehow. In a normal platonic besties way, of course.
It's only another week before the next boundary gets smashed to bits one Tuesday morning - not that Sapnap purposefully catalogues that information, or anything - when Sapnap wakes up and finds Dream wrapped up in his arms, already awake, and smiling at him. He yawns widely and starts to mumble, "Mornin-", but he's cut off by Dream destroying the inch of space left between them and pressing his lips to Sapnap's. Sapnap freezes up, shocked, and Dream takes that as a cue to pull back. Sapnap kind of wishes he hadn't given that cue.
"Is..." Dream's voice is quiet and gentle in the way that it only is around Sapnap, for normal friend reasons, Sapnap assumes. "Is this okay?"
If Sapnap hasn't made it clear yet, he could never lie to Dream. "Yes," he breathes out with the average amount of excitement. "That's definitely okay."
And then they definitely don't spend the rest of the morning cuddled up in each other's arms, intermittently pressing kisses to lips, foreheads, cheeks.
Definitely.
It's another week later that they make out for the first time. And the second time. And the third. And, well, you get the idea.
This time, Dream doesn't even ask if it's okay. It's implied.
(And also they just know each other that well now, can just figure the other out in a split second, without a second thought. Because they're best friends, of course.)
A couple days later, they're laying in bed together, about to go to sleep, Sapnap's head pressed into Dream's chest, their arms and legs equally tangled, and when Dream presses a kiss to Sapnap's hair, he almost, almost asks the terrible, horrible question, almost says What are we?
But then Dream tilts his head up with the light tap of a finger against a chin and catches Sapnap in another gentle kiss and Sapnap decides he doesn't need to know what they are as long as he gets to keep this. Whatever this is.
For months, this becomes the new normal. They hug and kiss and cuddle, when Sapnap's cooking sometimes Dream will come up and wrap his arms around the shorter man and press kisses to the top of his head, sometimes Sapnap uses Dream's lap as a chair when they're watching TV, sometimes Dream will try and fail to edit videos on a laptop sitting on the back of Sapnap, who's burying his head deep in the spot between Dream's neck and the couch. And it's all normal and they don't have to worry about what it means because this is just how they are.
And then, after those few months, everything changes. Because that's when George moves in.
They meet him at the airport and he's grinning and laughing and making the obligatory comments about how tall Dream is and it isn't until he follows George's wandering gaze that Sapnap realizes his and Dream's hands are intertwined. He wonders why he'd done that, but more than that, he wonders why he doesn't let go.
George gets a tour of the house and gets a loud, mewling greeting from Patches when he fails to instantly acknowledge her presence. As he leans down to laugh and pet her, it occurs to Sapnap that this time, he's been leaning his head into Dream's shoulder - or at least, as close to his shoulder as he can get with the height difference - without noticing.
Again, for reasons he can't explain, he doesn't move.
///
The next couple days, it feels like George is staring at them everywhere they go. Sapnap can't figure out for the life of him why. They're not doing anything weird, there's no unnoticed stains on their clothes, there's not any more Patches hair sticking to their jeans than usual. It comes to a head when one day, they're all hanging out in the living room, and George suddenly asks, "So, how long have you two been together?"
"Huh?" Sapnap replies, assuming he heard the question wrong. Dream's hand freezes where it had been busy carding through his hair while he uses Dream's chest as a pillow.
"How long have you two been together?" George repeats, and Sapnap doesn't appreciate how the words are still exactly the same as he heard before.
"We're...not," Dream says slowly, eyebrows furrowing in that cute way they do when he's confused - not that Sapnap thinks it's cute, of course. It's merely an objective fact.
"You're not?" George asks, looking genuinely perplexed for reasons Sapnap can't puzzle out.
"Uh, no?" Sapnap says. "Why would you think that?"
George looks at them in disbelief. "Seriously? You guys are literally cuddling on the couch as we speak. You share a room and sleep in the same bed. And if I had a dollar for every time I walked in on you guys making out in the past four days, then I'm pretty sure I'd be a rich man."
Sapnap looks up and meets Dream's gaze, and they share a silent agreement of so what's the big deal?
Dream is the one who breaks the look and responds first. "Yes...? And? That doesn't mean we're together."
George is clearly grasping for words, but none seem to be escaping his mouth, which opens and closes without a single sound coming out. When he finally manages to speak, what he says is, "Uh. Okay, then." He clears his throat, and then, as if nothing had happened, he goes on, "Anyways, I was wondering if you guys wanted to stream together tomorrow?"
Sapnap smiles and answers and so does Dream and the conversation continues as normal except for how Sapnap can't stop thinking, we aren't together, though...right?
///
Dream is out shopping, so it's one of the extremely rare occasions that Sapnap isn't glued to his side. Sapnap's spending the time impatiently waiting for his friend - friend, he swears - to get home while lying limply in their bed. He wonders absently when he started thinking of it as their bed.
There's a knock on the door, and Sapnap knows it's George, because Dream doesn't knock. He just walks in and it's always okay because there's no boundaries between them that a door need represent. In a platonic way.
(Except every time he tells himself that it feels less and less like the truth.)
George slips in and closes the door behind him. "Hey," he greets Sapnap casually. "Can we talk?"
Sapnap groans. "If this is how Dream and I were making out on the kitchen counter this morning, I swear we didn't think you'd be up that early, okay?"
George is very briefly at a loss for words, and then he shakes his head as if throwing off the cobwebs and says, "Uh, kind of, actually."
"Well, like I said," Sapnap says, rolling over in bed the bare minimum needed to meet George's eyes, "we didn't think you'd be awake. And it's not like that was fucking scarring or something, like-"
"Hang on, let me finish," George interrupts, and as much as Sapnap wants to bite back with a No, you let ME finish, George's deadly serious look makes him think better of it. "Sapnap," George says, not breaking eye contact in the way that means if you say one snarky thing to me right now I will hit you over the head with my laptop and still tell you what I wanted to say, "why the hell do you think you and Dream aren't together?"
Sapnap lets out a groaning sigh that translates to some variation of this again? "Because we aren't? Dude, let it go."
"No, I won't, actually," George says, "because you two are notoriously dumb as fuck and you have been acting like a couple ever since I saw you at the airport so either you're lying or you are very fucking oblivious."
Sapnap is completely at a loss for words at this point. "I," he begins, and then thinks way too hard before continuing, "I, uh, we don't like each other like that."
George's sharply raised eyebrow is worth a thousand words, but he says some out loud anyways. "Really? You don't?"
Sapnap shrugs as best he can when he's laying down in bed. "I mean, I can't speak for Dream, y'know, but I definitely don't."
"You don't," George says flatly, clearly not believing it for a second.
"I don't," Sapnap confirms with what he's sure qualifies as a sufficient amount of certainty.
George rocks back on the balls of his feet, annoyance starting to crack through his casual demeanor. "Okay, fine. How about this? What do you like about Dream?"
Sapnap wants to argue, to point out that this is a stupid question, but he knows that won't get him anywhere, so he doesn't. Instead, he relents and answers, "Well, he's nice" in an attempt to sound normal but instead it comes out stilted and weird, and he can tell by his face that George notices. He sighs and tries again. "Well, he is nice. But also he's really sweet and knows me really well and when I'm feeling down he knows exactly what to do and like...obviously he's really cute, like, even if it wasn't him, tall guys are my fucking type, but it is him, which is so much better, and like, not to be shallow, but he's a hell of a kisser-" He stops short when his brain runs back through the words and he realizes what he's said. He sits straight up and blushes so hard his cheeks feel like they're on fire. "Oh my god. I do like him like that."
George is very clearly trying not to laugh at him, but it's not working very well. "No shit," he says, a healthy mix of proud and smug.
Sapnap stares at the wall, fully aware of how dumb he must look, so wide-eyed and red in the face, but aside from being aware of it, there's nothing he can do about any of it. Just like there's nothing he can do about his suddenly very obvious feelings for his friend. Fuck. He turns to lock eyes with George, and blurts out, "Oh god, you can't tell him. Don't tell him, please. It'll just make it weird."
George chokes out something laugh-adjacent. "Telling Dream you're into him will make you guys sharing a bed and constantly making out weird?"
Sapnap nods. Is that not obvious? "Yes, it will! Just - just don't say anything, okay?"
George presses his lips together, considering, and Sapnap is absolutely terrified that he's about to refuse. But instead, George just says, "Okay. I won't tell him." Then he turns and leaves the room again, shutting the door behind him, and leaves Sapnap to flop back into bed and stare at the ceiling as if it holds all the answers. A few minutes later, Dream gets home, and joins Sapnap in their bed. He wraps his arms around Sapnap's neck and gives him a quick kiss and Sapnap is amazed by how this doesn't feel different at all, even knowing what he knows.
///
"You're going to have to tell me where we're going eventually."
George snorts, turning onto another side road that makes Sapnap feel like he's about to get murdered and left to rot in the middle of buttfuck nowhere. "No, I don't. Trust me, okay?"
Sapnap leans back in the passenger seat and groans overdramatically. "I do. Barely. You're on thin fuckin' ice, Gogy."
It's been two days since The Conversation and Sapnap has done his best to pretend his and Dream's whole Thing is still just as normal and platonic as it used to be - or maybe as it never was, actually - but it never seems to work. Today, with no warning, George had grabbed him and forced him into the car for "an important thing, I promise", and Sapnap couldn't figure out a valid arguement against that, so here they are. The sun has just set as they're driving, and the moon and stars have come fully into view. It's a beautiful night, really.
George makes one more seemingly random turn and "parks" in a grassy dip off the side of the road. When Sapnap looks out his window to survey the area, he sees there's another car already parked here. A car he knows.
Before that train of thought can go on any further, George is shoving something into his lap and unlocking the doors. Sapnap looks down to find that he's now holding a picnic basket with a messily folded blanket set on top. When he looks back up, George is gesturing into the field in front of him, towards a lone tree with a figure leaning against it.
"Go on," he says, gesturing a little harder, as if saying come on, dude, get out. "He's waiting."
Sapnap wants to ask who's waiting?, but the thing is, he already knows.
And so he goes.
When Sapnap reaches the tree, unexplained picnic basket in hand, Dream turns to face him, his face lit by the moon just like it was the first night they shared their bed. The memory warms Sapnap's heart, and he speeds up just a little to close the rest of the distance between him and the man he may or may not love in a possibly non-platonic way.
"Hey," he greets Dream, only barely out of breath.
"Hey," Dream responds, a warm smile on his face, and throws a curious look at the basket in Sapnap's hands. "What's that?"
Sapnap shrugs. "Dunno. George drove me out here and pretty much threw me out of the car with it."
Dream laughs, a short, light, bells-in-the-wind laugh, much unlike the cackles and wheezes that he gives to anyone else. "Yeah, George gave me directions out here and just kind of told me to show up and wait. I think he's pulling something."
"Wanna find out what?" Sapnap asks, dropping the basket onto the ground. Dream grins mischievously, as if this is their own plot rather than George's.
"Always," he says, snatching the blanket, which unfurls as he shakes it out, and haphazardly throws it onto the ground beneath them. "After you," he says, extending a hand towards the blanket. Sapnap laughs and sits down, and Dream follows shortly after.
Sapnap grabs the basket and pulls it closer to him, opening it up as he does. Inside is an assortment of the usual picnic fare - sandwiches and chips and a few Capri Suns, which Dream immediately snatches at before Sapnap can even figure out what flavors they've been given. On top of the food is a piece of paper folded in half, which Sapnap takes and unfolds curiously. Dream leans to rest his head on Sapnap's shoulder so he can read along. Sapnap barely gets two lines in before he goes bright red.
Dream + Sapnap,
I know you're into each other, because I asked both of you and you told me so. You guys are just stupid. Now can you figure your shit out and get together already?
Much appreciated,
George :)
(P.S.: Also if you could stop making out in front of me, that would be pretty cool too. At least not in my room, maybe?)
Dream removes his head from Sapnap's shoulder, and they both turn to look at each other, both mirroring the other's shocked look.
"You're into me?" Dream asks, hushed and breathy. He looks like he can't believe that such a thing could even be possible.
"You're into me?" Sapnap echoes, in just as much disbelief as Dream.
"Yeah," Dream answers immediately. "Of course I am. You're funny and sweet and so fuckin' cute, dude, how could I not fall in love with you?"
"You're in love with me?" Sapnap squeaks out in a way that is very unlike him. Dream's eyes snap wide open.
"I - I mean, I didn't - I mean, what I was trying to say was-"
Damn it, Sapnap is tired of watching Dream scramble for words like this. So he fixes it in the way any self-respecting man would - he grabs Dream by the hoodie and pulls him in for a kiss.
They sit there, lips pressed together, barely moving but also not needing to, for what feels like a million eternities, and yet still not long enough. Sapnap is the one who pulls back first, and whispers, only stumbling over his words a little, "That's, uh. That's okay. Because I think I might be in love with you too." He laughs. "'Cause I'm kind of starting to think we haven't been kissing and cuddling and sharing a bed in, like, a platonic way."
"Yeah," Dream replies, moving to run a hand through Sapnap's hair, the way Sapnap's gotten so used to, so attached to. "I'm starting to think the same thing."
And then they kiss again, in a way that is absolutely definitely for sure not in any way at all even close to platonic.