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October 30th. There’s an orange-and-black countdown calendar next to the fridge, reminiscent of shitty peanut butter candies, and Dream flipped it down to 1 that morning right after he woke up. The house was empty, and he wondered where his roommate had gone, but he figured it wasn’t a big deal.
Now, the clock promised late afternoon, and Dream still sat alone in the house. He wasn’t waiting, per se, but there wasn't much to do, leaving him to lean against the kitchen counter and fiddle with something on his phone just to waste time.
Then the door opened. Predictable, creaking, and without pause. Dream looked up from his screen, a basic greeting laying in sugared wait on the tip of his tongue, but he never got to say it.
Seconds after the front door opened, all the carried shopping bags hit the floor. It was noisy, and they were clearly filled with candy, a bag of Kit-Kats and Reese’s cups falling out onto the floor in the entryway.
“Dude,” his roommate started, a startled mix of shock and awe. “Why the hell did you do,” he gestured, upward, “that?”
Dream laughed, running a hand through his hair; he figured that’s what Sapnap was referring to. “This?” he asked anyway, clarifying.
It earned him a displeased look from his roommate. Dream grinned in supplied answer, wide and marshmallow white, the hand in his hair still resting there with wisps of dyed ebony peeking out from between his fingers.
“Yes,” Sapnap huffed, “that.”
As his hand dropped back down to his side, Dream shrugged, easy. He was a little more nonchalant about it than he thought he would be, because admittedly, he’d sat in the chair at the hair salon earlier with shaking fingers and lips bitten in regret.
But he didn’t tell Sapnap that; Sapnap would laugh at him, and call him an idiot, and tell him that’s why he shouldn’t dye all of his hair the darkest color he can. Instead, he’s simple, and it’s not feigned because his fingers aren’t shaking anymore, but it still feels like ignoring the truth.
“Earlier today,” he answered.
Sapnap narrowed his eyes at him. Dream tilted his head to the side, a motion that was barely-there, and it shifted the hair hanging down in his eyes slightly. He saw it in front of his vision, darker than he’s used to.
Prodding, Sapnap asked, “Okay but why?”
And Dream merely shrugged again. In truth, he lacked a real answer, because he made the decision at the last minute when he was wandering around their house, bored and alone. He went out and got his hair dyed when he didn’t know what else to do, and now he was here, standing on opposing sides of the kitchen island to his roommate and grinning like he’d thought about this all along.
“For fun,” he said simply, and it spilled through a satisfied smile.
Sapnap’s eyes did not settle for acceptance. They only sized him up more, and he stepped closer to the counter, looking between Dream’s hair and eyes as if there’s some kind of secret to be held between them.
And he scoffed, light. “You never told me you wanted to dye your hair.”
Dream didn’t know what to say besides the truth. “It was an impulse decision.”
Sapnap looked at him like he’s out of his mind. And he gestured again, broad and pointed, hands jabbing in the general direction of Dream’s darkened hair with widened eyes.
“But—” he started, stumbling, but his footing regained just as quickly as it slipped, “now all your hair’s black!”
That’s the point, Dream wanted to say, but he didn’t. He swallowed the want he had to challenge, and he smiled, giving the exact reason he gave himself when he walked out the door to get it done.
“It’s festive.”
Sapnap rolled his eyes, a light shake to his head as he stepped back away from the counter. “You’re so weird.”
So Dream scoffed, quiet. He knew he could’ve put up more of a fight, but he didn’t; it was a stupid argument anyway. He didn’t even think he could fully grasp why they were arguing—it was only hair dye, and it was only temporary, and Dream had already watched streaks of ebon paint the bottom of their bathtub to solidify that.
The silence was deafening. Sapnap did not move to pick up the candy from the floor in the entryway, perhaps forgotten where it sat a distance behind him. Dream looked at it, considering, watching where the red and orange wrappers peeked out amongst the fray.
It felt easy to forget about. Momentarily, Dream forgot, too.
“Less about me,” Dream said suddenly, topic changing swiftly. “Where the hell were you all day?”
And it wasn’t like he had to know. He was only curious, an honest question phrased in a way meant to corner him, paired with a sticky caramel smile fit to kill.
He was teasing. Fingers toying with the ends of his black licorice hair, Dream teased, obvious and pointed.
“Who are you,” Sapnap quipped, lilted, “my mom?”
“No,” Dream argued playfully. “I’m your roommate.”
When Sapnap looked at him disapprovingly, Dream flicked his eyes upward in a playful roll. He blew air out of his mouth to shift his bangs where they hung over his forehead, resigning to elaboration in accompaniment.
“And your best friend,” he relented, a shrug to his broad shoulders. “I’m just curious.”
Sapnap resigned, too. It was almost surprising to see him do it so quickly.
“I was just with Karl,” he muttered, cheeks tinted bubblegum, as if he didn't want to admit it. “We got a bunch of candy for the party thing tomorrow.”
Dream scoffed again, but he was laughing this time. A smile carved into his face like a Jack-o’-lantern, glowing orange candlelight slipping through his teeth. He figured his eyes may glint, too, fiery and mischievous.
“Party thing?” he mocked, cruel in the way that’s laden with mirth.
Confused, Sapnap raised an eyebrow. “What?”
Green eyes flicked in a roll, careful and teasing. Perhaps Dream was being unnecessary, but he figured the subtle drama of it was more entertaining than leaving it be.
“It’s just a party, dude,” he corrected.
“Whatever,” Sapnap huffed, shading pink embarrassment red with annoyance. “Shut up. I got a bunch of candy.”
Softly, Dream hummed, a near-silent acknowledgement. And he let Sapnap bask in his own self-pity for a moment, unamused by the fault of being teased to the point that he crossed his arms.
Dream thought it was funny. It was funny. He figured this is why the two of them could be such close friends; they balanced each other’s teasing without stumbling missteps. And Sapnap could act bothered, and he could frown and scrunch up his nose, but Dream would be able to tell that he wasn’t really annoyed just by looking at the way his eyes glinted with lime sugar.
Expectant, Dream asked a question. A quick nod to his head, a curious look, sugared words dancing easily on his tongue like there wasn’t accusation.
“What are you and Karl dressing up as?”
And Sapnap seemed to lighten up, arms uncrossing at the same time his face lifted bright. It made Dream smile—how could it not?—because Sapnap was always so blinded by Karl that it would make him miss an underlying intent.
It was sweet. In the way that hard candy sticks dipped into blue sugar, it was sweet.
“It’s a secret—” he started, giddy, only for the realization to settle in his lime-coded eyes. “Wait, how the hell did you know we’re doing a couples thing?”
Dream scoffed again, obvious. The answer was even easier than the question.
“Because it’s Karl.”
Sapnap frowned again. But he didn’t get mad, because it wasn’t an insult. Dream knew that he was right, and he knew that Sapnap knew that, and he knew that he was picking on him about something he liked about Karl.
Endearing, he liked to do things together. Dream knew this because Sapnap was rarely alone.
“Fine,” Sapnap relented. “Whatever.”
And he changed the topic, sweet tart annoyance never leaving his voice. Dream could find something sucrose in the words he spilled, but there were acrid tones, too, and it was so near to being a mess that Dream thinks he would’ve missed it if he’d known Sapnap any less than eight years.
“What the hell are you dressing up as, anyway?” Sapnap prodded, curious.
Dream was surprised they hadn’t talked about this before today.
“I got a cool mask,” he explained, and he thought about it, sitting right where he’d left it in his room. “You’ll see.”
Sapnap’s face split into a grin, carved pumpkin wide and glowering with a hidden candle’s flame. Dream figured it was at his expense.
“Great, cool mask and black hair,” Sapnap started, sarcas brimming, “awesome costume, Dream.”
And Dream was right. At his expense.
“Shut up—” he tried, failing predictably to Sapnap’s interruption.
“Or should I call you Nightmare?”
It was not funny. Even if Dream was swallowing sticky caramel laughter, it was not funny. He turned instead to the bitter cyanide hiding inside the apple seeds, sarcastic and cruel against tanned skin.
“Ha, ha,” he mocked, friendly but devoid of sticky sugar. “You’re so funny.”
Even if Sapnap could see the grin tugging gently at Dream’s lips, he sputtered as though he couldn’t take it.
“I thought it was good!” he defended, fruitless.
Dream shook his head with a sigh, pushed through tight lips without the show of vanilla teeth. The argument died with a huff from Sapnap, displeased, feet swiftly moving against the tile to carry him away in retreat.
Dream turned to follow Sapnap with his gaze, calling accusation out at his back.
“You’re just gonna leave all the candy on the floor?”
He got exactly the answer he expected.
“Fuck you!”
October 31st. There were people in Dream and Sapnap’s house, and the dizzying neon lights were colored orange and purple. Music played from found in the living room loud enough for Dream to feel it in his bones, and he finds himself in the mostly empty kitchen more often than not. A countdown calendar next to the fridge displayed a 0, and Dream thinks it might be the best day of the year.
He’s wearing the cool mask he got, which Sapnap only told him—jokingly, of course—that it was a lame costume eighteen times before anyone showed up. It’s black with an orange face, halfway to looking like a Jack-o’-lantern where it sat on his face, just enough space beneath it for his lips to remain exposed.
His vision was a little shaded, but he made do. He thinks it’s a good costume—despite what Sapnap told him, mirth and all—and he liked the expression given to the little orange smile. As for the rest of it, he’s merely dressed in black: ripped jeans and a well-fitted hoodie, combat boots that fall heavy to the floor.
Karl and Sapnap are dressed as Sally and Jack Skellington, respectively. Dream could tell that it was Karl’s idea, because of course it was, but it’s still sweet to him nonetheless. He thinks observing their relationship could be fun at times, even if it made him feel lonely.
Because he was, decidedly, lonely.
Maybe not for long, though.
As people streamed in and out of the kitchen, flurrying between drinks and dancing in the living room, Dream watched who came and went. He felt a little strange, watching the faces of classmates and strangers alike to sew if anyone caught his interest enough to pursue, but he figured that it was a party, and it was his house, and he was overdue on meeting new people.
So he watched. With a plastic cup of orange soda in his hand, he watched, pursing his lips tight and tapping a boot-clad foot against the ground. His mask made the world look darker, but it was still clear enough for him to catch the boy who would finally provoke his interest—not a classmate, a stranger.
Chocolate hair tamed barely by the orange of a baseball cap on his head. A jersey to match, buttoned up front, and tight, tight pants that are doing everything for his ass. Dream can act like he didn’t stare, but it would be in vain.
He’s staring.
It took him another beat to process the boy’s costume completely—he’s dressed as a baseball player. And he reached across the counter with his lithe, alabaster hands, stretching for a plastic cup that might’ve been a little bit too far away from him.
Dream moved quickly, grabbing a cup off the stack and setting it closer to the brunet, who smiled up at him through red licorice lips. He seemed to flinch at the realization of the mask’s set evil eyes staring down at him, but the worry passed quickly, and he gave an appreciative nod with tight fingers around plastic.
“Thank you,” he muttered, slipping around the counter with eyes for something.
Dream couldn’t tell. Everything looked the same through his mask, so he just didn’t look to the mess of drinks strewn about the counter, instead focusing attention on the still nameless brunet whose existence seemed so fleeting.
He could leave at any moment. He could leave now if he wanted to. He could be gone the second his cup was full, without a trace, blending back into the honey-thick mess of people in the living room until his pretty face became one with the crowd. Dream didn’t know him, or who he was with, or if he was the kind of person to call hanging out in the kitchen a waste of a party or think the lights were too loud.
But he did have the utmost intent to get to know him.
So he slid up next to the boy, leaning against the edge of the counter as he watched him take a sip from his drink. He gave Dream the side-eye while he did, not accusing but not comprehensive, either—he had an eyebrow raised, careful and calculating when his gaze slid down Dream’s form in a roll.
“I’m Dream,” he offered when the boy’s lips were still busy, a smile under his Halloween mask.
It was coy.
“George,” the brunet introduced, setting his plastic cup down on the counter. “I like your mask.”
Dream let himself grin wider. He ran a hand through his hair, black licorice between his fingers, calling attention to it. “Thank you.”
George seemed to pick up on the silent cue. He nodded toward Dream gently, lifting a hand towards his messy hair where it showed above the top of his mask.
“And your hair, too,” he added. “It matches.”
It was more of an observation than anything, perhaps meaningless when it really came down to things. But Dream still smiled, giddy and visible, pointing toward George rather quickly and with too much excitement in his body language.
“That’s what I was saying!” he exclaimed, bouncing slightly on his toes.
He caught when George winced, eyes shaded by the brim of his orange baseball cap. Dream soothed down immediately, falling flat on his feet, a curl of nervous laughter slipping past his lips to distill the newfound tension.
He doesn’t think it worked.
“Sorry,” he muttered anyway, sheepish. “My roommate told me I was stupid for dying my hair black.”
At that, George furrowed his eyebrows. He seemed to be inspecting Dream, an examination of sorts hiding behind his darkened eyes, and he looked between the dark hair on Dream’s head and the anxious smile on his lips rather intently. It made Dream feel tense, sticky caramel inside his chest.
“What color is it supposed to be?” George wondered aloud, taking a single step closer for a better look.
Dream furrowed his eyebrows. He knew that George couldn’t see it, face hidden behind a Halloween mask.
“Blond?” he answered, though he wasn’t sure why it came out as a question.
George squinted, vision invisible, and he seemed to consider again. To examine. Sticky caramel tangled between his ribs, messy with milk chocolate and curling nougat a mess inside his chest.
Dream is made of fun-size Milky Ways caught under dark combat boots. They crush, and they flatten, and they spill all over themselves. He watched it happen with interest.
“Oh, yeah,” George muttered under his breath. “I can see that.”
Beneath the mask, Dream pursed his lips. He wasn’t sure how to respond, messy sugar around his sternum, but he tried to think of what to say. Maybe he thought too hard and too long and with too much apology, and he figured it was a good thing that George couldn’t see his face.
Was there even any point in reading so far into this?
“Anyways,” he started, changing the topic before he could think any longer. “I like your costume.”
He could barely see when George’s cheeks turned to bubblegum in the dimmed light of his kitchen. And even where he could notice, George tipped his head down, hiding under the shading brim of his baseball cap until the only thing Dream could see clearly was an embarrassed smile on his licorice lips.
“Thanks,” he said with a laugh, smoothing a hand down the front of his jersey. “I kind of threw it together last minute.”
George shook his head, jaw lifting to return his gaze to Dream’s—or, what he could find of Dream’s, when he was hiding his eyes behind a wicked orange mask.
Another laugh came spilling past tight red licorice. “Karl would’ve killed me if I just came in cat ears or something.”
Realization settled on Dream’s face, momentary and alight. He knew that George wouldn’t be able to see it, so he pointed toward him with a single outstretched finger, aimed toward the center of his orange-clad chest.
“Oh, shit,” he began, slightly breathy, “you’re here with Karl?”
“Yeah?” George prompted, eyebrow lifting to a hide beneath the brim of his cap. “Why, do you know him?”
Dream laughed, unsure if that could cover half of it. He certainly knew Karl, damned to suffer through the candied way Sapnap spoke of him, drooling with melted sugar running unburned on the stovetop. He’d heard a thousand things about the guy, every single one of them bathed saccharine, and he’d watched him hang off his best friend’s arm with giddy smiles and excited giggles that could paint the whole room lavender.
So he knew Karl. With laughter still brimming his nearly-hidden lips, Dream answered without the same liquid sugar that lived on Sapnap’s tongue.
“He’s my roommate’s boyfriend.”
It was George’s turn to realize.
Recognition spread through his melted chocolate eyes, distilling cocoa sugar with burning pink strawberry and the sick sweetness of familiarity. Not far off from rose-colored glasses, prismed and roseate, filtering his vision reminiscent when he stared up at Dream with notice.
“Sapnap?” he asked, and Dream’s lips curled.
As opposed to…?
“Yeah?”
“Oh my god,” George muttered, halfway to disbelief. “You’re that Dream?”
And Dream laughed again, thick like salted peanut butter. It covered his lips and tongue, invisible when it meshed with George’s chocolate eyes, a blend that wouldn’t run amuck or fall without a tinge of speckled grace.
“As opposed to all the other Dreams?” he offered, lilted by design, and he would savor the sweet moment of George’s cheeks turning to bubblegum beneath his caramel freckles.
“Whatever,” he huffed, defeated. “Shut up, it’s late.”
Dream looked at him with a tart sense of suspicion. He knew that George couldn’t see the dimming look in his eyes behind a mess of orange and coal black.
“Are you drunk?”
“No,” George answered, tipping his cup towards Dream to show the sugared red of fruit punch. “I don’t drink.”
Dream smiled, visible and sucrose. He offered his own cup in George’s direction, fizzing orange sitting close to the halfway mark, and he liked the smile he got in return, spreading sweet over candy apple lips.
“Me neither,” he said, simple.
George scoffed, light and amused. “How ironic.”
Chest twisting with salted caramel, Dream only felt confused again. He wondered if his lips showed more of a smile or a frown, a mess of curving expressions slipping across the visible part of his face.
“What?”
George laughed, airy and sweet. “Aren’t you hosting this party?”
“Co-hosting,” Dream corrected, “but yeah.”
“Funny,” George murmured, but Dream still felt lost.
Maybe George noticed, because he was quick to change the topic. He moved on with a straightening back and lithe fingers toying at the buttons on the front of his jersey, shifting it’s tuck into his pants slightly without realizing it.
Dream realized it, though. He realized it because he was staring—unwavered and attentive—at whatever George’s hands happened to fall upon. Then, they seemed to slip under his shirt to prod at paper pale skin, two fingers disappearing to the space between buttons.
“What’s your major?” he asked rather suddenly, drawing Dream’s attention away from his meddling hands.
There was a tugging grin to the corner of George’s lips. Turning pink beneath his mask, Dream figured that he knew what he was doing.
“English Literature,” he answered weakly.
George hummed, acknowledging. He pulled his hand away from his stomach, falling limp and stable at his side.
“Computer Science.”
Dream nodded, slow and affirmative. They were quiet for a moment, the world scored by the music from the other room and the occasional yell that Dream had learned how to tune it out. Bottles clinked against the counter beside them, drinks taken and run away with into the bright lights of the living room.
He was alright with the lull in conversation while it persisted. It wasn’t silent, only tense without words from either set of lips, and Dream could watch as George shifted and took a sip of oversaturated fruit punch from his red plastic cup.
He didn’t wish to speak of boredom and routine with this pretty boy in orange. He spent every first conversation with new people around campus complaining about old literature and older professors, listening to whatever boring complaints they could offer in return.
It was languid. Dream would rather discuss anything else, even if it was just the way they thought the world would end.
“Okay,” Dream breathed, “now that we got that out of the way, can we talk about something interesting?”
“What,” George started, already lilted in his tone, “you’re not interested in hearing about how much fun it is to learn to code?”
“As riveting as that sounds…” Dream began in mirthful sugar, already lying through his teeth. “No.”
Dream laughed, and George was laughing, too. He set his cup down on the counter and moved his hand away from it, shrugging slightly while he considered the hues in curled amusement.
“At least you’re honest,” George offered, almost unreadable.
And being unreadable made Dream worry. When he was stumbling over joking insults and acting disinterested toward George’s major, unreadable could mean the worst. He already knew that he didn’t want George to think badly of him—as pitiful as that felt given how long they’d known of each other—so he let himself overthink.
Even if it was only for a moment.
“Are you offended?” he asked, clear-cut and curious.
George gave him a smile in turn, shaking his head carefully. “No, you’re right,” he said. “I’m tired of going to parties and talking about my major.”
So Dream smiled back. Careful curves and licorice lips stared at each other with effect, red and melting into themselves when they colored the world with sugar.
“Glad we agree, then,” Dream said quietly, his softness refusing to distill the honesty in his tone.
Then he glanced. At a hand attached to a person he didn’t recognize dipping into the candy bowl on the counter, at George’s empty fingers toying with the brim of his baseball cap. It was a honey-toned connection, careful and sucrose, and the offering came without consideration or worry for the way blue raspberry could stain pink tongues.
“Do you want candy?” he asked, to which George appeared startled by the suddenness.
“What?” he questioned, though he never lost a fraction of his amusement to the wonder.
A breathy tuft of laughter fell from Dream’s lips. He figured it was random, but it was a genuine question, so he pushed a little bit more.
“It’s Halloween,” he defended, “so do you want candy?”
George’s eyebrows still knitted in shadow. “Sure?”
So Dream wanders off toward the bowl of candy. It’s the same candy that Sapnap bought with Karl, the same candy that had fallen on the floor in their entryway, the same candy that Sapnap had refused to pick up after. Only now, it was a jumbled mess in a too-large bowl, emptying steady yet slow as people filtered in and out of the kitchen.
With filthy consideration, Dream grabbed a cherry lollipop off the top of the pile. And he took a pack of Skittles for himself, meandering his way back to where he’d left George, who was now leaning against the counter with eyes for the bright red liquid in his cup.
Wordlessly, George looked up at him. Dream held out the lollipop he’d taken, thin stick between fingers, to which George looked between his shielded face and the candy with a suspicious glint to his eyes.
He still took the lollipop, unwrapping it slowly and discarding the trash beside his cup, surveying the sticky red of it with careful ease. Dream grinned at him, knowing, tearing his own candy open and catching pebbled sugar between his fingers.
“You’re not slick, Dream.”
Feigning ignorance, Dream sputtered. Though he was truly taken aback by how quick George was to catch on, he couldn’t paint himself too surprised, the only honest part of his performance being when he dropped a lime green skittle onto the tiles beneath his feet.
“What?” he questioned, exaggerating.
“You,” George accused, pointing toward Dream’s chest with the red lollipop in his hand. “I know what you’re doing.”
Dream smirked, lopsided and licentious. “Do you?”
George scoffed as if Dream was acting idiotic. Perhaps he was.
“I’ll give you points for being clever, but,” George stuck the candy into his mouth, words going muffled, “still crude.”
So Dream did what he figured he did best: teased.
“Can you blame me?” he asked, laughing through the question. “Your lips are very pretty, I really want to see them stained all red.”
He watched George’s cheeks turn pink, a smear of decadent taffy. He sucked down on the lollipop harder, lips closing against the white stick, and he stared up at Dream through wisping eyelashes beneath the shadow of an orange baseball cap.
Perhaps he knew what he was doing, too.
And he pulled that slick red lollipop from his mouth, a sticky sound on his wetting lips and a stain of cherry red left on his tongue. It was exactly as Dream wanted, and George was even playing games back to him, flicking his tongue across his cupid’s bow and playing with danger in his shaded eyes.
“You could’ve offered me lipstick,” he teased, though Dream knew it was only meant to be in lilt.
They grinned toward each other, newfound tension in the air. It could’ve been cut with a knife, caramel-thick and sticky, salt in the wound of a desperate masochist.
“Aw,” Dream taunted, cocking his head to the side dramatically, “but that’s no fun.”
George scoffed. “You’re lucky you’re so handsome.”
As Dream’s face was turning pink, hidden under the cover of his mask, George stuck the candy back in his mouth with a too-coy grin. Dream couldn’t not notice it, mirthful with hidden marshmallow, tongues turning carmine with saccharine cherries and a mess between teeth.
But Dream still managed to grin back despite his calm fluster. And he set his empty Skittles bag down on the counter beside him, mouth still sticky with colorful sugar and the intentions on his tongue.
“Handsome?” he repeated, watching George’s lips tighten around his candy. “A little formal for the crude guy who gave you a lollipop, no?”
At that, George laughed, dragging the lollipop free from his mouth with another sticky-sweet sound. His lips were starting to turn red, gentle and whispered, but it was still enough for Dream to notice and let his mind get away from him.
He knew it was filthy. It was why he’d given George a lollipop, anyway.
“Would you prefer hot?” George offered, smirking as his lips brushed over sticky red. “Because I think you’re very hot, Dream. Really.”
His tongue darted out to lick over the surface of the candy, naughty and enticing. Dream could see the lustful glare in those chocolate eyes even with the shadow from his cap, shining bright in a red to match his tongue when he slipped the offending candy back behind his lips.
Dream huffed, flustered, and with the shake of his head, he slyly inched away from the onslaught of jellied compliments. They split over his pastel canines with ease, torn open in silence and without vain, but Dream still couldn’t handle the heat beneath his cheeks when he burned hot enough to melt sugar on his skin.
“Cherry’s my favorite flavor, you know,” he said in place of acceptance, watching how licorice lips still managed to grin around a lollipop stick.
Pulling the sugared red candy from his mouth, George asked, “Is that why you gave it to me?”
Dream merely shrugged at first, though his hand was already reaching forward to take the sticky lollipop from between George’s fingers. It slipped away with ease, and George didn’t protest; like taking candy from a baby, or, in this case, a pretty boy dressed as a baseball player.
“Well, of course,” Dream answered, placing the lollipop between his own lips and sucking down on drooling cherries.
It was sweet. Sweeter than Dream remembered candy to be, a flood of carmine sugar to coat his tongue sticky. He even grinned around it, prideful and cocky, amused by the carving frown on George’s face as he crossed his arms over his jersey-clad chest.
“That’s gross.”
“What?” Dream laughed, only taking the candy out enough to speak without muffle. “Swapping spit?”
George scoffed. “Yeah.”
Teasing, Dream raised his eyebrows. And he took the lollipop out of his mouth properly, pressing it against his lips to feel them run sticky with hardened sugar.
“Would you prefer a more direct approach?” he taunted, acting easy because it was, unguarded and challenging when George gave him the reaction he’d been hoping for.
“And what would that be?”
Chocolate eyes seemed to linger on the lollipop against Dream’s lips. Perhaps he already knew what Dream implied, but he played the game anyway, just because he could.
Dream still shrugged, coy. “I can show you.”
George was quick to nod. And he seemed breathless, strung out on tangerine jersey and the stain of artificial fruit.
“Please do,” he begged, and Dream didn’t want to wait around any longer.
He pulled the cherry lollipop free from his mouth, discarding it in his cup without thought. And he reached for George—who was already leaning closer, eager—grabbing him by the jaw to drag their lips together. He knew it would be messy, but he relented, wishing for nothing more than to be swallowed by the boy in the orange jersey.
And it was messy.
The top of Dream’s mask knocked into the brim of George’s baseball cap as their lips bumped together. Frustrated, Dream knocked the hat off of George’s head altogether, the sound of it hitting the tile floor consumed by the rag of everything else. He got his mouth back on George’s before he worried about anything else, tasting artificial cherry sugar off his candy apple lips, a red-dyed tongue already pushing against his own with enough hunger to persist.
Devilish, it persisted. George was all-consuming, unable to hold back, lips moving against Dream’s own with the knock of biting teeth and melted sugar. It was both too much and not enough at the same paradoxical time, fiery yet sweet in all the right ways. Dream had never known that a kiss could juxtapose itself, but he was more than happy to let it, tasting sugar next to salt when he sucked George’s bottom lip between his teeth.
Whines were breathy and desperate, pulled from the space between candy apple lips. Mouths meshed together in a slick mess of bubblegum pink, losing who they belonged to in a mess of claiming tongues. George leaned up and against Dream’s body, contact rough and messy, and he bit at his tongue with carving candy teeth and a drool of icing sugar.
The lithe hands on Dream’s face pushed at his mask desperately, and Dream assisted, settling the costume piece on top of his head—it gave George free reign to the parts of his face that had once been hidden, fingers flitting over freckled cheeks and smoothing sweat down into his skin. As those fingers reached for messy black licorice hair, Dream took the mask off entirely, only breaking away from George’s lips for a moment to set the thing down on the counter.
But George was impatient. And at the loss of Dream’s mouth on his, he latched onto the exposed skin of the raven’s neck, carving his teeth into the honeyed flesh there, instead. It was enough to pull a gasp through Dream’s parted lips, startled by the carve of biting teeth, and he slipped his hands around George’s thin waist to pull him closer.
He even reached lower, lower, lower, grabbing rough and in claim. He wasn’t sure why he felt the need to seek security in George’s flesh beneath his palms, but he took, twisting his neck until George got the hint and took his lips again; Dream swallowed all the breathy noises spilled into his mouth with a hunger, quelled only by the way George felt under his hands and how desperate he was to take.
They took from each other; equal exchange. And it was Dream who spun them around, knocking George’s back against the edge of his kitchen counter, a startled gasp between licorice lips and hands that tugged at dark hair absentmindedly. Dream let it happen, licking into the cherry sweetness still left on George’s tongue, tasting every last bit of sugar—both candied and imagined—until there was nothing left for him.
The party had gone forgotten, the possibility of people seeing them like this—hungry, desperate for each other, hands roaming across with bodies with a filthy kind of greed—felt too far away to be real. George let himself turn malleable under Dream’s unrelenting grip, let those rough hands take his thighs and force a bend to his knee, instructions whispered between locked lips like an afterthought.
“Up.”
Dream didn’t say anything more than that, and he didn’t have to. George jumped up, and Dream sat him down on the counter, slotting himself between George’s spread knees and picking up right where they’d left off as if there’d never been a pause. He swallowed invisible whines and breathy gasps, everything leaving a sickly red taste on the tip of his tongue alongside the stain. Metallic like blood and sweet like a cherry sunrise, George tasted like an enigma.
He let George pull at his hair, and he let him glide his thumb over the space beneath his bottom lip, and he let him press fingertips against the darkening bruise laved over his nared neck. He wished to give George marks of his own, bruises and bitemarks to adorn his lithe body, both in the hidden parts of his skin and what was visible for every eye to see.
He could’ve thought about it forever. In the moment, he only gripped at George’s waist harder, trying to dig his blunt nails into skin through layers of covering fabric.
It felt like silence for several long moments, no one else in the world managing to exist aside from the two of them. It was nothing but cherry candy and false sugar, real hands and rough touches to last longer than the night. It wasn’t Dream’s kitchen counter, or a busy Halloween party, or blaring neon lights.
It was just them.
Until it wasn’t.
Until it was a hand pushing at Dream’s shoulder, and it was their lips falling away from each other in a mess of red-stained spit and slick tongues. And Dream looked in the direction of the offender, finding Sapnap through the dim light—his white and black face paint had gone grey around the lips, and when Dream looked to the side, he found a similar mess around Karl’s lips.
“Dude,” Sapnap started, accusing, “get a fucking room or something.”
At that, Dream laughed, low and timbre. George was already pulling on the fabric of his hoodie, a quiet whine at the back of his throat that Dream was sure only he could hear. And as much as he wanted to do nothing but kiss George stupid until their friends went away, he had enough sense left in him despite the late hour to keep himself from doing that.
But that didn’t mean he was going to be nice.
“Fuck off,” is what he settled on, shot in the direction of Sapnap and his narrowed eyes.
He didn’t look too pleased with that answer. And Dream wasn’t sure why—clearly, he had no room to talk with messy face paint or his boyfriend hanging so obviously from his arm. It made Dream laugh again, a lopsided grin and the spikes of his candy corn-tipped fangs on display, wicked and intentional.
“Well, George,” Karl said from over Sapnap’s shoulder, grinning like mad. “I’m glad you met Dream.”
George didn’t say anything in response, opting instead to pull harder on Dream’s sweatshirt. It was just enough to make him sway where he stood, breath rushing from his lungs in quick sugar and quiet hyperactivity.
“I’m not,” Sapnap scoffed, unpleasant.
Dream narrowed his eyes slightly, choosing redundancy. “Fuck off.”
But Sapnap did not fuck off. He kept standing there, muttering something in Karl’s ear, so Dream let himself tune out their existence.
He turned back to George where he was still sitting on the counter, looking desperate as ever with knitted eyebrows and impatient hands. He hooked a leg around Dream’s waist and used the press of his heel to pull him closer, cherry lips ghosting against his earlobe with sinful promise and an even filthier question.
“Can I suck you off?”
Dream’s breath caught in his throat. He didn’t think he could ever have so much ease answering a question.
And though he nodded, subtle but visible enough to make George grin—cocky and expectant—that didn’t quite feel like enough. So he grabbed George’s arm, dragging him off the counter without moving an inch, their bodies pressed close enough to feel where George’s cock was starting to harden in his pants.
Dream looked toward Sapnap, grinning with a dirty undertone. “You know what,” he started, “that ‘get a room’ idea was actually a pretty good one.”
He dragged George away before any of them could say anything more. He could hear his shoes scuff against the floor when he stumbled, a final word of halfway-protest coming from Sapnap before his words were obscured by the rushing noise of the hallway.
Dream glanced over his shoulder just long enough to see how stray purple and orange bounced off George’s skin, finding the glint in his chocolate eyes when they locked with Dream’s lime, an unspoken promise between them and the fingers encircling George’s wrist. He led him all the way to his bedroom—grateful to find it empty—and he shut the door tight behind them.
It took half a second for George’s back to be slammed against the door.
And it rattled in it’s frame, a breathy gasp on George’s lips at the force behind the crash. He blinked up at Dream, quick and lustful, dark eyes falling darker until his chocolate looked more like licorice. Dream observed him for a moment, taffy cheeks and bubblegum lips, before he kissed the tinted sugar right out of his mouth and let it flood his own.
Melting into each other was easy, especially when the room felt so hot. There was tension running thick and caramel between them, tangling them together by means of crawling lust, and Dream let it spill across his shoulders in a sticky-sweet mess when he knocked his chest against George’s.
They took, and they took, and they took; equal exchange. For every saccharine hue that Dream took from George, he lost one of his own, black hair sliding through thin fingers and a tug behind small palms. In return, Dream grabbed hastily at George’s ass, chasing the whines that he got in turn and the part of slick lips against his.
He chased. He caught. He took. And if sugar could crystallize over the surface of his lips, then surely it would persist, cracking with every motion and spilling into each other with haste.
“Dream,” George whispered, breathless and desperate, just as salacious and cadmium as the rest of him.
And Dream grinned down at him, cruel and defined by candy corn canines, the scrape of candied teeth down milk white skin without enough fervor to leave a mark. It would only draw George’s jaw open, halted in a lock, glistening saliva on the tip of his tongue and messing with the red of his lips.
Steady, Dream drifted down. He brought his carving teeth with him, chasing messy grape and spilled mulberry, biting down with maraschino cherry red and the catch of flesh between lips. Lithe fingers knitted, stuck in black licorice hair, but the tug was gentle and slow—not quite enough to make Dream whine with as much patheticism as George did.
He sought to bruise. To mark, to brand, to stain. Like spilled sugar painted red by sloppy food coloring, sticking to white chocolate skin without relent. George took, but in the way that he accepted, and he submitted to the mouth latched on his skin and how wicked it could feel in likeness.
“Dream,” he said again, pulling harder on the hair against his palm. “I still want—” his breath caught, “—can I still suck you off?”
Groaning into bruising skin, Dream wilted. It wasn’t as pitiful as it could’ve been, but it was noticeable, lips turning to mush where they’d been biting and melting icing sugar against hot skin.
Yes, he thought to himself, a head full of sinful imagery. It started with stretching lips around his cock and ended with a face painted white, decadent yet sweet where it could all land across his lips.
George stammered. Dream pulled away.
“Yeah,” he huffed, squeezing George’s ass to emphasize the lost smirk on his face. “Please.”
It was quick.
They turned, and it was Dream’s turn to slam his back against the door with enough force to make it shudder. George had pushed hands to the front of his chest, but they didn’t remain for long—he wasted no time falling to his knees, hands slipping up under the hem of his sweatshirt to drag against bare skin. It was a hint, a silent plea, and Dream obeyed it by pulling the hoodie off altogether.
It fell to the floor with a quiet sound. George sat up higher on his knees, flat palms spreading across bare skin. But it was those licorice lips that demanded Dream’s attention, careless candy apple stretching wide over the front of his jeans. It was a fucking sight, fluttered lashes over lust-darkened eyes and spit glistening against the bend of George’s cupid’s bow.
Dream figured this may as well be the death of him. Staring down at George, on his knees, a filthy intent behind his eyes and a wicked smirk on the corner of his wide-stretched lips.
“George,” he whispered, eloquence and elaboration lost on him.
He got a low hum in response, buzzing against the denim of his jeans in dark chocolate whisper. Dream knit his hands through matching milky hair, tangling in all the holds he couldn’t reach when George had been clad in his orange baseball cap. It was soft, messy and shaded, silky in the space between Dream’s fingers with hushed sugar.
It may as well have been a little slice of heaven. Ironically, Dream figured it tasted rich of devil’s food cake.
Nimble hands toy with the buckle to his belt. It’s thin fingers that unfasten it, unsnap and unbutton, pulling Dream’s cock out from the confines of his boxers with a rush from the open air.
Breath spilled past bitten lips, gliding over the candy-dipped edges of his canines with feeble orange-yellow. Dream watched, attentive, as George wrapped his hand around his cock with a circlet of marble. He held, steady, blowing hot breath over the red-turning head; it’s only enough stimulation to make Dream stutter.
Aching and silent, Dream wanted more. George used the flat of his tongue to lick the bead of precum off Dream’s cock, eyes flicking with too much pleasure for what it was.
Even still, it wrapped Dream around the wrists with unseen chains, enthralled by melting chocolate and gaping candy apple when George’s breath faltered through his lungs. Pale fingers tighten, white chocolate over throbbing cherry, another huff of hot breath to coat desperate skin in a spread of melted icing sugar.
George was a tease. As if to make it worse, he grinned like he knew what he was doing, lips alight and coated to slick cadmium like a forgotten lollipop in the kitchen, hard candy dripping down their skin without enough molt to burn. Dream wanted more, more, but he refused to stoop low enough to beg.
“George,” he said again, low and husky with the violet of medicine-tasting sweets.
An eyebrow lifted, hiding behind chocolate-dipped bangs. George appeared coy, grinning subtle yet present on his spit-stained lips, caution falling in tandem with his recklessness and the hand wrapped around Dream’s cock.
“Dream,” he whispered back, more air to breathe on Dream’s straining hardness, and he figured that he’d done this to himself.
A boot-clad foot knocked against the inside of George’s thigh and it stayed there, nestled deep. Melted attention only faltered for a moment, dark eyes falling to where Dream had seated his toe before rising again, accusing and sugared.
“You said you’d suck me off,” Dream reminded, his attempted sternness proving more successful than he’d expected. “Come on.”
A burning demand skated past George’s ears, just enough fire and seizing flame to make him obey. Those sugar-taffy lips opened wide enough to swallow, closing tight around the head of Dream’s cock with a flicking tongue and wicked eyes. It was even greater than Dream could’ve imagined, drool already gathered at the corners of his lips, mouth stuffed full and sinful until dark eyes lidded shut and whimpers tore through stretched alabaster throats.
With the help of Dream’s hands in his hair, George began to move his head. Slow, bobbing and appled, the tantalizing drag of his tight lips on Dream’s skin forever something to chase. In a foggy-mirrored reflection of the boy on his knees beneath him, Dream was just as careful and he was unheeded, juxtaposition painted firmly between the lines and sticking to them, recognizable.
Dream watched George’s mouth as though he didn’t share control of it. Red, spreading, spit-slick with candied glisten. It felt so warm and heavenly, velvet tongues running along the underside with heavy strokes. Dream savored it, sucrose and rushing, a temporary touch harnessing forever in the catch of hidden teeth. George knew how to keep ivory to himself, bleeding experience through the cherry of his mouth, and Dream would revel in his abilities.
“So good,” he muttered, praising. “Mouth feels so good, baby.”
And George whined, a better answer than Dream could’ve written, light in the back of his throat and tugging heavy eyelids shut. Dream observed his sinful existence, a puddle of orange-dressed pretty boy beneath him on the floor, knees spreading further and further apart on the carpet with stretching fabric pulling awkwardly over his cock.
Dream shifted, pulling his foot away from George’s thigh, resting it instead on top of George’s cock with a gentle harshness; not enough to hurt, just enough to feel. And he knew that George felt it when he whimpered, hips lifting up to meet the sole of Dream’s shoe where it pressed heavy, a mouthful of cock muffling the desperate sounds on his lips and weighing heavy on his sugar-pink tongue.
“You like that?” Dream taunted, devilish, a grin on his face as he pulled careful on the length of George’s hair between fingers. “Needy, aren’t you?”
It was rhetorical. Bruised in the tension-thick air, George mewled, wet saliva in the back of his throat as he lifted his hips up into Dream again. It was clear that he wanted more, more, eyes prying open just enough to be blinded by the light. He stared up at Dream with a pathetic look in his eyes, desperate and wilting, pulling back against Dream’s hands until he let him pull off his cock with a wet pop.
It was dirty. Dream stared still, struck by the slick cover on George’s mouth, struck by the way his hands fell to push down on the front of Dream’s boot until the raven worried he was causing pain. But George made a noise, open-mouthed and pleased heavy, tongue hanging sweet against his bottom lip with a drool that spilled impossible to ignore.
“Can you—” George breathed, labored and desperate, words in sticky licorice and catching cherry tones. “—will you fuck me?”
And so Dream stuttered, faltering over nothing but the gasp of his own breath. George stared up at him, pleading, chest rising with every breath and hands still held tight over Dream’s heavy boot. He was impossible to deny—and Dream would be lying if he said he hadn’t been thinking about it—so the answer came easier than either of them cared to admit, desperate and tense in the dim light of the room.
Distant music thundered from outside the bedroom door. Dream figured that bright purple and orange spilled over his ankles through the space above the floor.
“I will fuck you so hard,” Dream started, breathless, “that you can’t get your desperate ass up out of my bed.”
George swallowed audibly, a heavy bob to his Adam’s apple as he nodded quickly and without relent. His eagerness made Dream grin, salacious and twisting, a flame-ignited carve to his flushing skin to match the angle of his jaw.
“Please,” George murmured, reaching up with two hands to grapple at the waistband still hanging loose around Dream’s hips.
Dream helped the brunet to his feet, drawn to the way his knees had gone jellied from his position on the floor. He clung to Dream’s body, hasty in his attempts to remain upright, melting his lips into the part of Dream’s mouth without warning or gentle breath.
It caught Dream off-guard, but he was apt to let it happen, sipping sweet cherry limeade off the tip of George’s tongue and chasing the hardened sugar left behind. Two became one for a lust-heavy moment, joined at the lips and teeth and tongue, hard candy pooling sticky at the center of all things. It would stain, Dream figured, and it would attract all things undeniable. He let it happen, desperate.
His fingers fumbled over the buttons to George’s bright jersey, but he managed, unfastening them from collar to hip and leaving the fabric hanging loose over his shoulders. But touches could carve his front anew, warm and running over the melted milk chocolate to make up George’s skin, bare and unmarked with silent pleas for biting teeth.
Thick tan hands glided down, down, down until they were sinking beneath the waistband of George’s pants, fitted to him snug and recognizably athletic. But where Dream expected to find thin cotton beneath a tight-fitting waistband, he found nothing, hot skin beneath his palms in plush softness and deftly exposed skin.
He paused. Parting from George’s lips, he read the transparency off his desperate eyes.
“What are you wearing?” he asked, taunting without directness, a game playing behind his eyes and at the corners of his lips.
George hesitated. For a moment, Dream wondered if he’d admit to it easily—he planned to make him admit it no matter what, the flickering look on George’s taffy-turning face saying that cautious force and gentle pulling would be required after all.
“My baseball uniform,” he answered, weak, too hesitant to be clueless and too obvious to be naive.
Dream smirked. He knew, of course, what it was that George had on. It was only prideful that he made George admit to it himself, desperate and shaky through the candy of his lips, hesitant when he was flushed shameful despite there being nothing for shame to fester in.
It was only teasing. Dream liked it, bare flesh under his palms, but he liked to watch George turn flustered and stumble, too.
Where had the boy on his knees gone, teasing and coy behind the eyes? Now, George was strictly wanton, licorice lips worried between his teeth and sinking with sharpened marshmallow.
“Your baseball uniform?” Dream repeated, digging fingertips into the muscle of George’s ass. “I know what this is, Georgie,” slipping fingers under one of the bands holding tight below his ass, Dream snapped it down against his skin in emphasis, “now bend over and show it off for me.”
Pulling his hands free from George’s pants, Dream lifted his back up off the door to force the two of them backward. George stared up at him, expectant, stumbling backward with every step that Dream approached until his knees were knocking against the corner of Dream’s high mattress.
“Bend…?” he started, eyes flashing, long lashes petal-soft against his cheek.
Dream finished the phrase for him. “Over.”
With a hand on the small of George’s back, Dream spun him around, helping him in the act that was bending over the edge of his bed with a face buried in the unkempt sheets. Knees buckled where they bent, shoed feet slipping against the floor, hips jutting and twisted so his ass popped out in Dream’s perfect view.
Dream knelt down on the floor behind him, hands twitching with hesitance on where to land first. He chose not to waste time, hooking his fingers into the waistband of George’s baseball pants and tugging them down. He fumbled over the laces of his shoes, knelt on the floor behind George, but he got everything off eventually, shoving the soon-to-be-forgotten clothes somewhere on the floor behind him.
It left George in nothing but his unbuttoned jersey and that fucking jockstrap, thick elastic bands tight below the swell of his ass and leaving him devilishly exposed. Dream trailed his lips up the exposed skin of his thigh, careful and slow, a careful drag of candlewick lips along soft skin without an intent to bruise. It was just lips on skin, lackadaisical, the only trail of spinning carmine being imaginary.
But George seemed tense. Face buried in the sheets, drool puddled under his tongue, he was all but shaking. Dream couldn’t have known why, spurred on by the breathy moans muffled into his sheets when he laved his tongue over hot skin, bumping his nose against thick elastic without much intent.
He nudged two fingers between the tight elastic and George’s skin. They barely fit, tight and constricted, carving into the flesh of George’s thigh in licentious dent. George made a noise, muffled yet desperate, crawling across the sheets to Dream’s noiseless ears and sticking.
“Knew it, by the way,” he muttered, a cocky grin running unseen in fiery orange. “Looks good. Your ass looks amazing.”
And he pulled hid fingers away, pulling the elastic taut and dragging his body up and away from the bed just a bit. Then he let go, snapping the elastic band down against George’s skin with a harsh noise, making him yelp into the sheets. He twists, feet slipping against the floor, desperate and pathetic.
It was only moments before Dream leaned back in, two hands below George’s waist and spreading slowly, laving the flat of his tongue over the cleft of his ass. It was mild, little more than sweat and skin—until it wasn’t.
Dream had flicked his tongue over George’s hole, but instead of tasting skin, he tasted metal. And when he leaned back—slow, lax, and anticipating—prying his slipped-shut eyes open with attention gaped for the offending item.
A pretty little plug, orange-gemmed and set in his hole. Dream reached, careful, and he pressed his thumb hard against the gemstone plug just to hear the pretty brunet whine.
“George,” he huffed, wicked and strained. “You wanted to get fucked tonight, didn’t you?”
And George mewled, wanton and pleading, body twisting cautious against the bed with a kick to the sheets stuck against his abdomen. Dream laughed, low and taunting, two fingers lingering against the orange gem without much pressure behind them at all.
“Answer me, you little whore,” Dream grits, a tease wrapped up in pretty silver-orange, laying his flat palm over the side of George’s ass with a gentle smack.
George yelped, jolting on the bed, and he turned to peer over his shoulder to where Dream hovered above him, candied teeth nipping hauntingly at the flesh of his bottom lip. But it was George’s mouth that was bitten red, flushed and glistening with spit that had fallen from the tip of his tongue. He looked desperate, nearly shaking in cruel anticipation, watching the way Dream observed him with lust-coated eyes.
A rush of feeble sugar spilled past Dream’s lips, unfriendly. And he squeezed George’s ass without relent, palms full of him where he was exposed between elastic bands, red fingerprints carving salacious into supple flesh.
“Yes,” George whispered, breathless and waning. “I wanted you to fuck me.”
At that, Dream sputtered, candied and cherry-red. George shook beneath his hands, breath off-tempo and trembling, fingers curling to devil horns to gather bed sheets beneath palms.
Dream blinked. He bared down harder with his claiming hands, finger-shaped bruises promising a wake.
“You wanted me to fuck you?”
George whimpered, pathetic and high. He let his head fall back down against the mattress, shielded by his bending arm but running without muffle. As if to retaliate, Dream pressed two fingers down on the plug with reckless intent, chasing the pretty whines on George’s lips that rang so much like sugar.
He was a marvel of pathetic desperacy, painted irresistible by drips of careless caramel, a bronzed shine left laden over milky skin. Dream could’ve devoured him, then and there, drool gathered beneath his tongue and waiting heavy and sick for whenever his teeth would sink in roughly.
But he did not bite. Not now, not yet.
“Dream, please,” George begged, rolling his hips back against Dream’s hands. “Don’t make me wait any longer.”
With a huff, Dream pulled his hands back. And though the lack of warmed palms made George whimper, they both knew that there was something better waiting on the other end of patience—but first, Dream had to crawl over to his nightstand and dig the bottle of lube out of his drawer.
He returned to his previous position almost immediately, uncapping the bottle with a gentle click as his free hand lifted to catch around the gem of George’s plug. He pulled it out slowly, teasing, savoring the desperate noises on candy apple lips and the way George’s body curled beneath him.
But he removed it fully, watching stray lube drip slowly from George’s stretched hole, clenching around nothing in a hasty run from emptiness. It was intoxicating, and Dream stared for too long of a moment, a plug still between his fingers and falling toward the floor.
“Dream,” George whined, and it pulled the raven in question back to reality.
George was looking over his shoulder, spit on licorice lips, eyes running hazy and dark where his bangs hung heavy over his pupils. He appeared laviscuous, devilish in sin and obscenity, a drag of desperate red left melting into Dream’s bedsheets. He was irresistible by design, and Dream was a weak man, shining silver plugs falling heavy to his bedroom floor and lube slicking over three fingers easily.
It was as if he was mindless. Operating without cognitive thought or tether to reality, he let the lube bottle fall by his knees, too, circling George’s rim with the slick tips of two fingers; just enough stimulation to make George whimper, push his hips back against the promised intrusion, but not enough to make him feel sated.
Only a presence. Warm, lube-slick, and heavy with dirty implications.
But Dream’s patience was waning, too. His cock hung heavy between his legs, flushed and desperate, barely held over by the loose grip he’d taken to it as his fingers moved in lax rotations. He could feel his heartbeat through his entire body, blood rushing steady through his ears, breaths fallen smitten through his parted lips when it felt as though the entire world had stopped turning.
The only thing he knew in that moment was George. And George was desperate, and he was pleading, words muddled by the spit on his lips and where his nose was buried deep in unkempt sheets. When Dream pulled the hand away from his own cock to instead rest on George’s shaking hip, he gave into his most desperate desires.
He started with two fingers, watching caramel slip away, swallowed greedily by George’s desperate hole. It felt tight, a strain around the crossing digits as they edged deeper and deeper into him, but that was to be expected when Dream neglected to start slow.
George made a noise at the intrusion, higher and whinier than all the ones before it. But he still tried to push back against Dream’s fingers, halted only by the swallowing hand at his hip, fingertips and blunt nails digging into sugared skin.
“Fuck, you’re already so stretched out for me,” Dream praised with the undertones spelled out to taunt, just as wicked as he was kind. “You really just walked around with that thing in? All night?”
George’s responding mewl felt like agreement. And it couldn’t have been anything but—of course, George had walked around stuffed full of a plug all night, Dream knew that. He just liked being a tease.
And he was a tease. Slow with his fingers, stretching and spreading apart, repeat thrusts making an obscene sound that ricocheted off the bedroom walls. Though Dream’s patience was dwindling, a melting candle on the table dripped in wax, he still held out enough to make George twist and whimper into the bitten parts of his sheets.
George did not like this choice. He was squirming, still pushing back desperately against Dream’s two fingers, whining high and candied in his throat when all attempts fell short of getting him what he wanted.
“More,” he pleaded, words running slick by the spit on his licorice lips. “More, Dream, please.”
Dream thought he’d have to be crazy to deny a request spelled out like that.
So he indulged. Though he was still slow and caramelizing, drawing his fingers back with the sticky caution of melting sugar, he nudged a third finger in alongside the others. George made a noise, desperate and choked, shaking under the stretch of three fingers that seemed apt to pry him wide.
A grin spilled across Dream’s face, vicious and aflame. “Desperate little whore, aren’t you?”
To that, George whined, a confectionary sound wrapped up in white. With three fingers thrusting steady in and out of George’s hole, Dream slipped the digits to his free hand beneath the elastic around George’s waist, snapping it down against his milky skin with eyes blown wide at every jump.
Dream laughed, laughed at the dulcet sounds he got in turn. At the way George would shake under the pressure, startled yet submissive, spilling thick over the edges when tight elastic bands collided with his skin. The sound it made was obscene—painful-sounding, even—but George never uttered in the direction of complaint. He only mewled, a syllable that sounded a lot like “more,” falling from his lips and into the bed.
Listening, Dream did it again, twisting his fingers inside of George with a curl that seemed to search. And he did, he searched, not falling back until he’d ghosted a touch along George’s prostate; he didn’t give him any more after that, instead choosing to avoid it’s placement on purpose, cruel and bitter orange.
He didn’t think George liked that.
And now, without the press of Dream’s hand on his hip, George could finally roll back against those slow-thrusting fingers. Pushing, he did, hips jutting out when he moved with enough force to make Dream reel back. It was just enough to startle the raven, knees slipping against the floor, so he grabbed George’s hip and pushed him back into the bed with added fervor.
“Little devil,” he muttered, bruised around the edges.
George whined, pushing against Dream’s rough hand again. Relenting in shared impatience, Dream pulled his fingers free, reveling in the way George’s greedy hole barely managed to let him go.
Lube dripped from his hole with sick intent, running Dream’s fingers stickier than hard candy, and George still managed to whine at the loss despite all his helpless begging. Dream slapped his ass lightly again, just enough to make his skin turn low taffy pink for a moment.
“I do like your uniform, baseball boy,” Dream taunted, slipping fingers beneath the elastic under his ass again. “Was the plug a part of it?”
Pathetically, George only whimpered, muzzling his shame with a mouthful of white sheets. Dream only grinned, Jack-o’-lantern wide and glowing orange, ramming his hip bones into the softs of George’s ass just to make his presence known. With fingers still slipped between tight elastic and sensitive skin, he leaned over George’s back, lips grazing against the shell of his ear with careful conviction.
“C’mon, tell me,” he prodded, whispered and deep timbre. “Is a plug included when you join the team, or are you just a slut?”
There was another wanton sound left unstable in the sheets. And George turned his head just enough for his breaths to fall clear again, grinning fiery lips skating across his skin as he moved.
“‘M just a slut,” he muttered, resigned. “Needed something in me.”
Dream scoffed, teasing. “Needed?” He snapped the elastic bands against George’s skin again. “You’re even sluttier than I thought.”
George whimpered. “Does that mean you’ll fuck me now?”
Shoving his hips harder against George’s ass, Dream sank his teeth into the skin of his ear. He was harsh, biting and oozing with hot wax, cruelty running deep through his flustered veins. And his cock had effectively slotted itself along George’s hole, sliding uselessly against his skin, so close yet so far from where George truly wanted it to be.
“Don’t get too greedy, now,” Dream taunted. “You’re lucky I want this just as much as you do.”
For good measure, he snapped the elastic of his jockstrap down against his skin one last time before backing off. He retreated back to his sitting on his knees behind George, fingertips caught along the edges of his orange jersey, flicking it uselessly up the small of George’s back until more untouched skin was exposed.
George seemed to shiver. Dream wasn’t sure if it was anticipation, or just the cold air in his room.
“Get up for me, baby,” Dream instructured, easy despite the shake in gelatin legs.
And George was quick to obey. He scrambled to his feet, turning to face Dream with wide eyes in wait for his next instruction. Dream could finally see the way he looked in his jockstrap from the front, thin black fabric holding tight around his hard cock.
He looked far more desperate than he had last time Dream had met his eye properly, spilling licorice black hues all across his chocolate eyes, a swell to his candy apple lips that hadn’t been there before. He was a perfect picture of taffy fluster behind his freckles, breaths heavy enough to shake his chest with them.
Dream paced closer, taking a careful hold of the orange jersey still hanging loose over George’s shoulders, peeling it off him slowly and watching it fall to a pile on the floor. And Dream let his carving lime glaze over George’s exposed form, taking in the spread of his skin and the grip of his jockstrap and every place he’d like to leave a mark to stay.
He told himself to remember that for a later encounter. He told himself to hope for a later encounter.
“Lay down on the bed properly for me,” he directed, reveling in the eager nod he got from George. “Then I’ll take care of you.”
So George slipped away from Dream’s front, crawling back onto the bed and positioning himself at the center. He laid on his back, head turned to look at Dream, watching as the fake raven pulled off his shoes and jeans until he was wearing nothing at all.
He climbed onto George, careful and caging. Before he could get much farther than that, he dove in, kissing the life off George’s red lips until the only thing he knew how to taste was devilish cherry sugar. He still tasted like candy, something saccharine hiding behind his spit and deft pink tongue, as if he was made for times like this.
Dream acted as though he could devour him. Decadent and unholy, he swallowed George lips-first, teeth tearing into supple flesh until the only thing left to taste was metal. Though there was no blood, the only spilling carmine cast between them was sticky and fruit-flavored without the natural ebb to sugar.
“Fuck me,” George pleaded, air against Dream’s biting lips. “Please, please, I’ve been good.”
To that, Dream dotted a wet kiss on the stubbled skin of George’s jaw, dusting his teeth over the bone without the sweet softness of marshmallow.
“As you wish.”
And he meant it.
He had to lean over the edge of the bed to pick up the lube he’d left on the floor, but he found it quickly, pouring translucency into the center of his palm. He slicked himself up with ease, aware of the way that George chose to watch the motion of his hand, breath catching when those same fingers caught around his milky thigh to bend his knee and lift him up, up, up until his leg was thrown over Dream’s shoulder.
As he lined himself up with George’s desperate hole, Dream nudged one of his fingers under the waistband of his jockstrap.
“This,” he started, breathless, “stays on.” And he snapped the band back down against his skin, filthy.
George swallowed, noticeable and heavy, a nod to his head when he laced fingers through his already messy hair. So Dream pushed forward, finally giving George what he’d wanted all along, and finally indulging in the oh-so-delectable tightness he’d been chasing without complete awareness.
It felt better around his cock than it ever could around his fingers, gripping vice-tight and binding as he slipped deeper and deeper still until he was down to the hilt. George stared up at him, blinking rapidly with sweat shining over his forehead, a new kind of desperacy in his eyes that came with pause and large hands on his waist.
They were both breathless, and Dream watched as pale fingers curled against empty palms, sitting heavy and useless by his head on the pillow. And he moved, slow and intentional at first, just the easy snap of his hips against George’s ass—he was barely pulling out an inch, focused more on the pressure than the speed, punching breaths out of George’s lungs with steady tempo.
“More,” George pleaded, desperate. “I want more.”
Huffing, Dream gave him a little bit more. More pressure, more speed, more cock—more everything. It was an easy request to fulfill, because he wanted more, too—more George, more noises, more everything.
But even still, Dream was a tease. And he would be cruel through all his candied lust, act as though George was the only one acting so desperate and lust-blind.
“Eager boy,” he taunted, reveling in the way the bedframe shook beneath their tangled bodies.
The headboard hit against the wall behind the bed in obscenity, a steady sound to fill the room and their listening ears when they weren’t so wrapped up in each other’s noises. Wrapped up in the tempoed moans, the husky breaths on Dream’s own flaming lips, pornography spelled out on their lips with everything but the right order to those letters.
It was mesmerizing. And Dream dug his fingers into George’s bruisable flesh, chasing mottled violet and messy blood vessels, placing fingers beneath tight elastic because he liked the way it felt. Everything felt both like too much and too little, the air of the bedroom running tense and heavy around them, a world running hot and sticky by means of golden sugar.
It was easy to get lost in George’s lewd existence, both in the sounds he made and the fucked-out expression burned in permanence on his face. Spread lips, eager eyes, melting features—he was so effortlessly beautiful. And again, Dream wanted to devour him, and again, he knew he’d taste sweet.
But instead of sinking teeth or guarded tongues, Dream fucked him harder, faster, deeper, and he did it with spit on his lips and a wicked intention.
“You’re so pretty when you get fucked,” Dream complimented, obscene, fingertips carving untouched skin anew. “So desperate and slutty.”
Back arching off the bed, George mewled. Dream only thrusted harder and with more intent, eager and chasing something he knew he couldn’t catch. But he still adjusted his angle, trying and trying until he hit the right spot.
He knew when he’d got it because George all but screamed. It was a sorry excuse for a moan, eyes screwing shut as he twisted, legs hooking around Dream’s waist with heels digging into his back. It was as if he was trying to climb the man from his position laid beneath him, desperate and wanting, facing impossibility in their tangled mess.
“Right there!” he cried, wanting. “Dream, Dream, Dream.”
Even if the repeat of his name—dulcet and desirable where it dripped off George’s pretty lips—was intoxicating, Dream stopped.
And George sobbed. His hands lifted to catch Dream by his broad shoulders, nails digging and sadistic when he pleaded in muddled syllables for more, more, more. But Dream wasn’t so easy, and he didn’t obey, instead grabbing George by his rattling jaw and forcing him steady.
The sudden strong grip made George halt. And he stared up at Dream, wide-eyed, lips parting slow as Dream dug his fingertips into the spaces of his jaw. He pried his pink mouth open, watching with interest as George’s tongue lolled out against his bottom lip, long lashes fluttering with heady ease and means to entice.
So Dream spit in his mouth.
And it landed, heavy and lewd, right on the tip of George’s tongue. Some of it smeared across his lips and the milky edges of his cheeks, the presence of it making George’s eyes flutter again, and Dream could feel where he managed to get tighter around his cock.
He snapped George’s mouth shut. “Swallow,” he instructed, caught on the way George’s throat moved when he did as he was told. “So good for me.”
Patting George’s cheek lightly, Dream picked up his thrusting again. He didn’t wait around, finding himself where he’d left off, harsh and bruising. He fucked into him with vigor, landing on his sweet spot again without much effort.
George screamed up at the ceiling, desperate and breathy. Dream figured that he would never get tired of those sounds on his lips, shaking the bed where it laid beneath them, a tangle of messy sheets and climbing desperacy when he felt himself growing closer and closer to the edge.
It seemed as though George was getting there, too. He’d gotten more and more incoherent—if possible—a spilling mess of cherry want right at the center of Dream’s bed. But it was the first coherent word in a while that was what really clued Dream in, spelled out in a plea, a warning dressed in subtle pink sugar.
“Close.”
Dream did his best to grin through all his own pleasure. And he sank his hand in past the front of George’s underwear, holding his cock for the first time, pulling it free from the tight fabric of his jockstrap just enough to watch him spill all over his own skin. He came without any more warning, sticky and messy white on Dream’s sheets and his stomach, cries of dirty pleasure spun louder by the hand twisting around his cock.
As George turned to writhing, Dream slowed the motion of his hand, taking George’s waist with two hands to pull him fast against his hips. And it was then that he came, a cry of George’s name on his lips, filling him sticky white and claimed before he crumbled into jelly in a mess on top of George’s front.
They laid like that for a moment, maybe more. Dream had lost his grip on time from the moment he stepped into the bedroom, perhaps from the moment he tasted sweet licorice off George’s eager lips.
There were slim hands tangled in the strands of his dyed black hair, playing absentmindedly with it in their mess of catching breath. They were tied to each other, tangled at the ends, sticky, slick, and sweaty in every place they made contact, but Dream wouldn’t have changed any of it for the world.
He refused to taste sugar the same ever again.