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In his dreams, the living room is covered in warm honey, dripping sweetness from the ceilings and down window panes. The sun descends with it — shades of pink, orange, and gold refracting across the floor — and dust leaps from the corners of the room their feet don’t grace, content to dance forever in this sunset kaleidoscope.
Dream closes his eyes, and when he opens them, the room is darker, but still warm.
He hears himself make a tired sound, consciousness coming back to him through the tingles in his legs. His neck aches, head heavy as it lulls forward, and his spine punishes him for a reason he’s unsure of.
Dream feels drunk for a few minutes, until something hot and breathy brushes against his stomach and he shivers himself completely awake. He stiffens, and takes note of the television screen on his way to glancing at his lap.
Are you still watching “Breaking Bad”?
Brown hair fans out across his thigh, ends curling where it spills over his knee.
For a moment, Dream is comfortable in quiet admiration — squeezing fingertips against his palm when they twitch desperately — and then his stomach is tickled again.
To the sleeping boy in his lap, he whispers, “George,”
George responds as he always does. Sharp inhale, nose twitch. He never wakes the first time he’s called. Pink, freckled skin riles the hem of Dream’s shirt, and he understands now that George must have been doing that for some time.
Dream feels exposed, pale skin bare under George’s breath.
“Are we gonna cuddle?” George asks, impossible to read.
“Obviously,” is the safe answer. Dream uses a safe tone, voice lilted the perfect amount to be unreadable, too.
George nods, and Dream is expecting this to change nothing, but before the end of the pre-episode recap, he drops his head onto Dream’s shoulder.
Dream counts his breaths.
“George,” Dream repeats, after a count of four. He can’t feel his legs. “George. Georgie,”
“Dream,” George stage whispers, and Dream feigns annoyance, looking straight ahead.
“What?”
“I’m uncomfortable.”
“Whose fault is that?”
He regrets the question the second it leaves his mouth, afraid it will ruin this, but George doesn’t move, even when talking makes Dream lose track of his practiced movements.
“Yours,” he’s losing the whisper now, voice cracking. “Your shoulder is too high, and like, boney.”
“Now, I know you’re not—”
“Dream,” he interrupts. Then, whinier, “Dreamie,”
“What?” Dream asks again. He pushes it sharply from his lips, but they both know what it means. You don’t have to beg. I’ll give you anything.
George stirs finally, and Dream repeats his name again because he likes to say it. Then, as a reward for his hard work, he slots a hand beneath George’s hair. His palm stretches over the back of his head, thumb rubbing lightly over his ear.
“You’re gonna fall asleep like this,” he manages to choke out. George pushes his head back devilishly in response, and Dream winces at the pressure — their proximity, the weight of the world in his lap.
George doesn’t fight this allegation, which tells Dream that’s exactly what he plans to do. Instead, he says quietly, “Don’t wake me.”
Dream pointedly doesn’t feel any weird feelings about that.
“Okay,” Distracted, he asks, “Are you more comfortable?”
Verbal confirmation doesn’t come, but George nods, fingers tapping Dream’s knee. Neither of them know what’s going on on the TV.
Dream doesn’t realize what George is doing with the repetitive taps — pinky, ring, middle, index, rapid and gentle over Dream’s sweatpants — until his eyelids grow heavy, and by then it’s too late for him to try and stay awake.
It’s like a spell, he thinks, as his head falls back against the couch. He sleeps deeply — warm, grounded, quiet, and still.
“Hey,” Dream tries. He wonders if it was a conscious decision for George to turn towards him, to leave their show abandoned and press his face into Dream’s torso. Probably not, he decides, but he’s not sure how he feels about it being an unconscious decision, either. “George, we fell asleep.”
Part of him doesn’t expect George to answer, even though he can tell by his breathing that he’s awake now, so, it surprises him a little when he does.
“Y’said you’d let me,” he mumbles.
Dream doesn’t bother to pretend he doesn’t understand it. He almost thinks he should feel used (and maybe he would, if this were anyone else).
“I know, but you’re ti—” George laughs, a lightning strike through Dream’s core. He jerks his shoulder, breath hitching pathetically, “—t–tickling me.”
“Don’ care,” George says, selfless and thoughtful as he is. “’m, like, sleepy. And cold.”
Sleepy. Dream’s stomach somersaults. He lets his hand fall to George’s neck, and is graced with a content sigh.
“You can’t sleep down here all night.”
George responds by tilting his chin, and his bottom lip drags across flesh. Dream tries not to gasp or flail or anything else that’d be stupid and embarrassing, but his grip tightens behind George’s ears when he blinks up at him.
“You’re ticklish,” he comments. “I didn’t know that.”
“H–How would you? George—”
Realization settles over the room like honey. George, who knows close to everything there is to know about Dream, didn’t know he was ticklish, because they had never even touched until a little over a week ago.
George lulled Dream to sleep, because he wanted them to fall asleep together, and Dream — despite his protests — has yet to remove the protective hand keeping George in place.
“What are we doing?”
George doesn’t answer, for a moment. He just blinks, lashes long and eyelids heavy. He doesn’t look conflicted, exactly, but a little nervous, the way he runs his tongue over his lips, and Dream can’t imagine what there is for him to be nervous about in the quiet of this unknown time of night.
The safety between them stretches across the house like something tangible. George senses it too, he can tell, because it alights a delirious sort of courage behind his eyes.
He kisses Dream’s stomach. It’s an easy movement, quick and soft, and Dream doesn’t know why he does it, how he feels about it, or if — why — he wants George to do it again, so he swallows his words and forces the flaming muscles on his face to settle into something natural. It feels like impulse, something intrusive, and Dream reminds himself that George is probably more asleep than awake at this point.
Pink and golden, George answers, “Jus’ being here.”
Dream’s body will punish him for days to come, but it’s a small price to pay. They continue watching, or pretending to, and the next chunk of time they dedicate to the show is spent in Dream’s bed, for the sake of spinal cords and numb legs and interlocked hands beneath the covers.
Dream has always loved swimming at night.
When he was younger, he used to swim to the bottom of the pool during parties, crossing tiny legs and flailing his arms to keep himself sunken. He used to wish he could hold his breath forever, so he could just exist beneath the surface for as long as he wanted, vision hazy and sounds jumbled. Free. Weightless.
Submerged, everything is still.
Unfortunately, at 23, he still can’t hold his breath forever. He pushes lightly off his feet when his chest starts to feel tight, and a seal of tranquility breaks over his head when he resurfaces. His hands make asynchronous splashing sounds as he pulls them up to his face, wrinkled palms digging into his eyes.
He inhales large gulps of humid air, and finds that it’s pretty quiet above water tonight, too. He also finds, when he drops his hands, that George is watching him.
LED lights wash the expanse of his back blue where he’s resting in the deep end. He’s holding himself up by the pool wall, and after Dream takes the few sluggish strides necessary to bring them close, he drops his chin onto folded arms, grin stretching wide and glossy.
“Hi, George,” Dream rests his left hand over the edge, right slipping beneath the water to cradle George’s waist.
Neither of them comment on the touch, but the brunet relaxes instantly, resting some of his weight into the protective hold like he knows he doesn’t have to work to keep himself afloat when Dream is around.
“This is really nice,” he says, and familiarly, a seal breaks. His voice is watery, and Dream’s own eyes well up with instant tears when George has to look away to blink his dry.
He looks tired, with eyes crinkled eyes and slow movements, and Dream assumes it’s the quiet come down after a day’s worth of constant doing that’s got him feeling sentimental. That, or he has the same nostalgic affinity Dream does for pools in the dark. For swimming alone — or as close to alone as one can get with a companion who’s their cosmically destined other half.
“It is,” Dream agrees, pulling them closer so he can brace George against his hip. “You okay?”
George nods distantly. Beneath the pool’s surface, ankles cross behind Dream’s back as he slots himself into a position to be carried. Above it, Dream closes his left hand over George’s, fingertips reaching to twist the blue beads tied around his wrist.
“It’s crazy,” George continues, and his eyes are shining when he looks at Dream. “It’s, like, forever summer here.”
George just missed Florida’s summer, actually, but it’s still hot enough rounding October for them to pretend that he didn’t.
“Mmhm,” Dream finds it hard to speak, heart hammering in his chest at the way George’s legs are wrapped around him, but he pushes, “Is that good or bad?”
“Good,” George spares a glance at their hands, then a much longer gaze down at Dream’s face. He blinks slowly, and a tear races down to his curving lips. “Really good.”
“I’ll be sure to tell Sapnap you liked his cooking this much,” Dream muses, thinking back to hours prior where everything had been louder and brighter, the smell of barbecue wafting in the air.
“Can you—” Dream starts, voice jumbled around a steaming hotdog. “Can you stop?”
Dream and George are seated at a round, glass table beside the pool, dripping water into the seat cushions and eating like they haven’t in years. A few feet away, Sapnap is singing loudly, twirling a towel around his neck as he dances around the barbecue.
“Stop what?”
“Staring,” Dream huffs. He begrudgingly sets his hotdog on his plate so he can wipe his mouth, and the back of his hand comes back red. Embarrassment floods his growing sunburn as he dries the ketchup on a napkin. “You’re an idiot.”
George laughs, food cradled in his gentle hands, and takes a bite. He makes a show of getting sauce all over his face, too.
“This is epic,” is all he says while chewing, and Dream supposes it is.
A nervous laugh accompanies the deflection, but there’s a look on George’s face that says it probably doesn’t matter anyway, too deep in thought to be really listening.
The water sways them. Chest to chest, they practically dance, moving in silent harmony. Dream kisses a tear off George’s cheek because his hands are occupied, though more come rushing in its place.
“Dream…?”
“Sorry, George, I—”
“I’m really happy,” George gushes, don’t apologize, and it’s written all over his face. “I just— Yeah. I’m— This is good. I like this.”
Dream would be a fool not to cherish this. He wishes he had something to take a picture with.
“The pool?”
The sight of George rolling his eyes is a truly wonderful one, up close.
“No, idiot,” he scoffs, wiping his cheeks with already wet hands. Then, right when Dream thinks he may say something profoundly sweet, “I was talking about your mother.”
“Don’t do that,” Dream whispers, begs, his hand swimming up the length of George’s spine. “Don’t pull away.”
George smells like chlorine when he leans close. Fingers curl in Dream’s hair, and time slows when George brushes it back with utmost care, “I haven’t, Dream.”
He sniffles then, laughing lightly over Dream’s collarbone.
“I don’t know why I’m so… emotional,” he continues. “It’s weird.”
“It’s not weird,” Dream assures. “It’s perfectly understandable. You’re just lucky you’re a pretty crier.”
George gives him a wide-eyed look, feigning surprise. “You think I’m pretty?”
“You are pretty.”
It’s nothing he hasn’t said before, but George falters. Dream feels it in his slackened thighs and the limp hand around his neck.
He almost regrets it, but then something soft and rosy swallows George’s features.
“You— You’re pretty, too,” he admits, voice sinking. “Is that— Can I say that?”
“Yeah,” Dream grins. “You can say that, if that's how you feel. You can, uh, you can even say it again, if you feel so inclined. Whenever you want, actually, even if it’s all the time, which I know it is.”
The water laps around George when he laughs with his entire body, and Dream thinks that if this was the last moment he ever lived, he’d be okay with that.
Dream likes to consider himself the caretaking type.
It’s not something he ever really thought twice about, until he met George, who is very much not the caretaking type. He’s cold, flighty, and a little bit of a germaphobe. At least that’s what Dream thinks, and he told George as much when he first witnessed him cutting the bitten edge off some leftover chicken when they couldn’t remember who’d eaten it last.
George raises an eyebrow, stalling the knife in its movements. “Really?”
Dream only shrugs, sliding comfortably into one of their bar stools to watch him move around the kitchen. “There’s nothing, like, wrong with it. I just think it’s interesting, because you’re not exactly the cleanest person…”
George rolls his eyes before turning away from Dream. He tugs at the handle on the microwave door, and his plate settles in the turntable with a satisfying click. He shuts it, sets it to half a minute, and turns back expressionless.
The microwave springs to life, humming quietly behind their conversation as George says, “I think you’re wrong.”
“Okay,” Dream says, because he knows that he isn’t, but he’s not sure why it even matters.
Dream likes taking care of people. Maybe it’s just the way he’s wired, or maybe it’s because he likes to be taken care of. It’s not something he dwells on, pointedly, because he and George fit together in so many ways that he doesn’t like to think about the ways they don’t.
It doesn’t bother him, really, that George may never reciprocate this language of love, because why would it? George isn’t the be-all end-all, and it’s not like he even knows this for sure. Whatever.
Either way, Dream doesn’t get to find out, because the first person to get sick post Dream Team meetup is George himself.
It’s a few months before it happens, and they’re all so happy that, for a while, they feel immune to silly ailments like the flu. But when it hits, it hits hard, and the entire world comes to a halt in the kitchen on a Sunday night. Or Dream’s does, at least.
“George…?” he announces his cautious steps through the archway, tilting his head at the sight before him.
George is shirtless, skin flushed all the way up his neck under refrigerator light. His hand shakes around the door handle as he analyzes their stocked shelves with an empty gaze. He doesn’t react to his name being called until fingertips grace his shoulder and he flinches, eyes wide. He spins on his heels, and Dream takes note of the minute tremble of his lashline and his clenched teeth. Dream has never seen George sick before, and yet somehow he instantly knows. He approaches the situation warily.
“Are you looking for something?”
“Um,” George croaks. He relaxes ever-so-slightly when he recognizes Dream, but his eyes flutter from the effort talking seems to take, and he stumbles forward a little.
“Hey,” Dream is purposeful in his movements, squeezing his shoulder with one hand and supporting his chest with the other. George’s heart pounds into his palm, sweat and heat sinking deep into the skin there.
George blinks, “Hi.”
He shivers before the open fridge, and Dream maneuvers him carefully against the opposite counter so he can push the door closed. George braces both hands on either side of himself, knuckles white against the marble, and Dream frowns.
“Are you feeling okay?”
The tiniest shake of George’s head is all that he gets, but Dream takes it as gospel, reaching over him to rub his shoulder blade again.
“No?” he hums, so soft that the sound of his own voice makes him grimace for a second. “What’s up, Georgie?”
“Um,” George repeats, eye contact unwavering even though it doesn’t seem like he’s actually looking closely at anything. “I wanted…”
He tilts his head over Dream’s shoulder, so he guesses, “Water?”
When he looks back, nothing in George’s eyes suggests that this means anything to him, but he nods.
“Headache?” Dream tries.
Through his blank stare, George weakly supplies, “Throat hurts.”
This is when Dream learns that George is the perfect height for an easy kiss on the forehead. His brain tells him that he should figure out George’s temperature, and for some odd reason, he steps forward and doesn’t use his hands.
His lips make a quiet sound as they part from searing skin, and even then, he stays close. It's impossible not to when they fit together so well like this.
Profoundly, he states, “You have a fever.”
George is silent, and Dream can’t see much past the top of his bedhead for the near-painful stretch of time before pale fingers wrap around Dream’s forearm, warm and trembling.
Stop, he prepares himself for, Get away from me.
Instead, George pushes forward, and Dream moves in tandem. His hand comes to support the back of George’s head and he purses his lips into a second kiss beneath his bangs.
Dream lets himself be thoughtless, the tip of his nose brushing against that same, feverish skin when he pulls away and George sighs — the most emotive reaction out of him tonight.
Comfort me.
Some past version of Dream (however recent those thoughts may have been) might think this is unfair, but there’s medicine in the cabinet behind them, so this Dream — the one with the one-track mind and a sick George in his arms — detangles himself to reach for it.
He’s searching a tiny white bottle for an expiration date when George steps to him, tapping his shoulder.
“Hm?”
He turns when he doesn’t get an answer, and sees George swallowing a wince. His throat hurts, Dream recalls, water.
All he manages to get out is a strained and timid, “Again,” and guilt floods Dream’s chest.
“Yeah,” he says distractedly. “Sorry, George. One sec—”
A sharp tug to his shirt sleeve almost sends the pill bottle clattering to the ground. George is unmoving, eyes wide, glossy, and dark. He’s being misunderstood.
Just as Dream is about to initiate another round of mental charades, George reaches for Dream’s hand, intertwines their fingers loosely, and pulls.
His chin is raised, eyes falling closed, and Dream is breathless as he follows instructions. He reaches out to hold George’s face and the curious skin on his fingertips travels the length of his jaw. Stubble, and a tiny scar. His neck is swollen where Dream's pinky brushes the skin, and a quiet whine sounds from his throat.
George blinks behind his eyelids, impatient and touch–sensitive, and Dream thinks he may have to take him to the doctor tomorrow morning; but tonight, he agrees, “One more.”
For the third time, tonight and ever, he kisses George’s forehead, and he can’t pretend not to notice the effect it's having.
George shivers, grip tightening around Dream’s fingers. Unsteady on his feet, he leans into the touch for as long as Dream will have him — or until he starts to sniffle, a preemptive shudder tearing through him before he jerks away to sneeze into cupped hands.
“Okay, sweetheart,” Dream says, rubbing a bless you into George’s forearm with movements deservingly delicate (his brain tells him to say the nickname teasingly, but that’s not how it ends up sounding). With his other hand, he tears a napkin off the roll and offers it as a makeshift tissue, which George takes timidly. “Let’s get you that water and some medicine, hm?”
When he’s finished blowing his nose and Dream is holding a glass cup to their refrigerator’s ice dispenser, George rubs a knuckle down the back of his hand to get his attention again.
“Yeah?”
Dream’s voice is still breathy and low, soft all over, and it’s worse now, because he should be disgusted by this, but he just can’t find it in him.
“Stay, please.”
George’s jaded voice cracks on the words, and Dream considers expressing how odd of a request this is given where they are, but he knows that location is not what he’s referring to, and George sounds too sick for their usual push and pull.
He’s already mapping out a plan for getting George comfortable in his room, extra blankets piled to the ceiling while he waits on his beck and call. Even if George hadn’t asked, he thinks he would have stayed.
“Of course,” he agrees easily, cool water chilling his palm as it pours over ice. Even if it’s one-sided, there is no world where he denies George of this. “Of course I’ll stay.”
Flashes of green, gray, and blue whirl around Dream’s head with frigid air. He’s disoriented, senses unbalanced, and the first thing he registers is frantic voices.
Wrapping paper falls unceremoniously to the floor between the couches and the coffee table, something green and gold and expensive with a shining finish. Dream’s sister rips into it, her leg bouncing with excitement right beside his.
A small piece of cardstock descends into the growing pile. "FROM SAPNAP… & George! :]” is scrawled in frantic, mismatched handwriting. By the time Dream looks up from it, the skateboard is unwrapped in his sister’s lap, and she’s gawking at his friends with wide eyes and bright pink cheeks.
He’d scoffed when George and Sapnap showed it to him a few days ago, and he does it again now for show. “I don’t know how I feel about you becoming a mini Sapnap.”
“Me either,” his mom agrees humorously, which earns her a spluttering laugh from George, who has to double over on the couch to prevent homemade eggnog from spilling out of his mouth.
“Wha— What’s wrong with being a mini me?”
Nobody answers, because they’re all too busy laughing and there is no real answer, but after a few seconds of trying and failing to collect himself, George supplies, “Dream’s mum hates you, Sapnap.”
The living room descends into madness after that, and Dream’s attention flickers fondly between the four of them. Nick and his sister are sporting matching blushing cheeks while they argue their points, his mother’s smile is ever gentle, but wider today as she assures Sapnap that she loves him, truly, and George is glowing, eyes twinkling with reflected Christmas lights.
The second thing he registers is pain. It explodes from his wrist first, and when he tears his eyes fully open to assess the damage, a million more agonizing fireworks erupt in his skull and he squeezes them shut again. His knees, the palms of his hands, and his throat all burn, bile rushing up in threatening waves.
A voice stands out above the rest, suddenly closer, and Dream knows — before he knows anything else — that it’s George.
A tired, comfortable silence befalls the living room some time later. They’re all leaning back in their seats a little lower, breathing a little heavier, and smiling a little wider, but George cuts in before the fun can end too soon. He nods toward the board — neon green and pink on the underside — and grins.
“Dream, we should learn.”
Dream and Sapnap whip their heads towards George at the same time, differing levels of shock evident on their faces.
“Really?” Sapnap hopes, at the same time Dream says, “No way.”
“Shhh,” Dream doesn’t think he’s making any sort of sound, but he must be to warrant this level of soothing. Gentle hands brush around his face, “It’s okay. You’re okay,”
He blinks a second attempt, and this time, George’s fingers are cupped over his brow bone, shielding the sun. His vision is still blurred and warping as he struggles to focus on his lap, but he thinks he makes out some traces of red where there shouldn’t be.
“Hey,” George calls for him breathily.
Dream tries to look at him, but the overly festive shades of his clothing melt together into something nauseating. “George…”
“I’m here,” he says sturdily. “I’ve got you.”
He notices, distantly, that George is the only voice now, and a lonely sort of panic fills his chest.
“They went to get your mum,” George is a mind-reader, quick to try and calm him. “Won’t be long.”
Dream tries to nod, though he doesn’t understand a thing that’s happening right now. A few feet away, something brightly colored rolls down the sidewalk. Dream can feel his heartbeat pulsing in his ribcage. “Hurts.”
Dream’s hair is sticky and hard where George attempts to tuck it behind his ear.
“Where?”
“Head…” he assesses. “‘M bleeding, George?”
With his vision slowly, but surely, beginning to focus, he sees the hesitation cross George’s features.
“Just a little,” he confirms, voice tight. George doesn’t lie to him. Instead, he holds two fingers to his lips and kisses them, then presses them in a feather–light touch to Dream’s temple.
“Don’t wanna hurt you,” he mumbles in explanation. “Anywhere else?”
Dream lifts his right hand to show off his palm, where the road is imprinted into bright red skin and the sleeve of his crewneck is dirty and torn. Quickly, tiny kisses litter the skin that broke his fall — or failed to.
Before he can reach for the other hand, though, Dream warns him, “Wrist.”
George pales when he glances down at it, and Dream makes a firm mental note not to throw up because he thinks it might trigger a chain reaction. So, it’s bad then. That makes sense.
“Okay,” George nods again, a little too eagerly this time. “No kisses there ‘til we know it’s not, like, broken, yeah?”
“Later?”
Dream surprises himself by asking, and a nervous laugh bubbles up his throat and out of his mouth to stop himself from saying any more.
To George’s credit, he only stalls for a second or two before he promises, “Yeah, Dream, later— How about your knees?”
Dream furrows his brows and vertigo flares behind his eyes. He moves to bend his legs, and sure enough, he’s reminded of the incessant burning.
Shorts were a bad choice. Dream shivers. It’s chilly this Christmas.
George is already stopping him from aggravating his injuries further, but when Dream looks down for those pale hands he loves so much, there’s blood coating the tips of George’s gentle fingers from where Dream’s skin has been completely shredded by the pavement.
“M’bad,” Dream groans. “That’s gross.”
“It’s fine,” George assures, even though he looks two seconds away from passing out and leaving them both incapacitated on the side of the road. “Don’t move, okay?”
Where he’s sitting on his own legs by Dream’s side, George leans forward and carefully kisses the side of his knee. Then, he stretches even farther to press a second, identical kiss to the opposite wound, palm against cement, stomach over Dream’s lap.
The whole time, he’s holding Dream’s hand with an uncharacteristic sort of strength and control, and he squeezes when they both register the incoming voices of his family.
“Feels better,” Dream lies, a dopey, uncontrollable grin coming over his face. He knows George can tell, even as red tinted lips curve up into his own sympathetic smile.
Dream’s mom comes to the rescue, as she tends to do, with delegation and soothing hands and all the right things to say. When they get to the ER, she’s the one who fills out all the paperwork, but it’s George who keeps him afloat.
It’s George, surprisingly, who holds Dream’s hair and rubs his back when he ends up puking Christmas breakfast into one of those disposable blue tubes in the waiting room, George who recounts every detail of the fall and every symptom Dream has expressed thus far, and George who kisses all up his good hand when all the prodding makes his eyes water.
It’s George who takes care of him, without being asked.
“Wh’d’you do that…?” Dream attempts, tongue heavy. He’s incredibly high at this point, trying not to doze off where he’s sat up against the wall waiting for a prescription.
“Do what?”
“It’ll be fun,” George shrugs, leaning cockily against the wall opposite Dream, and, as expected, he can’t resist him.
He just looks so happy today. He’s practically glowing, pretty and festive and carefree and here.
George looks worn, face pale under artificial light. Harsh shadows make his face look thinner, cheekbones hollowed and eyes tired. There’s dried blood on his face that isn’t his, but his smile is still the same from this morning, if only a little strained, and he looks good in his ridiculous reindeer sweater covered in dirt.
Dream purses his lips and makes a kissing sound. When George doesn’t entertain him, he raises his own hand and kisses it, then makes to bend down and kiss his own knee before George steps forward and stops him with two small hands on his chest.
“Slow down, Tony Hawk, I get it.”
“Mike’s brother,” Dream comments.
“Mature,” George scoffs, but he’s smiling, forced close to Dream’s chest and slotted between scraped knees. Quietly, he unfolds, “You scared me, idiot. Why do heads bleed so much? I– I thought you were gonna have, like, brain damage. I thought we killed you,”
George’s breath still smells like eggnog. Dream’s never had it, but if it’s anything as good as this, he might give it a try next year. He gives George a pointed look that ushers him into silence, just so he can watch the blush take over his face.
“You’re prob’bly gonna kill me,” Dream says. “One day.”
George drops his head, but they’re so close that his hair brushes Dream’s collarbone. Between their bodies, Dream's wrist is bandaged and splinted.
“I’m sorry,” George whispers.
“Not your fault,” Dream assures, even though it is, in a butterfly-effect, you-know-I-can’t–say-no-to-you-and-took-advantage kinda way, but it’s not like he knew Dream would eat shit.
He tells George as much, and it shocks a laugh out of him.
“So much for Dream Team Christmas, huh?”
Dream nods solemnly. “Sapnap isn’t even here. He doesn’t care that I almost died.”
He’s with their family, actually, and Dream specifically told him — before he was high out of his mind — not to come in case it drew unwanted attention. But, this is funnier.
Despite his earlier admission of panic, George counters, “Relax, Dream. Your wrist is sprained.”
“I’m concussed,” Dream adds.
“Mild. Mildly… Mildly concussed.”
Dream looks up, ready to fight back, but he just can’t.
This is George’s first Christmas away from his family and home, and he’s spending it in an American Emergency Room and his hair is messy and his face is dirty and he’s smiling like there’s nowhere in the world he would rather be.
“Are you okay?” George frowns.
“I…” Dream is in love with him. “I was wrong. I was scared, but you’re so… You’re so good to me, George.”
George’s face twists into something adorable and confused, so Dream continues.
“You kissed my bloody knees.”
“Yeah. I thought it would make you feel better. I don’t know. I guess that’s kinda weird, but I was just, like, thinking… if it was me, and I was panicking and hurting, like, what would calm me down, right?”
“You’re gross, George,” Dream smiles, lips tingling. “Anyway,” he shrugs. “DNF Christmas.”
He expects George to reprimand him, but instead he laughs a lovely laugh, hands sliding up Dream’s neck. “DNF Christmas. The night is young. What do you wanna do?”
“Mm,” Dream thinks. “Bath.”
George perks up a little. “Do you have any Christmas bath bombs?”
“Probably. Wanna wash my hair,”
George looks down at the splint again, and his smile deepens for a reason Dream can’t understand. “Sounds good, Dreamie.”
Dream frowns. “Are you only being nice to me because you feel bad about almost murdering me?”
George leans closer, hands roaming in Dream’s hair as a preview for what’s to come — George’s shampoo and bubbly cinnamon scents and George’s hands — and presses a kiss to the bridge of Dream’s nose. “Yes.”
“I didn’t hurt my nose.”
“No?” George furrows his brow, poking the spot his lips just left. “Are you sure?”
“Oh,” Dream reacts belatedly to the touch. “Ow, George. Ow. That hurts so ba—”
Another, and another, on both sides. The tip of his nose. The space between his eyebrows. In between, George pretends to punch him, only to attack with peppered kisses, unashamed and ever soft.
Blood pumping in his ears and pain meds slowly wearing off, Dream allows himself to feel it all.
When George moves into their home, he comes with a bunch of little habits. Silly things, like leaving clothes in the dryer for too long or using his real singing voice in the shower because he doesn’t realize anyone can hear him. Little things, parts of him uncovered as the months pass, reminders around their home that George is real and unraveling.
Dream’s favorite of these habits, he thinks on a windy Winter Tuesday, is that George insists on decorating for every holiday.
Sapnap hates it, and they probably won’t hear the end of his distaste until March — partly because George doesn’t share the same fondness for cleaning up after himself as he does for decorating or raiding Party City with Dream’s credit card, and partly because Sapnap has been begging Dream to decorate with him since their last place.
Dream does feel a little guilty, but Sapnap is nothing if not stubborn, so each holiday that rolls around has him feigning annoyance more valiantly than the last. By the new year, he’s mastered the art of avoiding the set–up (with a trip to Punz’s, or a Twitch tournament, or sleep… Whatever it takes).
And it’s not like Dream blames him. When he said covering their home in overpriced, temporary decor was stupid, he meant it.
It is stupid, but it’s worth it to get to see George like this. Dream doesn't enjoy it because he likes decorating; he enjoys it because it surprises him. Because it’s unlike the George he knew, back in London, before he knew how to drive, or before he started pronouncing the ‘a’’ in ‘tall.’
Dream likes that they’re all changing, together (even if he’ll never let George’s accent stray too far).
“Oh my god,” George starts, and Dream can’t help the way his lips pull. He’s been sitting at the bottom step of their ladder since he came downstairs and found George hard at work trying to get his arrangement of heart-shaped streamers just right. “I’ve got it. I’ve actually got it—”
Dream extends a supporting hand when George starts to bounce excitedly, and he takes it, stepping down and around Dream’s thighs until he’s positioned safely on the ground and can move freely.
He keeps hold of Dream’s hand as he speaks, tilting his head up at the display and waving his free hand around absently.
“They're not really long enough, are they?” He scrunches his nose contemplatively. “Our ceiling is too high.”
Dream’s stomach still flips when words like ‘our,’ leave George’s lips.
“I think they look great,” he says, without even pretending to consider it. George is a little sweaty, and Dream thinks he might have attempted to style his hair today. “Any lower and they’d probably hit my face when I walk underneath them.”
“Right,” George breathes a soft laugh. “Yeah, that’s true. Let’s see,”
Roles reversed, Dream lets himself be led. He slides off the ladder step, moving along to the pull of George’s fingers in his.
They’re standing in the doorway to their house. Their big house with high ceilings and a cat and matching chopsticks in the kitchen drawer and Sapnap hiding in his bedroom and love dripping from the walls.
A red heart twirls over George’s head on a curling piece of string, and Dream feels one flatten against his hair.
George notices at the same time, and a goofy, apologetic laugh bursts out of him. It’s the kind that bubbles and grows and soon, George is ridding himself of the air in his lungs and squeezing Dream’s hand and pushing forward into his chest like he knows he's safe there.
“Why is this funny, George?”
He’s acting weird — the Redbull kind of hyper, or the nervous kind.
“Dream—” he pants, rushing to talk before he starts laughing again. “I don’t know. Dream, listen—”
“I’m listening,” Dream says softly, earnestly, and that slows him down. He stutters around a final few giggles, lashes fluttering between rapid blinks, and Dream is content to absentmindedly stroke a thumb over his knuckles until he catches his breath.
As much as he likes to, George never has to fight for Dream’s attention. Not when he’s bordering hysteria, nor when he’s saying nothing at all. George knows this, but something grateful graces his features at the reminder.
"I really don't know why that was so funny."
His cheeks are bright red when he manages to calm down, something rosy and sweet to match his lips.
Dream tilts his head.
“Are you wearing makeup?”
George shrugs.
“It looks good,” Dream elaborates, a little out-of-breath himself, suddenly. His heart is doing the hammering thing, and his voice wavers. ”I like it. It’s… here, right?” The hand not in George’s brushes his cheek. This is not his usual blush.
“...and here?” Carefully, slowly, Dream’s finger wanders. He thumbs the center of George’s bottom lip, narrowly resisting the urge to tug, and George lets him, lids drooping.
“Mmhm,” he admits. “Tina’s stuff.”
It’s one of those nights: just George and his chat. A little hardcore Minecraft, a little Tiktok, lots of donations and quiet laughter.
George does streams like this from his bedroom, and tonight, chat complains that his angle is odd. Different.
“Just a different setup, guys,” he lies, failing to mention that his camera is tilted to keep his bed out of frame, where Dream is propped up on his elbow, watching from up close. “It’s not the office, remember?”
Losing focus, Dream starts to rifle through the clutter on George’s nightstand. He hasn’t been moved in long enough for this to be too invasive, Dream thinks, and they’re beyond that kind of thing anyway.
A thin, rose-colored bottle winds up in his hands while George is telling some half-joke like, “I’m already in Florida, you guys don’t have to analyze everything, anymore.”
Dream vaguely recognizes the container, and when he curiously twists the lid open, he finds a small brush coated in thick, reddish-pink liquid.
“That’s really cute, George,” Dream allows himself. “You went all out today. I didn’t know you were such a romantic,”
George shakes his head, a strand of hair falling from where it’s been gelled or hair–sprayed or something Dream still can’t place.
“What about you?” he counters, and his sock-clad foot rubs the cuffed denim between Dream’s ankles. “You’re wearing jeans.”
“Someone sent them to me.”
“You’re wearing new jeans,” George adds. “That your mum didn’t buy you. Nice ones.”
“Hey—”
“You look nice,” he corrects, matter-of-factly, and Dream shuts up. “Do you have plans or something?”
“What?” Dream scoffs. He doesn’t think he looks particularly fancy, in a simple black t-shirt, but he supposes it’s nicer than what he usually lounges around the house in. Still, he says, “Of course not.”
“‘Of course not,’” George is quick to mock. “Why ‘of course,’ huh?”
Dream raises an eyebrow, and thinks about their annual tradition, something the fans have been missing, speculating, and joking about. “I don’t ha—”
“Be mine,” George blurts, and with the words, all the air comes rushing out from Dream’s lungs. He audibly splutters, hand twitching, and George continues. “Fuck, I— You— You were about to ruin it. Fuck you— I had— It was supposed to be better than that.”
Adrenaline and pure confusion set Dream’s skin ablaze.
"You just—" Eyes wide, Dream forces himself to laugh, and chokes out with a hand over his back pocket, “I’m tweeting this.”
“Wait,” George reaches out, and now both of their arms are touching each other’s, sweat pooling between their palms and legs nearly intertwined where they’re standing under cheap, on-the-nose symbols of love and around the pink, red, and white balloons scattered across the floor with no helium. “Don’t.”
“Why?” Dream breathes, though he thinks he knows.
“Are you an idiot?” George whispers, free of malice. “It’s not a bit for them.”
Dream swallows. “What is it then?”
“You’re making me sound stupid,” George all but whines. “It’s, like, it’s a question. It’s the thing. Our thing. I want— I want to be your Valentine.”
“But you—” Dream’s brain is running so fast that his mouth can’t keep up. “You said— and we, we talked about—”
“I know.”
“I asked you—”
“I know, Dream.”
There’s a reason Dream hadn’t asked this year. The bit would have felt too raw, this time around — the rejection too personal, the heartbreak too genuine. It felt too weird to ask George something ironically romantic when what they’re towing now feels so close to what they were always pretending to be, or imagining they’d be. Wishing. Dream isn’t sure anymore, line far too blurred.
“If this is a joke,” The words catch in his throat. “It’s cruel, George.”
“It’s not,” George promises, voice wavering too. “I mean it. Say yes.”
“If—”
George pushes forward on the tips of his toes, pupils blown as he brings his face close to Dream’s, who stumbles back, effectively detangling the streamer from his hair.
“Say—” he urges, breath fanning the corner of Dream’s lips. “—yes.”
“Y–You—” Dream wants nothing more. He wants this so badly that his body aches. But, “You haven’t really asked me, to be fair,”
George falls back on his heels, pulling away. “I guess.”
“What do you mean ‘you guess’? You haven’t.”
Dream burns as George takes another step away from him, fingers brushing before the disconnect.
“Fine,” George sighs dramatically, eyes rolling. “I’ll do it right.”
On his way to the dining room, he pauses to lean over Dream’s shoulder and instructs, “Stay here. Close your eyes.”
“What’s this?” Dream asks when George has finally ended and is returning to his bed to flop next to him, rolling the bottle between his fingers still.
“Oh,” George shrugs when he sees it. “Tina gave that to me, when she visited London.”
“Lipstick?” Dream pries, unsure why he even wants to know so badly, or why his voice sounds a little hopeful.
“I think she puts it on her cheeks too,” George explains through a yawn, too exhausted, apparently, to notice the pounding of Dream’s heart when he presses his ear to his chest.
“Do you ever wear it?”
“Not really,” George says into his shirt. “Just once. With Tina. We should try it on you sometime.”
“Me?” Dream breathes.
“No,” George mumbles. “The other person in the room with us.”
“Oh, thank God, you see him too—” Dream starts, attempting to joke, but George cuts him off.
“It kinda tastes good. Looks good, too. Subtle. You’d like it.”
When George returns, his lips are still red between his teeth, and it’s telling of something that that’s what Dream notices before the flower in his hands.
Dream blinks stars away from his vision. “Geor—”
“Dream,” George cuts him off, voice soft and light. He points the single red rose at Dream’s chest, and he takes it.. “That’s for you.”
“Thank you,” he whispers. He's... stunned, voice nearly squeaking.
“Hm,” George pauses, just to make Dream go a little more insane, surely. He taps his chin, “How do I make this epic— Oh, I know: give me your hands,”
Before he can protest, George steals the rose back, sliding it between Dream’s teeth without warning. “Wha–thf’ck—”
“Dream,” George starts again, this time with Dream’s hands in his and twice as dramatically. “Will you— I can’t say it.”
“G’rge!”
“Fine,” George squeezes his hands. “Will you, Dream, Dreamwastaken, Dreamwastakenwastaken—”
Dream groans around the stem, and George seems to take pity on his bouncing leg and twitching hands because he settles.
“Will you be my Valentine?”
George detangles his left hand and yanks the rose from Dream’s mouth so he can answer, but it startles a yelp out of him.
“First of all, ow,” Dream takes the rose back once and for all, if only to get the offending thorns out of George’s hand. “Second of all, yes,” he says. Simple. Happy. Ridiculously cliché. Recalling, he adds, “As long as you mean it.”
George is thinking the same. He always is. “I 100% mean it.”
When they kiss, tangled in streamers and balloons and each other, Dream isn’t sure who initiates it, but it tastes as good as George once promised: cherry, and a little bit of metal where Dream’s lip is pricked, but that taste washes away as quickly as it appears, everything sweet with George. It’s as soft as all the kisses before, but more. This kiss is so much more.
This kiss is “I mean it,” and “I love you,” and “next step,” and “don’t stop,” George’s arms around his neck and Dream’s around his waist, a rose along his spine.
It doesn't feel like a sharp transition from friendship; instead, a confirmation of what they've always been. A reward, of sorts, for 4000 miles and three years and every single rejection and tear-filled late-night call. The end goal, of whatever it is they've been doing all this time, and the beginning of everything they're about to.
This kiss is a last first, a promise, cosmic. This kiss is “I’ve waited forever for this.”
When they pull away, Dream still isn't sure who's calling the shots, but they're both breathless. The color on their lips tells them they've always been the same.
George's eyes are hazy, and they soften as Dream speaks and he melts completely into the title he's earned.
"Hell of a kiss, Valentine."