GEORGE
"You ended?"
"Yes."
"A hundred percent?"
"Yes."
"Alright, just checking." Dream hovers away from my shoulder, where he previously leaned towards the second monitor. The clearly displayed offline status of the channel boldens out as us.
Sapnap puffs out an audible breath, slipping his hand off the mouse onto his lap.
There's a stretch of thinking silence, only disrupted by the noiseless turn of his head towards us.
And his expression; just the mere way he tosses it to us, the mix of annoyance and droll laughter and I have the uncontrollable urge to smile before he even says anything.
"'We're not gonna tell the stream', huh?"
From over my shoulder comes the wheeze, easily mistakable for something deflating and the challenge of not laughing has just increased tenfold. I clap a hand over my mouth, hearing the pitchy sound put on hold by a very clear "fuck you."
"Right, right, 'yeah, we're not gonna tell the stream, we're gonna hide it for now, no, no, we're keeping it a secret-'" Sapnap churns, egged on by the reactions he's receiving. "I swear, I thought you guys were better actors than this."
"George isn't-"
"Shut up."
"Neither of you are, come on."
Dream pushes out of his chair, hoisting himself on the bed with a heave. He makes a face. "We weren't that bad-"
"Oh, no no no," Sapnap immediately cuts him off, with a briskness I can't help but laugh at. "Twitter's gonna have a field day with this one."
"They always do-"
"Yeah, but this time they're not 'overanalyzing' it because it's true-"
I watch their back-and-forth, the smile growing easy and unaware. "...it was funny though."
Sapnap sighs back against his chair, hands thrown in the air.
"It made the stream better." I grin at the expression he flings at me.
"So much better," Dream jumps in, earning an identical look from Sapnap. "At least more interesting than watching you fail at GeoGuesser."
"Oh, ha-ha, you're funny. I'm not even that bad."
"You suck ass."
"Sorry I don't play this game like a maniac-"
"Come on, you don't even know the flags-"
So prompts another series of arguments, talking in circles, a dynamic almost identical on and off-screen. They jump from topic to topic and revisit more; it's dizzying to listen to yet years of knowing them have made it surprisingly easy to follow.
Eventually they do wear out as well, slipping into a content silence we couldn't afford a moment of in the past few hours. I slump further and further against the back of my chair, occasionally passing short conversation but mostly unwinding in the feel of the camera off.
"Hm." Sapnap locks a hand onto his shoulder, yawning into the hoodie bunch-up at his elbow.
He flicks his gaze upwards, half his face still buried in the fabric. A somewhat subtle grin crinkles up the edges of his eyes. "I'm gonna go take a nap."
Dream glances at the time. "Mkay."
"You can just say you don't want to deal with us anymore." I grin at him as he stands up and wanders across the expanse of Dream's room.
"You're right, I really don't."
Dream scoffs.
Sapnap pauses to crane his neck back at us, just as he's about to set foot into the outside hallway. "Also."
The snarky, sharp-tongued character he's put up for the past few hours, some fraction of it mellows into something sincere, something... loving. "-spend time with each other, jesus."
Aggressively loving. "I'll be fine," he waves at us when the first hints of unsureness arise. To pull off both traits at once is a feat in itself but it comes especially easy to him. His expression now still carries an uncanny resemblance of earlier's exasperation.
"Also, I'm really fucking tired."
I hear Dream's light laugh. "You did wake up early today."
"I know." He raises his knuckles against his lips, stifling another yawn. "Ugh. Okay. Wake me before dinner, or something."
"We're ordering take-out!" Dream calls, a few seconds later as his footsteps travel farther and farther away.
"I know!" sings his muffled reply. "That's the point."
"Smartass," Dream immediately mutters, far too quiet for Sapnap to even glimpse an earful of.
I look back from the wood glided shut, and laugh almost absentmindedly. "How nice of him."
Dream looks up from his phone, scrolling paused as the device slackens in his fingers. His expression is nearly amused, somehow softening the directness of his gaze. Without looking away, he subtly slips it into a pocket.
"Well." I deviate slightly from meeting his eyes, but make my way back nonetheless.
"Well." he tries to copy. A twinge of a smile lifts up the corners of his mouth.
It's an unexpectedly reassuring sight. "That was fun."
He murmurs agreement, leaning back as his arms prop him up.
His gaze slants slightly. "I feel like I haven't seen you all day."
"...you have," even though I'm perfectly aware of what he means. He shakes his head at my expression, and I quickly reassure him.
"Well, not like this," he says.
"Like what?"
"Alone." He grins, and it's a gleam of white brightness. "Just us."
A few fingers raise to my lips, trying to smother the expression beginning to press there. "Really."
To no avail. He sees it, clear as day. "Of course."
"Also, it's been a pretty crazy day." His voice is softer now; less playful, more genuine. "This... is nice."
A breath of fresh air, after the stream, the hectic morning and the levels of energy maintained throughout. It all dies away in this rosying afternoon; the quiet is near-serene.
"It is."
He stretches his leg, prodding me lightly in the shin. "Then come here."
It really, really is.
I rouse myself out of the chair, clearing away the few footsteps that separate us. He tucks his leg back into sitting cross-legged again, eyes never looking away. They stop with me as I stand where his knee was not 5 seconds ago.
He leans forward, hands dropped into his lap and chin tilted up to show me a big, dopey smile.
So, so unfair. And not just because he's sitting and I'm still barely taller than him. I study the light patterning of freckles bridging his nose.
He moves mid-count, forehead tilting and thumping softly against my chest. I slip my hands out of their pockets to rest near the back of his neck.
I hear him sigh softly, taking the smallest of steps forward until my toes bump the frame. He shifts against me, face turning to the side as the lessened distance allows him to.
All day, I haven't touched him, not like this.
Light exhales blow warm across the fabric. My arms clasp, he's pulled tighter, hugged right up against my heartbeat.
Running in-between my fingers are fair, wavy locks, the same underneath the cheek I rest atop his head. The faint scent of his shampoo tickles my nose.
My eyes close, breathing in this silent everything.
A low murmur ruffles the quiet. "I'm so glad the stream's over."
I grin, as much as the subduing glow will allow. "Yeah, I could tell."
He grumbles protest, poking his face into my chest square.
There's a pause before he speaks again, and I move back to meet his eyes just in time. "They know, don't they?"
My head hangs, nose bumping against his. "Oh, definitely."
I feel myself sway as our tired laughs tip my balance onto my toes. He senses the slack, hands seizing against my back in a startled renew of alertness.
Gravity sinks me wholly against him. The spent energy in my limbs gives out slowly, seeping into the cotton comforters.
He scoots back from the edge of the bed, tugging me with him, startled laughter dappled in between his light chiding.
A pillow props up his head into the slightest incline, honing his neck into a slope of warmth. I breathe it in- I missed this, I missed this, I missed him like this.
By us passes an indeterminable space of time. It gets lost in the feel of faint, steady heartbeats and his linked hands across the base of my shoulder blades.
Even when he speaks, it weaves effortlessly with the silence. "I didn't know," he laughs, voice trailing right past my ear, "you were so... cuddly."
I lift up, feeling the disjointed cool of the air. My elbow sinks into the mattress besides his underarm, propping up my chin as I look down.
It's only a testament to how well he knows me, taking the question before I even ask it. "No, no." His eyes round, hand reaching up and fingers cupping jaw. "I like it."
I let him bring me down. His lips flit near the corner of my mouth, and there's undeniable strength underneath the tenderness of the caress.
The fleeting warmth blooms outwards until a smile touches me as well. "Cuddly?"
His nod bumps against my cheek.
"What does that mean?"
"Like... touchy."
I pull centimetres apart, feeling a hint of a flush.
He grins. "Like now." He receives a head-shake with no further efforts of denial.
I'm close enough to see his eyelashes flutter when he speaks. "It's... really nice." His voice is quiet, hardly there but so is the distance. "The change, it's startling."
Pent-up. Words and more of the same sort rattle off in my brain.
Wishing, yearning, hoping for this reality. One so vivid, that with every touch passed it's the sheer clarity of this is what I want.
I look over his gaze, toned with an emotion I can't describe.
So I'd missed it- I missed something that I haven't even known long enough to miss but it's the only sense of longing I can place a name to.
"Making up for it now." There's not much else to say.
I lay my head back down, undoing the strain of a few muscles. Before my vision range confines to solely his chest and the peek of collarbones, I just catch the briefest glance of something readable.
Something understanding, something bittersweet.
"It's never been a 'you' thing to do," he says softly. I feel a few fingers brush lightly against my shoulder. "You couldn't stand anything like this, remember?"
"Remember," I echo.
His arms relink around my back, shifting us both into a tighter hug. "I like this side of you." he announces simply.
I can hear the grin, big and dumb. But smile nonetheless.
"It's barely a side at this point," I reply, "if it hardly ever shows."
"It is," he insists. "It just takes a lot to bring it out of you."
You're a lot.
The idea of it is heartening. I entertain it, "what else needs to be 'brung out'?"
"...hmm?"
"What else isn't a 'me' thing?"
A pause of thinking silence passes, ending with "Opening up. Like, talking about feelings and whatnot."
"I'm not that-"
"Oh come on, you know it's true."
"In comparison to you, yes. That's just kind of how it's always been, though."
His defensive shrug prods against my shoulder. "I mean, you asked-"
"Hm, say something else."
"Say something else," he mimics in an insultingly irksome voice. "Is that not good enough?"
I frown over the urge to smile, at how on-the-nose he really hit with the point. "No."
With one strong argument made, it's made very clear very early on, that it's all he's really got. He bumbles on- short, British, colorblind, all struggles of mine apparently. The prompt for 'things that come difficult' somehow translates to him as 'straight-up impossible'.
The topic sustains us for an impressive stretch of time, considering the simplicity of it and how every other thing he says hardly has a thought behind it.
It could be an hour, it could be half, it could be ten minutes- talking close and held closer in gentle intimacy I couldn't imagine feeling comfortable in, with anyone else.
Cuddly. The term bounces back around in my brain. Only he would be the one to say something as buoyant as that; only him, only him.
Eventually the exchanges of conversation do begin to slow, falling few and far-between the cozy silence. Words have become heavy to say, an effort already spent in exhausting previous thoughts.
It slows, faster than I expected. I pitch up my neck to look at him, and see the lenient roll of his gaze towards me. "Hi."
"Hi." The small cheek-creases formed by his grin, it makes me smile.
"Hi. You haven't said anything in a while."
He agrees, and his words begin to muffle. "I'm kinda tired. I slept pretty late, you know."
"We both did," I answer, before hastily adding, "I think everyone did."
"Well." He sniffs, snapping himself out of his yawn. "You still fell asleep before me."
I scrutinize this thought, trying to pick it out in the absolute blur of last night.
"I... can't really remember."
A quiet laugh escapes him. "It's okay. I know you did. I... watched you. For a bit."
Low surprise leaps to my face, before softening.
I feel the fondness begin to race. "Creep."
He grumbles, flicking my forehead with his pointer finger. "I knew you would say that."
I rest my chin onto my palms, elbows jamming into the bedsheets. My head slants, amused yet touched at the uncharacteristic shyness in his voice. "Well, what'd I look like?"
"Christ, okay."
The smile stirs in my core, before beaming upwards.
"It's funny," he finally rejoins, with the warmth of recollection. "You still look... happy, when you're sleeping. Like obviously, you're not full on smiling or anything, but peaceful is a good word to describe it, I think."
There's a beat of silence, his eyes cast to the side in careful thought. I see them flit back to me ever so often, in tune with the settling blush on his cheekbones.
God, you're going to be the end of me.
"Peaceful," he repeats. "Content, if you will." The embellished flair earns him a laugh. "Whatever. You looked nice."
The quiet thank you that he receives, it adds to the strange coyness we've both shyed into. Sighing, he looks up to me with a lazy smile and the undeniable pink-tones under his skin. "You were probably so happy because I was holding you, let's be real."
It eases us out, just as quick as it reeled us in.
I try to frown. "No."
Yes. "...maybe."
He laughs, sweet and soft.
"You look pretty cute in my arms, I think."
The end, the absolute end. Midway between exasperation and endearment my gaze slips down and runs over his cheeky grin, with its annoyingly perfect curve. "So cute you couldn't sleep?"
"Absolutely," he breathes. And it's a small thing, how true he sounds, but the warmth singing along my neck tells no lies.
He shifts the slightest bit towards me, the same affection in his features. I wonder if the eye contact will ever not get me. "And then-" he raises a hand into a mock slo-mo punch against my cheek, even adding a sound effect on impact, "-you made me wake up early too, because you wanted to surprise Sapnap."
I catch his fist, smiling against his palm as I pry it open. "Mhm."
"You can imagine how many hours I slept," he begins to say, caught off by an unmistakable yawn. "so yeah, I'm tired."
"I guess you can sleep," I drawl. The dramatics are forgotten in an instant as I receive a beautifully exhausted smile.
"Here." I rest his hand back down. "I'll watch you." His fingers curl gently, resting on his chest as he stares upwards, gaze soft.
"That does sound weird," he mumbles after a lull.
"It really does."
"Did I sound that creepy?"
I can only taste warmth on my tongue- no witted sarcasm, no clever replies.
"No."
Really, truly, no.
"It's just how you say it then," he answers dismissively, sounding accomplished at whatever victory he finds in that.
A weighted sigh, heavily exasperated but there's never really any true frustration with him. I shift my chin onto one palm, shoving the other against his face. "You can sleep now."
His tired laugh, the peek of a grin and the way his features lift with the most subtle mirth- up this close, it's a sight I etch every detail into remembrance.
My hand, almost subconsciously, grazes over his cheek. Almost unthinkingly, almost second nature, despite the relative newness of it all.
Simultaneously, he turns his face towards me. It's a motion that looks as heavy as the mountains themselves, an effort equivalent to shifting the earth and sky.
He's slowing with the second, that much is easy to tell. But with his face cupped in my palm, he manages a last small smile before his eyes drift shut.
Breath raises his chest before letting it sink. It courses, gently, through its languid cycle.
I feel my own in a golden, lively glow; rich in some emotion I would have thought of as impossible until now.
My fingers nearly shake, with the overwhelming care, the fear of even disrupting a breath out of place.
Yet the movements feel so natural, unexplainably so. Underneath the hesitation of nerves there's an undeniable draw to him- almost instinctive, almost easy.
They tuck a stranded tuft of hair back into the fluff above his forehead. They linger, trailing right along his hairline before coming to rest where his jaw meets his ear.
They drift down to his chest, bumping against his hand.
To my surprise, he moves. His fingers curl around mine, the strength unexpected when he locks and holds.
His eyes never open through it all. The sleep works strong and slow, and it's impossible to pinpoint the exact moment he slips away to it.
Only through the gradual deepening of his breaths and his grip slowly losing its life, but they're all things that pass by me completely unseen.
There's just so much to admire. Even during something so effortless, so mundane.
His freckles, especially. Light, faint, even at this closeness and it's just that unfamiliarity that keeps me there longer than all other features.
Pretty, just like everything else. Up close, they speckle in a new clarity.
Maybe I'm counting them, maybe I'm just admiring, and maybe I would stay up for this too.
I would. But my eyelids droop and my wrist aches and my other hand is still clasped in his. The warmth of the afternoon, bringing upon us these treasured kinds of moments; all too easy to indulge in.
Sleep itself has never sounded so sweet. My elbow slips out beneath me, in a much welcomed release of strain. Carefully, so I don't disturb him, I press my cheek to the slope of his shoulder.
The last thing I can remember seeing is my hand in his embrace, still resting on the slope of his chest. The last thing I remember thinking is what to tell him, if he asks, and the memory is there, so there.
He looks happy too.
~
"Ow."
"Oh, sorry." He hums. "You know, you should get one. It'd look good."
I pause soothing over where his earring had jabbed against my temple, a sharp bead of cold metal, and shudder at the thought. "That's terrifying."
"It's not."
"They punch a hole through your ear, god-"
A breathy laugh escapes him. "Okay, okay, just my opinion."
I huff, shifting away from that area of his shoulder. My eyes look to the dim expanse of his room from a severely slanted glance.
Beyond the edge of the bed, post-sunset continues to elapse.
The cooling sunbeams pass through slips in the curtains' areas of vulnerability. I can see them crawling along the floor, in shades of greyed-vibrance that've become easier to distinguish in the five, ten minutes I've been awake.
Startled by the state of the sky and the time of day it indicated, then to find out he had long woken up and let me oversleep. There were complaints with no real regret- with the reality I woke up in, there's none, none at all.
My gaze lifts to the doorway. "Sapnap didn't wake."
He yawns quietly, mumbling acknowledgement. "We should probably get him up."
"We really should."
"Yeah."
Neither of us move.
There's something about the dusky tones and hazy lighting, just enough to let me make out his features in the dimness, that paint our surroundings as almost unreal.
Behind the heavy fabric hanging from his window there could be a magnificent sunset, if we just afforded it a look. But the muffled hues inside the room hold simplicity, yet they feel more unique than anything I've ever seen before.
They complement the moment. Along with the closeness of his breathing and his heartbeat, the hug of warmth despite no physical blanketing.
The moment- one I wish I could freeze in time, just to live in.
Again, and again, and again.
I inhale, and breathe it in. "Soon. We'll get up soon." The gentle laugh I hear questions the shared doubt of the statement. "Maybe."
"Maybe," he echoes. "At least the take-out place is 24 hours. Sapnap's gonna kill us though."
I grumble. "He'll be fine."
"It's his favorite restaurant here," Dream says. "And we've probably messed up his sleep schedule for good."
"All our sleep schedules."
"You're just so nice to him, aren't you?"
I relent, biting back a smile. "Whatever. We'll just eat a little later today. I don't think any of us can sleep anymore, anyways."
"True," he agrees. "Hey, we'll stay up past midnight again."
"We're gonna end up sleeping at noon," I add cordially.
"So be it. Then midnight again, we wake up." he brisks. "And then-"
He drifts into silence.
Soundlessly the words grow and die on my tongue.
One midnight. Then another. And the next will be back home.
My heart sways.
Almost imperceptible, possibly a mere figment of my imagination, but I swear his grip tightens, his fingers grow tenser against my shoulder.
Real, not real, I still lean into it.
"Then we'll go on from there."
My words feel smaller. He sounds younger, in all the ways outside of age. "We'll go on?"
"The days will still pass," is all I can manage.
It's such a ruin in the art of the moment, yet the emotions are quietly, easily tucked away at bay. I stare into the dimming darkness of the fleeting sunset, not wanting to look up and see what sort of expression contorts his features now. "We... we should get up."
There's a weighted, heavy pause of all the words unspoken. I breathe, feeling it sink away. "Hey. We'll stay up. Midnight, or whenever we feel like it. Yeah?"
"Yeah," he echoes, and the word sounds less empty.
In the darkest moment of our day, I can still feel a whisper of a smile, a reassurance of hope. "Let's go, then."
~
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chapter name chapter name !!!! :)