Warm water parts beneath Dream's reaching fingertips, aqua rising over his bare knuckles until the lapping surface bands around his wrist. Blues go purple in a crawl up his forearm, blond hairs suspended in their silent glide, and dappled through the water in deep, drifting bliss, jellyfish float beneath his stretching palm. The curve of his long fingers touch down on a mound of moonlight.
A subdued breath escapes him.
Translucent film slips delicately against his fingertips, gooey and thin, and the moon jelly tilts away with grace. A quake begins in the epicenter of his palm; saltwater nudges the corners of his eyes. His hands seem too large to hold such a gentle creature.
"Dream?"
His hands trapped them in glass, stole them from a quiet home, tipped the jars and held them up to gaze at their billows through white-hot sunlight. Grubby fingers clutched the cages on the long rides home; he'd blink and they were gone, dead, dissolved, only taught to take their beauty and never to make it last.
A cold hand brushes against his knuckles. Under the rippling surface, George's fingers drift in a wash of the same lunar shade, pale and slender, and Dream recoils his touch in fear it'll tear straight through.
"Where..." George's voice trails softly. "Where are we?"
His eyes snap up and the world floods back in a bloodrush; shoes bustling the lobby floor, nearby children's chatter, gurgles from a long row of open touching tanks. Overhead fluorescents and blue-shirted employees dot the corners of his swinging gaze until he meets George's stare.
"What'd you say?" Dream breathes out.
"I asked, 'where are you?'" A soft huff blows out the cloth covering George's mouth. "You just totally disappeared on me."
Dream pulls his hand from the glassy edge, ignoring how droplets shake down his palm. "Sorry, I'm sorry, what—what were we talking about?"
George's brow furrows, eyes hanging dark over the fabric pinched across his nose. "That look is on your face again."
"What look?"
"Your... dreamland one," George says. "The one you have when you're not sleeping well."
His jaw tilts up in avoidance of the deep-tanked jellies, swimming, silent, clouding the edges of his mind as he clears his throat. "Ah." He offers up a smile. "So you're watching me sleep?"
"Did us being up late give you bad dreams last night?"
The unwavering flatness in George's voice forces him to sigh, and he silently mourns the masked absence of his lips, hidden freckles on his nose, only a hint remaining of the cheekbones he'd studied in early light before day broke into noon. Truthfully, after shameless gossip turned to mumbles and nodding off at George's side, he'd had the most peaceful night of sleep for the first time since early summer.
"Don't you go worrying about me," Dream dismisses. "I'm the one who kept you awake."
George tosses him an eye-roll. "Exactly. I think we both need eight solid hours tonight."
"Are you threatening to never cuddle with me again?"
"What? We didn't even—ugh. Stop that." Saltwater is flung from George's fingers to land in a spackle across his shirt, and he continues, "All I'm saying is you seem tense. You weren't in the car, but you are now, and you keep yawning."
"It's not because of you." Dream wanders down after him in the line of open, glowing tanks, and he settles on a partial truth. "I have a fear of getting stung, that's all."
"You were just telling me these ones don't sting you."
"Well, technically, they can," he says. "Their underbelly has hundreds of short little tentacles that are mostly harmless to humans, but if they pull you in close enough—" He reaches out to graze fingernails over George's upper back as he leans forward. "They'll get you."
George's shoulders rise in a sharp tilt away. "Ew, god, at least use the hand sanitizer."
"You are such a germaphobe," Dream says fondly. "Six years. You hid yourself so well."
"I'm not. You're just handsy and you touch everything."
His eyebrows raise. "Would me washing my hands be a turn on for you?"
"Why the hell do you ask me stuff like that when I'm trying to be serious?"
"Because I'm trying not to be." Dream lets out a slow breath in exasperation. "Look, George, aquariums are romantic, okay? Let me romance you, let—let Florida and her awesome animals seduce you—"
"You're insufferable," George mutters, and the soles of his shoes scuff the linoleum as he makes for the open stairs.
"Okay, hey, hey, I'll be serious," Dream says lightly, and he successfully stalls George on a low step before he can ascend any higher. "Yes, I'm a little tired. It's fine. Can't we just have fun today without talking... talking about me?"
George peers at him from his newly gained eye-level, and he says, "Clay." The agreed upon name passes carefully through the public air. "I want to hear about you."
Dream tuts and gives him a look.
"Okay, no." George scoffs. "We don't know everything about each other. That's impossible."
"Are you saying there's stuff about you that I don't know?"
George resumes his march on the stairs. "Probably."
"Probably?" Dream steels his voice mindfully lower as he strides up after him. "Like what?"
"I don't—I don't know. Stop deflecting onto me."
He grins, fingers gliding up the shining curve of the metal handrail. "You just can't think of anything, because you know I already know everything."
"It's hard to come up with something on the spot," George tosses over his shoulder.
"Mhm. Well, when you do think of something, feel free to let me know. I'll add it to this list I have with your name written all over it—"
George turns as they reach the apex of the stairs, and Dream nearly stumbles into him, chest before his covered nose and eyes stuck to the dusty browns of his hair. Faint shampoo, his shifting breaths; they're close, closer than they've been since morning, since he woke with his forearm searing hot over George's waist and willed himself to pull it away. Restlessness stirs in his complaisant fingers at his side, still damp from seawater.
An hour beforehand on the sunny drive down, windows unrolled and humid breeze in their clothes, George's hand slipped from his to nudge the music to a muffled lull. Voice breathy around the edges from a recent bout of laughter, he asked:
"Can you do something for me?"
Dream swore to. Anything, he'd swear to.
"I might need... space, while we're out. Is that okay?"
His fingers drifted across the space between them and squeezed George's knee in a firm, unspoken, resounding, "of course."
"Here's something about me," George says keenly, and Dream tips his head. "I would really like for you to carry my camera."
"That one I could have guessed." Dream sighs, and he dips down with a dramatic hand tucking behind his spine. "Knight me."
A familiar scratch of nylon is hung across the back of his neck. "Please. You're not chivalrous enough for that."
"Ouch," Dream feigns, straightening up slowly with the weight of the camera suspended in George's palms. "Is this how you flirt with me? Is that why I missed it for so many years, you just use insults?"
"You missed it because you weren't looking." George's fingers adjust the cushioned strap with similar ease, and he clears his throat lightly. "Same rules as last time, 'kay? Keep the lens cap on, and don't let it swing."
Fingernails skim down his t-shirt in an absent snag of fabric, and the bulk of the camera is relaxed against his sternum.
"Hey," Dream says softly, and George's eyes lift. "I'm looking now."
His heart thumps against the boxed oculus for several filtering beats as George stares back, unreadable and dark. A rise of pink creeps past the edge of his mask, and Dream's fingers grasp the outside of his pocket, patiently watching it spread.
"If you want to take some pictures with it," George suddenly offers, "you can."
Dream's eyes widen. "Seriously?"
"Yes, seriously." He doesn't need to see the curve of George's mouth to know it bears a smile; warm in the shine of his gaze, pressed inside the lift of his voice. "Let me show you how."
-
Sunblades descend from slanted glass high over the indoor habitat, glowing edges of George's hair into rich ochre as they wander alongside a beach man-made; flitters of feathers, bird tracks in graham, humidity a damp rub on the strap across Dream's neck.
"A bloom of bioluminescence," George muses. "That sounds kind of cool."
"Wh—" Dream's jaw comes to a close at the end of a yawn. "What does?"
Sharp corners of a three page pamphlet nudge his chest from the pinch of George's fingers; he glances down at photographs of glowing waters, Florida's coast mapped in blue, lettered fragments of "algae" and an autumn countdown. The kayaking-tourist lure blurs before his vision in another light yawn.
"Epic." They pass a nearby crowd; Dream's voice dips low. "It's probably fake, though."
The brochure is refolded away. "Have you ever tried to go see it?"
"Nope. Don't like southern Florida." Silent beats pass through his chest before he offers, "But if... if you wanted to go, you know, we could easily do the drive. Make a day of it."
George hums briefly. "No. If you don't like it, chances are I probably won't either—oh." A flash of feathers ducks through dappled greens overhead, and his wrist rises to point. "There it goes again. What kind is that?"
Their shoes slow in a drag on the median path as Dream's eyes chase after it. "Looks like... an ibis. A white ibis."
"A white ibis," George echoes softly. "And what do they eat?"
A small smile presses from Dream's lips, and as facts stolen in secrecy from nearby informational signs begin to tumble from him, the warmth in his core slowly spreads to his hands. He presses down clumsy thumbs in three clicks of the camera's shutter; once for the memory of a pink-billed bird, and twice for the curiosity in George's upcast eyes.
What's that one called?
The camera clicks.
This looks like you, and click. The glass is cold, and click. Don't use the flash, and click.
Odd lights on George's shoulders, their shoes above watery floor, the calm when crowds of people part, and a hand he longs to hold pressed before a passing turtle—click, click, click, and click.
Occasionally, George motions for the camera with angled fingers or a simple glance, and Dream leans back as he leans in, the strap never leaving his shoulders even while George's hover close in front of his chest.
"You're not allowed to delete any of these," Dream murmurs, gazing down as nimble hands recap the lens.
"Wasn't planning on it," George says happily and gives the hanging band a tug. "But I'm selling yours on stream."
Dream's teeth sink into his cheek. He wants to free George's face and capture it in the soft blue light, store it quietly in the screen knowing that he took it, he made him glow, he caught such a soft-hearted secret never to be shared.
Exhibit after exhibit, George leads him to walls of water and gets lost in their hue. Each bright flash of fish is an uptick in his heart, a need to wrap his arms around George's waist again like in yesterday morning's mirror—hold him, feel him, not let him slip away—yet he keeps his fingers to the camera's sleek sides and pretends the depleting battery is enough power to urge him through.
They reach the jellyfish room, and his hands fall still.
"Cnidocytes," George is reading aloud, and Dream's eyes drop to the slanted infographic at their hips. "Odd way to say, 'this stings.'"
"...It's Greek, I think." I know. Dream brushes a thumb over the dimly lit word. "It means nettle."
"Like the bush? Stinging nettle?"
"Guess so."
Phantom pinpricks skitter across his chest as they wander over carpet in a sparsely crowded room. Pale jellies float in a low-ceilinged, neon gallery, and his hand tightens on the camera strap to avoid pressing fingers to his pulse.
"Did I ever tell you about the time I accidentally fell into some nettle?" George asks, voice lulling him back from elsewhere in the floating blues.
He blinks. "No, actually."
"Ah, well." George leans back and tips his jaw, audibly smug. "There's something you didn't know."
A soft hum warms in his throat. "How do I know you're not making that up?"
"Why would I make that up?"
"To prove a point."
"I'm not a liar."
"You're not a liar," Dream agrees. "But sometimes you avoid the truth. That's lying by association."
A dramatic sigh compresses George's chest. "The stupid bush pricked me, I waited a few hours before finally going home to tell my parents, and it sucked. How's that?"
Dream smiles wryly. "Why'd it take you so long to let them know?"
"I don't really remember why." George leans back against the wall, profiled in soft light from a nearby window of jellies. "I was probably pretending to run away, or something dumb like that."
His voice softens. "How old were you?"
"Nine or ten, maybe."
"And why would ten year old George be running away from home?"
George scoffs at his lingering smile. "Do you mean that time specifically, or in general?"
"In general? What were you, like, some little deranged criminal?"
"As if you never ran away when you were younger."
"I mean, I may have," Dream defends. "But only when I was a dickhead teenager trying to prove a point to my mom, or... or start something I couldn't finish."
"Right." George's eyebrows raise. "You were such a menace."
"I... I kind of was. You know that." His fingers flatten in a rub against his neck. "As soon as I started talking to you, though, I became less shitty. Or better. A better person."
George leans off the wall. "I don't think that has anything to do with me."
"I think it has everything to do with you."
George's eyes break away in a drop down his chest. Dream unhooks the camera from his neck and passes it wordlessly through iridescent light.
"Why did you run away so much?" he resumes curiously, looping the cord with slack over George's shoulders.
"I just liked being outside." George peers down at the screen, fabric folds on his mask turning white from the camera's glow. "It's not like I had a ton of friends growing up. My sister was too young to go exploring. I spent a lot of time on my own." Controls shift and emit beeps under his fingertips before he stalls, and he huffs. "The time I'm remembering was on her birthday, actually. I'm pretty sure I left because my mum made my cake recipe, on her day. Can you believe that?"
"You poor, spoiled boy," Dream says fondly, and George's hand thumps his shoulder.
"It felt like the end of the world at the time, dickhead."
"Okay, okay." Dream's fingers clutch his arm in a pointless sprawl, and he clears his throat. "So, I'm ten year old you, and it's the end of the world."
George laughs, lazily pacing forward. "And you have a to-go bag."
"I have a to-go bag?" Dream grins. "That's awesome. You were so cool. Where the hell do I go?"
"Anywhere for a few hours, then you'll come back." George lines up in aim of nearby glass, a subtle shot rings out, and the device is brought down slowly in his palms. "Sometimes, though, I followed telephone wires out until I found those empty transmission fields. With the high power lines that seem like they go on forever. You have those here, right?"
Dream nods slightly. Warmer memories of buzzing electricity, hot sun, blue skies, barefooted swamp wanderings and accidental blood blisters begin to breathe through his mind. The tall towers stretch in his childhood eye, and he wonders if they're constructed with the same iridium gray on George's side of the ocean.
"I climbed one of the lattices," George continues, "and I got pretty far up before I slipped and landed in the nettle."
His floating heart plummets to their shoes. "George."
"What?"
"You—you could've died," Dream forces out.
"Okay, calm down, I clearly didn't," George says, hands gesturing in a motion that makes Dream bite back his words.
"You got lucky," he whispers sharply. George tsks and begins to wander; he avidly flows after. "Who knows what could've happened to you, what—what did your parents say?"
A shrug passes through George's shoulders. "Nothing."
Dream stares down at his side. "You were gone for hours, and you came home covered in stings."
"They gave me stuff to treat it, so I did, and that was it."
His feet slow in a flattening stall, watching George snap another photograph and move on through the dim space fluidly as though experiencing it alone. Wordlessly, Dream feels himself creep towards the edge of an overwhelming understanding, or knowing absolutely nothing at all.
"...That was it?" he echoes, catching up to his side. "Really?"
"Well, I did find a piece of cake leftover that night," George adds lightly. "I was shivering half to death in front of the fridge, rashes all up my arms, and I'm not even sure who saved it for me, but—" A strange pause softens his words. "My name was on the cling wrap. It's still... still the sweetest slice I've ever had."
Dream's eyebrows draw together in a silent pinch. He lifts a tentative hand, mirroring instructions of the moon-bay guidelines, and he touches down on George's back with two, light fingers.
"If I knew you back then," he says, "I would have been there. Call me dumb, but I mean it."
George's head turns towards him, gazing up. "We would've been friends?" he asks softly.
"George. We would've been best friends, are you kidding me? I mean, I—I probably wouldn't have let you climb so high, and I would've hated the almonds in your cake, but yeah. Absolutely friends." He feels George relax back into the silent spread of his palm, and his chest expands. "Also, I'd have a huge crush on you."
Laughter jostles against his hand. "That I can believe."
He brushes a thumb over the cloth on George's spine, and he says, "I was stung once, too."
His jaw tightens as the words slip by.
Shit.
"...By nettles?" George asks.
"By cnidocytes," Dream corrects awkwardly. "Jellyfish. But it's—it's a dumb story, really. Everyone who lives here gets stung eventually. Guess you'll be next."
The muscles in George's back stiffen.
Fuck. Shit, shit, shit. His heartbeat pounds up to his throat, and he clears it once. He clears it again. "That was a bad joke."
A gleaming, long-tendrilled jellyfish floats by the window silently in lieu of George's response, and Dream's gaze drops, landing on his idle hands lingering on the camera. The cylindrical lens rolls back and forth between George's fingers in an absent, repetitive motion. Air pushes down Dream's tongue in a tight swallow.
You know.
"If it's not something you want to talk about," George says quietly, "just tell me. You don't have to joke."
You see me.
"I'm sorry," Dream mutters. "It is important, I just... I haven't thought about it in a while. Or told anyone. The whole thing landed me in a ton of trouble and—" A sigh pushes through him from deep leagues down. "Shit. Okay. Remember all those crazy screen restrictions I had when we first met? The curfews, and the Tuesday things?"
He sees George's eyes widen slightly. "This is why?"
"This is why," he says. "I was fifteen and stupid, and I stole my mom's keys to drive to the coast. Which isn't terrible, I guess, except it was the middle of the night and I'd never driven on the freeway before." His fingers leave George's back to rub at his eyes. "Plus, nobody knew where I was going except for—for Nick, and that's just because he wouldn't leave me alone."
Blurry dials on the dash, phone snarling in the coffee-stained cup holder, picking up and a soft-cracking voice urging through; East or West? Stop fucking around, Clay, tell me—East, or West?
"My head would get so hot back then. Sometimes I felt like I couldn't think, or move or breathe unless I tried to—" His huff splits. "To cool down."
Sudden warmth blooms against his side from the press of George's shoulder, gently sinking against his ribs. Dream's lungs slow. He returns his hand carefully to George's back, fingertips gliding; settling on his waist featherlight.
"I found a dock," he says. "The water was still, so still, I dove in and..." His voice drops to a wondering, arid mutter. "Everything was black beneath the surface. It was quiet, and warm. Like swimming through tar."
Dark hair tilts towards his chest. "That seems... okay."
"It was more than okay," he breathes, "until it wasn't. This terrible pain came out of nowhere, and my entire body froze up. It was everywhere. I felt awful." He feels the inclination of George's head; avoids the heavy stare from his eyes. "Turns out some jellyfish attacked me, and I couldn't even see where. I've kind of hated them ever since."
Silence crawls into his lungs; sinking, and sinking, and sinking.
"...How were you able to get to the shore?"
"I don't remember." His voice tilts wryly. "Willpower?"
George doesn't laugh. "How did you get back to your house?"
He exhales. "I didn't. I mean, I did, sort of, but only after my mom got Nick's calls and she found me and the doctors said it was fine for me to go home—"
"Doctors?"
He winces. "I warned you it's dumb."
"You had to go to a hospital."
"I had water in my lungs and giant stings across my chest, so yeah, I did." Dream's jaw clenches at his own slipping words, and he gathers the nerve to reconnect with George's eyes. "I was fine, honestly. All the marks faded before I could even show them off, I mean, except for the one on my—"
"That's what that is?" George leans back, and Dream's palm slips down. "I thought you had a—a birthmark, or something, not scarring."
"You..." A smile rises carefully across his face, and he peers down. "You were checking me out in the hot tub."
"Wh—no, I wasn't, can you focus?"
"You totally were." Dream splays his free palm over his rib cage knowingly, heart racing beneath it. "It's not easy to see, George. You must have been staring."
"Shut the fuck up, okay, who doesn't mention something like that to their—" George sighs, and his voice lowers. "I feel... bad. We didn't have to touch the ones downstairs just because of me."
"Oh, don't. Those are the only kind I like, actually, they're... pretty," Dream insists, and his voice softens. "Because of you."
George studies him for a painful beat, and he says slowly, "I don't understand what that's supposed to mean."
Dream slips his arm down and reaches for his wrist. A slight jump accompanies the wrap of his fingers, and he begins to guide him further down the gallery of softly-lit exhibits. The familiar tank emerges in greeting as they round a bend, wide and littered with a moon jelly swarm, and the tight hold in his chest finally loosens.
Undisturbed glass doubles back a purple veil of their shadows, his head high over George's outline, hands linked at their sides.
"Aurelia aurita," George murmurs; dark eyes drift left and don't stray. "What makes these so special?"
"They've been around for millions of years," Dream says, gently gazing back. "A lot longer than I've ever known. They like warmth, and the coasts." His fingertips brush down an open palm, carefully slotting their hands together. "They're sensitive. Every shift in water, change in light, and every touch; they feel. They only hurt you when... when they want to be close, and even then, it is the softest sting in the world."
Echoes of lagoon luminescence drift by their side. Darkness of the open lens hanging from George's neck silently threatens his heart.
"They're you, George," he concludes softly. "They always remind me of you."
After this, he knows, all of them will.
"You have..." Their palms tilt up, interlaced fingers closing down over knuckles, and George gives his hand a squeeze. "A complicated relationship with jellyfish."
Dream smiles at him gently. "Relationship?"
"Oh my god."
"Is this a date to you, George?"
"You ruined it," George says. "You were being kind of cute, and then you ruined it. You're so annoying."
"You're—you're the one still holding my hand," Dream forces out, face warming in defense. "That basically means we're married, you know that, right?"
George scoffs tersely. "If we were," he says, swaying closer, "you would've adopted that penguin for us earlier, no questions asked."
"Okay, no. I told you, I'm not willing to dox myself—"
"I didn't even tweet the photo."
"—for fake ownership of a zoo animal," Dream finishes in a flat tone, interlocked hands caught between their chests. "You're an idiot and I know you. You're going to post it the second we're out of here, and if my name was at all registered somewhere to it's stupid bird tag, some little freak would scour through the public records and find out—"
"You are the biggest baby," George says. "It's a penguin."
"It's a liability."
"It'd be funny," George drawls, knuckles bumping his collarbone pointedly. "You still have a sense of humor, right? Or has all that therapy sucked it out of you?"
Dream laughs sharply. "Oh my god. I'm gonna shut you up when we get home."
"Is any—" George's voice breaks in light breaths of amusement. "Anyone looking?"
His eyes swing around the dimly-lit sprawl of the floor, catching backs of heads and an absence of crowds. "Just me," he reports, face turning back and colliding suddenly with a greeting of lips.
George kisses him softly, tilted on toes, box of the camera barely nudging his ribs. Dream feels himself melting rapidly to savor it, each instance of their lazy-mouthed yesterday springing to the heat of his cheekbones, and George pulls back in a blink.
His pink lips hang a crescent of a moonrise smile, cheeks blue from nearby hues of aqua, and the whites of his teeth disappear behind the rapid return of his mask—all before Dream thinks to breathe.
A burn bubbles through his brain. "What... just...." His fingertips rise, touching his bare jaw in disbelief. "What the hell was that for?"
George laughs gently. "I'm—I'm having a good day."
"Holy shit," Dream breathes, and his laughter grows warmer. "Holy shit, you're dumb, can I—can I kiss you back?"
"No."
"Oh, come on." A stunned, unreasonably fond giggle rises from the pit of his stomach. "Can I at least see your smile, again?"
"Nope." George's hands slip from his hold and clutch the camera's controls, tipping towards the glassy reflection of jellyfish. "How about this—"
Click.
"Do you wanna get out of here instead?" George offers, and before the question has fully slipped past the fabric of his mask, Dream is answering, "Yes, please."
-
Fingertips tap in light skitters over the curve of George's shoulders to the tune of fumbling keys, soft grumbles, teasing laughter, and a breach of the heavy door has Dream's arms slipping around his waist two steps past the bang behind them. Feet stagger forward across the sunlit foyer, he buries his face into George's neck, and a light elbow thumps back against the hum vibrating in his ribs.
"You're gonna—make me—fall," George complains; his middle is squeezed tighter, and a breath leaks from him in a gentle sag backwards.
"So fall," Dream mumbles, lips pressed to the crook of his shoulder. "You can nap here, if you want."
Warm palms cover his wrists and cling lightly. "What, on the hardwood?"
"Hell yeah."
He feels George's scoff shift through his frame, and he grins, forearms wrapping over his chest and pulling him in closer. Dark bristles of hair flatten against his collarbones with a performative sigh. Late afternoon shades the walls in a cast of high yellows, deep oranges; faded hues of pink they'd witnessed crawling from the horizon on their drive home. The glow saturates from the tips of Dream's eyelashes and fingers, to the firm press of his lips sinking against George's cheekbone.
"Ugh. You're seriously—" George's face tips back; lips land on the center of his cheek. "An idiot."
"Don't sound so happy when I'm kissing you, then," Dream combats, and he kisses his temple, between his eyebrows, down the bridge and scrunch and tip of his nose, the lines as he laughs and the curve of his chin before finally retreating. "You can't blame me. I was missing you all day."
"You were with me all day."
"I couldn't see you," he implores gently. "It sucks when you wear a mask."
"I thought it was kind of nice," George says, swaying in his grasp to urge them down the hall. "Finally held a conversation without you being distracted by my mouth."
"Distracted..." Dream's voice wanders with his steps, avoiding ankles, and his eyebrows raise. "...by your mouth."
Low shoulders bump against his chest. "Quit daydreaming."
Dream's face warms into a smile, and he dips his nose to nudge soft hair. "Don't need to."
They slow to a stall under the illuminated stretch of an open archway as George turns in his arms. Tempered air locks in his throat, the simple warmth of George held close permeating his body, hands brushing over skin and sleeves, until fingers fold in a light grasp between their chests. Dream's heartbeat pushes against his knuckles unashamedly fast, and his eyes grow heavy at the sight of George's gentle smile.
"I'm not taking back what I said in the car." George's voice droops in low saccharine; gaze a liquid brown. "Aquariums make me tired."
"You're actually going to sleep?" he murmurs.
"I'm actually going to sleep," George answers.
"This is the worst news I've ever heard," he says. "The sun set literally one second ago, George."
His forehead rests against cloth collarbones. "Are you aware of what time we fell asleep last night?"
"I am not apologizing for that," Dream says vehemently. "It was unbelievable." Puffs of laughter grace his neck; his chest blooms, and blooms, and blooms. He missed the dizziness of this unbridled touch more than he thought he would.
"Unbelievable," George repeats in agreement, and the word is tinted with whispered gossip from their hysterics of 3 A.M.—mounds of covers, saving screenshots, laughing around unintelligible plans to mock their best friend all wrapped in one, breathless phrase—it's unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable.
Dream's fingers tighten on the fabric of his lower back helplessly. "See? What am I supposed to do while you pass out for, like, eighteen hours?"
"Read a book, maybe."
"George."
"You're in your clingy arc," George complains, head tilting up. "I never said you couldn't lie down with me." Dream pulls back slowly and meets his eyes; he offers up a shrug. "I sleep better when you're around anyway. Why... what are you—Dream—"
His forearm hooks behind George's knees, lifting him off the wood and into the swing of his arms before the breath filling his chest can break. Strain skitters through his muscles, yet the tense frame and forearms grappled sporadically over his shoulders are light—lighter than he'd expected—and George stares back with a tinge of shock on the edges of his eyes.
Dream blinks down. "I guess I'm... carrying you."
"You guess?" George breathes.
"I didn't really—think." He shifts the weight on his wrists carefully. "Just got happy, you—you're the one who made it so easy, Jesus, do you wanna get down?"
George relaxes slightly, forearms brushing in a slide along his neck until his braided fingers rest over the knobs on his spine. "This is awesome," he says. "Take me up the stairs."
His breathy chuckle jostles George's side and he walks them forward. "How 'bout the couch?"
"Fine," George mumbles. "Pick me up and don't even put the work in—"
His arms loosen briefly. "I'll drop you."
"Don't." Hands grasp tighter in a reflexive pin against his shoulder. "Oh my god. My heart just doubled."
"Aw." They breach a living room of sunset skies, colors crystalized in wide window panes, and his eyes drop down to a prettier brown. "You can just admit you have a crush on me, George. It's fine."
"What are we, twelve?"
"PG-13, at least," Dream corrects, shins bumping the sectional. "Don't give me that look, I'm right. Yesterday, you were practically begging me to make out with you right here—"
"Now you're just making things up." George tips his face back, languidly stretching pale muscles on his neck. "I'd never do that."
"Oh yeah?"
His head snaps forward as Dream begins to laugh. "Dream, don't—don't—if I get hurt, I'll be mad at you."
Dream rolls his eyes, fingers curling back to even his grasp. "Oh, of course, I wouldn't want you mad at me." Leather dips beneath his knees as he lowers George down, legs tangling, awareness lost in the breathlessness of his smile. "Here you go, my sweet prince, should I wrap you in a blanket while I'm at it?"
Receding light creeps over the back of the couch, leather turning crimson, crowding the lashed curtain of his gaze as his heart catches up to his hands. A palm tucked under George's back and the other flattened by dark hair, the inside of his wrist brushes a cheekbone freshly tinting pink. His frame looms over George in a hovering press, sharp knees between thighs, socks brushing calves; exhales tumbling down. He curls his fingers into worn cushions. Hands linger on his neck.
"The..." George's voice wanders quietly. "The sun is in your eyes."
His head sinks down blindly, and he graces his lips to George's mouth. Wildfire curls gently through him. George kisses back, soft and fleeting, and faded wisps of sharp green leaves seep into his inhales.
Dream carefully tears himself away, eyebrows pinched together. "Did you steal mints from my car?"
"...No?"
"You—" His nose dips lower, and he pulls back sharply. "You did."
"You said I could," George argues.
"I said you couldn't, George. Those are for emergencies only."
"Is my breath reeking like fries not an emergency?"
He rolls his eyes. "Not to me."
"Oh right, apologies, I forgot who I was talking to." Fingernails graze his collar line. "You grew up eating cat shit. And frogs. And cheese-whiz—"
"Shut up," he says, laughs pitching between breaths. "I meant they're for when I'm headed somewhere important and forgot to brush my teeth, or—or there's a pretty boy waiting at the airport for me—"
"Good save," George says.
"I mean it." He spitefully kisses the edge of George's cheek. "On the off chance you were gonna plant one on me, there's no way I was risking my breath smelling like—like Sapnap's awful quesadillas."
"Oh my god." A light palm thumps his chest. "You knew. I knew you knew. Why would you let him feed me those?"
"'Cause they're disgusting," Dream says warmly.
"You're disgusting." George's hand smooths over wrinkled fabric on his upper chest, fingers sliding down the even shifts of Dream's breath to where ribs and hips press lightly together, then lazily glide back up. "Were you really hoping I'd kiss you?"
"Yeah," he admits, chest tingling in George's wake. "Were you?"
George falls quiet beneath him, and heartbeats stagger up to his ears.
"If things had been different," George murmurs finally, "of course."
If you had known, his head churns, long tendrilled arms of a lurking shadow creeping to the couch's edge, about the visa. If I had been there. If I hadn't fucked up.
Cold air skitters on the skin of his ankles, exposed from the nudge of George's socks, and he tries not to consider the days that slipped them by because of the unknown darkness; the rest that could go too soon.
He wants to say, We'll know someday.
Muscles in Dream's chest strain as he eases down to blanket George's body, careful to not squeeze the life force from shoulder blades resting in his palms. Timid fingers respond in a drift into his hair. He sighs into the crook of George's shoulder, breath rebounding, and the deep cushions let their silence sink until the unspoken fear ebbs away.
We're here now.
George's nails scratch across his scalp in grazing, idle patterns, coaxing his throat-caught words away. Claws of heat begin to hook slowly inside of his chest on each dragging downstroke, igniting nerves stringing along his spine.
He tilts his face up into the touch, nose and scruff dragging on the skin of George's neck. The hand in his hair tightens.
His eyelashes snap open. Unsure, he begins to pull the heat of his cheeks away from George's jaw, and the palm on the back of his head spreads preventatively. Firm fingertips hold his skull and massage in pressing circles, lulling his eyes shut, enticing his mouth to press down on the warm base of George's neck.
Breath hitches in George's throat. Dream parts stagnant lips and brushes along the side of it in a restless incline, reaching jawbone, exhaling shallow.
"Dream." George's voice blows hot on the top of his hair, and his gut braces for the gentle nudge to stop him before he's begun. "Don't ever shave."
A breathy laugh flees his throat. "Whatever you want, George," he swears, and an enthused curl of fingers in his hair drops his voice down. "Whatever you want."
Dream kisses down his neck in a gentle, brazen trail, and George's abdomen curves up against his pounding ribs. His mouth parts over the rapid pushback of his pulse and draws in light skin.
A sigh spills underneath him.
His jaw sinks deeper. Breaths sink deeper. His hands and hips remember the cold edge of the kitchen counter, faint bloodrush in his ears, relearning why they've kept their mouths above chin level every night since. The taste of his spit on George's throat makes him want to leave red reminders of where his lips have been.
I think you'd leave bruises.
His gut surges.
"Can—can you—" He pulls away from George's throat in a puff. "—breathe okay?"
"No," George rushes, lips springing into a dazed smile. "Can you?"
Dream shakes his head fervently, messy hair flopping across the sheen of his forehead, and startling laughs bubble past George's teeth. Trembling fingers reach up and brush his hairline back.
Mercy. He tips his jaw, letting George glide over his scalp softly, warmth in his gut oozing to his tongue as shared breaths fall even.
"I am," Dream says, " so happy we're alone now."
"Yeah." George touches his face. "Sapnap can go die."
He collapses onto his shoulder in a wheeze, restraint cottoned in his joints dissolving in the joytide, laughter flattening George completely.
"Okay—now I—seriously can't breathe," George forces out in jostles against him. "Off, Dream. Off."
"Not my fault." Dream frees the rise and fall of his ribcage in a sideways lean, muttering, "Get better lungs. Plus ratio."
A wayward hand passes down his spine and pinches lightly. "You already ratioed me once today."
He hums through a closed-mouth smile. After the deliberated image was tweeted from his passenger seat and ruefully captioned, "Dream didn't buy me a penguin," he took advantage of a longer red light and replied to George with a simple; "baby I'll buy you a zoo." Numbers flew by, George brooded from their drive-through meal until the foyer door, and the meandering fingers on Dream's back somehow seem to spell a slow, twirling, "L-O-S-E-R."
His arms tighten around George. "You're just mad—" He peppers the side of his neck chastely. "They love me more."
"Okay." George's fingers vanish from his shoulder blades in retreat. "I'm going to sleep."
"No," Dream drawls, desperately clinging on as George's back rotates towards him. "Come back, I'm joking, it's a joke, I'll give you a hundred times more love than ever they will."
Forearms squeeze around him, and George sinks. "Fine," he says. "Only 'cause you're warm."
"Yay."
George sighs; he mimics it. The sprawl of Dream's chest curves against his shoulders, arms wrapped in a close hold over his torso and hips kept away from the back of his thighs.
"This is just like after we got breakfast together," Dream mumbles to his shoulder. George clicks his tongue in gentle response, and he smiles back habitually. "Except now—" His fingers grab George's jaw. "I can do this—"
He crashes his mouth below George's nose, and a soft giggle complains into the mess. The hasty roots of the kiss tumble away in softening seconds, closed-mouthed and moving slow.
George pulls back gently, hair splayed on the shared cushion pressed beneath their ears, and he gazes at Dream across the green fabric field. His cheeks are pink in the sunset; static frays his silhouette.
"I wish..." Dream's eyes pass between dark, dilated pupils. "I could go back in time, and tell my past self this moment was going to happen."
"I wish I could go back and tell myself you're real," George agrees quietly, and he severs their shared bridge in a quick glance up. "But your eyebrows are different than I thought they'd be."
Dream laughs, scattering the bundled nerves in his body. "My eyebrows?"
"Mhm. They're darker than I expected." George lifts a hand and runs his thumb across them. "But little bits still look like your hair."
The pad of his finger slows and smooths the crease of Dream's brow. His eyes flutter shut, not trusting himself to speak.
"You always pinch them here," George says softly; Dream's breath slips from him in a sag. Touch wanes over his cheek, cheekbone, nose. "Your freckles bunch up when you laugh." Nails tip in to trickle through his stubble. "This changes you."
"Are you memorizing my face?" he asks, but his tongue is numb. Cheeks burning, eyelids heavy, his features feel painfully open.
"...It's hard not to, Clay." George's fingers descend and curl in a lull on his neck, knuckles resting against his pulse. "In my dreams you were just... a feeling I had, or a voice I heard. I could never picture you." His thumb strokes back and forth repeatedly over inches of burning nerves, and his voice nearly disappears. "Sometimes I'd reach out and my hands would go right through."
Dream gently reaches for his palm. Fingers shift, dancing gently in familiar motions until their hands twine together between them.
"You were my ghost," George whispers.
"I wasn't a ghost, George." His eyebrows draw together, searching his face delicately. "I'm real."
"Now you're real," he corrects as Dream carefully lifts their linked knuckles.
He presses lingering lips to each sharp juncture on George's hands and says softly, "I'm still yours."
George leans in and kisses him. Sounds of a silent rooftop night rush to sit in his ears, red pulse in his chest blinking in and out, body lighting up in an electric grid of nerves as George's jaw pushes, opens, he kisses, hands squeeze, and George clutches back tighter. Spearmint touches his tongue.
Noses bump and inhales clip until wet lips drop away.
"I—" George's breath hits his chin. "I thought about you so much."
His lips surge to reconnect, shoulder tilting over a sprawl of fabric and ribs. A denim-clad knee slides between two he's bumped during table dinners, pinched to distract from screens, squeezed on a stuffy car ride and dreamt of drifting hands between.
Their foreheads rest together, breath beating back.
"All the time," George says faintly.
"All the time," Dream agrees in an exhale. "All the fucking time."
George's thighs squeeze around him. His head drops sharply to his neck, and kisses run in a smear across hot skin.
"I'd go to sleep hoping—" George's voice strains, throat curling up against him. "Hoping I'd see you."
Interlocked knuckles pin to the cool leather above their heads. "Fuck, please keep talking. Please."
"I'd wake up missing you."
His hips and teeth graze down; George's breath picks up.
"Called every—morning and—your voice. Made me feel warm. So warm. So, so—" A low tremor hitches George's exhale. "Special."
"You are," Dream pants against his jaw. "You were, I never—never picked up for anyone else, George. I liked having—" Realization cauterizes through him and burns into his voice. "Having you all to myself."
George's fingers grow lax in his grip, body melting into cushions as all traces of rigidity flee through his exhale. The momentary lapse leaves Dream with palms full of pliable muscle, and he feels his blood pulse, clutching in strained disbelief. Slowly, his hand slips from George's hold and touches to his jaw.
Thumb on his cheek, Dream lowers his mouth to hover by his ear, and he tests, "That's all I wanted. You." Ribs expand in a deep inhale below him. "I was so fucking stupid for not seeing it sooner." The heel of his palm drags down George's abdomen; thighs fall away from the sides of his own. "You're everything. You're perfect. I need you."
A breathless sound slips by in the shape of his name.
Iron fingers burn into George's hip. "Say it back," Dream pleads. "You need me, too."
"I need you, too." George grasps his wrist and pulls a stubborn palm. "I need you." His hips rise into Dream's touch. "I need you."
A sharp vibration skitters through the fabric of his sweats. Dream's fingers jerk back in a flinch, and brittle air is punctured by the prolonged, spiking ring.
"Shit." George's fingertips dive to uncage the rattling phone from his pocket. "I—I should—"
"George," he says, "ignore it."
A click plunges them into silence and the device is thrown across a cushioned wasteland. George's hand returns to cup his face in a rushing kiss, until the ringing chirps out again.
George pulls back, eyes cutting towards the hum of leather hyde. "Dream—" Lips land on his chin; he pushes Dream's mouth away. "What if—what if it's my mum?"
His hands lock and head tips up. Wide, dark eyes snap back in a scrape across his face, beginning a split from his lips and down to the open vault of his stomach.
Accepted.
The untouched call rattles on.
Denied.
"I have to check," George says evenly, face drawn into a thinly mouthed, tight cheeked composure. The last scramble of minutes only remains in the sheen on his throat, rumple of his clothes; battered rise and fall of his chest.
Accepted, denied. Dream leans off of him shakily. Accepted. His eyes are pinned to every stretching inch of George's hands, phone recollected, gut dropping low, daydream edging on nightmare with one shadowed swoop. Accepted, accepted, accepted.
George snorts, phone slipping from his hand as he liquifies back into the couch.
"What—what happened? Who called?"
He gives Dream an amused look. "Who do you think?"
His chest deflates in relief. "Oh my god." Tugged back down towards a lure of grinning lips, his body stalls halfway. "Wait, did he—he called you twice?"
"Yeah?"
Dream leans back and tugs his bulky phone from the depths of his pants, awkwardly adjusting a pressing inseam in the crossfire, and George huffs at him. He shushes back as his eyes fall to the screen.
Nickypoo — Missed call (2)
He looks up, and George groans lightly.
"There's like, an eighty-five percent chance this is something serious," Dream apologizes.
George flops back to the cushions. "Or is it a hundred percent serious, but only covers eighty-five percent of phone calls?"
He gives George's knee a fond squeeze, redialing the number, and the line passes through.
"Finally," Sapnap says. "You're fucking impossible."
Dream leans back against propped up pillows, clearing the low rasp from his lungs. "Is this an emergency?"
"Yes. Sort of, I mean, but not for me. I don't have a ton of time to explain, Karl and I—" Screeching tires peel through the chatter behind Sapnap's voice, and Dream tips the phone away from his ear with a wince as he hears him call, "Jesus, slow the fuck down."
"What the hell was that?"
"Go-karts. Forget about it. Listen, Karl was streaming like an hour ago, Dream, and I was helping him read off..."
He hears a faint giggle from nearby, and his eyes snap down. George mocks his dramatic grimace at the noisy reception, he smiles, George smiles, warm couch cushions slide down his back and his head buzzes with rattled thoughts of what the call could've been; what they could've gained from telephone-wired seconds or lost in a nettled sting.
Words whiz by his ear without importance, and he gives George's thigh a firm, lingering squeeze.
George raises his eyebrows. He raises his back.
"...Went to check..." Gaps slip through Sapnap's words as George leans closer. "—don't know how, but it's getting a lot of traction—"
A hand slides in a wagered advancement up his chest, and Dream's fingers drift up to the dip of thigh muscle meeting hip bone. The warm underside of George's leg slings across his lap.
His breath thins to wisps. He tightens his grip on the screen's edge, halfway zoning back.
"—with what George posted," Sapnap is saying, "I wasn't sure if you guys knew already or not, so I figured I'd call."
"Uh-huh," Dream replies breathlessly, watching each razored second of George slowly sliding an arm over his shoulders, a familiar grin plastered on his lips.
Oh, god.
"Dream, are you listening?"
George's head dips under his jaw, and lips settle gently on his throat; a soft kiss, pulling away, feathering down again. Oh. Trembling fingers thread through dark vanes of hair. God.
"Yes," Dream forces out in a lie, and a warm tongue glides up to his cheekbone.
A sharp exhale drops from his nose and his hand grips, pulls; strains in recovery. The wet stripe cools on his neck, and his body warms into awareness that he'd tugged George onto his lap, palm curved against his spine and nails sunk deep.
"Oh," George breathes.
His face floods, hearing the twinge of a missed joke hang heavily; George meant to gross him out by adding an extremity to their standoff, and ended up on top of Dream's thighs, mouth pressed to his cheek with little room to breathe.
Dream's grip hastily relaxes, and he forces out, "Hold on, Sap, let me just—" He clears his throat, thumbs fumbling across the screen, eyelashes tipping up wide as George's head lowers again. "Put you... on speaker, just one..."
A warm, open kiss blooms in a sting below his ear.
He murders the static hum of the call in a sharp click, phone dropping to spring off neglected cushions.
"He's—" George laughs with lips against his throat. "He's gonna kill you."
His jaw tips. "Let him."
"What'd he say?" George murmurs, mouth lazily exploring skin and stubble.
"Don't know."
"Was it important?"
"Don't care," he breathes. Receding sunbeams shred across the ceiling shadows overhead, whites and oranges blurring in a hazey tinge above his lidded eyes, and his hands float, fingertips rippling a cotton surface, back to the boxy sides of George's hips. "I just—want you."
His fingers curl in over flesh and bone. George sags down against warm denim.
"Jesus, you..." Dream's voice scrapes in his throat as breaths layer on his shoulder. "...really like my hands this much?"
A nod bumps his collarbone.
Thumbs drift under the hem of George's t-shirt, and he traces shaky circles on his warm abdomen. Dream slowly sprawls his palms across his stomach, fingertips touching from ribs to waistband, and he swallows. Hands wrap over his wrists, and his gaze staggers down to revel in the fabric folds, straining lines, thighs on his.
"They were all I had of you," George says, trailing over knuckles and veins and knuckles again. "For years."
Dream's chest aches. Softly, he repeats, "For years, George?"
"Yeah," he whispers barely.
Dream nudges his cheek with his own, hands spreading down his thighs. "I'm so sorry. Let me make it up to you."
"Dream."
"Is that what you want? My hands, here?"
"Dream."
"Words, George. I'll do anything for you. Tell me. Anything."
George meets his eyes, breathes when he breathes, and pleads, "Just have me."
Dream kisses deeply into him.
Hands and exhales dissolve their throats in a tide of wordlessness, flooding Dream's head with remnants of a daydream, half-real memories of George in moonlight; George, his moonlight, likes warm licks on his throat and fingers pressed to the shell of his hips, or squeezing the muscle of his thighs. He likes kisses on his collarbones, inside of lean biceps, on the wrists clasped over Dream's neck as his mouth hunts any exposed skin. He likes when Dream's thighs shift below him; his eyelashes float in a dipping daze when he roots him down. He's softer than Dream expected or would have ever known, any place of sharp edges, he prefers light touches, gentle lips; firm palms over fingernails.
Dream loses himself in learning. The white hot warmth of his admiration can shine and slow, appreciate George, take time to study the skin of his back beneath a sprawling palm, memorize the shudder of his thighs as he touches him through fabric. Billows of his own breath leave him in unsteady gusts, lap trapped in a tortured stasis underneath George's hips. Palms over his boxers, wrist burning his waistband, hasty motions and loving words bring George to nonsense against his ear.
The only instance George tilts sharp is to pull Dream's face against his neck, fingers tugging in his hair, tight enough to draw low curses from his parted lips.
He's warned in a broken melody, words of "won't" and "last" and "long," and everything in him sears soft kisses to George's throat, time suspended, silence suspended, and he breathes back a wayward, "In your underwear. For me."
Sweat lines down Dream's sternum, and every incorrigible beat of his heart pushes through his bloodstream, flush on his cheeks, nose, chest. He holds George close and kisses him, over and over and over again until lips stall and inhales recalibrate to even swells. His palms burn. His stomach burns.
His arms bar in soothing drags across George's lower back. A forehead rests on his collarbone, still, and slow, ringing pants blanket their shoulders.
Words gather in his throat, saturate towards his unmoving tongue, and he finally murmurs, "George?" A gentle hum vibrates against his forearms in response. "This wasn't... too fast, was it?"
"Fuck no," George breathes, and Dream's eyes flutter shut.
I can still hear you. Your sounds. Your whines. My name, my name, begging for me to—
"Do you, um—" A swallowed shift clicks quietly in George's throat, fingertips touching down on his fast-beating, fever hot chest. "Do you want me to..."
The palm on his chest shakes lightly as it flattens against his shirt; weak, and unsteady, and candidly unsure.
"Oh," Dream forces out in a soft exhale. "N—no, it's okay. I'm okay. That was just for you."
George slowly buries his face in his neck. "Are you sure?" he mumbles.
"I'm very sure."
He feels George's huff on the curve of his shoulder. Chilled hues of dusk drift beyond the sprawl of living room windows, and his forearms gently brush along George's spine, wind gone from his ribs.
Pulling back slowly, George's eyes find him. His face is flushed and beautiful.
"Is it alright if I go shower?" he asks quietly.
A gentle smile crosses his features. "Depends," Dream says, easing him off his lap. "Is it alright if I think about you?"
George laughs sharply. "It's a serious question, Dream."
"So was mine."
"As if you've ever asked for permission before."
"I'm asking now," he says sweetly.
George grins back, a little crooked in the tip of his jaw, and he leans in as Dream's eyes slip down. Two, warm fingertips touch his bottom lip, he exhales against them before they drop away. Seconds later, they skim over the half-unzipped press in his pants, and his stomach tightens.
"Yes," George mutters, "you can."
"Jesus," Dream breathes, "Christ."
George is leaving the couch before Dream can attempt to hook arms around his waist and reel him in, swimming in the sound of his receding laughter, and he casts eyes to the high ceiling once he's gone away. Cheeks warm, heart on fire, his head churns uselessly until he hears the faint spill of a shower stream dripping from above, and his gaze drops down.
A tissue box sits on the coffee table—the same daunting construction of cardboard George used after crying in his arms two nights ago.
He sighs raggedly.
Whatever works, I guess.
Later in the evening, early in the night, George is out cold on his bed upstairs and he's trekking back from the kitchen with a plate of apples and smeared peanut butter in hand. By a dazed off chance, outside glow glints off the back of his phone case forgotten on the cat-haired carpet.
He balances the plate, side-eyes the box with ducks and flowers dotting down the edges, and retrieves his screen to a faceful of messages.
All from Sapnap; all in an unanswered text chain with him and George.
(7:51 PM) Check your fucking phones
(7:52 PM) [Attachment: Link]
(7:52 PM) [Attachment: Link]
(7:52 PM) [Attachment: Link]
(7:52 PM) [Attachment: Link]
Eyes widening from a dim squint, Dream clicks on the first message, and a Twitter thread expands across his screen. High numbers, descending replies, the four-part story ends with an image attached at the bottom.
"Oh," he breathes to the reflection on his phone. "Fuck."