A canopy of webbing black looms over Dream's spine, branches punched through by deep purple sky. His eyes cross in wild snaps from trunks to shadows, thickets to soil, and back to the sparse holes overhead. Yellow-green specks of light fade in and out of existence in the faraway atmosphere, and he reaches shaky fingers towards the fireflies.
Leaves curl in an open caress against his face. Waxy blades brush his rough jaw, grazing bare skin—and his outstretched palm plummets to his cheekbone.
Bare.
He stumbles back. Twigs scrape through his hair. Drumming blood heats the flesh of his face, and exhales pour into his hands.
Maskless.
Foliage churns beneath the soles of his shoes as his heels brace the dirt. His weight shifts towards his toes.
Run.
A sharp yank tears him back by the fabric of his hood, and his shoulder blades slam into solid warmth. Dream coughs raggedly, neckline burning, and he swings back his elbow in a blind collision.
Cold steel slots underneath his jaw. His chin tips; his lungs seize. He grips the forearm pinning across his chest and claws at leather-wrapped skin. Similar hyde snarls up his own wrists, worn and bloodstained, resemblance barely visible without the glint of the moon.
Words of another world ring between his ears.
"Have you ever tried speaking to him?"
Blade threatens to bite flesh. His lips split open in a ragged inhale.
No, no, no.
"All he knows is violence."
A head hangs low by his ear. He strains to catch a steady glimpse of the assailant, and a rounded profile protrudes where features should be—unfeeling, protected, masked. Dream remembers standing on the soft-sanded shore and calling to the woods, voice echoing; the shadowed silhouette mirroring every motion towards freeing his unknown face.
"You—" Vibrations stinging on the edge of the axe, Dream spits, "—lied."
The hold trapping Dream's shoulders tightens, sharpness pressing against his jaw and forcing his head to turn. Exhales tumble from his nose and fog the clean, polished weaponry as he bores into the suffocating woods. Leaves begin to shiver, wooden limbs snapping through the silence, and a rip slowly forms to a view of sand and sea.
Dream's stomach seizes, and he pulls on the unbudging forearm as his breath shallows in hot puffs. The gap yearns wider until the promise of a gentle hellscape is all his eyes can see—lagoon, tide, darkness—run.
"Look," the masked double rasps, and his words sound like the wind. "Someone is in the water."
The axe drops from Dream's throat, and he lurches forward in a frantic heave. Rocks and mud spit up from snarled roots beneath his shoes as he runs, and runs, and runs—the furious burn in his lungs fueling the push of thighs over knees, calves over ankles through the dark underbrush. His ears catch a whisper of the lapping shore.
Trees bend and break around him until his feet carry onto sand, shoving down white mounds, and a sky of fireflies yawns freely over his head. Wind touches his face. He loses ground at the water's edge, and his eyes cut back.
The forest is gone from him. Barred only by the ring of sand preserving the lagoon, water is everywhere, stretching out on all sides into an infinite horizon of ocean and blending sky.
A crawl shivers across his upper back.
Look.
His wired shoulders lower away from his neck, and he turns to face forward.
Someone, someone.
Far across the murky surface, deep in the heart of the water, a purple glow sinks down.
Someone.
The teeth of his boot smack into inch-deep water, and a blue bloom skitters through the droplets. His heart is soundless, flat waves cease to crash, he breathes and cannot hear the air pass in his throat. Illuminated splashes drive him further and further, warm liquid rising to his knees, and the purple presence rapidly diminishes.
Dream dives in. Saltwater slips over his hair and pools in his ears, eyes shut, breath locked, scooping palms and strong kicks guiding him further into his plunge. Floating purple light encroaches beyond his eyelids, and he peels wet lashes apart.
A chorus of reds and blues pour into his open pupils, sprawled out in a sudden explosion surrounding his chest. Jellyfish drift in the lights. He wonders up at the ascending, bioluminescent bubbles; blackness looms below his suspended feet as water, salt, lagoon-made tar gently floods his gaping lungs.
Slices of moonlight strike the surface swaying far above his floating hair. Beams burn his limbs, and he curls inward, knees tucking against his chest. His forearm crawls over his face.
Rippling down from leagues above, a half-remembered voice shouts, "Look!"
His ribs ache, and his eyes lull shut.
-
A gutting gasp slices through Dream's throat.
His abdomen folds in an upward heave and elbows hit his knees, covered in white sand—sheets, blankets, real—and his inhales rattle violently.
"Dream? Dream—hey, hey, you're awake. You're awake."
George's fingers touch his upper back and his muscles skitter in a sharp flinch. His trembling palms shove into his eyes, images burning, memories afire.
"Some—someone was—" His heavy breaths nudge the curve of George's hand as it carefully lowers to his shoulder again. "Drowning. They were—drowning, they needed—help—"
"You're okay, you're okay. It's okay." George brushes a palm up and down Dream's spine, slow and firm. "We're right here in your bed, okay? This is real, Clay. This is real."
Dream's hands slide away from his eyes, breaths spacing out. Fabric covering tight muscles on his back grows warm under George's repeated path, and his mind wanders through it devotedly.
"Why was somebody in the water?" he breathes, and George pulls him in closer. "Why the fuck was I back in the water?"
"I don't know."
"Fuck—what the fuck." His face hits George's collarbone. "I thought they were gone. I just want them to be gone."
"I know," George whispers. "I know."
His arm crawls across George's waist and squeezes tight. George holds the side of his aching head, and his eyes slowly adjust to the poorly lit room. Muted grays slip through the curtains and blinds, and the shapes of his familiar furniture become less fuzzy with each grounding inhale.
Limbs pressing warm to his own and back half-propped by pillows, the outline of George grows crisp, too. Bleary eyes gaze down at him, a puffy face lined by a slight frown; Dream's forearm relaxes over his middle at the sight of him.
"I... I can't go back to sleep again," he says. "I'm sorry."
"If you're up, I'm up," George dismisses in a murmur. His thumb brushes Dream's cheek. "Want to talk about it?"
"No."
"Want the time?"
"...Yes, please."
George's hand abandons the safe press against his face, and Dream watches the folds on his t-shirt shift as he stretches towards his face-down phone. The screen is pulled back towards their eyes, glowing gently.
6:07 AM.
Idle texts from Sapnap in their iMessage group chat sit below the stark numbers, ending in brisk words of "good plan" and "sleep well," and Dream lets out a stinging sigh.
"Can you check if it's still there?" he asks quietly.
"...Are you sure?"
Dream nods in a shift against cloth, and the phone opens under George's fingers. He scrolls past a long, bubbled exchange of grays and blues until reaching the thread, and the Tweets descend from the top of the screen.
"The photo is down," George breathes.
Dream's eyes fall shut, but the phantom weight of his phone screen tingles in his palm. Underneath a confused caption about posting for "proof," and a possible promise to remove it in the face of heavy traction, the image is stored in his retinas despite its late deletion:
Frozen on the edge of a wider shot, broad daylight leaned down on the side of Dream's face as his free smile beamed at George, masked, tilted towards him with fingers pressed into his sternum. Neither of them remember the moment exactly, or Dream's hand wrapped tight over his wrist and knuckles, or the bump of knees against thighs and black camera sandwiched between them.
Too close to mean nothing; not close enough to mean something. A wall of glass held sun soaked penguins and deep, green water behind them. He remembers the humid, saltwater air.
Humid, saltwater lagoon.
"Dream." George's firm voice interrupts his spitfire of thoughts. "This is good."
"You know they saved screenshots of it," he mutters. "Look at the replies."
"Half of them agree it's just speculation. This still doesn't prove anything."
A tsk blows from the edge of his mouth. The repeated band-aid of a resolution is feeble, he knows it, George knows it: the time stamps, numerous interactions, and strange coincidences support the opposing end effortlessly.
"They're going to see what I look like someday." Dream curls his fingernails into his palm and imagines the bite of leather. "When that happens, they'll know." George takes his hand; his voice softens. "They'll know."
Pillow mounds and tousled comforters hold the silent bank of what they haven't tried to speak about, what he can't figure out how to say:
They'll know me, know this, know us.
His head lowers back to rest against George's sternum, and he listens to the gentle thump of his heart. George touched his chest when he told him; after hurrying up the stairs, quietly shutting the bedroom door, shaking George's shoulder and displaying the photograph to his tired eyes, George pressed fingers over his heart and asked, "How bad is it?"
No anger, no panic, nothing except slow blinks, warm hands and a patient stare begging, "where, where, where are you?"
He holds George tighter. George sighs back, sinking them both deeper against the mattress.
"Waiting it out clearly isn't helping you," he murmurs. "What do you want to do now?"
Dream's eyebrows draw together. "I don't know." To the dark threads on George's shirt, he admits, "I don't know if... I want them knowing me, George. At least not until the visa gets approved."
He feels George's lungs halt underneath his ear.
If, he waits to hear. If it gets, if we will, if if if—
"Okay," George says.
His eyes scrape up, and George's are closed. Heartbeats pound in his chest and against the side of his head. Carefully, Dream squeezes his vision into darkness again, dropping gold dews of hope into a familiar well.
George clears his throat, and the vibrations ripple against the edge of his stony voice. "They shouldn't know about us, then," he says, "before we even know what this is."
I know what this is.
"Okay," Dream says softly.
The phone powers down in a quiet click, and George's palm returns to wrap over the back of his neck. Fingers brush skin the axe threatened to bleed.
I know. I know. I know.
"What do you think we should do?" Dream asks, voice barely audible as the wide, waterless basin of his chest yearns, wishes and sinks in the coming tide water.
"I guess... a stream could distract them." Nails trickle through his hair. "If Twitter comes up, we'll ignore it."
"I don't know if I can do that."
"Well," George says. "Can you lie?"
-
"Min—mindere, thank you for the dono, 'why didn't Dream buy you a penguin?'" George reads from the screen, and he scoffs. "Because he hates me, that's why."
"That is a lie, you're lying, stop—stop hogging the keys." Dream elbows him away from the glowing keyboard, and he adjusts his awkward reach from the spare seat they'd dragged in. "Guys, anything we say on this stream is a lie, hit the sub button right now if you want to hear the—oh. George is—" His fingers fly to mute the mic as he watches George stand. "Where'ya going?"
"Food." George glances at the loaded Minecraft chunks and messy, half-griefed builds on the SMP stretching across curving monitors. OBS runs on absently; he glances back. "Go on. Sell out for me."
Dream smiles and unmutes. "George is taking a potty break," he says fondly, catching George's eye-roll as he disappears through the doorway. "Everyone use their primes, sub for free, you might not think you have it but you probably do..."
Purples go in stride, and he repeats usernames and scans messages before they roll out of reach. Viewer numbers tip and go, but the hoard of watchers, presence of thousands beneath the title "building Dream a house," forces his fingers to rub the back of his neck. He spares a glance at the empty hallway.
It's easier when you're here.
Running aimlessly over grass blocks, hitting Callahan left-handedly into a nearby pool of water, Dream switches to George's chair—his chair—and pulls the mouse to the other side. Donations slip by.
"'Turn facecam on?'" He laughs. "No, fuck you guys. 'When did Sapnap leave,' uh, days ago. Three days ago." Feedback of his flattening voice rings slightly, crowding his head like the airport bustle, clicking windshield wipers; flooding nightmare water. He yawns, and the noises disappear in a pop. "Again about the penguin, you guys are obsessed today. Fine, you know what? Here—here's why we didn't adopt one."
Floorboards creak in the hall.
Lie.
They'd made it this far into the stream without a word of the photo, the scruff on his face, glint of teeth in his smile, George peering up at him amidst a carefree argument forever held in place. Underneath the belly of anxiety latent in his chest, part of Dream enjoys the picture, wants to keep it, revels in the idea of someone thinking George is his without a second thought.
Lie once, and then it's over.
"The penguin was really cute, don't get me wrong—"
George slowly leans against the doorframe, gazing at him, silver spoon resting on the edge of his bowl in hand.
Come up with something. Something. Something.
"—I just didn't want to risk getting doxxed over it," Dream confesses to the mic, eyes pulling back to the screen. A blocky, pixelated reindeer skin stares back. "I even made George wait a couple days before tweeting about it, so, you guys are lucky you knew at all."
His mouth tastes like sand, but George shifts in the edge of his vision, and a hand squeezes his shoulder. The touch guides his head away from his heart in seconds.
"Plus." Dream clears his throat. "I wouldn't want to split custody of the little guy between here and England, I mean, that's just cruel. I'd want my partner—co-parent—to be here with me."
George's spoon clunks on the edge of the bowl. The lagging chat speed doubles, then triples, piping out in relentless tandem, "partner! partner! partner!"
"Oh my god." His cheeks grow hot. "Shut up, chat, you guys are the dumbest—it was a hypothetical. None—none of you passed English class, right, let me spell it out—"
He types and spams, "H-Y-P-O-T-H-E-T-I-C-A-L." George huffs from his left, irritability laced with green-flagged amusement, and he leans back into the mesh of his chair.
"'Hypothetically in love?'" A smile twitches on his lips, and his eyes narrow. "Who said that? Ban them. Actually, ban anyone who says—"
"Okay, no, give me back my stream." George tugs on the arm of the chair and rotates him away from the controls; he doesn't budge. "Dream."
He glances off the hanging microphone to stare up at George, and he teases quietly, "It's my chair."
George's eyebrows perk. "It's my channel."
"Who's fault is that?"
"What?" George drops his face to inches in front of Dream's own, whispering, "We'd be doing this from yours if you didn't whine so much about—"
Dream inclines his chin. "You like when I whine."
"They could've heard that." A smile fights onto George's face. "What is wrong with you?"
"You're my soulmate."
"Dream, move."
"Make me."
George's eyes brighten with his voice. "You're an idiot."
"Did I ask?" Dream questions loudly, and George drops into his lap.
Cereal crisps crunch with the movement of George's jaw, metal clinking against the scoop of the bowl. George turns them to face the monitors, heels bumping his shins, and Dream grasps the armrests. His thighs are warm. The world is warm. Dream tries to clear the hitch in his throat until memories of George on his lap the night before swarm him, become of him, and—Jesus, fuck, his ass is warm.
"Hello, chat," George chirps.
"George." Dream's whisper lands carefully, breath aimed at the shoulder blades suddenly inches from his chest. "This is going to be really awkward in a second if you don't get off of me."
"What were we doing last with Dream's house?" George continues, and he passes his bowl over his shoulder. "The roof? M'kay."
Dream reluctantly takes the dish, ceramic cold enough to hiss against his palm. "George," he repeats helplessly.
The corner of George's mouth quirks. "Whine all you want," he mutters, "don't let it get soggy."
Holding the bowl in a cupped palm, Dream silently stabs George's back with the blunt end of the spoon and shovels a mouthful of cereal. Awful and far too sweet, tugged from a gas station shelf sometime their past blur of a week and a half, he eats ruefully and bores eyes into the screen over George's shoulder.
Blocks stack. George hums, talks to their invisible audience and friends in the game-chat, laughing on jostling occasion; Dream chews and chews and chews.
George briefly mutes the microphone. "You sound like a horse."
"Fuck you and your cocoa puffs." Dream leans forward to set the depressing remnants of beige-colored milk on the desk, and his core presses flush to George's back.
Rigidity homesteads in the body before him.
Another donation chimes through the speakers; Dream begins to lean away.
"Um, 'where is Dream?' Sorry, missed the name, but thank you," George reads and tilts back into his retreating collarbones. "And I don't know, Dream, where are you?"
Heart beating keen on warm shoulder blades, he projects weakly, "Here." An elbow nudges his ribs. "Here, hi, I'm here."
George tsks. "Sorry guys. He's being quiet today."
Dream slides arms across his waist. "I'm not."
"Chat says you are."
"Chat is gonna die."
"In game," George adds, breath scattering as fingers jab his ribs. "You can't keep bullying the stream—and me—stop, you're so—" Dream gives his side a deep squeeze, and sharp reflexes jostle George in a bounce against his lap. "Dream, okay, enough."
His gut concaves in a silent intake of air. George's ebbing laughter courses through him.
Enough, enough.
His eyes plummet down.
"More, more, pl—please. Hands, Clay. Hands."
"I know," Dream breathed back, palms barred by hot fabric and face in George's neck. "I know. Next time, George, I promise. Come on. In your underwear, for—"
His forehead drops heavily to George's shoulder, cheekbones glowing, and he mutters, "Are you happy now, George?"
Dark keys go unclicked; rolling chat messages question the stretching pause. His eyes jump to the dangling metal net of a microphone, buttons green and listening in.
Dream slides the crook of his elbow away from his torso. "...George?"
Fingers catch his retreat, and his knuckles turn white under a firm, prolonged squeeze from George's hand.
"Callahan, um, go get some spruce." George's voice rumbles in a gentle thunder against Dream's chest. "No, no cheats. Here, take my—"
"George," he warns gently, thumbs pushing onto his lower back.
"—my axe," George continues. "Get a stack, or ask Bad, I—I don't know. I'm running an ad."
Relief tumbles down from his nose in a ripple of t-shirt fabric, and George adjusts in a shift against his lap. A sound catches in Dream's throat, threatening to push past the clamp of his jaw, and his hands curl into George's hips.
Socked ankles hook silently around his calves.
"Mute," Dream pleads into his ear. "Mute."
"I'll—I'll be back in a few minutes, guys," George says. "Something came up."
He leans for the mic and Dream tilts with him, lips landing on the back of his neck. The sleek button is pushed, audio feedback plunges into sharp silence, Dream slides a hand up his chest and George's exhale spills into the air.
"You need to—" George's fingers splay across the breadth of his. "—chill."
Dream's mouth runs up his throat. George's back curves; he kisses and aches against him, panting to the corner of his jaw. "This is killing me." His palm falls to George's thigh, squeezing and kneading the interior of his knee covered by long shorts. "I just want to feel you."
George reaches back and cups his jaw. "Oh my god."
Dream pulls him closer, abdomen hot on his spine, and the words tumble out of him thoughtlessly. "Turn off the stream."
George's face tips towards him languidly. Warm breaths glaze Dream's chin, and his chest swells with the awareness that they haven't kissed all morning; maybe he'd scared George off the night before by nipping his mouth red on the godforsaken couch, tasting his tongue until low hums vibrated down his throat; nails embedded in his hair. Perhaps his nightmare kept the simmering urge away.
Dormant screens glow in a taunt before them, and as his head slips back to the lagoon, he's sure George can see it on his face.
"Turn it off." Dream's voice softens. "Please."
Pupils lost in the dark of his irises, George meets his gaze. "Okay, Dream. Tell me what to say."
His teeth sink into his cheek, and he wraps his arms around George's core, squeezing tight, relishing in the shocked breath that escapes him. Low fire stokes in his gut at the immediate pushback from the weight covering his lap, slow and intentional against the pressing fabric of his sweats.
Microphone lights dip from crimson to a malachite green.
"Um, welcome back, chat, how are you guys?" George asks the looming screens. "Sorry about the delay, we..." He clears his throat.
"Poor connection," Dream murmurs to his cheekbone.
"We had to check our connection," George echoes. "I keep dropping frames for no reason."
"Bad weather."
"There has to be a—" George's face tips as he lightly kisses his temple. "—storm, or something, I don't know. Dream's internet is the worst."
Dream's hands leave his sides in a reach over him, shoulders looming across George's upper back. "The..." He scarcely collects his rampant thoughts. "The power."
"We fixed it for now." George's voice grows faint as his hand floats cup his cheek. "But there's... a chance that the power might go—"
Screens plunge into darkness, curving monitors of dead pixels and dim mirrors reflecting back their disheveled appearance. Frayed hair and wrinkled shirts silhouette them against a backdrop of morning light, and his eyes rake over George's face, the dark of his gaze; silent parting of his lips. His own features are sharp and shadowed, and a slumbering part of him wakes at the sight of them held in George's palm.
He barely recognizes himself as his fingertips pull back from the kill switch, hidden in a land of wires, and touch to George's jaw.
George lolls his head in compliance, flexing lean muscles on his neck. "We should probably... tweet... something."
"Use your hands if you want," Dream says, heart pounding. "I don't fucking care."
Fingers slip into his hair. "Dream."
His eyes flutter at the grasps, scalp stinging, and he strains to keep his mouth hovering over George's throat. He lowers his jaw in a scrape against skin, and he watches George's expression crumble on the decommissioned monitor.
"Dream."
"God." Dream's hands explore warm dips in muscle and sprawl across George's ribs. "How are you real?"
"Clay," George rasps finally, "do something."
His hands lower to George's knees and drag nails up his thighs, bunching the hem of his shorts in a climb across skin and hair. He loves the low sigh landing in his ears; smiles gently when he stalls halfway and hears George mutter a curse.
"Easy, George," he murmurs. "Don't we have 'plenty of time—'"
Firm fingers grab his hands and drag them up between warm thighs. Heat inside Dream's skull incinerates to his cheekbones, palms cupping George through thin material, and he buries his face into his neck.
"I..." Dream's words ebb and flow with his restraint, and his hands squeeze restlessly. "Please, can I—"
"You promised," George whispers.
"I promised," Dream exhales and slides fingers underneath his waistband.
As the back of George's skull hits his collarbone, a memory from their first few hours together burns through his brain; the doorway digging into his shoulder on one side of the dusty room, George plucking trinkets from his desk meters away, and the insurmountable space between them. In spite of his week-old self, he presses lips down George's throat devotedly, sinks teeth into skin and draws soft sounds from his chest.
Don't call him.
Don't want him.
Don't tell him.
He pours into George's ears how he felt the night before when rooted on the couch, wishing for him a floor above with thoughts of shower steam, how he's wanted this heavy, desk-crowding closeness in his lap for hours on their calls; how he dreamt of him for days and nights since summer. Every grind down or broken reply brings Dream closer to losing ground beneath him, mind consumed by a blissful fog.
Eventually, George turns dazedly and meets his mouth with a tapered sigh. Dream melts into him, chest and body, parting his lips and passing saliva between their teeth. Fingers shiver through his hair and drift onto his neck.
Stuffy heat from the blind-drawn room and dusty computers creeps across his skin. George presses a palm on his collarbone, firm and steady, and his hand begins to slide down Dream's chest. His shoulders sag back instinctively into the mesh of the chair, and thighs shift over his own until George can freely touch his sternum, abdomen, waistline.
"You don't—" He pulls back from a lingering kiss. "You don't owe me. Anything."
Thumbs stroke his stomach. "Do you not... want me to?"
"I do," he breathes, "but it'll—I don't want to be too—" He swallows carefully and wanders through his words. "You don't understand what you do to me. What... what this would do to me."
A lazy smile sprawls across George's face, and he leans back to kiss Dream slowly, mouth pushing, sucking softly; teeth visiting his bottom lip. He lets George's name tumble from his tongue without knowing why. A hand glides over the front of his sweats, and muscles in Dream's stomach tense to keep himself from rising into the touch.
"Relax, Dream." George's low voice drifts and swirls in the air around his head. "Relax."
Puffs of air blow down unsteadily from his nose, and his head cranes back. George's palm slides inside his sweats, wrapping slowly, and his jaw falls open in release of an unhindered, breathy noise.
"There you go," George says softly. "Good."
His hips tip into George's hands as a wave of gold crushes his chest. He can't remember the last time he'd been spoken to so gently, not in life, not in dreams, and discomfort tightens in his throat.
"This—won't—" Dream forces out between huffs. "—take long."
George presses lips to his cheek. "You're okay." He kisses Dream's lips. "I have you."
Disbelief rings in his ears; heaven trickles through his limbs and creeps in dewy corners of his eyes. Unspeakable words claw at his gut until George coaxes his thoughts to silence again. Morning goes in a loving slowness his house has never known, and afternoon comes with paint.
-
Rolling in a lazy stretch across the wall above Dream's head, streaks are passed from a spongy cylinder coated in dripping blue. The hue matches the gentle sky they viewed above laundry piles, cat food and dishes in hand after Patches urged them from the dark den of his bedroom. Trees and uncut grass shift in the breeze amid a humid world past the bow windows, cracked open, leaking noise from the view of suburbia.
Dream steps back on the covered floor, and he tips his head at his creation with a mimicked grin. "George."
"Hm?" A light clicking of keys from over his shoulder comes to an abrupt stop. "Please don't cover that."
Dream contemplates the wall of white primer before him, the large, freshly painted smile of blue spanning in wide strokes, and he frowns. "I'm covering it."
George clicks his tongue in disapproval, and Dream's eyes jump back to his perch opposite the end of the office space. Surrounded by low boxes and dry brushes, an SD card sticks out of the side of George's computer in his lap, and cords dangle in connection to the nearby camera.
"If you want me to keep it," Dream suggests, "you could take a picture."
George's eyes drop back to his keyboard. "No thank you."
Warmth seizes Dream's body as he smiles, and he crouches down in a return of his roller to a paint-pooled tin. "How's it coming along?"
"I should have sent these to her earlier this week," George mutters. "Remembering what to fix now is extremely annoying."
He hums. "Cause you're distracted?"
"Because I'm bored," George corrects, but as his eyes drift up to meet Dream's face, his expression tips wry. "Maybe I'm a little distracted. Who wears all black to paint?"
A burn of turpentine floats towards his sinuses, and Dream holds the brush away from his face, glancing down at himself. "They're my messy clothes."
"You look like some kind of special agent. Or a ninja."
The rolling brush is brought back to the wall as Dream smothers his mistake. "You know, ninjas actually wore blue instead of black to help them blend in with the night better. Optics, and stuff." He hears a huff, and his elevated elbow stalls. "What?"
"Nothing."
"What?"
"Nothing," George insists, lips unkissed for over an hour pressing together in a small smile. "Keep painting. You've made no progress."
"I've made—some. Some progress." Dream surveys the wall with a frown; it's been a while since he started carving out a proper office space from the unused room, adding primer over summer, beginning on blue a few weeks before Sapnap's arrival introduced him to endless days of preoccupation. After George's hands infused him to his desk chair, they both agreed between gripping wrists and recovering pants to try and do something besides crawling back into his unmade bed. It took ten minutes of his restless painting, and five more of glancing at the door, until George finally hauled in his editing equipment to join him.
"What made you pick this color anyway?" George asks.
"Pretty."
"...Why'd you really pick it?"
Spreading a thin sheen across patches of white, Dream admits, "It's good for your brain. Makes you more productive, or something like that."
"And what book on becoming a genius billionaire did you steal that from?"
Dream turns and brandishes the brush towards him in a scold. "A home decor magazine in my mom's bathroom," he defends as George laughs. "Even geniuses read on the toilet, asshole."
The edge of George's laptop is tucked under his chin as he pulls the bulk of it towards him, smiling above the stark drop of black. "Do you kiss your mum with that mouth?"
His eyebrows raise. "I've kissed you."
"Have you really?"
Dream scoffs. "Have I? What's that supposed to mean?"
George shrugs. "I just think I'd remember something like that."
"What is—is this your weird way of saying you want me to kiss you again?" His questions are met with immediate laughter, sharp and genuine in the shift of George's shoulders, and Dream rolls his eyes indifferently despite the humming warmth on his face. "Okay, no. No more flirting with me to avoid getting your work done. Now we're both not being productive."
"Boo," George says.
Paint returns to the wall in a climb towards the corner's peak, and Dream's stretching back strains with the added pair of eyes crawling across his spine. "Besides," he says, "I wanted to make sure you'd be able to see whatever color it is, too."
"Oh." The softness of George's voice heats his cheekbones further. "I can see a lot right now."
Dream tosses a bright glance over his shoulder. "So you are checking me out?"
"I could be."
"Well." He gestures a hand down at himself. "You—you know what they say about pictures lasting longer—"
"I hate you," George mumbles, but the slight upward tick of the corners of his mouth makes Dream smile, eyes lingering, stomach warm.
He resigns from the drying coat and migrates towards the wall of windows, slugging open the center frame of wood as glass doubles back his splotchy clothes. Outside air pours through the yawning screen, and he unhooks the dusty, black barrier with idle thumbs, lowering to sit in the windowsill. His head tips out to join a greener world, and the beauty rescues his paint-blind nostrils.
The humid breeze exhales with him. "I could go for some lunch after this."
George hums, vibrations drifting from the deep end of the room. "Could you... stay where you are for a second?"
His body stiffens.
"Don't turn around. Just relax, Clay."
Relax.
His hand hooked on the side of the window loosens; slightly. The front yard of sheltered greens and well-watered shrubs offer only the barest peak of gray asphalt for his eyes to tack on to.
"What is it you're hungry for?"
"Um." Dream swallows. "There's... there's a good pizza place I could take you to, if that seems—"
A camera shutter cuts his words in half; though soft and silent, the sound leaves pinpricks rising on the back of his neck. Caught again in a framed moment he knows he'll never see, his eyes trace the tops of palm leaves touching the clouding sky.
"Pizza sounds nice," George says quietly. "You can move now, Dream. Thank you."
Dream's skull tilts back to rest against the window frame and he catches George clutching the dark camera still, studying down with the edge of his thumbnail between his teeth, barefoot on the sheet-covered floor. The lack of sweat on George's brow is surprising given the midday heat, and his scrutiny towards whatever is captured on the screen.
"Is there..." George lowers the camera, looking up. "Open your legs."
"...You can't just say that."
George pulls the nylon sling off of his neck and he wanders forward, carefully avoiding light droplets of paint on the ground. Dream's eyes widen as he lowers down.
"What are you—"
"There is writing here," George says, pressing fingers to the wall behind Dream's calves. "No way you didn't know about this."
Dream doubles down, eyes landing on blocky black letters against weeks old paint. His head tips to piece together the upside-down words, and the message reads:
Sapnap was here
u suck balls
"Great," Dream mutters, and George laughs lightly. "He said he was helping."
"It's awesome. You're keeping it."
He peers down fondly, watching George hunt through a nearby box and pull out a thick packet of markers. "Are you graffitiing my house, too?"
"Yep."
Palms pressing on the windowsill, Dream leans over as the marker tip squeaks against the wall. The ink dries rapidly and they study it with tipping heads.
George :]
"Cute," he says.
George passes him the marker, and he scrawls an illegible signature in the space between their names.
"This might be the most expensive piece of art I own," Dream muses. "Even if I move, I'll cut it out. Take it with me wherever I go."
"Move?" George echoes, pointing the camera at the wall with a light click. "Why would you move?"
In a quiet recapping of the dark lens, George stares back up at him. The promises about living together he'd made with Sapnap at the airport terminal, born from a conversation over hot dogs and baked beans at his mother's place, deteriorate under the weight of George's eyes; the overhang of his unaffirmed visa. He can't imagine Sapnap wanting to live with the both of them after their recent progression in closeness, and he can't picture George wanting a presence hovering over them, either.
Mouth running dry, he says, "I don't want to live in Florida forever. You know that."
"So you always say," George muses, joining him in a careful lean against the window's edge. "But your family is here."
"My mom's offer still stands, by the way," Dream says in sudden remembrance. "If you'd want to go over there sometime, that is. Sorry, you just—you reminded me."
A quiet roll of a car drifts into the open window; birds chirp in the asters.
"Sure, Clay," George says finally. "That sounds really nice."
Dream exhales. "Okay, great, I'll—I'll ask her what day works best, then." His chest splits in relief when George glances away to set his camera down. "My sister should be around and maybe... I can show you where I grew up, and stuff. It's not much, I mean, there's parks that are mostly swamps, the mall, the neighborhood pool house, my uh, my school—"
A gentle squeeze is delivered to his palm, and Dream's attention dives to their interlaced fingers weighing on white wood. He didn't realize he'd grabbed George's hand.
"I think," George says, "you love Florida. It's all you ever talk about."
"I... don't think..." His eyebrows draw together, and his lungs burn. "...it loves me back."
George's eyes drop towards the ache in his ribs. Dream slides off the windowsill.
"You're moving soon, too," he dismisses, bending to retrieve the brush from the spattered floor. "—even though you'll probably miss your family. Right?"
"Of course I will miss them."
He turns back towards the glassy wall, and George's hands are folded in his lap silently. Dappled shadows grow dimly behind his shoulders.
Dream brushes the damp roller across his open palm, and he asks quietly, "How do you deal with it?"
George tips his head in the direction of the cardboard box his camera is resting on, idle and perched with care. Dream's eyes slide from the device towards his abandoned laptop, months worth of memories collected on software; an entire life he's been on the edges of but has barely seen. Kitchen conversations from a similar distance echo back.
"What do you take pictures of?"
Glistening water on Sapnap and his sister's heads, a balloon held in front of his face, skateboard wheels in an empty parking lot, animals in glass exhibits, the back of him in a windowsill.
"Things that matter."
Falling carefully in the breeze, the question finally forces itself from Dream's lips. "Why don't you take pictures of me?"
"...I just did."
"You know what I mean."
George gets off the stool of the window and retrieves his camera, eyes fixed on the controls. "Your face changes a lot," he mutters. "I wouldn't want to get it wrong."
Dream squeezes the roller, and paint drips down his wrist. "What would be wrong about it?"
"Nothing to do with you, Dream, I meant... my reasons for taking it could be wrong." George steps past him. "I don't know how to explain it."
Dream stares at his back as he crouches, wires reconnecting from the sleek camera back to the cold laptop screen, and he blurts, "I want it to be you."
George's head lifts towards him. He clears his throat gently.
"When I face reveal, I want it to be one of your photos," Dream says. "It would mean a lot that way, and... nothing else would look like me."
"You really..." George rises to his feet. "You think so?"
"I know I don't know much about it," Dream admits, drifting towards him. "There's just this feeling I get whenever I look at them. I know you're talented." His free hand loops lightly around George's wrist, body tilting into the linking touch entirely. "I really want to see everything you've taken. If you'll let me."
Faint color emerges underneath George's freckles. "I'll... be finished with them by the morning," he says. "Ask me again tomorrow."
His pulse shoots towards the unpainted ceiling, and the urge to pull George into a crushing hug surges through his bloodstream—yet he doesn't, because each brush of skin and moment of warmth edges on something he knew he'd want to say the moment George placed hands on him. If he were to hold him, maybe George would feel it. Maybe he already knows.
"Yours from the aquarium aren't too bad, you know," George says lightly, drawing his heart back down. "Except that they're almost all birds. Or of me."
"I am—" Dream gives his hand a squeeze. "—a simple man."
George pulls his fingers away sharply. "You're getting paint on me."
He glances down at the messy smear shared between their palms, and a grin masks his betraying features. "Looks familiar."
"I knew you were gonna say that." George wipes his hand on Dream's shirt in retaliation. "There, you deserve this."
"Hey." He tugs on the hem of his shirt with a scowl. "Just 'cause this is messy doesn't mean you're allowed to—"
"Sorry, didn't get it all," George says, dragging streaks across his stomach.
Dream's palm shoots out to grasp his wrist, and he spins the handle of the roller in the other. "You know what?"
"What?"
"I think I am too nice to you, now." He fights back a smile when George scoffs. "Say you're sorry."
"I'm not doing that."
"Say sorry."
Mimicking his accent, George drawls, "Sorry."
Paint rolls in a stripe up George's forearm, and his wrist rips away in a wild pin against his chest. Dream presses his lips together with strain until a slight wheeze bursts through, folding under the reception of a deeply frustrated stare.
"We—" His breath settles. "—are even."
George clasps the spongy bulk of the brush, coating his palm in blue, and a cold smear pushes across Dream's cheek before he can block the attack. "Hah. Even."
He hastily wipes his face. "What the—that was cheap. Fuck you." He swings the roller towards George again, missing as he dips out of range. "Get back here. Don't—don't run, you don't want to track paint in my clean halls, do you?"
"You are a psychopath," George says, voice lifting. "You have your crazy eyes, there's no way I'm staying in here—"
"Georgie, come back," he sing-songs, shutting the door with a flattening palm and diminishing their distance. "Come love me, c'mon. Give me a kiss—"
Warm palms clasp the sides of Dream's face and tug him down into an abrupt collision of their mouths. He buckles into the embrace dutifully, brush clattering from his hands as he grasps George's waist and curls his fingers in. Lips push his apart, his ankles shift backwards, pulling George closer and feeling fingertips float away from his abdomen.
George pulls back from him, foreheads pressed together as Dream exhales hot onto his nose.
"You are," George breathes, "a simp."
A handful of paint claps down over the top of Dream's head.
His jaw falls open, shoulders crawling up in a pinch as liquid runs on his neck, trickling through strands of hair and dripping down his spine. In the corner of his vision, he speechlessly connects the paint bucket perched on a nearby stool to the blue state of George's hand from the wrist down. Squeezing his eyes shut in a brief, slow wipe from the back of his knuckles, he opens them to a beautiful grin on George's face, joy in his eyes, laughter finally bursting from his throat. The sound hammers in Dream's chest.
I love him.
"I hate you."
"You look so hot right now," George says.
Dream braces his palms on George's shoulders and shakes his moppy hair violently, sending a spray of paint splattering across their clothes. George lifts his arms in meager defense.
"Dream, st—stop, it's getting everywhere—"
He kisses George again with puffs of laughter pushing between their lips, stumbling aimlessly in wide spins across the floor, nudging boxes, fingers in slick hair, noses screwing up at the pungent catastrophe drying on their clothes and skin. The air tips into brisk fragility in goosebumps on Dream's skin, George and his voice and his closeness the only warmth he wants to cling to.
Cupping his face in both hands, Dream smears his thumb across George's cheek. "I've never... felt..." His head grows dizzy with the heavy-lidded way George gazes back at him.
"Yeah," George mumbles.
"Yeah," Dream repeats softly.
Hands pull him back in as his body tilts forward, pressing flush to the box of George's hips in a deep, shared sigh. Pursuing forward, his knuckles nudge hardwood and flatten George's back against the wall.
"Wet," George gasps in a sharp drop of his jaw. "Wet paint, the paint. Oh my god."
"No," Dream whispers, hands sliding to George's elbows, and they carefully peel him off the wall. "No way."
Turning, George displays the thick layer coating from his upper shoulders down to the back of his shorts. "You did this on purpose."
Dream drags a rapid finger through it and draws a sloppy smile. "I actually didn't."
"Dream."
"I didn't."
"No, Dream, hold on." George presses a hand on his chest. "Listen for a second. Listen."
He wipes his fingertip on a dry patch of George's sleeve and waits for more to spill from his mouth. George lowers the hand nudging his sternum, severing touch entirely between them, and Dream's ears capture a strained patter building somewhere nearby.
His jaw turns sharply. Beyond the open window and saturating gray asphalt with splotches of black, a falling drizzle descends onto the lawn. Gone is the blue sky as dew collects in the grass blades, clouded over during their mess of minutes, and the increasing spray sprinkles down from the gutters.
A crack of thunder splits overhead and rattles covered floorboards. His eyes jump back towards George's face, cheekbones and hair riddled with blue fingerprints, begging to be washed. Before he gets the chance to let the question leap from his lips, George smiles at him gently.
Dream grabs his hand and drags him towards the open window.
"Seriously? Dream—the door is right there—"
"Footprints in the hall," he dismisses, ducking under the propped up frame and swinging knees through the gap. "This is cleaner, I promise—"
"Our fingerprints are all over the stool," George complains from behind him, linked hands bridging their distance.
The soles of his feet drop onto damp mulch and soil. Rainfall mists Dream's skin and doubles around his skull as he stands outside of the room they've been cooped in for hours, and he lifts George's wrist through the window, pressing a kiss to his knuckles.
Dream slowly guides him to clamber through white framed wood, and he questions, "Pepperoni or Italian sausage?"
George clutches his hands as he slides off the sill, and Dream smiles at the apprehensive crinkle of his nose below the roof's overhang. "Are you wanting a soggy pizza?"
"I'm planning, dummy." Puddles squish beneath each step as Dream pulls him closer in a world of wetlands, and paint trickles in light blue streaks down their skin. "Give me your order or I'm picking you up."
George's face tips up and bumps droplets on his nose. "Haven't you memorized it by now on that little list of yours?"
"Alright." Dream bends and clasps arms around George's middle. "I'm calling ahead—" A hand thumps his back as he heaves George's weight onto his shoulder. "—asking for olives—"
"No, no olives—"
"Spinach," Dream continues, haphazardly swaying them in circles on the wet lawn. "Jalapeños, mushrooms, ranch dressing—"
"At least—let me up," George threatens, "or I'll get sick down your back."
He lowers George to the pooling ground again and hoists him with a hop onto his back a moment later, elbows hooking underneath his thighs. Forearms clasp over his shoulders, and damp t-shirts share warmth in a sticking press between them.
A chin drops to his shoulder. "Half veggie, half meat," George proposes. "Final offer."
With a squeeze to his calves, Dream declares, "Deal."
He hops George on his back lightly, and legs tighten around his waist; he spins them, hands tussle through his matted hair, and their pizza plans get lost in laughter and declarations to "charge onward" across the soggy suburbia. Alone in the pouring, beautifully silent neighborhood, voices carry, motions sway, and Dream rushes them in child-like steps down the side of his house to the flooding backyard.
Thunder splits the sky; hail drums down onto the gutters and bounces off their shoulders. George cups his palms inches in front of Dream's face and collects icy pebbles to balance on his head.
"Tiara," George insists.
"I swear." Dream tips his head forward, and the flurry of frozen rain tumbles off of his nose. "The water is weighing you down."
Soaked from head to toe, hands pull on his shirt when George's feet rejoin the ground, and they both sink to lay in waterlogged grass embedded with snowy crystals. Pearls melt under Dream's spine as he gazes at George, cheek resting on cold mud. Breathtaking in the rain; he is more than rain.
"It is heavy," George murmurs, squinting into the sky. "I missed this kind of storm."
Heart aching, Dream shifts his face towards the broad, gray clouds. His rain chilled fingers crawl across the grass and find George's palm, hands intertwining between them as the palm leaves sway.
"Do you think..." George's voice drifts quietly from his left. "...things will be different?"
His head turns. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know."
"Why would they be different?" Water runs across his ribs, and he squeezes George's hand. "Hey. Where are you?"
A drizzling pause passes through his ears, and a heavy warmth rolls to lay on his shoulder. Dream stills and relaxes slowly, further encouraging George to sink into his side, and he feels a sigh blow damp on his collar.
"All of this just started," George says, "and then we'd be living together."
Dream's pulse spikes; he drifts free fingers to brush up and down the thin misting on George's arm. "Well, you can... keep your own room," he ventures carefully. "Come into mine whenever you're bored. Move your setup in the spare one, maybe, have an office across the hall from mine. And..." He gives George's shoulder a squeeze. "Take the bathroom Sapnap used, that way we don't share at all. Easy peasy."
George presses his nose into Dream's neck. "For how long?"
"As long as we want."
Face burying further, George mumbles, "You're not staying in Florida forever."
Splotches of rain drop loudly onto the skin of Dream's forehead, and his eyes tip open. George's lungs shift gently against him, grass tickles his heels, and he slowly pulls his face back to make their gazes meet.
"Then you'll come with me," he says softly, and he touches George's jaw. "We pack up everything—" His lips touch to the bridge of his nose. "—put Patches in the car—" Pushing onto an elbow, he smiles down at George. "Drive 'til we reach the snow. How's that sound?"
"Cold," George says breathlessly, eyes flicking across his face. "Can we... bring the hot tub?"
Dream surges down and kisses him, a happy hum rumbling through his throat as a rain-damp chest curves up against his. His hand slides up George's lower back in a push of wet fabric, exposing skin to the downpour, huffing against his lips when goosebumps rise underneath his fingertips.
"Do you wanna go use it now?" he asks, and when George quickly shakes his head in objection, his mouth dips to rejoin him.
Water drums in his ears and beats down his back. Knees slide together, his hot palms gently grasp George's face as he kisses him again, and again, and again, remembering the lonely heat dragging sweaty claws down his back in summer, forgiving himself for the weeks he spent trying to bury each urge away, hands clinging, tongue pushing, feeling gasps push against his lips and shaky fingertips press onto his spine. Chills skitter through the limbs beneath him. The warmth of indoors—laundry room towels and fresh clothes and steaming boxes of pizza—looms.
Dream pulls back in panting recovery. "George."
"Wh..." Dazed eyes blink up at him. "What'd you say?"
"...Your name?" he clarifies gently.
"Oh," George whispers, and he chuckles in a nudge against his cheekbone.
"Let's go warm up, okay? You're shivering."
Cold palms clasp over Dream's shoulders, and as he eases them off the ground with water running to their heels, George mumbles, "How are you not freezing?"
-
Even in a landscape of layered comforters and windows shut for the night, George's suffering at his side continues, cold and clinging on in any instance he can grab; ankles shifting against sheets, nuzzling to his side, lips on his cheek and hands clutching tight. To make matters worse, Dream grabbed a shirt fresh from the dryer for George to slug over his shoulders. Baggy and long, scented in his detergent, his clothes, his bed; George.
Needlessly, Dream overheats.
"What is your problem?" George mutters, fingers pressing on his bare chest. "It's like the sun is hiding in there, or something. You ate it."
"I've actually heard that one before." Dream yawns, palm flattening over his. "This is coming from my parents, but, it was super hot the summer my mom was pregnant with me. The second I was born, it cooled off. So yeah, I ate the sun, swallowed it, absorbed it, whatever."
George pulls back along the shared pillow and peers at him. "I believe it."
"Oh yeah?"
"Mhm." A thumb pushes on his cheek. "You have a sunny smile."
Dream stares back wildly. "That is the sappiest thing you've ever said to me."
"Shut up."
"George," he says, "Georgie, you like my smile." His wide grin earns a glare, and he lets his expression mollify. "I like when you tell me stuff like that, you know. No need to get all shy."
"I'm not shy."
"You are a little shy."
"I'm not." Arms cross over his middle and pull him closer in a clasp, knees pushing between his legs as George's body melds into the warm cocoon of his frame. George's voice disappears against his throat. "I'm not, Dream. I'm not."
"Okay, hey, I believe you." His middle is squeezed tighter, and his voice softens. "You okay?"
George's face buries into his bare, pounding chest. Hands curling slowly, Dream grasps the bagginess of George's shirt and balls fabric in his knuckles, pressing a kiss to the top of dark hair crowding against him. Ankles slip between his calves. Orange street lamps touch the ceiling fan.
"Today was good," George says finally.
Dream's tongue goes soft under the immediate riverbank of similar phrases weighing down his jaw, each flooded with George's name and happiness and disbelief woven inbetween. He could tell him he'd move mountains; he could tell him he'd move himself.
"It never comes out right," George whispers, cutting his thoughts in two. "I wish I was like you. I wish I could write it all down."
"I..." Dream's hand lowers to spread across his upper back, and he says breathlessly, "I wish you could, too, George."
"...Maybe I should try."
"To write?" Dream asks gently. "For me?"
His eyes slip down as George tips his face up, and the tension wiring his mouth into a frown slips away as gentle lips press against him. Fingertips trace the soft skin of his jaw, shaved after paint made a home in his scruff. Mattress dips and bundled sheets swaddle his back as George pushes further, Dream tilts in slow surprise, head flattening on the pillow.
"Maybe," George repeats carefully, "I can show you."
"Show—" Dream's words beat back against his chin. "Show me?"
George's lips lower the corner of his mouth, linger, and start on a gentle path down his jaw. A deep, growing inhale takes hold of Dream's lungs as his throat grazed by an incinerating trail.
"George." A kiss lingers on his collarbone; heat sprawls from his sternum. "George."
Against his chest, George murmurs, "Trust me."
Dream's hands slide into his hair, helplessly petting his skull and tracing the tops of his shoulders as they dip lower and lower, warm lips descending on his abdomen. His fingers tremble over his scalp.
Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.
Dizzy pinpricks dot the dark ceiling overhead in a net of self made stars. George's palm flattens on his stomach, guiding his inhales to even, in and out.
"You're... shaking," George observes quietly, eyes drifting up.
The night sits in his gaze; his fingers slowly hook the plaid of Dream's waistband.
Brushing a thumb across his forehead, Dream breathes out in confession, "I'm fucking obsessed with you."