Chapter Text
“I am sorry, you know,” Dream murmurs, later.
Afternoon sunlight slants through half-pulled curtains and casts the room in a muted glow, preserving the warm, cozy bubble that cocoons the two of them. The faint, muffled whir of a clock, mounted in a frame on the hallway wall, seeps around the corner and oozes into negative space left beneath the considerate low volume of George’s communicator, filling the valleys left by voices falling quiet with a quiet, droning hum.
Between pleasant dimness and lulling white noise, the house has never been quite so peaceful.
Considering the circumstances, that sure as hell ought to be the case. If a notable lack of unwanted company barging in, zero pressing obligations to attend to beyond the handful of chores he can’t beg off (no matter how much he pouts), and Dream being gratifyingly close factor into the equation and he doesn’t feel at peace? Well…then something is very wrong with the world and George is contractually obligated, backed by the divine right of kings, to raze a warpath until he does.
As it stands, however, nobody’s petulant or arrogant or ignorant enough to bother them with comm notifications or annoying demands on their time—rather unfortunate for his low-banked, ever-burning bloodlust—which makes this situation, if he may be so shameless as to say, downright heavenly.
(it echoes the old days, a reminder of the very beginning; of two souls taking their first delighted steps into a new world side by side; when the bright, wide open future unspooled before them, ready to be written with george and dream as authors holding their own pens)
He’d like it to remain that way but considering their combined luck, as much as he hates acknowledging that they’re not the only two people on the server, he doubts they’ll have much longer to cherish it before this bubble gets rudely popped by an intrusion.
Should a little luck be thrown their way and poor odds be beaten, said intrusion will be a single visitor who’s easily pacified. Someone who won’t speed dial the cavalry or wave around a weapon they then refuse to put away the second they register Dream’s presence. Someone who isn’t a risk, liable to instantly go turncoat and make getting rid of Dream their life’s mission (again), even after grievances are aired and resolved. Someone not only willing to talk but also willing to listen so yet another obnoxious escalation can, for once, be avoided. Criteria which are enormous reaches once the emotional and mental intelligence of the SMP’s general population is taken into account. And then, an already teeny-tiny number of suitable candidates is further whittled down based on who George might reasonably entrust with Dream’s wellbeing moving forward.
Were this an ideal world, he could rally the entire old crew who should know better and rebuild the bonds fractured and withered and broken by egotistical usurpers determined to divide and defang and declaw and conquer them on their own lands. Were this an ideal world, he could reforge those bonds to be as unshakable and everlasting as they ought to be, as they were before the greed of strangers bled corruption from roots dug bedrock deep.
(slothful, overconfident indifference may have blunted his claws and dulled his fangs but he is no less dangerous than he has always been and although the world may have forgotten, he does not need a crown or a throne to be a king)
As this is not an ideal world, for the time being he needs to maintain a narrower focus and start on a much smaller scale. Overhauling the server’s dynamics to create a superior kingdom—
(capable of crushing L’manberg and all its self-possessed, overinflated self-importance under heel to stymie its repetitive, boring, juxtapositional (in)effective plotting in its tracks.
A superior kingdom capable of standing its ground in reminder that L’man was not first and that those who came before are not lesser for spurning L’man colors and L’man citizenship and L’man dogma.
(george met that initial schism with a dismissive scoff, willfully blind and terribly presumptuous; he has since heard dream’s midnight confessions whispered in the dark and watched myriad ways in which dream wrestles with the many scars left behind; he did not see before but he has since opened his eyes and noticed, learned, understood, he promises and promises and promises that he knows, now, and there is a sourness in his thoughts from that knowing that burns and burns and burns)
A superior kingdom capable of wielding whatever mighty power is necessary to defend those under its banners from sabotage and assassins and envenomed silver tongues alike. Most importantly, one capable of supporting and defending Dream, so that he might never again feel the need to sacrifice himself on a lonely altar.)
—is a project best shelved for another day when he’s well and truly bored.
In essence, that leaves the only acceptable choice with the fewest caveats: Sapnap.
There’s a minor inconvenience what with their best friend’s weird, incomprehensible interest in validation from Tommy but, otherwise, most of Sapnap’s frustrations are obvious inasmuch as those frustrations are, at their core, fairly simple to placate and mitigate. Sapnap feels compelled to close ranks and defend George’s honor after Dream dethroned and presumably abandoned him? Make it very fucking explicit that they’ve already worked it out and that his efforts are appreciated, but any further intent to attack Dream on his behalf will be met with the full force of George’s ire. Sapnap feels compelled to vent his defensive anger regarding the deterioration of his own relationship with Dream, anxious in his belief that he himself has been abandoned? Cram the two idiots in the same locked room, hold their inventories ransom, and force them to finally talk.
No outside distractions from mobs or people or plain old survival needs.
No looming time constraints ticking away in the background urging them into a reckless quickness.
No self-serving peanut gallery provoking them into spiraling further by ensuring they keep speaking past and over each other.
No, no, none of that…just two morons having an overdue conversation they should’ve never needed to have while George supervises. In the scenario where George’s vouch and the affirmations, appeasements, and explanations from Dream’s own mouth aren’t enough to smooth Sapnap’s ruffled feathers? Drag them outside, find a private clearing, and set them loose to beat each other up for a few hours. Or however long it takes until all the potent, IQ-decimating stupidity that clouds their heads has been successfully dislodged and defeated.
(however long it takes until they remember that they’re meant to be friends, not enemies best served poised opposite each other on a battlefield; however long it takes until they remember the true depths of their connection, not this shallow facsimile that lapses in the face of strangers; however long it takes until they remember the promises of forever sworn time and time again for the sake of their future, not these broken pieces of dreams once shared in whispers confessed in the dead of night with the stars as their witness)
(however long it takes until the poison spawned from sapnap’s doubt of dream’s soul-deep affection is banished as utterly as george’s was)
Disregarding recent blunders in their interpersonal skills, they’re both old hat at Sapnap wrangling so it should work itself out with a bit of effort and some pride-injuring concessions. Granted, that’s best-case scenario. Not guaranteed, no, but best-case. Sapnap may make the most sense out of anyone, if for no other reason than concern over how George is handling the loss of his crown and title and ‘losing’ Dream…but the non-zero chance exists for it to not be Sapnap.
And as George has only just started undoing the tangled knot of hurt caused by his own incautious, head-in-the-sand, too-complacent behavior, well. That’s enough for him to temper his hopes a fair bit. Practice more of the guarded vigilance he left by the wayside, when he grew too comfortable with relying on Dream’s strength instead of his own, until its impermanence began to waver and crack under the pressure George didn’t (wouldn’t) see (not until it was nearly too late).
Either way, if he dares assume and expect that it will be Sapnap then he’ll jinx himself. Which would suck. Immensely. The absolute last thing he wants is to trigger the unholy alliance of Dream’s abysmal reputation, his own too-great hubris, and the joint piss-poor luck of the Dream Team ever since L’manberg’s shadow grew and grew and grew—
(to open his door expecting Sapnap only to come face-to-face with Wilbur and Tommy inserting themselves in his business, both as unwanted as always. Fuck it, may as well also have Schlatt’s ghost loitering on his doorstep for the Manberg representation. Eret too, for some godforsaken reason. Why not round things out to be even more annoying by being forced to play host to people George would much rather go away forever? Invading his space, demanding his time and attention and acting entitled to all of it? Sounds like the start of a nightmare he really would rather not experience, thanks.)
—by making an ass out of himself by doing such gauche, plebian assuming. Not while this peace is so very delicate and fragile.
Until someone does come, though? As long as his house sees no visitors to infringe upon it and himself and Dream?
Until then, George has never pretended not to be a greedy, covetous creature. And so, he soaks up Dream’s amiable proximity, Dream’s reassuring presence, Dream’s easy affection—the certainty of Dream’s love for him—all like a man long starved, and hoards the feeling of his own content safely tucked near his core where it can’t ever be taken from him again.
Not without one hell of a fight.
I am sorry, you know, Dream will murmur.
And George cannot doubt his sincerity. Those words themselves had not passed Dream’s lips in lieu of gentle actions and promises of company fulfilled hour by hour and day by day. The sentiment itself nonetheless present in the air, dense and cloying on George’s tongue, as much as the somber, regretful shape of an apology has lingered in Dream’s eyes.
Truly, from the moment Dream agreed to come home with him those words were destined to be spoken, and George had been quietly expectant of hearing one or more variations on them when they eventually surfaced. It was simply inevitable, an immutable fact.
George himself is not an apologetic sort. A genuine, verbalized sorry is a rare feature in his vocabulary, his own preferences to show remorse being demonstrative efforts he calculates for the intended recipient.
He will do the whole song and dance of speaking the words aloud if he feels he must, but…unless he’s wronged someone he cares about, he either puts in minimum effort—if, and only if, it’s a person he can’t afford to piss off lest he face unfavorable, irritating consequences for his attitude he won’t be shielded from—or doesn’t bother with anything more than a flippant shrug and an oops. Sometimes he doesn’t even do that much. Going to him looking to get any kind of groveling apology, as if he’s supposed to care just because someone else does, is just asking for mockery. Mean, merciless mockery.
His softness and compassion exist only for those who have earned it and those rare few are a viciously curated collection.
On the other hand, as perhaps the person who’s most been the recipient of it, he’s intimately familiar with Dream’s actual apologetic nature. Dream’s, shall he say, overly apologetic nature.
While George will happily reoffend and burn bridges as it pleases him, uncaring how he’s seen for it so long as he’s having fun, Dream is not as brazenly cavalier, even when he indulges George in wanton mischief. Simply because he, unlike George, who takes pride in his prickly nature and its defense against people he doesn’t like, has a heart far less well-guarded against outside perception and influence.
Dream feels remorse so very keenly, prone to agonize over how to phrase and offer the best apology for an offense. So keenly, in fact, that on more than one occasion in the past he’s tried to apologize for the offenses of other people who’d hurt him. The desire to be liked by whoever he meets has resulted in him smothering his own delightful cattiness to better play doormat, sorry, peacekeeper. His attempts to be kind and helpful often get thrown back in his face—
(and George kicks himself for not realizing Dream’s spirit began to sputter the more the server’s situation worsened. Dream tried to take the high road and be merciful, to hand out chance after chance after chance, tried to compromise and capitulate and concedeconcedeconcede, and that didn’t work. Dream tried to dig in his heels, stand his ground, say no more with a line drawn clearly in the sand and have it stick, and that didn’t work either.
What else could he have tried that wouldn’t also fail? What else could he have been allowed to try that wouldn’t also fail? Whether by his own merits or by the cause of someone or something else seeking to ruin him?
Led to believe he had no other way forward without endangering the very people and things he wanted to protect, of course that desperation lured Dream to stand on a ledge, poised to take a faithless leap, to walk an unknown path to find some hidden solution to a seemingly impossible problem.
In hindsight, the intensity of Dream’s very real, very serious hurt is so obvious it may as well been announced in the main chat, written out in the sky in gigantic letters, and shouted from the sky-boundary.
(yet george still missed it because he did not see; he was almost too late to reach out for dream’s hand and pull him down from that accursed, terrifying ledge; he almost lost the most precious thing he’s ever had and the fear of it drives him to be better—for dream’s sake and his own))
—but Dream cares so much about people’s opinions that rejection never seems to injure his innate, resilient optimism beyond the surface level. Above all, Dream wants people to be happy, so he’ll do what he can to aid in ensuring that they are…whether it’s detrimental to his own happiness or not. And if that wasn’t enough, he also tends to display sympathy for the hurts of others to the extent where he will place the wellbeing of literal strangers over himself without a lick of self-preservation to be found.
George has no idea what unearthly horror caused him to forget these core pieces of Dream’s character, which, together, explain a lot about Dream’s recent choices and the roots of his feelings. The same core pieces that have never not sent him ‘round the twist due to giving him the impression of a deeply ingrained self-hatred that manifests as a reflex to apologize for the unforgivable crime of being alive.
…Judging by Dream’s misguided, self-sacrificing behavior and his feeble attempts to dissuade George’s insistent allegiance, that impression remains like an ever-present shadow.
(he wishes he knew the original source of that self-hatred so that he could kill it)
One day, after the harm caused by the server has healed, he will manage to unearth the Dream who does not feel the need to apologize for every little thing. The Dream who knows how loved he truly is, comfortable enough in his skin and his worth to no longer bury his pettiness and spite (his frustration and anger and all the ugly, bitter emotions he should be allowed to feel when he’s wronged) beneath a supposedly more palatable diminished or outright blank facade.
The Dream who will refuse to destroy himself at the demands of the very people who wish to see him burn out like a collapsing star.
Until that day, George patiently holds his tongue—choosing to set aside his incensed feelings to not press on those visible cracks in Dream’s wounded composure—as he waits and watches Dream weigh each thought and word strung into an apology.
I am sorry, you know, Dream will murmur.
I do, George will think, will know to the heart of him is the one and only truth. If you weren ’t, if you did not mean it, if you did not regret, if you did not want me to know, then you would not be here. But you are here, and sorry, and I forgive you.
Disgustingly (wonderfully) fused at the hip, neither wandering far from the other’s orbit, the two of them are crammed together on the couch in an inelegant sprawl and have been for several blissfully lethargic hours. Their breakfast dishes were scarcely dry before they shuffled over to the couch and crashed, Dream for once being the one to yank the wide-open curtain half-closed with a litany of swears hissed at the sun outside. Doing a poor imitation of a heat-seeking missile with his exhausted, stumbling steps, George had followed in Dream’s wake and muffled his agreement about the sun’s evils in his hands.
Quite frankly, if he wasn’t intent on waging a one-man war against the thinness still clinging to Dream’s frame he would have refused to get out of bed in the first place. Vehemently.
But he can feel the slightest protrusion of Dream’s ribs, still, and the extra jut of Dream’s collarbones, and hides his frown at the sharper lines of Dream’s face. He worries. So, rather than stay snug and blissful wrapped up in his sheets he, yet again, shoved himself out of bed and bullied Dream, yet again, into making breakfast for them both.
For a while after which they’d collapsed in a heap, throw pillows arranged as a makeshift extra cushion and George scooting close to drape indolently over Dream’s side. The only reason he didn’t tip over and fall onto the floor is because he, very strategically in his humble opinion, ensured the angle of his body meant that if he did slip, he’d slip like a wedge behind Dream and catapult him off instead.
He’s a little pettily disappointed his cleverness went unrewarded—
(in the end, neither of them fell. With the same natural magnetism that’s had them always wake up comfortably entangled in George’s bed, their limbs slotted neatly, securely together despite the weird position. And Dream, forced into playing the role of living mattress, had sighed at him but never once shifted in such a way as to slide him off even slightly, steady and reliable and peaceable as ever.)
—but the nap was excellent so he supposes it’s an acceptable trade-off.
When lunchtime rolled around it was George’s growling stomach that woke them up after they’d slept the morning hours away, and they were both unhappy about being conscious. Sleep-lagged and grumpier because of it, a fair amount of grumbling occurred before they could agree on whether to get up or not. Ultimately—after some disgruntled shoving, aspersions thrown back and forth on their characters, and one particularly catty headlock on George’s end—they jointly decided to risk crumbs in the cushions rather than eat at the dining table.
And so, a quick dart to the chest later, the following zero-effort meal was spent only mostly upright, using each other’s shoulders as support to keep from entirely slumping back over.
Hence the lazy migration to their current positions: George has an elbow propped up on the armrest and locked at an upward angle that keeps his neck from hurting by staring at his communicator, legs loosely stretched out to rest his heels on the coffee table next to their tossed-aside lunch trash, staying awake by virtue of the hub network’s video app streaming just enough audio-visual sensory stimulation he can’t do more than let his eyes close for a second or two; laid out on his back, a halo of wavy curls spills around Dream’s cheeks and onto George’s lap, where Dream’s head is cradled in the shallow open curve, one arm has slipped from the couch to touch the floor and the other raised to settle a hand on his chest, knees bent to tuck his toes under the teetering stack of throw pillows propped against the far armrest, his thighs leaned onto the backrest and his lashes fluttering while he dozes.
George’s free hand rests palm-down over Dream’s heart, almost skin-to-skin if not for the thin material of Dream’s undershirt, the slow thump-thump-thump beneath his fingers—tangled as they are with Dream’s own—a soothing rhythm mirrored in his own chest—
(a grounding rhythm that anchors him in the present and reminds him that the universe is so very vast and beautiful as it sings a twining harmony of alivealivealive and safesafesafe:
alive, the rise and fall of his breathing calm and even under George’s touch and alive, tangible and present and steadying as he infuses the house with new life simply by existing and alive, not a distant ghost made of glass lost and shattered but so very solid and so very real and all George’s to keep; safe, tucked away here in George’s space where he can be best cared for and protected and beloved and safe, trusting and pliant and honest in the tenacity with which he sees George as home and safe, content to be no place else but by George’s side where George will always and forever want him.)
—that he can admit to himself is indeed his favorite song. One he could never, ever grow tired of.
To think, just a few short days ago George would have had no compunction about donning his armor and dropping his full weight onto Dream’s chest to ensure he was thoroughly trapped in place the second Dream started to move out of sight.
Curious, how quickly things can change when even the strongest fears are eased by a quiet certainty.
“I am sorry, you know,” Dream murmurs later, confession tired and raspy.
Consumed with his mindless watching of whatever looked interesting in his recommended feed, George only stirs once the words eventually permeate through his distraction. Slowly blinking out of his fugue state, he awkwardly adjusts the one-handed grip he has on his communicator, nearly fumbles it twice, to slap the pause button on the current video—
(some inoffensive commenter whose name he’s already forgotten and can’t be bothered to check, presenting and rating a compilation of failed builds from archives of an old redstone mastery competition circuit)
—and sets it aside. Pesky yawn stifled in his newly freed hand, he then tilts his face down to give Dream his attention and pushes a sleepy, questioning noise out from his throat.
Moments stretch by without another word, molasses-dripped and so quiet he begins to wonder if Dream dozed off the second he finished speaking. Right as he considers a less-than-gentle nudge, he gets distracted again, enamored with the way a shaft of sunlight has reflected at such an angle to turn Dream’s eyelashes a soft gold and set the blond of Dream’s hair aglow.
It’s not even a choice how quickly he slides tender fingers through that hair, eyes half-lidded as he stares, chest gone tight with a wondrous, heady affection. Calling it a choice implies he wouldn’t have taken a single glance and immediately done so, and to suggest that would be to fucking lie.
George’s mental fortitude is fairly legendary…except where it isn’t, where one slight weakness exists. He may play coy and pretend otherwise but his most precious person is always going to be Dream. And here, now, with no witnesses as to how he willingly unfurls the core-deep, ocean-wide thorns that guard his heart? With no one to judge him as he so very enthusiastically greets and ushers in the beloved marvel called soulmate?
Why should he ever resist any urge to touch and gaze upon Dream at all?
His teeth catch on his bottom lip as his smile stretches wide, cheeks warmed by the direction of his thoughts. For another minute more he lets himself appreciate Dream’s peaceful countenance, features relaxed and stress eased from loose shoulders, committing every inch of it to memory.
Then he schools his smile into something less soppy and tugs a lock of Dream’s hair to entice him to wake up and provide a follow-up to the previous confession.
Dream reacts with a huffed breath that ruffles the spill of messy curls across his brow, cracking an eye open to peer up at him. “…I know I should have talked to you. Told you. I did, um. Want to tell you. But,” he exhales, briefly turning his face away, “I didn’t know how. Not with everybody else watching, at least. And then I didn’t even try to make that clear, did I?” He searches George’s patiently attentive expression, the faintest furrow above his nose, “I didn’t make it clear how I felt or what I meant at all. Didn’t explain anything. Just. Dethroned you in front of everyone. Talked a bunch of nonsense, made it seem like I didn’t care. I wanted to make you think I didn’t and I was going to…I was going to let you—you!—believe I didn’t care.”
Lifting his dangling arm from the floor, Dream scrubs a hand across his face and continues, voice hushed, “And…none of that was fair to you. I know I was panicking and that I didn’t handle it well, but that’s no excuse. Trying to make sure you’d be safe the way I was? That was so ridiculously stupid of me. You deserve better than that, than me enforcing what I thought was right on you. You’re worth more than that. I should’ve figured out a better way, shouldn’t have let my worries control me like I did. Talked to you instead of doing all…that. If—”
In the hanging space of an if-shaped silence lives a tangled weave of horrible, ceaseless what-ifs. The could-have-beens of if: George had not chosen to hunt Dream down for answers owed for actions rendered in a post-dethronement world. Of if: Dream had chosen to drive George away instead of relent in the presence of questions posed in a post-dethronement world.
Of if: they had separated in anger and hurt and then remained as such for far too long, avoidant and sulky and prideful, never again face-to-face on equal ground so that they might set aside their egos to allow themselves to be vulnerable with each other.
The would-have-beens of a world in which their paths forever diverged in a cold throne room with a jeering audience, their turned backs reflected in a crown without its luster, red threads frayed thin enough to snap at the lightest brush of a trembling hand hesitant to connect.
The should-have-beens in a different, unkind world where George-and-Dream became George, alone, and Dream, alone, and endured that way, in two disjointed half-lives, until the universe came to an end around them.
George is distressingly glad Dream faltered before speaking life into those looming, unpleasant reminders of how close they came to parting ways. Their hubris and their stubborn, foolish pride triggers for their downfall as they talked past and over and through each other—on such separate pages their books weren’t even in the same library, although their covers were still the same bittersweet blue-and-green, weathered and worn dull on their once-gilded edges.
If George lets himself truly contemplate just how narrowly he escaped living a life without Dream in it he’ll start committing murder—
(he doesn’t want to imagine what that life would have been. Some terrible half-lived thing where there is no Dream at his side, only a void in his chest where his heart aches with the potent grief of loss. An empty space left by cold sheets in a too-big bed. Meals eaten most often alone at a table surrounded by vacant chairs. No familiar freckled face and green eyes to turn to after the delivery of a joke or catty comments or an expectation of support. An absence where there should be the steady promise of easy company filling his house with brilliant light. A life wherein he is undoubtedly the world’s biggest liar pretending that in each breath he takes he does not drown in an ocean of hurt, does not taste the poison of regret.
To be faced with how unrecognizable Dream might have become in that life, vanished from George’s sight to not return? How much further may Dream have twisted under pressure whilst fighting alone? To be faced with how unrecognizable he himself might have become if he let Dream go, unwilling to fight tooth and nail to keep him? How long would George’s pride prevent him from trying to get answers? Forever? Or until it became far too late to fix anything, forcing him to lose Dream in all the ways he possibly could?
Would they even dare reach out to each other in that life? Apart but still so longing? Their grasping hands just a hairsbreadth from clasping palms?
(reduced to each other’s phantom limb; an itch that could never be scratched)
Or would they never speak again? Never lay eyes on each other due to choice and circumstance? Mere unhealed open wounds wielded as weapons to feed each other’s despair? Separated by a distance both physical and not, locked into their cruel, lonely fates and unable to change them even if they were to so desperately try?
(what a pitiable creature he is, the george who chose pride over dream and lost them both)
(no, he really does not want to imagine that life at all))
—while he still might be persuaded to commit a little murder, he did escape being condemned to a life missing Dream. Their paths had fractured in that throne room and may have splintered forever, spooled out in opposite directions except. George refused to give up and accept it, chasing Dream down so he could gather the scattered pieces left behind and maybe understand. Confronted with the conviction of his refusal, Dream folded just enough to not entirely brush him off, and in doing so reignited his waning hopefulness that their end could be averted.
Together, they set aside their pride to bare shades of vulnerability and to make different choices, better choices. He’s not so foolish as to think there will be no hardships ahead to overcome but, when the moment came, they chose each other and that has to count for something.
Mentally shaking off the weight of his thoughts, George hums an affirmative low in his throat to indicate he’s not ignoring that earnest, if choppy, apology.
Dream’s mouth curls, a little rueful upward curve, “So…I’m sorry. I was dumb and I hurt you and I’m sorry.”
George twirls a lock of blond hair around a finger as he mulls over those sincere words, the thump-thump-thump of Dream’s heartbeat steady beneath his other hand. He considers the tone of his own response, injured ego appeased by the admittance and apology inasmuch as he’s pleased by having Dream home.
Still…who is he if he does not poke fun?
His prior smile reemerges bit by teasing bit as a smirk, “You are an idiot, that’s true.”
Those pretty green eyes blink rapidly and then, with a scandalized gasp of his name, Dream proceeds to adopt a valiant pout, “You’re so mean to me.”
“And?” he sniffs, imperious. “What do you expect from me? Sometimes you deserve it. If you’re going to be dumb then I’m going to call you dumb. Maybe you should try being a little smarter if you don’t like it.”
Starting to wave one bent knee side to side, Dream’s pout deepens, “Okay, but. You’d be mean to me even if I wasn’t dumb.”
Well, yeah. When push comes to shove, that’s integral to the foundation of their dynamic: a sliding scale of rudeness volleyed back and forth which has its sting tempered by their honest fondness for one another.
He raises a brow, offering a lazy shrug, “Again, and? If you deserve it then you deserve it. Besides, I don’t know why you’re acting like I’m the only mean one in this relationship. I seem to recall things a little bit differently…something like you being rather rude when it suits you. Don’t think I don’t remember your greatest hits, Dream. So, if you’re gonna pull the woe is me card I’ll be happy to pull it right back.”
For all his medal-worthy bravery in pointing out that harsh truth, he gets several absent whacks on the leg in recompense.
Smirk sobering, George brushes his thumb over the mulish twist of Dream’s lips, “More seriously…yes, you should have talked to me. Before things boiled over, before that whole confrontation in the throne room happened, you should have talked to me. Even if I…,” he casts his gaze away, grimacing, “even if I have to admit I don’t know if I would have listened. Nothing was serious to me, not like it was to you—not like it was to a lot more people than I realized, I guess.”
Caught up in his own irreverence and complacency, which led him to miss how vulnerable he really was, to miss attempts planned and made on his life. To miss how his safety was jeopardized so thoroughly that Dream—the one person he never imagined could possibly fail to be strong enough to protect him—stumbled and fell under the pressures of everything George did not notice, did not see.
Perhaps the most damning thing is that George is not unobservant, yet he still has been so blind, rejecting whatever he didn’t want to acknowledge because he didn’t want to lose the comforting veneer of an entertaining game he’d surrounded himself with.
(if everything was only a game then what did he ever have to worry about? why would he need to think of consequences since…once games end, things are always fine again, right?)
“I don’t know if I would’ve listened,” he repeats, a frigid kernel of shame budding beneath his ribs. “I like to think I would have, if you’d come to me. That I would’ve understood your worries and respected them. Done what I could to help. But, well, although I think I would, I really can’t claim it’d be true with any certainty.”
If there’s one thing he isn’t blind to—not even when he does his best to feed into an act that declares otherwise—it’s his own faults, especially now that he’s aware what those faults almost cost him.
Blowing a breath up into his bangs, his eyes dip back to his lap and trace the familiar line of freckles dotted across Dream’s nose, “I got…too comfortable. I thought nothing was ever in real danger, that we were all invincible. Honestly, I’m unsure when I started thinking that,” his scoff is tinged with acid, “I’d seen enough to know better. Yet. Yet. As far as I was concerned, none of the mess on the server would ever matter. That whatever went wrong could always be fixed and that nothing could possibly happen that couldn’t be completely undone.”
George hones in on the rhythm beneath his left hand and lets its stable beat clear his head, “Maybe I was just trying to trick myself. Live this nice lie where I didn’t have to fear anything or anyone,” the smile he wears when Dream’s fingers tighten around his own is a critical, crooked thing, “which was naive of me. Stupid, even.”
“I don’t think it’s stupid to want to live a life free of fear,” Dream says, tone cradled in soft rebuttal.
“You would say that you optimist,” he tsks, releasing the lock of hair he’s been twirling to smother Dream’s face with his palm. “And you’re right! If that was all it was then it’d be fine. But it wasn’t. I let this idea…this illusion replace reality and I didn’t want to hear anything that’d challenge that. Until you went and dethroned me I pretty much outright refused to, and it’s a miracle that you doing that somehow got me to challenge it. I was mad enough to hunt you down like I did, but….”
(he almost didn’t make that choice; he almost didn’t rebel against his rejection; he almost didn’t think he could; he almost let himself remain locked away in body and in heart in his room with nothing but bittersweet memories to live for)
An echo of the frustration he’s felt with himself since his initial decision twists his stomach. How could he have ever entertained the idea for even a single moment to not make that choice?
Clicking his tongue, he pointedly relaxes the rise of his shoulders and the tension in his brow. That done, he then drags his palm into Dream’s hair again and meets the uncovered flat expression with a winsome, beatific grin. “Let’s just say that, looking back, I can see why you didn’t talk to me. I probably wouldn’t have bothered trying to talk to me either. Yeah, you made dumb choices and I forgive you for those. But I made dumb choices of my own, too. I was too busy being a stubborn brat to realize you were hurting, and my brattiness couldn’t have done anything but make things more difficult for you. For that, I’m sorry.”
Dream’s eyes are blown wide with surprise at his candor, lips parted around the shape of an immediate protest.
“No, no, shush. Don’t make that face at me! You’re not allowed to take all the blame, idiot. I can admit where I’ve been wrong,” Dream is obediently quiet, at least, but there’s now a disbelieving squint aimed at him, “hey, stop that. I can! Look, look, shut up. What I am trying to say is that we both made mistakes, okay? You got stressed out and overthought everything so hard you thought isolating yourself was the smart thing to do. It wasn’t, but you felt alone in wanting to protect what you could and you didn’t know how else to do it. And then I didn’t take anything seriously when I should have, doing very little thinking of my own as I assumed you’d have no trouble handling yourself, me, and everything else, too. I probably made you feel like I didn’t care about what you were going through as long as it didn’t bother me, which wasn’t fair to you either. So, yes, I’m sorry I did that.”
Knowing what’s coming, he sighs loudly, “Let me be remorseful and self-reflective for a while, will you? Now, I know you want to forgive me immediately but, like, don’t. Or, at least don’t tell me. You never let yourself hold a grudge even when, honestly, you really should. You are allowed to feel things, y’know? Even the negative things! So. Maybe try not to forget what could have happened and think it over first.”
He won’t kid himself; Dream isn’t likely to actually get angry at him, permission or no permission. That’s just not how Dream is. A shame, really. Dream’s anger can be a majestic, wrathful creature all its own, but it’s kept so tightly leashed it barely peeks out, even to wound the enemies who most deserve to suffer it. Although he doesn’t like to be on the receiving end of that anger, George does like to see it spark and flare, interested in the sheer honesty of it. Dream’s compassion and positivity and the love he exudes are no less honest, of course, but his true, genuine fury surfaces so rarely that someone could easily presume he is incapable of dangerous levels of anger.
Which is untrue and denies Dream his anger as an outlet.
Privately, he believes Dream would feel a thousand percent better at all times if he let that fury loose on occasion as a little cathartic treat.
…Ah, well, another project tossed on the pile for another day’s work.
Unaware of George’s wistful reminiscence over the last time he saw Dream go full scorched earth, Dream exhales loudly through his nose and frowns, “Wait, how’s that fair? You can forgive me but I shouldn’t forgive you? George, what kind of sense does that make?”
Plucking apart Dream’s frustratingly low self-esteem is also a project for another day, so George has no intention to dive into an impromptu therapy session. Instead, he shamelessly pivots to a tried and true distraction, smile lopsided with curled-high edges, “You’re so lucky you’re cute.”
A delightful pink flush steals freckle by freckle over Dream’s face, previous confusion derailed as it melts away into a new form, “U-Um?”
“Don’t worry your pretty head about it,” he suggests, gently rapping his knuckles on said pretty head and observing how that flush further deepens and spreads. “All you have to do is not get so tied up in here, okay? I know you like to spend a lot of time thinking and that’s fine, you know? You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t! If you start to get too lost in your head, though, will you talk to me? Can you do that for me, Dream?”
“I, uh. I, um—okay?” Dream squeaks, blinking owlishly up at him.
Squeaks! Adorable.
“Good boy,” George purrs. “Smart boy. So very, very smart.”
Dream’s breath stutters beautifully and George is elated. Smug, even, about how well his pivot worked as he, regretfully, dials back the intensity to something less overwhelming for Dream’s poor overheated brain.
“You are smart,” he echoes, “but, as we’ve established, you can also be so stupid,” he teases, mouth quirking as his hand slides up from where it rests on Dream’s chest to cradle his cheek. George leans over, thumb gliding over scarred skin dusted pink, gratified in the depths of his greedy, possessive heart at the soft-edged adoration shining up at him—
(Dream has always, since that very first moment, looked at him as if no one else in all the realms existed. As if George was indeed everything that should be worshiped: the sun, the moon, the stars, the world, an embodiment of the universe itself made of flesh and blood and yet divine.
As if George is Dream’s heart given life in a separate body only so that he might better hold it in two devout, careful hands.
That unfiltered, extraordinary love should be smothering and all-consuming. Terrifying, in the endless expanse of it, nigh impossible to fathom. Should be. To anyone else.
George basks in the toasty, furnace-warmed blanket of it, a purring cat splayed out in its favorite sunbeam. A territorial dragon hoarding every glittering shard of Dream’s love in a stronghold shaped like a temple; all of George’s own matching desire often quieter but no less potent in its vast strength.
(he loves, he loves, he loves))
—and equally as besotted as he studies the streaks of green in Dream’s eyes with a scholar’s keen focus.
“How-ev-er…the most important thing you are,” George continues, voice dipping low as he wets his lips and trails off. His bangs hang like a curtain, partitioning the two of them in their own little world. Just George and Dream scant inches apart, two souls aligned as hearts beat in concert, a two-toned ouroboros of blue and green, of sky and earth.
Once a few minutes pass, Dream’s brows raise in a silent prompt for more. His nose then scrunches right after, a nearly physical neon-bright sign of a question mark forming over his head as he, endearing to a fault, presses into the safe harbor of George’s palm with the tiniest of encouraging noises.
And oh, if George does not want to squish his dumb cheeks and coo. Drop a kiss just on the very tip of his nose and watch Dream’s eyes go wide with that stunning, wondrous awe. George wants to spill the tender heat of his own overflowing love fluttering like a whorl of iridescent, colorful butterflies out into the aether. He wants to see Dream’s face flush an even more adorable scarlet as the flustered embarrassment sinks in and he awkwardly flails, caught between shoving George away or covering his burning cheeks with both hands.
He’s so cute. He’s so cute. He’s—
“Mine,” George declares with all the gravitas of a royal decree, a whisper of his seized authority infusing his voice and the shadow of his lost crown a fleeting burden in his hair, gaze half-lidded and laced with undeniable, clear-as-glass devotion.
Dream startles with a sharp inhale, those freckled constellations painted across an ever-widening backdrop of soft pink, a wavering vulnerability shaped like disbelief in the tremble of his lashes and the quiver of his lips. This darling moron will never treat his regard as anything less than an honor, a gift, a blessing from a worshiped god, never realizing he is just as precious and held close in George’s heart. Ten, twenty, thirty years from now and Dream will still marvel at him as if he can’t believe that George loves him, wants him, chooses him, forever surprised when anyone considers him to be a person worth valuing.
Which, for all his moaning and groaning and coy posturing, George does. Wholeheartedly and unabashedly.
(dream does not need to be anyone or anything but himself for george to love him)
The surprise fades into one of Dream’s gooiest expressions, his right hand lifting from his chest to slide so very carefully up George’s neck until long fingers frame George’s ear and snake through his hair to curl around the back of his head.
“I love you,” blurts Dream, helplessly, those three cherished words tumbling over themselves like clumsy, overeager fawns. His eyes rove across every centimeter of George’s face, a caress without touch, focus always, always returning to the true north of George looking back.
George can feel the answering soppy smile as it creeps over him, teeth again catching on his bottom lip in a fruitless attempt to hold it at bay. Dream’s delight is a buzzing, tangible thing when he lets himself fail after a token dramatic scoff, grin so expansive his eyes crinkle. His heart is so full, a joyous thrum between his ribs beating in time with the contented thump-thump-thump he’s so attuned to in Dream’s chest.
“I know,” tone mushier than he meant it to be, he drags his nails through messy blond hair and then yanks another strand in reprimand when Dream feigns sulking. “I love you too. You’re the smartest idiot I know but you’re my idiot and I’m never getting rid of you.”
(the server will have to take all three of his lives or all of dream’s before there is no dream-and-george, now, and he is no longer as willing to blunt his claws and hide his fangs in harmless facades as he was; he is spiteful and possessive and he will rain hell if it means dream is safe and alive and his)
Yet again, Dream stares up at him with wide-eyed adoration, quiet whine cut off by a shaky exhale. Lifting a goading brow, he blinks at the quicksilver swap from schmoop to smolder, broad shoulders flexing rather distractingly against his thigh and, abruptly, Dream has pushed himself upright in the span of a single breath.
Startled, the hand George has in Dream’s hair slips down to grasp at the strong line of his jaw, thumb landing at the corner of his mouth. He squeaks out his own little ah? Dream! as Dream, wasting no time, leans in and guides their lips together to kiss him as if he’ll die if he doesn’t.
And George?
He pulls close and shelters the human embodiment of sunshine between his reverent palms and kisses him right back.
(and he loves, he loves, he loves)