Chapter Text
“Talk?” George echoes, feeling a spike of panic. “About what?”
Dream presses his lips together, looking oddly serious. “You’ve been acting all weird,” he notes pointedly. “Is everything okay?”
George can’t believe he was that easy to read. “Yeah,” he swallows, “it’s honestly nothing, I’ve just had something on my mind recently…”
“Does it have something to do with that question you asked?”
George snaps his head up, unable to help his guilty expression, and at Dream’s long exhale he knows he gave himself away.
“I mean, I get it. It’s been on my mind too.”
George startles at the confession. He was on Dream’s mind? Was Dream maybe starting to realize that George’s feelings went beyond mere friendship?
“It’s not exactly normal, right?”
Did he maybe feel too much pressure from George’s expectations?
Dream looks to the side sheepishly. “Honestly, I was a little scared. I mean, I don’t want things to change between us.”
This was it. This was where Dream would tell George it was all a mistake. This was where he’d start drawing lines, where he’d tell George that they should take a step back to avoid giving him ideas.
A dark, clawing feeling is gnawing at the inside of George’s chest. Was this really how it was going to end?
“It kinda got me thinking though… what if you were right?”
There’s a quick flare of hope, but it’s quickly stamped out with George’s own metaphorical foot. “Dream,” he warns, his voice shaky. “That’s not funny.”
Dream narrows his eyes, looking a little offended. “It wasn’t meant to be,” he says.
George doesn’t know what that means. His confusion must be apparent, because Dream latches onto his wrist and starts tugging him to his room. The contact between them is hot but cool, the same thing George felt as they’d dashed through the rain together.
“Come on, let me show you something.”
George is gently guided along, his stomach swooping the whole trip there. The first thing Dream does is reach for his phone. When he lets go of George to start scrolling, George feels a small prickle of disappointment.
“What are you showing me?” George mumbles irritably, but Dream shushes him.
“Okay, listen to this.” His friend clears his throat before reciting: “The equivalent of a ‘crush’ , but explicitly lacking an interest in forming a romantic couple… yada yada. It does not matter if they are ‘in a relationship’ , as long as you two can have a deep connection.”
George blinks. “Uh—?”
“A squish is an intense feeling of attraction, liking, appreciation, admiration for a person you urgently want to get to know better and become close with. It is different from ‘just wanting to be friends’ in that there’s an intensity about it and a, uh, sense of elation when they like and appreciate you back.”
“Wait, wait, Dream, slow down. Let me see what you’re reading?” George reaches for Dream’s phone, and the taller obediently hands it over. Upon glancing over the headline, George can’t help his snort. “Why are you using Urban Dictionary? And what’s a squish? ”
“I literally just read the definition to you,” Dream laughs abashedly.
“Wait, give me a second,” George raises his hand up, “I’m gonna read it again.”
His eyes scan over the definition, poring over the words as they fit into his head piece by piece. Equivalent of a ‘crush’. Not romantic. Different from ‘just friends’.
George can’t help the frown that’s growing on his face. Was that really what he felt towards Dream? The concept of it just seemed so… weird.
“I don’t get it,” George says honestly. “This doesn’t make sense.”
Dream’s voice is soft as he asks gently, “How doesn’t it make sense?”
“It just… it’s listing platonic and romantic things in the same definition?”
“That’s the point George,” Dream chuckles lightly, tapping at the screen where squish is spelled out in big, blue letters. “It’s neither of those things. It’s in the middle.”
“In the middle,” George echoes, dumbfounded. He followed Dream here, thinking he was going to get answers. Instead, he’s only more confused than ever.
“I didn’t even know there was a word for it,” Dream’s started to say, but George quickly shushes him so he can read it over again. This time, he sits himself on Dream’s bed and lets his eyes slowly scan over a different portion of the meanings.
An intense feeling of attraction, liking, appreciation, admiration. A sense of elation when they like and appreciate you back.
It kind of makes sense, but it also doesn’t. Still feeling kind of puzzled, he reads the example dialogue underneath it. “I just feel very connected with them and attracted to them and I want to be important in their lives.”
Realization suddenly clicks, and George feels himself glowing. “You feel this about me?” he asks hopefully, looking up from the screen.
“Duh,” Dream responds nonchalantly, his eyes flickering away, but his expression gives away that he’s embarrassed.
“...I don’t care about titles,” is what George settles on saying, but it’s mostly to divert from the fact that, even though he didn’t entirely understand the concept, he still agreed with a lot of it.
Dream looks like he expected that answer. “That’s okay,” he says, accepting the phone back from George’s hands. “I just wanted to show you.”
“Why?”
“B-because,” Dream answers, shyly diverting his gaze, “I don’t know. Sometimes you look uncomfortable, and I don’t want you getting the wrong ideas.”
“Because I’m straight.”
“Because we’re straight.”
“Your ipad clearly disagrees.”
That gets a wheeze out of Dream. “George,” he laughs, “come on.”
“Okay, okay,” George grins a little, despite the weird fluttery feeling that’s happening in his stomach. He doesn’t know why he suddenly feels so much more relaxed, but something about having Dream’s feelings laid bare gives him a little more confidence. He’s not going to be alone in this — they would work through this together. “So, what you’re saying is, I’m your squish?”
Dreams nods imperceptibly. “Yeah.”
“And that means you want to, you’re okay with… what? Cuddling?”
“If you’re okay with it.”
“Holding hands?”
“If you want to,” Dream shrugs. He clearly knows what he wants. So why can’t George figure out for himself what he wants?
“I’m just trying to understand this,” George admits. “‘Cause like, the dumb definition didn’t actually say any of the things squishes do?”
“You’re trying to get me to make another list?” Dream jokes, but George genuinely doesn’t think it’s a bad idea. He steals Dream’s swivel chair, grabs a writing utensil and a piece of scratch paper off Dream’s desk, and starts scribbling down the terms.
“Here,” George points. “So cuddling is an okay?”
Dream looks surprised by George’s seriousness, but he nods. George writes down two checkmarks next to the word ‘cuddles’. Just the sight of it makes a happy tingle go up George’s spine.
“And you like holding my hand?” Dream follows-up, a clear smirk in his voice, and George feels himself grow pink.
“Only sometimes,” he mumbles, thinking hard about what he wants. “Maybe, um, not in public?”
“Not in public,” Dream agrees, but before George can write down the condition, his friend adds, “and when it’s necessary.”
George snorts at the addition, but he adds a little footnote just for Dream. Just like this, they keep going down the list, defining their boundaries. Back hugs. Spooning. Leg tangling. Back rubs. Lying in each other’s laps. The check marks keep appearing over and over again, little footnotes scattered throughout the page, and by the end of it all, there isn’t a single crossed-out term.
“I still don’t get it,” George mumbles.
“What? What don’t you get?”
“I mean, just look, ” he gestures pointedly at the terms, “Look at this list. Anyone who sees this would automatically think we’re in a relationship.”
“Yeah, but we’re not.”
“But these things,” George pouts, willing Dream to understand, “all these things literally equal ‘in a relationship ’.”
“Not necessarily,” Dream argues, snatching away George’s pencil to add another term. “You forgot kissing.”
George stills, staring blankly at the newly added word. “Oh.”
“I mean, I did kiss you once,” Dream snickers, writing a hasty addition to specify his term, “but I’m pretty sure we both don’t want to touch each other's mouths.”
Dream’s started to draw X’s next to it, but he pauses when he realizes George hasn’t spoken. “George?” he looks over. “You don’t… right?”
George opens his mouth, but no answer comes to him. He wrangles his hands as he admits quietly, “I don’t know.”
A stricken look crosses Dream’s face. “What?”
“I don’t know,” George repeats, and at Dream’s dumbfounded expression, George hides his face. “Don’t look at me like that, I just— I don’t know, okay?”
Silence peeters out between them. “George,” Dream starts, “do you… want to be in a relationship with me?”
“I don’t know,” George whispers.
He chances a glance upwards. After getting over the initial surprise, Dream looks surprisingly… thoughtful. Not at all disgusted like George expected him to be.
“Do you want to see me naked?”
The randomness of the question takes George by complete surprise, to the point where he almost falls out of his chair. “What? No??”
“What about fucking me?”
“Dr-DREAM. ” George’s jaw falls open, and he can’t help the short burst of laughter that leaves his mouth. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Dream abruptly leans down, his face inches away from George as he asks, “what if I kissed you right now? Would you want that?”
George planned on saying something serious, planned to tell Dream “but you wouldn’t even mean it”, but when his eyes flicker down to Dream’s mouth, he’s cut short by a shocking spurt of revulsion in his own brain.
George instinctively jerks his head back at the awful imagery of the two of them locked in a passionate make-out session. “Ew —?”
But Dream is laughing, a completely sunny expression on his face. “There we go,” he grins knowingly, like he’s always known what George’s answer would be. Perhaps Dream had always known George better than he even knew himself.
Dream hands the pencil back with an air of finality. George takes one last, long look at the list before drawing an X of his own next to “mouth kissing”. Now the list was complete.
To his surprise, George doesn’t feel even the least bit bitter about it.
∘₊✧ ───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───── ✧₊∘
“My head feels so light,” George grins. “It’s so weird!”
“That’s ‘cuz you waited so long to get it cut,” Dream snickers. George had originally planned on getting his hair cut by a barber like he did on his haircut stream, but after Dream offered to do it for free, he’d been the one to take on the delicate job of styling George’s hair.
“My forehead feels so naked,” George remarks, planting a hand above his eyes. “I can actually feel the wind. ”
“Just admit that I did a good job,” Dream teases. Although George had made it a point to complain as much as possible during the haircut, the end result was actually quite nice, a mirror of George’s hairstyle from the cooking stream. Dream was an astonishingly good barber for someone that's never cut another person’s hair before.
But, “I guess it’s alright” is all George settles on, and Dream wheezes at his frankness.
“You’re welcome, idiot.”
They keep heading down the boardwalk, following along the edge of the grey lake. They point out interesting things beyond the rail and laugh over the silliest things. It’s easy. Effortless. Every word between them leaks fondness and affection, not a trace of tension nor withheld feelings present. As the sun begins to set, they draw to a stop at a familiar checkpoint.
“Look,” Dream grins, “there’s our love lock.”
A slow smile stretches across George’s face. He knows Dream brought them here on purpose. It’s an unassuming golden padlock, with George and Dream’s name written on it in concise sharpie (surrounded by an inordinate number of misshapen hearts), but even now, he can still remember how weirdly persistent Dream had been on making one for them. At the time, he’d thought it only proved his theory of Dream crushing on him. Now, so many things were different.
“You’re an idiot.”
Or, maybe it was safer to say things between them hadn’t changed much at all.
And George thinks it’s better that it ended up that way.
“Hey George,” Dream speaks up, rummaging around his sling bag, “have you ever tried one of these?”
He pulls out two long boxes, one (probably) red and one blue. It’s a bit dark so it’s hard to see, but it’d be impossible for George to miss the word “SPARKLERS” printed on both of them in big, yellow letters.
“No,” he admits, and the stupid grin that glows on Dream’s face as he starts unpackaging the fireworks makes George’s heart swell. “Where did you even get these?”
“A dollar store,” Dream snickers, pulling out his lighter while handing a few sticks over. They’re made of thin metal, half-coated by a rougher substance that George guesses is the flammable part of the sparkler. “It’s nearing the end of June, so I thought I might as well…”
“What?” A bubble of disbelieving laughter escapes George’s mouth. “Because 4th of July?”
“Happy early 4th of July,” Dream agrees teasingly, sparking his lighter against the sparkler. Nothing happens.
Amusement trickles into George’s voice. “Dream?”
“Wait,” Dream mutters impatiently, clicking the lighter again. No flame comes out.
George raises a brow, holding in his instinct to laugh. “Is it broken?”
“No,” Dream disagrees, albeit unconvincingly. “It’s probably just the wind — come on, you need to stand closer to me.”
It takes him a couple tries, but with George acting as an additional protective barrier, the two of them standing arm to arm, Dream eventually lights up a sparkler. He lets out a whoot of success, clearly relieved by his theory proven correct.
“Whoa, ” George mutters. The sparks look alive, starry shapes flying out of the stick in such visible fragments of life that George is momentarily stunned by its vitality.
“Now light yours up with mine,” Dream instructs. George is hesitant at first, nervous to put his hand so close to the sparks, but Dream takes George’s hand and gently guides him into position. Soon George has two sparklers in his possession, one in each hand, glowing vibrantly in the night.
“They’re so close to my hand,” George mumbles in quiet awe. “How come I don’t feel them?”
Dream gives a soft laugh, waving his around like a magic wand. “It’s cool, right?”
George looks at Dream to say something snarky, but his response dies on his tongue. There are stars… stars are in Dream’s eyes.
“George?”
George shakes his head, smiles mysteriously. “It’s nothing,” he replies. “I just realized something is all.”
“...huh? What do you mean?”
Suddenly not caring that they’re in public, George transfers both of his sparklers to one hand and uses his free one to grab Dream’s. His friend doesn’t protest, accepting the gesture easily, though he does appear a bit confused.
“Breaking the agreements already?” Dream jokes, squeezing George’s hand.
“This is necessary,” George refutes, a call-back to Dream’s strange demand, and his chest bursts into flutters when he gets a wheeze out of Dream.
“Sure,” his friend mutters, but he’s grinning like an idiot.
George squeezes back, Dream’s expression mirrored on his own face. Feelings are a complicated thing, for sure. They’re spontaneous, rushed, and oftentimes change. It took George a while to get his own sorted, but he’s glad he gave himself the time to figure things out at his own pace.
Because in the end, it wasn’t friendship that George wanted. It wasn’t romantics, it wasn’t reciprocated feelings, it wasn’t validation or clarity or love (but maybe it was a little bit love).
Because in the end, all George wanted is for Dream to be happy.