Chapter Text
It was a stupid argument. It was a stupid argument and Dream didn’t know why they were having it and it was the second time this week that this had happened.
“Come on, Dream, just edit my video. You said that you like doing it for me! Just do it.”
“I already told you that I don’t want to do it this time. Edit it yourself.”
George huffed and flopped down on the mattress next to Dream, who was trying to send an email but had barely gotten past the first line. “But I can’t edit it myself. You just do it so much better.”
“I’m busy, George! I can’t edit all of your videos for you. Once and a while, yeah, but not all of them. This is your job, too, you know.”
George hated hearing that. Dream knew it was because he didn’t have a way to refute it, which meant he wouldn’t get his way. He rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling.
“I’m not kissing you until you edit my video.”
Dream looked down at him sharply. “What?”
“You heard me. No kisses until you edit my video. That’s the deal.”
“Since when are we making a deal?” Dream shut his laptop lid. Goddamn George, taking up his work time to argue about taking up more of his work time.
“Since you stopped editing my videos for me like a good little Dream. These are the consequences of your own actions.”
“You refusing to kiss me until I do your work for you is the consequences of my own actions?”
“Yeah.” George hovered his hand over his face to study his nails, letting out a bored sigh, like this was a business meeting he just couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to anymore. “Now you don’t get to kiss me anymore. Nice going, Dream.”
It was all a harmless joke, Dream knew that, but something about it still rubbed him the wrong way.
“And why is it that I have to do work to kiss my own boyfriend? Doesn’t that sound kind of messed up to you?”
“Relationships are work, Dream. Now edit my video.”
It was like George was trying to get a rise out of him, because he thought it was funny or something.
Dream didn’t find it very funny. He got up off the bed. “No. I’m not editing your damn video. Find someone else to do it, if you’re so set on getting out of it.”
“Maybe I will. Maybe I’ll start dating some other tall blond guy and maybe he’ll edit my videos for me when I ask him to.”
That one hit hard. Dream was finding it difficult to swallow. “So that’s all I am to you? Free labor?”
“Not everything. You also make good buffalo chicken.”
He threw his hands up. “Oh! Great. I feel better now.”
“Great.”
George was still joking, and Dream wasn’t, and that was the problem – George never stopped joking. He could be so sweet and lovely and sincere at times, but Dream was feeling more and more like it was always a means to an end. “I’m so happy you’re here, Dream. Your hair is so soft. Can you make me breakfast?” or “I wanna take a bath together later. Will you edit my video first, though?”
It just didn’t feel good. Dream felt used, in a way, like George was exploiting the fact that he was a simp. Like George wasn’t actually in love with him, just with what he did for him.
Because George still hadn’t told him he loved him. Even when Dream said it almost every day.
And that wasn’t fair – Dream didn’t have the right to force George to show his love in a way that he couldn’t, or to jump into something before he was ready – but it still felt like shit. It felt like being punched in the stomach and hearing the air wheeze out of your lungs and not being able to breathe it back in. Like walking around all day collapsed in on yourself, unable to stand up straight.
Dream turned to leave, not wanting to be in this room anymore with the one person he loved more than anything while the frustration was building up behind his eyes like this.
“Where are you going?” George asked from behind him.
He sounded like he was still lying down. Dream wished he had sat up, because that would mean he cared just a little bit more.
Dream left and didn’t respond.
—
Maybe he had overreacted. Maybe he was being too dramatic about it, but George was still being an asshole. Those two things could coexist.
And it wasn’t like this had come out of nothing, either. They had been dating for over three months now, and it just kept getting more and more like this. When Dream wanted George to play with his hair while he edited, George wanted to join Quackity’s stream instead. When Dream wanted to make out and talk into the late hours of the night, George wanted to go to sleep. But then, as soon as George wanted something from Dream, he was all over him again. It was just these little things, little things that kept building into bigger things.
The icing at the top of the cake was George still not telling Dream he loved him. And again, it was fine – he knew it took longer for him to warm up to that kind of thing, to be able to express it in words – but Dream had come to say it like a prayer, like a mantra, and George took it in silence every time. If Dream was a better person, he wouldn’t care. But he was soft, and he was weak, and he needed that verbal confirmation from George to keep from falling apart.
So, it was only a matter of time before he began to crumble. And it happened to be the editing that did him in.
Dream’s help had started out small. One video, because he wanted George to know how much he loved him. Two videos, because he didn’t really mind and when George smiled like that it made the memory of hard work vanish into dust.
Then, it was more. Dream was editing every one of George’s videos, and when he tried to stop, George would beg with those wide eyes and Dream’s own ’puppy mouth’ and Dream would give in like the weak man he was. Dream was editing all of George’s videos, and George was sleeping instead of cuddling him, and George still wouldn’t say I love you.
It all became too much. Later that night when Dream asked George to come to bed – to touch him just enough to save him – and George said he was going to stay up editing a little longer because “You said you wouldn’t do it and now I have to toil away, Dream, so I’m sorry I don’t have time for cuddles,” something just had to blow and that something was Dream’s heart.
“God, George, sometimes I just feel like you only keep me around to do shit for you!” Dream spat the words across the room, staring at George’s tense silhouette against the wall of monitors.
George spun in his chair, and all of the lead in Dream’s chest suddenly became real and heavy against his ribs. It was late, and neither of them had gotten enough sleep the night before, and George wasn’t laughing this time.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Dream? I was joking, earlier, you know that. How could you think I would do that?”
“You keep pushing me away and then asking me to edit your video, how could I not think it?” Dream laughed, because George wouldn’t, and it was a bitter thing.
George threw his hands up, face contorting into a warped, terrible version of itself in the shadows. “Dream! Just because I want you to edit for me doesn’t mean that’s all I care about. And just because I’m busy sometimes doesn’t mean I’m pushing you away! I can’t pay attention to you all of the time, I have my own life!”
So, there it was. Dream was too much. He rocked back against the doorframe like the words had physically blown into him. “Your own life without me in it. I see how it is.”
“No – Dream you’re completely skewing everything I’m saying! And I thought you liked editing for me?”
“I liked it when it felt like an act of love instead of an act of servitude. Love goes both ways, George, and all you’re doing is shutting me out.” There was the voice crack, the dreaded tears threatening to break out of Dream’s eyes and paint him bare. His throat ached.
“Oh my god, you’re being ridiculous.” George raked a hand through his hair and gripped the ends until it stretched painfully from his forehead. He scoffed, and it sounded like a raw scrape. “I can’t believe you would think so low of me as to think I’ve been using you for editing.”
It was a statement of hurt, not of reassurance. Dream felt worse than he had before he started this whole thing.
“Well, I feel used, George. I don’t know what else to say.” It was petty, and dramatic, and ugly, but Dream said it anyway. He said it because that was how he felt, and because tears were blurring his vision and making him feel dumb and awful.
George’s mouth dropped open, helpless, quivering in anger or frustration or some other emotion Dream didn’t have the energy to discern. The best thing to do at that moment was probably just to leave. He backed out of the door and shut it behind him.
Wow, great job having a healthy conversation with him. Dream rubbed his hands harshly down his face. Fuck.
He went back to his stupid room and laid down in his stupid empty bed and cried big fat stupid tears. It was all just so terrible, the way his stomach twisted itself into a cramping knotted mess that nothing could fix. Nothing but George – a George who was three months away and not right across the hall.
Dream cried into his pillow until it was soaked wet, until he felt stuffy and sore and, above all else, miserable. It was way too late now, almost five in the morning, but Dream couldn’t get himself to sleep. Everytime he started to drift into his own exhaustion he was reminded of the disgusted look on George’s face, because that was what it looked like when he was mad – disgusted. When Dream remembered that harsh set of George’s brow, he would cramp up all over again with his fists tangled in his blankets.
A small shuffling sound came from down the hall. Patches, probably, or Sapnap getting up to pee. Dream hoped he hadn’t overheard their fight. He was playing Valorant with Punz on VC all night, so Dream had assumed he wouldn’t be able to hear a thing.
Then there was a quiet knock, echoing through the wood of Dream’s door. Shit, so he had overheard them. Why was he checking on Dream at five in the morning, though?
Dream dragged himself out of bed and did a halfhearted job of wiping the tears and embarrassing snot from his face before opening the door. He had an apology on his lips before he had even turned the handle, but when his eyes fell down to a dark head of hair in the dim hall light, it wasn’t Sapnap who was visiting him.
George was a mess, his face red and puffy with tears streaking in every direction. He could cry on command, Dream had seen him do it many times on lore streams and he always managed to look pretty and composed while doing it, but this was different – George was always beautiful, but there was no beauty in this sorrow. His face was raw and disheveled in a way Dream had never seen it before. He felt tears pricking in his eyes just looking at him.
“Dream.” The syllable was broken, gritty, followed by a hitched breath that looked painful.
Dream just swallowed. He didn’t trust his voice to hold.
George tried to hold a sob back with a sleeve-covered fist, but it tore through him anyway. “Dream, I’m so sorry.”
That was all it took for salt to flood Dream’s eyes and blur his vision. He hated seeing George in pain. He should have been angry, should have told him it wasn’t good enough, but all could think was that he needed him to be okay. He held out his arms, and George collapsed into them.
Salt water was hot on the side of his neck. He fisted his hands in George’s grey-blue hoodie, breathing him in, leaving his own tears to soak into George’s hair. George was squeezing him like there was someone trying to yank them apart, his breaths coming fast and harsh.
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.” George pressed the words to Dream’s skin.
“It’s okay,” Dream said. Maybe it was weak, but he had forgiven him the moment he saw his face. He dragged his hands up and down George’s back, soothing him.
“It’s not okay. I’m so unappreciative – I can’t believe I– how much I take you for granted.” George choked on his breath. “You deserve to feel so loved and I–“
“George.” Dream cradled his head with a hand. “Shh, it’s okay. I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have been so pushy and I shouldn’t have said those things about you. I know you would never use me. I only said that because I was hurt, but it’s no excuse. You didn’t deserve to be accused of that – you’re an amazing boyfriend and I am so lucky to have you.”
George gripped him hard, tears still soaking into the collar of his shirt. “I love you, Dream.”
There they were. Those words, the ones Dream had been waiting for, the ones he had been hoping to hear for years. Something in his chest opened up, like the sun breaking through clouds.
“You do?”
This made George cry even harder. “Of course I do. How could you not know that? I love you so much. You don’t deserve what I make you deal with. I thought maybe I should let you go find someone who would give– who would treat you right, but the thought of losing you almost made me sick. I want to keep you, selfishly. Please, Dream, can I keep you?”
“Of course you can keep me, I’m yours.” Dream’s entire chest seized at the thought of George leaving him, thinking it was for his own good. “You treat me right, George. I don’t want anyone else. I don’t care if they write me a hundred poems every day and shower me in gold, I don’t want it. I only want you.”
George laughed through his sniffles. “That’s practically what you do for me. I’m so lucky, Dream. I can’t believe I’ve been such an ass.”
“I love you so much.” Dream kissed George’s hair, his temple, his cheek, anything he could reach with George’s face still buried in his neck.
They stayed like that for a long time, swaying in each other’s arms, until the tear stains on Dream’s cheeks and neck made his skin feel tight. Then they moved to his bed, which was really their bed, and Dream fell asleep mere moments after hitting the mattress. Before he lost consciousness entirely, he heard George whispering it again, into his hair – I love you I love you I love you.
—
The next morning, George got up and finished editing his video. Then he made Dream pancakes, and they were lumpy and a little bitter in places and the kitchen was a mess afterward, but it was enough. It was enough for Dream to know he meant I love you, and it was even better because George kept whispering those very words every chance he got, like it was their little secret and not for a sleepy and oblivious Sapnap to overhear, and like he meant it.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was better. And he could tell George was really trying, like in a Minecraft challenge when he stopped being bored and started actually caring about winning, and those were always the times when he pulled the most insane plays and won the whole thing. If the prize here was Dream’s heart, as cheesy as that was, he thought George was doing a pretty good job.
George started pestering Dream about editing again a few days later, after he got over being too scared to ask, but he was more perceptive about where to draw the line. And he always played with Dream’s hair while Dream edited for him – every time, without fail, and if he couldn’t be there for whatever reason he would reward Dream later in other ways.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was almost perfect – and almost perfect was enough for Dream. After years of being a perfectionist, he had accepted that it was impossible for something to be exactly what you wanted it to be all of the time.
It was enough for George to smile at him with that look in his eyes over the dinner table, the look that said I’m in love with you, which meant he would be saying it out loud as soon as he had finished chewing. It was enough for them to get a house with two bedrooms after Sapnap moved in with Punz and to only use one of them, because Sapnap needed somewhere to stay when he came to visit. It was enough for them to hold each other on quiet nights and not say a word.
And they still fought, not often but not rarely either, because George felt like a burden or Dream felt unappreciated or one of them had come up with some other way to torture themselves, but they would always come back to each other at the end of the night. They would always press as close as they could, face to face, so that their bare stomachs could touch and the knots there could unravel into warmth.
And they would make pancakes in the morning. They would spill the batter, and burn half of it because they kept getting distracted kissing each other, and the dirty dishes would pile up in the sink for a few days, and George’s lips would taste like syrup.
And it wasn’t perfect, but they loved each other. And that was enough.