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George loves to look at the stars.
There’s a little hill near his apartment where he can sit and listen to the quiet sounds of car tires across asphalt as the occasional neighborhood traveler turns down the road towards the park. It’s a place of peace for him, and tonight, for reasons he can’t quite explain, he’s taken Dream with him.
“It’s very pretty,” Dream murmurs, and George nods in agreement, though it’s not the stars he’s staring at. The only thing illuminating the two of them is the dazzling glow of the moon, reflecting pools in Dream’s eyes as if they’re endless green seas that George feels he could get lost in. The reflections of the constellations are more gorgeous when they're embezzled with the awestruck atmosphere that Dream provides with his gentle and consistent enthusiasm. “You come here a lot?”
“It makes me feel better,” George replies. He suspects that the beauty him and Dream find in the stars is contrasting. George loves the idea of insignificance, the knowledge that after his life ends, he’ll be remembered about as much as Theta Eridani, a nameless familiarity in the minds of those who have viewed him in passing. “I like the idea that we don’t matter. That I’m insignificant as a whole, and one day I’ll just fizzle into nothing."
“Why would you like the thought of that?” Dream questions, his voice filled with disbelief. George laughs softly, his heart battered and scarred by things that he’s sure Dream could never understand. “In the end, we have about as much to gain as we have to lose, and it all amounts to nothing. I won’t be anything more than a sparkle to them when I’m gone. No one will know you, or me, or anyone. We’ll all just be forgotten, as the story tends to go.”
Dream is eerily silent for a moment before speaking. “I really don’t like that, George.” His voice sounds like it’s dripping with sadness, his sparkling ocean eyes now filled with tears. George freezes. Shit.
“I, uh, well, not everyone has to like it. I just don’t think I’ll be remembered as somebody important, that’s all. It doesn’t mean you won’t be, or anything,” he rambles. Fuck, he really is not making this any better.
“Is that really what you want, George? To be forgotten? You’re saying if a shooting star fell right now, you’d wish to be tossed away?” George shakes his head, unsure if his denial comes from truthfulness or fear of Dream’s unpredictable emotions. “Well, then, what would you wish for?” George hums. He’s not quite sure how to answer that question, so he proposes one of his own.
“If I was a star, what star would I be?” he asks. He notices that Dream stills for a moment, seemingly caught off guard before quickly regaining his composure.
“You’d be the North Star,” Dream affirms, and George raises a questioning eyebrow.
“The North Star? Why the hell would I be the North Star?”
“Because you’re something to write fairytales about.” George feels a blush spread across his cheeks, mingling with his freckles. “And because you’re more memorable than you think.”
“C’mon, Dream, be realistic here. When everything’s dead and gone, no one’s going to be raving about the North Star. It’s not exactly a hot topic anymore.”
“I can bet there’s at least one sailor out there who likes to tell the story of how the North Star saved his life. He probably tells it with big smiles and waving arms, talking about the deadly storms, how he was only saved by the star’s glittering that rescued him in the night.” There’s a fond smile on Dream’s face as he speaks, as if the sailor is someone he once knew.
“Are you saying you’re the sailor?” George inquires, and Dream shrugs. He feels his heart do something unrecognizable at the idea that he might’ve saved Dream, someone who had magical sense of resilience to the way he acted. He longs to push the thought of being a savior out of his head, the responsibility feeling too great to bear. “That sailor’s only one person, you know.”
“Memories don’t take an army, George.” George can’t exactly argue with that, so he basks in the peaceful silence that twirls between them, tauntingly dancing around the words they’re both dangerously close to saying. George wants to lean over and tell Dream how absolutely beautiful he is, describe in detail the way he’d lead the sailor out of stormy waters with every bit of sparkle he could muster, even if it meant his own destruction in the end. He would do whatever it took for someone of Dream’s caliber.
“What about me?” Dream interrupts, startling George away from his thoughts.
“Hm?”
“What about me? What star would I be?” George thinks for a moment before the obvious conclusion pops into his brain.
“You’d be the sun.”
“Why? Because I’m so hot?” George giggles.
“Maybe.” Dream laughs. “Really, though. You’re bright. You’re a driving force. You have the power to create and to destroy. You could take anyone down if you so dared, burn them to the ground and let them grow again. People get sunburned all the time, and they still return. They love it. They make stupid little Hallmark signs about it. That’s what you are, Dream. Your anger can burn and scar, but your kindness and warmth can leave freckles on anyone you touch.” He takes in a breath and glances over at Dream, who looks deep in thought. Absentmindedly, Dream picks up George’s hand and kisses a freckle he has next to his right thumb.
“You make me sound like I’m some kind of God,” Dream comments, letting go of George’s hand like he’d never meant to hold it in the first place. “But if what you say is right, no one will remember me any more than they remember you.”
“Well, that’s not true,” George argues. “We’re different people. You’ve marked so many hearts, and I’m just not the same. When you go down, the whole world will go down with you. I’m just a sparkle in the sky.”
Dream doesn’t seem to want to respond, and George tries to ignore the sniffle he hears coming from the man next to him. It breaks him to see Dream feel this way, to see Dream pained so much by George’s own longing for insignificance. It almost makes him want to have a legacy, if only to bring a smile to his face.
“You never answered my question,” Dream speaks up, and George blinks. “Of what you’d wish for if you saw a shooting star right now.”
George thinks for a moment. There were so many times when he would have wished for everything to come crashing down around him, for all the stars to rain down until he was buried under the dirt, everyone else falling with him. He would’ve wished for flames to engulf him, torching every remnant he’d ever left on the world, disconnecting him from a place he’d never really liked in the first place.
But it was different now. “If I could wish for anything right now, I’d just wish for you.”
Dream intertwines his fingers with George’s, and George can’t tell if it’s from resignation or a promise. When Dream stands up, pulling George up with him, his heart knows that it’s the former.
“There’s a lot of things you have yet to learn, George. One of the biggest things is that you can’t forget the people you’ve loved, no matter how insignificant of a star they seem to be.” George’s breath hitches in anticipation of Dream's words. “And George, it’s as simple as this: I would remember you.”
It’s like every muscle in his body freezes, every thought dissipating to replay what Dream has just said in his head, analyzing every last syllable. Dream’s sunny words have sprouted flowers in every last corner of his heart, his warmth growing them to fruition before George can even argue. He was expecting a sunburn but instead was given a starburst of freckles that feel as if they’re smattering him, polluting him with joy he’s not so sure if he deserves. He doesn’t protest when Dream turns away, beginning the walk back to their apartment. He’s already been given more from Dream than he ever could’ve wished for.
All he can do is stare at the sky, trying to piece together the level of his own significance now that he holds a place in Dream’s heart. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a shooting star, and something inside him pushes him to make a wish. He doesn’t really care for what the universe could give him, but he knows what Dream wants. No, he knows what Dream needs. He wants Dream to have a gentle imprint on the world, free from a trail of insignificant stars burning in his heart. He wants Dream to fall in love and stay there, their legacies permanently intertwining, his eternal desire for notoriety satisfied with a soulmate by his side.
"I wish for Dream to find his true love, so that they can be remembered together, forever."
George takes in a breath and turns back towards the park, prepared to take his own walk home. Though he doesn’t see it, the North Star shines a bit brighter as if speaking to him, celestial words emanating from her mouth.
Already done, my child. Already done.