Chapter Text
Mundane drips of lava quickly became repetitive to Dream. The same sizzles and pops continuously looping for hours on end became both like a symphony of repeating music and chords and a mind numbing bang, reminding him he’d never escape the cold dark room he was in.
Never escape the prison he helped build, which he was now stuck in. The room he planned to stick his biggest pain in the ass in was now where he’d permanently reside until he was needed to word vomit information on reincarnation. Although, it never was meant for Tommy, was it? He’d reminisced on his initial ideas of Ranboo helplessly being trapped inside walls, forced to suffer his same fate of insanity, for crimes he did not commit, or of slamming Tubbo behind traps and torture, forcing his best friend to scream and pull every lever insight to try and get him away.
But no, instead it was himself, endlessly turning his clock and scribbling down anything he could in his books, with the steady beat of lava flowing over him, the same repeating rhythm.
Which is why it was extremely obvious when the sizzling had taken a new turn, and he heard gears shift from the other side of his cage.
He stood up, boots cracking on the obsidian beneath him, facing out towards the molten liquid in front of him. The dark pull at his lips remained as he awaited a tall blonde obnoxiously laughing at him from across the moving platform, ready for another day of mocking. He’d grown tired of the daily visits from the little weasel, imitating his own gaslighting attempts and manipulation tactics. A tanned hand ran flush through his hair, aching to pull at the roots just to feel something. Dull green eyes flickered upwards watching the lava achingly pull down until he could see just a smidge of the other side.
Except, blonde curls weren’t peaking at the top. His eyebrows furrowed, mouth turning sour as he strained his eyes to see harder. Normally at this point, with Tommy’s significant height, he’d be able to make out some of him at this point in drainage. In fact, he should’ve been able to see Sam watching in the distance at this point too, as they were roughly the same height. Neither figure formed.
It was when a brown tuft of curls began to take shape that Dream felt the color completely drain from his face.
His long legs weren’t stable anymore, as he stumbled backward against the opposite wall, obsidian burning his back as he slapped against it. Dream’s eyes were darting everywhere, as his hand raised again through his hair yet again. Burning, burning, burning, burning, burning-
He hadn’t noticed the lava had finally fallen, and the angel in front of him was pulling levers. Pillars of cobblestone shot from the bottom of the pit as he gingerly jumped closer and closer to his once best friend. As quick as they arose, they sunk just as the sneaker on his foot left the final platform. Lava flew freely again.
The hood of his blue cloak was pulled down, and it was as though Dream had forgotten what breathing was.
“George?” Came his whispered response.
The brunette’s goggles were on, covering his eyes (oh his eyes ) from being exposed. George was smart. He knew Dream could read him like a book if he wanted, page by page ripping his being apart all through his eyes. So he chose to not let him in.
“You told me how to get in,”
Dream’s world was spinning, as just the words flowing from the man’s mouth seemed like a melody, one he’d never fully escape from, and one he’d often become intoxicated by.
“Does-”
“Sam doesn’t know. You said it’d be important I knew some things he didn’t,”
There is no way this was real, right?
Dream let his back off the dark wall behind him, standing up and trying to function as human for the first time during the interaction. The first interaction he’d had with his best friend in months. The first interaction he’d had with someone he would do anything for in months.
“Where were you?” He whispered, wanting, no, aching for George to take off his goggles and let him read him. Let him pour into his pages and devour him, like they were so close to doing behind locked doors in what was previously their kingdom.
“I think the bigger question is where were you, Dream,”
George refused to make eye contact, swallowing hard. Dream eyed his adam’s apple bob with intricacy. Both knew he was losing his ability to stay cold.
“But I think we both know the answer to that now, right?” He continued.
Dream wanted nothing more than to rip his boy from the ground and throw themselves back in time. Back to when the Community House wasn’t in ruins, back to when they’d spend sunsets together on its roof never daring to do something they couldn’t write off with a ‘no homo’, back to when Sapnap would relentlessly tease them for their consistent flirting, back to when there were no wars or enemies or traitors, back to when they didn’t have to worry about their own lives being at stake.
“Tommy told us everything, Dream.”
The blonde saw his shoes moving closer to him, eyes moving to look at George. The brunette’s eyeline stayed straight ahead.
“Including that, someone else was supposed to go in here,”
His eyes moved up. It burned him.
“Was this supposed to be my cell, Dream?”
The wind was knocked out of him when the words were spoken. Pain was oozing from every syllable, and it was sharp knives digging into every skin cell in Dream’s body. He wanted to yell, to scream from the top of his lungs. He would never dare put George, his George trapped behind obsidian and lava in an inescapable hell. He’d never dare put the one who’d calm his raging fiery storms with gentle coos and touches, cold and calm embraces. He’d never dare put his moon behind something that-
“Why the hell would you think that?” The fire laced in his words was directed at the idea, not his moon, yet they stung as if they were.
Taking a few steps forward George’s mouth was pressed to a thin line, moving as small as possible just to let enough airflow through to produce sound.
“You had pets and items lining the walls, Mars and Beckerson, a fucking cage for Skeppy, but you know what you didn’t have, Dream?”
Despite no physical touch forcing him to, eye contact was not a choice in this exchange.
“You had nothing for me.”
The taller’s teeth ground against each other at the false equivalency.
“What does that have to do with-”
“If you had nothing for me there, what were you planning on doing with me once you had every single person living in the goddamn land under your control?”
Dream surged forward trying to get in words.
“I was-”
A delicate palm met his vision, held in front of his chest, and fiery words were the response.
“How long would you have kept me here? Until everyone was dead? Keeping your best friend locked up behind inescapable walls for what ? Why would you-”
“ George -” His hands itched to reach forward and grab the shorter’s shoulders to force him to listen.
“ No , you don’t get to ‘George’ me, not after you were planning to- to-”
George’s own temper was becoming short lived, once calm hands now gesturing wildly across the room, never ceasing fiery eye contact with the taller.
“Will you listen for one goddamn moment of your life and-”
“All I’ve done is listen to you! I-I listened to you for hours on end, hanging on every single word you said. I would’ve done anything you told me! And you know what you never bothered to listen to me , how do you think I-”
Dream’s eyes narrowed on a spot just behind George’s goggles, completely disregarding whatever he was babbling on in the moment. His soft skin, one he’d tried to memorize every dip and crevice in, was tinted red, just barely seen under the white plastic.
“-Even now! You’re not listening to a fucking word I’m saying. I shouldn’t have come here, Sapnap was right I-”
Before there was any time to react, Dream’s hand had grabbed the plastic clinging to his face and ripped it off. The goggles flew to the side, landing on top of the chest against the wall. Dream in took a sharp breath and felt his heart drop deep into the pit of his chest at the sight.
The gorgeous brown orbs he’d fallen in love with, were now clouded with fear, with a deep red scar running down the left side, curving around like vines. The brunette jolted back at the touch reaching for the hood of his cloak again. Dream’s eyes were transfixed to the scar, full of darkness and hunger.
“Who the fuck gave you this scar, George?”
The silence was deafening, drips of lava sinking back into their pounding melody banging across Dream’s skull. Every fibre of his being was laced with poison, a deep hunger for the blood of someone who would dare touch his porcelain doll. Dare to rip apart glass skin that belonged to him, and him only. Who had-
No words left the shorter’s mouth as he angled his eyes down. For the first time that night, Dream let himself touch George, a calloused hand run so delicately down the fading red mark.
“George,”
It wasn’t a statement, it was a command. His voice was unwavering and firm, his eyes burning. They always burned.
George moved his head upwards to finally make eye contact. Dream could see the layer of shine covering his eyes and it broke the last piece of him left standing.
“You did,”
The words were a whisper, but yet broke the walls around the pair, collapsing and breaking every piece of the home they built together within each other. His thumb shakily pressed against his cheek and into the now healing wound, his own eyes now pooling with heavy tears.
“I came back to see you before you- before you blew up L’manberg. But when I couldn’t find you, I couldn’t get out of the TNT rain in time and-”
There was no ending to the statement.
Dream never cried or mourned over the people he hurt. It never phased or bothered him during his atrocities, even despite seeing the destruction it caused the world or people he once considered friends. He never let it get to him so it simply didn’t.
He never let anyone know the one thing he’d never forgive himself if it got hurt.
Wails, loud wails were bubbling up in the back of his throat, wanting to claw their way out and echo off the purple brick encasing him. The tears and mucus that had threatened to spill fell over and nothing more mattered in that moment, other than his world completely shattering in front of him. He fell to his knees, barely feeling the obsidian banging his knees ruthlessly. His hands gripped at George’s calves, pulling whatever part he could close to him and allowing sobs to wrack his body thoroughly and completely.
George’s body was shaking, too, hands reaching out to touch the hair he’d longed to for the past few agonizing months. Hearing the cries of the one who’d sworn to protect him with everything he had, the one who was his shield and light through the dark, the one who would warm the coldness inside of him, the one who was his sun, overtook his senses and his legs could no longer support his body weight. With a loud whine, he too collapsed into a heap on the floor with his hands at his eyes.
Dream’s tanned hands instantly grasped onto any new part of George he could, landing on his waist and upper thigh before squeezing. He couldn’t stop the quaking in his bones and the ache in his chest. Walls were caving in over him crushing him, breaking the bones in his body to nothing but dust.
He desperately held onto the boy in front of hip, trying to rip the image of the dark red scar against his upper cheek from his mind.
You did, you did, you did, you did, you did, you did, you did, you did-
Words rang against his ears, pounding against his skull and continuously ringing over and over. Dream couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.
Nothing mattered at this point, did it? The one thing he’d sworn to keep safe, the one thing he’d give up every life to to save, had been hurt by him . When George was mad or frustrated at him, at least he was physically safe. Away from wars and terror and destruction, he was physically safe from harm's way. The drumming in his chest pounded into him like rocks. Nothing mattered, nothing matters, nothing-
“Were you going to put me here?”
It was nothing more than a whisper, as Dream lifted his head. The mark against the pale man’s cheek burned him as he looked at it. Mocking and laughing at him to what he’d done. The tears dripping down George’s face were what brought him back to reality.
“No I- I would never, George,”
Dream’s hand made its way to his cheek, thumbing a trail over both the tears falling and the mark left. George’s eyebrows furrowed, helplessly leaning into the touch.
“Then why were-”
“I had a house.”
Dream’s eyes didn’t leave the scar, watching the continuous loop of his thumb, trying to will the scar away.
“Techno would always mock me about not having a house. He’d always say I’m homeless, that I was lying. But, I had one.” He mumbled, moving his eyeline to meet George again. Both wanted to scream.
“I don’t understand what that has to do with me, Dream.”
A muffled cry choked up from the blonde’s throat at the vulnerability of the situation.
“It had an extra armor stand.”
George’s eyes widened, as Dream’s lips weakly curled upwards.
“It was supposed to be our home, George.”
Dream’s stance became firmer, moving up onto his knees and keeping one hand firm on the brunette’s waist and the other covering his cheek.
“To-To keep you safe. Where we could go and not have to worry about wars, or-or the stupid fucking discs. You’d be safe, and away, and I’d always come back to you. I’d always come back, George. We could just- We could just be.”
George’s hands shakily clambered their way to cradle the man he once knew’s face. More tears had spilled over and he was holding back to wails and cries in his chest. He wanted to scream so everyone could hear how unfair it was. How unfair that they’d be forever torn apart in Dream’s attempt to keep them together. How unfair that he’d never get to see the house he’d built for them. How unfair that he’d never get to wake up embraced in strong arms with sun streaming in through a window and the smell of honey and pine enveloping him. He’d wondered if there was one bedroom.
George’s resolve broke as he let himself fall forward into the blonde’s arms, immediately being scooped up and held onto with everything he had. Dream’s arms held his back and hip so tightly it seemed as though he might find bruises there the next morning. With George in his arms again, he’d finally been whole again after the months of anguish and wrestling with himself for what he’d been doing. It shattered his being that the brunette was letting out muffled cries into his chest, his body heaving with effort, but with Dream holding him desperately, nothing would make him feel like this again.
The deep and ugly part of Dream was clawing its way up, wanting to smother George in a corner of his room and never let him leave. He wanted to make sure everyone knew where George placed in the world and who he belonged to. Their relationship had always been complicated, with both feeling the magnetic pull and drive to one another without being able to quite say how they felt or what hushed words under a blanket of darkness had meant. Dream used the house he built as an escape to the reality without George he was living. An escape to a world where nothing mattered besides them.
George turned his cheek to press against his sun’s chest, listening to the rapid heartbeat beneath his skin.
“Dream?” He whispered, barely a sound passing his lips as the taller tightened his grip.
“Yes?”
“Will I ever get to see the house?”
Dream’s breath tightened, giving George room to pull away from his chest and look him in the eyes. His mind was racing with what to do, or say, or promise. He used to be able to promise anything to anyone, but now, what could he promise while trapped in a hell of his own making?
“I have the chords. You-You could go there now, see everything I made for you- for us and-”
“No, Dream,”
The blonde’s head shook desperately searching for an answer in George’s eyes. He was confused to say the least. The brunette shook out a watery laugh.
“I mean will I ever get to see it with you.”
The room was suddenly very small and their hold was not close enough.
“Can I promise you something, George?” Dream rasped, fingers tightening again on the skin in his hold.
“Anything,” Came the brunette’s quiet response.
He took in a breath.
“I’m going to get out of here, and no one will notice or care that I’m gone. And- And I promise you, George, that when I do, I’ll sprint as fast as I can to the house- our house, and we can stay there together, forever.”
George looked a little stunned at the proposition of Dream leaving behind seemingly everything for him and their cottage somewhere far away.
“And you’d leave everything behind? All the chaos and bloodshed? You’d leave it in the past?”
Delicate pale hands danced their way to cup Dream’s cheeks as he instantaneously responded.
“I’ll leave it all behind. Tommy, Techno, the discs, greater Dream SMP, everything.”
The joy in George’s eyes turned to confusion, as he let his thumbs trail the stars of freckles beneath them.
“But why? Why would you give up everything else you care about for me?”
The pause was deafening, yet Dream felt like he was on fire. Molten lava coursing in his veins.
“You are the only thing I’ve ever cared about.” Dream managed to get out.
He’d thought he’d died in that moment, his final life taken and stolen from him and then ascending to whatever ghostly afterlife he’d deserved when George finally leaned forward and closed the gap between them. The gap that had been aching to be stitched together for months and months, some days being so close it felt like it and happened in a dream. With George’s lips on his own, he solidified his lack of care for anyone or anything else in the world besides this angel, his moon in his arms enveloping all of his senses. It was so much and not enough all in one, like he had breathed for the first time and was also suffocating.
Vanilla, honey, vanilla, honey, vanilla, honey, vanilla-
George pulled away first, the tiniest string of saliva leaving them connected afterward. The pair was breathless, and Dream was the one who reconnected them a second time, pouring every ounce of love and passion he had into it, gently leaning George onto the obsidian below him and wrapping his legs around his torso. The brunette’s hands moved to his hair as Dream’s mouth trailed to his pulse point on his neck.
The dark and possessive side of him ripped through, and he bit and sucked a deep purple mark on display for all to see. He wanted everyone who passed George as he fled the land to see the purple on his neck and know exactly how it got there. He pulled away when he saw the mark become colored enough for his liking before moving back up to reconnect their lips a final time, the hunger in both of their hearts still not completely satisfied, but satiated enough.
“How long will I have to wait for you?” George asked, still catching his breath as his thighs shook in the man’s hold.
“Not too long, I promise. I’ll be there within ten days, George. I have some favors to call in to get me there, but then I’ll run to you. I promise.”
A small laugh bubbled in the brit’s chest, which spread into a wheeze in the blonde’s, and before either could fully discern what was happening they were dying laughing in each other’s arms. Dream scooped George up to sit up, with him straddling his legs. They sat there staring into each other's eyes for longer than they truly cared to admit. The aching and pain of the past months grew into faded memories as they sat there with unabashed love surrounding and engulfing them. George eventually broke the silence.
“I’ll never stop loving you.”
Dream let his hands run up and down his moon’s sides.
“I’ll never stop keeping you safe.”
And with those promises, the pair knew they were finally a solar system again.