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There are some people who you are destined to fall in love with in every lifetime.
The universe works in funny little ways. At its inception, it created stars, planets, moons, and galaxies that stretch millions of light-years away. It created plants, animals, flowing water and searing magma. But perhaps the universe’s proudest creation, the one that makes it swell with pride, is human life.
Humans are unique in that they are made to love. They love the little things, like the passing clouds in the sky or the babbling of a trickling creek. They love the joy of creation, so they paint and they dance and they write and they sing. Most importantly, they love each other.
The universe knows this well. So with every breath each human takes, each beat of a mortal heart, there is a matching one somewhere on Earth. Two halves of a whole. Soulmates — pulled together by something greater than humans can comprehend, always fated to love each other.
Dream and George meet in their first lifetime like this.
In ancient Greece, Dream is studying astronomy under Aristotle. He maps the rotation of celestial spheres around the planet Earth in charcoal and bleeding ink. The ancient Greeks don’t know that the Sun does not revolve around the Earth yet, rather, the other way around. There are a lot of things that humanity does not know yet.
There is the sound of footsteps behind him as Dream works, and he turns around.
“Hello,” says a young man. “Are you Dream?”
“I am,” Dream says. “Who are you?”
“George,” the young man replies, and Dream thinks that the name suits him. “I’m interested in studying astronomy.”
Dream chuckles and shakes his head. “I’m nothing more than a student.”
“But you map the skies,” George insists, and he takes a seat next to Dream. “Don’t you think it’s interesting?”
“The sky?” Dream asks. George nods. “It’s more than interesting. It’s a higher power, something above that watches over all of us.” Dream sighs and casts his fingers over his papers. “Sometimes I wonder if we’ll ever find our way up there.”
“I think we could.”
“Really?”
“Humankind has existed for centuries,” George says. “I think we’ll last centuries longer.”
“Humankind has only lasted this long because of our ancestors, passing down what they’ve learned in their lives,” Dream replies.
George clasps Dream’s hands in his own. “So teach me,” he tells him. “Share your knowledge.”
Dream agrees, and together, the two of them study the workings of the skies beyond Earth. George laughs when Dream smudges the ink on his maps, Dream smiles to himself when they fall asleep together in the study after a long day of work.
They don’t make it into the history books. Their time together is overshadowed by greater astronomers, like Eudoxus and Callippus.
But somehow, they don't feel the need to be recognized at all.
It is the Renaissance and Dream purchases paints from a store in the town square.
He is a painter in this lifetime. Dream is paid to capture the essence of nobles and royals in breathtaking portraits, but as talented as he is, he despises painting for them. He wants to paint for himself, not anyone else.
“Back again?” George asks.
“I have no more blue,” Dream says, and he snaps his fingers. “I’ve been asked to paint another portrait. Do you have any lapis lazuli paint?”
George turns behind him and pulls a tin of paint off of the shelf. “Careful,” he warns. “This is expensive.”
“I know,” Dream sighs, sliding a few coins over the wooden counter. “I wish I could put this paint to better use.”
“Better use?” George props his head up on his hands.
“I want to paint something different,” Dream expresses. He leans in to whisper, “All these royal paintings look the same.”
George laughs in Dream’s ear and pulls back. “You’ll get executed for that. I could tell everyone what you said, Dream.”
“Good thing I know you won’t,” Dream says smugly.
There is something special that Dream feels in his heart when he looks at George. George has fingernails dyed blue from spilt paint, George has crinkles in the corners of his eyes when he laughs, and George has stars in his eyes every time Dream sees him.
Dream thinks he’d like to capture those stars forever.
“Can I paint you?” He blurts.
George blinks. “Paint me? Why?”
“It’s like I said,” Dream explains. “I want to paint something different. You’re something different.”
“I’m just a storekeeper. Wouldn’t you rather paint something you can get paid for?”
Dream shakes his head. “Painting is more enjoyable when you like who you’re painting.”
George smiles at Dream. He always does.
The painting is hung high up in the store. George has stars in his eyes when he looks at the painting, and George has stars in his eyes when Dream tells him he loves him for the very first time.
The store burns down five years later, and the painting is lost along with it — but the stars in George’s eyes remain for long after.
It is the Roaring Twenties after a party in the heart of New York City, and Dream and George are hopelessly drunk.
“Look,” Dream slurs, pointing up at the sky. “That’s a constellation.”
From next to him, lying down on the grass of someone wealthy’s backyard, George squints. “What star — constellation?”
“In the sky,” Dream repeats, petulant. “You… you aren’t looking.”
“I’m looking,” George replies slowly. “Don’t see it.”
Dream makes an effort to point up, but his hand flops to the side instead. They both descend into a chorus of laughs and giggles.
“It looks pretty,” Dream announces. “Like you.”
George frowns. “Don’t… don’t say things you don’t mean, Dream.”
“I meant it,” Dream insists. “It’s true.”
George rolls his eyes fondly. “Shut up.”
“I will,” Dream promises, but he’s intoxicated and not thinking straight, so he keeps talking anyways. “I’m happy I met you.”
“You are?”
“I am. I don’t have anyone else to gatecrash with,” Dream says, and George laughs. “But it’s the truth. I really am happy I met you.”
George smiles dazedly. “I’m… happy I met you, too.”
“Now I know you’re really drunk,” Dream teases. “Sober George would never admit that.”
“Shut up,” George says again, rolling on his back to stare at the sky. “I liked you better when you were talking about the stars.”
And so Dream talks about the stars. He rants about them for long after the party ends, when the jazz music coming from the house fades into silence and crickets chirp in the thickets nearby. He talks about how he wishes he could reach up and touch the stars, just once, so he could see what it feels like.
But then George touches him on the shoulder, face, lips, and it’s then that Dream realizes: he doesn’t need to touch the stars when he already has one right next to him.
It is during the sixties that Dream and George learn that the universe is as beautiful as it is cruel.
It is true that soulmates are destined to fall in love in every lifetime — but the love that they share is something delicate, something to be protected.
There must be balance in the universe in order for it to function properly. So as fervently as humans love each other, they also hate.
Dream doesn’t remember what they were arguing about, but he remembers yelling and screaming and slamming doors. He remembers words leaving his mouth that he didn’t mean and he remembers crying in the darkness of their shared bedroom. He remembers George tearfully yelling something before leaving their apartment with a suitcase in tow.
The memories are blurred, marred by tears and regret. Dream doesn’t want to remember anything else.
On the television, the news speaks of the spacecraft Apollo 11. Humankind has made it to space, far enough out of reach to land on the moon. They haven’t made it to the stars quite yet, but they’re close enough that Dream feels slightly jealous.
Dream wonders if he’ll ever get the feeling of touching the stars again.
Soulmates don’t always get happy endings.
They don’t get reincarnated until several years after their deaths that time. For the universe, it’s not long — just a blip in time over a span of billions of years. For humans, however, that blip is vital.
It is present day, and Dream and George are stargazing again in an empty field.
“There’s Castor and Pollux,” Dream says, pointing up, “and there’s Ursa Major, or the Big Dipper.”
George laughs from beside him. “I can’t see anything.”
“You have to look closely, George.”
George grins and rolls his eyes. “Just keep talking, Dream. I like the sound of your voice," he says.
Dream smiles at that, and he rolls over on the grass to face George. His skin is nearly sparkling under the night sky.
“Do you ever think that there’s something watching over us?” Dream asks.
“Like a God?” George asks, confused.
“No, not like a God. Well, maybe,” Dream says thoughtfully. “I don’t know. Like the universe is watching over us, or something. That’d be cool.”
“I wish we knew,” George says. “Things would be easier.”
Dream hums. “I like the feeling of not knowing,” he voices. “It’s like, the universe is so big, right? We can’t even comprehend it.”
“The universe is… weird like that.”
“It is,” Dream laughs. “It brought us together, right?”
George pokes Dream in the thigh and grins. “Was that an attempt to flirt with me?”
“It’s true, though!” Dream protests. “I don’t know. I’ve known you for what, five years? But it feels like we’ve known each other for way longer.”
“How much longer, do you think?”
Dream ponders for a moment. “It feels like forever,” he breathes.
“Forever,” George repeats, and he rolls over so their breaths are mingling. “I like the sound of forever.”
“Yeah?” Dream asks, inching closer.
“Yeah,” George replies, and then he kisses him.
George kisses soft and gentle, but it’s still enough for Dream to see stars behind his eyelids. Dream tilts his chin up with a guiding hand, George presses an open palm against Dream’s thumping heart.
When they break apart, Dream says, “Forever with you sounds nice.”
George shoves him lightly. “You’re so sappy,” he teases, and they both laugh.
The stars wink at them from above. In every lifetime, every universe, Dream and George will fall in love. Always and forever.