Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dream had grown so used to staring at his monitors with admiration and infatuation, the gaze was practically permanently stuck on his face.

It seemed like millennia ago that he had realized he fell in love, obnoxiously and sickeningly in love. It came as a soft whisper, a bee resting and pollinating a blooming flower, spreading the seed for something more beautiful to grow in its place. The kind of love blissful teens dream about during late nights, the kind people write euphoric and delicate love songs about, the kind that people ache and wish for throughout their entire life.

Every day his sunshine grew that much brighter, soft rays casting upon his every word, drenched in sweet honey and crystallized sugar around each dip and curve of every letter.

Each conversation brought new light to the continuous bloom in his heart, melting his limbs with words soft as petals.

Nothing could truly outdo the sickly sweet words and admiration he had for the boy, love pouring from every piece of himself. He’d give himself wholly for the smaller, give up everything he had to see the beautiful blossom smile just once more.

Now was no different, the curve of the brunette’s lip lighting his cheeks ablaze, soft murmurs towards his chat and the group messing around on the SMP. Dream knew that after every camera had been turned off and each voice call abandoned he would get to hear the soft tired mumbles of his boy with no other distractions in the way.

Just for him, all for him.

“Sapnap you are such an idiot! Give me back my axe!” George whined, face contorting downwards into a small pout as his character ran towards his friend’s. Sapnap had killed him over and over, as he always did, and was slowly giving him back his stuff but refusing to give him the few items he desired most.

“No! Not until I go over all of the stupid names of all your tools.” 

Dream was sitting idly in the call, watching George’s stream and hearing his voice through discord. He felt embarrassed at the fact he took some sense of pride in knowing he got to hear the sweet drips of laughter and sound before anyone else due to the delays in streaming. Dream was first, he got to know George, trace each curve and line of his form and devour private words only for him to see.

“Are some of these Dream’s? You would never name things ‘nightmare’ or- holy shit! ”

Sapnap suddenly doubled over in loud laughs, chair squeaking and hands banging against the surface of his desk. His loud spasms didn’t shake as Dream wracked his brain to think of all the weapons he’d given his friend (he hated that word) recently.

“Of course Dream gave me some of his stuff, what did you even-”

“-Why the fuck do you have a trident named ‘dream rider’?”

Dream’s eyes flew to the screen, locking onto George’s complexion and watching the dusting of pink and red over his milky cheeks bloom like a garden in the spring. Each freckle was a bee or seed, looking to turn something more beautiful than before, each stray hair and beautiful tree covering and protecting the flowers within him.

He felt his own blood rush to his head and face at the lewd insinuations, remembering the flustered and embarrassed banter when he had initially given George the trident and other weapons. Not having a facecam on was the best part about being faceless, as his abrasive and flirty words (in his opinion) would be soiled with the addition of his own blushing face.

“I-I- Listen, Dream gave me that and-”

“-Last I recall I told you to rename it, you didn’t seem to take that to heart, did you, George?” He quipped back, piercing his gaze back to his Twitch tab. One of the boy’s arms was brought to his neck, trying to buy an excuse to look downwards as he let out a soft laugh.

Dream was whipped, and quite frankly, even that was an understatement.

He yearned to hold the brunette close and whisper how he felt at his very core about him, hushed words against his ear and hot breath on his neck. He wanted to take the flower blooming from deep within his lungs and present it in full blossom to the boy, give his very heart covered in honey and petals and build him a garden. A garden where they could live and hide away from the world, their own bubble of love and intimacy untouched by anything impure. His George was nothing short of an angel, a being so beautiful he was afraid he would break or ruin his fragility with one press of his thumb into pale skin.

He melted over every sugary sentence, ate up each laugh of music notes in their entirety, and reeled at each blush and glance towards his camera. Deep within him his love would grow and continue to do so, into a beautiful thing eventually coming up to be on display for all to see a symbol for the beauty in his infatuation with the boy.

“You gave it to me, so it’s special. Why would I want to take that away from it by renaming it?”

A violent cough warped his body, punching through with excessive violence. He scrambled for his water bottle to shrug off his insane overreaction.

“Damn, you killed Dream with love, nice one,” Sapnap deadpanned, as the brunette's face morphed into a deep concern.

“Are you alright?”

The blonde collected himself, so caught off guard by the sudden intrusion in his body and throat, a wheezy laugh coming out as a response.

“I’m fine! Just- Just choked on water, it’s nothing.”

Dream noticed the shift in his breath, now airy and with more labor than previously. Alarm bells sunk into his mind as he reached for his water again, completely zoning out from the conversation his other friends were having in the call.

“-What? It was a gift from him of course it was special to me!”

This time as he felt the muscle tearing bark rip through him, he was able to mute his microphone and allowed himself to fall forwards onto his desk. His chest heaved eyes blown wide in pain and arms shaking to support him. More hacks pierced his body as he tasted iron in the front of his mouth and throat. 

The excruciating torment against his chest made tears prick in the corners of his increasingly warm eyes. 

Another coughing fit found its way up, punching his gut and spilling red clots of blood onto his desk. The quivering in his body was inevitable now, fear and confusion at the symptoms running rampant. Each solution to this growing problem not being anything close to accurate or even feasible.

An itch deep within his lungs unable to be fully quenched or chipped away pulled up into his throat with a fervent soreness. Gulping in large breaths he tried to zone back into the conversation at the sound of his name.

“Dream? Where’d you go dude?” Sapnap mumbled as the blonde looked up at the worry in his boy’s eyes. That fear pained him more than any blood or knife could.

Quaking with each movement, he unmuted his mic, rasping out a soft reply.

“I’m here, I’m fine, Patches is just-” 

He was unable to finish his sentence, slamming his mute button again as more red blood pooled into his hands, a stronger urge to keep coughing taking over.

His throat and body throbbed in agony, attempting to get something he couldn’t quite place out of his system and as far away as he possibly could.

Ringing panged through his ears as a large choke finally let another clot of deep crimson blood and something soft fall in his hands.

Dream’s eyes were already stinging with tears before and as he made out the delicate piece in his hand, sobs were already building deep from within.

Gentle brown petals were covered in toxic blood, a poisonous material drenching a beautiful representation of love, of his love.

He knew why he was coughing. 

With a loud wail, the blonde fell to the floor by his desk, screams ripping through his throat, holding his mouth and chest. His hands couldn’t hold the intense weight for long, buckling and curling himself further into a ball as more petals landed amongst the blood-stained floor.

A pool of dead love, a garden burning and rotting away, the physical amalgamation of his fate sealed within blooms he once viewed as beauty and purpose, a drive to keep him forward now crumbling in front of him.

Dream let himself sob, wishing to rip out the stem and roots of the noxious symbol in his lungs to never be seen by the light of day again. 

He weeped for the garden he had built, the flowers that he had planted and let grow, for he was the one who truly sowed the seeds of his fate deep in his respiratory system, letting them flourish without a care of what they could lead to.

How could something so beautiful and gentle wilt and die into a heinous representation of forever agony?

He had always had a feeling the day would come where he would be drenched in blood and sour honey, drowning in his own terrifyingly deep and true love. He had given himself the grace of believing that maybe somehow he’d be able to call George his, to embrace the euphoria he had dreamed about.

Floodgates of deja vu overwhelmed his shaky body, memories of his mom explaining the idea of being so infatuated with someone you could die in suffocation in representations of those feelings. His aunt had passed away, and after a few months of his parents denying to tell the truth, the twelve-year-old sat his mom down in an attempt to find out. He had always been persistent.

“Sometimes, when people fall in love, they fall so hard that flowers bloom in their bodies. They start out small before they eventually overtake and come out through coughs. A very terrible thing, it is, shows the cruelness of mother nature.”

Dream had heard whispers at his school about the “cursed petals”, and thought nothing of it other than a stupid schoolyard joke. The concept broke his heart, only being able to muster small whispers.

“Does it happen to people together?”

“Well, no, hon. Couples can give their love to each other, sharing and balancing it out before meeting in the middle and becoming at peace. Sometimes, though, two people who aren’t together can both fall sick for each other. Their balances are off-center.”

The blonde took a minute to ponder, his mom’s hand resting gently on his back, a comforting peace.

“Does it ever go away?”

“You can choose to get the buds surgically removed, but along with it goes your ability to love, a truly terrible fate, but you’d be alive. Although, is life without emotions truly living? Some choose to pass on, risking everything including their body and being for the one they love, holding out hope until the bitter end.”

She paused and looked up, the hand on her son’s back continuing to rub small circles.

“The lucky ones get their feelings requited, and the flower in their lungs escapes never to be seen again. The only real happy ending for those with hanahaki.”

The blonde shifted again, eyes now glassy with a thin shine. How could love be so destructive? Something so beautiful and pure have such devastating effects?

“Can you tell if there’s a chance they- they could-”

“-The color of the petals is important. The eyes of the one you love reflected onto the petals in your body. If the color is vibrant and the petals are alive, there is hope. However, if the petals are dead, there’s nothing you can do.”

Dream remembered the anguish he felt when his mom had told him the rumors he had heard about “death by love” were true, the complete sinking of his stomach. There were nights he would lie awake in fear of what he might become.

Even as a child, he loved hard, harder than anyone else he knew even in his family. As he grew to be a teenager, as he grew to meet George , a part of him always knew it was coming.

Shaking hands cupped the petals and sticky blood after another set of coughs, body feeling like lead against the floor. 

 If the color is vibrant and the petals are alive, there is hope.

He wiped away the blood with his thumb getting as clean of a petal as he could.

A wrinkled dark brown petal lay in his hand.

However, if the petals are dead, there’s nothing you can do.

Another loud scream crept up in his throat, wailing and sobbing against the cold floor spasming his body at the recognition that he was a fool. A complete and utter fool for thinking the angelic being the brunette was would ever fall for someone like him.

He nurtured the blooms in his lungs, spreading water through the blood rushing to his cheeks and letting them grow until they were too big for his body to even try to contain. Too overwhelming for any human body, forcing them to wilt and die, slowly shriveling up and caving in on each other deep in his bones.

Dream let his fists slam against the floor, blood from his coughs spilling onto the hardwood with the dead petals, a sick and twisted reminder of the delicate and pure love ripped from him and smashed to pieces like glass.

He felt like glass. Nothing more than a simple vase to hold stems and leaves before being crushed into pieces for holding no purpose beyond what was inside.

The blonde couldn’t even begin to think of possibilities of his future. He’d be mourning the loss of his true love, the lovely garden watered gently and cared for with poison ivy lingering just out of sight, just beyond his reach, for too long.

Dream would never stop mourning. Never stop attending the infinite funeral he’d made for what he had sewn.

Eyes burning, chest heaving, and body numb, he managed to blink and squint forward, catching a glimpse of the table on the other side of the room as him.

A small picture hung on his corkboard above the table, the letters the brunette had sent him along with print-outs of video call screenshots, the only pictures they had together, surrounded it.

They looked happy. Dream looked in love.

Dream smiled weakly and let out a watery laugh, more petals subconsciously falling onto the floor with it. Tears building up again behind his eyes, he kept smiling.

At least it was for him.

Dream spent hours clinging hopelessly to the petals in his hands, staining the green hoodie he was wearing a sickly red-orange. A part of him felt if he were to just hold onto the love, hold onto the yard he built for the two covered in vines and sweet fruit, the flower would bloom again and he could share his infatuation, meet at a calm ground of mutual affection and care. He knew this was nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

He called his mom first, the discord call he had been muted in long abandoned. The notifications and spam calls meant nothing to him as he opened the contact and pressed the call button.

A hand found its way to his blonde waves, not trusting his mouth to make anything other than a weak whimper.

“Hello?”

“Hey, uhm- Hey Mom,” He stuttered, voice raspy and weak from the coughing and screaming.

“Honey? What’s wrong why do-”

“-Do you remember when you said that I had too big of emotions for such a small body?”

Dream remembered it very vividly, being a stout ten year old with love and emotion spilling from every part of him. Vulnerability came easy, feelings being shown loudly through every part of him. It became a bitter sting in his teenage years that he was so in touch with his innermost self.

“Yes,” she breathed out, voice becoming more concerned with each second. “Are you-”

“I-I always expected it to happen, but I just, I thought maybe he-” 

Dream’s voice cut off, shakes quaking his body sending shivers running through. He felt the petals scraping at his throat as hot tears teetered on the edge of his eyes.

“You- You haven’t- Have you?”

A loud cough ripped through his body, silent sobs explaining everything his mother needed to know. His already broken heart only ripped that bit more hearing another person he loved dearly in his life begin to weep at the potential loss of her son.

For a while, they sat wading in each other’s tears and keens of despair and loss, Dream eventually turning to curl into a ball on his side, cheek pressing against the pillows of his bed. Shrieks of anguish came from the other side of the line, picking up and dying off like a rollercoaster, realizations hitting both of the pair like a freight train.

Crying together was almost a comforting peace to the blonde, as he knew he would not be able to discuss his state with those he truly cared for the most.

It took what felt like hours for the howls and sobs to die down, reverting into sniffles and shaky breath, gasps occasionally preventing proper speaking. 

“Sweetie you-” she tried to speak out, a few more sharp intakes of breath interrupting her before inevitably continuing. “Is it who I think it is?”

Dream let out a watery and confused laugh.

“Who you think it- Mom, what?”

She joined his laughter, continuing on with a gentler tone, knowing the pain her son was feeling at his core.

“George, of course. I’m not off base am I?”

The blonde’s eyes softened, the angel appearing behind his eyes with soft hair and deep gorgeous eyes he had always adored since the day he saw them. The flower within him bloomed yet again at the mention of the boy, weak coughs producing gross petals and watery blood onto the sheets beneath him. The wracking in his body only grew evermore painful with each hack and sharp breath.

There was a pause, the woman’s shaky breaths calming just that much less. The silence was comfortable, knowing.

“This- This is good right? The petals should most certainly be-”

“-The petals are dead, Mom. Dark brown, curly and dead.”

Coldness laced his voice with an extra bite they both knew he didn’t mean. The reminder that everything he did, every piece of love, every word, everything , meant nothing. It would amount to nothing more than shattered glass and toxic flowers with roots curving over every organ in his body and squeezing them past their bursting point.

She let out an exasperated sigh, almost laughing.

“There’s no way, I’ve heard the way you talk about him, the things he’s said, they can’t be-”

“They are Mom! No amount of crying and saying they aren’t is going to change that!” Dream lashed out, curling in further on himself, coughing into his bare arms, pools and pools of blood staining his skin as more petals stuck where they fell to serve as a sick reminder of his fate.

He knew he’d regret his words later, but for once in his life he needed to stay grounded in reality. For once he needed to reject any notion of far off dreams or fantasies or gardens he could build.

“I see,” she sniffed. Another coughing fit overtook his quivering body, the ripping in his throat causing more agony all across his body and through his bones.

“Are you willing to lose all of that?”

Dream paused, willing himself beyond the aches and cries in his muscles to stop to sit up with his legs crossed. He realized then that he truly was drowning in his own blood, the sticky poison covering his arms and clothes, leaving stains he knew would never come off. 

He had done this. He had let himself fall far beyond any reasonable level, far into the depths of inevitable turmoil and downfall, stone garden walls crumbling and cracking in towards the gentle blooms in the center, shades of blue and green mingling together and dotting the field. Each one ripped from its place and crumbled, forcing a deathly wilt.

“Me dying would hurt him worse than staying alive as a husk. He- Everyone would have me physically, I’d just be barely out of reach.”

Another set of soft cries came from his mom, his own hands gripping anxiously onto his sweatpants.

“You’re so loving, you know that?” she managed to get out between sobs. He’d known she had first lost her sister to this same fate, then losing one of her closest friends to being a shell of a human being, aimlessly wandering life behind soundproof walls in her mind.

“That’s what got me here, didn’t it?”

A few more stray petals fell over.

He’d go through any amount of ache and numbness to see his flower smile just once more. He’d walk through any thorn-ridden path to save one scratch from the boy’s knee. 

If he lost himself to keep him happy, he would. George was his everything, he mattered more than the sun rising and setting each day, oxygen filling his now crowded lungs, the universe could swallow everything else whole but as long as the two were never separated Dream would be happy. 

Wheezing coughs burst through his system again.

George was his everything, and he would never get to be told that.

Dream avoided calls, he avoided streams, he avoided everything . He opted to stay curled in the sheets stained a dark red, never bothering to change or wash them.

His phone had been flooded with texts from his friends, all asking if he was okay, what they could do, if there was something to help, all left unanswered.

Sapnap was becoming a growing problem throughout this ghosting process.

It seemed like every minute his phone rang with a call from the younger, another round of texts begging him to respond,

He’d always say it was urgent, always say it was important, but the blonde knew he knew how to get his attention. The brunette even dropped mentions of his flower, more gross tricks to get him to answer. He was not in the state to get made fun of for being a ‘simp’ for someone he’d give the world to. 

It was late afternoon, just after chugging a large cup of water, when he finally decided to answer a call from him, the first time in a few days of talking to anyone other than his mom.

“ Dream! ” He screamed, urgency forcing his voice to raise in pitch.

“What, Sapnap?”

“You sound like hell? What the fuck is up with you?” 

Dream rolled his eyes, having thought prior that Sapnap would press about the extra wheeze to his voice and sound. It killed him that the boy knew him so well, sometimes too well.

“Nothing’s up. What do you want, you won’t stop damn calling me?”

“‘What do you want?’ You’ve been ignoring all of us for days , and you ask me what I want?” He mocked, scoffing with his growing force.

“I’m taking time for myself, thanks, no help to you blowing up my phone with fake importance about George and shit. We get it, I’m a simp or what-”

A hack ran its way up his body, as he quickly tapped the mute button to let the familiar burning in his throat take over and sting. 

“Dream? Hello?”

After a few more seconds of pain he shakily unmuted again.

“Sorry my connection is shit. Is that really all you wanted to know?”

“No, there’s something going on with-”

“-Are you actually gonna bullshit me with some fake George problem?” Dream’s tone grew angrier and more frustrated. His affection and infatuation was always treated as a joke, something to mock and make fun of. Stepping on the insects among his grass to cause a scene and disruption, crushing their beauty and meaning. “You do this all the time to get me worked up it’s so-”

“-Dream, man, you gotta listen I’m not-”

“- No! I’m not gonna listen to you anymore!” 

Blood was dripping across his lips and down his chin as his eyes stung hot. He couldn’t count how many times Sapnap had called or texted him only to fabricate an entire story to make him worry about the brunette across the ocean. Once it had been that he was lonely in a voice call and wanted to talk to someone, another that he was hurting over family trauma that didn’t exist and he had “specifically wanted Dream to comfort him”. Dream grew weary of his love being the punchline of a cruel joke, a thing to mock and belittle. Despite the trampling on the blooms, he still nursed them to full growth, a decision that led him down a winding and fatal road.

“Sapnap, I’m so done with this stupid game you keep playing. You think my feelings for George are weird? Fine, but stop fucking using me for a laugh.”

He could hear his own wheezy breaths and Sapnap’s anxious tone through the pounding in his ears.

“No, no, you have to trust me, I wouldn’t ever-”

“I’m ending the call. You can tell everyone I’m fine and to stop texting me, okay?”

A few more incomprehensible words spilt from the brunette's mouth as he shifted to end the call with a small tap.

Fire in his eyes had died down at the notification of a text from George.

From: George :]

i know youre probably tired and busy so i just wanted to tell you that i want to vc soon okay? 

Tears spilled onto his cheeks, a soft smile resting with it as blood and petals carelessly burst over onto his screen and legs.

He was doing the right thing.

A bloodstained thumb rubbed over the brunette’s contact name, eyes not daring to move from their place.

At least it was for him.

Chapter Text

The numb static filling his brain was nothing short of both agonizing pain and incredible peace.

It was just a few days later he was able to get a surgery date, his mom insisting to take over almost the entire process to not add extra stress. After loads of protest from him, he finally gave in to letting her handle everything from the day down to the nitty-gritty details of how the stem would be cut.

Calls from his friends were left unanswered and messages unopened. It was honestly a shock the blonde hadn’t blocked their numbers to keep his phone from ringing, but the loud dings from the device never seemed to outmatch the pounding in his ears and mind. 

His mom was already outside the room waiting as he was being escorted in. She gave him a gentle smile, tear tracks still clearly staining her normally vibrant cheeks as she looked up to cup her son’s own face.

“I love you so much, Clay,” She whispered, pressing a soft kiss to the tall man’s cheek, his own eyes stinging with hot tears, threatening to spill everything he had been holding in for the past week. His lips were still stained an ugly and terrifying red, body seemingly covered in rich blood at all times. 

Dream was sick, he was sick with an illness that would never be cured unless it was cold-heartedly ripped from the very deepest parts of his body.

“I love you more, Mom. Please don’t forget it, yeah?” He mumbled out, wrapping his arms around her waist in a chilling show of care and love, the last one he would ever get to display.

She clung to his back, muffled cries soaking into his hoodie when he felt his own resolve break and let himself fall shaky and weak too. Dream would never shake the guilt of letting himself fall so hard for something unattainable that his mother lost her only son to a life devoid of meaning.

When she finally let herself off the taller, she glanced to the fragile boy’s pocket before back up to him.

“You should text George, honey.”

Instantly, coughs wracked Dream’s body, more sticky red blood falling onto his free hand, broken pieces of petals now a sight he detested more than anything covering his being. His mom’s eyes looked shattered at the state of her son.

“I will,” Dream nodded weakly, shaking the poison off of his hand and using his clean one to shakily slip his phone from his pocket.

He sniffled to prevent more warm tears and snot from falling down the front of his face, his heart’s already shattered pieces stinging just that bit more at the one sided texts left all to him. He couldn’t bring himself to scroll up and read everything over, amounting to hundreds of messages, only staring at the cloudy ones in his immediate sight.

From: George:]

dream please answer me

i know you answered sapnap days ago please

i just want to know if i did something wrong

please 

you can’t keep ignoring me forever

or can you

i need you okay?

you can’t just disappear

one word just one text please so i know youre ok

please?

The blonde swallowed thickly, typing out as best he could his final words that would be laced in love, covered in emotion and affection, something that would be stripped from him in just a few minutes.

To: George:]

I need you to remember thatt I love you. I l;ove  you.

Behind blurry eyes, he couldn’t make out exactly where his typos were, only letting his shoulders shake and hunch forward with the weight of his sobs. Flowers, blood, and salty tears spilt with reckless abandon onto the linoleum floor beneath his feet and onto his mother’s shoulder and clothes. 

He didn’t feel the pull on his arms to enter into his room, nor his phone slipping out of his palm, all he could feel was the weight of the world, of his world completely falling from his grasp, the last petals of his life wilting and dying between his hands with no ability to stop the inevitable.

He didn’t know when, but he fell unconscious.

Static. Numb. Cold.

Was he human? He couldn’t tell. His brain was stuffed with cotton and static, so suffocated from the blades ripping through his lungs that he could only think in basic sentences.

When he had woken up it was like he had undergone a factory reset, something akin to a device, unfeeling, cold, and calculated. His senses had been heightened tenfold physically, able to process more clearly, most likely due to no longer needing to regulate emotions or other people. He stared at the people who had saved his life, taking what was killing him out of his dying body but he only saw right through them. They were bodies. They held no meaning.

No one else was with him as he was given prescriptions and recovery instructions. There was very little turnover time, advanced medicine and the easy removal of the poisonous petals led to this, most only needing medication and a long night’s rest afterwards. Despite being surrounded by people all speaking to him, he only heard commands, mentally marking them down. He nodded after each call of “you understand?”, despite knowing that no, he did not understand why everyone had odd faces and empathy towards him.

Was he not another face just as they were to him?

He drove home with dead air as his comfort, the true peace of being an empty husk. Patches was at his feet when he finally arrived, rubbing her face into the curve of his ankles. He knew he was her caretaker, he knew he had to feed her, he knew the being before him was something he cared deeply about. 

But he couldn’t feel it.

Dream wanted to cry when he pet her gentle fur, ears pushing back as purrs rang through her system. A reunification after almost a day of being apart should make someone emotional, right? He could process that, follow the logical trail of thoughts, but his body was numb, his mind was blank , he couldn’t touch and swirl his emotions in his palm like he could before into soft metaphors or beats.

One thought prevailed through and above everything, the steady cry of ‘George, George, George, George’ continuing to sing it’s song. A songbird refusing to carry seeds to other flowers of thought, instead honing in on and repeating the same cycle nurture it had for years. 

Despite everything, some things never truly change, do they?

He was blankly staring at his monitor when he noticed the brunette’s green dot next to his discord icon. Dream knew he should call him, something in him pulling him to weakly from a thinly held together piece of thread.

His headset lay against his already muffled ears, motionless as the call rang. It took three pings before George answered.

“Hey,” The blonde managed out, swallowing with far too much calculation.

“‘Hey’? Really? You text me that yesterday after not responding for almost a week and now have the audacity to act like everything’s all fine, Dream?”

Venom laced his words, but the blonde couldn’t fully understand why. He was there now, wasn’t he? Why would the past matter if he could make him happy now? 

“I’m here now. Shouldn’t that make you happy?”

George paused for a minute, microphone muting for a split second before more frustration pooled over.

“Why have you been so weird? You’re nothing like yourself right now, snap out of it.”

Another pull, a sharp pull in his body to snap out of his haze, to feel , to love , but every emotion, every reaction was locked behind a closed door with no way inside.

“Snap out of what, George? I’m perfectly fine, it’s still me.”

“ No , it’s not. You’re all weird, and lifeless, and- and you ghosted me for days! You- You never do that, Dream, you just up and left us! Then you snapped at Sapnap and texted me some fucked up ‘I love you’, what is going on with you-” 

Pure heat and anger covered his sentences, voice dry and raspy at times from the raw sentiment being given up.

Something was stirring inside of the blonde, something he could only describe as anger from behind a wall. Muffled and unclear anger, not true feelings but just there enough to spark a flame.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you. I assumed my best friend would be happy to hear me again after some time but-”

“-Not until you explain yourself! Do you know how many-”

The boy’s sound cut out as his microphone muted again, Dream’s dimmed feelings growing just that much more at the rudeness his friend was displaying.

“Your mic, George? Seriously, yet I’m the one whose-”

“- Do you know how many nights I stayed awake? Thinking over every fucking thing I’ve done in the past month that could’ve made you upset? Do you know how afraid I was? How terrified that I might’ve done something to make you hate me?”

Dream swallowed again, gut twitching at the underlying meaning of care in the brunette’s words. He could hear the labored and heavy breathing from the other end of the line as he tried to formulate anything to not show he was no longer the person he once was. He had to continue to be the brunette’s best friend, his sun.

“You know I love you, George.”

His voice was flat, the tone was off, there was no Dream left in him to give. 

His mind was racing, he would dare say panic if that was an ability he had in the state he was.

He wanted to love him, he could feel the love in him, the swirling flower petals drenched in honey lining the walls of his body, he could taste their sweetness and it was agonizing to be just out of reach, just slipping through his fingers.

George’s microphone muted again, and Dream tried to count the seconds.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, ni-

“Bullshit,” He spat, soft heaves behind his words.

Ringing and static stopped, the loud calm of numbness was replaced with agony. 

He was trapped within the confines of the garden he had built and destroyed all by himself, mossy cobblestone walls covering the person he once was and locking everyone else out, including his physical being.

All he wanted was to sob, to cry out that he loved George, that he would love him until the very day he was gone and even then he would still hold his infatuation for his beautiful flower, overpowering any hold time would attempt to have on them.

He shouldn’t be feeling anything. He shouldn’t even be able to perceive feelings or introspection.

Yet he could sense the panging ache muffled away behind walls.

Muffled, shut down, love.

“George,” 

His tone was flat again. He wanted to punch himself.

“Fuck you, Dream,”

The sound of a sleeve wiping against his face fell through his headset, tears evident in the boy’s tired throat and voice.

“Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you-”

George disconnected from the call, leaving the dead silence of the blonde’s room as his only audio.

He straightened his back, stomach aching like he hadn’t eaten in days as he took his headset off.

Dream stood up and sat on the edge of his bed staring at the wall in front of him. Stinging panged his empty, dull eyes, as his focus didn’t move.

Hollow droplets started down his once vibrant freckled cheeks, uncaringly falling onto his shirt and sweatpants.

He didn’t move, eyes focused on the paint of his bedroom wall in his lifeless state.

Dream felt nothing but dead air and an aching stomach. A wilted flower.

His phone was ringing, it was ringing so loudly he jolted when his body recognized the sound.

Groaning, a hand found its way to the device next to him, vaguely registering the caller ID. He fell asleep staring at his wall, face dry and full of ache.

“Hello-”

“-Dream I’m not fucking around this time, you need to listen to me extremely closely.”

The blonde furrowed his eyebrows at the intense tone of his friend. 

“What? What’s up?”

He cringed at the flatness in his tone.

“You know how I’ve been trying to tell you for days there’s something up with George? Well, there is, and he’s in the fucking hospital.”

Dream felt his heart physically stop. He wanted to vomit at the same hurt in his stomach, the pull to the brunette in his state of subdued emotions.

Why was he feeling? Even just the bit of muffled infatuation, why was it there? How was he still so-

“He’s what?” Dream managed out, swallowing as he felt his hands begin to quiver.

“In the hospital. And you’re going to see him.”

Dream’s heart sparked as memories of their conversation just hours prior flooded his mind, the unmistakable hatred in the boy’s voice as he cursed him out. His blossom, his boy, loathed him for leaving him out in the cold with no shelter, no cover, no love .

“He doesn’t want me there. Sap, I know he doesn’t he-”

“-After all of this shit you’ve been pulling, I think I know what he wants a little better than you do.”

His chest thumped again, the front of his mind empty while the back was full of every emotional bloom he’d watered for years locked behind doors releasing dulled screams never to be seen by the world. He hated the limbo of feeling nothing yet the ache of something digging into his skull begging him to feel .

“I emailed you your ticket. You leave in the morning, and don’t even try to complain or back out. He needs you more than anything else right now.”

Dream nodded, not recognizing that nobody but his lifeless room could see him.

“Yes,” was all he could muster.

The line fell dead for a few seconds, a knowing sigh coming across to the blonde’s ears.

“I’ll text you, Dream.”

The call was over and left the blonde just as he began, in a state of muted agony and pain. The love locked away and taken from him somehow remained deep within him. His chest heaved at the thought of the flowers, the ones covered in a deep red toxin.

Those blooms had wilted, shriveled, and died. His flower would too.

Chapter Text

He stared helplessly at the linoleum floor beneath his feet, body unmoving and hands planted against his knees as they had been for the past hour. 

No one had told him anything, despite the many texts Sapnap had sent him, paranoid on whether or not he’d show up. 

Dream knew his eyes were bloodshot, heavy bags drooping with deep purple swoops. He knew his hair was a mess, he knew the baggy hoodie and sweats were hiding the newfound thinness in his arms and body from a lack of food, he knew he felt frail from the lack of meaning within him, and he knew that he was the last person George would ever want to see in his weakest moments.

The pit in his stomach was digging into his organs even further, firmly rooting themselves within the tissue lining. The life he was living was hell. He was supposed to feel nothing, to be nothing but an empty void lacking any ability to connect or have pain curl into him, or anything of the sort.

Instead, the muffled bangs behind metal doors were growing louder, cries of suppression being heard more and more clearly in his bones. Dream’s mind and body was an emotional hellscape of just being able to yearn, but never being able to grasp it and let it envelop his being like it had before.

The receptionist was certainly staring at him, his green eyes remained laser-focused on a painting across the room from him, unblinking and with a film of fog over them, totally zoned out and lost to his mind.

Dream wasn’t completely sure he would be able to stand when a nurse called his name and gestured that he had woken up, that he was supposed to go in there and see him.

The world was in slow motion, and yet a blur at the same time as he was guided down the winding halls of the hospital, ears full of cotton and head stuffed with thick and heavy clouds. He registered the nurse saying words, they seemed important about his condition, too, but nothing could get into his mind, in one ear and out the other.

The door was pushed open as he heard more blabbering. He nodded his head to give some semblance of normalcy before letting his eyes pour into the now startled brunette in the hospital bed.

“Dream?”
Cotton disintegrated as the door shut behind him, leaving an empty room of dead air and two broken shards of glass. 

If there was anything left to break in Dream’s heart, it would’ve shattered right then and there at the frail boy he once knew, eyes glazed over and voice scratchy in a light blue hospital gown looking thin as could be. The IVs and tubes connecting to his arms, and the bandages from their meeting points against his hands causing a wave of nausea over the younger. Another tug to his gut was felt, another shot up his lungs.

“Why- How the hell did you-” George sputtered, eyes raking over the tall man’s figure. The blonde took a step closer to his bed as if he moved any faster he would snap the boy in half.

The brunette gave a wheezy laugh before his hands dug into his sheets.

“That- I guess that doesn’t matter. Get out, Dream.”

He stumbled a bit at that, the words biting him with a chilling ice, another spike through his chest.

I need a refund on this damn surgery.

“Sapnap told me to-”

“ Sapnap , was wrong. I told you to leave.”

Dream’s eyebrows furrowed, teeth gritting together just slight as he stepped even closer up the side of the bed.

“I’m not leaving until you tell me what happened to you. I flew all the way here because I was petrified you were-”

“-I’m not going to tell you, it doesn’t matter! Sapnap’s overreacting like he always is, please just go!”

“ No, George!” Dream pushed with more force, the brunette’s own eyes being filled with more anger and frustration. The blonde wanted to scream. He was not leaving this damn hospital until he got George to spit it out.

“I’m telling you, go away Dream or-”

“- Please! Just-”

The taller moved a hand to grip the metal sides of the bed, not noticing the pale fingers already curled around it. The warmth of the boy’s hand made him melt, the sensation of sweet honey almost flooding back to him as-

Ugly, gross, vile coughs tumbled out of George’s lips, deep dark poison falling from his mouth, clumps within the blood looking far too familiar for the blonde’s liking.

Dream stumbled backward, almost tripping over his feet as blood pounded in his ears at the sight, the smell, the sound of his George, his secluded, closed off, “I’ll never love too hard” George, sick with the highest display of any type of affection, the proof dribbling down his chin and coating his porcelain skin in an abrasive crimson.

Dream had lost. He had lost not only the flowers deep within his own lungs, the ones that represented that he was love and he was born to give love, but he had lost his flower. He had lost his flower to an unknown entity whom he knew George would never want him to meet, let alone speak to.

Dream wanted to wail out loud ugly tears and cries, but he had already done that. He had already mourned the loss of George, mourned the loss of their garden built of love and hope together.

He decided the distant sound of glass shattering was much more earth breaking than any full freight train of emotions when he was human.

His mouth grew dry as he saw tears shine over the beautiful eyes he had fallen in love with, arms quivering as more coughs rattled his frail body. Dream moved forward again, large hands shaking as he carefully gripped the metal handles, not daring to get close to laying on top of the other’s. He could feel the emotionless tears ready to fall.

“You-”

Dream couldn’t continue as he saw large tears drip down the brunette’s cheeks, nose becoming red just as his lips were already. He gestured gently to the clots of blood and petals on the thin sheets, a nod of consent for the blonde to touch them.

“How long?” 

George mulled it over a second, eyes fixated on something just past Dream.

“I think it started a week ot two ago. I’ve lost count at this point.”

The blonde used his thumb to gingerly wipe the noxious liquid off of the broken flowers beneath them. Anyone who would look at George and believe he wasn’t good enough would be a complete and utter fool, a gross and disgusting human being for even considering the angel of a boy to not fit their taste.

“S’not like it matters much anyways,” He continued with a watery laugh. “The petals are dead. Shifted to yellow days ago while they wilted. I don’t have any sort of chance anymore.”

A nauseating feeling came over the blonde at the prospect of flowers blooming in the boy’s lungs over someone else, the boy who guarded his emotions and love with steel gates had let his walls down for someone else, and they stomped on it. He felt sick, sicker than he did when he still had petals clogging his lungs, yet he could feel . Everything was heightened, the walls holding in the beginnings of love breaking down just that much more with each and every breath the brunette was taking. As he took in the boy’s words he tried to clear the petals as much as possible.

His face went white with the sight in his hands.

“George,”

“Don’t pity me, I had a chance at some point and then-”

“ George .”

He turned his head to stare at the hands cradling his petals. He swallowed.

“Your petals they- they’re-”

“What? They’re just-”

Dream paused, transferring the pristine petal into his clean hand.

“They’re bright green, George.”

The room already filled with tension and unsaid words grew denser, stuffier with each passing second. The clouds in the brunette’s eyes grew larger as he took the petal out of the boy’s hand and let it stay in his own. Dream’s eyes were burning, boiling water running through his system instead of blood, burning him from the inside out. More punches to his chest and lungs came, and he wished that they were tears.

George continued staring at his hand, at the small piece of a flower broken off but representing something greater than him, something that encompassed and surpassed human life and it’s abilities to feel.

Dream watched brown eyes transfix on the item, the static in his brain not clearing enough to make a fully fledged thought. He could see the heartbreak as George looked back up at him, distraught written all over his face in each freckle and curve of his nose. In that precious moment of connection, Dream felt the walls holding back his love break just that bit more. Infatuation, tenderness, and care more present than ever but still infuriatingly out of reach. His knuckles were a stark white from his grip on the metal.

Like the world would end if not done perfectly, George carefully slipped the petal in his palm, using his adjacent hand to cup the blonde’s warm, sun kissed cheek. His other hand slid up on the other side of his face, petal pressing against the corner of his eye by a gentle thumb.

George choked a sob from the back of his throat, eyes darting from the petal to the blonde’s eyes. 

Dream’s blood ran cold as he lifted his own hand to wrap around the brunette’s wrist. They were his flowers. A beautiful swirl of green and vibrant hints of yellow mixed together in the creation of true love in the bottom of his organs. 

A silent cry bubbled up through the brunette’s throat, resolve breaking fully and crumbling against the blonde, petals and blood continuing to spill over his once delicate and pure lips.

This time, Dream’s tears were not silent.

Aggressive sobs wracked his body as he clung to his angel’s wrist, the fury at mother nature and the cruel torment she insisted on pushing onto loving people in her sick game of life. 

The mossy cobblestone gate surrounding what was their garden had fully crumbled at their own mishaps and mistakes, clumsy and rash decisions single handedly ripping out the roots of precious flowers beneath his grip.

“I got rid of them!” Dream cried, desperately grabbing whatever clumps of green petals he could from the sheets and letting them fill his hands. He was a weak and frail boy when it came to love. Far too weak to be in this much agony.

“It- It doesn’t make sense!”

George was already far gone, soft cries and shakes overtaking his sickly body and causing fat tears to fall onto his already stained sheets. He was grasping at the pieces a panicked and far too all over the place Dream was trying to put together for him.

Dream was overwhelmed, frantically mumbling out blubbers of sobs and helpless tears at the irreversible deed he had done just days ago, the yearning to love him and feeling it so close to being real again paired with the confusion because he had zero hope.

“My- My flowers were dead! They-”

Dream established eye contact with George, the shine over his eyes brightening their color to an absurd degree. The eyes he fell in love with, the eyes he first became infatuated with, the eyes the color of-

Oh.

The eyes the color of a deep melted chocolate, dripping in sugary tendrils and dancing around his mouth, covering each thing it touched with an overwhelming sense of warmth. They were cinnamon and nutmeg with a strong bite, but just enough sweetness to draw you in further and further, entranced by what they held. Coffee and button-downs, almost a black color but the orange hues brightening them just so, shades of comfort and home and lazy weeks curled in each other’s arms. Deep centers of sunflowers, often overlooked by those not willing to take the plunge and inspect them, analyzing each detail for the beauty it held. The color of the bushes just past sunset when darkness would just settle over lakes and fields of flowers, showering the blooms in a deep haze, their muted colors speaking just enough.

The color of tree bark, and topaz, and tourmaline, and toffee, and cocoa, and pinecones, and teddy bears, and boots, and fall, and hazelnuts, and butterflies and-

Brown roses. The color of rich, curly brown roses.

Dream couldn’t speak, the images of the soft wavy petals in his own hands refusing to leave his mind, taunting his every move, jeering at the mistake that had cost him his entire life he had left to live. His mouth was dry and the world was spinning, the brunette now sitting up, desperately trying to get any sentences from the spiraling boy in front of him.

“ Dream! Please, talk to me!” He helplessly spoke. The blonde glanced at the heart rate monitor beeping next to him, the boy’s state looking more and more weak by the second.

Hot tears spilled over onto his freckled cheeks, a fresh new layer of proof of his stupidity now in broad strokes across his face. The sobs in his chest became labored and filled with wheezes, love filling his teardrops and splattering wherever they could. If he thought hard enough, he could still feel the flowers in his lungs, despite knowing they were definitely not there.

Dream’s legs were completely unsteady as he let himself hold his weight against the metal bars of the bed, frantically blubbering out whatever he could.

“They- They were dead , I-I thought they were- You could never even consider- The- The surgery, they’re gone, it’s all gone, I-”

His sentences were cut off by more echoing sobs, the muted screams of emotions seeping out just that much more in frenzied tears and shouts. George tried to sit up, use the blonde’s arms as leverage, only to groan and fall backwards against the thin pillow again. His eyelids were drooping heavier with more tears producing more hacks of blood and petals down his face.

“I shouldn’t be feeling , how the fuck am I feeling ?” Dream cried out, exasperated and trying to grab onto the brunette’s thin hands. He could see life slowly being drained from George’s eyes, his already pale face falling an even more ghostly white. The pain and agony of watching his best friend, his flower he had built a garden for slipping away, just out of reach was ripping through his body, lungs almost bursting open at the raw emotion. 

He was too late. Dream had always been a rash human being, jumping into situations and life decisions with far too much certainty and far too much ease. It truly was a poison, his haste to get things right, the constant pressure to keep moving, to keep going, to keep falling. That damn garden was the one thing he had taken gentle care of, tender and soft lullabies, watering it with reserve to let the roots grow and flourish, sprouting beautiful brown roses in their wake. 

Yet at the mere idea of never being able to watch those flowers thrive, he let a stranger, someone who didn’t know his flowers, who didn’t build the cobblestone walls or bask in the sunlight of infatuation he had, rip and tear apart those beautiful representations of love. He let someone else dictate where his love should start and stop due to his idiocy to not examine the flowers seeping up through his mouth. It was his foolishness to tear his eyes away from each petal and decide to rip the stems apart.

Dream had done this for George, and not only did he lose himself, but he would lose his rose, too.

George’s eyes were fluttering in and out of consciousness as the blonde’s eyes darted from his faint body to the heart rate monitor on the other side of his bed. 

“What is it like to watch someone die from it?”

“Well, it’s quite peaceful to the one passing. They’re literally suffocating on their own love, flowers causing them to be unable to breathe from overcrowding their lungs. It may look like they’re going to sleep.”

Weak fingers gently wrapped around the larger ones, topaz eyes slowly becoming murky as he looked up at the blonde. 

“It’s okay, Dream,” He mumbled, thumb gently rubbing over the back of his shaking hand. The blonde bent over further to get closer to the boy’s face, streams of tears continuing to flow down his face as he choked out words.

“No, no it’s not, George, this is my fault, I shouldn’t have let myself become so blind to-”

“-Shh, nothing is your fault. Nothing,”

Dream felt his knees almost buckle beneath him when George looked up directly at him, dimming eyes filled to the brim with adoration and care. The same eyes he had fallen in love with were the cause of his complete and utter heartbreak, and now were fading from his life permanently.

“No, no, no, George, you- you can’t, please ! If I had known I would’ve- I could’ve-”

The brunette shook his head just as much as he could, hand tightening its grip weakly as the taller held on desperately.

“It’s okay , Dream. You- You’re gonna be okay? You couldn’t have known.”

Dream’s teeth grit together at that, frustration and anger building in his gut ( how was he able to feel it?) as he continued on with urgency.

“ Yes , I could’ve, I could’ve not been such a fucking dumbass and actually took a step to see what was happening, then we could’ve-”

His breath caught in his throat at the realization of the many ‘could have’s filling his mind. Walks down busy sidewalks with sun dripping down their faces and hands locked, early mornings with soft light filtering in from behind closed blinds murmuring syrupty words into each other’s ears completely enwrapped in one another, fleeting moments between work placing chaste kisses on each others’ faces, dinner over fancy lighting in far too expensive restaurants in all too tight clothing only to go home and laugh at how awful the whole scene was, getting flour over each other’s clothes with vanilla seeping throughout the entire house ( their entire house), hushes of praise beneath silk sheets and hot breath, falling asleep with his flower nestled between his arms locked down and never being let go.

They could’ve built that garden, too. 

“I could’ve had you,” Dream whispered, the only words he could get out without falling to his knees in agony. The glow in the brunette’s face was rapidly dimming, eyes falling closed for longer and the beeps growing further apart in time from the damn machine.

“Then their hands grow like ice, they feel like snow to the touch, almost burning.”

His cold and weak hand not being held by Dream, slowly moved to cup the blonde’s face. The temperature difference stung.

“You’re such an idiot,” George started, tears pouring over in larger volume. “You’ve always had me.”

Dream shakily let his hand cover the older’s, gulping quivering breaths and maintaining eye contact for as long as he could, as he felt the life literally seeping out of him. His words grew more frantic, eyes darting from the monitor so close to dipping out into a thin line, a line that sealed his fate of loss and grief, sealed his fate for an eternity of guilt and life hiding away from the world.

“George? George! No, no, please , you- you can’t!”

The chilly pale hands in his grip began to slip out of his, their weight being too much for the boy to move. 

“Then they won’t be able to speak, the flowers clogging their airways and closing their throats.”

“George!”

“And when their heartbeat stops,”

More tears split further onto the blood-stained bed in front of him, as he picked up one of the beautiful green petals into his palm.

“Then it’s time to say goodbye.”

As the loud ringing shot through his ears, a bullet pounding through his skull, he let himself bend down and mold their lips together, cupping the brunette’s porcelain skin. The kiss was gentle, their tears mixing together into one amalgamation of their doomed love, his large thumbs brushing away the ones that didn’t mix with his own away. 

Before he could pull away, a pang was sent through his chest, like the bang of a gun, the same bullet of the heart rate monitor now shooting through his chest as he stumbled back, heaving with effort and feeling beyond nauseous. 

The box and walls and doors protecting the emotions locked away was burst open, ecstasy, anger, agony, fear, all coursing over his body in one fell swoop sending him into a mess of a human, unable to recall any of his surroundings or true feelings, aside from the constant beat of George, George, George , ringing through his mind, something that had and would forever be a constant

His head was spiraling, chest and throat aching as what felt like cotton come up through his throat and fill any breathing area he had, totally suffocating him as more tears pricked the corner of his bloodshot eyes

As the room turned black, his ears were still ringing with the violent pang of the monitor, doors slammed open, and his hands were covered in thick sticky blood.

Dream’s throat ached, his chest still heaving with effort as his eyes slowly opened, sunlight seeping in through his windows. When he groaned, it was like knives were ripping his vocal chords, cutting them in half.

“Good morning to you too.”

The voice caused Dream’s head to snap to his left, sitting upright almost instantly. The sight before him almost brought tears to his eyes again.

His beautiful flower, sitting upright drinking a mug of something warm in a hospital bed next to his own, hair a fluffy mess and eyes bright as stars.

My own bed?

He glanced at the hospital bed beneath him, eyebrows furrowing as the scenes before he passed out flooded back to him. The cries and sobs, his petals being alive , the boy’s life draining, the feel of his lips against his own, the supernova of emotions, then black nothingness.

George wore a soft smile, looking at the blonde like he had hung each of the stars in the sky individually. The blonde couldn’t help the red seeping under his face. It hit him that the unmistakable feeling of love was in the air surrounding them, after so long of being just out of reach. It was pure euphoria.

Dream shook his head, about to open his mouth before the brunette cut him off.

“You should thank your mum,”

There was another pause as the blonde blinked, waiting for a response, before a question came.

“After the surgery, how did- how did you feel?”

Dream huffed, the fact that he had given up what made him completely Dream being such an idiotic and terrifying thing to him.

“I could still feel. I hated it, I was just emotionless enough to seem like I didn’t give two shits about anything, but I could feel the emotions behind a wall, like- like muffled sound from another room. It was hell.”

George nodded, taking a sip of his steaming mug before giving a soft laugh.

“I guess that part must’ve been terrible, but without it I wouldn’t be here, would I?”

Dream’s face tensed and grimaced at the mention of the boy passing on, even as a joke making him cringe. Despite that, he still couldn’t get at what the brunette was implying.

“What do you mean?”

He set his mug down and turned his legs to face the blonde.

“Your mum told the doctors to leave the stem of your flowers. Something about ‘just knowing there’s something there’. They were still technically in you, which was why your feelings were all out of whack.”

Dream’s face flushed red at the mention of his mother intruding on his love life, reaching two palms to cover his face.

“ God ,”

The blonde couldn’t bring himself to grimace as George let out a symphony of laughs, bright as the sun. Dream thought back as best he could to their last interaction, trying to piece together what he could through the emotional turmoil.

“So, when I got the surgery, your flowers shifted?”

George nodded grimly, the memory seeming full of anguish and pain.

“I was about to sleep, too, it was after your ‘I love you’ text earlier in the day, and I knew they changed colors, I-I watched them, and I also could feel it, deep in my heart. I guess they slowly changed back but I couldn’t tell because, well,”

George left the sentence unfinished, implying his colorblindness and sending soft wheezes through the blonde’s system. The room fell quiet again, a warm and honeysuckle silence, as Dream turned his head to meet the eyes he fell hopelessly in love with.

“George?”

“Hmm?”

Dream’s eyes were glassy, perhaps because of the dust in the room, perhaps because he was finally given the opportunity to hold his flower without it being ripped from him, perhaps a combination of both.

“Can I have you?”

George sighed, smile pulling at his cheeks as he reached a thin arm across the space between their beds. Almost too eager, the blonde reached his arm, too, to take the thin and now warm palm within his own, thumb rubbing across the pale knuckles.

“You always have.”

Dream brought the gentle hand to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to the inside of the brunette’s palm, causing a flare of red to rise in the brunette’s face.

“Idiot,”

“Yours?”

The blonde looked up at his flower with wide glassy eyes, blown out from the feather-light touch against his lips, the roots of the flowers deep inside being gone, but the love and infatuation that planted them swirling within him ten times the speed prior.

“Maybe.”

With the look of adoration pouring into the blonde, he knew that was a cry of an unabashed yes. A plea to finally be his.

“George, c’mere,”

The brunette stumbled into the softly lit room, arms wrapping around the blonde’s bicep and leaning into it, groggily rubbing his eyes.

“I’m tired , what do you want?”

Dream let out a chuckle, before moving his arm to wrap around the shorter’s waist and nod to the window sill they were standing in front of.

“You’re kidding ,” George laughed, pressing a finger into the taller’s chest.

Two clean white pots sat atop the platform, each housing a growing cluster of flowers.

The first was a delicate brown rose blooming at full beauty in the silky sun, shining proudly for all to look at and gawk at. The second was a green jewel coneflower, sprouting like a sunflower towering over the shorter rose, with an elegance only held by very few.

Dream’s thumb began to rub circles onto his boyfriend’s hip, large t-shirt being the only thing in between him and soft creamy skin. His eyes wandered to the red and purple splotches against his neck and collarbone feeding the possessive nature of his being, a constant reminder as to whose he was.

“They’re beautiful,” George whispered, hand curling around the top of the blonde’s neck, thumb tracing his jawline intricately.

“I thought they’d go nicely in here with us.”

Dream let a second hand fall down the brunette’s waist, his head nuzzling into the touch against his face.

The Florida sun was just peaking through the windows, shining over his flower’s chocolate eyes in just the right way where he felt he might fall in love all over again.

George stood on the balls of his feet and placed a gentle kiss over the tall man’s lips, revelling in the light squeeze against his hip and waist as he did so. Their lips moved together in soft harmony, the addicting feeling of euphoria never getting old to the pair. The simple beauty of love rooted in their systems forever remaining.

Dream could taste the honey from the brunette, his whole body coated in crystalized sugar. 

They hadn’t built that garden yet, but within their bedroom in their house, the two potted plants that had grown to be their love were the start.

Perhaps, that was all they needed.