Chapter Text
George is running away, he is aware.
It is a wednesday evening when George gets home from work and picks up his mail before climbing up the stairs to his apartment, like he does everyday. He opens his door and is greeted by his cat running in between his feet, like he does everyday. He turns the lights on, puts his key on the key holder by the door, and kicks his shoes off to put them underneath, like he does everyday. He walks to the sofa before laying down on it and checking his mail, like he does everyday. Unlike everyday, though, when George opens his mail, he finds that- in between the bills and the coupons- there is a pretty envelope.
He opens it. It is a wedding invitation- for his ex’s wedding.
His ex is getting married, and George hasn't even dated anyone after her. At that moment, he feels pathetic. He looks at the RSVP for way too long. He can't refuse to go because that would make it seem like he is still hung up on her- he is not- and he can't show up alone, looking like he’s making some desperate last minute attempt to get her back.
George would like to think that panic is the reason he buys a plane ticket not even five minutes after arriving home.
He chooses somewhere sunny, far away from London and all his responsibilities, somewhere that sounds ideal for a dramatic getaway. He thinks about Bali, or somewhere in the Caribbean, but the plane tickets for Miami are cheap when the website loads, so that’s the place he settles for.
He buys the return ticket for three months after his first flight leaves London, like a maniac. It’s way too long, but he doesn’t care. He deserves a long, long trip.
George is a recent university graduate, and the job he has isn’t permanent, which means he could do a long holiday- and also means he probably won’t have the money to pay for all of the trip.
He has bills to pay, and he has to find a new job, and he has a leaky faucet on his bathroom that won’t fix itself, and that George sure as fuck doesn’t know how to fix.
It doesn’t matter though- nothing matters in those glorious minutes of impulse buying. He isn’t thinking straight, and, while sitting on his lonely London rental, George thinks an entire summer in Miami, away from all his responsibilities and stress, simply sounds like a great idea.
-
He thinks this is a bad idea by the time he’s at the airport.
It was really an impulse buy, a trip hastily planned in under two weeks, the wedding an entire month into his vacation. He wanted to make it look realistic, like the plans were already there before he knew about the wedding.
George isn't sure why he’s doing this, but if he cancels the plane ticket now, two hours before the plane leaves Heathrow airport, he won't get a fucking refund, and he really can't afford that. George has really spent all his savings.
So he gets into the plane, and he leaves England.
-
By the time he lands in Miami, George regrets leaving London at all.
Don't get him wrong- the airport was pretty, and the view from the taxi he took from the airport to the hotel was nice, but George should have really looked at the ratings of the place he was staying with a little more attention to detail.
The hotel is run-down, to put it nicely.
It was cheap, so George wasn’t expecting much, but this is bad. There’s no elevator, so he has to bring his 3-months-worth of clothes bag with him up the stairs, which, considering the fact that the most exercise he’d done in the past couple years was walking from the underground to his apartment, is a hassle that takes way too long. When he finally arrives in his room on the fourth floor, and opens the 404 door- just off the stairs, to the right- he finds that the AC is broken.
It’s Florida, in the middle of summer. The weather report on his phone says it’s gonna hit 100 degrees fahrenheit today. A quick google search tells him that’s 38 celsius. He’s gonna die.
George came here to escape his problems and now he’s gonna die of heat stroke.
Great , George thinks, just what I needed .
He flops down on the bed. It creaks. He stands up and goes to take a shower. The water is cold, and it won’t heat up. At least it’s summer, so it’s not like it matters much.
-
This trip is not going as expected. It’s a trainwreck, to put it lightly. George doesn’t know what he’s doing- he hasn’t been knowing for a while, really.
George puts on his blue swim trunks and grabs a backpack to shove his shit in. A towel, sunscreen, money, sunglasses. He’s going to the beach. The least amount of time he spends in this run down hotel, the best. Maybe the sight of the ocean and the soft sand beneath his feet will make him feel better about this whole trip.
Maybe it will give him the peace and excitement he was hoping it would.
-
It doesn’t.
The sun is still scorching at the beach, and the sand is grainier than it is soft. He takes off his red and blue flip flops and finds that besides uncomfortable, the sand is also scalding hot.
George puts his backpack on the floor, not bothering to lay down his towel. He puts his knees to his chest and leans his elbows on his knees, his forehead on his hands. He feels so silly, so stupid. Like a little kid who made a rash decision and now he has to deal with his mother screaming at him, except he’s both the kid and the mother.
How did he think this was a good idea, really?
He was such an idiot, to think he could just run away and that everything would be fine. He was so stupid to hope that if he were in another continent, that his problems would seem just as far away.
But he’s still broke, he’s still jobless, and his stupid fucking ex is still getting married to someone else. The only difference is that instead of moping on his couch with a sad movie and a jar of nutella, he’s moping under the Florida sun, probably getting burnt.
He stands up, ready to return to his hotel and take a nap, at least, when he hears someone yell, “Hey! I can’t reach my back! Can you rub sunscreen on my back?”
George looks around. There’s no way someone is asking him that- his life is not some cheesy rom-com, quite the opposite, really.
“Please?” The voice continues.
George looks towards the sound, and is greeted with the best sight he’s had since he arrived in this place.
There’s a man looking up to him, tan skin and green eyes, a nice jawline and fuck, fuck what a smile. He’s got perfect white teeth and nice lips and it makes his cheekbones look just right. He's a handsome man.
George points at himself. He feels a little dumb, but there’s no way that guy is talking to him.
“Yeah, you,” His smile grows wider, if it’s possible. George can’t say no to that smile- he’d be an idiot to do it. “I’m talking to you.”
The beautiful stranger has a nice voice, too. George lets his eyes trace downwards for a second and he thinks the stranger has a nice everything , really.
When he looks back up, the stranger has an eyebrow raised up. George was just caught staring, but it’s not like he’d even bothered to try hiding it. He’s had a difficult day- he deserves to ogle at hot guys.
George, like an idiot, replies, “Okay.”
He puts his knees down on the guy’s towel and grabs the sunscreen bottle. It’s 70 spf and George figures this guy must spend an insane amount of time on the beach to get tan despite how strong the sunblock is.
He puts a little on his hands, and starts spreading it. The guy's back is strong, well built, even if the dude himself isn’t incredibly buff. He must swim a lot.
George can’t remember the last time he touched someone for this long.
“I’m Dream,” The man says, breaking the silence that fell.
George jumps a little, hands stilling on Dream’s shoulders for a second.
“Dream?” He says in confusion, “That’s an interesting name.”
Dream laughs and George can feel it in the way it makes his back shake. “I mean, it’s not my birth name, but it’s what people around here call me.”
George runs his hands down Dream’s spine, and he swears the man shivers a little bit. He’s just putting on sunscreen, yeah. Just rubbing in sunscreen.
“Well, I’m George.”
Dream has freckles on his shoulders. George briefly wonders what they taste like.
“Oh,” Dream sounds amused. “You’re british.”
Dream turns his head to look at George. It makes his whole back move, and just like that, George realises he doesn’t know where he’s rubbed sunscreen on already, and where he hasn’t. Can you really blame him, though? Dream is... distracting.
Well, guess he’ll just have to rub all of Dream’s back again. What a shame.
“Yeah, I am,” George gives a chuckle. “I’m visiting, just arrived.”
George is rubbing his shoulders again, despite the fact they both know he’s put sunscreen there already.
Dream hums in affirmation. “I’d ask if you’re having a good time in Florida so far but considering how stressed you looked a little while ago, I’d bet it’s not going that good.”
Dream’s tone is understanding, if not a little teasing.
George can’t believe Dream saw him throw his little tantrum. It’s a bit embarrassing, if he’s being honest.
“It really wasn’t but, Dream,” The same sounds right on George’s tongue, “I’d say my day just got a lot nicer.”
Dream scoffs a little bit.
George is done rubbing sunscreen on Dream’s back, for the second time, and he thinks trying to do it a third time would be too much. He takes his hands off, and quietly stands up.
This was a fun little interaction , George thinks. He’s about to leave but then Dream starts standing up too and- oh . Oh, he’s tall .
Can this man get better?
George is so stunned by the fact that he has to crank his neck up to look at Dream that he forgets he was trying to leave in the first place.
“Would your stay get even nicer if you went out for drinks with me later?” Dream’s smile has turned flirty, his eyes twinkling.
George can’t believe this is happening. Not because he thinks he’s not in Dream's league or something- he’s well aware that he’s good looking, thank you very much, but because he was fully prepared for the entire trip to absolutely suck . Of course he’s going out for drinks with Dream, he’s not blind .
He still isn’t over how nice Dream’s smile is.
“I don’t know,” There’s no harm in flirting, right? George deserves this. “But I guess there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?”
Dream looks away for a second, running his hands through his hair. His wet, dripping hair, that has a strand falling on his eyes. It looks good.
“Cool, maybe I can tell you how I got my nickname there,” The man is beaming. It’s charming. “Hold on a second”
And George, like the stunned man he is, does exactly that. He stays put as Dream leans down and gets something off his bag. When he stands back up, he has a sharpie in his hands.
He reaches out and grabs George’s left arm.
“Meet me at this address at eight today,” He’s scribbling something onto his arm. “Dress nice.”
He winks. Dream winks at George. As if he didn’t feel foolish enough, George giggles at it, like a school girl.
Before he can embarrass himself further, George leaves the beach, the address to the date place written in his arm, and a blush on his cheeks.
When he arrives at his hotel, George doesn’t care about having to go up the stairs, or the fact that the hall light is broken, or if the bed is definitely going to give him a backache.
He decides that this trip wasn’t such a bad idea after all.