Chapter Text
George will never understand how he got here.
Here being in a room that's not his own, limbs tangled in sheets that smell too familiar yet too strange, and his body wrapped around someone else's. Here being in Dream’s arms, a muscled hand over his heart and another pressed against his waist, his best friend's deep breaths into his skin causing a flush to creep up his neck. Here being in Dream’s bed, open lips pressed on his collarbone and strong arms heating him all over.
Here being where he's wanted to be since his plane landed in Florida over a week ago.
All George remembers is seeing Dream in the kitchen when he went to get water at midnight, hunched over the island and looking at him through droopy eyes. He remembers reaching out a hand to touch his shoulder in passing, to satisfy his craving for small touches with the boy he's always loved, and somehow it'd ended with them in the same bed.
It's funny he doesn't know how the best thing that ever happened to him, happened.
Dream is a comforting presence, his arm an equally comforting weight pressing George’s body gently into the mattress. George finds himself shifting as well as he can without waking Dream, to bring his nose close to soft hair and let the blonde curls almost caress his face. His hand tightens around the other's waist to bring his body imperceptibly closer, opting to snake a hand under his shirt. It's cold, he reasons, I'm trying to keep us warm, as his fingers stroke along Dream’s spine.
George wishes he could do this every day.
His hand stills when the hand on his chest moves down to his stomach, resting there as a muffled yawn gets lost in his ears. Dream’s lips move against his shirt, and George hates himself for wishing they were directly on his skin. That's your best friend.
"G?" Dream manages, eyes still closed as he rubs his nose against George’s collarbone. The brunette's palm flattens over his back. In response, he feels Dream tense at the realization.
"I- I'm sorry," George scrambles, "Just- it was cold and I- I thought-,"
Wordlessly, Dream relaxes. He takes his own hand from where it rests on George’s stomach and pushes the older's shirt up, till his palm is tracing circles on bare skin.
"You're warm," Dream notes, voice filled with tired wonder, "What are you so warm for?"
"Put it back," He says into George’s shirt, petulant and half-awake.
George has never been good at saying no to him.
He tries to stop his hand from shaking, wanting to be reassuring and comforting and warm and just somehow transfer everything he feels into a fucking hand as he puts it over Dream’s back, lifting the shirt tentatively to sneak it under. He'd be happy to spend forever like this, he reckons, touching Dream, having him there, having him safe and in his arms.
He hears a soft exhale against his skin when he flattens his palm and runs it gently down Dream’s back, fingers clawed in to avoid his nails from scraping his spine. He presses his finger pads to little dents in smooth skin, rubbing over and over again till he can feel the small patches heat up. The hand on his stomach stays still through it all, its owner sending George’s heart into a frenzy.
"Do you want me to pinch you?" Dream says out of nowhere, tilting his head up so his words are clear.
"I- what?" George can’t meet his gaze.
"Either you stop overthinking this or I'm going to pinch you." He talks like he's stating facts, and George can't help the little laugh that escapes him.
"I'd probably like it." George slaps his free hand over his mouth. Think before you fucking speak, you British fucking idiotic mor-
"George."
He doesn't say anything in reply, just stays still with his hand drawing circles on Dream’s back and the other itching to play with his hair. He lifts it hesitantly, eyeing it while he creeps it up to his side, till it's right by his chest. It's an awkward position, with one hand holding a beautiful boy and the other splayed over his own side, but he can't help fearing what he wants to do.
"Hey, remember when we went to that sushi place and you really wanted the last piece of the uramaki but it was my first time having it so you held back?"
George doesn’t know where Dream’s going with this, but at this point, he's accepted his constant state of simply not knowing what's happening. He just nods and focuses on keeping his hand in place.
"Your hand was weirdly clenching then, like reaching for air. You probably didn't even feel it."
You were watching me? George wants to ask, but he thinks he's been bold enough to last a lifetime.
"It's doing the same thing right now, and you look really weird."
"Just- wow Dream, you're absolutely breathtaking too." George feels his lips rise up at the corners.
The pink on his best friend's cheeks is what ultimately encourages him to move his hand, to bring it over and let it sink into a mess of curls and soft tangles that smell of the apple shampoo Dream claims to hate (because it's George’s choice and George loves apples) but uses anyway (because George loves apples and he might just love George, or at least George hopes that's the reason).
"I didn't mean it like that, just…," Dream slurs, tiredness seeping into his voice and making his words a tangle of overlapping vowels falling in places they don't belong, "Just that, you're not really good at hiding what you want, okay?"
George flushes a deep red, not knowing whether to hide his face in Dream’s hair and risk completely losing himself or stay where he is and force his thoughts to stray away from Dream. Dream. Dream.
That’s when he sees that Dream’s wearing one of his merch hoodies. It's blue, and it's fucking criminal.
Despite George’s mind telling him it's cause Dream was cold, he can’t help but wonder what fucking Floridian wears hoodies at home? And who gave Dream the right to look so good in them?
Now, as a part of him wants to pull Dream closer till there are no gaps, absolutely nothing left to help tell where one ends and the other begins, another part wants Dream to trip and fall off the bed with how he’s making George feel with a simple baby blue hoodie.
Then he feels a soft something nudging at his feet, and its Patches, with her ever-widened eyes and silken fur and George softens.
Okay, he decides, Dream can stay alive with his limbs intact. Only for Patches.
Sighing, he tries to move his socked feet away from her, in fear of accidentally knocking the cat with them. She doesn’t look like she wants to leave him though, as the action only prompts her to move further and lay down on George’s other side so that he’s now sandwiched between a giant and his cat. He’s not complaining.
“So?”
Dream’s voice reminds him of the lingering tension, and of the taller’s words. You are not very good at hiding what you want.
“So what, Dream?” His voice is lower and quieter than he intends it to be, teetering on the edge of timid and shy. It does nothing to help him keep calm when Dream speaks right into his skin, gravelly and hoarse, sending a shiver with each brush of his lips as he mouths over George’s shirt.
“What do you want?”
“You.”
It’s the fastest George has ever spoken, probably because he didn’t have to think. It’s an instinct to associate wanting with Dream, to associate the feeling with the person he feels it most for.
“And it took you us sleeping in the same bed to admit that?”
George doesn’t know how to take it, how to feel about Dream’s calmness and his complete composure with the whole thing, whatever the thing is. So far, it has been a flustered George and an all-too composed Dream.
“Yes?”
Dream laughs, and George thinks the sound alone could’ve rid entire kingdoms of their curses in those books his mother used to read to him. There was always a Prince in them, and he always found his Princess. Lying there, holding Dream, nervous to his bones while the other receives his confession with a lazy grin, George thinks he’d be okay as a peasant as long as he found his way to Dream.
“God, you are such an idiot.”
George does what he’s been wanting to do since forever and ducks his face down into Dream’s hair, inhaling deeply as the other continues to giggle at his embarrassment. Every now and then, he draws out the chuckles into some sort of a mini-wheeze and if it were anyone else, George would judge them heavily for having a laugh that sounds like a deteriorated hiccup. But it's Dream, and everything about him is absolutely beautiful.
Patches meows, reminding them of her presence, and George frees one hand from where it lays over Dream’s chest to move it over soft fur, gently scratching at the places he knows she likes and halting his palm when she nudges against it to let her move as she wants.
And then, because Dream is a fucking sap, he brings his own hand over and slides his finger through George’s. Patches stops her movement at the change in texture and looks curiously at the joined hands, then settles back down and allows the two to pet her again.
“What now?”
“What do you mean, George?”
“Doesn’t this change things?” His voice is too soft.
“What? Your poor excuse for a confession?”
George scoffs, “I don’t see you making any record with yours.”
“Who says I have a confession to make?”
George stills completely, hand freezing over Patches’ fur from where it's still entwined with Dream’s, and his mind is overrun with thoughts. All of them scream panic, and stop holding him.
Dream seems to notice and soon his head is tilting up, searching George’s face till he meets his eyes. He offers him a small smile, extending a hand to cup George’s jaw, brushing over the slight stubble there. It’s visibly unnoticeable but feels luxurious under Dream’s hands.
“You’re pretty,” Dream murmurs, hand still massaging the other’s jaw, “So pretty, George.”
“I was just teasing,” The blond continues, moving his palm from George’s chin up to the side of his nose and pressing on one of the freckles there, “I’d say this is enough of a confession though, or do you need me to say the words?”
“I don’t- if you-,” George wonders how someone who is perceived worldwide as a blob can make him forget how to string sentences in his first language, “Dream.”
“I’m kinda in love with you,” Dream says, genuine yet teasing when he follows it up with an utterance of the brunette’s name, carrying the same desperation.
“Dream?” George thinks he’s lost knowledge of all words except that one.
“George.”
“Meow.”
The moment is broken as Patches mewls softly and gets up, and Dream and George wear mirroring grins when they look at each other before bursting into laughter.
“I thought for a second there, that you-” Dream cackles, and George pushes against his hair, “That you- oh my god- fucking meowed at me.”
“What is wrong with you?”
Dream points his finger at him, eyes full of mirth. His hand clutches his stomach, preparing for another onslaught of wheezes. “Catboy.”
And for all his annoyance, George softens when he looks at Dream. My boy.