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It's so very dark in here," his voice came out in a hushed whisper, all breath and spilled across a tanned neck.
Dream inhales sharply. Breath fans over his skin, eyes blinking in rapid quickness with a hopeless search for something to see. Darkness persisted, prodding at the outskirts of his vision in place of glowing white.
He knew a sun once. Someplace in the depths of his mind, a shade of gold still glowed, but Dream couldn't see it anymore.
He savored the warmth of George's breath on his skin while he had it, tense hands clenching and unclenching around nothing at all. Palms lay empty and face-up towards the ceiling; that was, if there even was one.
"Yeah," Dream matched his tone, though he deliberately leaned away from where he knew George's body rested in the cold. "And... cold."
Breath stuttered. Dream could feel it on his straining skin.
"Yeah," George echoed, the shake in both his breath and his words painfully audible. "Freezing."
Verdant eyes shut, heavy lids closing over the the swell of ink-black pupils. When he opened his eyes again, nothing had changed; Dream didn't know what he'd been hoping for. Wherever they had found themselves was pitch black and full of nothing, seamless and empty.
He wondered how they'd even gotten there. He almost hated thinking about it, it and the way every question came up empty.
Dream had found himself sitting upright in the place he didn't know, back leaning against some sort of wall. It felt hard, cold and almost like stone; he could never know for sure what it was, even when his calloused fingers were running over the wall in search of fleeting answers. Long legs were sprawled out in a mess of a configuration, George's presence dully noticeable between his spread thighs.
Necks were stiff and backs were achy, muscles sore from positions that had been lived in for moments too long. Though Dream could never be sure exactly how long it had been, could never even know how he'd gotten there to begin with, he could find solace in the steady breaths that mixed with his own and the knowledge that, at the very least, he was not left all alone.
He was with George. George, the most important person in his life, who was now trapped someplace strange and unknown and unseen. Quite possibly, no one would ever find them. Dream couldn't know for sure.
Dream couldn't know anything. Not even how George was positioned where he sat between his legs, the only things he knew about the brunet being his proximity and the way he inhaled at shaky tempos; shivering, but comfortingly warm in the way air spilled out against his neck.
He was afraid to reach out, afraid to make an attempt to touch something. Afraid both of poking at the wrong parts of George, of hitting someplace like his eyes or mouth or nose and afraid of making contact with something he didn't want to touch.
Because what if something was hiding? Someplace, somewhere, out in the darkness? He could never see or know, swells of pure jet swallowing every last inch of his vision in place of desperate knowledge. Nothing was familiar, not like the shadows that waited for him when he closed his eyes.
Where were they? He could ask the same question a million times and always come up short, lacking in any kind of memory that could hand him even a semblance of a clue. Absently and without vindication, he wondered if George knew something.
Rubbing at his arms in an attempt to warm up, Dream blew a long breath out through his lips. The quiet rustle of cloth against skin came not only from him but from the boy sat across from him, mixing with the two sets of breath that strung through the air so low.
Dream inched his foot up against the rough ground, only now noticing just how utterly numb and asleep his legs were. Pins and needles wrapped around every last inch of his lower half, pulling a wince from him as he stomached the tight, aching pain. He wondered again how long he'd been stuck like this; sat uncomfortably against the unknown wall, not quite alone in the darkness, unmoving and without sight.
Some kind of grunting noise spilled out through Dream's swollen lips, hasty attempts at chasing warmth halting when he attempted to reach down for his legs. It had gotten to the point where he couldn't bend his knees without feeling the need to make a noise, left with no options but to grab at his legs and force the joints to do their job.
His chest hit against George's when he moved, immediately reeling back to get out of the way. He didn't stop rubbing at his legs, only shifting out of George's way when he worried he wouldn't want to be touched,
"Sorry," Dream muttered, keeping with his low whisper from before.
The only difference was he made no attempt to keep his breath away from George's skin, letting the heat spill across his neck where he knew the alabaster was exposed. Breath held in lungs audibly, seconds passing like hours through the tense air between them.
They were close. They were so close. Dream gripped at his aching knees with increased fervor, and he wished to inch closer to George.
"You're warm," George admitted finally, spoken softly in Dream's ear after a too-long bout of silence.
George, unsurprisingly, was also very warm. It only made Dream more desperate to get near him, letting their bodies press together chest-first so they could absorb each other's heat. Though George's skin felt freezing when Dream's lips bumped against his neck, the wrap of his arms around his shoulder blades felt like cracking embers.
Leaning back against the unknown wall when he abandoned his legs, Dream wrapped his own arms around George's slim waist, pulling him closer with gentle invitation. George crawled into his lap without question, turning his face into the crook of Dream's neck as if he were attempting to hide.
"Dream, I'm scared," he murmured, somehow with a voice softer than before.
All Dream could think to do was squeeze him harder. Tug him closer in the little space, feel the curve of his bones beneath his skin and hope to be comforted by the knowledge that it was him.
George was the only thing in that room that felt familiar. It made Dream want to cry.
"I know," Dream whispered directly into George's ear, lips brushing against the chill of his skin with hopes that it would comfort him. "I'm scared, too."
Pale fists clenched around Dream's sweatshirt, face shoving harder into his neck. Dream could feel where George's lips and eyelashes brushed against his skin, could feel where his nose was crushed against the harshness of his shoulder in a firmness that was just as comforting as it was upsetting.
He wishes to help him more. He wants so desperately to be better with comforting words, to not have to grapple so desperately and uselessly for all the smallest things; all he could offer was sympathy, a tighter hug, and pink lips in a soft brush against his neck.
George was shaking in Dream's arms. It was impossible to tell if it was from cold or out of fear, but Dream dreaded the worst. He turned the drag of his lips into quiet little kisses, next to nothing but still undeniably something.
Though George's body radiated the warmth of a person, his neck was cold like ice. Dream could feel his fingers getting numb in the cold as he rubbed comforting circles into George's back, wondering helplessly if the boy in his lap felt the same way as he did.
“Where are we?” George pleaded his question in a shaking, quiet voice.
Dream could hear the tears welling up inside him with every syllable. He could hear the way they threatened to spill over the edge, promising to roll over the thickness of his lashline and spill down the surface of his face.
Dream leaned his head on George's shoulder when he didn't know what else to do. Considering his answer, he wished that all the words in his head would stop feeling so wrong. Perhaps it was because he couldn't be right at all.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly, and he hated the way his voice grated over the words.
“Dream,” he spoke into the blond's collarbone, voice somehow shaking harder than before. “What if we die here?”
Ice cold in his veins. It froze the steady movement of his circling thumbs for a moment, and Dream cursed himself for letting his composure falter.
“We won’t die here,” he attempted to reassure, though quite honestly he knew it was a possibility. Maybe even more than that. “George, we’re not going to die. It’ll all be okay. We’ll be okay.”
He had to be lying, but it made him feel just a tiny bit better to hear those words, even if he was the one saying them. He could only hope they were having a similar effect on George; who was still shaking, salty tears starting to make contact with Dream's skin.
They beaded against him, crystalline and unbreaking, and Dream wished he could make them go away. He couldn't.
He slid one of his hands up George's back to cradle the back of his head, entangling his numb fingers with dark hair and pulling him in closer.
Dream finally found it in him to bend his knees up as to cradle him with his body more, the grip on his sweatshirt tightening with the onslaught of tears. Sobs wracked a slim frame, and Dream shoved his face into the boy's neck as well; he could only try his hardest to bite back the onset of his own tears, attempting to will them away where the feeling swelled deep in his throat and behind his eyes.
He shut them, his eyes, though it didn't change much in the real world. Darkness still enveloped him, perhaps less frightening than the unknown because he could feel the way it was his own eyelids.
Dream wanted to whisper more comforting words into George's ear, even if they weren't going to do anything to fix their situation. But he kept his mouth shut out of fear in letting George hear his shaky voice, afraid of the tears that would spill and dampen his too-thin shirt.
Though Dream's shoulder was already damp and his ears were full of the heart-wrenching sounds of his own boyfriend muffling cries into fabric where he sat, Dream kept all his behind his teeth when he didn't want to make George suffer the same way he was. He chewed on his lip, but metallic blood never came to flood his tongue.
"Shh..." he attempted, hoping what little he could say would do something. "It'll be okay."
Dream's voice broke, and he knew that George could tell, but neither of them acknowledged it. They only sat, entangled in each other, with pale hands pulling tighter at cloth and thighs squeezing around a broad waist.
He pulled his face free of Dream's shoulder, and the blond in question followed suit, opening his eyes to know that George's face was in front of his even if he couldn't see it.
"But what if it's not?" he protested, voice significantly louder than it had been before. "I just," he started, but he only sobbed, forehead knocking against Dream's.
His head fell back against the rough surface, another sob slipping past George's lips where Dream could feel it against his. He ran his fingers through dark hair and tried to think of something, anything he could say to make George feel better.
He had never felt so useless, hopeless, and like nothing in his entire life. He didn’t know where they were. He didn’t know how they even got there. Perhaps worst of all, he didn’t know how to get out.
Dream didn't know anything. He couldn't know anything.
"George, I love you," he whispered, moving both his hands to capture his face. "And I don't want to die anywhere, but if I have to die with anyone then I want it to be with you."
"Dream," he whispered in answer, voice fallen back down to the scared softness of before. "I love you too."
So they kissed. They kissed each other with slick lips and salty tears, and it was a mess, but it was the only thing they needed. The only thing in the world that could make either of them feel even the slightest bit better; soft, sweet, and full of so much love, yet remaining to be sloppy and wet with all the wrong things.
Dream pulled his lover as close as he could get him, their lips slipping apart for no more than a second. Neither of them would let it last any longer than a breath, capturing each other once again where they felt the other's presence through the darkness.
Dream wanted nothing more than to get them out of there. Then they could kiss each other like this forever, and hold each other until the end of all things.
Maybe they could kiss each other like this forever. It sure seemed like their forever wasn't exactly as long as they'd once dreamed it would be, time coming to a waning end where they could see over the edge of the world. At the very least, they remained to be together.
Maybe that was all that mattered. Dream and George. The two of them. Alone, scared, cold, and in the pitch black abyss of nothing.
Forever.