Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dream is not normal anymore.

He feels like he used to be. Everything made sense before; he didn’t have a constant, burning ache in his side. And though he always felt an ounce of stress about this, he never looked the stress in its eyes and took ahold of it.

Ignorant bliss.

But now he’s spent the last 9 midnights lying awake for too long, staring into the grayness of his ceiling.

He’s stuck watching the fan spin while his mind winds out of control.

It’s too scary to question the trueness of something you always thought was just true- nothing more than true and nothing less- but he feels like a child with a monster in his closet, and his heart won’t slow knowing there’s a beast looming near. His monster is so close that it claws from inside of him; it becomes him.

-

Boys, girls. Men and women. Him and her.

And them.

It’s always a panic when those pronouns fall from his lips, and it’s what started this anxiety induced insomnia.

On stream, as always, he refers to people as they and them, and never anything else unless he personally knows them. It’s an instinct. Now, everyone is genderless to him until specified otherwise. But when it comes to people who only use those pronouns, it’s a different story. When he uses them, it’s not just a gender neutral term for safety, it’s a gender neutral term for identity. The difference in importance is palpable, and the people who use those pronouns make him…

Envious.

Green with jealousy.

He didn’t identify the boil in his chest as jealousy until recently. Previously, he refused to say it was a sort of “gender envy.” He rationalized that any jealousy he might feel was jealous of their freedom, of their self expression, of their confidence in their pronouns.

But actually, he was jealous that they had the guts to use them.

And when he realized that, he understood that he himself didn’t have the guts to use them, and that means he must want to.

Which means that he’s fucked.

-

Dream stands in front of the mirror. His head tilts as he observes himself as deeply as he can until he feels that existential feeling of disconnect of his soul from his body.

He’s wearing a black t-shirt and grey sweatpants; his hair falls over his forehead and ears and ends at the nape of his neck.

He looks like a boy. He wears boy clothes. He has boy hair.

He presses his hands on his stomach, and he’s met with a firm abdomen underneath. He remembers how it feels to wrap his arms around his sisters. When he puts his arm around their waists or picks them up while they fight, he feels less muscle. He feels a soft stomach with much more cushion than his.

And he presses his chest, too. It’s flat. It’s firm. It has very little to give. His hands don’t sink into himself.

This is his body, and in every way, it’s a man’s body.

He rubs his finger across his forehead and trails it down the bridge of his nose lightly. This is his face. He sees the similarities of his sister’s features in his own, but his are harsher. Where their chins curve, his juts out, all angular. Where their necks are softer and longer, his is rougher and more wide. They have roundness in the peaks of their noses, and soft blush on their cheeks. Dream has points, and he lacks that naturally pretty color. Dream is jagged. Dream is sharp. Dream is not feminine.

Dream looks in the mirror and sees nothing but a man.

His physical appearance is a permanent fixture. It’s proof to him that what he was meant to be was a man. He’s nothing but that, and even daydreaming about being something other than that would be futile.

He knows what people say online about ambiguously gendered people. They say there’s no way to look that’s the right way. If you’re non-binary you can look any way, or every way, or no way at all. He knows this, and he agrees internally with it… when it comes to other people. By now he knows you can’t just assume someone’s gender based on how they look.

But with himself...

He’s the most guy-ish looking guy ever. He sort of looks like he could be in a frat. Imagine if a semi-muscular frat guy wearing Florida gators sweatpants walked up to you and said, “Sup, my name’s Clay. I’m non-binary or whatever.”

God. He almost wants to laugh at the imagery.

It’s stupid.

It’s depressing.

In reality, he respects everyone. He wouldn’t laugh or chuckle or silently find humor in someone who looks like a stereotypical guy identifying as non-binary. He’d feel a sense of pride in that person. He’d treat them all the same.

He’d find it a little bit exciting.

But when he imagines himself as them- when he places himself in the shoes of that masculine frat... person, he feels embarrassed.

No- humiliated.

That acceptance that he extends to those people somehow doesn’t extend to himself.

But really, it’s not the label of non-binary that he would wash away in this hypothetical situation; it’s his appearance.

He would make himself look less masculine just so he could feel comfortable in saying he wasn’t a guy. He would put on something more neutral, paint his nails, and maybe grow his hair out just so he could feel like his identity wasn’t some sort of weird joke. Because right now, looking the way he looks, he feels too much like a boy to ever be anything different. And at the same time, he knows that he would feel even more like an impostor in his own body if he tried presenting differently.

He lets his arms drop at his sides. They swing like dead weights, and he doesn’t quite know what he wants out of this, and he doesn’t know if he feels better or, impossibly, worse.

The only real conclusion he came up with is confusing and jumbled.

Yes, non-binary people can look like anything. Yes, he looks like a man. Yes, he thinks he needs to look less like a man to be non-binary. No, he doesn’t want to change anything about the way he looks. And no, he doesn’t think he could ever tell anyone he’s non-binary.

He’s non-binary.

It sinks into his brain like dumbbells in jelly.

He lifts a hand up in front of his face, as if to check to see if anything has changed. As if his skin has shifted hue or his hands have suddenly shrunk. To see if this life changing realization changes anything about him at all.

Almost upsettingly, it doesn't.

Maybe he would feel better if it did.

“What now?” He thinks, still standing inert in front of his reflection.

It’s not like this realization is brand new. It’s not some wild sort of conundrum that he could’ve never thought about in a lifetime; the man had, on several occasions, actively chosen to push down any questioning thoughts about his gender. It just seems he did a really good job at it because he’s standing here now, shocked as ever, trying to figure out what the next step for this could even be.

It’s like realizing you’ve been pronouncing your own name wrong your entire life. Everyone calls you by the wrong name, and it’s not their fault- you literally introduced yourself to them with that mispronunciation. But now that you know, it’s this dwelling thought every time someone says your name that you need to correct them.

Except instead of it just being a stupid, mispronounced name, it’s Dream’s entire identity.

Well, he supposes, not his entire identity. Just a huge chunk of it, and while he knows he still has his most identifying features- his career, his friends, his personality- they seem like they are distorted by this realization. Like somehow, in some way, all of those things have been refracted by this new label. He’s not just a guy who plays minecraft anymore. Not just a guy with guy friends anymore. Not just a guy with a guy's personality.

What the hell is going on?

He didn’t even meet an out gay person in real life until he was 19. All he knew was your classic, cisgendered, heterosexual people from the south. His identity as a man was ingrained so deeply into everything he did because of the way he grew up. Everything from the blue baby clothes his mother saves in a bin in their basement, to the too-big suit he wore to his eighth grade formal, to playing on the JV football team until he leveled up to riding the bench for varsity. He’s always been a boy, always done boy things. Always been treated like a boy.

Now, he feels the distance between himself and those blue baby clothes shoved somewhere shadowed and dusty in an attic somewhere.

And it makes him resentful.

Dream turns on the tap and runs the chilled water over his hands then over his face. He dries himself on his towel hanging on his bathroom door and leaves the room.

-

The label feels sticky.

It feels dirty.

No, it feels worse. It feels cringe-worthy.

It’s a mess in his brain, and like twisted wires connected to a broken TV, it’s hard to untangle. It’s hard to make it make sense.

Other people with the label don’t feel cringe to him. They’re just themselves, and it feels simple and easy and normal and fine.

But when he tests the label on his tongue- when he spits out the phrase “I’m non-binary” while he lays in bed and thinks about everything big and complicated, he feels like an embarrassing freak. He feels like he entered the gates of tumblr and frolicked in feminist theory and liberal agenda and popped out a fully formed fairy-glitter-goblin.

Maybe he’s being dramatic.

And transphobic.

Towards his damn self, but nonetheless.

It’s a little bit the way he felt when coming to terms with his sexuality.

Bisexual. Bisexual. Bisexual.

It also felt tingly on his lips when he first conjured the idea of it. It felt taboo in a dirty way, not an embarrassing way. He came to terms with it a bit quicker, though still slowly and begrudgingly. I guess it’s easier to realize and accept something that’s not only internal but also external. He can physically see his attractions and what they can do to him. And to Dream, emotions are easier when they’re about other people. They’re easier to pick apart and settle with. It’s not even about him when he likes a boy; it’s about the boy.

But this? It’s all him. It’s not about someone else. It’s not something he can feasibly see. It’s invisible and killer.

Dream is laying silently in his bed again. Thinking so hard his walls could crumble. He thinks all of these things, and more, and more.

He decides he’ll put the sticky label on himself. He’ll dirty himself with shame just so he can force himself to get over it. He needs to normalize it on himself until it feels like a limb; something he can’t just flick away again.

He’ll let it drape over himself and his mind until it’s not so dreary anymore- until it’s normal. Until non-binary feels the same as boy or girl.

He wonders if it’s even possible.

He falls asleep feeling like he doesn’t even recognize himself anymore.

-

Dream’s gone about a week since then, and to be honest, he feels the exact same. Except now, he’s sure he’s non-binary. It’s been easier to think: I am non-binary. Or, non-gendered? Or… ambiguously gendered? Gender fluid? Gender queer? Gender flux, demi boy, androgynous?

Fuck.

Whatever, non-binary is fine. “Non-binary” is plastered on his imaginary “Hi My Name Is” sticker on his t-shirt.

Maybe he should be more than just “fine” with such a core piece of his identity.

He’s not going to push it.

He’s scrolling through twitter when he clicks on the account of a popular fan artist he enjoys.

As they always do, his eyes wander to the location on the account.

They/Them, he sees.

His heart skips beats whenever he sees those words.

Cool. It’s cool.

He checks out their recent art, their random shit-posts they make out of boredom, and he’s fully engrossed as he checks out their replies as well.

He stumbles on a conversation the artist was having with some mutuals.

lmfaoooooo why would you even say that - one reply says.

the subsequent reply - do they even realize they have a dream follow ... IMAGINE IF HE SAW THIS!!!! icb

He doesn’t blink at the content of the conversation. He saw the original tweet in question, and it was just something stupid- it doesn’t matter- but he sees the use of their pronouns in the replies and allows himself a new realization. One that makes him feel queasy again. Sick like a dog.

Afraid as all hell.

How does he expect himself to gain full confidence in his identity if he has no way to have it confirmed- if no one is confirming it?

These kids have the entire internet at their fingertips. They can explore every identity freely and without fear or restraint. They can make up new names and make up new pronouns and have fun and explore, and their friends validate them. Their friends who most likely explore in the same way. They have community within each other.

Dream doesn’t have that, and he can’t have that in the way they can.

It’s only entirely, devastatingly disappointing. No biggie.

And he knows he only has a few options.

And he knows the most evident option is to tell his friends.

And he knows what that could mean.

But it’s like he’s on this giant, tall, winding staircase. He’s only on the second or third step, and there’s so, so much ahead of him, and he’s got bricks on his feet. They’re weighing him down, and he can’t climb. The only way he can get up is if he takes a sledgehammer and pounds it into the blocks, and it’ll hurt like fucking hell, and it’ll be so scary, but at least once the bricks are off he can get to the top.

And this is kinda like that.

-

Sapnap is one of the bricks.

He’s sitting on the couch watching a football game leisurely with his legs propped up on their coffee table. His team isn’t playing. Dream is lurking in the doorway like a creep. He feels like when he passes the threshold it’ll be a “no turning back” situation, and he’ll be sucked into this weird, freakish coming-out moment, and everything he’s thought alone in his head for so long will just be out in the world, and it’s never been out in the world before, and he won’t be able to suck it back up through a straw or sop it up with paper towels. It’ll just float around in the air. And if it goes bad, it’ll suffocate the room, and he’ll keel over, and he’ll fucking die on the floor in his living room.

And dumbass Sapnap still hasn’t noticed he’s just standing in the doorway.

Dream realizes he has no plans on what to say the minute Sapnap’s eyes dart in his direction and he says, “Dude you freaked me out.”

“Sorry,” Dream replies.

“Are you gonna watch the game or just stand there like a stalker?”

Dream pushes himself out of his spot and literally drags his feet to the couch, and he sits beside Sapnap like a robot of some sorts. He’s too hyper aware of every sensation in his body to behave like a normal human.

It’s so obvious that something’s up that Sapnap almost looks baffled as he reaches for the remote to pause the TV.

“Dude... what is up with you right now?” Sapnap asks half-jokingly with a chuckle. Dream is looking straight forward. Sapnap wipes a hand past Dream’s eyes to mock him. “Hello? You android.”

Dream looks in his direction, and he’s literally shaking as they make eye contact.

Sapnap’s expression turns serious.

“Are you okay? You’re shaking like a leaf.”

He sounds genuinely worried. Dream feels like an idiot.

“Well,” he spits out through chattering teeth. “Well.”

They’re still looking at each other, and Dream feels like a wicked witch dissolving under his glare like it’s a bucket of water. He imagines himself melting and being soaked up by the cushions and the shag carpet beneath his feet. He’d be a nuisance to clean up. A green puddle of non-binary- Dream flavored sludge.

That feels preferable.

In all honesty, he has no confidence that he knows how Sapnap will react. He knows how the man behaves in everyday situations. His facial expressions and his mannerisms and his speech patterns are ingrained in Dream’s brain. Sapnap is a book that Dream has memorized back to front. He’s always felt like he could recite him.

But this?

It’s not a possible scenario Dream ever pictured. He doesn’t know which chapter of Sapnap’s manual this will fall into. He doesn’t know what response this will elicit from his friend, and it’s entirely frightening, and he’s entirely embarrassed, but Dream is also entirely curious.

Sapnap is still just looking at him all clueless. Dream is still so nervous he’s vibrating.

And he literally has no idea where to begin.

“Ok... so,” he forces out of his lungs. Sapnap gives a little head tilt of encouragement. “Do you ever look in front of the mirror and just- I dunno- analyze yourself? Like, the way you look?”

His friend’s head nods.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. A lot actually. I feel like most people do.”

Dream copycats a nod back to him.

“When you...” Dream gets stuck on his words for a second. “When you analyze the way you look, right? What do you see?”

“Uh,” Sapnap’s face twists into confusion. “I just see... a dude.”

Dream forces a smile.

Right.

“What do you see, Dream?”

The question is approached so blasé that Dream becomes aware of how little Sapnap knows about what’s going on.

And the question is almost impossible to answer.

“I see... Uh… I also just see a dude.”

It’s such a terrible response that Dream can practically hear the cogs turning in Sapnap’s head as he frantically searches for a follow up question to ask.

“I’m sorry, I’m a little confused?” Sapnap squints at him like he’s reading a transcript off of Dream’s forehead.

“What do you think when you look in the mirror and just see a dude?” Dream pushes for any response he can truly elaborate on.

“I don’t think anything... I don’t know. Is this a trick question?”

“I guess I mean- like... Are you happy with it?” He pushes harder.

Sapnap is quiet for a minute.

“I wouldn’t say I'm happy with it. I don’t think about it. I just see myself, and I don’t really question it; plus being a dude is like, the least interesting thing about me, so it’s a completely neutral thing, I suppose.”

He’s so Sapnap. He pops the P’s in “suppose” and says it all sing-song.

God, he’s got no clue.

Dream clears his throat. “I... feel negatively about it.”

“About.. seeing a dude?”

Dream’s eyes wander all around the room. The TV is paused on a closeup of one of the players’ jerseys. Number 57.

“Yeah.”

Sapnap leans forward and twists himself towards Dream more. He’s opening and closing his mouth but nothing comes out.

Dream doesn’t know what to do.

“Dream...” Sapnap says carefully. He scratches the back of his neck.

He’s uncomfortable.

A frantic, boiling feeling rises in Dream’s chest like he needs to explain everything before judgement is passed onto him. But he also just feels like leaving. He’s changed his mind about all of this.

“I don’t know, I don’t know. Never mind. It’s not important.” And he pushes himself up to get off the couch, but Sapnap grabs his wrist and pulls him back down.

It makes bile rise in his throat and his eyes burn.

“What’re you talking about, Dream? Tell me.” Sapnap’s eyes flicker all over his face like he’s checking and rechecking for any slight quiver or change.

Explain now.

“It doesn’t make sense. I don’t know how to make it make sense. I feel like my outsides are fine, and I’m not insecure, and I don’t want to look different? But I know what people see me as, and I don’t want to be seen as... that.”

“What? Like... you don’t want to be seen as a douchebag or something?”

Jesus.

“No! No. Not that.” He assures.

“So, what then?”

Why is this so hard?

“I don’t want people to see me and think... that’s a guy.”

Sapnap rolls his eyes up towards the ceiling to contemplate this sentiment. He glances to the side and then back at Dream.

His face is jumbled with questions.

“Okay. So like, what do you want people to see you as?”

And to this question, Dream knows a clear answer. And he’s still too afraid to just outright say it.

“Not a boy.”

Sapnap’s face morphs from confused to understanding, and his eyes widen slowly like he just realized something very important, and he breathes a big breath through his nose. He collects himself as fast as he can like he doesn’t want Dream to see him falter.

He smiles gently and puts a hand on Dream’s knee. Dream feels his lips shake a little bit.

“Alright. So you want people to.. see you as a girl, then?”

His voice is lined with honey and cherry blossom petals and sweet, teacher-like understanding. His smile seems nervous and confused, but genuine and caring.

Dream chokes on his spit and starts coughing.

“Fuck, Dream. What the fuck?” Sapnap yells as he pats his back. “Chill out.”

“Dude, no. I don’t want people to see me as a girl, Jesus.” Dream spits through what feels like death. His throat is raw and it cracks.

“You’re sitting here saying you look in the mirror and don’t like seeing a boy and that you don’t want other people seeing you as a boy. What other conclusion was I supposed to find, idiot?”

“I’m non-binary.”

Dream swallows a breath and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand like he didn’t mean to say it.

Sapnap’s hand stills on his back.

Dream doesn’t think he can even look at him.

“Okay,” he hears. “That’s... Okay.”

Okay.

He feels like he’s been beat up and hit by a car and then thrown out a window.

If Dream could stand, or move, he would. He feels frozen in ice. A chill runs through him.

“I can’t pretend like I fully understand or expected this or anything like that, but thank you, for telling me and stuff. I’m...” Sapnap is a little lost, he can tell. “I’m sorry, I don’t really know what to say.”

“It’s okay.”

Dream’s eyes are stuck somewhere random in the room, but he can’t make out exactly where because he hasn’t blinked in a while and everything is blurry and messy.

The hand is still on his back. He feels like an oppositely charged magnet, and he tries to push the hand off of him using brain power alone, but the hand stays on him, and it curls a little bit, and then it flattens again and moves up and down.

“I love you,” the younger one says. “And I’m really, really proud of you.”

Oh.

“I think I’m always going to be proud of you for everything you do.”

Okay.

Dream let’s his eyes flutter shut. It’s okay that salt drops down his cheeks when they do. He feels the ice around him melt, and he feels the cement on his feet get lighter, and he’s not floating outside of his body anymore. All of his fractured parts are gluing themselves back in place as he sits with his eyes shut and cries. And when warm arms wrap around him and squeeze him and pull him close, he feels put together in a way he hasn’t felt in way too long, and he doesn’t feel like an intruder in his own home anymore.

-

They talked about the semantics of it over the next couple days.

Sapnap asked him a lot of beat-around-the-bush questions at first, and then as the conversations became more frequent, the questions came more freely. The topic stopped feeling so unspeakable.

Dream found himself explaining everything.

He explained all the parts of it that made sense and all the parts of it that didn't, and he explained exactly how he felt through every moment of realization. And through all this explaining, Sapnap has begun to understand everything in more of a complex way than he ever has. His appreciation of the entire community has grown thrice its size.

And through talking about it out loud, it’s been a final nail in the coffin of his identity. The final push for him to feel, “oh, this is real.” It’s the confirmation that he exists as he is and that he isn’t a brand new version of himself.

He doesn’t feel like this piece of his identity is separate from him anymore.

And in all the conversation, and in all of his growing acceptance of himself, he wants to tell more people.

It feels like it’s been a pending nightmare. Something he’s seen in the distance, but it’s been far enough in his mind to let it slip away, and now he’s driving nearer to it being necessary.

Telling more people is necessary.

He imagines how they’ll all react.

He thinks Karl will be overly peppy about it, glad he's been trusted with this knowledge and excited that Dream’s identity has grown to fit him. Quackity will be a little confused but eventually supportive, probably choosing some lighthearted humor laced with kind spoken words to show his support, and Bad will comfort him with the warmth of a thousand suns.

He sees it clearly like it’s been pre-written. And though it feels a little fake and expected, well, he expects nothing else.

There’s a singular person who’s an enigma here.

While everything is complicated with George, this is way more than usual. He wishes George was more characteristic like Karl, like Quackity, like Bad. But George’s personality is not as overwhelmingly obvious as theirs. He’s hard to write, hard to read, hard to fully know.

George’s book has crossed out paragraphs and scribbles in the margins and sticky notes with dozens of unanswered questions.

Dream has never been able to predict him in the way he can predict the others. George is a game of chess where everyone else in his life is a game of checkers.

And though he’s known George for so long, he still feels he learns more about him daily, and this is going to be a big learning moment, and it’ll probably take up a whole new chapter in his mental novel.

Because George will have to know first and foremost. He’ll be told separately. And it’ll be made so much more heavy by all of the moments shared between them that they don’t talk about.

It’s not like Dream telling George he’s non-binary has anything to do with their feelings they have for each other, but it kind of entirely does. At least, that’s what Dream predicts.

It’s just that, well.

George is everything.

He’s so much to Dream’s life, and yet he’s lightyears away.

In every way, he’s out of grasp.

Dream feels like he’s holding onto him by a string, and he’s so scared of pulling; he doesn’t want it to snap. Because if George drifts away, he doesn’t know what he could ever do to forgive himself. Even if it wasn’t his fault, but this… this would be his fault.

He’s overly-conscious of the fact that everything they have is unsteadily balanced. And if Dream adds this weight to the mix, he knows it could tip it all the way, or maybe, somehow, it’ll evenly distribute and make things a little better. Or maybe it’ll miss the balance, and it won’t change a thing.

He has no idea.

He just can’t mess things up. He doesn’t want to shake the crow off the power line.

-

Dream is crying.

It’s a cry opposite to the one he let out to Sapnap- that one was relief. This one’s a cry of impossible nerves and pent up worry.

And also, Hey Ya by Outkast is playing from his phone, and he neither has the energy nor the desire to turn it off. It makes this a little funnier.

But a little funnier than extremely not funny is still very unfunny.

Who even knows anymore? Who knows why it matters, and who knows why it’s so scary? Who knows how tonight he feels like he’s taken a million steps backwards? Who knows why it sinks bone deep, mingling with marrow and rotting his soul.

It sounds so Billie Eilish. So Six Feet Under.

In a way Dream feels cursed, and all the early resentment he before felt slithers through his cranium again. All that pungent self-hatred and repulsion boils to the surface and scalds his skin; he’s burning from the inside out like God has declared him an evil being.

Does he feel dramatic for bawling and quietly begging for things to be different to a God he doesn’t believe in? Yes.

And also no.

Because whoever decided this would happen to him needs to know he’s suffering and that he should be spared.

He knows he’ll look back to these thoughts and find himself pathetic.

And it’s back to being funny because of course he would have this happen to him. Like, he’s already fucking hated for everything else; might as well add the fact that he’s multiple levels of queer.

He wishes it was only that shallow; only worried about public criticism and not everyone else. Specifically George, of course. Because really, in all this, George is the one he reconciled that he’d just never tell directly.

It seemed so impossible, you know?

Too embarrassing- George is far too good to know this really big, strange, ugly flaw.

It’s as if he’d be electing to do a Saw trap. So much unnecessary pain, and for what ending? Just to crawl out bloody but alive and mentally shattered.

It sounds dramatic, but it’s just that he’s whole-heartedly convinced the conversation will go awfully.

That George won’t get it, and he won’t know how to explain, and George will be backed into a corner and he’ll either fight or fly, and Dream worries more of the latter. Imagines telling him this thing and then being abandoned; left for good, and George won’t pick up his calls.

And then everything will fall apart because he pushed George out of his life because in telling him, he ruined their entire future.

That’s what stabs him deep and brutal.

George might not want him anymore.

And this playing they’ve been doing- this back and forth that’s been building up to something more; it’ll be fractured. George didn’t sign up to love someone like this. Not like that.

Dream’s head is pounding.

It’s worse than just losing a lover, though. Because that awkwardness and that failure will seep into their friendship, too, and that means Dream will be losing his person.

Now it’s so late, and at this point, he’s just torturing himself with these haunting fairytales he thought he’d grown past. The logical part of himself tries to push away the bristle and reassure him that it’s all bullshit. It’s just worry mixed with fear of change, Dream. It’s all worst case-scenario, Dream.

It would never happen, Dream.

This pity party needs to be cleaned up, so Dream makes his way to Sapnap’s room, and he forces his fist to make contact with the door, and he knocks gently.

“Come in!”

His sweaty palms turn the knob slowly to not make any loud noises, and he hurries himself into the room, leaving the door cracked open.

Sapnap is laying on his bed, head propped up on pillows and eyes focused on his phone. Dream sees the whiteness of the screen reflected on his friend’s skin in the dark; sometimes darkening as Sapnap scrolls.

And Dream doesn’t know exactly what he wants from Sapnap- I mean, he was kinda spiraling. He came for comfort. He stands on his heels and looks around the room.

“What do you need?” The auburn boy pipes up. He takes a second before glancing up at Dream’s figure.

He lets himself scan over Dream. Sickened Dream. Dream with watery eyes in the dark and a shake to his hands. Dream with his head angled to the wall.

Dream looking like a person who needs a hug.

Sapnap turns his phone off and throws it beside him on the bed and reaches his arms out. “Come.”

He practically leaps into him.

His head and his arms rest on Sapnap’s blanket-covered frame. He feels the man reach past him and pull a fluffy gray one over his body; if he had tears left to cry they’d be seeping into the comforter.

If only the world was them and no one else.

“What if George hates me?”

It’s a muffled fear; Sapnap hears it anyway.

Dream can feel him shake his head. “He couldn't hate you. Are you possessed?”

“I feel like that’s not true. I feel like I don’t know him.” Dream’s hands clasp Sapnap’s shirt like a child’s.

There’s a throaty hum from above. A hum of disagreement. Sapnap’s right hand rests itself in blonde hair.

“Nobody really knows George, but if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that he’s obsessed with you.” Dream’s spine shivers as Sapnap massages his scalp. “He’s your biggest fan. He thinks everything you do is genius. He thinks you hung the moon and the stars.”

Sapnap thinks for a long moment. Dream’s cheek feels his heartbeat.

“And you kinda did. At least, the ones he sees.”

-

Dream decides there’s never going to be a good time to tell George. It’ll just have to come and then go.

He remembers doing the ice bucket challenge when he was a kid, but he wasn’t holding the bucket over his own head then.

Now, though, he is.

He slaps himself in front of the mirror a few times, says a mantra of “be a man” before he decides that’s not quite the right thing to say, and he sits at his computer. The hand on his mouse is clenching hard. His cursor hovers over the ‘call’ button before he accidentally clicks it.

George picks up after the third ring, but it feels like the ninetieth.

What does he say? When does he say it? How does he build up to it? He didn’t think it through at all- just like with Sapnap. These spur of the moment outings are becoming a trend, he guesses.

Maybe next time he’ll write a script.

“Hey,” is what he decides on with forced nonchalance.

“Hi.”

Such a George-like response.

“How're you?”

George is clicking things on his computer as he asks, “What do you want, Dream?”

Oh, nothing. Just wanted to tell you I’m turning into a stan. All queer and obnoxious. Wanted to tell you that I’m a monster in shades of yellow, white, purple and black. A plagued, sick, and confused millennial who's fallen victim to social media propaganda.

“Hello…?” George draws. “What do you want?”

Dream is pulled from his own thoughts. “Huh?”

“You have the tone in your voice like you need something.”

Dream can sense his preoccupation with whatever he’s fiddling with on his computer; it might be chess or a thumbnail or just a vigorous conversation with someone else. He’s halfway glad that he doesn’t have George‘s full attention. He has more room to act imperfect.

“Oh. Yeah. I guess- well. I don’t know- it’s not really that I need something?” He considers it for a moment. He does need George’s acceptance and approval and maybe- if he’s lucky- his love. “Well, I kind of need something, but it’s... I don’t need a favor or anything. Or, whatever.”

“Uh, okay. Weird.” He snickers. “So what then?”

“I wanted to tell you something-”

“Oh.”

“-Nothing bad. Don’t worry.”

There’s a consistent noise on George’s end. A gentle hum; maybe from an AC or some other appliance. He can’t help but focus too much attention on it.

“Okay…” He draws out the ‘y’. So British. “Are you, like, alright?”

He looks down at his heaving chest and bouncing knee. Maybe the correct answer is no.

“Ehm, yeah… I’m alright.”

“So what is it?”

“It’s kinda complicated. It’s about…”

George hums impatiently.

“What do you think of…” He can’t believe he’s going to ask this. A racing brain wonders if it’s strange they’ve never broached this topic. “God, non-binary people?”

There’s a soul-wrenching pause before George replies. “What?”

“I know it’s a weird question,” he rushes, “sorry.”

“It’s just… random.”

George cannot be taking any longer to fucking spit out his words.

“Answer, then.”

“Ehm. I dunno… I guess I don’t think about that? Like ever?” His hesitance is apparent as he speaks. Walking gently on a lake in winter; trying not to break the surface. “I don’t have any outstanding opinions on it. Whatever you think is what I think, probably.”

Dream doesn’t like the interview answers. The type of answers George would say when in front of a crowd. They’re not true; at least, not completely.

“But if you were to actually think about it…” Dream urges. He wants to reassure him that he’s not under fire right now; he won’t be canceled for misspeaking here.

“I don’t really care what other people are.” George reasons calmly. “It doesn’t affect me in any way.”

The heartbeat beneath the younger man’s chest is pounding almost painfully. This does affect George. It will. In one way or another, George will have to deal with this burden in a way he hasn’t before.

Dream’s eyes flick to his door as Patches slowly pushes her way into Dream’s room, glides to his desk, and hops onto his lap.

His fingertips caress her ears and the space between her nose and forehead. She purrs and kneads his thigh. It’s a comfort sent from God; a sliver of peace.

“Would you date a non-binary person?”

George huffs through his nose; fire. “Dream, these questions are weird.”

Heat rises to his cheeks. It’s all humiliating. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Because of course George would find the questions weird. I mean, who wouldn’t? These questions usually come from awkward donos, and not best friends from across the phone. Dream doesn’t expect a clear response. He doesn’t think he did when he asked it.

“I would. I guess. It all depends. Like anything, as long as I have feelings for them, then why not?”

George answers.

Despite the strangeness and the thick tension, George answers.

And it’s a beautiful answer, quite frankly. It’s an answer that says I accept you, and I’ll still love you, and it wouldn’t change a thing, and we can still be whatever we want to be, regardless of who you are.

There’s no strenuous circumstances with Dream’s identity after all. The worry that stretched through him like a symbiote wasn’t necessary. It’s like he’s been exorcised from it.

It makes it so much easier for him to say what he needs to say, relief flooding over him, and a soft smile gracing his face as he speaks;

“I’m non-binary.”

“Oh.”

And the smile falters.

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

And the smile’s gone.

“Is that a bad ‘oh’?”

“No. No, no. No. It’s not. It’s…” he’s scrambling for a word that won’t hurt him, Dream feels it. “A surprised ‘oh.’”

“That’s okay,” he reasons. Because it is okay. It doesn’t mean he’s not shitting bricks, though.

“Can I… sit for a second.”

It’s a lot to take in, and the guilt of his confession sinks in. He knows how much it is to ask of George to be wholly understanding and to be wholly loving.

“I’m-“ Sorry. I’m sorry. “Yes.”

So they sit. They sit together quietly for maybe a minute, and within that minute every fear Dream had comes stampeding back, crushing every hope and every exasperated ounce of glee he made up.

It’s never the response you want. You never want silence. You never want a delayed answer or comment. Somehow, he thinks he’d prefer immediate distaste. At least then he wouldn’t be left hanging, wondering what the conclusion will be. He’ll know that second, and it’ll be several seconds more in his life that he’ll have to get over George.

The more they wait the less time Dream has to recover.

“So, what does that make me?” George finally asks, breaking the glaze over Dream’s self-pitying daydreams.

Dream comes crashing down to earth. “Huh?”

“Like, if you’re non-binary, and I...” He trails off. “What does that make me?”

“Oh,” that little smile slips back onto Dream’s face. He absolutely didn’t expect that. “Whatever you want.”

What he really wants to say is ‘my fucking husband’ because God knows that’s the best thing he’s heard in weeks, and he almost doesn’t know what to do with his body.

Georges chuckles. The kind of noise before a silly joke.

“I’m- I’m just Dreamsexual.”

And now he’s cackling through the phone with his George cackle.

Dream’s mouth is agape with surprise, and he’s trying to keep his own laugh quiet.

“What’s actually wrong with you, George?”

“Oooh, Dreamsexual,” George says, like an annoying child.

It makes Dream’s heart rate slow. He’s smiling so wide, he’s catching flies.

His lungs exhaust a wheezy laugh.

And then he can’t stop himself, and he just laughs, and George is still laughing, too, and it’s possibly the most wonderful thing happening on the planet in that minute.

“I’m gonna hang up on you, George. I’m serious.”

“Ok, ok. I’m stopping. I’m stopping. I’ve stopped.”

They catch their breaths for a few seconds, and it gives Dream’s mind the space to realize how idiotic he was, and he wonders how mentally ill he is for seeing this going any other way than this way.

He had been tormenting himself for weeks, and for what?

“I was so scared to tell you,” he admits in between George’s continuous heaves of air.

George tries harder to steady his breath.

“Why?” He responds like he’s shocked.

The grin on Dream’s lips refuses to go away. His cheeks burn. He knows it's audible in his words.

“I- I don’t know. I didn’t want it to freak you out or whatever… I didn’t see it going terribly,” he lies. “I just didn’t know how it would go.” His shoulders release tension, and he wraps his arms around himself. “And that was scary.”

George hums in acknowledgment. He thinks on it for a minute.

“You’re still Dream. It doesn’t change anything at all, honestly.”

Dream hums back like it didn’t shoot flurries of goosebumps up his spine to hear that.

“And um, your pronouns? And name? Is there anything new there?”

When Dream asked himself those questions, it was frantic and angry. It was disappointed.

And when Sapnap asked those questions, it was slow and gentle like Dream was a fragile object.

But George asks it like it’s any other old question. Like “how’s the weather?” or “what’re you doing today?”

It allows the thin veil of fear still left to finally dissolve.

“Nothing new with the name,” he answers cautiously, “but I’d like to try they/them pronouns. Still he/him as well, but just interchangeably, I guess. Maybe he/him more for now. Just while it’s new.”

He can feel a nod through the call.

“And who else knows? Just so I can be more careful.”

Dream is still adapting to him knowing this information. It’s weird.

His secret has traveled oceans.

“Oh, just Sapnap, but you don’t have to worry about being careful or anything because I’m gonna go ahead and tell the other boys tomorrow, I think.”

“So I’m the second to know? A little insulted that I wasn’t first, to be clear.” He says sarcastically, but he’s also being 100% serious, too. Because of course he’d be jealous of such a thing.

“First is the worst, second is the best.”

They sit for a moment.

“How’re you gonna tell the others?”

Dream doesn’t know, honestly. Just like the past two times; he knows nothing.

Though, with Sapnap and George it felt like it had to be more serious and long winded. It felt like it needed to be a genuine, intimate moment. A sit down conversation; almost existential.

But with the rest of them, well, Dream isn’t worried about that.

It’s not because he doesn’t value them as much, but there’s a difference in the bond. They’re close enough to love him wholly, but distant enough to have no real room to pick apart his life and choices unless they’re asked. It’s a less confusing, less strings-attached type friendship, and it’s just as treasured as his relationships with Sapnap and George.

“I think... I’ll just bring it up on call before the stream tomorrow? Or something? Is that weird?”

“No, I mean, a little?” George’s voice pitches. “Actually, no. I think that’s fine.”

“Ok.. ok. And you and Sapnap will be there too, so it’s not that big of a deal.” Dream says it like he needs reassurance.

“Yeah, obviously,” the reassurance comes quickly.

George thinks for a second and giggles.

“You know what’d be so funny?”

Dream rolls his eyes, expecting something unfunny. “What, George?”

“If you just said it on stream,” he suggests.

“What is wrong with you?” Dream is laughing again. It’s high and sparkly.

George is spinning something small and metal.

“No, seriously. Just say it out of nowhere like it’s no biggie.”

“You’re a freak. I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” He whines defiantly.

Why not?

I mean, he knew he wanted to tell his audience eventually, but not this eventually.

And this was a big deal, right? Telling that many people…

But it also feels like- what else would he do if not just blurt it out? Write a pastebin on his gender? He kinda just figured that’s what he’d do. I mean, it didn’t even occur to him that he could just say it like it doesn't matter, and didn't matter, and will never matter. And then maybe- maybe he could save the emotional, long, in depth explanation for later, for when he can put it into words for millions in a better way.

He could take this coming-out seriously because he is a person who likes big things, and he likes serious things, and he likes being open and true. But he also likes keeping things lighthearted, and he likes sweeping negativity away, and he likes being funny, and he knows it would be incredibly funny if he just came out. Out of nowhere.

“You don’t think the boys would feel a little- like... betrayed? That I didn’t tell them before just spewing it on stream?” His response eventually comes. “I don’t want them to think they don’t matter enough to tell them privately.”

George sighs and fiddles around on the other side of the line. Hands finding themselves playing with another random fidget on his desk.

Dream wants to know how he looks right now.

“Probably not. They won’t care. They’ll think it’s funny, probably.” George remarks through a thick yawn. “They won’t take it that seriously. You’re overthinking it.”

“You’re starting to make me consider it.”

George laughs again like a field of flowers.

“Really?”

“Really...” Dream resounds.

Dream spins around in his chair with one hand in his hair. He looks at the ceiling twirl and wonders how it could all play out.

He thinks about if he’s even ready to do that, and he thinks about what the chat would look like after, and what the boys would say, and people live tweeting on twitter, and the trending page. And he thinks about what others would say, and how a lot of them would probably hate him more, and how a lot of them would probably... love him for it.

He thinks about other content creators hearing about it- friends and strangers and enemies alike. He wonders if some of the ones closer to him will feel betrayed for not knowing first (the same worry he has with the boys), and he wonders if the ones who dislike him will be afraid to speak down on him as time goes on. He thinks about the amount of backhanded jokes that will be passed towards him from people he never expected them from, and he thinks about how people will bring it up to him in weird times and places.

And the worry that cloaks him the most is what his family will say when they hear.

He doesn’t even want to think about it; it hurts.

“You know... You can take your time,” George acknowledges quietly. “I want you to take your time. Because you shouldn’t feel any... pressure, or whatever, to say anything now, or ever if that’s what works. It’s a big deal if you want it to be, and whatever you choose we’ll all support.”

He shifts again in his chair before continuing.

“But I’d like to think I know you pretty well, and I don’t think you want to sit on this for too long. So, I guess, in my opinion, it’s a bandaid rip-off moment. And when you get it over with, you can stop worrying as much as I know you’ve been worrying, and you can be open about it like I know you probably need to be. Because that’s just who you are.”

-

The call simmers to an end a bit later.

Dream sits on everything they talked about for the rest of the day; the shadows of his anxieties creep a little bit, but the comfort of George’s support makes his nerves simmer on low.

Dream has slowly realized through these conversations that his entire world won’t change because of this. His community and his support systems are so strong, so accepting, and so empathetic, and he would never be exiled out of everything he’s built just because of his identity. His career is not going to dissipate. His friends won’t turn their backs on him. His fans will celebrate him as they usually do (and probably, impossibly more).

And everything will be okay.

And if everything will be okay, and if it doesn’t matter in the huge way he thought it did, he can just say it. Rip the band-aid off.

-

“You actually fucking suck, George-”

“Language!”

“-You suck so bad, I’m actually embarrassed for you!” Quackity yells out as George falls into a void.

“Shut up, you’re literally the worst bedwars player on Earth. I want to change teams. Can we change teams? I want to be on Dream’s team.”

Dream scoffs. They’re about 4 rounds into playing bedwars; Dream, Karl, and Sapnap on one team, and George, Bad, and Quackity are on the other. Dream will admit there’s a slight imbalance in the skill levels.

Dream’s building a tower of green wool to where Quackity is slow-bridging over to their base. Karl is dead- not reviving after George had broken their bed- and Sapnap is off stealing from another base's resources.

“I’m about to make a pro-gamer move. Are you spectating me, George?” Quackity asks as Dream edges closer to where he’s building.

“I’m watching,” he responds, voice laced with fake exhaustion and annoyance. He has zero faith Quackity will pull off anything spectacular. I mean, he’s up against Dream in mid-air pvp.

Dream is silent. He usually is when he’s focused.

Slowly, the green of Dream’s wool converges with Quackity’s blue, and Dream quickly switches to his stone sword.

It takes a millisecond, and he’s still a few blocks away from where the other player is, but somehow, call it the luck of the inexperienced, Quackity jumps forward and hits Dream off where he stands.

Despite the unfavorable odds, blue team wins.

George erupts into laughter, Quackity screams pitched “yes’s,” and Dream yells in objection.

“What the hell?!” Dream exclaims as he falls out of the world. “That was rigged. How’d you even get over that quick?”

“No one can ever talk shit about my skills again. I don’t wanna hear it, George.”

Bubbly, surprised laughter fills the call from players of both teams.

Dream quietly contemplates before speaking again.

“I can’t believe you did that. You’re… you’re like non-binary-phobic!”

There it is.

A little bit cringe, but whatever works.

The noise comes to a searing stop.

Anxiety rushes into Dream’s stomach as he continues to awkwardly laugh in the call. His eyes glance to where his chat lives, but their reactions haven’t caught up yet, and after a short second, the rings around the boy’s Discord pictures light up again.

They laugh, hard.

“Did you just call me non-binary-phobic for hitting you off?” Quackity is howling into his mic. “You’re so weird!”

They all think it was a strange joke. Dream is finding this to be very, very entertaining. Almost as much as it is stressful.

George is laughing the hardest, all cackly and knowing, and Sapnap, though Dream told him of his conversation with George, shouts “Dream!” in shock and amusement. Bad giggles, Karl is pretty silent, and Quackity is begging for an explanation.

“No, what does that even mean, oh my god! Does anyone know what that means? Chat… This guy…” His confusion makes waves of snickers pour out of the other two members of the Dream Team.

Karl is still… silent.

And as the others yell and argue in confusion over Dream’s declaration, a message pops up on Dream’s phone.

Karl’s message reads;

hey, did you mean to say that? if not, im sure we can find some way to explain it away without ya know.. explaining. lol i hope i read that moment right bc if not this is awkward lol anyways , love u so much :)

Dream clicks on the message and sees the typing bubbles appear.

also do u want me to tell them to move on cuz they’re still talking abt it? i don’t think they get it ahha

Oh, Karl.

It’s no surprise, but Dream could cry, probably.

Is there any way to accept such clear, understanding kindness and love? Is there any response that fully encapsulates the appreciation towards him that Dream feels right now? Not really.

He’s just gotta remember to give him the biggest hug when they meet.

it’s ok ! i meant to say it. don’t worry. and yeah u read it right, i love you too. <3

He turns his phone off and flips it face down to go back to this. Because he kinda has to elaborate now, and they’re all still jabbering about it, and his chat is not only exploding, but they’re starting to get concerned with his few seconds of silence.

“Can you guys shut up? It wasn’t that funny.” He speaks up lightly.

Quackity scoffs in defiance. “Okay Mr. You’re-non-binary-phobic. Literally what does that even mean?”

“It means you killing me was very phobic, obviously.”

Sapnap oo’s like a classmate just got called to the principal’s office.

“I don’t get it,” Bad pipes.

“Me neither, BadBoyHalo. I would never target those people.”

“Well, you just did, so obviously you would.” Dream persists, hoping it’ll click all the information in place for the remaining two who don’t understand.

And all the people in chat who didn’t understand, well, they do now.

And Karl stays quiet alongside George and Sapnap, and Quackity hushes too; only the remnants of Quackity’s boisterous laugh remain audible. It’s a quiet huff of a giggle as the realization settles.

Dream’s nervous again.

“Wait… What?” Quackity nearly whispers. “Really?”

The call hears Bad yelp as he finally dies in their game. “Oh, muffin.”

Dream focuses on walking around in the lobby of the bedwars server, trying to find something to hop on. He responds to Quackity with an “mhm.”

Bad’s minecraft character is squatting up and down for screenshots with various people after he respawns. “What’s happening?”

Dream hears Sapnap slap his hands on his desk, and it encourages an orchestra of bright laughs from everyone except Bad.

“What?” Bad yells through their hollers. “You guys!”

“Dude…” Karl sighs through his chuckles.

“I’m non-binary, idiot.”

So that’s how the band-aid comes off.

And when it does, there’s no trace of a scar.