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Beneath the shrill howl of October wind and his best friend’s gaze, Dream knows three things for sure.
He likes George a lot more than he should, they’re walking to the movies, and he’s too afraid to ask if this is a date.
He’s been going over this makeshift list in his head in an attempt to keep himself from doing something weird, like grabbing George’s hand or offering him his letterman jacket. Or, God forbid, grabbing him by the sides of his face and kissing him right on the mouth.
Because those are date things, and he doesn’t know if this is a date.
They pass by their town’s small bookshop, an indication that they’re barely a block away from the movie theater. There are Halloween decorations hanging from the awning and stuck into the window— nothing but cheap ghosts billowing in the wind and peeling old stickers, but George grabs his arm and points anyway.
He doesn’t think he’ll ever get over the way he loves his big excitement over small things.
He can see the theater, lit up under the night sky, old horror movies listed out in big letters that he can just barely make out from down the street as George shivers beside him.
He glances over at him. “Are you cold?”
Silently, he curses the nervous tremble in his voice.
George makes an odd face at him, but shoves his hands in his pockets and shakes his head. “I’m fine, just wish I brought a jacket.”
“Oh,” is all Dream replies, as they reach the ticket booth and he digs around his pockets for the money he’d hurriedly shoved into one of them before leaving his dorm earlier.
Belatedly, he realizes he should’ve offered him his jacket.
He realizes it was probably an invitation for him to offer up his jacket.
Heat pools in his cheeks, and he ducks his head, praying George can’t see the blush that’s found its way onto his face.
He’s sure he does anyway, but if he looks hard enough, he can almost convince himself there’s a light flush settled over his cheeks, too.
Before he can think too far into it, George steps closer into his side. “Move, let me pay for my ticket,” he says, already pulling his own wallet from his back pocket, “idiot.”
Scoffing, Dream finally pulls out the twenty from his jacket pocket and pushes it over the counter with a roll of his eyes.
He wonders if it’s too late to give him his jacket.
He wonders if he even wanted it in the first place.
He wonders if this is a lot of time to spend just thinking about a jacket.
Clearing his throat after a few more silent moments than socially acceptable pass, he accepts the movie tickets with a smile and bumps George’s hip gently to get him moving toward the entrance. “Why would I make you buy your own ticket, you’re the idiot.”
“I’m the idiot?” George turns to walk backward, facing Dream as he pushes open the door to the theater. “You’re the one acting weird.”
When Dream falters, he takes it as a chance to dart forward and tuck the twenty he’d pulled from his own wallet earlier into Dream’s pocket. Dream stumbles, and steadies himself with a hand on George’s shoulder before he can trip over himself and bump into him.
“I’m not acting weird,” he mumbles. He takes the twenty out and offers it back to George. “I wanted to pay for yours, keep your money.”
George pushes his hand back with a challenging look. “No.”
Dream takes a step closer. The hand George still had on his jacket tightens. “I’d be a bad friend if I made you pay for your own ticket.”
George frowns minutely, but it’s gone before he can process it. He takes a step back and shrugs. “I’ll pay for your popcorn, then.”
“No, I want to—” Dream starts, but he’s already turned around and made it halfway to the concession stand. Dream follows after him with a resigned sigh.
When he catches up, George is already talking to a tired looking employee with a smile. “Just a large popcorn, please.”
“Two,” Dream corrects. George gives him a swift kick to the ankle. Dream whips his head around to shoot him a bewildered look, but still says, “Nevermind.”
The person working the counter shoots him a knowing look. He wishes he knew what he knows.
George takes the bag of popcorn with a quick thank you, and ignores Dream’s questioning look in favor of rolling his eyes and grabbing his wrist to pull him into their theater.
They find their seats and the previews are already playing, and Dream feels a little bit bad because he knows George loves the previews, for whatever reason.
As soon as they sit down, he feels George lean closer to his ear to whisper, “I feel like now is a really bad time to tell you that I hate horror movies.”
“You—” Dream frowns at him, lowering his voice into a whisper, too. “Why would you say yes to seeing one with me, then?”
George shrugs and turns back to the screen, looking a little sheepish as he slouches in his seat and pulls his legs closer to himself. “You sounded like you really wanted to see it, I didn’t want to say no.”
He didn’t really want to see it. He just jumped at the chance to go on a kind-of-maybe date with George.
Shit, though, that’s kind of sweet.
“Well, George, they’re playing other movies, do you want to leave? If you get scared—”
George cuts him off with a shake of his head, tucking his knees under his chin. “Is it cold in here? I think I run cold.”
For the third time in an hour, Dream is left staring at a shivering George, and a few seconds pass before George drops his forehead onto his knees with a sigh.
“Okay, do you want my jacket?” Dream says, before he can convince himself not to.
He thinks he sees a sliver of a grin on George’s face.
“Wow, you? Offering me your letterman jacket?” He lifts his head to tilt his chin up at him, now. “I couldn’t accept that.”
Contrary to his words, he’s already holding out an open hand, and Dream has to bite back a fond smile.
He shrugs it off, bunching it up before handing it over. He looks back toward the screen, where the movie is finally starting, as George leans forward in his seat to pull his arms through the sleeves.
“You’re an idiot,” he whispers, and happens to sneak a glance just as he’s settling back into his chair, swamped in heavy fabric and looking content.
Suddenly, he wants to kiss that idiot.
He doesn’t. Because that would be stupid, and wildly out of line, and would probably end in him getting a large bucket of buttered popcorn dumped over his head.
Instead, he busies himself with the movie in front of them, though he’ll be the first to admit he doesn’t pay much attention to it. Every time he manages to fall into an suspenseful scene or an important moment in the plot, he’s pulled back out by the brush of George’s skin against his own.
At first, it feels accidental, like the bump of their hands above the popcorn bag nestled between them, but it becomes constant.
Casually, George rests a hand on his knee, flexing his fingers and fidgeting with a loose string on his sweats when he grows bored. He moves it up to his thigh for the briefest second, but Dream barely has time to panic over it before the hand flies from his thigh to grip his arm.
He vaguely registers the jumpscare on screen— he realizes as George buries his face in his shoulder that the cheap gore must be the part he hates, with every cringe and squeeze of his eyes at the sight of fake blood.
Dream turns to bump his nose into the messed-up hair on George’s head. If he swoons at the way he softens into his side with a low breath, that’s no one’s business but his own.
Quietly, he murmurs, “You’re so stupid. It’s not even scary yet.”
“Yet?” George scoffs, muffled by the fabric of his shirt. “I hate you.”
“You don’t.”
George jolts at the sudden scream that pierces through the theater speakers, and instinctively, Dream snickers before pressing a kiss into his hair.
He immediately regrets it, because holy shit, that was not a friend thing to do.
That wasn’t even a date thing to do. It was just disgustingly fond and a very much in-love thing to do.
He goes to pull away, but George mumbles out a muffled thanks, and it calms the sudden nerves bubbling deep in his stomach.
He squeezes a little tighter, and tentatively, Dream brings a hand up to rest on the back of his head.
He leaves another kiss on the side of his head.
Then he brushes a tuft of hair off his cheek, marvelling at the flutter of his eyes against his shoulder, and leaves a kiss there.
“What are you doing?” George murmurs.
Dream shushes him, gesturing lightly to the people around them, then leans down just enough to talk right into his ear. “Distracting you.”
George jumps at another loud sound, and he smiles into Dream’s shirt. “It’s not working.”
And God, he would do anything to feel that smile again, so he takes a calculated risk that’s not actually very calculated.
He lets the hand on the back of his head slip down to rest on his cheek. Taking his face in his hands, he tilts his head up and, with a deep breath, says, “I know something that’ll work.”
George’s eyes widen minutely. “Do you?”
“Maybe.” He brushes his lips over the tip of his nose, then pulls back just enough to meet his eyes again. “Tell me if this isn’t okay?”
He waits for a few seconds, unmoving. He waits for George to make the first move, or to tell him to stop, or to get up and leave him behind in the dark theater and never talk to him again.
He doesn’t do any of those things.
So, Dream kisses him.
George lets out a quiet gasp and his hands find purchase in the fabric of Dream’s shirt, and then he’s kissing him back.
It’s unsure, and a little bit awkward, and it’s more of a soft press together than a proper kiss, but he’s kissing George and he can’t bring himself to think about much else.
He feels lightheaded when George presses harder, pulling on his shirt and taking his bottom lip gently between his teeth.
The armrest between their seats jabs uncomfortably into Dream’s stomach, and vaguely, he worries about the people around them, but he figures they’re probably more focused on the movie than two random college students in the back row, so he shrugs it off and lets George drag out his bottom lip with the lightest scrape of his teeth.
His head spins.
He swipes his tongue along the place where their lips connect. George pulls away, and Dream chases after for a second before he realizes, and knocks their foreheads together instead.
George lets out a soft laugh. “The movie’s over.”
Dream blinks open his eyes. “Is it?”
Silently, he gestures to the end credits that are, in fact, rolling on the screen, and people are getting up to leave.
“We should probably leave,” he says, but makes no move to get up.
“We should,” Dream nods. He doesn’t move either.
He lets another second pass before reluctantly letting his hands fall from his face. He grabs their nearly still-full bag of popcorn and stands up, turning to wait for George to follow after.
George slips his hand into Dream’s, tucking them both into his pocket as they venture back out into chilly air, and he realizes with a start that he’s still wearing his letterman.
It looks good on him, better than on himself, and he finds himself secretly hoping he forgets to give it back.
“So,” he says, drawing out the o. He’s stalling. He just has to suck it up and ask.
“So?” George repeats, and he can hear the smile curving around his words.
“Was this a date?”
George stops in his tracks, leaving Dream to stumble to a stop with him. “Oh, my—”
He spins on his heel, tucking his free hand under Dream’s jaw and pushing himself up onto his tiptoes.
He presses a kiss to Dream’s lips, softer than he’s been all night, and when he pulls away, he drapes his arms around his waist.
Dream is sure he's grinning like an idiot. “So this was a date?”
“You’re the one who asked me out, you decide,” George says, teasing glint in his eyes.
“You’re the one who said yes.”
“Because I thought it was a date.”
“It is.”
George’s smile widens as he squeezes his hips. “Come back to my dorm with me?”
“Your dorm?” Dream raises an eyebrow. “That’s a bit fast, isn’t it?”
“Fine, then don’t,” George says, rolling his eyes. “Freak.”
“No, no, I will. I want to.”
George pulls his arms away and crosses them over his chest. “I hate you.”
“Shame.” Dream shrugs, feigning disinterest as he starts walking past him. “I like you.”
George doesn’t say anything, but hurries to fall into stride beside him and bumps him with his hip so hard his steps falter.
Dream knows it’s a silent I like you too.