Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dream was lying on Sapnap’s dingy bed when he flung his hand over head, squinting at the gaps between his fingers. He flexed them once, twice, watching the way Sap’s cheap lamplight only coloured half his thumb and forefinger. Wheezing springs dug into his back, the bed sheets smelled of Karl’s candles, and Dream couldn't stop bouncing his leg, even when Sapnap, sitting cross legged beside him, patted his knee, eyes never leaving the laptop balanced on his lap. 

“I think I’m gonna paint my nails,” Dream said, resenting his teeth for ripping his cuticles and ruining his hands. 

Sapnap furrowed his brows, face half drowned in his palm. It was something he did when he was focused, forefinger curling over his upper lip as he poured over whatever he was reading. He pulled away to consider Dream though, black cap falling over his forehead when he shook his head. “Dude, why?” 

“Halloween is next week,” Dream answered easily, dropping his hand and rolling onto his side. Sapnap and Karl were hosting a party for it, although Dream suspected it would mostly consist of Karl’s friends and some cheap beer. He knocked his elbow into Sapnap’s thigh at the thought, snickering when he tried to kick him away. “Think Karl will lend me his or will I have to waste five bucks at the drugstore instead?” 

“He’d paint them for you if you asked. Trust me, he’ll never get over it.”

Dream grinned, imagining Karl’s face lighting up as he tried to shove the pencil case he used for his makeup into Dream’s waiting hands. It was true, he wouldn’t even need to ask. 

The heater whirred in its corner, the cord wrapped in black tape. A quick fix until they bought a new one. Dream had already bugged Sapnap about it, raising an eyebrow at its exposed wires and miserable state. He’d had the damn thing since he moved out of his parent’s place — some hand me down junk Dream imagined him picking up from the local garage sale on their street. Sapnap would keep it until it gasped its last fucking breath, and even then he would convince Karl they could still save it somehow, taking his hand and kissing his knuckles, caught somewhere between sentiment and procrastination. 

It would be harder to convince Quackity, and Dream wasn’t planning on sticking around for when he got home from his lecture. He chuckled at the thought, finally dropping his hands to his stomach as he let the damp warmth settle over him. He slipped his eyes shut, Sapnap’s typing mixing with the drizzling rain outside. Barely perceptible but shaking the walls all the same. 

Dream’s leg kept bouncing. 

“Didn’t your sister paint your nails once?” Sapnap said, and Dream opened his eyes to watch him close his laptop, placing it on his bedside table before lying down on his side too, elbow digging into his pillow as he scratched his nose. 

Dream shrugged. “Only once.” 

“See, that’s what I mean. This seems so random.”

It wasn’t random. 

Dream never cared too much for Halloween, never going all out like Karl and George did. He remembered the two of them last year, black capes drooling from their shoulders as they fitted fake teeth over their gums and painted their lips with red paint, Karl knocking on Dream’s door and pushing into his dorm to pull George into the bathroom, hands wet with gel as he helped him fix his hair. 

He had such dark hair. Almost black, even under dusty, amber light. And if Dream focused he could still hear George’s hiccuping giggles, easily pulled from him with Karl hovering over his head. And he could still see George’s hands stretched over his thighs, then tapping the sink, then finally settling near his stomach, his fingers knotted together because it didn’t matter where he was or what he was doing, he always ended up holding his own hands.

George’s eyes, George’s nose, George’s teeth, George’s mouth. 

George. 

Dream couldn’t stop the smile spreading across his face. Too quick to stop, too much to squeeze a cap on it. 

“Maybe I just wanna try something new, I dunno.”

Sapnap seemed to consider that for a moment, hand returning to his face as he watched Dream’s smile lull into something a little more subdued. With a roll of his eyes he swatted Dream’s face with his cap and grinned. “Whatever.”

The front door opened somewhere down the hall, and Dream could hear the storm more clearly, drumming thunder and howling winds peeking through the gap. An umbrella was tossed, feet scraped against the frayed doormat, and Dream listened as sharp, wet steps smacked the floor, all before Karl threw himself into the room. He was soaked, checkered shirt unbuttoned and rolled up to his elbows, a white shirt sticking to his chest underneath. He hadn’t bothered to take off his boots. 

His hand was still latched to the doorknob, his breathing laboured. He blinked. “Hey, guys.” 

Sapnap broke out into peals of laughter, tossing a discarded blanket at Karl’s face. It was an ugly combination of red and orange, something Sapnap had knitted last Christmas. Quackity told him it was a pile of dog shit, Karl refused to get rid of it, and Dream remembered him and George squeezed next to each other on the floor, trying hard not to laugh. 

Karl stumbled to catch it, throwing it over his shoulders and dramatically leaning against the doorframe. “Holy shit, you don't wanna go outside. It’s fucking freezing.” 

“Language,” Dream mocked in the same moment Karl sprinted to the bed, stomach hitting the mattress as his limbs tangled the three of them together. Sapnap stuck his fingers into his hair as Dream gasped, kicking Karl over to his boyfriend with exaggerated gags.

“You realise if you break the bed Quackity isn’t going to share his,” Dream said, sitting up and poking Karl’s back. His shirt was creased, knitted blanket hanging from his waist, half caught between his knees. “And he won’t pay for it either.”

Sapnap flipped him off over Karl’s shoulder, face drowned in his chest. “This isn’t what’s gonna break the bed, baby.”

“What is wrong with you?” Dream laughed, taking Sapnap’s cap and fitting it onto his head, wheezing as he struggled to grab it back. “You better be washing your sheets, I swear to fucking god. I’ve been sitting here so long my ass is printed into the pillows.”

“Hey, that’s my side of the bed,” Karl whined, twisting around to gaze mournfully at the stack Dream had slowly accumulated over the last four hours. Pillows, cushions, lost socks. Claimed. 

Dream leaned back on his hands, palms burrowed in an array of bright colours and coffee stained sheets. “Sucks to suck.”

They fell into an easy quiet after that, the air melting as the heater clicked and clicked. Karl was swinging his legs softly, swimming in tight jeans as his feet dangled off the edge of the bed. Still dripping. Sapnap’s hand was on the small of his back, despite the shivers and sticky dampness, and Dream watched them, cheek pressed to the knobbed hills of his knees. There was something calming about seeing them together, like an old polaroid kept folded in his back pocket. Maybe it was because they’d been together for so long. 

“Which one of you idiots left the front door open?”

Dream turned to see Quackity looking over them, puffer jacket zipped up to his throat. He crossed his arms, backpack hanging loosely from one shoulder. Ratty and old. He was wearing glasses today, Dream noted, silver frames sharply outlining the brown of his eyes, like solar eclipses. 

Karl raised his hand shakily. 

Quackity’s expression blanked. 

“Listen--” 

And then his face split into a grin, wild hoots of laughter filling his stomach. “You looked so fucking scared, what the hell man?” he pressed his thumb and forefinger between his eyes, the L-shape crooked against the sharp jut of his glasses. 

Karl groaned, head dropping back into Sapnap’s chest. “You’re the worst.” 

“And you just got trolled.” 

“Cringe.”

Quackity gasped, hand leaving the nook of his elbow to press against his chest. “That’s so fucked up.”

Dream waved his arm, gesturing to the end of the bed. “C’mere loser. We’re hanging out.”

Quackity shuffled across the room, glaring at the pocket of space between Dream’s feet and the edge of the mattress. “I’m not gonna fit.”

“His ass is too fat!” Sapnap jeered, voice muffled but still loud enough to send Quackity into another cackling fit. 

Dream scoffed. “It’s nothing compared to George’s.”

“Why’re you staring at George’s ass?” 

“Why do you wanna know?”

“Where is George anyway?” Quackity interrupted, finally squeezing himself onto the bed, backpack nestled on his lap as he fitted his legs between Dream’s calves. “You came alone today, Dream?”

Dream hummed, pointing his chin to the ceiling. It was still dark in the room, refracted light shaking old paint streaks and dusty corners. Like flames sparked by oil. Like sitting in the library after hours. Dream sighed. “Yeah, I left him in our dorm. Wanted to finish writing his paper or something.”

Quackity tapped his leg. Dream let him. “And you?”

“Here to bug Sapnap.”

“Get fucked,” Quackity grinned, but when he turned to Sapnap his face fell, eyes narrowing on the heater. Ticking, ticking. Black tape he hadn’t noticed before. Wheezing. Breaking. Dying. 

Quackity clicked his tongue. “Sap, you know I love you, right?” 

Dream was stuck between wanting to laugh in Sapnap’s face and wanting to sit back and watch. 

Sapnap leaned his head back, hair flying from his forehead as he stared at the heater. Grunting, grunting. Upside-down. Little red button burning in the darkness. “Promise you won’t get mad,” he said quickly. 

Quackity threw his hands into the air. “I told you to get rid of it! If you set the apartment on fire, I swear--”

“You sound like your mother,” Karl chirped, unfazed. 

“And I slept with your mother, so,” Quackity retorted, unable to fight back a smug smile.

Karl stuck his tongue out at him, climbing off of Sapnap to shuffle towards the heater, unplugging it with a sharp flick of his wrist. “Say your goodbyes, boys. I think she’s done for.”

Sapnap saluted it from where he was lying, fingers pressed firmly together as Quackity rolled his eyes, stealing Karl’s blanket and throwing it over his and Dream’s legs. 

Dream only nodded solemnly, his phone buzzing in his pocket.

He fished it out, sliding the screen between his ear and shoulder. “Hello?” 

“Dream?” George answered. “Are you coming home soon? I don’t wanna eat dinner alone.” 

Dream knew his face was colouring, grin returning with a vengeance as he readjusted his phone, trying to press impossibly closer to the microphone. George’s voice swirled and wrapped around his brain, light enough to make him feel like he was floating, the vibrations doing something to his nerves, coiling into his neurons and digging itself somewhere deeper. 

It was like music, he thought. Like piano keys.

“I’m coming home. Wait up for me, yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah, just hurry up.”

And with that Dream clicked end call and stared at his hands again. Bare, bitten. 

He was going to paint them.

…

They’d been friends since middle school, Dream and George. Chance meeting in the library during some presentation where Dream, thirteen and falling asleep slumped on his desk, three rows to the front and painfully stuck in the middle, caught George staring at him from the back. He remembered him sitting by the window, his bag occupying the only seat next to him. Dark hair cut short. 

Dream stared back. 

George startled and looked away. 

And then their teacher tapped him on the shoulder and he was forced to turn his eyes back to the front, pretending he hadn’t stayed up all night on voice call with Sapnap. 

But Dream looked for him afterwards, hands stuffed in his pockets and the tag of his shirt sticking out from the back of his collar like a duck’s tail. George had pointed it out, reaching up to poke it back in. Dream remembered this too, and he remembered his face turning so red he couldn’t speak to George for the next three days. 

George didn’t know anybody. He was a kid from England forced to pack up and move to America, his parents and two sisters dragging him kicking and screaming. His mother told him that some years later, Dream, sixteen and sitting across from a woman he’d only known in passing. Same dark hair creeping down her shoulder in a loose ponytail. Accent still strong. A mug of tea in her pale, wiry hands. It was mint green, with no writing printed across the front. Dream didn’t know why he remembered this but he did: she had no corny mugs. 

And so they stood side by side in George’s grimy kitchen, white light flickering above their heads at midnight, George asleep somewhere upstairs. 

The entire family lived squeezed together in that little apartment. 

It was there that George’s mother told him she was grateful to him. That he should come around more often. Dream sipped from his own mug, round cat ears poking out from the corners and probably belonging to one of George’s sisters. He remembered watching a house spider crawl out from under the fridge, long legs scratching against the tiles. Tap-tap-skritch. Tap-tap-skritch. 

He nodded. “Thanks for letting me stay over.”

And he did come around more often. And he did stay with George. And they did become friends. 

Dream had known him since he was thirteen. Seven years. 

He’d known Sapnap longer. Next door neighbours since they were five: the two of them kicking cans and soccer balls down the street, or sneaking out the window and going to the convenience store, putting their dollars together just to see if they could afford any of the front-counter stuff. Scattered, inconsistent memories. He barely remembered how they became friends at all, it’d been so long. Maybe it started the night they’d escaped the hum-drum drone of CD players and pop songs he didn’t remember the lyrics to, Halloween costumes half ruined from the makeshift disco their school had put together. Sapnap in a red shirt and beat up sneaks, devil horns stuck to the headband his stepmom had stashed away in the back of his wardrobe, and Dream with a sheet thrown over his head, crooked smiley face drawn with a black marker. The two of them climbed the monkey bars and sat on the metal bridge connecting the cubby house and the slides, the wind biting their knees and the sky growing darker and darker. Sapnap pointed out the bats and Dream leaned his head on his shoulder, pretending to look. 

“You’re my best friend, you know that?” Sapnap had said. 

And Dream remembered closing his eyes, feeling pinpricks of rain hit the sheet. “Yeah, I do.” 

He’d grown up with him and Bad, although Bad was older than them and lived further down the street. Dream had been meaning to call for ages, watching him grow up first, disappearing to New York and moving in with Skeppy, someone he’d met online and Dream sometimes suspected had more going on with than he let on. Bad was like a big brother to them, playing with them in the park and teaching them how to throw darts. He’d seen Dream through his first heartbreak, his first teen party, his first time behind the wheel. 

Dream hadn't seen him in two years; he still didn't know how he felt about that. 

Karl appeared when they were seventeen. Didn’t go to the same school as them but showed up at a gig some of their friends were performing at. One thing Dream had learned from being friends with music kids: they somehow fucking knew everyone.

Karl was sipping some alcoholic mix, fireball and something else. Dream remembered the smell: cinnamon and some other sweet thing sticking to his breath. He was singing off-key to a song that was more bass than vocals, swinging his legs on the broken seat he was sitting on, arm thrown over some other nameless person. Karl had a lot of friends. Too many friends. He somehow knew everyone too.

He’d approached Sapnap first, drunk and giggling, and Sapnap sent Dream a few panicked looks, face growing pinker by the second as Karl took his cap and patted his shoulder, knocking knees and laughing, laughing. 

Dream only waved and turned back to George, oblivious as ever. 

Karl and Sapnap started dating three weeks later. Rest was history. 

And finally Quackity, Karl and Sapnap’s roommate who they only met a year ago but settled into their group like he’d always been there. He’d met George first, the two of them lost on campus and laughing as they walked into the lecture hall half an hour late. Dream remembered George frantically texting him at 7am, phone spammed with messages and his notifications blaring. 

George: why am I in the science building?? 

George: how do I get out??

George: dream help me 

George: HELP ME 

George: STOP IGNORING ME. TALK TO ME

George: DREAM

Needless to say, by the time Dream had picked up his phone, half asleep and completely delirious, Quackity was already poking and prodding at George, grinning wildly as they stumbled into the car park and went back around again, September gales pulling their scarves and making the air smell green with rain.

…

Dream was remembering a lot of things lately. He didn’t know what it was, but he was walking down the street, George on his right, coat pulled up to his ears and his cheeks flushed from the cold, while Sapnap and Quackity were on his left, deep in conversation as Karl tried to trip Quackity over. Once, twice. 

And Dream was looking at the sky, remembering, remembering. 

There wasn’t much to remember in this town. He hadn’t been here long.

So he thought of before now. Back home. He thought of swing sets and the overgrown garden behind his elementary school, thought about harsh storms and hotter summers, thought about the way George used to buy him hot chocolate at the school cafeteria, because he knew Dream didn’t like coffee. Dream smiled softly, the clouds grey and swirling above his head. George always did that. Remembered to ask the lady not to put any sugars in, knowing Dream didn’t like it too sweet either. Little things. 

For a moment he thought about taking George’s hand, just to feel the weight of it. He wanted to squeeze his palm, wrap their fingers together and let the action say everything he didn’t have the words for. His gaze fell on George, watching him reach up and pull on a leaf hanging from some stray branch, fingers clutched around its shape and dragging it down, down, before flicking it back up again, droplets flying into his hair. George giggled, shaking his head and wiping his nose. 

Dream couldn’t hold his hand, so he settled for sinking his fingers into his hair instead, messing it up and trying not to let his touch linger. “You’re such an idiot, George.”

George gave him a pointed look, lips arched as he twisted himself out of his grip, walking backwards with his hands crossed behind his head. “Says you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“It means you’re an idiot,” Sapnap said, clapping him on the shoulder. “And he’s right, dude.”

Karl jutted his leg out again, trying to get Quackity, but the other just scoffed, punching him in the shoulder. “I live with an idiot,” he said, finally leaving Sapnap’s side to kick back at Karl’s feet, different boots from the other day. These were brown and laced up, something Dream’s grandfather would wear if he were being honest. 

Sapnap smirked. “Two idiots.”

“Three,” Dream added. 

Quackity turned to him, pushing Karl back with a hand squished to his cheek. “You don’t live with us, piss boy.” 

“Wasn’t talking about me.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Karl was hanging from Quackity’s shoulder now, pressing his weight into his side as they walked, rainwater spraying onto the road. Quackity huffed, but his smile was wide, tongue braced against his back teeth in a poor attempt to keep the laughter in his throat. 

George tugged on Dream’s arm then, and that alone sent shivers crawling all through his body, from his neck down to the pads of his fingers. He tried not to let his eyes widen, looking down at the way George held his bicep with one hand, thumb pressing into his flesh. He could feel the slight pinch of his nails, mind reeling at the warmth caught between their skin. 

He blinked slowly.

But George only smiled, lips pressed firmly together as the sun hit eyes, making them shine like creek water. “We’re here.”

His other hand was wrapped around the copper knob, the door coloured a bright red. Probably repainted over the summer. He turned his eyes to the wide window, where he could see tables and cushions piled inside the café, the smell of coffee and eggs strong enough to warm the air. Quackity brushed George’s hand away, opening the door with Karl and Sapnap following close behind, their voices joining the rest of the chatter. Layers of noise defying the scowl of a dreary Sunday morning. A touch of happiness, Dream thought. 

And George’s hand hadn’t left his arm.

Goosebumps made his hair stand on end, bottom lip stuck between his teeth. 

He pulled away, stopping the door from swinging closed again. He offered George a shaky smile, tilting his head a little and saying, come on, you can go first, without saying anything at all. 

George slid past him, but not before he stopped in the doorway, hands coming to Dream’s neck to readjust his scarf for him. Looping olive fabric back over his head and pulling it down again. Neat, structured. He patted his chest when he was done, and then Dream lost him in the crowd, his head disappearing under mustard lights, like nothing had happened at all. 

A moment. A photograph. A line of poetry. 

A man fixing another's scarf in the doorway of their local café. Three seconds of Dream’s life. The time it took to stir sugar into tea. Come and gone.

His chest ached. 

…

They sat in the same corner every time, multicoloured cushions piled across the booth the five of them squeezed into: Dream and Quackity on one side and George, Karl, and Sapnap on the other. Dream leaned against the wall, abstract paintings and vintage posters mounted crookedly above his eyeline. He could see the bathrooms from where he was sitting, as well as the front of the shop, where girls hovered by the counter and coffee machines wailed their morning call. Outside the sky was growing angrier, and vaguely he wondered if there would be thunder too.

He tapped his fingers on the tabletop, bouncing his leg again. 

Across from him, George raised an eyebrow. “You good?”

He nodded quickly. “Yeah, yeah, I’m just glad we’re inside.”

Quackity grabbed the menu from under Dream’s forearm, the sleeve of his jacket sliding down to reveal a black watch. “Don’t worry, I’ll share my umbrella with you.” 

Dream snorted, his leg finally stilling as twisted to face him. “Oh come on, I’m a giant compared to you. What, are you gonna hold it over my head?” 

Quackity’s head was buried behind laminated paper, but he glanced over the edge with mischief in his eyes, his voice mocking. “I’ll even stand on my tippy toes.”

Karl snickered, hand slipping from where it was resting on George’s shoulder to cover his mouth, cheeks pink with laughter. And Dream didn’t need to see to know his other hand was holding Sapnap’s under the table, if Sap’s cheek in his neck was anything to go by. 

It was all familiar to him, seeing them huddled together like this. The smells, the sounds, the growing bickering between Sap and Q, because Sapnap still felt the need to remind everyone he wasn’t the shortest anymore, because apparently half an inch made all the difference now that Quackity was here. Dream dragged a hand over his face, hiding the fondness that had settled there. Sapnap never did recover from George’s sudden growth spurt when they were fifteen, plummeting to shortest like a king speared in the chest.

The rain was falling harder and harder by the second. Dream peeked through the gaps between his fingers to catch George’s eye, which he did catch, because George was watching him too, jerking a thumb towards Sapnap as he rolled his eyes and slumped a little in his seat. Dream giggled silently, squeaks trapped where he was biting the inside of his cheek. 

Sapnap hadn’t noticed them yet, now fully facing Quackity and arguing with his hands, Karl left abandoned to the wayside.

Dream nodded at George, pulling his hands away just so he could see him better. George seemed to lean a little closer to him then, rubbing their feet together while the rest of him lay too far away. Dream wondered what would happen if he got out of his seat and pushed past Quackity, turning the corner and barrelling into the back of the plush seat, throwing his arms around George’s neck and burying his nose into his hair. He wondered if George would squeal, or if he would tell him to leave him alone, or if he would laugh. 

But secretly, Dream hoped he would ask him to stay, pulling him over the top of the booth and letting him slide up next to him, even if they ended up knocking Sapnap onto his ass. Dream imagined kissing the apple of his cheek over and over and over, not caring if Quackity exchanged tired looks with the waiters, as if to say, can you believe these guys? This is what I have to deal with every day. 

Lightning split the sky in two, purple flashes reflecting against flooded window panes. George jumped, Karl grabbing his arm to steady him, and Quackity cackled, sitting up straighter when he shrieked, “Holy shit, guys!” 

Sapnap was already leaving his seat, pulling Quackity along with him so they could press their faces against the window, where a few kids were piling on top of each other to watch the storm. The trees thrashed and screamed in the wind, slashes of rain cutting into the pavement. 

“You guys wanna check it out too?” Karl asked, halfway out of the booth by the time he turned to them, eyebrows raised in question. 

George pulled his backpack closer to him, tucking it under his chin and crossing his fingers together. “Nah, I’m happy to order drinks while you’re gone though.” 

Karl turned to Dream. “And you?”

Any other time and Dream would’ve gone with him. He would’ve shrugged and made his way to the front of the café, hands in his pockets as usual. He would’ve lingered at the back of the crowd, eyeing the breakfast special written in chalk by the shelves, big looping letters surrounded by hearts and stars. He would’ve considered buying it, just because it was a bit cheaper. 

But George was sitting across from him, holding his own hands. 

Dream shook his head. “I’ll stay too.” 

Karl didn’t spare them a second thought, telling George to take care of his phone before calling for Sapnap, and then it was just them. Comfortable, safe. Rain drumming in his ears and George still too far away. 

“Remember the bookstore back home?” George said suddenly, not looking at Dream. “Before they took it down?”

He did. It was dusty and secondhand, the chandelier made from plastic bottles. It was connected to a coffee shop towards the front, where college kids would serve them milkshakes in the summer, always seeming so distant to Dream. So big. “Yeah, we’d come after school. I’d be at the shelves and you’d be ordering us hot chocolate.”

George chuckled, glancing at Dream before his gaze fluttered away again. “I only did that because the book club kids would come and talk to you.”

“Aw, what’s wrong with book club kids?”

“They only talked to me because they were forced to. You can see it in their teeth.”

“Teeth?”

George sat up, shooting him a stinging grin, his lips thinning from the exertion as his eyes darkened into some pained, pitying look. 

“Ah.” 

George dropped the smile with a sigh, curling back and staring up at the ceiling. Dream followed the line of his jaw, the sharp edge of it softened by dim lights, and he found he couldn’t focus on anything else. The rain thundered and thundered, pulsing through his skull and tightening the space in his chest. Like a muscle, like a beating heart: it both grounded and uprooted him.

“I’d wait for you to come back,” George said quietly. 

Dream tried not to let his voice crack. “And we’d sit by the window.”

“Remember when it rained? And we were stuck there for hours?”

He nodded. 

“Your mum tried to call but you pretended your phone lost signal.”

“I did.”

“Why’d you do that?”

Dream didn’t answer. 

The silence lasted long enough to make George finally drop his eyes back down again, mouth quirking up at the corners. He had this one curl, falling from the slope of his widow’s peak and brushing the bridge of his nose. Not too long, but enough to notice, enough to make Dream want to comb it back. 

When he finally did speak, letting his shoulders loosen and stretching his arms out, his tone was joking. Exaggerated, laughing. Honesty hidden in plain view. 

“Because if the rain never stopped we’d have to live in the bookstore forever, and maybe then you’d finally marry me.”

George laughed — the hiccuping one that made Dream want to kiss him all over. “You’re so stupid.”

Dream shushed his brain, mentally tapping his shoulder to quieten himself, like he was a child. He rationalised his impulses, scolded the mouth that wanted to blurt the thought before he had the time to process it, and settled on reading the menu instead, knowing he was going to order eggs to combat the chocolate pancakes Sapnap and Quackity were certain to share, forks scraping against the plate. 

But he answered George anyway, mumbling despite the restraint, despite the quiet embarrassment glowing pink on his neck.

“I know.” 

…

It was only after they finished breakfast, when the rain let up and George and Quackity headed back to the campus, while Karl and Sapnap caught the bus back to the apartment, that Dream decided to buy the nail polish.

He didn’t tell them about it, saying he’d find his own way back later, trying hard to ignore the way George pouted. He offered to come with him, to skip midmorning study just to keep him company, but Dream brushed him off, insisting he go on without him, and he would’ve fought back if Quackity hadn’t bribed him with food and promises of late night calls, acting annoyed despite the reassuring glances he sent Dream, somehow understanding without feeling the need to ask.

And so they went their separate ways, leaving Dream to stand alone in front of the café. He leaned back against the window, the heel of his shoe squashed into the pavement and his socks wet. His breath came out in puffs of vapour, and when he went to pull his scarf over to his nose he swore he could smell George on the fabric. The soap he used when he showered, faint traces of peppermint tea, something else he couldn’t quite place. 

He stole his phone from his pocket and pulled up Maps, squinting at street names and yellow lines, trying to figure out where he was going. He always got lost so easily. 

It was a short bus trip, he noted. Less than ten minutes up the road and turning a few corners to plunge deeper into the next suburb. A row of shops, spiralling roads, more buses heading for the next city. Dream smiled to himself, pocketing his phone again and barely checking for cars before running across the road, the sky still oozing with rain. He ducked under the shelter, past the pole marking the bus stop, and sank into the silver seating there, where dirt was stuck between the grooves and old graffiti painted the metal. 

It was during these moments that Dream felt like a person. Any person. Sitting in the silence with his hands bundled in his scarf, shivering where he curled in on himself, hair damp as he contemplated buying another umbrella, uncertain as to where he lost his old one. He was constantly replacing umbrellas, constantly losing everything. He probably had a stack of them hidden in his room. Maybe George had taken them. 

These were the mundane things, and to Dream they were stabilising. Rain, autumn colours, umbrellas, nauseating coffee smell. Pitter-patter sounds and a rickety old bus crawling through the mud to stop where he’d thrown his hand out. The three steps it took to climb onboard, the internal heating sweltering as the bus driver nodded at him and Dream stumbled inside, shoes slick against the floor. A handful of people already pressed into their seats as Dream nestled into one of the vacant ones near the back, pulling his knees to his chest and resisting the urge to kick off his shoes, thinking about what it would be like if George was here too, if they sat bunched together, shoulder to shoulder, Dream’s hand coming to rest over George’s, which had settled on his knee. Quiet intimacy. 

And no one would question them, at least not in Dream’s imagination. No one would ask where they were going. They would be sat in their own world, whispering together, laughing and trying to wave at cars through the window, just to see if the drivers would wave back. That was something George would do, he thought. He’d wave hoping someone would notice him.

And they would be people. 

Alone, Dream felt quite the same. A person with an unremarkable face. Just another college kid doing his thing on a Sunday morning, smelling of breakfast food and his scarf but not much else. If anyone sat next to him they wouldn’t know he smelled like George. They wouldn’t know he was getting nail polish because he wanted George to notice, because he wanted him to smile at him. They wouldn’t know the only reason he wasn’t with him now was because he didn’t want to have to explain himself, because he couldn’t lie to George. 

They wouldn’t even know who George was. 

And yet here he was, like a ghost to Dream, because he could hear his laughter, could almost feel him pressed against his shoulder, could smell him.  

Sometimes when Dream sat on the bus, or the train, or even a cab, he wondered what would happen if he didn’t get off at his stop. If he just locked his legs in place and let the vehicle roll on, taking him all the way to the end of the line. Or if he got off somewhere far away, somewhere he’d never been before. He wondered what he’d do, who he’d be. Just another person. Just another face. 

But as predicted it was a short trip, and soon Dream was getting up again, thanking the driver and falling back into the cold. 

Dream headed off, cars beeping and people chattering as the sky’s colour deepened, like lapis lazulis pinned to the atmosphere, clouds so swollen he thought they might burst again.

He stepped into the 7-Eleven, swiping a shitty umbrella from the stack and bringing it to the counter, a handful of dollars enough to have him stuffing it into his bag. He’d been here before, once. One night in December with George and Sapnap. It was a few weeks before Christmas, the first they’d spent away from home. Dream smiled, retracing their steps along the sidewalk, passing by restaurants and bars. They’d come to pick up their takeout, George insisting they make a trip out of it. It was colder than it was now, and it was early evening, the sky already bruised above them as they walked under festive lights. George was wearing a Santa hat, and Sapnap was in one of Dream’s leather jackets, just because he wanted to look cool. 

Dream remembered how they looked under those lights: shimmering gold and hanging like vines from shop to shop. Sapnap a few feet ahead of them, trying to find the right address, and George by Dream’s side, the bell in his hat jingling with every step he took. 

George had tipped his head back, laughter so distinct from the chatter Dream could hear from the pub. So different, so easy to know. Dream had stopped him with a hand to his shoulder, taking out his phone and snapping a photo of him mid-question, his eyes still sparkling, laughter not quite gone from his voice. 

“Did you just take a photo of me?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“You look cute.”

Dream scrolled through his gallery to find it as he finally entered the drugstore, not watching where he was going as the automatic doors slid open, his eyes focused on an old photo. Blurred around the edges, light blooming behind a dark silhouette, George the focal point of everything. 

He set it as his contact photo as he wandered down the aisles, past medication and bandages and toiletries, looping back around into the makeup section. He raised his gaze again then, artificial lights showcasing products he barely understood the function of. He drifted by each brand, passing teenage girls with their arms full of shopping bags, fingers smudging mirrors and lipstick samples. 

And then he saw it, the big bulk bin stacked high with nail polish, an old man and his granddaughter the only other people hovering over it. Dream came up to it with burning cheeks, puffing up his chest like he knew what he was doing. 

Endless colours. Some bright and horrifying, others the kind of stuff his great aunt would wear on a good day. Some in special packs, some for little kids, some that weren’t nail polish at all. He scanned his eyes over them, grasping for the first black one he could find. Plain and easy.

He stared at it, a small droplet in his palm. 

Then he picked up another one, and another one, and another one, swapping them out, comparing colours, mind swarming. God, it didn’t matter what he got, did it? 

But it did matter. It mattered that he didn’t butcher his hands, that it looked good enough to notice, but not too good to look deliberate. It mattered that it matched the costume he hadn’t bothered to pick out yet-- why hadn’t he picked a costume before coming?

Dream squeezed a long, dark emerald one, glass bottle soft against his fingers. 

It mattered that George saw. 

So Dream picked a handful of colours, uncaring of the way the little girl by his side giggled at him, and thought Karl would probably help him with it later anyway, so long as he had the right colours. 

He left the store with a plastic bag swinging on his arm, his phone in hand again, and his new umbrella open over his head, catching fresh waves of rain. 

…

He arrived back at the dorm sometime during the late afternoon, kicking his shoes and socks off as he tossed his bag onto his bed. George was hunched over his desk across the other side of the room, snoring softly with his cheek pressed into his pile of indiscernible notes and open textbooks. Dream snorted, walking over and brushing the hair from his eyes. It was getting long again, he thought, curls trapped between his fingers. 

Dream let his hand linger longer than it needed to. He knew that. Of course he knew that. 

“Dream?” George mumbled, eyes not opening. 

Dream removed his hand. “Hey there, sleeping beauty.”

“Shut up.” The words came out slurred, dying in the back of his throat. If Dream left him now he wouldn’t stir again until nightfall, he was sure of it. He used to sleep in class all the time, when they were younger. Drooling on tabletops in the back of homeroom, groaning whenever Dream shook him awake again. Sometimes he would fall asleep on Dream’s shoulder, when he would drag him to watch the football matches after class, coke can slipping from his hands. 

“Wake up, George,” he murmured, shaking his shoulder. “You done working?”

Finally, his eyes slid open. Drowsy, languid. 

A nod, then, “I think so.” 

“Hang out with me.”

“I’m tired.” 

“Hang out with me anyway.” 

George squinted, still a little delirious, but he was smiling. Mouth tilting up and showing off his teeth, curved all the way to the back. He sat up, slamming his hands down on the desk, and turned in his chair, wheels squeaking when it swivelled and bumped into Dream’s legs. 

“What do you wanna do?”

…  

Sometimes, when they were bored and tired and restless, Dream would convince George to leave the squashed confines of their dorm and take a walk with him. It quickly became a fixed routine, like all things do, Dream throwing his coat over George’s shoulders as they slipped outside, where the sun was making its lazy decent, orange glare like a fan snapped open. Their shadows were long where they skidded across the path, and when Dream looked down he noticed the way George had rolled the cuffs of his jeans to hug his ankles. 

They would walk until they found the station, he decided. About twenty minutes there and back, squeezed at the end of the road they were following. 

He voiced as much to George, who shrugged, kicking leaves into the air and yawning. They walked and walked and walked, streets familiar and unfamiliar. Known and unknown. 

George was like that too, Dream thought suddenly. From one day to the next he was understood by Dream, growing into something comfortable, but he was also different. Changing, he supposed. Once pale and small, his hair cut tidy by his mother; and now he was a bit taller, stubble growing from his chin and his voice lighter. Not so sad.

He was still George though. 

He was George when he was shyer, and he was George now, running down the street with his arms stretched wide, like he was trying to hold the world. Like he was a king. Dream rolled his eyes, hands in his pockets as he trailed after him, and when he focused again the wind was biting. The sun was gone, the moon hovering full and sweet and beautiful across the rooftops. Almost yellow in colour. 

And George’s wild laughter washed over the roads, flooding down the alleyways and through the cracks in the sidewalk. It rang in his ears, knocking on the door of every house and screaming, I’m here! I’m here and you have to listen to me!

Dream chuckled. “You’re such an idiot.” 

George turned back around, sticking his tongue out and flipping him off. He was walking backwards, almost stumbling into a pole twice, and he cackled when Dream yelled at him to be careful, tone growing stricter the closer he got to scuffing his shoulder.

He was all of himself at once, both thirteen and twenty. Every little piece of him shaped the line of his back, the swing of his legs, the clumsy steps that made Dream want to tear his hair out. Like fruit stickers, they pinned George to Dream’s mind and memory, soft under his thumb when he paid closer attention. 

By the time they arrived at the station, which was metallic and wheezing, smelling of cigarettes and covered in painted murals and graffiti tags, it was completely dark. Orange street lamps coloured the car park, later joining the light flooding the terminals inside, up the stairs and past the vending machines. Dream looked up the stairwell, knowing in moments the train would pull in and the station would be flooded with people coming home from work. 

They should probably head back. 

George grabbed his hand. “Wanna go to the old house?”

Dream couldn’t help himself: he squeezed back. “Really? We’ll get home late.”

“I don’t care if you don’t.” 

Dream grinned, pulling him up the stairs two at a time and checking the timetable. “Next train comes in five minutes. You sure?”

George didn’t let go of his hand. “I want to see it.” 

The old house was something they’d found with Karl and Quackity, during the weeks Sapnap had left them to visit his parents back home. It was for some wedding during the break, if Dream remembered correctly, and so the four of them had taken the train to some park Karl had told them about, where churches drowned in the grass and the surrounding homes were dull and Victorian. Most inhabited except for one, which lay rotting in the undergrowth. It would probably be auctioned off soon, or taken down, but for now it remained, with its soiled windows and damp smell. Quackity didn’t want to go anywhere near it, nose scrunched in disgust, and Karl was wary of it, testing the weight of his shoe against its front porch.

But George wandered in without much thought, kicking up dust and running his hands against the walls. It was there that he told Dream houses had souls, and Dream had laughed, unsure of what he meant by that. 

Apparently it was their house now, according to George. 

So when the train pulled in, and they were swamped by the sheer weight of the crowd, rows upon rows of people pooling into the platform, the two of them stepped inside, sitting across from each other in ugly seats. George propped his legs over Dream’s thighs, laughing when he grunted at the dirty sneaks dumped onto his chest, and when Dream fiddled with those rolled cuffs he decided reality was much better than any fantasy he could come up with on his own. 

… 

The park wasn’t far from the station. They crossed the road and headed down the path, sloping down until they reached the oval. George jumped the fence, helping Dream over with a hand wrapped around his wrist. Then they looped past the stands, past the public bathrooms and into the tree line. 

George looked like he belonged there, Dream thought, with his lithe figure skittering between thick tree trunks. Pines arched into the sky, obscuring miss moon’s loving hands, but the sight of George was not lost on Dream. He could see him everywhere. See his hair, see his skin, see the back of his pants. 

Dream didn’t believe in ghosts, but in the October chill George looked otherworldly, like Dream could chase him and he’d float away, or pass his hand through his stomach.  

George was made of water.

But he kept turning to check if Dream was still there, waiting patiently before walking on, eventually making it to the front yard of the old house. Its roof was half destroyed, gnarled trees bending over and growing too close to the structure, like they were trying to consume it. Overgrown weeds and decay ruined their path, and when Dream wandered off to the side he spotted a stack of crumbling bricks, alongside a rusting pitchfork. Someone had written, HAPPY HALLOWEEN BITCHES! in red paint along the wall, exclamation mark bleeding into the front door. Fresh paint, Dream noted. A week old at most. 

“Well, that’s creepy as hell,” he said, running up the steps and kneeling to trace the ‘O’. 

George stopped behind him. “You think there’s anyone here?” 

“Nah,” Dream said, getting up again. “We’re loud. They would’ve heard us by now.” 

George nodded tauntingly. “Uh-huh. That’s not very responsible of you.”

“Oh come on, if someone comes we’ll run. We’ve faced worse before.”

“What? You mean those kids who tried to sell us weed? Or those weird hallucinogens?”

Dream snorted. “Fuck, and in the skatepark too? I don’t even do drugs.” 

George flicked him on the shoulder. “Aside from those brownies at Karl’s.”

“No one told me they were spiked!”

George giggled, hiding his face with his hands. His back thumped against the wall, shoulders shaking. 

Dream stood in front of him, balancing his hand next to George’s head. “And anyway,” he said, “if there’s anyone here maybe they’re cool. You don’t know.”

George dropped his hands, eyes wet with laughter. “No, I don’t.” 

Dream didn’t move from where he was leaning down. He hesitated, waiting too long to stir, and his fingers curled into his palm, knuckles pressing into the wood. 

And what if I kissed you now? he thought, wondering if George was close enough to see the way his eyes darkened, his pupils dilating. What then? Would you let me? Would you kiss me back? 

His mouth went dry. 

And George smiled, tilting his head a little, so close Dream could feel his breath ghost his cheek. He placed his hands on Dream’s shoulders, grip tightening when he got up on his tip-toes and drew closer, missing his mouth and aiming for his ear instead. 

Dream couldn’t breathe. 

“You look dumb,” George whispered, lips cold against his skin, and then he was wheezing, pushing Dream away and shaking his head like an absolute asshole.

He was howling with laughter by the time Dream came back to himself, face so red he was sure George could see it in the darkness. 

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Dream said, no real heat in his tone, but he shuddered anyway, combing a hand through his hair and trying to get the air back into his lungs. Fuck, he thought. What the fuck. 

“So many things,” George cooed, seemingly oblivious to the hold he had on Dream when he turned away to grasp the doorknob, waving a hand to get him to follow, and Dream forced himself to swallow every desperate thing he wanted to say, feeling it stick to the walls of his throat instead. Harshly. Longingly. 

Dream kicked the door closed behind them, their footsteps rocking the hall, creaking, hollow, weeping. Peeled paint and dust in their throats. George took his hand and they climbed up to the top landing, where the roof was ripped open and branches had found their way through the gap, leaves wrenching into the wallpaper. 

George dropped his hand and sat where he had last time, one leg swinging dangerously off the edge as the moon washed him in its milky haze. He shivered, pressing the coat Dream had given him closer to his ears, and in that moment it was like they were seventeen again, the way he glowed. The way Dream wanted to let him bury his face in his shoulder, if only to keep him warm. 

But he only stared, fingers twitching as George asked if he thought there were ghosts sleeping under the floorboards. 

“You look beautiful,” he muttered, and George snorted, rolling his eyes as he pulled his knee closer to his chest. 

“Yeah, yeah whatever.”

George didn’t understand. He couldn’t see all the ways Dream saw him, even when he was pissed off at him, or overwhelmed by him, or so confused he wanted to punch something, just to knock some sense into himself. George was ignorant of what the corner of his mouth did to Dream, the mean curve of his neck, the utter assortment of him. 

But the more Dream looked at him, and the more Dream thought about him, both in his memories and his daydreams, the more he felt like he was standing on the precipice of something greater than himself. About to jump. 

When he finally spoke, his mouth unwinding as it let the feeling slip out, giving it a name for the first time, he was surprised.  

“I’m not ready to get older.”

He clasped his hands together, eyebrows pinched as he curled in on himself. The sound of his own voice echoed, hitting the walls of the old house and returning home to him, and even though his heart seized in his chest, and he was shaking, the words felt true. 

He wasn’t ready to get older. 

“Dream?” George said. 

He was quick to back away from the precipice, laughing softly and brushing it off, mumbling, “I don’t know what I’m saying.”

George didn’t say anything. He just sat there, face blank. He raised his hand, only to stuff it back into his lap, half his body crawling with shadows. 

“Are you okay?” Dream said softly, laughter long gone. 

George’s tone was firm. “I’m with you.”

“I don’t-- what?”

And George shifted closer, movement stiff and his head downturned, but he still crossed the gap, he still tried to reach for Dream. “I’m with you, Dream. Do you understand? I’m okay because I’m with you.”

“You mean right now?”

George nodded. 

Dream thought about it, the two of them in the present moment, or even moments earlier, standing outside so close, so close. Hot breath, hands brushing together, lips on his ear. Even the sound of their conversation, the way it spun around them and brought them together, connecting them to this earth. 

Grounding. 

“Would you be okay without me?” he said quietly. 

And George lifted his hand to his chest, slender fingers splaying over his heart. “I think I’ll always have you.”

Dream felt like he was dangling in space. Uprooted over and over, looking forward without knowing what was coming for him, the universe at his feet. “What if something happens?”

“You’re a part of me. That’s permanent.” 

Permanent. 

“Is anything permanent?”

George smiled. “You know, I really didn’t want to come to America. When I was a kid, I mean.”

Dream blinked. It wasn’t that they hadn’t spoken about things like this before, uncomfortable and vulnerable and gutting, but there was always something left unsaid with George. Like he couldn't bring himself to finish his sentences, or even speak at all. Everything was vague, everything was implied, and Dream was left to piece it together himself. 

But George was smiling at him differently, tepid but honest. 

Dream could only listen. 

“I didn’t want to leave my grandmother,” George started. “I didn’t want to leave my school. I didn’t want to pack up my house.”

“What was your house like?"

“We lived with my grandparents. It was a big house, Dream. Sat right across the park. And sometimes we snuck over to the neighbours house to play on their house computer, because my grandma only used ours for solitaire.” 

Dream could imagine it, a younger George he had never known sitting in his living room with his sisters, or running around the back of the house the same way he and Sapnap used to when they were kids. He could imagine George in plain shirts and blue shorts, could imagine the milk-white of his skin, unmarred by time. He could imagine his laughter, high-pitched and squealing.

But he could also imagine his face puffy with tears, like his mother’s had been one of the nights Dream had slept over, something he wasn’t supposed to see. He thought back on it now, how he trailed down the stairs to go to the bathroom, only to be met with a woman hunched over her table, fingers lost in her hair as she sobbed into the thin silence of her kitchen, a glass of water and a pill by her elbow.

Dream had retreated instantly, hiding behind the wall. 

“Do you miss it?” he said after a while.

“All the time,” George said. “Can I tell you something?”

“Anything.”

He sighed. “I stole one of my grandpa’s business cards before we left. Took it from his pocket. And when we moved here I kept it under my pillow, right next to the tooth I left for the tooth fairy.” He chuckled, but the sound was empty, and so he continued to mumble into the next breath, “When he passed away my mother went back to London alone, leaving us with Dad, and I locked myself in my room and held that card and cried. It was the only photo I ever had of him.”

And somehow Dream still felt like he was stuck behind that wall, in a moment of suspension where he didn’t know what to do or what to say. Something darker than liminal space.

But he imagined himself stepping out, just for a moment, pushing away from that corner as an adult, still afraid but trying to reach for George anyway. 

“Do you still have it?” he asked. 

“No, I tore it up when Mum came home.” Silence, then, “I’ve never told anyone that before.”

Dream’s hand found George’s, his thumb rubbing small circles into the space below his knuckles. 

“They’re all gone now, but they exist in my memory,” George continued, letting Dream hold his hand. “The house, my grandparents, us.”

His thumb stuttered. “Us?”

“It doesn’t matter where we are, or when we are. We existed, and so we still exist. Even if we were to disappear we’d still exist, Dream. Right now, in this dead house, we exist. We’re here and I’m always going to be with you.”

Dream’s heart left his chest, surging up into his head and making him feel dizzy, his ears ringing when he threw his arms around George and pulled him into his chest. He held him so tightly, cramped together in a decimated place he couldn’t point to on a map even if he tried. 

They were nowhere. They were everywhere. 

George, separate from him but sharing the same air.

“Sometimes I think we’re very different,” Dream murmured, feeling like he was going to snap at any moment but not knowing why. 

“I don’t agree,” George said into the hollow of his throat. 

“No?”

“I think we’re the same.”

… 

They took the last train home. 

This time George sat slumped on his side, half-asleep with his arm looped through Dream’s elbow. His breathing was even, calm, and Dream thought he felt much the same. 

The light above them was low, there weren’t many other people around, and as the train swam through the tracks Dream peered out the window. Within the empty hours, where he thought about the dull ache in his head and the things George had told him that night, Dream was struck by his own nostalgia, consumed by images of the two of them, seventeen and still stumbling. A useless memory maybe, one among thousands, but the more he thought about it, the more he became convinced of its importance.

So he counted the street lights and trees as they passed and let himself remember. 

“We’re gonna live together when we’re older,” George said, staring up at his blank ceiling.

“Yeah?” Dream whispered back, sitting up from his place on the floor. The blow-up mattress George’s mom had pulled from the closet squeaked under his weight. “How’re we gonna do that?”

George tapped along his knuckles. “I’m gonna get rich and then we’re gonna live in a house on a hill.” 

“Shut up.”

“And I’ll come home every night and expect dinner to be made,” George continued matter-of-factly, voice warm. 

“You’re so annoying, oh my god. What? You want me in a little apron too? What’s your wife gonna think?”

He ignored the question, turning onto his side to look at Dream properly. “You don’t have to wear an apron, just make sure I don’t starve.”

“Even if I feed you microwave dinners every night for the rest of your life?”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“I wouldn’t.”

They watched each other from where they sat, George’s hands pillowed under his cheek and Dream now leaning against the bed frame, unmoving despite the pain in his shoulder. 

“So what do you think of my plan?” George said quietly.

“I think you’ve romanticised me too much.”

“Hey!”

He swung up, pushing Dream with both hands. Dream tried not to laugh too loudly, all too aware of how thin the walls were, of the way George’s sisters were right next door. So he gasped instead, hauling himself onto the bed to grab Geroge’s hands and wrestle him back down. But George interlocked their fingers, arms struggling against the weight as he tried to knock him over. 

Play fighting, Dream told himself. They were only play fighting. Even when he won, cheek collapsing onto George’s chest with their arms splayed uncomfortably over their heads, limbs tangled too close on that rickety single, there was nothing else there. 

“And what about Sapnap?” Dream breathed, unwilling to move away. “We can’t just gatekeep ourselves, you freak.”

“He’ll live with us. Or in the same town or something. I dunno.”

“And what if I get tired of living in the same town? What if suburbia isn’t for me?”

“We’ll move.”

“You’ll come with me?”

George looked down at him and nodded. 

Dream snaked one of his arms over the side of George’s head, clumsily sifting his fingers through his hair, not really thinking about what he was doing. He was tired, it was past midnight, and he felt small, him and George stuck together in a bedroom he barely knew. Stuffy, dark, locked away. “What if I want to move somewhere weird? Or dangerous? Or so far away you’d have to catch three planes to see your mom?”

George leaned into his palm. “Then I’ll have to catch three planes.”

“You’re such an idiot.” 

He shook his head. 

“No?”

A gleeful fucking grin ripped across his face. “Nope.”

Dream understood what had happened before it even happened. His emotions were visceral, tearing into his body and forcing him to see it clearly, snapping back like an elastic band and leaving his skin stinging. Clapping hands, ringing bells, clicking fingers: all of it sent him spiralling, because after George popped the ‘p’ and let his head roll back, Dream was in love with him. 

It was so easy too. He was void of any reason, and he had no cards left. His hands were empty. He just saw someone else under him, another brain in another head on another body. And if they were to bump shoulders or knot their fingers or kiss in the dark there would be something unexplainable there. Crossing nothingness with old kicks and the taste of Pepsi stale in his mouth. And there they are, and there he is. And maybe it was that simple.

…

The rest of the week crept up quickly. Sunday wilted into Monday and Dream was drawn back into reality, where his lectures were long and he tried hard to focus on whatever paper he was meant to finish within the next two weeks. It was like someone had dunked his head into the pool: he drowned in it.

He was more on top of it than George was.

Dream stretched over his laptop, typing and deleting new paragraphs and trying to sift through his research notes, both digital and handwritten because he never learned how to organise himself efficiently, as George pulled his closet apart, piling clothes Dream had never even seen before onto his bed. George didn’t even wear that many clothes. He had one pullover sweater and some other basic outfits and that was it. 

Dream gestured to the stack. “Where did half this stuff even come from?”

“Karl.” 

“And suddenly everything makes sense.” 

George turned to him, midnight blue robes pooling from his arms like they were stripped straight from Harry Potter. They were lined with gold fabric, silver glitter stuck like stars between the waves. 

George looked at him expectantly. “What do you think of this? A witch costume is pretty cool for Halloween, right?” 

Dream leaned back into his chair, lips quirked up into a teasing smile. “Shouldn’t you be studying?”

“What? No. Halloween is this weekend.” 

“Your priorities, George.”

He pouted, whining, “So you don’t want me to hang out with you on Halloween? Is that it?”

“I want you to stop procrastinating. You could’ve had so much done weeks ago.”

He held his gaze, expression shifting into mischief faster than Dream could process, and in moments George was darting his eyes to the side, hands swallowed by the sleeves of his hoodie and his bottom lip caught between rows of teeth, his cheeks just pink enough to soften his face. 

“You should help me with it,” he said innocently. 

It was such bullshit. 

Dream shook his head, finger raised in warning as he tried to bite down the laughter threatening to spill over. “No. Nuh-uh. Not happening.”

George batted his eyelashes like an idiot. 

Dream threw a pillow at him. 

George caught it and dropped the act, groaning in some exaggerated agony before mumbling, “Lame.”

Dream turned back to his work, thinking he was lucky he didn’t have any grey hairs with George being a pain in the ass half the time, when quietly, he said, “I think you’d make a good witch. I like the robes.”

He didn’t see it, but he knew George was smiling. 

“Good to know.”

… 

Saturday night and Dream was back in Sapnap’s room alone. The others were out getting the cooler and alcohol for the next night, Karl probably helping George finish the rest of his costume. Dream didn’t drink, so he said he’d meet them back at the apartment, and now he was hovering over Sapnap’s bed, nail polish scattered across the sheets and his hoodie by his feet. At first he thought he would just wear that, oversized with devil wings already painted across the back and around the sleeves, but the more he thought about it, the more his heart hammered. 

At first it was because it seemed low-effort. Even if it contrasted the nails it wasn’t like it was a good costume. 

Then it was because he thought about George in it instead, later in the night when he was a bit drunk and had long lost the robes, shivering in whatever corner he was slumped in. He imagined walking up to him, passing him a glass of water and patting his back. He imagined him asking for his hoodie, and he imagined slipping it over his head, no matter how unbearable the cold was on his bare arms.

He was stuck on that. 

Dream thought about him in his hoodie, or his jacket, or anything really. He thought about him smelling like his cologne. He thought about holding him close, seeing little traces of himself all over him, and then he thought about peeling his clothes off again, bit by bit as the smell grew stronger. Sticking to their skin. 

His face went bright red. 

Jesus Christ. 

He picked up the hoodie and pressed it to his face, checking if it needed a wash. He didn’t think so, but then again he thought it was kind of gross, leaving it unwashed.

He mulled it over, arguing with himself, until he eventually settled on shuffling to the basket Quackity kept by the door, knowing he would take it downstairs to the communal laundry room when he got home. It scared the hell out of Dream, how wide and white and sterile it was down there. Metal sinks and cockroaches in the corners, if he were to look close enough. 

He shook himself. Quackity would wash it and give it back to him, a favour Dream would repay later if Quackity ever left clothes in their dorm, and he’d decide tomorrow if the hoodie was worth bringing. It wasn’t a big deal, it wasn’t. 

He wandered back into the room, staring down at the damn nail polish. He bought way too many, he knew that. 

He scooped them up and left the room again, this time kicking open the sliding door and squatting in the bathroom. He felt stupid sitting on the edge of the tub, porcelain cold under his skin when he set out the bottles next to him, one by one. 

He grabbed the first one without thinking too much about it, plain black and delicate in his grip, unscrewing the lid and dipping the brush far enough to reach the bottom. 

“Fuck,” he whispered, hands trembling. He couldn’t sit still for shit. “Fuck!”

“Need some help?”

He turned, face a bright shade of crimson when he saw Karl giggling at him, arms crossed and taking up the slight space between the door and the wall. He tried to see if anyone was behind him, but he could hear no other voices, and Karl was looking at him kindly, eyes warm and fond. 

Dream sighed. “I wouldn’t mind.”

Karl snorted, sliding the door shut behind him and squeezing in next to Dream, long legs stretched out beneath him. “Come on, show me your hands and I’ll start.”

Dream did as he was told, passing him the polish and letting himself sink into Karl’s hands. “Where are the others? Did you get the drinks?”

“I came back to check on you,” Karl said, starting with Dream’s thumb. “Sapnap wanted to come too but Quackity bullied him into buying dinner with him and George. You know it goes.”

He did. 

Karl looked up at him then, eyebrow raised and mouth tilted into a lopsided grin. “Why didn’t you tell me you needed help with your nails? I could’ve helped pick the colours.”

Dream shrugged, trying to look nonchalant as he avoided meeting Karl’s eyes, gaze directed somewhere on the floor instead. He didn’t know how to tell Karl that he was embarrassed, that he didn’t know what he was doing, that he wanted to have fun on Halloween because Halloween made something warm stir in his chest. How October made him think of Sapnap and George, or of his sister on the floor with a bowl of popcorn between her legs. It made him think of discos and dollar stores and how this entire time he never cared too much for any of it, but now he wanted to hold onto it because he was afraid it was beginning to fade away. 

He didn’t know how to describe suspension, or how sometimes his head felt numb, or how for the first time the world seemed to be open a little too wide, and now he didn’t know where he was going, living life like he was blindfolded. 

He didn’t know how to tell him about George, how to tell him about himself. 

Karl didn’t question his silence. He just painted the edges of his nail, each stroke neat and loving. 

Dream didn’t even know how he'd landed in the bathroom with Karl sitting next to him. It was all so strange to him, how sharp everything looked now, how real. The image was so clear to him he had the awareness to know he would remember this, exactly how they were right now, in 3D space. 

“I love you, you know that right?” Dream said. 

“I know.”

He thought he might break.

“I just, um. I don’t know. I’ve been in a weird space.”

“I know.”

He thought he might break. 

“And I don’t know how to word things.”

“I know.” 

He thought he might break. 

“And I stumble and I talk too much about things that don’t matter.”

Karl frowned. “I don’t think that.”

His throat closed, tears hot behind his eyes when he blinked them back, ignoring the cracks in his composure.

Fuck. 

“I haven’t felt right for a while,” Dream rushed out. “Maybe I’m getting sick again.”

“You always get sick when you’re stressed,” Karl said, setting the polish aside to pay full attention to him. This time when Dream looked at him, chills crawled across his flesh. “And you stress out a lot. Too much.”

His voice split in his throat. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Karl, who told everyone he loved them all the time, dorky and sweet and so known to Dream, pulled him close, fingers sinking into his hair as Dream cried silently into the side of his neck, hands trapped between them. And he could’ve laughed as he sobbed, because he still tried not to let his painted thumb touch anything, awkwardly tilting his hand so it would stay safe. 

“I missed you so much,” Dream said, smearing tears into Karl’s sweater. 

But Karl only laughed softly, not seeming to care as he shushed him, head hanging over his shoulder and brushing lightly against his back. “I never left.”

“I missed you anyway.” 

He didn’t know if Karl understood what he meant by that, but he supposed it didn’t really matter, because he was here, and Dream felt present: not in the past, not in the future, not anywhere but in Karl’s arms.

We existed, and so we still exist. Even if we were to disappear we’d still exist, Dream. 

“Want me to finish your nails, angel?”

Dream nodded, finally pulling off of him. 

But Karl didn’t move straight away. He just patted his thigh, fingers stroking the smooth texture of his jeans, and when his breathing calmed, he took his hand and started painting his nails again. Black, orange, then black again. 

And slowly, Dream’s face began to dry. He chuckled when Karl furrowed his brows, tongue poking out the corner of his mouth as he surveyed his work, shaking his head and sprinkling little sprays of white across the black, like his fingers were dipped in starlight. Then he painted lines of yellow across the orange, drawing spiders on some nails, webs on the others.

Dream wanted to hug him again. 

“There, that’s much better,” he said when he was done, patting the back of his hand. “Don’t do anything to ruin them and they should last at least a week.” 

“So no nail biting?”

“It’s strictly forbidden.” 

Dream only nodded, and Karl leaned in to wipe away any remaining tears, first with his hand, and then with the toilet paper he’d snagged from behind him. 

“You know Bad is only a phone call away if you need him.” 

Dream struggled to speak. “How did you know I miss Bad?”

“I just know.”

And Dream did hug him again, this time wrapping his arms around his back and almost toppling them both over, because god, maybe he just wanted to be seen. 

A knock on the door, then, “Hey, Dream, you okay?” 

Sapnap peeked in cautiously, both hands sliding the door open slowly. Dream inclined his head, gesturing for him to come in. “I’m fine.” 

Sapnap’s gaze lingered on Dream’s tear-streaked face, but after looking at Karl, who was still latched under Dream’s arm, he seemed to decide it was better not to ask. So instead, his eye caught on Dream’s hands, and he grinned, picking up one of his palms to take a closer look. “Yo, did Karl do your nails?”

Dream couldn’t help the blush rising to his cheeks, nodding as Sapnap took his other hand, releasing Karl from where he sat trapped between them. “I told you he’d help you,” Sapnap said, sounding all too proud of himself. “This looks fucking sick.”

Karl hopped up, turning to Sapnap with a clap of his hands. “So you’re all back now?”

“We got burritos if you want some,” Sapnap said, pointing somewhere behind him. “If you’re not quick, Q and George are gonna eat all the fries.”

“George would never,” Dream said, blush threatening to spill over his face again.

“Are you kidding?” Sapnap barked, rolling his eyes. “George totally would.” 

Karl offered him a hand when Sapnap exited the cramped space, and when Dream took it he was led back out into the hall, Karl switching the light off behind them. He was dragged into the kitchen, which was buried in the corner of the apartment, where George and Quackity were already huddled around the small dining table, Sapnap sitting opposite them on the counter. Karl let go of his hand to open the top cabinet and grab them both glasses, while Dream sat himself next to George, the smell of chicken salt and other sauces leaking from orange plastic bags enough to settle him. 

George had a fry pinched between his fingers, and when he noticed Dream he turned to him, hovering the fry over his lips. Dream opened his mouth automatically, taking it between his teeth as George giggled, already grabbing another one to feed him. 

Quackity pouted. “You never do this shit with me. What if I want to be fed, huh?”

“Get it yourself,” George said, snagging his beanie down with a smirk. 

Quackity scowled. “You’re such a little shit.”

George grinned, all teeth, and when he turned his attention back to Dream his eyes landed on his nails, and that grin turned into something brilliant. 

“I didn’t know you were going to get all dressed up!” George said, excitement so palpable Dream was sure he was blushing again.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean, I just wanted to this year, you know?”

George looked back up again, and in that moment Dream thought moonlight could never compare to what he saw in his eyes. “You never do this, I--”

And then he stopped, closing his mouth promptly, his face growing redder by the second. He backed up a bit, raising a shaky hand to his hair and pulling it back across his forehead, dragging it to the other side of his head, as he often did when he tried to reign himself in. 

Dream smiled sheepishly. “Do you like it?”

George shrugged, failing to sound indifferent when he mumbled, “It’s alright.”

Sapnap groaned, burrito half chewed in his mouth. “Just say you think he’s hot, weirdo.”

“Sapnap!” George screeched, and Quackity howled, slamming a fist onto the table as he drank in George’s embarrassment, swiping the fry from his fingers when George buried his face in his hands, pressing himself into the back of his chair. 

But Dream only smiled, sinking into the warmth in his heart, stealing an untouched burrito from the bag and picking apart the foil. He felt safe here, he realised, the comfort of laughter and hot food reminding him that everything was going to be alright. 

And Karl, who was watching him from the back with knowing eyes, a glass of water in hand that he placed on the table for Dream. 

Thank you, he mouthed, taking the glass as Karl kissed the top of his head. 

…  

In the end, Dream threw a sheet over his head, a black marker in hand to draw the same smiley face he’d drawn all through his childhood. Quackity tossed him the newly washed hoodie to wear underneath, and soon Dream found himself wearing the sheet like a cape, waiting until the party started to commit to being the faceless ghost. 

Sapnap stood in front of the bathroom mirror, fixing his hair with red hairspray, as well as adjusting the sparkling devil horns he’d bought from the dress-up shop. Dream grinned at the sight, thinking it was a much better look than the cheap headband he’d worn when they were younger. Sapnap looked hot, with his black shirt and leather belts, the cargo pants fitting tightly against his thighs and legs. 

“This feel familiar?” Dream said from behind him, catching his eye in the mirror. 

Sapnap nodded, eyes crinkling. “Yeah, you still look cute.”

“Ghosts are scary, dude.”

“Oh, please, with your dumb little face there’s no way. You’re too sweet.” 

Dream made a big show of rolling his eyes, but was pleased nonetheless. He watched Sapnap finish cleaning himself up and then the two of them wandered out into the living room, where Quackity and Karl stood together, sniggering in the corner. 

“Oh my fucking god,” Dream said when they turned in sync, Quackity wearing cow ears and a black shirt with a piece of paper taped across the front that read, Mrs. Pepper, while Karl, who wore a white shirt and a feathered halo, had Mr. Salt written on his to match. 

Dream recognised George’s handwriting immediately. 

“You guys are so lame,” Sapnap beamed, taking Karl’s hands in his own as he looked him up and down. “Babe, I thought we were gonna match.”

“I can multitask,” Karl said, “kill two birds with one stone and all that.”

“I think it's a great costume,” George piped up from behind them. 

Dream turned to greet him, but when his eyes landed on him leaning against the doorframe, his ankles crossed and his arms full of fairy lights, he felt the words die in his mouth. 

George was wrapped in those midnight robes like he was floating in the ocean, his skin glowing like white sand. He wore a black turtleneck under the fabrics, which gripped his throat and sharpened his jaw, and his hair was wet with gel, combed back to show off part of his widow’s peak, the rest of his curls so mussed Dream fought the urge to card his fingers through it. 

George picked up the witch hat lying upturned on the couch with one hand, fitting it onto his head with a grin. “So? How do I look?” 

The question was aimed at Dream and Dream only.  

“You look…” he started, trailing off as he tried to find the right words, still dazed. There were a lot of words he could use. Beautiful, gorgeous, breathtaking. 

He sucked in a sharp breath, knowing the affection in his tone was obvious when he finally settled on, “Wonderful, George.” 

At first George’s expression blanked, then his cheeks turned pink as a shy smile fluttered across his face, only for that to fall away too when he pretended to cringe, eyes darting off to the side. “Why’d you say that?”

“You asked for my opinion.” 

“Yeah, but you’re so--” 

“So?”

“Nevermind.”

Quackity cleared his throat. He’d forgotten the others were there, he always did, and so he forced himself to snap out of it, letting George scurry from the doorway so he and Karl could hang up the fairy lights across the couch and over the cabinets, their glow a hazy orange.

Dream busied himself with helping Sapnap set out trays of food and a bowl of punch, Quackity pouring bags of candy into the plastic pumpkins they’d gotten cheap at the store last year. Dream unwrapped and popped one into his mouth without looking at it, wincing at the taste. 

“Are these fucking Almond Joys? I thought they stopped making them.”

Quackity squinted at the wrapper. “These are just some off-brand ones I got yesterday.”

Dream shuddered, swallowing the rest of it and searching for a Twix instead, or something. “You really need to stop being such a tight ass.”

“What? I gotta secure the bag, dude.” Quackity narrowed his eyes, but his grin was wicked, laughter bubbling in throat when he added, “You’ll understand when you’re older.” 

“Alright, Mrs. Pepper.” 

Quackity punched his shoulder, something he had to reach up to do, and before Dream could react again the buzzer was going off, and Karl was sliding down the hall to let their guests in. In moments the door was swinging open and Karl and Sapnap were caught in tight hugs, the punch already surrounded by a small group of people. Dream recognised some of them, either from campus or some other old acquaintances, but knowing Karl he’d soon be swallowed by a crowd of complete strangers.

Dream stayed in the corner, lifting the sheet over his head and busying one hand with tapping the counter, the other twitching as he resisted picking his nails. Outside the sun had already set, and so the only thing that lit the space were those twinkling fairy lights, stuck like sequence on a black dress. Dream watched it under the fog of the sheet, consumed by the noise of chatter and old songs, the smell of alcohol swarming his senses and pressing him further into the wall. 

Somewhere across the room he could vaguely see George sipping something, laughing along to some joke and dancing with Quackity, their hands linked and their hips swaying. Quackity was a good dancer, George was not. He was clumsy, knees jutting out and his rhythm off, but he looked so happy, his laughter easy to pick from the rush, like his voice was floating above the sound waves. 

The bass thundered in his feet, the heat was steadily rising, and Dream tore his eyes away to open the fridge, grabbing a can of coke just to cool his skin. 

“You never drink soda,” George said from behind him. 

Dream startled, slamming the door hard when he swung around, pulling a face George couldn’t see. “It’s Halloween.”

“Kinda kills the scare factor.”

He tilted his head, chest settling as his voice softened. “What? Ghosts can’t drink soda?”

George smirked, pulling the sheet off his head. “Sheet ghosts get a pass.”

“Is that so?”

George nodded, hand lifting to wipe his thumb across Dream’s cheekbone, his skin dragging with the motion. “Eyelash,” he said under his breath. 

And Dream only stared at him, the rest of the party melting into nothing as he dared to press his palm to the back of George’s hand, keeping it in place. 

“Wanna go outside for a bit?” he found himself asking, placing the unopened can on the counter behind him. “Get some fresh air with me?”

George nodded, slipping his hand away and walking back into the crowd, pulling Karl’s shoulder and whispering something in his ear, hand cupped over the side of his mouth. Karl snorted at whatever he said, pushing him away with a hand to his back and turning back to his conversation. 

Dream took that as his cue to head for the door. 

…

It was freezing when they stepped out of the complex, the wind sweeping stray leaves across damp roads. The smell of it was thick, overtaking the alcohol and coursing through Dream’s airways, thrilling him as he stretched his arms out and counted the street lights as they passed them. Candy wrappers were scattered in the grass, the houses they passed were overrun by decorations and squealing children, and Dream and George walked further and further, the two of them slinking about like alley cats. 

This was the childhood he’d been reminiscing, and when he grasped it with both hands he pulled away with orange streamers, carved pumpkins, and cheesy 90s films. 

And when he looked a little closer, and tried to give it a face, it was pale, with hair so dark it was almost black and hiccuping giggles. It was someone he’d known for seven years, someone who’d been dragged from his own childhood and thrown into Dream’s arms by chance. 

George, who stopped to groan, undoing the laces of his boots and freeing his feet, two fingers pulling his socks off from the back of his ankles. He stuffed them into his shoes, swinging them in one hand and skipping around to face Dream, just to get a reaction out of him. 

It worked. 

“You’re such a child!” Dream laughed, shaking his head. 

“What’re you gonna do about it?”

Dream lunged for him, but he ducked, laughing maniacally as he sprinted down the vacant road, bare feet scraping against the concrete. 

“Come back here, George!” Dream yelled, taking off after him. “Don’t run without your shoes on, idiot!” 

But George kept running, and so Dream chased him, legs burning by the time they turned a corner and leaped across a long, winding bridge, where the water was glassy beneath them and stray bikes were left leaning against the rails. Dream passed them without a thought, the two of them bursting into a public plaza, where bare trees were covered in fake spiderwebs and makeshift lanterns, families milling around without paying them any attention.

George raced all the way to the centre, about to curve around the marble fountain in his path when Dream finally grabbed his arm, pulling him into his chest with a whooping, “Gotcha!” 

George screamed, but it quickly dissolved into uncontrollable giggles, letting Dream wrap his arms around his middle as the rest of the world whirled around them. Dream sunk his forehead into his hair, the shape of him so comfortable in his grasp, their bodies fitting together in a way that made his heart soar. 

George twisted in his grasp and threw his arms around his neck, hugging him instead of kissing him, because they were just friends. Best friends. Dream had to remind himself of this as he palmed the back of his head, holding him in a way that was too tender, too vulnerable. Enough to make him shake, because his emotions were becoming too hard to bear, flowers growing from his chest and filling his lungs, stems curling around his ribs. 

But George stepped away, easily turning his back to him and gesturing for him to follow, and Dream had to steady himself, biting down the frustration welling up in his throat as he ran to walk by his side, his hands empty. 

They wandered around the rest of the plaza, slipping through a gap between the buildings and heading down the steps leading back to the road. It was dark here, the metal banisters the only thing Dream could see as his eyes adjusted again. 

Somewhere in the blackness, George was speaking again. “You know earlier, when you said you thought I looked wonderful?”

“Yeah?”

“I was gonna say that-- that it’s overwhelming how honest you are. You’re so intense.”

Dream reached the bottom of the steps, waiting for George without looking at him. “You think I’m intense?”

“God, yeah.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No," he whispered. 

Dream didn’t know what was happening. He wondered if it was his imagination, that maybe he was crossing boundaries and blurring lines while George lay still, watching him crumble from the sidelines. He wondered if George was aware at all. 

He felt stupid, standing there with his nails still intact and his sheet dirty around his shoulders. And he felt stupider when he headed back into the street, hands in his pockets and searching for any sign of light, until his eyes landed on a lone street lamp pressed into the pavement, its back crooked and leaning against the end of one of the buildings, its light cast over the water they’d crossed earlier. So they’d come around the other end, he thought, leaning across the rails to peer at its surface. 

George caught up to him, and Dream didn’t need to see him to know he had his mouth clamped shut, like he wanted to say something, anything, but couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. Always hiding. 

Something ruptured the water. A tiny pinprick, followed by another and another. Droplets.

Dream’s eyes widened. 

They had no umbrella, no way back to the apartment, and all he could do was lift the sheet to cover them both as thunder groaned like an animal, rain coming down harshly and whipping everything it touched. 

Above them the street lamp was colouring the expanse, diluting the water and smearing their vision as it poured and poured. 

And in that little pocket of space where they stood, the sheet drowned and sticking to their backs, George gasped his hiccuping laugh, palms upturned to catch the downpour. 

He was just George.

His George. 

Dream couldn’t stop himself. 

“I love you!” he exclaimed, voice joining the crescendo. 

George looked up at him, shaking his head. “I can’t hear you, idiot!” 

They were soaked, the rain loud, loud, and Dream let go of the sheet to grab George’s jaw, leaning down to kiss him. 

The October rain roared. 

“I love you,” he said against his mouth. 

“Oh.”

“I’ve loved you since I was seventeen.” 

George let out an exasperated breath. “You’re so dramatic.”

“What the hell--”

But whatever he was going to say was swallowed by George fitting their mouths together again, his arms back around his neck as he kissed him over and over. 

…

By the time they made it back to the apartment, still dripping wet and shivering their asses off, half the people there were passed out across the couch, the others sitting on the floor and talking quietly among themselves. 

Sapnap was squeezed between Karl and Quackity, the two of them sleeping on either side of his shoulder, and when he spotted Dream and George, their hands knotted together and trying not to trip over anyone, he gave them a knowing smile, tipsily nodding towards his bedroom. 

Dream took that as permission to open the door, checking the bed for anyone and finding it miraculously untouched, guessing there were rules in place for that kind of thing. Quackity’s room and the bathroom were unlikely to have been given the same treatment, and he shuddered at what they’d find in the morning.  

His phone pinged and Dream unlocked it, squinting at the messages. 

Sapnap: if you have sex on my bed I’m killing you 

Sapnap: also I will be checking the sheets for piss

Sapnap: bc you’re disgusting <3

Dream rolled his eyes, typing quickly. 

Dream: I don’t piss the bed anymore 

Sapnap: I don’t believe u 

Dream: Goodnight

Sapnap: have fun w ur boyfriend ;) 

Sapnap: but not too much fun 

Dream dropped his phone on the nightstand, plugging Karl’s charger in and sinking back into the mattress. George flitted around his over side, throwing his robes onto the floor and snatching a towel thrown over the back of Sapnap’s desk chair, placing it where he was planning to lie down, before wandering back to the wardrobe and tossing a spare shirt and a pair of sweats for Dream, pulling a few items out for himself too.

“I was just gonna sleep like this,” Dream muttered, sitting up again to pull off his hoodie and unbuckle his pants, quickly switching them out for dry clothes and willing himself not to think too hard about George, who was shirtless and struggling to fit his head into the old band shirt he’d stolen. Oversized, so it must’ve been Karl’s. 

“And get sick? Sapnap and Karl won’t care if we steal their clothes.”

George slid into the sheets beside him, rolling onto his side and peering up, face half hidden, partly from the blankets and partly from his clasped hands. He looked like fall, wrapped in mismatched coverings, his hair still wet and only looking better the more he tried to shake the water out. 

“I wanted to give you my hoodie,” Dream murmured, their legs tangling in the middle. 

George didn’t respond, he just tucked Dream’s hair behind his ear, so gentle with him despite the taunt in his eyes. 

“Dream,” he said, pressing their foreheads together. His thumb swiped across his cheek, just like it had earlier, stopping under his eye. “Dream.”

Sweetheart, he didn’t say. 

Baby.

Honey. 

Darling. 

“Dream.” 

Dream closed the gap between them again, trying to say it back with the pull of his lips, the slight tear of his teeth. He angled his head, letting the endorphins fill his head, bright and real and alive. He wanted to kiss him until the morning light, wanted to touch him, hands trailing up smooth skin as he felt the blood rush under his fingertips. He wanted to hear pianos and crooning birdsong, wanted to taste the moonlight. 

It was as unexplainable as it was when he was seventeen.

And Dream knew he didn’t know where he was going. He knew that tomorrow would come and go and he’d keep falling through the days, the weeks, the years, his path winding and unknown to him, but he had George. 

Here, there, everywhere. Within and beyond time. 

Even in quieter, humbler moments, on Halloween night and lying in the murky darkness of his best friend’s bedroom, slowly kissing the person he adored. 

They were here.