Chapter Text
The morning is a cold one. Patches meows extremely loud over her bowl. Dream hasn't slept because how does one even go to sleep when you can instead watch the clock count down minutes to when a certain plane will land in Orlando airport and a certain boy will descent that said plane. His heart squeezes just over the thought. He doesn't know how he will handle the real thing.
Sapnap is not up yet because it's not time to be up yet. Dream should be sleeping too. But maybe it feels better to play stupid phone games with George instead. And if they don't talk about how they're gonna see each other, if they pretend it's just a normal night, Dream doesn't have to go to sleep because nothing is really happening in a few hours.
He crumbles to the kitchen floor because suddenly the thought is too much. He shouldn't be shaking. His skin shouldn't be crawling all over purely over the thought of George being here so soon. Patches meows again just to crawl over him too, wrap her tail around his wrist and he finally breaths out.
There is no problem.
There is no problem.
She starts purring as she brushes against him and he can't help but laugh.
Why am I breaking. It's just George.
Just George. Just George. What a funny thought. Just George. British George. That is gonna be in America soon. He's gonna be an American George now. No. That's dumb.
"I should just go sleep, huh?" he chuckles to an empty kitchen and just gets a meow in response. It sounds suspiciously like yes. Maybe he is just losing his damn mind.
He thought back to June and the thought of kissing George, and he thought back to August and the thought of having George here in a few months, and he thinks back to yesterday and the single message of "on the plane now. It smells like tequila" and laughing softly with the tight feeling in his chest.
He wants it to go away. He wants it to stay forever.
Sapnap walks into the kitchen and blinks blearily at him on the floor.
"Have you even slept?" it's not a mockery and it's not full concern. Dream doesn't know how to explain what he feels.
"No," he sighs. Patches goes to greet Sapnap and he coos at her slowly.
"He's gonna come and you're just gonna faint," he chuckles and then continues on about his morning. His hands are shaking too. Maybe there is something in the air, a static, excitement, waiting.
They eat breakfast and talk and talk and don't talk about him. They start getting ready way too soon and sit in the car just staring at how the clock turns to the time they were supposed to leave at.
"I'm so fucking nervous dude," Sapnap chuckles and Dream drums his fingers over the steering wheel and just nods his head because he somehow can't seem to talk. "Just drive, c'mon!"
So he does. He starts the car like it's no problem because it isn't. He drives familiar roads and parks near the airport and waits in the oh so familiar grey room that is full of glass walls and he feels like he is a glass wall too and somewhere near the upper left part there is a crack. He has no idea if it's gonna be mended or shattered but something is certainly happening soon.
God, he really should have slept. Nothing feels real anymore and he wants this to feel real.
"Alright, it shows his plane landed. Did he text you already?" Sapnap is looking between his phone and the boards and now his entire body is shaking, he keeps stepping from one foot to another. Dream can't move. "Dream? Check your phone!"
He doesn't need to anymore because his eyes are now trained on a familiar fluff of hair and curious eyes looking around and God, he really should have slept, he wants this to be real.
He still pulls out his phone just to look, just because he was in the middle of getting to that.
"Where are you idiots"
The glass wall is flooding. It fills his heart and he doesn't know if it means it's fixed or that it heightens the pressure and it's gonna go off any minute now.
"George!"
"Sapnap!"
His laugh sounds different in the half empty airport waiting room. Dream wants it to be real. He feels like laughing just because they're laughing and hugging and George is turning to him now and he leans and reaches and he falters back on his heels and he looks somehow unsure, his hands turn back in as if he changed his mind about the hug but then open again, just to crumble back again.
Dream's eyes fall to his hands and how they are shaking with uncertainty, one held in the other in a very familiar George manner. You deserve someone to hold your hand for you, he thought and so he reached out his hand and separated his hold to take one hand into his and enlace their fingers together. He felt his own hand shaking a bit just then, dazzled breath escaping his lips that were already curving into a smile. George was staring at him as if no one has ever done that before and for a moment everything felt like too much, like there's no more air to take in and there's nothing else to focus on but the slight shine in his dark eyes and the softness of his skin and the feeling of his fingers slotting right between his and how maybe just maybe the corner of his mouth is picking up too and how maybe, just only maybe, Dream wants to kiss that mouth until there really is no more air to breathe.
"That one is yours, right?" Sapnap says instead and goes for the luggage and George takes his hand back and almost looks like he wants to give it back immediately but he just turns around to follow Sapnap, his hands coming up to scratch at his ear.
He turns for a second as his eyes find Dream again and there's that moment again and Dream thinks about the glass wall and this one article he read about the Japanese art of filling cracks with gold and maybe that's exactly what's happening. George just smiles, his cheeks a little bit red, and he laughs when Sapnap launches the bag at him. Dream's hand tingles when he takes it from them with a chuckle and he lets out a breath finally that feels like has been held in for years.
No problem.
No problem.
There might be a slight problem.
It was the 21st of August when Dream decided to paint George's room a cornflower blue colour. It was late at night because everything always happens that way and they have been mindlessly playing games for 6 hours and then just talking for another 2 when Dream asked about if he wants his room painted.
"Just leave it white, I don't mind," George mumbled, half asleep anyway, and Dream just chuckled at his phone screen even if no joke has been said.
As soon as he woke up, he went to the store and stared at wall paints and their colours and he looked at the one, cornflower blue, a light shade of cornflower blue, and he could think of nothing but George while staring at it, George sitting in a room surrounded by this colour and how that light blue hoodie suits his skin so nicely and how he could have an entire wall of that prettiness. He took a photo for him and George said it's pretty as Dream was already paying for it at the counter, and maybe it's presumptuous and maybe he will hate it or maybe he doesn't really care but Dream felt like he needed to do this more for himself than for George. So he painted the room and he moved the furniture around so the bed would be in the middle and he put a nice lamp his sister picked out on the nightstand and he added the hoodies he saved for him into the closet and he put some of his milestone coins on the shelf and felt a little bit better for some reason.
Some days he would come in just to sit at the chair by the table and stare at the cornflower blue and think, do nothing but think. Patches would join him, do her rounds around the room, sniff the bed, find good nap spots.
It was all getting ready for his arrival.
And now he was here.
Standing in the blue room and he looked around with a kind of wonder, his fingers messing with the coins on the shelf, Patches watching him suspiciously from her place at the bed. Dream was awaiting his judgement. George just kept switching the coin between his fingers. He opened the closet and just laughed.
"Dream! Are these the merch hoodies? There's so many, what?!"
"You told me to save one of every,"
"I didn't think you'd actually do it," he shook his head but he looked pleased still. Dream somehow felt brighter.
George fell onto the bed with a sigh. Patches didn't move. They were watching each other for a while and Dream felt this was maybe worse than George meeting his parents even if they haven't gone through that yet.
Patches turned her head first and George extended his hand and Dream held his breath as he watched her rub her head into the offered hand.
"You should have been vlogging this," George whispered, expression of pure glee on his face and he just laughed softly. "You were right, she loves me!"
All Dream could think about was, I love you. I love you. But he just cleared his throat and stared at the cornflower blue wall and maybe thought about the store and the call and all back the way to George, who was now giving all his attention to the cat. Everything comes back to him anyway. Dream left the room just because he felt like this wasn't real either, like maybe he should have been counting his fingers just to make sure. He needs sleep. He needs to go to sleep right now and do this all over again but do it the right way and hug George tightly when he meets him at the airport and he needs to not paint his room a nice blue colour because damn does it really suit him, he needs it to be ugly to match the wrenching feelings inside that make him feel like his body is too small to contain all this heart.
He reaches his own room and falls into the bed and he feels lightheaded as he thinks over the last hour and how he thinks over the past 6 years and how he thinks, love was surely made for a fool like me.