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Jealousy wasn’t an unfamiliar curse for Dream. Whether it was with his siblings, the timeless ‘life isn’t fair’ lesson, or using the infamous jealousy to fuel a hobby, it was a feeling the blond always had a hard time shaking off.
And if the jaded green jealousy was a curse, George is his witch, casting the hex with every look gifted to not him . It's suffocating Dream; he’s surrounded by water, but envy is what drowns him- creeping up his throat and threatening to flood his lungs with every unreturned glance.
Pale skin reflects off of hot liquid blue while emerald irises can’t find their way off of the sight.
Sapnap sloshes around the warm water with one hand, leaning the other back to tap on the side of the hot tub; the brunet sits on his phone, scrolling through TikTok and occasionally laughing and showing the boys a funny video; and the blond sits relaxed in the water with eyes locked to the pale expanse of skin displayed near him.
With Sapnap laughing at a comment Dream made about George’s laziness, George leans over the tub side, exposing more of the expanse of his back profile.
There’s a lone, soft freckle on the upper right side of his back and Dream traces his vision directly to it, not making way for any other view. Guilt eats him up; nobody should be looking at their best friend like this. (Then again: Isn’t this how the brunet himself looks at Sapnap?)
Green eyes finally break the contact with the lone freckle and refocus on what the brunet is up to over the side of the tub, finding their brown cat prancing around the cement and rubbing against the tub.
George smiles. “Look- Patches wants to get in the hot tub with us.”
Dream returned the look with unfortunate thoughts of endearment and yearning for affection. “I can guarantee she doesn’t.”
“You’re right, she just wants me.” The brunet returns. He reaches impossibly further to stroke her soft fur. Dream turns away.
“Who wouldn’t?” Sapnap says, flashing a stupid grin onto George’s lips with a strike of emerald envy through the blond.
The pale, slender hand curves along the cat’s back as Patches walks along and nuzzles against George’s wrist. It had surprised both Dream and Sapnap how fast Patches adjusted to the new roommate, as she’d never been known as a people-lover or easy to get to know. Dream had even commented something along the lines of ‘you’re a cat whisperer’ - to which, Sapnap replied, ‘no, he’s just a catboy.’
Now, George plops back into the water and purses his lips. “I’m getting out, Patches is lonely.”
The blond watches as the brunet wraps himself in a towel, scoops up the cat, and shuffles inside. Then it's just Sapnap and Dream in the hot tub, the blond and the boy who just might be ruining his chance at what he’s wanted for years.
And unfortunately, he’s known Sapnap for even longer - and he can tell way too easily that somethings up. Dream doesn't know how he does it - hell, if he knew, he would have found a way to cover it up by now.
“What’s up with you?” The raven asks, his voice much more hushed now. It was natural, the way the quiet, caring question fell from his lips as he dragged fingertips across the surface of the hot water. When met with a simple (and completely insincere) ‘nothing, why?’ he brought his eyes up to meet Dream’s. “I dunno, you seem off today. Not like, tired, but like, far away, even though you’re right in front of me.”
Dream smiled at the attempt to describe what he’s been observing in the blond’s recent behavior. Sapnap was caring, he always had been, but maybe he wasn’t the smartest.
Fuck it.
“Is something, like, happening between you and George?”
Sapnap pauses. “ What?”
Dream pauses to think clearly about his next words as he watches the shorters face flush a deeper pink, knowing now the cause is definitely not the heat. “You guys have been different lately. Closer, more intimate, I don’t know. I was just wondering if something happened between you guys.”
He can see the gears turning in Sapnap’s head as he sinks lower into his seat, descending further into the heat.
“Dream,” He pauses and it’s silent, aside from nightly crickets chirping. “I don’t know.”
A sigh falls through pink lips, flowing into the water and causing small ripples in blue. “I see the way you guys look at eachother; I just need to know if I have any chance left.”
Sapnap’s eyebrow quirks, and Dream almost wants to smile at his oblivion. He assumed Sapnap could readily see it in the blond. Apparently not.
“Has it not been obvious?” Hands trace circles in the still heat. “I like George; I have for a long time. But if there’s something between you guys- I don’t want to mess it up just because of a stupid crush I can’t get over.”
It’s silent; Dream hates it. Regret floods his veins and the urge to dip under the hot water and never surface becomes strong. He sits still.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what?”
Dream can tell Sapnap wants to talk- he’s never one to hold things in, and there’s something on his tongue; Dream just needs to let it out.
“I don’t know if I’m, like-” He stops again and Dream holds his breath. “I’ve been thinking lately that maybe I- y’know, not just George.”
Dream’s hand stills in the water as he halts the circles and looks back at Sapnap confusedly. “What? So you don’t like George?”
“No like- yeah I do, but not just George.”
Dream stays quiet in avoidance of redundancy by asking another question. Then, it clicks.
Sapnap had always made jokes. ‘We’re like, poly.’ He had said once, to which George responded with a laughing, ‘Huh?’
‘You know, when like, three people all date each other.’
Dream thought it was a stupid joke - and to be fair, it was - but there was a tinge of something unnameable in George’s laugh, something Dream had only considered once, maybe twice, and shoved the thought away completely.
The blond treads the new waters quietly and stealthily, afraid to make a wrong move and assume something that isn’t true. He still wasn’t sure if Sapnap was poly, confused, or even had feelings for Dream at all.
“Then who else?”
“Dream, you know.”
They’re quiet; Dream despises the silence. The water is beginning to make the two sleepy and lightheaded from the heat, and the blonde wants to think it's contributing to the beat of his heart growing louder, his mind racing with ideas and thoughts. The water is still, but the blond’s mind whirls with questions. He asks one:
“Now what?”
Sapnap shrugs and faces down at water, a pale blue glow entrancing his skin. Even the reflection of the water can catch his deep pink blush. “You tell me.”
It’s almost funny that they’d end up in such a situation. Sapnap must have heard the quiet chuckle Dream let out.
“Why are you laughing?” Sapnap asks, already smiling himself.
“Nothing,” Dream starts. “It’s just kinda funny.”
“We’re a wreck.” Sapnap laughs pitifully.
They sit again. It’s almost comfortable, despite the newfound weight of a confession in the air. It’s a salty perfume, lingering too long and smelling too strong, unable for either to ignore once let into the open. But, it’s still the two of them as they’d always been.
Dream asks, “Does George know?”
“You ask a lot of questions, you know that?”
Dream chuckles and nods, as if to say, shut up and answer the question .
The shorter sighs, sinking so far back that the front of his face is the only part of him not emerged in water. “No, he doesn’t.”
The two sit in the same silence they’d swam in for years, but now they were drowning - the weight of two, technically three, confessions dragging the blond’s feet down into the water, submerging him and letting the liquid silence flood his lungs.
“Tell him.” Dream finally commands.
Sapnap scoffs at the words, “So easy.” They wait, continuing with, now seriously, “Why? That’d just mess shit up for you even more.”
The blond takes a moment to think about it. Sapnap’s right, Dream would be worse off if the two got together.
“I don’t have much of a chance. Besides, it’s not like he hasn't had a thing for you for years.”
Sapnaps lips part to speak when the glass door slides open, a brunet figure making way in the doorway. Soft, loose pajamas are draped over his skin and the glow of the blue lights illuminates onto his pale skin.
He’s pretty . Dream thinks, immediate waves of guilt washing away the thought. By the looks of it, Sapnap feels the same, with a dough-eyed gaze in George’s direction.
“You heard us, didn’t you?”. Dream can tell by the look in his eyes, the soft point in his brows, the nerves in his smile.
He nods. “Let’s go inside.”
The invitation should have stricken some sort of anxiety into Dream; should have made his heart pound and his breath quicken. But something about the softness in his voice or the joy buried somewhere in his coffee gaze calmed the blond.
They walk inside, George sliding pale fingers into Sapnap and Dream's hands. The three would figure it out, they always had.