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The lights have been dimmed to a warm, syrupy orange, the rest of the shadows lingering around Dream's bedroom fended off by the little tealights he'd painstakingly lit, one by one. Rose petals in deep, silky reds and pearly pinks dot the floor in a trail to the doorway. The heady scent of autumn lingers in the air; beneath it is the detergent that Dream had used to, he'd hoped redundantly, wash his sheets.
Propped up against the pillows, on top of aforementioned sheets, George scowls apoplectically at him.
Everything else is perfect! Except this, this is less than ideal!
His pale shoulders are hiked up to his ears, hunching over with his knees as a flimsy wall between the two of them. Dream is sure he himself looks similarly defensive, if not more clothed; George has been stripped to his boxers, but Dream only managed to get his pants off before— before. At least he's retained his shirt.
His dignity, on the other hand, is long gone.
"I thought," says George, before stopping. There's a heavy, stagnant pause as they both stare at each other. "Who said."
Another pause. With effort, George grits out, "Why. Are we assuming. That you would. You'd be the one to. You know."
It's not so much a question as it is an accusation, and Dream musters every bit of put-out indignance he has in his body to answer.
"I'm sorry," he says, which is a less-than stellar start to the scathing rant he was preparing for. Groveling usually works with George. It's not what he was trying to do, sure, but he can run with this. "It's just that, well, you know. I'm." He waves his hand in a way that really doesn't clarify anything at all.
George's face is coldly furious. It's both counterproductive and upsetting that he's actually sort of hot when he's angry. "I don't know," he says. "Please, feel free to enlighten me."
"I'm sorry," Dream says again, voice coming out more like a whine than the cutting sarcasm he was aiming for. A voice in his head, which sounds a lot like Sapnap, cries simp! with barely tempered glee. He elects to ignore it. "But. I sure wasn't planning on bottoming."
"Funny," George says, unflinchingly. "I was also thinking along those lines."
Dream opens his mouth. George holds up a finger, and like the well-trained lapdog he definitely isn't, Dream immediately closes his mouth.
"I'm also wondering," he says, "why you would assume. That I would be bottoming."
"Uh," Dream manages with eloquence when it becomes obvious that this is, unfortunately, not a rhetorical question. "I don't know. Twitter discourse?"
George turns an interesting shade of green, lip curling with distaste. "Don't bring up Twitter when we're in bed."
"You asked," Dream says petulantly. "We're not even— doing." He makes another complicated gesture with his hands that more or less conveys the general gist of what people usually intend to do when they share a bed.
"When has Twitter ever done you right, anyways?" George continues, graciously ignoring Dream's awkward hand-intercourse.
"Plenty of times," Dream pouts, his instinct to defend his fanbase warring with his— equally strong— instinct to cave to George's every whim and agree with him like he hung the moon and stars. Simp! Sapnap's voice chimes in helpfully again. George gives him a look. Dream deflates.
"Can we at least," Dream looks down at his own dick, then George's untented boxers. "I don't know. Jerk each other off?" It's too much to hope for anything else at this point, but really, Dream made it this far. He wants to get a handjob out of this. He wants to give George a handjob! If a mediocre end to a disastrous night is all he can afford, he'll take it.
George gives him a distinctly unimpressed look. Dream tries to make himself as pitiful as possible, and it must work, because George huffs and lies back against the pillows, arms still crossed. Pillow princess! Dream has definitely seen someone on Twitter calling George a pillow princess before.
"Lube," George says— commands, sounding very not-interested in the whole affair. Which, alright, the mood is dead. The mood has been taken out back and shot between the eyes. The mood has been tied to a rock and dumped in the river. The mood has been jumped and beaten and left to bleed out in an alleyway.
Dream knows CPR! He can salvage this. With that in mind, and with newly found determination, he reaches for the bottle of lube on the nightstand.
Most of the tealights have burnt themselves out by now, leaving the room with nothing more than occasional dim, sputtering glows on the dresser and vanity. There are a cluster of them, though, still going strong on the nightstand, casting George's soul-crushingly unimpressed face in clear light.
The bottom of the lube tube knocks into one.
All four of the meticulously arranged tealights tumble off of the tabletop; Dream can only play horrified spectator to the stunning display of inanimate object synchronicity. Hot wax spills, two of the candles putting themselves out as they fall and roll out of sight. The third lands upside down on the hardwood floor.
The fourth lands on the rug next to Dream's bed.
Like dry tinder, somehow, the thing catches flame.
Barefoot on the pavement, watching as firemen direct a steady stream of water into his bedroom, Dream bites back the urge to call Sapnap in tears, if only because he knows that whatever sympathy the man has for Dream's situation will be prefaced by at least a solid six minutes of laughter. Beside him, George shivers, naked except for his boxers.
"... Do you want my shirt?" Dream offers tentatively, fingers already inching towards the hem. George gives him a look so cold it could freeze all of Florida right over.
Dream mentally clears up his schedule for the next calendar year. He's going to be doing a lot of groveling.