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The gap between George and Sapnap on the couch looked like the Grand Canyon. Really, it wasn’t even that much, but with George pressed against Dream’s side it seemed like everything. With George’s hand in his, it seemed deliberate. Dream had always assumed George wouldn’t be very touchy in real life, but the moment they were out of the public bustle of the airport that morning George took Dream’s hand and refused to let go—not that Dream would ever ask him to, but it had been hours and they’d only separated when absolutely, non-negotiably necessary. (And, Dream was acutely aware, Sapnap hadn’t had that honor even once.)
As if that wasn’t enough to thoroughly fry Dream’s brain, when the three of them got home from the airport and decided to watch a movie George had immediately cuddled up with him. Really, any closer and he’d be in Dream’s lap, which was a mental image Dream immediately filed under Do Not Think About.
Sapnap paused the movie and went to go make more popcorn, leaving Dream and George to wait on the couch. The two of them hadn’t been alone since George landed; hopefully, it wouldn’t be awk—
Any and all thoughts Dream might have been having died.
Because George kissed him.
The hand that wasn’t holding his came up to cup his cheek and pull him in, and then George kissed him. Dream sat there, frozen for a moment, until the less logical, more desperate part of his brain figured out that “holy shit, my cute/hot/love-of-my-life best friend is kissing me and I have no idea what’s going on but you can bet your ass I’m gonna kiss him back” and he gave in. George led, and Dream followed, confused and thrilled and more than a little bit scared.
Eventually, after what felt like hours but judging by the popping sounds from the kitchen could only have been a few minutes, George pulled away. He gave Dream a lazy smile and stroked his cheek with his thumb—oh god.
“George?” Dream asked, his voice shaking.
“Hmm?”
“What—what are you doing?”
George rolled his eyes. “Kissing my boyfriend? After waiting two and a half weeks?”
Two and a half weeks. Fuck, he knew exactly what George was talking bout. One night two and a half weeks ago, the two of them had been the only ones on the Dream SMP. They spent the night alternating between chatting, laced with that slight edge of flirt that George’s voice took on late at night, and playing in comfortable silence. After a long lapse in conversation, George had giggled and put coords in the chat.
“George,” Dream had said, his voice entirely too soft, “that’s so far away!”
“Yeah, so it’s private, idiot,” George said.
Even with his riptide trident, it took Dream twenty minutes to get there, and all he found was a flower forest with no builds or even George in sight. He went to the exact spot, expecting a dumb sign or maybe nothing at all, and found a deep one block hole with water at the bottom.
“If you pick up the water I swear to god—”
“Just come down!” George giggled nervously.
Dream braced himself for inevitable death and dropped through the hole. He didn’t, surprisingly, die. No, he landed in a cave filled with glow berry vines, waterfalls, and spore blossom particles, with lanterns and potted flowers spread out on the floor. In the center sat a table (really just some oak stairs) and in one of the ‘chairs’ crouched George. “Did you make all this?” Dream asked.
“Yeah, what do you think?” George said with a smile in his voice.
“It’s awesome!”
George laughed. “It’s not that good.”
“Oh, come on, it's not like we're on Hermitcraft. This is really nice!” Dream followed the candle-lined path George had laid out to the table. “Why did you build all this?”
“Well. I, uh, I thought it might be nice, if… for a date? Like, you and me?”
A swooping feeling filled Dream’s stomach, but it dissipated when he put the bizarre-ness of the situation and the entire history of their friendship together and realized George wasn't serious. “I’d love to!” he answered. It was supposed to be a joke too, but it ended up sounding nervous, even genuine.
He ‘sat’ down across from George and talked about whatever random things were on their minds, and George gave him minecraft roses and giggled through his “yes” when Dream jokingly asked if there would be a second date, and two and half weeks later George kissed him.
“I think,” George continued, “I’ve been pretty patient, all things cons—"
“I thought you were joking,” Dream interrupted.
George’s smile fell. “Oh.” He inhaled shakily, dropping his hand from Dream’s face, and tugged his fingers out from Dream’s. “You thought—okay. Okay.” He stood up off the couch and started walking away backwards.
“George—”
“Cool,” George continued as if he didn’t hear him. Then his eyes blew wide open. “Sorry! Sorry, oh my god, sorry—” he bumped into the doorframe “—I’m so sorry.” He disappeared into the hallway without another word.
Dream sat on the couch for just a moment too long, lost in the realization that last night he'd made that same old joke about kissing George once he got to Florida, before he got up and followed after George. He expected to have to go far, maybe to chase after him out into the yard or run upstairs to George’s new room. He definitely didn’t expect to find him where he did: in the hallway sitting right next to the door to the living room, hugging his knees to his chest with tears streaming down his face.
There was probably a better way to go about this, but the man Dream had been in love with for years was crying because he thought Dream didn’t feel the same way and also he’d just kissed him, so Dream was the furthest thing from thinking clearly. He needed to explain himself, he needed to make George understand that it was okay, that he felt the same way, but all he could think to do was to kneel down beside him and press his lips to George’s. He tasted like salt.
George let out a whimper and pulled away from him. Yeah, Dream realized, definitely not the right way to do that, but George threw his arms around him and buried his face in Dream’s chest anyways. “George?” Dream asked quietly.
“I,” George stammered, and Dream wanted to rip every painful feeling out of George’s heart and pull them into his own just to make things better for the beautiful boy in his arms, “I think I’m—I’m not—” He gasped for air.
“Oh, sweetheart, come here,” Dream murmured, wrapping his arms tightly around him. “You’re okay, I’ve got you, just breathe.” George’s gasping, uneven breaths continued, but they gradually slowed down as Dream rubbed reassuring circles into his back and mumbled whatever kind words he could come up with.
When George let out a heavy sigh and loosened his hold on Dream ever so slightly, Dream could tell he was alright. He hadn’t wanted to overwhelm George further by explaining himself, but now that George was okay Dream knew he had to make things right. He wiped away the tear tracks clinging to George's face and said, “Just because I thought you were joking doesn’t mean I wanted you to be.”
“Yeah?” George looked up at him with a tired smile.
“Yeah. Will, uh, will you be my boyfriend?”
“I’m already your boyfriend, idiot.” There was still a slight shake to his voice, but relief in it as well. “Just because you didn’t take me seriously doesn’t mean you didn’t say yes.”
“Shut up. I—can I kiss you?”
George giggled and there, finally, Dream could see the tension melt from his shoulders. “So eager,” George said.
“Says you!”
“No, no,” George said with a teasing smile, “it’s so much harder to wait for something when you know it's actually gonna happen. I spent two weeks separated from my boyfriend, it’s different!”
“I still spent, like, years wanting to kiss you, idiot.” Dream flushed impossibly darker when he realized what he just confessed.
“Yeah, same,” George mumbled, breaking their eye contact for a moment. “So I know I’m right when I say the last two weeks were…” He smiled to himself and looked back at Dream. “Well, I was gonna say awful, because waiting for my fucking flight before I could touch you was awful, but the last two weeks were kind of amazing, honestly. And you didn’t even know.”
“You really thought that’s how I’d act if we were together?” Dream laughed.
“I don’t know, I guess I figured we’d just be, like, us?” George played with Dream’s hoodie string. “You know, when people talk about that couple that gets together and they’re literally the same but, like, they kiss now?”
Dream thought about it. “Okay, yeah, we probably would,” he admitted with a grin, “but come on, I would’ve made a bigger deal out of this! And, like, called you pet names or something.”
George flushed a pretty shade of pink. “Yeah?”
Dream caressed George’s cheek with one hand. “Yeah, baby.” Dream doubled over into an uncontrollable wheeze when George’s eyes blew wide open and his cheeks darkened even more.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” George swatted at Dream with one hand and covered his face with the other.
“Hey,” Dream said once his laughter calmed down, “for real, though, are you good? You got pretty freaked out earlier.”
George reached for Dream’s hand and wove their fingers back together. “Yeah. But I’m okay now. I just… I really, really like you. I—I didn’t want to lose you.”
Dream squeezed George’s hand. “You’re never gonna lose me.”
George rolled his eyes, but couldn’t hide his grin. “And I was, like, so embarrassed that I misunderstood, but no, you were the one being stupid—I literally asked you to go on a date with me!”
“Listen, I’ve asked you to be my Valentine, normal shit doesn’t apply to—”
“That was on stream! I planned the perfect Minecraft dinner date for us and built it a bajillion blocks away so no one else would see it and you still thought—”
Dream kissed him—to shut him up or because he couldn’t wait any longer, he wasn’t really sure. ‘Why’ wasn’t really at the top of his mind anyways, not when he was finally letting himself feel everything he hadn’t been able to the first time. George was his boyfriend, his boyfriend, and just how amazing that was was starting to sink in. He wanted to be serious, he wanted to kiss George senseless, but he was too overwhelmingly happy to do anything but giggle against George’s lips.
George pulled away with a blinding smile and rested his forehead against Dream’s. “God, I love you so much.”
Dream’s mind went completely blank.
“Uh,” George continued, “I dunno if that’s too soon but, you know, I realized, like, I had a whole panic attack over losing you and—and I think, uh, that I love you.”
“I love you too,” Dream breathed, awed.
George opened his mouth as if to respond, but gave up and just kissed him again. With some of Dream’s pure, uncontrollable giddiness exhausted, the kiss was deeper, more passionate, more everything. Dream’s hand left George’s to tangle in his hair, pulling him in while George wrapped his arms around Dream’s neck.
Just as George pressed closer, practically in Dream’s lap (his thought from earlier, along with so many others, had been removed from the Do Not Think About file and it was threatening to shut off Dream’s brain), Sapnap shouted, “I fucking knew it!”
Dream turned to see Sapnap standing in the living room doorway with a bowl of too-bright yellow popcorn and a surprised grin on his face; he pulled away from George, blushing bright red. George grabbed Dream’s hands when they left his hair.
“Uh, hey Sapnap,” Dream stammered.
“How long has this been a thing?”
George glanced at Dream and then burst out laughing.
Sapnap made a confused face. “What?”
“We’ll explain if you give us popcorn,” George answered, tugging Dream to his feet. “We’ve got a movie to watch!”
They answered Sapnap’s questions as they went back to the living room and got set up for the movie. This time, when George snuggled up with him, Dream put an arm over his shoulder and kissed the top of George’s head. This time, George squeezed his hand and smiled back at him. (This time, Sapnap made an exaggerated gagging sound, complained about third wheeling, and then not two minutes later said seriously that he was “so happy for you guys.”)
George was right; it really wasn’t all that different, and George was right; it made Dream feel the happiest he’d ever been.