Chapter Text
“Hurry the fuck up,” George calls, curling his toes up and kicking with the ball of his foot at Dream’s bathroom door.
“Just wait a minute!” Dream’s voice is muffled from behind the wood, huffy and fond. George tucks his bottom lip between his teeth and fiddles with it to pass the time.
It isn’t long, really, before Dream’s ready; George just likes to be impatient anyway. It’s comfortable, maybe, normal. What they’re used to. Petulant George and amiable Dream.
“Aren’t I handsome?” Dream bats his eyelashes at him, throwing the door open and already leaning in and too close, too much. Then he leans his shoulders back so his hips jut forward and displays his torso, bare and paler than it’d been at the end of last summer.
“You’re fucking ridiculous,” George deadpans, turning away and walking out without looking back because he knows Dream will follow.
“You’re so mean to me, Georgie,” Dream whines, slinging a careless arm over George’s shoulders and pressing in close, loose and relaxed like he’s been waiting the whole year for this, for summer, like that’s all he is: sun waiting to bloom again. George only rolls his eyes, doesn’t complain at being called Georgie because he knows Dream’s only expecting him to.
They continue on their way without any more talk, quiet in the way the two of them know how to be, because they know how to let other sounds fill that space: George’s padding footsteps and Dream’s louder ones, shuffling a bit so that he can walk in time with George, not speed ahead like he otherwise will because his legs are damnably longer; yelling kids and their parents, yelling too but not in the bad way, just in a sort of long-suffering affection; the small town coming to life in the way that only small towns can; the sort of summer hum in the air that’s probably just bugs but George suspects might be humidity in solid form.
They walk through the neighborhood; wandering, maybe, except that it’s not aimless—they’re being guided by a compass beneath their feet, between their ribs, to the river and their tree, because that’s what they’ve always done, every summer. George knows the route by heart, these streets; could make his way through them with his eyes closed, probably, and would really do it too, just to prove something, but Dream would call him an idiot and stick his feet in the way to trip him.
They make it there far too quickly, George thinks, because the walk is ritual and it should feel more like it: heavier, more powerful, more. He supposes that at the end of it all, it’s still just walking, like they’ve always done.
Dream makes up for what the trip lacks well enough, anyway, in terms of enough-ness. Because he’s Dream: and the minute they step off the sidewalk he’s sprinting across the grass like the pebbles littering the ground couldn’t hurt his bare feet if they dared; and he’s jumping up into the air and slamming his feet into the first foot of water because it’s too shallow to cannonball but he wants to make a splash anyway, make his presence known; and he’s all flashing grins and eyes crinkled into his smiles and waving arms; because of course he is, he’s Dream, and he could never be anything less.
“You’re such an idiot,” George mumbles, just loud enough that it’s there but not enough that Dream could hear him from across the marsh. Dream smiles wider, though, face-splitting, like he knows what George said anyway, like the shape of the words on his mouth is so familiar Dream could pick it out from across the world.
“C’mon!” Dream yells. “C’mon, Georgie, c’mon!” and George really can’t help but smile back at that, taking off toward him like he’s gravitating, flying over the ground like he’s invincible too because summer made him so.
He screams into the air and everything screams back, all whoops and whistles and just them, Dream and George, out for blood, out for summer.
There’s a kid sitting across from George and there’s marker everywhere on him, like he’s decided that there isn’t any better canvas than himself. There are tiny slivers of color in strands of his hair, in lines down his arms, coloring in some of his teeth, and George thinks he’s kind of horrible.
“I’m Clay,” the boy leans in like they’re conspiring, wicked grin on his mouth like nothing has ever hurt him and nothing ever can.
“George,” he says in turn, sticking his hand out because he knows handshakes are what you’re supposed to do, but he hasn’t had anyone new to try it out on yet.
Clay ignores his hand and grips his arm—George pretends he doesn’t feel as slighted by this as he does—latching onto him and rocking back and forth excitedly even though George is fairly sure there isn’t much to be excited about, just school and markers and boys he can tell are going to be loud even though they haven’t said much yet.
“Your voice is funny,” Clay says, wrinkling his nose.
“Your name is funny. Like that mud stuff.”
Clay grins toothily, a little evil like all kids are, plucks another marker from seemingly out of thin air and is attacking George’s leg with it before he knows what’s going on.
“Hey!” George squirms, ticklish at the feeling of the soft tip of the marker, of Clay's hand pressed flat against his knee. “What are you doing?”
Clay giggles—George decides he hates it, without much heat behind the thought—and flicks his wrist with a flourish to finish off his masterpiece. It’s a mess, completely nonsensical, George as Clay’s new canvas, because of course he can’t be normal and just get some paper, but George thinks he can make out letters among the madness.
“Clay,’” the boy confirms. His smile is crooked, slightly, George notes, a little off and a lot perfect, just right.
“You’re such an idiot,” he says, instead of asking why he felt the need to write his name on George like he’s claiming him, because it’s just ridiculous enough to feel fitting.
“How’s your name spelled?”
George looks at him funny at the strange question but takes the marker Clay hands him, holds it steadier than Clay had because he’s mature like that, his mum's said so, and prints his name as carefully as he can on the wood of the desk in front of him, because there’s something more permanent about writing on skin, even if it’ll wash off, that makes him apprehensive.
Clay looks over the letters with focus, like he’s trying to find something in the spaces between, in the loops of George’s ‘e’s and ‘o’ and ‘g.’
“I like how it’s spelled. You don’t even hear the ‘e’s.” There’s something almost jealous in the boy now, demanding because he’s never been anything else. “Mine’s boring.”
George only shrugs, notices Clay hands on his arm again, isn’t too bothered by it, “change it then, dummy.”
Clay pouts. “I don’t know what to pick.”
“You’ll figure something out.”
“When I choose one, will you call me that? Not Clay?” and something a little desperate sits in his eyes now, some little test that George thinks, vaguely, that he should pass.
“Sure. It’s just a name; I don’t care.”
Clay beams. “You’re my new best friend, Georgie.”
“My name isn’t Georgie.”
His eyes sparkle. “Okay, George.”
George sits on the riverbank, legs cool in the water and palms rubbed soft by the coarse dirt beneath them, leaning back to show his face upward to the dying sun, tired in the good way, satisfied exhaustion, bones a bit achy and everything slumped. “Are you gonna take CompSci next year, too?”
Dream glances over at him curiously, still rummaging around in the water to try and find stones to skip, even though George knows there aren’t any good ones and no space to skip them anyway. He still dives down dutifully each time, water brushing up by his ribs, just deep enough that he has to dunk his head in when he leans down and just shallow enough for that to be annoying. He’s patient with it today, for some reason, like he’s not tired yet, still restless, like night approaching only fuels him, eating up at the waning sunlight like once it disappears below the horizon its energy all goes to Dream instead whatever’s on the other side of the world.
“I don’t want to talk about school,” he decides after a moment of thought. “Ask me something else, maybe.”
George pouts. “I want to sign up for courses early this year, so I get all my first choices,” he explains, “but I don’t want to do certain classes without you.”
“Needy, George, needy,” Dream teases, ducking down into the water again. His hair comes out sopping, light brown instead of blond with water, curling a bit around his temples and the back of his neck because he isn’t letting it dry right, keeps going halfway and then getting it wet all over again.
“Seriously, Dream,” George whines. “Yes or no to CompSci?”
“Nope,” Dream tuts. “We’re not gonna talk about anything school-related until August, at least.”
George knows that means yes but Dream isn’t going to admit it yet, doesn’t want to accept that he’s just as needy as George. They’re codependent, probably, on both ends, if that’s a thing. Maybe not the right word for it. He doesn’t care at all. “That’s stupid. What if we run out of things to talk about?”
“We won’t. We never do,” Dream smiles like he’s proud of it, and George supposes he has the right to be. He’s proud of their friendship, too, calls Dream his friend like it’s a boast.
He still snorts incredulously, legs churning lazy circles in the water.
“Ask me something else,” Dream says, gentle but a little challenging, like he’s daring George to try and prove him wrong.
George rolls a little chunk of dirt between his fingers, cringes a bit when a piece gets lodged under his nail. “Why’d you choose ‘Dream?’” He asks, the first thing that comes to mind. “It’s not even a real name.” Dream looks unimpressed, and he amends, “I know I’ve asked you before. I want to know again.”
Dream huffs, takes the question as good enough, decides on a pebble and flings it across the surface of the water, watches it fail to skip. “I liked how the ‘e’ and ‘a’ went together,” he admits, a little embarrassed, understandably so. “The silent ‘a.’”
George knows that, already, was there when Dream first explained his choice, asks sometimes throughout the years anyway. “Plenty of normal names with ‘e’ and ‘a,’” he says by contradiction. He knows there isn’t any more to it; Dream had only been a little kid. George isn’t expecting any logic in the reasoning. He still sort of likes being difficult, just to see Dream resigned at it.
“You talked about your nightmares,” Dream says instead, quiet now in the way he isn’t, ever, and George finds himself leaning in to listen more, always gravitating towards him. “I wanted to be, like, the opposite of that. Something good for you, y’know?” He pitches another stone, all wrong: not at all flat, too big, too overhand to be a proper throw. It plops into the water heavily. “It was dumb anyway; we were in elementary.”
“That’s new,” George says, also quiet now, not sure why. “About my nightmares. You’ve never said that before.”
Dream really looks over at him, now, drops the stones in his hands, gives George all his attention in a way he isn’t quite sure how to handle. “Guess I failed to mention that part.”
That’s all wrong, George thinks, because Dream doesn’t do that, leave parts out: he always over-explains, makes his whole thought process known in excruciating detail, only ever leaves things unsaid when he’s absolutely sure George’ll figure it out on his own, and clearly, he hadn’t this time.
“Right,” he says, clears his throat awkwardly because his voice has gone all hoarse for some reason. Dream just kind of looks at him.
“Can I ask you a weird question, too?” The boy’s voice doesn’t sound quite normal. George doesn’t think any of this conversation feels quite normal, but he isn’t sure where to place it.
“Depends. But sure.”
“D’you remember Maia?”
“Maia?” George’s brain stutters for only a second until a face comes to mind, a smile. Hair clips. “From, like, when we were kids?”
“Don’t you still talk to her?”
“I thought you said no school-related topics.”
“She’s not school,” Dream rolls his eyes. “She’s friends. Right?”
“I don’t know,” George shrugs. “We still have each other’s numbers. We just don’t have any classes together anymore, so. Not much excuse to interact, I suppose.”
“You ‘suppose,’” Dream teases. “I thought you were… close.”
George shrugs again. “Closer than I was with most other people, sure. Especially when we got to, like, middle school. But not like… I dunno. You.”
“Right.” Dream flashes him an awkward smile and George doesn’t know what that means either. “You liked her, though.”
“Sure,” he agrees. “Still do. She’s cool.”
“No, like, liked her.”
“Huh?” George snorts in spite of himself. “Where’d you get that idea?”
“I dunno,” Dream says defensively. “Didn’t you? I thought it was obvious.”
George gives him a lopsided grin, poking a little fun at the way Dream shifts around, mildly uncomfortable at the topic. “Think I would’ve mentioned that, if I did. Why’re you asking?”
“I just,” Dream wades out of the water then, “thought you did. I don’t know. Remembered her just now for some reason.” His hands are pruned when he lifts them out, feet quiet when he walks past George to the tree. The atmosphere is changed again.
George stares after him and he is so, so confused.
“Sorry, George, honey, I’ll only be out for a little bit.”
George frowns, the beginnings of a tantrum approaching like calamity, an assurance of frustration and sleeplessness and another night wasted.
His mum knows it, wants to be out the door before it can happen, George can tell. She leans down, doesn’t bother crouching to really make herself eye-level, swipes at his cheeks with both thumbs as though making sure they’re still dry. “I’ll be back soon, honey,” she promises, “only out for a moment. We’ve already brushed your teeth so all you have to do is hop into bed in a little while and then it’ll be morning and I’ll already be back.”
“But Mum,” George whines, emphatic, but she doesn’t want to hear it, kisses his forehead and rushes herself out the door.
George stamps his foot, screams at the closed door, sharp and quick, bursts into tears because he can’t help it, stomps on every step up the stairs. He pushes his bedroom door closed behind him with both hands because it feels better than slamming it, throwing his whole weight in and feeling it rattle under his palms, shudder against the doorframe. His heels kind of hurt but he stomps to the bathroom, too, glares at himself in the mirror, at his leg.
He pulls his shorts down and settles himself perched on the edge of the bathtub, loofah in hand even though he cringes at its roughness, how it’s going to sting, dabs some soap on it and scrubs.
He throws the loofah at the wall some time later, watches it plop softly against the floor, not loud enough to be satisfying, refuses to look down at his leg where the skin’s been rubbed pink and raw, a little painful to touch, because he knows the marker on it is still painfully there.
He hadn’t noticed it much for the first few weeks, absently ran his thumb over the lines of color that poked out from the hem of his longer pairs of shorts. Then he’d worn a shorter pair and had been subjected to Clay noticing it and prodding at it, poking him at random intervals during the day and pulling back grinning like that was particularly funny, like he owned George and knew it, and that had been when George decided he wanted it off.
He’d gone to bed that night only partially triumphant with the progress he’d made, managing to get rid of some of the streaky lines dotted around but not the letters making up Clay’s name.
Even now, he still can’t get the stubborn word off.
George resigns himself to picking up the loofah again after taking a few kicks at the bathtub, the toilet, the under-the-sink cabinet, to try and let out some frustration, only succeeds in scraping so hard his skin actually starts peeling a bit, so he cries again and lies on the cold bathroom floor, too exhausted from tears to properly put himself to bed. The floor’s pleasant enough anyway, in that sort of comfortable uncomfortable way, so he sleeps.
“George?”
George scrunches his face up, curls into his arms tighter, kicks an idle foot out, but his name being called is determined to wake him up.
“George! Why are you sleeping in the bathroom?”
“Mum?” George wonders, knowing her voice and then her face when he opens his eyes, bleary. The bathroom is washed in the same cold lightbulbs as last night, timeless in the way mechanical things are, a little unsettling, but George recognizes morning in the light outside the room, yellower in its sunrise way.
“Why are you here?” His mum asks again, a little less patient, a little more concerned.
“It’s comfy,” he says, making sure not to mumble or slur his words because he’s been told not to and he likes to impress. “I was trying to get the marker off.”
“The marker?” George points to his leg to show her, but it doesn’t ease her confusion so much as freeze her entirely. “George. Is—does the marker not come off? Is that someone’s name?”
“Clay,” he confirms.
“Oh my God,” she says, pausing a few moments, disbelieving but a little less devastated than before. “Huh. Already.”
“Already what?”
His mum pushes gently on his back so he sits up, pulls him into her lap right there on the bathroom floor, warm in the way he’s missed. “George,” she starts cautiously, not angry or disappointed or particularly loving, some emotion George can’t place yet, “honey, have you heard of soulmates?”
“Were you lying, before? About the whole reason behind your name?”
Dream’s hands flex in his lap, eyebrows furrow, a little startled, nervous habits George knows. They’re in the tree now, their willow, tall enough to be worth a little reverence, thick branches and soft leaves and limbs forking out. George isn’t sure if it is really a willow, but that’s what they’d still call it anyway, even if it ended up being something different, misnamed, because that’s what it’s always been: a willow, and theirs. Their Willow.
He’d waited a bit, for them to settle into it, because climbing the tree takes focus for Dream and it’s easy to brush off conversation then, but now, hanging in the branches, there’s no avoidance. George has learned, over time, how to work these things in, find the lulls, put questions into empty space knowing Dream will answer them just to fill the silence.
“Dream?” He prods gently, knowing just how far to push so that Dream doesn’t close up on him.
“I heard you,” the boy murmurs, hands awkward because this is where he would normally reach for his shirt, twist the hem in his hands, but he’d forgotten one today, figured he didn’t need it.
George shifts himself in his perch: a little crook between two boughs where he can toss a leg over each side of the branch, lean back and really relax in the way you often can’t in trees, truly comfortable. He waits for Dream to start.
“I wasn’t lying. About why I chose the name. About your nightmares.”
George frowns a bit, because Dream is never concise like that, “it’s not like I don’t believe you, Mr. Hero Complex,” he snorts, “you just never mentioned it before?”
“No,” Dream says, too little again. “I didn’t.”
“…Why?”
Dream shrugs. “I couldn’t really explain it. I dunno. I was a kid.”
George supposes that should be a good enough answer, making sense by not making sense because it’s Dream, but he thinks back to something good for you, y’know? and scratches absently at his leg, tugging his swim shorts down over his thigh by habit, to hide the word scrawled there in a sloppy elementary schooler’s print.
George knows that Dream is his soulmate.
His name’s written there to prove it: a nametag, childhood's markers, bright colors George can’t see properly and handwriting that honestly hasn’t improved much since. No one else. Couldn’t ever be anyone else.
George had been swept up in Dream and his sun-smile and his too-fast mouth from the very start, just too late to have avoided him, belonged to him before he could even understand just how much. The idea that Dream—brash, inescapable, completely captivating—is his soulmate, is going to know George like this, as he is, forever, terrifies him.
So: George knows that Dream is his soulmate.
Dream doesn’t.
By now George wouldn’t know how to approach the subject at all; the inevitability of it makes his stomach churn and most times he’d rather not think of it at all, because how do you tell your best friend that he’s your soulmate, has assuredly been for over a decade now, that you’ve known and didn’t tell him? It’s worse, too, because George knows how Dream gets about it all sometimes, starry-eyed and romantic and yearning, and George knows he deserves something more similar to him: someone golden, vibrant, grandiose. Not George, really. Thinking about it makes him feel sick.
“We should go home,” George suggests, sounding more nonchalant than he is, suddenly feeling like he needs to escape, as though anywhere else in the town will feel less stifling, have less sign of Dream living there, belonging in every part of it. “Sun’s going down.”
“Oh, come on, George!” Dream complains, loud, back to normal. “You know it’s best here at night.”
“You’re insane.” George is already climbing down, flitting between branches in the routes that are habit for him. He feels Dream’s eyes on him, always watching him whenever he climbs, for some reason. Dream says it’s to study his technique. George says it’s because he’s just jealous. “All the bugs will come out and it gets muggy.”
“It’s always muggy,” Dream reasons. “C’mon, okay, let’s make a bet.”
“A bet?” George does his best to sound unimpressed but Dream knows him a little too well, knows how both of them like a challenge just for the sake of it.
“Yeah,” Dream grins, knowing he’s won with that. “See if you can still make it to the top.”
“Of the tree?” George asks, incredulous, already knowing he’s going to end up agreeing. “I could barely do it last year; I’m getting too big.”
“You haven’t grown at all,” Dream counters. “If you fail, you stay the night here with me.”
George stifles a groan. “And if I win?”
Dream pats his pockets, produces a pen. “This?”
“You had that with you in the water? No way, the ink’s gonna be all messed up now.”
Dream uncaps it and scribbles a few lines on his palm to test it, but sure enough, after a few moments it works, bright blue against his skin.
“Fine,” George sticks his tongue out, wipes his hands on his shorts, kind of sweaty, and gets to work.
If someone asked if he was scared of heights, George would probably say yes, because he doesn’t think it brave to be fearless but rather kind of stupid. It’s common sense that pulls at his stomach as he climbs higher, keeps his hands a little white-knuckled on the branches he holds, gripped tight. He supposes there’s still a difference between him and Dream, who seems to have an unspoken limit of being no higher than ten feet off the ground, always stays around the lowermost branches, never quite relaxes into the wood unless George is next to him, some kind of anchor. George, on the other hand, makes frequent eye contact with the ground like he’s daring it to come closer, because where the irrational part of him knows it would hurt to fall, the rational part knows he won’t. So he’s scared, yes. But he kind of welcomes it.
He keeps on climbing.
Another hand reaches higher, slips a bit and scrabbles for purchase when he prematurely puts too much weight into it. He sways with the tree, balances himself out, feels himself grounded in all four limbs, keeps going as his heartbeat tries to soothe itself.
“Careful, George,” Dream calls up to him, voice too lighthearted to be just teasing, something genuine and anxious underneath.
“Aw, what, you don’t want to watch me fall to my death?” The branches grow precarious as they reach upward, waver beneath him as he crawls out as far as he dares; he doesn’t bother to hesitate because procrastinating won’t spare his nerves. He just manages to stretch upward so that his head pokes out, no more leaves overhead, and it isn’t quite the top but it should count. He feels the trembling of the bark beneath him and scrambles back to the trunk, flying down it with reckless abandon.
Dream whoops and cheers as he descends, a one-man audience, and George relaxes as soon as he’s low enough again to feel sturdiness beneath his feet, grins with the remaining adrenaline he has, drops down onto the branch Dream’s on and walks across it lightly, like a tightrope, feet poised one in front of the other and hands balancing him out, holding nothing but air. The move is graceful, if entirely showy, but Dream doesn’t call him a show-off for it, only stares at him with something unreadable in his eyes.
“I’m free to go home, now,” George says triumphantly, plopping down in front of Dream, legs folded. He holds his hand out for his prize: the waterlogged pen and pride, another victorious smile.
“I could worship you,” Dream blurts, hands tight around his own ankles, crossed in front of him, something to hold on to. “I would, if you wanted me to.”
George blinks once. “What?”
Dream doesn’t let the silence take place, says all at once, “are you really gonna go home? I’m tired. I’m gonna set up a place to sleep. C’mon, let’s do that,” mouth going a mile-a-minute, already trying to worm his way around George so he can get to the ground, escape.
“Wait,” George twists and catches Dream’s wrist before he can run away. He almost feels the pulse there: rapid, breakneck, maybe only imagining it. “Dream? Dream, what?”
“Forget it,” Dream says, still too quick, twisting out of George’s grip. “Something dumb. Just forget it.”
Dream jumps from the first crook in the trunk to the ground, doesn’t bother lowering himself a bit more before doing it, hits the ground hard with his feet, winces when it shocks up his ankles. He scrambles around the base of the tree, brushing away twigs and stones, tidying a place for them to sleep on the soft earth. He nearly flinches when George drops down from the tree next to him, pointedly ignores eye contact, and George’s head whirls.
Nothing about this is right: Dream being genuine, simply for the sake of sincerity, Dream quiet, Dream scared. The roles are usually reversed; Dream knows the way that George hides, sometimes, when he gets too close: tortoiseshell cowardice, something that’s “just George,” as Dream would put it, kinder than he probably deserves.
“Dream?” George asks again, and the boy curls further into himself, eyes avoiding.
Well, then, George thinks, this is something “just Dream,” then, and that makes it a bit easier to accept, so he lets it be.
“You sure you don’t just want to go back to your house?” George says after a moment, nearly a murmur because a part of him is still always scared at breaking these silences, but it’s enough; Dream glances over and smiles a little, still unsure.
“‘Course not, Georgie, we always sleep out here on the first day,” he says, himself again, all the way back. “You’re so whiny.”
George smiles to the tree roots and elbows Dream in the side.
“George,” Clay decides one day, “I want a soulmate.”
“Oh,” George frowns, guilty for a reason he can’t perfectly explain, almost imagines he can feel the ink of Clay’s name written on his skin raised like goosebumps, something you could really feel, proof.
He’s your soulmate, George, honey, his mum's voice floats in his head. That’s what his name there means. It’s permanent. Forever. George purses his lips.
“They’re supposed to love you,” Clay continues, matter-of-fact. “No matter what.” He almost looks like he can’t believe it, unconditional love, smiles all sheepish, eyes somewhere else. “A few people have found theirs already,” he fiddles with his hands. “Writing their names on each other.”
George’s stomach drops. Oh. “So?”
Clay looks at him weird for a second, a lot wistful and a little sad, says, “have you found yours?”
“No,” George says, not even a half-truth. He thinks there’s definitely acid or something in his stomach. He’s probably dying right this minute and then he’ll never have to answer another one of Clay’s questions about soulmates again.
“Okay.” Clay nods. “We’ll be alone together.”
George hands hesitate on the hem of his shirt, debate over taking it off, balling it up and using it as a pillow, but he then imagines the way dirt will stick to his torso if he leaves it bare and his hands stay still.
“Is that my shirt?” Dream notices next to him, slouched into the ground, propped up against the tree trunk with his hands folded behind his head to cushion it.
“Not anymore,” George answers, examining it, stretched collar and turquoise-ish and damp with humidity and sweat. He pulls the fabric away from his chest and cringes at how it sticks to him, skin slick. With it he notices how he moves through the thick air like they never left the river water, still swimming, suddenly feels a lot more tired.
The sun sets with him, finally, sky gray in a violet-maroon sort of way, proper sunset colors in the undertones, dimming fast, shots of ink into the air like watercolor paint.
“Tired already?” Dream murmurs, sounding closer than George remembers, sounds all a little floaty. Dream shifts, really does move closer this time, just until their sides brush up against each other, turns his head to breathe near George’s face, warm noise.
“You’re tired, too,” George says defensively, limbs in heavy syrup, doesn’t bother opening his eyes, doesn’t remember exactly when he’d closed them. He turns towards Dream, curled up on his side because that’s the only way he sleeps. He feels his hair fall soft across his forehead, a bit over his eyes, longer now than it usually is because his haircuts are never scheduled at the beginning of summer; it wouldn’t feel right to have semblance of a fresh start in this season, beginning something from scratch, because that isn’t what summer is; it always needs to have something from the past in it.
Then his hair is brushed back again by a hand that isn’t his, tucked behind his ear even though it only falls out of place again. “Do you still have the pen I gave you?”
“I don’t think you ever gave it to me in the first place,” George mumbles, sleep beginning to smother him, falling over him in waves.
“Right.” George hears Dream shimmy around, reach into his pocket, find the object in question. “George? You still awake?”
“Mhm,” he breathes indistinctly, noncommittal.
“Georgie,” Dream pokes his nose, “stay awake a bit longer?”
“‘M tired, Dream,” he complains, tucking his hands under his face and curling into himself further. “Save it for tomorrow. Any other day.”
“Please?”
George peeks an eye open.
“Can I… George, can I write my name on you?”
“What?” George props himself up on an elbow, suddenly determined to be awake now because this is too many times today that Dream is being like this. “Write your name? Like soulmates?”
The word is heavy; George shouldn’t have used it, but Dream isn’t deterred, whispers, “yeah,” low like his voice is when it’s a little tired but doesn’t want to be, yet.
“You’re crazy,” George says, plopping back down because he’s convinced now this can’t exactly be real.
“Maybe. Can I?”
George snorts, a little too tired to really think this through, be careful about it. “Sure.” He throws an arm out, slung across Dream’s waist, bicep exposed for Dream to write whatever the hell he wants.
“Can I do it somewhere else? Not your arm?”
“Why? It’s not like it’s going to matter.” Because it’s true: Dream’s name is already permanent on him from years ago; nothing new will stay now.
George forgets that Dream isn’t aware of that, though, feels him momentarily freeze. “You don’t know that,” the boy whispers.
I do, actually, but he shrugs a shoulder in response, turns onto his back so that Dream can pick out a place on his skin.
“George? Stay awake.” George groans and opens his eyes, squinty and glaring at Dream, who crooks a sheepish smile. “Bit weird if you were asleep during this.”
It’s just letters, George thinks, just ink, but it’s intimate, he knows, can’t pretend it isn’t, in a way Dream has always craved. With anyone, he supposes. Not just him. Dream just tends to lean to George for it because he’s… around. “Just pick a place and get it over with.”
“Right.” He feels Dream’s eyes roam over his torso a bit, ruminating, before his hand brushes the hem of George’s shirt.
“What? On my chest?”
“No,” Dream says absently, pushes up the shirt only a sliver before settling his one hand on George’s stomach, bracing, places the other with the pen poised over his bare hip bone. “Is this okay?”
“Yeah, just hurry up,” George yawns, but he watches Dream anyway as he writes his name on George’s skin, gripping the pen tighter than he needs to, hair obscuring his face because it’s long this season, too.
“Okay,” Dream says when he’s done, hand lingering over the word as if tempted to smear the ink and see if it’ll smudge, even though George knows it will. “Goodnight, George.”
“Why’d you want to write it?” George slurs, simply curious, not awake enough to properly question what it means.
“Tell you tomorrow.” A hand settles on George’s cheek, too warm but easy. “Night.”
“Night.”