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George’s first mistake is, admittedly, catching feelings for the wrong person at the wrong time.
There are years of just learning, days of just knowing, seconds of just falling. They dawn upon him, gradual and slow like trying to learn how to do something for the first time. It clicks without realization, suddenly becomes habit, like it always existed as a part of him, a sustained battle constantly itching at the back of his skull.
His second mistake is, undoubtedly, showing it.
Tender and gentle and just different, it takes command of him, refusing to listen to anything that resembles rationality. He wants, and what’s worse is: Dream gives. He gives like he’s meant to give all along.
It begins to be the two of them, something that’s more , something that’s beyond indistinct perimeters set by the sole meaning of friendship. They remain like that for months, until there’s a breaking point—one that’s induced by loving too much—far too late in Florida and far too early in England.
Funny enough, it’s nearly at the end of watching Dream’s favorite movie, Star Wars-Revenge of the Sith , and George yawns, the lack of sleep getting to him, which prompts Dream to pause and scoff.
“Come on, George. Don’t tell me you’re sleepy right now. The Anakin and Obi-Wan fight scene is coming up. There’s no way I’m letting you miss that.”
George groans. “You’re so passionate about this. Way too passionate for 5 am.”
Truth is, George loves this more than anything. He can listen to Dream talk forever about things that make him excited, notice the subtlest change in his voice.
“Okay, to be fair, it’s midnight for me,” Dream states obnoxiously. George can hear his smile around the syllables. “Fine, idiot. Go to sleep then.”
“It’s alright. I don’t wanna—” He yawns again. “—fall out of sync with you again.”
“George. I’d feel guilty if you stayed up for me. I can hear how tired you are.”
“I‘m literally not even tired.”
“You know that the possibility of me believing that is literally nonexistent, right?” Dream sighs, feigning annoyance, disclosing fondness. “You’re so stubborn.”
“Maybe,” George smiles a little, the side of his head resting above his arm from where it rests on the desk, cheek mushed up. “But you love me anyway, don’t you?”
“Hm,” Dream says like he’s testing him. “How’d you figure?”
George scoffs. “Because you make it obvious.”
“Do I?” He raises his voice slightly. “Please, indulge me. I’d love to know how I make it so obvious.”
“Okay, alright, fine, I will,” George takes him up on his offer with a smile. “You’re so—you’re just so yourself with me. Like I feel like you trust me more than yourself, sometimes. You tell me everything, the smallest details that no one else knows. And you listen to me like no one else, I don’t even know why you do that. It’s like, you’re just so interested in everything that I have to say. I don’t—I’m not really sure how to explain it. You’re just—you’re everything. You make me feel like everything.”
“Dream?” George swallows. Maybe he had taken this too far. It was supposed to be a joke, and he completely blew it out of proportion. “You there?”
“Uh, yeah, I am,” Dream clears his throat. “Sorry.”
“Did I—was that too much?”
“Well, you kinda went off,” he teases. “How long have you been holding that inside?”
“Shut up. You’re so stupid,” George chuckles.
Dream laughs along with him, and then they’re silent for a while, before he speaks again. “George?”
“Yeah?”
The anticipation of silence trickles down his spine.
“You make me feel like everything too.”
That, George didn’t know back then, is how things begin. In a way, it’s how things end too.
-
His third mistake, or maybe fourth or fifth, (he had lost count over it) is letting himself fall into this routine. They’re as domestic as two people who are thousands of miles apart can be, baby, and sweetheart, love at the end of every sentence. I love you, before they hang up. I miss you, when they’re left by themselves.
George yawns, once again after a five-hour-long call spent talking about sweet nothings. “I’m gonna sleep, I think. I’m exhausted.”
“Okay, baby,” Dream says, tone softened, picking up on the exhaustion on the other end of the line. “Do you want me to stay on call with you?”
“Yeah, please. I like hearing your voice when I wake up.”
Dream chuckles fondly. “You’re so cute.”
“Good night, idiot,” George tries to keep himself from smiling, and he fails, just like every other time.
“Night. I love you.” He says it every night, and George wishes he could say it every second, and revel in the marzipan-sweet delight that tingles in every single one of his cells.
“I love you too.”
“Soon, I’ll whisper it into your ear before you fall asleep,” Dream coos.
George melts at the thought. Soon has never felt this far before. “Will you remind me every night? Even when it gets hard?”
“I will. Even when it gets hard.”
“Forever?”
“Forever.”
It’s easy to fall asleep when he believes in promises, when he trusts Dream with his life, when he imagines a time in which they will finally get what has been floating through words that sound so close and yet are so far.
-
Sometimes, things feel impossible, despite how much George desperately wishes them not to be.
Dream hates the distance, and George knows. He’s tired, exhausted, from not being able to have him close by, not being able to fall asleep, running out of words to excuse how long they’ve been apart.
They start to fight over things. Things that are small, things that don’t even really matter when you think about it. Dream doesn’t like telling him how he feels, and doesn’t want to bring George down with him. So he offers him nothing instead, and George is left trying to figure out what he wants. It’s impossible to try to come up with answers when he doesn’t know which questions to ask.
Still, he thinks he can fix everything that goes wrong — He tries so hard. So hard to keep the tectonic plates from shifting, palms growing sweaty as he pushes and pushes and pushes, and Dream doesn’t do anything, watches as they recede one by one.
No matter what, it doesn’t work when he’s the only one who’s trying. Days of silence follow after one another, and Dream grows more distant with the distance.
Eventually, the breaking point comes. George hates that he’s inches away from everything that he was ever terrified of. He thinks about it for hours. The only solution that he can come up with is to talk to him.
“Hi, baby,” Dream says when he answers his call. The word tastes sour. “Is everything okay? I thought you were asleep.”
“I’m only going to ask once. I need you to tell me the truth,” George bluntly says. He doesn’t want any formalities to soften the blow. They’ve never bothered with those. They’ve always been honest, never felt the need to lie when they can spot the lies as easy as blinking.
Dream shudders. He’s quick to pick up on things. From the first second, he’s aware of where this will go. “George—”
“Do you not love me anymore?”
“What—where is this coming from?”
“Just answer me.”
A sigh. “Can we—can we not do this right now?”
Dismissal rises like a slow tide, George senses it in his tone, recognizes it after endless hours of voice calls and elusive cues of disquietude that he knows by heart. It’s an answer that George is looking for, in theory, but not one he wants to hear, not one he wants to let sink in.
George scoffs. “What, you want to sleep on it? You want to go and think about how to let me down, don’t you? I’m sick of half-assed responses, Dream. I need you to tell me the truth. I need you to tell me the reason you’re acting like this.”
“Acting like what?”
“Like you can’t fucking stand to talk to me even for a second. Like you’re doing me a favor of some sort.”
“George, you don’t even know how wrong you are.”
“How am I meant to know anything? You’re not—you’re barely speaking to me, Dream. You’re not giving me enough to prove me wrong.”
“It’s just—it’s too hard like this, George,” Dream swallows. “Too hard to see you with others and not be able to see you myself. It’s—it’s killing me.”
“It’s not my fault, Dream,” George doesn’t realize he’s on the verge of tears until he feels the thickness on the back of his throat. “I want to see you. You know I do. I want it more than anything else.”
“I know. I know it’s not your fault. But it’s—it’s just so fucking hard.”
His blood runs cold. “You’re giving up. Why are you giving up? You—you told me you wouldn’t. You told me, before we started any of this, that you would love me even when things were too hard,” his lip twitches. “You fucking promised me.”
“George—”
“This isn’t— what is this? Are you—are we breaking up?”
“George, please. You aren’t listening to me.”
George actually chuckles, full of dismissal and ridicule. His thighs are shaking when he tries to get up from his seat. “I’ve listened to you. I’ve listened to you for hours and days and years, Dream. Did it—did it even mean anything to you?”
“Of course it did,” his voice is sharper now, bitter and sharp through the speaker. “Are you even hearing yourself? George, I love you. More than life itself. But I can’t love you like this. This isn’t—this isn’t working out. I feel guilty, all the time, for feeling like this. I feel guilty for feeling jealous. You make me feel so crazy that I act selfish. I think about asking you to stay behind while life passes you by just so you can stay with me, and I can’t ask that of you,” Dream takes a beat. “I’m bringing you down with me. It’s not right. It’s not fair to you.”
A shiver crawls up his spine. “So you—you would rather not love me at all?”
“I would rather try to learn how to stop loving you than love you like this.”
Forever, as George learns, is a fleeting word that loses its meaning before even a fragment of it passes them by.
-
The window of George’s apartment faces an oak tree. Every spring, he likes to watch as the leaves tinted with hues of yellow turn to a vibrant green, slithers of sunlight seeping through. This year, he closes the curtains. He doesn’t let the light in. He doesn’t watch the tree.
Three months pass. George isn’t familiar with silence like this. He doesn’t know who he is when Dream isn’t a part of his life. Achingly, he learns in the stretch of 90 endless days.
He finds out on a painfully slow Monday afternoon: His visa is accepted.
He stares at the stamped page on his passport, hands trembling, and cries for hours.
Sapnap is the first one he breaks the news to. He books the flight with him on call, tells him over and over again how excited he is, and how amazing it will be.
His stomach twists. He doesn’t sleep for nights after that.
-
Sapnap picks him up from the airport with a huge smile that reaches his ears, waiting in front of his Tesla. When they make eye contact, he runs over to him like a little kid, pulling him into the biggest hug ever. He squeezes the life out of him, nerves fading from his frame momentarily. Despite everything, a lump clogs his throat with the realization of how long he’s been waiting for this.
“Hey, you idiot,” Sapnap grins as he rubs his back. “Fucking finally. Welcome home.”
Home.
He doesn’t feel at home. He has felt more at home three months ago, away from where he really wants to be. Palm trees and humid air and sweaty hands gripping the back of countless fabrics. He knows everything about Orlando, before stepping foot to its grounds. He has heard 23 years worth of memories from a familiar voice across the ocean, scribbled them down on a stupid wide ruled notepad that’s now probably rotting in a trash bin somewhere.
“Hi, Sap,” he says instead. He takes a deep breath and relaxes his face. Sapnap sees right through him anyway, even if he doesn’t point it out, George knows when he hugs him again—more like an apology for the things that went wrong than anything else.
When they get to the house, right before they leave the car, Sapnap glances at him with a look of understanding that makes his insides shake. Surely, he can sense the silent dread that washes over the car. He rests his back on the leather seat, hands on either side of his thighs, pulse quickening as the minutes left until the destination on Google Maps counts down.
20 minutes, he watches the cars that pass them by with a nagging pit inside. 10 minutes, his mouth is dry, bile rising in his throat. 5 minutes, his heart knocks against his ribs.
1 minute, Sapnap slows down, looks sideways. Something breaks across his features. “I know things have been hard for you two,” he speaks quietly, confirming George’s assumption. “Dream has been missing you like crazy, just so you know.”
George scoffs. “I doubt that.”
Sapnap creases his forehead. “It’s going to get better now that you’re here. I promise.”
George wants, so badly, to believe him.
-
The door is sprung open before he even has a chance to knock, before he can even prepare himself. George had planned this, envisioned it in his mind for so long that it almost felt like it would never actually happen. And as unrealistic as it is, he had been counting on those few seconds of waiting to possibly calm himself down.
Waiting slips away. Now, it’s just Dream.
Dream. Holy fuck, George is going to collapse right there and then.
Hair coiffed to perfection, broad shoulders heaving up and down, freckles illuminated by the outdoor wall light that washes him bright yellow. He doesn’t even register it. Instead, he forgets to breathe for a minute or two.
How can he not? His everything is standing in front of him, and maybe that’s an archaic term that no longer applies to the two of them, but he still feels like it does in his heart, because he still loves him so much, and he hates that he loves him like this. He wants to hate him. It would be so much easier if he could just bring himself to hate him.
“George,” Dream smiles down at him. It’s the first time he’s seeing his smile. Oh my god, it’s the first time he’s seeing the way he looks at him. Tiny lines around the edges of his eyes, creases in his skin extending from both sides of his nose to the corners of his mouth. “Hi.”
It’s casual, something you say when you meet someone for the first time, someone you don't know inside and out. Dream says it with such simplicity, yet it rests heavy on his tongue, thrums his heart with the silence it follows.
Beneath his gaze, he sees that Dream’s hands are shaking in his pockets. He’s always been good at hiding his feelings. Even when they were talking meaninglessly about their days, and something was wrong, he would act like everything was alright. In moments like those, George wished he could see him. He wished he could have something more than his voice. To see the faintest twitch of his lips, pupils that dilate, the bob of his throat that revealed his objectionable nature.
Well, now he can. It’s funny how he wishes he couldn’t.
In and out, Dream breathes, Out and in. George doesn’t want to see it. He doesn’t want to mistake his nervousness for something else.
“Hi.” There’s a dangerous silence in the house, resembling a comfortable one. It’s betrayed by knowing eyes, though. There’s an itch in the back of his skull. This is a fucking trap, he grits his teeth. A maze without an escape, and he’s walking into it head-first.
Dream will look at him forever, as long as he’s here, and George will never be free. He will be on the edge of falling apart every time their eyes dare to meet.
God, he shouldn’t have come here. He knows when it’s already too late. He’s here now,he can’t just grab his luggage and book a flight back and magically change his mind. In whatever shape or form, this is still his future.
“Are you just going to stand here?” Dream smiles, an edge of sarcasm to his tone. When George doesn’t respond, Dream walks towards him. “Come here,” he demands, and he pulls him closer by the back of his shoulders, and god, there’s only so much George can take.
He had thought about this before too. Of course he had. He had thought about the first hug, the first touch, the first kiss more than anything else. The warmth that he would feel, how Dream would tease him about being small, and how George would act as if he’s mad as a ploy for Dream to cup his cheek and kiss him just to shut him up.
George’s arms remain in their place, muscles stiff, the tips of his fingers numb as they curl around his own palm. He feels Dream’s chest against his own, hearts beating simultaneously, and it’s the final straw when Dream wraps his arms around him.
“Don’t,” George rushes to say, no further explanation, stepping backwards. Dream looks at him, confused, like he doesn’t know why in the world he would react this way. George feels like throwing up. “I need to—I’m gonna go up to my room and unpack.”
“George—” Dream’s voice echoes behind. George clenches his fists and heads upstairs without looking back.
-
He doesn’t unpack. Instead, he throws himself to the bed attempting to get an ounce of sleep.
He notices that his bed is larger than the one in London, mattress softer, cushioning his limbs.
They had picked it out together, on call. Right after they had picked out everything else. The seasick sort of blue wallpaper that Dream said reminded him of George, and George—despite hating it at first glance, immediately adored like no other. Black leather couch next to the window, large enough for them both to fit, and cuddle (Dream had double, triple, checked the dimensions just to make sure).
George turns to his side. He wakes up every five minutes, dishes clattering in the sink downstairs occasionally.
He thinks it’s probably Dream, cleaning up after dinner. He does that, George remembers. He loads the dishwasher late at night, humming a song quietly to himself. Says that it’s always his most productive time, for some reason. George wants to forget everything that he knows about him, wants to stop noticing them now that he’s this close.
Eventually, he falls asleep. He dreams about what it would be like if he was here just a few months ago.
-
A week passes in the blink of an eye, a blur that George can’t quite process.
They talk.
Not like they used to, but they talk. About things that you talk about with a stranger, with a tone of hesitancy, remaining on superficial grounds. Dream asks him questions, asks him what he wants to have for dinner, jokes about his sleeping habits, brings a hand to his shoulder while chuckling.
George answers. He masks it with a smile, even if it never reaches his eyes, even if his cheeks hurt from the forced curl of his mouth, from the sharpening of hollow cheekbones. He dies a little inside every single time their hands brush against one another.
It doesn’t help that Sapnap watches the two of them like a hawk, eyes always on them, searching for the faintest hint of something more. George had told him about the breakup, a few days after it happened, and heard the way he grew silent before he said that he was sorry. For the two of them, for everything, for the fact that he knew things would inevitably start to change.
They fall into a routine. George finds comfort in it, in a disturbing way. He likes that he knows there won’t be anything that he doesn’t expect. Every day feels the same, tension becomes the norm, like something that had existed between them since the first day they met.
-
Painfully, George finds out that when they deviate from routine, all of his efforts are for nothing. He’s still in love as ever, and he feels as though he’s about the burst just by their proximity.
The three of them are bunched up on the couch, watching a crime documentary on True Crime Daily, Sapnap snoring lightly on the side. At one point, George feels that Dream isn’t watching, but instead staring at him. He feels his gaze before he even turns to look at him. His vision starts to swim. He can’t make out a single word when he knows Dream’s eyes are on him.
“Why are you looking at me?” George, with weakened vocal chords, asks as he inevitably stops pretending to watch the documentary.
He half-expects Dream to turn his head and act as if he was never looking. But instead of that, a hand finds its way to his face, stroking his cheek. Stillness greets his touch. George slams his eyes shut for a split second.
“I can’t stop,” Dream whispers. “Can’t not look at you when you’re sitting next to me. I missed you so much, I thought I was going crazy.”
George thinks he’s going crazy too, because there’s no way in hell this conversation is happening right now. He thought they had settled on an agreement—some sort of a friendship—not this. Not digging up stuff from the past that’s supposed to stay out of sight.
“You—” He suppresses a shiver. “You broke my heart.”
“I don’t want to be selfish with you, George,” he shakes his head. “I never wanted to hurt you. I’m—I’m so fucking sorry.”
George glowers, teeth chattering slightly. “For what?”
Dream parts his lips to answer, but then a groan is heard from their side. Sapnap wakes up, squinting at the television, and then the two of them. Dream is quick to pull his hand away, bringing it to the side of his thigh.
“Ugh, did I fall asleep?” Sapnap rubs his eyes, bending his neck. “Dude, this couch is ass, my neck is killing me. I’m going to bed. Night.”
Silently, Dream leaves too. George lays on the couch, exhales and inhales rapidly. He turns the TV off, stares at the wall, and doesn’t sleep a wink.
-
Still, the moment the smile on Dream’s face disappears, he’s willing to have the entire world against him just to bring it back.
It’s clear when Dream returns after a quick trip to the grocery store one day, cursing when he walks through the door and dropping the keys. George looks up from where he’s sitting in the living room, panic swelling his chest when he notices an open cut in his lip.
“Dream?” He rushes over to him, heart climbing to his ears. “What—what the hell happened? Are you alright?”
“Uh, hey, I’m okay. I kind of—I kinda got into a fight with someone at the grocery store. He was being an asshole to the girl in the register. So I told him to apologize, and he just—” He points at his lip, letting out a chuckle. “Yeah.”
It’s so Dream, George isn’t surprised even slightly. He’s an advocate even at the worst of times, calling out something when it doesn’t sit right with him, not considering, or slightly caring, about the consequences.
He looks out for people.
He looks out for George the most.
Partly, it’s why he ended things. George knows inside, that he felt guilty for feeling so upset over seeing George with others, in pictures, in videos, when he’s in his room waiting and waiting until he can be with him. He knows Dream was trying to free George from dealing with that, from worrying about him, from having his mind somewhere else all the time. Ironically, it only ends up making George love him more.
“You scared the shit out of me,” he sighs, and then grabs him by the wrist. “Come here, idiot.”
George leads him to the bathroom upstairs, trudging through it, grabbing a cotton pad and uncapping the lid of the bottle of rubbing alcohol. He pours some over the cotton, positioning himself in front of Dream.
Dream meets his eyes, swallowing with anticipation. “You don’t have to do this.”
He brings his hand to cup Dream’s jaw as he brings the cotton pad closer to his face. “You’re hurt,” he rebukes.
Something shifts in his expression. It’s silent before he looks at him once again. “So are you,” the lowered, gravely voice tenses his entire body.
“Dream,” George warns, face screwed up tightly. “Don’t.”
Dream draws in a sharp breath. “We need to talk about it.”
George reaches to clean up Dream’s bottom lip once again. “I don’t want to.”
“But I want to, George.”
“What good is it going to do? Isn’t it too late?”
“Is it? Do you think it is?”
There’s a lump in his throat. His mind runs a million mile a minute. “Did you ever?”
Dream lifts his eyebrows in confusion. “Did I ever what?”
“Learn? To stop loving me?” George looks at him. There are no more boundaries, when they already ventured into this on far too many occasions. He doesn’t backtrack. He needs to know—he deserves it. He deserves this much.
Dream’s mouth parts, a shaky exhale comes out. “Do you really want me to be honest?”
George, as scared as he is, has never craved honesty this much. “I do.”
“I think that once I learned what it felt like to love you, it became a part of who I am. It would kill me if I tried to stop.”
He tilts his head, stares holes into him. He doesn’t say anything, but for Dream, it’s deafening as it is.
Dream’s eyes are teary as he reaches to grab his hand, running his fingers over it to soften the scowl fixated on his face. “I don’t want you to be sad over me. I never did,” he exhales. “I thought I was doing what was right, We were—we were waiting for so long. I didn’t want you to spend your entire life waiting for me.”
“That wasn’t—that wasn’t your decision to make. I wanted to wait for you, for however long it took.”
“I’m sorry. I will apologize for it every day, if you want me to. I never stopped loving you, George. Even when we weren’t talking, I still loved you. I loved you silently, when you didn’t acknowledge me, when you hated me, when you wished you could forget me.”
I love you. It used to be all that mattered. Somehow, it still is. Forgiveness feels so easy when there’s this much love to excuse it.
“Don’t you fucking dare let me go ever again,” George grits his teeth, and then he clings firmly onto him, forearms locking around his back.
Dream lets out a sound that resembles a gasp, and then he’s hurling himself into his arms, and kissing him against the wall, touching everywhere, panting into his mouth. His fingers find their place on his waist, right between the waistband of his jeans and the hem of his T-shirt, burning every part of his skin they came into contact with.
George learns what it is to love without the distance. Dream teaches him, and he promises, over and over again, to never let him go.