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"What?" Dream asked, his voice soft, gentle like golden sun through light spring rain, and tender in a way that had quickly become second nature. His eyes were bright and innocently hopeful—it almost made George feel bad for what he was about to do. Almost.
He swiped at him with cat-like agility, slapping him directly across the face. It didn’t quite make the loud smack noise he’d been hoping for, but it was good enough, and Dream’s disbelieving expression made up for it tenfold.
“What the fuck?” Dream sounded more confused than angry, and maybe George was heavily biased, but it was the funniest thing he had ever seen.
He was doubled over laughing, and the sight of Dream still sitting motionless on the couch in front of him wasn’t making it any easier to stop. Gasping for breath, he barely realised that he’d dropped his phone, until Dream finally stood up and George tried to point the camera at him. His smile was quick to drop upon realising that his only means of defence—gaining video evidence—had fallen a few feet away on the living room carpet, far enough out of arm's reach for Dream’s face to split into a grin.
“Dream,” George started cautiously, keeping his hands in front of him as though he thought they’d be able to deter Dream's desire for imminent revenge. “Stop, we can talk—”
His next words turned into a shriek, when Dream dived for his legs and scooped George up and threw him over his shoulder with alarming ease. George attempted escape, wriggling and flailing his limbs, but to no avail. Dream turned to face the sofa once more, before dropping George onto it with such little mercy that he nearly rolled straight onto the floor. This time, it was George’s turn to be too stunned to speak.
“Should’ve thought about talking before you hit me, idiot,” Dream teased, crouching down so that they could be eye-to-eye. Then, he raised his hand, as George had done so just moments previously. George closed his eyes, bracing himself for impact.
He’d expected a weak slap—he knew Dream would never deliberately do anything that might actually hurt him—but what he hadn’t prepared himself for was that same hand to cup his cheek in a tender caress. A swipe of Dream’s thumb over his bottom lip, and then Dream was kissing him, with playful passion and barely contained laughter.
Before Dream, George had loved. He’d loved, but never like this. Never with such intensity that he sometimes forgot the meaning of sadness, with a star in his soul and such gentle fingers cradling his jaw. It felt like freedom and sanctity and when his own hand found the ends of bronze curls, he realised that he never wanted to leave. Here, on a couch in LA that was not quite big enough for them to lie side by side, George discovered how it felt to love effortlessly.
Dream’s hand found George’s waist, tugging them closer together, until their legs were twined together, and their heartbeats were kissing too. Then, George rolled onto Dream a little too far, and matching sounds of shock were punched from their throats as they fell towards the floor in a tangled mess of lovers’ limbs.
“What is actually wrong with you?” George groaned, the back of his head throbbing slightly where it had collided with the ground. Dream was lying completely on top of him, like some oversized, cat-beanie-wearing weighted blanket. If he was being completely honest, Dream was just as warm as a weighted blanket, and just as soft too.
George pushed himself up on his elbows, hoping to extricate himself from his sappiness—seriously, he had to have a concussion of some kind, there was no way he was thinking these disgustingly romcom-worthy thoughts all by himself—but the sight of Dream’s blushed cheek resting sideways on his abdomen was enough to turn his blood to syrup. Sickly sweet and slow in his veins, beckoning him back with the promise of sugar-coated kisses and precious saccharine seconds in Dream’s arms. Okay, so he was sure he had a concussion.
“You— what?” Dream blinked, exasperated, but he was smiling. Of course he was. “I get slapped, you push us off the couch and it's my fault?”
George gave an affirmative hum, and used one hand to push up the edge of Dream’s beanie, messing with the strands near his ear.
“George—” Dream protested, though his efforts of persuasion were severely hindered by the way his face flushed deep pink, outgrowing the makeup already present across the bridge of his nose. “You can’t get out of this just by being cute.”
“Can’t I?” A grin, assertive and fearless—the kind of confidence housed only by those who knew that, above anything else, the love held for them was unwavering. It had been stupid of him to slap Dream (even if it had also been really, really funny) but if they were able to love each other for years before they’d properly seen each other smile, then one dumb TikTok was nowhere near enough to pull them apart.
“Okay, fine, whatever. You get a free pass just this once,” Dream conceded, “but next time I’m definitely throwing you in the pool.”
George laughed, though his hand faltered when Dream didn’t immediately join in, pausing with one of Dream’s curls still wrapped tight around his pointer finger.
“You wouldn’t,” he said, aghast.
“You underestimate what I’d do for George wet hair content. The fans love it, you know.”
“You love it,” George shot back, tugging Dream’s hair for emphasis.
“And I’m your biggest fan,” Dream said simply. It was intended as a joke, but it still made George want to slap him again. Cuteness aggression, or whatever.
“You’re so—” he started, but fumbled upon realising that the word he needed didn’t yet exist. He supposed it made sense; Dream’s essence, what George was capable of feeling for him, was too much to be bound by letters and sound. But, as Dream once said, chalantly, new words get added to the dictionary all the time. “Just come here.”
He wouldn’t realise for years to come that the word he’d been looking for had been within his reach the entire time—common in its usage, but divine in its application to the freckles under his eyes, the way he loved and how he had the brightest of smiles, even if it was right before he got slapped.
Beautiful.
They would always be beautiful.