Work Text:
George is sitting on the couch on his phone when his boyfriend sneaks up behind him and ambushes him with a kiss on the cheek.
He starts laughing, hand over his heart in alarm. “You scared me, idiot.”
“Hey, handsome,” Dream croons, sitting down next to him. “You come here often?”
“Dream.” George shoves him away, blushing furiously. “What is wrong with you? Handsome? You know you don’t have to use your gross lines on me anymore, right?”
“Mm, not true. You see, I have to keep earning your love every single day. And the only way I can do that is with my amazing, super-hot pickup lines.” Dream grins at him. “Besides, I’m literally right. You can’t even tell me I’m wrong.”
“I can tell you you’re stupid.”
“You know what you should tell me?” Dream distracts him by shifting closer, his lips pressing behind George’s ear.
“That– that I love you?” George guesses. He’s rewarded with a real kiss, on the lips this time.
“No,” Dream says against his mouth. “Actually–” he pulls back– “I was just wondering what you were up to. But I like your answer better.” And he leans back in, kissing George again.
George giggles into the kiss until it’s more teeth than lips. He starts, “Well, I–” but he’s rudely interrupted by Dream’s lips on his. He melts into it for a few seconds before pulling back again. “Dream. How am I meant to tell you what I was doing if you’re kissing me?”
Dream sighs. “Fine. I guess I’ll let you tell me.”
He guesses? George crosses his arms, turning away. “No, I’m not telling you anymore. It’s a secret.”
“What? Were you– were you on Tinder or something?” Dream elbows him in the ribs. “Am I not good enough for you? Do I need to try harder? Do I not give you enough attention? Do I not kiss you enough?” And he starts peppering kisses all over George’s face, jaw, hands, everywhere he can reach.
“Dream!” George bats him away, giggling. “Stop, idiot—oh my GOD, stop! You’re so dumb. I was just watching a stupid TikTok. It was about, like, the California Gold Rush.”
“Yeah?” Dream sits back, interested now. “What about it?”
“So basically, somebody found gold in California and hundreds of thousands of people just moved there. They all just left their whole lives behind to try and find more gold. Isn’t that crazy?”
Dream laughs. “Yeah, I guess. Is this the first time you’re hearing about this? Didn’t you, like, take history at school?”
“Yeah, and I learned about the kings and queens of England, and the Renaissance, and stuff. Not random American migration patterns in the 1800s.”
“Oh.” Dream tilts his head. “D’you think that if you were just a random poor American farmer back then and there was a gold rush, you would go?”
“No way. It’s way too likely to fail. And then you’d have nothing at all.” He shakes his head. “I definitely wouldn’t go.”
“But if you did find gold, it would be, like, the best thing that ever happened to you,” Dream argues. “You’d be set for life.”
George shakes his head. “I dunno. It just… doesn’t seem worth it.”
“Well, I’d go. I wouldn’t be able to resist trying. Someone has to be the one to find the gold.” Dream grins. “Why wouldn’t it be me?”
“Well, if anyone would have good enough luck, it would be you,” George reasons.
“Yeah?” Dream wraps an arm around George’s shoulders, pulling him close. “I do feel like the luckiest man alive right now for some reason.”
“Some reason,” George scoffs, shifting over to lay back on Dream’s chest. It’s so nice to be in Dream’s arms, to have him at home.
“Fine, I’ll tell you the reason,” Dream whispers, as if it’s a big secret. “It’s because I have the most wonderful boyfriend in the entire world.”
George’s chest warms. “I’m not the most wonderful boyfriend in the entire world,” he argues.
“No? Then who is?”
Just as George is about to say You are, Dream, another thought pops into his head, unbidden, and he’s laughing before he can even get the words out. “Skeppy,” he blurts out, giggling.
Dream dissolves into laughter just as quickly as George, and they sit on the couch and hold each other with arms weak from laughing.
Ever since they started dating, life has been so overwhelmingly good the whole time.
It’s Sapnap’s turn to make dinner tonight, and he looks in the freezer for about ten seconds before he declares there’s “nothing to eat” and orders pizza. They eat it at the table together off of paper plates because none of them want to load the dishwasher, and George has never lived in such luxury. He’s surrounded by love, from Dream to Sapnap to Patches to the silly, cheap decorations littered across their shared space.
They’re just—they’re a family. Nothing could possibly pull them apart. As George stands and brushes his teeth in Dream’s bathroom that night, he thinks that there’s nothing he would change about his life here. Every detail is perfect. He slips into Dream’s bed and rolls over, smiling softly at his boyfriend. He knows this is the kind of happiness that lasts forever. Nothing could ever–
“You probably won’t see me in the morning before I leave for LA,” Dream says casually.
Oh. That. George’s heart drops. “You won’t wake me up to say goodbye?”
“I’m leaving pretty early. I don’t want to, like, disturb your sleep.”
“But…”
“It’s only two weeks, George.” Dream reaches out to stroke a reassuring hand down George’s arm. “I’ll be back before you know it, okay?”
“Okay.” George rolls onto his back, staring up at the ceiling.
Dream is going to LA. Again. And he doesn’t even want to say goodbye to George.
It’s only two weeks. Two weeks now, and two weeks last time, and two weeks next time, and the time after that will be the same. Do you have to go away again? George wants to ask.
It’s stupid, really. George should be happy. Dream is happy. Dream is happy, and successful, and excited about his foray into music, and George wants to be excited for him too—he is excited for him—but he can’t get rid of this horrible gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach.
Dream is– Dream is important. He has so much ambition, so many huge goals. He has meetings with managers and producers and songwriters and merch people and millions of fans that demand his attention. He cares so much about everything. But the only thing George cares about is him.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Dream asks.
George closes his eyes, willing the thoughts away. He’s just– he’s just being unreasonable, really. He loves Dream, and he’s going to support his career. This—Dream’s music—is a good thing. They’ll still text and call for the whole two weeks, and at the end, Dream will come home glowing with excitement, with brand-new songs to show him.
“Nothing. I’m just… gonna miss you.”
“I’m gonna miss you, too,” Dream sighs, holding his arms out. “We’ll be okay. We’ve survived longer.”
“I guess.” George curls into Dream’s arms, slinging a leg over his waist. Maybe if he holds on tight enough, Dream won’t be able to leave in the morning without waking him up. “Goodnight, Dream.”
“Goodnight, George,” Dream says, holding him just as tightly. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” George says.
And as he drifts off to sleep, he lets himself believe that’s enough. He lets himself believe that his love has the power to keep Dream by his side forever. He lets himself believe that his love will stop Dream from leaving him.
He wakes up alone.
The first day is fine, really.
George goes downstairs and sits on the couch. He stares at the black screen of the TV. The remote is on the other couch and he doesn’t really feel like standing up to get it. So he just watches the blurry reflection of his own face look back at him.
“Dude,” Sapnap says when he finds him like this. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” George stands up. “Can we go to McDonald’s?”
“I can’t. I’m supposed to talk to Ken in, like, twenty minutes.”
“Oh.” George tries not to look disappointed. “That’s fine. I should… I should do something.”
He takes a chewy bar from the pantry and trudges to his office. He should really go through his inbox, anyway. He sits at his desk, answering emails, and tries to feel important. But the more emails he sends, the more he realises it’s all just boring, stupid work. Nothing really feels exciting unless it involves Dream.
The gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach grows and grows until he realises it isn’t just boredom. He looks around for some food and finds frozen chicken nuggets in the freezer. He can’t be bothered to put them in the oven, but the air fryer is faster and easier. He throws some frozen tater tots in, too. Potatoes are vegetables, right?
He burns the tater tots, but he puts some ketchup on them, and they taste like nothing anyway. As he sits and eats, he texts Dream, i answered some emails today. He waits for the Delivered to turn into Read, but nothing happens.
He sighs and pockets his phone. Dream is probably busy writing, or talking to producers, or recording songs. Doing important things that don’t include talking to George.
He’s being ridiculous. He knows he’s being ridiculous. Dream should have a life outside of George. Dream should be focused on his career, and his music, and everything he loves. It’s a good thing. George should be happy for him.
And yet… George’s thoughts won’t leave him alone. They plague him, preying on his biggest insecurities in a voice George only hears in his worst nightmares.
Love is work. So… why isn’t Dream doing the work? Why doesn’t Dream care enough about you to pay attention to you, spend time with you?
George leans forward until his head hits the table. That’s not fair. Dream loves me.
He just doesn’t want you around, the evil voice whispers. It sounds like him but it’s not, he knows it’s not. He doesn’t need you there the way you need him.
Everybody needs Dream, George argues. He’s working with tons of other people on big projects, and the fans expect content. He’s trying his best to make everybody happy.
But you’re not happy, that same voice says. Why aren’t you happy?
George doesn’t have an answer for that one. He finishes his food and leaves his greasy plate on the table. He should answer some more emails.
George makes it through a whole week before he cracks.
The house just feels so empty without Dream. Suffocatingly empty, like his absence is a vacuum that sucks all the air out of every room. George sleeps in Dream’s bed, even though there’s nobody to share it with him. He never makes it through the night without waking himself up reaching for Dream in his sleep. He sees Sapnap in passing, and they sit together sometimes, but George doesn’t have it in him to make conversation. He feels like a ghost of himself, floating listlessly from room to room.
Dream texts him every once in a while, but he barely ever calls. When he does call, they talk for less than five minutes every time before George hears someone indistinctly speaking to Dream in the background and then it’s, Sorry, I have to go. I’ll call you back later.
When George calls, Dream never picks up. He’s not sure they’ve gone this long without properly talking in years.
On the seventh morning, he wakes up crying. He doesn’t remember much about his nightmare, just reaching and reaching for Dream as a thousand other hands pulled him away. He wipes his face and rolls onto Dream’s side, burying his face in the pillow. It doesn’t even smell like him anymore. It’s not enough. George is starting to wonder if anything ever will be.
He doesn’t bother doing any work. He can’t sit down for ten minutes without thinking about Dream, about how lonely he is. About how stupid he is for relying on someone else this much. He can’t just sit and keep wishing for more of Dream, when Dream has no more to give.
What do you do when someone gives you everything they can, and it isn’t enough?
George and Sapnap eat dinner together, and then Sapnap leaves, and George stays at the kitchen table, just sitting alone in the dark and thinking of the seven more days he’ll have to survive like this.
He doesn’t realise he’s crying until a tear lands on the wood of the table. He wipes it away, but it’s quickly replaced by another, and another, and another.
The worst part of it all is that he used to be fine with Dream being thousands of miles away. That used to be all he got, and it was everything to him. And now… now he’s greedy. Now that he’s had a taste of living with Dream, talking to him on the phone feels like nothing. He doesn’t want static and missed calls and i’ll call u when i can. He wants Dream.
He wants Dream now.
He’s dialling before he can stop himself, hands as unsteady as his breaths. It rings and rings and rings and rings, and for a few horrible seconds, he’s convinced Dream isn’t going to pick up. By the time he finally does, he’s crying in big, messy sobs, too loud to hear the phone stop ringing.
“George? ” Dream’s voice crackles over the line. It’s so different to how his voice sounds in person, it just makes George feel worse.
“Dream,” he chokes out. “I can’t do it.”
“What? Can’t do what? What’s going on, baby? ”
“I need you here. I– I can’t– It’s too hard without you,” George explains between gasping sobs.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay. Just breathe, George. Slow down, take deep breaths… yeah, that’s better. You’re okay. Everything’s okay. ”
“I’m sorry.” George tries to wipe away his tears, but they just keep coming. “I– I shouldn’t have called.”
“Don’t do that,” Dream says. “Talk to me. What happened? What’s going on? ”
“Just miss you.” George tries not to sound pathetic, but he can’t stop more tears from leaking out of his eyes. “You’re so far away.”
“No, I’m glad you called,” Dream assures him. “I miss you too. Have you been sleeping? You sound tired. ”
“Not really.”
“Do you want to try? ”
George sniffles. “Will you stay on call with me?”
“Yeah. For as long as I can.”
And so George takes a deep breath and goes upstairs to get ready for bed. Dream rambles in the way he does when he’s trying to distract him, talking about anything and everything he can think of while George changes into pyjamas and brushes his teeth.
He lays down on his bed, and listening to the slightly distorted sound of Dream’s voice, he starts to feel almost okay for the first time all week. “Goodnight, Dream,” he whispers. “I love you.”
“Goodnight, George. I love you too.”
The first thing he notices when he wakes up is that Dream isn’t on the other end of the phone anymore. He rolls over and picks it up. It’s not even dead, which means that Dream must have been the one to hang up.
Well. Dream is probably busy. Or his phone died. Whatever. George gets out of bed, determined to have a better day today, for both of their sakes. He doesn’t need to drag Dream down, not while he’s pursuing something so important to him.
He’s barely been downstairs for twenty minutes when the door opens behind him. Huh. He thought Sapnap was still asleep.
He turns around. “I didn’t realise you–” And then he stops. He stops, because it’s not Sapnap standing in the doorway.
It’s Dream.
“You’re here,” he breathes. Then it sets in. “You’re here. Why are you– What?”
“You missed me,” Dream says simply, stepping forward and pulling him into a hug that feels like his first breath of fresh air in seven days. “You needed me here.”
“I missed you,” he agrees, even as a horrible, horrible sinking feeling makes itself at home in the pit of his stomach. Dream came home for him. He cut his trip short for him. He probably set his music timeline back weeks, all for him.
This is… not what George wanted. But for now, he just holds on tight to his boyfriend. I love you more than anything, he tries to tell him telepathically, but it’s overpowered by a much louder thought: I’ve ruined everything.
They spend the day together. George works on the couch in Dream’s office, and he barely gets anything done. He spends the whole time staring at Dream, thinking about how he’s the thing in the way of his boyfriend’s career.
He needs too much from Dream, and it’s bringing them both down.
It’s only when they sit down to dinner together that he works up the courage to admit it to himself. I can’t do this to him anymore. I can’t do this to myself.
He excuses himself to the bathroom, splashes water in his face. He stares at himself in the mirror. “I’m breaking up with you,” he whispers. The words sound like a foreign language in his own ears.
When they climb into bed together for the first time in over a week, George crawls into Dream’s arms and holds on as tight as he can. He can’t do it tonight. He can’t.
He slips a hand under Dream’s shirt, feels the ridges of his spine. He closes his eyes, aching. He knows with every fibre of his being that he’s never going to find this kind of love again. “Will you kiss me?” he whispers.
“Of course.” Dream’s hand finds his jaw, and their lips fall together. Slow, beautiful, perfect. Goodbye, George tries to tell him. Goodbye.
“You’re crying,” Dream says, pulling away. “What’s wrong?”
He’s right. George is crying. He tries to stop, but the tears keep coming, messy and loud just like they were over the phone. He can’t get any words out.
“Baby,” Dream says. “Baby, please look at me. What’s going on?”
George shakes his head. “I– I can’t…”
“You’re scaring me. Is– Did I do something? Can I do something?”
“Just– just hold me,” George chokes out.
Dream doesn’t press. “Okay. I love you.”
“I love you,” George breathes back, and he cries into Dream’s shirt until he finally falls asleep.
He does it over breakfast, before Sapnap wakes up. He tries to make it quick, clean, simple, to avoid hurting Dream’s feelings any more than necessary.
“I think we should stop.”
“Stop?” Dream pauses, toast halfway to his mouth. “Stop what?”
“Dating.”
The toast falls back onto the plate. “What? ”
“It’s just…” George shrugs. “It’s just not working out.” He watches the grain of the wooden table, determined not to cry. He can’t look at Dream’s face.
“What? What do you mean? Where is this coming from?” Even without seeing his face, the hurt and confusion in Dream’s voice is nearly enough to break him. “Do you– Do you not love me anymore?”
“Of course I love you,” George whispers, eyes welling up with tears. “But I can’t.”
“George.” Dream’s voice is thick, and George finally looks up at him. He’s crying, face screwed up in so much pain, and it makes George’s own tears finally spill over. “I don’t understand. I thought we were fine.”
“You deserve better than me.”
“There is nobody in this world that could be better for me than you.”
George shakes his head. He didn’t want to have to explain everything, but Dream is just not getting it. “No. You deserve someone you can make happy.”
“You’re not happy? ” Dream looks crushed. I did that, George thinks. I made him feel like this. “Baby, why wouldn’t you tell me?”
“It’s not your problem to fix. You can’t just ruin your recording schedule every time I miss you. You’re always gonna have more important stuff to do and more important people to talk to. I have to live with that. I have to fix it.”
“Can’t we fix it together? You needed me, and I came home. I would do anything to make you happy.”
“But I don’t want you to. I don’t want you to– to just drop everything for me. Then you wouldn’t be happy.”
“I would!” Dream sobs, reaching out and taking George’s hand. “I don’t need anything else, I only need you.”
George shakes his head again. “This is for the best, Dream. And when you get over me, you’ll understand.”
“Get over – So that’s it? You’re just done? ”
It’s the hardest thing George has ever done, but he pulls his hand away. “I’m sorry.”
“George, please. Please, don’t do this.”
They’re both crying so hard they can barely speak, but George forces the words out. “I have to.”
“What’s going on?”
They both turn and see Sapnap at the bottom of the stairs. “Sapnap,” George says weakly. “I…”
“Did something happen? What’s wrong?”
“I’m– I’ll be in my office,” Dream chokes out, and he disappears into the hallway, leaving George and Sapnap alone in the kitchen.
“Dude, you guys are scaring me. What the hell is going on?”
“I… broke up with Dream.”
“What? Why?”
George wipes the tears off his face. “I had to! You saw me this week. It was awful.”
“But he’s back now. I thought you guys were happy together.”
George turns away. “It’s too much. I can’t deal with him leaving again. It’s too hard. And I can’t let him come back for me every time I need him. I know it’ll happen again, and then I’ll feel even worse. I can’t make him put his life on hold for his stupid clingy boyfriend. This is what’s best for both of us. I’m doing this for his career.”
Sapnap just looks at him, and for a second, George thinks he’s gonna yell at him. Then he holds his arms out. “Come here, man.”
George stands up, and Sapnap pulls him into a hug. “I’m sorry,” he sobs. “I feel so awful. But I didn’t know what else I could do.”
“You’re gonna be okay,” Sapnap promises. “I’m sorry, too. This all just sucks.”
“Yeah.” George laughs a little through the tears, pulling back. “It does suck.”
“I’m gonna go talk to Dream. But if you need anything, just text or call or yell or… whatever.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
He goes up to his room, climbing into his bed. He hasn’t slept here in weeks. It’s cold and dark and he hates it.
He’ll allow himself today to lay in bed and wallow. Tomorrow, they’ll talk about it.
They don’t talk about it.
George means to go find him, talk to him, make sure they’re really going to be okay. He really means to.
But every day, he wakes up alone in his cold bed, and he thinks not today.
He orders food and eats it when he knows Dream won’t be in the kitchen. And being so alone is awful. It’s just like when Dream was in LA, but this time, he knows that Dream will never come home to him.
A whole week goes by before he sees Dream again. He’s eating McDonald’s in the kitchen when Dream walks in and starts filling his water bottle from the fridge.
Every inch of his body goes tense. He’s instantly transported to their conversation a week earlier, sitting at the table crying into his breakfast as he broke both of their hearts. Please don’t do this, Dream said to him then. Does he still feel that way? Or does he resent George for breaking up with him without even letting him try to fix it?
He hears Dream screw the lid back on the water bottle, and he breathes out a little sigh of relief. He’s going back to his room now. He’s going back to his room now. He’s… sitting down across from George at the table.
George looks up, shocked. “Um. Hi.”
Dream looks, to put it simply, like shit. His eyes are sunken and swollen, his hair is a mess, and his face is pale. George is sure his own appearance is pretty similar.
Dream puts a piece of paper down on the table in front of George. “Hi,” he says. His voice is rough.
“What’s this?” George looks at the piece of paper, a picture of a building with a bunch of words and numbers under it. “Is this–”
“An apartment in LA,” Dream confirms, and George’s heart splinters into a million pieces.
“You’re moving out?” His voice breaks as his eyes fill with tears. “Dream, please don’t move out.”
“No!” Dream grabs his hand. “No, I would never move out on you, George. This is for you.”
George wipes his eyes. “For me?”
“Well, for all three of us, really. Being in LA kind of sucks. I’m always in hotels and shitty Airbnbs. I would never ask you to deal with that for me. So… let’s get an apartment.”
“I don’t… Dream, what?”
“You don’t want me to put my career on hold to spend time with you. I don’t want to bring you to LA if it means you’ll have to deal with shitty hotels. That apartment would fix both of those problems. And you can come with me whenever you want. Like, whenever you don’t have events and stuff back here. I already talked to Sapnap about it.”
“But I thought you didn’t want me to come to LA.”
“Of course I do. When I’m in LA, I spend every second of every day wishing I was with you. I never asked you to come with me because I thought you'd be miserable there. I never realised you were miserable here. I didn’t know that… that you need me around as much as I need you.”
George blinks. He looks at the piece of paper and tries to find words. “Dream.”
“George, I love you. You love me. Please don’t let this go. We can fix any problem that comes our way. I know we can. All we have to do is talk to each other.”
George’s face feels hot. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you how I was feeling.”
Dream shakes his head. “I should have told you the reason I wasn’t asking you to come with me.”
George laughs a little as they both stand up. “Okay, from now on, no more making decisions to make each other happy.”
“Exactly. Only selfish decisions from now on. And I selfishly want you to take me back. Because I miss you, and I need you around. And no amount of time could possibly make me get over you.”
“Okay,” George says, his eyes welling up. “I… un-break up with you. I’m never getting over you, either.”
Dream pulls him into a hug, I love you and I’m sorry and I’m never letting you go in one simple embrace. He thinks they both might be crying now, and they cling to each other and sob tears of relief until they’ve washed all the hurt away.
“You’re home late,” George says one day when Dream gets back from the studio. He’s laying on the couch in their apartment.
Dream doesn’t say anything, just grins at him.
“What, idiot?”
“Home?”
George blushes. “You know what I mean.” Anywhere feels like home when you walk in the door.
Dream smiles. “Yeah, I do.”
“Come cuddle me and tell me about your day.” He opens his arms.
“But I’m hungry. Did you eat yet?”
George shakes his head. “Cuddle first. Eat later.”
“George. I’m gonna make dinner. But we can eat together on the couch, if you want.”
“Fine.” George sits up. “Fine, you can go make me dinner.”
Dream laughs at him. “You’re an idiot.” But he leans down to kiss him softly before he heads over to the kitchen counter. “I missed you today.”
“Yeah?” As he climbs off the couch, George tries not to feel too pleased. But it’s nice to know that Dream thinks about him. “Well, I didn’t miss you. In fact, I was grateful for the break.”
“Oh yeah? Then why are you following me around?”
George walks up behind him, bare feet making quiet sounds on the wooden floor, and wraps his arms around Dream’s waist, hugging him from behind. “No reason.”
“You know, it’s gonna be pretty hard to make dinner like this.”
George hums. “You’ll manage.”
Dream laughs, and George just holds onto him, feeling the shifting muscles of his back. Dream never really seems to mind his clinginess, carefully manoeuvring around the kitchen to avoid jostling George too much or bumping him into anything. He makes enough food for both of them, and they eat it together on the couch, just like he promised. He tells George all about his day, and then George tells him about everything he did with Larray today.
And they’re in love, and it is enough, and it always will be. George knows that now.