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one.
“So you wanna do just me and you in this one, then?” George asks as he listens to Dream shuffle in bed over the Discord call, presumably getting up to start working on the new video they’ve been talking about for the last twenty minutes or so.
“Well, Pandas is at school and we need to record something today. The videos are doing so well, like, we really are blowing up. We have to make the most of this.” George can hear the smile in his voice, like he’s awestruck that his plan actually worked, as if he wasn’t studying and planning this for months. George remembers just a while ago having to beg Dream to pry himself away from his studying up on the algorithm to go eat some damn food.
“Plus,” he adds, a little hesitant, “I think people like the dynamic between us two. They always seem excited when we reply to each other’s tweets, and stuff.”
George can’t argue with that, really; he’s read Dream’s YouTube comments and knows what people say about the two of them.
“Alright, then,” he replies, stretching in his chair and booting up his computer, “what time is it for you?”
“Like, two something,” in the morning, George fills in, “isn’t it like seven there?”
George murmurs his affirmation, feeling worry creep up in his chest. “Sleep well?”
He knows his tone is a little too soft, but sue him for being concerned about this dumb 19-year-old working himself to death with bright eyes for his new passion project. Dream had said he was going to bed around 8 at night his time, but George knows he probably stayed up reading his comments for several hours after that. He doubts he got more than an hour of sleep.
“Yeah, I’m alright, you know me. Don’t need sleep.” Dream’s chair creaks as he sits in it, and George hears him grab his headset off his desk.
“You sure?”
“Yes, George,” he says, sounding mildly amused, “worried or something?”
“Well, you can’t record if you’re running off no sleep, idiot. You’ll be, like, delirious, or some shit.” George scoffs, sounding too defensive even for his own ears. Dream laughs lightly at him.
“The grind never stops,” he teases. George envies his determination at times, but mostly he admires the way he gives his all when he wants to accomplish something. He knows part of it is just Dream’s utter stubbornness and sheer will to prove people wrong when they underestimate him, but he also has a fire in his heart about this sort of thing. George understands the drive and hustle to an extent, he wouldn’t have his degree if he didn’t, but Dream has been like this since George re-met him by complete chance when he was a 16-year-old kid.
Dream told George what he was going through in school right before they started this whole journey and how he felt like nobody saw his actual potential because he wasn’t using it in the way everyone told him he was supposed to. It’s part of the reason why George decided to give him a chance when he asked him to come with him, that George was key to his plan and he needed him to be there, because he knows how important it is to Dream that this YouTube thing works out. He wants to be there to support him through that.
“The good life waits for no one,” Dream singsongs into the silence, and George can feel himself give in.
“If you’re ready, I’m ready,” he says, and he faintly hears the whir of Dream’s PC fan as it boots to life.
“Let’s go,” Dream says triumphantly as George hears his chair squeak and knuckles crack. “TeamSpeak?”
“Yep.”
After a stressful recording session where they had been unable to achieve their goal of beating the game because of a tornado tossing them around, George lies in his bed with the intent to sleep.
The grind never stops, Dream had said.
As much as he admires Dream’s work ethic, intense as it is, he despises it just as much. He worries about Dream losing himself in the work, getting caught up in the views, the numbers, the fame, and leaving him behind. He’s seen it happen, has watched the process of creators George had been certain were friends falling apart in pursuit of more more more, forgetting themselves and the people who love them.
When they had all agreed to do YouTube full-time, Dream had made them promise to stick it out with him through thick and thin, and they had agreed. He remembers the desperation with which he had asked Dream to promise them he would do the same. Dream had promised they would be different, that the bond they had was like none other he had seen in all his research. Despite this, George has been unable to quench the doubts in his mind that say, you can’t keep up with him. He’s going places, places you can’t even picture. He is bigger than you could ever imagine.
George knows that it’s partially true, and that Dream is standing right on the cusp of something amazing. What he’s unsure of is how real the promises are when he knows how easily they can fall apart.
Dream values loyalty, and is honest to a fault, more than most 19-year-olds George has met and dealt with, more than he was at 19. But he also knows how it is easy to be loyal before the money and the fame start rolling in, and that promises are often fleeting when those things are involved.
He’s not sure he can keep up with Dream, and his endless reserves of determination. He doesn’t know how well he fits into his plans of success, if Dream had made them airtight around him, or if he’s too small for them, not enough in some way, and can slip through and get left behind. He just hopes that Dream meant it when he told him, “We are going to be different. Nothing could even try to come between the love I have for you guys.”
It’s one of his worst fears, as of late.
The grind never stops.
George sits in his bed, the hazy gray English afternoon pressing against his window, and worries.
two.
The realization hits Dream like a hammer to the face one night on a stream.
Unable to find sleep at two in the morning, he decides to at least be productive and stream instead of mindlessly scrolling on his phone as he has been for the last hour and change. He goes into his office and boots up his PC, navigating quickly to Geoguessr to stream on his alt.
He goes live and fondly watches people filter into chat, excitedly typing his name and various greetings. “Hellooo. ‘Why are you up so late?’ Just can’t sleep, I guess. I dunno. I just thought I’d give myself and you losers something to do.”
He laughs at chat taking offense. “Just kidding. Gonna do some chill Geoguessr tonight, I think.” Chat agrees with this idea enthusiastically, and he queues into a round of competitive guessing. He floats through a few rounds, just barely not winning and playing up his frustration to make the viewers laugh.
His phone dings.
George
can i join
ijsut wokeup
Dream’s heart squeezes in his chest and he smiles softly.
Dream
yes idiot get in here
He puts himself in a voice channel on Discord, and George joins directly after with a shout to scare him.
“George.” He announces, smiling even wider.
“It’s me, idiot, I’ve come to save your awful losing streak. Watch, now that I’m here, your Geoguessr stocks are gonna go up.”
“Alright, then, do it. Make me win.”
They do not win, and George blames it on his freshly woken-up brain. After they get bored of losing in Geoguessr, they switch between various online games and eventually settle on running through some random Minecraft world. They bicker back and forth about completely meaningless things, with the chat chiming in to contribute to either side.
By the time they’ve exhausted themselves with that, they do some online quizzes and Dream blames the clock blinking 6:00 AM and his lack of sleep for the comments that roll off his tongue like molasses. They wind down and Dream prepares to call it after streaming for nearly four entire hours, which he hadn’t even intended to do. It’s only now that he notices that this is a common occurrence with George on these alt streams, him having to remind himself multiple times that they are, in fact, still live in front of thousands of people. He lets his lips get too loose, saying things without thinking like his mouth is a dam set to burst from pressure any second.
This is not a new revelation; they both have always had this… thing. He has tried to push it to the side, not pay it any mind and just chalk it up to the nature of their friendship. He doesn’t question why George is able to pull words out of his mouth that he would never say to any of their other friends, or why he says them in a tone unheard by others in their inner circle. He hasn’t ever felt the need to question it, and has always just gone with George’s ebb and flow, followed him like a child chasing the tide.
What is new is him properly taking this knowledge out of the box he put it in, safely tucked away in the dark, back corner of his brain, and dusting the cobwebs off of it after years of pretending it doesn’t exist and not facing it head on, and unpacking it. While he is live. With George in the call.
The man in question opens TikTok, completely oblivious to Dream’s crisis.
It feels like a bandit has whipped through his office, stolen his breath and his sense and his heart, and then bolted down the stairs to escape like a thief in the night. It has lived dormant in the dank dusty corner of his mind as long as his feelings for George have, perched in the dark, biding it’s time as it waited for Dream to expose his Achilles heel.
He’s also always never seen himself as anything but straight. Sure, he thinks some men are attractive, but that doesn’t even necessarily mean he’s attracted to men in a blanket state. The more he thinks about it, the more he begins to see that the qualities he finds that he likes in men might just be qualities that a certain sharp-tongued, brown-eyed brunet has.
When he blinks, bleary-eyed, his entire face feels hot and his stomach is churning and George is still watching his TikToks. He glances at chat, who have started to note his silence, and the nauseous feeling in his throat triples.
“Alright, guys,” he starts, clearing his voice when it comes out sounding tight and strained. He feels like he might start hyperventilating. “I think I’m gonna go sleep now.”
“Alright,” George mocks, much closer to his mic than Dream had been expecting him to be. His voice sends a fissure of something down his spine, and his resolve to get the fuck off of this stream grows just that much stronger.
“Sorry, I’ll stream again soon.” He says and then gives his goodbye, ending stream and muting quickly without saying anything to George. Each second spent in radius of him feels like hot coals being seared against his skin.
He rushes into the bathroom, wiping his sweaty palms down the front of his short-clad thighs. Dream turns the shower on just so he’s not left in a silent bathroom with his thoughts about George’s hair, and his smile, and his willingness to listen to Dream when it really comes down to it, and his lips, and the way he gently guides him when he feels slightly lost or needs help with coding or solving an issue with an upload or just anything.
Dream opens the lid to the toilet and puts his back to the wall across from it, staring into the still water like it will give him all the answers. Maybe it will. He sure as hell doesn’t have any.
His stomach does a flip when his brain conjures up the memory of George standing up on his bed to show off Dream’s hoodie, as he had called it, even though Dream himself had never worn it. His logo emblazoned on it was enough for George to christen it as Dream’s hoodie, and spray it with cologne. Dream hadn’t thought about why seeing George stand up on his bed to show him how big his hoodie was had made something sickening take root in his brain.
His head swims, and disgust curls in his gut. The realization hits Dream so hard he spends the next ten minutes pacing around his tiny bathroom, deciding whether or not he has to throw up.
He stares at himself in the mirror. Breathes in, out. Splashes water into his eyes, the burn of it grounding. Tells himself, you do not feel anything for men except normal objective attraction. You certainly feel nothing for George except normal platonic best friend feelings. You are straight. George is your best friend.
In the end, he shoves the box with all its mess back into the corner, puts a padlock on it, and goes back out to talk to George. Dream pretends it isn’t real, and curses his brain for being traitorous. He pretends like talking to him doesn’t feel soul-splitting.
three.
His leg bounces sporadically, refreshing his email inbox for what has to be the tenth time in the last three minutes. His life has been nothing but this for the last three years, waiting tensely by his phone and always having his email open in another tab and double and triple checking his mailbox every day, just so he can make sure he doesn’t miss any news about his visa by a second.
George has already had it denied, and it was hell. He remembers having to call Dream and break the news to him, remembers how the man had tried his hardest to comfort him through a wavering voice as George sobbed into his phone. It was a kind of pure, unfiltered agony he never wishes to experience again.
He clicks the circular arrow button, telling himself that he’s only going to refresh his inbox one more time before he gives it up and joins the Discord call Dream has been sitting in for the last twenty minutes. He worries at his bottom lip with his teeth, knowing he told him that he would be there soon, and hasn’t responded to any of his messages since.
George feels like they have been in a never-ending state of being concerned for each other’s well-being, only able to help so much with the distance between them. There are constant check-ins, ‘are you okay’s, and reassurance that this feeling of limbo, of waiting for life to begin, won’t be forever.
It’s been the cause of a lot of tension, this concept of forever. George has hardly been able to stop his train of thought from going the pessimistic route after nearly three entire years of trying to get across the ocean and failing.
Forever started to sound like a con, because nothing could truly last forever. George knew the visa wait would come to an end one way or another. The word ‘forever’ had begun to sound more like ‘perpetual torture.’
He had been isolating himself from his friends, feeling as if he would never get to meet them so there was no point anyways. Deep down, he had known he was behaving self-destructively, but at a certain point he couldn’t even listen to Dream’s soft voice without wanting to cry because he couldn’t truly listen. The mic would cut out, or peak, or Discord would crash because the internet at Dream’s house was out, and George’s heart would start to sink like an anchor in his chest.
He watches the “loading…” dialogue appear at the top of his inbox and it makes him catch his breath. It means that there’s a new email loading in. It could mean the visa office has finally gotten back to him months after he re-submitted his application. It could mean his future.
He glances at Dream’s discord icon sitting alone, waiting for him, and thinks, Please, for him, for me. Please.
George sees the words “Congratulations!” in the subject line of the new email and nearly swallows his tongue. His mouse almost flies off his desk with how fast he moves it to click on the fresh email.
He has to read the email over, mumbling the words to himself as he does, so he can be positive that he’s not mistaken, that this is real and happening and that he’s actually going to Florida. His hands shake as it sinks in.
The next few minutes pass in a blur. After tearfully telling Dream that he wants to phone call, because he would rather eat a jar of nails than have someone join the Discord call as he’s two steps from a breakdown telling his best friend that his visa has been approved, George stands up and paces in front of his couch waiting for Dream to call. He runs his hands through his hair, tugs on it, chews his lip until he thinks he might taste blood. He’s planned out how he would tell Dream in his brain down to the last little detail, to the point where he’s nearly rehearsed exactly how it would go.
Now that it’s happening, and the moment is right before him, he doesn’t even feel real. He feels the opposite of real– unreal. George thinks he might be floating; he can’t exactly tell with the way it seems like his vision has gone shaky and his thoughts are buzzing through his head at a million miles a second.
It takes Dream five whole minutes to call him, and he accepts it almost immediately, uncaring about seeming too desperate.
“Sorry,” Dream says, “was grabbing some water, and Patches needed food.”
Hearing his voice, knowing what he has to say to him, renders George unable to even say hello.
“George?” Dream calls.
George shakes, “Hey.”
“Hey.” He greets, sounding concerned when he hears the waver in George’s voice. “You okay? I thought you said you wanted to get in call and try to get some people to join.”
“Um,” his voice is trembling. He feels slightly sick, hands shaking as he picks at the edge of a couch cushion. “Yeah, I’m…I’m okay.”
Dream lets his answer sit for a second before stating, “You don’t sound very okay.”
His tone makes his heart clench, like he’s hesitant around George and nervous to push too far. It’s the result of the last few months of them being on edge constantly, and George cannot wait for it to never happen again.
“Dream,” he breathes. “I-I got it, Dream.”
“Got-” he hears it when the dots connect, as Dream put two and two together. “You- Are you serious?”
“I’m completely- I’m being completely serious.” He can’t even help it when he starts laughing and doesn’t care that he probably sounds hysterical.
“George- Oh my god, George.” His voice amps up, jittery, shaky. God, George is so glad he isn’t the only one.
“I-I just got the email, and-” he pauses because his voice is shaking like a leaf in the wind, and he’s barely, barely holding himself together. “I still need to book my flight, and they said that my physical copy is already in the mail on its way, and I’m- I’m gonna be there, Dream.”
“You’re-you’re gonna be here,” his voice is so loud and bright. He sounds like he’s in utter disbelief, like the earth has been ripped out from underneath him, but George can tell that he’s smiling. “With me.”
George wants to take him and squeeze him until he’s the size of a coin, something he can keep in his pocket. “Yeah, we’ll be together.”
“We could.”
“We will.”
They both know and hear the double meaning. You’ll be with me, and I with you. We’ll do everything together. You will be mine, to have and to hold, and I will be yours in the same way, until we run out of forevers. It will be hard, there will be hell to pay, but I don’t care. Because I will have you, and you will have me, and everything else will be dust.
“Finally.”
Finally finally finally.
“Dream, I wanna see you,” he blurts. “Please.”
Dream’s silence sits like a rock in his stomach, but he waits, patient, because he knows how scary this must be for him.
“Are you sure?” he asks in a small voice. George longs to wrap him up and hold him forever.
“Of course I’m sure.” Sometimes, you’re the only thing I’m sure of. “Please, Dream. I need to see.”
The pause that settles is tense, and George is afraid, suddenly. He breathes, as if his life isn’t about to be changed. The thick silence terrifies him enough over the phone, he doesn’t think he can trust himself not to break it in some stupid, drastic way when his eyes lock with green and George can see just how the light catches on the bridge of Dream’s nose.
“Okay,” Dream sighs, like he’s experiencing twenty different emotions at once. “Let me go, like, run a comb through my hair and shit.”
“Making yourself all pretty for me?” he teases, trying to ease Dream’s nerves, and by the way he breathes a laugh into the mic he would consider himself successful.
“Shut up, you idiot. I’ll be right back.”
“Okay,” George says, laughing a little, but when the dial tone beeps he drops his phone onto the couch like it’s made of molten hot magma.
It’s not that he’s scared to see Dream, per se, more that he’s scared about what seeing Dream will make him feel. All he has known for seven years is Dream as his profile pictures, as his voice talking to him over a call, as little sneaks of his hair or eyes or arms through Snapchat. Despite those small fractions of Dream, he knows his heart like nobody else does, and that was all George ever needed to fall over himself for him. That was all that was ever required for him to know he would never love again. He was already off the deep end.
Being able to put a face and body to that heart might send George into the deepest of trenches. He’s afraid Dream will open up a fault line beneath the ocean of what he already feels and drag him down to the point of no return.
A couple weeks after getting his visa approved, he gets to the airport early and eats for no other reason than the purpose of filling his stomach. He sits on a barstool, twisting it back and forth to expel the nervous energy fizzing through his limbs.
Dream
will I sound crazy if I say I miss you
George
yes
but I miss you too
The lighting is dim, and there are hardly any people here at this hour. He wonders if he stepped into a portal to another universe when he walked through the sliding doors. Maybe he hasn’t been awake for the last two weeks, and all of this is some elaborate dream meant to trick him. He is waiting to wake up in that flat.
He won’t believe any of this until he sees Dream.
George checks his phone, waiting on Dream’s every word with bated breath as they inch closer and closer together, like two black holes unable to escape each other’s gravity, destined to violently merge into one. He feels like meeting Dream and watching him move and getting to live and exist with him will be the catalyst for some unreal universe-ending event, something that will send ripples through the fabric of space-time.
Dream
I might throw up if I’m being honest
why can’t you just teleport here
He smiles like a schoolgirl, biting his lip so he doesn’t laugh and tapping the tips of his dangling feet against the bar, unable to find it in himself to feel the slightest bit embarrassed about how he may look to a passerby
George
idiot
me too but I’ll be there soon
just don’t throw up
Dream
sOoN
George
you’re so dumb
Dream
oH my GoSh gUys hE sAiD sOoN
wHeN doES sOON mEaN
George buries his smiling face into the crook of his elbow.
When he was younger, he had adored learning about history and excelled in every class on the subject. In his final years of secondary school, George had discovered the seven wonders of the ancient world and became transfixed on the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. He remembers the deep dives he had done online, reading article after article about how the lush gardens had been supposedly built for the wife of the Babylonian king because of how much she missed the greenery of her home, but there was no substantial proof that they had ever existed in the first place.
Everything feels false, the stale airport air, the elation in his chest, the nervousness in his belly, Dream on his phone, his face that George has now seen everyday since that first call and loved as if he ever could not have. He waits for this one thing he’s been aching for to slip away and leave him unsure if he had ever grasped onto it to begin with.
He continues texting back and forth with Dream, almost desperately clinging to these last few hours apart.
For now, he exists. All he has ever wanted is right in front of him, and he walks forward with his tongue stuck out just so he can reach it that much faster. He wants to taste. He hopes it is real.
four.
LA had felt much kinder when George was walking the streets with him, smiling at him secretly from behind a cup in a dimly lit restaurant. George would brush a hand through his hair, crinkle his eyes when he smiled, presse a kiss to his shoulder, and soothe Dream’s soul better than any balm could ever hope to.
It’s hard to keep himself out of his own head when he’s alone.
He had stayed behind to put more time into music while George and Sapnap had gone home. It had been nearly a week of him alone in his AirBnb, and he stayed on the phone with George more often than not when he wasn’t busy, which does wonders for making sure Dream doesn’t root through his thoughts and dissect them to bits.
Tonight, he drags himself through the door, barely lifting his feet from the exhaustion that tugs him towards Earth’s center. He had spent the day in the recording studio and marketing meetings where he felt like an amateur, like he was a small fish in a huge pond and he didn’t quite know how to ride the currents just yet. There were expectations for him to get this album out as soon as humanly possible, and he was often kept in the studio unable to even check his phone for hours at a time.
He leans back against the door and pulls his phone out only to see a message from George saying he was going to stream tonight with Hannah and couldn’t call. Dream thumps his head back against the wood, cursing himself for staying at the studio late without telling him. His head spins, guilt twisting in his stomach as he punches out a reply.
Dream
sorry baby I forgot to tell you I was staying late
have fun!!
He checks his notifications, seeing that George had already gone live a few minutes ago. Dream pulls a deep breath into his nose, telling himself that it’s fine and George deserved to have fun with his friends instead of Dream hogging all his time.
Despite his affirmations, selfishness eats at his flesh, determined to reach his bones and spread its rot to his core.
Dream has experienced lulls during his career, highs and lows. It’s only expected given the nature as to which he gained so much popularity, everyone looking for something new in the face of being suddenly locked inside. He has tried his best to make it through the lows, to keep pushing on and deliver better the next time. He had made an earring to remind himself of this, of his own determination to just keep moving forward.
There are times, though, when guilt creeps up his spine, making him shudder, and burrows itself into his ears with its whispers and digs its claws into his brain. It tells him his efforts are fruitless. It is relentless with its insistence that he will never be able to provide enough to those that he loves.
Even while George was in LA with him, he would often be at the studio or in meetings and such, and George would be out doing his own thing with friends. They had talked this through, him staying by himself in LA, and George had reassured him several times he truly didn’t mind, as long as music made Dream happy. And it did, but you make me happier, he had said. I want to make sure you’re okay with me focusing on this, for now.
I would stop if it isn’t, he hadn’t said. Everything I do is for you.
Despite everything, he feels like he has been neglecting George, not paying him much attention. And now he’s ended up here, alone in LA on his own volition, unable to talk to him, tired and worn down and utterly defeated.
Content from him has lulled to almost a standstill, and George is across the country, and Dream is unsure of it all. Afraid to disappoint anyone, but even more afraid of knowing that he has, and that he is, and he is utterly unable to do anything about it. He would be powerless to stop things from slipping through his fingers, and would have to stand on the sidelines as everything he worked hard to build fell to pieces, all because he couldn’t give enough.
The guilt spreads through him like an infection, until his arms ache where he futilely wraps them around his churning stomach. His brain hurts from dragging skeletons from his closet to haunt him once again, manifesting as an incessant throb between his temples and a hard lump in his throat that makes it hard to pull breaths into his lungs.
He doesn’t remember moving to the couch, but when he opens his eyes he’s face-first in a cushion. If George were here, he wouldn’t have to think about how he got here, because he would know that the brunet led him to sit down so they could talk it through while sitting face to face with George’s imploring brown eyes. Instead, one of Dream’s too big shoulders hangs off the side of the couch in his empty rental, and the sound of the fridge whirring is the only thing filling the silence.
plus one.
George is warm where a blanket lays haphazardly over his lap, his feet propped on Dream’s knees as they lounge on the couch, something mindless playing on the television.
“Can I ask you something,” Dream says, making George lift his eyes from where he has been quietly editing on his laptop. “It might make me sound a little narcissistic, but I’m just, like, thinking.”
George snorts, rolls his eyes at the mildly ridiculous statement. “How would you sound narcissistic if you asked me something?”
“Well,” he starts, defensive. “I’m just wondering, does it ever, like, bother you, when people like, compliment me?”
George raises an eyebrow at him, something evil pulling his lips up into a smirk. “You mean do I ever get jealous?”
Dream’s nose scrunches as he cringes, looking caught. “I guess. It’s just a question. I said it would make me sound narcissistic.”
“You don’t,” he promises. “What brought this up?”
“The waitress, at lunch earlier.” He answers. George nods, and Dream watches him think with his wide, expectant eyes.
There was a period right after he got to Florida where they weren’t exactly together, but George would fall into bed with Dream every night like his home was off to Dream’s left side, or with his back pressed to the expanse of Dream’s chest. Dream would grab his waist in front of hundreds of people with their cameras out, or throw his shirt over his shoulder like some trophy and parade it around a convention center.
And all George was capable of doing was just looking at him, incriminating with how unabashed he was about it. He doesn’t think he could stop himself from staring at him whenever he gets the chance, even if he ever wanted to. He was hooked on how just glancing at Dream made his heart do a mad dash.
“Maybe at one point, I would’ve.” I did. “When we were,” he pauses, letting a million possibilities float on his tongue. Dream nods his understanding. “Y’know, dumb and unsure. But not anymore. I have you now. We’re not idiots about it.”
“Yeah,” he nods. “You’re still an idiot, though.”
George nudges his leg with his socked foot playfully as he continues. “I don’t care about some waitress or like, someone who comes up to you at a party, or bar, or whatever. They only see you for your face, and I-” he swallows, feeling pride creep up his throat. Dream just looks at him, soul-searching. “I didn’t even need that, to think about you as mine. Before I even knew I wanted to see your face, when it didn’t even, like, occur to me.”
Not for the first time, George is overcome with the feeling of luck to have known Dream from the very start, and to know him better than anyone else could ever claim to. Possessiveness festers in his chest, deep red.
“How long,” Dream asks, voice a little choked like the words flew out of his mouth too fast for the air in his lungs to catch up with them. “How long have I been yours?”
The way he says it– not how long have you been thinking of me as yours, but how long have I been yours, because if you thought I was, then I had no choice but to be,- makes George’s heart sing, makes him want to shout, Yes. You are mine, mine, mine.
“I was yours the second you asked me to come with you, and you said that you needed me. I was scared it meant nothing, but- it was real. To me. I was yours.”
What’s yours is mine, goes unsaid. I was yours, so you were mine. Like a law of the universe that’s as true as the fact that gravity exists, or that fruits have seeds.
“Everything I did had you in mind, like you were intertwined into all my plans.” Dream says, like George isn’t clenching his fists with an aching chest and grabbing at the cuffs of the hoodie he’s wearing. One of Dream’s. “I didn’t realize what it meant, and I was scared too. Of you, a little bit.”
George can’t help the shocked laugh that escapes his lips. “Of me?”
“You made me feel a lot. Stuff I had never really felt before, y’know, about guys,” he grimaces while he says it. “It all got really real for me, all at once.”
George is absolutely bowled over. He can’t even speak. It feels like he has been shaken to his core, devastated.
Dream smiles at him, reaches for his hand to lace their fingers together. “You’re everything to me. I feel like I never lived until I met you, I just- existed. And then you made me real, and everything was just- brighter, with you. I think that you’ve always been that, for me. Like, a light, guiding me and showing me the way forward.”
He tries to act like Dream’s words don’t make him want to cry. He can hear the way Dream is also trying not to, can see his eyes shining.
“Shut up,” George says, not meaning it at all. “Don’t make me cry.”
Dream just looks at him, a smile half-teasing at his lips.
“It was real to me, too, by the way. I don’t think I fully realized just how real it was, at the time, but, it always was.” Dream stares into his eyes as he talks, like he wants to dig George’s soul out of him and lay it bare on the sofa between them. “You know that, right?”
“I do,” he says and means it. “I do know. Of course. You gave me your chain, Dream. How could I not?”
Dream blushes like he does every time George mentions the chains. The feeling that rises in George could be described as violent, so in love with the man in front of him that it makes him want to do something drastic, like bring up marriage or slam his body into Dream’s so they can fall apart together on the couch. Dream tells him he loves him, and George wants to tear him apart.
George instead just shifts closer so he can bury his head in the fabric of Dream’s crinkled t-shirt. “Love you.” He says it like a guarantee, right into the warm skin of his arm. It culls the raging animal in his chest.
There will never be another like Dream, this George knows with absolute certainty. Even if, somehow, there is an after Dream, there will never be anyone who could measure up. George is sure of it in the same way he is sure that Patches loves him, and that the grass outside their home is green. He sends out a prayer of sorts to his younger self, who tore himself apart in his lonesome bedroom in his parent’s old house, wondering if it was real.
He is real, he is warm by your side, and you brush your teeth together in the mornings and at night, and he writes songs about you.
He gives his blessings to himself just a couple years ago, who ran his brain ragged and mulled over the impossibility of forever and the falsehood of it.
Forever might be fake. A con meant to scam people of their happiness in exchange for useless promises. But you will meet him, and you will gladly fall for the scheme as long as you do it with him.