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It was so cold. Why on earth was it this cold? No place in the universe had the right to be this cold.
“Jimmy, I hate you with every sick bone in my body,” Dream whined, face planting into his pillow. “I’m going to slander you on Twitter.”
Jimmy, being the cruel man that he is, just laughs. “I told you you could back out at any time, but once you got on the final plane, the only way out was an emergency helicopter.”
Dream grumbles, but Jimmy’s right. But now there is blood on his pillow and he can’t even bring himself to care, he just wants someone to care for him right now. “Can you at least bring me my boyfriends? They will at least give me food.”
There is a pause before Chanler goes “Boyfriends?”
“Tell them if they are too busy hanging out with Karl to love me, I’m going to expose them on Tic Tok,” Dream groans, pulling the back of his sleeping bag over his head.
“Right. Your boyfriends. Yep. I’ll go get them I guess,” Jimmy stutters, before throwing Chanler’s gear at him and rushing to put his own on. Dream is too tired to even process that Jimmy is being weird, much less why.
He shivers before coughing so hard he feels like he is going to suffocate.
He just wants to cuddle.
Jimmy practically bursts into their tent, but before anyone can make a joke, he snaps “Turn off the cameras, all of them. Right now. This cannot be recorded.”
Sapnap, George, Chris, and Karl all glance at each other, before complying. After he turns the last camera off, Karl asks “What’s up?”
“Dream’s delusional. He kept talking about how his boyfriends would take better care of him, so unless someone knows something I don’t, we have a real issue on our hands. He has to go back if he’s that sick.”
It’s dead silence for a moment before George sighs and turns to Karl. “This is not how I imagined we would come out to you, but Karl, I’m pan, Sapnap’s bi, both of us are poly, and we are dating Dream.” George looks around. “Is that going to be a problem?”
Sapnap facepalms. My boyfriends are going to be the death of me. “George! Could you at least have some tack?”
“Oh, like you have any,” George scoffs.
“Okay. Yep. This was totally what I was expecting. Um, I assume you don’t want anyone to know and to not say anything?” Jimmy gets out, obviously trying to process the revolution. “Also, congrats I guess? Sorry that we had to find out like this? In my defense, I was pretty sure Dream was having a hallucinogenic episode and I was panicking.”
Karl burst out laughing. “Honestly, this is such a Dream team thing to happen. In every way possible.”
“But if he is saying stuff like that without thinking, that does mean his brain is broken,” Chris points out. “I mean, he wouldn’t just expose you guys' relationship without you there. You two should really go check him out.”
Sapnap thinks for a moment before realizing Chris is right. “Come on, George, let’s go comfort our Victorian child of a boyfriend.”
“I told him to stay back, but nooooo , he had to come. Idiot,” George hauls himself out of the hole, starting to put on the rest of his gear. “I move across an ocean for this man and he almost dies every other week.”
“Hey!” Sapnap yells, grinning. “What am I? Chopped liver?”
“You moved halfway across the country for him, so shut up,” George snarks back, Throwing one of Sapnap’s hats at him.
“So… you two have got it?” Jimmy asked awkwardly.
“Yeah, you’re fine dude. It’s not your fault that any of this happened. We would have told you eventually,” Sapnap assured him. “We’ll let you know if we need anything.”
“I want details later!”Karl calls out as they leave the tent, and Sapnap can just hear the smirk in his voice.
“Nah, it’s more fun to leave you in suspense!” Sapnap shouts back before completely closing the tent flap.
They both walk over to the tent Dream is staying in in silence. Sapnap knows that they acted like it was no big deal, but he’s scared. He knows George is too. Dream may be soft-launching their relationship through fanart and little hints here and there, but he would never outright say anything. They have already agreed that they will tell people together unless their hand is forced like it was just now. Point is, he did something wildly out of character, and he knows that it worries George as much as it does him.
When they finally reach the tent, George finally says something. “I don’t think we should bring up the fact that he just exposed us right now, no need to have him sick and panicking.”
“Good point,” Sapnap opens the tent door, letting George in behind him.
“Sapnap! George! You came!” Dream looks terrible, despite the grin on his face. His eyes are red, he’s got snot dripping down his face, his lips are chapped, and is that blood on his chin?
“Hey darling, you don’t look too hot,” Sapnap finishes pulling off his extra layers and walking over. “Jimmy said you wanted us to come take care of you?”
“Can we cuddle?” Dream looks so hopeful, Sapnap’s heart just melts. “And maybe George can make me some food?”
“Of course sweetie, I’ll go heat the water,” George walks over to where all the foodstuff is being kept.
“Scooch over, let me get into your sleeping bag,” Sapnap takes off a few more layers before maneuvering himself into the sleeping bag with Dream.
They lay there for a moment, simply soaking in each other’s touch, before George comes back with a packet of food.
They unzip the bag so Dream can sit up and George checks his temperature with the back of his hand. “Wow, you are just burning up. Are you sure you want to cuddle?”
Dream sniffs. “Yeah. I get it if you don’t want to do that right now though.”
“Of course we do, we just want you to be as comfortable as you can be right now,” George assures him. Sapnap nods along.
“Finish eating first, I don’t want you dropping noodles into my hair,” Subpoena jokes, feeling warm inside when Dream laughs.
“You are both idiots,” Dream giggles before going back to eating his pouch of noodles. “These taste terrible.”
“Of course they do,” George scoffs. “I told you not to come to Antarctica when you are coughing up a lung. Now you are coughing up blood and eating terrible food.”
“And give up the chance to do this with you guys? Never.”
After far too long, probably because Dream can’t breathe out of his nose due to congestion, Dream throws his food bag toward Jimmy’s sleeping bag because ‘he’s the reason I’m like this’.
“Okay, let’s cuddle so you can sleep and we can get out of whatever crazy scheme Karl has in store for us,” George practically shoves Dream back down, flopping next to him instead of on top of him like he normally does.
Sapnap snuggles into Dream’s other side, giving a contented sigh as Dream throws an arm over him.
He and George listen as Dream’s breath starts to even out as best it can while he is so sick. It’s comforting, after the scare that was Jimmy bursting in in a flurry of panic and snow. He’s here and while he may not be completely okay right now, he will be.
“We should sleep too,” George whispers like he fears disturbing the peace.
“Yeah, Night Geoge,” he whispers back. Dream mumbles in his sleep before settling down again.
“Night Sapnap.”
Sapnap wakes up slowly, wrapped in warmth. He slowly starts to register arms around him and the murmur of voices behind him.
He groans a little as he shifts around, and the voices stop for a moment before starting up again, but this time directed at him.
“Come on Sapnap, wakey-wakey, we should talk about what happened yesterday,” Dream whispers, which finally gets something to click in his brain. Oh. Yeah. That happened. They should talk about that.
“I’m up, I’m up,” he grumbles while he stretches, finally sitting up.
They all just kind of sit there, looking at each other before George says “Well, yesterday happened.”
Dream stares down at his lap, his shoulders tensed. “I’m sorry guys, I didn’t even realize what I was saying. I didn’t mean to out us like that.”
“It's okay Dream, you were sick and wasn’t thinking straight,” George comforts. “We aren't mad, we just need to figure out where to go from here.”
Sapnap hesitates, before tentatively saying “What if we just told our friends? I mean, it’s not like they would react badly, right? And I think that this shows we are pretty stable in our relationship. I mean, George and I aren’t really that freaked out about it, and Dream, you are only so on edge because you don’t want to make us uncomfortable. Sure, George hasn’t been here for long, but we have been dating long before he ever set foot in America.”
They mull it over for a minute, until George eventually says “I know Dream has been ready for a while. I mean, he’s basically already writing love songs about us.” Sapnap snorts and Dream blushes. “So I think, as long as we tell only close friends, like the Munchy group, I’ll be okay.”
Dream grins and yanks George into a hug. Sapnap giggles before joining his boyfriends’ embrace. They stay like that for a while, basking in each other's arms.
“Alright Dream, let go so I can get you some medicine because we did not just have that emotional upheaval just for you to die,” George starts squirming away, grabbing his winter gear. “Also, Jimmy is enough like you that he is likely still overthinking this.”
“Hold off Karl as long as you can, I don’t think Dream is healthy enough for the outrageous things he is going to say,” Sapnap calls as George struggles to zip up his second coat. “Don’t need him laughing so hard he loses a lung.”
“Hey, I’m not that fragile!” Dream complains, before coughing up a storm again.
“Sure Victorian Child, sure.”
It would be okay. No one here would out them, Dream would get better, and they would take this next step in their life together.