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Not being able to touch Dream had been George’s own personal hell for as long as he could remember.
It started off with the distance, and the knowledge that someone out there knew George better than he knew himself. Islands away from him, George hardly knew what to do with himself, and that was before he even knew what kind of element Dream was.
Then, when George had taken a leap of faith— spending days at sea, journeying to a life he hoped was worth it— finding out Dream was of water somehow hit even harder.
It was no surprise, really, that of all the elements Dream was one of calming rain, mesmerizing oceans, and glorious waterfalls. The very element encapsulating life itself.
Yet, still, it hurt. It hurt terribly.
Fire and water didn’t mix— he and Dream wouldn’t mix. No matter how much he so desperately wanted to.
Upon moving in, it had been exhausting trying to hold himself back. He wanted to hug Dream, squeeze his cheeks, run a hand through his stupid floppy hair. But he couldn’t, and instead had to watch everyone else experience his Dream without setbacks. Karl, an air element, hugged him and cuddled him so often. Hannah, earth, got to punch him in the arm whenever they got into friendly discourse. Sam, another water, was always all over him, wrapped up in back hugs and affable cheek kisses.
And George, turning purple each time, watched from afar, wishing he could be anything else.
It wasn’t so bad when he still had Sapnap, a fire, and the only one who could understand among their friends. Maybe he didn’t feel the same undeniable pull that George did, but still, he wanted to hold their Dream, too.
They talked about it sometimes, the yearning for such connection. As fires, it felt like they were exiled from all the other elements, kept away with the notion they could burn the world down if they weren’t careful enough. Of course their friends never made them feel like it was an issue, but even so, it was hard.
George had an avoidance of talking to Dream about it.
On the rare occasion the topic came up (“We could just try, see what happens”), he ran. Scared, yet desperate. George didn’t know what he would do if they did try and it didn’t work. The prospect that maybe, just maybe there would be a way for them to hold each other someday was what kept George going. A distant fantasy, something that felt like a dream.
Knowing that it truly never could occur would be devastating. George would burn up, go dry, fade to ash.
So he was stuck, wanting Dream, needing Dream, loving Dream, and being haplessly unable to have him in full.
One night, as the sky beheld a lunar eclipse, Dream and George were together under the stars. A metallic slab laid under George whilst Dream settled in the grass beside him. So painfully close, yet so disastrously far.
Dream was facing George’s side, but George remained at his back, staring up at the sky as he searched for Altair and Vega. Knowing others had struggled before him, had loved from a distance, somehow made him feel better about himself and Dream.
Maybe one day they’d be embedded in the stars, too. Forever emblazoned in history's course.
“George,” Dream whispered, the way he spoke the name never failing to make George’s heart stop beating. “You know you’re like, my favorite person, right?”
And you’re my favorite everything.
George hummed easily, unthinkingly. They’d talked about it all before, hundreds of times. Online they were always on call, so inseparable that every event was a two-person invitation. In person, even while they couldn’t fully touch, it was always an invisible string tying them together. Inseparable, even without the ability to tangle together in the first place.
“And,” Dream started again, his voice even softer than before, like dollops of water on a blooming flower petal, “you know you make me feel alive, right?”
George didn’t really know that one. Always, he’d said Dream was life and love and everything that made the world alive. Thinking of himself as such an energy seemed absurd.
He didn’t hum again this time, only breathed out a sigh.
Dream exhaled in tandem. “I just feel so lucky. You, here. With me–”
“Dream.” George reprimanded, cutting him off before he could finish. It was too much right now– too much of a reminder that while he was here he could never be there at Dream’s side completely. Never fully together.
“George,” he said back, and in his peripheral, George could see his eyes reflecting the moonlight in a way that made him shine even more than usual. “C’mon, George. I love you. Let me be happy about this.”
Love was a delicate, fragile word. Something sacred behind locked doors. A concept so immune that it could withstand any conflict, any pain.
George loved Dream, of course. But how could they love each other when they couldn’t even touch? It was an anomaly in itself, an explosion waiting to happen.
George would burn out or Dream would evaporate. Death, ensured. How could they possibly… how could Dream expect him to be okay with just barely anything and never fully enough of what he so miserably needed?
“Stop,” he begged, too tired to be angry. “Please stop.”
But Dream only inched a little closer, pushing himself onto his elbows so George could see his face in full beauty. “We can try, at least.”
“Try what?” The words came out bitter, heated. George couldn’t regulate his bite anymore, not when they were like this, crossing the line of everything he’d just started getting used to.
Dream managed a stupid smile. George wanted to grab his face and squish it. “This. Us.”
George choked on it: the declaration that they were something more, that they’d always been. It was like the oxygen had been taken out of him, like he’d been turned to a simple tiny flame, covered by wood and cinder, barely even an ember. He was weak with it, ashen.
“We can’t,” he whispered so smally, a fragile little fire just starting to burn. “I can’t.”
He felt Dream’s gaze all over his face, but George couldn’t bear looking back. It was too much, too real.
“Why?”
One word, one question. It should have called for a simple answer, but to George, it felt like anything but. “I can’t lose you,” he settled on. “I can’t lose you if it doesn’t work.”
Dream inhaled sharply, and George felt his reaction all too viscerally. It was the same burning passion, destructive greed. So badly, they wanted to be with each other. So much, they were willing to take.
“I’ll still love you then, anyway. You know that, idiot.” His words were tender, sweet. “But if there’s even a chance that I could hold you, then I want to try. I want us to try.”
George knew Dream would never do anything without asking, never push the boundary too far. He’d placed the scale in George’s hand now, the choice between nothing and more hanging over his head like smoke.
Even with all his bickering, George knew what he would choose no matter what. Dream wanted to try this. George wanted to have this. Whatever this was, it was worth fighting for. Worth attempting.
“I want to,” he whispered. “I just— we just have to start small.”
Dream looked at him with wide, admiring eyes. “Baby steps,” he affirmed, already inching his hand closer to George’s, too giddy for his own good.
“Baby steps,” George agreed, almost unhearing of his words due to the fierceness of his heartbeat.
He watched attentively as Dream’s finger laid barely an inch away from his own. He could feel the coldness of the water, the itching instinct to drown out his own flame.
Too curious for his own good, George swallowed the distance by his own volition.
At first contact, he jolted back, shocked by the chill at his own touch. It was crisp, damp. Yet, even though they'd made contact, his hand was still in place, flames still burning bright.
Dream was holding his breath, too, gazing at his own finger that was still rounded and smooth as ever.
Touching hadn’t killed either of them. Yet.
George wanted to try something more.
This time, fully cautious of their closeness, George reached out to grab Dream’s hand. He wrapped burning fingers around flowing water and squeezed. He could feel the dampness still, but it was less shocking than their first touch. It was almost… nice. Touching Dream was in comparison to no other, a feeling higher than any chart could hold.
He lifted their clasped hands upward to study them. At each contact, Dream’s water seemed to be boiling just barely, while George’s own flame went lax.
They balanced each other out, in the same way they always had. And always would.
They changed the chemistry of their elements, somehow defying the laws of nature just for this one shared, fragile point of contact. They’d made their own path, their own new story, just like how George had wished for to the constellations above.
Dizzy with the thought, George needed impossibly more.
He reached his free hand to Dream’s shoulder— grasping tighter with the other— and snaked it to his neck. The touch sizzled a bit at first before dying out, finding that perfect equilibrium made especially for them.
George looked at Dream fully now, completely engulfed in love and longing and devotion.
Fire elements didn’t cry, but as George realized that he could truly have this, have Dream, a drop of lame fell down to his lap.
He laughed, blinked away more content tears, and dipped his head forward into Dream’s rounded chest. In every other notion, his hair of flames should have been doused out by the contact, simmered down to ash. With Dream, George’s fire burned right beside the dazzling water. Together, even with separate forces.
The comfort of Dream’s arms around him was like no other. His clinging hold made every struggle worth it. Crossing the sea was nix in Dream’s arms, years of pining away from afar was all worth it to lead here.
George didn’t know what could possibly make it more real.
He pulled back, lips parted to say thank you and thank you and thank you, but Dream’s gaze was elsewhere, lower. George inhaled sharp, watched the way Dream stopped breathing, too.
Without needing any more confirmation, George tilted up his chin. This time waiting for Dream to move in, to drown him out between shared breaths.
He was ready for it when the kiss came, a fiery passion already built up inside, waiting desperately to be released. Too easily, they mixed even more, impossibly inseparable.
Though, it wasn’t a sign of their love, not really. They had enough said between shared glances and new, breathtaking contact. Their lips meeting were more of a promise. To the world. To each other.
They were always—would always be— Dream and George. Yet, now, when they’d been expected to stay inches apart as warring elements, they were now entwined in some kind of otherworldly connection.
Invisible, incredible, elemental, it was always them.