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For as long as he can remember, Dream has always pictured himself with a big family. Growing up with siblings, with multiple sets of grandparents and cousins and plenty of extended family so close meant that it’s all he’s ever known, really.
Even when Dream was a kid himself, when he pictured his future, he pictured children. Even as he grew older, as his idea of settling down morphed into something a little less traditional, the desire for a big family never quite faded.
He’d be a good dad, Dream thinks—people are always telling him he’ll be good at it. It’s not anything all-consuming, but it’s a fantasy he still returns to every once in a while, dancing in the back of his mind whenever little kids approach him and ask for a picture.
He catches himself daydreaming about it at least a thousand times more often after the first time he watches George interact with younger fans.
They’re in a grocery store the first time it happens, still adjusting to the novelty of existing in the same space, and in Dream’s case, the novelty of being recognized at all. He’s still new to this, so when two little boys run up to them excitedly in the middle of the dairy aisle, he completely freezes for a second.
George, though—George was born for this.
George wastes no time at all crouching down to be at their eye level, asking how old they are and promising that yes, of course they’re the real Dream and George from the Minecraft videos. He matches their enthusiasm effortlessly, instantly beginning to joke with them and even teasing Dream lightheartedly for being awkward, telling the kids in a fake-whisper that they’re some of the first fans Dream has ever run into, which makes them extra special.
The boys’ mom walks over just a moment later, smiling gratefully at George and then Dream in turn for keeping them occupied, grinning knowingly when the older of the two asks if she can take a picture of the four of them. She clearly doesn’t have a clue who Dream and George are beyond the obvious fact that her kids look up to them, but she thanks them nearly a dozen times as they part ways. It’s sweet—the entire interaction leaves a warm, fuzzy feeling in Dream’s chest, something that doesn’t quickly dissipate even after him and George are left alone in the aisle.
“You’re really good with kids,” Dream says quietly, in the car on the way home. He glances over at George in the passenger’s seat, at the soft smile on his lips when he turns his head to the side and meets Dream’s eye.
“You think so?” George shrugs. “It’s fun when kids recognize us. It makes me feel, like—proud, I guess. They’re probably gonna tell all their friends about meeting us. They’ll probably remember this forever.”
“Well,” Dream scoffs, “I don’t know about forever. They might not even actually watch us, maybe they just recognized us from memes or something.”
“No, they were actual fans,” George argues, shaking his head stubbornly. “You didn’t hear—the younger one asked me if I’m actually colourblind or if that’s a bit for videos. I told him it’s all an act.”
“No you didn’t,” Dream groans, rolling his eyes when George nods and bursts into laughter. “You can’t lie to children, he probably believed you.”
“I told him I was kidding,” George amends. “But I don’t know if he believed that—I think he thought I was lying that time.”
“You’re terrible,” Dream scolds halfheartedly, not even bothering to attempt to wipe the smile off his face. “And here I was, praising you for being so good with them.”
“Well.” George shrugs again when Dream raises his eyebrows. “I gave them a memorable story to tell their friends. I fail to see the problem here.”
Dream is still picturing it in the back of his mind when they get home—George crouched down in the middle of the grocery store, eye to eye with a kid beaming up at him like he’s the coolest person in the world.
As far as Dream knows, George doesn’t want kids. They don’t talk a lot about the future—maybe more often than typical friends do, but their relationship has always been anything but typical. Whenever the topic does come up, George is painfully vague.
He’s uninterested in marriage, he doesn’t understand why anyone bothers, but he indulges Dream anyway and listens intently when he goes off on a tangent about what it means to him, why he thinks he’d like to get married one day. He comes around, by the end of it—and Dream very decidedly doesn’t dwell too much on that. He’s much less ambivalent about kids, though—George insists that he can’t picture himself as a dad, that it’s weird to even try, that he’d rather just be the cool uncle and babysit if he ever ‘wants to hang out with a child’.
Dream doesn’t ever push him on that front, because somehow, it feels too revealing to even try. It’s not like they’re dating—it really isn’t his business what George wants further down the line.
He isn’t sure how to justify why it bothers him so much—why it feels a bit like a tragedy to picture George, the same George who loves talking with young fans and is incredible with Dream’s baby cousins when he stays with Dream’s family over Christmas, never having any kids of his own.
Dream thinks about a mini-George, a tiny dark-haired child with big brown eyes and a higher-pitched imitation of his laugh, and is so overwhelmed with affection that his hands clench into fists. The pinch of his nails digging into his palms is enough to snap him back to reality, but he can’t shake the gut-wrenching, undeniable longing that seems to follow him whenever his mind wanders back to that same image of George knelt down to talk animatedly with an 8-year-old.
As seasons pass and Dream and George’s relationship only grows increasingly difficult to define, Dream slowly learns how not to think about all the things he can’t control.
Nothing with the two of them is ever simple, but sometimes, Dream thinks, he’s able to catch glimpses of what a more settled future could hold.
George is careful with him. It’s something that takes months, maybe over a year, to get used to. Of all the versions of George that Dream has been lucky enough to know, he thinks he might be particularly in love with the version that is constantly aware of his needs and inner thoughts, that texts Dream’s mom to check in when he’s too embarrassed to ask Dream directly how he’s doing.
Sometimes, Dream doesn’t have the slightest clue what George is thinking—things would be a lot simpler if he did—but George always seems to see straight through him, and it’s as intimidating as it is achingly sweet. He learns that there’s nothing more terrifying than being so completely known.
Dream spends decidedly less time envisioning a future beyond the near-present, because he can’t manage to avoid picturing George by his side whenever those thoughts do creep in. It’s not fair for Dream to get carried away—it isn’t something they’ve talked about, even as this thing between the two of them grows into something increasingly all-encompassing. He knows that he never wants their lives to be less intertwined—and he thinks, probably, that George would agree. He allows himself that much.
Of course, George is anything but predictable.
“—And then these kids came up to me, they loved me, Dream. They thought I was, like, the coolest person ever.” George rambles happily about his day, recapping what Dream missed out on from the stream he did with Sapnap. His excitement is tangible when he thinks about the interaction, even while sprawled out on Dream’s office bed, apparently exhausted from hours of walking around and trying to maintain high energy.
Dream makes an internal note to look for clips, later. George’s entire face lights up recounting how excited the group of kids had been to talk to him, and Dream feels like his heart might burst just imagining it.
“They thought I was so funny. It was kind of awesome—it kind of made me, like, want to have kids. Imagine how fun it would be, to have that all the time?”
Dream’s hands freeze on his keyboard, the draft of an email he’d been in the middle of instantly forgotten.
“You… kids?” It’s not even really a sentence, let alone a coherent question, but Dream thinks it’s something of a feat that he managed to put together even two full words despite the thunderous roar of his own pulse in his ears.
George laughs fondly, his head cocking to the side as he seems to consider it for another few moments. “I guess, yeah. It feels really nice when kids like you, because they’re so, like, unfiltered. And I mean, obviously I would hope my own kid would like me.”
“Kids always like you,” Dream says without even thinking, because it’s true. “Your own kid would love you, obviously. You’d be—you’d be a really good parent. I’ve always thought that.”
“Always?” George raises his eyebrows, perking up and smiling wider when Dream winces with the realization that he’d actually said that out loud. “Aw, Dream. You’ve thought about this?”
Dream’s face burns, and he starts to shake his head, but a small smile crosses his lips against his better judgement, and he sighs. “Sometimes,” he says slowly, “not—not in a weird way.”
Dream tenses with the admission, bracing himself for George to laugh or tease him, but he barely reacts at all. If anything, he seems pleased.
“You’ve thought about having kids with me.” George states matter-of-factly, and Dream chokes on his own breath.
“Okay, that’s not what I said.”
“You’re not denying it, though,” George points out, his eyes bright with satisfaction, and Dream takes a second to ruminate on his own inability to lie to George before nodding slowly while staring down at his own feet. Somehow, he realizes, he wants to tell the truth.
“I have,” Dream says quietly, breaking the silence when George doesn’t. “Is that—”
“Don’t ask me that’s okay,” George interrupts, a teasing grin on his lips when Dream snaps his head up to look at him. “Are you serious? You don’t have to ask if you’re, like—if it’s okay to imagine our future together. I do that too.”
Dream swallows around the lump in his throat. “To clarify—when you say our future, you don’t just mean, like the next couple years, or—”
“Yes,” George answers right away, as serious as he’s ever been. It isn’t nearly as terrifying of a conversation as Dream thought it would be. “I don’t just mean until we stop making content. Obviously not, if we’re talking about kids and whatever.”
“And whatever,” Dream repeats, a little bit dumbstruck by how easily George says all of this, as if he isn’t lending credence to the fantasies Dream has spent half a decade pushing down and wishing weren’t so vivid.
“I assumed you knew this,” George mumbles, feather-light, his voice dropping to something barely above a whisper.
Dream stumbles over his words for a second, the weight of everything hitting him all at once. “I was supposed to know that you want to have kids with me?”
George makes a noise that sounds like an attempted scoff, but his cheeks turn pink and he’s still grinning when he shakes his head. “You’re supposed to know that I want everything with you.”
Dream’s breath hitches. “George.”
“I’m serious,” George says quietly, so sincere that it makes Dream’s heart ache.
Dream’s mouth hangs open for a moment too long, every dangerous thought he’s swallowed for months suddenly too much and not enough all at once. “I know,” Dream starts, “I know. Me too—you know that too, right?”
“Well,” George’s smile seems to weaken for a fraction of a second, and Dream’s stomach drops. “I thought—I hoped.”
“I want forever,” Dream blurts out. When George’s eyebrows raise and he looks too stunned to say anything, Dream’s impatience gets the better of him and he moves quickly to sit down on the bed beside him, finding George’s hand in the blanket and taking it between two of his own. “I didn’t—I was never sure how much was—too much. But I want—yeah, George. I want forever with you. Whatever that entails.”
George’s eyes soften when he looks down at their intertwined hands. “We’d be good parents, probably.”
For the first time, Dream doesn’t feel like he needs to restrain himself from fantasizing about it. “Obviously,” he agrees, without hesitation. “I didn’t realize this was something you wanted to talk about, or—I don’t know. I didn’t want to freak you out, like, aren’t we kind of doing this backward?”
George hums, a flicker of something teasing in his grin when he raises his eyebrows. “Oh, is there something you think we should do first? Before talking about having kids together?”
“I can think of a few things, I guess.” Dream knows he isn’t imagining the way George’s gaze drops to his mouth. He knows that George is infinitely more patient than he is—even when he blinks up at him innocently and tilts his head closer, Dream knows he’s taunting him, waiting for him to take the leap.
It probably shouldn’t feel as natural as it does to close the distance and press his lips against George’s. Dream has spent so long resisting that it feels silly, all of a sudden, when kissing George is one of the simplest things he’s ever done. It’s not even the first time they’ve kissed, technically—but it’s the first time without any witnesses, without any excuses.
George kisses him back, one of his hands in Dream’s hair gently pulling him closer. It’s easy, letting George take the lead and swallow the quiet gasp Dream lets out, too dazed to feel embarrassed even when he can feel George’s mouth curl into a smile against his own.
Dream feels stupid for waiting so long, for expecting this to be so complicated. It’s the two of them—of course, they just fit.
“Mm,” George hums in dissatisfaction when Dream tries to lean back. “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere, silly,” Dream laughs softly, beaming so hard his cheeks ache while he leans in to peck George’s lips again. “I just—you don’t think we should talk about—”
Dream discovers very quickly that his efforts to complete a sentence are in vain, that George doesn’t intend to stop kissing him for long enough to have anything resembling a conversation.
“What is there to talk about?” George grins when he finally relents to breathe, his lips swollen red and his cheeks rosy, and Dream is barely listening because all he can think about is how badly he wants to kiss him again. “We’re already on the same page, right? Forever, kids, everything. Yeah?”
He makes it sound so simple—like they’re discussing dinner plans, rather than the rest of their lives. Maybe, Dream thinks, it really can be that easy. Maybe it isn’t such a bad thing to take one day at a time.
“Yeah,” Dream whispers, leaning back in to kiss the man he intends to start a family with, to spend the rest of forever with. “Of course we are.”