Archive of Our Own ^beta

1

George counts his steps as he pads down the stairs, a steady one-two-one-two beat that he’s become familiar with in the months - years - since moving in with Dream and Sapnap.

When he reaches the landing, there’s still a bounce in his step, and he lets his socked feet glide across the floor. Just for the efficiency it gives him in reaching the kitchen, a speed boost he’d be foolish to give up. If someone was timing him, he’s sure that his pace between the end of the stairs and the entrance to the kitchen would be PB-able. Personal best-able. Peanut butter and jelly-able.

But he stops quick when his eyes catch on to the scene in the kitchen. It’s already occupied, broad shoulders and a tilted head taking up the space in front of the sink. Dream.

George watches him. Traces the curl of his hair and the wrinkles of his shirt with just his eyes, though he’s done it plenty of times with the pads of his fingers.

Dream, as if he can feel the touch, turns toward him with wide eyes, looking almost as if he’s been caught in some salacious act. George doesn’t catch on at first, too occupied with meeting Dream’s gaze and letting a smile curl at the corners of his mouth, to notice the particulars of the glass cup in Dream’s hand. He only glances at it when Dream’s eyes dart down and then back up.

“That’s my cup,” George says, the indignation in his voice entirely sincere. “What the- Why are you drinking out of my cup?”

“Oh, this is yours?” Dream widens his eyes even further, lifting the cup in front of his face. “Oops.”

“You’re lying,” George says, punctuating his words with a step forward. Dream shrinks back, and George can see the counter digging into his skin. “You bought it for me.”

Dream holds the cup out, as if as a peace offering, and George takes it from his hand as an act of war. It’s still half full, but George makes quick work of the rest of the water.

“You think I remember every gift I get you?”

“I do actually, yeah. The chocolate incident? Ringing any bells?” George taps the glass against his front teeth, the clinking sound it makes both too loud and oddly soothing. Dream is resolutely silent, so George keeps talking. “Pretending to forget that too? It was you, stealing a random bar of chocolate from Sapnap and making him spit it out. And we both thought you were crazy. But it was my chocolate, wasn’t it?”

“Well,” Dream splutters, and George is certain that he’s blushing. “That was like, obvious. That it was your chocolate because it was that British shit. I had to seek it out. So I remember my gifts when they have intention.”

“So the Florida cup you presented to me the day I got here didn’t have any intention?”

“None,” Dream says, crossing his arms. “Can I have the cup back.”

“Only if you admit that you were drinking from it because it’s mine.”

George thinks Dream will push back - he’s not even entirely sure that he’s right, that Dream picked that cup out of their mismatched cupboard with purpose. But he had seen the look on Dream’s face when George appeared on the kitchen, and that was more than enough reason for George to push.

“Fine,” Dream says, the word clipped short. George had wanted him to whine. “I picked your cup on purpose.”

“And what was that purpose?”

“Because it’s yours,” Dream says like that explains anything, but lucky for him George knows.

He knows about stolen sushi and shoulders pressed close on the couch, and he knows about shared glances across a crowded room. He wordlessly hands the cup back. Dream’s fingers brush his when he takes it.

George wants to see the cup tapped against Dream’s teeth, wants to take it back from him and demand that Dream opens his mouth so he can do it himself, but he settles for watching as he refills the cup. The way Dream moves is still so strange, how he wraps his fingers all the way around the glass rather than just holding it with the tips of his fingers like George would, and the way he stops the water when it’s a few centimeters from the top rather than letting it reach the rim of the glass.

George doesn’t know how he looks when he drinks water, but he can commit the bob of Dream’s throat and the trickle of water droplets into his beard to memory. He drinks the whole thing in one go like a freak, gasping for air when he finally pulls the cup away from his lips.

A small step takes George into Dream’s space, and he plucks the glass from Dream’s fingers to bring it to his own mouth and fit his lips to it. It doesn’t taste like Dream. George frowns.

With a dissatisfied hum, George runs his nail over the etched design of the glass. It creates a strange little tingle, and it’s not enough to make up for the glass's failure in not capturing Dream’s taste, but he can appreciate a new sensation.

Dream is watching him intently. George can feel it. And see it, when he raises his eyes. He’s got that little furrow between his eyebrows that appears when he’s really focusing on something, and if George preens it’s no one's business.

He sees the moment Dream blinks himself out of his reverie, and that simply won’t do. With one quick movement, George sets the glass on the counter and leans forward until his face is close enough to Dream’s that they share the surprised puff of breath that leaves Dream’s lips.

“Thought you were just going to make out with the cup forever,” Dream murmurs, teasing.

“You started it,” George says against his lips. It’s not really a kiss, not yet, but the warmth in George’s stomach is close enough to it that he’s in no hurry to give into the slight frenzy he can hear in Dream’s hurried breaths. Dream leans closer, and George tilts back on his heels, making Dream give chase.

He’s stopped when Dream’s hands fall to his waist. They’re warm and heavy, full of promise, and George intends to find out the full extent of it.

2

George doesn’t want to walk all the way up to his room, so he sits on the edge of Dream’s bed and crosses his arms.

His hair’s still wet from their shower, and his body is comfortably satiated. But he’s nearly naked, with only a towel wrapped around his waist, and Dream is still in the bathroom rubbing things (that aren’t George) on his face. George had had to flee the bathroom to avoid becoming Dream’s test subject, but now he’s just cold and lonely.

His only solace is Patches, who blinks at him sleepily when he rests a hand on her head. He trills at her, a poor attempt to copy the soft noise she makes at being awoken, and blinks slowly with his face angled toward hers. His chest warms when she blinks back and butts her head into his hand.

“Where’s Dream,” he asks her, although he knows that the both of them can hear him humming in the bathroom. “Where is that idiot.”

Patches tilts her head flopping her body over until she’s pressed against the side of her bed with her legs angled out in front of her. George tentatively pets at her soft stomach, careful of the claws he knows could pop out at any second. But she seems to be in a good mood, purring under his palm, and he feels the soft and sappy smile that takes over his face and doesn’t bother to bite it back. Patches wouldn’t tell on him. They have an understanding.

George’s hair has mostly stopped dripping onto his bare shoulders by the time Dream finally emerges, still humming as he comes up behind George and places a hand on his shoulder, flexing his fingers as if attempting to give a massage. He’s not very good at it, but George leans into the touch anyway, until he remembers that he’s angry with Dream.

With a quick twist of his body, that unfortunately upsets Patches from her comfort and has her jumping off the bed and disappearing under it, he catches Dream’s wrist and turns to face him.

“You left me,” George informs him. “Out in the cold.”

“There’s blankets,” Dream says, twitching the hand that George is still holding toward the few that are strewn across his bed. “You could have grabbed one.”

“I don’t want a blanket.” George wrinkles his nose at the thought of the texture against his skin. “I want clothes.”

Dream’s eyes drift to the door, and George hears the question before it leaves his lips, mouthing along to Dream’s words as he says them. “Why don’t you go get yours?”

“Because it’s too far.”

“Obviously,” Dream agrees, tugging his wrist free from George’s hold and turning to his dresser, where half of the drawers have been left open with clothes spilling out. “You can wear mine.”

George hears the eagerness in his voice, and bites his bottom lip to hold back the teasing grin that fights to capture his lips. “Didn’t I leave some of my clothes in here?”

“No,” Dream says cheerily, rummaging through a drawer that appears to be filled solely with grey clothes. “I don’t see any.”

“You’re not looking very hard.”

“Don’t need to. I just know these things George.”

George hums, and he wishes that Dream was wearing fewer clothes. The idiot had brought them into the bathroom with him and emerged in sweats and a soft shirt, not even giving George a chance to look at him. Very rude, in George’s opinion.

So when Dream turns to him with a pair of pants in his hands that look suspiciously similar to his own, George wrinkles his nose. “Dream,” he says scornfully. “We can’t match.”

“Why not?” Dream asks with a tilt of his head.

George doesn’t have an answer for that, but it’s not like he needs one. He waves his hand, shifting in his perch. “Don’t want to.”

“Fine,” Dream huffs, and he’s back to sifting through drawers.

George puts him through his paces, refusing each pair that Dream offers with increasingly different reasoning. Those look weird. You wore that pair when you made tomato sauce once. I hate the pockets.

Finally, with a rather pathetic attempt at dramatically closing an overfilled drawer, Dream turns to George with his hands held up in defeat. “Guess you’ll just have to be naked, then.”

He’s smiling, sharp canines on display, and oh, isn’t that tempting. But George has a better idea. “Give me yours,” he says, simple as can be.

And Dream’s face lights up, as if the answer should have been obvious to him all along.

He has to untie the waistband of his pants, fingers clumsy in his hurry, but he does it on purpose when he takes his time dragging the pants down his legs, revealing the pattern of his boxers and the pale skin that had been hidden.

It takes a small hop for him to get them all the way off, and then he’s tossing them to George with enough force that George has to make an effort to swipe them out of the air and avoid being smacked in the face. Just for that, George is tempted to slide them on under the towel rather than giving Dream the show he’s clearly expecting, but there’s fire in Dream’s eyes and if there’s anything to make George weak, it’s Dream’s desire.

So he stands from the bed, letting the towel fall from his hips and pool at his feet. Unlike Dream, he’s not wearing anything to cover his skin, and Dream isn’t shy with his staring. With a small flourish to get the pants in front of him, George makes quick work of getting his feet into the holes and pulling the fabric up to cover his legs.

They’re too big on him, the waist to wide and the legs too tall, but it doesn’t bother George in the slightest as he ties the sting neatly.

“Good?” Dream asks, and he’s fishing for a compliment. George knows the tilt of his head, the coy flittering of his gaze from the ground to George’s face.

“They’ll work,” he says with a shrug. “You got them warm for me.”

Dream hums, stepping forward until he’s crowding George close to the mattress, until his knees press against it. “I can get you more warm, if you want.”

“You’re right,” George says. “Give me your shirt.”

Dream blinks, but he doesn’t hesitate, nearly smacking George in the face as he yanks his shirt over his head and offers it to George.

“Put it on for me,” George says lazily, cracking his jaw on a yawn and lifting his arms,

Dream complies with a reverence that makes George’s teeth ache, his fingers sure as he positions the fabric over George’s hands and slides it down his arms, and his voice is soft when he tells George to tilt his head back.

When the shirt is around his shoulders, Dream tugs it the rest of the way down, the back of his knuckles leaving burning trails down George’s chest.

“Good,” George says, voice low. Just for them. Dream’s mouth curls with a smile, and it’s so soft that George can almost forget he’s practically naked in front of him. “Now we can sleep.”

When he flops back onto the bed, he doesn’t have much of a plan for how Dream will fit into the equation of it, just know that Dream will find a way when George grabs his hand and tugs him along.

It’s a bit of an awkward shuffle, to get both of their bodies all the way to the top of the bed where their pillows wait but they make do. It takes some grunting (Dream) and a few prods (George) but eventually they settle with Dream’s chest pressed to George’s back, their legs intertwined and their hands still held against George’s stomach.

George feels warm all over, soft fabric draped across his skin and heavy arms holding him tight. He’s smug with it, burning with the feeling of being known.

3

George is in LA when he gets the notification.

Action needed - Copyright Infringement

Clicking onto the banner takes him to his Gmail, and a notice that one of his videos has been manually flagged. With a groan, he swipes out of the app and to a different one, hitting the call button on Dream’s contact.

“Hello?” he says when it goes through, smiling when Dream’s sleepy voice parrots it back to him. “Did I wake you up?”

“No,” Dream lies. George lets him, because he needs him to be awake. “What’s up?”

“I’ve got a strike on my account,” George says with a huff. “It’s on my video from last month.”

“What? How?” Dream asks, and George can hear the rustling of sheets and blankets as he sits up, and then the thump of his feet as he presumably makes his way over to his office. It should be a short walk, but there’s a distinctive thud thud thud of socked feet on stairs, and George smiles with the knowledge that DReam had been asleep in George’s bed.

“I don’t know,” he whines, lying back on the pullout bed he sleeps on in Sapnap’s stupid LA apartment. “It was fine until now.”

“Hi Patchie,” Dream murmurs, and George hears her small chirp before the clacking of Dream’s keyboard drowns it out. “They sent an email to your account?”

George hums an affirmative, and wishes that he’d called Dream with a video so he could see the concentrated scrunch of his eyebrows. Dream must be typing in George’s password now, as easily memorized as his own.

“Huh,” Dream says, and George can hear the frown in his voice. “It’s some - some random soundbite. We should be able to dispute it.”

We. “That’s good.” George yawns, taking in the setting sun just outside the window. “So - is that all?”

“You called me George,” Dream says lightly. “But yeah, should be fine. I’ll text your Youtube rep if it isn’t gone by tomorrow.”

“Epic.” George cringes at the silence, scrambling for a question to ask Dream. “Did you - have the cats been good?”

Dream groans, and George laughs as he launches into a story of Milo’s latest escapades. George tells him all about the new place he and Sapnap had tried in LA, and the call only ends when they’ve both drifted off to sleep.

+1

George refuses to be on trolley-pushing duty. Mostly out of principle, but also due to the difficulty that it brings to his desire to freely explore the near-empty Walmart, what with it being several hours north of midnight.

He and Dream don’t normally do the shopping, instead relying on Dream’s mum to keep their fridge and pantry stocked, but she’s out of the country on a work trip, as Dream had helpfully informed the rest of the house when their snack supplies ran dangerously low. Claiming a stomach ache, Sapnap had gotten out of shopping duty and George had been drug along to ‘keep Dream company.’

There’s no part of him that resents that decision when they step into the store, however. With the lights at full brightness, it feels like it should be the middle of the day. But the aisles are mostly empty of other shoppers, and the atmosphere is oddly serene. George is obsessed.

“We should do this every night,” he tells Dream as they both nod to a greeter. “Why do we let your mum have all the fun?”

“I think she usually shops at like, normal people times.”

“Her loss,” he says with a shrug.

Dream rolls his eyes, nudging the cart past George in the direction of the bakery. There’s something about the way Dream acts in public places that draws George’s eyes to the line of his shoulders, the shape of his eyes. He’s more alert, treading a knife’s edge of awareness.

There’s a part of George that wishes he could turn it all off for Dream. Cast a spell to keep eyes off of him - off of them - for the moments like these. Both of them like meeting fans. But a quiet night can never be shared just between them.

Dream holds up a box of pastries with a questioning look, and George nods quickly in agreement. With a small smile, Dream lowers them into the cart and moves on.

One of the wheels is broken, and it shrieks every few seconds. George glares at it. Uncaring, it continues on, marking their journey around the store with intermittent sound. They pass a worker, sorting an overflowing cart of things back onto the shelves, and she gives them an odd look. George can feel his cheeks burning with the shame of it.

“I changed my mind,” he mutters to Dream. “It’s too quiet here.”

“Let’s just abandon the cart,” Dream says, pushing it further in front of him and nearly to the end of the aisle.

We can’t,” George says, grabbing a small box of crackers and setting them in the cart when he reaches it. “That would be bad. Someone would like, hack the security cameras and cancel us.”

Dream comically widens his eyes grabbing onto the cart with an exaggerated glance around them. “And I, Dream, would never do that. It was all George.”

“Wow,” George says. “So you hate me?”

“I do.”

“You’re getting canceled for that. Bye Dream. Nice knowing you.”

“You can’t just make the same joke twice,” Dream pouts. “Also, can you grab chips. Sapnap just texted and said he wanted some.”

George does as he’d asked, purposefully grabbing a brand that he knows Sapnap doesn’t like. Dream rolls his eyes, letting George add them to the cart but grabbing a different bag behind George’s back.

The cart squeaks egregiously just as George is opening his mouth to say something, and whatever had been on the tip of his tongue vanishes. He glares at it again, which proves to be just as ineffective as his earlier attempt.

They continue on, the cart the most consistent in speaking, Dream and George trading only a few words hear and there, slowly piling things into the cart.

There’s a burning in George’s chest. Dream is right there, but he can’t have him. It feels like Discord calls across an ocean and rejected visas.

He steps close, bumping their shoulders together. Dream turns his head to smile, and the ache lessens. George has him.

Something catches George’s eye, a colorful box of cereal. It’s Minecraft themed, and he knows they have to have it. With one final brush of the back of his hand against Dream’s, he sets off to grab it, and he knows Dream follows by the shrieking of the cart close on his heels.

Unfortunately for George, the box is on a top shelf. He’s tempted to jump for it, but the thought of failure sends a chill down his spine.

“Dream,” he says over his shoulder. “Grab that.”

Dream’s eyes drift lazily from George’s face up to the box, and light up. “No way.” he grins.

Not waiting for George to step out of the way, Dream reaches over him, his chest brushing George’s back for a fleeting a moment, his arm stretched over George’s head. It’s far from the closest they’ve ever been, but it feels like so much more. George had asked, and Dream had come.

He can’t stop thinking about it as they move on. He imagines that he could call on Dream without words, to think of lifting Dream’s arm and see it happen in response.

But he can’t. And the ache is back, because he wants to share Dream’s body, to feel his chest expand with every breath and bend his fingers however he wants, and he can’t.

Dream must sense something, and that’s a solace of it’s own, because he looks back at George with concern in his eyes. “You okay?”

“No,” George says. “I want things that are impossible. It’s annoying.”

“Me too. Do you think we want the same things?”

George looks at Dream. Searches his eyes, the curl of his hair, the quirk of his lips. And he grins. “I think we do.”