Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dream comes out of hibernation on a random Tuesday in March. Much like the first bulbs of spring, George also hadn’t expected to see him up and about today. But there he is, messy curls spilling everywhere, ratty sweat pants and a gray t-shirt so faded that George can no longer read the logo on the front.

It’s a safe bet to say it’s Sooners merch, though. 

Like many false springs, George doesn’t get his hopes up. Just because there are signs of life, doesn’t mean the snow is over. Metaphorically, at least. This is Florida. There was never going to be any snow.

He’s seen Dream in the kitchen before, scrounging for snacks like a raccoon, and looking just as nocturnal. That Dream also hissed and ran away back into his office, much like the few raccoons George has been able to witness on their back patio trying to get into the trash bins.

This Dream, though. This Dream is giving something different. He doesn’t have the glazed over look of someone hankering to get back to his project, embarrassed of his own humanity and need for sustenance. This Dream takes his time to find something he actually likes to eat, rather than something to stuff in his mouth to keep himself going. This Dream mutters a greeting that George feels more than hears, due to the video playing from his phone taking up all the airspace.

This Dream is awake.

George, who witnesses the Great Awakening with the same excitement of a scientist discovering a new species, sits up from the sofa in the lounge and locks his phone from playing the same TikTok over again.

“There’s nothing good in here,” Dream complains. His ass hangs out of the fridge comically while George watches him. 

“There’s yogurt,” George says because it’s factual. It’s also something that Dream has been scarfing down over the last few months in order to quickly get back to working.

“Don’t feel like yogurt tonight,” he says, though it’s hard to hear over the way he’s banging the items around in the fridge, like maybe the gems are hidden behind the shit. 

Loud footsteps on the stairs announce Sapnap’s arrival. He’s not as loud as Dream is, thank god. Every day, George thanks their past selves for putting Dream’s heavy footed ass on the ground floor so he doesn’t have to contend with him announcing his location every time he wanders into the kitchen for a water. Bro is loud.

“What’s all this?” Sapnap asks, the question pointed more towards George. They’re both used to Dream ignoring questions not directed exclusively at him. 

“He’s up,” George says.

“He’s kinda gross looking,” Sapnap points out.

“He can hear you,” Dream says, over his shoulder.

Sapnap’s eyes whip to George’s. They share a hopeful look. George doesn’t want to put the cart before the horse. 

“Then maybe he should go shower, bro,” Sapnap calls back easily. 

“He’s hungry, though,” Dream says.

“Can we stop with the third person thing?” George says. “It’s hurting my head.”

“Poor wittle Georgie can’t keep up intewwectuawy with Sapnap and Dweam?” Sapnap says.

George stands up and punches him in the arm and then moves to stand beside Dream. It’s all he can do. Sapnap’s so dumb.

“You freak,” Sapnap says. “Try that again, see what happens.”

“What, are you going to baby talk me some more?” George says. 

Dream stands up, closing the fridge. “If you guys give me five minutes and promise not to fight, I’ll take you to dinner.”

The thing about being best friends with someone, relying on one person over your other best friend because he’s been in self-imposed exile, is that you learn every nuance of their body language. For the last few months, George has felt like he’s only had Sapnap. With one quick look, he can tell Sapnap’s on board. It’s a truce.

“Deal,” George says, taking off for the stairs to get ready and change clothes.

“Me? Fight?” Sapnap says, laying it on too thick. George can hear him slap an arm around Dream’s shoulders. “Would I ever do that, my guy?”

“Literally all the time,” Dream says. He might say more, but George makes it upstairs to his room.

He comes down seven minutes later to an empty lounge. Not empty if you count Patches, which he does. “What ever happened to five minutes, huh, Patchy?”

She says something in return, but his cat is still rusty. He’s pretty sure she agrees wholeheartedly with him, though. Most people do. 

Sapnap comes down the stairs already talking about the shit he just took. Easy enough to tune that out. They squabble over where to eat before Dream comes out, lest he call them out for arguing and call the whole thing off. He’s done it before.

George finds he really doesn’t care where they eat, but to show that hand too early is a weakness. He has to fight now so that when he does actually care, he’ll be taken seriously.

They agree on the nice steakhouse because, though neither of them outright say it, they want Dream to enjoy himself. This is about Dream and not about them. Neither of them want to be the one to break the spell and send Cinderella home in rags.

It’s another five minutes before Mr. Cinderella himself arrives at the ball.

“That’s better. Much better,” Sapnap says, wiping his forehead in exaggerated relief. “I thought we’d lost you under all that beard, bro.”

Dream’s curls are still damp at the ends, like he tried to blow dry his hair the way the internet keeps telling him explicitly not to do. Dream’s a stubborn son of a bitch, though.

“You guys ready?” he asks, ignoring Sapnap’s commentary.

“Sure are,” Sapnap says. “We were thinking of the steakhouse you like. The close one, not the one where George puked.”

“I didn’t puke,” George protests. “For the fifteenth time—”

“Okay, but you did puke, though,” Sapnap says. 

He totally puked, but he has an image to maintain. “I didn’t—”

“You totally puked,” Dream says, and then smiles. 

The smile wipes away any sense of betrayal at him taking Sapnap’s side. It’s one of his real smiles, the kind that makes his eyes soft like he’s sharing the joke with you. It’s inviting and so Dream. The real Dream, not the guy who’s been floating around the house for ages, pretending.

This is his Dream.

George forgets to argue.

“So, we good to go?” Sapnap asks. “George, you gotta move your car out of the garage so we can get Dream’s out.”

“George’s car?” Dream asks, taken aback. “You got a car?”

Disappointment pangs in George’s stomach. He tries not to let it show. “Yeah, a few months ago. I asked you about, like, good brands, remember?” In the end, he just copied Dream and got the same car in a different color and with a few differences in the interior. Not because of Dream, he just likes the car.

“Oh yeah,” Dream says, shaking his head like he’s laughing at himself missing a step on the stairs, not like he forgot a major life event for his best friend.

“Wait, so you can, like, drive now?” Dream looks at Sapnap, like he needs another driver to confirm the news for him.

“He passed first time and everything,” Sapnap says, proudly. “I know, I was shocked too.”

“I passed with flying colors,” George says. “I’m a natural driver, they said. The most gifted driver they’ve ever seen through their doors.”

“Well, I dunno about that,” Sapnap says. “But that MILF at the front counter sure wanted to make you blush for your picture.”

“What?” Dream asks, his voice big and dynamic. He sounds like the Dream of old. When George looks up at him, he’s slack jawed with disbelief.

“She wanted him real bad, brother,” Sapnap says, sinking into his Texan drawl.

“She didn’t want me,” George says. He stands by that. He can tell when someone wants him. “She just liked my accent.”

“Ergo,” Sapnap says like George is a toddler, “she wanted you.”

“This is insane,” Dream says, eyes ping ponging between his best friends. “You really got your license?”

“Yeah,” George says. He almost wants to apologize to Dream. He almost wants to take it back, rip it up, and pretend to go through the whole process again, never mind that he’s been driving for months now and it’s improved his mental health in a myriad of ways. He’d pretend for Dream’s sake.

“Yo, our little boy’s all grown up,” Sapnap says to Dream, dragging him close with an arm around his neck. It’s jarring to see because of the height difference. 

“I’m older than you,” George reminds him.

“Yeah, you’re ancient, bro,” Sapnap says. “Almost forty, right? Guess that woman wasn’t exactly a cougar, huh? You’re, like, a contemporary.”

“Big word,” George says and rolls his eyes.

“Dream, you better watch your mom around this guy,” Sapnap says. “He’s spent too much time with her. What if she falls for his wiles? Do you want George to be your stepfather?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nancy taught me,” George explains when he can see the genuine confusion on Dream’s face. “To, like, drive. She came over and we—yeah.”

“Oh,” he says. For a long moment, it’s silent in a way that’s awkward. It’s almost never awkward between the three of them. George can count on maybe one hand—this time would obviously be the middle finger.

“So, are you going to move your car or what?” Sapnap says, slipping into his shoes.

“Actually, why doesn’t George drive?” Dream asks. “I haven’t gotten the full experience yet.”

“Bro was too immersed in the code,” George says, emphasizing the word immersed because he likes the way it feels in his mouth.

“I was busy,” Dream says. He says it easily, like it wasn’t a big deal. To him, maybe it wasn’t. For George, it was long months of little interaction with his best friend. 

Not to say that Dream, like, completely ignored him or froze him out or whatever. It wasn’t like that at all, just—no one wants to come second place to the project that’s taking up all brain power. 

Dream was supposed to teach George to drive. They’d always said that. George turned down opportunities with other content creators in order to fulfill his side of the deal. However, when push came to shove and too long had passed and he just—fuck, needed to get his license so he could get out of the damn house, it wasn’t Dream who patiently sat him down and went over everything, who put him behind the wheel and let him figure it out.

They’d been going over the basics for months, ever since George arrived, really. Dream liked to explain what he was doing when he drove—the way the car moved with the steering wheel and which way to turn it when reversing. He talked through what he was doing all the time. He’s even the one who explained—after giving George a heart attack—that in America, drivers can turn right on red lights.

The first few times he did it, Dream didn’t tell George he wasn’t breaking the law. George thought that his best friend had lost his mind and it was only a matter of time before the police caught him on CCTV and came to the house to arrest him.

Except it turns out that America doesn’t even have CCTV in many places. What kind of first world country obsessed with landowner’s rights and guns doesn’t have surveillance footage of every square inch of the place?

In the end, it was Dream’s mum who ended up teaching George. He considered asking Sapnap, but it only took a few moments of picturing how that would go, how Sapnap’s car would end up at the bottom of the ocean because they couldn’t stop arguing over something stupid, and he changed his mind. He didn’t want to die, after all.

And if Nancy is good enough to teach four children how to drive, including Dream, then she could certainly teach him. She didn’t even mind.

“I’m not driving with him,” Sapnap says, his arms crossing over his chest. He looks stupid with his bear hat and a patch on his nose to hide the spot underneath. George doesn’t want to be seen with him anyway.

“Fine,” he says. “Drive separate. See if I care.”

“Happy to,” Sapnap snarks back. “At least I’ll arrive alive.”

“Oooh, bro’s a poet,” George says, grabbing his keys from the small table they keep by the garage door simply meant to hold keys and shit.

He’s nervous. He wants Dream to like his car. He wants Dream to approve of his driving, to feel safe with him, to—to be impressed by George. He doesn’t want to think about the nerves, and the one thing Sapnap’s always been good for is distraction from his feelings.

“And I didn’t even know it,” Sapnap says, a minute too late. It sounds as stupid as he looks now, but George gives him a pity laugh anyway. He’s annoying right this minute, but by the time they finish dinner, George will be asking him to play something online together. Theirs is an interesting friendship, but it works for them.

“You have your wallet?” Dream asks, touching George on the lower back.

“Why?” George opens the garage door. “You’re paying, right?”

Dream snorts. “Yeah, but… you know, don’t you need to carry your driver’s license?”

“Oh, right,” George says. He’s already losing it. “I don’t actually need that though, right? Like, can’t they bring it up in the system and see I’m registered?” Surely, they can do that. The police know everything, right? It’s dumb to have to carry around a card and be able to shove it in someone’s face whenever they ask for it.

“It doesn’t work like that,” Dream says. “Which, yeah, is dumb, but technically, it’s against the law to not have your driver’s license on you when you’re operating a vehicle.”

“Technically,” George repeats in a nerd voice. He can’t find his stupid wallet in the detritus on this stupid junk table. “Bro sounds like a textbook.”

“At least I know where my license is,” Dream says. 

“It must be upstairs,” George says, annoyed. He doesn’t want to have to run back up the stairs. He’s going to be out of breath before they leave.

Sapnap honks in the garage. It’s strange that a sound with the same pitch and volume as when he’s honking at people trying to cut him off on the highway can sound like a question, but it does.

“Go look upstairs,” Dream says. “I’ll meet you in the garage.”

In his room, he turns over a few pieces of clothes looking for his wallet. He maintains that it’s stupid to have to carry it everywhere he goes. He doesn’t need to carry his debit card, because he can just use ApplePay. He doesn’t need to carry his driver’s license because they should be able to scan his license plate and know if he can drive. It’s stupid.

He finds the damn thing in the back pocket of the pants he wore three days ago when he went fishing. Now that, he doesn’t play around with. Florida loves to hand out fines for fishing without a license.

He races back downstairs and hops in the driver’s seat of his Tesla. Dream sits all relaxed and comfortable in the passenger seat. It feels all backward. Or, like, they should be sitting like this in England. Dream driving, George passenger princessing, the way it was meant to be.

“I always have to do everything around here,” George says, still annoyed that he had to find his wallet and now extra annoyed that Dream’s making him drive.

“I didn’t force you to drive,” Dream points out. Unhelpfully. George had something to prove to him, and this was his chance. They hadn’t had time together alone in—in much too long. He wasn’t going miss the chance for Dream to be impressed by him.

“You forced me,” George argues. He fiddles with the air conditioning, waiting for Sapnap to back out of the driveway first. He’s not risking either of their cars. There’s no way in hell he’s paying for imaginary damages to Sapnap’s car. That thing is expensive, and that friend is paranoid.

“Well, I didn’t force you,” Dream says. “I just asked.” 

“Forced me,” George says again, trying to sound breezy, like he doesn’t even care about this argument that he started. He knows he falls flat. The nerves are eating at him. “Are you okay, like, temperature wise?”

It’s the thing Dream asks him every time they go somewhere together. It’s a natural extension of his hospitality to make sure his passenger is comfortable. Often George will find something to complain about just to see if Dream will change it. They went weeks of George asking Dream to turn off sport mode before Dream started doing it automatically when George hopped in his car.

“I’m fine,” he says.

“Is your seatbelt on?” George asks, covering all his safety checks. He’d put his own seatbelt on the second he closed the door.

Dream chuckles to himself, like he’s enjoying a private joke.

“What?” George doesn’t like being laughed at. Especially by Dream.

He flips the car into reverse now that Sapnap is down the driveway. Carefully, he slips out of the garage.

“I mean it,” George says, not looking at Dream. He’s careful to keep his eyes on where he’s going. “What’s so funny?”

“I can just tell who taught you, that’s all,” Dream says.

His lights flick on automatically now that they’re not in the garage. “What does that mean?”

“My mom,” Dream says. “She’d always ask, like, first thing when we all got in the car if we had our seatbelts on. It was just…”

“What?”

“It was cute, that’s all.” 

George takes a deep breath. Dream’s cologne is spreading out over the car, spicy and rich, just like him. George has always loved this scent. This is Dream’s fancy cologne, the one he wears when it’s a special occasion. Is this, though? Is this a special occasion?

“I’m not cute,” George says. He turns left out of the driveway, careful to check the road before turning. There’s a bit of a blind spot for other drivers coming around the curve. Some people take the curve way too quickly and wouldn’t be able to stop in time if he went at the wrong time. Sapnap taught him that.

“I didn’t say you were cute,” Dream says. “I said it was cute. The comparison, that’s all.”

“So, now I’m ugly?” George says, just to mess with Dream. He knows very well that Dream doesn’t not consider him ugly. Like, at all. By any stretch of the imagination. Still, you’d think that if George were important to Dream, he wouldn’t have ignored him for so long.

“I guess,” Dream says, laughing. “I mean, I didn’t want to have to be the one to tell you, but you’re kinda hideous, George.”

“Rude,” George says. He knows Dream’s kidding, but it still stings somehow. Maybe he’s just too sensitive. He’s reading too much into everything. “Say something nice about me right now, Dream.”

“Come on.”

“No, I mean it,” George says. “You were mean to me.”

“I’m sorry you can’t handle the truth, George.” Dream’s laughing so hard he can barely speak.

George keeps his eyes on the road, but he wants to look over at Dream, to see the happiness in his eyes, his mouth, the laugh lines that are faint enough that you have to be in person to see them.

“Tell me something nice,” George demands again. “Don’t make me pull this car over.” Part of him really needs to hear it, which he finds sad. He needs the validation and the reassurance from Dream. He’s not proud of it, but that’s where he is. That’s where he is on his journey. He snickers at his own thought. He hates that kind of speech, but here he is doing it in his own head.

“What’s so funny?” Dream asks.

“You,” George replies without missing a beat. “Refusing to compliment me.”

“Damn, George, I didn’t know you were so needy tonight,” Dream says. 

“I have to drive your ass to the restaurant,” George complains. “Wasting my charge and putting, like, unnecessary miles on my car.”

“Oh wow, bro puts fifteen miles on his car and thinks that’s unreasonable.”

George ignores him. “You get in my car and start hurling accusations at me.”

“Well, that’s not—”

“Are you a slur slinging slasher, or not, Dream? Did you or did you not call me hideous?”

Dream’s laughing again. The sound is George’s favorite in the entire world. If he could never hear again, the last thing he’d want to hear is Dream’s laugh. The echo of it would live within him. It already does.

“You know that wasn’t true,” Dream says.

“Do I?” George asks. There’s a tiny bit too much truth in his voice. He tries to hide it, to obfuscate, all the things he has to do when things get too close to home. “I mean—”

“George,” Dream says, because he’s never been fooled by those tricks before. Not since the first few days in their friendship, and definitely not now. “You know that’s not true.”

He doesn’t respond. He lets them sit in silence for a while, just the sound of other cars on the road now that they’ve hit a highway. There’s no music playing. He’s still too nervous to listen to anything when there’s someone else in the car distracting him just with their presence. Dream’s the most distracting of them all. Dream’s the person he wants to keep safe the most. He’d never risk his safety. Sapnap, on the other hand…

“You know you’re the prettiest man I’ve ever seen,” Dream says into the quiet hum of the car. His words are deep, resonant, they vibrate down into George’s bones and he swears he feels a chill go down his spine.

“Just the prettiest man?”

Dream snorts. “Don’t push it.”

“Because I think I have a compelling case,” George says. “I mean, holy cow, am I right?”

“Shut up,” Dream says. 

The restaurant is busy for a Tuesday night. Sapnap waits impatiently in his car, the music so loud that Dream and George can hear the bump of the base from the other side of the parking lot. 

“How obnoxious,” George says. This doesn’t stop him from banging on Sapnap’s window to show him that they’re here.

“Puta,” Sapnap says, as he opens the door.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dream says, “Let’s just get inside.”

Dinner is normal. They order too many appetizers. George steals a few bites off Dream’s plate. Even though he offers to let George have some, it tastes better when he steals it.

Sapnap makes an ass of himself in front of their waiter, who apparently goes to the same gym as them. 

There’s a lot of laughs in between courses. A lot of teasing and inside jokes that make George laugh until he’s almost sick.  He’s really missed this, the three of them. It hits him that Dream is really here. More than just his physical presence. He’s engaged in conversation, laughing and joking around with George and Sapnap.

“I missed this,” George says before he can stop himself. He’s not usually the sentimental one. That’s Dream’s job, normally. 

“Me too, bro,” Sapnap says, leaning back in his chair. “I miss dinners that Dream pays for.”

George laughs. “Same.”

“Alright,” Dream says. He’s tearing up the paper from his straw.

“Alright,” George repeats, “sounds like dinner’s over, right chat?”

“You’re so right, man,” Sapnap says, laughing. “He used the code word.”

“Ending stream,” George says, keeping it going.

“You guys are too much,” Dream says. He’s bordering on actually sad.

“We haven’t had a chance to make fun of you in forever, bro,” Sapnap says. “You were, like, holed up for so long. We missed you.”

“I missed you guys too.”

“You were holed up so long that George learned to drive, Dream, like, that’s big.”

“It’s not that big,” George says, trying to downplay it. He doesn’t want Dream to feel bad about it, even though… Well, yeah, it felt kinda shitty in the moment. He doesn’t want Sapnap purposefully making Dream feel some type of way about it. 

It’s over now. Done. Can’t rewrite the past.

“I had to drive him to the DMV so he could, like, take his test. We had to drive in his car, man. It was wild.” Sapnap takes a big bite of the last of the steak on his plate. “I’m just glad you passed on the first time, bro. That shit took forever. I wasn’t going to wait around again.”

George is also glad he passed the first time. He doesn’t feel bad about making Sapnap take him somewhere. Sapnap should always be amenable to running George’s errands, but—but it still felt wrong, somehow. Sapnap shouldn’t have been the one to take him there, the one to be there to celebrate when George passed, the one to make fun of George’s picture on his license fresh off the printer—cheeks pink and everything.

Sapnap should have been the one to see it at the house, after Dream carefully reassured him that the picture was fine. Dream should have been the one giving him last minute reminders and tips in the car ride over.

Dream should have taken him out for celebration lemonades, not Sapnap. 

He loves Sapnap, he does. But it’s a different flavor of love from Dream. 

It should have been Dream all along.

A foot presses against his under the table. George doesn’t want the touch. He pulls away.

The waiter brings their check, and Dream hands his card over without arguing. George takes himself to the bathroom for a slash and doesn’t recognize himself in the mirror.

His cheeks are flushed, his hair too long. His eyes are wild in a way they usually get when he’s drunk. But he hasn’t had a sip of alcohol tonight. Not when he’s driving.

He takes an extra moment to dry his hands before going back out to the table. Dream and Sapnap are standing, and when they see him, they all head to the exit.

The night in Florida is warm and humid, much like they always are. George pushes the sleeves of his hoodie up and unlocks his car.

“You can ride back with me if you want, Dream,” Sapnap says. 

“No,” George says. He has to put his foot down here. “You were the one that insisted on driving separately, you don’t get to, like, steal my passenger.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Sapnap says, raising his hands. “I’m not stealing anybody, I’m just making sure Dream knows he has options.”

“No he doesn’t,” George says, with finality. “He’s riding back with me.”

Sapnap mumbles something about their funerals under his breath and then hops into his car, music already blaring again. He’s going to go deaf by fifty. George will then have to learn sign language or something so they can communicate. 

He really does have to do everything around here, he thinks as he starts up his car. Both seatbelts are buckled, air conditioning is peak. They’re ready for lift off. 

The streetlights on this side of town are dim. The dark mode of the iPad on the dash is providing more light than them.

“You’re a good driver,” Dream says when they’ve been riding in silence for a while.

A hum of happiness at the praise makes George rearrange his fingers on the steering wheel. It’s like he can’t contain it so he has to move.

“Really?” he asks, before he can stop himself.

“Yeah, of course,” Dream says. “I knew I’d be safe with you, but, you’re just—I dunno.”

“What?” George asks. 

“You’re—I like seeing you like this.”

Something turns over in his stomach—butterflies trying to escape. “Like what?”

“Confident,” Dream says. “In charge.”

“It wasn’t always this way,” George admits. He’d love to have Dream think he was some kind of driving prodigy, but it was Nancy’s patience and coddling that got him out on the road at all. 

“Well, no one starts out perfect,” Dream agrees. 

He could argue here. George can already see another avenue of conversation that they could go down, safe and easy. He would say he’s already perfect and always has been, Dream would argue he’s not and bring up three to four anecdotes where George wasn’t perfect. It would be funny and very them.

Something about it doesn’t feel right. George can bring himself to say his lines. So they fall back into a comfortable silence. A BMW revs its engine and races around George so close it almost clips the back fender. He hisses through his teeth, but he’s able to calm himself quickly.

Dream doesn’t say anything, though his hand grabs the door handle like he’s going to jump out or something stupid. George puts it down to dumb instincts. 

Another few minutes and the atmosphere is tranquil once more. Dream hums something to himself. George catches him looking out the window like a dog, just blatantly staring at other drivers like these windows are tinted. They’re really not.

“I am sorry, you know,” Dream says. It comes out of nowhere, or it seems to.

George’s heart beats frantically in his chest. His hands are sweaty on the wheel. He brings them down, one at a time so he doesn’t abandon the wheel, and wipes his palms on his pants. 

Dream doesn’t continue, so George has to ask, “For what, exactly?”

Fingers drum against the center console. Dream’s rings tap against it, the only sound besides the highway outside the windows.

“That I didn’t teach you,” Dream finally says. 

“Oh.” George doesn’t know how to react more than that. He’s sorry too. He’s sorry he couldn’t wait any longer.

“We always said—” Dream clears his throat. 

A car ahead slows, its taillights sharp in the dark of the night. Sometimes, George thinks they look like the face of a monster. When he sees the face, he needs to slow down too, lest the monster eat him. Is it a stupid way to train his brain to break when he sees taillights? Maybe. But it works for him.

“We always said I would teach you how to drive,” Dream says. “And I’m not mad that my mom taught you or anything. I’m—I dunno, mad at myself, I guess.”

More cars are slowing now, like they’d hit a patch of traffic. George hates traffic. He wasn’t built to sit in traffic.

“Or, maybe mad isn’t the right word,” Dream continues. “I’m disappointed in myself for, like, letting you down.”

“You didn’t let me down,” George says, but he’s not sure if he believes it.

“I did, though,” Dream says. “I always thought there would be more time, you know? I counted on there being more time. We would get around to it when I was less busy. I would finally teach you when X, Y, and Z.”

“Dream…”

“I guess I didn’t realize how it was impacting you,” Dream says. “Not having transportation around, having to, like, count on me and Nick if you wanted to go anywhere.”

George doesn’t say anything. His heart is lodged in his throat anyway. Where is Dream going with this?

“And with me, like, basically closing down and becoming a hermit, you only had Nick,” he says, heavy with derision.

“I had Uber,” George points out. Even though Uber sucks in this area and you can’t count on being able to get an Uber whenever you want one.

“Come on,” Dream says. “Uber sucks. You have to wait forever for them to even get here, assuming you even get one to accept the ride. That’s—no, that’s not fair.”

The car in front of him is at a complete stop. There must have been an accident up here or something. They’re close enough to the exit lane that George could drive up the shoulder for ten seconds and then get off at this exit. A few cars around him and behind him have already done that.

An old timey blue sign catches his eye. This must be the exit with the diner they like, the one they’ve never taken Sapnap to. It’s their place, one Dream only shared with George when they’d both had a bad day on the internet. He had the best strawberry milkshake of his life at that diner.

He makes a decision.

The bumps along the side of the highway make his tires vibrate, but George gets over into the exit lane quickly. They drive past all the cars stuck in traffic. Just as they’re off the highway entirely, George hears sirens from far away.

“Do you know how to get home from here?” Dream asks, looking behind them like he’s searching for the source of the sirens.

“We’re not going home yet,” George tells him.

“Where are you taking me?”

“You’ll see,” George says, hanging a right at the intersection. It’s a red light, but he’s able to turn anyway.

There’s really not much else on this stretch of the exit. A few gas stations, a McDonald’s, a Wendy’s that looks like it’s seen better days. Not somewhere George would walk inside alone. He can’t see the other buildings in the dark, but he recognizes the shape of a mechanic shop because of its garage. There’s a strip mall that isn’t just closed, but vacant, that he doesn’t like the look of.

This isn’t exactly the nicest part of town, but it does have something special here.

“The diner,” Dream says when they spot it on the right side of the road. The sign is bright and colorful, the parking lot nearly empty. Everything about the place is a toe over the line of ‘rundown’. Somehow that adds to its charm.

“Your diner,” George agrees. He waits through another red light before they can safely cross and park.

“You remembered this place?” Dream asks. There’s something in his voice that George can’t name.

“I remember the best milkshake in the entire world, Dream,” he says, because he doesn’t want to admit that he remembers everything Dream’s ever told him. He especially remembers all the secrets, all the special things and places and people.

He parks. They walk inside, Dream holding the door for George, and a waitress calls out a greeting from across the brightly lit dining room. They seat themselves. 

“I haven’t been here in forever,” Dream says, pulling one of the menus out from the wire holder keeping a stack of them. “The menu hasn’t changed at all, though.”

“That’s a good sign,” George says. “Don’t mess with perfection.”

A man across the way gets into an argument with a teenage girl and they both listen intently, making faces as the drama unfolds. Conversation steers away from heavy topics while they sit here in the air conditioning.

Even in spring, it’s hot as hell in Orlando.

Dream gets vanilla. That’s so lame.

“Is everything about you vanilla?” George asks, but he knows the answer. There’s very little about Dream he doesn’t know, including some of his proclivities in bed.

He gets a snort in return. “Sure, we can go with that.”

“Don’t try to be cool, Dream,” George says. “You’re not fooling me.”

“Because you already know I’m cool.” 

The argument continues in this vein for a while, long enough for the waitress to run their orders back and for someone else to make those milkshakes and for her to drop them off at their table. It’s either the fastest service in the world (highly unlikely based on the sweat on the outside of the glass), or George was too tied up in bickering with Dream.

George takes the first sip of his milkshake and needs a moment to savor it. It’s the kind of shake that’s so thick it comes with a spoon for when you give up on the straw. He switches immediately to the spoon because he’s a results driven man.

For a few heartbeats, Dream doesn’t try his shake—he just watches George. There’s something around his eyes that George doesn’t recognize—something that makes him squirm.

“What?” George asks, self-consciously.

“Nothing,” Dream says and shakes his head. He takes a sedate sip of his milkshake.

“Is it good?” George asks, putting his strawberry covered spoon in his mouth and licking it off. He then puts his spoon in the air, hopeful, “Can I try?”

“No,” Dream says, playfully. He grabs his milkshake and puts his arms around it protectively. “Because I know you’re not going to give me any of yours.”

Well, okay, yes, that was the plan. But Dream isn’t even going to drink all of his. It’s not fair.

George settles for staring unnervingly at the vanilla shake, and Dream ignores him. He’s been good at that of late. They hunker into another companionable silence while they sip their drinks.

George scrapes the side of the glass with his spoon, determined to get every morsel he can. He’s already planning when they can come back the next time. He doesn’t want to come alone, and there’s no way he’s bringing Sapnap. He’d, like, ruin the sanctity of the place. But he can’t go this long again without that milkshake. He just can’t.

“I—” Dream says, setting his shake to the side. There’s something solemn in that one syllable. It makes the hairs on the back of George’s neck stand up.

He sits back and braces himself.

“I can’t help but worry that I’m, like, missing out on something else,” Dream says. He lays his hands out in front of him, like he’s praying.

“What do you mean?” George asks. 

“I mean, like—the driving lessons thing.”

“Elaborate,” George says. 

“I missed my chance to teach you,” Dream says. 

George pushes his glass towards the end of the table, across from Dream’s half empty one. “I think you’re making this a bigger deal than it should be.”

“Am I?” Dream asks. It sounds rhetorical. It sounds like the echo of something ringing in his head over and over again. 

George takes a deep breath and sits back. “Why is it a big deal to you?”

“I let you down,” Dream says quickly, like the answer was ready on his tongue. “Don’t argue. I know I did. You don’t need to defend me to myself.”

George doesn’t say anything then. He waits.

“I missed my chance to teach you to drive. What else am I—” His voice turns tender, almost painful. He’s always had such an evocative voice and now it’s hard to even listen to it. “What other chances am I missing with you?”

All of a sudden, a hot flash of anger zings through George. How dare Dream? What is this poor me pitiful bullshit? Is George the one who reneged on their deal? Is George the one who didn’t hold up his end of the bargain? How long was he supposed to wait? How long was he supposed to sit round twiddling his fucking thumbs, waiting around for Dream to decide it’s time to teach George?

Dream wouldn’t listen to him, wouldn’t engage, wouldn’t do anything. What was he supposed to do, in all honesty? Get out the water hose and drench him like a dog until he woke the fuck up?

“You tell me, Dream,” George says. He can hear the irritation loudly, so he knows Dream won’t miss it.

“You’re angry.”

“A little bit,” he says, tightly.

“Why are you angry, now?” Dream asks, another rhetorical-but-not question. “You would only be angry if I was hitting on something.”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” George says.

“Well, I think we need to,” Dream says.

“Oh, so because you’ve decided we need to talk about something, suddenly we have to?” George asks.

“George.”

“Suddenly, we’re on your time again?”

“What—”

“You don’t get to be all regretful that you didn’t teach me to drive—a promise you made willingly—and barely even apologize, and then, whatever this is.”

“I’m sorry,” Dream says in that stupid, earnest way that he has. “I’m sorry I didn’t teach you to drive. I broke my promise, and I hate that. I’m really sorry, George.”

“You ignored me,” George says.

“When?”

“When you were—the code. The precious code.”

“I didn’t ignore you,” Dream denies.

“You weren’t there. Sure, you asked about the code when you needed help and were stuck, but—you disappeared, Dream.” George feels the milkshake threatening to come back up. “You—you left me alone with Sapnap.”

“He’s your other best friend,” Dream says, like this means something.

“I know that, but—but he’s not you.”

They stare at each other, gridlocked under the fluorescent lights of this diner. They’re harsh and strong and have a way of making everything look uglier—the bags under Dream’s eyes, the flecks of metal prying away from Dream’s cheapest ring from wearing it too much, the sharp shadow falling over his face from the angle of the bulb.

“So, I am missing other chances with you,” Dream says, like someone who’s gotten a peek at all the evidence, put some dots together, and has come out with a one in a million theory that’s right.

“Shut up,” George says.

“I’m saying this simply so I don’t miss those chances, George,” Dream says. “I don’t want to miss those chances. I don’t want to miss out on you.”

It’s all well and good to say this shit now, on the other side of everything. Bro is talking in metaphors again instead of just saying what the fuck he means. “What don’t you want to miss out on?” He sure as hell missed out on a lot of fucking time—of content and dinners out and vacations spent together and—and so much more. Time, precious time.

“I want—” Dream flushes. He leans back and runs his hand through his curls. “I don’t want to miss out on a chance to have more with you. I want you. I want everything with you.”

“Define everything,” George says, heart rabbiting so loudly in his chest that it sounds like Sapnap’s car in the parking lot earlier tonight—loud enough to turn heads. 

“I want—” His eyes are so intense that George feels like a bug under a magnifying glass—about to catch on fire. “Fuck it, I’ll say it. We’ve spent—we’ve danced around this for years.” He leans back, chin jutted out. “I want you. Okay? I want to be with you. I want—I want us. I want—I want all the bells and whistles, and I’ve just been too scared to really try. I’ve been too scared I’d push you all the way back to England.”

A frog makes a home in George’s throat. He’s terrified that when he opens his mouth to speak, nothing but a croak will come out.

Dream carries on, in his silence. “Did I miss my chance already, George? Is this like the driving lessons? I can—if I did, or if I never had a chance, that’s fine. I’ll—you know you’re my best friend. You matter more to me as my friend than, like, wounded pride or, you know, this fresh humiliation. I can—”

“Shut up,” George croaks. He swallows.

Dream, for once, follows directions. He leans back on his side of the booth, his face petrified and his knee bobbing so relentlessly under the table that it’s pushing the whole table closer to George.

“I’m mad at you,” George says. This is the first time he’s been able to admit it, even to himself. The words taste funny coming out of his mouth, a little like bile mixed with his strawberry milkshake.

“Okay,” Dream says. He doesn’t ask any follow up questions, just looks at George. 

“I’m mad at you and you don’t get to—” He has to stop to clear his throat again. That damned frog.

“Tell me why you’re mad at me,” Dream says.

“You don’t know?” George asks, enraged.

“I think I know,” Dream says. “But I’m not sure you know. So, say it. Out loud.”

“Vampire,” George whispers to himself, an old joke with his sister from long ago in another life. He takes a sip of his milkshake to give himself a moment, the straw picking up nothing but leftover particles. “I’m mad at you for ignoring me for so long. It’s—I don’t think you understand what it was like, Dream. You said you’re sorry, but, like, that doesn’t mean you get it, you know?”

“Tell me,” Dream says, patiently. “Explain it.”

“You’re my best friend,” George says, words he’s repeated to Dream many times over many years in many different circumstances. They’ve never felt truer than now. “It was like you were a zombie. It was like—it was like I had more of you when we had an ocean between us and only Discord calls. I hadn’t even seen your face and I had more of you then.”

“Emotionally distant,” Dream says, like he’s quoting something.

“You disappeared into your office and for the first time, I didn’t feel welcome with you,” George says, confessions coming out of him like splinters. 

“You were always welcome,” Dream says, soft and sad.

“Not really, though,” George argues. He knows he’s right. He knows he tried to go in there many times, only to be turned away, watching Dream count the seconds until he could be left alone again. Swapping small talk like they were strangers, or discussing if the cats had been fed like they were only roommates. “You made me feel—”

Dream’s hand slips across the table, just out of reach of George’s fingers wrapped around his cup. “Tell me, please. I need to know.”

“You made me feel unwanted. Like you couldn’t wait to be rid of me.” The splinters this time are the size of trees. “Not, like, every time. You’re not an asshole. But—but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t you and me, like it used to be.”

Dream leans back again, taking his hand with him. He nods to himself, like he’s come to judgment. “I want you to feel mad when I do that.” It’s the last thing George expects him to say.

“What?” He might need to take back the thing about Dream not being an asshole.

“I want that to be your place,” Dream says, with an excitement that George doesn’t understand. “I want you to be able to smack me when I do that shit and tell me I’m not treating you right, George.”

“What—Dream?”

“I know how I get,” Dream says. “I get so hyperfixated on projects that I’m—I know, okay? But you’re the only person I want to be able to yank me out of it and tell me I’m not being fair.”

“Why—”

“You know why,” Dream says. “If we’re together, then I’m an asshole for ignoring my boyfriend. My partner. It’s not an asshole move to ignore a friend, even a best friend. Think about it, George. Why did it bother you so much? If Sapnap did that shit you would not care this much. Only me. You like having my attention.”

George squirms in his seat—the cracked red seat cutting into his hamstring. “That’s not exactly—”

“We have the same problem,” Dream says. “Neither of us want me to go full zombie again. There’s a simple solution.”

“And you’re saying the solution is…?”

“That we be together.” He looks at George with the full effect of Dream Determination, and then adds, like it wasn’t obvious, “Romantically.”

“Dream. This is insane.”

“No, it makes perfect sense,” Dream says. He’s getting excited now, the way he does when he thinks he’s right about something. There’s no room for compromise. “I want to be with you, George. You want to be with me. That’s clear to me. You wouldn’t be this bothered if you didn’t have feelings for me too.”

George’s hand clutches into a fist on the table. He wants to grip the dirty spoon and bend it. He’s—he’s more than a little pissed off. Dream is so presumptuous, so self-righteous. He comes out of a self-inflicted coma, and he’s hurtling accusations hours later.

“It’s not about if I have feelings for you,” George grits out.

“Of course it’s—”

“It’s about you being an asshole,” George says, talking over Dream’s dismissive tone. “It’s about leaving me alone.”

“And as a friend, George, I didn’t really do anything wrong,” Dream says, his tone all gotcha in a way that makes George want to reach across the table and slap him. “Did I?”

“You should have spent more time with me!”

“I don’t see Sapnap arguing this passionately about how I missed time with him,” Dream says. He looks around, with his hand on his forehead like some pirate of old scouring the horizon for land.

“You weren’t around to see how upset it made him,” George says. “He’s just too pussy to even knock on your office door. You intimidated him too much. You weren’t approachable. He couldn’t even bring it to your attention to—”

“That’s not true,” Dream says. 

“You’ve barely resurfaced,” George says, on a roll now. “It’s only been a few hours. He hasn’t had a chance to even remember he’s mad because he’s so happy you’re out of your cave. Stay out of the cave a bit longer and he’ll remember.”

Dream leans back, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. His eyes bore holes into George’s face. George knows this look—it’s his what am I missing face.

Like a popped balloon, all the hot air runs out of George. He’s just tired now.

“So is it a no, or what?” Dream asks after a minute, spreading his arms out wide. “Is it a blatant no? You don’t want to be with me? Is that it, George?”

“I don’t know,” George says. “If you do that shit when we’re—and you still ignore me? That’s only going to hurt worse, you know? Did you take that into account?”

“I—So, is it a no?”

“Fuck, Dream. It’s an I-don’t-fucking-know,” George says through his teeth. “You just sprung this on me. You know I don’t—I’m bad at this. Talking. I don’t—why would you think this is a good time?”

Dream’s face is ashen. “I’m missing out.”

“There’s a difference between seizing the moment and, like, pushing too hard when the other person isn’t, like—you know? You went from zero to a million.”

Dream doesn’t say anything. He looks down, pulling at a hangnail.

“It’s not that I don’t—” George manages to squeak out. Dream’s eyes shoot up, full of hope. “It’s not that I don’t, Dream. It’s just—it’s so much. Can we—”

This is too much.

“We should go,” George says, noticing for the first time all the extra eyes in this place.

Dream looks around and swallows. “I’ll take care of it.”

“No,” George says, standing up. “You bought dinner. This was my decision. I’m paying.”

“George…” He’s crouched on the way to fully standing, but George pushes him back into the booth.

“Don’t,” George says. 

He walks up to the counter to pay, the wallet Dream insisted on him bringing sliding out of his pocket.

Dream doesn’t walk to the passenger side of the Tesla. He follows George to the driver’s side, and when George reaches to open the door and get in, Dream’s hand comes up and keeps the door from opening. He’s a long line of heat against George’s back.

“Before you get in,” Dream says right into George’s ear. “Before we, like, forget about this. Can we just—can I—”

He nuzzles into the fuzz at the back of George’s neck, sending shivers down his spine. Fuck, why does that feel so good? Why does he do this to George?

“Can I kiss you?” Dream asks. There’s a long moment where he doesn’t say anything else, and George can’t say anything else, and they just stand there with the electricity that lives between them turned up to twelve. Dream’s hand finds George’s hip, almost shocking him, and then he says between deep breaths, “Just once, George? Don’t you want to know? Even once, what it’s like?”

George wants to know more than once. He wants to know what it’s like to kiss Dream in every scenario and for every occasion and on every part of his stupidly large body.

He doesn’t say all this, of course. He stands there, letting his body fall into Dream’s weight, letting Dream hold him up, like he’s standing against an electric fence.

Dream turns him around until his back is pressed against the car. He’s so close in George’s space, eyes huge and fearful.

“Tell me no, George, if you don’t want it,” Dream says, like a warning. 

And all George can do is let his heart beat extremely hard and stare at Dream’s lips. He wants them so badly. He wants a taste of that vanilla milkshake. 

Dream’s hands cup his face, bringing them even closer. Can he feel George’s heart? Surely, he must be able to. Can he sense how George is shaking? How his knees are threatening to fail?

“Not a promise of anything, just—just one kiss,” Dream whispers against his lips. It’s like he’s already kissing George, the anticipation is so much. The tension is so thick and full of briars. “Tell me no, George.”

He can’t say no. He can’t lie that well, even if he had the higher brain power to try.

Dream pauses, he waits for it. And when George doesn’t open his mouth to say no, he leans down. Dream’s beard tickles. That’s the first thing George thinks. The facial hairs are a new sensation on his face, and they register as ticklish. And then—and then their lips connect. At first, it’s nothing. Just skin touching skin, more interesting because of Dream’s closeness and his scent. Dream retreats the tiniest amount, not more than a millimeter, and then breathes out.

This time, when their lips connect, it’s like magic. It’s more than magic because this is the kind of everyday mundanity that actually happens. This is one of those miracles that have an explanation, even if that doesn’t make them less of a miracle.

Dream’s lips move against George’s, searching for an answer. He kisses George hard and hot, and he demands reciprocity. George’s innate sense of answering to Dream rears up, and then he’s there. His hands creep into Dream’s hair, his lips part to let Dream inside, his body pushes against Dream’s harder, demanding as much of his touch as Dream can give.

It’s one of those kisses in the movies that George thinks are unrealistic and never happen in the real world. It’s a kiss that reaches down into his body and rips something free, a net or a bear trap or something hindering him that he’d never noticed—and now he’s free to float up into the sky.

“There,” Dream says and pulls back. Even with their bodies no longer connected, George feels like they are. He felt this when they lived on different continents. Something vital of himself lives inside Dream and the opposite too. He can’t help but think he’s given more of himself away now. The piece of his soul inside Dream just grew bigger.

Dream backs away further, his chest heaving while he catches his breath. George isn’t in any better shape. Only the car is holding him up.

“It could be like that,” Dream says, his hands sliding slowly off of George’s hips. “Remember that.”

How could he ever possibly forget?

He must have gotten into the car. He must have pushed the GPS button for home. He must have checked his blind spots when he reversed out of the parking spot, because suddenly he comes back down to earth at the touch of Dream’s hand on his knee and he’s driving. His hand is an anchor, the kind that keeps a boat from drifting away in a storm, not the kind that keeps it from sailing in good weather.

“You good?” Dream asks, the kind of tranquil calm that George wouldn’t have been able to muster up. Sometimes Dream really surprises him.

“Yeah,” he says. He almost believes it, too.

“Did I tell you the stupid thing Bad said to me the other day?” Dream asks. It’s an olive branch, and George takes it greedily. Anything to get his mind off of… everything.

“Must have been really stupid for you to qualify it with that. I mean, this is Bad we’re talking about.”

Dream huffs a small laugh, quiet and loose. He launches into the story and George knows it’s meant to distract him, to take the seriousness out of the air like some kind of dehumidifier. But all he can think about now is that Dream talked to Bad the other day. Dream had a long enough conversation with someone else—not his roommates—that it sticks in his brain enough to recount it like this.

The story is funny. It is. He just can’t bring himself to give Dream the reaction he’s looking for.

“What?” Dream says when he sees that George isn’t laughing. In another moment, George would find it hilarious. He’d be finding ways to use this against Bad, to subtly bring it up in their next video to tease him, without actually saying it in front of their fans. It’s just—

“You talked to Bad,” George says in what he thinks is a suitably neutral tone of voice.

“What’s wrong with talking to Bad?” Dream asks. There’s a small string of defensiveness woven into his words, a color that doesn’t match the rest.

“Nothing,” George says. He puts his blinker on to change lanes. The Florida driver behind him probably faints from shock.

“Sounds like something,” Dream says.

“Bad’s just… he’s Bad. BadBoyHalo. Daddy Baddy.”

Dream groans. “Never call him that again.”

“You talked to Bad, but you wouldn’t talk to us,” George says. “Me.”

“Hey,” Dream says. “He’s the one who got my head out of my ass.”

That doesn’t help. That’s almost worse. 

“George, what are you—” 

His eyes are prickling. God, this is just too much. This is—he’s at the end of his rope. There’s so much happening—so many conversations laid abandoned in this car already. 

“It wasn’t because it was Bad,” Dream says, explaining more like he always does. Like if he can just get his exact perspective out there, then the other party will understand and agree with him. It usually works with George. “It wasn’t some magical set of words he used or—it’s not because I like Bad more than you guys. It’s not—he’s different.”

“Oh,” George says because what else is there to say? He will not cry in his own car. He will not cry in this car right now. That’s not happening. He can’t be driving through blurry eyes, not with Dream’s safety on the line.

“No, that’s not what I—Bad isn’t Sapnap,” Dream says, like that means something. “He’s not afraid to say something I might not like. He wouldn’t be afraid to knock on my door and wake me up. He wouldn’t put up with my bullshit because he’s my friend.”

“I’m not afraid to wake you up,” George says.

“But you’re different,” Dream says. “As we already discussed. You’re—fuck, George, you’re someone I’m ashamed to let down. I—I didn’t want to see your face when I realized how much I’d let you down. How—how long I’d let it go, how out of touch I’d become with everything. Of course you don’t want to be with me, I’m, like—I’m the fucking worst.”

“Dream, that’s not true.”

“Bad has a way of making me see things clearly. He’s—I know we joke about him being Dad-coded, but he is. He’s—he’s the one who told me how much I’m hurting you. You and Nick. He’s the one who, like, put it in perspective for me.”

“Dream—”

“So, yeah, I talked to Bad before I talked to you guys, but it took him like twenty hours of trying and a fake emergency to get me in VC, and then—and then I just, like, broke the fuck down and cried all over him. Again. And I just—” Dream rubs his face with both hands.

“Okay,” George says.

“Okay?” Dream’s tone indicates he thinks George is insane. Yeah, well, George thinks he might be too.

“Look, it’s—I guess what actually matters is that you’re, like—here,” George says, awkwardly. Damn, he’s really trying to be mature here, to look at the bigger picture. “I just really hope you stay here, you know?”

“I will,” Dream says.

A driver in front of him switches lanes suddenly, with no notice. That’s been the hardest part of driving—relying on the other drivers around him to obey the rules so they don’t crash into him.

For the first time in a long time, George isn’t sure if Dream can keep the promise he just made. Dream is absolutely the type to keep his promises to his friends—come with me, he said, I’m going to blow up. We’re going to blow up.

And they did. He promised he’d get George to America, that they would live together. He did. He promised on a bad day when George was still in London that he’d never abandon George, and physically he didn’t. He kept to the letter of the law on that promise, if not the spirit. But it’s not enough.

George really, really hopes that by Dream saying he’s not going to disappear again, that he won’t. He’s got to meet Dream halfway.

It hits him again how strange it is that their positions are reversed. Dream’s humming to himself in the passenger seat, staring out the window so it doesn’t look like he’s studying George’s profile. 

He’s never told Dream that he can always feel the weight of his eyes on him, that he’s never getting away with it. But George doesn’t want to lose that edge—he likes knowing that Dream looks at him.

“I feel like it’s opposite day,” George says.

“What do you mean?” Dream asks, abandoning his split attention on the window.

“I drove us here. Me,” George says. “It’s always you driving.”

Dream nods.

It’s not just that, though. He swallows down his fear and chases it with bravery. “And now, you’ve been saying things we’ve never said before. Like, airing out what we don’t talk about. Opposite day.”

“How’s this for opposite day,” Dream says, and then reaches over and threads his fingers through George’s cautiously. George can feel Dream’s eyes on him, looking for any signs that his touch is unwelcome. He won’t find any, but that doesn’t make George go out of his way to reassure Dream.

He hasn’t made up his mind. He won’t be pushed into it.

“Dream,” he says in his complaining voice.

But he does like holding Dream’s hand. It’s so much bigger than his. Strong. He’s not going to be the one to pull away first.

He drives carefully. There aren’t many people on the road this late at night. He follows the directions of the GPS until he knows where he is, and then ignores it. He likes the scenic route.

Dream doesn’t complain. His thumb rubs George’s hand in soothing circles. Every so often, George feels his gaze.

Journeys always end. 

He pulls into the garage and turns the car off. But he doesn’t move to get out. Dream doesn’t, either. His grip on George’s hand grows stronger, like he’s afraid to let it go.

“Wanna watch a movie?” George hears himself ask.

There’s a beat, and then Dream says, “My room?”

Danger, danger, danger. Red flags fly. Sirens wail. “Yeah, sure.”

Only then can he drop Dream’s hand entirely.

Inside, he plops his keys and his wallet onto the table, careful to leave them at the top of the heap of junk. Dream’s an evening shadow behind him.

“What took y’all so long?” Sapnap asks from the kitchen. He has a bottled water under one arm.

“Went for milkshakes after,” George says when Dream doesn’t speak up. “Only people who agreed to be in my car got to go. I even paid.”

“Lame.”

“Hey, they were good,” Dream says, still stuck in George’s personal space. He can feel his body heat from here.

“What are you guys doing now?” Sapnap asks. He’s missed Dream too, George reminds himself. He’s just as eager to keep him close as George, though now obviously for different reasons.

As much as George wants to make fun of him and demand Dream’s attention alone, he can’t. Not today, at least. Not the first day they’ve had him back. Tomorrow, he’ll be a bitch about this.

Something tells George it wouldn’t be a horrible idea to have a buffer, either. He wouldn’t mind a break from the intensity of the last few conversations with Dream. He has a lot of processing to do.

“We were about to watch a movie in Dream’s room,” George says. “Wanna come?”

He can feel Dream’s surprise.

“Why can’t we just watch it out here?” Sapnap asks, but he isn’t saying no. “Or, fuck, the entire room we have dedicated to a movie screen?”

George shrugs. “Dream’s bed. Take it or leave it, Sap.”

“Fine,” Sapnap says. “But I call middle spoon since y’all abandoned me for milkshakes.”

“We’re not spooning,” George says, like Sapnap is stupid. He is, to be clear. “There’s no middle spoon. Spooning isn’t happening.”

“I’ll spoon my boys,” Dream says.

He really needs to stop taking Sapnap’s side if he’s serious about being together with George. This is sending mixed signals.

“Hell yeah, brother,” Sapnap says. “That’s what I’m talking about. Maybe I’ll give you a little kiss after.”

George’s face flushes thinking about that kiss earlier. He quickly turns around so Sapnap won’t spot it, and pretends to look for Patches. The body language thing goes both ways—Sapnap can read him better than anyone. He doesn’t want to explain this.

“I’ll—I’ll get us set up,” Dream says.

“I’ll get the popcorn,” Sapnap says, throwing his water on the counter and walking into the pantry where they keep the popcorn. 

While he’s gone, George turns to Dream to share a look. He shrugs. Maybe it’s for the best.

Dream taps his fingers against the counter, and then with a final rap, walks to his room. Right before he turns the corner, he looks at George again.

The popcorn pops. “Was he okay?” Sapnap asks quietly.

“He was fine.”

“He’s not going to—he’s okay?”

George swallows a lump. “I think he’s back with us. He says he’s not going to—he’s not doing that again.”

“Okay, good,” Sapnap says. “Because I hated that.”

“I know,” George tells him. “Me too. But you should probably tell him that next time you talk.”

Sapnap looks at him strangely until the microwave beeps with triumph, and then he brings the bag out, touching the wrong spot and burning his stupid hands. George has to laugh at him, but he’s already digging into the cabinet for his favorite popcorn holding bowl.

“Idiot,” he says.

“Shut up,” Sapnap shoots back. 

All is normal in the house tonight. A brave, new normal.

They talk through the entire movie. It’s hard, for one, to keep a laptop balanced on Sapnap’s thick thighs in the middle because he keeps wanting to roll over. The screen jiggles with each time Sapnap sneezes or leans over to punch George or tries to spring a surprise kiss on Dream’s head.

It’s a good thing they’ve seen this movie a million times.

Sapnap updates Dream on what they’ve been up to in a way that George didn’t think to do. George’s driver’s license and new car are the only major things George could think of to tell him about, but Sapnap comes up with hundreds of tiny things, from humiliating details George forgot about, to the way things are going with Sapnap’s Spanish speaking creator friends. He updates Dream on the drama, on who hates who and who’s sleeping with who.

Sapnap talks and talks and talks and George already knows all of these things. Well, he knows most of these things, so it’s as easy as anything to lean back into the pillows that smell like Dream and let himself drift away into sleep.

When George wakes up, Sapnap is gone. He can tell without opening his eyes that Sapnap is no longer lying along his side. The body against him feels different—not just in size or scope—but in how it makes George’s body feel. Cell to cell, that same electricity zaps back and forth creating this awareness. 

He can’t explain it any better than that, not mere seconds after waking up. But he knows for certain that he’s lying next to Dream. When he opens his eyes, it’s to find Dream already looking at him.

“Sorry,” Dream whispers.

“For being creepy and watching me sleep?” George asks, voice rumbly with sleep. The sun isn’t out. George has no idea what time it is, but morning hasn’t come for them quite yet. Only the glow of the night light in Dream’s bathroom casts any clarity on the room. George’s eyes need to adjust.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Dream says. “In my defense…”

“In your defense what?” George asks. He doesn’t move away. He’s so comfortable here in Dream’s space, in this same room that was so off-limits even yesterday. Now it feels like a sanctuary for wayward Georges. 

“In my defense, you’re the most beautiful person in the entire world, and I kissed you earlier tonight, and you’re just, like, lying here in my bed,” Dream says. “What am I supposed to do, not watch you?”

George chuckles, trying and failing to ignore the fluttering in his stomach at the reminder. “I think you’re supposed to sleep, actually.”

“Not tired,” Dream says. “I slept all day yesterday until dinner. This feels like—I feel like I’m awake for the first time in ages. I don’t want to go to sleep, yet.”

“Okay,” George says, sitting up. That makes sense to him. He gets it, in Dream’s weird way.

“You don’t have to get up,” Dream tells him. 

“Oh, so I can just go back to sleep, and you can keep watching me?” George asks, stretching his arms up as high as they’ll go toward the ceiling. 

Dream’s gaze flickers blatantly to where his shirt separates from his shorts. The skin feels hot under his eyes. George hurries to pull it back down. 

“I have a feeling I’ll be watching you as often as you’ll let me,” Dream says, all self-deprecating and achingly honest. 

Is that how it’s going to be from now on? Dream just saying whatever ridiculously romantic thought is in his head, and George just having to hear it? How is he supposed to survive when Dream changes his mind? At least this last time, he hadn’t heard any of this shit, hadn’t kissed Dream against his brand new car, hadn’t held his hand for a prolonged amount of time. 

It’s too much. He can only take so much.

“Hey,” Dream says, and lies back down on his side, facing George. “Come back down here.”

George lies down, and Dream pulls the covers over their heads. It’s instantly hotter under here, their body heat trapped along with George. He doesn’t feel trapped, though. Instead, he feels safe. Like maybe it was never Dream he was scared of, but the outside world.

“It’s just me,” Dream says. “You know that, right?”

“It’s because it’s you that it’s—” George loses his train of thought when Dream inches closer.

“Can I tell you a secret, George?” he asks. George can’t really see him now, it’s too dark. He’s more of a shape in the shadows—an energy and a set of breaths that are more familiar than his own heartbeat.

“Always.”

“I really liked kissing you tonight,” he confesses. “I’m going to think about it for the rest of my life.”

“Dream.”

“I’m not kidding,” Dream says. “Even if we never—if this never goes anywhere, that’s—how often do you have a perfect first kiss? Practically never.”

“It was—” George starts to protest, and then stops himself. Why prevaricate? Why pretend? They were both there; they know how it was. “Yeah, it was pretty perfect, huh?”

“It’s because you’re the goat,” Dream says.

“The goat of kissing?” George asks, dubiously. He’s not playing it right. He’s not saying the right lines again, but he can’t help it. He’s never been accused of being a terrific kisser, let alone felt confident enough to call himself the goat of kissing.

“The goat of kissing me,” Dream says. “Top spot, easy, baby.”

George snorts.

Dream’s face looms closer, and he doesn’t mind even a little bit. Their feet are touching under the blanket.

“What about you?” Dream asks, daring to let his hand drop onto George’s hip. “Was I top five at least?”

“Maybe,” George says, because Dream’s ego can’t handle any outright compliments.

“Top ten?” Dream asks, like this is a negotiation. “Because I think I can get into the top ten, probably top five.”

“You think you can?” George asks, bemused despite himself. Dream’s hand has started rubbing circles into the skin on his hip. 

“I would grind, obviously,” Dream says. “Just like Ace Race and, like, Parkour.”

“You would grind,” George repeats. He doesn’t think he’s hiding his laughter very well.

“I would grind,” Dream confirms. “I’d take it seriously. Really put the work in. And with a teammate like you, there’s no way we wouldn’t get first.”

“Now we’re a team?”

Dream’s hand moves in ever bigger circles, leaving a band of heat wherever it goes. It’s so stuffy under the blankets that George is starting to sweat, starting to overheat, but he doesn’t want to leave this cocoon. He’s a hairy caterpillar and he lives here now. This is his home, under these blankets. He never wants to move.

“We’re always a team,” Dream says. “I mean, I’d hope we are. We—isn’t there some effect they studied on Reddit?”

“What do you mean?”

“The MCC Reddit, like, back in the day,” Dream says, pushing George’s shirt up just the tiniest amount in order to graze new skin, “the George effect on Dream. Something about, like, when I have you with me, I have my best performances.”

“I think I’m just the goat and I inflate your scores,” George says.

“Nah,” Dream says, and then his voice drops an octave. “I think I just always want to impress you. I’ve always been that way, I—when I know you’re there, I have to do even better.”

Butterflies flap their silken wings in George’s stomach. How can he just say things like that?

“You’re so—stupid,” George says.

“What? Why?” Dream asks, but he’s laughing at himself like he knows it’s true.

“You don’t mean that. You don’t—you’ve never tried to impress me,” George says.

Dream really does laugh now. “George, baby, I’ve been trying to impress you since we met, in various ways. Trust me, Minecraft absolutely falls into that category. Probably the biggest chunk of the, like, pie graph or whatever.”

“Why?” George asks.

“Well, because it works on you,” Dream says, laughing again. It’s nice to hear that laugh again, even if it’s at George’s expense this time. “You’re, like, unnaturally impressed by good Minecraft skills.”

“That’s not true,” George says, because as much as he liked Technoblade, it was never… it was never like this. Like… more. There are other really good Minecraft players out there, but none of them are Dream. None of them have the same grip on him like Dream does. Fuck, Sapnap is an extremely good Minecraft player, not that George would ever be caught saying that to his face. And George doesn’t want to tear his clothes off when he makes an especially good clutch.

“It’s absolutely true,” Dream says. “You like really good Minecraft. I’ve observed it. You—”

“I like when you’re really good at Minecraft, idiot,” George says. “In all your observations, you didn’t figure that out?”

Dream’s breath catches. George can hear it. 

The tension thickens under this blanket. George can feel himself slipping off the cliff, the loose stones crumbling under his feet, pushing him over. It’s Dream, is the thing. It’s always going to be Dream. It always will be Dream.

He can be mad for longer. He probably will, even if he doesn’t want to. But—but he wants this. He wants this right here, the two of them against the world. He wants Dream’s body heat and his muggy exhales and the wiry hair of his legs against George’s.

He wants it viscerally.

“Dream,” George says, his breath shuddering on its way out. 

“Yeah?”

“It’s not a no,” he says, hoping Dream will catch on.

A pregnant pause, and then George feels the exact moment it clicks in Dream’s brain. “Wait, really?”

“It’s not a no, but—but it might be an ask-me-in-a-week,” he says, his heart beating so hard that he might faint. It’s both the hardest and the easiest thing he’s ever said. “Is that okay?”

“That’s more than okay,” Dream says, an awed excitement taking over. “That’s—why a week?”

“Because I don’t want to still be mad at you when we—when you ask.”

“When I ask and you say yes, you mean,” Dream says, drawing George closer to him. Their lower bodies are touching, their foreheads aligned. He’s never felt closer to another person in his life. Will it always feel like this? Scary and safe at the same time?

“You’re a moron,” George says, “and I’m—I want to only be happy when you ask this time.”

“You don’t have to explain,” Dream says, sweetly.

“Good, because I can’t.” George wants to laugh at himself. Twenty-eight years and he still can’t find words to express himself? He can’t stand himself sometimes. “I’m never going to be, like, good at explaining myself.”

“I know that,” Dream says, and yeah, he probably does. “I don’t love you because you’re good at explaining yourself, George.”

Love.

“Is it for my big dump truck?” George asks, and Dream laughs. 

“It’s on the list, definitely, but not the top spot,” Dream says and lets his hand drift lower to said appendage, slowly enough to give George time to push him off or say no if he wants to. George doesn’t want to. 

“Fuck,” Dream says, sounding like the curse comes straight from his bones. “You’re something else, George. You are something else.”

“You can feel it more,” George says, rather magnanimously, he thinks.

“Here,” Dream says, turning onto his back and pulling George with him so he lands on Dream’s chest. 

The covers almost slip and half of George’s head peeks out of them, the cooler air strange on his skin now that he’s used to their cocoon. Dream’s hands are busy pushing George’s shorts down and cupping his cheeks, so George has to fix the blankets on his own.

George lets his head fall into the crook of Dream’s neck, his skin salty and mixed with that special cologne, though the scent has faded from what it was earlier in the car.

“You scare me,” George admits. It’s okay to say it, like this, in the dark with the rest of the world pushed away.

“You scare me, too,” Dream responds. He turns his head so that he can leave a kiss on George’s temple, pulling the shorts back up to George’s hips like he can sense this isn’t quite the time.

“You scare me and—and you make me scared,” George says. Those are two separate thoughts, even if they don’t seem like they are. He tries to explain more. “You can’t—you can’t disappear again.”

He’s grateful when Dream doesn’t immediately promise he won’t. It feels like he’s taking this more seriously, like he’s pausing to think it through. 

“I think the kind of disappearing I did is going to be rare for me,” Dream says. “Nick said something before he left, and—and I did some thinking while you were sleeping. I—I’ve definitely done that before, the disappearing into myself thing, but I don’t think I will again for a long time.”

“What do you mean?”

“That felt like a—like a reaction to all the hate I’ve been dealing with,” Dream says. “Not from you or Nick, obviously, but it was my way of, like, coping productively?”

“Dream.”

“I couldn’t be actively depressed if I was getting work done, could I?” Dream asks, derisively. “That’s what I told myself, at least. I wasn’t retreating from the world or hiding from the internet, not if I had a project I was going to show them at some point, you know?”

“You just realized all this?”

“Kind of. Part of me realized, I think,” Dream says. “Part of me, even when I was doing it. Just—I don’t think it’ll be a problem anymore.”

“Why?” George wonders. He isn’t sure where this is going. He’s not sure he likes the sound of what’s behind the promises he’s desperate to hear. “You can’t always control how you’ll react to things.”

“No, you’re right, but I think if I have you, like, more… I know who my friends are now, George. I know how this game works. I know how to better protect us online, from, like, fair weather friends, you know? I won’t let them hurt me again. I’m tougher than that now.”

“Dream, I don’t want you to, like, harden yourself.”

“I could get pretty hard right now, actually.”

“Shut up, I mean. What I love about you—” He chokes over the word love, but he gets it out— “Is that you have this big heart. I don’t want you to lose that. That’s what makes you Dream.”

“I won’t,” Dream promises. “I just know better how to protect myself from being completely vulnerable.”

“What should I do, if you—you know. Is there something I can say?”

“Like a code word?” Dream asks, lips pressing against George’s cheek now. “Probably not a code word. Just—just tell me you’re concerned. Let me know I’m worrying you. I’ll—I won’t be able to stand worrying you.”

“Okay,” George says. “And if nothing else, get BadBoyHalo on the phone.”

“Stop,” Dream says, but he’s amused. “I’m getting hard, I don’t want you to talk about—about him.”

“I’m telling him you said that,” George says, proud of himself for getting that much out when all he can feel is Dream… starting to get hard. He’s lying on top of him, it’d be difficult not to feel him. And, yeah, maybe he’s responding in kind. He always rises to Dream’s expectations, why should this be any different?

“George,” Dream whispers with a longing that has never been directed at George before. He’s never been the guy that people lose themselves over, not really. Not like this. “George, I have to kiss you again. I have to—please.”

“Okay,” George says, instead of begging. “But I’m not your boyfriend. Not until you ask.”

“Next week,” Dream says, to show he was listening. “I have to ask you next week when you’re not still mad.”

“Good,” George says, lips skimming against Dream’s. They’re basically kissing anyway. He’s not going to wait for Dream this time, he can take the bull by the horns. George presses down, pushing his tongue into Dream’s pliant mouth.

It’s just as good as earlier. Better even, since they’re horizontal. Dream reads him, moves his head to find the perfect angle, hand coming up to tilt George’s head while the other one moves back to his ass. 

“Enough,” Dream says, breaking away. “I—we should take this slow.”

“But—” George says, blinking. 

“George, we—you’re not even my boyfriend yet,” Dream says. “What kind of boy do you think I am?”

George muffles his laugh in Dream’s chest, trying to control his breathing and his raging boner.

“Hey, for real, though,” Dream says. “I don’t want to rush it. I—I’m in love with you. I’m not going anywhere, but it doesn’t feel right if you’re still angry with me, okay? I don’t want our first time to be anything less than perfect.”

It makes sense. George hates that it makes sense, hates even more that a small part of him is relieved.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay, another time.”

“Holding you to that,” Dream says. “But for now, can I just—can I hold you?”

“Yeah,” George says. “I think I’d like that.”

The next morning dawns brightly. George wakes up for the second time in Dream’s bed, this time without the man himself staring at him.

Maybe it’s George’s turn to stare. The covers slipped off of them in the night, probably too hot, but the two of them never separated. George’s head rises and falls with Dream’s breaths. He moves far enough away that he can see Dream’s face, younger in his unconsciousness. His lips are parted so George can see his perfect teeth poking out.

This could be it. 

This could be his future.

“Mornin’,” Dream says as he yawns.

“Hi,” George says. Suddenly, he’s shy.

“Is it next week yet?” Dream asks. At George’s dumb look, Dream adds, “Because I can’t wait to be with you. I’m not missing another second, George. I mean that.”

“I know you do,” George tells him, finding that it feels like the truth in his heart, too. 

“I’m never taking anything for granted with you again,” Dream says, drawing George close to him. His hands are huge on George’s back as he holds him close. “I promise you that.”

“Okay,” George says, letting it settle into his bones. On this side of everything, after a good night’s sleep, it feels real. It’s like Dream put his indicator on IRL—letting everyone around him, including George, where he intends to go.

They go out for breakfast on a random Wednesday in March, the first day of the rest of their lives.