Archive of Our Own

George is not intimidated by the Olympics. He’s not. He’s already been here and won bronze. ‘Here’ being subjective. Then, it was South Korea and now it’s Italy—which is a cruel joke because he can’t eat pasta or drink the wine until his events are done, but the point is—he’s not intimidated.

Opening ceremony is—well, there’s nothing like it. Pride for his country, for how far figure skating has come, for the tradition of meeting every four years for these games moves through him. He’s not an overly emotional man, but there’s something special about the opening ceremony. He can feel all the eyes of the world on him. Not him, in particular, but them. His contemporaries. So, yeah, it’s majestic, but he’s not intimidated.

Skipping the after party for the athletes had nothing to do with being intimidated, and everything to do with choosing to focus so he can do his best. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to lock in. In fact, maybe more athletes should focus harder on their sports and less on trying to get laid.

As for George, he’s giving it everything he’s got. This time, George is determined to go home with gold. He’s going to do it, too. This is his year. Everyone agrees. He’s at the top of his game, with the best coach and the most difficult routine. His only real competition, Larray from California, had a bad fall last month and broke his leg. Which, yeah, that sucks because he actually likes Larray, but it makes his road here in Italy that much easier. 

Four years ago, Larray got silver, George got bronze, and gold went to the Chinese skater that George has always looked up to, Jin Boyang, who has since retired.

It’s George’s time to shine. 

His Olympic roommate is a cross country skier and shooter determined to sleep everywhere else but their room. That suits George just fine. He appreciates the quiet. He doesn’t even bother unpacking, only taking his stupid, frilly leotards out of his bag in order to hang them up. He’ll steam them before performance day.

It’s—he hates the outfits. He really does.

At breakfast the next morning, everyone is torn between dragging their feet with fierce hangovers and running around excitedly trading pins with other athletes. George puts on his best fact while he devours his bagel. He has the ice for an hour later today and a meeting with his coach.

A sea of faces surround George and he pays them no mind. He doesn’t know anyone outside of his own sport, and maybe that makes him lame or antisocial or whatever, but he likes what he likes. He likes skating and he works hard at it and he doesn’t have time to do anything besides skate and play fps video games with his online friend Sapnap.

A rise of noise grabs George’s attention. The sea splits to show the American hockey team. George rolls his eyes on principle, and then—ugh, not him. Anyone but him. There’s no mistaking him, unfortunately. 

There he is—the oaf.

The real reason George doesn’t want to go to the events designed to force the athletes to meet and mingle. They call him some dumb name—some nickname that George refuses to remember. He won’t participate in the American movement to celebrate this guy. He hasn’t even done anything yet!

Oh, but George can’t forget his face, the way he made fun of George’s performance outfit four years ago in South Korea—belittling him like George hasn’t trained even harder to be here than some dumb hockey player. He had snapped the strap of George’s leotard, leering down at him, and George snapped the fuck back.

They were four years younger then, stupider and less mature. The oaf had a baby face then, trying and failing to hide it with the world’s wispiest beard. He must have been all of eighteen and a wunderkind of hockey. George doesn’t care how many goals he had scored or the gold medal that hung around his neck, he was rude. George spent the last few days of his stay in the Olympic Village avoiding him. He kept popping up everywhere like that game where you have to hit the gopher heads down.

Anyway, there’s no way he’s putting himself in a situation where he has to talk to that idiot again. 

Because—because it’s not like George likes the outfits. He hates them, actually. They’re the worst part of his job. No, the worst part of his job is picking them out and the fittings. The worst part is everyone looking at his outfits and his job and assuming his sexuality. Yeah, like, he’s gay, but he doesn’t like when people assume shit about him. 

The leotards are standard. He’s tried to get out of them—he’s tried subtly talking to the other male figure skaters, trying to rally them to rise up and move to wear more standard black, or even what the speed skaters wear, but it’s no use. They all see the outfits as part of the performance. Even the straight ones! Even the ones pretending to be straight, who are so much more performatively heteronormative. 

There’s no getting around it. It’s sparkles and glitter and silk fabrics until he retires. When he wears all black, his points are deducted for style, like somehow his athleticism is proven less when he’s not wearing a frilly little number. It’s so stupid. He’s resigned to it, but god, at what cost? Having to hear lumbering oafs share their opinions on his stupid clothes? He already knows. It’s embarrassing. He doesn’t need it pointed the fuck out.

George scarfs down the last bite of his bagel. As he’s taking his tray back to the return, someone almost runs into him.

“Oh, my bad,” comes a grating American voice.

There’s only one person it could be. George doesn’t look at him, only sidestepping and calling over his shoulder, lest some bystander call him rude to the American golden boy, “All good.”

The idiot says something, but he’s already too far away for George to hear over the chittering of the crowd. 

He has better things to focus on.

The short program is today. That’s George’s first thought upon waking up in his dorm. It’s today today today today today…

He’s both extremely excited and horrifically nervous at the same time. He knows he can do this. He’s been planning for it for years. He’s done this performance so many times he could do it in his sleep. It’ll be fine.

Breakfast is also fine. He knows he needs to keep a few things down to settle his stomach. Years of battling the stage fright and George knows how to trick his body into performing at the highest level. He gets a few curious looks at breakfast, a few half hearted good lucks that he doesn’t put stock in. He’ll make his own luck.

His phone beeps with a notification from Sapnap wondering if he’s around to play CS2. George explains, again and in small words, that he’s busy for the next week and away from his computer. Sapnap grumbles at him and sends a gif that George doesn’t understand, but still makes him smile. He’s a dumb, stupid idiot, but he’s fun, at least.

Sapnap doesn’t know where he is, and he doesn’t need to know. He likes that Sapnap stays in one pocket of his life and his skating can stay in the other pocket. 

The only thing about ice Sapnap needs to know is that he’s constantly on thin ice and trying George’s patience. Regardless, Sapnap’s idiocy strives to make George feel normal again for just a moment and not like he has perhaps the biggest performance of his career coming up later today.

He heads back to the dorm to grab his bag and change into his performance leotard. The jackets the Italian Olympic Committee provided to all the athletes comes in handy in times like this. George doesn’t want to be seen prancing around the hallways in his blue glitter sequined number.

It’s still early, but George wants to take in the ice and feel it this morning. The more in tune he is with the ice, the better he’ll perform. Does that make sense to anyone else? Maybe not. Another figure skater, maybe. He tried to explain it to Larray once and he only scoffed and then patted George on the head condescendingly. 

One flash of the badge on his leotard and the security guard lets him in with strict instructions that he’s not allowed out with his skates on to tear up the ice. In a few hours, this place will be packed with people from all over the world here to cheer on the figure skaters.

It’s humbling.

He walks around, the echoes of his footsteps loud in his ears. Since there’s no one around, he drops the jacket and puts himself ahead a few hours into performance space. He can feel the bite of the sequins against his arms—how that’ll impact him when landing, the small necessary adjustments, the mental energy to purposefully ignore the constant distracting feeling against his skin.

It’s part of the job. He’s gotten used to it, even though he hates it. Why can’t they perform in, like, regular athletic gear? No one thinks a speed skater should wear glitter.

He’s mentally going through his routine, remembering the parts that have plagued him and imagining how it feels when he gets them right—sinking the perfection into his brain, when someone distracts him.

“What are you doing here?” comes a voice. It’s accusatory. Caustic. 

George slams his guard back up in less time than it takes to blink. His ritual is ruined now. He turns around to find—oh, it’s him.

He rolls his eyes. “Not you.”

“Yes, me,” the guy says, smirking at him. His eyes lower to George’s blue leotard and widen. “But, really, what are you—”

“Not a word,” George says, feeling his face heat. He grabs his jacket from the side where he’d left it, scrambling back into it quickly. He’d rather have been caught naked out here.

“You do love your little outfits,” the guy says, sounding choked. Well, hockey players aren’t well known for their brains. And neither are Americans, George thinks with a small mental apology to Larray.

“I’m a figure skater!” George emphasizes his point by zipping the windbreaker up to his neck. “It’s part of the job.”

“Every time I see you you’re wearing…” the guy glances down and back up again, like he has x-ray vision or something.

“Well, I don’t harp on what shit you’re wearing,” George says, pointedly looking down at the American Blues jersey. He has no padding on, just the jersey. Like some kind of idiot. “It’s not enough that you’re plastered everywhere, you need a walking reminder of what you do so that people will fawn over you?”

“What? That’s not—”

But George is on a roll now. His hackles are up, and his ritual is ruined, and he has to perform in a few hours, and now all he’s going to be thinking about instead of that hard to nail jump combination, the double into the triple, is this fucking douchebag’s nerve.

“You have your little rituals in hockey, right?” George asks, not waiting for an answer. “You don’t clean your jock or something. Never change your socks, what have you. You realize you’ve interrupted mine? I’m performing in a few hours and I needed this time.” George points at the guy’s chest. “Are you doing this to everyone? Going around and disrupting their flow?”

“I disrupted your flow?” the guy asks, startled at George’s aggression. Has no one ever told this guy off in his entire life? Well, George supposes that’ll be his cross to bear. He’d love to tear this guy down a peg or two.

“You accosted me, and you’re once again making fun of my uniform. Can you just, I dunno, fucking leave, maybe?”

The guy’s eyes are round and big, at odds with his pointy chin and the scruff on his face. He blinks and takes a step backwards like George hit him in the face with a two by four by asking him to leave.

George turns away from him, not wanting to see that expression anymore. He knows he didn’t do anything wrong, but he doesn’t appreciate the guilt that’s starting to pool in his chest.

When he looks back, several minutes later, he’s gone.

George exhales deeply. Time to re-set.

He can do this.

He lands his last jump and the audience goes insane. He can feel it—the way the entire stadium erupts. Feet stomp the bleachers and women scream shrilly. George can’t hear much of it over his own heartbeat, but the energy is divine.

If he didn’t just land first place, he’ll eat his leotard.

The judges call the scores and George almost collapses to the ice. First place. Now he just needs no one else to usurp him.

And he’s one step closer to gold.

He ignores most of the calls he receives afterward. He doesn’t need to hear pretend congratulations, especially when he’s not done yet. He hasn’t clinched it. There’s a long debrief with Coach Halo and then he’s free to return to his room. He stops by the cafeteria for food, accepting a few congratulations and ducking out of longer conversations. Despite how he’s behaved here, he likes to meet people. It’s just that he’s still focused.

The long program is tomorrow and he needs to nail it.

There’s one person he can’t ignore, however. Larray FaceTimes him the second he makes it back to his room, like he somehow knew he’d be free and capitalized on it. 

“Ew, why are you calling?” George asks, but he can feel his stupid grin taking up his entire face.

“Because I’m living vicariously through you and we need to talk about that triple you almost blew,” Larray says, matching grin on his perfect face.

“Aw don’t bring that up,” George says, but he’s secretly happy. He needs someone besides Coach Halo to tell him where he can improve. Normally, he wouldn’t have this with Larray because they’re competition before they’re friends, but now? With Larray in California in a cast, he can rely on his observations. 

They chat for a while, combing through the short program in depth. Larray pulls it up on his TV and they watch it together, pausing every once in a while to discuss things. And then, once they exhaust George’s routine, they start in on everyone else.

Larray has a good sense of the competition. He already knows most of their strengths and weaknesses. They see a lot of these same skaters at the other competitions around the world and Larray is Larray—no one can turn down his big bambi eyes. 

After they make it through the top four competitors—the only real threats for gold unless George majorly fucks up—Larray turns shop talk to personal and George deflates.

“It’s all I’m hearing about,” Larray says about some get together happening on another floor of the Olympic Village. 

George groans and covers his head with his duvet. He really doesn’t want to move from here. He wants to stretch, relax, and bury himself in TikTok and not think about anything else. What he really wants is a CS2 marathon with Sapnap, but he doesn’t have his PC. 

“George, you better get your ass to that party, bitch,” Larray says. “I’m not playing around.”

“Larray…” George says, hoping he’ll drop it. But this is Larray, who’s never dropped anything in his entire life, except the beat.

“No, no way,” he says. “I don’t want to hear it. I’m over here suffering and in pain, missing my shot for my gold—which I deserve, by the way—and you’re not even going to go get laid in my name? Do you really hate me that much, Georgie Porgie?”

“That’s not what this is about,” George says.

“It sure the fuck is,” Larray says back. Oh, he’s feisty today. George underestimated him. He never does that. “Look, George, I just don’t want you to miss out, boo boo. You’re so stuck in your head sometimes. You need to go have fun, let loose, allow yourself time to decompress before tomorrow.”

“I don’t need that,” George says.

“You aren’t going to hang up with me and then hole up in your room and be anxious about tomorrow all night?” Larray asks, skeptically. And with good reason.

Well, George had plans to do all that in the comfort of his underwear, but whatever. “I—”

“Exactly,” Larray says. “Go to the party. Don’t drink or do anything crazy, but, baby, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

“Twice,” George says with a rueful smile. “Twice in a lifetime.”

Larray’s eyes are soft and George knows he’s picking up what George means. Larray is younger, he has another chance. But George? He’s twenty-eight and his knees are only going to get worse.

“So you should capitalize on it while you can,” Larray says. “Make memories to tell the grandkids about.”

Five minutes. He’ll go for five minutes, George tells himself while he throws on his jacket over his bare chest. He didn’t plan for enough clothes to cover a gathering, so they’ll just have to get over it. 

He’ll take a picture of himself in several different locations and that’ll be enough proof to send to Larray. He’ll space out the pictures with enough time to be believable and then he won’t have to hear about this in a few months at their next training camp. If George even goes.

Larray will never let him live it down, and George, unfortunately, can’t stand the rest of the male figure skaters.

Five minutes.

He follows the raucous noise to some dorm room on the far end of the same building he’s in, but a floor below. The closer he gets to the source of the noise, the more bodies there are to sift through. This is the American wing, George realizes when he sees the obnoxious displays of flags on every door. Really, no country is as obnoxious as America is. He’ll stand by that.

A few people greet him as he walks closer—a figure skater on the women’s team for Australia that he almost partnered with one year. He says a polite hello and pretends he’s looking for someone. It’s not until she passes that George thinks that he could have gotten a picture with her and been able to meme Larray into thinking he talked to more people.

He almost turns around to ask, but he’s forgotten her name. He’s definitely not going to be that guy.

At the epicenter of the noise are two rooms at the end of the hall—both doors left wide open and propped open with books, which George recalls is against protocol. He had to read approximately a million pages about what he can and can’t do in the Olympic Village and leaving doors open was mentioned, oh, about five thousand times.

Two men lean against the walls, laughing like the world’s funniest joke was just told. There are tears leaking from their eyes and one of them leans over, hands on his knees, like he needs help staying upright. George almost wants to laugh just at this guy’s laugh. It’s intoxicating. It’s—

Oh no.

It’s him. The oaf.

George turns around to race away, uncaring that he won’t get his pictures. Before he can get away unscathed, a voice says, “George?” A few giggles leak out around his name, like he just can’t help it.

George pauses, frozen in the hallway. He’s not really sure what happens, but suddenly there’s a body in front of him sloshing an entire beer across the chest of George’s windbreaker. He tries to wipe it off with his hand, but it’s no use. It’s all down inside the jacket, in his chest and seeping down into his pants. Ugh, yuck. Fucking disgusting.

“Did he get you?” the guy asks, all humor gone now. “I can—let’s get you cleaned up.”

“It’s fine,” George says, clipped and furious. This is all Larray’s fault. Somehow he knew. Somehow he found out through all his little spies in the women’s figure skating community—that all fawn over him—that George’s nemesis was hosting this—this shindig—and now he’s standing here looking at this giant of a man and he’s got beer staining his one of a kind Olympic jacket.

“Come on,” the guy says, a hand grabbing at George’s elbow. He doesn’t care for that, but he lets himself be led.

Instead of the room with the open door, the oaf leads him to the next room over, the door shut tightly and locked. Oaf pulls out his key and pushes George inside, following quickly after and shutting the door before people start falling inside like water.

“Sorry about that, George,” the oaf says. His eyes are big like a dog’s and he looks so contrite. A connection sparks and George realizes something.

“It was you,” he says. “You spilled on me?” He wasn’t holding a beer even two seconds earlier. How the hell—

“I’m—I’m so sorry,” the oaf says, stuttering over his words.

“Of course it was you,” George says, all agitation. “It’s always you.” He wipes at his jacket again, and despite allegedly being designed to resist anything, the beer sets into the white material turning it a murky brown.

“I didn’t mean to,” he says.

“Always have something to say about my clothes, don’t you?” George says, letting his anger start to take over. He’s heated. This idiot already insulted him, threw off his practice, almost cost him the gold, and now he’s throwing beer onto George’s clothes?

“I didn’t mean it, I—I’m just an idiot,” he stammers. A frantic energy overcomes the oaf and he looks around desperately and then pulls his towel off the nearest hanger and tries to hand it to George. “Here, use this.”

“Your dirty towel?” George says, disgusted.

“It’s not dirty,” the guy says. “This isn’t, like, a sweat shower towel. This is a rinse myself—my clean self—off before bed kind of towel. It’s fine.”

“But you rubbed your junk on it?” George clarifies, unimpressed.

“Well…”

“No, don’t answer that,” George says. “I’m just going to go. I’ll figure this out. This was—fuck, this was a bad idea. I knew I shouldn’t have—”

“No, don’t go,” the guy says, a little too sharply. “You shouldn’t have to leave just because—I mean, this was my fault. You should stay and enjoy yourself.”

“And be naked?”

“Why would you—what?” There’s a pinkening on the guy’s cheeks that George shouldn’t be enjoying. It’s nice to finally have this guy on the back foot.

“I’d have to take this off,” George explains like he’s talking to an idiot. He is, so it’s apt. “And I don’t have a shirt on under it.”

The red face grows even more red—an event George didn’t think was possible. “Why don’t you have a shirt on underneath?”

“Because my clothes are dirty and I didn’t want to bother wasting my last clean shirt on a stupid event I was only going to stay at for five minutes.”

“Why weren’t you going to stay?”

“That’s not really important right now, dude. What’s wrong with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re, like, really red, man. Are you—what’s happening?”

“You should stay,” the guy says, ignoring the question. “You can borrow a shirt of mine. A clean shirt!” He turns and rummages through his suitcase. George is unsatisfied to see that he’s not the only one who refused to unpack. He likes keeping his shit in his suitcase, so sue him. His suitcase is his own.

A white undershirt lands on George’s head, a throw gone very awry. “Is this how your aim is on the ice?” George asks. “No wonder you needed extra time to train.”

“No, it’s—you just—”

“What?” George asks, wondering how this could possibly be his fault. This oaf is the reason he’s half naked in here, throwing shirts at his head. Nowhere in his long program does George have to catch anything. There’s a reason he doesn’t do doubles, besides not getting along with any of the available women.

“You make me so—”

George waits for him to spit it out, and he never quite gets around to it. He takes the shirt and throws it over his head. It’s not like he doesn’t deserve it after the shit this guy has put him through. The shirt is huge, the collar stretched. It smells nice, like homey laundry detergent and something very clean and male. Maybe it makes him mellow out a little bit, but he’d never share that.

“So what?” George finally prompts.

“You make me so flustered,” the guy says. And then, he keeps going, his words getting faster and faster. “You’re just—every time I see you I fuck it up somehow. You’re—fuck, you’re the most intimidating person in the world, and I’m such a huge fan and you’re—I open my mouth around you and the wrong words come out or in the wrong order, or my tone is all off and it sounds like I’m saying something I’m not, and—and I’m just sorry, okay? I never meant to, like, make you think I hated you or that I was making fun of you. You’re an amazing skater. That’s all I was trying to say—like, before. My little sister is a figure skater and she loves you and—and she makes me watch your programs, and you’re really good, you know? I—please make me shut up now.”

“Shut up now,” George says in order to spare both of them. His head spins with all the information he just got. The words run slowly through his mind, like the teleprompter at the beginning of the Star Wars movies and he has to slowly work through them to make them make sense.

“You’re a fan?” It’s all he can focus on. This guy—okay, fine, his name is Dream. George knows his name is Dream. The American Dream, the hot shot, the golden boy—his face is on banners all over the city and online and no one can get away from him, especially not George.

“Yeah,” Dream says, that hangdog look back again. He makes such a sad dog. They should put this expression up on all those banners. He’d have the female population eating out of those big hands.

“So, like… you… like figure skating?” George asks, the words coming slowly.

“Yes,” he says, emphatically. Dream runs his hand through his hair, disrupting the curls and pushing the hair out of his eyes. “You’re—my sister has been so mad at me for fucking up meeting you. She’s been making fun of me for four years. I—can you make a video telling her you don’t hate me?”

George has to laugh. “Why would I do that?”

“What?” Dream says.

“You spilled your drink on me,” George says, but even to his own ears he sounds lighter. “You told me my costume was dumb. You tried to put your ball towel on me. Maybe I do hate you, Dream. Did you think of that?”

“But…”

“Did you even apologize?” George asks, squinting his eyes up at Dream.

“I—yes? I think so?”

“In all your word vomit? Apologize properly, and I’ll consider it.”

“Okay,” Dream says, shaking his head like he’s clearing it out. His hair bounces everywhere. “I can do that. George—”

“Not now,” George says, putting a hand on his chest. “I have a lot to think about first. You can take me to breakfast and apologize then. If you’re awake and, like, functional.”

“We have an early practice tomorrow, so I’ll be functional,” Dream says, a crooked grin growing on his dumb face. 

“But you’re drinking?”

“No, I’m—that’s nonalcoholic beer,” he explains.

George snorts. “What’s the point of nonalcoholic beer? That’s just—why take something gross and remove the one redeemable factor from it?”

Dream smiles like George made a joke. He has a rather nice smile. 

“Breakfast,” Dream says, like a confirmation. “Can I have your number so I can find you in the morning?” 

“Only if you give me your sister’s, too,” George says, because he’s going to enjoy talking to her. She sounds like his kinda girl—a menace. “I want to talk skating with her. You know, someone who can keep up with me.”

“I can skate,” Dream says, pouting. He pulls his phone out eagerly, though.

“You can’t do a triple axel though, can you?” George asks. “Not even a double?”

Dream rolls his eyes. “Chloe can do a double.”

“Hell yeah,” George says. He spits out his number in a way that he knows is too fast. It’s another test, to see how much Dream wants it. Will he remember the digits in the right order?

Dream’s tongue hangs out of his mouth while he concentrates, pushing buttons and, thankfully, not asking any dumb questions. George’s phone buzzes against his thigh. Damn, so he got it. Thank god for Olympic wifi.

“You better send me your sister’s number, too,” George says. He heads for the door, ready to be done with this. At least he has a nice story to tell Larray now. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t think you’ve ever forgotten anything in your life,” Dream says, but it’s not an insult. He looks impressed. “I’ll send it.”

“Breakfast,” George says, nodding. He twists the doorknob and a big part of him doesn’t want to leave. There’s something about Dream. Oh, not the thing the anchors keep saying, about how he’s America’s only hope for the hockey gold. Who gives a shit about that? No, there’s something in his dopey smile, in the way he gets so flustered around George. It’s flattering. It’s endearing. It’s… intriguing.

His shoulders are big. Broad. His curls fall back into his face and George wants to push them back again. Oh, fuck.

“Bye,” he says. He has to get out of here now.

“Bye,” Dream calls, but George is already slamming the door shut behind him. 

He doesn’t take the shirt off. Even while he explains the entire saga to Larray from beginning to end, going over certain parts again and again because Larray claims George doesn’t tell stories right and he has to pull details out of him. All the time, George wears Dream’s shirt.

It still smells of him, despite being on an entirely different floor. The laundry and old sweat is permeated deep in the fabric. If George finds himself leaning down to smell the stretched collar every few minutes, well, that’s his business, isn’t it?

After talking to Larray, but before bed, George spends a few hours alternating between instagram and TikTok. There are a few Olympic athletes using TikTok to show how it really is, and George is enjoying the comments on those. It’s interesting to see the other perspectives.

He spots himself in the background of one, with nonalcoholic beer spilled down his front and a storm cloud hanging over his head. Dream is cut out of the video, but George knows he’s there. 

That’s enough TikTok, he thinks. He can’t sleep. He’s so anxious between breakfast with Dream and the long program to skate in less than twenty-four hours that he tosses and turns. Finally, he winds up calling Sapnap and listening to him play Valo—the one game George refuses to play with him—and finally falls asleep to the peaceful sounds of Sapnap losing and cussing creatively under his breath.

George is nervous before breakfast. He’s never been—he doesn’t get nervous like this anymore. Even performing, he has his rituals and tricks down that take his mind off of it, but this is a new beast. Emphasis on beast.

It doesn’t help that the long program is scheduled for today. Underneath his skin, he can tell the nerves aren’t from that. After how well he performed at the short program, he knows he’s going to blow everyone out of the water with his long program. No, it’s not performing that’s making him anxious right now.

He finds himself pacing the hallway outside of his room, waiting for 8:00am. He doesn’t want to be early, but he doesn’t want to be late, either. He promised Dream he’d meet him at the cafeteria right on the dot, and if he didn’t provide his sister’s number, then George would storm right back out.

A number came through a minute later. George saved it in his contacts, with promises to text Dream’s sister later.

It wouldn’t have mattered if George was a couple minutes early, because Dream is already outside the cafeteria doors, politely declining invitations to eat together with various athletes. When he looks up and catches George’s eye, a warm smile takes over his face. It’s not the smile broadcasted on billboards and online ads, this one is private. It’s just for George. And it’s doing something to his insides.

“Hey,” Dream greets him, breathless.

“Good morning,” George says, watching the last few hopefuls walk away from Dream. They can see he’s busy with George—that George has his full attention. Good. George likes it that way.

The difference in their breakfasts is comical. George has a toasted bagel with lox, a rare indulgence for him. He can’t work out with too much in his stomach. Dream, on the other hand, has two omelets, toast, and what looks like fried potato hash in a separate bowl.

“What?” Dream says, self-consciously. George can tell the difference now. “I burn a lot of calories. I need this.”

“I’m not judging you,” George says. “You always think I’m judging you.”

“Well, to be fair,” Dream says, wiping his mouth with his napkin. “Before last night, you were always judging.”

“With good reason,” George says, but he’s laughing. 

Dream asks if he’s nervous to perform today and George gives him a look. He’s trying to take his mind off of that, thank you very much. 

Those green eyes are kind when they roll upward and then Dream swiftly changes the subject.

“How did you get into figure skating?” he asks. This is a pretty normal question between athletes here, and even more standard in interview questions. George has already answered it about ten times this set of games, though that number was significantly higher four years ago. 

“I love skating. That’s really all there is to it,” George says. Just because he gets this question a lot doesn’t mean he answers it one hundred percent honestly.

Dream snorts into his bite of omelet. “Sounds fake. I think you’re lying. Tell me the rest.”

Should he, though? It won’t hurt, but it puts his hackles up to be vulnerable to someone else, someone who probably wouldn’t, but could, take the story and run with it to the media. Dream has his own TikTok account, unused except for weird Kpop-style edits of his cat, Patches.

George decides to take a risk. If this gets out, he’ll know who spread it and he’ll ruin him. That’s extreme, but the point stands. He’s really flipped one-eighty on Dream.

“I played hockey first,” George says, feeling his face heat up. It’s hard to admit he was really fucking bad at hockey to someone who’s more than made a career out of that very thing.

Dream drops his fork, the sound causing several people to turn and glare in their direction. “No!” he says. And then, “No way. You?”

George sighs, put upon. “Let’s just say I excelled at the skating part and hated, oh, literally every other part of it.”

“Was this in England? How old were you?” Dream asks, way too curious. “Oh, fuck, I bet you were so cute in your pads and helmet. Do you have any pictures?”

“No, you idiot,” George says, but he’s pleased. Dream’s enthusiasm is catching and whatever reaction George thought he would have to prepare for isn’t happening. He can breathe a sigh of relief.

“Please, George,” Dream says. “I need to see that. No, I need you to come one v one me on the ice. I need—”

“If you think I am squaring up against you, you must be insane,” George says through a laugh. He has yet to take a bite of his perfect bagel, so he does that now.

“Why not?” Dream pouts.

George rolls his eyes because his mouth is full.

“Okay, fine, I see your point,” Dream says. “I wouldn’t want you to challenge me to a figure skating thing either.”

George swallows. “You’d fall over almost immediately. It’s the toe pick.”

Dream nods like he’s considering it. “I’ve done figure skating,” he admits. “My sister made me try for a while. She had some dream that I’d be her doubles partner. But I am not suited for—I’m just good at hockey, I guess.”

“Now that, I need to see. I will be asking your sister for all videos and anecdotes, like, the second text I send to her.”

“You haven’t texted her yet?” he asks, surprised.

George shrugs. “I wanted to wait. Make sure you’re cool. I dunno.”

“I get it,” Dream says. “I’m not taking any offense. My sister is cool, though. Way cooler than me.”

“Well, it’s not hard,” George says, but he laughs to show he’s kidding. “But, yeah, the skating part of hockey was great, it was the everything else that I couldn’t really get into. Too unpredictable. Too aggressive. I was the best skater on my team, and when I decided to quit, my coach made my mom promise to have me try figure skating. Said I was too talented to not be on the ice at all.”

“Wow,” Dream says, and it’s not sarcastic. He sounds like he means it. 

“I like the regimented-ness of skating,” George says, unsure if he’s made a word up in there or not. Whatever. Dream gets what he means. “I like that someone else helps me come up with the choreography and I like that I just have to, like, memorize the steps and do them. That’s all there is to it.”

“That’s not all there is to it,” Dream says, catching him. “But I get what you mean.”

“The only thing I don’t like,” George clears his throat, “is the outfits.”

Dream leans back and tilts his head. “Oh. So I really put my foot in it the first time we met.”

“Yeah, you could say that,” George says. 

“I just did,” Dream teases, smiling to show he’s being stupid. “I was genuine, by the way. It just came out all weird. You might hate the outfits, but they look super cute on you.”

“Dream…” George says, a warning in his voice. A warning for what, not even he knows, but he can’t stand to hear him say that. It makes George’s insides boil over.

“It’s not lost on me how talented you are,” Dream goes on. “I know how hard those jumps are. You’re—you’re really good, George.”

“Well, people seem to think so,” George says like this is an interview, and then he decides that it’s just Dream and he can say whatever the fuck he wants. “But I am kind of, slightly, a little bit the fucking goat.”

Dream laughs. “And he’s humble too, your honor.”

“What can I say? I’m the full package,” George says. There’s something easy about talking to Dream now, something like swimming through a clear lake, no resistance, just refreshing on a hot day. 

“That settles it,” Dream says. “We have to go skating together. You have to come visit me in Florida and skate with me and my little sister.”

“Only if we can race and you cry when I beat you.”

“If you beat me, sure, I’ll cry.”

“So, you’ll be crying,” George confirms. He’s fast when he’s really trying. Dream’s bigger than him, bulky with muscles. His thighs are tree trunks, built for power, but George is lithe muscle. He’ll crush him. 

“I’m serious, though,” Dream says. “Come visit. Do you have anything coming up in the next few months?”

“I’ve mostly been focusing on this,” George says. He’s halfway through his events and the other side is just a big blank wall of nothingness. He’ll probably play games with Sapnap and gossip with Larray, but there’s nothing scheduled. He’s already decided…

Well, there’s no sense in thinking about that, yet. Not until after today’s program. Not until after the gold. He can make decisions after he gets the gold. 

“Ask me again after I win today,” George says, choking on his own confidence. 

“I will,” Dream promises. “With your gold medal around your neck.”

George feels a bit crazy when he steps off the plane and into the Orlando International Airport. This is, by far, the craziest thing he’s ever done, going to visit some guy he met only twice.

Sure, they’d spent the rest of George’s time at the Olympics attached at the hip, realizing more and more how perfectly they fit together—as friends. Afterward, George has spent more time in Discord calls with Dream than anyone else, only pausing when he has training or games.

Unlike George, Dream had to go straight back to work after his team won gold. The Florida Panthers wait for nothing. Dream flew straight from Italy to Boston to meet his team for an away game, fresh off of the biggest win of his career. 

And after that game, Dream called George to talk about it. And George, like a total simp, ate that shit up.

He’s never cared about hockey before in his life—even when he was playing it, and now all he wants to do is hear Dream explain it to him.

It’s pathetic. Now here they are, a week after Dream’s team lost in the playoffs for the Stanley Cup, and three days after he found a ticket in his inbox for a one way ride from London to Orlando.

They haven’t gone over the line of just friends. It’s all been subtext, like both of them are afraid to take it farther when they have no real recourse to do more, to be more. It’s—frustrating, to say the least. George hasn’t felt like this for a guy in longer than he’d like to admit. Maybe never before.

Dream is the first person he told that he was retiring. Dream was the first person who called him when the news broke. Dream sent him a thousand memes to cheer him up, some he obviously had to have made himself.

It goes both ways, though. It was George who called Dream when the Panthers officially lost the series. He’s sure other people called, but it was George who Dream wanted to talk to. George brought his A game on talking shit, learned directly from Larray, and he talked so much shit that Dream was laughing too hard to hear him by the end. 

They talk so much over Discord that George’s widget on his homescreen is constantly set to “call Dream on discord?” as a prompt for something for him to do. It’s ridiculous because the answer is usually yes.

He even loves Dream’s sister. Chloe’s amazing—really talented without the huge ego that some skaters get. George has seen videos of her that Dream took and sent. There’s been an unspoken offer that George could coach her, if he wanted. Everyone has been careful to talk around it, but—but that’s what could happen, right? He could stay here, coach Chloe, fall further in love with Dream and—

Sure, why the fuck not?

He texts Dream that he’s on his way and then jumps into an Uber. It’s a long drive to the mansion out in the boonies. When the driver finally pulls into the driveway, it’s more like a separate road. There’s an entirely different building beside the house, which George surmises must be an ice rink. Dream has a fucking ice rink at his house?

Oh, he’s rich rich.

Heart beating wildly, George thanks the driver and walks to the front door with his bag behind him. He didn’t bring much, but everything important is with him.

A guy shorter than him opens the door. He’s young, with stubble and green eyes hidden in his suspicious look. “Can I help you, bro?”

The voice…

“I’m here to see Dream?” George says tentatively. For a moment, he wonders if he got everything wrong or if this is some cruel prank Dream is playing on him. “And Chloe, I suppose.”

“Oh, you’re the figure skater that he’s been obsessed with,” the guy says, his face chilling out. He makes this grunt sound that George finds so familiar that he can’t stand it.

“I am indeed the figure skater,” George says and steps inside, ignoring the second half of what this guy said. “Better skater than Dream, anyway.”

“Not like that’s hard.” The guy offers his hand and says, “I’m Nick, by the way. Dream’s best friend. I live here so you’ll be seeing me.”

“George,” George says, taking the hand.

“George?” Nick says. He hasn’t let go of George’s hand, not because he’s being weird but more like the shock has locked his hand up. “Georgenotfound?”

Wait, what?

George steps back and really looks at this dude. It can’t be. No way. He knows he’s American, but what are the fucking odds? “Sap… Sapnap?”

“Bro!” Sapnap grins from ear to ear. It’s a little scary, actually. “Bro, what the fuck, dude?” Now George gets pulled into a hug and he can’t help but squeeze Sapnap back. He never in his wildest dreams thought he’d meet his best friend like this.

When they break apart, Sapnap punches George on the shoulder. “You’re a fucking figure skater?”

“Of course not,” George says with a smirk. “I’m an Olympic Gold winning figure skater. I’m the goat. Better than everyone else.”

“Oh my god,” Sapnap says and then they both laugh until Dream comes down the stairs, looking delicious and suspicious in equal measure.

“Hey, yo, Dream, you didn’t tell me your skater boy was my friend Georgenotfound!” Sapnap says, pointing at George like maybe Dream had missed him.

Dream pauses on the last step of the stairs and looks intensely at them. “You—what, really?”

“Really!” Sapnap says. George can’t stop smiling. This is right. This feels right. How is it that his best friend and his—his something already know each other? 

Two pieces of his heart glue together. It’s like—it’s like it was meant to be. His soul settles down like a dog lying down to take a nap, three spins and then curled up tight.

Everything falls into place. He loves the house, the little guest room above the driveway. He adores Chloe—she’s all the best parts of Dream and none of the tension. She’s talent and drive, and he knows in his heart that she can go the distance and that he can help her get there. 

He takes two days to make sure of it before he says as much to Dream.

“Really?” Dream says. “You’ll be her coach?”

“Yes.” There’s more, though. He can’t stay here and commit to being a coach if the other parts don’t work out. It would be torture to be stuck this close to Dream if he didn’t—if this was one sided.

It’s not one sided, though. That much he knows. It’s in everything—the way Dream looks at him when he comes down the stairs in the morning, the way Dream insisted on a race on the ice and they both fell over laughing instead of finishing the race. It’s in the way he’s stocked the house with every food George has ever so much has mentioned. It’s in the way he bought a new PC for George to play games with Sapnap.

He’s laying down a foundation and it’s time that George does the same.

So, he steps forward into Dream’s space until his actions can’t be written off as friendly. He picks up Dream’s hand and threads their fingers together, loving the way his bigger hand engulfs George’s entirely.

“I love it here,” George says, meaning more than that. After these months of getting to know Dream and Dream getting to know him, he has faith that Dream will know what he means.

“I’m glad,” Dream says. He pulls their combined hands up to his mouth and kisses George’s wrist. “I want you to stay here forever.”

“I’ll need to get a visa first, idiot,” George reminds him.

“But, you’ll do that and—and you’ll stay?”

He hums his answer, taking another brave step forward.

“You’re—this is what you want, right?” Dream asks, eyes big and unsure.

“I want you,” George says. “And whatever that entails. If you’re—if you want that.”

“I do, baby,” Dream says, serious as anything. “I wanted to make sure you were sure, though. I know you’ve had a big transition in your life. I didn’t want to be another, like, disruption.”

“You’re not a disruption,” George says, pulling Dream in closer so that their chests are pressed together. “You were the only thing keeping me sane.”

“Really?”

George breathes in Dream’s scent—it’s the same as it was on that undershirt he leant him months ago—cedar and male and perfect. He would have flown here just to get another hit of that. “Dream, I really need you to kiss me now.”

“Okay,” Dream says, nodding. “I want to—Yeah, I’d really like to do that now.”

When Dream finally kisses George, it’s not the fireworks of the medal ceremony. It’s the quiet victories that add up to mean something—the first time he put on skates, the first time he landed a jump, the first time he placed high at a competition. 

It’s a kiss that George will keep coming back to, the kind of kiss that changes the course of a life. 

Here he is, after all, in Florida—ready to start a new life.