Chapter Text
The next morning, Dream barely had it in him to get out of bed. His stomach was sour thinking about George’s cool fingers brushing his jaw, the way his whole body had thrummed.
When he forced himself into the kitchen, the thought of his usual omelet almost made him retch. He had woken up with the world on backwards, out of balance, and his morning routine that used to fit so comfortably now felt two sizes too small. He took a glass water bottle out of the fridge and chugged half of it in one go.
When George and Sapnap came downstairs for breakfast, the room was tense in a way it had never been before. George puttered around in front of the stove, avoiding the kitchen table and Dream’s eyes. Even Sapnap was silent. Dream had taken one look at George and had known he was fucked. All he could see were soft pink lips, taking over George’s face like a flower in bloom.
The more he watched out of the corner of his eye, the more he realized that there was something so endearing about everything George did––from the way he brushed his damp hair out of his eyes to the way his shoulders moved when he poured his cereal. Dream still wanted to kiss him senseless, but there was another desire taking root that was almost stronger—the urge to squeeze George close, breathe in the citrus that he could smell across the kitchen and bury his face in the soft spot under George’s jaw.
The best way Dream could describe the feeling was homesickness. Looking at George was like looking at his old childhood bedroom—all he wanted to do was burrow under the covers of his old bed and drown in it. He wanted to be close to George, wanted it so strongly that his chest ached.
God, he was screwed.
“Is it just me,” Sapnap asked, “or are the vibes weird in here?”
“It’s just you,” George said. He was eating his cereal with his back to them, staring at the stove as if he was trying to use it and couldn’t figure out how.
“Nah, I smell bullshit.” Sapnap turned to Dream. “Did you kiss him?”
Dream wanted to scream. “Oh my god, why is it always me?”
“Did you?”
“No, of course not. There was no kissing.”
“See, Sapnap? It’s fine.” George dumped his bowl in the sink and left. Dream heard his feet on the stairs.
“Is it really fine?” Sapnap asked after a moment.
“ Yes , Sapnap, just leave it.”
“Okay, Jesus. Just work this out quick, please, the tension is giving me indigestion.”
Dream took a long, slow breath.
He didn’t know if he could keep doing this. He couldn’t let George find out that he was breaking. He was speeding toward a cliff, the drop getting closer and closer, and Dream was afraid. He was afraid that if he stood face to face with it, he would jump. Dream knew, though, that to forfeit was to confess that he wanted to kiss George. So he only had one option.
He had to make George lose first.
––
After finishing his water bottle, Dream went straight to George’s room. Just kiss me, you idiot. Don’t make me do it first. When he knocked and George answered, he spun them around and slammed George against the back of his door without a word.
“Dream,” George said, the breath knocked out of him. His face looked almost relieved, but it was probably just shock.
“Did you think I had given up?”
“To be honest I thought I might have scared you off. Got a little too close to losing, didn’t you?”
“In your dreams.” Dream pressed George harder against the door, his face close enough to see each of George’s dark eyelashes.
Fuck, he was getting distracted.
Dream grabbed the top of George’s hair and pinned it to the wood, forcing George to look up at him and tip his mouth closer.
“I’m getting bored of this game,” Dream said, swallowing the screaming fear in his lungs and replacing it with steel. “It’s time for you to lose already.”
George’s chest was heaving. Dream felt it against his sternum and on his face where George’s breath stirred his hair. It occurred to Dream belatedly how hot this was, their bodies pressed together and George’s throat spasming against the awkward angle Dream held his head at. The ledge approached. Dream was afraid. He clearly had the upper hand here, and yet his pulse was thundering like an animal in a cage.
George licked his lips. Oh, god . If he so much as twitched his lower half, Dream would be hard and he would be over the cliff and falling.
George twisted his head to the best of his ability. Dream let his hair go, and he pressed his hot mouth against Dream’s ear.
“Nice try.”
George’s voice vibrated through him, sending a nasty shiver up his spine. He hoped George hadn’t felt it. George had definitely felt it.
George was still there, his cheek sliding against Dream’s and creating sparks that were so charged they almost hurt. “Can you let me go now so I can get back to work?”
Dream released him. The rush of cold air that filled the space between them was the wind between a cliff’s edge and the jagged rocks below.
Despite his growing hard on, Dream found it in him to fake a smirk. He brushed past George and shut the door behind him.
––
By the afternoon, Dream was winding up to a full-on crisis. He didn’t care what Sapnap said about not getting involved, he needed his best friend.
“Nick,” Dream said.
Sapnap put his phone down. “Yeah?”
“I’m in love with him.”
The silence was almost too full. Dream didn’t know it would feel so real, saying it out loud.
When Sapnap finally spoke, his voice was gentler than Dream was expecting. “Well, no shit.”
He patted the spot next to him on the sofa. Dream sank into it gratefully and let Sapnap pull him into a hug.
Sapnap gave some of the best hugs Dream had ever received. He was fierce in his love and he wasn’t afraid to let you feel it. Sapnap’s hugs made Dream feel safe. He didn’t hug like Dream was fragile, he hugged like he was holding together the pieces of Dream that threatened to fly away.
“I’m terrified,” Dream said into Sapnap’s shoulder. “What do I do?”
“You could tell him.”
“No.”
“You could kiss him.”
“No.”
Sapnap pulled back. “Well, those were my two ideas.”
“It’s just not that simple,” Dream said, rubbing his shin on the edge of the coffee table hard enough to bruise. “Things are really weird between us right now as it is. I could ruin our friendship.”
“But if you don’t do anything,” Sapnap spoke carefully, “then it could end up ruined anyway. You get that, right? You can’t just hold this in forever.”
Dream didn’t want to understand, but he did. The harder he compressed this into the bottom of his heart, the more deadly the explosion would be later on. The cliff was approaching and he was going over—the only question was when.
“If I could just get him to kiss me,” Dream said.
“Yeah,” Sapnap said. “Just don’t let it destroy you. Okay?”
Dream gave him a tight smile. “I’ll try my best.”
––
So, it was decided. That night, Dream was going to make George kiss him. He was going to end this, once and for all, if only he could find George. The house only had so many rooms, how could he not be in any of them? Dream even checked Sapnap’s.
“Hey, Nick, is George in here?”
“Why would he be in here, dipshit?”
Suffice to say, George wasn’t anywhere. It was by pure coincidence that Dream glanced out the window to the backyard and saw a shape sitting in the dark grass. He put his shoes on and walked out the sliding glass door, ready to squeeze the stubbornness out of George’s lungs.
“George?”
The figure turned. Moonlight turned silver in his hair, and the sight was all at once too soft to align with Dream’s plans. “Hey.”
Dream walked over and sat next to him, not close enough to touch but close enough to feel the warmth from his bare arm. He almost tried to lean in, but something about George’s face stopped him in his tracks.
“Hey, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” George said. It wasn’t very convincing. He sat back on his hands and the stars caught in his eyelashes.
Dream let the silence settle. There was something sweet about it, something like the absence of pain. They felt like their old selves again, suddenly, and Dream found that he was able to relax for the first time in days. For once, his mind was quiet.
“Look at the sky,” George said, his voice barely louder than a whisper. The night was a beautiful creature around them, warmer than the air conditioned house but still cool on Dream’s skin.
Dream looked up.
The stars weren’t all that bright in Orlando, but they still managed to make him dizzy. Like he was falling up, past the cosmic lanterns on their silver chains and into the dark rafters above.
George took a deep breath, the air hushing out of his nose. “There’s so many more of them here than there are in London.”
Dream looked at the reflections in George’s eyes. He was hit with that homesickness again, an ache to be closer that burrowed deep under his skin. “Do you miss London?”
George looked at his feet. His expression was barely visible in the moonlight. “Sometimes. I miss the home-ness of it. Everything just felt…safer.”
Something pulled in Dream’s chest. He thought about late night calls, about easy texts throughout the day, about citrus shampoo now that he knew it was the smell of George. “Do you not feel safe here?”
“I want to tell you I do. I love being here with you and Sapnap.” George looked him in the eye. “But it is scary sometimes. Everything is so intense here. I can never catch my breath.”
Dream knew some of that probably had to do with him. It made his stomach twist, both sour and shamefully delicious.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s not your fault.”
“I’m still sorry. I don’t like seeing you afraid.”
George looked back at the sky. “Sometimes fear is a good thing.”
Dream was content to sit in silence after that, the breeze in the palm trees making a noise like a thousand sighs painting the air.
George laughed a little. “You know, I’m surprised you haven’t tried to make a move on me in my vulnerable state.”
“I was worried about you. I wouldn’t do that to you if you were upset.”
“I know you wouldn’t.” George bit his lip. The way he was looking at Dream was the edge of a cliff.
Dream nudged their shoulders together. “I could make a move on you now, if you wanted me to.”
George laughed fully. “I’d like to see you try.”
Dream leaned in, his heart on his tongue, and he didn’t stop until their noses brushed. George’s breath caught sweetly.
“How’s this?” Dream murmured.
“Mediocre,” George said. Dream felt the word’s vibration on his lips.
There was nothing but this closeness, their panting breaths intermingling, the night falling like a blanket over their heads. Dream turned further toward George, bringing a hand up to cradle his dark curls, and this made George’s mouth fall open. Dream swore that for the barest second in this motion, their lips had nearly brushed.
“Giving up yet?” George asked.
“Nope.”
The pull of George’s lips was like gravity, like the pull over the edge of a cliff when you stood leaning towards it. Dream didn’t think he had ever been able to taste something so strongly without actually having it. His resolve was crumbling. He knew that this was how it would end––in the grass behind his house, Dream’s last shred of willpower shattering in the dark, and he was almost content with that. They were so close, closer than molecules and the air between them hummed. Dream was tipping over the ledge in slow motion.
George inhaled. Dream felt the air being pulled from between his lips as hands fisted in the fabric of his t-shirt. Dream thought that he was gearing up to say something. Instead, George leaned into the breath of space between them and jumped.
It was like air when their lips collided, like the lungfuls and lungfuls of wind between falling and flying. Dream gripped George’s face with both hands, the blood fizzing in his veins. George kissed like he was trying to pull everything out of Dream, and Dream kissed to give it to him. They were falling over the cliff and into the stars––Dream could hear the wind howling in his ears.
He pulled back, putting as much space between them as George would allow––which wasn’t much.
“You’re kissing me,” he said.
“You’re kissing me back , idiot.” George swung a leg over Dream’s lap and connected their lips again.
The curve of George’s spine was delicious. The way his waist fit in Dream’s hands was nearly a crime. George was everywhere––his hands in Dream’s hair, his tongue in Dream’s mouth, his thighs pressing Dream’s legs into the ground. When he slotted their hips together, Dream almost passed out.
“Holy shit.”
George laughed but it was more of a breath on Dream’s tongue, and when he rolled his hips again it was more of a moan.
“Oh my god, George, you’re going to kill me.”
“That’s the idea.” George bit into Dream’s bottom lip and pulled at it with savage heat.
Dream didn’t think he could get any harder. He grabbed George by the throat and when slick lips fell open he breathed hot air into his mouth. “My bed. Now.”
George had never nodded faster. Dream carried him up to his room, the stars swinging in their wake, and no one in the house got much sleep that night.
––
At breakfast the next morning, a disgruntled Sapnap asked the question. “So, who lost the bet?”
Dream and George looked at each other.
“I did,” Dream said.
George smiled into his mug of tea. He looked like home.
“Well, I’m glad you guys worked it out. I haven’t had a healthy shit in days.”
Dream put his fork down. “Ew, Sapnap, that’s disgusting.”
“It’s your fault, so you get to hear about it. So, what, are you guys dating now?”
Dream shrugged.
“We’ll talk about it later,” George said. “I’m going back to bed.”
“Me too.” Dream yawned.
Sapnap glared at them. “Yeah, you weren’t the only ones who didn’t get enough sleep. I need to invest in earplugs. Or a good rock to knock myself out with.”
When Dream cleared away his dishes and went upstairs to his room, George was already curled up in his bed. The soft morning light drew patterns on George’s bare arm where it covered his face, his nose buried in between Dream’s pillows. Dream grinned. Life wasn’t so bad over the edge of the cliff. He snuggled up behind George and kissed him at the nape of his neck. He smelled like home.
George hummed. He sounded like home. He reached back and took Dream’s hand, their fingers interlacing. He felt like home.
Dream didn’t know what he and George were yet, but they had plenty of time and love for each other to figure it out. All he knew in this moment was that he would never hold back from kissing George again.