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Life as a lunar god is a lonely, cold existence.
George lives away from mortal souls, ensnared in thick rays of stardust, drowning in dark matter and the pure energy of existence.
He has no true company, the stars speak to him only in hushed, reverent tones, nothing close to the companionship he so desires.
Every evening he rises in the sky, silver as he arches across the atmosphere, every bit of him fine lines and satin smiles. His diaphanous robes trail behind him, curling and flitting at his feet, tangling into the trysts of secret lovers, dipping into oceans, and pulling at the tides.
Humans were hesitant of him, this he knows. His presence is not always charming, nor is he always the romantic that philosophers or the chronicles make him out to be. His touch brings the beasts of the night, howling and clawing at the doorstep of mankind.
Temples, cold and lonely, placated by offerings left by the unknown and the afraid, filled with warriors who come to beg him for safe travels and guidance through the darkest hours of night.
He is feared because he is the unknown. He is darkness, the empty, the great chasm of night and all who lurk within. Beautiful, certainly. But feared nonetheless.
Dream has never been regarded the same way, not does George think he ever will be.
Humanity adores him. Of course they do; he’s the life-giver, the creator, the torch that lights their way through history. He’s perfect .
He raises their crops, he shines down on their families, tans their skin and flushes their cheeks. Golden heat, coloring everything shades brighter, and when his face turns to humanity, they thank him for it. He’s the lion in the sky, the breaker of day, the antithesis of darkness.
He’s everything George isn't.
And if it was anyone else but Dream, anyone else but that perfect being, George might have even been jealous. Jealous of the love that he lost out on, festivals and prayers that seemed to slight him, but Dream, a god so gentle and loving, a being of such tender affection, made it impossible to feel any sense of resentment towards him.
Because George loves him too.
They had been born together, at the beginning of time, not as family, but not quite as strangers. They watched earth grow from its infancy, and while Dream nurtured their days and blessed their crops, George’s presence fostered the chill of night, the kiss of death in the midst of sleep, lamb’s blood painted in an X across doors in the hopes to stay alive.
But through it all, George knew Dream was unattainable. He spends eons chasing nymphs and minor gods through fields of baking grain, loving them at the apex of being, an endless cycle of purity and goodness that George has never been able to reach into. Every entity the god beds is rife with golden energy, beautiful creatures and heartbreaking mortals, with heat bleeding out of their very souls. They live in the sunshine.
They are everything George isn’t.
Dream has never looked at George with anything more than a friendly admiration in his eyes, perhaps a hint of dark lust, something better fit for a whore than a lover.
George did his best to stay above it all.
He grew cold, detached. Made friends with Erebos, Nyx, cast out all things good and happy, and flourished in his misery.
A little pathetic, but it works.
The only time he allowed himself to be warmed, allowed something like pleasure into his heart were on the days he and Dream collided without pomp and circumstance, just two gods, in company of one another.
The solar eclipse.
Every year they meet, share a smile or two, walk through the sky for a time, Dream’s warm hands circling his waist, never quite enough for George to feel satisfied, but too much for him to staunch the terrible affection that opened up and spilled, woundlike from his chest.
Dream twirls him around the sky, a dance they’ve performed a million times before, whirling together as humanity watches in awe.
But then they part, and George feels even emptier than he did before.
Again and again, eons of pining, of dark hair flowing with gold, of the painful pound of a heartbeat and the plaintive looks shot when the sun wasn’t looking.
And each time, the night sky burns with the aching of an atrophied heart.
George had low expectations coming into the eclipse, knowing he’d probably come away from the whole encounter with a new thorn driven deep into his heart and fingerprints scalded into his waist.
It was only to be expected from the sun god.
But the embrace of the two celestials is required, and one of the only things George does that it is revered, so he has no choice but to subject himself to it time and time again.
He descends from the heavens as the day darkens and crescent moons lay into the shadows of the earth.
“Dream.” The moon calls, his words gleaming and his skin silver as he dismounts from the sky, his every footfall leaving sprays of asteroids jetting through the black.
“George!” The sun replies, pulling his hands from the earth.
His garden, George almost forgot.
Eden, he calls it, the playground of the nymphs and pretty mortals he takes a liking to. George is oft given invitations, but he turns them down just as well, unwilling to chance upon Dream rutting between some beautiful youth’s legs.
Still, despite the dirt covering his hands and clay clinging to his fingertips, little imperfections that might make him seem just a bit less celestial, a hint less powerful, George still finds himself wanting to cower under his gaze. “You look lovely tonight.”
“Are you implying that I don't look lovely other nights?” George smiles, robes billowing from under him as he makes contact with the soft grass. He floats, rather than making a heavy connection with the earth, but he supposes that's only to be expected of a lunar god, far removed from the burden of gravity.
“Not at all, my dear.” Dream says as he reaches for George with his sullied hands. A warm arm wraps around his cold waist, a gentle but uncomfortable claim. Heat burns through George’s delicate robes; the creator’s touch destructive on such thin skin. “You are always a beauty.”
“Flirt.” George teases, but in the back of his mind, something facetious and vain wishes him to continue and praise his beauty, years for the sun god to tighten that heated grip around his waist and hold him close.
“Your garden is beautiful.” George says, watching pink and blue snapdragons sway in the wind, neatly planted in rows of warm soil. He leans down to touch them, longing to feel the thickness of their petals, but they shy away, growing cold and withered at his fingertips.
Dream settles a warm hand over his spine, using his other to send beams of life down to the flowers, who perk up to their glory again.
“I don’t think they like me very much.” George whispers, voice of champagne and nightshade.
“They are merely shy.” Dream answers, looking out to the large tree a few paces ahead of them. “It’s not every day that we have visitors as beautiful as you.”
“My, such flattery.” George spins, knowing full well of the beauty that lurks daily within the garden. “I think you forget yourself.”
“That is very likely, dear moon.” Dream soothes with a warm smile, leading George carefully through rows of violets and lavender. “I forget many things when I look to you.”
George sighs breathily, forlorn pain shifting in his chest. Dream continues down that distant road, false tongues and biting cheek. It hurts.
“Shame you never visit me.” Dream breathes, his footsteps clashing the path golden and tampered down. “I would love to see more of you.”
The pad through cherry blossom trees, Dream’s hand never leaving the small of George’s back.
“Being a god is busy work, Dream.” George cuts, ignoring the sly euphemisms and double meanings always on Dream’s tongue. “I’m sure you understand.”
George can feel the rumble of laughter from the sun god, can see the stray bolt of light pass through the sky.
“Still.” Dream says, his breath ghosting along the curve of George’s neck. George swallows thickly, not knowing when Dream had gotten so close. “It is a crime to deny me your presence.”
Somehow, while they walked through lines of tulips and walls of bursting honeysuckle , the atmosphere around them had changed from their usual playful banter to something hotter, the arm wrapped around George’s slim waist pulling him into a broad chest.
George licks his lips, hands crawling up to hold the stiff golden collar of Dream’s coat.
“Is it?” He says bravely.
Dream looks down, something hungry in his eyes.
“Why don't you visit me?” He whispers, eyes searching for answers through George’s thin veil. “Have I done something to offend you?”
“No.” George replies, almost whimpering at the sensation of Dream’s hands sliding across his back, heat scalding his skin blissfully. “You’ve done nothing.”
“You avoid me, sweet thing.” Dream murmurs, and George is achingly reticent of the gentle scent of jasmine permeating the air. “You flinch from my touch.”
“I-I do not mean to.” George lies, almost tripping on a thick root as Dream maneuvers them under a large oak tree.
“Perhaps not. But you do.” Dream says again, insistent in the perfumed air.
Distantly, George wonders if any of this is real.
Dream sits them down gently, shaded by the thick branches and oak leaves. He splays George out on his back, silken fabric slipping down George’s shoulders as he rests in the lush clover.
“Do I scare you?” Dream asks, fingers playing with the edge of George’s veil. He aches to lift it, to bare the beauty below him to the world, to feel his skin ebb and flow at his behest, but he refrains. Barely. “Hurt you?”
George gasps, Dream’s hand planted firmly on one side of his waist while the other pushes and teases, fabric begging to be torn and pulled from beautiful skin.
“A little.” He murmurs, traitor’s hand reaching up to push golden locks behind Dream’s ear. “I am hesitant to get close.”
Dream smiles gently at him, catching his wrist and pressing heated kisses to the inside of it.
“Why’s that?” He whispers against delicate skin, cold to his lips. He grips the earth next to George’s body, the plants drying and browning in his palm. “I would like to be close to you.”
“You have never looked at me the way I wanted you to.” George breathes, and a weight falls from him, the sweet release of thousand-year-old tension. He seeps into the ground, silver pearls as the air flickers and waves with heat.
“How do you want me to look at you?” Dream asks heavily, teeth gritting as he closes his eyes with deep longing.
“Like you want me,” George says breathily, voice somewhere between desire and innocence, “Like you love me.”
“I have wanted you.” Dream says defensively, sky breaking blue and white.
“You lust after me.” George says, airy vengeance in his voice. “There’s a difference.”
Dream’s face softens tenderly, the realization in his virtuous eyes.
“I die every night, just to see you live.” Dream says, “And I would do it for eons more, if only to see you smile. Is that not love?”
“I don’t…” George trails off as the wind picks up, the soft tittering of bells arcing through the boughs of willow.
Dream is above him now, pushing up the long bolts of fabric that cover George's pretty legs, skin breathing peony at his knees.
“I shine upon you, hoping you’ll come to see me, reflecting and refracting in your absence.” Dream continues, sliding between George’s now exposed thighs. “Is that not love?”
George shivers as Dream’s hands go up, up, up , warm and soothing on beaming marble.
“My dear, you have kept yourself from me, from everything for so long .” He says, reaching down to cradle George’s head in the palm of his hand. “Perhaps you have forgotten what love feels like.”
“Forgotten?” George questions softly, loosely holding onto Dream's shoulders.
“Let me show you.” Dreams whispers, dipping his face down to the exposed skin on George’s chest. “Let me want you.”
He looks to George expectantly, waiting for permission, always the gentleman. He is beautiful.
“ Dream .” George breathes, and the world sings with completion.
Dream lifts his veil, and George is bared before him, untouched like every star in the sky. No being, divine or otherwise has seen him like this, uncovered and displayed.
“Such beauty.” He praises, and George feels something hot and breathless curl in his belly.
Dream dips his head down and presses his warm lips to the soft plush of George’s cheekbone. Heat bursts through George’s cells, ichor melting into bone marrow and silk.
Dream reaches down to him, amber and sunspots flashing as George closes his eyes and lets him in.
Dream tastes like life, like sweetest honey cloying and warm on his tongue as Dream licks into him.
They kissed once before, a stolen moment as Dream pulled him to the side before the end of an eclipse. George blushed heavily before jetting away, slipping into nightshade and velvet. Dream stood alone for some time after.
It was nothing like this.
Dream is hungry but gentle, possessive but sweet. He rucks the fabric of George’s long robes over his slender hips, grinding between his legs with effortless familiarity. George is bared beneath him, and soon, with little effort on the moon god’s part, so too is Dream.
He kisses each fragile bone, warms every inch of cold skin, holds him close with blistering protection.
“I have watched you for so long.” Dream sighs, sucking purple bruises into unlit skin. “Watched you flit, just out of my grasp.”
“Dream…” George whines, pleasured by every delicate touch. “Please.”
“I yearn for you.” He whispers, kissing George deeply. “But you run from me.”
George arches his back, and the earth splits and shines with their embrace, coiled rings of Saturn whipping through the universe.
“Don't run.” Dream begs, brushing through George's hair, pearl-embedded circlet falling from his head. “Stay.”
George looks up at him, tears of moonlight and sunset toil through his face.
“ Stay.” Dream asks again, gentle and soft. George whirls with light, shaping the cosmos around them as they kiss again. “With me.”
“ Yes,” George answers divinely, hands armoring the burn of Dream’s shoulders. “With you.”
Dream smiles at him, something shaky and supremely relieved, and delves deep into the hollow of George’s collarbone.
He sucks and bites, teases and loves until George lets out weak sobs, staining his throat with pomegranate and cherry blossoms.
“I adore you.” Dream confesses against his throat, hands rubbing sleek circles into the curl of George’s hips.
He reaches into forgotten clothing and when he returns, fingertips doused in holy oil press against him, warm hands asking him blessed consent.
“More.” George begs, gasping as rays of light filter behind him. “ More.”
Dream presses his fingers in, gentle and slow as George glistens stardust around his wrists, breathing in lines of carbon and hydrogen.
Slowly, steadily with budding need, Dream slides their lips together again, easing yet another finger into the slickness of George’s body.
George shines beneath him, growing bolder as his thighs are spread further by strong hips.
“Inside.” He whines, pulling at Dream’s hips. He breathes phosphorescent in the dark, fond vines coming to curl in his hair, twine through his fallen robes. “ Know me .”
Dream presses against him, drooling tip and hot blood. They are feverish as they meet, chilled as they sink into each other, and sweating when they are whole.
The closeness is suffocating, tenderly so, and George cannot help but sob, body shaking as Dream holds him down.
“Why do you cry, my love?” Dream soothes, wiping away crystalline tears from the peaks of George’s face.
George shivers, Dream’s words repeating, cycling, chasing him in and out. It is enough.
My love, my love, my love-
Comets fly in all directions as Dream presses into him, warm pleasure as they hold each other. Dream’s hands clasp protective around George's hips while pale skin buckles and melts under his touch.
“Beautiful.” Dream praises, kissing every inch of flesh because his body still yearns for more contact, even when sunk deep within his lover.
They move as only gods can do, on equal terms, with equal power, with deep respect, old as time itself.
They are starlight and knowledge, being and undone.
They clash, and nothing hurts. They blister and freeze, and heal even faster, skin enveloping skin, marble against holy ivory. It's enough to make Dream dim, even more to make George shine in his own right.
“ Dream .” George cries, and for all his silken words, for all his venom and secrets, he is stemmed by the flow of Dream’s heat, staunched by the slide of his hips. He can think only of the name he has painted through the galaxy, pulled from his mind and splattered across every red giant and yellow star that was almost right, but not quite perfect.
Dream groans a prayer, praise, anything to help him gather his thoughts enough to reply to the beautiful thing underneath him.
George is gone, emptied and filled back up again; the lovely curve of his thighs is innocent, tempered only by the lewd swell of his belly as Dream thrusts into him.
Ambrosia, alight on skin and bone as George arches back, moans into the day, and new constellations burn through the fabric of life.
They are enough.
They move like atoms, like time and space, like the three fates cutting, mending, spinning.
They wax and wane, grow and die within each other as the cosmos remembers what it feels to be loved, reaches out into the far lost and forgotten and pulls it in tight.
The sun is gentle, but he is strong, and his power knows its keeper in the embrace of the inconstant moon.
“I’m close.” He gasps out, feeling George writhe in ecstasy beneath him.
Euphoria strikes deep in the purity of their souls, slices across skin and muscle, trembles where their bodies slam against one another.
“ Please.” George cries, moonlight and beauty. He is uncovered, unmade, creator-bound by adoration. “ I need you.”
George shakes as Dream pushes into him, watches the swell of his belly move with each thrust, everything glowing silver and crescent moons until everything burns enough, spills over veritas and completion.
George cums like he does all things, beautifully. Dream cannot help but stare as it all comes down, loves the arch of his spine, the open gasp of his lips, the content cries as he falls back to earth.
It is everything.
Dream spills into him not long after, his touch sparking Leo, Scorpio, Gemini, as they are bonded in all power, in devotion.
They breathe each other in, and there is clarity in the embrace.
“Stay.” Dream whispers coarsely, kissing George with the gentleness of a honeybee, lips pressed against poppy red.
“How?” George replies, meekly holding onto the warm curve of Dream’s spine. “I don't know how to stay.”
“Try.” Dream rumbles, pulling out with a soft deluge, gathering the lunar god in his arms. “Weather this life with me.”
“The eclipse-” George tries.
“It means nothing.” Dream says, looking to him with private tenderness. “We can control it. We must only learn how.”
George watches as the sun begins to smolder again, pulling away from where the moon rests pretty in the sky. Dream does not move with it.
“ Stay.” He says with desperate finality as George begins to flicker and stir. “Try, my love.”
George resists the pull of his heavenly body, chains himself to the earth as Dream holds him the best he can. It yanks at something deep in his chest, a lifeline uncertain and ignored.
The moon heaves and struggles, but eventually, with no small will and work of desperate faith, does it stay, high and perched in the sunlit sky.
George breathes heavily, arches and moans as he tethers everything to forgotten love. Dream holds him through it, presses every ounce of effort he has into the small body that struggles and latches onto the mortal realm.
“With me.” Dream honors, his hands branding into the slick sweat of George’s spine, overpowering it all, bringing it all back down, small and manageable.
“With you.” George repeats, and they pull together again, burning heat against ice and cosmos.