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No matter how much you shield your children, the fact is, growing up is unavoidable. Learning things about the world, about oneself, where you fit in, where your future lies, and, most importantly, with whom.
'Soulmates', a wonderfully romantic word, the topic of many romcoms and news stories. And yet it takes eleven years from birth for Dream to first witness the factual mark of a soulmate bond:
He's in a movie theater- some cartoon he doesn't even remember anymore. What he does remember is becoming aware of a glow at the side of his vision. First thought: someone's on their phone.
Then why is their phone purple and being hidden under a draped-over jacket? There's giggling, a young couple, her hand on his lap, not looking at the movie. Dream isn't looking at the movie either. The girl's breasts start to emanate a light yellow aura and Dream watches her giggle again, shift her bra around, and then she proceeds to do something under the jacket that he's only a few months away from understanding.
When Dream gets his first waking erection, one not hidden in a wet dream and gone by morning, he's scared for only about ten minutes. Sitting at his computer with the obscene video on pause, he's staring at his dick's terribly worrying red glow.
Better parents warn their kids. Dream doesn't have better parents. What Dream does have, is the ability to adapt, think fast, and learn very very well.
Boners at school are a nightmare and he knows at least half of his soccer team own light-canceling briefs. He gets a friend with credit card access to order him a pair too, because by god does he not want to traverse school grounds with the potential beacon of a stoplight announcing his soulmate's tastes to the world.
In high school, jacking it under the covers in the dark, he thinks: it looks like a forest fire. It feels like a forest fire too, in the pit of his stomach as his hand hurries and struggles to keep all of it under control, struggles to prevent the embarrassing slapping noise he'd rather not be caught because of.
It's the first time something unrelated to 'bruise' 'injury' 'blood' and 'STD' crosses his mind about the color of his desire. The color, that someone somewhere has decorated their room in and dresses in daily. Dream swallows back a whine and the slapping noise barely even matters anymore. Not when he's thinking about a soulmate, not when he's struggling for his breath to come out soundless.
Freshman year high school is also when the magic fades.
From everything. From the idea of adult life, from the memories of chidlhood, from the beauty of every given day. Dream grinds his teeth with the sound of his alarm clock and hates his heavy curtains. They block out every sunrise with masterful darkness, and usually it's welcome. When he wakes up hard, it's like an ugly, literally glowing reminder: things aren't perfect.
Soulmates die. Dicks disappear.
You never meet your soulmate. You're stuck the rest of your life with only one shard of knowledge about them: their wretched favorite color, one you're sick of seeing, one your long-term partner is sick of seeing too.
Sometimes people just don't CLICK. Sometimes it's ugly, and Dream can't imagine anything but 'ugly' for his future.
Ugly household, ugly grades, ugly red, burning red, glow:
You're lonely.
He's sick of red. Sick of his father's red car. Sick of the school's red and white colors. Sick of his own blood.
He jerks off angry at himself and the world and some hypothetical person out there.
George is an easy escape. George is difficult, but very easy. Easy to shove around, easy to pick up and throw onto a bed, easy to pretend to love.
When George has to take a breath and slides his mouth off Dream's dick in the locker room, his face is lit up, like a kid telling a scary story and pointing their flashlight upwards- his face is illuminated by Dream's hard-on in deadly red. And when George slides off his dick and licks his swollen lips, voice wrecked- when he says: "It's so nice having my favorite color in my mouth"-
Well. It's easy to lie. Easy to not correct him with, "Wait, red isn't your favorite color." Easy to roll along with his mistake of hues, and snake his fingers through George's hair, and smile back. Pretend that George is right, and that it's okay to not fess up, that the color George is not seeing is red, not yellow.
Dream tricks himself into thinking he can be happy with George. Everyone thinks that anyway. Everyone except Sap, who'd known him for too long and- when you know someone since middle school, you either fess up or they'll inevitably catch a glimpse: what color you glow.
So Sap knows. Dream can see it in his eyes sometimes, at lunch, when George leans his head on Dream's shoulder, or talks about marriage or soulmates- Sap watches them with unreadable silence. Not judgment but...
Dream takes quizzes in study hall. Pick your breakfast and we'll tell you how you'll meet your soulmate. Name us your favorite celebrities and we'll guess the color your soulmate likes! Choose your childhood movies and we'll guess the age you meet your soulmate at!
Dream gets '15' for the last one. He's passed that. And he's not sure whether Buzzfeed is utter baloney, or maybe he's not made for tender love.
Their breakup with George is loud and petty and they're both wrong. Dream knows his mistakes, and George lashes out in a way that screams: I'm hiding things too. It results in social ghosting. That's fine. That's fine. Dream's fine. Dream's fine alone. He works better like that. It's freeing, not having to drag someone behind you, not having to explain your jokes or hide the fact your dick's fucking red when it's hard and hope none of George's friends notice or tell him.
Now he doesn't have to lie about his favorite color to match George's groin. Doesn't have to dress differently so people at school don't spread rumors- about how the shiny beloved couple of young soulmates is faking it. Doesn't have to lie that he - like some fucking weirdo - likes grey.
"Green," He tells Sap as they're lying on his bed, studying abandoned for a cry session. "I like green."
"I know." Sap's watching the ceiling. "I know."
Dream cries, and when he closes his eyes to block out the world, the weekend's midday sun lights up his eyelids and paints his vision in red.
There's a silence. Dream's never been affectionate- or. He had. Long ago. Now they lie there, and Dream cries silently, because god things are difficult and his head hurts and college applications are all soon, and there's just so much uncertainty out there- and he doesn't feel like anything will ever work out right.
He'd spent years hating someone he doesn't know. Maybe it'd been an easy way to escape hating himself.
Sapnap says with a smile, "You and your soulmate would make a christmas tree."
It catches him offguard. He can't help but laugh.
They go shopping. It's refreshing to buy green things for the first time in almost two years.
"Maybe try something red," Sap snorts outside the dressing room, "Make a good first impression. Eventually."
'Good first impression'.
Dream hates the color, but he can't deny it sits well. On him, on the shoulders that the gym filled out for him, on his arms, his body, the red hoodie is... Something new.
His last summer, he works three jobs, and maybe it's that, or the dawning fear of college and a different state and a different everything- maybe it's the stress- maybe it's other things, but Dream barely sees red glow.
He sees his own red blood on his knuckles, on the drywall, he sees it in the red hoodie he wears on bad days. Never outside- it doesn't go well with his other clothes, but alone in his room? It feels like a luxury of peace.
He moves out in the red car, passed down after his father's driving license got revoked.
It tears down the highways, filled to the brink with his belongings- all of them. He's got not a single intention of ever ever coming back.
He's there a week before the first semester starts. The dorms greet him in a slew of strangers, and it's terrifying- but oh is it refreshing. New faces that don't remember him as the perfect little soulmate in grey. New faces that don't know about his family, his anything.
He drags his suitcases into a new life.
Into a new life and into his dorm room. For now, only his own. His roommate is to arrive a few days later.
Dream settles onto one of the two beds and sits there in silence, staring at the opposite wall, heart in his throat for no good reason.
Well. Things move on.
He smiles wide and talks loud and makes friends, and comes back to his still empty dorm and drops it all like a veil. Feels the weight of every week every day every hour drag him down, until he's changed into that red hoodie and fallen onto his bed in empty melancholy.
Once again, he is alone.
Until he isn't.
He misses the email that alerts him of the roommate's imminent arrival.
So when the guy shoulders his door open, pink long hair, bored eyes, white button-up, sleek plastic suitcase that will later be revealed as an utter unorganized mess inside-
When Technoblade walks into his life, Dream's wearing that red hoodie.
"Nice shirt," Techno nods like it's obligatory to say something at least, and kicks the door shut. "My name's Technoblade. I hope you're alright."
"I try my best," Dream says, feeling the ground falling away from under his feet for no pinnable reason. "I'm Dream. I hope you're fun."
"I don't try at all," Techno mimics his reply, and it's the first time he grins.
Dream can't help grinning back. "Maybe you don't have to."
They don't hit it off-
Or maybe they do.
Maybe arguing about instant noodle preparation, maybe wrestling for the last set of room keys because one set vanished- maybe getting a noise complaint for shouting at MMOs on Techno's screen- maybe the playful hatred they treat each other with is 'hitting it off'.
Maybe when Dream turns to face the wall deep into the night, hidden under the heavy duvet he hopes will cancel all light- maybe when he starts to touch himself, he sees the red of his dick and thinks about the red of Techno's backpack, jacket, phone case. Maybe he bites his lip and tries to not make a sound, because that would be terribly rude. Because he'd hate for Techno to catch a glimpse of his erection's color and make unwanted conclusions.
Because what if Techno thinks he's Dream's soulmate and then Dream has to turn him down? Tell him: sorry, no, I'm not built for love. Sorry.
The thought - as it crosses his mind - for some strange reason makes him want to cry. His hand slows, the glow dies down. Half-hard only now, Dream can't tell why it's upsetting to think of a rejection.
He redirects his mind to hands and thighs and lips and starts to move once more.
Hands, knobby and strong, calloused from hand-writing too many exams and notes, smudged forever in ink he wants to lick off, lick off the pads of fingers and the veiny backs of those hands. Thighs of someone who does sport but doesn't frequent the gym. Lips that speak his name in endless chastising.
He's in utter accident thinking about Technoblade.
It can't go on like this.
Dream puts on his lime hoodie in the morning and watches Techno stare at it with pronounced, venomous hatred.
"What?"
"Ugly color." Techno replies, looking honestly on the verge of going green himself and throwing up, "Eye-cutting."
"Fuck off." Dream snaps and leaves the room.
George's instagram is a vice of Dream's to check. He still goes crawling back to look. Curiosity and something like baseless possessiveness. He hopes the tall motherfucker in almost all of George's photos now is boring and an asshole. Who else can possibly like the color grey? Dream hopes the edgy bitch in his tattered trench coat liked growing up with a dick that glowed George's favorite dirty-yellow.
He shuts his phone off.
He jerks off at night, and he doesn't think about anyone at all actually.
Techno helps him with the statistics curriculum. Dream pays for Techno's coffee. They watch Game of Thrones together. Techno tells him at length about horse racing and betting. Dream drives him to malls. They argue and know it doesn't hurt the other. And eventually, something like respect starts to crawl into those arguments. Compliments stop being back-handed. It's more like the insults start sounding like praise. Dream likes the way Techno smiles. Likes watching him study in his lime noise-canceling headphones.
'Soulmates', a dreadfully romantic word, the topic of many romcoms and news stories, and Dream hates hearing it. Has hated it for years.
He's driving, it's evening, just getting dark, and Techno's long turned the radio off to talk about some 1970s drug bust. He's very animated as he speaks in Dream's periphery, talking like he'd lost the fear of Dream's judgment- and he has. He can talk about anything at all and Dream will listen. Driving or shopping or just lying in bed as Techno grinds XP in some MMO.
And god does Dream hate soulmates.
So why not go against that pre-destined bullshit again and just do what he really fucking wants to? It was easy to lose himself in loving George, but it'd been escapism at best and a wicked kind of self harm at worst, forcing romantic affection.
Techno is not easy.
Dream wants to be challenged, wants to be one-upped and stood up against and argued with. Techno is very difficult to love. Dream wants to work for it for the rest of his life.
It's an overwhelming dawning sort of realization. He stops the car.
"Heh?" Techno pauses and looks around, and when he looks back, Dream's looking at him. "What? You alright? Dream."
Dream doesn't really have much to say.
When had Techno gotten good at reading him?
"Something's wrong." It's an accusation. And god is he lovely like that, never soft or cordial with other people's feelings when he can get away with being blunt.
Dream asks, "Can I kiss you?"
It wipes that blunt impassiveness right off Techno's face, and replaces it with the first shade of red in his lifetime that Dream finds himself describing as 'lovely'.
"...Why?"
Caution. Apprehension. Immediate, wide-eyed attention. Interest.
"I wanna."
And Techno doesn't believe him, or doesn't trust himself to believe him. So he laughs a high and wheezy cackle, unnatural and evasive. "Not a funny bit. Don't joke about stuff like this."
Dream takes his hands off the wheel and puts one, daringly, on Techno's thigh. "I'm not joking. It's not a bit. I wanna kiss you. Do you want me to?"
Techno's laugh sputters out into silence and a loud, clicking swallow. His adams apple bobs. The hand isn't batted away-
Dream squeezes his thigh and looks down-
The zipper of Techno's jeans is glowing just a tiny bit lime.
Ok hold the fucking phone.
"Dude-" Dream frowns. "What color's your dick."
"That is NOT a question you ASK people." Techno raises his voice, but the hand is still allowed to touch.
And Dream touches.
Dream slides his hand closer to Techno's inner thigh, feels how warm he is through the material of his jeans, feels his leg twitch, and looks down again- and yeah no that is definitely both an erection and a green one at that.
"No fucking way," he sinks his fingers into Techno's inner thigh for good measure, "That's #20f600."
"WHY DO YOU KNOW THE COLOR OF MY DICK-" Techno screams, finally shaking Dream's hand off.
"Cause it's my favorite color."
A silence settles over the car.
Dream, staring first at Techno's still present bulge, and then staring into the middle distance when Techno crosses his legs angrily- and the middle distance is very much Techno's current maroon long-sleeve... "Of fucking course your favorite color is red, isn't it?"
"Maybe? And?" Techno practically squeals.
"Techno." Dream nods at his sweatpants. He's also half-hard. It's a bit embarrassing, having done nothing but touch Techno's leg- but hey. Hey. That is far more than enough to drive Dream up the wall.
Techno looks at the faint red glow coming from under Dream's waistband. "No...."
And then, once again, wonderful unpredictable Techno subverts all expectations of Dream's, as to where this conversation could possibly go:
"SO I SPEND. A DECADE OF MY LIFE." Techno starts shouting, gesturing sharply at himself, "THINKING, 'WHO THE HELL WOULD DO THIS TO ME???'" He gestures to his lap- and then to Dream, "AND THEN THAT MOTHERFUCKER HAS BEEN LIVING WITH ME FOR MONTHS? YOU'RE MY FUCKING SOULMATE? AND THIS IS UR FAVORITE COLOR? HOW?"
"IT'S A NICE COLOR." And it's difficult to not lean into another shouting match, "MOTHERFUCKER YOUR FAVORITE COLOR IS RED? IT LOOKS LIKE I HAVE AN INFECTION HALF THE TIME."
Techno makes an indescribable sound of agitation and buries his face in his hands, still blushing deep red, "Lime green. Goddamn lime green."
Dream loves him so much it hurts his chest like a bleeding wound.
"It's a nice color." He finds himself repeating, now calmly. And when Techno looks up at him, Dream's smiling in the face of Techno's murderous stare, "And I'd love to see it on you."
He pointedly looks at Techno's groin again. He'd gotten harder. When he looks back up, the murder is being quickly won-over by desperation. Hunger.
"Worst come-on I've ever heard."
"I try," Dream grins wider, and unbuckles his seatbelt.
He's not even done rushedly crawling over the stick shift divider when Techno leans forward and grabs onto his green hoodie, pulling him over the rest of the way.
They crash into a kiss- and it's a crash. It hurts Dream's lips against his own teeth, it hurts his nose where it slams into Techno's cheekbone. It hurts his chest even worse now, like he's going to throw up with how hard he wants all this forever.
It makes him taste red blood.
Techno's hands are on him until they aren't and he's fumbling for the seat's back settings- and then he's dropping backwards and away from Dream, as the seat's back falls and takes Techno with it. He looks wild and untameable and he's breathing hard and fast, and then not breathing at all when Dream dives down after him, climbs fully on top and kisses him again, finds Techno's hands blindly and pins them by the wrists to car seat's leather.
Techno breaks away for a second to pant in and out a breath, and then he's arching up, first just with his chest, pressing their ribs together like maybe it'll alleviate the pain of utter want. And then he's lifting his hips off the seat as Dream licks into his mouth, sloppy and desperate- and then Techno's grinding up into him.
It's like touching a live wire, like for a second his muscles aren't his, and his legs shoot through the very core with almost painful arousal, sharp and raw, and his stomach twitches and pools with warmth, and when Techno mouths against his neck: "Allow me one hand." Dream lets him.
Techno's free hand darts down, and when it shoves its warm fingers past Dream's waistband, it's like the forest fire had always been waiting for Dream in Techno's palm.
If he's not careful, it'll burn him whole. Until all he is, is a ghost of smoke and nothing more than the ultimatum of Techno's touch.
"Fuck..." Dream grits out, breaking the kiss with a shudder, eyes squeezed shut as Techno wraps his fingers around his base and gives an experimental stroke.
Techno taunts him, "Too much?"
"You always are." Dream answers after a hitched inhale, and it's not a lie. "Let me treat you first." When Techno lets go, it's like he can breathe again. "Jesus Christ."
"Nah, just me," Techno grins, wolfish and sarcastic, and his teeth are outlined with blood. The prettiest red, Dream is beginning to discover, is that which Techno dons.
He slides down the seat, breathing in the smell of their car and Techno's clothes and his body wash and arousal, and folds himself into the legspace of shotgun riders, crouching between Techno's spread legs.
He leans in and picks the zipper up with his teeth.
Techno makes a surprised whine in the back of his throat, so clearly accidental it shoots straight to Dream's dick. He pulls. The clicking whisper of a zipper coming undone is music to his ears.
He has to stop looking at Techno's flaming face, because in the evening's dark, the frankly bright green glow is impossible to ignore.
Wet briefs, and as Dream hooks his fingers in and pulls them down, he's greeted with Techno's hard-on. It's a very very familiar shade of green, one he'd loved innocently and with no ulterior meaning for years, and one that he's gaining a wholly new appreciation for, as his hand wraps around the base of Techno's cock, and he leans in, letting spit pool in his mouth.
Techno's already talking under his breath, something illegible and fast, and Dream relaxes the back of his throat and sinks down.
The whispering cuts off in a moan Dream will remember for the rest of his life.
Eyes and nose stinging, Dream begins to bob, opening his jaw wider to create suction, and Techno begins to babble.
Dream's name, a string of swears- he'd gotten Technoblade to swear. Isn't that a fucking miracle? Dream takes a moment to inhale, and gets back to work. Tongue pressing up to the bottom of Techno's dick, dragging along veins, and boy are tongues a sensitive part of the human body. It feels like he's learning a new instrument. He wants to play Techno like he's making art. Techno's currently shaping barely coherent syllables into gasping whines.
He can imagine his cheeks glowing green from inside now, and has to close his eyes to stave off pain-brought tears and the painfully close glow. He's gonna have to drive back to his dorm and look at everything he owns in green and then look at his roommate who he'll have access to every day for the foreseeable future- every night too- god- they're going home together after this and nothing is falling apart.
He wants to lean back and say something silly, and thinks better of it. Just listens to the way Techno's hands creak with forceful grips against the armrests and hollows his cheeks.
And then Techno's shoe is pressing into Dream's thigh and the babble turns a bit more into the direction of words:
"Okay- okay- god- Dream- okay- come back here- I'll- too much."
He's considering ignoring the demand but then Techno moans, "Kiss me" and Dream can't deny his own dick's angry red and hurting, and that he already manages to have begun missing Techno under him, Techno's lips-
He does one more bob and pulls off, feeling his throat ache in relieved peace- and then he's climbing back up the seat on shaky legs and greedy hands.
"Good?" He asks, and his voice is fucking gone.
Techno slants open his previously shut eyes, and his pupils are blown in the low light, dancing with the reflection of green and red. The glow softens his features, makes him look ethereal.
"Fan fucking tastic," Techno snorts, and hearing him swear is better confirmation of a job well done than the taste of cum would've been.
Dream kisses him again.
Techno, hands this time free, wastes no time and pulls Dream's dick out of his pants, hold confident and in no way less electric than before. Dream moans into the kiss, groin shooting with pain at being ignored for too long.
"I gotcha," Techno murmurs against his chin, and then lines them up, until his hands are coming to wrap around both himself and Dream, and lubed with Dream's spit and precum, it instantly renders almost all remaining thought in Dream's head into thurough mush.
He has to break the kiss, leaning his forehead to Techno's shoulder, and he's sweating buckets and he hasn't been able to catch his breath since those hands touched him for the first time, and Techno ups the pace.
Dream's hips move involuntarily, and he begins to match the thrusts- and he manages to crack his eyes open as Techno's whispering something in his ear-
He looks down and Techno's wonderful knobby fingers are backlit by red and green, like blood and nature, and- Dream finds himself wheezing even if it's at a stuttering hitch.
"What?" Techno breathes into his ear and adds 'shivers' onto the list of ways he wrecks Dream.
"Christmas," Dream jokes, remembering almost two years ago, crying in Sap's room. Crying because good things weren't meant for him, crying because he realized he was fine with that, crying at how irreversibly hurt that made him sound.
Techno laughs, and the elation of it mixes so wonderfully with pleasure and yearning and the feeling of being touched- both down there and all over too- and Dream bites down onto Techno's neck and twitches his hips forward one last time, muscles burning with effort and strain and then with the lava of a nerve-torching orgasm.
The bite makes Techno bark out something just left of a moan, and he's thrusting a few more times, hand's grip hard and desperately chasing after the bone cutting edge of pleasure- and then he's coming too, curling up and into Dream with how it shakes through him.
Dream wants to see this later, on a bed, where he can watch better, watch Techno crash and shatter into pieces of pleasure, wants to be the reason for it, wants to please and give and take and wake up every morning for another day of the rest of their lives. Wants to love, wants to be loved, wants to learn Techno. Wants to learn himself.
The glow fades and leaves them with the faint blue of the car's console buttons and a distant, distant street light.
They're panting, sweaty, humid and out of oxygen, and the car stinks of sex.
"My back hurts," Techno says like nothing's happened at all, and Dream laughs so hard he sees black spots.
'Soulmates'
A word with many interpretations. The centerpiece of worries and wishes and hopes that had haunted Dream growing up. An inescapable factor of growing up. And he'd loved it for years, then hated it for longer. And then, kind of by perfect accident, found it.