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Something stirs George awake.
A soft pressure on his forehead, a light touch on his cheek, a presence of gold and green overshadowing his own silver and blue.
Moonlight registers on George’s clouded, sleepy eyelids as he is pulled out of slumber. The cotton of his blanket smooths over his skin, falling off of his shoulders. A noise builds at the back of his throat, ready to protest at whatever has interrupted his restful sleep.
But then he feels another press—this time to the space next to his eye—and by the familiar feel of a certain someone's lips and stubble, he knows exactly who it is. The brunet’s head fills with glitter and sunshine, despite the late hour, because the man next to him is just that bright.
“George.” The words are whispered into his hair followed by another kiss.
George responds by burrowing further into his pillow, head still heavy with sleep. He fights back a smile, wanting to make Dream work for his attention.
The blond speaks again, fondness on his tongue. “George, come on. Wake up, wake up.” He rubs his eyebrows, coaxing him into a more awake state.
“Mm.”
“Mm?” Dream repeats, bed dipping as he sits next to George. “Wake up. Let me take you somewhere.” He doesn't even question how he got into his room—the smell of oak on his boyfriend's skin tells George he must've climbed the tree to his window.
The proposition sounds exciting—a promise of a midnight adventure with his love—but he doesn’t want to give in quite yet. George curls his hands under his chin and turns over, feigning ignorance.
Dream laughs. “George. Baby, wake up.” He places a hand on the brunet’s cheek and tilts his head in his direction.
The endearment makes his eyelids flutter, a light red dusting over his cheeks. He loves how they can still make each other blush, even after they got past the phase of only being wrapped up in each other—their sight blind to anything that wasn’t them, them, and them.
The younger catches the movement. “I saw that, George. Please? Let me take you somewhere.” He lightly pulls on his sleeve.
And it’s then that he realizes he really isn’t getting any more sleep. He can’t say no when Dream sounds like that.
George finally moves, bringing a hand up to rub at his eyes. “Wake me up.” He mumbles, mouth dry.
A quiet gasp fills his ears and a grin floats onto George’s lips. Dream scooches closer in excitement. “You’re awake already. Let’s go, let’s go.” He urges.
The brunet shakes his head. “Not fully. Wake me up,” he yawns. “Or I’m going back to sleep.”
“How?” A tanned hand slides under his pajama shirt, holding on his waist as if it’ll keep him from falling into unconsciousness.
“Kiss me,” George bargains, butterflies filling his stomach at the warm palm on his side.
Dream laughs under his breath and doesn’t hesitate, reaching over to lay a light press on his cheek once, twice. The skin seems to ignite with a small spark, settling into his body and making his chest feel mellow.
But George shakes his head again. “That was nothing. Why don’t you ever just kiss me hard?" He turns over and opens his eyes at long last, brown meeting sage to emphasize his annoyance.
The blond stares at him, soft and careful. “You’re delicate. I like being gentle with you.”
He pushes down the urge to swoon. “No, I’m not. I'm strong,” George argues, sitting up on the mattress—Dream’s hand following his movements and never leaving. “I'm so strong, like you should just kiss me hard. Like stupid hard. Kiss me stupid.”
Dream smiles at his rambles. “You’re already stupid.” He jabs but then leans over anyway to kiss him properly. And even though the press of their lips is predictably soft, George sighs into it, secretly loving the way Dream always treats him with such care.
As their teeth touch—too happy to care—the brunet is brought back to one of their first ever kisses, when everything was new and freeing and like nothing their young teenage minds had ever experienced.
The morning after the night they made it official, George finds himself sitting atop the kitchen counter in the blond’s house. He swings his feet against the cabinets—a habit that used to drive Dream crazy but now Dream always carries and places him on the marble himself, saying that he’s grown used to it. (George just thinks he wants to show off his cooking skills).
George watches him float around the kitchen, preparing them a warm breakfast after a late night of love confessions and starting anew. His head feels light, drunk on the feeling of finally having everything he’s ever wanted.
And yet, as Dream looks up from cutting strawberries and meets his gaze, he can’t help but notice how utterly normal this is for them. A quiet morning, a home-cooked meal, matching bed-heads, and the smell of Dream's pillows on his clothes. They’ve been doing this for years, existing as one for the longest time. The only difference now is that George can wrap his arms around the blond’s neck and pull him closer when Dream goes to feed him a slice of fruit.
Domesticity runs through his veins and he can’t help but kiss the boy in front of him, strawberry juice on his lips and thriving at the fact that this is his new forever. They kiss lazily, the sun bathing them and the small venus flytrap in the corner that George got Dream’s mother when she found all of her orange plants ruined. The couple only part when the door to the blond’s sister’s bedroom opens and loud, haphazard footsteps descend down the stairs.
The memory makes his insides melt and George pulls away from the kiss with a smile on his face, content to stare at Dream’s matching kiss-swollen lips and just bask in the fact that everything about this boy is his to keep. His perfect teeth and his wrinkled shirts. His strong hands and his tendency to speak before he thinks. The moonbeams illuminate his face perfectly—blond hair golden and green eyes emerald. God, he’s so lucky.
Dream sits with his head in George’s palms, eyes open and muscles relaxed like he’s completely forgotten what he came here for. But the brunet’s curiosity doesn’t let him forget.
He drops his hands. “Where are you taking me?” George glances at his bedside alarm clock, displaying 3:22 AM and illuminating the pair of glasses he never likes to wear. (They’re only out because he found that Dream blushes whenever he has them on).
“Wanted to go for a drive.” The blond explains, pulling away to tug George’s blanket down and let him out of bed. “We’ll take the truck.”
“Won’t my parents hear us?” George’s eyebrows furrow.
“George.” Dream lifts him to his feet. “Your parents are dead asleep and we both know they wouldn’t mind. They’d actually be relieved to hear that I’m the one driving.”
The brunet scoffs and turns to grab a hoodie. “Shut up. I could drive better than you with my eyes closed.”
“Yeah?” Dream laughs, pulling him in once the large sweater falls over his hips and smiling into George’s neck. “You already drive like your eyes are closed.” A soft squeeze to his side. “And don’t even act like you don’t prefer it when I drive. You just get to sit there and look pretty while our lives are in my hands.”
George squirms out of his hold, spinning around to face him. “Flattery gets you nowhere. Say I’m better and I’ll go with you.”
A face of mock-offence peers down at him—the corner of Dream’s lips upturned. “That was not the conditions we agreed upon. You can’t do that.”
“Yes, I can. I just did. Boom. Now say it.”
Green eyes narrow, mirth swirling inside them like stars in the sky—bright and seeking. “No.”
The next thing George knows, he’s being grabbed by the back of his legs and carried bridal style out of his room. A strangled noise escapes him and the brunet slaps a hand over his mouth—careful not to disturb his parents down the hall. Dream isn’t as quiet, giggling the whole way down and accidentally smacking George’s legs into the wall while trying to make it down the stairs. George tries to act annoyed—arms crossed the entire time—but he can’t stop himself from letting out a few laughs when the blond’s hair falls in front of his eyes and he walks them both into the front door.
They stop at the threshold, cheeks hurting from smiling. The soft fabric of Dream’s sweater is curled in George’s fingers, gripping so that he doesn’t fall out of his hold. Sugar and coconut cloud his senses, replacing all hints of mirky tiredness. The brunet feels like he’s floating; the pants of air into his cheek as Dream catches his breath and sends new life into his own lungs. He’s never felt this way about anyone, ever. He knows nothing will ever compare.
Dream manages to carry him outside to the deep red 1970 Ford pickup truck the blond bought from years of summers spent scooping ice cream, tying roller skates, and tossing newspapers. George remembers the day he brought it home, pulling into the driveway and jumping around the brunet while he jingled the keys in his hand, going on and on about all the places Dream would take him. We’re gonna see the world, baby.
And as George gets dropped off by the passenger door and settles into the car seat, he knows he’d follow this boy anywhere.
The familiar scent of candy apples surrounds him, wafting in from the air freshener that hangs from the rearview mirror—along with a small disco ball, reflecting the streetlights onto their faces. The leather of the car seat remains under him, smooth and cold, and George has to tuck his hands into his sleeves to warm himself up.
Dream sees him though; Dream always sees him. A hand reaches out to hold his thigh, rubbing up and down. One of the perks of dating a boy whose body temperature is as warm as fresh-baked cookies is that George always has a good excuse to curl into his side, reach for his hands, or burrow into his chest.
The blond pulls out of the driveway, leaning over and putting his hand on the back of George’s headrest because he knows it makes the brunet scrunch his nose while he pretends it isn’t the hottest thing he’s ever seen. Cobblestone rumbles under the tires, a familiar sound that’s only gotten louder the more the gravel is worn down—years of coming and going and coming and going.
They drive in silence with Dream’s hand on his leg while George draws stars into the condensation-covered window, squeezing the blond’s hand for his attention when he fills the whole screen; a galaxy of their own.
Minutes waste away as they pass through the only town they’ve known; their fingertips engraved in the buttons of payphones and their breath in the trees that line the backroads. George remembers when he and Dream would sit in the back, little kids with popsicle juice on their chin, while their parents drove them around. He remembers the two of them pretending the car was a tiger and they had to jump over every shadow the telephone poles cast.
They’ve been there for it all. Every moment of their lives ties back to the other. George thinks if the universe ever dared to pull them apart, they’d make it out alright. It’s not even a concern in his mind—he’s never entertained the thought.
If Dream was ever gonna get sick of me, George thinks, he would’ve left about a million ‘you’re an idiot’s’ ago.
They drive and drive, seeing more and more constellations the farther away they get from the main road, and finally stop when there’s dirt under the tires instead of concrete.
The sounds of the town are left behind; only crickets and rustling grass meet their ears. But they can’t escape it all—lights on the midnight horizon glow in the distance and battle for dominance with the moon and stars.
George turns and climbs through the rear window of the truck to lie down in the back, ruffling Dream’s hair as he passes and grumbling when it makes him bump his elbow. The blond follows him with a large blanket in hand, purposefully falling half-on top of George just so he can ask him to kiss where it hurts.
And he does so with a laugh, pushing back blond hair to leave a press on his forehead—skin weary at nineteen because Dream just grins and grins. George remains for a second or two, closing his eyes and wishing to be around even when his golden locks turn gray and his smile lines are embedded with a million more.
A word sits on the tip of his mind. A concept sits heavy in his heart.
George isn’t ignorant. He knows they won’t be teenagers forever, the world doesn’t stop for them—no matter how timeless their nights together seem.
Growing up is something he’s often thought about, staring out the window in the back of chemistry class, picturing a grown-up car with a grown-up apartment paid for with his grown-up job. He’s not scared of making his way in the adult world; always knew he was a bit bigger than what this town was made for.
But when he looks into Dream’s eyes, he sees more than the emeralds and pixie dust that swirls.
He sees growing old.
He sees anniversary dates to both Paris and their shared dining room. He envisions birthdays spent atop the tallest roller coaster at Disney World and sleeping in on a lazy Monday. He glimpses at a tall, fancy wedding cake with a side of slow dancing and a homemade, burnt brownie presented in sheepish hands because chocolate’s your favourite.
They’re not even in their twenties and George just wants to show the world that he belongs with somebody, just wants to lay in bed with a nightstand on either side; one with his billion extra phone chargers and another with Dream’s overwhelming amount of candles.
“Hey,” George tugs on his boy's sleeve, taking his attention off smoothing the blanket out for them to lie on. “What do you think our wedding would look like?”
Dream’s head shoots up. “Our wedding?”
George nods.
“Our wedding.” Dream says again but this time it’s not a question, merely saying it to himself as if he’s building it in his mind. “Well, um. I guess… we’d both be there.” He has the nerve to smile, like it’s a good enough answer to such a heavy question.
George shoves him on the shoulder. “Think harder.”
“I’m serious.” Dream laughs, pulling out a large pillow from the front and placing it so that they can rest against it and see the night skyline. “What else do we need other than each other?” He lifts his arm, inviting him to lie on his side.
The brunet blushes and rolls his eyes as he lets himself be engulfed by warm arms, staring at the landscape in front of them. His boyfriend kisses the top of his head when he settles. “I’m serious, Dream. Don’t you ever– haven’t you ever wondered about our life together?”
Silence meets his ears, and after a few seconds of nothing, George glances up at him. The sight knocks the air out of him.
The blond is looking down, something new in his eyes, mouth slightly open and face tinted with red.
Dream’s voice comes out a little quiet. “Like– like really think about it?” He asks. “You’re not just saying stuff, right?”
George nods again, and waits with bated breath.
“Then, all the time.” Dream admits. “I’ve– I’ve wanted to marry you since we were kids. I’ve wanted to marry you since you taught me how to tie my fucking shoelaces.” He lets it out all like it’s his dying words; nothing holding him back. “I think about you all the time.”
“Yeah?” George asks, just to hear it again.
“All the time.”
George feels like he could fly. Instead, he swings his legs over Dream’s hips, sitting in his lap, and runs his palms along his collarbones. The passion in the blond's voice sends shivers down his spine, letting it run through his veins.
He lets their mouths dance as close as they can without touching, needing both of them to be in the right state of mind for this while fully knowing how they both lose themselves when their lips meet. “There’s a chapel forty-four minutes from home. They take anybody.” George's voice bleeds—unashamed—with sudden desperation, as his hands create molds into the blond's skin.
Dream hums. “Why do you know that?” He looks at George like nothing else exists; not the wind in their ears, not the stars in the sky, not the clothes on their backs. He looks at George like he’s everything he’ll ever need.
There’s just something so heavy in his gaze, something that no one else has ever looked at him with.
George’s parents' eyes hold a calm, baby blue. It swaddles him in a way that he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to repay, and he’ll forever thank them for the life he’s got. Dream’s parents’ eyes display a soft, sage green. A found safe haven for movie nights and climbing the trees in their backyard. They patch him up when he falls.
And then there’s Dream himself, with his golden, sunny stare. It sees right through him—it always has. Beams of light create windows into George’s mind, and Dream has made a home in it. Safety covers him in a blanket. Nothing seems scary when they’re together, even when the things that frightened him went from being closet monsters and poison ivy to leaving things behind and climbing mountains of responsibilities.
The brunet buries his head into his boyfriend's chest, drunk on his intense gaze. “You make me crazy; that’s why.” He melts. “And maybe I want to marry you too. And maybe I also think about you more than I should.”
“More than you should?” Dream laughs. “I didn’t say that part.” He mumbles.
(George loves when he mumbles. It’s lazy and relaxed and everything the brunet loves to hear because it tells him how comfortable Dream is with him. He thinks back to watching Tangled in Dream’s living room for the first time, and wondering how Mother Gothel could ever find mumbling annoying when he turned to his own ray of sunshine, golden and green like a reflection of the lost princess, and revels in the sound.)
George smiles, hidden in the cotton of the blond’s loose top. “Well, I can’t only ever think about you, Dream.”
“Yeah? Why not?” Dream pulls him from his chest, holding his face with both hands. The blond is quick to lay a kiss on his lips, just because he can.
George shrugs, unfazed. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think about what I want for dinner. Mans gotta eat, y’know.” A lopsided grin tugs at the corners of his mouth.
Dream—always so jealous—seems to take offense. “Well, just eat me or something then. Don’t think about dinner.” He says, easily, like it's obvious.
He laughs, letting himself go pliant in Dream’s palms. “Eat you?” George says, between giggles. “You’re an idiot. You’d probably taste like an idiot. Idiot sandwich flavour.”
“Whatever,” his boyfriend rolls his eyes. “Maybe that’s our wedding cake flavour. We can hire Gordon Ramsey.”
And George’s laughs slowly subside at the topic of their wedding resurfacing, a content smile rests on his face as he stares down at Dream—the man who knows exactly how to make his heart surrender. The blond’s always had the ability to pull him apart and stitch him back together with his words, holding him close in the dead of the night and the life of the day just to whisper into his ear how you’re everything to me.
George knows he’s not quite as vocal. He pours his love into his actions. A caress here, a brush there. He thinks there might be permanent markings of his palms on Dream’s body with how he can never seem to be apart—an undying print of an unsaid I love you littered all throughout the blond.
But tonight, as they weave together a future they get to call their own, George feels the words fight against his lips to break free, to let his lover know how loved he truly is.
“I really do want to marry you.” He closes his eyes, serenity washing over him with his head still in Dream’s palms. “Wanna spend the rest of my life with you.”
A small noise breaks from the blond. George lifts his eyelids to see a slightly surprised Dream with a heavy blush coating the tops of his cheeks. “I know.” Dream says, barely above a whisper.
George shakes his head. “No like, I really want to marry you.” The brunet tries again, grabbing a hand off of his face to hold in his grasp. “Want to see you every day, but not just because we’re neighbours or dating or something. I– I want to see you every day because I found you in the kitchen– in our kitchen and there’s a ring on your finger and there’s a grocery list on the fridge that says we’re out of milk. Then later we go out and get the milk at whatever market and you say you’ll pay for it this time and next time I can get it.” He pants, out of breath from his rambles.
But he’s not done. “And then we get home and I think that your beard is getting long so I sit on our bathroom counter and our toothbrushes are next to each other and I shave it for you and I say you look like a baby and– and–” George feels his face burn with how much he’s admitting. “And I don’t know! We kiss or something and that’s– that’s just our entire day.”
He blinks through his scrambling thoughts, and registers a teary-eyed Dream in front of him. Droplets leak from his boyfriend’s crystal eyes, trailing down and catching on a juxtaposed smile. George feels the weight of the sky suspend for a full two seconds.
“That–” The blond chokes on his words. “That sounds perfect.” He says through wet laughs, dropping George’s hands to rub at his eyes. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”
“You can cry.” George kind of wants to cry too. His hands shake in the space between them—high on rushed-out confessions and love.
Dream lets out a full sob at that, wrapping his arms tight around George’s middle and crying into his shoulder. George’s hands rub his back and card fingers through his golden hair.
“I just– I see a future with you.” He continues, holding him close when Dream’s breath starts to stutter. “You’re really good to me. And I think you’re good with me.”
“Stop,” Dream gasps out. “Stop, you’ll kill me.” He pleads between a confusing mix of laughing and crying. “I can’t die before we get married.” His face is hot against George, even through his sweater.
The brunet takes his head in his palms so he can see Dream's blushing face for himself. He's so fucking pretty when he cries—eyes wide and lips red. The added flush on his cheeks makes it even sweeter. George can't help but lean down and kiss the tears that still fall.
Dream melts under him. “Oh my god, George." He squeezes his eyes shut, like he doesn't know what to do with all of this affection. “Please."
And he shows no mercy, relishing in the effect he has on his boyfriend after some quiet words and even quieter touches. “What?" George smiles, feigning ignorance. It feels rather otherworldly, the way they can make each other bend but never break.
“You're–" Dream tries but cuts himself off with a shudder when George traces the juts of his cheekbones with his fingertip and nudges their noses together. “George!" He lets out an exasperated laugh. “I can't focus when you do that. Let me talk. Give me a second." The blond throws his head back—a small grin adorning his face. Heaven is a place on earth.
“Why are you like this?” George laughs. And he doesn’t stop touching, running his fingers all through Dream’s hair and up and down his shoulders, neck, everything. It’s cruel. It’s so, so fun.
“I don’t know.” Dream whines, slumping down and covering his face with his hands. “You never say this kind of stuff.” Even his palms are red as they cover his blushing face.
And George’s eyes can't help but trail the lines and grooves of his hands.
He loves to look at them in the morning when he stays over, quiet to not wake the blond as he stares through a hazy gaze. He loves to hold them when it's cold, breathe warmth onto them and take care of him for once. These hands have built them both up, painted a sky in which the clouds tell the stories of their future.
He remembers them rubbing up and down his back when the brunet had caught the flu. Dream had sat with him every day for hours at a time—two fifteen-year-olds finding comfort in each other like they were the last people on earth, like everything else disappeared when their bedroom doors would close. George hadn’t made it easy for him. He complained constantly, coughed and sneezed loudly, and made Dream refill his water at least once an hour. And yet his best friend stayed during it all, holding a heating pad against the brunet’s chest from behind when it kept falling off in his sleep. That night, George likes to think, he realized he was in love.
He remembers them splattering paint against walls, green and blue handprints coating the wood behind the blond’s dresser when they’d felt particularly troublesome one afternoon the summer after the fifth grade. Dream’s parents had gotten mad at him for trying to plant a peach in their garden. They didn’t understand that peach was George’s favourite, and the market down the road hadn't sold them in two weeks.
George pulls Dream’s palms down, touching all of their fingertips together. “Fine. I’m never saying anything nice about you, ever again, until our vows.” He can’t help but blush at his own words—a real image forming in his mind. He traces little stick figures of them in fancy suits into Dream’s skin, swirling all around as if the world will glow the day they become each others.
“Vows.” Dream repeats, the vibration of his words soothing and comforting. The two only have eyes for each other, even with the stars twinkling and the sky; a swirling purple. “You know we’re like, nineteen right?”
George snorts. “No, I had no clue.”
His boyfriend jostles him a little. “That was rhetorical. But– I don’t know. I just think it’s weird to start thinking about what I’m gonna say in my vows at nineteen. Like, I don’t even know how to write a proper email to my boss. She still thinks ‘Dream’ is my legal name.”
“So?” George shrugs. “You could tell me that you want to marry me because my– my fucking nostrils are just so perfectly centered that you had to have me, and I’d say yes.”
And Dream laughs, leaning down and knocking their heads together.
“Really!” George laughs too, turning away and smiling to the moon when he feels soft lips, curved into a smile, press against the side of his face. “I’d still marry you. Even if you only love me for my nostrils.”
Dream just squeezes his waist. “I love you for more than your nostrils, idiot.” Hands trail up George’s sides and the brunet closes his eyes in contentment. “I love your hair.” Dream mumbles, twirling a piece in his fingers.
George pushes back into hold, and pushes back into a memory that still makes him smile even four years later.
A while ago, the brunet had felt his hair skimming the nape of his neck too much for his liking, and the first day of freshman year was only a week away. He’d gone to his mum, expecting her to whip out her scissors and cut his hair herself like she’s always done, but that day, she handed him some money and told him to walk to the barbershop in town. George held his head higher than ever on the way to the main street—a hand constantly in his cargo short pockets just to feel the spare change jingle around and remind himself it was real. Then he’d walked out of that shop feeling new and grown up, looking at the passing windows like he didn't recognize his own reflection; gone were the home-haircuts and awkward cow-licks.
And the next day—when Dream had stumbled into his room smelling like the sun—George would never forget the way he’d walked straight into his dresser upon seeing him. He didn’t even know humans could go that red.
“Love your hands.”
The two best friends had sat, legs crossed, on the dock of George’s backyard lake, swaying to the waves of the midnight water. Butterfly nets and buckets surrounded them, discarded after a day of catching frogs and fireflies. The evening sun washed over them like a blanket. Thirteen-year-old Dream used a stick to dig out the mud in the grooves of his shoe when George grabbed his attention.
The brunet quietly asked Dream if he thought kissing was gross, like all the other boys in their year did. The blond had scrunched his nose, muttering something about how whoever made up cooties was just mad that they were lonely. George wanted a real answer though, and fingers reached out to take the stick from Dream’s grasp, forcing him to look up. Dream only tilted his head with kind eyes, asking who it was he wanted to kiss so badly.
Up until that point, George never truly knew what it meant to be at a loss for words. Nothing he was ready to say reached his lips, and so he settled on covering his face with his hands as if it would save him from answering. And Dream—much too soft for the care of a teenage boy—had merely pulled his palms down and kissed his knuckles, smiling with a cheeky “do you think that was gross?”
George responded by pushing him into the lake.
“Love your back and shoulders.”
The night after Dream had his first high school football loss he’d taken it hard, coming out of the change rooms with green eyes stuck to the floor and his posture in a slump. George, covered in the blond’s stupid and scratchy lettermen that Dream insisted he wears because it was chilly, had run straight up to him, ruffled his freshly-showered hair in hopes of getting a grin in return, and let his best friend lean against him the whole walk home. It took them almost an hour longer than normal; Dream’s entire body weight smothering him. They laughed at how dumb they must’ve looked—two teenagers inching their way down the sidewalk like they were extensions of one another, limbs connected.
George doesn’t remember the embarrassment of walking around like that in public. He only thinks about the twinkle in Dream’s eyes when they finally collapsed onto the brunet’s couch, shining as if the blond had actually won that day.
“Love your eyes.”
To many people, ferris wheels were something of beauty and fun, flashing lights and seeing the world like never before. To Dream, it had seemed a lot more like sudden death.
George begged and begged him to go on together, insisting that you’re only seventeen once. The blond had relented—albeit hesitantly—and George felt butterflies flutter in his stomach in excitement. Before Dream could get cold feet, they were clambering into the cart and rising to the top. George looked over the edge and down onto the town that’s always looked big but now looks so small—roads and traffic lights like a midnight labyrinth underneath them. He had turned to Dream with stars in his eyes but they dimmed when they took in the sight before him; Dream clutching the railing of the cart and chest heaving as he looked anywhere but the view around them.
The brunet felt his fear running off of him in waves, and with a reassuring grip George pulled him into his side and held their heads together, whispering just look at me, and we’ll be back on the ground before you know it. The blond, panicked and desperate, locked gazes and stared and stared, green merging with brown to create soft care and I’ve got you in the middle. George thinks he saw something that nobody could ever explain in his best friend’s eyes. He still hasn’t got the words, after all this time.
They left the carnival after that, and spent the rest of the night watching the fireworks from Dream’s old treehouse with the pinkies linked.
“And I love your lips."
The Dream with him now—in this moment of fireflies and swaying grass, in this old truck with George’s Koolaid stain on the passenger seat, in this blanket that’s been through sleepovers that ended in hushed confessions and sleepovers that ended in a little something more—tilts his chin up and kisses him.
He kisses him like he’s got all the time in the world, slow and steady and building and god, George just wants to have this man for the rest of his life.
They balance each other out in all the right ways; Dream, so gentle and easy, and George, all heavy and wild. It’s the way they’ve always been.
It’s why the brunet has so many scars on his skin and the blond always has a pocket full of bandaids. It’s why George has a closet filled with every hobby he could think of and Dream only has an old, acoustic guitar with their initials etched into the smooth wood. It’s why he knows a little about a lot of things and his boyfriend knows a lot about one—that may or might not be George.
Sometimes the brunet thinks he knows too much with how Dream reaches up and tangles his hands in his hair, moving his lips against him like he’s going to fall through his fingers. Their sliding mouths and wandering palms keep them together, holding pieces into place and lining any cracks with an unbreakable, loving mesh. George falls under his spell, falls into his grasp because he makes him complete.
“Marry me.” George breathes into his mouth.
Dream pulls away just to kiss down his jaw and tease the spot behind his ear that he knows drives him crazy. “I’ll marry you.” He whispers. “I love you. I’ll marry you.” He says it over and over, repeating it like the words will fabricate into silver rings and tie them together the more he mumbles.
George’s head spins, dazed with elatedness, and pulls his boyfriend, his lover, his best friend, closer. Their lips meet a thousand times over. He’ll never get enough.
He never wants to get enough.
And when the sun comes up after a long night of them and only them, with the oranges and honeydews of the morning air nipping at their noses, George sees a forever in the way their hands had found each other even as they slept.