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George is annoyed.
Actually, no. It’s more than that. He’s pissed. It’s hard to even recognize the feeling because he never gets like this. Not much truly bothers him, so if he gets mad, it’s usually fleeting. But this is an anger that’s been building for some time now.
And, staring at his phone, open to Dream’s latest TikTok, he can feel it cresting.
Sapnap is at the DMV. For once, there are no visitors over. It’s just him and, a few dozen feet away, Dream.
He watches the TikTok again, then scrolls back to rewatch the last part. And it is not about me being gay with George.
It is not about me being gay with George.
It is not about—
He clicks the power button on his phone, putting it to sleep. His anger is pulsing in his veins now, pulling him to his feet and out of his office, down the stairs and straight to the door to Dream’s office. He tries the handle and it’s locked, which only strengthens his anger. He bangs his fist against the door and waits, glaring at the barrier between them.
When the door opens, George doesn’t wait for Dream to say anything. He doesn’t want to lose his nerve.
“Stop talking about me every chance you get,” he spits out, watching Dream’s face fall at his tone. “God, can you not post anything without reminding people that we’re not in a gay fucking relationship?”
“Geo—what?” Dream sputters, shocked. “Why are you mad about that?”
It’s a question that, frankly, he doesn’t want to answer. It’s one he tries to avoid himself.
“It’s annoying,” he answers, the words like venom. “Everyone gets it, Dream. We’re not dating. You’re not gay. What, are you afraid you’ll miss out on some great pussy because girls will think you’re taken? Is that why you won’t shut the hell up about it?”
Dream’s eyes narrow at that, confused. “I’m—dude, that’s obviously not why—I’m doing it for you.”
George scoffs, rolling his eyes at the idiocy of that. “For me? Really, Dream? Why would I want you to keep bringing that up? Do you think I don’t know we’re not dating or something?”
“No,” Dream stresses, bringing a hand to his temple, rubbing at it. “You— you said it was annoying that people always think we’re dating. In L.A., remember? You said no one ever tried to flirt with you because everyone always thought we were together.”
“That wasn’t a complaint,” George half-yells, throwing his arms in the air. “God, you’re so dumb, Dream.”
Dream tilts his head and some of George’s anger melts when he realizes that Dream looks exactly like a dog who’s heard a new sound. Not puppy-coded, his ass.
“It wasn’t?”
A little part of George wants to cry. He’s exhausted. All of this, carrying this anger and always hiding, hiding, hiding; it’s too much. He needs a break. He needs—what he really needs is to get out of here before he says too much.
“I don’t care if people think we’re together,” he says, taking a step away from the door, planning his escape. “It’s just annoying when you keep bringing it up, reminding people we’re not.”
He goes to walk away, but Dream steps out into the hallway and grabs George by the arm, pulling him back.
“Why does it annoy you so much, George?”
George freezes and then shakes his arm loose, putting space between them before he dares to look back, to meet Dream’s gaze.
“It just does.”
“Bullshit,” Dream counters, some of George’s anger mirrored in his normally kind eyes. “Tell me why you hate when I talk about you. Like, do you not even want to be associated with me, even if it’s not in a romantic way? Am I too much of a liability for you?”
George gapes back at him in disbelief. It’s the dumbest fucking thing he’s ever heard.
“You’re not serious, right? You can’t be serious.”
Dream takes a step toward him and George takes a step back, like they’ve choreographed this dance down the hallway. “You hate when I talk about DNF. You hate when I talk about how DNF isn’t real. It seems like anytime I talk about you, I’m doing something wrong.”
Distantly, George can hear Patches meowing. She probably wants her wet food, but she’ll have to wait.
“I don’t hate when you talk about DNF,” he argues, but it’s weak. He knows it’s not true. He does hate it, because it’s all for show. It’s not—they’re not—
“You do,” Dream replies. “You get so annoyed. But you don’t get like that with anyone else. Just me.”
Just you. That much is true.
George can feel the truth stirring in his belly, so he shakes his head, turning away. He starts off down the hallway, expecting Dream to pull him back, but the touch never lands. Instead, Dream follows him straight through to the kitchen where George starts digging out a new tin of Sheba.
“Are you just not going to answer me?” Dream asks, watching as George opens the food and sets it on the floor for Patches to eat.
There’s nothing left to say, so George shrugs his shoulders, avoiding Dream’s gaze. He’s afraid that if he looks again, his resolve will crumble.
Dream breathes out a humorless laugh, just a single exhale, and George can see him shaking his head out of the corner of his eye. “Fine. I’ll go take the stupid TikTok down right now.”
“Don’t,” George says with a roll of his eyes. “Don’t take it down. Just—just don’t talk about our relationship anymore since clearly we don’t even have one.”
“Fine,” Dream says at the other end of the room, turning to head back toward his office. George barely hears the next part over the sound of Patches lapping up her food. “But whose fault is that?”
George doesn’t even understand what he means at first. It’s not until he hears the sound of Dream’s office door opening and closing again that he realizes.
And then he’s mad all over again.
It takes about five seconds to get to his door. This time it’s unlocked and he barges in.
“It’s my fault? Are you—are you fucking joking, Dream?”
“George—”
“No, shut up,” George bites back, his hands shaking with adrenaline. “You’re fucking gaslighting me right now. I—I moved here for you, you idiot. I wanted to be here, with you, and—we waited so long and I got here and you—you barely even let me touch you.”
He’s not going to cry. He just feels like a balloon losing all of its air.
“Like, you made it so obvious you didn’t want me. You started hooking up with people and putting distance between us, like I crossed an ocean to get to you and somehow I ended up further away.”
The shake of his hands has spread. He can feel it everywhere, right through to his core.
And still, Dream stays silent.
“You don’t have to want me,” George says, feeling completely deflated now, “but don’t say it’s my fault that nothing ever happened.”
He leaves then, as quickly as he can to avoid the awkwardness that is sure to settle over them now that he’s said the things he’s been keeping in for months. He half-jogs down the hall and up the stairs, and before he turns into his bedroom, he can hear the distant sound of a door opening. He slips into his room and shuts the door, locking it, hoping that Dream will take the locked door as a sign.
Instead, he knocks.
“George.” Another knock. “Open the door.”
George presses his forehead to the wood, unwilling to let him in. “Go away.”
“George, please,” Dream’s muffled voice begs. “I need to explain.”
“I don’t need an explanation, Dream. I just want you to leave me alone.”
There’s a pause, then a soft thud like Dream has leaned against the door. “Do you? Do you actually? Or do you want me to tell you the truth?”
George bites his lip. With the truth usually comes pain. Does he want that? How much worse can it even get? Maybe he’s in love with someone. Maybe he keeps saying that they’re not in a relationship because he’s in one with someone else.
“I didn’t think I could have you,” Dream says, which George wants to laugh off, but he feels too empty to do it. “You said I wouldn’t let you touch me? I was just self-conscious, George. You’re, like, a fucking supermodel and I—I had the weight and then the extra skin and I just—I didn’t want you to touch me and be disgusted or whatever.”
George opens the door. He does it so quickly that Dream stumbles into the room, which would be hilarious any other time, but now George can’t even crack a smile. He glares at Dream as he rights himself, looking into George’s eyes.
“Do you actually think I would care about something so stupid? Like, what? Like all I care about is looks?”
“Not all,” Dream cuts in. “But I’m sure you care about it a little. I’m sure you wouldn’t have wanted me when I was—”
George hits him before he can even say it, a light punch to his arm. “Fuck you,” he seethes. “I knew what you looked like, you know. I saw the pictures. And I wanted you, Dream. I wanted you then and I wanted you after and I—”
He stops himself just short of saying it flat out, admitting that none of this is past tense. To this day, to this very moment, George wants him. He hates him a little, and he wants him. So badly.
“Why didn’t you say that?” Dream asks stupidly.
“I did,” George says. “I said it so many times, Dream, I was so obvious. And you acted like you didn’t hear it, so I just assumed that was my answer.”
Dream shakes his head, his eyes cloudy. “I didn’t hear it. I wanted—but I didn’t think—”
He trails off and silence fills the room. George looks away, feeling far too vulnerable after everything he’s said, and he waits for Dream to say something else or maybe just leave, for them to move on with their lives, pretending this never happened.
Instead, Dream steps closer. This time, George doesn’t back away.
“Give me your hand,” Dream says, reaching for it.
George gives it to him without a thought, letting Dream curl his fingers around George’s hand, pulling it to his chest.
It’s not the first time George has ever touched him here, but it’s the first time he’s ever done it so purposefully, letting his hand linger on Dream’s body. He swears he can feel electricity sizzling underneath his fingertips.
“My body isn’t perfect,” Dream says, his voice quieter now than before. “Things are still—like, there’s only so much that surgery can—”
“ Shut up ,” George dismisses impatiently, and before Dream can say another word, George kisses him.
Even after everything that’s been said, George still hesitates after that first contact, waiting to see if Dream pulls away. He’s been wrong about Dream before, thinking they were both on the same page and finding out they weren’t. He needs to be sure he’s not just making assumptions again.
Dream leans back, looks into George’s eyes, and whispers, “Wow.”
And then they’re kissing again.
Dream, it turns out, is a really good kisser. George has done very little kissing in his life and he feels a bit awkward as he parts his lips and sinks into it, but Dream guides him subtly, a hand on George’s neck to hold him just right. When their tongues brush, it’s nothing like some of the sloppy kisses he’s had before that turned him off more than on; this kiss definitely turns the dial towards ‘on’.
It’s Dream who leads them over to the bed, falling onto it and reaching for George to join him. It’s not perfect; their knees knock together and George’s teeth unintentionally scrape against Dream’s lip and, after a minute or two, George has to pull away to suck in a deep breath.
It’s not perfect, but it feels right.
It also feels surreal. George has been waiting for this for so long, since Dream was just a voice in his ear and an image in his head, molded together from old pictures and whatever hints he could gather from Sapnap or Dream himself. When he finally got to Florida and Dream kept his distance, he’d assumed that either he missed his chance or he never really had one to begin with. He gave up.
And now.
“I’m still mad at you,” he says when he has to take another breath.
His fingers are toying with the hem of Dream’s shirt and he so badly wants to slip them underneath, to feel his skin, but he’s starting to get it now. He’s starting to see that Dream puts on a mask of being confident and comfortable in his skin, but that’s all it is. Just a mask, like the one lying on the floor of his office. There’s so much underneath.
So he doesn’t put his hand under Dream’s shirt. He will—he’ll see all of him eventually, in pieces at first and then all at once. But today, he takes it slow.
“Want me to delete that TikTok?” Dream asks, sweeping his thumb over George’s jaw.
“No,” George answers easily. “Just stop telling everyone we aren’t in a relationship.”
Dream studies him, a little smile twitching on his lips. He leans in, pressing those lips to George’s forehead in a way that should make him roll his eyes, but just makes his heart flutter instead.
“Because we are?”
George smiles. Fucking finally.