Archive of Our Own

There’s a castle (silver, gold, stone, glass, velvet, chintz, sun, sky, clouds, world) .There’s a throne (more gold, more velvet) . There’s a king (young, beautiful, not-yet-heartbroken), and a knight (young, beautiful, not-yet-broken).

They’re in love, obviously. That’s how these stories always go. And as far as fate is concerned, there is not a world where George and Dream don’t love each other. This is a fact. Everyone knows this. This fact will persist long after they speak their last words. There is always devotion, there is always love, there is always an endless well of both. 

The knight goes on crusade and leaves his love behind, as knights are prone to do. For king and country – and Dream has his heart sunk into both, and they in him. He has good reasons, or at least that’s what he claims, for why he does the things he does. George doesn’t understand it. And by the time Dream had been able to explain it, George found he didn’t understand a lot about Dream anymore. Which is… wrong, he thinks, this space between us is impossible . But hey, I didn’t say they’d always understand each other, I said they’d always love each other, which are two different things.

If they have nothing, they have love. Unfortunately, this isn’t a fairytale (despite their best efforts), and that will never be enough on its own. They know this. (They don’t want to admit it.) There’s only so many times you can unfold and refold something until it’s just sad to look at.

But that can’t be the end. Right? Well, sure, but something’s got to give. The illusion is shattered. The crown on his shelf means as much as the ring or the shield. Broken promises– no, even worse: Promises newly renewed and left up in the air. The house reopened their wounds as much as their hearts (which broke in the end, anyway, so nobody walked away with anything they wanted).

“Wait, wait, Dream!” The king calls, nearly launching himself out the window to grab Dream’s attention before he rides off. The knight looks up at him on the second story. They could probably touch fingertips if they really tried– Dream’s on quite a high horse– but that won’t be necessary. Just a quick thing before he leaves all day.

He chuckles. “Hurry, I’ve got places I need to be.”

“Certainly not more important than me?”

Dream seems to roll the thought around in his head a bit, humming playfully. “I don’t knooow…”

“Oh yes, how could I forget.” George pouts, “You hate me. I’ll leave–” Dream makes a noise of protest as he leans away, “No, no, carry on. I’m obviously just wasting your precious time.”

“Stop, stop, you are so annoying. Come back! George!” 

That’s more like it, George thinks, returning with a smug grin. Dream shakes his head. “What do you need?”

Dream’s attention has been hard to catch and harder to keep. It’s easier when the sun goes down, his intended usually comes to crash into the mattress at about two every night. Otherwise, work. Otherwise, meetings. Otherwise, a skirmish Dream needs to break up. Frankly, he works too hard. Does everything.

You don’t know it yet, but I’m setting up a stage. Dream would want to say. I’m choosing the colors of the curtains. Where the audience will stand. How I’ll take the fall. I know you always loved to act, but I hope you can understand why I didn’t bring you along. 

And George would want to say, Shut up.  

“I’ve got you something.” George reaches behind his head and delicately unclasps his pendant from his neck. A blue crystal butterfly hanging from a silver chain– an old thing he’s carried around for years. “Give me– give me your axe.”

Dream cocks his head as George extends his hand, sun shining through the butterfly and casting blue caustics over his mask.

“Oh, what?” He shakes his head, “I can’t take that, you love that.”

“That’s the idea of a knightly favor, idiot.” George says through the stretch, “You have to come give it back to me.”

Dream hesitates for an extended moment, probably trying to think of a reason why not (or maybe he was blushing?) before pulling the Nightmare from the saddle’s holster, holding the shoulder and extending the hilt for George to take.

George smiles, and feels summer everywhere. He has to lean a bit further to reach, fingertips brushing the pommel before finding purchase on the leather grip. He wraps the chain tight around the guard, looping it through some of the decorative holes to secure it better– at least to the best of his ability. He does actually want it back, after all, can’t have it flying off with a strong breeze. Though, maybe expecting a crystal to survive on a battleaxe is delusional. Whatever. It looks really pretty with the netherite, especially with the rose engravings across the blade.

“See? Now you have to– to come back.” 

“I was going to come back anyway. I didn’t need an incentive… ” There’s a smile in his voice as he brings the axe back to his lap. “But thank you. I’ll– I’ll bring it back, my fair lady.”

He does not give it back. Shocker, Dream didn’t make good on his word. Whatever. Look, George didn’t ever think to ask for it back. He didn’t actually care… until he was looking through his things one day and realized he didn’t have it, then remembered who did, then remembered what he was locked in, and proceeded to shatter like a teacup off a tower.

He finds himself chasing the nostalgia of these little moments, these small stitches in the tapestry. He tries to remember the last time he saw the butterfly. The last time Dream was his and not anyone else's, the last time he remembered Dream as whole. That’s– that’s not right. He means; the last time he remembered Dream how he used to be (they used to be). Love in its last perfect moment.

…

…

He can’t remember. 

A butterfly lands on his knuckles.

“So I told him, you know, like, step off!” 

Sapnap is telling him a story. He forgot how it started. But he punctuates each sentence with a snip of his hedge clippers. The sound makes George wince, and when Sapnap pulled them out of the toolshed his first instinct was to hide them before Dream saw.

He’s leaning on the fence in the corner of the rose garden. Kinoko is in full bloom, the world is beautiful, and he doesn’t really care. Sapnap insisted on dragging him out here because he overslept every day this week. He doesn’t remember Sapnap caring about his sleeping schedule before he came tripping and stumbling out of the woods, but hey. Whatever.

Sapnap snips the rose bush again. It’s weird, seeing him so… domestic. Gardening gloves and dirty jeans. “And maybe I roughed him up a little, sure, but…  I didn’t, like, kill anybody!”

The butterfly wiggles its wings. George tilts his head to see its patterns better. It’s blue, a bit indigo at the corners. 

“George. Are you even listening?”

“No.” He flattens his hand for its little legs to crawl over, it’s really very pretty. Sapnap’s heavy feet trudge across the garden and George prepares to meet the pity in his eyes. Or the anger. That would be better.

“What do you have?” He asks instead, craning his neck over George’s shoulder. The butterfly seems uncharacteristically unbothered by him, slowly fluttering its wings again. “Oh. A dra– a butterfly.”

George laughs softly, pulled back to earth, “Were you going to say dragonfly?”

“Look, man, just– whatever. What’s up with you?”

“I’m tired.”

“You’re… always tired.”

“What, are you stupid?” 

Sapnap grips his shoulder tightly and spins him around. There’s anger, there, frustration. A hint of ember in his expression. This fire is quickly suffocated in the void of George’s gaze– out of the corner of his eye, the butterfly flies away.

“You’re worrying me.” Sapnap says, like George can do something about it.

“Well.” He swallows, searching himself for an emotion to project. Anything. “I’m… sorry.”

“I won’t claim to know what… happened, okay? But. I’m just so– you’re always so–”

This sentence is abandoned halfway through and punctuated by a long, gentle breeze. Windchimes in the distance.

“...Empty?”

Sapnap’s eyebrows furrow in almost-pain. He isn’t happy to agree, “Empty.”

You’d feel empty too, if you’d had my year. He wants to say. But he owes Sapnap better than that. But also, it’s just about all he has to offer. Sapnap’s hands are gripping both his shoulders now and they’re tight, trapping, burning.

“I’m. Fine, Sapnap. I just want to go home.” He thinks he will, actually, now that he’s thinking about it. He pivots, “I’m going home.”

Abruptly, “You never talk about it.”

And here it comes; the alibi. 

In the first weeks, people came to check on him, but it was never just to talk. They wanted to know how badly he got hurt, they wanted to size up what Dream did and they wanted to use George as fodder for their counterattacks. It was all just so performative, really. Nobody even thought to bring him chamomile? Not a single one? If he had actually been kidnapped, he’d be pretty disappointed.

But the formula is this: they ask him for details, he uses Dream’s alibi like a shield. I can’t talk about it, leave me alone… And they do.

“What do you want me to say?”

Acting the part of a traumatized individual hasn’t been so hard, as long as he doesn’t have to make up dialogue on the fly. He has empty eyes, he’d sometimes cry for no reason, he’s listless and tired by nature. He doesn’t have to fake that. He just has to keep his mouth shut.

“I– I don’t know. I just want you to be okay. And… shutting yourself off–”

George finds a fire in himself he wasn’t expecting– the laugh bubbling up his chest burns his throat, “Oh my god, be serious.”

Sapnap scrambles for purchase as George rips away, rough hands finding their grip on his elbows instead, wordlessly begging him to stay put.

“I am! You know, I was worried sick about you, and I thought– I really thought you’d–”

George tries to pull backward but Sapnap is much taller and much stronger, his efforts are effective only at proving a point. “Let me go! I’m going home. I’m going back to bed.”

“No you aren’t!” He steadies him harshly, “George– come on, man. Don’t be like this. Don’t run from this. You just came back from some– some shit! Some fucked up shit.”

No. No, he really didn’t. And that’s… actually, really, really funny. 

He’s laughing again before he even knows it– head thrown back, loud and piercing. It’s more emotions than he’s felt in quite a while and it makes him dizzy. Sapnap looks on with steady, stern concentration. Like he just doesn’t know what to do with him. George can’t exactly blame him, he doesn’t either.

His legs wobble underneath him, his vision spins. It’s only a few moments before that same nothingness from before takes him again. Sapnap holds him up as his knees threaten to collapse, eyebrows turning upward in concern, “George…” 

George looks up at him through thick lashes, breathless, “Nothing’s changed. Do you get that? You don’t.”

“A lot has changed, George. I fucking died.”

“Yeah? How’s limbo treating you?” He rolls his eyes, head lulling from one shoulder to the other, “Oh yeah. You’re still here. We’re both still here, in this miserable ghost town, with all our ghost friends.”

Sapnap slowly lets George down to the ground. The grass feels good on the palms of his hands. It’s somewhat cloudy today, the sun has been shy. He doesn’t know why they’re watering the roses if it’s obviously going to rain. Dumb. Waking him up for this.

“Are you mad about– me making you come garden?” He says with both hands on his hips like a stern mother, “We could– do something else. LIke, fuckin’, I don’t know...”

“There’s– nothing. I don’t want to do anything. None of it matters, and I’m tired–”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it, you’re in your doomsayer arc. Listen, dude, I don’t care. I’m not going to let you just waste away in your dumb little house.”

“You did before.”

Sapnap is hurt at that. George isn’t looking at him but he knows from the silence, the slight shuffling of his feet as he thinks of something to say. Maybe he shouldn’t be punching sideways– but it’s not like he can punch at Dream, either. (Does he want to? He doesn’t know what he feels. Nothing.)

He grabs a fistful of grass. Whatever Sapnap is feeling, he wishes he could say something to make it better. But there’s a great emptiness in his chest he can’t get past, an exhaustion bleeding into his bones.

Sapnap crouches down to look in his eyes, and George is taken aback by how much is in his gaze. It's… something . Something he doesn’t see from him often. “I want to help you. I’m– sorry, I just– didn’t know how to– you know.”

I don’t want your pity.

“But you… went through a lot, and it’s awful. Dream’s– a fucking monster. And we’re gonna fucking get him, okay? I’ll kill him myself, fuck everyone else, I’d do it just for what he did to you.”

George looks through him dully. Maybe this should horrify him. (Maybe it would if Sapnap wasn’t so obviously full of shit.)

“You’ve got people who want to look out for you. You don’t have to hide.”

George shakes his head numbly. “I’m not scared. I’m not hiding.”

Dream knows exactly where he is. He wishes he’d find him faster. The porch lights turned on, dear, quit trying to kill yourself and come eat dinner. I made your favorite.

A pot on the stove, a lover in the yard. “I love you,” he says, “I love you so much.”

… Any day now.

Sapnap stands and tugs his arm. “Come on. Let’s– let’s go eat.”

“I want to sleep.”

“You can sleep later.” George is hauled to his feet without a chance for him to answer. Okay. Fine. Ramen, steak, mushrooms. The same as always. A quiet brushing under the rug, an awkward moment swiftly painted over. Let’s keep moving, George, always moving, always leaving home behind.

The butterfly rests on the arbor. It wiggles its wings. It says, Hello. Goodbye. See you again. Come back soon. I’ll miss you.

George watches it float into the forest as Sapnap drags him from the garden. The sun doesn’t feel as warm as it did, back at the house all those months ago. The grass doesn’t look as green, the flowers don’t smell as good. 

Sapnap drags him through a world that is a haze of dull watercolor and wants him to be excited about eating food that tastes like cardboard. Not to discredit Karl’s cooking– nothing tastes good these days. Or looks good. Or feels good. 

The apathy has set in strong. He hasn’t cried since the first few weeks he came back, and whatever ache he expected to be there simply… isn’t. But sometimes he can see the fragments shine through the plaster. A morbid laugh, a clenched jaw, his hands balled in fists. Sadness that knocks politely before entering. No visitors please, he says without meaning to, and Sadness courteously picks its baggage from the front step and says, that’s fine, I’ll come back later.

Karl sets a vase of roses in the center of the table. George stares at them in blank recognition, a dream he had days prior, though much more vibrant in hue.

He dreamt that he was in the center of a rosarium sitting on the edge of a fountain, watching the clouds sprint through the sky. They were racing. (The snowy one was winning.) And outside the rose garden were rolling hills as far as the eye could see– vast and empty. 

Dream was sitting in the grass with George’s legs on either side of him, nimble fingers weaving roses into his hair. His head was bowed in concentration as he stared at something in his lap, and when George peered over his shoulder to look, it was just a clock. It was just spinning and spinning and spinning. George couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

“What are you waiting for?” He asked, placing another rose in the braid. He was bleeding, by the way, the thorns kept stabbing his thumbs, but he didn’t mind. He thinks the roses might have been pink before he touched them, maybe even white. He looped a strand of hair with the stem, cutting his thumb once again and smearing blood alongside it. Dream did not reply. George did not see his face.

He stabs his thumb by accident with his steak knife, blood dripping onto his plate. He keeps eating in spite of it, the taste of iron at least makes for something interesting. Nobody seems to notice.

The sun finds the horizon, snuffing out what little warmth it offered. It’s a bit chilly, he recognizes it as the first hint of autumn. He wishes it would snow. (He vaguely recalls being excited to spend a winter with Dream. Romanticizing it in his daydreams– Dream would have to stay inside with him more often, and they could eat more hot food…)

George finds himself on the top of a mushroom looking out over the forest, the ocean. The breeze runs its hands through his hair, and he leans to its touch just to feel something hold him, hugging himself as he wraps his cardigan tighter around his waist. There’s a sense of longing, this night and all these stars– lying just out of his reach.

Knock knock, Sadness says, is this a good time?

He takes a step toward the edge, staring at the long fall down. He wonders if Dream can see him. If he’d… care. If he’d catch him. He imagines his bones breaking on the ground below, he looks at the cut on his thumb– remembers how it was the most interesting part of his day. 

‘Dream’ he mouths, just to feel the name roll off his lips. He takes a half step forward.

A warm and gravelly voice from behind him, “Do you need me to walk you home?”

The wind stills. The stars fade.

“No, it’s okay.”

“Why don’t you stay in town? Karl misses you, you know.” Sapnap pulls him back a bit to catch his attention properly. “He’s still got a bed out for you.”

…Patches has enough food for the night, surely.

“Okay.”

A few silent seconds pass between them with Sapnap holding his wrist and staring. He has a question he wants to ask, George can tell by the way his mouth opens and closes, how his eyes dart away.

“You weren’t… about to throw yourself off, were you?”

George lowers his head. Sapnap pales.

“Oh, George, what?” 

He shrugs.

“But– why?” He grips his shoulders tightly, surely to leave behind thumb-shaped bruises. “Come– Come on, that isn’t funny.”

“I know it isn’t…” He looks back at the edge over his shoulder as Sapnap ushers him inside. If he died… he’d have to bring him back, right?

Sapnap gives him tea and a blanket and a hug. George tries to go out to see the stars again, and finds the hatch door locked from the outside. He doesn’t even try. It’s not worth it. Dream isn’t coming back. He lets go of the handle and slinks back down into bed, hugging his pillow tightly. It’s the first thing he’s felt in weeks that resembles sorrow even a little bit.

He lays a hand in the empty space next to him on this too-small bed.

He remembers at one point, the bed was way bigger than this. A bunch of beds pushed together along the wall, each sleeping body excited for the morning to come. But now…

“Goodnight.” He whispers to no one. (Formerly whispered to eight.)

✦

There’s a castle (silver, gold, stone, glass, velvet, chintz, sun, sky, clouds, world) .There’s a throne (more gold, more velvet) . There’s a king (young, beautiful, heartbroken).  

The people are celebrating outside. Confetti, singing, dancing, food, women, wine, song. Their merriment is far away, a distant song mumbling through his empty hall– all but for him, of course. He’s waiting for someone. He can’t remember a time he wasn’t waiting for someone. He’s grown rather skilled at it, though he’d never describe himself as patient. Like how soldiers are good at dying but don’t particularly yearn for it.

His crown lies heavy on his head. There’s no one here. His cape is draped over his lap. There is no one coming. He spins the ring on his finger. He should be here, where is he? He’s alone. He’s helpless. He can’t go along with the crowd, can’t celebrate Dream’s absence. What a horrible thing to celebrate. How macabre. Sick.

They’re all singing about how they chased out the beast, chained the wolf to the wall, muzzled it tightly– no, pulled out his canines! This and that. Songs of freedom, songs of love. Love, love, love, whatever. Who cares. He’ll still come. He should be here. He’ll come back to say goodbye.

Or maybe the warden will walk down the hall to deliver the news. Present the last of his things at his feet and declare him a widow. But he never actually married, did he? He’s owed nothing.

The bottom line… someone has to walk through that arch. This isn’t over. Nobody’s told him anything, nobody’s sent word. He bites his lip, iron between his teeth.

He waits. He’ll wait forever– that’s how this story goes. Because, the knight was a monster. But the king was only ever himself. Maybe that doesn’t make sense to you– but it does to him. He had to make sense of it. 

He’s had this dream many times– recurring, but he hadn’t been on this throne in some time. Not since before the cottage, the hayloft, the tent. But to be entirely fair, if his life has returned to the same lulling routine, why wouldn’t his dreams?

He’ll sit on the throne until he wakes up. Which could be hours, days, weeks. Feeling the sun travel the sky and burn his cheeks through stained glass, face cast in colored reflections. And at night he has no staff to light the sconces, so the moon does its best to comfort him.

Now that he recognizes this dream, he might have the will to change it. To stand up and walk out of the castle, find something new, find himself outside of this apathetic haze…

But he can’t. He’s tired. He doesn’t mind this if all he has to do is sit here and wait. It’s, apparently, all he’s good at– because moving to act, trying to change his story, only ever tore his heart in two. And nothing for it. And nothing for it. And nothing for it.

They all just want him to sit here and look pretty. That’s fine. It’s not like he has the strength to stand, anyway. 

He spins the ring on his finger. He tries his best to snap his scepter. He scowls at the boy hero outside, being hoisted aloft like he’s done something noble. Repeat, like a cog, tick tick tick. Everything where it should be. George, here. Dream, away. 

Staring half lidded and angry at the short steps leading up to his throne, he catches a glint of netherite. A boot. A chestplate. A knight with a head of gold.

George stares at this new component of his dream, locked in place in his own script. He opens his mouth to speak, but has naught to say. He’s not scripted to say anything. This is not a speaking role.

He’s just standing there, in the center of the hall, half a world away from him.

His mask swims in blue caustics.

George feels silly waiting for Dream’s next words with baited breath. That’s not really him. There is no hidden meaning, there is no greater word to be said than what he said to him back at the cottage. Not anything more than what George can imagine. An apology, a condemnation, a suicide note– it would be his own.

“I’m here.” He says, finally. 

George bursts into laughter. And then into tears. More raucous and mirthful and crushingly miserable than the cheering crowd outside.

And then he wakes up. 

George stands statuesquely still in the bathroom of his house. The mirror projects a reflection he only half recognizes as himself. He forces himself to smile, frown, scowl, cry. A few delicate princess tears slip out of his eyes into the sink below. But his face relaxes back into a blank stare. He knows on a logical level that the boy in the mirror is himself. But he can’t find himself in his own eyes– he’s missing something. 

He mouths Dream’s name. He wants to say it, but his throat refuses to speak. Maybe for the better. If he calls his name, he’s not sure he’ll be able to stop. Knock knock, Sadness says, I’m going to break down your door one of these days.

There’s a blanket of flowers in the fountain in the center of town. Roses, mostly– daisies, poppies, lilies. Just the blossoms, though, floating serenely on top of the water. George is sitting on the stone edge, watching a butterfly flit around the surface.

“George, if you never talk about it, you’ll explode.” Tina lays her hand over his, late afternoon burning the edges of her hair into a halo. “Aren’t you sad?”

“I don’t really feel anything.” He confesses, “It’s… hard to talk about.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.” He shrugs, “I mean, sometimes… things sting, but it feels like… how things sound when you’re underwater. Really far underwater.”

Tina looks away in thought. George finds his eyes drawn to the butterfly, resting gently on the petals of its very own flower. Together, they look like a little steamboat gently floating along.

“Do you… miss him?”

Feels like a crack in a mirror. Like someone peeled back his skin to look at his ribs. He pulls his hand away. 

“… Why?”

George feels suddenly choked up. “I don’t know, exactly,” his voice is trembling, so he holds his breath. Stop, stop it. “I– I don’t know if you know this but, we were… engaged, a long time ago.”

“Oh,” Tina’s eyebrows shoot up, “I– nobody told me you guys were even. I thought. Oh.”

“Yeah,” He laughs a little, “It’s… kind of dirty laundry.”

“Was it… bad? ”

“No, no, we… really loved each other.” The past tense stings like salt in his eyes. “Uhm. And everyone hates him and wants him to die, so… talking to them is hard. They have… history with him.”

Tina nods. She looks like she’s processing some things. George kind of regrets saying anything at all, but something about the way Tina was looking at him made his heart leap. He wants to stop feeling like this. (This desire is fundamentally hopeless.)

“Well… if you need anything, or want to talk, I’m here for you. I care about you.”

“Yeah.” He doesn’t know why he expected her to say something life changing, “Thanks.”

She smiles kindly, and he can’t blame her, it’s all she can offer and he didn’t ask for her help. His disappointment lies in himself. He knows nothing will help, and he wishes they’d just let him sleep.

Tina leaves after a bit more chitchat. They make plans to drink tea tomorrow (ones George has no intention of following through.) 

The rose sinks below the water’s surface under the weight of its companion. The butterfly flutters helplessly above, unable to follow it down.

Later, Karl hands him a pill and a mirror to crush it on. It’s heart shaped and enchanted for some reason, which amuses George enough to sit down and accept. Karl lights up as he slides in next to him against the wall.

George cuts up the tablet while Karl talks about this, that, the other. He’s fairly certain he’s already high, he’s not making too much sense. George hopes that it starts being funny soon. 

As he leans over the mirror, he catches sight of his own hollow expression. He looks like a corpse. His own eyes trap him, infinite and empty.

“George?” Karl lays a hand on his shoulder, giving him the prompt to catch his breath. He didn’t think he looked so… 

“Sorry.” He says, forming a line on the mirror with his dagger. “Spaced out.”

“Don’t apologize. That’s the point.”

By the time he’s done with his last line, it occurs to him that he never asked Karl what exactly it was.  

And he doesn’t get to either, he’s being pulled out the door into the world and the shapes are hazy and liquid, out of focus and flying past as he stares at the back of Karl’s head. Callahan was there for a moment, lighting a lantern and waving at him. George feels himself smile so big his cheeks hurt, tears pricking his eyes.

His thumb hurts from where he stabbed it, and he should have eaten something before taking… whatever it was that Karl gave him. But those are problems for later. It’s not like he can die. Revel in that.

“Where’s Sapnap?” Karl asks, suddenly stopping in the middle of their frolicking to look around. They’re under the cherry blossom tree, Karl rotating stupidly with his hands outstretched. George stumbles on one of the tree roots. The fairy lights in the branches look impossibly beautiful in his glossy vision. Gold and gold and gold.

“Who cares?” He whispers, smiling up at the petals. The apathy that had cocooned him is peeling back with every passing moment, and he’s happy. He’s happy .

Karl teeter-totters on one of the thicker roots, “I do. I have to tell him– tell him I love him.”

“Then… then let's go find him.” George stumbles forward into the trunk.

“Bro,” He laughs like a hyena, “Were you just trying to walk upward?”

“I– I don’t know.” He’s confused, bleary with joy, “I think so?”

Karl grabs his hand. It actually feels like someone’s skin– he didn’t realize how much his sense of touch had dulled til now. It feels like someone finally took his glove off. They stumble around the tree, Karl towing George in a circle. He doesn’t even mind, too busy soaking in the feeling of skin on skin.

He’s carted around Kinoko, tripping over his own feet a few times. He thinks he might have knocked something over when he was too busy looking at the stars to look where he was going. Karl laughs loud and proud and it ricochets through him.

They find Sapnap eventually, standing in a doorway of some building and eclipsed by the light inside. To George, he looks like a perfectly black shadow. Karl falls into him, love, love, love, dripping nonsensically from his lips. Sapnap laughs fondly and engulfs him in a hug. The sound reverberates through George’s heart and breaks something inside him. He can feel it snap, crack like ice.

He’s standing on the path staring at the silhouette of blurry lovers. Tears pools in his eyes for the first time in months.

There’s a pressure in his heart and mind suddenly at the forefront, suddenly so, so aware. He holds his breath. Stop, stop it.

Karl is ushered inside after a few more moments of talking. He supposes Sapnap didn’t see him, he wasn’t standing in the light of a lantern. When the door closes, he’s left in the dark. He lets go of his breath in a shuddering sob. 

It sort of feels like all the light and all the beauty he’d been breathing in flickers and wanes, but that might be his vision spinning. He stumbles, can’t catch himself. Suddenly in the grass, his world flipped sideways in a glossy blur. He’d probably be tempted to throw up if he had anything in his stomach.

He pushes himself up on his hands, ouch, ouch, ouch. His lip trembles. His palms sting and his knee is bleeding… it hit a rock on his way down. That might be what tripped him.. He doesn’t know. A tear slips out of his eye and hits the grass below with a soft noise. He sits up and tries to fathom where he is… how to get home. He wants his cat.

He’s hurt and cold. Where– Where is he? Dream?

His lips form his name, calling out silently once, twice.

“Dr–am,” His voice wheezes, tight from held in tears. He gags feeling his voice form that word. He goes to stand, falls back down to his knees, tries again. He stumbles down the stone road, lights now too blinding to be comfortable. Too illuminating– he’s too visible.

His foot hits a root or something, because he’s tripping again. Except, there’s no lanterns anymore, and he’s in the middle of the woods. There’s… colors on the floor, in the dirt. Caustics, like at the bottom of a pool. Like the world is under the ocean. 

He blinks away the tears to watch them dance and twist. Turquoise, cobalt, blue. He looks up, and it’s an endless abyss of black. He can’t see. It’s just… trees. It’s cold. There’s blood in his mouth.

He leans on the trunk of a tree for support, trying with all his might to make sense of things. What’s drugs and what’s not. He needs help, he needs– he needs someone. Ugh.

He finds his center of balance after some time, walking like a normal person. Too bad he’s got no idea where he’s going, or where he’s come from. He marches forward despite it all, his world dark and glossy and smearing. 

Home. He’s going home.

Down the way, standing dead center in the middle of the path, is a man. George stops in his tracks to stare numbly at the floor length cloak, the long blonde braid down his back. 

“Dream?” He calls. The man turns, and sure as day, there’s his mask. He feels something indescribable. Want, need, as he picks up his wobbly pace to meet him. Anger, betrayal, love, sorrow– he doesn’t know where it comes from.

Both casted in blue light, like bodies at the bottom of the sea floor.

“George,” He says from behind the mask, hands outstretched as if to stop him, or maybe hug him. George isn’t sure. But he neither attacks nor embraces him when he gets within his reach, just stares dumbly up at his mask. Dream’s voice says something again, unintelligible, spoken through a wall.

“You… you’re here?” George knows he isn’t. He could fucking cry. 

“Hey,” Dream cups his cheek and it takes everything in him not to fall into it. “I’m right here.”

George’s expression darkens at the lie. His jaw tenses, “What–”

“Did you not want me to be?”

George pulls away from his grip– this mirage, this deception. Not real. Not worth lingering in. It’s insulting. His vision swims once again, a lightheaded pang rushing through him as he takes a step forward, the floor fast approaching. Dream dives to catch him as he stumbles. “No, no, no, no, come here,”

“XD, if this is you, this isn't funny. I don’t want–” A breath shudders through him as Dream holds him upright. His hands are warm, the world is so cold.

“It’s me.” He says, watery and hazy, but his voice has a bass to it that George can anchor to. The lights are so bright. Stained glass, water, spotlights. Dream holds his jaw, pressing their foreheads together, swaying slightly. George can hear his blood rushing through his veins. It sounds like a swelling symphony, his thoughts need to be screamed to be heard.

He balls his fists and finds flower petals between his fingers.

“I’m here,” 

“No, you’re not. I know you’re not!” He sobs in anger, bites his lip. He can’t tell what’s binding him in place anymore, or where on his body he’s pressed to exactly. Blue light, black world, hot hands, tears, fury, voices in water. He tries to scream and his voice is caught in his throat.

“I came back. It’s over.” 

George’s eyes flash open. And what if it were true? Could it? He can feel him, see him, hear him. He’s crying from overstimulation, maybe that’s the water he’s speaking through. His lip trembles as he lays both hands flat on Dream’s chest, looping his fingers in the leather straps. Daisy petals fall from his palms, withering away before they reach the ground.

“Really?” A sob falls out of his mouth, despite his best efforts. He’d like to go home. It’s getting cold, so cold, and they– they can plant peas. Make soup, look at all these petals…

“Of course.” His mask tilts. George presses his head into his chest and tries to stop crying. He wants it to be okay. He wants to be okay.

A hand runs through his hair, and George notes all five fingers. 

Whatever delusional base he was building for himself falls out from under him, he sobs as he finally summons the strength to break free. He holds a weapon aloft– flowers that are now a knife. A knife that is now a pair of garden shears. Lover that is now game.

He isn’t real. None of this is real. They’re drowning at the bottom of the ocean and Dream is an anchor. Cut… the line. George’s expression flickers from rage to something like fear– looking between the blade and the flowers looped in the buckles of Dream’s chest. Burning an effigy. 

Dream looks alarmed but doesn’t have time to run before George has plunged one of the blades straight through his breast bone. They’re both horrified, of course, George is shaking something awful– he misses the handle when he tries to grab it again.

Dream’s body is pushed backward as the shears are ripped from him, the blood coating the blade is black and glittering. The night and all those stars. George wills himself forward to cut at him, his target dodges best he can, and the shears shred into his hair instead. It looks like half-cut rope. 

“George– Stop–!”

“I’m sorry,” He says, this is horrifying, “I’m sorry.”

“George–” His right hook hits his face before he can finish his sentence. His mask goes flying, hitting the ground with a crisp bark and skipping several feet away. Dream falls to the ground. The world is smeared paint and wet marker. George follows his heat signal.

He straddles his hips in a movement that could be interpreted as romantic, maybe even seductive. Dream fights to block his hands as they attempt to connect with his face. The great swelling that filled his mind before is gone and replaced with whimpered protests and thrashing clothes, quiet callings of his name.

He holds the shears over his head. The boy below him stares wide eyed with child-like fear, lips tight and lip quivering. Watching George carefully for his next move. The blood pouring out of his nose (both their noses, somehow) glitters in every roll of light. 

“You– You’re–” George hiccups, trying his hardest not to cry. Dream’s face has no scars, no signs of wear. 

There’s gentle hands coming to rest on his thighs, shaking awfully in the fingers. “I’m yours.”

“No you’re not!” He crashes the blade into his chest. Feels how it punctures the leather and skin below, how the impact ripples through his legs. Dream stares at the puncture and back up to George’s eyes with a strange, deep understanding. So he stabs him again. And again. And again. And again. 

His hands are covered in blood turned black under the sea light, a pool of stars under them both. Crying, sobbing, breaking. 

An image of Dream, destroyed. A lover with his heart cut open. A perfect world, drowned in its own blood. Because it wasn’t real, and it would have drowned him too.

His arms give out, eventually. He leans backward, head tilted toward the sky. He can actually see the sun now, shining five hundred feet down from the water’s surface. Below him, Dream lifelessly stares at the same sky. With his hair cut, he looks like a broken doll. George sobs again, laying his head in the crook of Dream’s neck, balling his fists in his cloak. Smells like copper. Smells like love. 

Smells like Dream.

George wakes up on his back. The world is overcast and wet, his first waking sight being the dull gray clouds swirling above. Heavy eyelids, heavier limbs, heavier heart. As he sits up, he presses a hand over his aching chest. It feels like something shot through him. Like something’s broken and bleeding inside him.

(Good morning, Sadness says, I’ll be staying in your guest room.)

He swivels his head to take in where he is. An empty clearing on a hill, far from home. He feels sticky. Must be blood, everywhere, despite clean hands. (Truthfully, it’s the humidity.) Laying next to him, a knife. Ahead of him, over more hills, the community house.

He takes a moment to gather the scattered bits of his mind.

My name is George. My favorite color is blue. I live in Kinoko Kingdom. My favorite candle smell is vanilla. 

He stands and dusts off his knees, pushing the knife into his boot. His head still feels waterlogged, slow, like his body is moving through jello. Everything takes effort. It’s so cold, and there’s a gigantic hole in his sleeve over his elbow that’s caked in dried blood. Actually, so is his torn open knee. 

“Dream…” He sniffs wetly, “Where…?”

His thoughts and memory catch up to him but not correctly, or even in a way that makes sense through the thick haze of sleep. He was woken up, he shouldn’t be asleep. There’s something calling for him to lay back down… he doesn’t want to. He looks behind him where he was laying and sees the beginning blooms of flowers hugging his imprint in the grass. How long…?

He yawns, nearly causing himself to pass out again. He almost loses his balance, colors flooding his vision as it almost turns completely white. Jeez. 

Home. Can’t stay, god will drown him. Need to keep moving. He can’t go back to Kinoko. He can’t think why, exactly, but it’s a non-option. He pulls his goggles over his eyes– the sky’s too bright.

Need to find him.

✦

The hill was easy enough to climb down, now it’s just a matter of walking. The world doesn’t make a great deal of sense to George, unfortunately, rendering matters more complicated. Namely, the fact that he doesn’t have a destination in mind. He’s operating under the assumption that if he walks in a straight line, Dream will be there eventually. 

He takes a rather harsh tumble down a hill. The cut on his knee has reopened.

He loses thoughts before he can even finish thinking them, waterlogged and heavy– he’s hallucinating, or maybe he’s half asleep and daydreaming? Not that he’s aware enough to recognize that. He’s not even all-there enough to think about what he’s seeing, let alone believe it– he is simply seeing it. 

Memories try to talk to him, sometimes Sapnap is behind him calling him home, sometimes there’s a white rabbit and sometimes there’s a war. A crater where his house used to be. 

He looks over the edge and wonders if that’s where he dropped his engagement ring…

“Mm… think he’ll still marry me?” He asks the chasm. It doesn’t seem to respond, just takes his voice and tosses it back at him. Though in the silence that follows, he hears it groan unintelligibly. He  leans forward to hear it better. The wind from below blows softly through his hair– he almost falls in trying to listen. 

“Probably not,” The girl (who isn’t really) next to him says, “But either way it’s bad luck.”

“You think?” He turns to look at her. Alyssa smiles with her eyes, mouth hidden behind her mask.

Staring at her directly makes the world around her blur and fall away. It’s disorienting. More importantly, a memory strikes him–  A note on the table and a box of cupcakes. 

Dear Dream, (and George, because I know he’ll show you this) I’m leaving, and I think you should too,

“You’re… not here.” He rubs his nose, “You’re fake.”

She shifts awkwardly, like George had made a serious faux pas by pointing it out, “Well, yeah…”

He turns from the girl and the maw and keeps moving. He opts to stare at his feet and count as high as he can so as to not let old memories snare him. No matter how much they call.

He finds himself standing outside the community house. He recognizes the wood and the water on either side, and looks up for the first time in half an hour. He’s deeply confused at the changed interior. No, not confused, it’s the same. Is it? Weren’t there beds? That was a long time ago.

It’s so quiet. All he can hear is the water gently lapping the wooden planks below– not even so much as a breeze to fill the silence. It’s freezing. He remembers how the sun always soaked into the walls and made them so scorchingly hot (Dream’s voice chimes in his mind, you could fry an egg on this thing…) but when he lays his palm on the brick, it feels more like an ice cube.

“Hello?” He calls out, small and frail. He’s not sure where he is anymore. He thinks maybe if he stares at it long enough, it’ll take a form that makes sense. 

Blood, everywhere. Black and glittering.

His head jerks up, snapping him out of nearly falling asleep. When the static subsides, his world has been knocked sideways and he’s lying on the wood, shoulder aching from the fall. The water licks the tips of his fingers. He nearly fell in the lake… 

Dream isn’t here. If he was here, then he wouldn’t have fallen… he would have caught him. 

He collects himself from the floor with some effort. Got to keep going. Can’t go home. Home is in front of him. Need Dream, Dream is somewhere in front of him because Dream left him behind. That’s how direction works, yeah?

Let’s paint a picture.

There’s a beautiful boy walking down a path with wobbling, stumbling legs. Poor thing’s torn a wing and he’s struggling to fly. He looks washed out under an overcast sky. The hem of his sweater and the white button up that pokes out are as dirty as the knees of his jeans. With his torn open sleeve and bloody knee, he looks as if he just fell out of a tree. Lots of them. In succession. 

He’s hugging his waist as he drags himself down the prime path, shivering like he’s sopping wet. 

Oh, sweetheart, Dream would say, Let’s start a fire…

The light bruises on his cheeks are exacerbated by how pale he looks. Pink nose and pale lips,  messy dark hair split every which way. It’s really quite romantic, this cold and dying thing, too out of it to even recognize what’s right in front of him.

Something calls his name. He keeps moving. He knows there’s nothing there, and he won’t turn no matter how much it calls.

A body mass slides in to block his path forward. He trips into a very tall and very broad man, both hands landing flat on his chest in an effort to catch himself. It takes too long for him to process what’s happened, just that he’s leaning on someone, and they’re holding his elbows to keep him from falling completely. 

“Whoa, I’ve got you,” The voice finally breaks through his haze– oh, Sam. This is Sam. “Careful…”

He’s steadied back upright. Sam laughs nervously, setting aside his tools by the workbench he had presumably been hunched over. George can’t comprehend the mass of looping shapes as anything other than a nondescript blob. George sways in place. Hard to keep his head up. 

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you, ever since I heard what happened...” Mmm, there’s that good ‘ol pity…

The goggles create an impersonal barrier that hides a good half of his face, something he’s always taken advantage of when he’s not in the listening mood. Sam is talking. George is busy trying to remember his own name. 

“I’ve been wondering how you’ve been, what are you… how you..” Sam trails off, taking a step back to truly assess him. Something about George seems to unsettle him. “Are you… alright?”

He nods. My god, it’s cold… 

“You look like you just rolled down a mountain.” Sam’s expression is one of concern as he pinches the rip in his sleeve, “And then some…”

George feels (and looks, surely) like a lost child. He blinks hard, trying to put the world back into focus. There’s Sam, clearly defined by black lines and gold sleeves, and then there’s not-Sam; a world of dull watercolor bleeding straight through the paper. It occurs to him he doesn’t know where he is at all. He did a moment ago… 

Distractedly, “Have you seen a butterfly?”

Sam raises an eyebrow, “Other than you?” 

“It’s blue, and… made of glass.” He wants to move but feels bolted to the ground, looking around hopelessly for something to remind him of himself. He’s losing it all. “No, a-actually, it’s crystal.”

Sam stares at him like he’s speaking a different language. “No, I haven’t,” He says slowly, “You seem… unwell.”

Sam steps forward, impossibly tall. He hooks his thumbs in George’s goggles and pulls them down around his neck. George squints in the new light. With the ash sky behind him, Sam’s eyes look like the closest thing to the sun he’s seen in days.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” He asks gently, “Are you asleep?”

George doesn’t like this question much, face scrunching in annoyance as he jerks away. Too close, Sam’s hands are too warm, stop, get off.

Without the goggles in the way, Sam can actually see his eyes– slightly blown with deep circles underneath, a scrape and bruise decorating his left cheekbone. George quickly averts his gaze, eye contact too much at once. It felt like he was being burned up on the inside.

“No, I’m. I’m awake.” He’s pretty sure. He’s pretty sure. He’s pretty sure.

“You look awful. Where’s– is anyone with you?” George shakes his head– “God, they really shouldn’t let you just… no, it’s okay. I’d like to talk, if you’re free? I have a few questions, officially, if you don’t mind.”

George shakes his head once again, “I’m going home,” He leans his head in his hand in an effort to keep it in one place, “Talk later.”

“Uhm. Isn’t Kinoko Kingdom the other w…?”

But he’s already putting one foot in front of the other. 

“Okay. I’ll. Um. Be seeing you, George.”

Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot…

He’s following something. He doesn’t know what. At the end of this thread is who he’s searching for. It’s just him here, somehow, walking through a vast and empty world until he can find something he recognizes.

Before he knows it, he’s standing in a clearing. He’s stood in this clearing so many times before it feels like he’s stepped into his own footprints, forever pressed into the grass. Before him stands a gigantic black structure. It looks impossibly dark in front of the white sky– too big, too imposing. It’s consumed so much, he doesn’t know how it doesn’t have teeth. A whale. Monstro.

He stays locked in place. Yes, this is familiar. Yes, this is where his feet intend to lead him. Yes, he’s standing in the field like an idiot like he always has.

His mother’s voice chimes in his head. You’ve lost something? Check where you last saw it, love.

(Though, he famously never actually saw him here.)

Despite it all, he stumbles down the hill toward the mouth of the prison and prays that it doesn’t have teeth on the inside. 

Up close he can see the water’s reflection on the obsidian, dancing and bending endlessly. The ocean breeze cuts through him, and he thinks if he doesn’t move soon he’ll freeze in place.

He takes a shaky step inside the portal room, then another, and another. Watching his feet line up with the terracotta tiles. He’s afraid that if he lifts his head he’ll lose his nerve. At the back of the room is the portal, and his cue to stop walking should be when he sees the purple light of the portal– but his feet bump into the portal’s base. He looks up.

The portal is unlit. His palm presses forward until it hits the wall. Cold. He was half expecting it to light for him. Why is it off…? He thought…

Right. He’s not there. That’s right, now you remember. Look at you, getting your memory jogged. The cave, the hayloft, the house, the comm. How he threw you to the ground, left you bruised and heartbroken and stupid.

George is on the floor before he realizes he is, collapsed against the portal’s base and crying like the world is ending. 

It’s a strange feeling of mourning, hollowed out and bleeding, this poor stupid thing. There’s no casket to cry over, so obsidian will just have to do. Not that Dream’s dead, per se– but he might as well be, because he’s going to get himself killed or this dumb little plan of his is just going to pan out forever, and he’ll never get to come home!

He’s crying and he doesn’t know how to stop. He doesn’t want to. Praying without meaning to, hands clasped together against the bridge of his nose whispering please, please, please…

George from three years ago would scoff at the sight. God doesn’t give handouts, you’d think someone would have figured that out by now! … But recently he learned God could be haggled with. There are bargains to be made. (If only it were listening.)

It is an outpour of grief, leaning to the ground like a pitcher full. He can’t even remember what exactly it is that he’s grieving, that fleeting moment of clarity blown away in the breeze and leaving him with just a haze, a wall of tears blocking out all the other corners of his mind.

Hello. Sadness smiles as she locks the front door. Let’s make up for lost time.

His tears are turned to ice as the breeze licks inside. He shivers, curling in on himself, nearly reaching out for Dream to come closer. One of those little habits he can’t curb, like setting out the dishes for him to put away or leaving the laundry out to fold. They were once two bits of the same psyche, so where does that leave him?

He sobs again, mouthing his name. He’d say it if his throat weren’t so tight with tears. He wants to call for him, and he would be, over and over and over if he could manage to fill his lungs with anything other than grief. 

“Please!” He gasps, broken and strangled. Then again, much quieter, and again. A litany falling from desperate lips.

A warm body blocks the chill. George doesn’t realize he’s no longer alone until he sees the long shadow being casted across the floor. He thinks, for a moment, that his begging worked and Dream is here! It worked! … but then he wipes away the tears and sees Sam walking toward him instead, and his heart climbs back down from his throat.

“Go,” He sobs, “Away.”

“George, please come with me.” Sam’s voice is gentle, slowly approaching like George could scurry off at the drop of a pen, “You’re not alright, let me help you.”

“Help. Open the– open.” He sniffs, looking to the wall. “Please, I want– where is he? Do you know?”

“No, George. Nobody knows. Listen, I know you’re scared,”

“I’m not,”

“But I won’t let him hurt you.” He’s getting pretty close, now. The statement has a strange underline that George really doesn’t like. His mind spikes. He scrambles to his feet.

“He wouldn’t,” His back hits the wall, stars swirling in his vision, “I don’t need– you don’t understand, I need him– need to find him. Please,”

“George. I can take you somewhere safe. You’ll be okay there. Have you eaten? I have food.”

“I have to get back to him, he left me behind. He’s– He’s up ahead.”

“George, you’re not making any sense. Are you… drugged?” Lightbulb, “Is Dream– God, was he here, did he hurt you?”

George shakes his head vigorously. “He wouldn’t.”

Sam pauses. Whatever softness present before is overtaken with cold contemplation. There’s an uncanny look in George’s eyes– one he’s not sure what to make of. He’s obviously out of his mind. 

“You look hungry. Tired.”

And he is.

Sam takes another step forward, backing George completely into the corner with about a desk’s length between them. “I have food and a bed for you. You like feather pillows, right? Come with me, and I can get you anything you’d like. You wouldn’t even have to walk, I’ve got a horse.”

George’s chest shakes as he cries with no air. “Please let me see him, I want– want to visit, let me– let me in, please. I just want to tell him I’m sorry.”

Sam’s eyes narrow. “...If you help me find him, you can tell him yourself.”

George sniffs, looking down at the ground and wiping his eyes with his sleeves. It feels like he’s eight years old again and lost in the rain. As he blinks the tears away he sees blood, black and glittering. It’s dripping off his hands like thick ink. He stares numbly, the color seeming so infinite, and all those stars…

Behind his fingers, he notices the blood splattered over Sam’s boots. He’s stunned for a moment as it prompts recollection– verging on a moment of clarity as his eyes drag up Sam’s body. There’s blood dripping from his fingers, handprints pressed to his chest, a glittering smear over his mouth.

George lays his hands on the marks over his chest, much to Sam’s confusion. He takes them in his own, mistaking the gesture for something it isn’t. Though, George doesn’t know what it is either. In his mind, he’s laying his hands over Dream’s– they’re his. He sees him for just a moment, their hands together, flickering, and suddenly there’s no blood at all. 

He thinks Sam is far too sturdy. Then suddenly, like a keystone, remembers how Dream always flinches first. He sees himself tracing the white star on his chest with a finger. Then, the ocean. The night sky. A confession.

He lodged my chest open with an axe and pulled my heart out.

Sam… is not safe. He shouldn’t be here. Like, he really, really shouldn’t be here.

George is about to yank away when Sam’s hands slide down to grip his wrists securely. 

“Don’t struggle. This is for your own good, I swear it.”

“Get off of me!” George shouts, kicking with as much force as he can muster. Which is to say next to none, as exhausted and drained as he is. He’s being pulled toward the entrance with little effort. “This isn’t funny, stop, stop, stop–”

“I’m not joking.” 

“Stop– Dream!” It’s useless, Dream’s not going to miraculously appear, he knows, but his mouth doesn’t. “Dream!”

He bites Sam’s wrist, breaking free for just a few precious moments before he’s caught around the waist and being hoisted over a broad shoulder. He grabs the knife in his boot and stabs blindly, falling to the ground as Sam seizes up. 

He scrambles away, tripping a few times on the grass before he can stand solidly on his feet. 

Something hits him. Or maybe he blacks out. Or maybe he just can’t remember what happened– god knows he was falling apart at the seams.

But something happens, and the last thing he remembers is falling, falling… and waking up in a bed that isn’t his own.

His dreams are devoid of their namesake.

His first waking observation is the smell of the ocean. Ocean and warm scented candles. Vanilla, maybe. 

His second waking observation is that he feels like he’s spent the night in an oven. His head is heavy like lead and damp with sweat. He cringes at the feeling of wet hair as he brushes his bangs from his forehead.  

He sits up out of bed and looks around. He’s been laying on very nice feather pillows– so Sam hadn’t been lying about that, at least.

The decor is undeniably Sam. Oak wood shelves with dull books packed into them like sardines. A bare table, a minimalist kitchen. Only the essentials, it seems. He squints to see the surprisingly few appliances on the other side of the room. It’s now that George realizes that Sam has just… pushed a bed against the wall of the living room. Though, judging by the size of the house he probably doesn’t have a guest bed. Fair enough.

When they were roommates years ago, George always thought his aversion to knick knacks annoying. Where Sam’s spaces were spotless and optimized for storage, George’s room was practically cushioned from floor to ceiling. 

He can see at least a couple nautical decorations on the bookshelves, but nothing too exciting. He can’t say the room has a theme, exactly. On the bookshelves nearby, there's a ship in a bottle Sam might have constructed himself. Then, a fishnet hung by the door. But that might just be for practicality, not an intentional decoration.

Okay, he got a little hung up on this. He yawns, stretches, rubs his eyes. And though he knows it’s strange for most, he doesn’t feel scared. God knows he’s used to waking up in new places.

Sam walks through the door with a saucepan and a hot pad, making a beeline for the kitchen stove without looking in George’s direction. He watches him stir it a few times, tap the spoon on the edge and set it in the sink. He doesn’t know if he should say something. 

Eventually, Sam glances in his direction. He does a double take before realizing he’s sitting up.

“You’re awake!” Sam says through his respirator. He sounds happily surprised and somewhat relieved. “You need to eat.”

“I do?” 

“You’ve been asleep for a few days,” Sam’s pouring whatever’s in the saucepan into a bowl, “Are you feeling alright?”

George turns to look out the window. A few days. 

A hot bowl is set in his lap. Sam can’t cook especially well, he learned a long time ago. He’s a little wary of this tomato soup. 

Another waking thought bubbles to his mind, you need to get the fuck out of here. 

Right. Right! … He’s hungry, though. 

He brings the bowl to his lips and drinks. It’s scalding as it pours down his throat, but hunger grips him with full force, and he doesn’t stop until it’s empty. Sam asks if he wants seconds, and George nods feverishly. 

“I’m glad you’re awake. I was starting to get really worried.”  

George tries to reply but finds he’s lacking the energy– just sitting up takes enough effort. The world is a haze when he turns his head too fast, the heat from the soup still lingers on his palms and down his throat. He can feel his eyelids beginning to weigh down once again, the world obscured by his eyelashes.

When Sam comes back with the bowl refilled, George does his best to swallow it just as fast before he passes out again.

“Careful, you’ll choke–” Sam chides, going to hold the bowl himself. George’s hands fall to the bed uselessly, Sam gently tilts the bowl down his throat til it’s all gone, turning away briefly to set it down on the desk nearby.

“I’ve wanted to talk to you ever since I heard you got back, I need to–” 

George’s body hits the pillows like dead weight as his strength collapses. 

“– ask you a few questions…”

George looks up at him with a lifeless expression. Whatever was on the tip of his tongue is tucked away for another time. 

“Are you… alright?”

He blinks blearily, waiting for Sam’s words to register. They never do. He can’t even manage to ask him to say it again, his head feels like it’s been dragged through eighty miles of mud.

Sam tries to press more, earning little response from George who ends up falling back asleep in a matter of moments.

A few days pass. Sam is a kind host. He gives George food, starts a fire when the chill seeps into the house. They talk some. George is too tired to make tons of conversation, but he listens while he eats. When he isn’t eating, he’s sleeping. 

He studies Sam’s face during one of their little talks. Sam’s sitting by the bed and sketching, George watches sleepily through the eye that isn’t smooshed into the pillow. 

The pencil etches careful lines along the paper, short but neat. George tilts his head with the pencil as Sam turns it to shade the wings of the butterfly. He’s having trouble thinking. He just follows the lines of the world, up Sam’s body to study his focused expression.

His eyes trace along the scar running through his eye and over his cheek. That one’s new. Sam catches him staring, pencil coming to a halt with an awkward chuckle. 

“What are you looking at?”

George’s eyebrows furrow. He takes a few moments to think about it before he replies.

“Your face has a cut in it.” He says a bit dumbly. This is the first intelligent thing he’s said other than a grunt or a whine since he first woke up. Sam lights up with it. 

The scar is pale and flat to his skin, no texture at all. That usually means it was from a death, or a potion was applied very quickly. 

“It’s… from Dream.” Sam says his name delicately and with a hint of caution. “He did a number on me, too.”

“Oh,” He says dryly. Whatever pity George may have felt for him about it has now evaporated, “You died?”

Sam nods. “It isn’t all awful. I got an upgrade out of it.” He points to his eye, then makes– oh, it’s robotic. It swirls in a circle and focuses, then unfocuses. Displaying the craftsmanship just for him. George huffs a little through his nose, blinking slow.

Sam goes back to sketching, George finds the strength to push himself up to see better– a butterfly resting on a thistle. There’s words filling up the page opposite, though he can’t make out what they say. He’s trying pretty hard though, leaning forward on his forearms with a bit of a squint.

Sam seems pleased with the new developments. He leans the book for George to see it better, thinking he wanted to look at the drawing. 

“I’m a little rusty.”

“I like it…” George’s strength collapses, falling back into the bed. He pushes down the fluffing of the pillow to keep watching Sam draw. He thinks he should probably try to go home. But the pillow… he’s so tired of walking. George figures he must look pretty sad, judging by the way Sam’s looking at him. 

Sam gets up and travels over to the bookshelf on the far wall, picking something up to bring back to his house guest. 

“You like butterflies.” Sam says like George doesn’t know, “Here. This is the prettiest I’ve ever seen.” 

George rolls to accept the gift in his hands, turning it over to see it’s a butterfly pinned in glass casing. It’s really pretty… peach. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen a peach colored butterfly before. Inexplicably, perhaps thanks to his sleep-addled emotional processing, it makes George sad. He pouts.

Sam’s eyebrows knit, “What’s wrong?”

“It’s pinned.”

“It’s dead.”

“Well if I died, I wouldn’t want to be pinned for forever…” George stares at the wings through the glass, “It looks pretty uncomfortable…”

Sam makes a sound that’s something like a laugh, not sure how serious George actually is, “That’s a little vain, don’t you think? To think you’d be so beautiful that someone would want to do that to you…”

“Well, aren't I?

“Hm.” Sam’s head tilts in amusement. George adjusts his expression to something better, keenly aware he’s being observed. Sam shrugs. “Well, if it had a soul it probably wouldn’t mind being considered beautiful in death. Lots of humans like the idea.”

“Well yeah, but I think it’d be tired by now, being on display all the time…” George says through a yawn, causing tears to prick the corners of his eyes, “Like sucking in your stomach…”

Sam clearly doesn’t understand the sentiment. “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t knowww,” George groans, setting the box frame on the windowsill before his arm comes crashing back down to the mattress. He grumpily rolls over to face away from him, suddenly just too tired to even bother with it. “Stop talking to me...”

He’s too tired to get out of bed and leave. Or maybe he’s too depressed to. Something about the idea of trying to go back to Kinoko is so daunting he can barely even entertain it. It’s fine here. He doesn’t really care. Yes, Sam is dangerous, but George is not Dream. He’s not in danger.

Back in the old days when they lived together– which, God, must have been around the whole Manburg fiasco– Sam had a pretty obvious soft spot for him. George liked to poke at it to get nice things from him. And it’s still there, judging by the look in his eye. 

Though, George figures that could just be pity. Sam watches him a lot. George realizes what he must look like, the assumptions he must be making. After the mess he was a few days ago, he’s sure utter compliance and passiveness must be quite a look right now. Oh well, at least that plays into his alibi. The traumatized little damsel. 

Sam doesn’t ask much of him. He hasn’t even set any boundaries or rules. He figures since he’s a guest he should telegraph where he’s going before he goes, hey, I’m going to the bathroom, but Sam tells him gently that he doesn’t have to ask. Which is strange, because George wasn’t asking, but whatever. 

He doesn’t get out of bed much, anyway. 

Two more days pass before Sam tries to ask another question. He’s sitting in a chair pulled up to the edge of George’s bed, waiting for the thermometer to be done checking his temperature. He’s still running a bit of a fever, judging by the look on Sam’s face when he reads the number. 

“Maybe it’s the chill.” He gestures out the window with the thermometer. It’s been raining all day. George likes watching the droplets fall down the glass– helps him fall back asleep. “I don’t remember you being so sensitive to temperature, though…”

George shrugs. 

“You should eat.”

He’s not very hungry. If conversation time is over, he’d like to go back to sleep. He shakes his head. Sam’s eyebrows furrow.

“Did you… eat properly, while you were… gone?”

George turns from the window to face him, confusion plain as day written all over his face. 

Sam tries a bit more bluntly, “Did Dream feed you.”

“Yes,” He doesn’t particularly like hearing Sam say his name, “Why does it matter?”

“Your eating habits are concerning, is all. The most you’ve eaten in a day is the three bowls of soup when you woke up.”

“I’m just not hungry.” He pulls the comforter tighter around himself. It’s really cold.

“What did he feed you?”

Could he accidentally fuck Dream over by answering this? As far as he knows, Dream didn’t give many details about their little holiday. Actually, come to think of it, it’s not like he could let anything slip because Dream never actually told him anything important. Hm. Should he be offended?

“He… fed me normal food.” He knows Dream probably would have gone crueler, but George just isn’t capable. “Like soup and carrots. Steak.”

“Steak?”

“Sometimes.”

Sam’s fingers look like they’re itching for a pen. “Why?”

“What do you mean, why?” George’s voice drags a bit as he forces himself to speak, “It’s just food.”

His mouth pulls to one side. “Not with him, it isn’t.”

George lets out this cranky little scoff without meaning to, who the fuck does he think he is? Acting like he knows better…

“Whatever. I don’t like to talk about it.”

This usually gets people off his back. Not this time.

Sam takes a deep breath like he’s buying himself time to think about what to say next. It exits heavy through his respirator, making the cylinders spin and reset. He stands from his chair and walks over to one of the bookshelves, pulling a notebook and a pen from the nearby desk.

George sits up in interest.

“I’ve actually, ah, been meaning to talk with you, ever since you came back.” He rotates the chair to be facing George directly before sitting back down. “When he resurfaced again, he made it seem like… nobody would ever find you. Then, I heard you came stumbling out of the woods covered in bruises, starving, crying.” 

Sam’s talking like he knows everything, which George is sorely annoyed with– even worse is that he hasn’t said anything he can disagree with yet. 

“At least that’s what Sapnap was willing to tell me. I wanted to talk with you as soon as possible, but he wouldn’t let me. Said he could help you all on his own, and you’d be just fine… I don’t imagine that’s working out very well for you.”

He huffs, kneading the comforter. Sounds like something Sapnap would do. Deny help, thinking he’ll be enough. Think he’ll be enough for everyone. To be fair, he wouldn’t have talked to Sam. But Sapnap just shooting down without even asking, well, it puts a twitch in his brow.

Sam softens at George’s new pouting expression, tone gentle, “I’m glad I found you.”

“So… what, you want to interrogate me?” George rubs his eye, “I don’t know anything important.”

“I just want to ask you some questions.” Sam reassures, “They’re not invasive, only thorough.”

George eyes the pen that’s already jotting things down. He doesn’t like this. He sews his jaw shut.

Sam’s eyes are full of something too personal for George to identify, a man staring straight in the eyes of an answer. “... This could help me prevent other people from being hurt.”

Ice shoots down his spine and settles coldly in his gut.

“I– I don’t…” George does his best to sound pained. Is it more or less suspicious to deny an interview? And which is less effort? What will Sam do if he refuses? Dream swore up and down that Sam would chase him to the ends of the earth– that he’d do anything. 

“I actually don’t know anything important. Like, he didn’t tell me anything. Why would he tell me anything…”

“You were the only person to see him for months. Anything you have to say would help me prevent what happened to you from happening to someone else. Anything.”

“I really don’t want to be involved in the militia, or any– I just want to be left alone,”

Sam’s eyebrows upturn at George’s expression. He must be selling the scared look– well, to be fair, he is scared. But he likes to pretend his expressions are a conscious act sometimes.

“It would be anonymous, I’m the only one who would know. And in any case, I would keep you safe.” He takes a breath, “I cannot stress enough how valuable this intel is. You’re the only lead I have.”

… The only lead. He could… he could misdirect him. If he could figure out where exactly to lie, maybe he could actually help. And Sam might not bother him again, and he could just go home and wait. Sleep.

He’s tired of trying. It’s pointless, he sees that now. Even more pointless than he even originally thought. He won’t just magically find Dream, and Dream won’t magically come out of nowhere. He has to save himself from his own stupid situations.

And honestly, he’s scared of what Sam will do if he says no. He’s not sure exactly what he’s afraid of. Just that it might be worse.

The rain on the roof runs loud in George’s ears, the ambient percussion of the long silence between them. Lightning strikes the ocean’s horizon. Sam’s respirator clicks quietly.

This is the path of least resistance– trying has only ever gotten him in trouble. Well, he’s already in trouble, this is how to slide out of it. And it’s not like he knows anything important, anyway! If Sam just wants to ask about food, or whatever, then sure. 

“... Okay.”

Sam visibly lights up, though the emotion is much more restrained than whatever was in his eyes before. He draws a line to divide the page, he corrects his posture. Professional, punctual, organized. 

This sort of looks like therapy if George squints and tilts his head.

“Start from the beginning.”

Rain, lightning, three boys and a crossbow bolt.

“We… were fighting by the ravine. And…” I killed him, “I was trying to shoot Dream, but I missed,”

(Actually, Sapnap had asked him, Did you miss? Is that what happened? And something about the look in his eyes told George he already knew the truth, that his asking was just cordial, an opportunity for a polite lie.)

“It– It was raining really hard. I couldn’t see. And it, uhm… killed him. It was an accident. And Dream… took me with him.”

“What did he say?”

They’ll hurt you. Come with me.

“That he’d hurt me if I didn’t come with him.” This feels like it should be against his biology. He grips the hem of his sweater to keep his hands from taking that stupid pen and shoving it straight into his other eye.

“And did he hurt you?”

“No.”

Sam’s eyebrow twitches. George recognizes this half-expression from all the times he watched him work– perplexion. He writes it down anyway.

“Where did you go, after the ravine?” 

The mine. The fire. How Dream’s face twisted when he said something cruel.

He feels the threads of his sweater pull taught under his hands, “We went… uhm. He picked a direction, we landed in some town.”

“Yes. I was there close behind you.”

“Really?” He had been thinking to lie, maybe, set the events out of order. He can’t, now.

Sam nods. Okay. Wow. He really was following them. Which makes sense, now that he thinks about it, since Sam has been talking like he has a basic idea of what happened when. But it’s still a bit jarring to hear it confirmed. Dream was running from something real. 

“I was a few days behind you and thought I’d lose the trail, but I was able to catch up. Which was… unexpected. Why did he stay in that town for so long?”

George has trouble connecting Dream’s world and his perception of people as being a shared plane of reality. It’s just hard to believe that the world he sees is the same one George lives in. He’s terrified of everything, runs from snapped branches, flinches at the smallest touch. 

Not that he thinks Dream is a liar, or that what he feels is untrue. Just that the dissonance between worlds means he will never fully understand what Dream sees. But it feels like, for once, he can grasp at it. 

Sitting in front of him is what Dream had been so afraid of, all that time.

“... George?”

George makes a noise, snapping back to reality. The question. Why did they stay in town for longer than necessary. He attempts to set aside the sick feeling in his gut, trying to remember what came next. 

He remembers Dream, sick on the ground, calling Sam’s name. 

This does his stomach no wonders. In fact, it’s worse. His fingers tremble. He wrings his sweater harder

“He had a fever.”

“A fever?”

“He just came down with a fever.”

“That lasted a day?”

George scoffs, unable to stomp out the tremble in his voice, “Sometimes people j-just get sick. He wasn’t exactly in the best condition.”

Sam’s eyebrows furrow in what is surely doubt. “What do you mean?”

“He… was in prison. Is all I meant. You know what I meant.”

“He was in well enough condition to travel and fight…”

“Why are you… why are you defensive? Why is this the hard to believe part?”

“I’m not defensive, what? George, I’m just trying to understand. ”

He makes a frustrated little noise, “I don’t know. Maybe it was the new pollen, or stress, or something.”

“Stress…” He says as he writes, like the concept is foreign. George has vastly overestimated his tolerance, he thinks, because all he wants to do is grab his pen and stab it straight into his other eye.

“Did you administer medicine, did you have any?”

What’s the point of this question? It’s certainly an opportunity for a lie, though he’s not sure what he should be lying about. What’s the best option…

“He had his own stock that I wasn’t allowed to touch.” He thinks this is a lie Dream would tell, “He said,”

I missed you. I’m glad you’re here. I like dying with you.

“He said he didn’t trust me, so he tied me to a tree.”

George figures the philosophy of the lies should be to make Dream sound much tougher than he is, and downplay their relationship as much as he can. 

“He wouldn’t let you aid him?”

“Why would he? I was a captive.”

“I’m just making sure I’m understanding you correctly.”

“Yeah, no, he wouldn’t even touch me. He ignored me… wouldn’t talk to me unless he had to. Or if… he had something to say.”

He’s caught Sam’s intrigue, “And when would that be?”

“Just, um, when I was being. Bad , I guess.”

He says it with the breath of a joke, but then feels like maybe that was the wrong word to use. The room sparks with something he doesn’t know enough about to identify, like he’s summoned the spirit of something horrible.

“Bad,” Sam reiterates, tilting his head, “And what is his definition of bad?”

George shifts uncomfortably. He hadn’t really meant anything by it. “I– I guess I just meant, like, when I was being a nuisance. I wasn’t exactly happy to be dragged along all over the place… he’d get onto me for being annoying, or interfering with stuff.”

“Stuff?”

“Like, planning where to go next.”

“Right. And what was the objective, exactly? Where were you heading?”

George doesn’t see a reason not to be honest. He doesn’t even know what he’d say– it’s too big to safely lie about. 

“He… was trying to lie low. We were circling back around to come home when things died down. He took me with him because… well, I don’t really know. I wish I did. He can’t leave a witness behind, I guess.”

Sam pauses. The pen doesn’t write. He’s looking at George with a careful contemplation, like he has something to say but doesn’t know how to word it.

“Do you… know what he told us?” He asks with gentle consideration. George’s silence is his answer, so Sam continues, “He told us he had you trapped somewhere, and that he was the only person who would ever see you again. He was bragging about it– he said he made you help him… that he owned you.”

That’s the most romantic thing he’s ever heard. “He said that?”

Sam nods carefully, “He wanted to… keep you. He said you were his trophy. Something about claiming what was denied to him.”

George imagines it. Dream standing somewhere way up high, screaming about how he took their friend and made him his. It’s a little funny. All things considered.

“Oh.” He lets the corner of his mouth that Sam can’t see twitch into a smile, just for a moment, “Well. I guess that’s my answer.”

“We thought we’d never see you again. My trail had gone cold at the coastline.” Sam says, pausing to finish writing something– and to think of how to word this next question, “Where… were you?”

George gets the impression that whatever Sam’s imagining came next was bad. And he can’t exactly blame him, considering. Dream’s certainly made him a convincing sob story. He just doesn’t know how well he can play along, where the farmhouse is concerned. Too raw a nerve.

He hasn’t had to think about it. He doesn’t want to think about it.

George is quiet, for a long time. It probably fits in with the picture Sam is imagining. What… everyone imagined. He’s realizing this is the story everyone heard, too vague and full of negative space for comfort. Turning to George for answers, for reassurance that Dream didn’t ruin him. Ugh, God, this is sick!

“George…”

And something about the way he says this makes his jaw tighten. The pity, the confidence in this idea that Dream is some monster who did something so unspeakably horrible that he has to beg George for the details. 

And he knows this is by Dream’s design. But not his. He can’t sit here and tell Sam, of all people, that Dream is everything he thinks he is. Dream didn’t… trap him, if anyone was trapped somewhere it wasn’t… it wasn’t George.

“It was a house.” He says, deadpan and low. Sam’s pen goes slack in his hand.

“A house? What do you mean?”

“We found a house, and, uhm…” He doesn’t know how to follow up on the truth, doesn’t know how to make it in line with Dream’s narrative. Except he does. The words burn his tongue and he hasn’t even spoken them yet.

“I tried to convince him to stay. I told him that we could… be happy together, that, um, I could make him happy.” He closes his eyes, knowing that whatever expression Sam has on his face right now is far too much to handle. He can already feel the pity bleeding out from his direction, he doesn’t need it to be even more concentrated. 

The pen should be scribbling, but it isn’t. Thunder cracks somewhere distant, ricocheting through the world just to fill this horrible beat of silence. 

“And he… wanted to? Believed you?”

“No.” George says, voice trembling entirely out of his control, arms wrapping around himself, “But I tried to keep him there for as long as I could. T-Trapped. But I think he was playing me. I don’t know.”

“You were there for… months.”

“We had… I mean, sometimes it was really good. I thought I could keep him, I thought things would be okay, but, um… he didn’t mean it, I guess. I think he saw straight through me. At the end, when he left… he said it was all just a game to him. But I really tried to… keep him. You know, just us, away from everyone…”

This is all so laughably fake. It’s horrible. What happened was not noble. He did it for nobody but himself. It was probably one of the most selfish things he’s ever done in his entire life. 

But it paints a better picture than whatever Dream would say in his place. George can’t shake the want to tell Dream he doesn’t mean it, even though he isn’t even here. 

Sam takes some time to process this. Pen hits paper, another word stricken to the record, a testimony. Rain crashes against the house. The clock chimes as the hour turns. 

George isn’t the type to wallow in guilt. He doesn’t apologize much in life. Things happen. Actions mend transgressions better than words. Which is why there’s something so ugly in his chest, threatening to break his heart in two. Guilt is a horrible, ugly feeling. It keeps him trapped in his past, in his memories. There’s a reason he doesn’t wallow about things that can’t be helped– it makes him feel like he’s being turned inside out.

“How did you escape– and when did he leave?”

“I really don’t want to go in depth.”

“I need you to try.”

George tightens in annoyance, eyes glossy, “It was just out of the blue. He said that I was an idiot, and he was just like, using me or whatever. He locked me in the cellar. I dug my way out. You know the rest.”

It’s a half assed lie, but it’s not like it matters. These people would believe anything as long as he made Dream sound like an asshole.

“Did he– Did he share anything confidential with you?”

His eyes snap straight to Sam’s with the barest hint of spite, “Nothing you don’t already know.”

Sam doesn’t seem to swallow that easy. Good. That was the intention. George feels a little better watching Sam shift around in his seat. There is a long and uncomfortable silence. For a lovely moment, George thinks Sam is finally going to leave him alone. 

“I’m… sorry.” Sam says out of nowhere. In the beat of silence between this and his next sentence, George’s skin crawls as he instantly understands exactly where this is going, “You shouldn’t have had to do that. I should have… done better to keep him away from you. From everyone”

What does trying harder look like? Dream had his heart ripped out. He’s missing fingers.

“I-It’s fine.” George swallows, “I mean, I just told you, I tried the same thing. We both failed. So, whatever. It’d be dumb to be mad at you for something I also messed up.”

“It’s my responsibility, though. It’s my job to keep him away from people he could hurt, not yours. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to protect you.”

George’s expression darkens before he can take it back. 

“But that’s what I aim to rectify.” He continues, “And that’s what you’re helping me do.”

“I don’t think you’re going to find him… I mean, if you weren’t enough, and I wasn’t enough, maybe, you know. It’s not meant to be. Or whatever.”

Sam’s jaw clicks. “I don’t think our attempts are comparable.”

George scoffs through his nose, muttering, “At least he walked away from me in one piece…”

The room turns tense with something he doesn’t care to name. He doesn’t even care to look it in the eye– more interested in watching the rain race down the window. He wonders if Dream’s prosthetics are hurting… they always get a little achy when the rain comes through. He yawns, prompted by the memory of massaging his joints while wrapped in quilts, the rain outside just as gentle as the heartbeat in his chest.

Sam finally snaps out of his stupor. “Excuse me?”

The butterfly in the box frame still lays leaned on the windowsill. The gray world outside gives it little light to work with, beautiful wings looking much duller than they’d been in the glamor of the sun. He thinks it must be glad to not be so perfect today. Nobody cares to look at a dead butterfly when it isn’t beautiful. 

He’d like to go home.

George drags his head to look at him, voice low and slow and emotionless, “Who did it? Was it you?”

Sam has the nerve to act dumb. Or maybe he is dumb.

“George, you’re not making any sense…” The cylinders of his respirator spin as he exhales shortly through his nose. Their eyes meet, and for a brief moment they see each other through the cracks of their masks. George sees his true face with no pretense all for half a moment, a flicker, a beat. In his eyes, fear. Then loathing. Then acceptance. He pulls it together in a single blink, straightening back out to his previous demeanor– this time with an air of suspicion.

“... What, exactly, did he tell you?”

George almost smiles.

“He didn’t have to tell me anything.” There’s a cruel edge to his gaze, a satisfied hatred lying just below a porcelain surface– neutral and perfectly practiced. “I could see it. He’s covered in scars.”

“But what did he tell you.”

George shakes his head, “He didn’t tell me anything. I have eyes . You did something… or, let someone else do something.”

It doesn’t necessarily sound like an accusation of anything. Just a stated fact. 

“What makes you say–”

“He’s literally missing fingers. What, did he chew them off?” The pen is abandoned on the table. Sam wants this omitted from the record, it seems. “You were in charge of him. You know, he was in there under your… ward. That means, like, to look after. He went in looking normal and he came out looking like he fought a paper shredder. I just want to know why…”  

Sam replies with surprising professionalism, “Those scars were either self-inflicted or in response to severe misbehavior.”

George stares in disbelief. He was expecting a lie– looking forward to one, even. But not this. “... Like what? He’s literally missing fingers. What garners–”

“He killed another inmate, for one. He’s– He’s insane. Measures had to be taken, though they weren’t as severe as he’d probably tell them to be. Dream likes to lie to garner sympathy. He’s a chronic manipulator– it’s pathologic.” 

George’s jaw clenches, molars clicking. It takes him a few attempts for the words to come out, “I think… you’re lying.”

Sam sighs like an overburdened parent, “Even if I were, why would you care? You were with him for months, you should know he’s… not like us. If you claim our attempts were at all similar, you’d understand there’s… measures that must be taken.”

George mouths ‘measures’ just to make sure he heard him correctly. Horror slowly sinks in his core like paper in water.

“I guess our attempts aren’t similar.” He can barely hide the shake in his voice.

“I figured.”

Something about the way he says this, like he knows everything, like he knows better, like he has more of a leg to stand on when it comes to Dream– how to treat Dream– something snaps.

“Don’t… talk to me like that, like you’re any better!” He bites, “We both lost him. At least I didn’t come out the other end some kind of– monster!”

Sam is, obviously, rather offended, “What?!”

“You’re sitting here and telling me that, cutting someone's fingers off is really– you’re–” He chokes on whatever he’s feeling, completely out of breath with it– it feels like anger but his nerves are on ice, heart aching, “You followed us for months…?”

George had assumed the fliers at the coast were a distant reach, a spread of word. But no, even then Sam and whatever cronies he brought with him were hot on their heels. He thought Dream was paranoid. He thought he was irrational and he didn’t listen and he told him to stay and he trapped him and he trapped him and he trapped him and he trapped him.

Dream’s intuition was right. What else was he right about?

There’s tears stinging his eyes, already dripping fresh down his chin. He’s not sure what exactly he’s crying about. Just that it feels so fucking bad. 

“A monster?” 

The man in front of him is why Dream couldn’t garden. Why he couldn’t eat, why he couldn’t stand something as simple as a kiss. 

George looks at him through a curtain of tears, “I want to go home.”

They used to be friends. George still remembers the way he makes his bed, his favorite sandwich. The realization hits him that nobody is actually who he remembers, all that time ago in the sun– except Dream. He stayed the same, George saw it, he saw it, he did! And yet he’s the only one they think has changed into something unrecognizable. Something no longer human. Measures to be taken. 

Sam’s glare quickly melts into pity at George’s next hiccuping sobs, despite his attempts to suffocate them in his throat. He tilts his head, studious. 

“You’re… still in love with him, aren’t you?” 

George’s face breaks with the shock of the question, but before he can reply Sam’s already moved on, shaking his head. “I know a few psychiatrists, I'm going to refer you to one.”

“I don’t need a fucking psychiatrist–” George bites, furiously wiping his eyes with his sleeve. He swings his legs over the side of the bed.

“Stockholm syndrome is pretty common in situations like yours.”

 “I want to go home.” His voice warbles with tears, “I’m going home, where’s my sh-shoes, my comm…”

“You’re unstable, I can’t let you just–”

“Won’t let me?” He scorns, “What are you going to do?! Chain me to the wall?”

Sam raises his voice to match, “If I have to to keep you from hurting yourself, yes!”

“Do you even hear yourse–!”

There’s a knock on the door. A loud one. One, two, three. 

They both stare in shock before the pattern repeats itself. Sam, begrudgingly, gets up to answer. 

The rain gets even louder with the door open, it’s been really slamming down out there. George cranes his neck to see who’s here, though he soon learns he doesn’t have to, instantly recognizing the voice.

“Where is he?” Sapnap demands, flinging his hood off his head as he takes a step inside the house. His cloak is sopping wet, audibly dripping onto the hardwood. He’s got a hand on his holstered sword, teeth grit angrily.

George pushes himself from the mattress, relieved, and also eager to prevent a murder if he can help it. He wobbles a bit on his feet, pressing his sweater into his eyes to at least try and look like he isn’t miserable.

“I’m here! Sapnap, Sapnap, I’m fine.” 

Sapnap sighs in relief like a bull. He grabs George’s sleeve and yanks him over to his side, pointing a finger in Sam’s face. George spots his goggles hanging by the coat rack, swiping them quickly to pull over his eyes. He wasn’t just crying. No way. 

“What the fuck is your problem, man?” Sapnap yells, to which Sam steels. He glances at George.

“I didn’t do anything wrong, I was helping George. I found him passed out in a field! I was just– George. Tell him.”

“He–”

“George, you don’t have to say anything .” Sapnap’s body is radiating heat, drying his cloak at an alarming rate. There’s a few stacks of steam.

“Sapnap. Relax,” He pats down the hottest spaces so it doesn’t catch fire or something, “He’s telling the truth. Just– Just, let’s go.”

Sam breathes a sigh of relief. Sapnap does not like this. 

“Just, go get in the boat, I’ll be there in a second. I still have a bone to pick.”

George doesn’t need to be told twice. He grabs his shoes from the base of the coat rack and hops into them, nearly slipping on the wet front step on his way out. He doesn’t have an umbrella. Whatever, whatever, whatever! Go!

The sand is wet and sinks under his feet, he watches his steps carefully so he doesn’t fall, hearing the ocean churn and rumble all around him. When he makes it to the beach and finally looks up to see where his ride is, he freezes in place. 

Sitting in the boat is a friend in a white cloak. He’s holding an umbrella. 

“Get in!” Punz yells over the rain, holding out the umbrella to catch him. George hesitates before complying, scurrying over and stepping over the sides to get in. The rain hitting the top of his head ceases under the umbrella, the big yellow thing that it is. 

There’s a few tense moments of silence.

He looks back toward the house– at the now closed front door. “Is he going to kill him?”

“What!” 

George matches his octave, “Is he going to kill him!”

“Oh. I mean, probably not,” Punz’s breath is visible as he exhales, hesitating on this next part, “You want him to?”

“...Do you?”

Punz chews on that one for a second. He smirks, “Yeah.”

George laughs, weakly. He’s picked up a shiver, rubbing his hands in between his knees to warm them up a little. While he’s looking out at the choppy waters, a small, cold object is pressed into his palms. He looks down to see it’s his comm.

“You dropped it in the field. By the prison.” Punz says, “Knew something was wrong. Sorry it took me a while to find you. You’re, I mean, you’re alright?”

“Yeah.” George says, though his choked up voice betrays him. Punz’s mouth tightens, reaching a hand out and pulling one of his lenses up. Wet eyes and tear-soaked lashes. He clicks his tongue.

“Man, I hope Sapnap fuckin’ kills that guy.”

George slaps Punz’s hand away and readjusts his goggles. “It was fine. He didn’t, like, hurt me.”

The boat rocks on the water, held in place by Punz’s sword in the sand and a piece of rope. 

George feels like he can actually breathe for the first time in hours, even through the thickness between them. Punz is playing with a rubik's cube idly, balancing the umbrella with his thighs. Thunder cracks.

“How’d– you find me?” George runs a hand through his hair, laughing a little, “What took you?”

“I saw you stumbling around last week and I was like, you know, keeping an eye out. Ahm…” He rubs the back of his neck wearily, “Then he– then I found your comm. Okay, no, fuck, I already fucked it. He found your comm. He sent me to go check on you, couldn’t find you anywhere, so I asked Sapnap. Sapnap had a hunch you’d be here. So, boom.”

George’s heart nearly leaps out of his throat, about to ask something before stopping himself, knowing he can’t. 

His mouth moves to speak when the front door slams, and both their heads snap to see Sapnap stomping down the beach. Not covered in blood, for what it’s worth.

His step into the boat is heavy and angry, clattering down in his seat with an angry grunt. He pulls his cloak off and hands it to George, who’s shivering so hard his teeth are chattering. 

“Man, fuck that guy.” He says, finally, snatching his set of oars.

Punz pockets his rubik’s cube and pulls up their makeshift anchor. “I know it. Come on, storm’s getting worse. Let’s get going.”

George pulls his knees up to his chest, wrapping the cloak tighter around himself as the two row across the water.

On land, Sapnap lets the two off while he ties up the boat to the pier. The rain has subsided, the storm now nothing but a wet haze on the ground and sticking to the trees.

They stand shoulder to shoulder for a moment, watching Sapnap be absolute dogwater at tying knots. The knot slips off the bar for the third time and finally earns a chuckle out of Punz, startling George out of his daze. He zoned out.

There’s footsteps walking away from him. He turns and watches Punz’s cloak as he leaves, muddy at the hem. He can’t stand it. He rushes after him, grabbing whatever his hand meets first to get him to turn around.

“What? What?” Punz startles, wide eyed and confused, hand snapping to his sword’s hilt. George’s grip must have been too urgent. He lets go apologetically.

“I– I just.”

He wants to ask something. He needs to ask something. Something .

Punz’s gaze softens. It’s pity, but it’s not the same as how everyone else looks at him. It’s tolerable. Comforting, even, looking at the only other person in this whole stupid world who understands it all. Understands… more, about Dream, maybe. But the thought puts another crack in his heart, and he can’t linger on it long.

“Just, please. Anything. Tell me anything.” He pulls his goggles around his neck to see his eyes better, face to face. He’s making a plea. He knows how he looks. He doesn’t care. “You’ve seen him. Is he– is he alright?”

The clouds on the horizon have been broken clear by the sunset, burning distantly orange.

Punz looks around a few times before leaning in close, and for a second George thinks he’s going to kiss him. “He’s… fine.”

George lets go of a breath, relief flooding his veins, “Is he eating?”

“He’s alright, George. Promise.”

“Do you think I could see him?” He already knows the answer. Dream was pretty clear on this front. His voice hitches, “I– I know that’s dumb, I just.”

“I’m sorry, George…” Punz rubs his forehead wearily, as if something were actually his fault. George might actually agree with the sentiment if he had the energy to be angry at the world. He just wants…

“I know.” George wipes his eyes, “I just–”

“Guys, what? Why are you kissing?” Sapnap barks as he comes closer. George and Punz repel away from each other, much to his amusement.

“It was good to see you, man.” Sapnap holds his hand out for a handshake, pulling Punz in for a hug right after, “Thanks for the help.”

“No problem, bud. Hope you don’t lose your cat again.” 

“I should honestly just microchip him.” Sapnap turns away from Punz to loop his arm in George’s, ready to escort him away.

“Bye, George.” Punz gives a little wave. George returns it, trying not to look as sad as he feels. The world is bathed in sunset tones of amber, but none of them are as vibrant as they should be.

While they’re walking away, George turns his head to look back at Punz. He doesn’t know why.  He almost wants to go with him instead. 

Looking back over his shoulder, he sees Punz walking away with his comm held to his ear. Something on the other end makes him laugh.

George feels his heart break.

Sapnap doesn’t say much about the ordeal. They bicker a little. He’s fed a meal. He’s begged to not leave Kinoko again. George agrees. He’s tired. He’s going home– back to his house. His cat has been fed, thanks to Tina. There’s a note taped to the fridge with a carrot sticker. He doesn’t read it.

He falls face first into his bed. He doesn’t cry like he thought he would. Maybe it’s just something about being home that sets that apathy back in place– he’s not sure. He’s feeling. He just doesn’t know where. He’s tired of trying to figure it out. 

In the face of guilt and sadness and overwhelming emptiness, he’d choose sleep every time. 

Patches jumps on top of the bed to crawl onto his back, kneading his slightly damp sweater before curling in a ball. He miserably sets a million alarms for the morning, pauses, deletes them all. Patches knows how to wake him up if she needs to.

He pulls the music box from his bedside and turns the crank. 

✦

The world is coming down to the wire. George doesn’t know how to explain it exactly. 

He’s sitting in his kitchen and he feels like the world is ending soon. He doesn’t have much of an opinion about it. 

The world outside is overcast and lilac, the trees whisper where they stand statuesquely still– no wind, no sun. Nothing above but a vast and empty gray sea. As above, so below. 

God hasn’t spoken to him in quite a while.

He has spent his days in relative solitude. Sapnap comes by every once in a while. He doesn’t sleep as much as he’d like. If he didn’t know any better, he’d swear something out there wanted him to stay awake.

Any day now, Dream will be coming back for him. This is his attempt to speed it up without missing it entirely. He just hopes it happens while he’s still got hair and teeth.

Punz returns his impulsively sent texts sometimes. It’s nothing ever incriminating– he really does just want to talk. He says hi and hello, nothing that would blow their cover or make Punz block him. He figures Punz might be horrible at checking texts that aren’t from his burner. It’s worse than usual, though.

He doesn’t really want to talk to anyone else. 

Today, he’s making tea.

He has his own rose bush now. Tina planted it without his knowing in the week or so he was gone, so now he has a few baby buds blooming by his window. They’re nice, and they don’t need him. God knows it rains enough. They aren’t as vibrant as they should be..

He’s waiting for the kettle to boil.

George is resigned to waiting. He knows how to do it. He’s good at it. Dream was right. He shouldn’t get involved. He’d be totally useless. 

The world outside is dull pastel. The sun should be setting somewhere behind all those clouds pretty soon. George is going to drink his tea then go to sleep, and hopefully wake up at least forty eight hours later.

It makes the waiting go by faster. It makes what hurts stop hurting. 

Patches rubs against his legs. She’s been very happy ever since he bought her a cat tree, a few new toys. He figured she needed something to play with. He’d feel bad about ignoring his friends if they weren’t doing the same. He feels more bad about the cat, frankly. 

If they cared, they’d swing by or text or invite him to things. They don’t. So instead of wandering around ghost towns looking for ghosts to hang out with, he stays home. It’s not so bad. Punz replies to texts sometimes– that means Dream is okay. At least that’s how George rationalizes it.

The kettle starts to whistle. He’s already holding the tea packet, all too eager to be getting to bed and getting the day over with. He quickly pulls the kettle off the stove before it gets too loud and pours it in his cup. He stirs in honey and lets it steep.

He spots his comm on the counter next to the cat food. He checks it by impulse– no new messages. 

He takes a sip and tries to shake this feeling of unease. A great age is coming to an end. Someone is getting ready to let the curtains close. He doesn’t know what that means , if it’s anxiety or intuition or what.

Punz would tell him if Dream wasn’t okay. He’d, you know, tell the widow. Right? Right. And how can someone who resurrects the dead die anyway? Be pretty stupid, if you ask him…

What if he doesn’t make it? – He thinks about this often against his better judgment, Punz at his door holding a mask. Which is why his heart stops when there’s a knock at the door. 

George’s fiddling fingers stop instantly. He’s… scared. 

After a long moment of silence, deathly silence– not even so much as a breeze– there’s another. More adamant than before. It’s… real. It’s real and it exists. There’s someone at the door. 

He sets his cup down. Patches jumps from the table to investigate the crack of the door, rubbing against it after a few tentative sniffs.

The doorknob is cold as George wraps his fingers around it. He doesn’t turn it just yet, still trying to catch his breath. There’s another knock, and this time George can feel it reverberate through his hand. It’s real.

He hasn’t had visitors in weeks. Months, maybe.

“... Hello?”

There isn’t a response. So, George opens the door just a crack, just enough to see who’s on the other side. He pulls the door wide open when he sees the mask.

Dream. 

They stand in silence, staring at each other. Neither one says a word. The world is deathly quiet– no birds or crickets or cicadas, not even the whistling wind or rustle of leaves. It’s completely still. Even the man in front of him seems statuesque.

George thinks he might be dreaming. Which would be a welcome change, he hasn’t seen Dream in his dreams since… can’t remember when.

Dream’s hair is messy and obviously knotted, shoved into a braid to avoid the trouble of brushing it. His cloak is dirty, torn and singed at the ends with random cuts all over it. George’s eyes drift from his mask to his chest, mostly concealed by the cape, but he can still see his chest rising and falling. Breathing. Living. This isn’t a picture. 

“... Are you real?” He reaches out his hand to touch, gasping when rough fingers grip his own and squeeze reassuringly. 

“Hey.”

George feels his heart bang against his ribcage, “Then– Then we– it’s over? I can come with you?”

Dream looks to the ground and sadly shakes his head like a pouting child. Of course not. George is glad he didn’t get his hopes up. He snatches his hand away.

“Then why are you even here?”

“D’you not want me to be? I can… leave.”

George scoffs, about to spit something cruel before his eyes catch on the hand over his stomach, blood pouring lightly between his fingers.

“You– You’re bleeding.”

Dream looks down at his hand before shaking his head once again, slow and weary, “Doesn’t matter.”

There is a moment of clarity here. George is, before anything, before anger and sorrow and resentment, a man in love. There is blood on Dream’s fingers.

George scoffs, cursing himself before ushering Dream inside. “Well don’t just stand out in the open, idiot, get in.”

Dream nearly trips on Patches on his way through the door. He’s guided to the small kitchen table, built for two. Dream pulls his axe from where it hangs on his back, making a small pained noise as he bends to get the strap over his head.

He sets it down on the table with a gentle clatter. George circles to stand opposite with the wood between them, not yet knowing if he should sit down and relax. Not knowing if he wants to. Not knowing if this is real. Or a trick. Or if he’ll be ripped away from him again the moment he allows himself the pleasure. 

Dream hooks a thumb under the edge of his mask to unveil himself, and George holds his breath. He feels underprepared to see his face, scared to find he’s changed again. But no– it’s the same. He’s still him. 

“I don’t have a lot of time.”

“Time for what?”

Reluctantly, “‘Til I have to leave.”

Oh, of course. Of course. George’s hands ball into fists. “Why are you even here? For a health potion? I’m not a hospital.”

“No, I– I just needed to see you.”

This makes him pause. His expression unwinds into something gentler. 

Dream continues, albeit a bit miserably, “I’m sorry. I know it’s– cruel, I just…”

George’s eyes catch on the butterfly hanging from the eye of the axe. Something quiet echoes through him. He gently lifts the charm from the table, noting the chip taken out of one of the wings.

“I needed to talk to you again.”

It hits him then, staring at Dream now in contrast to how sure he was when he first left. He’s come back, battered and bloody. 

“... You’re afraid.”

Dream looks surprised. Then he doesn’t– he should’ve known better than to think George wouldn’t see straight through him. 

There is no sound in the world but for the clock turning. 

Tik. Tik. Tik.

“I… wanted to settle my accounts? I guess you could call it.”

“Are– Are you dying??”

That pulls a weak and breathy laugh from him, “No, no, you’d– you’d know if I was dying, George, what?”

“Well what– what does that even mean, then? You’re being cryptic, stop it.”

Dream looks to the floor. Every second of silence is another spike in George’s blood pressure. 

A shaking sigh.

“I wanted… to look at you.” His voice pulls at George’s heart, he sounds like he’s about to cry. “I kept looking at the– the necklace you gave me and thinking, u-um… it’s going to break if I keep– I mean, break more. Shatter. And I kept thinking about how it’s yours and I said I’d give it back…”

He reaches to unwrap the necklace from the axe, turning back to George with the pendant hanging from his hand. The low light from the window casts a blue reflection on the floor.

“Dream…” George gingerly takes it in his palms. He came back, even after all this time. He’s about to cry– the final push being when he sees Dream briefly pull a watch from the pack on his hip to check the time. 

“You don’t– this– Dream.”

“Don’t cry, don’t cry, it’s okay.” Dream extends his arms, hoverhanding his body, not sure what he’s allowed to do. His chest looks as good as his bed in the morning, and his hands don’t look right empty, and– and he really really missed him. George allows himself. 

He leans into him, burying his face in his chest. They slot together, arms wrapping where they always do, bones setting. George can’t shake the feeling of time running out, falling through the cracks of something infinite and cruel. He thinks he could drown it out with Dream’s heartbeat, but he can’t hear it through the thick leather armor. He smells like blood and sweat.

“I’m so sorry,” He cries into his chest, loud and unashamed. He probably couldn’t reign it in if he wanted to. It feels like something cut him and now he is bleeding. 

“What?” He doubts gently, “You didn’t do anything,”

“The– comm!” He manages to spit out between sobs. He feels like a child as he struggles for enough breath to speak, “I’m sorry about the comm, your comm,”

“I don’t care.” Dream almost laughs, but there’s so much pain behind it. He presses George’s head snugly into his neck, wrapping his other arm even tighter around his waist, “Oh my god, George, I don’t care.”

“Why not? You should,” He sniffs wetly, gross, “I really fucked you over.”

“How could I– how could I be mad? I’ve… George, I’ve– I’ve really hurt people.” George listens to the soft smile in his voice, clinging to it like a lifeline, “It’d be– I mean, it’d be pretty dumb. I’ve tortured people, suddenly I’m– scorned for all time about my boyfriend hiding my phone for a while. Wah, wah, wah, I was loved.”

His stupid dumb mocking voice makes George laugh very softly into the crook of his neck. “Stop being stupid. I’m trying to say sorry for something for once in my life.”

“Well, it doesn’t suit you.” Dream whispers, pressing a kiss to his head. The sensation is somehow both agonizing and euphoric. 

“You can hurt people and still be hurt. It’s not mutually exclusive…”

“George. Why do you want me to be angry?”

“It just doesn’t make sense for you not to be… I guess I think I deserve it.”

Dream is quiet at that– a polite agreement. They stand embraced in these precious moments, relishing the company. The world outside is still. The world inside is love, for as much as they can let themselves before leaving.

Dream’s breathing gently hitches and rasps, occasionally flinches. He’s in pain…

“Aren’t you mad?” 

“I’m not ma– …” He gags himself swiftly, for that would definitely be a lie. “I’m not mad… when you’re in front of me, I guess.”

There’s a wetness dripping into his shoulder. Dream’s crying. Children, the both of them…

“I was really. Um. I was really scared you’d hate me. I didn’t think you’d open the door.”

George hugs him tighter, “I don’t hate you. I don’t even think I can.” 

I tried. 

Dream chuckles. It seems to hurt him a bit, stomach flinching and shoulders tensing. George pulls some space between them to look down at his wound. It seems mostly dried by now, though there’s still some traces of blood staining his sweater. He presses his palms gently to his stomach.

“You’re bleeding…”

A hand cups his cheek, “I don’t care.”

He must look like a wreck, but Dream gazes down at him completely enamored in spite of it. He pulls his sleeve up to wipe away all the tears he left on his neck, the both of them laughing softly. 

“I love you, Dream.” George says– he feels like it’s important. It’s implied, like the grass is green and water is wet, just a fact in the world they live in. But someone needs to say it. Dream needs to know he doesn’t hate him. He’d never. He’d never. 

“I love you, too.” A blink tends a tear rolling down his cheek, George is lucky enough to catch it with a kiss where it hangs off his jaw. In a gentle maneuver, Dream nudges his mouth up to kiss him proper– it feels like a shot of morphine. 

The world melts away. It’s just them. They’re the only thing to exist. He thinks the world might be ending and Dream is kissing him in his kitchen. 

The knight came home. He will leave, but he came back. It’s got to count for something. It has to.

Dream pulls away from him and George grips his belt loops just in case– just by reflex. Don’t leave yet. Please. 

He didn’t seem to have the intention, both hands coming to hold his jaw instead. 

“I’m so sorry.” 

George blinks slowly. It’s a precious thing, an apology.

“I’m so sorry, I wish– things were different,”

George tastes something bitter in his mouth. He wishes he’d have kept kissing him. 

“I need you to know no matter what happens, I love you.”

Exasperated, scared, “What do you mean, no matter what happens? What happened to ‘ oh just wait, I’ll take care of everything’ ? You’re scaring me, you’re being– stop, what’s happening?” 

“Nothing’s happening–”

“Then why are you here?” He sounds so desperate, “Why would you come back with your tail between your legs if you weren’t afraid?”

“I am!” Dream’s shoulders slump with the admission, under the weight of the words. “I’m… afraid.”

“Afraid of what?” George desperately searches Dream’s eyes for an answer, for a clue, a hint. Anything he can make sense of. Dream doesn’t answer him. 

Of course. Of course . When has Dream ever given him a straight answer.

He sighs, crossing his arms. “So, what. You’re going to leave now?”

“I came because I needed to tell you. I needed you to know. I needed… to not have anything unresolved, I guess.”

“Are you going to kill yourself, or what?”

“No . But I’d…” He’s acting like this is the hardest thing he’s ever had to say in his life, hesitating like he’s walking through a minefield. George’s frame softens. “If something happened, and I… I never saw you again, I’d… or, or if I did something, and you hated me–”

“I could never hate you–”

“–Then I’d want to have done as right by you as I could.” He reaches into his pocket for something while George rolls his eyes. 

“ Do right by me… I feel like it’s a little late for–” His breath runs out. In Dream’s palm, two gold bands. The clock stops. Doomsday is halted.

George stares at them, then to Dream. Somehow, both of them are speechless, even though Dream’s the one who pulled them out.

“... What?” It comes out far smaller and far more vulnerable than he meant it to.

“I still want to marry you.” Dream braces for impact, “Do you?”

Of course he does. 

“W-Why? Why now? Dream, why now?” He’s terrified, “What are you about to do?”

“I’ll come back,”

George is frantic, he’s going to get himself killed , “You just told me you were afraid–”

“I’m afraid all the time. Of everything!” Dream grits, squeezing his eyes shut, “Please. Just trust me. Please just trust me.”

George stares, wide eyed in disbelief.

“I want you to be happy. I want– I owe this to you. I love you. I love you so much, and– I don’t– I don’t want you to doubt that. And I want you to be there when it’s over,”

“Dream, you’re scaring me.”

“You can say no. That’s– the whole point of a wedding, right? It’s a choice.” Dream holds out the rings, “It’s a promise. I’m promising to come back. I want you to have something real. Something tangible, better than… my word, I guess. I know this meant the world to you. I’m sorry it never happened. I didn’t– I didn’t think I’d take this long.”

George chokes up, crushed by the finality of how this feels, his words and this moment, these rings.

“If I make good on any promise I’ve made in my sorry ass life I want it to be this one.”

This is… monumental. This is staring into the face of something too big to name. Grabbing that red string and tying it back into a knot. Dream stopped in his tracks to turn around for just a moment, he hit the brakes to look back. Look back for him. He’s reaching out. The distance gapped between the future he wants and the past George craves. This is sacrifice– this is sacred. 

He reaches back. 

George grabs his ring from Dream’s palm tentatively. The one with sapphire stones.

“How did… how did you even find it?” George sniffles, fingers shaking– he uses both hands, afraid he might drop it.

“You left it at your house. It was in the bedside drawer.”

George giggles at himself, despite everything, “I thought I lost it… I was so upset.”

“I had them in my ender chest. Sorry. You should have asked.”

“I was afraid you’d– like, be sad. That I lost it.”

Dream laughs, looking up. He seems like he’s about to form a witty reply before George’s eyes trap him– and he’s smiling . Taking George in– all the little things. There’s a warmth that blooms. Somehow, George manages to smile back. It feels normal. It feels good. It doesn’t feel like he’s about to lose him. 

“I can’t believe I’m getting married in my pajama bottoms…”

Dream laughs again, louder, more like a sharp cackle, “Well I can! That’s exactly like you.”

“Shut up! I’d dress up if we were– you know, the whole shebang.”

“We can, like, have a ceremony later.”

“Who the hell are we inviting?” George cocks a brow but can’t help the smile, “You’ve made an enemy out of everyone we know.”

Dream hisses comically, “That’s true… hey, there’s always Techno. And Punz.”

“Oh great, but none of my friends…” George turns the ring in his hand, smirking, “We could invite Sam. Tie him to a chair.”

“Bitter, are we?”

“He’s an awful host.”

“Oh believe me, I know…” Dream checks his clock again, and his smile wilts. The room turns cold again. George knows what’s next. It shouldn’t hurt so bad this time.

“Is it… uhm. Is it almost time?”

“Yeah.” His voice is the strength of a whisper.

“Okay.” George breathes, “You want to… marry me? You’re not just. I don’t know. You want this, right?”

Dream takes his hands gently. There’s a hesitation to his answer, George doesn’t know what to make of it. Whether it’s a lie or just him really thinking about it, making sure. 

“Yeah. I do. Do you?”

“Yes. Obviously.” 

He isn’t sure himself. Not because he doesn’t want it, but because of what it means if he loses him. But he won’t. But he won’t– Dream said to trust him. Trust him. He’s promising. Have faith. Have faith, have faith.

Dream slides his ring on his finger, and George returns the courtesy. It’s big– it feels big. It feels huge. It feels trapped in his chest. His hands are shaking. Dream holds them between his to steady them, pressing their foreheads together.

He thinks this is going to make the longing worse. 

"Should we– should we say vows?" He laughs breathlessly, eyes full of tears. 

Dream holds his cheeks, sharp prosthetics resting gently on his cheekbones. He tries to find the right words he wants to say. "I… promise to come back."

George nods, the water pooling in his eyes finally dripping over his cheeks, "I promise to be here."

Dream pulls his mouth into a kiss. 

The world has nothing to say, no cruel irony, no karma, no bloodshed, no tragedy. It was a nice wedding, and nobody died. That’s all George can ask for. He’ll hold out on fantasizing about the colors of the napkins or what kind of flowers they should use for the reception. He’ll wait til he’s there, til he isn’t holding Dream on borrowed time.

He keeps Dream in the kiss for as long as he can. They part only out of necessity for air, which George quietly curses. It doesn’t stop Dream from pressing another kiss to his temple, to his cheek, to his eyelid.

He has to have this again. He has to. This won’t be the last they ever kiss in the kitchen. This won’t be the last. He repeats, over and over, this won’t be the last.

Dream catches his spacey expression, about to ask him something when Patches meows from where she’s jumped up onto the table. Dream gasps as he swoops to pick her up, “Oh my gosh , she’s our witness!”

“Now we have to like, consummate.” George says without much thought, instantly regretting it as Dream guffaws.

“Not in front of the baby! Come on now George, she’s just a kitty.”

“I think she’s actually older than you, in cat years.” 

A bright color catches the corner of his eye. Epiphany. Epiphany!

“Wait, Dream, stay right there. Stay. Stay, I mean it!” 

“Okay, okay, I’m not going to evaporate . What is it?”

“Just hold on,” George travels to his bedside, sorting through his unmade bed and disorganized storage. Eventually, something falls as he pulls the blanket. He swipes the music box from the pile it fell on, hurrying back to Dream in the kitchen. His head tilts.

“What? The music box?”

George pulls the bottom out and starts sifting through the pieces of paper on the counter. Dream is already gearing back up, pulling his axe to sling back over his shoulder. The clock is turning in his hand. He’s got to go soon.

George is frantically reading through them until he finds the chicken scratch he’s looking for, producing it excitedly to show Dream.

‘ marr ey george :) ‘

“Oh my god,” Dream groans, covering his blush. He’s a little embarrassed, though he’s smiling through it. Boohoo, they got married, it’s literally the time for cheesy traditions. 

He turns on his gas stove and waits for the flame to spark, turning it on its highest setting.

“Do you want to do the honors?”

Dream burns the wish in the stovetop. It feels good. He pulls George’s hip flush to his while they watch it turn to ash. It feels good. They’re giggling like children about it– they haven’t burned a wish since they were very young. Didn’t have any realistic ones left to burn, except this one.

It’s time for him to leave. They both know this. They can feel it. 

They’ve made it to the front door. George hasn’t gotten used to the feeling of his ring yet, ever conscious of the cold ring of metal. He doesn’t want to let go of him. The door’s open. Dream’s leaving home again. He doesn’t know for how long. 

“Are you sure you don’t want a healing potion, I can check…”

“I wouldn’t waste one on a scrape.” He says, squeezing his hand before letting go. He takes a step across the threshold, and George feels like the ground is being pulled from under him. “Besides, Punz will have some anyway.”

“Okay.” George tries to smile. It comes out looking unbearably pained.

Dream frowns, brushing his thumb across his cheek. “Soon. It’s got to be soon.”

He leans into the touch. “Please hurry back. And please do something about your stomach. I worry.”

“Okay, okay. I will.” He leans in for a kiss, one George almost completes before he pulls away, Leaving Dream holding the air in surprise.

“Wait. One more thing, hold on, really, one more thing.” George turns inward toward the house. He knows exactly where he put what he’s looking for.

Dream sucks in a nervous breath, looking up at the sky. But he waits.

A few precious moments later, George returns to the front door holding a white and blue brick-patterned shield. He holds it out for him. Dream’s jaw drops– a total loss for words.

He takes it gingerly. It’s in near-perfect condition. “What? You… kept it?” 

George blushes a bit, “Of course I kept it… it was all I had, for a long time.”

“Then, I can’t take this. I have a shield, George, it’s alright.” He’s at a loss, “I–”

“It’s– It’s a knightly favor.” George smiles at him weakly, “You have to come give it back.”

“George…” Dream stares at the shield for a long time before looping his arm in the straps. He nods sharply, a quick acceptance. A knight with honor. George thinks he might cry again. But that would be embarrassing. Stop it, stop.

“And I don’t believe you when you say you have a shield.” He makes a quick poke into the wound in his stomach, not quite touching it but enough to make Dream nearly double over flinching, “Learn to block.”

Dream kisses him without another word. It’s unexpected but not unwelcome. Never unwelcome. George keeps him trapped in it for as long as he can– fueled by the idea it may be the last. He knows he shouldn’t think of it that way, but… he can’t help but wonder. He slides his tongue in, cards his fingers through his hair, bodies pressed tight and flush together. Just one more second. And then one more. And then one more. 

Dream must figure out what he’s doing, or maybe he just has more sense than George was hoping, managing to tear himself away. At least it seems like it took a lot of effort. He can take pride in that.

“I love you. I’ll be back.” He says it like he’s going on a hunting trip. George can fool himself half-heartedly with that. He’s just going to market. He’ll be back. Obviously.

“Okay. I love you too. Please take care of yourself.”

He pushes his mask over his face, “Goodbye.”

It doesn’t feel right. ‘Goodbye’ doesn’t suffice. Nothing would ever suffice. 

George watches from his porch as the love of his life walks away from him, again. This time, he let go. He’s trusting him, against his better judgment. Against his urge to buck back. 

He waves farewell, even though Dream doesn’t see it. Every step away hurts more than the last, flatlining into a dull ache. Back on crusade. The knight will either come back with his shield or on it. That’s how heroes are. That’s how stories go.

He looks up in the sky and feels like if he squinted hard enough, he’d be able to see the clock ticking down to zero.

Somewhere, an hour from now, maybe three, Dream stands on the edge of something unfathomable and waits for it to pick a fight with him. Pawns move, saboteurs whisper, things break, people weep, the world suffers under its own weight. 

George sits on the edge of his bed, twirling the ring on his finger. It’s the end of the world and he’s just gotten married. He will sleep in his bed alone tonight, lulled to sleep with promises of something better that he begs himself to believe.

It means something. He looked back for him. He thought of him fondly. And it’s all the same, but it’s different. Something is changing. Something is progressing. That’s all he’s ever asked for. This ring is all he’s ever wanted.

The music box stops playing. He is far too tired to rewind it.

Elsewhere, Dream bashes his sword against his shield, begging for a fight.

✦


There’s a boy (young, beautiful, not-yet-heartbroken) walking through a great grassy plain. He’s not sure where he’s come from, or where exactly he’s going, but he’s going, and that’s a good enough goal to keep him walking for now. 

He drags his hands along the grains of wheat and lilac humming a familiar tune, one he’s known all his life. It’s a beautiful day. The sky is lovely blue and full of clouds, the world is vibrant and rich, and he feels excited to explore it. 

He collects seeds in his little baggie to plant later, when he finds his own spot to make a farm. One day he’d like to have carrots, potatoes, strawberries… 

He pushes his black sleeves up as he bends down to collect wheat seeds. Someone has just planted them in this fresh patch of farm, and he’s sure they won’t mind if he takes some. They have so many, after all. 

His ring glints in the sunlight as he sifts through the soil. He doesn’t know where it comes from– but he knows he shouldn’t sell it. It’s… important, though he isn’t exactly sure how.

Someone else’s shadow blocks the light. George looks up to see a boy (young, beautiful, not-yet-broken) eclipsing the sun, blonde hair haloed from the sun behind it.

George stands up quickly, dusting the dirt from his knees. He goes to speak, but finds himself quickly silenced by the sight of him. His green eyes, his hair, his shoulders… he’s beautiful. 

The stranger seems to be thinking the same, mouth opening to speak with nothing coming out. He brushes his hair behind his ear, looking down at the ground bashfully. The ring on his finger glints in the sun, casting a green reflection over George’s nose.

“Uhm… hey.”

“... Hi.”