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Dream stops by a convenience store when George wakes up from his nap and complains about how his neck hurts, comes back with a bag full of snacks and a ridiculously overpriced neck pillow.
“Did you actually?” George laughs in amusement.
“We still have a few hours ahead of us,” Dream says, like he wouldn’t buy it even if they were a few minutes away. This isn’t new — Dream does whatever it takes to make him break a smile, but it still manages to leave him breathless every single time.
Dream tilts George’s head to place the pillow, and then he presses his mouth against the line of his jaw, makes him smile until his cheeks hurt. “Better?”
“Stupid,” George calls him, but he squeezes his thigh. “Yeah.”
Dream kisses him again, kisses his neck and then lips and tastes his Dream smile.
George falls asleep again, and Dream wakes him up with a soft, gentle whisper of his name when they get to Miami. George would protest if he could bring himself to, but he doesn’t, because he’s with his favorite person in the entire world and he’s happy down to his very core.
They sit in the front row in front of the Miami game, close enough for their knees to touch. Their shoulders brush against each other like they don’t know how to exist without that proximity.
There are cameras recording them, they both know.
People watch them. They always do, because they’re Dream and George, but George can sense when prying eyes start to get to him. So he rests his hand on his thigh where no one can see, a silent reassurance in the middle of the stadium bleachers.
Hidden and reserved, just theirs. Every moment is theirs.
“George,” Dream warns as George squeezes his thigh.
“Dream,” George says back, places one arm in front of him and acts like he’s not doing anything at all.
“Shouldn’t do that here,” he says, but it almost sounds like he means we should when he visibly relaxes into George’s touch.
“Do what?” George asks, feigning indifference.
Dream makes a sound like a barely-there scoff. “You’re touching me.”
“I am,” George says. “You need to breathe. We’re good.”
Dream glances at him again, and George can’t even see his face because of the mask, but it doesn’t matter because he can sense his feelings like they’re his own.
“Okay,” Dream accepts. “You’re right. We’re good.”
“We’re literally awesome,” he grins stupidly. “I got you.”
Dream breathes a sigh of relief, and they watch the game together, entirely at ease by each other’s presence. He scoots closer to George after that, doesn’t bother trying to make it look like anything less than what it is.
It’s a little dizzying how needy they are with each other. George is breathless by the end of the night, silenced with a want that crawls beneath his bones.
______
They can barely keep their hands to themself in the car, Dream’s hand on George’s thigh as they drive to the hotel.
“You’re so touchy,” George says, but he brings his hand on top of Dream’s, right where it belongs. Dream always makes sure there is never any space between them whenever they’re away from prying eyes, like he can only breathe when he’s touching George.
“Can’t help it, Georgie,” Dream says, and he looks absolutely breathtaking under Miami streetlights. “You’re my passenger princess.”
George laughs fondly. “You’re so fucking stupid,” he squeezes his hand. “We weren’t subtle tonight.”
Dream gives him a look. “We’re never subtle, baby.”
“They have videos of us all close to each other. I think they saw me, like, feeding you snacks, Dream.”
“I know,” Dream smiles and brings George’s hand close to his face, kisses his knuckles. He’s clingier now, can’t get enough of him especially because they couldn’t touch each other freely the entire night. “It’s just – it’s us. It’s hard not to notice when they know how we are. ”
“Yeah,” George says, voice softer. “They know how obsessed you are with me.”
“George,” Dream scoffs. “For the record, you’re, like, way more obsessed than me. They don’t know the texts you send when—”
“Okay, stop, I get it,” George interrupts, red all over. “Just drive, idiot.”
Dream smiles again, interlocks George’s fingers with his. This is the only thing that matters in the entire world, just this love, just them forever.
They get to the hotel, and George sits down on the couch, watches their bags as Dream gets their room keys.
“One bed,” Dream lets him know when he’s done talking to the receptionist in the lobby.
“On purpose?” George asks, even though he knows it is. They’ve slept on the same bed countless times , and George has slept so many nights with Dream on the phone that it’s instinctive now.
He likes hearing it from Dream anyway.
Dream’s arm wraps around his waist when they step into the elevator, away from the public eye. “Maybe.”
George presses his body against his, warmth curls in his gut. Dream makes a small sound under his breath. “Dream, you’re so fucking—”
Dream kisses him before he even gets to finish his sentence, and they stumble against the wall of the elevator. This is the stupidest thing George has ever done, but he loves stupid with Dream. He loves wanting this much.
Wanting Dream is bigger than his body.
The elevator door opens with a ding, and they touch the ground again after floating for ages. George doesn’t even really register how they get to their room.
It’s a modest room, dim-lit and slightly unventilated, but it’s theirs and George really doesn’t care about anything else when Dream is next to him. The bed creaks when George throws himself on it, dangling his legs from the edge.
“Comfy?” Dream asks.
“It’s not bad,” George shrugs, settles on the left side, leaves space for Dream next to him. That’s a given with them. “Will be better with you next to me.”
Dream grins, and he takes off his shoes quickly before he lays down next to him. “That’s easy.”
George grabs his hand and watches him. He loves watching him. He would watch him for the rest of his life if he could.
“I’m so tired,” Dream yawns sleepily. “Driving makes me exhausted.”
“I hate long roadtrips,” George mumbles, stretching his muscles. “Always hated them. My entire body, like, hurts after.”
“I didn’t know that,” Dream says, like he’s surprised that after he has mapped George inside and out, there are still things left to know about him. “I mean, I kinda figured, after you kept complaining my ears off in the car.”
“Well,” George grins a little, then he rubs up and down Dream’s arm. “Next time you can bring someone else—like Sapnap. ”
Dream scoffs. “Shut up. You know I’m not bringing anyone else.”
“Yeah?” George asks. “Why’s that?”
“I’m not sharing a bed with anyone who’s not you,” Dream says, like it’s a rule from a textbook.
There are unspoken lines that they’ll never cross for as long as they belong to each other. Forever, George knows — because if he isn’t Dream’s, he is no one’s. “Yeah, cause you’re mine.”
“You are so,” Dream shakes his head. “You’re so much. I can hardly keep up.”
“You keep up just fine, I think,” George kisses the column of his throat. His throat bobs up and down, and George relishes the shiver of his skin, that soft hollow area that he wants to stay in forever. “Can feel your pulse here.”
“George,” Dream says his name like a plea, and his pulse grows fast against George’s lips.
“So fast, Dream,” George says proudly. “Because of me.”
Dream breathes out. “Like it’d be because of anything else,” he makes a sound like a scoff, like the mere thought of anyone other than George having this effect on him is too ridiculous to even consider.
George keeps kissing Dream until his lips are one with his skin, and every sound Dream makes feels unforgettable. George doesn’t think he has ever heard Dream like this before, so needy, needing him.
“Fuck, George,” Dream lets out. “Baby.”
“Want my hand on you, Dreamie?” George asks, hovering over him. His hand rests on Dream’s stomach, index finger drawing slow circles.
“Yes, idiot,” Dream exhales. “Please.”
George presses a palm against his crotch, just the weight of his hand enough to make him moan, and George kind of takes pride in how easy it is.
“Good,” George says, a little breathless from how fucked out Dream looks already.
He rubs Dream over his boxers, feels the way his cock twitches, and Dream gasps. Every sharp breath is hot against his face, and want spreads through his body, can’t be contained within him. He yanks it off quickly and throws it to the floor.
Dream is naked in front of him, vulnerable with no armor and nothing to hide from George. Entirely him. George’s stomach twists as he wraps a hesitant hand around his cock and tugs once, looks at Dream with everything in him.
He wants to give Dream everything.
“Your hand,” Dream barely says, eyes focused on him. “Fuck. It’s so—”
“You like it?” George finishes his question. He squeezes him once, and Dream looks at him like he’s testing him by even asking that question.
Dream pulls him closer and kisses him with his entire soul, all teeth and tongue and spit, and they become a sloppy mess together. “You know exactly what I like. You know how to make me crazy. C’mon, George, don’t act like you don’t.”
“My existence makes you crazy,” George notes, his hand still against Dream. “I’m not even doing anything, Dream. You’re just like that with me. You’re, like, in love with me or something,” he says, tone lighthearted but they both know that it’s not a joke. Their love is right there, palpable enough for everyone to feel in the air, but only for them to really know.
“I am in love with you, Georgie,” Dream says, his voice still somehow so cushiony in his protest. George doesn’t understand how it’s possible for someone to be this soft, this full of love, like he was made from it. “Think we’ve established that already.”
George laughs, pumps his hand faster. His hand is soaked from Dream, and it makes his head spin just how much he likes it. “Guess we kinda have.”
Dream, still breathless, bucks up into George’s hand.
“You can’t even stay still,” George laughs, swipes his thumb over his tip and hears the sounds that he’s causing him to make. “Yeah, I’m awesome.”
“Shut up,” Dream scoffs, but he’s moaning into the air between them, looking at George like he wants to eat him. They don’t know how to love without swallowing each other whole.
George strokes him for a little while, not too fast or slow, just calm. Like he’s memorizing the feeling on his hand, the sounds that fill his ears.
Dream’s hips buck up into his hand, and he’s close, George can tell. They’ve had sex more times than he can count. They’ve learned each other through faces and sounds and pleas that no ear other than theirs will ever hear.
“Close,” Dream lets him know, brings a hand to the back of George’s head and kisses him messily. “George.”
“Mine,” George says, reminds him even though neither of them will forget. Dream’s cock twitches against his belly. “Cum for me, Dream.”
Dream fucks into his fist, moans his name as he cums all over George’s hand and his own stomach. George keeps twisting his hand and rubbing his sensitive spot until he comes down from his high, whispers praises quietly.
He smiles a little at the red of Dream’s face, his cheeks flushed like tomatoes. “Good?”
Dream throws a death glare at him. Like it offends him that he’s even asking, when his chest heaves and there is no oxygen left in the room.
“Let me take care of you,” Dream offers, reaching to touch his half-hard cock through his boxers.
George stops him. He wants this to be entirely about him, doesn’t want Dream to feel like he owes him anything back. Dream lives to make sure the people around him are happy that he forgets himself, and George is keen on reminding him as much as he can.
“‘S okay,” he assures. “I’m okay. Just wanted to do something for you.”
“You sure?” Dream glances, confusion across his eyes as George cleans him up with the paper towel he found.
“I’ll just jerk off in the shower,” George takes his t-shirt off with one hand. “Will think of you.”
Dream looks at him, swears profanely just through his gaze. “George, you can't just say that to me right now.”
“Sorry,” George grins. “I mean. It’s the truth. I don’t – I never touch myself without thinking of you.”
Dream makes a sound from the back of his throat. “Never?”
“It’s, like, natural. I dunno. Guess I was used to it when all I had of you was your voice. And you’d – you’d call me sometimes when you just woke up and I’d have to pretend like I wasn’t — you know.”
“George, you – and you just never told me?”
“What was I supposed to say, Dream? We weren’t even, like, really together then. We were stupid.”
“We were so stupid,” Dream scoffs quietly as he remembers. “I was trying to flirt with you, but I was just so – I was so bad at it. I even talked to Sylvee about it.”
“You talked to Sylvee?” George asks, surprised. “About having feelings for me?”
Dream’s eyebrows draw a little closer. “Okay, to be fair, it’s not like I had many friends who were well-versed about things like this. I just didn’t know what to do and I was losing my mind thinking you were going to never like me back. She sat me down and told me we were both dumb and that you fell for me before I even started to have feelings for you.”
“Well, she was right,” George remembers. He remembers being freshly in love with his best friend who just kind of walked into his life with no warning, remembers not knowing what to do with himself. He has never known love like this before Dream. “Think I loved you since I was a kid.”
“George,” Dream looks like he’s melting. This is where words cease to exist and Dream just kisses him instead. Mouth against mouth, body against body.
Silence is comfortable with them, because they understand each other’s lack of words. They are good at telepathy, good at understanding effortlessly just like they used to across continents. It’s just so much easier and just instinctive when they’re closer and there is never any room for doubt.
______
They get to California around a week later, after spending time in Florida for a while. It’s nice to be home with Dream and sleep in their bed, entangled in their sheets together. But he also loves going to places and making new memories and doing the things that they used to endlessly talk about doing one day.
Vidcon is a fun time, and it’s infinitely better when he gets to do things like this with Dream by his side. They all have separate rooms, but that doesn’t really mean anything when Dream whispers his room number to George, lips quick against the shell of his ear as they head up to the fifth floor.
Dream takes his mask off, shuffles himself right into George’s eye line. George looks at his face, and he feels something gripping him, a little like possessiveness, the knowledge that he’s the only one who gets to see Dream like this.
“Hi,” George greets him, like he’s seeing him for the first time. Every time he gets to see him like this, it feels brand new.
“Hey, baby,” Dream smiles, the dimple that George wants to etch across his brain prominent on either side of his cheeks.
“Missed your face,” George runs a hand over his face, the slight stubble of his skin digs against his palm.
“I missed seeing you with my own eyes,” Dream watches him, and at moments like this he feels like the entire world has transformed so that it will only be the two of them. There’s nothing or no one else that matters when they’re like this. Dream’s eyes are endlessly soft, and it becomes a part of George’s body and mind and soul.
George smiles, hand still on Dream’s face. He runs his thumb over the line of his jaw. “You tired?”
“Not, like, physically. Just mentally, I guess. I love meeting everyone and spending time with people, but it gets—”
George hears the thready note of stress in Dream’s voice, and grabs his hand like it belongs to him. Completes his sentences, like he can read his mind with ease. “Too much?”
“Yeah. Just need a break sometimes,” Dream says, squeezing George’s hand.
“You don’t need to do anything with me,” George lets him know. They both know this, but he likes reminding him just how much he loves him exactly as he is. Not more or less. His Dream. “Don’t need to be anyone. Just you. Only want you.”
Dream’s frame relaxes visibly, and his face twists like a sunflower turning to the sun. “I love you,” he kisses him. “Love you so much, Georgie.”
George scrunches his nose. Dream kisses the wrinkles between his eyebrows. “I know.”
“Say it back.”
“Idiot,” George kisses him, bites his lip softly, wordlessly says you’re mine.
George gazes at all the little freckles on his face. There is no one else who sees him like this, only him. A heavy feeling settles beneath his chest; he takes it in slowly.
“Tell me,” Dream demands. This is the sort of push and pull they love.
“I shouldn’t, after today. You literally said you’d pick Sapnap over me,” George scolds, and he’s not even actually mad because he knows that Dream wouldn’t actually pick anyone over him. “You said you’d rather not – not talk to me ever again, Dream.”
“George,” Dream says, a scold as he pinches his eyebrows together. “Can you – can you imagine if I picked you and everyone just knew why? It’d have been too obvious.”
“I don’t care,” George shrugs. “Now everyone, like, thinks you’d just be okay with never talking to me again.”
“No one thinks that,” Dream retorts with that lift of his eyebrow. And it’s true, no one thinks that. Thinking that would be like asking Dream to be someone else, because George is so much of him. They’ve made each other, after all. Stripping them of each other’s presence will just never work. “It was a dumb question. I’d never even pick between you two. He’s my brother, and you’re — you’re you. They know I'd never be able to choose.”
George glances at him, and he still partially wants to give him a hard time just to push his buttons. “Okay, if you say so.”
Dream smiles, beams like the sun. “Cute when you’re jealous.”
“Not jealous,” George scoffs, like the idea of being jealous is just too stupid to even consider, because there’s no one that would ever be what George is to Dream. “I’m not jealous. Just don’t like that people think there’s even a choice to make.”
“There’s no choice.”
“Yeah?”
“Never a choice,” Dream affirms. “You were it for me since I asked you to code that stupid thing and you ignored me and then we started working together and I just knew you’d be a part of my life forever.”
“Forever,” George repeats, tests the weight of the word on his tongue. “Do you think this is forever?”
“Are you kidding? Of course I do,” Dream says, like there is no alternative. “I don’t even – I don’t know what my life is without you.”
“Good,” George hums, acts like his heart isn’t literally beating out of his chest. You’re my life, he means. I have never known living without you. He drums his fingers on Dream’s collarbone, then kisses his neck sloppily. Maybe it’ll leave a mark. Maybe George will like seeing it on his neck, knowing he’s the one who did it. There will be talk, but no one will ever address it. An oath of some kind.
Dream smiles when George settles close to his chest, wraps his arm around his back. “It’s kinda cold here.”
“We should turn off the air conditioning,” George suggests, even though he loves the cold. He’s used to it, but he knows Dream prefers it warmer than this. “You’re gonna get sick again.”
“Baby, you don’t need to worry about me.”
“I do worry about you,” George scoffs. “You’re, like, a newborn. You get sick so easily.”
Dream laughs. “Well, I don’t care. You’d take care of me. You’d bring me soup just like you did in Antarctica and kiss my forehead and—”
“Shut up,” George interrupts. “You’re stupid. Of course I would. Still doesn’t mean I want you to catch a fever.”
“Promise I won’t, Georgie,” Dream says.
They decide to go to the hotel bar after an hour to have a drink or two, a little after midnight when it’s presumably less crowded.
George wears Dream’s Mr. Beast hoodie, and he doesn’t think anyone will know that it’s Dream’s and not his own, but he will know, will revel in the knowledge that the warmth engulfing him is from his boyfriend’s hoodie.
The bar of the hotel is fairly empty. They settle at a table in the corner, where it’s slightly secluded and more comfortable.
Dream scoffs when he sees it anyway. “They’re gonna notice, George.”
“They won’t,” George protests. “It’ll be fine. If they do, you'll tweet something like DNF has gone too far again and we’ll be fine.”
“Okay, to be fair, we’re never getting out of this if anyone spots us alone at the bar with you wearing a hoodie that’s, like, swallowing you whole.”
“Yeah, Dream. DNF has gone too far,” George jokes.
“Too far,” Dream kisses the corner of his lips, one of his hands playing with the chain on George’s neck. His chain. It used to belong to him, and now it’s George’s, just like how George belongs to Dream. George knows how much he loves seeing it on his neck every day as a reminder between just the two of them, like a promise chain. “Think we should take it further?”
George lifts an eyebrow. “Gonna propose to me at a hotel bar in Anaheim?”
Dream shakes his head with the fondest smile possible. “Was thinking of something else, actually, but glad to know where your mind is at.”
He laughs. “You’re stupid.”
George is a lightweight. He knows that. Dream knows that. If he was with anyone else, he wouldn’t be comfortable enough to drink, but he isn’t with anyone else. He’s with Dream, and he feels like he could do anything he wants to do because Dream will make sure he’s okay if it’s the last thing he does. There is boundless trust between them; It feels a little like freedom.
“I’m so drunk,” George says after two cocktails, already feeling hot all over. “Like, really drunk, Dream.”
“I know, Georgie,” Dream presses a hand against his back. “You wanna go back to our room?”
“Our room,” George repeats, like he’s registering. “Our room. It’s ours.”
“Of course it’s ours,” Dream says.
“Ours,” George says again. Never yours or mine. Everything is theirs, an uncontested fact that what’s George’s is Dreams, always, just like how his heart is. “I like the way you say that.”
Dream is his. He wants to scream it out loud sometimes. Wants to scream with his entire lungs. But he likes that this is just theirs. So he steals his hoodies and showcases it, a piece that belongs to him, crawls in the feeling of possession. He tastes his minty toothpaste and feels the way it stings around the gum of his teeth. All fresh and familiar and so Dream.
Dream laughs and kisses him across the table. Presses his mouth against his. George is sure he tastes like beer, but Dream doesn’t seem to mind even slightly.
“We should prank call BadBoyHalo,” George suggests, and Dream bursts into laughter across from him.
“We’re not calling Bad at 2 in the morning, George,” Dream says. “I think it’s time we go back to our room.”
George groans, shakes his head like a little kid protesting eating vegetables. “Dream.”
“Baby,” Dream protests. And that’s the end of it all. “C’mon.”
Dream takes George back to their room and they sleep next to each other until night blends into morning.
______
They arrive at Spain after a delayed flight, exhausted and half out of their minds. George explores Madrid with Dream and enters all the shops. Dream buys him a stupid refrigerator magnet when he sees him looking at it, because he always cares about little things like this, knows that George will hold onto them forever.
They stream at a random restaurant in Madrid. Dream orders fried nigiri just because George tells him to, lets George have the last one, scoots closer to him as much as he possibly can.
He’s so incredibly sweet with him. He tries to tone it down but it still somehow feels awfully similar to their usual dates, even with thousands of people watching them.
George angles the camera so that no one gets to see Dream other than him, but it’s a little close to impossible when Dream keeps accidentally entering the frame like wants to be glued to him at all times. They don’t even attempt to hide it, as if they ever could when Dream’s mask is off and he looks at George like he’s seeing daylight for the first time.
“Okay, guys, I think we’re gonna go home,” George says to the camera before ending the stream.
Calling wherever they’re staying home is normal for them, because his home is Dream, and it has never mattered where they are as long as they are together.
Dream wraps an arm around George and they walk through a random street in Madrid to find their Uber.
“That was fun,” Dream says. “Was I too much?”
George gazes at him, gives him a look that confirms it. “You, like, kept coming next to me, Dream. They saw your face.”
“It's habit, George,” Dream says. “I just like being close to you.”
George thinks they were born to be too much together, because they seem to lose against subtlety every single time.
“I know that,” George states. He knows that very well. Knows how much Dream aches to be close to him when they’re in bed or when they’re eating or simply just existing next to each other. “Think everyone else now does too.”
Dream laughs. “What else is new?”
He squeezes George a little tighter in the car and George drops his head to his shoulder. They watch Madrid from the window and go home together, like always.