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“& you,
& you, my bright hibiscus, my every color”
S. Elhillo, ‘A Memory of Us’, (2020).
“Not tonight but tomorrow
when my body will have shed
its fear of turning old and soft”
M. Algarin, ‘Not Tonight but Tomorrow (1978)’, (2009).
***
When he was young, -- truly young, before Dream or anything spectacular -- fatherhood had seemed to him some distant dream, like a foreign landscape he would never learn to traverse.
It takes mere weeks in the loving heat of Florida for him to look at Dream out of the corner of his eye, and think he could take on anything as long as it was with him.
***
It starts with a kitten.
He always used to scour petfinder, sending Dream links to cats with stupid names. And then, it’s 2023, he’s in Florida, and there’s a kitten called Fortnite looking to be adopted in Orlando.
Fortnite is just bigger than the palm of his hand. She’s a deep moonlight black, and she likes to curl up on his lap. When Dream holds her, his entire body lurches with a love so enormous he fears he’s going to pass out. Dream calls her the baby, and talks to her like she understands every word he says.
“Where’s the baby?” He’ll ask, when he comes into George’s office to coax him out for lunch. “I couldn’t find her anywhere.”
There’s something exquisite about Dream’s gentle care that makes George think that maybe, just maybe, they’d be permitted to have this.
***
“George,” Dream whispers, shaking him from his nap. George blinks groggily up at him, his smiling face. His heart squeezes. “Look at the baby.”
“Where is she?” George mumbles, shifting up from the sofa.
“Here,” Dream says, gently nodding towards his lap.
George looks -- Dream must have come to sit with him as he slept. Fortnite is nestled against Dream’s stomach, tiny ears twitching as she sleeps.
“She’s so small,” George says.
“She is tiny,” Dream replies, stroking at her head with just his forefinger.
He doesn’t really let himself think about it yet, but he sees her with him. And he wonders.
Late at night, when Dream is either sleeping or in his office glued to a project, George begins to wonder how it would work. He starts reading articles. He makes a bookmarks folder.
Thoughts like this, about the future, specifically about a type of future he thought wasn’t carved out for people like him, start to creep into his mind.
When it starts to feel terrifying, he just has to look at Dream, and all fear subsides.
***
“Hello, darling,” Dream says, cupping Fortnite in his open palms. She waves her paws in the air as he tucks his head down towards her. “Time for your dinner.”
“Patches is going to get jealous,” George says, watching on in awe.
“She won’t,” Dream says, turning to him. Without the entertainment, Fortnite blinks slowly before closing her eyes. “Patchy knows she’s my best girl.”
“Poor Patchington,” George says, woefully. “Upstaged by the youth.”
“My daughter will fight yours,” Dream says.
“Don’t be silly,” George says. “Patches loves Fortnite. She’s her big sister.”
“Hm,” Dream says. George turns to him immediately.
“What?”
“You always used to call me stupid, before,” Dream observes. “Now you just call me silly.”
“I can’t --” George falters, the love he has for Dream convulsing in his chest. “I don’t like calling you that anymore,” he confesses.
“Oh, yeah?” Dream grins at him. “Why?”
“Because,” George says, and he wonders, for a moment, if he should lean in, and give everything away. He would, just so that Dream would know.
“Because why,” Dream pushes, and George knows that he has to tell him.
“Because,” George says, stressing the word, before continuing, quietly. “Because you’re mine. And I don’t have stupid things. That would be stupid. I’m not stupid, Dream.”
“You don’t have stupid things?” He hears Dream swallow. “But you have me?”
“Yes,” George says, emphatically. He looks at Dream, seeking out any discomfort. He finds none. “I do have you. Don’t I?”
“Yes,” Dream says, eyes bright and happy. “Of course you do.”
“And you’re not stupid,” he adds, gentler than he’d ever imagined being. He looks at Dream, holding Fortnite with such care that it’s almost humorous -- how big he is, how small she is.
Dream grins, wide and pleased. “I’m not?”
“God,” George groans, immediately wanting to bury himself. “You would fish for compliments, wouldn’t you?”
“I would?” Dream scoffs. “Have you met yourself?”
“You would want me to tell you, that like,” George carries on, knowing that this is one of the few circumstances he’d find himself in where he can, in a way, be honest with Dream about this, “that like,” he repeats, “you’re the smartest person I know, and that you’re like, never stupid in a way that matters.” When he stops speaking, Dream is just looking at him, mouth parted in something like awe. He wants to keep him like this, so he goes on: “And that I admire the way you care about things,” he says, carefully. “And that I’ve never been happier than I am with you.”
“George.”
“That’s what you would want me to tell you,” George says, brusquely. “And you’d also want me to tell you that you’re the most attractive person I’ve ever seen in real life. Because you’re --” Even as a joke he can’t say it. “You’re just silly, Dream.”
“That can’t be true,” Dream says, with a laugh that sounds far too insecure for George’s liking.
“It is,” George insists, quiet and certain. “I’m serious. My type is --” He stops, trying to figure out how to explain it. “It’s like everything I find attractive was put into one human being.”
“I’m like, made for you.”
“Yes,” George says. “Exactly.”
“Well,” Dream says. “I must be the luckiest man in the world. To be made for you.”
“You have no idea,” George says, suddenly ruptured by all this weighty emotion, “how fucking lucky I feel to have existed in the same circles at the same time as you.”
“George --”
“I’m serious,” George says again. “You messaged me when we were kids and now --”
“I didn’t think you believed in fate,” Dream interrupts.
“I don’t,” George says, “but that makes it more --” He shakes his head, embarrassed, startlingly. At the enormity of his love, his confession. “Like, you have to know that makes it feel like, I don’t know. It feels stupid saying it.”
“Saying what?”
“Like,” George says. “What are the chances? That’s crazier than fate. It’s like… It’s like a miracle. Like,” he laughs, suddenly. “One in 7.5 trillion.”
“George.”
“I mean it, though,” George says. “You messaged me when we were kids, and now we have this. And I --” He swallows. “And I --” It’s scary suddenly.
“What,” Dream says, gently. “What is it, George?”
“And I see you with her,” George says, quietly. “And I wonder if… I realise I want it.”
“Want what?” Dream prompts, again, patiently.
“Would you want kids?” George says, seeking a way to avoid the confession directly. He avoids eye contact, just reaching over and stroking at Fortnite’s head. “Not now, but one day?”
“George,” Dream says, voice weighty. George looks to him, and realises that his eyes are welling up.
“Don’t --” He says panicked, tripping over himself to speak. “I didn’t mean to make you sad --”
“You want kids with me?”
“I mean.” He suddenly feels very small. “We wouldn’t have to, obviously. I never thought I’d have them,” he admits. “But I also never thought I’d have you. But we don’t have to. Obviously. Not if you don’t --”
“George,” Dream says again, interrupting him. “Of course I want to have a family with you. I already feel like...” He shrugs, like it’s obvious. “We’re already family, you know?”
“Okay,” George says. He feels raw, cut open and blazing. “I know.” He swears he could drown in this. He never thought, not in a million years, that he could have this. And here Dream is, ready to give him the whole world in the palm of his hand.
“Yeah?”
George smiles, unable to do anything but.
“Yeah.”
***
It’s years later, when George brings it up again. They wake up too late for the lunch reservation Dream had made for their third wedding anniversary, somewhere upscale with a menu that George made fun of.
He sees Dream, the way the light pours into their bedroom window. He watches his back as he stands, looking out into their garden sans shirt. He looks at him, this man who has been by his side for close to a decade. He thinks of their house, their cats, this life they have built together.
“Dream,” he says. “Get your phone out.”
“What,” Dream says absently, turning back to him. “It’s over there,” he says, gesturing loosely to the bedside table. “Throw it.”
George does. “I’m going to send you an email,” he says, after Dream catches it. “Don’t freak out.”
“Okay,” Dream says, grinning. It says so much, George thinks, that he trusts George enough that his phrasing doesn’t send him into panic.
George brings up his drafts. Checks every link is working, every attachment is there. The pamphlets on adopting, the forums surrounding surrogacy. It’s five years of loose research -- or three years of casual interest followed by two years of fervour.
He taps send.
“You don’t have to say anything,” he says, immediately. “There’s no pressure.”
“Hold on,” Dream says, “it hasn’t come through yet, just a --”
He can see when Dream sees the subject line, his mouth falling slack in shock.
SUBJECT: baby stuff
He’s silent, as he taps on his phone, eyes wide.
“Okay,” George says, finally, nerves fizzling in his stomach. “Maybe you do have to say something.”
“You --” Dream stumbles. “George.”
“Hi,” he says, sheepish.
“There’s so much,” Dream says, eyes glued to his phone.
A cavern opens inside him. He swallows, the smallest raindrop of doubt falling. “Too much?”
“No,” Dream says, emphatically. “No. No, not at all.” He looks up at George, suddenly, and just the expression on his face sets his mind at ease. “How long did this take you?”
“Not that long,” George says, honestly, meaning the email. “It’s just stuff I’ve collected over the years,” he says, honestly, meaning the articles. “I had to keep updated, ‘cause like.” He shrugs. “It’s Florida. The law kept changing. Didn’t want to miss anything, or get it wrong.”
“You really want this,” Dream says, like he’s been given the best gift in the world.
“It’s you,” George says. “It’s our life.” The honesty is beautifully brutal for both of them. “Of course I do.”
“George,” Dream says. George wonders sometimes if he says his name just to put more of him in the world. “Come here.”
George pulls himself out of bed, and goes to his side. He swipes his thumb underneath Dream’s eyes, catching stray tears.
Dream kisses him so tenderly that he wishes he could go back a decade and tell himself that one day, an ocean away, he would be so happy he’d cry from it.
***
Ellie is born in June.
Even by May, it’s the hottest summer George has experienced in Florida since he moved, and he and Dream spend hours painting the nursery in expansive heat. They spend afternoons with their surrogate, Dream driving over to hers with home cooked meals he’s heard help in pregnancy. George suddenly takes to having sprawling nightmares where he leaves their not yet born baby in peril, and nightmares where he forgets their name.
It’s the hottest summer George has ever experienced, but the moment he takes Ellie in his arms, overcome with so much love he didn’t even think it was possible, it rains for the first time in two months.
***
One afternoon, Dream collapses in exhaustion and naps for hours. George takes Ellie in his arms, babbling to her, and bathes her in the kitchen sink.
He fills a plastic tub with warm water and bubble bath, and talks to her about everything under the sun. She giggles and coos, opening her tiny palms up to him. He soaps her wispy hair and kisses her head.
“Come on darling,” he says, quietly, always careful to keep his voice gentle around her, “time to get squeaky clean!” He rubs his fingers behind her ears softly, making a squeaking sound with his mouth. When she laughs, he beams so wide his cheeks hurt.
“It is funny,” he says to her. “Isn’t it? Dad’s so funny, isn’t he?”
When it’s time to dry her, he wraps her up in the fluffiest towel they have, swaddling her against his chest. He rocks her, holds her with care.
“Are you dry?” He says, redundantly. “All clean? You want to see your other dad?”
Ellie makes a garbled sound, so he turns to the stairs.
“Hm,” he says, “I think your Daddy’s still sleeping. He’s dreaming, huh? Dream is dreaming.”
She looks up at him, with wide eyes. She has Dream’s eyes.
“Isn’t that funny,” he coos at her softly, pulling her clothes back on her. “Your Daddy has a silly name, doesn’t he?”
She reaches out, touches his nose, his cheek. He kisses her tiny palm.
“He’s good at choosing names,” he says. “He chose yours, too. Little Ellie.”
He thinks of Dream, sleeping softly upstairs.
“He’s good at lots of things,” George tells her. “He’s very clever. You’re very lucky to have him as a dad.” He rocks her in his arms. “He’ll teach you loads of things when you grow up. And he’ll always make you feel loved.” He tucks his face against hers, kisses her babysoft cheek. “He loves you so much, little Ellie.”
“George,” Dream says, and George turns to see him standing in the doorway.
“Oh, look,” George says, immediately turning Ellie so she can see Dream. “Daddy’s awake.”
She babbles at the sight of him, and George takes her to him, and they hold her between them.
“You were saying nice things,” Dream says, stupidly, kissing Ellie’s head as he takes her from George.
“I always say nice things,” George defends. He knows that there’s a part of him that used to shy away from Dream knowing all the things he thinks about him, but that piece of him has long been dormant. “She was missing you.”
“I was missing her too,” Dream says. “And you.”
“You weren’t,” George says, fondly. “You were sleeping.”
“Yeah,” Dream says. “So? I was dreaming of you both. Missed you so much my brain gave me more of you.”
George smiles at him, as he pulls faces at Ellie. Dream is so good with her it makes him dizzy. “What did you dream about?”
“Ellie wanted to be an astronaut,” he says. “So you like, coded the house to be a planet. It was like Mars or something. We were floating. Less gravity.”
“I coded the house?”
“Yeah,” Dream says. “It was epic.” He bounces Ellie, making her laugh, startled. George recognises his own laugh in hers.
“I bathed her in the sink,” George says, always wanting Dream to know everything she does. “She fit in there like a little fish.”
“You bathed her in the sink?” Dream looks past him, at the little plastic tub, suds still floating. “Why not the bath?”
“My mum used to bathe me in the sink,” George says. “I dunno. It was --” He swallows. He still misses his family on occasion, but ever since they had Ellie, he’s been missing his mum more. She’d come out in August, but she couldn’t stay forever. “It’s nice,” he says, softly, watching his husband and his daughter. “Doing things for her that she used to do for me.”
“She must be so proud of you,” Dream says, looking at him with an ocean of love. He always knows exactly what George needs to hear. “You’ve grown into a good man.”
George wants to wiggle out of the abject praise, but he stands his ground. “You’re good with her,” he says, only sidestepping slightly. He brushes his hand softly over the back of Ellie’s head. “Isn’t your Daddy good with you?” He says softly. “You had fun in the sink, little fish?”
“Your Dad tried to wash you like a vegetable,” Dream says to Ellie, but George knows it’s mostly to make him laugh. “He’s crazy, he wants to eat you!”
George laughs, and so does Ellie. He loves the sound of them together.
***
“The baby is jealous of Ellie,” Dream murmurs into the back of George’s neck. “She was watching her from the shelf above the cot this morning,”
“Hm,” George says. “I didn’t notice. Where was I?”
“Sleeping,” Dream replies. “You both were -- that’s why I was keeping guard, didn’t want her to claw either of your eyes out.”
“Fortnite would never do that,” George says, adamant. “She’s a good cat. And she’s not a baby anymore -- you shouldn’t call her that. She’s five. That’s old.”
“She’s not old,” Dream says, frowning. “And she’s still my baby, why would that change?”
“Maybe,” George deadpans, “because of your actual human baby?”
“Ellie can deal,” Dream says, taking on a joking tone. “Fortnite will always be the baby.”
“And what am I?” George says, just to provoke him. It’s easy to talk like this when they stand, his back to Dream’s chest. “Am I not your baby?” He puts on a voice when he says it, but he still says it.
“Dumbass,” Dream chides, pleased. “Of course you’re my baby, baby. You’re my number one.”
George retches. “Gross, Dream.”
“You love it,” Dream says, certain. George does.
“You’re gonna be like, a PDA parent,” George says, the realisation coming to him suddenly. “You’re gonna like, make out with me to make Ellie cringe.”
“Obviously,” Dream says, grinning.
“Poor Ellie,” George says.
“Nah,” Dream says. “She’ll grow up knowing we love each other. That’s a good thing, George.”
George feels so giddy he could burst. Fatherhood has made a sap of him. It would be intensely embarrassing, but he doesn’t think he could ever be embarrassed of Ellie. He could never be embarrassed of Dream.
“We’re gonna be that family,” he says, with something akin to wonder. “Like, all Ellie’s friends are gonna come to ours because they feel like…”
“Safe, here,” Dream finishes.
“Well,” George says, the earnestness making him too emotional. “I was gonna say ‘cause our house is epic, but that too, I guess.”
“You’re gonna try to make it into her hype house before she turns five,” Dream jokes. “You’re gonna make her friends, like, the kindergarten Vlog Squad.”
“Ew,” George says, instinctively. “I’m not Mr Beast, Dream.”
Dream laughs, fond. “I know,” he says.
***
Dream likes to sing Ellie to sleep.
He seems to know a handful of lullabies that George has never heard of before, and when they wake in the night to a wail coming from the cot, Dream will slip out before George has even fully registered what’s going on.
He’ll go out into the hallway with her, and George will strain his ears to listen to him sing softly.
When he returns one night, George turns and clings to him, resting his head on his chest.
“Sing to me,” he requests, sleepily.
“What?” Dream murmurs in return.
“The lullaby,” George says. “I want to hear it.”
Dream laughs at first, but when George waits, he stops.
“Okay,” Dream says, gently. And he sings.