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Dream and George kiss for the first time on a random weeknight at the end of May. They’re back home in Orlando, leaning against the kitchen counter. One second they’re talking about Patches, and the next, George is taking Dream’s face in his hands and leaning closer.
Somehow, it’s not a surprise to Dream. It feels as if every moment since George finally moved to Florida has been leading up to this, to soft hands and closed eyes and mouths falling together, so slow and gentle it makes tears prick at his eyes.
All at once, Dream is sure. Everything he feels for George is reciprocated in full. How could it not be, when George’s hands are trembling against his jaw, when George is kissing him like he’s made of glass, like he’s precious and fragile and miraculous all at once.
When George pulls away, he’s smiling, eyes shining. “Hi,” he says, cheeks rosy.
Dream laughs. “Hi.” His own face must be tomato-red. “You kissed me.”
“I did.” And George laughs too, like he can’t believe it either.
He’s lovely under kitchen lights, glowing with happiness and affection, and Dream can’t stop himself from blurting out the next thing that pops into his head.
“Take me to London.”
George makes a face. “What?”
“I know you lived there for years,” Dream says, “but you spent most of that inside. I just want to see the city together. We can go to all the super-touristy things and just, just have fun. I dunno.”
George gets a faraway look in his eyes, like he’s imagining it. “Just… just go around London together?”
“Yeah. We can wear Hawaiian shirts and cargo shorts, and you can do your stupid corny American accent, and we’ll go see Big Ben and Buckingham Palace and just be happy.” He laughs. “Wouldn’t that be cool?”
“Yeah,” George says slowly. “Yeah, we should. We’re free next week, right?”
“That soon?”
“Yeah, why not?” George grins at him, and he finds himself grinning back.
“Okay! Yeah! I’ll book the flights.”
“Okay. I think I’m gonna go to bed.” George leans in again, and before Dream can react, gives him a kiss on the cheek. “Good night.”
Dream’s face is so hot he thinks he’s about to combust. “Good night,” he manages.
They stay at some Airbnb in Highgate.
“Highgate is one of the posh neighborhoods,” George explains as they trudge up the stairs to their apartment at the end of a long day of travel. “I’m pretty sure a bunch of celebrities have houses around here. Harry Styles and Jamie Oliver and stuff.”
Dream frowns. “Who’s Jamie Oliver?”
George hums thoughtfully. “I dunno. He, like, cooks. Whatever.” He stops at the top of the staircase, fumbling with the key for a few seconds before the door clicks open. “Home sweet home,” he announces, dumping his suitcase unceremoniously in the entryway.
“George,” Dream complains, stepping over the suitcase and carrying his own to one of the bedrooms. After a brief hesitation, he had decided to book a two-bedroom apartment. They only kissed for the first time last week. It’s too early for them to share a room, right?
Right?
He puts his suitcase in the corner and flops face-first onto the bed. He’s been up for so long, he thinks he could fall asleep right here, without brushing his teeth or washing his face or changing into pajamas.
Eyes closed, he hears the door creak. “Get up,” George says, poking him in the calf. “You have to do your stupid complicated face routine and brush your teeth.”
“It’s not stupid,” Dream protests sleepily.
“No, it’s not,” George concedes. “So you should do it. Besides, how am I meant to kiss you goodnight if your mouth is all smelly and gross?”
Dream gets up so quickly he thinks George might make fun of him for being so eager. But he receives no teasing, only a knowing smile.
He and George brush their teeth together silently in the bathroom, watching each other through the mirror. The domestic look suits George, Dream thinks. He always looks perfectly right , whether he’s brushing his teeth or doing the dishes or napping on the couch. It’s one of the things he misses the most when they’re apart: the chance to watch George at his most normal, the little moments that no one else gets to see.
George leaves the bathroom before Dream, who stays to finish his skincare routine. When he walks into his room, there’s already someone in the bed. “Excuse me,” he says. “I believe I already claimed this room. Your room is across the hall.”
“Well, my room sucks,” George complains.
Dream climbs into bed next to George. “What? What’s wrong? I can talk to the Airbnb owner, I can put in a complaint–”
“You’re not in it.”
Dream cuts off, looking at George in disbelief as he leans forward and kisses Dream softly. “That’s what’s wrong with it. It doesn’t have you.”
Dream’s face warms. “George.” He doesn’t think he could stop smiling if he tried. “You’re being so nice to me.”
“Can’t help it.” George scoots closer, curling into Dream and laying his head down on his chest. His hair tickles Dream’s chin. That’s always the best part of being together in real life like this—the little details that he never imagined, the things that prove to him it’s real, that he isn’t dreaming. “I always want to be nice to you.”
Dream hums. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. You’re cute.”
“If I’m cute,” Dream says, “do I get a goodnight kiss?”
“A kiss?” George picks up his head and hovers above Dream, their lips inches apart. He leans in a little, then stops. “Absolutely not.”
“George,” Dream whines.
George smiles, and finally kisses him, just as slow and sweet and sincere as every other time. Dream doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to being kissed with such blinding honesty, every touch filled to the brim with a thousand words George has never really known how to say. George pulls back. “I tricked you,” he says. “I said I wouldn’t kiss you, and then I did.”
Dream indulges him. “Yeah. You totally owned me.”
“Mm.” He lays his head down again, in his spot right over Dream’s heart. “Goodnight, Dream,” he whispers.
“Goodnight, George.”
The first thing they do the next morning is walk to the local tube station.
“The choobe,” Dream coos as they get on the escalator, chuckling. “Let’s get on the choobe.”
George scoffs. “You’re dumb.”
They keep going down, and the escalator just gets longer and longer. Dream squints down into the darkness. “This thing just keeps going,” he says. “It’s so far down.”
“Well, yeah. It’s the London Underground. Did you think it was gonna go through the streets?”
“I didn’t think it would be in the deepest, darkest pits of hell.”
They get a few looks on the crowded train, and a few people not-so discreetly point phone cameras at them, but nobody approaches them to ask for a photo. They’re only on for a few minutes before George is guiding Dream through the doors again and they’re riding up another giant escalator and into a huge train station.
“Where are we?” Dream asks as they step off. “You have a plan, right?”
“This is Victoria,” George explains. “There’s this little cafeteria around here somewhere that Wilbur and I went to once. I thought we might get some breakfast, or lunch, or whatever.”
“What, like a date?” Dream teases, grinning. He’s only half-joking.
George smiles back at him, going pink. “You’re such an idiot. This entire trip is just one big date, anyway.”
“Well– Okay, well–” Dream splutters.
“It is,” George says, gaining momentum now. “You aren’t slick, you know? You wanted to go to London so you could get a million free dates with GeorgeNotFound. Well, the jig is up. I know about your little plan.”
“My plan?”
“Yeah.” George holds his gaze, looking at him in that way that makes him feel like the only person in the room. “You brought me to London, and now you’re gonna take me to nice restaurants and hold my hand in museums and buy me some stupid trinket from a street vendor, and then I’ll have to put it on my bedside table and keep it forever.”
“That’s actually the opposite of why I brought you here,” Dream argues. “I want to take you to terrible restaurants, and… and give you food poisoning, and then kiss random strangers around London by myself while you’re sick in bed.”
“What?” George scowls. “Dream, that’s so mean. You wouldn’t do that.”
“Yes, I would.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Say you wouldn’t,” George pushes. “Say you would never let me get food poisoning. Say you’ll never kiss anyone else for the rest of your life.”
“Fine,” Dream gives in. He’ll always give in to George. “I would never let you get food poisoning. And if you ever do get food poisoning, I’ll sit right next to you and hold your hand until you’re feeling better.”
“And?” George raises an eyebrow.
“And I promise to keep kissing you and only you,” Dream says, voice low, “so long as we both shall live. In sickness and in health, for richer or poorer–”
“Dream.” George shoves him away, hiding his face in his sleeve. When he pulls it away, he looks very red and very, very pleased. “You’re an idiot.”
“Oh my God, Dream and George?”
They turn around to see a group of teenage fans coming towards them from the escalator. Dream is stunned silent. While he was talking to George, he completely forgot they were in the middle of a crowded train station. George has always had this effect on him. Whenever things get to be too much, too loud, he can make it all fall away, until the only thing Dream knows is the two of them. He likes the world best that way, when it’s just Dream and George. Every time, it takes him a while to come back down to earth, to realize there’s an entire world outside of them.
Luckily, George recovers much faster. “That’s us,” he says. “What are your names?”
The cafeteria George knows about ends up being just across the street. Dream gets tacos and George gets some Indian dish Dream has never heard of. They eat it at a little table on the roof, and end up splitting both between them. They don’t talk much, but George gets sauce on his chin, and he keeps smiling across the table. Dream takes a picture of him like that, dirty chin and dopey grin, for his Snapchat story.
When they’re done eating, they wander the streets for a while. Dream offers George his elbow, and George laughs at him, but he takes it anyway, and they stroll around like that, looking more like a couple than they probably should. Dream loves every second of it. A few people stop them for photos, and they smile for the cameras and then keep going.
Everyone they meet is so sweet and enthusiastic, and Dream knows it’s moments like these that make all the hate worth it. No matter how many people try to tear him down, there will always be more people that approach him to tell him what a huge impact he’s had on their lives.
“I love this,” he says to George, in a rare moment of peace. “I love our fans.”
George smiles at him. His smile is one of the best things about him, Dream thinks. He always smiles with his entire body, like he can barely contain his own joy in his small frame. “It’s so surreal, isn’t it? All these people have watched our videos. They all love you.”
“They love us,” Dream corrects, because how could there be one without the other? They’re a package deal. Anyone that loves him surely loves George too, loves all the pieces of them in each other. There’s so much of George in Dream, and so much of Dream in George, he thinks it would be impossible to love only one of them. “What do you want to do?”
George thinks about it. “We could go to Pret?”
“What’s that?”
Pret turns out to be a little cafe that says Pret A Manger in big letters above the entrance. “Pret a manger?” Dream frowns. “Like Jesus?”
“No, it’s like pret ah mon-jay.” George squints at him. “Ready to eat. It’s French.”
“French.” Dream groans dramatically. “You’re so smart. It’s so hot.”
“Uh– I–” George just stares at him, face pink. “What?”
Dream starts giggling. He’s aware that he probably looks and sounds ridiculous, but he can’t help it. “What? Am I not allowed to find you hot?”
“You’re ridiculous.” George looks scandalized. They get in line to order, and he tugs Dream’s hand down to lean up and whisper in his ear, “I think you’re hot, too.”
Dream feels like he’s floating. He knows he’s not the first person to be in love, but in moments like these, he can’t help but think there’s no way anybody has ever felt like this before. He feels a little ridiculous, letting a few words affect him so much, but the way he feels about George has always been kind of ridiculous.
There’s no real reason for them to be taking things this slow—they’re both grown men, they’ve known each other for almost a decade, neither of them are particularly inexperienced—but he loves this thing he has with George, where just a word, or a look, or a kiss on the cheek can leave him blushing and giddy. They’ve been building up to this for so long, it would feel wrong not to cherish every tiny moment.
“What are you going to get?” George asks.
Dream shrugs. “You choose. I trust you.”
Trusting George to pick his drink, as it turns out, is a terrible idea. He ends up drinking British hot chocolate, grainy and watery and nothing like his mom’s recipe.
“This is terrible,” he complains. “I’ll make you some real hot chocolate when we get home. It’ll be a million times better than this.”
“It’s literally good,” George argues. He’s guiding Dream down a street lined with cafes and little shops. “This hot chocolate got me through uni. If this didn’t exist, maybe I wouldn’t be here. I would have never gotten my degree, and you would have never had a crush on me for my epic coding skills, and then forced me to do Youtube as a sick ploy to spend more time with me.”
“Shut up.” Dream elbows him. “I didn’t see you like that back then. Actually, I remember you making me really nervous. I was so intimidated by you.” He laughs, shakes his head. “We were so young.”
George smiles. “We were. We’ve done a lot of growing up together, haven’t we?”
“Yeah.” Dream reaches out a little, and takes George’s hand.
“I was thinking,” George says slowly, squeezing Dream’s hand a little. “What if, after we’ve had a few days in London, we take a train out and go stay with my parents for a few days? Just ‘cause it’s been a while since I’ve seen them, and we’ve come all this way, and… I dunno. Would– uh. Would that be alright?”
“Your parents?” Dream’s heart glows in his chest. “You want me to meet your parents?”
George smiles then, his cheeks going all pink and his eyes going all squinty. “Don’t– you’re such an idiot. Don’t say it like that.”
“I’m not saying it like anything. We’re just gonna go stay with your parents, and I’m gonna meet them, and I’m gonna see the house you grew up in.” He can’t hold back his smile. “The house you lived in when we first met. I’m going to see your baby pictures, oh my god–”
“I’m taking it back!” George yelps. “We don’t need to go see my parents. We can just fly them out to Florida sometime when you’re not there, and you’ll never get to talk to them ever.”
“No way. You said you wanted to go. You can’t take it back now.” Dream squeezes his hand again, waits for the squeeze back.
“Fine.” George heaves a dramatic sigh. “I guess I’ll take you to meet my parents.” And the smile that spreads across his face is so giddy, it’s contagious. Dream finds himself grinning back. “You’re such an idiot.”
“Maybe I just love you,” Dream retorts. The realization rushes in in an instant. I love you. He did not think that through. Sure, he normally says it all the time, but this is the first time he’s said it since they started kissing and holding hands all the time. It’s the first time George is hearing the words knowing the full weight of them, just how true they really are. What if it’s too early? What if it scares him away?
George raises his eyebrows. “Do you?”
“Yeah.” Dream holds his gaze. He’s said it now, he may as well own it. “I love you, George.”
George changes course immediately, taking a sharp left between buildings into a tiny alleyway, grumbling the whole time. “You are so annoying,” he gripes, “because we were supposed to be going somewhere, and we’re in public, and now I have to–” and he kisses Dream against the wall of the alleyway, hands curling into his hair, so sweet but so insistent at the same time.
It takes Dream by surprise, but then he’s kissing back with equal fervor, mind completely empty of anything but George. “Does this mean you love me too?” he asks when George lets him up for air for a few seconds. He really means, Tell me you love me, George. Just tell me you love me. I love you, don’t you love me?
“I am so obsessed with you,” George tells him, honest and clumsy and perfectly himself. “God. You have no idea.”
Dream smirks, leaning back in. “I mean. I think I have some idea.”
They kiss for a little longer, reckless and stupid and helplessly in love in the middle of London. Dream has never been so happy in all his life.
Eventually, they make it to the Victoria and Albert Museum, and they walk around and look at statues and paintings and artifacts. Well, George looks at statues and paintings and artifacts. Dream just looks at George.
He can’t help it. George just looks so pretty like this, marveling at landscapes, making up ridiculous stories about the statues, snickering at the naked ones. He’s so full of joy, so full of love for the world around him, that it lights him up from the inside out. Dream has always loved that about him.
He spends the rest of the day doing the same thing—just watching George. Just loving him. After years of seeing George at his lowest in London, this feels like the best thing he can do to erase all of that hurt. He barely registers half the things they do that day, too caught up in watching the joy shine out of George at every seam.
At one point, they go for a walk along the Thames, eating gelato, free hands intertwined. Dream knows, practically, that if he doesn’t want people to find out he and George are in love, they probably shouldn’t hold hands in public. But when faced with a choice between holding George’s hand and not holding George’s hand, it would feel wrong to deny himself that simple pleasure.
And besides, they’ve been in love for a long time. Dream’s never been too big on subtlety, and plenty of people—millions of people, actually—have been able to guess at his feelings for George. It’s never bothered him too much. So what if people see them holding hands? So what if people know that George is his?
“What are you thinking about?” George asks. Dream loves this about him, too—how he always wants to be kept in the loop, wants to be part of everything Dream does.
“Us. You. Holding hands,” Dream says immediately. “How if people see us like this, they might be able to guess that– that you’re mine.”
“I’m yours?” George elbows him. “I’m not an object.”
“Okay, well. I didn’t mean– or like, I don’t think…” Dream considers it as he eats some of his ice cream. “I don’t think you’re ‘mine’ in, like, an ownership way. I just mean it in the sense that…” he shrugs. “I’ve got you.”
“You’ve got me?”
“Yeah. You’re with me, and no matter what, I’m with you.” He thinks back to earlier, in the train station. In sickness and in health. For richer, for poorer– He pushes that thought away. “At your best, and at your worst,” he says instead. “I’ll be here.”
“Okay,” George says easily. “Then you’re mine, too.”
“Okay. Good.”
And they keep walking, eating their ice cream, holding hands. An afternoon chill has set in, and a breeze lifts goosebumps on Dream’s arms. It isn’t really the right weather for ice cream, but George looked so excited when they walked past a gelateria that Dream just had to buy them some.
Besides, the cool air gives him an excuse to walk just a little bit closer to George, and how could that ever be a bad thing?
Dream wakes up in the early morning to sunlight streaming in through the curtains. He groans, throwing an arm over his face, pulled further out of slumber by the sound of quiet laughter.
He blinks his eyes open and is greeted by something more dazzling than the sunlight: George, smiling sweetly, looking soft and lovely in the morning light. “You’re so grumpy-looking when you wake up,” he says.
Dream feels a smile spread across his face, affection bubbling in his chest. “I am not. It’s, like, six in the morning.”
George giggles. “You are.” And he leans in to kiss him gently on the mouth, warm and sleepy. He pulls back, laughs, kisses him again. They do this for a while, taking breaks from their kisses to just smile at each other, and Dream thinks that he’s never been woken up so nicely in his life. That is, until George says, still smiling, “Your breath is horrible.”
“What?” Dream laughs. He can’t even bring himself to be offended. “ Your breath is horrible.” And he pulls George back in and kisses him again just to prove it.
It’s true: George’s mouth is stale and sour, but Dream can’t bear the thought of stopping or getting up to brush their teeth. He tips his head forward, rests their foreheads together. “Good morning, baby,” he whispers.
“Baby,” George scoffs. “I’m not a baby. If anyone here is a baby, it’s you.”
“Fine, I’ll be your baby.” Dream rolls his eyes dramatically.
George starts laughing. “What? Dream–”
“Fine, okay, fine, I will,” Dream continues, poking at his ribs as he laughs more. “You don’t have to beg, it’s okay, I’ll be your baby, George.”
George laughs and laughs and he looks so happy that Dream can’t help but lean forward and leave a little kiss on the side of his neck, right under the corner of his jaw. When this makes him laugh more, he does it again and again until George is giggling and pushing him away. “Stop! Dream, stop it.”
Dream’s face hurts from how hard he’s smiling. “You’re ticklish,” he accuses.
“I’m not!” George covers his neck with his hand. “Oh my God. You’re actually bullying me. Get off, idiot. We need to go back to sleep. It’s too early to be up.”
“Fine, let’s go back to sleep.” Dream leans in, lets his voice drop to a whisper. “And then, when we wake up, I’ll kiss you again.”
George turns away, blushing. “You wish.”
When they wake up again, it’s raining.
“It’s raining,” George says. “Oh no.”
Dream sits up a little, leaning against the headboard. “It’s fine. We have raincoats, we have an umbrella–”
“Now we can’t go anywhere,” George continues mournfully, ignoring him.
He frowns. “George, what? Of course we can. You’re not gonna, like, melt if you get rained on a little bit.”
George shakes his head slowly, sadly. “I am,” he says. “I’m actually a witch. This is so terrible. I guess…” and he swings a leg over Dream’s waist so he’s sitting on his lap, straddling him. “I guess we have to stay in bed all day. Isn’t that terrible, Dream?”
And he leans forward, kissing Dream long and slow.
Oh, god. This is new. This is very new. Dream nods. “Now that you mention it, I’m actually allergic to water,” he says quickly. “I probably can’t even leave this room, let alone the building.”
George smiles at him, giving him another little kiss. It feels like a reward. “I thought so.” Another peck, and then another, and then he’s kissing him properly, deep and languid and greedy, hands and lips and tongues. This is a new type of kissing for them, and it’s so, so good. Dream thinks he could kiss George for hours and hours, just lazily making out for the hell of it.
George knows him so well already, knows what he likes, hands running through his hair, sending tingles down his spine. He pulls back, breathless. “This feels so nice. I love you so much.”
George laughs at his lack of filter. “You’re so cute. Any time I touch your hair, you just, like, melt into the pillow. Look.” And he scratches gently at his scalp, nails finding all the right places.
Dream’s eyes flutter shut, contentment flooding him in waves, and he hums. “Love how you make me feel,” he confesses.
George snickers, but he can’t bring himself to be embarrassed, not with how much he loves George, how much he trusts him. Sure enough, when George stops laughing, he strokes a thumb over Dream’s cheekbone. “I always want to make you feel good,” he whispers. “You know why?”
Dream opens his eyes. “Why?” He knows why. He wants to hear it anyway.
“‘Cause I love you.”
He smiles, feeling drunk with sleepiness and happiness. “I knew it. You’re in love with me. You’re obsessed with me.”
“You’re an idiot.” George kisses him again. He’ll never get tired of these kisses. Each one feels like a gift, a confession, a reward for simply being himself. All he has to do is exist, and George will love him. It feels like a miracle.
“It’s so nice to hear you say it,” he says into the kiss, half-muffled by George’s lips but still audible. “I want you to love me forever.”
“I will,” George promises. “I’ll love you forever, and I’ll tell you a hundred times a day.”
“You better get started on it,” Dream says, only half-joking. “You should just spend the whole day telling me how much you love me.”
“Maybe later.” George bites his lip. “Right now, I was thinking, maybe we could go back to making out?”
“Yeah,” Dream says quickly. “God, yeah. Good idea. I think– I think we should do that. I–”
George interrupts him with his lips.
For lunch, they get McDonalds delivered, and they eat it in bed.
“I feel bad,” Dream says. “We were supposed to, like, go to Big Ben and stuff. I want you to love London. You were so unhappy here when we were waiting to be together, I just want… I dunno. I want to erase those bad memories. I want London to be a happy place.”
“It is a happy place,” George says. “Yeah, I was stuck in that flat, but I grew up in that flat. I fell in love with you in it.” He runs a hand down Dream’s arm. “I love having you here with me in London. I love showing you around. But a lot of what I did in London was just this.” He takes a bite of his burger, and when he speaks again, it’s with a mouthful of food. “Just… staying in bed and eating McDonalds.”
“Swallow first,” Dream says. “You’re so gross.”
“You would want me to swallow,” George says, taking another enormous bite and ignoring the way Dream splutters at the remark. “Point is, back then I would stay in bed all day and order fast food, and it was miserable. And now we’re staying in bed and eating fast food together, and it’s probably one of the best days I’ve ever had.” He shrugs. “We don’t need to do all the tourist stuff to make this trip perfect. Anything we do is already perfect, because we’re together.” He laughs a little. “London never really felt like home to me, but I’ve been here with you for two days, and it feels like we’ve lived here together forever.”
“Baby,” Dream coos. “You’re so sweet.”
George ducks away, ears a furious red. “Shut up, idiot. Let me show you my flat.”
“What, now?”
“On my phone, idiot.” George opens his phone and starts navigating around the map, looking for the right street. “I don’t think I want to go there in real life. It would be too weird. I’ll just show you on here.” He points to a grainy satellite image of a roof. “Look, this is it. That tiny dot is my stupid leaky window. And–” he scrolls a little, a few streets over. “Here’s the McDonalds I used to order from.”
“Wow.” It’s strange to see George’s entire world boiled down to this, to two dots on a map. “And now you live in Orlando, with no leaky windows at all.”
“Yeah, just massive spiders,” George scoffs. “Big upgrade.”
“And me.”
“And you,” George amends. “That’s a pretty good upgrade.”
In the afternoon, the weather clears up. They spend the day just walking around from landmark to landmark, talking the whole time and taking photos with fans. They go past Buckingham Palace just as the guards are changing, and George holds Dream’s elbow while they stand and watch.
“My feet hurt,” Dream groans after a while.
“Mine too. We could–” George fidgets a little, and Dream knows there’s something he’s not saying. “We could go for a drink?”
“Okay,” Dream agrees. He knows better than to press George—he’ll tell him what’s going on when he wants to.
“It’s a bit of a walk,” George warns. His mouth twists. “I think it’ll be worth it. I hope it will.”
Dream says nothing, just takes his hand and lets him lead the way.
They end up at a loud, crowded bar down a million twisting streets in the King’s Cross area. “Let’s go downstairs,” George shouts over the din. Dream nods and follows him down a staircase in the back.
“There’s nobody down here,” Dream says. “Are we allowed to be down here?”
“It’s fine. Look, there’s a table.” And George sits down, gesturing to a row of stools stacked against the wall. “Sit. What do you want?”
Dream sits. “Whatever you’re getting.”
George picks up his phone and types in it for a second. “I’m getting us pornstar martinis. They’re nice.”
“Oh. Is this, like, a place where you order online?”
“Not exactly.” George puts his phone down. “It’s fine. You’ll see.”
Dream tries not to worry. Really, he knows he has nothing to worry about—he’s with George. He trusts George. But still, he wonders. What is George not telling him? What’s so special about this bar?
And then a girl is coming down the stairs holding two glasses, and Dream has never seen her face before, but he knows with certainty that this is George’s sister. He’s on his feet before he can even make the conscious decision to stand up.
“What kind of shit brother doesn’t mention anything about coming to the UK until he’s in your basement?” She puts their drinks down on the table and pulls George into a hug.
“I literally said it in the family WhatsApp ages ago,” George argues, hugging her back. “You just always have it muted.”
“Yeah, because it’s annoying.” She finally steps back, and George looks over at Dream, a slow smile spreading across his face.
“This is my sister, Millie,” he says. “Millie, this is Dream.” His eyes glow with affection. “My boyfriend.”
An identical smile spreads across Dream’s face. Boyfriend . It just sounds so good when George says it. This is Dream, my boyfriend. Dream is so in love with him. He turns to Millie. “It’s really nice to finally meet you.”
Millie pulls him into a hug. “I’ve heard loads about you.” Her accent is much stronger than George’s, much more like how he used to speak when Dream first met him. He’s hit with a wave of bittersweet nostalgia, love and regret about a time that was somehow both much simpler and much more complicated. “Way too much, actually,” Millie continues. “Noddy never shuts up about you.”
Noddy?
“Aren’t you going to congratulate me on getting a boyfriend?” George sits back down and takes a sip of his drink.
“No. You guys have been on the verge of dating for, like, six years now. I’m not going to congratulate you on figuring out what anyone with common sense could have told you.”
“Hey,” Dream protests weakly. He feels like he should be protecting George somehow. “We had a lot going on.”
Millie’s face softens. “I mean, as far as boyfriends go, you got a good one. I’ll congratulate you on that.” She turns to Dream. “ You got a rubbishy one. I wish you all the luck in the world. You’ll need it.”
“Thanks.” Dream nods solemnly. “He’s insufferable, right?”
“Finally, someone understands me.” They share a smile, and Millie steps back. “Alright. If you need anything, just text. Don’t worry about the bill, by the way. It’s my treat.”
“I’m a millionaire,” George yells after her as she walks up the stairs.
“You’re family,” she shouts back, and then she’s gone.
Dream just looks at George. He’s so lovely here, so perfect in the secret basement of a trendy bar. He’s perfect anywhere, really. Dream is just starting to notice that. George looks perfectly at home anywhere they’re together.
“You called me your boyfriend,” Dream says. “You told her I’m your boyfriend.”
George bites his lip. “Is that okay?”
“It’s good. Really, really good.” Dream can’t help but let out a giddy laugh. “We’re, like, totally boyfriends.”
“You’re an idiot.” George leans forward, kisses him quickly. “Boyfriends,” he repeats. “I should have just told her you’re my simp.”
Dream laughs. “As long as she knows I’m yours.”
They go to a ridiculously expensive restaurant for dinner, and Dream sits and sips champagne and watches George do the same, wondering how he ended up here. “I’m so lucky,” he says quietly as they walk out of the restaurant, arm around George’s waist.
“Yeah,” George says, and Dream can already tell what he’s about to say just by mischief in his voice. Sure enough, he immediately tacks on, “Almost too lucky.”
Dream groans and shoves him away. “George,” he complains. “I was being serious.”
“Sorry.” He doesn’t sound very sorry. “Come on. I think we should go to Tate Modern.”
“Okay,” Dream says easily. “Let’s go to Tate Modern.”
They walk slowly across the Millennium Bridge, stopping in the middle to look out over the sunset.
“It’s really nice,” George sighs, leaning into Dream’s side. Dream wraps an arm around him, welcoming him immediately. “I can’t believe I never did any of this stuff when I lived here. But… I’m glad I get to see it with you.”
“Yeah?” Dream just barely resists the urge to kiss him on the forehead, right there in the middle of the bridge.
“Yeah. London is so much better with you. Everything’s so much better with you.” George chuckles a little. “The minute we became friends, it was game over for me. Because once I knew what it was like to do things with you, I never wanted to do anything by myself again.”
Dream aches. He thinks back to those early years, to No, don’t go to bed. Just stay on call for a little more. Just play one more game with me. Just sleep for a little bit and come right back. To a hundred different ways George said I need you over the years. “You never have to do anything alone ever again,” he promises quietly.
“I know, Dream.” comes George’s quiet response. “I know.”
When they eventually make it to Tate Modern, it’s closed.
“This is all your fault,” George huffs. “If you didn’t need to stand and watch the sunset with me–”
“My fault? George, it closed four hours ago. You should have checked the hours before you convinced me we needed to come here.”
“Well, you should have known better than to trust me to make plans in the first place!”
“I’ll always trust you,” Dream argues. “I love you.”
“Oh, you love me, do you?” George tips his head back. “Fine, now we have to go back to the flat.”
“Well– we could figure out something else to do.”
George shakes his head. “There’s nothing else in the entire city to do. We couldn’t possibly come up with a plan B. There’s only one thing left.”
“What’s that?” Dream asks.
“Go home and cuddle for the rest of the night,” he says solemnly.
Dream laughs. “What a hardship.”
“Your sister called you something weird earlier,” Dream says later, when they’re in bed. George’s head is on Dream’s shoulder, his legs across Dream’s lap. “I can’t remember what it was.”
“Oh.” George turns his face into the fabric of Dream’s t-shirt. “She calls me Noddy sometimes. She says I look like the cartoon.”
“What cartoon?”
George sighs heavily. “I was afraid you were going to ask that.” Sitting up, he pulls out his phone and types in it for a second before he’s holding up a Google Images search page with countless pictures of the same little boy, brown hair and rosy cheeks.
“Oh my god,” Dream coos. “I think this is actually the cutest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. He looks exactly like you.”
“He does not.” George buries his face in his hands. “I’m a grown man.”
“You’re a cute man,” Dream says, because he loves pushing back at George like this, likes making him blush pinker and pinker.
“You think I’m cute?”
Dream squints at George. “Is that a serious question?” He leans down to kiss George on the tip of his nose. “I think you’re cute, and hot, and handsome, and beautiful–”
“One person can’t be all those things,” George argues.
“You are,” Dream insists. “You’re everything.”
He can tell that right now George wants to scoff and shove his shoulder, brush off his affection and call him an idiot, and he watches in real time as George resists the urge, leaning in to kiss him instead. “Thank you,” he murmurs. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” Dream rests his head against George’s, watching as he opens Twitter. They scroll for a few minutes, just quietly taking it in. There’s fanart, a few memes, a photo–
“Wait, that’s us,” George says.
He’s right: it’s the two of them, standing on the Millennium Bridge. Dream’s arm is around George’s shoulders, and they’re facing away from the camera, silhouetted in the light of the setting sun. “This is so cute. We look so in love.”
George giggles. “The person who posted it said, ‘They’re actually dating.’ We should both retweet it. I think they would love that.”
Dream laughs. “People used to say that stuff even when we weren’t dating.” He sighs in contentment, pulling George closer. “It doesn’t bother me, people speculating about us.”
George hums. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. It doesn’t matter, because they don’t know. They don’t get to see you like I see you. They can say whatever they want, and we don’t have to tell them anything.” He laughs. “Let’s just keep doing whatever we want, and we won’t confirm or deny anything.”
“I can’t believe you want people to speculate about our relationship for clicks, Dream,” George goads him. “I can’t believe you’re actually queerbaiting everybody right now.”
“Real people can’t queerbait, idiot. And it’s not like that. It’s more like… our chains.”
George scoffs, one hand coming up to play with his chain like he always does. “What about our chains?”
“Like, I don’t care if people know I gave you yours, or that we bought mine together. It’s not a huge secret, but I don’t need to tell them. They can know, but at the end of the day, it’s our thing. Just ours.”
“Just ours.” George tucks his head under Dream’s chin. “I like that.”
A few days later, they arrive at George’s parents house just in time for dinner. George’s mom makes sausages and mashed potatoes and cauliflower cheese, and they eat it in a little glass room off the kitchen that they all call ‘the conservatory.’ Dream feels like family immediately, and it warms him all the way down to his toes.
“–and she wants to visit you in America.” George’s mom is gesturing with her fork. “What do you reckon, my darling?”
“Ask her when she can come,” George says. “We just need to make sure we’ll be around to spend time with her. We’ve got plenty of space, and Dream can book the flights for her.”
At the mention of his name, George’s mom reaches over and squeezes Dream’s arm. “You’ve always been such a lovely friend to George.”
George coughs. “Actually, Mum, Dad… Dream is my boyfriend.”
Stunned silence rings through the room for a moment. Then George’s dad nods. “Well, we did tell you to marry rich.”
George barks out a shocked laugh. “Dad!”
“That’s lovely, darling,” his mom chimes in. “You’ve fancied him for ages, haven’t you?”
George covers his face. “Mum!”
Dream laughs and laughs, relieved and happy and proud all at once. “I promise I’ll be good to your son,” he says.
George’s dad shakes his head, waving him off. “You’ve already done him more good than we ever could have asked of you.”
“Everyone stop talking and eat,” George’s mom says. “And George, for heaven’s sake, go get a bottle of Prosecco from the garage.”
George laughs out loud, wiping at his eyes where he’s beginning to tear up. “Okay, okay, I’m going.”
And they drink and eat and laugh and talk until Dream’s face aches from smiling and his stomach aches from too much mashed potato. It’s the most at home he’s ever felt outside of his own house, and he wonders if it’s possible to die of happiness.
Later, they go to sleep in George’s childhood bedroom. “Your parents are so great,” Dream tells him honestly.
George groans. “I can’t believe my mum said that in front of you. I never even told her I liked you.”
“Aw, don’t be embarrassed, George.” Dream leans forward, lips brushing George’s ear as he whispers a confession. “I fancy you, too.”
George scoffs, pushing him away. “You’re such an idiot.”