Into the Shifting Sea | dreamnotfound

In-Between

II

"Are you okay?" Sapnap asks.

They're standing in the yard of George's place. Dream had expected an apartment, but it's really more of a small house, with shutters and window boxes with tiny flowers growing out of them.

Moonlight spills across the yard. Dream had barely realized how dark it'd gotten.

"Yeah," he makes himself say.

Sapnap shakes his head like he's being ridiculous.

Dream glances towards the porch of George's house, and with a start, realizes that George is standing right in front of the door, arms crossed and wearing a wide grin.

Dream runs to the porch and his form of greeting for George is a hug, and it strikes him then how much taller he is than George, and it's strange how everything seems to fall into place just then.

I missed you, he wants to say, and so he does, unashamed and proud. And Sapnap shakes his head again but he smiles and all they do that first night is sit together on the couch as if they've been drowning without each other and, in some ways, perhaps they have.

...

It's nearing twelve AM England-time when Sapnap decides to head to bead, leaving George and Dream alone together on George's couch. His living room is nice, small but with soft couches and with rugs strewn across the room. Dream's apartment has a clinical feel to it, with white furniture and whiter walls, but George's house is the opposite of that and Dream isn't entirely sure of how it should make him feel.

Sapnap bids them goodnight with a side-eyed glance to Dream, head tilting, before George leads him to his office that has a blow-up mattress. They're supposed to share, but Dream is considering sleeping on George's couch.

Before he comes to a decision, George comes back from around the corner, eyes bright with a smile that's somehow even sunnier. His eyes trail down Dream as if he hadn't gotten to look at him before even though Dream knows that he did.

"You look good," George says, and it says everything and nothing at the same time.

"You look better," Dream replies, eyes taking in George as if he's a desperate, drowning man, drinking so that he survives.

"Fuck, Dream...I." George brings a hand to his head. He glances away. "I don't know what I'm expecting," he says, voice drew to a hushed whisper.

Dream slides his glance across the room. He focuses on a stack of records that rest of George's coffee table, none of them with names that he's heard of. His headache is back; it came back the moment the taxi arrived at George's house, but he tries to focus on anything but the pounding in his head that seems like it's lasted for months.

Without looking at George, Dream says, "I've thought about seeing you every single day for the last two months."

"Look at me," George says with his eyes that Dream knows are so big and brown without even having to look at him.

And so Dream does, and perhaps it's the jet lag, but the moment that he looks at George, everything he wanted to say came bubbling out in a choked whisper. "You're gorgeous."

George's cheeks flush. "What?"

"Shit, George."

It's a start, Dream thinks, as they sit together on that green couch.

It's a start, he thinks, as George takes him into his arms.

They sit down together on that green couch for what feels like a thousand years, years that begin to melt together like dripping candle wax with a flame made out of George and everything beautiful about him.