Between Friends (dnf)

Café

a/n: 3rd and final part to the 'homesick' series (pt1 is Homesick and pt2 is London)

This chapter is my birthday present to @agressivelyplotless <3 ily and i'll see you this summer!

~ 

This was fine.

This was absolutely, totally, just fine.

Okay, maybe it wasn't fine.

There's this thing strangers do when they're meeting through a mutual for the first time. And, unfortunately for that mutual, it's usually telling funny (embarrassing) stories about their experiences together.

So for George, having his mom and his very recently established boyfriend meet for the first time- needless to say, he was absolutely miserable.

"He's seriously been like that since he was a kid?" Dream asked through a laugh that had gone on for so long, George was surprised he was even still able to breathe.

"Yes, you can ask anyone! Oh, has he ever told you how-"

"Okay, I think that's enough!" George interrupted for what had to have been the fourth time. At this point, he wished the conversation would die, but they somehow kept starting up new- and arguable more embarrassing- conversations about him.

"Come on! I'm getting to see a whole different side of you, let me have this. Please?" Dream whined, squeezing George's hand, which he had almost forgotten were still held together. George stared back at Dream with a deadpan expression, ready to deny the request without a second thought.

"Please?" Dream asked more quietly, even though his mother sitting across from them could surely still hear him. Dream had dropped the whine in his voice and instead brought George's hand to his lips, kissing the back of it a few times in a row.

"Fine, if it'll make you stop." George was a beat too late for his response to be as snarky as he was going for, pulling his hand away from Dream in a huff.

"As you were saying?" Dream said to George's mum with a beaming smile, not even trying to hide his happiness. George could already sense the conversation his mum would be pulling him aside to have later.

Years of her telling him over and over to stay away from the moody and brooding types, insisting he would be much better off with someone who was unapologetically happy. Someone who made him laugh, someone who was never embarrassed to show the world just how in love they are, someone who he could spend all day with and still be the first person he wanted to talk to.

Without ever even knowing it, she had been preaching to George his whole life that he should be with someone like Dream.

George couldn't even act surprised when Dream barely lasted a minute into his mum's story before reaching out and dragging George's hand back to his lap. At this point, George was worried their hands were going to become permanently fused together or something.

Their conversation finally lingered to a series of more comfortable topics and George had actually begun to chime in every now and then.

"Okay, that's not even true. I did not-"

"What do you mean it's not true? I ate your leftover soup because I was sick and you ignored me for half a week because of it! You are literally so territorial with food. Restaurants, leftovers, even if I'm the one who made dinner, you won't let me take a bite off your plate!" Dream interrupted frantically, looking at George's mum for approval between his points.

"Because my food is my food and your food is your food. That's not being territorial, that's just common courtesy." George scoffed, unsuccessfully trying to tug his hand out of Dream's- maybe the fusion had already begun.