Between Friends (dnf)

Soulmates

**a/n: this chapter is a soulmate AU/takes place in a world where when you meet your soulmate you can see the color of their aura, and your own aura becomes visible to you**

Dream had never been a fan of waiting.

It made his stomach hurt, his mind spin, and his body shake with nerves.

As much as he'd like to say waiting for George to finally come home was the exception, it was actually the worst case of jitters he'd ever had. From the moment Sapnap pulled out of the driveway to pick up George from the airport, to the sound of the home security alarm chiming at Sapnap opening the front door upon his return... Dream had been paralyzed with anticipation.

There was something that had been on his mind far more often than not these days- not that Dream was willing to admit that out loud to anyone, especially not to his best friends.

Auras.

When Dream was eighteen, he had bright ideas of a pretty blonde girl with warm brown eyes being his soulmate. He was so sure that when their eyes met, he'd see a purple aura form around her, and then be able to look down and finally see what color his own aura was. Green was what he'd always assumed- it was his favorite color for just about his entire life.

When Dream was nineteen, his life grew exponentially, while also shrinking to almost complete nothingness. His, George's, and Sapnap's YouTube careers took off, but becoming a faceless creator came with imposed isolation.

By the time Dream turned twenty, his isolation wasn't self-imposed anymore. The world shut down for COVID, and just about every hope he had about finding his soulmate in a crowd shut down too.

Soulmates and auras and pretty girls with kind eyes became the last thing on Dream's mind. Where his life shrunk, his friendships grew. Dream invested all his time and resources into his friends- Sapnap and George, specifically. The day Sapnap made the move from Texas to Florida was one of the happiest days of Dream's life.

As much as he was a bit embarrassed to admit it to himself, he did wonder if Sapnap would show up at his door and suddenly he'd be thrown into a world of an orange aura that glowed around his friend like flames. That was just a moment of weakness, though- his prolonged stent without human contact getting to him. Dream was able to brush it off and even confidently say he wasn't upset that Sapnap didn't turn out to be his soulmate.

Where Dream did struggle was when George's role in his life grew and grew, until George also decided that he wanted to move in permanently with Dream... and Sapnap. It was hard to remind himself that George wasn't moving continents for only him, but also their mutual best friend.

It was easy to determine that Dream's feelings for George had long gone from platonic admiration to something he wasn't ready to put a name to. What he was willing to acknowledge was that the feelings he carried for George were different from the ones he held for Sapnap- different from even the ones he had for past girlfriends.

Part of Dream tried to justify that the only reason he was having these strong and purposefully unnamed feelings was because he hadn't met George yet. With his prior relationships, he already knew they weren't his soulmate- the lack of visible auras making that clear- and were nothing more than a mutual agreement to pass the time until their real soulmates entered their lives. With George, his feelings had a dangerous amount of time to fester and grow.