Chapter Text
Morning came to them like the morning of a teenager who forgot to do their school project last-minute and had to come to class empty-handed.
It was dread. Pure, unfiltered dread.
They would’ve given anything to have been able to freeze time, to turn back the ticking clocks, turn back the rising sun. They wished that just for an hour, time would freeze, so they could hold onto each other for a little longer. Wished that it would begin to storm and flights would cancel. Wished that they could oversleep and George would miss his flight. Wished that they could just stay in each other’s arms for just a while longer, just a little while longer.
But that would be unrealistic. It would be immature and childish.
And so the sun slowly rose, time continued as it inevitably does, and they were woken from gentle and warm slumbers- so safe and warm- by the shrill blaring of Dream’s alarm that was set for seven in the morning, and with a groan that was equally tired and pissed off, Dream rolled over and slapped the sleep button before immediately rolling back to his previous position and diving back into George’s welcoming arms, squeezing him tighter when George began holding on tighter.
“Screw my flight, I’m staying here,” George quietly proclaimed with confidence, earning Dream’s forehead to approach his and for them to rest together, both of their eyes shut.
“I wish you could, but you have to go back home,” Dream replied, immediately getting a signature groan that toed the line of being a whine in reply from George, Dream feeling the slight vibration of the noise between his shoulder blades from where one of his hands rested.
They fell silent, the comfortable and soft atmosphere lulling them back to sleep. Their breathing slowly began to slow and deepen as they drifted off again, and they were almost back asleep when Dream’s alarm went off for the second time, and instead of rolling over like the previous time, Dream began cursing as he ripped the blanket off of him and squirmed out of bed, angrily hitting the clock to turn the alarm off.
“That poor clock was just doing its job, Dream,” George sleepily whined, waking up fast as he lifted himself into a sitting position, cracking his knuckles and taking note of his laptop sitting closed near the end of the bed.
“I don’t care, I hate it,” Dream enunciated, sounding pissed off at the inanimate object.
“Dream…” George began, kicking the blanket off of him and standing, walking around the bed and over to Dream, encasing him in a hug from behind, his arms wrapping around the middle of his stomach. He chose not to continue what he was saying, instead choosing to bury his face in Dream’s back, hearing the bass in his voice as he spoke up quietly.
“I just don’t want you to be leaving…” Dream’s hands came up and covered George’s hands, his palms hot to the touch, feeling perfect against George’s naturally cold hands.
“I know, and I don’t want to leave either,” George said, hug tightening. They stood like that for who knows how long, until Dream slowly took ahold of George’s hands and unwrapped them from around him.
“We need to get ready,” he explained, walking over to his dresser that was beside the bedroom door. “I didn’t take a shower last night and I feel nasty, so I’m going to take one real quick.”
George spared a glance at his laptop that was still on the bed before looking back to Dream. “Alright, I’ll pack then.”
“And I’ll make sure Sapnap is awake, too.”
“Yeah.”
And so Dream left the room, and while he entered the guest bedroom to make sure Sapnap was awake, George quickly entered the bathroom and grabbed his toothbrush so he wouldn’t forget to pack it.
George spent the next five minutes picking up the few items that weren’t already in his suitcase or overnight bag and placing them in the proper container, having to squish the poor stingray plushie a little in order to close his luggage flat. By the time he sat his stuff in the living room next to Sapnap’s luggage, Dream was out of the shower, hair damp and quite apparent that he viciously rubbed his hair dry with a towel, dressed in a familiar blue hoodie and a pair of dark gray jeans. George began smiling when he recognized the hoodie as the same one he wore when they first met, smile matched by Dream when he saw him while walking down the hallway.
“I knew you’d recognize it,” Dream said, proud, and leaned forward, bringing their lips together for a short and chaste kiss that George gladly returned.
“I think I’ve been cursed,” Sapnap suddenly spoke up from down the hallway, a laugh in his voice, “This is the third time now.”
The two of them broke apart with a laugh, and Sapnap walked over to them, joining them in a brief walk to the kitchen.
“Did you two superglue your hands together yesterday?” Sapnap asked, pointing casually to their linked hands. “Because I swear I haven’t seen you two not holding hands since yesterday.”
“Sorry,” Dream apologized, letting go of George’s hand. They reached the kitchen, and George and Sapnap slid into two of the stools.
“Oh no, you two are fine, I was just teasing you two,” Sapnap clarified, earning a smile from his two friends.
“Oh, okay,” Dream said with a small laugh. He reached into the pantry and pulled out two boxes of Poptarts.
“We want to leave at eight so we have plenty of time, and I’m not risking cooking anything,” Dream explained as he set the boxes down on the island, earning a “That’s fine” from Sapnap and an “Oh, alright” from George.
As Sapnap grabbed a strawberry package from one box, George grabbed one from the box labeled “Brown Sugar Cinnamon”, Dream left the kitchen for a quick moment before returning with his phone in hand.
“Calling someone?” George asked.
“My mom, remember?” Dream replied, scrolling through his contacts list. A small “Oh, right!” came from George as Dream pressed the call button, and similar to what Sapnap did yesterday, turned the speaker on and sat the phone on the island.
“Hello?” a voice unfamiliar to George and Sapnap responded after the phone rang for a bit.
“Hey mom!” Dream happily called at his phone. Oh, that was his mom.
“Oh, hey!” Dream’s mom replied just as happily. “What are you doing calling me at this time?”
“I’m driving my friends to the airport this morning,” Dream explained.
“Oh yeah, Nick and George, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So, what’re you calling about?” Dream’s mom questioned, curious. “Did they want to hear embarrassing childhood stories?”
“I think I got enough of those yesterday,” George commented from where he sat, the comment mainly going to Sapnap as a joke, but was picked up by the call.
“Oh, which one of your friends was that, honey?”
“That was George.”
“Oh, hello George,” Dream’s mom greeted. “How has your week been?”
“Amazing,” George replied truthfully.
“Oh, that great to hear. Was my son a good tour guide?”
Sapnap laughed. “Sure.”
“Oh, hello Nick, right?”
“Yes, hi.”
“So, what’re calling about, really?” Dream’s mom repeated a few moments after Sapnap’s greeting, curiosity growing.
Dream paused to swallow, suddenly unnecessarily nervous. “I have a surprise for you.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah,” Dream began, hesitating again before speaking up. “Me and George are boyfriends now.”
The call fell silent for a few seconds before there was a reaction. And that reaction was a skeptical hum, and an equally skeptical “Is this another prank?” being asked.
Dream and George started laughing, not helping their cause.
“No!” Dream called out, shaking his head. “We’re telling the truth this time!”
Again, the call fell silent before Dream’s mother reacted.
“Oh!” was the final exclamation of surprise, before Dream’s mother erupted into a laugh of her own, sounding suspiciously similar to Dream’s own laugh. “I’m so sorry! I thought you were joking with me again!”
Dream’s laughter grew with his mother’s. George and Sapnap couldn’t hold back against two contagious laughs, and George laughed harder while Sapnap began chuckling.
“Oh my, congratulations!” Dream’s mom called when their laughs subsided. “When did you two get together?”
“Two nights ago,” George replied for Dream.
“Awwww, that’s sweet.”
“Yeah, it is,” Sapnap agreed. “Trust me, finally seeing these two together after a whole week of skirting around each other…. Best thing ever.”
Dream’s mom laughed again. To save himself from more embarrassment, Dream reached for his phone.
“Alright, I’m hanging up because we need to leave in a few minutes, bye mom!” Dream quickly said. “Love you!”
“Love you too! Take care!” Dream’s mom replied equally quickly, knowing her son was about to hang up.
“You too!” Dream hung up before his mother had time to reply, pocketing his phone.
“Well, that went well!” George said, a large smile growing on his face.
“Well, of course it did, she said you were welcomed to the family, didn’t she?” Sapnap asked, teasing. George started laughing.
“Oh yeah, she did say that!”
The happy atmosphere created by Dream’s mom being supportive and happy began to deflate as Sapnap and George put their things in the truck of Dream’s car and got in, a curtain of sadness falling around them being the cause of the shift in the air. It seemed to suddenly just register to Dream and George that for real, this was happening, they were driving to the airport and would part for who knows how long.
They were holding hands again, the entire car ride. Hands clasped together strongly like the world would end if they let go, George tracing his thumb up and down along the heel of Dream’s thumb in a showing of affection and support. Sapnap found it to be a rather bittersweet sight.
Which is why, ten minutes into the car ride, when Sapnap recognized the song that was playing on the radio, he asked one of them to turn the music up, and after George awkwardly turned up the song with his right hand, Sapnap began ‘singing’, which was actually screaming out-of-key.
That was able to fight back the gloomy atmosphere threatening to settle on them, and Dream and George quickly settled into ‘singing’ as well, the three of them screaming the lyrics they knew like a trio of lunatics, breaking out into laughs after each song ended, intently listening to see if they recognized the next song.
The ride to the airport seemed a lot shorter due to Sapnap’s plan of distraction, going so far as to continue to scream and laugh while in the airport’s parking lot finding a place to park, the two and a half hours that it took to arrive seeming to have passed in the blink of an eye.
“We probably should go and check you two into security,” Dream said as he turned the car off. Sapnap could feel the atmosphere beginning to slip, and he wasn’t so sure he could save it a second time.
“Yeah,” he replied nonetheless, “Afterwards we can like, do something stupid or something to pass time.”
George snorted. “Yeah, sure, and get kicked out or something for breaking shit.”
More laughter came, and they finally unbuckled their seatbelts and got from the car, stretching their limbs out. Dream opened the trunk for Sapnap and George and they grabbed their things, and then they walked to the entrance of the airport, Dream holding onto George’s hand tighter when he seemed to want to let go from the nervousness brought from the people around them, atmosphere slipping into one that read ‘I don’t want this’ when the three of them stepped into the building.
Sapnap wanted to tell them it wasn’t the end of the world and that they were going to see each other again, but deep down, he knew their mood just wasn’t because George had to leave. He knew they didn’t want to separate, didn’t want an entire ocean to keep them apart, knew they didn’t want to feel alone without being able to go to each other for physical comfort.
So Sapnap did the only thing he felt he could do in these types of situations, which was to distract them from thinking about it. Because he wasn’t going to let his friends stay sad while he was still around, not on his watch.
It took over an hour for the two travelers to get through security and they were finished close to noon, reminding all three of them why they disliked airports in general. But they made it through, and had taken to sit on some benches next to a window with the airport food they grabbed for lunch, the newly noon sun warming their backs.
“So,” Sapnap inquired, a little curious, “have you two talked about how long-distance is gonna be like?”
“Not really,” Dream answered honestly, poking at his food, not really that hungry.
“It shouldn’t be too difficult,” Sapnap told them, taking a quick bite of his food before continuing with his mouth full. “You two already spend a large portion of your days talking to each other, and you two practically aligned your sleep schedules to overlap so you two can spend more time together. It shouldn’t too hard I think.”
George and Dream paused, looking from Sapnap to each other, before the two of them started to break into a fit of giggles and wheezes.
“Oh my god we basically don’t have to change anything, do we?” George asked, a smile breaking onto his face.
“No, except we can facetime more, and I can have my camera on for it,” Dream replied, mirroring George’s smile with his own. Sapnap internally cheered, that seemed to have raised their moods.
He chuckled. “See? Nothing to worry about, you two will be perfectly fine.”
“Thanks, Sapnap,” Dream and George thanked him at the same time, shooting each other a playfully suspicious look afterwards.
“No problem,” was Sapnap’s amused reply, “Just make sure you two talk to each other. Communication is key.”
“We know that , Sapnap,” George whined, “You don’t have to mother hen us. We’re older than you!”
“But you’re both still more dense and awkward than me, which must mean something.”
“Oh can it, Sapitus Napitus.”
“Them’s fighting words, Dream.” Smiles were wide on their faces at that point, laughs beginning to bubble from them. The atmosphere had shifted back into a light one, like rays of sunlight peeking through an overcast sky.
But the weather never stays the same, and the same went to their moods. Not long after, Sapnap glanced at one of the analog clocks on the wall nearby, and abruptly stood.
“Shit, my flight’s leaving in twenty minutes, I need to go.”
The two heartbreaking frowns he was given almost made him sit back down.
“Noooo,” Dream sadly began, getting from his seat and wrapping his arms around Sapnap for a hug. “You can’t go.”
Another person joined the hug, and Sapnap couldn’t resist smiling when he found that George had joined, creating a group hug. “Awwww, but I have to, Dream.”
“Noooooooo,” George whined, “No, you can’t leave us.”
Their hug broke apart, Sapnap grabbing his luggage. “I have to, though, Rose is waiting for me.”
“Oh, well then screw us, go to her!” Dream said, a smile breaking onto his face. “Shoo!”
Sapnap began to laugh as he took a few steps away from them.
“Bye, you two.”
“Bye,” George said with a small smile as Dream wrapped an arm around George’s shoulders and said “Bye Sapnap, see you again sometime.”
And with that, Sapnap nodded, and turned around, walking away. He didn’t look back, but they knew he felt just as bittersweet as them. They were close friends, after all.
“He was like a brother to me,” George joked, making his voice sound like he about to cry.
“He’s not dead!” Dream exclaimed, laughing. “You can call him after you land!”
“I know,” George said, beginning to laugh as well. “I was joking.”
“Well, duh.” George stuck his tongue out at Dream, which was a bit of a mistake on his part, because that only made Dream lean forward and plant a light kiss on his cheek, making George turn red.
“Rude,” George accused, immediately chasing Dream’s face and kissing him on the cheek in return. “You need to warn me.”
“But that ruins the entire concept of surprise kisses,” Dream complained, linking their hands and pulling him in for another kiss on his face.
“You’re disgusting, I’m dumping you,” George joked, wiping the moisture off his face from where Dream had kissed him.
“I’ll cry,” Dream deadpanned playfully, and George giggled.
Turning back to the benches they were sitting on, Dream and George grabbed their half-eaten food and tossed them in the trash, not having been too hungry from a combination of nerves eating at the guts and because they had eaten not too long ago.
Returning to the benches, they sat practically glued together, not an atom of space between them as they cherished the last bit of physical contact for who knows how long.
“So when do you think we should tell our fans?” George began, opening a new conversation so they weren’t sitting in silence. Although the silence was more than comfortable between them, they would be lying if they said they didn’t want to hear each other’s voices in person more before they separated.
“I don’t know, but I think we should wait a while,” Dream answered. “I think if we told them right now, we’d get overwhelmed with reactions and it wouldn’t end up too good. I think we should wait at least a couple of months and then announce it.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” George replied, unconsciously tracing an infinity symbol on Dream’s hand.
They fell silent for a couple of minutes, watching people walk by and the clock slowly tick towards two in the afternoon.
“This week has felt almost surreal,” Dream began the next conversation after watching the clock’s minute hand pass the two on the clock.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” George began to laugh lightly, “It’s felt like… seven minutes in heaven or something.”
“Seven minutes in heaven, but it’s seven days in Florida?” Dream joked, and after a moment George burst out laughing, dragging Dream into joining with a classic wheeze.
“That’s so stupid!” George said between a giggle. “Really!”
“Shut up, I wasn’t even trying,” Dream shot back. Their conversation lulled back into silence, and they seemed to press closer to each other although there wasn’t any space between them to begin with, their silence saying more to each other than if they were to talk, speaking volumes through simple touches and sighs, the same dread from that morning beginning to rise against as the minute hand passed the three, passed the four, the five, the six.
Dream squeezed George’s hand as the minute hand passed the seven on the clock on the wall across from them, an “I love you” being spoken through the tightening curl of his fingers. Dream knew George meant the same message when his hand squeezed back, and they held each other’s hand harder.
They held each other’s hands tighter as the clock’s hand hit the eight, “Don’t go” being mutually pleaded as they nonetheless began to stood silently, George grabbing his bag and luggage and them, hand-in-hand, slowly made their way to where George needed to be in order to board his plane. They didn’t want it to be real, they wanted to just hop back into Dream’s car and go back to his home and spend the rest of the day snuggling. But it was real.
People were already beginning to board by the time they approached, and they felt their stomachs drop hard, eyes faintly beginning to sting with the tell-tale sign that tears were about to start spilling.
Their chests began to hurt, an acidic fire eating at them, as they turned and enveloped each other in a bone-crushing hug that felt just right to them, heads tucked together.
“I love you so much,” Dream whispered into George’s ear, voice cracking at the end as the first tears began to well up and trickle down Dream’s face.
“I love you too,” George whispered back with a similar crack in his voice, a sudden gasp of air riddling through his body as he choked back a sob.
“Shhhhhh,” Dream hushed softly as George buried his face into Dream’s hoodie and sobbed, muffled by the fabric. More tears spilled down Dream’s face as he continued to hush, hand rubbing across George’s back in comfort. “It’s okay, it’s okay. We’ll see each other again soon, I promise.”
“I’ll-” a small sob interrupted him, “I’ll miss you. So much.” Dream hugged harder, closing his tear-filled eyes.
“I’ll miss you so much, too.”
“But we’ll see each other soon,” George said confidently, though quietly. “One day we’ll be back in an airport hugging each other hello.” He was beginning to calm down, sobs turning into small hyperventilating breaths.
“We better,” Dream said cheerful, sniffling.
“I need to go,” George whispered, as if he didn’t want Dream to hear.
“I know.” Dream’s hand slipped from George’s back to his face, and gently tilted his face up for a kiss.
Their kiss was desperate, every ounce of love and emotion put into it as if they were dying the next minute. More tears fell, from both of them this time, by the time they backed from the kiss.
“Goodbye, Dream, I love you,” George softly said.
“I love you too; Goodbye, George.”
And then George began walking. His pace was confident, steps even and posture straight. He was confident that wasn’t their last goodbye.
And as Dream watched George walk, he agreed. Pride and happiness began to flood his heart and soul. Yeah, they’d definitely meet up again.
As Dream wiped his face on the sleeve of his hoodie and looked back up, he was met with George looking back at him, a huge grin on his face, even though it was obvious he was crying just a minute ago.
Dream beamed back, feeling excitement rise as they mouthed one final “Goodbye” to each other.
And as George disappeared around the corner, Dream could help but marvel at everything around him. The last week, the feelings that bounced around and clashed inside him, the overwhelming love he felt.
His grin remained as he turned around, shoving his hands in his hoodie’s pocket, already missing the feeling of George’s hand in his own.
But it was alright. They weren’t going to be separated forever.
And that excited Dream.
He couldn’t wait for the future. For what it was going to throw at them next.