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George pressed a finger to his nose to block one nostril, breathing in deeply with the other as the sharp fumes of amyl nitrite cut cleanly through his sinuses.
He pulled the bottle away when the vapour began to burn at his airways, woozily thrusting the popper into the hands of Wilbur, who immediately brought it up to his own nose to take a hit.
George was already three consecutive shots in on no food and had almost finished a can of bourbon premix. Now, after his second hit of rush, he felt almost completely weightless, and numb down to his fingertips.
There were other people in the room with him, passing the drug between them in the edges of George’s vision, but he found himself already feeling like he was submerged in warm water, everything becoming distantly filtered through tilting waves of surrealism.
The brief high cooled down after a minute or two, and it was then that George noticed the elevated pulse in his neck and the pins and needles tingling in his arms. He’d ended up laid back on the bed, breathing deeply as sound returned to him normally. He sat up slowly, wiping at his tired eyes. Wilbur was still seated beside him on the bed, conversing avidly with the other people around them.
Standing up and brushing off his jeans, George decided he wanted to go see what other social groups had formed around the apartment. George turned and verbalised this to the small circle of people beside him.
He gave a small wave, receiving similar bye’s in return, before stumbling his way sluggishly out into the hall, trying to think where he had last seen his friends.
He was fairly certain that Dream and Sapnap were in the living room, so he decided to check there first. Reaching the open space, he realised with disappointment that Dream wasn’t in sight. Only Sapnap was still in the area, sitting on the cramped couch with a wide grin and cheeks flushed from alcohol. He was talking with people George wasn’t so familiar with, though, and didn’t really feel like joining them. Leaning forwards, George reached out and lightly tapped the raven-haired man on the shoulder.
“Hey Sapnap, you know where Dream is?” He asked, voice raised in order to hear himself over the music.
Sapnap twisted around to address him, and up-close, George noticed the light sheen of sweat covering his forehead. He looked wildly out of it, like he’d just hit a high from something. George didn’t ask.
“Yeah dude, he’s outside last I saw him, just chattin’ with Punz and Lissy.” Sapnap’s words were more slurred than usual.
George nodded and made his way towards the balcony door, pulling it open and tripping over the threshold in time to see the person he was after handing off a vape to Punz. Everything reached George through a haze, lights from the buildings below them skewed into arcing halos in the corner of his eye. Dream looked loopy and happy, leaning back in his chair languidly as he talked between the others outside with him. George could feel thousands of butterfly wings caress the insides of his chest.
“Heya Georgie. Wanna come sit?” The blond asked airily, and they all shuffled their seats around to give him space to sit.
George pulled up a chair directly—shamelessly—next to Dream, and was instantly presented with a vape in his peripheral. He took the vape with a muttered thanks and briefly tried reading the flavour before giving up and sucking in a puff.
He coughed into his elbow as he pulled the pen away, holding it out in front of him and missing who took it from his hands. He wasn’t a fan of nicotine, mostly only trying different vapes if they were offered to him, hazarding a guess at their flavour, then immediately passing them off again.
Dream laughed breathily by his ear and George realised there was a smile on his face that had creeped up at some point. Heat radiated from the brunet’s cheeks and his heart rate stuttered in his wrists. Whether from drugs or the close contact between his friend, George wouldn’t have been able to tell.
The group bounced back and forth as a collective for a while, before naturally splitting into twos. George watched through thick smoke as Dream turned to regard him directly, his eyes ever-so-slightly hooded and his expression relaxed.
George realised belatedly that he’d spent too long staring at his best friend without doing anything. Dream noticed as well, slowed laugh ringing clear as a bell in George’s ears. Colours danced across his vision.
“George. What have you had? I’ve never seen you look so spaced out, dude.”
The words tumbled around like rocks in George’s mind for a moment before the meaning processed. The world started to lag as he lifted his eyes back up to Dream’s face. He couldn’t recall which point they’d ever left, though.
He thought his answer to himself several times over before he actually managed to gather enough air in his lungs to say it aloud.
“Alcohol. Then... then one of Sapnap’s edibles. And then... poppers. Now... I’m here.” George slurred, working hard to put the extra oxygen into his body. Every part of him felt as though it were being sucked into slow-moving, deadly quicksand.
“George, you’ve never had marijuana before, you should have been more careful with what you’re taking it alongside. When did you have an edible?”
Dream’s face morphed to a look of worry, and George felt guilt crawling just under the skin on the nape of his neck. Speaking had never felt so hard.
“An hour ago, maybe.”
“Okay, I think you’re feeling the high now. Are you okay?”
Dream’s voice warped in George’s head and his eyes kept shutting of their own volition. He groaned in response, nodding listlessly.
Dream didn’t seem completely convinced, but rejoined the conversation between Alyssa and Punz, at the expense of glancing over at George every other second with growing concern in his body language.
George couldn’t discern the sensations that he was feeling. He almost felt akin to how he got when he was heavily sleep-deprived, but far worse; he could feel the way each one of his atoms buzzed and jittered with unprovoked anxiety. It was as though he were both completely present, and watching everything through the lens of a dream—the timeline of events that George was able to process becoming more and more vague and confusing as they turned to memories. An interminable period of time passed, George’s body slowly beginning to quiver. His muscles twitched, faintly at first, but as the high ploughed on, he could feel entire body parts wracked by convulsions. Cold seeped into his bones.
Suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder, warm and solid through the fabric of his shirt. Dream’s voice shimmered into the forefront of his mind.
“–orge? George, you good? Can you answer me Georgie?”
Time became fluid, and George felt his grip on his own mind slipping. He could barely see, his eyelids felt like steel, and his body was now violently quaking. His mind had locked him out of his body, and everything just wouldn’t make sense. George didn’t react when someone wrapped their arms around his shoulders and helped him to stand. His legs wobbled uselessly under him, and the person instead arranged him so he could be picked up.
He felt horrible. His pulse raced, thundering so hard in his neck that he thought his veins might burst, and he couldn’t warm himself up despite his blood feeling like it was steadily approaching its boiling point. His insides were hot and molten, while externally, he felt as though he must have been well below freezing.
Voices sounded around him, and he vaguely recognised that people were fussing over him. Embarrassment niggled petulantly at the back of his mind, but it was as though his body prevented it from formulating further than an afterthought.
Bright lights filled his vision and inverted the tone of his mind. The fog abruptly cleared from his head for a good couple seconds as the sensation of needing to vomit clawed at his throat, lingering revoltingly. The bathroom suddenly came into focus, and he saw Dream crouched in front of him with a bottle of water. Blinking slowly, George also tardily came to realise he was sitting in a bathtub. The muscles in his back shuddered, shaking his whole body. Dream’s hand instantly flew up to his shoulder, rubbing soothingly and raising the water bottle up in line with his eyes.
“Here, honey, I need you to drink some of this, okay? Please? It’s bottled water.”
George looked around distractedly, trying to take in his surroundings. He noticed Sapnap nearby too, eyes bloodshot under the fluorescent lights, but evidently laced with concern. Dream retracted his hands to unscrew the lid of the water bottle, bringing the plastic to George’s lips.
“I’ll help you, yeah? Tell me when to stop.” Dream said, and began tilting the water back so George could drink.
Until the cool liquid filled his mouth, George hadn’t realised how thirsty he was. He eagerly sipped the water until he had finished the entire bottle, right as his eyesight threatened to darken again. Tapping two fingers against Dream’s wrist, he felt the bottle get pulled away and swallowed, stray droplets running down his chin. He drew a quavering breath. His twitching and convulsing was constant now, far past being within his control, but he at least felt a little less like he was about to throw up.
He sensed more than he saw Dream twist around, muttering something to Sapnap, who nodded and exited the room, shutting the door.
“Dream...” George gasped, head lolling.
Dream sat up straighter, arms instantly coming out to stabilise the brunet, and George tried not to keen as he leaned further into the large palm that cradled the back of his skull. Clarity washed over him for a few blissful seconds, in all of its brutal, irregular familiarity, and suddenly he was looking at Dream’s leaf-green eyes and drawing lines in his mind between his soft freckles.
“Yeah George, I’m here.” Dream smiled tiredly, relief showing in the way his shoulders slumped.
“Dream.” George licked his lips, the taste of Dream’s name on his tongue sweet and savoury. He tried it again. “Dream. I want this... to be over. I feel... really... awful.”
A smile stretched uncomfortably across his features before he could stop it, even though how he truly felt in that moment was incredibly far from mirthful—rather, anxious and vulnerable. Dream exhaled, expression something of disbelief, running a hand through his hair.
“Yeah, I bet. You absolute idiot.” Dream hesitantly smiled back at him, but there was a tinge of sadness in his eyes.
Then he sniffed quietly, hairline fractures in his composure.
“George... I’m– I’m so sorry, I can’t make it go away. You have to tough it out, unfortunately. I can only help you get through it.” He looked miserable, and was probably thinking something self-deprecating, and George hated it because he himself could barely think, let alone console his friend. His mind and his body were functioning completely separately of each other.
Please don’t cry, he tried to say, but all that came out of his throat was a soft, cut-off sound.
Dream brought the hand on the back of George’s neck around until he was able to brush his thumb tenderly across George’s cheekbone. The caress made George’s stomach flip nauseatingly.
Maybe it was the result of being doped up on three different system depressants, but George didn’t even know that he’d moved until he felt soft skin under his palm and saw blond hair curling over his fingers where they rested against Dream’s cheek. George’s perspective blurred so all he could see were bright, clear green eyes.
“Dream...?”
His breath escaped him as a silent wheeze and he shifted his fingers up to entangle with soft blond tresses.
“Wh-what?”
George smiled, his body in shambles and his mind floating amongst currents of old rubbish. Nothing felt real, and certainly nothing felt like it should have any consequences. So he opened his stupid mouth.
“Dream, I think I’ve had a crush on you for the longest time.” He shook his head with a strangled laugh. “I have no idea what’s going on. Nothing makes sense.”
He trailed off at the end, but Dream was just staring at him with shock. Slowly, he blinked as the words visibly caught up with him.
“Oh.”
George hated the one-syllable response, because it made panic ooze into his brain with terrifyingly slow lucidity, and he felt it like it were tangible.
Dream glanced away nervously, and it was then that George noticed how red his cheeks were. Again, it didn’t mean much considering the drugs and alcohol, but it made him look pretty cute anyway.
“George, you... you shouldn’t say things like that when you’re not– when you could regret–”
George could see Dream floundering and decided that he wanted him to stop.
Gently tugging on sun-darkened curls, George pulled Dream’s wide-eyed face closer, barely brushing their lips together. It wasn’t really a kiss, George pulling away before he could apply any pressure, and his brain immediately took the opportunity afterwards to shut down at the first threat of emotions that bubbled up through his trachea. In no time, he started to crash again, surroundings blotting out in patches, and shapes becoming fused together. Cold wracked his body, his temperature plummeting. The sides of the bathtub felt unbearably freezing on his skin. He hated this.
He heard the door open and muffled voices ringing out again, and then he was being lifted out of the bathtub and carried from the room, helplessly convulsing in a faceless person’s arms. He couldn’t properly tell, but George was pretty sure that it was Sapnap’s scent filling his head.
George was ashamed by the attention he was getting, and he wanted the high to be over so badly.
Several year-long moments later, he was lowered onto something pliant and comfortable. His fingers couldn’t feel the softness of the bedsheet despite knowing it was under them. Several people were talking by the doorway, but their conversations made no sense to him, regardless of the fact he could hear every word.
“...I’m happy to stay with you guys if you want me to, dude. Otherwise just shoot me a text if you need anything. He doesn’t look good.” That was undoubtedly Sapnap’s voice.
“All good, I’ll just keep an eye on him and let him sleep it off. And tell Karl thanks, yeah?” Likewise, that was Dream’s.
George’s shivering body warmed gently in response to the sound of the blond talking, but his spasming muscles refused to mellow down for even a moment. They were beginning to ache.
The next few events happened in a subspace somewhere distant in George’s mind. A door closed, the bed dipped, and then the covers were settled over George.
“There you go, Georgie.” Dream whispered placatingly, like he were talking to a frightened deer. “George?” He reiterated, and George miserably expended the energy to try and force out words.
“Mm. ‘M here, Dream.”
Dream sighed quietly.
“Okay, want some more water? I’ll help you. You need to drink.”
George nodded blearily, his mouth felt like sandpaper, despite recently drinking. He forced his eyes to open against the yellow brightness coming from a string of fairy lights hung around the skeletal canopy above him. His elbows buckled when he tried to lean his weight back on them, which caused Dream to mildly freak out again and dart both his hands forward to hold the brunet steady.
“You okay? Here. We’ll be quick, okay? You can go back to laying down in just a second, George.”
After they both struggled, though were able to coordinate long enough for George to take several more desperately-needed gulps of water, Dream immediately screwed the cap on and tossed it aside in order to help George settle back against the pillows.
“Now, I’m gonna be right here, alright George? I’m the only one in here. You can go to sleep if you want to. I talked to Karl, he said you’re fine to stay in this room for tonight, and we can arrange a way for you to get home tomorrow. Is that okay?”
George hummed tiredly, body aching and a new, sharp pain jarring and tingling his right arm every few seconds, making him simultaneously try to tense and spasm.
Dream’s words translated in his mind groggily, and suddenly his eyes flung open and the room focused. He searched for the other man, and found him sitting rather uncomfortably-looking on the floor beside him. His arm twitched as he patted the space on the mattress next to him.
Come lay down here, he tried to say, but all that made it out was, “Here.”
Dream appeared flustered again for a moment before he agreed, rising to slip under the covers, facing George. George shuffled back on the bed, pulling Dream in until their faces were close. Time passed indiscernibly, possibly for years, before George opened his mouth again to try and say something.
“I love.” The sentence was unfinished, and his body felt like it was overheating again, but George bumped his nose with Dream’s and let his eyes close, slipping into a comatose state bordering the line between asleep and awake.
Masses of colours and shapeless forms replayed behind his eyelids like an old film reel. George remained there, in that space on the very verge of sleep, without ever reaching it, shaking uncontrollably and feeling almost like he could just pretend he had a really terrible fever, for the full two hours until his high wore off.
________________
Waking the next morning, George opened bleary eyes, thick with sleep. He had no idea if he’d dreamt at all, or which foggy memories he had actually happened.
He turned over in bed and saw the peacefully sleeping form of Dream. A smile pulled at his face as he watched the other’s chest rise and fall.
George reluctantly tore his eyes away, wiping them tiredly. His head felt... strange. Not necessarily painful, but decently uncomfortable, and not something he thought he’d ever really felt before. His brain felt heavy and cumbersome in his skull where it throbbed awfully. George mentally cursed himself for his poor ability to take better care of himself around nervous-depressive drugs.
Sitting up took a lot of energy, but George managed it, slumping as he took in the room that wasn’t his own. He’d known where he was all night—the very obvious knowledge that he was not safe in his own bed a constant discomfort that taunted him from the back of his mind. He was grateful to have at least had Dream beside him while he slept.
He glanced around for the water bottle he knew was hiding somewhere, finding it on the floor by Dream’s side. Feeling like he did not have the energy to get up and walk the entire way around, he clumsily threw a leg over Dream and felt for the carpeted floor over the side of the bed. He had a hunch that no one would really appreciate essentially being climbed on while they tried to sleep, but he still felt too out of sorts to use proper judgement or planning.
Quickly snatching the bottle, George turned to make the same risky movement back over Dream, only to find the blond sleepily blinking his eyes open at him. They both seemed to pause as their gazes locked, their own versions of the night’s events replaying in their minds.
Dream was the first to speak.
“Morning George. Why are you on the floor?” He asked, voice gentle despite being raspy and clogged with sleep. A questioning smile accentuated his words.
George held the bottle up, “Water.”
Dream nodded and made to shuffle backwards on the bed.
“You gonna come back to bed? I thought I felt someone climbing over me. You have no idea how weird of a way that is to be woken up, by the way.” Dream commented mildly, chuckling.
Now that there was space for him to lie down where Dream had previously been, George carelessly flopped back onto the mattress, legs crossed under him. Using his shaky hands, he tipped back the bottle and drank half its contents in one go. Laying down and burying himself in the blankets, George left the plastic in the space between them for easy access. Dream eyed it silently for a moment, his eyes betraying his deep thought.
“What are you thinking about?” George strangely felt the need to whisper.
Expressive eyes flicked up to meet his.
“You, actually.” Dream responded, quietly, like the admission would break if he said it too loud. “George, you... you said something to me last night. Do you remember what it is?”
Time froze. Of course George remembered what it was, but the memory of it seemed so abstract he had almost tricked himself into thinking it didn’t happen. He swallowed nervously, breaking eye contact.
“I... remember.”
A gentle hand touched his jaw, feather-light, drawing his eyes back in. Dream’s expression was incandescent with soft fondness.
“And do you remember what you did?”
Heat flooded George’s cheeks, humiliating him further.
“Y-yes.”
I’m sorry, he wanted to add, but Dream’s palm splayed out across his warm cheek, effectively ceasing all thoughts. A grin cracked Dream’s face and he appeared to hold back laughter.
“You call that a kiss?”
George’s face went impossibly redder and he stumbled for a response, but never reached one, because in a fraction of a moment Dream had leant forward and solidly connected their lips.
George’s mind froze uselessly for a tense second or four, before his entire body jumped into action, hand flying up to hold Dream’s face, and his lips pushing back against the other with desperation and the weight of his pent-up pining.
He felt Dream smile against him, unfairly infectious, and then Dream started laughing, which elicited the same response out of George, and they eventually had to just pull away because they were both giggling so hard.
Light poured in from the window behind Dream, rim-light making him glow. He looked... safe. Familiar, comforting.
“I love you too, by the way.” Dream mumbled against his lips, giving them another sweet kiss before pulling away, expression serious. “Date me.”
George thought he might choke on air if he breathed too hard, warmth returning to his features with double the intensity. He groaned and tried to bury his face in his hands. Dream immediately chuckled and gently worked to pry the fingers away.
“Do you want me to try convincing you?” Dream smiled impishly, leaning back in until less than an inch separated them.
George frantically tried shaking his head, but it didn’t work too well against the pillow.
“No– I mean, yes, but you don’t have to convince me to do anything– well, I-I, what I’m trying to say is– I’ll date you, I-I’d love that–”
Slightly chapped lips re-covered his own, finally putting an end to his awful tangent. George sighed, melting into Dream as they kissed sweetly in the pale morning.
Maybe George was still a little bit high, or drunk, and their spit tasted awful, but all George could think about was the sequence of Dream’s heartbeat under his pinkie finger, and the yellow fairy lights peeking through his black eyelashes.