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In hindsight, picking the late flight was a bad idea.
He ends up flying back to Florida from North Carolina just hours after his stream for the Hunt and Run event, and when he finally gets to the house, it’s already time for him to go live again. And he’s been tired before — exhausted, even — but this feels like another level. The second he ends his stream, he sinks into his chair and just closes his eyes.
Right now, nothing sounds better than going to sleep. A soft bed, warm blankets, no lights…
There’s a knock on his door, just one, by a gentle hand. George smiles to himself and opens his eyes, feeling bleary and wilted.
Dream comes in without him needing to say anything, smiling when he sees the look on George’s face.
“Hey.”
George hums, reaching up to pull his headphones off. He struggles for a moment before another pair of hands takes over, lifting them off easily and setting them on George’s desk.
He hadn’t even realized Dream had come so close, standing right by his chair.
“C’mere,” Dream mumbles, holding a hand out for him to grab. George takes it, letting himself be helped up.
He’s wrapped in a hug as soon as he’s standing, all-encompassing in the way only Dream can be. Warm enough to melt him completely. He thinks he could fall asleep standing if he were held like this for a while.
“You need to sleep,” Dream says softly. “Don’t want you getting a migraine.”
It’s a good point. George does get migraines when he goes too long without sleeping, always has, ever since he was younger.
He nods, too tired to reflect on Dream’s concern for him. How well he knows him.
“Gonna sleep now, ‘s fine.”
“Alright.” Dream rubs his back through his shirt, and George goes to close his eyes only to realize they already are.
“Were you just waiting outside my office for me to end stream?” He mumbles.
“No,” Dream laughs. “I was downstairs watching, and then I came up when you were saying bye. Wanted to come see you.”
George smiles. He would laugh, too, if he could but it’s actually not funny how tired he is now. Every one of his limbs feels weighted down by stones.
“Alright, you’re going to bed,” Dream decides, easing them apart.
“M’kay.”
George follows his lead, leaning into the steady hand that settles on the small of his back to guide him out of the room.
“Got your phone for you,” Dream murmurs halfway down the hallway, soothing his worries before George has even had time to think of them. “And your water,” he adds.
George rubs at his sore eyes. “Feel like ‘m gonna have a migraine tomorrow like you said,” he admits.
Dream hums, but not in an ‘I told you so’ way.
“It’ll be okay,” he says instead, understanding and caring and patient all wrapped up into one.
Dream just has that kind of voice. He knows what to say and how to say it when George’s brain isn’t working at full capacity and all he really needs is reassurance. No logic, just something soft to hold onto.
They reach George’s room, and there are new sheets on his bed that he knows Dream must have put on it because George faintly remembers leaving it bare before he left a week ago. In a rush to catch his plane and having no time to wash and dry his sheets.
He makes a mental note to thank Dream tomorrow, but it disappears as soon as he tries to remember it. Dream will just have to read his mind, which George isn’t entirely sure is impossible.
“here baby,” dream says, endlessly caring, guiding george to his bed through the almost-dark of his room.
His eyes are mostly closed as he cozies up, grateful for Dream’s helping hands fluffing up his pillows and tucking his comforter around him, all the way up to his shoulders.
“Okay,” soft fingertips touch his cheek. “Get some sleep. I love you.”
George can’t help but smile, blinking up at Dream through the sleep haze. He can’t find the right words to say, and there’s cotton surrounding him and filling his head, so he settles on a nod.
Dream nods back, smiling, and then he straightens up and George follows the shadowy shape of him over to the door, framed by orange light from the hallway.
He sinks into his cloud-like mattress, and sleep has never come easier.