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When Dream knocks on his door, it is exactly three o’clock in the morning, and George knows this because his alarm clock is blinking neon red numbers into the blue-lit darkness of his room.
He’s tucked over on his side, blankets pulled all the way up to his neck, with fists bunched up in the edges of it. When he doesn’t respond, George hears Dream push the door open with a creak, knowing he’s peeking into the darkness of the room without even having to look away from the alarm clock that’s now blinking three-zero-one.
“George?”
George decides to be kind, to stir a bit for him, shifting under the comfort of his blanket and pulling it up just a bit higher. “Mmh?” is nothing more than a grumble that he offers back.
He can hear the footsteps, the way Dream’s weight sways from side to side as he steps further in the room; the mattress dips just beside his feet, indicating that Dream’s decided to make himself a home right there on the edge of George’s bed. George doesn’t mind.
“Well,” Dream says, carefully resting his hand atop George’s covered thigh, “I was wondering if…you wanted to go on a picnic.”
George’s brows pinch together and the bright red of his alarm clock blurs into the nightstand it rests on as he looks at it through squinted eyes. Turning, he pushes himself up onto his elbows and finds Dream’s familiar features in the dim room. “A picnic,” he echoes, as if it’s meant to be an inquiry, but it falls flat in his disbelief, “at three in the morning.”
Dream grins, and even in this definitive lack of light, George can make out the way he curls his bottom lip in and runs his teeth over it before his lips spread into that signature, heartthrob smile of his (he’s mentioned this before, though he was only ever met with a strange look from Sapnap and Dream insisting that his smile is normal and nothing more; George isn’t entirely convinced, but he hasn’t brought it up since).
“Something different,” he says, patting George’s leg for emphasis. “It’ll be fun! I’ll make it worth your while, I promise.”
George stares at him a moment longer, not because he simply enjoys looking at Dream but rather that he thinks the guy must be insane. “Fine,” but he’s falling apart anyway, mentally preparing himself to part ways with his beloved blanket and mattress and their oh so loving embrace, “but only because I know you’re an idiot and will just drag Sapnap along instead if I refuse. I’m doing him a favor.”
In return, Dream laughs and leans forward, hoisting himself up to his feet. “Sure you are,” he teases back, moving to the side and holding out a hand toward the brunet, who takes it and ever so hesitantly pulls his weight off the bed and leans onto Dream to make up for his groggy state.
Yet, instead of guiding him out of the room and down the hall, Dream simply leads him in small steps toward the window, carefully pushing the framed glass panes open and allowing the cool night air to rush across their cheekbones; in response to this, George scrunches his nose up and grumbles his discomfort.
“Sorry,” Dream murmurs, pressing a chaste kiss into the side of George’s forehead, around his mussed bangs and awful bedhead. He doesn’t close the window, though, no—instead, he shifts George’s weight off himself and begins to hoist the man through the window, which, obviously, has him snapping his eyes open and gripping onto the hem of Dream’s shirt as if this means certain death.
It sounds like a hiss when he chides, “Dream.”
“Baby,” the blond chuckles in return, “trust me, okay?”
George grimaces. “You’re shoving me out onto the roof.”
“For a picnic.”
He eyes Dream up and down, skeptical as ever. “You don’t even have any snacks or anything.”
Dream hums, grip firm but gentle around his waist as George props his ankle atop the window frame. He presses forward again, just a little. “I got some in my hoodie,” he answers simply.
It doesn’t seem like a good enough answer. “Granola bars don’t count,” George grumbles, though he does, eventually, allow himself to be pushed through the window.
The night is chilly, as one would expect it to be, and there’s a bit of a breeze on the rooftop; the shingles are uncomfortable to sit on, but Dream is both kind and cruel enough to snatch the blanket right off George’s bed and flatten it beneath them after he clambers out the window as well.
“This is a shitty picnic,” George comments as he struggles to get comfortable over the blanket. It does virtually nothing to oppose the shingles that jut out from the roof. “It’s cold, I’m uncomfortable, and you still don't have any food.”
Dream leans himself back a bit, reaches to pull the window shut just enough to keep the cold from invading their entire house, then rustles around in the pouch of his hoodie to pull out one large bag of sour candy strips and how the fuck did he keep that in there without George noticing? Clearly now it’s rustling and crinkling is more noticeable than the crickets chirping. George is almost appalled, but he snatches the bag without a second thought and begins munching in strangely chipmunk-like fashion on one of the strips.
“Better?” And Dream is looking at him as smug as ever, with the most obvious hint of I’m so goddamn in love with you shimmering behind his pupils.
“Yes,” George mutters begrudgingly, around a mouthful of sour candy strips. He pulls his knees up to himself, scooting a little closer to Dream with the excuse of the wind and that it’s cold—which isn’t wholly untrue, because it is cold and windy and he certainly wouldn’t mind having another body to block it all out. It’s much harder to find an excuse for why he’s leaning into the blond, though, and why his hands are slipping under the hoodie to snatch up more body heat than he needs.
Dream doesn’t mind, of course, because he never minds, and this is his stupid idea to begin with, so he thinks it must be fair for George to be a little selfish now; he did rip the poor guy away from his castle of pillows and blankets to come on a picnic at three in the morning on the rooftop of their house, after all. “You’re tickling me,” he whispers, somehow finding himself muffled by thick, almond hair that reflects silver when the moon shines just right.
“Stop being so warm then,” George quips back, melting into the quiet and comfort of their embrace. He thinks he might hate this, almost, but it’s Dream, and he loves him, so he can’t find a reason to leave.
There’s silence, then, and it seems to carry on for much longer than he’d like. George likes listening to Dream talk, despite the fact that he also likes calling him an idiot and telling him to shut up (all in good nature, of course—he never means it). And then, an eternity of staring at the glowing universe above them, all sparkling stars and spiraling cosmos, Dream’s chest rumbles beneath George’s palms.
“The sky is pretty,” he says, in a way that has George thinking he feels like the world around him is made of glass. “Not as pretty as you, though.”
“Shut up,” George replies through an airy laugh, elated and addicted to the heat rising in his cheeks. He doesn’t mean it this time, either.
“I’m serious,” and Dream replaces the chin atop the brunet’s head with soft fingers, combing and pulling back in such a mesmerizing way that George has to fight to keep his eyes open through it all (he takes another more intentional bite of sour candy to neutralize the feeling). “The universe’s got nothing on you.”
A light scoff; George bites down harder. “Second only to you.”
Dream’s lips pull back, a perfect, pretty little grin that George knows he’ll melt for if he glances up, if he turns his head. “You think so, Georgie?”
“I didn’t even say anything.”
“You totally did, though.”
“It must have been the wind.”
“The same reason you cuddled up to me?”
“Precisely.”
Dream snickers, curling his fingers around hazelnut locks and decides to be a bit mean in ruffling them about (there’s hardly anything to mess up, though, bedhead considered and all). “I’ll have to thank the wind then,” he hums, “for being such a great wingman.”
George huffs out a laugh. “You’re stupid.”
“Stupid for you,” Dream corrects, thumbing around the shell of George’s ear as he ticks a wisp of hair away behind it. “Always.”
“And forever?” The brunet cocks a brow.
“You want that?”
He pauses a moment, allowing himself to relax; it’s probably around four in the morning now, the way he can see the slow mix of purple blooming at the edge of the horizon, past every other house in their neighborhood and all the treetops that sway in the breeze. “Maybe,” he settles on, a half-truth, because he knows the answer, and he’s not even sure they’ve been up there long enough for an hour to have passed.
Nonetheless, Dream dips his head back down and presses his cheek into the top of George’s hair, sliding his hand in sync to the side of his shoulder—a gentle grip, sturdy all the same. Protective, even, as if he fears losing him (Dream could never lose George. Not in a million years).
It’s probably the wind: “I want that, too.”
He answers anyway, “You can have it.” His teeth gnaw at the pink of his lip. “You already do.”
“Yeah?”
Dream feels like the sun, warm and welcoming, something George can’t survive without. He presses himself a little closer, steals a bit more heat.
“Yeah.”