Chapter Text
Months of planning had led to this moment.
He’d rented out a tiny apartment, had moved his set up there under the excuse of having an office and he had an emergency suitcase packed with clothes and essentials.
All just in case.
Just in case his mum reacted exactly how he expected her to. Just in case years of being the perfect son were ruined by one sentence. Just in case he was kicked out and told to never come back.
George wanted to believe his mum would never go that far, but he’d seen the looks she’d give certain celebrities, the biting comments about people she saw on the streets, and he knew it was unlikely.
There was a desperate hope though, that maybe it would be different because he was her son.
But even with the risk that it wouldn’t be enough, and that she’d look at him with disgust in her eyes, he had to tell her.
He’d been suffocating under the knowledge that her love was conditional. Every ‘I love you’ meant nothing when he didn’t know if she’d still say it if she knew the truth about him.
Which led him here. Perched on the armchair across from his mum, cradling a cup of coffee between his hands, the darkness of the night invading their living room.
He thought about waiting until tomorrow, until the sun could shed some hope on the situation. But no, if he put it off one night, he’d be putting it off for months and he’d already taken years too long to gather the courage.
Of course he’d only gone and found the courage in the midst of Covid, making just about everything one hundred times more difficult.
“George,” She laughed, taking a sip of her tea, “you’re making me nervous.”
George didn’t laugh with her, placing his mug on the coffee table. “There’s something I want to tell you.”
“So you’ve said,” Raising an eyebrow, she gestured for George to go ahead.
He’d thought a million times about how he’d say it, the words he’d used – but he knew that if he tried to talk around it he’d only prolong his torture.
“Mum,” He swallowed harshly, “I’m gay.”
Her face shut down, open expression turning into one of careful emptiness. “That’s not very funny, is this one of those prank videos you were talking about?”
He forced away the tears that wanted to spill. “No mum, I’m being serious.”
“Get out,” She said, dangerously quiet. “You’ve sprung this on me and I need some time to think about what we’re going to do about it.”
“Okay,” He bit his tongue to stop any protests from coming out. “Am I taking the pets?”
She scoffed. “I don’t think someone like you can be trusted to look after anything.”
It stung more than he’d like to admit.
Nodding, he stood up, noticing how she refused to look at him. “Mum, please, we can talk about this.”
A slap echoed through the room, the sound registering to George before the pain did.
Tears were in her eyes. “Enough, George, leave.”
He left the living room in something like a daze, grabbing his bag from the bottom of the stairs where he’d left it and tripping over his feet.
His hands were shaking, he realised numbly, opening the front door.
Cool air greeted him and George wished he’d thought to put on a hoodie before leaving, the temperature unforgiving as he locked the door behind him.
Shivering, he wrapped his arms around himself, bag over his shoulder, and started walking to the apartment he’d rented out.
How foolish he’d been to think he wouldn’t need to use it.
Disbelief made his hand rise to his stinging cheek, but when he pressed on it, it only hurt more. She hadn’t slapped him since he was a child but even then, she’d never hit so hard.
It didn’t make sense.
He blinked and he was outside his apartment, the number mocking him as he dug his keys out of his pocket; it took longer than normal to unlock the door, hands both shaking and numb from the cold.
The door shut loudly behind him and he flinched before leaning against it. Exhausted even though he’d woken up less than an hour ago, he slumped against it, falling slowly until he was sat on the floor, his arms around his legs.
She’d hit him. Months of planning and not once had he thought she’d go as far as to hit him – spew vile things at him, probably, kick him out, maybe, but hit him? It had never crossed his mind.
All of a sudden, he needed to talk to his friends, needed them to explain to George what happened, to help him understand. They did that for each other, Dream and Sapnap and George, they helped each other understand, whether it be coding or a saying or something else.
He unlocked his phone almost frantically and opened Discord, his breath hitching when he saw they were already in a vc in the crappy Dream Team server they’d made as a joke.
Plugging in his earphones, George remembered how proud Dream had been when he’d declared the server as just for the three of them.
Despite his prior urgency, his fingers halted before he joined them, uncertainty stopping him. Before he could overthink it though, he pressed down, joining the vc.
He didn’t say anything for a moment, just letting their voices wash over him, something in him he didn’t even realise was tense relaxing as they talked.
“Oh, hey George,” Dream greeted. “When did you join?”
George forced himself to respond. “Hi. Just a second ago.”
“Good morning, Gogy,” He could hear the grin in Sapnap’s voice and closed his eyes, resting his head on his door. “Welcome to the land of the living.”
“Morning,” He knew his reply lacked none of his usual energy and wished that for once he could stop being such an attention seeker.
“You don’t sound so hot dude,” Sapnap said, the clicks of his keyboard pausing. “You okay?”
Dream hummed in agreement. “Yeah, you do sound a little off, what’s up?”
George had the best friends in the whole of the world but he couldn’t help but feel he was taking advantage of their kindness. They were younger than him, it wasn’t fair of him to dump his problems on them.
His plans dissipated as he decided they shouldn’t have to deal with him. “I’m fine, what are the plans for today?”
“George,” Came Dream’s voice, soft and disbelieving, because he knew him too well to fall for a change of subject, “you can tell us.”
He knew, then, that they weren’t going to let it go, as concerned as they were.
Inexplicably, he felt a lump in his throat, which was stupid, because he’d known his mum would react badly, what was one little slap in comparison to being kicked out of his childhood home?
He tried to swallow it away but his words still came out broken. “I was kicked out.”
“Oh, oh,” The worry in Dream’s voice made George uncomfortable, knowing it was for him. “George, are you - do you have somewhere to stay?”
“I started renting an apartment a few weeks ago,” George explained quietly, fighting against tears – Dream said something, but George had started talking and if he didn’t say what he needed to say now, he didn’t think he’d ever be able to say it. “I thought that she might kick me out because I had to tell her something and – it doesn’t matter, but, she - I didn’t think that - she hit me. And I don’t, I don’t understand why, because I’m her son, and she - I don’t know why.”
He stopped talking then, but it had nothing to do with the way Dream was calling his name and everything to do with the sobs wracking his body.
It was like none of it had been real until he’d said the words, like it had been some kind of nightmare until he’d spoken it into reality.
Sapnap was silent and it hurt George to wonder what kind of conclusions he was coming to, so he didn’t.
“George,” Dream pleaded, “it isn’t your fault, nothing you could’ve told her would’ve been enough reason to hit you. Come on, deep breaths or you’re going to make yourself sick.”
Forcing himself to breathe with Dream, George buried his head between his knees.
“We love you, George,” Sapnap said fiercely. “No matter what.”
“We do,” Agreed Dream, voice soft. “We love you so much.”
Breath still hitching, George let himself smile at their words. “I love you both too.”
Maybe on any other day, he’d be worried about too much emotion showing in his words, but this wasn’t about any romantic feelings he might have for Dream, but about his appreciation for them both.
They’d all had a few breakdowns over Discord calls, and George had stopped feeling awkward in the aftermath a long time ago.
It was Dream who spoke next, breaking the easy silence between them. “Are you safe George?”
George was too tired to pretend he didn’t know what Dream meant. “Yeah, she doesn’t know my new address and besides, I don’t think she’d – “
He cut himself off, questioning his own words, after all, hadn’t he thought she wouldn’t hit him?
Dream spoke again before George could get too caught up in his own thoughts. “Do you need to go to the hospital? I’ll pay for it if you’re worried about money.”
“Free healthcare,” George reminded him with a tired laugh. “But no, I’m fine, just stings a little is all.”
“That’s lucky,” Sapnap said cheerfully. “Wouldn’t want your pretty face to be marked.”
“Oh my – Sapnap,” Hiding his face in his hands even though they couldn’t see him, George groaned.
“He’s not wrong,” Dream added, making George reconsider his choice in friends.
He groaned again, if only to make them laugh. “You two are the worst.”
“Do you think he’s okay?” George asked, interrupting Dream and hugging his knees tighter to his chest.
“Who?” Dream countered, which was fair, considering George had brought it up out of nowhere. “Dumbledore?”
Right, George had finally managed to get Dream talking about Harry Potter while watching Karl’s stream and then he’d gone and gotten distracted. “No, Sapnap.”
He rolled his eyes at his camera so Dream would know how much of an idiot George thought he was.
“He seems fine to me,” There was silence as they both watched Sapnap on Karl’s stream – George feeling all sorts of fondness when he realised Sapnap was making a George egg. “Why do you ask?”
George answered Dream’s question with one of his own. “Doesn’t he sound a little off to you?”
“He sounds like Sapnap,” Dream said, as if that were an answer. “A little nervous, sure, but he always is when he does face cam streams.”
Irritation itched at George’s stomach and he knew it wasn’t fair of him to feel. He was being stupid, had been being stupid for weeks, months even – somehow he’d managed to hide it from Dream so far, or at least had managed to avoid explaining why he’d been in such weird moods, he knew Dream knew something was up.
It was just, he’d known Dream and Sapnap for years, he’d never been bothered by the fact that they’d known each other longer than they’d known him, secure in his friendship with them both, but recently he couldn’t help but feel like he didn’t know them at all.
Sapnap and Dream had moved in together and he wasn’t jealous, per se, he and Dream were still on call for hours a day, but there was always the uncomfortable knowledge in his gut that they’d end call and Dream and Sapnap would be together, and George would be across the ocean, all alone in his new, empty apartment.
It wasn’t even that they hadn’t asked him because they had, they’d called him months before they’d made any final decisions, asking for his permission to move in together. His permission.
The guilt alone had had him pretending he was fine with it.
He knew what it was like being separated from his best friends, what sort of person would he have been if he purposely kept them apart?
But fuck, he hadn’t even known that Sapnap was going to visit Karl, and sure, he might not talk to Sapnap as much as he did Dream, but they still talked every day, and he would’ve thought it would come up at some point.
“George?” Dream asked softly, as if he could hear the thoughts rumbling through his head. “What’s this really about?”
George had gotten more than he deserved of this version of Dream recently – being kicked out tended to gain some sympathy from your friends, even if they didn’t know why.
A part of him hated himself for not being able to come out to them, for not trusting them. He’d known his mother would have a bad reaction to the news, there’d been a reason he’d packed in advance, but there was no reason not to tell Dream and Sapnap, no reason other than his overwhelming cowardliness.
“I just,” George was startled to feel the lump in his throat and swallowed, hoping Dream wouldn’t notice, “I wanted to be sure, because I feel like, sometimes, I miss things. Important things.”
He steadily avoided looking at his camera, pulling his hood over his head and resisting the urge to end the call and blame it on his internet so Dream couldn’t see him. He probably would, if it wouldn’t mean not speaking to Dream until tomorrow, sitting alone in his apartment until someone asked him to be a part of a stream or a recording.
“George,” Dream repeated, and George hated how he made it sound like a term of endearment, like honey or darling when really it was just his name, “this morning you called my sister to tell her to tell her friend happy birthday because you remembered she mentioned it a few weeks ago, you don’t miss anything.”
His breath hitched. “I do though, I miss so much.”
Concern came from his computer in waves and it might have been comforting if George wasn’t aware of how selfish he was being. “Like what?”
“Dream,” George pleaded, though he’s not sure what for: to let it go maybe, to magically understand what George was saying without him having to say the words themselves. “I didn’t even know Sapnap was going to visit Karl.”
It sounded even more stupid in the silence after he spoke than it had in his mind, and he wished, more than anything, that he’d never said anything. “Oh, George, I – “
Dream sounded heartbroken and something in George’s chest ached. “Look, it, it doesn’t matter, okay? It doesn’t matter. Forget I said anything.”
“No, no, you don’t understand,” Dream hurried to say. “Sapnap wasn’t trying to keep it from you.”
George huffed out laughter but it sounded strained to even his ears and he knew Dream would see straight through it. “I’m not sure him forgetting to tell me is much better here, Dream.”
“He was just worried about you, we both were,” The words were said in a rush and George tilted his head at Discord, wishing Dream had his camera on tonight so he’d have some hope of understanding what he meant – George had always been better at understanding facial expressions than words, which wasn’t the best when it came to online friends.
Frustration tinged his words when he responded, “I don’t understand.”
Something rustled on Dream’s end before a loading screen appeared on Discord, Dream’s face loading barely a second later.
George didn’t think he’d ever stop being grateful for how Dream managed to understand him, to know the things George wanted without George having to ask.
“Hey,” He said quietly, because that was a habit when he saw Dream’s face nowadays, a homage to the first time he’d seen him.
“Hi,” Dream gave him a careful smile, looking just as concerned as George was worried he’d be. “Listen, Sapnap and I, we’re your best friends, right? And we know when you’re going through shit, and we also know not to force you to talk about that shit because that’s not how you work.”
“Dream – “
“And,” Dream spoke over him, in the way that he did sometimes when he thought what he had to say was going to win an argument, or in this case, make someone feel better, “we know that whatever bad feelings we have about not having you here is multiplied by like, a million, for you, because we have each other and you have to be in shitty England because of shitty Covid.”
George let out a small chuckle and Dream smiled as if that were what he had intended, because of course it had been. “So when Karl started organising to fly Sapnap over, we didn’t want you to have even longer to think about more of your friends meeting up when you couldn’t, because we only know some of the shit you’re going through and that’s more than enough for us to want you to keep you from even more shit, you know?”
“You’re both idiots,” George said, resting his chin on his knees and not even trying to hide the fondness in his voice. “But thank you.”
“I’m sorry George, I should have realised that this would’ve just made you feel more left out,” There was a tilt at the corner of his mouth and his eyebrows were scrunched in a way that screamed ‘I’m-feeling-guilty-and-unless-someone-stops-me-I’ll-continue-for-three-months’ – George had learnt that one the hard way.
“You’re an idiot,” George repeated firmly because he definitely wasn’t a fan of being left out. “But I’ve been being stupid recently too, so I suppose you’re forgiven.”
He grinned so Dream knew all really was forgiven and ignored the stutter of his heart when Dream grinned back, all white teeth and crinkly eyes. “Yeah, you can be pretty stupid.”
“Pretty stupid?” George teased, falling into their normal dynamic.
“Oh yeah,” Dream joined in, and George knew what he was going to say before he said it just from the way he bit his lip, “pretty and stupid.”
If he was lucky, the lighting of his room wouldn’t show his blush. “Yeah? Well you’re only one of the two, and it isn’t pretty.”
A blatant lie, but Dream didn’t need to know that.
They smiled at each other, soft and warm, and George longed to be able to hug something other than his own knees.
“Look, George, I know I said I wouldn’t force you to talk about it, and I won’t, but,” Dream paused for half a second, and George felt his anxiety levels rise by about a thousand, only the gentle smile still adorning Dream’s face stopping him from sliding off his chair to the floor, “the moment you want to talk about anything, I’m here. Sapnap too. You might be all the way in shitty England, but you still have us, okay?”
“Yeah,” George sniffed against the emotion in his throat, the overall everything of the past few weeks overwhelming him for a moment. “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, I swear, it’s just…”
He trailed off, not even having a good explanation for Dream and feeling the guilt of it sit heavy on his chest.
Annoyingly, he felt tears betray him and roll down his cheek and swiped at them aggressively – it wasn’t fair of him to guilt Dream into forgiving him for his failures.
“Hey,” Dream raised his hand to his camera, as if he could reach through the lens and comfort George, “I get it. I don’t hold it against you, neither of us do. When you’re ready, you’re ready, and we’ll still be here. Whether that’s tomorrow, or in five years, we just want you to be happy, George.”
For some reason his words only made the tears fall faster and George wiped at them with his hoodie sleeve, embarrassed that he was just sitting there, crying on camera as Dream watched. “I’m sorry Dream, I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight.”
“Nothing, there’s nothing wrong with you,” George only wished that were true, but everything about Dream pointed towards him believing it in the same way he believed the Earth went around the Sun. “I swear, the moment it’s safe, I’m flying you over here and giving you the best hug you’ve ever had.”
“That’s a big promise, are you sure you can live up to it? I’ve had some pretty good hugs in my time,” Not that he could remember the last hug he’d had – probably from some random friend in university, which was a shame, really, he’d always thought he’d be quite a tactile person given the chance.
Dream raised an eyebrow. “Is that a challenge? It sounds like a challenge.”
Laughter escaped before he could help it and Dream looked mighty smug. “You know what? Yeah, it is a challenge. I bet Sapnap gives way better hugs than you do.”
“How dare you,” Dream started on a rant, centred on how height differences allowed for optimal hugs, that George knew was purely to cheer him up, but couldn’t feel anything but grateful for.
He’d really lucked out with his friends.