Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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Chapter 1: Face-Time Calls

When Dream burst into his room without knocking, Sapnap was ready to snap at him – he loved Dream, but that didn’t mean he could bypass knocking – until he saw the wide smile on Dream’s face. His canines, more pronounced than they were in humans, poked out of his lips cutely. His green eyes were blown wide, and his hair was all mussed up. Sapnap shut his mouth in favour of drinking in how cute Dream looked – not that Dream ever looked not cute – but seeing him so obviously happy was a treat.

“What’s got you so happy?” Sapnap asked, smirking. Dream didn’t even bother hiding his excitement, and he grinned even wider – somehow – before shaking his hands in front of himself in a self-soothing stim.

“George’s visa was approved!”

Sapnap’s jaw dropped. “You’re joking?”

“No, I’m not. I just got off a call with George – he texted me proof. We’re going to Facetime soon, like George wanted, but I wanted to tell you about it before. Also …” Here, Dream finally got shy. His grin turned into a bashful smile, and he wrung his hands together. “I was hoping you could help me look good before I embarrassed myself.”

Sapnap’s heart melted. Despite being conventionally pretty, Dream still got anxious about his appearance. Most of it stemmed from his childhood – which, though a thousand years ago, still affected him today. Sapnap didn’t know much about Dream’s early years, but it was enough to know he wasn’t treated well and that it caused lots of anxiety. Not to mention that Dream had a hard time judging which clothes came from which century, and often needed help picking out outfits that didn’t make him look like a father from the nineties. Still, Sapnap wanted to help in any way he could, so he stood and led Dream back to his bedroom, where they opened the closet and spent half an hour picking out an outfit and styling his hair.

As Sapnap helped style Dream’s hair, pulling at the curls and letting them bounce back, he started to feel his own anxiety. Not about George – the two of them fought a lot, but Sapnap still loved him like a brother. No, instead, it was anxiety for Dream … and his vampirism.

“So,” he started, “what are we telling George about … you know?”

Dream, who was sitting on the bed, letting Sapnap comb through his hair, turned to look back at him. He looked confused. “About what?”

“About … you know!”

“Know what?”

“That you’re a vampire!” Sapnap said, exasperated, but not truly angry. “Are we telling him when he gets here or not? You didn’t tell me for a couple months, at least …”

Dream’s bright eyes dimmed. His smile dropped. “Oh, I forgot about that.”

“You forgot you were a vampire?” Sapnap deadpanned.

“No,” Dream lied. He scrunched his face up when Sapnap started laughing. “Hey, you would too if you were me! Being a vampire doesn’t affect my life that much, you know?”

“Says the guy that drinks blood bags like juice boxes and is over a thousand years old,” Sapnap jabbed.

Dream pouted. “Stop being mean to me.”

Sapnap tugged at Dream’s hair one final time before stepping back to admire his work. Dream’s hair was naturally curly, but with the humidity and heat in Florida, his hair often became frizzy or fell flat. But with a little bit of help, his curls could really pop. And now Dream looked beautiful. Not that he needed any help with that – he always looked beautiful, it was like some kind of vampire superpower – but it never hurt to have a little extra help with his appearance, to make him shine.

“I’m not being mean, I’m being practical,” Sapnap said, hands on his hips. “Are you going to tell George over Facetime? Or when you meet up for the first time? What about a couple months down the line? We need a plan or else this is going to blow up in our faces.”

“I don’t want to tell him right away,” Dream said hastily. “I don’t want to scare him off.”

“Idiot,” Sapnap said, “you could never scare George off.”

“But when you found out, you were freaked out!”

“I was more freaked out by the fact that the supernatural world was real, rather than you being a vampire, specifically,” Sapnap explained. “And we already talked about this – I didn’t have the best reaction, but that’s not your fault.” Sapnap clapped Dream’s shoulder. “Now, go Facetime your boyfriend.”

Dream’s cheeks reddened. “You know I don’t like him like that,” he said. “Sapnap, you’re the only one I –”

“I was teasing,” Sapnap said, laughing. “But you know who won’t be teasing? George, after waiting for over half an hour for his best friend to Facetime him. Now, go!”

*

George sat down in front of his camera. He took a deep breath, knowing he would cut it out later. He fought the smile starting to slip onto his lips. “Okay, I’m about to see what Dream looks like for the first time ever,” he said, excited. “Like literally, whenever I tell people that I haven’t seen him – like friends, family – they never believe me. They think I’m lying. But it’s literally the truth! I haven’t seen him. I’m not just saying this for the video.”

He looked down at his phone after it pinged.

Dream: im ready
Dream: im gonna facetime now

“Today is the day!” He exclaimed, feeling excited beyond reason.

The Facetime music rang out from his phone around the room. George couldn’t keep the smile off his face. He started to flap his hands, unable to keep his excitement to himself. “I’m not even ready. I don’t even want to look. I’m actually scared.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, okay, I’m just going to do it.”

George tapped on the green icon, and the breath was stolen from his lungs.

Dream was … beautiful.

He looked pale despite living in the Sunshine State, but that somehow only made him look more youthful and added a glow to his complexion. He wore a dark blue shirt that only made him look even whiter. His eyes were a glaring gold, which George knew meant they were green. His cheeks and nose held prominent freckles on his pale skin, and his hair was curly and the colour of burnt honey. When his lips parted to smile, George caught sight of pronounced canines. He instantly felt his cheeks heat up.

“I was waiting for so long!” Dream laughed. His teeth, perfectly straight and white, flashed in the sunlight on Dream’s side of the call. “Hello!”

“Oh, I was actually not expecting …” George’s voice fell into a mumble, and he put a hand up to cover his cheeks. They felt so hot. “I don’t know what I was expecting. You actually don’t look at all like what I was expecting. Oh my god. This is so weird.”

“You seeing me for the first time?” Dream asked.

“This is … it doesn’t feel real,” George said.

“It’s real,” Dream said, smiling softly.

*

Chapter Text

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Chapter 2: George Arrives

“Okay, so, on a scale of one to ten, how ready do you feel?”

“Negative five,” Dream said, voice a mumble, face-down on his bed.

“Oh, come on – you’ve already fed,” Sapnap held out his wrist, showing the slightly red area on the skin, “and you’ve showered, you’re wearing something nice, and you broke out the expensive cologne. I think you’re one-hundred-percent ready and –” Sapnap’s phone suddenly went off, his alarm ringing loudly. Dream winced and reached up to cover his sensitive ears. Sapnap was quick to shut the alarm off, apologising for hurting Dream’s ears. “That’s my warning. It will take an hour to get there, and George should be landing around that time. Now, are you sure you don’t want to come?”

Dream rolled over in bed, mussing up his hair and ruining all Sapnap’s hard work. Still, it gave Dream a certain disheveled look that was hard to resist. Sapnap wasn’t confident he wouldn’t need to beat George off Dream with a stick when he got there.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea … there’ll be too many people, and I don’t do the best with crowds, you know?”

Sapnap’s mind went back to less than a minute ago, when Dream could barely handle the volume of Sapnap’s phone alarm. Then he thought about how loud airport crowds could be, especially if there were fans waiting to see the Dream Team union. He thought about the discomfort on Dream’s face when he was out in public, how he was worried, not just about being discovered as the infamous Minecraft YouTuber Dream, but also a vampire, and he couldn’t bear the thought of pushing Dream into such a situation.

“Okay,” he said softly. “I understand. I’ll bring George home, like planned. And then you two can have your first meet-up. God, you’re going be insufferable for the first day, but – but it’ll be worth it, to finally all be together.”

*

After the long car ride – almost an hour from the airport (why did America have to be so big?) – the car finally pulled into the long driveway of a fancy house. There were trees lining the fence out by the road, giving the property some much-needed privacy. There was a large, well-maintained lawn, with beautiful landscaping. The house looked to be three floors and was bigger than huge – it was a mansion. George didn’t even want to know how much it cost. And another thing – the house itself was piss-yellow, but George knew enough by now to figure that the paint was actually green; and of course, the house is green – it wouldn’t be Dream’s house if it wasn’t.

George climbed out of the car, eager to finally meet his best friend of almost a decade.

Sapnap went ahead, into the house, to “get Dream’s ass out here,” he said. Why Sapnap couldn’t just text him was beyond George. Sapnap turned to him one last time before going into the house. “He was – is – super nervous to meet you. So, like, don’t tease him or anything. He just … he’s so happy you’re here.”

It only took a few moments, and then Sapnap was back outside, holding his camera high.

“He’ll be out here any minute,” Sapnap promised.

After talking a bit with Sapnap, joking around for the camera, adrenaline running high, George turned and caught something in his peripheral. He gasped. “Oh my god. No way –” He couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him. He pointed for the camera.

“There he is!” Sapnap said, smiling.

“It’s so bright, I can’t even see you!” George said. He turned to Dream and almost gasped. It was like something out of a movie. Dream – for that’s the only person it could be – had a sort of aura around him, like a god. The sun was in the perfect position to bounce off Dream’s curly hair, lighting up in a halo above his head. His eyes were almost too bright. His grin was wide and toothy. He looked ethereal. George laughed, breathless. “You’re like a god with the sun! Like, oh my god – no way, no way –”

“I’m going in for the hug!” Dream warned, teasing.

And then George was in his arms, and everything was right with the world. The arms wrapped around him were strong and warm, and George couldn’t break out of the hold, even if he wanted to. He was so happy that he started to jump, and Dream followed suit. When he let go of George, George wanted to mourn the loss, but he was still riding his adrenaline high.

“We did it!”

*

Life with Dream was good; it was great, even. George had never laughed so much, had so much fun, or felt so content in his entire life. The first night home – and didn’t that make him feel giddy, knowing he was finally “home” – they set off fireworks in the driveway. The second day, they went on a shopping spree for furniture and knick knacks for his bedroom, and they played hide-and-seek in the Ikea store (which Dream won, every time, somehow. He found George and Sapnap so easily, it wasn’t fair!) On the third day, while painting George’s bedroom, George got absolutely drenched in paint when he and Sapnap got into a paint-throwing fight. At least they had the foresight to set down tarps on the hardwood floor, so it didn’t get covered in paint and primer.

The point was that George felt like he was finally where he belonged, living in Florida with his two best friends. Everything was supposed to be fixed now. George would no longer be living alone in a shitty flat in London, he got to see his two friends every day, and Dream and Sapnap would finally reveal the big secret they’d been hiding ever since Sapnap moved into Dream’s house. Everything would be perfect.

Except … that’s not what happened.

Granted, George wasn’t sure they knew that he knew about the secret.

But how could he not?

Dream was good at hiding it, admittedly. George hadn’t even noticed anything until a couple months after Sapnap moved in with Dream, where they then started to act … weird. Was that the best word to describe it? Probably not. But they were acting weird – strange, different – however you wanted to label it.

Several times, Sapnap would start a story about him and Dream, only to trail off awkwardly, almost as if he was a kid talking to a parent and suddenly remembered that the story contained something illegal or bad. Also, some of his stories didn’t even make sense, or didn’t line up. His comments on what living with Dream was like were vague. He refused video calls more often, too, which George figured was because of privacy and not wanting to expose Dream’s face, but now he wondered if it was indicative of something else. Not to mention that time around Christmas one year, where Sapnap went on vacation, and Dream suddenly dropped off the face of the planet during that time. Dream didn’t respond to any of George’s messages until the second week of January, where he then apologised profusely and wished George a belated “merry Christmas.”

George would be blind not to notice all the signs.

And now, in person, there were other signs, too. Any time George tried to ask about Dream’s past, or even, god forbid, what his favourite foods were, he was met with the others changing the subject, avoiding eye contact, or delayed responses. But the instance that blew everything else out of the water was when George found Dream drinking pomegranate juice out of an IV bag.

And it was very clearly an IV bag, no matter how Dream tried to spin the story.

George had been bored, and when George was bored, things could quickly go wrong in his quest to right his boredom. So, deciding to be responsible, George headed to Dream’s office to see what he was up to. He wanted to see if Dream would be willing to watch a movie or take George out for a drive, and he was so distracted by thinking about all the things he could be doing, that he completely forgot the one rule Dream had about his bedroom and office: always knock and wait for a response before entering. So, not even thinking twice, George blew through the door and had started to speak before he registered what he was looking at.

“Dream, I’m bored and I – what is that?”

Dream’s gaming setup was normal. There were three computer monitors, a light-up gaming keyboard, and he had a bunch of random things on his desk, like pencils, paper pads, a tissue box, and some knick knacks. Beside his desk was his mini fridge that he always kept locked, despite George promising not to drink any of his energy drinks or pop. In the corner of the room was a single bed that Dream could take naps in in-between work. Dream wasn’t doing anything untoward; he was sitting on his rolling gamer chair, facing his computer, one hand on his mouse. But then he turned around, and George saw that, in his other hand, he was holding an … IV bag? It looked like it was full of blood, and Dream was sipping from one of the tubes like a straw.

“George!” Dream said, surprised, and looking a bit … nervous? His lips looked particularly red today. “You didn’t knock! I mean, I heard you, but I thought you were just walking by and –”

“What is that?” George repeated, pointing to the IV bag.

“It’s, uh … fruit juice.” Dream visibly winced. Oh, okay. So, he was lying. “It’s … pomegranate.”

“Why is it in a bag?” George asked. “I’ve never seen juice like that.”

“It … it’s special order.” It sounded more like Dream was asking a question than answering one.

“Oh, can I have some then?” George asked, pushing to see how far this lie would go. He decided to throw out his own lie. “I love pomegranate.”

Unfortunately, that was his downfall. Dream stopped, scrunched up his nose, and looked George in the eyes for the first time since they started their conversation. “What?” He said, IV bag of ‘pomegranate juice’ forgotten, “No, you don’t. You hate pomegranate, George.”

And then the conversation was changed, and Dream had discarded his bag of juice, or whatever the hell it was. And George couldn’t prove anything otherwise, so he was forced to let things go.

*

Later, George Google searched pomegranate juice. And huh, it really did look like blood.

Maybe he was wrong.

But if that was the case, why was it in an IV bag?

Something fishy was going on, and George was going to get to the bottom of it.

*