Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The clock strikes midnight on the first day of winter, and George has just taken a sip of something that is most definitely not his Twinings Earl Grey tea.

It takes George a few too many seconds to realize that what he is tasting is not, in fact, the blissful citrus of his tea, but rather the potent toxins of paint-water.

When this fact registers in his mind, he reflexively spits the solution out. This results in a splatter of chemicals on his wooden floors.

...The exact same wooden floors that he had just cleaned a few hours prior. George takes a moment to curse God for forsaking him.

He then proceeds to be thankful that the paint landed on the floor - as opposed to on the canvas in front of him.

You would think that having his hands on a million-dollar painting would mean he has enough money and enough sense to buy two distinct mugs for his tea and his paintbrushes – and yet, the idea always seems to escape his mind, only to resurface whenever the familiar tang of paint-water finds its way back to his tongue.

It is only when he's down on his knees, scrubbing the floor, that George realizes just how exhausted he is.

How long has he been on that chair? How long has he been staring at a singular corner of that painting, dabbing minuscule strokes of brown onto its surface? How long has it been since he last consumed anything that wasn't tea or paint-water?

With a sigh, and now sitting on re-cleaned floors, George stares up at the harsh industrial lighting of his studio and tries to remember how long it's been since he last slept in his nice, warm bed.

Instead, he finds himself wondering about the outside of his studio walls – he's gotten so used to the studio lights that it's hard to tell it's even nighttime.

He realizes that, given a prompt, he wouldn't be able to tell a person what time it is, let alone what day. Even expecting him to know what month it is could be considered a stretch.

I need a nap, he thinks. Or maybe a coma.

Adjusting his personalized glasses so as to not stab the side of his skull, George lies down on the floor. At the contact of a flat surface, a soft exhale escapes his lips, and his spine finally relaxes.

He spends a few minutes like this. Lying on the floor, his nose idly fiddling with the glasses on his face; his eyes, not fully closed yet, but slowly and surely giving into that strangely comforting darkness of sleep. At some point, his nose stops scrunching, and the ceiling of the studio is no longer visible.

He thinks he could fall asleep like this. That is, until, he hears his studio door open.

Not even bothering to sit up or look or even open his eyes, George groans. "What is it now, Sapnap?"

Sapnap's sniggering gives George enough motivation to open his eyes, only to glare up at his friend. His vision is still blurry, but clear enough to recognize Sapnap's face looming over him. "Having fun, Sleeping Beauty?"

"Tell me what you want before I castrate you," George replies in earnest. He doesn't bother trying to look where Sapnap’s going when he snorts and walks away, and instead waits for Sapnap to keep talking.

"You know that multimillionaire that visited a couple weeks ago?" George hums. "The one with the heavy German accent?"

"No, not that one. The, uh..." Sapnap snaps his fingers, wracking his brain for answers. "The Mr. Dubois dude.”

"Oh.”

George thinks back to a few weeks ago, when his studio was visited by a man dressed in a tuxedo and wearing a monocle for what George had hoped was a joke.

He had questioned George on his techniques, and asked what price he would have to pay to get George to fix a painting in his own possession. (Oil on canvas, nailed to a stretcher and a frame, from the late 19th century. Painted by a man with the pseudonym Dream, as per the signature. Old. Brittle. In desperate need of conservation.)

It was a predictable interaction. One that George had perfected over the years of his work.

“The one with the monocle and handlebar mustache."

"Yeah. Him." Sapnap pauses, and the silence makes George’s anxiety levels rise. “I saw him walking around the place and thought he was snooping, for some reason, so I talked to him. Turns out, he’s commissioned you.”

“Go figure.”

Sapnap nods, fiddling with the comms on his uniform. “I checked. His piece is coming in tomorrow. Well, uh,” he glances at his watch. “a couple hours, actually. And… well, um. It’s…”

At that, George finally looks over. “Please. Please, Sapnap, please tell me it’s not a deadline-com.”

Sapnap meets his tired gaze with a slight cringe, sucking in air through clenched teeth. “It’s a deadline-com.”

George feels himself die a little inside. He closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath. “What’s the deadline?”

“…New year’s.”

“New year’s?!”

If he had enough energy, George would’ve cried on the spot. Sapnap, leaning against the recreational table, grimaces when he sees the pure devastation on George’s face.

“I only get a week and a half? That’s bullshit!" he yells from the floor. "Did he just ignore the part where I told him it could take up to a month? And that’s if I ignore all the other paintings in here! Bloody hell, Sapnap!”

“Hey, I’m just security, man.” Sapnap shrugs. When George’s answer is shaky breath, Sapnap sighs in pity. “I get that it sucks for you, I really do – but according to Jennings, Dubois is a really important guy. Top priority, or something.”

He hears George’s struggle in physically standing upright again.

After a groan and a couple of stretches, George balls up his fists and imagines punching Mr. Dubois right in his stupid little monocle.

“Top priority, my ass," he spits. "He probably just has a lot of money.”

“So do you.”

“At least I’m not an asshole about it.”

“Well, I mean-”

“I will shove a paintbrush into so many of your crevices, Sapnap. Especially the ones where it won't fit.”

“Apparently,“ Sapnap diverts the conversation, “Jennings thinks he’s important enough to delay all your other coms. She’s already contacting your other clients.”

Despite being the reason George is in the current predicament he’s in, Jennings sounds like quite the savior to him right now. He sighs, rubbing his eyes with the only clean part of him – his forearm. “Well, at least it’s only three,” he mumbles.

Only three clients you’re letting down, he hears his conscience say. But think of the money from this Dubois guy, the other half says.

George isn’t sure which response he hates more.

Chapter Text

By the time Mr. Dubois’ painting comes into the studio, George is thoroughly exhausted and rightfully pissed off.

It sits against the white wall of his studio, and the fervor with which George uses to glare at it could be enough to tear it apart, seam by seam.

If he’s being honest, George could definitely go for a couple minutes of pure rage and destruction right about now. But his job is to heal paintings – not destroy them. So he settles for glaring.

It’s not long before his workaholic brain begins to lecture him on being useless.

You’re staring at a painting you could be working on, it says. You’ve only got a week and a half, and you’re spending it being a petty idiot, it says. If you’re going to be a twat, at least be a productive one, it says.

(Sometimes George really hated his own brain.)

And so, a few minutes and a stern subconscious-led lecture later, George is placing the painting down on his workbench and examining it.

It’s a very tonal painting, he notices. A depiction of sailboats lying upon calm waters, framed by a stunning horizon in the background. It’s a color that George can see, even without his glasses:

Yellow.

Heavy yellow, coating the entire canvas, in what looks like a take on either a calming sunset-lit seascape, or a pollution-filled dystopian one. It doesn’t matter much to George about which one it is – the painting is beautiful enough for him not to care.

Not letting himself procrastinate any longer, George gently flips the painting over, and begins to separate the canvas from its frame. Frail and rusty nails hold the painting against wood; it takes George almost no effort to pull them out.

He’d been informed about the painting’s age and fragility – but he didn’t expect it to be this delicate. Though, for a painting from the 19th century, it certainly had lived quite a long and good life. George is determined to keep that life going.

Softening his touch more, he works his way around the frame.

Eventually, the nails are all removed, and George transfers the painting onto the other side of the workbench face-up, taking the chance to glance over its beauty once more.

Picking up the old and deformed nails to transfer them elsewhere, George remains blissfully unaware of the man who has just found himself appearing in George’s studio – awake, aware, and curious as to who this new man touching his beloved painting is.

“Are those my nails in your hand?” the man wonders aloud. “You’ve taken them off, have you?” George, midway between one workbench and the next, pivots around at the intruding voice.

There, standing right beside his newly-commissioned painting, is a man dressed in something that looks like it’s just been taken straight out of a Jane Austen novel. A bowtie, a waistcoat, and a frock coat that looks awfully cozy.

All he’s missing is a cane and a top hat, George tiredly thinks.

He notes that the stranger is tall, handsome (not that it matters), and built enough to probably beat someone – namely George – up.

George is too tired to question it - and his muscles much too sore to even think about fighting. “If you’re looking for a convention, it’s definitely not in here,” he says, walking back to the painting defensively. The stranger stays where he is, on the other side of the bench, and laughs. George kind of hates that he finds the laugh endearing.

“I suppose I am searching for something,” the stranger mumbles. “But I certainly doubt it’s a convention.”

George sighs, dropping the nails into his apron pocket to brace his hands on the table. “Are you sure? Because it looks like you’re cosplaying as Mr. Darcy.”

At that, the stranger pauses. “Pride and Prejudice…” He smiles softly, and George lets himself admit that he really is handsome. “I loved that novel. Jane Austen was truly ahead of her time.”

The man watches as George hums, staring down at the painting between them in scrutiny. It makes the man shift on his feet, unknowingly waiting for criticism about his work. “Just like this artist,” George murmurs to himself – so quietly that it’s almost below a whisper. “Beautiful brushwork. Extraordinary use of color. They’ve-“

“-left it to rot.”

The comment brings George back to reality.

He glances over, and flinches at the fury he finds in the man’s dark eyes. He glares down at the canvas on the bench in front of him, and George is reminded of only a few minutes prior, when he was doing the exact same thing.

“By the way. Uh.” George fiddles with the seams of his apron. “Who are you? And-And how did you get in?”

Something seems to click in the handsome stranger, as his furious expression transforms into a polite one. A crooked smile falls on his face. “Pardon the late introduction.” He steps back, only barely, and holds a hand against his chest. “I am Sir Clay, fourth son of the Astutia household. Somewhat of an artist, depending on who you ask. I go by the name Dream.” He bows his head. “Salutations.”

“Dream? That’s a stupid name,” George mumbles before he can help himself.

He lets out a sigh of relief when Clay’s- Dream’s- the stranger’s reaction is laughter. “It is, isn’t it? I thought the same, before she told me my artworks resembled her angelic dreams.” He sighs, and his face looks almost reminiscent. “I loved the compliment so much I decided to adopt the name.”

When he stops talking, George comes to his senses. “Dream?” he asks incredulously, almost scoffing.

“Yes?”

“No, as in, Dream, the artist of this painting," he frowns, gesturing to the artwork between them. "Are... Are you trying to say that you painted this?”

That stupidly handsome grin spreads across Dream’s face yet again, and George hopes to every god in the sky that he’s not actually blushing at some random trespasser. (Is he devastatingly handsome, or is George just devastatingly touched-starved? George feels it’s some sick combination of both.)

“I could confirm the signature, if you’d like,” he answers. “Though, it might take me a little to get comfortable with holding a pen again.”

“I- I’d-“ George sputters. “Okay, I just-“ Shaking his head, he pulls out his phone. “I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know why you’re trying to impersonate a dead man, but you’ve got two seconds to explain yourself before I call security.”

Dream tilts his head. “You think the authorities can help, do you? You’re quite the comedian.” George is unimpressed. He dials Sapnap.

Dream simply shrugs. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

While waiting for Sapnap to get off his ass and pick up the phone, George inches away from the table, placing himself in the middle of the doorway and the intruder. He hears Sapnap pick up and launches into a spiel: “Hey, Sapnap. I’ve got an intruder in my studio. Seems unarmed, but he’s here and won’t leave. Come deal with it. Thanks.” He hangs up.

Dream sighs, idly playing with his coat. “I do suppose you can’t trust a stranger.”

George’s mouth falls open to reply, but the sound of the studio door opening interrupts him. Sapnap, huffing and holding his phone in his hand, raises a brow. “Well? Where’s this intruder?”

The pure bewilderment of George’s facial expression is enough to make Dream snicker. “Are you- Are you kidding me, Sap? He’s literally right here!” George throws his free hand out, gesturing to where Dream stands. A smirk lands on Dream’s face, and George desperately wants to slap it off.

Sapnap stays quiet, save for his slowly-steadying breath, looking over to the space that George is gesturing to in concern. “Right here… in this... empty studio?”

It takes a great amount of willpower on George’s end not to kick Sapnap all the way to Neptune. “Okay, what the hell is this, Sap? I get that you love pranks and all that shit, but now is not the time. I’ve got a painting to work on.”

Sapnap’s response is a furrowed brow. “Dude… are you okay?” He laughs, but his voice is tainted with concern. “Maybe you’ve been up for too long, man. You’re starting to hallucinate.”

“I’m tired, Sapnap, not delirious. He’s…” George risks another glance at Dream, who, accompanied by a slight roll of his eyes, points down at his feet. George follows the instruction, to find-

Nothing.

Starting from his knees and downwards, Dream is made of...

Nothing.

The fabric of his pants fades away into pure transparency.

And as he takes his first actual examination of Dream, George notices the transparency of his entire body. If George squints and concentrates hard enough, he can see the opposite wall of his studio – through Dream’s chest.

“Do you believe me now?” Dream asks innocently.

And maybe – just maybe – George does.

Chapter Text

“Okay, fine. Let’s say you’re a ghost.”

After hours of silence, Dream jumps at the initiation of a conversation. Contradictory to his own feelings, he remains nonchalant from where he floats behind George. “I am a ghost. But yes; go on.”

If the frame in his hand wasn’t worth more than double his existence, George would have snapped it. “Well, you’re either a ghost, or a figment of my imagination, and honestly, I don’t know which is worse.” He pauses there, before sighing. “If you’re a ghost, why are you here? I’ve got nothing to offer you. And I’m not about to perform a séance.”

His response is a resounding silence.

George is afraid he’s right, and that he’s just talking to himself.

But then Dream finally speaks.

“You’re not very intelligent, are you?”

That scalpel over there looks real good right about now, George thinks. Would be a shame if someone were to use it to oh, I don’t know...

Tear up a painting.

“I humbly apologize for my being a dumbass,” he says, rolling his eyes.

“Yes; it’s quite an inconvenience.” George hears Dream chuckle behind him.

When the conservator doesn’t answer him, Dream curiously floats himself over to see George’s face. He’s taken aback when he sees him scowling.

“Sorry.” George looks up at that - at Dream’s upside-down face in front of him - over the rim of his glasses. If he didn’t know any better, he would think Dream was actually being sincere. “I wasn’t aware I’d gone too far. I apologize.” Maybe he was.

George sighs, averting his gaze from the ghost back down to the frame he’s currently cleaning. “You’re okay,” he mumbles. “I’m not usually like this. I’m just… tired.”

“Perhaps you should rest, then.”

A huff of laughter falls out of George. “Yeah, perhaps. I wish I could. But, well.” He gestures to Dream’s painting, laying on a separate workbench. “Not until I finish this.”

“Hm.” Dream settles down on the opposite side of the bench, watching George’s careful and methodical hands rid his painting’s frame from decades of dust. “You’re correct on believing you’ve got nothing to offer me,” he starts.

George continues his work, but listens closely to Dream’s mellow voice. It’s nice to listen to. Calming, in a way.

“Though, that’s not your fault. I’m not quite sure what I’m still here for, to be honest with you. At first, I believed it was because I had unfinished business. Then the years went by, and I realized I didn’t have anything to finish. Nothing I wanted to, anyway. Now more years have passed, and I find myself simply… lingering.”

He attempts to tap his fingers against George’s bench, but they disappear through. Pulling them back, Dream sighs.

“There is but one constant in all these years. Something I’ve noticed. It’s that, no matter what else happens, I know that I will never leave my painting.”

George’s hands pause; Dream barely notices.

There is a moment of dignified silence, as Dream fiddles with his coat, finished with his explanation. Out of the corner of his peripheral, George sees Dream float over to the painting – maintaining that silence.

The two stay like this for however long it takes for George to continue cleaning the frame. While he is, he lets his mind meander through the fields of subconsciousness.

There’s a ghost in his studio. And if he’s to believe it, it’s the ghost of the man who painted the 19th-century painting he is currently restoring. Talk about pressure, he thinks to himself.

For some ungodly reason, George doesn’t think it’s too strange for a ghost to pop up.

Maybe it’s due to all the stories his grandparents used to tell him – stories of ghosts making contact with the living; of ghosts traveling beyond the grave to simply be out and about; of ghosts returning to finish what they had previously failed to before, in an attempt to finally reach peace.

His grandparents loved talking about ghosts in such a different way to what George’s books and movies and friends did. The ghosts in those stories were always - for lack of a better word - monsters. They were always seeking revenge, or chaos, or something akin.

Those stories always seemed more realistic; more believable than dead spirits simply wanting to hang out and chill.

When George comes back to reality, he realizes he’s finished cleaning the frame. What used to be muddy and borderline grey has turned into a beautifully rich mahogany. The drastic change is enough to fill the conservator with satisfaction.

George risks a glance at Dream. The ghost’s back is still turned to him, his head lowered in a staring contest with his own artwork. His hands are behind him, and he idly fiddles with his fingers, picking at pale translucent skin.

George starts to think that maybe there was a reason his grandparents loved ghosts so much. That maybe they knew more than what they were supposed to.

Maybe their stories – those of peace and kindness and love... were the real ones.

↽◈⇀

“Do you ever wish you could leave?”

The entire day has passed, and night has fallen.

Dream has since moved on from staring at his painting, and has taken it upon himself to explore George’s studio without the barriers known as walls. He is surprised every time George starts a conversation, but is more than glad to participate in one with him. (Throughout the day, there have been a total of six conversations, each lasting only about a minute or so of idle chat and sometimes questions, but never anything too groundbreaking. Not that Dream's counting or wishing there were more than that or anything.)

“I don’t believe I do," Dream answers, shrugging. "I’ve never really thought about it much.” He looks over at George, who seems to be preoccupied with dusting the back of Dream’s canvas. “Why? Would you like me to?”

George laughs through the mask he’s put on. “Would I ever. I’ve known you for less than a day, and I wish we’d never met.” The minimal effort used to take the canvas off its stretcher and to dust off the dirt has given George enough relaxation to revert him to playfulness. If he had time to, he would celebrate by sleeping.

Summoning the wisdom and experiences from his days visiting the theatre, Dream holds a hand against his chest in mock pain. “You wound me, Sir George. I may be dead, but that doesn’t mean I no longer have emotions.”

Dream feels his cheeks spread with a grin when he sees that he’s made George start to giggle. A wave of something familiar hits him – but he’s not sure what.

He supposes that’s because it’s been so long since he actually spoke with someone worth speaking to.

George, on the other hand, lets himself become looser. Talking to Dream has massaged out those weird kinks in his body and brain. He doesn’t know whether it’s because Dream is interesting or if it’s because George is simply too tired to care about what’s actually happening, but the fact of the matter is: it’s almost therapeutic.

To talk to someone about everything and nothing at the same time. To talk to someone that can afford to simply listen to George’s complaints about the cold (to which Dream had so kindly explained to him that one of the perks of being dead means not feeling the temperature).

To have something to do other than just work.

He’s almost too absorbed in his own thinking to hear Dream speak. “You’re keeping my frame, then?” George looks over, and Dream gestures to the mahogany frame lying on a bench.

“Yes and no,” George answers. “I’m not keeping it, but that’s only because I’ll be using it to frame the painting again. It seems stupid to use a frame that’s almost two centuries old, but that mahogany is sturdier than it seems. I reckon it’ll last well into the future. As long as no one approaches it with an open flame.

At the end of his ramble, George sees Dream float away from the window and towards him.

When the ghost settles across from George at the bench again, the conservator feels a little more relaxed than before. It’s a small action, the sitting-across-from-each-other. Almost minuscule. But George is thankful for it in ways that he doesn’t think Dream will ever understand.

George barely understands it himself.

“Thank you,” Dream smiles. George sees dimples, and the urge to poke them is overwhelming. He thinks it’s criminal, the fact that Dream is quite literally untouchable. It's punishment hidden in the form of being on the other side life. What he would give to cross that bridge and touch Dream's dimples.

George shrugs. “I’m not doing much.” “You’re resurrecting my art.”

“It’s a job. I’m only doing it for the money.”

“Somehow, I doubt that.” Dream’s smile turns smug, and he raises a brow. Before George can say anything, Dream promptly moves along. “So, when are you going to actually clean it?”

George rolls his eyes and feels them start to ache from how many times he’s done that. “Keep up that attitude, and I just might throw it in the trash.”

“Ouch.”

Chapter Text

Dream is watching George carefully and tediously pull off the painting’s strip lining when he strikes up a conversation. “I’ve been meaning to tell you something, George.”

George hums through his mask, prompting Dream to go on. “It might make me sound like a fool, but-”

“You don’t sound like one, Dream. You are one.”

“Well, that’s rather rude." The ghost makes a face and floats up, turning himself upside-down. "But I digress.”

George looks up to see a cascade of light-brown hair in front of him, strands lazily floating in the air like particles of dust. Despite himself, George desperately wants to run his fingers through that hair. It looks softer than a pile of meticulously-cleaned feathers.

It might feel soft, he thinks. If Dream's presence was physical.

“Your accent is nice.”

The compliment makes George pause, as he stops separating the fabric from the canvas. “Sorry?”

“I said your accent is nice to listen to. The way you pronounce some words in such drastic difference to me is… well, it’s interesting.”

George can’t help but tease. “You sound like you’ve never heard a British accent before.”

Dream pouts a little. “This is why I hesitated in telling you.” George resists the urge to poke Dream’s puffy cheek. “I retract my compliment.”

“Aw, you can’t do that.”

“Can’t,” Dream imitates George’s accent with a poke of his tongue. “Oh, oh! Say aluminum.”

A sigh. “Aluminium.”

Dream proceeds to launch into a fit of giggles.

↽◈⇀

Dream is staring at his painting across the room when he takes his designated spot across the bench from George, who is mixing solutions and chemicals, and says, “I’d like to hear your thoughts on my work.”

George happily complies. “Well, it’s beautiful, for one. I think I already told you that.”

“You did. I’m grateful.”

“I like the colors,” George adds. He adjusts the glasses on his face. “Even without my glasses, I think I would.”

“Yes, about that.” Dream cocks his head. “I’ve been wondering why your spectacles have a hue.”

“Oh.” George realizes Dream doesn’t know. “I’m colorblind.”

The ghost blinks. “Colorblind?” A pause. “Do you mean to tell me you see the world in grays?”

George laughs. “No, no. It's just that I can only see specific colors. Like yellow, for example.”

“No green, then?” Dream asks. George shakes his head. “Purple? Red?”

“I don’t see them the same way you do. Hence these.” George taps his glasses. “They help.”

Dream’s response is a smirk. “You cannot see color, and yet you fix paintings for a living?”

“What can I say?” George shrugs, smiling. “I’m talented.”

Dream hums, resting his head in his hands as he watches his conservator work. “That you are.”

↽◈⇀

“Is that… an engagement ring?” George has taken a momentary break from scraping off the animal skin glue on the back of Dream’s canvas to stare at Dream’s hand.

“Hm?” From where he floats above George’s workbench, Dream lifts up his left hand and glances at it. “Oh.” As quickly as he lifted his arm up, it goes back down – right into George’s line of sight. “Yeah. It is.”

The glint of silver stares George right in the face, almost teasingly, and he can’t help himself. “Are you… Were you married?”

Dream doesn’t answer. George’s anxiety levels rise up again. He can’t see Dream’s face, and is afraid he’s pressed the wrong buttons.

“Sorry,” he says quickly, trying to ignore the hand in front of his face. “I didn’t mean to-”

Dream’s answer comes quietly. “I was.” Barely above a whisper.

George immediately regrets asking. Dream has never been this quiet before – not even during their first meeting. George hasn’t known Dream for long, but he knows that him being this quiet is not something to just brush over. “Do you miss her?” It’s so low – so quiet – that he doesn’t know if he’s even said it.

Until Dream responds. “Not in the way you think, no.”

“…Oh.”

“It wasn’t out of love, the marriage,” Dream elaborates. George feels the heaviness of his heart start to lift. Dream is talking. That’s a good sign. “It was just for convenience. We both were aware of it. It’s why we married each other in the first place.”

“What... was her name?” George risks.

“Elizabeth.” Dream’s face remains hidden from George, too high up for the conservator to see. George hates that he can’t tell if Dream is smiling or crying. “We did love each other. Just not romantically. We were close.”

George stays quiet, gently scraping dried glue off fabric, waiting for Dream to continue at his own pace.

“We were close enough to tell each other our secrets," he finally continues. "When we knew each other well enough, we began the brilliant plan of having a legal union. There wasn’t as much pressure on me as there was for her, being the first daughter and all, but the expectations were still there. Strong as steel." He hesitates here, as if trying to find the right words. "We were each other’s masks. And it worked.”

He stops there.

George half-expects the story to be over, and is surprised when Dream finally lowers himself to the workbench. He settles in his usual spot, and smiles softly at George.

It prompts George to ask: “Were you in love with someone else?” It’s a stupid question, he knows, but he can’t help his curiosity. From what he’s heard, the marriage sounds like it was a cover-up for forbidden feelings. Perhaps someone out of Dream’s league or class. Someone unattainable. Someone...

To his surprise, Dream laughs - though it sounds like it's filled with layers of hurt. “I wonder,” he says, fiddling with the ring on his finger. “I never gave myself the chance to try. I never let myself explore too deeply. Who knows what chaos would have run rampant on the streets if I did.” His face turns melancholy, and it breaks George’s heart.

“Why would... Why would you stop yourself?”

Dream looks up, and George swears the glaze over Dream’s eyes could be mistaken for tears. “Why wouldn’t I have?” His throat bobs, as if he’s grounding himself before he continues. “If the only two options are deception or dishonor, why wouldn’t I choose deception?”

The train of thought seems too similar to George to be ignored.

It seems too similar to not be what George thinks it is.

Deception over dishonor.

It seems too similar and too familiar to George.

Lies over shame.

Before he can help it, his mouth forms his next sentence before his brain does.

“Was it because you liked men?”

Dream stops fiddling with his ring. His jaw clenches.

The locked gaze between the two stay intact for what feels like a millennia to George, before Dream averts his gaze.

“Suppose it was," he answers quietly - almost like he's afraid to admit it.

He might be, George realizes.

"Would you despise me for it?”

It almost physically pains George to see Dream so downcast.

If he could hold Dream’s hand, he would do it in a heartbeat. If he could. If he could just hold Dream's hand, the world would be an entirely better place. If he could comfort him. If he could stop Dream's body from shaking. If he could just hold Dream's hand. If he could just hold Dream's fucking hand-

“Dream.”

The ghost looks up. The conservator smiles. Dream seems suspicious of George's reaction - and justifiably so.

“It’s a better world now," George tests the words on his tongue, desperately tugging that string of comfort to try and reassure Dream that everything is okay. "You’ve made it to the 21st century. People are a lot more accepting nowadays. The-”

Dream whispers, staring right into George’s eyes, “Does that include you?” Those sharp eyes of his pin George right down to the floor and paralyze him.

George could cry. At the anguish he can see in those eyes. At the fear he can feel flooding from Dream's wavering voice. At the implication that he might hurt Dream. Goddammit, he just wants to hold Dream's hand and tell him everything is okay and that everything is going to be alright and that nothing and absolutely nothing can change the fact that what Dream is feeling is valid and perfectly acceptable.

“It absolutely includes me,” he laughs bittersweetly. His voice cracks with the suppression of emotion in his throat. “My situation isn’t nearly as bad as yours was, so I can’t say that I really understand, but I do. I understand, Dream.”

Never has George felt this desperate to hug someone before. The fact that he can’t hurts more than it should.

“I really do.”

George takes the chance to tell Dream all of the things he needed to hear way back when. Back in his bedroom in Brighton, where his pillow was more tears than polyester. Back in his bedroom in Brighton, where his stupid teenage brain couldn't fathom the fact that he was okay.

“You’re allowed to like men, Dream. You’re allowed to like whoever the hell you want to. There’s nothing wrong with that. I promise you that there’s nothing wrong with you. There’s nothing wrong with us.”

At the implication George makes, Dream’s face seems to light up. And George grins at the sight. George grins at Dream grinning - because, finally. Dream is back.

He’s happy, and he’s smiling, and those dimples of his are on display for the world to see. Dream laughs into his fist, and George would like to think he’s blushing.

“So poetic,” Dream giggles.

George feels giddier than that time he had his first kiss. “God, I really wish I could hug you,” he admits. When he hears himself say it, he turtles himself into his sweater and hides his face in his hands. “Oh. Oh, god. Please ignore that.”

When he doesn’t hear Dream answer, the heat rushes up to his face. He feels more embarrassed than that time he had his first kiss.

George almost jumps out of his skin when he feels a soft, almost non-existent touch on his back. He un-turtles himself, and finds Dream beside him, grinning ear-to-ear. Suddenly thankful they’re both standing up, Dream slowly pulls George into an embrace.

It takes a great amount of willpower on Dream’s part to make physical contact, but for this moment, the sacrifice almost seems too little.

It’s feather-light, the touch. But George is so on-edge that he feels it with every fibre of his being.

Dream is touching him.

Dream is touching him.

He’s touching him, and his skin is so soft, and so inexplicably warm, and comforting in ways that George had never felt before and may never be able to articulate.

George’s brain short-circuits in an attempt to speak. “Y-You- I- We can touch?” he stammers out.

“Apparently we can!” Dream laughs. George’s ear burns with such close proximity to Dream’s voice. “I didn’t know; I’ve never tried! Well, not before today.”

When Dream pulls away, George is both relieved and disappointed. Dream's face is so close to his, only inches apart, and with the daze and short-circuited brain, George swears the boy in front of him is solid and there and physical and real.

“There’s a first time for everything,” Dream says.

“Yeah,” George agrees, still dazed and unaware of himself speaking. He feels like he's in a fever dream. But... a pleasant one. “First time for everything.”

Does that apply to getting crushes on 19th-century ghosts?

Chapter Text

It’s been some amount of hours, and George is finally onto the cleaning stage of the conservation of Dream’s painting.

He hasn’t had any time to examine the painting beyond simple admiration yet, and is more excited than he’d like to admit at the idea of finally being able to see Dream’s work up-close and personal.

(If he’s going to admit to things, he might as well admit that he’d like to get up-close and personal with Dream.)

(...But he’d never say that aloud.)

When he at last gets to sit and examine the artwork, George can feel – rather than see – Dream float towards him from the windows. “You’ve got a lot of tools there,” he comments. “What are they for?”

“Examination,” George answers. The conversations with Dream flow easier now; George likes to think he’s bonded with the ghost. “I get to see all of the horrendous mistakes you’ve made.”

At Dream’s laughter, George takes the opportunity to pick up his tools and begin his work. Before he can, Dream speaks up. “You told me that you love the colors of my work.”

George nods. “I do. It’s tonal yellow. It’s one of the few colors I can see, so…” He shrugs. “I don’t know. I just do.”

Dream seems to pause at that, nodding softly. “I see.”

He floats away, and George is left wondering what the hell that was all about.

↽◈⇀

It is not long until George knows. Not long at all.

It is so soon, in fact, that Dream has only just arrived at the window pane when his attention drifts back to George at the sound of a gasp.

George, mouth agape and hands resting gently on the surface of Dream’s painting, breathes out, “It’s not a tonal painting. It’s- It’s old varnish! It's not a tonal- Dream, it’s not a tonal painting!”

The ghost can barely hold himself from laughing. “I’m aware, George. I painted it.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah. Sorry. The lack of sleep is getting to me. It’s probably why I didn’t realize it was varnish,” George laughs, shaking his head.

Dream finds it adorable; the way George has become softer over the course of their acquaintanceship. Both physically and metaphorically.

If he could assign George a color, Dream reckons it would be some hue between pastel pink and orange – the type you see amongst the sky at dusk for only an ephemeral moment before it’s gone.

In a rehearsed movement, Dream floats from the window back to George, hovering just above George’s head. “Are you going to clean it now?”

“Soon,” George promises. “I just have to run some tests and make sure I won’t damage your painting with chemicals.”

“Yes, I would greatly appreciate you not destroying my hard work.”

“It would be a travesty, wouldn’t it?”

The two share a laugh, and Dream feels that warmth filling his otherwise empty chest again. That wave of familiarity that he now recognizes as love. It’s the same feeling he had every time he made Elizabeth laugh, and the same feeling he had when she promised him she loved him back all the same, despite his sexual preference.

Dream didn’t have many close companions in his lifetime. He had only experienced this kind of love for Elizabeth and sometimes – rarely – his brothers. (They were irritating bastards, but the Lord knows Dream loved them.)

Save for Elizabeth, he had not felt this emotion much for anyone outside of his blood.

And now, he glances down at George, grounded and human, below him. Dream thinks that George may be the next friend he confides in. The thought of it makes his lips spread into a goofy grin.

He reaches down, cautiously, to play with George’s messy brown hair. Maybe to even ruffle it a bit. The same way his brothers used to do to him.

But his fingers simply slip through the strands, disappearing through George’s scalp.

The reminder that he and George are on two separate sides of the world makes Dream scowl. He’s forgotten that he can’t always touch his conservator.

It is incredibly frustrating that he can’t.

↽◈⇀

George can’t believe his eyes.

He can’t believe his own colorblind eyes.

As he wipes the painting with a handmade cotton bud, it brings with it years and years of old, yellowed varnish. Where he cleans, what he once saw as a beautiful tonal yellow hinted with brown turns into a vibrant, bright, magnificent-

“Blue,” he breathes. “It’s blue! Dream, it’s blue!”

From where he floats in the air, Dream hums. “Yes, George; it’s a sky.”

“Blue Skies Smilin' At Me,” George recites the title of Dream’s painting, and Dream glances down. “I thought it was, like, a comment on society or something. Like, blue skies, but the painting is, I don’t know… not blue?”

Dream chuckles, making his way down to George’s level and staring down at his own painting. He’d almost forgotten the pigment of the blue he’d originally used. “You give me too much credit. I’m not creative enough for that.”

“That’s bull and you know it,” George scoffs, shaking his head. His eyes remain fixated on the canvas, as he slowly reveals the rich blue underneath all the grime. Every time he wipes, he thinks it’s the most beautiful blue in the world. And then it keeps going.

“You’re not wearing your glasses,” Dream notes. “…You can see blue?”

“I can. I can,” he giggles. “I can see it. I love your painting, Dream. I really do.” George smiles with that, and Dream thinks George’s smile could bring him back to the plane of existence with how bright it is.

Dream feels that love filling his chest again. “I love it too. Why else would I still be here?”

He expects George to answer with a, ‘to annoy me, obviously’, but it never comes. When he looks up, he sees George has stopped cleaning. A strong urge to tease him on procrastination fills Dream, but the soft expression on George’s face stops him from going through with it.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

George shakes his head. “Nothing. It’s just…” He looks down at the painting between them, yellow – save for one cleaned patch of vivid blue sky. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

Dream doesn’t believe him, but doesn’t pry.

George continues cleaning, but finds he’s hesitant to do so. As much as he wants to conserve Dream’s painting and restore it back to its state of natural glory, he’s realized: when he finishes – when he’s fixed Dream’s painting and everything is right and fine and perfect and repaired…

Dream will no longer have a reason to stay.

And for some convulated, inexplicable, totally unrelated reason, George now wants to start crying.

Chapter Text

I love him.

It’s a revelation that, to George, comes as more of a long-awaited slap-in-the-face than a shock.

He’s been anticipating it for a while now, and it seems that the reality has taken a momentary pause of depression before settling in.

It happens three-quarters into cleaning the painting of its old varnish. George, with new-found consideration for his own sanity, decides to take a short mental-health break by making himself a courtesy cup of tea.

When he returns, he finds Dream being Dream – floating by the windowpane, watching the busy afternoon traffic of people flood through the streets of London.

His figure seems less translucent in the soft afternoon bask of light. Less... dead.

With gently tanned skin and rosy cheeks, scattered with freckles and a dimple from smiling, and light brown hair brushing past his ears, messy in a way that indicates Dream's idea of a hairbrush is his hands.

It all makes him seem real, almost.

Alive.

It is the longing in George's chest – the longing and desperation that wishes Dream were alive – that makes him realize.

↽◈⇀

George's cup of tea is cold by the time he stops staring at Dream.

↽◈⇀

He is in the middle of his second – maybe third, who really knows – hour of scraping off the overpaint on Dream’s artwork.

It’s a tedious task; George has to keep reminding himself not to zone out, lest he press down a little too hard with the scalpel.

As he goes through the repetitive motion of scraping, he finds himself becoming increasingly irritated.

“This overpaint is useless,” he voices, catching the attention of the ghost somewhere else in the room. “Your original paint is still there; I don’t get why this conservator even painted over it. This is a horrendous imitation of real conservation; I hope they lost their job.”

George hears Dream’s familiar laughter behind him, and tries not to let too much blood run up to his face. “Oh, quite. You should have been there when he was doing it. I’d lost my marbles at the man.”

“You shouted at him?”

“Shouting was one of the things I did, yes.” Dream sighs in reminiscence. “I don’t think I’d ever said as many profanities as I had whilst I watched him destroy my work. It’s a shame he couldn’t hear me. My comments were fueled by years of inactivity and built-up exasperation - they were some of the best insults I had ever created.”

George hums. “I wonder why he couldn’t. I can see and hear you perfectly fine.”

“Well, perhaps you’re special,” Dream replies nonchalantly.

George internally screeches at the words, wishing Dream’s voice weren’t as close to him as it currently is.

The conservator clears his throat and tries not to let his voice crack. “I assume I have your approval, then?”

Dream nods in response. “You do. You’re doing all the right things, Georgie, trust me.”

The nickname makes George choke on his own spit. He drops his scalpel down in shock, coughing into his hand. “Geor- Uh, what? I’m sorry? G- What was that?”

“A nickname, Georgie," Dream states, floating around the bench. "It’s a thing of endearment between friends.”

George attempts to divert attention away from the remnants of his hacking cough. “Did nicknames even exist when you were alive?”

“Well, I’m sure they were somewhere. But I learnt about them throughout the years. I learnt a lot of things through observation, actually." He mimes laying down on the opposite side of the bench, draping his translucent body on the table. "You would be surprised how many idiots pass by my artwork.”

"Is that what you've been doing all these years?" George asks, letting curiosity get the better of him. He makes no effort to stop it, though. The hours the pair have spent together have broken down the wall of boundaries. "Watching?"

"And making cynical remarks to no one but myself, yes." Dream stretches and makes himself comfortable on the table - although George isn't sure if he can actually feel the surface or not.

"You don't have any painter ghost friends?" George jokes.

Dream chuckles, and George makes sure to etch it into his mind like an engraving on an ancient tomb.

"No," the ghost answers. "There isn't a hallway of artwork to accompany me. It's simply my painting, the mansion, and the people within. If there's an existing wing of artwork somewhere, I'm not aware of it. Being the prized possession of a socialite has its downsides, believe you me." A pause. "Although... Well, I guess there’s not much to complain about recently.”

George picks up his scalpel and continues scraping, letting the conversation keep him sane. "Why's that?"

"No one visits me anymore," Dream mumbles. "No one looks at my art. I've no one to whine about nor insult."

For a few minutes, crusty paint being scraped is the only sound in the studio. George isn't sure how to respond.

At some point, Dream closes his eyes in what may be an imitation of sleeping. The painting is free of all its overpaint when George has finally crafted a response. "They will soon."

Dream opens his eyes. Turns his head to look at George.

George finds himself fascinated in the way Dream's hair cascades down his forehead in elegance similar to that of a lazy river, and the way his brow lifts so smoothly it's ethereal.

Maybe because Dream is ethereal.

"I'll restore your painting," George promises. "I'll make it beautiful again. I'll bring back your blue skies. I'll make it so this canvas looks the same as the day you painted it. And then everyone will want to come see."

Dream attempts to keep his face neutral, but his muscles betray him and spread his lips into a grin. "Those are very binding words, you know. You should be careful when you use them."

"I am being careful," George rebukes. When Dream's only response is another chuckle, George insists it: "I'll bring your painting back, Dream. I will. I promise."

That warm feeling floods Dream's ghostly body again. This time, he knows exactly what it is.

"I'll hold you to that."

↽◈⇀

I love him.

The thought doesn't take Dream by surprise. Not in the slightest. He had thought it was love. He now knows it's romantic.

It's a weird feeling. Something he's never had before. But he wishes he'd felt it long ago; when he was alive.

It's a mesmerising feeling. He had identified it as love so long ago, it feels like centuries have passed already.

That's the thing with George, he's noticed. Hours feel like millennia – and Dream adores the feeling.

Having lingered for so long, Dream barely noticed when a year or a decade had passed. Even that socialite Dubois that owned his painting had aged so far as to need a monocle.

Dream remembers the man being young, once. Young enough to not know the value of money. Yet, with George, Dream feels every day ignite a new interest.

The first was the windows - how long had it been since he had seen those? Then it was the walls - marble and clean, a complete contrast to Dubois' walls of velvet and spruce. Then it moved on to the studio, and all of its nooks and crannies - the benches, the equipment, the modern paints that fascinated Dream and had him wishing he were alive again, just so he could use their pigments.

It spiralled from there, until his latest interest - the conservator himself.

Georgie, as he now called him.

Dream wasn't sure how many days had passed since their initial meeting. He knew for a fact that George didn't know either.

You would think that the floor-to-ceiling windowpanes would tell them, but they had had their minds elsewhere. The dates seemed at the bottom of their priority lists.

Dream didn't mind. He never really cared for dates in the first place.

But he knows that no duration of time would change the way he feels about his conservator.

He is in love with the way George smiles. He is in love with the way George dedicates himself. He is in love with the way George forgets to put on his glasses and the way he smiles every time he realizes he can still see the colors of Dream's painting clear as day. He is in love with the way George handles his painting and treats it like the most precious item in the world. He is in love with the way George's slightly calloused fingers run over his brushwork; the way George's eyes scrutinise and evaluate his pigments; the way George seems to love the painting as much as Dream does, too.

And so, Dream finds himself floating around the studio again, idly vanishing through walls and winding his way back to whichever room George is in.

He finds him in a room with a wall covered in photos - when he investigates, he finds photos of George, smiling at the camera in polite tightness, with paintings by his side and what seem to be the paintings' owners.

The wall sparks a question in Dream's mind.

With all the paintings George has worked on, Dream wonders if another spirit has come by. He wonders if George has had this exact interaction with however many ghosts, and has dealt with them all the same.

Dream wonders if he's insignificant.

He doesn't know the answer.

He hates not knowing.

"Am I the first ghost you've encountered?"

The conservator below him lifts his head up and gives Dream a look of absolute incredulousness. "I thought you were supposed to be intelligent," he says.

"I am," Dream replies. "But how am I to know? Your reaction when I first met you left the impression that this isn't your first interaction with the otherworldly."

George snorts, his nose scrunching up and his eyes crinkling in the corners. Dream wishes George would do that more often. "That was just because I was too tired to realize you were actually a ghost. Blame it on my lack of sleep."

He shrugs, and goes back to his work - slowly repairing the structural damage to the canvas.

"It's to make everything stable again," he says before Dream can ask what he's doing.

Dream replies with: "Answer my first question."

George laughs, and swears he can hear the pout in Dream's voice. "Fine. Yes, you are the first ghost I've encountered."

He pulls his hands off of the painting to let the repairing-adhesive cool and tilts his head up to meet Dream's gaze.

"Why? Are you jealous?"

The ghost chuckles in a low hum, shrugging. "Maybe."

Chapter Text

The next time George sees another human is when Sapnap rocks up to the studio in his uniform, unceremoniously dropping a box of donuts and a cup of coffee onto George's recreational bench.

"I don't drink coffee," George blankly reminds Sapnap, his focus divided between 'inspecting linen' and pretending that he can't see Dream standing right next to the security officer, examining him from head to toe.

Sapnap rolls his eyes. "I'm aware. The coffee's for me. I was considering getting you a tea of some sort, but..." He gestures to the abundance of tea boxes on the bench, a variety of flavours for George's picking. "Well, it doesn't seem like you need one."

George snorts, but doesn't argue. "The donuts are for me, though?"

"Of course." Sapnap grins, grabbing his coffee and taking a swig. “Thought it would compensate for having to remind you that the com’s due New Year's morning.”

The reminder of time makes George's smile falter. “Yeah. Yeah, I... I know." He inhales. Exhales. Stones himself. "I’ll have it done by New Year’s Eve.”

Sapnap nods, though the furrow in his brow indicates he's not entirely free of anxiety about his friend. "What's your progress so far?"

The conservator hums, pausing his fingers from stroking material. "Good, I suppose. I've still got a long way to go." He shrugs. "But I'm having fun with it," he lets slip out.

Sapnap raises a brow, audibly sipping on his mocha for a second too long to be normal, before voicing his opinion. "You seem happier than usual."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"Nope. Just suspicious." He takes another elongated sip. "Did you get laid, or something?"

George chokes on his own spit.

Once he's gathered his bearings, he tries to ignore the shit-eating grin that has just plastered itself onto Dream's face.

“How exactly would I have done that?” he tries to counter with a solid voice, “No one else is here.”

Sapnap shrugs, and offhandedly deadpans, “Maybe you found a cute ghost and had some fun.”

It takes a grand amount of self-control for George not to faint right then and there. Dream loses any semblance of sanity and begins wheezing with laughter, to which George pretends he can’t see the ghost anymore.

“Absolutely not," George scoffs - though it comes out wobbly and weak. "You can go now, Sapnap.”

With a short laugh, Sapnap jokingly pouts. “I’m always here if you need me, Georgie-poo.” He makes a kissy face, and George more than happily flips him off. “You can tell me all about your sexual frustrations if you need to.”

George pretends to gag. “I’m good, thanks.”

As Sapnap grins, Dream is right there next to him with his own devilish smirk. George wishes he could tell Dream off without being judged by Sapnap for yelling to the air.

He tries to be inconspicuous with, “Wipe that grin off your face.”

Sapnap shrugs it off and walks away, but Dream remains where he is, looking George up and down like he’s an anatomical model.

When Dream hears the door close, indicating Sapnap has left, he lets his smirk grow. “You’ve an issue with my smirk, Georgie?”

George huffs. "It’s an arrogant smirk, Dream."

"Is it now?" The words make the conservator’s heart falter. Dream notices the effect, and raises a teasing brow. "And what are you going to do about it?"

George doesn’t know whether he wants to punch him or kiss him.

↽◈⇀

George is in the middle of cutting up some Belgian linen - chosen to be most compatible with Dream's canvas after much careful consideration - when Dream pops out of the wall again with another question:

"What's your familial situation, Georgie?"

Much to George's surprise, the question is not about his current work process. To his credit, though, George has learnt Dream's spontaneity and has adapted to it.

"You make it sound like I come from a line of wealthy vampires, Dream." "You've an incredible imagination," Dream shoots back. "So? What is it like?"

George hums, continuing his work, before letting his mouth do the talking and his brain do the conserving. "What do you want to know?"

"Do you have any sisters?"

"One. She's younger than me."

"Brothers, perhaps?"

"Unfortunately not."

"More like fortunately," Dream rolls his eyes. "My brothers were the bane of my existence."

George snorts. "But you loved them."

"That could be debated upon." He pauses. "What about your parents? What are they like?"

A small smile lands on George's face. "They're kind. I love them. I miss them."

Dream momentarily pauses. "Are you... separated?"

"Yeah. Oh, but they're not dead," George clarifies quickly. "They're just back home in Brighton."

"Brighton?"

"It's where I grew up. It's in East Sussex, if you know where that is. I really miss it sometimes. Homesickness, you know?" It takes a little for George to realise what he's just said - and who he's saying it to. "Shit, sorry- I didn't mean-"

Dream responds with a gentle shake of his head, reassuring George that everything is okay. He stays quiet, and prompts George keep talking with an open gesture to continue.

"Um. Well. My house is close to the water. Real close. Like, if I leaned the right way, I could see the ocean from my bedroom window. Naturally, I ended up craving the life of a pirate on the seas. Or maybe a merman inside of them. It shifted every now and then, but the love was always the same. Sometimes I would ask my parents if I could go down and just sit at the abandoned docks a few minutes away. I loved doing that. 'Course, it meant I never finished my homework, but..."

He pauses, focusing on arranging lines of linen, before continuing.

"I loved seeing the ocean. Seeing the sky. They were both blue - I could see both of them. That's probably why blue's my favourite colour, actually."

Dream can't help himself from speaking up. "I love the ocean too."

George doesn't seem to mind that Dream has interrupted his rant. In fact, he seems a little thankful as he looks over and smiles at the ghost. "Yeah? Is that what inspired you?"

Dream figures George is referring to his artwork. "It is. I only visited once in my lifetime, though. During Elizabeth and I's honeymoon."

He seems content to stop the story there, but George doesn't let him. With an imitation of Dream's gesture of continuation from George, the ghost chuckles and complies.

"We were free from the shackles of our families there, and we explored as much as we humanely could. One day, we came across this beautiful town - a fishing town, as it happens. Right by the sea. They were all so kind and lively and bright. I can't remember how many times I told Elizabeth that I wanted to live there forever. The townsfolk brought me down to the waters, and it was a mesmerizing change of scenery. Positively radiant."

He throws his hand out, demonstrating a scene that only he can see.

"A blanket of stunning blue waters, ahead of me, beyond the horizon and stretching farther than the eye-can-see. Clear crystal skies of sapphire, with beauty unmatched by anything I had ever seen before."

(George thinks the way Dream's eyes crinkle at the corners when he grins is quite like that unmatched beauty itself.)

"Sailboats drifted along the calm sea, and I waved at the people aboard them from the shore - so frantically, might I add, that poor Florence had to hold me by the waist to stop me from falling off the docks!"

A reminiscent sigh escapes Dream's lips, and his cheeks start to ache from smiling.

"It was so serene, and tranquil, and... I felt like I'd finally found peace. When I got home, I took out my supplies and painted all of my emotions onto the canvas. Holed myself up in my quarters for days on end, I was told. Apparently I had been so immersed that I'd forgotten the basic essentials of human life - but such is art!"

He only notices he's gone on a rant when he hears the soft laughter of George cutting him off from speaking more.

"Sorry," the ghost mumbles sheepishly.

"No, no! You did nothing wrong, trust me," George reassures. "I was just thinking about how cute it was that you got so passionate."

They both try not to linger too long on the comment.

"So, this painting means a lot to you, huh?" George asks, putting his work to rest to spin his chair around and face Dream.

The ghost nods. "Very much. It..." He hesitates, trying to find the right words - rolling his tongue along his teeth in some effort to dig them up. "It... reminds me of a time I fell in love with something I was allowed to fall in love with."

George simply smiles at him with twinkling eyes. "All the more reason for me to work my magic on it, huh?"

Dream considers this for a moment, before lowering himself to be eye-level with his conservator. "I hope you know how thankful I am."

"I do know," he says. "And I hope you know that I'm doing this of my own volition. Not because I'm being paid for it, and not because it's my job. I want to do this, Dream. I really do."

If they ignored the transparency of Dream's form, it could look like Dream were there in reality, sitting on a seat across from George, watching his companion work.

Dream imagines what that would be like. Being with George as he worked, available for talks and jokes and maybe even hugs, if he felt like them.

He imagines what it would be like, to reach over and run his fingers across George’s knuckles with a touch so gentle it would make the man shiver.

What it would be like, to spend all hours of the day, or night, or both, staring into George’s eyes and losing himself in those hypnotic pools of natural resin - reminiscent of paintbrushes and sunflowers and sunlight streaming through a studio window in the summertime centuries past.

Dream imagines what it would be like to paint those eyes - to showcase them in hues rivalling the radiance of the sun.

What it would be like to caress the cheeks beneath them.

What it would be like to kiss those cheeks.

What it would be like to kiss the man who owns them.

Minutes of silence (in which George has taken it upon himself to count just how many freckles are scattered across Dream's face) have passed before Dream finally - finally - lets himself indulge.

He finally lets himself pass that line.

He lifts up that foot of his and drags it across that goddamned line and stomps it down with the might of a thousand angered ancestors.

He gives himself the chance to try.

He lets himself explore.

Chaos on the streets be damned.

"I love you," he says to George. "You know that?"

George, the absolute devil of a man that he is, reaches over and mimes holding Dream's hand. The euphoria that floods Dream's cognitive walls is enough to kill him a second time.

George smiles. (God, that smile. The work of a mad man, Dream thinks. Absolutely ridiculous.) And then he says: "I love you too, Dream. Clay. Fourth son of the Astutia household," he giggles. Those blessed eyes of his puff up with a larger smile. "I love you too."

And.

Well.

They said it wasn't possible.

By all laws of humanity and earth and everything surrounding, it shouldn't have been possible.

But it happens.

Dream dies a second time.

(Well, at least... he feels as though he does.)

A blanket of comfortable silence befalls them, prompted by a flabbergasted Dream and a confidently flustered George.

At his personal revival, Dream wills up all his courage to turn over his hand. It's soft - it's barely there - but he succeeds in becoming physical, if only for a short moment.

For just a moment, Dream can feel George's calloused hand in his.

For just a moment, George can feel the soft, warm, practised hands of Clay Astutia holding his own.

For just one, tiny, infinitesimal moment, Dream is alive again.

It's over before George and Dream can even think about going further, with George's hand immediately falling through and obeying the stupid laws of gravity.

The lack of contact is devastating. But just this one time...

They're too damn happy to dwell.

Chapter Text

He is a quarter-way through removing excess fill-in when he hears Dream speak. “What your friend said the other day,” Dream, ever the enigma, starts, "about... uh…”

George, ever the soft-hearted, halts his work in lieu of paying attention to Dream again. "About what?"

Dream chokes on seemingly nothing but air, covering his mouth in either politeness or embarrassment. Perhaps both. "About your- your, um." He blinks once or twice, dragging his gaze from the floor, to the ceiling, to the walls - to anything but George.

George finds it rather amusing, but regretfully chooses not to tease.

"About..." Dream shakes his head, building up confidence for what George assumes is a question that will be better left unvoiced. “Do you have any?”

“Any what?” George asks - curious, yet also a tad concerned.

George watches in careful consideration as Dream's ghostly body seems to ripple in the air with a shaky sigh. “Sexual frustrations."

The question nearly makes George fall off his damned chair. “I- What did- I don't-" George sputters, coherency taking a swan-dive out of the window.

Slowly floating above and beyond, Dream covers his face in an attempt to hide. (Surprisingly, the fact that he is translucent doesn't seem to help the situation.) Sometimes he wished his brain came with an option to stop talking.

Just before the ghost floats up and into the ceiling, George manages to compose himself and answer the question in honourable stability. "No, Dream. I don't."

The answer is enough to make Dream pause in his floating-away-from-the-problem. He slowly lowers his hands from his face, though they still remain closed over his mouth. He mumbles something, and George curses the Lord for not giving him better hearing.

He lifts up his arms and gestures for Dream to come down. The ghost huffs - that much George can see - and takes his designated seat at the working bench, across from George. "You don't?" he asks on the way down.

George shakes his head. "I don't."

"But that's..." Dream tilts his head. "Haven't you been alone for a while?"

Way to rub salt in the wound, George thinks, feeling his lungs deflate just a little bit. "I have," he agrees, bittersweetly, "but that doesn't mean I'm sexually frustrated."

Dream processes the answer for a bit, shuffling in the seat that George still isn't sure he can physically feel or not. "I thought sexual needs were a major part of the human psyche," Dream wonders aloud. "Perhaps that was just theoretical."

George, simply because he can't help himself from doing so, takes the chance to poke fun at his dear painter. "You speak like the only romantic knowledge you have comes out of textbooks."

He half-expects Dream to laugh - maybe even wheeze a little, like he usually does - but instead, the ghost looks away. Blood rushes up to his cheeks and ears, and the old and rusty cogs of George's brain start to turn.

"Wait. Wait, Dream, how old are you?" Dream mumbles, "I died at 25."

"You never-" George's eyes widen by a fraction of an amount. "Oh." Those cogs of his become useful, for once, and Dream's words reverberate in George's mind.

I never gave myself the chance to try.

"Sorry," George chokes out. "Sorry. I didn't- I'm-"

"That's quite enough about me," Dream cuts in, still not allowing himself to look George in the eye. "What I did and didn't do are beyond my mending. You, however. You're still alive. You're... young," he furrows a brow. "I think."

"I'm 28, Dream, not prehistoric."

Dream ignores the comment. "Surely, there's... Do you not have some sort of urge to participate in those sorts of activities?"

The conservator contemplates his answer. He really contemplates it. Dream is sincere about this, although George isn't quite sure why, and it calls for an answer that is filled with nothing but honesty. "No," he finally answers. "Not for me, at least. I've tried it before - didn't really do anything for me."

Dream raises a brow, his gaze finally meeting George's. "Didn't do anything for you?" he quotes. "What do you mean by that?"

George hesitates with his elaboration, unsure of the right way to phrase it. "It was... I don't know, it was just a thing that... happened." Dream seems unsatisfied by the answer. "I went with the flow," George tries. "It was consensual and stuff, but..." He shrugs. "I wasn't really interested in doing it. I just did because they wanted to, and I was okay with making them happy."

The ghost taps his chin. "I know that there are... um." He clears his throat. "Other ways of satisfying yourself. Is that what you do instead?"

Dream's curiosity into his sex life makes George question what kind of insanity initiated it. Surely it wasn't just Sapnap's comment about getting laid. "Nope," he replies. "I also tried that. Everyone was doing it in school, so I wanted to see what all the rave was about. Overall, zero out of ten. It just felt... weird. Haven't tried it since, and I don't really want to."

"Weird?"

"Weird."

He doesn’t want to leave it there; he doesn’t want the conversation to end on his statements about how he failed at masturbation when he was a pubescent boy. But it does. Dream goes quiet, staring at nothing, and fiddles with his fingers.

George desperately wants to leave the conversation on a better note, but is somehow comfortable enough to let his words linger.

↽◈⇀

The excess fill-in material on the canvas is one scrape away from all-gone when the conversation finally reaches its long-awaited conclusion.

Dream, not having moved from his spot since the conversation's peak, curls into himself and rests his chin on his knees. "Georgie," he mumbles.

At the melodic voice, George stops his work yet again. "Yes, Dream?"

Dream's question is soft, and unfiltered, and raw; It is quiet - it is careful. It is coated in vulnerability. He happily offers it to George. “That means you’re okay with me, right?”

The cogs grind against each other as they make another turn. George's brows furrow when he finally understands. He nearly stutters in his rush to reassure his ghost. "Of course I'm okay with you. God, I'm better than okay, Dream."

He sets down his scalpel and rushes to the other side of the bench, kneeling down before Dream. He hovers his hand above Dream's, in his lap, in an attempt to comfort the both of them. "I know this isn't the most ideal situation for a relationship," he says, and Dream chuckles, "but I wouldn't trade it for anything else."

Their hands aren't touching, a sour inevitability, but Dream's follows George's when the conservator lifts them to his lips. Dream's eyes follow George's lips as they lay a soft kiss on the back of Dream's hand. George begs the higher powers to let Dream feel at least some part of it.

He gets down to the nitty-gritty: "I don't need you to have sex with me, or anything like that." He stares up at Dream, whose soft eyes have widened in an emotion not even Dream himself can name. "I can love you as you are, Dream. And I do. I choose to love you, knowing the cards we have been dealt. I choose it because you are not lacking in anything in my regard, Dream."

"Except feet," Dream rebukes.

The statement makes George do a double-take.

But before he knows it, he's snorting and laughing and wiping tears out of his eyes. The ghost giggles into his free hand, covering half of his face but failing to keep his huge grin hidden as he laughs right along with his Georgie. He is filled with overwhelming joy as he stared down at the man in front of him.

Astoundingly, Dream finds himself thankful that he died all those years ago.

↽◈⇀

“What day is it, Georgie?”

George is cautiously hammering upholstery tacks into linen when Dream’s cheerful voice asks yet another question. George risks a glance up from where the painting stands upright in front of his seat, and sees the ghost laid across the workbench like he’s posing for his own personal boudoir photoshoot.

He’s unbuttoned his waistcoat – an action George never thought would be possible for a ghost to do – and lays sideways, exposing the thick waistband hugging his body with a fabric George can only assume is silk.

George tries hard not to think about cupping his hand against that waist.

“I’m not sure,” he admits.

“I figured as much,” Dream says with a lilted laugh. He waits for George to finish driving in tacks on one side of his painting before he continues. “Should you check, perhaps?”

“Checking what day it is? My, how scandalous, Sir Dream!” George feigns shock, but puts down his tools anyway. Shooing Dream off of the table so he can lay the painting down, George laughs at the sour face Dream pulls. “What?”

“I don’t speak like that.”

“I never said you did,” George teases, before walking away to find his phone.

When he does, he makes sure to swipe away all of the notifications on his lockscreen (he’ll deal with The News later) before checking the date.

“Tuesday the 30th,” he says, his voice slowly trailing off when his mind process the date. He repeats to himself, softly, "Tuesday the 30th?"

Dream seems to notice the emotion in George’s voice, but can’t place a finger on what the emotion’s name is. “What’s wrong?” He’s by George’s side, hovering his hand on George’s back in an attempt of comfort, in an instant.

“It-it’s just, it..." George shakes his head, watching with blurry vision as his phone screen turns black. "It's... been a week already. I-" He spins back around, looking at Dream's painting, lying on his work bench. "I only have two days left," he whispers, almost inaudible. "I only have two days left."

He turns his phone on again, and checks the time.

11:32PM.

A moment of silence lingers before his voice finds its way out of his throat. “One. One day." He feels his lip quiver, and bites down on it. "One day?"

The implication reaches Dream without the need to elaborate on it. The ghost’s face falls.

“I… suppose that means we only have a day left together. Before my painting is returned." Despite himself, Dream lifts his hands and stares down at them. He stares, as they pulse in and out of focus. He stares, as they ripple in the air. He stares, and stares, and stares - until eventually, the only thing he sees before him is a marble floor. "Doesn’t it?”

George doesn’t want to admit it – not to himself, nor to Dream. But he rips the Band-Aid off anyway. “Yeah.” He doesn’t do anything to stop the crack in his voice. “Yeah, it does.”

There is no noise that accompanies Dream as he moves to hug his conservator – George only knows by the soft warmth that starts to envelop his waist and back. Dream’s touch is never solid; it is always more like a gentle yet evident sliver of sun washing upon parts of George’s body. It is the feeling of coming home; the feeling of sitting by those docks and staring out into the ocean and sky, into the horizon. (The horizon. The illusion of the sky and sea meeting. How dauntingly beautiful that illusion is.) George thinks that Dream’s touch is better than any human’s could ever be.

He relishes in the touch, leaning into it. If he closes his eyes and concentrates his arousal to his sense of touch, he can feel silky hair brushing against his ear; he can feel Dream’s forehead leaning on his shoulder; he can feel a chest on his back; he can feel tense forearms on his waist. If he concentrates – if he focuses every fibre of his being, every rusty cog in his mind, every atom in his body – he can start to feel a heartbeat against his back.

And although George wants to spend this time joyful and happy and melting in the embrace of his dear Dream, he instead finds himself fighting tears.

A broken sob threatens to break free of his throat. Because he knows that heartbeat isn't real.

Chapter Text

It is 5 o’clock in London, and the sun has started to set. They have spent the day without letting go.

If not for his entire body engulfing the other’s, Dream always had a hand on George’s shoulder; his back; his leg; his arm; his face. Sometimes, the wall between them would break, and they could feel each other’s warmth. Sometimes, they could feel each other’s skin, and the world would stop just long enough for them to savor the feeling of being on the same plane of existence.

George had painted. From where he sat beneath the conservator in an effort to have him in his lap, Dream had instructed.

A dab of green here. A stroke of blue there. A touch of pink over here. A scattering of yellow across there. George let his hand be guided by Dream’s commands, and felt the fatigue in his overworked body disappear as he listened to Dream’s voice like a lullaby he’d never tire of.

As night begins to fall, and after a long day of speaking – of talking about everything under the sky and further – the ghost and his conservator embrace each other in silence, watching the sun dip below the horizon through the windowpane of the studio. George’s retouching paint slowly but surely dries on Dream’s canvas, sitting on an easel behind them.

Through the windows that Dream has come to love so dearly, he watches as tendrils of orange and red work their way into the blue sky. He watches in melancholic quiet as the clouds shift from white to purple to blue. In the forefront of his mind, he is compelled with the urge to paint it. To take a paintbrush in his hand, stare upon that white canvas, and lose himself in the euphoria of artistry.

He is reminded of his conservator - of George, the man he has learnt to love - and the urge changes from that of painting to instead, watching George paint. He had done so already. He had watched. He had stared. And he would give his entire eternal life to do it once again.

George sits cross-legged on the floor, waiting for that brief moment to swoop by again and let him feel Dream’s hair against his neck.

When it does, it is exhilarating.

He feels that warmth. the nostalgia of an embrace, and relishes in the bittersweet pleasure. He takes advantage of the moment, knowing it won’t linger for long.

Lifting his hand, George softly caresses Dream’s soft cheek, pulling the ghost in closer. He lays his head on Dream’s, and thinks about another reality – one where they do this, and the feeling would stay. One where he could reach over, take Dream's hand, wind his fingers with his, and be filled with the reassurance that their hands would stay connected.

His head falls, and connects with his hand.

He's never hated the feeling of his own skin this much before.

Dream looks up, and gives him that familiar smile - the smile that promises things he shouldn't be promising - before miming a kiss on George’s neck.

For a fleeting half of a second, George could swear he felt Dream’s lips against his skin. Not just warmth. Not just emotion. But lips.

A tremor runs down George's spine.

↽◈⇀

George’s fingers are gentle when they run over the painting’s surface. Over delicate strokes of paint - old and new. A mural of them both. The mark of their time together. Dream's translucent hand joins him, hovering over solid fingers. His hands are bigger than mine, George notices. They were bigger, and blockier, and his fingers were covered in scratches and callouses from his life. They were beautiful. George thought those hands deserved an entire painting of their own.

His gaze follows those hands down to the corner of the painting. The corner George had spent an hour alone restoring. On it, written in endearingly messy script and black ink, sits:

Dream

From just behind George, the ghost laughs. George turns, looking up at that grin. "If I had known my signature would last two centuries, I would have made it prettier," Dream jests. "Any chance you could paint over that?"

George peers into those green eyes; scans them. Beneath the fondness, George spots sorrow - its origin unknown. A soft smile spreads his cheeks. "I'm afraid I'll have to decline," he says.

Dream's nose scrunches as he laughs. "Why not? I'll pay with a kiss," he offers.

With a hum and the quirk of his brow, George tilts his head up and lays a kiss on Dream's jaw. There is no feeling of skin against his lips; but he smiles nonetheless. "Tempting, but still no."

"Why not?" Dream asks again.

George's eyes travel down, to Dream's chest - to where he had sworn he had felt a heartbeat from, and almost cried when reality hit. He smiles. "Because it's evidence."

"Evidence?"

"That you existed." He looks up again, to meet Dream's gentle green eyes. "That you were alive, once. It serves as evidence for others. Reassurance for me."

Dream hums, tilting his head.

"Plus, if I removed a signature, I'd be out of a job."

↽◈⇀

The sun is gone, and the moon has taken its place.

Dream’s painting is dry, and George stares down at it, now lying on the bench. “I have to varnish it,” he says.

Dream, sitting at his place across from George, raises a brow. “Why aren’t you?”

Hesitation settles in George’s throat. He fights past the lump and chokes out, “That’s the last step.”

Dream tilts his head. “Is that a bad thing?”

George doesn’t answer.

As he watches George's jaw clench and fingers curl in, Dream starts to understand why. “I’m not going to disappear because my painting is restored, Georgie.”

George bites his lip, anxiety getting the better of him. “You might," he mumbles.

With a voice softer than his touch, Dream asks, “Why do you expect me to?”

“I mean…” George sighs, looking up at his Dream. “Isn’t that why ghosts linger? Because they wish for something, or still long for something? I don't know ghosts logistics, but like- It... Your wish was to get your painting back to what it was, right?”

“It was.”

“So… you’ve got no reason to stay.” George curses himself for letting his voice waver.

Dream glances over, and George swears he can see tears glistening those gentle eyes of his. Dream’s throat bobs. “I suppose I don’t,” he admits. He won’t lie to George. “But, well. It’s a painting. Who knows when it will be destroyed next? Perhaps a cat will come and shred it to pieces and it will need to be fixed again. I definitely wouldn't leave then; I'd be too busy yelling at the cat."

Despite his sweaty hands and aching heart, George laughs. “That’d be a tragedy.”

“Quite,” Dream smiles. “And it's motivation enough for me to stay.”

Quiet falls over them, but they don’t necessarily mind it. It’s a nice quiet. A comfortable, domestic quiet that makes George think about living in a cottage with Dream on the outskirts of a forest, just the two of them, without a care in the world.

George revels in this quiet.

He wishes it would last forever.

“I’ll stay with it, I suppose," Dream says, breaking the silence. George isn't angry that he does.

"That’s just what I am. As long as my paint remains on that canvas, I’ll be here.”

George takes a deep breath. “Paintings live very long lives, you know. Your painting will probably outlive me.” The statement leaves a sour taste on his mouth, but George knows he has to admit it. He rests his head in his hands, staring across the bench at Dream. “Try not to harass your next conservator, okay?”

“You know I can't promise that, Georgie,” Dream teases. “I already know what will happen. My painting will be brought to someone new, and I won’t like that new person, and I’ll haunt them for a bit, and then I’ll talk their ears off about how great you were, and how much I miss you, and they’ll wish they never took the job.”

George can’t help but laugh. “That’s a good tactic to drive everyone away.”

“Anyone who can’t handle me won’t be able to handle my art," Dream shrugs. "You've set the bar too high, Georgie."

↽◈⇀

A boop on the nose is what interrupts George before he begins varnishing.

There’s no physical component of it, but the action still makes George blush. He stares up, eyes just past the rim of his glasses, and is met with the tooth-achingly-sweet smile of none other than Dream. “Hello, Georgie," he croons.

“Hi, Dream.” George sets his tools down and gives Dream his utmost attention. (He deserves nothing less.) “What do you need?”

The ghost considers this for a moment; he takes the time to scrunch his nose in thought and play with an idle strand of hair. At last, with an answer in his mind, he lowers himself parallel to George, and lays an airy kiss on the conservator's forehead. “To embrace you again."

George has to avert his eyes and force himself not to scream. He clears his throat, choosing very wisely to ignore the smirk of the man before him. “I’m sure it’ll happen again at some point," he wagers. "We'll wait for it to come." He's not sure if the reassurance is for Dream... or himself.

In some form of a miracle, George's answer leaves Dream in a quiet sense of thoughtfulness. He is quiet enough - both in volume and in duration - to let George make some progress on his work.

↽◈⇀

Dream is crying.

It is approaching midnight on their final day together, and Dream is crying.

“It’s back,” he whispers. He is staring at his painting, hanging in front of him on against a white wall, and is crying. “It’s… It’s-“

“It’s beautiful, Dream,” George says. “I promised you I’d bring it back, didn’t I? I’m a man of my word.”

Dream lets a huff of laughter fall out of him. George watches in endearment as the ghost steps forward, running his translucent fingers across the canvas. He stares at his painting, and his feet can feel sand. He is taken back to those years prior.

Laughter shared with Elizabeth. Banter shared with townsfolk. Ecstasy shared with the sky. Fishing docks, bustling with amiability and joy.

His painting had been abandoned in Dubois’ possession; it had been treated with neglect and had turned into a collection of dust and dirt as a result.

Here, surrounded by happiness and freedom, he turns.

But now, his painting looked the same as the day he painted it. Vibrant blue waters, clean white sailboats along calm waves, blue skies turning into a mural of pinks and greens and yellows and more.

Wind rustling dark brown strands of hair. A bright grin, crinkling eyes at the corners. Bright blue skies and pearly white sailboats, framing his lovely George.

Now, it looked exactly as he envisioned it to be when he visited that shore.

A honeymoon, perhaps. One where Dream would thrive.

He lets his tears fall freely. “Thank you, Georgie. Thank you.” Dream feels his tears well up again, his tear ducts working at a thousand miles per hour. "Thank you."

He wishes he could do more for George than just simple words.

He wishes he could take George by the hand and lead him through the universe and all of its wonders. He wishes he could bring George to that shore, to wave at those sailboats and stare at the beautiful blue sky. He wishes he could let George bring him to those docks of his, by his home in Brighton. Wishes he could run around in the sand, and splash water onto George, and watch in tenderness as George smiles back at him. Wishes he could let everything go and take George into his arms. Wishes he could live alongside George in a mundane life filled with washing dishes and doing laundry.

He wishes he and George could grow old together. God, what he wouldn't give to just live a life with George. To have the chance to hold his hand; tuck him into bed; kiss his forehead without the disappointment.

He'd already lost his life; hadn't that been enough?

"Thank you."

The conservator approaches Dream from behind, and gingerly wraps his arms around his waist. When his arms make contact, and the touch becomes physical, George wastes no time in taking advantage of it. He leans his head against Dream's back, tears threatening to fall down his cheeks at the feeling of a solid back against his chest. “You’re very welcome, Dream.” He takes the chance to go up on his tiptoes, and plants a kiss against the nape of Dream’s neck. “I love you.”

George can feel Dream move as the ghost nods. It is shortly followed by a sniffle. “And I love you.” He pivots around and holds George close to him, leaning into the shorter man’s tight embrace. George's knees damn nearly buckle at the bliss of being treasured in Dream's arms. “Christ, what did I do to deserve you?”

“Died,” George responds with a lighthearted giggle.

Dream laughs before pulling back an infinitesimal amount and, bodies still pressed together, holding George’s face in his hands. It is warm, and steadily turning pink, and his cheeks puff up from the compression of Dream's hands. It's probably the cutest thing Dream has seen in his entire afterlife. “It was worth it, I reckon.” He presses a soft kiss to his conservator’s nose. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

He watches with fondness flooding his heart as George's eyes travel between his own pair. He watches as those mesmerising sunflower centres shift into a wider stance, and Dream desperately wants to lean down and kiss George's nose again. There's nothing stopping him - so he does.

In response, George whispers out a soft - almost inaudible - “Dream…”

His voice nearly sends Dream over the line of non-existence. With a tremor in his voice, Dream hums. "Yes, Georgie?"

“Dream," George says - and Dream pauses at the feeling of a pulse quickening through the cheeks held in his hands. "Dream. Dream."

"George," Dream responds. "George, George, George." A stuttering laugh falls out of him.

The conservator doesn't seem to be in the mood for teasing. Instead, he's hurried and rushed. His paint-covered hands fly up to his own cheeks - but they never make contact. They are stopped... by Dream's hands. "Clay," he breathes out. Dream blinks. "We’re… we’re touching. ”

The ghost cocks his head and raises a brow, trying not to audibly fawn over how cute George looks in his hands. “Yes, I suppose we are. We have been for..." The realization settles. "A while..."

"We have been for a while, ” George repeats, eyes wide and twinkling with amazement. The conservator shoves his face into Dream's chest, tears threatening to escape his eyes as his skin connects with warm fabric. "Dream."

With hesitation in the call of it all being too good to be true, Dream engulfs George's smaller body with his limbs, and rests his chin on George's head. He thinks back to when George told him ghosts existed because of wishes and longing. He thinks back to his own wishes – those of living and growing old with George.

And though he knows that wish of his could never come true, he hopes, he prays, he desperately clutches onto the thin strands of possibility - for his connection to the world to have changed from his canvas…

To George.

Chapter Text

“Wow. You actually did it.”

At five in the morning, Sapnap is shaking his head in disbelief of his friend’s achievement. “I can’t believe you actually did it.”

George is sitting in his swivel chair, melting into the soft fabric, and is taking slow sips of his Twinings Earl Grey tea. “A great feat,” he mumbles tiredly, “but alas, ‘twas nothing to a dedicated artisan like myself.”

Sapnap makes a face at George’s antics, but doesn’t comment on them. Dream does, in his stead: “Was that an imitation of me?” he asks, floating beside George's seat. George shakes his head, but the grin on his face tells Dream otherwise. "It was a poor one," the ghost remarks.

Sapnap stares at Dream’s painting hanging on the wall, and scrutinizes every aspect of it. To him, it looks like a completely different painting than the one that came in. George could have painted a whole new artwork, and Sapnap wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. It impresses him to no end.

Hesitantly, George feeds his own curiosity. “When is Dubois picking it up, again?”

“In an hour or so, I think,” Sapnap answers, eyes preoccupied with analyzing Dream's artwork like a connoisseur looking to buy.

George hums against his ceramic mug.

An hour left with Dream.

As if on telepathic cue, Sapnap’s radio goes off, and a conversation between staff follows. George sneakily reaches out and plays with the hair on Dream’s head – the hair that he can freely touch and feel and run his fingers through whenever he wants to. It's as soft as he assumed it would be. Dream leans into the touch, eyes fluttering shut and cheeks being spread with a grin.

George thinks it’s a little bittersweet. After days spent with Dream, desperately hoping for physical contact, the only time he is granted touch is right before Dream’s departure. It’s a stupid game of punishment, George reckons. Life's sadistic way of having fun.

Sapnap finishes off his conversation with a beep from his radio, and makes his way over to the recreational bench George is sitting by. George lets his hand go slack against his seat's armrest, and Dream busies himself with winding their fingers together. Sapnap, clearly, doesn't take notice.

"Congrats," he says. "You've done a really good job with this painting - and on such short notice, too."

George shrugs. "Not like I had anything better to do."

"Didn't think your ideal way of spending the last moments of the year was working," Sapnap snorts. "Are you sure you're not a masochist? A workaholic, maybe?"

"I'm sure."

With a teasing hum that George can't be bothered to get angry at, Sapnap crosses his arms over his chest and sighs. "Go home," he says. It's fond. It's concerned. It's a friend trying to help another. (George appreciates it, but won't give the universe the satisfaction of him listening to Sapnap.) "Rest. You've worked yourself to the bone; you deserve a night in your own bed."

George rolls his eyes. "I'm not that tired, Sap."

"You look like a Tim Burton character, George. And not in the hot, attractive, ooh-I'm-kinda-into- dead-people way."

He stares up at Sapnap with as much incredulity as he can muster, before his attention is dragged to the hand of his not currently holding tea. Instead, holding Dream's hand. Dream, floating beside his George, gives a melancholic smile.

"I'll stay," George mumbles, reluctantly pulling his gaze back to Sapnap's concerned one. "Just... for the hand-off. I'll stay for that."

Sapnap sighs again, furrowing his brows. "Dubois' gonna have a fit if you show up looking like you spent the night in his gardens." (George wonders if he really looks that shitty. Maybe he should've brought a comb or something from home. Concealer, maybe. If he had some.) "Jennings'll take care of the hand-off, alright? No arguments."

George almost opens his mouth to indeed argue, but finds his attention being drawn back to Dream, who is nuzzling his cheek against George's hand like a child who has just come home from a day of longing. He thinks about the inevitable - Dream leaving. He imagines having to stand still and watch as Dubois walks away, painting in-hand. Having to watch, and stay, as Dream turns his back and walks away from him.

He curls his fingers against Dream's jaw, lip quivering at the softness of Dream's skin. "Okay," he says. He's been through enough, he supposes. He's already teetering on the edge. Putting himself in the situation of watching Dream leave would be the final step into oblivion. "But... just for the hour, I... I want to stay."

"Fine," Sapnap answers. "That's fine. But do yourself a favour and hang out in the rec room, okay? Maybe even take a nap on the couch in there. You really fuckin' need it."

George nods.

A moment’s silence, and Dream is speaking - more to himself than George. “An hour," he mumbles.

“An hour,” George repeats.

One hour.

↽◈⇀

Comforting sheets and relaxed spines. Sunshine through windows and a blanket of welcome silence.

George lays on the recreational couch, letting exhaustion settle in.

Dream lays next to him, intertwining their fingers in a slow dance of joints and knuckles.

He plays with George’s thin fingers – the residue of paint; the practiced nails; the hardworking callouses.

George is blissful in the warm feeling of Dream’s hand in his – of Dream’s slightly rough skin brushing against his own.

He has longed for this type of tranquillity for God knows how long. Spending it with Dream is better than anything he ever could have imagined.

↽◈⇀

“Would you wait for me? For my time to end?”

“Of course I will.”

“Won't you regret it?”

“I would never.”

“Are you sure?”

“I will wait for you for the remainder of your lifetime. I will. I swear it.”

“...You’re making death seem awfully tempting.”

↽◈⇀

A hand caresses a cheek, holding it dear and holding it soft.

The conservator leans his head into the touch.

He kisses the ghost’s palm.

He lets his lips linger.

↽◈⇀

"Can you promise me something?"

"Anything for you."

"Don't... Don't let me watch you leave."

A pause.

"Please."

"Okay."

A warm kiss on a forehead.

"I promise."

↽◈⇀

The way in which Dream holds him isn't nearly enough, he thinks.

Embracing him; covering George's limbs with his own.

It is merely a cheap imitation of the domestic life Dream yearns for.

But... it is enough.

The warmth; the comfort; the small rise and fall of George's chest against his own.

It is enough.

For now.

↽◈⇀

"Georgie."

The conservator stirs, forcing his eyes to refocus. "Hm?"

"Go to sleep, Georgie."

They are aware of the dwindling minutes. "Dream..."

"It'll be alright," Dream whispers. "We'll be alright."

Painfully aware.

"Sleep."

George obeys.

↽◈⇀

“Tell me you love me, George.”

“I love you, Clay.”

“I love you too, George.”

I know, Clay.

↽◈⇀

Silence.

Solace.

Peace.

It is here that George drifts. It is here that George dreams.

He dreams of two pairs of legs, running along wooden planks; of wet sand between his toes and water splashing against his legs. He dreams of sparkling blue waters and stunning blue skies; of pristine white sailboats and bright clouds.

He dreams of being held by strong arms; of limbs entangling with each other in perfect harmony. He dreams of constellations of freckles scattered amongst a face and mesmerising green eyes - shimmering with love and devotion and mischief.

He dreams of a touch.

He dreams of a kiss.

He dreams of a smile.

And when he wakes up;

He is alone.

↽◈⇀

Oscar Wilde to Alfred Douglas. 1895.

"My dearest boy,

This is to assure you of my immortal, my eternal love for you. Tomorrow all will be over. If prison and dishonour be my destiny, think that my love for you and this idea, this still more divine belief, that you love me in return will sustain me in my unhappiness and will make me capable, I hope, of bearing my grief most patiently. Since the hope, nay rather the certainty, of meeting you again in some world is the goal and the encouragement of my present life, ah! I must continue to live in this world because of that."

↽◈⇀

He really does look like shit.

George is in his apartment bathroom, staring at his own reflection. Staring at his own eyes.

These were the eyes that adored that canvas? These were the eyes that spent hours on end staring at a man by a windowpane? These eyes?

They were... They were ugly. Ugly and blank and insincere and... empty. How could he have let himself look at radiance with such eyes?

Realistically, he should be feeling something. He should be disgusted by his appearance.

He should be concerned by the purple eye bags.

He should be furrowing his brow and curling his lip up in a sneer and clenching his fists. But instead, he simply stares.

It is not out of numbness; in fact, the pure weight of the situation almost makes him collapse right onto his tiles.

He had prepared for this.

He had braced himself.

But the pain still lingers.

Why?

Why does it still linger?

How long is he supposed to hurt for?

How long does life think that thread of his will last?

He had returned home.

After months holed up in that studio of his, under harsh industrial lights and sleepless nights, he had finally returned home.

But it was not the welcome he thought he would be having; it is not jumping for joy and running to a warm bed.

Instead, it is an emptiness he never thought he would feel.

Not even his breakup had left him this broken.

But Dream – his ghost, his painter, his lover Dream – has.

He doesn’t hate how Dream has affected him.

But, fuck, does it hurt.

It hurts so much.

He thought he was ready.

He thought he had prepared.

He thought he had braced himself.

But, in the end,

the pain won.

He wants the emptiness of his eyes to flood into his veins.

He wants to cut that thread.

At the cost of that,

would he finally stop hurting?

Was Dream hurt like this?

Was his death this painful?

Was it better than this?

I hope it was better than this.

By some form of a miracle, his feet manage to drag him out of the bathroom and into the hallway.

They stop at the threshold, and those empty eyes blink at the bedroom door in front of them.

He doesn't want this.

He doesn't want to enter his bedroom.

He doesn't want to get into his bed.

He doesn't want to fall asleep and grant his mind the power to dream.

He doesn't want to.

Because he knows that instead of darkness; instead of a void; instead of the usual blanket of nothingness;

his head will consist of Dream.

He knows that when he wakes up, he will only be met with life's punishment of reality.

He will be met with the crushing force of a missing piece of his soul.

He doesn't want to give life that power.

But it calls to him.

There is a pull - an unspeakably strong urge to open that door.

George gives in.

Dream has already left him, after all.

How could life hurt him any more than that?

A sad illusion, truly;

The horizon.

With a heavy hand and an even heavier heart, George opens his bedroom door.

A torturous desire, truly;

The horizon.

And there, framed by his bedroom window, is a man.

Life's little game;

The horizon.

Dressed in a bowtie, a waistcoat, and a cozy-looking frock coat.

And a game it shall stay.

Tall.

For should the sky and sea meet,

Handsome.

Why,

Built in all the right ways.

The world would stop to watch.

Messy light-brown hair.

In awe,

A scattering of freckles.

In tears,

Glimmering green eyes.

In bliss.

The man opens his arms in reception.

For they have beaten life,

He blesses the room with his radiance.

the sky and sea.

“Welcome home, Georgie.”

They have beaten life.

[the end.]