ORPHANED

:: seven ::

the days passed faster than dream could keep track of. before he knew it, the day of the party had arrived. currently he was standing infront of The Grind, waiting to meet up with george. for some reason the thought of meeting george outside of work brought a heat to his cheeks, in contrast with the freezing temperatures of the outside. he took in a breath letting the cold air chill his lungs.

when he heard soft footsteps from behind him he turned to face the shorter man who smiled from a few feet away. he smiled and waited for george to walk closer.

"were you waiting long?"

dream shook his head and rested his hands in his sweatshirt pocket.

"i would've left earlier if i knew you were going to be waiting for me so long." he frowned as he spoke.

"george calm down, the cold is in no way something i can't handle. i'm fine. i promise."

george let out a heavy breath and looked up to inspect the younger's face. when their eyes linked longer than usual dream was the one to break the contact, looking away from the other's brown eyes. "what are you doing?"

george smiled and turned away from dream, "nothing."

dream rolled his eyes jokingly, "whatever."

together dream and george began walking their way to sapnap's house, both nervous about the new environment.

**

when dream knocked on the door, george standing on his left, he didn't expect anyone except sapnap to open the door. when the door opened to reveal a different man he turned to george, "uhh, is sapnap here?" standing in the doorway the man rose his eyebrows with remembrance. "sapnap the couple is here." he called behind himself, the phrase causing panic to rise in dream's nervous system.

sapnap poked his face from behind the door smiling and stood to greet the two. "my boys." he hugged george, then dream and allowed them into his house. as he closed the door behind them he introduced the two to the boys to the unfamiliar brunette who had opened the door.

"this is karl, karl this is dream and george." as the two turned to wave to their new friend dream couldn't help but take note of the giant grin that seemed to persist on karl's face. it seemed contagious. dream smiled back.

sapnap explained he invited them over early so they'd have time to spend together before heading out to the party. together the four boys sat around sapnap's kitchen.

karl sat on the counter next to the sink. "so dream, sapnap told me you skate, how long have you been skating for?"

dream smiled at the remembrance of his first time on a skateboard in freshman year. "i'd say about, 5 years now?" he spoke with uncertainty but he knew for a fact he'd been skating for a while. it was just surprising to hear it spoken in perspective. he smiled again, and the boys around had felt that same warmth and began smiling with him.

"you're capping, there's absolutely no way you've been skating longer than i've known sapnap." karl shook his head, "i've been skating pretty long, but not that long. that takes some serious dedication." the boys began laughing at karl's entertaining commentary.

"you must know some pretty gnarly tricks. we should skate some time." karl winked at dream joking obviously, but that didn't stop george from turning away. "yeah definitely, it would be nice to have a skate buddy. haven't done that in a while."

sapnap looked up from his phone and rolled his eyes, "karl just wants to skate with you so he can steal your tricks." karl laughed and dream smiled, he knew karl's happiness would be unfairly infectious. you can't just have a smile like that for no reason. dream turned to see if george had also been laughing, however when he turned towards the older, instead of laughing george was on his phone.

dream frowned, the fact that george wasn't focused on their conversation made him bitter. when karl and sapnap began arguing about something irrelevant, dream took the time to inspect george and see if he was alright. for some reason sitting and talking to george in sapnap's kitchen at this moment felt insanely harder than it had ever been in the coffee shop.

dream looked down towards his hand noticing he had picked up a plastic fork and had been subconsciously bending it out of shape. with the blunt end of the fork he poked george. at first george gave him no reaction, probably with the thought that dream would just give up. dream however would not settle. he flipped the fork and began poking george with the prongs of the fork. they never directly stabbed his arm, bending due to the previous folds in the plastic.

"stop poking me." george rolled his eyes.

"im not going to stop poking you until you give me attention." dream informed the annoyed boy who sat next to him. continuing to stab him as he had promised.

george turned to dream unamused and clicked off his phone, setting it face down on the kitchen counter. dream eyed the back of george's phone and his eyes flickered back to george.

"what do you want dream?"

dream held on to the thought but decided to move on. "i told you, i want attention."

"do you want me to feed you and take you on a walk aswell?"

"i mean, if you have time."

george tried, he tried so hard to stop the smile and the giggle that trailed dream's terrible joke. but he couldn't resist after he locked eyes with an overconfident dream.

"you smiled! i did it." dream punched his arms into the air.

"don't let it get to your head, it was a really, really, bad joke." george shook his head and picked up the deformed fork attempting to return it to it's original shape.

"i'll take it."

"you guys argue like a married couple, are you ready to go, the party starts in 5." both george and dream looked up to see sapnap smiling at them.