ORPHANED

:: forty-two ::

he focused on the pavement in front of himself as his legs pushed him in the direction of warm lights. when he looked up to see the glass doors of The Grind, he couldn't help the smile that bloomed across his face. he picked up the board stepping into what he expected to be another normal working day.

"there he is." sapnap smiled at the blonde as he walked through the doors.

dream rose his eyebrows at the gift bags on the counter. he squinted his eyes when he noticed karl, bad, and thomas in the shop at the same time. "is this some sick kind of 'you're fired' prank?"

"...it's your birthday?" george asked from his regular position at the bar stool.

dream glanced at him, the man was holding a card in his shaky hands.

"that makes sense." dream nodded, walking towards the counter. bad was first to bring him into a tight hug.

"i've got to go now, but sapnap promised me you'll be having a very fun birthday. i'm glad you decided to apply here, it was a hassle to control both sapnap and thomas alone."

"aw, bad." dream patted the older man's back.

"happy birthday dream." they pulled away from the hug, bad waved as he walked out of the doors.

"now that the authorities are gone...happy birthday dream." he felt sapnap clasped to his chest before he saw the boy move, instinctively he wrapped his arms around his friend. "big twenty you're almost as old as george now."

dream turned in time to see george roll his eyes.

"me next, me next."

dream giggled at karl's enthusiasm. he released sapnap, and held out his arms to welcome the man. "c'mon karl." the pink haired boy landed in the taller's arms much more gentle than sapnap had.

"happy birthday dream. i was scared sapnap was going to leave me to be friends with you, but now that we're friends he'll never be able to escape me."

dream pulled away to let out a laugh. karl returned to the gifts on the counter. thomas offered a strong handshake and a nod.

"it was nice working with someone other than bad and sapnap. happy birthday man."

dream smiled, thanking thomas before turning to george. george bit back his smile as he stood from the stool, wrapping his arms around dream. the two of them held each other longer than any of the others had. dream rested his face in george's neck.

"no fair, george gets special treatment." sapnap sounded to be rolling his eyes, dream giggled into the older's neck. george pulled away first.

"happy birthday dream." he stepped away to returned to his stool.

"what's this?" dream pointed to the bright bags, overflowing with tissue paper.

"gifts of course, the most important part about birthdays." karl tried to peek into the bags.

"right, my bad." he felt himself nod.

"we didn't really know what to get you, but george took over for most of it." sapnap pushed a smaller gift bag towards the blonde. "this is from just me and karl."

"i definitely contributed more than a dollar into that." karl nodded from beside sapnap. dream wasn't sure that claim was completely true.

"i picked it out, they just payed for it." george rolled his eyes, picking up the bag and handing it to the blonde.

"yeah, george picked which one we should get so if you don't like it, blame him."

dream smiled pulling out the yellow tissue paper, and set it onto the counter. he reached into the bag and pulled out a glass bottle.

"calvin klein cologne." sapnap smiled big.

dream inspected the bottle, it was the exact one he had put on this morning. he smiled at the idea that george remembered what he smelt like. "thanks, i was actually running out." he put the bottle back into the bag.

"we can't even take a little bit of credit for the rest of this. that's all george." karl ate a cupcake from beside sapnap.

george fidgeted with the card in his hands, so sapnap pushed the other bag towards the blonde.

dream smirked at the older, fondling the much larger gift bag. he removed the tissue paper and dug his hand into the bag, retrieving the fabric that sat on the inside. he stared at the sweatshirt in his hands. the very same sweatshirt he left with george a few days prior

"i washed it."

dream moved the sweatshirt from his eyes to smile at george. "thank you." he set the sweatshirt on the counter to return his hands inside of the bag. he pulled out a pair of sneakers, and inspected the shoes.

"since you can't use your other shoes to skate."

in his hands were a pair of dark green canvas high top vans.

dream smiled up from the shoes to see both sapnap and karl's surprised faces. he looked back down to the shoes. "i love them george." he put the shoes then the sweatshirt back into the bag.

"we all wrote you a letter, you can read them later." george turned away, placing his card on top of the pile. handing the stack to dream.

"karl, it looks like we have to step up our gift game." sapnap stared at karl.

"even thomas brought a better gift then us."

the focus shifted to the man who was browsing his phone. he looked up and cleared his throat. "i gift you the freedom of labor on your day of birth."

the other four blinked back at him.

"i'm taking your shift."

an array of oh's could be heard from amongst the group.

"perfect, because i actually need a favor..." dream stuck the cards into the bag with the cologne, then set the smaller bag inside the larger one.

"anything for the birthday boy." karl smiled from behind the counter.

"glad to hear that karl, because i'll need your help more than anything."

the pink haired boy looked around, "now i'm scared."

—

forgive my absence, i decided to try and offer a sliver of hope in these trying times. my dm's are always open on any social media platform you can find me on, hope you all are well (: