A Smile With A Bite. DNF

Part Seven

"Sapnap noticed this, by the way," Dream said as he gestured at his forearm, pointing at the two small puncture wounds that had scabbed over.

George glanced at the wounds, averting his gaze back to his drink when the guilt kicked in. He did mean to bite Dream so that he could escape, but he didn't mean to bite as hard as he did. He didn't understand why Dream hadn't bandaged the wounds either. They were small so he wouldn't have bled a lot, but Sapnap noticed and he probably wouldn't have if he had bandaged himself.

"Did you spill my secret?" George asked.

"I wish I did. I hate lying, especially to my friends." Dream tipped his drink to his lips, glanced back at the dancing crowd behind them, and blurted, "why don't you just tell him?"

George groaned. "We've been over this, Dream. It's too hard. You can't just spring news like that onto someone. If I do it wrong, Sapnap will be terrified for his life and then I'm in danger because I don't know what he's willing to do."

"You think he'd try to kill you?" Dream asked, shocked.

George shrugged, staring into his glass. He almost looked... solemn. "Anyone is capable of anything when they're driven by fear... I found that out the hard way."

Dream studied George with endless concern. "With... Schlatt?"

"Schlatt?" George looked at Dream, a chuckle in his voice and smile on his face. "No. No, Schlatt didn't fear anything. He thought he was courageous but he was just ignorant. It was me that was afraid."

George's smile faded again and Dream's eyebrows stitched together at the sight. He didn't like when George was unhappy. Dream wasn't sure if he should make a goofy remark to steer them away from the bad memories haunting George or dig deeper so he knew how to comfort him. Dream decided on the latter.

"What happened?" Dream asked.

George shrugged, took a sip of his liquor, and dared to explain. "I was terrified after I turned. My body was changing so suddenly and Schlatt was rambling like a crazy man and I wanted blood so badly... I killed the first person I fed on. I didn't know when to stop and Schlatt didn't care, so he didn't stop me. I was too scared to feed after that, and instead of training my uncontrollable instincts, I pushed it all down. That backfired pretty badly and I ended up hurting even more people than I would've if I had just faced my fears and learned control."

Dream let George's story sink in as he slowly nodded. George didn't like talking about himself a lot so Dream was happy that he would share those traumatic memories with him. He couldn't imagine what George had gone through. Even with George's stories, there was still so much that Dream would never understand. He couldn't blame George for being scared and hurting people when he didn't mean to. Schlatt obviously hadn't handled the situation right and let George make easily avoidable mistakes.

"And now you're scared Sapnap will hurt you because he's scared of you?" Dream cautiously asked. "You think I would let him hurt you?"

George shook his head, a hint of a smirk on his face. "I'm not scared of him hurting me, Dream. I'm scared he'll want to hurt me."

"He won't," Dream confidently argued. "I didn't. I wanted to help you. I still do."

"That's because you think I'm weak and naive and need your protection."

"That's not what I think." George didn't respond and simply took another sip of his drink. Dream scowled at his profile in pure annoyance. George didn't believe him and that pissed Dream off. "You make a whole lot of assumptions about me, George."

"Am I ever wrong? I know you, Dream."

"You are wrong, actually. You were even wrong about me coming here to dance with the girls. Look where I am right now. With you, at the bar, drinking and talking." George scoffed and glanced over his shoulder at the people on the dance floor. He didn't doubt Dream would rather be out there, despite what he said. Dream continued, knowing George still didn't believe him. "I don't care about the girls, George. I don't think you're weak and need my protection. I'm here because I care about you. That's all it is."