Criminal Minds ~ DNF

24

Dream set George down on the kitchen counter, rifting through cabinets until he found what he was looking for. The blonde pulled down a little forest-green box with a red cross stuck to the front. A first-aid kit. 

"I would do this in the basement, but I don't know how sterile it is down there, and I can't let you get sick. If the wounds get infected..." George nodded. He understood.

"I got a little excited with the knife. I'm sorry. I should have let you do it. Stupid, horrible person," Dream murmured. George put a finger to the blonde's lips, wordlessly shushing him.

"No," he said simply. It was all he needed to say. Clay smiled under George's fingertip.

"All the same, that looks like it hurts," Clay said, pulling a clean rag out of the green box. He ran it under the tap before dragging it over the deep cut in George's hairline, cleaning away the blood to look at what he'd done. Dream really had gotten too excited with the knife. The wound was long, deep and still bleeding. It would need stitches, definitely. (There was no way that Dream was taking him in to a doctor's office though - the Brit would have to deal with his tenth-grade first-aid training.)

"A little," the brunette shrugged.

"Well, I'm sorry, because this is going to sting," He watched as Clay went back to the green box, now bringing out a pocket-sized bottle of antiseptic and tipped the contents onto a fresh cloth before touching it gently to the surface wounds on George's head. It burned, but George didn't mind. The comforting hand that clasped his was definitely a deciding factor in the Brit's content. Besides, the nicer the blonde was, the less George feared him. Which bought him to his next question.

"What are you feeling?" George asked. "Try to put it into words." Clay thought for a moment, searching for the right word.

"Sorry. Um... remorseful? Like I've betrayed you somehow-"

"But you're a psychopath."

"What?"

"You pleaded insanity. The court deemed you mentally insufficient. You're a psychopath. So, how is it that you feel, and I quote, remorseful?" George pressed with an air of authority that Dream definitely picked up on. The killer pressed harder, the gentle tapping turning into harsh rubbing. The hand that was in George's suddenly dissapeared, instead resting on the table beside the Brit.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Dream said coldly, dousing the cloth again and practically shoving it into George's face.

"You do," George said passively, gritting his teeth against the pain. "The first time I came to talk to you, you said something. 'I have to convince these people that I'm insane,' you said."

"Wrong. My exact words were 'these fucks watching me all day'. Get it right, Davidson." Dream rolled his eyes.

"Either way, you said 'convince'. So, are you a psychopath or not?"

"Not," Dream said. George raised an eyebrow.

"Why then? Why pretend?"

"Because they were about to let me go, okay?" Dream exploded. "Another year and they would have let me go free. I couldn't wait for that. Insanity was my ticket out, okay? I did my research. If I could persuade them that I was crazy, they'd shorten if not abolish my sentence. Pandora's Box was torturous. I literally saw the sun for the first time in three goddamn years and it was fucking amazing. You guys aren't going to take that away from me."

"In what universe is that acceptable?!"

"I had four life sentences, George. Three years is better than a hundred-and-twenty." George had no answer for that.