Uninvited

Chapter Five|Media

By the time the sun was rising, Dream had already checked around the place and realized that yeah, George lives in a small neighborhood. He also learned that there was practically nothing for him to sharpen his claws on.

He slipped out of the backdoor with his hood up, climbing over the fence into the neighbor's backyard and seeing that they have a pretty thick tree there. It would have to do for now.

And so, at six am, he started scratching his front claws on it, making deep scores in the tree and ripping off a good amount of bark. He probably did it for a minute or two before he left back to George's house.

(He was proud to say the couple had thought it was a bear.)

George's parents left at eight for work together, both having generic and boring desk jobs. When George had told them what they do, he had made a barfing noise and George had laughed, making him smile.

He was downstairs making some tea for himself because George was still asleep.

He wasn't stupid. George wasn't William. They were so different in every way other than looks! George was the one laughing at his jokes, instead of the other way around. Really, if Dream thought about it, George was like him when he was younger.

The thought made Dream smirk as he sipped his tea, humming a song from the nineties. Speaking of music, it's been a while since he's listened to the radio. Generally, everything nowadays sounds the same except for some.

Dream was pretty good at learning quickly, so he already knew YouTube was a good place to listen to Music. He pulled it up on the smart TV in the living room, going through the genres. He's always had a taste for indie, and rap was pretty cool too, even though it only started raising in popularity in recent years.

The first thing to play was a song called 'High School Sweethearts' by someone called Melanie Martinez. Dream kinda liked it. It had a rhythm to it that made you want to sway a bit to the beat. He was soon writing a list of songs to listen to later.

"You know you can make a playlist right?" Dream didn't flinch at the sudden voice behind him, he could hear his heartbeat from fifty feet away, George couldn't scare him, even though the boy was deliberately trying to sneak up on him. Cat trotted up too, climbing into Dream's lap.

"Actually, I don't know how to work YouTube very well." Dream said, looking up at the boy.

"It's easy. Do you see those three dots on the bottom right corner of the video? You can press them and press 'make a playlist', and you can add all of those songs you wrote down, then you can listen to it later." George said, directing Dream through it.

"That is pretty easy." Dream said, smiling under the mask as he made his 'playlist' go from paper to digital. It was pretty convenient, actually. Dream wishes for a sec that he actually bothered to keep a cell phone. Or clothes, for that matter.

He could've just kept them in a chest hidden in the basement somewhere, after all. That's where he used to live when he wasn't eating George's fear anyways.

He smiled as he played the playlist, and George tilted his head at his choice in music, but ultimately just shrugged.

George was at a loss. They didn't have much to eat right now, they were going grocery shopping tomorrow.

"Hey, what do you fancy?" He asked Dream, asking about food.

"I don't eat food as you do." He said, shaking his head, sighing. The boy saw him as a demon, so why did he act like he was human.

"Oh, right." George blushed a bit, getting bread for himself and putting it in the toaster.

Dream hummed along to the song before he started writing a poem of his own.

Dream wouldn't call himself a songwriter, but he did like to write in general. It was a more passive way to get his words out. He liked to put his thoughts on paper and then burn it, just so no one would read them.

But George was standing over his shoulder, watching him write. And for some reason, Dream let him.

It was about the betrayal and pain he had felt all those years ago when that arrow lodged into his arm.

He was quick to pull up his sleeves and go outside when he was done writing, not giving George a chance to read the last word. He was faster than George, and the paper was already burning on the concrete by the time the boy was out there. He had stolen a lighter from George's father's bedroom. The man had a smoking habit.

And while Dream walked back in, George just stared at the paper a bit confused.

Dream was quick to sit back on the couch, and when George came back in, he asked him.

"Hey, do you know how I can get a job around here?"

---

George was doing a stream. Honestly, Dream didn't even know how those worked. Apparently, they could see him from different places in real-time, and Dream needed to stay out of the way of the camera.

Didn't stop him from making random quips from time to time about George, who was actually on the phone with his friend Sapnap at the same time as the stream?

Apparently, it's a job, too. Maybe Dream could get some money from it, or something.

After the stream was done, he asked.

"Hey, do you think I could stream with you?" He asked, and George looked a bit surprised.

"Why? I mean, why would you be interested?" George asked, and dream tilted his head.

"Uh, money. Duh. You said it was a job?" George blinked a bit before he laughed.

"You know what, chat seemed to like you. Maybe you could do it with me. If I get a lot of subs or something, we can work out the money. Also, you can just ask me for cash if you want to get something. Anything in mind?"

Dream grinned devilishly.

"Well, a phone, duh. And I can make my own... what was it? Channel? It should be fun."

Little did George know, Dream was more interested in something called 'Twitter'.