A merman's tear (dreamnotfound)

Chapter Nine

A few days had gone by since the food incident, and George was starting to become a little more comfortable in Dream's presence. Sure, he was still overall not happy with his predicament, but he decided it could be worse.

Seeing the man panic so much over not feeding him made him laugh, especially when he came running back in to ask questions about George's diet.

"Do you eat fish?" Dream had screeched, "Is that cannibalism?" 

George, of course, had told him that he does indeed eat fish, so that's what he ended up being given. (He wouldn't tell anyone that he spent a solid few hours trying to figure out if that would be counted as cannibalism, but he'd decided on the fact that, no, it was not, because he was a different species and other fish ate fish all the time)...(he realised about two minutes after that he didn't even have anyone to tell).

Despite the fact that George had told Dream that he didn't need to eat as constantly as humans did, he was fed each and every day. This was weird, and it took his stomach a little bit to comply and not throw up the change in food quantity, but he was slowly getting used to it.

Dream had slept in George's room every night since then, which was weird, because he knew that the blonde had a room of his own, probably with something much more comfortable than laying on the wood, but still, he stayed.

Of course, Dream had kept his distance. He slept possibly as far away as possible from George, and only got near him to play with the bouncy ball, or have a one-sided conversation.

Dream's actions were just so...curious. 

Speaking of Dream, the man was sat a few feet away from him, fumbling with the ball in his hands.

Every few minutes he'd open his mouth to speak, then clamp it shut and decide against it. George wondered what he had to say. George wondered if it was bad. It probably was.

Dream let out a sigh, apparently gaining the confidence he needed.

"The others think it's time to be a bit more...forceful with getting your tears." he admitted, George's heart panging slightly with hurt.

"The others?" he echoed.

Dream nodded, "A few of them. They're all...amazing people, but they don't want to keep waiting," he said, clearing his throat, "I told them to give me more time to convince you, but they're getting restless. And scared."

George looked over at him. Dream sat there, cross-legged, fidgeting with his hands, his body language looking extremely guilty, like he was going to curl into a ball and roll away. It was hard to imagine that this man was a pirate captain. Sure, over the past week and a bit, Dream had had his scary moments of anger and coolness that let George really believe that this was a dangerous pirate...but all those other times- he just didn't seem like that. He seemed almost harmless. He'd sit there, rolling a ball back and forth with George, or he'd mumble things to himself when he read, or he'd hum before going to bed.

All these things made him seem...okay. Not scary. When Dream walked into the room, George only felt a bit of cautiousness, not full unbridled fear like before.

But he had to remind himself. Dream was bad. He was a pirate, he had kidnapped George, he wasn't an innocent guy like he tried to portray. George repeated his rules in his mind. 

Trust no one. Help no one. Take care of yourself, and only yourself.

His gaze burned into Dream's mask.

Trust no one.

The blonde was making that hard for him. George bit his lip.

"You can't, even if you tried." he murmured, and Dream looked up.