A Demonic Dance

Chapter Forty Eight: I'm Scared

How could he have been so stupid?
How could he have been so naive?
How could he have been so hopeful?
How could he have believed that Dream would ever love him?

How had he let himself fall into that hole.

How had he let himself hope? Hope that Dream could love him. Would cherish him. Would care for him.

Naively he wished he could cling onto that hope, hold onto those small strands of love even as they bled away like ink on a page. Even as the words of their story became blotched and unreadable by the tears he shed, he still wished to read them. To find out what could have been.

"Hey George." Dream said cheerfully as he entered the apartment, hanging his coat up on the coat hanger by the door.

Wow. He really didn't care did he. He really didn't care about anything he'd just said. He truly cared so little that he could go from talking about how much he despised him to all happy and cheerful within a few minutes.

George scoured his eyes as he stood in the doorway, looking for a string of remorse, a thread of love. Anything, anything to let him forget what had just been said, to convince him it was just another heart destroying nightmare.

Just one drop of love. That's all he needed.

"George. Is everything okay?" Dream spoke again, having the nerve to sound concerned.

He found nothing

"How could you." The human said eventually after finally finding his voice, though even then it was harsh and broken and he could feel the tears threatening to form in his eyes.

"Woah what? George? Is everything okay?"

If it weren't for the crippling pain he currently felt inside George could have found himself laughing at the ridiculousness of the statement, the fact that he could even ask such a thing.

"George?" Dream repeated, placing a hand on George's shoulder, an action the Brit flinched away from. It wasn't an active flinch, more like an instinct. A pained and broken instinct from someone that was scared and confused. And if Dream gave a shit it would have broken his heart too.

"You know what Dream." George replied, pulling out of the demon's reach, shaking his head in disbelief. "I'm fucking done." He said, pushing past Dream and out the door, not caring if he was followed or not.

"George wait!" The demon called, George could hear his footsteps following behind him as he slammed the apartment door behind him, but he refused to turn around, walking forward, his pace picking up slightly.

Why? Why would he let himself believe that Dream was different. How could he let himself start to hope that Dream could care for him let alone love him? How had he convinced himself that he was anything less than a monster.

How had he let himself drown in his embrace, let him pull himself into the sea till he was struggling to break the surface, let him pull him deeper and deeper until he couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't escape. He'd let the water drag him down and into the warmth of Dreams embrace.

He should have really noticed shouldn't he. Dream was a demon after all. The textbook definition of horror, agony, torture, distress, hell.

Yet George had still fallen. Fallen with every inch of blood, skin and soul. He'd dived into the deep end. He'd let himself drown and now he was struggling back to the surface, hands threatening to drag him back down, down to the warmth. Away from the cold.

He felt cold.

He felt so incredibly cold.

Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe that's meant he could still swim away, break to the surface. But that was just shallow hopes.