ORPHANED

:: one hundred thirty-nine ::

the threads that tied their conversations together grew to become a mess of tangles as they all contributed their input and quickly got sidetracked with barely amusing stories. they droned on, about whatever, and dream found himself alone in his admiration of the brunette who conveniently was placed right in the center of his vision.

he was hard to miss, so it was difficult to look away. you could clearly see the way his emotions reflected in his movement before he even voiced them. It was greatly entertaining to guess what his next words would be. dream would've kept score with himself but he figured he had been made fun of enough that day already.

his eyes dipped down to the drink in his clutch but instead of being met with warm hands and a suspiciously delightful mug of hot chocolate, he stared back at his wonky reflection in the bottom of his empty cup. it had been then, between a discussion of which day starts the week and the crippling realization that his drink was gone, that dream had incidentally looked up in time to catch the brunette delicately wrap his lips around the candy cane that previously hung to the side of his mug.

anything and everything ran through his head at that moment and although he wanted to pull his attention away from it in knowledge that it was wrong it seemed the more he pulled the more it enticed him in. he excused his actions with the little white lie that the other guys weren't offering up anything more entertaining to keep him occupied with. his focus lingered on the way the brunette's lips curled into a smile around it, still somehow managing to look so happily pleasing to the eye.

"oh c'mon, there are children around!"

the accusing comment came from none other than sapnap who now stood with cynical hands on his hips similar to the way dream had witnessed his mom many times before.

"what children?" dream gestured around the room, in an attempt to defend his himself.

"me!" quackity sucked on his thumb and allowed himself to fall into the protective hold of karls arms as the older adopted motherly instincts to protect the younger.

"oh c'mon!" he was in the process of crossing his arms but his attention became diverted when he heard sapnap yelp out in pain.

"what the fuck george?" he clutched his hand close to his heart before moving to inspect what the others had suspected to be an impact point.

the brunette cheekily bit off the sharpened point of his candy cane with a smirk. "you didn't have to make a scene." he partnered his apathetic statement with a teasing shrug.

"oh come on gogy, don't be like that." sapnap pulled his injured hand into the other in artificial devotion to the oldest. dream thought it was silly how all of his friends treated george as some god to be worshiped but he didn't think they were wrong for it.

"gogy? what the fuck is a gogy?" quackity crushed a candy cane on the counter still unmoving from karl's embrace.

"that's george's new nickname." knowing sapnap, dream knew he had probably been up all night contemplating it and was surely proud of his conclusion, so he decided not to shit on him for it. quackity however seemed to believe it was the most terrible name ever and unlike dream, he wasn't scared to show it.

he mocked the name several times over with a various number of insulting attempts at accents while karl's laugh repeated in the background. finally, he was shut up by none other than gogy himself. "guys, shut up." and just because he held some unacknowledged power over the rest of them they all turned to grasp what it would possibly be he wanted to say. "it's snowing."

his point went unseen, for the moment it was spoken they all turned to gaze beyond the window at the front of the coffee shop, hoping to catch sight of the most romanticized downpour of the century. it appeared that as they were caught up in their friendly banter the environment decided to make a change for the better and paint the world with a charming coat of white.

it was gentle, floating instead of falling, and contrasting the loud jagged environment around. it blurred the light of the street lamps, but it couldn't hide the illuminated ground that it was quickly plastering itself against. dream had to will himself to be the first to turn away from it, and frankly, he was glad he did.

he faced four pairs of comfortingly familiar eyes that all split an unannounced excitement he felt pang at the strings of his own heart. he might have had different lovey feelings for one of the bunch but right them he felt happy and content with where he was and who he had ended up with. as his focus lingered on the eyes that sparkled at the sight of the falling snow with a shared childlike glee, inside that coffee shop he felt love. he wished he would have gotten more time to engrave the picture into his head before the moment was interrupted.

"we have to go, get up, let's go!" karl nearly pushed quackity off of himself in an effort to be the first up and out of the room. there was a scramble, and eventually, karl found himself face-first into the ground instead of victoriously standing before them all outside of the coffee shop.

"oops!" quackity covered his mouth with his hand feigning innocence and tucked the leg he definitely hadn't just stuck out just to trip the other back into his side as he stood from his stool to be the first outside. he stepped over the previously defeated champion, only he hadn't exactly succeeded either. instead of reaching the door with triumph, a hand was reached up from the ground in a grand effort to soil his plans and it pulled him onto the floor to accompany the other.

—

and ofc you should know me well enough by now to know that i'd feel terrible if after all this i only gave you one chapter! anywho i hate this new wattpad update because i feel like it alienated me farther, i'm going to miss having conversations with people who have no idea i wrote the story *sigh*