Stalker // DNF

12: Forgiveness

Dream plonks the recording device into his pocket, creating a discrete wedge by his stomach. George glances at it, knowing that wedge had been carried by him mere seconds ago. He feels stupid thinking it was concealed and invisible to Dream.

'I really would have told you anything you wanted to know about the case, George,' Dream says, breaking the tension, his body still uncomfortably near to the other.

George manages a shallow breath, seeing a cloud blow out of his lips in an exhale, the icy air rejecting the heat of it. The cloud disappears into the darkness just before it reached Dream's face.

'You won't now?' George musters, digging his hands harshly into his pockets, his frustration of his failed plan leading the action.

Dream raises an eyebrow and pats the lump by his middle. 'I'm feeling less generous now I know you were wearing a wire.'

George sighs and spins on his heel before pacing around lazily in a poorly drawn circle.

'So why am I here now?'

'To spend time with me?' Dream speaks quietly, enthusiasm tilting up his pitch near the end of his sentence.

George snorts, 'Yeah, 'cause I have been wanting to spend some quality time with the guy who completely invaded my privacy and I'm now paranoid is following me everywhere.' He glances up from the path and sees Dream's face drop a fraction.

'C'mon, George,' he says softly. 'I am genuinely very sorry I "spied" on you.'

George's tired eyes roll back, knowing Dream would catch their movement.

'What would it take for you to forgive me?'

George scoffs in bewilderment, 'Forgive you?! You really think you're worthy of my forgiveness?'

'Well... maybe not. But I could try to start repairing -'

'Why do you even care?' George interrupts. 'Genuinely - you don't know me - we were never friends. Why do you care if I forgive you or not, why do you keep trying to get my attention?'

A beat barely passes before Dream replies, not allowing him time to think first. 'I told you - I like you.'

'What - so you didn't like the others?'

'They were all fine - but like I said, we are so similar -'

'Oh piss off with that. You don't know me, and from what I've seen, we aren't cut from the same cloth, even remotely.' George finds his frustration build as his pacing becomes faster and the steps become heavier.

He can't catch Dream's expression, but hears his voice vibrate through his pinching ears. 'You don't know me, but I know you.'

A shiver runs over George's skin as he once again tries, and fails, to dig up any memories of what he uttered, unaware that Dream was listening.

'What do you know?'

'I don't have any blackmail material on you or anything,' Dream attempts to reassure. 'I just know the little things that make you up as a person - your quirks, things like that.'

'I don't know if you say things like that to seem sweet, but it just scares the hell out of me,' George mutters.

A small silence falls among the two, the sound of faint sirens in the background and George's treading feet being heard. Dream never tries to get nearer to him, he stands to his side, observing. George feels as if he's being analysed, with Dream trying to find what would let him in past the blockade of reluctance and fear.

The quietude only goes on for as long as George can bear it. Without words, terror is creeping back in gradually, silence opening the gates for it.

'What kind of quirks did you see?' George mutters, his voice barely audible over the crunching of his soles.

Dream hesitates for a moment before quietly replying, 'Ah, there was a couple.' George doesn't look up, but can hear the smile in Dream's voice. 'I think my favourite is when your eyes look side to side when you're judging people, which I saw you do a lot.'

George slows his footsteps and shakes his head loose. 'I don't do that.'

'What - judge people or the eye thing?'

'Both.'

Dream snorts and migrates back to the wall he had been leaning on when George had arrived that night.

'Then you don't know yourself at all,' he says under his breath, leaning his head back against the wall and closing his eyelids.

George finally stands still and rotates to take the opportunity of observing Dream, without his intense stare guiding George's eyes away.

His expression is soft, almost peaceful in the night sky. The streetlamp not too far away draws shadows of his lengthy eyelashes under his eyes, over the dark eye-bags. George looks closer at the shadows and realises, for the first time, just how exhausted Dream looks. His sallow, thin face highlights the sharpness of his cheekbones and the blackness of his under-eyes. It gives him a sense of innocence and steals an ounce of pity from George for a millisecond.

As he begins to think this, George instantly reminds himself of Dream's crimes, to him and others. This wasn't an innocent man, in any sense of the word.

George's gaze drops to the wire hidden in Dream's pocket again. He feels the same frustration churn in his stomach. Failure, failure, failure.

He hadn't caught Dream's confession on tape, or collected any kind of proof for the case at all. But the thought of returning back to his office, carrying on with another case and keeping Dream's case unsolved was unsettling, especially with George unknowing of what Dream's next goal or plan was. It was completely naive and unrealistic to think that Dream was finished with cyber-crime.

The device taunts George from the pocket, out of reach and out of sight. That gadget couldn't be the only way to catch Dream out, it just couldn't. There had to be another way to trick Dream into telling him information, there had to be.

'I can feel you staring,' Dream whispers, his eyelids still relaxed, his head still tilted back on the brick.

George barely hears him, the cogs in his brain turning loudly, running through and discarding hundreds of useless plans.

Dream had made it clear he was fond of George, had made it clear he wasn't one to keep his mouth shut and had made it clear he wanted to see more of his new victim.

So why doesn't George just give him what he wants?

'How will you make things up to me, to try and make me forgive you?' George utters, the pacemaker in his chest gaining momentum.

Dream's eyes shoot open and he tilts his head to look back at George swiftly, caught off-guard.

'You'll really let me try?'

George doubts his rough sketch of a plan which has formed in his head, but it's the best he could create in the moment.

'Maybe,' George breathes.

He imagines attempting to spend more time with Dream. More time, more evidence, more trust, more secrets, more confessions. All it would take was a little bit of acting on George's side, to push away fright and pull Dream into a false friendship. For him, and for the case.

'Okay,' Dream replies, his eyebrows raising in confusion and disbelief. 'Okay, let me think about it. Let me make it up to you.'