Chapter Text
"Milo!"
The little troublemaker jumps off the edge of the bed and darts out of the room, too fast for George to try and catch him. If he didn't know any better, he'd swear the cat was laughing at him as he escaped into the hallway. Little shit.
George loves all of the cats in the dransion, really he does. They're sweet and loveable and (most days, at least) completely worth the amount of work he has to do to stay on top of his allergies. He can never stay mad at them, not even at their most destructive.
Unfortunately, he's pretty sure Milo is somehow aware of this fact, and has made it the mission of his little cat life to figure out exactly how much he can get away with. Every single day.
Today, it's at least partly on George, though he'll definitely be omitting that fact when he complains about it to Sapnap later. Everyone in the house knows not to give Milo unfettered access to any room, let alone one with valuables in it. But when he retraces his steps, George doesn't remember checking the door handle the last time he was in his bedroom. And that was at least a full day prior to Milo's latest round of mischief. He's probably lucky that it wasn't worse.
Truthfully, George's bedroom has never been used less than it is now. Dream's bed is always available to him these days, and even on the nights Dream himself isn't there, George finds he much prefers the extra space and the way the whole room smells like them.
That leaves his own bedroom as essentially just a storage closet. A really big storage closet, but still. And it was in here that George had made the mistake of leaving his costume out in the open, unknowingly vulnerable to the naughtiest cat in the whole world.
The decided theme this year had been classic movie monsters. Dream, of course, is going to be Frankenstein — yes, yes, Frankenstein's Monster, he knows — and George had quickly claimed Dracula for himself. Sapnap, last he knew, was still weighing his options between a werewolf and a mummy.
From the state of his poor costume, George kinda wishes he'd chosen the werewolf. At least then the rips would look intentional.
Yes, it seems Milo had decided George's vampire costume would make the perfect playground and scratch pad. The velvet vest, pants, and white undershirt are all covered in his fur, and all of them have several thin, claw-shaped holes down the front. So too does the inside of his cape, resting on the opposite edge of the bed from the rest of the carnage. Clearly George had only caught the cat in his latest act of mischief, not the first.
Now, George could just replace the whole costume. He's got the money, annoying as it would be to have to waste it like that. But it's already October 30th, and he doesn't have enough faith in a next day delivery. Deliveries directly to their house are a pain at the best of times, and holidays (even ones that don't technically involve a lot of shipping) are dead last on the "best of times" list.
He could go and drive to a store, get the new costume in person, but he can't be sure they'll still have any good vampire costumes. This close to Halloween, he thinks he'd be lucky to find so much as a pair of cat ears. And besides, the last thing he needs is to risk a fan seeing him and thinking he didn't have anything planned.
George stews over this predicament for the better part of an hour. But it's only when he tries to take his mind off the problem, and pulls up TikTok, that the solution appears. Quite literally — it's the first video he sees, with the words "stitch incoming" at the bottom, that gives him what he needs to figure it out.
Stitch.
Stitch…
That's it! He can just sew the holes shut!
Now, admittedly, George has never done much sewing. His Mum had, though, and she'd taught him the basics when he was young. Mostly, that had consisted of watching her do it, especially when it was his clothes she was fixing, or the time she'd sewn his name into his school blazer so he couldn't lose it as easily. He'd even helped with the last one. So he was confident he could figure it out.
Like the blazer of his youth, George's confidence was ever so slightly misplaced.
He'd decided against fixing the holes in his cape — they were only visible on the inside, and no one but George (and maybe Dream) was going to see that part of the costume. The rest of the outfit was his focus. That only made it a little easier on him.
Unsurprisingly, the dransion did not have a sewing kit. That was the first hurdle, solved only when he thought to call Dream's Mum and asked to borrow hers. She was stopping by the house that night anyway, so he didn't have to feel guilty about asking.
Once he had the necessary materials, the reality of his sewing knowledge quickly made itself apparent. Turns out it's not "like riding a bike" and more like trying to remember the name of a restaurant he drove by once as a kid.
That's where Dream finds him, several minutes in and still trying to figure out how to keep the little strand of black thread from escaping the head of his needle.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Dream asks. He's always had such a delicate way with words when it comes to George.
"Why did the inventor of the sewing needle make the part you pull thread through so damn small?" George grunts, in place of an answer. Really, what he's doing should be pretty self-explanatory.
Dream settles next to him on the bed, pulling the needle from his hands. "Here, let me try that."
George scoffs. "You and your giant hands. I can't even get it to go through, why would it be any easier for you?"
"Won't know unless we try, right?"
He does, in fact, fumble on the first few tries, and George is suitably smug… until Dream gets that look on his face. George knows that particular expression of his all too well: it's the face Dream makes when he thinks he's figured something out. George likes that look a lot better when it's not being used to prove him wrong.
"Aren't you supposed to like, tie a knot at the end?" Dream asks, more to himself, carefully pushing the thread through the needle eye once more. "So that it stays on the needle? I think I remember that being how it works."
George wants to hit something. Failing that, maybe just go outside and scream a little. Of course it was that simple. How did he forget that crucial, obvious part of sewing?
The annoyance must show on his face, because Dream doesn't even brag when he's proven right, nor does he say anything about how his stupid giant hands were actually perfectly capable of making such a tiny little knot in the thread. Instead, he presses a kiss to George's cheek as he hands the needle back to him.
"You know you can look up videos to help you," he suggests gently. "No shame in not knowing. I'm not gonna tell twitter we don't know how to sew."
"Oh, that'd get us cancelled for sure," George says, unable to fight a smile at the thought. "No, you're right, the internet probably has hundreds of "sewing for dummies" videos."
"Stop calling my boyfriend a dummy," Dream complains. That's his thing now, when George makes fun of himself. Truthfully, George thinks it's because Dream just likes any excuse to call him his boyfriend, and the self-esteem reasoning is just a bonus.
With a promise to not call himself a dummy again (which he wasn't even doing, really, it's not his fault that's the name for that series), Dream heads downstairs to work on dinner, and George finds it in him to pull up the first of many sewing guides.
He hopes Dream remembers to save him a plate if he gets too distracted. He has a sneaking suspicion that it's gonna be a long night…
The next day, George's costume is as close to fixed as he can get it. The camera (and, thus, their fans) won't be able to tell a cat was anywhere near it. Anyone looking a little closer? Probably. It's George's finest sewing work, and right now the fact he fixed up the holes is literally all that matters.
And with his big problem solved (and a vested interest in maybe getting better at sewing in case he needs to do it again), George is now free to bask in the fact he wasn't the only person in the house to have had costume troubles this year. Nor were his problems ultimately the worst.
In the end, Sapnap had decided to go with the werewolf for his costume. He'd said something about mummy bandages being "restrictive" and "way too involved" to last the night. Well, he was regretting that choice now.
"Why would they make this fur so goddamn itchy?" Sapnap grumbles for what has to be the tenth time this hour. He hasn't stopped scratching himself that whole time. "How is anyone supposed to wear this shit?"
"Guess you shouldn't have cheaped out on the material, then," George tells him, just to be a bitch. It's his right to be annoying to Sapnap sometimes. Especially when he's in the mood to complain. Sapnap would do the same to him if the roles were reversed, it's only fair.
"Shut the fuck up, George, I hate you so much," Sapnap says, but there's barely any heat to it. Most of his focus is still on that spot where the werewolf head's fur meets his right shoulder.
Leaving Sapnap to his uncomfortable misery, George heads down the hall. Dream is still in the master bath, working on his costume. It's easily the most time-consuming look of the three, because he's been in there for a while.
George loves the man, with all his heart, but he has zero sympathy. Dream knew damn well that applying all that face paint to his skin was going to be a pain in the ass. This is just the consequence of his actions.
"How's it coming, Dream?" He asks, letting his voice take on a bright, singsong kind of tone. Love doesn't mean he can't still be a little shit when the time calls for it.
Dream glares at him through the mirror. Most of his face seems to be finished, and he's done something to his hair to make it look darker. Supposedly it'll wash out just fine before they go to bed tonight. George will believe that when he sees it. But, he can admit, it looks good for now.
Of course, Dream almost always looks good to George, so he might be a little biased. Just a little.
"I'm never doing something with face paint again," Dream groans. "Fuck it, I'm not doing my hands, it'll just get everywhere."
"Our counters will thank you," George says, nodding like it's some great act of kindness.
This time, Dream meets his eye in the mirror with a flirty sort of smile. Now that he's not focused on his own costume, he's very obviously taking in George's. Lucky for the both of them, he likes being the center of Dream's attention.
George is pretty proud of his additional little touches. Instead of face paint, he'd nabbed a cheap thing of "blood red" lipstick at the store, covering his mouth and part of his chin in blood. It was just as effective, but far less annoying to put on. He's pretty sure it'll come off easier, too.
"Think Lord Dracula could use a little more blood?" Dream asks, making a show of waggling his eyebrows in an almost-suggestive but mostly ridiculous fashion. "I'd be happy to volunteer if you're still thirsty."
George makes a face. "Isn't the monster made of dead bodies? That blood cannot be fresh."
"Well, you seem to have a little to spare," Dream says, gesturing to his mouth. He turns just enough to catch George's arm and pulls him closer. "Maybe I'll just have to borrow some…"
George, for all that his costume makes him feel like a creature of the night, is only a man. He is very, very weak to such temptation.
He doesn't remember several minutes passing. Really, everything after Dream's lips meet his became a bit of a blur…
Sapnap, being Sapnap, bangs his fist on the bathroom door, rudely interrupting their fun before it can get any further. "Come on! I know you've gotta be done by now Dream, just get out here so we can take the pictures and be done with this shit."
Dream pulls out of their kiss with a laugh, and just a little too much of George's lipstick to be safe in front of a camera. "Just a minute, Nick!"
George looks back at his own reflection. Somehow, none of the paint made it from Dream's face to his. His blood stains, however, are pretty damn ruined. Fuck, he's gonna have to go fix that. And he left the lipstick upstairs…
"Make that five minutes!"
Yeah, Sapnap very much earns the right to be pissed at them after that. George will count it as payment for disrupting them.