Predator (DWT x OC)

78

Tubbo's sitting up now. It's a tedious process at best, and I almost want to stop him, unable to bear the scrunched eyes watering in pain, the furrowed forehead beading sweat, the way his teeth grind together in an effort to stop the pained grunts escaping.

But Tommy's excited, and Niki seems to get a bit more colour in her face when she actually sees him moving, opposed to the lifeless charred corpse he was before, and even Wilbur goes quiet at the sight, which may not seem like much, but stopping that man's ramblings about traitors and destruction and the sanctity of life seems to be more of a miracle than raising the dead. So I let him, because he needs to get better, and we need him to get better, and this entire operation is so fragile that a breeze in the wrong direction will send it tumbling down.

Sam comes and goes, we talk, about before, childhood's spent in stained wood cabins with oak walls that smell like smoke, pine trees that stretched so far to the sky I thought they just never ended, and now, the caverns and the heartbreak and the ones we have lost, his position as a commander in the Badlands, mine as another member of another rebellion, another war looming so close to me I'm completely sunken in it's shadow. We also talk about the after, when people have died and world has been burned and bombed and ripped apart, when we lose more than we gain and how we can still live after that.

Neither of us have the answers, but I'd rather not be alone to face it.

Punz swings by once or twice, armour, weapons, a delivery of baked goods he ferreted from a nearby village bakery, with fleeting kisses and whispers in my ear, a whole lot of longing and promises I find myself believing. Just a little.

"Wilbur's getting worse." Niki's words break the silence between us, and I almost break my neck whipping my head around to make sure Tommy isn't anywhere near the rock we're currently perched on.

"I know." I say. "I have no idea what to do."

"He wants to blow L'manburg up."

I rub my face tiredly. "Fuck, I gave him that idea, didn't I?

"He would have latched onto it eventually, it's not really your fault."

"Does Tommy know?"

"Yeah." Is all she answers, picking at the moss that's plastered to the dark-grey marble. "It's really upsetting him."

"He's not listening to anyone." I sigh. "We need to stop this before he goes too far."

"Well-"

"You know he will Niki, you know him. He'll take it too far and he'll never be able to go back."

"He's trying to source TNT."

"Jesus Christ." I mutter, burying my face in my hands, elbows on my knees. "Fucking hell, where's he getting TNT from?"

"I don't know." She says, eyes focused somewhere off in the grey-blurred distance. It's overcast, bright sunlight blocked by the rolling blanket of light grey clouds, dulled and quiet and slightly cold. "He wouldn't tell me."

"Sam wouldn't give him weapons, and he's told all of his allies not to do business with Wilbur, so it can't be through there."

"No villages sell it, not in the Greater SMP, Dream banned it all, and all the others are too far away for him to get too. I don't even know if they sell it either."

"This isn't good Niki." I shake my head. "We have no way of stopping him if we don't know where he gets it from."

"Thought you didn't care if he blew it all sky high." She nudges me with her elbow.

I smile back at her. "I care that you, Tommy and Tubbo care. I'm not letting him ruin that for all of you."

"He's warmed up to you now, he was the same with me, took ages to convince him I wasn't here to spy for Schlatt."