Predator (DWT x OC)

85

I press my palms together, trying to find something to do with my twitchy fingers, the nervousness that buzzes like a live-wire running through my veins, sparking at my elbows and knuckles, keeping me firmly on edge. I'm sitting back at our old house, the one me and Niki shared, the one I came to die in, the one Dream almost took me back from. 

It's cold now, the faint imprints of memories still inlaid in the wooden walls, stale smells of herbs from cooked dinners long ago, cat hairs from a little kitten still stuck to the fabric of the couch, the laughter and the shouting that rings in the memories the site of a familiar world brings back. A place that was once my home, emptied out of everything except it's bones, hollowed out, taken from me. 

By them, by Fundy and him and everyone else, a life I could have had slipping through my fingers like grains of sand, gone with the wind while I'm left with nothing, staring into open air and empty space. 

You know, Tubbo can walk now, but I don't give I shit if that kid could fucking fly, over my dead body will he ever have to come face to face with the devil and his sly smile, the one that pulls you in, the one that will eventually strangle you. I have been ruined, broken by it, I am already gone. 

He's still here, and I will not let Dream ruin him too. 

The knock on the door startles me, and it's almost funny in the worst sort of way, because here we are, me finally bowing to the immensity of his power in our world, the sinking satisfaction that he knows he is winning again, that that foot that has always been there is still wedged infuriatingly in the door, that he has fashioned another string and just beginning to play. 

I don't go and open the door for him. This is not my house. Not anymore. 

He took it just as much as Fundy did, in the end. He revels in that fact. 

"Dream." I say stiffly, when he walks through the doorway. 

He straightens, slipping off his mask and placing it on the counter top. He cut his hair short again, shaved almost to the skin at the sides, longer on the top. I hate that I noticed. His face is heartbreakingly familiar. 

"Rosie." He leans against the bench, surveying me. My hands flex at my sides, and I have to fight to keep my breathing steady. He pauses for a moment, waiting for me to break the silence that stretches between us. I don't. "You asked to see me?"

I want to hit him. I want to make him feel all the pain I have had to go through these past weeks, every goddamn thing I felt. I want to make him fall to his knees and beg to help me. But that's not how it works, not with him. No, he wants me to be at his feet, he wants me to show him he's won, he wants the prize that comes with winning.

"Yes." I take in a deep breath. "I want to ask you to help us overthrow Schlatt."

"Well, I am." He replies slowly, that spark lighting up in his eyes, like a shark smelling blood, an animal excited to play with its food. 

"Not like that, not with Wilbur. With us."

He doesn't say anything. He wants more. 

He wants me.

 I silently send my apology to Punz. Maybe we were too naive, too stupidly in love far too quickly, falling before we could even understand the consequences, before they rushed up to us and shattered every single bone, collapsed lungs and hearts and bruised skin. 

"You know, I was terrified to do this." I tell him. I don't really know why. 

His face doesn't change. "Terrified?"

"You always find a way to worm your way back in." I eventually say, and it's the truth, but I also know that he'll take it and run. 

"That's because you know I never left. You pretend Rosie, you ignore everything and hide away from it, but it's still there."