Predator (DWT x OC)

88

"I swear if he crosses me like that again." Dream is stalking around the living room, shoulders tensed and angry, clenching his fists. "I don't need them, they need me."

I'm curled up on the couch, feet tucked up next to me, looking at him over the cluster of papers  in my hands. "You do understand why they don't like you, right?"

The meeting with the resistance actually went well, all things considered, especially since a worst case scenario is a bloodbath that leaves an entire group of people dead in a bunker under L'manburg. No one died, no one was hurt. All in all, a success. 

Dream doesn't share this sentiment.

"It was Rick, wasn't it?" He stops at the window, turning on his heel to face me. "The man who threatened you."

"How'd you figure that one out?" I respond dryly. 

"The only reason he's alive is because of you." He reminds me, it's not just an explanation, it's not just a comment to defend himself. A reminder of all the lives hinging on my ability to play along, what could be lost if I don't. It's not just Rick, and him and I are both acutely aware of that fact. 

"I don't care." I roll my eyes. "As long as you get rid of Schlatt."

He shakes his head with a laugh. "Fuck I love you too much. Have to, to put up with their shit."

"Mhm." I hum, eyes flicking back down to the documents he gave me when he came back in. I don't have the stomach to say it back. 

It's an agreement, between all of the groups, Pogtopia and the resistance and Dream's Greater SMP, promises inked into beige paper rough from sugarcane fibres, the very thing I sacrificed for. Bullshit bureaucracy and internal politics, driven by egos and ideals built on the shaky foundations of fantasies of the impossible. 

"Let me guess, Wilbur wanted to blow it up."

"You should let him."

"Shut up." I sigh, flipping a page over. "How'd they take it?"

 "Not well, you should have heard them, bunch of amateurs fighting over nothing."

"Lucky they have you."

"You've got an attitude today."

"Sorry, should I be kissing your ass the moment you grace this humble home with your presence?" 

"Well-"

"Nope, nope I take it back." I interrupt, flipping the agreement closed. It's stock standard, promises not to stab each other in the back, promises of the after. It's good enough. "Please just- can we have a normal conversation without you being gross and annoying."

"Can you be nice?"

"Depends on how much you piss me off."

He laughs, finally unfurling his hands, and I watch the tension leave his muscles, his face. I'm not stupid enough to think that it's any indication that the problem is solved, but at least he's not a second away from bolting out the door and murdering half the resistance. "I'm actually happy to hear you like this, like you're back to your old self."

That's good, because it means I'm lying well. I'm hiding it well. Because the girl that he knew is long dead, so far gone that her corpse has rotted away to something unrecognisable, beyond saving, beyond recovering. 

Bow my head a little, pretend like I'm affected by his words, his praise. "Yeah, it was strange being around you again, I just- I wasn't used to it. It took a couple of days."

"Hey, if it takes you a couple of days to readjust, I don't care, as long as you're trying. I'll try too."

He's lying, because whose definition of trying involves executing innocent people in front of the love of your life?