Predator (DWT x OC)

41

The forest flies by in a stream of green leaves and yellow sunlight, every instinct screaming to just keep moving, just keep going, because if he stops, they're going to die. 

Wilbur keeps moving forward ahead of him, coat tails whipping behind him, leaning heavily on his left side. Dark red blood seeps through his coat and pants, thin stick arrows sticking straight out of his flesh.  

He would never ordinarily admit it, but he's scared. They have no place to go, no place to be, sprinting for their lives in the middle of fucking nowhere, injured and alone. Tommy's strong, but even the toughest person on the planet can find themselves in the world's most eternally fucked up situations. 

The footsteps fall back, the previously hair-raising thudding of chasing assailants behind them fading off as tree limbs and bushes close behind them, deeper and deeper into the woods, further and further away from L'manburg, from Tubbo and Rose, from everyone and everything he knows. 

And when the only sounds are the leaves, and two pairs of uneven footsteps, and ragged breaths that fall in sync with his own, Tommy realises that they are well and truly alone. 

Wilbur thuds to a stop, a tiny clearing beside a river. Unremarkable in every sense of the word. He wants to tell him, that they should find somewhere better, that this place is pure shit and that he just wants to go back home. Instead, a wave of nauseating sickness and unbearable pain bring him down to his knees. 

Wilbur falls down next to him with a strangled groan, but Tommy never does find out if he is okay or not, because the grass comes rushing up to his face and he's out before his head can properly slam into the ground.

------

His shoulder fucking hurts. His neck is stiff. His right hand is numb. Wherever he's sitting is damp and cold, and the chill cuts deep, right through the dirty blue coat and white breeches, more so a chilling combination of dark brown and burgundy. 

"Tommy?" Wilbur's voice reaches his ears. Tommy looks around, squinting into the darkness. His left hand presses against something cold and smooth, and it only takes an impressive twenty seconds, if he does say so himself, for Tommy to realise that their in a ravine, encased stone and towering rock walls, crevices and crannies winding through out the deep slit in the Earth itself. 

Rose would hate it. Tommy would never admit that the lack of open air makes his chest tighten, so he'll push through it. 

Wilbur appears from the deep shadowy end of the ravine, pale and muddy, wobbling unsteadily as he moves to crouch down next to Tommy. 

"I patched up your shoulder." He says gently. Tommy looks down at the loosely wrapped white cloth, suspiciously similar to the shirt Wilbur is wearing.

"You didn't do a very good job."

"Well I'm not a healer so be grateful you didn't bleed out and die."

"You be grateful that I didn't die, because I'm going to be the one that's keeping us al-"

"Enough Tommy!" Wilbur thunders, and it doesn't make Tommy shut his mouth, he chose to, but he falls silent anyway. "We have been- we have been betrayed, no one is on our side."

That's not true, that can't be true. Tubbo, his best friend, he would never pick Schlatt over Tommy, he couldn't. And Rose? She promised, she promised that she's always be there, Niki too. Wilbur was wrong, but Wilbur was never wrong, but then again L'manburg was theirs, built from the ground up and still that had been ripped away. Life had been flipped upside down in the worst way possible.