Predator (DWT x OC)

62

"Sam?" 

It isn't supposed to be, it shouldn't be, but the person standing in front of me looks so much like the brother I've lived my life knowing I wouldn't see again. 

I take an involuntary step backwards, because he's looking at me like he's surgically dissecting me with his eyes, and he- my brother was always so good at understanding exactly what I'm thinking, somehow he always knew what was going on in my head. 

I'm afraid of what he'll find. 

"You're not- you're- you're supposed to be dead." He stutters out aimlessly, and even though he's too tall, too solidly built, and the scruffy beard he has is a far cry from the baby faced fifteen year old I remember, that scar across his nose bridge from the tree branch I flicked into his face is there, and the spiderwebbed burn sprawled across his forearm from a particular red-stone bomb incident are the same. 

There's no way that it could be him, and there's no way it could be anyone else. 

"You weren't supposed to come back." I find the words tumbling out of my open mouth, shaking my head. "You're supposed to be gone."

"Dad said you died." He says, eyes locked on mine. Neither of us have moved a muscle. 

"He left me in the forest." I respond, voice ringing with horror I didn't even know I could muster. "Both of you left me."

"Rosie what's going on?" Dream asks, completely confused. His voice is a little far off, and all I can feel is the way the four walls are too fucking close, closing in too fucking tightly, how the roof seems to be caving in as we speak, and there's too many people staring at me right now, and if I don't get the fuck out of this room, I'm going to kill someone. 

I push past him, through the doors, sliding through the crowd. Punz catches me just as I reach the doors to get outside. 

"Rosie what are you doing?" He asks, slamming his hand down against he door to keep it shut. I don't answer, my eyes glued on my trembling hand clutched tightly around the door knob.  

"Hey." He says urgently, grabbing one side of my face and wrenching it to look at him. "Hey, are you okay?"

"He's here. He's alive." Is all I can say

"What?"

"Sam. Sam's here."

"Who's Sa- Your brother's here?" His eyes flash in realisation, and he looks up, spotting Dream and Sam pushing through the crowd towards me. "That's good, isn't it?"

"I don't know-" I clutch my stomach, because I can't stop shaking and I think it's going to shatter me apart. "I don't know Punz."

"Shit, did something happen?"

"No. I just-" I cut myself off. I should be happy, should be throwing myself into his arms for a crazy family reunion, but nothing feels right. 

Good things like this don't happen to me. There's always a catch, always a fucking condition, something that has to go horribly wrong. And what if Punz told Dream, and this was all Dream's idea, and he's working for Dream? I don't know him anymore, not like I used to, how can I trust a stranger?

It's too much of a coincidence, too convenient, and I don't get happy endings like this. I gave up the silly, stupid, naive hope that I would months ago. The world around me has taught me this lesson tenfold. 

"Hey, hey come back to me." Punz's gentle voice whispers in my ear. "It's okay, come on, you should talk to him."

And that's exactly what he would say.