Predator (DWT x OC)

69

"And I'm sorry! I am so fucking sorry Rosemary, I know how much I fucked up. And I don't know if I can redeem myself, I don't know if I can ever be forgiven, but you still have hope, you still have an opportunity to go back to yourself, to let go of the past. I don't want to see you go down this route Rosa, you deserve better."

"I deserved better since the day I was fucking born, since the day I met Dream, since the day my Dad left me in the forest, since the day Fundy took me. I deserve better than you, and him, and Schlatt, and George, and Eret, and- and probably Wilbur too, if I'm being fucking honest with myself! But it's too late now." I shake my head, looking up at the ceiling, and back at Quackity, wide eyes, and a slightly pale face. "I deserve to make them pay for everything that has been done to me."

"So what you're just going to kill-"

"You aren't listening!" I scream over him, jabbing my finger in his direction. "I don't want to kill any of them, except Schlatt obviously, I just want you to know that I deserve to be like this. To stop fucking feeling, to stop being so fucking weak, and vulnerable and pathetic, so that I never, never have to go through what has been done to me again."

"This isn't the life you should live." He says sadly, looking over at me with pitying eyes, and it makes me want to lunge forward and gouge them straight out of their sockets. I am not weak. I do not need to be pitied. 

"It's the life I have left." I reply stiffly, fingers itching at my waist, muscles tense in my stomach.

"There is more out there, I promise."

"When have you ever given me a reason to believe you."

"You have hope, I know you do, even if you bury it, even if you hate it, and that's reason enough."

I purse my lips, before they slowly spread out in a tight lipped smile, that I know does not reach my eyes, because I'm boring them directly into his skull. "Wow Quackity, you've become so insightful, what a shame this wisdom wasn't there when you helped two of the most fucked up people I've ever encountered, which is a fucking feat, just by the way, gain control of my country, my family, MY ENTIRE LIFE!"

"I'm sorry." He whispers. 

The frostiness in my eyes must melt, must give way to the blaze they alight with, the heat of which I can feel rising onto my cheeks. "Too fucking late." I whisper back.

The door swings open before either of us gets a chance to add fuel onto the poisonous fire we've been stoking. 

"Quackity I-"

It's Tubbo. 

Tubbo, who hasn't grown since I've last seen him, Tubbo, who's thinner than he should be, even compared to when we were in the war, Tubbo, who's dressed in a fucking suit, the same one he was wearing when he turned us in, the same blood red tie, that matches Fundy's shirt, and my fists, and the headset that bounced on the floor, that horrible fucking night. Tubbo, who has purple bruises on his face, and holds himself the way someone with cracked ribs would, Tubbo with the same hardened expression no-one his age should be wearing, the same one I saw when I walked out of his life for what I never knew would be the last time. 

Tubbo the little kid.

Tubbo the traitor. 

"Rosie." His voice is tiny. I had forgotten what he sounded like. 

"Tubbo." My voice is strangled, and the name doesn't feel familiar coming from my lips. 

His eyes are horribly wide, still shocked, but they start to flitter between Quackity and I, frenzied little glances as the cogs in his brain turn to put the pieces together. There's dread forming a pit in my stomach for the moment he does.