Predator (DWT x OC)

74

Fundy may not have been innocent, and he may not have been Tubbo, but he was a traitor who died the moment I had an opportunity to get my hands on him. 

So were the guards, names I didn't even know, faces I didn't see, men who fell at my hand, people I never met.

I stoke limp strands of hair off his forehead gingerly. "I'm so sorry."

"It's my fault." He voice comes out cracked, like it was ripped straight from a sandpaper throat and a broken heart. 

"No." I clutch his uninjured hand again, pulling it my chest, cupping the left side of his face. "This is not your fault, none of this is your fault okay? None of this."

"If I hadn't been spying for Tommy-"

"You were doing the right thing, Tubbo, you were fighting against a horrible piece of abusive shit that was hurting you, and Quackity," I tuck his hand underneath my chin, squeezing the bones in his fingers underneath my own. "How could any of this possibly be your fault?"

"If I hadn't- he wouldn't have had to save me. He died to save me." A lonely tear rolls down his cheek, from the left eye, and I don't know if his face is twisted in the pain from half his body being seared off or from losing someone he loves, or just all of it, at once, insurmountable pain that I know oh so well.

We go way back, that pain and I, dark nights and sunny days, cupboards and closets and great open plains, gripping me so fiercely I used to think there was no escape. 

Well, I still think that, the difference is I've stopped trying to fight for one. 

"He loved you so so much, and he wanted to give his life for you Tubs, he wanted to do that, he chose to do that. You don't deserve to feel guilty, you know that? That is on Schlatt, only on Schlatt, not on you, not on anyone else."

"He died for me." Tubbo repeats, one good eye fixated on the ceiling, shrouded in creeping shadows and the odd flicker of warm dull light from the swinging lamps. 

"He knew what would happen, and he wasn't going to let you die. He made that choice, this isn't on you, this isn't your fault."

"Why?" 

That turns out to be the word that breaks my heart. 

"Why did he have to die for me?"

"Because you are worth dying for Tubbo, and I know, I know damn well that if we gave him the opportunity, he'd do it again." I press his knuckles to my lips, wanting so desperately to wrap him up in my arms, keep him hidden, keep him protected from the world and its evil men, power hungry tyrants and their greedy hands. 

"I didn't want him to."

"He would've either way." I smile sadly, tilting my head to rest my cheek on the hand I'm gripping like a lifeline, like if I let go he'll slip away from me forever. "You know what he told me, before he died? He wanted me to fight, to fight and to know that you were okay. That's all he cared about, even though he was going to die."

"I didn't want him to die." Tubbo's face crumples with the sob that escapes his throat.

"I know, I know." I murmur soothingly. "But that was the choice he made. He wasn't scared, or in pain, he was just happy that you were alive, that's all he cared about."

"I want him back."

"Me too." I think I'm crying, but my cheeks are too numb to really know, my throat is all clogged up like I've swallowed a mixture of sandpaper and glue. "I miss him already." I laugh, even though it's not funny, even though it's stupid, even though this is the beginning of a life of missing him, of the hole I won't be able to fill. "I really do."