Predator (DWT x OC)

101

"Rosie? Rosie, what are you doing here? You need to go." Punz's swollen eyes widen as I enter the hospital wing, and his face screws up in pain when he goes to sit up. "You need to go before he-"

He looks awful. The bruising has already started to set in, the skin on the bridge of his nose has split open, the trails of blood wiped away, but it's beyond crooked. His neck is the worst of it, the deep purple already blooming underneath his skin, matching the ones of his cheeks and jaw. 

"He knows." I know my face is red and swollen from crying, as the tears still run down my cheeks. "He knows everything."

He can't sit up, but he reaches out for me, his hand warm and solid against mine, safe, secure. I hold on so tightly I probably add new bruises to his collection. 

"Rosie." Punz's voice is breathless, soft as I kneel down by his bed. His other hand comes over to  wipe away my tears. "What happened?"

"I told him everything." I bite down hard on my bottom lip to stop ugly sobs tear from my throat. I held everything in, held it together, but the moment I'm with him, my defences seem to give, and dam almost bursting. "I don't- I don't know what he's going to do. He might let me go or he might kill us both."

"Well it's better than certain death." Punz gives me a roguish grin that rewards him with a choked laugh. I lean my forehead against our entwined hands. 

"I love you." I sit back on my heels, letting go and furiously wiping the tears off my face, tucking my hair back behind my ears. He watches me, his stare and half-lidded eyes a smouldering weight. 

"I love you too." He says it with a smile, he says it like it isn't the reason for him lying in a hospital bed. 

"I'm so sorry." 

"I knew what I was signing up for." He still doesn't stop smiling, like me being there with him could make him the happiest man on the planet, like he wasn't almost strangled to death by Dream. 

"No-"

"Rosie, it's not your fault. He does this so you feel guilty for loving people and for getting close to someone, this is his fault."

"I knew the risks, I knew-"

"I would go through it all over again knowing that you'd be okay on the other side." He says simply. 

I lean forward, kissing him softly. "You love me too much." It's half a joke, and it's half not. He just shrugs. 

"It's not possible."

Dream left, left for the front, left without answers, without anything. It doesn't help, the paranoia and the fear he was so desperate to in-still in me, is still stuck under my skin, still beat into my bones. He taught me to be afraid, and I have been scared ever since. 

"Stop tapping." Sam barks at me, snapping me out of my stupor. I look up at him, taking my fingers away from the wooden armrest of my chair. 

"Sorry." I grumble, lacing them together in my lap. The look Sam gives me isn't annoyed, but slightly pitying, which is a thousand times worse. 

"The resistance have a faction demanding Dream's head." He continues on. "And of course, the rest of our army is Dream's, so it's becoming a problem."

Danny lets out an exasperated sigh. "Most of us are shocked at Dream's display, but we're still committed to the war before anything else. A small but vocal minority-"