Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Sam wasn't really sure what to expect when he started walking through the mainland of the SMP. It was early enough that not too many people were out, Fran didn't seem to care about that, sticking right next to him only ever straying to sniff trees. The people that he saw he didn't recognize and they didn't seem to recognize him, even with the gas mask on. He wasn’t wearing his goggles because he just plain didn't want to.

There was a small girl (he thinks, but he probably shouldn't assume) hanging near the Ghost of Ranboo and he quickly changes his path so that he doesn't go by the two. What he's done is probably been told to the new person and there's no sense in scaring them. He was walking well off the prime path at this point so that he wouldn't have to see anyone that wouldn’t want to see him. He also didn't want to talk to people.

Fran bounded off curiously to sniff the person laying in the Flower Field, who he recognizes as Eret. He calls her back and scurries off before Eret can see him. Although, he's sure that they see him.

All in all, it takes longer than it should have to make it to his old base. He reaches forward to push the button, in the crevice of the hill and lets himself in. What he does not expect is for two kids- no, not kids, well one of them might be a kid he doesn’t know. Either way, Tommy and Eryn (He thinks that’s the demon boy's name) are sitting in his living room looking like they just got caught doing something they weren’t supposed to. Fran doesn’t seem to care and she walks up and plops herself on the couch after giving them each a sniff.

Sam slips in before the door closes, still uncertain as to why the two were here, or how they were here. Considering how early it was in the morning, he was running into too many people. He wasn't even sure how they'd gotten in.

“Does Phil know you’re here?” He asks when he walks forward, deciding to take the responsible approach.

“Fuck you. I’m an adult, He doesn’t need to know shit. But yeah, So does Bad. I know you don’t live here but I had the coords so I figured I’d check it out.” Tommy said, shrugging.

He ignored the comment about Bad, maybe the dude had adopted another kid without him knowing, “Ah, okay, well. Just- don’t mess things up too badly, please. I have some stuff to finish up in my workshop.”

“Got it, Mr. Sam man,” Eryn says while hovering his hand over Fran.

“Just call me Sam, please, and yes. You can pet her, she loves attention.” Sam said, before moving towards the hallway that would lead to his workshop.

Eryn looked positively delighted at that information and so did Tommy, but he’d met her before. He hadn’t known the two were friends, but alright. He went down the hall, briefly pausing when he saw that the only room that seemed to be disturbed was the one that had been for Tommy. Nothing looked too amiss, the boy had probably been curious about a room that had his name above it.

He was however a little surprised to find his workshop doors completely wrenched open, but nothing was missing. Everything was exactly where it needed to be. His last project still sat completely untouched and gathering dust on the table with the blueprints. The blueprints hadn’t been pulled out the last time he was here, but he assumed whoever it was had simply gotten curious. Nothing was damaged after all.

Sam glanced at the blueprints, sat down on his chair, and got to work.

There was more stuff to do than he originally anticipated, but he still managed to finish putting all the wires together by the time Tommy came in to bother him.

“Hey, Sam, whatcha building?” Tommy asked, and he assumed that Eryn was not too far behind.

“What does it look like?” He asked, not intending to be condescending but he sounded a bit like it.

“Well, It looks like an arm, but I don’t know when you would’ve had the time to be working on this,” Tommy stated, pulling up a second chair that he’d forgotten he had in here.

“I was working on it long before everything started happening. I mean like before He even got out of prison. I finished a lot of it before I got trapped and I had a set date to give it to Ponk, but that never happened.”

“Why?” Tommy asked, sounding a bit genuinely curious.

“I’ve done a ton of stupid things, and I feel really bad even If- well, no, it shouldn’t have happened at all. There wasn’t any good reason for me to do that. This is my way of making up for it.” He explained, beginning to collect his pile of tiny screws to connect the last panel to the rest of the mechanical arm.

He had the rest of the mechanisms already in place, and now all that was left to do was what he was doing now.

“Wait, so you're making an arm why?” Tommy asked.

“You know why. Ponk.” He answered.

“Who?”

“Ponk, you know-” He turned to look at who he was talking to and He saw that they were not Tommy. “You are not Tommy.”

He was looking at Eryn, instead of Tommy. Which was… interesting, considering they’d sounded almost identical when Eryn was speaking.

Eryn took that fine as he smiled and laughed it off, slipping back into how he normally spoke, “It's fun to mess with people like that, but no, I’m Eryn. Tommy never told me about that. Eret told me some of the histories from around here but not all of it. Just enough for me to learn who to trust and who not to trust.”

“Oh, well, It’s as it sounds. I fucked up, really badly. All things considered, it's the thing I regret the most.” He said, turning back to continue working on it, not wanting to have a conversation he hadn’t been mentally prepared for.

“What'd you do?”

“I- uh, I cut off his arm. Which sounds bad and It is bad, but the reason I did it at the time was that I was the warden of the prison and-”

“I remember. I was there for some of that.”

“You were?”

“Yeah, I’ve been here since last October, around the 29th I think.”

“That's…Uhm… good for you.”

“Yeah, so I was at least around for the whole scandal thing with Tubbo and Ranboo.”

“Uh- right. Yeah. Um, back on track with Ponk. Yeah, he took a bunch of key cards, and then y’know. I upheld the laws that the prison had. I- There was a lot of blind rage, but I’m gonna at least fix this. I don’t really care if they never want to talk to me again, but I at least want to give him this.” Sam said, his concentration slipping slightly and a screw almost falling off of the table, but he caught it.

“Tommy says you used to have a mechanical eye, what happened to it?”

He faltered, his heart skipping a beat, “That’s none of your business.”

“How did he get so many key cards? Shouldn’t there only be one?” Eryn asked.

“I had a system that required a certain amount of key cards. As for how he was able to steal them, that’s not your business either. That's for me to know and you to not find out.”

“Does he know?”

“How he stole them? Yes?”

“Anyone else?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“I’ll ask him then.”

“I guarantee he won’t tell you.” Sam sighed, and twisted the screwdriver one final time, finishing the arm.

The mechanical arm that was supposed to be finished and painted a long time ago, was finally done. If he hadn’t gotten set back maybe he could’ve gotten it to him on time, but now it was time. Painting would have to be up to Ponk, he could decorate it however he pleased.

He was fairly sure it worked, at least he hoped it worked. So he quickly activated the runes, by putting-

“Aren’t these supposed to be hyper-specific? How’d you get the measurements?”

Some of Ponks’ clothes were still here, in his bedroom as at the time there was no need for them to be in separate rooms. Although he certainly was not saying that out loud. He was able to guess fairly accurately.

“That is, once again, not your business.”

“Y’know the more you say that the more I start to think he slept wi-”

“No. Well- Just- Not like what you're thinking. Just stop asking questions for a moment, please. I need to focus.” Sam said, mimicking the flexing of his fingers with just a thought. An unconscious request and the arm repeated it.

“It's moving.” That was Tommy this time. He was sure of it. It sounded like he was near the doorway rather than the table.

“I noticed.” He said, dryly before deactivating it. Now when he gave it to Ponk and he turned it on it would be attuned to Ponks mind, not his. That's what they wanted. Hopefully, Ponk would accept his gift.

“Fran knows stuff,” Tommy stated.

“I’m aware of that. I did train her.” Sam said as he began to package the arm for better transportation.

“Ponk was here,” Tommy mentioned.

He snapped his head towards the kid, “What? Like now? Or-”

“Recently, I think. He was using one of your bedrooms from the looks of it. One of his masks is here.”

“Oh, well- I wouldn’t worry about it.” He said, brushing it off, and going back to what he was doing. “You two can stay and mess around if you want. Just don’t mess too many things up and don’t touch the welding machine. Don’t touch anything in the workshop actually. If Phil finds out you got hurt in here he’d have my hide.”

“You overestimate how much Phil cares about me.” Tommy snorted.

“Okay, well- Tommy look, I’d rather you not injure yourself with anything in here. A lot of it could hurt you. Oh, and don’t try to fix Nook yourself. I was making some upgrades that were only supposed to take the night when It happened. I’ll put his program back in soon. I have to go now.”

Sam made sure the two teenagers were in the living room and the workshop was as locked as it could be before leaving. It was hard to lock from the outside, it was an inside lock after all. Eventually, he just made the two promise not to go inside and mess with the power tools. He knew that was the best he was gonna get, and that they'd probably go back in immediately.

Only after that did he leave the two to their own devices (Horrible idea really, he probably should’ve stayed to watch over them), and started on the way to Ponks house. His old base was a lot closer to the rest of the main SMP than his island. It took him much less time than he remembered to get from his old base to Ponks lemon tree house. He still wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to say or do.

Before Sam could figure it out, he was knocking on the door. He quickly grabbed the pie out of his inventory and put it on top of the box that contained the mechanical arm. A try for acceptance.

He was, very surprisingly, met with an Unmasked Ponk, his full face showing alongside his hair practically glowing with the way the sun hit it. The two of them stared at each other, waiting for the other to say something first. Ponk looked exhausted like he hadn't slept at all.

“Well, at least you kept up on the promise of Pumpkin Pie.” Ponk said, moving to let him in.

That was even more of a surprise. He was more or less expecting the exchange to happen on the steps and then leave.

“Why would I lie about Pumpkin Pie?” He asked, more sarcastically than intended.

“You lie about a lot of things, and you're late.” Ponk noted.

“Okay, well in my defense, Tommy and Eryn were hanging around my old base and I had to make sure that the two of them weren't going to somehow kill themselves in my workshop,” Sam explained before placing the box down on the table.

"Doesn't that thing have a lock?"

"Someone broke it. I don't know who or how."

Ponk took the pie and put it up in the kitchen while he stayed at the small table with the box. He remembered eating dinner here a few times. When Ponk came back the two of them once again just stood there, unsure of what to say. Fran sat beside them both, her tail wagging, clearly happy to see Ponk again. So, wordlessly, he opened up the box and brought out the arm.

Ponk looked over it and studied the metal appendage that he’d soon be wearing. Sam rolled it over to let Ponk continue looking over it. The silver and copper clashed, but the wiring inside should be safe. Some of the runes were shown from where-

“Does it have the correct garments to be added?”

“Garments?” He questioned.

“The padding to keep the skin from chaffing and getting irritated.” Ponk elaborated.

“Oh! Yes, it’s here.” Sam showed the said padding which could move in and out of where the socket was supposed to be.

“So, how do I put it on? Does it have a manual?” Ponk asked.

Sam froze. Was he supposed to have a manual? He didn't create a manual.

“You didn’t make a manual did you?” Ponk asked, looking unimpressed.

“Was… I supposed to?” He asked.

“Generally that's the best practice, but since I’ll be the only one to have this I suppose not. You can just tell me.” Ponk said.

Sam nodded and began to explain how to put it on and the different properties. Ponk could wear it in the shower, but under no circumstances could it be dipped in lava. Saltwater shouldn’t do anything but maybe avoid it. It would be much easier to get shocked by electricity but the alloys in it should cancel some of it out, but he'd be cautious around stuff like that.

Only then was Sam allowed to help Ponk put the said arm on. The man in front of him seemed very wary and the moment the arm was locked on, Ponk sucked in a breath as the sensors attached themselves to him through the fabric.

“That didn’t hurt, did it?” He asked quietly.

“No, not really, just surprising.” Ponk admitted.

“Alright. It should be working now.” He removed his hands to let Ponk get used to the weight of the new appendage.

Sam watched as Ponks eyes marveled at the sight of the fingers moving. He was glad that he could help out a former friend. It eased his conscience just a little.

“How much force would be behind a punch?”

There it was. The proof that Ponk still hated him, “I'm not sure, and I’d rather not be how you find out. Please don’t punch me.”

“I’ll consider it. You did bring me pumpkin pie.” Ponk hummed.

“Is that all it takes to win your favor?” He asked, probably a bit more formally than needed.

“God no, but I suppose you’ve done enough nice things to not get punched today.” Ponk said. “Now, get out of my house. Go away.”

“I will. I’ll see you… whenever I see you next I suppose.” Sam said, motioning for Fran to follow him out.

With that, He abruptly left with Fran and was going to go back to the Island before switching courses to make sure Tommy and Eryn hadn't managed to kill each other. Today was going to be a great day.

Nearly a month later Sam woke up in Las Nevadas to Foolish gently shaking him, whispering something he couldn’t make out. That was a pretty common way for him to wake up.

“-am. Sam. Wake up, c'mon sam."

He grumbled and pushed away Foolishs hand in exchange for more sleep. On other days he would've just pulled Foolish back into bed with him but today it sounded like he was busy.

"No, no, it's time to get up." Foolish laughed. "Don't you know what day it is?"

"A day in June?" He muttered.

"June 8th," Foolish said with some sort of tone that told him that this was important but he didn't remember why.

"Uh… okay? Is that important?” He asked.

Foolish paused speaking slowly, “Yes? It’s… your birthday Sam.”

Sam opened his eyes and looked at Foolish, “Oh. Kinda forgot about that.”

“I can see that,” Foolish said with a bemused expression on his face.

“Alright then I say, I get to sleep in.” He said, closing his eyes and putting his face back into the pillow.

“It’s already 10 am.” Foolish chided. "You've already slept in."

He felt the bed shift and assumed the other sat down next to him, and that was proven correct when a hand started to card through his hair, ever so soft.

“That’s gonna put me to sleep, not wake me up.” He muttered, voice muddled by the pillow.

“I know,” Foolish said, laughing softly. "But, I'll let you sleep some more." Foolish muttered, brushing his lips against the top of his head in a small kiss.

"Mm. Sleep." He said, yawning as he did so.

"You have to be up by eleven though, we have plans."

"No, we don't?" He muttered clearly remembering the calendar being completely clear yesterday.

"I planned something for you. It's small and will probably only be an hour or two. Don't worry." Foolish chuckled.

"I hate you so much." He said in a lighthearted tone so Foolish didn't take it seriously.

"It'll be fine," Foolish said in an exasperated tone. "I'll be back for you later, sleepyhead."

He hummed and let his brain slow down again so he could go back to sleep. Which was brief and instant enough that by the time Foolish came back he was ready to wake up this time. Foolish laughed slightly when he grabbed his arm and pulled him onto the bed, despite intending to get up, a grin flew over his face.

“Sam, c’mon. You gotta see this, then we can laze around. I promise.” Foolish chuckled, but also accepted his fate of being pulled into the bed.

Eventually, Sam relented, allowing himself to be dragged out of bed and taken to the small celebration. It truly was just something small, Boomer, Quackity, Foolish, Tommy, and Fran. Just the six of them hanging about and eating cake that Foolish and Quackity had baked and managed not to fuck up. As much as he loved them both, they were absolute shit at baking. The celebration ended up being much longer than an hour but he found that he didn't mind. Hanging out with his friends and hearing all the shenanigans that Tommy had gotten up to in the last couple of months was relieving in a way.

It was almost like his first birthday party here, which none of the people here currently would remember but it made him want to wish for a more simple time. When there were only eight of them on the server.

"Y'know I was out and about the other day, checking out where I lived in the main hub because I still technically need to graduate and I needed to talk to the school about it and you know what to know who I ran into?" Tommy asked.

"Who?" He asked.

"I shit you not, I ran into Alyssa. She's alive."

"Seriously?" He asked, eyes wide and leaning forward in his chair.

"Yeah! I was all like oh my god Alyssa. And she was like holy shit Tommy! Then I asked how the hell she got out and it turns out dream just let her leave before he got all assholey. So she knew nothing about what was going on." Tommy explained. "So, I started explaining it to her and she was very surprised, and then she asked if Sam was doing anything for his birthday. And I say yes but she had plans today already so she couldn't come because she thought we were all dead at this point, but she might show up later. Who knows."

"Forgive me for this, but who's Alyssa again?" Quackity asked.

"She was one of the original eight that joined the server, she actually joined the same day as me. She left after a few months though, just long enough to see L'manburgs creation I think. One day she just up and disappeared. That's why we were all confused." Sam explained.

"I forget you were here before most of us sometimes." Quackity snorted.

"Do you understand how confusing it was to come back to several countries, wars, and new people? That's why I just originally went over to the badlands. The only people I knew that weren't involved were Ant, Bad, and Skeppy, but look at how that ended." He said.

"That's interesting." Foolish murmured from his seat.

"Yeah, oh my god, I need to tell you guys a story," Tommy said, eyes brimming with excitement. With that, he launched into a tale about finding out Eryn was slowly developing a peanut allergy because he ate peanut butter with almost everything.

Sam was standing on the observation deck at the top of the Space Needle, the wind blowing through his hair at a slow pace, while he leaned against the rail. Today had been a good day, and he'd certainly missed not having to worry about anything. Although when he heard footsteps behind him, he didn't react. They'd been planning this, after all, he knew who it was.

Another body stood next to him on the good side of his vision, although they didn't lean against the rail like him and he knew if he looked over at them, they'd be wearing armor. That's just the way Punz was. He didn’t need to look over and stop looking at the Las Nevadas skyline.

"So, closure. Talking things out." Punz said.

"Yep. I just have a few questions. I'd rather ask them in person otherwise I would've just messaged you." He elaborated, running a hand over the cold rail.

"Go right ahead. I'm not that busy tonight." Punz said. "What do you want to know?"

"Why? Why were you working with Dream? I guess I technically know, but I just don't get it. You were working with him for so long, hell you even betrayed him, and yet you still went back to him. Was it money or something else?" Sam asked.

"Partially, it started with money. It… got personal after a while and I willingly stopped getting paid. The betrayal was on purpose, you know that, although Dream wasn’t supposed to be in there for so long. We had a plan, there was a clearing in the woods a bit away, and when he got out I was supposed to meet him there, so every day I was there. Waiting.”

“For ten months?” He asked incredulously.

“For ten months,” Punz confirmed. “I waited there every single day. It was pretty tiring after a while but I knew it would be worth it.” Punz paused. “Y’know I have the revival book.”

Sam’s heart stopped for half a second before Punz continued speaking, “I know I shouldn’t revive him, it’ll fuck everything up again but every time I look at it there’s a part of me that wants to. I miss him. That’s a little convoluted considering everything he’s done, but when we were alone, he was nice. A lot nicer than he ever was in public.”

Sam wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He hadn’t ever really thought about why Punz was working with him other than money. He’d always thought that there was some amount of money involved, but that explained more than nothing. When he and Quackity had been exploring, they’d only found one of almost everything. They’d had a theory based on that but it didn’t seem likely so they dropped it, but with what Punz had been saying.

“Wait, were you two-”

Punz cut him off, “At one point, yeah. After you and Tommy escaped we got into a pretty big argument. I didn’t agree with how he was handling things then. We remodeled one of the other rooms to make another bedroom pretty quickly after that.”

“Why did you work with him if you didn’t agree with him anymore? Why didn’t you help me? You seemed like you were on my side a majority of the time.”

“I was. You were at one point my friend, I didn’t really want to hurt you and technically I wasn’t being paid at the time so I wasn’t going to. I understood part of why he was doing it but I- Well, As you heard a few times we got into arguments more and more frequently near the end. We made up a couple of days before the nuke situation.” Punz explained.

“Why did you betray him in the end though?” Sam asked, finally looking over at the other man.

Punz had taken to leaning on the rail as well, although he looked partially like a wreck. The lights from Las Nevadas showed Punz wiping something out of his eye.

“It was the right thing to do. When I realized what you were doing, I knew we wouldn’t be able to get out in time.” Punz took a deep breath. “So, I decided I needed to let this convoluted idea of his die. Then and there. He won’t be able to hurt anyone else anymore- well, I guess except for me emotionally I guess.”

“Y’know he had a ghost.”

“He did?”

“Yeah, intent on making my life a living hell. Apparently, only I could see him due to that stupid mind control thing.” Sam murmured, not sure if Punz had heard him.

“Not surprised. He definitely had it out for you in the end. He wanted to make your death as painful as possible.” Punz said.

“That sounds about right. I’m not surprised.”

“Anything else?”

“If you didn’t agree, why didn’t you stop it?” Sam could hear a slight waver in his voice, as Punz sucked in a breath.

“I didn’t know what else to do. What could I have done?”

“Anything. You didn’t have to bring Tommy into this again.” He hissed. “You didn’t have to hurt-”

“I know that.” Punz snapped. “He wasn’t supposed to be there. He wasn’t a part of the plan until Dream kidnapped him again. Then him being the Phoenix while I was trying to convince Dream to drop it didn’t help.”

“He didn’t need any of that to happen to him.”

“I know.”

“I wish you would’ve done more to stop it.”

“I do too, but I didn’t. We can’t change that now.”

“What are you two talking about?” Someone behind them asked, startling them both.

Looking over his shoulder he saw that it was Foolish, smiling at them softly but looking a little confused as he always did.

“Talking some things through.” Punz shrugged. “I was just about to leave if you need Sam.”

“Not particularly, I was just looking for him. I’ll leave if you two want to continue talking.” Foolish offered.

“It’s alright. I’ll go. Happy Birthday by the way Sam.” Punz said, looking him in the eyes for a second before leaving towards the elevator.

Sam watched as Foolish replaced Punz where he had been standing next to the rail. Foolish smiled at him, an infectious grin that caused him to smile back, content.

"So, how was today?" Foolish asked.

"Wonderful." He said.

"Punz wasn't bothering you, was he?"

"Nope. We planned to meet up and talk, and considering I forgot today was my birthday it happened to fall on today."

Foolish shifts so that they were standing shoulder to shoulder and could also look out into the sky while they talked, resting his head on his shoulder.

"I have one last surprise for you," Foolish said.

"Foolish." He sighed.

"It's not talking to more people. I promise," Foolish laughed, "Just wait a minute, you’ll enjoy it."

Sam looked out into the night sky, a little curious as to what the surprise was and he saw something flying up into the sky and exploding into a dozen different colors. Then more until he realized that Foolish had organized a fireworks show, finally convincing Quackity to use their reserves.

“Foolish, I love you.” He breathed out in near disbelief. He loved watching firework shows, as he always had, and seeing that Quackity had finally given in and let Foolish use them made it all the more amazing.

“I’m glad you like it,” Foolish said, taking hold of his hand and intertwining their fingers.

“You’re- This- Holy shit.” He stared in awe at the exploding colors.

He would’ve glanced at Foolish as a silent thanks for this wonderful opportunity, but he couldn’t tear his eye away. As the fireworks began to taper off, he looked over at Foolish, only pure joy running through his entire body.

“Thank you so much.” He whispered, moving his hands to hold onto Foolishs face. "You are the best person ever."

Foolish laughed and grinned his shark teeth showing the mirth that came with the enjoyment of his happiness. Then he rested his forehead on his.

"I love you too, Sam. Happy birthday."

Maybe everything could be okay, maybe even starting today.