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Tommy approaches Sam first, plans for an ambitious project, a hotel for people to stay and reconnect, part of a fever dream of Tommy having all the residents of the server be happy together again instead of divided and barely surviving each other's company for more than a few hours.
So Tommy decides it has to be the best, he goes to Sam. They write up a contract and watch it unfold. It starts off small- Sam needs some extra help with gathering materials. Tommy obliges, he isn’t doing much anyways these days with most conflicts over. The heavy peace is now burning at his psyche.
So Tommy gets him the materials. He goes back home and the next day, after waiting and staring at the wall of his house and debating if breaking his knuckles against the stone will make them grow back stronger, he decides to get out of his own head and ask after Sam who takes one look at his wrinkled pants and clenched fists and sends him out for more materials.
Tommy agrees, because what else is he supposed to do? Say no and punch a wall again. So that day he wades through thigh deep water and collects gravel, sometimes taking a break to throw a few of the small stones against the lapping water, seeing the sounds it makes.
At one point he skips them, he never learned to do that before. The stones only can jump two times, he tells Tubbo about it anyways.
It becomes a routine, when he isn’t busy, when he feels like his skin is tight or he is bored or even if he just wants to be reminded he isn’t dead he goes to Sam. It happens week after week, through ups and downs and bad weather and everything.
One day, he wakes up from a nightmare, it’s early enough that the sun hasn’t risen but he can tel its going to be cloudy and awful. He wakes up and his hands are shaking and it feels like there is a million people staring at him and the world is ending and the ground is falling beneath his feet so he needs to move but he can’t do anything and-he wakes up from a nightmare, unable to breathe.
He takes his sword and steps it on his waist, then takes a turtle masters potion in his bag and farms the newest carrots from the small farm outside his house, its only a small batch today and some of the tops of them are purple and brown from frost and lack of water. He still eats them.
Tommy can’t help his shaking hands, it feels like something is bubbling inside him and follows him past his house and into the more populated areas, the morning is empty of people so he makes a few rounds obsessively checking the uncovered holes of ‘secret’ bases of the wars and startlingly every time something moves in the corner of his eye.
There is an ever present mantra of wanting to visit dream but he also doesn’t want to give more of himself to the man who started everything- and he wants to fight someone but he knows he would lose based on the way he can’t even unsheathed his sword without stuttering- and he wants to go back to bed but the thought of closing his eyes for too long makes him feel like the world is going to end.
So he goes to Sam.
He walks onto the construction site, putting on his gear and then reading the updated obnoxious sign while making a big fuss about the past printing error and the new safety regulations- safety boots.
He swears and makes a fuss but that isn’t new. He tries to act normal but the way he yawns when he’s listening to Sam’s introduction and the way he can’t help but check over his shoulder gives it away.
Sam doesn’t move often, he doesn’t fight or rock on his heels like other people do, his feet don’t sway or move from his spot when he’s talking to someone and that constant figure helps sooth whatever jagged edge of himself is shifted out of place that makes him think a sheep entering his vision is an enemy.
He alright and the emotions nipping at his fingertips slowly ache into dullness until. Sam obligingly gives him something to do that day. Tommy can’t help the feeling of rage in that moment and it fills his threat until he chokes.
He groans, crosses his arms and shouts, “What if I said no?” He eggs on and when Sam doesn’t immediately push him back into place Tommy starts to get nervous.
As much as he wants to get rid of the feeling of violence built into him, as much as he wants to act big and get reactions and spit back, the fact is that Sam is one of his best friends.
Which makes him want to push and pull him to see where his limits are, push him and poke him until Sam pushes back and then Tommy can see how much damage Sam can do but instead of everything expected. Sam is silent, his head is tilted slightly and Tommy watches as the man carefully formulates his response.
Tommy’s fingers clench and unclench to release their tension in the quiet, to quell their shaking. It’s drizzling slightly and it feels like his head weighs a million pounds
Sam just looks at him, so slow and steady and he opens his arms. He is only in his non-protective protective clothing, a vest, some steel toed boots and a yellow hard hat and no other armour or shoulder pads. He isn’t carrying a weapon, at least not an obvious one that wouldn’t be able to fit inside his pants pockets so Tommy knows he is vulnerable- Sam knows he knows he’s vulnerable- and he says, “You can hit me if you would like?”
Tommy feels the air punch out of him, his fight is lost. Tommy’s eyes widen and he immediately takes a step back. The slight pitter patter of rain against the scaffolding is the only sound and Tommy’s mouth is dry.
Because Tommy pushes people and he pokes and he pulls them and he doesn’t stop until he get hit or he gets left behind but Tommy has never- he doesn’t want to be the one being pushed
In that moment Tommy realizes Sam was testing him, setting him out on fun tasks, some tedious, some hard, some simple and meaningless and Tommy had complied and had gone on limited information and was addicted to the simplicity of that high pitched bubbling voice and Sam’s tall calm persona who seemed to know everything
And Tommy was the one being poked the whole time.
In every situation Tommy poked techno until he left, Tommy pushed and pulled at dream until he got hit, he poked Ranboo, and Eret, and Fundy until they left and even Wilbur had been poked enough to hit back.
But here, when Sam, who still has his arms open, eyes half lidded and resigned, waiting with that steady calm even now, is Tommy Dream? Is Tommy Wilbur? Is Tommy just repeating history?
Suddenly its like he is rotting, sinking into the sea, Tommy can’t stand the thought of being them, not today, so he exits the building where the rain immediacy drips down his hard hat and he leaves and turns the corner on the pride path, past the stupid sign and the gate and the uneven landscape and he leaves it all behind with Sam’s arms half open and waiting for an action that makes Tommy feel sick.
Was he the bad guy?
When he can’t see the neon yellow of the sign anymore Tommy finds the nearest wall, the Blackstone bridge overhang right before his house and he falls to the ground, wood patchy with its in constant use, reconstruction and inevitable destruction.
His hands leave his hilt and push on the ground feeling the ridges of the planks where old meets new. He’s shielding from the rain which grows into a pour and fog begins to creep in on the valleys between mountains and over the riverbeds.
Sometime, when the cold has started to bite, Tommy sees a figure approach, his hands haven’t moved for an hour so they are still with pins and needles and the frosty, wet air, and Tommy lifts himself back up to a crouch feeling immeasurably tired.
The figure is Sam, no matter how much Tony wishes it wasn’t, it is, without his hard hat but still wearing his boots and bright vest. A crown sits on his head and he kneels next to Tommy.
“Tommy,” Tommy looks up at him, “I will not raise a hand against you,” He says softly.
Tommy can feel anger beneath his skin, prickling and burning but he also feels empty, like anger is really all he has left in him.
“Okay,” He says, too loud, his voice doesn’t crack but it does when he repeats it again, trying to stand fully on his unsteady legs.
“Tommy, I am here to protect and help you,” Sam interrupts him before he can start to ramble. He doesn’t say ‘no matter what’ and Tommy is thankful for it. He couldn't make another long term promise like that, not for the millionth time in his life, he might up and walk away until his legs gave out.
Tommy wets his lips and takes a step towards his house, “Sorry,”
Sam puts a hand on his shoulder, it's warm compared to the weather and the wet clothing on his back and his soaked socks but it's so warm and so tiny that it makes the rest of him feel like it’s being dipped in ice water so he shrugs it off.
When he peeks at Sam’s expression he still looks steady, calm, he doesn’t look mad or frustrated.
Sam walks with him the extra few steps until he reaches his front door, stuck slightly into the packed clay and dirt that keeps out the draft. When they reach it, Sam opens it for Tommy and steps back to let him in.
They both come in, and Tommy sits in the back room on his bed, ignoring Sam who is rustling through his chests, he doesn’t have anything valuable in there anyway.
Tommy takes his sheet off his bed and wraps it around his damp shoulders, unlacing his boots and tucking them under the bed frame where they will continue to be cold in the morning.
Sam enters the back room with a candle in his hand making the bare stone walls and floor react with a warm glow. He doesn’t say anything and Tommy watches him carefully put the candle by the head of the bed, on the floor, where Tommy couldn’t knock it over accidentally with his feet.
He then sits next to Tommy on the mattress, it dips slightly under their combined weight and Tommy tucks his fingers into the fabric more.
Sam leans down to connect their eyes which is not something everyone does, not with Tommy’s height, it feels weird.
“You wouldn’t hurt me,” He says, hands in his lap and leaning slightly towards Tommy. Tommy doesn’t want to hurt Sam but sometimes it feels like it’s all his hands know how to do.
He didn’t know how to tame cats before Sam, he never had to fish in the ocean, pick flowers for dye, or shovel gravel from the shallow ocean floors. So when Tommy looks at his hands and thinks about the years of fighting and the feeling of trying to crush stems and roots under his hands before actually realizing the easiest way was to pinch the petals, he thinks, maybe he can do something else other than hurt people.
Sam watches him and is silent as Tommy lays his head down on his bed and stares into his own palms. Sam watches him and his face is so neutral, so blank it hurts, but when he says, “You can be whoever you want to be” Tommy almost believes him.