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“Again, Tommy?”
Tommy shuts his eyes. He hears Sam hiss out his breath, throwing his head back from his place on the opposite side of the obsidian table.
“Yes, again.”
“You know that just because you spared his last life and puts him in prison, it doesn’t mean that he’s—”
“I know, Sam,” He grits his teeth, feeling the throbbing in his head intensifies. “I know, goddammit.”
“And you’re still going to do this?”
“Yes. That’s why I’m here.”
Sam sighs and shifts on his sitting position, staring at him through his thick netherite helmet. If he was anyone else, he would’ve been terrified of the tall man standing on the opposite of him, arms crossed and face stoic as stone. But he was Tommy, and Sam was… Sam.
(And as expressionless and monotone the terrifying man is, he still cares about Tommy, though he’d rather do absolutely anything else than admit that out loud.)
Another minute of an epic staredown. Tommy feels sweat beginning to soak the back of his shirt.
Eventually, Sam just sighs and clicks his tongue.
“Alright, then. Tommy. You know the drill.”
The drill was long, unnecessary, and absolutely painful for both of them. Tommy doesn’t understand why the place needed so many layers of security. The prison already consisted on a lot of obsidian, netherite, and redstone jargons he doesn’t even want to understand how they work.
And of course, lava too. Pools and pools of lava, making the air hot and humid and suffocating, the heat dizzying him. Either that, or the fucking mining fatigue three he’s gotten ever since he walked past the elevator from above. He’s sixty blocks below the ground, entering a hellish torture prison, trying desperately to fish up information from a prisoner who won’t talk, for his brother who doesn’t even want to be brought back alive.
Tommy doesn’t know why he’s doing this.
He could already feel the heat from the lava pool in the next room, nausea settling on the pit of his stomach. Being inside the prison so often just made his health worse. Both physically… and mentally.
He doesn’t know why he’s doing any of this.
“You alright, Tommy?”
He shook his head. “I… ‘m fine.”
He knows Sam wanted to say more, but the man was considerate enough to keep his mouth shut. “Well, come on, then, we still have a couple more security gates to go through. Don’t make this longer than it should be.”
Tommy knows. Guilt began to line up along with the nausea in his guts. “I know, just… jus’ hold on a second, I—”
His stomach contents rises in his throat, and he slaps his palms into his mouth, his knees buckling before he could register what was going on.
“Shit, Tommy—”
His vision blurs. The hot, humid air doesn’t help with his breathing, either.
“Tommy, Tommy hey—” A pair of arms supported his body and moved him up to a hunching position. “I’ve got a bucket, Tommy. You’re okay.”
He heaves into the bucket. Not much came up, just water, but it was enough to make his whole body ache. “Shit,” Tommy wheezes. “Shit, Sam.”
“Yeah, I know. Just breathe.” He feels the other man’s hand brushing against his forehead, holding the tips of his blonde hair back. “Breathe, Toms. You’re okay.”
“I don’t feel good. I really can’t—” Tommy let’s go of a sob, “—take this anymore.”
“Yeah, I bet.” Sam murmurs. “You’ve got to stop doing this, Toms.”
“I don’t… I don’t know how.”
He really doesn’t.
He thought life was going to be different, after the war. After he puts Dream in this hell of a prison. After he got his discs back, and Tubbo—he thought everything was going to be okay.
And everything… is, okay. Just not him. Tommy doesn’t understand why he couldn’t be okay, no matter how hard he tries to be.
“What do you do after the story ends, Sam?” Tommy looks up, hot tears sliding down the sides of his cheeks as he wheezes for breaths. “What—what do you do after the credits roll in, and the curtains close—what do you do then?”
“I…” Sam stares at him. “Your story doesn’t end now, Tommy. Just because the wars ended, doesn’t mean you end, too. Your only purpose isn’t… isn’t just to fight the war.”
“But that was what I was raised for, Sam—I was raised into the war, Tubbo and I, we grew up too fast because of it—and now it just. It just ends! And I’m still here, and I don’t… I don’t know what comes next.” Tommy sobs into the obsidian floor.
Sam lets him writhe for a long while.
“I don’t know what to do now, Sam,” he whispers.
“You live, Tommy.”
He looks up.
“You live,” Sam repeats.
“I don’t… don’t know how to do that either,” Tommy swallows. He feels pathetic, admitting it, but the ashes of war was all that he knew, all that he understood. “To live.”
“Go home, Tommy. Run around in the sunflower field, sit in the sun, eat cake, listen to those music discs you love so much—anything.” Sam deadpans. “Live, Tommy.”
“I don’t—I don’t know where to start,” he rasps.
“Why not start with… let’s get the fuck out of this place?”
Tommy couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah. That’s… that’s not a bad idea.”
He lets Sam limp along with him towards the exit. To the sunlight, to the grass, to a breath of fresh air. To living a life.
It’s a good start, at least.