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"You're okay, Tommy."
Sam's voice, his usually deep, calming voice, is undeniably shaky as he gently pulls the teen up onto his lap. He lets out a breath. His hands are shaking too – quivering and trembling where they hover over a battered and bruised body. Sam is unable to stop their moving, no matter how much he might want to.
"You're going to be okay-"
"I'm dying, Sam."
Tommy's response cut off the gentle reassurance that the hybrid was desperately trying to give off. It sliced right through, like a scalding knife through hot butter, and left Sam flinching backwards.
"Don't- Don't say that, Tommy," Sam whispered through a harsh breath, his hands gently lowering down so he could hold onto the younger blonde. "Don't say that. You'll be fine. It'll be okay. It's just a small wound. A nick."
The teen swallowed roughly through thick layers of bubbling crimson and an underlying sense of dread. "I've been-" He blinked slowly as if taking a moment to process. "I've been stabbed, Sam."
There's a slice right through his chest, a shimmering, netherite-encased sword having been driven straight through Tommy's thin body the one moment he'd turned his back. (Jack Manifold had seen his chance, and he'd taken it.)
Blood streaked down in taunting waves, rivulets of the flowing ruby shifting the typically white shirt into a colour so unnerving that even Tommy couldn't really stomach looking at it – it served just as a solemn reminder of his now inevitable end that was soon to be.
"I've been stabbed." He repeated slowly, a little clearer and a little louder than before. Perhaps if he said it enough, whispered it enough times, then they'd both be able to accept it.
"I've been stabbed, and I'm going to die."
Sam's emerald eyes squeezed shut behind dark, dark glasses, tears rolling down his cheeks and hitting against the protective gear of his gas mask before dissolving into nothing. At that moment, he'd never been more grateful for his facial guards. If Tommy knew that he was crying so openly...
Sam really needed to stay strong for both of their sakes.
"You'll be okay, Tommy. It's just a gash. A gash. Help will be here soon, I- I sent a message out on the communicators a few minutes ago. Somebody will come." They'd always said that ignorance was bliss, hadn't they? Even if this ignorance was forced and put on.
Tommy's tongue darted out to dampen into blood-soaked lips. "Sam."
"Tommy."
The blonde appeared as if he wanted to respond in a brutal, harmful way. His brows were pinched together, corners of his mouth downturned considerably, and his ocean-blue eyes were filled to the brim with rolling, grey thunderclouds, and crashing waves.
But he didn't.
"I'm going to be okay." Tommy agreed finally through a mess of quiet coughing, his hands drifting to hover over the deep, mortal wound. "Somebody's going to come and help us."
Despite everything, a smile breached Sam's lips. "They are. They're going to come. Puffy, or Tubbo, or Ranboo, or Fundy. Hell, maybe even Sapnap will show up."
"Yeah," Tommy nodded in agreement around a snort, "Maybe we'll see a rare appearance of George, dressed up in some- some fuckin' doctors' outfit ready to patch me up."
They both knew that nobody was coming – that nobody would check their communicators in time and actually make it to the obscure place that Tommy was quite literally dying in. So, that only left mild jokes with pain-laced tones and crumbling voices there to fill the void. To fill the silence.
(If they let an empty quietude reside for too long, who knows how much more morbid the situation would become.)
"Maybe, maybe. That would certainly be a sight, wouldn't it?"
Tommy snickered lightly, eyes only holding a tiny more amount of anguish as another trail of blood dribbled from his mouth. "Yeah, it would be. I think- I think that I'd, uh, pay to see it. Or something."
Sam's nose scrunched. "I imagine that there are a lot more things you could use your diamonds and gold for that just... isn't that. As funny as it may sound." Normalcy – as fake as it was - was one of the only things keeping the two stable and sane at that point.
"I guess." Tommy's gaze flickered off. "I'd pay for a time traveler right now. To- to change what happened."
A pause.
"I would as well, Tommy. If I could, then..."
The blonde teen just nodded, not really needing Sam to elaborate on his words and not really wanting him to, either. He turned slightly - even with the torment and pain running rampage through his body - and pressed his face into Sam's side.
Tommy was pale. Paler than he'd ever been before, the usual flushing crimson that was splattered on his cheeks having seemingly dissolved away the moment an opening had been carved into his flesh. His chest was heaving, heaving, heaving as it pulled desperate tendrils of air into his overworked lungs, and Sam – Sam felt sick.
"Tommy-"
"Sam-"
"Oh, you go first."
"Are you- are you sure?"
"Yeah. Of course."
Tommy went quiet again after that, his words seemingly dying on the very tip of his tongue, and his eyelids were drooping somewhat. He knew what he wanted to say, what he wanted to ask Sam and carefully inquire about, but it was hard. Harder than he ever would have imagined it to be.
Though, then again, bringing up your already dead brother – the same brother who had gone very, very insane and blown up a sizeable part of L'Manburg - was probably not the best idea anyway.
But Tommy had never been known to be a maker of good ideas.
"You know," He started quietly, a more subdued tone compared to his typically demanding voice, "At the start, the start of this- this whole server when I'd first joined..."
Without prompting, Sam's fingers took the initiative to begin to thread through Tommy's matted locks, drifting between blonde strands and smoothing them against a – somewhat – bloodied scalp. It was like a careful, though reassuring, massage, and the teen couldn't help but lean into it.
"When I'd first joined, Wilbur- he would, he would say he was proud of me a lot. Like, like a lot." Tommy's eyes flickered, and Sam partially wondered if Tommy was still in the present or had shifted to past memories.
"Any little thing... Just... he always said he was proud. I could have literally just mined my first- my first fuckin' block of stone or something, and Wilbur..."
"Wilbur! Wilbur! Look what I've got!"
Tommy came barreling over to his older brother, eyes shining, hands twitching, and lips stretched wide into an infectious grin. "Got my first diamond, I have!"
Wilbur's gaze softened considerably at the sight of his youngest sibling holding up a rather glamorous, shimmering piece of diamond. It was a rare and incredible sight and truly shining out next to Tommy, who was absolutely covered in dirt, grime (and Wilbur was sure there was some sort of dead zombie attached to his brother's shirt.)
"You did it, Tommy!" He beamed despite it all, reaching out to ruffle blonde curls. "I'm so proud of you!"
Tommy's expression only appeared to brighten, his chest swelling with pride, and his cheeks were puffed considerably. "You are?"
Wilbur smiled. "Of course. The proudest."
"He always said that he was proud of me." Tommy's gaze flickered up to Sam for just a moment. "Do you... do you still think that he's proud of me now?"
Sam felt as if his heart had just suddenly shattered within his chest – decimated into thousands of tiny, tiny pieces forever split across his hybrid body. He swallowed roughly, beginning to draw Tommy closer, and he let the tears free once more.
"Oh, Tommy," He whispered, letting his gloved hands rub soothingly over the teen's blemished skin.
Tommy's eyes had shut at that point, baby blues being coveted by natural blankets, leaving him entirely in the dark. Each shaky breath was growing further and further apart; the next far choppier than the last, and Sam could practically feel Tommy's chest beginning to rise and fall, less and less.
The death was inevitable, something that both Sam and Tommy had known and realised the moment the deadly sword had been driven through the teen's open chest. It was a third and final loss of life that even Tommy's continuous plot armour couldn't save him from this time.
It was the end of an era, a saga, an arc.
It was something that the whole server had been eagerly (or not so) waiting for, and yet...
Sam just hadn't wanted it to be so soon. It felt as if he hadn't been able to comfort Tommy at all in his last few moments, and that hurt more than anything else. If Sam couldn't offer even a hint of reassurance as Tommy – as his son died in his arms, then what kind of father would he be?
"Tommy... I don't think that he's ever been more proud."