Chapter Text
TommyInnit was slain by Dream.
The message shows up on his communicator while he’s hanging up his prison keys, getting ready to go home for the night. He’d just placed more potatoes in the prison’s feeding system—double the amount, actually, since both Dream and Tommy were locked in the main cell now. He’d just seen Tommy. Just heard him screaming profanities at the top of his lungs and begging to be let out.
Sam’s heart had clenched at the words, and when Tommy had stepped closer to the microphone on the other end of the lava and whispered, “this is worse that exile, Sam,” that had nearly broken him. He’d nearly brought down the lava barrier right then and there; nearly abandoned all carefully outlined protocol because Tommy was in pain. Tommy needed him. Tommy wanted out.
He was just a kid. And Sam had just been talking to him. There was no way Tommy was... he was...
Sam’s keys hit the ground with a clatter, and he didn’t bother picking them back up. Instead, he whirled back towards the prison hallways—ducking and weaving between the elaborate security checks he’d designed, ignoring them all—and raced back to the main cell.
There was no way that message had been right. Surely, he must have read it wrong. He’d just heard Tommy. He’d just seen his name flickering across the lava. And yet, another glance at his communicator proved he hadn’t read wrong. And the server was never wrong. If it said Tommy had died, then...
“Tommy!” Sam yelled, bursting into the final security checkpoint and coming face to face with a wall of searing hot lava. “Tommy! Are you over there?”
The only sound he was met with was gurgling lava. Panicking, Sam threw himself at the levers on the wall, pulling the one for the lava canopy down. Slowly, the lava began to recede down towards the floor.
“Tommy!” Sam screamed, voice cracking at the end as the top bit of Dream’s cell began to come into view. “Tommy, please! I came to... to get you out! I’m sorry! I’m sorry- sorry for taking so long! Are you in there?”
The lava dipped down again, revealing the upper half of the cell—revealing Dream’s face staring across at him. The man's green eyes seemed to glow in the dark prison cell.
Sam swallowed. He needed to get it together. Here, he was the Warden. He could panic out there, cry out there, scream out there, but in here... in here there was a psychopath staring at him from across a lake of lava. Sam couldn’t show weakness here.
“Where’s Tommy?” Sam asked, using the most authoritative tone he could muster.
The lava slid down another foot, almost revealing the cell floor, and Dream smiled. For the first time, Sam noticed that the masked man was covered in some sort of liquid. It was hard to see into the dark cell, even with the lava's burning light shining just outside it, but Sam could see the dark stains on Dream’s prison uniform, the spatter of freckles that hadn’t been on his white mask before. Dream raised a hand to wave, and Sam stumbled back as he realized Dream’s hand was covered in blood.
Just as he realized this, the lava sank down another foot, revealing the prison floor. Revealing Tommy.
Sam screamed.
Sam was used to seeing death. He’d seen too many wars to not be used to the tangy smell of fresh blood, the sight of a friend dropping like a fly to the ground below you, the wheezing exhale of their last breath, the pale color of their skin just before the server took them away to respawn. He’d even seen Schlatt and Wilbur's Final Deaths. Unlike the first two deaths, after this death there was no respawn. The server left the bodies where they were, as if knowing that there was no point in bringing a person back to spawn who had finally lost their soul.
Despite all this, Sam had never seen a death as horrifying, as merciless, as this.
Without thinking about it, Sam pressed the lever down for the moving platform. He stepped onto it just as it took off across the lava, nearly missing the first step because of his trembling legs.
“What did you do to him?” Sam screamed before the platform had even made it halfway across the glowing pit. “What did you do?”
Dream laughed, his cackles echoing inside the chamber. Despite the burning hot lava beneath his feet, Sam felt like a bucket of ice water had just been dumped over his head.
The platform jolted to a stop at the main cell, and Sam practically threw himself off of it. He dropped down at Tommy’s side, rolling the boy over so he could get a good look at his face.
He immediately wished he hadn’t. Blood had pooled on the floor all around him. Tommy’s hair was matted with it, stained so darkly on one side that Sam couldn’t even see the blond color anymore.
He choked back a sob, pushing his hand through Tommy’s bangs to move them away from his eyes. His open eyes. His completely vacant, dull, gray eyes.
Sam actually did sob, this time. He couldn’t hold it back anymore. He cried, bending over Tommy’s body and rocking him slowly back and forth.
“What did you do to him? What did you do to him?” Sam whispered over and over, cradling the boy in his arms. Blood was beginning to seep into his Warden uniform, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care he didn’t care because Tommy’s chest wasn’t moving. Tommy was dead. Tommy was actually dead. Dream had murdered him.
And Dream was laughing about it. He’d backed into a corner of the cell and sank down to the floor, but he was still laughing. Cackling, practically, as he stared at Sam. He’d pushed his mask to the side just for this—just so Sam could see him as he laughed.
Sam saw red. Bright, furious red that rivaled even the lava burning behind him. He wanted to bash Dream's head in, to blow him to pieces like the creeper part of him was meant to do. But he couldn’t kill Dream. If he killed Dream, the prison would kill him. He knew the rules. He'd written nearly all of them himself.
Gently lowering Tommy’s body back to the ground, Sam pushed himself to his feet. His legs felt like jelly beneath him, but he had to ignore it for now. There was time to have a meltdown later. There was time to cry and scream and rage later. Right now, he needed to go back and get something to clean Tommy up with so he could actually bring the boy back across the lava and into the main prison. Something he should have done days ago.
Sam nearly lets out another sob at the realization that this is his fault. He failed Tommy. After learning what Dream had done to him, promising to protect him as Sam Nook, building a hotel with him... he’d failed him. He’d let down the one person he’d sworn would never be let down again, and he couldn’t even apologize because Tommy was dead. Tommy was dead, and he wasn’t coming back this time. His body still being here was proof of that.
“You're a monster,” Sam grit out, fists tightening at his sides as he gently slid Tommy back to the floor and turned to look at Dream. “A fucking... monster. Fuck you. I’ll be back.”
With that said, he rose and stumbled back onto the bridge. The seconds it took for him to travel back across the lava seemed like years, and by the time he’d finally made it to the other side, his legs were just about ready to give out beneath him.
Fuck Dream. Fuck this server. Fuck it all because as if taking away Tommy’s childhood wasn’t enough, now it had taken the rest of his life, too.
Sam continued down the hallway, ignoring the tears that streaked down his cheeks. Oh god. He had to tell everyone. He had to tell Tubbo.
He could do that on the way to his base. He knew he had some thick bandages in a chest back there that could help clean up some of the mess. That way, at least Tommy wouldn’t completely bleed out all over the prison floor.
Sam sniffled as he slid through the last hallway and into the brightly lit lobby. The giant, purple Nether portal flickered to life, and Sam walked forward until he stood at the edge of it.
Tubbo was going to hate him. This was all his fault. This was all his fault.
Nevertheless, the Warden took a steadying breath, and stepped through.