Work Text:
The Warden never leaves this fortress.
He wakes at the same time every day, hours before the sun even rises, same as always.
He forces down some raw potatoes for breakfast, same as always.
He checks on the day’s schedule. No visitors. Same as always.
He completes his rounds, observing every surface and corner to ensure the security of the prison, same as always.
When he’s finished with that, he does the same rounds twice, per the standard, as always.
Just the same as always, the rounds only take up an hour or two of his time, maybe three hours if he’s walking extra slowly.
For lack of anything better to do, he polishes the iron vault door, then he checks on the security cameras. He cleans up his desk at the front, organizes and reorganizes the signed books. He checks the redstone mechanisms. He cleans the hallways, sweeping, mopping, clearing away spiderwebs. There’s really not much to tidy up. He does this every day, after all, same as always.
At noon, he makes sure the prisoner has been distributed his meal and then feeds himself. They both always have the same lunch. It’s the same as breakfast.
He checks the security cameras again.
He polishes the guard’s armor, then his own.
He completes more rounds.
He checks the security cameras again.
He cleans the hallways again.
He checks the books again.
He checks the security cameras again.
He checks the security cameras again.
He checks the security cameras again.
He checks—
Okay, enough checking the security cameras.
He does pushups.
He does crunches.
He does that thing you do where you lean against the wall and pretend to sit in a chair.
His thighs burn.
Nice.
He does pushups.
He does some crunches.
By Prime, when did this body get so out of shape?
Anyway, now he’s bored again.
He checks the security cameras again.
He checks the security cameras again.
He checks the security cameras again.
Dream is singing Cotton Eye Joe.
The Warden is now also singing Cotton Eye Joe.
Cotton Eye Joe is now stuck in his head. Dream is a menace.
The Warden learns how to use a paddle ball without it hitting him in the face.
Success.
It’s dinner time. He and Dream have the same dinner.
“Can’t you bring in anything else?”
The Warden stares at him. Coldly. Menacingly.
“Alright, fine. Whatever.”
Yeah. That’s what he thought.
The Warden does more rounds.
He checks the security cameras.
He goes to bed, at the same time as he always does.
Rinse and repeat for the next day.
Rinse and repeat.
Rinse and repeat.
Rinse and repeat.
He manages to get one hundred continuous hits on the paddle ball.
He goes to bed that day unsatisfied.
He wakes up, the same as always.
He eats his breakfast, as always.
He checks his schedule. No visitors, as always.
He does his rounds. He checks everything twice, as always. He walks extra, extra slowly this time. It only adds a half-hour to the time. He’s forced to find some other way to pass the hours, as always.
He sweeps and mops the hallways. He dusts away nonexistent spiderwebs. He wipes down cell bars that have never been touched. The prison is spotless, as always.
He tidies his desk, his files, his books, like he does every day. They’re tidy, as always.
He checks the security cameras.
Dream is making paper airplanes, tearing the pages out of his books, and flying them into the lava.
Thirty minutes later, the hallway floor is littered in paper airplanes. They’re better than Dream’s. They fly further. But of course they do. The Warden knows aerodynamics. He knows many things.
He picks the paper airplanes up and throws them away.
Oh well. Hour wasted.
He checks the security cameras.
Dream is napping.
The Warden sighs and slumps in his chair. He spins himself around in a circle a few times.
He makes more airplanes.
He feeds Dream the same lunch as always. Dream tosses the meal away into the lava. The Warden watches this over the security cameras while picking at his own potatoes. They’re bland. As always.
The Warden does more rounds. He runs this time, over and over again, until he can barely breathe. Just to try to get out the excess energy. He collapses in the longest hallway with the stacks of cells. Sweaty, tired, frustrated.
He takes a shower. It doesn’t make him feel much better.
He checks the security cameras. Nothing interesting. Same as always.
He goes to bed earlier than usual.
Rinse and repeat.
Rinse and repeat.
Rinse and repeat.
Rinse and repeat.
Rinse and repeat.
Wake up, as always.
Eat breakfast, as always.
Check the schedule, as always.
Do his rounds, as always.
Clean the prison, as always.
Entertain himself for several hours, as always.
Checking cameras, as always.
Lunch. Potatoes. Same as always.
Entertain himself. He tinkers with redstone today. He doesn’t have much and the prison’s mining fatigue presses down on him, making the tinkering even more exhausting than normal. But hey. It passes the time.
Dinner, same as always.
One last security check, same as always.
Bedtime, same as always.
Rinse and repeat.
Rinse and repeat.
Rinse and repeat.
Rinse and repeat.
Rinse and repeat.
Rinse and repeat.
The Warden wakes up late. Or well, he wakes up at the same time as always. This body is simply conditioned to do that now. But he doesn’t get up. Both an empty void and the whole world are pulling down on him, making it impossible to move.
He does eventually anyways, slipping out from under the sheets an hour after his alarm goes off.
The Warden doesn’t bother with breakfast. Watching through the security cameras, The Warden sees that Dream doesn’t bother with breakfast either.
The Warden sighs. He heads to the place that would have been the kitchen, a long time ago, when prisoners were allowed good meals. He has enough materials to craft some smokers. He finds wheat in one of the old chests.
He pauses, thinking for a second if it would be wise to ask for more food to be delivered.
Eventually, he gives in.
The Warden sits down on the floor, settling himself against the cabinets. It should only be a few minutes.
An electric buzz goes through him. Chills sweep down his spine. Questions he quickly answers within nanoseconds through the link between them. Once he’s given himself an answer, he's a swirling combination of disappointed, apprehensive, and sympathetic.
Are we really this weak?
He supposes they are. But hey. At least this version of Sam isn’t the one running a prison that hardly needs him.
Maybe it doesn’t need you. But Technoblade—
He knows that already. He—himself—already knows that he knows that.
He has to stay here and guard the place in case a particular someone comes to bust Dream out. It’s pretty simple. The Warden has never complained about it. It is what it is. And it’s not like his own problems don’t wear down on the others—the Sams that aren’t trapped in their own masterpiece. They can sense his pain as well as he can sense theirs.
He debates with himself. Working through the risks and rewards. The Warden is just a husk, given really only half of their mind. He is nothing but Sam’s duty. He shouldn’t exactly be capable of getting bored and growing hungry for new things.
Yet here he is.
I need more of substance than just potatoes.
He debates. And debates some more. And then finally he reaches a conclusion.
Be quick about it.
And then suddenly he’s standing in Las Nevadas.
Sam takes a deep breath of cold, desert air. It's easy on his lungs, better than the stale heat of the prison. Heavy armor and black walls and bars always linger like a bad aftertaste. Its even stronger now that he’s connected back to himself, his other body resting back in the kitchen of Pandora’s Vault.
Sam licks his lips, swallowing down a gag as the memory of potato surfaces from The Warden’s recollection.
Alright. Alright. I’m handling it, I’m… taking care of it—myself.
Sam quickly finishes fixing the slot machine, glancing up at Quackity, who stands impatient and rambling. “It’s done.”
Quackity cuts himself off mid-sentence. “Oh, what, shit, you got it working?!”
Sam taps the machine with his knuckle and stands up. “Shouldn’t happen again.”
“Hell yes!” Quackity cackles and slaps him on the shoulder. “You’re a lifesaver, man!” He flocks to his side, still rambling about something as Sam makes it down the road. It’s only when they’re nearly out of Las Nevadas does the man finally seem to piece together that he’s leaving. “Hey, wait, Sam! What are you doing? Are you going already?”
“I am.”
“Aw, come on! You promised me a drink!”
He supposes he did. It shouldn’t take too long, and this body doesn’t have any other tasks to take care of today. So he should be back soon. “There’s something I have to take care of real quick. I’ll meet you back here in maybe an hour or two?”
Quackity huffs, crossing his arms. “Fiiiine! God, Sam, you’re so boring sometimes!”
With one last wave goodbye, Sam hurries off toward the Greater SMP. He collects as much food as he can, as well as new clothes, redstone and iron blocks, and some other items for entertainment. Making sure the way to the prison is clear, he hurries to the entrance and presses the button, teleporting himself inside.
He finds his other body still slumped in the kitchen. With fresh eyes, its easy to see the neglect, the tire, the hunger. It’s unnerving, seeing himself like this. Not in a mirror. But here in front of him, tangible and real. It's impossible, both like him and not like him. It never gets any less strange.
Sam reaches out, touches his own shoulder, covered in armor. This is the Sam who suffers. He doesn’t even call himself Sam when he’s in this body. It’s easier to cut him out, leave him on autopilot, like some non-playable character in a game. And yet this version of Sam—The Warden—still weeps. Still feels. And Sam knows, the pain pressing itself down on his own heart, as it does with all other versions of himself.
It is both him and not him. The part of himself that he hates and chooses to ignore. The Warden more a machine to him than a man, like Sam Nook or the prison’s own redstone contraptions. Yet here the Warden sits exhausted, no better than a corpse.
And, well, really that’s his own fault.
He allows his consciousness to split, allows the part of himself that he ignores to slip away from him. It’s easier to abandon this ugly piece of him—the duty, the occupation—in this body.
The Warden blinks his eyes open and stares at himself—or at least the part of himself that they actually like.
“You need to get it together,” Sam says.
The Warden scowls. “I know. But I can’t do that if you never offer me kindness. We’re the part of us that we despise but does that really mean that I have to suffer in here?”
“I wish you never had to exist in the first place, but we don’t have a choice. If these parts of our lives aren’t separate, we’ll break apart.”
“What else do you consider fragmenting yourself into bite-sized pieces? That’s broken. We’re broken. You, me—we broke ourselves into sections. And what? We consider this living?” The Warden stares at his hands. “What are we doing?”
“I don’t know, but this is how we’ve operated for the past several months. It’s been working so far—”
“Has it?” he voices his own concern. “We’re going to kill ourselves if we keep doing this.”
“You’re just a body. Separate from this one. Separate from the others. If you suffer, you do it so the rest of us can keep being the Sam that everyone else deserves to have. You do it so we can still face Tommy and Ponk and everyone else—”
“Can we?” The Warden snaps. “Can we still face Tommy and Ponk? They look at you and they see me. It doesn’t matter if you keep me hidden away in here. They still see me! They will always see me in your place, separate body or not—!”
“I hate you.”
“We already know that! Starving me in here isn’t going to make a difference! You can’t treat yourself like you treat Dream! I’m not a prisoner! We are not a prisoner!”
“You are whatever I say you are,” Sam hissed. “And you are not Sam. I am Sam! All of the others are a part of Sam! You are just this job. You are just The Warden! So act like it!”
“I am going to die in here,” The Warden pleaded. “A piece of you is dying and you don’t even care. I’m just as much mortal as you are. You can’t neglect me. You can’t ignore me. Because when I starve, you can feel it, too.”
“You. Are not. Me.”
“We’re an idiot if we truly think that—!”
SMACK.
The Warden hisses through his teeth, his cheek on fire. The phantom pain lingers on Sam’s own cheek. He slams The Warden back against the cabinets.
“GET. IT. TOGETHER.”
The Warden growls, kicking himself in the shin and sending himself toppling over.
The sharp sound of smoke from Sam’s mouth fills the air. The Warden hisses back, tasting embers and gunpowder. They stare each other down, tense and ready to pounce like feral cats.
Sam is the first to back down, slumping to the floor.
“What am I doing…?” He presses his face into his palms and The Warden hangs his head in regret and pain and confusion.
“I don’t know…”
They both do and do not understand each other. Heads to tails, heart to mind, chains to freedom.
Sam crawls closer to himself/not himself. He bows his head, pressing crown to crown, the heavy weight of the armor on his shoulders.
The Warden allows it but doesn’t embrace this other him, the better him.
It’s painful.
He can’t apologize. He can’t forgive himself. The Warden hates himself and Sam hates him too. But they need each other. They’re one and the same. Sam holds onto this part of himself for dear life because it’s the reason he can still show his face in broad daylight. It’s where he stores all of his pain and heartbreak.
Sam allows himself to weep into his own shoulder. Nobody is left to offer kindness to The Warden other than himself. When everyone looks at him, all they see is this version of Sam that he’s locked inside of Pandora’s Vault in the same way he locked up Dream. He embraces it as nobody else would, because it’s the only reason he’s still able to live with himself.
“Please get it together,” he begs to the empty shell. I need to get it together.
The Warden slips in his embrace, slumping onto the floor, still as death. They are one and the same once more. Sam crouches over the body, this husk, gently holding the piece of him that weighs so heavily on his soul.
He picks up the body, too light in his arms despite the armor. He really has been starving and neglecting it.
He brings the body of The Warden to his quarters, lying it on the bed to return to later. He will allow it to rest for now.
He makes his way back to the kitchen, preparing a proper meal for once, and leaves it on the bedside table.
Just because someone is locked in jail doesn’t mean they deserve to have nothing.
Sam pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing. He takes the other portion of the meal and brings it toward the cell, placing it into the dispenser. He sits in front of the surveillance cameras, seeing Dream crawl out of his corner and slowly make his way toward the plate. He stares at the steak like it might be poisoned or some kind of trick before taking a bite.
Within minutes, the plate is empty, Dream having scarfed it down like a starving wolf.
Sam can… understand that, to a degree.
He leaves the extra food, clothes, and items in a chest for The Warden and makes his way back outside.
When The Warden wakes again, Sam closes his eyes, gratefulness tracing through tired bones, warm food in his stomach, restfulness washing over him.
The Warden eats and slips off his armor. He pulls on comfortable clothes before sitting back in front of the surveillance cameras to fidget with a Rubik’s Cube that he had brought himself. It is… the first kindness he’s been allowed to have in this prison.
Later, he deposits the cube into the distributor.
Dream, surprisingly, doesn’t throw it into the lava.
The next day, he wakes up early, before the sun even rises, same as always.
He does his rounds around the prison, same as always.
He delivers the leftovers from yesterday to Dream, who pauses playing with the cube to scarf it down.
He must sense The Warden’s presence behind the lava, because he says, “This doesn’t change anything, Sam.”
The Warden nods. Of course. “I know.”
He checks the surveillance cameras, same as always.
He does a few rounds, same as always.
In the late afternoon, he walks the courtyard to rest when he starts to tire. The grass grows yellow and the flowers crunch from lack of sunlight. There are no sunrises, there are no sunsets, there is no rain, there is no wind. There is only the decay and stagnant lukewarm water.
The Warden sits on an old log and overlooks the closest thing he has to freedom.
This is not a place for a man grown from the corpses of Creepers. Where he was once kissed in lush green flesh, he now wilts. His bones feel like brittle sticks, weighed under by enchanted metal. When he checks the clock he always carries, its sunset.
The golden crown on his head sits heavy above his ears. The mask sits even heavier, venting out gunpowder and boiling air.
When the Warden closes his eyes, he sees through the eyes of one of the other Sams. This one is a different Sam from the one before, one who is also not tasked with this sacred duty. This one is for Tommy, knowing only kindness and gentleness. This Sam is basking under sunlight feeling the breeze against his face, not imagining what the air smells like when he’s not wearing the gasmask. Not sitting in a prison courtyard and pretending.
This Sam’s skin is still green.
The Warden clenches yellowed fingers. The scales are flakey, dry and dead, in his palm. His hair lays limp across his brow and he brushes it back into its place.
How does nobody notice the differences between them, anyway?
To the Warden, its painfully obvious, the visual separation between his different bodies.
A stirring in the back of his mind rouses him.
Technoblade is coming. I saw him coming toward the prison.
The Warden swallows. He’s been running on autopilot for several days now, fixing wires and tending to rusted cogs. Operating on only half a mind. He doesn’t need to be capable of full thought when he’s alone in the Vault, after all. It would only drive him mad.
But just this once, full consciousness slams into him. All other bodies drop where they are. All of Sam now becomes The Warden.
It’s time at last.
As he’s going out of the courtyard, a shadow engulfs him. The Warden catches only a blur of pink and red before he’s impaled on the end of a sword.
If he had taken better care of himself, maybe he could have been faster on his feet. Maybe he could have defended himself or stood a chance.
If Dream hesitates in the hallway before he and Technoblade race past, The Warden doesn’t catch it.
There is, however, a Rubik’s Cube lying on his chest when Sam finds the body, the toy snapped into several colorful pieces.
No, The Warden never left this fortress. Not once.
Yet no matter how hard he tries to separate this part of himself, wherever Sam goes, people only ever see The Warden’s sins and failings.
He knows fully well what he’s doing when he’s flaunting himself, it’s true. He knows how to make people blush. He likes it. He knows that when he parts his lips and hoods his eyes a certain way that certain people start to lose themselves in him.
He knows he is beautiful; he knows all of the people who find him beautiful. He might lean on things a little too far when talking to them or make a particularly suggestive comment to make people start tripping over themselves.
He is the part of Sam that flourishes when he has a mouth on him. The part of him that craves love both physical and emotional. The part that is sometimes sent out on the server to get out Sam’s pent up sexual energy.
He is also the part of Sam that is hurt the most by the prison, at least in his opinion.
He doesn’t know what he did wrong; he knows that The Warden did many things that were wrong, but that shouldn’t matter. He is the part of Sam that is meant to love openly. He is the part that manages Sam’s various relationships. The part that flirts too much, the part that goes on too many dates, the ones who tries to apologize for the actions done by The Warden, though it never seems to be enough.
Ponk doesn’t like him because of the Warden. It’s not his fault. The Warden was just doing his job, and The Warden is strict. Ponk knows that. He should be considered separate from this version of Sam, the one that wants to touch and hold and be allowed the embraces that The Warden is never allowed.
Ever since the prison, he has been touch-starved and desperate and lonely and heartbroken. He feels like a rejected teenager, and it is so unfair because he doesn’t deserve it!
“Ponkie! Hi!” he beams, putting on his best smile and leaning against the wall, making sure Ponk can see all of him. “How’ve you been?”
“Oh, you know. Partly disabled,” Ponk replies sharply, shoving past him. “Go on any dates recently, Sam?”
Oh, yes, he had. So desperate for affection, he’d asked Foolish out on a little escapade, hoping for something more. He doesn’t consider it wrong; Ponk was the one who started flirting with him first. Maybe somewhere in his mind, he was hoping to have them both. The thought makes him shiver.
“I did. Though, I’m not sure why that matters.”
“Not sure why that matters?!” Ponk exclaims. “You know what, Sam. I hope you’re happy with yourself.”
He is. He is handsome and perfect and amazing and Ponk should love him. He can give him everything—the whole world! End of story.
But Ponk is already slipping past him, leaving him standing alone on the Prime Path, rejected. Again.
Boiling frustration runs through him. He glares at the dark black prison that stands out in the water. How is this fair?! I give him a different body to love and it's not enough.
“Ponk, I—”
He’s about to hurry after Ponk again before a chill sweeps down his spine. He snaps his head around, terror ripping through him in the form of gooseflesh.
“Listen, Sam, I don’t want to hear—Sam?”
Sam races down the Prime Path, heading to the water and ignoring Ponk’s angry calls. He steps in and throws his trident through the air, hurrying back to where he’d been constructing his newest base. There, he slips down into a tunnel he’d carved out, descending into the darkness until he comes to a bunker.
At the end is a seemingly empty mineshaft already picked clean. Sam tosses his trident down onto the ground, a machine activating to swallow it. A door opens up in front of him and Sam enters.
It’s a square room with dim glowstone lighting and six white beds.
He links to the greater whole, staring at three other versions of himself. They needn’t talk out loud. They are all one and the same, all Sam. They already know what’s happened.
He takes his seat on the bed beside the Sam that usually looks after the kids on the server. He’s tinkering with a component of Sam Nook, taking great care to clean the rust from it.
Seconds later, another Sam appears, and their group is pretty much complete, save for one. That is until the Sam that entered puts down the duffle bag he’s carrying and unzips it, revealing The Warden’s face.
It’s pretty obvious what they need to do but talking out loud helps to calm their nerves.
“We need to get rid of the body. The Warden’s duties are split between us right now, but one of us is going to have to continue standing in his place.” The Sam that had the duffle bag pulls the gasmask from his face. They already know who it’s going to be, but they wait for a volunteer anyway.
The Sam tinkering with Sam Nook sighs and nods. “We can’t be soft on those kids forever. If Dream comes for them… they need to be ready.” He shakes his head and glares at the ground. “I’ll take the armor.”
The Sam is given The Warden’s old armor and weapons, then the two tridents they carry between them.
“You’re the one who met The Warden last,” says the Sam who brought the body.
“We all did. We were just… trying to be kind… to ourselves. Do we still deserve it, do you think…?”
They each glance at each other solemnly.
They all have the same answer but they don’t say it out loud.
The parts to Sam Nook are placed aside, replaced with Netherite sword and enchanted trident. Coldness enters red eyes. The part they love takes on the duties of the part they hate the most.
The new Warden takes the duffel bag, zipping it up again and pulling it onto his shoulder. “I’ll take care of it,” he says quietly. The other parts of Sam watch him go. “Our other duties aren’t as important at the moment. We need to conserve energy.”
They return to their beds and lie themselves down, abandoning the skins.
Save for one.
Now they’re an even split, one half The Warden and the other a Sam who loves yet can never keep a partner.
The cavern is silent without the other bodies, lying like corpses on their beds, merely empty husks.
Between the two of them, they are ancient and heartbroken. So full of love and hate, death and life, persistence and failure.
“We’re… not strong enough for this,” says Sam.
The Warden, all calculation and coldness and ancient wisdom, nods in agreement. “I am. I have to be.”
Sam, all heart and emotion and new experiences, shakes his head. “Spreading ourselves so thin is what led to that corpse.” He nods at the duffle bag. “We can’t do everything at once—can’t be everything at once.”
“You don’t need to tell me this. It’s redundant. I already—we already know.”
“Yeah,” he bristles, “I get that. You get that. We both get that.”
“So why am I still talking to myself?”
“I don’t know, because we’re crazy probably!” Sam pinches his nose, taking a deep breath. “We’ve already had this conversation.”
“Yes, I know. In the prison kitchen. But now’s not the time to be doubting ourselves. Dream’s escaped—”
“Is that really all we think about now? Dream?”
“We did all of this—” The Warden gestures around at the beds with bodies—"to keep him locked up! I’m not letting all of that go to waste!”
Sam bares his teeth. “I should kill you!”
“Oh, good, then I guess on top of crazy, we’re also suicidal!” The Warden turns his back, slamming his hand on a button in the wall. It opens up to reveal more tunnel.
Sam races after the part of himself that he hates, following him down the old strip mine. “What are we doing?!”
“Getting rid of a body.”
“I know that, but what are we doing?! After? We need a plan.”
“Don’t have one. Okay? For once, we’re all out of plans! Our prison is escapable and useless, our blueprints are no better than garbage, Dream has escaped, and I’m both mentally and physically warring with myself right now! And you know what? The banks still not finished! How, after all of this time, is the bank still not finished?!”
“That hardly matters!”
“Of course it matters! It’s another failing on our part! We’re failures! All Sam—The Warden—whatever—all we do is fail and let people down. We put our life into manageable pieces, and it still burnt down all around us!” The Warden slams down on another button and a pit of lava opens up. The Warden tosses the duffle bag into it, the smell of flesh burning reminding them of searing steak. “And now look—now look at us! We’re mentally spiraling right now! Are you kidding me? On top of everything else, we don’t have time to have a breakdown!”
“You don’t think maybe that’s part of our problem?!”
“What are you suggesting—therapy? You think we should go talk about our feelings with Puffy?! As if she would even understand?! I don’t know if you know this, but we’re an inhuman hive mind who let a man be tortured in prison for months on end! Yeah, I’m sure she’ll be real happy to help us out! I have an idea! Let’s go talk to Quackity! He seems like a real understanding guy! What about Ponk? You know? Ponk might be willing to help us! Oh wait! We chopped his arm off! That’s right! How could we possibly forget! Duh, Sammy!” The Warden smacks his forehead with his palm and gestures at himself. “Don’t you remember you’re an emotionless prick half the time?!”
“That’s—that’s not my fault!”
“You’re right, you’re right! It’s all mine! Guilty as charged, lock me behind bars! Oh wait, we already did! See, cause I’m the part of us that hasn’t seen proper sunlight in about a year, you know, same as Dream, who’s probably plotting how best to torture us right now. But you’re right. I destroy our lives and you pretend everything is still perfectly fine, ruining everything even more!” The Warden slams his fist into the wall, causing knuckles to crack on rock. “God, we’re an idiot! An actual idiot!”
Sam places his hands over his ears. “Shut up, shut up, just SHUT UP! We need to get it together!”
“Oh, together?!” The Warden yanks Sam’s arms down. “We need to get it together now, do we?!”
“Stop it, let me go!”
“Why, what’s wrong?! Are you afraid of me?! Are you afraid of what we are?! What we’ve become?! Didn’t you want to show me kindness?! Didn’t you want to try taking care of yourself?!”
Sam struggles as The Warden slams him back into the wall. “Get it together,” he hisses, closing his eyes tight, tightening his fists into his hair. “Get it together! Get it together!” He repeats this like a prayer, his body hot and cold, armored and not, collected and mad, furious and terrified.
It takes him several minutes before he realizes that he’s sitting on the floor alone. He glances around, expecting to find the body of the Warden lying nearby. But there’s nothing. Just the bubbling lava.
Sam looks down at his hands and wrists, protected by Netherite armor. Warden’s Will lies at his side, one of the Sammy Whammy tridents at his other. He picks up both with shaky hands, tucking Warden’s Will back into his inventory and clasping the trident close, using it like a crutch to help him move quivering legs.
The other five bodies are accounted for, himself standing in the last, existing simultaneously as both Sam and The Warden for the first time in a long while. Altogether. In one form.
Sam continues walking out of the tunnel, out into the flattened lands where his new base will reside. The World Eater hangs visible in the distance, far above his head.
Sam wanders toward the sea and sits down on the ice. It’s freezing. He’s freezing, but he doesn’t register it until he looks down at his hands and sees his fingers are blue and shaking.
He places them against his face, which is hot and wet. He didn’t register the tears, either.
What am I doing?
A stifled sob wracks through him.
Gods, what am I doing…?
He closes his eyes, all of his atrocities there to haunt him. In spite of his age and knowledge, he is terrible and broken and lost.
Even in one body, he's all split and strange. An aftereffect of being fragmented for so long, he supposes. The part of himself that loves redstone and building feels separate from the part of him that loved people and helping others. And those parts feel even more separate from the one that ran the prison and hurt the ones he loved most. He played the roles of both Sam and The Warden, and it bit him in the ass.
The only thing they all had in common were how hard he screwed everything up.
Sam the failure. Sam, who let everyone down, most especially himself.
When he hears footsteps crunching on the snow, he expects the worst. Rage and torture and death and a permanent smile beaming down at him while his blood stains the snow green.
“Are you here to kill me?” he asks.
No answer. The footsteps come closer.
A body presses against his, warm and familiar. A tongue laps his face and Sam blinks in surprise at Fran.
“Oh, hey. How did you get way out here?” Sam runs his fingers through dark fur, scratching behind Fran’s ears. The wolf leans against him affectionately. “Can I tell you a story, Fran?”
The wolf licks his face again.
Sam crosses his legs, overlooking the furious, icy ocean. It’ll storm soon, if the dark clouds are any indication.
“A man found a wolf in the woods. She snapped a bone from his palm in two, and then took another. Three bones she took before flesh could touch her without fear of being bit. Tamed, the beast, growing only closer and closer, kinder, and softer, while the hand that had tamed her grew redder and redder with blood. She licked away the wounds of her owner, lapped at the ichor that soaked him. Warmed him with her fur, for she loved him no matter what. She had no taste for death anymore, save for the occasional chicken and steak she was gifted. But her master, starved, cut himself into pieces in a desperate attempt to never be alone. He licked his lips. He had grown accustomed to the taste of decay, fallen to rabidness.”
Sam presses the side of his face into Fran’s fur, watching the ocean froth and stir, knowing its fury.
“He looked at his own face and did not recognize himself. Only a black mask stared back at him. Half the time, when he looked onto the wolf he had befriended, he convinced himself that he saw only a nameless dog. She stared back at him with wizened eyes. She spoke only in a familiar whine, an uncertainty laced about her.
“‘Are you sill the man who cares for me? I don't recognize you.’
“And the Warden opened his smoking maw, ‘I am all that is left of the weak man who reared you; I am only his sharp teeth and claws and strength. I am as lifeless and cruel and cold as the ice.’
“The wolf stood up, head high, ears lain flat against her skull. Golden tags twinkled around her neck, harboring only her name. “‘You are the one who is the beast between us, it's true. It doesn't matter to me what you become, so long as you still hold me. So long as you still care for me.’
“And the Warden asked, ‘Am I really enough for you? Don't you deserve better?’
“And Fran said nothing.”
Sam held the wolf close, crying into her fur.
“For even after all he had done, even after he had been cold to her, she still cared for him. As nobody else would. Not even himself.” Fran licked at his tears. “If he died here with her, overlooking the great sea, it would be too merciful.”
It would be far too merciful.
Sam stood up onto shaking legs, freezing ocean water spraying his face, whipping at his hair.
The moon peeked out between cracks in the misty grey. Fran raised her head and sang to it. Gods help him, it was the most beautiful song he had ever heard.
Behind them, slumbering beneath the tundra, the other bodies of himself. They are all just him. Himself, who he stretched too thin and split apart, ripped to pieces.
“So what am I, then? I've killed friendships and people in the name of duty. I tried my hand at love and failed at that, too. I grew to be the thing I’ve always feared, Fran. Cruelty. Shackles wrapped tight around my own wrists. I tried to be the prison and a friend and... well, everything at once but...” He stood silent for a moment. “Really I'm just me.” And that was the worst thing of all.
Dark eyes stare up at him, Fran meeting his tired, exhausted face. The two most opposite parts of him, the mismatched sections of him that just barely coexist together.
“Well?” he asks himself quietly. “What now?”
He receives no real answer.