Chapter Text
He’d been shouting for Phil for about five minutes when he went quiet. Rhythmic, repetitive, clearly a futile pursuit — Philza has never worked for the prison. Even when he intersperses his calls for his pseudo father with calls for Sam, it’s useless, the half-creeper absent, Dream the only living being around for miles that can answer. Tommy’s cheeks are streaked with his terror, his eyes wide. He slumps up against a wall and goes silent, a name dying on his lips, knees locked to his chin. Dream stands in the corner, leaning up against his lectern, and smiles.
“Please, Tommy,” he says quietly, hands looping beneath the lectern and boosting him off. The boy’s breath hitches, his legs slide out, splaying before him, hands shaking where they clutch at his cloak. Dream does nothing else but smiles, standing there. “Let’s not make this week more painful than it needs to be.”
Tommy lets out a rattling laugh. “You make everything painful.”
Dream takes a step towards him, his smile widening a fraction. “And you make everything right. I’m not sure why you hate me so much, Tommy. We were so… close, at Logstedshire. Past discs. Past games.” The air shivers with molten heat as Dream walks past Tommy, standing and facing the wall of orange-yellow lava, dropping down and sometimes, when he leans close enough, singing the fabric of his clothes. Dream grins to himself, and Tommy continues to breathe, a low moan breaking forth and his head hanging. “What did I do to make you resent me so much?”
“Everything. E- Everything.”
TnT sounds outside the obsidian walls of Pandora’s Vault. It’s distant, like thunder, accompanied by a low, creaking groan. Tommy matches its noise with a soft, wounded noise, tucking his head further between his knees. He brings a hand up and clutches at the front of his shirt, seemingly using great effort to breathe at all.
“No, Tommy. I haven’t. You are the culmination of your issues. No one is responsible for how you feel. Not me, not Wilbur, not even Tubbo. You are yourself.” Dream lets out a chuckle like a snake’s, low and smooth and given like an inside joke. Tommy’s chest heaves; he turns, toward the lava, toward the people who will not come to help him, and he screams.
“Sam!” He says, voice starting to go raw. “Sam, please!”
“No one is-”
“Sam! Sam- Philza! Sam- Tubbo- Sam!” Tommy shouts over and over, desperately calling and drowning out Dream’s voice. It’s to no avail. The elder man’s voice only rises in power, his laughter growing louder. “Oh God-”
“You’re looking at him,” says Dream, as he turns away from the lava. He crouches down beside Tommy and smiles, so wide, cold, his hands raised in a gesture of submission. Tommy jerks his head back and clutches at his neck, his other hand occupied with half tearing his hair out. “Settle down, Tommy. There’s no way out for you. It’s only a week. How long did you spend in Logstedshire?”
“Leave me alone,” is all he answers. He moans something unintelligible and grabs at his arm, clutching it close to his chest. Wet tear tracks shudder down his face, lit orange by the flames beside him. Tommy sweats buckets as he lurches to the side, desperately moving away from Dream, who quickly follows. “Sam!”
There’s a long pause. Blood rushes in Tommy’s ears, adrenaline and fear and pain striking him over and over. His ribs feel like they’re bursting out of his chest, his skull being squeezed through his ears and out of his eyes. Dream is talking, but his voice is low, something Tommy knows is a lie -- but he can’t help trying to listen anyways. And- and oh god, his head hurts, the left side of his body feeling like someone has tied it up with rope and started to hammer it, breaking his bones, breaking his mind.
Everything is burning. His vision is white. His arm is set ablaze, and it smells it too. He can taste something in the air, like a campsite put out by a hasty bucket of water, or TnT thrown over a wall and into your home- or-
Or like burnt toast.
Tommy’s eyes roll up into his head as his heart falls to a thudding stop.