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His chest heaved with exhaustion as he finally lowered his fist. Months of superficial grime he hadn’t been able to scrub off with water seemed to cling to him like a disease, a deep, shitty reminder of the reality of his existence.
He brushed his hair out of his face for a moment. The blood and grime smeared across his face, and he couldn't find a single reason to care to rinse it away. The heat of the lava would turn it to dust soon, burn away all of the metaphorical and literal blood on his hands until there was nothing left.
“…”
Dream finally looked up from his dazed trance and bruised knuckles. It was time to face him.
“Not so talkative now, huh?” He squatted down, meeting the unfocused, glazed eyes staring blankly at his feet. “I know you have more to say, now you’re just being obnoxious-” He fisted a hand into the matted blonde hair, forcing him to look Dream in the eyes. The skin was clammy, paler to the touch than he remembered it. As he turned the boy’s head, his jaw shifted slightly and a stream of blood dribbled out, dripping down his chin and onto the cell floor.
“Tommy.” He laughed a little, releasing his grip on his hair to shove one of the boy’s shoulders. Tommy’s head hit the ground with a sickening crunch, and blood began pooling beneath him again, draining into the water basin in the corner.
“Tommy, this isn’t funny.” He smiled and laughed for a moment at the spectacle. There was so much blood. It looked like oil against the glittering obsidian floors.
“Huh.” He kicked Tommy’s head with his foot, eliciting no response but a slight cracking noise. The boy’s face was covered in bruises, places where Dream had pulled back his fist and mercilessly struck him. In that moment, he realized he must have broken his nose- it sat at an off-angle on his shit-eating freckled face.
“Fine. Be like that.” Dream reached down and gripped one of Tommy’s arms and began dragging him to the front wall. The limb was cold, colder than he remembered. The boy’s hand flopped down pathetically when he let it go.
“You smell shitty.” He took the hand again, darted it towards the lava. “C’mon Tommy. I know you’re messing with me. I’ll stick your hand in this lava if you don’t talk in 5, 4, 3…” He spoke the last 2 numbers more quietly, as if it would help him hear any minuscule noise come out of his slack jaw. Regardless, after one, he plunged the hand into the molten rock, relishing in the odd hiss, the intensified gross smell. He could see the edges of his skin flaking away, gradually turning black and being consumed by the flames. It was more of a cynical fantasy of his, but he’d always wondered what it’d be like to stick an entire limb in. He’d let curiosity get the best of him once, twice, maybe more, explaining the blackened, blistered skin on his sword hand, the few missing fingers on his other.
It had been boring. Just a hot flash, then it was gone, the nerves were too fried to feel anything, but even that small taste was something he’d grown addicted to. Anything that would help him feel again, bring him back to the moment instead of turning within himself and eating away at what little sense of humanity was left inside, if there had been any there to begin with.
With that thought, he heard a creak, the sound of machinery- the lava was being lowered. Sam’s voice soom amplified through his cell, static white noise replaced with a curt, level voice with just a hint more of concern than was usual for the warden.
“The security breach has been solved. As for protocol, I will now be retrieving the visitor, Tommy, from your cell. Step behind the netherite blockade.” Dream didn’t move an inch, and it didn’t seem like Sam even cared. The blockade raised up with a clunk behind him as the last of the curtain dripped away to reveal his warden, distressed and upset on the other side.
“Where’s the visitor, Dream.” He said it flatly, but even from the distance across the pit, he could tell that he saw the boy beside him. “Dream.” Panic began edging into the man’s speech. It only widened the grin that remained plastered to his face. “Where’s the visitor, Dream- Where is he?” His sword was in his offhand. He clenched it so tightly that it shook slightly. “Dream- show me my boy.” His voice cracked halfway through. Dream simply smiled, and gestured to the body.
“He’s right here, Sam. :)” He was still holding the now stump of an arm he had, clutched in purple-tinted knuckles. “He’s just not feeling chatty right now.” Dream dropped it, replacing his hold against his scalp to force him into a sitting position. He moved his other hand to Tommy’s jaw, and moved it in time to his words.
“I’m sorry Sam. I’m just being mean to Dream right now because I think it’s funny!” The voice was too high pitched for his dry vocal cords and it ended up sounding far more hoarse than he intended, but it probably didn’t matter. It looked like he’d successfully pissed off the warden by the way he’d gasped and crumbled to his knees.
“No… no, you just- you’re tricking me! This is just a hallucination, the egg-”
“Oh no Sam, I’m very real.” He grabbed Tommy’s jaw again and did the shitty impression. “And I’m real too Sam! I love you and my big hotel.” It almost made him laugh. Being stuck alone for so long had spoiled his sense of humor. A shame. “Come on over, Sam. It’s been a while! Let’s catch up-”
“I’m going to kill you.” He could hardly hear the voice over the comms, but it was certainly there, a gentle, static-y reminder that he would be killed in the next few minutes.
“So rude. I bet you’ll throw a big old party for Tommy once you take him, right? You’ll go out there and celebrate him like you always do.” A breath of a giggle brushed past his lips- he didn’t have the faintest idea why, but he couldn’t stop them, couldn’t stop up the flood of words tumbling from his mouth.
Sam stepped onto the bridge. It began moving towards him slowly like it always had, the tumultuous, inevitable grind of the moving death machine growing louder each passing moment.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Sam moved his sword to his fighting hand. “And I killed him. I beat him until he couldn’t breathe- just look at my hands! They’re covered in blood! And at his funeral- I bet there’ll be lots of food there. Decadent cakes, pork chops, gapples- and you’ll treasurer his body, right? You’ll cover it in roses and bury it by his bench, with his precious music discs, won’t you?”
“Shut up, Dream.” It would be mere moments before Sam would get close enough to slash him if he reached.
“And you’ll kill me here, and dump my body into the lava. Watch me burn like the true villain I am.”
“You don’t even deserve that. I’ll feed your corpse to the dogs, if there’s anything left.”
“I don’t deserve it?” His eyes flicked to Tommy. He’d let the corpse go slack beside him. In one swift movement, he shifted it over his knees and dangled his torso into the abyss. “I can think of a few who might.”
“Tommy-!” Sam shouted, voice almost shattering in grief.
The boy’s hands had grown cold. They were black and blue, nicked with a thousand scars he’d never be able to put names to. This body would mean something to people. They might try to make him use the revival book on this body, only to watch that smug smile cross his face again, rubbing it in that he had lost- that he was Dream, the villain, stuck forever in jail, and that Tommy was the hero.
And maybe he couldn’t handle that. His grip grew slack, and Tommy’s cold, dead arms slowly slipped out until he careened over the edge.
There was a hiss of lava, footsteps beside him. The swish of a sword through the air- and then, nothing.
The ending of a villain. The only one he’d ever deserved.