Inside Pandora's Vault - DSMP

Two

Several weeks have past and Dream is trying to keep his sanity. The only human interaction he receives is when Sam opens the lava to check on him. And even then he barely replies to Dream's conversations. Dream doesn't know it, but some days Sam stands on the other side of the lava, listening to Dream's quiet conversations to himself. 

Dream doesn't sleep, causing his eternal hell of isolation to feel so much longer. Until, of course, he gets an idea. It takes him hours to pick up the lectern and place it next to the lava. He sits and stares at it, waiting for it, or the floor around it, to catch on fire. It does and so he mines it to the next block, hoping for that to catch on fire too. It doesn't take long for Sam to hear burning, and so he lowers the lava, catching Dream in the act. He shoots an arrow at him from across the lava pit, catching to Dream's shirt and pinning him to the wall. 

"What are you doing?" Sam demands before realising. "You are trying to make a portal aren't you?"

Dream tugs on his shirt and it tears away from the arrow, leaving hole in the fabric. The fire from the lectern dies out. 

"What else am I supposed to do Sam? You can't keep me in here forever!" He shouts. 

"You should have thought about that before you asked me to build this place. And certainly before you got Tommy exiled." He reprimands. "This is how you made Tommy feel Dream. Isolated and abandoned. No food for two days."

Dream argues. "Come on Sam that's harsh. Those potatoes are barely filling, I'm starving in here." 

"Not my problem." He growls. "If I catch you doing that again, you won't like the consequences."

The lava lowers and Dream is left alone once more. He screams in anger and tosses the arrow into the lava. He punches the walls until his knuckles bleed and his mind wanders to Tommy and the beach. Just the two of them, it was perfect. His mind betrays him again. 

Step away from them Sapnap's voice echoes. 

He doesn't realise that he was screaming until Sam shouts at him from the other side of the lava.

"Shut up!" He demands. 

Dream goes quiet. He is on his knees, his hands covering his ears. 

"Don't punish yourself. He's not coming."

Dream manages to keep his voice from trembling. "Who?"

He knew the answer the second he asked, but doesn't stop Sam from replying. 

"Sapnap." 

At the sound of his former best friend's name, tears begin to fall. Dream tries hide his cries, but Sam still hears them from the other side of the lava. Sam doesn't say anything, he just stares at the lava, listening to Dream's sobs. 

"I messed up." He whimpers between cries.

Sam is quiet for a moment. "Get some sleep Dream."

In a ball on his knees, throat sore from sobbing, Dream manages to reply.

"You know I don't sleep Sam."

"Let today be the exception, you need to sleep. You will feel better."

"I don't sleep!" Dream yells. 

He hears the faint footsteps of Sam walk away. He just pushed away the only person willing to talk to him. 

Dream finds himself waking up on the floor. In his pathetic attempt to hide his agony, he must have cried himself to sleep. He opens his eyes to see Sam mining the wall, and he looks around to see that some of the cell had been replaced with crying obsidian. Dream sits up and realises that Sam must have given him a blanket and he grips it tightly. Sam has never been in the cell with him, not once.

"I thought you didn't sleep." Sam says blankly as he replaces the obsidian block with a crying one.

Dream ignores the statement. "What are you doing?" 

"Making sure you can't make a portal." He says walking away from the wall and back towards the lava. 

"I wasn't going to." Dream says quietly.

"I'm glad you took my advice. Do you feel better?" He gestures to the blanket.

Dream didn't realise how tightly he was holding it. He let's go and stands up, a movement that causes Sam to draw his trident and points it towards him. Dream gets the message doesn't move any further and avoids eye contact. 

He swallows his pride. "Thank you."