The Blinding Light of Sunrise: The Las Nevadas Arc - AU Short Stories

Chapter 17.5 Sam's Escape - Captain Puffy and Sam

Sam's fingertips pressed against the glass pane of his bedroom window.  He drew them together into a fist, clenching.  It was so close, his city.  Just over the snowy mountains.  And he couldn't touch it!

How could Quackity have lost it?  And lost it so easily!  Quackity'd practically gift-wrapped it!  And now Dream had it.  Now Dream was sitting in his chair in the boardroom he built!

He'd done things for Las Nevadas.  He'd sacrificed parts of his soul for it, for Quackity, and now?  Now it was just beyond his reach.  He sat back down on the little bed and drank from the glass of water that stood on the nightstand.  

"How are you feeling today?" Captain Puffy asked from the doorway.  Her expression was soft with concern; he wondered how long she'd been watching him.

"Better than two days ago."

"That's not what I asked."

Sam took another gulp of water.  "Still a little weak."

"No surprise.  You almost died."

He was there again.  Lying on the bed in Dream's cell.  Struggling to free himself from the ropes.  It was so hot!  He could see the water evaporating in waves from his body.  He could feel himself dying!  His body shriveling up into a dried husk!  Until he probably could have slipped out of the ropes and gotten to the water mere feet away if only he'd had the strength to move.

"Sam!  Sam!" Captain Puffy's voice broke through the magma-lit darkness.

He shook his head to clear the thoughts.  "Sorry.  Just drifted off for a second."

"Where did you go just now?"  Puffy asked.

Sam frowned.  "Nowhere."

"You were back in the cell, weren't you?"

"Yeah, but it's no big deal.  I'll get over it."

Puffy sat down on the bed next to him and took his hand.  "You were trapped there for five days.  You nearly died.  You don't just get over something like that, and certainly not in two days."  He hated how patient and understanding her voice sounded.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Well, you're going to have to someday.  It's not going to go away just because you want it to."

Tied up while he knelt on the floor.  Dragged onto the bridge.  Laughter.  Laughter from more than one mouth.  Suggestions of what they should do to him.  He'd tried to look defiant and courageous in the face of death, but he'd never been more scared!  When they'd suggested just kicking him off the bridge into the magma...  He'd almost lost it.  He kept his composure on the outside, a stiff lower lip, but inside he was crying and begging not to die.  But he wasn't going to give Dream the satisfaction of such a pathetic display.  The ride across was so slow.  And then dragged into the cell, through the pools of dried blood.  Dream's.  Tommy's.  Thrown onto the bed.  Ropes tight around him.  He fought them away only to realize they were Puffy's arms.

"I'm sorry!" he cried.

"It's ok."  Puffy said.  "I should have remembered you might be sensitive to being hugged."

Unable to be hugged?  He thought of Foolish.  Would he never be able to feel comfortable being hugged by him?  He suddenly felt the sensation of Ponk's arms around him.  He remembered it so vividly, now.  Now that he was probably never going to be able to feel them the same way again!  Those embraces before Ponk lost his arm.  Before The Warden cut it off.  And those after.  How had Ponk still been able to hold him after that, when he couldn't even let Puffy touch him!