#there will be more endersmile soon but not quite yet

[the-final-sif]

So, Ponk needs to leave, and Sam is the only one who can watch Dream while he’s gone. There’s absolutely nothing that could go wrong with this plan, and Dream just needs to somehow convince Ranboo and Punz of that. He’s really not having much luck.

Ponk asked several times to make sure Dream was... well comfortable was a hell of an ask, but at the very least sure in his choice to let Sam watch over him.

The two of them managed to figure out the terms of what Sam could be told. Dream assented to Sam being told that he was having temporary balance and hearing issues related to the Warden’s sonic attack. It’s important to Dream that Ponk stress that this is all temporary. And that Dream is still capable of doing stuff himself if he needed to, it’s just that Ponk couldn’t ethically leave him alone as a doctor.

Ponk agrees to all of that, and tastefully doesn’t point out that there are risks of long term damage, and that Dream absolutely could not be left alone without the risk of that long term damage increasing.

Sam’s job will just be bringing specific food (no more soup, only things that Dream can eat on his own, and from a specific list of rabbit safe items which pointedly does not include potatoes) help with Dream getting over to the bathroom for at least a few days, and help administer the ear drops.

Ponk also gives Dream like three knives with special handles just in case, because like, yeah good mobility is great but a sharp knife swung wildly will still do a hell of a lot of damage to someone whose unarmored, which is a requirement for Sam to be anywhere near Ponk’s house. Sam has been told there are safeguards in place, but not given any more details to prevent attempts to circumvent them.

Ponk himself has heavily mixed feelings, but it’s the only real option they have since the only other person staying behind that he could even think to ask is Punz, and Ponk is sure that Punz would sell Dream out. He already did it once, clearly he’d do it again. Sam hasn’t sold Dream out despite already knowing where he is and at the very least that he wasn’t in great condition, so despite his apprehensions, Ponk makes the call to leave helping Dream up to him.

 Ponk tells the rest of the server that he’s getting packed up to leave, and that Sam will be staying at his house to recover safely. Nobody should bother him since he needs lots of rest and is nervous about having other people around while his vision is still healing. Message ahead if they need to visit.

Ponk leaves that evening, hoping everything will be okay when he gets back. If nothing else, he’s got a special upgrade for his communicator that will allow for check ins every so often.

Meanwhile, Dream sits and stares at his communicator for about half an hour, trying to decide how to break the news to Punz and Ranboo who heard about Ponk going on the trip and were making suggestions for plans.

He considers lying, he really does, but if he says he’s unsupervised then they’ll want to come by and discover his lie.

So he decides to just say fuck it.

“slight change of plans. ponk has to go to the raid. cant really walk rn, or balance. will be better soon. sam already knew and on truce bc of hunters, offered to help while ponk has to leave. should only be for a week. safeguards in place. everything should be back to normal in two weeks. will resume contact at that point.”

He really wanted to just leave it there and refuse to respond to messages after that, but he knew that was liable to end very poorly.

It took about 10 seconds for punz to reply, followed directly by Ranboo.

“absolutely not.”

“^”

Dream started trying to type out a response, only for Punz to cut him off.

“i’m coming to get you.”

Fuck, no, they absolutely could not do this. Dream was fine. Nothing was going to go wrong.

“dont you dare, it’s fine, there’s safeguards and we’re on truce because of the hunter’s involvement. i won’t let him do anything. ponk gave me weapons and a few special potions. it’s totally under control. i did not go through pandora just for you to ruin your cover now.”

It was a low blow, but hopefully one that would get Punz to listen.

There was a long, long pause. Finally, Punz replied.

“you check in every day, twice a day. if you miss either check in, ranboo kills him and we get you to safety.”

Okay, thank god, Dream could work with this. He almost agreed right away, before pausing to consider feasibility.

“if i miss a checkin, ranboo can check my room at ponks. im sleeping a lot and tracking time is hard right now. theres no reason for me to be out of the room without checkin though. if one of you can sneak a tracker in here, i can stick it on my comm if that’ll convince you. if anything goes wrong, ill send a message for help.”

The message for help would be going to Foolish, not them, but Dream didn’t need to clarify that. It was a valid technicality. There was another pause, before finally he got the response he was hoping for.

“fine. ill drop off a tracker in a bit.”

A beat, and then another text followed.

“please be safe.”

It left a lump in Dream’s throat, it made all the anxiety about Sam being anywhere near him, let alone in charge of bringing him food and fuck, his knife wasn’t enough, this was such a stupid fucking idea-

For one singular, terrible moment, Dream almost caved. He reached out, wanting to send a message asking for Punz to come get him. To get him somewhere safe and far away from Sam, because he couldn’t do this again.

But his hands were shaking too much to type. Whether from his most recent damage or that from the prison, he couldn’t tell, but it reminded him of how much he’d already given up. He’d done so much to get to this point. He couldn’t waste everything now. It would be worth it in the end. When things were okay again.

He bit down the urge to ask for help like a child and instead focused on the rational. The logical. If Sam wanted to take him back to the prison or hurt him, he would’ve just called Quackity from the start. Not Ponk. He would’ve just told the server where Dream was before a bunch of people left.

Clearly, Sam felt indebted and like taking advantage of something the hunters had caused was unfair. Dream could use that for now, and once he was well enough to run, he would do so and then things would go back to exactly how they were before. Both of them could forget that anything ever happened here. It was invalid. Struck from the record.

So he took a deep breath and got himself under control. After a moment, he managed to steady his hands enough to type.

“i’ll be fine.“

With that, he shut off his communicator and flopped back on the bed. Exhausted as he repeated that one little phrase over and over again in his head, hoping to find a way to make it stop tasting like a lie.

#c!dream #dreblr #c!ponk #c!punz #staged duo #staged trio #c!ranboo #c!sam #c!awesamdude #apology cake au #sif writes #sif speaks #there will be more endersmile soon but not quite yet #theres a reason ranboo didn't keep replying #also great news sam pov again soon #and were getting closer to the name of the au #i say like a liar