#or ignore 90% of ponk's advice and just take his joke seriously

[the-final-sif]

Hello and welcome to finally explaining what the hell this AU’s name is. c!Sam realizes that he may’ve messed up a little bit, and gets some advice from c!Ponk which he proceeds to ignore 90% of.

Sam found himself... on edge. After the incident with Ranboo, Dream had refused to do the stretches again, and Sam hadn’t been willing to push the issue.

At the time, Dream had been so on edge that Sam was worried he might bolt. He kept glancing back towards the closet suspiciously, muscles tensed up and ready to run at any point. It was understandable, Sam was also nervous about the entire incident, but it was fine? Right? Sam took care of it.

If nothing else, when Dream got up to walk to the bathroom, he was doing quite a bit better. He still wasn’t balancing well enough to walk on his own, but he was wobbling a lot less and Sam was only supporting some of his weight rather than almost all of it. That was good.

Sam held onto that little bit of progress, gripping that close to his chest.

When Ponk messaged him that evening, Sam was proud to be able to report that Dream was doing better. He didn’t exactly mention the whole Ranboo thing, but that’s because it was already taken care of and fine.

The next day, things got... complicated.

Or maybe things had been complicated the entire time, and Sam hadn’t realized it.

The problem was when Sam tried to get Dream to do the stretches the next morning, the rabbit hybrid agreed to do them but refused to allow Sam to help. Which was reckless and dangerous, and almost lead to Dream slamming his head against the dresser when he lost his balance. Even after that, he refused any help.

Sam didn’t get why. Hadn’t Ponk said that Dream had let him help already? The rabbit hybrid clearly wasn’t hurt from the touch. Nothing was broken anymore (most likely, Ponk hadn’t actually been able to assure that none of the inner ear bones were broken, but he was hopeful it was just inflammation which healing potions couldn’t fix).

At least part of it appeared to be that whenever Sam had to touch Dream to help him move around, Dream got oddly tense. His muscles moved stiffly, hell, half the time it was like they were in splints. Sam had thought it was just a side effect of his condition, but that didn’t appear to be the case.

The trend continued after lunch, and after a very frustrating second attempt at stretching, Sam decided to take drastic measures.

‘Dream isn’t doing his stretches correctly. I think something’s going wrong. He keeps getting all tense and won’t let me help. He almost hurt himself. Do you know what might be wrong?’

The message was sent to Ponk 15 minutes ago. About halfway through a “Ponk is typing...” had popped up. Something that Sam hadn’t seen in nearly a year. Ponk must’ve turned that back on for some reason. Weird. Well, it was nice to know he saw the message. Maybe there was a good medical reason for all of this?

Eventually, he got a message back.

‘Sam, do you know about how rabbits & prey hybrids can have freeze instincts?’

It was... shorter than he expected. Also a little bit insulting. Of course he’d done his research! Even before that he was well aware of freeze instincts. Everyone did, unless they never met a prey hybrid. What did that have to do with this?

Unless the freeze instinct had something to do with the inner ear trauma? That was possible.

‘Yes, I’m aware.’

He kept his reply short, but there was still almost 10 minutes before he got reply. Ponk was probably busy.

‘Okay, so prey hybrids tend to freeze and tense up when they’re scared. So that’s likely what’s happening. That would make stretching hard. Just have him do what he can while you’re there, and I’ll message him some adaptations he should be able to do on his own.’

Sam took the time to read that over twice, and then tried to make sense of it. He understood it in theory, but in context, it was... missing a piece that his brain wasn’t clicking into place.

‘Why would he be scared?’

Another pause. Long and painful.

‘Sam, he’s scared of you. I can’t tell you exactly why, but I feel like you should be able to guess.’

Oh.

Sam hadn’t wanted to think about that. Somewhere inside himself he knew it was a possibility, but it didn’t... That shouldn’t count. Dream killed him. Sam wasn’t- they had a truce.

Dream had saved him, had gone up against a Warden when he could’ve just run. There was no reason for Dream to be scared of Sam. 

Sam found himself going around in circles before another texted interrupted his thoughts.

‘Prey hybrids very rarely like being around people when they’re injured. Unless it’s someone they’ve known a long time and trust completely, that person will stress them out.’

It was-

It was easier to deal with.

There was a time quite awhile ago when Sam probably would’ve been in that category for Dream. Not anymore. He could- he could understand that. They were- different. New people several times over.

He could work with this. Although some advice couldn’t hurt.

‘Is there anything I could do? To make it easier?’

This time, the reply came quickly.

‘Give him space. Give him time. Don’t try to force him into anything.’

Only a second later, a second buzz.

‘Maybe bake him an apology cake or something. Idk.’

That was... that was something Sam could do. It was an idea for sure. Baking wasn’t his strong suit, but he could follow a recipe. It couldn’t be that hard?

The apology part of it made him feel... he didn’t want to even attempt to talk about any of that with Dream right now. But maybe he could write something on the cake? That felt a lot easier than trying to talk about it.

The more he thought about Ponk’s advice, the more he liked the sound of it.  This was a way forward.

Mind made up, Sam checked the time and headed for the kitchen. He only paused for long enough to send a quick text back.

‘Thanks, Ponk. I think I’ve got it figured out now.’