Archive of Our Own

Sam knows this is a bad idea. Sam knows he shouldn’t trust Dream. In fact, if you had told Sam a year ago that he would be giving up his prison; his magnum opus to Dream, he would have ignored you.

Though perhaps it's more likely that he would’ve seen you as a potential threat to the safety of the Prison, spreading false propaganda. If he acknowledged you at all.

But…times change, he supposes. People, too. Because Dream is being…

Well. He’s not being nice, but he’s being tolerable! He is giving Sam food, and he hasn’t killed Sam yet, nor has he seemed to have killed Quackity or Ponk or Tommy –

He hasn’t…killed anyone. Apparently, Dream’s done very little actual damage than he had threatened pre-escape. Seemingly. Dream is now Sam’s only connection with the outside world, and he’s a bit of a biased source.

Sam has no choice but to believe him.

Dream calls Sam an idiot. Sam knows this is false–he knows this to be untrue. He writes it in his book to make sure everybody can see the proof: AweSamDude is no idiot. He can sense the passage of time! Sam built the whole entire Prison!

The writing is not to ensure that it is the truth. It is not.

Sam finds himself beginning to believe Dream’s words of ice and venom. Dream is condescending and Dream is cruel, but Dream is a person. The only person to care enough to visit Sam, it seems. The only one who seems to care. Sometimes, Sam is realizing through his talks with Dream, he can make stupid decisions. Stupid decisions hurt the people he cares about. They hurt the realm he has sworn his soul to protect. It is Sam’s fault that nobody wants to see him around. He should feel lucky that Dream has gone out of his way to visit him, even if it started out as an accident.

Dream gives Sam food. Eret and Tubbo and Technoblade took Sam from his island and left him here to starve. To rot .

Dream has given Sam food. Sometimes, Dream threatens him for it, but food is still food, and that is more than Bad or Ant or the Egg had given him. On the days Dream doesn’t come, when Sam has no food, he finds himself absently brushing at the scarred flesh over his arm; at the indents from a darker time where he was the only thing around to eat, and the whispers were too strong to ignore in their entirety.

Dream gives Sam food. Dream made Sam a cake. Took time out of his no doubt busy day to handcraft a cake for Sam. Sam cannot remember the last time he’s had a true, home-baked good.

He misses pie.

Dream places a foot atop the cake. He shows Sam in every way that he is above him here, just to rub Sam’s misfortune in his face. Sam eats the cake anyways. Waits, even, for Dream to return, so he can see that Sam appreciates all that he’s done for him. It is smashed and tastes of ashes and dirt and has pieces of rubble within. It is sweet and somewhat soft, and the nicest thing Sam has had in months.

Dream threatens Sam with the promise of pet food. Dream threatens, but he gives Sam steak and cake and golden apples for his trembling body. Dream threatens, but Dream gives gifts. The Egg threatened, and all Sam got was scars. Scars, and a repulsion to most meats and a sickening unease around zombies.

Dream tells Sam the truth.

…Sometimes.

Dream tells Sam the truth sometimes. Sam has done bad things, and Dream has done bad things, and everybody has done bad things in their time here. Dream is right about this, in the end, and Sam can agree with that. But that is where their agreeances end. Because Dream is a bad person who did bad things to suit his own desires and boredom. Sam has done bad things selflessly. To protect the wider Essempi from harm. Sam has done things he is not proud of, but he did them for the people he loved.

Dream is right, though, when he mentions that all the times Sam has tried to help others, it has failed miserably. This is just another one of Dream’s truths. Of the proof of Sam’s idiocy.

Dream tells the truth. But he only does so sometimes.

Oftentimes, Dream lies. Sam can be dumb, but he is not an idiot. Dream can plan for a lot, but Dream cannot plan for everything. Tommy has made bad decisions, but he more than repented for the torment he was put through. Tommy is not a mastermind, and Sam can see that clearly. Tommy may not be a child for much longer, may not have ever truly been a child in the time Sam has known him, but he was still young and alone and hurt by a man with so much more power than he.

There are some things that Sam might pretend to agree with because he can’t stand to argue any longer. He only sees Dream for a few moments a day, and he would rather his sole human interaction to be laced with as little toxicity as possible.

He doesn’t know when it became so hard to handle anger directed at him. He is– was the Warden. He carried the burden of the Prison, of the hatred it brought him, on his shoulders and his shoulders alone. He could never force anyone else to bear the weight of the world on their shoulders. Though Foolish has gotten close to seeing the pains it brings.

So Sam listens to Dream. He argues when he can handle it, agrees when his mind is too frayed to do otherwise, and tries to piece Dream’s stories together. Because Dream tells the truth, sometimes, and when he doesn’t, he is trying to sway Sam’s opinions and make him see things in a new light.

Others will lie. They will say Sam did nothing wrong. They will say Sam did not cause Tommy’s death, and then that he did, and that Sam is a bad person, and that Sam is a good person, and that Sam is unforgivable, and that Sam deserves a second chance, and that Sam deserves to burn and rot and suffer and–

Sam cannot make sense of the words anymore. He is a monster, but he is not a bad guy. Sam loves his family and his friends, and Sam has set this up all on his lonesome. Sam isolated himself far before anyone else could choose to do so for him.

And yet it still hurts so much. He set it up for himself, and yet it still hurts. Why? He was just trying to help.

Dream is confusing. He is cruel and conflicting and he–

He is offering Sam a way out.

“Guide me through the Prison,” Dream says. “Give me the Warden’s keys and show me the ropes, and once you’re done…I’ll set you free!”

Sam should not. He knows he shouldn’t. But Dream is here already either way, and Sam just wants to feel okay again. So Dream leaves, and then he returns the same time the next day, and Sam has already decided to agree.

Dream gives him fire resistance. He hands Sam a pearl to get across the barrier trapping him within the cell. Sam overshoots, falls into the lava, almost panics before remembering the potion. Dream dives in after him; grabs his arm once he finds Sam.

Sam has not had physical contact with another living being in at least a week. Dream guides him, helps his shaky body swim through the thick liquid. His touch burns Sam, and for a moment he almost thinks his potion’s worn off.

Dream was his friend. Dream leads Sam like a friend to the end of the lava; to the start of his freedom. Dream’s arm stays around him like an almost-hug, if a hug could hold such threatening undertones.

Sam will take what he can get. He certainly deserves much worse.

The kind-of-creeper relaxes some as he goes through the familiar calming motions of navigating his prison. The larger parts of him are ticking with anxiety and sorrow at the mistreatment of his work and the presence of Dream at his back, hand still gripping Sam’s arm tightly.

They make it to the lobby, and Sam’s body shakes at the anticipation. Soon this will all be over, and he can finally leave this hell.

But…

Dream isn’t opening the portal.

Dream stares at Sam. Dream mocks Sam and mocks his son. Dream brandishes an ax; brandishes a pickaxe. Dream talks of torture, and of scars, and Sam is not sure why he ever thought he would get out of this alive.

He remembers, distantly, a time not so long ago, where Ponk held Dream’s position and Sam dared them to kill him. Sam does not want to die now. But he cannot muster the strength to fight.

“No,” Sam whispered, body collapsed against the wall on the other side of the broken portal. “Please.”

Sam can imagine Dream’s face is eerily similar to that of the gnarly smile on his mask as he hums out a “bye, Sam!” and slashes the pickaxe across Sam’s face for a final time.

There was a flash of light, and a burst of blood and pain, and then all went dark.