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Sapnap exhaled as he stood between the two little rooms, scratching the side of his neck in thought. He’d never had to do this before, separate the two littles. It’d never even been a thought that had crossed his mind, and now he wasn’t sure how to handle it. He knew he had to, but still, he wasn’t exactly sure how he wanted to go about it. Punz was busy handling George, which took a little off his plate. It was another reason he was so happy to have Punz helping him, but that left him to handle Dream, who was clearly not in the mood to be handled or spoken to.
Eventually, Punz stepped out of George’s room and looked at Sapnap. “Do you want me to try talking to him?” Punz whispered, and Sapnap sniffed and brushed his hands through his hair.
“I don’t know,” Sapnap’s voice broke, and he wasn’t sure why he was on the verge of tears. “This hasn’t happened before. I don’t… Luke, I don’t know what to do,” he admitted.
“Nick,” Punz said softly, taking Sapnap’s cheeks into his hands. “They’re kids, mentally, this was bound to happen. They get territorial and defensive.”
“No I know that,” Sapnap whispered. “But I’m… I’m scared that… I have to tell Dream. Big Dream. I have to tell him what happened, and I have to tell big George what happened. I don’t wanna lose my babies,” He admitted, finally breaking down as a couple tears streamed down his cheeks.
“Hey, hey,” Punz whispered. “You can’t think like that. Dream already admitted that at some point, this would stop being easy.”
“I think he meant they’d get rowdy and hyper, not…” Sapnap sniffed.
“This is a part of being a parent,” Punz whispered. “And Dream is going to have to realize this is part of being a regressor. Sometimes these things happen. But we’ve gotta correct it while they’re in this headspace, or it’ll just keep happening. So I’m asking, do you want to talk to Dreamie? Or do you want me to?” Punz whispered.
“I’ll do it,” Sapnap whispered, exhaling, shaking and letting Punz wipe his cheeks. “I can do it. I’ve got it,” he breathed.
“You’ve got me for backup if you need me, okay?” Punz whispered, and Sapnap nodded.
It took Sapnap a couple of deep breaths, but he finally moved to talk into Dreamie’s room, where the little was sitting on the bed, knees pulled up, face hidden away. Sapnap exhaled again as he carefully sat down in the rocking chair.
“Honey,” Sapnap whispered, trying not to let his voice crack. “We gotta talk about what happened in there.”
“I no’s wanna,” Dreamie’s voice came muffled from his knees.
“Baby if you don’t talk about it, it’s just going to keep happening. We need to identify the feelings and talk about how not to let something like that happen again,” Sapnap whispered, sniffing lightly. “You really hurt Georgie, baby. We cannot have that happen again, so you’ve gotta talk about it.”
Dreamie stayed silent for a while, but Sapnap stayed put, determined to outlast him. Dreamie eventually sniffed and lifted his head.
“I didns means to,” Dreamie whispered.
“I understand that, but I need to know what happened,” Sapnap whispered.
“Georgie an’ I’s were pwaying, an’s Georgie pwulled ons my hair… an’s I d’ought she was bac,” Dreamie whispered. “I d’ought… i don knows, I didn means to, d’ough…”
Sapnap exhaled sharply into his hands. He bit his bottom lip as it dawned on him that it was a trauma response and not a child being a child. That was going to be much harder to unravel.
“Baby, when she was… around, she used to pull on your hair?” Sapnap whispered.
“Yus,” Dreamie whispered.
“Did you usually react by hitting her?” Sapnap asked.
“Nos,” Dreamie shook his head. “Nots, nots at fwist… buts she… she huwted mes, an’s so I had to gets fwee,” Dreamie explained through a stuffy nose and crackling words.
“Would she drag you?” Sapnap whispered, and Dreamie nodded. “And did you thrash around?” He nodded again.
Sapnap exhaled shakily, “Okay, we are going to have to work on that, sweetheart. Things happen, and your hair is going to get tugged on. But, now that I know it’s a trigger, I will talk to Georgie about avoiding it, okay? I know it’s hard, and I know she hurt you. And baby I am so sorry, if I could take all that pain away I would. But we can’t hurt the people around us. I know you didn’t mean to, but we gotta take this chance to heal, okay?”
“Otay,” Dreamie whispered. “Is Georgie otay?”
“You got him pretty good in the face, love. I won’t lie,” Sapnap whispered. “But Dada was able to fix him up. I think you both need a nap, yeah?”
“Otay,” Dreamie whispered. “I wove you, mama,” he continued as he laid down on the bed.
“I love you too baby,” Sapnap whispered, stepping over and kneeling down next to the bed, kissing Dreamie’s forehead.
He stayed with the little to make sure he truly fell asleep before putting the bar up so he didn’t fall out and leaving the room. Punz was standing a little into the hallway so he could see into both rooms, and glanced at Sapnap.
“That is going to be so hard to fix,” Sapnap whispered.
“Why?” Punz whispered.
“Before Dream told me about… this, his ex-girlfriend was… around it.”
“Oh no…”
“Luke, it is so much worse than I thought,” Sapnap whispered. “Fucking dragging him by his hair? That’s why he swung like that. It’s not that he was territorial, he had a fucking trauma response. And coming from me I know how hard it is to break that.”
“Yeah,” Punz whispered. “So what do we do?”
“We give Georgie the rule of no grabbing hair, and we can try to desensitize Dreamie to the feeling of his hair being touched by playing with it or brushing it, but that is not going to be easy, and a lot more fists are going to be swung,” Sapnap whispered.
“You think they’re more triggers that we don’t know about?” Punz whispered.
“Oh yeah,” Sapnap nodded as he leaned against the wall next to him. “So many more…”
——
“Dream,” Sapnap whispered, trying to get the man out of his trance. “It’s okay, George isn’t even mad.”
“I can’t believe I hit him… hard enough for it to bruise,” Dream whispered, a tear streamed down his cheek. “I can’t… Nick I can’t keep doing this if that—“
“Hey, no, no,” Sapnap whispered, taking Dream’s hand, only for it to be pulled away. “Clay, we are your friends. We are your best friends. It’s not like you struck him out of anger.”
“I can’t risk hurting you guys,” Dream whispered. “I might be mentally regressed but my strength is not.”
“Shit hit the fan, yes. But now we know to look out for that,” Sapnap tried.
“But I don’t know what other triggers there could be. I don’t know if words can trigger it. Songs? Sounds? Nick, I don’t know.”
“We can learn,” Sapnap whispered.
“Not at the expense of someone else getting hurt,” Dream whispered. “Nick, I know you love him, love me. But… I also love you guys. And the thought of me hurting one of you is too strong for me to bear. I can’t handle it. In this headspace I can communicate what’s a trigger and what isn’t, and it seems they’re different triggers from little me.”
“Clay, she pulled you around by your hair,” Sapnap whispered. “You cannot fault him for having that reaction.”
“And I don’t,” Dream whispered. “I didn’t… I mean I knew something had to have happened like that. I could feel it with how my head pounded, but… you didn’t sign up—“
“No I did,” Sapnap cut him off. “I absolutely did. The minute we had a real sit down conversation about it, and you explained the fucked up shit she did, I signed up for this. I knew that this could happen.”
“They didn’t,” Dream whispered. “I never told them, and I’m guessing you didn’t either.”
Sapnap looked to the side. “So now what?” He whispered. “You just… push it down? Bottle it, until you inevitably explode?”
“Nick,” Dream whispered.
“No, because you already tried to hide it! You tried shoving it away, pushing it down, and that was before we had all of this stuff, all of these regression triggers! We cannot fix this, if you don’t even try.”
“I can’t put any of you at risk. I’ve almost crashed the car with George in it, and now I’ve bruised him. I’m sorry, Nick. But I cannot do this anymore.”
Sapnap sniffed, shaking his head. “Okay,” He whispered. “You get to make that decision. Okay…” Sapnap exhaled and stood from Dream’s bed, leaving his room and walking into the living room where Punz and Georgie were sitting.
“Babe,” Punz whispered and Sapnap sat down next to Georgie with a small, very sad, smile.
‘Dream?’ George signed.
“No, baby, Dreamie isn’t coming,” Sapnap whispered, and Georgie pouted. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” He whispered as he pulled Georgie into a hug, staring at Punz who exhaled shakily and nodded. Sapnap kissed the top of Georgie's head and tried not to let any more tears fall.