#anyway. here's more misery for awesamdude

[peninkwrites]

Part IV: Lines Drawn in Sand & Concrete - Ch 1 of ?

Loyalties shift, lines are drawn, and soon to follow, the grand opening of a casino.

But first, Sam loses a little more.

[CW: descriptions of dead bodies, referenced past abuse, c!Dream]

Crossposted to ao3

Mafia AU masterpost

Part III

Ch 2 - Ant

Ch 3 - Wilbur & Tommy

Ch 4 - Tubbo & Quackity

Ch 5 - Ponk & Sam

Ch 6 - Niki & Wilbur

Ch 7 - Sapnap & Quackity

Ch 8 - Bad

Ch 9 - Tubbo & Quackity

Ch 10 - Wilbur

Ch 11 - Sapnap

Ch 12 - Eryn

Ch 13 - Quackity & Tubbo

Ch 14 - A Collective (all chapters going forward will be on ao3)

~ Ponk & Sam ~

Sam hasn’t been outside of his apartment in weeks. He’d had a hard time finding someone to look after Fran. In a moment of desperation he’d tried calling Foolish, who had always been happy to dog sit before. Instead, he had gotten quiet when he heard Sam’s voice and said “I don’t think I can.  I hope you find someone, though,” in a way that meant he was clearly hoping for Fran’s sake and not Sam’s.  It took a while on his list of friends to finally convince Boomer, the person who lived directly below his and P– his apartment.  He’d agreed to do it for a little cash.  Other than that, Sam had no one coming to check on him.  Sapnap had visited in him in the hospital and seemed genuinely concerned, but his concern didn’t warrant house calls.  He’d taken a cab to the hospital for his follow up; graduating from a wheelchair to crutches had felt like a small victory when the doctor had openly laughed when he asked when he would be able to go back to work again.  Still, crutches restored some of his freedom.  He still had Boomer on the payroll to walk Fran, but other than that he could look after her.  Even if he couldn’t manage a stubborn Samoyed, he could at least go outside again.

If he had anyone to talk to, he would fervently deny that his first destination being his workplace was pathetic.  His job is important; of course he would want to check in.  George had given him a less than sympathetic once over before waving him back towards his office.  Dream doesn’t stand from Sam’s chair when he knocks and enters, merely looks up in mild surprise.

“Sam.  You’re out of the hospital.”  Dream doesn’t look especially pleased by the news.  “Um, glad to see it.  We… we weren’t expecting you back so soon.”  He laughs.  “I mean, you’re obviously not here to work.  What can I…” he trails off, puzzled by Sam’s presence, “help you with?”

Sam ignores the persistent sting of his wounded pride and enters the office without invitation.  It’s his office.  “I thought I should check in on my department, see how you all are holding up without me.”  Sam could sit down.  He’d like to, even with crutches it’s far from easy, but he doesn’t.  He’d rather not sit on this side of his own desk.

Dream raises an eyebrow, gesturing to the office and the rest of the bullpen through the shaded windows.  “I hope I’m running the department to your satisfaction?  I mean, we’ve been busy, I’ll admit, but nothing I can’t handle,” he smiles in a way that maybe is supposed to be reassuring instead of patronizing.

Sam is finally inching toward his original goal of coming here, and after a moment’s hesitation, concedes to almost collapse in the chair nearest, doing his best to lean his crutches against the other chair with a shred of dignity.  Dream doesn’t comment on Sam clearly settling in, merely watches him struggle with something scathing in his annoying little smile.

“You’ve been busy?” Sam refocuses.  “With what?”

“Sam,” Dream sighs, leaning forward, resting his elbows on the desk, fingertips pressed together.  “You’re… technically not in active duty right now.”  He feigns a sympathetic grimace.  “It would be unprofessional of me to share current case information when at the moment you’re…” He gives him a once over.  “Just a civilian.”

Sam sits up and hopes Dream doesn’t see him wince.  “Medical leave does not revoke my title as your superior officer.  If I am telling you to update me, it’s your duty to do so.”

Dream doesn’t blink.  “Well, as acting Captain, in that case, I have the same power you do, as an absent Captain.”  Dream’s tone remains mild and professional.  “Why don’t you take it up with my superior officer?”

“I am your superior officer!” Sam hisses.

Dream is still smiling politely.  “Actually, right now I report directly to the Chief of Police; his deputy, if we’re nitpicking.  I think you have his contact information.”

“Taken, you do realize when I return to my post, I’m not going to forget your disrespect.”  Sam doesn’t know why part of him is not merely angry, there’s fear too, this nagging anxiety growing sharper with every passing moment, like this too is going to slip through his fingertips.

It’s like Dream knows, sensing it like blood in the water.  He leans forward, fidgeting with the name plate for Capt. Sam Warden.  “Do you think you’re going to be fit to return to active duty any time soon, Sam?”

“I guarantee it.”  Sam moves to leave, fearing if he stays another moment he’ll swing his crutch across the desk until Dream bleeds.  He stands too fast and has to catch himself on the edge of a chair, unsteady for just a moment as he rights his crutches.

“Careful there, Sam.”

Sam doesn’t bother with a retort.  He’s halfway out of the bullpen when he stops, turning sharply toward another familiar desk.  There, Sapnap is currently trying to balance a pencil on his nose.

“Halo.”

Sapnap jumps violently, the pencil clattering onto the desk as he fumbles with unfinished paper work there, clearly trying to look like he’d been working on something.  “Y-Yeah? Oh!  Sam!  Uh, Captain, how’s it– You’re here.”  He gives up, turning his chair to face Sam, cheeks red and arms folded to stop himself from embarrassing himself further.  “You, uh.  You look… better.”

“Do you have any recent reports?”

Sapnap glances nervously at his unfinished scramble of reports for his own cases.  “...reports?”

“Pull yourself together, Halo, I’m not here to lecture you.  I’m just… out of the loop, and my replacement over there is… too busy to bother,” is how Sam chooses to carefully phrase it.

“Oh, oh yeah, shit, you don’t know about this whole deal, do you?” Sapnap focuses up slightly, gesturing to the busy hum of the rest of the department.

Sam bottles further irritation.  “Whole deal?”

Sapnap nods fervently.  “Bodies, Sam.  Like, a bunch of ‘em.  We haven’t connected them for sure, like, no one’s released a statement using the s-word yet, but like, that’s my theory right now.”

Sam sighs.  “...s-word?”

“Oh, y’know, serial killer.  The press would lose their minds, and like, technically the only thing consistent with the murders is like, 90% of them had a record of some kind.”

Sam processes this carefully.  “How many?  How many exactly since I’ve been gone?”

Sapnap does some counting on his fingers, mulling it over.  “Somewhere between four and eleven.”

“Four and eleven?  Any reason why the range is so ridiculous?”

“Because, Sam,” Sapnap half laughs, like Sam is being dumb on purpose.  “Only one consistent factor.  So it’s hard to tell what’s just usual gang violence and what’s from our mystery-killer.  And more recently––” Sapnap rummages around his desk, pulling out a file from the bottom of the stack.  “––the bodies aren’t just… y’know, stabbed or beaten up or anything, they’re fucking shredded.”

Sapnap opens the folder and holds out a picture of an autopsy table.  Even in black and white, it’s not a pretty sight.  All the worse that Sam finds it familiar.  He stares in fixated dread at symmetrical cuts on either cheek, in rows until they almost looked like morbid whiskers.  The cuts continue to cover the torso of the body, like red vines grown from underneath skin.  Sam finds it familiar because he’s done it before.   He’s almost surprised that Sapnap hasn’t recognized it, but maybe he should know better.  Bad did everything he could to make sure Sapnap was kept away from the more gruesome aspects of the family business; it’s part of why Sam thinks Sapnap didn’t have the stomach for it in the end.

“And… and how many of the bodies look like that?” Sam asks, hoping the tremor in his voice isn’t obvious.  One more aspect that feels like a secret Sam isn’t inclined to share with Sapnap is that knowing it’s Badlands handiwork, he also can connect why.  Skeppy must still be missing.

“That’s…” Sapnap thinks back.  “Number five, I think.  That looks like that.”  Sapnap glances at the photo and winces, quickly stowing it back in the folder.  “And that’s not the only like… marking stuff going on, sort of.  So, like a month ago, this car got blown up!  It was insane, burst a pipe and shit, busted a hole in the storm drains, but it was right after Schlatt’s funeral, and his like… the obituary thing they pass out, it was stabbed into a telephone pole nearby.  I dunno if the guy responsible was pro-Schlatt or anti-Schlatt or what, but it definitely sends a message.  I mean, we know the car owner was one of Schlatt’s boys, I mean the bomber, I guess.” Sapnap rummages through his paperwork again, more excited now.  “And there’s been more of that graffiti all over the East Side!  The… crime boy thing or whatever.  It showed up after the bodies started turning up–– all the bodies, not just the… weird cut up ones––but that doesn’t mean it isn’t connected, and I think some people might just be nervous, it doesn’t have to be part of some big thing, but a couple petty criminals have actually reported them being attacked, by––get this––a dude in a white mask.  Is that freaky, or what?”

“Halo,” Dream speaks up from the doorway of the office.

Sapnap jumps again.  “Uh, yeah?”

“Can I see you?  In my office?”

Sapnap glances between Sam and Dream.  “Sure..?”  He looks at Sam, as if waiting for a response.

Sam knows Dream interrupted very much deliberately, but he’s not planning on picking another fight.  So he gives Sapnap a nod of acknowledgment.  Sapnap stands with a weary sigh and joins Dream, looking like a kid called into the principal’s office.

“Good to see you, Sam.  Come visit any time,” Dream says before shutting Sam’s own goddamn door in his face.

Sam seethes in the cab back to his apartment.  He can’t stand the thought of returning to staring at the same living room he’d been staring at for a month, so instead he takes a walk.  A slow, uncomfortable, unsteady walk, but a walk nonetheless.  The route is familiar, even if he’s not used to walking it alone.

~

Ponk hadn’t wanted Sam hurt, yes, but they’re not above revenge.  It’s a slow growing thing.  Ponk goes back to work as soon as they can, and finds bitter anger easily as they cannot carry boxes or breathe as deeply.  The doctor couldn’t use a hard cast on their arm, at least for the first few weeks, as she had to redress the burns there too.  She had been honest with them, expressing some mild concerns about the healing process, the lack of rigidity meaning the bone may not heal perfectly, but the alternative risk of irritating the burns concerned her worse, hence, she prioritized.  Their arm would need to be wrapped for the next two months.

It’s harder for Ponk to make their peace with when they can name the man responsible.  Still, they don’t plan on acting, on making any move against Sam, until they actually see him again.

The problem with building a life with someone for ten years only to have it end bloody, is that the two of them share most of their local haunts.  They were bound to run into each other eventually, Sam too careless to realize the damage he could cause and Ponk refusing to give up any more of their world to Sam.

As such, for the first time outside of a police station, a month after the arrest, Ponk sees Sam again near a food truck almost exactly halfway between Eret’s place and their old apartment.  They’re surprised to see he is also in a cast.

“Ponk.” Sam seems just as surprised to see Ponk there.

Ponk’s tone is icy, but undeniably there is still a tremor, however hard they try to bury it.  “Sam.”

“You’re here,” Sam has the audacity to sound wanting.

“Yeah.  I am.  It’s a public street, is it not?” Ponk wishes it were only anger stirring in their chest.

“Right, yeah, of course, I guess I just…” Sam gives them a once over he has no right to.  He clears his throat.  “You… you look good.”

Ponk can’t resist a smile, raising an eyebrow.  “Do I?”  They haven’t forgotten, not really, but there is a brief, undeniable moment where they remember how good it felt to make Sam a little shy.

Sam takes a step forward, Ponk impulsively takes a step back, unbroken arm raised slightly.  Whatever reply Sam had been about to make dies on his lips.  He takes a step back as well.

Ponk hates that Sam could see that they’re still afraid.  This is wrong.  It can’t be like that anymore, they cannot make Sam blush and Sam cannot step closer and nothing can be as it once was.  “You look a bit shit, Sam.”

They meant it with at least a hint of sympathy, however blunt the actual comment was, but Sam takes it to heart, jaw set, shoulders squared, as if he’s trying to make himself bigger.  Sam has no need to make himself look bigger.   Even in a cast, even injured, he physically towers over them.  Ponk is not weak by any means, but they know exactly what kind of damage Sam can do.

“Yeah, I wonder why that is,” Sam says coldly.

That very question finally catches up to Ponk.  “Wait, actually, what the fuck?  Were you in a car accident or something?”

Sam scoffs and for a moment it’s like he’s going to step closer again, it’s his impulse, but he reconsiders out of some cruel version of courtesy towards them.  He leans forward, though, words sharp and bitter.

“Are you really going to act like you don’t know?”

Ponk doesn’t pull away, frustration overtaking fear.  “Know what, Sam?  Go on, say what you’re going to say.”

“Really?” Sam scoffs.  “Fine.  Your little mob buddies?  Is that ringing a bell?  You know what, I knew you could fight dirty, Ponk, but really?”  He’s scathing, the audacity to be self righteous toward them of all people.  “Having three different crime rings break down my door and––and attack me?” He hisses.

“What the fuck are you going on about?!” Ponk snaps.  “Who are you even talking about?  I wasn’t working for a mob when you arrested me.  Why would they––I have no idea what you’re talking about, Sam.”  Briefly, Ponk thinks of Purpled all those nights ago, but he had promised he hadn’t killed Sam.  Well, that part was true.  Ponk continues with the truth.  “I didn’t send anyone after you.”

“Right” Sam huffs, aloof on his crutches.  “They said the same thing, but really.  Sending one hit out on me wasn’t enough, but three?  Do you expect me to believe all those people showed up to––to hurt me just because?  I mean, I used to think lying was beneath you, but I guess that’s not true, is it?”

Ponk turns cold, an icy fury at every sacrifice they made for this man thrown back in their face.  Ponk cannot believe that when they first saw Sam for a brief moment they thought he might apologize.  “Maybe it’s because you’re not a good person, Sam.”

Sam doesn’t quite look surprised, more so curious.  “You don’t think I’m a good person?”

Ponk doesn’t look him in the eye, staring past him to the river, to the streets the two of them have walked together for so many years.  It’s never going to be like that again. Ponk wants to tell him they never meant for him to get hurt.  They want to tell him that the doctors don’t think their arm is going to ever be quite the same.  They want to ask him if he regrets it.  They want to go home, properly home, with Sam beside them.  Some part of them also undeniably wants Sam to drown in the river and know it was because of Ponk, for him to know it’s what he deserves.  They don’t say any of it.  “My opinions are biased.”

Before Sam can retort, Ponk turns and leaves him there.  If they don’t look back, they can pretend Sam didn’t almost reach out to stop them.  If they don’t look back, they can pretend they wouldn’t have let him.

When Ponk returns to Eret’s mansion, breathless and definitely not burying tears, the first thing they do is make a phone call.

“Purpled?  It’s Ponk.  I… I think I know what I want to do.”

~

In four days time, Sam will return home to an apartment covered in meticulously made copies of police records.  Dozens of files which were never meant to leave the precinct are now piled on his kitchen counter.  At that same moment, the station receives a call claiming that the Police Captain is being attacked again.  When the squad cars arrive with an urgency few other calls would receive, it is to Sam staring in baffled confusion at the mountains of probable cause shoved into his lonely apartment.  Sam almost can’t process what’s happening when men he had once supervised arrest him.  They arrest him not because he had done something illegal, but because he’s done something illegal against the police.  The way this picture has been so carefully painted makes it clear that Ponk wasn’t the rat.  Ponk was surely a scapegoat, a civilian with no access to police files.  Surely, if Sam had truly been loyal to the department, Ponk wouldn’t have known anything worth sharing.  The real rat had to have been one of their own.  Sam has no idea what to say in his own defense.

Things devolve from there.  There is no interrogation, there is no opportunity for Sam’s old comrades to listen or offer understanding.  They are all cold and unforgiving or they avoid him like the plague.  People Sam had felt responsible for, who he had done his best to protect, shoving him into a holding cell and daring to call him a rat.  It’s almost surreal.  Sam already thought his whole world had fallen apart a month ago, and here the last shreds begin to burn.

Sam dodges criminal charges because those equate press coverage.  Instead, there is a letter of termination.  Sam’s replacement fully supports it, citing Sam’s criminal background before joining the force as clear evidence that he was never fit to be Captain.  Sam would have preferred prison.  He would have preferred a criminal trial instead of being forced to sit across from his own desk, the Chief of Police in his chair, and the man who had once been Sam’s right hand whispering in his ear.

“Mr. Warden here used to work for the Badlands, did you know that, Sir?” Dream doesn’t look at him as he shreds his reputation to ribbons.  Sapnap’s face falls from where he stands to Dream’s right, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Dream,” Sam doesn’t know why he’s trying to garner his attention, what he’s hoping to achieve.  Dream clearly has no intention of helping him.  He can’t help but try.  He’s spent days waiting for the chance to plead his case only to find it had already been decided for him.  “You know this wasn’t me.  You know that.  You know I’m being set up for something, Dream––”

“Please calm yourself, Mr. Warden,” Dream raises a hand as if to placate his old boss handcuffed across the table.  Mr.  That title is as grating as nails on a chalkboard.  Sam feels weak.  “Consider yourself lucky you’re not being arrested.  Former Police Officers don’t do well in prison, you know.”

Sam doesn’t know what to do now.  No one here is going to help him.  He thought Sapnap might have argued on his behalf, but despite his deigning to visit him in the hospital and being willing to chat, it seems for him too that things had inexplicably changed between them after Ponk’s arrest.  Everyone else who might have gotten him out of this, well, he burned those bridges first.  Not to say the Badlands had been any good to someone under arrest.

Sam is escorted from the station by those he had once trusted.  Dream doesn’t bother seeing him out.  Sapnap lingers just outside, unsure and oddly thoughtful.

“Sapnap, you know I didn’t––”

“I’ll call you a cab, Sam,” Sapnap hesitates.  “I’m sorry about all this.”

Sam doesn’t reply.  He watches him leave.  Through the glass, he can see the station proceeding, business as usual, while Sam feels as though someone has died.

Sapnap knows he cannot get Sam out of this and he doesn’t plan to, but once the proceedings are done, the Chief of Police gone, he pulls his friend aside.  “Dream, you know there’s no way Sam did this.  After he was attacked, we searched his apartment, like, there wasn’t anything there––”

Dream cuts him off.  “What were you and Sam talking about, huh?  The other day?  You could’ve given him those records, right?” Dream is almost calm, casual conversation as if every word isn’t a loaded bullet.  Sapnap falls silent.  Dream lowers his voice, a warning hushed and dangerous, “if we’re talking about associates of the Badlands, you of all people should watch your step, Officer Halo.”

Sapnap stares at him, stunned, waiting for some part of this to make sense, to reflect his best friend.  It doesn’t.  Dream does not become someone he recognizes.  “Got it, Captain.”