Work Text:
Dream has never been embarrassed about his ADHD, he never really understood it. He knew that he was different from other kids, but everyone was different in his class.
He didn’t understand the looks he would get when out at the shops from other parents, he missed the embarrassed looks from his, he was seven. He didn’t understand what masking was.
Until now.
He was sat down in front of his parents one afternoon, tangle in hand, and was told why he did the things he did.
They told him his brain wasn't normal, that he yelled and made noises and couldn't sit still because of his brain.
He wasn’t normal.
It made him think, too much for a seven year old, and he thought for a long time. It wasn’t just one of his usual spacing out sessions at a wall, no, his thoughts were running wild. And out of all the incoherent overlapping of voicing flooding his head, one thing stuck:
He needed the pills again.
He remembered taking them, how everything was a bit quieter in his head and how he could just sit and do his work in class. He remembered how by the end of naptime he woke with an unrelenting buzzing that made him want to curl up and cry until everything went quiet again. He remembered how tired he felt all day, how he couldn’t muster up the strength to even look at food without wanting to throw up.
But his parents were so happy when he took it.
He would be normal if he took it.
So with the plan in mind, he grabbed the pills from where he hid them in his room, them being hidden from his parents after he didn’t want to take them, and put them in his school bag.
His plan was perfect, he would take one before class and take one at lunch so he would be normal all day and his parents would be happy. No one would find out and he wasn’t doing anything bad. It wasn’t bad at all.
The plan started the next day, Dream waking up and eating breakfast before going to get his bag, taking one of the pills and packing his lunch before being driven off to school.
The effects started about half an hour into the lesson, feeling his mind setting from the overlapping and buzzing thoughts, the need to bounce in his seat and wanting to look anywhere but Ms. Puffy dissipating from his mind. He could listen to her instructions and do the small work booklet given to him in relative peace and quickly too.
Even if George, Sapnap, Quackity and Karl were having fun and working loudly together, he could just ignore it. He finished and raised his hand for Ms. Puffy, who praised him with kind words and a gold star.
He hadn’t gotten a gold star on his work before.
Sure, he had gotten smiley faces and thumbs up, but a gold star? Never in a million years would he have thought he would get one!
That alone probably makes him want to stay on the meds, but being sent to go play early? That was a game changer. He smiled and thanked her before running off to mindlessly go play with lego, like always.
It was lonely without his friends, though. They needed to do their work and he did his so he deserved to play early. That is a fact in his mind.
It wasn’t lonely for long because Techno and Wilbur finished soon after and Sam came along to keep an eye on them while joining in on the building.
They played quieter than the feral boys, Dream notes, only really being able to talk to Sam as Wilbur and Techno seemed to be in their own ‘twin world’, silently communicating to each other.
It wasn’t bad though, he didn't spend a lot of time alone with Sam outside the chill room so it was a nice change of pace. Plus, they didn’t have lego in there so he could just have some fun for once.
“I know Ms. Puffy already said this but I’m proud of you for that work. I’m glad you figured out a way to get through it so quickly and get so many questions right!” Sam praised Dream, shuffling a little closer to the younger boy and patting his shoulder. “Anything happened to cause this?”
Dream felt like this was a trap, that Sam must already know about his plan because all adults know everything most of the time. So, he lied.
“Not really. Just sorta wanted to.” He shrugged, going back to playing. Sam hummed in response.
“You sure?” Sam pushed a little, mostly out of curiosity.
“I mean, Mom and Dad told me how doing work and stuff is good for when I get to big kid grades so I guess I tried a bit more.” Dream explained, lying right through his teeth. He tried not to sound nervous but it came across that he was a bit.
Sam just hummed again.
“Well, keep it up, then. I’m sure a few more gold stars on your work will feel pretty good.” Dream smiled at that and nodded.
“Can I go back to my table? I wanna help out so we can all play together!” Dream was practically bouncing as he asked. Sam laughed softly.
“As long as you ask if they need help first, sometimes people don’t want help and just want to work at their own speed.” Sam instructed. Dream smiled brightly and sprung up, rushing back to the table.
George was half asleep on the desk while Sapnap, Quackity and Karl were just chatting. He rushed up behind George and grabbed his shoulders, startling the older boy awake from his daze.
“George! I get to help since I finished so fast! Can I?” Dream bounced on his toes excitedly. George sat up properly and shrugged.
“I guess. I kinda get it already, though.” Dream was still smiling as he grabbed his chair and moved it close next to George to help him as much as he could, with his fumbling words and wild hand gestures.
Dream didn’t really remember much after that, only that he slowly got more and more tired, more fidgety and started to space out more until lunch time approached. His plan was still in action, grab a pill, have lunch, nap at nap time and wake up to be good for his parents when he gets home.
And it worked. He took his pill sneakily as he pretended to yawn, ate and slept in nap time afterwards. He woke up feeling ready to work and got another gold star on the drawing he did for art.
He went home with the fuzziness of the pill wearing off slowly until he felt it completely dissipate around dinner, but it didn’t matter too much as he was still tired enough not to annoy his parents with his normally endless amounts of energy.
And that routine repeated for the next week at school, everything seemed to work really well in Dream’s opinion. He got gold stars, his parents seemed happier and everything seemed so much better.
That was until Wednesday of the next week, he was caught. Dream was just about to his yawn trick to take the medication when it slipped from his hands and fell to the ground, right in front of Ms. Puffy. She saw. Dream froze.
“Dream, what was that you dropped?” She asked, seemingly calm. Dream was still frozen in place. She bent down to pick it up and couldn't help but gasp audibly in shock. Dream felt like he was going to cry. Ms. Puffy turned around quickly, grabbing Sam from where he stood at the doorway of the classroom and showed her what was in her hands. George, Sapnap and Karl looked at Dream with confused expressions.
“What was that, Dream? Looked like some plastic.” George asked. Dream was still completely frozen in place. In his mind he knew he did nothing wrong, he was being good. He didn’t annoy people and yet he was terrified when Ms. Puffy found out.
Sam came over to Dream, not bending down to his level like he normally does, and said,
“You need to come here right now, Dream.”
And he broke. Dream started sobbing, hands shoved in his eyes as he stood up, Sam’s hand on his back as he was led all the way to the chill room and sat down on the floor.
“Don’t move. I’ll be back with Ms. Puffy in a few minutes.” Sam said before leaving and shutting the door. Dream just kept crying.
He didn’t know it but the rest of his class were moved to stay with the Grade 3 and 4 class, run by Miss Niki, for lunch while Sam could try to calm Puffy down.
She felt so many emotions, anger, sadness, fear, she didn’t know what led this kid to start taking these pills. She knew a while ago, after a meeting with Dream’s parents, that he had started these meds and was soon off them at Dream’s choice. She should have remembered how he acted, how calm and not fidgety he was during that time, but all she remembered was how lethargic and tired the boy seemed to be every afternoon, seemingly a shell of the boy she had teached for months at that point.
“Take a deep breath, Cara, you and I both know that Dream just wouldn’t do something this stupid without reasoning.” Sam had a hand on Puffy’s back as she took a few deep breaths.
“I can’t think of any reason for him to do this! He could seriously kill himself with double dosing, especially at his age. Oh god, how long has he been doing this? How have I not noticed?” Puffy’s hands were clenched tightly. Sam continued to run her back.
“I didn’t notice either, you can’t blame yourself, ok? Let’s just go and ask and hope he’ll tell us.” Sam explained. Puffy nodded, taking another deep breath and relaxed her shoulders.
The two of them entered the room and Dream didn’t move from his spot. His face was red, cheeks stained with tears and eyes puffy and blown wide open as he just stared at the ground. Puffy couldn’t but wince at the state of the young boy.
“Dream,” She started, sitting down in front of the kid, Sam following and sitting down next to her. “I just want to ask some questions, ok?” Dream raised his head and couldn’t quite meet Puffy in the eyes, but nodded.
“Ok, when did you get on your meds again?”
“Week ago, I think.”
“Do you remember what day?”
“When you gave me that gold star the first time.”
This was the eighth school day, seven double doses and maybe even more if he did this on the weekend.
“Did you only take them for school?”
“Mhm.” Dream nodded his head, still looking down into her lap.
“How many did you take?”
Dream hesitated a bit, taking a shaking breath in.
“Took one before school and then at lunch.”
She was right, and was terrified.
“Why did you do that? Did you know how much that could hurt your body?” Puffy felt tears spring in her eyes, voice cracking.
Dream started sniffling again, rubbing one of his eyes with the back of his hand.
“ ‘m sorry…” He said in barely a whisper.
“You said something about talking to your parents, did they tell you to take them?” Sam spoke up.
Dream shook his head.
“What did they talk about?”
Dream looked up at Sam, then at Puffy.
“ ‘bout how I’m not normal and- and that my brain is wrong and that’s why ‘m loud an’ annoying and- and- and why people look at me weird in the shops and-” Dream broke down again, sobbing.
Sam picked him up, pulling him into his lap and hugging him with a firm grip.
“You’re ok, Dream, you’re ok,” Sam said softly.
Puffy’s mouth was wide open, eyes bugged out.
‘You can’t be serious? He’s a kid!’ she mouthed to Sam. Sam could only nod solemnly.
They ended up having to ask Niki to keep the class for the rest of the day as they called in Dream’s parents and the Principal to explain what happened.
Dream was crying again as they talked, Dream’s mother ended up in tears too. Dream was lucky that he didn’t get sick from this, the original dose being very small, and he was lucky he wasn’t in a lot of trouble with either the school or his parents.
After Puffy explained what Dream had told her and Sam, they realised their mistake in how they worded such a sensitive topic to such a young kid. Principal Minecraft, bless his soul, said that Dream wouldn’t be in any trouble as he told the truth and nothing was malicious.
The pills in Dream’s bag were given back to his parents to do as they wish with them as Puffy explained why it doesn’t matter if he’s loud in class or does his work fast because as long as he tries, that's all that matters.
They ended up sending Dream home with his parents early from school to recover from what had happened, leaving Sam and Puffy to collect their class from Niki’s to let them know everything’s ok, especially Dream’s friends, who Niki said were not doing the best after Dream was taken crying.
In the end, Dream came back to school the following week, hand-made apology/thank you cards for both Sam and Puffy for making them worry and helping him out.
The feral boys were reunited with lots of hugs between them, and everything seemed to go back to normal.
Dream still felt off, the words of his brain not being normal still being in his mind, but he got back to his usual self in no time.
Normal was different for everyone, afterall.