Work Text:
You should slit your wrists in the front of the classroom. Watch all your classmates who don’t know you scramble, watch as your professor fumbles for a phone to call an ambulance.
The thought is nothing new, but Dream startles regardless, suddenly more awake than before. Hastily, he takes his hands away from each other, picking at his cuticles in a moment of dissociated anxiety.
You know you want to. You crave that attention, the kind you only get when people think you’re dying.
Belatedly, Dream tries instead to focus on what the professor is saying, an unexpectedly herculean task considering he’s in the very front row of the computer lab. Thankfully, no one seems to notice, also focused on the class.
It’s literally eight in the morning, please, Dream thinks as he starts tapping his fingers on the table, tapping them together, anything to release the anxiety that thrums below his skin. His hands are shaking, a result of too much caffeine and not enough real food, but that’s a problem for later.
You want to go home. I want to go home. I want to go home I want to go home I want- stop it. Come the fuck on, Dream chides himself. He’s a fucking adult, he can sit through one class without freaking out.
He still has two more classes after this, but that’s a problem for when those classes are actually happening.
The professor is entertaining enough, and the class passes by quickly, faster than Dream expected. It’s not long before he’s slinging his bag back over his shoulder and making his way outside, where the rain persists, dripping and wet.
Wouldn’t it be great if it were your wrist, dripping onto the floor? Or how about your ankle, like it was last night?
Shut up.
With that persistently sitting in the back of his mind, he makes it to the other building, standing outside for a few minutes before going inside and attempting to find the classroom.
This class passes much the same way, with the professor droning on, people asking inane questions and a slideshow presented up at the front.
He has to move up, at first, because of two boys that are talking rather loudly in the back of the classroom. He’d originally sat back there because it was easier and less embarrassing than sitting in the front, but they were loud. Loud enough that he knew he wouldn’t be able to focus or even try to.
There’s a girl sitting in front of him, typing notes on her laptop. He periodically checks the time over her shoulder, with the class crawling along at a snail’s pace. Absentmindedly he continues chipping away at his fingers, hastily trying to stop the bleeding when he hits just a bit too deep.
That’s disgusting, stop, Dream tries, but his fingers can’t stay still. Finally he picks up his pencil that’s been laying on his notebook, with a few notes scrawled in his awful handwriting, and begins to doodle, drawing stupid designs, a few actual doodles thrown in. He’s particularly proud of the cat he’d drawn at the top, modeling it after Patches.
The thoughts have somewhat receded, into the laidback desire to hurt himself that plagues him daily. These are at least manageable, and the movement of the pencil keeps him focused enough to at least listen to what the professor is saying, even if he isn’t absorbing the information very well.
You’re okay, relax, Dream wills himself, but the constant tapping, knee bouncing continues. Once he gets started it’s hard to stop, but he tries anyway, feeling like he’s bringing too much attention to himself.
On the way out, he goes outside for a few minutes, waiting for his next class that he needs to walk to in like 20 minutes, but he can almost feel everyone around him, and he just- needs a minute. To be by himself.
Please be unlocked, he prays as he pulls the bathroom door, and sighs as it opens. He moves inside, hanging up his bag and taking a moment to just stand there.
In the mirror, he looks back at his own reflection. His hair is a bit of a mess, his dark circles are slightly worse. A stranger stares back at him, the stranger he’s been stuck with his whole life.
He tears his eyes away from the mirror, and pulls out his cell phone instead. A text from Sapnap, one or two from George. He answers them in a bid for distraction and after maybe ten minutes have passed he exits the bathroom, moving towards his next class.
It’s one of the larger lecture halls, and he moves to sit in the middle of one of the rows. A lot of people move in beside him, and start talking to each other. He almost joins in, but they aren’t talking to him.
Suddenly, Dream feels very, very alone.
It washes over him like an overeager wave at a beach, salty and too much and terrible.
He’s used to loneliness, so it shouldn’t be bad. He’s fine by himself most of the time, and he has friends, people he talks to every day, people he lives with. Dream isn’t alone.
But the wave carries on.
Eventually, the professor starts talking, and everyone settles and goes quiet. Dream can barely pay attention, focus split between his still-bleeding finger and trying to stay awake. He wonders if people notice that he’s falling asleep. He hopes they can’t.
One of these days, it’s gonna backfire on you. You know it will. You’re a sepsis case waiting to happen, with as many as you have. And of course, you don’t have your bandaids today. You’re bleeding everywhere, you fucking gross person. Just because you’re desensitized to blood doesn’t mean other people are. Pull it together.
His leg starts bouncing again. He pulls his hand under the table, ignoring the blood that’s sticking to his finger, his thumb as well. He’ll wash his hands when he gets back to the dorm, deal with it then. Find his box of bandaids that he triple checked to have.
God, you’re really a fucking disaster, huh? You can’t fail this time, you’re supposed to be better now, remember?
By all logic, Dream should be doing better. On new medication, working with a therapist, back at school instead of working a job he hates. By all means, he should be fucking cured.
Yeah, this is gonna be a repeat. Maybe you’ll actually end it this time.
He won’t. He’s always been too much of a pussy, scared to go too deep or take too many. Can’t get his hands on a gun. Doesn’t want to scar his roommates.
Come the fuck on, focus, he tries still, but he’s still barely absorbing any of the information in front of him. Oh, test dates, fuck, write that down. Take notes, you’re not gonna remember any of this come a few hours from now. You can barely remember your own fucking name half the time.
It’s a fruitless effort, but he tries.
The professor, at one point, starts talking about resources. “We’re all going through a hard time. We all need to take care of our mental health.” He says, and Dream feels a bitter chuckle bubble in his throat, and he clamps it before it can come out.
If the therapist and the meds don’t work, what’s next? The psych ward? Does he just have to be miserable?
If anyone saw, especially any of those roommates, they’d tell someone. Make it a bigger deal than it is. Or worse, they’ll think it’s for attention. All that work to hide it and you’re still an awful little attention whore, huh. Shut the fuck up.
Oh my fucking god, shut up, Dream shoots back as he picks up his stuff and walks out the door. Now he can go back to the dorm, sit for a minute and collect his thoughts. He should really eat something, but who knows if that’s going to happen.
Food is such a chore lately. Something to get him through, shovel in his mouth in the hope that his growling stomach won’t keep him awake that night.
Younger you would’ve killed for that.
Stop it.
He walks through campus, coming up the hill that leads to his dorm building. He makes it up to the apartment, and quickly drops his shit on the floor, (you need to clean that shit up what the fuck is wrong with you-) and moves towards the kitchen.
One of his roommates is home, but they’re in the other room, clearly doing their own thing. He tries not to let it get in his head, and sits at the kitchen counter, clutching his phone.
You’re okay. Chill, you’re okay. It only gets harder from here on out.
He can’t wait to wake up tomorrow and do it all over again.