Chapter Text
Dream remembers a lot.
Some of his earliest memories are of phone calls and houses and some people he would remember being the only thought he ever had say and night. The phone calls while about him mainly also had the boys involved after all they were his "obsessions".
he just calls Them the ones he loved. but that's not how his mother thought of them, the supposedly secret phone calls made that clear.
sometimes he wondered if his mother for some reason had wanted him to hear every word but the consistent looking over her should during them at the slightest of sounds disproved that theory. His mother's colleagues knew very well of his habits and gave back their opinions to his other without question or pause. He always stood out of sight though never where his mother looked.
then again who would think that their pajama-clad 4-year-old could climb the walls quieter than a mouse, though that is an awful comparison trust him. you'll know very fast if there is a mouse inside of your walls. He would watch from the ceiling from an angle where the only thing he could see was his mother's long silvery-white hair not from age may be from stress though that is beside the point. point is they called his love obsession and one day he'd go to jail. No one said he didn't deserve to go to jail, his mother even being the first to say it. maybe not the first to think it but the first to say it. he stopped loving his mother after that no more being called little duckling.
not that he'd been called that for a long while.
Everyone but him always seemed to call his love obsession, everyone but him of course.
Dream always thought that they overreacted no laws were ever really broken. All Dream would do would follow the kid around the playground and only sometimes to the outside of their house. Never even touching the lawn! sometimes he would leave gifts, a few flowers he had gotten from wherever had the best ones he could snatch, or maybe a letter that was always just a drawing which Dream had always poured his heart into.
They for some reason would never do anything but sob and run to someone else for comfort never him.
maybe because he never said who they were from?
Well, at least that's how it went for elementary.
suddenly he just...
well, he didn't feel the strong attachment anymore he no longer felt love much anymore.
His mom always now said how proud she was of him both to colleagues friends and him and anyone else who would listen, he didn't follow her around anymore if anything he tried to get more distant from her yet he got his nickname from when he was a child again.
"duckling"
he still didn't have any friends, it didn't bother him much he can't miss what he never had. It didn't help him make friends when everyone around was the same as in elementary school though.
and then high school came.
suddenly he had friends, he no longer loved anyone but he liked some and could tolerate others. No one from his middle school or elementary school went to his high school so everyone there had no reason to not welcome him into their lives. with no more feeling of love, he tried to find other means he made friends and did his work getting high grades and praise that never mattered much to him but must have meant something to others around him considering he was valid victorian as his high school and got a scholarship for his college of choice on a full free ride.
And then he saw him on his first day in his advanced math class.