Chapter Text
Cross had always strived to be, and tried to be, perfect.
For his father's sake. For his sake. For his reputations sake. And other little things kids as young as him shouldn’t have to be worried about.
Yet here he was.
Such the reason why he never wondered if he was autistic. If he had ADHD. If he was in an unsafe familial environment. If he had some if not many mental illnesses.
And other things along those lines.
He's heard of such things before, but never really knew what such things were. Leading him to dismissing ever finding it out. Not want to be a burden. Not want to jump to conclusions. Not wanting to self diagnose. Not wanting to waste time or effort on something that could possibly be nothing. Not wanting to seem too needy or annoying and just looking for attention. And not wanting to waste time or effort or money if it turned out he did have such things, and he is no longer a perfect little soldier and they need medication ASAP to fix the problem.
So he always just shut his mouth, and continued on with his life.
It wasn't until many years later did he ever experience the first little hint of the possibility of him having bigger problems than he had initially thought.
Stimming.
What the fuck was stimming?
The first time he had ever heard the term "stimming" was when he was listening to music with Geno.
They had just finished listening to a song and had started talking about it. And when Cross asked the other how it made him feel, the bleeding skeleton replied with something along the lines of "I don't really know- the best way I can describe it is stimming"
This, in turn, made Cross confused, having never heard the term before. Thus turning into a whole full out conversation between the two. But the funny thing was, Geno (surprisingly) couldn't really accurately explain what stimming exactly was, leaving Cross to still be confused about the whole thing, and inevitably brushing it off and moving on with his life and the conversation.
The second time this had come up was when he was playing piano.
He had taken a couple piano lessons a long time ago, he was surprised he even still remembered any songs, but here he was, in a big room with a grand piano, and Dust.
He was playing a song, and Dust was next to the piano, tapping his fingers on the lid of it.
So naturally, from one pianist to another, Cross had thought Dust was waiting for a turn to play the piano, understanding that most pianist get excited and immediately have the urge to play a piano whenever they see one. And he himself always tapped on the desks in school, tapped his fingers on his lap, and he had always thought it was because he played piano, thus making it so he tapped his fingers as if he was playing an imaginary piano. What else could it be?
So he took Dust's tapping as a sign from one pianist to another, and stopped playing, asking the other "Do you play piano too?"
"Huh?"
Cross assumed the other didn't hear him, Dust spacing out a lot and never really being "here" with them. Something we might get to later. So he repeated himself, explaining himself a bit more as well.
"You were tapping on the piano lid, do you know piano too?"
"Huh- oh no- I mean- yes- yes I know piano but- uh- this is me just stimming." Dust spoke, referring to his tapping.
Cross just went 'oh' and nodded and continued on like it was nothing and he understood perfectly. When in fact, he had no clue what it meant, but... maybe it was fear that kept him from asking more. It seemed the others knew what this mysterious thing “stimming” was and what this meant, and they assumed he knew what it was as well and he was too afraid to ask, not wanting to disappoint the others, or waste time getting them to explain to him.
So he just nodded his head, and continued on with his life and continued playing with Dust listening.
It wasn't really until he met people like Blue and Ink and Dream and Epic and so on, did he ever understand the term "stimming"
Okay, that was a lie
To be honest, he still didn't really understand it.
But he found out that he apparently "happy stimmed" and it was quiet endearing to some of his friends. Dream pointing it out once.
Epic had brought something up, making an inside joke, this caused Cross to remember a happy memory, making him get exited and in turn, leading Dream to say "I love Cross’s little happy stims" when Cross started (apparently) happy stimming.
Cross had usually brushed off the idea of him ever stimming, not understanding what it was, not wanting to jump to conclusions and self diagnose when nobody ever straight on told him "hey, you stim."
That is, until Dream said those exact words.
Turns out, all those years of him just thinking he was fidgety and fiddling with his hands, that was him stimming. Whenever he felt the need to apologize and explain himself, saying "Sorry, I jump when I get excited." Or "Sorry, sometimes I clap when I'm happy, I don't know why." when he apparently didn't grow out of this "childish behavior" such as jumping excitedly, bouncing from foot to foot, clapping rapidly in delight, and smiling widely like goofy idiot when he got older, wasn't something to worry about.
Apparently it being something normal, and even endearing at times.
This opened up a whole new world for Cross.
He tried his best to do research, but, there wasn't much that he could do.
He didn't want to gooogle anything, in fear that the information that he'd find would be false and unreliable. And he didn't want to ask any of his friends, again, in fear that maybe this might be too personal, might be too complicated, too direct, too much of a chore to the other, a burden, an annoyance, a silly question, a laughable request, a teaseable thing to not know.
So though he wanted to learn more about this, he stayed quiet, and tried his best to learn more about it when the others casually talked about it. Hoping he'd magically get it and understand.
So far no luck, but who knows? Anything can happen. Cross was smart, he's sure he could figure this out by himself.