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Nightmare entered Dust’s room without knocking. He looked up from the stacks of paper surrounding him, and started to say how much progress he was making and that everything was completely on schedule and-
“Would you and Hatchet watch the kids while we head out?”
Oh. The kids. Crescent and Hope.
It was difficult for Dust to quite put into words what bothered him so much. Maybe it was that despite knowing otherwise, Crescent made him feel like Killer had been picked over him? And Hope, being Dream’s child was certainly not anyone’s favourite thing to dwell on... They really needed to all sit down and discuss everything, but Dust knew he didn’t want to, so Nightmare probably knew this too. Was this errand to force Dust to interact with those kids?
No, wait, Dust had said yesterday when Error was talking about this that he didn’t want to join them. Happy accident, then, as far as Nightmare was concerned.
But they weren’t Dust’s kids, nor did he think he was ever going to start considering them his. How the others had so easily taken to it, Dust wasn’t sure. Not! Not that Dust didn’t care about them, he did, stars he loved those kids so much.
Nightmare shortcut Dust, with his pile of papers, into a lounge and to the sofa where Hatchet was already curled up watching the cousins, perfectly content. Dust shrugged and continued his work, looking up at the children every now and again.
Crescent and Hope were sat on the floor in front of them, playing that one video game Killer really enjoyed. And it had been Killer who showed Crescent the game much to everyone else's concern but - "just look at him, he loves it too!" - well, it was hard to argue with that. Did any of them have any idea what they were doing? No. You'd think they wouldn't be completely clueless, and they weren't, but there was just so much distance in both time and mental states from the last time any of them were responsible for someone else as well as themselves.
The game was violent. Probably far too violent for the almost seven year old Crescent, who was having far too much fun beating his also far too young cousin at the game. Hope, they had learned, was four. You wouldn’t think it, though, from looking at him, Hope looked far older. That had left everyone in a poor mood.
Dust eventually decided that maybe he should even the playing field a bit, help Hope (who was getting progressively more worked up by Crescent's taunts) before he got too frustrated. "Can I play too?" He slipped off the sofa and sat between the pair.
Crescent nodded and immediately dived for the controller box to find another for the console they were using. Now neither kid spoke much but as Crescent was now demonstrating, both were more than capable of making a lot of noise.
Hope, however, had a different idea.
"Crescent..." no, "Crescent." a pause, maybe, and some muttering about not being able to find the other controller, "Crescent!"
"What!"
Hope's controller was then shoved into Dust's hands.
"Dad can just play mine."
Oh fuck.
Crescent huffed and untangled himself from the wire he's gotten into quite the epic battle with.
The game started again, when Crescent returned. Hope now nuzzling into Dust's side to watch, and barely restraining small giggles whenever Dust got a good hit in.
Crescent, with his initial lead, ended up winning the game, but Dust wasn't far off. And may have intentionally lost a few rounds for the sake of seeing Crescent grin.
A static feeling filled the air, indicating the return of the others.
Hope immediately got up to go see Cross, but not before giving Hatchet a hug that was so quick that it really was blink and you'll miss it.
Crescent stayed behind to finish up the round before darting out of the same door his
cousin
brother had.
Dust looked up at Hatchet, Who was grinning from ear to ear.
"Shut up!"
"But they called you 'dad'~"
"And?"
Hatchet reached over and nuzzled Dust, "Where are they?"
"Everyone probably got back."
"Let's go see."
True to Dust's words, they were there, Nightmare holding each child up with a separate tendril, both looking rather disappointed with themselves.
"What were you two even doing?" Nightmare asked, amused more than anything.
Silence for a while as neither wanted to admit to anything "......hug."
More silence as Nightmare processed that. He placed them down and opened his arms up to them. What the pair hadn't realized when they both cuddled up in his arms was that Nightmare wouldn't be letting them go anytime soon.
Dust returned to his work, Hatchet got started on dinner for everyone, and Cross and Killer cuddled up on the other side of the sofa from Error in one of the lounge rooms, watching undernovella with him.