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Chapter Text

Killer walked down the corridors of the castle he would never call his “home,” humming a tune he learned long ago. He first heard it in Waterfall, perhaps from the timeline that used to be his own. Was it from that statue that was perpetually pelted by the rain? That piano puzzle? Undyne?

He shook his head, still humming, where he learned that tune didn’t matter. It’s pointless to reminisce, especially when you can’t even feel anything about those memories. He was easier to deal with with in this stage, both he and Nightmare agreed on that front.

Speaking of Nightmare, his office was only a few corners down. Killer’s perpetual grin got wider as he slowly got quieter and quieter. First his humming, then his steps, like a cat on the hunt. He could see the office door. A quick skip closer and he could hear voices from the room. His boss’s and…someone else. Someone new .

Killer was in front of the door, but he couldn’t make out the words being spoken from inside. Putting his skull against the door, still just unintelligible nonsense. A gentle turn of the handle, it didn’t budge. A harder one, even harder, even using all his strength, the door remained shut.

*No matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to open this door.

“Not if I lock pick it,” Killer chuckled to himself as he pulled out his knife, spun it around in his hand a few times, then stuck it into the door’s keyhole. This would definitely be more effective if he had actual lock picking tools, but all he had was his knife.

*Despite the inefficient method, you continually twist the tip of the knife in the keyhole.

*The frame of the keyhole is starting to gain damage.

“So I’m doing something right then,” Killer mumbled. He paused for a second, however, to see if he could hear anything through keyhole. It was a hole through the door, so he should be able to hear some real words. But no, just more talking, maybe yelling? Arguing? If Killer could see through the hole he could at least know some of the traits of who was arguing with his boss, but all he could see was darkness inside.

Killer scoffed, standing up and leaning back, stretching. This was a pain to deal with. He was so bored. He could bother his colleagues…but he really wanted to know what was going on in there. He stabbed the keyhole-hell, he stabbed the door a few more times, trying to get in. But his knife just bounced off, like there was some sort of barrier there. At least Nightmare wouldn’t get mad at him for damaging the door.

*There’s nothing you can do.

“But I want-! Ugh, I’m going to switch stages at this point, screw  this. Maybe Nightmare will sense that or something and open the door, ” Killer sighed as he pocketed the knife. He went to stuff his hands in his jacket, forgetting that he wasn’t wearing one and instead was wearing this cloak-poncho thing that he made out of one of his jackets when he was bored one night. It made him look a bit like a scarecrow in his eyes, which he thought was funny at the time, but it didn’t have pockets .

Killer kicked the door, hoping that would do anything, but it didn’t so he just sat down across the hall. Waiting. He could be patient, he’s been patient before.

*Before.

Before. He could do it again. He pulled out his phone, looking at the time. Huh, 11:59, it was almost noon. He couldn’t see the seconds though, so maybe he should get a watch. He never had a watch before. Probably. Oh, and it was almost time for lunch as well. Can’t forget to eat again today.

A bang, coming from the office. Loud and sharp, followed by many more as various items hit the office floor. Killer glanced at his phone-12:00. Impeccable timing, really. Killer got up, walked back over to the door, and turned the door handles again. This time, it opened, and the hallway’s light spilled out into the room.

Everything was on the floor. Everything. All the books and newspapers that Killer knew that Nightmare obsessively cherished were scattered about. It was going to be a pain to maneuver through, especially since the room was so dark. The last time Killer even brushed his hand against one of the boss’s books, he got thrown across the room, out of the office  and right against the wall.  It didn’t even hurt, he had too much DEF for much to even phase him, but he still didn’t want to be thrown again.

Nightmare’s desk was unoccupied, the chair probably on the floor. Killer heard something from behind the desk, something-someone?-groaning faintly. So he skipped around the room, over all of Nightmare’s precious junk, all the way to the other side to see what was there. He couldn’t help but hum as he did so, filled with curiosity.

There was a skeleton on the ground, appearing to be a Sans. It wore a light purple shirt, silver detailing around the edges, with darker purple pants, and black boots. A large, silver, crescent moon was on the back of the skeleton’s shirt. A nice outfit all things considered, that all pointed to this skeleton being Nightmare. It had to be, Dream was all sun themed, so it fits.

Killer got down into a crouch, looking at this Nightmare’s skull. The god was clutching the bottom right part of his skull, since it’s not like he could clutch the top half. There was a huge hole there, even bigger than the one Horror had, as this one went over his eye socket. The cracks seemed to be filled though, with these golden triangles. They seemed to shine as the light of Killer’s soul hit them.

*It looks like a solar eclipse.

Killer hummed affirmatively, nodding. The little god in front of him made a gasping noise, looking up at him.

He…Nightmare looked up at him, scared. Nightmare was scared of him .

Killer clutched his soul, desperately trying to stay in stage two, and only stage two. He isn’t allowed to feel anything, nothing good, nothing bad, not a single thing at all. He had to looked down at this terrified God of Negativity, and he had to not feel a single thing.

So he let go, and he felt nothing.

“How you feeling, kid?” Killer spoke before the words even registered in his mind, “What? Scared of skeletons?”

Nightmare kept looking at him, the fear on his face transforming into confusion.

“Wha…why would I be scared of skeletons?” Nightmare asked, his voice in a higher pitch than usual and sounding more…normal? It didn’t have the presence, the weight of a God speaking down at you. He sounded a lot like Dream. Not the same, but similar enough.

“I dunno, why are you scared of me?” Killer said with a shrug, “I mean, I may be a Killer…”

“…And?” Nightmare titled his head as he asked, and Killer had to clutch his soul again, because that was actually kind of cute.

“That’s me, my name, my profession .”

“… And ?” Nightmare sounded scared again. Tighter, Killer clutched his soul, he must not feel anything.

“…And I probably won’t kill you.”

Nightmare fell silent, so Killer did to. But he didn’t like the silence, so he hummed and whistled. Hmm, maybe a different song, one from the Ruins? Maybe just “Ruins.” He could do that. The energy, the ambiance, he couldn’t covey that in full just with hums and whistles. But it was a fun challenge to try, to try and get all the different beats of multiple instruments into one. The one instrument being his toothy grin.

*You play a simple, grand song, without a word spoken, filling you with DETERMINATION.

One minute and thirty-three seconds after he began, he was finished and applauded. Applauded? Oh, the ungooped Nightmare was applauding him, weird. Killer also got a better look at the other’s hands, and the ending finger bones seemed to still be that goopy black color, just not as goopy. And his eyes, Nightmare’s eyes were purple now, not that unfitting cyan. Nightmare wasn’t a very patient person, after all.

“Liked the song that much, huh kiddo?” Killer snickered, moving his legs so that he could finally get out of that crouch and sit down. His legs were wobbling beforehand but he didn’t notice that.

“I’m-um, yeah,” Nightmare shifted his body around to sit in a similar position to Killer, looking like he was in a lot of pain as he moved. “It-it was really…nice? I-I don’t listen to music much. I wonder what that melody would sound like with actual instruments though-”

“A lot of piano, some drums, and other instruments I don’t really remember.”

“Really? Do you play-“

“I barely remember how to play the trombone, let alone any of those other things. It’s been a while.”

“Ah, um, I see.”

Another moment of silence passed since apparently, Killer didn’t know how to hold a conversation for some reason. It was just hard to think up of what to say when your boss had turned into what you’re now assuming is his younger self. Actually, he didn’t look too young, he just looked like Dream, basically. Which wasn’t that  weird because they were supposed to be twins, but Nightmare was usually covered in goop while Dream wasn’t.

Killer was trying to think up of anything to say or ask to continue the conversation, taking his knife out and twirling it around in his hand. He didn’t notice the impressed, yet slightly scared look Nightmare had on his face as he watched him fidget.

“Hmm, do you know any instruments?” Killer pointed his knife at Nightmare as he asked his question. Nightmare flinched, his purple eyelight fixated on the weapon. Fear had filled him up again.

“What are you-oh, whoops, silly me! It’s not nice to point weapons at children,” Killer put the knife away.

“I’m… not a child,” Nightmare sounded more like he was telling himself that when he spoke.

“Oh yeah? Do you know how old you are then? Do you know where you are? Do you even know your name?” Killer leaned in closer to his boss, “ Do you remember what you’ve done, Nightmare? ”

Killer peered into the other skeleton’s eye, horror and panic shining through. Then a flicker, a flash of the boss’s cyan bleed through the purple eyelight. He gasped and it left, his hands ran to his mouth and he fell forward, Killer dodging out of the way so he wouldn’t get hit accidentally.

Nightmare was heaving, trembling, gasping for air, hands still covering his mouth. He remembered something alright, and Killer was trying his absolute best to not have a subjective opinion about this. So he just watched Nightmare have what was probably a panic attack. Just watching it happen, that trembling form.

*Will you help him?

No, no he shouldn’t-he should. He should help Nightmare, because he was Killer’s boss. Killer was his right-hand man. He can’t escape this, not yet, so he had to serve his boss until he couldn’t serve him anymore.

“Hey, Nighty?” Killer tried to speak softly, “You’re uh-you’re safe. You aren’t dying or anything and uh-I’m not going to hurt you. No one here will hurt you.” He held back the urge to add a “yet.”

Nightmare mumbled something, panicked and. And he was crying . He’d never seen Nightmare cry before.

“Do you uh, need , anything? Do-do you need to breathe? You probably do, so you should breathe, but do it slower than you’re doing right now.” If Killer could feel embarrassed at the moment, he probably would‘ve been since he felt like he was fumbling this “comforting” thing so hard.

A few hics and sobs came out of Nightmare, before looking up and Killer with a sad, wet eye socket.

“Stop looking like a cat, god,” Killer hissed out before he could stop himself, making Nightmare cry even more, somehow. He didn’t even say anything that bad! Cats were great! But Nightmare did hate cats, probably still does, it seemed. Killer groaned, running a hand down his face; he was making things worse.

“I’m-“ Nightmare gasped out between sobs, “I’m so sor ry ,” he cried.

“Hey-hey! It’s fine! Listen, Nightmare, let’s just let bygones be bygones and uh-“

*He’s too wrapped up in his own despair to hear you.

Killer frowned, an unnatural feeling for him, which meant he was feeling things, which is bad and has to stop happening . With his boss in this pathetic state, it made it easier to feel, so he had to fix that first. When people are crying, they typically want a hug, right? Right??

“Okay, Nighty, Nightmare, Night,” Killer’s moved his hands to hover above his boss, “Would you like a hug, little moon? I can give you one?” Nightmare gave him that sad look again, whimpering. Killer scooted closer to him, gently setting one hand on his back. Nightmare flinched, but recovered quickly, looking at Killer expectingly.

*Hug the Peeled Nightmare?

Yes he would, but why peeled ?

*He is an apple.

…Killer decided to ignore that and continue to hug the peeled, ungooped, potentially no longer evil Nightmare that was his boss. No, no he couldn’t hope for that, or anything really.

As the skeleton sobbed into his shoulder, Killer could only think of how and why this whole thing happened. Nightmare had been arguing with someone unrecognizable, and that someone-or even Nightmare himself-made it so they couldn’t be spied on. Nightmare’s powers have also been reduced, Killer realized. That visceral anger and hatred that spread from his very being had gone down to a simmer. It was there, that negative aura that helped Nightmare regulate Killer’s emotions, but it was much less noticeable-much less effective. And that giant hole in his head, those golden triangles…did he always look like that, underneath all that goop?

Killer looked around the room again, at the messy state it was in. Nightmare would never want his office to look like this. He’ll have to clean it up later. Maybe there was clue nearby. So Killer looked around as much as he could as he hugged his boss. Just books, papers, some glass from a fallen lamp, more books and more papers-oh! There was a yellow piece of paper tapped to one of the desk drawers.

“Okay Nighty,” Killer said as soft as he could, “I found this neat little clue, so I’m going to grab it real quick, ‘kay?” Nightmare sniffed, nodding into Killer’s shoulder. Good, Nightmare was calming down. So Killer snagged the note, attempting to wipe away as much of the DT leaking from his eyes as he read it:

HELLO SKELETON READING THIS,

IF YOU’RE WONDERING WHY

THE GOD OF NEGATIVITY OR WHATEVER

LOOKS LIKE THIS,

YOU CAN BLAME ME!

WE MADE A DEAL =)

TRY AND FIGURE OUT WHO I AM…

IF YOU CAN.

DOESN’T THAT SOUND FUN?

…Yeah fuck this, actually. A mysterious being did this to Nightmare, net zero information has been gained. Well, they made a deal apparently, so that was some new information. Maybe it was a Chara who did this? Although that was just because of the smiley face, which could just be a red herring. Killer tapped Nightmare’s back rhythmically with the hand that was still there, something he picked up from Horror a while back.

“Heya Nighty, if you’re feeling all right, mind telling me who did this to you?” Killer asked. He looked at Nightmare’s skull as he did so, seeing that Nightmare didn’t have any reaction to that. Actually it seemed like Nightmare had fallen asleep, snoozing peacefully against Killer.

*You can’t move when a cat’s on you.

You really can’t. So he didn’t. He just really didn’t want his coworkers to come in while Nightmare was still sleeping, that would be awkward. So Killer just let himself wander into his thoughts, racking his skull to figure out more about this situation. He was smarter than he let on, he could figure this out.

He couldn’t help but continue to look at the skeleton slumped against him as he lost himself in his thoughts.

Chapter Text

Killer was late for lunch, and Horror was frustrated, but not surprised. At least he was able to eat most of his meal before he noticed. Honestly, he thought he was past this already. But the thought of Killer passing out from not eating again wore heavy on his mind. He didn’t even like the guy, not in the slightest, but that image of that other him suddenly falling down to ground, near unresponsive, was a haunting image. Something he saw time and time again in his own underground, right before a poor monster turned to dust. Someone wearing his own face being in that state was…traumatizing, for lack of a better word. Or maybe it was a good enough word for the feelings that had stabbed through him.

Horror tore his eyes away from his half eaten food to look at the ornate clock hung up on the wall. It was around 1:10 if he was reading it right. Over half an hour since lunch began. So Killer should be fine as long as he had breakfast…did he have breakfast? Horror couldn’t remember if he did. Killer could be starving right now. Where was he? Could…could he have fallen down already? No, no he was too determined to dust that  easily, but how close to dusting, to dying is he really? Did he even eat yesterday? The day before that? Horror tried to remember but he couldn’t. Killer was at the table earlier this week, but did he actually eat?

“Hey hyeong, look at me.”

Horror snapped his head over to Dust, who had spoken. He had taken to calling Horror “hyeong” recently, whatever the hell that meant. Could be a swear or pun in some other language, knowing him.

“What do you want?” Horror growled, glaring at the other skeleton.

“What do you want?” Dust asked back, “Want to go find Killer? See if he’s crawling on the ceiling again?”

Horror sighed, “I still think you’re spewing bullshit about that.”

“But he did crawl on the ceiling before.”

“ Sure .”

“Then let’s go see if he’s doing that now!” Dust practically jumped out of the chair, unusually excited, “Oh, and bring that food over too. Not like you’re going to finish it anyways, right?”

“Maybe I will,” Horror grumbled, “Just to spite you.”

“Maybe I’ll spite on the food?”

“I’ll actually kill you if you do that.”

“Ha ha, sure thing Hor’!”

“ DON’T CALL ME THAT! ”

“Alrighty, hyeong!”

“Ugh.”

Horror and Dust then bickered as they walked around the castle. Well, it was more like Dust was annoying the shit out of Horror while Horror yelled back at him. Nothing unusual about that really. He was the only one in the castle that could be annoyed without the annoyer getting seriously injured in the end. All because Nightmare had the gull to assign him as the “peacekeeper” of the three minions. And he can’t attack the others without “a good reason,” and being annoyed was apparently not a good enough reason for him. But not with Nightmare, cause he was their boss . Annoying him was an unforgivable crime.

Horror hated this stupid, stupid castle and his stupid, stupid boss.

“why’s this place so goddamn big,” Horror muttered, tapping his fingers against the bottom of his plate.

“Cause Nightmare’s overcompensating for something, probably,” Dust snickered.

“Can’t be for his ego!”

The two laughed, and Horror briefly forgot the hell he was in. Nice moments like these helped keep him a bit less insane. But then the moment passed, and Dust went back to annoying Horror again.

Dust snickered again, “So Hor-“

“Why do you keep calling me that?!” Horror snapped. Wasn’t the first time he did so and probably wouldn’t be the last time this day. Almost all he could ever do was bark, and never bite after all.

“I want you to fight me.”

Horror stumbled back, eye sockets blinking rapidly from the amount of shock he just felt. He knew that Dust enjoyed fighting, having a blast whenever they fought anyone that put up even a semblance of a real fight, but he didn’t expect Dust to be so honest about his intentions. They were all Sans, they were rarely ever honest, unless they played it off as/or with a joke.

And yet here Dust was, looking at Horror dead in the eyes. Even with the heavy shadow covering his face, Horror could see a sort of mad sincerity in Dust’s eyelights. At least they were still white, so Horror could handle the eye contact. Yet Horror still looked away, shaking his head.

“crazy asshole,” he sighed. “Let’s see how the boss feels about that, eh? His office should be around here somewhere.”

Dust nodded, looking away from Horror, “Yep, it is. Killer’s probably around there too, knowing him.”

“Know the way?”

“Of course. Don’t you? It’s been at least a year since you’ve been here.”

“This place is fucking huge, not to mention everything looks the same! It’s like we walked through the same hallway four times already.”

“I think your memory is just bad.”

“Well I do have a gaping wound in my head, moron.”

“You wound me, hyeong.”

“Heh, you ever going to tell me what ‘hyeong’ even means?”

Dust cackled as he skipped a bit ahead of Horror, “Of course not! You’re smart, you can figure it out on your own, hyeong.”

Horror scowled, speeding up to walk ahead of Dust, “I think you’re calling me a shithead or something.”

“Affectionately.”

“what?”

“Why is Nightmare’s door open?” Dust pointed at the obnoxiously grand doors to Nightmare’s office, that were indeed open. Yep, time to focus on this and not whatever the hell Dust was implying.

The two moved to stand in front of the open doors, peering into the dark room. There was a faint red glow in the back-well, if Horror squinted he could see that-and the sound of someone humming could be heard. Killer was definitely in there, at least. Nightmare? Who knows. And unfortunately, Horror knew that he would have to investigate this. Looking over, Dust seemed like he knew that too. Dust gave him a quick nod before his eyes lit up, a piercing red Horror had to look away from. Through the corner of his eye, he saw the purple light coming from Dust’s left eye socket, flickering like a flame. Horror couldn’t bare to look at that flame either. At least it would provide some light as they walked through the office. He nervously tapped his fingers against the plate of food he held again, trying to get the tapping out of his system before they went in.

There were books scattered around everywhere, making the two have to tread through the office at a snail’s pace. When Horror had mistakenly picked up one of Nightmare’s books that had fallen off a bookshelf before, Nightmare had “rewarded” him by letting him taste the food Nightmare and Dust were cooking for dinner. Horror hadn’t even been there for a month at that point. He couldn’t handle eating before he was sure everyone else wasn’t starving had the chance to eat yet. He could barely handle that right now, after a whole year had passed.

And every time Horror had tried to decline the food as politely as he could, Nightmare would just goad him into having it anyways. It’s just a bite, you ingrate, his boss had said again and again before stuffing the food into his subordinate’s unwilling mouth. Dust didn’t say anything back then. He just kept cooking, in silence. Horror had hated him for that for a while, until he eventually realized that if Dust had said anything, he would pay for it. Hell, they both probably would’ve paid for it, in their own blood and dust. A testament to how terrible their boss could be.

Now imagine their surprise at the sight they saw behind Nightmare’s desk.

Killer had this…skeleton snuggled up against him as he stared intently at a piece of paper, using the light of his own soul to read it. Horror wondered if Killer was even aware that he was in stage one right now. Somewhat thankfully, Nightmare had explained to him what Killer’s stages were, expecting him, Horror, to be able to handle Killer when the time came. That’s why he was only somewhat thankful for that information.

And his idiot boss was almost definitely that skeleton in Killer’s arms. How? Who knows. Horror looked over to Dust, and by how small his eyelights were, he probably figured that out too.

Horror set his plate down on the desk as gently as he could, trying to be quiet. Even if that Nightmare didn’t look like Nightmare, he knew he shouldn’t ever wake up his boss. Even if he was dying, his boss’s rest was more important than his own life.

Wow, that was an actual thought Horror had and believed with his whole chest, mind, and soul. Aliza would’ve said that was stupid to believe, and Horror would’ve hated to admit how right she was. Not like he would ever tell her that in any timeline, that bratty kid didn’t need an ego boost.

Killer looked over at Horror, then at Dust, handing that guy the piece of paper. Then he looked back at Horror, pointing at the half-empty plate of food and then pointing back at himself. Horror signed,  yes, your food . Horror wished that his other selves knew more Hands and more about sign language in general, but thankfully they were able to pick up on the most basic of signs. So Horror decided to ask a few questions.

“ Nightmare? ” He signed, gesturing at the sleeping skeleton. Killer nodded back, a grimace on his face as his soul started to waver. He nodded over at Dust, signing back, “ paper’s important ,” although he struggled to do so since both signs used both hands, and after signing he was nervously looking down at Nightmare. Nightmare didn’t seem too bothered by Killer’s arms moving against him, not stirring in the slightest.

Dust gave Horror the paper, and it wasn’t much to go off of. “ A Chara, maybe? ” He asked Killer, who shrugged.

“ Red herring? ” he signed back, although herring was so horribly misspelled that Horror almost took a tick of damage. And Nightmare seemed to take a tick of negativity from him, moving slightly and making some sort of waking up noise. They all started to quietly panic, which Horror quickly realized might wake his boss up more.

So, in a “no thoughts” move, he turned Nightmare blue and lifted him out of Killer’s arms, taking him and walking out of the room. He heard Killer and Dust sputtering behind him, which was very fair cause Horror would be sputtering too, if he was thinking at all. He looked over his shoulder and signed for Killer to eat his food, before continuing to exit the room. Without stepping on any of Nightmare’s belongings, of course.

Horror was pretty sure he was going towards  one of the lounges, since this path he was taking felt very familiar. It was probably the lounge that had that soft purple sofa they all loved, worn and washed out yet very comfortable. And it had a television in front of it! There were other things in the lounge too, but Horror couldn’t remember or care to remember anything but the couch and TV.

Nightmare was definitely starting to wake up now, and Horror slowed his pace. He was walking surprisingly fast before, he realized. And as Nightmare fully woke up, Horror came to a stop, and set him down against a wall. He didn’t pay too much attention to how Nightmare looked now, but Horror couldn’t not notice the giant hole in the right side of his head. It was even bigger than his own, and he knew that Nightmare probably wouldn’t be able to see well through that eye. Or at all, if he was unlucky. So Horror shifted over the side so Nightmare could see him better.

His boss stared at him for a few seconds as he became more aware of his surroundings. Horror impatiently tapped his foot against the floor, wanting to get a move on, or at least figure out what was even happening. He examined Nightmare a bit more, and it was astonishing just how purple he was. He’d figured that his boss would’ve looked more blue or cyan or whatever, underneath all that sludge. Even his eyelight was purple now.

And then, when Nightmare did become fully aware, he just gave Horror a small smile and a pathetic little wave.

What the actual fucking hell.

Horror picked Nightmare up by his soul again and continued to walk down the halls. Nightmare made a startled little noise, but didn’t protest in the slightest. And when Horror looked back at him, Nightmare was just sitting politely with his hands on his knees, lightly spinning around. Looking completely unbothered by all this.

What the actual fucking hell. Squared.

“How ya feeling, kid?” Horror asked, before feeling a pang of regret over calling his boss a kid. That was stupid.

“I’m not a child, you know,” Nightmare scowled, and even though he wasn’t using a threatening tone, Horror knew that when it came to Nightmare, his tone didn’t matter. The situation mattered, and Horror felt like he was going to get his ass kicked soon.

“You don’t uh,” Nightmare sounded…panicked? “You don’t have to be scared! I’m not very scary, I think.”

How many times can Horror think, “What the actual fucking hell,” during this walk? Nightmare, saying he’s “not very scary,” he ““”thinks.””” He thinks. Does he actually think, because that was such a stupid thing to say. Not like Horror would voice this opinion, not to his boss’s face.

“Alright,” Horror sighed, moving his boss to float in front of him, “Nightmare, right?”

“Yeah,” Night nodded.

“Cool. You know what happened in that office back there?”

“Um, not really. I remember uh, Killer found me, but nothing much before that.”

Alright, his boss for sure has amnesia. Could honestly be a very good thing. “And what’s your most recent memory, before that?”

Nightmare squirmed a bit, “I uh, I uh, did something…bad. Really…terrible things. Nothing-nothing I can take back.”

“Was it killing a bunch of people?”

“Uh, y-yeah, I uh, I did,” Nightmare’s voice was shaking. Regret? Over murder? Huh, didn’t know Nightmare could feel that. Maybe without all the black gunk he was an actual normal person, to some extent.

“Welp, everybody here has killed a lot people.”

“R- really now ?”

“Yeah. I…regret what I’ve done, being honest,” and he was only being honest because it was Nightmare he was talking to, “Dust probably regrets what he’s done, seeing as he’s never killed any more people ever since he joined. Beat them up a bunch? Yeah, but he hasn’t killed. From my memories at least. Which aren’t the best, but you know.

“And Killer? Maybe he regrets what he’s done, deep down. Hard to tell, really, with him. Most the time he can’t even feel anything. I still think he does have regrets, I mean, it’d be weirder if he didn’t, ha.”

Nightmare nodded thoughtfully, sniffing. It seemed like he was about to cry, but Horror managed to avoid that, somehow. Good, because that might actually break him if he saw his boss cry. Was he still he boss now, actually? Horror could probably just leave this place…but if Nightmare somehow returned to normal while he was gone, then his whole AU would starve. Thankfully, the sight of the lounge dragged Horror out of those thoughts before he started to really spiral.

Horror set Nightmare down on the couch, grabbing the TV remote on the dark purple coffee table in front of it before joining him. Huh, everything in the castle was kinda purple, wasn’t it? Nightmare seemed to melt into the couch, appearing very comfortable as he looked at the TV and the remote with curiosity.

“You know what these are, right?” Horror asked. If he had to explain the concept of technology to his boss, he would probably dust then and there.

“Uh, yeah, I do actually,” Nightmare scratched the back of his head, “That’s a television, and that’s the remote for it. Feels…weird that I know that.”

“Thank the stars you do, grandpa.”

“G- grandpa ?!” Was that a flash of cyan in his eye, or was Horror just imagining things? “I may be over 500 years old but I’ll have you know-”

“Now, you wanna watch a bee documentary?”

“I’d like to watch that bee movie instead.”

Nightmare and Horror both jumped, startled at the new voice. It was Dust, because of course it was Dust, the sneaky fuck.

“We already watched that dumb movie 72 times already,” Horror groaned, running a hand down his face.

“And we also watched that dumb documentary ‘72 times’ as well,” Dust spat back as he hopped up to sit on the top of the back of sofa, his feet dangling right between the two other skeletons.

“Why are your two so obsessed with bees?” Nightmare questioned. The two shrugged.

“I just hated that stupid movie so much, so I wanted to watch something that was actually good and factual about bees,” Horror glared at Dust.

“And I think the movie is actually good and funny as all hell,” Dust answered back.

“then how about you tell me why. Does the HUMAN WOMAN. WANT TO FUCK THE STUPID BEE?! ”

“I don’t know, BUT ITS FUNNY!”

“ARE YOU STUPID?! IS YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR TRASH?!”

“WE HAVE THE SAME SENSE OF HUMOR!”

“NO THE FUCK WE DON’T!?”

“Hey, can you guys stop yelling in front of our boss?” Killer asked as he walked into the room, empty plate in hand. Horror and Dust both looked at Nightmare, who looked extremely uncomfortable, practically melting into the folds of the couch. The two shared a look, then Dust threw himself backwards off the couch in shame, quickly scrambling up to his feet, before calmly walking over to Killer. Horror sighed and held the remote over to Nightmare.

“How about you choose something to watch? You do know how this thing works, right?”

“Um, yeah…” Nightmare shrunk down into the couch a bit further, before slowly getting up and grabbing the remote. “Okay, I’ll look for something.” It was hard to not notice the pained look on his face as he moved. Were his bones in bad shape or something?

Horror looked over to the side to see what Dust was doing, which was aggravating Killer. Because of course he was. Why was Dust so antsy to fight today? Was his “brother” egging him on or something(he thought, with heavy judgement, as if he never had his own hallucinations himself from time to time)? Horror steeled himself to either stop them from fighting, or to make sure there is as minimal property damage as possible, as Nightmare had ordered him to do. Actually, since Nightmare was right next to him…

“Hey, boss,” Horror started, looking over at Nightmare. Nightmare looked back him, curious, meaning that he still recognized himself as his boss. Good?

“So, boss, I’m pretty sure Dust and Killer over there are going to start fighting in like-“ he looked back over at the two, then looked back at Nightmare, “three seconds.”

“What?!” Nightmare jumped from couch, stumbling forward a bit, “You two! No fighting!” He shouted as if he was scolding a couple of children, which Horror tried not to laugh at. Dust and Killer whipped their heads around to face him, quickly putting their respective weapons away. Nightmare crossed his arms and huffed, tapping his foot against the floor angrily. Was that something he always did?

“Now, uh,” Nightmare scratched his chin, “come here, both of you.” Was…was he trying to boss them around? He was their boss sure, and bossing them around was normal for Nightmare. But man, he was not at all confident in his bossing skills right now. Despite that, Dust and Killer did as they were told, and came over to the couch. Dust went back to his spot on top of the couch, and Killer sat on the sofa’s left armrest. Nightmare looked absolutely bewildered at their sitting choices, looking at Horror for some guidance or answers.

Horror shrugged, “Sitting normally gets boring,” apparently didn’t seem to be a good enough answer for his boss, because he looked no less confused. Nightmare sighed and sat back down on the couch.

“We will be watching a hummingbird documentary,” the boss declared.

“Why so?” Killer asked, having pulled out his knife again to twirl it.

“Because I want to do and I can. And I don’t really know what they are.”

“They’re birds,” Dust commented.

“I know.”

“And they hum!” Killer added.

“ Sure .”

So they all watched a hummingbird documentary. Hummingbirds, tiny, nectar-consuming birds. Constantly flapping their wings like a bee, being able to fly in any direction at the drop of a dime. Always looking for more food, at all times, constantly burning calories, constantly feeding, and constantly hungry.

This was not a good documentary for Horror to watch. All he could think about was how hungry everyone from his own AU could be. They were probably fine, they were connected to Farmtale, which had plenty of food. Nightmare didn’t need to look after the portal he created, but with him now in this state, would it still work? Of course it still works, his common sense told him, but his anxiety still spiked nonetheless. Everything he did, everyone he hurt and killed, was all for the sake of his AU being fed. For everyone he cared for to not have to eat humans to survive. For his brother to even have a chance at a good life. That’s all that mattered to him.

In front of him there was a wooden table with a single chair. A placemat and a single plate. A balanced meal, a fruity smelling drink, napkins, a fork, a spoon, and a knife. All for him.

Sans didn’t deserve it, not for all he’s done. It smelled so good, looked so good, far too good for him.

“Can’t believe it?” An eerie, powerful whisper right behind him, making him shiver. A cold, wet touch, on his shoulders, vaguely skeletal, gripping tightly on them.

Sans swallowed hard, going to wipe his saliva from his face with his sleeve, before a black tentacle was suddenly in front of his face. A napkin was forcefully rubbed against his skull, hard and painfully, somehow without taking any HP in the process.

“We have these for a reason, so know,” that thing practically sung from behind him. The tentacle whipped away, throwing the napkin into a bin outside of his line of sight. In the same breath, another tentacle grabbed a new napkin and tugged it into his shirt. A pat on his head, another tentacle, and then the creature spoke to him again.

“Eat, won’t you? You don’t want all this food to go to waste, right? Or are you some kind of ingrate?”

Sans took in a sharp breath, letting it out slowly. “Thank-“ he shuddered, this kind of overwhelming fear he felt was foreign to him, “-thank you for the meal.”

“And who are you thanking?”

“…Thank you for the meal, boss.”

“Good. Now eat up.”

He ate. He ate it all. All these flavors and textures that he hadn’t experienced in over seven years-it was overwhelming. But he couldn’t stop, he couldn’t, he can’t waste any of it. The food was gone quickly.

He threw it all up not too long later.

A bathroom with a tiled floor, almost as cold as the hand that was patting his back, helping him out. Sans wasn’t used to being in a bathroom, and definitely not used to being in one as fancy as this. Even the toilet was unreasonably fancy for its purpose. And the whole room was small, barely giving enough space for both him and his boss.

Sans heaved and hurled his meal’s contents out until he could no more. His boss was humming sweetly the whole time while he he rubbed his back. It didn’t make him feel any better. It almost definitely made him feel worse.

“Are you done?” A sickly sweet voice, voicing false concern. Sans wasn’t dumb enough to fall for that. Not from him . Someone who claimed to be the savior of Sans’s Underground, all for the price of having Sans for himself. He couldn’t refuse after he saw what that creature did to Queen Undyne. That thing wouldn’t let him refuse, he knew just from that. And that thing continued to talk to him oh so sweetly.

“It’s my fault, really,” he continued to rub Sans’s back, “I forget how fragile mortal bodies can be. Their eating habits,  especially .”

Sans tried to steady his breath, as he had stopped throwing up for the most part. He turned his head to the side and glared at his boss. The next thing he knew he couldn’t breathe, a tentacle wrapped tightly around his throat, nearly damaging his spine. But he didn’t.

“Now now, don’t look at me like that,” his voice was so obnoxiously soft, “I helped you, I fed you. You, and your entire AU. Your brother. Unless, of course, you don’t want my help.”

He let go of Sans’s throat, only to grab it again with his actual hand. A loose grip, with his index finger touching the bottom of his chin. Sans could see his boss’s face now, the thing having lowered himself to his level. Sans could see his bright cyan eyelight, as well as his venomous grin. No, venomous was only the surface of it. Satisfied and satiated, a hunger was being filled from Sans’s suffering.

“I…” Sans croaked out, “I want your help.” He didn’t. He needed it.

“Then do you have any plans to make sure this never happens again?”

“I’ll…I’ll eat slower, i’ll-I’ll eat less!” Desperation that he hadn’t felt in years came through this words, “just-Just don’t deprive my friends. please don’t let my brother starve.”

“They aren’t your friends, you know.”

“i know. but please.”

Nightmare hummed, a flat look appearing on his face, trying to hide what he’s truly thinking. But Sans knew one thing. He knew he was not Nightmare’s subordinate or subject, nothing like that. He was his prey. Maybe even less than that.

“Well, we both made mistakes, didn’t we?” His boss pulled Sans up to his feet by the hood with a tentacle, “Now, want to try that again? After you clean up, of course.” He gave Sans a wetted towel to wash his face with. Sans complied. His boss pointed at a hamper. He tossed the towel into it. Over there was the sink. He washed his hands. Then the door.

Nightmare led Horror out of the bathroom.

“Horror?”

Horror’s head jerked up and looked to the side, seeing Nightmare looking at him, worried. Was he actually worried? Was this all just yet another sick act to torture them?

“Are you alright?” His boss asked, “You uh, seem a bit nauseous and might be dissociating. I think.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time that happened!” Killer said with fake enthusiasm. He was in stage two, after all. Dust hummed to agree with him.

“i’m…doing,” Horror said, “How do you feel about hummingbirds now?” He asked to Nightmare. Horror had no idea what went on during the most of the documentary. Honestly, he already forgot everything he had learned from it. Nightmare shifted around a bit, his face scrunched up, clearly not liking the topic change. But he went with it.

“Well, I think they’re cute!” Nightmares smiled, “And very pretty and colorful. I don’t think I ever saw one before. They’re so small! And those hummingbird feeders looked pretty interesting.”

“Out of all the things,” Dust scoffed, earning a glare from everyone else. Dust then threw himself off the couch yet again.

Nightmare tsked, scolding Dust, “Oh, would you quit that?!”

Horror laughed, it was funny. Man, this day was so weird. He was already so tired right now. Oh, how he wanted to take a nap right this moment. But Nightmare had to be dealt with. Probably. Whatever, Horror just got a fantastic idea to keep this Nightmare occupied.

Horror got up, groaning as moved. Killer and Dust were definitely calling him old, but he tuned them out to look down at Nightmare. He looked confused, and seemed to notice something? Probably the fact that Horror wasn’t feeling as terrible now.

“Wanna go see if we can find one of those ‘bird feeders?” Horror asked with a sly grin. “We have an attic where we throw a bunch of multiversal junk in it.”

“And you think there’s a hummingbird feeder in The Pile?” Killer questioned, pointing a knife at him, as always.

“I dunno, maybe. Wanna check out The Pile, boss?”

“The…Pile…” Nightmare hummed, scratching his chin, “Why do you have that? I mean-I would love to check it out, but also why do we have it?”

“We aren’t allowed to keep most things in our room,” Horror explained simply, “Can’t get too sentimental or whatever. So anything we find neat or cool or whatever, we just throw it into The Pile.”

“Not like we were using the attic anyways!” Killer added, “It was just collecting that guy.” He pointed at Dust, for the obvious joke is obvious.

“Alright, enough talking,” Horror turned his boss blue for the what, third time today? Eh, who cares, they were going to go to The Pile, they would try to find a hummingbird feeder, and hopefully Horror would be able to take a nap during it all.

Chapter Text

Eavesdropping was a useful skill. Being able to sneak around, to be so silent that others don’t even know you’re there would always be useful. Fading away into the background, Dust soundlessly followed the others as they made their way to the attic. Killer was a good few feet ahead of him, walking behind Horror, who had Nightmare floating in front of him.

This “peeled” Nightmare, as Killer had so lovingly put it when they were left behind in the boss’s office, knew more than he let on, clearly. How did Dust know that? Eavesdropping, of course. He listened in on Horror’s and Nightmare’s whole conversation in the lounge. Doing that made him more convinced that it actually was Nightmare they were dealing with, and not some random skeleton. And that even though he had been throughly changed, throughly weakened , a part of his putrid boss still remained within.

It would’ve be so easy to kill him.

But, that would leave him and the other two hims stranded in the castle. Maybe Sci would notice they haven’t visited him for their bi-weekly checkups, and send someone to find them. Although, it wouldn’t have been the first time Nightmare had “forgotten” all about those-it was more like a bi-monthly checkup with him. At least Dust had enough antipsychotics to last him through the next…five days. It’s a miracle he even got antipsychotics at all…but it would’ve been nice if Nightmare also allowed him to have some mood stabilizers or whatever like Sci had suggested, or if Nightmare would let the others have antipsychotics as well, or if Nightmare would let Dust even tell the others that he’s even taking antipsychotics, or if-

Eh, no matter. Maybe Dust can manage to convince Nightmare later on to visit Sci, to check over his current state or whatever. Speaking of Nightmare’s current state, he was spinning around rather cheerfully as he and Horror chatted about hummingbirds. Killer popped into their conversation from time to time to say something stupid and useless, like always. That guy was barely a Sans, he was more like that damned  Human Player. Made Dust not want to interact with him at all, which thankfully got much easier to do when Horror joined the team. He’d much rather be completely asocial with his other selves, but Nightmare wanted him to suffer. He wanted them all to suffer. And Dust wanted him dead. He rarely every truly wanted something dead, unless it was just a means to an end. Something in the way. Granted, Nightmare was in his way, but he was something that Dust hated. He was a being of pure negativity and malice, ruining the happy endings of anyone he could get his grubby little tentacles on. So insistent on making everything worse, always.

And Nightmare was still relaying all the hummingbird facts he learned to Horror, since the later seemed to have forgotten. What a strange sight to see, just how excited that thing  seemed to be about such a little creature.

Dust decided he should just wait and see on how this new Nightmare situation would unfold. His sense of justice may have eroded with time, replaced with a damning determination, but his patience had persisted. Nightmare wouldn’t fall down just yet. Not by his hands, at least. If the others beat him to the punch, well, what could he possibly do about that? Whine, probably. Oh well, at least he could sit back and be happily asocial for a little while-

“Oh, Dusty~”

God damnit.

“Wanna fight?” Dust spat. Killer laughed, the bastard.

“Maybe~”

“Stop with the fucking tilde, gosh, everyone here hates that.”

“~I dunno what you’re talking about, Dusty ~”

Dust groaned as loud as could, tilting his head far back, before yelling, “ HYEONG ! I’m going to kick Killer’s teeth in!” Calling Horror ‘hyeong’ was always embarrassing, but it was much funnier to see Horror lose his shit over not understanding what Dust was calling him, so it was worth it.

Horror was soon at Dust’s side, putting a hand on his shoulder and shaking his head, giving him a disapproving glare. Dust hated how well that worked on him, how it reminded him of someone else he  actually cared about, but it wasn’t like he could do anything about that.

“Killer keeps calling me Dusty ,” Dust half  whined half scoffed, his head turned towards Killer while he kept his eyes on Nightmare. Nightmare was still floating and blue, and was also giving out a disapproving glare, but towards Killer, nice.

“ Killer ,” Horror sighed, letting go of Dust and pinching the bridge of his nose, “We’ve talked about this.”

“I also kept doing this~~~” Killer added.

“that-that too, stop that. Nightmare,” Horror turned to look at the boss, gently putting him down and un-blueing so he could stand on his own, “How do you feel ‘bout this?” Nightmare looked at him, then at Killer, confused.

“Um,” Nightmare shifted his feet, “what…what sound is he making, exactly?”

“This~~~” Killer responded.

“…And that is a noise you are willingly making. On-on purpose.”

“Yeah,” everyone said, but Killer added another god damn tilde, that fuck.

“…Can you not? It’s making me-and I assume the others-a bit uncomfortable.”

“Okay :)”

“…Now wha-“

“Don’t-“ Dust held up his hands, interrupting Nightmare, “-just don’t. question it. okay?”

“…Okay?”

“There was a question mark there, he’s questioning.”

“Astute observation there, Killer,” Horror sighed, tiredness filling his voice. “let’s just- Let’s just keep going towards The Pit, alright?”

Dust chuckled a bit, shaking his head, “we uh, actually missed it by a few turns, Hor.”

Horror loudly groaned, almost yelling. He took in a few breaths, attempting to calm himself down and glare at Dust simultaneously. “i fucking hate you. I hate you so. much. You know what? How about you lead the way then, Mister ‘I memorized the whole layout of this stupid castle, but won’t bother to help his poor-memory-inflicted colleague.’”

“k.”

Dust then turned Nightmare blue and led the way to the attic. Nightmare had a weird look on his face, a face that if Dust had actually cared about what Nightmare thinks, he would’ve felt guilty about…whatever Nightmare was pissy about at that moment.

They continued their walk to the attic in relative silence, minus their footsteps and Killer’s whistling, of course. Dust was so glad he didn’t have to deal with his Papyrus’s nagging today, he would not have been able to handle it on top of everything. Horror-hell, maybe even Nightmare-would’ve ended up with another hole in his skull. He’d live, probably. At least it was peaceful for a few minutes, which unfortunately meant that Killer was going to go annoy Dust again. Honestly, he swears that Nightmare ordered Killer to annoy him all the time or something, because he definitely wasn’t this bad when Dust first “joined” the team. Still wasn’t great, but he at least wasn’t trying to pester him all day and night. He even tried to help Dust escape from Nightmare, once. And only once. Their relationship quickly went downhill from there.

“So, Dust,” Killer pipped up, earning an immediate groan from Dust, “Haven’t heard you talking to your brother lately,” Shut up, shut up , “And it’s not like you’re all mute today, either.”

“That is because, Killer ,” Dust hissed, “symptoms of schizophrenia aren’t fucking constant , and you would know that if you listened to Sci, at all .”

“You know, how come you’re schizophrenic, and we’re not?”

“I don’t know, Killer . I’d say ask Nightmare, but he has amnesia .” Honestly, Dust’s just surprised he hasn’t asked this annoying ass question earlier.

“So did you like-“ Killer flipped his knife around in his hand, “-always have schizophrenia or-“

“Are you stupid?” Dust stopped walking, “Does that even fucking matter? Better question-do you actually think I’d tell you shit ?” He took a step towards Killer, just one and no more because he knew Killer would strike if he did. “Are you brain dead or something? Oh, wait , we’re magic skeletons, we don’t have brains, and yet I forget when it comes to you, because you act just like that damned ｂｒａｔ . And you know who I mean, Sans .”

Dust spun on his heel, which was a bit hard to do with slippers, but he didn’t care, he just wanted this day to be done with already. And he knew Killer didn’t care about his little outburst, he never cared about anything. Horror was probably just glad they didn’t get physical. And Nightmare…looked worried, oddly enough. It was better to not think of him as their boss, Nightmare, honestly. This was a whole different person, in a sense. He needed a new name, eventually. Maybe they can find one in The Pile or something.

At the end of a hallway that led to seemingly nowhere, there was a barely visible hatch on the ceiling-the attic access door. There was a long, black pole with a hook at the end leaning against the nearest wall, which Horror grabbed. He held it up and hooked it onto a ring bolted onto the hatch, pulling down the door. Folded up stairs were unveiled, and Horror used the hook again to pull the stairs down.

“Ready to go up, everyone?” Horror asked, twirling the pole around a bit before setting it back down on the wall. Everyone gave their agreements, then went up, Horror, Nightmare, Dust, then Killer. Well, Dust more or less tossed Nightmare up there, with Horror nonchalantly catching him. Nightmare was not as nonchalant, having screamed.

There was around a couple meters/yards of empty floorboards around the attic entrance, and past that was The Pile. Heaps and heaps of multiversal junk surrounded them, towering over all the skeletons. Dust looked over at Nightmare, who was gaping his mouth like a fish.

“How…” Nightmare muttered with both horror and awe, “How do we have all this stuff ?”

“Dunno, a good chunk of it was already here when I joined,” Killer responded with a shrug, walking off in some random direction towards The Pile.

“Huh, that’s news to me,” Horror scratched the back of his head, “You knew ‘bout that, Dust?”

Dust nodded, “Yeah, Killer theorized that there were others working with Nightmare before us. But,” he looked over at Nightmare, who looked back at him, curiously, “it’s not like we can ask him, given his current condition.”

“Not like he’d tell us anyways, before,” Horror mumbled, turning away. “Anyways, let go uh…find whatever it was we were looking for up here.”

“Hummingbird feeder!” Nightmare cheered, “We’re here to see if there’s one here.” Horror nodded, stumbling away towards The Pile.

“I doubt we’ll actually find one here, though,” Dust sighed as he too went off into The Pile. In which he almost immediately found a hummingbird feeder.  That just had to be karma. For what? Anything and everything, probably.

On top of a few cardboard boxes, there was feeder, shaped like a lantern with little fake flowers on the bottom rim. Dust just stared at it, glaring at the universe and blaming the feeder for his sufferings. He soon heard someone walking up behind him, and judging by the way he didn’t recognize it, it had to be Nightmare. He even walked differently, huh.

“Are you okay there, Du-“

“i found it,” Dust said, his dumbfoundness seeping into his voice, “like, immediately. somehow. why.”

Nightmare gasped excitedly, rushing over to Dust’s side.

“How cute!” Nightmare clapped his hands excitedly, “Not to mention the glass has no visible cracks, the metalwork looks lovely -goodness, where did we find something of such good quality?”

“uh,” Dust wished that he couldn’t talk right now, “I don’t know. I don’t remember any of us getting one, but one of those two could’ve smuggled it in one day.”

“I see I see…maybe one of the previous…workers could’ve brought it in.”

“…workers?”

“Is-is that not what you guys are? Since you’ve all been calling me boss, I-I mean-“ Nightmare sputtered, twirling his thumbs while actively trying to not look at Dust, “Is-am I wrong, do I have the wrong idea, impression, or something?”

“…Have you’ve ever talked to anybody-not like recently recently, but recently from how far back you remember?”

“Um. Well, everyone in the village except my brother only talked to me to degrade me, really. So I never really talked to anyone but my brother.”

“Huh. Sounds like you were stuck with a bunch of a shitheads.”

Nightmare burst out into a fit of laughter, for some reason. This unfortunately caught the attention of the the most annoying Sans here, who came walking over.

“Whatcha laughing ‘bout, boss?” Killer asked.

“N-nothing,” Nightmare giggled, “But look! Dust found a hummingbird feeder!” Nightmare pointed up at it.

“I should probably get that down,” Dust sighed, “Unless you want to do that Killer. DON’T climb the boxes.”

“Pfft, why would I do that ?” Killer used magic to get the feeder down, like a normal Sans would do. He handed it to Nightmare, who delicately took it with a smile on his face.

“Thank you Killer for getting this for me,” Nightmare said, “Thank you too Dust, for finding this.”

“No problem,” the two replied.

“I wonder where Horror wandered off to,” Nightmare hummed, walking off in the direction Horror had headed. The other two followed, instinctively, after him.

Horror was found napping on top of a pile of trombones. The sight looked dangerously comfy to Dust. Horror’s jacket was already very puffy and fluffy, and he just looked so comfortable right there. Dust’s hands were twitching inside his jacket pockets, he wanted so badly to just pounce on top of Horror and nap on top of him…wait, that’s a cat’s line of thinking…was Dust a cat?

“Should we wake him up?” Nightmare whispered, breaking Dust out of his cat concerns.

“Should I lay on top of him?” Dust asked back, snickering but not fully registering what he had said before speaking. He didn’t mean to say that out loud. Good thing at least Killer couldn’t tell how embarrassed he felt.

“Only if you want him to throw you,” Killer walked towards Horror and pulled a trombone out from under him. Horror mumbled a bit but otherwise didn’t do much else.

“Why do we have so many of these?” Nightmare pondered as he set down the feeder on a nearby crate. He turned to look at Killer, “I thought you said you don’t remember how to play.”

“I don’t, but these two might.” Killer spun the trombone around in his hands before tossing it to Dust.

“Want me to wake him up with this?” Dust jokingly suggested. But Killer seemed to catch on that it was a joke, vigorously nodding to the idea.

Nightmare made some kind of disapproving noise, “Are you sure that is a good-“

“Eh, could be worse ways to wake him,” Dust shrugged.

Nightmare’s eyelight turned into an ugly cyan as he scowled, “Stop interrupting me, Dust .” Nightmare then straightened up, with a look on his face that suggested that he was bitting back his next words, as his eyelight turned back to purple. Interesting, was he just fighting back his anger, or the actual Nightmare inside him? Dust shrugged again, it didn’t really matter, not right now at least. What really matter now was what song he was going to play on the trombone.

He didn’t really feel like playing something like Megalovania, it didn’t feel like it was the time or place for that. There was this one other song that Dust could think of, however.

Undyne had once wanted to know what kind of battle theme Sans-Dust had, and would pester him about it day after day. He always said he was too lazy to come up with one, but his brother had convinced him that he should come up with something “just in case” he might get into a battle. So, he had whipped something up in a couple of hours that sounded suspiciously like his brother’s theme in some parts…

Well, without his brother to nag him, why couldn’t he play it? Surely it would not make himself sad in the slightest. If it did, more food for Nightmare or whatever. It was tooting time, after all.

It had been a while since he had played, so Dust just played around with the instrument for a minute, trying to remember how to make the right sounds. Then, once he was somewhat confident that he knew what he was doing, he used all his energy to blast out the one minute and thirty-three seconds song with a vigorous little dance. He may not be from Dancetale( he ISN’T, Ink, shut up ), but he sure can do a jig if he’s feeling like it. And for some reason he was feeling like it. Oh, right, the antipsychotics had a potential side effect of that. Not the dancing, the mood swings. Was this a mood swing?

Dust was too focused on playing correctly and not bumping into anything to see exactly how the others were doing, but he could hear Killer whooping and he caught a glance of Nightmare staring at him with awe. Dust was feeling unusually joyous from this, possibly being the most happy he’s been in a long while. Thank you antipsychotics, maybe. He should go over those things’ side effects with Sci again when he could.

When Dust was done playing, he was completely out of breath. His legs felt wobbly, his hands were shaking, he needed a nap. Fuck it, Dust was going to accept his inner cat and flop on top of Horror. And considering the skeleton was still somehow asleep, he was prime for becoming a pillow.

“That sounded fantastic!” Nightmare cheered, giving him a thumbs up. Didn’t even know he could even do that-oh wait, yeah, different Nightmare. He needed a new name, there was a reason why Dust went by Dust and not Sans  after all. Never mind the fact that he would rather be called something else, nobody cared about what he wanted.

“ you ,” Dust pointed a shaky hand at Nightmare, “you’re…you’re Night now, just-just that. good?”

“Just Night?” He looked confused for a second, before a thoughtful look grew on his face. “Hmm, I like that name. You may all call me Night now, then.”

“Got it boss.” Killer said with a snap. Good, good. Now they just needed to get Horror caught up to speed. But first it was time for Dust to embrace his inner Doomfanger.

So he walked over to stand over Horror in such a way that when Dust flopped down, he wouldn’t hit his head on any of the trombones. He also set his trombone back neatly into the pile. Then, he turned around to give Night and Night only a thumbs up, before turning back to flop down on Horror. God DAMN was it was comfy as he imagined it to be. And even though by the noises Horror was making, Dust could tell he would soon be thrown off, he did not care, he was going to enjoy this for as long as he could. He was dozing off already.

Dust very briefly dreamed of snuggling under the stars.

Then he was promptly thrown into a short stack of pianos.

“ i regret nothing ,” Dust croaked out, only slightly lying. Those were the comfiest few seconds of his life, and the sound of him colliding against the pianos was  really funny to him. Then again, everything hurt like hell now, so. Hm. At least he didn’t feel tired now, only pain.

“ Horror ,” Night sounded dangerously angry, “Did you really think that was in ANY way an appropriate response?!”

Horror stammered a bit, “well-no-but he’s fine! The uh, pianos sure aren’t, but uh…” Dust readjusted himself to see what exactly the others were looking like. Horror had a look of well, horror, on his face, shaking in fear. Night looked angrily calm, scowling, but his eyelight was still purple. Killer was just dumbly watching.

“I’m fine,” Dust said as he peeled himself away from the pianos, trying not to wince at the amount of pain he was in. He checked his stats to see that he lost 30 HP from that holy shit. His DEF was at 5 for crying out loud, and he just lost almost a third of his total health! He didn’t know Horror was this strong, and he could’ve even been holding back too…but maybe most of the damage was from the collision with the pianos. Yep, that was what Dust was going to go with. It made the most sense, after all.

“See!” Horror shouted, gesturing at Dust, “He said he’s fine!”

“I can literally sense the amount of agony he is in, Horror,” Night dryly said, “And that doesn’t matter because you still flung him at a stack of pianos , you asinine fool .”

“…yeah. Uh, sorry for that, Dust.”

“Eh,” Dust weakly waved him off, “‘t’s fine, hyeong, we’ve all been through worse.”

“Do you to go hospital, Dust?” Killer, why are you allowed to speak, “Need to see Sci?”

“Can we see Sci?” Horror graciously spoke up, “Although, I’m not sure if the boss even remembers how to travel ‘cross AUs right now.”

They all looked at Night, who had a contemplative look on his face. That face was slowly replaced by a weird, surreal look. He clearly was freaking out about not remembering on how to leave this damned castle. None of them could leave this castle.

The four were all stuck here. Stuck . They weren’t really free before, but now, now they had nothing but this desolate palace. The empty, endless purple halls with tacked on rooms that Dust had already turned inside out long ago. Every single square and corner of this place, Dust knew it all intimately.  He knew there were no real exits. All the windows-none that could be opened-showed a barren, bleak land. “ Beyond this castle, there only lays Dim Carcosa ,” Nightmare had told him, back when Dust had first asked to leave so long ago.

Of course he had came back to this prison. There was nothing but a barren wasteland out there. And of course he was now stuck here, in this hell, likely till the end of his days. At least until Night or maybe even Sci or hell, even Ink gets them out. But when would any of that even be? And a quick glance at the other two peons showed similar thought patterns emerging. That they were all throughly fucked, for the time being.

Night made some unintelligible noises, seemingly trying to get some kind of “comforting words” out, based on what Dust knows of him so far. The guy was nicer than Nightmare, at least.

”O-okay, um,” Night finally got out, “uhhhhhh Horror! Do you know how to play the uh, trombone?”

Horror blinked at him a few times, staring silently for a while before answering, “Yeah, I do. Why ya wanna know?”

“Oh! Well, Dust knows how to play too!”

“Figured.”

“And-and,” he repeated the word a few more times like a broken record-or an Error, “Killer, he said he used to know how to play.”

“I could probably relearn it easily enough,” Killer added.

“Yeah! So, um, how about we uh, we can uh, uh-“ Night stopped and inhaled sharply, “ FUCK ! Damn it all! I am an adult , I should be able to hold a simple conversation!”

For some reason, this threw both Dust and Horror into hysterics. Killer was also laughing his ass off, but Dust didn’t trust that. But Nightmare- Night was swearing over not being able to form a coherent sentence. So anything could happen, especially today.

Night’s face was flushed with purple, using his hands to cover the lower half of his face. That’s strangely adorable.

“W-well,” Night sighed, moving his hands downs, “I need to stop that-stop stuttering too, goodness.”

“Nah, nah,” Killer managed to stop his totally real laughter, “you’re fine, boss.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Horror added on, snickering, “you’re understandable, at least.”

Night sighed, looking unamused. Dust chuckled a bit. He looked back off the mini pile of trombones and picked up the one he sat down not even a few minutes ago.

“Do you want to learn how to play, Night?” Dust asked.

“Of course!” Night had a rather determined look on his face.

Horror picked up two trombones, handing one to Night, “Let’s toot to the end times, then.”

Dust let out a sharp toot on his trombone, before yelling, “ WOO !” cheering. Everyone looked at Dust like he grew an extra head or something. Which honestly would’ve been more normal than whatever the hell he just did.

“uh, whoops,” Dust shrugged as casually as he possibly could, “guess i got a little excited there.”

Killer stared him down, his face as hard to read as always, “Never do that again.” Dust didn’t want to do that again, but maybe he would, to spite Killer.

“Anyways!” Night clapped his hands, “Let’s get the trombone lessons started!” Yep, that was apparently the mission for today. Dust wasn’t sure any of them would even be a half-decent teacher, but that was fine.

And so, they all tromboned the day away.

Chapter Text

He was Night. That was his new name, given to him by his new friends.

Technically, they aren’t your friends.

Semantics aren’t welcome here. Okay, so maybe these monsters weren’t his friends, but they were friendly enough.

They are rightfully subservient to us.

“There is no us .”

Night was trying-and failing-to fall sleep. It was all too quiet, yet far too loud. His room felt too big and too small at the same time. His ginormous bed took up so much room space, with the canopy above seeming like it was far too close to the bed. The curtains around him made the bed feel like a whole room onto itself. Everything was just varying shades of black and purple. In his bed, in his room, in this whole accursed castle. It was all a blended blur of sameness.

There was his new hummingbird feeder to his left, sitting on his nightstand. That wasn’t purple. Shame it couldn’t have been used here. There was also the stained glass window to his right. It depicted a golden apple hanging off the end of a tree branch.

A reminder of our goal.

A reminder of his brother. Dream…Night wondered how he was doing at that moment. If he was okay, if he was hurt, if he missed him at all. Night, he wanted to see his brother so badly.

Even while the deal is still ongoing?

“The deal I don’t even-!” Night stopped, he had to, he didn’t know who could’ve watching. He knew arguing wouldn’t matter.

…So not yet, he couldn’t face his brother just yet. It’s not like Night even remembered how to teleport between AUs, after all. Just another thing hidden from him. But he was in control now, he’d figure it out soon enough.

A cold laugh echoed through his mind, one that he desperately tried to ignore. Sleeping clearly wasn’t working for him, so Night just had to find something to preoccupy himself with. His office was likely a mess, from what he vaguely remembered when Horror carried him out, so he could just fix that up. Maybe he could get a little reading done too.

He knew the way to his office instinctively. Technically, he’s been there thousands of time before, taking this same exact boring as all hell route. Thankfully, there were some paint stains on the walls, ceilings, or floors from time to time, all thanks to the various times Ink had dropped in. It looked objectively bad, but it was different and that’s all that mattered to Night right now. Maybe he should get Ink to color code the castle, that would be nice.

And why did that bastard make this place so big? And his office so far from his room? He needed a new room, he was Night now, after all. Not that stinky Nightmare . He also needed a bath soon too, now that he thought about it.

Oh, how insecure you sound.

“I hate all this,” Night mumbled. He tried to walk faster, but quickly stopped since that made his joints hurt more. Gosh, being alive was annoying, why was everything in at least some amount of pain? Yeah yeah, the dumb apple sort of broke him apart and then pushed him back together, with goopy negativity being the only thing holding his bony frame together. Ever since that deal, though, the negativity wasn’t very goopy. Well, Nightmare had figured out how to stabilize himself a long time ago so he wouldn’t be as goopy, but now the negativity has hardened, lessened .

The ending phalanges of his hands were entirely made of from this hardened negativity. And Night briefly stopped his trek towards his office to pull up his sleeves, to see how his arms looked. Sure enough, there were big, chunky lines of dark cyan between pieces of his bones, elongating them. At least Night didn’t have to deal with looking like a child with this. He looked more like his brother’s age. More like his own age…minus five hundred years. Good thing he had absolutely no idea what happened during then.

After what felt like ages, Night had finally arrived at his office. Or, what he decided would be his new sleeping quarters. He’d have to move his hummingbird feeder here, as well as set up a proper place to sleep, but those things could wait. He had to clean the whole place up first. And maybe also read some books in the meantime, if he was lucky.

The doors were already open, and Killer was in his office, for some reason. Just, standing there, staring holes into the desk.

Being a creep, as always.

Definitely. Should Night call out to him? What was he even doing here? At least Night could take a look around the office to see the full magnitude of the mess that’d been created. Doing so made Night die a little bit inside. It was so bad. So many books on the floor. Some face down, with their pages bent. They were going to have creases now, ugh. And the newspapers, all his newspapers were everywhere! He’d be lucky if nothing got torn. And his handmade desk lamp that had a fake terrarium in it had been shattered! He’d have to remake the whole thing now!

I’m the one who actually made it-

“How’s the situation looking?”

“ Bad ,” Night groaned, staring to run a hand over his face, until his fingers brushed near the hole in his skull. They didn’t even go in, but the texture difference between the bone to those golden triangles, the near metallic feeling it had, but with something being different with them-it felt so strange and off putting that he stopped almost immediately. It was also with that that he noticed that Killer was now somehow beside him. Probably teleported.

“I’ll have to reorganize… everything ,” Night continued on, not letting Killer get one over on him by scaring him. Why does Night even care about that? “Not to mention rebuild my desk lamp. Maybe I could repurpose my hummingbird feeder into a new one.”

“It does look like a lantern,” Killer nodded, “Surprised you didn’t mention how I’m suddenly next to you.”

Night shrugged, “I’m used to people sneaking up on me.” Which wasn’t technically a lie. Night was very, very used to that, especially back then .

“Got it. Need any help with all this?” Killer gestured at the room’s contents. Night scowled, the quickly covered his mouth with his hands. He hadn’t meant to do that, but he did.

“No, I’ll be fine, Killer. How about you go get some sleep?”

“I don’t feel tired-“

“You don’t feel anything. Sleep .” Night recoiled a bit at his own pushiness. He felt like he could’ve been nicer with that.

You shouldn’t.

Killer hummed a bit, a familiar tune that Night had already heard twice today. Or yesterday, he couldn’t remember the time.

“…Is that an order?” Killer asked, tilting his head.

Night tried to observe Killer, trying to see if there was anything he could glean. Obviously, it was a fruitless endeavor. A blank, grinning face was all that could be seen.

“Would you leave if it wasn’t ?” Night tried to keep his tone flat, but some of his annoyance seeped its way through.

“Maybe,” Killer took out his knife and flipped it around, “it would be a certain ‘yes’ if it was an order, though.”

Night should make it an order then. But , he didn’t want to order Killer around. Not over something as small as this, at least. So he bit back the bile in his mouth, and focused hard on saying his next words.

“I will not order you around over something like this,” Night began, “You’re smart-you know what happens if you refuse to sleep simply because you, ‘don’t feel tired.’ I’d recommend you sleep, but I’m not ordering you to.

“You can also stay here, if you want. Just don’t touch my things. That is an order. Are we clear?” Was that…was that convincing? Did he sound more like…why did he want to sound like him? Whatever, didn’t matter, didn’t care .

“We’re clear, boss,” Killer answered. Then he stood there, at the door, as Night continued his way inside. He was immediately overwhelmed. Night paced around a bit, pretending to just be surveying the room as he began to disassociate. Why were there so many things ? Where would he even start?

“How about you clean up the glass?” Killer suggested, snapping Night out of his daze.

“That sounds like a great idea, thank you,” Night smiled as genuinely as he could. Killer shifted a bit at that, and Night noticed his soul doing…whatever it does. Shifting slightly into Stage 1 before returning to Stage 2. What was Night going to do about that whole fiasco? Nothing, as of that moment.

Night went over to shattered glass of his poor, poor lamp. Yeah, the whole thing would have to be thrown away. For starters, the bulb’s filament was snapped and exposed, and the lamp shade had been broken as well. The terrarium was in itty bitty pieces, just like the surrounding glass. Now, how exactly was he going to clean this up?

You can figure it out, you’re in control, after all.

Oh fuck that. Night wasn’t above asking others for help, unlike a certain someone . So he would.

“Hey, Killer? Do you know how to safely clean up glass?”

“Hmm, maybe.”

“Will you tell me?”

“If it’s an order.”

Night groaned, “Oh I… despise how you act,” he hissed out, “I will not let you win!”

“Win what?” Killer was so, so good at acting dumb. And Night was good at acting like a little shit.

So Night scooped up as many parts of the lamp as he could in one go, ignoring the pain of doing so. He was in a lot of pain already, so some more shouldn’t matter(it did). He went over to a beautified trash can behind his desk that had been toppled over, turning it back up with his feet. Then, the trash went in. He continued doing this until even the littlest shards were either tossed, or stuck in his hands. He tried to wipe his hands clean of the glass, but so many still remained. It hurt.

“Regretting your actions there, Nighty ?” Killer was just begging to punched.

“Don’t-! No! I’m great ,” Night hissed, “I’m fine .” Killer walked over to Night, skillfully stepping around all of the obstacles on the floor.

“You don’t really sound fine to me, but hey,” Killer was now standing in front of Night, head looking down but clearly looking up at him, “it’s not like it’s something new for you to act perfectly fine…even if not…and even if you’re not the boss I knew.”

The matter of fact way he said it struck a cord with Night. It’s wasn’t because he was wrong, he wasn’t, but… maybe he was wrong .

“Do you want me to be?”

“Do you want to be?”

“I don’t know,” Night told him, “and I don’t care .”

“Huh,” he twirled his knife around in his hands, “What do you know? Pretty sure I asked you something like that before.”

What did he know? More importantly, what did Killer want to know?

Don’t tell him anything.

Night wasn’t stupid, he knew that. He remembered enough about all the other Killers, and enough about this one to know that much.

I think a topic change is in order.

“Killer,” Nightmare stood up as straight as he could, folding his arms behind his back as he looked down at Killer, “Could you perhaps make me some new clothes?,” he put on a sly smile as he sneered, “I know you’re capable of that much.”

“Hmm, is that-“

“ Yes ,” Nightmare snapped, long tired of Killer’s antics, “That is an order . Do it .”

Killer nodded, backing away and turning to leave.

“Oh, and Killer? Could you make it look similar in style to this?” He gestured at his current attire, not caring that Killer wasn’t even looking at him, “But make it less violently purple, overall.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

“Very good. Now take your leave .”

Killer teleported out of the room, and Night never wanted to jump out of a window as much as he did to right at that moment.

“What the fuck was that?” Night growled, hoping that Killer didn’t just teleport out of his sight, but could still hear him, somehow.

What? I treated him as he should be treated.

“That-“ Night huffed, it didn’t matter. Arguing with Nightmare was equivalent to arguing with a brick wall. He’d just have to apologize to Killer later. Now, onto the pieces of glass that are still logged into his hands. If only there was some way to sort of push them out of his bones…maybe he could do that with some negativity? Even if the surface of his hand bones looked normal, he could feel the negativity pulsing underneath. He just had to focus it outwards.

So he did just that. Night had his hand held over the trash can, sticking them in it a bit some glass shards wouldn’t fly into his face somehow. He still closed his working eye, just in case. It was hard to move the other one anyways. Then, he focused on the magic within his body, down to his hands, and pushed .

Finally, his hands were glass free.

“I did it!” Night cheered, “That could’ve gone so wrong.”

But it didn’t.

“But it didn’t!”

Now time to clean up the rest of the room.

“Now time to clean up the rest of-oh, oh wait. Oh, crumbs .”

You literally wanted to do this, you bumbling buffoon.

“I did willingly chose to do this, yeah,” Night sighed. So, he set out to work. First he sorted the books into one neat pile, the newspapers into another neat pile, and another pile for anything else that wasn’t those things. That last pile was the smallest, just an assortment of office supplies and nicknacks that he kept around to “liven up the place.”

Night focused on tidying up his desk first, the easiest part of this whole ordeal. Just move some stuff on there or off of there, maybe shove a few things to the side, check to see if anything could just be stuffed in the drawers… don’t look at the light blue bandanna speckled with tiny, yellow stars, folded neatly into a small triangle, pushed to the very back of the bottom drawer…and then continue to tidy everything up until it all looked okay enough.

It was a little past 23:30 when he was done, the whole thing taking…maybe an hour? Night didn’t check the now upright clock beforehand. The grandfather clock was already on the ground when he entered before, so time was essentially meaningless to him. So meaningless, in fact, that he didn’t even notice the sheer amount of hours that had passed by while he was putting everything into its rightful place.

After tidying and cleaning absolutely everything he could, Night’s back, legs, shoulders, and just about everything was aching badly . Mainly his back. It was also 4 o’clock in the morning. He had spent over a quarter of day on cleaning-not even really that, just tidying up more than anything-his office.

He needed a nap. Or some actual sleep, that would be good too. So he found the comfiest corner in the room and sort of squished himself into it.

This has got to be the most pathetic thing you’ve ever done.

“This is not the most pathetic thing I’ve ever done,” Night mumbled, stifling back a yawn, “Unless you remember anything I did before I bit into the apple.”

…You don’t want to know what I remember. It’s far more than what the likes of you would expect. You would regret hearing all of what you would’ve learn from me.

“That’s…” Night yawned, “…nice. Goodnight.” He heard a light scoff echo within his mind.

Finally you sleep. Pitiful fool.

Night awoke to the sound of quick, sharp knocks. They were coming from his office door, the knocker already inside of the room. It was Killer, obviously, with a cat-themed tote bag of all things in his hands. Night looked over at clock, a bit grateful that he could still see it from his choice of a resting place. 6 o’clock, half an hour before breakfast.

“I finished up your new clothes, boss,” Killer said as he waltzed on over to Night, “Only got two identical sets of it, but they’re new.”

“Thanks, Kills’,” Night slurred back, rubbing his eye. He stood up, soon stopping because his back felt it had just been pelted with a large rock. Night gasped, stumbling forwards in pain. He put a hand over where the pain was and forced himself upwards, gritting his teeth through the pain. Killer just looked at him, a mere few feet away.

“You good there, boss?”

“Oh, yeah ,” Night hissed out through the tears that were welling up, “I’ve been through much worse pain before, I’ll be fine .”

“Sweet. I’ll put your clothes up here then,” Killer dropped the bag down on Night’s desk, managing to not touch anything that was already on there.

“ I’ll get to it. ”

“Oh, and Horror wanted to know if you’d like some tea, since he thinks you still don’t have to eat. Also, he wanted to know if he now needed to eat.”

“I don’t need food, but I would love some tea,” Night slowly walked over to his desk, hand still on his back, “Do you need anything else from me?”

“Nothing at the moment.”

“Good, good,” Night sat down in his chair, leaning back slowly, “Oh! And Killer?”

“Yes, boss?”

“I’m um, sorry about…before. Being so rude and all-”

“Don’t worry about it. Besides, it wasn’t you , wasn’t it?”

Fuck.

Fuck.

“Wait, Killer, I-“

“Sorry for interrupting you again, boss, but don’t worry; I won’t tell the others. Don’t want to ruin you little ‘deal,’ after all.”

“It’s not-I don’t even know what the deal is!” Night jumped from his chair, pain be damned, “Nightmare won’t tell me!”

“Oh, so aren’t Nightmare?”

“I am Nightmare! Just-not him . Not that Corruption .”

What’s even the point of defending yourself? Of explaining yourself to the likes of him ?

“Oh shut the FUCK UP!” Night yelled, slamming his fists on his desk, “ I’m the one in control now, I call the shots!”

“Do you?” Killer’s voice slithered into Night’s frame, “Do you really ?”

“I-you don’t know anything about-!“

Killer stepped around the desk, to Night’s right, right where his skull hole was, peering in, “Because to me, it’s seems more like you’re one of us , rather than our boss.”

Night gave him back a cold, hard stare.

Everything in his mind, body, and soul screamed at him to reprimand Killer for his halfwitted words-Nightmare urged for him to go down this path. And yet…the urge to cry was stronger. Night had never considered himself to be a crybaby, but by his mother’s name, he just felt like sobbing until his tired eye sockets started to erode, until all of the negativity bubbling within him poured out onto the floor. Actually, “all that negativity” might just be the problem here.

So Night held back a sob and the tears that started to well up. He just looked at Killer while trying to keep up that same, cold, hard stare. The longest minute of Night’s life passed with the two just staring at each other. Nightmare was just bored.

And then, Killer just…left. He turned around and wordlessly walked away. Right out the office door, closing it behind him without looking back.

And you’re just going to let him leave like that?

“I…I suppose I will…” Night sighed. He decided to busy himself with looking inside the tote bag. He took out a shirt and holy-that was almost an exact copy of his current shirt. The only differences were the colors, the shirt now being a very dark cyan, almost color matching Nightmare himself. The silver trimming and detailing Night’s current shirt had, had now been replaced with almost the exact same shade of light purple Night’s shirt mainly had.

I don’t think any other Killer had been like this.

Night dumbly nodded at that-thumbing the fabric in his hands, turning it over and seeing the crescent moon there also being that light purple. He just put the shirt right back into the bag, he’ll change into it later. Maybe after a bath…which he’ll probably take after another nap.

Night didn’t even realize he fell asleep until he woke up to someone knocking on his door. Definitely not from Killer. It was louder, more full knocks. Taking a look at the time, it was a bit past 7 o’clock.

“Come in,” Night called out with a yawn. Ugh, his back ached even more. The door was opened, hesitatingly. It was Horror, holding a tray with a tea set.

“Got some Rosehip tea, just for you, boss,” Horror walked in, closing the door with his feet so he could better carry the tray.

“Thank you for that, Horror. Let me just-“ Night picked up the tote bag and sat it down on the ground, next to his desk, “-could you place the tray here, please?”

“Will do,” Horror was sweating bullets, nervousness and fear filling Night up so much, that it helped make him feel much more awake.

After Horror set the tray down, he stepped back a bit, pouring Night out a cup, adding some honey and cream into the cup before stirring it all with a little spoon, all without clicking against the sides of the cup. Night staring at him doing this, enraptured in the process. Then, Horror added a sugar cube in the cup, stirring the concoction yet again. Then he stopped, looking at Night directly.

“You uh, you’re fine with this, right?” Horror asked, his voice shaking ever slightly.

“I have absolute faith in your tea skills, Horror,” Night said seriously, “I trust that this will taste splendidly.” For some reason Night couldn’t articulate, Horror seemed to grow even more nervous at this comment. He started to fret about the tea set, moving to pick something up before near instantly recoiling away from it. He continued doing this until Night decided that it was so pitiful, it would be better to just drink the tea as is.

Picking up the saucer and tea cup-whilst Horror wordlessly protested to that-he took the cup up to his mouth and stared into cup as he drank. It was such a lovely red color, and delightfully sweet, with just the right amount of tartness in the aftertaste. Night returned the cup to the saucer and smiled at the worried looking Horror.

“The tea is lovely, thank you Horror, for making this for me.”

“It’s no problem! Do you uh, need anything else?”

“Maybe…do you need anything?”

“Nope! Nadda. You-never mind, it ain’t important.”

He’s acting suspicious-kill him.

“You’re joking, right?” Night was asking both ‘Mare and Horror that, “You seem…unwell, in a sense.”

“it’s-it’s nothing, i swear-“

“ Horror ,” he froze at Night’s tone, “Please tell me what’s going on.” Horror shuffled around, trying not to look at Night at all.

“Well,” the skeleton was wringing his hands, “I was wondering if you needed like, painkillers or somethin’, since every time I’ve seen you, you’ve got this look of pain on your face.”

“O-oh,” Night stuttered out, “I mean-yeah, yeah that’d be nice. Haha…is living supposed to have you be in constant pain everywhere?”

No?!?

“ No ?!?” Horror shouted, “wha-okay, I’m going to get you some of those weird ass painkillers Sci made for me-you’ll feel kinda numb all over, but it’ll be fine. Imma…go. now.” Horror practically ran out of the room, leaving the door open and for Night to sip some more tea.

Okay, we have to talk-

Night waved him off-he took the hint that his physical condition wasn’t normal. At least he had some wonderful tea to keep him company. It was a very peaceful five seconds. Then Dust sauntered inside, walking right up to Night’s desk. Night looked up him, briefly, then went back to his tea. Night didn’t actively want to ignore Dust, he just wants to finish his tea first.

The tea is more important than that foul beast.

Okay, tea time is on pause. Night looked back at Dust, setting his tea cup and saucer down.

“Do you need anything from me, Dust?”

Dust stayed silent, continuing to look at Night with an awkward air around him.

“Do you need a notepad of sorts? I’m sure there’s one around here.” Night knew for a fact that there were several notepads in the room, almost all of them being stuffed into his desk’s top drawer.

Dust shook his head, “No, I was just…thinking.”

“…Can you turn that thinking into some speaking?” Dust laughed hard at that, making Night smile.

“Yeah, yeah alright,” Dust chuckled, “So, I was wondering that since you’re ‘Night’ now, right?” -Night nodded,- “Yeah. Could I uh, get a name change as well?”

Oh right, I’ve nearly forgotten that he hated the name “Dust.”

Night knew well that ‘Mare did not forget that fact. And Night knew well how each and every time they had gotten a new Dust, they’d make that name be his. A horrible little bit of manipulation.

It was your idea, remember?

“You can totally change your name!” Night tried to keep his feelings towards Nightmare and himself tucked away as much as he could, “What would you like to be called, then?”

Dust stayed silent for a few more seconds, before replying, “Nah, it’s fine. It’s easier to go by Dust, anyways.”

“But-um, okay, if that’s what you really want to do.”

“It is, yeah.”

Night fiddled around with the edges of the tea tray, “Well, could you at least tell me what name you were thinking of? I’m curious, humor me.”

Dust hummed, looking off to the side and rocking back and forth on his heels. He soon stopped and still not looking at Night, “Mur. That’s the name I wanted. I had that name before…” he trailed off, “whatever. Doesn’t really matter now. Dust fits more since you know, I’m from Dusttale and all that.”

“I see.”

“Anyways,” Dust clapped, “I’m going to go see hyeong. I think he’d forgotten how to teleport and is pretty lost.” Dust turned around quickly, clearing wanting this conversation to be done with, a common theme of today, it seemed.

Night laughed, “Yeah, that seems likely. See you soon, adeul .” That made Dust stop. And teleport away into the hallway. Night could hear him breaking into a sprint, regret and embarrassment trailing after him.

Night himself broke into a cackle, double over in his chair. He briefly entertained the idea of letting himself fall onto the floor, but chose the smarter idea of simply clutching onto his desk. He had to calm down and control his breathing, if only for the sake of body not being in more pain.

I don’t get how this is so funny to you.

“ Oh ,” Night couldn’t stop grinning, “You just don’t get humor, you aren’t cultured enough.”

Did Dust sneak wine into our tea again?

Night started cackling again. Nightmare sighed with disappointment, but Night could care less. For once in his life, for reasons he couldn’t dream of figuring out, Night had felt…hopeful.

Chapter Text

The smell of some kimchi permeated the kitchen, much to Night’s utter disgust. Just one second after pulling it out of its own little mini-fridge, Night was already gagging.

“You’ll get used to it,” Dust chuckled as he put the kimchi and kimchi brine into a shallow pot, “Maybe. Since you did the stock, I’ll make the rest of the stew. Does that sound good, Night?”

“Y-yeah,” Night covered his nasal cavity, disgust still lingering on his face, “Ugh, why am I able to smell  things? And why does that smell so bad ?”

“Fermentation,” Dust added his half a pound of pork shoulder into the pot, and then added his already sliced up onion in.

“Ah, like the process of making grapes into wine .”

“Exactly. Now where-ah, there’s the green onions.” He swiftly cut two of them diagonally, adding them to the pot before adding then adding all the spices in as well. He drizzled sesame oil on top of the whole thing, then finally adding the anchovy stock Night cooked up. Covering the pot with a lid, he set the thing onto the stove, leaving it on medium heat for 10 minutes. In the meantime, they could get started on other foods.

It was odd, this whole situation. His boss cooking with him wasn’t anything new, it was quite a common occurrence whenever Nightmare was bored enough. Which was too often. Still, Night wanted to cook with him, and Night’s whole existence was odd. Therefor, so was the situation…maybe Dust wasn’t good with logic…Nah, he was great with logic. No Phantom Papy here to tell him otherwise…yet.

“Want to cook anything else for dinner?” Dust asked Night, stepping away from the kimchi-jjigae. Night rocked back and forth on his feet-Nightmare never did that, or at least not as often as Night does-humming a tune. For some reason, he was now obsessed with that song Dust played on the trombone…five days ago? Yeah, that was five days ago, since he took the last of his antipsychotics this morning.

“Umm,” Night finally spoke, “Maybe some bibimbap? Ooo, maybe some bulgogi , I love bulgogi.”

Dust sighed, not with disappointment or fondness, but with something else indescribable. “You do love bulgogi, yeah,” Dust sighed again, going towards to fridge to look at the available ingredients, “Although, I don’t know why you didn’t tell me you wanted to make that before we got started on the kimchi.”

“I wasn’t thinking,” Night said so plainly it nearly gave Dust whiplash. Nightmare would never…ugh, how many times had that exact same thought passed his mind? Five days, and Dust still wasn’t used to this. Only five days. It all felt like a blur.

“Welp, wanna get started on the bibimbap first, or on some bulgogi?”

“Bulgogi!” Night sounded so excited, “Wait, no, let’s start with the bibimbap . I want my bulgogi to be as fresh as possible," his smile quickly shifted into a frown, “Although, would the kimchi be cold by then?”

Dust gave him a half-hearted shrug, “Well, you should’ve been thinking about that.”

Night scoffed, looking away from Dust with what was surely a pout on his face. Dust couldn’t help but snicker at that, at the childish behavior on display.

“Oh, don’t laugh at me like that, adeul .” Night sneered. Even though Night wasn’t as much of an asshole as Nightmare, he was still an ass, just a different, somehow much more annoying one.

“I’ll kill you,” Dust said as seriously as he could whilst frantically digging through the fridge for the eggs, where were the eggs ?

“Tch, how rude of you, adeul .”

“i’ll kill myself.” He felt like he was about to, since seriously, where were the eggs?? Why was it so hard to find eggs in a simple fridge? Seriously, where did he put them?

“Oh! I cannot believe you would say such a thing! Your hyeongs and poor, poor abeoji couldn’t bare to have you do such a thing!”

Dust inhaled sharply, yanking himself away from the damned fridge to glare at Night with all the anger he could muster, eyelights turning red and cyan with his LV. He let out a quick, shaking breath before yelling, “THAT IS NOT HOW YOU USE THOSE WORDS, YOU CRUSTY, SHITTY HAG ! and you said ‘such a thing’ FUCKING TWICE . In the same paragraph! In the very next sentence .”

Dust huffed, biting back much nastier words that definitely don’t fit the seriousness of this conversation-which was like, a four out ten on the seriousness scale. And that was being generous. Honestly, his reaction was already way overblown. What was wrong with him?

Night just looked at him, trying and failing to look unamused. After a long minute of Dust turning down his magic while glaring at Night in silence, the “hag” finally spoke up.

“Now then,” Night clasped his hands, “Are you done feeding me your annoyance?”

“Are you done being annoying?” Dust snapped back.

“Pfft, stars no.”

“Then kill yourself. Now, let’s get to cooking this bibimbap.” Dust turned back to the fridge, hiding his smiling face from the laughter of Night. This definitely wasn’t where Mur-Dust wanted to be, not in the slightest, but it was nice enough. Night was nice enough. He wasn’t enjoying any of his time here, never had, never will. Ever.

The bibimbap was a pain to make, to put it nicely. The kimchi had been finished for a while, way before the gosari for the bibimbap had even finished cooking. So Night declared that they would be having dinner a bit early today, if only so the kimchi and its “foul odor” would be gone as soon as possible.

It wasn’t often that Nightmare would eat with them, and Night hadn’t been too different so far. Until now, of course. And it was all because Night had gained a craving for such “foul” smelling kimchi.

After Dust got Horror from one of the gardens, and Night had wrangled Killer away from watching surfing movies(???) in one of the lounges, they all sat down to eat.

Dust and Night ate quickly and sparsely, Dust wanting to make sure the kitchen wouldn’t somehow burn down while they’re gone, and Night wanted  something , probably just didn’t want Dust to wait on him, or some sort stupid, selfless act. Who even knows how Night thinks, not Dust, clearly. The two didn’t even really talk to the others before they were running back to the kitchen, trying to make bibimbap and then the bulgogi as quick as they could. It did not help that Night suddenly wanted some dasik and hotteok for dessert.

Now, Dust could’ve said no a long time ago, and Night likely would’ve been fine with that, based on Dust’s observations of his boss’s new behavior. But also Dust had been conditioned for over a year to do whatever his boss wanted him to do, so unfortunately, dessert would have to be made. Being self aware of that  particular fact  sucked.

During this tumultuous time, Night had many suggestions to increase their speed that surely would’ve ended up with a raging fire. Dust wished he had half a mind to kick him out, but he really just wanted to be done cooking as soon as possible. Were these the joys of that “speedrunning” that the Human had occasionally yammered on to him about? Well, he was certainly filled with a negative amount of joy, for one, so likely not.

Something caught the corner of his eye during cooking, something being off with Night’s shadow. Then again, he could just be hallucinating that, so he ignored it. Then he ignored it again. Ignored the way it seemed to be smiling-whispering-something to Night. Night didn’t seem to react to it, so maybe it wasn’t real. Maybe. He’ll have to ask Horror later to keep watch on Night’s shadow, just in case.

Speaking of Horror, the Sans opened the kitchen door in the middle of the other two fervently making the deserts.

“How you two-“ Horror began, but was quickly interrupted by Night shoving the finished bibimbap into his hands.

“Come back in three minutes-“

“Two!” Dust corrected.

“Come back in two minutes for the bulgogi,” Night said before ushering a confused looking Horror away. Then two more minutes of running around the kitchen passed, and Horror returned to Dust now shoving bulgogi at him.

“Why are you two in such a rush?” Horror asked.

“pfftttt i dunno,” Dust shrugged as spun around, “efficiency? Making sure someone will be able to have the food while it’s still hot?”

“We are going fast because I am a fool !” Night cried, slamming his fist against a counter, “The sunk-cost fallacy has taken me by the ankles with its hideous hands, twirling me around in the cyclical cycle of cooking as fast as my fracturing, bony hands will allow myself to do!”

“….‘kay…Anyways, you guys want some tea?”

“Yes, please!” Night shouted like an excited child, as if he did not just monologue like he was some sort of anime character, or Aliza, “I am making tea cookies after all!”

“Same as usual, then?”

“Yep,” Dust gave a quick nod as he returned to helping out Night, “Jukro for me, Night’s always fine with Rosehip, and there should be some blood or something over there-“ Dust pointed at a small, square cooler that was tucked away in a faraway corner of the kitchen, “-to give to Killer.”

“I’m sorry- blood ? For Killer?” Night stopped his cooking to look at Dust incredulously, “I thought that-that my mind had just made him liking that up.”

“I think he also likes buttercup tea.”

“That-that doesn’t explain-whatever, just…Horror, do your things, alright?”

“You got it, boss,” Horror did a mock salute before he left to set out the bulgogi. And when he came back, Dust had the pleasure of seeing the look upon Night’s face as Horror walked around the kitchen, mumbling, “get the tea, get the blood, get the tea, get the blood,” over and over again.

Dust also took note of Night’s shadow, how cutouts of eyes and a mouth seemed to sneer at Night, how smug and devious a mere silhouette seemed to be. And strangely, the shadow didn’t seem to match Night at all. It matched closer to Nightmare-not his disguise with that Classic Sans clothing, but that odd, almost preacherly attire he had lounged around in. He didn’t know what an actual preacher or priest looked like, but that’s how both Aliza and Sci had described those clothes. It matched Nightmare’s  god-complex, definitely.

Maybe it was just Dust’s paranoia, but there was something off about how human the shadow seemed to be. He had to just be seeing things…right?

Dinner was quiet, as always. This group were never really ones for small talk, anyways. On the bright side, Night’s shadow seemed normal, for now. Was that a good thing? At least Night’s eyelight was purple, which definitely was a good thing. Although he seemed to be filled with the upmost discomfort and disgust when not actively eating anything, since he had the misfortune of sitting directly across from Killer.

Killer looked normal. He had been acting normally too- his own normal. Maybe he was a bit more passive aggressive with Night? It was hard to tell, especially since Dust would rather not think about Killer more than he had to. It just seemed like from Dust’s perspective, every time that Night took a pause from eating, Killer would be drinking from his blood-filled mug, staring right at him. But hey, Killer loved being an annoying, good for nothing, twisted excuse of a Sans, so maybe everything with him was as normal as ever.

Horror seemed a bit skittish, concerned over everyone eating. So again, normal. Maybe a bit more relaxed over Night drinking his tea than with Nightmare, because at least Night wouldn’t be yelling and throwing a fit over some wrongly prepared tea.

Dust quickly stopped the shaking in his bones that came over with that memory that suddenly barging into his mind. It wasn’t even all that bad compared to other things Nightmare had done, and no one had gotten hurt, back then. None of the blame was even targeted towards Dust. And yet it just filled him with such a terrible, sickening feeling that he couldn’t fully put words to. He couldn’t even fully recall the events, just a haze of screaming and threats, and the disgustingly calm way Nightmare had spoken after his whole fit. The way Horror had trembled, the way Nightmare “lovingly” patted his back. That bored look Killer had, and how Dust himself just stood off to the side.

What did he feel exactly, back then?

Dust needed to leave the room. He-he couldn’t tell why he did, he just needed to go . Fuck, fuck , why did he-he just can’t, he can’t be around these people-they haven’t even done anything yet and yet-!

“Dust?”

Dust blacked out the rest of Night’s words as he stood up from his chair as calmly and nonchalantly as he could, stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets, and walked away. Didn’t really know where, didn’t really care . Just away . He had to get away, he had to run -but no, he shouldn’t, he’s fine, he’s fine!

It’s not the first time he’s done this stupid shit. Just freaking out over nothing-fuck all!-before walking away without a word. He’s done it before here , he’s done it before in his own AU, he’s done it before with Aliza and Sci and Fell -

Dust stopped, trying to recollect the calming strategies he’s been told before. Maybe fight someone? No, that’s not calming, just something he’s always itching to do. Lie down and do nothing? No, he needed to move, and walk away from…everything. Whatever, things would be okay, they had to be. He’ll just deal with this shit later .

…that was not the right thing to do, maybe it was , but fuck it, he’ll see Sci again eventually , he’ll get help then. He trusted Sci to know things. He’ll-it’s fine, everything will be fine . He just had to be patient, stay determined, and persist. Be patient, stay determined, and persist, be patient, stay determined, and persist, be patient, stay determined, and persist-

“Oh, hey there, Dance!” How the hell did Dust get into the kitchen, and how the hell did Ink get into the kitchen. What.

The gremlin was standing in front of the fridge, nibbling on a carrot, of all things.

“Why are you here?” Dust forced out the question, ignoring what Ink called him and knowing the answer already. But he wanted to start a conversation so he wouldn’t just be stuck in his own head.

“Oh, you know, just getting some food,” Ink said with smile, “Although I don’t see any leftovers this time, have you guys eaten yet?”

“First of all, we’re having dinner early,” Dust sighed, “And we’re in the middle of eating. I’m done and wanted to take a walk.”

“To the kitchen?”

“I had a feeling.” Negative feelings, that he could now direct towards towards Ink so they could feel reasonable.

Ink nodded, “I see, I see. Hopefully you ate enough, otherwise Horror’s gonna get all antsy .”

“Yep, ahuh, why don’t you just eat the food Swap makes?” Dust took one hand out of his pockets to point at Ink accusingly, “Why steal from us and risk getting your neck snapped ?”

“Cause it’s funny! And also Swap would never make kimchi, he loathes that smell.”

“Fair. Well, there’s some in that mini fridge, right over there- and I’ll let you have it for free, on one condition.”

That signature, mischievous smile that only a devil could have appeared on Ink’s face. Honestly, with that look and his general attitude, he would fit right in with this group. If not for being a Protector and whatnot. And also being far too annoying for Nightmare to handle. The boss barely handle when Dust was being annoying, and at least Dust was funny while being an ass. Ink wasn’t funny.

“And what’s the condition?” By Doomfanger’s good name, Ink’s cheeky voice was like a cheese grater to his nonexistent ears.

“Due to some…interesting events-“

“What events?!” And now Ink was excited, fantastic.

“-I’ll get to that. But due to ‘events,’ Night can’t teleport us outside of this AU. We’ve been stuck here for five days, and we’re bored. So can you…” Dust knew what he had to do, he had to ask for help, from Ink . He’d much rather fight Undyne for the first time again, it would’ve been less mentally draining than asking for help. From Ink .

“…Night, you say?” fuck. “Not Night mare ? I may have some memory issues, but I can’t ever recall you calling him anything but ‘Nightmare,’ or ‘boss.’ Am I wrong?”

Dust pushed down his annoyance to answer Ink without trying to attack them, “You are right, Ink -STOP! Stop that damned ‘ooo’-ing, and just listen to me!”

“Okay, explain the situation to me, then, Dancey.”

Despite everything telling Dust not to do that, he complied with Ink’s request. If he was interested in something, he was more likely to do something about that. Sci’s vague statements about them that he had told Dust a long time ago, certainly were really coming in handy right about now.

“Nightmare got peeled.”

Ink bursted out into laughter, “W- what ? What does that even mean ?”

“I dunno man,” Dust ran his hands down his face, “Something happened to him- someone made a fuck ass deal with the boss, and now he’s all bone and niceness now.”

“… What ?” Ink cackled again, clapping his hands and skipping in a circle around Dust, “ C’mon ,stop dancing  around the truth and tell me! Tell me!”

Dust groaned, “Just…follow me, it’s better if I you see the guy for yourself, anyways.” Dust turned around and started walking away. That should’ve been enough to hook Ink in, and if not? He’ll just follow Dust around anyways to annoy him, the bastard.

The bastard did, in fact, merrily skip his way over to Dust. Walking side by side down the hallways. Ink was also going backwards, peering his stupid face in front of Dust’s.

Dust needed to ask Sci for some antidepressants or something, because Ink’s tomfoolery should not be making him this suicidal. Well, it shouldn’t be making his thoughts so, so much worse. He did not feel this bad a few days ago. Or yesterday. Or when he woke up-actually, he was feeling pretty shitty when he woke up, but he just ignored that feeling. So today was just an off day, it seemed.

“ Dust! ” Dust heard Night call out from behind a hallway corner ahead, “ Dust, are you there? Are you okay? ”

Dust yanked Ink by their scarf and pulled them behind him. Ink immediately shuffled and positioned himself in such a way that he’d be perfectly hidden from anybody that turns that corner. The amount of times this little demon had hidden behind someone out of shits and giggles…and the amount of times they sprang out to scare people, ugh, just-just ugh . Dust needed his mood stabilizers- something . He wanted to go home.

“Dust, are you alright over there?” Night’s head poked around the corner. He walked towards Dust, looking concerned-why did that annoy Dust?-with Horror and Killer following a few steps behind him.

“Yeah,” Dust shrugged, “I’m just the normal amount of suicidal right now.” That made Night look even more concerned as he stopped a few feet away from Dust, hands folded in front of his face.

“That’s supposed to be…closer to zero than I presume you are now.”

“Yeah. Anyways, before Killer says shit- I see you -look at this little shit I found.” Dust sidestepped to reveal Ink to the gang, to which Night fucking shrieked at. Horror yelled in surprise, which was fair, but Night’s reaction was too much. Very grating. Killer was Killer-nothing fazed him.

“ WHAT THE WHY IS THAT THING -?!“

“Oh my goodness!” Ink leapt off and over Dust’s head, becoming his 13 reason for the seventieth time, rushing over to the extremely startled Night.

“Dust was right about you being peeled !” Ink hopped around Night like they were on a pogo stick, “No wonder Dream was freaking out about not sensing you-you’re so clean ! There’s a giant hole in your skull! And your eyelight’s  purple ! Your cyan shirt’s kinda ugly, though.”

“Uhhhhhh…” Night recoiled from Ink, and Dust was so glad he wasn’t the one being annoyed at that moment, “Yes, yes, I remember you, Ink…” poor thing, “Don’t…tell Dream about my current state. Or I will kill you.”

“Can I help?” Dust raised his hand up like he was in a school room.

“Of course.”

“ sweat .”

“Wow!” Ink kept on hopping, “You’re nicer too!”

“Sure!” Night clasped his hand together, clearly getting more and more uncomfortable, “Hey, since you’re so knowledgeable about the multiverse, do you have any idea how this ,” he gestured at himself, “could’ve happened? Because no one here has any idea, including me. I…barely remember a lot of things.”

“Ooo, amnesia,” every word out of their mouth , “Well, how about…ooo, maybe it was Bill!”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“You don’t know Bill? Bill ? Triangle guy?” Ink, with their fingers, made a triangle shape over one of their eyes, obviously having to relate to this Bill guy that no one knows about. Night clearly didn’t know, Dust didn’t know, Horror looked confused, and even Killer looked visibly confused. They all had no clue what shit that guy was spewing.

“Care to elaborate on this ‘Bill’ character, Ink?”

“Yeah! His names Bill, Bill Cypher and…uh, well…I can’t remember much more, at the moment.”

“Of course.”

“Maybe Sci knows? Oh, I can ask Dream-!“

“-Ahuh,” Night glared at Ink normally, before his eyelight flared cyan and he swiveled down, grabbing Ink’s shoulders and forcing them in place. Dust moved to the side to see Ink’s “oh shit I fucked up” face in all its glory. Unfortunately, his repositioning made him get closer to Killer, who had also moved a bit to get a better view.

“Listen, Ink, dear,” Dust straightened up a bit, reading himself for…something at Nightmare’s tone of voice, “How about you shut your stupid, rambling mouth, and do us all a favor here, hmm?”

“ what favor ?” Ink squeaked out, voice barely above a whisper, sweating like the rain.

Night’s eyelight simmered back down into that lavender as he took a breath. “Just get me, and my gang, out of this castle-out of this universe. And don’t you dare say a thing to Dream . Understood, or do I need to make you understand, Ink Sans?”

Killer let out a low, quiet hum that only Dust could really hear. Based on previous experiences, this meant that Killer had made an “interesting observation.” Probably that being Night’s tone carried over from the color switch-if not his tone becoming a tad more violent.

Ink nodded, vigorously, a strained smile on his face. “Okay, will do!” He gave Night two thumbs up as best he could.

“Good,” Night let go of Ink, much to the later’s delight, “Now, where should we go-“

“i wanna go home,” Horror blurted out. Dust looked over to see him frantically cover his mouth in horror(t hat joke will never not be funny to Dust).

“I’d also like to go to Hor’s home,” Dust said, because it wasn’t like he could to his own AU. Wait he should’ve said Sci, fuck-

“I too want to go to Horrortale,” Killer chimed in. Fuck . God damnit . Augh, he wanted to strangle this guy.

“Alright!” Ink yelled as he whipped his brush into the air, “Majority vote rules for Horrortale!”

“Wait a minute!” Night shouted, “We should have a proper discussion before-“ and before he could say more, Ink whisked them all to Horrortale.

They all flopped onto the floor of Aliza’s room. Technically-Horror’s room, but Nightmare forced him to give it to her since he wouldn’t be using it anyways. At least Aliza wasn’t sleeping on the couch anymore.

“ INK !” Night’s angered shout made all of his crew jump to their feet, seeing Ink standing on top a desk. Aliza’s desk where she did her homework. On top of many papers that had also spilled out onto the carpeted floor. Oh no.

“I brought you all to Horrortale!” Ink exclaimed, “Just as promised!”

“ GET HIM !” Night shrieked.

“I will now take my leave.” Ink quickly bowed and left before any of the many bones the three subordinates fired off at them struck. Now, there was a large hole in the wall. Oh no.

Night shouted in anger, clutching his head and shaking his head. “Useless,” he muttered as he pushed through Dust and the others, “I’m so-“ he sighed, “-Clearly Aliza and the uh, Papyrus here, are not in this building. Let’s…go.”

Night walked out of the room, Killer and Horror following close behind. Dust stayed in place, looking at the room.

It was nice. Really nice, simple but definitely with more furnishings than his own room, back in his own AU. It was lived in, in a homey way. And they all just thrashed it. Poor Aliza.

Dust suddenly just felt so deeply, utterly tired . Maybe it wasn’t a sudden feeling though. Maybe he was just ignoring it. Had been ignoring it for a while.

“ Dust? ” Night called out from what seemed to be downstairs. Stop being worried.

“I’ll clean up the room a bit!” Dust called back. He really did want to tidy it up just a smidge, and also have a empty room to dissociate in.

“ Alright, don’t take too long! ” Dust would in fact take too long. He would, because he was determined to do so.

Actually, he didn’t feel determined to do much of anything at the moment. Maybe just cleaning up. Yeah, yeah he could do that. Just a bit more staring at room, waiting for the guys to leave…

The moment the front door clicked closed, Dust crumpled onto the ground.

Dust was used to having “can’t do shit days,” even here, working with Nightmare. Nightmare always groaned, whined, then made Dust do extra work after he recovered, but he always let Dust recover. Night should let Dust recover now, too. He was supposed to be nicer after all- was nicer after all. Right? Was he really nicer, or was it just an act? Was this all just some sick, twisted act that Nightmare whipped up? Just to mess with them all?

Dust didn’t want to care about anything. And the uncontrollable wave of apathy that slowly filled Dust’s being as he continued to be collapsed on the floor, definitely helped with the “not caring” business. He just let himself slowly become more and more familiar with the texture of the carpeted floor, the way it felt against his bony face. How it snuck through the holes of his skull, in his nasal cavity and eye socket. The way it reflected his breath right back into his face. You know, normal carpet things.

“you look like shit.”

Why thank you, voice that Dust does not recognize. Ah, it’s probably some hallucination or some shit.

“i’m not a hallucination.”

That’s what a hallucination would say.

“damn, are all you dust sanses like this? probably all the ones that jackass took in.”

Hmm, that sounds…not really important to Dust. Being unresponsive had already filled his schedule for the next half hour.

“aight, not important, don’t care. let’s get some info out of ya… soon .”

A hand was placed on Dust’s back, it griping onto his jacket before Dust felt the familiar sensation of being shortcutted.

“yer being kidnapped,” the stranger said, dragging Dust along a tiled floor. The sound of a lock clicking open was the closest thing to a warning he got, before being thrown through a doorway. The sound of city traffic assaulted his ears-wait, city traffic ? City ??

His…not exactly fall was cushioned by the worst smelling trash bag, which had been leaning against the wall of a dirty alleyway. In a city ???

This was not Horrortale.

“c’mon,” the stranger’s grasp returned to Dust’s jacket, “‘is majesty’s gonna find us soon. we need to talk before then.”

Dust was pulled away from the trash, and he stumbled himself up to his feet. Turning around, he got a good look at the one who “kidnapped” him.

Dust’s eye sockets widened. That…that Sans was…

“quit your staring. let’s move, mite, while we still can .”

Dust complied.