Chapter Text
Nightmare was minding his business when Cipher popped up behind him. Two decades of peace, broken for no reason.
"Hello, my beloved." purred the shape-themed Sans, "I'm here to give you a gift."
Normally, the king of negativity would not lower himself to look at some floating idiot trying to court him. The fool would shamble away eventually if he paid them no mind. However, there was another person's presence by the filthy creature, so Nightmare deigned to turn around.
It was a bedraggled Sans. Stale negativity had dribbled down the monster's face, clearly for so long that everything below the sockets was black. Its soul was reduced to sharp, jagged red lines constantly trying to piece itself back together. While the middle held most of itself, compacted inside, there was a ring of unstable LOVE circling the thing.
It was the most horrific thing Nightmare had ever laid his eye on- it didn't even hold a single emotion. Instead, the dark stains below the eyes held faint, rotten-smelling layers of what could've been kept inside the middle (probably) if it wasn't constantly on the verge of falling apart. It gave Nightmare the impression of the skeleton being a bit taller and slightly closer, since normally, he felt emotions from inside someone's chest.
Between the middle and ring laid translucent wisps of love, hope, and compassion. Nightmare, not wanting it to dust on his floor, gently pulled back his hostile aura so it didn't hurt the little remains of the magic holding the circular soul together. As much as he detested positivity, he hated cleaning even more.
"You like it?"
A line of worry dripped over the rest of the monster's soured emotions. Then two more, one of spite and one of indignity. After that, there were no more fresh emotions. It was more than likely a massive strain on the rickety soul to produce emotions that didn't even stay in it for half a second.
Even though it was demeaning to talk to such a person, Nightmare set his book down and asked Cipher, "What's the occasion?"
"It's your 500th birthday." the bright yellow being answered, "I got you a killer to help with your future endeavors."
Nightmare only stepped out of his castle to steal human fantasy books and candy from babies. He wasn't looking forward to leaving more often to provide for a mortal.
There was also the problem of, you know, actually caring for a monster, especially one that seemed as delicate as spun sugar. Nightmare didn't even know how to keep a plant alive, let alone a thing that could wander around and die by falling down the stairs.
Cipher floated there, looking at him expectantly with a stupid grin on his face.
"It's useless to me." Nightmare said inside his head, "A killer? More like a get-killed; a stray leaf could end his life."
Out loud, Nightmare said, "Leave them here. I will decide if your offering is adequate."
His centuries of being childish, uncooperative, rude, and uncompromising had proven useful, lowering the bar and making the other immortal beam with joy at such a meagre response. They were on the same level, and yet the other bent backward to attempt to please the self-proclaimed king of negativity at every meeting.
"I'll be back soon for your opinion." Cipher hummed happily, disappearing in a poof of smoke like the dramatic idiot he was.
Nightmare didn't know why he was keeping the sacrifice. It would probably be a very long time until the next time he and Cipher were in the same room, let alone having another conversation. The mortal would definitely be dead by then.
He was probably influenced by the book he was reading. Some dragon kidnapped a princess, but as it turned out, she hated her life and begged to stay with the dragon. Now they were trying to live together, but not getting along.
This was his favourite trope. Yeah, that probably fueled his dumb, impulsive decision too.
Now there was a mortal standing in one of his castle rooms, so close to dusting that Nightmare genuinely feared that if he made too sudden of a movement, the Sans would crumble apart.
Also, aside from being extremely unstable and incredibly fragile, it looked exactly like a normal Undertale Sans. Blue jacket, white shirt, basketball shorts, pink slippers. Pretty much everyone could turn on and off their eyelights, but Nightmare suspected the frail thing couldn't even summon them.
In the same way he'd approach someone he wanted to spook in the dark, he stalked towards the feeble skeleton. He wrapped his own aura so tightly around himself it hurt, but he had to be careful with his history of (mostly accidentally) doing damage to monsters with the pure malicious intent he caused to be in the atmosphere.
"I have a name, you know."
Nightmare couldn't decide if the tone was snarky or cranky. Based on the second bit of indignance the Sans had made since coming here, it was probably cranky.
Instead of sarcastically asking him if it was Sans, Nightmare paused his approach and gestured with his arms in what was hopefully a ‘tell me’ pose.
"It's Sans."
Nightmare snorted. Okay, yeah, even though it was expected it was still funny. But since Nightmare had never been named Sans nor intended to use that name, he nodded.
"Welcome to my castle, Sans."