Chapter Text
Lune woke up in a body that wasn't his.
That wasn't so unusual, all things considered. While their body was adrift, no one at the reigns, it was pretty easy for him to slip into control.
He looked around. Nightmare's (their?) room didn't have any windows, and he… couldn't read a clock. Lune attempted to reach through their collective memory for the skill, but Nightmare wasn't sharing. Where was Nightmare?
Lune occasionally got stuck in the back of their mind, or fell asleep, but Nightmare almost never did. 'Mare? he called out, internally. There was no response.
Well, okay, better make himself at home. Channeling his inner creature (literally), he shrunk a little, limbs reforming until he was somewhere in between adult Nightmare and himself. Still covered in goop, of course, but it was less jarring to move. Climbing out of bed, he noticed his clothes were sitting too large on his frame. Oops. Lune pulled a set of white pajamas from where they were folded and tucked away in the back of a dresser; Nightmare's way of making him a little more comfortable.
Glancing around the room, he considered his options. Nightmare had quite the collection of books in his room, and he—
Nights and days spent alone, with only silence and books for company, waiting for—
Lune shivered. Maybe not.
He walked up to the door, placed his hand on the door, and paused.
He… well… he really wasn't supposed to go out on his own, especially since he could sense the three Gang members scattered around the Castle. Nightmare would be pretty mad if he found out.
But the other option was staying here, alone.
He opened the door and peeked out the hallway. There was no one around, so he crept out and headed for the stairs. He was going purely off shared memories and imprints, something deep in his subconscious guiding his steps. It was a good thing, too, because the Castle was an absolute maze. Secret passages, empty rooms, dead-end hallways, the works. Nightmare had taken this route so many times, though, that Lune just had to pick whatever felt most familiar.
Running his hand along the banister as he went, he made his way down the stairs, then opened the living room door cautiously.
Sitting on the couch was Horror, already watching the door.
He must have heard my footsteps, Lune realised, but it didn't make him feel any less like prey. He froze. This was a mistake. This was a mistake. He— He'll be mad at me for not being 'Mare, or think I'm someone else entirely—
Maybe it was a residual memory, or maybe it was his own, but Lune slammed the brakes on the thought. No, he thought, firmly, this is Horror. I know him. We— We haven't met, but I know him. He wouldn't.
He waved, shyly. "H— Hello."
Horror was staring right at someone who definitely was not his Boss.
I can't just… ask who he is, he thought. But… look at 'im. Can't jus' go "Hey Boss, why're you a head shorter 'n scared of me?" either.
"Hey, I'm…" he tried to think of a way to phrase this that was at all normal. He failed. "Talkin' to someone else, right?"
The kid (?) nodded, hesitantly.
"Y'good?" he asked.
They (???) glanced around. "I'm not normally… alone," they said, in a voice that had some of the same cadence as Nightmare, but not much else. "Don't tell Ma— Nightmare."
"D'worry, I won't," Horror reassured.
"Promise?"
Oh, okay. A promise (a promise) to keep information from the man he trusted with his life and owed it to? That promise? They wanted him to make that specific promise in those words? Sure, why the hell not!
"Okay," Horror agreed. In a desperate attempt to make this less… really fuckin' bad, he held out a single pinky finger. "Pinky promise."
The smaller Nightmare (Smallmare??) brightened up. They stepped closer to him to seal the deal, taking twenty years off Horror's life in the process. He cast around desperately for ideas. "D'you wanna watch a movie?"
The kid practically sparkled. Horror could swear for a second their eyelight turned star-shaped, but he dismissed it as a stress-induced hallucination.
"Oh, I know those!" And if that just wasn't heartbreaking. "Can we?"
"Yeah. Listen," he intercepted the 'kid'; it was too early for that. "I'm gonna getya somethin' t'drink… 'n maybe th'others. C'n y'stay here?"
They nodded again, and Horror had to resist the urge to pat them on the head.
Horror leaned in through the doorway of the training room. "Kills?"
Killer turned his head to look at him. "Huh?"
"Remember… Other Nightmare?" It wasn't a great name, but they'd been working with very limited information. The occasional glimpses of strange behaviour, gaps in memory, snippets of overheard conversations with thin air. Nightmare probably thought he was keeping them in the dark, but it was obvious to anyone with—well, not necessarily eyes, but you know— that there was someone else in there.
"Yeah?"
"They're… in th'livin' room?" Horror thought for a moment, before remembering what he was here for. "Wh'movie w'ld a kid like?"
"Aw, damn," Killer complained, "They're a kid? There goes my fuckin' bet."
Horror stared at him.
"Right, movie. Uh. Kids like…" he tilted his head slightly, "…things?"
Honestly, Horror wasn't sure what he expected. He grunted. "Jus' go get Dust."
"Normal 'get', or drag him here?"
"Normal. Why w'ld he have t'be here?"
Killer shrugged. "Dunno. It's your idea. I'm not the one who wanted t'watch a movie with a ghost."
Horror had the urge to correct him, but he didn't actually know they weren't a ghost. Not a ghost monster, of course, but the mostly-human idea of one. Hauntings and narratives and all that. It would explain a lot of things.
Not in the mood to consider the nature of the soul, Horror left and headed for the kitchen. He started to go through the motions of making tea, purely out of habit, and had to recalibrate halfway through opening a cabinet.
Not Night, he reminded himself, or… not the one I know. Horror weighed drink choices in his mind for a bit, before a memory came to him.
They kept cocoa in an old tin in the kitchen— it was useful in a few baking recipes. A couple weeks back, he'd found it empty. Horror had thought nothing of it at the time; his memory was enough of a mess that ingredients 'disappeared' all the time. Still, he could've sworn he hadn't used it, and the others would at least mentioned if they had.
Well, that would work.
Lune wasn't sure if he'd made the right choice until he was handed a frankly decadent hot chocolate by Horror, tiny marshmallows and all. He'd seen them a couple times from his backseat in Nightmare's head, but they were still practically a mythical concept to him. Like one of those cartoonish sundaes with an unrealistically red cherry on top. It wasn't something you actually got, only aspired to.
He held it close to his chest, too nervous to even take a sip. Lune watched as Horror did something mysterious with a series of plastic boxes; Nightmare struggled to remember the ins and outs of technology on his own, so the memories certainly weren't going to survive the transition.
The TV (now he could remember the word) flickered to life in all its 720p glory. Lune wasn't exactly sure what he was looking at, but he did have enough of a grasp on the concept of a movie to be entranced. It was animated (see, he knew that one too) in breathtaking color, although it could've been that his standards were just low. Lune was so invested that he completely missed the hint of a smile on Horror's face, and nearly missed hearing the other two walk in.
He glanced over at the door to see Killer trying to hide a snicker. Dust on the other hand didn't seem phased at all, even through his (admittedly rusty) empathic senses. Come to think of it, Horror hadn't been surprised either. How obvious had he— had they been?
Killer leaned forward on the couch, casually. He waved.
Lune waved back, emotions mixing in his chest. On the one hand, his instincts told him even more strongly to trust Killer (and a small voice wanted to… bite him? He ignored it.) On the other hand, he remembered a lot of murder. Like, an obscene amount of murder.
"H-Hello," he squeaked, "Hi. I'm— Lune."
"Nice to meetcha, Lune!" Killer said, cheerfully. Horror shot him a look. "Can I ask a quick question?"
"Killer…" Horror warned, but he was completely ignored.
"Is there, maybe, a third guy in there? About yea high," he gestured at roughly knee height, "Made of… goop, very bitey."
Of course, Lune recognised the description instantly. "Oh! Bug!"
"Hrrrk—" Killer fought desperately to keep a straight face. "Bug," he repeated, a little giddy. "Right. Awesome, thank you."
Bug stirred slightly at the attention. It broadcast a half-thought that meant something like Hungry, which was what it thought most of the time anyways. Then, a little louder, Mine. Lune didn't know what to think of that, and he wasn't exactly planning to voice it on Bug's behalf. Something for Nightmare to work out when he finally felt like communicating.
Lune turned his attention back to the movie, sipping absent-mindedly at his drink. It was probably the best drink he'd ever had, the taste reminding him of—
He winced, reflexively putting a hand to their missing eye. He wasn't even recalling a bad memory, just some arbitrary chunk of their life that their mind had decided was now off-limits. The thought vanished into thin air, leaving only a sharp, stabbing pain in his forehead.
Horror cast a worried glance in his direction, but thankfully didn't say anything. Lune wanted this day to himself, thank you very much, and he was in too deep to wake Nightmare up now.
Besides, he wanted to see what would happen next. The others had already settled in, getting right to work making comments along the lines of "what if they tried murder" or "I'd totally win that fight." It was weirdly comfortable.
Also, the hot chocolate was really good.
Nightmare woke up, checked his internal clock, internally hit it a few times on the side of his internal desk, and cursed.
It was, without a doubt, one full day after he'd gone to sleep.
He looked around, checking for creaturelike patterns of destruction. There were none, which could indicate Bug had also been asleep… or that it'd moved on to greener pastures.
It had been… quite a while since he'd lost this much time. Back in the early days, when Horror was still new and the Gang was only barely cognizant of the world around them, he could get away with tearing a few pillows to shreds or holing up in a bathtub for few days. Nowadays, they might notice that sort of thing.
Lune did not volunteer any information. No one in the Castle was concerned enough for him to have slept through the day, or injured enough for Bug to have gone on some sort of rampage.
What is an inconspicuous way to ask if I tried to bite anyone? Nightmare wondered, slightly hysterical.