Chapter Text
The uncomfortable feeling of Nightmare pulling at your soul is what wakes you up. No one is around to hear you grumble, but you do so anyway, carefully extracting yourself from the comforter and the cat who has made herself comfortable on top of it. Sage doesn’t stir, even when you turn the light on, and you’re just a bit jealous of her uninterrupted dozing.
It’s early, and you blink away sleep, standing in your room for a moment and just staring into space. You decide against putting your glasses on; you’ll come back for them if he really needs you to do something.
Still, Nightmare doesn’t call like this often, so you slip out of your room, talons tapping on the stone floor of the corridor. You leave the door cracked open for Sage to leave or Aster to go in, though you doubt either cat is planning to move right now. They’re probably nice and comfortable and, most importantly, still asleep.
There is sound in the hallway, however — Horror has also exited his room, looking just as confused and sleepy as you feel. And like you, he hasn’t bothered changing out of his pajamas, a comfy looking pair of flannel pajama pants matched with a stained, off-white shirt and bunny slippers.
Not that your own pajamas — cat-patterned joggers and a university tee-shirt with patches in the armpits — are much better. You do kind of envy the slippers, though. With your talons, the only option is boots to hide them, or tearing through socks.
“What’cha think?” Horror asks as you pad up to him.
You shrug. Horror having also been yanked out of his sleep makes it much harder to guess what Nightmare needs. “Dunno. Something weird?”
Horror shrugs. You take the time to see what’s what as he blinks sleepily, sockets half lidded. You tilt your head to the left, then the right — and then stop with a hiss. You must have slept funny; your neck hurts, all the way down to your right wing.
What a pain in the ass. Still, you can focus without triangulating — it’s just easier if you do.
You pinpoint Nightmare easily. He’s always the easiest to find, likely courtesy of his status as a demi-god, and also because of his empathic powers. That was how he had found you, after all; untrained empaths tend to send out their feelings like an extraterrestrial broadcast, he’d said.
As you’d expected, he’s in his office, but there’s someone else there with him. They seem exhausted, more than anything.
“There’s someone with him,” you tell Horror. They feel familiar enough, but that’s not really a giveaway — you do a lot of research for Nightmare, so one familiar soul doesn’t help much. “I think I’ve seen their world’s code, but it’s hard to match them to one without seeing them.”
Horror snorts as you start walking. “‘Course he’d spring this without telling us.”
“I mean, I knew about this person, just…” you pause. For a moment, the only sound is the scuffing of Horror’s slippers — your talons are quite quiet on the carpeted center of the corridor. “Yeah, he didn’t tell me either.”
Horror isn’t much of a talker in general, and you’re too tired to fill the space, so by the time you reach Nightmare’s office, neither of you has spoken in a few minutes. Still, as you open the dark wooden door, Horror mutters, “Hope they aren’t as annoying as Killer.”
You snort, but manage to cover it enough that Nightmare doesn’t glare at you about it.
Dust and Killer are already here — Killer in his pajamas, and Dust in his usual outfit. Admittedly, you’re a bit pleased to see Killer wearing the gag gift you’d given him for his birthday, a pair of boxers patterned with smiley faces and the words I HAVE ISSUES surrounding each.
You and Horror stop beside Dust, who gives you a mere glance before looking back at Nightmare. He’s leaning back on his desk, nonchalantly tapping his fingers on its surface. At his side, in one of the desk’s chairs, is another Sans-like skeleton. You can’t pull his code without him taking notice — it’s about as noticeable as a CHECK — but his outfit is distinctive enough that you know where he’s from.
The world’s code had identified it as XTale, and it had already been destroyed when Nightmare had asked you to take a look at it. Meticulously woven, its story was nonetheless a mess of re-worked stitches. Its creator had, figuratively speaking, frogged his project again and again, until someone inside had tired of it.
Given the type of people Nightmare generally employs, you would wager that this is that someone. In fact, now that you've seen him, you're sure he is. It matches perfectly with the code you'd sifted through, obvious even without pulling code from the monster himself.
He’s stockier than Killer and Dust, though he’s slouching, so you can’t tell how tall he is relative to them. His eyelights are white, fuzzed with exhaustion, and the bags under his sockets give his skull a sickly gray tinge. The only color on him at all, even including his clothing, is the bright red scar beneath his right socket. Determination, then — unsurprising, given that all of you have it in some way or another.
“As you all know,” Nightmare begins, “I have been keeping an eye on a space that Ink has been frequenting. His repeated visits to this white void colored me curious, given his previous dislike of empty worlds and ended stories. This is a story in which only one person survived — truly, the most firmly ended of all the tales I have seen.”
The skeleton beside him looks exhausted, though he does straighten slightly when Nightmare places a hand on his shoulder. “This is Cross. From today forward, he will be your teammate, and I expect you to treat him as such. He is a skilled fighter and a well-trained Royal Guard, and I believe he will be a great asset to us.”
“Neat,” Killer says, grinning as he usually does. You, Horror, and Dust simply make wordless sounds of assent.
Nightmare rolls his eye a bit — he looks annoyed, but you can tell he’s more fond of Killer than he’ll say aloud, especially in front of someone new. His soul practically bursts with it, and you’ve sworn yourself to secrecy about that particular fact. He knows you know, but you don’t need him to threaten you to make you keep it quiet.
Besides, it’s obvious to everyone else, too, even without the ability to read souls.
To Cross, he introduces you all, pointing at each of you in turn: “That is Killer. Dust. Horror. And Mitzi.”
You smile, perhaps a bit sleepily, when Nightmare gets to you. Cross seems a little confused to see a lone non-skeleton monster — or perhaps such a humanoid monster? — among the others, but it doesn’t seem like he’s going to make it an issue.
You only have so much patience with that sort of thing, and while it’s an easy way to foment discord on a mission to create negativity, it’s annoying to deal with at home. You’d had quite enough when you’d first met Dust and had to deal with that.
“Can we go back to bed now?” Dust asks, more a mutter than a spoken question, muffled by his hood as it is. You can’t help but mumble in agreement — not that you have anything to do tomorrow, you’re just tired.
Still, Nightmare has mercy on you. “Dismissed,” he says with a sharp nod.
Dust shortcuts out before Nightmare even finishes closing his mouth. Killer salutes before leaving the same way.
“Goodnight,” you call airily as you turn to leave. Horror doesn’t say anything in particular, just files out behind you, a familiar and looming presence at your back.
As you walk back towards the stairs, you hear nothing from Nightmare’s office. Perhaps Cross had passed out as soon as you’d left? It doesn’t seem unlikely, but it might be more likely that Nightmare is waiting until you’re out of earshot to have a private conversation.
Not that you’d spread gossip or anything. That’s Killer’s job.
“…He looks sick,” Horror grumbles as you walk down the stairs.
You hum in agreement. “Or exhausted.”
“Mm. Both.”
“At least he seems… calm?” You hazard. You’re the most recent of Nightmare’s recruits, but Killer had regaled you with tales of his early interactions with Dust, and of how Horror had acted when he’d first appeared in the castle’s dungeons by mistake. As if knowing what you’re thinking, Horror scratches at his face self-consciously, though he stops short of tugging on his socket.
“Yeah. Royal Guard, though… Never met one of us who could actually hack it, ‘least not without being a Fell version.”
“I’ve seen his code,” you say as you turn down the hallway where the inhabited bedrooms are. “It’s definitely not a Fell universe, or a Swap one, unless it just doesn’t have those tags in the name. Really rare for that to happen, though.”
“What’s it called?” Horror asks. The two of you pause in front of his cracked door to finish the conversation. The room beyond is dark.
“XTale, I think. I’d have to look at my notes again, but my stuff is in the map room,” you shrug. “And also I don’t want to look at work right now.”
“Fair ‘nough,” Horror replies with a rumbled laugh. Giving your hair a ruffle, he says, “‘Night, short stack.”
You roll your eyes, more affectionately than anything. Horror’s door closes with a squeak as you pad down to your own. Further down the hall, you can hear the soft sounds of Nightmare’s slippers and Cross’s boots on the carpeting. They’re moving slowly, though.
You step into your room and close the door behind you, because you don’t feel like getting into any conversation with your boss or his new recruit right now. Sage perks up with a quiet trill when you scratch her ears, but she settles right back down as you climb into bed, tucking your wings to your back as you shut off the light.
Across the hall, you can faintly hear Nightmare showing Cross his room. To the left, Killer is cooing affectionately to one of his own cats — Aster must be in the guest room to the left of his, where he and you have pooled your spare cat trees and tunnels. In the room to your left, across from Killer, Horror is already sleeping, and to his left, Dust’s room is silent. You wait a moment, listening for the soft, tell-tale sound of a paperback’s page turning, but it seems he’s won against his insomnia tonight.
Finally, a door closes, and you hear the faint sound of a drain plug being pulled in the hallway, which means Cross has been left to himself and Nightmare has retreated to his own space.
It’s rare to have a quiet night, especially with your magnified hearing, but you certainly won’t take this one for granted. You curl yourself up and sleep.
“So, what, is the newbie excused from our very treasured tradition of family dinners?”
“Killer,” you chide, but there isn’t much tooth to it. You think everyone has been wondering, honestly; you’d seen him for five minutes when Nightmare introduced you, and he hadn’t been seen outside of his room since. You had, however, heard him snoring while you were getting dressed this morning.
“He’s been asleep since, hm, about ten minutes after you last saw him,” Nightmare states. You gape a bit, and beside you, Dust pauses in moving his fork to his mouth. It’s been almost sixteen hours since then. “The environment in which he was left was very sparse in many ways, including magically. I expect his body needs time to rest and recover.”
You tilt you head nearly to your shoulder, but immediately move it back. Triangulating still hurts; clearly going back to bed had only exacerbated whatever damage you’d done to your neck before being woken up last night.
Nevertheless, you can feel it: Cross is asleep. His emotions still feel unsettled, but he is asleep.
“What’cha gonna do with him?” Horror asks.
“He was an experienced Royal Guard in his universe,” Nightmare explains, idly twirling his spaghetti onto his fork. “And an excellent fighter. Likely I will have him begin with reconnaissance, but I believe that will take a bit given his condition.”
You don’t say so — it’s not anyone else’s business — but you know that when Nightmare says an excellent fighter, he means that Cross overpowered all the other Royal Guards and Boss Monsters in his universe. It had been in the lingering code that you had pulled for Nightmare, among other things.
“You know something,” Killer says, jabbing his food-laden fork in your direction. He knows you too well, though you suppose that’s expected after living together for three years. Horror slaps his hand back down before he can throw a meatball across the room.
“I know lots of things,” you reply, “like, did you know that wombat shit is cube-shaped?”
“I did know that, and you know I’m not talking about fun facts!”
“I might know some un-fun facts too, like —”
“Stop,” Nightmare interrupts. He’s only vaguely annoyed, but you stop anyway. To Killer, he says, “I suppose I could have them go talk to Cross about your universe’s coding, if you want to know so badly.”
Uncharacteristically subdued, Killer replies, “Point taken, boss,” in a muttered tone. You don’t need to look at his soul to know his emotions have also subdued themselves, but you see it crumple slightly, as it isn’t hidden fully beneath the table.
“Uh, when do we wake him up?” Horror asks.
Nightmare shrugs. “I’m keeping an eye on him. At this point, it’s still helping him recuperate.”
You’ve long known that Nightmare’s empathic powers go far beyond your own, but how he can tell that, you don’t know. All you can tell right now is that Cross is, in fact, asleep, and that he’s been having a lot of bad dreams that Nightmare is nipping very quickly in the bud. Otherwise, he’d probably be a lot more upset, as well as a lot more unrested.
Still, you wonder what he’ll be like when he’s not exhausted. He was subdued and almost sickly looking last night, but you’ve seen his world’s code; you know what he’s done, and how the universe’s story went. But that doesn’t tell you anything about Cross in particular; that’s not the sort of thing you can see in the stories.
Your teammates, in particular, go to show that the stories are just that: stories. Sure, their worlds’ coding tells of how Killer agreed to kill out of boredom, how Dust lost his mind to the RESETs, how Horror had to kill to eat. But that doesn’t speak of the mental breaks that had to have happened for them to make the choices they made, which are plainly obvious to someone who knows them well.
Really, all you know about the guy is his name and where he came from, which is about what the others know now, too. Knowing about his universe and how it fell apart doesn’t mean much in terms of knowing the guy himself.
It’s like knowing the history of the United States; just because someone knows it doesn’t mean they know you at all. (And vice versa, given that the others at the table know you well, but — bar Nightmare, perhaps — know near nothing about surface history. And why would they, having never seen the Surface prior to Nightmare picking them up?)
Nightmare leans back in his chair. “I need you to attend Killer and Dust on their mission tomorrow,” he tells you. “My brother has been operating near our target universe, which means some crowd control may be needed.”
“Sure, boss,” you reply.
“You think Dream likes Disney songs?” Killer asks. “I bet you wouldn’t have to use bullet patterns if you just sang him one.”
“The bullet patterns are the fun part,” you scoff. Coming up with patterns to practice is almost a hobby of yours. It’s like playing an instrument without needing an instrument — the magic in the air is all you need to make sound, and sound is all you need to use magic. An easily controlled little feedback loop that lets you do things like disperse a crowd while humming a Christmas song, or even shatter a blaster into bits due to the loud whine they make as they charge.
(Dust can’t stand when you use that trick while sparring.)
“Whatever the case,” Nightmare interrupts, “You are to stay back and engage if needed only.”
“Sure, easy.”
“Dream doesn’t bother with us a lot anyway,” Killer says, lacing his fingers behind his head. He sounds almost annoyed about it, but there aren’t any easily discernible emotions coming from him — completely normal, but still a little unsettling. “Plus, if he sees songbird over there, he’ll probably just freak out and try to convert them.”
You snort, but say nothing. Dust lets out a soft laugh in agreement.
Nightmare rolls his eye, but doesn’t bother to instill his orders again. He must know that Killer already knows what’s expected, and that he’s simply trying to push his buttons. With orders given, however, he departs from the table with a brief thanks to Horror, which is the cue for everyone else to start cleaning up.
“Still fuckin’ hilarious that Dream hasn’t met you yet,” Killer snickers. “It’s been, what, two years?”
“About,” you agree with a nod, following him into the kitchen. There are only two pans to be done tonight, and it’s not your turn… unless both Killer and Dust decide to try to skip out on you. You hope Cross won’t be so annoying about chores once he’s settled in.
“Boss’s doin’ that on purpose,” Dust comments. He scoots between you and Killer with both Horror’s bowl and his own in his hands, turning the water on as hot as possible to rinse them. “If Dream knew he had someone who wasn’t a murderous bastard, he’d flip.”
“If Dream wants to be all high and mighty, he should realize that positivity doesn’t always make him the good guy,” Killer scoffs. He’s in Dust’s personal space, but Dust doesn’t move until he’s finished rinsing the bowls. When he finally moves to put the bowls in the dishwasher, Killer hogs the sink.
You sigh, waiting your turn beside Horror, who’s really only hanging around for moral support. He cooked, so he’s excused from cleaning up. “If positivity equaled good and negativity equaled bad, I wouldn’t be here,” you say. “Like, we all know —”
“— that this is a family issue that got outta hand, we know,” Dust rolls his eyes, but you can feel the fondness in it. “Say it all the time, feathers.”
“You know me. Prone to repeating myself.”
Killer finally moves from the sink. You shove your glasses back up your nose before finally rinsing your own bowl off. The pasta sauce has already crusted over, and you grumble about it under your breath.
Behind you, Horror mutters, “Goddammit.”
You already know Dust and Killer have disappeared, once again leaving you with the dishes. Still, your wings droop unconsciously at the prospect. “Goddammit,” you agree, not bothering to look behind you. “It’s fine, H.”
Horror taps his fingers on the counter. “We’ll get ‘em for it sometime.”
“Yeah, I’ll ask boss to stare them down for a week straight while they wash the pots and pans.” Thankfully, the pasta pot really just needs a quick scrub, and the sauce pot has been soaking in hot water, so it needs little more than the same.
“I hope Cross likes pasta,” Horror says with a frown. It’s kind of cute that he’s genuinely worried, you think.
“I don’t think there are people who don’t like pasta,” you reply, drying the pots. “Except, like, gluten-free people.”
Horror hums in agreement. You can still feel his stress, but it’s nothing you can help until Cross wakes up to actually talk to him about his food preferences.
“I guess I’ll go get myself together for tomorrow,” you tell him. Your goggles need washing, and you need to look at your notes on this universe again to make sure you dress appropriately. Frankly, you haven’t even looked at the mission objective yet, mostly because you didn’t think you’d be needed for this mission at all.
Horror hums again, then says, “Gonna make something he can heat up if he wakes up overnight.” He rounds the counter, making to pull a measuring cup from the cupboard. “…Somethin’ bland, if he’s gotta recover his magic.”
“Bland and light,” you agree. “He didn’t look good at all.”
Nodding, Horror says, “Looks a bit like malnourishment, t’be honest. Makes sense in a magic-thin environment.”
You nod too, though you don’t really know much about how the magical environment affects skeletons. They’re much more dependent on magic than sirens like you are, and it’s not really something you’ve heard about before.
Still, you bid Horror farewell rather than press him — he’s seen enough malnourishment for it to be upsetting to him, and if he plans on stress-cooking, you’ll leave him to it. It’s definitely one of the healthier coping mechanisms your little group has as a whole.
Cross’s door is still closed as you reach your room, though Aster and one of Killer’s cats are sitting outside of it. Upon seeing you, however, Aster immediately makes for your ankles, meowing.
“Hi baby,” you coo, picking her up. She wiggles a little, but eventually settles for looking pissed off at you for restraining her. You let her go after kissing her cute little forehead, and she follows you into your room.
As you close your door, you wonder if Cross likes cats.