Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Did heaven exist? Was it a place? Did it have fluffy little clouds that he could let flit through his fingers like sand in an hourglass?

What was hell like? Was it hot? Would hands grab at you from the ground and drag you into their depths and suffocate you until you were dust?

What did a hug from a friend feel like? A mother? Or father, he wasn’t picky.

These were the kinds of questions Nightmare asked himself when he was younger, back when he lived in the temple with his brother. Of course, way back before he’d had any scientific expertise, when he truly did believe in the concept of a higher being that cared and punished those who did wrong.

These were the kinds of questions kids asked him now, holding his wrongly warm hand with wrongly smiling faces as the light left their eyes and he was left alone wondering, too, where the Devil was. Where God was, and why God would let the Multiverse come to how it was.

Nightmare had read a book once about how the Devil was God’s truest admirer, descending upon the Earth to bring sin to humanity for them to prove they deserved God’s help. Maybe that night in the temple all those years ago had proven humanity and monsterkind too far gone for help.

And now? He was here, curled up in a ball in a hammock in some glitched out version of Underfell, somehow still standing after Blue’s brutal attack on its codes. Cross and Error were gone somewhere, probably captured by Ink, Blue’s usual tag-along, and brought to the Justice Reign for “imprisonment” before promptly escaping and returning back to the little house in the remnants of the Omega timeline that the three of them shared.

With Error gone, Blue had lost interest and disappeared, leaving Nightmare alone to make himself sad enough to conjure up a portal back home to meet up with them. 

Error and Cross’ usual bickering was loud and enjoyable, and Nightmare really did miss them, not too worried about any harm coming to them due to the despicably dilapidated conditions of Sir Flutters’ dungeons, but he didn’t feel like going back just yet.

The wind, presumably caused by fluctuating temperatures within the codes of the dying universe, swept through the decayed old fabric of his clothes. If he closed his eyes, it almost felt like the breeze he’d feel as he lay in his mother’s branches, cracking open a good book as his brother—his REAL brother—clambered around the trunk, doing whatever energetic kids did in a restricted space.

He couldn’t ignore the blood on his hands, though, nor the dust that conjoined with the sticky red liquid and crusted into the joints of his fingers. He’d run out of gloves this time around due to the sheer amount of people he’d needed to help, and sterilization became a luxury as his makeshift medical tent had flooded full of innocent citizens from a naturally negative-leaning world who were dragged in by Error’s strings, which were carefully wrapped around any wounds or breaks so Nightmare could treat them. He could only hope that the ones Cross had managed to portal out were scattered enough to not be found by Ink or Blue. The rest were gone.

It was a tactic he’d notice the parasite that called him brother would use quite often: send out Ink to find negative AUs, release Blue to satiate his destructive desires and have Ink watch to make sure he didn’t destroy anything else, and eradicate anything that could possibly be negative. Fallen humans, typically Frisks, were quelled first to ensure no RESETs could ever occur to bring that universe back if they somehow survived.

Nightmare was one of the only people to remember the war-torn universes in which negativity far outnumbered the positivity, and he was one of the only people to remember how quickly those wars ended once the people realized they stood no chance. And, of course, because they no longer existed.

This Underfell wasn’t even an Underfell in visuals, anymore–the parasite had all of those destroyed already. No, this Underfell was only an Underfell in code, as checked by Error, but that was decidedly too much of a risk for the parasite. Hence, total destruction. It wasn’t enough for him that it was practically a normal Undertale in every other aspect.

Nightmare gazed into the falling snow, some of it black, some of it red. It fell from a now non-existent ceiling and fell onto a somehow still-existing floor, collecting into multi-colored little piles that quickly melted into oblivion. Snowdin–or what was left of it–was crumbling around him, and here he was. Comfortable. Seated in a hammock he usually only brought in his inventory for emergencies.

He wiggled his fingers, feeling the biological matter crackle and fall to the ground, then let out a sigh. The breath he let out was purple, most likely a result of the universe’s failing codes. How that worked, he wasn’t sure, given how there wasn’t a Sciencetale nor a Protector left to study universes anymore, but he still had his theories.

Nightmare had never stopped asking questions. Not when his brother died and was possessed by a parasite, not when he watched everyone he had known slowly die because they couldn’t remember the negative things that they used to run away from, and especially not when his new home, Sciencetale, was wiped out by the parasite’s debuting assistant, Ink. His questions had only changed in content. 

Why were his bones warm now as opposed to the icey cold they were before?

Why did he always feel sick?

Why did people stop caring when their guts were laid out on the ground like roads on a map?

At least for these ones, he’d figured out an answer: not enough negativity. 

He figured he was a piss-poor Guardian of Negativity given how he was literally dying from how little there was. It was probably after the first few people started dying with smiles on their faces as they went about their days with holes ripped through vital parts of their bodies or souls that he realized that.

The multiverse was burning, his world was gone, and it was all because he was a failure. No amount of healing could ever fix the damage that was happening, could never substitute for the damage that needed to happen to actually fix the world.

He’d seen glimpses of other multiverses in his dreams, of other Nightmares with their goopy tentacles and sadistic pleasure. No matter how removed he was, he could never enjoy someone’s pain. His conscience could never allow him to cause it at a massive enough scale to truly fix the multiverse.

So he let it die.

The pain he caused was simply coming into contact with people who had grave injuries and helping their souls remember what pain and misery felt like. Their screams echoed through his mind as he tried his hardest to stitch them back together, but it was never enough.

Despite his misery, his head would clear and he’d use these intense moments as times to figure out both how to save their lives in the moment and long-term. 

There were the facts: people only felt negativity once touched by his bare bones due to the negative charge of his soul. This used to be his aura back when he’d had enough magic to have one. Therefore, he needed to cause enough misery while also somehow expanding his magical radius to jumpstart negativity back into the Multiverse.

He couldn’t do it on his own. So, he needed to remove his conscience.

In these entropic moments, his hands occupied by holding people together, his mind could only think of tearing them apart. Tearing apart the black flesh of the final negativity apple and effectively killing himself in order to save the multiverse. Also, again, by becoming the disease that killed it.

He’d held the apple in his hands before, taken it out of the dusty corner of his inventory that it resided in, held his teeth around its ripe, never rotting skin. But he could never bite down.

So it remained.

Something plunked into his lap and he flinched, looking down at it.

The solution to all of his most prominent problems. The solution to the multiverse’s lack of problems, the biggest problem of all.

It had been getting lighter over the past few years, more purple. He presumed it was the lack of negativity that it represented.

His bloody, dusty hands curled around the fruit that represented his livelihood, his life’s purpose. They lifted it to his teeth, almost in a kiss. His mouth wasn’t even open yet he was already salivating.

Then, Cross and Error flashed through his eyes. He’d saved each of them from their respective hells, even rehabilitating Cross and helping him feel his full range of emotions again after being held captive by the parasite following the destruction of XTale.

How would they feel? If he became anything like those other Nightmares, those two would become the first victims of his reign of terror. Out of malice, he’d probably go straight to them, torture them vigorously as they could do nothing but look into the eyes of the one that saved them, the one that, despite all of his shortcomings, they loved as a brother. As family.

…

And he knew he’d enjoy it.

A grunt came from his left and he was out of the hammock in an instant, apple away and staff summoned. His eyes scanned the area for the source and instantly met a sight that should have been impossible: a Frisk. 

Specifically, a seemingly glitched-out Frisk who was seemingly reaching out from the ground and climbing out of a non-descript pile of glitched-out snow.

It looked like they were dripping in blood, with the red substance spread across unnaturally pale skin, hair, and clothes like they had tried to clean it but failed. However, Nightmare failed to see any open wounds, so he still needed to find out where it all came from.

He decidedly kept a socket on the suspiciously clean kitchen knife the human held in their hand.

The should-be-dead human took in ragged breaths, heavily dropping their forehead onto the snow while still half submerged, and Nightmare’s subconscious immediately began taking note of how there seemed to be something obstructing their airways. Was it blood? There did seem to be an extra concentration of blood coagulating around their mouth, but it sounded more like phlegm from Nightmare’s experience. It wouldn’t hurt to check… after he figured out if they were a threat or not.

How was this Frisk alive? Nightmare was almost completely sure he had seen this universe’s Frisk somewhere on the floor in the Ruins, dead, with their soul ripped out and consumed by Ink. And that one certainly didn’t have the same color scheme as this one.

Was this a different Frisk? Where could they possibly be from? He ran through the increasingly shorter list of universes that still had a human capable of RESET and recalled that none of them looked like this one.

Had Ink failed to kill them, somehow? Or maybe he had succeeded, but the human had figured out a way to revive themself, utilizing the SAVE before Blue ripped out those codes as well.

They lifted their head up to look at Nightmare through blood-encrusted lashes with a pained expression on their face, red eyes dilated to a point that must have been painful, what with the sheer amount of light going around. Their pale white hair, which Nightmare now realized might have just been a result of albinism, was stained red and sticking to their face and neck.

“Are…you Nightmare?”

His sockets widened.

Nobody asked if he was Nightmare, especially not incodes. Their voice was so small, and Nightmare could definitely hear the phlegm clogging their throat. He felt a lump in his chest, his soul twisting. So, he unblocked his empathic sense, something he never usually did due to the overly positive emotions near constantly burning his senses.

His sockets widened even further. 

If it wasn’t so unbelievable, he thought he could sense negativity coming from their soul.

Sorrow. Physical pain , particularly from the stomach, chest, and wrists. Desperation…and hope. Nightmare hadn’t realized how he’d almost forgotten what those emotions felt like.

His staff was quickly dissolved and he dropped to his knees, leaning forward over the human and checking over them for injuries. In his peripheral vision, he saw the knife fall into the snow as their hand relaxed. His fingers, filthy with dried blood, were now dancing around their face, neck, and shoulders, checking for any wounds whilst receiving a new layer of warm, fresh blood.

Their hand, equally drenched and bony, reached up to his and stopped him. 

“I’m ok. I…I need to know though, are..?”

He nodded, leaning back onto his ankles and wiping his hands in the snow, leaving behind streaks of dark grey and maroonish-brown. 

“Yes. I am Nightmare.” He then wrapped his arms around the human’s chest, shifting his legs to support him more as he carefully began pulling them out of the floor. “Tell me, how did you know my name?” They only winced, and Nightmare sensed their nerves flash within the chest with discomfort, bordering on pain. 

He carefully adjusted his pressure more towards their back rather than their chest, the more intimate physical contact allowing him to sense that the pain was mostly in their lower ribs, most likely some kind of bruising from blunt force trauma or the like. They wrapped their arms around him like a lifeline, wrists askew like they were afraid to touch him.

The Frisk took in ragged breaths, red eyes closing as they leaned their forehead against his chest, so cold in an emotional sense that Nightmare wondered how they weren’t affected by the imbalance. How he couldn’t have noticed them. He decided to let them rest, allow their body to adjust to their extremely awkward position as he tried to figure out what the hell was going on with them.

It was an almost paternal position he was in, holding the Frisk as they apparently tried to calm down from whatever pain they were in from phasing through the floor..(?)whatever that was about. Maybe a failed loading of a SAVE point? No, it wasn’t there where they came from, it was further -

“I’ve been trying…to find you…for years,” the Frisk finally said. Nightmare could only stare into the snow behind them in confusion. Their hands finally settled on his back, spread out like it pained them to keep their fingers together.

“You…you will save us. That’s…what the save screen…told me.”

Their hands curled up into fists, gripping the back of Nightmare’s shirt as they made an unintelligible noise. Panic slowly built up in Nightmare’s bones as the human’s chest, right around where their soul would be, lit up in pain so intense he winced too.

He tried to lean them forward, to get a look at their face as they struggled—are their pupils dilating? 

“Help–” They gurgled like they were choking on blood.

Why is the pain spreading so quickly? 

“Fuck, I’ll—I can’t —see you..!”

Why was the pain so intense ? It didn’t seem like a heart attack, it–

“...later.”

Didn’t…matter.

In an entirely inhuman manner, the Frisk turned to dust, but in a way completely different to a monster, as well. Left behind was a sole golden token, reminiscent of a SAVE point, covered in the odd dust.

He stared at it. What..?

He picked it up, cupping it delicately in his hands. A blue-shifting-into-red snowflake landed on it and melted immediately, turning a deep red and multiplying impossibly into a stream of liquid. It had a kind of resonance to it, some kind of vibration but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

Stupidly, hopefully, he encompassed it with his empathic sense. Nothing but…neutrality. Which, in comparison to the now natural positive charge of most objects despite not even having emotions, was odd.

He heard a portal open behind him and distorted giggling was accompanied by the distinct rattling of bones. The token was quickly slipped into his scarf, safe with the fabric of what used to be his cloak when he was younger.

“Yo, Scoot! Look what we got!”

Nightmare grinned smally, still troubled, as he turned to the two most important people in his life.

Cross held up two thick leather books, one in each hand, spilling with papers and handwriting Nightmare recognized as Dream’s and occasionally Ink’s. Battle plans. Or…at least plans. His face was split with a wide grin, and he felt the natural positivity of his joy like a breath of fresh air amongst the usual toxic positivity.

Error’s positivity accompanied his, and while less strong due to him only having a shard of soul, it was still present alongside an equally wide grin from him as well. He held one more similar book and…a chicken? Wait…

Nightmare smiled as he almost leaped forward, taking the chicken in his grasp.

“ B-b-big Bird-d was keepin’ K-kev in the fricking dungeons ,” Error said as Nightmare cooed at his pet chicken, thought to be lost after Ink raided their base a few weeks prior while they were out running errands. He felt the chicken, warm and soft in his hands, and felt a calm wash over him that, for some reason, only the chicken could provide.

He’d always loved birds, though chickens were his least favorite since he was young. Funny how that turned out, now, with his sole animalian companion other than his friends eating food being a literal chicken.

“Thanks for getting him out of there. I appreciate it,” Nightmare replied, hugging the chicken to his chest and cradling it like a newborn.

Error rolled his eyes and crossed his arms while Cross gave him an incredulous look and switched both books to one arm, running the back of his hand on Kevin’s head. 

“Dude. This is Kevin. Obviously we’re gonna save him,” Cross states while staring into Nightmare’s eyes, then huffs a laugh as Kevin rears his head back and attempts to bite at his fingers.

Nightmare shakes his head then retorts with an exaggerated loll of his head,  “I’m not sure, I thought you guys would have been so hungry after sooo long in the dungeons.”

“ H-h-hey! ” Error fixes Nightmare with an angry glare. “ I’m not t-t-that fat, jeez! ” He then sassily side-eyes Cross, grimacing in a way that looks ridiculous on skeletons. “ Just l-look at-t-t him ! He’s t-t-t-tryna sav-ve his own skin by bein’ n-nice! ”

Cross only responds by flicking him on his forehead, leading to an equal response from Error: he drops the book he was holding and jumps on him. Cross drops his  books, and the two begin to brawl as Nightmare softly starts caressing the chicken’s neck. As Cross tries to bite Error’s arm to get him off, Nightmare takes note of the still-open portal behind the two.

“Hey,” he calls as he slides Kevin under his arm to rest on his hip bone. “We should probably get going soon, if not right now. I’m not entirely sure how long it will take until somebody notices you two are gone and follows you through this portal.”

Error lets out an exaggerated sigh and slides off of Cross’s back, who was now sporting a purplish bruise on his cheekbone. “ Okay , Mr. Smart-Fart. Let’s go home .”

“Mr. Smart-Fart ? What the fuck kind of nickname is that , dude?” Cross laughs as he picks the books back up from the ground. Nightmare notices his face drop a bit as he dusts off the…well, the dust from the leather. Nightmare walks in front of the two as Error scrunches up his face in disgust.

“ At least I don’t just call people dude , you fuckass snowflake .” He makes a dramatic pose and grins. “ You could say I’m… creative ! ”

“Of course! Creative looking ,” Nightmare throws over his shoulder, closing the portal and using the residual negativity to form a new one to the abandoned, nearly destroyed but not quite Something New that they used as their current home. He tried to aim it towards Hotland to combat the cold chill of the dying Snowdin he was currently in.

Cross barks out a laugh as Error flicks the back of Nightmare’s head, then shoves past him (gently, of course, he was holding Kevin) and strides dramatically through the portal. Cross chases after him, ‘ooh’ing and yelling “BURNN!!” at his turned back, a paper or two falling out of the books he held and falling to the Hotland floor.

Nightmare remained on the other side of the portal, looking in through the wispy lavender edges of his magic. Kevin clucked, presumably anxious to run free and out of Nightmare’s arms, but he stayed. For some reason, his feet weren’t ready to leave quite yet.

He turned around and examined the now almost non-existent landscape. A bit longer, perhaps ten more minutes, and it would be completely gone. Destroyed. Another failure in Nightmare’s ledger. Another universe of innocents…gone. 

Remaining where it last was, seemingly not even disturbed by the wind, was the dust of the human. He was sure it wasn’t actually doing anything, but the token felt impossibly cold in his scarf. It was still vibrating, and he could have sworn it intensified once he looked at the remains. 

With his free hand, he removed it from his scarf and examined it. The liquid was now crusted uncomfortably like blood, though through his experience he knew it wasn’t. Upon closer inspection, it looked like…a locket. Odd shape for a locket, especially in the Underground for a human, but he figured anything was possible, especially with an anomaly like this one. He looked back at the pile of dust and, before he knew it, was opening the locket and scooping the dust into the small star.

He wasn’t sure what compelled him to do so, but he did. His gut was telling him that it would be important, for what, he wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t about to let his gut feeling go to waste.

As the locket clicked closed, he stood back up and returned to the portal. With one last look at the dying universe, and the star locket safely in his inventory as opposed to his scarf, he stepped through the portal. The tell-tale intense static noise accompanied by the death of a universe was barely heard as he closed the portal behind him, entering the dying heat of Hotland.

It was only later as he prepared to go to sleep that he realized the human hadn't left a single blood or dust stain on his clothes.

Chapter Text

About a week had passed since the odd encounter with the human. He would have liked to say that he completely forgot about it, but he had not. Busy with other things such as fighting the parasite’s gang, collecting enough food for him, Cross, and Error to survive, etc. etc., he had clearly been slacking, and it seemed as though the others were taking notice. Cross had even asked him if he needed him to steal some sleeping pills to help him sleep at night.

However, the pills wouldn’t help. Not with his problem, at least. 

The more Nightmare thought about the strange human, the more questions popped up in his mind. Where did they come from? How did they exist? Were the parasite’s timeline branching failsafes…failing? Did a human figure out how to break out of the stream of time and reality?

It got to such a point that, whilst dissecting the newly acquired book of the parasite and Ink’s plans (finally! After an entire week of doing other things!), he could barely focus on even processing the information, instead running the strange locket in between his phalanges. 

He’d opened it once after returning. The night of, actually. He’d accidentally inhaled some of the dust and coughed so terribly he’d woken even Error up, who slept like a hung-over teenager on summer break. It tasted like rust and blood.

He’d been too scared to open it again, to lose any evidence of that strange encounter. 

Not even caressing Kevin could help him calm down.

So, he took a break, leaving the locket and the books inside the True Lab.

He swung his legs over the edge of the dead CORE of Something New , holding his oldest companion, Kevin, to his chest. Somehow, there was a breeze coming from somewhere. It did nothing to wash away his thoughts.

Footsteps that sounded like Cross’ echoed through, but Nightmare made no reaction. In his peripheral vision, he saw Cross quickly approach and tilt his head in confusion at what Nightmare was doing. He felt the realization of something click into place before he saw Cross’ expression match it, and he was soon joined by the monochrome skeleton.

“So…what’s poppin’, dude?” Cross asked, a wave of concern drifting gently towards Nightmare. The words prodded gently at his teeth, to unleash the mystery and the true reason why he was so troubled, but he drank them back inside with a sip of water, gently putting it back inside one of the many pockets in his cape. He didn’t feel ready to relay his encounter to one of his closest friends quite yet.

“It’s…concerning, to say the least.” He sighed and pondered for a minute before continuing, deciding to regurgitate the information in a way that placed the blame on the parasite as opposed to himself. “There are indications that the bird is not in the least satisfied with how his failsafes for timeline branching are working. There are…glitches, mentioned. And not the same type as Error.”

“. ..the f-f-fUCK is tHAt s-s-supposed to meAn? ” Error suddenly appeared on Nightmare’s other side, his figure distorting in a way that Nightmare had come to learn indicated that his friend was nervous. Due to not really having a full soul, and Nightmare’s increased insensitivity to negativity, it was increasingly more difficult to detect Error than Cross, who technically had two souls. He had gotten used to his freakishly instant appearances within time.

Gently prodding his fingers into Kevin’s neck feathers, he replayed the encounter for the umpteenth time in his mind. A human appearing out of nowhere in a dying universe. Unnatural coloring which, technically, could be explained due to universal circumstances, but could also be a sign of something else. Not to mention the odd behavior…and their uncanny knowledge. An idea occurred to him: perhaps the Frisk wasn’t of that universe, and had traveled from universe to universe before finally discovering him in that Underfell?

Gasters, despite their mingling numbers, were usually easier to spot within dying universes such as that one due to the barriers between realities thinning and even disappearing entirely. Perhaps this was an alternate version of CORE Frisk, branching off of the original timeline due to the untimely demise of the original CORE Frisk…thanks to the parasite, of course.

“Dude, you got that thinkin’ face on you, and good things never happen when you look constipated as a skeleton.”

“ I-I agree with the man ch-ch-child, h-how the fuck do you do that?”

“Ch-ch-cha cha cha , motherducker, let him think!”

“ Y-y-y-y OU’R E the one that started it, you f-furry twink !”

“ Ok , dude, well , I’m not even–”

An irritated cluck interrupted the next round of bullshit coming out of Cross’ mouth, to Nightmare’s rare relief. He gave Kevin a scritch of gratitude and he clucked happily this time.

“As I was saying , there are glitches. You are both aware of the bird’s method of negativity-prevention, correct?”

Error nodded enthusiastically, and Cross stared blankly at Nightmare before noticing Error and mimicking him. Nightmare only sighed.

“Well, he initially has Ink scout the universe and detect any signs of negativity. That, or he has him scan it to see if it is a branch off of an incredibly early version of a negative-leaning Underfell, like the one we were just in yesterday.

“At the basis of reality, everything branches off of the original timeline. It simply depends how far back you go that determines which ones you are cutting off.

“For example, that ‘negative-leaning Underfell’ branched off of the original Underfell centuries before it actually gained the traits that made it Underfell. Despite technically being Underfell, the events that actually led to monsters becoming violent and unruly were prevented, hence leading to the universe only being Underfell. Understand?”

He turned his head and looked straight at Cross.

Cross nodded, a light purple blush dusting his cheekbones. Embarrassment gently wafted over to Nightmare and he nodded, ignoring Error’s snicker and returning to gazing down into the dark CORE.

“Upon learning this, the cumberworld–”

“ Cum in her?! ”

Nightmare refused to look up at what he knew would be Cross’ most bewildered face as Error completely burst out laughing, visibly grabbing the railing in Nightmare’s peripheral as he bent over the CORE.

“...apologies, an old insult I used to use a few centuries ago. It means ‘someone who is useless’.”

He then flicked Error’s forehead harshly. “That applies to you, too. I taught you how to read years ago and you still do not do anything except read those stars-forsaken novelas.”

Turning his head to Error, eyeing him directly, he said, “Not even the good ones, either, just ridiculous romances that are completely irredeemable–”

“ Do NOT say that about my Eduardo y Bella, bitch ! ”

The two made aggressive eye contact with each other before Nightmare broke it, returning his gaze to the CORE yet again. In his other peripheral view, Cross was visibly suppressing his own giggles.

“Continuing on! and I will reactivate it and toss the both of you into the CORE if you interrupt me again , the fool decided to have Blue reach into the original timeline of every negative leaning universe and delete the code of every Frisk, or fallen human, RESETting. That, or feed them to Ink. As of right now, this has happened to all fallen humans with sufficient DETERMINATION except 5: three Frisk variants, one Chara, and one Justice Soul. Any other humans within the Void that might have the ability were hunted and destroyed by Ink both a century ago and two months ago, about. In the more recent hunt of the Void, nobody new was discovered, meaning Ink’s genocide was successful. So, in summary, Dream has been limiting the Multiverse’s options to truly have a variety, and all humans capable of anything defying him have been accounted for or destroyed.”

He remained silent for a few seconds, testing the two dolts he hangs out with for some reason to see if they listened to his threat or not. 

“... s-so what–”

“There has been a sighting of a human most likely capable of RESET or at least some form of SAVE.”

He felt the shock radiating off of the two of them in waves. It was…spicy. And somewhat refreshing. He closed off his empathic sense.

“...holy shit, dude.”

Cross got up next to him and began to pace, a habit Nightmare had come to know as Cross’ nervous tic.

“So, what are you thinking, he’s gonna crack down on the universal thing? Make it worse somehow? Holy shit, is he gonna go after the original timeline –?”

“He doesn’t know about it.”

Nightmare did not need to be an empath to feel their confusion. He himself was confused. Why in the everloving stars would he say that..?

…Cover. Solidify your lie.

“Ink discovered it but didn’t say anything. He instead wrote it down discreetly, presumably to avoid the attention of Dream.”

As a dull pain started up in his chest, he reopened his empathic sense and was assaulted heavily with hope . More from Cross than Error—mostly from Cross, actually, but still.

Kevin clucked as he quickly shut it off again, and he realized he was grasping the chicken harshly. A taste of something humid and cloying, rotten but only barely enough to notice was left in the back of Nightmare’s throat. 

…Suspicion. From Error.

Fuck.

“Oh shit, dude, sorry, I didn’t mean–”

“No, it’s fine, don’t apologize. I know what you think about Ink.” His head began aching. “Perhaps it’s a sign that he still has something akin to a soul inside of his empty ribcage even after you left.”

Shifting Kevin to one arm, he quickly shifts himself backwards and stands up swiftly. His vision goes black as he realizes what a bad idea standing up was, swaying and swinging out his free arm, desperately grasping onto the railing. His eyelights finally resummon as two pairs of hands reach him, one on his shoulders, the other on his ribcage, steadying him. Cross looks at him, hands on his shoulders, with wide eyelights and a miserable expression on his face.

“I’m so sorry, dude, I swear, I didn’t–”

“Do not apologize for feeling hopeful, Cross. Of everyone in the Multiverse, you and Error are the two who can appreciate it most, and I desire that for you both.” Nightmare left out the secret third option and closed his eye sockets, willing the dizziness away.

“ Here, l-l-let me take K-Kev ,” Error says as he removes his hands from Nightmare’s ribcage. He hears him walk in front of him and accordingly lets Kevin go when he feels the gentle tug from Error, as well as Cross adjusting to move behind Nightmare.

Cross reassuringly squeezes Nightmare’s shoulders, presumably from behind now. “I’ll carry you back to your bed, dude, you don’t look too good to walk right now.”

With that, he was gently lifted into Cross’ arms bridal-style, and he couldn’t help but note the breeze felt a little too warm on the walk back.

As they entered Hotland, Nightmare expected the tangy smell of monster dust. When the only scent was sulfur and, well, normal dust, he was confused. This was Something New , wasn’t it? Why wasn’t there any..? 

…Wait. There never was any. This branch of Something New was forcefully given a True Pacifist ending by the parasite, by way of threatening the Frisk and Flowey that one more fuck-up would cost them their universe. That, and the deletion of Sans entirely from this particular branch. Blue seemed particularly happy about that, for some reason.

One more technicality, of course. The only reason this place was still standing, though he doubted it would be standing for much longer given how aggressive the parasite seemed to be getting recently, even without knowing about the human.

Silly him for forgetting. The pain must have knocked him back to the old days, when Killer!Sans still existed. Loathe as he is to hate anyone (except the parasite), he severely disliked that guy. The lack of eye lights always ticked him off, and the obsessive behavior…ugh. He shivered with a particularly cold gust of wind and nestled into the fur of Cross’ jacket, which smelled like chocolate and… ugh , that fucking Japanese Cherry Blossom perfume. Of all scents…

The refunctioning air-conditioning of the labs, courtesy of Cross, blasted across his face and thankfully removed the scent for a second. The leftover scent of sterilized equipment and metal quickly replaced it and Nightmare was grateful for the familiarity. 

The dual beating of Cross’ souls was a comfort to hear as he heard Error press the button for the elevator, yet the vibrations and slow descent did little for his headache. In fact, it seemed as though his headache was getting worse as they went down. He opened his eyes and realized he could barely see Cross’ face right in front of him. 

For a moment, he felt as though he was outside of his own body. Everything was…clear for a second. Painless. 

He was standing beside Cross, staring down at his own face with its fuzzy white (they looked sort of pink, actually..?) eyelights, before he was violently forced back in as the door opened. He grunted in pain, feeling as though he’d just been in a car crash, curling up further. Not even the empathic block could hide the panic building up in his companions’ souls. 

“Dude, you good?”

His eyes shut as a sharp pain stabbed through his chest.

“ N-n-nIghtM AR e ?”

He felt the blankets of his bed behind his back and legs and heard the frantic fluttering of wings. A pillow was quickly placed under his head, but before whoever had placed it there left, he latched on. He was reminded vaguely of the various people he had conducted surgery on without anesthesia due to running out too quickly.

What could possibly be causing this?

He opened his eyes and instead of being met with eyelights, he was met with red human eyes, instead. Familiar red eyes, except this time, they were clear of blood. Their hair was pasty white, as well as their skin. Their face was anguished. In other words…they looked like a ghost. One that shouldn’t exist.

A sense of guilt filled his soul for some reason as the apparition faded into Error, whose eyelights were glitched out. 23% loaded hung above his head, and Nightmare quickly detached from his friend and hugged himself, averting his gaze to the ceiling of the True Lab. 

Well, that would explain the guilt.

Double fuck.

Cross slowly came into view, looming over Nightmare. He was raising his hands up slowly, then down slowly…up, then down…up…then down…why in tarnation was he doing Nightmare’s breathing exercises?

He immediately realized that he was hyperventilating, and his soul was palpitating, and nodded at Cross in a silent thanks for noticing. He nodded back and continued until he deemed Nightmare’s breathing stable enough to stop.

A ding rang out from Error as he reached the 50% mark of his reboot, and Cross snapped, using his magic to drag two chairs over from…somewhere, placing one behind Error and one behind himself, promptly sitting down.

Nightmare averted his gaze to the ceiling. He could feel Cross’ gaze digging into him now.

“So…what the fuck was that, dude?”

He closed his eyes. At least now, he could answer completely honestly.

“No damn idea.”

The silence was deafening, only broken by the sound of fans and the eventual collapse of Error onto the chair thankfully provided by Cross. He hunched over, elbows on his knees. His breathing was heavy, but more so like he was recovering from a run, rather than Nightmare’s previous hyperventilating.

“I am deeply sorry about that, Error. I didn’t mean to grab you so suddenly. I just…I wasn’t aware of my surroundings at that moment.”

Error nodded. “ ...I g-g-get that-t-t. I f-ff-figured , sinc-ce you were, like, s-s-seizing and stuf-ff-ff. ”

Nightmare looked at Error in confusion. “...What?”

He twisted to Cross as he picked up the story. “You, uh…looked like you were in a lot of pain. Your eyelights were doing weird stuff, too, and you started, like, freaking out in the elevator, especially when the door was open.” Cross’ eyelights darkened slightly. “I don’t…that was scary , man.”

He swore his heart stopped as he recalled something. The taste of rust and blood on his tongue as he inhaled that dust the week prior.

Triple fuck.

Error and Cross bullied Nightmare to the bed, Error threatening to tie Nightmare up bondage-style with his strings if he so much as got up from the bed to look at the bird’s notebooks. 

To intimidate him, Error remained in the chair near his bed and practiced knots on some mannequin-thing he found in the corner of the lab as opposed to his typical crochet-or-knitting, while Cross went off to go cook something. Surprisingly, he was the only one of the trio who actually knew how to cook without setting the stove or himself on fire, so Nightmare had faith he wouldn’t get food poisoning with whatever dinner they received.

As he waited, he thought.

Clearly, there was something up with that dust. Of course, one should never inhale the dust of something dead, whether it’s someone’s ashes or monster dust, but typically the effects are never hallucinogenic, more moral or social if people found out.

However, he’d also never seen a human dust before, so that most likely had something to do with it.

Descriptions of people snorting Amalgamate dust were unfortunately common back when negativity was prevalent, specifically within universes where starvation was so prevalent the Amalgamates died and monsters broke into the True Lab and ate what they could find, inhaling the unfortunate remains of the experiments.

Something similar to Mad Cow Disease (vCJD in humans), a horrific mammalian disease would sometimes occur, though it was never clear whether that was due to the starvation or the cannibalism, given how it even occurred to those who only consumed monster souls or simply just starved, albeit a lot slower. 

The only thing that could be determined was that, presumably, the DT left behind in the Amalgam dust accelerated the disease’s progress to an exponential degree, and—he was getting sidetracked.

Or, wait. He had a point there. Abnormal behavior, struggles with walking, hallucinations…though, with the amount of DT present in a human soul, he would have definitely presented these symptoms a lot earlier and a lot more progressive than all at once, suddenly and briefly, an entire week later.

Horrific disease that haunted his own nightmares (hah) was out of the way then.

Perhaps…echo dust? Echo flowers were known for repeating sounds, and if any is ingested or inhaled, it would act as a visual as well as auditory reliving of a memory imbued in that dust. Due to the fires that had been set in Waterfall, it seemed like a somewhat likely possibility, though the chances of a potent enough dosage ending up in the human dust in Snowdin of all places seemed incredibly unlikely.

He set that possibility aside in his head and began sifting through other possibilities, but was quickly interrupted by the sound of the elevator and the enticing smell of garlic and cheese. 

Error immediately abandoned post and started giggling like a maniac, and he could hear Cross yelling at him to “stay away from the garlic bread, dude, you look like a freakazoid!”

Their familiar bickering began and Nightmare closed his eyes. Maybe he could take a break, for a bit. He hadn’t been sleeping well recently, after all, and he’d always felt better after sleeping quite a bit.

Okay, not for “quite a bit”, but he could afford a quick nap. He rolled over on his side as their voices slowly faded out, and his thoughts slowly came to a close.

.

..

…

Are you still there?

…

Are you still….listening?

……

Thank God , I was scared this wasn’t going to work for a hot minute, he was getting kind of stupid.

………

I mean...I wouldn’t wanna snort some mystery dust either, so I guess he's not that stupid….

……

Anyways.

Don’t worry about responding back to me, as long as you send me some kind of signal that you received this.

…

Help is on the way. I swear it. I’ll be back with you soon.

Chapter Text

It had only been a few days until something went wrong.

He didn’t even really remember what had happened, it all just…went black, and he swore there was something he was forgetting (aside from what had happened a few days ago) and he didn’t even have the energy to summon his eyelights and look around the room.

It was cold and damp, and his bones rattled desperately in search of warmth, clattering against his chains. His friend—what was his name again?—would have made fun of him for sounding like a Minecraft skeleton…whatever that was.

How long had it been since he’d seen him..? It certainly didn’t feel like just a few days.

The smell of musk and mold filled his senses, and he distantly remembered warmer days.

The sun.

The smell of apples and dirt.

The taste of a strawberry milkshake, freshly made.

A clatter rang out from somewhere on his right, and his eyelights only summoned enough to make out a hooded figure in black through the bars of his enclosure, hunched over and rifling through a decrepit old chest. The only other light in the dungeons came from a dying torch on the opposite side of the room.

From his point of view, lying on the ground, he couldn’t see what they were doing, but it looked as though a rusty old silver cup had fallen and they desperately sped up to avoid…something. Getting caught, probably.

“Don’t…don’t even try,” he muttered, so quietly he could barely hear himself. He knew what the figure was looking for as they turned around, clearly able to hear him better than himself.

A mask covered the lower half of their face, copper-ish goggles obscuring the top of their face, but the signature red hair of an Undyne slipped out of her hood.

If he focused hard enough, he could see her eyes–yes, eyes –widen as she recognized him.

“D-” she could barely get the first syllable out before a knife impaled her through her chest. As she dusted, falling to the floor, he couldn’t even bring himself to muster up enough magic to cry.

A red target soul was the only thing lighting up the space aside from the torch, and a loud cackle echoed as Killer looked down, holding the knife in his hand as the dust absorbed into a puddle of water on the floor. As the dust disappeared completely, his head angled upwards, and he could feel the monster’s eyelights, however invisible, focus on him.

“So, whaddya say?” He leaned forward and placed both hands on his knees in a condescending manner, his tone shifting to a more babying voice. He did whatever a skeleton’s version of a pout was as he asked, “Givin’ up already?”

His Cheshire grin spread slowly across his face yet again as he giggled, standing back up and leaning his weight on one leg. “Ya know, I thought you’d have more fight in ya.” His mouth scrunched. “I’m a liiiiiiiittle disappointed you didn’t deliver, but don’t worry, pretty boy!” He smiled, and he could feel the cruelty radiate in waves from the beast. 

“There’s always another way to have fun !”

~~~

“ Mo-t-T-T HE R fU Ck –e-eE R !! ”

Error shrieked as a rat streaked underneath the table he was currently hiding under as well. In a world where looks could kill, Nightmare hoped Error was dead as he glared at him. Dolt.

Shouts echoed through the hallway as the parasite’s guards were finally alerted to their whereabouts, and Nightmare wasted absolutely no time darting out from the table and bolting down the hallway. Metal clanked behind him as he sprinted with the parasite’s books in his hand, and he snickered as he quickly turned left into a servant’s path, kicking the door closed and locking it with a jerk of his head and a wisp of magic. 

People startled as he dashed through, and he left behind his fair share of apologies after knocking down an unfair share of food. Oops.

Anyways!

Currently, he was streaking through the east side of the palace, heading towards a banquet hall which then led to…what did it lead to again? He ducked underneath a particularly short doorway, tucking the books close to his chest as he tried to remember the layout of the palace. The human’s locket dug into his sternum uncomfortably, but he didn’t exactly have time to adjust it, so he let it be.

Now, what was next…

Oh yes, a library!

He’d have to loop back once losing the guards to climb up and leave the now-vandalized books in the worst positions possible.

Perhaps he could make them jump out the window. Not like they would die after Blue coded death out of anybody under Dream’s rule, anyways…he’d feel bad about it, though. Kinda.

…he made a note to go to sleep earlier that night. He’d pulled at least three all nighters in a row trying to finish processing then vandalizing the books (the latter of which taking significantly less time than the former), and they’d finally decided to move from the dead Something New to another universe, one dubbed something like “Zazatale”? He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he was sure he’d find out. He quickly approached the door to the banquet hall. Somehow, it had remained an incode despite the parasite’s near constant attempts at exposing every single universe to the wider Multiverse–

A pitch black bone nearly impaled his eye socket and he reflexively ducked, only to get the air knocked out of his non-existent lungs as Ink punched the books he was holding and was struck onto the ground, hitting his coccyx incredibly painfully. Nightmare wasn’t sure if the crack he’d heard from his spine was old age or a bone breaking. The books fell open around him, and it looked like a scene out of a highschool drama as Nightmare looked up at the soulless skeleton.

Despite there being what seemed like an infinite source of lights in the banquet hall, the only part of Ink’s face he could see were his eyelights, piercing white and barely visible as well. 

Motherfu–

Blue strings wrapped around Ink’s neck and yanked him backwards, and Nightmare didn’t waste a moment scrambling up and running around Ink’s now flailing body. Disturbingly enough, Ink remained completely silent as he squirmed on the floor, arms restricted to his chest as the strings wrapped around him like a snake. Error cackled as the two made eye contact, then quickly went stone-faced. “ You l-l-left me-e, Dr. Mc-Suck-a-dick.”  

Nightmare rolled his eyes. “You sold our cover, Error.” He shrugged as he walked up next to Error. “I had things to do.”

Error just snorted. “ Mmk buddy, like getting caught by this loser? ”

Ink writhed more aggressively. Nightmare regretted his previous lie of Ink “hiding” the human from the parasite. He doubted the poor monster would ever get out of the parasite’s hold ever again, if this behavior was any indicator. Guilt curled up deep in his stomach at the thought of Cross, who still hoped dearly that Ink was a good person deep inside. 

Oh well.

Ink stopped writhing and fixed him with a confused glare. He ignored it.

Spit was collecting in his mouth due to the pain from his spine, and he quickly spat it out into a trash can. “Well, I technically did not get caught, so–”

Somebody coughed behind them and the pair slowly turned around. A platoon of guards, all with their spears and swords raised in their direction in a blindingly golden display, was facing them. Error looked at Nightmare quizzically. “ Well? ”

Nightmare swallowed the pain, annoyed at how more and more comical these situations got. The parasite really couldn’t hire smarter guards…? Then, he ran. Again. This time, Error smartly decided to follow closely behind him, and they were yet again part of a wild goose chase.

Out of the banquet hall, past the library, into the grand staircase, head up to the throne room but then dive into a supply closet. 

This was a lot easier without all of those books. Not as clever, though. This wouldn’t be haunting them for months. He sighed in disappointment, then hissed in pain as he crouched in the closet, cradling his spine. 

Open the hidden passage in the supply closet, let Error in first, then lock it shut with a glue-type magic he recently discovered he had, and let them try and break down the door.

Done.

Stars, his spine throbbed so terribly. If he was anyone else with a lower pain tolerance, they probably would have curled up screaming on the floor by now. 

He made a turn left, Error following behind him down a staircase that Nightmare remembered led to the kitchens and at least three other hallways leading to noble dormitories, two of which had minimal traffic at this time of year due to being empty of nobles. He figured either of those hallways would work for their escape.

With this amount of pain, he assumed it was a break. That, or the amount of negativity in the Multiverse had decreased so much in the span of a few days that a simple bruise caused this much pain to him.

Fuck.

Once at the bottom of the stairs, there was a large circular room with three doors. He took the third one to the right, heading down yet another staircase that would head to the hallway. It also opened up a route to the dungeons, the kitchens, and a few noble dormitories.

Running down the hidden passageway, hearing the banging from the trapdoor, fueled him with adrenaline…and Error rammed into his back.

It was like a firework had gone off inside of his marrow–multiple, actually, and he collapsed to the floor in pain.

“w-WHaT THE fU-C-CK! Du-DDE??!”

Error gently touched the upper part of Nightmare’s spine, and he gestured to the lower part near his coccyx, Error immediately getting the message.

As Error readied his healing magic, the sound of an explosion ripped through the passageway and Error instead pulled him up behind him, leading him down the path. Error knew this route, but not as well as Nightmare did. He took them down a left, and it took Nightmare a second to process their route over the excruciating throbbing of his spine.

“Error, this heads towards the dungeons –!” 

“ I know ! ” Error responded like a sassy teenager.

They reached the door and Error dropped down to his knees, taking out a lockpick from his pocket and working on the door. Nightmare leaned against the wall, trying to put as little pressure against his spine as possible.

“Error, what are you thinking , why are we going to the dungeons?! I’m aware they’re easy to break out of, but they are pesky and pathetic ! ” Nightmare hissed.

“ Exactly! We never go there, so why would they think we’re there in the first place?” Error said with a flourish of his hands as the door clicked, swinging open slightly.

He sent a string back the hallway and Nightmare heard two more doors open, presumably the other two routes to divert the guards’ attention. Nightmare rubbed his temples at his own stupidity. “Stars, you’re right.”

Error scoffed and smiled, holding the door open and bowing with a flourish. “ I’m always right, bitch.”

Nightmare stalked into the dungeons, dark and dusty. After a quick glance at the empty room, and a quick scan with his empathic sense, he sat down on his side to reduce stress on his spine. “So, are you still wondering if that strawberry banana smoothie has strawberries, then?”

Error immediately flushed dark blue and angrily whispered, “ THAT wAS ONE time , you c-c-CAlcium deficient s-slug .”

The door clicked closed behind Error, and Nightmare relaxed his skull on the floor; it was cold, but not uncomfortably so. As a stampede of feet rushed past them just as Error predicted, he got to work on healing Nightmare’s spine.

A quick lift of his shirt had Error hissing in sympathy, and Nightmare only slightly scared. He’d hardly even been hit by Ink, was it seriously that terrifying..? Perhaps he should start taking vitamin D and calcium supplements to see if that would help his increasing osteoporosis, though he doubted human cures would help magic diseases, especially when concerned with the emotional balance of the Multiverse or whatnot.

The familiar staticky and fuzzy feeling of Error’s healing magic quickly overtook his lumbar vertebrae, and the pain soon subsided to a manageable level. He knew that, once they returned, though, he’d need to provide some kind of support to aid the healing process since healing magic could only unfortunately do so much for him.

Perks of being a non-monster, non-human magical being whose physical and spiritual health relied on other people. Ugh.

Error helped him up once he finished with his spine, and Nightmare immediately pulled his knees into his chest and put his cheek on his knee like a little child. 

Error quirked a brow.

With a sigh, Nightmare explained, “They’re going to see our vandalism nigh immediately upon looking at the books instead of finding them randomly in the library months from now like I planned on originally.” He pouted to emphasize his disappointment. Like a child.

He was met with a blank stare from Error. “ ...are we d-deadass right now. ”

Nightmare returned the stare and drawled, “Yes, absolutely, assuming that people even read anymore.”

Eye contact was held for about 21 seconds before the two began giggling. Nightmare wasn’t even sure what was so funny, but the two were giggling anyways.

He opened his empathetic sense again and scanned the area again, only finding two guards remaining in the nearby vicinity, unfortunately guarding the other entrance of the dungeons. It would have been hysterical to have exited the dungeons out of the front door if he could, but he would much rather rest than fight. 

Otherwise, it seemed as though the servant’s pathways were empty. He’d have to go farther in them to see if the actual hallways were empty, but so far, it seemed as though the soldiers were stupid enough to simply go where they assumed they would go and not check every corner of the building for where they could have gone.

Perfect. For Nightmare and Error, not anybody else, thank the stars.

…or, actually, nevermind!

The sound of a lock clicking in place from the door they had just entered from had Error scrambling to unlock it again, and Nightmare felt the two guards outside move, hearing a faint click from the other door. Fuck .

However, instead of it being locked, light flooded into the dungeons, and the two quickly scrambled to hide within the darkest corners of the dungeons. Error, being emo, had an infinitely easier time hiding in what was simply a dark corner than Nightmare, who ended up underneath a pile of hay. Why in Nim’s name they had hay in the dungeons in their technologically advanced era blindsided Nightmare, but he didn’t particularly care as he felt the guards enter the dungeons. 

Heavy footsteps echoed throughout the dungeons, dark and foreboding…for Nightmare, at least. The guards were giggling, excited about “catching the rebel for the first time”. One voice was high and nasally, the other dry and barely understandable. It made Nightmare sick to his stomach, though he was used to the excessive positivity at this point. And–wait. Re bel ? Not rebel s ?

The footsteps quickly approached his location, and he held his breath as they passed by excruciatingly slowly, almost like they were enjoying their time. In all honesty, they probably were enjoying their time in the same way that they enjoyed all other times in their life. Nothing was truly feeling new or amazing for them, just an endless sea of positivity and nothing to truly ground them. 

In other words, constantly high with no regard for their own safety or well-being. He could already smell the odor from both of them presumably not showering, also presumably because they couldn’t feel disgust for their unhygienic statuses nor particularly feel bad about bothering other people because annoyance or guilt? It simply did not exist in the average person. He dreaded to see how poorly taken care of their clothes were if he could smell them that badly through the hay.

A loud sniffle, then the nasally voice said, “Hey, Error! Error…Sans? Is that right?”

The dry one affirmed the nasally one. He felt a whiff of joy from the nasally one and nearly threw up. Fuck , it was so unnaturally sweet .

“Error Sans!”

He felt Error’s confusion, flavorless and oddly textured, and already knew what he was thinking: what the fuck are these tweedle-dee tweedle-dum looking idiots doing looking for me, Error CQ the best motherfucker ever?

At least, something like that felt in character for him. Unfortunately.

“The boss said!...uh, what did he say again ?” the nasally one muttered.

Only more sweetness came from the dry one as opposed to annoyance, and Nightmare just wanted to scream. “He said that, if you turn Nightmare in, you can walk free!”

Nightmare figured he translated that whistle-speak wrong, considering how it sounded like he was wheezing laughing more than actually speaking (ex: Hee sedda’, if *cough* ya turn N*unintelligible*-n, *unintelligible* free! *cough cough*), but he already wanted to die. Seriously ? No actual way in all of reality, in all of the Multiverse did the parasite think that would work. Fuck no. Absolutely not. In absolutely no reality–

“ Awesome! He’s over here guys! I-i-in the hay. ” Error suddenly appeared out of his spot, teleported next to Nightmare, and Nightmare could only stare in disbelief as he ripped off the hay from Nightmare’s back. He blinked once, then twice as the guards came over, staring in awe at Error.

“Oh. Em. Gee. He really does look like a chump ! Awwww !”

Nightmare was going to kill himself. Right now.

…

Right after he killed Error, of course.

He swung at the traitor, but Error only grabbed his fist and smiled at him, waving as he walked backwards towards the exit.

“Error–” Nightmare tried to reason with him. “You can’t actually believe that idiocy.”

Error chuckled in an unusually masculine way. What did he think he was, cool ? Absolutely not .

“Obviously not, Hay-man. You” he emphasized this unnecessarily by pointing at Nightmare, “need a vacay, though. Enjoy !”

He glitched out of existence and Nightmare was left in the hay pile, staring up at the two guards.

Fucking little shit. Pinche mierda con la polla chiquitita . Chúpamela. (Fucking shit with the small dick . Suck my dick.)

What was the point of this? Why—oh. 

Error, that rat-fearing fiend. He probably did this as revenge for Nightmare leaving him for screaming underneath that table. Que pelotudo . (How stupid ).

They should have brought Cross along with them instead of having him make cheese from fucking scratch. So what if Nightmare and Error missed the queso fresco they used to eat? So what!

Unfortunately, queso fresco wouldn’t help him as he was picked up under the arms by the two guards like an insolent child and dragged out of the hay pile. Stars, this was humiliating, and the fact that everybody who would eventually see them would only see this as a sort of entertainment and enjoy it only angered him further.

Tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum were also unfortunately rather muscular, so he complied rather than resisting given his newly discovered increase of bone porosity. The parasite would probably heal him, but he didn’t want to trust nor rely on that thing for anything .

As he was dragged unceremoniously throughout the hallways, he noticed a lack of a single living being aside from himself and the guards. With further examination, he noticed that, even stretching his empathic sense to the maximum, only he and the twin idiot guards were in the castle.

…odd.

Concerningly odd, actually.

The castle had been bustling previously, and for it to be cleared out this quickly..?

Not a good sign.

At the very least, it saved him from public humiliation, but he would rather the humiliation than private torture.

Unfortunately, that was how the parasite worked, and his terrible feeling was rewarded poorly by detecting the outer radius of the parasite’s aura. He kept his aura reigned in, but at its full span, it covered the entire city plus a bit extra, making everyone within it impossibly happier. However, this was how he controlled Ink, so he most likely reigned in Ink to his office. Or Ink’s cage. Nightmare had seen his room before, and he could confidently say there was not much difference. He was like a dog, that one. Only listening to the hand that feeds, except instead of feeding him food, the parasite feeds him the necessary emotional magic to keep him alive. 

Rather sad, really. Ink had good variants out there. Nightmare rather liked the ones that used paint brushes and were kind hearted.

The two guards walked him down hallways that winded and, if he hadn’t already memorized the layout of the castle, would have had him lost nearly immediately.

Unfortunately, as they got closer and closer to the parasite’s aura, he felt vomit building up in his throat. His empathic sense closed, and he was left blind, though he doubted he was missing much.

Where did everyone go, though? Where could they have gone? He hadn’t heard a single announcement, so perhaps the parasite had used his aura to get everyone to leave? No, he would have sensed it and thrown up otherwise. 

Unless he was too preoccupied with his spine..? No, he doubted it.

Or, they could have used a less archaic method and simply texted out the announcement. Idiot. Though he wasn’t sure how that could have reached everybody if people didn’t have access to their phone. What if someone was bathing? He couldn’t imagine someone being so addicted to their phone they’d use it in the shower of all places. Granted, he didn’t have one, so he didn’t know their properties, but–

They were rapidly approaching the parasite’s office. The air radiating from underneath the door was tense and heavy, thick with some kind of smoke that Nightmare was sure only he could see due to it being pure emotional magic , and he immediately tensed up.

“ Chill , dude, no need to be so tense. Just relaaax , and let the big man handle ya.”

Stars, how badly he wanted to clean this guard’s nostrils. It couldn’t be healthy how congested he was.

With that, the dry one knocked on the door and announced their presence. Nightmare was sure the parasite had noticed he was there the moment the guards had first picked him up.

There was a call from inside, and a few seconds later, Ink opened the door, releasing a plume of smoke that left Nightmare coughing.

“Come in,” he said mutely, stepping aside for the guards to drag him inside the room.

It was blindingly bright aside from the smoke due to the ridiculously large window behind the parasite’s desk, and it looked like he had been smoking excessively beforehand. If it wasn’t for the sheer positivity that Nightmare felt roiling in his stomach, he would think that the parasite had gotten high with Ink.

He preferred the smell of weed , he thought as he stumbled forward and vomited into a small trash can that was placed conveniently beside the door. A sharp pain came from his knees, and he was grateful he was wearing thicker pants that day.

A deep chuckle came from behind the desk, and Nightmare immediately hurled again, choking up bile. He heard the door close behind them as the two guards giggled away, walking away and leaving him behind with the two beasts. Of fucking course.

He tried to shut off his empathic sense as tightly as he could, but the parasite’s pleasure still seeped through. Swallowing more bile, he attempted to stand up. Cool hands reached around his neck to unclip his cape but Nightmare slapped them away, Ink swiftly returning to his position at the side of the parasite’s desk.

Trinket.

His eyelights were met with the most unfortunate sight he’d ever seen: the corpse of his brother, grown up and filled with a demon. It grinned at him, its smile too wide with its chin on its folded hands. A feather fluttered and fell down, swept to the side by Ink immediately.

Stars, how he hated this bitch .

It tilted its head at him. Curious. Eyes dissecting.

“Hello, brother. I see you’ve been doing well.”

Chapter Text

It felt like he was dying, yet simultaneously the most alive he’d ever been. His mind was telling him to run, leave, go anywhere, anywhere away from it.

Stars, he wanted to kill himself, yet also find as many people as possible and hu—

“Brother? What is wrong? Are you alright?” It was as though the parasite was speaking to him through a lake, and distantly he heard its chair creak as it stood up, click-clack-clacking its way towards him. No no no get away get away get away get awAY–

He was on fire. He had to be. There was no other way to logically explain how much pain he was in at the moment, bones aflame with what he had come to realize was similar to an allergic reaction. To positivity. 

A clean white boot entered his peripheral and he lurched away, scrambling backwards in a desperate attempt to escape. 

All he heard in response was a deep chuckle.

“Oh, brother, why must you be scared of me?” the parasite reached a hand closer to his face, somehow on its knees despite Nightmare never actually noticing it bending down. Its words were echoey and muddled, bouncing around Nightmare’s head like a loading screen on a television.

He figured the position they were in must have looked like a man comforting a scared animal. The only thing to make the situation accurate in Nightmare’s mind was to switch the place of the animal and the man.

What would have been a simple feverish touch to any normal person from the parasite made Nightmare’s vision go agonizingly white, and what little dignity and pride he had left suppressed a scream, reducing it down to a sob instead. At least, he hoped. 

This wasn’t supposed to happen. The parasite never gloated like this, never brought him up, only kept him in the dungeons until Cross, Error, or both could save him–

Once his vision cleared, he was met with a disgustingly familiar smile and dull, crazed eyes that used to hold the light of his brother. Thankfully, its hand was completely out of the vicinity of Nightmare’s face. 

He wanted to throw up again but held it in with the knowledge that it would only lead to further contact with the parasite.

The expression brought back memories of a darker time where light actually shined brightly in contrast, a kind hand that helped him when no one else would, but Nightmare knew it was false. Presumably something the parasite had picked out of his brother’s memory to make him trust it more. It wouldn’t work as long as Nightmare was conscious enough to remember that.

“Are you alright? I’m not doing anything to hurt you, am I?” If he didn’t know any better, he might have actually thought the parasite was concerned with the expression it made.

Nightmare didn’t dignify it with a response, only leaning further back to only realize within the pit of his stomach that he was already at the wall of the office. His skull had hit something semi-hard, presumably a book.

There was a blur of something behind the parasite, and it was most likely the tears blurring his vision that made Ink’s sudden reappearance so shocking. He had some kind of fabric in his hands, and the parasite took it almost gleefully, reaching yet again for Nightmare’s face.

The pain wasn’t nearly as bad this time, and he could actually see the condescending look on the parasite’s face as it wiped his face. If he focused, he could hear it cooing at him like he was a child.

Once it was done with whatever it was doing, it crossed its legs and interlaced its hands in its lap. Nightmare was now mostly accustomed to the pain, able to focus on other things now other than how he wanted to rip himself apart to make it stop.

It still took him a moment to process what just happened. He felt positivity magic root itself around his ribs, his skull, and another wave of nausea welled up his spine. It chuckled again, and Nightmare just wanted to scream.

“I understand you are confused, brother. You must be wondering: why am I no longer trying to eliminate you?” It leaned forward and rested its chin on its still interlocked hands. “Well, recently, I have come to an epiphany. I won’t tell you quite yet, but I am sure we will reach the point I can. Understand?”

Nightmare was half tempted to just let the pain take over, but he was more curious. What realization could it have possibly had over the last 500 years that finally made it change? Moreso, was it a good thing? Would he rethink his ways? Maybe finally compromise with him about the balance?

A despondent look crossed the parasite’s face and Nightmare stopped his internal questioning process. “Oh, dear brother. You’ve been waiting for this for years, haven’t you?” Confusion trickled down Nightmare’s ribs. It reached back up for his face with the handkerchief and Nightmare closed his eyes, trying his hardest to focus on what the parasite was saying.

“I sense your hope, brother, and I am so deeply sorry it took me so long to realize what you needed. All. This. Time.”

It tilted its head and leaned in closer, and Nightmare saw static yet again. He was floating. On fire? Yes, on fire. Burning up. Yet freezing? There was yelling, unfamiliar.

He was floating now. Oh stars, he must be lucid dreaming at this point. Did he pass out? He normally didn’t dream upon passing out. He couldn’t even see anything.

The yelling continued, and he felt two cool hands on his shoulders, the clearest thing other than pain he had felt in however long it's been, and he tried to summon his eyelights. To no avail, of course, and to his dismay, the cool hands disappeared.

And suddenly, he was no longer floating. A soft, uncomfortably warm something pressed against his back and he could suddenly see again. The parasite was rising up over him, and a surprisingly sad look was on its face. A wing fluttered behind it as it said something, though he was still too dazed to understand what it said. 

It leaned back down and Nightmare was decently sure he screamed as it wrapped its arms around his torso.

After that, his eye lights simply refused to summon, and he had to listen to its muffled footsteps as it left the room, his head clearing to finally attempt to process what the actual fuck just happened.

An indeterminable amount of time passed before the pain subsided to a manageable level, his thoughts clearing up to look more cohesive than code to a 2 year old, and he could summon his eyelights to look around the room.

Oddly enough, it looked like…a bedroom? A rather large bedroom, at that, built with gaudy golds and whites that immediately made him want to desummon them then kill himself.

What the fuck?

Why would it..?

A sickening thought came to him. What if…what if the parasite was planning on being so nice to him he just up and killed himself? He was already tempted, and it knew of his undying hatred for it, so it might have thought that was a good plan. It certainly wasn’t out of its own goodwill.

Reverse psychology, perhaps? No, that thing wasn’t nearly clever nor keen enough on the negative side of life to even think like that anymore. Then what…?

He wiggled his arms, only to realize he wasn’t even restrained. Nightmare shot up and looked, moving his limbs any which way he wanted. Seriously? He thought back to the last few battles he’d had with his brother actually present, as well as the recent news updates he had been receiving (definitely not stealing) from random people in Dreamtale. No head injuries recorded…

Was he turning spiritual? Psychosis, maybe? Belief that he had telepathy rather than just empathy? Last Nightmare had checked, consuming 998 magical apples did not have that effect on people, given how if it did, he would most likely be dead by now.

A secondary glance revealed a door right within his eyesight. He blinked once, then twice. His mouth dropped. No. Fucking. Way. This had to have been a trap.

Despite the feeling in his gut screaming at him to stay in bed, assess the situation a bit longer, he carefully removed the sheets (satin sheets) from his person and staggered slowly to the door. Despite it actually not being that much taller than him, it loomed ominously, and if he’d been a bit more like Cross, he’d believe that it would grow a mouth and swallow him whole if he stayed.

He reached out, finger pointed like he was scared to be shocked, before thinking better of it nigh immediately before touching the doorknob.

Typically, when overloaded with positivity like he’d been mere seconds (or hours) ago, his empathetic sense needed time to recuperate, automatically shutting off to reduce the input on his nerves—a cool-down, of sorts. Unfortunately, if he wanted to get out as soon as possible, he didn’t technically have time to do so.

So, wincing, he reopened his empathy only to find absolutely nobody outside of the door. Not even a guard. 

The only person able to evade his empathic sense was Ink, but somehow, he felt that the childish skeleton had better things to do than babysit.

Then again, he had better things to do than to be a dog to the parasite, but still.

Then–wait. He turned around quickly, scanning the room again. He swore he felt something’s presence in here, alongside him. It was like a brief breeze in the summer, the coolness came and gone so quickly one might have just imagined it.

Eyes squinted, he remained vigilant for a few more seconds, scouring the area. Hm. Odd. Perhaps it was just the reactivation of his empathic sense. Sometimes, overstimulation of a sense causes hallucinations due to expectation if not properly “cooled down” as he liked to call it.

A painfully bright aura radiated from somewhere down below the castle, not quite the dungeons but some odd old storage rooms he’d only been to a few times. Thankfully, he knew a better path out of the palace than the storage rooms in the basement, and quickly catalogued a course avoiding the now-present guards (all in different wings for some reason) through the center of the castle (yet again), reaching one of the library windows and making a quick escape through there.

Once he’d established his route, he realized something: he was in the guest quarters. Not even the dilapidated ones, either, the nice ones he reserved for those who had the illusion of power and nobility in his autocracy.

Hm. Anyways.

His soul’s pounding, which he hadn’t even noticed had gone up, slowed with the plan, and he quickly seized the door handle, expecting some kind of shock or taze. A full body flinch was emitted from him before he realized…nothing. Absolutely nothing happened when he touched the doorknob.

A hysterical giggle threatened to rise up in his throat but he held it down. The parasite really did lose its mind! Terrific!

Further experimentation twisting the knob clockwise, counterclockwise, then attempting to spin it 360 yielded similar results, which means 3 multiplied by 0 is still 0. Nada. Zilch.

A quick little push of the door? He cursed himself silently for not realizing it was a pull door. 

Dumbass. 

Then, of course, he pulled the door, the way he should’ve done the first time.

…

Absolutely nothing.

Nightmare began to suspect something was up. A hair of apprehension crawled up his newly healed spine, which started to ache without the follow-up healing he usually received after a break.

He glanced into the hallway. Nothing.

He stuck his entire head into the hallway.

…still nothing.

A loud stomp echoed through the hallway as he marched very briefly into the middle of the hallway.

Nobody could have guessed what happened next: absolutely fucking nothing!

At this point, he was tempted to return back to the room just to maybe hear the parasite out on whatever the hell it wanted. Then, he felt the aura get a slight bit stronger and decided to dash down his mentally established escape route.

The noble quarters were definitely not a place he frequented very often, given how there was often nothing to grief due to how boringly the parasite kept the castle. It was also ridiculously opulent, bordering on excessively bright with wide open windows that opened to the city, letting in every stars-damned sunbeam imaginable, and an even more unimaginable number of torches to light the hallways at night.

Deciding to keep his steps light, he kept his empathic sense aware but lessened its radius, only keeping a few meters within his knowledge.

Soon, he thankfully reached the end of his trip down the ugliest hallway he’d ever seen, finding the entrance to the servant’s passage concealed next to a small painting. 

As he placed his hand on the door handle, a small golden heart, placed upon one of the many decorative tables within the hallway, caught his eye.

It wasn’t shaped like a cartoon heart, no, it was more anatomically accurate to a human’s. Definitely an odd decoration, considering the rest of the decor consisted of swans and feathers and other stereotypically delicate stuff.

It was…alluring, somehow.

Checking to make sure the servants’ hallways were clear, he stashed the little trinket in his pocket, slipping through the skinny passages like a snake.

He moved as quickly as he possibly could without irritating his spine too much, skimming the wall with his fingertips to guide himself in the dark, stretching out his foot ever so often to check for stairs.

For some reason, he was grateful for something the parasite did: design the servants’ passageways with minimal stairs, instead opting for a more spiralling design down all the floors. He fucking hated stairs.

Eventually, he reached what he felt was the ground floor of the castle, feeling along the wall until he saw light spilling out from underneath a door. Jackpot.

He sidled up to the door, pressing his head against the door to check for any noise before tentatively twisting the handle open. Pull—fuck, no, push this time, dumbass—and it took him two seconds to adjust to seeing Ink’s beady white eyelights staring back at him from the kitchen pantry.

The dog leaned against the doorframe, which was also wide open, arms crossed with an air of nonchalance that immediately pissed Nightmare off.

“I’ve been expe–”

“Fuck you, dude! I can’t–” Nightmare grabbed his face in his hands as he expressed his frustration. “I cannot even escape properly today with your soulless ass slipping around, Jesus!”

The emotionless skeleton merely looked at him with his empty eyes before responding, “I’m not sure Jesus had anything to do with your lacking skill set.”

Holy stars, even if he broke his hand, it would be worth it to slap Ink across the face right now.

“Besides,” he unfortunately continued, “I’m not here to capture you. Lord simply expected you to escape as you always do, and assigned me to be your bodyguard for now.” His gaze lowered to the floor. “As his intelligence so clearly dictates, it is the best option for now.”

If Nightmare could sense what little feeling Ink had at that moment, he might wonder if that was sarcasm the mutt was spitting out. He only bent over and laughed. A fucking bodyguard? Yeah, right.

“Yeah. Of course. I’d be ecstatic to accept that offer of his,” Nightmare said, striding across the room then pushing through the doorway. “Except,” he stops, then turns back to Ink, who has readjusted to look at Nightmare. “I really do not trust you to be anywhere near me, especially when I’m just living my daily routine.” He rolled his eyes and flicked his hand for emphasis then said, “You know, when I am particularly vulnerable? Something you have both taken advantage of? Multiple times?”

The lights in Ink’s eyes flicker as though he is thinking, flashing across Nightmare’s face before he steps out of the doorway as well, facing Nightmare head-on, this time. “I have my orders.”

“Wonderful!” Nightmare turned around. “I don’t.”

He walked forward into the kitchen, startling a servant (when did they even get here?) and forging through, praying to whatever Creators out there were listening that Ink wasn’t following.

The only sounds he heard were blessedly his own footsteps until he reached the kitchen door, in which he heard a quick pattering, then felt a hand grab his shoulder.

What happened next, Nightmare wasn’t sure. It’s not like everything went black, but like he was seeing the scene from outside of his own body. He saw himself, at the door, hand outreached to the handle. He saw Ink’s hand on his shoulder as he turned around to face the dog, then say, “Fine! Since you’re so insistent.”

The scene was blurry as he held open the door and allowed Ink to go first, then led the way through the fucking palace, double checking that Ink was following in a way that Nightmare normally wouldn’t have to do because the skeleton wasn’t that quiet.

His vision was white at the edges, he felt light as air yet heavy as gold simultaneously, and stars was he fucking confused.

It was only once the two skeletons—and himself—exited the palace through the front door that Nightmare was able to collect his thoughts coherently to wonder what the fuck was going on.

He’d never had an out-of-body experience before, so maybe–wait. Wait. He did, once before. And it was only a week before, too, after he’d passed out.

There had to be a connection. His health had already been failing before, which would explain the collapse, but the out of body experiences? So close together, as well after never happening before? 

Maybe it was something emotion-magic specific, and the excessive positivity of the Multiverse was finally taking over his body like a ghost.

His body, which he was no longer in control of, had taken to speaking about random things, condescendingly nice to its captive audience, Ink, who had an unreadable expression on his face…at least more unreadable than usual. He tried to expand his empathetic sense, but nothing came up. He expanded his radius. Nothing. 

That was…not good.

So eloquent! He thought to himself as his body led Ink into a nearby forest. The chatter remained meaningless about some stupid shows that Nightmare vaguely remembered watching, though he wasn’t sure when he ever had the time to do so. 

What could he do, what could he do…how do you unpossess yourself? Wait. Was he being fucking possessed? Stars, like his life couldn’t get any worse.

It was at that moment his body formed a portal straight into his fucking home, leading Ink there, and his little ghost-body-self or whatever moved on instinct. He tackled himself, and it was like a star exploded, yet he was both the star and the supernova result of its death. Lights flashed before his eyes, colorful like the cosmos, and he woke up on the ground of his temporary home in Zazatale to Error strangling Ink and Cross flickering a flashlight into his eyes.

“Dude!” A purple tear, then another one, fell down Cross’ face as he registered Nightmare’s awakening, tossing himself down to hug Nightmare. In his peripheral, Nightmare could see Error’s head twist then return back to Ink only to tightly bondage him to the ceiling, immediately following in Cross’ footsteps, tossing himself over the two of them. Well, more like hovering by holding himself up with his strings, but it was typical Error to do so when he was upset. His haphephobia acted up more, that way.

“I–I didn’t t-th-h-ink-k D-r-e-ream w-ass-s t–h-e-er-e, f-f-fucking snowflake, I-I d-d-did-dn’t m-mean it,” Error stuttered, voice somewhat hoarse after presumably yelling at Ink for stars-know-how-long.

“If it–” Cross hiccupped, “if it helps, I chewed him out and didn’t let him get any queso fresco once he got back.”

It took Nightmare a second to process what the two had said, then slowly inched his hands up and grabbed onto Cross, hovering his other one over Error. “Haha, idiotic cunt. You didn’t get queso fresco. Fuck you.”

Error lifted his head to look at Nightmare, and he somehow had more tears streaming down his face than Cross. “F-f-fuck you t-t-ooo, bitch.”

“Atta-boy.” He gently patted both their backs. “Now, can I get up?”

Error quickly got off, though Cross was more reluctant doing so, but he managed to sit up before holding a hand to his head due to a sudden bout of vertigo. “One second, my head feels…odd.”

Eventually, he was able to stand up (shakily) and look at the tied up Ink on the ceiling. His face was neutral, as always, observing the scene before him with a kind of silent tranquility that made one think he either felt nothing or so much that he couldn’t choose what to portray. In Nightmare’s experience, he was most likely the former, and would never be close enough to the latter for him to ever feel any true empathy for him.

“Listen, Ink.” He crossed his arms. “I’m not sure why I brought you here, but I am certain that whatever you fuckers did to me messed with my decision-making skills. So!” He clapped his hands together then smiled up at him. “We will be leaving you here, and move.” Nightmare then quickly dragged Error and Cross into the nearest room with a door. “Is that fine with you two?”

Error nodded vigorously, a snarl on his face, but Cross looked apprehensive. “What’s up?” he directed towards Cross. 

“Well…” he looked sheepish, almost embarrassed to say what he was about to say. “This place is called Zazatale because it’s, like…completely full of weed.”

Nightmare and Error stared blankly at him.

“Like–I’m not saying I wanna get high or anything, I’m just saying–”

“You a-albino pharmaceutical looking duc-ck, just s-ay you wanna get high, neither of us give a shit.”

Nightmare mentally pondered. “Actually, you think I could try some later?” It was his turn to get looked at blankly. 

“Oh dear, what happened to ‘neither of us give a shit’, huh?” Cross looked down and snickered. Error continued staring. “It’s for medicinal reasons regardless, lord have mercy.”

“You aren’t even r-religious.”

“Neither are either of you, yet here we are. It is simply a figure of speech. So!” he clapped incredibly loudly, causing both of the other skeletons to flinch. “The game plan is to get some harvest then get up out of here? Do we all approve?”

Error begrudgingly muttered his agreement under his breath like a moody teenager, heading towards the temporary bedroom to presumably pack his stuff, and Cross abashedly gave Nightmare a thumbs up before walking towards the office. 

Nightmare turned to the temporary living room where Ink was stationed before Cross asked from across the room, “Could we, like, talk later about what you said about your, like, decision-making things or whatever?”

Nightmare turned back to Cross, brow-bones furrowing. His stomach dropped slightly at the question. What could he say..?

Cross flushed slightly purple, but then calmed back down as he grounded himself. “Like what you said to Ink, or whatever. Tell me what happened later?”

His eyelights widened as he understood the initial question, then nodded, giving Cross a thumbs-up. “Of course! Though it is…difficult to explain, a bit.” Cross nodded and scurried into the office, leaving Nightmare to head back into the living area.

Ink remained on the roof in the exact same position as he’d been beforehand, eyes darting upwards to meet Nightmare’s.

“Hope you enjoy watching me pack,” Nightmare said as he averted his gaze and started folding their crusty little couch.

“Why did you do it?” Ink asked from the ceiling. 

“Because of whatever the hell you and your boss did to me,” Nightmare responded, flipping the cushions over and bending it in half, then sliding it to the side. His spine protested with the weight, so he decided to move on to placing the various knick-knacks on the side table into its drawers.

“We…didn’t do anything to you, aside from treating you differently. The only difference is that, instead of locking you up in the dungeon, we placed you in the guest quarters.”  He paused before continuing. “...and let you free, but with a condition you had to meet. Nothing else was done to you.”

Nightmare paused, holding an incredibly stupid looking crocheted elephant in his hands. A smile then spread over his face as he turned back to Ink. 

“Do you really expect me to believe that?” He even laughed for good measure, though he knew deep inside that Ink, at the very least, wouldn’t lie. Probably couldn’t, actually. 

Sympathy welled up in his soul very briefly, but he pushed it down. What a terrible life, unable to choose between good or bad, instead being forced onto one path.

“I do not lie, Nightmare. This behavior is incredibly unusual, even for you.”

Nightmare didn’t bother to acknowledge him with anything more than just a dry huff, turning back to continue packing. 

He didn’t want to hear anything else. Not because he wasn’t curious, no, he was so curious he might die if he couldn’t interrogate Ink within the next two minutes. He was troubled. If it truly wasn’t the parasite nor Ink’s meddling with his mind, what was it?

The bell in the bedroom rang 9 times, signaling 9 am...the day after he’d left this place with only Error in an attempt to fuck with the parasite, only to come back with more questions.

Fuck. His. Life.