One-shots [Reqs: 5]

stupid little puppy

cross abandonment fic real,,,,

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Cross wasn't sure what he was doing here still. He wasn't sure.

He didn't know.

He knew he should leave; he wasn't welcome, not anymore. Every single one of them had made it rather clear that his use had worn out. He'd outlived his worth.

Yet he stayed, clinging to something. Something in him, despite the sharp stabs of their impatient and dismissive stares, liked to remind him that they once cared for him. Some childish, naïve part of his soul liked to cling to the memory of the days when it wasn't so painful to leave his room.

He shoved that stupid childish hope down, down, down, and withdrew from them, day after day. It was a double-edged blade. Stepping away from them. He wasn't sure anymore if their anger towards him was due to his absence or if it was because of his uselessness. [He knew the answer to that. They hadn't let him return when he'd tried. They wanted him to stay gone.]

He wasn't an active member of the team anymore. Left behind each time, every single time. They simply just left without him, never bothering to tell him. He had no choice but to linger, often excluded from meetings as well. He never knew where they were, and couldn't join them.

He often had to go off on his own anyway. They never gathered the things he needed; the items he wrote on their shared groceries list were flat-out ignored, or erased. He stopped writing on there a while ago, at Dust's sharp comment. He stopped going into the kitchen altogether. It was better that he didn't anyways. Horror hated wasting food. Cross was no exception to that.

Nightmare had promised him once, one night when Cross couldn't handle anything, that he didn't care if he couldn't help. His skills weren't what made him valuable. He wanted him around, no matter what. Cross wondered often what it was that made him valuable. He wanted to know.

Of course, whatever trait it was, it was long gone. Nightmare only ever addressed him with distaste now. It was strange, hearing the absence of compassion where there used to be an overflow of it.

They used to read together often, cuddled together on the couch, quiet and content. They used to talk about books. They used to share titles and authors with each other.

He used to let Cross sketch him when he read.

Cross wasn't sure where the drawings went. [Yes he is. There is still a black stain on the floor from when he burned them in a fit. He could never quite scrub it all off.] He stopped drawing, though, shortly after they went missing. He couldn't bear to continue alone.

But he was always alone now. He ate alone. He trained alone. He read alone.

He can't stand it, the need to share what he's made, what he's thought, what he's done, and not a single soul cared to hear about it. They never asked him what he was doing. Not that it mattered. It had been a privilege from the start.

Killer used to always want to know. He was there, a constant force of nature, with sly words on his tongue that always left Cross floundering for something to say. It was probably the most jarring change of them all, Killer's absence. It felt so much colder now without the annoying bastard hanging off his arm and running his mouth.

Cross missed him. He missed them all. [Just let go already. You're the only one holding on.]

It's honestly shameful how long it took him to finally just. Stop.

He stopped waiting for them, stopped dedicating his time to them, stopped longing for them, and it was supposed to help it hurt less. He was supposed to stop feeling so horribly, but instead, he just spiraled further.