BlackOut

Chapter Nine: Worry Me

Dance my minions dance Mwaaa ha ha.. er wait your all here. cough. Thank you Snow as always -slinks off-

Dream huffed. He'd been trying to track down Blue for hours, but he hadn't had any luck. Usually, he could find the fluffy ball of sunshine easily, his happy emotions like a beacon even from hundreds of AUs away.

Yet... he couldn't feel the other.

And that made him worried. Even though they no longer dated, the other was his friend.

"I guess I could ask Stretch," Dream mumbled anxiously to himself. He usually avoided Stretch, as the swap Papyrus was always drunk, and sometimes- although thankfully it was rare- high on something.

Moments later, he vanished through a golden portal of his own making, headed to Underswap.

OoOoO

Blue sneezed, grumbling irately as some of his cards blew away.

"Go fish," Cross said smugly.

"Yeah yeah, I know," Blue said grabbing a card and shuffling his own. He knew Cross was cheating somehow, but he wasn't sure how the black-and-white garbed Sans was doing it!

"Hey, you might want to head back to Underswap. Dream is heading that way to find you," said Nightmare poking his head into the room.

"Oh, that's not good, he's kind of going to notice the eye and clothing changes," Blue said worriedly. After all, his clothing was now set to Blackout's clothing and his eyes were flecked with a toxic yellow that grew would increase or decrease depending on his emotional state.

"That's easy to fix, I can adjust your code enough to have a Blue form change," Error said from where he was knitting a new scarf.

"Form Change?" Blue asked dryly, Killer snickered from where he was playing a JRPG.

"Forgot about that, do you want it or not?" Error asked with a glare.

"Yes, please," Blue said happily.

Error rolled his eyes and opened a rift looking into the code. He added a new line to Blue's code, idly noting that the other Sans was even known as Blackout within the code, his name had been changed from sans.underswap.exe to sans.Blackout.exe.

"You should be good, but do not give Dream a reason to check you, got it? Your stats will show up as Blackout's, I can't change those."

OoOoO

"Wad da ya want," asked Stretch drunkenly, belching.

Dream shuddered in disgust at the skunk-drunk skeleton.

"I was hoping you knew where Blue was?" He asked hopefully, but was taken aback by the sneer that briefly covered the others face.

"Dat brat ran off, he'll be back soonish for the da reset. Ungrateful rat, shouldna never remembered the resets," Stretch raged, slamming the door in his face and leaving Dream feeling awkward on the doorstep.

It was also horrifying, was this really what Blue dealt with all the time? No wonder he avoided his own AU.

"Sometimes, I want to be sad too," said a soft voice behind him. Turning, he saw Blue with a sad look on his face. His emotions were muted, he must have figured out how to block them for privacy.

"I wish you would have told Ink or myself, I had no clue Stretch was..." Dream said trailing off.

"It was my issue Dream. I used to hope that one day he'd get better, even with the resets," said Blue as he walked over, snow crunching under his feet.

"It's still not right," Dream responded unhappily.

"Come on, there's a small cabin near my guard station. We can talk there," said Blue, turning and walking away.

Dream hurried to catch up, not wanting to lose sight of the blue-bandanna'd skeleton.

OoOoO

"You stepping on my hands," came an angry hiss.

"That was not a tree branch, Dust," snarled Nightmare, wincing.

"They look so cute in that cabin," said Cross, a bowl of chocolate-drizzled buttery goodness in his hands.

"Quiet guys, I'm trying to hear them talk," whispered Killer, sipping on a bottle of watered-down alcohol.

"Why are we even stalking them?" Error asked bemusedly.

"Shhhh," the others hissed.

Well... at least it wasn't a date.

OoOoO

"This is a nice place, do you come here often?" Dream asked, watching Blue start a fire in the small fireplace.

"Just now and then, when everything gets to be too much," said Blue, walking over to the couch and curling up next to Dream as the fire roared to life, crackling merrily.

"It's peaceful," said Dream after a few minutes of comforting silence.

"Yeah, it is," responded Blue, a truly happy smile on his face for the first time in a while.

OoOoO

"Put your arm around him Dream," Nightmare muttered still watching.

"Come on, lean in a bit more," Killer added, acting like it was a romance movie.

"Do it bro, make me an uncle," Nightmare cackled. That one... well, the entire gang just stared at their leader for a minute before mutually agreeing to never think of that again.

"When was the last time Nighty got laid?" Dust asked.

Error was pretty sure Nightmare was still a virgin, only knowing of this kind of thing though his secret stash of romance novels, and maybe his link to Dream.

OoOoO

"I've been worried, you've been so distant lately," said Dream, sighing softly.

"Things... have been a bit weird lately," Blue responded with a strained smile.

"Define weird?" Dream asked curiously, leaning closer and taking in the familiar smell of Blue.

"Just weird," Blue finally replied.

They sat there in a comfortable silence, the only sounds the crackling of the fire as the wood slowly burnt down to ashes.

OoOoO

"That's so not the way to get into his pants," said Dust, waving his hands dramatically.

"Too much mush," Killer added, yawning.

"Wiggle that tush Dream, show him you're the man," Nightmare muttered under his breath.

Error suddenly had the weird feeling that he was the only sane one there. (Trust me, Error, you are.)

OoOoO

"Would you hate me?" Blue asked suddenly.

"Hate you?" Dream responded in disbelief.

"If I ever went dark, would you hate me?" Blue whispered.

"No, I just hope it never comes to that," Dream said, gently hugging his friend.

He never noticed the single toxic yellow tear of magic that slipped down Blue's face.