Horror was well aware that he was far from an interesting person. It was a fact of life he'd come to terms with a long, long time ago. Back when food was still in stock and Undyne wasn't mad with hunger. Before the blood on his hands, the hole in his head, and the gaps in his memory.
He didn't mind being unmemorable for the most part, he saved him trouble in the long run. Aside from his fearsome appearance— jagged teeth and stained clothes and blood red eyes, there was a certain pride he had in being just your average joe. Horror read what little there was to read, he sat in his thoughts the few times of day they brightened into something more palatable, and he slept whenever the night terrors relented; crawling back into the hole in his head from which they came, resting to torment him another day. His life was little, always focused around the epicenter that was his next meal. It was shallow. But it was fine. He didn't mind much anymore.
Lust was something a bit more interesting, he supposed; a colorful personality with the delivery to make it work. Although that was something that went without saying; a truth realized when you stepped into a room and didn't even have to turn a light on because there he was, in all his sunlit glory, illuminating the room with that million watt smile.
So it's only right that the story went like this: Horror's world becomes very lively, and then very dull. There's a series of steps you can trace to follow the progression of the story, each one falling into the next like the downward slope of a hill once the top has been reached.
Act one turned into act two and it all happened just like a sequence of natural consequences— what goes up must come down.
Horror meets Lust, and his world explodes.
Not in a literal sense, and not even in a particularly spectacular way to be honest. But it explodes in the way that there's another pair of shoes beside the door alongside his and his brother's. How when he comes home from another useless patrol there's chatter abound as Crooks and Lust manage to drag out a conversation about absolutely nothing for yet another day. It's in how they sit him down and manage to get him involved in a debate over something so obscure that he'd be more interested in talking about what led them to stumble upon the subject in the first place.
(No, he doesn't think artificial intelligences need citizenships. No, Mettaton does not count.)
It explodes with the sound of a bell jingling and a dog barking on the other side of his door at the crack of dawn every morning as Lust rises to head down to the living room. This tiny terror Lust has made a pet of paws at Horror's door like the irreverent little shit it, yelping it's demands that he follow as well. So two obedient mutts follow Lust downstairs.
It explodes in a way that made Horror wince everytime he sat on a paper star he hadn't quite seen, or how he had to be careful not to accidentally step on little paws now, or how a electric shiver shot down his spine every time Lust touched his shoulder to make sure he hadn't drifted off in the middle of his story about how he'd gotten black out drunk in a bar and somehow ended up working there as a bartender for the rest of the night.
What goes up must come down, but they don't really tell you how dreadful the ground seems after touching the stars. He knew whatever this was couldn't last forever, but it's no less of a shock to him when it ends.
Lust stops talking to him. Stops sitting with him. Stops living with him for all intents and purposes.
Lust all but cutting him off feels like the loss of a well loved limb, it sends him reeling as he was suddenly spat out of what felt like it could have only been a daydream, stumbling and unbalanced, still used to trying to account for Lust's weight.
Horror's life returns back to its own bland normalcy, hyperactive time slows to a sluggish snail's pace— technicolor vision turns monochrome.
He remembers quite a bit about life before Lust came, but he doesn't remember even more. The house has a stifling sort of chill he had never really noticed; a true kind of cold that filled you up from the inside and spilled out. The eerie silence had gone overlooked most of the time too— the groans and creaking of the house's aged bones being the only voice to keep him up at night. Quiet sprawled out like ivy vines and straddled the walls in his absence.
From time to time, Lust crept out of his room. He sat on the couch or stairs or anywhere else he thought he could avoid Horror, meandering to pass the time. Passing "hellos" and "goodnights" were only thrown Horror's way for posterity's sake.
Talking to him yielded poor results more often than not— for however reassuring it was to know that Lust didn't at least appear to hold any outward animosity towards him, holding down a conversation with him was more of an achievement than a given.
Sometimes, when trying to talk to him was too herculean of an effort, Horror simply went into Lust's room to sit in his presence as Lust napped and whispered to himself and did all the other things that Lust does when he's trying hard to ignore someone. His company was neither rejected nor embraced, but simply accepted. And that was better than nothing.
Horror's fine with this arrangement, or at least he tries to be. He survived the downfall of his universe and he can survive the silent treatment, for the sake of his pride if nothing else. His brother takes his pride and skins it, leaving it to die a slow death.
Crooks corners him one day while he's in the basement sharpening his axe. Accuses him.
"I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DONE BUT YOU'VE CERTAINLY DONE SOMETHING," he trilled. "YOU NEED TO TALK TO LUST. I BELIEVE THAT COULD SORT OUT WHATEVER HAS HIM SO… DISTANT. THIS SILENCE IS TRULY DREADFUL." He added
Horror hums, running his finger along the edge of his blade. It was only minimally less dull than when he started— he'd have to replace it soon as it got harder and harder to sharpen. A pity; it was his favorite. "I have. So I can't do anything but leave him alone, now can I? Isn't there a saying about letting sleeping dogs lie?"
"I DON'T UNDERSTAND THEN— WHATEVER HAS HIM SO DOWN?"
"I dunno," Horror replied, voice positively saturated with sarcasm. "Maybe all of—" he gestured vaguely around him. "—This?"
"BE SERIOUS BROTHER," Crooks deadpanned. "YOU'LL HAVE TO SPECIFY."
Horror rolled his eyes and focused back on his task at hand. "All I can say is I would be depressed too if I got snatched from my normal, cushy life and dragged into this hellhole."
"BUT DID YOU REALLY TRY TALKING TO HIM?"
"Didn't I just say—"
"HAVING A SHORT CONVERSATION ONCE AND EXPECTING THINGS TO SOLVE THEMSELVES ISN'T TALKING THINGS OUT SANS, WE'VE TALKED ABOUT THIS."
Ah yes, the nitpicky talks about his "subpar" communication skills, how could he forget? "We sure have."
Crooks looked hard at Horror, his face twisted into a grimace and his eyes boring holes. It was the type of look he'd never have sported before starvation ravished the Underground, but brotherly bonds had long since been tested in ways they were never meant to be tested and Horror shriveled in light of one of the sternest faces his brother was capable of making.
But it was the concern, the hurt behind Crooks' gaze he was what he was truly trying to retreat from. A reminder that Lust's sudden absence hadn't only affected him.
"WELL TRY HARDER. IF NOT FOR YOUR SAKE, THEN MINES."
Crooks turned, his footsteps heavy as he left Horror with his thoughts. And for what it's worth, he attempts to change his mindset.
He tries to make things right. And maybe it's the start of things getting better.
Not quite sure what progress looked like, he threw himself in blind, if only to say that he cared enough to try. The universe was thankfully on his side this time, smiling down on him as he was able to catch Lust while he read at the kitchen table. His appearances were far and few inbetween, so he takes advantage of them however he can.
He flipped the pages of his book casually, as if he was sitting in his own kitchen at home with a warm mug of coffee beside him and nothing was amiss. As if this unordinary stay in Horrortale was simply a very, very long errand. Horror sits down across from him, even though he had nothing to do in particular, no manufactured tasks or flimsy excuses to hide behind when he was inevitably questioned.
"Needed a change of scenery?" He tried.
Lust shrugged and just said; "More or less."
"The offer still stands, y'know, I could take you to Waterfall."
"It's cold outside," Lust replied curtly, pretending it was a mere observation of the weather and not a polite refusal. Like he knew Horror was bound to try again later and he didn't want to reject him too harshly.
Horror nodded, accepting the answer he was given but not completely able to keep a bitter part of himself from muttering; "Alright. Even though that's never bothered you before now, has it?"
Lust spared him a glance— an amused look. Like he had a laugh caught in his throat.
"Never," he agreed. "Something must be in the air."
Horror's claws rapped against the table in a way one might find threatening if it weren't attached to the face of a man who looked like a puppy pleading for attention. And Lust, perhaps uninterested, or perhaps simply patronizing, was going to make him work for every scrap of it. Leaving Horror to flail in a conversation that felt awfully similar to picking random dialogue options and hoping there was a right answer.
"The machine has been coming along well," he mumbled, looking at the ceiling in a false show of nonchalance. "We should be kicking you outta here within three months time."
His rare show of misplaced optimism went unacknowledged by Lust. Three months was an advantageous estimate even without all the roadblocks they'd encountered, but neither party said anything of it.
"I wont get to be your problem anymore? That's a shame."
Horror snorted. "To you, maybe,"
Lust splayed a hand across his chest in mock agony to contrast his monotone voice. "And here I thought I was a valuable member of this household."
'You are.'Horror wanted to say. He was.
Instead, he shrugged it off.
"Die mad about it," he antagonized instead, relishing in being able to do so for the first time in a while.
His devil may care attitude fell flat like a sour note, his mistake realized just a moment too late when Lust closed his book to stand up.
"You're leaving so soon?" The genuine shock of panic that pierced his own voice made him wince.
"I won't burden you with my presence anymore," Lust replied half smug, as if he knew his attention was a shiny toy to be held over Horror's head.
Too late to save face, but not yet ready to release his claws from the hard place he dug them in, Horror deflated. Looking like something to be pitied.
"You'll be gone soon, I at least hoped to wring a few words out of you before you make your clean getaway."
"Well I'm not leaving right now," Lust replied, his voice teetering on the clever mischief that Horror knew so well from those days before his world went dull. "There's still time."
An open invitation to try again. Assurance that his retreat was not a refusal.
The surprised and hopeful noise Horror made in response was strangled and probably best forgotten.
But the laugh it startled out of Lust could stay.
A/N: Guess who's not dead!! Seriously tho, thank all of you for sticking around with my flakey ass. I haven't been posting because my mental health took a bit of a nosedive during the beginning of this year and it's been one issue after the next. Still struggling with anxiety and finding a new therapist but I'm starting to get my creative motivation back.
This chapter has actually been in the works for a while but then my cousin had a psychotic break with reality and had to be hospitalized after wrecking his mom's house and that made my anxiety go mad. I'm gonna start trying to get chapters out as quickly as possible before my motivation tanks again cuz school's starting next month and i'll be damned if i'm not finished this story by 2022. Love to all of my older readers, and newer ones alike!