Requested by Karta3. There you go, a nearly 4k words long one shot, because that's what these lovelies deserve.
(To everyone) Also please remeber that they are all friends in this chapter. Not stopping anybody from shipping, but they're not a ship in this case.
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Nightmare grumbled, as annoying sunrays invaded his room through the window. He was slowly waking up, for once without a sense of urgency.
He and his crew have had a really rough time recently, so after not so much debating, they unanimously decided that a day off was in order. And of course it wouldn't be a lazy day, without sleeping exceedingly long. Nightmare himself woke up at 8, force of habit, but after seeing the time, he just turned onto his other side and almost immediately feel back asleep. Right now it was just before noon, so he finally decided to get up and change into his casual clothes.
Normally after that he would go and wake up the others, but not that day. Today they were able to sleep as long as they wanted, so he just directed down the stairs, into the big living room. The sight that greeted him was strange, but not exactly unexpected.
Killer and Lust were laying on the opposite ends of the couch, with legs in the air and their slippers-covered feet touching. Between them, under the 'leg roof' was Dust, all sprawled out. Oh, and they were all in their pajamas.
"Sup Night." Killer greeted, not looking at him.
In front of the three was running a cartoon, but none of them seemed to pay any attention to it. Killer was on his phone, while Lust was looking at the ceiling, but did give a little wave towards Nightmare. Dust was the only one who was actually looking in the general direction of the TV, but one glance at him and anyone could tell that he was currently daydreaming.
"How long have you three been here?"
"Around five minutes maybe." This time Lust was the one to give the answer, but he at least turned to look at the newcomer.
"What about the others? Have they woken up yet?"
The trio, even Dust, just shrugged. Nightmare hummed and turned around. He was going to check on them, just to be sure.
Firstly he appeared in Cross' room, where he was greeted with a rather comical sight. The place's resident, actually dressed, was halfway laying on his bed and halfway on the floor.
"Nngh, Nightmare?" The said skeleton didn't expect him to be awake, so he got startled a little.
"It's me. How did you end up like this?" He gestured vaguely.
"Oh, right." Cross yawned and slowly got up from his awkward position. "Well... I woke up and got dressed, but then I realized that we have a day off, so I kind of just collapsed back and landed like that."
Nightmare just shook his skull, both amused and surprised.
"Right. Anyway you don't have to get up yet, I was just checking-."
"Nah, it's alright. I'll head put to the bathroom now." Suprisingly, Cross felt a pat on his head and after turning his skull, the other gave him a little nod. He smiled in appreciation, but before he could leave his room, Nightmare added one more thing.
"Cross, don't work out today, give yourself a break, ok?" The guardian truly did appreciate his dedication to exercising almost every day. Not only was he the only one to regularly improve his strength, but he was also doing it really early, while others were still soundly asleep. Sometimes he woke up even before Nightmare. Then again he did use to be a royal guard. Today however was all about lazying around.
Cross stayed quiet for a second and then nodded merrily. "Alright, for today."
The next room was Error's, but it turned out that the destroyer wasn't the only one inside. On the bed next to him was Horror, laying on his the side, almost covering Error completely. And they were cuddling. Not sleeping though.
"Are you two planning on getting up?"
"Ye, ye jus' a sec'nd." Horror mumbled in such a drowsy voice, one could assume he was talking in his sleep.
"Mhmmm..." Error purred, not opening his eyes.
Heavens, he was living with such a stupid, cuddly bunch.
"Rerrorrr."
"Orrorrr."
"Let's go eat something, I'm hungry."
"Then go 'n' eat, and I'm just gonna stay here."
Error let go of his friend and face planted into the pillows. He couldn't remember ever sleeping this good. He didn't even complain once Horror entered his room in the morning. He forgot what his friend wanted back then, but remembered that he convinced Horror to just stay in bed for now. His sluggish mind wasn't even surprised, when Horror ploped himself down onto his bed. No, Error was actually grateful. He now understood why Dust used that big bag of bones as a pillow every now and then. The motherfucker was quite comfortable.
Before he could protest, he was thrown over Horror's shoulder and the tall skeleton got them out of the room. Meanwhile Error just whined, but didn't do anything to help his situation and just hung limpily.
Once the two reached the living room, they meet others in the same position as Nightmare did when he first came down. The addition was of course Nightmare himself, who now sat in a big armchair and Cross, who found his place at the bottom the couch. Plus Dust laid his feet against his back.
With Error still in his grasp, Horror entered the kitchen. Normally the ones preparing any meals were himself or Nightmare, often with the help of Lust, but today it seemed that neither of them wanted to do this, including Horror. As much as he loved cooking, he didn't feel like doing it right now. Especially since it was close to dinner anyway. Maybe later. Still, he did want everyone to eat regularly and he was pretty sure that none of his friends bothered to eat anything today.
He opened the fridge and his magic grabbed whatever his eyes laid on first. Strawberry yoghurts. That should suffice.
He came back to where everyone was gathered, and gave away the yoghurts to each of them. Knowing Horror's habits they didn't ask and just took them. Or at least didn't question the food.
"Horror, darling, are you planning on carrying Error around like that for the whole day?" Lust asked, amused.
Before the skeleton with a hole in his skull had a chance to response, Error wiggled himself out from his grasp. He then procceded to take one of the yoghurts and sat on the second, unoccupied couch.
"Hey, he was the one who forced me to go out to the real world." Error complained, but without an actual trace of anger in his voice.
Horror just grinned and made his way over to Dust, which forced Killer and Lust's legs to fall down onto them both. Neither really seemed to mind.
Truthfully to Error's words, after a while Dust leaned on Horror. Still, the glitch had a whole couch to himself, so he wasn't complaining.
"So what are we even watching?" Horror asked Dust sliently, confused, since the only thing displaying on the screen right now were some ads. Dust grinned at the question.
"There's a Phineas and Ferb marathon."
"Dude, really?"
"Mhm." Dust nodded contently.
"Now that's what I like to hear."
Not even half an hour later Killer whined.
"Nightyyy, can we have dinner now?"
"You were eating 30 minutes ago!" Nightmare replied in disapproval.
Killer just raised his brow at him. "Alright then, everyone who is hungry raise your hand."
And literally everyone did, except for Nightmare of course. That did make him think though.
"Well should've said so earlier. We don't really have anything to make this fast."
That shut everyone up, that is until Cross got an idea.
"So let's just 'order' something."
At those words everyone got mischevious expressions. Everyone besides Lust.
"What do you mean by 'order'?" He turned to Cross for an explanation. Even though he was the newest in the gang, he was still there for long. However he didn't remember them ever ordering anything. But judging by their expressions, it wasn't going to be something exactly legal.
"You'll see in a second." Cross replied, with a much friendlier look now.
After they decided to order pizzas and how many of which type, there was time to call the pizzeria.
"You already have a number?" Lust asked Nightmare quietly, not to disturbe Cross, who was already ringing. No surprise that he was the one doing it, since the most of the gang ware way too socially awkward or threatening to actually do it properly.
"Yeah." Nightmare nodded. "We ordered three or four times from there in the past. It's like our place. Plus, we have a valid address from their universe."
"So they won't deliever here, right? I mean, we are in a different AU." This time the other just smirked.
Some time has passed with few of them chatting and others still glued to the TV, when Cross nodded at Error.
"It should be enough."
At that Error opened a portal, through which could be seen... boxes of pizza. He leaned a bit through the portal, checking something, and then took 3 boxes in order to throw them onto their table.
Lust just stared, only to snicker after a while. "Ah, I get it now."
"Mhm!" Killer nodded, already going for a slice.
"Wait, wouldn't it be easier to just get some other, already ready pizzas?"
"It would, but after the time we got one with pineapple," With that Horror glared at Killer, who just shrugged 'innocently', "we decided to just do it this way, so everyone would be happy."
"After that they always call us to say that our order "disappeared" and that we need to wait longer." Error, who was squeezing way too much ketchup onto his slice, added.
"Pfft, really?" Lust questioned, amused.
"Yeah, but we usually just don't pick up after that."
Lust hummed. "Can I have the phone when they call?"
"Sure." Cross passed him the device. "But why?"
"You'll see in a second." Lust answered, imitating him from earlier.
Minutes later the phone rang and he picked it up.
"Yes?"
He was silent for a few seconds, while others leaned closer, curious what was going to happen. Altough, they didn't expect Lust to scream of all things.
"What! You're telling me that you lost our pizzas!? All three of them?! How did that even happen!? No, no, no, no, don't you 'apologize' me, I'm going to write a complaint and then tell everyone I know that you suck! Don't call us ever again!" And with an audible 'hmph!', he ended the call.
Meanwhile others couldn't contain their laughter at an unexpected confrontation. Even Nightmare snickered a bit.
"What was that?" Dust asked between his chuckles. "Were you channeling your inner Karen?"
"Mmm, maybe." Lust shrugged playfully, positively beaming at the fact that he made his friends laugh. "I just wanted to join in on the fun a bit."
Eventually they finished the meal and then rested for a moment, from eating so much. Once they did, Dust suddenly remebered something and without another word, teleported to his room. He knew he had it somewhere... there! When he found the desired object, he teleported back down, immediately drawing attention of others.
"Is that a telescope?" Nightmare eyed the device, with a hint of curiosity.
"Yup." Dust nodded. "I found it in my room sometime ago, but never really had the time to use it. So I thought of going to Outertale and-."
"Outertale!" Error interrupted, clearly intrigued. However once he realized his outburst, he blushed embarrassed. "I mean, go on."
Dust smirked a little, seeing his friend's enthusiasm. "Annnd I wanted to test it there." He then turned to Error. "You wanna go?"
"YES! I mean, yeah sure." The glitching skeleton stood up from the couch and opened a portal for them both. However before they stepped through, Nightmare got up as well.
"Wait, I'm going with. Somebody has to keep an eye on you."
Both skeletons looked at each other in surprise, but nodded as a sign of agreement. Altough they did know that it wasn't an actual reason. Or at least not the main one.
Before Nightmare followed through, he turned around to the others. "Try not to break anything."
The last conversation he heard before the portal closed completely, was:
"So, how's about we play some game?"
"Like Uno?"
"I'd say maybe something less rage-inducing."
"...Mario Kart?"
"Wh-, no!"
In Outertale Dust has already started messing with the telescope, while Error wandered around, trying to act like he wasn't interested. A valiant effort.
There was certain professionalism in Dust's moves, no wonder since he did once operate one in Waterfall. A long, long time ago. Error probably did too, but his story was a harder nut to crack.
Finally the white skeleton looked through the telescope, adjusted a few more knobes and jumped slightly in excitement.
"There, it seems to be working."
After a minut, Error couldn't contain himself anymore.
"Can I look through now?"
Dust nodded slowly, prompting him to try. And so he did.
Of course it was a nature of Outertale to be in space, but thanks to the device, all the starts and planets were so much easier to see. Error's eyes probably shone in adoration, but he didn't care.
Meanwhile Nightmare sat underneath a nearby tree, with his back leaning on its trunk. He sure would try to take a look himself later, but at that moment he just observed these two space nerds. They were now gushing about some constellations.
He couldn't blame them. Every Sans had a thing for stars, as far as he was aware. Even he, despite not being exactly a Sans.
For now, he just closed his eye. He couldn't deny that Outertale grew to be one of the few universes, he actually liked. That was actually probably just Error rubbing off of him, and of everyone else too to be honest. It was his comfort place for the most of his life after all. But there was one thing, that Nightmare perhaps loved more than anyone else. And that was the permanent night in this specific universe. One could say that it was his element, so maybe that's why he did. And why he mostly kept the castle dimly-lit.
With his eye closed still, he heard a quiet shuffle and approaching footsteps.
"Bos-, I mean Nightmare, do you wanna use it now?" Dust gestured to the telescope.
"Oh, so you two have finally stopped gushing?" The goopy monster smirked slightly, his eye now opened.
"We weren't-!" Error started, but seeing Nightmare's knowing gaze, he stopped. "Yeah, we have."
"Alright, show me that thing."
And so they stayed there for a pretty long time, especially since these three had one crucial thing in common. They were all the quiet type, at least most of the time. They did appreciate the company of others of course, even if they didn't always want to admit it. However, because of this feature their time together was special, even if rare.
But alas it was time to go back. Mostly to make sure that Ink or somebody else, hasn't found their hideout. Improbable, but better safe than sorry.
"You two go ahead, I'll come in a while." Nightmare said.
Dust and Error just nodded at him, they were familiar with the importance of a quality alone time.
Once they appeared in the castle, they weren't met with the sight of broken furniture or any general mess, which was good. But something else grabbed their attention.
"...Are you all wearing Nightmare's sweaters?" Dust blinked at the four skeletons, who were playing scrabble at the moment. Huh.
"Ya-ha." Killer, who was currently putting down a word, replied casually.
"Why?"
"Why not?"
"So for the shits and giggles. A valid reason I guess." Error snickered.
"Well actually... we just, kinda, maybe were looking around Nightmare's closet looking for board games, and so the idea was born." Cross shrugged.
"They're all nice and cozy too." Lust added, nuzzling his face into the sweater, as to demonstrate the fact.
...
"You wanna join the stolen sweaters' gang?" Killer asked, eyeing at the two newcomers, who just looked at each other and nodded. "Great!"
With that he grabbed both Error and Dust's hands, only to run with them upstairs.
"Wait, Killer! We're supposed to be playing in pairs-." Horror yelled after them, but they were already gone.
"So uhh, I guess we win by default?" Cross whose pair was Lust, asked.
"What, no! I don't wanna lose, just because my partner dipped."
"Then how about we call it a draw between all three of us and Killer will be the one to lose?" Lust proposed.
"Heh, this idea I like."
"I agree." Cross nodded, already removing the letter pieces.
They all mutually agreed to end the game and started cleaning it up. Right after they finished, three remaining skeletons popped up downstairs.
"Lo and behold, the absolute fashion icons." Killer exclaimed, as if he was an actual commentator on a fashion show. Error and Dust, who were now in the similar attire to the others, just rolled their eyes. However with no actual meaning behind it.
"Aww, you two look cute." Lust cooed at them.
"You're wearing it too, you know?" Dust deadpanned as in retaliation, while Error flushed a bit. Lust just smiled at him.
"Where is Nightmare anyway, did he go somewhere else?" Cross asked, with a bit of worry in his voice.
"Nah. He stayed in Outertale, said he would be back soon-."
In that exact moment, a signature goopy portal opened up in front of them, with the awaited skeleton. The first thing Nightmare noticed, was of course what others were wearing.
"Ok, I'm not even surprised, by why?"
Before anyone could have come up with something smart, Cross decided to answer.
"Cosplay."
Nightmare stared at him, but couldn't help laughung a bit, which was a nice surprise.
"Alright, alright. Just try not to dirty them."
They swore they wouldn't.
After that situation they parted ways, deciding to do their own things for the time being. Nightmare looked through some albums, Error decided to take a long, hot shower, which he - perhaps surprisingly - adored, Killer carved in wood, etcetera.
As the evening started approaching, someone knocked gently on Lust's door, and without waiting for an answer, went inside.
Lust was currently talking to his brother over the phone, but once he saw Horror in the doorstep, he swiftly finished the call.
"Yes?"
"Sorry, I just wanted to ask if you want to help me with the supper?" Horror wondered.
"I thought you weren't planning on cooking today?"
"Yeah, it seems like I can't stay away from the kitchen for too long." Horror chuckled. "But since it is a lazy day, I decided to just make some sandwhiches. The problem is that there's seven skeltons here, and they all probably want more than one, so I wanted to ask if you'd be willing to help? I mean, I can do it on my own, but I thought that-."
Before he could go any further, Lust got up and put a hand on his friend's shoulder.
"No, no, don't worry. I'm happy to help." The friendly smile on his face, definitely helped to convince Horror, who nodded.
"Alright then."
They entered the kitchen and started preparing the food. At some point, and to their surprise, Killer joined them. Thanks to their extra help, they managed to make a few more sandwiches then they planned. Just for good measure.
"There." Horror said after they were done. "I'll go let others know that they won't starve today."
"Wait, I got you covered." Killer prevented him, by taking his phone out and sending a message to their group chat. A useful thing when you live in such a big place and there's seven of you.
Soon enough the rest of the castle residents arrived, surprised to see that someone actually decided to prepare the supper. For the first time that day, they actually sat around the table, eating and sharing some brief conversations, like:
"Look, all I'm saying is, your names are almost the same."
"How's so?"
"Look. Ho - rror, E - rror."
"...Shit, you're right."
Eventually all the empty dishes were put in a washer.
"Sooo, what now?" Cross asked. The day was coming to a close and it seemed almost appropriate to end it as they started. Together.
"A movie?" Nightmare proposed. A fairly obvious choice, but a good one nonetheless.
The rest of the skeletons eyed each other for confirmation and nodded. A good choice indeed. Before any of them could react, they were snatched by Nightmare's tentacles, who carried them all to the living room and onto the bigger couch.
After a bit of discussing and searching, they finally found something that they all agreed on. Not a horror for once, but an adventurous one.
Before they properly started, a few blankets and some pillows were gathered and put all around or next to each of them.
Not even halfway through the movie and they were already in a proper, tangled cuddle pile. Error's head was laying on Lust's lap, who was sandwiched between Cross and Dust, who was leaning on Nightmare. On the other side Horror cuddled into Killer, who in turn cuddled into Nightmare. And of course the tentacles were holding this whole pile together.
It didn't take long for them to start dropping like flies and entering the dreamworld. They weren't even that tired, but so cozy and relaxed, it was hard to stay awake.
Just before the last one - Nightmare - fell asleep, he murmured "I love you all. I'm glad I found my second family." He knew they couldn't hear him, but it was alright.
They knew that already.
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Plot twist: they ordered from the Freddy Fazbear's Pizza.