Will this be the way I die? All of my hard work for nothing, my hope ripped from me? Karma is a horrible thing, trying to take Blue down with me...
Blue! What am I thinking? I shouldn't be drowning in self-pity! Dream shakily reached out his hand. Every bone in his body screamed and burned, and every millimeter he moved felt like lava coursing through his skeleton. I have to get up! I have to teleport Blue back to Underswap! Dream ignored the searing pain to reach towards Blue. I can't let him down. I promised to protect him, to protect them. Just a little more...
I can't let him die with me. He doesn't deserve it.
Blue collapsed onto the ground next to the guardian, the strain of the battle weighing down his bones. "D-Dream, Hold On, We Will Survive This!" Blue choked out, mustering his hope and reaching for his friend's outstretched hand.
I need to save him.
Dream chuckled before being interrupted by a wet, marrow-filled cough. "Yeah, you will." He tried to sit up to hug Blue goodbye, to pour apologies into a last embrace, but his legs failed him. He couldn't even feel them anymore, but Dream didn't care. He couldn't muster the positivity to save Blue, so what did his pain matter?
I'm so sorry I failed you.
"We Both Will, Right?" Blue questioned as he took Dream's gloved hand. His cerulean eyelights searched the dimming golden ones with fervor. "Have Faith, My Friend. I Believe In Us."
Dream managed a small smile. He knew he had to get Blue out now, he could feel Nightmare approaching. A small burst of energy surged through him in his desperation. With Blue's hope adding to his own leftover energy, Dream managed to get out, "say 'hi' to Stretch for me, okay?" Before dropping Blue into Underswap.
The portal collapsed as soon as it's traveler entered, as did the caster when the portal closed. Dream felt unconsciousness teeter at the edge of his vision as the ignored pain of many wounds surged through him like a burst dam. Despite this, he still managed to lift his gaze to his counterpart and smile.
"Congrats, Night," Dream coughed out as darkness' comforting hold swallowed his consciousness. "You did it."
Nightmare stared down at the now unconscious Guardian in front of him. It would be easy to let him suffer. Put a hole through his skull to incapacitate him and claim the multiverse for himself. Wasn't exactly a fair fight, the lingering conscious of his past self argued. Ink wasn't here. So what? The corruption argued, that rainbow bastard has never been our target. He deserves to suffer.
"Hey, Boss?" Cross called tentatively from behind Nightmare, slamming reality back into his head. After turning around, the dark skeleton noticed his subordinate seemed on edge.
"What is it?" Nightmare growled out, attempting to cover over his inner conflict with anger.
Cross glanced at the trees behind him, then up to the cave ceiling of this AU's Snowdin. "Something is wrong--"
The concern Cross was going to offer got cut off by a string of expletives and the sound of people being thrown into the snow. "This place is failin' apart, Boss." Horror called as he walked over to where he threw Dust and Killer. After hefting each teammate onto one of his shoulders, Horror continued, "almost looks like Error started destroying the universe."
"Is it just this hellhole's code or should I care?" Nightmare asked as he glanced at Cross.
Although Cross was not as good with code as the aforementioned Destroyer, he shook his head. He was certain: "It's not a part of this universe." Nightmare gestured for him to continue, and Cross drew his blade to check the universe's code once more. "The cause of the deterioration, that is." He glanced at his Boss, checking that he was following, " If we don't leave soon, we could risk--"
He was cut off by a chunk of ground a couple of meters behind Horror loudly fizzling into nothing. Where the snow and dirt used to be, only darkness was left. Horror, who had placed KIller and Dust on the ground during Cross' explanation, moved to investigate the out-of-place black section of Snowdin town.
Cross grabbed his hood and yanked him back, careful of the knocked out Dust and Killer on the ground between them. "Be careful!" Cross yelled with vigor, "that leads to the Void!"
Horror growled as he struggled to get free of Cross' hold. "Let go." After being released, the butcher crouched down to investigate Dust and Killer's wounds. He looked up to ask, "so what does that mean in English?"
Cross pulled up the console and used some visuals to help him explain. "As far as I'm aware, it's like the Anti-void and Doodlesphere, but deadly. The code is inaccessible, there are no ways out--only in--and it doesn't just kill you, it erases you. Horror, even a reset wouldn't bring you back."
Nightmare rolled his eyelight. "As great as that is, what happened to the 'we could risk' part?" Nightmare glanced down at Dream, whose aura was weak enough to be barely noticeable, even at his proximity.
"Right," Cross agreed, closing out the console. "If we stay, we could risk falling in and being erased. It's possible we could spread the virus if it gets onto us, too." He paused for a moment. "Although I'm less sure about that."
Certain that the boys were not in danger of dusting anytime soon, Horror stood up and leaned on his axe. He followed Nightmare's gaze, and asked the question he knew was on the Boss' mind. "What are we going to do with him if we're leaving?"
Nightmare hated what he was about to say, but knew what he had to do. "As much as I would like the idiot to suffer, this fight wasn't fair," Nightmare crouched down to Dream, "and the dumbass came here already weakened."
Horror connected the dots before Nightmare could finish. "He's coming with us, isn't he?"
Nightmare sighed as he stood to open a portal to his pocket dimension. "Sadly, yes. If he dies, I do too, and there's not really anyone else who can heal him," he clarified. "Cross, grab him. Mind his spine, it's fractured."
Cross grimaced, but complied. Horror walked to the landing platform last, carrying Dust and Killer. Nightmare kept the portal open a little longer, curious to see how this 'disease' worked. Finding nothing interesting, he closed it and gestured for the two to follow him towards their abode. Reaching the mansion entrance, Nightmare led the two towards the infirmary on the first floor.
Throwing the door open, Nightmare stormed towards the head healer. "Ah! Is something wrong, my lord?" She questioned.
"No, everything's fine," Nightmare mocked, gesturing to his two limp tentacles and the three unconscious--and the two barely standing--men behind him. "Take care of them."
The healer straightened and turned to her three assistants. "Elize, Maria, Alex, prepare four beds!" As the three hurried to prepare for the bleeding skeletons, the head healer glanced at Nightmare. "And you, my lord?"
Nightmare sighed and gestured to Cross. "Grab that one. His spine is fractured, and he's on Reapertale's doorstep." She nodded quickly, concern flowing off her in waves as she grabbed a large medical bag. "Take him to the master guest suite." He turned to Cross as the healer took Dream from his arms. "Stay here."
Cross nodded, his posture noticeably slumping. "Yes, sir," He said before moving to collapse on one of the beds. Horror had already placed Killer and Dust on their beds and was sitting in a chair next to Dust's, despite Elize's insistence he lay down.
Nightmare used one of his remaining tentacles to grab Horror and force him into a bed next to Dust. "Listen to her, Horror." Horror rolled his eyes, but nodded, pushing up his jacket sleeve to reveal a broken ulna and cracked radius to the nurse, who audibly gasped.
"Stars," she whispered, horrified. She smiled, noticing that Horror was looking at Maria, who was taking care of Dust. "He'll be fine," she reassured, drawing Horror's attention. Killer was being checked out by Alex, as Cross insisted he wasn't the priority in this situation.
Sure that everything would be fine down here, Nightmare walked up to the third floor and entered the master guest suite, unaware that he was walking faster than he normally would. When he entered the bedroom Dream was in, Nightmare internally flinched.
Dream's bodysuit had been ripped open and his spine was in pieces. He had several other major injuries, and his golden marrow was everywhere. Despite knowing he had inflicted the majority of these injuries and ordered the others, Nightmare felt a twinge of concern that he immediately pushed down. "How is he?" Nightmare asked the head healer, Rose.
She didn't even glance up from putting Dream's spine back together like a puzzle when she answered, "lucky he's a rank five, if one of the others had sustained these injuries..." She shivered, then continued, "it would not be pretty."
Nightmare pulled a stool from the edge of the room and sat by Dream's bedside. "I can imagine," the skeleton agreed, "it's not exactly picture-perfect now."
Rose hummed in agreement as she poured magic into Dream's spine. As the bone fused together and healed over into scars, Rose allowed her curiosity to test her boundaries. "Any reason we're separated from the others, sir? All four of your guards are downstairs, but you're here with a monster I've never seen before. Why, if I may ask?"
Nightmare had to restrain himself from choking her on the spot for her insolence. Voice heavy with anger, Nightmare answered, "he is my dual guardian. If he dies, I do too."
Rose breathed in sharply. She looked at the disheveled, bloodied and dying skeleton on the bed with newfound awe. "This," she whispered, "is the sun?"
Nodding, Nightmare pointed to the cape around Dream's neck with one of his tentacles. "Unclasp that and put it aside, will you?" As Rose pulled the fabric from underneath the unconscious skeleton, she gasped. The sun symbol emblazoned on the fabric was almost shone in the dark-toned mansion walls.
After she placed the fabric on the bedside table, she moved to Dream's less severe injuries, and seeing how she didn't die earlier, asked another question. "What is his name, my lord?"
Nightmare allowed a small smile to slip onto his face. "Dream," he answered.
When all of Dream's injuries were as healed as they could be, it was Nightmare's turn to ask questions. Rose answered all of them swiftly before insisting she heals him before dismissing herself to check on the others. Nightmare begrudgingly agreed, ready to get back the usage of all of his tentacles. Luckily, his injuries were far easier to deal with than the thousand-piece puzzle that were Dream's bones.
After she was certain her lord was fine, she hurried to check on the others. This meant Nightmare was left alone with the knowledge that Dream would have to be here for an indeterminate amount of time while he healed fully. Rose could only speed things up and help so much before injuries required 'patience, rest, and time'.
Nightmare paced around the room, too agitated to read the book in his hands, wondering how he would explain himself when Dream woke up, because 'I kidnapped you, had one of my healers heal you and now you have to stay here for a while' was not a great explanation to someone he had been trying to maim for centuries.
Unfortunately, he didn't have much more time to think about it, because Dream began to stir. He retracted his tentacles for the first time in a century and moved to his counterpart's bedside. Well, this will go great.
Dream blinked awake, staring at the canopy over the bed he was in. Where was he and why was he so sore? As the battle's events came back to him, Dream attempted to sit up before being pushed back into the sheets. "Careful, wouldn't want to strain any of your injuries."
Dream turned his head to where Nightmare sat with a book pressed to Dream's chest, no malice in his stance, and no evil intentions in his aura. "N-Nightmare? Where-- Why--"
Nightmare interrupted Dream with a 'shh'. "You're in my mansion, Dream. One of my healers fixed your injuries."
It suddenly clicked. The deep tones and bricks, the fourposter bed, the lack of the extreme pain he recalled. Nightmare had saved him. "Why? Why did you spare me?"
Nightmare withdrew his book from Dream's chest, fairly certain the lighter guardian would stay laying down. "Self-preservation. If you die, I do, too, remember?" Dream quirked a brow bone, sensing a pensive uncertainty stir in the other. Hands in the air, aware he was caught, Nightmare answered, "I don't know, really. I could have dropped you at Sci's, but I trust my healers more when it comes to high ranks."
Dream chuckled, feeling like he was still missing a piece of the full answer, but too tired and thankful to press further. "Thank you, Nightmare." He yawned, settling into the bed, "that was very nice of you."
Nightmare pulled the covers up on Dream. "Shut up." The guardian stilled as he drifted into sleep. Nightmare left the suite quietly, and walked towards his quarters. I will need to have his bedding changed, arrange someone to show him around, and get him a change of clothes by tomorrow, Nightmare thought to himself. The uncorrupted version of him glanced back at where Dream was, and then floated over Nightmare's shoulder. Thank you.