.₊̣̇.ෆ˟̑*̑˚̑*̑˟̑ෆ.₊̣̇.ෆ˟̑*̑˚̑*̑˟̑ෆ.₊̣̇.ෆ˟̑*̑˚̑*̑˟̑ෆ.₊̣̇.ෆ˟̑*̑˚̑*̑˟̑ෆ.₊̣̇
A black sky littered with sobbing stars and the sound of howling cries of pain fueled Nightmare with the glee he needed to restore some of his corrupted form.
"Wonder how much longer I'll have to do this before I'm fully restored..." Nightmare muttered, deep in thought as he mindlessly shot his tentacles out to stab a couple more monsters, tuning out their screams and splatters of blood.
He's already gotten rid of Frisk, the amount of grief that caused the Papyrus here was amazing, a full meal if he's being honest. Speaking of the skeletons here— where could Razz be? He should be here.
"Listen, I don't like interfering, but this is a little—" Razz's pathetic older brother, Rus, approached him with a nonchalant expression betraying his true emotions; he could practically taste his fear.
"Save your threats of a 'bad time' or whatever, I don't want to hear it." Nightmare rolled his eye, scowling at the mustard Rus continued to chug. Disgusting, just like Fell.
Really though, he hears the same bad time spiel in every universe he goes. Do they truly believe that they stand a chance against him? Delusional.
"Where's your brother?" He asked, deciding to drop the monsters he was currently strangling in his tentacles to face Rus. Rus was staring at the most likely dead bodies in horror, his eye lights flashing on and off sporadically.
"Shouldn't he be here?" Nightmare continued, getting even more irritated once he realized that Rus was so traumatized that he couldn't speak. Weak.
Wouldn't it be hilarious if Razz was just a filthy liar who was secretly betraying their team by helping the Star Sanses? Wouldn't that be a twist. Luckily that isn't the case though, at least according to his brother.
"Oh, he's here alright." Rus chuckled, shaking his head as he snapped out of his trance whilst looking somewhere behind Nightmare, throwing his mustard to the floor and summoning a wall of bones, throwing them at Nightmare.
Before he knew it, he was trapped. Bones coming in from all sides allowing him no escape. Where did they come from?
He turned around, spotting a familiar short stack skeleton wielding a whip with a triumphant grin. What the fuck was he doing?
"Hey... boss." Razz scowled, cracking the whip to the ground in an attempt to intimidate Nightmare. "Oh look, who's in control now~? You think that you could simply destroy Snowdin and get away with it? Mweh-heh-heh, I can do whatever I want with you—!"
Nightmare snapped his fingers and reappeared behind Razz, smiling cruelly with a twitching eye. He knew Razz was stupid, but not this stupid.
Razz stopped midway through his sentence, jaw hanging open with Rus mimicking his expression. He slowly turned, dropping his whip immediately and sprinting away through the bloodied snow.
"Coward~" Nightmare purred lowly, grabbing him easily before Razz could get very far and choking him the same way he did with Fell. His throat made strangled sounds that would be painful to hear for any normal person, but to Nightmare it was like his favorite song.
"STOP CHOKING MY BRO!" Rus hollered, his eye flaring a smoky red as he summoned multiple gastric blasters ready to hurl Nightmare into non-existence.
The blinding beams were effortlessly blocked by Nightmare using his tentacles as a shield, effectively rendering them useless.
Rus stuttered, not used to being overpowered and filled with confusion. "H-how did you—? H-how do you even know my brother, freak?"
"Bye bye." Nightmare said calmly, taking Rus' crummy little soul out of his stupid body and crushing it. The sound was like crinkling metal, extremely satisfying for Nightmare.
The name that Rus had called him was all too familiar... visions appeared of him curled into a ball in his old, pathetic form on the vibrant grass, sobbing as he was kicked brutally by numerous monsters chanting 'freak' at him.
But that's in the past, he's so much stronger now. They got their comeuppance anyways.
Rus shook involuntarily with horrified eyes, his gaze snapped to his brother as tears filled his eyes. "S-sans... I've never told you this before, but I care about you so much, I know this is cheesy but I don't have much time left and you need to know that I love—"
The withering sound of his body turning to dust sent shivers down Razz's spine as it slowly flowed with the wind, going who knows where.
His dust flavored the cool, icy wind with a taste of red cherry, reminiscent of the blood splattered on both trees and snow. He'd be able to last at least a week without needing to do this again with the amount of negativity this is producing.
"N-no... NO! IT'S NOT FUCKING FAIR, IT'S NOT!" Razz was full on sobbing by now, cherry tears flowing like a waterfall. Nightmare cringed at the feeling of it touching his tentacles, that gross bit of sentimentality had already nearly made him vomit.
Razz's voice was hoarse from his lack of air, and Nightmare wasn't keen on killing his team member so he instead threw him to the freezing cold snow, knocking him unconscious.
Snowdin was desolate, the only thing left was leftover screams, sunken bodies and a hollow scent of despair. He was filled with NEGATIVITY, and it was so delicious.
"Hey Nighty I brought you a— a, oh." Cross has skipped through a portal into Swapfell Snowdin, gift in hand. "Not again!"
Cross had a disappointment written all over his face, he was never fond of mass genocide— like most people— but Nightmare could tell that his excitement for this day wasn't dimmed.
"You know that Razz is gonna leave the team after this, don't you?" Cross said with his hands on his hips, shaking his head at Nightmare through piercing eyes.
"Hah, he can try." Nightmare chuckled, resting on his arms as his tentacles lifted him into the air, taking in the lingering negativity. "According to the contract in which he signed, he cannot leave nor betray us without severe consequences. And those severe consequences include death, torture, death, death, and death."
"I never had to sign a contract," Cross inquires with a raised brow, his arms now resting by his sides. "I don't want Razz to die! He's... kind of nice, I guess... in his own way. He didn't deserve this!"
"Well, if you like him then I suppose we'll keep him around. I just needed to cause pain in his universe, nothing personal," Nightmare hummed, lowering himself to the ground. "You were a special case. I didn't bother giving you a contract because... anyways, what's that you got there?"
Nightmare pointed at the gift in Cross' grasp, making him in eagerness to show him what he brought. He lifted it up, standing on his tippy toes in an effort to match Nightmare's height... though he was still far shorter.
"It's a gift in celebration of our 2nd anniversary! ...friend anniversary, I mean." Cross added awkwardly. Nightmare didn't like that, anniversary sounded just fine, adding friend gave it a different feeling. He could tell Cross didn't like it either.
"Oh... was I supposed to bring one?" Nightmare asked guiltily, scratching his neck as he tried to remember. Gee, and he thought Ink was the forgetful one.
"Well, yes," Cross admitted while looking down. "BUT, it's okay that you forgot. Just being here with you is enough!"
Oh— wow— Nightmare's face lit up with cyan as he looked anywhere but at Cross. He's never been told that before by anyone, not even by Dream... oh yes, Dream, they have to save him later. But all he wants to do is be with Cross, he wants to stay here forever.
"...eheh, so are you gonna open it?" Cross said, knocking Nightmare out of his trance as he handed the box over to Nightmare.
It was a miniature cardboard box painted Black with cyan hearts drawn all over it, very poorly may he add, but the sentiment was nice... what did he mean with those hearts, anyway? Platonic love? Or...
"Yeah, ok," Nightmare said, prying open the crippled, low-quality box with his fingers as something crinkly and thin slipped out.
It was a line-less sheet of paper, Nightmare realized once he grabbed it before it drifted off, straightening it out to see what was on it.
On it was a horrendously-drawn Cross and Nightmare holding hands, colored and everything. The paper was torn and had clearly been crumpled before, but what really caught Nightmare's eye was what was written on it.
'Best Friends Forever!'
His soul ached, and not in a pleasant way. It felt like something within him was saying that it wasn't true, that they weren't best friends. They've known each other for two years, surely they're more than that...?
"I...It's good." Nightmare gulped, attempting to spare Cross' feelings, something he'd never do for anyone else. "Could work on coloring inside the lines, though."
Cross sighed, nodding his head and looking away as he wrapped his arms around himself in a self-hug.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."
Cross was flowing with negative energy at the moment as he opened his mouth and decided to let all his feelings out.
"...sorry, I know I can't draw, and you probably hate it. And I'm sorry that it was in such a bad box, I couldn't find a better one, and I'm also sorry that the paper's all wrinkly because Chara was messing around with it while I was asleep—"
Nightmare was already ready to tell Cross to shut up and stop apologizing, but what was the name he just mentioned?
"...Chara? What Chara?" Nightmare asked slowly, slyly slipping the drawing into his goopy pocket, which, contrary to what many may think, did not stain the paper at all.
"O-oh! Oopsie, I meant that I was messing around with it while I was asleep! Heheh. I was too lazy to re-do it..." Cross was truly the worst liar to ever exist.
Nightmare stared at him unamused, "I didn't even have to use my abilities to tell you were lying. Tell me the truth, or I'm leaving."
To further cause Cross fear, he turned around and faced the bridge, pretending to prepare to teleport out of there. He lifted his fingers and slowly slid them together.
"WAIT!" Cross shrieked, reaching out and grabbing Nightmare's arm. Nightmare smirked, turning back around. He knew that'd work on Cross, it always does.
"Yes?"
"I- um, okay, you'll never believe this, so I'll just rip the bandaid off," Cross stuttered, fiddling with his fingers as sweat rolled down his skull. His skull was turned downward so all he could see was the red-tainted snow.
"Oh please, it can't be that ridiculous." Nightmare scoffed, waiting for the explanation. He's heard many strange things before, this ought not to be any different.
"Uhm, if you're sure I guess..." Cross let in a shaky breath, correcting his posture and lifting his skull. "Okay, so, I have this ghost that's half of my soul— I absorbed their soul a long time back— named Chara. They were the Chara from my universe, xtale, and only I can see and speak to them."
Cross took a few deep breaths after that, eyes now completely shut in the fear of how Nightmare would react to this new information.
He felt a gooey tentacle lift his chin up, causing Cross to creak his eye open enough to spot Nightmare smirking handsomely at him... did he just say handsomely? He was just being objective and describing the facts.
'No, you thought it.' Chara snickered in his typical teasing voice, startling Cross. Cross let out a small yelp, leaping backwards as Nightmare stared at him knowingly. 'Was that necessary, Chara?'
Chars floated in front of him, his black and white clothing mimicking his as he ruffled his hair. It was strange seeing a ghost touch something and it actually being affected.
Chara adopted a serious expression, 'why'd you tell him? You know he'll use it against you, right? He's the king of negativity— don't you see what he's done to Snowdin? To his own teammate?'
Chara had been knocked out since this morning, you know, after he completely wrecked Cross' drawing making Cross stab a bone through his eye— apparently they just woke up.
'He wouldn't,' Cross said internally. 'I know he can keep a secret. Besides, I'm not just a teammate...'
'Okay, I agree with that last part. You're still a fool though, Cross.'
"...nothing surprises me anymore," Nightmare said huskily, his hot breath dusting onto Cross' face. It smelt mysterious, like he was hiding something. "And for your information... I loved your drawing— not because it was good, it was terrible— but because you made the effort, and that's the least I could've asked for."
Cross' jaw hung open, lavender coating his skull as he shoved his face into the fluff of his coat in embarrassment. He did just call it terrible... but that's got to be the best compliment anyone's ever received from Nightmare!
'Yuck. You realize that when you guys have sex that I'll be able to feel it too, right?'
'Woah— okay, so that escalated.' Cross' blush deepened. Why was Chara like this?
"Besides, I have a secret of my own." Nightmare winked... wait, but how did he wink? Isn't he still wearing that eyepatch that he for some reason thought made him look better—
"WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU!" Cross shrieked, mouth wide open as he pointed sharply at Nightmare's eye, which was now uncovered.
'He took it off while you were gushing about Nightmare,' Chara spoke, poking Nightmare in the ribs with his little ghostly fingers. 'So this is what he was hiding.'
Nightmare shrugged nonchalantly, "eh, I'm de-corrupting. Don't tell anyone, they'll just make things more complicated than they need to be. I'm serious, zip your non-existent lips. We have to set our priorities straight, and now that I've stalled my de-corruption for a while, we have got to do something about Dream."
Chara mimed zipping his lips, tilting his head to the side creepily. He looked like a doll.
"De-corrupting?" Cross inquired, looking overwhelmed. "And what was that about Dream?"
'Try to keep up, Cross.'
"This is my corrupted form, I didn't always look like this you know." Nightmare sighed, not used to sharing personal things like this with others, but feeling relieved that he's finally doing it.
"Oh, yes, and Dream is corrupted now. You know— he looks kind of like me. Goopy with tentacles and all that schtick."
"WHAT—"
"FRIENDS, HURRY UP AND GET IN!" A high, booming voice cut off Cross, causing both their heads to snap towards the source. Chara was covering his ears with an irritated expression.
Blue's head was peeking out from a portal, and his aura told Nightmare that this was definitely something that could not wait.
"What's going on?" Nightmare asked, stepping away from Nightmare, disappointing Cross greatly. "Who died?"
'How annoying!' Chara groaned, shoving his face into his hands. 'He interrupted a touching moment! I swear, the sexual tension was so high that you probably would've kissed if given the time.'
Cross glared at Chara, causing him to shrug. 'Am I wrong?' Blue continued to shout, eyes creased with worry as loud banging noises erupted from the portal. Wonder what's happening on the other side...
"WE KNOW WHERE DREAM IS!"
.₊̣̇.ෆ˟̑*̑˚̑*̑˟̑ෆ.₊̣̇.ෆ˟̑*̑˚̑*̑˟̑ෆ.₊̣̇.ෆ˟̑*̑˚̑*̑˟̑ෆ.₊̣̇.ෆ˟̑*̑˚̑*̑˟̑ෆ.₊̣̇
Word Count: 2644 words
Author's Note: Wow, we made it to the tenth chapter! This one's a little longer than usual. Also, positions (a song) came out recently and you guys should totally listen to it, just saying.