Chapter Text
Cross stood clutching his injured arm as he watched the gang walk out, leaving them shaken up from the interaction, again. He snapped out of his daze at XChara groaning.
“Thanks a lot, Cross.”
“ME??”
“YES YOU!” Cross groaned and ran a hand down his face. He walked over to XChara and extended a hand to pull him off the ground, but was ignored.
Huffing, Cross rubbed his collarbone, but felt a missing presence, making his soul sink.
“You have got to be kidding me.” He groaned, frantically checking the floor around him. His necklace was missing again. “Killer took my locket.”
XChara looked at him like he was stupid. “That is the LEAST of our worries.”
Cross threw his good arm in the air out of exasperation,“Whatever.” He shifted his body to avoid XChara as he pushed past him and flopped on the bed.
He grabbed one of the pillows are started fluffing it, “I call sleeping here. You can have the floor ig…”
Cross rolled his eyes and turned away mumbling, "I'm not doing this with you right now.” He walked over to the desk and started pulling open drawers. There was some basic supplies in these drawers, but nothing helpful towards their situation. If anything, maybe he could write a very strongly worded letter to his father. Cross’s uninjured arm patted his waist, and felt his knives missing.
“Shit…”
There was a knock at the door before it swung open with that horrid creak again. Cross glanced over at XChara, but he just ignored the sound at the door, favoriting the bed over what drama Cross was about to get into. Looking back over, he watched as Dust walked through the door, holding a vial of green liquid.
There was a tense moment of silence as Cross glared at him. Not even 10 minutes and they're harassing him again. He eyed the vial in Dust's hands for a second, confused.
“...Boss asked me to give this to you” Dust broke the silence after a minute of awkward tension.
Cross stared at the bottle for a second. It was unlike the healing in Xtale. In Xtale, the liquid was purple, he didn't know what green did…
“Is that….Healing?” He asked unsure. Dust twitched and his glowy eye light squinted.
“... yes? Have you never seen a healing vial before?” He responded with annoyed confusion. Cross’s gaze hardened at the tone.
“It's not green where I come from. It's yellow.”
Dust’s eye twitched at Cross’s accusing tone.“Well that's wrong. They're supposed to be green” He snarkily responded before walking up to Cross. He held out the vial for Cross to take, but Cross made more effort to move. He tensed at the sudden closeness and looked at the vial. He knew he couldnt trust them, even if it was the normal purple he's used to, there's no telling what kind of drug they laced it with. Magic blockers, sleeping pills, weakness-
Dust’s forced cough broke him out of his thoughts. He gingerly took the vial from the others hands, not making any move to open it.
“So… you gonna…?” Dust lazily asked, his patience running thin.
“Uh, yeah… you don't have to watch me…?” Cross actually had no intention of using the healing on himself. If this potion was anything like the ones from Xtale, it also served as a power booster. If he could get XChara to drink it instead, he would be strong enough to summon the Overwrite and get them out of there.
“Nah… the boss asked me to keep an eye on you. I'm going to need to see you drink that entire vial.” Dust shifted his head back to stare at Cross. The shadow covering from his hood lifted a small amount to uncover half of his face, showing the smug expression he wore. Cross glared at his knowing look, it's like Dust could read his mind… know his next move… Fuck….
Cross glanced back at XChara on the bed, but their back was turned towards the two, and a soft sound of snores came from them. There is no WAY he fell asleep right now. Cross mentally face palmed at the child's lack of situational awareness.
“I don't have all day.” Cross’s eyes darted back towards Dust, “Either you drink that vial, or I force it down your throat.” Dust’s mood changed within a second, throwing Cross off guard. His grip on the vial slipped and it tumbled into the desk.
Cross jumped at the sound of it colliding onto the table. He blinked and his eyes darted to where the vial landed, but it wasn't there. He flinched back from Dust and saw him twirling the green vial in his hands.
“Come on Crossy. I have shit to do” Dust mocked, reaching out with a gloved hand to grab Cross's turtle neck. A panicked yelp escaped Cross’s mouth as he was tugged forward. Dust placed him into a head lock as he used one hand to pry open his jaw and secure the opening of the vial in Cross’s teeth. Slowly, Dust tipped the vial, pouring the contents into Cross’s mouth as Cross clawed at Dust.
The magic was forced down his throat in a way that made his body reject it, but Dust covered his mouth, forcing him to take the damn medicine.
As soon as the liquid was all gone, he loosened his hold and Cross broke free, stumbling forward and coughing to get some air in his body. He gently caressed his throat as he struggled to take in air.
“Cross shut up..” Dust and Cross tensed at the words,both looking towards XChara, still asleep on the bed and lazily asleep talking.
XChara tossed and turned before punching the pillow he was laying on, mumbling something about “stupid cross” or whatever. Cross couldn't believe the situation he found himself in, getting basically waterboarded, all the while as his brother dreamed about beating him up. Despite Dust’s face being mostly hidden, Cross could tell Dust was just as confused as him, if not more annoyed than confused.
“Hes not [cough] normally like this..” Cross tried joking in between his coughing fits, but the joke landed pretty dry. Despite his best efforts to calm his coughing, it got worse and worse, causing XChara to wake up, glaring at them.
“Can you at least TRY to cover?! This is why Gaster wanted YOU gone.” XChara complains and rolls back over, trying to go back to sleep. When Cross didnt stop, XChara glanced back, finally noticing the other presence in the room.
“Dude, what's wrong with you??” XChara then glances up at dust “What did you do?!”
“Nothing you need to be concerned about. Mind your own business. ” Dust muttered, not even glancing towards the child.
Cross steadied himself on the desk, clutching his neck until the coughing went down. He glared up at Dust and bared his teeth, “Jackass.”
“Whatever man, im just doing my job” Dust groaned, shoving his hands into his hoodie pockets.
Green magic rippled through Cross's injured arm as it healed in the most excruciating way. He gritted his teeth to try and keep his composure in front of Dust. He didn’t want someone he’d be living with for who knows how long to think he’s weak and can't handle a little pain.
Dust leaned down to keep Cross’s gaze while he was still hunched over. Cross stared into the black abyss that the hoodie made over Dust’s face and glared and where his eyes probably were. “Do you need anything else?” Cross demanded. Dust just stared for a little while longer before bending down and swiping his hand across Cross’s cheek and over his red scar.
“Huh.” Dust looks at his thumb that just went over cross’ cheek, he’d expect the scar to heal along with the arm, that’s what healing potions did after all, they healed.
“Ew, get a room freak” XChara complained from the bed, turning his head away, acting like this was the grossest thing he’d seen yet. Dust snapped his head towards the human and hummed in disappointment from realizing the human was still alive.
“Watch your tone with me.”
“Or what, you’ll kill me?” Fat chance, then good old Crossy over here wouldn't do jack poop for you guys.”
“Chara stop it.” Cross stepped in, placing his body between the two fighting.
Dust hesitated for a moment before teleporting away, leaving the door wide open.
“Tsk. figures.” XChara mumbled before flipping over and lying back down. “Cross close the door, I'm trying to sleep.”
Cross rolled his eyes, but obliged.
He shut the door before turning around and finally taking in the room for the first time since they got there. Standing there, he took a second to lean on the door as the adrenaline from the situation left his body, leaving him exhausted.
He took a moment to catch his breath, closing his eyes and resting his head on the door. The eerie silence of the room was filled by XCharas low breathing and Cross’s heavy breaths. Opening his eyes, he glanced around again, before deciding now was probably a good time to continue his search of the room.
He explored the door by the bed and discovered a very small closet with some rags hanging from hangers. Maybe at one point they could have been clothing, but moths have eaten straight through them.
On the door of the closet was a mirror. Cross looks a bit better than yesterday morning due to the potions effects, but he could only imagine how he looked before. His arm was sore, but functional. He dreaded to know that only meant he would be put to work sooner than later. He leaned in close to the mirror to look at his scar on his face, right here Dust touched him. Nothing had changed with it. He leaned back and huffed before looking twords the rest of the room, already deciding that hes gonna tear it apart.
He spent about another hour or two searching the room for supplies and anything hidden, but came up bare.
XChara wasn't having much luck with sleeping. Constantly tossing the turning, he felt the negative weight of the world weigh around, making it impossible to sleep. All XChara could think about was going home to his brothers. Around the time Cross slowed down his search of the room, XChara sat up and groaned.
“This place SUCKKKKKSSSSSS”
“Well no shit it sucks.”
“This is all your fault.”
“Im not dealing with this again.”
—--
Somewhere else in the house were three skeletons and their boss discussing plans for the future. Huddled in a dark room, lit only by candle lights because the big fluorescent bulbs hurt Horrors eyes, was a nightmare gang, sitting at an oval table, staring at a map covered in dots.
Each dot represented a different multiverse. There were some crossed out in red ink, and some circled in blue.
At the head of the oval table was a nightmare, sitting in a rather dramatic chair. Horror and Dust sat side by side, with Killer across from them.
“Error’s radio silence has made everyone on edge, specifically my brother and his… team mates. “ Nightmare sneered. “Unfortunally, his silence means they're more on guard. We haven't been able to catch them off at all these past months.”
“That also means… Ink is… unoccupied.” Horror mentions
“YEAH! That squid has really been irking me. And he seems more on top of his shit than usual.” Killer added.
“Thats why we need to plan these next steps carefully. We need to slowly bring Cross into public view. But silently. Slowly. If we do anything too hasty, my brother won't fall for it. It needs to seem like it's unwilling.”
Nightmare developed a plan to get ahold of the Omega timeline once and for all. He needs access to it, but first he needs to find a way in. And that's what he needed Cross and XChara for.
His plan involved making it seem like he recruited a new member to fight against Dream, but they seem unwilling to do so. This will spark his brother's interest, and eventually, he’ll get him alone in a fight, where Cross will ‘confess’ to having no choice in this. From there, Nightmare will force Cross to play the helpless princess card as he waits for his ‘night in shitting armor’ to save him and his ‘helpless younger brother’, but ‘Cross’ will insist in XChara leaving first.
Once Dream takes XChara to the Omega timeline, he’ll use his overwrite to let Nightmare and his boys in, and the timeline will be theirs.
Nightmare sat back in his chair as he watched his men discuss their next raid of an Underswap variant. He felt the spike of negativity in the spare room a few floors up and chuckled.
They have no idea what's coming.
“Horror, go start dinner. Dust and killer, go clean and set the table.” Nightmare gives Horror a look, and Horror nods.