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✧ — I
Everything feels fuzzy, the whole world tilting weirdly and his limbs too weak to move. He can't even feel his bones, wouldn't even be surprised if he cracks his sockets open and find them missing.
Wouldn't be the first time, either. His left phalanges still woefully gone.
Still, as everything is askew, everyone is loud.
Murder cackles ugly and mad, Sans can't see but he will bet that bastard has a maniac grin on his skull.
Killer isn't no different, but calmer, somehow. He isn't really laughing, but he keeps up his usual chuckle, though it sounds twisted with something else.
Dare Sans says, uncomfortableness.
…strange.
Well, today something is clearly weird with that guy. Something…not exactly unpleasant. That guy's target-SOUL turns more SOUL shape, he had noticed, but still wonky and unstable. His DETERMINATION isn't dripping wet so much on the floor anymore, but dried and stuck messily on his cheekbones.
Killer also avoided them, in the whole of this morning where he's supposed to be eating with them both, minus Nightmare, until Murder decided the silence is enough and started to cause a mess.
It's…. because Sans’s unfortunate and sentimental stupidity, he decided to help.
Which is why he's here now, on the floor. Eyeball ripped out of his skull and bones arching. He's pretty sure he's already supposed to be dust, Murder often play rough more than not, but his HP still has that 0.5 point left. Miraculously.
That's when Killer short-cut in with rare surprised panicked expression, stopped dead in his track and stare. Murder paid him no mind, already satisfied enough with trying and successfully gouging through Sans’s eye and skull hole.
Sans briefly wonder why that is, before suddenly—
The temperature in the room drop.
“What, pray tell, are you three doing?”
Well, it seems Sans isn't going to live anymore longer than this, after all.
Murder choked off his laugh, crumbling down to the floor as the negativity pressed around him. Sans knows exactly how that feels.
Suffocating, and all in all, downright horrible than starvation.
Slowly, Sans can feel the disgusting texture of the tentacle curls around his spine, the goop sliding along the magical organ and wetting his jacket, the tip poking around and slipping under the hollow of his ribcage through the clothes, gripping.
He cringed at it with grinding teeth, his bones and joints dangling uselessly in the air at the lift. The contact burn. Terribly.
He’ll die. He won't survive Nightmare’s wrath and he’ll die with a mess of his dust only left. And his brother will—
“W-Wait, Boss.”
Nightmare actually stopped.
“…Killer.”
He isn't questioning. He's demanding why.
Shuffles of clothes, and he could feel slow movement against his humerus. Tugging. And shakily so.
It's…odd. To think that Killer is scared right now, too.
“I’ll teach ‘em better than acting like… unleashed dogs, like this.”
Teach? Fucking really?
But it seems to be… working. Nightmare is considering. And Sans wishes he could see Murder's expression in this moment, just to gloat and snark to cope with whatever the fuck this is.
But, well, he can't. Not when the tentacle slowly slide off from it's tight hold around him and Sans—
Thud!
He blacks out at the fall.
—
Sans could feel his breath comes in easier when he wakes again. He can't see shit, and don't want to at the moment as his bones still too limped to protest, one hand under his knee joint and another supporting his spine.
Water ripples when he makes contact, and Sans shakily inhales as the unexpected warmth seep through, bones rattling slightly.
Killer huffs out a laugh, too close for comfort, his SOUL more stably settled in the shape of a target again.
“Evenin’, sleeping beauty.”
Sans’s socket twitches, but…
But he still can't see.
“S’rry ‘bout the eye. Murder crushed them,” He doesn't sound sorry, and Sans has no doubt that he's still smiling. “But promised ya’ll get a new eyeball la’er.”
Sans doesn't answer, doesn't ask of where the fuck will Killer get his new eye from, only shivers as Killer moves and—
Rinse… him.
Phalanges rubbing between his joints almost too gently, an alien sensation especially without his sight, sliding through the cracks and brushing off cling of dust and blood he didn't know was there.
Killer doesn't talk, and Sans almost wishes he does to ease off the strange tension of getting bath by someone else.
It takes embarrassingly long until he's able to find his own voice.
“…why?”
Because, really, bathing Sans is his way of teaching him to behave? Whatever that's supposed to mean?
Mind him, it isn't his fault Murder decided to be a bitch this early in the day.
Killer—
Doesn't answer.
Water ripples against his knees as Killer moves, not just testing the water or rubbing away at Sans’s legs but— he…joined in.
The silence is even louder than the screaming of the dead.
And Sans doesn't ask any more when Killer appears again later that day with a new eye for him. Exact same one, but in a better condition.
Sans doesn't….dare to ask where he gets it from.
✧ — II
The door cracks open suddenly, and Sans jumps at the sound. Water splashing out the tub at his sharp jerk, and he can only watch dumbfounded as Killer peeks in.
“Hi’ya.” He greets as if he isn't interrupting Sans’s private time.
“Get,” Sans starts with a tight grip on his plunger," “the fuck OUT.”
“Woah, woah! I came in peace!” Killer raised both of his hands, which make Sans noticed that he's covered in, to say delicately, filth. “My bathroom’s too borin’, mind if I hop in?”
“No.”
“‘ll behave, promise!” Killer took a step forward.
“No.”
“Oh, c’mon, Horror…” Another step forward.
That fucking nickname again—
“Pretty, please?” And then, he's in front of Sans already.
Sans jerks back at his sight suddenly being covered fully by Killer, teleporting in and scaring him— No, he isn't scared, damnit.
So with a shaky breath, knowing that grin hard way now that he won't win even if he argue tirelessly, Sans lowers the plunger.
“Yay.” Said Killer with the most smug and unapologetic tone ever, standing up straight again with a little jump in his movement. “Now, that's a good boy.”
“Shut the hell up, OR get out.” Sans flinches at the compliment and hisses at that, throwing the plunger and watching it hit uselessly against Killer's tibia, clanking onto the floor with loud sound. Killer doesn't react, but his grin gets wider.
“Alright, alrigh’. I got yer hint, no need to be feisty, Hotshot.”
Sans turns away from the other in time as Killer tugs the hem of his sweater and pull it over his head.
Hopefully, Killer will stayed quiet for the entire of their shared time here.
(He doesn't.)
✧ — III
It… became a routine, for some reason.
Sans couldn't really recalled how many times they’ve done this. Just that it happened.
It's not even helping that, lately, bath times are frequently required. Nightmare ordered them to go out causing havoc and spread negativity for no special reason other than he want to piss off his dear brother and feed off the despair that followed, like a child waiting to be spoonfed by his caretakers.
Fucking brat.
But it's not like Sans can say that out loud. Not when blood splashed ugly between his joints, not when he shut his eye and turned away when Papyrus appeared, letting others deal with him, not when he became—
Pop!
Sans jerks in surprise at the sound, accidentally knocking his patella against the tub edge with a loud thud, before he pauses at the pain it shoot though his joint.
Killer burst out laughing at that.
“Oh, man! Ya really outta it, huh?” The skeleton grins with rare humour, mandible leaning against his metacarpals, bubbles clinging between joints and turned pink from the blood. “Why? Busy enjoyin’ the view?”
Sans's face twists at the tease, refused to admit the way his magic tug tightly at his SOUL, and leans back against the bathtub again, slumped.
“…more thinkin’ ‘bout how to stab you with this shitty back scrubber.” Sans lies smoothly, forcing a grin and thrusting said ‘weapon’ into Killer's direction, letting it plop into the bubbled water and sink uselessly.
“GASP, how cruel… and here I thought we’re something.” Killer's wet hand splayed atop of his own sternum, fake and all in all, assholish. His other hand picks up the back scrubber, waving it around like a fool. “Absolute betrayal, sigh… T‘is exactly why we’re still coworkers, man!”
Killer winks with a chuckle, letting the implication drifts in the air. Sans would swat it away if he could.
Of course, the other isn't easily intimidated. Sans knew this and expected the reaction.
Sans scowls, and he shifts away from the other as a sign of both annoyance and defeat. The water ripple with his movement.
He’d learned the hard way that it's useless to argue against Killer, useless and only brought more disturbance, especially with how the other brush the curses and punches off without care.
Emotionless jerk.
“Y’surprisingly very expressive, y’know?” Killer breaks the silence suddenly with a smile, as if it’s just a careless throwaway comment. Sans considers snapping back, but Killer suddenly huffs out, cutting through the conversation with new topic rudely.
“This was one bloody mission, by the way.” He pouts, somehow, with teeth twisted weirdly into half frown half jutting his mandible out. It's… unnervingly human. Not an expression people would see on a skeleton.
Sans hates it.
Rough phalanges that fit more nicely on the knife handle grabs the soap, letting the surfactant rubbing away the filth between his joints, continuing where he left off.
The blood platelets went through the bubbles, turning it disgustingly pink.
"Unfortunately so.” He grumbles, cringing at the fact that aside from blood, there's…dust. A lot of dust. But he isn't willing enough to mention and care about that.
The sooner he get all the filth off, the better.
And the faster Killer will get off his ass too. Not literally.
Killer noticed his grimaces, and of course, he will tease.
“Aw, don't be grumpy, Horror.” Sans’s eye snap up at the name, with a sneer in warning for Killer to dropped the damned name already.
But again and again, Killer ignored the underlined threats.
“I know ya dislike our mission and all the clean up we need to do after it, especially…. with our special bath time.” Killer’s sockets curl up slightly, flirty and repulsive. “But this could’ve been worse.” He shrugs, “Could’ve been bones turning red and dusting,”
Sans’s left hand twitches. Missing phalanges achingly and digging his metacarpals into the bathtub surface with a quiet screech.
“Then we'd really have a problem.”
Killer, as always, pretend not to hear the dig of bone against the tub.
Sans has half a mind to grab that back scrubber that Killer had thrown onto the ground besides the bathtub and wrack the other with it, but decided against the idea.
Instead, with a harsh sigh, he cups his hand, letting the water gather between his bones without slipping through, then—
Splash!
Killer sputters dramatically, flinching back as if he’d been attacked by a hurricane instead of a splash.
“Oh! The HORROR!” He clutches his ribcage like he’s been fatally wounded, voice dripping with mocked tragedy. “I offer compassion, private fraternizing, and hygiene—and you repay me with liquid assault? Cold… so cold….”
"Just shut up and c’mere." Sans mumbles, "Let's clean your damned face up. It's a mess of your… DETERMINATION, and blood."
Killer wilts when he realizes Sans isn't going to play along with his dramatic display, “Ugh, you're no fun… Fine. But only ‘cause you look like you’re about to commit MURDER with that grimace. And I can’t have my favorite monster looking stressed.”
Killer grins sideways at him.
“Though if your hands happen to linger… don’t worry. I won’t tell Boss.”
Sans's phalanges twitch, and he briefly wonder whether should he just shove his hand inside Killer's socket and pull.
“…Nightmare isn't involved in this, don't bring him up.” He shudders.
“Awww, are you jealous?”
“Of nothing? Don't be ridiculous, Killer.” And without a warning, he cups both sides of Killer's skull, one hand awkwardly hold without properly phalanges to grab the other, then pull.
“Hey—”
It's incredibly petty to pull the other underwater like this, to press and press even with rough phalanges digging into his carpals.
Sans wishes he could drown the other like this forever, not giving him a chance to breath and live and just die uselessly—
But, well, Sans will surely get into trouble for that…
So with a softened grip, he lets Killer resurfaces with a choking gasp.
“You motherfucker—”
Sans didn't get a chance to scoff at Killer's curse and let go, however, before the back of his skull hit the bathtub with a loud crack, his tibia getting pulled forward and fucking with his balance.
Cruel hands circle around his cervical spine, tightening and pushing him down against his struggle.
Both of them know Sans would never win once he fell into other’s hands.
Skeleton doesn't need to breath, not exactly like human need to, but that doesn't mean the underwater is comfortable. The air got cut off suddenly, choking him with the water weight pressing all around his sides, rushing through his cracked skull, his stolen eye threatening to pop out and die off—
He knew this would be uncomfortable, would be painful, would be torturous, yet Sans still did it to him, out of all people, knowing the consequences.
And now, he's paying the price for it.
“Cough!” It felt like eternity until he's pulled back up, hands holding his slumping body up so he won't drown again. A small mercy, he supposed.
His skull rolled forward as he wheezed, supporting by a scapula, limbs awkwardly splayed in the limited space. Water pour out from every holes in his skull, nasal nastily full with his eyeball slipping out of place in his socket.
And, because of close proximity between them, Sans gets an apparent tremble against his parietal.
Tremble of laughter.
Of course, this bastard find his pitiful display funny.
Sans takes a big heave of air, coughing out water and SOUL thumping under his ribcage, louder than thunder. He doesn't even have enough strength to care about the fact he's being, basically, hugged.
“How's your own medicine taste like, hm?” Killer tuts, voice evidently smiling, despite the fact his hand rubs against Sans’s spine in a soothing manner, shaky and breathless himself.
And if Killer’s wobbling SOUL is anything to go by, floating right in front of him and changing with rapid flicks, it seems Killer was just as affected by almost drowning as he was.
Fucking deserved.
With a little more strength gained after getting a minute of breath, he pushed himself off the other and, basically, crumbles against the other side of the tub, sighing shakily as the cold settling in easily between his bones.
Dammit, his Osteopenia is going to be the death of him…
Sans’s pupil swipes up, watching as Killer's grin widens at his shaky struggle.
“…fuck you.”
Killer tilts his head.
“Would love if you do.”
Then he's out.
Water sloshing carelessly and wet the floor at his movement, pulling the towel around his iliac crest and getting the fuck out as fast as he could.
His magic hums, and he ignores it. Just as he ignores Killer’s chuckles behind him. Ignores it and make it out alive, even with embarrassment burning his skull into a mess of bright colour.
✧ — IV
Killer turns Horror’s left hand this way and that, like a curious kid examining a dead bird. But he’s clearly meticulous of Sans’s absent bones, gliding the tip of his phalanges against exposed ends of Sans's metacarpals slightly.
His hand supporting Sans’s wrist linger over the carpals, tracing the jagged edges almost… reverently.
"...I was wrong, by the way." Killer says suddenly, and there's an odd tone to his voice now. Red SOUL wobbling weirdly, and Sans still hasn't figured out what the fuck each shapes represent. But he noticed Killer is calmer whenever his SOUL is heart shaped, so he kept quiet.
“About what?”
Sans prompts, breaking off from his mindless staring with a blink, skull tilting slightly as if to think of what Killer is referring to.
Dull thumb phalange runs over the side of Sans’s carpal, mapping out one of many bones in slow, deliberate circles. Before hesitantly, he finally looks up, voice quieter now. Unnaturally quiet.
“Said ya were like a mirror. But… nah. That’s not right.”
("WE're all mirrors of each'ther, don't be a hypocrite bastard, will ya?" The skeleton said with an explosive laugh, but it's... dreadfully an empty sound.
Sans decided he hated him.)
Killer briefly pauses, gathering words and arranging them carefully. The white dot in his eye holds steady, like a star refusing to blink out.
It's quite rare, Sans notes mentally, to see Killer with an eyelight like this.
“You’re not a mirror. You’re more like… an anchor. Keeping me relatively sans, heh, in this shitty place.”
A beat,
“And I didn’t think I needed one…” Killer exhales, “‘till we started…well,” His hand gestures at the bathtub, very same one they started to shared since….then.
Somehow still do.
“Kinda cursed now, huh? Can’t unseen how weird we are together.”
Sans considers that and rolls the idea around in his mind. Him? An anchor?
“…then I must be a bad one.”
Killer raised his browbones, socket relaxed and unusually attentive with stains of DETERMINATION still blemished the smooth cheekbones. Messy and ugly as always.
Sans reaches out his good hand impulsively, letting his sharp phalanges rubbing against the stains, noting the slight flinch at the contact from Killer.
“‘cause you're drifting away.”
The phalanges around his wrist tighten up slightly.
Because he does.
Killer know he himself does. Drifting away and going out more than staying in the castle. Unbelievably, Sans think he spent more time with Murder than with Killer. The only time they actually get close like this again is their shared bath time.
(Since when did he started to refer it as THEIR?)
A shaky exhale, and then—
Killer is gone.
Sans isn't sure if he want to know what Killer is planning.
✧ — V
They aren't in the bathtub this time.
They're stranded…somewhere. For some time now. Hard to tell time when all around them is just white void. A space between universes, is what Killer described this place as. No way to leave unless you have access between worlds.
Both of them, unfortunately, don't have access. The only reason they're able to travel between AUs and ATs is all thanks to Boss dragging them along more than not.
Murder is nowhere to be seen, probably passed out and drowning in alcohol and regrets after Sans and Killer got pulled away by Boss, left to death—
No, don't think about it.
Instead, Sans focuses back on Killer. Watching as sweat rolls down Killer's frontal bone, letting the skeleton’s head lay against his femurs and pressing wet cloth onto the scorching heat underneath Killer's bones.
Skeleton doesn't get sick. Not exactly. But—
“…ya really should stop pissing Nightmare off.”
But they can't really fight against the sickness that came with Nightmare’s negativity. Too ill-willed and too disgusting for their SOULs to fight against.
A punishment, Killer said, leaving us here with no way out and sick with negativity juices.
It's disturbing. To know even Killer, who spent more time besides Nightmare's side than being alone, isn't an exception to this. To know Nightmare can hurt them this easily.
The only reason Sans isn't as affected right now and on verge of death is because he's just…. getting caught in the crossfire this time. Again.
It's an impossible mercy that Nightmare dropped them off in this…void, instead of killing them off like the king probably wanted to. And Horror is...pretty sure that mercy he granted has something to do with Boss's favouritism with Killer.
“Heh,” Killer laughs, before he coughs out roughly and bumpy sounds, body heaving as he nuzzles against Sans’s jacket that draped over his body, SOUL shaky between two shapes.
“Can't promis’ ‘at.” He slurred out at last, and Sans can only sigh. Negativity liquid evidently still stuck inside his palatine from how wetly weak he sounds.
Blunt metacarpals curling against Killer's mandible, gliding along the smooth edge as he rubs clean cloth against Killer's cervical spine. More keeping the other down to earth with the wetly coldness than cleaning up, but it's…. a soothing gesture, he hopes at least.
Fuck, he's getting soft—
“Meow!”
“Killer?”
They both freeze. For different reasons.
Someone is here—
“Kitty.” Killer fucking smiles.
Not the shit eating grin. Not the infuriating smirk. A cheerfully genuine smile.
A sans steps forward towards them, cracks in their skull fuzzing with colourful flame burning. His clothes look like default blue hoodie with a rainbow slash on his chest. Disturbing.
But Killer know them.
And Killer—
Killer sits up from his laid down position, hands stretching and pulling the running cat into his arms, cradling as if meeting an old friend.
“…didn't expect to see ya here.” The flaming skeleton’s eye visibly softened from surprise to gentle, sliding from Killer to him. “And who's this?”
He doesn't sound hostile, but definitely cautious.
Sans stills.
“Oh? That’s Horror sans. Told ya ‘bout him, no?”
“Not really, but I think I remember somethin’ ‘bout a crackhead.” The unfamiliar Sans pun’ed.
They're….close.
Sans could feel his mind process the information. It wouldn't be that surprising, Killer can fuck with anyone for all he cares, but this guy…
No matter how he see it, this guy is from a good AU and… they’re...
With soft magic colouring the guy’s cheekbones, with Killer’s SOUL finally settling calm unlike when they—
They're familiar.
(Sans wonders if all this time, their…interactions were merely nothing.)
He doesn't remember when he gets back to the castle, blanking out halfway thinking, as if his mind shutting down from too much realizations that he doesn't want to rethink about.
The water around him is cold, unfiltered and undisturbed, as if he’d been sitting here for quite awhile now, unmoving.
His stiff limbs second that statement. Cracking and shifting awkwardly when he moves to claw at his skull, suddenly itching, chipping away the ragged edge absentmindedly.
Killer was here, with him. Sans knows from the displaced towel on the hanger, but he left.
(And apparently, he will. Forever.)
All this time… whenever he disappeared and gone for a whole day, whenever he's busy with something unrelated to the mission, when he's looking at them with—
Regret.
…Is that really what Killer is stirring up in secret?
(The water turned blueish colour after he finally stepped out of the tub, mixing and shimmering with magic tears. He ignored it.)
He doesn't tell Nightmare of his new discovery. And he doesn't speak to Killer, avoided him, even.
(Sans shamelessly ignored the glances being thrown his way. Ignored Murder's narrowed glare burning into his side. Ignored everything, and just...live.
Killer didn't confront him.)
✧ — VI
“What the hell.”
Sans breathes out, not quietly but not yelling either. He knows yelling won't help, not when in front of him—
“That isn't Killer.” Murder cuts in, voice unnaturally blank, as if processing the sight just as he is.
Sans, for all as he’s shaken, shoves a hand between the crook of Murder's arm and gripped. Phalanges digging into the torn clothes almost too roughly and ripping the fabrics, but Murder didn't even complain this time.
Nightmare doesn't care for their surprises and dreads, no, more like relishing in the messes of their negative emotions and adding fuel to the fire.
“Killer was gone. He ran, like a coward. Isn't that ironic, hm?” The king chuckles darkly, “Would never expected him to be the first to run, but I supposed I should've expected it…”
Sans—well, he doesn't… He—
He doesn't know what to say to that.
And neither is Murder, it seems.
‘Killer’ tilts his head slightly, hands stuffed in his bloody jacket's pocket in relaxed stance, too relaxed. Abyss eyes watching silently, no sign of that little white pupil flickering like what he saw with Killer, only darkness and goop of dripping DETERMINATION. His smile is also too off, too crooked to be him, too wrong—
“But he doesn't matter anymore.” Nightmare cuts in through the cloud of his thoughts, “‘Killer’ will be your new teammate from now on, behave.” The king places a hand on the new Killer’s shoulder, and Sans could feel his own bones crawl with phantom pain.
Murder slowly nods, and Sans noticed he now had his hood up. He rarely had his hood up, unless he wanted his expression to be hidden.
Sans wished he could do the same.
But Nightmare’s stare pin him down, his joints locking in place, leaving only his skull to nod hesitantly in front of Boss, which is a cowardice display, but Nightmare accepted it easily.
“Very well. Now, dismiss.”
Then as quick as a ghost, darkly solid body melts unnaturally and splash down onto the floor, no doubt already gone to who knows where, leaving three of them alone in the dark corridor.
Murder pulls away from his hold the moment silence descents, steps too quick and unstable as he walks down the hall into the darkness, probably going back to his room. And cry. Sans hopes he's allowed to check up on that guy personally later.
(Since when did he care?)
“Well?”
…Fuck.
“Quite rude not to introduce yourself, no?”
Sans drags his pupil back to ‘Killer’, emotionally and physically hard to look at too long. Everything is wrong—
“…Name’s Sans.” A pause, “Horror Sans.”
He should’ve expected this.
A hesitant step forward. ‘Killer’ doesn't move.
“…let’s get ya clean up outta that bloody jacket.” Literally.
Well… hopefully, this one is more tolerable than the last one, especially in bath time.
(Sans doesn't answer when Murder later asked about the crack on his cervical.
He also ignored the lingering stare behind his back.)