How to Establish Your Gang and Take Care of the Children in It (On Hiatus)

Rule 11: Make Sure Your Demon Child Can't Kill You in Your Sleep

Nightmare wandered through the Dreamscape, shoving his hands in his pockets as he studied the glowing orbs that made up dreams for ordinary people. Every few moments or so, one of the golden spheres would bleed into purple, or else fade away entirely. Turning into nightmares and waking up respectively.

Occasionally Nightmare wondered what it would be like to not have control over the Dreamscape, or not be aware of the dreams. Ever since he could remember, he'd always been self-aware when he was asleep. He'd always been able to manipulate the Dreamscape. Watching over the spheres in front of him, not participating in them.

Most of the time, he just laughed at his curiosity. So what if he'd never have that surreal experience of being asleep but not aware? He had something better. He was one of the only people who could fully experience sleeping in its fullest capacity. Everyone else was missing out, not him.

Sometimes, though. Sometimes, when he was alone, watching everyone else live their peaceful, uncomplicated lives, that was when he wondered. What would it be like to be normal? To grow up, unspecial, then live a normal life untangled and clear and if not boring, then content? To go home at the end of the day not to a stolen castle in an abandoned AU, but to a house on the Surface?

Nightmare shrugged to himself. It was useless to wonder. Life had dealt him different cards than that. He wasn't some Sans selling hotdogs on a street corner. He was Nightmare. The Embodiment of Negativity.

That was another thing Nightmare wondered about. King? Guardian? Somehow, neither really fit. He wasn't about to go around calling himself Guardian, not when Dream had basically the same title. Any connection to that shiny-dressed replacement was too many, in Nightmare's estimation. But he also wasn't about to give up his title entirely and create a new one, like his brother had.

Shattered Dreams. Destroyer of Hopes. It had a nice ring to it, but it was a bit overdone in Mare's opinion.

Not that King of Negativity was any more subtle. It practically screamed egotistical villain.

Ah well. Nightmare sighed and shook his head. Life was complicated. He could always figure out his own title later. For now there were other things to focus on.

One dreamsphere in particular started bleeding from gold to purple, and Nightmare stopped in front of it, cupping it in his hands. With a small sigh, he stepped into the room.

Cross and Chara were, as usual, fighting. This time, at least, there were no taunting remarks or gaslighting attempts on the demon child's part. Chara had realized that Cross was no longer inclined to listen to them and as such was no longer bent on manipulation. Just murder.

Cross was holding his own pretty well against Chara's murderous rage, but occasionally an X-tale figure would appear and Cross would falter before killing them, giving Chara an opening to dart in and attack.

Nightmare sighed and summoned one of his goopy Gaster Blasters, charging it. As Chara turned to see the source of the sound, they turned directly into the beam of pure energy and disintegrated.

Cross was breathing heavily, clenching his knife in his hands as he studied Nightmare untrustingly. There had been enough dream-Nightmares by now that it would be stupid to trust one blindly.

In response, Nightmare snapped his fingers, and the background of the dream changed from the blank whiteness of X-tale to Cross' room in the castle.

"Your demon child is getting to be a problem again," Nightmare told him.

The monochromatic skeleton shrugged, sitting on the bed. He rested the point of his knife on the ground, Nightmare noticed, but he didn't let go of it. "I can deal with it," He said. "It's really nothing new."