Aconitum

Finally Some Care

Nightmare didn't know what called him to the Doodle Sphere. It wasn't the strings and pushing hands of the creators, or any of his own desire. It was something that confused Night, but sometimes you just follow your gut for no reason other than want.

The breeze was soft and pleasant, making the grass and brush against his ankles. There wasn't much, just like last time. This time however, the lack of items made it feel lonely.

'T̶h̶e̶ ̶l̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶I̶n̶k̶ ̶m̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶f̶e̶e̶l̶ ̶l̶o̶n̶e̶l̶y̶,'

That wasn't it. It was always lonely. Ink made it have the illusion of homeliness, but now that Night looked at the place with scrutiny he understood that it was lonely. It was filled with nature but there was no comfort in that. Nightmare himself had lived under a tree for a period of time and he would rant about how much he hated it.

Why would Ink do that to himself? He had the ability to make literally anything. Why did Ink never make himself a home? Why was the best he gave himself was a cabinet and a hammock? It made Nightmare sad.

He found himself sitting on the hammock again, only this time he was alone. He sat the wind gently rocking the hammock back and forth as tears formed in the corners of his eyes.

"Ink hated himself," it should have been more obvious than it was. The way Ink acted like he was an inconvenience. The self treatment that only ever was enough to keep going. The fact that Ink could only mention obligations and hobbies when asked why he continued to exist.

Nightmare was going to keep spiraling down this train of thoughts when he swore he heard something. A soft whisper on the breeze, and not a metaphorical one. Like someone was actually trying to speak to him.

'thats creepy as all hell.'

Nightmare got into the cabinet, logic suggested that it was where Ink would keep his art stuff. Logic was right. There was a few sketchbooks as well as some pencils, some sticky notes, some books and a device(?). Nightmare was bad with technology.

Nightmare would have loved to stay, but the creepy whispering bothered him enough he scooped the stuff up and went home. Particularly to his room, where he can be alone with his thoughts.

He sat the stuff down on his bed and spent a few hours flipping through the sketchbooks. They were messy, filled with loose papers that were stuffed in to avoid being lost. The drawings themselves were breathtaking, filled with sketches of beautiful aus and odd people. The variations of lines and styles between them were something that Nightmare could appreciate but not understand.

He froze though when he turned the page only to be greeted by his own face, smiling awkwardly. His first reaction was confusion, followed by shock, and then he was just left with a pleasant feeling in his chest. It was just a simple doodle on some loose paper. Nightmare put that paper on his nightstand, he'd hang that one and a few other on his walls when he didn't feel like a shaken drink emotionally.

Nightmare instead moved to something more logical, the device. It only had seven buttons on it and it didn't make sense. Night wasn't fully a fool, he was not going to figure it out by himself. He went out to the living room, praying for someone to be available to help him. Lucky for him Horror was in the living room.

"Would it be possible for you to help me figure this out?"

"What is it?" Horror glanced at the device, which was mostly obscured by Nightmares hand.

"I do not know," Horror held out his hand to be given the mystery device. Nightmare shamefully passed it over.

"Oh! It's a mp3 player." Like that was a helpful explanation.

"What does it do?"

"It plays music, stay here. I'll be back." Horror left the room with the device in his hand.

In the meanwhile Nightmare sat down on the couch and folded his hands on his lap. Ever since he lost the energy to keep his other form around he had felt the need to seem smaller, like he wasn't in the way.

Horror came back with a bag and sat down next to the man. Digging until he could find some headphones, when he found them he placed them on Nightmares head. He then plugged the jack into the mp3 player.

It played a soft instrumental song as background music to Horror explaining how the device worked. He claimed it was more interesting than most he had seen because it had the ability to hold playlists and many more songs than Horror thought was possible for a normal one go hold.

"Ink probably custom made it for himself,"

"So it was Ink's then?" Nightmare nodded, "I didn't think you'd name your playlists like that,"

"How are they named?" What playlists are would be a future question.

Horror showed Nightmare the screen and how to navigate it 'just use the arrow button- there, see you get this.' and 'i think you just deleted something' were the big two things that happened. Then Horror explained what the playlist names were and Nightmare rolled his eyes at them.

They were all symbols made up of letters and other symbols. They were very Ink. Stuff like ' '•^•' ', ' >:D ', and the one that made Horror react like that ' 8=D '. As Nightmare thought, very Ink.

The symbols seemed to have little to do with songs contained in the playlists. There was no rhyme or reason to it, and if there was the only person who could explain it wasn't around.

"Could I try to braid your hair?" Horror asked tentatively, seemingly having nothing to do with the device.

"If it would please you," He got into his bag again and pulled out a hair brush and he began fiddling with Nightmares hair, "so what's the real reason you want to braid my hair?"

"Shit boss, you don't let me have any fun-" a particularly bad knot was reached leading Night to flinch, "Sorry. Just your hairs been a mess lately and I don't expect you to have the energy to take care of it. So putting it in a braid is a temporary solution."

Nightmare grabbed at the edge of the couch, squeezing it. Horror wasn't great at being gentle with his messy hair.

"I learned that it's a great solution because I was injured one time and couldn't quite take care of myself, it's a funny story actually. You see the king had been-" the rest of the story was something Nightmare was already aware of but he hummed in agreement and payed his mind regardless.

After the story was finished and his hair had been tamed Horror shoed him off playfully. He had work that needed to be done.

~~~

Bitches will literally murder a character and go "but my slice of life," it's me. I'm bitches

Also the whispering is meant to be the creators