dumb skeletons in a dumber highschool

xmas :)

Nightmare watched, annoyed, as everyone around him was running around, being dumb. They just opened their christmas presents in one of the classrooms. No one else was using it, seeing as it was break, so their teacher let them use it. Nightmare sighed as Killer scooted closer to him. 

"Heya Nighty. What's up? You seem kinda... is gloomy the right word? You always seem kind of gloomy." Nightmare sighed as he looked up. 

"No, I'm fine. Thank you. You guys are all just... full of energy." Killer nodded. 

"Yeah, I get that. It can be a lot sometimes." Not a single one of them was sitting and contemplating life. Even Error, Error, was running around chasing his boyfriend. Ink, Blue, Dream, Cross, Dust, Error, Horror, Lust, Geno, and Reaper. Nightmare was equally surprised that both of the cousins were being idiots, seeing as most of the time they were on the judging end of that stick. But here Nightmare was, alone, watching as they all smothered each other. "Have you told anyone about it?" Nightmare was brought back to reality and hummed at his boyfriend. "Your other form. I mean, I'm sure Dream would be happy to know. I don't know about Cross. For some reason, he doesn't seem to like you very much. But you guys care about each other. I know you do. Anyway, I rambled. Answer my question." 

"No. I will once I learn to control it. If that ever happens." He mumbled the last part. Nightmare didn't know why, but he just didn't feel the jolly mood in the room. He wasn't smiling like everyone else. He wasn't laughing like everyone else. He just felt... stressed out? Drained? There were probably a lot of words for it. He just didn't know the exact one. He wished he could be running around laughing like everyone else. But he couldn't. Killer seemed to notice this and frowned. 

"You okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine." 

"You can talk to me, you know. It won't change anything." Nightmare wished he had the courage to vent to Killer. But he didn't. 

"I know. I just... I don't know how to explain it. I also don't want to ruin the mood. It is Christmas after all." Killer leaned his skull on Nightmare's shoulder. 

"So? Who cares? Christmas is about getting closer to the people you care about. I mean... you don't have to talk about it, but there's a lot of people who care about you." Nightmare scoffed. "What? There is. Everyone in this room cares about you. That's..." Killer looked around and counted. Nightmare smiled at him. "Ten people. Plus me. That's eleven. So, you have lots of people. That's more people than some people have." Nightmare sighed and closed his eyes. 

"Killer, I know. I know you all care about me. I just..." His eyes trailed to the side. 

"I guess... I've been so busy taking care of everyone else I forgot to take care of myself."

"Congratulations, you are officially the last person to realize that." Nightmare lowered his eyes as he stared at Killer. "I mean, come on. Everyone notices. It's not like it's some big secret. And it's fine. I mean, obviously it's not, because it's hurting you, but otherwise... you know what? I'm just gonna stop talking now." Nightmare laid on his back, Killer doing the same. 

"I don't know how to deal with my own shit. I can deal with everyone else's, but I don't know how to handle mine." Killer grabbed his hand. 

"Well, we can do it together. So you don't have to do it alone." Killer genuinely reminded Nightmare of a small child. Not in a weird way, just the way he smiled. His energy. The way he went about life. It was the way you'd expect a child to. But it only made it that much harder. Nightmare knew Killer had gone through things in life, but he couldn't help but feel he was tainting Killer's perception of the world by opening up to him.