He Came to Stay (Blue x Bad Guys)

8

No one talked about it. Part of Blue wished they would, so he could have some kind of explanation, something to explain why he would hurt someone he considered a friend, but...no one said anything. And that just made things worse.
Blue had always known what Dream and Ink were thinking. It wasn't that hard to figure out with Dream, since he was always working to kill his brother and make everyone happy, and Ink had probaby lost his brain/mouth filter centuries ago. But here, with Nightmare and his gang, he couldn't tell what anyone thought.
"Blue." Nightmare spoke up from his chair. Blue was perched on the edge of the couch, watching a movie with the others. He looked over.
"Eh?"
"Stop scratching. You'll bleed."
Blue looked down at his arm. He must have been scratching at it without knowing, and now it was red and raw and it stung when he touched it. "Uh...sorry. Didn't know I was doing that."
"Talk." Nightmare put down the book he'd been reading. Blue looked down.
"I don't know what to say."
What do you want to say?"
"That I'm sorry."
"You're sorry for everything. Not everything that happens is caused by you."
"About Cross."
"What about Cross?" Nightmare raised an eyebrow and the others looked up at him.
Blue looked over at Cross. "You didn't...?"
Cross shrugged. "You didn't mean to hurt me."
"But I did hurt you..."
Nightmare spoke up again. "Why did you hurt him?" There was no anger in his voice. That made it worse. Blue tugged at the hem of his shirt.
"I was angry."
"At Cross?"
"No."
"At yourself?"
"At first, yeah..."
"And then?"
Blue went quiet. Nightmare sighed. "We can't help you unless you tell us."
"I wasn't...I'm not..." Blue took a deep breath. Don't cry, not now... "I wasn't the first."
"The first what?"
"The first Blue."
The room went still, deadly quiet. It was Error that finally spoke up. "Well, there are a lot of Underswap versions...it's okay to feel-"
"That's not what I mean. I mean, I wasn't the first Blue that was part of the Star Sanses."
Another long, empty pause. Then Horror spoke up. "You mean we've been fighting more than one...you?"
"Yeah...and maybe one of you killed one of them. I dunno. All I know is...if I've been gone for this long and they haven't tried to come for me...there's another one."
Nightmare took a deep breath, and Blue looked over at him, noticing how tight he was holding his book now. "And Ink and Dream...told you this?"
"Not really. I heard them talking about it once. Replacing me, I mean. Because I was getting too slow. That's when, um...you know."
"I see." Nightmare sighed. "I just keep finding new reasons to want my brother dead..."
Blue couldn't respond, not anymore. He had to focus on breathing, before he cried. Again.
"Blue." Nightmare's voice was slightly more gentle. Blue looked up.
"yeah?" He hated how small his voice sounded.
"You should come to my office to calm down. I'd like to have your company as I work. Is that alright?"
"Yeah, that's okay." Blue muttered, not looking at the others and quickly following Nightmare upstairs.
As they entered Nightmare's office, Blue sank into the chair across from Nightmare's desk. Nightmare himself was messing with a bunch of records across the room. "Do you have a preference? I can't decide." The god handed Blue two records with fancy names on them, nothing that Blue recognized. With a small shrug, he pointed to the one on the left. Beethoven was a weird name, but if Nightmare liked it, Blue wasn't gonna question it.
"Good choice." Nightmare carefully lay the record on the player. "The quality on this one is still very good since I bought it."
As the music started playing, Blue focused on it immediately. Dream had the same taste in music almost, but while his had singing, this music was just violins and pianos. Blue quickly decided that he liked this better.
As Nightmare sat down at his desk, he couldn't help but notice the way Blue was looking at the record player. He looked...not happy, exactly, but calm. At peace.
Cute.
Nightmare shook his head a bit to clear his thoughts. The last thing he wanted to do was scare off his...friend. "Do you like it?" He asked gently.
Blue blinked and looked back over. "Oh, uh, yeah. It's nice. Sorry, I-"
"Hush. You have nothing to be sorry for. As long as you're careful with the records, I'll allow you to come in and listen any time you feel stressed."
Blue looked surprised. "Oh, no, no. That's okay. These records obviously mean a lot to you, I don't want to break one on accident."
Nightmare chuckled. "I've had these for a very long time. If you break one on accident I'm not going to take it personally."
"How long have you had them?"
"Oh, over a century I suppose. I keep them very well preserved, like everything else I've collected." Catching Blue's shocked look, Nightmare chuckled. "I am over 500 years old, you know. I have plenty of time to amass a collection."
"Wow, that's...impressive." Blue smiled. "What else do you have? What's the best thing in your collection?"
Nightmare looked at Blue in surprise. No one else had ever asked...not that he blamed any of them, his boys had wildly different interests from him and each other. But still...
"I've never quite thought about that before." Nightmare leaned back in his chair. "I suppose..."

It was twenty minutes until Nightmare realized he had truly started rambling. As he finally calmed himself down enough to refocus on Blue, he was surprised and a bit confused to see the almost adoring look on the little skeleton's face. "...what's that look for?"
Blue blushed the same color of his name. "N-nothing, it's just...you look a lot better when you smile."
Nightmare coughed, blushed, cleared his throat, and managed to stammer out. "W-was it that interesting?"
"Well, no, but...I've never seen you smile. And...you looked happy. And I'm glad you're happy." Blue sighed. "I should go-"
"Blue."
"Yeah?"
"Thank you, for listening to my nonsense." Blue tried to speak up again but Nightmare cut him off. "And...I'm glad that seeing me happy has a positive impact on you."