The Enemies Maid (Ink x The Bad Guys)

Safe and Loved

Swap searched through the-probably hundreds-of different ingredients they had collected for the dozens of different failed remedies they'd made. He had picked out around twenty different magical herbs with shaky hands. They all stood behind him, most of them watching his every move to make sure he didn't try to attack. He didn't though, he wouldn't. He cared for Ink, and even as they walked back into the library they could hear his screams. He was getting worse, the library used to be a safe zone, it was almost on the complete other side of the mansion. Swap-despite his feelings about the Bad Sanses-cared for Ink deeply and couldn't stand him being in this much pain.

Nightmare stood behind him, being the only one that wasn't breathing down his neck with anger and anxiety. He instead wrote down the name of every single ingredient, just in case this ever happened again. He would never let it happen again, but if it did he would be able to fix it within minutes, as opposed to the weeks it had taken them. Swap placed the collection of 23 ingredients he had picked out to the side before telling them that this was everything Dream would give him. He watched Nightmare's eyes widen-only slightly-in shock.

"Wow." He commented, gaining everyone's attention. "Dream is fucked up. This is an old remedy for a soul deterioration spell. If Ink was a normal skeleton this would kill him within hours. No wonder he is in so much pain."

"Wh-what?" Swap stuttered.

"Dream could have killed Ink with this. There was no telling whether or not he could have died from it." Nightmare elaborated.

"H-he wouldn't." Swap insisted.

"Look at what he did to him! Listen to what he did!" Cross yelled at him.

"It was never this bad before! It's never been this bad! He would always just be achey, not screaming in pain!" Swap told them.

"I am sure that Dream's magic has forced Ink to have adverse effects to our negativity, and that is why he is in this much pain."

"Then maybe he should come home with me." Swap muttered under his breath, though none of them heard it.

"Do you need to cook them in a specific way? Or just however?" Cross asked, walking up and looking over the ingredients.

"Just however, but you can't use anything other than the stuff here. Even a little bit of water, or salt, or-like-anything will make it not work at all, or work as good."

"I c'n work with that." Horror said, carefully picking up the ingredients carefully.

He didn't want to damage them, or dull their effect. Both he and everyone else in that house wanted Ink to get better, so he was overly careful with the ingredients.

"Are you sure you don't want me to cook it? Or to help you?" Swap asked.

"I think you've done enough." KIller said, grabbing his shoulder and dragging him out of the room and back into the cell he woke up in.

Cross helped Horror collect the ingredients and they carefully carried them down the stairs and layed all 23 of them out on the counter. Horror looked through the ingredients before ordering Cross around the kitchen, telling him to chop a few things as he worked on others. Thankfully one of the things was liquid-mangrove water-and it was a pain to get. They had to find a pacifist route, then search for a mangrove forest while avoiding the humans and oh my god it sucked.

But hey, if it was part of this remedy then it will have been worth all the trouble. He slid the herbs Cross just cut off the cutting board into the mixture and turned on the heat of the stove. He passed some of the larger things, a few magical flowers and plants and ordered Cross to dice them up like the vegetables in a soup. He watched the water boil as he himself worked more on the meat-based ingredients. He sliced the octopus hearts into strips, diced the eye of some mythical creature, and the more meat he chopped the more it turned from some fun magical potion into some monstrosity that not even Horror would have eaten when he was being starved in his au. He was sure that Ink wasn't sure what was in the thing, or else he surely wouldn't touch it. Though maybe he was desperate enough at this point that he wouldn't care.