Sans AU One-shots

[🫀] Why not animals? (Dust + Error)

Summary: Dust is intrigued with dead things and gets permission from Nightmare to kill animals from a specific AU. Error is sent to supervise him unknowingly.

Characters: Dust, Error, Nightmare (mentioned)

Word Count: 898

Trigger Warnings: Animal death, puke (ment.)
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"You're fucking disgusting!" Error screeched as his partial friend sat next to the cat they'd ran into a while earlier.

Error had been called in for a favour by Nightmare - to look after Dust and take him back to the Hideout after he was finished with whatever he wanted to do. He'd claimed that he'd do it himself, but he "was busy with work" and "defending the Multiverse from Dream's corruptive positivity" though Error knew better than to believe him on that anymore. The first few times were believable, but he quickly got word from the voices in the Anti-Void that Nightmare was lying to him. After that he'd set up one-way portals around the Hideout, watching them whenever he was out babysitting one of the gang members. Nightmare was almost always never doing any form of work whatsoever - either laying in his bed or playing with his phone.

This time, the mission was different. He didn't know what Dust wanted to do - nobody had informed him of anything except for the AU he was to take him to and the time he was to go back by.

He wished he'd never agreed to it.

The moment Dust arrived in the AU he knew something was off. He was looking around in hyper specific places, trying to avoid anyone nearby and not letting the glitchy skeleton say a word. They'd been wandering for half an hour before Error had spotted a cat and wandered off to pet it. It was a relatively small black cat, uncollared. Dust had eventually caught up to him and picked it up, asking Error to fetch him some cat food from a nearby shop. He'd done as asked, heading to the shop and "buying" some food, but when he'd gotten back..

"I did try to send you away so you wouldn't have to see it. It isn't my fault you came back so early." Dust blankly stated, gently prodding the open insides of the cat with his finger.

Error growled, body violently glitching. If the cat had at least hurt Dust he might have been able to justify that it was self defence, but the cat had been overly friendly to him so it was highly unlikely. No, Dust had just done this for his own sick desires.

"What?! You sent me to get cat food for a cat you were going to murder! How the fuck is it my fault?!" He screeched, taking a step forward.

Dust chuckled, "Maybe you could eat the food instead."

"Why are you so nonchalant about this?!"

"It's not my first time doing something like this. Besides, it's not as if it matters."

Error was sent into a stuttering mess, trying to wrap his head around Dust's words.

"WHAT?!"

Dust flinched away from the sound that Error had made, continuing to poke and prod at the animal.

"It's an AU that's frequently reset, Error. The cat will be fine."

"We don't know that! What if the cat will remember the reset, huh?!" Error yelled, fanning himself with his hand to try to stop himself from passing out.

"That's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard."

Error backed away from the skeleton, trying to keep down the puke forming in his throat when he saw the cat briefly move. It was alive? It was alive and Dust was still mutilating it?!

"Dust!" He yelled at his teammate.

"It's not alive, Error. I probably just hit the nerves or something."

"It moved! I saw it move!"

Dust sighed, "Yes, as I just said I likely hit the nerves. The nerves are still active for a short while after death, so if things touch them they spark up a bit and react."

"What if it's still alive?!"

Dust rolled his eyes, irritated over how Error clearly wasn't listening to him. The cat was dead, he'd made sure of that before he even cut it open; he wasn't the type to start prodding at tortured animals.

"It isn't."

"It MOVED, Dust! I don't know if you saw-"

"What is your problem?!" He snapped, causing Error to step back, "You kill billions and don't even bat an eye, why is it now that you suddenly care about a cat you barely spent two minutes with?!"

"Cats and Monsters are different! Monsters are horrible, sin-filled idiots who deserve what's coming to them! Cats are cats, they're cute and they're lovable!" He snapped back.

"They're cats, Error! Cats! It's not as if they have enough intelligence to comprehend what's happening."

Error stood there, dumbfounded at the words that came from Dust's mouth.

"You know what, fuck you! Have fun getting home, abomination!" He screeched, opening a portal and storming through it.

He wasn't about to take shit from some know-it-all who actually knew nothing. He fucking hated anything related to people who thought animals couldn't feel or understand things as much as Humans or Monsters could, and absolutely would've fought Dust over it had it not been for the fact he "wasn't allowed" as said by Nightmare.

Dust groaned quietly at Error's tantrum, reluctantly pulling out his phone to text Nightmare what had happened. He smiled to himself as he thought of what could happen to Error after their Boss found out that he'd essentially abandoned Dust in an AU, knowing that a punishment would be given the moment Nightmare next saw him.