Freedom | Killer x Female!Reader

21.

Nightmare POV

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"Remind me why we brought him along?" Dust growls as we creep through a snowy, dusty forest.

"So he doesn't run like a coward while we're away." I reply, giving Error a nice little shake as he tries to untangle himself from my tendrils.

"Can't Horror just sit on him or something?"

"No."

"You just want us to be miserable, don't you?"

A slight grin forms on my face. "Perhaps. I think you'll live if you have to deal with one whining, glitching skeleton for a couple of hours."

Dust rolls his eye lights, then glances at Killer, who's on my other side. "You've been quiet this whole time. I don't think you've said a word, which is unlike you. Finally learned how to shut up?"

Killer doesn't reply. His gaze remains fixed on the ground.

"...Is he ok?" Dust whispers to me.

"He'll be fine." I flick a free tendril dismissively.

Killer is, in fact, not fine. I can feel every tiny emotion in his soul. Overwhelming them all is guilt. So much guilt. It's been there since the day we went back to the castle. The day he found out Y/N had been taken. He won't talk to me about it, and it's getting irritating. It's not distracting him from anything, however. He does his missions flawlessly, which is a big surprise considering he was one of the biggest screw-ups in the whole group back when things were normal. He's just oddly quiet, and I know for a fact that it keeps him up at night. In the four days that we've been at the castle, he hasn't gotten a wink of sleep.

I don't understand why he blames himself for Y/N getting captured again. If we're gonna blame anyone who isn't Shattered or Error or even Fresh, he might as well blame me. But for some reason, he blames himself, and he won't tell me why. He won't talk to anyone at all, actually. Not Dust when he insults him, not Horror to make fun of him, not Cross to criticize everything he does wrong, not even to complain about missions that I give him. He just nods obediently and does it as if he's a mindless servant.

"I th-think your lackey-ey is bro-broken-en." Error mutters.

I pause and dangle him in front of me. "You have the nerve to speak, even insult my subordinate when I am very capable of tearing your head off of your shoulders before you can blink when I specifically told you that you are to stay quiet?"

"I do-don't work- work for y-you anymore-more."

I tighten a tendril around his neck, and his eye lights shrink. "You do now and for the foreseeable future. Stay quiet unless you have something valuable to share with me."

"...How am I- I supposed to sh-share it- it when you wo-won't let me spe-speak?"

"I suppose if you have something important to say, you'll risk getting your head taken. After all, if it's important, I won't kill you." I shrug and drop him into the snow, then continue on.

"H-How do I kn-know what's impor-"

"Quiet."

He falls silent, save for the faint glitchy noise emitting from his body, but there's nothing I can do about that.

"Why are we here again?" Dust asks.

"We need resources, and I figured your AU would be the best place to get those, since there's no one to spot us, after all."

His socket twitches and his fists clench. "There's nothing here. Trust me."

"You survived somehow before I came and got you."