The Retriever Institute

Part of the whole

Nightmare reaches for the doorknob, but his hand stops short. For a moment, Cross wonders if he'd done anything wrong. He feels the need to take a step back when Nightmare turns to him.

Although, "how are you feeling?" Is all he asks.

Cross stalls a little at the question. It feels a little out of left field. It's not something he was prepared to answer. "Excited," he pauses, trying to puzzle out the words for the feelings he had in English, before inevitably giving up. "Nervioso, inquieto..." He takes a deep breath. "I want... Them to like me."

Nightmare smiles a little as he reaches for the doorknob again. "They're gonna love you, Cross. You'll see. Horror already likes you, and Dust cherishes his opinion, if you have him on your side, you have Dust too - and - Killer won't be any trouble, in fact, I think you two will end up thick as thieves."

Cross makes an expression at his idiom.

"Thick as thieves is like, getting along well, causing trouble together."

"I won't cause trouble!" Cross gasps, scandalized.

"It's alright to cause a little trouble every now and then. As long as nobody gets hurt, it can be a little fun," Night says simply, finally opening the door.

"Oh," he murmurs. Still, Cross smiles to himself, he feels a little more encouraged.

It's a relatively quick walk to their quarters. They only pass two murals on the way there, which, isn't a lot of murals compared to most of their walks. The color of the hallway stripe doesn't change either. Which makes sense, most of the residential rooms would be grouped together, wouldn't they? Yeah, perfect sense. Not much is different at all; however, the metal door to their quarters is painted black, and has several little animals seemingly hand-painted along the bottom.

"Gatos," Chara says, "pero I don't know the word para los en... Eh.. English."

Cross makes a quiet, interested noise as Nightmare pulls out a key and presses it into the lock, twisting it and giving a few quick couple of knocks in some kind of rhythm. The knocking is met with excited chatter inside. Night pushes open the door with a smile and walks into their quarters as comfortably as he does their own(if not, moreso). He kicks off his shoes into a messy pile of others by the door and Cross follows his lead. Lingering close behind him, as if Night was leading him through a relentlessly booby-trapped dungeon or something.

"Hey there hot stuff!" Killer says, already bolting up from one of the couches in the room to give Night a big hug. Much to Cross' surprise, he puts up with it, petting over his back while Killer mumbles something against his shoulder.

"Welcome home Night," Horror says in that loud, gravelly voice of his. He's sitting on the couch in a big T-shirt and some shorts, a big smile on his face despite the fact that a hooded skeleton is holding an ice pack to his knee.

Someone else greets him a little more softly from the couch, "welcome back boss." They're wearing a grey hoodie with the hood pulled up, and they've got a tattered red scarf. It's not really wrapped around their neck so much as it is hanging over their shoulders. They have on a slightly too big pair of white shorts.

"Hey Crossy," Horror says, looking over to him with a smile.

The hooded skeleton watches him curiously, azure and crimson eyelights shining beneath the shadow of their hood. Cross haphazardly glances at Killer and Night, they've pulled away from their hug and are now talking about something. Cross hesitantly strays away from them, walking closer to Horror.

"What happened to your knee?" Cross asks, a little worried.

Horror only smiles, "Meh, s' just swollen. Happens sometimes. S'okay though, Dusty here's got me." Horror gestures for him to sit down on the side that isn't occuppied, patting the couch next to him. Cross complies, settling at a respectable distance from the two of them.