Sans AU One-Shots

Killer❀ || dolls. (pt. 3)

This depicts a radioactive level of toxicity - bad people, bad scenarios, bad choices - and none of this is meant to be romanticized, only explored. Trauma manifests in many ways, and its psychological effects are fascinating, especially when you combine many different flavors together under one roof in the form of the Bad Sanses.

Length: 8.3k + 11k + 13.2k = 32.5k words
Notes: Main tw: sexual servitude/prostitution, but viewer discretion is advised for all of this, so if you're easily disturbed, you should steer clear.

~-~-~-~

"'Don't fail', psh." Killer rolled his head, twisting the knife in his hand as the tip of the blade poked into his opposite index finger. "Who does the Boss think we are? Dust and Horror?"

"I heard that, asshat," Dust called from the neighboring room, a loud crash against the wall between us following his words, and I nearly jumped at the violence despite being out of the danger zone. Killer snickered to himself, balancing the blade on his finger as he glanced around with empty eyes, but the mansion Nightmare dropped us off in was empty. Or at least it was supposed to be, and Horror was instructed to keep it that way.

"But don't trust him to keep it that way," Killer had whispered to me the second the Boss dropped us off here. "He failed the last mission." Horror nearly bit his head off in response.

"Where am I going?" I followed Killer in the vain hope he actually knew the layout of the mansion, but he only shrugged.

"Just because the goopsters are similar doesn't mean they model their mansions after each other."

"Look for Shat's chambers," Horror shouted from the front entryway, using his ax to part the curtains over a window to check outside for visitors.

Killer spun to walk backwards, calling, "No shit, crackhead - that's her task."

"When he finds you snooping through his stuff, maybe he'll think you're too cute to decimate." Horror almost sounded encouraging - or however encouraging a vague threat could sound - and his smile stretched impossibly higher on his cheekbones. "Or maybe that'll convince him to take his time watching your expression contort with agony as he rips your limbs from your body." He shrugged like it really could be either or, and I paled.

"Nightmare isn't here," I said, "why are we splitting up?"

"Boss' rules," Killer said, but this time, his voice lacked its usual carefree tone and he avoided looking at me directly. "He knows if we don't follow them." I wanted to press, figure out just how Nightmare could learn a fine detail about a mission he wasn't part of - especially if we all agreed to lie about it - but he was already turning away and heading for the basement. "Chamber's probably upstairs, doll. Try not to die while you're there, yeah? I was just starting to get used to you." He shot me a playful wink but my breath caught, wondering if he just admitted what I thought he did, but he disappeared out of sight before I could linger on it. Did he really want me around? Or was he only admitting he'd grown attached because it'd inconvenience him to lose his sex doll?

Regardless, I had no plans of dying - no matter what Nightmare had planned - so I headed for the spiral staircase and took it 2 steps at a time to the top while mentally running back what our mission was. Well, missions was more accurate. Horror was our lookout in case Shattered returned to his mansion while we were here, but Nightmare had 'reasonable suspicion' to believe that wouldn't happen. I wasn't sure I believed that. Dust was told to treat the place like his own personal rage room and upend the place - 'make a disturbance in Shattered's life like he has disturbed our own', in Nightmare's words, though clearly that was just a petty assignment. I was told to explore Shattered's bedroom to find out his masterplan, which felt like an actual task with significant weight and made me suspicious of why Nightmare was giving it to me.