It had been a month since I joined Nightmare's gang; Papyrus was the best timekeeper. We were a happy trio of psychopaths; actually, make that negative trio of psychopaths. We were spreading negativity, after all. We were becoming somewhat of a family, if that was even possible. We spent so much time together that we actually liked having eachother around. Killer was like another brother to me, and Nightmare was the father figure; we wouldn't tell him that, though. I still hadn't been directly identified by anyone on the other side that we know of, so I was still running through trees with my trusty slingshot. I heard them actually nickname me 'The Tree Guy'; I didn't think I'd ever live that down. Papyrus thought he was happy - ghosts had different types of feelings, so he couldn't be sure - so I was happy too. He's the best. At the moment, Nightmare was off trying to convince Error to join us again, and Killer and I were in his room, playing with knives.

"That one isn't even sharp: try this." Killer handed me a kitchen knife.

"Can't we just use scissors?" I wondered.

"Scissors are boring! Knives are so much more fun!"

"We're cutting paper."

"Yeah, but would ya rather say we cut paper with regular old scissors or with knives?"

"I guess that's a valid point."

"Brother, what is the point to this?" Papyrus questioned.

"This is a game, Paps. There doesn't have to be a point."

"Yes, O invisible ghost Papyrus! Games do not need points, unless they're the points of your knives!" Killer joked. Papyrus laughed, so I did too.

"Do you know how to juggle, brother?" Paps asked.

"Paps, I'm not juggling anything. I can barely hold a knife sometimes." I stated.

"Ooh, I can juggle!" Killer started throwing his knives up and down. "It's easy!"

"That's awesome!"

"Yeah, but it's easy to get cut a lot. Lots of practice, startin' with sticks, is the way to learn this. I stupidly started with the knives, and, well, you've seen the scars."

"I was wondering how you got those.."

"Well, now ya know. Learnin's fun, ain't it?"

"You said it like that just to annoy me, didn't you?"

"Yup!"

"Welp. At least Papyrus doesn't do that; do you, Paps?"

"Ain't." Paps replied. Killer could tell from the expression on my face that Papyrus took his side.

"You've been told, haven't you?" Killer giggled.

"Ain't isn't even a word - it's slang!" I complained.

"Well, if ya ever wanna conceal your identity, you can just say 'ain't,' and nobody'll think it's you."

"You're right, but still!"

"Heh. Someday you'll warm up to it. Someday."

"Doubt it."

"Anyways, how long has Nightmare been gone?"

"Not sure. How long, Paps? Generalize it, please."

"Three quarters of an hour." Paps replied.

"Thanks, Paps; you're the best. Paps says three quarters of an hour."

"Ya know, at first I didn't believe ya had a ghost followin' ya, but dang, that timekeepin' is amazin.'" Killer complimented, making Papyrus beam with pride.

"Paps is delighted to hear you say that."

"I'd bet. Do ya think he'll be home soon?"

"Probably."

"Hey, Dust?"

"Yeah?"

"Does having a ghost following you everywhere bother ya?"

"Nah, Paps is the best ghost there is. I wouldn't have it any other way."

"Huh. How'd you get so good with a slingshot, anyway?"

"Lots of practice, startin' with sticks."

Killer laughed at my imitation of him, and I joined in just because I could. Paps was just shaking his ghostly head at our childishness; I could hear him stifling a giggle, though. He's the best. Since knives were sent to the backs of our minds, we started to think of other things to do: mature things, of course, like hide and seek, or running in the halls. We decided on both.

"You hide first!" Killer demanded. He loved counting, for some reason.

"Sure." I ran off, still unsure of a hiding place. "Paps, where should I hide?"

"You should hide in a closet!" Papyrus suggested.

"There are so many. How do I choose?"

"When Killer yells, duck into the nearest one! Easy!"

"Paps, you are the best."

"I am the Great Papyrus!"

I followed Papyrus's instructions, and hid in a closet full of coats; I didn't know why this place had so many coats. I heard Killer opening and closing doors nearby, so I hid inside a coat, and used the bar holding them up to keep my feet off the floor; It was the perfect hiding spot - or so I thought. Killer somehow found me with ease. He was like a natural born tracker or something; there was no possible way to avoid him. We played a few rounds, and Killer won most of them, since I was apparently bad at the game; it was a ton of fun, though. We played games for the next few hours, and wondered what was taking Nightmare so long. He told us not to come after him if he was gone for extended periods of time, so all we could do was hope he would be back soon. He was probably out getting groceries or something, which was sometimes hard, since we were literally considered among the top threats in the multiverse. Yeah, there wasn't exactly a grocery store where we were welcome, even if we did have every intention to pay. Just because we were terrorists didn't mean we were all bad.

"It's been five hours! Where could he be?" Killer dramatized.

"It is a bit worrying.." I admitted.

"What if he's hurt? What if he's dead? What if he was captured? What if something equally as bad happened?"

"Calm down, I'm sure he's fine; or, I hope he is."

"I can't calm down! I'm worried!"

"Come on, maybe you're just tired. Perhaps a nap would help?"

"Maybe.."

"That's the spirit!"

I walked Killer to his room and made sure he fell asleep safely before returning to my room and doing the same: I was just as, if not more, tired as Killer was. Playing games for hours on end was rather tiring, to be honest, and I was feeling the effects of it. I hoped Nightmare was safe. I collapsed in my bed, falling asleep before my skull hit the pillow, and descended into another dust-filled nightmare that didn't affect me. Maybe this was an independence test, like what the old lady used to do with the kid, making them walk down that hallway alone; no, he would have told us first, right? I was probably just overreacting, everything would be fine. When I woke up, I realized Killer was shaking me to wake me up.

"Wha-what?" I was still tired.

"Dust, Nightmare's still not home! I'm worried!" Killer frowned.

"How long has it been?"

"It's been five and a half hours!"

"You only slept for half an hour?"

"I can't sleep when I'm worried!"

I sighed, and took Killer into a hug. 

"You need to calm down. It's gonna be fine. He's probably just fine."

"Are ya sure?"

"No, but I'm hopeful. Can you be hopeful with me?"

"Yeah..."

"Okay, now I want to you close your eyesockets and go to sleep."

"Okay..I can sleep now."

"Lie down."

Killer lay in my bed, and I covered him with the blankets, like I used to do with Papyrus; Killer fell asleep rather quickly, and I realized I had just lost my bed. I walked to the living room and fell asleep on a couch, falling into a nightmare again. I hoped Nightmare was okay, whatever he was doing. Perhaps he'd have been back when I woke up; that would be nice. I was curious as to what he was doing, since he had never been away for this long before without telling us he would be out for longer than usual; maybe he was planning a surprise or something. I really hoped nothing bad had happened. I really was worried about him; I just didn't want Killer to worry too.

When I awoke, I was met with a negative feel to the air, which could have only meant one thing: Nightmare was finally home. While we couldn't really feel negative feelings like he could, he was basically surrounded in them, and it produced somewhat of an aura that anybody could feel; on the bright side, we couldn't lose him too easily. I opened my eyesockets. and, standing up, approached Nightmare's location. He was in one of the many kitchens, and Killer was sitting, propped up against the door.

"Dust! Nightmare's back!" Killer smiled.

"Cool; told you he'd be fine." I responded.

"Yeah, but we can't go in. He told me we gotta wait for him."

"Got any idea what he's doing?"

"Nah, he magically sealed the door. Nothin' goes in."

"Huh. How long has he been in there?"

"A few hours. I didn't wanna wake ya up."

"Thanks."

"No problem; wanna play?"

"Sure. What game?"

"Tackle tag! You're it!"

Killer started running down a hall, leaving me to process what just happened before chasing after him. Good old tackle tag. We played for about an hour before we were both tired out, lying on the floor; we didn't even notice Nightmare walking toward us.

"Dining room." He ordered, going there himself.

We silently followed him, wondering what was in the dining room. When we arrived, we noticed food on the table, but this wasn't ordinary food.

"CAKE!" Killer jumped for joy.

"Thought I'd do something special, since you've been with me for a whole month." Nightmare smiled.

"Thanks, but you didn't have to do anything. We're more than happy just being able to help you." I stated.

"Yeah!" Killer agreed. "But I still like cake!"

We all began laughing at this; even Paps, who couldn't even eat cake. 

"Well, enjoy it. It took longer than I had expected to get the ingredients; that's what held me up so long." Nightmare admitted.

"That's okay! We're just glad you're here now!" Killer beamed.

"What did I do to deserve you two?"

We then headed towards the table with every intent to devour the delicious cake set before us, and began doing just that; we had a pleasant conversation consisting of various unrelated things, such as caterpillars, clouds, and proper silverware placement. When we had our fill of cake, we bribed Nightmare to play a game with us in exchange for washing the dishes; We washed the dishes anyway, but a bribe was a bribe, right? While we were washing, we discussed what game we should play, and a lot of suggestions were thrown around, but we eventually decided to play 'chaser,' which was a game Killer and I made up, but could never play, since it needed three people. We dragged Nightmare to the attic, which was the highest point in the house.

"So what exactly is this?" Nightmare wondered.

"This is the start of our game!" Killer exclaimed. "You're the chaser, and ya gotta try to stop us from getting to the dungeon downstairs!"

"Can't I just block the door?"

"No, no blocking the door. Basically just try to catch us." I explained.

"That's it?"

"Well, for you it is. For us, we have to do a bunch of meaningless tasks that will do nothin' but give ya more time to find us; like runnin' around the couch fifteen times, or jumpin' off the roof onto the trampoline!" Killer was excited.

"Are you actually going to jump off the roof?"

"Maybe! Let's start! Count to a hundred then come find us!"

"All right."

Killer and I then ran off to start the chain of meaningless tasks, that ironically started with jumping off the roof, which we did without hesitation. Next was hanging a poster that was on one side of the house on a wall on the other side. By this time Nightmare should have been chasing us; we became very stealthy as we played catch with a dictionary. Nightmare caught up with us when we were frosting mustaches on some muffins Killer had found earlier, and we had to run faster than Nightmare could, which was pretty fast; I think he liked playing the game too. With him on our tail, we had to move quickly, finishing the tasks of limbo dancing under the tripwires in a storage room and drawing with invisible marker on the wall with remarkable speed; now we were ready to do the last task, which was the most risky. We had to tap Nightmare's shoulder without getting caught. We located him walking in the hallway containing his and Killer's rooms, and slowly tiptoed up behind him, making no sound at all; when we got close enough, we each tapped a shoulder and ran in the other direction, with Nightmare following. We skipped over a few hallways, and turned into the corridor with the door to the basement, giggling all the way.

We ran down the hallway with the last of our energy, and approached the basement door. When we got there, we quickly but carefully yanked the door open and ran down the stairs, securing our victory. Nightmare followed behind, looking as tired as we were. We all collapsed on the floor, laughing sleepily, until we fell asleep on the unforgiving stone floor. I had a delightfully dusty nightmare, as always; I guess I wasn't allowed to have happy dreams, even after being happy while I was awake; oh well. When I awoke, the others were still asleep, and my spine hurt; this floor was hard and uncomfortable. The rocks weren't even straight; they were even sharp at some points. I guess we should have picked a better spot to fall asleep from exhaustion. It was also rather dark in this basement, and not the type of dark that meant menacing; not to say it wasn't menacing - it was just plain dark and menacing. It was basically a long hallway lined with prison cells that had insufficient lighting. I noticed that Nightmare and Killer were beginning to join me in the land of the living once more; Nightmare was the first to regain his consciousness, and was met with an ache, like me.

"What even just happened?" Nightmare was confused.

"We fell asleep from exhaustion." I helpfully supplied.

"Why does this floor hurt so much?"

"I dunno, but I think it needs serious remodeling. We're liable to kill ourselves if we trip down here."

"Yes, that would be unfortunate. We'll start work on that tomorrow. For now, we'll just stay on the upper floors."

"Okay! Did you have fun, though?"

"Yes, but your games are weird. Why were you giving the muffins mustaches?"

"Because it was a completely random thing to do."

"As much as I want to, I can't argue with that, and that frustrates me."

"No need to be frustrated. Embrace the insanity." Killer had woken, and joined the conversation.

"Easy for you to say."

"Hah..wait. What did you just- oh you take that back!"

"You're going to have to catch me first!"

"Then I will!"

Nightmare then ran off with an angry Killer behind him, and they were both chuckling; meanwhile, I ran after them, worried that they were going to trip on a sharp rock, which they didn't, luckily. Nightmare could actually run pretty fast, but Killer still caught him and forced him to take back what he said. Overall, it had been quite the exciting time, since days weren't relevant there. We had a lot of fun for the next few hours, telling stories and cracking corny jokes, until we got the signal that we had some work to do. Killer and I prepared our weapons and joined Nightmare in his everlasting quest to be the bad guy on the outside, but really be good on the inside; it was an unforgiving job, but somebody had to do it, and we were that somebody. 

We really were a family.

~~~chapter end woot~~~

Dust bean experiences happy times.

Thanks for reading my fluffy writing!

Bye!