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daflangstlairde-art · 3 days ago

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"Extremophile" 1/4

Part 3 of ocean depths

Summary:

You drown every minute, every second, with every breath you take. You haven’t breathed for so, so long. The icy waters are inside you, deep, deep inside you. All you could ever feel is cold and colder. You haven’t seen the sun in... so... long. It was so far away from you that you couldn’t even picture it anymore. And here was the sun himself. Here was that gasp of air that burned. You’ve been so cold for so long, the warmth feels like death. — Alt summary: It's not easy but boy do I drag Killer (and everyone around him) kicking and screaming towards a healing arc

Chapter 1: "catabolic seed" 4351 words

Credits, warnings and additional info on ao3.

—

It's funny. The moth never did fly away. Maybe its wings were too burned up. Or, maybe, it didn't want to.

It was the flame that was put out first. But with the lethal heat went away the entrancing shine that drew the lowly insect in, too.

—

“Get out.” Killer didn't even bother with asking.

“It's a letter,” Dream said instead, standing at the other side of the Final Corridor, across the path with his back to the large windows. Once, it would've made him glow with golden light. But it’s been dark for a long time. A very long time. Dream’s voice echoed throughout the ruins of the hallway.

He was holding said letter out towards Killer. If he wanted to take it, Killer would have to get up from where he sat leaned against one of the many ruined pillars.

Everything was ruined around here. Fitting, for this place’s one inhabitant. It was his own doing, anyway. Home sweet home, huh?

(He had nothing but Nightmare. He had nothing. Nowhere to go.

And now Nightmare was gone.)

He couldn't be bothered with any Dreamtale bullshit today.

“He–”

“Get out.” Killer snarled, eyes dripping with the same violent intent that dripped from his tone.

“I’lll leave it here,” Dream calmly placed the letter on the ground. It was a dark purple, with a golden wax seal of a crescent moon.

As soon as Dream was gone, Killer hurled as much magic was needed at the damn thing until there wasn't even dust left of it.

—

It was a big deal. A very, very, very big deal, when the Corrupted Nightmare’s soul was finally released, and he returned to his personhood. All the events leading up to it were so dramatic, and when it happened, the whole Multiverse cheered and celebrated. Probably.

(Everyone but one.)

After years upon years of struggle and suffering, the balance of Positivity and Negativity was, at last, restored. No longer heavily tipped in the direction of darkness.

Probably.

Killer didn't particularly care.

Nightmare was gone.

That... thing, the one that stared at his back sadly and couldn't look him in the eye? The one whose touch didn't burn? The one who said pathetic things like “sorry”?

That was not Nightmare.

And so back to emptiness Killer went.

Here, in his familiar hell. Here, in this decrepit hallway. His own coffin.

His original universe. Or what remained of it, at least.

There was nothing to do. There was no point to him. He didn't even have the agony anymore, the one that made him feel alive.

It was gone.

Killer had no purchase. No purpose. Nothing.

Nothing upon nothing upon nothing.

His breaths were too shallow to even echo. The birds stopped singing forever ago. The weeds overtook the patches of decay.

Killer had never felt colder.

—

“Did... did you read the previous one?” Dream asked tentatively. Fidgeting with the new purple letter in his hands.

You stare at him. Eyes empty and dead. A grinning corpse.

You're so, so empty. If you were a monster, you probably would've Fallen Down a long time ago.

But you're not.

You place a hand on the pillar behind your back. Slowly, lumbering, you push yourself to your feet. Dream watches your movements with pinched brow ridges.

You start chuckling quietly.

It takes a single movement for you to hurl the knife at Dream, so fast he yelps and barely dodges. The blade had enough force that half its length embeds itself into the solid rock.

There is liquid despair-hate-determination leaking down your face. In a flash you are next to Dream, swinging a newly summoned knife and he dodges right into a third summoned knife. He sucks in a breath but you're already summoning the next attack.

Dream is far stronger than he looks. He must be feeling better than ever, really, what with that thing that ate his brother now gone.

But this place is a wreckage.

Killer attacked mercilessly, relentlessly, again and again and again. You don't feel exhaustion. You don't feel pain. You don't feel anything.

It's a mindless screaming of violence, the only thing holding your particles together. All sharpened to a point until Dream finally. Fucking. Flees.

He leaves the letter with you.

You destroy it in lieu of destroying its sender.

—

He sat in a single spot.

He slept to pass the time.

It all blurred together.

There was nothing left for him.

—

“Horror asked me to bring you this,” Dream said, holding two large tupperware containers in his hands. With food inside. You don't care what type of food. You don't care who sent it. You don't care.

“How many times,” you speak, low, reverberating with hateful intent, “do I have to tell you to leave?”

“I’m not giving up on you,” Dream states, determination clear on his face.

You would start laughing hysterically. You would attack him again. You've attacked him about a dozen times on these visits, now. So overtaken by violence you don't even really remember it.

You're just...

...too tired for it.

“Okay,” even though it wasn’t, nothing is, it never was and it never will be, “then can do you something for me?”

It's hilarious the way Dream’s eye sockets widened at that. It's pathetic the way his face brightened. So desperate. So foolish.

“Yes!” he exclaimed. “Yes, anything! Of course!”

“Tell that thing dirtying Nightmare’s name,” Killer’s grin stretched, “to let go of my soul.”

Dream blinked, thrown off.

“He– what? He still holds power over your soul?” he asked, incredulous, maybe angry, or maybe just crushed.

You spit a laugh. “Of course.”

“I’ll speak to him,” Dream nodded, serious. He lifted the tupperware containers a little, “I’ll just... leave these here?”

He did.

Killer destroyed them.

—

You wonder why this world still stands. You wish you could tear it apart with your own hands.

—

“...I’m sorry,” Dream said, standing sheepishly in the same spot across the width of the corridor. Another damned letter in his hands. Face twisted in upset.

Killer barked a laugh. Him and Nightmare were twins, huh? He could see the resemblance.

(“I’m so sorry, I– I can't even describe– Killer, what I– he– it– the way you suffered was so wrong–” “Nightmare” had stammered.

Killer laughed in his face.

“Oh it was!” he revelled, “That's what I liked about it,” he mocked.)

“Of course you are,” Killer muttered.

“Just...” Dream took a breath, “We're worried that if Night isn't... keeping a hold of your soul, that you might–”

“Yup,” you pop the word brightly. “End this torture for good? That's the plan, sunshine boy,”

Dream always looks devastated when you speak like that. It's hilarious. What a bleeding heart. It makes you want to slam him to the ground until he's really bleeding.

“...Killer–”

“Don't worry,” you laugh, “The determination will probably force me to keep at it instead, what a joy,” you shrug. You're doomed to suffer. You can't escape it, not even in death.

“We can try something else–” Dream begs.

“Night, huh?” Killer interrupted him, coldly uncaring. Venomously mocking. “Is that what he’s calling himself these days? How cute. Very harmless and gentle. You should tell him it really fixes all the lives he’s ruined,”

Dream’s expression flitted to something angry. Immediately he took a breath, held it, and let it out. Ohoo, so he’s not letting you get to him? You start laughing. That’s a challenge if you’ve ever seen one.

“He’s trying–”

“I can see that,” Killer nodded at the purple letter that Dream still held. “How cutesy. Did he, by any chance, put a time machine in there?”

“He’s working hard to change.” Dream was resolute. “He’s helping people.”

“Atoning for his sins, huh? Veery saintly. Someone better get some nails and call Cross,” Killer joked, and surprisingly, Dream had to smother a snort.

“He wasn’t himself when he did those things. It wasn’t his fault.” Dream insisted, calm, but sure of it. Seems he really believed that. How... humanitarian.

Killer leaned further back. Tilted his head at the dreamboy.

“So what?”

“...What?”

“You’re here to deliver a beautiful final speech?” Killer was grinning, mocking. “Tell me how everyone deserves a second chance? How everyone can change, if they really wanted to? For the better, even? Hit me with that ‘Killer, I believe in you’ maybe?” he chuckled flatly.

Dream’s mouth was twisted flatly, brow ridges pinched together again.

“...I do,” Dream said quietly. In the silence of the corridor, it echoed loudly enough. “I do believe that.”

Killer let out a breathy laugh, letting his head thunk back against the pillar. How absurd. Dream was trying so very hard to make something out of nothing. It’s you. You are the nothing.

“...In every universe I know,” you start. “The character that holds that stand is the one who dies oh so tragically. Pretty early on, even,” you lament, eyes dark, darker. It’s all hopeless. There hasn’t been light at the end of the tunnel for... so, so very long now. It’s just the vast ocean depths.

A red scarf in the snow. You were upset about it, the first many times. Then you started taking it in stride. Then you were numb to it.

“Either that, or, well,” you shrug, “Or they’re forced to change said stand. So where does that put you, sunshine?”

Quiet. It’s always so quiet. Sometimes you’d rather Dream take the matter in his own hands and just kill you already. You’ll never understand why he still bothers. How he still has the energy to bother.

“...I’m still alive.” is Dream’s quiet argument. You bark a laugh. You suppose that’s true. Some people are just lucky like that.

Dream leaves the letter with you. You rip it in half and watch it burn.

—

“Hey,”

It was almost startling, and immediately Killer’s eyes snapped open from his tired dozing.

“Dust??”

And– dammit. That... there was a flash of an emotion from Dust’s unexpected presence here, but as Killer tried to pinpoint it now, it was already gone. He couldn’t decipher what it’d been.

“Heyo,” Dust wiggled his fingers in a greeting. His appearance hadn’t changed much — still with the hood up, still with that red scarf. But there was no longer radioactivity in the lights of his eyes. He didn’t have, well, dust clinging to him anymore. He seemed... more stable. More present. Good for him, Killer thought, neutrally, not particularly caring.

...Good for him.

He stood where Dream usually did, but he shuffled to walk to Killer’s side, unafraid. Sat down slumped with his back at the pillar Killer always sat against.

“Not worried I’ll go Stage Three on you?” Killer teased. That was the highest stage, as opposed to his usual ‘Stage One’ — his regular soul, with two red circles and a white one between them, like a target. As far as he knew, there were only three variations it could shape itself. There's been... a lot of Two and even Three these days.

“Go ahead, I’ll kick your ass anyday,” Dust shrugged, grinning. “Just like old times, huh?”

Just like old times. Huh.

(Memories of staying awake at ungodly hours and chatting to keep the whispers of silence at bay. Memories of competing for how much EXP they could gain without outright killing anybody. Memories of just the two of them in a room, after Horror wasn’t with ‘em anymore.

...But it’s not Killer who left.)

Cold. Icy. Black and bitter. Hands clenched. A fuzz around the edges of your vision at the memory of emptiness. Of endless, looming, silent walls. The feeling dissipates, leaving only dark stains against your psyche. Maybe you will go Stage Three on him.

“Right.” you don’t look at him. Your voice remains neutral and unbothered. It always does. “Soo. Which one sent you?”

“Neither,” Dust shrugs, paying no mind to your aura. “I just used them as a bridge to get here. I wanted to see you,”

That... what?

You snort. “Why?”

“Just wanted to. Haven’t in a while. I told you you could visit at any time,” Dust reminded. “But you never did,”

“Sure I did,” Killer argued.

“Yeah, like two times in the beginning,” Dust elbowed him, teasing. “And when Nightmare turned, you could’ve come and stayed with me and Red, not here,”

That’s not Killer’s place. This is Killer’s place.

“You’re my friend,” Dust said quietly, smile gaining some other tinge. “I would’ve welcomed you,”

You’re my friend.

Killer exhaled through his nose, shaky with amusement.

You’re my friend.

He started chuckling. He started laughing. It was cracking out from his ribcage. He couldn’t pin down the feeling it mimicked. Amusement? Incredulity? Absurdity? Irony?

“No I’m not,” you kindly inform through your laughter. “I think you’re forgetting I couldn’t feel less about you,” it’s hilarious. It’s bonkers. Dust really is fucking insane.

Dust didn’t let it get to him, just rolled his eye lights. “Sure buddy, whatever helps you sleep at night,” he teases, but you know he knows what you’re truly like. He knows you’re not lying. Which begs the question: how did that delusion still manage to take root?

Hah.

“I mean it though,” Dust rolls his shoulders, stretching his arms idly. “You’re welcome at any time. We could go right now,”

Killer snorted. “Yeah, I’ll take you up on that offer when I need some free EXP,”

Dust paused. Huh. Funny reaction. He really cared about those from the ‘fell verse, huh?

“...No, you won’t,” Dust said, tone reserved to himself. “But that’s fine. Mind if I stay with you instead?”

Killer huffed in mirth. “...I couldn’t care less,” he said, like it was an inside joke between them.

Dust chuckled. And stayed with him.

(It...

...It was so much better than the emptiness.)

—

You wish it was as easy as sleeping all the time, but that’s not exactly possible. Instead, when you’re awake, you’re in a sleep-like haze.

Time passing far too slowly and yet all at once. You blink and it’s been hours. Probably because those hours are all the same, they feel like a single unchanging moment, playing on loop. The rise and fall of your chest. The faint change of light outside those grand, cracked, dusty windows.

It’s...

It’s agony.

It’s a constant, unyielding numbness. An empty existence. A corpse with awareness.

The hours are all the same. None of it feels real, because there’s nothing to differentiate it at all. Fantasy and dreams and reality, it’s all the same, always unchanging, horrible. It’s like being so deeply starved that you stop feeling even the pains from hunger. Everything always the same, and always horrible, until none of it matters.

It’s just a soul-deep craving.

For something. Anything. Whether it be your own blades faintly cracking along your bones, the back of your skull repeatedly slammed against the pillar, something, something. You’d raze the entire fucking Multiverse to ashes and launch your body into its fires if it let you feel something.

Your soul...

...Metaphysically, it’s here, with you. At the center of your chest, bare and vulnerable like an open wound. When you hold it, the red and white circlets glow against your sickly bones. It’s been more unstable than ever, messy and erratic.

The red glow is fitting against the knife in your hand.

The pain is horrible. It’s something that feels mildly real, it’s all you have. Until it bleeds and bleeds and bleeds and you are screaming just for there to be a sound.

It’s all pointless anyway. You bring it into the decimals, shaking and burning with your own self-inflicted violence, but it doesn’t break apart. DETERMINATION holds back just as tightly.

Hah. Haha.

Horror and Dust never had quite the same arrangement with Nightmare that you did. And that fucker, that poor excuse of an existence that insists he is Nightmare now still hasn’t let your cursed, rotten soul go. Not fully.

Dream implied it’s because he knows you want nothing more than to destroy it.

You hope it’s because he is selfish, because he wants you hurt and ruined like always, because he wants you. You wish you could bludgeon him until the pitying expressions he gives you are unrecognizable.

You wish he’d go back to how he was before.

—

“Hey,” Dream appeared once again. Just like always, right across the hallway’s width at the other row of pillars. Or, well, what remained of them, which wasn't much.

He seemed to be appearing at similar times of the day, even. Not that Killer cared to track. For him, the moments when he wasn't alone weren't even real, and then suddenly, here's the Dream Boy.

It was funny to call the centuries old Guardian ‘boy’. It always felt unfitting that someone who seemed so weak was so... not that.

Killer didn't care to reply to him either. He was tired. He didn't care about anything. Why bother?

“It's not a letter this time,” Dream informed, smiling politely as always. You really do believe him when he says he believes in the good in people and that he cares. You just don't care.

Dream produced a couple stapled papers. “I thought about what you said,” he started, “And we did some research. Turns out, actually, statistically,” he held out the papers to Killer, “It's Papyrus — his archetype — that has the highest track record of turning Players away from the Genocide route,” he was grinning.

...Huh.

That's... mildly interesting, actually. You suppose he does have the resources for something like this at his disposal.

“Also,” Dream continued, pulling out a bar of chocolate. “Night sends you this,”

...Damn. Damn. So he was switching up tactics, huh? Curse his knowledge of Killer. He was a fan of chocolate. Something about the cocoa and the sugar giving you a mild artificial high, the strong flavor. Or maybe whatever remained of Chara in him, hah.

Killer couldn't be bothered to push himself up. “Toss it,”

Dream tossed him the chocolate bar and Killer caught it. It wasn't the cheap kind. Maybe there were some upsides to having a sorry little insult like ‘Night’ feeling, well, sorry for you. Killer could abuse this.

“Stop giving me that expression,” he told Dream, who was beaming. Eyes sparkling like sunshine glitter on the surface of the ocean. “Before I peel it off of you.”

Dream, the nuisance that he was, just laughed brightly.

“Want the research too?” he waved the papers at Killer.

Killer sighed, stashing the chocolate in his inventory.

Reading about Papyrus-es in the Geno runs? That could hurt, hopefully. Nice. Or he’d feel nothing, but he always felt nothing. Plus, he supposed just reading anything at all would fill in the emptiness.

Or he’d just use it as kindling, haha.

“Sure. Leave me alone now.”

—

Another chocolate, of a different kind this time but no less high quality. Hah! They thought they were being smart. They thought they had a foot in the door with him. Hilarious. He was just using them for his own personal gain.

Well, if they wanted to be used so badly, Killer sure wasn't going to stop them!

“Dust has been asking for you,” Dream said as he tossed over the chocolate. “Told me to remind you. He didn't specify remind you what though, so I just assumed you'd know,”

Who appointed Dream to be everyone’s messenger to Killer? They could haul their ass over here too. Killer held zero warmth for Dream. Negative warmth, even. Night could transport anyone here too; same went for Ink, yada yada. But whatever. Not like Killer cared. It would've been more fun if it was someone fun that kept visiting him, though. Maybe Dust himself, and they could hurl bullets at each other and trade insult-quips. Or Horror, or someone.

“Yeah, I know,” Killer stated plainly, stashing this chocolate in his inventory too. He had actually eaten the other one. It was... nice, actually. He enjoyed it.

“You know what?” Killer placed a hand on the dilapidated pillar he always sat leaned against. Pushing himself to his feet. Tired. “Sure.”

Dream blinked.

“Sure?”

“Yeah,” Killer shrugged, grinning mean (aka his go-to). “Take me to Dust and his bitey puppies, why not? Can't be worse than this,”

It would be something. It would be people and sounds and sensations and it won't be empty. Killer could even score some EXP no one would miss.

“Oh. Oh!” Dream beamed again. It's hilarious, the way he thought hope still existed for Killer. “Yes, I’ll take you there! But first. Can I ask for a favor?” he gained a look in his eyes. Hopeful, mischievous? Opportunistic maybe.

Killer raised his brow ridges. “Very transactional of you, Mister Selfless,” he teased.

Dream rolled his eyes. “I’ll still take you there if you refuse,” he reasoned. Always so reasonable. What a diplomat, hah.

“Well, if you insist,” Killer said in a low voice, grin stretching. He was in a mood to be entertained by cheery fools, why not?

“How about... a hug?” Dream opened his arms. Calm. The very opposite of pushy about it.

Killer blinked at him, and promptly burst out into laughter.

“And they call me a maniac!” he gasped, slapping his knee. Oh this was golden. A hug? From Killer? How Papyrus of him!

“Oh, oh, or have you finally gone on a mean streak?” Killer kept laughing. To his credit, Dream wasn't faltering, just waited out his fit calmly. “Gonna dunk on me? Finally finish me off, Peaceful Pea?” Killer kept mocking, his voice echoing throughout the empty Judgement Hall. It was rare that he raised it these days.

“No,” Dream replied timidly. “I just want a hug, from you,” he said like that was normal. Like they were besties who embraced all the time! Like Killer wouldn't take the first opportunity to stab him in the back, literally!

“Sure buddy, bring it in!” Killer accepted cheerfully, opening his arms. If the idiot wanted to get dunked on so badly, who was Killer to rain on his parade? In this world, it's dunk or get dunked on!

Insane, the way Dream stepped forward with a warm smile for an embrace. This sucker didn't know the oldest tricks in the book apparently. Because as soon as Killer’s hands wrapped around him, past Dream’s vision, he was summoning a sharp, sharp knife.

And then–

And–

They hugged.

...The thing about the Corrupted Nightmare’s aura — and touch — is that they were concentrated negativity. Negativity completely out of balance, off the rocker. He could turn the mood of everyone in an AU abysmal simply by going there. He could kill you with a touch if he didn’t actively keep it reigned in, because physical contact, being the closest you can get to him, was also the most intense.

When he turned Passive, that disappeared. Or so Killer had assumed.

Because Dream was–

He was–

He... was... warm.

Not just ‘body heat’ warm. Not ‘nervous’ warm. Warm like healing magic, like eating soup with your friends, like– like sunshine. Like happiness and excitement and hope and–

Like Nightmare’s icy fire but with none of the lethality, just light and warm warm warm–

“Killer–?”

You’ve been buried in the depths of the ocean for so, so, so very long.

You are a shipwreck.

Your construction is frail and jagged and rotten. Even the concept of ever moving from where you’re stuck died long ago.

And here was the sun himself.

Here was that gasp of air that burned.

You’ve been so cold for so long, the warmth feels like death.

(...all this time...

...Dream had an aura too?)

Dream cries out as your blade sinks into his back. You planned to keep him in the embrace to hurt him, but you only twist the knife deeper once before you’re wrenching yourself away from– from–

“Killer–!” the idiot extends a hand towards you like you didn’t just fucking stab him– “Wait–”

“SHUT UP.” you snarl, and you’re not angry, not really, you can’t feel anything, you haven’t felt anything in what feels like centuries. An eternity.

(Warm like sunshine and happiness and excitement and hope–)

“You’re LEAVING if you know what’s GOOD for you.” you inform him kindly, violent intent thrumming through your bones, your soul, echoing off the grand walls. Surrounding and unstable.

“I'm not leaving you,” Dream refused adamantly, and you’re laughing as you attack. You're ruthless as you attack. You hurl a barrage of violence at him, cheap hacks and traps to ensure the numbers tick down, bit by bit. You wreak destruction on this already rundown hallway. It's what you do. You are destruction.

You want to be alone. You want to snuff him out. You need to snuff him out. You need it existentially.

It was an irrevocable truth: this light, this warmth, it doesn't exist. And even if others claimed it does, it does not for you, not for you. It never has. It never will. It's not that it’s too far out of your reach — it doesn't. Exist.

...Except.

Except, here it is. Expertly doing its best to dodge the onslaught of your hateful violence.

You need it gone, because if it's real...

“I hate you,” you snarl when you're up close, hands almost shaking with the effort you're putting in stabbing Dream. But he holds his block. “I hate you so, so much.” you spit black hatred like venom.

Maybe it's the sheer intensity of your negativity that finally gets him to relent. Maybe he just gives up on you as he should've ages ago.

You stand among the ruins of your life, the echoes of your harsh breaths. Blood dripping from your blade like the despair from your face.

Alone.

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