Chapter Text
Nightmare's "Empire" worked something like this.
First, we have an AU. The main overall tone of the AU is negative, drawing Nightmare's attention. Nightmare makes contact with the AU and its inhabitants, often times the Judge variable, often the "Main Character" of the script. If the AU does not reject his influence, Nightmare will offer them his protection.
Protection from the various threats in the multiverse — the Hackers, Illegal Players, Outcodes with malevolent intentions, Pandemics, Glitches — by claiming the AU for himself. Nightmare will protect the AU from these things, in exchange for something that the AU can give him: often Negativity, or specific resources that other AUs can't offer. Either way, the AU would be marked by Nightmare's claim, and placed under his influence.
If anyone wanted to spare their AU the active tampering and manipulation of Nightmare, they could choose to offer themselves and their services in exchange for Nightmare's neutrality. Most of the time, the Judge will be the one to make the sacrifice. Nightmare will then have a "Moderator", who operates the AU in his stead. These Moderators will remain in their AU until Nightmare has need for them, and when Nightmare asks for them, they can't say no.
If they do, Nightmare will choose a new Moderator. Of course, if the Mod has a valid reason, then sure, Nightmare can excuse them once or twice and let them off easy with a punishment. But if the Mod does not uphold their end of the deal, Nightmare deals with them.
Where does Killer come in? Well, he's Nightmare's closest closest subordinate, meaning he is trusted, an honor no one else can boast. He is Nightmare's weapon, something to point at things that have no need for existence, and a representative when Nightmare feels no need to show up in person.
If Nightmare is the ruler of his empire, Killer is his rabid guard dog, the bad omen to his master's wrath.
Of course, there is the Omega Timeline, the Council of the Omega Timeline, and Dream, the rising star of positivity that posed a rare threat to Nightmare. The moment the multiverse as a whole figured out that Dream was someone that could thwart the King of Negativity, he was immediately given a seat on the Council and an in to the Omega Timeline.
Nightmare, who had never been that interested in the Omega Timeline (stank of hope), was motivated to get rid of Dream and his sources of power.
Positive AUs had never been his target — too much of a hassle to take over. But if their existence powered Dream and his irritating advances, Nightmare wanted them gone.
The core of Nightmare's castle was the Throne Room.
It was a majestic, if a terrifying hall. The eerie design, the dark color palette: grotesque and elegant at the same time. A golden SAVE star, visible to Killer, illuminated the foot of the throne, pulsing with an unheard beat.
Killer recounted all the times he used it to revive himself because Nightmare accidentally (or maybe not that accidentally) killed him during sex. As if noticing his brief distraction, Nightmare tightened a tentacle over his pelvis, wringing a choked out gasp from his ribcage and an orgasm from his exhausted body.
At this point, he was too low on magic to form any magic construct, and his SOUL was sluggishly excreting the last remnants of magic he could spare. He would drop to Magic Fatigue soon.
But still, the orgasm made his SOUL hum and tremble where it was levitating over Nightmare's hand.
Killer's breathing roughened, his invisible eyelights glaring up at his boss who remained dressed and perfectly composed on his throne, ignoring the arousal that Killer could feel resonating between their bonded SOULs.
And Killer being Killer, Nightmare being Nightmare, there was no way their mating bond was anything normal. Nightmare's hold over Killer was immense while Killer could only sense whatever was going on at Nightmare's end. He regretted his lack of sway over Nightmare's apple of a SOUL, and wished fervently to at least induce some lack of control, so his boss could get it over and fuck him already. He's been orgasming from touch and friction on everywhere except his pelvis or his SOUL.
Fucking sadomasochistic freak. Fucking controlling psychotic asshole.
Did he have to die again without one good dicking?
Nightmare probably knew that he was definitely hurtling unheard vitriol at him, if his jaw wasn't being pried open by a tentacle that tasted faintly of mint apple, gagging him effectively to prevent words but not sounds of pain or pleasure.
He slowly retracted it from Killer's mouth, careful to leave him teetering precariously on the precipice of yet another painful unsatisfying orgasm, because Killer was such a fucking whore he could cum from friction on his teeth.
Killer still shivered from it, and spilled another few mindless noises that could be seen as the dissembled remains of a moan.
Nightmare waited for Killer to regain control over his voice, crossing his legs primly like he wasn't completely defiling Killer on the very steps of his throne room.
"Well?" When Killer failed to organize any worthwhile sentence — owing to Nightmare stimulating him at all the wrong times — Nightmare asked sharply, prying Killer's legs open by the femurs, wringing another well-worn sound from his subordinate.
"f-fucking asshole—" Killer managed, gasping with it, "it's been so — ahmnnn—" He lost his train of thought at another sadistic curl of tentacles wrapping around his cervical vertebrae, shaking in a tiny crest of pleasure that wasn't quite an orgasm, being infinitely more insufferable.
"Did you forget your manners, Killer?"
"fuck, boss!" He hissed.
Nightmare tightened his grip over his lowest floating rib, ignoring Killer's protests (mostly for show) and snapping it neatly, twisting the rib downwards languidly so it arched along his spine. The torturous slow grind of broken bone was excruciating on his extremely sensitive body, like a white hot iron over dry ice, an explosive thing called pain like potassium on water.
Killer seized up for one terrifying (for himself) moment, then jerked instinctively, frantically to escape, knowing Nightmare was emphasizing his suffering and terror to feed, knowing that he could come back from death — had come back twice just recently — yet still his body was coursing with the desire to escape and survive.
Finally.
"You sick freak." Nightmare said, not unkindly. Killer grinned through his pain-filled gasps, testing his strength against Nightmare's tentacles, feeling his fear leech away through Nightmare's touch. He had been waiting for so long for Nightmare to start fucking him or start their little game of this, where he felt more alive than anything.
Nightmare definitely knew he enjoyed this.
Killer enjoyed this, the pain, the fear, the fight to survive, even against the unstoppable force called Nightmare and his sadistic tendencies. He wanted more, even if he was struggling to breathe already, vision blurring and shaking in his lover's secure grasp.
And to think, Nightmare still had so much up his sleeve. From what Killer knew, Nightmare was but a quarter-way through their standard fuck session, and they were both in the mood for more than that.
"We're just starting." Nightmare grinned down at Killer, having gotten his fill of frustration and desperation earlier, now gearing for fear and pain.
Killer couldn't tell if his pain-filled seizing was just tremors or if he was orgasming, but then again, both were just about synonyms at this point, where pleasure was pain and pain was fear and fear was pleasure again.
His physical helplessness heightened his arousal.
He could tell Nightmare was just as bothered as he was. Their enjoyment clashed and battered at each other, carrying Killer away into another tiny crest of release, driving broken moans from his throat.
"You're too noisy." Nightmare shoved the gag back into his mouth, taking no care to prevent pleasure. Killer took it, unable to choke on it but still wishing he could, shaking as he gasped silently like fish out of water. He swallowed the magic Nightmare deposited into his mouth, wanting him to last longer before Fatigue set in.
Nightmare braced another rib, the one right above his broken one, slowly listening to the screech of straining bone tissue, paying no care to Killer's increasingly violent struggles, listening to how it started to break, starting from the point of where he was stressing it, and how Killer could barely make a sound except to cry, to gasp.
And like dominos falling, the rib gave way with a snap, driving another white hot stake lancing up Killer's spine.
Nightmare watched the DETERMINATION poising as blood drip from the two wounds, sizzling and evaporating as it touched him, the very antithesis of it. He tightened his restraints accordingly, adjusting smoothly to take Killer's sudden increase in vigor in stride.
He watched his little toy — his most beloved toy — wear itself out, moaning and sobbing his sick mix of pain and pleasure for Nightmare to hear, hoping he would notice.
Of course Nightmare noticed.
He shifted his weight, suddenly a little restless.
He settled for snapping another rib above the last, wanting to complete one "wing" before he started taking Killer apart in another way.
Killer knew he was sick, just like Nightmare. They were born sick, born to be sick, freaks at their core, outliers in a vast multiverse that had no place for them if they didn't carve it out with bloody claws.
You'd think they didn't try, except Killer wasn't born evil, and that honor belonged to Nightmare.
Killer tried to live a normal life, honest!
Didn't work out.
Well, that and he tried to live a normal life with Nightmare, which to be honest, was the worst misjudgment he ever made. For fuck's sake: a normal life with Nightmare of all people??
Yeah, he might have been a couple centuries old mentally, but his ass was dumb.
Killer lounged lazily on a bed of cool soothing negativity, eyes tracking Nightmare as he read his newest book on the nearby chair. The smell of satisfaction and sex (mint apple and spicy peppermint) coated his teeth like a thin veil to cover a naked woman's modesty.
Which, in case you didn't get it, was useless and only served to excite perverts.
But Killer was spent, and Nightmare barely twitched at the spark of arousal that died near instantly from his end, so he hummed a regretful sigh, reclining on the bed of tentacles.
Detail, Killer was naked.
But semantics.