Chapter Text
The sound of a portal opening is sharp and loud compared to the silence of the forest. It's followed by the heavy sounds of Nightmare's panting, feet hitting the wet ground with a splat .
Another portal sound is heard, it's sharp and loud, just like the last one, and causes terror that claws at his chest. He couldn't make out what his brother said before he launched himself into another portal.
He hits the ground with a loud thud, scrambling to his feet.
It wasn't often that Nightmare found himself in a blind state of terror, less so running away, but he was cornered. He had been ambushed while alone, and while normally that wasn't a big deal, today was different. His brother had brought every powerful Sans that he could get a hold of. Nightmare knew he couldn't have taken all of those Sans' on, he was no Destroyer, after all. But he was left with no choice. Not only would that have made him a laughing-stock, again, but one of those bastards had trapped the AU and made it impossible for him to teleport out for a long while.
But here he was anyway, running like a coward. Injured and low on magic.
He needed to get away. He couldn't run much longer, let alone keep opening portals. He pulled for any and all leftover magic and threw himself into another portal, determined to get as far as possible from his brother.
Nightmare tumbles and falls out of the portal, multiple AUs away from where Dream was. He knows he doesn't have much extra time, he has to be quick.
Standing up, Nightmare stabilizes himself and starts running again.
He finds himself in Waterfall, specifically in the garbage dump. The adrenaline from running was slowly fading, and now Nightmare could feel how his chest hurt, his legs felt like jelly, and his entire being was begging him to lay down and rest.
He drags himself over behind one of the piles of garbage, looking around for other Monsters.
Deeming it safe, he sat down, taking deep breaths. He closes his eye-socket, exhaustion slowly dragging him down into the blissful darkness.
-
Jolting awake, Nightmare’s socket snaps open. He didn’t know when he had fallen asleep, nor did he know how long it’s been.
Groaning, he moves to sit up, flinching when he feels a sudden prick in his arm. He snaps his head around, looking for the cause. He blinks when he finds a syringe, leaking a strange pink substance.
He groans again, frowning as he realizes he’s going to have to deal with whatever the fuck he probably had injected into him.
A problem for later, he thinks.
Nightmare stands, brushing any leftover garbage off of him before making his way out. He had no magic to teleport still, but he was determined to get as far away as possible.
The walk, in Nightmare’s not-so-humble opinion, was quite peaceful, all things considered.
He paused a couple of times to watch the flowers, and listen to the water. He had also figured out which AU he was in. Much to his dismay, it was a Lusttale AU. Which means the syringe was probably some weird drug. Again, he’ll deal with that later.
The self-proclaimed king finds himself at the entrance to Hotland.
Lust had been heading towards Hotland. Alphys had informed him of someone, Nightmare by the sounds of it , being in their AU, so he was walking around to investigate. It didn’t seem like the other had any intentions for harming the others. But one couldn’t be too sure.
He wasn’t sure what to expect when he ran into the goopy guy, but he definitely wasn’t expecting him to look so beat-up.
“Heya, pal.” He greeted, keeping his tone casual. He felt bad when Nightmare had jumped, snapping his head around to stare at him with fear. He didn’t know what kind of shit happened to make the literal King of Nightmares all spooked, but he had a sneaking suspicion that his injuries were from whatever happened.
They both stare at each-other for a long moment, Lust noticed how the other was swaying, his eyelight was fuzzy around the edges, and his face was pulled into a grimace. Geez, just how much pain is this guy in?
He feels his soul pang with empathy, a sudden urge to help the other quickly growing. Damn his dumb Alpha instincts.
“Look bud–” Lust starts, taking a few slow steps closer to the other. “--You don’t seem too great, you want some help?” He offered, taking a closer look at the shorter.
He watched as Nightmare contemplated, weighing the risks before sighing.
“It.. would be greatly appreciated.” He grumbled, running a hand over his arm.
Lust’s soul felt like it was going to burst through his chest at how the other sounded so winded and tired.
And so here they were, in Alphys’ lab as she checked and bandaged him.
“I-I’m going to r-run one mo-more test. Ju-Just to make s-sure your soul is stab-stable.” She stuttered out, grabbing a device that Nightmare hadn’t seen before.
She held out her hand. “Could you summon it, pl-please?” She asked, holding out her hand. He stared at her, brows furrowing at her hand before he sighed, looking off to the side as his soul materialized in her hand.
“Th-This might feel weird, b-but don’t worry! It won’t hurt!” She reassured before turning the device on.
Nightmare gritted his teeth at the strange feeling of the device over his soul. It wasn’t painful, as she promised, but it wasn’t the best feeling.
After a couple of minutes, Alphys put the device down, moving over to her computer and typing on it.
“Y-Your magic levels ar-are unusually low.” Nightmare nodded at her words, tapping his fingers on the chair he was sat in.
“I was in a fight.” He tells her, and she nods.
“Th-That makes sense.”
She hums, taking a closer look at the graphs, turning to Nightmare shortly after. “Has anyone tr-tried to inject you with a syringe?” She asked, her face morphing into one of concern.
Nightmare blinks at her before shaking his head. “No, but I ended up getting poked when I had stood up from a nap.”
She and Lust both look at each-other, each with varying degrees of concern on their expressions.
Alphys turns back to Nightmare.
“Was it p-pink?” She asked, her face showing more concern as Nightmare nodded.
Lust sighs, his own expression holding one of nervousness. “Okay, listen. You are not going to like this at all .” He starts, pinning Nightmare with a stern look.
The King narrows his eye.
“Our AU had come up with a “cure”--” He used his fingers to quote. “--which solved our heat problem. Which is why we have that weird ‘ranking’ system, as other AUs put it.” He pauses, staring at Nightmare until he nodded.
“However, should an outsider have a small dose of that cure, they’d be in the same condition we were, if not given the full dosage.” Nightmare stares at Lust as he explained things, grimacing more as the other explained.
“So, stuck in a heat-like state?” Nightmare asked, frowning more when he got a nod.
“Basically. And so, if someone were to get injected with it, it’s best to give them the full dosage, which will give them the.. inclinations like us, but prevent them from being stuck in an endless heat.” He finished explaining, watching as Nightmare took in,
processed and understood the information.
To say he wasn’t pleased would be an understatement.
“So you’re telling me, that I have to get the full dosage, meaning I gain yet another weakness, in order to not be stuck in an endless heat state?” He asked through gritted teeth.
Lust and Alphys nod. “Un-Unfortunately..”
Nightmare groans, rubbing his temple aggressively. “Fine. Whatever. Get on with it. I’d rather it be that and not the heat.”
“Al-Alright! L-Let me go grab it.” Alphys ran into the other room as she spoke, hurriedly grabbing a syringe.
Only a few minutes went by, but Nightmare swore that those were the longest few minutes in his life.
Alphys comes back into the room, carefully holding a syringe filled with the same pink substance as before.
“O-Okay, th-this is going to hurt a bit.” She warned, carefully stabbing him with the needle.
The skeleton flinched, letting out a breath through gritted teeth.
“It’s okay, won’t take long.” Lust tried to comfort, earning a glare from the goopy skeleton.
Thankfully, the shot ended quickly, and Alphys backed up. “D-Done! Now w-we have to wait for it to set in..” She trailed off, looking towards Lust. “C-Could you take him to y-your place? J-Just to make sure i-it settles right an-and to make sure his mag-magic levels regenerate.”
Lust smiled at the scientist. “Of course, Alph.” He then turned to Nightmare. “Come on grumpy mc grumper pants, let’s get going.” He chuckled out, gently tugging Nightmare to his feet and ignoring the withering glare from the other.
“See ya Alph!” Lust shouts before teleporting him and Nightmare all the way to Snowdin.