Archive of Our Own ^beta

The soft tap-tap of his phalanges against the living room windowsill was, in this new world, the only rhythm Killer knew. The air, thick with the past week’s rain, carried the scent of damp earth in soft waves that, to him, felt like a slow poison.

The grayish glow of the sky was almost identical to a dawn in a decaying universe. And with that inert light, memories came: the stench of ash, the raw victory. For a microsecond, he felt the familiar throb of his knife in his palm, so vivid his chest ached. The sensation was as real as the poppies and daffodils that filled the flowerbed just below the window, oblivious to his torment.

Years of remorse, piled like corpses in a mass grave, resurfaced with each new sensation. His body, though struggling to reincorporate into normalcy, now lived in suffocating hypersensitivity. He had to learn to navigate the street with sunglasses to avoid the blinding sun that pierced his eye sockets. Strong smells awakened a vertigo that nested in his forehead like an embedded dagger.

The noise was overwhelming; he lost count of the times sharp screeches crackled in his ears, filling his head with a stormy torrent and a voice that wasn't his, a constant echo.

His soul, a swaying heart of fire, glowed with its own light, floating outside his chest like a jewel on display. "Oddities grant us uniqueness," Color used to tell him. Killer would believe it if it weren't for the obvious.

He wasn't the only one out there cut from the same cloth, but he was the only one Color chose to help. Perhaps that made him different. Perhaps that was enough to be so.

But Killer didn’t believe he had changed anything. They say that after achieving what you long for, an episode of inexplicable sadness often follows. Killer couldn't say if it was sadness he'd been feeling; it wasn't even close. Anyway, he had no right to feel sad. Always the exception to the rule, always different.

His fingers sometimes twitched, searching for a hilt that wasn't there, a weapon he didn't need. The stillness, instead of calming, sharpened his senses, awaiting a violent echo that never came. Quiet life, he thought, had too many flaws. The mundane, the banal, the painful stillness of the days became... vexing. Yes, that was the exact word. Killer, at least sometimes, could afford that luxury: to be bored, annoyed.

He had been for a while, perhaps since he became aware of his own feelings, after decades of emotional anesthesia. Days dragged on, agonizingly still. It wasn't the shackles, nor the physical torture; it was the absence of adrenaline, the lack of a clear objective, that weighed on him more than any chain.

Nightmare would never have left him so 'free.'

"You'll get bored," Nightmare had told him, so sure of himself, as serene as a calm lake. Almost as if expecting this outcome. As if he had seen it before. As if fate had determined it.

"I know you. You're not made for a life like that, Killer. Your place is here," the inept, stubborn god continued, as if that could make any difference, as if it made any sense to begin with: "with me."

Killer could almost see the ghost of the person he used to be, a shadow of himself in that terrifying realization. Nightmare's offer wasn't just a place; it was the promise of an identity he had tried to burn, but which still burned beneath his bones.

"You don't know me," Killer said softly, a lie he hoped would become true.

"How could I not?" Nightmare uttered, extending his claws toward him in his mind, encircling his long fingers: "when it was I who made you."

His phalanges tensed until his knuckles whitened. The soft tapping against the windowsill was no longer enough; it wasn't the rhythm his soul craved. In this world of unbearable lethargy, Killer knew there was only one place he could find it.

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"Oh, you're awake," Color said from the corner where he was sprawled, nestled beside the flowerbed that bordered the fence separating his house from the neighbor’s, a grumpy human named Earl.

His enthusiasm for Killer having been able to fall asleep is just as baffling as everything else plaguing this cozy little house. No one else would have cared, but Color was no one; he cared and made sure to let you know.

"Yes, sleeping is undoubtedly... a curious waste of time."

"There's practicality in rest, Killer. It allows you to have enough energy to do whatever you want," he paused, tilting his head as if evaluating something in his mind, "—or need to," he concluded.

Color is right, but Killer hasn't quite learned it yet.

There are many things to unlearn as well.

The conversation with Color faded into the background of his perception as soon as his eye sockets spotted the golden flowers to the left of the garden, bathing in the few rays of sun the day had mercifully decided to grant them.

Killer moves almost automatically, as if a command in his head had told him to. Seeing them up close, he can appreciate the almost perfect shapes of the petals that adorn the center, so vibrant, so deceptively innocent. The smell hit him in the face, rising up his nasal passage with a flare that left a persistent sting. He feels the acridness of ash mixed with the cloying sweetness of the petals.

"They smell like life" Chara's voice whispered from some corner in his head, not as a thought, but as a sadistic murmur vibrating in his eardrums, "...for now."

His LV erupted in burning tongues of fire that sparked up his spine. Killer barely noticed he was holding his breath, expelling a choked gasp as his body shuddered with a spasm. The flutter of a butterfly, the chirping of birds, sounds native to the beautiful sanctuary that was Color's garden, transformed into a shrill, broken cacophony that closely resembled the sound of a reset.

Looking at them a second time, Killer couldn't tear his gaze from the first row. He counted the flowers. Nine. Not ten, not eight, not six. Nine. Again and again, the number repeated, echoing in every laugh he remembered. Nine. A mockery so clear, so personal, that the entire garden seemed to bow, whispering the number to him.

An icy chill ran through his bones. He knew that number belonged to him. This wasn't a coincidence, it was a direct provocation, perhaps from his subconscious or from that demon with a human face.

His hand moves faster than his mind, and without thinking, he plucks the specimen that destroys the asymmetrical composition of the flowerbed.

Killer rubs the petal between his phalanges, trying to find something in the texture, anything in such a mundane action. But he doesn't find much. Only the fine golden dust left on his bones, the same that smelled and felt exactly like monster dust.

A pang shot through his back. Color had turned, his eyes fixed on the flower Killer held in his hand.

"Killer," Color said, his voice soft. "Why did you take it?"

The question, so simple and direct, was like a knife to Killer's soul. There was nothing Color couldn't understand, but how could he even begin to explain it

"It was... already dead," Killer said, the word sounding hollow. His voice came out raspier than he intended.

Color frowned, his expression a mix of confusion and sadness. He knelt to look at the empty space in the flowerbed.

After a brief observation, like someone who knows what they're talking about, he added: "Perhaps it got sick too quickly."

"Of course," Killer said, reaffirming a truth Color had proposed and which he was happy to abide by.

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Since the incident in the garden, Killer had felt the calm of the house was a predator, lurking, patiently suffocating him.

One afternoon, while Color was in the garden, busy with his poppies and daffodils, Killer decided to stay in the living room.

The afternoon sun streamed through the windows, bathing the room in warm light. His empty eye sockets landed on the low bookshelf next to the sofa. There, a few brief feet away, rested a large photo album, with a soft, slightly faded cloth cover. The cover had a hand-embroidered butterfly. Its edges were worn by the natural flow of time, by countless hands that had lovingly leafed through it.

Killer approached slowly, his steps silent on the carpet. He slid his phalanges over the cover, feeling the sweet, concentrated magical intention and the history that seemed to emanate from the images stored within.

That album was an anthology of Color's moments: some birthdays with genuine smiles, picnics in vibrant meadows, trips to places filled with light, hugs with friends whose auras were pure and vibrant. Each photo was tangible proof of a happiness he had never known, of a lightness he found incomprehensible, almost offensive.

A grimace, a distortion of what might have been a smile, appeared on his features. Compulsion seized him, born of a dark desire. This wasn't the impulsive urge to pluck a flower; this was colder, more calculated.

A cold, familiar electric jolt ran through his bones. It wasn't the adrenaline of battle, but the urge of transgression, the desire to leave a scar on the untouchable. His eye sockets blackened, his soul flickered, almost with a vestigial anticipation. The temptation to break that immaculate peace, to defile those sacred memories, was now irresistible.

Killer took the album. He weighed it in his hand, feeling the weight of years and frozen moments. He slipped onto the sofa in the furthest corner of the living room, where the dim light from the lamp barely chased away the shadows, where he always used to sit when he and Color weren't sharing moments in front of the TV. The heart of fire in his chest oscillated with an energy that nothing and no one in the house could contain. Killer sat as if it were one of those days alone, with the album open on his lap. He slowly turned the pages, leaf by leaf, his eye sockets fixed on the expressions of joy. He felt no jealousy, but a chilling curiosity, a desire to understand what was so alien to him, only so he could better destroy it.

He chose a random page, one where Color smiled radiantly, surrounded by other familiar figures. His stained fingers caressed the outline of that grimace, mapping with obsessive precision the curve of normalcy that adorned Color’s face. And with the space already measured, Killer clenched his finger, tracing the shape of that happiness onto his own mouth, in a clumsy, desperate effort to print that smile from the paper onto his own reality.

. . . Nothing happened. The emptiness of his jaw remained unaltered.

Without wasting time in the abyss that was unraveling the obsolescence of his existence, Killer searched with his gaze. His empty eye sockets landed on a photo frame on the coffee table a arm's length away, aged wood with a slightly chipped bottom edge.

There was no room for hesitation or doubt. Killer pressed the tip of his left phalange against the surface where the edge was sharpest. With deliberate pressure, he rubbed his bone against the wood, filing his finger with a rough, dull friction. From the painful abrasion, a handful of monster dust, fine as ash, detached in an almost imperceptible cloud in the air, emanating from his own corrupted essence.

Slowly, methodically, he sprinkled the dust over the photographs. He didn't cover them completely; instead, he delighted in creating macabre patterns, veils of death that settled over the eyes, the smiles, the auras of those portrayed. It was a silent mockery, the essence of death desecrating the essence of life, a dark signature over Color's innocence and happiness.

He stood for a long time, observing his work, letting the dust settle, absorbing the light and joy from the images. A brief sigh escaped his mouth.

He closed the album with utmost care, the cloth cover returning to its place with a barely audible sigh. He put it back on the shelf, in its exact spot, as if nothing had ever happened. But the stain, invisible to Color until he decided to leaf through his memories, persisted, a silent echo of the darkness that had visited his memories. Killer walked away, feeling the emptiness in his rib cage.

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Good things take time to arrive and don't last long—Killer hadn't realized how true that phrase could be until now. He needed more. The calm gnawed at him, and every act of destruction was just a desperate attempt to feel something. The photo album hadn't been enough.

The adrenaline of transgression died too quickly, leaving an even greater void than before. His soul resonated, demanding a more visceral, more real response.

Days later, boredom and tranquility became an unbearable torture. Killer retreated to the dimness of his room. The silence was heavy, interrupted only by the faint hum of his own bones, an echo of the need growing within him, with distant murmurs touching his ears, gaining strength with each passing day.

He looked around at the ordered neatness that Color had tried to imprint even on this personal space. It wasn't ostentatious, narrow but cozy, with just a bed, a nightstand, a lamp, and a wardrobe next to the window overlooking the street.

He found it suffocating.

From the darkness within him, Killer found something more. His eyes fell on the nightstand, where a clear, clean glass sat, the same one Color had given him for water at night. A familiar chill ran through Killer. This was no ordinary object; it was a symbol of the peaceful life Color offered him.

A vessel too perfect for something so despicable.

Killer rummaged through piles of old, worn clothes in the wardrobe until he recognized the metallic graze of the knife pricking his fingers first. The pain didn't make him recoil, only increased the vehemence of his search, squeezing the blade between his phalanges tightly and pulling until the weapon was in full view under the dim light of his bedroom.

"Ah," he exclaimed, in a melancholy expression. "There you are, Lucille."

His old partner in havoc, Lucille, was marred by disuse; the teeth too crooked and corroded by time, the handle unstable. And despite everything, she could still cut well enough. The blood on his hand was testimony to that. From the open wounds, the substance began to flow ceaselessly like a broken faucet, filling the glass with unsettling slowness, a well of his own corruption.

The substance clung for an instant to the bottom before slowly spreading, like a shadowy stain devouring purity. He held the glass up to the lamplight when it was half full.

This was what Chara had germinated and Nightmare had perfected. It wasn't common blood, but a pulsating, dark, dense substance, an impossible, almost black red, which wasn't pure Determination, but close enough to resemble it.

A familiar shiver of excitement ran through his bones. It wasn't the adrenaline of battle, but the urge of transgression and the satisfaction of a primitive need. Killer brought the glass to his mouth.

The first drop, thick and warm, slid down his throat. The consistency was indecipherable; neither liquid nor solid, it slid like a thick gel, almost a living substance clinging to his mouth. It wasn't like the blood he had seen shed from others. It wasn't like water, nor oil, nor even the dense tar that dripped from his own skull. It was something alien to everything, an aberration with no attributable qualities to anything familiar.

The taste was a sort of burnt, moldy quinoa that formed a film on his tongue and floated in his mouth like debris in a stagnant lake, awakening an echo of old, dormant pleasures. It wasn't sweet, it wasn't bitter; it was raw, wild, and revealed the truth to him: the taste of his true nature. Neither human, nor monster. It was just coagulated Determination, an existence of pure desire to harm, to erase, to remain. Swallowing was strange, more than impossible, the blood in his mouth felt like viscous phlegm clinging, alive, to his throat.

Killer brought his hand to the tar and blood stain, trying to wipe it, but on contact, the substance vanished into a fine blackish dust, crumbling in its fragility, as if it had never existed. He wiped the back of his hand against his sweater, the act almost ritualistic. The strange taste of soot, mold, and dust had disappeared.

The satisfaction was an immediate and terrifying epiphany. He had drunk from his own source, from his own untamed nature. But that revelation, that brutal self-awareness, brought no calm. It only deepened the need. The calm gnawed at him, and now, every act of transgression was not just a desperate attempt to feel something, a search to discover the limits of his own perversion.

"I told you, Killer. You're not made for this. You're made to consume."

The murmur of a voice slipped into his mind, an echo of a past that never left, that is still here, inhabiting even the most harmless spaces. It was Chara, or perhaps Nightmare. He doesn't know, he only knows they are right, and maybe that's why Killer couldn't deny it.

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His life was a cage of silk, but Killer, with the sharpness of a knife, slowly cut his way through.

Color's kitchen was narrow but overflowing with personality. Wood-paneled countertops, medium and small pots, colorful spices, the soft hum of the refrigerator, and a huge sink where used mugs with colorful prints rested.

Everything about it screamed disconcerting comfort.

Killer found himself in front of the counter, the ceiling lights too bright, the silence too deafening. He opened the faucet, the stream of water filling the glass with a sharp sound that echoed in the room as it hit the bottom.

His fingers tensed around the glass, his knuckles whitening. The smooth rim sank slightly into his bone, and Killer imagined the small glass splinters tearing at his magical essence, the sharp pain that might briefly drown out the constant hum in his own mind. His eyes, black, hollow pits, stretched beyond what was monstrously possible, seeing not the glass, but the ease with which everything Color believed in could break.

The stillness of the house seemed to drag him down, a silent invitation to surrender. He felt the dense air, an act that burned him inside. The familiar throb of his knife in his palm, so vivid before, was now a furious echo shouting from deep within him. The LV stirred beneath his bones, a boiling tide seeking an exit, pulsating in burning waves through his joints.

With an effort that burned every fragment of his being, Killer clenched his jaw until his teeth crackled and black rivers of determination burst from the cracks, thick as sizzling grease, filling his mouth and swelling his chest with a violent spasm. A congested sensation suddenly overtook him, recognizing the slow descent between his eye sockets and his nose, joining the blackish flow he had expelled onto the sink.

And he yielded.

The sound was a dry crack, followed by the scattered tinkling of fragments on the countertop. Water spilled, a dark stain on the surface. The sharp edges tore at Killer's phalanges, feeling a sharp pain that, for a microsecond, was a blessing. But he didn't feel the surge of that something he expected. Instead, a familiar cold settled in the emptiness of his rib cage.

A bitter, old feeling, that stung him like an invisible dagger. Guilt rearing its ugly head.

He had failed. He had promised, not Color, but himself, that he could control it. And the silk had torn.

Standing in the kitchen, pain was his only anchor back to the real world. Killer looked at the mess in front of him; he abruptly turned off the faucet.

The stillness of the kitchen returned, but now it was filled with guilt and broken glass. He knelt, picking up each fragment with patient meticulousness. Sweeping the pieces of glass, amidst black determination stains and the reflection of water; a crescent-moon sharp smile greeted him from the distorted reflection.

He pulled the trash bag from the bin, tossed the pieces to the bottom, and put the bag back in place. A final splinter, tiny and needle-thin, pricked his palm, but he left it there, a silent reprimand for his failure.

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After that, the last few days had been blurry. Killer continued with the routine, each domestic chore feeling like a performance, a role he couldn't quite play well. In his palm, the glass splinter was a silent reminder.

One night, while Killer was in the living room, Color entered with a small plastic bag in his hand. He gently placed it on the coffee table, the tinkling of fragments echoing in the silence. There was no anger on his face, only a calm that Killer found more terrifying than any scream.

Color slid the glass pieces onto the table, and Killer felt an anxious pang reverberate in his stomach. The frenzy of the forbidden reached its peak.

"You left it in the trash can," Color said. He didn't sound angry, but with a soft, dangerous curiosity. "Should I assume you wanted me to find it?"

Killer shook his head quickly. "Yes. I think that was easier than putting it into words."

Color sighed, an almost inaudible sound that filled the space between them. His eyes fixed on Killer, reflecting a painful understanding. "I know, Killer. I understand. I really do. You..." A melancholic smile spread across his face, one of those that burn into memory because you know you won't see them again for a long time. "I'm sorry I can't give you the life you're looking for."

Killer let those words settle, like leaves falling from trees in autumn: softly and naturally. He savored it as it lingered. It had become a habit; to collect and keep sensations as if they were precious fragments. The emptiness within him was a kind of stash, a refuge where perhaps, finally, he could shelter something more than violence and pain.

"I don't think anyone ever can," Killer said, his voice barely a whisper, a semblance of mercy for Color, but a cruel truth for himself. "It's not your fault." He paused, the tension almost palpable. "It never was."

"I'm never giving up on you," Color assured, and Killer felt it was something even he could believe. "You haven't realized it yet, but you have a lot of love to give, Killer."

That was a nice thing to believe in.

"If I can't give you the life you believe you deserve, could I at least continue to be a part of it?" His voice came out cracked in a way Killer could never sound.

Color, in his pain, never stopped setting boundaries, never seemed to forget that Killer had a mind of his own, always giving options, always asking about every little thing. And that was so far from anything he had ever known.

Chara was a beginning that hurled him down a slope into the jaws of hell. Nightmare was the door to a world plagued by pain and misery gloriously intertwined.

And Color...

Color was the gentle kiss of the breeze on his cheekbones and the tender warmth of the sun's rays touching his fingers. A warm, enveloping flame that melted the ice embedded in the cracked crevices of his soul. It sounded too good to be true. But perhaps, that was a sign. Perhaps Color was that someone who could help him see what he couldn't on his own. But it won't be today, or tomorrow. Not soon.

The paradox of his existence, the beauty of this calm, was almost unbearable.

Staring, his eyes—black, hollow pits that could make you stumble into the abyss—stretched beyond what was monstrously possible. The world in front of him wavered, lines blurring. The aftermath stung him like tiny splinters hidden beneath the skin, remnant seeds of a past flourishing with the echo that called them forth.

After a moment of sepulchral silence, Killer bowed his head, and with the best tone of frankness he could muster, he uttered: "Always."

Nightmare hadn't broken Killer; he had reassembled him with purpose, each fragment of his soul now a weapon. Disarming that wasn't just a matter of will, but of unlearning an entire existence.

A reset.

Killer wasn't seeking forgiveness, not even to go back. He only yearned to discover if what he was could exist without the destruction that had coded him. He wanted to know if, beyond the echo of his creators and the shadow of his own nature, there was room for something more.

Something new. Something, perhaps, not better, but different.

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Color’s fingers moved with meticulous patience, joining the fragments of glass. Each piece fit with a soft click, and little by little, the shape of the cup came to life before him. It wasn't perfect; the glue scars were visible, a silent map of the fractures Killer had left. Delta suggested he should paint it, hide those cracks with a coat of turquoise or vibrant red, but Color refused. He didn't want to lose the only thing left of Killer in the house, besides his absence.

A small succulent, with fleshy, tenacious leaves, was the next step. Its roots settled into the fresh earth resting at the bottom of the cup, displaying its impeccable beauty through the cracked glass.

With a barely audible sigh, Color carried the improvised pot to what had been Killer’s bedroom. He left it on the nightstand, next to the empty space where the intact cup once rested. The lamp, still lit, bathed the small plant in a dim light. It was a silent act, an offering: stillness transformed, the resilience of life thriving even among the remnants of destruction.

For Color, it was hope, stubborn and small, that something, eventually, could take root there.