"Why are you still awake?" Cross heard his Chara ask. He turned his attention from the tent wall to the ghost floating slightly above him. The wind and rain outside became a background noise.

"Isn't it obvious?" he asked, rolling onto his back before quickly glancing towards the human performer on the opposite bed to make sure they were asleep.

"Not really, dipshit," the ghost scoffed, raising an eyebrow.

"Someone's having quite a rough night.." Cross mumbled, shifting his gaze towards the wall again. "And I mean emotionally, you dirty bastard." He narrowed his eyes, glancing back at Chara.

"Should've listened to your husband when he told you not to say anything filthy around me," they reminded him, narrowing their eyes back at him.

"You're like a parasite on my SOUL, I can't watch my language around you if I don't know when you're here and when you're not. I watch you leave and throw in the dirtiest joke I have, only to turn around and see that you're already back. Which, by the way, is the complete opposite of what you did when you were alive. I looked away from you for five seconds and when I turned back you were out of my sight. And two minutes after that you were getting carried back to the medical tent for getting caught in the crossfire of a grenade." Cross stared at them unimpressed while their eyes shifted further and further away from direct eye contact.

"Anyways," they started, trying to shift the attention away from the previous topic into a new one, "Any next plans?"

"Not yet.." Cross murmured, again – paranoid – glancing towards the sleeping human to make sure they were still asleep.

"Why not? We came here for a reason, didn't we?" Chara sounded annoyed, but Cross didn't really pay attention to their tone.

"You do realise that we're trapped here?" – he raised a browbone at them – "And the only way out might as well be death. Our first plan failed. I don't want to rush into a new one without thinking enough first," he reminded them.

"You've escaped from a 'rest of your life' -situation before, twice. Why would you stay here?" they pointed out, circling around him like the ghost they were cursed to be.

"Tell me: what do we have left?"

Chara stopped. A second passed, another, soon third.

"Exactly," Cross huffed. The silence had answered better than a thousand words could. "We don't have anything left. Even if we get him back. We don't have a home, our children are all dead, and I'm pretty sure that he isn't exactly alive either."

Chara opened their mouth, but Cross continued before they could get a word out, "I won't give up hope. I'll continue looking for him until I can confirm that he's actually dead. I'm just pointing out that if he's gone, there's nothing, and I say nothing, left for me outside these walls."

His gaze burned through Chara, making them shift uncomfortably. They should have dropped a comment. Something to criticise Cross with. Anything. But they couldn't. They didn't know what to say.

"We've spent our entire life running. Aren't you getting tired of it? And you aren't even alive anymore."

Chara Peñaloza was a victim of the war. A young child soldier who had died one cold winter morning to an airstrike when bombs started raining from the sky. Most of their body was buried in the forest near the remains of an old medical tent with no landmark to be found by. The dismembered part of their body that had been found from the scene of the attack along with their fallen comrades were buried on the graveyard of an unidentified church, along with their name on the memorial gravestone before the group grave.

They hesitated. Cross took notice in that. "Don't you want to be set free already?"

"How do you know that I'm even real?" The expression on their face was unreadable. Now was Cross' turn to stumble back in words. "How do you know that I'm even the same brother you lost that day? How can you be so sure that I'm the one you held in your arms? How do you know that I'm the one who bled to death, staining you in crimson while you were in denial? Your brother died that night, didn't he?" Chara stared at him with a face of stone.

"If you weren't him.. Why would you be wearing his face..?" Cross tried to argue back.

Chara tilted their head, "Why are you asking me that?" they asked. "Expecting as if I had the answer, when in reality," – they paused, again tilting their head – "You're the only one who can answer that."

-----

      Geno laid on the muddy ground, staring at the cloudy sky above him. Rain poured down on him, yet he didn't really care. His clothes were soaking wet and dirty.

It had been years since he had last seen rain this close. He hadn't set a foot outside the medical tent since he had joined the circus. He had always been too afraid because he knew that even one mistake would cost him his life. That's why he preferred staying inside the medical tent, rotting away.

He had never done anything like this. And even now he knew that he was everything but safe. The moon was high up in the sky, barely shining through the dark clouds. His husband and son were sleeping inside, unaware of his absence.

"It's cold, isn't it?" a familiar voice asked. Geno glanced to his left, where stood a skeleton under an yellow umbrella. They smiled at him softly.

"I guess.." Geno mumbled.

"Do you want to tell me what's on your mind?" they asked, the soft smile never dying from the teeth. (It was almost haunting in Geno's opinion, but he didn't have the energy to care.)

"Have you ever fucked up really badly? Like something that could destroy your relationship for example?" Geno asked, staring at the crying sky above him.

"You already know the answer to that. You were there to see the aftermath of what happened when I left to live my own life," they answered, yet their expression didn't even flinch.

"But you didn't know what would happen. I knew what I was getting into when I made the decision to fuck Dust despite being married to Reaper.." the medic revealed.

"But if you're happy with Reaper why would you go for someone else?" They tilted their skull.

"I fell in love with Dust before I even met Reaper.. But we couldn't stay together, so we parted ways, but now he's been coming for me again. I meant that in two different ways," Geno explained. Normally his cheekbones would have been burning, but now he felt too numb.

"I see," they hummed.

"I could have ran away from Dust. I should have done that, but I didn't. Now, how will I explain to my husband that the child that I'm expecting is not his? And the worst part is; if I kill it, he will notice, being the God of Death himself.."

The rain continued to pour from the sky. Geno turned towards the other, but found himself alone. The ghost of a friend he had once had had vanished into thin air. Suddenly the night felt even darker.

And then, then there was an umbrella above him, stopping the rain from hitting his bones. He glanced up, staring at the skeleton before him.

"Well," he rasped out, "Are you going to kill me now?" he asked, tipping his skull, laughing dryly. He was tired, really tired.

The Ringmaster said nothing. He just stood there, in the rain, holding his umbrella over Geno. It made the medic frustrated.

"Why? Why aren't you doing anything?" he asked, meeting the emotionless gaze of the skeleton before him. "You hurt everyone else, why not me?" he cried, tears spilling from his eye sockets.

"There are multiple reasons," Nightmare finally said, breaking the silence. "I could say that it's because I made a promise to your husband that I wouldn't hurt you since he is the God of Death himself. Or I could say that it's because you're our only actual medic if we don't count Reaper."

"But you won't say neither of those..? Then what? What is the reason you dare to spare me?" Geno whispered. "You don't even know what I've done, how badly I've fucked how.. You don't know how unforgettable mistakes I've made and how badly I've betrayed the ones who love me!"

"Why don't you just get your ass into the tent and never come outside during the night again?" Nightmare suggested. It was not a threat, it was not an order, it was a request.

Geno stared at him in disbelief, unable to find the right words to counter such a calm request. He had expected anger, annoyance, or anything else hurtful. But this, this was nothing like he had expected. He was stunned. Why would the Ringmaster just let him go?

Nightmare noticed his silence and decided to be the one to break it, "Did you really think that I would just forget you? After all the times you snuck into the forest when we were younger, all the time you came to visit me in here?" He tilted his skull, still showing no signs of anger while Geno's tears continued falling down.

"Go inside," Nightmare repeated himself. Geno stared at him for a few quiet seconds. Nightmare shifted under the stare, kinda uneasy. "It'll be way more easier if you go and pretend to Reaper that nothing is wrong," he continued finally.

"Did you ever want to just end it all?" the medic suddenly asked, turning to stare at the dark clouds that filled the sky, hiding away the stars and the Moon.

Nightmare – taken aback by this – just blinked. It took him a few seconds to find his voice, when he did, he asked him: "What do you mean?"

"You know; you didn't really want Dusk, did you.? I know you weren't exactly happy back then. Did you want to end it all?" Geno cleared, glancing at Nightmare from the corner of his eye socket.

"I don't think that you want to know the answer to that," the Ringmaster answered. Geno tried to find any kind of emotion from his face, but there was no to be found. "You know that even though I care about you, I can no longer help you. You married the God of Death who hates me with a passion burning stronger than the flames of hell, which is probably where that bastard originates from. If I tried to intervene with your life, he would come set his foot between the door. I cannot kill you, and I will not kill you. It would be the best if you just returned back to your tent."

"But," – Nightmare stopped, taking a moment to hesitate – "if you kill yourself, I cannot stop you. I will not forgive you, but I will understanding."

He stopped again – this time even more hesitant. He was really concentrating what to say. "But if you try to take your life with something, and you fail.." – a look away – "and decide to live, decide to keep your child and tell your husband the truth, or live a lie.. Take into account that the failed suicide attempt might have cost you a SOUL, but... Just not... Yours.."

Geno's SOUL skipped a beat. He could hear the regret in the older's tone, and for a second he wanted to step over and wrap his arms around the one who had once been his friend – just like the old time, when they had still been young, maybe not so innocent, but still young. And in the moment he forgot about his fucked up family situation and spoke up to his friend: "What happened to us..? What happened to you.?"

"Nothing good lasts forever. Everything comes to an end eventually," the Ringmaster answered simply. There was no emotion on his face. He looked truly careless, sounding as if nothing about what he had just said really mattered.

"Go back to your tent Gen, we are done with this."

And despite wanting to protest Geno obeyed.

-----

     A lonely night bird somewhere in the trees was singing a quiet song that almost got drowned under the sound of the rain that was tapping against the plastic window on the tent.

The ghost of Chara was the only one awake in the newcomers tent. Cross was tossing around in his sleep while the other Chara, the one still alive and breathing, laid in a ball, mumbling in their sleep. The ghost kinda envied them, they would give anything to be able to live again.

They turned to look out of the dirty window. The water was melting away the thin coat of snow – too bad it would return soon. Chara had once loved the snow, now it terrified them: remembering as it turned crimson. And it was cold, they didn't like cold anymore. Death was cold.

All the colours of the world had faded away. The world had turned monochrome the day they had died. The only colourful things left were themselves and Cross. Though, ironically they both happened to be wearing monochrome clothes.

The most upsetting part of being only able to see monochrome had been not being able to see him. Their own bright sunlight. His colours had faded into monochrome. (And Chara would never admit they had cried after seeing him for the first time after dying.) His bright colours had been light in the darkness, the last hope to hold onto. Then it had been taken away from them. It wasn't fair that Cross had still been able to see them, but Chara hadn't, even though they would have needed it more: dying having kinda left them in the dark.

But that had been years ago – now they were already used to the fact that the world was no longer full of colours: just shades of grey. They could no longer even remember what some of the colour looked like – they blamed Cross for not wearing anything colourful for them to actually see. (They started to wonder if they had even ever told him that they could see him in colours, unlike everything else around him.)

But despite the world being in monochrome, they could still see blood as red as it was meant to be. And the snow, once pure white – sometimes yellow – would never again be white in their eyes. It would forever be stained red, whenever they looked at it.

They turned away from the window, looking back at their brother. He seemed restless, tossing around in his sleep, getting tangled into his sheets.

They blinked away all their emotions and memories, hovering over the sleeping mortal before them. They pressed a cold hand against his forehead.

"Let me take a look, will you?" they sang to the unconscious mind and didn't wait for an answer that would never come.

Words: 2525

[20.8.2023]

Did I just name this chapter after an Ana voice line–? Probably– I think that's an Ana voice line– It just sounded cool.

From one Overwatch topic to another, I definitely did not almost write Reaper as Gabriel multiple times– I've been reading Overwatch fanfiction, so my brain is more in that fandom currently– Plus I'm a Reaper main, so if I hear the word Reaper I first think of Overwatch and then Undertale–

Anyways, I have to go Google through different Sanses because I'm going to a convention next month and need a cosplay for the third day. My current plan is Basil from Omori on Friday, then I have to make Epic for Saturday, but I have no idea who to cosplay on Sunday. I can't get anything that's too difficult because I'm already going to be making Epic and won't have the time or money to make something kinda as complicated. Now I just have to go through the simple Sanses to find something that is easy to make or get, and that I haven't already used. Very fun–