How to Establish Your Gang and Take Care of the Children in It

Rule 35: Use Ink as a Plot Device. It Works Every Time

His pocket watch was missing.

Nightmare's fucking pocket watch was missing.

Where could it possibly- How the everloving fuck could he possibly lose a pocket watch when he wore it around his goddamn neck twenty four seven?!

Had he taken it off? Possible, but not probable. His sensory issues would make life a living hell if he wasn't wearing it- the feeling of wrongness that came with its absence was why he'd noticed it was missing in the first place.

Had the string broken? More likely. It hadn't been a string designed for the weight of a metal watch. But how could it have broken and fallen without him noticing? Maybe while he was working with Cross? He'd been distracted then, preoccupied with keeping his friend alive.

But if that was true, then why was it no longer in the living room? No one else would've had reason to take it, except maybe Dust, who had a penchant for grabbing shiny things. But a quick check revealed it wasn't the hooded skeleton who'd taken it. Horror and Killer were too preoccupied with Cross' well-being to so much as notice his watch on the floor, let alone take it, and Shattered hadn't visited since Mare had been shot, so...

Of course.

This might as well happen, Mare thought with a sigh.

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Stealing from the King of Negativity was, of course, a stupid idea. Everyone knew that pissing Nightmare off led to bad things. It was twice as much a stupid idea when the thief had previously made a deal for the King to leave him alone.

Well, whatever. The pocket watch was Error's now, so Nightmare could fuck off.

Why had Error stolen it? Because it was there, mostly. Nightmare clearly hadn't been paying enough attention to notice it was gone, so why wouldn't Error take it while the King was distracted? If he didn't care enough to keep track of it, then clearly he deserved to have it taken from him.

Error held it up by the string, watching it (ha) tick back and forth repeatedly. It was a neat little thing, he supposed, if you were into that kind of stuff. He wasn't an expert in clocks or anything, but the watch seemed to be a good quality (it hadn't broken when he'd chucked it, at least, so there's that) and well taken care of.

It was silver, or at least silver colored, with a picture of what looked to be an apple dripping tar engraved on the back. Weird. Instead of numbers on the clock face, there was a crescent moon, a sun, and a star repeating. It was kind of cool, but made knowing the time a pain, which rendered the basic function of a watch useless.

Well, since time is different everywhere, the basic function of a watch is useless anyway, Error thought with a snort. Maybe it was a sentimental item, since its practical uses were at zero.

The thought made him laugh. Nightmare? The King of Negativity keeping something for sentimentality's sake? Ha! About as likely as him actually losing his memories and suddenly becoming the nicest guy in the multiverse. There was no way in hell that had really happened. The only beings in the multiverse with enough power to get rid of a god's memories would be the Creators, and none of them cared enough about anyone in the multiverse to affect something that drastically. It wasn't like Dream could just ask Sci to create some bring-back-my-passive-brother machine or something. That would just be stupid.

So yeah. Nightmare was definitely faking this whole nice guy act. Obviously the king just wanted to get Error to lower his guard so he could rope him into some new soul-binding deal or something else equally nefarious and evil. Duh. It was all just a trick.