Alright so I did give a spoiler sorta thing for this but I trashed it because it really was turning into a college roommates AU fanfiction minus the college. Plus, I got stuck.

And now, I have decided to make a part 2. Or split what I had in two. Whichever sounds right to you. I gotta write/finish part 2 first. I was just anxious to post since this was one that was keeping me occupied.

Man, I wrote this and I'm still questioning how Ink would've gotten a job at a fast food joint considering...Ink. Oh, right; since the AUs thing isn't really here...Ink is just the kind of guy who doesn't care about anything unless he's actually involved. Still soulless? Probably. Emotionless? Not entirely.

Undertale MV characters, in a mostly real-world setting

Once upon a time, Cross had a dad named Gaster. Gaster was a piece of shit; the worst dad ever. I mean, come on! You don't just turn your first son into a ghost and fuse him into your third son, or try to get your second son to kill them.

But if there was one thing Cross learned from his dad, it was science.

And Cross's favorite kind of science?

The kind that could easily be used to create horror movie situations.

Like stem cells.

Ah, yes. Stem cells. Nonspecialist cells that can develop into many different types, such as muscle or bone. Any of the cells that make up a human body, in fact.

Now, Cross was no human. But, he was a home- and self-taught scientist. And he knew human anatomy fairly well. Not as well as, say, a doctor or nurse, but he knew enough.

...Or at the very least, he was pretty sure he did.

Chara wasn't much help; he wasn't really the science kid of the family. If anything, he was the kid who was always playing video games in the basement-turned-nerdatorium.

But, as a young adult struggling to pay his bills, he couldn't do much anyway besides work at a fast-food joint and feed himself.

Thankfully, his best friend and coworker, Blue, was willing to fund his project.

So long as he could watch the science happen.

Once they got a plan, Cross opened up his laptop and went to the website he'd found. It was the cheapest place to buy stem cells. He did extensive research on it.

Cross ordered as much as he could with the money he and Blue put together; which was a surprisingly high amount.

Now they just have to wait for them to be delivered.

"It's says they'll be here in about a week," Cross said. He was practically vibrating with excitement. This was going to be awesome!

Blue sighed. "Why do all the best things take so long to be delivered?"

"I thought we were saving that money for my video games!" Chara complained. Blue could neither hear nor see him, seeing as how he was the ghost of his and Cross's situation.

"I dunno," Cross said, ignoring his brother for the hundredth time that day. "Because people suck?"

Blue snorted. "True."

"Hey," Cross said, "While you're here, do you want to play some games?"

Blue raised a bone brow. "Oh? What's this? Are you challenging me to Mario Kart, after your latest thorough ass-whooping?"

"I can't return the favor with asking, can I?" Cross asked.

Chara whined that he wanted to play too.

"The ghost would also like to play," Cross added. Because Chara loved making his presence known when people were over visiting.

Blue grinned. "Of course. After all; we still haven't battled it out to see who the true champion is."

Chara whooped happily. "I'll forgive you for spending our money if I win!" He declared.

Cross rolled his eye lights. "He's still pissed that we spent our money on science shit instead of video games but he says, he'll forgive us if he wins."

Blue chuckled. "We'll see about that."

Cross hadn't gotten any better since the last time he'd played. In fact, he was certain he'd gotten worse.

But Chara and Blue somehow managed to tie.

I mean, come on.

How was that possible?

"Versus!" Chara declared. "One-on-one, no items, no coms!"

Cross relayed Chara's latest challenge to Blue.

Blue accepted.

They tied again.

Cross stretched. "Right; I'm going to go mentally prepare myself for hours of challenges between you two. Be right back."

But they were already starting the next battle; coin runners.

Cross woke up on the couch, hugging an empty bowl of popcorn.

Chara was knocked out on top of him, snoring loudly.

Friggin ghost's shouldn't be able to snore; but then again, they shouldn't be able to talk either.

Blue was curled up in a sleepy ball on the other side of the couch. He didn't stir when Cross sat up.

The popcorn bowl was warm from being cuddled all night. It seemed unhappy to be removed from its source of warmth.

It explained Cross's weird dream about dating a bag of popcorn, though.

He shuddered.

The less said about that, the better.

Chara mumbled an incoherent protest as his bed was moved out from under him, but settled down once he was on the soft, much comfier couch.

Cross took the bowl into the kitchen, and set it in the sink to be washed later.

He proceeded to make breakfast; pancakes and bacon; the only things he could cook besides toaster waffles.

He was about halfway done when he heard Blue waking up.

"Ugh...god, did we seriously stay up all night for Mario Kart?"

Cross chuckled. "Yes, you did. I think I fell asleep first."

Blue rolled off the couch unceremoniously. "Ow-"

Chara was still dead to the world.

"I distinctly remember snickering at you for cuddling with a bowl of popcorn," Blue said, as he got up. "Chara and I ate the rest of it."

Cross gasped in mock-horror.

The microwave went off, signaling that the bacon was done.

"Ah heck-"

He had to flip the pancakes first! How could he retrieve the sliced perfection when he had much more pressing matters?!?

He calmly flipped the pancakes, then got the last pieces of bacon out of the microwave.

Problem solved.

No one died.

Chara smelled bacon and fell off the couch.

"Oh my gOd Cross is that bacon-"

Cross snorted. "Yes, it's bacon."

Chara flew straight through the wall and got his two pieces.

"HAAAAALLELUJAH! HAAAAALLELUJAH-"

"Don't be so upset about it," he said sarcastically, as Chara danced mid-air with his food. "Also, sit down."

Chara made a face but did as he was told.

Blue, who was already sitting down, chuckled. Even though he couldn't see Chara, he knew a lot about his shenanigans.

Cross complained a lot.

Once the pancakes were all eaten, Blue said his goodbye's and thank you's and went home.

They had a week to wait for the cells to arrive.

Ding-dong!

Cross jumped off his couch and answered the door.

The UPS man looked bored out of his mind. "Three packages for Cross Peñaloza?" He asked.

Cross grinned. "Yep!"

"Sign here, please."

Cross signed his name, thanked the guy, and brought the packages inside.

"Chara!" He called. "Can you call Blue while I get these into the basement?"

"On it!" The poltergeist grabbed his phone and sent a text to their friend. He would've called, but his voice didn't go through the phone.

Previously, the basement had, in fact, been Chara's nerd place (They didn't exactly have a good way to explain why half of the guest bedroom was half Cross's stuff and half Chara's when nobody could see the edgy 14-year-old), but it hadn't exactly been renovated. It was a simple matter to move all of the video game posters, ridiculous amount of bean bag chairs, etc, from the small area and set up some basic science stations.

Each of the boxes had to be kept cold until Cross had to use them, so he put a large freezer down there to put them in.

Unfortunately, he had to take all the little boxes out of the large shipping boxes so they'd actually fit.

"He says he's at work right now but will be happy to come by later tonight," Chara informed him.

"Tell him to actually get a good night's sleep for once," Cross called back. "I know for a fact that he stays up watching Sailor Moon every night!"

Chara snickered. "He says, 'I'll have you know, I don't just watch Sailor Moon! I also watch Pokemon and SAO and Ranma 1/2 and Dragon Ball and several other things'. I said, 'I notice those are all anime Blue. Don't you ever watch anything else?' And he answered 'Umbrella Academy and The End of the Fucking World'."

"The heck is that last one?" Cross asked, pausing.

Chara shrugged. "I'm not going to ask because knowing him he's going to stop everything he's doing and rant to me/us about it."

"Smart move."

"I have my moments."

"Once in a 'Blue' moon."

Chara scowled at him. "That was terrible in so many ways I'm almost tempted to sabotage your science experiment or whatever the heck you want to call it."

"That's basically it," Cross admitted, "But if you do, just remember I can easily get rid of everything that you-sorry, I-own."

Chara made a face at him. "Whatever!"

"Could you maybe help a little-" Cross tried to ask, but Chara was already gone. He'd done his daily quota of 'helping', apparently.

Jackass.

"Blue, could you please bring one of the boxes?"

Cross soon found another box of stem cells in front of him. "Thank you."

"Why are you dying them?" Blue asked curiously.

"There are different kinds of cells in a human's body," Cross started, "So...It made sense to dye them different colors?"

"Makes sense. But aren't they just supposed to, like, mimic whatever cell they bind to?" Blue asked again.
"Yeah?"
"...Cross where are you going to get brain cells and stuff from."

Cross stopped.

"Oh. Fuck."

Chara made a wah wah wahhhhhh sound in the background.
"Shut up Chara," Cross called. "We talked about the incidental music thing. Okay; guess we're making another magic skeleton."

Blue blinked. "W-wait, wh-"

"Human skin cells shed," Cross said. "The cells in our bones do too. That's how we grow."

"You're going to scrape cells off your own arms," Blue noted.

Cross shrugged. "It won't hurt," he said. "If I don't go over the same spot more than a couple of times. And you won't even be able to notice."

"The whole 'making another magic skeleton' thing sounds like a terrible idea on its own," Chara said. "This sounds like a worse idea."

"I feel like maybe we should use multiple people's cells," Blue said.

Cross frowned. "Why?"

Blue scratched his skull. "Well, this seems like the kind of experiment that you see in sci-fi movies. The thing is fine, then it grows, and gets out, and kills people. If no one sees it, or even if someone does, if it's all made of your cells its DNA will be traced to you and not it."

Cross considered this. "You make a good point, but it's not like the DNA in the different cells will mix or something. If it kills someone and leaves DNA at the scene, it'll be made of several different people's DNA."

"A DNA lottery?" Chara asked.

Cross squinted at him. "...Chara-"

The ghost shrugged. "Hey; maybe I have a good point."

"...No."

"What did he say?" Blue asked.

"Something about as clever as a screen door on a submarine," Cross muttered.

"HeY!" Chara protested.

Cross sighed and closed the boxes of stem cells, returning them to the freezer.

"So, what, are you guys just going to go around and ask for donations?" Chara asked.

Cross told Blue what he said.

Blue considered this.

"You know who'd know what to do?" He mused.

"...Why do we always go to our manager for real-world advice?" Cross wondered.

"This sounds exactly like the set up for some sci-fi horror movie," Dream announced.
Cross shrugged.

When he and Blue had asked him if he could help them with a project outside of work, he'd invited them to lunch at Dunkin Donuts.

Cross would've preferred Taco Bell, but that was where they worked. He didn't feel like using his monthly employee discount when the month had just started.

Dream was a very friendly person, and outside of the workplace was a pretty chill dude.

He could also recognize a bad idea when he saw one.

"Hey," Blue said, grinning, "If you help us, you can name it."

Dream scowled. "I- don't tempt me, Blue. I know where you get your anime from."

Blue gasped in mock horror. "But in all seriousness," he continued, "We were wondering if you'd know a good way to get people to donate to the cause without an unreasonable amount of questions."

Dream raised one bone brow. His bright yellow eye lights were full of amusement. "How many is 'unreasonable'?" He asked.
Blue and Cross glanced at each other. "More than 'why'," Cross decided. "The answer is 'science'."

Dream snorted. "You'll need more than that. People will be concerned why their cells are being collected by some random Taco Bell employees who aren't even thirty yet."

"We don't even need that much," Cross said. "I'm donating, obviously, and Blue volunteered already. If we can get at least two more people to donate, just a few, we'll be fine."

Dream took a bite of his apple fritter and thought for a moment.

"Heyyyy!"

Cross tried not to flinch at the familiar voice.

Oh God.

It was the Rainbow Spaz.

Ink grinned at them, his different color eye lights in their usual cheerful shapes, the black splotch on his chin just as obvious and painfully eye-drawing as ever.

Cross noticed that Dream actually perked up a bit.

"Hi, Ink," Cross muttered, trying not to be obvious in his dislike of his co-worker.

There were a lot of reasons Cross disliked Ink. He was loud, obnoxious, insensitive, absurdly forgetful, and spastic. He also somehow managed to incorporate the entire rainbow into every outfit he wore.

Actually, Cross didn't dislike him because of that last part. He thought it was impressive that it didn't clash horrendously; even with the Taco Bell uniform.

"Fancy seeing you all here together," Ink said, the grin still plastered on his face.

"Fancy meeting you in an alleyway alone," Chara muttered. "I still wouldn't be surprised if his face was on the news one day because he was connected to a string of murders."

Cross had a lot of practice ignoring him.

But he agreed.

"Whatcha guys doing?" Ink asked.

"Just talking," Blue said. "Do you want some donuts?"

Ink looked genuinely surprised. "Oh- sure!"

Dream moved over to make room for him at the booth. Ink proceed to snatch a chocolate and sprinkle-covered donut from the six they'd gotten. Damn; Cross had been eyeing that one next. He'd have to settle for the jelly donut.

Blue glanced at Cross. Cross mentally groaned. He did not want to ask the Spaz for help. He'd ask a million questions and would put in his own input of how they should do it.

But here, they had two more skeletons that might be willing to help.

Chara sighed. "Might as well," the shade grumbled. "Offer to let him decorate the room or something. I'm sure he'd like that."

Cross took a deep breath, preparing himself for the questions, and began to explain.

Ink let him get most of the way through before exclaiming, "I knew you two were up to something!" He laughed. "That's so cool!"

Cross exhaled. Ok; no questions yet. Good.

He continued.

"...And we need donations," He finished.

He was very happy that Ink had only butted in once. He usually asked questions as they went, not after, so this was surprising.

Ink finished his donut and said, "Ok. I'll help."

Cross blinked. "Wh-really?"

"Yeah. So long as I can see it when you're done."

Cross stared at him. "I was expecting thirty thousand questions, and you're just going to go along with it?"

Ink grinned. "Yep~!"

"Okay then. Guess that's that then."

"I'd like to help too," Dream said. "And I am absolutely naming it."

Ink's eye lights turned to a blue exclamation point and green question mark. "Wait, you're naming it?!"

Dream smirked. "Damn right I am."

Ink pouted. "Aww. Man, I was hoping I could."

Cross shook his skull. There was the Ink he knew.

"Alright then. That's all we need." He took the jelly donut before anyone else could.

"When do you want us to come over?" Dream asked.

"Uh...I'm off on Saturday," Cross said. "Anytime after 7 is good for me."

The other three skeletons grinned. Cross found that he couldn't stop one from adorning his own face.

The project he'd been dreaming of for years was finally starting to take shape.

"Giving you access to these was a mistake."

Chara laughed at him. "No no- its fine-"

Cross, after getting the cells from everyone, had started to do some experimenting, but had found that his dyed cells were all black.

Can't imagine how that happened.

Chara.

Cross sighed and rubbed his temples. "Yeah. It's just dye."

But god dammit, that gave him a heart attack. He thought they had died or something.

"Right, time to commit science."

Soon, Cross had a fist-sized blob of mostly bone-like cells. They weren't quite rigid, but they definitely weren't jelly.

He took a small sample and tested it.

Because of the Great DNA Lottery, as Chara called it, Cross wanted to see how many of the cells would copy who's DNA.

He also needed to know if they were getting the magic they needed to actually be alive once he got that far.

"...Huh."

Chara came over to look. "What's up?"
Cross frowned. "Well, it's working the way its supposed to, but there are significantly more cells that copied Dream's DNA than Ink, Blue and I combined. There's hardly any of mine."

Chara shrugged. "DNA Lottery," he said again. "You lucked out. If this thing does end up running off and killing people, I mean."

"Please stop. The more you say it, the more likely it is that it's going to happen."

Chara grinned.

Cross decided that an investment in one of E. Gadd's ghost containment devices might be a good idea after all.

"Soooo?" Ink asked. "How's it going?"

"With little incident," Cross said. He had wanted to give Blue and Dream an update as well, but apparently they were busy. Ink had been more than happy to meet up with him to talk about it though. They were, once again, at Dunkin.

"Mostly my idiot brother messing around and giving me an unneeded heart attack," He continued, biting into his chocolate sprinkle donut. Yes, he'd gotten one this time. Screw you and your donut thievery, Ink.

Ink had a cup of munchkins, and was currently picking out all the glazed ones.

"Blue told me about him," Ink said. "He's some kinda ghost, isn't he?"

"Unfortunately," Cross sighed.

Ink tilted his skull to one side. "How is that unfortunate? That sounds cool!"

"Except for the fact that he, A, can't go farther than the other side of our apartment, B, hasn't grown up at all in more ways than one, and C, is a poltergeist and I can't stop him from doing whatever he wants."

Ink raised a bone brow. "Oh? A poltergeist? I find that hard to believe. I've never seen anything weird floating around you. If you're really being haunted, prove it."

Chara laughed evilly. "Tell him I'm about to steal his donuts."

"Chara says he's about to steal your donuts," Cross said. "Knowing him, he's probably going to pickpocket you instead."

Chara froze, his hand around Ink's wallet.

Ink looked mildly concerned.

Chara sighed and reached through Ink to pick up one of the munchkins, while also stealing his wallet.

"You are absolutely no fun," Chara complained, popping the chocolate donut hole in his mouth. It disappeared.

"Holy shit," Ink said quietly. "You really are being haunted."

"'Haunted' suggests that Chara chose to follow me around and annoy me," Cross said, taking another bites of his donut. "And he does have your wallet."

Ink reached for his pocket. His eye lights turned into offended exclamation points as he spotted it being tossed through the air with another munchkin. Chara was a good juggler.

"Hey-" he protested, "I need that-" He reached for his wallet, but Chara held it just out of his reach. "And give me back my donut you ectoplasmic little shit-"

Chara grinned. "Acknowledge my existence!"

"He wants you to acknowledge his existence," Cross told Ink.

"But my donut-" Ink complained.

"Do it or I'll eat all of your donuts," Chara cackled.

"He's threatening to eat all of your donuts if you don't," Cross said, trying to keep a straight face.

"Fine," Ink sighed, "I acknowledge your existence. Can I have my stuff back?"

Chara tossed the wallet at Ink's face. Ink has poor relaxes. You can guess how well that worked.

"And the donut," Ink said.

Chara's grin grew.

"No," Cross warned him. "Don't. I know what you're thinking. Don't you dare-"

Ink started to ask what he was talking about.

Chara shoved the munchkin in the Rainbow Spaz's open mouth.

"Chara!" Cross hissed as Ink choked.

"Fight me, Criss Cross!" Chara yelled.

"At least I got my donut back-" Ink wheezed after clearing his airways.

"Sorry about that," Cross said sheepishly.

"It's fine," Ink laughed. He was actually chill with what just happened? Okay. Wow.

"Nothing can get under your skin, can it?" Cross asked, shaking his skull.

"Can't get under what's not there," the other skeleton joked.

Maybe Ink wasn't as bad as he'd thought.

"It's actually moving," Blue noted.

Cross grinned. "Yep!"

Time had been flying by since he'd started this project. It felt like he'd only met up with Ink yesterday, but it had been almost a week.

In front of the four assembled skeletons, the black, rather gooey blob of bones—and yes, I said 'blob' of bones, not 'bag'—was taking a nap. Its chest cavity was rising and falling with each breath.

Cross had provided it with a small bed for it to sleep in, seeing as how the bare floor seemed cruel.

"It's kinda gross," Ink said, frowning.

"Ok, yes, but it's alive!" Cross said. He was practically vibrating. He'd been so excited to show his friends this; he couldn't even get over the fact that it was working.

"Have you thought of a name for it, Dream?" Blue asked.

Dream folded his arms and thought.

"Well...it's kind of scary-looking," he mused. "And I still think this whole thing is a set up for some science-y horror movie. So...how about Nightmare?"

"Nightmare..?" Cross mused.

Dream scratched the back of his head. "Yeah...I was supposed to have a twin brother, but he died at birth. My parents were going to name him Nightmare." He smiled sheepishly. "So that was the first thing that came to mind."

"Funny how he named it after his twin brother when its DNA is mostly his," Chara said.

"That's a good name for it," Cross decided. "'Nightmare.'"

"What does Nightmare eat?" Blue asked.

Cross shrugged. "For now? I've been giving it stuff with a lot of calcium and iron. It likes pizza, too."

At the word 'pizza', Nightmare stirred.

It opened one eye socket, and blinked slowly at them.

Its eye light was a dull teal, probably because it didn't have a lot of magic in its system.

"I also need to give it more magic supplements," Cross said, frowning. "I'm not sure if that's part of why it's so blobby or if that's because of the stem cells, but-"

Nightmare opened its mouth and whined.

Its voice was deep and smooth, and its tone was plaintive.

Cross checked his watch. "I'll be right back; it's probably hungry."

Nightmare watched him go with confusion. It glanced at the other three as if to say, 'do you understand my weird creator?'

"H-hi?" Blue said awkwardly.

Nightmare blinked at him. It made a rather friendly sound.

"How's it going?" Ink asked it.

Nightmare grumbled.

"I think that's an 'ok but I'm hungry'," Dream guessed.

Nightmare gave a jerking nod.

They realized that its other eye socket was melted shut. Aww. Poor thing. It looked like Cross had tried to fix that, too.

"I can't believe we're having a conversation with Cross's science project," Ink snickered. "This is so cool!"

"Crrrroooossssssss?" The thing said.

"Oh. My. God."

The three turned. Cross was gaping at it, food in hand, looking like the proudest father they'd ever seen.

"Cccrrross," It said again, more confidently.

A high-pitched gasp escaped the Oreo.

"OhmygoditsaidmynAME-" he practically squealed. He was so happy.

"Calm down," Blue laughed.

"I've been trying to teach it a little bit of English when I can; don't you dare tell me to calm down."

"Crroossss," Nightmare said, looking directly at Cross.

"Yes, I'm Cross," Cross said. He walked over to it and held out its food. Just a glass of milk and some monster candy.

It clumsily unwrapped the candy and devoured it, then tried to drink the milk out of the glass. It wasn't quite used to it yet, and ended up spilling some.

It was kind of gross, but at the same time, that's what humans and monsters would do if they weren't taught as they grew up.

Cross had created life, and Nightmare was still learning.

"And your name," Cross said to it, "Is going to be Nightmare."

It glanced at him, then returned to the important task of drinking its milk.

Apparently it really like milk.

Its eye light seemed to be brighter after the monster candy.

Cross was grinning like crazy.

The other three?

They were suitably impressed by science.

"Cross," a vaguely familiar voice said. "Cross?"

Cross scrunched up his face and turned away from the voice.

"Mmmngh...five more minutes..."

"Cross!" The voice said again. Something slimy poked his side.

He yelped, startling Nightmare and falling out of his chair.

"Ow...Frickin' gravity..."

Nightmare was standing on its feet, wearing the hoodie and boxer shorts Cross had given it. It seemed concerned.

"Ughh..." Cross groaned. "Did I fall asleep trying to fix your eye again?"

Nightmare nodded.

Cross sighed. "I gotta stop staying up so late." He stood, and picked up his chair.

"I don't think it's going to happen," Chara said. "I'm pretty sure that eye is shut forever."

"You're probably right," Cross muttered.

"Cross...?" Nightmare asked.

"Hm?"

"Probably...right?"

Cross lightly smacked himself. "Right. Sorry. My ghost brother doesn't think we'll be able to fix your eye socket."

Nightmare looked down. "Oh."

It looked so sad.

Cross's heart broke at the sight of it.

"Hey, it's alright!" He said, trying to cheer it up. "Maybe we can make it look cool!"

Nightmare tilted its skull to the side.

"Cool?"

"Yeah!" Cross said. "Like...like, um..." He got an idea.

"Oh, I know! Come here a sec."

Nightmare carefully toddled forwards. It hadn't quite mastered the art of walking, but it could move around on its own.

Cross got out his tools,  and began to smooth down the area he'd been working on. Once the evidence of his failed attempts were gone, he took his pick (like the ones dentists have, only slightly sharper) and began to gently trace a squiggle. It only took about thirty seconds.

"There!" Cross said. He turned the mirror to Nightmare. "What do you think?"

Nightmare blinked at its reflection. It brought up one hand to feel the squiggle. It looked like some goopy stuff was falling over its eye socket.

A small smile tugged at its mouth. "Thank you," it said.

Cross grinned.

"I swear you think it's your kid," Chara grumbled.

Cross ignored the ghost.

He'd created Nightmare. If he wanted to treat it like it was his kid, he damn well could.

...Unless he took Dad Lessons from Gaster, which he wasn't going to do.

Gaster was a terrible dad.