(Above art belongs to Jokublog [I screenshotted this from Dreamtale's story)

(No, this chapter doesn't contain needles. Yeah I'm completely owning up to this: each chapter's name comes from the lyrics to songs I like and find fitting for whatever reason. This one's title is a line from the song "Poison" by darlynn. If you listen to the actual song and look at the description... you'll probably see why I named this chapter after it)

(I'd also like to note because I just had, like, two chapters like this: no, this story isn't entirely Dream-centric, but he's one of the main characters. Other characters will also get the spotlight throughout the story)

(Edit: Alright, since most people didn't seem to realize at first: I mainly use italics for denoting flashbacks, thoughts, etc. but I also use it for dreams, like in this chapter. So no, this isn't a flashback, it's a dream)

Dream was walking back to the Tree of Feelings after another exhausting day of helping everyone. Every day, the villagers always seemed to have more and more things they wanted him to do. It was always stressful, but he had to keep it up. He couldn't let anyone down.

He couldn't.

He couldn't.

He saw that Nightmare was already there, sitting under the tree, reading a book. He sped up to a run, enthusiastic to get some time to talk to his brother, as the villagers always seemed to deprive him of it.

"Hey, Nightmare! Just got done at the village! Wanna-"

"Shut up."

How unusually harsh. Normally, Nightmare would at least be polite about it when he didn't want to talk.

Dream skidded to a stop.

"...N-Nightmare? I-Is anything wrong?"

"...haha..."

Nightmare put his book down, got up, and walked right over to Dream. He grabbed Dream by the arms and stared him in the eyes with a smile on his face... but it was clear that it wasn't out of happiness.

"Oh, so now you notice, huh? Now you notice something's wrong, when I don't wanna talk to you!? That's it!? Not when I was fucking suffering at the hands of those assholes you keep helping every damn day, but when I don't wanna talk to you!? Wow, you really ARE an idiot."

Nightmare let go of Dream and turned his back to him, then walked away... toward the tree.

The negative side.

"N-Nightmare, what're you-"

"Don't try to stop me. You know you can't. You can't do anything."

"N-Nightmare?..."

Nightmare grabbed one of the black apples from off the tree.

"N-Nightmare, what're you-?... s-stop, no, don't-"

He couldn't even move as Nightmare bit the apple.

But of course he couldn't move.

Nightmare was right: He could never do anything.

He was useless.

Before he was even able to move again, he found himself caught in a chokehold by one of Nightmare's tentacles.

Nightmare laughed and laughed.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! WOW, WHAT A SAD EXCUSE FOR A LIVING SOUL!!!! WHY DO YOU EVEN EXIST IF YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING RIGHT???"

Dream couldn't even speak, so he couldn't answer.

However, even if he could've, he didn't have one.

Why did he exist if he was just a failure?

Did anyone even really need him?

"WAKE UP, DREAM!!! WAKE UP!!!!"

He heard the shouts, but couldn't pinpoint where they were coming from.

He supposed they were right: he needed to "wake up," to finally stop being such an oblivious idiot, though that was likely too much for him to accomplish.

"WAKE UP!!!!"

The tears fell from his eyes as the guilt overtook him.

He couldn't even save his own brother.

"WAKE UP!!!!!"

Dream opened his eyes to find that the one who had yelled at him was Swap, who was staring him in the eyes with evident concern (Swap had basically gotten on top of him on the bed... which would've been a bit weird if they weren't skeletons).

"S-Swap? What happened..."

"...you were having a nightmare. It looked really bad... you kept tossing and turning... and crying... I was getting really worried there."

Swap got off him and back onto the floor. Dream sat up a bit.

"I-I'm so sorry..." Dream said, unable to bring himself to make eye contact out of guilt.

Even when asleep, he was still a burden.

"You don't have to apologize! It's not your fault. It's just... the subconscious, I think?? Wait, what does the subconscious do again?? Crap, I forgot-"

"I-I made you worry. I-I'm not supposed to make people feel that way... I-I'm supposed to make people happy..."

Dream hated seeing people worry about him, or otherwise feel negatively because of him. It went against his purpose...

Yet another one of his mistakes.

The only thing he was good at was keeping himself from crying (even then, he'd fail at that too). He couldn't bear to burden others with his sorrows.

"It's alright, really," Swap said, putting a hand on Dream's shoulder, "I-"

However, before he could finish, someone knocked (more like banged) on the door.

"HEY!!" a voice yelled from behind. "Heard Dream's in here, 's that right??"

Swap recognized that voice:

It was Valor, or Undertale Undyne. He didn't know her that well, but she seemed friendly enough (and she was a lot like his world's Alphys).

Swap knew Valor and Dream were pretty close friends, and Dream was pretty popular around the multiverse for his good deeds anyway, so he wasn't surprised that she sounded concerned.

"Uh, yeah! You can come in if you want!"

Of course, Valor nearly broke down the door when she opened it. This was far from the first time something like this had happened.

"Hey little buddy!" she said in her usual loud-but-friendly voice.

"H-Hi Undyne," Dream responded, still shaken from his nightmare, "um, is there something you need me for?..."

"I just wanted to make sure you're alright. Heard you got beaten up or something. What the heck happened to you? "

"...I-I don't know..."

"Well," Swap interjected, "he was probably ambushed and attacked by someone. When I found him there wasn't really anything he could've gotten hurt that badly from on his own nearby. I don't know who did it, though."

"...got any suspects?..."

"Not really... I didn't see it happen. I found him right after, and there wasn't any obvious evidence. Ink and your world's Toriel took a look and couldn't find anything pointing to who did it. And Dream can't remember what happened, so..."

"...*sigh*, got it."

Valor had first met Dream when Nightmare made the simultaneously brave and stupid decision to, as a powermove of sorts, attack the residents of Undertale (as he couldn't directly destroy a universe, so, as long as the human was alive and able to reset, he could use the place to "grind" for EXP as much as he wanted... or really just because he was a sadist). Dream, of course, went in to stop him, though Nightmare overpowered him and basically just decided to fuck with his already poor mental health by continuing to make him feel guilty over what he couldn't have done anything about.

Valor had been one of the monsters to fight back, and managed to survive a hit from Nightmare. When he was distracted by toying with Dream, she had taken the chance to surprise-attack him, and proved to be strong enough to get Nightmare to leave.

Frisk had to reload to restore everyone's lives, thus wiping everyone's memories of the events. It was fortunate that they had not saved while it was going on. Dream had decided, regardless, to go thank Valor for saving her universe (and also had to tell her about everything that had happened, of course).

They had been good friends ever since.

She would've already been enraged at someone beating up an innocent person, but it being someone she cared about caused her anger to double.

"I SWEAR TO GOD," she screamed, about to throw the meeting room table to the ceiling (...not the first time this had happened), "WHEN I FIND THE PUNK WHO DID THIS I'M GONNA-"

"U-Undyne, calm down!" Undertale Papyrus (nicknamed "Paper" [Ink couldn't think of a good nickname for him that wasn't already taken, so he just ran with the first thing to come to mind) yelled, being about the only person who wasn't either scared of the fish lady's wrath or just didn't care.

After all, he and Valor were close friends... in fact, they were best friends. He had gotten used to how she acted (though she still certainly intimidated him sometimes... or often).

...especially given that time she got enraged when Bullet (Undertale Flowey) had tried to kill him during the attempt at a "villain reform program" (which Paper had set up... and gotten no successes from), but that's a story for another day.

What stopped Valor's table destruction, however, was an all too familiar laugh from the door.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Wow. Can't believe you're getting so mad over a piece of shit like Dream getting hurt. Really, what good has he ever done for anyone here?"

The voice was instantly recognizable as Nightmare's.

"NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR OPINION, NIGHTMARE!!"

"And I don't care if no one cares, bitch. 'Cus I'm the only one here who isn't a fucking moron. Everyone just praises Dream constantly, like, 'oh look at Dream, he's so nice and sweet,' but what's he done to deserve it?

"...WHAT."

Now, Nightmare insulting Dream was far from an uncommon sight (very, very far from it), and Valor had learned to ignore that for the most part...

However, given the current circumstances, she would've expected him to have at least been a little nicer, considering how his own brother had just mysteriously gotten beaten to near death.

"...dare to say that again, punk?..." Valor said with almost a growl.

"Oh, so you didn't hear me? Well then, allow me to repeat: What has Dream even done to deserve everyone's praise? I mean, he messes up all the time, he's an idiot... and he hasn't even managed to beat me in a fight without me retreating on my own will. What a weakling, am I right?"

"..."

Poor Paper could easily see where this was going. He ran up to Valor and tried to stop the inevitable.

"U-Undyne, listen I know he's being really rude, but-"

However, he was cut off when Nightmare chuckled and turned around to leave.

"Oh well, why should I keep wasting my time discussing an absolute waste of it?"

However...

He gasped when, suddenly, something cut right into his arm.

While he didn't show it, it hurt. Quite a lot. Not as much as one of Dream's attacks, but it was still awful.

He slowly looked at his arm.

An energy spear had been stabbed into it.

Valor chuckled.

"Ya wanna go!?"

"...oh, IT'S ON!!!"

However, suddenly, a wall of bones sprung up between them.

It was obviously Paper's doing. He seemed very upset about the situation, very nervous about how things could escalate.

"PAPYRUS!!!" Valor yelled, clearly frustrated by this. "WHAT'RE YOU DOING!?"

"U-Undyne, we can't just start fighting in the middle of a crisis!! We need to focus on saving the multiverse!! We can't just turn on each other when we're all in this together!!"

Then, suddenly, another voice shouted:

"What in the world are you two doing?!"

It was none other than Ink, seeming as if he were about to have a heart attack (though he didn't have a heart, as he was a skeleton and had no organs at all). Paper, caught off guard, dropped the bone wall.

"We're supposed to be working together, not fighting each other!!"

"Well, there wouldn't be a problem if Nightmare didn't think it's fine to trash-talk his INJURED BROTHER!!!" Valor yelled.

"You're the one who's overreacting, dipshit," Nightmare said with a shrug. He had that kind of smug look on his face that made Valor want to punch him even more than she already did.

"OVERREACTING, HUH!?! I SWEAR, I'M GONNA-"

"BOTH OF YOU, STOP IT!!!"

Ink stood between them.

"Look, we're in a really stressful situation right now and we can't afford to start killing each other!! Universes are collapsing out of nowhere, Dream nearly got killed and we don't know who did it, and-"

"Wait... YOU!!"

Valor pointed at Nightmare.

"Lemme guess, you're the one who did it, didn't ya!?"

Nightmare chuckled.

"Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. Why should I say? It's more fun to mess with you," he replied in a contemptuous tone.

"YOU LITTLE-"

Ink grabbed Valor by the arm and tried to pull her to the side to interrupt... though she was way stronger than him so it tooker her noticing and letting him out of curiosity as to what he had to say.

"Look, Valor," he said, clearly a bit panicked, "I know he's really suspicious and all, I'm honestly convinced he did it too, but can we please wait until after the multiverse is safe to deal with this?? Please?? I'll keep an eye on him until then... if I remember to..."

"But-"

"I'm begging you... we just have to keep him, uh, 'supervised' I guess until the main problem has been dealt with, y'know? Or something??? I don't know. Uh- you get what I mean, right??"

"...fine."

Valor wasn't exactly ecstatic over this, but she knew what had to be done. If Ink thought it could be dealt with later, she supposed she better listen.

For now, she was definitely going to keep a close eye on Nightmare...

Meanwhile...

"N-No... it... can't be..."

Being an immortal god of sorts, Fate had seen a lot. It was difficult to get an emotional response out of them.

However, the scene laid out before them somehow still caught them off-guard.

"I... I didn't think it would start so quickly... before I could even find a replacement..."

They stared at the mess laid out before them: The papers of AUs scattered on the ground, the strings holding them up having been cut. Some kind of red-colored paint oozed out of them.

Gross.

Fate usually kept the same deadpan expression at all times, and didn't feel much about anything. However, this sight actually... shocked them.

The results of Destiny's actions were clear: Without a destroyer, the multiverse was going to crumble.

This multiverse's AUs were kept as papers in a sort of "space," simply known as the AU Space. It was similar to the Core Multiverse's Doodlesphere in some aspects.

AUs "poofed" into there upon creation. While very large, it had a limit to how much it could hold within. After Error fell into the Void and Destiny sent him to another multiverse, Ink, presuming him dead, went on a creation spree, feeling the most motivation he had felt since before Error showed up. Thus, the AU cap had been reached very quickly.

Fate knew something had to be done about this.

However, they could not solve that problem right away.

....after all, Destiny was still on the loose.

(Author's Note: Fate finally shows their face.

Fate and Destiny aren't the only deity characters in this fic [heck, one appears next chapter]. Just note that)