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mythicalmagical-monkeyman · 8 months ago

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so, so this spawned from talking to @hyperfixation-tangentopia and my own brainrot over this au and these two nerds lol

under cut @murkystarlight & @fruity-legos

Summary:

A recently reformed Mateo has to carry Cooper home after he passes out while ignoring his own growing feelings and Snivel

Additional Tags:

Villain Mateo au, post redemption, what if. Developing Crushes. Snivel is a Menace. Sleep Deprivation, Cooper is sleep deprived and suffers the consequences. Implied Lore. Snivel used to be Mateo’s henchman. T for light swearing and talk of murder. Mateo’s in denial. Fluff with under lying angst tones. Cooper drools and it’s gross. Alternate Universe, VM Au adjacent. no beta we die like the nightmare king. Mateo being a little shit.

A light breeze ruffled at Mateo’s clothes and hair as he walked along an abandoned path in a random park in Brooklyn. The night was cool enough that wearing a hoodie was within the question yet the sweet smell of summer was on the air and the promise of hotter days to follow grated on Mateo’s consciousness like a million little knives, amongst other things of course.

Summer, it was almost summer. He’d been stuck as The Nightmare King’s slave for almost two whole years. Gaw, he couldn’t even remember what it was like not to feel Nightmare King’s mind control crawling around inside his head. To be able to exist peacefully in the dream world without having all of his moves constantly monitored. Honestly even to just be able to hang out with Cooper and go get ice cream with his old friend without his mind screaming ‘Enemy, he is the enemy! Do not trust himmm!’ at him was a breath of fresh air.

With a small smile, Mateo shot a quick glance back to see Cooper still trailing a little ways behind him. The taller teen was dragging his feet slightly but still seemed to be keeping a steady pace so Mateo didn’t dwell on why his friend had fallen behind, instead he tuned back into to listen to whatever Snivel was yapping on about to Z-Blob.

Snivel waddled along, Z-Blob who was balanced on his head bobbing with every little step, as Snivel stuck an entire stray napkin in his mouth.

Through a mouthful of tissue he then got out, “So then they found out the killer had been the one to place the anonymous call and got the police to dig up that patch of land because then they took the body of the victim and just buried them where the police had just dug. It was a smart move at first but then it SO backfired when it turned out the burial was right above a water line and the neighbors started getting decaying human tainted water coming out of their taps! So stupid!”

Snivel laughed to himself like he thought the whole thing was hysterical and Mateo felt a small laugh bubble out of his throat too. Yeah ok so his sense of humor was definitely still tainted by his time under Nightmare King.

A squilish came from Z-Blob as the slime shook himself like he was much less amused by Snivel’s story. Mateo hid a snicker behind his hand before patting Z on the head.

Mateo opened his mouth to offer some words of comfort to the slime only for a loud thump to sound out behind the three.

In sync Snivel and Mateo whirled around, Mateo reaching a hand towards his belt to grab his knife but instead he grasped air. Old habits die hard, he guessed.

“Hey, uh, Boss? Your friend, he kinda…” Snivel trailed off, pointing towards where Cooper had just been standing where now the blond was face first in the ground, his butt sticking up into the air like he had simply collapsed.

“Is he dead?” Snivel asked.

Mateo instantly responded to his small grimspawn friend by slapping him lightly upside the head while sending a miffed expression in Snivel’s direction.

“Owww,” Snivel whined.

Mateo rolled his eyes, “You’re fine. Come on,” he then started walking over to Cooper as Snivel hurried to catch up to Mateo.

The pair stopped short as they reached Cooper, Mateo rubbing his wrist nervously as he looked down at his passed out friend like he wasn’t quite sure what to do. Snivel cast a wide eyed look up at Mateo and then reached out a small little hand where he poked Cooper in the side.

Cooper let out a snort and Mateo relaxed as he realized his friend had simply fallen asleep, collapsed from sleep deprivation if Mateo had to guess.

With a small sigh, idiot, Mateo knelt down cautiously and hesitated before rolling Cooper over onto his back. Cooper let out another snore as his mouth fell open and spit began to dribble out.

Eugh, Mateo felt his nose wrinkle up in disgust as he took in his mess of a friend.

Cooper’s messy yet matted hair like he hadn’t showered recently, the scarring on his neck peeking out from underneath his shirt collar, the spit and dust clinging to Cooper’s face, and the dark eye bags under his eyes that left a gross feeling in Mateo’s stomach. Gaw, Cooper must have been so tired if he could just collapse like that, but Mateo had to admit his friend looked…

Snivel spoke up just as Mateo noticed his hand had started to hover over Cooper’s stomach.

“He looks so weak , if only Nightmare King had told you to attack him in the waking world while he was asleep. Could’ve solved a lot of struggles,”

Mateo shot Snivel a scowl, who only shrugged.

“Hey I’m just saying. You know what my brain is like, can’t help what slips out.”

Shaking his head, Mateo turned back to Cooper and watched his hand shake slightly as it continued to hover.

Mateo exhaled, “‘Kay Mateo, it’s just Cooper. It’s just Cooper.”

At that Cooper let out a sniff and rolled over onto his side, and whether Mateo wanted it or not his hand brushed against his friend.

Mateo drew his hand back and clutched it like it had touched hot coals and gapped at Cooper.

Shit.

Snivel did a full body waddle turn to look at Mateo as he forced himself backwards onto his butt, trying to keep his distance from Cooper. Wordlessly, Mateo stared down at his hand as he began to cradle it.

Snivel blinked slowly, one eye and then the other, before tilting his head back slightly to try and look up at Z-Blob.

“Boss is acting weird again,” Snivel pointed out, “What do we do?”

Z-Blob shook himself and patted the top of Snivel’s head with what Snivel figured would be what the slime would consider feet. The slime then pointed his head in Mateo’s direction before hopping off Snivel’s head and landing next to Cooper.

Snivel waddled himself around again to face Z-Blob, “Ugh, I get ‘knock some sense into boss’ duty again?”

Z-Blob nodded.

Snivel groaned loudly, “UGHHHH, fine but you seriously owe me Boogers,”

There was an annoyed chirp and Z-Blob narrowed his eyes. Snivel held up his hands in defeat, “I uh mean Z-Blob,”

Z-Blob’s mood seemed to lighten and Snivel was sure if the blob had a mouth he would’ve pulled out an award winning smile.

Snivel backed off, restraining himself from rolling his eyes and hopped closer to Mateo who was still transfixed by his hand. The flame headed grimspawn did a quick once over of his ex-superior. Making a split second decision Snivel planted his feet and launched himself at Mateo, crashing into him head first and causing Mateo to end up sprawled on the ground as he grunted in pain.

Yeah, Snivel was never one to think about things too much. He was the brawns, other people were the brains.

“What the hell you little-“ Mateo started to yell, struggling to get back up into a sitting position but Snivel was quick to grab him by the hoodie collar and get right up into Mateo’s face.

Mateo stopped short as he locked Snivel with his infamous glare but the grimspawn was unfazed.

“BOSS GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF IT’S THE WAKING-DAMMED RACER BOY, YOU’VE TOUCHED HIM A MILLION TIMES!!” Snivel yelled loud enough Mateo was sure people outside the park heard him screaming as Snivel put everything in his small body into trying to shake Mateo.

Mateo bit back a growl and grabbed Snivel by the sides to pull him away so the candle looking grimspawn would stop yelling directly in his face. Snivel began to wriggle as he was manhandled but before he could begin to bite Mateo set him down harshly.

“Get. OUT of my face!” Mateo ordered.

Snivel grinned crookedly, “Welcome back boss man,”

Mateo shook his head and glanced around. His sight eventually landed on Cooper for a split second before he fixed Snivel with another glare.

“What was that for you animated candle stick?” Mateo bit out.

“You decided to be all weird cause you touched Racer Boy over there so obviously I had to knock some sense back into you,” Snivel explained.

Mateo squinted, “I was not… Cooper’s just a frr-SHUT UP!” Angrily, Mateo got up and walked back over to Cooper while Snivel watched him with an eat shit grin on his face.

“Oh yeah, sure, sure. Friend !”

“I will send you back to the dream world the hard way!” Mateo called over his shoulder as he crouched down again. He chewed on the hairs on the back of his thumb as he noticed that Z-Blob had snaked under Cooper’s head and was now allowing himself to be used as a pillow.

Cooper for his part hadn’t changed much in the last minute but his drool flow had significantly increased.

A small sigh escaped Mateo as he held out his hand where he let it hover again.

Snivel was right, he’d touched Cooper a million times, in friendly ways… and unfortunately some not so friendly ways, so why now was it suddenly so hard?

A slightly stronger than normal breeze cut through the air and Cooper shivered, curling into himself some more.

Dammit, so cute.

Mateo blinked, wait where had that come from? He didn’t…

Z-Blob let out a muffled chirp and Mateo came out of his thoughts. Right, Cooper needed him, he couldn’t just let his friend sleep away on the ground in a shitty long sleeve. There were a number of things that could go wrong if he left Cooper here.

Now, if only his body would respond.

Mateo stayed frozen where he was trying to mentally will his body into working with him. He had been in charge of an entire legion of the Nightmare King’s army. He has fought Dream Chasers, Grim Wolves, hell even Zoey who was a notoriously tough fighter. So why, oh why!? Was he flaking out so badly right now? Why did his heart feel like it was going to beat out of his chest if he touched Cooper?

“Why are you being such a wimp right now? Just touch him!” Snivel was suddenly at Mateo’s side, startling him as he spoke up. The flame headed grimspawn was looking down at Cooper with disinterest as he chewed on a leaf that was half hanging out of his mouth.

Mateo sneered at Snivel, “Oh screw you, I’m not a wimp! And I’ll show you that I’m not too,”

There was a brief hesitation but Mateo forced through it, he had a Snivel to prove wrong.

Mateo slipped an arm under Cooper’s armpit and began to half lean over the blond as he worked to sling Cooper over his shoulder without waking him. There was a bit of a struggle but Mateo eventually got Cooper over his shoulder and stood.

Z-Blob unsquashed himself and hopped back on to Snivel’s head. The two then cast Mateo twin looks of what Mateo almost wanted to clock as disappointment.

Z patted Snivel’s head and the grimspawn tried to glance up at the slime as the slime let out a squiem .

Snivel nodded, “Uh yeah, Boss, no offense or ‘nothing, but it looks like you're kidnapping him. And trust us, we know kidnapping.”

Mateo frowned and with a sigh that was dripping with embarrassment he let Cooper slip back down into his arms. He quickly fixed his grip, slung an arm under Cooper’s knees, and took up holding the blond bridal style.

Some happy sounding noise came from Cooper and he rested his head on Mateo’s shoulder while curling his fingers into Mateo’s chest. Much to Mateo’s dismay he then nuzzled his face into his shoulder as drool started to seep into Mateo’s hoodie.

Mateo could already feel the red coming to his face.

“Not one word,” he muttered at Snivel and Z-Blob as the two started to giggle.

All he had to do was endure this long enough to get Cooper home.

Mateo started to walk off down the path, vaguely trying to remember where Cooper lived now, as Snivel quickly found himself running after Mateo to keep up with his swift pace.

As Snivel’s head bobbed wildly as he tried to keep up with the other, Z-Blob wrapped a small section of himself around Snivel’s strange antenna-like head protrusion so as to not risk falling off.

Within no time the three found themselves at the entrance to the park where they were greeted with the still lively city of Brooklyn that existed right outside the hidden green haven of the park. Thankfully for Snivel and Z-Blob’s sake there didn’t seem to be very many pedestrians around but Mateo still adjusted his hold on Cooper for a brief second to untie the fireproof windbreak that was wrapped around his waist.

“Z,” Mateo said, moving his arms back to their original position as Cooper began to shift uncomfortably, “Windbreaker.”

Z-Blob let out a chirp of agreement and stretched a part of himself out so he could grab the back of the windbreaker and pull it free. The blob then draped the windbreaker around himself and Snivel.

Snivel groaned unhappily, “Not the jacket,”

“Yes the jacket,” Mateo commented, “And unless you want to be scooped up by government soldiers and experimented on I suggest you wrap that thing around you tighter.”

Snivel grumbled unhappily but he zipped up the windbreaker and threw the hood over his head thus extinguishing the flame coming from the end of his antenna.

Snivel’s color instantly started to dim, “Let’s just hurry up and get Racer boy home,”

Mateo nodded numbly and looked down at Cooper who was somehow still fast asleep, drooling all over Mateo’s shoulder and yet completely unbugged by the noisy city surrounding them. How sleep deprived was this poor boy? Or perhaps he was just a heavy sleeper.

Mateo wasn’t sure which one was worse.

There was a squish from Z-Blob that reminded Mateo what they were currently set out to do so against the loud screaming in his head to ‘ no don’t do that’ Mateo nuzzled his nose against Cooper’s chin before tilting his head upward. Cooper let out a little cough as his mouth closed and the drool stream cut off.

There. That was much better.

It was less so that the drool was gross, Mateo had touched more gross things in the dream world than he’d like to admit, and more so that he’d hate to be caught like this. Ex-second in command of the Nightmare King’s army, reduced to being drooled on by one of the saviors of the dream world. Albeit Cooper was his friend but it still felt very unbecoming for the both of them.

About five seconds later, just as Mateo started to walk off again, Cooper’s mouth fell back open and the drool stream came back.

Welp, he had tried.

Begrudgingly Mateo accepted his fate as Cooper’s drool covered pillow and kept walking as Snivel waddled along behind, trying his best to keep up without tripping on the sleeves of the windbreaker.

Though it took awhile to remember where Cooper lived, once Mateo saw it again after wandering around for a bit and risking one too many close calls with someone accidentally seeing what Snivel actually looked like, a wave of familiarity washed over Mateo and in an instant he knew the house was the right one.

Snivel started to take off the windbreaker as Mateo walked up the steps to the house but after a quick wack from Z-Blob he stopped himself from taking it all the way off.

“Is this the place boss?” Snivel asked as he struggled to climb up the front steps.

Mateo cast a glance at the numbers nailed into the wall of the house, yep this was that place, he was sure of it.

“Yes,”

Snivel finally reached the platform of the stairs that was level with the door and struggled to stand without tipping back over. Once he did he squinted up at the door in front of them.

��It’s all dark, is anyone even home?”

Mateo let the question simmer for a bit before responding, “I don’t know,”

Mateo knew Cooper lived with his brother now after his parents had been arrested for fraud and his brother was a nurse who worked odd hours so if Mateo had to guess no one was probably actually home.

There was a chirp as Z-Blob freed himself from under the hood of the windbreaker and hopped up onto Mateo’s shoulder so he could also look at the door with the two.

Mateo wasn’t sure how long they all stared at the door until Snivel pulled at his pant leg and asked, “What do we do?”

Mateo blinked and looked down at the welcome mat under foot.

As he took a step back off the mat he informed Snivel, “It’s probably locked but the Williams always used to keep an emergency front door key under the welcome mat,”

“Ohhhh,” Snivel cooed curiously. The grimspawn then bent over and ripped the welcome mat from its resting place that it flew over the railing on the sides of the landing and went crashing into a bush. Thankfully however the key underneath was left undisturbed.

Mateo sighed, rolling his eyes at his friend’s brutish behavior, “Thanks Snivel, I wanted to do more things tonight.”

There was a laugh as Snivel picked up the key and waddled over to strain up and stick the key into the lock, “Nice sarcasm boss!”

With a bit of a struggle Snivel managed to turn the key and the door opened.

“Aww yeah,” Snivel cheered and without even waiting he sauntered into the Williams house.

“Hey wait-“ Mateo started to protest but Snivel had already disappeared into the depths of the house.

Mateo grumbled some Spanish swears under his breath only for Z-Blob to nudge the side of his face. Mateo tilted his head to the side as he watched his little blob friend jump off his shoulder and into the bush below.

“Ah, yeah, you’re dealing with the mat now?”

There was a chirp.

“I see, well thank you,” Mateo told the slime, “I’ll go put Cooper in his bed and be back in a bit.”

Mateo shifted his grip on Cooper before turning to the side so they could both fit through the door. Once inside Mateo looked around the dark house, keeping an eye out for Snivel but after not finding the candlestick akinned grimspawn he continued on to the stairs.

Though a feeling of fear cropped up in Mateo’s stomach at the thought that he could lose his balance and fall down the stairs as he climbed, he eventually made it to the second floor and began to duck his head into a few rooms to find Cooper’s bedroom.

After about the third door Mateo found Cooper’s room; the yellow and red walled room cluttered with a bunch of instruction manuals, race car and F1 posters, invention bits a bobs, piles of dirty clothes, and so many other things that had Mateo questioning how much of a hoarder his friend actually was.

Mateo wrinkled his nose and entered the room, stepping over an empty box of twinkies that had a model car sitting on top of it, and dancing around a cacophony of other items to make it over to Cooper’s bed without tripping. The one pro to come out of working with the Nightmare King: night vision. Finally he made it to the bed and tried his best to gently place Cooper down on his side while his arms screamed at him to just drop the blond.

With a huff Mateo freed his arms from underneath Cooper and began to rub them. Gaw why did he carry Cooper all the way here? He should’ve just woke him up.

Cooper let out a pitiful whine and Mateo felt himself freeze up as Cooper moved his arm to rub it against his pillow thus pushing up his sleeve and revealing the lightning scars crisscrossing up his arms.

Ah, those.

Mateo ignored the guilty feeling that started to stir in his gut. He knew that Cooper and his sister were covered in a patchwork of what were called Dream Terror Scars; which were scars obtained in the dream world from nightmare creatures that would carry over to one’s waking world body. Mateo had his fair share too but he felt more pain over the ones Cooper and Izzie had as unfortunately plenty of those ones Mateo himself was responsible for.

Mateo shook himself, he was a good guy now. Izzie and Cooper knew he was sorry for what he’d done and they forgave him, he didn’t need to dwell on it. Silently he turned and sat on the edge of Cooper’s bed, raking his eyes across the room.

“Why is your room such a pigsty?” Mateo muttered though he knew Cooper wouldn’t respond.

There came a snore from Cooper, followed by some shifting and Mateo felt himself go red as Cooper curled into the lower half of his back.

Mateo looked down at Cooper, gapping slightly, “What are you doing?”

Cooper curled in a light tighter as he shivered.

“Oh you’re cold,” Mateo hummed, carefully he detached Cooper from himself and stood so he could grab the crumpled up blanket from the end of the bed and throw it over Cooper.

Cooper let out a happy hum and wiggled himself deeper under the covers. Mateo couldn’t help the small little chuckle that came from him and before he knew it he found himself brushing some of the dirt away from Cooper’s face with his thumb. Too little too late did he realize what he was doing and Mateo yanked his hand away.

Why did he do that?

Mateo stared. Cooper was screwing with his brain he swore, why else would it feel like his heart was going to beat out of his chest whenever Cooper smiled at him?

A distant clatter came from downstairs and Mateo was shocked back into reality.

Dammit Snivel.

Mateo looked down at Cooper one more time before giving the blond an awkward pat on the head and with that he carefully made his way back over to the bedroom door to leave.

Mateo shut the door quietly as he left and then made his way downstairs.

What he found was the door of the Williams brother’s fridge wide open as Snivel, who had ditched the windbreaker on the floor, dug around inside it as Z-Blob struggled to catch everything Snivel threw aside. Apples, pudding cups, and a carton of milk all went flying and Z-Blob hopped around to catch each item before they could go spilling to the floor but just as quickly as the slime managed to catch the item another went flying.

Mateo watched the chaos for a moment but as an entire bag of carrots was thrown he stepped in. He caught the bag of carrots midair and set them on the counter only to then stride over to Snivel and rip him out of the fridge by the antenna. Mateo bit down on his lip as he felt Snivel’s antenna squish around his hand like he was touching a living hard boiled egg.

“Hey!” Snivel complained.

“Stop raiding their kitchen,” Mateo ordered as he grabbed Snivel by the sides like a hamburger and Snivel began to wiggled around in his hands.

“I just wanted some cheese!” Snivel yelled, struggling to reach out and grab the block of cheese that was still sitting in the fridge.

“Uh hu, sure,” Mateo commented as he started to walk away, signaling to Z-Blob that the slime was free to put everything back in the fridge, “We have cheese at home if you really want it but I know you’re just being a menace.”

Snivel shoved his feet against Mateo’s stomach, struggling to free himself, “It’s Racer Boy, I have to torment him somehow!”

Mateo scooped up the discarded windbreaker and threw it over his shoulder, “We’re not even enemies anymore, leave him alone.”

Snivel finally managed to wiggle all the way around and grinned up at Mateo, “Force a habit!”

There was a clatter from behind them, followed by a squish and the sound of the fridge door closing as Mateo reached the front entrance. Mateo turned slightly and watched as Z-Blob hopped out into the hall and then again to jump up onto Mateo’s shoulder. The slime gave Mateo a gooey head bump once he had landed.

Mateo smiled, “Thanks Z,” and with that he shoved a complaining Snivel under one arm so he could exit the Williams house and lock it up behind them.