Work Text:
The day started as any normal day would. Error woke up from a nap of indeterminate time and opened a portal to whatever the newest AU was that popped up. He was feeling a little reckless today as there had been a pretty large amount of successes the last couple of AUs (he patted himself on the back for it), so he jumped in without looking.
This proved to be a mistake, however, as the very first thing he did after entering the AU was black out.
A few hours later, he finally stopped rebooting enough to groan. His entire body hurt as if he’d been submerged in water for way too long. His breathing was ragged and his magic supply felt shockingly low. He reached up to rub at his head (he must have hit it when he collapsed in the first reboot) but froze as his hand brushed up against something attached to his skull. His eyes snapped open and he instinctively curled up in shock.
Everything was big. Everything was really fucking big. The trees towered over him and the bushes cast long shadows. A sharp static snap sounded in the air as Error’s glitching worsened, pixels swarming over his body like a nest of angry hornets. "No. Nononononono, this-s-s can't be happening-ning. Wh-wh-what is going on. wh-wh-what THE fuck-ck-ck…"
His voice glitched rapidly as he fought off another reboot and stood up on shaky legs. Speaking of legs, they felt… different to him. He looked down and felt threads beading at the edges of his eye sockets. They looked like rabbit feet. Like red rabbit feet. Where did his sandals go?! He grabbed the things he felt attached to his head and pulled them down. “R-R-R-Rabbit ears?!” He groaned, letting them flop back. “No-No-Not again…”
This was just great. His hands searched his body for any other signs of deviancy, but other than his ectobody being summoned all the way up his legs, he was still a regular skeleton. (Thank the stars for small blessings, ugh.) He dusted himself off and glared around the small clearing he had passed out in, looking for any signs of danger with his blurry vision. His ears helped make up for his vision impairment and nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary until-
“Oof!” Error grunted as a heavy weight landed on his back, pressing him into the dirt. Immediately, strings wrapped around the hands of his assailant and he searched for a soul to destroy. His eye sockets widened as his magic came up empty. There was only one monster he knew who didn’t have a soul. “Ink-k?!”
The weight lifted off him and he immediately shot out a little ways before whipping back around to face his adversary. To his unsurprise, it was Ink, but to his surprise, Ink also had a few modifications on his skeleton body. Rainbow gradient fox ears were perked curiously in Error’s direction and a bushy tail with similar coloring flicked behind him. Other than that, it was the same stupid Ink from before. Ink straightened up, towering a good two and a half feet over the small rabbit skeleton. “Hiya, Error! Sorry about that! You’re so absolutely miniscule! I couldn’t help myself!”
Error huffed and brushed himself off, straightening his scarf in annoyance. “Ri-ight. As if I’m going to believe a fo-fox.”
Ink laughed, his eyelights cycling to a green diamond and a yellow star. “I see your instincts have kicked in too!”
“Instinc-incts? What are you talking about?” Error eyed him suspiciously. “And how-how-how did you even know to come here? I haven’t even started dest-st-stroying anything yet.”
The taller skeleton slowly moved into a crouch, his smile widening. The rabbit followed suit, not trusting the movement in the slightest. It made Ink chuckle again, as if there was something ironic about the situation. “Well, I woke up today and I felt this sudden urge to visit this particular AU! It’s almost like it was made specifically for us. Doesn’t it feel strange to you?”
“Other than the weird size change and extra appendages?” He gestured to the long ears to emphasize his point. “No.”
“You didn’t look into the code before you came?” He tilted his head, the rainbow ears flopping to the side in a way that Error could almost call cute (not that he ever would, mind you).
“No, why would I do that?”
Ink seemed to deflate a little at that, his tail drooping. “Not even the slightest? You weren’t even a bit curious about the strange new AU a Creator made just for us?”
Well, it looked to be just another confrontation without fighting, so Error relaxed, staying crouched and balanced on his strange new bunny legs. “N-N-Nope. Now, if you’ll excuse-cuse me, I have abominations to find and dele-le-lete.”
He turned to hop back into the brush, but there was a rush of movement behind him and suddenly he found himself back to being shoved into the ground. He glitched spastically and snarled, “Get-Get off me, I-Ink!! Do-on’t touch me-e!!”
“No can do, Ruru! You’re not even going to find anyone anyways. If you had looked into the code in the first place you would know that this particular AU is empty.”
Ink’s voice was so smug, so matter-of-factly. It only pissed Error off more. He squirmed under Ink’s hold until he got enough leverage to wrap his blue strings around Ink’s arms. He desperately tried to pull them off him since Ink clearly wasn’t going to listen to him. Ink snorted and simply scooped him up. Error twisted to get out of his grasp, but he found his movements even more restricted with every struggle, his own string wrapped around him. “Wh- I- How are you- Wa-Wait a minut-t-te!! How did my strings get-t-t-t-t-t-”
Error’s voice cut off into a series of distressed beeps and errors darted across his vision. He couldn’t see normally; now he couldn’t see at all. He stiffened and shook as a reboot came dangerously close to overloading his body. Ink tsked at him and dangled him by his strings. “Really now, Error. You should calm down. This AU makes me terribly hungry and your struggling is not helping me fight these new instincts-”
“I d-d-don’t giv-v-ve a damn about your inst-stincts! Put me-me down!!” Error yelled. He couldn’t help but turn his nose away at the strong scent Ink gave off. Something in his mind supplied the word ‘fox.’ Like, no shit, that’s a fox. Thanks for your input. It was really useful.
A sharp growl cut through the air as Ink snarled at the captured bunny. Fear jolted through Error’s soul and he curled up as much as he could with a glitched squeak. He stared in fear up at Ink’s eyelights, one a red crosshair and the other a yellow slit. “Don’t speak over me, rabbit.”
Error tried to work his foolish courage back up but Ink’s sudden outburst spooked him quite badly. Every instinct was screaming at him to run but with how he was dangling from Ink’s hands in his own strings, there wasn’t a chance he would be able to. Ink blinked, his eyelights changing rapidly until they settled on an orange oval and a yellow sun. “Ah, whoops, sorry, Error. Didn’t mean to go all scary on you.”
He leaned in close, taking a deep breath and causing Error to flatten his ears and flinch away. Ink could easily crunch him in half right then and that was not something Error enjoyed knowing. At least Ink had the decency to look apologetic about the action. His next words sent a chill down Error’s spine, though. “Sorry, you just smell really, really tasty.”
The sharp smile turned predatorial and Ink’s eyelights went hazy. His hand came up to cup Error’s back and support him as he leaned in and- “I-Ink, wait! Don’t- G-G-G-A-J-J-J-”
Error spluttered as a large pastel tongue pressed against him. Pale yellow saliva dripped from his bones and clung to his coat, evidence of the last emotion Ink consumed. Glitches raced up and down Error’s body as it tried to cope with the sudden intrusion of his personal space. His voice refused to work properly, pitch jumping all over the place. Not a single word could be deciphered through all the static.
Ink let out something akin to a purr as he savored Error’s taste on his tongue. “Tangy but sweet~ Kind of like cherry soda!”
It took a moment for what was happening to Error to sink in as he hung there stunned. Ink just. Tasted him. And by the sounds of it, he liked what he tasted. And the only logical next step for this to lead was- “In-nk, h-hold on, d-d-don’t mMph-!!”
His protests were muffled as his face was pressed against that rainbow ectotongue. Ink’s mouth closed down around him and he was pushed to the back of the throat Ink conjured. Try as he might, Error could not break free of his magical bondage. This is hell. This has to be what hell is, he thought as the muscles opened up and pulled him down into the bright ectomagic. It was tight, it was wet, and it was awful.
It was also a surprisingly short trip and he soon slid into what he could only assume is the stomach. His ears felt heavy with the magic slime sticking to them and this yellow paint kept staining his scarf and jacket. He let out a noise of disgust, fear for his life mingling into it. He was just eaten. Like some prey animal. Stars above, it would be really easy for Ink to just off him right then and there. The terror he felt outside of this situation came rushing back to him and he renewed his struggles to free himself from his magic strings. Had he mentioned how much he hated this? How had he actually gotten into this stars-damned mess?
A hum of appreciation vibrated the walls surrounding him and he kicked at the nearest bit of ectomagic. “In-nk, I swear, when I-I get out of here, I’m send-ending you halfw-w-way across the Multiver-verse and then some!!”
Ink laughed, the sound echoing around the skelebun, and Error felt some kind of pressure gently press against him. “Eh, it’s worth this. After all, who says you’re getting out?”
Error stilled, fighting the sudden wave of panic that threatened to overwhelm him. If Ink could just stop running his mouth for five stars-damned seconds... He took a deep breath, wincing at the citrus scent that seemed way too powerful for any being to handle. “You-ou wouldn’t dare to kill-ill me h-here.”
There’s a pause, then a sigh. “Yeah, you’re right.” The pressure increased and Error pushed against it, moving as far from it as he could. Ink wheezed from the action. “Stars above, Error, you’re really not making this easy.”
His voice glitched up an octave. “WELL EXCUSE-CUSE ME FOR NOT WANT-TING TO BE EATEN!!”
Ink shouted right back at him, causing Error to flatten his ears back as the sound reverberated around him. “I told you I wasn’t going to kill you, calm down!” He huffs. “I’m just keeping you in here until you can agree not to destroy for a while. I don’t know, maybe we can hang out or something.”
“Ink what the fuck.”
“What?”
“You’re- Are you- You’re seriously doing this shit while I’m in your stomach?”
“I mean, we’re going to be here for a while, obviously. Why? What do you want to talk about?”
Error scoffed and leaned against the rainbow-colored magic. It wasn’t draining him, so at least Ink wasn’t lying about that. But it was suppressing his magic somehow. He couldn’t make anything appear, much less control what he already had summoned. In other words, he was stuck, really and truly stuck. He frowned and sighed, replying, “N-N-Nothing. Let me out.”
Ink hummed and the world shifted around Error as the center of gravity changed. “No, I don’t think I will. I can’t leave the AU or else the magic disappears with it. Might as well get comfortable, Ruru.”
“I will-will do no such thing,” the glitchy rabbit replied before getting as comfortable as he could with the damp magic surrounding him and burning his eyelights. The movements outside stilled and Error could deduce that Ink had fallen asleep. He groans and does his best to follow suit and take a nap to pass the time. When he gets out of here, Ink is so going to get it…