Chapter Text
What started out as a game from a psychopathic Creator and a Protector with a child for a mind ended up becoming a catastrophe, and everyone in the Multiverse was caught inside.
"Stupid inkstain," I mutter, finishing off the poor creatures who were suffering through the XEvent. He helped this happen, but not because he was evil, but because he was so absentminded and vile and childish. He relied on YOU far too much.
"'Who cares about the worthless extras that only exist as garbage to the true world,' pfft. Guess I'm garbage too, but I already knew that, so how could I blame you for thinking the same, Ink?"
Tears threatened to erupt from my eyesockets as I pondered. Did he ever really care about anything he helped create? I doubt it. Otherwise he would've never joined his game.
Error messages surrounded me slowly, multiplying as I shook and slowly cried.
Why would he do this? Did he hate everyone that much, or did he not even hate? ... did he want to get rid of me?
Slowly, I grew aware of the tap-tap-tapping of footsteps behind me. I forced down my emotions, got rid of the error messages, and wiped my tears away.
I finally realized where I was. The Doodlesphere. Long since abandoned and not held down by a lock anymore, I often visited this place to feel comforted.
Now? It was a huge, almost fully desaturated mess. It barely looked like Ink's former home.
Suddenly, I grew aware of the footsteps again. I turned around.
My eyelights widened as I recognized the two figures. Ink and him. The people who ruined this multiverse. Funnily enough, he was more of a threat to the multiverse than I ever could be. I purely destroyed to keep the balance of Creation and Destruction perfect.
Him? He destroyed for a game. He destroyed out of boredom.
He was the real threat. I never was.
"Hello, Slate and XGaster," I spit out at the two. I used to call Ink "Slate" for fun whenever he ran out of his emotions. It started out as an inside joke between us, and now I just call him that out of spite.
I hate him, Ink. He was a marionette under his control, and he either didn't care or he didn't notice. I truly despise him, but I know it isn't his fault, not completely.
Ink smirked. "Hello, Windows Vista. What brings you to these parts?" I felt my body go ice cold the moment he said that nickname. It reminded me of...
"Never call me that again," I mutter just loud enough so they could hear me. "Hmm, I don't think I will, Glasses. It entertains me, seeing you in nostalgic grief."
I suddenly felt nothing. No emotions, no headache, no pain. Only emptiness. And that's when I grinned.
"Hahaha! You think I feel upset over your stupid decisions and your actions?! You're dumber than I thought, emotionless squid," I snap.
I raise my hand, drawing strings from my eyesocket, making them tie around Ink tightly as I summoned a glitchy bone.
"Now, what do we have here? A soulless bastard who's about to-"
"Get him," Ink whispers in WingDings.
I pause, dropping the bone. Fuck.
[Overwrite.]
Suddenly, I was the one tied up. I grimace. Of course they'd do that.
Ink smirks. "You really forgot about XGaster, didn't you, Glitch Bitch?"
I don't care anymore. Just end me.
"..."
"Aw, that's no fun. C'mon, say something. Say how much you hate me and want me dead. Say how much you despise me. Say how much you want Ink back. Say how much you want me to become the aloof artist again."
The strings dig deeper into my bones the more he speaks. I'm used to pain. What makes him think I'm suffering from anything physical?
But he was right about one thing he's said before.
I care about him too much.
I liked him too much, for a Destroyer to like a Creator is one of the things I've always said that I hated.
"It'll never happen, because I hate you too much," I used to tell him while angry. Then he'd disappear for a while, and come back a week later and pretend that everything was fine.
Funny how now our roles are reversed. I'm supposed to hate him but I don't, and he's supposed to like me but he hates me.
He was also right about another thing.
I suffer emotionally easier than physically.
I finally am aware of the dead silence. They're waiting for me to give in. They're waiting for me to break down.
"..."
"C'mon, Error. Don't you want Ink back?" Ink says, slightly irritated.
"Who says that I miss him?" I say tiredly.
Just end my existence already. I know you'll try it.
"I know because it's in your eyes whenever we speak. 'I just wish he wasn't like this anymore.' Correct?"
I sigh.
"..."
"Error. I know you want him back. The thing is...
He'll never return."
I suddenly feel sadness creep into my soul as he says that. He'll never return, huh?
Ink smirks. "There you go. That's what I wanted - sadness. See, that was just a persona. I never was like that. That's why he'll never return. Because that version of me? He's dead."
My breathing hitches, and my head slowly lowers. "I hate you," I say lowly.
But we both know that I'm lying.
"Enough toying around. I came here to erase you from existence like the rest of those... glitches. Haha, glitches. Funny thing is, you're the biggest one, my rival."
My rival. Why does that make my soul flutter, but also make me feel worse? Odd.
"... you kept me for last, didn't you, Slate? We're the only beings left in this multiverse. That's why you're stalling. Because I know that you don't truly want to-"
"Shut up," Ink says lowly. "You don't know how happy I am to finally get rid of you, stupid error."
I smile. Does he truly think that, or has he been manipulated to think that? Who knows.
But I'll finally be able to take a damn break.
"Goodbye," Ink says cheerfully.
... and of course, Ink is an unpredictable bastard, because he suddenly kills him instead of me. What just happened?
"... what the hell, Slate?" I say, watching him turn into a puddle of goop. Ink smiles, trembling slightly. "Sorry about the past who-knows-how-many years. I had to cooperate or he would've not only killed me, but he would've tortured everyone that I care about. I-I'm sorry."
I blink. This was... all because of him? Everything... everyone...
Suddenly, Ink collapses, gritting his teeth. "I'm finally dying... he tied his life to mine."
I freeze, tears rising to my eyesockets again. "You're... dying? Aren't you an outcode...?"
Ink does a half smirk, showing his soul. Wait, his soul?!
I look at it. It's a broken, half soul of purple, cracking. "He... gave this to me as a gift... the other half was his... he said that...-"
Ink hacks up ink, "his" soul cracking more. "I-I'm so... sorry... I never wanted to... kill Cross... or... anyone... I never wanted to-"
Ink curls into himself, ink spilling from his mouth as he coughs. I sit down, forgoing my haphephobia to comfort him in his last moments as I cry. "It's okay, inkstain... I forgive you... I'm sorry for always saying that I hate you. I don't."
Ink smiles slightly, the soul almost completely cracked. "You... don't hate me...? I... thank... thank you..."
And then the soul shattered.
Ink morphed into a puddle of ink, the Doodlesphere finally going completely gray.
And then there was one. Me. The only remaining being in existence.
I finally realized what I felt.
Every single time I thought about Ink, I felt something. It started from hatred, morphed into a form of friendliness, morphed into something inexplicable, then to a mild form of hatred.
The funniest part about it all is that I finally realized it when he died.
I love him. I have almost always loved him.
And then I started sobbing.