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Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Epic had learned that, if ever there was a chance for something to go wrong, something would go wrong. As a scientist, it was a lesson he had learned quickly. It conditioned him to expect disappointment. At least the little wins seemed bigger, in comparison.

That is to say, he wasn’t optimistic about, well, continuing — even less so about getting better. He assumed he would settle back into the same old routine, if only with whatever a life without his eye would bring him. (Honestly, that was the only good thing to come out of all of this.) He thought he would go back to ignoring the weight of the world around him until it, once again, became too heavy. He thought, while Delta would stay true to his word, nothing would truly come of it. Everything that could go wrong with his return to normalcy would go wrong, and he would remain static.

Apparently, he hadn’t been thinking big enough, because Epic was blindsided by the reality he had been dropped in.

He should have been expecting it, really. It should’ve been obvious from the moment he saw Delta in his hospital room. Delta, who responded to mass disturbances across universes. Just him, alone in that coldly-white room in the Omega Timeline. It wouldn’t have stood out to him if not for the hospital, but… he remembered the kind of destructive force he’d been fighting. He didn’t know why he didn’t catch on sooner. The cruel irony of it all was the perfect punchline to the joke he’d awoken to.

It just made sense that, of all people, Epic would be the lone survivor of his universe.

Delta told him not long after he woke up. That he was too late. That he hadn’t been able to quell Gaster’s explosive power. That it was gone, reduced to nothing and no one by its own hands. He apologized for everything he couldn’t do, but his words fell on deaf ears.

Epic sat frozen, lost in a trance somewhere deep beneath the surface. His mind struggled to keep up, struggled to rationalize the shock keeping him in place. Perhaps he was still drained from the previous day’s emotion. He prioritized working out exactly what happened rather than wearing himself down even more.

His world was gone, and Gaster destroyed it. There were no other survivors. Nobody else had been grabbed last-minute like he had. Everyone who was in that world in the moments leading up to its destruction was, undeniably, dead. That meant Papyrus, his little brother, the one who he did everything for, was dead. The kid, stuck in limbo for so long, was dead. The king was dead. Every friend, acquaintance, coworker, stranger — they were all dead.   

Everyone, but him.

Through no fault of his own, he had survived. Not without scars; he had lost practically all of his magic, including the ability to regulate it. Still, he was alive (and he was alone.)

Epic closely observed the holes in his hands — the bisected metacarpals, severed in laser-cut circles, so reminiscent of his. Just like…. he frowned. He couldn’t help but wonder.

He could’ve done so much more to prevent this.

There was nothing Epic hated more than his eye. It was the source of decades of misery and nightly torment, and he regretted the moment he ever came into contact with it. That being said, it allowed him to do everything he shouldn’t be able to. It made him strong enough to protect the people he loved. For that security (and for lack of better options), he had learned to live with it. If he had just been a little more careful, taken things a little more seriously, everything would have been fine. He should have known something like this would happen. That he had plans for it.

He knew how dangerous it could be in the wrong hands. He knew — he lived that reality every night. Still, he lost it to the one person he should’ve been protecting it from, all because of his own selfish, stupid exhaustion and over-confidence. The lack of care he held for his own life had robbed everyone else of theirs (and he could never take that back.)

If Epic couldn’t handle the thought of living through the cold touch of death, how was he supposed to handle this?

For the first week or so, he avoided thinking about it. He shoved that ugly lump down to where he hid away everything else. Considering he never fully resurfaced from his disconnection with the world, it was easier than he thought. He was so far away that there was hardly anything to push down.

He could pretend that this was another impulsive outing from his homeworld. Nobody tended to follow after him when he visited other worlds, anyway, so nothing was out of the ordinary. Except for how he was holed up in a hospital. That part he elected to ignore. The blank white walls in his room stood as a barrier, maintaining his fragile sense of denial. Really, Epic was trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Delta was worried by the lengths he went to ignore it. That much was clear as day. He seemed especially put-off by the way Epic tried to slip back into his laid-back mannerisms. To his credit, he had the mercy to not call him out on it. He never brought up Epic’s original outburst, either, which he was thankful for. He didn’t think he could talk about it — any of it.

Epic had almost convinced himself that nothing had happened.

(The reprieve wouldn’t last. He didn’t know when, but the other shoe would drop.)

The first time he felt the full weight of the loss was when he was discharged. He hobbled on crutches and held instructions to recover in a home he no longer had. Epic’s first instinct was to take one of the doors back to his universe, but that wasn’t an option. He wasn’t even sure there was a door anymore. A rather loud part of him did not want to find out. Instead, he followed Delta through West Island Town. (He felt lost in this town he knew like his own, wandering the familiar streets blind.)

He’d been to Delta’s house before, of course — spent many nights in it, shared many moments in it — but this time felt different. It solidified the permanence of what had happened. Of what he survived, of what his friends and family didn’t. Of what he didn’t have to go back to.

As he stood at the open door of his partner’s home, standing unsteady on his own two feet, it hit him. He didn’t deserve to be here. Not when he was the one who shouldn’t have survived. Not when he couldn’t appreciate (or even accept) the continuation of his own life.

Epic stood there, shivering with apprehension, legs like blocks of ice frozen to the ground. The dark house past the doorway was foreboding, almost paradoxically foreign, even when he knew the warmth in its walls. Delta watched him expectantly, waiting for him to take the first step. Concerned, though, always concerned. He always cared.

Epic sucked it up and followed his partner inside.

The feeling didn’t go away the further he limped in. Not when the lights turned on, not when Delta led him to the bedroom. In fact, it only grew. It loomed over him like an ominous shadow whose source he could not identify.

He didn’t notice when his crutches were taken from him, nor when Delta wandered off. Epic now sat on the bed, staring at a blank space in the wall. The silence was oppressive, as were the blankets draped over his lap. He didn’t make any effort to move. He rather observed the furniture and knick-knacks scattered around Delta’s room, all of which he had seen and given thought to before. This time, it felt like he was looking at it all through new eyes (well, eye).

In the bookshelf just beside him, a pink book kept drawing his attention. It stood out against the dark wood like a sore thumb. He knew which one it was. Delta had shown it to him, flipped through its pages, talked about it so fondly with a voice so solemn. It wasn’t often that his partner brought up his homeworld, but Epic gave him his full attention each time. Now, though, he wished he could stop looking at it.

He leaned closer to the bookshelf, leveling himself book-to-eye with it. From up close, the thin book’s age was much more apparent. Its cover was worn, the artwork scrubbed away in some places. Bright pink had faded into a pale imitation of itself. A sort of darkness clung to it despite its soft color — not of shadows, but something else. Epic carefully pulled it from its place on the shelf and into his hands.

Peek-a-Boo With Fluffy Bunny.

He swept a thumb over the smudged marker drawn over the cover’s illustration. Over the little monster kid next to Fluffy Bunny was a child’s crude drawing of a skeleton with a long skull and thin limbs. “Papyrus” was scrawled out across the top left corner in familiar yet shaky handwriting.

Epic knew well what this book represented — he just couldn’t look at it through the same perspective. The last piece of Delta’s world turned into a reminder of what he could never have again. Nights spent reading his brother to bed were a distant dream, one so suddenly and painfully unattainable.

With trembling fingers, he opened it. He held its yellowed pages like they were sacred artifacts, barely grazing the paper.

He read through the book carefully— absorbed every word for the lifetime of memories held within their letters. Each illustration brought him further and further back until he was sitting at the edge of his babybones brother’s bed, narrating it to him with lively voices and gestures. He remembered how he led Papyrus along the tale of Fluffy Bunny searching high and low for him. Fluffy Bunny always perservered in his hunt, never giving up.

Epic wasn’t Fluffy Bunny. He tried to be, for a while, but he failed. He gave up, he let go.

(And when he came back, everything was gone.)

He stared at the last page like it was the only thing in the world. The intensity of his gaze could burn a hole straight through the paper. Fluffy Bunny stared right back at him; despite his static expression, his bright eyes bore deep into his soul. He knew.

“Goodbye, [Papyrus]!” the book read. “That was a lot of fun! We should play again tomorrow!” Fluffy Bunny gave the placeholder character a big hug. “See you soon!”

See you soon.

But he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t. Not anymore. No matter how hard Epic looked, he would never find Papyrus again.

He trembled so, so hard through the grip he held on the book. So hard, his bones creaked against the pressure. His jaw was clenched to trap the flood erupting from his chest.

“Epic, breathe,” came Delta’s soft yet stern voice, only loud enough for him to hear. When had he gotten there? He hadn’t felt the dip in the bed beside him.

“I-I—“ his voice hitched on his strangled words. “I don’t. C-can’t.”

“Then let it out. It’s okay.”

“I-it— it’s not! How can it be?” It was so hard to talk, so hard to think, so hard to be. Nothing would be okay ever again.

Delta’s hand landed on his back. It was warm and secure, an anchor he eagerly grabbed hold of. He hardly noticed the way the book was coaxed from his hands. Yet, when the pressure was gone, his grip on himself slipped ever further.

“Nobody’s watching,” Delta encouraged. “I just need you to breathe. You’re safe here.”

He didn’t want to, he didn’t want to—

He shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t be so weak when— Epic gasped on a breath. It was a pitiful sound, edging on a sob. With the first came more, escaping his loose hold.

He couldn’t stop it. Still, he pleaded with whatever had overtaken him to, please, stop. Press his pause switch, snap him out of it, anything. He didn’t want to act like this; he didn’t even want to think about it. He hated the way the tears trickling down his cheeks made him feel so small — like a speck of dust, a waste of space.

But nobody could hear him. All except for Delta, steady in his presence, nobody came.

Nobody.

Another sob burst out in a watery, bitter laugh. It hurt too much to stifle — his chest throbbed like it was about to explode. Epic tried to hide his face away behind his hands, but the holes in his exposed palms did nothing to help. He couldn’t hide from this.

“H-he’s gone,” he choked. “They’re all gone.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Delta rubbed his back in slow, gentle circles.

“I failed them.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Epic jerked, turning on Delta as anger flared in his soul. He let it try to squash the vulnerability back into his ribcage. “But I let it happen! I knew the consequences but I didn’t care. I just— I-I let everyone die, and for what?”

More than stunned, his partner looked so sad about his outburst. It gave him brief pause. “Nobody could have predicted this. You didn’t know, Epic.”

He narrowed his eye. “I should have. I knew, and now they’re all dead because I gave up on myself,” he argued, tone dripping with self-scorn.

Delta took his challenge. “You weren’t the one who fired the last shot. I was there; nothing could’ve been done.”

“I still handed him the damn trigger on a silver platter!”

“He almost killed you to get it!”

“Maybe he should’ve finished the job! At least then I wouldn’t—!” Epic’s face twisted before he could finish that thought, the words dying on his tongue. At least then he wouldn’t be alone.

Delta’s hand stuttered over his back for a moment, rigid, before he placed it back down. He took the moment to rework his line of thinking.

“I mean. Why should I be alive when Papyrus…“ his voice trembled. “H-he’s gone, and I couldn’t save him.”

“I know you did everything you could,” Delta left no room for doubt. Epic, however, carved a space for it to creep in.

His smile was sour, downcast. “Even if I did, I still couldn’t save anyone. Couldn’t even warn them. Delta, I wasn’t enough.”

“None of this was your fault” his partner reiterated. Distantly, he looked haunted. “None of it. It was just so, so unfair.”

He carefully shifted his hand to grip Epic’s shoulder. Not a moment sooner did Epic dive in to latch onto Delta. He clung on tight and, without hesitation, was held just as tightly in return. The pressure helped conceal how he quivered like a leaf.

“It should’ve been me,” he lamented, his voice muffled by Delta’s shirt. “It almost— It was so close!”

“He would’ve wanted you to survive. And I’m so glad you did. I just… wish you could see that.”

He didn’t; he really didn’t. “I miss him so much.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I-I don’t know what to do. He’s gone and—“ he choked on a full-body sob, “and I don’t want to be alone.”

Delta pressed Epic’s skull closer against his sternum. He was practically hidden away in his hold. “I’m still here.”

Right there, Epic crumbled. Whatever was keeping him going — spite, rage, desperation, exhaustion, some messy cocktail of all four — had puttered out, leaving behind a shell of himself. “Please, please don’t leave,” he begged, shaking infinitely harder. He felt so weak, so lost.

“I couldn’t, not ever.”

Epic didn’t know how he found this — this kind of love, care. He never knew what to do with it. Despite that, he couldn’t bring himself to refuse it, even when he wanted to retreat back into himself and block everything out. Instead, he sobbed an ugly sound into Delta’s chest. His tight-knuckled grip around his partner dug deeper and shook with the motion. Delta didn’t even flinch.

He tried to speak, yet he couldn’t find his voice through the tears clogged in his throat. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to say, anyway, or whether it was worth it. Whatever it was left him with a strangled line of indecipherable noise.

“You’ll get though this,” Delta swore, believing every word wholeheartedly. “I know you will.”

How was he supposed to? It felt impossible — like a great, looming void he had to pass through. The hole in his soul was too wide, too deep, now, to ignore. He couldn’t get it under control, it was so far out of his grasp. Another sob ripped out from his teeth.

He couldn’t, he just knew he couldn’t. Delta believed it possible, but he was just too tired. He couldn’t fight anymore, nor did he want to.

“I’m so sorry.”

He kept saying that, but Epic didn’t know what he had to be sorry about. He couldn’t have done anything to stop it — he said just as much. Not like Epic could. He, of all people, wouldn’t have known. “W-why?” he sputtered.

“That any of this happened,” his partner sighed. “That you’re hurting so much. That I didn’t get there in time, and that I can’t do anything now.”

“That’s—“ he took a deep, shaky breath. “Wasn’t your fault.”

“It wasn’t yours, either.”

“But I-I could’ve—“

“You couldn’t have done anything if you were dead!” Delta interrupted him, unsteady with emotion. He subconsciously hugged Epic closer. “Stars, you were— I was so scared that I was too late to even save you.”

It was then that it hit him. Delta was so scared, so insistent that he lived, because that was exactly what he hadn’t been able to do for his homeworld. It was why he’d joined the Star Sanses, so he could prevent that from happening to anyone else. And Epic…

He began shaking again with renewed tears. If he didn’t feel guilty before, damn did he now. What was he thinking?

“…I’m sorry.”

Delta laughed wetly. “We’ve gotta stop saying that so much.”

“N-no, I mean,“ he struggled to push the words out past the lump in his vocal nodes, “I’m crying over surviving when y-you. That’s what happened to you, too.”

He made a noise somewhere between pained and reminiscent. “I never gave myself the chance to cry, back then,” he admitted. “It’s okay.”

“Shouldn’t— I don’t want to. I h-hate,” he sniffed, then quit talking.

“I know. Me too.

He didn’t let Epic go, though, nor did he hold him any less secure. Epic didn’t attempt to remove himself, either. He remained hidden in Delta’s arms, trying in vain to put himself back together. He didn’t know why he couldn’t, now, when he was always so good at it before.

It took several, long minutes — or perhaps the seconds just stretched out longer as he waited for his sockets to dry. Still, he didn’t move. Delta didn’t acknowledge it. He just kept holding him like he’d crumble to dust at any moment.

The weight of guilt in his soul never dissipated.

“Does it ever get better?” Epic whispered, breaking the fragile silence.

Delta hummed for a moment, the way he did when he was thinking of the right words. “No,” he murmured. “It’s like… a piece of you that’ll always be missing. But you learn to manage. It takes time.”

“…How long did it take you?”

“Too long,” he admitted. A bittersweet smile grew on his face. “I still have my bad days. Sometimes I let myself think about how I could’ve changed things, or how I could go back, now, and save everyone. You can’t just come back from that, you know?”

“Mhm…”

Delta laid his skull on Epic’s. “You can grow around it, but it’ll never be the same. Not really.”

“Well, that’s encouraging,” he commented.

“I know, nothing to look forward to. At least it makes things easier.” Delta huffed a laugh. It came out as more of a sigh. “You can only keep reminding yourself that it wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have done anything differently. You didn’t know.” He spoke the words like a well-worn mantra.

“I don’t…” he hesitated. The issue was that he could’ve done things differently. Would it have even mattered how hard he fought? A part of him insisted that it did. “I don’t think I can.”

“Then I’ll tell you, until you can tell yourself.”

“I should be able to do this on my own,” Epic grumbled into Delta’s sternum.

“Doesn’t matter.” He could hear hints of Delta’s regular confidence return to his voice. “I want to help you enjoy living again.”

Well, Epic knew he couldn’t argue with that. He’d already tried, and he saw where that got him. Nonetheless, he held a bleak outlook for a future without… everything. What his partner hoped for was a tall order.

He was trying, though, even when Epic wasn’t. Wouldn’t.

“What did I do to deserve you?” he whispered, just barely able to hear himself.

Turns out, Delta heard him, too. He pulled back just enough to make sure Epic could see him eye-to-eye. “You’re one of the best things to happen to me. I wouldn’t trade you for anything.”

He nodded, the movement jerky, for lack of a better response. The words wouldn’t come.

“You trust me, right?”

“Y-yeah?”

“So can you trust that I’m going to do whatever it takes to see you smile— really smile again?”

He was so sincere, he almost made Epic tear up again. Of course, he trusted his partner more than anything, but he wasn’t sure he believed anything would get better. How was it supposed to? He wanted to believe, but he just couldn’t.

Delta did so much for him, though. He did so much for so many people across the Multiverse. Even after everything, he seemed to enjoy his life. Epic hoped so, anyway.

Hesitantly, he decided he was willing to put his faith into an impossibility for him. After all, if he was expecting nothing, he wouldn’t be disappointed when it fell through.

“Yeah,” he sighed. He dropped eye-contact with Delta. “I think I can.”

“That’s all I want.” He pulled Epic back in, letting them return to their previous positions; Epic leaning fully on Delta’s ribcage, tucked under his chin, and Delta leaning on top of Epic.

“Just… whatever happens. Please stay.”

“I promise.”