Archive of Our Own

The first - and what Error had hoped would be the only time he met Pale - had been in the Anti-Void. 

Error has a portal open that he’s half-watching, staring blandly between it and the whiteness. A chocolate wrapper scrunches into tinfoil chips between his teeth, sweet plastic coating the roof of his mouth. He doesn’t have his glasses on, and lets the colours of the portal blur together and unfocus, the familiar characters distorting into loud strangers. Brass-heavy music and shrill operatic singing fills his skull. In one hand he toys with a very old, clumsily-made puppet, whose eyes are wonky. He presses his thumb to the threads between its head and body till they threaten to break, and then pulls back just short of ripping them, so it begins to droop to one side.

It’s a dull sensory experience that he continually revisits for little other reason than nostalgia. It also keeps his thoughts at bay, for a little while, disjoints small things that might otherwise have built up and become problems. Existential dread? Character monologue. Guilt? Crunching through cellophane. It rolls an ache into his jaw and the position he’s in does absolutely nothing good for his spine and his skull rings from the noise, but. It’s comfortable. He knows how it will make him feel and how long he wants to do it for. He squeezes the doll, relaxes his hand till only strings anchor it to his palm, and then digs his fingers in again, a deathgrip on the poor fraying stitches. 

Every part of this is predictable and controlled. So it doesn’t take long for Error to start twitching at an unusual sound. 

There’s usually no quiet for him in the Anti-Void, he understands that. The babbling of the Voices dims to a murmur or slows sometimes but never truly stops, no matter how far he walks or screams at them to shut up. They’re quiet now, despite their prolonged obsession with commentating on his every move. Error is pretty sure he hasn’t gotten up in at least a few hours, except to grab another chocolate bar and shove it whole in his mouth before washing it down with the most acidic energy drink he could find. This is nothing new and doesn’t warrant many comments. 

But there’s… breathing. He can hear it, slow and measured, slightly thin. He narrows his eyes and tries to ignore it, but the sound grows more annoying in his mind even though it never really seems to change. He tugs at the doll’s head a little more harshly until a particularly loud exhale dooms it and it comes off with a satisfying rrrrrip. The smiling felt rendition of Classic’s features bounce on the non-floor of the Anti-Void. 

Error grunts aloud. He rolls over with as little effort as possible and props himself up on his elbow, turning himself in the direction of the noises, even though the Voice won’t have a physical form for him to properly address. “Whoever keeps mouthbreathing into my void, can y-”

Error’s mouth snaps shut. He stares at the figure next to his beanbag. 

His first instinct is that it’s Ink. Same sharp chin, same black splotch on the cheek, same… white unfeeling ovals for eyes, which Error registers with a mounting feeling of dread. This only intensifies when he looks further down. Everything he wears looks dull. There’s nothing standout or colourful, save for the pink-to-red cloth that’s wrapped around his upper arm like a tourniquet. His jacket is too big for him, sagging and swamping his arms; it belonged to another Sans, clearly, who hasn’t got the weird half-Swap build that some variants like Ink do. The fur of the hood puffs up ridiculously big around his skull, cream tones, reminding Error of those fluffy silk moths. 

Ink would never wear this. 

Error speaks anyway, uncertain.. “...Did you forget your vials again, idiot?”

The not-Ink but not-not-Ink stares at him. His gaze is somehow intense and weary at the same time. “...Vials.” He repeats, in a slow monotone. He cocks his head at Error, a caricature of curiosity so robotic that it makes Error uneasy. 

“Yes.” Error says, feeling slightly insane. “Your vials. Your emotions.” 

“I don’t have any of those.” When he speaks, mouth moving from that flat black line, Error can see unnecessarily sharp canine teeth. 

“You-” Error stops short. Something isn’t right. “Who are you?”

The stranger in Ink’s body keeps his neck at that unnatural droop. “Pale. That’s what he calls me. You’re like him.” Pale pauses a moment. “…Others say ‘friend’.”

“Okay,” Error nods, “okay.”

Error stabs a bone attack right through Pale’s middle. 

Pale’s eyes don’t change. His hands come up slightly curled, the faintest shiver jittering from his knees to his collarbones. There is no sound, until his mouth opens, and with a muted burble black liquid oozes out. He sways unsteadily, but remains upright despite the fact that the bone pierces the thickest part of his spine and only exits through his shoulderblade, a bloody crimson beam of colour that quickly drips ink. His clothes blacken where the magic seeps into them. 

Pale makes very deliberate eye contact with Error after a moment, and says, slowly: “Ow.”

Error doesn’t respond - too busy gaping - and Pale seems to take this as a cue to repeat himself. 

“Ouuuuch.” The sound is drawn out, like talking to a toddler, only with none of the emotion.

“I heard you the fucking first time!”  Error snaps. “Why aren’t you- fuck off and die already!”

Pale blinks at him. “Die?”

“There’s no point in arguing with you. Just,” Error scowls at him, “just go back to whatever hole you crawled out of, anomaly.”

Pale doesn’t respond to that, only stares at where he’s been skewered with idle interest. The ink dripping from his teeth creates tiny dalmatian patterns on the white floor. Horrifyingly slowly, his body begins to move forwards, sliding down the attack with the wet friction his own raw magic creates as it bleeds out of him. He still looks tired, almost bored, as if this violence is beneath him. 

Error decides this is a mercy kill, frankly. 

Pale doesn’t talk through the next attacks. One in the neck and one through his sternum ensure he can’t, although the glassy sound of bones splintering into dozens of pieces makes Error wince. Error stands to inspect Pale as a dark circle of black wells up beneath his body. Pale’s eyelights are gone, and his head knocks to one side, pinned to the ground now like a taxidermy butterfly. It was so easy. Breaking apart his black-and-white body, fragile as a dead leaf under footfall. Error feels slightly sick, considering it. 

There’s no fear or surprise in his expression. And he doesn’t dust, another confirmation on Error’s already-growing list that there’s no soul in his chest. He would almost look relaxed, splayed out like this if there wasn’t blood everywhere.

Error has seen Ink like this. Except Ink usually fought back. And felt pain. 

“It’s better this way.” Error says aloud. The unusual silence that accompanies these words nauseates him further. He opens a portal and watches Pale’s wet body drop through it, then flops and turns over to watch another fight between Asgoro and Sin.

Of course, like every other annoying thing in Error’s life, Pale pops up again. 

It happens when Error realises how badly he’s lost control of a half-destroyed universe, when his last blaster whines and goes up in an impressive, but nonetheless defeated burst of magic and fire. 

“Fuck!” He howls, shielding his face with an arm, watching the careful network of his strings disintegrate under the heat. His captives, all the souls he’s been puppeting, fall to the ground, choking and gasping. Some claw at where their soul had been held, and others stagger into a desperate run away from the ruin, the corner that Error’s been backed into. Error throws out more wires in an attempt to pull them back, but his reach for power snags around nothing and his strings fall in confused knots to the ground. 

Error stands there a moment. Again, he attempts to summon a flurry of bones, more blasters to rain hell upon this universe, but it’s like trying to force a ruptured muscle to move, fruitless and painful. His body has expelled as much magic as it can, glitches swarming his sides frantically, and Error knows if he pushes further he’s going to be nursing these broken bones for a lot longer. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s fucking annoying, though, the Destroyer forced to flee instead of fight. 

He turns on his heel and runs. Well. Run is a strong word - it’s essentially glorified limping due to the deep needle-press wound from Dream’s arrow in the back of his knee, aided by short lengths of strings that he uses to swing himself forwards for momentum. The Stars won’t do anything to him - the worst Ink’s stupid sunshine crew has done is lecture him while he tried to free himself from a cocoon of Ink’s clotted paint bindings. 

But recently there’s been a suggestion of more. Blue following him to ask if he wanted to be healed. Dream smiling at him hopefully from across the battlefield, as though he hadn’t just watched Error slaughter dozens. Core with their always-infuriating offer of help. They all still fight him, of course, but there’s a kind of pity in it now that Error loathes. It’s getting harder and harder to be taken seriously. 

And Ink… well. Ink’s the same as he’s always been. Error wonders if he would care that Error killed the not-him. Probably not, considering. 

Error hurtles down another alley, presses himself against the wall. He’s not even sure that he was being chased, before, but now he can’t hear footsteps at all, and laughs a quiet, relieved breath. This AU’s some shitty surface timeline - all concrete and copy-pasted flats, graffiti sprawling in illegible squiggles across painted grey brick. No horrific brutality happening, just a fucking depressing story where everybody swallows what they want to say to each other until it’s too late. Also, from the look of some of the spray-paint, Error would guess that the monster-human relations here aren’t doing too well. 

Error peers to the side, where the door to the complex is ajar. The window is completely smashed as well, probably in the delightful hysteria he’d managed to stir up before the saviours came along and ruined it. He slips inside. If it’s empty, it’ll be a good place to recharge his reserves just enough to portal out of here. Regrettably, this isn’t a fight he’s going to win, and there’s no point sticking around for big plaintive eyes and his name said in a cajoling voice, as though that’ll make him sit down and play friends with them all. 

The hallway’s lights are flickering. There’s a stained grey carpet beneath his feet as he pads slowly forwards. A soft thud accompanies the out-of-place drag of his left leg. Every single door is shut, deep red-brown and imposing, but there’s a little chipped table at the end of the hall. Someone has put fake blue flowers in a jug on top of it. Error feels his code burning at the back of his leg, an immune system written in ones and zeroes angrily trying to stitch his patella back together. 

He groans, drags himself towards the table, and sits himself grumbling underneath it. Hot pain shoots up as he drags his knees close to his chest, and for a moment his body loses shape, colours spiking outwards and breaking into one another before he re-aligns, buzzing. It’s a jarring sensation, frightening almost, and he glares at a black smudge on the carpet, trying to school his breathing back to normal. Knocks his skull back against the wall, the fluorescent light blinking erratically above him, casting the hallway in sickly yellow. 

The door twitches.

Error freezes as somebody fumbles with it, the distinct sound of knuckles scraping against wood horribly loud. He’s been here barely a minute, and his magic still crackles uselessly when he tries to open a portal. He closes his eyes, stretches his vision into code, and sees the familiar lacking of Ink’s script. Like this, Ink is easy to identify, the places where his commands just stop short, the graceless chunks of numbers torn out and their malfunctioning remnants. It’s a reminder, strangely, that Ink is just as much of a glitch as he is. 

The door opens, though, and then it isn’t Ink who looks back at him. Error’s greeting dies on his tongues, and he levels a stubborn glare down the hall. Pale moves slowly, almost cautiously lethargic. With his awkwardly curled hands and too-white eyelights, he resembles some mangy animal on a trail camera, inching his way down the hall. There’s no evidence of injury where Error struck him before, he looks almost exactly the same as when they first met, but Error sees a sort of purpose in his movements. Error wonders for a moment if he’s come to kill him in revenge, and dismisses the thought not only because it’s stupid but also because it makes him nervous. 

“Why are you here?” Error hisses, unwilling to get up to address him properly and put strain on his leg again. Pale stops in his tracks. “I thought I got rid of you, anomaly. Or do you just want to die again? I-”

Pale holds a finger to his teeth. Shhh. His expression conveys no urgency, he doesn’t seem like he cares if Error shuts up or not, and yet Error goes quiet. “I’ll… show you something. I can help you.” 

Nothing about this sentence seems good for Error. “Do I look like I need your help?”

Pale doesn’t respond, reaching into the wrinkled pocket of his jacket. A few things fall out as Pale searches for what he’s looking for - receipts, human money, monster gold, and bizarrely a pair of cracked sunglasses. Pale makes no move to pick anything up, and eventually takes a lamp out of his jacket. 

At least, that’s what Error thinks it is, when he first sees it. It glows soft yellow against Pale’s grey hands, a perfect globe of raw light that illuminates the apathy on Pale’s face. Shining like a smaller, cooler sun, staining Error’s vision, splotches of indigo blooming when he blinks. Pale’s body language has changed. All pretence of emotion is gone, as if his focus is elsewhere now. 

Pale lifts his hands to his face, closes his eyes as if praying. Error digs his fingers into the carpet. He’d feel safer if he could get a read on this situation, neatly trap Pale with a network of strings, but he can’t do anything except sit and stare. Pale’s mouth yawns wide, and he presses the sunshine onto his tongue, drinking it down quickly. 

When the glow is fully gone, the world begins to break apart. 

It’s an unfamiliar destruction, one not caused by Error’s hand. There’s no glitches frothing over anything, no gameplay infrastructure that begins to fold in on itself, no colour warp and sparks. Pale’s dismantling is slower, calmer. The whiteness from his body spreads like mycelium across the floor from his feet, coaxing the colour out of first the carpet, then the doors. Error, paralysed, feels the texture of the wall behind him simply smooth out, ceasing to exist. Nothing feels like anything anymore, and the musty hallway smell is gone. 

Grubby pencil lines are the only indicators of where anything used to be within moments, inconsistent and wavering. Error can see columns where there used to be none, scribbled notes about characters and storyboards, the doors an entirely different style to the finished ones he’d seen about two seconds ago. When he looks down, any suggestion of a floor beneath their feet is just an outlined rectangle, and he shrieks aloud, half-expecting to fall straight through the rough sketches that bracket him in. 

 And then, as though a large hand is taking an eraser to them, those fade away too. Gradually, the universe becomes indiscernible from his own Anti-Void. Error wonders if he’s lost it completely for a moment. 

Suddenly, Pale laughs, so like Ink it makes Error physically flinch. Pale continues, head tipped back, giggling like he’s trying it on for size, seeing if the sound fits in his throat. His eyes are two startling pinpricks of gold, his teeth bared in a triumphant grin that transforms his face, turning it mischievous and knowing and so terribly familiar. 

“Oh! Oh, this was a good one!” Pale says, beaming. “I thought it’d make me all sad ‘cause of how this place looks, y’know? But this is so much better.”

Pale wraps his arms around himself, then reaches his hands high above his head, moves his hips in a slow circle, as if warming up for something. He keeps talking, and Error has to blink hard to verify that he’s seeing two symmetrical ovals still instead of ever-changing shapes. 

“And you stayed.” Pale stops moving, fixes Error with his yellow, alert gaze. “I knew you would. You’re all flickery too, y’know?”

It takes Error a dazed moment to realise he’s talking about his glitches. “What did you do?”

“You saw what I did!” Pale grins. “Everyone’s dead ‘cause I ate the glowy thing. Only me and you are left ‘cause we’re not extras. Tragic, I knoooow, but what can you do?” 

Error laughs somewhat hysterically. “What the fuck. You… destroy universes? For feelings?”

“Yup!” Pale pops the ‘p’, and crouches down to be at Error’s level, scooching closer - making Error realise with a jolt he’s still sitting down, despite the lack of wall or table. “You could call it that. I’ll let you in on a secret, though.” Pale’s grin turns conspiratorial, almost wicked. “I’ve been looking for you!”

Error leans away from Pale as much as possible, before abandoning hope and scrambling to his feet, cursing under his breath as his leg threatens to buckle. “What do you want.”

“Whoa, whoa!” Pale laughs. He, too, stands, but doesn’t try to invade Error’s space again. “Defensive much! I saw you one time, when you were getting rid of an AU like I do.” Pale pauses dramatically, grin widening, “Now I think we can help each other! You want to get rid of AUs, I want the glowy things in them. If you help me get them, it’s a win-win situation, right?”

“I’m fine on my own.” 

“Are you?” 

“Wh- of course I am!” Error snaps. “Listen to me- I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want your help, I don’t want you to keep fucking following me! You…” Error trails off. 

Pale isn’t listening, inspecting his own clothes. “Aw, drat. They’ve gone all weird again…” He mumbles, before blinking back up to Error. “Huh? Oh, you’re angry.”

“Do you… like the blank spaces?” Error blurts. He needs something else - anything else to distance Pale from the Ink he knows. 

“What a weird question!” Pale remarks. His smile doesn’t go, but it does fade a little as he looks around. “I hate the blank spaces, to be honest. Boooring. Usually I’d be out of here by now.”

“Don’t let me keep you.” Error says, and turns around to open a portal, praying that his magic will finally cooperate. 

“Waitwaitwait!” Pale springs right in front of him, and then back a little. He clasps his hands pleadingly, grinning too wide. His face is so- he looks so achingly familiar it’s fucking with Error’s head. 

“Your, uhm, your plan!”

“What,” Error grinds out, “plan?”

“The one where you get rid of all the universes? I remembered! I’m perfect for it, see, because I don’t care about anyone or anything!”

“Bullshit.” 

“It’s true! Nothing lasts, so nothing matters. What’s the point of getting sentimental about any of it?”

Error opens his mouth to reply, but Pale cuts him off.

“Oh, speaking of, I need to get going. Gotta make the most of the yellow ones, they’re the best. Au revoir!”

And with that, Pale sinks into a pile of ink on the floor, his expression watery before his body loses form. Error stares at the place he was for a long moment.

“An Ink who destroys things, huh?” He mumbles aloud, the barest, incredulous smile curving his teeth before he grimaces. “...What a mindfuck.”

Error checks the code - sure enough, everything is gone. Pale didn’t take any souls, didn’t physically kill anyone, but the data has been neatly scraped, not a trace of its existence left besides the fact that Error still stands here - and probably the Stars, too, trying to figure out what happened. Good luck to them, Error thinks. When he leaves, this place will probably just cease to exist, its only current purpose supporting the presence of an Outcode. 

Error’s almost annoyed at how good of a job Pale has done. He would’ve liked to wave some statements in his face, grin over a ‘you missed a spot’ as he tears the remaining chunks of code out, but there’s nothing left to even be nitpicky about. Error, admittedly, enjoys the chaos of ruining a world just as much as the clean satisfaction of completely clearing it out, and one without the other is only half the fun. 

Ultimately he’s happy, though. Pale has just helped him snatch back this universe from where he was completely losing it, and now it’s one less thing to worry about. It’s just the uncertainty of it all making Error frown. Someone that volatile could ruin everything. 

Especially someone who wears Ink’s face, moves like Ink, speaks like Ink, bleeds like him. Error remembers the buglike spasming of Pale’s limbs before he went still, and shudders himself in sympathy. He doesn’t care about violence usually, he doesn’t regret trying to kill Ink dozens of times, but the happiness on Pale’s face as he cheerfully told Error nothing matters makes it worse, somehow. Pale could probably kill Error, and not feel a single thing. Error gets that impression, even when Pale’s full of joyful yellow. He pictures those hungry pinprick eyelights fixating on his weak spots; neck, spine, skull, ways to crack Error open to get what he wants. The image is so vivid and sharp it almost scares him again, and he clutches at his scarf as if moving invisible grey hands away. 

Error doesn’t move for a while longer, staring at the black stain on the otherwise white floor. He’s not going to turn down free help, he decides, but nothing more. One Ink is enough. 

It starts slow at first, Pale sitting near him when he watches things in the Anti-Void, asking occasional questions in a slow, blunt monotone. Error yells at him to fuck off, and he sits there silently hearing but not understanding, properly. Error’s always aware of his presence and it grates to the point where he storms out to be in Outertale, but he doesn’t hurt Pale again. (It’s genuinely selfish,  Error reminds himself; there’s no point in trying to kill him if he won’t die, and anyways the thought of it puts that weird feeling in his chest again, so he only leaves Pale alone to serve himself, really). 

It’s simple and transactional otherwise; Error destroys an AU, Pale slaughters its inhabitants and gets the core. Pale doesn’t shy away from murdering in-codes, dust and blood spattering his right cheek sometimes, a powdery crimson mirror of his ink-stain. Pale isn’t interested in sprees though - largely, when he gets the core, he runs off and leaves Error to do the next universe on his own. But the first ones get easier and easier when they work together. Error is loath to admit it, but Pale is useful, somehow. He thinks animals do something like this. Mutualism.

On the rare occasion Pale stays with Error after getting his emotions, he sits in the same string hammock Ink does, staring at Error as he swings back and forth. Gradually, the strings turn white where he sits. Pale drains the colour from literally anything, Error realises after a while, like some fucked-up Midas touch. He leaves silvery footprints when he follows Error into AUs, leeches the brightness gently from any clothes he finds, turning them dull pastels.

Once Error watched Pale hook his arm around the neck of a human - another surface timeline - and they simply smoothed out. It was quick, Pale’s face still-bored as the human clawed first at his arm, then slackened, then lost all definition, becoming lifeless as a clothing mannequin until he dropped them with a clatter and went off to find the core. In this aspect Pale is like a bloodhound; his expression calm and focused as he follows the lines of a universe to its most populous, plot-focused places, before pawing at a surface, a cupboard or an object, until the warm glow of the core reveals itself. 

Pale’s less eerie when he has emotions, but only marginally. He either leaves Error alone, disappears for a while and returns blank, or follows Error and asks incessant questions.

The worst thing is that Error starts to answer them. 

“Sooo.” Pale’s gaze is always a physical thing. He feels those pinprick eyelights like two hot drills in the back of his skull. Pale seems to always be staring at him - especially in the Anti-Void, where he’d already admitted he found the blankness unnerving. “Tell me. Why’re you doing this?”

“Doing what?” Error replies. He’s watching a new universe, one where all the characters have their own massive realms, similar to the original timeline’s map, only far more vast. It’s soothing for some reason and Error finds himself strangely addicted, despite it being a poor rehash of the original at best. 

Error hears a guitar string twanging, tuneless, and his eye twitches. He turns, and Pale is slouched on the hammock, beaten-up acoustic guitar across his lap, stolen from some random AU on a whim. His slender fingers adjust the tuning pegs, then he tests it again, with what sounds like little success. He’s relaxed, swinging slightly, like he owns the place. (Error doesn’t know if the Anti-Void can even be owned, but finders keepers, asshole!)  Pale's eyes are a synthetic lime colour, a world's worth of emotion crammed into bright little circles.

“Destroying. Killing. Being an avatar of cosmic doom. Why?” His voice is also strange when he has emotions, Error notes. He places too much emphasis on the wrong words, with mismatched facial expressions, and sometimes when Error glitches badly while talking Pale stammers back at him, not out of mockery like he’d first thought but like some sort of weird copycat.

“You’re the one who does the killing.” Error mutters. It’s true; not being afraid of touch is an advantage in the conflict department, and the workarounds Error has developed are just not as efficient as Pale mercilessly butchering a group of monsters defending the core. 

“But you still take the code apart.” Pale persists, plucking at a string and producing a dull sound. “The coup de grâce.”

“I do it because someone has to.” Error says, and smiles. “Nobody else recognises how every single timeline - save for the original - just doesn’t make the cut. All mistakes, all mindless creation without thought for the bigger picture. I’m just a catalyst in this Multiverse’s inevitable collapse when everyone realises how pointless they are.”

Pale’s mouth twitches into a confused smile, one that has him frowning and showing too many teeth for Error’s liking. “...I don’t get it.”

Error huffs, sits up properly on the beanbag to gesture. “Okay, think of it like… like you bake a really good cake, right? And everyone sees that cake and they’re all amateurs or whatever, they try to recreate that cake. And every single one of them except the first cake you baked is shit! They’re all burnt or soggy or underseasoned or- or have convoluted plots that lead the characters on the same cycles over and over and over-”

“Are we still talkin’ about cake?”

“No, dumbass, it wasn’t- it’s an analogy.”

“Ohhh. Boring! You sound like Template.” Pale sighs and squirms on the hammock to sit cross-legged, guitar bashing against the ground hollowly as he grips the fingerboard in his fist. Error says a prayer of thanks internally.

“Like who?” 

“Template! He’s my friend.” 

Error squints at him. “Some in-code?”

“No, not an extra. He’s like you, he stays after everything goes. But he keeps getting in my way when I want to eat the glowy things. He gets all, all puffed up. Yells at me, tells me I’m a terrible villain, that I should leave the AUs alone.” Pale hums, drumming his fingers on his ankles with his free hand. “He helps me, though.”

"You said he looks like me."

“Mhm! You both have the weird pixel bits.” Pale gestures up and down his own body. “And your eyes are the same. But he wears glasses, and these suspenders, and he has a big pen.”

“Is he as annoying as you?” 

Pale laughs at that, a quiet snerk widening into a proper giggle. “You’re funny. I like you.” 

It’s disarmingly honest, and Error blinks at Pale for a moment before he turns his face quickly away. “Shut up, anomaly. You’d laugh at a fucking tree if it moved in the wind.”

Pale proves his point by continuing to laugh. Error hears the hammock stretching erratically around his shaking body, and picks at the beanbag, a tiny thread loosening and allowing polystyrene beads to leak out. 

“...What’s your plan, anyways?” Error asks. 

“My plan?” 

“Yeah.”

“Go with the flow? Keep eating the glowy stuff for as long as possible. I wanna have as much fun as I can!” Pale picks up the guitar again, strums gently, senseless rhythms and notes that don’t match, pinching inexpertly at the frets. 

“...That’s it?” (Error’s never known an Outcode so obstinately useless. Usually they at least pretend to want to do something in the Multiverse.)

“Yeah! I don’t care about anything else- I can’t care about anything else. Sure, I enjoy it when it happens, and I have a good time with the extras, but it’s always over too quickly.” Pale’s smile doesn’t drop, but it looks a little strained. “Like now. I’m gonna run out any minute. I can feel it…fading.” 

Pale drops the guitar again, flops back down onto the hammock, staring upwards, legs dangling. He was right - Error could see the brilliance of his eyes beginning to cloud over. Error wonders whether Pale knows the way he acts is so reflective of Ink it can’t be coincidental, whether Pale knows the random French phrases and dislike of the Anti-Void are not entirely of his own volition, but something predetermined. 

“C’mon, keep talking.” Pale says suddenly. “Not long left.”

“What the fuck do you want me to say?” Error feels mildly exasperated and tired at this introspection while Pale sits there like he doesn’t have a thought in his head. 

“Anything.” Pale’s eyes are quick dots of green now, vanishing into white, his smile a nervous little bird-beak uptick. “Just…”

…

Pale sighs gently, and then it’s gone. His gaze shifts away from Error, back to the ceiling. It’s still and quiet again save for the breathing. 

Error glares, and turns his attention back to the portal, which didn’t seem quite as soothing as before. 

…If he destroys the next universe a little quicker, nobody will notice.

“So-o-o.” Ink says, playfully slow. “What happened to the hammock?”

Error freezes, a staggered “huh?” leaving his mouth that glitches out for far longer than it needs to. He stares between Ink and the hammock for a moment before he shakes his head in a futile attempt to buy himself time. 

“...What about the hammock?” He finally replies, when it becomes clear from Ink’s staring that he isn’t going to drop it. 

“It’s gone all white, see?” Ink says, and leans over to flip it up, thumbing at the strings with distaste. “How’d that happen?”

Error shrugs. “Fuck if I know. The Anti-Void does weird shit.”

“Mm.” Then:

“Do you think I’m that stupid, Error?” An amused smile stretches Ink’s mouth, but his eyes are severe, icy colours, purple and blue. 

Error snorts like it’s a joke, but he knows it isn’t. He’d forgotten to keep Ink away from the hammock before they went to Outertale, he hadn’t been thinking, and now he has no possible excuse. He doesn’t know why the idea of Pale and Ink interacting fills him with such dread; even Ink’s vague acknowledgement of Pale’s existence makes him blink hard and stare at the floor. 

There’s a rustle of Ink checking his scarf, and then: 

“People are saying I have a ghost.” Ink steps a little closer to Error, bends at the waist with his hands behind his back, head tilted. It’s so condescending it makes Error’s face hot. 

“Stop it.” Error hisses. “You’re being an asshole.”

“Sorry.” Ink does not sound remotely sorry. “I’d just like to knooow.”

Error glares at him until he finally straightens up and backs off, sitting on the newly-drained hammock gingerly, like it’ll bite him. 

“...His name’s Pale.”

“Oh?” Ink nods, all falsely inquisitive like his eyes aren’t lilac with fear. Error sighs.

“Why are you- if you have a problem just say it. Okay?” Error says, harsh enough to get the point across, and maybe enough to kick some sense into Ink. His voice clips out and pitches deeper, and Ink twitches at the sound. 

“We- we had you cornered.” Ink says in a rush, gesturing outwards. “In… Urbantale. Was it?” He doesn’t wait for Error to confirm. “How did you pull that stunt with the disappearing, and the sketches, and-”

“I didn’t do any of that.” Error interrupts as Ink’s voice takes on a slightly frantic edge. “That was all him. He eats the core of the universe or some shit like that, and it makes everything fade.”

“Right.” Ink laughs nervously. “I’m not Sci, but I’m pretty sure that’s just not possible.” 

“It’s all the same, though, isn’t it?” Error says, voicing the thoughts he’s had for a while, now. “Your vials aren’t from the AUs themselves, it’s whatever weird emotion the freak who makes them has, right? So it’s not that far of a leap to say that the core would have some of that emotion, too.”

“Oh.” Ink says. “Yeah, that’s… another problem. Why are you only getting rid of the happy ones?”

Error opens his mouth, then closes it, realising he has no real answer to that question. 

Ink crosses one leg over the other, and he fiddles with his yellow vial. “It’s taking a toll, y’know. Nightmare’s getting worse, and you’re getting rid of all these worlds, sooo… what the hell are we supposed to do? It’s all one big feedback loop.”

“...Are you asking me to go easy on your stupid crew?” Error asks, incredulous. 

“I’m asking you to get rid of the negative ones as well. Y’know, even it out.”

“Cry me a river.” Error scoffs. “If you can’t handle yourselves that’s not my problem.”

“So helpful, as always.” Ink looks off to the side, in a way that he probably thinks makes him look thoughtful, but in reality just seems impish. “...What’s Pale like?”

“Weird.”

“Okay, I’m weird, you’re weird, elaborate.” Ink demands. “He’s also a Sans, right?”

“Yeah. He’s… he looks like you, though, not like a Classic. No soul, obviously.” Error has a sensation like his mouth is crammed with dry cotton wool as he talks. “He steals other people’s clothes and wears them. He turns everything… pale.” Error gestures at the hammock. “And I can’t kill him.” 

“You tried to kill him?” Ink repeats incredulously. 

“Fucking- obviously! What do you think I do when someone randomly shows up in my Anti-Void?”

“Holy shit.” Ink giggles weakly, uncorks yellow, takes a sip, swishing it around in his mouth before swallowing. “Oh, I kind of wish you’d killed him. Is that bad? It’d be so much easier if he didn’t exist.” 

Against his will, Error feels a frown settle into his face. “You haven’t even met him.” 

“I’m not sure I want to. He just sounds like a worse version of me.” Ink hums, legs swinging. “It must be bad, since you kept him all secret.”

“You’re making this way bigger than it actually is.” Error snaps, blushing again at the implications. “He follows me around for scraps, and he’s sometimes halfway useful, so I let him. That’s it. He’s not even fucking here half the time, anyways. He told me himself that he doesn’t care about anything or anyone.”

Ink’s smile dies. His movements come to a slow stop, and he looks almost haunted, his eyes flickering blue and red. “Oh.”

“...What?”

“That’s… kind of, wow, that makes me feel awful.” Ink laughs again, sadly. “It’s no wonder he likes you then! If he is… me. I mean, you’re so colourful and loud, you’re everything I wanted back when I…” 

Ink hasn’t touched him this whole time, but the look he gives Error is so vibrant and intense it feels like a warm hand on his face, or a sucker punch to the gut. 

“He doesn’t like me. He likes that I get him feelings.”

“Why does he sit on the hammock, then?” 

Error scowls. “Ninety percent of the time he’s messing around with other in-codes.” 

“Huh. Yet another glaring problem!” Ink remarks, eyebrows raised. “I think this guy might just be the complete antithesis of me or something. But fine! Do what you want with him, you have my blessing.”

“Stop making it FUCKING sound like that-”

“Just please try to get rid of some of the negative universes too?” Ink clasps his hands under his chin, widening his eyes. “For your bestestest pal- or whatever you consider me to be.”

“Idiot. Moron. The list goes on.” Error groans, pressing a palm to his forehead. “It makes no difference to me about the universes. They’re all terrible.”

“Debatable.” Ink says, before he stands up. “Oh, and Error?”

“What, asshole.”

Ink grins wide. “You can’t replace me, okay?”

Error had never really noticed before, the way Pale steered towards happier universes to get rid of. It was all the same to him. But now in a distinctly negative and depressing Horrortale AU, Error tosses him a core and Pale catches it, shining blueish against his hands instead, there’s no carefree smile that appears on his face after eating it. The walls of the Grillby’s begin to vanish - sometimes the emotional core was in weird fucking places - and Pale leans against the counter, breathing strangely, ragged, seeing nothing.

Error waits for the smile, the buoyant curiosity and utter lack of regret that the core usually gave to him. 

Pale looks up from his hands and dissolves into sobs. His whole body scrunches closed, like a crumpled rag, arms wrapped around his torso and tears slipping loose from tight-shut eyes. The sound is heavy and coughing, and sounds momentarily like Pale actually can’t breathe for the shuddering that wracks his body. Error stands, frozen, his glitches fizzling loudly as Pale howls. It’s not until the violence of it calms slightly that Pale speaks again, small and choked-up: 

“It’s all my fault.”

“What?” Error says. 

“I-it’s- everything is my fault.” Pale repeats. He wipes his face on one of his sleeves forlornly, still crying, but weaker than before. “Everyone’s dead and it’s my fault.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Error squints at him, this new tearstained person that was seconds ago closing his fist around a monster’s soul to break it. “It’s just the core, anomaly. You don’t actually care.” He’s not sure if he’s trying to convince Pale or himself. 

“I want to go home.” Pale says, shrill and hiccuping. “I want- I want-”

Pale’s mouth goes square and he begins to sob again, all-consuming grief stolen from someone else. He staggers, wrong-footed, when the bartop finally disappears fully. The sketches are gone now and it’s all white. Error should leave, should move on to the next universe and leave Pale to tough this emotion out until it fades. Pale would find him again, easily enough. 

He doesn’t move. He feels stuck in place, almost magnetically, and his fingers itch for his strings as he watches the furrow of Pale’s brow. It’s just a shallow reflection of someone else’s emotions, Error knows now more than ever, but there’s a dull memory stirring in Error’s head, a fucked-up nostalgia that makes his teeth clench. Toriel, with her translucent body and calm, knowing smile, the familiarity and yet the wrongness of how she came before him: No, I can sense it. This is your body. Then more words he couldn’t understand and a searing sapphire pain beneath his eyes. And then it was quiet. 

Home. What was a home to an Outcode, anyway?

Error blinks, torn from his thoughts at the sound of retching, and sees Pale doubled over, black slime dripping from between his teeth, trailing down from his nose. He had never seen Pale vomit before, but now the sight makes him uneasy. He steps closer to him, wavering a moment, before he pulls the fluff on Pale’s hood out of the splash zone gingerly, soft against his fingers. It’s a long while before Pale straightens up and Error lets go of him. 

He stares at Error helplessly. His eyes are blue, the colour of a sky in winter grown dark too early. They’re dilated now, nothing like the usual pinpricks, and look almost soft, like if Error stuck his hand straight into his socket his eyelight would feel gelid and pliable. 

Error grumbles, grabs the very edge of a baggy sleeve, and opens a portal. There went his plans for destroying anything else today. Pale doesn’t resist when he tugs him forwards, but makes a snuffly, confused noise that Error doesn’t bother to respond to. Error focuses on walking and ignoring Pale’s despondent trudging behind him, and on forgetting the arm he was holding belonged to another person, which quelled the fear trying to worm its way into his skull slightly. 

Outertale. Safer bet than the Anti-Void. Quiet. He closes the portal behind them and opens another one, turning to address Pale. “Stay here. I’ll be back.” 

Pale gives him a small, wobbly nod, face a mess of tears and ink. 

Error leaves again, stands in the calm nothingness of the Anti-Void for a moment. He drags his hands down his face.

 “...What. The. Fuuuuuuck.” He says, slowly, and claws string from his eyes to tug at it, his eye twitching.

How is he supposed to make any of this better? What is he doing, telling Pale to wait for him and coming here? Error doesn’t know how to be comforting, or how to help him, and his glitches hiss up and down his body as he stands, agitated, trying to organise himself. He knows he needs to do something about this, he can’t just sit and watch Pale cry, but-

It’s so different, when Ink is upset. Ink with his constant I’m fines and his reluctant drinking of darker, colder-coloured vials. There’s always something ironic Ink can say about a situation, something self-aware and wry even when tears are trailing down his face. Error suspects this is a larger problem of Ink never fully taking his own negative emotions seriously, but it’s fucking worked for them so far, even if ‘coping mechanism’ is just a nice synonym of ‘repression’ at this point. Error would be a hypocrite to criticise him. 

There’s nothing remotely like that with Pale now. Error doesn’t know what to do with such all-consuming despair. He ties the strings into neat little knots and removes them from his eyes, looking at the blue squiggles in his palm, before he starts off towards his beanbag. He crouches, and picks stuff up, puts it down again, nauseatingly aware that Pale is still waiting for him all the while. He ends up with two blankets he likes, as well as a bar of chocolate and one of his puppets, and stupidly a small red human soul, swinging like a charm from strings in his fist. In case Pale liked the glow by association.

He opens up the portal to Outertale again, and Pale turns his head. He makes a pitiful image, sat slumped on the ground and crying, but his sobs seem to lessen slightly as Error approaches. Error walks awkwardly, hampered by everything he’s holding. He shoves the soul in his pocket and fumbles with the blanket, places it down and fusses at the planet’s layer of dust. 

“Look, you’ve got it all over your clothes.” Error huffs, feeling inane as he addresses Pale without looking at him. He puts the other blanket out, and sits down on it. Pale just keeps crying, long, silent shudders. 

“Pale. Pale.” Error says, loud, trying to get his attention. “Come here.”

Pale makes a low, wounded noise and obeys, dragging himself onto the blanket. “It hurts.” He whimpers, and Error has to close his eyes tight and remind himself that Pale does not actually feel this way, that Pale is experiencing someone else’s emotions. 

“I know.” Error says, trying to make his voice kinder than the tone he is so used to using. It sounds soft, stupid, and he tries again. “Do you want to eat something?” Pale was ravenous sometimes when he had feelings, and this was an annoyance to Error because he’d had many a chocolate bar stolen or greasy burger crumbs left on the floor of his Anti-Void. Other times he ate, but only in very small birdlike portions, seemingly for the feeling of chewing rather than out of hunger. 

Pale shakes his head anyway, and squirms his way closer, nudging his skull against Error’s knee, damp. “I feel sick.”

Error breathes very slowly and doesn’t look at where they touch. He flicks his gaze to Pale’s back instead, the minute tremors that still wrack him, the dull grey-green trainers with dirty pink laces. Every time he looks at him he imagines Ink’s reaction to someone with such a decidedly aesthetically confused outfit, and he feels himself smile faintly. 

Pale keeps talking - he’s half-coherent, mumbling, getting louder and then fading out again. 

“...Nobody loves me. Template was r-right about me, I only ever make things worse, I ruin everything. I could die and nobody would care, nobody would even miss me, maybe it would just be better…”

“I thought,” Error presses, the gentlest he’s ever spoken to Pale,  “you didn’t care about anyone?”

Pale doesn’t answer for a moment. Then: 

“I can’t, until I do, and then-” Pale inhales thickly. “-then it feels like the worst thing in the world. I’m not a good friend, I’m not even a good rival for Template, nobody cares about me and nobody loves me and I’m going to- going to-”

Pale starts to sob again, senselessly, and Error places his hand to the pocket the soul is in, feels the throb of magic against his fingertips, the not-quite human heartbeat but close enough. Something tells him that Pale will not feel better at the sight of it. 

“...Where does it hurt?” Error asks eventually, his voice too-quiet. 

Pale blinks at him tearfully. “My chest.” Pale pushes a shaking hand onto the blanket, turns himself over, so that Error can see how tearstained his turtleneck is. 

“It feels like burning, but I’m empty there.” Pale’s eyes take on a hollow, glassy look. “I don’t- that’s why nobody loves me, because it’s all broken, always has been, and I can’t ever fix it-”

“Pale.” Error interrupts firmly, not bothering to question who this unnamed ‘everyone’ was. “I don’t care whether you have a soul or not, okay? It doesn’t matter to me.”

Pale falls silent then, momentarily. Error moves his hand, hovering over Pale’s skull for a moment. Like this, his head almost rests in Error’s lap, and Error’s concern swirls into fear for a moment until he takes a deep, steeling inhale and lightly touches his hand to Pale’s sternum. 

It’s awful. Of course it is. He hasn’t taken enough time to build up with it, and he doesn’t touch Pale often, so his glitches immediately protest, colour bleeding out into pixelated shapes and ERROR warnings forming on his fingers. Pale lets out another pained noise and Error properly presses his hand against his collarbone, then pulls it gently down, stroking him cautiously. He cups his hand a little to smooth down the curve of Pale’s ribcage, feeling the irregularities of badly-healed bones in the vague outline of two clasping hands.

Error trembles right along with Pale, but he doesn’t crash, and Pale’s harsh breathing dies down a little, his eyes following the paths of Error’s multicoloured fingers. It’s a while before either of them speak again, and Error glances up at the sky, realising he’d forgotten to look at it since he came here, so preoccupied with Pale’s condition. 

“...Error?” Pale’s midnight-blue eyes on his face, now. 

“Yeah?” Error's voice is slightly garbled from lack of use, splicing itself into nearly-incomprehensible chunks.

“...Do you care about me?” A tear spills soundlessly down Pale’s cheek. He can’t seem to stop crying even when his voice remains mostly clear. “Or do I just look like someone?”

Error stills for a moment. He finds Pale’s gaze unbearably intense, and continues the motion of petting him, even though it’s more to soothe himself now rather than the skeleton below him. Little static shocks begin to pop up between the wool of Pale’s turtleneck and his hand. 

“...You don’t actually care.” Error reminds him. “I’m just… convenient. For you.”

“Tell me anyway.” Pale takes another shaky breath. “Please?”

Error blinks very hard. “Yes. I… yeah.” He moves his hand to Pale’s skull, wiping tears from the slant of his cheekbone. He speaks in a way he’s never spoken before, words clumsy and unpractised. “You’re okay, anomaly. It’s alright.”

Pale’s eyes close, seemingly satisfied with that answer, and he moves his cheek against Error’s palm, nestling into him. In another way this is different to comforting Ink - Ink has his stars, and his fathers. If Error did not comfort Pale then nobody else would. It makes him feel slightly panicked, watching Pale cry, petting over his skull, and he dislikes the feeling of being needed, instead of wanted. But at the same time leaving him here is just not an option. 

Fuck. Had Ink hijacked Error’s mind that badly? That he would allow this hollow imitation of him to touch him in ways most monsters would lose their lives and their worlds for? Even then, Error knows he’s more than just allowing him. 

He lifts his hand, curled index finger against the side of Pale’s face, and Pale turns his head so that the touch glances off, staring tearfully at the patterns on the blanket. 

Pale leaves after he runs out of tears to cry, and doesn’t return for a while.

Error’s used to this inconsistency, and doesn’t question it. His life goes on, interrupted only by dropping into Blue’s timeline to sit on his couch and watch a movie until he feels like he exists again, and then leaving. Blue is still slightly scared of him, Error can tell, and the cigarette smoke in the air feels like a warning when his brother passes by them. The knowledge that Error could kill them both if he wanted to is no longer comforting, strangely. 

Ink drops by as usual. Error finds him difficult to read at the best of times and now is no exception; it’s impossible to know whether Ink truly minds Error talking to Pale. With an expressionless face and voice (reminding Error of Pale, now) Ink will ask him: “When’s the wedding?” And Error throws a pillow at him and shrieks at him to get out.

He often thinks about what he said to Pale: “It’s okay, you’re alright,” and the memory feels like he’s looking at a stranger operating his body. He didn’t know when ‘anomaly’ had started to become a habitual nickname and not a word he spat in disgust. Ink always makes him realise things that are strange and sometimes frightening about himself, and Pale seems to have the same effect on him too. Apparently he was now the kind of person who could watch someone sob and say, helplessly well-meaning: it’s okay.

He thinks these things while doing other morally reprehensible things, too, like taking a human’s soul for ransom, blasting a line of monsters into dust. He wonders if he is capable of gentleness while absently twisting someone’s writhing body in string till their limbs break. He thinks about looking for Pale, gets as far as opening a portal with the full intent to comb through some universes for him, and then closes it slowly again, shaking his head at himself. 

Error opens a portal to Outertale instead, frowns when he finds it empty. He’s had this coordinate for years, now, he doesn’t understand how he can be missing a number or portalling to the wrong place. He re-opens the gate a couple times, and both times the universe comes up empty, vanished. He laughs a little - how silly, that he could forget the coordinates of the universe he visited most often? When the Voices start to laugh along with him, Error stops abruptly, and presses two hands to his skull, as if he can compress the sound out of himself. 

“You finally realised!” Pale’s voice, behind him, making him jolt. 

He turns, and Pale makes a strange face at him. His eyes are two different colours for once, and they swap when he blinks, lending his face a slightly wilder look - clearly, he’d been out without Error this time. He seems better than the last time Error saw him, obviously, but also somehow worse, his clothes a little more ragged and tattered. He has some of Error’s strings wound around his arms, shimmering silver-blue. Error tries to shut the laughter out of his skull, and stomp down on the stupid hopeful shiver he feels at the sight of him. 

“Realised what?” Error asks, and his voice is bitcrushed like he’s just swallowed pixelated gravel. He winces. 

“I got rid of the spacy one.” Pale says, nonchalantly, as he sidles closer. “You went to that one a lot, but you said you wanted all the universes gone, so I figured - welp! No distractions!”

“You’re joking.”

Pale laughs. “Uhm, no? I wanted to show you I’m serious..well, serious as I can be.” Pale is right in front of him now, Error registers faintly. “We’re gonna destroy the Multiverse together, right? Just you and me. So we should just rip the bandage off, get rid of anything we can.”

He keeps talking, but Error doesn’t hear a word that leaves his mouth. He doesn’t believe it, but at the same time it must be true, and the mocking laughter resounds from the Voices again. “Shut up.” He hisses under his breath, and his glitches rattle up his body, like someone’s hitting his bones with a mallet. Outertale was meant to be his constant. 

He remembers fighting Ink there, and then telling Ink how he felt, and then being laughed at. He remembers avoiding it afterwards, and then coming back after Ink apologised, its cold ability to always make him feel better, the sharp bright stars that simplified his thoughts from an all-consuming shrieking to a manageable hum.

“-are you even listening? Hey.” Pale leans even further into his space, and Error tenses. “Pay attention. What do I have to do to make you listen, huh?”

Pale taps his chin for a moment, faux-thoughtful, and Error is filled with the desire to hurt him again, to stab him, to make him beg and plead and say sorry. Error takes a step back, conscious of his own breathing, and Pale, ever persistent, follows him forwards. 

“Just fuck off, Pale.” Error says, fists clenched at his sides. 

“Don’t you want to destroy the Multiverse? Why are you acting like this?” 

“I do. Fuck, I do, just-” Just what? Error’s not even sure. “Stop interrogating me, asshole.” 

“I’m just trying to help.” Pale says, voice softer. “I can do so much for you, if you’ll let me.”

Pale’s hand moves from his own skull to Error’s. Error stares at him, the long thin fingers cold as they tap his cheekbone, and Error can’t tell his own violent flickers from the ones produced by Pale’s touch. He smiles, strangely, and presses his body against Error’s. The contact aches horribly, and Pale’s hands are curious, too-noticeable, spidery. Error thinks he might be hyperventilating. 

“Are you scared?” Pale asks. His eyes are pink, like newborn skin, like watered-down blood.

Pale kisses him. Error makes a noise, clutches at Pale’s arms hard, though whether to pull him closer or push him away he doesn’t know. Pale laughs into him, a high, fluting sound. He’s a terrible kisser, tastes sharp like pen-ink. His mouth doesn’t move enough and his nasal ridge bumps Error’s again and again, but he trails a finger down Error’s breastbone like Error had done to him, and Error feels his whole body unravel. It’s awful and too much and Error wants it, and he only pulls away when Pale shivers and tries to deepen the kiss.

“I shouldn’t.” Error blurts, wide-eyed, and scrambles to back away from Pale. His entire body is shaking, angry, fearful. “You shouldn’t- why did you-”

Pale touches his own mouth and laughs. “Do you think I need a reason?”

“For fuck’s sake. Get out.” Error snaps, voice rising. He hates how upset he is. He hates how Pale is laughing. 

“Oh, come on, Error.” Pale says, almost cajoling. He makes as if to reach for Error again.

“I said get the FUCK out.” Error yells, and there’s a loud, reverberating crack as a bone attack slams into the ground next to Pale’s foot, creating tiny white fissures in the floor of the Anti-Void that smooth out almost instantly. 

Pale’s mouth presses into a thin line, different-coloured eyes blue and lavender. 

He leaves, and only then does Error let himself cry. 

He doesn’t leave the Anti-Void for a while after that. Ink told him something once, about personalities losing their shape without other personalities to define them, and Error feels that happening slowly, surely. He talks to himself aloud and then feels pathetic. He cries into the beanbag and then feels horrified at the tearstains he’s left. He scratches at his arms, erratically, until the top layer of marrow weakens, allowing a tiny drop of blood to roll down the valley of his palm and dangle between the vee of his thumb and forefinger. Eats chocolate till he feels sick and paranoid, mana lines bloated full of excess energy he has no intent to work off. His mind starts to play tricks on him; he sees colourful shapes that aren’t there in the Anti-Void, or the vague figure of a person shaded in blue, and he just has to ignore his body’s desperate attempt to simply make up the enrichment that he isn’t getting himself. 

He also sleeps a lot, and wakes up feeling feverish and more tired than before. He dreams once of Pale. He is emotionless, white-eyed, and cracking off small parts of Error’s bones with his teeth, tearing his chest open until he reaches his soul, which Pale swallows whole and with relish. Pale curls up in the ruined cage of his ribs and smiles at him, while Error dissolves into dust too slowly. Error wakes up, and hates the dream version of him for being so still and placid. 

He replays the kiss often in his head, and tries to figure out if he actually is attracted to Pale, or if he just looks like Ink, and wonders if it matters at all, actually, because he still fucking feels like this. He simultaneously longs for Pale to come back and wants to kill him slowly and painfully. 

He manages maybe a meagre week of wallowing before he has visitors - the Anti-Void has a way of stretching or shortening time’s significance. He hears the distant chatter of Blue and Ink’s voices when his skull is already pressed into the beanbag, and the short swish of a plastic bag getting nearer, too specific for an auditory hallucination, and contemplates a large hole opening up beneath him and tossing him to the depths. 

“Error!” Blue says, from somewhere behind him. “We haven’t seen you in a while, so I brought…wowzers! You look absolutely awful!”

“I dunno, I’ve heard face-down ass-up in a beanbag is a look right now.” Ink snerks. 

“You’re so fucking lucky I’m too tired to kill you.” Error says through gritted teeth. He turns over, scrubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand, and glares over his palm at Blue and Ink. Blue has the bag of what Error assumes is tacos on his hip, dressed smartly in uniform, and Ink is peering down at him, half-amused. Blue’s perma-grin dies a little as he looks at Error’s face. 

“Have you been crying?” Blue asks, quieter. “What’s going on?”

Error rubs at his eyes harder. “Nothing. And no.”

Ink does a terrible but understandable impression of an incorrect buzzer noise, and sits on the ground, cross-legged. Blue hovers for a little longer before he joins him, and begins to carefully remove little tupperware containers from the bag, taco shells rustling as he puts one on a paper plate. 

“Is this to do with…?” Blue gestures vaguely with one gloved hand, his other carefully spooning meat into the taco shell. 

“No.” Error says, at the same time Ink says, “Yep.”

“Piss off, squid, you don’t know anything.”

“Just saying, either you’ve had some sort of personal epiphany or your new friend’s done something-”

Blue punches Ink in the shoulder with his free hand, and Ink winces, rubbing his arm, making ‘ow’ whining sounds even though the bastard has dulled pain senses. “I’m not putting glitter in your taco if you keep saying stuff like that.” Blue scolds. “We’re not here to make him feel worse.”

Ink mutters something about stating the obvious and Error watches the strange Papyrus-like mannerisms of Blue and feels slightly comforted, like he always does. Traits he associates with being taken care of, the cocky, eyes-closed hand-on-chest grin and the taking everything slightly too seriously. 

Blue hands him a taco. “Eat. And talk. Not at the same time, though, that’s terrible etiquette.”

Error takes it wordlessly, stares at the amalgamation of meat and cheese and lettuce shreds. Blue has inevitably gotten better at cooking as a result of being exposed to the Multiverse, thankfully. Ink grabs his own - covered horribly in shiny pink glitter glue - and crunches into it with a sound like he’s grinding sand between his teeth. It’s incredibly obnoxious. The colour reminds him of Pale’s eyes when he leant his chest against Error’s and-

“Whoa, whoa.” Blue is looking at him, smile now tenuous at best. His eyes are kinder than Error deserves. “Error. Seriously. Are you okay?”

Error realises that static is buzzing all around him. “Fine. Peachy.” He grins wide, opens his eyes till it hurts, and grabs his taco to bite into it. It tastes like nothing. 

“Uh-oh. Crazy eyes.” Ink screws a finger into the side of his head, moves it in a circle to indicate loopiness, and Blue frowns at him. 

“Could you please take this seriously?” Blue says. 

“I thought you didn’t care what I did with Pale.” Error says through gritted teeth, glaring hard at Ink. Ink raises his palms, all wide-eyed: who, me?

“I don’t.” Ink replies, voice pitchy and overly innocent. “I don’t care. You think I’m developing a capacity for romantic interest the second you start pining for someone else? Don’t be embarrassing.”

“Um.” Blue squeaks. His skull is turning blue. 

“I think you’ve always had the fucking capacity to be a jealous rat bastard-”

“I told you not to replace me.” 

“I haven’t.” 

“Oh, really?” Ink laughs, mean. “Then why have I not seen you in weeks?”

Weeks? Error feels a little faint. Had he been here that long? “Fuck off, Ink. It’s not like you visited. I haven’t seen Pale in weeks either.”

“Yeah, right.”

Error feels his neglected magic stirring to life, glitches crackling sharply as he stares at Ink. Ink’s eyes are celestially bright and daring. Do it, he mouths. Liar. Error’s hand is halfway to his eye before Blue’s voice snaps him out of it. 

“Alright, stop having your domestic in front of me and eat your tacos. Both of you.” Blue says, firmly. “Stars above, like children.” He sighs, the tired sound somehow authoritative, rubbing at his face with a gloved hand.

It works, bizarrely, and they both avert their gazes. Ink licks glitter off his fingers and it smears over his teeth, making him look like a brightly-coloured sticker of himself. Error finishes his taco in three quick bites and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“I didn’t realise you and Pale were friends.”  Blue prompts Error gently.

“I really don’t want to talk about it.” Error mutters, not bothering to question how Blue knew who he was. Ink had obviously talked.

“Okay.” Blue says, undeterred. “I think you should, though.” 

Error frowns. “...Friends is too nice of a way to put it. He wants the core of a universe, so I give it to him. Makes life easier. Sometimes he hangs around because he wants to escape the fact that he has a completely pointless existence.”

Blue glances at Ink - subtle, Blue is not. “Well, he’s clearly done something to upset you.”

“...Outertale is gone.” Error hears himself say, without making the conscious decision to actually move his mouth. He puts his hands on his knees and looks down. 

“Oh. Oh, that’s awful.” Blue says, genuinely seeming upset on Error’s behalf. “Error, you didn’t…?”

“No. It wasn’t me who did it.” He says, thickly. 

He’s nearly crying again, and he swallows back the lump in his throat, pinching near the base of his skull. Blue makes a slightly mournful sound and says, “oh, Error,” and Ink watches him with an impassive face, though his eyes become blueish teardrops and triangles. 

“...There are other Outertales.” Ink says, quietly, knees tucking up to his chest. “Some of them have even better views. I’ll show you, Glitchy.” 

Error nods, somewhat glad Ink has probably forgotten all their time together in Outertale by now, grateful that he doesn’t know the real reason. Blue looks torn between trying to hug Error and also trying to respect his boundaries by staying away. Silence stretches for a moment before Blue speaks again, carefully. 

“It probably felt like a second home to you, Error. I’m sorry it’s gone.” Blue says, in that sincere way that annoys and comforts Error simultaneously. “No wonder you’ve stayed here for so long.”

“I keep- opening portals, and it’s not there.” Error says, and is grateful for the alien way his voice sounds, for once, because otherwise he’s convinced it would wobble. There’s no way to hide the tensing of his shoulders and the raggedness of his breath, though. He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. “And Pale did it just to make some stupid point. To make me feel like shit.”

(It’s easier than saying it’s Error’s own fault.) 

“What point, Error?”

Error stares at the floor again. “That he wants us to destroy everything together, and-” 

Error’s mouth clicks shut. He can’t bring himself to say he doesn’t want to, because then Blue and Ink would worm their way into that gap, prise it wider and tell him it’s okay that he feels that way even though he’s spent so long thinking it’s his goal, his ultimate purpose, deluding himself, and now it’s actually within reach all he can do is look away from it until the gap becomes a fucking canyon-

“How romantic.” Ink drawls. “Set the Multiverse ablaze together. It’s okay to admit you liked one of the universes, Glitchy.” 

Error shakes his head, because he knows if he says another word then he’s going to sob or spontaneously combust. 

Blue stands up, and leans over the beanbag cautiously. “I’m going to give you a hug, cause you really look like you need one. Tell me to move away if you don’t want me to. And don’t kill me, please.” 

Blue hovers for a moment. Error briefly contemplates putting a sharp bone straight through Blue’s eyesocket, but then sighs and doesn’t say anything. Blue seems to take this as permission, and hauls him up slightly on the beanbag, lifting him just enough that his head rests on Blue’s shoulder. He’d forgotten that Blue was strong enough to do that, almost, and a soft, pathetic noise wrenches out of his mouth when Blue wraps his arms around him. He smells like MTT-brand cologne, and there’s a muted sting of pain when the scratches on Error’s arm brush against one of the plates of his uniform. 

“You’re okay. It’s going to be okay, Error.” Blue says, and Error’s eyes are hot with tears. He’s scared and sad and he can’t stop vocalising that, burying his face in the side of Blue’s scarf. It’s fucking embarrassing. It’s even worse when Ink sits silently on the edge of the beanbag and places one hand on his arm, thumb rubbing in small soothing circles. It seems like something Ink learned to do from one of his fathers, maybe.

Error deals with the sensory overwhelm till he mostly stops crying, and then shakes his head into Blue’s broad shoulder plate, taps him. Blue moves away, and Error is glad at the way his glitches settle, but not so much the loss of his warmth. Error regrets any spiteful thoughts he may have had about hugging being Blue’s only form of comforting response - he is, Error realises, actually a very good hugger. 

Blue sits back down and starts re-organising the tupperware. Ink stays at his side, slumped and stretched out against the beanbag, arm crunching an imprint into it. He looks up at Error, so obviously trying to read his face that Error sticks all five tongues out at him. Ink sticks his out back, and waggles it under his top set of teeth. He bursts out laughing at whatever face Error makes in response to that. 

“Guessing that’s not the full story, then.” Ink hums. “What did he do? You didn’t volunteer any information about how you felt. Obviously. You never do that.”

“Pot, meet kettle.” Blue mutters, just loud enough to be heard, and Ink makes an offended noise. 

“Zip it, bluebottle, or I’m eating the taco you made for Dream and telling him you forgot about him. I’m trying to be totally emotional and sensitive here.”

“Can you be emotional and sensitive without acting like a hypocrite?”

“No.” Ink replies, beaming. “Anyways.” He re-directs his attention to Error. “Was it a weird soulless thing I might know about?”

“He showed up, told me he’d gotten rid of it, and-” Error stops, face flushing as he censors himself. “-And that was it, he left.”

“You heeesitaaated.” Ink grins. “You totally did something else. I’ve seen enough tropes to know what I’m looking at.”

Error opens his mouth to tell Ink where he could shove his tropes, but Blue intervenes again. 

“...Doesn’t it make you feel weird?” Blue says. “I mean, it’s still ‘you’ who makes these choices, isn’t it?” He looks a little uncertain. 

“Yeah, but the shitty version of me.” Ink replies. “Not that Error seems to think so- hey!” 

Error shifts his weight suddenly to the side of the beanbag, so that the other edge poofs out, sending Ink forwards just enough to sprawl. Blue laughs and then looks away innocently when Ink glares at him. 

They talk a little longer after that. Blue updates Error on what Nightmare is doing - “Trying out these weird guerilla tactics in AUs we try to get back, it was like having a bunch of seagulls with knives flock on your skull,” - not that Error actually cares about that unless he has to deal with it. Ink and Blue argue about the moral ethics of an AU where all the characters are made of clouds and Error joins in until it becomes apparent he’s just wondering whether he can destroy it or not. Eventually, Blue checks the watch in the pocket of his uniform, and says something about getting back to the Sanctuary. Ink makes an agreeable noise. 

Waiting for Ink to open the portal, Blue glances back. “Error?”

“...Yes?”

A tentative smile. “I hope you sort things out with Pale. Or - I hope he apologises, at least. See you.”

Error nods and says nothing. Ink gives him a broad, knowing smile from halfway into the circle of black, and Error thinks about sharp teeth and broken ribs. 

Error begins to comb through some universes for Pale. 

It’s tricky. Pale’s choices are erratic, and he never visits the same AU twice - at least not intentionally. If Error mapped out his movements like a line graph, there would be a flat line, then a sudden joyous upward spike, then nothing again, for a while. Error watches through portals where he can, convinces himself he’s going to talk to him, but in the end he always stays, uncharacteristically, an observer, too curious to reveal himself. 

Pale goes for happy AUs, surface timelines, monster-human truces, a universe where the monsters are bizarrely content with being stuck underground or where there are no humans at all. He sits and waits in a restaurant, maybe, or a bar, with a practised and wistful expression. Error’s never close enough to see what he says, but if someone approaches him, he beams widely at them, and seems to always end up integrating himself into a group, laughing and talking. 

Pale’s attention wears easily, though, and he slips away into other universes just like that. He seems to find excuses wherever he goes, dropping his jacket into puddles to look extra pitiful, asking for cigarettes, pretending to know people. He adopts different mannerisms depending on the universe, slouching boredly, sitting straight and regal, gesturing and pacing excitedly. Sometimes, in smaller groups on hazier, darker nights, he singles out a certain monster or human and presses their mouths together briefly, before pulling away with that same weird expression - unsatisfied, or uncertain, maybe. Every time Error watches it happen he feels like his bones are just thin plastic tubes with no marrow or substance, oddly light and hollow. 

Error can only watch and wait for so long - he isn’t Ink, content to just sit on his hands silently. He follows Pale’s movements into a universe, waits a while, and then enters instead of staying behind the portal. Waterfall looms above him – looming, because it’s crammed full of trees, abnormally. Thick, sweeping boughs bar the ceiling of the Underground from sight, and the floor is full of winding paths of water, gleaming in the default lowlight all Waterfalls have.

Large chunks of the universe have been scratched out, papery white tears in reality flashing sketches - like Pale dragged his sharp phalanges down its edges. The flowers are still there, though, swamp roses and Echoflowers and blue-tinted dandelions. The air around them hums with the steady onslaught of insects hovering around lush plants, and Error watches Pale swat away an obscenely azure darner straying too close to his skull.

The scenery turns to crumbling stone in the middle distance, temples crawling with vines and the Delta Rune stamped sadly onto decaying steps. Large, forgotten grey altars and terrified eyes staring out from shadowed shelters. Pale stands in front of a carved column, his back to Error, but somehow also seeming acutely aware of Error’s presence. The strings around his arms have become completely white. 

“So this is what you’ve been doing.” Error says. He sounds annoyed, even to himself, and he doesn’t give a shit. Pale turns around, and his usual intense gaze makes Error’s hands clench in his pockets. Error hates him, with a passion that makes him feel warm and excited, and he hates that feeling, too. 

“Well, not just this universe. But, yes.” Pale nods, and his hands tuck into his pockets to mirror Error, though his body tilts playfully. “I read a thing in this timeline once. I don’t remember what you call it? It had my name in it! ‘Alone and palely loitering’, it said, or something like that. That’s what I do, isn’t it?”

Error stares at him. “I have no idea what the fuck you’re saying.”

“Well, I’m alone, and loitering, I guess.” Pale says. He walks a little closer to Error. “Not anymore! Are you here to finish this one off?”

Error glances at the yawning spaces Pale has sucked the colour out of. “No.”

“Hmm. Are you here to see me, then?”

“What do you think, jackass?”

Pale just laughs and shrugs. “Either that, or you’re here to fight. That’s the only reason Template drops by.” 

Error pinches the soft fabric inside his pocket hard, until his fingers press together. “Are you offering?”

Pale frowns. “I would, but… I don’t really have the right feeling right now.” 

“Great.” Error says, teeth gritted. 

There’s silence. Pale kicks a rock between his two scuffed trainers, sending a bright blue frog hopping away hastily. The sound of crickets after so long in the quiet emptiness of the Anti-Void is unnerving to Error.

“Sooo, what did you wanna see me about?” He asks, eventually. His eyes are a yellowy-orange, like neatly cut topaz. 

“Why did you-” Error stops himself, almost automatically. He just can’t quite bring himself to say it. “After you destroyed Outertale.”

“Why did I what? Kiss you?” Pale asks. His circular pacing comes to a stop, and he punts the pebble somewhere into a pile of rubble. There’s a tiny smile on his face, and Error can’t tell if it’s mocking incredulity or the beginnings of laughter, but he doesn’t care to find out. 

“Forget it.” Error says. He turns back, ready to open a portal and wallow in the Anti-Void for another six weeks, what the fuck was he thinking-

The quick sound of Pale’s footsteps, then a hand clasped around his sleeve. Error jerks, tugging himself out of Pale’s reach instinctively. Pale’s expression is plaintive, almost. His offending hand is still outstretched, as if waiting for permission after the fact. 

“Don’t touch me.” Error says, low. 

Pale exhales and nods, returning his hands to his sides. “I’ll tell you why I did it.”

Error, frazzled with glitches, just folds his arms and tries to communicate well, get on with it, with his eyes. Pale drifts back towards one of the ruins, and Error follows him cautiously. Pale has a focused expression on his face, and tugs on the cords of his hoodie, pulling one too short and the other too long, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth. 

“Y’know how- in all the places.” Pale begins, vague as ever, and Error snorts. Pale gives him a light glare over his shoulder, correcting: “The universes. Some of the extras like each other, more than usual. Or they like… kissing. It seems to make them happy.”

Error, blinking, suddenly realises he’s had this conversation before. “...Ahuh.”

“And mostly when I feel things, it’s an echo of something else. Sometimes it resonates, and I feel like myself, and sometimes it feels like someone else’s feelings got dumped in my head. That’s what it feels like when I want… that kind of close. That the extras do.” Pale flicks his fingers against his aglets, creating a thin percussive sound. “I want it, but at the same time I feel… trapped in my own body, looking out. It’s weird.” 

Error waits impatiently for further elaboration. Instead, Pale yawns, stretches, and says: “Do you like the bugs? I like the buzzing sound, but they keep flying into my head-”

“Hold the fuck up.” Error says, still reeling slightly. “You feel trapped?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah.” Pale nods. “So I figured, that one time after I destroyed that spacy place, I might feel better if I did it with you. It’s what makes the extras happy! Plus Template’s always talking about tropes, and blah, blah, blah. And I like you, so.”

Error’s skull suddenly feels like a warm lamp that’s been on too long. He’d forgotten how candid Pale could be. “You… Pale, did you even like doing that?”

“I don’t know. Is it supposed to feel like the best thing ever?” Pale turns around from the rubble, approaches Error. “Can I try again?” 

“No.” Error blurts, hasty, before he can even have the option to say anything else. “Pale, it’s not a fucking requirement that you do this with people. You don’t have to do all this romantic shit if you don’t even like it.” 

“Aw.” Pale complains. “But don’t you like it?”

“Not fucking relevant.”

“You do.” Pale says, and sounds almost sad. “So why can’t I?”

Pale slumps down, sits in the gravel and hugs himself. He’s so bright, like a small ghost with edges outlined in crayon, so perfect against the mess of stone and overgrown wilderness that it makes Error nervous. He sighs, resentful of having to use a softer tone again. 

“Some people just don’t feel that way.” Error says. He tries to recall and run the gamut of everything Ink had told him about this lack of attraction, his brow furrowing as he re-words. “You’re not- broken, or anything, even if you had a soul you might not want stuff like that, and… I can’t believe I’m fucking talking to you like this when I’ve watched you kill multiple people.” Error sighs. “There’s a lot of dysfunction going on here, anomaly, but this whole thing isn’t part of it.”

Pale nods, slowly, as Error talks. His hand lowers to his chest, and Error remembers what he’d said before. I’m empty there. 

“I still wanna stay close to you.” Pale says, quieter, thoughtful. “But you don’t like that.”

Error coughs. He does not know what to do with this information. “...See? We’re both fucked.” He says, eventually. “We’re Outcodes, there’s always something wrong with us.”

Pale's grey hands stray down to the grass to let a shiny beetle onto his fingers. Error moves soundlessly to sit across from him, cross-legged. They both watch the bug crawl up Pale’s binary-tatoooed forearm and into his sleeve before Pale speaks again. 

“I’m sorry.”

Error huffs. He doesn’t feel as vindictive as he thought he would. “Yeah, well, you should be-”

“I didn’t realise you were pretending, too.”

“...What?”

Pale’s eyes are too bright. He makes direct eye-contact with Error, unblinking as he speaks. “Like Template. He tells himself he’s the hero, because he wants to give himself a purpose. You wanted a purpose too, but you don’t really want to commit, do you? You just need to do something. Before you start…” Pale’s gaze rolls to the glimmering cavern above, lazy, playful. “...unravelling. It’s what the other ‘me’ does as well, isn’t it? Nobody needs him to protect them. Every role we take is just self-serving - hero, villain, protector, destroyer.”

“This is some fucking apology.” Error says, and pushes back the clawing restlessness inside his chest. Not now. Not ever, preferably. “And you can’t talk to me about pretending. You pretend to care, then you pretend you don’t.”

“I lied. At least, I think I did?” Pale shrugs. “Who knows. I don’t understand what I mean half the time. But you help… fill in the gaps, sometimes. Like you did with the kissing thing-”

“Okay, okay, made your point, shithead.” Error flicks a pebble at Pale. Pale smirks briefly as it glances his knee. 

“...I am sorry though. About the spacy world.” Pale says, slowly. “And that’s the truth. I liked it when we were there - well, I was sad, eugh, but otherwise I liked it. I don’t think anyone’s ever been that nice to me before.”

Oh. Error knows that feeling. The realisation that tender moments held by other people could sometimes be his own - that he could be included in that niceness. Not that he’d ever dream of voicing it. 

“That’s pretty sad, anomaly.” Is what Error says instead. Pale trails a finger down from his eyesocket to imitate crying. 

“Can I lie on you again? I won’t grab you, promise.” Pale adds, his head tilted. Error is reminded once again of a dog, following its own learned formulas for fulfilment. Simple requests for intimacy that leave Error momentarily speechless.

“...Fine.” Error acquiesces. He watches Pale’s grin widen, the expression of someone who knew they weren’t going to be told no anyway. 

Pale flops down and onto his back, wriggling closer to Error. When they touch, it feels somehow safer than before, and also strangely inevitable. Pale squirms, restlessly, comfortably, totally without fear of consequence. The fur of his hood is compressed against Error’s femurs, obscuring some of his face. He’s so completely relaxed it makes Error sigh and slouch in turn, still-glitching. Error stares at Pale’s half-closed eyes and wonders what he could be thinking. 

“You’re gonna run out soon, aren’t you?” Error asks, voice just under the hum of the insects around them. 

“Yep.” Pale sighs. “This seems like a pretty good place to do it, though.”

Error’s eyes map the asymmetrical mark on Pale’s cheek, the sharp teeth poking out from his self-satisfied smile. This erratic, wild, emotional thing in Ink’s body, nestled into his lap to seek comfort. Error cups Pale’s face, colours of his fingers pixelating and buzzing. It’s possibly the gentlest Error has ever touched anyone. Pale’s eyes open at the contact. 

“Hey.” Pale says. “Error?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you stay here with me? After I run out. Just for a little bit.”

“You’re gonna get covered in bugs.” 

“I won’t mind.” Pale chirps. “And I already have one inside my sleeve.”

“Gross.” Error says. “Fine. I’ll stay.”

“Okay.” Pale says, smiling. Error feels it push against his fingers when he talks. Pale puts his hand over Error’s, interlacing gently, without permission. Error allows it nonetheless.

“...One more thing?” Pale adds, voice high and hopeful. 

Error lets out a heavy, staticky sigh. Pale laughs.

“Can you tell me what the other me is like? The one I look like.” Pale’s eyes are vaguely greenish, fading into white. “I wanna understand.” 

Error stills, for a moment. His idea of keeping Pale and Ink separate in his head is pointless, now. He wonders if there was any point to begin with. 

“Well.” Error begins, grinning anew. “Name’s Ink, and he’s the most annoying guy you’ll probably ever meet in the Multiverse…”