Chapter Text
❤
Error huffed as he stood at the edge of the cliff, watching as the hues of the sky flickered in and out of sight. Dust particles filled the air as distant screams sounded from the code. Small, tiny fragments of glass, hissing like little kettles on a good day.
The insufferable nuisances were annoying at best and unbearable at worst. He wanted nothing more than to shut them up, but he had better things to focus on.
Specifically, someone to find.
Below him, the ground beneath his slippers cracked and crumbled under invisible pressure. A glitched text squirmed through the rubble, snarling like a prickle viper before dissipating with a single swat.
Like he said earlier; annoying at best
“Should’ve fixed that by now, inkstain,” he muttered as he brushed the dust off his sleeve.
No reply, of course, but Error pretended there was anyway. And no, it was not a sign of insanity. Simply a strategic technique to keep himself sane while he waited for the appearance of a certain artist.
‘A notably absent artist at that,’ he grumbled to himself in thought.
However, despite his irritation, he waited still. He stood there for a time. Counting the milliseconds as he did.
Seconds passed.
Then minutes.
Then an hour.
Then more.
And yet, nothing happened.
A part of him wanted to leave. To say this was another lost cause and search elsewhere, but he remained.
He waited.
Waited for that familiar ripple in the air. For the distinctive sound of a splash, and a familiar irritating voice behind him saying, ‘You again?’
But there was nothing.
Nothing but screaming code and ringing buzzes. The string in his hold began to fray. His grip tightening further the longer he waited. Eventually, a familiar blare rang in his skull, alerting him that twenty-four hours had passed, that the wait had ended. Again.
“Twenty,” he sighed. A sharp and shaky thing.
This was the twentieth universe. The twentieth he had destroyed within the last five hundred and four hours. Which was unusually long, considering how protective his counterpart was. An abnormality against their established routine, and a change that the dark skeleton did not like.
He gave the idiot more time. An extra thirty minutes. One he knew was unneeded, but gave anyway. Once it became clear that his dear fellow wouldn't be arriving any time soon, he destroyed the dying universe without a second thought. No longer prolonging its bittersweet end.
He watched as his string coiled around the code. Watched as it crumpled in on itself like a vacuum, listened as the suffering entity sang in relief.
’Mercy,’ his mind supplied.
And he knew it was. A mercy, that is. The foundation of this particular universe had been screaming for an end since he arrived. Its very fabric twisted beyond repair. So much so that death was practically a gift wrapped in strings— No pun intended.
Corruption had dug deep into its very core. Ravaging its essence until not even that omnipotent brat could see it. Leaving its residents trapped in an apocalypse as it ate itself.
A tragic end, yes, but not an uncommon fate. Though Ink had placed protective measures against such incidents, that meddling artist could not keep them out forever. Which was obvious considering that that parasite ran around scot free rather than being sentenced to the void like it should’ve. He could never understand what that inkstain saw in them.
But either way, this particular situation was rather… odd.
Not only did it corrupt, but it had decayed. It had molded and shriveled in the same manner as the first nineteen had. He could’ve easily written it off as a new grotesque phenomenon, but paired with his equal’s absence? It couldn't have been a mere coincidence.
Oh no, definitely not.
The moron, as he knew, should’ve been here. Should've been present for the first nineteen. Should've accomplished his duties as expected.
This was his multiverse.
His supposed magnum opus.
His most beloved and adored garden.
Something at this scale of rot shouldn't have gone unnoticed.
‘So where the seven souls was that imbecile?’
The skeleton opened a new portal— Dancetale this time— the next one on his growing list of instabilities.
The sight that met him as he crossed was a familiar one. A scene that he was starting to associate with unease annoyance.
He looked up at the sky, and gazed upon the fake stars of Waterfall. The rain was heavy, its droplets red as the blood of the crippled humans in its story. Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn’t. Or perhaps it was simply a change in the hex values.
Either way, he couldn't care less about the AU itself.
He turned and raised a hand, ready to choke the code out of existence like he had previously—
“...”
— But paused.
He couldn't.
Not yet.
He had to wait. No matter how small or unlikely it was, there could be a chance Ink would appear. And hopefully, he would.
And so, he lowered his arm, then waited again.
One minute. Two. Five.
Time passed.
He watched the rain.
Listened to the chorus of pain.
And heard the alarm.
Yet still, no Ink appeared.
“C’mon, you brainless squid,” he muttered bitterly, “It's been five hundred twenty-eight hours. Come out already.”
Still nothing.
He felt a knot twist in his nonexistent gut, something ugly and cold, something that had been bothering him since he destroyed the ninth but had ignored. A creeping, crawling certainty that something was wrong.
Worry.
“You’d never let AUs fall apart. Not like this.”
He didn't want to believe it. Of course, not. After all, Ink was, well… Ink. He was imaginative. Resourceful. Unkillable like a cockroach.
But the feeling persisted. Stayed even after he destroyed the dying Dancetale copy.
It made him uneasy, and— he’d reluctantly admit— concerned for the other skeleton.
Because, if Error knew him as well as he thought, Ink would never do this on his own accord.
He wouldn’t.
The dark being opened another portal.
Then another.
And another.
Universe after universe. Tale after tale. Same fate. Same ending. Yet not a single trace— be it paint, sketch, or sign— of his counterpart.
Just endless decay. Growing. Spreading.
Consuming.
His unease grew.
Ink hated corruption. Both tangible and not— Toby, the dunderhead hated seeing signs of even the slightest chip on his brush of all things. The numbskull used to throw tantrums if someone interfered with any of the ongoing universes for fun. He treated each timeline like a hoarded treasure, even if it could lead to his own undoing.
So why?
Why did it feel as if he ditched it all?
“No way. There’s no chance you’d do that,” he paced.
And he believed it. Because Error knew Ink— he knew his other half better than anyone! Better than his friends. Better than his own fathers.
Better than himself.
So it didn’t make sense. It didn’t make any sense at all. Why? Why wasn’t he here? Why hasn’t he come stumbling in and started rambling about balance or whatever else he always claimed to care about? Why hasn’t he thrown himself into the chaos like he always did— loud, reckless, and endlessly annoying?
Why hasn’t he fixed this?
Why hasn’t he come to find him?
Why aren’t they fighting?
Error’s hand twitched. The frayed string in his grip trembled with the motion.
It couldn’t be. No, he wouldn’t just... leave. Not like this. Not without a reason.
A valid reason.
Because it wasn’t like Ink to ignore something this big. Not the multiverse. And definitely not the destroyer.
Ink cared too much.
It couldn’t have been because he had gotten sick either. The bonehead never got sick. They couldn’t get sick at all for Toby’s sake! And Ink couldn’t have simply not noticed.
He may be an airheaded moron, but he took protecting the multiverse seriously. He once skipped his own birthday to patch a flickering timeline in some forgotten back-corner of the multiverse. Left his cake, his guests— everything— just because a single ember in a dying universe had caught his eye.
That was who he was.
Obnoxious. Overbearing. Ridiculously committed.
So why—?
Why had he let this happen?
Why was it only Error left, watching universes rot from the inside out?
He swallowed. It sat heavy in his throat, a thought forming where it had no right to exist.
No.
No, it couldn’t be that.
He stared ahead, but didn’t see the broken world around him. His mind was too loud. Too full.
The idea was absurd. Impossible.
Ink couldn’t—
He—
Ř̴̡͇̗̞͓̙͚̽̽̊̆̑̄̔e̶̢̢̨̛͎͔̹͓͍͙̰̪͔͒̂̀̋́͗̐͂̓̐́̒͝ḇ̶̘͉͖̬͆̌͊̒̀́̓̐̚͝͠ỏ̸̡̦̜̹̠̤̮̮͚͕̜̱̗̪̓̆o̶͕͚̱̟̜͔̳̗̖͂͌̓̑̿̐͒͆͆̈́ͅt̸̡̼̮̣̤̣͍̞͎̠͉́̿̾͝ͅ.̸̯̀̓͐̄̒̚̕͝
Just a flicker. A stutter in his code, a skipped frame. He didn’t even feel it— not really— but it left behind something cold. Uncomfortable.
A thought.
A whisper.
The one thing he hadn’t let himself consider.
The one thing that made the silence make sense. His mind reeled as the thought crept in— slow, uninvited, and utterly impossible.
Because it couldn’t be true.
Ink was immortal. He was Ink. That idiot was built from the paint and raw, unfiltered magic of the Doodlesphere. He didn’t have a soul to shatter. He didn’t have an actual body to dust. He’d survived erasures, collapses, torture—
There was no way.
Error forced a laugh, though it didn’t sound right. Not even to him.
“No. No, that's impossible,” he muttered. “You wouldn’t just... Hah. You wouldn't…”
The silence didn’t reply. It didn’t need to.
Still, he moved. Fast. Too fast.
He opened a console and reached into the threads of the code, pulling at the one he knew better than any other; the signature that clung to Ink like wet glue.
He’d find him. He always found him.
“C’mon, show me,” he whispered, hands flickering with static as he typed. “Show me you’re still kicking somewhere, you shithead.”
He almost believed it. Almost.
Until—
[ ACCESS DENIED ]
Error blinked.
“…What?”
He tried again.
[ ACCESS DENIED ]
No. No, it had to be a mistake. He’d mistyped something. A bug. Maybe Ink was shielding himself again—? A prank, probably. Some twisted joke to freak him out.
Classic Ink.
He swallowed and ran the search again.
[ ACCESS DENIED ]
The console didn’t even pause.
Just flat rejection.
“…No.”
He whispered it like a plea.
[ ACCESS DENIED ]
His hands shook now, ciphers flaring up beneath his phalanges. His vision tunneled, locked on the screen like it could somehow change if he stared long enough.
[ ACCESS DENIED ]
Again.
[ ACCESS DENIED ]
Again.
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The string in his hand snapped.
What?
[ ACCESS DENIED ]
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There must be a mistake.
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There has to be a mistake.
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He must’ve—
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No.
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No, no, no, no, no, no—
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Ink couldn’t be gone.
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He couldn't be.
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No—̷̤̍
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He w̶͓̓ä̷͓s̷͕̚ṇ̷̈́’̵̞̔t̵̥̊—̵̖̾
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HE̷̪̎ ̶̳͉͆Ẅ̷̹́Ą̷̃S̴͓͒N̵͓̕’̶̻̓T̶̳̰͌—̸͎̙̋
[ ACCESS DENIED ]
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“Ĥ̶̦͋Ẹ̵̎̀’̷̗̲̤̣̠̀̓͝S̶̰̪͉̞͗̐͌̈́͝ ̴͔͛̑Ņ̶̝̦̹̣̒̔̿̔̓O̸̡̱͗̉͆͌͠T̷̞̙̘͈̀̔̋͆ ̴̨̪̘̰͌̿͒̔Ǵ̶̖̳̅̕O̶̤̻̒N̴̛̖̟̣̆ͅE̴̢̱̠̭̾̉̐ͅ!̵̝̅͒́̓̕”
The sound of a shatter echoed.
It was quiet. Silent. The ciphers within the current world too frightened to make a noise as furious static washed over it.
His breathing was labored, small puffs of air coming from him as a wide crooked smile cracked through his own skull. Glitches decorated his body, his instability made clear and his show of calm completely shattered.
His body was still, his uneven eyelights completely at the space before him. At the spot where the console of code once was, now shattered into oblivion in his own explosive anger.
The world was still, nothing daring to move in fear of angering the destroyer further. They could feel his sorrow, his hatred, his fury. And it frightened them.
Frightened them.
The destroyer of their multiverse, despite his calm and conceited demeanor, was as unstable as most others. Unstable and incredibly dangerous. The code shuddered in fear as he spoke, his voice deep and gravelly, holding a sort of television like static underneath.
“Where the h̵̢̾-hê̸̯ḻ̵̚l̵̖̾ are you…?” his eyelights turned into pinpricks, his glitches worsening.
He paid no mind to the trembling codes around him. Paid no mind to how the sky and earth seemed to crack with every word he spoke. He ignored them, his mind focused on one thing, and one thing only.
Finding Ink.
He opened the console again, ignoring how the string of code seemed to quiver under his fingers.
[ ACCESS DENIED ]
It shattered a second time.
The skeleton took a deep breath, reattempting to calm himself before he did something irrational again. It wouldn’t do well if he did.
Error pulled up the console once more.
[ ACCESS DENIED ]
Something was blocking him, he observed. There was something keeping him from finding his counterpart. From accessing his location.
But that was impossible. Nothing could block him. Nothing.
Or at least, nothing that he was aware of.
He hummed in thought for a moment. The glitches calming as more of his rationality returned. But the world refused to relax. Not yet.
Cowards.
Error tried again through different methods. Tried a loophole. A workaround. He tried a manual override to backtracing old logs. Even going as far as to tear open one of Ink’s old studios, a little side-world where the idiot used to store his dumb drawings and lost pencils. A little safe place that the stain’s old man made.
He was under the impression that the Doodlesphere or Top must’ve placed a new set of codes on him that prevented the destroyer from tracking him— the Gaster always disapproved of that particular ability of his, so it did not shock him that the circus leader would find a way.
But nothing.
Error found nothing. Nothing but scraps and unfinished drawings. Another dead lead. Another empty room. A waste of time, really.
He was about to leave, but then…
He saw it.
Half-buried beneath a pile of sketchbooks and fallen pots, its bristles bent and stained, was a paintbrush.
Ink’s paintbrush.
Error didn’t move at first. He stared. Blinked. Waited for the ciphers to tell him it was a mistake. A trick of his mind. Some old project left behind by his counterpart.
But the longer he looked, the colder he felt.
The handle was snapped, the other part nowhere to be seen.
Ink never went anywhere without this brush. Not once. Not even when he took naps at that cafe he frequented. Error used to mock him for it. Called it a crutch. A comfort object. A glorified stick.
But it was never just a tool.
It never was.
And now it was here. Abandoned, broken, and separated from its owner. Ink never would’ve let it break like this. Not willingly.
The dark skeleton moved slowly, as if the air itself weighed more than it should. He knelt, reached out, and brushed the dirt away. His fingers hovered just above the remains, glitching slightly. Shaking.
He picked it up.
It was light. Too light. Like it had been drained of its own magic and given up trying to reassemble itself.
It wasn’t a good sign.
He didn’t know how long he stayed like that. Kneeling in an empty room, surrounded by forgotten scribbles and a silence too heavy to bear. The brush in his hands, too fragile to hold, but too important to let go.
And for the first time, he stopped trying to convince himself.
Ink wasn’t hiding.
He wasn’t late.
He was gone.
The words echoed in his skull, but he refused to say it. Not aloud. Speaking it would make it real.
Too real.
Error clenched the brush in his hand, sharp edges digging into his palm, splinters biting through the gloves. He could hear the soft whine of the code recoiling from his presence, but he didn’t care.
None of them mattered. Not anymore.
Only one thing did.
He opened a new console.
His voice, when he finally spoke, was hoarse— thin and fragile in a way it had never been before. One that he usually would've found embarrassing if this had been any other circumstance.
“This is Error. I need…”
But this wasn't exactly the usual, was it?
He paused. A breath. He swallowed his pride, the action sharp enough to cut him.
“I need help.”
The brush trembled in his grip.
“Ink is missing.”
Silence followed.
The network didn’t respond. And for a moment, he feared that the multiverse didn’t care. That it would not heed his plea after all the sins he had done. That it did not believe in him. But still, he stayed on the line and whispered again, quieter this time, hoping.
“Please.”
And by some miracle, it heard him. Heeded him. Cooperated. Connecting him to the one isolated universe he was banned from—
[ NETWORK CONNECTED SUCCESSFULLY ]
— ZephyrTop.
“Hello?”
⇘°❈° ≫.·:*¨ ✦♚✦ ¨*:·.≪ °❈°⇙
The chamber was warm.
The warmth, however, was artificial. A mere illusion regulated by pieces of warped code— Segments stolen from its rightful host, but the entity cared little for the order he had misshapen.
Nightmare— No, it was wrong to truly call him that— the corruption sauntered through the rows of stone arches, his steps silent as he passed. Purple light bled through the glass ceiling overhead. Its cracked stars blinked against the darkness above.
It was a garden.
An indoor garden carved and crafted from stolen code, stitched together with screaming and fragmented ciphers. Built beneath the withering castle constructed upon the ground drenched in the blood of his enemies.
Every leaf glitched at its edges, petals stuttering between key frames. Some flickered in and out of existence, others shifting into various appearances, all as if unsure if they were meant to exist at all.
It was constructed as a gift. A vault for the king’s most treasured trophy, made everlasting by his own hand.
The flowers rustled— Flowers from several universes. All lovingly replicated from their buds to their roots. From morning glories to rhododendrons. A collection of momentums, all planted for a shrine.
A shrine built not for love, but for possession.
The King of Negativity knelt before a glass coffin. The only one that resided within the very heart of his masterpiece. Left pure and untouched, the perfect container to hold his prize, to contain the pale skeleton who rested inside. One whose eyes were closed, and arms folded as if awaiting his savior.
It was a perfect reenactment of a fairytale long told. The only difference being that the entity was no prince charming rushing to save the damsel, and he'd make sure there'd never be one.
Not if he had a say in it.
The corruption's many tendrils curled around the base of the coffin, protective of its prey. A treasure none but him were allowed to claim.
He reached out and touched the glass. Gentle. Reverent.
His.
There was no movement. No visible breath. Just a weak pulse, a mere feeble flicker, that had yet to stop. A stubborn connection deep inside the comatose skeleton. Refusing to die. To end.
But Nightmare was not discouraged by this.
It merely fueled him.
“Did you hear the news, darling?”
The entity leaned closer, his breath fogging the glass, smearing against the pristine surface like a soft mist.
“They’re looking for you.”
He stared at Ink's face.
Unmoving. Unchanged. Eternal…
“It seems that your destroyer figured it out.”
Beautiful…
“Ratted to your precious fathers, asking for aid.”
His hand stilled. A twitch in his corrupted fingers betrayed an undercurrent of agitation. His gaze flicked across Ink’s closed eyelids, itching, yearning.
A twitch of hunger flickered through Nightmare’s frame. Dark ooze curling at the tips of his claws, longing to breach the fragile boundary he had made.
He had yet to break his treasure's will after all.
“I'll admit. It was smart of you to break that brush of yours. Warned them quite nicely,” he let out a slow, humorless chuckle. The sound sizzling into static the moment it left his throat. “Even if it was a little too late.”
He waited for a moment. Letting the silence enrapture him. Only the subtle ticking of that cursed clock echoed in the background— a thousand tiny fragments looping endlessly. There was no reaction from the code. No change in pulse.
Ignoring him now, was he?
The corruption grinned at that, his appendages curling in delight.
“But that won't exactly protect them now, will it?” Nightmare poked, his tone taunting, knowing it’d displease his trophy. “Not when you're here with me. No guardian. No precious protector to save the day.”
Still, no response.
Corrupted’s hand twitched, his grin widened.
“Error can't keep them safe forever,” he added after a beat, leaning down to lay his skull against the glass. His arms folded under his chin. The glass hissed where his touch met it, fizzing quietly beneath the surface. “Not when I’m much stronger than he is.”
Now that caused a reaction.
A whistle. A sharp change in pulse that had his expression turning into feral delight.
Ink knew what those words meant. Of course, he did.
“Don’t be like that, dearest. You didn’t think I’d be idle this whole time, did you?” he purred, tracing circles against the glass “Not when I have so much to ravage now that you’re… Well. Out of the picture, shall we say?”
For while Error, he’d reluctantly admit, had done a rather good job at destroying the infected AUs, he was rather… inadequate. Only disposing of them at the last minute, forgetting to account for the spread, thus allowing the entity to grow stronger with each fallen universe. Unlike Ink who’d erase his influence down to the very foundation, not leaving a speck of his influence behind.
It was why the corruption was so enraptured by Ink. The only thing keeping him from true victory. Preventing him from consuming and filling himself with the misery of all those under the artist’s protective barriers.
‘Protector’ was truly such a fitting title for his treasure.
The flowers behind him briefly withered, their petals crumpling into decay before reassembling again. His prize was upset with him.
How cute.
“Oh, why are you so troubled, Inky~?” he cooed. “It was merely a jest.”
The flowers behind him spasmed, pure code snarling at the edges of the petals before rotting to ashes. Ink wasn’t foolish enough to believe him. He knew he was lying.
And he was. But Nightmare adored how distrustful his gardener was. It brought him such a sense of pleasure to see his belonging baring his teeth.
It'd make it so satisfying to defang when the time came.
Then suddenly, the air shimmered, and a brief glimpse of a script flickered behind his sockets. There he saw a battlefield. Destruction. Including his own demise.
The image hung in the air for a moment. Blood. Fire. The outline of a scythe.
Hilarious.
"You're trying to scare me? How petty of you. I thought we've progressed from that stage," Nightmare's fingers clenched into a fist against the glass. “You think I care what happens to this world? You think I fear my own end?”
The coffin groaned under the pressure, but held firm, just as he intended.
“If I may remind you, I care little for the consequences of my actions, my sweet,” he leaned in closer, forehead nearly touching the glass now. His corrupted form shimmered faintly, as if trying to seep through the coffin’s barriers. “I’ve only ever wanted one thing, darling, and I don’t need your consent for that.”
Nightmare tilted his head slowly, gaze still locked on Ink's face. The pulse in the code flinched again.
"But of course, you already knew that, didn't you?”
For a while, there was only the hum of static, a pulse of displeasure. If Ink had been able to control his body, the entity had no doubt that the protector would strike him on the spot.
Ink may use childishness as a guise, but he was more than that. Oh, so much more.
And the corruption couldn’t wait to drown him in sorrow.
"You always were my favourite endeavor, did you know that?” his voice cracked slightly, dropping to a near reverent hush. “Nothing I ever said fooled those gorgeous eyes of yours. You knew I wasn't that cowardly guardian right from the start.”
One hand lingered on the glass, claws tapping softly like a metronome marking the slow decay of sanity. The other hovered, poised above Ink’s unmoving form, trembling with the effort it took not to spoil his awaited dessert.
“You wasted no time trying to exorcise my presence,” his tendrils retracted and unfurled in slow arcs behind him. He tilted his head, sockets narrowed in something close to tenderness. “For that, I've shown you mercy, my darling.”
The ground beneath the coffin cracked faintly, marble splintering in webbed fractures that healed as if they were never there.
“The same couldn't be said for those florets of yours, but not to worry…”
He drew back slightly, dragging one clawed finger down the glass in a slow line. The screech it made was subtle, high and thin, like the whisper of a scream buried too deep to rise.
“I’ll make sure they’ll be cared for while you rest.”
He looked at Ink one last time, and for a fraction of a second, something almost… humane passed through the rot of his expression, but then it was gone just as quickly as it came.
He stood.
“Starting with those asters, of course. They've been rather an eyesore lately, haven’t they?”
One of the flowers in the corner of the garden spontaneously combusted, its blue petals pixelating into dust before vanishing completely. The dome above cracking as furious static washed over it. The stars flickering in protest.
Nightmare chuckled at the tantrum. So adorable.
“I'll see you this evening, my love,” he reached down, leaned forward and planted a gentle kiss onto the glass.
The sound was almost imperceptible. A press against the surface, followed by a faint burn that didn’t fade. It left behind no mark, but the surface beneath his lips distorted like ripples on a cursed pond.
The garden blinked. A few flowers glitched. Tulips flickered into thorns, then corrected.
Nightmare vanished into the darkness of the garden soon after, but even after he left, the flowers kept blooming, trying to fix itself.
Even after everything, Ink's presence was still stronger than the decay that tried to cage him. The pulse of his magic, a faint yet steady beat, continued strong. Reassembling and curing the rot it felt.
And for as long as it did, the Doodlesphere searched for its child.