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There’s a place that sits wrong in the code.
It doesn’t anchor itself anywhere long enough to be noticed for anyone that glances at it. It’s between buildings, moving through AU’s without any clear pattern, hidden in plain sight. If you wanted to find it, you’d have to seek it out. To keep any troublemakers out.
It shouldn’t exist, it should be gone. Destroyed. Deleted. Whatever.
Error would know, because he should’ve squished the tiny piece of code when he first saw it.
He hasn’t, though.
Instead, while strolling through some Outertale AU, he reaches a hand between two buildings one moment and the next, he’s leaning against the far end of a counter.
The place looks the same. A bar that he knows was made up from different parts of code, borrowed parts from a multitude of different Grillby’s and Muffet’s, stitched together just nicely enough to look nice. The code must be a mess, really, but for Blueberror’s first attempt at something like this, he doesn’t judge. Too much.
He doesn’t announce himself, you’re already going to the end of the bar to greet him.
Other than him and you, it’s just Blueberror and Baby Blue somewhere in the far corner. They’re always here.
“do you got the goods?” Error isn’t sly, he’s actually rather straight-faced about it. Hands in his pockets and a tilt of his head. It’s not like he has much to hide, especially when he knows what Baby Blue did at that one Gyftmas party years ago.
“Yessireee.” After rummaging through your side of the bar, you wave the object of discussion in the air. Inconspicuous.
Some special brand of chocolate. Not the usual kind from Underfell, but the type that he used to steal from Cross when he had taken residence in Nightmare’s castle. But ever since Cross switched teams, hiding away in that Omega timeline he couldn’t access, he hasn’t been able to get his grubby hands on it.
But you don’t take out just one. Not two. Not three. But five.
Oh, bless the stars. Bless your connections.
You slide the chocolate bars over the counter, careful of your hand placement. Leaving enough room for him to swipe them up without having to touch you.
He stashes them in his inventory for now.
“you get to live another day.”
You salute to him, your tone mocking, “Sir, yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Deal’s done, he’s ready to go.
He shifts his weight, already-half turned away from the counter, readying himself to go. The space beside him distorts with a twitch of his phalanges, just barely. A tear ready to form to give him an out, back to his spot in the Anti-Void.
But you’re pouting at him. “Aww c’mon stay, I don’t get to see you often.”
He relents. Easily. He sits himself back down. At least you don’t comment on it.
“Sooo, how have you been?”
His eyesockets narrow just a fraction. “m’fine.”
“Just fine?” Your smile is so pretty. You lean across the bar, and he feels so small. “You’re telling me nothing interesting’s happened? You see a lot more than I do.”
Right, because the code is so finicky. You really can’t leave the bar unless you’re in a designated safe spot, or you’ll fall into the Void. or the Anti-void. You haven’t dared to try to figure out which.
He’s not interested in finding out either.
Still. You’re not wrong. He sees and visits many universes. He wouldn’t be able to list all of the AU’s he’s seen in this lifetime, the multiverse was just too infinite.
He destroys a lot of them too. Not that you really, really needed to know the details. He can’t keep everyone quiet about the destruction of the multiverse, but if he can put the blame on Nightmare, then he can stay in your good graces.
“just rewatchin’ this show.”
You blink at him. “...That’s it?”
“mhm.”
“That’s your big, exciting multiverse update?”
He can’t look you in the eye.. Despite being Destroyer of Worlds, he really was just an introvert, hmm? At the end of the metaphorical day, he doesn’t like being around other people.
“it’s good.” He defends, because a human would never truly appreciate the beauty of Undernovela, now would they?
You laugh, and butterflies flutter in his chest. “Yeah, yeah. I bet.”
Well.
He holds a phalange up and you sit up straight. “...wait.”
To his side, he opens a window-sized rift with a gesture of his hand.
He heaves some old-fashioned TV from the other side, plopping it on the counter. The tear closes itself as you admire the gift. Thick in size, a bulky square shape. Definitely the type of TV to shock you if you touched the screen at the wrong time. Nothing like the more modern flat screens you had back in your universe.
…
It's antique! You like it!
“here.” The skeleton leaves you a black remote, careful to not have his phalanges brush against your skin.
There’s no cords connected to the actual TV, so no power source. It still turns on when you press the red power button in the corner on the remote, however.
And, hey! What do you know? There's channels. You're not exactly sure how a TV gets reception in the multiverse, but you're grateful.
“Oh, wow! Thanks, Error. This is really sweet of you.”
Error shrugs, “get’s boring in here. flip through the channels.”
You do as instructed. The first program was still playing through its intro, Paperjam’s Daycare. It doesn’t seem interesting enough though, so you switch over to something else. This time, there’s a Papyrus, donning his usual battle body, but his head was replaced with a television? And he had six arms! He and a Sans were sitting in a field of echo flowers, talking to each other about something.
Wait…
You move to a different program. You recognize this Sans that looms over the screen, with his fancy tux, gold rings, and red smoke from his magic. He’s chatting away with some Frisk variant, and holding a plotted echo flower, offering it as a gift.
No way.
You surf the channels quickly through your excitement. A Chara dressed in a green hoodie talking with Papyrus..dressed as Toriel? Then Frisk with a pink ballet tutu breakdancing with a Sans who had his hoodie up (kind of similar to Dust, but not..scary-looking?]). This one, there's three figures standing in a yellow-lit hall, the judgment hall? You vaguely recognize them as the forms of a Sans, Papyrus, and..hey, you saw that Chara just a few channels earlier! And then-
Holy fuck, this is so cool.
Error had gifted you a TV that let you watch a multitude of different universes.
You don’t say anything, your smile was speaking for itself.
“this one’s my favorite.” Error had settled in one of the stools directly from you while you were checking out your new toy, sitting in the perfect spot to watch the current program. “Undernovela. keep it on this channel.”
You hum and nod, keeping your attention fixated on the screen, just having to know what Error liked so much about this one.
…
Whatever, you’re entertained distracted. He’s here on business terms, after all.
Error quirks a finger, slipping a blue string to grab something from behind your counter. Quick, efficient, and you don’t even notice. Ha!
Your little…book. He weighs it in his hands cautiously.
You keep note of everyone you meet. He snoops in it from now and then, it’s easy to gather blackmail. Even better to know who comes in and out, should anyone be stupid enough to piss off ‘The Destroyer’.
He refuses to acknowledge the pit of jealousy stirring in his nonexistent gut when he sees just how many names are listed. Him? Jealous? Because of a human? Nuh-uh.
He side eyes you to make sure he hasn’t been caught, a flurry of emotions making him glitch out more than normal. You don’t turn your head, and he’s thankful. You must like Undernovela as much as he does to not notice his inner turmoil.
Error tries to make it quick, flipping through the pages and reading the small ink contained on them. There’s little doodles in the margins, brief descriptions, all monsters he recognizes (and many he’s destroyed). He’s keeping note of the ones you have the most info on. Frequent visitors, most likely. He’ll deal with them later.
He stops when he catches very familiar names.
Dust, Horror, Killer.
Nightmare’s boys, no less.
All lumped in on the same page, meaning they probably came in their little group.
Cross was in there too, at some point, but he doesn’t necessarily care for him. He's got a stick up his ass.
He doesn’t know why he’s so uneasy about it. Them? Coming here? Seeing you? You’re just a human, you have no way of defending yourself. And there are quite a number of murderous skeletons hanging out here (him included), there will always be a handful of bad apples in the basket.
(As if you’re any safer with Error around.)
Shut up!
You’re just a human.
He doesn’t care about your wellbeing. He’d be upset about his pitstop being gone if you were killed, but that’s it. And his poor TV.
The longer he stares at your subsequent drawings of them, all stick figures with their defining traits, the more upset he gets.
It’s stupid. Really, really stupid. They’re just names.
He shuts the book, the blue string slipping it back neatly where he found it. He’ll deal with them later.
He eyes you, making sure he wasn’t caught snooping. You didn’t notice, of course, you’re busy watching the amazing masterpiece that was Undernovela, giggling at the dramatic nonsense that’s playing out. There’s a betrayal and a gasp, and then the zoom-in.
You’re grinning and he finds it infectious because he smiles too.
“...told you it was good.” He mutters.
If you dared to take your eyes off of the screen, you would've noticed just how much Error was admiring you, and not the TV.