Tales From the Orchard

For consideration...

A/N: Oh hello again. It's been another tough work week.

You know what that means.

Follows Bad Apple End. Warnings for suicide talk, death, self harm mentions.

Enjoy(?)

"He does this every time."

The rest of the group continued to exchange looks with one another, muttering their guesses as to why they had been called together. Red was taking no part in it, irritated to have been pulled away from a very productive day of getting wasted. Whenever these 'emergency meetings' took place, it was up in the air if it was actually an emergency or not. If this was another waste of his time, he would give the creator a piece of his mind. A loud, violent piece.

Everyone went silent as an inky portal opened, signaling the creator's appearance. They all watched with muted confusion and concern as Blue exited the portal first, hands gently coaxing Ink through as well. Usually, Ink would be bounding through, pulling the other two Stars along eagerly with him. This time, however, Ink was barely even responsive as Blue led him through. He looked... terrible, to put it simply.

The artist was obviously running on minimal paint, the stationary shapes in his eyes faded significantly. Under his sockets were bruised with obvious exhaustion, as though the other hadn't gotten a wink of sleep in quite some time. He was obviously disheveled and listless, even if it was simply by choice of his own paint consumption or lack thereof. His scarf seemed to be missing, replaced by some sort of pendant of a tree. The tree had a bottle hanging from its wire branch, filled with... something. The bits of his forearms exposed at the ends of his sleeves were thoroughly wrapped up as well, something that caught Red's eye especially.

"Ink? You're not... looking too well." The original Sans was the first to speak up, recovering quicker than the rest. Blue gave him a pitying look, directing Ink over and pushing down on his shoulders. Ink followed his silent commands, sitting down on the provided chair.

The entire crowd seemed to understand this truly was an emergency meeting now.

"We haven't had to do this for a while..." Blue started, taking control of the meeting since it was clear Ink was in no state. "A few original universes have collapsed and we need to touch bases because... it's bad. It isn't just an unfortunate universe or a group of universes that were destroyed. There were... other casualties we need to talk about." The small Swap monster was solemn as they said this, one of his hands staying firm on Ink's shoulder.

"Is this Error's doing?" Outer immediately questioned with a bit of irritation. It wasn't his normal pattern of destruction, however, he had to admit. Of course, it wouldn't be surprising if the manic glitch had finally snapped.

Ink grabbed something from beside himself, unnoticed until this point by the others. "I thought the same at first as well, if only for a few minutes." The artist's voice was just as void as the rest of him, causing the others to shudder a bit. Ink tossed something to the center of the table for all of them to see. A disgruntled photo of Error was plastered on a file stuffed with what were probably notes and documents.