CreaseTale 0.4 (ErrorInk ~ Undertale AU)

Giving Up

Ink popped his head through the splotch of paint swiped on the floor that acted as a portal to him.

"Error?"

The dark skeleton was hunched across from him, playing mindlessly with one of his sapphire blue strings. He fiddled with it for a moment, before tugging his scarf closer around himself and clenching his blue string in a tight fist. The same tone of sapphire blue leaked from those hollow scarlet eyes of his like electric tears.

The other skeleton, Ink, clambered deftly out of his paint puddle, which disappeared as soon as he was through. Error's Universe was empty. Just blank and white and plain and boring. The horizon was a bleak wasteland, the floor blending into the sky, as white as Ink's scared bones.

A splash of black on his cheekbone; an inkstain.

"Error." Ink repeated for the third time, more firmly now. Still, the skeleton curled up with his knees hugged to his chest and his chin resting on them, his scarf wrapped tightly around him, remained as still and lifeless as a statue.

"Speak to me!" demanded Ink, rushing over to him. Damn personal space. Damn what they had all said about being careful and nice and gentle to Error.

"I have nothing. I've always had nothing." Error murmured.

They were his first words in a while... and not good ones.

Ink flung his arms around Error regardless of the fact that he knew Error hated to be touched, to be hugged or fussed over, or even looked after. The slightest bit of attention had the skeleton squirming uncomfortably - so it was no surprise when he yelped and ripped Ink's arms away from him. Even if it still hurt.

"What do you mean, Error? You have... plenty of stuff. You have," it was a risk, but Ink would take it. For him. "You have me."

Error stares up at Ink, his eyes wide and grave. "Don't." he growled, threateningly.

Ink exhaled slowly.

Everything had gone wrong the day Fizz emerged from that building, half his body shattered and fractured beyond repair.

Everything had gone wrong the day Ink and Swap were freed from an enemy's hideous prisons in another space between AUs, just as empty as Error's.

Everything had gone wrong the day Error fell for Fizz and not him.

...

Error shivered.

Always, the memory replayed over and over in his head. On repeat. Day after night. All the time.

Fizz, staggering out from the ominous grey building, practically falling to bits on the empty wasteland he had previously called home.

Cure, his soul just as fragmented and broken as Fizz's, half his skull smashed in and curled in a ball of pain on the ground.

Swap, his body racked with sobs for Cure and Fizz and Ink and Dream and Nightmare.

Ink. Ink, his face absolutely devoid of any sort of emotion, any sort of care for any of them. So blank and empty that it made Error want to scream and kick and punch until Ink at least felt something - pain.

Nightmare, struggling to comfort Swap, patting him awkwardly on the spine as he stared off into the distance at Fizz.

Shattered Dream. Remaining in the distance, his fierce golden eyes fixed on the injured skeleton that left a crumbling, trembling grey building in his wake.

"Run!" Fizz screamed.

Error squeezed his eyes shut, closing down the memory before he could watch the building collapse and his... his friends? Was that what they were called? Go sprinting off away from the building, and away from Fizz and Shattered Dream. Before the beast tore free.

Ink reached for him again, but Error snatched his wrist and shoved it away. It was Ink's fault. He knew that, yet he didn't care; didn't feel any grief or regret or self-hatred. And that was what set off Error's fury the most - he didn't care. He didn't care that it was his fault.

So much had happened since they'd escaped the space between worlds.

...

Ink had left Error's realm about an hour ago. The skeleton had just... given up. And it had already been weeks since... everything happened. It was Ink's job to cheer him up, to make him normal again.

He hadn't even known that stupid Fizz for very long anyway.

The skeleton remembered it all too clearly, he realised, as the memories of the last few months flashed to the front of his mind. Ink quickened his pace, the stroll morphing into a trot as he made his way through Snowdin's snowy pine forest.

A cave entrance loomed up in front of him, and Ink slipped right into the shadows after briefly sweeping the area for spies or enemies. It was clear. He leapt down the dark pit, and landed in that long hallway where his pet roamed - Shadow.

It had been a long time since Ink saw him.

Just hearing the beast's roar of pleasure at the sight of Ink was enough to trigger so many memories - Error shielding Ink From Shadow and hitting him with bone after bone, in the assumption that Shadow was hurting him... Ink wrapping his arms around Error's waist and burying his face in the skeleton's scarf as they rode Shadow... Shadow bucking and flinging Error into the wall, where he slid to the floor and slumped, unconscious... when Ink has carried Error in his arms and let Shadow sprint them to the exit of the Crease...

"Hey Shadow," Ink's smile was hesitant and sad as he stroked Shadow's ashy grey bones softly.

Shadow rested his large gaster blaster shaped head on the marble floor and purred. He actually purred.

"So much has happened." Ink murmured sadly.

Those scarlet pupils of Shadow's seemed to light up. As if he was saying, tell me everything.

So he did.