"It's not possible!"
"Well obviously it is, so why the hell are you so determined to deny the obvious truth that is quite literally in front of you!"
The painter cast a frustrated glance back at the human that was lost in the world of their own dreams, oblivious to the argument that was going on in front of them. "Because it's not (Y/n)," he snarled, feeling the same hatred and frustration build up inside of him from the moment he had first laid eyes on the literal ghost of his past. "You said it yourself that the multiverse is at a standstill from all the destruction that the war with Nightmare caused. It can't create anything until we've erased all the infected universes."
"I know what I said," Dream snapped, pacing back and forth, the tips of his fingers flexing anxiously as if he expected some hidden enemy to jump out at him at any minute. It was a habit that the painter himself had also picked up on. Ever since the war, an endless bloody conflict where every friend could turn into an enemy at the slightest second, where your own shadow became a threat, where you always had to sleep with one eye open in case the darkness decided to strangle you in your sleep, it wasn't hard to always be on edge.
"And you're right," Dream continued, stopping to cast a glance at the human. "The multiverse shouldn't have been able to recreate (Y/n), but here they are right in front of us. And they're not the only thing that has come back either. You saw the way that the shadows behaved back in the ruins of the Underswap universe. There's no way that they're acting of their own accord, randomly carrying out the instructions of a dead commander. Nightmare is alive, somehow, and he still commands his servants from afar."
"But it can't - "
"And yet it did," Dream interrupted, agitated by the painter's refusal to accept the human's return. "They're not a trick, Ink, not some illusion created by Nightmare's remnants to kill us. If he really wanted us dead, those shadows could have ripped us apart right then and there. But yet he called them off which means - "
"Exactly!" The painter snapped. "If, if I'm even remotely considering the possibility that Nightmare is somehow alive and out there, then why call off his troops when he had us cornered, weakened and frightened? You can't deny that this thing," he gestured to the slumbering human in the corner, refusing to call them by their actual name, to admit that there was even a chance that the one whom he had known so long ago was now alive and well, "you can't deny that it isn't connected to Nightmare and his shadows somehow. This so-called human just happens to pass out and the shadows decide to retreat when they have us in a nice little corner?"
"It is strange," Dream admitted, "and (Y/n)'s return must somehow be linked to Nightmare's return, I'll give you that, but that doesn't mean that (Y/n) isn't (Y/n) - "
"It isn't them!" The painter snarled, his teeth bared back in the beginnings of a feral snarl. The truth was, the artist was so damn sick of getting his hopes up, even remotely considering the possibility that the human might have come back after all this time.
When he had crossed universe to universe upon the end of the war, when he had greeted the weary survivors both human and monster alike, had he not always felt his breath hitch in his throat at the flash of (H/c) hair, stop halfway in his words only to be greeted with disappointment as the owner of the (H/c) hair far-off in the crowd turned to look at him and bore a face that was certainly not (Y/n)'s?
No, he was done falling victim to such illusions, done getting caught up in petty hopes and dreams. Even then, it was obvious that the human bore no memory of him or Dream, so what was the point in even attempting to reconnect? As far as he was concerned, the (Y/n) he had known was long gone, dead alongside the billions of others that had perished in the war.
But yet, he could still not shake off the familiar features etched in the human's face, the way that their eyes seemed to see right through him as they had done millions of times before. He could have left the human to die back in that universe, simply sealed off the portal and left them to rot. It would have been a painless death, quick and easy too. But yet that damn spark of hope refused to cease and he had given way to the dim chance that perhaps the human was not some plot, not some tool of whatever dark forces were at work this night to try and once more hinder the rebirth of the Multiverse.
"Sometimes I wonder if there's even a point to all of this," Ink muttered as he sat down on the ground next to Dream, trailing his fingers against the translucent white floor of the Void. He remembered how much he had hated this place, where he had first been banished to after his old world had fallen to chaos and ruin. He could have just as easily lost his mind as Error had all those years ago, but some small shard of sanity morphed him into something new, the protector rather than the destroyer of the worlds that existed.
It had all been easy, back then. Sure, there was the occasional rebellion or sadistic skeleton (cough - Error - cough) that was hell bent on destroying some world. But those were mere skirmishes that Ink could solve within hours before returning back to the centre of the Void where he surrounded himself with his artwork and other fantasies of other worlds that could be created.
However, this time was different. This time the entirety of the Multiverse had been ripped apart, a war between Nightmare and his armies had corrupted the coding of entire universes. The damage done made it near impossible for Ink or any of his other followers to create new universes due to the risk of their codes being corrupted. The sheer amount of work required to restore the multiverse back to the way it had been was enormous. Sometimes it felt as if it was the very nature of existence to revert back to the cold and desolate silence of the Void and nothing more. Life itself was nothing more than a mere blip, annoyance in returning creation back to its original state.
"What do you mean?" Dream cocked his head to one side, worry evident in his multi-coloured irises.
"Never mind," Ink shook off the feeling, looking back at the human and then to his partner in crime. "The point is, I saw them die, Dream. I remember clutching onto the dying remnants of their soul, feeling the last part of their fleeting existence struggling to fight against the inevitable cycle of life and death, only for the wheel to turn and for (Y/n) to be pulled alongside it."
The truth was, the feeling had never truly left Ink, the feeling of watching (Y/n) fade away into the ghost of the Void, watching them simply wither and vanish without a trace, without even a damn footprint to memorialise their existence and all that they had been through. Every struggle, every pain, every battle that Ink and (Y/n) had been through together existed only in the mind of the painter and nothing more.
And now the feeling was back now more than ever at the possible realisation that (Y/n) may actually be slumbering metres away from him without any recollection of their experiences together. Ink knew that it was inevitable from the very beginning that any relationship with the human was impossible, if one would even call the being a human. (Y/n) was unique in the sense that for whatever reason, they were the only version of themselves in the entire multiverse. There were infinite amounts of skeletons, goats and wolves lurking an infinite amount of underground caves and catacombs. But there was only ever one (Y/n) out of them all.
(Y/n) had the ability to hop from universe to universe upon the event of their death, a never-ending cycle of immortality that was most likely a fate worse than death. Sure, they got to relive their life in a new way, form new friendships and go on new adventures only to be born again and repeat the same cycle without any recollection of the last. But the real damage done was to those that had the power to see (Y/n) on more than one occasion, to know them in multiple versions of their lives, to see the blank expression on their face, remembering nothing of the lives and memories that had been shared only days ago. It was a blessing, Ink supposed, to avoid losing the human forever, but still the same, it was death for their memories and soul had been wiped clean for whatever new life awaited them. As far as Ink cared, the (Y/n) that he knew, the (Y/n) that he had...
"I know they're not the (Y/n) you knew," Dream replied sympathetically, placing a hand on Ink's shoulder. "But they're back now, aren't they? It has to be more than just a coincidence, more than just mere chance. Out of an infinite amount of universes in the Void, you got to meet (Y/n) for a second time."
"And then what?" Ink spat back, not bothering to hide the pain in his voice. "I just pretend that we're meeting for the first time, that nothing in the past ever happened? That the war between Nightmare and his allies was nothing? Besides, the multiverse can't create anything, you said that yourself! It's at a permanent stasis until we remove all the corrupted codings of ruined universes that have poisoned all of existence! Therefore, this thing can't be (Y/n), don't you get it? It's some ploy of Nightmare's, some sadistic way of messing with us!"
"The thing is," Dream mumbled in response, "that you are accepting the return of Nightmare, implying that he was 'created' and brought back when the multiverse is supposed to be in a permanent halt in creating things. However, when given (Y/n), you refuse to accept the obvious."
Ink's mouth went dry, stumbling for a coherent sentence to leave his mouth. Was he really so willing to accept the return of a demonic cosmic villain than a friend from long past? Perhaps it was easier to face a sadistic skeleton rather than face the blank stare prevalent on (Y/n)'s face, always seeing but never remembering what was and could have been.
"Who's Nightmare?"
The question caused both of the skeletons to recoil at the sound for the Void was usually one of silence unless one knew the song. (Y/n)'s wide (E/c) eyes stared at Ink, but they weren't the same eyes that he had known. They didn't catch the light the way that his (Y/n) had, there seemed to be only emptiness and confusion that reflected a mind that had been wiped clean to begin anew.
"A cosmic entity that's hell bent on destroying all of creation," Ink spat, not surprised or bothered by the venom in his words. Perhaps it was better to drive the human away, to push away the painful memories and bury it in the back of his mind. Besides, now wasn't the time to be fantasising about his emotions and desires. He had a bigger task at hand, to clean up the ruins of the war and restore the multiverse. The petty conflict of a small skeleton meant nothing compared to the suffering trillions were currently feeling as their universes bled and decayed into the inevitable silence of the Void.
"That sounds awesome!" (Y/n) exclaimed, delighted at the prospect of having a newfound purpose. "When do we get to kill him?"
"Maybe they're not that different after all," Dream replied, noting the uncanny personality trait that had carried on from (Y/n)'s old self to the version they currently were now, the desire to always leap head first into danger without a coherent plan.
Maybe, Ink noted, but reserved the opinion to himself as to not give Dream his own personal satisfaction.