A dark skeleton walked alone on the street. It was cold and especially dark, the streetlights flickering on and off, the weak glow barely giving out any light. However, the skeleton didn't seem to care. He kept walking, turning left at the end of the sidewalk, and continuing up that slightly brighter street. Across the road was clearly a bunch of drunk teenagers. Seeing him, the girls wolf-whistled and called to him. His response was to pull his hood over his face and turn the music playing through his headphones up louder. He'd rather people just didn't acknowledge him sometimes.
Walking out onto a more open street, he saw a familiar car on the side of the road, stationary, lighting up the street with its headlights. A loud clap of thunder roared from above, and the skeleton quickly made his way over to the car, pulling open the door and sitting next to the driver. The driver was another skeleton, white boned and dressed mostly in white, except for his black shorts and long, red scarf. A white glitch covered one of his eyes, hiding it from everyone.
"I'd ask how your day went, but I can already tell it's been terrible." The driver said, pulling away from the curb already.
The dark skeleton nodded, removing his headphones and stuffing them in his bag.
"You need to get your own car." The driver pointed out.
The dark one nodded again. "I never actually asked for you to pick me up today."
"I know. But there's going to be a storm, and I didn't want you to walk home in it. And yeah, you could have teleported, but firstly, it's a waste of magic. Secondly, I wanted to speak to you." Replied the driver. "Why am I getting angry messages from Glitch asking for me to tell you to unblock his number?"
"I can't be bothered with him right now. It's his job to deal with what I've done anyway." Huffed the dark one.
"Error, you do know that Fresh's birthday is in two days?"
The dark skeleton, Error, momentarily paused. "Yeah, I knew that Geno, he's my brother."
"You forgot." The driver, Geno, sighed, "You'll have to get him a gift tomorrow."
"What did you get him?" Error asked, pulling his phone out of his pocket.
"I got him a new skateboard."
"...You know him better than I do, what does he like?" Error asked.
"Actually, I think you'll find that you know him better these days," Said Geno, "But if you really can't think of anything, just text him."
Error nodded. A loud silence, other than the noise the car made, hung over the two brothers. This went on for about three minutes until Error spoke.
"My boss is so stupid, it kills me to converse with him."
Geno smirked, "What did he do this time?"
"Well firstly, he asked me how to spell 'economical', and then he couldn't find his phone in a meeting today, which was on the desk in front of him, and then-" Error started to explain the many stupid and annoying things his boss had done over the course of the day. This conversation carried on all the way back to Error's apartment.
Geno, Error, and Fresh were brothers. Geno was the oldest, he was 27. Error was the middle, 24 years old. And Fresh was the youngest at 21.
Error worked in an office. He hated it. The job itself, the people (especially his boss), everything about that job.
Geno was a nurse working in the local hospital. He earned more than Error, but still not much.
And Fresh worked at KFC.
Error didn't really need to work. He could steal money or whatever else he needed from other universes, but that wouldn't go down too well. The orders he was given were: "Pretend you're normal. You're not normal, but act like you are. Get a normal job, a normal house. We don't need anyone suspecting anything, do we?"
After about another twenty minutes, Geno pulled up outside the building Error lived in. Error thanked Geno for the ride and left the car, entering the code to unlock the door to the apartment complex, and going to his room. As soon as he got inside, he went to his bedroom and flopped down on the bed with a loud sigh, checking the time on his phone. Only six thirty, he couldn't go to sleep yet. So he forced himself to get up, walking towards the kitchen to get something to eat. Suddenly his phone rang, and the caller was 'Nightmare'. Error picked up the call.
"Hey Nightmare," Error said.
"Hey. You had a bad day, I can tell from your voice." Nightmare's voice said from the other end.
"Is that surprising?" Error grumbled.
"Nah. I'll tell you what sucks, though: I have to spend all night in people's dreams and nightmares tonight. And that stuff is messed up ninety percent of the time." Nightmare laughed.
Error smirked, remembering the time Nightmare had to go into a dream where there was a huge ocean, and he was in the middle of it. Nightmare had probably every phobia involving large bodies of water/ large ocean animals ever. He rang Error in the middle of the night, having a panic attack because of the dream. Apparently there was a large whale, and Nightmare 'noped' out after that.
"Yeah, let's hope you don't have to deal with any oceans this time..." Error chuckled.
"If I do, I'm quitting. Like, quitting being the God of Negativity." Nightmare said, sounding only half-joking.
"If we could just quit being who we are, I'd have quit being the God of Destruction long ago..." Error laughed.
"Speaking of Gods, why is Glitch annoyed at you?"
Error rolled his eyes. "I accidentally killed Outer. You know, Outertale Sans?"
Error heard Nightmare sigh. "Why did you kill him? Just why?"
"I didn't mean to, I-!"
"Just... try not to kill any Sanses, okay?"
Glitch, the God of Resurrection, had started to get quite annoyed with Error lately. He'd say things like, "Killing is Reaper's job, not yours!" Or, "Do you know how much magic it takes to revive and wipe someone's memory?" Glitch would often wipe the past few hours from people's memories to avoid Error getting into too much trouble. If people knew he was killing important people (Sanses, major characters within a timeline, those kinds of people), he'd surely be punished by 'The Trinity'. And that's certainly not something any of the Gods wanted to experience.
"Alright. But Reaper's not doing his job, and I don't really want him to get punished again. Remember what happened last time?" Error sighed, placing his phone down on the kitchen counter and putting it on speaker. He proceeded to get bowl a of cereal.
"Of course. But Glitch doesn't want that happening to you, so he's doing more work because you're doing more work! And I bet I'll get caught up in it somehow." Nightmare said.
"I know. But it isn't even his job to fix destruction, his job is to fix death. It's Creation's job to deal with me. And you know that he's only allowed to resurrect certain people, right? For example, people who were not selected for reaping, but still died by Reaper's hand."
Of course Creation had a name, but Error didn't know it. He was one of the few Gods Error had never met. He found that strange. Creation and Destruction should know one another, he thought
"Yes, I know the rules of death and reaping. But doesn't Glitch have his own set of rules?"
"Probably. There's rules for every God, and each are different. Hell, I expect you and Dream's rules are slightly different."
Dream was Nightmare's twin brother, the God of Positivity and Dreams. The two were unlike, but were on good terms... For the most part.
"I don't think so. But Creation, he never follows the rules. The other day he-"
Nightmare knew the name of Creation, but no one would tell Error his name. Error simply assumed that this was because The Trinity didn't want them to know each other. He couldn't understand why. It had never made sense. He'd tried to find out through the other Gods, but they all refused to tell him. The people who'd told him the most had been Reaper and Nightmare, and all they'd said was that they couldn't say much about him because of The Trinity, but they also told him that Creation's name started with 'I'. No one heard from Nightmare and Reaper for a week after that, and they'd been more careful with what they said after.
**
"Hey Ink, we're closing, you can go home now."
Ink, a short, colourful skeleton turned around, looking at the speaker: A slender, dragon-ish monster with bright red hair that fell a few inches past his shoulders. His name was Phoenix, which was... well, quite weird, considering his appearance was that of a dragon.
"I know, I'm just doing...this...." Ink replied, and moving closer, he could see that Ink was playing around with a tattoo machine that appeared to be broken or something.
"Just deal with that on Monday, I wanna go home!" He nudged the small skeleton, making him drop the machine on the ink-stained table in front of him.
"What, so that you can play Fortnite with those angry nine-year-olds?" Ink mocked, grinning.
"For the last time, I don't play Fortnite!" Phoenix shouted, aiming a kick at Ink's leg, but Ink jumped out the way.
"You know that I've seen one of your Fortnite livestreams, right?" Ink giggled.
Phoenix paused. "...I'm-"
"And when you two have finished being high schoolers again, I'd appreciate some help so that we can all go home." Another voice spoke from the doorway of the room.
Phoenix and Ink turned to see a rather monochrome skeleton stood there.
"Oh, Cross, didn't you leave already?" Ink asked.
Cross rolled his eyes. "I'm waiting for you! Come on!"
Ink dropped what he was doing and followed Cross out the door, ignoring Phoenix's annoyed shouts.
Cross was taller than Ink, although still a lot shorter than the average person. He too worked at the tattoo studio, but hadn't been there as long as Ink, yet the two had known each other since high school. Cross was often cold and spoke very little to strangers -including people he was tattooing- if he could avoid it. However, Ink quickly learned that he was just very socially awkward and liked to keep to himself.
After grabbing their bags and leaving the studio, Cross and Ink were met with a gust of cold wind, followed by a clap of thunder.
"Cool, we haven't a had a storm in ages!" Cross said, suddenly sounding excited.
"...We had one three weeks ago." Ink said.
"I know, that's ages!" Cross shouted, running out into the dark street.
Ink smiled at Cross' enthusiasm. He wasn't normally so easily excited, but he loved storms and snow. He wasn't too happy about hot weather when it hit, though. Ink found this weird, because Cross was a Latino. Every other one Ink had met loved hot weather, but Cross had said he'd got bored of the hot weather in Colombia, although he only lived there for a few years.
Ink's phone buzzed. It was a text from his friend Dream, reading:
'You finished work yet?'
Ink tapped a response quickly: 'Yeah, just finished.'
'Nice. What you doin tonight?'
Ink glanced over at Cross. 'Hanging with Cross. You can join us if you want??'
'Okay, I'll be at yours in a bit?'
'Sure.' Ink slipped his phone back into his pocket.
"Hey Cross, we're going to mine, and Dream's coming over." He shouted at his monochrome friend.
"Okay." Cross seemed not to pay much attention, still staring up at the sky.
"C'mon!" Ink grabbed Cross' arm and started to drag him away.
**
"You got a lighter?" Cross asked.
Ink threw him one from his pocket. "You know that Dream would hate this?"
"Dream's not here yet." Cross clicked the lighter, the 'cigarette' in his mouth starting to smoke. He threw the lighter back at Ink, who did the same thing as Cross. "Damn, just me or is this stuff stronger than usual? Where'd you get it?"
Ink shrugged. "Just don't get too high."
They were sitting in Ink's room. The walls were covered in Ink's art, not a bare inch left.
Suddenly a knock rang out on Ink's apartment door.
"Crap!" Ink hissed.
Suddenly Dream burst in, a large smile present on his face. "Hey guys! What are you- oh..." His smile faded a bit after smelling the scent of what Cross and Ink were smoking.
"...Hi Dream! Uh, we were just..." Ink silently cursed himself for leaving his door unlocked, and shoved the 'cigarette' behind his back even though Dream already knew.
"We were just in the process of getting extremely high, thank you! I've had a very long week, and-" Cross exclaimed.
"You really couldn't think of anything better to do with your Friday night?" Dream giggled.
"...Nope." Ink smirked.
Dream sat on the end of Ink's bed (where Ink was sat, Cross on the chair at Ink's desk) and kicked off his shoes. The skeleton was dressed in black and gold, matching his bright eyes and shiny circlet.
"So! Any fun stories from work?" Dream asked. Cross and Ink would usually have a few stories to tell Dream about the weird tattoos they'd done, or weird people they'd encountered.
Immediately, Ink and Cross looked at each other, exchanging smirks.
"Well..." Cross started, "What about the girl who wanted Justin Bieber's face on her arm? I politely refused and dumped that on Ink, who dumped it on Phoenix, who couldn't find anyone else to dump it on."
Dream looked at Cross in horror. "What? But... not only is his music terrible, he's not even attractive!"
Ink snorted with laughter. "I decided not to do it because I couldn't trust myself not to mess it up on purpose."
After a few more minutes of laughing about it, Dream was asked about his week, to which he responded:
"Oh. I don't think Nightmare likes me at the moment."
"Why?" Cross asked.
"Apparently I'm not working as hard as I should be. And I know it's my fault if I'm not, but that kinda surprised me. Why would Nightmare complain? It would make his job easier... not that I'm trying to do less!" Dream said, a slight frown on his face.
"It's something to do with Reaper. I don't know what it is, but he's slacking, meaning Destruction is trying to cover him, which basically means everyone else is affected. If it were me, I'd just let Reaper take whatever punishment was coming his way. I'm not trying to sound mean or anything, but he needs to take responsibility." Ink said, inhaling the 'cigarette' again, and as Dream turned to him, accidentally exhaled it in Dream's face.
"Ink!" Dream coughed, choking on the smoke.
"Sorry!"
Dream suddenly ran over to the window and opened it, perching on the windowsill. "This whole room smells of pot!"
"Well yes, that would happen, we are smoking it." Cross smirked.
"You should stop smoking it..." Dream muttered.
"You ever tried it?" Cross asked.
"No!"
"Here, try it!" Cross offered the 'cigarette' to Dream.
"Get it away from me!"
"Cross." Ink said sternly.
Cross snickered and raised it back to his mouth.
"I'm tired. I really can't be bothered to do anything tomorrow, but I guess if I don't go check on the universes I'll get caught up in all of this drama." Ink huffed.
"God drama is...bad." Dream stated.
"Yeah, from what I've heard, it is." Cross said, despite the fact that he was not even a God. He knew some of the Gods through Ink, though. One God he didn't know anything about was Destruction, and that was because neither Ink or Dream could provide him with any information about the God. Well, Dream could, but wouldn't. It was Ink who actually couldn't. He knew nothing about Destruction, just like Cross. And Ink didn't want to know; he knew what happened to the previous Gods of creation and destruction.
After a long silence, Dream spoke again.
"Hey Ink, got any beer?"
"Sure, in the fridge." Ink replied.
Dream left the room and Cross turned to look at Ink.
"What happens when a God gets punished?" He asked Ink.
Ink paused. "Well, uh... There are different punishments, depending on the severity of the rule broken. For example, the punishment for sharing too much information with mortals would be...a few broken limbs?"
Cross froze and stared in disbelief at Ink. "What? Broken limbs?!"
Ink nodded. "Well, not all the punishments are violent."
"And you said that was for 'sharing too much information with mortals', and I'm mortal. I know loads of stuff about the Gods thanks to you and Dream, how come you guys are safe?" Cross asked.
" I know that The Trinity have favourites, maybe I'm one of them?" Ink smirked at the thought.
"Is that allowed? Favourites?"
"They play by their own rules." Ink huffed.
Suddenly Dream walked back in, a beer in his hand. "Your kitchen's a mess, Ink."
**
"You know," Cross suddenly said, "Maybe I'm a God. Maybe that's why you're allowed to talk to me."
Ink suddenly broke out into a fit of hysterics, "Y-You? What would you be? Wait, I've got it-!"
Cross cut him off, "No, I have! Just listen to this!" He suddenly stood up, posing dramatically. "Cross Peñaloza, God of Weed!"
Ink laughed harder, "That's exactly what I was gonna say!"
"Can I be God of chicken nuggets? I really want chicken right now." Dream said, sitting up (he'd previously been lying in a starfish shape on Ink's bed).
"No, you're already God of something!" Cross giggled.
"BUT I WANT CHICKEN! AND THE GOD OF CHICKEN NUGGETS WOULD GET UNLIMITED CHICKEN!" Dream screamed, slamming his hand down on the bed.
Ink looked at the time on his phone. "It's about eleven, KFC is open!"
Dream gasped. "LET'S GO!"
"Agreed!" Cross shouted.
And thus, the three skeletons ran out the door and into the night, on a mission to get chicken.
**
"On your left."
"Okay."
"Reaper, I said left!"
"...What gun are you using?"
"...A sniper.. you know, that thing that fires long distance and-"
"I know what a sniper is, dumbass!" Reaper shouted, kicking Error in the shoulder from the sofa. Error was sat on the floor, closer to the screen they were looking at.
"...Okay, it's us and one other pair." Error said, ignoring Reaper, his eyes glued to the screen.
"Okay... Wait, behind you!"
"Reaper, that's a tree. Wait no, you're right, there's someone behind it... Okay, got him. And there's the other one..."
As Reaper shot the last person, Error dropped his controller and stood up, kicking Reaper in the ribs. "That's for kicking me in the head."
"Oh, you actually registered that? You didn't even move." Reaper laughed.
Error flipped him off, sitting down next to him on the sofa, quickly checking his phone. He rolled his eyes and threw the phone down carelessly.
"What was that?" Reaper asked.
"Geno bugging me about Fresh's birthday again. I'll deal with it tomorrow..."
Reaper nodded, and the two sat in silence for a few seconds.
"Thanks, by the way." Reaper said, looking at Error, who in return gave a look of confusion.
"For what?"
"Covering me the past few weeks? You know, the thing you did that made everyone mad?"
"Oh, that. Yeah, what was that about?" Error asked.
"Honestly? I needed a break. Which was selfish of me, but sometimes you have to be selfish, y'know?"
Error nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense. Killing gets... a bit too much sometimes. I can't complain, I don't kill as many people as you do."
Reaper quickly stood up and walked to the kitchen. Error followed.
"If your job includes any killing, then you have the right to complain." Reaper sighed, opening Error's fridge and pulling out two beers, handing one to Error.
Error shrugged, opening the beer and sipping it slowly, whereas Reaper downed his in about 10 seconds. "Slow down, jeez..."
"...Should we just go to a bar and get wasted?" Reaper laughed, turning to Error.
Letting out a groan, Error shook his head. "That's really not my idea of fun..."
"You just wanna stay here all night? And just keep winning at video games?" Reaper raised an 'eyebrow'.
"Yep."
"You're boring."
"Yeah." Error said through a yawn.
Reaper rolled his eyes, grabbing another beer and pulling out his phone. "It's 1am, you're already tired?"
"I'm in a permanent state of exhaustion. No amount of sleep is gonna make a difference."
"Sounds fun," Reaper said, "I'm hungry. Let's order pizza."
"You're paying." Error said, yawning again.
Reaper started to dial a number for a pizza place, when Error's phone suddenly went off in the living room. He left just as Reaper started to talk into his own phone.
Upon seeing the number of the caller, Error froze. It was just a bunch of '4's and '0's. Hesitantly, he pressed the answer button. "What do you want?" He said in a quiet voice, trying not to be heard from the other room by Reaper. "No, you never asked me to- Well I'm not- Wait a second, you said that if I-" Clearly whoever it was did not want Error to speak, as they kept cutting him off. The speaker said something that made Error highly uncomfortable, displayed through an anxious expression on his face. "Y-Yes. Of course." And the line went dead.
"Hey Error, what pizza do you want?" Reaper called, sticking his head out of the kitchen to look at Error.
"U-Uh... I'm not hungry."
"I'll just get you pepperoni."
"Sure." Error said, walking out of the living room and down the hall that lead to his bedroom.
"Where are you going?" Reaper called.
"...Just looking for my phone charger!" Error responded, walking into his bedroom and sitting on his bed, texting the same person he'd just been talking to. The contact was just called '404'.
E: Is there nothing else I can do?
4: You can do what I say, or you can do what KM says. And you know you're my favourite, you should trust that I'll make it easier for you than he will.
E: So what exactly is it that you want me to do?
4: I only want you to mess up the code a little.
E: Wait, really? No deaths?
4: Messed up code, no deaths. As simple as that.
E: Well then that's fine. Thanks.
4: Just be careful, you MUST NOT be seen by ANYONE in that universe.
E: Why?
4: You're not actually supposed to be seen in any universe, so you shouldn't even need to ask. Just act as you normally would, but be extra careful.
E: What's going on? What you're asking me to do isn't as simple as 'mess up some code', is it? And since when has just simply messing with code been useful?
4: You expect me to tell you my plans? Like we're equals? We're not. You are below me. You'd do well to remember that, Error.
E: I will. I'm sorry.
4: I have stuff to do. Don't disappoint me.
E: I won't.
"Error?"
The dark skeleton dropped his phone, spinning around to Reaper at the door of his bedroom.
"You've been ages in here! The pizza just arrived!" Reaper said, holding up two pizza boxes.
"Oh, right. Sorry, got distracted." Error followed Reaper back out of the room and took one of the boxes. Once they sat on the sofa, Reaper grabbed a slice of his food and ate it like a wild animal, whereas Error didn't even open his box.
"Dude," Reaper said after his second slice, "I just paid for that and you're not even gonna eat it?"
"I'll pay you back." Error sighed, sinking down onto the sofa and closing his eyes, tiredness washing over him.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm just tired."
"It's not even 2am yet."
"I've been awake since 7am, shut up."
Reaper sighed. "You're lame."
"I'm tired." Error growled.
After a few silent minutes, Reaper said through a mouthful of pizza, "Sorry. You should go to bed. You do actually look pretty exhausted."
Error slowly moved off the sofa, heading towards the door. "You can stay on the sofa if you want..."
Reaper nodded, tried to speak and realized there was far too much pizza in his mouth, and gave Error a thumbs up.
Just as Error was heading back down the hall, Reaper shouted, "CAN I HAVE YOUR PIZZA?"
"Go ahead."
**
Error was so tired ten minutes ago. He thought he'd fall asleep a few seconds after he got into his bed, but he lay awake, yet felt so tired at the same time.
He sat up, sighing.
He reached onto his bedside table and grabbed his phone, and checked the time: 02:11. The glitched skeleton put the phone back down and closed his eyes again.
His phone buzzed.
He growled and picked it up, seeing a message from Nightmare: Go to sleep.
Clearly he could sense that Error wasn't dreaming.
Error huffed and put the phone down again.
Lying back down again, he could faintly hear the sounds of rain and thunder. They seemed to be getting louder. You could even hear the wind through the closed window. Some would find it annoying, but Error was enjoying it. It was relaxing.
What wasn't relaxing was the many thoughts that raced through his head, varying from his little brother's birthday, his work, and his God duties. He tried to block them out by focusing on the stormy sounds from outside. It helped for maybe a few seconds. It was night when his stress would get worse. There was nothing to distract him, unlike earlier when he was playing video games and it was the only thing he was focusing on.
And then a huge bolt of lightning struck, so bright that Error could see it with closed eyes, through closed curtains. And he wasn't even facing the window. He got up and opened the window, only to wince and squeeze his eyes close due to how bright the lightning was.
He stayed there for another twenty minutes, just watching the storm before crawling back into bed and falling asleep.
**
The lightning was very pretty, Ink thought.
He was stood on the small balcony his apartment had, an easel and canvas in front of him, a paintbrush in one hand, and a look of concentration on his face. He softly hummed a tune he'd heard somewhere as he gently stroked the canvas with his brush. The rain and wind were luckily facing ahead of Ink, so the canvas was not getting wet.
"I think it's coming along quite well, don't you, Dream?" He asked his friend, but there was no response. "Dream?" He repeated. He looked down to see Dream wrapped up in a blanket, asleep on the floor of the balcony. Ink smiled, shaking his head at the golden skeleton.
Cross had gone home after they left KFC. Going to get chicken had been an interesting experience. First, Dream fell off the side of the road and nearly got run over by a car, then Cross ordered the wrong thing for Ink. Luckily the guy taking the orders was patient and laughed it off. Ink remembered that his name tag said 'Fresh'.
"I don't know how you're sleeping through this..." Ink muttered, mixing some colours on his palette.
And then there was this huge flash of lightning. Ink jumped, dropping his paintbrush on Dream's head, leaving a grey streak of paint on his face. Dream suddenly jumped too. "Wh-What?!"
Ink giggled. "Heya! You've got a little...uh... paint on your face!"
Dream looked confused, and then moved his hand up to his face, smudging the paint everywhere.
"O-Oh my God, just go take a shower and go to bed!" Ink giggled.
Dream rolled his eyes. "Night Ink!"
"Night..."
Dream walked back into the house, leaving Ink alone on the balcony.
The sky was a dark grey, storm clouds masking the usual dark blue colour. Icy rain lashed against windows, little drops racing each other to the bottom of the panes, given speed by the vicious wind.
Ink was enjoying the moment, trying to forget about the day he had tomorrow. More God duties.
He just hoped that Destruction wasn't planning anything.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HELLO CHIRREN-
WELCOME TO MY SECOND BOOK
So-
I had a vote for this, and you guys said you wanted a Crossmare book. So naturally, I wrote an Errink one! :D
....
Okay I'm sorry, it's my OTP and I already had ideas for this book. You'll get your Crossmare in the next book I publish (Which will most be posted while I'm still working on this one) which will be the collaboration between me and the other three.
So, I just want to say a huge thanks to DaMoomin
for making the book cover. I love it so much! :3
and klprettykitty
for helping me with this chapter :3
So this book probably won't be as good as my last one (although I seem to prefer it so far)because it's not really multiship, but there will actually be some Crossmare and Afterdeath, idk if there's anything else.
Sorry that it's a little rushed, I wanted to get it out ASAP :P
So uh...
Just gonna leave a little note for myself, first chapter of this book was published on the 9th of August, 2019! Hopefully it does not take me a year to complete it like In Love With The Enemy! XD
Bye!
-Brooke