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It feels like it's been a very, very long time since he'd last interacted with another person. Time has no meaning here; there isn't a sun or moon, or even any stars, to determine if time is passing at all.
Everything is just white. If Cross wasn't sitting on it, he'd doubt that even the ground existed.
Hell, he'd doubt that he existed if it wasn't for the fact that Ink knew he existed… whenever he remembered, that is.
Even including Ink, it feels like he hasn't seen another person for an eternity, and without a way to tell time, Cross has a niggling fear that it has been an eternity. It certainly wouldn't be beyond Ink to just forget to visit him for months upon months.
…If any months have even passed. Cross can't know for sure; for all he knows, no time has passed at all.
He spends an inordinate amount of time just sitting here, for there isn't anything better to do. His sacrum is numb from sitting on the ground, and that's the only reason he knows the ground exists at all.
But the numbness is annoying, so he lets himself fall back onto the ground with a thump.
It's disorienting to land on something. He scrambles back up, startled into standing, and gripping at his hood as if to check that it's still there. (As if it's left his skull since he got to this cursed place.)
The space where his skull had hit the ground is occupied by a wirebound sketchbook. Ink must have left it the last time he visited, whenever that had been. Perhaps it'd been more recent than Cross had thought — or maybe he just spent so long doing nothing that the time had passed in a blink. He couldn't be sure.
He picks it up and flips through it. It's empty, and except for a few margins left over from where pages were removed by their perforated edges, untouched. There isn't even any label or scribble on it that says If lost, return to Ink!
Probably because Ink would never remember that he'd lost it in the first place. He's scatterbrained to the point that it gets frustrating sometimes, but it's not like anyone else visits Cross, or even knows he's here, so he just bears it.
At least having the sketchbook will give him something to do. He's had markers in his inventory since the first time Ink visited, but no clean paper, and he'd ripped all his drawings to bits last time he'd had a breakdown.
(How long ago that was, Cross can't say. It could've been days ago, or it could've been weeks.)
The markers drop out of his inventory with some clacking noises that echo throughout the empty world as he sits back down and flips the sketchbook open. With his teeth, Cross uncaps the black marker, and then replaces the cap on the other end of the marker for safekeeping.
He has no idea what to draw. The white page feels like it's mocking him in the empty space that used to be his home.
He's drawn his family dozens of times over. He's scribbled out his nightmares and flashbacks tens of times. He's even drawn Ink a few times, and once did a self portrait because Ink goaded him into it.
Cross puts the cap back on the marker, for fear that it will dry out if he leaves it uncapped for however long it will take him to come up with an idea.
Maybe one of those paper games Alphys had taught him about…? He has no idea how to fold the paper, though. With his luck, he'd completely screw it up and run out of paper.
Or… Alphys had also taught him some card games. She liked Solitaire. She taught Cross how to play, a bit. Just enough that he knew how to play, and also how many questions he could ask before she got annoyed and stopped talking to him.
He thinks Freecell had been her favorite, but it was overly complicated for him. She'd taught him an easier version, the most basic of basic styles of Solitaire.
He can't remember what it's called. He probably won't even be able to play it right… But at least making the cards will give him something to do.
Again, Cross uncaps the black marker, and draws a line down the page, as close to the middle as he can. Then, he draws a line across the page, dividing it into slightly-uneven quarters. He supposes he'll start with Clubs or Spades, since he already has the black marker open.
He numbers the squares and then draws the pips on each of them — one, two, three, four. Then, he very carefully begins tearing the page from the perforation.
But his hands shake, and the page tears diagonally in a jagged line.
Cross stares at it for a long moment, watching without really seeing as tears blot the black ink. Then he startles, and quickly tosses the sketchbook away, so that the whole thing won't be waterlogged and stained purple.
When he finally calms down, he takes a different approach, first tearing the page at the perforation, and then folding it into quarters and making the edges as sharp as he can, running the flat of his giant knife along them to make them even sharper.
(At least that stupid knife is good for something .)
His hands shake slightly as he unfolds the paper, before tearing it down the vertical line he's made in the center. Thankfully, his obsessive sharpening of the fold he'd made makes the paper rip near perfectly down the line. The same happens as he splits the halves in half again, and he now has four rather flimsy cards.
He can't remember exactly how many cards are in a deck, so he doesn't cut them all first, even though he'd prefer to — he doesn't want to waste any more paper.
So Cross starts with the Aces. He numbers each card as if it's from a real deck — an "A" at the top left corner, and then an "A" in the bottom right corner.
He's holding the black pen already, so he starts with Clubs. In the center of the card he draws three circles just barely intersecting, and then a stem between the bottom two. Then, he carefully colors the circles in.
One down, however many more to go.
The Spades and Hearts are easy — one is basically a soul with a stem, and the other is an upside-down soul. His diamond looks more like a funny square, but it gets the job done.
He caps the markers, and gets started on the next four cards. Convenient, he thinks vaguely, that he's divided the paper into quarters, since there are four suits. He sets to work at making the twos.
It takes him many hours to finish his makeshift deck — probably, anyway, since he has no idea how much time has passed, or if time is actually passing at all. After that first false start, he's had no more failed cards, and no more breakdowns brought on by said failed cards, either.
He lays the cards out one by one once he's finished. First all the Clubs, then the Spades below that, then the Hearts, and finally the Diamonds at the very bottom. Four rows of thirteen, fifty-two cards.
For the first time in quite a while, Cross actually feels proud of himself. He's accomplished something tangible in this horrible white void!
And just as quickly, guilt sets in. How could he be excited about something when he murdered his family?
The cards are just to pass the time, that's all.
Cross focuses on stacking the cards into a deck, trying to clear his mind. The paper isn't as thick as it would be for a real deck of cards, but it isn't printer paper-thin either. It's somewhere in between — the sketchbook says "mixed media" on the cover, so it's probably thick enough for watercolors or something of the sort.
Definitely not thick enough for shuffling to be easy, though. He tries an overhand shuffle first, but the paper cards miss his hand repeatedly. Next he attempts to riffle them, which… sort of works, but he has to straighten them out repeatedly.
Eventually, Cross figures that his best bet is probably to just toss them to the ground in a pile, and sort of smush them together. He focuses on making sure every card moves, so he can't dwell on the guilt he feels for being excited to have something to do, or the stress that's been building since his first attempt at shuffling went awry.
He pulls a few cards, just to be sure they're shuffled well enough to play a game with. Thankfully he pulls three very out-of-order cards: the King of Clubs, the Eight of Diamonds, and the Five of Spades. He slips them back into the deck separately, just to be safe.
Carefully, Cross lays his cards out. He starts with the face-down ones; six on the right, then five, four, three, two, and one on the left. Then, from left to right, he lays down his face-up cards. There's only one move on his first turn, but it's better than nothing.
He moves the Ten of Diamonds onto the Jack of Clubs, and the Jack of Clubs onto the Queen of Hearts. Next, he turns his attention to the stock pile. Alphys taught him to turn three cards over at a time, but… he doesn't think that's going to work with such flimsy cards. Instead he turns one over, once more lamenting his choices and situation in the back of his mind.
He pulls fourteen cards before he's able to make a move — the Seven of Hearts from the stock pile is quickly placed on the Eight of Spades that his leftmost pile had started with, and the Six of Spades on that pile, too. He moves the whole stack onto the Nine of Hearts.
Now he has a free spot to place a King, once he pulls one! Despite himself, Cross grins a bit.
And within a few pulls from the stock, he has one. The King of Spades replaces the Eight of Spades in his leftmost slot, and he moves his pile with Queen of Hearts onto it.
All that work just ends up revealing another Queen, this time the Queen of Clubs. But with a few more moves, he's got a nice stack spanning from the Nine of Hearts all the way down to the Two of Clubs.
A few more pulls from the stock pile brings up his first Ace. He doesn't have anything to place on it yet, but he puts it beside the stock pile. It's the Ace of Hearts, but the only twos he has visible right now are the twos of Diamonds and Spades, so it's useless for now.
Cross doesn't get any more big moves before the stock pile is exhausted. He picks it up to flip it over, but pauses. Is he supposed to reshuffle it…? He can't remember Alphys saying so, so he doesn't, but he thumbs the edge of the deck for a moment, before he finally places it down.
In his first two pulls, he gets to put another Jack down, so at least he knows the game isn't a total failure yet . At the very least, it's given him something to do other than stare at the empty whiteness that was his universe and feel guilty.
Then! He flips to the Ten of Spades, and places it on the Jack he's just put down, and that means he can move the entire stack from the Nine of Hearts to the Two of Clubs over! Cross moves it very slowly, as carefully as possible so as not to disturb the order. Once he has the space to put down a red King, he'll have a whole, complete stack, from King to two…
It's the most excited he's been since what he did, and for a second he forgets his guilt and shame in favor of pure, child-like excitement.
He uncovers the Ace of Spades after a few more turns, in the same move that allows him to make a stack from the King of Spades to the Three of Spades. He also piles the Two of Spades on its Ace, since it's pretty useless on his board.
The Three of Clubs goes onto his Four of Hearts, and he finally has a space for another King. It's silly, but he's almost giddy with how well this first game is going. Or maybe he's just spent so long wallowing in depression and guilt that any happiness feels like he's riding a high.
A few more flips of his stock… and he uncovers the King of Diamonds. His first stack is finished, from the King of Diamonds to the Two of Clubs, and his second — the King of Spades to the Two of Diamonds — is finished soon after. Two down, two to go.
The King of Clubs comes from his stock pile, and moving the Three of Hearts to the Four of Spades uncovers his last King, the King of Hearts. In short order, he has the Queen and the Jack on the King of Clubs, and then the Ten of Hearts on that.
The stock pile is exhausted again, so he flips it over again. (Is he supposed to be shuffling it? He really can't recall; he hardly remembers Alphys teaching him at all…)
(Maybe that memory is from another timeline? It's a thought Cross doesn't want to touch with a ten foot pole — or his stupid, giant knife.)
He goes through the entire stock pile again and frowns. Nothing. He manages to make a few moves beyond that, though — he stacks the Hearts up to four, and the Spades up to five, uncovering the Ace of Diamonds in the process. He moves the last King to the space that the Ace of Diamonds frees up, and that reveals his last Ace.
Cross hadn't really noticed, but his (rather fragile) hope must have broken when he went through the stock pile with nothing to show. He notices now because it's growing again with his discovery of the final Ace. He stacks all the piles up to five, except the Hearts, because he hasn't found that card yet.
Just as he thinks that, he notices that he has a move to make — the Nine of Clubs to the Ten of Hearts. That uncovers the Five of Hearts, which in turn uncovers the last Queen he needs. He's getting to the nitty-gritty, now.
In short order, he stacks all his piles from Ace to King. First the Hearts of the left, then the Spades, the Diamonds, and finally the Clubs. He grins as he looks over his won game, and he wants to show it to someone, to his brother and sister to gloat that he won a game all by himself —
And then he remembers that he's the only one left. Papyrus is dead by his hand, and Alphys had probably died in the aftermath as their universe was destroyed due to his actions. He supposes he could save the game for Ink to see… but it's unlikely the artist would even care.
With a sigh, Cross stands. He thinks about kicking over the little piles of cards, but decides it'd be better to just… leave it. He'll reshuffle them and play another game soon, and he'll be thankful that he didn't accidentally destroy them with his kick.
Eventually.