Work Text:
It was-
Empty.
It was empty.
No, that was wrong. It was colourful and normal and just like always, and it was so full but-
But he felt it was empty.
So, so empty.
He was fading, but he didn't know why, he drank, but it wasn't helping anymore, he was fighting, Stars, he was fighting, but it didn't mean anything anymore.
His words, his expressions, his convictions. Empty. It all felt so empty, and- and it didn't have a right to. He wasn't supposed to be empty, not anymore, the colourful miracles shone with silent promises, but was it just an illusion? He didn't want to believe it. He couldn't believe it. It couldn't have been, it had to be real, it had to. There was no other option, no other chance, because if there was, would it, would it mean it was all for nothing?
He trembled, but it felt as if it was the world that did, but then for a moment the world was empty too. It was empty, it was white, just like him, and he was fading, fading until nothing would be left anymore, until-
Until someone put a hand on his shoulder and suddenly the world around him was, but even then he couldn't help but suspiciously look around, waiting for it to fade away. Because the world wasn't empty anymore, but, Stars, did he feel that it was.
He remembered his paints, he remembered where they came from, he refilled them, again and again and again, but it still tasted so empty. They tasted like a lie and promises, and there was that thought in his head, reminding him of every story he visited in this Multiverse and of an unspoken, bitter question if every promise there had to be broken.
Sometimes he felt like an animal, caged and ready to attack, claw at everything in its vicinity just to escape, just to feel something, to remind himself that he was still there. If it weren't so empty, he would be relieved to see Error or Nightmare attacking Universes. If everything wasn't so empty, he wouldn't be glad to fight, to attack, to hurt and ache, just to be sure that he didn't fade away.
Because everything was so empty empty empty empty, always empty.
He laughed, of course, he still laughed, he was yellow after all, but it was empty- he was empty. And it didn't make sense because he wasn't supposed to be, because he wasn't, but the light that came into his body that lacked a soul was slowly draining away, and he didn't understand why.
Was he not good enough? Was he inadequate to protect this Multiverse? Was he a failure, now abandoned, or maybe it was his Multiverse that was, and only he could feel it, feel the overwhelming lack. Did he fail to keep them interested, and now everyone would leave?
He was blue and he cried, but it didn't help and it was empty too.
There was a certain monotony now. A certain routine.
It was different every time, but he felt like in reality it was only coming down to the same exact things, again and again and again- and no one else cared, no one was so empty, so purposeless. They were content.
And he was still struggling to understand what 'content' meant.
He was restless, he was searching and forgetting and retching with paints that he took too many of, in a futile attempt to be something, anything more at all. He was never successful, and every day it felt like he was sinking lower and lower into unending whiteness and no one else could see, because they were there but it was like he was alone- and then his vision cleared and blurred faces and white sketches were no longer around him, worried faces of... his friends, instead.
He was green, green, green, because they weren't empty, because they were vibrant and colourful and true, and he was just an imitation that kept falling apart every day. Even then, even when he was so, so green, it didn't mean anything. It didn't change anything. He was green, but he might've as well been white, and that made him ever more green, even if that was too empty to even pretend that it wasn't.
Others seemed to notice something was wrong, but only with him. They didn't really know. They couldn't tell. It was empty, but for them it was as if nothing changed at all, and he couldn't understand it. How was it possible that no one sensed it? Feel how empty it was, that it was everywhere, it was overwhelming. Places filled before, now were lacking, and he had to stop himself from shuddering at the sheer wrongness of that, but he couldn't.
He was always wrong, but now he was even more.
It was as if he was constantly cold, forever irrevocably slowly freezing over, because it was as if that emptiness was spreading into him more and more. He was so, so purple, and he just wished that there would be more so he wouldn't have to be like that anymore or that that purple wouldn't feel lacking too.
He was shaking, always at least a tiny bit purple now and always not full enough, even when his body was filled to the point it was forcibly repelling everything from it. He was like a leaking bowl, never, never, never, ever complete and only getting emptier with every second.
Everything was so wrong, but he was wrong the most. His mind, his body, his everything, but he had to be wrong about this, too, because he couldn't be abandoned now, thrown away after he failed to meet the expectations or for whatever other reason there could be. Something else had to be wrong, he could fix it, he had to-
He tried and tried but didn't know how, everything he was doing was pointless and empty, so empty it felt as if he was doing nothing at all, and that really was what he was doing.
The world kept turning, moving on and not noticing how in a single second that now felt so long ago, his house of cards started falling apart, and he couldn't do anything about it.
Stories in Universes were still being told, Error still tried to destroy them, Nightmare still tried to gather more negativity, and Dream still tried to protect everyone. Nothing changed at all, aside from Ink desperately trying to find something that would fill that unending emptiness.
The purpose of his existence was shaken. His trust in everything that he knew was being tested. His existence was left under question mark- and the terrible, only part of him that was still sure of something was that- him being left for unknown was so, so very familiar.
Flashes of a time outside of the time, when there was only despair and hope and hurt and desperation and betrayal before they became colours-
But they were always colours, they had to be, because accepting that they once weren't would mean accepting every other weird thought, and he already had to accept what he couldn't.
Because how can a believer who served his entire existence directly under his god, believe that his god left him, not looking back? He can't. He just. He can't.
He can't.
But he has to.
Because that's what happened, only thousands times worse. After all, this believer had thousands of gods - and all of them-
And others didn't see what happened and still kept asking him. Asking if he was alright, if he needed a break, if he was fine again, as if he was defective-
And for so long already he was blue and yellow and green and purple and all of that at the same time and nothing like it at all - that he abruptly, violently almost, burst out red.
He screamed and trashed like it was someone else. He couldn't control his own body, couldn't recognise the person saying all those things. It was as if the presence of those who left was the only defence he had against this foreign being that now took his body as their own, and he could do nothing but helplessly watch and struggle and be empty-
But.
In that moment, in the moment after, when that pale purple caused him to tremble because he couldn't truly feel, and couldn't truly think-
In that moment when blue-transparent liquid fell from his face-
In that moment when green burst out like a vicious snake, but one with no venom-
In that moment when he ignored the imitation of yellow-that-wasn't-empty, that they asked-
In that moment when bloody red claws bit into his own bones-
In that moment, when arms embraced his body, as he trembled from more than just a single one of those colours...
In that moment, suddenly, abruptly...
In that moment, he felt full.