Chapter Text
The all-confounding sight of a world being torn apart is something so familiar to a select few creatures who wander the multiverse. A burning hum of code dying and falling into nowhere, void piercing through the cracks. And a glitching figure of a distorted sense of everything wrong, who stands at the centre of it all.
However, he looks more dishevelled than he would usually appear. A sweat of unknown origin running down his skull. His hands are shaking and flexing despite his obvious will to make them stop.
Error is stubborn in ways that would confuse most people. For two days now, he has been ignoring the signs his body has been giving him, pleading really, for him to slow down.
The warmth spreading in his bones?
‘My code is simply acting up. I’m fine.’
That heavy drag in his soul?
‘Probably something similar.’
Error could feel that it was something else. Something familiar. He’s felt this before. But he refuses to entertain the thought. ‘It’s been so long anyway.’ He thought it was over, that his body had given up on it long ago.
He was exhausted.
He forces himself to keep working, dragging his body forward despite the way it screams at him to stop. His joints feel weak, wrong, like they might give out if he slows for even a second. The uncomfortable heat flooding his bones only makes it worse.
His fingers tremble, causing his strings to shake. Concentration is slipping from him, bleeding away no matter how tightly he tries to hold it.
Error clenches his teeth and pushes through it anyway. The magic doesn’t respond the way it should. There’s a stutter, a lag that sends a sharp pulse of pain through his chest instead of the clean snap of destruction he expected.
He swears under his breath and tightens his grip on the strings, yanking them into line through sheer spite. Some pathetic biological setback isn’t going to stop him. He had endured worse. This was nothing.
“You’re burning yourself out,” Ink says from behind him.
Error froze for half a second. He had forgotten that pest had followed him. “Shut up.” He spares Ink only the briefest acknowledgement before continuing to his work, continuing to tear messily through the timeline. It’s sloppy, but it’s still working. And that is all that matters.
His feet hit the ground of a floating rock of code. The feeling of his energy slipping away almost alarms him. But like how he’s been handling this so far, he continues forward. His limbs ache more with every step, and with every spike of pain, he convinces himself he’s fine. That whatever bullshit he’s dealing with right now will blow over soon enough.
Ink appears beside him just a moment later, “You should really rest.”
‘I have no time to!’
A blatant lie. He just doesn’t want to.
“I have no good reason to listen to you. Our current terms don’t permit you to speak to me like you can answer everything.” He really shouldn’t have spoken. Giving that roach any peace of mind will only strengthen his need to push himself into others’ business.
Ink simply blinks at him. Error considers snapping his arms off. “I’m only trying to help. You seem to be in pain. It’s–” Ink mumbles something to himself, most likely forgetting what he was getting at, and Error faintly hears Dream’s name. “Ah- right! The ‘right’ thing to do.”
Error thinks he could vomit or laugh at how ridiculous that sounded. But he just resorts to rolling his eyelights and following the planned path he had.
“You’ll be in more pain.” Ink’s voice sounds more hurried. “Dream told me-,” a pause. The smile drops too quickly. Ink’s gaze sharpens in a way Error dislikes. “Error, this happens to monsters sometimes, when they go through hea–”
Error feels his grip on his strings tighten. He snaps. Using his strings, he grabs Ink and swings him as far as he can. He watches Ink disappear into the horizon, then turns back to his work, still fuming.
He doesn’t need that wretched creature’s words. Even if he listens, Ink’s guess would be wrong. What would a soulless abomination know about… that. Ink defies all logic and known biology. It wouldn’t be a surprise if he doesn’t experience that cycle.
Saying the word felt like a curse. Like if he said it out loud, it would be true.
If he ignores it long enough, it will leave. Even if he has been disgustingly ignoring every warning his body gives him so far, it’s becoming obvious he won’t last much longer like this. His movements wobble, weak and unsteady, forcing him to—
‘No.’
He straightens instantly. He has to continue, no matter what. Whatever this ridiculous setback is, it will not make him stop his work.
That mindset carries him through the next two days. He avoids Ink. Forces himself through smaller destructions, each one sloppier than the last. By the end of the second day, even holding his strings steady feels like dragging broken glass through his hands. It isn’t long before he’s collapsed onto his beanbag in the anti-void, breathing heavily as pain wracks through him. The space stretches endlessly around him.
Today it feels too loud. Too open.
He curls into himself, pressing his face into the worn fabric of the beanbag, inhaling its old scent. It eases just a bit of the aches, but–
Wanting something solid at his back—something larger than himself, something that can block out the empty stretch of nothing.
Black, oozing bones come to mind. Cold to the touch— a cold he suddenly craves against his overheated bones.
He’s now convinced that he’s lost all sense of reality. This is just hormonal instability. But, if he thinks about it… It wouldn’t be unreasonable to seek him. It’s more abnormal for a monster not to seek their partners during a cycle. Though he isn’t sure he could endure Nightmare seeing him like this. Trembling, overheated, and needy. Reduced to something governed by instinct instead of will.
Still, just the thought of being around Nightmare seems to lift a fog from his mind. The image of being near him. Touching him. Nightmare’s hands wandering to–
So perhaps it was reasonable to assume that he was… in fact… in heat.
Just the admission of it made him want to spit up bile. But he couldn’t ignore the truth forever, especially if he was drowning in the reality of it at this moment.
‘So what is the sensible thing to do now?’
In all fairness, he had no memory of being in this situation. He knows he must have been because of how familiar his senses are treating it. But the time he’d spent in the anti-void during his earlier creation all that time ago, erased any memory he could have of who he was before.
He stares into nothing. The anti-void offers no solution. It never does.
His fingers twitch against the beanbag’s fabric. Gripping it as if it could miraculously fix everything. It was real. Solid.
Unlike his thoughts.
His soul pulses again, heavy and slow. Each beat drags heat through his frame like liquid fire. He exhales sharply through his teeth.
‘This is nothing.’
It has to be nothing.
And yet–
His mind betrays him. Black bones. A teal eyelight cutting through the dark. Nightmare’s hands around his waist. That name alone settles something deep inside him. Enough to make his non-existent throat tighten.
He shouldn’t go to him. Nightmare would see him like this. Weak. Error had spent so long ensuring Nightmare never saw him as anything fragile.
He couldn’t allow that to change.
He wouldn’t allow that to change.
His soul pulses again. His breath stutters. His body does not care what he allows. It wants.
The realization makes something cold coil in his chest. Disgust. At himself. At his body. At this biological betrayal he cannot overwrite or delete. He presses his face harder into the beanbag, as if he can suffocate the instinct before it fully takes root.
Error’s fingers twitch. He could go. Nightmare would not refuse him. That certainly frightens him more than rejection ever could. Because it means the choice is his. His fingers loosen from the beanbag and press flat against the ground instead. The surface flickers faintly under his touch.
With no foreseeable way to fix this himself, Nightmare is… a viable solution. He would know what to do. Even if Error didn’t want to engage in anything… intimate. He’s sure Nightmare would know something to manage with this heat.
He pushes himself upright. The motion is careful, deliberate. Though the warmth pooling in his joints makes it slower than he would prefer. His vision wavers briefly, static nibbling at the edges, but he forces it back into alignment.
Nightmare’s castle is shielded. If this condition worsens, it will do so somewhere secure. Somewhere private. Error has a room to huddle down in if he wishes to remain unbothered. The boys would also be used to leaving him alone from when he visits. It’s getting more difficult to think of cons to staying in the castle. That is frustrating.
His soul pulses again, heavier this time, and heat surges sharply through his frame, stealing half a breath from him before he can brace for it.
'Fine. Enough delay.'
Error raises one hand. The motion is steady by sheer force of will. The air in front of him fractures, a thin seam of distortion splitting the void. It wavers once, edges glitching unevenly before stabilising into a clean tear in space.
He holds it there. Just for a second. He could still close it. Pretend this never happened. Endure it alone. The thought lasts less than a heartbeat.
He steps forward before his resolve can fracture. The portal snaps shut behind him with a sharp, decisive crack. The cold air of that usual room meets his overbearing warmth, and Error finds he cannot stand much longer, once again collapsing.