Peace and Love!

So in Underverse, Ink and XGaster play a game together, and the game gets out of hand. XGaster is Aroace, and Ink is literally incapable of truly feeling love for anything, so their relationship isn't romantic at all but I honestly find that really interesting and compelling. Like, they're both willing to commit atrocities for each-other, or rather for the sake of the game they made together, long ago grown tired of, but are unwilling to end.

I mean, imagine you're just chilling in your world. It's a little lonely and empty, but you're content because it's all you've ever known, and then suddenly a god/gaurdian appears and shows you the multiverse, everything that your world could be, all at once, and then asks if you want to make something amazing out of your world together. You'd probably get attached pretty tightly pretty quickly. As a creative person who's gotten a taste of prolonged isolation, I know I would.

And the thing is Ink knows that everybody is a character, and, lacking empathy, treats them as such. XGaster, even with empathy, adopts that mentality over time for the sake of their game, becuase Ink is the one who showed him the truth of the multiverse, that it was all a script that could be overwriten.

And this is my sloppy segway into Sonderverse, where Ink is the literal concept of creation, space, and substance. He creates a vessel to experience the multiverse, which is himself in a way, out of a detached sense of curiosity. and becuase the Nightmare and Dream have been doing so in order to get closer to the souls whos emotions brought them into being

But while Dream and Nightmare, being the combined concept of meaning, have empathy for the souls inhabiting their universes, Error and Ink, the unfeeling combined concept of existance, do not.

So, Ink, on a whim, with no thought spared for the concequences, shows the multiverse, the reality of everything, his true form, to XGaster, and gives him a fraction of his power to play with.

This interaction only lasts for a few minutes, and Ink doesn't think anything of it, quickly growing bored and returning to fighting with Error on the edge of the multiverse, but it leaves XGaster with a broken mind and the ability to overwrite his world's script however he pleases. And by broken mind, I mean eldritch madness. This guy saw something he shouldn't've, that being everything everywhere all at once, and, for just a moment, he understood it for what it really was, he could hear the creators and see their scripts all laid out in front of him. And then the moment is gone and he's left with just enough memory of it to drive him crazy, and the power to attempt to recreate what he saw.

And then there's the fact that Ink did attempt to interact with him like a "person", to mimic what Dream and Nightmare were doing with the mortals they approached, both before and after the incident, and though Ink didn't get much out of the conversation, XGaster certainly did. In his broken mental state, he latched onto Ink's idle encouragements and chatter, taking the god's words (i bet you can make something beautiful, no, not just beautiful, perfect, absolutely perfect) as a sort of divine mandate.

Look, look, look, the religious trauma's gotta go somewhere, so I'm dumping it all on Cross, which means his dad's gotta be a zealot, ok? Okay.

Anywho, XGaster's obsession with Ink is born from his madness and swings between reverance, fear, and hate because he knows the encounter changed him irrevocably, and for the worse. He continues to overwrite over and over in order to create the perfect universe, the perfect overlapping crossover of everything he saw, whether to spite or please Ink he doesn't know anymore. And with each Overwrite his universe loses something because he barely understands what the effects of each little change will be. It's not turning out like its supposed to, he's been given knowledge and tools he can't use. He can't stop, he doesn't want to stop, he knows he should stop, he hates Ink for doing this to him, he needs Ink to come back and tell him he's done well with the power he was given.

His sanity comes more and more unravelled as times goes on and his memory and imagination blur together, and his obsession grows stronger and stronger as his grip on reality slips further and further and he grows ever more daring with his use of the overwrite ability. He stops caring for the other souls in his universe because they're just characters he can toy with as he pleases, and after a while they stop feeling real. All that keeps him going is the twisted, fading memory of the vision he was granted and his increasingly solid beleif that, if he just makes his universe perfect, Ink, who is is real, the only real thing, will come back.

...ye that's all for now, uh, I hope that made sense. I've been told that I'm incoherent. Feel free to ask questions if my ramblings have confuddled you.

There's a lot of headcanons involved, the main one being my thought that it would be cool if there were six souls traits and one weird trait, like antimatter I guess, it being determination.

Some of the six main traits can mix in together and form six more "traits" that are really just mixtures of two actual traits.

I think of it as a hereditary thing, and I made a spreadsheet about it becuase, uh...yeah. Basically, I just did punnett squares for every possible combination of each of the twelve traits and then wrote down the chances the offspring would have of being each trait.

Determination and monster weren't included because I don't count determination as a "real" trait and also think it sort of shows up in whatever soul The Angel possesses like a parasitic growth, and monsters don't have traits.

I would headcanon a monster with an artificially induced trait as infertile, and the offspring of a monster and a human would be a mage, who could have a trait and use magic. The offpsring of a mage and a human would be human, a mage and another mage would be another mage, and a mage and a monster would be a monster.

I also think that any trait, not just determination, would really fuck with a monster's body and soul, just in different ways, and not quite as badly as determination.

If you look at the black column in the middle you can see my notes on what I think the effects of each trait on a monster would be.

The idea is that Bravey and Integrity would both effect the body in opposite ways, Justice and Patience would both affect the mind in opposite ways, and Kindness and Perseverance would both affect the heart in opposite ways. Ideally, they would cancel each other out, but the amounts would have to be so excact that reaching equilibrium is virtually impossible, instead resulting in a hellish combination of the two ailments.

And Determination is just a zombie plague in this AU, uh, AU-Verse?

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Anywho, I'm Fidelity, which is a mixture of Integrity and Perseverance.

Baggs was a creep, so he’d been told, despite his good intentions, and he would be lying if he said it didn’t vex him.

Yes, he could bend others to his will, make them want to obey his every word, make them need to be controlled the way he needed to be in control, but since being taken in by Nightmare and, been appointed the patron deity of biology, assuming the title of The Curator, he hadn’t used his power on anyone without being asked to, ordered to, or forced to for self-defense. 

Spending half a decade being schooled by horrors beyond his comprehension, namely Nightmare and Dream, about the importance of autonomy, consent, and mutual trust and understanding had led to a great deal of self-reflection and improvement.

Yes, he craved the mana flowing through others’ leylines, but these vampiric tendencies were the result of his perseverance-infused soul, not his own consciousness, and he had vowed never to take advantage of another. He’d proven time and time again that his resolve was stronger than the carnal impulses of his corrupted soul, behaving civilly around the others even as his body screamed for him to drink them dry, and isolating himself when he felt his self-control faltering.

Yes, he used pet names constantly, but only because a real name felt so much more intimate, like he was using a term of endearment meant only for family, close friends, and lovers. He himself only ever introduced himself as Dr. Serif, or The Curator, and got uncomfortable when addressed as Baggs by strangers or acquaintances, and it was only right he treat others how he wished to be treated..

Yes, he lavished everyone he knew with compliments, but that was because he genuinely meant everything he said, not because he was trying to proposition them. If he thought Query’s little rambling fits were, quite frankly, adorable, or the care Epic showed to the younger skeletons in the castle was admirable, he felt it was only right that he say so.

And yes, he stared at people, but only out of scientific curiosity, not out of some sort of perversion. People were complex, fascinating creatures, and he was a doctor for gods’ sake, he dedicated his life to studying and fixing them.

He was staring at Epic now, as the engineer slept, studying his face intently, deep in thought.

He was attracted to Epic, of course, who wouldn’t be? He was intelligent, strong, kind, charismatic, and had that undeniable allure of somebody who could switch from an dick joke making idiot to a dead-serious, incredibly intimidating scientist on a dime. And that wasn’t even accounting for his physical attributes. How Baggs fantasized about being held by those sturdy, battle-tested arms, how he dreamed about kissing that cheeky, lopsided smirk, and how he longed to scrub away all those oil-stains and scuff marks that Epic never bothered to clean properly.

But Baggs was not a very brave man, and he would much rather keep Epic’s friendship as he had it than gamble it for something more. Epic was a good friend and colleague, not put off by Baggs’…eccentricities in the slightest, always there to coerce Baggs into resting and feeding when he was too caught up in his work to stop, always there with a smile and a joke when Baggs was having a bad day, and always willing to repair or create any equipment Baggs needed.

So, naturally, when Baggs noticed that Epic had some sort of sleeping disorder, he wanted to help. However, to his increasing annoyance, Epic was extremely cagey about the topic, and, despite Baggs’ persistence, denied that anything was wrong with him.

“Bruh, I’m fine,” Says the man who speaks about sleep with a bitter irony in his usually cheery tone and dark circles under his eyes that contest with Baggs’ namesake features.

“Seriously, Doc, estoy a-ok, chillax,” Says the man who always twitches and grunts and growls in his sleep as if in the throes of a vicious nightmare, but cannot be woken by any means, always starting awake without warning, completely alert from the moment his eyesockets shoot open with a gasping breath.

“Really, Baggs, drop it, I’m not…I’m fine, okay?” Says the man who pretends to go to bed at a reasonable time and instead stays up watching junk on tv, working, or crying (Epic is an ugly crier, Baggs has learned thanks to his chronic insomnia and the unfortunate acoustics of the castle; it would be endearing if it didn’t sadden him so) and goes without sleep until he starts having breakdowns and hallucinating, not that Baggs is one to judge, but it worries him all the same.

Worry, worry, worry.

That’s Baggs ever does, it seems. He’s a terrible worrywort, and he can’t recall if he was always like this, or if the experiment he’d done on his soul had made him this way, but nevertheless, he is. If he’s not fretting over one thing, he’s stressing over another, and the lack of control he has in his new life and amount of caffeine he consumes on an hourly basis does nothing to help. 

And so here he is, watching Epic sleep, in that unnaturally deep yet incredibly fitful way he does, like a creep, and worrying about him.

He’d thrown a blanket over him, because he’d passed out at the table and it was a cold night (He would have taken the sleeping skeleton to his room, but, unfortunately, Epic was both a good deal larger than Baggs and heavier than he looked), and while the gesture eases a little of the ache in his soul, it’s still uncomfortably tight when he sees the pained, almost anguished expression on what should be a peacefully resting face.

Because he knows he could make it better, he knows he could help, but he can’t do anything because Epic is just so goddamn stubborn, and Baggs is left teetering on a razor's edge trying to decide whether he should just let his friend keep suffering in silence or step in a make him accept help. Forcing somebody to do something they don’t want to do, no matter how small, is against the rules that have been drilled into his skull by his eldritch patrons, but is allowed on the condition that there is a good enough reason. 

That just leaves the matter of whether curing Epic’s condition, whatever it is, is a good enough reason to strip him of the autonomy of having a say in whether it gets cured, which is a conundrum, because one of the few things Epic takes deadly serious are promises, and he’d made Baggs swear never to use his power on him or Query when Baggs had moved into their tower from the dungeon. Baggs knows if he breaks that promise, he’d lose Epic’s trust instantly, and likely never get it back.

And that begs the question, is Baggs willing to sacrifice Epic’s friendship for a chance at improving his health, and would that even be the right thing to do? He chuckled bitterly to himself at how neatly this situation parallels the dilemma concerning his feelings for the old engineer.

Ultimately, Baggs is spared from making a decision as Epic jolts awake with a strangled yelp and elbows him in the jawbone with enough force to knock him out of his chair and onto the cold stone floor with a horrible cracking sound.

…

oh fuck

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

Epic bites back a stream of curses as he jumps out of his chair to crouch by Baggs’ side.

The biologist was sprawled out on the stone floor, eyelights snuffed out. A thin stream of ichor trails from his mouth, and a pool of it is starting to puddle under his head. The swirling cyan and magenta coloring is eyestrainingly vivid against the dark marble floor of the tower.

Epic could swear he felt his soul crack.

He did this.

He put off sleeping too long and passed out in a common area, and Baggs, diligent, oh-so attentive Baggs, had been keeping watch over him, and Epic had woken up from having his spine snapped in half and lashed out, not realizing that he was in the waking world. And the worst part is that Epic knew this would happen, he knew that he often wakes up confused and in pain, and he has attacked people in the past, but they’ve always been able to defend themselves. Neither of the skeletons he lives with in the tower have any sort of combat ability, and Baggs is the more feeble of the two.

Stars, if either of them could still die by conventional means, that blow would have killed him.

And it would have been Epic’s fault.

Carefully, he lifts Baggs’ head up to check the back of his skull, and can’t decide whether he wants to throw up or scream when he sees a jagged web of cracks leaking mana at an extremely alarming rate. Instead, he takes a deep breath, and makes a plan. He’ll heal what he can, then take Baggs to the main castle where one of the resident high deities can work their magic and prevent it from scarring.

“I’m sorry,” He mutters, placing a hand on the wound and channeling as much mana as he can muster into healing it.

Baggs whimpers, flinching away, and Epic holds him in place with his free hand.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, feeling tears well up in his eyesockets.

He knows Baggs will forgive him, the old biologist is nothing if not patient, but being attacked and wounded by a friend, even by accident, isn’t something you can just shrug off.

“I’m sorry,” he says a third time, as if apologizing will do anything to ease either of their pain.

He removes his hand to check the damage, using his coat’s sleeve to gently wipe away the multicolored ichor staining Baggs’ skull. The cracks are still there, faintly visible in the moonlight filtering in through the tower windows, but they aren’t bleeding anymore.

Sniffling and wiping away his tears, Epic tries to compose himself as he scoops Baggs into his arms, mildly surprised at how light the smaller skeleton is, and stands, forcing his usual easy grin and cheerful demeanor with an ease that sickens him.

Baggs’ eyelights have reappeared, though they’re dim and fuzzy. He’s crying, and Epic shifts his grip so he can hold him while using his least bloodstained hand to wipe away the tears.

“Sorry bruh, that was super uncool of me. Let’s go getcha fixed up.” 

Baggs blinks bemusedly at up him and lets out a strangled groan, head lolling to the side as tears continue to stream down his face, clearly concussed. More ichor trickles out of his mouth and nose, mixing with his tears and staining both of their clothes. 

Epic hurries to the nearest threshold, trying not to stumble on legs that somehow simultaneously feel like lead and jell-o. Which doorway in the castle should he shortcut to? Nightmare was technically Baggs’ and Epic’s patron, but the dark god didn’t exactly strike Epic as the nurturing kind. Would they be offended if Epic went to their warmer counterpart for help instead of them? He hoped not.

If so, he would deal with their rage when it came, but that wasn’t his problem right now. 

“Hang on, bruh,” Epic told Baggs, tightening his grip on the wounded skeleton as he barrelled into the void and burst out into Dream’s quarters. There were several rooms attached to the main room he’d shortcutted to, but only one of them was emanating an unmistakable aura of warmth and light. 

Epic kicked open the door to Dream’s bedroom, instinctively dodging as several sharp bone projectiles came flying at his head, and ending up with a blade digging into his back.

“Hey, bruh, it’s me, chill!” He exclaimed as Cross lowered her sword and moved into Epic’s field of view, mismatched eyelights shrunken and darting. 

“What happened?” She asked, deadly serious as she always was when things went to shit.

Epic turned to face Dream, who was sitting up in bed, golden tendrils already reaching out to take Baggs from him. 

“He needs help.” He chokes out, guilt and fear cracking through the mask and into his voice before he could stop them.

“I will heal him.” Dream assures him, lifting Baggs from his arms and gently squeezing his hand with a tendril, “Do not worry, it will be okay.”

“Epic, is there a threat in the castle, what happened?” Cross repeats urgently, grabbing Epic by the shoulders and shaking him a little

“No, bruh, I just accidentally decked him, it’s fine.” Epic shrugs, an involuntary tremor racking his body as he suppresses the urge to start rattling.

Cross lets out a breath, relaxing visibly, though still obviously perturbed, “Dude, what the hell?”

Epic just shrugs again, gaze straying to where Dream now has Baggs in their lap and is bathing his wound in golden light.

He should be fine now. Epic turns to leave.

“Hey, dude.” 

Oh, right, Cross still has him by the shoulders. Can’t really do anything about that. She has an iron-bending grip strength and he is definitely not going anywhere until she decides to let go.

Fuck.

“Seriously, what’s up? You look like shit and there’s no way you just punched a guy we both know would lose a fair fight to a goddamn watercooler.”

 “Well, I did,” Epic replies bluntly, biting back a fit of manic giggles and pulling back against Cross’s grip to see if she’ll let go. He needs to get out of here before he loses it. He knows he’s insane, but Cross doesn’t, at least not to what extent, and he would really prefer to keep it that way.

Cross doesn’t let go though, looking at him with such concern it makes him sick. “Is something going on? The tower’s pretty isolated, do I need to check on you more often or post guards? Did he-“

“No,” Epic cuts her off before she can finish the question, biting out a terse, “He accidentally spooked me and I accidentally hit him. That’s it.”

Cross sighs, finally releasing him, and Epic stumbles back a few steps, through Dream’s door and out of an arch woven of young trees, into the woods, cold and dark.

He made that makeshift doorway, and he’s the only one who knows about it. Nobody is coming after him, not now, not yet. 

Cross’ll probably organize a search when he isn’t found in the castle after behaving so out of character. She’s a good friend, better than he deserves, and he’s glad she isn’t here.

Alone, his poorly patched mask crumbles, and a hysterical laugh bursts out of him as his grin hitches up so wide it hurts, bones rattling like a wooden windchime caught in a hurricane.

On autopilot, he shoves his hand into his eye socket, as pain greets him like an old friend, reaching for that damned eye so he can crush it, ichor splattering the inside of his skill as he screams, laughing uncontrollably as he pukes and his visions whites out, again and again and again, until either the eye gives up or his body does.