#csch.

For a split moment, you remember the knife and it's glinting edge, but it's better you left it behind. You’re no fool.

The glitch doesn't even pass you a glance, but you know he knows your there. The static presses thicker with his attention, his interest. At least you have that - his interest, as much as he may deny it.

You curl like you usually do, chin tucked to your knees, doll held on your thighs, close. You look through the tear, to another reality, and blink.

Was that… Spanish? It had to be.

“... What is this?”

“shut up.” Error snaps, reflexive. “i’m trying to watch.”

You stare blankly at him, and huff at his attitude. Instead of responding, you pick at the scabs on your knuckles, gritting your teeth, but do it anyways. Murmured against your skin, “Was just a question.”

Mismatched lights stand attention. “what was that?”

You should really leave it. Ignore him, lie, say anything other than look back at him, scab-lined nails still against your knuckles, chest bathed in the natural warmth of the doll shielded by your body.

“I only asked a question.”

Error’s hand within the bag of treats bag stops, the crinkle of its plastic as he slowly pulls out deafening. The static is suffocating, and you clear your throat, and look away as soon as you close your mouth.

“... then don't.” Even the universe Error had been watching is nothing more than background noise now, taking a backseat to the lull of his voice and the white-noise that outlines it. “ you're a guest here, pest. and you'll behave with the manners of one, or else.”

A guest. What a kind word.

“look at me if you understand.”

It’s a command. You don't want to, but you do, looking through your lashes and the eclipse of your skin to his electric, terrible gaze.

“... be grateful you aren't dead. and until i find some kind of use for you, shut. up.”

You don't say another word for hours.

He doesn’t either.

It’s just you, him, and his damned show.

You’ve been picking at your skin for who knows how long. Nearly each of your knuckles is in some way raw, skin peeled and the ground covered in drops of blood. Your hands and thighs don’t fare much better. Another small strip of skin peels away -

“stop that.”

… How long has he been watching you?

Error doesn’t look concerned. No, how could he be? He’s Error, and from the first moment you were terrorized by this creature, he has never once been concerned. Cocky, confident, lazy, agitated, rude, arrogant - he was full of nothing but confidence and enough self-importance to fuel the paradox he was, only on a multiversal scale.

So with his sockets scrunched, his brow taut, and the line of his teeth narrow, you know it’s not concern, but disgust - disgust and… you aren’t sure.

As always, Error is unreadable.

You rub your finger against your nail, and the skin falls to the floor. “Why?”

Dispassionate. This place has made you hollow, an empty ache curled within you, and the world you live in seems unreal. As if it’s a dream, disconnected from you, and at any moment you might wake up.

“because i said so. so, stop it.”

Your thumb rests on the knuckle of your pointer, and you grit your teeth at the sting. Looking to the blood, it’s then that you feel something. A jolt of fear, terror, worry -

But when you lower your knees, looking to the doll laying in the crux between your thighs, staring up at you, you sigh. He’s fine, untouched by the self-inflicted carnage of your dissociation.

And yet the glitch just doesn’t shut up.

“... i know you have it. you aren’t seriously trying to hide it from me, are you?”

“No.”

It isn’t a lie. You know despite your limited ( yet seemingly infinite ) time here, that you couldn’t hide from Error. Not anything, not truly. So when you hold this ragged doll so close, you aren’t sure it’s for your sake.

Looking to your captor reveals his gaze is stuck firmly on you. Worming against your skin, the static screeches, and through those hollowing tones you can almost hear… Nothing.

You. Hear. Nothing.

“What?” You snap, and curl back again, doll safe ( as can be ) once more.

“... nothing.” And he turns away, a sip of his shake, and turns back to the ripped seam of reality. You look with him, and watch with ease how the image changes, flicking like channels on a tv, all at little motion or effort on Error’s behalf.

If he were not a creature desolate for destruction alone, you would be awed.

From a world swept in a winter wonderland, full of pine birches and yet pitch as night, to a landscape draped in fire, magma gurgling through the veins of the earth, lighting a warped path. You aren’t sure what to make of it, one image to the next, some with humans, some with monsters, most with nothing at all.

“What are you looking for?”

“for someone i told you shut up not t-too long ago, you sure are talkative, aren’t you?”

This time, you don’t relent. Not as harshly.

A sunrise flashes by. The ocean. Stars pinwheeling overhead. A desk, with a sleeping skeleton. Fog, thick as thick. Your heart quickens in your chest, a hummingbird in a cage of bones, begging to be set free.

“... Let me go.” Just as before. Soft, pleading, empty and yet full of desperation for the sights he flicks through like pages on a book. “You don’t need me. I don’t care where, just - please, let me go.”

The images stop, and through it, nothing. Like a black streak against the white canvas of this strange reality.

“i can’t do that.” Simple as can be, and yet you feel as if Error is being candid. Your nails dig into your skin, and you want nothing more than to reach for that empty hole in the world. “to drop you anywhere would cause a disruption of that universe’s mainframe. to try and accommodate something that never should have belonged? you’d be worse than a glitch.”

His nasal ridge scrunches up.

“you’d be a menace.”

A pest.

If you felt like speaking, you’d at least beg Error to let you keep clawing at yourself. But you don’t feel up to much; don’t feel the strength to react to him; don’t feel like giving him the satisfaction.

A moment, two, and the tear in reality disappears, stitched back together by a trembling hand. The empty space seems blinding now, but it’s eye-catching, soul-stopping at the next flare of magic, the very structure of reality itself bending open once more. ( You can hardly comprehend it, let alone imagine it )

The familiar low strum of his strings striking, going taut - through a much smaller hole now, closer to Error’s side, between the two of you. When they pull out, it’s a white plastic box, tossed to your side.

A First Aid kit.

“fix it. or else.” A snap of his fingers - and the blood on the ground beneath you is gone. A part of you. Pieces of you, as they had once been, disappeared in the blink of an eye.

You could cry. But you can’t.

Error watches as you work.

It’s strange - he’s never stayed this long, never given you something like this. Food and other necessities aren’t needed here so much as wanted, and while you would kill for a shower or ham sandwich, you knew both were far and few between in his whims and wants.

So instead, gifted with something to do, you open the kit, and reach for whatever looks close enough to antibiotic cream. While you doubt you could catch an infection or virus in a place like this, it’d help you heal faster, wouldn’t it? Besides, you weren’t looking forward to the scabbing, nor the marks that would surely be left behind.

Still leant on a pile of trash and treasures, Error is silent, those mismatched lights watching you work with an intensity bordering the one once upon his ‘show’. Keeping quiet, you’ll say nothing in turn, looking to your hands, ignoring how difficult it is to bandage when both are bleeding.

You hesitate between the gauze and bandages before deciding, pleasantly surprised the band aids within are themed - you aren’t sure what the hell that green looking guy is, but it’s colorful and amusing.

The worst of your knuckles under wraps, you clean up your mess, leaving the trash to the side.

Then before you know it, before you even have a moment, reality tears open ( through it, the trash falls to a sudden yet gruff, indignant shout ) and you jump - scrambling away. Just as quickly is it gone, but the damage is done. You’re on your ass a few feet away, wide-eyed and chest heaving. It had felt so, so close, and you could almost feel - it tasted like - it sounded like -

Nothing.

Error’s laughing, a broken, clipped, repetitive sound through the duotone of a child’s and his own voice.

“Don’t fucking do that!”

“i’m sorry - heheh - what’d you just say?”

Your teeth click shut. In one hand, the doll, held far too tightly.

You won’t dignify him with an answer. No, you won’t - you can’t. So instead, you stand, you find your feet, as shaky as they are, and walk away.

“Let me go home.”

“no.”

You have no home. Not anymore, not after what he did to it. And yet you still ask, time and time again.

“...”

You have nothing to say, curled into yourself against the empty space that fills this place. No floors, no walls, no sky, nothing but the white. A canvas, filled like a magpie’s nest, if you knew where to look.

You hardly cared, fingers pressing white into your calves, chin tucked against your knees. You watched him work.

“... ugh.” He gets agitated so easily, static bleeding at his edges. His hands can barely stay together anyways, so you don’t get the point. It’s going to tangle, one way or another.

“I hate you.” It slips past your teeth again. You bite your lip, and look from his hands to his gaze. It’s on you now, those mismatched sockets full of… well, you aren’t sure. He’s unreadable.

“i’m regretting letting you live. do you know that?”

You look away, tucking in your chin once more.

It’s suffocating. Reality is nothing more than a piece of clay for him to mold, shape, and break. You are nothing, another piece of the mold, and you can feel when he looks back to his hands, fiddling once more.

The clicking of bones. Static, rising and falling. Agitated huffs.

Staring into the blinding white, it stares back. Silent.

He stills.

“... whatever.” You look up as he stands and scramble to rise with him, panic lacing your chest. Bored. He looks bored, muttering as the strings seem to uncoil, before moving across his bones like living things, winding back to once they came. Your captor doesn’t watch, hands falling to his sides, and begins to walk.

You follow.

“W-wait, where are you going?” You shouldn’t sound so desperate, feet bare against… nothing.

A snort, “what do you care?”

But you do.

Fuck, you do. You just can’t - you can’t be left alone, not again. Not here, not where nothing seems real, where  time isn’t real, where you aren’t real. One can only walk amongst the treasures left scattered about so many times before the mind wastes away, the swaying lights far above coiled in blue like an indigo night sky, once terrifying - now a stamp of this hell's making.

You’re going mad here, and you know it.

“Error -”

His name, and the static crescendos. You had thought this place silent ( would like to think it silent ) but it’s not. It’s never silent, never quiet. Not quite. The skeleton stops, slippers still, but he does not turn.

“- Don’t leave me. Please.”

You should know better than to beg.

But what else can you do?

“oh, pest.” It almost sounds kind. Almost, but you know it can’t be. It’s saccharine, toying, mad, and your chest constricts. “i’m not leaving you.”

Are you sick for feeling hope at those words?

He steps forward, but turns on the heel of his next step, and faces you. A smile curls around the edge of his teeth, and the static bubbles. A arm raises to his side, and with it, a tear in the world. Hope. Hope, it’s going to kill you, seeing the open sky beyond it, bleeding yellow and orange like a cracked egg.

“after all, i’ll be back.” That smile turns downright sunny, boyish. “behave, and i’ll even get you a gift!”

You watch him go, and through the static, you can almost hear - NO.

… No.

It may be nothing beneath you, but against your bruised knuckles, it feels like pavement. It breaks skin all the same.

To say this place is like a magpie’s nest is an understatement.

Decorated in treasures and trophies alike, precious things, things you can’t even comprehend, things of fire and ice and steel and crystal and you don’t even know - they all find home here, some wound in the careful cradle of strings, others laid about to be found and re-discovered time and time again.

If you’re lucky, sometimes you find something familiar. Sometimes, you discover a new facet to something once thought fully explored. And even rarer so, sometimes you find something new, tucked here or there, or left like an offering.

But Error would never do that.

You know, because you’ve seen the way he handles his things. In his hands one moment and gone the next, tossed between reality without care, left on the ground like a toy to be forgotten. No, the things out in the open are those he’s grown bored with, left to turn to dust. To die.

The things left in crevices, as if smuggled, hidden? You aren’t sure why Error would do such a thing, but at least they’re interesting.

You’ve found weapons, of course. Things that might be weapons, could be weapons, if handled right.

But you’re not an idiot.

And you aren’t ready to let go. Not yet. Not quite. He can’t make you. That’d be just like handing over your soul, letting him win.

So when you find a knife wedged between the cushion of an armchair ( how did this even get here ), you drop it to the ground after a curious once over of it’s glinting edges in the non-existent light, moving on. No, you’re more interested in the chair itself, and go to steal from it with scabbed knuckles, wanting the cushion -

You drop it in shock.

Then, lift it again, slowly.

Underneath, as if left by a child’s careless hand, lays a doll.

Your lip curls, your nerves tense, and the hair on your arms raise. Goosebumps. But you set the cushion aside anyways, hesitate, and reach in. You flinch when you feel the cloth of it's knitted jacket, warm against your fingers, but pull it out anyways. Carefully knitted, the texture reminds you of a sock monkey, stuffed plumply and staring back with those blank button eyes.

Red jacket, red sweater, shorts. A golden tooth and sneered grin.

You don’t know what it is, beyond the fact you’ve seen others like this - dolls, precious things Error usually keeps so close, kept in beds of twine far above your head. But not this one. No, it peers back at you, and it feels alive, and you can almost feel the frustration that clouds your mind, not your own.

But similar.

“... Hi.”

You stop, clutching the thing lowly. You’re speaking to a doll.

A doll Error probably made, a thing that probably has more horror to it than your toenail. And yet, as you almost drop it in your disgust, something stops you.

… It had been abandoned, left here. No, not abandoned. Worse. Shoved away, aggressively left to be forgotten. Just like you. Left amongst these kleptomaniac’s collectives, another thing to rot to dust.

You hold the doll just this shy tighter.

“I won’t leave you.”

The world shudders and gives way for him, as it tends to do, as it should. Cracking wide, beyond lying a place filled with so much it blends to nothing, screams to him in a chorus of welcome home. He’d scream back, but hums a merry tune instead, rattling within his skull.

The can feel the way the universe behind him sighs into the anti-void, whatever information it gives scattered. That world stands for now, but he got what he want, no destruction required.

He's happy, for all an abomination can be.

What he notices first, hand outstretched and a soul cradled within, is the blood on the ground.

Once vivid ruby marks, impacts of dried marron, now. It's not a splatter or spray, but a small puddle in a line, and for a moment, he thinks it's pretty. Bringing some color here - and just as quickly, it's erased.

The blood is gone, and nothing remains.

A low sigh, and he considers his options - before the strings of his hands ensnaring his new gift wind tight, before rising to join far, far above. A snap, and they disconnect, leaving a new trophy in his constellation of souls.

“i'll be back for you, #76.” A warm farewell, isn't it?

Then off he walks, looking for that pest of his, knowing he should at least be sure if they're dead or not, voice all encompassing and a murmur all at the same time.

“... no, no. that wouldn't do it any justice.”

“well, it has been some time.”

“...what?! no?? that's disgusting.”

“i am to please, heheh.”

They talk to him; and he talks back.

Why wouldn't he?

He's explaining the properties of a good cross-stitch to himself or to thousands by the time he finds them. Error took his time, their soul was stationary, and there was nowhere they could go he wouldn't feel that hum.

The Destroyer stops. They're asleep.

Curled atop an armchair he doesn't remember getting ( how did he even drag that here ), their chest rises and falls evenly, knees tucked and hands pressed to themselves. Peering closer, he sees what that familiar hum is.

In between bloody fingers and swollen knuckles, sits abomination #21.

“... lovely. this is where you've been hiding, and with a human no less.” Error suppresses a sigh, clucking his teeth. “tsk tsk, and what would your brother say?”

The doll only gleams back, black button eyes revealing nothing.

The human stirs, but does not wake. Error stills, but his magic does not.

Strings curl, winding along his arms, living coils of magic, extensions of his very soul, wanting back their prize. But the monster hesitates, and grits his teeth, agitated.

The doll isn't theirs. It's his, and there's to take back. They're both his, and it isn't worth it, not for two stupid glitches within his own world, two meaningless things who will come back to him sooner or later, grovelling. Begging.

And he will laugh, he knows it, when that moment comes - the thought even bringing back his grin, a curled edge to yellowed teeth.

“fine.” Error relents. “enjoy the pest, pest.”

The doll says nothing.

Error walks away, static in his eyes, and calls back down abomination #76, nearly cooing at the poor white spade. Blue strings work to completely encase it - a cocoon of his design.

He can feel it's agony.