Chapter Text
Blue was running on fumes.
He’d been awake for sixty-four hours straight, he only had one measly mayo and ham sandwich at the start that he hated but ate anyway out of desperation and a couple of granola bars throughout. And he was now helping his fifth AU in a row without a break.
Well ‘helping’ was a big word.
The first one was a version of Outertale where every monster was some kind of variation of a cat and they’d ‘helped’ by cleaning space litters for a few hours. Then they were in an Underlust AU giving a PowerPoint presentation to monsters about more ‘wholesome’ ways to find happiness that nobody was at all interested in. Then they baked cookies for an AU where everyone was a baby version of themselves aside from Asgore and Toriel who were running a daycare. Blue liked that one, but there were a lot of kids and they couldn’t trust Ink anywhere near a kitchen, so it had just been him and Dream baking for a full day. Then they very quickly popped into an empty AU that Error was dismantling to try and stop him only to get their asses handed to them.
And now he was sitting in a dark alley that smelled like bodily fluids he’d rather not think about in a dodgy Underfell AU where everyone made it to the surface only to find out that the humans sucked just as much as the monsters did. They went there when Dream perceived his brother’s presence within the universe. And, once they arrived, they discovered that Error had moved on to that AU.
So, with Ink solely focused on Error and Dream taking on his brother and Cross, fighting all the rest of Nightmare’s minions had fallen onto Blue’s shoulders alone.
He was tired, low on magic, and already sore all over from spending almost a whole day making cookies from scratch because Dream insisted that the pre-made dough simply didn’t ‘taste right’. Blue remembered once upon a time when he used to nag his brother for the same reason and couldn’t help but cringe at his past self. He understood his brother’s constant marrow-deep fatigue better now. He promised himself that he would go back to his AU and have a serious talk with Papi about it as soon as he got the chance. Hoping his brother would still want to see him after how things ended the last time they parted ways…
Anyway, the point is that he was slow and sluggish after everything and it didn’t take long before the enemies’ attacks started landing.
One of Killer’s knives nicked his tibia, and one of Dust’s purple bone attacks managed to slam into his sternum knocking all the air out of his non-existent lungs.
He tried teleporting close to Dream to ask for assistance, but his friend told him he was busy and to handle it himself. He didn’t even try with Ink knowing the artist probably wouldn’t even notice his presence. Not while he was all caught up with his favorite rival.
Instead, he just took another shortcut to the alley he was in now and slumped against the wall doing his best to catch his breath and power through everything on will alone. It worked most of the time, but he was struggling with his usual coping mechanism that day. He didn’t understand why.
There was a little nasty voice in his mind telling him that he knew this would happen one day. He couldn’t keep up with the other Stars. He wasn’t immortal. He was breakable and replaceable, and it had always been just a matter of time. A matter of ‘when’, not ‘if’. It kept repeating over and over again that he was done for and no amount of skull-shaking was helping to chase the thoughts away.
He pressed the palms of his hands in his eye sockets just so the pain of messing with his eye lights would give him something different to think about.
At least that worked a bit.
He took a deep breath, then slowly counted to ten focusing only on the discomfort he could feel spreading through his face.
Finally, he removed his hands.
His vision was blurry and his sockets ached, but at least his head was quiet.
He dragged himself out of the alley after that (making a mental note to wash his battle body and cape thoroughly once he got back to the base because just standing there made him feel filthy) and then looked back toward where the fight had been going on earlier. Blue strings dangled from the red sky above him, a telltale sign that Error had been victorious. He could already see certain sections of the sky glitching and he couldn’t help but notice the monsters starting to melt around him.
He knew that image would keep him from getting any of the sleep he so desperately needed that night. Even if he got lucky enough to be allowed back to his cot.
Looking around, he noticed a golden portal on top of a nearby roof. One of Dream’s portals. Just as he noticed it, it closed up on the tail end of Ink’s scarf.
Blue’s marrow ran cold.
The AU was falling apart and Blue couldn’t make portals. His friends knew that. They wouldn’t just leave him behind like that, right? Surely, surely they were coming back for him! They had to…
Except, they didn’t really.
Blue was just one copy of himself.
And he wasn’t even the first Underswap Sans to work for the Stars. He wasn’t the second or third either. He was just one of many. Easier to swap out than Ink’s precious paint vials.
He could already feel tears form in his sockets, filling them up before a single one could break through the magic layer of his eye lights when the Destroyer landed in front of him. Error eyed him up for a moment, squinting his eyes at him because by Toriel was he blind without his glasses!
“Y-you are- aren’t me-meant to be her-r-e” He noted so very unhelpfully.
Blue let out a pathetic little sob. “Well, I Am. I Guess You Can End Me Now”.
He’d lasted the longest between all the Underswap Sanses that had come so far. He knew because a couple of years back Dream told him he’d beaten out the very first who’d held the title thus far. It was a meager satisfaction to know that, while a general replacement would be easy to find, it would take them centuries to find one that was as good as him.
The small satisfaction that knowledge brought him was quickly squashed by the realization that he wouldn’t even get to see Papi one last time to apologize and hug him again.
Error hummed noncommittally. He shot out some of his strings that ended up wrapped tightly around Blue’s arms and midsection, and then he opened up a glitchy portal behind himself and threw Blue in it. After that, Error looked at him uncertainly for a couple of moments before shrugging. “D-don’t to-touch my choc-oc-ocolate” He said with a small frown. “O-or the doll-l-ls”.
The portal closed right after he finished speaking and Blue found himself alone in the Anti-Void.
In that too, he wasn’t the first of his kind.
He knew that Error had kidnapped another version of him in the past. One that didn’t even work for the Star Sanses from what he’d heard. That version had ended up just as corrupted and glitched out as Error was and now resided permanently in the Omega Timeline.
Blue really hoped that wouldn’t be his fate…
Not that he had anything against Core and their rescue project, of course! He admired them immensely and genuinely respected their efforts. At times even more so than what he and the other Stars did. But being as corrupted as Error seemed painful and painfully lonely. Besides… he was afraid he would be kept from his brother if that was his fate, even while still being alive. And he didn’t want that. He would make things right if it was the last thing he did.
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He didn’t know how much time he’d spent splayed out on the white floor of that empty dimension staring up at Error’s strings by the time another glitchy portal opened up somewhere near him. It had been long enough for him to swear that the strings turned into a living organism and were now breathing on him, hungrily staring.
So maybe a couple of hours?
“You did-didn’t mo-mo-move at all” Error noted. He approached with a stick and poked Blue’s form a couple of times with it. “Are y-you al-al-alive-ve?” He asked. He sounded nervous and a few more error messages were popping up around his eyes as the seconds passed without a response from his prisoner.
Blue didn’t think the Destroyer would care. Especially not after his friends (were they even friends anymore? Did Ink and Dream deserve that title after leaving him to die in a collapsing AU?) didn’t show even an ounce of concern for his well-being.
Still, the other’s worry was palpable and Blue wasn’t one to let others linger on negative emotions for too long. He was still a Star Sans after all!
With all the energy he didn’t have, he put pressure on his forearms and hoisted himself up into a sitting position. “It Takes More Than That To Dust The Magnificent Sans!” He announced confidently, mouth spreading into a wide smile that he hoped came off at least half as convincing as his usual ones.
From Error’s confused staticky warble, he doubted it did.
They stared at each other for a couple of moments, Error nervously fidgeting with some strings in his hands and Blue just sweating the little magic he had left out of his pores from the anxiety.
He didn’t mind chatting with people, Blue had always been a very friendly and outgoing person, but he’d only ever met Error on the battlefield. And almost only from afar as, usually, he was too busy either rescuing monsters, when Error was wreaking havoc alone, or battling Dust, Horror, and Killer, when Nightmare butted in, to really pay attention to whatever the various immortals and Cross were doing.
The fight was never on even footing either if all three of the guys he usually fought were there, so he hardly got any breaks to admire the clash of the gods.
If he was in top shape he probably could have taken on a couple of them at a time with no problem and maybe he would have been able to take a peek. Well, at least if the two were Horror and Dust. Usually, their fighting was erratic, and Dust tended to hold back somewhat. He always avoided taking the kill if he could and usually waited for one of his buddies to step in for him. Which left a sizable opening in his attack patterns that someone who wasn’t running on no hours of sleep and an empty stomach could probably use.
Killer was a different story.
While he didn’t have formal training like Blue and Cross very clearly did, he was a smart fighter. And he was much faster and more agile than most Sanses out there. He didn’t have any reservations to kill either, though he still didn’t go for it if it was too risky. He was calculated and somehow able to keep up some semblance of banter going even during intense fights which always managed to be distracting to Blue’s foggy mind.
Blue did remember that, toward the time he joined the Star Sanses, when Dream was giving him a rundown of the enemies they’d be facing he mentioned that, while most of them were there just because of their twisted sense of enjoyment, Killer was just an empty puppet that Nightmare used wherever he saw fit. So maybe that was why his fighting style was so distinct.
Regardless, the other main reason why Blue got bested almost every single time was because his opponents, unlike him, always looked well-rested and well-fed.
He knew it must have been a trick. Ink did mention that the King of Negativity treated his henchmen much worse than the Star Sanses treated Blue. Even if it never looked like that was the case, it just made sense. So he assumed they were simply really good at putting up a facade. It was still enough to heighten Blue’s sense of uncertainty and his feelings of inferiority and throw him off his game.
He was broken out of his thoughts by Error clearing his non-existent throat. “So-o where d-do I sen-send yo-ou?”. He was holding a hand out behind him, ready to open a new portal. His mismatched eyes were fixed on Blue, attentive.
Blue thought about it for a long moment.
He wanted desperately to go home and hug Papi. He wanted to make his world-renowned tacos and enjoy a real meal that didn’t just taste of greasy sauces or Styrofoam. He wanted to see Alphys again and show her how much he had improved and beg to finally be accepted into the royal guard. He wanted to visit Queen Toriel for an afternoon snail pie and some friendly chatter. He wanted to attend one of Napstaton’s raves and dance all of his cares away like he hadn’t had time to do in so long…
But he knew he couldn’t.
If he went back there as he was now, Dream would immediately pick up on his distinctive brand of positivity. He always did when Blue tried to sneak away for a couple of days after a fight with Ink. And then he would be dragged back and the cycle would continue.
He should be okay with that.
He was a Star Sans for Toriel’s sake! He was supposed to put the greater good above himself and his petty little wants! Dream and Ink did it all the time! They hardly ever allowed themselves any free time and, usually, it wasn’t by their own choice either! It was out of necessity as Blue started lagging behind a bit too much.
So Blue knew that his newfound desire for a peaceful life was a selfish one. And he knew it was one he couldn’t achieve right now. Not as he was.
But maybe…
Well, maybe, if the King of Negativity was just as cruel to his henchmen as Ink and Dream always said, there was a way for Blue to ruin himself enough that there would be no positivity left in him for Dream to track. And then, finally, he could go back to his AU.
Mind set on that half-arsed plan, he met Error’s eyes once more, this time with true determination shining through his faint eye lights, and said: “I want to go to Nightmare”.