Goretober 2023

2. Stitches

Error was sat on the only piece of furniture he owned; a dark blue bean bag that was quite large but fit his 7ft frame. His clothes had been torn from head to toe, burned off by plasma lasers and acidic paint. It's been a while since he last fixed his appearance but it wasn't something he was greatly concerned about.

He's been deathly sick ever since Reaper had decided a battle to the death was in order. That stuck up god absolutely hates his guts due to the immortality of his situation and the fact that he's been in conditions that, in theory, should've killed him.

Death has been at every one of those situations and had been so close but could not interfere with the balance of life and death.

So that's why Reaper hates him. And why he's been sniffling and coughing up his magic these past few days.

Ink had recently changed his outfit to be more flexible, many liked the new change in style and overall reflection of his character but they usually like everything about the soulless artist.

Error's clothes were made with his own hands, because no one was willing to trade or sell to the destroyer he had to steal items in order to show some decency in public. Of course now he could care less about what others thought of him but the clothes did provide a small sliver of comfort and protection.

With his palette being mostly comprised of black and blue colors he kept true to his original color palette, opening a small chest that held blue and black yarn he took to filling in the gaps on his sweater.

The small needle he was able to hoard slowly pierced the fabric, bringing along the attached string. The process was tedious but it was considered a break in his books.

In and out, in and out.

Continuously over an unknown amount of time he continued to slowly bring back his once lost clothing. Every time he stitched up his pants they always seemed to get smaller. His left pant leg was already up to his knee while the right still covered his ankles. His sandals were switched out for his bare feet as he couldn't bother getting a new pair every time they were worn out. Besides, they made too much noise on top of their tiresome replacements.

His red bones did contrast his dark clothing, being a bright red that often hid open wounds. His blood would be flowing down from his legs or arms but the lack of nerves not only due to him being a skeleton but also because of the constant pain from his job completely shooting out any feeling he had in his limbs. He wouldn't limp from a broken ankle but not acknowledging it would only make his life more difficult.

His sleeves were hanging by a thread and looked to just about give up. He did them a favor by grabbing the ends and pulling, effectively tearing them from his person.

The rip ended up extending to his shoulder, making a bigger hole than he originally thought. Taking the piece of scrap he took off his thin sweater in any attempt to fix the small mistake. He was left in a short sleeved shirt that matched his bright red bones. The front was torn showing a bit of his rib cage but he didn't concern himself with fixing that. Instead focusing on the problem at hand; his coat.

As he stitched the pieces together a slight pain grew in his wrist. He had to take a small break from the awkward angle he was holding his coat to stretch out his joint. As he rotated his wrist to free it of its pain, he noticed how the cracks along his left forearm separated his ulna and radius.

With the needle and string still in his hand, he moved to fix up the tear in his bones, just as he did his clothes. The pin struggled to pierce the bone so Error only put more force on his fragile bones, opening a small crevice that allowed the thin needle through followed by the blue yarn attached to it.

The feeling of yarn passing through his marrow had. A tingling sensation as he sniffed from his illness. With enough of the line of yarn passed through his ulna he moved to force the needle back through his radius.

Upon reentry he put more force against his radius and accidentally chipped a part of his forearm, embiggening the space between his radius and ulna. He moved towards the center of his radius and pushed the needle through. It gave and he pulled the string back out.

In and out, in and out.

He continued to stitch up his forearm, pulling it together with mere strings. His forearm was pulled closer together until both bones were completely attached to each other, there were more cracks than where he first started and blood mixed with Magic flowed through those small cracks and bled into the yarn.

The cobalt blue yarn now had specks of blood dying its seams, it looked more purple as the yarn continued to his wrist. The familiar blue from his own strings now turned to a blood stained mess.

Pulling off the leftover yarn he moved his arm and found it to be perfectly functional. Dare he say it looked improved. Looking at the rest of his body he saw the many imperfections and breaks that would have him limping to the next AU. Bones were split in two as if they would fall off at any sudden move.

The small needle in his hand suddenly felt heavier as the yarn weighed it down. The needle itself was stained with blood as if used for murder.  A single, seemingly harmless, piece of metal caused so much blood to spill from a single individual. Its purpose is to hold threads at its eye while the tip is to pass through fabric. Fixing rips and tears or making something new. His arm was fixed because of this small needle. The yarn wouldn't hold up in battles, but his strings could hold entire pieces of furniture. They could last on the battlefield. He was the only being in the multiverse who could rip his own strings from his face and use them to his soul's content. So instead of string. He would use his fate given gift; his own threads.

Every crack, every ridge, every break in his bone was meticulously stitched using blue, cobalt blue strings that bled from Error's eyes. Fingers were broken and seen back on, spaced between his bones that are naturally there were forced together by the pull of the outcode. The numbing pain of needle and string entering his blood stream and exiting, filling the Anti-Void with small dots of red while further turning his own string a darker blue, a rich purple, a scorching red as moved in and out, in and out.

Now, like his puppets, he was a puppet too. Stitched together with a wide, Cheshire smile to fit.