Canvas Beauty (UT Multiversal Ships)

Distressing Controversy

Me: *tries to draw book cover*
My motivation: lmao nah
Ink's POV

Another day, another obligation. I wasn't really the type of person who'd go about and complain about having to do stuff, after all I was the creator of the Multiverse so it'd simply be unacceptable for me not to have all these rules and to do lists, but fake dating Dream wasn't something I expected to happen.

Our 'relationship' started after Dream found a site online called.. uh, I dunno, I forgot. The site name wasn't really important anyway, I mean all these 'different' sites do the same thing so- ah, geez, I'm going off topic again, whoops! What matters for this story is the fact he showed me a drawing of us hugging.. romantically. I, at the time, didn't exactly understand how hugs could be seen as romantic since, well, they're an act of friendship, but apparently the 'Internet' can 'sexualise' or 'romanticise' anything it touches. It's never really made sense to me, like, can a toaster be sexualised by them? Can.. pikachu be sexualised by them?

Anyway, back to the story once more! After Dream showed me the drawing he suggested that we start to 'fake date' each other, just to lower the amount of negative emotions in the Multiverse and to help our team have an edge against Nightmare's team, and, after thinking about the pros and cons, I agreed to his proposition. I mean, nothing could go wrong, right? Wrong. We began to act differently in public, occasionally holding hands and basic stuff since we didn't feel the need to go all out, and his plan worked. The positivity in the Multiverse increased substantially, and for a while Nightmare stopped all activity, but of course it wouldn't stay that way for long.

If you're familiar with Monsters and Humans, you may know about SOULs, they're.. the very culmination of our beings, they decide everything about us; including our personalities. Some people were highly supportive of Dream and I's 'relationship', some people weren't so supportive of it, but there was a seperate group that was even worse. Some people wanted more from us, they thought we 'weren't acting gay enough' and demanded that we kiss in public which was.. embarrassing. Dream didn't mind, neither did I, and so.. we elevated the relationship to the next level - at this point I was getting kind of cranky thanks to the fact I was constantly being harassed about when I was going to 'propose to Dream' and all that jazz - and it was the biggest mistake we could've made.

Once again, the group demanded more from us, but neither of us really understood what they meant by that. It was only then did I mention the constant nagging of the people who wanted us married, and Dream made the connection that they wanted us to truly marry each other. Of course neither of us would go through with that for obvious reasons, but the harassment had gotten worse recently, with some people winking at me and some disgusting creatures making sexual remarks towards us whilst in public, causing me to become uncomfortable and Dream.. to laugh.

I didn't blame him for laughing, he couldn't feel negative emotions. Well, he could but they lasted for less than a second so I still couldn't blame him for laughing. His constant positive attitude towards everyone who asked about our relationship, however, was something I could blame him for. Dream lacked the ability to understand when enough for enough, which irritated me, but, he was the God of Positivity so I couldn't exactly.. ask him to be negative towards people. I just wish he sorta took things more seriously, it's like he's forgotten our relationship isn't real which I hope - for the love of God - isn't the case at all.

Of course, I wasn't going to force him to do what I wanted since that'd just make things worse between us, but our friendship had been.. uh, dampened, I guess, because of the entire situation. At the moment we were both just sat in our living room, ignoring each other and watching TV. I doubt he wanted to ignore me, but we had both been speaking all day and acting all romantic to each other so.. you know. It was usually like this now, we acted like we were boyfriends in public but at home we simply ignored each other unless Nightmare or Error attacked anything, but even then our communications were forced and we lost a lot more fights than usual. I couldn't let this go on, I had to try to speak with him as if we were friends.

"Dream?"

I kept my voice low, as to not alert Blue that I was going to try to speak with Dream. Blue always seemed to want to listen to us and make sure we didn't argue.

"Yeah?"

He didn't bother to look at me, but this wasn't weird or off, he just wasn't the type of person to look at someone whilst speaking to them.

"Uh.. I was just thinking-"

"Thinking about what, Ink?"

Strangely he seemed frustrated or irritated at me trying to speak with him, but that was impossible since he couldn't exactly feel those things enough for them to determine his actions and speech.

"Thinking about our fake relationship. It's.. I don't think it's healthy for either of us to be, uh, faking this anymore."

He was silent for a few seconds, as if he was contemplating something or thinking about his next sentence.

"How do you think they'll react if we call off our relationship?"

"I- uh-"

I didn't have a response to that. I couldn't admit that I didn't care, since that'd immediately spark an argument, but I couldn't just leave it at that.

"They'll react badly.."

"Exactly, that would only cause problems."

He was right, if they reacted badly to us breaking up it would make Nightmare stronger and us weaker, giving them the edge we once had. If that happened.. well, let's just say they'd want some revenge on us thanks to how we weakened them and basically rendered them powerless. However, I couldn't let this go on, I couldn't let Dream and I's mental states fall apart even further simply due to the fact we'd be weaker for a week or two. I stood up and turned to face him, no longer trying to silence my actions.

"This relationship is only causing problems, Dream! What do you think will happen if we continue this, huh?! Sure, they may be weaker, but they are winning a lot of the fights even with this disadvantage! Your plan only gives Nightmare a disadvantage and, sure, he's the leader of the team, he's the one who gives them orders, but Error can also give them orders which is exactly what's been going on!"

Dream tensed up and scowled, looking away from me as he did so. He seemed annoyed by my sudden outburst, but I didn't mind, we needed to have this conversation. I noticed Blue was cowering in the doorway, watching us, but I ignored him and concentrated only on Dream.

"Ink-"

"No, Dream! This has gone on long enough, this is horrible and I-"

"This relationship is the only thing keeping Nightmare at bay, you realise he'll immediately come after us and our favourite Universes if you break this relationship up, don't you?"

I was desperately trying to keep my composure and not break down crying due to his denial, and I would've most definitely broken down right then and there if my vials weren't wearing off.

"The positivity of the people is what's keeping Nightmare at bay, Dream! This relationship doesn't do anything, what happens if we don't give in to their demands, you've noticed the positivity has been decreasing lately, haven't you?! They're getting bored of this game we're playing, do you really want to have to get married just to uphold their positivity? What happens when they want us to have children, Dream?"

He suddenly stood up and clenched his fists, looking straight at me whilst doing so.

"If you really hate this relationship of ours oh so much, then why don't you just leave?!"

Was he.. angry? He couldn't be angry, could he? Unless his creator somehow changed his powers so that he could feel negativity it'd be impossible! Nonetheless I couldn't only focus on his negativity, if he truly wanted me gone then I'd leave until he begged me to come back!

"Fine, then!"

I picked up my paintbrush - which was leaning on the side of the sofa - and stormed out of the room, narrowly missing bumping into Blue on my way out. I opened our front door and continued outside, where it was drizzling; thank God it wasn't a full-on thunderstorm or anything similar.