Title: Ink Stained Snow

6's visions are usually harsh on him. When he confuses a nightmare for a vision he is torn between exploring a new world and staying inside away from the others.

I don't own 9 ^^

6 had never seen anything like it in his life; never did anything ever look so calm. He was sitting on the window sill looking out with 1. The twins were already outside playing with 5 in what appeared to be nothing more than pillow fluff. Late last night the sky opened up and the fluff began to fall like rain, and needless to say it startled the artist, and it all happened the previous night…

_-_-_

Sitting up in his space the sixth stitchpunk grasped at the cloth he used as a blanket. He looked around his pitch black sleeping area to see that he was currently in the middle of the emptiness; everything was as it was; dark, muddy, and lifeless. Soon after his vision began to fizz up and all he saw was the white and gray sky mixing like static. Standing up in a panic he reached up to hold his head, hoping that he wasn't broken.

He would have been fine with the static, but this was quiet, and he found the harder the 'static' got, the quieter it was. Every sound he made reflected back on him and he fell to the soft ground. He never even made a sound when he fell. He was beginning to panic, this wasn't right, static never affected more than the stitchpunk himself, but now it had affected the world around him.

Scrambling up he turned around to see that the entire world was white and soft. He was so caught up by the beauty of it all that he didn't notice when he was almost completely covered in the snow. Reaching out to support himself he scrambled onto his hands and knees to get up. Before he could move he looked down at his hands. He made a sound as he watched his silver pen-nib fingers as black ink flowed from them. He made a sound and tried to move only to have more of the ink stain the world below him.

He picked up his hands and then looked back to the snow below him. The once pure snow was now dark black. The darkness spread all around 6 in a circle; it seeped around until 6 was the center of the darkness. The artist scrambled up and held his fingers against his chest in a panicked state.

He ran to go back to his home; slipping and sliding through the pure snow. As he turned to look back he saw that every step he took turned the snow black, and every black step bled into a heavy stream, seeping to cover all that was white. When he reached the building he turned to see that he had turned everything black. He gasped and glanced at the clouds. The once fluffy white clouds were black too, and the snow had begun to fall as black.

He shook his head and held his hands up to his face, covering his mouth as he shook his head, why had this happened? What did he do wrong to turn the world into this? He looked back to the ground to see that his hands were turning black as well. The once soft silver of his pen nibs turned black and soon the ink spread to his arms, he reached up and tried to stop the flow of ink but he wasn't successful as he began to fall towards the ink stained ground and he became nothing more than a stain; a burden on the once pure earth.

-

5 had been the one to wake him up that night. 8 had heard the screams that came from the artist as he was sleeping and got 5 since his container was the closest to 6's space. When the one-eyed stitchpunk came in, 6 was curled up in the corner whimpering and clutching his blanket with one hand while the other was trying to clean the pen nibs with a corner of the blanket.

In reality 6 always kept his fingers as clean as he ever could. He loved the new fingers that 5 had given him and he always tried his hardest to keep them from staining like the old ones did.

The fifth stitchpunk had moved to him and took him from his trance by putting a hand on his shoulder and shaking softly. 6 snapped out of it almost instantly and cried as he tackled 5 over, crying about how he had ruined the world with his ink and that he would turn it back to its darkest form.

5 had reassured him that what the other said would never happen, but when 6 only continued to shake he knew he would have to show the other it was true.

After he was sure that the artist had calmed down he took him up to the window sill. It was closed and the lookout bucket was pulled in. 7 had seen the clouds and with the help of the twins was able to know what was about to happen. When 5 and 6 reached the window the healer pushed open the window to show 6 what had happened while the other was asleep.

The world was white, pure, just like in his dream. He knew 5 was only trying to help, but showing him this would never make him feel better. The night ended with 6 pulling from his friend and running back to his space. 6 spent the rest of the night awake, under his blanket, scrubbing his hands clean, and by the early hours he was finally able to fall asleep, only to be greeted by his black ink stained world.

_-_-_

Sighing the artist sat down with his legs dangling off of the window sill. He saw the fun that the twins were having and wanted to go see what was so exiting about the snow, but he didn't want to risk defiling the purity of it.

He looked down and sighed; putting his elbows on his knees he placed his chin on his hands and watched. As the time passed more of the stitchpunks went into the white world, soon everyone except 1 and 6 were out there. He didn't know how sad he looked but it was enough for the eldest to make an irritated noise before he moved to where he was sitting. Looking out 1 could see the others and how they were playing and then looked back down to 6.

"I would think you out of all of us would be the first to want to be out there…well you 3 and 4 that is." He said as the artist looked up at him.

"Can't…I'll destroy it, can't ruin the others happiness…" he sighed as he looked back down. He saw as one of the twins as they flashed their eyes up at him and started to wave for him to come down. 6 made a panicked sound before he scrambled away from the edge of the window so he couldn't see the others. 1 looked at the twins and saw their disappointed appearances and then turned to looked at the artist.

"If you want to go so badly you should. I mean…it's very apparent that you want to…perhaps you should…"

6 looked at their leader, it was clear that the other was trying his hardest to be comforting or encouraging about going into the outside world but he just wasn't used to doing things like that. Getting up onto shaky legs he moved to the side of the window and peeked out. Even though the twins were back to playing they had a sadness to their movements. 6's shoulders sunk as he held onto the edge of the shutters on the window.

"W-will you come with me?" He asked as he held his hands together, rubbing the metal nibs nervously.

1 looked at the artist and held his walking stick. Sighing he reached up to rub his head; he was hoping to be able to spend the day away from everyone else and the snow had given him the perfect cover to be away from them. He must have had a look that told 6 that he would do no such thing as the artist looked saddened before he turned to go back to his space.

"6…help an old man down wont you?"

6's head perked up and he turned to see the elder moving to where he would be able to get off of the window sill. The artist smiled a bit before he moved over to 1 and helped the other to support him as he helped him down.

_-_-_

It would take a few minutes for the two to get down the stairs, 6 holding onto 1's arm to help the elderly stitchpunk down. When they reached the bottom 6 looked at the street. The area where they currently stood held no snow as the house covered the space, but a few inches from the rocks that were piled at the bottom there was fresh snow, covered in the small footprints from the others.

When 1 was able to stand on solid ground he proceeded to walk into the new land. 2, who was standing off to the side making little figures out of the snow turned to him and smiled, waving him over to come and talk. He must have been impressed that the oldest stitchpunk was outside with the rest of them.

6 stood as close to the snow as he could and peeked around the corner, holding onto the frame work on the broken house as he watched the others play. 1 was with 2, having abandoned 6 for the moment to sit on a few rocks as the ever eccentric 2 told him all he knew about snow and how amazing it was.

Turning the artist rested his back against the building and slid down, holding his knees a bit as he shivered. He didn't think it would be this cold, and wondered how the others were able to stay warm. He placed his hands beside him and drew back with a hiss when he felt one of his fingers touching the freezing snow. It wasn't that it hurt, but he was startled by the sudden spine-chilling cold rush he got by touching the snow. He refused to look at the snow with the fear that he had already began to defile it when suddenly the twins came. They held onto the building as they peeked around and beamed when they saw the artist there.

Both 3 and 4 moved to each side of him and grabbed his arms, hoisting him before they dragged him into the open space. 6 cried out and resisted, dragging his feet to resist the others as they pulled him. Both twins pouted and pulled harder, only succeeding in pulling the visionary over into a small pile on the snow.

The twins looked like they wanted to laugh when they found that all three of them had fallen into the soft powdery blanket that covered the ground but 6 soon pushed away from them and scrambled to get up, making small whimpering noises as he tried to move to go back to the building. He glanced at the ground and stopped his movements. He looked to where he was and then to the snow. Nothing was black.

He made a sound that was a mixture between shock and amazement though as time went on he found that he was growing more anxious. 4 looked up at 6 and tilted her head before she got up and brushed the snow off of her. Reaching down she gathered up snow; turning it into a ball. She smiled up at 6 and handed him the ball of snow before turning to help up her brother.

6 looked shocked when he was handed the pure snow and closed his mismatched optics; afraid to see what would happen to it. After a few seconds he opened his eyes slowly and looked down to the ball.

"S-still white?" he asked and moved the ball up to his face, turning it around and around he tried to find any sign of it changing as it had in his dream. He kept whimpering as he turned the snow, soon he had thoroughly examined it and found that it wasn't changing as it had in his haunting dream.

He looked up when he saw flashing and saw the smiling twins as they held some snow in their arms. They handed the small piles to 6 and he had to use both of his hands to support it all, not wanting any to fall. He smiled after a few seconds as he ran his fingers into the snow.

After a few moments he laughed as he hugged the snow to him. He felt calm and happy as he looked at the twins. Turning he saw 1 and beamed as he ran over to him, showing him the snow that he carried.

"Still white!" he beamed and laughed. "It's ok! See!"

1 gave him a look as the snow was pushed towards him. Sighing he gave the other a small smile before agreeing and taking some of it. 2 laughed a bit and nudged 1, commenting on how soft he was getting towards the younger stitchpunks. This of course resulted in 1 throwing the snow at 2's head but 6 didn't see as he was already running off with the others to play as he had seen them doing before.

The snow wasn't so bad after all.

Ink Stained Snow – Done

Takes place after 'His Mission'. I have a few ideas for fanfics and will post them like this ^^

Inspired by the random snow we had the other day and the shuffling of my iPod that came up with 'Snow' by The Red Hot Chili Peppers and then 'Painted black' by Rolling Stones.