Children of Chaos

Chapter 12

Finally wrote this bc I was on a choir field trip and it was 5 hours. Each way.

I was so bored.

Enjoy!

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Ink slammed his skull against the table.

Dream poked his own in through the doorway. "Inky? Are you alright?"

Ink made a frustrated-sounding groan, face still firmly pressed against the paint-splattered wood.

An understanding look passed across Dream's face, quickly replaced by worry. "Nothing's turned up yet..?"

Ink made a vague motion with his head, like he had tried to nod without lifting his head up.

Dream approached him, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "We'll figure out where they went... Being missing is better than being dead, right..?"

"Mm gmss..." Ink sat up, a light bruise already forming on his forehead, and repeated, "I guess..."

It hadn't taken long for people to realize that Error and Blue weren't dead. Underswap hadn't crumbled without its Sans- though every Reset brought its Code closer and closer to being the kind of unstable that Ink didn't know how to fix- and when the Dark Sanses visited the AntiVoid days after the pair fell, hoping to find something, anything Error left, instead of the white, barren wasteland they were dreading, it was covered in the familiar spiderwebs of Error's strings. His <i>magic</i>.

Error was alive.

But he was missing.

That meant that Blue was probably with him, wherever they were...

At first, they thought that Error or Blue had made a portal on instinct, and they were somewhere in an AU, possibly injured.

But the more they searched each AU, the less likely that was sounding.

"Maybe they did die," Ink mused cynically after a few more horribly unsuccessful days of searching, laying spread out on the floor. "Maybe Underswap is just old enough to last half a dozen Resets without him. Maybe a god's magic is powerful enough to last after their death-"

"Don't say that," snapped Dream. He was flooded with guilt immediately, curling into himself. Ink sat up and turned to him, blinking in surprise more than anything. Dream took a deep breath. Then another. Quietly, he repeated, "Don't say that... They're alive, we'll find them."

Ink shrugged, glancing away with his round, white eyelights.

...Dream paused. He studied his boyfriend's sockets, an act which was normally done with adoring fascination, but was now done in worry.

Two solid white ovals stared back, surrounded by deep, magical darkness.

Thinking about it, Dream realized he hadn't seen Ink's eyelights change colors in almost a week.

The exact length of time since Error and Blue fell into the Void.

"Ink, have you been taking your paints?" he asked, brows furrowed. The sash was a constant presence as a part of Ink's outfit, Dream would have noticed if it was gone, but he... couldn't remember if it had been full. If any of the vials had been empty or missing.

Ink took a few seconds to process it, but then laughed, a little too sharp to be from joy. "It wouldn't matter if I did," he stated, looking down at the small glass tubes. He took one out of its holder, presenting it to Dream.

With the fragile vial in his hands, Dream understood.

The paint was faded like it had been left in the sun, a faint pastel compared to the vibrant colour it once had been. Dream struggled to tell exactly which colour it was, only that it might have been some shade of purple or blue. A quick glance confirmed that the rest of Ink's paints were the same.

"Ink, what..."

"What happened?" Ink finished when Dream didn't seem to find the words. Dream nodded, eyeing him with concern as he gave the vial back.

Ink shrugged, glancing down before returning his gaze to the vial in his hand. "I don't know. During the meeting, I just..." He sighed, a hint of distress in his voice for the first time in days. "I felt... nothing. I didn't feel grief, I didn't feel guilt, I didn't feel... anything at all." It had taken him almost an hour afterwards to realize he was crying, and only then because he'd been trying to draw, and drops of water kept landing on the paper. "When I looked at my vials, they were... like that. It... It would be relieving if I didn't know I should be terrified," he confessed, and the vial Dream had been holding glowed weakly, a sign that it was being used. It was purple, then..; the colour of distress and fear.

Dream knelt, offering his arms for a hug. Ink took it but didn't hug back, leaning into the contact with a blank look on his face.

"I promise we'll find them, they'll be okay," he swore.

He ignored the flicker of doubt flitting across Ink's face as much as he ignored his own.

They both knew he might not be able to keep it.

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Ah, narrative parallels :)

How Error makes a promise about his safety to Blue in chapter 2 that he believes he can't keep versus how Dream makes a promise about Error and Blue's safety while he's ignoring how unlikely it is he'll be able to keep it :)

I was gonna have them realize that Error and Blue might have traveled multiverses, but instead I wrote like 1.5k words of Ink angst. Sorry?

Also, I'll post the unfinished/deleted "first version" of Chapter 12 (not really related to this Chapter 12 at all) in Children of Chaos [What if?] if you guys want! I was going through a bit of a tough time while writing it and it's really not my style at all, a lot darker than my usual content, so I scrapped it and started over.

I'll update sooner next time, I promise

Since you guys haven't read this in a while, I'll say it again! Leave any questions, comments, and concerns in the comment section, I'll answer as many as I can ^u^