"This is the same thing again. And we are allowing it. We are willing sitting by while we watch history repeat itself, when we have the power to stop it. We won't for long, but now? We can, we definitely can, but not for long. So, with you or without you, Alpha, I'm going to stop this in it's tracks."
Alpha turned away from Four.
"Don't ignore me, Alpha."
Alpha ignored him.
"Okay. I'd rather do this without you anyway."
...
"..."
"..."
"..."
The silence aggravated Four even further.
"You act like I have no reason to intervene. Am I not justified after last time? Of course I am! But you, you act so oblivious! Why? You want the system to collapse again?"
Alpha sighed. "I just think... even if... everyone...it's just that..." His words failed him. "No, no, you're right. You're completely right. Let's just do it."
Four nodded. "What do you suggest?"
"...I thought YOU had ideas...."
"...Well, how does just working them both to death sound? They won't actually HAVE the time to go on dates. There just won't be enough hours in the day." Four said.
"That's really not great."
"Why?"
"Because Error will just spend all his spare time lying in bed, feeling depressed and sleeping, and Ink will get so stressed he actually won't be able to cope." Alpha replied.
"Perfect. So Error's gonna be too tired and sad to do anything, and meanwhile Ink's dying from high blood pressure. That means no one wants to go on any dates, and that works for me." Four declared.
"I really hope that was satire."
"It wasn't."
"You're horrible."
"Yeah, I know."
"....Is there a more... gentle approach? One that doesn't involve depression and stress?"
Four rolled his eyes. "You really care about their feelings?"
"To some extent..."
**
It was Wednesday, and Error was not having a good day. So he and Dust had given up, and decided to play games online while on a voice call.
"Alright, can you even do that?" Dust asked into the microphone on his headset, glaring at his computer screen.
"Yeah. Do you even know the rules of chess?" Error smirked as he clicked the chess board on his screen, taking Dust's queen.
"Oh for- you're cheating."
"I'm not. Did you just leave the game?" Error chuckled at Dust's childishness.
"...I'm sending you an invite to my Uno game..."
"I'll win."
A few minutes later, Error was not winning.
"Are you hacking or something?" Error muttered.
"Nope."
"..I'm just gonna..."
"Error, stop trying to hack a game of Uno."
"No."
"...Error..."
"Wait the boss is coming I gotta go bye-" Error quickly closed all the tabs that weren't work related, turning around, where his boss was walking up to his desk.
"Error, I need you to stay late again tonight, there's been-"
"Sorry. Can't." Error said, turning back to his computer. He knew he had stuff to do after work, that 'stuff' being work from the Trinity.
"Why?"
"I just can't."
"But if you stay later, you get more money, since your hours are longer."
"...You NEVER pay me for overtime..."
"..." The boss froze before walking away.
**
"Hey Cross, could you pass me that pen?" Ink asked, nodding at a pen on the other side of the table, where Cross was sat.
Cross flicked the pen at him. No one had heard him say anything since Friday. Cross would do this sometimes if he was annoyed, anxious, sad, or even if he wanted someone's attention. People used to just continue to ignore Cross and wait for him to speak, but he never would. They learned that unless someone else made him talk, he'd keep up the stubborn act forever. Ink didn't really understand how playing mute helped anything, but he'd never dared to question the monochrome skeleton.
"So... You planning on talking any time soon?" Ink asked.
Cross shrugged.
"C'mon, I can't have offended you that much, I just told you to back off..." Ink sighed. When Cross didn't react, he continued, "You're making me feel bad. If this is my fault, I'm sorry."
Cross shook his head.
"It's not my fault?"
Cross shook his head again.
"Then talk to me."
Cross shook his head for the third time.
Ink rested his head on his hand and looked at Cross. He looked... distant. Sad, maybe? No, he'd need Dream for this...
So he texted the golden skeleton.
I: Have you noticed anything about Cross lately?
About ten minutes later, Dream responded and by which time, Cross had walked out of the room and into the main studio to help with a tattoo.
D: Well, he hasn't been hanging out with us... he's been extremely quiet when I have seen him... So he's doing his silent thing again I guess...
I: Yeah. And you know how I shouted at him? Yeah, well, he says that's not the problem. I wanna know what the problem is.
D: I'll talk to him later, but I really gotta go right now, I'm sort of busy, I'm at work...
I: Oh yeah, you should probably go. Ttyl!
D: Bye!
Dream was a paediatric nurse (a children's nurse) so Ink knew he shouldn't text him until he finished work. He worked in the same hospital as Geno, but on the children's wing.
Ink stood up and went to look for Cross, finding him working on a girl's arm. Ashley was also there helping, talking to the girl since Cross wouldn't.
And then there were the students in the corner of the room. Ink managed to hear some of their conversation:
"That guy, Cross, he literally never speaks."
"I heard him talking to that other one, Ink, last week! He speaks like a normal person! I don't get it!"
"Maybe he just doesn't like us?"
"I don't think I'd like us if I was our mentor."
"Just me, or is there something going on between Cross and Ink?"
"...'Something'?
"Yeah, like they're mad at each other?"
Ink suddenly walked up to them, making a few of them jump.
"What are you guys doing?" He asked, acting like he hadn't heard anything.
"Uh... We're just... looking through our notes..." One girl from Cross' group said.
"Yeah, that!" A boy from Phoenix's group agreed.
"Right...Hey, I think I know the answer already, but has Cross said anything to you guys? At all?" Ink asked.
"Yeah, last week he asked our names, he also said a few things like the basic rules of this place and stuff. But other than that... Nope!" Said a girl from Cross' group.
"What? You've actually heard him speak?" A girl from Ink's asked.
"Yeah, but he hasn't said anything this week. Not one word." A boy from Cross' group replied.
Ink nodded. "Okay, thanks."
**
"Alright, sit still for a second, I just need to take some blood from you, okay?" Dream smiled reassuringly at the small girl in front of him, who whined and tried to pull her arm away. Dream looked back up at her. "Please?" She hesitantly let Dream take her arm. The skeleton raised a needle attached to a syringe, and upon seeing it the girl once again tried to retract her arm. "C'mon, if you let me do it, you get a cool band-aid! And when people see it they'll know that you're super brave!"
Dream slid the needle into her arm quickly, but his phone buzzed in his pocket and he jumped, resulting in him moving the needle. The girl cried out in pain, and Dream gasped. "Oh, I'm sorry sweetheart!" He was about to take out the needle and try somewhere else when he saw blood filling the tube leading to the syringe so he kept it in place. The girl was crying. While on the outside Dream was calm and soothing to his small patient, on the inside he was cursing whoever was calling him.
And then the phone started to ring again, but Dream ignored it, focusing on taking the needle back out. He reached over onto a small table at the end of the bed the girl was sat on and grabbed a few different colours of band-aids. "What colour do you want, honey? Blue, pink, yellow-"
"Yellow." The child sniffed, wiping her eyes, "It's a pretty colour, just like your eyes!"
Dream giggled. "Aww, that's sweet of you!" And his phone rang again as he peeled off a yellow band-aid and stuck it onto the arm. He noticed that he'd bruised the child's arm when he'd moved, making him even angrier at the person who called him.
"It hurts," She complained.
"I know, but you're very brave! Here..." Dream reached into his pocket, ignoring his vibrating phone and pulling out a small piece of candy and giving it to her "Shh, don't tell anyone!" Dream smiled, and the girl beamed back. The nurse stood up and removed his gloves, wanting to leave so he could find out who the caller was.
"Alright, I'll be back soon, I need to see some other children now, okay?" Dream took the blood sample and left the ward. He sat down at a chair at the nurses' station.
"Oh, hi nurse Joku! I haven't seen you today!" A younger, female nurse said, walking up behind the golden skeleton.
"Yeah, I've been pretty busy... Hey, could you do me a favour? This needs to get to the lab." Dream held up the blood sample. His phone rang for the 4th time.
"Sure! Oh, have you seen-" The other nurse took it from Dream, but the older held up a hand to silenced her as he answered the phone. She walked away.
The caller was Cross.
"What do you want? Your call made me mess up a blood test, that little girl has a bruise on her arm now!" Dream hissed.
"..."
"Well?"
"..."
"Cross, don't waste my time."
Beep!
Dream huffed in annoyance as Cross hung up on him, and a text came through on his screen.
Nightmare: Oh wow, I call you three times and you don't pick up, I try again and your line is occupied. How rude.
D:...You called me? Three times?
N: Yeah, how tf did you not notice?
D: I did! I had to ignore them because I'm busy! I'm mad at you for two reasons rn!
N: I mean you did just ignore my calls and then call someone else so I'm allowed to be annoyed too
D: Cross just called me, I thought he was the one who sent the other three calls so I just got mad at him!
N: Oh nice
Incoming call: Nightmare
"What?" Dream sighed as he picked up.
"Well you see, I'm being threatened by The Trinity, if I don't do something that negatively impacts you very soon, you can expect to see me at your job. Except maybe not, I'm 24 and you work on the children's wing."
"That's...Oh."
"Yeah."
"..."
"...You there?"
"Yeah, I just don't know what to tell you other than that you need to do something."
"Like what?"
"Don't know, wait for me outside the hospital at the end of my shift."
"Your shifts are like, four hours longer than they're supposed to be. All the time. Even though I thought that was just doctors who had to do that."
"Joys of working in an understaffed hospital. Everyone works longer than they're supposed to. Listen, I promise I'll be out on time today."
"You'd better be."
Beep!
"I hate you..." Dream muttered after Nightmare hung up, immediately texting Cross.
D: Sorry, I didn't realise that you only called me once. Nightmare was the one who called me and made me mess up.
C: No worries
D: Anyway, what's up?
C: Nothing
D: Then why'd you call?
C: It's nothing
D: Cross...
Cross didn't respond, so Dream sighed and got back to work.
**
"Happy birthday," Nightmare said, shoving a Starbucks drink into Dream's hands as soon as he stepped out of the hospital.
"Our birthday's in December." Dream muttered, taking the drink. It was tea.
Nightmare nodded, sipping his coffee. "Well, you're the smart twin, tell me what I should do about this mess."
"Do whatever you need to do, I guess."
"...I'm not-"
"I don't care," Dream took another sip of his tea, turning away from Nightmare, "All you're effectively doing is giving me a bad reputation among the mortals, and they don't even know what I look like, they don't really know who I am. So why should I be bothered?"
Shrugging, Nightmare kicked the stones on the ground, sending them into his brother's foot. "I don't want to do anything that makes stuff harder for you."
"I know. But I also don't want you to end up in the ICU."
Nightmare smirked. "But you'd be able to come see me pretty easily."
"That's not the point."
"You could give me extra morphine. They never give you enough."
"No. You're not going to hospital, you're going to do what they want."
**
"I'm just saying, if that were me, I'd slap him and force him to speak."
"How?"
"A chair, some rope, and a knife maybe?"
Ink couldn't help but laugh at this, resulting in him dropping the paintbrush he was holding onto the painting he was working on. "Oh God, I just made this black!"
"Black? You painting me or something?"
Ink laughed so hard that he accidentally snorted.
"Did you just-" Error also started laughing from the other end of the phone.
"I h-hate y-you!" Ink choked.
"The feeling is mutual, shortass."
"Shortass? Shut up, you... uh...Help me insult you..."
"...I'm not quite sure that's how that works..."
"Whatever. So... about Friday, that's still on?"
"Of course!"
"What movie are we seeing?"
"...A horror?"
"No."
"Aww, you're boring."
"How about... comedy?"
"Sure, I'll let you pick."
"Hmm..."
Ink went online to see what the movie theatre was showing.
"Oh, uh, they're doing a thing this weekend."
"What kind of thing?"
Ink hesitated. "...A horror movie thing."
"Great! So horror it is, then?"
"Or we could-!"
"Come on, it'll be fun!"
"Fine."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AAAAAAAAA
I'm sorry that this took so long and it's short and shit XD
School started and I've had other stuff to do as well, but I hope to get to the actual plot soon XD
And yes, this book will be shorter than In Love With The Enemy.
So another thing:
I have a new Instagram account called @emo_trash360, and if you want to follow me, DM me the words 'Nice Whales' so that I know you're from Wattpad, and I'll accept you.
...YAAAAAAY
Okay but expect sum Crossmare soon-
And Afterdeath-
Yes THIS IS AN ERRINK BOOK BUT WHO WOULD SAY NO TO SUM EXTRA CROOS AND NOOTMARE OR GENO-BIRD AND REAPS
...
I wouldn't!
-Brooke
(apologies if you get 2 chapter updates notifications from me, published the wrong version of this chapter and had to delete it!)