Collateral Damage

Normal

Ink was extremely tired.

He was not the type for paperwork. He avoided every chance he could. But Dream had become more invested emotionally in the Varis case than Ink had expected.

Usually he could convince Dream to do his paperwork.

But now he had paperwork to do and a very rambunctious child to take care of.

"Palette Roller! You get off of the ceiling right now!"

Loud crying ensues.

"I know, honety, the ceiling is very fun to crawl on, but you can't be on high objects! Mommy will kill Daddy."

Ink's phone began to buzz in his pocket.

"No not literally."

Ink, without looking at who it was, answered bringing the phone to his cheek with his shoulder while also holding his son by the T-shirt with his spare hands.

"Hello?"

It was Blue.

"Blue! Just the skele I wanted to talk to!"

Ink lied.

"Listen, can you do me a favor?"

Blue was of course skeptical, as he should be, but agreed to help regardless.

Blue, not too long after their chitchat, mostly Blue lecturing Ink about his timelines at the meeting, arrived through a conveniently placed portal.

Ink wasn't always too attentive when it came to the little things but he did notice Blue's improvement in the magic region.

"What is that you need exactly friend?"

Blue was startled by the toddler bolting straight for his legs, but reacted with the immediate swiftness of a royal guard.

"Hello tiny nephew! How are you?"

Palette babbled something unintelligible, he wasn't too coordinated with his language yet.

"Really? You'll have to tell me all about that later. I'm going to have a chat with your father, if that's alright."

Palette considered the option as if there was much choice in the matter. The child then nodded his head in understanding and ran off to get himself into more trouble somewhere else.

"Thank you so much for coming, Blue. Really you're a life save. I-"

"Am I doing babysitting or paperwork?" Blue asked, getting straight to the point.

Ink sighed. The smaller Star Sans knew him too well.

"The paperwork." Ink admitted.

Blue nodded and hurried to the pile of papers.

"This is Goth's case?"

"Yes." Ink answered putting Palette over his thighs as the boy squirmed.

"That poor boy. Have you seen him yet."

Ink shook his head, "no, Dreams given me some pretty vivid details though." Ink grimaced at the image of such a small child in such an awful state.

"He's set up a discussion for tomorrow. Figure out where to go from here. Any updates on Error?"

"I'm planning on talking to him today, once Dream comes back."

Blue took a deep breath, "I think Dream has gotten- well, a bit emotionally invested in Goth's situation. Which makes sense after- you know..."