The apple fell far from the tree, then it rolled back

Chapter 5

A lot of time was spent taking care of the twins. Even with the odds being 2 children to 6 adults, it wasn't that much easier.

It barely left any time for training, which made Cross visibly antsy. He had to be there a lot of the time, being the only one who knew more than the basics.

Ink was at the table, textbooks open in front of him, his fingers drumming on the pages. Horror and Killer were at another table, Killer having finished his practice and having switched to help Horror with the memory based exercises he had. Ink meanwhile, had a lot of different ones, along with memorization.

Ink stared at the Spanish textbook in front of him, eyes crossing as he tried to make sense of the jumble of words. It was like he was reading that one human language with the pictures, hieroglyphs? Which was funny, because he wasn't even reading a different alphabet. He could understand English, French, and runes (though, runes were only a writing system for English), but apparently Spanish was where it ended.

He sighed and leaned back in his chair, fiddling with his scarf as if hoping the notes in there would answer his questions. All it did was remind him to go visit Geno.

He stood up, made eye contact with the Cross, who, despite being outside, seemed to have some kind of sense for it.

Ink stared at Cross. Cross stared at Ink.

Ink sat back down.

Killer looked over from where he was helping Horror.

"Didn't you have a zoomies break like 10 Minutes ago? I don't think you need another one"

"No, it's just, Spanish is kicking my..."

Ink looked out of the window. The reason Cross was outside was to show Nightmare and Dream how to fly a kite. It looked like they were, surprisingly, not understanding what Cross was saying. Could it be, the Oh So Great Cross was struggling. He looked back at- he was talking to Killer, right?

What did he even say? Killer tapped his chin in thought, while Ink had already forgotten what he said.

"Well, French and Spanish are both similar, I'm sure there's something you can use there."

Right, Spanish, ugh. He glared at the textbook.

"My Arabic helped me with pronunciation, somehow."

"Oh, I haven't thought about-"

He stopped, gaze suddenly fixating on Killer again.

"How do you know about my French?"

" Putain, ça fait mal." "Espèce de connard!"

It seemed like he was quoting Ink, a grin on his face as Ink's face turned rainbow in embarrassment.

"You curse in French around the kids."

Horror, from where he'd been practising with some memory based exercises, chuckled.

"It's....hard to miss"

Ink grumbled something and went back to staring at the book, deciding to note down stuff that seemed familiar and work with some of that.

In the room over, Blue was trying to get Dust to work on a dialogue exercise with him. Keyword: trying.

"Come on, you don't even have to understand, just say the sentence."

"No"

Was all that Dust said, stubbornly looking away from the paper Blue was shoving in his face. Blue sighed, turning away to think of a way to get Dust to speak.

Summoning a bone to stab him from the back would be so easy like this, and he'll stop being a bitch about it. Wouldn't it be satisfying to kill a Sans who acted like a Papyrus? Kill both himself and his brother again in one? Like two skeletons with one bone.

Dust wasn't sure if that thought came from himself or his brother, but he still told him to leave him alone.

"Didya say something? You could try just saying anything you think of, but in Spanish. Dust, under his hood suddenly had a shit eating grin.

"¡No!" He said to Blue when he was looking at him, making him sigh.

A few days after Deltori started coming over to teach them languages, a few more children had shown up at the Omega Timeline, either survivors or just outcodes. The OT's school was an idea for a while, there was already the expectation that the number of children found would only increase, and children did need education. So thankfully, the building was already there.

In other news, it was time for the twins to enrol, or so Core!Frisk thought.

"That's a stupid idea, they barely know now English"

Dust pointed out to Core!Frisk. They had shown up to tell them the news about the school opening.

Now, they watched Ink, who had just finished mopping up the paint he threw up out of excitement, already start creating something with his weird magic brush.

Killer broke his one-sided eyeless staring contest with the human to watch Ink create, expression unreadable. Cross shrugged, avoiding looking at the intense flashing of so many bright colors from Ink's paint.

"Well, they have been learning quickly. Nightmare already knows where the cookies are when I only told Epic that in English. "

He glared at the little skeleton, who did not even look ashamed. In fact, just then, he pulled a cookie out from behind his back and started eating it, which made Cross' jaw drop. Killer's snort made Cross glare at him instead, but he shrugged. Cross sighed.

"Yeah, but they still have things to learn! Dream keeps gendering objects"

Dream looked from his little toy train at Swap as soon as he heard his name, before pouting. Seemed like he already understood from the context.

"La silla - she chair!"

He protested stubbornly before turning back to play.

"...I think he's doing that on purpose"
Cross chuckled, soon looking back at Core!Frisk. Core was looking at Nightmare with that look they sometimes gave people. They said before, they're omnipresent but not a mind reader, but in moments like this, he couldn't quite believe them. The look they were giving the twins, Nightmare especially, was thoughtful and most importantly, knowing. Even with the void replacing their eyes, he could decypher that look.

"I think they'll do just fine. And they'll get to meet Poppy!"

Ah, Poppy. The child confuses Cross, and he's only met her once. They were apparently adopted by Core, calling them their grandparent, despite being seemingly the same age as them. But she seemed nice.

"Done!"

Ink called out, presenting the other skeletons and human with two backpacks. The designs were intercrate, too much so for two six year olds. Cross found them pretty, the colors matched with each other and weren't too bright or overwhelming, surprisingly.

One's main color was yellow, with some black details here and there. A sun was embroidered on the flap with turquoise string, it also featured some white swirls. Little details such as hanging little shapes on chains, strawberries and stars from what he could tell.

The other backpack was black.

Ink was trying, he could tell, but he didn't exactly know Nightmare well. He looked closer to spot some turquoise and purple details, so he didn't completely give up on trying with the design.

Ink presented the children with the backpacks. The twins looked at each other, nodded, and traded backpacks.