Inkblot [A Splatoon2 Fanfic]

Chapter Six

Tres nearly crashed his car getting back home. He couldn't focus on anything with how much he was panicking.

When he reached the house he ran up the front steps practically kicking the door open.

"Átta?! Átta, where are you?!"

"Stop yelling, I'm in the kitchen!"

Tres threw all the books on the couch and ran toward the sound of her voice. Átta was leaning on the counter, flipping through the pages of a cookbook, one of her purple tentacles in her mouth as she chewed on it. Tres stood in his place, scanning her for anything that looked troublesome, not even noticing when she made a look at him.

"What? Stop staring at me like that, it's creepy!" Átta wrapped her arms over her chest.

"Are you feeling ok?" Tres asked.

"What? Yeah, why?"

"Did you touch Hachi?"

"Tres, calm the fuck down! You're freaking me out!" Átta cried.

The Inkling shook his head and pulled Átta to the door.

"Look, I got it from here, go home ok?"

"Like hell you do!" Átta threw his arm off. "I get you're trying, but what you're doing isn't enough! Hachi is better off without you, I'm gonna get Marina to take him back in tomorrow morning!"

"NO! No, I can take care of him, trust me it's better if he stays away from people right now!"

"What are you, high?! Tres you sound crazy!"

The last thing Tres wanted to do was act harsh against his lovers' older sister. But he just couldn't risk something bad happening, not until he knew for sure what Hachi was sick with.

"I'm so sorry, I promise I'll take care of this!"

"Wha—"

Before Átta could finish, Tres pushed her outside and slammed the door shut, locking it. Of course, Átta exclaimed and started banging on the door and screaming loudly, to which Tres started silently apologizing. Tres peeked through the window to see Átta finally give up and go to her car, but he turned away before he could see her fall into a coughing fit...

    "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..." He continued to apologize.

    Tres went back to the pile of books and dug out the Inkblot book to flip through the pages again. What stood out to him was that fact that symptoms started showing up at least 1-2 hours after contact with the infected. Yet Tres didn't feel anything; he didn't feel hot, tired, or nauseous...

    After last nights incident, Tres had held Hachi's hand the entire time; he would constantly kiss his cheek to soothe him; he held Hachi tightly to his chest when they were finally able to get into bed after the chaos. So why wasn't Tres sick...?

    The doorbell rang, startling Tres. Afraid it was Átta, he stuffed the Inkblot book in a stack with the other books and hurriedly put them away in the bedroom; Hachi was cuddled under the covers, asleep. Tres went to the door, but peeked through the window before opening it. It wasn't Átta.

    Tres opened the door to an Inkling dressed rather fancy with an overall important aura.

    "Tres Alon?" He asked.

"Yeah...?"

    "Bruce Anapos." Then man handed a card to Tres. "I'm with the Inkopolis Health and Disease Control, may I ask you a few questions?"

    Tres didn't like this. He put on his classic smile and nodded.

    "Yeah sure!"

    Bruce took out a notepad and pen.

    "You and an Octoling were present during Hama Urihara's suicide last night, yes?"

    "Yeah, me and my boyfriend Hachi..."

    "Did either of you come in contact with the black ink that was around?"

    Tres leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed. At the same time he wanted to help Hachi, but didn't want to find out what bad things could happen if this man knew he was probably infected...

    "No, sir,"

    "Are you sure? Have either of you been experiencing fatigue or hot flashes? Maybe vomiting, discolored skin, dry coughs?"

    "No, sir,"

    Bruce was glancing into the house behind Tres.

    "Your boyfriend, Hachi was his name? Is he here?"

    "He's asleep,"

    "Is he... under the weather?"

    "Oh no, just tired. I really know how to tire him out, if you know what I mean!" Tres winked, mentally punching himself in the face.

    Bruce finished scribbling something in his notepad and looked up at Tres.

    "Well I apologize if I interrupted anything. However if either of you do start experiencing any symptoms, my number is on the card. Thank you for your time."

    Tres only nodded as Bruce went toward a car on the side of the road. Tres slowly shut the door and pressed his back against it. He stared at the card in his hand before tossing it on the kitchen counter and going to the bedroom. He sat on his knees by the bed to look at Hachi's sleeping face.

    He didn't realize until now that there were tiny traces of black at the edge of Hachi's hair, his pretty tan skin looked pale. Hachi stirred in his sleep and Tres, on instinct, reached out to hold Hachi's hand. But he froze and pulled his hand away. Tres sighed softly and went back to the stash of books for the Inkblot book. He sat at the desk by the window facing away from the bed and opened it up to read again, finding that most of the last few pages were torn up or written in Octarian. He sighed and tried to read what he could.

"Patients have lost appetite... attempts to... only made them irritated... has reached terminal stage and caused deaths of twelve... only way to control the Ceph was to submerge in... acid..."

    "Oh, come on..." Tres flipped the page.

    "Doctors involved..."

    The page had a long list of names of doctors; by each name was an age, gender, species, and birthdate. A couple of the names were crossed out, probably meaning they had died. Tres was about to turn the page when one line caught his attention:

    'Spyke Kipik - 18 yrs - male - Urchinite - May 7th xxxx'

    "Wait... that street urchin...? He was a doctor...?!"

    Tres's eyes went wide.

    "He... knows about this..."

    "Traci...?"

    The Inkling looked behind him to see Hachi rubbing his eyes and yawning. Tres tucked the book away into the desk drawer and went to sit on the bed by Hachi. The Octoling started to cough lightly before he looked up at Tres. His violet eyes looked like they had lost a bit of their color...

'To hell with this... I would've been sick by now with how much we've touched... if something bad happens so be it!'

Tres held Hachi's hand and he held tight. He kissed Hachi's ring finger before leaning down and kissing his forehead.

"What the matter, Traci...? Am I dying...?" Hachi asked, solemnly.

"No, goofball. You'll be ok, I promise," Tres smiled despite the tears threatening to fall. "I'm gonna take care of you and make you feel better..."

"Nnn..." Hachi coughed. "I'm hungry, Traci... may I have a snack...?"

Tres stifled a laugh and kissed Hachi's hand again. Even if he didn't know how bad this was yet, he still wanted to make his lover happy...

"Of course, sweetie..."