AHHHHH THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN BUT SOOO MUCH PAIN..... It been a while since I drew a full background and I thought there was a picnic prompt, but my silly goose of a brain tricked me so I did the camping one instead :3
Anyways @t3n-y3ars-late-with-fanart I hope you like it!!!
in which we pretend gradient’s first word was hello. it was in fact buggy. and i have decided just now. but we’re gonna pretend for the sake of the fic
also all of error’s speech has a pretty severe stutter so for general accessibility i’m gonna put what he’s saying in parenthesis! let me know if there’s a better way to do that in the future.
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Ink smiled, swaying his hips along to an old stolen radio, his fanged smile emanating a horrendously tone-deaf humming/scatting combo. It was rainy for once, Error had coded in a sort of triggerable weather cycle after weeks of the artist’s begging. Millions of angles had been tried. “we can grow real flowers!” “we can play in puddles with the kids!!” “i can get different lighting when i’m painting!!!” …In the end, a field trip to a rainy AU had convinced him— Ink knew the minute he saw that goofy smile, the pure silliness behind everything he did when he jumped around in puddles with Gradient and rolled PJ through them.
After he had finished reminiscing, he whistled comfortably and noticed he had burnt the pancakes to a crisp. More for him, he supposed, but still a waste of batter. So far, twelve were charred and four were to be split between Error and Gradient, not to mention the hot glue pancakes cooling on parchment paper for PJ. He scooped a little more batter into the pan, shrugging off the smoke now billowing out the window into the foggy drizzle.
The pan sizzled softly against the metal of the stovetop, and as he ate a spoonful of raw dough just for kicks, he heard tiny click-clicks against the tile. Little bare skeleton feet tapping against the kitchen floor as someone hesitantly approached. No clank of miniature canes, either.
“hello, gradi.” Ink smiled, not glancing backward… the arms wrapping around his waist were enough. Should he be worried that his four and a half year old could hug him above his hips? No, he decided, he shouldn’t, and continued his little greeting. The kid clearly understood, just couldn’t respond, and the doctors all said to just keep talking to him. It had become a subconscious task, really, He spoke to Gradient as any parent would their child.
“do you like the rain? it makes the buggies go hide, that’s the only bad thing. it’s nice to see you this morning, bud!”
“hello,” the boy responded matter-of-factly, immediately slumping against his mama’s side as if exhausted or shocked. “no buggies…”
“no buggies,” Ink agreed solemnly, petting his baby’s head briefly, before seizing his shoulders and throwing the spatula in the sink. All the pancakes could burn and he wouldn’t bat an eye. “did you— did you just talk?? your first word?? oh my god, ohmygod ERROR!!”
Scooping up the (relatively) large child in his arms, skipping and bouncing up the stairs, he jumped with every fiber of strength in his wiry legs onto his bed. He made contact, hard, with something that both squished AND clicked with bones, and the lump nestled against the pillow barrier groaned unpleasantly.
Ink was not deterred in the least. “ERROR!! ERROR HE CAN TALK, HE CAN—“
He settled for yanking down the covers, exposing Error’s face. As the glitch sputtered awake, instantly against his skull was his chubby little boy, the kid’s cheerio breath going directly up his nose. “h-hel-llo.” (hello)
“hello!!”
“d-don’t do th-that.” (don’t do that) Error glared at his husband, the madman holding up the almost-five-year-old by the armpits. “y-you said-d tha-that, n-n-not gra-adi-gradi—gra—“ (you said that, not [he fails to say gradient’s name]) he groaned, and settled for ‘gradi’.
Ink poked him in protest. “no, it was him!! he can talk, i swear to god!! gradient, speak.”
“h-he’s not-ot a dog.” (he’s not a dog)
“doggy.” the little boy replied, just as he had before— simply, like he was stating the weather or confirming a lunch date.
Both glitches stared at each other for a good moment, before the older reached out slowly to take him from Ink’s grip. Gradient smiled brightly, cuddling up against his dada’s chest, but Error was still borderline catatonic. His breathing sped up and he clutched his kid a little too closely against him, making the boy squeak indignantly, but he didn’t care.
“o-oh my god-d!! yo-you can-n really t-talk!!” (oh my god!! you can really talk!!)
He stared incredulously at the boy in his arms, the boy who had been so mysteriously silent just that morning. “h-how lon-ong could y-you ta-alk b-before you told-old us??” (how long could you talk before you told us?)
Ink snorted. “i don’t think our four year old was making a conscious effort to hide it from us, ru.”
Error sputtered out a protest, never one to admit his own ridiculousness, before settling back down with a grumpy “i guess”.
He had always expected it to be something big. That Gradient would speak once and be… well, as horrible as it felt to say, normal. Like he’d go to kindergarten and speak and play with other kids instead of sitting in the corner smiling oddly to himself. But… he still rolled around in the covers and ran off flapping his hands. When Error trudged downstairs beside a bouncy Ink and a furiously attention-starved Paperjam, Gradient was still sitting on the couch with his little butt in the air, skull against the fabric so he could see an ant better. He was still quiet, still odd, still a little off-putting. And honestly, Error was a little surprised to find within himself not exasperation, but relief.
To combat the Errrorink fam hate you seen I have a lil scenerio for gradi and PJ
Imagine them both hanging out late at night and talking and connecting with eachother talking about their intrests and other stuff and by the morning they act like sibling who are annoyed of each other again
Errorink family inkvember day 24 (i swapped them around haha, ill do 17 someday) - Secret
this might be shit, i’m wrote it in the middle of the night whilst sick
Footsteps.
Quiet clicks had been echoing down the hall for the last couple seconds, eventually stopping at Paperjam’s door. A tall silhouette tapped his skeletal feet against the old wooden floor in a nervous stim, the repetitive vibrations relaxing him a bit. Finally, he scraped together enough courage to speak.
“jammy, are you, uh… are you awake?”
He was answered only by the glow of those small pink eyes, pupils pinpricks in the dark of the poster-encrusted room. Taking the tense silence as an invitation to continue, Gradient stepped over the threshold, tugging his hood over his skull, and offered a small smile.
“i heard you screaming. you had a nightmare, right? i can help if mama and dad didn’t wake up-“
“i don’t want you here,” PJ lied instantly, desperation cracking through her voice with fresh tears. “i don’t want you here at all.”
“okay!” the younger smiled, plunking down on his sibling’s bed. “what was your nightmare about? mine are usually that i’m trying to talk to people but the sound won’t come out. or none of my drawings look good, or that something happens to one of you, or i’m naked in public—“
“that’s fine, gradient.” Paperjam cut him off, knowing it would be hours of talking if she didn’t. “i— i’ll be okay. just don’t go for a little bit, yeah?”
After a pause, his silence deafening, she leaned against his thin frame. “…keep talking, beanpole.”
———————————————
It had been an hour now— Gradient had gone on and on about bilateral gynandromorphs, bugs that have a half and a half of both sexes, how some snails have counterclockwise shells, and have trouble finding mates… mostly about bugs, but the skellinkton listened to every tidbit.
“…so i read the other day that bumblebees will play!! they engage in little activities for what seems like only their own pleasure, which means no rewards were given by the researchers!!”
“so it’s like when you help with laundry even though you hit your screen time limit?” the blob nudged, snickering softly.
“yes, exactly!! like— no, no, ‘cause i don’t enjoy laundry. i get a hug if i do it. the bees did it just for fun.” Gradient explained, completely (but endearingly, Paperjam had to note) missing the joke. “do you wanna talk now? you’re being quiet.”
“no, i like your bugs, gray,” she grinned, squeezing him against her side. “i don’t really have anything like that, i guess. it’s nice to listen.”
The boy was instantly at attention, sitting up. “what?? you have— you have a… a thing like me and my bugs!! you totally do!! you like, uh… fashion.”
The smaller sat back for a bit, thinking. “is that really it, though? i feel like that’s boring. all i’ve got going for me is my weird health issues. i can melt, that’s kinda cool.”
“i don’t think it’s boring,” he admitted quietly. “your designs are pretty and i like when dad helps you sew. and mama wears the stuff you make for him, he loves it!!”
“Ink has no fashion sense.”
“…if it counts, i don’t think your health stuff is weird. sometimes if i laugh too hard i pee.”
The comment caught Paperjam off guard so much that she snorted, grabbing her brother’s hand for stability. “why did— what does that have to do with ANYTHING??”
“…i dunno. i thought if you were embarrassed then i should say something you would think is weird?”
“don’t do that around other people, man, you’ll freak them out.” after a moment’s hesitation, she added, “kidding.”
The darkness of the room was comforting now, plushies settled around them like a cushion against the world. The two were quiet, curled up tight beside each other. Gradient picked at the fluffy yellow blanket, glanced over at the repurposed bathtub in the corner, and stared back at his sibling.
“you’re using up a lot of magic just to stay solid, right?”
The skellinkton flushed a bit. “it’s… it’s just so i could get out of the bathtub and sit somewhere else without staining the blankets. being in the same place i had a nightmare in didn’t feel good.”
Both sat in silence for a moment, leaning back, before the taller stood. “i’ll put the tub over here! you can be all blobby and i’ll sleep in the bed so we’re next to each other.”
She grimaced— moving a big pink metal bathtub wasn’t exactly gonna be quiet, but worst case scenario was getting a minor scolding for the noise and a hug for having a nightmare. Her dads wouldn’t mind, she knew that much.
The metal screech made Gradient drop it from where his tricolor hands gripped the side, but after a sort of piggyback method was discovered, the basin was settled beside the fluffy bed. Gradient patted it encouragingly, and the older snickered before sitting down and liquifying.
“okay, yeah, that’s a lot better. good idea.” She had become a puddle, filling up about a third of the bathtub’s space with ink and a perpetually annoyed pair of eyes. “…thanks, gradi. love you.”
The boy looked up from his present task of shifting every stuffed animal so it didn’t touch him, a faint green smile cutting through the muffled pastels of the dark room. “yeah, love you too.”
The room went completely dark as both sources of light finally shut their eyes, curled up in separate beds just inches away from each other.
———————————————
“gimme the goddamn fork!!”
The breakfast table was alive with argument, both older children pushing and shoving at each other for the single small fork.
“no, you got it last time, it’s my turn!!”
“i threw up after i ate so it doesn’t count, gimme fork.”
At some point the table was slapped, the silverware across the entire wood surface jumping. Error screeched and scowled at the two of them, who paid no mind, before trying (and failing) to assert authority. “you— uh, you’re gonna hurt somebody. don’t… don’t do that.”
The chaos continued. PJ yanked off Gradient’s glasses, and Gradient stuck his hand through the blobbier portion of her skull.
Ink popped his head in from the smoke-filled kitchen, staring at them in both annoyance and affection. “can’t you guys just get along for five minutes??”
I wanted to practice drawing backgrounds, so I saw this cute reference of a strawberry feild and realized that there was a prompt for it so I went with it, and Gradient and Pj are having this little sibling bonding moment by picking strawberries :3
For some reason they remind me of Chara and Asriel idk why.....Doomed siblings
Anyways, @t3n-y3ars-late-with-fanart , I hope you like it!!
