i have never had a coherent thought in my life

"Hey, Ink?" Error leaned on the doorway of Ink's home office, crossing her arms. Her navy blue wings were pulled tight against her back. "You got a minute?" 

Ink looked up from her canvas, frowning. "Sure? What's up?" She was already starting to pack away her art supplies, attempting to clean the stained desk. Error knew that would be a fruitless attempt; that desk had enough blotches of paint that Error could never guess its original color. 

"I've been thinking," as she spoke, Error ran through her evidence for what she was about to say. "You don't have wings."

"Uh," Ink eyed her strangely. "Yeah? Think that's pretty obvious." 

"But Parchment and Tune do," Error pulled her wings around herself. "And so does Mal." 

Ink shrugged. "I told you, that lab probably did it. And Mal got your wings; it happens." 

"Last I checked, my wings aren't rainbow." Error said, lifting them as if Ink could have missed the dark blue coloring. "Add to that Mal's wings are fully functional, which is about a one in a million if you were born without them." 

Now Ink stood up, folding her arms across her chest. "Okay, so what? I don't have wings." 

Rubbing the bridge of her nose and letting out an exasperated noise, Error answered. "Did you have them?"

Ink stopped dead. Her blank expression twitched several times, as if she wasn't sure what emotions to show. After a few long minutes of silence, she finally shook her head. "Doesn't matter." She growled. 

"It does to me," Error argued. "I want you to be honest with me— did you have wings?" She hesitated before continuing. "Did you… was it an accident?"

Ink flinched. Her face twitched again. "Fuck off," she said finally. "Just fuck off, Error. It's not a big deal." 

"It is—" Error started, her wings bristling. 

"Shut the fuck up!" Ink snapped. "It doesn't matter, it'll never matter. Even if I did, so what? They aren't here anymore." She gestured to her bare back. "I can't change that, you can't change that, so just forget about it." 

"I just wanted to ask—"

If Sunny could have thrown his whole phone out the window and gotten a new one without his siblings' numbers, he would have. Unfortunately, any time he thought about it he was given the very fun mental image of Freddy breaking into his house in the middle of the night to put all their numbers back in, and the thought terrified him even more. 

When he was awoken in the middle of the night by his phone dinging with the particular alert he'd set his whole family to, he almost went back to sleep. But maybe it was Laura needing something, or Ganymede asking him questions. 

So he shifted slightly away from Ruby and snagged his phone off the nightstand, squinting at it in the low light. 

|Puzzle: How deep does your arm have to be stabbed to be fatal

|Puzzle: How deep are the nerves in your arm

|Puzzle: Does your arm still hurt if you have nerve damage

Sunny frowned, sighing. 

|Sunny: Puz, I told you I'm not a people doctor. If you're worried about it, go to someone qualified. 

|Puzzle: Is lightheadedness bad if you've been stabbed

Squeezing his eyes shut for a moment, Sunny swiped to Laura's contact and hit the call button. Maybe he'd be waking them up, but he didn't care. He just wanted to make sure Puzzle wouldn't actually die and then go back to bed. 

The phone rang a few times before Laura picked up. To Sunny's surprise, they didn't sound like he'd woken them in the slightest. "Sunny?" Their voice came quickly, anxious. "What is it?"

"I was wondering if you could check on Puzzle for me," Sunny said softly, trying not to wake up Ruby beside him. "He's sending me weird texts. I think he hurt himself on something." 

A moment of silence, to the point where Sunny checked Laura was still on the line. When they finally spoke, he could hear the panic in their voice. "I don't know where he is." 

"What." 

"He— he went out to get some stuff this morning, and he hasn't come back yet," Laura said, quickly becoming frantic. "Oh god, is he—"

"Okay okay, hold on," Sunny stammered. "He's— I'm sure he's fine. This is Puzzle we're talking about. He's stubborn as a mule, and I'm about ninety percent sure that he can't die unless he wants to, with all the shit he's survived." He forced a chuckle. "I'll ask Percy if he knows where Puzzle is, okay? Talk to you later." 

As soon as Laura mumbled a half-hearted goodbye, Sunny was hanging up and calling Percy. He just had to pray that his big brother had his ringer on; he knew Percy left it off most of the time so he could focus at work. 

Thankfully, he only had to try twice before Percy answered, his voice somehow even deeper than usual and sounding half-asleep still. "Hello?" How he managed to still sound all fancy even when he'd just woken up. 

"I'm super sorry to bother you, but do you have any way of figuring out where Puzzle is? Like, super fast?" Sunny gasped out. "He's texting me weird shit and Laura hasn't seen him since this morning and—" 

"Slow down." Percy was much more aware now, and Sunny heard muffled shuffling as if he were up and moving around."What sort of things has he sent you?" 

"I dunno, like— I think he was trying to search something? About being stabbed? Nerve damage?" Sunny didn't realize his voice was rising until Ruby stirred, blinking up at him. 

"What—" She stared up at him, eyes wide. "Everything okay, Sunny?" 

"I— Yeah, it's fine—" Sunny said quickly, refocusing to Percy again immediately. "Look, I know that you were sleeping and I'm sorry, but can you please try and find where he is? Like, track his phone or something?" 

Percy heaved a sigh. "Alright, I'll see what I can do." Shuffling broke through the speaker again, as if he was readying for this task. "Go back to sleep, Sunny. I'll handle it from here." His voice was terse. "Puzzle's going to be fine."

Sunny agreed and hung up, then stared at the wall. He wasn't as sure as Percy wanted him to be. 

"What was that about?" Ruby asked, rubbing his shoulder with one hand. "Everything okay?" Concern flickered across her face and through her emotions.