Chapter Text
Every day was a routine, for Ink - in the loosest way possible. He woke up, of course, laid in bed for a long time, and then tracked down Broomie.
Broomie was always located in a strange, new location in his house every time he woke up. The sink, under the couch, in bed with him, on the ceiling, under the floorboards... He doesn't remember putting Broomie in any of the places that Broomie usually appears, but it happens. He realized, after a while, that it was all actually part of the routine.
There were rules to the game, of course.
The first rule, or a rule, in general, is that Broomie wouldn't venture outside the house. Broomie could not go outside of the boundaries of Ink's home. Something tethered Broomie to the house, which Ink figures is probably some kind of demonic contract. The issue is, however, that the house can sometimes just be completely foreign to Ink, and he'll have to relearn the layout of his own home a lot to find Broomie.
Another rule is that Broomie cannot be in a really dangerous place. For example - one time, Ink wandered very deep into his house and found himself in some strange prison with a bunch of sawblades behind a trap door. He isn't sure how or when he installed an entire prison complex within his house, but it's there, somewhere behind a few doors and... near the kitchen, but Broomie wasn't anywhere around there and has never shown up there - to his memory.
Ink stares up at the bright orange ceiling of his bedroom and continues to luxuriate in his warm, warm bed, before liquidating and roiling off of his mattress to begin the routine.
The thing about Ink's house is that it's a conscious manifestation of Ink's... everything.
He pads across the soft, cream carpet to the door across from his bed, labelled 'CLOSET?'. He hopes that when he opens it, there is a closet there, and there is not anything living within it.
Ink twists the knob (it changed again - metal, shaped like a flower. It's very uncomfortable to hold. Very nice, though! He likes lilies.) and opens the door. A long, concrete hallway meets him, illuminated by a single, green, flickering light that suspends one fragment of the hall across a void of darkness that eats the sunlight pouring out from his door.
There is another door down the hallway. Ink wonders if he should take his emotions before going down the hall.
He squints out into the darkness, leaning in just a bit past the doorway, and catches the slight sensation of a light breeze against his cheek and past. Ink feels... he feels something still, but not... as strongly as he normally would(?). He isn't sure. He's not really sure about a lot of things, always, and he's not really sure if he's got enough juice in him to be going down long and ominous hallways.
Ink decides to go down the hallway anyway.
He steps out into the hall - and falls into the darkness. His open closet door shrinks away from him, swiftly, and air whistles past his neck and through the gaps between his fingers. Ink feels a tiny spark of fear clutch and twist in his stomach, but it's a bit too late to worry about his missing bandolier.
He continues falling.
"Oh boy," Ink muses, pretty sure that he should be feeling more extreme terror right now. "I hope I find Broomie wherever I'm going."
The door disappears into an orange speck, until it consumes itself and disappears into the dark like a dying star.
Ink digs around in his pocket for his phone, and with his butterfingers, nearly loses his phone to the abyss as he continues to fall. He taps a button on speed dial.
"Ink? What is it?" Dream answers on the second ring. Ink can hear the clink of a tea cup on porcelain. Must be tea time. "Don't come looking for me, I just fell into my closet."
"Um," Dream begins. "Well, I won't. Unless your closet has an ungodly amount of puzzles in it, or something."
Ink pauses to glance down at wherever he's falling. Another doorway is making its way towards him, large and gaping, like the maw of a large animal. He looks back up, and watches ... something, he can't look at it directly, swim across the endless black landscape. Dream says something to him through the receiver, but he can't hear him over the static and the whispering. "Sorry Dreamboat," Ink sheepishly replies. "I gotta go before my phone melts into the ink. I'll see you when I can find a way out!"
Beep.
He shoves his slowly dematerializing phone into his pocket. Hopefully that'll work.
The doorframe swoops past him, and the darkness gives way to a tall, painted room with green walls. It is full of empty frames, all meant for some grand and cherished paintings. Ink continues to fall past all the perfectly placed frames, and watches them fly past with very little concern - before his fall slows, and he lands gently onto a mattress. His phone buzzes incessantly in his pocket. Probably Dream.
"Oh, you must be Ink." A tenor voice pipes up, somewhere in the very tall art gallery. The show lights are on. The room is very dim. He looks over at the source, and sees a mirror image of himself standing over him - dressed very neatly in a clean suit vest and pressed button up, with crisp dress pants. Ah, but no shoes. Their ink stain drips down from one eye.
"It's nice to finally meet you. My name is Ink, but considering that you'll be meeting a lot of Inks, you can call me whatever you like."