The door to Sollux's hive was locked with what seemed to be a truly ridiculous number of locks, and Eridan came from the school of accessorising that laughed in the face of the notion of "less is more" and recommended having at least one finger adorned with multiple rings. Eridan eyed it suspiciously, his lip curled upward like it had personally insulted his lusus and his lusus' mating partner, the bastard. "Sol'!" he yelled, rapping the door smartly with a rattle of clinking metal against the thick plastic of the door.

There was no response. The slight sneer marring Eridan's visage turned into a full scowl. "Sollux!" he yelled again. "C'mon you piss coloured blistering pustule on the face a' polite society, open up! I know you're in there mopin' about like your beloved pet woolbeast kicked the pail in front of a full culling selection, but we got shit that needs doin' and you ain't doin' it!"

The door stood, unmoving and silent. "Sollux!" Eridan bellowed, ejecting Ahab's Crosshairs, the master of all weapons, from his strife specibus and aiming it at the door. Up the hall three doors slammed shut quickly, curious eyes disappearing. Sollux's door still failed to open. Eridan's eyes narrowed, the metal of the gun warming under his fingertips. It was reflexive to aim it, the door falling in his sights, no sound from within.

Feferi would probably be mad if he killed Sollux, exes or not. Eridan shrugged and fired anyway. The door disintegrated under the short blast, and Eridan recaptchalogued the weapon, stalking into the hivestem unit, stepping over the pile of ash that had once been Sollux's door. The other halves of the locks were flashing alarm lights silently at him, and he ignored them, mouth curling in disgust at the sight that immediately assaulted him. The inside of the room, probably the nutrition block judging from the nutrition platter ablution receptacle, was fucking revolting. "Sol', there are fucking civilisations takin' root in here," he called, eyes darting around.

His skin was crawling in disgust, and his fist clenched, automatically tugging his stylish cape closer against himself. A door slid open somewhere else in the unit, and Sollux emerged, a sopor tide mark halfway up his shirt, red and blue eyes staring blankly at him. "The fuck did you do to my door, athhole?"

"More to the fuckin' point what d'you have against common decency?" Eridan asked, giving him a disgusted look. "What, did your ablution block door get concrete 'round it or somethin'?" Sollux looked disgusting, his hair was clumping together so badly he could see the grey skin at the base of his horns, the bags under his eyes looked like full bruises or dirt, there was a trail of mustard yellow blood caking his lips, and Eridan could count three distinct sopor lines on his clothes - a black t shirt with Pyrope's symbol on it and a pair of red and blue boxers, both of which were stiff and tinted green. The scowl on his face really completed the look. "I can smell you from here and y'sure as hell don't smell like Terezi says y'do," he adding, sniffing.

Sollux flipped him a double bird in a manner eerily reminiscent of Karkat. "Suck my bulge, you waste of square footage," he said, enunciating each word in a careful, flat tone. "No one fucking asked you to come here."

Eridan sneered, his hand on his cape twitching. "Actually," he said in as lofty a tone he could muster. "I was asked to come here."

Sollux stared at him blankly, then turned around and went back towards what was presumably his respite block. "Right, sure, whatever, fishface."

"Are you callin' me a fuckin' liar?" Eridan asked, puffing up, his eyes narrowed at the back of Sollux's head. He could feel his fins sticking out almost at a ninety degree angle from the side of his head, and his chin came back, looking down his nose despite the fact they were of a similar height.

"No, I'm saying I don't give a fuck and I've got work to do," Sollux said evenly, his head turning only the barest.

"No y'don't, you've got a fucking dinner to go to," Eridan said, crossing his arms and scowling. "Mandatory fucking attendance, even Serk's getting her fancy goddamn threads on you can at least shower."

"I'm not going," Sollux said, walking back into his respite block, and Eridan's scowl deepened.

"The hell you aren't!"

Sollux snorted. "Wow, that's a fucking convincing argument, did you learn that in the debate halls or am I lucky enough to have you honing your sharp wit against my sponge?"

Eridan snarled wordlessly and reached out, grabbing his arm and tugging him back. As far as he could tell, it was the least overtly hostile contact they'd ever had, and the most contact they'd had in over a sweep. Sollux looked down at the hand on his arm, eyebrow raised.

There was a beat. "Okay fine, I'm going to listen to CG for once in my miserable existence - I am uncomfortably intimate and you should respect my boundaries, you pus spewing fuckhead," Sollux recited, dull and sarcastic, his eyes meeting Eridan's, and he shook the hand off, folding his arms over his scrawny chest. Terezi's symbol bunched up in the folds of fabric under his arms, the slightly too short shirt ruining the last fragment of impact it might have had.

Eridan had never been 'uncomfortably intimate' in his life, and boundaries were for chumps, so he rolled his eyes. "Yeah, because Kar's a shining fuckin' example of healthy quads and unconfusing relationships," he said, scorn filling his tone. "Get in the fuckin' shower Sollux, or I'll drag you in there by your mutated horns and scrub you like a lusus with kelp mould under the scales, y'hear?" The thought of getting under the water, with a nude Sollux no less, was enough to make his teeth grit, but Eridan Ampora did not break promises. Well. Not the promises he wanted to keep.

"I'll fucking drown you," Sollux muttered, a clearly annoyed expression flashing over his face, scowling.

"I'm a seadweller," Eridan said after a beat, in which he could almost see the effort Sollux was exerting not to bury his face in his hands. "Is your thinkpan so dried out from sittin' next to your shitty overheating excuse of a computer that you can only use it to fry eggs? Did you actually try and clean it out with one a those military grade detergents that promises to erase pissblood while it's still in the troll? No wait, don't tell me - y'let Kar' finally make good on one of his grandiose promises to skull fuck the sense back into you with his bulge, cos' like most things to do with Karkat's bulge it's clearly had the opposite fucking effect as intended, what a find for the scientific community-"

The rest of his diatribe was cut off with a strangled yelp as psionics gripped around his ankles and his feet slammed against the ceiling of the hivestem unit. There was a clatter as his glasses landed somewhere on the floor below him, and Eridan thanked every terrible god who's name he could remember, and a few he couldn't, that both gravity and the notion of the concepts of up and down were considered largely arbitrary and optional under water, meaning that the urge to spill the contents of his stomach over Sollux's floor was easily repressed. The fabric of his cape was brushing his ears, and it was a testament to the amount he'd spent on his hairspray that not a single shifted. Eridan scowled, crossing his arms and aiming his expression and the red and blue blur that was presumably Sollux's face. Sollux raised his hand at him, a grey protrusion that was presumably his middle finger sticking up, and pivoted, disappearing into the other half of the hivestem unit.

Holy bulgeshitting fuck, Captor had some stamina, Eridan realised after what was, according to his phone, six full minutes. It felt more like ten, though, and Eridan scowled, tugging his shirt back up over his stomach where it kept falling down. Someone had clearly been practising both finesse and strength, the asshole. Just his ankles, and to support his entire weight too, fuck, it was almost impressive. A large insect was inspecting the hem of his cape where it brushed against the floor, and even squinting fiercely Eridan couldn't tell if it was a spider or some kind of other beastly fucking thing.

After a minute or so the small, dark shape apparently decided the cape was more interesting than the floor, and Eridan thrashed in alarm. Midriff be damned; he released his shirt and started wrapping the cape around an arm, shaking it violently. The bug hung on, slowly inching it's way up towards his head, and in an instant Ahab's Crosshairs was sitting in Eridan's hands, aimed at the black splotch on his cape, despite the fact that when he squinted through the scope he started seeing double.

Regardless, his finger twitched towards the trigger, and then suddenly he was on the ground, a muffled shriek echoing in his skull. His entire left side was numb, and with a growing horror he parsed through the noises and picked out the distinctive 'crunch' noise of glass crushing. Before he had time to process the death of his glasses, however, something small with more legs than was strictly necessary crawled over his face, and Eridan shrieked again, thrashing and rolling, dropping the gun to slap at his face, cape tangled around his arms.

The end result was him almost cocooned in his cape and scarf, thick purple fabric hindering his struggles to get out, whimpering loudly at the feeling of the bug running over his face. There was a raspy, wheezing noise in the background that Eridan was quick to identify as Sollux laughing; an event that only ever seemed to occur when Eridan was at the end of the punchline. Asshole. He would have scowled, but his mouth was too busy being glued shut out of fear.

Sollux's laughter died off, and eventually the cape was tugged away from his face, untrimmed claws gently scooping the bug off his face with one hand, depositing his mercifully intact glasses on his nose with the other. "Any particular reason you were trying to annihilate my databug and my neighbours ceiling?" Sollux said, with an empty kind of grin. Eridan almost preferred the scowl.

It took all of his internal growth to sit the fuck up and not explode, but Eridan managed it, adjusting the glasses and untangling the cape from around him to stand up. Apparently he'd squashed one of Sollux's glasses rather than his own, and the Crosshairs were a couple of feet away, on the other side of Sollux. The databug (with his glasses on Eridan could now see the port where it connected to the main computer husk, damnit) was cradled gently in Sollux's hands, and he sniffed. "For all I knew it was some kinda roach," he said frostily. "Y'certainly did a piece a work in makin' this an ideal fucking environment for them, where's your roach crown? Or haven't they made you king yet." If he wasn't quite dripping in sarcasm, it was because he was taking a paltry fucking second to recover.

"It's in the cupboard with my tiara and my ceremonial robes," Sollux said, his voice actually dripping in sarcasm as he deposited the bug on the table. It squeaked and ran behind the apiary stack, disappearing between the hexagons that made Eridan vaguely queasy when he looked at them. Sollux was clean, which was a good start, and he was even wearing appropriate clothing, almost. The long sleeved shirt didn't have a collar, but it wasn't stained and it had his own sign on it, and the pants were clearly something Kanaya had been responsible for.

"Are you ready to go yet or what, anyway?" Eridan asked, crossing his arms over his chest and meeting Sollux dead in the eyes when he looked back, like he hadn't just been inspecting his body for purely platonic reasons.

Sollux's eyebrows moved in a way that suggested he'd rolled his eyes, the red and blue too flat and bright for Eridan to really tell from that alone. "I told you, I'm not fucking going," he said, irritation lacing his tone in a cadence Eridan had memorised purely from game nights with Karkat.

"Like hell you're not," Eridan argued sharply. "Everyone's fucking going, I'm not going to be sitting there for five fucking hours with Karkat kicking me under the table because I couldn't do one goddamn thing right, when even Nepeta managed to make Eq' stop filling a fucking moat of bowls around his chair, and someone managed not to fuck up sweet talking Aradia out of the fucking catacombs."

Sollux gave him a hard look, his mouth twisting down in an ugly curl of a frown, and Eridan instantly regretted bringing up Aradia. They'd never really recovered after the whole Vriska thing, had they? Fuck, fuck her and all her irons in the fire, they always fucked shit up way more than was necessary, and now he'd probably blown everything. "I'm not going to a dinner for five hours to sit across from both of my exes, Ampora," he said steadily, enunciating every word in a manner that made Eridan's spine straighten almost of his own accord.

When he talked like that you could almost forget about the lisp. Eridan stood up straight, his arms coming down from his chest, and the fins over his operculum flared, sneering at Sollux in a way only years of practice in the mirror could have helped him accomplish. (It looked damn good, he knew that for a fact.) "You are not the only one who has to sit across from a broken quad, you useless, pan-dead, shit sponge of a piss blooded waste of society's resources," he said coldly. Something in him cracked, and he'd never been more glad for the lack of the useless land dwelling evolutionary fuck up that was lacrimal glands. "We both got dumped by the same person, you colossal lump of shit."

When Sollux opened his mouth, it's not the rage filled diatribe punctuated with psionics and threats that Eridan was expecting. Instead, in a very quiet, very carefully controlled tone of voice, Sollux said: "She didn't dump me, it was mutual."

Eridan didn't even process the "Oh, honey," that left his mouth without his permission, but it made Sollux crumple. His limbs react rather than move, catching Sollux around the waist and tugging him back towards the shitty couch, and it's only the fact that he's been wearing a cape since he was three that he didn't trip and leave them both in an uncoordinated pile on the floor. Still, the risk of tearing the hem was ever present, so Eridan reached up and unclips it, letting the fabric hit the ground and half dragging Sollux over it.

Sollux didn't even shove at him, sinking into the couch with his head in his hands, and Eridan sat next to him, hands hovering over Sollux's shoulders. Fuck. All that was supposed to happen was he was going to turn up, force Sollux into a clean shirt and drag him by the ear to dinner, unholy horror terrors damnit! It's all he could do not to wrap his arms around Sollux's shoulders and croon softly into his ears, this was not on the agenda for the night! "It was mutual," Sollux said again, his voice raspy and dry in a way that suggests he's cried out already, and that just plucks at the blood pusher strings. "We talked and we agreed it would be better if she didn't have to worry about me losing my shit like a fucking wriggler who's lusus is on vacation all the time."

Eridan caved and pulls Sollux against his chest, papping his unnaturally warm cheek lightly. Sollux sniffled and crumpled against him, carefully gripping at Eridan's shirt front with the sides of his fingers, knuckles almost turning yellow at the strain. "When did you get so fucking muscly anyway you're supposed to be the shitty nerd?" Sollux said, muffled. It's nowhere near the calibre of his usual insults, but Eridan let it pass.

"Been using the Ahab's since it was taller than me, assface," Eridan muttered, papping his shoulder awkwardly. Pale comfort, be it against self destruction or homicide, has always been his weakest point, but he started to get the feeling Sollux might not care. "Gl'bgolyb had an appetite for big fuckers too," he added quietly.

Sollux digested the information without moving, and Eridan was stuck suddenly with how fucking awkward a position they were in. Either they were never going to discuss this again, or he was in for the weirdest romantic scenario in his life. "You still couldn't take CT," Sollux mumbles after the longest pause, and Eridan sneers, relishing in the easy response.

"Eq can eat a bulge for breakfast," he said snootily, scowling and tentatively dropping a kiss in between Sollux's horns. That was right, yeah? He was only ever actually moirails with Feferi, and they were pretty much purely online. Sollux didn't pull away though, so he shrugged internally and rubbed at Sollux's shoulder, ignoring the way his rings kept catching on the fabric. "I'm not looking to enter into a competition for insecure landdwellers who think that lifting a bunch a'useless shit makes them the most interestin' an' fabulous troll in all a'the glory of the Alternian Empire, I wanna actually do somethin' with my life."

That made Sollux give a dry laugh, so Eridan pumped his fist internally. Not fucking up so far. "Fuck, I'd pay money to see that said to his sweaty fucking face," he said with feeling, and Eridan almost sagged in relief.

"I'll do it in half an hour if you come the fuck with me to witness it," he said, squeezing Sollux's shoulder awkwardly.

"Bet you that stupid fucking gun you won't," Sollux said almost immediately, shifting up awkwardly, releasing his fingers from Eridan's shirt and smoothing over the indents left there. It was awkward, in a way that suggested it'd been a while for him as well, and Eridan gave him a toothy grin, tugging Sollux's shirt to sit right and flattening his fringe.

"Bet you three non virus trapped computer repairs I fucking will," he said smugly, and Sollux strangled a laugh as Eridan stood, picking his cape up and refastening it around his neck. There was a small…. Something on it, but it's on the inner lining and no one else will know it's there at a glance. "An' now you have to come because if you don't I'm gonna make everyone at the table say I did it, an' Equius will do anythin' Kar tells him too."

Sollux was already standing, the pair of glasses he was wearing the last time he actually left the hive clutched carefully in one hand. "Don't be stupid," he said, raising an eyebrow. "I'd just hack the security feed and watch you propose it while drunk and then laugh my fucking ass off at everybody rejecting you."

"Karkat wouldn't," Eridan said petulantly, standing still as Sollux reached up and tugged the cape to sit slightly more over one shoulder, exactly the way Eridan wore it when they were seven and even more stupid than they are now.

"That's because Karkat's a walking sack of shit," Sollux said, putting the glasses on and heading towards the hole in his wall that was once his door. "I hope to fuck you know how to put things back once that stupid gun's made a fucking mess pile of it."