Author's Note: LOOK WHO MANAGED TO GET A CHAPTER DONE EVEN ON VACATION HAHAHA! It sucks kind of a lot, but this is as good as it's gonna get I think :T And it also ended up not quite so FIXED as I had intended but we'll get to that! Poor Eridan. You just fail so hard at everything you try, don't you? Well keep trying, maybe Sollux will eventually find it charming! Enjoy this chapter, and have a happy Thanksgiving to everyone who is celebrating it this week! And as usual comments and the like are always treasured!

-Crow

Chapter 9

Mea Culpa

That night at dinner, before the duo even set foot inside the dining room, Eridan pulled Vriska aside and swore her to secrecy about their escapades in the engine room. He was still learning, he explained, and he wanted his ultimate mastery over the Helmsman to be a surprise for Dualscar later. It pained him and churned his stomach with bile, but he also added that he was infinitely grateful to her for showing him something new. It could only help him, he never could have achieved the next level with her, and he looked forward to subjugating more lowbloods by her side. He laid it on thick, stroking his friend's formidable ego enough to make her concede to keep the juicy tale to herself, as badly as she wanted to tell it. Satisfied, he even allowed entering the dining room arm in arm, and sat next to her to ensure her silence. His efforts gained him another approving smile and a clap on the shoulder from Dualscar, but otherwise the feast commenced with nothing out of the ordinary. The highbloods around the table chatted and schmoozed with their usual cruel banalities and everyone went back to ignoring him. Eridan meanwhile, could only hear the screams of agony echoing in his skull as the hot blue and red coals haunted him throughout the meal.

Sollux had done nothing wrong. He had even gone out of his way to protect him, to comfort him, to offer him a temporary sanctuary from the bloody existence of a Highblood Pirate with a belligerent mandate. And he had repaid his debt with blood. Dualscar and Vriska both would have told him to delight in the hilarity of such abject betrayal, to laugh and mock as they did, but instead Eridan was left feeling hollow and numb, every beat of his heart sending a knell of guilt to his every fiber. Sollux had even lied for him to save his face in front of Vriska, someone who had done nothing but break his heart and belittle him constantly and still, he had stood by and done nothing while she tore him apart from the inside out. Eridan had never been without a sense of honor in his plots and dealings with those below his station, despite how much it enraged his mentor, and Sollux's fate was so categorically unfair he could not even enjoy the fact Dualscar was actually smiling at him.

He had only meant to impress Vriska and stand on equal ground with her. It was only meant to be a casual reaffirmation of a friendship without any complicated feelings or turmoil. It should have been a simple observation and nothing more. But Vriska had always been compelled to go farther, to be greater, to take one step above, no matter what she had to destroy to do it. It was nowhere near an eye for an eye. He should have known better.

Vriska broke everything she touched.

It was all his fault.

Dinner ended without Eridan touching a scrap of food on his plate or even his glass of wine, but luckily no one seemed the wiser or even to care. He rose to excuse himself but Vriska intercepted him and had the audacity to part for the evening with a fond kiss on his cheek. Then as she drifted away she raised a hand in farewell and thanked him for a lovely night. Eridan held a hand over his soiled cheek as his jaw fell open and stared until he was the only one left in the glittering dining hall lit only by the oceanic blue haze of the fishtanks. He let the silence wash over him before he found the will to move again and made sure to scrub his cheek thoroughly with his palm as he stalked out, cape billowing behind him.

Disbelief and guilt morphed to anger as he marched, not to his respiteblock, but to the galley and snuck stealthily inside. Barely even stopping to consider what he was doing, he rooted around in the cabinets until he found a clean mixing bowl and some freshly washed soft dishtowels. He filled the bowl with piping hot water from the sink, tucked the towels under his arm and stole into the darkening ship, concealing himself in the shadows as all the rest of the crew crawled into their respiteblocks for the sleep cycle. Luckily he managed to avoid detection and slipped down into the engine room with no one the wiser.

The trip to Sollux's hub took him nearly twice as long to manage, however, balancing a teetering dish of steaming water and creeping ball to heel on his sneakers in some vain hope the Helmsman would be resting or miraculously unaware of his presence. When he arrived, Sollux's eyes were closed and his head lay against one of his suspended arms, yellow blood clotted and tacky down his cheeks and splattered over the twisted wires. He seemed not to notice him, even as he snuck into the unusually dim circle of light, but when he carefully set the towels onto the control panel and the bowl onto the floor the tiniest tinny disruption of the silence jerked the Psionic out of his weary stupor. His eyes fluttered open, heavy and ringed with dark circles of pain and cut two blue and yellow slits of malice into the darkness as they focused on the intruder.

"Get out."

The ragged chill of his voice made Eridan's skin prickle.

"Wait just a sec Sol, just hear me out, I didn't come to-" he began.

"I SAID GET OUT!" Sollux roared with what little strength he had left in his ragged body, gritting his teeth in pain and closing his eyes again.

Eridan held his hands out placatingly and inched closer, searching for the switch Vriska had thrown to inhibit his psychic abilities. He spotted it quickly and swallowed hard to muster his courage, touching it with one hand and keeping the other in the air unarmed and very visible while he prayed he would remain in one piece for his sacrifice.

"Easy… Easy, Sol. I come in peace, ok? Look, I'll even turn your psionics back on for you, see?" he soothed.

Sollux watched, hawklike and feral, as the seadweller flipped the switch effortlessly, true to his word. The mental clamp around his abilities released and the pressure inside his head vanished in an instant. Psionic energy flowed freely once again through his body, filled it with a static rush and reinvigorated him with the will to turn his wrath upon Eridan at once. The seadweller yelped loudly as he was enveloped in furious red and blue light, swept off his feet, and slammed hard into the wall. He dangled several precarious feet off the ground and his scarf twisted ominiously around his neck. Sollux grinned darkly as he clawed at it in panic.

"Bad choice fishbreath," he seethed vehemently.

"W-Wait stop! Sol let go! I just came to talk!" Eridan frantically corrected him.

"Like hell you did!" Sollux sibilated, "I can't believe I was stupid enough to trust you, to feel fucking SORRY for you! Well I won't make THAT mistake again, that's for damn sure!"

The scarf wound tighter around Eridan's neck.

"I-I-augh! I didn't mean for it to go that far! It wasn't my fault!" he squawked, feet kicking at the air, "It was all Vris' idea! I didn't even want to come down to this stinkin' cesspool in the first place!"

"Oh sure right yeah. A perfect opportunity to look like big beluga on board in front of your little hate crush and you didn't drag her spindly ass down here to puff up your chest and stroke your own bulge? I call gargantuan steaming crock of fresh squeezed bullshit!" Sollux shot nastily back.

"For your information, actually I looked like a total hoofbeast's ass, if you want to know the truth! I didn't know about any of those stupid buttons! She wanted to show me up! To show off like she alw-ACK!" his explanation was again cut off by a ruthless squeeze of his own scarf.

"Shut up! I should have known better than to let you stay for more than a nanosecond down here! I should have tossed you down into the refuse pit where highblood scum like you belongs and left it at that! I should have let you ROT!"

"W-Wait hold up aren't you bein' a little harsh?" Eridan pointed out, his voice gravely and strained with the pressure on his throat, "I was the one who shut off the damn system if you will recall! And I-!"

The scarf twisted so hard around his neck the yelp of pain was strangled into silence.

"I SAID SHUT UP! You traitorous lying sack of shit… I could just kill you right now. Do everyone a favor. It's not like anyone would even fucking miss you!" Sollux warned in a deadly timbre.

The wounded flinch of an unspoken truth on Eridan's face was painfully visible, even through the flush of choked purple. He quickly replaced it with a callous sneer, baring his fangs and closing his eyes.

"Hah! If that's what you think you're dumber than your fuckin' lisp would suggest! Dualscar would mourn me like nothin' this universe has ever seen! There would be no end to his sorrow and sufferin'! I am as good as his own child, I'm his heir! He loves me like peasant vermin like you DREAM about bein' loved! If you were responsible for my death he'd end you so swiftly and so powerfully the very fabric of the universe would bend! You hear me? He'd do anythin' to avenge me!" he proclaimed with the utmost ardor.

Sollux stared in disbelief, his anger fizzling with the sparks glittering around his eyes. It dissipated in a wash of frustrated pity for a willfully misguided seadweller who clearly knew very little other than his sheltered life of piracy and his own delusions of grandeur. Suddenly, punishing him for what had happened felt rather like punishing an innocent pet, ignorant of everything other than a few stern commands and the ceaseless desire for an elusive reward. Sollux sighed as he let Eridan slowly slide back down to the ground and released the hold around his neck. He inhaled sharply and began hacking for air as he clawed his scarf loose again, then turned murderous yellow eyes back up at the stooped Psionic.

"My death would come so swiftly…? Well wouldn't that be a fucking blessing," Sollux muttered, turning his luminous eyes sunken in yellow bags away.

A few more coughs and staggered gulps of air wracked the seadweller, but he composed himself and pushed up onto his knees, still glowering.

"If you wanna die so bad why don't you just do it then? You said yourself if you hack far enough into the central system it's an immediate lights out for you. It'd be easy, right?" he hissed.

Sollux went quiet a moment, lips tightening.

"I promised someone I wouldn't," came the solemn reply.

Shocked, Eridan raised his brows.

"Huh? Really? Who?" he asked briskly.

He waited for what seemed like an eternity for an answer, but Sollux refused any forthcoming. His eyes flickered in the darkness of his dungeon and his memories until he turned them hatefully on the expectant seadweller waiting, wide-eyed, for a name and a story.

"You're still here," he growled.

It was a statement, not a question.

Eridan, realizing he was not going to get a reply to his query, rose to his feet and dusted off his striped pants primly.

"Yes, it seems I am," he observed sarcastically, "I didn't just come here as a glutton for punishment you know! I came down here because I… Sort of owe you. I guess."

Sollux stared at him, his face carved in annoyed stone. Eridan swallowed hard and took a step back toward where he had set down his bowl of warm water and towels.

"Listen. You… You hid me from Vris when I was in a bad spot and you… Had a perfect opportunity to make me look like a huge idiot and you didn't, so…" he elaborated unsteadily.

He picked up his wares and held them up to show the incredulous Helmsman, an uncomfortably diplomatic expression of hope on his face.

"You must be joking."

"Dead serious. Come on, do you want to hang there stewin' in your own honey Dijon or do you want me to get you halfway presentable again?" Eridan insisted haughtily.

He waited while Sollux continued to glare at him and silently process his intentions. He could scarcely blame the yellow-blooded slave for doubting his sincerity and braced himself to be dragged clear back to his respiteblock by some highly unpleasant body part, or worse, into the garbage chute in place of acquiescence. To his surprise, Sollux sighed, sagged in his bioware, and shook his head in resignation.

"Fine, whatever. Just do it quickly, leave, and never let me see you darken my already dark and miserable door again," he finally spat.

Fins pricked up and spirits, at least momentarily, lifted, Eridan glided smoothly over to the gargantuan twist of sickly pink tentacles grafting the Psionic's body to the ship. He set the bowl of warm water down and piled the towels neatly beside it, then picked up the top one, dipped it gingerly into the still steaming liquid and wrung it out with care. Sollux was strung from the ceiling just high enough above him that Eridan was forced to put a foot experimentally atop a tentacle and scale a few up the quivering mass until he could brace himself at Sollux's side and perch himself in a loop. When he looked up, he found himself eye to eye with the Helmsman for the first time, their noses mere inches apart. The moment lingered, neither saying a word, expressions unchanged, until Eridan finally mustered the courage to lift his hand and slowly, hesitantly, lay the warm damp cloth against Sollux's bloody cheek. The Psionic recoiled sharply, as if scalded, hissing softly and forcing the other to brace himself with a scowl.

"Don't be such a wiggler. It doesn't hurt," Eridan chided.

He leaned back in and touched the towel to Sollux's face again, even gentler than before, and slowly began wiping away the crusted trails of yellow that had leaked from his eyes. Sollux relaxed, baffled by the almost tender touch from the most vicious caste of his race. At best, he had expected Eridan to toss the water in his face, scrub him down roughly and walk out feeling like his debt had been repaid in full. Yet the seadweller's touch was slow, attentive. The water soaked into the soft towel was warm and soothing, not cold and abrasive as he expected, and his ringed fingers worked with care to soak and smooth away the stubborn dried blood. Sollux watched the focused highblood so close he could see the corners of his eyes crinkle in concentration behind his glasses, smell the faint aroma of his sea breeze shampoo from the wavy purple-streaked locks, and feel the cool buffeting of his nervous breath against his neck. So much the embodiment of the savage beauty of a seadweller, but somehow untouched by the inherent cruelty they so proudly expounded. He tore his eyes away with a skeptical snarl.

"Tch. First of all, how do you even know that?" he snorted once he could find his words, "And second of all, it's been a long time since anyone's touched me, I'm not exactly accustomed to it."

"Wiggler," Eridan repeated, "And stop talkin', your lisp is even more annoyin' up close and it's gettin' spit all over my royal vestements."

Sollux rolled his eyes, but allowed Eridan to continue cleaning his face. He leaned closer to lift his soiled goggles and attend to the more delicate skin of his temple and beneath his eye and unconsciously laid his free hand on Sollux's shoulder to steady himself. They both glanced down at it, simultaneously fascinated with the respective coolness and heat of the other's body, but the moment only lasted an ephemeral second before Eridan flushed and removed the offending limb. The lowblooded warmth lingered on his palm, however, as he moved silently to the Helmsman's side to clean the blood out of his ear.

"What even is the point of all this?" Sollux asked to break the quiet, "It's only going to get you in hot shit with Dualscar, if he even finds out. And it's not like anyone gives two shits if I'm, as you so artfully put it, 'stewing in my own honey dijon'."

"I told you already! I shouldn't be surprised since your ilk always needs things explained about fifty times before it sinks in, what happened tonight wasn't fuckin' fair. I got a sense of honor you know! And you protected it, so I stopped Vris from goin' too far and now I'm cleanin' up her mess. Then we're even," Eridan replied.

"Great, so we're even, so next time you feel like blowing off a little steam you can come down here flip a switch and watch the freak dance. What a lovely arrangement this is going to be," the Psionic mumbled sarcastically.

Eridan paused and pulled back, a genuinely perplexed furrow in his brow.

"Why would I come down here to microwave your brain and jeopardize the entire fucking navigational and piloting system of the ship when I can get what I want from you with dumb games?" he asked, aghast.

Once more, Sollux found it a Sisyphean effort to process just what was coming out of Eridan's mouth.

"Because… It's what Seadwellers and Highbloods do…?" he told him with amused condescension.

"What? That's ridiculous! I don't know how many Seadwellers you've known, but any Seadwellin' Troll worth his salt would know better than to just go around beatin' the sense out of important slaves for no reason! Sure we know better than anyone in the history of the universe how to obliterate and torture and otherwise totally dominate anyone we need to, but we don't just go around doin' it for no reason! Now hold still, you got that putrid sludge that slips through your veins all in every fuckin' thin' here," Eridan answered.

He reached out and cupped Sollux's cheek in his free hand to steady his head while he cleaned out the delicate crevices in his ear. Cool, smooth fingers with deadly yellow claws brushed against his cheek and sent a shiver down Sollux's spine, both from the chill of his royal blood and for the long forgotten feeling of skin touching his that stirred for the second time a deeply buried memory.

"Hah, a benevolent Seadweller, now I've officially seen everything," he scoffed, brushing the feeling from his heart and mind.

"It's not benevolence it's called strategy, idiot," Eridan quipped back.

"Strategy huh? How's that been working out for you so far?" the Psionic mused, tipping his head to the side to allow the warm rag over his bloodstained neck.

"Shove it!" his surly companion snarled, "You don't need to use pain and fear all the time, it loses its meaning then. You know? Like if your minion always knows it's gonna be beaten, then what incentive do they got to do what you want? They should know it's ALWAYS a possibility, but they should also know they might just be rewarded. Hope always works better when dealin' with the lesser castes. They'll do anythin' for a scrap of reward."

The urge to make a comment on how Eridan sounded rather like he was describing himself rather than his compatriots nagged eagerly at the back of Sollux's mind, but he suppressed it with a smirk.

"No wonder you and our esteemed Pirate captain don't always see eye to eye," he commented loftily in its place.

The comment made Eridan's cleaning cease a moment and his hooked nose crinkle in thought before he continued.

"I'm… Different from Dualscar. In a lot of ways. Still the same in all the important ways, of course! But… I like to help lowbloods understand that they're beneath me and my kin but it don't mean we can't make our arrangements work! We can still get along! So long as you lowbloods know your place and toe the line you're useful! Sure we wanna wipe you all out eventually but while we got you around might as well make life easier!" he elaborated, closing his eyes and lifting his nose.

"Dude, that makes absolutely no fucking sense," Sollux snorted, deadpan.

"Shut up it makes perfect sense!" Eridan snapped back.

"No it doesn't, have you been asleep in class the entire time Dualscar's been mentoring you? Or too busy writing fishface plus spiderbitch equals spades in the margin of your notes? All you people do is kick people you think are beneath you around for the hell of it! It's basically Seadweller country club sport with cocktails on the side."

Eridan's fins snapped open and flared with offence, much to Sollux's private delight.

"Maybe if you weren't such a sarcastic upstart douche Dualscar and the others wouldn't feel compelled to put a little fear of their wrath in you! Ever think of that?" he jeered.

"I'm not afraid of him," Sollux retorted flippantly.

"Yeah well you should be…" Eridan added with far less fire than his verbal sparring partner expected.

His shoulders drooped and his fins slowly folded back in as he pulled away and scaled the few steps down the tentacles to clean his cloth and wring the yellow out into the bowl.

"Dualscar always says it's better to be feared than to be loved," he began again as he climbed back up with his freshened towel twisted in his ringed fingers, "But sometimes I…"

He paused and looked back into Sollux's inquisitive and, for once, silent gaze.

"Sometimes I'm not entirely sure about that. I mean he runs Neptune's Gambit with an iron fist, everyone does everythin' he says. He says jump and everyone says how high and he goes around toutin' himself like he's master of the universe or somethin' but I guarantee if this ship were goin' down the entire crew wouldn't think twice about abandonin' it like squeak creatures," he explained as he moved onto Sollux's opposite cheek.

"It's easy as shit to make people afraid of you, easy to hurt them, easy to cause pain and hatred… It's hard to make them respect you, to follow you to… Love you."

The word trailed off Eridan's tongue strangely, as if he'd rarely dared to speak it before. He cleared it from his throat and continued with gusto.

"In the end? When it really gets rough do you want an army of snivellin' cowards who'd sooner piss themselves before they laid down before the enemy just to end their pathetic existence or an army that'd gladly lay down their lives to uphold your glory and ideals? Who'll walk straight into the maw of death itself callin' your name, guns blazin' and blood pushers beatin' as one to the rhythm of your righteous conquest?"

Their eyes met again; belligerent yellow with jaded blue and red. Both screamed for respite, for one iota of congruent suffering to slip through a chink in onerous ethereal armor. And as seadweller anointed the face of lowblooded slave and spilled his innermost desires in candid proclaimations, for the first time Sollux saw past the purple silk and the puffed up fins into the briefest glimpse of something tiny and brimming with hope like the last coal smoldering among the jagged black ruins after a forest fire.

"Bah, not like a dirtscrapin' ignoramus like you would even begin to understand," Eridan shattered the silence ruefully, "No one does."

He tossed the soiled towel down to the ground and climbed down to fetch another, face bitterly pinched. Sollux observed, silent.

"I want them to bow!" he breathed ardently as he ascended once more, "But I want them to bow because I'm the greatest fuckin' pirate that ever lived and my very name causes shockwaves felt to the outermost ring of the universe, because my shadow falls across every sun that lights every quivering primordial world just opening and blinking into the light of creation! Not because I might turn around and shoot them in the face for no discernable reason afterward! I wanna do things my way, I wanna rule the way I wanna rule! I wanna make Dualscar so fuckin' proud of me but I wanna do it with my own plan! I just wanna be-!"

He stopped, for he saw the same word in the shadows across Sollux's face and knew it need not be uttered.

"Thanks for the touching soliloquy there, Troll William Shakespeare. Really. I'm moved. I'd wipe my dewy eyes but seeing as I require you to do that for me I'm pretty much taken care of. So if you're quite finished can we draw the curtains on this little melodrama and go back to the real world?" Sollux sibilated.

Shocked by the acerbic sarcasm lobbed his way after his tirade, Eridan snarled and quickly finished mopping up the yellow seeping down Sollux's neck.

"Fine."

The pads of his bare fingers grazed over the prominent sinews in his hurried carelessness, nails following and raising an electric shiver over Sollux's sallow gray skin. If Eridan noticed, he pretended not to as he wiped the last of the blood that had spilled over the bioware tentacles and hurried back down to the ground.

"Okay, done. And not a moment too soon. I'll get the hell out now," he announced.

Sollux didn't dignify such banalities with a reply, but continued to glare at him through narrowed eyes; A boy riddled with the hooks of fate and station yanking his mangled soul in every direction while his eyes could only turn to a distant sun glittering on the surface of the endless ocean. He dawdled, as if hoping perhaps he would suddenly have a change of heart. As if his gesture of amnesty had been enough to erase the betrayal and they could go back to harmless quips and co-op game playing and escaping from the brutal gauntlet of life aboard Neptune's Gambit. But the silence persisted through his clumsy cleaning and gathering up of his accouterments and hopeful gazes so Eridan set his face back into its monolith sneer, turned, and headed briskly for the exit.

"Hey… Fishface…"

Eridan paused, turning over his shoulder at the quite unexpected call.

"You seadwellers do have one thing better than the rest of us. The ability and the power to throw a giant fuck you in the face of anyone who'll attempt to stop you with the dread magic word, 'no' with some actual goddamn clout. You can choose whatever life you want. Go anywhere, do anything, be anything, no one will even try to tell you different! And if you waste that golden fucking opportunity you are infinitely more pathetic than I initially thought," Sollux lectured him, double set of fanged bared menacingly.

The highblood's gut instinct mandated levying swift wrath upon the brazen underling, but his conscious mind recognized the shred of sympathy and even jealousy in his slight. Never before had he even entertained the thought that the only person on the entire ship who felt as trapped and chained as he did, who understood wanting so desperately to be so much more than what was expected of him, would be a slave. He tore himself away from the psionic, chewing his lip.

"I… Sure, why wouldn't I..." he stammered absently, "Uh... I'd say see you later but I-"

"If I catch you down here again I will turn you inside out and hang you outside on the prow like a windsock," Sollux finished for him.

Eridan gulped and nodded firmly.

"Right. I… Bye. Sol."

The duo wasted no more platitudes on an already sour parting, and Eridan took himself swiftly out of the engine room and out of Sollux's business for the last time. By the time he made it back to his respiteblock he was certain twinArmageddons would be blocked on Trollian, his few precious games would be deleted, and a nasty virus would be left in its wake. He would have to report it to Dualscar, who would promptly verbally brutalize him, a new computer would have to be obtained, and he would go back to being nothing more than a burden and a waste of his captain's time. Everything would return to old practices and it would be as if he had never set foot that fateful night to tangle with the famed monster in the engine room, but a myth and a legend once more. Ear fins pressed hard and small against his head, his eyes watching the floor, and the bowl of yellow tinted water with the soiled towels draped over the rims secure in his white knuckle grip, he trudged out of the engine room. His body shoved the cumbersome door open dejectedly, ushering himself back out into the realm of highblooded enmity and contest, but as he slipped out the burden on the door suddenly grew lighter. It pulled away from him completely, and he stumbled into the corridor where he came dangerously close to slopping a bowl of bloody water over the boots of a towering shadowy figure.

Eridan lifted his head, and his eyes traveled up the imposing violet-clad colossus and straight to the scarred face of his mentor who was staring, horrified and incensed, at his yellow stained hands still covered in Sollux's blood.

Dualscar.