Signless(diamonds)Eridan: Remember when Eridan was wandering through the dreambubbles feeling like a miserable wreck when he staggered right into the last troll he expected to give a damn? Remember how Signless laughed even as he helped Eridan pull himself back together?


He wasn't sure where he was exactly. The land was bright, brown, and rocky. In all of his seven-ish sweeps he'd never seen anything like it (except, maybe Tavros' planet…but then again that place was all sand). Some of the rock formations had caves that wind and water had carved into them, and to be completely honest being dead in a place like this was tiring.

So he tucked himself into the darkest corner of the cave and finally let his thoughts run wild.

He'd killed her, and that asshole Sol, and Kan. He hadn't found any of them in the bubbles, which really only meant that the guilt and anger had time to percolate in him. Outside of the meteor, with a more…broad perspective granted by the dream bubbles, he'd come to realize just how big a tantrum he'd had and just how irrationally angry he was at everyone.

And really, he was just getting angry about being angry at this point. He wished he could talk to Fef, wished he could talk to anyone really. He wouldn't say he was desperate to get into a pile with just anyone (never in his life…or un-life as circumstances would have it, would he crawl into a pile with Vriska or Sollux! And maybe not even a couple other trolls, he had standards, okay?), but really…at this point he'd consider jamming with quite a few people he'd never considered before.

God, he needed a pap right now. But all he had was this dark fucking cave, and his cape (thank all the higher powers for that small miracle, he could pretend he wasn't in a cave when the purple cloth was draped over his face). Rolling onto his side, back facing the cave entrance, he cocooned himself in his high collared cape.

Just because he was dead didn't mean he couldn't try to sleep. He might be boiling with anger and guilt and other unsavory emotions, but without a moirail or a pile the only thing to be done was to try to bottle it up. At least…out here, if he couldn't keep it to himself, there wasn't too much to damage in a fit of pique.

The state he fell into couldn't have been called sleep, but it was close enough that it really didn't matter. His guard was down, his mind lulled into something akin to deep sleep. And the scuffing of booted feet on sandstone didn't shake him at all.

"Child," chuckled a rough voice, "You are far from the memories of you and yours." The following silence, as the intruder waited for the adolescent ghost to "wake," was unbroken by the thoroughly out-of-it violet-blood. With an amused chuckle, he gracefully folded himself into a sitting position.

Even in his sleep, Eridan snarled and lashed out. All that bottled up rage, despair, shame…all of those negative emotions gave him a restlessness that translated well into physical movement. And the Signless, with all of his sweeps of experience with the pitiable and the detestable (and those who were a combination of both), chuckled forgivingly and gently patted the cheek of his young companion.

"There, there. Sleep. We will work out what to do about all of this rage when you wake." The pap's effect went into place almost immediately, Eridan's limbs stilled, and though he sprawled across the floor his expression was one of something approaching peace.

The Signless sighed, gazing outward past his feet to the blazingly bright skyline outside of the cave even as he rubbed soothing circles on the back of Eridan's hand. The tips of his boots faded to translucence, and a flash of anger brought a spark of life to his red eyes. Even the ghosts of ghosts had a place here, it seemed.

And though he didn't notice, a small, happy smile flitted across Eridan's face even as the Signless' outline solidified again.