Sollux still couldn't recall the exact point at which he'd lost his mind.
He did, however, very clearly recall being angry.
He had no reason to be, really. He had just very narrowly escaped death with his life, and had somehow miraculously gained a matesprit from the ordeal. Just to top things off. By all rights he should have been celebrating with little jigs and perhaps a few serenades to express his gratitude. Things that were uncharacteristically happy.
But he did none of those things.
Mostly because he had not, upon sort of falling into a quadrant he'd never asked for, expected all the baggage that came along with it.
"So I decided not to get all bent outta shape over the fact that you can't tell the difference between some sort a stupid black advance and a genuine desire to just kick your ass."
Sollux pressed his fingers against his temples as hard as he could without breaking his skull. Apparently catching Eridan once in the act of tripping over himself to form a quadrant hadn't been enough. Still, Sollux had expected more than five minutes of peace. Especially after the fiasco with the gun.
Which reminded him that Karkat was sitting only a few chairs away.
"All right, here's an idea. How about someone actually listens to some of the bountiful wisdom I have to offer for a change? Like, I don't know, not fucking starting blackrom duels in the middle of the lab?" Karkat had swung around in his chair, his teeth bared with poorly contained fury.
"Step off Kar, I already said that I wasn't fuckin' doin' anything even remotely black. It didn't even have a kinda grayish tint." Eridan replied indignantly, though Sollux noted how the sea dweller's grip on his weapon tightened. As if he had gone from merely holding it to sort of…clinging to it for comfort?
Sollux sometimes wondered when he had attached the "tremendous loads of dramatic shit at all times" magnet to the top of his head.
"All right buddy, you tell yourself whatever makes you happy," Karkat rebuked. "Seriously. Anything. If you want to think that starting duels in the lab is actually some sort of interpretive dance practiced by the natives of a distant planet, go for it." Karkat stood then, to point dramatically and bring his tirade to its peak in both rage and volume. "But you still put fucking holes in the wall with it, you useless habitat-destroying sack of shit."
"Whatever Kar, I know you're all threatened by my superior weaponry when all you can do is wave your little wiggler rattle sickle thing around, but you don't have to be so fuckin' obvious about it. I mean, it's so pathetic."
Karkat's brow knitted together suddenly and his tirade ground to a halt. "Wiggler rattle sickle thing. Huh. Thank you captain rebuttle. I shall log that stunning display of word play away in my thinkpan for use at a later date. Then maybe someday I can sound like an incontinent retard too."
Sollux decided to take the opportunity to turn back to his computer. Karkat may have been absolute shit at code writing or virus creating or whatever the hell it was he tried to accomplish with all his ranting and keyboard mashing, but if there was one thing he was good at, it was arguing and creating a scene with just about everyone. So if Karkat wanted to handle Eridan for him, he was completely okay with that.
He minimized Trollian before pulling up his programming folder. Both compartments of his skull pounded with a dull ache that had persisted throughout the day. He could barely handle Feferi's simple friendly advances, let alone bullshit on this massive scale. A reprieve from it all via the endless lines of coding alone was tempting. But his newest project had pushed it beyond that and into the realm of necessity.
Sollux was in the process of setting up a board using Trollian's timeline features. Something akin to Karkat's memo system. Except he was being the opposite of an idiot and encrypting the damned thing. He had seen enough of Karkat's memos getting interrupted by unwelcome guests to know that it was not what he wanted or needed. Especially not now.
He rubbed his temples again, trying to think through the pain throbbing in his head and all the way down his neck. Ever since they had retreated to the Veil, his dreams had gotten worse. More violent. But clearer. And further-reaching. The only problem was that he could no longer remember them like he used to either. As soon as he opened his eyes, the visions of the future would shatter around him, and all he was left with were fragments and a pounding head.
Still, the fragments were enough to tell him that the quality of his visions was increasing. It made him wonder if something big was approaching him. If he could look forward to anything at all on this stagnant rock. The possibility alone was enough to drive him to do something as moronic as attempt to contact his future self and simply ask him outright in the privacy of a carefully encrypted Trollian board.
He would have been trembling with a sort of self-loathing excitement had the whole ordeal not already been interrupted sixty times.
"…and it wouldn't be such a fuckin' problem if everyone would just put their shit away. Like, I have to step around all this junk. If I want to just duel and let off some steam like everyone has a basic right to do, I gotta step around all these piles of shit, it's fuckin' unthinkable," Eridan was yelling, nudging some used fidus spawn plushes away with his toe.
"You think I'm pleased with the stunning hygiene practices everyone puts into use around here?" Karkat snarled back. "I'd rather you all just shove your shit up your seedflaps, and instead of generating piles, you generate intestinal ruptures and die. But you're completely missing the point here, as you always do. Because that's what you're good at. Being a dumbass and not listening and missing every point thrown at you, even if it's the size of a harpoon. Go to some lower level where there isn't shit and you can put as many holes in the wall as you goddamned please. This is an order coming directly from your leader. I order you to go the fuck to your room."
"Well, I didn't want to be the one to tell you this or anything, but everyone here thinks your leadership is a fuckin' joke," Eridan replied, though his voice had weakened a bit. It was hard trying to match Karkat's volume and volition all the time. "Besides, this has nothing to do with you anyway. I came over here to kill this bilgesack and I'm going to fuckin' do it regardless of what sort of orders you give me. Like you can order around someone with blood as royal and awesome as mine is anyway, come on Kar."
"All right then, fine. He's your problem now, Sollux. I wash my prongs of this idiot contest," Karkat finished before turning around with a flourish and plunking himself down on his computer. He began typing away furiously, and suddenly one of his memos mentioning people that needed to go to the lower levels to sort out their shit made much more sense.
"So, Sol, are you goin' to duel me or are you just goin' to roll over and make this easy?" Eridan said, turning back to face his intended adversary.
Sollux, however, was busy typing furiously at his keyboard. He was going to get this shit done, so help him. It left Eridan standing awkwardly next to Sollux in the middle of a nearly empty lab, clutching his Ahab's Crosshairs to his chest. He was beginning to fidget a bit and turn a shade of purple.
"Come on, Sol, just fuckin' duel with me, it's not like I'm askin' that much a you," Eridan said, his voice dropping in volume a bit and his eyes darting indiscreetly toward Feferi, who had gotten off the horn pile and was walking toward them.
"I thaid fuck off," Sollux replied tersely, jabbing at the backspace key repeatedly. The stupid fucker exuded so much awkward Sollux swore it was getting infused with his fingers and making him type like he was wielding hammers.
"Hey Sollux," Feferi greeted cheerfully as she reached them at last. "Feel like joining me in the horn pile to glub about stuff?"
"No one wants to sit in that shitty pile a horns, Fef, how about you just mind your own glubbin' business?" Eridan snapped, though he was turning darker purple by the second. "Come on Sol, you're goin' to duel me. You can't back down, I fuckin' challenged you and it would be indecent a you to refuse."
Feferi's smile only faltered for a moment, and her tone remained inexorably cheery. "Eridan, you can't just make anyone feel black for you right away. You have to work at it! I'm sure if you took the time to just get to know someone, you could form a really great kismesissitude!"
"Yeah, well, that sounds like great advice, doesn't it? Maybe if it were comin' from a moirail, I might actually take it into consideration. But seein' as I don't have a moirail or a kismesis for some reason like I can't even figure out, I think I'm goin' to just ignore it." Eridan's voice had become decidedly more strained. Almost in danger of cracking.
Sollux jammed the backspace key again.
"Well, that's why you don't have a filled quadrant, isn't it?" Feferi said, folding her arms and giving Eridan more somber consideration. "You didn't listen even when I was your moirail. It doesn't make a bit of difference what anyone says to you, does it? You just want everyone to ask you to glub about feelings so you can play your silly emotional games. Well, no one likes that attitude, mister."
"Who said anything about glubbin' or feelings?" Eridan retorted, flicking a jeweled hand at her. "I just want to kick a guy's ass. I guess if you're so determined to interfere with my business for no reason, since you're not my moirail anymore, you can come along to watch or something."
Sollux mashed the backspace key again and just typed "FUCK" into his coding. He was seeing red. And blue.
Feferi herself looked as if she had been slapped. She kept her smile on, but had to avert her gaze from Eridan's eyes. "Eridan, I'm sorry, but I don't feel that way about you. Not gray or pink or red or anything." She looked back up to him. "Okay? And besides, it's sort of hard to start trying to form an auspistice if you don't even have a working blackrom, you know?"
Eridan was practically hugging his gun now, his lip quivering. When he tried to talk his voice was thick with tears. "Whatever Fef, it's not like you care what I get up to nowadays anyway. Like when I was in the Medium and you practically ignored me the entire time. I thought we could be at least be civil with each other and talk and glub without gettin' any quadrants involved since you obviously don't want them within fifty feet of me."
Sollux finished the last line of the encryption and then named his board. He hit enter to initiate it. As his timeline spread out and the files and transcripts from future posts flashed before him, he rose to his feet, his eyes crackling with energy behind his glasses.
"That'th it," he growled, wheeling around to face Eridan. "That ith fucking it. I have had it up to my fucking lobethtem with you. Tho fine. Fine! You get your ath on that tranthportalither and warp to thome level where I can thrash you tho thoroughly you won't be able to tell your theedflap from your protein chute."
"Yeah, like you could even get past sustained fire from my rifle with your shitty psionics, who are you even kidding?" Eridan retorted, though his voice was still strained from his obviously emotional exchange with Feferi. "I'd invite you to watch or something, Fef, but you're obviously as uninterested as it's possible to get, so—"
Feferi made a motion as if to reply, but Sollux held up a hand. "You're not dragging her into your pathetic little thcheme, fishnutth. You wanted to fuck with me, well conthider me officially fucked with. Now get your thcum-thucking ath on that tranthportalizer." He pointed to it, his hand snapping with blue and red energy as he did. It wasn't much, but it was certainly enough to turn Eridan's scrawny frame around and give him a less-than-gentle nudge toward the transport panel in the middle of the room.
"Hey!" Eridan shouted, turning back around and leveling his gun at Sollux. "I initiated a proper duel, you can't just start whenever you feel like it!"
"You thtarted when you damned well felt like it. Now do I need to push you on that panel like the wiggler you are, or are you going to uthe the limbs you thomehow managed to crawl out of your pupa with?"
Eridan glared at Sollux for what felt like a full minute before whipping around melodramatically enough to send his cape flying out behind him. He stalked forward, disappearing in a flash of white light as he stepped onto the transportalizer.
For a moment, Sollux considered simply turning around and going back to his computer, leaving Eridan to sit alone in the dark until he finally puzzled together that he'd been abandoned.
But Sollux didn't.
Later on, Sollux would have trouble picking out the exact moment in which he had lost his mind. Setting up the private Trollian board? Or simply following Eridan to duel?
What was certain though, was that his mind had gotten caught up somewhere and swallowed. And he hadn't realized it until it was far far too late.
So late, in fact, that he was lifting the sea dweller's shirt up to his chest and ducking down. So late, in fact, that he was grabbing the button of those ridiculous striped pants in his teeth and ripping it away.
So late that he was about to make a terrible mistake. And he couldn't even bring himself to care.