Though the psionic bonds had long been removed from his limbs, Eridan still had not moved from his place sprawled on the tile. He stared up into the darkness for what seemed like hours, one eye rapidly swelling shut and his nose clogged with congealed blood. His pants were still tangled around one ankle, his shirt pushed up to his armpits. His cape, glasses, and rifle were lost to the darkness.

He almost forgot that Sol was lying next to him until the lowblood began shuffling around in the darkness. Eridan blinked his working eye against the blackness and pushed himself onto his elbows.

"What are you doin'?" he asked, tentatively. They hadn't spoken since the event, and Eridan was suddenly very unsure of everything that had just transpired.

His head still spun with confusion. Of course, he had never held any intentions of letting the rivalry dissolve into a kismesis. The plan had always been to get Fef back. At least, that was what he tried to tell himself. Until he decided it had been about recovering his lost status. Bandaging his wounded pride.

And so it was that he had struggled under Sol's touches, until the plan changed again. In that heavy moment, consumed with rage and the desire to kill the land dweller who had gotten under his skin, he had felt the hatred boil out of control into a seething lust. There had been no question of it in his mind. That gut twisting frustration that had always wrapped itself around his middle when speaking with Fef was exactly what had arisen when Sollux had met their lips in a bloody kiss. But in that moment the frustration had boiled over, gushing out of him into some unknown darkness at the edges of his mind.

His will was bound and gagged by that darkness, and left in its wake was an unadulterated hate.

After that, however, the whole thing had dissolved into something he could not grasp. Like drying sand it began to slip through his fingers even as he tried to tighten his hold over it. As Sol's touches had overcome him, fear began to eat at the edges of the blackened certainty snapping through his veins. By the time it was all finished, he was left frantic and scared.

It was never supposed to go this way.

He felt the cool air of the surrounding lab against his skin as he shifted into a full sitting position, trying to pick Sol out in the darkness.

"Sol, I feel like we should be havin' some words," Eridan forced out, his voice hoarse and unbearably loud against the silence. "We can't just leave things like this and never speak a them again."

"Why not?" Sol's voice was flat, and held none of the furious vigor of barely a few moments prior. "I told you that it didn't matter what happenth anymore. That never changed."

Eridan's stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch. He had feared as much. It set his heart to hammering painfully, as if a shard of glass had been lodged deep inside it. He tried to ignore the feeling as best he could. He tried to shove away thoughts of the perversion they had just committed: the stickiness between his thighs, Sol's breath against his neck, the fangs in his flesh. The effort of it left him shaking.

He was angry, he decided. He had to be angry, because what they had engaged in had been decidedly bellicose in nature. And even beyond that, he had been slighted. After driving Sol to the breaking point, he had not sealed his assault with a victory. Instead, he had been countered, and his rancor had been turned back on him with nearly double the potency.

He tried to tell himself that this was a good thing, and that Sol had responded as any decent kismesis would. Yet telling himself what a good job Sol had done only seemed to aggravate the raw open sore that was his pride.

Yes, Sol had responded with more fury than he could have ever hoped.

And Eridan had let himself be dominated by it in every way.

Gone had been all thoughts of the hemospectrum and the social order—of the way things should be. In that fleeting moment he had forgotten himself and his entitlements all for a brief space of pleasure. It made him feel as if he had swallowed a vat of acid. It puckered his stomach, and left a burning hatred in his heart. Not for the lowblood who had overtaken him in a caliginous rage. For the sea dwelling aristocrat who had bent before him in his brief, desperate need for a reaction.

He had reached down to grasp at a dark and torrid desire, only to turn everything inside out the moment he tried to yank it up.

Eridan was suddenly quite certain he was going to be sick all over the tile.

He heard the sound of Sol's footsteps moving away from him. His heart jerked so violently he thought he felt it hit his breast bone. Eridan scrambled to clothe himself. He adjusted his scarf quickly and yanked his shirt back down over his stomach. But as he tugged his pants back on, he realized that the button to hold them up had been bitten off. Clutching the waistband, he stood and began fishing around in the darkness for his other goods.

It was times like these that he rather hated being as fashionable as he was.

"Sol, come on, are you really goin' to leave me down here like this?" he called out, his voice edged with petulance.

Eridan squinted as the darkness withered under the dim red glow of a flickering light. It rested in the palm of the lowblood, whose figure was now illuminated against the gloom. His eyes were hidden behind his bi-colored glasses, but he was facing Eridan, his mouth set in a hard line.

Recovering from the mild shock that Sol had heeded his plea, Eridan quickly scooped up his cape and glasses, handling them awkwardly in one hand has he held his trousers up with the other. Once he had replaced his now bent glasses crookedly on his nose and thrown his purple cape hastily over a shoulder, he began scanning the debris for his rifle.

"Leave it," Sol said in the same deadpan tone.

"I ain't leavin' my weapon here, Sol, what kind of a—"

"Then I'm going."

Eridan whirled around, his glasses nearly falling off in the process. "What?"

"I'm not going to thit on my ath and wait for you all day," Sol replied, his tone growing a bit harder.

Eridan blinked before gazing reluctantly back at the rubble for a few brief moments in one last vain attempt to spot his rifle. It yielded about as much success as he could have hoped for. Which was none at all. Dragging his feet, his hand still clutching his waistband, he went to join Sol.

"You look like shit," the troll remarked as Eridan stopped just short of him.

"You're not exactly lookin' that great yourself," Eridan replied, wiping a bit of blood from his upper lip gingerly.

But Sol had the truth of it. Though his old shoulder wound was still visible and leaking pussy yellow blood while his pants were covered with dubious stains, he was nowhere near the mess that Eridan was. Eridan didn't even need a mirror to know he looked atrocious, and his thighs and stomach were still sticky and wet. He didn't even have it in him to look down and see the mess it had left on his clothing.

Sollux, however, seemed to have no problem scrutinizing Eridan. The sea dweller could feel his gaze as it ran the length of his body, up and down. At last Sol turned and began to head back for the transportalizer.

"I hope you're not expectin' me to fall for any sort a schemes to evade me via transportalizer you might have concocted just now," Eridan said, trying to pump as much truculence into his voice as he could.

Sol simply stopped just short of the teleportation panel and turned back to face Eridan. The sea dweller stiffened as he came under the scrutiny of that gaze again, feeling it slide from his horns all the way down to the tips of his toes.

At last Sol replied, "I'm not letting you go anywhere looking like that."

Eridan was slightly taken aback. He tried to get the cooled pitch weighing in the pit of his stomach boiling again. "What, are you plannin' on finishin' the job? I'm such a chump, lettin' you keep me disarmed like this." He took a few steps back, casting his gaze back over his shoulder in an attempt to locate his rifle.

Sol sighed. "Jutht thtop, okay? It'th over."

"What is Sol, I'm not takin' your meaning," Eridan said, turning back slowly to face the other.

The land dweller simply sighed. "Let'th jutht go find you thome fucking clotheth, you are theriouthly an eyethore right now."

He grabbed the sea dweller roughly by the wrist, but it was not the roughness that Eridan had been expecting from someone with whom he had just engaged in caliginous consummation. Together they stepped on the transportalizer and, in a flash of white light, found themselves standing in one of the main levels of the lab. It was eerily quiet, with nothing but the soft hum of the lights above them to greet their ears.

Sol released Eridan's hand then, and started off down a deserted corridor. Eridan was at a loss of what to do. But letting Sol simply walk away from what had happened was not on the list of available options. He hurried after the troll, trying to ignore the way his head pounded with each step.

"Where are your clotheth?" the land dweller asked suddenly.

"What the fuck are you referrin' too?" Eridan asked indignantly. "If you're thinkin' a removin' them again—"

"We're done with that," Sol said, not even bothering to stiffen his response with a bit of irritation.

It made Eridan's heart shrivel in his chest, and he made no reply. Sol cast a sidelong glance at him as they continued down the corridor in silence.

"Are you going to anthwer me or are we jutht going to enjoy an evening thtroll around the lab?" Sol said at last.

"Well if you're not even goin' to bother speakin' about certain events of a brutally pitch nature that just transpired, then I guess I won't waste my time on them either," Eridan lashed out finally, his voice quaking with a confused tangle of emotions.

Sol paused in the hall, rubbing his eyes beneath his glasses for a moment before lowering them and meeting the sea dweller's gaze. "I'm jutht athking you about your goddamned clotheth right now ith that thuch a problem for you to make an effort to reply to?"

"You think I had the time to think a clothing before gettin' flushed down the time-space load gaper to this shitty rock?" Eridan scoffed.

"If you had your thtupid wand collection captchalogued, I will literally get down on my kneeth and deep throat your nubth if you didn't have your douchebag fashion collectibleth thtuffed in there too."

"Well since you offered—"

"That wath not an invitation, athhole," Sol spat immediately.

Eridan glowered at the troll before shrugging a shoulder in what he hoped as a decidedly nonchalant way. "I may have put one or two spare items away in a card, not like it's any concern a yours what I do with my own personal private items."

"Can you jutht thtop being difficult for two thecondth? I'm trying to fucking show you thomething you irredeemable dipshit," Sol snapped.

A little thread of hope plucked in Eridan's heart. Suddenly he felt as if a few weights had been removed from his head, and the lightness was dizzying. "I see you don't have it in you yet to give up the black pursuits, Sol, I know a sufficiently pugnacious tone when I hear it."

Sol sighed, rubbing his eyes again. This time the sigh was just tired, and Eridan felt as if the balloon swelling in his chest had been suddenly punctured. He twisted his cloak in his hands for a minute as they were besieged by silence.

Then Sol began to move again, striding off down the corridor without so much as a backward glance at Eridan. The sea dweller stood where he was for a moment, wondering whether it would just be better to abandon this mess entirely, retreat back to his room, and forget that it had ever happened.

He entertained the thought for a few seconds, and it nearly made him sick with fear and self-loathing. He could not lower himself to this yellow blooded nookstain any more than he already had. He could not let one ill timed desire ruin him.

He stalked after Sol, still holding his bloodied cape over his shoulder. It batted lifelessly against the backs of his thighs, swinging to a rest as Eridan stopped beside Sol. The troll grabbed his hand again and stepped onto another transport panel. When Eridan felt the warm fingers leave him, he was standing in a small, dingy room with the familiar gray tile of every other area in the lab. The only difference was that this place had an ablution trap.

Eridan frowned as Sol went over to it and pulled a few knobs. Water guttered out of spout and Sol bent down to push the drain shut. He sat on the edge of the tub then, holding his fingers under the stream of water. It seemed like forever that they stood that way, Eridan just beside the teleportation panel and Sol perched on the edge of the ablution trap.

At last the lowblood looked up at Eridan and asked, "Are you jutht going to thtand there and look at it?"

"I'm not really understandin' your intentions here, Sol," Eridan admitted, clutching at his cape.

"I want you to take off your clotheth and get in here," Sol replied, but his voice was soft. Almost regretful.

Eridan felt as if a knife had been thrust between his ribs. The air left him, and he was left clinging to his cape as if it were the only anchor in a windstorm beginning to whirl around him. He took a few steps back, his heel hitting the edge of the transportalizer.

"What are you tryin' to say?" Eridan asked, his voice tight.

"I'm…thaying I want to get you cleaned up," Sol replied, his voice barely audible.

Eridan clutched his cloak tighter. He told himself that it wasn't real. That he was dreaming. Mere moments before they had been boiling a pitch so hot that they had wanted to kill each other. So fierce had been their rancor that it had led to something else. To something Eridan had never intended. To something that made him dizzy to even think of.

And now Sol was taking all of that, all of those bitter contentions, and ripping them to shreds before Eridan's eyes. With one act of kindness, he was flushing it all away, wiping it clean as if he had never felt the hate in the first place.

Eridan tried to find the lie in his eyes. He tried, but he was only met with the glare of the light reflecting off the troll's glasses.

"You can't be fuckin' serious," Eridan whispered. "Tell me this is only some new form a provocation that you just invented to torment me."

Sol made no reply. The only sound was the roar of the water as it sloshed from the spout down into the tub.

Eridan felt his stomach heave. He turned away, about to lurch toward the transportalizer, when Sol was on him. The lowblood wrapped his arms around Eridan's chest, his hands flashing with psionic energy to give him the added strength he needed to subdue the sea dweller. Eridan struggled in his arms, kicking.

"Thtop," Sol grunted. "Theriouthly, will you jutht fucking get in the ablution trap?"

"Fuck off Sol, you're goin' to have to fight me if you want to do this. Fight me you codsuckin' coward."

He was screaming without realizing it, struggling against the other's psychic grip. Sol did nothing though. He simply held the troll until Eridan had used the last reserves of his strength and will. After that, he hung limp in Sol's arms, unable to even think. The flickering red and blue light encompassing Sol's hands faded, and the troll released his captive. Eridan sank to the floor in a heap, curling on his side and knocking his ruined glasses askew.

"Let me jutht thay thomething right now," Sol said as he stood over Eridan's crumpled figure. "Thith ith what you wanted. Becauthe I told you that you were right. I gave you the firtht plathe ribbon for being the cleveretht troll to break out of a pupa. You figured me out, congratulationth fuckwad. I hurt everyone that I ever have feelingth for. Thinthe you wanted to thee what that wath like tho bad, here it ith. Eat it up, dipshit, becauthe thith ith the grubloaf you cooked for yourthelf."

"You're lyin'," Eridan whispered, holding his cape up to his mouth to bite back the tears. "I don't believe a word a your garbage this is just some way to get back at me is all it is."

"No, it'th not," Sol said, his voice quiet. "That wath real before. You felt it. I went crathy. Becauthe that'th my thing. I fucking lothe my shit every onthe in a while becauthe my brain thinkth it'th high clath entertainment to tear itthelf apart. That'th what you figured out, uthing the unparalleled powerth of your thinkpan. But now it'th over, and there'th jutht nothing left. Tho congratulationth. Your theory hath been proven."

Eridan said nothing. He simply bit into the cloth of his cape, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to focus on nothing but the muscles of his jaw.

"Now can you take your damned clotheth off, or are you going to make me do that for you too?" Sol asked.

"Why don't you just leave me here, since all you're fixin' to do is reject me anyway?" Eridan ground out around his clenched teeth. "Just leave me here to wallow in my own pathetic attempts to goad any kind a reaction outta someone so that I'd know that anyone actually gave a shit about my existence."

"Thith ith pretty much exactly the reathon why I have to do it thith way. Becauthe you are a grade A moron and you never lithten to people. Tho inthtead of jutht telling you that thethe dark feelingth are gone, I am going to show you. I'm going to show you in a way that will thear itthelf onto your thinkpan forever, tho you can never delude yourthelf into thinking otherwithe."

He bent down and grabbed Eridan's arm. The sea dweller tried to jerk away, but red light enveloped Sol's hand, strengthening his grip. He pulled Eridan up off the ground, and the sea dweller lolled up limply. Sol then pushed him against the wall into a slouching position, and he pulled the cape off Eridan's shoulder before unwinding the scarf from the troll's neck. Eridan didn't fight back. He simply stayed where he was, staring at the tile in complete and utter defeat.

Sol took no pleasure in his work. But there was no roughness either. No displeasure. It was that indifference that kept Eridan subdued as the other worked, stripping first the shirt and then the shoes from the troll. He peeled off Eridan's socks and pants, his undergarments. And all the while, Eridan remained staring straight ahead, disbelieving.

He had to eat the grubloaf he'd cooked for himself, Sol had said.

He felt the rings being removed from his fingers one by one. He watched as the largest and most impressive of them, the one bearing his sign, was slipped from his finger and dropped to the tile floor with the others. It spun around for a moment, flashing, until it came to a rest, the little white engraving of his mark facing away from him.

He blinked as Sol crouched before him, using both hands to lift his crooked glasses from his face. Eridan watched him as he folded them up carefully and put them next to his rings. Not even to his objects did the lowblood risk bearing any contempt. Eridan stared at him as Sol's eyes returned to his. He could see nothing beyond those bi-colored glasses save his own reflection, however. Battered, bloody. Broken.

Sol wrapped an arm around his shoulders and helped Eridan stand, bringing him to the tub. With the water still pouring from the spout, it had long been full. The only thing keeping it from overflowing was a small drain located in the wall of the tub. As Sol lowered Eridan into the steaming water, however, the level rose, and some of the liquid sloshed over the sides. As Eridan sank down into the hot water, it went past his neck and up to his chin. His gills opened, and hot water sloshed into them. The extra bit of air helped clear the pounding in his head, but did nothing to lift the weight of devastation from his body.

The land dweller began his work, shutting off the water before taking a sponge and some soap from a chest sitting beside the tub and wetting them. He lifted Eridan's arm out of the water and began to scrub the marbling of purple and yellow blood from his knuckles. He was slow, and Eridan could feel no contempt in his movements. He clenched his teeth together as Sol picked absently at the grime beneath his yellow nails. But he simply couldn't fight against the truth anymore. And so he let Sol continue to express his deplorable act of kindness. He let Sol revoke all the black ardor he had felt only moments before.

He did not move while the land dweller moved on to his other hand. But when Sol reached up to begin scrubbing at the ruin that was Eridan's face, the sea dweller winced and jerked away. Sol sighed, tugging away the hands that Eridan had raised protectively in front of himself. He then dabbed the soapy sponge against the troll's nose.

"That stings you dirt scrapin' moron," Eridan said, trying to push Sol away.

The other regarded him with a cold expression. "I'm not falling for any of your pathetic attemptth to make thith into an argument." He pressed the sponge against Eridan's face again.

And Eridan pushed his hand away again. "Well maybe I'm over it Sol, did you ever think of that?"

Sol sighed. "You're not, but that'th fine, you can believe whatever you want ath long ath you're not trying to turn thith back into thome caliginouth rivalry."

"Not everything I do is about fillin' a goddamned quadrant, Sol," Eridan retorted, though he could feel Sol's slight sting in his chest. "Maybe I'm in a legitimate sort a pain here and am tellin' you to back your four-horned spine bulge off in the least suggestive way imaginable."

"Your fathe ith a meth, tho I won't be backing my hornth anywhere until I'm finished and all trathe of thith shitthtorm ith wiped from your thinkpan," Sol replied.

"I'm just askin' you to be a bit more gentle, seein' as how I'm sure something is probably broken thanks to your rage fit," Eridan said, touching his nose tenderly.

"Fine. Jutht let me do thith tho it can get done." He slapped Eridan's hands away and dabbed as gently as he could at Eridan's face. He first washed the blood from around the sea dweller's nose, before rinsing the sponge in the warm bath water. He lifted it back to Eridan's face and gently ran it over his lips.

It felt odd. The warm, wet sponge against the tender skin. The sensation of Sol's lips pressing brutally against his own returned, but fizzled and died almost immediately. This was a gentle touch, and that memory no longer had any basis. Still, it was odd how gentle the land dweller could be after partaking in such exquisite brutality.

Sol rinsed the sponge again and lifted it back to Eridan's face. "Clothe your eyeth," he instructed.

"What for?" Eridan asked, his tone rising suspiciously.

"Tho that I can shove thith piethe of thoap up your wathte chute," Sol replied. He might have rolled his eyes if Eridan could see them. "You have blood on your eyelidth, dumbshit."

"Oh," was all Eridan could think to respond with. He did as he was told, and he felt the warm sponge press against his eyelids. It was oddly relaxing, and served to remind him of just how exhausted he was. He let his body seem to melt into the walls of the tub, his head just above the water.

He did not open his eyes even after Sol had stopped washing them. He simply felt the sponge run softly over his skin. He felt it touch his bleeding ears. He followed its warm trail down his neck. Over his collar bone. The tinkle of water as Sol rinsed the sponge would enter his hearing once in a while, but aside from that, there was only silence, thick like the steam curling in the air. He felt the sponge dip over his chest, and down his stomach. Sometimes he would feel Sol's knuckles brush against his skin.

The sponge slipped along his side, tracing the curve of his rib cage until it came to his hip. There was a twinge of pain as it brushed over a fang wound, but it was gone almost instantly, to be replaced with a deep, heavy warmth. The sponge slipped over his stomach, dipping lower…

Eridan opened his eyes as if waking from a dream, though the heavy steam still hung about him. His fingers closed around Sol's wrist. The land dweller's arm was submerged up to his shoulder, his head inches from Eridan's. His bi-colored eyes were fixed on the steaming water, his lips parted slightly. He said nothing. He did not try to pull away. Instead he turned his gaze slowly to meet the sea dweller's.

Amidst the warm bath water and the heavy steam, nothing was as hot as Sol's lips against his own.