He was only dimly aware of what happened afterward.
It was like he had stepped outside of his own head. His own world. Like a snow globe, he had cupped it in his hands and watched as it was turned upside down in a flurry of color and movement and distant voices. Karkat's yelling. Equius' silent anguish. Nepeta's purring support as she led him onto the transportalizer and out of the room. Terezi's dismay as she licked a bit of charred debris. Kanaya's sudden return and her immediate attendance to the thankless job of cleaning.
And Feferi.
She had been there too.
Sollux didn't remember if she had said anything.
In all honesty, she didn't need to.
There was nothing to be said anymore.
Nothing he could hear.
But she had taken his hand with both of hers.
And pulled him forward.
She walked backwards, her eyes never leaving his.
And together they sank into the horn pile.
It was after what seemed like ages of staring up into the rafters—after all the refracted bits of color and sound had finally settled back into place in Sollux's mind—that clarity returned to him. He became acutely aware of the sharp metal edges of the horns beneath him. He became aware of the dry crust of tears on his cheeks. Aware of how cold the air was against his skin. And aware of a hand clasped in his own, fingertips lightly brushing his knuckles.
He turned his head to the side haltingly, as if the vertebrae in his neck had all melded together in his stillness. Feferi was lying beside him, staring up at the ceiling through her pink goggles. He watched her through a hazy lens, contemplating for a time whether or not this was all just a dream. Everything was so quiet. So peaceful. It was hard to sift through what was reality and what were only vague nightmares of a past life. It all seemed so distant now, sitting in this place, his fingers intertwined with the warm, soft skin of another's.
Feferi looked over at him, smiling. The white light seemed to grow brighter. As if a mist was seeping into Sollux's eyes. Everything was so soft in that light. Her eyes. Her hair. The pink tint of her cheeks. So soft. So perfect.
He closed his eyes, ready for it to take him all away. To bear him from this madness on a downy bed of white. To press the warmth of another against his body. He could almost feel the breath on his neck. A whisper in his ear. Telling him something. He lifted his hand to tangle in the soft dark mess of relaxed curls, to urge those dark lips closer to his. To hear that wobbly accent in his ears and feel the way it lifted his heart with a sort of enraged elation. To pull that scarf away just a few inches and scrape his fangs over the soft, salty throat.
His fingers closed on air, and he opened his eyes. The white haze was gone, and he had only his empty hand where dreams of respite and warmth had hung for one quiet moment.
"Are you ready to glub a bit?"
He turned his head again. Back to the girl lying beside him. Her expression was oddly cheerful, but not without a faint wash of sympathy. He blinked a few times, and recalled the itchy crust of dried tears on his cheeks. And the smell of burnt rubber still assailing his nostrils.
"I don't know," he said softly, his voice hoarse. "I'm not even sure there'th anything to glub about in the firtht plathe."
"Sollux…" Her voice was delicate, as if she were using it to pick up one of her wounded cuttlefish. "I know you might not like to talk about it, but everyone knows you had a really important frondship with Aradia." She shifted on the horn pile, squeezing out a few half-hearted honks as she rolled onto her side and propped her head up on her hand. "And you know you can glub with me about anything."
He looked at her through his anaglyph glasses. Anything?
No.
She knew nothing.
Just like the Sollux before him.
The Sollux he'd sent back.
The Sollux who had lost his mind.
The Sollux who had torn Eridan apart.
His Eridan.
The crushing pain he felt in his chest must have registered on his face. Feferi's sympathetic expression molded into one of genuine concern as she continue to gaze at him.
"I'm getting really worried about you, Sollux. You haven't been yourself lately. I wish you'd just talk to me about your feelings instead of clamming up like this." She reached forward and brushed her thumb against his forehead, sweeping his bangs aside.
He pushed her hand away as if it had burned him. She frowned, reaching forward and giving one of his horns an ornery yank.
"Just because you're going through a hard time doesn't give you the right to be a jerk, mister. I'm trying to help you here!"
Sollux winced and rubbed at his scalp where the base of his horn connected. "All right, fuck. What do you want me to thay then? How fucking torn up I am about everything? How fucking unfair life ith and how shitty thith fucking thpathe rock ith to inhabit?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. Would saying any of that make you feel better?"
"No," he snapped immediately. "Becauthe there'th not a goddamned thing I can do about any of it. All I can do ith thit here and fucking…acthept that no matter what I try, I can't ethcape the machinationth of fate."
Feferi quirked an eyebrow, pursing her dark lips quizzically. "Well, then maybe you should think of something else. Something that isn't so glubbing depressing!"
Sollux tore his angry gaze away from her, his eyes falling instead on their hands.
"Would it help you to know that there's a special place where we all get to go when we die?"
He looked back up at her. Her face was unsettlingly bright given the subject she'd just broached.
"I'll take your look of intrigue as a yes!" She smiled wider. "There are dark gods out here. Beyond even the veil! And when they dream, they glub and snore and make little bubbles. And inside those bubbles are spaces for us to go when our bodies die. So I'm sure Aradia has found a nice bubble all her own. And who knows! Maybe when you die, you can meet her there. That is, if you look hard enough." She smiled. "That's why dying isn't something you should be so worried about, Sollux. I don't think Aradia was ever scared of it. It's really pretty silly to be scared of something so natural. And it's even sillier to be depressed or sad when our friends go to those bubbles. I mean, they're a lot nicer than this lab! I've been to them a couple times, when I dream."
Sollux gazed at her unyielding smile for a long time, his eyes narrowed with anguish.
"It hurtth though, doethn't it? Dying…?"
"Only for a little while. And then you can't hurt ever again."
"…What about lonelineth?"
Feferi tipped her head to the side, the bangles on her wrist clinking. "Loneliness?"
"What if you made thomeone a promithe…? What if you promithed to go with them?" His voice was barely audible.
"I'm sure she'll forgive you, Sollux. No one can ever predict how they're going to die! Besides, I think Aradia knew you still had things to do outside the dream bubbles. I think we all still have important things to do."
He looked away from her, staring off at the charred crater in the floor where Aradia's metal incarnation had once stood.
He wondered if Eridan would be so quick to forgive him.
It was in his pensive staring that he caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. He blinked and focused his gaze just long enough to see Terezi dash onto the transportalizer and disappear in a flash of white light. He shifted his eyes to Karkat, who was standing beside Terezi's computer station, the girl's chair still spinning from the force of her exit. Karkat met his gaze for a brief moment, giving a look of bemused disgust before slamming himself down in his own chair and staring angrily at his computer screen.
Sollux heard Feferi's bangles clink merrily beside him, and he turned to see the fish princess waving exuberantly at Kanaya. She was clutching a strange orb to her breast and had been making her way across the room when Feferi's gesture caught her by surprise. She paused mid-stride to give the other troll the ghost of a smile. She turned her feet a bit and took a tentative step toward the horn pile before her eyes caught Sollux. She looked between the two of them for a brief moment before seeming to reconsider her decision. With another faint smile flickering over her dark, painted lips, she continued across the room toward Karkat.
She began speaking with him, and though Sollux couldn't make out her half of the conversation, Karkat's volume control issues helped him piece together the situation quickly enough. Apparently Kanaya was about to employ some species-restoration tactics in the core of the laboratory. Sollux frowned. It seemed like the troll's on this timeline were a bit more mission-oriented than the ones from the timeline he had just left. Or perhaps it was just Kanaya. She was always considerably more sensible than any of the other idiots inhabiting their space rock.
Himself included.
He couldn't keep brooding like this. He was the alpha Sollux. Trying to convince himself that this meant something felt like an exercise in futility, but it was better than trying to seek out that now silent voice in his head. The one that had pleaded with him. Told him how scared he was.
It was odd, really. In some ways, he felt as if he could still hear it.
"If there's goin' to be any sort a hope for our race, as the Prince of Hope I demand to be involved. So don't go anywhere without me, got it?"
Sollux frowned. It was odd how loud it was. And contextually accurate, given the circumstances.
"But… Fine."
And that Kanaya's voice had responded.
He twisted so suddenly on the horn pile that a loud honk rasped out from beneath him. All the room's occupants suddenly turned their eyes to him. Including one pair that flashed angrily behind a pair of thick rimmed glasses.
Sollux felt his heart leap into his throat before he could form a coherent thought to discourage it. His eyes took in the image of the troll before him and bypassed all sense of reason, connecting instead with every sense in his body. Suddenly his fingers tingled with the softness of Eridan's skin. His nose flooded with his salty scent. His ears rang with the sound of his voice. And his mouth flooded with the taste of his tongue.
But there was something about the image that made a sour knot settle in his gut. At Eridan's side hung his hand, which was clutched around a glowing white stick. It was a swift kick to the sensations running wild through his body.
This wasn't Eridan. This wasn't the Eridan he had stumbled through quadrants with. This wasn't the Eridan he had finally decided to throw everything away for. The Eridan who had sat stubbornly on that dividing line between hate and love before Sollux had begrudgingly sat down beside him.
It made his bile curdle and burn and rise up his throat in raw, seething rage. This was an anger unlike the black fondness he'd felt for his Eridan. This was something that spread through his veins like acid, destroying every cell of his being that it touched. This was more than just hate. It was injustice. Bereavement. An amalgam of all the pain coiled around his heart like metal wire, squeezing tighter and tighter until he could feel himself begin to bleed.
In all that time, he was never able to tear his eyes away from the purple cloaked troll. It was something that did not escape Eridan's notice. Leaving Kanaya behind, he threw his arm out with a flourish, sending his cloak fluttering behind him as he began to stride toward them.
Beside him, Sollux could hear Feferi emit something between a sigh and a groan as Eridan approached. He crossed his arms and jutted out his jaw as he regarded them both with scathing disdain.
Sollux couldn't keep himself from speaking. He had a role to play, after all. But beyond that, he found it hard to trap his tongue behind his teeth. The boiling rage in his stomach was only getting hotter.
"Oh god, it'th him." He tore his eyes away from Eridan as his lip curled in that familiar way it did. It only made the metal wire around his heart cut deeper. He couldn't stand to look at the troll. "FF, can you tell him to go away, I don't even have the energy for thith."
He didn't look at Eridan, but from the tone of his voice as the sea dweller spoke, Sollux could tell that his fangs were bared in proud fury. "Hey finless, this doesn't concern those with mustard sludge slippin' through their veins. It's a matter for royalty only. So keep your mouth closed or I'll slit you open over my next meal."
Sollux ground his fangs together and clenched his hands into fists at his sides. It sounded like Eridan. It was even ridiculously ostentatious like Eridan. But it wasn't Eridan. The image of the land of brains and fire flickered behind his eyes. The Eridan who had been outlined in dancing red flame, his glasses glowing orange in the glare, his fangs gnashing with madness. The Eridan who had screamed, begging him to turn around and come back. The Eridan who thought he knew what Sollux wanted.
The Eridan who never would.
"Whatever, bro, not interethted," he replied scathingly.
This seemed to hit a nerve. Eridan's lips pulled further back over his fangs and he clutched the glowing stick at his side tight enough to turn his knuckles purple.
Next to Sollux, Feferi sat up a bit straighter, her expression an odd combination of beseeching anger. "Eridan, please! I don't want to see any more dueling."
She cast her gaze between the two of them. Sollux let his eyes flicker up to Eridan's and he saw that the troll had not changed his aggressive stance. It only spiked Sollux's already building fury to see how idiotically stubborn this Eridan was. No different from the one he had left.
Feferi cut in again, shattering the electric tension snapping between the two males. "Don't try to provoke him. It's not like I don't know what you're doing! You keep trying to spark a rivalry with him to get me to auspisticize between you two, and pull us out of our quadrant! It's the oldest and lamest trick in the book. It didn't work then, and it won't work now!"
Eridan rounded on the girl. "That's an astonishin' accusation, how could you say that? First, as if this scum is even worthy of a rivalry with me, and second, as if I'm not totally done with you like I have told you repeatedly." He dropped his tirade for a minute to breathe. Trying to relax his expression and the grip on his wand, he continued. "All I want to do is have a word with you."
Feferi looked unconvinced, but she still managed to reply. "Okay, Eridan, we can talk. But only if you're planning on being civil."
Eridan tipped his chin up slightly, his eyes narrowed in pernicious condescension. "That's what you never got, Fef. You and I are bein' civil by very virtue a the fact that we're talkin' now. We're royalty, you and I, and we belong together." He then dropped his head a bit, casting his gaze aside as he added meekly, "Even if not in that way, which I get that you're not into, and that's fine." There was an uncomfortably pregnant pause as he let his eyes drift back up toward hers, where her own gaze remained harsh and unyielding.
Beside her, Sollux could feel his gut twisting.
What had happened to the Eridan who had consulted Vriska's idiotic ancestor lore in order to validate his feelings? The one that had sworn that he had been doomed to flip quadrants forever. The one that had left most of his sea dwelling pride for something else. Something they had both shared, even for just a moment.
How?
How could this pompous, irrational bastard be capable of sharing anything with his doomed shadow?
The shadow he had allowed himself to fall in love with.
Eridan, meanwhile, had quickly picked up the conversation again, obviously perturbed with the silence Feferi had chosen to respond with. "But we belong together as the rulin' class if nothin' else. So I'm gonna ask you this one last time and give you the choice." He straightened up, trying to give himself as much resolved authority as he could muster. "I'm about to go, please come with me."
"Go with you? Eridan, you weren't really serious about going to find Jack, were you?"
Sollux felt himself thrown suddenly out of his thoughts. This was a piece of information he hadn't been privy to. His eyes widened and latched onto Eridan. Had he gone completely insane?
Eridan never faltered. He just curled his lip indignantly. "Of course I was. And we should do it together." He swept his cloak back as he raised his arm with a flourish, holding his wand aloft as if displaying it to the heavens. "You've got nothin' to fear now that I've reached new heights of power no one else can dream of, not even Mindfang with her garish orange sweatsuit and her silly flappy wings and all her poppycock about luck, which everyone with a think pan knows to be the fakest fiction that ever failed to exist."
Sollux couldn't contain himself any longer. He let a bark of scathing laughter rip from his throat. His mouth seemed to move, unbidden, sneering as he replied, "Thith ith the motht hilariouth thing I've ever head. He made one of hith shitty fake wandth glow a little and now he thinkth he'th a fairy god troll or thomething."
Eridan rounded on him, gnashing his fangs. "Was that slander I just heard, I can't even tell. I tend to block out noise from filth whose blood is practically the complementary color a mine."
Feferi leaned forward, putting a quelling hand on Sollux's chest. Sollux bit back the retort frothing on his tongue, but was not prepared to swallow it completely. This Eridan had prodded at an open sore by simply existing when his shadow was gone. The irrational behavior just served to rub salt into the wound.
Feferi looked to Eridan then, after she was sure she had succeeded in calming Sollux momentarily. "He has a point though, in that you may be overestimating your abilities? Jack Noir is insanely powerful, Eridan." Her brow creased in beseeching concern as she added, "Please, I don't want to see you do anything foolish by trying to fight him."
Eridan blinked. His next words were laced with a note of nearly giddy laughter. "Fight him? Are you fuckin' nuts? I slaughtered enough angels to know my limits and where I stand against the lord of all angels they prophesized. Of course I'm not gonna fight him, I stand no chance in hell against that guy." He let his voice drop off a bit, a smile still playing at the corners of his mouth. His next words came with the tone of one revealing a laughably simple solution to an impossible conundrum. "I'm goin' to join him."
He stared at Feferi with that look for a long time as the words settled around them. A look of giddy expectancy. Like someone waiting for their audience to react to an especially witty joke.
"You're…what?"
Feferi's tone was soft at first. Uncertain. But the last word came spitting forth with such forceful disbelief that it seemed to catch Eridan under the jaw in a surprise uppercut. He took a step back. It was obviously not the reaction he'd been expecting. His hopeful smile vanished instantly from his face to be replaced once again with his indignant fury.
"And you're gonna join me in joinin' him too, Fef, come on, let's go." He lurched forward, grabbing the girl by the wrist and attempting to yank her up from the pile.
Laughter burst forth from Sollux's lips. He was nearly giddy with rage. A vicious smile stretched across his face, every fang in his mouth visible, right up to his yellowed gums.
"Okay, that'th it."
He lurched forward, scattering horns across the floor as he stood, tearing Feferi's arm from Eridan's grasp. Eridan whirled around to face him. When he did, all trace of laughter was gone from Sollux's face.
"He'th totally lost it." His voice was restrained, but his eyes burned with a deadly rage.
Eridan bared his fangs and lunged to snatch Feferi's wrist again. This time, the girl yanked herself free of the troll's grasp before Sollux had a chance to react. When she turned back to face her assailant, her own needle like teeth were bared with rage.
"I'm not going!" she shouted, her voice shrill with anger. "And you aren't either. That is glubbing insane!" She was silent for a moment then, breathing raggedly. After taking a few swallows of air, she tried to relax her face. The gentler, pleading look came back into her eyes. "I thought you were supposed to be the Prince of Hope? How is it hopeful to surrender to a murderous demon like a coward?"
Eridan tried his best to regain his composure as well. He smoothed his hair back from his brow and sniffed. "As the Prince of Hope, I'm uniquely qualified to recognize when all hope is lost." He let anger flash across his face again as he continued. Anger and pleading. A desperate will for her to understand. "And I'm tellin' you that there is no hope, not even a little bit. The only thing left to do is serve him and hope he spares us. And I'm extendin' the invitation to come with me because, even though you don't think so, I really do care about you." He smiled then, trying to inject some bravado into his tone. "Servin' under Jack together, we'll be unstoppable and our anenomes will tremble before us, what do you say?"
The coaxing pun had the exact opposite effect of what Eridan had been aiming for. Feferi stomped her foot. "No! You have lost all right to use fish puns forever! I revoke your fish punning license, as whale as our frondship!"
Eridan snarled. "Don't take that tuna voice with me, princess."
He spat the pun from his mouth with such force that Feferi looked as though she'd been slapped. Her eyes flashed and her face was suddenly livid with rage as she shrieked, "What the fuck did I just say?"
Electricity snapped between the three of them as they stood there. The seconds that passed sounded like heartbeats in Sollux's head. Blood pounded in his ears, and each breath felt like a windstorm scraping against the inside of his skull. Darkness seemed to eat at the edges of his vision narrowing his sight until all he could see was Eridan. This abomination ruined by the machinations of time and fate.
A machine he had helped to drive.
Sollux clenched his fists.
This was his problem. His mess to clean up.
"That's it." Feferi's voice seemed sad and distant to Sollux's ears. "This makes me sad, Eridan, but now we have to stop you. We can't let you find Jack and risk you leading him to us."
Eridan's face was no longer pleading. No longer angry or even hurt. It was blank. An emotionless sheet. "So that's how it is, is it?"
"She'th right," Sollux put in. He sighed, the next words tumbling from his mouth unbidden. "Can't believe thith… I wath looking forward to a nap too."
A kind of final repose. A long journey into the dark to find one of those bubbles Feferi had talked about. A sad smile flitted at the corners of his lips for a moment.
It seemed like such a silly thing.
And yet it was all he wanted.
He put his hands together and wrenched them apart suddenly. Sparks of red and blue light spat up from his fingers, psionics humming in his head as he gnashed his teeth. "I should have killed you on LOBAF when I had the chanthe. Oh well. Gueth it'th only fitting I'd take you down in round two."
The hum of the psionics became a roar. Energy pulsated from every pore of Sollux's skin, sparks snapping across his flesh, light seeping from his eyes as he lifted his hands higher.
The next words came as an angry roar, energy resonating from every syllable. "You ready, Printhe?"
With one fluid motion, Eridan unclasped the chain binding his cloak in place and flung the purple fabric aside. As it fluttered to the floor he turned sideways, lifting his wand as his eyes remained trained on Sollux. His expression never flickered and his voice was like black silk.
"Bring it, Mage."
Sollux threw his hands forward, sending a shock of red and blue energy surging from his palms. It tore threw the air, spinning around itself in a frantic wave of sparks as it bore down on Eridan. The sea dweller's eyes narrowed. With cold purpose he drew his wand across his body before sending his arm snapping back out. White energy unfurled from his arm like steam. It was missing the wild movement of Sollux's attack but it didn't need it. It curled quickly through the air like ink through water, swallowing the psionic energy in a shroud of bright mist.
Sollux felt his heart freeze, but his body seemed to have detached itself from the rest of him. He felt heat begin to boil behind his eyes, his entire head exploding with energy. He put his hands to his temples, trying to channel the wildfire inside him. Another explosion of noise echoed in his skull and he flung his arms back out, sending a bolt of red energy streaking toward Eridan.
The troll flicked his wrist and another serpent of white light uncoiled from his wand and wrapped itself around the red energy, choking it off, bursting it apart in a heave of black smoke. Eridan wrenched his arm back, and the white energy hissed and dissipated.
Sollux balled his fists, heat leaking from between his fingers as sparks snapped around his flesh. He screamed in wordless frustration as Feferi came up beside him, her double culling fork clutched tightly in both hands, her teeth bared. She rushed forward, the golden trident flashing, and Eridan round on her, holding up his wand.
"No!" Sollux roared, whipping another ball of energy toward the sea troll. Eridan jerked back, using his wand to dispatch the psionics before they reached him. He glared at Sollux as Feferi lurched to a halt, turning her eyes back toward the mage.
"Your fight ith with me," Sollux said softly.
Eridan's eyes narrowed. He slowly shifted on his heels, turning to face Sollux. "If I gotta kill you first, then that's fine."
"No," Sollux said, his voice gowing into a shout. "It'th with me. It'th with me, you fucking ath-fathed pile of hoofbeatht leavingth."
Eridan made no response. His jaw was set. His wand slowly raised.
The burning behind Sollux's eyes grew stronger. "But you're never going to remember. Becauthe your not him."
A small crease appeared between Eridan's eyebrows.
Sollux sucked in a breath, the air hissing through his teeth and sticking in the knot in his throat. He drew his fists in, nails cutting into his palms. Yellow blood dripped from his knuckles as his hands were consumed with red and blue flames.
"I can't hate you, Eridan Ampora. But I can kill you."
Eridan staggered back as if he had been struck. His eyes were like yellow eggs behind his glasses, wide, frantic, as if he were being strangled.
Sollux screamed, tearing that knot in his throat. Tasting blood and bile as heat consumed his skull and boiled in his eyes. He screamed and lifted his head, power bursting from his eyes, shattering his glasses, consuming his vision with red and blue and purple.
He saw nothing and everything in that instance. The colors blurred and ran together in the heat, searing in his head, warping the world around him. Blotting out the figure of the sea troll before him. Swirling his silhouette. Distorting it until he could have sworn he saw those arms open. Beckon.
He tasted salt in his mouth.
And suddenly that figure was pointing a wand.
And everything was white.
White and cold and rushing backwards.
Pain.
And then darkness.
In all of Sollux's life it had never been so quiet. The quiet pressed down on him from all sides. Even the inside of his skull was filled with deafening silence. It made him feel as if he were drowning in it. He tried to breathe, but he could taste none of the cool reprieve of air flowing over his tongue. Only the tang of his own blood, stale and bitter. As if he had gone to sleep and awakened with the foulness of slumber still clinging to his mouth.
"You are asleep."
The voice was no more than a fain breath at the base of his skull. He blinked, his lids feeling oddly sunken, blood crusted in the corner of his eyes.
It was so dark.
"That's because you're blind."
He blinked again. Something tightened around his heart. A knot of dreadful truth. He reached up slowly, pressing his fingertips to the edge of his eyelids. He slowly moved them up and back, expecting to run into the slick resilience of his corneas. But he never did. His fingers dipped deep into his eye sockets, into the emptiness inside his own skull.
He yanked his hands away from his face, feeling warm, fresh blood dribbling down his hand. He touched his thumb and forefinger together, smearing the sticky substance between them.
"Where is this?"
The taste of blood exploded with more force over his tongue as he spoke and its tip pressed against, not his obtrusive fangs, but the slimy texture of his own gums. He closed his mouth, feeling the way his lips slid easily against the soft space where his teeth had once been.
There was a soft giggle. One that seemed to come from both inside his head and directly beside him. He turned toward the noise instinctively, even though there was nothing to see but the dark.
"Your teeth are gone too. Eyeless and toothless. I think you one-upped Terezi in the prophet department, don't you? I mean, losing your teeth has to count for something, right?"
For the first time the voice seemed to register in his head, snapping into place as memory surged back to the forefront of his mind, drowning out the shock. "Aradia."
"That's right!" She laughed. "And since we are talking about Terezi, you should probably talk to her when you wake up. Your memories and your past selves should have synched up with you by then. That way you can talk to people without sounding like you've been missing half of the drama."
He rubbed his head. "Can you stop talking in time jargon for just one second? My head is…"
"It's not hurting at all."
"Uh…yeah… It's not. And it's really fucking distracting, actually. So is talking like this. Thissssss. Thisssss…"
"Are you still hurting, Sollux?"
"I just said—"
He felt a hand press against his chest. He cut off suddenly.
"I mean here."
His heart throbbed painfully in response. He swallowed a bit of blood, sucking on his gums. She never took her hand away.
"You know," Sollux said at last. "So is that what you meant by memories and past selves synching up?"
"Yes. I have all the memories of my doomed incarnations now. I'm like the final product of everything my various iterations have experienced."
"And soon that's going to happen to me?"
"Yes. So you can't die just yet. You're the alpha Sollux. You have a job to do."
"Ehehehe…" His laugh was tired, and his heart seemed to turn to lead in his chest. "Being doomed is actually starting to sound pretty good right now."
"Yes. Especially when everyone has these nice bubbles to look forward to. But a lot of sacrifices were made for you to get here, Sollux. And you still have a job to do. We all still have jobs to do. We can rest later, and for as long as we like. But for right now, we have to wake up. We have to move forward."
"Yeah, whatever you say, AA." He smiled sadly, feeling the blood crusted on his cheeks. "So where are we, since I can't see a damned thing?"
"On the edge of a bubble. Just outside it. I thought I was the only one who could move between them, but maybe you're a special case. You did use my powers a few times, so that could explain it."
Sollux's mind snagged on the word 'bubble' and refused to let it go. "So we're just outside …"
"A memory," Aradia cut in. Her voice was a touch more firm. "This is one of your memories, Sollux. One you haven't had yet."
"So it's the future?"
"No, it's something that's going on right now. But your incarnations are still fragmented. Here, maybe this will be easier."
He felt her take his wrist in her hand and pull it forward. He felt his skin prickle in anticipation until it was finally laid against something that felt like glass, but much more supple. As his palm connected with the strange substance, an odd feeling crept over him. Like de ja vous, but this experience was hardly fleeting. Instead the odd, dreamlike feeling kept swelling up inside him until he saw an image clearly in head. Kanaya, her face glowing, standing beside Aradia, who was very much alive and swathed in red garments. Also in the room was an odd pink creature with long black hair, glasses, and prominent nubby front teeth.
And there was him as well. Looking oddly worn and tired without his eyes or protruding fangs, his own incarnation stood in the room, a faint smile playing over his bloody lips.
The gaps slowly began to fill. It was like watching a memory he never knew he had. Slowly the information bloomed in the back of his mind. The humans, the threat of Jack Noir… Everything he had missed while being tangled in those warm arms in the deepest part of the lab.
The frame shifted, and he could see himself awake. He could see himself speaking into a headset as Karkat yelled angrily next to him. And though he couldn't hear the other side of the conversation, he somehow knew who it was. Terezi. He heard his own lips move. Watched them curve up into an easy smile.
Watched them mouth the words.
"I'm okay."
Aradia pulled his arm gently away, and the vivid images in his head faded away. "Do you remember now?"
"Yeah," he replied, unable to bring his voice above a whisper.
"I should tell you that things aren't going to get easier for you. And I'm sorry about that, Sollux."
Sollux shook his head. "No. I think he was right, anyway."
Aradia didn't answer right away. When she did, her voice was confused. "Who?"
A small smile pulled at Sollux's lips. "Me." He lifted his head, trying to meet Aradia's eyes, though he had no way of telling where she was. He felt her hand on his chin, slowly turning his head toward where she must have been. He took a shaky breath. "I'm sorry, Aradia. I really fucked up."
"No you didn't. Nobody's angry at you Sollux. Not me. And probably not him, either. When you're finished with everything, maybe you can go ask him yourself."
Sollux felt his lips trembling. "Yeah."
"But you still have to deal with the way things are in this timeline. And just remember what you know, and what I've told you. Okay?"
"Something bad is going to happen."
"Yes. I'm sorry, Sollux. But I think this is like one of the game's tests. I think I made a mistake before when I was a robot and I told you all that stuff about the way things are supposed to be. Because things aren't supposed to be one way or another. They're just the way they are, based on the decisions we make. So this is like one of your last big decisions, Sollux. And only you know how you're going to respond."
Sollux nodded. "Okay. I think I get it."
"That's good. Because it's time to wake up."
Sollux sat up suddenly, his sightless eyes wide. He felt a wave of dizziness wash over him as air and the weight of gravity pulled against him. It made him feel so heavy. He put a hand to his head, waiting for it to pass.
It was cold in this place. Cold and quiet. The air was stagnant, and smelled of dust with the faintest minglings of mold. It was a scent he knew well. The lab. The deepest part. The place where everything had happened. Where he had fought with Eridan. Beat him. Spurned him.
Loved him.
He pressed his hands to the cold floor, his heart pounding painfully. He felt the grooves in between each tile as he slid his fingers along in front of him. At last he was on his hands and knees, staring resolutely into the blackness in front of him, trying to form the images instead in terms of the textures of the cracks and bumps against his flesh. The scents floating into his nostrils.
Slowly, he began to crawl. He pushed himself forward, one hand at a time, one knee after another, carefully feeling each surface before putting his weight on it. After what seemed like hours, his fingers finally hit a hard surface. A wall. He pressed his shoulder to it, and then lined his hip up alongside it as well. In that way he continued, not knowing where he was going or what his destination might be. Just knowing that he had a wall and a floor and four functioning limbs. Just knowing that he had to move forward.
Soon the musty smell of the room began to turn sour. Like rusted metal and vomit, the tang of it stuck to the back of his throat like a thick film. He had to take a few breaks just to press his arm to his mouth and breathe raggedly into his skin, his stomach threatening to empty itself onto the floor. But it never did. And so, haltingly, Sollux was able to move forward, diving deeper and deeper into the stench until he reached out with his hands to take another step, and found his fingertips immersed in a small pool of liquid.
He pulled his hand back. It was warm on his skin. Almost hot. Sticky. And it reeked of metal and salt and some bitter, foul odor that seemed to settle in his gut. Fear.
He knew what it was. He spent no time trying to dissuade himself from the reality of the situation. He pushed himself forward, dragging his hands and knees through the blood until his pants were soaked through and his hands were coated like paint.
In his sloshing progress, he came across something else. Something soft and saturated with blood. For a brief moment of revolted horror he thought it was perhaps a stray organ. But upon running his fingers over it carefully, he could feel the individual threads of the material. He picked it up in both hands, stretching the fabric ever so slightly.
He knew what it was. His mind balked, but he knew.
A scarf.
He followed it to its end. Which was not at the sea dweller's neck, but instead only a few inches away. He picked the fabric up, running his fingers over the frayed edges. This was only a piece of the scarf. A scrap.
He pushed forward. He pushed forward because it was all he could do. And somewhere in his mind, he knew. So he wasn't surprised to bump into the sole of a shoe. Or the hem of a pant leg. The stench grew worse as he brushed his hand up the soft fabric. Past the thin legs that had wrapped themselves around his waist. Past the narrow hips that he had gripped tightly to his body.
And then there was nothing. That was where the familiarity ceased, to be replaced with a mass of blood and slick flesh and slimy ropes. He pulled his hand away, but he could not escape the smell. The stench of blood and bile and shit.
His body shook. And yet he couldn't go back. He had to move forward. He pressed a bloody hand to his mouth, his eyes stinging as he found the other end of the scarf. The end that led up to that skinny neck. The jaw. Those lips that curled with indignation at the slightest provocation. Sollux pressed both hands over that face. The soft, easy curls of the hair. The smooth horns. He drank the image in with his hands, unaware of the hot tears dripping from his sightless eyes.
"Sollux?"
He withdrew his hands suddenly, his breath locking in his lungs. Unable to move, he simply sat there, kneeling over Eridan's body, feeling the blood dripping from his fingers. The sound of shoes against the tile came towards him before stopping at his side.
"What are you doing down here?"
Kanaya's voice. Oddly calm. Sollux swallowed hard.
"I got lost. We were running away from Gamzee… KK and I…"
"You should get away from that," Kanaya said sternly.
"Is this…" He swallowed again. An effort to keep down the tears or the vomit or both. "Did you do this?"
"Yes."
No explanation. No excuse. But she didn't need one. Sollux had the memories now. He knew who this was. This body in front of him. He had been just as earnest in his own attempt to kill the alpha Eridan.
And yet…
"We should both get cleaned up. Come with me. I can lead you."
He felt her arms on his shoulders, attempting to pull him up. He lurched away from her viciously, his very bones seeming to quake in his body.
"Sollux?"
He couldn't go with her. This shadow of a Kanaya who had killed this shadow of an Eridan in this place where he didn't belong. Never belonged. He felt the blood creeping up the fabric of his pants. Purple… He knew it was purple.
All his life he had been dictated by boundaries. Dichotomies. Mutually exclusive territories of anger and sadness. Happiness and loss. Hate and love.
Red and blue.
It had taken someone else to show him that he could smear things. Make things messy. Live in his own way and be okay with it.
It had taken someone else to show him that he could make purple.
He lifted his hand and let Kanaya pull him to his feet.
"Yeah. Let's get cleaned up. And then find everyone else. KK and TZ and all the others. And then we can go."
"Go?" Kanaya asked as she began to pull him along.
Sollux smiled. "Nowhere in particular. Just forward."