This was the day that Eridan Ampora had a most severe emergencical case.

It didn't happen right away, however. In fact, Sollux had all but forgotten that he'd given the annoying guy his cell phone number almost immediately after he returned to his room. After shuffling back through the well worn path that stretched from his door to his desk and was lined on either side with rumpled shirts and empty chip bags, he sat down on his old swivel chair. It creaked slightly under his weight, though not because Sollux's wiry frame provided any sort of strain on the object. It was simply showing its age. But Sollux couldn't bear to throw it out. The handle at its side to adjust the height was broken, but it had managed to break at the perfect level for its owner to slide his knees carefully under his desk while simultaneously propping his elbows on top of it. To him, it was the chair's final pledge to serve him, even in death. And so it stayed, even as the back rest became more wobbly and the seat irreparably stained with cheese powder from Doritos and cheddar Pringles.

He moved his most recently imbibed energy drink to the bookshelf next to his desk, where it sat with a large group of its brethren. He sometimes stacked them if he got frustrated with coding at all, making little towers or bridges or pyramids. He hadn't run into coding trouble in some time, however, meaning that they were all just pushed together haphazardly. Some of them had even toppled to the floor, where their logos stared forlornly up at the ceiling. He sometimes liked to think the different brands would set aside their differences and gather together atop their shelf to mourn their fallen brothers. One time when he had been particularly deprived of sleep he even sort of play acted with them a little bit. Staged out an epic battle between Monster and Red Bull and had them fight until they were all scratched and dented and the fallen had lain littered on the floor, oozing the last of their taurine-saturated blood onto the carpet. And when the golden light of dawn had finally slanted through the slits in Sollux's blinds, the two leaders stood amongst the carnage and embraced as brothers, one dented can against another, promising to start life anew and work together to achieve a great can city atop the bookshelf of promise.

It was about then that Sollux had curled up on the ground, clutching both cans to his chest, wondering how he had gotten so exhausted or how his eyes had gotten so puffy and raw.

Needless, to say, however, that such an occurrence was rare. If the cans ever made their great city, he couldn't really say. He'd never put much more thought into it besides making the occasional pyramid. Or whenever one of the cans fell off the shelf. He thought about it then. When they lost one of their brothers.

He shifted his mouse around to get his computer to flicker back to life. The forum he'd been sifting through was still up where he'd left it. Leaving for even a second had been pain, especially since the time away had been consumed with taking care of Gamzee's drunk party-goers. Ever since his binges from about a year ago, the very smell of alcohol was enough to make him feel sick. And so it was with an effervescent relief that he scrolled through the threads again from the safety of his room, checking for replies to any of his posts.

Recently he had become very attached to Minecraft. Though "attached" was perhaps a broad sort of term. "Unhealthily obsessed" might have been closer to the mark, if Sollux gave any kind of a rodent's hindquarters about the subject of health. The thought of independently developed games had always been a topic of interest to him, as well as a goal he had once pursued. But a lack of artistic ability and the will to learn the ins and outs of rendering had put an early end to that. He had tried collaboration a few times, but found that his personality just wasn't built for that sort of work. No one could ever fucking do anything right. And so he contented himself with watching the spectacle that was Minecraft unfold.

And by watching, of course, he meant criticizing the developers on the forums.

Obviously, he loved the game. He spent almost every waking hour playing it. But the more he loved any game, the more he got to know it, and the more apparent became its flaws. He had already made several mods tweaking the playability of the game, including a few that deliberately hacked the game's interface just to show how easily it could be done and how far the creator still had to go. His username, DoubleMobius, was a large presence on the forums, and though he had just joined, he was already inundated with high status and various PMs. Most were just simple requests for information, but many seemed to carry weightier solicitations of friendship. Sollux didn't do the online friend thing. He'd learned early on that the neediest and most entitled of forum dwellers were the ones that sought to make connections through the guise of friendship. And Sollux didn't lend his skills to anyone. They belonged to him. To DoubleMobius.

Besides, it would mean death to his respected reputation on the forums if they ever found out about his other handles.

Sollux could never operate under just one alias whenever he made a home base out of a specific website. If he stayed in any place for too long, he would have to create two accounts. One for dispersing knowledge and curt criticisms and the other for brutally ripping apart the accounts of those who displeased him.

And it was very easy to displease him.

He had various methods of screening his IP address so that he was never found out. But it was still an operation he had to handle very delicately, as sometimes the people he decided to unleash his wrath on were nearly as knowledgeable about operating algorithms and hacking accounts as he was. Nearly. Though he was often banned from the sites he terrorized, he was able to take certain measures and make the sleights of technological hand that were necessary to get himself reinstated on the forum under a new alias.

For two weeks now he had been Sons-of-Leda. And for two weeks he had danced a deadly dance with one of the forum mods. The one that was so fucking convinced that the faster level generator had been a detriment to the game's entire purpose. The poor bastard had noticed him after a few benign posts. But now Sollux was unfurling the fucking ninjitsu scroll of his attack, launching shadows from his account to silently stalk and torment the hapless mod into submission. Publicly the mod was displaying a poised and collected face, one that alerted no one to the havoc that was currently being wreaked on his system. Sollux respected him for that, but this user's fate was already sealed.

He laughed a little as he went through the mod's history to see that he had been relentlessly peeling through the forums to pinpoint his attacker. But he was slow. Sollux would have another few days with him at least. And that was enough.

Because in this place, Sollux decided who lived or died.

He was Sons-of-Leda. A faceless terror. The scythe of judgment. And he was also DoubleMobius. The font of knowledge. A beacon of respect.

In this place, he was god.

So it was always disheartening when he encountered interruptions of the irl kind.

His phone lit up on his desk and began vibrating. He jumped and pushed himself away from the computer so fast that he slammed the back of his chair into his bed. He swore, leaping from the seat and spilling a few cans of Red Bull from his bed's headboard and onto the floor. He jostled the back of the chair to assure it was still at the appropriate level of wiggly-ness before he shuffled to the blinds. He poked his finger through one of the slits and gazed outside. Night. When had that happened? He went back to his computer and squinted at the time. One o'clock in the morning. His eyes flicked back to his phone incredulously as it continued to ring. Who the fuck was calling him at this hour? He leaned over it, staring down at the screen. The number was unfamiliar to him, as was the area code. Perhaps some shitty company trying to run a survey. He ignored it, slumping back down in his seat and pulling himself back towards his monitor. His eyes flicked over the screen and he refreshed the page. In the mean time, the phone went silent.

Only to start up again thirty seconds later.

He glared at it. This fucker was persistent. He continued to stare at it until it went still on his desktop again.

That's right. Nobody had patience like—

It lit up and vibrated again.

He swept it up in his fist and snarled into it. "I don't want to take one of your goddamned surveys. My answer is zero to all of the questions. Zero percent satisfaction with whatever goddamned menial service you provided me."

"Jesus, Sol, I was told to use this number in case of emergencies and it took me three fuckin' tries before you'd even pick up."

The brick of confusion that fell on his head dazed him for more than a couple moments. He pulled the phone away and stared at the number again. Still that weirdass number with its weirdass area code. He put the phone back to his ear.

"Who the fuck is this?"

"Eridan. Obviously."

"I'm sorry, who?"

"You're sayin' that's not ringin' any bells?"

"I have no idea who the fuck you are."

"Oh. Well, I'm the guy you helped outta your house this morning."

Sollux pulled the phone away again. This time to stare at the number in disgust and also burn it into his memory to plant forever on his "do not answer under any circumstances ever again" list.

He put the phone back to his ear. "Okay, well, you better be dying or something because that's the only reason you should be calling me at all."

"It's a good thing I'm not since I would've been dead by the time you finally decided to pick up."

"Okay, well, dead is a thing you're going to be with one hundred percent certainty if you try to reach me at this number again. Good night."

"Wait! This is fuckin' serious. Like, I'm havin' a serious issue right now and my fuckin' life is in jeopardy."

Sollux rolled his eyes. "What, did you get lost in the scary low-income section of the neighborhood with its horrifying-as-fuck graffiti of goldfish?"

"What? No. I need to know what kind a pizza toppin's you like."

"I'm hanging up."

"No, come on, this is fuckin' serious. I need to know."

"Why?"

"Because I'm gettin' pizza of course."

"I'm hanging up."

"No! Jesus, I'm gettin' pizza for you. Christ, do I gotta fuckin' get a piece a paper and spell it out for you?"

Sollux squinted. He checked the clock again and tried to calculate when his last meal had been. Too long ago, since Karkat had fallen through with his promises of chinese. Again. Lying fuck. He rested his elbows on either side of his keyboard and stared meditatively into the screen.

"Proceed," he replied.

"Uh…okay. Well, I'm starin' at the menu here and they really don't have the selection I'm used to but I guess that's kinda to be expected from these small town joints or whatever. Also the guy at the counter is starin' at me and it's kinda startin' to make me uncomfortable."

"Wait, small town joint? Are you at fucking Toppers?"

"Uh, yeah, I think that's what the sign on the front said."

"Jesus fuck." Sollux had to put a hand to his forehead to prevent the sheer level of bliss from cracking his skull apart. "Okay, a triple order of Baconstix, and…I'm not paying for any of this, am I?"

"Not unless you want to." Eridan then proceeded to mutter something quickly in a garbled voice.

"What?"

"I didn't say anything," he replied. And again, more garbled, quick speech. He then cleared his throat and said more clearly. "Must be the background noise. I think someone else is orderin'."

Sollux was fairly certain that this guy was crazy. Which would explain the offer of free Toppers. Still, he was never one to examine the teeth of a gift horse.

"Okay, whatever. So, triple order of Baconstix and one of the buffalo chicken pizzas. Actually no, fuck that. Taco pizza and an order of hot wings. Bone-in wings, I don't want any of that boneless shit. Also, like, a fucking tub of ranch. And root beer. I haven't had that shit in ages."

"All right, fuck, should I get a pen or somethin' to take notes?"

"Yes. Take notes. Because if you screw any of this up, I'll fucking end you."

"Christ, fine. I'm tryin' to perform a gesture a kindness here and all your bein' is completely brash about the subject."

"Well, that'll teach you to use this phone for non-emergency calls."

"I'm buyin' you pizza, you ungrateful ass."

"That's not something I asked you to do. And it's not an emergency either, so you can shut up about that before you decide to make another comment."

"I'll make as many comments as I fuckin' like, first of all. Second of all, is this hangover helper pizza, like, a thing that actually works? Because I've still got this massive headache that I'm startin' to seriously wonder if I'll ever recover from."

"You'll recover from it. And don't get that pizza, it'll make you puke again, and I'm not answering another phone call from you while your head is in the toilet. Actually, I'm probably not going to be answering another phone call from you again, period. Just so you know."

"The next time might be a real fuckin' emergency where my life is on the line, what would you do then, Sol?"

"Stop calling me that. It's Sollux. I really don't think two fucking syllables is too much to ask of someone to pronounce."

"What, so no one calls you Sol?"

"No."

"Wow, that's pretty unfortunate. Sounds a lot less shitty than what you're currently referrin' to yourself as."

"Thanks."

"Yeah, no problem. I'm always willin' to provide my opinions on shit since I have really respectable taste and everything."

Sollux was rather amazed to detect no hint of sarcasm in Eridan's words. And he didn't want this asshole's idiot level to sour the taste of sweet, sweet Baconstix in his mouth.

"Okay, well, good luck ordering my pizza. Also, you should tell the guy at the counter that KK wants his dick."

"What?"

"Later."

Sollux hung up the phone and set it back on his desk. He then proceeded to stare at it for a while before turning back to his computer.

Fucking irritating weirdo.