This was the day Sollux Captor went to the pool.

For about a week, Sollux took short breaks from the warfare and intrigue of the Minecraft forums to indulge in more Minecraft game play. Because if there was ever one thing he was not getting enough of in his life, it was Minecraft.

But it was a slightly different experience for him now. Before, he had not really enjoyed the game as much as he had simply taken a sort of arrogant pleasure in picking it apart after every update, watching aloofly as he ran servers chock full of gamers without ever really speaking to any of them.

It was a nice structure. It was routine. It gave him some feeling of success, though it was a success that was cracked and brittle if he inspected it at all. But no matter what kind of faults it had, it was still something he had made for himself. Despite everything.

Eridan Ampora, however, had done a very efficient job of stomping all over it in the space of a few hours. And suddenly his usual antics weren't so usual anymore.

After he'd shown the moron how to craft a few basic utilities, Eridan had quickly delved underground, not bothering to look for any natural cave formations, but instead simply digging wherever he happened to be standing. It had gotten him lost on more than one occasion, and so Sollux had to listen to the idiot shrieking in his ears as he was ambushed by mobs.

While listening to Eridan die had been extremely satisfying at first, the tenacious jackass had quickly enlisted himself as Sollux's architectural partner, yammering incessantly about how they just had to finish the Symphony of the Night castle. Sollux remembered refusing on more than one occasion, and yet somehow found himself digging up his old design notes anyway. Soon Eridan was running through the mines on quests for diamonds (he refused to collect any of the "common" materials that they needed the most of) with an inventory full of essentials for the castle's completion. And no matter how many times Sollux snapped at him to put his goddamned shit in a fucking chest, the moron would frolic off to the center of the earth for gems, predictably getting blown into next Tuesday by some rogue Creeper. And so a scenario that used to make Sollux sneer in satisfaction now had him slamming his head onto his keyboard as Eridan managed to lose a day's worth of materials in some unmarked area.

Despite all the hindrances Eridan provided, working with the ambitious idiot had sparked a fire in Sollux's belly that he'd long thought to be permanently extinguished. Eridan's inexorable prodding and the melodramatic proportions to which he would blow just about anything soon had Sollux's brain racing with the visions of grandeur he'd once entertained for Alternia. He found himself babbling almost as much as Eridan these days, talking into his headset about all the new ideas he wanted to employ for Alternia.

Like his sudden desire to make everything green.

When he fashioned himself some customized cobblestone in the appropriate shades and informed Eridan that they would be replacing each block in the castle with the new material, he thought his henchman was going to faint. But for all Eridan's shortcomings when it came to game play, he was exceedingly reliable.

When he wasn't being a stubborn jackass.

"I'm just sayin' I don't see the point, is all," his voice whined into Sollux's headphones. His avatar was standing before a nice diamond throne room they had built just the other day, regarding it mournfully. "I mean we put all a this together from countless hours a work and love and now you're just tellin' me to up and replace it with this shit that you just fuckin' hacked up outta thin air?"

"It's for continuity's sake, okay? I know what I'm doing. And frankly, all that diamond really wouldn't have taken a whole day of gaming to dig up if you knew what the fuck you were doing. This really isn't that much work lost, if you figure in some kind of passing competency at this game. Which you obviously don't have."

"God, you just don't appreciate a fuckin' thing I do for you, do you? You're just about the most inconsiderate a bastards the universe ever thought to drop on this planet."

"Okay, I like to think the universe doesn't really have that kind of agency, otherwise it'd just be like the worst kind of joke, putting the two of us on the same damned space rock."

"So you're admittin' that you're a cruel and unadulterated sack a shit, is that right?"

Sollux snickered into his headset. "You know, if you moved your pickaxe as much as you moved your mouth, you could've been done already."

A rush of white static alerted Sollux to the young man's melodramatic sigh as his avatar began whacking away at the diamond blocks they'd placed down yesterday.

"Can you at least give me some sort a explanation as to why this is necessary? I understand that this is some kinda space planet inhabited by extraterrestrials with candy corn protrudin' from their skulls, but what's the green got to do with any a that?"

That was the thing about Eridan. He wanted explanations about everything. And Sollux had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn't just because he was a stubborn piece of shit. Which he was. But he was fairly certain that Eridan was just as intrigued with the world Sollux was developing as Sollux was himself. Perhaps even moreso. Once Sollux had figured out how to make Eridan a skin with a cape, the young man had demanded, with no prior encouragement, to be a gray-skinned, candy-corn horned alien too. And so he was now the purple-clad equivalent to Sollux's avatar.

From there it had become an unending spiral of Eridan's persistent interrogations and Sollux's begrudging explanations about the world he was creating.

"I'm only making this one biome green," Sollux replied. "It's going to serve as the moon of this place. Eventually I'd like to see if I can transfer it up so that it's actually serving as a functional celestial body."

"Wait, what?" Eridan's voice was dumbfounded in his ears. "You want to move the whole fuckin' mass a this area up into the sky? Is that even possible?"

"Sure, making floating shit is pretty easy," Sollux replied as he looked away from his monitor to drag his notepad toward him from across the desk. He peered at it as Eridan began speaking in his ear again.

"So, you're definitely goin' to be transferring this castle up into the sky?"

"Eh… Maybe. Depends on how ambitious I get."

"Well, if you do decide to move it, isn't that goin' to mean we have to rip the whole goddamned thing apart again?"

"Yeah, basically."

"So why don't we just fuckin' put it in the sky now? Why wait for it and end up doin' the whole thing twice?"

Sollux stared at his design, frowning. Because it was obscenely ambitious was the main reason. But he had tried to use that same excuse when the young man had demanded that they finish the castle in the first place. Saying such things only seemed to spur Eridan on and make him even more adamant about pursuing whatever ludicrous goal Sollux had dreamed up on a whim.

Sollux rubbed his eyes exhaustedly, eventually muttering, "You do realize that building shit in the sky requires a lot of finesse with the controls that you don't have."

"Like what?"

"Like if you make a misstep and fall off of any of the scaffolding we use to build the thing, you're pretty much instantly fucked."

"Well, at least we'll both know where all my shit will be if I die. I mean, I'm assumin' we're not goin' to be buildin' this in some remote cave location where everything will get lost if I find myself entertainin' an untimely demise." He could hear Eridan chewing something over his headphones.

"That's true, I guess," Sollux admitted before he grimaced. "Are you eating chips?"

He could hear the wrinkle of cellophane and Eridan's deceptively innocent tone as he replied, "Maybe…"

"Don't fucking eat over the microphone, that shit's about as pleasant to listen to as a herd of buffalos engaging in some obscene mating ritual."

"Come on Sol, we've been at this all fuckin' morning," Eridan rebuked. "I'm starved a both nourishment and sunlight right now."

"Those are both things you'll learn to live without, young padawan," Sollux sneered as he began breaking up the diamond blocks himself.

"Fuck that. I'm not about to let myself turn into some fuckin' basement dweller like you. In fact, I'm gonna go ahead and take today to claim my payment for helpin' you out with your video game shit." He heard Eridan scrunch the bag of chips closed.

Sollux squinted at the young man's avatar. "What?"

"You heard me, Sol. You really didn't think I was just doin' all a this shit for free, did you?"

Sollux felt a boiling hot fury begin to well up in his chest. "I guess I was starting to delude myself into thinking that maybe you got some sort of perverse entertainment out of this obviously bullshit game. Guess that was pretty stupid of me, ha ha. Let's all share a laugh at my expense."

He didn't even notice that he was beginning to tear up the cobblestone beneath the layer of diamonds.

"Well, it's not like I'm tryin' to say that I haven't been enjoyin' this game. It's actually more decent than I thought it would be. But I am sayin' that you don't get to order me to tear up all this diamond I worked so hard to mine without any sort a compensation on your end."

Sollux wanted to put his fist through his monitor in the vain hope that his rage would somehow carry through cyberspace and wallop Eridan in the dick. "What do you want?"

"I want to go out."

Sollux sighed. "Where do you want to go out, Eridan?" His voice had all of the practiced leading of a kindergarten teacher trying to coax an age out of a handicapped five-year-old.

"Like, to the pool. Did you know there's a pool right next to the library?"

"No way," Sollux gasped in mock awe. "Are you shitting me right now? I've lived here my whole life and you mean to say that there's a POOL next to the library? No fucking way. My mind has just been blasted into orbit by your stunning revelation. Wow."

"Okay, I'm really not appreciatin' this level a disdain especially considerin' I just moved here, so this is news to me, all right?" Eridan scoffed into the microphone. "Anyway, I want to go there, and you're comin' with me."

"Not interested."

"Come on, Sol, I fuckin' did all this for you and I mean, look at us, we're fuckin'…candy corn alien brethren or whatever now, so you can't deny my request."

"I can actually. And I just did. No. Request fucking denied, jackass."

"But it's really nice out and I mean, when was the last time you got out of the house anyway? Come on. You owe me. You fuckin' owe me, Sol, this is not how Minecraft partners in alien homeland construction treat each other, there's gotta be some kinda mutual benefit here."

"You're benefiting from me deciding not to kick you in your bleached teeth."

"I don't bleach my teeth, Sol, they are naturally this fuckin' sparkly."

"Just like your hair is naturally that fucking purple? No. I will not be seen in public with your candy ass."

"Come on, Sol. This is like, a thing I've been meanin' to do for a long time. Kind of like you and your dreams a buildin' a virtual alien society except this will only take two hours a your time instead a fuckin' weeks."

Sollux continued to break apart blocks, not really caring that his diamond pickaxe had broken minutes ago. He just pounded away at the cobblestone with his fists for a while before finally asking, "What's special about the pool?"

"I'm sorta hydrophobic if you want to know the honest to fuck truth."

Sollux punched at a few more blocks. "Uh-huh."

"So like, it's a thing I was hopin' I could get over once I came here. Because I'm startin' over and shit. And this new me isn't goin' to be afraid of water because that is fuckin' pathetic in the worst kind a way."

"Yeah, it is pretty sad."

"So I was hopin' I could maybe go with someone, but seein' as how I haven't talked to anyone but you on account a how much gamin' I've been doin', my options are kinda limited here."

"Let me get this straight. You want to bring me along for moral support as you face some big phobia you've held for the better part of your life?"

"Yeah, I guess that was the idea here."

Sollux smirked. "You know what? Sure. I'm feeling generous today. We can go to the pool and help you get over some childhood fears. Why not?"

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Hey, Sol, do you want to get hotdogs while we're there?"

Sollux frowned at his screen, pausing in his character's movements. "…I guess? I'm not really sure what hotdogs have to do with anything, though. Do you also have some kind of irrational fear of processed meats?"

"No, I just thought we could eat hotdogs. I mean, they sell hot dogs there, don't they? That's like, a thing you do at a pool, isn't it? Eat hotdogs?"

"If you want. I'd rather have nachos."

"No. This is my thing. And you're gonna eat a fuckin' hotdog because I said so."

And so it was that Sollux Captor found himself standing on the edge of the neighborhood pool clutching a hotdog in one hand and a pair of goggles in the other, his red and blue swim trunks hanging loosely from his hips.

"This was the dumbest fucking idea," he stated blandly as he watched the gaggle of preteens thronging in the chlorinated water.

"Eat your damned hotdog, Sol, I'm tryin' to mentally prepare myself for this shit and you are throwin' me off something awful."

Sollux swiveled around to see Eridan occupying one of the reclining lawn chairs that had been set up underneath a large plastic umbrella. He was sitting on the edge of it, hunched over with his head cradled in his hands. He was wearing a white T-shirt and purple swim trunks with a teal floral pattern. On his feet were in a pair of blue flipflops, one of which smacked noisily against the concrete as he bounced his knee in agitation. His hotdog rested untouched in its carton, drowning quietly in mustard and relish. Sollux rolled his eyes before he turned back to the pool where a few thirteen-year-old boys were attempting to woo a group of girls by engaging in belly-flop contests.

Fucking. Classy.

He took a bite of his own hotdog as he reminded himself, yet again, why he didn't go out.

"So are you going to do this or are you just going to sit there all afternoon pissing your swimsuit?"

"Shut up, Sol, you're supposed to be supportin' me here, not bein' a fuckin' obnoxious prick."

"Okay, I really don't know what you were expecting from me when you forced me out of my basement and into preteen wonderland over here, but all right. Starting now, I am going to be the most supportive bastard ever and give you all the asspats you need to get your big toe in the pool. Then I can buy you popsicle and pat you on the head for doing such a good job."

"Fuckin' hell, Sol. Fine." He stood up, wiping his hands nervously on his trunks. "I was ready anyway. I don't need you showin' all this condescension in order for me to make progress."

He shuffled toward the edge of the pool, sitting down on the edge and swinging his legs over the metal step ladder. He slowly scooted forward, letting his feet sink below the water's surface.

"Oh, that's actually really warm," he remarked, his tone lacking its usual melodramatic notes. He swirled his feet around a bit, his expression one of rather pleasant surprise.

"Are you going to take your shirt off?" Sollux asked. "Or do you really plan on just sitting on the edge the whole time?"

"I'm gonna get all the way in, Christ. My skin is just really fuckin' sensitive and I forgot to bring sun block." He squinted up at Sollux. "Your skin is even whiter than mine is anyway, so really, if either of us should be wearin' a shirt here, it should be you. I can't even look at you, the glare is so bad."

"I apologize for my obscene whiteness," Sollux replied scathingly. He sat down on the edge of the pool next to Eridan and slid into the water. "There. I have now covered my alabaster shame with all this liquid. Happy?"

"As a fuckin' clam," Eridan rebuked, his eyes fixed on the water as he continued to swirl his feet around.

Sollux stood in the water for a moment, just staring at Eridan before sighing derisively and strapping on his goggles. They were a bit too pink for his tastes, but in his defense they had looked red in the store. But seeing as the only people he had to impress at this pool were adolescents and Eridan, he really felt no shame in the color choice of his goggles.

He dipped his head underwater and slowly let himself sink to the bottom of the pool, blinking his eyes open and looking around at the feet of the other occupants. He look up, a few bubbles escaping through his lips. Eridan's feet hung listlessly in the water above him. With a sense of malicious impatience, he pushed himself upward and grabbed onto the idiot's ankles.

Even underwater, Sollux could hear Eridan's panicked cry as he was yanked into the pool. Sollux had to push himself flat against the bottom to avoid being smacked in the mouth by Eridan's thrashing limbs. He scuttled along the tile before letting himself bob to the surface.

Above the water, his ears were instantly consumed with Eridan's shouts, and Sollux was effectively blinded by the froth and spray the moron managed to kick up as he shrieked and flailed.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuckin' hell!" he screamed as he tried to thrash in the general direction of the edge of the pool. "I'm dyin'! Sol! You fuck! You killed me! Fuck! Fuckin' shit oh god fuck!"

Sollux tried to shield himself with one arm as he attempted to grab Eridan with the other. "Holy shit, the water is four feet deep here, you can't be serious with all this," he grunted out as he tried to catch one of Eridan's flailing limbs.

"Uncle! I call uncle! I can't fuckin' do this! Help!" Eridan cried out. "I give up! Sol, I give up, help me!"

By this time, Eridan had managed to catch the attention of the lifeguards. Sollux could see them leaning forward in their chairs, scrutinizing the situation with alarmed suspicion. Sollux's stomach shrank with humiliation as he tried to grab hold of Eridan and pull him toward the edge of the pool.

"You're not dying you stupid shit, shut up," he hissed as he ducked a flying foot and managed to snag Eridan's forearm.

Eridan reacted to the contact immediately. He snatched Sollux's wrist with his free hand and began to scratch and claw his way up Sollux's arm like a spooked cat. Sollux's attempts to grab the man soon turned into attempts to push him off as Eridan crawled out of the water and thrashed his way onto Sollux's shoulders. In a few short seconds of cursing and stray limbs hitting his face, Sollux found himself standing in the water with Eridan's feet on his shoulders, the rest of the man's body curled in frozen panic around his head like some quivering bonnet.

The entire pool was silent. Sollux stood there, his mouth a thin, hard line, water dripping from the tip of his nose as Eridan continued to hug his head like it was he was the last piece of driftwood in a stormy sea. The kids stopped their belly flopping and stared, and the lifeguards gazed down at them with whistles hanging from their open mouths. Sollux blinked some of the water out of his goggles.

"So," he remarked plainly, as if commenting on the weather. "You're not dead."

Eridan shivered on top of Sollux's head, his teeth chattering.

"Do you feel cured?" Sollux asked. The silence was so thick that every comment felt like a shout.

"I feel like you're a fuckin' asshole," Eridan forced out, his grip refusing to loosen.

"I was providing moral support. Isn't this what I was enlisted to do?" Sollux asked, his voice scathing.

"That's not moral support, Sol, that's fuckin' attempted murder," Eridan spat. Sollux could feel the way that Eridan's frame shuddered violently as he spoke. As if each word was an effort to force out of his panic-stricken body. Against the back of his head was pressed the man's chest, and through it, Sollux could feel the terrified pounding of his heart.

It made his stomach sink with the lead weight of sudden realization.

Eridan wasn't just being over dramatic. He was literally terrified.

Sollux's expression sank with his stomach. His body, previously tensed with angry humiliation, sagged as he stood there in the water. With uncharacteristic gentleness, he put a hand to Eridan's shoulder, steadying the man as he made his way toward the edge of the pool. Once there, Eridan clambered off Sollux's head, shivering violently. Sollux crawled out of the water as well, and retrieved the big purple towel that Eridan had brought along with him. He threw it over the man's shoulders and Eridan wrapped it tightly about himself as Sollux sat down next to him.

They were silent for a long while. Gradually, the pool began to fill with the shrieks and shouts of the kids once more, and the lifeguards went back to looking like they were about to fall asleep in their chairs. As the two of them continued to sit in silence, staring at the water, Sollux eventually spoke.

"Sorry. I didn't realize how serious this was."

Eridan didn't reply. He just continued to shiver, his mouth hidden in his towel.

Sollux sighed, angry at how heavy with guilt his stomach felt. He threw a perturbed glance at the young man next to him.

"Look, I'm trying to apologize here, but if you weren't so fucking dramatic about everything, then maybe I might take your feelings more seriously once in a while, all right?"

"So you're sayin' that because I'm vocal about my feelins that they somehow have less merit than yours?" Eridan said quietly, his voice barbed with acid.

Sollux pressed his lips together and threw his gaze back out over the water. He glared at it as if it was somehow to blame for his inability to reply. The two young men drifted into silence for a long while, and each passing second seem to increase the weight of the air around them.

At last Sollux spat, "Don't ever ask me to help you with your emotional issues again, then. Since I am obviously the least sympathetic person to exist."

Eridan didn't bother to look at him. "Don't you have shit you're scared of?"

Sollux's insides twisted. He stared at the water from beneath his furrowed brow. "I guess. But I make a point of not asking assholes like me to help get over them."

"I guess i just sorta figured that you might understand," Eridan said. The edge on his voice had softened into a heavy despondency.

Sollux stared at the pool, the scent of the chlorine beginning to warp in his skull. To transmogrify into the stench of antiseptic and sterilization. To suddenly begin to echo with the sound of urgent voices and the clink of delicate metal utensils. To fill his skull with the sound of a deep, soothing voice that calmly reached into his chest and tore out half his heart.

He clenched his hands into fists at his sides.

"I do understand. And that's why I'm the wrong person to ask for help. Ever."

Eridan didn't reply. He simply stared at the undulating surface of the pool, his body continuing to tremble under his towel.

Sollux sighed before twisting around to put his gaze on something else. Anything else. It fell on the hotdog sitting in the carton next to their chair. He leaned back and grabbed the edge with this thumb and forefinger, dragging it back toward him. He slid it next to Eridan before retracting his hand and looking back to the pool.

"Aren't you going to eat that?" he asked blandly.

Eridan turned to look down at it. He then slowly picked it up with trembling hands, stuffing it into his mouth and chewing silently. Mustard dripped from the soggy bun like tears.

They didn't speak again. Not until the sun began to dip in the sky and the lifeguards started to usher everyone towards the exit. Not until they had taken the bus back to their street and stood in the driveway of Karkat's house. It was then that Eridan turned to Sollux, his eyes red with chlorine and something else.

"See you on Minecraft then?"

Sollux didn't speak at first. Then he nodded once.

"Yeah."