This was the day that Eridan Ampora broke Aradia Megido's necklace.
He sat rigid in his seat the entire way back. Dimly he could recall Kanaya asking if he would object to the radio. He never answered. Beyond that, however, it was as if Sollux's phone call had pushed all the day's memories from his skull. Gone was any lingering curiosity over Tavros and Vriska. And all the knots in his stomach from the looming performance had been unbound and retied into a new nest of tangles that tightened the closer they came to their destination.
He leaned against the window of the car, pressing his lips to his knuckles, trying to focus on the houses flicking past and the sweet vibrato of a pair of strings on the radio. But the electric haze filling up his brain allowed room for nothing else. His eyes were already blinded by images of Sollux, alone at his computer. His ears were drowned with the sounds of his voice. That hoarse lisp telling him, pleading him, to come.
His heart slammed against his sternum like a caged animal. As if the car wasn't moving fast enough. As if it longed for nothing more than to break free from the confines of Eridan's chest and race to that rundown house all on its own.
Ten minutes had passed by the time they arrived. But to Eridan, it was as though he had been dragged through fifty lifetimes of forked paths and agony. He stumbled from the car, barely stopping to steady himself as he rushed up to the door. He heard the car silence behind him, but didn't stop to look as he sprinted into the house.
His momentum carried him through the living room and halfway down the hallway before he was able to stop. He put his hands on his knees, panting and dizzy. As he raised a wrist to wipe his forehead, he turned to the side and found himself staring into the bathroom. Gamzee was smiling back at him from his place sitting on the toilet, pants bunched around his ankles. He raised a hand in greeting.
"Hey best motherfuckin' neighbor."
Eridan's face twisted with mortified revulsion. Gamzee simply returned the expression with his unwavering grin.
Slowly, like he was staring down a hungry lion instead of a guy on a toilet, Eridan took the handle and pulled the bathroom door shut.
"Sorry about that. GZ likes to shit with the door open. Says it makes him feel more 'at peace with the wicked energies.' Whatever the fuck that means."
Sollux was standing at the end of the hallway, one of his hands braced against the wall. His tone was even, but his face was chalk white and stretched taught like canvas over a wooden frame. Eridan straightened, his heart pounding against his chest with renewed force.
"I came as soon as I could," he spluttered.
"You didn't have to run. It's not like my water broke and I was going into emotional labor or something."
Eridan's lip curled and he could feel two splotches of heat collecting high on his cheekbones. "Well, it sounded like you were fuckin' crowning on the phone. And I'm not about to let you make a placental mess a feelings without at least givin' you a hand to hold."
Sollux's nose wrinkled. "Wow, you somehow managed to make that analogy even more awful than it already was. Thanks for that."
"Fuck you, Sol, I was not the one initiatin' pregnancy metaphors, all right. I was only tryin' to follow the fuckin' train a dialogue that you set up."
"Just a word of advice: most of my dialogue trains are just these shitty little engines set up on tracks that end over a giant ravine of 'this is fucking idiotic.' So unless you want all your cargo to go up in flames of stupidity, I'd avoid trying to follow up on any of the shit I say." His tight lips managed to quirk up at the edges, and Eridan could feel the ache in his chest easing slightly.
"Well a course I already knew that, Sol, I am just attemptin' to speak your patented nonsense language for the purposes a easin' communication here. One of us has got to make some concessions in order for any dialogue to progress here, and luckily I happen to be a decent enough individual to volunteer and sacrifice some a my better wit on account a you bein' a hopeless fuckin' idiot."
Sollux's entire face split into a huge smile. The kind of smile that seemed too big for his face, and Eridan feared for a fraction of a second that the man's skin might actually split at the unexpected strain. But then he found himself smiling too. An inexplicable grin that hurt his cheeks and made his eyes prickle.
"You are such an idiot," Sollux said, a kind of effervescence lifting his voice that sounded suspiciously like the beginnings of laughter. He took Eridan by the wrist, pulling him gently. "Come on."
Eridan obeyed, taking a few halting steps forward. Sollux stepped away as he did, leading him down the hallway and to his room.
The place was unrecognizable. Eridan blinked stupidly at the blue carpet and the red bedspread, both completely cleared of any stray laundry. The shelves were devoid of old energy drink cans, and the overflowing garbage can beside the bed was now empty. As soon as the initial shock wore off and he was able to breathe properly again, he noticed that the usual odor of stale air had been replaced with the scent of Febreeze.
"Did we step into a wormhole somewhere and get whisked off to some alternate universe or something because this is not your room, Sol," Eridan forced out at last, turning his gaze to the man still clutching his wrist.
"I guess I just wanted to do something useful with my nerves instead of sitting around like a fucking sack of shit and obliterating the computers of stupid fucks on the other side of the country." He mussed his hair a bit, the back of his neck and tips of his ears reddening. "God, this is probably one of the most stupid things I've ever done."
"I wouldn't say that at all, I mean, the place looks fuckin' incredible. I was personally startin' to think you were incapable a foldin' a single article a clothin', but I'm seein' now that my fears were misplaced."
Sollux covered his eyes with his free hand, giving a snort of laughter. He then pulled Eridan toward his dresser before yanking one of the drawers open. Inside were crumpled knots of T-shirts and spare socks. Eridan blinked.
"Okay, so I guess my fears were actually in exactly the right spot," he remarked at last.
"Pretty much," Sollux replied before pushing the drawer shut. He didn't move after that.
Eridan could feel his pulse quicken under the man's thumb and swallowed hard, wondering if Sollux could feel it. He glanced around anxiously before turning back to the man.
"So…did you just really need to show me your clean room or something? Because I'll be the first to concede that it's on mind-bogglin' levels of unnatural, but it's still not really what I would call, like, a first-class emergency."
Sollux shook his head. "No, that's… Look, just sit down for a second."
He pulled Eridan toward the bed and pressed on his shoulders, forcing him onto the mattress with a little bounce. As Eridan steadied himself, Sollux pulled away and opened a drawer in his desk. He plucked something out of it, closing a fist around it before Eridan could get a good look. Sollux then shuffled back to the bed, sitting next to Eridan. He hunched over his knees, staring at the ground as he held whatever it was loosely between his legs.
"Sol…?"
Sollux ran another hand through his hair before casting a quick glance at Eridan. He then looked back to the floor. "I agree with you."
Eridan frowned. "What exactly is it you're agreein' with?"
"What you said about funerals."
Eridan's chest tightened, and he turned his gaze to the ground as well. He already wasn't too fond of where this was going. "Are you referrin' to my opinion that there's not really a whole lot a point to them?"
"Sort of." He turned the thing over in his hands, staring right through it. "I never went to Aradia's funeral," he said at last.
Eridan's mouth was suddenly very dry. He tried to reply, but his tongue stuck fast to the roof of his mouth.
Sollux glanced up at him before looking back down. "It got me to thinking about some shit, I guess. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I've just spent the last year and a half of my life being afraid of everything. I wouldn't touch anything that reminded me of her and the accident. I stopped going to school. I let myself get kicked out of my apartment. I avoided Skype. Even the people who I used to hang out with. I think I sort of eventually fooled myself into thinking that I had gotten over it, and that I just didn't touch those old things anymore because I was a different guy. But…when I was at that funeral…there was nothing different about that. Like I hadn't changed at all. I was just this scared jackass who wanted run away and hide under the covers like it would protect me from the memories."
He opened his hands, revealing a tiny box resting in his palms. Eridan stared at it, still not daring to speak. After a few beats, Sollux continued.
"But…I don't want to be protected from those memories. They were some of the best times I ever had." He paused to scrub the back of his hand over his eyes. "I didn't know anything about love before I met Aradia. But when I was with her, everything felt so right. I never wanted that to end. That's why, that night, I was going to take her out to dinner at her favorite place and propose."
He opened the box. Inside was a necklace with a gold chain and a bee-shaped pendant cut from red jasper. Eridan frowned, glancing up to Sollux in confusion.
"Not a ring?" he asked.
Sollux shook his head, a sad smile playing around his lips. "She was always digging around in the dirt. She'd never keep a ring on." He lifted the necklace from the box, the tiny stone pendant swinging as he did, its polished surface catching the sunbeams from the windows and throwing specks of light across Sollux's walls. "I had a thing for honey when I was with her. Her dad had these little swizzle sticks with honey candy on top that you were supposed to stick in tea to sweeten it or some shit. But tea is disgusting. I just liked to eat them plain. The first one she ever gave me was a bee-shaped one, so that became a thing between us. Honey and bees and stuff."
He prodded the little pendant, watching it twirl before he looked up at Eridan. "And she liked stones. Not precious gems or crystals or anything like that. Just stones that she'd dig up from the ground, all covered with dirt and shit. And she'd go on about how beautiful they were. I never really got it, but I think that was a lot of the reason she ever went for me to begin with. She didn't really give a shit how dirty or rough something was. Or someone. She'd love them anyway."
His voice wavered dangerously and he brushed another hand furiously over his eyes. Eridan continued to listen, his throat tight.
"She never got to wear it. I crashed the car before I got to the restaurant. But it still feels like it was a part of us. Like this was everything we ever were. I think that's why I held onto it. But even then, I just…shoved it in my fucking drawer."
He exhaled, his breath shuddering as he ran another hand over his eyes. "I'm done shoving those memories in drawers. I'm done trying to forget what being happy was like. Or what it was like to love someone so much that I thought I might die from it."
He snapped the box shut and tossed it. It tumbled through the air in a graceful arc before landing with a soft pap in Sollux's trash can. Then the man was ducking down, inspecting Eridan's feet.
"Good, you don't have those stupid fucking flipflops on for a change," he said, setting the necklace on the ground.
Eridan lifted his feet a bit, giving Sollux an incredulous stare. "Wait, what are you doin'?"
Sollux sniffed, running a thumb under his nose before gesturing toward the necklace. "I want you to step on it."
Eridan felt as if he'd been dealt a fierce blow to the ribs. He stared at Sollux with widened eyes. "What?"
"Break it," he ordered, leaning down to adjust the pendant. He then took Eridan's right foot and laid it over the top of the little stone bee. "Just stomp on it really hard right here."
"Sol, are you serious? You just got done tellin' me how much this fuckin' thing means to you and how you're done puttin' it in drawers and all a this shit and now you want me to wreck it?"
"Yes," Sollux replied.
Eridan's lips parted in speechless shock. He twisted his gaze back down to stare at his foot. He could feel the little pendant under the sole of his shoe. He grimaced, his heart hammering so loudly he was sure it was audible to even Sollux's ears. Eridan threw another gaze back to him, his eyes pleading.
Sollux's expression was blank. "Do it."
Eridan grimaced. Then he lifted his foot and slammed it back down again.
The flicker of anguish that passed over Sollux's face did not escape Eridan's notice. It was as if he had just stomped on the man's heart instead of a red stone. But as Eridan lifted his foot, he saw that the bee was still intact, gleaming brightly from its spot on the floor.
Sollux shook his head. "Again."
"What?"
"Do it again."
Eridan felt his stomach clench, but he set his jaw and slammed his foot down a second time. But another wince from Sollux and a lift of the leg revealed the little bee pendant to be whole and unblemished.
"Keep doing it. I don't want you to stop until it's wrecked."
He stomped on it again, to no avail.
"Jesus christ, you are so pathetic."
Eridan was turning pink with fury by this point. "Shut up, I'm doin' my fuckin' best here."
Stomp.
"Oh my god."
Stomp.
"Jesus, this is just so bad."
Stomp.
Stomp.
Stomp.
Soon, every pound of Eridan's foot had Sollux smirking until he'd broken into a full fit of laughter. Eridan had turned a magnificent shade of scarlet by that point, both fists balled as he got to his feet and began slamming his shoe onto the tiny bee pendant with as much force as he could muster.
He barely heard the tiny snap beneath his soles.
Sollux's laughter died instantly, and he pushed Eridan away before he could deliver another stomp in his blind fervor. Panting, he stared down as Sollux crouched beside the necklace and picked it up. A stone wing and abdomen tumbled away, winking on the carpet like two tiny drops of blood. Sollux didn't give them a second look as he palmed the necklace and returned to his place on the bed.
Eridan sat down as well, the heat draining from his face as he watched Sollux stare at the cracked and broken pendant in his hand. He then curled his fingers over it and pressed his knuckles to his lips.
They stayed like that for a long time. Eridan never looked at Sollux. For some reason it felt wrong. As if he were intruding on something extremely private. But Sollux never asked him to leave. He never said anything.
Not until what could have been hours later when he at last cleared his throat and spoke. "Can you help me with this?"
Eridan turned to him and saw that Sollux's hands were behind his neck, gripping both ends of the necklace. The broken red bee glittered just below the hollow of his throat. Eridan nodded, pulling gently on one of Sollux's shoulders to get him to turn around. Sollux complied, scooting closer to Eridan and putting his back to him. He didn't release the ends of the necklace until Eridan had them both firmly in his grasp. Only then did Sollux let his hands drop into his lap.
"So are you ever gonna explain that to me or am I just goin' to be left hangin' out in limbo like this forever?" Eridan said as he fiddled with the clasp.
Sollux's head dipped a bit. "Whatever Aradia and I were, it's gone now. Broken. I want to look at this necklace and remember all the good things we had. But I don't want to torture myself with all the what-ifs anymore." He shook his head as Eridan smoothed the clasped necklace over the back of Sollux's neck and withdrew his trembling fingers. "I want to be happy for what it was, and the time we did have. Because I'm so tired of being afraid, ED."
He twisted around to face Eridan, his eyes glittering with tears.
"I'm tired of being afraid of you."
Eridan recoiled in shock. He had never seen Sollux's expression so raw. As if the impassive white mask had shattered along with the pendant, leaving a bleeding and open wound in its place. Eridan felt as if his heart had caught fire in his chest. He tried to speak, but found his throat snagging on the flames licking up his throat.
At last, drawn so tight with anxiety that he thought he might snap, he stammered, "I don't know why you would ever be afraid a me, I can't even break a fuckin'—"
And then fingers were sliding up his shoulders. His neck. Tangling in his hair. And he found himself being pulled closer. His heart gave a terrified leap and he opened his mouth to yelp or cry or anything but then his lips were pressed against Sollux's.
And he was lost. Gone in that moment. In the feeling of the man's fingertips at his temples. The overwhelming scent of bar soap and the strange taste of mint and peanut butter. The way Sollux's nose brushed his cheek. His tongue slipping into Eridan's mouth and then back out again.
Eridan had never felt more whole than he had in that moment. As if that fleeting connection was the final puzzle piece that he never knew he'd been missing.
And then Sollux was pulling away. And with him went Eridan's breath. Unable to speak, he could only stare, gazing into those mismatched eyes with a curious pleading.
Sollux's face was flushed, his lashes still damp with tears. He blinked hard, his adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he swallowed.
"I love you, Eridan. I don't want to be scared of loving you."
His voice rolled and dipped and wavered like it was caught in a windstorm. But Eridan sheltered it with his lips as he pressed himself into Sollux again, fisting his hands in the front of the man's shirt and pulling him close. And he felt the tiny sound Sollux made in response. Felt vibrations of broken and helpless relief against the back of his throat. And he was pulling Sollux closer. Closer. As if he could draw him into his body. Into the very core of his being.
Sollux's hands slipped from Eridan's hair and moved to his back, gripping Eridan with the desperate ferocity of one clinging to the last lifeboat at sea. His fingers dug into Eridan's skin through the fabric of his shirt, his legs moving onto the bed to give himself the leverage necessary to pull the other even closer.
And then Eridan was on his back against the pillows. And Sollux was on him, the warmth of his tongue filling him up, making his heart ache and fly in his chest. And in that moment he thought he might die. That his heart couldn't possibly be so full. That he wasn't designed to bear a happiness this potent and beautiful. And he wanted to laugh and cry at the absurdity of it all. He wanted to sob and splutter and drown in Sollux's kisses and warmth.
And he wouldn't have minded, then, if those had been his last moments on earth.
Sollux's mouth only ever left him briefly. Soon the argyle scarf was gone, and Sollux's lips would press to the nape of Eridan's neck. But they'd always come back. Back to Eridan's mouth. Back to let their tongues meet in warm reassurance. And then they would part again. For moments. And Sollux's thin lips would explore further, crossing Eridan's throat and dipping to his collar bone. Eridan made tiny pining noises the longer Sollux's lips would leave him, and the man would return to him, covering his mouth with his own.
It was so utterly intoxicating that Eridan didn't notice at first that Sollux's fingers had gripped the hem of his shirt. That they had begun to slide upward over his sides, taking the cloth with them. He didn't notice until he felt the cold air hitting his chest, and suddenly he jerked away from Sollux's lips, his heart freezing inside him.
He was exposed. He stared up with wide eyes as he saw Sollux's gaze slip slowly and inexorably down. Down over what Eridan had seen so many times that the image of it was branded permanently to the back of his mind. The long purple scar over his sternum, raised and ugly against his pale chest. He shrank away as he could feel Sollux's eyes burning over it like a pair of hot irons. He turned his head to the side, biting the inside of his cheek as he felt the joyful ache in his chest grow cold.
It was time for the fairy tale to end.
He should have expected it.
Should have…
And then Sollux's lips brushed his chest.
He jerked in surprise, lifting his head and hunching his shoulders inward as if to defend himself. But Sollux did not relent. His lips lifted and pressed back down over and over again until he had traced the entire length of Eridan's scar with kisses, and Eridan was whimpering his name, tears glazing his vision.
Sollux met Eridan's gaze then, and Eridan had to blink furiously in order to see him, letting hot liquid spill over his cheeks. Sollux's expression was still cracked and bleeding, but a smile had pulled itself over his thin lips. And then Eridan was smiling with him, laughing even, pulling him close and hugging him to his body.
And then it was as if every ounce of energy had been sapped from them. Sollux laid his head on Eridan's bare chest, his ear pressed over Eridan's heart. One hand absently traced the curve of his ribs, and Eridan was content to let the fingers wander, smiling distantly up at the ceiling.
"You know, this was the last fuckin' thing I was expecting," he said after he finally managed to recover his voice.
He felt a wash of warm breath on his chest as Sollux let out a small laugh. "Same here, sort of. I thought you'd be pissed off at me. I'd be pissed off at me."
"Well, I made an honest attempt to be at one point," Eridan admitted, running his fingers through Sollux's stupidly soft, cow-licked hair. "But it's sorta like I just didn't have any room for the kinda boilin' rage I'm used to after I fell ass-backwards in love."
Another puff of warm breath and a low chuckle. "Jesus we are pathetic."
"Well, one of us more than the other, but yeah, there is really no way to defend the opposite side a that argument."
Sollux lifted his head. "I hope you're talking about yourself, asshole."
Eridan smirked. "Come on, I think it's pretty clear who the more refined and well-mannered a the pair of us is."
"Wow, holy shit. Shut up."
He claimed Eridan's voice with a kiss. And Eridan had no real desire to take it back. Instead he simply let himself dissolve in Sollux's arms once again. Time was lost to him then, and the sun set without his notice.