Sorry I didn't update yesterday. So much shit happened that I had literally no time to write. Things are all better now, and I present you with this.
Many thanks to Snookster, fangirl4you, Janetissherlocked, BlOo KiSsEs, obsessed01616, Heki564, thepeopleofthecrysis, and Kerra-Chan for your reviews to the previous act!
Eridan generally woke up later on Fridays than he did throughout the rest of the week. This was generally because he stayed up later on Thursday nights, cranking Florence and the Machine on his sound system to drown out Cronus's Elvis records and playing with Photoshop until his eyes ached. This was also because his first class on Friday started at ten and ran until eleven-thirty, and his only other class that day started at one and ended at two-thirty. Getting to sleep at a reasonable hour became less important.
He yawned and stretched before he practically tumbled out of bed, groping for his glasses. It was eight-forty-five, and he could hear Cronus already moving around in the apartment. The acrid, burning stench of cigarettes hit his nostrils and he pulled a face. First thing in the morning, he did not want to smell that. Ignoring the growl in his stomach, he made up his bed and went to take his shower.
Feferi hadn't spoken to him much since the incident on Wednesday. He was a little annoyed with that, but he also understood why she was so upset. He'd basically lied to her about his intentions, and maybe it was a little immature, but his honor had been insulted. She should have known that he would try to avenge himself. He knew better than to say it to her, though. He wasn't that stupid.
Still, they were going home tonight, something that was more than enough to brighten his mood. All he had to do was make it through two bullshit classes, wait for Fef to get out of swim practice, and they'd be heading back for a weekend with their families, such as they were. Feferi's older sister Meenah had deigned to live at home for as long as humanly possible, but whether that was because she was simply lazy or wanted to provide moral support for their mother remained to be seen. Feferi's father had been in and out of their lives for the past twenty years, and considering this bout of "out" had lasted for almost a year now, it looked to be staying that way. (Feferi had secretly confided that she preferred it that way; her mother was financially stable on her own and her dad was, as she put it, "a bit of a tool," but Eridan saw the sad look in her eyes when she talked about him sometimes.) To Eridan's relief, Cronus had never come home for the weekend. He'd said several times that he didn't mind their parents and actually kind of liked having his little brother around, but he'd never really felt like part of the family and preferred to keep a hundred miles between them at all times. Their parents agreed.
Cronus was munching happily on four slices of bacon when Eridan finished his morning routine. He poured himself a cup of coffee and hopped up on the counter, eyeing his older brother. Naturally, Cronus barely noticed until his food was gone. Then he let out a loud belch, plucked the cigarette that had been perched behind his ear, and lit it. "You stayin' here this weekend, daddy-o?" he mumbled around the cancer stick.
Eridan closed his eyes and pretended the sound of his voice didn't grate on his nerves. "Nah. Fef an' me are headin' home."
The elder Ampora nodded. "Back on Sunday?"
"That's the plan."
"Drive safe, daddy-o." Cronus stood up, ashed his cigarette out in one of the many ash trays that littered the apartment, and slouched out of the kitchen, leaving Eridan feeling a bit confused.
Genuine brotherly affection was a rare thing between them. The "drive safe" bit had never happened before, and Eridan wondered if his brother was dying and not telling him. He thought about asking but decided he was probably being paranoid and let it go. As soon as he finished off his coffee, he put his cup in the dishwasher, filled up his Thermos with more coffee, and headed out the door, snagging his backpack and duffel bag from what passed as their living room.
He was able to park right in front of the cafeteria building when he got to school. Other people had already trickled out of the parking lot, the lucky ones whose first (and most likely only) class started at seven-thirty or eight. "See you after swim practice," he called to Fef as they parted ways. She waved but otherwise didn't acknowledge him. She was still feeling a bit snippy toward him.
He drained the last of his coffee out of his Thermos on his way to class and stuck it in the side pocket of his backpack as he walked. Even though it would warm up in the afternoon, it was in the fifties right now and Eridan zipped up his hoodie all the way to the top, shoving his hands in his pockets. He wasn't built for the cold—he was made for eternal summer and the ocean and sunlight. Right now it was gray and cool, and he shivered slightly.
It was warmer in the classroom, though, so he unzipped his hoodie but left it on after he sat down. He felt like paying attention to the lecture, but it was Friday and his interest was fleeting at best. Despite the coffee coursing through his system, he felt his eyes drooping, so he propped his book up in front of him, put his head down, and napped. No one would care. It was Friday.
Sollux was at a table by the window when he saw Eridan's purple BMW park. He was almost completely certain it was his (he hadn't seen another car that color at school) but it was confirmed when he and Feferi climbed out and headed off to their respective classes. He caught Equius's eye. "Got everything?"
Equius nodded solemnly. They picked up their backpacks and headed out, Nepeta cheering behind them, "Go get 'em!"
Sollux ducked out of the front sliding doors and watched until Eridan disappeared into one of the buildings a thousand yards away. He motioned for Equius to follow him and the two of them traipsed out to the parking lot.
Eridan, the douchebag that he was, had taken care to park in a space without a car on either side, which really just made Sollux's job that much easier. Equius set down his backpack and pulled out a dolly, a piece of wood with wheels made for rolling under cars. Eridan's car didn't sit very far off the ground ("It would have been ideal if he owned an SUV or we had a lift," Equius had told him), so there was no way in Hell Equius would be able to fit under it, but the plan was for it to be Sollux anyway. However, he realized after he lay flat on the dolly that he was wrong—the car was too low for pretty much anyone to fit with the dolly. "Looks like we're throwing," he sighed, standing back up.
Equius set the dolly on the grass in front of the parking space as Sollux produced two rolls of plastic wrap from his own backpack. He opened the first one, dropped the box on the ground, and unraveled about ten feet. He tied the end to the front passenger door handle and flung the rest of the roll to Equius, who stretched it taut and tossed it under the car back to Sollux. Around and around the plastic wrap went, the two of them being as careful as possible so as not to set off the alarm.
The first roll ran out a little way past the joint between the front doors and the rear doors, as Sollux suspected it would. He unrolled the second one, joined it to where the first one ended, and continued the process until they were winding the plastic wrap across the rear windshield. He wanted to wrap the car from nose to tail, lengthwise down the car, but when he looked at his watch, he saw that it had been nearly an hour and Equius was sweating profusely, so this would have to do. They doubled back around on the wrap until the second roll ran out and Sollux stuffed all the trash underneath the car. He then withdrew an economy-sized bottle of dish soap and emptied the whole thing across the windows, on the handles, down the sides, smearing it into the plastic wrap. He stuck the empty bottle under the car, too. As a final touch, he pulled out a dry-erase marker and wrote across the windshield, EA—HAVE FUN WITH THIS MESS! —SC
He capped the marker, put it back in his backpack as Equius went to put the dolly back in his own car and grab a towel, and then the two of them sat on the hood until the car alarm finally went off. Laughing like a madman, Sollux followed Equius in a frenzied dash back to the cafeteria building. This was definitely worth skipping his Mythology of Comic Books class.
He woke up to the faint, distant honk of a car alarm going off. He managed not to jump in his seat as he woke, slowly taking stock of his surroundings.
Class was still ongoing—apparently with another half-hour of class scheduled. That suited him just fine, since his nap had revived him. That car alarm was pretty annoying too, just loud enough to remind him it was there. He hoped whatever asshole wasn't silencing the alarm would crash their car. It was getting really old, really fast.
The alarm was still blaring when class let out, and he realized it was coming from the parking lot in front of the cafeteria. Curiosity getting the better of him, he followed the sound until the parking lot swung into view and he stared.
That was definitely his car with the lights flashing and the alarm blaring. He couldn't tell from here what they—whoever they were, but he had a pretty good idea who—did to the outside, but even from this distance, he could see something written on his windshield. He tore across campus, heedless of the computer and camera in his backpack, and darted past four lanes of traffic (the speed limit on campus was 15, but still). As he got closer, he slowed down until he finally stopped in front of his car.
EA—HAVE FUN WITH THIS MESS! —SC
Numbly, he set down his backpack, clicked his key fob to silence the alarm, and circled his car. Gingerly, he touched the plastic wrap. His fingertips came away soaked in what smelled like dish soap. He made another circuit around the car, looking more closely until he confirmed to himself that there were no other surprises waiting for him. He inspected the scrawl on his windshield—somehow, it just looked like it would belong to Sollux Captor; none of the letters were even and everything was spiky, as if he could stab Eridan with his words—and touched a soap-coated finger to the period of the exclamation mark. The mark wiped away easily but left remnants on his skin like dry-erase markers. That thought relieved him.
He dropped to his knees and saw what remained of the tools of this trick. Two cardboard boxes and rolls from plastic wrap and an empty bottle of dish soap had been left under his car. The trash bugged him, but not too badly.
So. No lasting damage. Well, it certainly wasn't the most original of pranks, but a good way to ensure he wasted fifteen minutes trying to cut his car free from the wrapping. Sollux had stuck to the rules: inconvenience, but no truly malicious intent. Still, he thought as he dug out an X-Acto knife from his backpack and set to work carefully cutting away the plastic, I expected more originality.
He worked for close to twenty minutes, taking extra care to ensure he didn't accidentally scrape any paint. Once he had six hundred square yards of soap-covered plastic wrap littering the concrete around his car, he straightened up and turned toward the cafeteria building.
If it was him, he would have been watching to see Sollux's reaction—actually, that's exactly what he'd done on Wednesday. He scanned the windows and, sure enough, saw a familiar figure at a table near one of the windows. Thought so, he said to himself, smirking.
He unlocked his car door, took a few napkins out of his glove compartment, and wiped Sollux's scribble from the windshield. He put his backpack in his car, taking a second to ensure he hadn't damaged his electronics in his scramble (he hadn't), and gathered up the trash the other boy had left behind. He made sure all the soap was facing in so it didn't smear on his clothing and he took it to the dumpster at the far end of the parking lot, not giving anywhere near enough of a damn to separate the cardboard and other recyclables today. Then he started the walk back to the cafeteria building.
Sollux hadn't been able to help his laughter when he got a good look at Eridan's face as he realized what had happened. It was too priceless, although he also expected Ampora to flip his shit. To his surprise, though, Eridan circled the car once before clearly pronouncing the car to be unharmed and calmly cleaning up the mess. He turned to look through the windows of the cafeteria, but Sollux quickly pretended to be engrossed by his textbook and didn't dare look up until about thirty seconds later. By then, Eridan was hauling the trash to the dumpster and heading back. Sollux looked back down. Now it was time to see how Ampora retaliated (which Sollux had no doubt he'd do).
He heard the footsteps approach but he didn't bother looking until the person was a foot from him. Eridan leaned down, got right in his face, and said with a smirk, "You can do better than that."
That two seconds of personal space invasion was enough for Sollux to register three things: there was no faint line around Eridan's irises, meaning they were literally purple naturally; the scent clinging to him, whether it was cologne or hair product or soap, was incredibly intoxicating; and it sounded like Eridan was issuing a challenge. And then he walked away.
As for the first two, he wasn't quite sure how he felt except his heart was racing and he had to fight the urge to watch him go and his head was spinning and good God, those jeans made his ass look fantastic. He closed his eyes and mentally punched himself in the face. Get a grip. But the third realization made him smile. If it was a war Eridan wanted, he had one.
Let the games begin.
Ah, yes, and the first true flirtations with gay business has also begun.
I still need more prank ideas. LIKE GIVE ME SOME THINGS ERIDAN COULD DO TO SOLLUX. Their hate-flirting is awesome.
