So... it gets a little mature-ish at the end I guess... ummm...
Many thanks to obsessed01616, Heki564, thepeopleofthecrysis, BlOoKiSsEs, Kerra-Chan, TheShipperOfShips, and one guest for your reviews to the last act!
It was a huge pain in the ass to scrub the gel from his hair without using shampoo (which, followed so quickly by a dyeing, a bleaching, and another dyeing was a sure way to kill his hair), but he'd mastered it after nearly two years of the same thing. Eridan could have just as easily (if not more easily) foregone the product this morning, but the thought of going out with unstyled hair had been "fuckin' unconscionable," as he put it to Feferi, so here he was eight hours later, scrubbing his hair clean with only water. It took him forty-five minutes, after which he had to comb out his hair to ensure all the gel was gone and blow-dry it, but within an hour, he was traipsing back down the stairs of Feferi's house with his duffel bag over his shoulder again.
When he got to the kitchen, she and her mother were elbow-deep in what looked like the beginnings of a vegan lasagna. It was Fef's favorite home-cooked meal, something that was sure to put her in a good mood. This would only make her less likely to smear dye on his face (he loved purple, but he didn't relish the idea of walking around all weekend with purple skin), and for that, he was grateful.
"Want some help?" he asked, hopping up on the counter a few feet from where they were working. Feferi flung a dish towel at him.
"No, fish, we're almost done. Besides, you can't cook anyway." She was calling him "fish" again. Normally, he'd be annoyed, but this at least meant he was returning to her good graces.
"Everyone can cook," Ms. Peixes said in a way that was probably meant to be chastising but came out more playful than anything. "It all depends on direction, and I happen to be an excellent director. If you guys come over for dinner tomorrow, I can show you."
Maybe if he picked up a bit of cooking skill, he could actually get Cronus to eat some real food as opposed to takeout every night. He was sure his parents would appreciate that. They still cared about Cronus, even if they weren't entirely assured of his sanity (nor was Eridan, for that matter). "That sounds like a good idea."
"Could you set the table, Eridan?" Ms. Peixes added, pointing toward the drawer where the cutlery was stored.
"Sure." He hopped off the counter and went to the drawer. "Four, right?"
"No, just three. Meenah's not here."
Feferi slammed the oven door and whirled around in a blur of dark hair and tyrian purple. "Where is she?" she demanded.
"She went to go see her boyfriend."
"Since when does Meenah have a boyfriend?" She was serious—she hadn't taken the opportunity to replace "boyfriend" with "boyfrond." Eridan went on setting the table, watching carefully.
Ms. Peixes shrugged as if it wasn't a big deal. "A month or so. I don't think it's too serious yet."
"Okay, well, is he nice?" Feferi asked, leaning against the counter. It seemed as though her legs were about to give out with the way she held herself up.
"I don't know. I haven't met him," her mother said mildly. She reached above Eridan's head, brought down three plates, and handed them to him as Fef let out a tiny shocked sound.
"You—you haven't met him?!"
"Feferi, calm down," she said with a laugh. "Your sister is twenty-four years old. She can have a boyfriend without her old mom judging her every move. It could be good for her—Lord knows she didn't leave the house much for awhile there. At least she's doing something besides fretting."
"Well, what's his name?"
"She hasn't told me."
Feferi closed her eyes and gave an annoyed whimper. After a moment, she sucked in a deep breath through her nose, exhaled, opened her eyes, and crossed her arms over her chest. "So if she wasn't leaving the house, how did she meet him?"
Eridan almost laughed at the serious expression on her face but quickly turned his head to keep her from seeing. He wasn't quite sure why she was freaking out, but it was funny to witness.
"She said they went to high school together. They reconnected through Facebook. Why are you so worried about your sister's well-being, anyway? She can take care of herself."
"I know, but... she's supposed to be here for you," Feferi said, practically whining.
"Be—Feferi, honey. I don't need my daughters to take care of me. I know you love me and you worry about me, but I am also an adult. I'm going to be okay." She crossed the kitchen to the oven and set the timer, something Feferi had neglected to do. As soon as she had, she took Feferi's face in her hands and lightly kissed her forehead. "I don't want to keep you girls from having your own lives, okay? You deserve to be happy, just like your old mom, and I won't have either of you clucking after me like a pair of hens. That's my job, okay?"
Feferi sighed. "Okay. I just... a month? I had no idea."
"Well, you would if you came home more often," she said playfully. "She's been home the last two weeks—you could have asked her then."
"Well, last weekend, this butt over here had a class project to do," Feferi said with mock sharpness, gesturing to Eridan. "And the weekend before that, I was pretty sick. I did not want to leave for anything."
And the weekend before that, she'd had her own class project, but that hadn't stopped Eridan from going home. It had been awhile since they were home at the same time.
"I was just kidding, honey. But seriously, your sister will be fine. She's a big girl."
After they ate dinner, he and Feferi headed up to the bathroom with both boxes of hair dye in hand. Eridan stripped off his shirt and glasses and perched on the edge of the bathtub while Feferi donned the plastic gloves that came with the black dye and mixed the solution. Before she covered his hair with it, though, she smeared a generous amount of Vaseline across his hairline to keep his skin from staining. She had to keep pushing his bangs back to get at it because without gel, they always fell into his eyes. It was one of the reasons he always had product in his hair, besides his general dislike of haircuts. He knew he'd have to get one soon, though—it was getting a bit long by now.
"Hold still," she said, and began applying the dye to his roots.
He closed his eyes and tried to remain motionless, focusing on the soothing sensation of having his scalp rubbed. It was pretty nice, all things considered. He was very nearly lulled into a doze when it stopped and Feferi inspected nearly every strand of hair at the root. "Okay, you're all set for right now. Ten minutes and we can do the rest."
Once the ten minutes had passed, she put the rest of the dye on the already-black hair so the color would match. He waited another fifteen minutes, rinsed, put in the conditioner that came with the dye, and then perched once more on the edge of the bathtub. Now came the hard part.
Feferi switched her gloves, mixed up the bleach, and knelt in front of him. "Hold still," she instructed him again, as if he didn't already know by now. They'd done this almost two dozen times.
The bleach stung at his scalp as she applied it to the roots beneath the purple streak. He closed his eyes and held as still as possible, but his eyes still watered from the chemicals. He'd be much happier once this was all over.
The bleach had to set for thirty minutes before he could rinse it, but after that, it was easier. Feferi brushed in the purple, trying to keep it just to the area that she'd bleached, but she didn't have to be as careful as she did with the actual bleach—the purple wouldn't show up against the black. That had to stay on for another twenty-five minutes, and after he rinsed the last of the color out of his hair and rubbed more post-color conditioner through his hair, waited two minutes, and rinsed that out, it was finally over. He toweled off his hair but didn't bother to blow-dry it again. He wasn't sure his hair could take much more abuse in one night. Still, when he got to look at his hair, he was happy with how it turned out. It was a decided improvement over a half-inch of roots showing.
He yawned. "What time did you wanna go to the beach tomorrow?"
She was sitting on the floor, her legs drawn up to her chest with her arms around them. "I want to leave by ten I think. We can pack some sandwiches and have lunch there."
"So leave my house at five, got it," he joked.
She playfully kicked at his leg. "Nah, we can just leave." She rested her head against her knees. "It'll be nice to actually be able to go to the beach again."
"We got beaches near school, you know."
"Yeah, but I can never get to them. The buses don't go out there so I have to ask you for a ride and you're almost always busy." She sighed. "It's not really an ideal situation."
"Hopefully it'll be warm enough."
"It will. I know it will."
He put his shirt and glasses back on and said goodnight to Feferi and her mom before he went back to his own house for the night. His parents were used to him coming home only after he'd exhausted his welcome at the Peixeses', and he didn't doubt that they'd see his car in the driveway tomorrow morning and know to make him breakfast. They always went to bed fairly early now though (his mother was well into her fifties and his dad was sixty-one; he'd been what his brother called a "happy accident"), so he didn't plan on seeing them tonight. It was just as well—he wouldn't be great company. He was tired from the drive and the whole day in general, and he had a lot on his mind anyway.
Sure enough, the house was dark when he pulled up. He parked and grabbed his duffel bag and backpack, went to the front door, and fitted his house key into the lock. The door opened smoothly and from across the hallway, he heard the beeping of the security system. He set his bags down, punched in the code ("ACCEPTED" flashed across the screen), and looked around the hall. Everything was just as he remembered it.
He tore a sheet of paper out of one of his notebooks and scrawled a note across it for his parents. Mom and Dad, Got home safe. Went to bed. Didn't want to wake you. Wake me up at eight—Feferi wants to go to the beach tomorrow. —Eridan
He picked up his bags again and ascended the stairs, creeping past his parents room and sliding his note under their door. No doubt his dad would find it in about four hours when he got up to visit the bathroom. He just hoped his dad wouldn't inadvertently wake him.
Cronus's old bedroom and adjoining bathroom separated his room from the master suite, but even if it hadn't, the Amporas had a penchant for soundproofing things. Soundproofing didn't do a whole lot when your older brother played his shitty records at their highest, most ear-splitting decibel, but it saved them both from a lot of childhood trauma where their parents were concerned. Cronus was of the opinion that they probably had about ten more brothers and sisters hiding somewhere, but Eridan sincerely hoped not. The two of them had been a handful as it was.
He changed into his pajamas and crawled into bed, exhaustion tugging at his body, but sleep wouldn't come. It had been a strange week, that was for sure. Monday and Wednesday and then today had been a lot to handle, and not the least of his thoughts revolved around Sollux. A good, genuine nemesis was pretty hard to find—most people were so damn concerned with being polite and well-liked that a real enemy was almost unheard-of. But everything about Sollux pissed him off from the first moment he got a good look at him. It was satisfying that the feeling seemed to be mutual—he'd pretty much proved that when he emptied that cup of soda over his head.
He laughed to himself at that. He supposed he would have to thank Terezi for making that comment about Sollux in the first place, the one about him being bisexual. It left him pretty much the perfect opening for his witty response.
Sol hadn't denied it, either. He'd actually confirmed it when he told Terezi he didn't want to be outed to strangers. That was... well, he didn't know what exactly it was, but he wondered. Sol was his age, after all. Eridan couldn't help wondering what his sexual experiences had been like. Had he needed to have sex with a guy to confirm it to himself, or had he just always known? What about with a girl? He had a pretty innate sense for picking virgins out of a crowd and Sollux didn't strike him as one, but he'd been wrong before. Still, he could see some pretty girl or boy groping at him in the dark one night while his parents slept on, completely oblivious. Or maybe it was the other way around, with Sol taking control because he already knew what he liked.
Unconsciously, Eridan licked his lips. Sollux was a skinny little bastard, but from what he'd seen of him, Eridan had no doubt that he was capable of dominating someone. The thought sent a thrill down his spine, but by the time he realized he was half-hard, he was already idly stroking himself. What the Hell am I doing?!
As if the thought couldn't stand being ignored, it forced its way back to the front of his mind and there was Sollux again, rutting against some faceless boy, and Eridan didn't care anymore. He could practically hear their moans ringing in his ears and see how badly Sol wanted to fuck him. A tiny whimper escaped his throat and he kept masturbating, not caring that he was thing about Sollux Captor and some guy, not caring about anything at all except those lush lips Sol had and those gorgeously mismatched eyes that would probably haunt him to his grave. "Oh, fuck..." he murmured, biting his lip as he came, a bit sooner than he expected.
The orgasm sent a wave of endorphins through him, but the moment was killed when he remembered that he was sticky with his own come and he'd just jerked off thinking about a guy. There has to be something wrong with me, he thought bitterly.
He cleaned himself up as best he could, decided he was going to take another shower in the morning (which he had been contemplating anyway), and rolled over. Even so, it was still another hour of tossing and turning before he finally fell asleep.
Wherein Eridan starts getting the first inkling that he might not be 100% straight...
I'll just leave this here then.
