Yes, Big Rico's is a WTNV reference I ALSO SLIPPED THAT REFERENCE IN ACT 28 I'M GONNA PEE

Many thanks to Fabylou55, thepeopleofthecrysis, Rand0mAn0nym0u2, Bitblondetoday, obsessed01616, Wolfen Artist of Hetalia, DarkBlueMahogany, LinkinPark X, SmileyFacesSmile, CatastrophicAquarius, and Nightshade-Prime for your reviews to the last act.

One final note: Every time I write an act with Cronus, I take his life in my hands. I really want to kill him and I also don't and so far not wanting to kill him has won out but one day it may not and he could end up dead for I am a capricious god (and if I were to kill anyone in this 'verse, it would either be Cronus or John, sorry).


Sollux slipped out of Eridan's room and into the bathroom, glancing down the hallway in case Cronus happened to be creeping around—which he was. He was just about to duck into the bathroom when he saw that another door at the end of the hall was open a few inches, and Cronus's smirking face peeked out at him. He stuck out his hand and flashed Sollux a thumbs-up sign (oh, yeah, he'd definitely heard them), and Sollux turned bright red and slammed the door behind him as quickly as he could. Cronus's laughter and the sound of his door closing drifted into the bathroom, and Sollux glared at the door and dropped everything in his arms.

He lingered in the shower for almost twenty minutes before he stepped out, entirely clean. He eyed his clothes in a pile on the floor—he was definitely not putting those back on—and instead wrapped the towel around his waist. He sat on the edge of the tub and unscrewed the tops on the bottles of shampoo and conditioner, set them aside, and gathered all the toothpaste from his backpack. One by one, he emptied each tube into one bottle, and then the other, until both bottles had been filled to the top third with toothpaste. He grinned, replaced the caps, and tossed the empty tubes into his backpack. He decided to leave the bottles on the edge of the tub—it would make more sense anyway, but he also didn't want to give Eridan the extra chance to realize, Hey, this seems more full than it did earlier and have him discover the prank before it was actually implemented.

Although, based on the look he'd had on his face when Sollux left, he probably wouldn't have noticed a freight train running through his room.

Eridan continued watching the movie without really seeing it. He just wanted to fall asleep, although he definitely wasn't going to since he was still sticky, and that wasn't even taking into consideration the product in his hair. That needed to get scrubbed out, too. But for the moment, he was content with lounging on his bed and waiting for Sol to finish in the shower.


After cleaning himself up as best he could, he dropped his clothes in the laundry basket and dug out his least-lame set of pajamas (holy crap, how did he own so much purple? He was so weird). He flopped back onto his bed and waited, nearly falling asleep by the time the bedroom door swung open and Sol walked in with his backpack in his hand and wearing nothing but a towel around his waist.

It certainly wasn't like he hadn't seen Sol in less before—his swim suit had left less to the imagination than the towel—but knowing that one quick yank would leave Sol standing there completely naked was more than enough to keep Eridan's eyes on him.

"So I definitely need to do laundry before I leave for the night," Sol said, either not noticing or choosing to ignore the way Eridan was practically drooling over him.

"Wait, you're leavin'?"

"Well... I don't have to. I wasn't sure how this was gonna work out." Sol half-smiled sheepishly. "I don't have a problem staying if you don't."

"No, a' course not." Eridan rolled off his bed. "Um. I guess I should probably try to find you a change a' clothes. I don't know if anythin' will fit you, though."

"Well, I don't really need a shirt," Sol started, but Eridan shook his head.

"No, you definitely do."

Sollux blinked as Eridan began rifling through his drawers, looking for clothes. He looked down and then back up, a wide smirk spreading across his face. "Why, ED, are you distracted by this?"

"No," Eridan said after a long moment and in a tone so petulant, Sollux knew he was lying. He thought about sneaking up behind Eridan and teasing him more, but he decided against it—he'd just gotten out of the shower and he didn't feel like getting messy again, and he didn't have enough confidence in his flirting abilities anyway. His strengths lay in academic ventures, not physical. He settled for, "Yeah, right," and sat on the edge of Eridan's bed, catching the pair of sweatpants and the T-shirt that came flying out at him.

"Alright, I'm gonna go shower. Try to behave yourself," Eridan said, grabbing a towel and heading to the bathroom.

"Cronus is lurking out there!" Sollux called back at him, a half a second before the door slammed. He waited for an answer, but there was none, and a moment later, there was the sound of another door closing.

Sollux shrugged, dropped his towel, and got dressed.


Eridan set his glasses on the bathroom counter, noted with satisfaction that Sol had left his shampoo and conditioner right there (good, at least he didn't have to hunt for them), got undressed, and hopped in the shower. He spent a solid fifteen minutes standing under the water and nearly dozed off standing up. Everything was perfect right now.

Then he reached for the shampoo.


It had been nearly twenty minutes and there was nothing but the sound of water running from the bathroom. Sol began to wonder if Eridan had even noticed his prank and instead just gone along and washed his hair with toothpaste, and then all of a sudden, Eridan screamed, "CAPTOR!"

Sol covered his mouth with his hands, tried not to giggle, and dashed to the bathroom.


Even through his headphones, he could hear Eridan shouting in the bathroom. It sounded vaguely like captor, although who or what the captor was, Cronus had no idea. He threw off his headphones and ran out of his room to meet Sollux outside the bathroom door. He realized Sollux was wearing Eridan's clothes and grinned—Eridan could deny it all he wanted, but he'd basically assumed this guy into his life as his boyfriend. "What the fuck's he on about?" he asked Sollux quietly.

Sollux grinned at him. "I put toothpaste in his shampoo and conditioner."

Cronus blinked for a minute before doubling over with laughter.


Eridan stared, dumbfounded, at what was quite clearly a dollop of toothpaste in his hand. It looked like toothpaste, it smelled like toothpaste, and it probably tasted like toothpaste, but Eridan wasn't about to lick it and find out. It had been in a bottle with shampoo, after all.

He shook off the not-shampoo and checked the conditioner to discover the same thing. "CAPTOR!" he yelled, furious because he knew it was Sol, he'd been the one to use it last and he hadn't come back reeking of toothpaste and his backpack had looked suspiciously less empty when he came back to the bedroom although it hadn't really registered in Eridan's mind and he'd come back in a towel because he obviously hadn't had clothes in the bag and oh, my God, he'd been completely stupid and before he knew it, he was sitting on the edge of the tub, laughing. As loathe as he was to admit it, that had been a much better prank than wrapping his car in plastic wrap and smearing it in dish soap—and at least it hadn't been Nair in his shampoo, because if he'd gone bald, he would have flipped holy Hell.

Someone knocked on the door, and he stepped out of the shower and left the water running, wrapped a towel around his waist, grabbed one of the bottles, and opened the door. Both Sol and Cronus were there, looking at him. He tossed the bottle at Sol's face, saying, "Fuck off. Get me the new bottles in the drawer."

Sol cracked up and walked away, and Eridan turned to Cronus. "You fuck off, too."

"I would, but I think Sollux already took care of that," Cronus joked quietly as Sol disappeared into Eridan's room. Eridan went red and swatted at his brother's head.

"Please believe me, I tried to ignore it," Cronus added.

"This is not happenin'."

"This is your life, an' it's endin' one minute at a time."

Sol reappeared with Eridan's new bottles of shampoo and conditioner. Eridan snatched them up, shot another glare at Cronus, and slammed the door closed.

This time, the rest of his shower went by without incident.


"I bet you think you're so fuckin' clever," Eridan said as he closed the door to his room behind him. Sol had gone back to relaxing on his bed, playing on his phone, and not watching the movie.

"I thought it was pretty smart, yeah," Sol joked. "And you walked right into it."

Eridan shook his head with a faint grin, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Well, I guess I gotta hand that one to you. Better than your last prank, anyway."

Sol shrugged. "I was in a time crunch. I had literally no other ideas. I also had EQ's help."

"Hey, you can't ask people to help you! That's not fair!"

"Oh, right, 'cause we established rules at the beginning of this." Sol rolled his eyes.

Eridan crossed his arms. "Alright, so I guess not, but still."

"Quit whining, you little shit," Sol joked, throwing his arm around Eridan and dragging him to sit next to him. "It's your turn—think of something good."

Eridan snickered and curled up next to Sol. "Trust me, it'll be about a thousand times better than any a' yours."

Sol snorted. "Hmm. Doubt that."

"You underestimatin' my massive intellect?"

"Oh, is that what you call it? Normal people call that 'douchebaggery.'"

If it was anyone but Sol (or Fef), he would have gotten upset. He knew that immediately. He waited for annoyance to set in, but it never did. Maybe it was because he could just tell Sol was teasing him, he didn't actually mean it. It was actually kind of nice, and laying there in front of Sol with the taller boy running his fingers through his now-dry hair was impossibly relaxing.

He felt his eyes drifting closed, and this time, he didn't fight it.


– –twinArmageddons began pestering apocalypseArisen– –

TA: hey you bu2y

AA: n0t at the m0ment, n0. why?

TA: why do you thiink iim at eds place and iit2 tiime for a 2tatu2 update

AA: 000h exciting. s0 whats g0ing 0n?

TA: iit appear2 ii wiill be 2tayiing here for the niight 2iince iim weariing hii2 clothe2

AA: HA CALLED IT

AA: what else have y0u tw0 been d0ing

TA: watchiing harry potter and eatiing piizza what do you thiink

AA: w0w 0kay y0u d0nt have t0 tell me but theres n0 need t0 be rude

TA: huh no that wa2 pretty much a legiit descriiptiion of event2 here

AA: 0h

TA: and then ii put toothpa2te iin hii2 2hampoo and condiitiioner a2 a prank

AA: 0H SHIT S0N what happened?

TA: he wa2 kiind of pii22ed off at fiir2t but then he 2tarted laughiing 2o he2 not really mad at me ii gue22

AA: wait s0 he sh0wered while y0u were there

TA: yeah but 2o diid ii ii2 that a biig deal or 2omethiing

AA: t0gether

TA: what

AA: DID Y0U SH0WER T0GETHER

TA: no we diidnt need two

AA: !

TA: ii mean

TA: um

AA: THERE IS S0METHING Y0URE N0T TELLING ME

AA: WHAT DID Y0U D0 WITH HIM

AA: DID Y0U SLEEP WITH HIM

AA: TELL ME N0W AND TELL IT TRUE 0R I WILL CASTRATE Y0U

TA: no oh my god ii diidnt 2leep wiith hiim

TA: neiither of u2 had any lube

AA: jfc

TA: um

TA: iit came pretty clo2e though

AA: h0w cl0se is cl0se

TA: liike

TA: actually no iim not haviing thii2 conver2atiion riight now iill probably tell you twomorrow

AA: GAHHHHH fine

AA: y0u better tell me when y0u actually d0 sleep with him th0ugh

AA: im assuming y0u b0th enj0yed whatever happened and will c0ntinue dating 0r whatever the fuck eridan calls it

TA: yeah actually ii thiink everythiing went well and ii wiill 2ee you twomorrow

AA: g00d cause if y0u just stay there and fuck all day i will be very disapp0inted in y0u

TA: agaiin, no lube

AA: Y0U KN0W WHAT I MEAN

TA: hey youre gettiing pretty 2houty your2elf ii2 everythiing okay

AA: everything is fine cant i just be happy f0r y0u g0d

TA: haha okay 2ee you twomorrow

AA: d0nt have t00 much fun n0w

– –twinArmageddons ceased pestering apocalypseArisen – –


They crawled under the covers before the movie finished and almost immediately, Eridan burrowed into Sollux's side, throwing an arm across him. Sollux smiled sleepily to himself and kissed the side of his neck.

As he drifted off, he realized it had been five days since he'd fallen asleep with the aid of sleeping pills.


Ah, yes, what a fun act.

One of them really needs to buy some lube, quick.