In which lots and lots of Amporas. I cranked this out in about two and a half hours so sorry about the suck.

Many thanks to iDreamBig, LinkinPark X, Soapdino, Bitblondetoday, SlytherinUnicorns, CatastrophicAquarius, region-discontinued, Haruko-Odagari, Leok, DJMeow, FanficFinatic2, and cro for your reviews to the last act!


"Can you help me out with him?" Eridan asked, pulling open the back door of his car.

"Uh, yeah, sure." Sollux had long since taken off his antennae, so maneuvering Cronus so his arm was around his neck was a fairly straightforward process. Eridan sighed and flung his hat into the back seat as soon as Cronus was out of the car.

The elder Ampora was still out cold, but he was on pretty heavy-dose painkillers. It didn't surprise Sollux all that much, although he seemed to come around for a few moments at a time as the three of them, Cronus in the middle propped up by him and Eridan on either side, made their way up to the apartment.

They drew a few stares in the lobby, and someone asked obnoxiously, "Too much to drink?" but Eridan was not having any of his shit because he snapped, "He got shot, asshole!" and slammed his palm against the button for the elevator. Sollux slid his arm from the middle of Cronus's back to Eridan's shoulder and gave it a light squeeze.

"It's okay," he murmured.

"Fuckin' jackass," Eridan spat, jaw clenched.

Sollux didn't know what else to do—he didn't know if there was even anything he could do. He couldn't imagine what kind of emotional roller coaster Eridan was on right now. After all, finding out your brother had gotten shot and then finding out he was actually alive and relatively unharmed considering how bad it could have been and then snarky comments from idiots who didn't know any better all in one night was more than enough to set someone on-edge. He had to believe that, as much as Mituna annoyed him, he would probably react similarly if he found out he'd gotten shot at while at work.

They finally got Cronus into his bed and threw a blanket over him, but he barely noticed it. He was dead to the world, which made sense, all things considered. Eridan pulled out the bottle of painkillers that Cronus had been prescribed and set them on his nightstand.

"Okay." He looked around for a moment or two as though he'd never seen the room before. "Well, he didn't call my parents, so I guess I gotta. Give me a few, okay?"

Sollux nodded. "Just let me know when you're ready," he said, and quickly ducked out.

As soon as the door closed, Eridan sighed and sat down on the edge of Cronus's bed. He really didn't want to make this call—it should have been Cronus—but their parents would worry if he didn't.

His dad answered on the second ring. "Eridan, what's going on? Is everything okay?"

"Not... not really. Have you seen the news, by any chance?"

"A few minutes ago, but there wasn't anything important, not really."

"Nothing about a shootin' at a Circle K?"

His father was silent for a few moments. "Now that you mention it, I do seem to remember something about that, but I didn't pay much attention. It was a robbery or something, I think." His voice sharpened. "You weren't involved with that, were you? Are you okay?"

"I—I'm fine, Dad. But... Cronus got shot."

There was a stunned silence on his father's end of the line before he heard him call over his shoulder, "Cronus got shot!" Following that was the faint sound of his mother's gasp of horror and then the ambiance changed. Eridan guessed they put him on speaker.

"What the Hell happened?" his mother demanded.

"He's fine," Eridan said, opting to answer the question neither of them asked. He knew it was serious when his mother actually swore. "Apparently the bullet like grazed the side of his head or somethin'. The way he tells it, a couple a' guys came in to rob the store an' he kept makin' smart-ass remarks an' he got pistol-whipped a couple a' times an' he managed to call the cops but then he had to get one last comment in as the two guys left so the one shot at him but didn't really hit him. Anyway, he's back home now an' sleepin' off the painkillers they gave him—hey, look, they gave him heavy-dose Vicodin—an' his noodle's all bandaged up but he'll be okay. I told him to call you but he fell asleep before he could so I'm gonna make sure he calls you guys tomorrow."

"What about the assholes who shot him?" she asked now, the worry in her voice now replaced by fury. Eridan would have smiled if the situation wasn't so grim—it wasn't often his mother showed her teeth.

"Cro said the cops already talked to him. I don't know if that means they took a statement or they just talked an' they're gonna take a statement later but I don't know what good it'll do. Apparently both these nutters were wearin' masks so unless they find the masks with the guys still in them, the cops won't be able to do much. It doesn't sound like the video footage has much, either, if they were in masks. Then again, they may have some police-force sorcery they could work."

"The important thing is that he's alive," his father said, sounding as though he was trying to reassure his wife more than himself. "And he's already out of the hospital, so they obviously don't think he's in any danger."

"Exactly." Eridan rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Anyway, um, I'm gonna call Meenah an' see if she'll stay with him tomorrow—"

"Who's Meenah again?"

"That's Feferi Peixes's sister, remember?" his mother reminded her husband.

"Yeah, an' apparently she's also Cro's girlfriend. I did not know about that the last time I saw you guys."

"Oh. Well, that's good for him, then."

"Yeah, anyway, I'll make sure he calls you tomorrow, okay?"

"Alright, kiddo. Stay safe."

"I will." He hesitated a beat. "I love you."

"We love you, too, Eridan."

"Yeah. Bye." He hung up feeling really awkward, but not as awkward as he thought he'd be under the circumstances. Now the question remained as to how he was supposed to get Meenah's number.

He had two options: he could try to dig out Cronus's phone from his pocket (sure to be odd if Cronus happened to wake up), or he could call Feferi to get it. He really wanted to go for the latter choice, but it was nearing midnight by now and he figured she'd probably be in a sugar-induced coma right about now, so he reluctantly went about patting down his brother's pockets.

Mercifully, he found his brother's phone fairly quickly and he'd seen Cronus put in the password pattern about a thousand times so he was able to pull up his contact list and scroll down to Meenah's name. He figured she'd be more likely to check out a text from Cronus as opposed to a random number, so he sent her a message right from his phone.

hey meenah its eridan. look cronus got shot at tonight at wwork an hes fine but do you think you could like come ovver an wwatch him tomorroww just in case

He set the phone aside, looked over his brother's snoring form one last time, and decided he couldn't do anything else tonight. He stood up as carefully as he could even though he didn't think a chainsaw could have woken him up at this point and finally left Cronus's room.

Sol wasn't in the living room when Eridan closed his brother's door behind him, but his own bedroom door was slightly ajar, so he went to investigate and found Sol sitting in front of his fish tank, watching the fish swim around.

Which reminded Eridan that they hadn't been fed since this morning. "Fuck," he muttered, hurrying to the desk and startling Sol in the process.

"I didn't—" Sol started, misinterpreting his expletive as one against him instead of one against himself.

"That's not it." He found the fish flakes, removed the cover, and sprinkled a solid tablespoon into the water. Almost immediately, Sunshine, Daisy, and Butter Mellow all bobbed up and began eating. "I just haven't fed them since before I left this mornin'," he explained quietly.

"Oh." Sol looked from Eridan to the fish and back. "So which one's which?"

He was grateful for any distraction. "That one right there, the big one, that's Sunshine. That one with the black spot on its back is Daisy. That small one is Butter Mellow."

Sol tilted his head to the side. "Oh, yeah. Now I can see it."

Eridan looked over his fish for a few moments. He felt something inside him melting, as though his internal springs weren't coiled as tightly anymore. Everything that happened today was finally falling, sinking in, and he suddenly realized he was crying.

Sol realized it at the same moment because right away he stood up and hugged him, and the next thing Eridan knew, he was clinging to Sol and sobbing into his shoulder and he didn't even know why. Cronus wasn't dead, his fish weren't dead, everything was going to be okay—but he was just so tired. It went beyond physical exhaustion, though, delving into a mental and emotional ache because he was so used to being the "little brother," so used to the idea that Cronus would always be there, that the moment he realized it might not always be the case, that suddenly Cronus was the one who needed to be taken care of, he accepted it without thinking. But now that he saw what could have been, he was shaking, crying, terrified of what it would mean when Cronus was gone for good. He knew deep down that he wouldn't rely on Cronus forever, but he'd taken his brother for granted and almost lost him.

Everything had changed, though, for the second time in as many weeks. He wasn't sure he'd ever go back to really feeling like the little brother again, not after he'd seen Cronus at what was possibly his worst. He'd go back to thinking about the first few seconds after he saw Cronus lying in that hospital bed and he didn't know what had happened or if he'd be alright, and he'd remember that his charmed childhood was over and he'd grown up more in the last few hours than he had since he turned eighteen.

But mostly, he felt relief. Cronus was still alive, he would be okay, and he had Sol here to hold him. It was soothing to have him here, to be able to cry into his neck and feel Sol's arms around him and one hand in his hair (and that felt really nice), but his tears finally subsided and he pulled back, wiping his nose. "So," he said, laughing, "you goin' home or stayin' here?"

Sol grinned. "I am not doing my Walk of Shame in a fucking bee costume. Take me home."

"Alright, suit yourself."

"Are... are you going to be okay here by yourself?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine. I just haven't decided if I'm comin' in to school tomorrow. After all this, I think I need a' early weekend, an' if Meenah can't watch him tomorrow, I'm gonna do it."

"He probably doesn't need you to watch him," Sol said gently.

"I know he doesn't, but it's for me, not him. I'm still a little... fuck, skittish I guess. I know he's gonna be okay but I just wanna be like triple sure."

"That makes sense."

"Thanks." Eridan rubbed his temples for a moment. "Let me just change my clothes—I've been in this fuckin' costume for like twelve hours now. I'm ready for somethin' comfortable for a change."

Sol nodded. "See if you can dig out a pair of sweatpants for me, too. I got a regular black shirt underneath this, but I really don't want to walk around in all black right now, especially black leggings—it's just asking for trouble."

"Yeah, I'll try to scare somethin' up for you."

"Thanks." Sol went into the living room, already starting to shrug out of the bee costume.


No matter what he'd said about not going to school the next day to watch over his brother, it was really tempting to sleep at Sol's place that night. He resisted the urge to ask if he could stay over, but just barely. Concern over his brother and the fact that he didn't have anything he needed for a sleepover finally won out, so he just dropped Sol off, gave him a quick kiss good night, and went back home.


I'm really really really trying to wind down the plot but I have about a million other loose ends to tie up and more endgames to accomplish (AND THEY STILL NEED TO HAVE SEX WHICH WILL HAPPEN BEFORE STORY'S END) so I really have no idea how many more acts there are to go but it's probably going to be more than eleven (it might be sixteen or twenty-one, I just want to end on a nice even number with a 5 or a 0).

Jesus fuck, I actually really want to finish this. I love this 'verse but I love my When Blood Sings 'verse just a teensy bit more and I don't get to update it nearly as often as I update this.