Fuck literally everything. I planned on having this up days ago but a lot of shit happened and I also had this screaming SPN fic I needed to get down, so there. Limited spoilers for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 contained herein (I finally watched it this morning, which was part of the reason this took so long).
Many thanks to iDreamBig, Solluxander, Insert name here, region-discontinued, crimsonkoteto, Wolfen Artist of Hetalia, Bitblondetoday, can we not, SilverEnderwolf, Rand0mAn0nym0u2, CatastrophicAquarius, and one guest for your reviews to the last act! (BTW, this hasn't come up yet and is related to no one in particular, but if you ask me something and the answer is found either in canon or in my author's notes, I reserve the right to be a snarky cunt because it just proves you aren't reading.)
INTERMISSION VII
This was stupid. He was Dave motherfucking Strider, wasn't he? So why was he so freaked out by the mere idea of asking out a girl? She wasn't just any girl, true enough, but he still couldn't believe the level of his own nerves. After all, he was pretty sure she liked him. She'd certainly laughed at all of his jokes and witty, sarcastic lines. He was the coolest of the cool, the smoothest of the smooth. The only way he could get any more cool and smooth was if he somehow magically transformed into Reese's Cup-flavored frozen custard—and even then, the other frozen custard flavors would be like, "Damn, Strider, you're too cool and smooth for us!"
And yet, for all his coolness and smoothness, even thinking about asking out Feferi Peixes gave him palpitations. It was a decidedly un-coolkid reaction, but he couldn't help it. He liked her a lot. She was sweet and funny and didn't take anyone's shit—not even her best friend Eridan's. Part of him harbored an impressive amount of disbelief that Eridan was her best friend anyway—he was a bit of a tool—but no one was perfect. At first, he'd thought there was something going on with them, like maybe they weren't just friends, but last weekend had proven him wrong. Eridan started to get way hung up on Sollux, and now Dave was pretty sure the two of them had a thing. This assumption, at least, had more basis—he'd seen them making out last weekend and then they showed up together for the Halloween festivities.
He was grateful that she still seemed to be single. He wouldn't even be contemplating this if she wasn't single—that would be a dick move. Still, he was nervous. He'd been rejected before, and it stung. All he had to do was muster up his courage and say something like, "You wanna see a movie with me?" and, one way or another, it would be over. Better do it fast, he told himself.
And there was the other issue—actually running into her to ask her. He was worried that asking her out via text message would be seen as too aloof and that finding her in the cafeteria and leaving right after would be desperate. He thought about inventing some excuse to run into her, but nothing came to mind.
"Earth to Strider," John sing-songed from next to him, elbowing his arm.
It jolted Dave, but he didn't let it show. "What?" he asked calmly, turning his head to stare right at him through his sunglasses.
"You seem distracted. Something wrong?"
"Nope."
"You sure? You're not really paying attention and you seem kind of—"
"I'm fine," Dave said, a bit more sharply than he intended, but John left him alone.
He felt like an asshole, though. It wasn't John's fault he was stressed out, and it was in John's nature to be curious and want to help him out. Sure, he could be irritating sometimes with his nearly-undaunted cheeriness, but that was another reason the little weirdo was his friend.
Still, this wasn't something that he could just help with.
He found his way to the cafeteria after class, and there was Feferi sitting at a table with a textbook open in front of her. This is a bad idea, he told himself, but he turned to John anyway and said, "I'll be right back."
"Ooh, where are you going?" John asked excitedly, starting to follow him.
Dave put his hand against John's chest to keep him in place. "If you follow me, I will garrotte your head off and play football with it. I just need to do something, okay?"
John furrowed his brows. "Okay. I'll be over with Nepeta then." He headed off to Dave's left, toward a table where Nepeta and Aradia were sitting. Apparently John's crush on Nepeta hadn't quite dissipated yet. They deserve each other. Then again, they were both so obnoxiously cheerful, they might end up annoying each other.
Dave turned back around to look at Feferi again. She hadn't moved (unsurprisingly), so he took a deep breath and headed over to her. She didn't look up at his approach which unnerved him slightly, but maybe she was just really absorbed in her studying. Once he drew up to her, he said, "Hey," hoping he sounded casual.
Feferi finally looked up with a harsh look on her face. "What?" she snapped.
He froze. What's wrong with her? he wondered. "Um... never mind." He turned right back around and headed out the door. I guess she really doesn't like me all that much. He tried to tell himself that it was okay, that maybe she was just having a rough day or something, but he still couldn't help feeling like maybe he'd completely misinterpreted the situation. That was not how that was supposed to go at all.
As soon as that angry "What?" had flown out of her mouth, she regretted it. She saw his eyebrows shoot up and even though she couldn't see his eyes behind his sunglasses, she got the impression she'd hurt his feelings a bit. Before she could apologize, he'd mumbled a hasty, "Um... never mind," and hurried away, out of the building, leaving Feferi to drop her forehead to her book.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid," she muttered. If that wasn't a sure way to get the guy she liked to hate her, nothing was. It hadn't even been Dave's fault she was so upset—even though she'd calmed down from the Vriska thing somewhat at Eridan's somehow relaxed demeanor, she'd gotten angry again after he left, and then she'd gone and lashed out at Dave. That had been a huge mistake, but now there was nothing she could do. Fuck!
Plus, she'd wanted to ask him out, but obviously, that wasn't about to happen anymore. Come on, Fef, think of something. An apology wouldn't be a bad place to start, but she couldn't exactly go tearing out of the cafeteria trying to find him. Text message it was, then.
)(ey, Dave, I'm reelly sorry aboat t)(at! I didn't mean to be rude! 38C
Maybe should could have done without the fish puns, but she was too used to them not to. Anyway, he answered a few moments later.
it's okay. i figured you were having a bad day or something.
Kind of. I don't reelly want to get into it, t)(oug)(. So w)(at did you want to glub aboat?
oh nothing in particular. just wanted to chew the fat. like the mad nasty fat fresh off the cow was practically begging to be chewed, just eyeing my teeth like damn son i want to get in that and my mouth was like well okay if you insist.
Feferi let out a snort of laughter. W)(ale, t)(en I guess you're not mad at me anemonemore?
i wasn't mad at you at all.
Good. W)(ale, I actually )(ad somefin I wanted to ask you.
i'm all ears. there are ears literally everywhere on my body just waiting to hear this.
Oh, God, that made her nervous. She was even more nervous now than when she'd sent the apology to him initially. W)(ale, okay, feel free to say no to t)(is but I was wondering if maybe you wanted to go out wit)( me sometime.
wait like on a date?
She cringed and fisted her hair. That didn't sound promising. O)(, cod, I'm sorry, just forget I said anyfin! 38C
well i just wanted to know since i was actually planning on asking you the same thing.
Wait, reelly?
yeah i was about to ask you a few minutes ago but you were upset so i figured it wasn't a good time.
She blushed but felt like an even bigger idiot than before. O)(, my cod, I can't believe it. I am a )(uge doofis)( 38C
hey it's okay really. so i guess that's a yes to both our questions, huh?
Feferi grinned and bit her lip. Yea)(, I guess so! So w)(at did you want to do?
i was thinking something incredibly lame and clichéd like a movie.
T)(at sounds suitably overdone. I'm all for it! Trying not to giggle hysterically to herself, she hid her face and grinned. The bullshit with Vriska aside, today wasn't turning out so badly at all.
END INTERMISSION VII.
ACT 71
Eridan hadn't been in Sol's bedroom before. He bounced a few times on the bed before Sol, who was rummaging through his DVD collection on the floor, shot him a dirty look.
"What? Just queue it up on Netflix or whatever," he said.
"I would if I could, but Netflix is a supreme asshole and only has the TCM movies available through the mail."
"Fuckin' twats."
"Exactly." Sol located the DVD and popped it into his PS3. "It's really not that bad," he added, climbing up to join Eridan on the bed. "You don't actually see anyone getting killed except—wait, no, spoilers. Anyway, all the gory parts are like after the actual sawing, not during. Plus, it's a lot of really shitty 80s special effects. You can tell how fake it all is."
"Well, okay," Eridan said, bouncing again to mask his uneasiness.
"And if you really don't like it, we'll put on My Little Pony," Sol added with a teasing grin.
"Shut up an' play the damn movie, Captor."
Sol continued smirking and hit the A button on his PS3 controller. A few moments later, an ominous-sounding narrator started reading off the text on the screen. "On the afternoon of August 18, 1973, five young people in a Volkswagen van ran out of gas on a farm road in South Texas..."
"That's always like the stupidest thing ever," Eridan murmured. "Like how can you not realize you're runnin' low on gas? It's not that hard to fill up the damn tank or somethin'."
"Shh!" Sol hissed.
"Four of them were never seen again. The next morning, the one survivor, Sally Hardesty-Enright, was picked up on a roadside, blood-caked and screaming murder."
"If I saw some blood-soaked broad, I wouldn't pick her up," Eridan commented. "Sure way to get killed yourself." Sol put his hand over Eridan's mouth.
"Sally said she had broken out of a window in Hell."
Eridan tried to mumble around Sol's hand, "That explains the blood," but he failed. Sol shot him another dirty look.
"The girl babbled a mad tale: a cannibal family in an isolated farmhouse, chainsawed fingers and bones, her brother, her friends hacked up for barbeque, chairs made of human skeletons... Then she sank into catatonia."
Eridan licked Sol's palm and the taller boy pulled away his hand. "Ew."
"Chairs made a' skeletons don't sound very sturdy."
"Preferable to being made to sit in your paraplegic brother's wheelchair while his corpse is still in it," Sol shot back.
"Ew, really?"
"Yeah, really."
"Texas lawmen mounted a month-long manhunt, but they could not locate the macabre farmhouse. They could find no killers and no victims, no facts, no crime. Officially, on the record, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre never happened. But during the last thirteen years, over and over again, reports of bizarre, grisly chainsaw mass-murders have persisted all across the state of Texas. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has not stopped. It haunts Texas. It seems to have no end."
"Just like this ramblin'," Eridan said.
"It's over now," Sol said. As he said it, an eerie music started playing and the opening credits rolls.
Eridan talked a lot of shit during the opening sequence, but it was to hide the fact that his heart was already racing from the sheer prospect of getting scared out of his mind. He didn't understand how anyone could watch something like this—who really wanted to get terrified? He grabbed onto Sol's hand—fortunately, the one he hadn't licked—and clung to it for the first ten minutes or so until half of Buzz's head fell off. Sol was right—the special effects were so cheap, he could tell it was fake, and he actually found himself laughing at the fake blood spurting out of his head.
"See?" Sol said. "Not so bad."
"Not really." He relaxed his grip on Sol's hand, holding onto it loosely, but just tight enough so he could run his thumb over the back of his hand. He didn't mind this all that much, actually—he felt like he was watching a trope of every bad horror film ever made, plus the two characters to get killed at the beginning had been assholes. He didn't feel bad for them, causing him to silently revel in their deaths. It was always satisfying when jackass characters got killed.
Throughout the movie, he flinched and closed his eyes for a moment once or twice, but once he got used to the sound of the chainsaws running almost constantly, it was strangely enjoyable. Sol had also been right about there being only one actual depiction of someone being killed with a chainsaw, and since there wasn't much blood, it didn't bother Eridan as much as he thought it would. He laughed at Chop Top's stupid jokes and was suitably grossed-out at the fingernail in the chili, but at the end of it, he was surprised that he actually kind of liked it.
"So I don't get it. How was there a sequel after this? It looked like every one a' the Sawyers died."
"They did," Sol said with a sigh.
"An' Leatherface died, right?"
"Well, I find it hard to come up with a way to survive with a chainsaw going right through your stomach and out the other side."
"So how—"
"I got no fucking idea. I could understand like Freddy from Nightmare on Elm Street and Jason from Friday the 13th since they have like Hellish influences. Freddy haunts your dreams so he's clearly supernatural and Jason drowned when he was a kid but was resurrected to kill campers so there's something demonic or whatever about him but the Sawyers are just a family of sick, cannibalistic psychopaths, so how they came back to life is beyond me. My theory is that the third one is an alternate version of what might have happened after the first one since Drayton was gunned down in the opening part, so he obviously couldn't be alive for this one."
Eridan flopped back onto the bed and ran his fingers over his hair. "Weird."
"Yeah. So you want to watch something else? It's only four-thirty."
"What else you got? Something less scary. Not that this was too bad, but..."
Sol let out a snort of laughter. "Have you seen John Dies at the End?"
"No, but now I'm curious. Why would they give away the ending?"
"Let's watch and find out."
So Eridan ended up wrapped around Sol for another movie, laughing a lot more at this one than he did at The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. It was ridiculously funny, and it had a lot of really weird twists and turns that kept Eridan thinking and guessing right up to the end. It was the kind of bizarre indie film that he found entertaining, and he was starting to think that his boyfriend's taste in movies wasn't so bad.
He probably enjoyed it more than he would have if he'd watched it alone because now he had his head against Sol's chest and Sol's arm over his shoulders and he had his arms around Sol's middle and when he could spare brain cells away from the movie, he kept thinking about how Sol was right there next to him and they were all snuggled up. He trailed his fingers up Sol's side and though Sol didn't say anything or even look at him, Eridan could hear his heart rate tick up for a few moments and feel him take a deeper breath than normal.
Eridan grinned. He liked that reaction. Sol was paying attention to him.
Sollux couldn't focus on the movie. He knew he was screwed when, the moment the DVD was in the slot, Eridan curled right up to him and held onto him. Sollux put his arm around Eridan, half through necessity and half because he really liked having Eridan close to him, but he knew any hope of actually being able to watch the movie was lost. Eridan had put his head right on his chest and Sollux stared determinedly at the screen but was internally focused right on Eridan and the warmth radiating off his body and the clean, intoxicating smell of his hair and the general soothingness of their proximity. It was really nice to just have him there.
And then, when Eridan lazily rubbed his side, Sollux had to struggle not to twitch. It tickled, but more than that, being touched by Eridan like that sent an irrational surge of hormones through him that made him want to pin Eridan to the bed and make out with him.
Maybe he'd fucked-up by having this movie marathon in his actual room, on his actual bed, where he actually slept. Back at Eridan's apartment, it made sense because Cronus hung around and there was no way to get privacy, but here, they could have just as easily moved the TV back into the living room (he moved it back and forth from time to time but its home was the living room) and they could have watched movies out there, and at least he wouldn't be this tempted to sleep with Eridan. He'd be a little tempted, but it would be a lot more difficult to pull off—plus, he had this idea that, at least the first time they had sex (if they had sex, Sollux reminded himself), he wanted it to be on a bed, so now he was really trying not to think about that.
But the temptation to make out with him was still there, even after he became dimly aware of the hunger gnawing in his stomach. It would make for a really good way to divert attention from the sexual tension later—suggesting they eat something, although all he had in the apartment was Ramen noodles and he didn't want to make Eridan feel like he had to pay for everything, because that was fucked-up. Noodles it was. Noodles were delicious, although it usually took him four or five cups to feel full. Jesus, he felt like a loser.
If Eridan was aware of his internal struggle, he didn't say anything. He simply stayed cuddled up to Sollux and occasionally ran his fingers over Sollux's side again, which really only exacerbated things. Toward the end of John Dies at the End, his stomach gave a loud growl and Eridan chuckled, glancing up at him. "Hungry?"
"I could eat." Sollux cleared his throat. "I have noodles if you're hungry."
Eridan snorted. "Fuck that. Let's go out."
"I don't have—"
"Calm down, Captor, I'll pay. It doesn't bug me."
"Are you sure?"
"I wouldn't say it if I wasn't sure." Eridan yawned and stretched for a few moments, finally letting go of Sollux and sitting up. "Besides, I'm hungry myself." He bounced off the bed, and despite his nerves, Sollux rolled his eyes at that.
"Alright." He slid off the bed and put his shoes back on.
"Where did you wanna go?"
"You're the one with the restrictive diet. You pick."
"Surprise, then. Come on, let's go." Eridan shrugged into his pea coat and threw his scarf dramatically over one shoulder as he led the way out of Sollux's apartment.
END ACT 71.
So, just an heads-up that regular fic updates for ALL my stories will suspend as of November 1 and will resume on December 1 for my participation in NaNoWriMo. I'll be working on an original novel this time, so I'm extremely nervous!
