Chapter Text
Your gaze falls on the empty chair across the table, a piece of burgundy cloth draped over it. Vriska catches your eye, and you briefly stare at each other. She looks away first, a flicker of pain on her face before she can compose herself. You hate that you can’t even hate her anymore, not with all that weird doomed timeline memories shit that happened. You glance at Tavros, who is next to the vacant seat, happily conversing with Nepeta, and you can’t help but think that his space at the table is next to be empty.
And then, it’ll be your turn.
How typical of you and your fucked up mind. Being at a ‘party’ (at least that’s what you think this is supposed to be) and all you can think about is death. But then it’s not your fucking fault they had to put up a seat for Aradia and remind you. You suppose it’s a lovely gesture, remembering the friend that was lost, the one who didn’t make it into this melded universe because she was dead before you even started the game. But it doesn’t make you feel any better, or less guilty.
Because you killed her.
No you know, it wasn’t your fault. You were mind controlled and all the blame lies squarely with Vriska. You’ve told yourself this ever since the night it happened, but it also doesn’t make you feel any less guilty. You are reminded of every shitty movie where some person beats themselves up for having indirectly caused someone’s death, and how someone else tells them that they ‘didn’t pull the trigger.’ Well, you did. It was you.
Yet like Vriska, you get to be here and Aradia doesn’t. It isn’t fair.
She wouldn’t want you to dwell.
And you’d love not to, but it’s hard to move on when all you’ve got to look forward to in life is suffering, one way or another. Even without the prospect of being used as a living battery.
You’d also love to get piss ass drunk, like you’re sure at least half of these nooksniffers will be by the end of the night. That would probably help with the not dwelling, but as with so many things in your life, you shouldn’t be doing that. Not that you’ve ever tried – ingest anything mind-altering and you risk losing control, becoming a loaded gun with a broken safety. You think that analogy is actually way more apt: You didn’t pull the trigger. You were the gun.
You miss her so much that momentarily, your stomach aches.
She was the only one who knew what it’s like. Now she’s gone and you’re alone. Well no, that’s not entirely true, of course there’s other people with psychic powers. Karkat has tried more than once to get you to join a support group, but you have no desire whatsoever to attend that kind of circlewank misery party. You’re depressed enough as is, you don’t need random other shitty people with their shitty problems to add to your shitty pile.
It’s not like they would understand your special kind of fucked up anyway, you think. They haven’t been through the shit that you have. No one has but the eighteen other people in the room with you right now. You guess that’s why everyone is actually here tonight.
You are the only ones who understand.
The self-pity party in your head is rudely interrupted when you hear Eridan say something inane to Feferi, and immediately your dejection is overshadowed by anger.
You want to grab him by the collar of his stupid purple hipster shirt and punch him in his stupid pretty face just for... having one, you guess. Entirely platonically.
Who in the love of fuck thought it was a great idea to seat you so close to that fishfucker? They must have been out of their mind. You suppose it was well-meaning that they put you next to Feferi, probably in a vain attempt to cheer you up, but you don’t really know what to talk about with her – her bubbly nature is a bit grating to you in your current mood. And then maybe if they’d wanted to cheer you up, they shouldn’t have made you have to stare at that empty seat all night. As you try to avoid it, you find yourself staring at Equius instead, who you’d also have good reason to punch in the face, but you kind of get the impression he’s about as depressed as you are. He’s done nothing all evening but sit there having exactly one (1) facial expression and occasionally talking in hushed tones to Nepeta.
It’s all utterly depressing and infuriating.
You’re all at Rose’s house – the only place spacious enough to accommodate all of you – to celebrate 12th Perigee’s Eve, or Christmas Eve, as the humans call it. It is basically the same thing. Turns out your cultures don’t differ very much in their way of celebrating the occasion, and you find that you actually prefer the idea of decorating a conifer instead of a giant piece of shit.
Not like you ever had one, anyway. Even if your lusus could have gotten one, it wouldn’t have fit inside your hive.
You don’t recall whose initial idea it had been to celebrate together, but you can guess that two certain bucktoothed humans and/or a crab were behind it, even though he’d likely only admit it under torture. As you glance at her beaming face next to you, you think that Feferi might have been involved, too.
And this whole deal would be nice and all, you guess, if it weren’t for...
If only she could be here with you.
Fuck it, you decide and get up to get yourself a drink. You’re angry and you’re hurting and you want it to stop. It’s not like it’s mind honey or anything. It can’t be that dangerous. You put your faith in Vriska to mind control you into submission if you exhibit any signs of being about to seriously wreck shit.
Yeah, go ahead and rationalize your bad life choices. Good job. E+ for effort.
As casually as possible, you walk to the open meal block where someone has set up ‘a bar.’ It’s really just a bunch of bottles and drinking glasses on a counter. John and Jake are standing a little off to the side of it, drinks in hand, chatting. You ignore them as you go through the assortment of human soporifics, unsure of what to pick because you’ve never had any.
“Try the vodka lemon,” you hear Terezi’s voice practically right behind your neck and you jump. “It fits your sour mood.”
“Don’t sneak up on people like that, TZ,” you growl and turn to look at her.
She cackles in reply, then tilts her head as she stares at you, unseeing. Or maybe in her own way she does see you, what the hell do you know. “I can smell your sadness, you know. It’s because of Ar–”
“Remind me again why I’d wanna discuss that with you? Or anyone else for that matter,” you interject before she can finish saying the name.
She frowns at you. “Fine, Appleberry, be that way.” Leaning in close, she adds in a low voice, “I can’t tell you what to do, but I can tell you that keeping it all inside won’t help your mind.”
She gives you an enigmatic stare through her red lenses for another moment, then saunters over to Vriska’s seat, putting her arms around the other troll from behind and burying her nose in Vriska’s hair.
“Don’t you dare lick it,” Vriska says, and you have to turn away. “Oh my god Terezi, not in public!” you can hear Vriska shout, and Roxy and Jane laughing.
Barf. Moirails 4 Lyfe. They should get matching tattoos or something. Maybe they already have. You shudder, but really, you’re just jealous and you know it.
It’s not their fault that you’re unable to maintain a functioning relationship inside or outside of any quadrant with anyone.
You rummage through the bottles and a small thermal hull full of more bottles until you find the– what Terezi said, and pour yourself some. Hey it’s even kind of yellow. But then you cluckbeast out and just stand there with the glass in your hand. Again you try your best to look casual, so you lean against the counter and put your other hand in your pocket, looking around the room.
Jane baked like five cakes or something and a ton of cookies for the occasion, and you wonder how she even found the time as you absent-mindedly stare at her. She’s talking to Kanaya, and you notice Jane’s hand brushing Gamzee’s, as if by accident. She squeezes it lightly before withdrawing. Gamzee is smiling like a lovestruck idiot, but then that’s not very far off from his default expression. And he seems to be... blushing?
What the fuck is going on? No way that just happened. Did you really just see that? It can’t be real. Is this what you think it is? Fucking... Jane and Gamzee?!
On second thought, they do seem to have a love of baking in common, and clowning around, you guess. Also from what you’ve been told, Jane kind of went murderclown herself that one time the Condesce was controlling her. So it’s a match made in heaven, you... guess?
Oh fuck no. You suddenly become aware that you are surrounded by happy couples. Of course, it’s so obvious. With the seating order and all, how did you not see it before? Karkat and Dave, Rose and Kanaya, Vriska and Terezi, Jade and John, you guess? Dirk and the dumber John, Nepeta and Equius, Eridan and Feferi, and now Jane and... fucking Gamzee. Well okay, that still leaves two people besides you. But you swear to god, if you see Roxy making out with Tavros next, you are going to flip your shit and off yourself.
Or maybe not, because really, that is the least of all the things that would warrant offing yourself. But you will flip your shit. Quietly by yourself on Rose’s patio.
Actually, that’s an idea.
You make sure that no one notices you slip out of the room and onto the patio, then sit on the stone steps that lead down to the yard. The cold air actually calms you down, for now. You eye your glass of... whatever the fuck and decide to chug it.
BLUH
You sputter and cough. It’s fucking vile. How the fuck can anyone enjoy drinking this? On top of tasting like sanitizing fluid with a little artificial lemon flavouring, it burns in your throat and makes your tongue feel slightly numb.
But let it not be said that you aren’t a masochist, so you try it again, this time taking only a small sip. Yeah, still tastes like sanitizing fluid. But you guess it’s not as bad this way.
You rest your head on your hand and stare out into the dark.
You could leave, now, if you wanted. Just fly off and... well except you wouldn’t know where to go, other than home, and you realize that you don’t actually want to be alone there right now. And not just because unfortunately, the voices always seem to be louder then.
Sure as fuck no one would miss you, though, you think as you hear the patio door slide open.
“Get your ass back inside here, you miserable bulgerat,” Karkat calls out from behind you. “I mean. Are you okay?”
You sigh. Fuck that meddling fucker for ruining your fantasy about how nobody cares. “Yeah, just need to be alone for a bit,” you reply without turning around. A moment passes, then you hear the door slide shut again. Seems like that was good enough to satisfy his aggravating need to look after people, lately especially you for some reason.
Then again, he is your best friend.
Sipping some more of your ghastly lemon sanitizing fluid, you ponder that you’ve been kind of neglecting him. He’s not the only one, truth be told.
Meanwhile, the human soporific seems to have reached its onset of action. Your extremities are starting to feel warm and slightly heavier, not unlike they do in sopor slime, but there’s a difference to it that you can’t quite describe. It’s... not unpleasant.
The patio door slides open and shut again, and you sigh once more. “I’m fine KK, there’s no need to–” you begin, but as you turn around, Eridan stares back at you with a puzzled expression. “Oh, it’s you,” you say scathingly and roll your eyes, turning back to the soothing darkness of Rose’s garden.
“Wow Sol, keep it in your pants.” He’s just as scathing, and you scoff.
“Don’t worry, you’d need a crowbar to get anything out of my pants while you’re around.”
There’s a brief pause, then you hear him mutter to himself, “That’s the stupidest fuckin thing I ever heard.”
You say nothing, just grin to yourself, because you know it’s not and the score is Captor 1, Ampora 0. But it occurs to you that he must have had a reason to come out here other than just standing around trading lame insults with you, and you decide to humour him. “What do you want, Eridork.”
“There’s something we should still kinda talk about, don’t you think.”
“Unless you mean talking about how you can best introduce your face into a whirling blade pitcher, no.”
You can hear him heave a sigh. “I’m bein serious here, Sol, an I’m fuckin sick a you avoidin this matter.”
You don’t react, sipping your drink. If you don’t dignify that with a response, he might just go away, you hope. Because you know exactly what matter, and you don’t want to hear anything about it.
“Like you’re doin right now,” he says pointedly. It could pop a balloon.
“What fucking matter anyway,” you snap despite yourself.
“Erisolsprite.”
You wish that he hadn’t said it, but you brought that on yourself. You feel the urge to put your hands over your ears and go LALALALALA. You don’t want to hear it, you don’t want to think about it, you don’t want to remember what it was like to think his thoughts and feel his feelings and know that he thought and felt yours. Even less that after a while, you were actually okay with it.
“There’s nothing to talk about.” The words come out a lot more hoarse than you expected.
“Well I disagree.”
You get up and shove your half empty glass at him as you walk past. He’s so surprised that he accepts it. “And I disagree with your existence, but nobody is asking my fucking opinion either,” you say before heading back inside.
Or at least you try to, because he grabs your wrist to stop you.
You yank it free. “Don’t fucking touch me,” you hiss.
“What is your fuckin problem?”
“My fucking problem ith that I wish I could forget that Erithol-fucking-thprite wath ever a fucking thing that happened and I can’t underthtand why you don’t. Why can’t you give it a retht?”
You are now so angry that you’re lisping again. You can feel the embarrassment color your cheeks, and that makes you even more angry.
Eridan either doesn’t notice or ignores it. He looks... hurt, you think, but then his expression hardens. He downs the rest of your drink in one swig, as if to underline just how okay he is with having been part of the freakish nightmare abomination that the floaty phantasmal bullshit entity consisting of the two of you was.
There’s a crackle of red and blue energy and the glass shatters in his hand.
Startled, he lets it drop. Violet blood runs down his palm, dripping down to join the broken shards of glass on the ground. He stares at his bleeding hand for a moment, incredulous, then back at you.
“What the fuck was that for, you stupid fuck?”
You make sure to enunciate very clearly. “You’re fucking pissing me off with your antics, you disgraceful excuse for a fishlicking–”
He makes a start for you, but you stop him with your psionics. He fights against it, he’s fighting so hard, but it’s no use. How could he even begin to think he’ll ever be a match for you?
“You’re so pathetic,” you say derisively, and for the second time you turn to walk back inside. “You’ll always be a pathetic piece of shit, Eridan.”
But you’ve let your guard down too early, evidently, and the soporific must be slowing your reaction time, because he tackles you from behind and before it even registers with you what’s going on, you’re on the ground and he’s on top of you. You stop him just in time before he can punch you or choke you or whatever he was about to do, blue and red encircling his wrists. You roll the two of you over, straddling him instead.
By now he’s realized that he has made a big mistake, instinctively trying to raise his arms in front of his face, but you’re holding them down.
He’s staring up at you, fear in his eyes, and you try to resist the sudden twisted urge to– But you can’t help it, you–
Oh god, what are you doing.
You lean down and kiss him on the lips.
To absolutely nobody’s surprise, he kisses you back after the first moment of wide-eyed shock.
His eyes flutter shut, and yours are about to do the same as your tongue seeks to gain entry to his mouth like it just discovered that it has a will of its own. But then you catch a glimpse of the lights turning on inside the entertainment block and you absolutely need to stop this before anybody can see what’s going on here, so in a fit of utter panic you grab Eridan and flee the scene.