Honeymoon's Over

[amporaeridan]

Eridan clicked hard on the 'x' button, closing out of Sol's chat with a sneer. Just like that, Karkat and Sollux were friends again - as if his eye hadn't been blow off and the mustardblood didn't send his moirail into another crying fit. Furthermore, Sollux had the fucking gall to attempt to 'calm' Karkat down - whatever the fuck that meant - after being the one to send him into /another/ worried typing frenzy over some ridiculous Sopor Plant of all things.

And then, the dangling fruit on the fucking grubpaste layered stack, Sollux claimed to be "filtering the air" about his moirallegiance with Karkat after blatantly crossing pale boundaries.

Hastily responding back to Karkat's last message, Eridan slammed his husktop shut and brisked away from his makeshift desk, leaving his moirail in the red tinted respiteblock. Cape swaying behind as he made his way towards the central staircase, he willed away some of the painfully familiar screeching voices in his subconscious before finally reaching the roof.

There was no better place to put his favorite pile, and with wistful sigh, he dove head first into the mounting heap of wands and curled up in a grub position.

-

((TIME SKIP WHERE SEVERAL LOGS HAPPEN))

Closing the chat window with Terezi, Karkat sighed at the one behind it, standing up and cracking his shoulders before starting up the stairs. Emerging up into the hazy brown night, he paused before spotting a corner of violet peeking out from the wand pile.  He walked over, sneakers padding against the roof of his hive, before coming to a stop next to the pile and reaching to lift up what part of the cape he could see.  "Hey, shitstain, you know you have to be all covered up if you're going to hide in the pile."

-

 

Snapping out of his daze, Eridan took one final glance at the last trollian message Sollux had sent and powered off his Monicle with a fleeting smile. “I kneww I should a ditched the cape wwhen I had the chance.”

A shallow brown light could be seen somewhere to his left, so with a hasty wave of his arm, Eridan shoved some of the wands away and shifted his head so that only his horns emerged. “Come on in. Today’s been a fuckin trip, hasn’t it?” 

-

Karkat snorted, dropping the cape edge and climbing on top of the pile, trying to avoid squishing Eridan while only really big able to guess at where he was under the wands.  Finding a decent enough seat, he pulled his knees up and reached over to give one of the other troll's horns a gentle flick.  "Are you going to keep pouting in there or come up?"

-

 

“I aint poutin. I’m just conflicted.” Eridan snapped, finally squirming his way to the lump of pressure where he assumed Kar was sitting. With his head emerging, he slid out of the pile and curled around him like a cuddle snake to rest his head on his comfy looking lap. “Wwe’vve got to go to Eqs soon, I need my eye.” 

"You're right, those are totally different things that have no reasonable relationship to each other and can't exist in a single troll at the same time without them blowing up like some poor fucker walking into the path of a plasma laser. My mistake, how could I ever mistake you skulking off to lay around pining in a pile without telling me as pouting." Shifting his knees a bit to give Eridan a little room, Karkat buried one hand in his hair, scratching softly behind his fins. "About what."

-

Eridan’s earfins drooped, brushing against Kar’s soothing fingers as they raked through his hair. The thought of broaching the initial subject of his concern was too daunting to think about, so he pulled up a minor one to see where that would lead. “Did sol really try calmin you dowwn today? He and I talked about it and he says he isn’t interested in gettin in your quadrants, but do you actually /like/ this hoofbeast shit he pulls on you?” He paused, running his nails down Kar’s shin, absent-mindedly. “You seemed quick to put this all behind you – which I get, he’s your best friend. But I figured I’d throww in my two caesers and see wwhere you stand on the wway he yanks your horn.” 

 

 

-

Snorting in dismissal, Karkat rolled his eyes dramatically.

 

"If by calm you mean acted like a dumbfuck until it wasn't worth getting worked up about, then yeah.  Like anyone would actually calm their shit after a soothing round of virtual 'ttthhhhhhhhhh'," he added, tongue between his teeth, half-mocking.  Hand drifting up towards hornbed, he shifted just slightly in the wands.  "And yeah of course I like it when he acts like a demented piece of shit and flips between being an asshole and a whiny loser faster than I flip my shit off the handle when faced with the logistical nightmare of 12 trolls and not a single competent asshole in the bunch who isn't crazy to boot. That's literally my favorite goddamn thing about Sollux Captor, forget being funny and loyal and smart, nope, I signed up for shithive accusations and arguing about literally nothing for hours on end. Just like my favorite thing about you is the histrionic narcissistic casteism and drama, wow."

-

Soft noises suddenly emerged from Eridan’s throat the moment he felt Kar’s touch near his horns, his neckgills fluttering from the slight vibration. “I’ll take your wword for it – and you know I’m getting better at the castecist thing. Not once did I call Sol a lowwblood in our conversation today.”

 

Just as soon as the memory of his chat with his newly confirmed kismesis had left him, it abruptly resurfaced again. Along with it, a pang of guilt and a nervous shiver that Karkat had to have felt. Eridan knew that he couldn’t prolong the inevitable, so he pulled himself up to his moirail’s level and gathered both of his hands in his own, staring ahead straight with a pleading eye.

 

“Kar, you knoww I wwouldn’t outright cull him, right?” He paused, shoulders sinking slightly as he forced himself to finish his thought. “If things were to suddenly go pitch, would you trust us not to /completely/ demolish the other?”

 

-

Pausing, free hand still hovering in the air where Eridan's head had been, Karkat looked back blankly for a second before groaning and slapping his hand across his eyes.

 

"Oh my god, you are the dumbest moron to have ever crawled out of the brooding cavern," he muttered, tugging his other hand free for a completely disgusted 2 x facepalm combo. "The whole fucking point of pitch is to hate the person, but not enough to cull them! Wow what a difficult concept, it's almost like that was covered in basic reproductive schoolfeeding!"

 

Running his hands up his face to tug as his own hair, Karkat scowled at his moirail. "The *entire fucking problem* is that you've both decided *not* to actually go black, you feculent ignoramus! So now there's nothing to fucking check the unrestrained idiocy masquerading as bloodlust and revenge! God, where's the code for that soporplant, I need to ingest a pile of the size of my skull so that finally I'll be capable of communicating with you rampant assholes on your own level!! What a relief it'll be, free from the constant burden of understanding the most basic concepts of biology and life in fucking general, free to wander around like a drooling fuckwit gone half feral in the woods like a reverse Trollzan of the Lusii."

-

Watching Karkat rage before him, Eridan had never felt so relieved after making a decision as quickly as the one he made when deciding to throw that spade at Sollux. This outburst was a clear indication as any of how conflicted his moirail had become when it came to the two of them, and Eridan knew that one more incident would have more than likely sent him into the other dreaded conciliatory quadrant.

 

Exhaling a heavy sigh of relief, he reached out cradle Kar’s head against his chest as he buried his face into his hair – half to hide the violet starting to creep across his cheeks and half to quell this sudden, but wholly expected, outburst.

 

“Wwell,” Eridan started, actually feeling the rush of blood from how flustered this topic was making him. “That wwon’t be a problem any longer.”

-

Pulled abruptly into a hug and interrupted mid-metaphor, Karkat sputtered for a second, half-flailing until Eridan's statement filtered through the cursing.  He froze, still smushed against the seadweller and off balance in the wands.  "Wait, what?"

-

Eridan clamped his eye shut, holding onto Karkat even more snugly as he soothed the side of his face. He had no idea how Kar was going to take this, so he thought he might as well get a head start on the paps.  “It all started wwith him imin me out a the blue and sayin he wwas calmin you down. So I wwent off into a fuckin frenzy and probably said some things about I regret noww, but then wwe decided not to bring you into our bullshit anymore and then he said something along the lines of ‘bein pissed that I wwas turnin our relationship into a revvenge cycle’ and it sounded like he finally recognized us for wwhat wwe wwere so-”

 

 

He swallowed thickly, a feral but pleasant chill rising up from his stomach as he lowered his eyelids and grinned to himself. 

 

“At the end, after wwe wwere bein more civvil, I pulled spades… and he reciprocated. Wwe’re pitch noww.” 

 

-

"Jegus, stop papping, I'm perfectly fucking calm, you're such a goddamn melodrama," Karkat grumbled, swatting at Eridan's hand and attempting to scoot into a more comfortable position before he pulled a fucking neck muscle.  Not finding much success, he squirmed out of the hold, huffing in a disgruntled way before sitting up straighter. Folding his legs so their knees were touching, he looked at the other troll evenly.

"Well, good.  Like fuck I needed to keep obsessively wrigglersitting you assholes on the entirely plausible chance my best friends decided to cull each other.  Dumbshits."  He paused, frown slowly settling in.  "And like triple fuck I needed to be the fucking thing you rancid sacks of garbage were arguing over, holy shit, I'm not the goddamn object of rivalry in this horredous farce of a quadrantswamp!"

-

“That wwas our one condition that we swwore to each other – to leavve you out of it.” Eridan answered, taking in some steady breaths to bring himself back down. His blood stopped rushing soon afterwards, and he glanced downwards in shame before bringing up a hand to cover his face.  “I wwas just wworried you’d drop our diamond to pick up clubs. That’s wwhy I came up here in the first place.”

 

Running his lithe fingers through his purple streak, he peered down precariously at Karkat before asking, shakily, “You’d tell me if you’d start feelin that wway, right?” 

-

Karkat scowled, reaching up and pulling Eridan's hand out of his own hair before he 'ruined' it in some way nobody else could see and had to spend an hour reprimping to no visible effect.  "Of course I wouldn't fucking tell you, because I would be too busy simultaneously vomiting up my own bleeding guts and screaming enough rage out into paradox space that it would one day reach the edges, bounce around, and come back in a thousand sweeps to simultaneously deafen and piss off you assholes' stupid descendents.  I'm pale for you, fuckwit, that's what we're supposed to be."

 

Then he faltered for a second, mouth twisting as his eyes shifted to look over Eridan's shoulder at the distant purple cloud cover.  "But.  I would.  I'd have to, and it would suck the metric density of a black hole's worth of bulges, and we'd all end up despising ourselves and each other, but I would.  If it was between that and watching you kill each other."

-

Eridan’s gills feathered ever so slightly upon hearing ‘what we’re supposed to be’, the words sending him into a cold tide of rest and reassurance that he’d been waiting on for quite some time. His teeth clattered and his body lurched forward to keep back yet another impassioned sob, biting off a couple curses for letting himself be the one of the pair to reach this ‘humiliating’ point once again.

 

Nevertheless, Karkat reignited his belief that not only were they were fated pale, but that neither of them had any desire whatsoever to be anything else. Although relieving, the threat of vacilliation was ever-looming, and Kar’s crestfallen expression over the matter was warning enough.

 

Placing his hand on Karkat’s face, Eridan gently brought his gaze back to center as he brushed the back of his fingers against his cheekbone in even, endearing strokes. “And I you. I’d sooner voww celibacy than to ever put this in danger.”

He released a small sad laugh, “I’ll givve you my wword on that, for wwhat its wworth.”

-

Karkat let out a small breath at the fingers continuing to move along his face, shoulders loosening slightly despite his valiant attempts to regain his earlier scowl and bluster his tone into something reasonably annoyed.  "You don't have to leave your quadrants empty, asshole, just don't get in a massive platonic pissing contest of maiming and bullshit!  If you're going properly pitch I won't have to do shit, because hey, here's a total non-surprise, you won't need a club to keep you from murdering yourself via bad decisions. Wow! Then you can have a full set of concupiscent relationships with no worry and I will have to sit and listen about them all the goddamn time, what a dream come true."

-

“He’s still going to get it for wwhat he did to my eye, but I’m not going to murder him – no.” Eridan replied with an upturned nose, but just as quickly snapped back with a mischievous glint in his eye. “Speakin a concupiscent quadrants, howwevver-”

 

Searching through his sylladex, he pulled out a brush and whisked around to sit behind Karkat on the pile. Gently, he took one section of Kar’s hair into his hand and slid the brush through it, making sure to massage his scalp as he went – minding the occasional tangle and working it out with gentle touches. “How about you tell me about your conversations today, I’m sure yours wwere just as fullfillin. That sopor substitute plant stuff wworks wwonders.”

-

For a second he considered putting up at least some token resistance to the hair brushing, but it wasn't really any different than using one's claws to straighten and fiddle with it, so instead he grumbled a little under his breath and decided to just ignore it completely.

"Fulfilling nothing; today has been an endless series of moronic conversations with morons. What a surprise."

-

“Nothin wwith you and Ter? As wwe discussed, she contacted me askin if your face wwas… how did she put it, ‘squishy’ I think?” Eridan chuckled, twirling one of Karkat’s wefts around his finger to create the perfect curl before moving onto the next section. It’s not that Kar’s hair looked bad, he just knew that he’d make it downright gorgeous by the time he was through with it. Whenever Sol would get the video chats up and running, Eridan was already considering making this a daily thing. He smiled at the thought, sliding his hands over Kar’s shoulders and resting him back onto his lap as he continued his work. “Howw forwward, wwhat came a that?” 

-

"Yeah, great fucking job with that, by the way, like she needed more ammunition," Karkat shot back, not sounding angry so much as vaguely offended. "I had to send her a fucking webcam shot to get her to shut the fuck up and of course it just did the fucking opposite. She's so goddamn-"

He stopped, trying to come up with the exact right word, and failing. "It's just, it's complicated."

-

The corners of Eridan’s lips began sinking into an ashamed frown, recalling something else he may have let slip during his high-drama chats today. “About that…”

 

He capcha’d his brush, smoothing a hand over Kar’s forehead in even pets before adding, “I may have also let a thing or two slip by during my rage wwith Sol, but I promise it wwasn’t anything incriminatin. More or less I wanted to shut him dowwn and make shore he didn’t mess wwith us or /you/ like that again.”

 

Glancing down, Eridan gave an apologetic wince as his earfins hung low. “Sorry, it wwon’t happen again.” 

-

"Wait, what thing." Trying to sit up and not finding much purchase in the shifting wands, Karkat flailed for a second before finally kicking his legs and tossing himself mostly upright. Twisting his head around, he gave Eridan a sharp look. "What things."

-

Eridan ducked his head. "I just told him howw pissed off you wwere that wwhile he has all his quadrants filled, he got upset wwith you fillin one. Then he said the exact same thing you did wwhen it came to howw terrible you'd both be if you'd gone pale. Then I just confirmed that you felt the same wway."

 

He closed his eye and turned his face down to the pile. "I knoww it was out of line, but I wwas still mad ovver the fact that he cross pale boundaries ovver the Internet."

-

Just continuing to look at him for a long minute, Karkat facepalmed and let go of the breath he'd been holding, forcibly squashing whatever nebulous, unformed fears had reared up at Eridan's vague bullshit.  It wasn't like they'd jammed about anything that would get him found out, even if it got gossipped around the entire stupid circle of planets.  Everything was still fine, for a value of fine that included lying to everyone including his palemate.

 

Compulsively running his hand up into his hair and ruining a good chunk of Eridan's work, he shook his head, torn between trying to go back to ignoring that fact and reminding himself until he stopped being a dumbfuck.  "I could have fucking told you that; it wasn't even a serious shoosh, Sollux was just being a shit.  And of course he said the same fucking thing, a moirallegiance with us was dumb and he fucking knows it.  Mostly because we *aren't pale*."

-

"Its not that i evven thought you wwere. I just thought he wwas bein evven more of a nookbiter than usual. But no, apparently he wwas just stoned out a his mind." Eridan peered back up, giving Kar a disgruntled scoff when he saw his hair had been tussled back to its ruffian state. Figuring he deserved it, he reached out to take one of Karkat's hands into his own and gave it a soft squeeze.  "Sorry again, I can at least promise noww this wwon't happen any more."

 

-

"Good."  Readjusting back into a more comfortable position, he squeezed back, then brushed his thumb across Eridan's skin.  He was *great* at hand holding, goddammit.  "I realize it's a moot fucking point now and you don't want to hear it, but not actually everything Captor does is to be a shit.  Occasionally there's flashes of shit like being tolerable, or humor."

-

Eridan glanced down at Karkat's hand with a knowing smile. Whenever they held hands, his grip felt as warm and inviting as the summer sand after a particularly refreshing swim. He didn't want to let go, not even for a second, so Eridan tugged him forward with their fingers still entwined, bringing the other troll to rest on top his chest.  "Wwe actually had a pretty good convversation followwin my bloww up, but no amount a talkin or flirtin is goin to bring my eye back."

Shaking off the train of thought that usually followed that unsettling realization, Eridan furrowed his brow and leaned forward, affectionately butting horns with Kar as he changed the subject. "Enough about my day though, I'm all sorted out. Wwhy do you think you and Ter are complicated?"

-

"She's just.... so fucking intolerable, if I have to see that eyegouging giggling one more time I'm going to flip the fuck out, except I won't, because even if she's the most horrendously obnoxious fuck in this entire sampler pack of retarded losers, I don't want..."

Again that blank wall rose up, thwarting any particularly good way to sum up the tender, angry little spot where Terezi Pyrope resided in his pan.  It was like a half-healed scab, something old he'd actually convinced himself that he was over, back when he'd been furiously attempting to somehow be Okay with his lack of a future before he ruined everyone elses.  Because whichever quadrant his immature buttfuck of a past self been stupidly, desperately incapable of actually naming, it hadn't been about to happen.  Couldn't.  And now...

Turning a little, he leaned the side of his head against Eridan's shoulder, not really looking at anything in particular.  "I don't know."

-

"This isnt like you." Eridan rolled off, still holding onto Kar's heatbox hands. "I mean I'm not stupid - I knoww I'm not the fuckin expert at Redrom by any means, but theres obvviously somethin in the wway a you thinkin youre wworth her time. Wwhat is it?"

Carrying up one hand, he swiped Karkat's bangs away from his face in one smooth slide, repeating the motion in careful sweeps as he gazed down at the troubled troll. "I knoww wwhatevver it is wwont matter shit to Ter. Anyone wwith eyes can fuckinn tell she cares an awwful lot about you - and I only havve one."

-

Karkat stiffened, mouth twitching for a second at the whole concept of anyone not giving a shit, let alone the last grubfucked bastion of Imperial Law left breathing.  It was just so fucking stupid, he'd been stupid to even bring it up, the conversation was veering dangerously close to not being stupid and just being a terrifyingly terrible idea, and he bristled.  "Whatever moronic dribble you think just spilled out of my facegash that somehow implied I wasn't good enough for her, clean out your goddamn aural canals, since they're clearly full of filth and dead fishguts, asshole, if anyone has to worry about being worth somebody it's her worrying about being worth hanging out in a room I've recently vacated, arrogant sniffer mournfully feasting on whatever appealing and otherwise fantastic scents I've generously left behind!" 

This was pathetically transparent and he tried reigning it in, casting about desperately for some kind of reason that was even plausible, let alone truthful, while his mouth railed on like a shitty one troll show where the culling drones were waiting at the back door.

"It's not an issue of anything being in the way, if I wanted to solicit her I'd fucking do it and show every dumbfuck paddlebulged fuckwhiffer here what actual fucking romance looks like, it's just-- I--"  And, like some beautiful miracle gift born on slimy tendrils, his past self's hideous self-obsessed bullshit managed to not be completely useless.  "I, shit, I -- can't pick a quadrant."

Well, his stomach lurching angrily at the thought, it wasn't *complete* bullshit.  Was there even a thing as Dark Red?

-

Eridan snapped his hands up, looking down at Kar with a confused pout while avoiding any sudden movements. "Oh. Wwell, I wwas off. Maybe I'm wwas projectin here. No ones wworth Fefs time, let alone-"

He winced, exhaling a stream of aggravated breath through his clenched shark teeth, "Nevvermind."

Running exasperated fingers through his gelled hair, Eridan resumed petting his wild looking moirail as he spoke down to him in a lecturing tone, "Wwell thats an easier problem, I mean you can alwways vacilitate. She's not seein anyone else noww - though i think you'd havve an easier time goin Red. You knoww, wwith her contempt for vvris and all - but wwho /doesn't/ hold contempt for her!"

"I understand Ter better noww though. Apparently eye torture's all the rave wwith pitch crushes."

-

The relief tasted like dirt in his mouth, a little knot of self-recrimination lodging itself right in Karkat's throat as he nodded along. He was lying to his diamond. About *quadrants,* he was lying to his grubfucking moirail. Fuck, fucking, fuck-

 

"What, Sollux just copied her?"

"And she can't be pitch if she's contemptuous, you dumbfuck, you're supposed to grudgingly respect your pitch or it means you aren't matched well."

-

"Not copied, per se. I'm just glubbin about howw Vvris blinded Ter in that wweird revvenge cycle wwith Tavv and Rad. Sols deplorable, but I'm shore he wwouldn't copy off of her, considerin wwhat she did to his moirail." Eridan explained with a twitch of his brow, reflexively tightening his hold on Karkat.  

"Pitch wwith Vvris is alwways a bad idea, Ter knowws that. So you just havve to ask yourself whether you hate her or pity her more. Problem solvved." Eridan cheered, moving to snicker into Karkat's ear as a particularly hideous scene from one of the movvies OD sent to him came to mind. "Lets go practice makin out and make prank phone calls to her like they do in the horrible human films."

-

"What a novel fucking idea! Wow, thanks, Ampora, you really cut to the heart of the fucking problem here, it's not like that never occurred to me."  Scowling halfheartedly, Karkat shot the other troll a look. "Human movies are utter trash by definition, because humans are disgusting trash and incapable of doing anything without accidentally either shitting themselves or sticking their obscene sproingy meatbulges into something."

-

"Wwell then, since you're /clearly/ pitch for the humans." Eridan joked, shifting down the wand pile so that he was facing Karkat again, their faces only inches appart.

"Kar, I knoww you're Red for her. Livvin wwith you like this, I picked up on these things." He sighed, resting his forehead against Kars with one of his hands cupping the side of his jaw. "You get this look on your face wwhen you talk to her. Its like she's pushin evvery one a your rage buttons all the right wways - like no one else can. You think you wwant to be pitch for her, but you don't really /hate her/ hate her for pressin them, do you?"

-

"I am *not* pitch for the *fucking aliens*," Karkat growled, eyes narrowing.  "Hah, hah, it's so fucking hilarious, how completely awful they are in every way but let's all just be friends with them because it's funny to watch Karkat overreact, *again*.  No, fuck that, being disgusted at their misunderstandings about romance and inadvertant hateflirting and constant talk about *blood sharing* is perfectly fucking justified and all of you are welcome to go stick your horns in a bonegrinder over it, assholes!"

-

Eridan narrowed his eye, "You’re avvoidin the question."

-

Stiffening, shoulders drawing up and tight as he sucked in a massive, furious gulp of air, Karkat opened his mouth to unload a well deserved fiery column of scathing fuck-you on the whole conversation.

And then just let it out again, deflating completely. "Yeah," he muttered, dropping his head into one hand. He felt sick. "Yeah, fuck, I'm flushed."

-

There was something unnerving about the way Karkat had responded. Eridan was used to Kar acting like a wriggler with troll colic over his personal life, but the way his face sagged and his voice flattened made it seem like he was truly destitute over the situation. Any playfulness that Eridan once felt over his moirail's concupiscent conquests vanished in an instant, and suddenly he was nuzzingly heads with him again in a desperate attempt to get Kar's hopes back up. "That's completely fine, Kar. I don't understand. Wwhy do you look like you just swwallowed a rotten chunk a tuskbeast blubber ovver it?"

-

The physical contact was comforting, at least, the one part of this conversation that wasn't circling the gaper drain of utter, monstrous, crap, and Karkat turned his face closer, arms moving aimlessly until finding fistfuls of Eridan's shirt to cling to. It was like some retarded logic puzzle, or another joke told by fuckwits trying to pretend joking about drones made them less dangerous. '/How do you explain that nobody will ever knowingly touch you to somebody you're tricking into touching you?/," and then everybody laughs because the punchline is there was no punchline.  Assholes. Nosing closer, he wedged himself up under Eridan's chin, trying to simultaneously avoid flipping his shit and invent another stupid excuse.

-

Eridan's mouth parted and his hands crept up his moirails shoulders in hesitant increments as it dawned on him that he wasn’t going to get this answer. Though Karkat clung to him, Eridan knew that he clearly had a long way to go before his moirail melded with him the same way he felt connected to him since forever.  A bomb dropped in his stomach and his earfins flagged as he felt a piece of his soul shatter from within. This must be some sort of payback for what he put Fef through, for it was plain to see Karkat did not love him the same way.  

 

For what kind of moirail could someone not trust with tears and secrets? The worst kind, that's who. He couldn't do anything right.

 

Cold dampness stung at the corner of his eye, and with feigned confidence he pat Kars head and shooshed, "There there,  Kar. It'll be okay.  You don't havve to tell me.  I'll be here for you regardless."

 

"For as long as you'll let me."

-

"Sorry," Karkat mumbled, curling into the hug and shaking his head against Eridan's collar, not sure exactly which part he was apologizing for from the long fucking list of available problems. "Sorry, this is the worst, I'm a shitbag, the whole fucking universe is a bag and everything in my existence is the shit, and eventually some douche is going to light it on fire and leave it on their neighbor's hivestoop, sorry."

-

When Karkat said sorry a second time,  Eridan's eye snapped back into focus and his teeth clenched in a unquenchable surge of abject anger. "I don't understand Kar I just don't!" He hissed, pulling away so that he could talk straight into his eyes.  "It actually pisses me off, and I don't like feelin pissed off at you."

 

Attempting to sound less spiteful, the seadweller took a deep breath and placed both of his moirails hands against his beating chest.  "Karkat Vvantas, you are the most amazing troll evver hatched. Your existence is a mystery and a blessing to anyone and evveryfin who has evver had the privvilege a meeting you. I don't understand wwhere this self loathin is comin from, because there is literally nothin I can point out that's wwrong about you."

 

His desperate hands found their way to Karkats cheeks, eager to break through some how and get him to snap out if this terrible state. "You may be short, and your horns aren't the sharpest or the biggest, but you make up for that ten fold in practically evvery other facet a life. I don't deservve you, no one does. I lo-"

-

Reaching up, Karkat papped him, right over the mouth. "Shoosh."

 

Closing his eyes, he put his other hand over one of Eridan's, tilting his face sideways to press more firmly against cool skin.  Then he paused, taking a few deep, steadying breaths and actually considering what he wanted to say instead of just blurting the first possible thing he could think of.  Mouth crooked down into a small frown, he met the other troll's gaze evenly.  "You're *supposed* to get pissed off, dumbass, otherwise it means you think somebody is perfect and how the sweet hells do you balance *that*?  That's not a moirallegiance, that's a fucking fan club. Getting pissed about means you can start fixing shit."

 

He paused again, another quick breath, another nuzzle against his hand. "I can't tell you everything, and I'm really fucking sorry for that, but I can't, and I can't say why, and I know it sucks, because it really fucking sucks for me too."

 

Finally lifting his hand off the other troll's mouth, he reached up and gave him a quick, chaste kiss. "And my horns aren't nubby, eelfucker."

-

Eridan had read countless romance books in his life, and every last one of them explicitly stated that your heart will in fact stop and time will stand still when the troll of your dreams kisses you for the first time. As quick as the kiss was, and as depressing as their conversation had become, Eridan did in fact experience a slice of that euphoria once Kar's lips brushed his own.

Yet as quickly as it arrived, it left in a flash once Karkat's words sunk in. Eridan realized then that their honeymoon period of everything being picture perfect just like their romcom movies was gone, and now was the time to start working through his moirail's very real and very problematic issues.

Pecking him back, holding the kiss only a second longer than the one before, he flung his cape around the both of them and nestled himself and Kar into the massive pile of masterfully crafted wands beneath. "Fan club. Oh yes, I'm in the Karkat Vvantas fuckin Fanclub wwhere wwe sing the praises of our vvertically challenged leader wwho is spot on wwhen it comes to wwit and spunk, but holds the most ridiculous beliefs about himself and anyfin havving to do with evveryfin."

"Also you said nubby, not me - loudmouth."

 

-

"You were thinking nubby, don't even try to lie as it'll be the saddest most transparent piece of bullshit ever to limp from a troll's mouth.  I know what somebody looks like when they're about to say nubby because it's the exact expression that also says 'please introduce your fist into my gut, Karkat,' promptly followed by the word nubby and a poignant and deeply meaningful meeting of knuckles to flesh," Karkat rambled, feeling remarkably less panicky even though nothing of any consequence had actually been solved.  As he sat in the wands, he rolled his eyes at the cape suddenly wrapped around his shoulders as well.  "Jegus.  I can't believe you have the globes to call me ridiculous when you wear a grubfucking cape."

-

"Shush. You'll be grateful wwhen your wwarmblooded glutes meet the next cold snap on wwhatevver planet wwe find ourselvves on wwhen wwe beat the game." Eridan dismissed with a haphazard pap to the face. "We're takin a nap and then headin ovver to eqs wwhenevver wwe wwake up. He's got a hoofbeast noww so his mood should be considerably better."

 

-

"A nap.  What happened, did we suddenly stumble through a hideous rip in timespace and find ourselves two sweeps old again, freshlegged and sleeping off injuries of the trials?  *You* can nap, I have assholes to wrangle."  Karkat flipped through his sylladex and pulled out his headset with a disgruntled noise.

-

Eridan harrumphed, earfins low and defensive as he curled his head down onto Kar's shoulder and shut his eye. "nevver underestimate the powwer of a wwell deservved nap. ill havve to introduce you to their wwonders again, you could use one."

 

Giving Kar a final kiss on his ear, Eridan settled into position and thought back on his eventful day, pleased soft noises trilling from his throat as he drifted into much needed sleep.