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Eridan sat on the floor, back to back with an incredibly focussed psionic. His kismesis worked endlessly on his computers, currently fiddling with a circuit board of some sort. He didn’t really pay attention to any of the stuff Sollux explained to him about his servers, or any of the stuff he said in general, actually.
“Path me that wire,” Sollux asked flatly.
“Demandin’ much?”
“Oh shut up,” He grumbled, snatching the wire from Eridan’s hand. They exchanged a sharp glare before Sollux turned back to his work. The seatroll rested his face on his hand, playing with the edge of his cape with the other. Usually, when he visited Sollux’s hive, he would play a game or cause shenanigans while his kismesis worked, but this time he didn’t feel like leaving his side, and they weren’t even arguing with each other. He was feeling this way more and more lately, he had noticed. Eridan decided not to look too much into the implications behind that.
He shifted his weight slightly to rest more against Sollux’s back, exhaling deeply. The psionic was warm and seadwellers were naturally cold-blooded to withstand the ocean, so the heat was extremely welcome. Sollux let out an annoyed grunt.
“Why don’t you go do thomething inthtead of uthing me ath a chair.” He spat, not taking his eyes off the circuit board.
Eridan simply sighed, pulling his knees to his chest and resting his face on his arms.
“You’re warm,” He whispered. He really wanted to stay close to him, for some unknown reason. He definitely wasn’t flipping red. What? No way.
“I have a heater. Uthe that.”
“It’s not the same, Sol.”
The goldblood put down his electronics and actually turned around this time.
“What’th going on with you? Every time you come over you’re alwayth trying to fuck up my wiring or inthult me endlethly.”
Eridan made a small noise and buried his face further into his arms.
“You’re not even going to argue with me? Wow, thomething really mutht be wrong,”
“I don’t feel like it, ok? I just wwanna sit with you.” He snapped, face still buried in his arms. Sollux blinked at him, surprised. He sat there looking at him, waiting for an insult or some sort of explanation, but it never came. Eridan just sat there staring at the carpet.
A few minutes passed before Sollux finally piped up.
“ED?”
The seadweller suddenly turned around and wrapped his arms around his spade’s skinny frame, hiding his face in his shoulder and hugging him tight. Sollux sat there, stunned.
“ED, what the fuck are you doing,”
“Huggin’ you,”
Eridan’s voice was muffled into his shirt. The psionic was glad his quandrantmate couldn’t see him, as a very light yellow blush had started to spread over his cheeks. Blushing over a hug? Get it together, Sollux.
“Get off me you thap,” He complained, attempting to remove Eridan’s arms from around his chest.
“No,”
Sollux glared at him. What was he doing? Hugs were definitely not pitch. Unless he was planning on leaving claw marks down his back or something. He already had enough scars that Eridan gave him during particularly heated encounters.
Gently, Sollux pushed Eridan off of him, holding him by the shoulders and looking at him intently, searching his face for any sort of indication of his feelings. He was met with a pouty, blushing little fish with his fins turned downwards.
“ED, are you…?”
Their lips were crashing together before Sollux could register what was happening, but when he did, he kissed back just as passionately. It wasn’t like their other makeouts, though. It was softer, less teeth and desperate biting. He held the seadweller’s face in his hands, cupping his cheeks gently until they separated. After a moment of catching his breath, Eridan spoke.
“I’m sick of fightin’, Sol. I wwanna be near you wwithout the threat of physical injury every three glubbin’ seconds. So…”
He trailed off.
“Tho?”
“So maybe wwe could try bein’ red?” He finished, mumbling so much Sollux could just barely hear it. But, he did. The goldblood rolled his eyes at how sappy Eridan was, but he couldn’t help cracking a smirk anyway.
“Yeah, okay. We can try going red,” He spoke quietly, “But I’m thtill gonna bite you while we make out.”
“Sol!”
The conversation quickly devolved into Sollux’s nasally laughter and Eridan punching him in the leg, but despite this, the mood was still calmer than usual. There were no guarantees that their quadrant would remain consistently red, not with their primal need to bicker about every single tiny thing that happened, but even then…
“Matesprit” had a nice ring to it.