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Your name is Dave Strider and you are seeing red even through the opaqueness of your sunglasses.
Before the mess in your bathroom had happened, you were texting Sollux through your iPhone. Everything was fine. The troll had gone out to Target for some shopping and informed you that he would be home soon before cursing. And Eridan's name came up before he had to go. You squint at the mustard yellow text on the screen of your phone before tapping out a reply.
TG: k be careful
You thought nothing of it at the time. What was fishfuck going to do? You went to your room and proceeded to make the illest beats, miraculous rhythms and booming bass being coughed up in your room. Until fifteen minutes later, at least, and you hear the sound of the front door opening and slamming shut catch your attention.
Your eyebrows lift and you lift one side of your headphones to hear what was going on. The sound of a glass crashing to the floor and the Psionic's cursing informs you that Sollux was home and he didn't sound happy in the slightest. There's shuffling in the hall and you hear the bathroom door slamming shut before you slip the headphones from your head and let them fall to your desk, leaving your room and making your way to the bathroom.
You hear the sounds of water running and more fumbling with what sounds like everything under the kitchen sink along with something else breaking. What's he doing? You lift a hand and knock a couple of times on the bathroom door. “Captor, you okay?” You call out, and before you know it your hand is going to the knob, about to push it open before it's smacked shut again, jarring you and forcing you back with what you can guess is his psionics.
“I'm fine!” The troll calls from the other side, but you're already convinced otherwise. Sollux always tried his hardest to keep his psionics in check, and now they were making a shit storm in your apartment.
“Bull shit.” Your voice is flat with an edge to it as you push against the door. You would use your shoulder if you had to. The door suddenly gives in, though, and your hands catch you on the door knob and sink to keep you from falling on the Gemini in your bathroom floor.
Sollux had fallen over with a bottle of alcohol while searching through the cabinets under the sink and was now holding his side while mustard yellow leaked from his shirt and onto the carpet. Whatever was broken was ignored. The stain in the carpet would be ignored as you suddenly rush to him, dropping to your knees and taking the alcohol bottle from him while your other hand reaches under the sink and pulls a wash cloth out. “What the fuck happened?” Your voice is harsh and stern and you are angry. You're putting two and two together in your head and you have already came to the conclusion that you were wrong about Fishfuck earlier.
He's biting into his lower lip, biting back the pain while sparks of red and blue are surging from his temples and his heterochromia eyes are glowing slightly. “Eridan...” He whimpers softly and you pull his shirt up to inspect the damage. His side had been burned somehow. You perk a brow. “What did he do?” You're asking, pressing the cloth to the burn and making him yelp out and the sparks around his face seem to intensify, almost smacking the shades off your face. On top of this, his head must be pounding. You utter an apology but keep the towel there and hold off the blood flow while the troll sniffs and lifts a hand to his face, pressing his palm to his blue eye.
“Fucking idiot...” He starts, and his voice is soft and trembling. “Thtill going on about me and FF even though she---” He chokes on a sob and a tear escapes his eye. “She ithn't talking to me! Fucking bathtard...” From what you can remember of the situation, Feferi and Sollux had been good friends until she decided she wanted to patch things up with Ampora, which lead to her forcing the skinny troll underneath you away. “He'th fucking reckleth! … He tried to remake hith fucking wand...”
Your name is Dave Strider and you are seeing red even through the opaqueness of your sunglasses. Your cool is so far gone that you make Frosty the fucking Snowman look like the coolest kid in school while you sit in the lonely corner of the classroom with your dorky glasses and suspenders that aren't hip or cool you don't care what the fucking hipsters say.
But you can't afford to lose your cool. Not when your boyfriend is under this much pain and distress. Your brow furrows and you put on the sweetest voice you can, not even bothering to keep your drawl in check while you continue to dab at the wound in Sollux's side. “It's okay.” You whisper and reach a hand to his face and wipe away the yellow tears that had escaped. Eridan wasn't going to be okay, though. You had already silently vowed that.
“But you gotta get up for me, though.” You say sternly and take one of his hands, replacing your hand with his and making sure he's holding the soaked cloth to his side. You're having a hard time keeping calm and you hope that the troll doesn't notice. You were pissed. Worse than the time that Karkat had broken your shades. You grab onto his shoulders and easily lift his scrawny body from the bathroom floor and to the tub, making him take a seat. All the while he keeps the cloth in place while you dig through the cabinets under the sink again for some sort of healing ointment for Sollux's wound. You knew you had half the normal first aid shit, it was a necessity in the Strider household growing up.
After finding it, you kneel before him, pulling his hand and the cloth away and start smearing the ointment on the wound, all the while speaking softly to the troll that everything was okay, that he was okay, that you were here and that Eridan was going to pay and suddenly your voice starts taking on a different tone, speaking of promises to the douchecanoe that he didn't even know of yet.
“I'm thorry.”
You look up into the Gemini's face half-way through wrapping bandages around his torso. He looks like a puppy that had been kicked one too many times. Suddenly your angry and you want to punch something again. Preferably something with gills and glasses.
“Don't be sorry.” You assure him, continuing with your treatment. “This isn't your fault unless you egged him on, which is so below you it's buried deep in the fucking ground with Rose's dead cat.” You say, finishing with the bandages and patting it down to make sure you did a good job, that it wouldn't unwrap in his sleep or something. Your hands are balled up into deadly fists. You didn't think it was possible for your knuckles to be any whiter, but it seems like you're just filled with little surprises lately!
“I'm going to kick Ampora's ass so hard when I find him...” You're staring at the troll boy hunched over on the tub, hands still clutching at his side as if that would make it stop hurting. You swallow. “That fish fucker is so dead he won't even understand the concept of doom.”
Rose would probably be making remarks at you for butting in to Sollux's fights, or say something about how you're being awfully protective over the troll, and you probably were, but that wasn't the most important thing right now. It didn't seem all that important to him, either, as he tells you to hush and combs his clawed fingers through your blond locks and pulls your head to his, kissing the top of your head.
You sigh softly, calmness waving over you as if Tavros and Gamzee had popped over to visit and had lit a joint right beside you. That's what Sollux did to you and you needed to remember that. “I'm tired of his bull shit.” You whisper, nose scrunched up as your forehead rests under his chin and you clutch his arms in your hands. “You try and be her friend, he comes after your ass. You do what she says and stop talking to her, he tries to kill your ass. I think someone needs to go after his ass!”
“Dave...” You're calm again. You didn't even know that you were trying to lose your cool. You take in a few deep breaths and wrap your arms around him. You didn't want to lose your cool. Not on him. “Sorry.” You apologize and bury your face in his boney chest. “You probably need to lay down.” You mutter softly into his chest, all the while he continues to run his fingers through your hair.
“Come lay down with me... Pleathe?” He says it as if you'd rather be doing anything else. You would rather be out there fishing for Ampora... But you can't leave him like this. “Yeah. Okay.” You finally mutter and move out of the troll's arms, grabbing one and wrapping it around your shoulders while your own arm goes around his waist and you help him to his feet before making the trek back to Sollux's room with no problem... All except for the picture of Cal that had been on the wall... You have no complaints, though. You just wish his headache would go away.
The door is kicked shut behind you and your hand automatically goes to his light switch and flips it off, the only light coming from the windows. He grunts as you set him on the bed and you're spouting out another muttered apology. And suddenly you're all over the room, pulling curtains closed and shutting out any light while you're turning monitors and a television off as well. Soon the room is pitch black except for the soft neon glow from his towers, showering the room in a pale blue.
Was there anything else? You pause and stare at the floor for a moment trying to think of anything else when you feel your arm being tugged. Whoa now what's this? Your eyes are shifting down and there’s a mixture of red and blue tendrils at your wrist, pulling you in the direction of the bed where the bag of bones has gathered up all the pillows and is nestled into a corner where the bed meets the wall and you want nothing more than to join him... Well there is something else, but you'd do that later. For now you pull your shades off, just for him, and lay them on the nightstand before crawling onto the mattress and settling beside of Sollux. Your arms wrap around him and, careful of his side, pull him close while he only complies, leaning into your embrace and pulling the yellow and black comforter around the two of you. Like hell do you need it, but you won't argue or deny it.
His head finds your shoulder and you hear him let out a content sigh before he speaks. “Ith thith okay?”
You blink once into the darkness and stay quiet a moment while your fingers find their way into his dark locks and begin running through them. He coos softly. “Yeah, this is totally okay.” You reply. “All except for you almost becoming troll on a stick.” Your voice grows an edge as you talk. “And that's not your fault.”
The Gemini's fingers curl into your broken record shirt and he's sort of clinging to you. “I'll be fine, this is nothing compared to the shit that happened on the meteor...” And he sort of trails off there. You both prefer not talking about anything that happened back then. There was a time and place for everything, after all. This was not the time to relive those memories, so instead you sit in the bed with your boyfriend wrapped up in what you consider to be a totally ironic bee themed comforter.
“I know it'th not my fault... And he detherveth to be beaten till he'th black and purple... But don't kill him.” Your mouth opens and you're already lining everything up in your head to make the perfect excuse of why you should kill him but he's already got a hand lifted to stop you.
“Fef couldn't handle it. And thith ith Earth! You'll go to jail and then I can't thave your ath when you drop the thoap.” Oh wow. Headache and zapped like a fucking bug and he can still throw quips out like they were newspapers. Damn.
You only roll your eyes and stop your hand, letting it rest on the back of the troll's head. “Fuck the police.” You mumble. “And I'd be doing that chick a favor. But fine, I won't kill him. But his ass is getting handed to him.” And he doesn't argue with that. Whether or not you would actually go hunt Ampora down, and you very much would thank you, he knew it would just be better not to fight with you about it. But in your opinion, Eridan should've learned how to not be a dick after Kanaya cut his dumb ass in half. Lolnope!
“How's your headache?” You ask, quickly changing the subject while your arms wrap tighter around him. He nuzzles into your neck.
“It'th eathing off thome.” Good. Goooood. You even notice that the glow was gone from his red and blue eyes. The hand that had been on his head moved down between his sharp shoulder blades and began rubbing small circles.
“Good. I thought your psionics were gonna throw me out of the bathroom for a minute.”
And suddenly the troll's lifting his head and you jerk yours back in time before his horns can clash with your chin. His eyes are widened and he looks worried. “I didn't hurt you or anything did I?” You want to kiss him and make that worry go away. Instead, your hand moves and cups his cheek.
“Didn't even touch me. Though I think the apartment has seen better da---” You cut yourself off and think for a moment. “Scratch that, this is nothing compared to the antics of a growing Strider.”
The troll breathed a laugh, only to wince at the pain it brought and then you felt bad all over again. Why didn't you go out with him? Before any more guilt ridden thoughts come to your head, he's telling you he'll replathe anything. He promitheth.
You shake your head. “Don't worry about it. No one cares.” You stroke his cheek with your thumb and he starts to make that buzzing noise that you always thought was cute and one time you deliberately did anything you could to make him make that noise. “If you'd have broken one of the computers or the turntables, then we'd have some problems.”
He smiles and laughs and winces again and fuck you need to shut your goddamn mouth. “I'm sorry.” You whisper, but he only shakes his head and brings a finger to your mouth before replacing the finger with his own lips. “Shhh... Only cuddles now.”
You laugh this time, smiling just slightly as you kiss him and rest your chin against his head while he curls up and into your chest. He's asleep within ten minutes.
Your name is Dave Strider and you are no longer seeing red. If anything you're seeing yellow and that is okay by you.