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You aren’t sure what you were expecting, but when Eridan arrives on the transportalizer in what you’re fairly sure is a newly-alchemized pair of shoes you know you’re not going to get it any time soon.
“Um… You did get my memo, right?”
“Of course I got it. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“And you know that I’m about to head off on a two week journey into that really big forest over there, right? The one which has never been explored by a sentient bipedal being before?”
“I read your precious memo, OK? I—wait. ‘I’m about to’? Don’t you mean ‘we’re about to’?”
Before you explain the tiny slip, he dives headfirst into theatrics.
“Oh, this is just great,” he whines, crossing his arms across his chest and pouting. “You set up this whole fuckin’ thing just to get me down here so you could make fun of me. Another example of how Ampora just reads whatever he wants to into what other people say! I bet you and all your fuckin’ friends will get a real good laugh out a’ this one!”
It is hard to decide whether the grand, dramatic sweep of his cape as he turns is another vie for attention or if he’s just that genuinely melodramatic.
“Oh, be quiet, you baby!” you child, dragging him back by the ends of his scarf. “I’m the only person laughing at you, and that’s because you showed up to go on a camping trip wearing a cape and a scarf!”
He’s still pouting when you turn him back around. Good. He’s cute when he’s pouty.
“Seriously. I know I told you I’d take care of the packing, but I thought… Well, my mistake! We’re just going to have to get you properly dressed!”
You drop his scarf to take him by the hand. His protests are no match for your teleportation.
“Let me just take a peek in my wardrobifier. I’m sure I’ve got something that will work.”
“I don’t need anythin’ else,” he grumbles. “What I’m wearin’ now is perfectly fine!”
“You are not going to go traipsing through uncharted lands in a cape,” you reply, almost reflexively. You’re honestly not paying him that much attention.
You dig a baggy pair of cargo pants and an old t-shirt out that you think will fit him. Really, the size difference between you isn’t that great. You should know. After all, you are the Witch of Space! You’ve got a good sense for these kinds of things. (Of course, that also means you can simply use your space powers to make the clothes fit him, but it’s more fun to think you could share clothes!)
“No way,” he turns his nose up almost before you turn around. “I am not wearin’ your stupid human clothes.”
“Well, you won’t be too fond of your stupid troll clothes once we’ve been hiking for a good hour!”
He stares at you defiantly for a solid second before conceding. He literally cringes as he takes the clothes from you.
“God, it’s no wonder all you land dwellers sink like stones wearing coarse material like this!”
“What’s wrong with cotton? It’s plenty soft. Besides, it’s light and durable. That’s what’s really going to matter. You really should be wearing something more water resistant, but I guess this will have to do.”
“Water resistant? You couldn’t get any more water resistant than this monstrosity you’ve got right here!” he continues. “I ain’t never in my whole life seen somethin’ more resistant to a good swim.”
You do not think you even want to bother explaining what you meant by ‘water resistant.’
“Of course it’s not good for swimming in! But capes aren’t good for hiking in!”
“What’s the point in givin’ me a whole other outfit t’ wear if the problem is my cape?”
“It’s not just your cape, it’s your scarf and your shoes and all those rings and about a billion other things!”
“Ugh, if I would have known this little excursion would wind up being this much trouble, I’d never of come.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous!”
You rock up on your toes, grab him by the collar of his grand, silly cape, and kiss him until his face turns purple. (This doesn’t take long.)
“You still would have come. Now stop your fussing, fussy butt! I have an idea!”
An hour (and a good deal of grumbling on Eridan’s part) later, the two of you are finally ready to go!
“I look ridiculous,” he complains again, tugging at his new shortened sleeves with his completely unadorned fingers. In the end you compromised on altering his old clothes. His shoes were the only thing you completely replaced, and he conceded to that only after you reminded him that when you’re on land your shoes actually get dirty. “I can’t believe I let you ruin a perfectly good outfit. Do you have any idea how much this material costs?”
This is far from the first time he’s asked. You are beginning to get a very good sense of exactly how much his outfit costs per square inch.
“Well, used to cost, I guess I should say. All it takes now is a little bit of grist.”
He actually sounds sad about that. You guess everybody grieves in their own way.
“You did bring up a good point when you mentioned water resistance. If I’m not mistaken, we should come across a beach before too long!”
He perks up at the mention of water.
“Really?”
“Yep! I packed you a bathing suit, but I guess you won’t need it wearing that! You were right about how thin the material is! It’s really nice. Do you think you could get me some? I’d love to make a skirt out of it.”
“I…” he starts, then changes his tone. “Yeah, I could do that.”
Eridan is, of course, the least experienced hiker you have ever ventured out with. This is saying quite a lot, as you once took Dave camping. He starts bitching at the first bug bite and doesn’t stop. You hoped he would eventually get dehydrated or out of breath and be biologically forced to give it a rest, but no such luck!
You discover several incredibly interesting things as you explore, the least astonishing of which is that you are in fact not the first bipedal sentient beings to explore this region. (Green monkeys! Who would have thought?) And after a long, exciting day, you finally arrive at the coast.
The sand is jeweled with crisscrossing lines of sparkling aquamarine deposits left by the tide. You wonder if it’s mineral or organic in origin. It shines like glitter in the sun, and it seems almost a shame to break up their delicate pattern with your footprints.
Eridan seems to have no qualms, of course.
He picks up the pace the closer you get to the water. You’d almost call it running if it weren’t for the constant strut to his stride. But even that is overridden by his desire to dive in. He pulls off your shoes without stopping to undo the laces and stumbles into the waves.
You expect him to be long gone by the time you make your way down to the shore, but instead you find him standing knee deep in the waves and staring out towards the horizon.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothin’,” he snaps, jerking so hard to face you that you almost believe he’d forgotten about you for a moment. “I’m just gettin’ a feel for the sea, is all. You can’t rush these kinds ‘a things. Not that I’d expect a land dweller to know anythin’ about that.”
Before you can reply, he struts off deeper into the water. When he gets in roughly chest-deep, he ducks down and disappears under the waves. You decide this is a very excellent time to change into your swimsuit!
While you’re rooting naked through your syllabus to find your favorite swimsuit, you swear you see a pair of orange horns crest in the true blue waters, if only for an instant. You make sure to give him a good view of your butt.
You join him underwater just as soon as you can splash your way through the waves. You take a deep breath and dive under. It takes you a moment to find him. One minute you’re twisting around in the current, and the next he’s right beside you. He laughs at your puffed-out cheeks and you stick your tongue out at him.
“What are you wearin’?”
At first you think he means your bathing suit, but then you catch where his eyes are fixed.
You try to explain, but glubs and bubbles are all that comes out of your mouth. He’s still laughing at you when you both surface.
“Come again, land dweller?”
“I said, it’s a swim cap! It’s to keep my hair dry.”
He pouts.
“What’s the fuckin’ point in that?”
“Well, I didn’t exactly bring a hair dryer with me! If I get it wet now, it won’t be dry ‘til morning! And it’ll get all stiff and gross too.”
“But you look ridiculous!”
You are a split second away from explaining to him, once again, that not everything you wear has to be fashion over function, but then it sort of clicks in your head.
You pop the swim cap off, toss it into the waves, duck under the surface, and shake every inch of your hair loose. Eridan seems struck speechless for a moment. You give him a grin.
“Come on,” he says, grabbing hold of your hand. “I’ve got somethin’ to show you.”
His voice is as clear above water as below. You don’t know what part of that is more amazing, that his sea dwelling troll anatomy can produce such sounds or that your human ears are capable of hearing them.
He tugs you deeper, but by that point you have to pop up for a breath. When you dive back down, he’s frowning at you.
“Can’t you use your Witch powers to magic up some kind ‘a bubble or somethin’?”
“I could, but I’ve got a better idea!”
You trip and tumble your way through the waves with Eridan laughing at your back.
“What are you doin’?”
“You’ll just have to wait and see!”
You wade your way back towards him with your surprise hidden behind your back. He peeps at you, his glasses just poking up above the water like a particularly disgruntled creature from the black lagoon. His expression only becomes more perplexed when you show him your snorkel.
“What is that?”
“A snorkel!”
“And what the glub is a snorkel?”
“Just watch!”
You fit the snorkel in your mouth and float face down in the water. Eridan obviously doesn’t get it. You have to grab a hold of his shirt and tug him to get him back under the water. It still takes him a moment to grasp that you’re breathing.
“That is just ridiculous. But I guess a land dweller's got to do what a land dweller's got to do.”
You roll your eyes and hope he catches it through your goggles. He follows you as you kick off through the waves.
“This way,” he says, swimming belly-up just underneath you. “You’ll like this.”
You know you should be looking at all the wonders around you, but you can’t stop watching him. The way he swims, it’s just… beautiful. He’s always been handsome. You even got Dave to admit that he had a face "too pretty for such a smug douche." But in water he’s just… You don’t know. At home.
He moves through the water like that’s where he was made to be, you think. You immediately feel silly for thinking that. Of course he does! He is a sea dweller, after all. This is only the result of billions of years of evolution. Recognizing that doesn't make him any less impressive, however.
“There it is!” he says. “Look.”
You watch him as he spirals down through the water, diving towards…
You take a deep breath and dive down after him. The coral reef he found is amazing. It would take your breath away if you were still breathing. A thousand different fish swim all around you, some as colorful as the tropical fish you used to visit back home and some you wouldn’t even recognize as fish if you hadn’t seen them first underwater.
And there Eridan floats in the middle of it all.
Eventually you do bring a bubble of air down with you so you can get a closer look at the coral formations and analyze the effect the area’s flora, fauna, and currents must have had on its growth patterns. Eridan spends his time floating alongside you to point out the differences between this ocean and his home world’s or swimming off on his own when he gets bored. Twice you become so involved in your exploration that you almost forget he’s there at all, which you are sure he takes as a direct insult. And twice you have to stop to wonder where he’d gotten off to. You are sure he made a snack of at least one fish, with the fuss he made over the black-blue blood of one recently deceased corpse.
Too soon, you both seem to run short on energy. The sun sets over the horizon as you both float along the surface, you on your stomach with your snorkel in your mouth and him on his back just below. He’s playing with your hand, slipping his fingers in and out of yours as if he’s trying to find every possible way to hold you.
“You’re all wrinkled,” he observes.
You don’t reply. You can’t seem to summon up the energy, and even if you could you can’t talk with the snorkel in your mouth.
“I guess you aren’t goin’ to want to stay here much longer.”
You don’t like what you see in his eyes. You pull him up to the surface with you.
“We have to go back.”
“No,” he corrects you. “You have to go back.”
“And you have to come back with me.”
“What do I have waitin’ for me back there?”
Don’t do this, you want to say. Not today.
“Your friends, of course!”
“Yeah, my friends,” he grumbles. “I bet all my friends would want me to stay out here.”
“That’s not true and you know it!”
“No, I don’t! All ‘a them, they like laughin’ at me behind my back more than they like me! I know I made a mistake… or two,” he corrects at some perceived protest he sees on your face. “But not once has anybody noticed how hard I’ve been trying to make things right! Every day, I just let them walk all over me and say whatever they want and fuckin’ laugh. And for what, Jade? For what? How long am I supposed to go on sufferin’ before they’ve had enough?”
“You can’t ask for forgiveness,” you try explaining again, but he’s not listening. Just like every other time before.
“When did I ever ask? Fine. Whatever. There was that one time, but that was before you told me I couldn’t go about it like that. I’ve never asked again. I’ve done everything you said I should! Why isn’t it working?” he snarls, all his frustration suddenly directed at you.
Because you still haven’t stopped asking, you want to say. Not really. But you know he won’t hear you even if you say it.
“Well…” You struggle to find words that could at least help him but come up blank. “You have to be patient. You can’t force them to forgive.”
“I have been patient! I’ve waited and waited and waited, and for what, Jade?” he demands to know. “Maybe they’re never going to forgive me. Maybe they don’t want to. Maybe they like things the way they are now, with me always around for a good laugh. Maybe nobody will ever notice how hard I’ve tried to make up for my past. God, why am I even bothering? Nothing’s ever going to make a difference.”
“I noticed!” you shout, whacking him across his thick skull. “I noticed, and I thought to myself, ‘Gee! There’s a guy who hasn’t had a friend in a long, long time. And I decided then and there that I didn’t care about anything about you except the parts of you that I saw with my own eyes.”
You grab two big handfuls of his tuchus and drag him so close that not even the water can get between you.
“Since that time I have seen a lot of you,” you grin. He blushes purple from nose to gills. “And I want to see more of you.”
You kick back, leaving reeling in your absence.
“But if that’s not enough for you while you’re waiting for your friends to move on, then fine. Stay here.”
You start swimming backwards until he takes a hint and starts the chase. You teleport back every time he gets too close, laughing as he flounders for you. You lose track of him after one teleport. You spin in the water, looking for his candy corn horns until a hand wraps around your ankle and pulls you under. You have a split second to be impressed at how fast he just swam before he kisses you. He looks adorably disappointed when you pull back to come up for air.
“How about we take this back to camp?” you suggest.
He fingers the end of the snorkel still hanging off the side of your goggles suggestively.
“Not just yet.”
He gives you his best puppy dog face. He knows it’s your weakness.
“Please?” he begs with big, watery eyes.
“Alright, alright!” you give in. “But only because you’re so cute.”