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The afterlife is full of extra Eridans. Then again the afterlife is also full of extra yous, so you can’t really complain too much.
One of the Eridans is damaged. The damage is physical, he’s missing his horns. You don’t know what happened to him but when any Sollux approaches him he gets frightened. Not just a little frightened, but outright petrified… you see out of your good eye that he literally cowers as a Sollux walks by.
The Sollux stares, then keeps walking. You can tell by the blank look he gave the Eridan that he’s not HIS Sollux, that being whichever Sollux reduced him to this state.
The logical conclusion you come to after watching that exchange is that Sollux is somehow responsible for both Eridan’s lack of horns and how scared he is. You wonder how a timeline could be so different that you’d actually give a shit enough to do something like torture Eridan instead of killing him outright. Then again there is an Eridan running around in a tiny little skirt, so you know the timelines can vary wildly.
You also don’t know how it is possible for such obvious damage to continue over into this messed up afterlife, but you seem to have a brain damaged ancestor running around, so you guess sometimes injuries can come through.
You don’t have anything else better to do in the infinite expanse of time that is the dreambubble afterlife, so you start watching that Eridan out of boredom. You have to be discreet about it, hiding behind things so he can’t see you.
That’s how you find out he’s more damaged than you thought.
His dreambubble consists of a beach and an endless expanse of ocean. It is obviously a memory of home. The beach is barren except for rock outcroppings. You watch as he strips, jumps in the water and disappears under the waves, only to resurface moments later coughing and choking. He climbs onto the beach again on all fours, then collapses in the sand and begins to quietly sob.
He keeps that up for a bit before crawling up against a rock and huddling against it, haunted eyes staring out across the water.
You have no idea what would cause a seadweller to be unable to swim, or rather be frightened of swimming, but you figure it has something to do with his lack of horns, which you’ve already determined has something to do with his version of you.
So you go out to find answers. It’s weird, because you instinctively know what timeline you’re from and can pick out other trolls from your timeline out of a crowd. You don’t know how it works, but you figure it has something to do with game mechanics and the afterlife. You also know you’re from the alpha timeline though if pressed you’d admit you have no idea how you know that, you just do. Likewise, doomed timeline trolls flock together and more often than not, they seem to instinctively know what timeline they’re from and can sense out their fellow timeline-mates.
You just start asking Karkats if hornless Eridan is from their timeline. It takes you all of five tries before you find the right Karkat, a god-tier that looks sad instead of angry.
He looks uncomfortable when you ask what happened. “You kind of snapped,” he says finally. “Lost it when we all started dying. You took it out on him when Feferi died.”
You can’t help but to notice the way he phrased that sentence. “Eridan didn’t kill her?” you ask.
He shakes his head. “I think you thought he did,” he replies. “He was with her at the time,” he takes a deep breath and sits down, after a moment you sit down next to him. “He found her bludgeoned to death, her skull was smashed open. She was sliced up as well, entrails everywhere. It was a gross mess. When we found them Eridan was absolutely covered in her blood, sitting beside her. Sollux – he put two and two together and they fought. Eridan lost… but Sollux he didn’t kill him. He kept him alive for a couple weeks…” Karkat shuddered.
You frown at that. “Bludgeoned to death,” you say slowly. In your timeline Eridan blew a hole in her chest. He’s always been one for quick kills, you’ve never known him to torture anyone, just kill, fast and clean.
Karkat nods at the look on your face. “If you want to know my opinion, I think it was Gamzee. I don’t know why he left Eridan alive. I don’t even want to know. But nothing I said to my Sollux would convince him otherwise,” he turns towards you. “You have to understand, we were all dead by that point. It was only you, me, Eridan… Gamzee was missing. You just saw everyone die in front of you, and just like me you couldn’t do anything to prevent it. You were god-tier as well, I think that was another reason you went around the bend. And…” he hesitates in a certain way that makes you tense with wariness.
“What is it?” you ask.
He flinches and forces himself to carry on. “Before finding Feferi’s body you two were, ah, in Kismesissitude.”
“You’re not serious,” you return, feeling faintly horrified. This is not a thing in most timelines, you’re sure, because you have absolutely no interest and you’d notice it if other yous had something going on with Eridans.
He shakes his head. “I am completely serious,” he replies, and from the look on his face you can tell he is.
Okay, if you were both black and you thought he killed your matesprit, you can sort of understand why you would have gone crazy enough to keep him alive and torture him. Maybe. But that’s still a stretch. “What did I do to him?” you ask.
Karkat gives you a long look. “You really don’t want to know,” he says.
“Probably not,” you agree. “Tell me anyway, I’m bored as shit.”
Karkat gives you a long look, then keeps going.
“Without his wands he was powerless. You tied him up and started hacking away. His horns went first. After that… I couldn’t get you to stop,” Karkat shifts and you can tell he’s really uncomfortable. “Fingers, toes… by the end of a week he was begging for death. That’s when you started to get creative.”
Yeah, you don’t want to hear this. You don’t say anything, and he continues. “You bound up his gills. You did it so tightly there was no way he could breathe underwater. You started throwing him into the lab vats with your power with his limbs still tied up to see if he would be able to swim or breathe. He couldn’t do either but instead of just letting him die you’d bring him back out again, just to start all over again. You told me you were teaching the seadweller how it felt to be powerless.” He trails off and shakes his head. “I just wanted you to stop. I finally attacked you when your back was turned, slit your throat,” he gives you an apologetic shrug. “You were gone and nothing could bring you back, and we’re already in a doomed timeline anyway. You died a just death and stayed dead. That’s when I knew I had really lost you.”
You nod, trying to swallow back the bad taste that seems to have developed in your throat. You can’t put your head around the thought of torture to that extent… maybe being god tier really fucked you up. Sometimes when the voices got really bad you’d lash out, so that was a possibility too. “And Eridan?” you ask.
Karkat looks miserable. “I got him out finally, but he was already broken. He tried to cling to me crying and shit, begging me to end it. He couldn’t even do that, his fingers were gone. Even after I told him you were dead, there was nothing I could do for him,” Karkat draws a deep breath. “He died a day later,” he shakes his head slowly. “If only I had gotten to him earlier…”
You frown and hit him on the shoulder. “Life is made up of what ifs. You did what you thought was right KK,” you get to your feet again and make to walk away.
“I wish my version of you felt the same,” he says.
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Next time you meet damaged Eridan he sees you and goes white as a sheet. You watch as he ducks behind a tree to hide from you.
At first you don’t plan to do anything, but you’re bored and the afterlife seems to go on forever.
Finally the third time you see him and he does his run away thing you decide to intervene. Obviously no one gives a shit about this copy of Eridan, you’ve even seen other Eridan copies regard him with disgust, so now you’re going to start giving a shit, just because. You don’t even really want to analyze your reasoning.
You walk behind the tree and grab the Eridan by the arm.
He has a meltdown. A look of sheer terror crosses his face before he starts crying and blubbering. “I didn’t do it, I swear it, oh cod, I swear…” the protests increase in volume and desperation as you start tugging his arm to lead him away from the tree. “Stop, stop, please let me go, I’ll do anything…”
“Shut up,” you tell him.
He does so with a small whimper, still shaking like a leaf.
You sigh and start dragging him back to his dream bubble. He follows because he has to, you still have a vice grip on his arm, but the distressed noises he makes grows as you approach. You don’t really care, once you enter you toss him onto the sand. He tries to crawl away, but you don’t let him, reaching down and grabbing his arm again to pull him up into a sitting position. “Stay still,” you order.
It takes all the effort he has to do so. Wide tear-filled eyes stare up at you. He’s hyperventilating, having a panic attack. You’ve had enough of those that you can tell the signs.
You reach out and gather him up in your arms, rubbing his back roughly. He cries and twists and tries to get away, then finally gives up and sags against you as he sobs.
He cries himself out and finally just lies against you like all the strength has gone out of his limbs.
“You’re not him,” he says in a soft voice.
“No shit,” you reply. “What gave it away, maybe the fact that I’m blind in one eye? Or the lack of god tier?”
He tilts his head up to look at you. His brow is furrowed. “What are you doing?” he asks after a lengthy pause.
“Holding you, what the hell does it look like I’m doing?”
He shifts and incomprehension shines in his eyes. “Why?”
You shrug. “Because I’m bored.”
He lets out a small deprecating laugh. “Right, so you decide to take it out on me then. Maybe rub one out while watching me suffer a bit more,” your blood freezes momentarily as he says that. Right, fuck, Kismesissitude, of course. But that’s beyond fucked up, everyone knows you don’t maim your kismesis. Rough them up a little to get the feelings going, but maiming? Karkat was right, you really were gone.
“Why don’t you go pick on your own Eridan,” he continues with a sniffle.
“Because he’s a douche and I hate him,” you reply. “Also he blinded me, but whatever.”
Curiosity crosses Eridan’s face and he sits back so he can really get a look at you. His lack of horns can’t be any more obvious. “He won?” he asked.
“Yeah, I under estimated him,” you reply. “Kanaya sliced him in half with a chainsaw though so it’s not like he was around very long to gloat.”
He flinches visibly, but his eyes are still wide and curious. He reaches out towards you and you know he’s going for your face, so you take that opportunity to embed your fingers in his hair, searching out where the bottom of his horns would be under the thick black hair.
Mistake. You barely get to touch the base (at least it feels like that is still there, it was a clean cut across the base) when he cries out and jerks away from you. He curls into a ball a few feet away, arms up over his head protectively. He’s shaking again.
You sigh and gaze up across the horizon. Amazingly you can see the clouds in the distance becoming stormy… in fact the weather has been crappy since you first walked in here. You wonder if he’s affecting the weather. It would make sense, seeing as this is his dream bubble.
You decide you’re done for the day, whatever a day really is here. “I’m going,” you tell the Eridan ball, and get to your feet.
You think he unrolls himself to watch you go. The weather clears up a little bit with every step you take out of there.
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You go back to his dream bubble sometime later, after not seeing him for a while. The dream bubble sky is cloudy when you enter it, the seas are a little bit choppy. He’s sitting on his beach, curled up against a rock. You don’t know if he’s sleeping or resting, but you don’t intend to let him do that very long.
“Hey,” you say.
He jumps visibly, his eyes widening. Cowering comes next, though you don’t intend to let him do that very long either. You walk over to him with long deliberate strides and pick him up by both arms. He winces, turning his head away, eyes squeezed shut.
You begin to walk him towards the water and NOW you have a fight on your hands.
You don’t really care. You’re an asshole. You can still use your power, and you use that to pin him as you strip him of his shirt. He starts panicking now, again, eyes wide and face contorted with pain.
“Stop, stop, what’er you… STOP,” he shouts as you finish taking off his shirt. You can see his gills now, fluttering as he convulses but otherwise they look undamaged.
“Can you breathe out of them?” you ask.
He doesn’t reply, he’s still trying to fight his way out of your hold. You shrug and decide to find out for yourself. You plunge him into the water and deliberately hold him down about a foot under.
He screams. You can tell because his mouth opens wide and bubbles rush to the surface as he contorts. He keeps screaming until he runs out of breath, and then he pulls in a tremendous gasp under water.
That makes him choke. You almost bring him up again when you see his gills flare up along his sides. He draws in one breath from them, they close, and then another as they open again. That happens a few times.
The outright panic in his eyes slowly fades as he stares up at you through the hazy water. He’s definitely breathing now. The corner of your mouth curves up into a half smirk as you look down at him. Blank confusion meets your gaze. He has no idea what you’re doing, which is a shame because this is really fucking easy to figure out. You watch as the confused look moves into something a little more open and a little more hopeful.
Right, enough of that. You’re not his kismesis and you don’t want to give him any sort of impression you’re doing this for anything other than to relieve your boredom. You pick him up out of the water again and throw him onto the beach.
He coughs and hacks and chokes and with the racket you miss the sound of approaching footsteps. The voice is unmistakable. “What are you doing?” it asks.
Both of you freeze. A god tier Sollux is walking towards you with measured strides, his brow furrowed and a frown on his face. You already know who it is before Eridan chokes out a scream and scrambles BEHIND you, like you’ll protect him or something.
You shrug and stuff your hands in your pockets. You can’t kill him because he’s already dead, it takes something bigger and much more powerful to off a ghost. However he can kill you, if he realizes you’re only half-dead, so you really don’t want to provoke any sort of fight.
“Someone made him afraid of breathing under water,” you say finally. “I was just fixing that.”
His eyes narrow. “Why? You’re not even from our fucking timeline. You’re not even close.”
“Oh shut up,” you reply, rolling your eyes. Like you give a crap about timelines and copies. He’s still Eridan, just like the troll in front of you is still you. “You tortured him so badly he carried damage into the fucking afterlife and he’s petrified of everything, why do you give a shit if I help him? I think you’ve done enough,” you’re powering up despite yourself, right after you told yourself you wouldn’t.
He takes one look at you and starts laughing and wow, you never quite knew how annoying your laugh was until now. At least it defuses the tension and you get a hold of yourself enough to power down. He stops laughing almost as fast as he starts and cocks to his head to the side. “I don’t particularly care what you do with him,” he says decisively. He turns his gaze to the cowering Eridan behind you. “I talked to her, I know you didn’t do it,” you turn to look at Eridan as well. He looks like he’s caught somewhere between confused and terrified. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” the god tier Sollux then turns and walks away.
“Wait…” Eridan calls out. The words seem to catch in his throat. He clears it and tries again. “Wait! SOL…”
The Sollux doesn’t turn or wait at all. He fades out of the dream bubble. You turn back to Eridan just in time to see his face crumple. He curls in on himself and starts to sob. Lightening strikes off the coast, followed by the distant roar of thunder.
You’re torn. On one hand you want to say fuck this and get the hell out of this dismal dream bubble and leave this wreck of an Eridan to his misery. Maybe find his Karkat to see if he can do something to help. On the other hand you – or rather a you – is the douche who reduced him to the way he is right now, chopped his fucking horns off and literally tortured him to death and leaves with just a “sorry”?
And you thought your timeline was fucked up.
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You end up spending the next little while just sitting there on the sand getting rained on as he sobs himself dry. He falls into a troubled sleep after a while, still curled into a defensive ball. Some stupid sense of obligation makes you stay. You wait until he wakes up again and sits up, blinking and brushing dried sand off of his gills. He gives you the most bewildered look you’ve ever seen. At least he’s not frightened anymore. “Sol?” he asks tentatively. “Did you… did you stay here all day?” There is hope in his voice. You wrinkle your nose. Day doesn’t even exist in the afterlife, but yeah, the harmless dreambubble sun rose above the cloud cover and set again.
You think you’re done here. “I’m going now,” you say, and get to your feet.
“Sol, wait…” his voice wavers. You stop and stand there and sigh impatiently. He gets to his feet as well. Before you can stop him he wraps his arms around you and hugs you tightly, burrowing his face against your shoulder. “Thank you,” he says, and the sincerity in his voice makes you wince.
“Yeah, okay,” you reply. You let him hug you for a couple more seconds then push him away, though not nearly as roughly as you should.
You can’t help but notice the weather has cleared up nicely as you walk out of the dream bubble. You think you can even see the twinkle of Alternian stars in the sky.
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You don’t spend any more time with hornless Eridan but you do notice that he’s not as scared of you as he used to be. He even gives you a shy smile when you pass him once, which you try your best to ignore. Giving him attention will just make him like you more and making him like you more is something you definitely don’t want.
The day comes when you lose your dead half and go back to being fully alive and thus fully blind again. That sucks, because you can’t see a damn thing and you lost track of Aradia ages ago. Your world quickly becomes reduced to a few metres within a dream bubble that isn’t even yours and you’re fairly sure belongs to Eridan’s irritating ancestor. Sure enough after what seems like hours of bumbling around, using gnarled trees as support, you bump into him. He snorts something about being just like his Captor and you bristle. “Fuck off,” you growl and shove him away, only to over compensate and trip. He catches you before you go down all the way and suddenly you find yourself in his arms.
“Hey there Captor, careful where you walk,” he says, and his voice sounds dangerously close to your face.
You put up with that for about a half second before growling at him and shoving away again. He catches your arm before you can get too far and you find yourself pulled back. “What’s the rush?”
This guy seriously needs to back the fuck off. Your powers start to flicker around you. At the same time you hear footsteps approaching. You lose your concentration.
“Hey Chief,” the smarmy asshole says in your ear to whoever your new guest is and you grit your teeth.
“Don’t call me that,” is the irritated reply. That voice is very familiar, you’d recognize it anywhere. Now you’re stuck between two Amporas, fucking great. You start to power up again. Even without a target you can see, a generalized strike would blow them both back and give you some breathing room.
“Sol? Is that you?” it takes you a moment to recognize that, even though that’s Eridan’s voice, it’s probably him. Just the way he says ‘you’, in his timid voice gives him away, no other Eridan would actually give a shit about your specific existence, or lack thereof.
“Yeah,” you reply.
“What… what happened to your eyes?” he asks.
You sigh. “Some douche prototyped my corpse, which sucked the ghost part out of me - never mind it’s a long story and will you fucking let me go?” that last part was directed at the older Ampora.
He does what you ask with a small huff and you find yourself standing on your own again. And, again, without any sight you have no point of reference and no idea how far you’re standing to anything. You take a step back AWAY from Cronus though, Eridan’s better than him any day.
You don’t have to stand there long until you feel another touch to your elbow, this one far lighter than Cronus’ heavy handed handling. “Hey,” he says in a quiet voice. “I’ll take you to the people from your timeline.”
You feel a surge of gratitude towards him. You make sure you raise your middle in the general direction of Ampora Sr., which only gets you a chuckle in reply, the dick.
You’re silent as Eridan leads you through several dream bubbles. He’s careful the entire way, giving you precise instructions on where to turn and step and even catches you from tripping a couple times. “You don’t have to do this,” you tell him finally.
“You’re the only Sol who was ever kind to me,” he replies and you try to ignore the funny feeling that comes over you at that. You frown. He’s not your Eridan, like your Eridan even ever gave a shit about you, and you definitely don’t care about him. The rest of your journey is made in somewhat gloomy silence.
Even Aradia sounds surprised when Eridan leads you to her. “Thank you!” she says cheerfully as she takes your other elbow. “I never thought I’d see the day,” she adds and there is a teasing lit to her voice.
“I owed him one,” Eridan replies. He runs his hand down the length of your arm and gives your hand a quick squeeze. “See you, Sol,” he says as he lets your hand go.
You nod and listen as he quietly walks away.
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You never do see that Eridan again - not that you could if you wanted to because you’re blind. Later, when you’ve become part of Vriska’s fleet and find out she’s forcibly recruited hundreds of other ghosts to be her canon fodder, you ask her how many of those are Eridans.
“At least fifty,” she cackles.
You wonder if hornless Eridan is one of those fifty. You hope he’s not, but somehow you don’t think he’d be so lucky.
You don’t ask.
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