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You don’t remember what had finally broken you. You can’t recall a specific chain of events, only the feeling of something inside you snapping like a second summer twig in the middle of a drought. After that, it’s all white hot rage downing out your rational thought in favor of highblood instinct. Claw, maim, kill, make them pay.
When something restraining wraps around your chest and locks you in close, your first impulse is to fight it. Warm, solidness follows, heedless of the fire pounding through your blood, your head; it presses against your back, curves to mould around you and it feels… safe. Right. Sound washes over you then, soft and insistent but soothing.
“Shhh.”
The vibrating, humming part of your brain that was screaming at you to destroy everything hears. It registers. The susurrating continues, reaches deep down into you and tugs gently at your sanity, nudging it back into place. Fingers start to push through your hair, combing it back and skating nails lightly over your scalp and around the base of one horn till you’re a mess of calming sensations. When the screaming fire in your sponge finally lets go under the assault, you sink into it with a sob.
“Shhh. I’ve got you, Kar. I got you.” Your moirail gathers you up and tucks you into him as your legs give out. You were always an embarrassing excuse of a runt for a seadweller, so he picks you up like nothing and carries you with ease. You don’t see where he’s taking you, you’re too busy burying your face into the soft white ruff of his vest while choking down whimpers. With the anger flushed out, everything it was masking comes rushing to the surface, and it’s all you can do to hold back the flood of fear and exhaustion.
He bears you a short distance to someplace quiet and dim where there is no one else around, then without letting go, he kneels down and drops you both to the floor. This is cushioned by something soft, fuzzy and lumpy, and when you open your eyes you find that he’s pulled an old beast hide over a heap made of Terezi’s stupid crab plushies and other assorted odds and bits. At some point, he took the time to make an honest-to-fuck pile for you. The throb of tender gratefulness is almost enough to break you, and you have to grab one of the dumb crabs to bite down on just to stifle the whine building in your throat.
He doesn’t let you have that barrier for long, instead gently prying the stuffed animal from you claws and setting it aside. “It’s okay, let it out now,” he tells you.
“Eridan, I… fuck!” It comes out in a wail, and you can’t stop after that. Between babbled confessions and body-wracking sobs, you pour everything out until you feel hollow and wrung through. You feel better though. Lighter, like you’ve drained out something infected. It still hurts, but the sour foulness is fading. He cradles you the whole way through, humming softly in agreement or hushing quietly where needed until you’ve fallen silent, wrapped around him with nothing left to speak.
In the peaceful lull he purrs to you, “Pale as bones for you, Kar.” It’s such a cheesy thing to say, plucked right out of one of your favorite movies, the first one you showed him when you officially became quadrant mates. It gets you every time anyway, because you know he means it. You nuzzle and kiss his chin, his mouth and murmur, “Pale as stars,” right back, exactly the way the line is supposed to go, and horrors help you, you mean it too.
He smiles, presses his snout into your hair, and you go warm all over for it. In moments like these, you think it doesn’t matter how crazy or fucked up the rest of your life gets, there will always be this feeling of safe belonging to come home to.