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Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur C. Clarke
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“Do it again.”Sollux does it again, and as he snaps his fingers, the air fills with soap bubbles, a dispersion better than if he’d blown them.Eridan cocks his head to the side and takes aim with his forefinger, twitches his thumb and watches a bubble burst. He’s beaming, seated beneath the structure that signifies the inhabitants of Sollux’s communal hive stem, and with another gesture, with one eye half-closed, he pops a series of bubbles in a row.Sollux lifts a piece of maki sushi to his mouth and chews it while speaking. “Having fun?”Eridan glances over to him and then away just as quickly, instead following the bubbles as they float up towards much larger incarnations, with rays and dew and quartz filling the wide space above Sollux’s memories of his city’s skyline. “I can think of worse things to do.”“Food’s not bad, right?” Sollux shifts over and takes the tray with him. He picks up a piece of nigiri, and offers it to Eridan. “I could never make this in a million sweeps.”Flustered, Eridan tries to tamp down the nervous, tingling heat at the nape of his neck and bites the sushi from between the chopsticks, tries to ignore the two pieces of wood that touch his lips. He chews and swallows while Sollux watches him, and when he looks back, it’s from the corner of his eye. “Didn’t you, though?”Sollux sets the chopsticks on the tray and brushes his bangs back in an unconscious gesture. “Yeah. I guess I did.”“You guess?” Eridan helps himself to another piece of sushi, with their single pair of chopsticks. “You guess that you just conjured dinner out of thin air.”“It’s not like that!” Sollux insists. He watches the fog drift past the buildings, until he’s back to watching Eridan eat. “Once I figured out how it worked, it just... fell into place.”“You’re a wizard.”Sollux laughs. “What about you, Mr. Science Wand? You’re the one exploding the stuff I create by pointing at it.”“Yeah, but I’m just destroying shit, aren’t I?” Eridan points with the chopsticks towards the remaining bubbles as they fly away, and ruptures all but two. “I was already good at destroying stuff before way we got here.”“Something something, matter’s neither created nor destroyed. I’m not a physics guy.” Sollux stares at the two lingering bubbles until they pass completely out of sight, so high up they may well enter the adjacent dream bubbles, safe with their perfectly engineered low surface tension.“I’m just saying, objectively as a rational man of scientific inquiry,” Eridan starts, the words tumbling out a little too quickly, “that you’re obviously magic.”Sollux rolls his eyes, an ability he lacked for most of his life, and picks up a piece of sushi with his fingers. “What’s programming if not typing in the magic words that’re going to make stuff happen?”It’s Eridan’s turn to watch him as he puts the fish in his mouth and licks the stickiness of the eel sauce off his fingers. The stress is gone from his face, delivered now from the migraines that migrated to someone else’s skull. His eyes are visible, no longer obfuscated by his glasses when they were reduced to one pair to share between them. The dark circles beneath his eyes, however, have never left him no matter how long he spends pseudo-sleeping in a dream bubble. Sollux wipes his hand on his leg and begins to go back for another serving when he catches Eridan staring. “What?”“Nothin’.”It’s not nothing, and Sollux can sense it, from Eridan’s posture as he’s positioned towards him, from the tightness at his temples, the occasional alert twitch from his facial fins as if he’s startled himself awake from a reverie. There’s an allure to him, and if anglerfish is an uncharitable analogy, he could dissuade the comparison by diminishing the appeal of his proximity and the way he keeps smiling with those teeth.“Really, what?”Eridan looks to the far edge of the structure, at the other leg of the green metal as it connects with the roof, where Sollux is distinctly not sitting. “Do you think your lusus loved you?”“Fuck, dude.”“Sorry.”“No, it’s just... being up here like this, it’s hard not to think about him.”The fog surrounding the stemcluster isn’t what it is at sea, but it’s enough to bring it to mind, all the same. Eridan draws his knees up and rests his arms over them, waiting for Sollux to continue speaking.“Sometimes when we’re downstairs I keep thinking I’m going to hear him up here, you know?” Sollux mirrors his posture at first, then shifts to cross his legs and put his hands in his lap. “Like any minute I’ll need to run upstairs to feed him or something.”Eridan fiddles with the chopsticks, taps them against his knee, listens.“And... and I feel like I didn’t do a good job, to tell you the truth.” Sollux rubs at the bridge of his nose and over to the side, against the spot where his glasses used to rest. “I’d get caught up in projects and not realize how early it was and the sun would be up, and then I couldn’t feed him until the next night, and that wasn’t fucking fair.”“It’s not that you didn’t care,” Eridan offers. “You don’t keep cultivating all that honey if you don’t care.”“Yeah, but what use is it if I don’t remember to give him any of it?” He lets out a deep sigh. “I used to get so mad at how noisy he was. I was afraid we’d get kicked out of this place, and it’s not like I had the sort of pull to get us somewhere else to live. Like somewhere he’d actually fit inside.”There’s an expression on his face that Eridan previously would’ve considered unreadable, but his literacy has improved with their past history of a shared emotional state. It’s wistful.“I could never figure out why he chose me. I didn’t think I had a lot to offer, but there he was anyway, and he took me in and took me up here and we found a way for him to fit in my life, even if he couldn’t be in the building.” Sollux rests his elbow on his leg, rests his forehead on his hand. “Maybe two mutants like us were just supposed to be a match. Maybe I was the obvious choice.”“Maybe.”“I spent so much time wishing he’d shut up, and the mind honey shut him up.” Sollux glances to the leg of the structure, at the imprint of the chain links burnt into the surface by the sun. “It was such a chore to get him to eat, and now I feel like an asshole for feeling this, like... this relief of not having to deal with it? But I also wish that I still had to, if that makes sense.”Eridan sets the chopsticks down on the tray and reaches out, tentative, fingers outstretched to gently rest on Sollux’s shoulder. When Sollux doesn’t flinch away, Eridan lets his palm settle completely on his arm, rubs his thumb in soft circles. “It makes sense, Sol.”Sollux uses a knuckle to clear the corner of his eye, as if he’d just woken up. “It’s not a date until you disclose a bunch of fucking baggage from when you were a wiggler, right?”Eridan squeezes the muscle of his upper arm, once, briefly, and then relaxes his hold and eventually lets his hand fall away altogether. He returns his arms to cross over his knees. “I miss my lusus a lot, too.”“Yeah?”“Yeah.”“You guys had a way fancier setup than we ever did.” Sollux keeps resting his chin in his hand but turns to face him. “What was he like?”“My upbringing was a lot different than yours, and maybe that’s stating the obvious so just give me a minute to lay it all out, all right?” Eridan glances to him, to gauge his interest, but Sollux isn’t making any moves to interrupt him. “My lusus was more low maintenance than you might think so it’s not worth going into the routine with him, but y’know, with Fef’s... Fef’s fuckin’ abominable responsibilities became mine, too, and he helped me, no matter how much of our time it took up. Which was most of it. Most of our time.”There’s an awkward pause while Eridan gathers his thoughts about things he’s left alone for sweeps, and Sollux stares at him with what he hopes is sympathy and not scorn. He suspects it’s a combination of both.“He was, y’know... he was upright permissive, and on account of my status I could do pretty much whatever I wanted to, as long as we kept a steady stream of fishfood deposited to the briny deep, as it were.” He glances at the remaining sushi. “I thought it was like something out of a novel, sometimes. Just a kid and his lusus going on hunting trips and bonding. Seemed like the kind of thing the empire’d be proud of, or put in some of their propaganda.”“Hunting trips, yeah.”The subject is a tough one to broach, for both of them. Eridan stumbles through the sentences. “Look, it’s not like... I know all that stuff I said, okay, about everybody outside of the ocean, and the thing is, what’s worse in the long run? Some kids and lusii who don’t make it home, or the whole planet bleeding out of every orifice they got as soon as that thing starts shrieking?”Sollux lifts his eyebrows, ruefully. “I can’t say I’d recommend the experience.”“Fuck.” Eridan winces. “Yeah, not so much, huh?”“I wouldn’t wish that shit on anybody.”Eridan pauses, waiting to hear if he’ll elaborate, but Sollux does not make it clear which shit he’s referring to, so he continues on. “Sometimes there’s just stuff you have to rationalize if you’re gonna be able to sleep through the day.”Sollux looks over at the empty spot on the roof.Eridan speaks to fill the silence. “So, uh. You already know all this crap anyway, right, from being me before and all.”Sollux looks back to him. “Yeah, but I like hearing you tell me about it.”“Oh.” Eridan rubs at his forehead, where scars would have been were he another Ampora. “Well, uh. I think that he must’ve understood the severity of what we were doing. It was important work, and it was the only thing that kept you from croaking earlier than you did. And we all do what we have to do, right? You didn’t want to keep your lusus up here but there was nowhere else to put him, and you feel bad about what you’re doing, but what choice do you have at the end of the night?” There’s a wave of remorse that washes over Eridan, and Sollux knows he's not full of shit, even beyond remembering fragments of the very same evenings on the sea. “You’ve got a point.”“I know that you know, now, exactly how all that went down, but since you want to hear me say it, I’ll say that being out there with him…” Eridan looks past the edge of the roof, as if the cityscape could melt its rippling horizon of metal into the same shimmer as water. “Even though it was nerve wracking, I felt safe out there with him. I just knew, I could trust that, uh...”Eridan bites his lip, and Sollux returns the favor and lays a hand on his forearm, his fingertips rested against his ulna, feeling it through his skin.“I could trust that he wasn’t gonna drop me. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’d never let me fall, no matter who or what we were fighting.” Eridan lets his gaze fall to hyperfocus on the skin of Sollux’s knuckles, the bitten tips of his claws, the subtle reassurance of his fingers flexing to just barely trail over his arm. “And when I got to finally tell him that, when we could speak to each other using words instead of our own personal hivehold gesturing, he told me that’d all made him happy. Me and him just being out there on the ocean together, and carryin’ me around, just getting to spend that time...”Sollux moves his index finger in a continuous gentle scratching, flicking up and down like a switch.“I got to tell him thank you, at least.” Eridan takes a deep breath, deep enough that his gills flutter at his throat. “So.”“That’s good, though.” Sollux moves his fingers back and forth, a randomized pattern of soft zeroes and ones. “I’m glad.”“Yeah.”“Thanks for telling me.”Eridan nods.They sit together in the stillness of the moment, and Sollux eventually lets his hand drop. There’s not significant distance separating them; Sollux’s relatively higher body heat begins to warm the space between their ribs and hips. “You asked me if he loved me,” Sollux says, when enough time has passed to segue into it again. “But you already know, don’t you?”“Yeah.” Eridan looks at him levelly, steadying his intonation, easing his breathing. He rests his left hand on the ground between them, not quite touching the denim of Sollux’s jeans. “But I like hearing you tell me about it.”Sollux looks back at him, and then tilts his head back to look at the green structure from beneath its towering height, sheltered by it. “When I was able to speak to him, after I had to prototype his ashes I scraped off this roof, and after he had to fucking watch me die, and all that shit. When we were on LOBAF without such a shitty time limit, he told me he was proud of me.”“Yeah?”“Yeah.” Sollux closes his eyes, recalling it all from the archived thoughts he doesn’t often allow himself to access, head still tilted, staring sightlessly towards the sky. He takes in a slow breath, lets it out, does it twice. “He said he was proud of me for not just surviving, but thriving, despite everything we’d been through. I couldn’t understand it at the time, or even—” He laughs, self-conscious. “Or even enunciate it, but I think I get it now.”Eridan smiles at him.“I wonder what he’d think if he could see me now.” Sollux opens his eyes, lowers his head to look at him, where Eridan’s expression stays at ease. “If he could see me with you.”Sollux gingerly brings his hand to rest over Eridan’s, rubs the pad of his thumb over the ring on his pinky finger. He feels Eridan’s hand flex, feels his metacarpals moving as he lays his palm flat, and Sollux slides his fingertips delicately over the webbing between Eridan’s fingers.Eridan breathes in, and his gills flutter again. Sollux swears he can sense Eridan’s blood circulating in the only way he now cares to be made aware of it: resolutely remaining within his veins.“Do you think you’d ever try to bring him back?” Eridan asks, hesitant to give voice to the question. He knows how Sollux felt about some subjects in the past, but he’s no mind reader, and there’s no telling how a nuanced topic might be taken.“For a second time?” Sollux lifts his left hand into a fist in front of his teeth, biting between his knuckles, thumb braced against his chin. “I’ve thought about it.”Eridan lifts his fingers, raising Sollux’s with the movement, as a sort of reverse-handholding, as a surfacing gesture. “You could see him again.”“Yeah, but which him would I be seeing?” Sollux curls his fingers down to interlock with Eridan’s, fingertips pressing up underneath, against his palm. Eridan’s hand is cold, but then, his hands almost always are. “I know there’s other hims out there, but who else is going to remember this version of me? Which one out of a thousand remembers my life?”Eridan watches his face as he speaks, hand clutched by his, empathetic as the enmity between them further erodes. Sollux looks tired and vulnerable in ways that would have previously left Eridan enraged, fueled with disgust, but here on his rooftop, he has no intention of dredging all that back up.“It’s like if you cloned a barkbeast you once knew. That’s a totally different creature now. He doesn’t know who you are. He doesn’t know who you’ve been. You’re just starting over, but you’re looking at this replica of someone you used to know, who’s never known you. How could I live with that?”Eridan repeats Sollux’s motion and rubs his thumb over the outside edge of his pinky finger.“I just couldn’t do it. What happens to me then if I summon this facsimile of my lusus and then I’m stuck with him? How do I face him and say oh, whoops, this was a mistake, can you please go back to not existing?” He shakes his head. “It was fucked up enough to see our friends killing shit that looked like our lusii. If I can’t get him back, I just want to keep whatever closure I got, and I’m not using this ability for anything but making snacks or whatever. I won’t download the shape of my lusus into some kind of fucked up fugue state.”In a moment of attempted levity, Eridan squeezes Sollux’s fingers between his own and murmurs, “You wouldn’t download a custodian.”Sollux laughs, caught off guard, the sound itself something that Eridan used to resent, now sending a familiar warmth settling within his pulse at his throat, flushed through his facial fins. “But I would fucking absolutely download a car.”Eridan grins. “A ‘scuttlebuggy’?”“A four-wheeled ground transportation vehicle.” Sollux lets go of Eridan’s hand and raises his own hands above his head, fingers outstretched, as if waiting to catch the air as it’s suddenly abnormally affected by gravity. A bright red sedan, bright enough to be a liability for any underwrittaker foolish enough to sell a policy for it even if it weren’t of alien origin, appears in front of them on his rooftop. “I have the car,” he announces.“Holy fuck, what the fuck is that?” It’s Eridan’s turn to laugh. “Where do you get this shit from?”“I think these assets aren’t from our own version of Sgrub.” Sollux points at the 2009 Ford Fiesta that he’s called into existence. “Look at this thing. It doesn’t even have legs.”“Let’s send it to a watery grave.” Eridan retrieves the chopsticks from the tray and wields them. “Glub glub, mothertrucker.”“Oh my god, do it, do it.” Sollux leans forward, watching intently as a blast of pure hope pushes the car over the edge of the hive stem, where the weight of its chassis soon topples it towards the ground far below. “How high did it even have to be to do something like that?”“Exactly this high, it would seem.”They both listen for the faraway reverberating smash of metal against concrete. It’s oddly satisfying; physics engines are a good time, every time.“We totally should’ve run over there and watched,” Sollux laments, unable to stop smiling. “Addiction is a powerful thing, huh?”“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Eridan says, conspiratorially, as he sets the makeshift wands down, “but I really enjoy wrecking the shit you make.”Sollux looks at his hands, folded in his lap. “I guess I have a type.”Eridan looks at Sollux’s hands.“So, speaking of wrecking shit,” Sollux says, aware of Eridan’s eyes on him. “I got something for you.”“Yeah?” Eridan’s fins twitch along with his eyebrows. “What is it?” “Here.” Sollux produces a small glass bottle from his pocket instead of the ambient air, and reaches over to take Eridan’s hand in his own and press it into his palm. “It’s to replace the one you had.”Eridan lifts the container up, careful not to drop it, and examines the honeybee drawn in white on the glass, hovering above the word ABYSS, backed by the matte black fluid inside it.There’s an unspoken acknowledgement of the circumstances, and Eridan smiles at him, at once relaxed and nervous. “Thank you.”“Yeah, man.”Sollux watches him as he sets the nail polish down on the tray for safekeeping, so it won’t be knocked over. There’s a hesitance to Eridan’s movements, as if the moment is still buffering and he’s unsure of when to hit play so it won’t be interrupted, or be anything other than smooth.“I, uh. I have something for you, too.” Eridan’s throat moves as he takes a shaky breath, and a distracting amount of collarbone is visible through the wide neck of his shirt. Sollux braces his hands on his thighs in an effort to steady himself through the suspense. “You do?”“It’s not magic,” he starts, looking again to Sollux’s hands, where his fingers dig into his jeans. “There’s not a lot of magic ones out there, really, when it comes down to it. But it really is gold, like you, and I thought maybe you’d like to have it all the same, even if you don’t got much use for it.”Sollux feels his face get hot, and laughs under his breath. “What are you talking about?”Eridan pushes the tray completely out of the way and shifts over to sit in front of Sollux, both of them with their legs crossed. He lifts Sollux’s left hand up and brings it over to rest in his lap. With his eyes focused entirely on his efforts, he slides a solid gold band—the only one without any amethyst embellishing it—off his ring finger on his right hand, and slips it onto Sollux’s ring finger on his left hand.“They say that’s the one that’s closest to your vascular, uh, your... y’know, but I think that’s probably one of those bullshit things they say.” He swallows audibly, and finally looks up, without letting go of his hand. “Sollux, would you... will you be my k— uh, my m—” He falters, and casts a wide net for terminology. “My... whatever?”The fear of rejection is written clearly into Eridan’s eyes, and the desperation there would be enough to make Sollux wince if his pulse wasn’t at risk of rattling his ribcage. The gold gleams on his finger, and he knows it must match his own eyes with the way the city lights and the reflected, satellite brightness of the nowhere sun are falling on the two of them together.“Yes,” he says, sure of it as he laces his fingers with Eridan’s, where it returns the ring to its original order within the lineup along his knuckles, now adorning a different hand. “I would love to be your whatever.”There’s a surge of joy and relief that rushes towards Sollux’s awareness, enough to be awash in it, and his face hurts from grinning.“And,” he adds, glancing between Eridan’s eyes and the metal that’s placed a reassuring weight on his hand, “since magic is fake anyway, it’s enough that this ring is special because you gave it to me.”“Well.” Eridan can feel the sweat on Sollux’s palm against his, the solid warmth of him as their hands are clasped together, arriving at some equalized temperature where their skin touches. “This isn’t a half bad way to spend the afterlife.”Sollux laughs again, that eheheheh that Eridan had previously assumed was a put-on for the purposes of Trollian, but is unexpectedly true to life. “What's the other half?”Eridan leans forward and kisses him, and when their mouths meet, Sollux was already waiting for it.After squeezing his fingers once more, Sollux closes his eyes and lifts his hand to cup Eridan’s cheek, running his fingers up along his jawline, behind his fin, until his fingertips nudge the temples of his glasses. Eridan moves his lips softly against Sollux’s, slowly to allow for the briefest hint of teeth, barely there but for the natural shifting of their stance to accommodate each other. Sollux keeps himself close, keeps kissing him every other second as they both breathe. When Eridan opens his eyes he’s seeing Sollux in stereoscope once more.
“Whoa,” Eridan says, blinking. “What was that?”“It was good,” Sollux says, and this time he’s the one leaning forward to kiss Eridan again, threading his fingers into his hair to help hold him near, the split tip of his tongue darting out to taste his upper lip.Eridan lifts his arms to drape them over Sollux’s shoulders, loosely encircling the back of his head. “If you want me, you can have me.”Sollux taps his ring finger lightly against Eridan’s hair. “I think I already do, don’t I?”And even as exposed as they are on the roof, they’re sheltered by the shadow of the symbolic structure, utterly unconcerned with anything outside of this instant.Eridan takes in everything about him: how he can hear Sollux’s breathing and how it’s enough to make him feel like his own lungs are going to abandon him now that he’s so solidly on land. How he looks with eyes half-lidded, overlaid with their original red and blue by the tinted lenses through which Eridan views him. How he tastes mostly like skin and saliva but a bit like seaweed, and it’s not as if that was ever going to be a downside for Eridan.“You can think of it like a system restore, if you like,” Sollux says, tracing his fingertips along a wavy section of Eridan’s bangs, trying to tuck it beneath the glasses and failing to do so. “I’m just putting these back how they were.”“I just want to be close to you,” Eridan admits, eyes closed as Sollux’s fingers move near his face, as a reflex. “Like we were.”Sollux leans in as close as he can get with their knees nudging each other, close enough to kiss his cheek, close enough for his hair to brush against Eridan’s fin. He reaches over to rest his hands on Eridan’s waist, as they sit together, facing one another. “I’m right here.”“Everyone always leaves me, eventually.” Eridan inhales shakily, for how tightly his eyes are screwed shut, and how tight his chest feels with Sollux’s hands on his hips. “I’m trying to tell myself this isn’t gonna play out the same way.”Sollux lowers his head to kiss Eridan’s throat, his breath ghosting over his gills. “You just have to believe me when I say that I’m staying.”“My stomach’s doin’ kickflips.” Eridan shivers and brings his fingertips up into Sollux’s hair, petting him and encouraging him as he kisses down to his collarbone, the way he’s wanted to this whole time. “Right off the handle.” Sollux laughs against his shoulder. “Are you sure that’s not the wasabi?”“Wasa-bee.”Sollux laughs harder and moves back. “Okay, as hot as this is, this angle is really awkward.”“Not half as fuckin’ awkward as me,” Eridan blurts. “Not anywhere near as embarrassing as the undignified shit I’m about to pull.”Eridan buzzes like a radio, and Sollux waits through the static until it fine-tunes itself into a wave of what's out there, the subconscious signal of his frazzled state. “I’d say you don’t understand, except that I know you do, and that’s what I don’t fuckin’ get.” Eridan rubs at his right eye with a hand that’s now missing the presence of metal on one single finger, nudges his glasses up. “I’m clingy and I’m an overbearing wreck and I push people away even though all I want is their attention and you’re still here, you’re still willing to wade into all that despite knowing who I’ve been, from being inside my own awful glubbing think pan.”“It’s okay,” Sollux soothes, seated and stable. “Calm down, dude.”Eridan searches his face for something, and when he finds what he’s looking for, in the open acceptance evident in the way Sollux regards him, he shifts over, dragged down with his own undertow, and sinks as heavily against Sollux as if his chest were the ocean floor. The sprite shades are askew on his face, his right horn settled against Sollux’s sternum, his arms around his waist where his shirt hangs too loosely over his frame. “I’m sorry,” he says, hugging him like he’d be swept away if he dared to let go. “I don’t know why anyone would want someone like me. I don’t think I deserve it.”Sollux brings his left arm down around Eridan’s shoulder, his hand on his upper arm, the sturdiness of the ring faintly perceptible through his sleeve. He pats his arm twice. “Shh.”“If you’re willing to wait here with me while I get my shit together, then... then I’ll be here for you, too.” Eridan closes his eyes. “For whatever that’s worth.”“It’s worth a lot.” Sollux brings his right arm up to rest his hands with each other over Eridan’s shoulder, and tilts his chin down to kiss the tip of Eridan’s horn. “That sounds good to me.”“This is so fucked up.” Eridan sighs into Sollux’s shirt. “All of this.”“If you say so.” Sollux shrugs, and Eridan feels it in the shift of his chest. “You wanna sit up?”Eridan acquiesces, and adjusts his posture enough to rest his head against Sollux’s shoulder, instead. Sollux reconfigures his own stance to slip his arm around Eridan’s waist and rest his left hand on his hip, and to find his fingers again with his right hand.Sollux starts humming a song Eridan doesn’t recognize, and leans his head against Eridan’s, holding him until the reluctance ebbs away, until peace flows back in its place, lapping at whatever parts of his brain are receptive to this feedback.“You’re too kind to me,” Eridan whispers.“Wrong,” Sollux says, softly. “I’m just the right amount.”“But—”“Nope.” Sollux smiles against his hair. “I measured it. It's an immutable fact I'm stating for the record.”There’s a radiant contentment that emanates from Eridan after that, as he releases the breath he was holding and allows himself to bask in being held.High above them, at the limit of the sphere they inhabit, the two remaining bubbles tap into edge of the dream bubble membrane together and stay there, poised where no one else can see.