Chapter Text
Eridan Ampora practically flew down the dingy prison wing corridor, striding quickly and purposefully, his teeth locked together in annoyance and a high purple flush flaming across his cheekbones. The dirtscraping mustardblood had stood him up. Yet again. This was seriously starting to kindle thoughts of re-assessing his current roaming privileges.
As usual he found Sollux Captor hunched in front of a computer, messing with code by the look of it. He must have heard Eridan enter the room but as usual was making a big show of not noticing. God he was infuriating like that.
Eridan swept toward him, cape flowing in the slip stream of his movement, making him look powerful, impressive, majestic. Or at least it did in his own mind‘s eye. Sollux didn’t glance his way even when Eridan stopped huffily right behind him. Only when Eridan roughly grasped a handful of his hair and yanked his head back was he forced to make an acknowledgement as the seadweller’s cold lips pressed forcefully against his own.
"I expected you to be waitin in my quarters when I returned, not still in here Sol." his tone was both angry and upset as usual, the way he sounded every time Sollux ignored his orders.
"Maybe I just lost track of time" Sollux answered petulantly, righting himself when Eridan released his hair and settling his fingers back across the keyboard keys again.
"You know damned well you aren’t supposed to still be in here, you continually do this just to spite me, after I been so fuckin magnanimous to you. You would be dead right now if it wasn't for me, pissblood."
Sure, he had escaped being culled outright, thanks to the violet blood's intervention. But as a result, Sollux had become little more than a prisoner instead. Or worse, he lamented miserably as he touched the metal circling his neck, a pet. Primarily the collar suppressed his psychic powers, he found out that they had been in use on the imperial fleet ships for some time already, but it was also electronically coded with his details. He could get through any checkpoints on the ship he was cleared to access, but that really wasn’t that many. Even without his psiionics he was still certified too high risk to roam more freely due to his hacking skills. He wasn’t allowed anywhere that he might pose a major security threat. So the lower class habitation levels and prison block were really about the limit of his free roaming territory.
Eridan had actually had to relinquish full time use of beautiful apartment in one of the officer’s levels for a more basic one just so that he could be closer to Sollux and allow him the freedom to leave it when he so desired. He liked to remind Sollux of this fact frequently, as though Sollux should be sickeningly grovellingly grateful to Eridan for every small privilege he had received and heedful of every great luxury that Eridan had given up for him. But Sollux had known Eridan too long and it was hard to treat him differently despite the circumstantial change.
"I ordered a five course meal to be delivered to my quarters and I told you to be there for when it arrived. I also would have expected you to have bathed and changed your clothes really Sol, you are a disgrace." Eridan's purple eyed gaze swept over him critically. "You are going out of your way to annoy me as well as make me look bad."
Sollux shrugged and resumed typing, until Eridan grabbed him by the back of his shirt and pulled him forcibly up off of the chair.
"You are coming back to dine with me right now" he snapped.
"I'm not hungry." Sollux stated quietly.
"Bullshit, I don’t think you have eaten all day and I won't allow you to waste away to an even more pathetic specimen of a troll than you already are."
He tugged insistently on Sollux's shirt.
"Don't make me drag you back."
Eridan only released the fabric of his shirt when he was sure Sollux was actually following him. He used a coded ring to open the recreation room door. It was programmed to a much higher access level than Sollux's collar. Every now and again Sollux wondered if he fancied his chances of overpowering Eridan and stealing the ring to try and escape. Some feeling he couldn’t quite acknowledge always held him back. Eridan didn’t treat him all that badly really, and his conscience just wouldn’t let him get Eridan into major trouble, the sort that would end up getting them both sentenced to death. The logistics of escaping a space ship was also a fair hitch to any exit strategy.
He sloped down the dim corridors with his hands shoved in his pockets, following the flowing purple cape in front of him. Another thrilling night of Eridan's company... sigh. Sollux wished he would make some other friends and bother them some more, although most of the other trolls on the ship were adults. There really weren’t any direct peers of the same age. In their friendship circles on Alternia, Sollux had had very little to do with Eridan. He primarily knew of him through Karkat, otherwise he was the sort of high blooded snob who only consorted with other highblooded snobs. Although he had found out more recently of course that Eridan had had designs on him from afar, more so after he had become romantically involved with Feferi.
Feferi hadn't been dead all that long really, the flagship had only been back in space for a few weeks after a short stay on Alternia. As much as the two male trolls disliked each other, they had both loved Feferi and were somewhat united in their shared grief, even though they actually spoke about their loss very rarely.
Back in Eridan's apartment the table had been all set up with quite the banquet.
"I'd send you to clean yourself up first but I don’t want this to spoil even further." Eridan snarked sourly as he unfastened the stupid cape and hung it up, so that Sollux now only had to deal with his stupid pretentious black and purple trimmed uniform. Sollux himself still wore the same clothes he was captured in, despite having a basic wardrobe of alternative outfits provided on the ship. He just didn't want to wear any of them.
"Sit down." They seated themselves and to shut Eridan up Sollux helped himself to a good sized portion of food.
Sollux jabbed at the fancy looking appetizers with his fork. Delicate and colourful arrangements of various bits of land and sea dwelling fauna from some planet or other, most likely expensive and rare delicacies that either tasted like shit or of nothing at all. To be honest he just didn’t think much of fine dining, he had always been a fast food junky and was perfectly happy eating any old crap smothered liberally in his favourite grub sauce. Eridan obviously appreciated it though and as always, thought he was treating Sollux to the finer things which would eventually make the land troll more receptive to his advances, but Sollux genuinely didn’t care for such things. Or the advances. The only real enjoyment he got out of Eridan really was winding him up.
"So, you were busy today?" Eridan tried to make conversation. Sollux decided to adhere to the lie when in actual fact he hadn't achieved much at all. He had only really switched to his coding when he had exhausted the limited library of games and entertainment in the rec room of the prison block.
"I think I made decent progress."
"Yeah, well. Just don’t be doin anythin that looks suspicious, you're still being closely monitored and I don’t want to ever come back to find you've been hauled in for interrogation."
Eridan spent long hours away elsewhere in the ship with the elder trolls. It seemed they were actually impressed with his dull backlog of flarping campaign strategies and general awful highblood attitude and had been happy to take him into training to find him a post on one of the conquest ships. The best Sollux could hope for was a dull and uneventful existence until he was mature enough to potentially be wired into the engine room of a ship and used to power it. That’s how the ship they currently resided in was powered, Eridan had told him it was so. Somewhere on one of the numerous levels he or she was imprisoned, some unfortunate lowblood psychic being painfully worked to the limit of their powers moving the vast ship through space. It made Sollux feel ill to think about it.
Eridan was quite contentedly getting through dishes, but Sollux pushed his plate aside after forcing a few more mouthfuls down. Instead he poured a generous glass of wine and almost downed it in one. He didn’t care for the taste but the alcohol content could make the evening a little less tedious. Eridan looked at him disapprovingly.
"Sol don’t drink that like you chug soda, its..."
"Expensive, I know" Sol cut in dryly. He topped it up to a second glass.
Sollux didn’t eat much more and fortunately for him Eridan didn't give him any more grief about it. Instead he filled up his own glass of wine, sidled over to Sol and ran his fingers through Sollux's ratty hair.
"Come on Sol, bathe with me then come to bed" Eridan dipped his hand down, touched Sollux's crotch suggestively. He was a lot pushier now than when they first boarded the ship, generally more confident in both his professional and private life. Sollux backed down when his misbehaviour made Eridan threaten to punish him, but he still didn’t feel obliged to pander to Eridan's demands gladly.
But it got a little more tolerable every time. Since the first time.
-------
"Take your clothes off."
Sollux gave a short, harsh laugh. "Fuck off..."
"I mean it" Eridan's voice rose slightly in pitch with annoyance.
"Why?"
"Why do you think, you fucking idiot."
"Yeah, somehow I thought as much. Not interested." Sollux brushed off his solicitation brusquely.
"Sollux..."
Sollux made to walk past him and leave, but Eridan stepped obstinately into his pathway to the door.
"Sol, I can have you sent to the prison block instead... and then it wont be me doing this..." It was meant to sound like a threat but Eridan's voice became strained at the end of the sentence. Sollux picked up the implication though. His blood ran a little colder when he considered just one or two of things the adult guards could do to him, without repercussion, without end. He was lowblood trash. He didn’t have any rights. They stared each other down for long, drawn out seconds.
Saying nothing, he gripped his tee-shirt and pulled it up over his head, exposing his downright scrawny torso. He was hardly the picture of a fit and robust young troll. He ate junk food, didn’t get much exercise at all, had terrible posture from hunching over his computer screen for hours on end. He kicked off his shoes, socks, and unfastened his trouser fly. Then he hesitated and glanced at Eridan. The sea troll was watching him as though mesmerised, a slight purple flush colouring his cheeks. How could he appear more embarrassed at Sollux stripping than Solllux himself was, especially when he gave the command in the first place. He was so odd. This was gonna be all kinds of awkward.
Sollux dropped his trousers and stepped out of them, then simply stood there, glaring at Eridan. Your move, was the silent challenge. Eridan looked him over at length, at his thin body, odd coloured eyes, pale skin even for a troll, and the solid metal ring around his neck the only adornment on his body. He reached out to touch the ring, traced it’s edge and then left it’s hard surface to trace his fingertips across Sollux's warm skin. Sollux could still feel his psiionics flare inside at the invasive touch, but rendered impotent by the cold circlet.
"On your knees." Eridan croaked, finally finding his voice.
"Huh, straight to the point and no romance required, I like it." Sollux jeered.
"Shut up, just do it." he responded angrily to the taunt.
Sollux sank to his knees on the cold hard floor, and had a strange moment to reflect on the sudden change in his fortunes that had lead him to find himself knelt in front of a guy he hated while said hated guy fumbled with the fastenings of his own trousers with trembling hands.
Eridan's bulge was already fully erect when he managed to clumsily free it from his pants. It was flushed the same shade of purple as Eridan's face, and already slick with his intense arousal. It was actually an attractive size and shape too, Sollux noted with a pang of something like jealously, but having a decent package didn’t necessarily make up for an intolerable personality. Sollux wasn’t about to admit that he hadn’t actually done what he was about to do before, but still, time to get this whole unpleasantness over as soon as possible.
Eridan twitched slightly when Sollux took a firm grip on the base of his bulge. He rubbed a couple of times, making Eridan shudder, before tipping the leaking tip towards his lips and darting his tongue out for an experimental taste. Inoffensive, slightly salty, nothing unusual. He clutched at Eridan's thigh with his free hand to steady himself as he opened his mouth wide, shielded the hard points of his teeth as much as possible, and sucked on the whole tip. Eridan gasped, his hands moving to reflexively grip Sollux's head by his hair.
"Fuck...ED..." Sollux backed off to reprimand him "Watch the sudden movements if you don’t want it bitten off!"
"S... Sorry" Eridan hissed, but he didn’t let go of Sollux. He could feel him exploring the curved shapes of his four pointed horns, and interlacing his fingers between them as Sollux swallowed his bulge again, deeper this time. He stroked with his tongue, worked with his other hand the length that he couldn’t cover with his mouth. He figured Eridan's nook, tucked away just beyond the base of his bulge, had to be fairly damp considering how engorged and throbbing his member was. He didn’t feel like finding out though unless Eridan made him do it, wasn't about to appear too eager.
Eridan was squinting down at him, biting his lower lip, starting to guide his speed and rhythm with the grip on his hair and horns. But Sollux was taken almost completely by surprise when the other troll shuddered, a long hard tremor that seemed to run the length of his body, pulled him close enough to nearly suffocate him, and ejaculated directly down his throat. Sollux tried to pull back, his throat working convulsively to swallow the hot gush and not choke as Eridan refused to let him go. He fell back dizzily on his ass when he was finally released, gasping for air, his lips slicked with purple tinged genetic material.
"Ugh..." he coughed, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. "Next time you pull that fucking stunt I will bite."
"No, you won't." Eridan informed him curtly, still highly flushed around his cheeks and fins as he tucked his softening, retracting bulge back into his pants. "You belong to me Sol, you'll do whatever I want you to do. Or I'll leave you to the mercy of the Condesce and she can decide your fate."
"You wouldn't." Sollux tried to call his bluff on the threat.
"I don’t want to Sol," his tone softened a little. "You know I don't, because I want you. I care about you enough to want to protect you from the hideous things that could be done to you on this ship, don't you understand that?"
Sollux understood perfectly well. But as a high level psiionic he was so much stronger than Eridan and, the thought of being enslaved to him was so unbearable, it just annoyed him so much he almost wanted to take his chances. But something in Eridan's expression, when he made these threats... didn’t seem completely self serving. Maybe he had seen first hand the other lowbloods in the ship, and no matter how much shit he took from Sollux he wouldn’t ever give him up.
Eridan had taken his clothes when he left, and left Sollux locked in the room naked for hours. He hunched himself up on the simple bed and hugged his legs to his chest. He could still slightly taste Eridan right at the back of his throat. The small square chamber was chilly, and bare of any real comfort or entertainment. He guessed Eridan was really trying to hammer home the point of how unpleasant it could be to be left locked in a cell in disobedience, as opposed to accepting the comfort of an apartment as a reward for compliance.
But things were still to get worse before they got slightly better.
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Eridan filled the large tub with steaming hot water. Sollux shed his clothes without hesitancy now as Eridan had already seen all of him there was too see. Frequently. He actually tossed his clothes into the collection hamper, Eridan was right... he had worn them a little too long and they were probably about ready to get up and walk away by themselves. Eridan removed his glasses since they had started to fog up from the steam anyway, and placed them on the nearby sink unit. Sollux had to admit they were much better than the ones he had worn before, replacing those ugly thick square frames for thin rectangular ones that complimented his features rather than make him look like a gigantic hipster nerd douchebag. He stripped out of his clean, pressed uniform and hung it up neatly, as he always did whereas Sollux generally dropped his rags wherever he happened to remove them, much to Eridan's annoyance.
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Sollux snapped out of his uneasy slumber on the cell bed with a jerk when Eridan pulled it shut just a little too hard after letting himself in. Sollux sat up, rubbed his bi-coloured eyes blearily until Eridan's anxious face came into focus.
"Wha... what is it?" He mumbled as Eridan approached, but was prevented by saying anything more by Eridan hooking his fingers through the metal collar and pulling Sollux's lips in clumsily against his own in an inexperienced trainwreck of a kiss. Sollux refused to reciprocate and tried to push Eridan back even as the grip around the collar pulled tighter. Irritated, Sollux resorted to nipping his lip, not hard enough to draw blood but enough to get him to back off.
"Eridan... What the fuck are you doing?"
"I'm making you my Matesprit Sol." was the hissed reply.
Sollux laughed. "Nah, I wasn’t sold by the little try-before-you buy event earlier today. I think I'll pass on that offer."
"Its not an offer, I'm not giving you a choice in the matter." Eridan snapped, as he continued to bear down on Sollux, trying to force him bodily backwards onto the mattress. Starting to feel more annoyed and a little panicked, Sollux began to push back with increased urgency.
"Sollux don't fuckin fight me" Eridan meant business when he called Sollux by his full name. He tried to hold Sollux down with one hand as he went for his trouser fastenings with the other. The weaker troll took advantage of the awkward manoeuvre to shove Eridan back hard and away from the bed, sending him stumbling and very nearly falling. When he regained himself, he glared at Sollux nastily. Sollux glared back, panting with the exertion of fighting him off as Eridan unfastened his cape, letting it drop to the floor, and reached into his trouser pocket to retrieve a small silver device, a key fob or something.
Sollux didn’t have long to wonder what it was before Eridan raised it, and suddenly his entire body was thrown in a tense spasm of white hot, electrocuting pain. As the long seconds of agony dragged on his ears seemed filled with a terrible shrill, high pitched noise which he thought distantly might actually be the sound of his own screaming. When it finally stopped he had come to rest lying on his back, staring wide eyed at the ceiling and shaking uncontrollably. Then Eridan's scowling face appeared in his vision.
"I genuinely didn’t want to have to do that Sol."
The next thing Sollux felt through the twitching, buzzing haze of the tazering he had just received was completely unexpected... the alien feeling of Eridan's fingers groping for the entrance of his nook, and then pushing roughly inside. His mind screamed out in protest but his psiionics failed, and his weak and scrawny body had been left paralyzed by the attack. He lay scowling a little, a pathetic low growl in his throat the best vocal protest he could muster as Eridan's abusive poking around continued. The bed dipped a little under the sea troll's weight as he climbed onto it, and Sollux just knew when the fingers withdrew from his nook that Eridan was back to unfastening his pants again.
Maybe if he just closed his eyes and thought of something else, it wouldn’t be that bad.
--------
The first time that Eridan fucked him was a weird choice of reminisance, Sollux thought dully as he sank further down the edge of the tub and deeper into the hot water so that it rose right up to his chin. Aside the fact that it was pretty much a rape, it was largely uneventful. It hurt at first as Eridan forced himself in, probably because Sollux hadn't had anyone take him there before and also because he really wasn’t all that aroused, but as Eridan moved against him he felt himself loosen. His groin felt a little warmer too but his bulges failed to swell enough to make an appearance from inside their sheath. He managed to overcome the stiffness in his neck enough to turn his head to one side, so he could stare at the opposite wall and not Eridan's stupid, purple flushed fish face as he screwed him. All in all, Eridan pailed very quickly, and his awkwardness throughout gave away his inexperience.
Sollux never said a word as Eridan straightened himself out and retrieved his cape from the floor. He did however feel an overwhelming need to try and get up and tear Eridan's throat out with just his teeth. But his limbs were still leaden and all he could do was scowl at the back of the troll who now wouldn’t even look at him.
But when Eridan did glance back before fleeing from the room, that enraged scowl faltered. His cheeks were awash with the purple tracks of his tears.
Eridan never reappeared. The next entry into the cell some time later was made by two adult trolls, one male and one female, both clothed in similar uniforms of a basic design, the common feature being the colour scheme of black trimmed in green. When they urged him to get up off the bed and stand he found that he could again, slightly shakily. They cuffed his wrists together, wrapped a thick blanket around him and lead him out of the room.
The medical room was predictably plain and sterile looking. He sat docily on the table while his blood was extracted, samples divided up into several vials. Photos were taken. They measured his height, weight, heart rate, took dental records, swabbed the inside of his mouth. They wired pads to his forehead, printed off his brain activity. He stood, his cheeks colouring furiously, gripping the edges of the table as they probed his nook, swabbed more samples. He couldn't help but growl low in his throat as the male held him while the female forcibly manipulated his flaccid bulges out of his sheath. Their expressions when they realised he had two instead of one was something he was unlikely to forget for some time. They might as well just stamp FREAK on his file in huge letters, followed by RECOMMENDED FOR CULLING.
After all the poking, prodding and exhaustive recording was over he was taken to a new cell, in a long corridor seemingly filled with such cells, but he was too tired to wonder who or what the other rooms may have contained. Lay on the small simple cell bed, he wasn’t long in drifting into an uneasy sleep.
-------
Eridan slid into the steaming water beside him. Sollux twitched when Eridan laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"What is it Sol..." he sounded concerned, and when Sollux turned to meet his gaze he could see the worry in his eyes and creased brow.
"Nothing. It's nothing, I'm fine." he replied softly. " I'm just... thinking."
"You can talk to me, you know. Maybe I could help?" Eridan squeezed his shoulder a little. Sollux had to admit that he was far less of a tool recently, almost regularly dropping the act and being more genuine. Really trying to comfort Sollux in his miserable confinement. It was small but powerful gestures like this that meant more to him than any of Eridan's lavish gifts or treats. But he still struggled to accept anything from Eridan. More than anything he wanted his freedom and independence back but they both knew that was near enough impossible right now, stuck on the flagship ship in deep space.
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In the dim cell block it was impossible to tell when one perigee became the next. Technically, since the ship was travelling through space, the daily cycle always felt skewed with no sunrise or sunset, and it was down to the routine of activity to stay orientated. Sollux tried to work out if his meals were delivered to some kind of schedule, but eventually decided they were probably just given to him whenever someone remembered he was there. The food was bland and basic, and sometimes he couldn’t even force himself to choke it down. Sollux would have sold his soul for just a little grub sauce to pour over it. He felt filthy, the best he could do to bathe was scrub himself with a ragged cloth dipped into the ice cold water he ran into his small sink.
But the boredom was the worst. He had absolutely no means to entertain himself. As a consequence he thought a lot, then he over thought a lot, and finally ended up wretchedly depressed. He found himself sleeping more, just as a way to pass the time.
Eridan had promised to try and help him somehow, and all that had ended in was being taken advantage of and abused. He couldn’t believe even Eridan could be quite so callous, as little as he really knew about him from Karkat, and later Feferi. They both said he put up quite the bullshit front but under it all he was terribly awkward and insecure. But in Sollux's eyes he'd failed to show himself as anything other than the backstabbing, cruel and violent piece of shit typical of his blood caste.
The electronic lock to his door snapped open, deafeningly loud in the endless silence he had become accustomed to. A hulking guard filled the doorway, his uniform trimmed cobalt blue. Sollux's heart leapt into his throat as the huge troll stepped into the room and pulled the door to behind him, and advanced on the smaller troll frozen in terror where he sat on the bed.
Oh God, this is it... What is he going to do to me... I'm gonna get pounded into a smear on this bed and then probably snapped in two like a fucking twig. I'm so dead...
Sollux didn't even attempt to duck away when the guard reached him and wrapped one large, meaty hand around his upper arm and hauled him to his feet, holding him there while he reached to pull something from his belt with his other hand. Sollux couldn't even look, he squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to let his legs buckle. But the next thing he felt was a sharp magnetic clink and then two short beeps, and he couldn’t deny his curiosity. He opened his eyes to see that the guard had joined a kind of electronic reader or scanner device to his collar. After about a minute or so it beeped again, and the guard disconnected it.
"What... What was that?" Sollux couldn’t help asking.
"Programming your collar with your profile and ship access rights" the guard answered in a deep, low tone.
The information provided just went directly over his head.
"Profile... Access rights?"
The guard produced a set of cuffs and secured Sollux's wrists together.
"Come with me". He ordered sternly "I'll be escorting you to your Matesprit now."
"Matesprit... I don’t have a Matesprit..." Sollux faltered as the guard strode toward the door.
"Your profile says you do. Eridan Ampora. Now get a move on, I haven’t got all day."
Eridan... Now what was he up to. Sollux had half a mind to refuse to leave on principle, he would be perfectly happy to never see that stupid finned face ever again. But then again, he did want out of the cell.
He walked ahead of the guard through the dim, cold passages of the cell block, through to brighter, cleaner corridors. They took an elevator up to another level, far more spacious and pleasant looking, passing the occasional green uniformed troll. Then a different elevator again, which seemed to go through quite a few levels. The level they came out onto next made Sollux wince inwardly. A wide, spotlessly clean corridor, walls decked with the colours and signs of the noble classes, what looked like marble flooring, gold fittings, a wide strip of soft, thick fuchsia carpet running the length of the walkway. Just... sickening extravagant and self important. They turned down a narrower corridor branching away from the main one, passing several doors until they came to the one with a small plaque reading AMPORA on it. The guard knocked.
"Yes?" a familiar voice called from the other side.
"Prisoner transfer." the guard responded gruffly.
The door practically flew open. There stood Eridan, and his eyes lit up as they fell on Sollux, slouching weakly beside the huge blue blooded guard.
"Fantastic, I'll take it from here."
The guard only sneered, and produced the device again that he had used on the collar. Eridan took it and keyed something in while Sollux's cuffs were unlocked. Then the guard took it back and left without another word.
"Come in Sol." Eridan encouraged softly. Against his better judgement, and specifically the memory of his last encounter with Eridan, Sollux shifted hesitantly forward through the doorway.
He gazed around open-mouthed at Eridan's spacious and neatly appointed quarters. The comfortable lounge area with its deep purple upholstered furniture set and large entertainment screen, and just off to the left a food preparation area and dining table. Eridan appeared to have been previously sat at his desk in an adjacent work area, on which a powered up computer was stationed and surrounded by volumes of books and a couple of unfurled star charts and maps. There were two more doors that must lead to other rooms, presumably the respit block and ablution chamber.
"You look awful..."
Sollux had almost forgotten Eridan was stood there. He turned to look at him, his face a picture in disbelief.
"What... What the fuck is all this?" he stuttered.
"What's what?" Eridan looked confused for a moment, then realised what Sollux was referring to. "Oh, this place?" He coloured slightly. "They let me take the crew aptitude exams and I did pretty well. I've been taken into training to become an officer, so I qualified for basic accommodation."
"Oh, only this basic?" Sollux muttered sarcastically. Eridan looked a little wounded by Sollux's scorn.
"Well, basic for the nobility quarters." He defended himself a little lamely.
Silence fell between them for a while.
"You should go and shower while I make you somethin to eat. You look thin."
"Exactly what is going on here ED?" Sollux felt his voice rise in anger. "Why am I up here in the fucking highblood quarters and not still rotting away in a damp cell."
"I promised I'd help you, didn't I?
"Yeah but, I thought you'd changed your mind, or lied or something." His breathing hitched a little. "What you did didn't feel much like help."
"Let's not talk about that Sol. I did what had to be done to keep you to myself and out of the hands of the Condesce."
"You... Are a piece of shit." Sollux snarled at him.
"Give me a break Sol." Eridan looked even more distressed, and before Sollux could react the taller troll lunged forward and pulled him into his arms. "It's been over three weeks. They spent an age reviewing your case, I was so sure I was going to lose you". Sollux stood rigid in his embrace, not sure what to make of what Eridan was trying to tell him. All he knew was that he felt mildly nauseous and Eridan's touch was making his skin crawl. But he was shocked to feel dampness on his neck. Was Eridan actually... Crying...
--------
Eridan nuzzled his neck as they reclined in the deep, soothing water. Sollux knew the water made him happier. Through the ripples he could see the long purple slashes of the sea troll's gills along the sides of his torso, flaring rhythmically with his breathing. He could also see that Eridan's bulge was extended and partially erect. Sure enough, Eridan's fingers were soon tracing suggestive circles around his sheath opening and he moved to tracing his tongue along Sollux's jaw.
"Come on Sol... Its been a few days..." he whispered against Sollux's ear, then bit it lightly.
"Should have known the fancy food came with a price" Sollux needled him.
"Don't be like that Sol... Can't you see I'm really trying here?
Sollux sighed. He guessed he hadn't given Eridan a break for a while, and if he was completely honest with himself it even wore him down a bit being so continually difficult. Eridan was just about the only person he could vent his frustration on, the only one who understood or even cared.
He turned in towards Eridan and pressed his lips against the sea troll's. Eridan returned the kiss enthusiastically, running his hand up the back of Sollux's neck and tangling his fingers in his hair. Sollux pressed his hands against Eridan's smooth, broad chest. It irritated him how Eridan's body was filling out into an impressive young adult form... Lean and well muscled, perfectly proportioned limbs, smooth skin with the slight sheen inherent to the aquatic subspecies. Highblooded perfection. Sollux figured he would retain his awkward, gangly teenage form right into his adult years, only getting taller but never bulking up. He hated his prominent, uneven fangs when he looked at Eridan's perfect set of even, sharp teeth. The sloppy makeout they were currently engaged in warmed him to his groin, and as his twin bulges began to engorge and emerge from his body, he hated his mutant genitalia too. He was the single most pathetic specimen he had ever laid his eyes on. He had no idea how he had managed to make friends and even fill a few quadrants. He had no idea why Eridan went to so much effort to keep him when there were probably plenty of his own kind on the ship to hook up with.
Eridan groped for his bulges and squeezed them together firmly, making Sollux gasp. He actually didn’t seem at all phased by the mutation. The first time he had actually aroused Sollux enough to see them, he'd looked surprised, but as Sollux had lay there staring miserably at a far corner of the room past Eridan's shoulder, the sea troll had dipped down to his crotch and done the most admirable job of attempting to felate the two of them simultaneously that he was ever likely to see. If it did put him off, he didn't give away even the slightest hint. And he was always hounding Sollux for more.
Eridan broke the smooch, nipped playfully at Sollux's lip and then began to trail kisses down his neck, over his prominent collarbone, moving down his thin chest. Of course, being in the large deep bath this meant that Eridan was quickly submerged. Through the soothing caress of the warm water around his body he felt Eridan's tongue run along the length of one of his bulges as he held them together, and closed his lips around both tips. Sollux gripped the sides of the tub, biting his lip as Eridan managed to swallow him deeper. It was both unnerving and fascinating, him being submerged for so long it kinda felt dangerous but that was his instinct as a landweller cutting in. The sea dwellers were perfectly adapted to breathing underwater, Feferi had spent most of her short life living exclusively in her hive on the seabed, doing everything underwater. Eridan himself had actually chose to stay on land to build his hive, but it wasn’t as though he had completely given up all his marine instincts. Sollux felt that he particularly liked to screw in water. He had to admit that the warm weightless embrace of the water while being screwed was a unique experience. He moaned as Eridan ran a thumb firmly over his relaxed nook, dipping it inside, testing his readiness.
Eridan broke back through the surface of the water and planted his lips roughly against Sollux's neck, forcing his body close between Sollux's legs and pressing himself firmly against that entrance. He bit down hard enough to draw blood and penetrated Sollux at almost the exact same moment, so the loud moan that burst from Sollux's lips could have been from either action. He gripped the sides of the tub harder and wrapped his legs around Eridan's waist, trying to keep his head up while Eridan got carried away as usual and tried to half drown him as he raked at Sollux's sides with his nails, thrusting hard and sucking at the yellow blood dripping slowly from the puncture wounds in his neck and diffusing away in the churning water.
"Fuck.. ED..." He spluttered. "Stop always trying to fucking drown me."
"S...sorry Sol" Eridan hitched, "I... I'm gonna come already" He latched clumsily onto Sollux's lips again, pulling him close as he could and penetrating as deeply as possible as his bulge throbbed and twitched and disgorged his pent up load of genetic material deep into Sollux's body. The water coloured a little in a small inky purple cloud when Eridan pulled out. Sollux inched himself up to a position of his head being comfortably well above the waterline as Eridan reached for his bulges again.
He still found it hard to reach his own release with Eridan. Unlike Eridan's feelings towards him he had never felt anything of a red or black nature, and even trying to dredge up some pale connection was hard work. It would really burn him if he knew, but Sollux often closed his eyes and thought of Feferi while Eridan jerked or blew him. He sometimes got a little private joy from deceiving Eridan like that. But mostly it left him depressed and aching to see Fef's sweet smiling face just one more time even as he ejaculated over Eridan's fingers.
"Who needs a Kismesis with a Matesprit as rough as you..." Sollux pressed a handtowel against his bitten neck to stem the bleeding while he critically assessed the scratches and scrapes to his body in the mirror as Eridan towelled him dry.
"Well we probably would work better as a Kismesitude but those relations aren’t really encouraged here, too much mediating and upheaval involved. Predictably unpredictable and disruptive to the optimum runnin of the ship. I don’t doubt there aren’t a few low key relations though."
"Guess we can continue being secretly shitty to each other then." Sollux shrugged Eridan off, dropped the bloody towel on the floor and walked back towards the respit block, sneaking a sideways glance at Eridan bending to pick it up and grinning to himself.
He climbed into the bed. It wasn’t as fancy as the one in Eridan's quarters but still a thousand times better than a hard cell bed. Still kind of odd after so many sweeps of having to sleep in sopor slime, but the ship was resistant to the whispers of the horrorterrors. That, combined with the collar suppressing his psychic powers, made for an unnerving silence in his head these days.
He pulled the sheets close around his body like a cocoon and waited for Eridan to try and unravel it to squeeze in next to him.
***