towerofanimus | [OPEN] you waste your time with hate and regret

Entry tags:

[OPEN] you waste your time with hate and regret

Characters: Jade!Eridan Ampora('s half dead carcass) and YOU.
Setting: Floor 12.
Format: Action, but I'll match you.
Summary: Nobody told Eridan sleeping in this cold is a bad, bad idea. What did you expect from him? He knows how to survive extreme heat, not extreme cold.
Warnings: Jadeblood popcicles. Jadeblood popcicles for everyone. Also Eridan sliding down the slippery slope of murderously batshit crazy, yay.

[Watching the universes ending and stars imploding and the whole thing... it's rather soothing. Sort of. Eridan was in dire need of soothing things, to put his mind back together. He'd intended to maybe sit there for a couple hours, watching the stars dying, and trying to calm himself down from an abrupt, nonsensical rage that even he could tell was irrational. He'd been pushing down a bubble of hysteria for the better part of four days now, mostly because hysteria meant bad, bad things for all involved, but maybe if he went at it slowly, it wouldn't be so bad. Because meltdowns totally work that way, obviously. Though even he had to admit that he couldn't keep on pretending everything was right and peachy. Putting on a smile and going through the motions was getting almost physically painful, but he didn't want anyone to get hurt. (And of course, being a responsible troll and asking Jade for a feelings jam was not an idea that occurred to him, either, because what is doing the right thing, haha, you must have confused him for someone else, Eridan Ampora never does the right thing unless Paradox Space has him at metaphorical gun point about it.)

Eridan watched the cycles of destruction repeat over and over again, while he tried to put order to the mess that is his head, but it wasn't long before he started feeling sleepy instead. Not really knowing any better, and given the alternative was thinking more about Rei and such, he started nodding off, fueled by the cold.

Which is why you'll find him tucked away in a corner of the room, face buried into his knees, arms around his ankles and limbs already stiff. The sleeves of that jacket have been brutalized already, but hey. At least there isn't a single bloodstain on this floor.

Yet.]

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[When he finally heard the little noises from the corner of the room that weren't coming from him, he was able to snap out of the trance that he always seemed to take in this floor. He could recognize the shape of the horns (he'd have to be an idiot not to), and so headed over immediately. You'd better bet your ass he's been worrying.]

Eridan?

...Eridan!

If it doesn't need fucking shooting it's not my fucking problem.

[Putting his arms over his head and refusing to look up? Yes, yes, he's doing that. Also growling a little.]

...oh god.

[That didn't sound like a very happy Eridan noise. And neither did the growling. (Seriously man, get it together, you are not an animal.) Uncertainly, Equius walked a bit closer.]

What's wrong?

[The eyes looking up at Equius from under those arms are glassy and not very focused. They're also glaring.]

I don't know, who's going to die this time around?

[Oh god.]

...

Why're you talking about dying, Eridan.

[It was supposed to be a question, but that was a really unsettled and hollow voice so here, have a period.]

[He will feel very sorry for upsetting Equius later. Namely when he remembers he's not supposed to upset Equius, it's all rather fuzzy right now. It's also very annoying. He wasn't thinking pleasant things when he fell asleep and he's never happy when he wakes up, and oh, hey, there go the claws, absently scratching on elbows and baring his face which is currently stuck in a very unpleasant snarl.

God, what are you talking about, Equius.]

When aren't I talking about dying. Dying and killing, two damn things I'm remotely good for huh? But then I'm real good at those.

Eridan...

[Eridan, can we not do this right now.]

[Okay, so this is probably a very bad idea and will most likely get him at least scratched, but Equius is just going to casually kneel down in front of Eridan. Because this is getting crazy, he can feel it, and this particular brand of crazy is not going to be resolved in a quick and simple timeframe. Equius takes a deep breath and tries a different approach.]

You're not good solely for dying and killing, and... and you're not going to freeze yourself huddling in a corner on the floor. Okay?

[Those eyes watch Equius's every move, waiting. Almost calculative. If he comes a little more closer then--

No.

No, it's Equius. Right. Equius. We don't hurt Equius. We murder the fuck out of anything that hurts Equius. Right. Slow, careful breaths. Eridan's eyes slide half mast.]

You shouldn't be here, hon.

[His voice's hoarse, and it sounds forced, rather than conciliatory. Oh god, what are you doing here, you shouldn't be seeing this.]

[Yeah, he... he already got that memo, Eridan. He shouldn't be here. Even though, of all the floors in the Tower, this one should probably be the one where he most ought to be. And yet, strangely...]

...I don't care.

[That statement required far more courage than he thought he had, but it was true. He really found it quite difficult to run blindly away from Eridan now, even though he'd been getting clear signals for this entire conversation. It might actually be as dangerous as blindly offering himself up to the torment of others like he did before -- if not more so.]

He shouldn't be in a lot of places, is the point of that. And the amazing thing was, nothing came to kill him immediately when he tried to go there anyway. In fact, for the most part, doing shit he thought he shouldn't has turned out pretty good in the long run. He shouldn't have been frog hunting with Nepeta in LOLAF, because he had no right to be a Prince of anything; he shouldn't have been fighting against Captor in the meteor, because Captor was a... he was a seadweller, right?; he shouldn't have been in god knows how many places in this Tower where the laws of time and space were nothing but playtoys, because those are just painful in so many directions and they make his mind work in ways he isn't particularly fond of; and he definitely, definitely, no explanation required, shouldn't have been in Eridan Ampora's red quadrant square.]

[And yet, he was.]

[Eridan shuddered at the words. That wasn't how it was supposed to go. That wasn't what he was half convinced was going to happen. He reached a hand to brush some of Equius' hair off his face, claws ghosting the side of his face and ignoring the sound he knew they'd make if they sank into flesh and the way warm blood would feel on his fingers and a thousand little things that were not okay and he wished he could stop thinking about so clearly he could almost see them.]

You're going to get hurt.

[And that was unacceptable. That sparked the beginnings of another rage, churning like acid in the back of his mouth, possessive and nasty and all those meanspirited things he thought about sometimes and then quietly ignored for the sake of peace. Everyone else's peace, because his was pretty much impossible by now. He shifted his posture, mimicking Equius' and in the process getting into the poor boy's personal space as their knee's brushed and Eridan wrapped his arms around his shoulders, face tucked under his ear.]

And then what am I going to?

[Equius was always... kind of a predictable troll, wasn’t he? Way back in the day, before Sgrub or the Tower were even close to entering the picture. There were always those things that you could count on him to do, like run away screaming or insist on talking about some stupid hemospectrum bullshit. That was ~~forever~~ half a sweep or so ago, wasn’t it? A human year... yeah. And now -- well, now Eridan’s only half-expecting Equius to do something, anything at all. That is seriously saying something.]

[He let Eridan brush his hair off to the side, expression changing very little for... well, for Equius. The feeling was definitely there, he could sense it; Eridan wanted to do something with that hand and his face that was not, at all, related to sweeping the bangs off of it. As if he really needed another reminder of that anyway. Strangely, he isn’t freaking out quite as much as he should be... there’s that feeling again, deep inside, that something was wrong with Eridan Ampora right now. And yet, it wasn’t quite strong enough to tell him that he ought to back off and let the poor murderous boy have some space. (Yet.) He didn’t want to do that. Eridan had dealt with his bullshit, hadn’t he? There was a favor to be repaid there. Only later on will he finally realize exactly how deep Eridan's sick monstrous murder hole goes.]

I’m not going to get hurt.

[Because he wouldn’t let Eridan hurt him. Matesprit or not, he’s moved well past the phase of lowblood submission.]

Edited 2012-12-14 04:39 (UTC)

[Of course he's not, he's going to leave. They all leave. They walk away and stop hurting and then they're fine. They're fine, because the only thing that was hurting them was him, and once they left him they were okay. Eridan took slow, deep breaths.]

I hate this part.

[Being neither there, giving free reign to the violence and the urge to tear and break and hurt and main, and neither here, rationalizing and talking and lying. Just. Caught halfway through. Wanting to give in to one and the other. Too lucid to just lash out without thinking about consequences - always thinking about consequences, always trying to make up for them - and too tired and hurt to just think about it like a rational troll. He hates being the rational troll. He hates being the one that compromises for everything. He hates being the one that lies and misdirects.

God, he hates everything he is, because he's just disgusting.

And now he's caught midway and Equius is going to get caught in it, one way or another. He's going to get hurt. He's going to leave. Eridan clung a little, not entirely mindful of his claws.]

I hate this part.

[Nice try, Eridan. On any other day, you would probably be right; Equius would have left Eridan to his misery after he realized that there was nothing he could do to fix the problem. But today that’s not going to happen. He’s going to dodge an awful lot of attacks in this floor, as many as he needs to, as many as he can with this sickness clouding his mind, but nowhere in his list of intentions does it say he’s going to leave.]

[Of course, you’ll just have to figure that one out the hard way.]

‘M sorry.

[Let Equius be the rational troll for once, dude; he doesn’t mind at all. It may be hard to believe that ‘Equius’ and ‘rational’ are words that belong in the same sentence, but he is capable of being the responsible adult around people who he doesn’t fear too much. They can call it part of that repayment for basically shoosh-papping him earlier.]

[But that's like... trusting someone. It's terrifying. Holding onto Equius the way he is, Eridan is also metaphorically holding onto what little self-control he still has, giving a physical sense to the anxiety building up.]

God, please don't be.

[He should probably let go, but he didn't want to.]

It's not your fault.

[The fault, of course, is his. It's always his. He fucks up everything. Every single thing he comes in contact with. Bam. Fucked.]

[It is terrifying, that whole mess. He knows. Really, he does. He’s done it before (albeit not to Eridan’s level of fucked-up). Which is why he is pointedly not going to let go of this jadeblood, ever, and that has nothing to do with the fact that Eridan’s claws pretty much will not let him do so.]

It’s not my fault. But... that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t feel bad for you. Because I do. [That last bit came a little like a revelation. It was actually the first time he’d been able to vocalize a feeling like that.] I’m sorry that you’ve been driven to this and I’m sorry that you don’t think you’re worth anything without something to destroy, because that’s a lie, and you are. And I’m sorry that you want me to leave, because I can tell you right now that it’s not going to happen. I’m not going anywhere.

[Equius is clinging a bit tighter himself, as if this will at all help the situation; maybe if he holds on to Eridan’s physical body parts tight enough to keep them in place, it will keep the fragments of his mind together too.]

[For your efforts, Equius, you are going to be handsomely rewarded with the earth-shattering price of listening to Eridan whine like he's being killed. It's a long, strangled, pained sound and he just sort of burrows it into Equius' shoulder, whole body shuddering.]

Don't do this to me.

[I'm sorry about the clenched claws. Ow.]

[Not that it matters, but Equius kept a poker face, able to ignore even the claws that were definitely starting to hurt. At least, he kept it until Eridan made that noise. He sounded like he was being killed -- and that, in turn, sliced through Equius’ gut like he was the one on the chopping block. Needless to say, it didn’t at all convince him to see Eridan’s side of things.]

[Instead, feeling the shaking and horrified troll in his arms, Equius saw nothing he could do but scoop the boy in tighter, tucking his own neck into the gap between Eridan’s head and shoulder. Surely, all of his problems could be resolved if they just sat there together for long enough, right? The galaxy would make it so.]

[And then those claws started to move, even without much conscious thought. You know, almost like those affectionate scratches of his, except not at all as soft.]

I won't forgive myself, if you get hurt.

[And you don't understand how much he's trying not to hurt you, Equius. He's trying really fucking hard, okay. To reign in that urge to hurt something and then there you are, right under his hands, and what he's supposed to do?]

I can handle it. I promise.

[No, he didn’t understand. He probably could never understand for as long as he lived. Even if he did, he’d probably still stay here instead of leaving Eridan to his misery, just... not with as much certainty as he had right now. He knew the damage that Eridan was capable of, but he had no gun; without a gun, the wounds Equius would get from him would be no worse than the ones from all the other irrationally angry trolls on Alternia. And even if he was wrong and they were worse, well... then it was just him being a dumbass and he probably deserved it, taking the whole thing into consideration.]

Don’t worry about what happens. I can handle it.

I don't care.

[Eridan jerks back, one hand releasing Equius' back to hold his chin. Wanna see how close he's skirting the edge of sanity? Sure, let him glare down at your eyes, Equius, almost nose to nose. It's like he's vibrating with barely restrained violence.]

I don't care if you can, you fucking shouldn't have to.

[With all that snarling, you'd think he's about to bite Equius' face off or something.]

[As one moves, the other moves. With surprisingly quick reflexes, Equius pulled his own head back, enough that they were staring eye to eye when Eridan grabbed for his chin. This procedure wasn’t new either, and he was doing what he wished he had done all the other times someone had grabbed for his face and snarled -- that is, not screaming and pleading for his life. (That seemed kind of redundant now.) His expression had already hardened quite a bit over the course of this miserable excuse for a conversation, and it didn’t falter at all when Eridan pulled him up; in fact, it might have gotten a bit harsher, if only because he was now staring deep into the dark and batshit-crazy recesses of the Furthest Ring.]

I’d rather you take it out on me than you take it out on yourself!

[Eridan snarls at him, eyes crazed.]

No.

Why?!

Because.

[This is the most eloquent conversation in the history of ever, isn't it.]

Why?

[More forcefully this time.]

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