❝I can't help but fear I've done this wrong❞

[guiltapalooza]

Characters Willow (guiltapalooza) and Eridan (wwaterboy). CLOSED.
Setting: Initially the floor with the pool, but somewhere else after that.
Format: Action tags, I guess?
Summary: Massively backdated, the fallout of Willow fighting the Grand Highblood and getting a little darker with her magic than she should.
Warnings: Grief and addiction recovery, like normal, and also probably mentions of graphic violence.

[Willow hadn't let herself react to what she was doing while she was doing it. She knows how crises work, has gone through so many of them it doesn't make her head ring anymore, barely makes her freeze at all. But her preferred survival technique of putting off the consequences has a price: it all hits her at once, crashes around her ears and into her head the second she turns to leave the pool room, threat taken care of. Her bag is left carelessly forgotten on the floor behind her in a smear of purple and indigo blood, just a dab of red.

She has to hold it together, she can't lose it yet. She's not in the clear. Her voice is still flat, as it'd been while she was grandstanding and fighting and flinging magic around, but now it's lined with tension.] It's time to leave, [she says, stopping almost to the door with her back to the room. She's stopping to wait for Eridan.] I'm done here.

[She doesn't think she can do this any longer.]

Comments

[wwaterboy]

[He's silent for a moment] If I thought there wwere a chance a you turnin' that powwer against me, I'd be quakin' in my fins. But you seem to like me a wwhole lot, and to be swweet an' kind in general, so I don't really feel like I'vve got anythin' to wworry about.

[He cups her cheek again and nuzzles her, his fin brushing against her cheek as he pulls away]

[guiltapalooza]

[It's all so overwhelming, but it's a familiar kind of overwhelming. Willow knows what it's like to do this, to take a chance on someone, and although her heartbeat sounds loud in her ears she's glad to have done it. It feels safe.]

You don't. [Her voice is edged in urgency, as if she thinks he wouldn't believe her for some reason.] I've been-- well, I've been thinking about this for a while. Us, not... the other thing. I even asked for advice on how trolls do romance, which was marginally embarrassing but totally worth it.

I want to do everything right for you.

[wwaterboy]

Really? [A bit of a deer in headlights look. It never even occurred to him to ask the question to the humans, and now he's realizing that maybe there's more to this than he ever expected] Uh, wwell, I'm sure wwe can wwork out our cultural differences by talkin' an such.

[guiltapalooza]

[Willow bites her lip, trying to suppress her insecurities.] I'm not too worried, I just... This is all still new to me.

But we'll figure it out together. [She rises to her feet, offering a hand down to help him up.]

[wwaterboy]

[He takes her hand and gets to his feet, his gills opening and closing as he sighs, but he finds an uncertain smile as he looks at her]

Yeah, wwe wwill, together. [It feels good, and he squeezes her hand] Thanks, Wwill... you wwere really amazin' today.

[guiltapalooza]

You'll give me a big head if you keep saying stuff like that. [But she gives him a wry smile, and draws him close to her.]

Just wait, sometime soon this won't be new to me, and then you'll have a confident Willow on your hands.

[wwaterboy]

[He moves close and slips his arms around her, hugging her close]

I'd like to see that. [He takes a breath and draws back a bit, reluctantly] I...should go for real. I mean, long enough to wwash the blood off.

[guiltapalooza]

... Yeah. [She spares a moment to take a breath, too, thinking she would probably appreciate a second to herself to recover. Everything was moving so fast; it was getting kind of intense.]

Me, too. I'm a little gross. --And when you come back afterwards, we can... I don't know, sit and try to be normal? [Willow suggests it hesitantly, trying to reassure herself that he is coming back. It's so irrational, and she does want that moment to herself, but she doesn't want to stay alone. Now that her dramatic reveal is over with, earlier events were creeping back in to influence her.]

[wwaterboy]

[He grins, and it's a relief. For a moment, he'd thought he might never smile again]

Yeah, that sounds like the best thing I'vve heard all day.

[guiltapalooza]

I know, right? [She smiles back in equal relief.] I think normal sitting is about all I can manage at this point.

[Willow untwines their fingers slowly, taking a step back.] So I'll... see you in a few minutes.

[wwaterboy]

[He nods, and hesitates, then jerks in to give her a quick, awkward peck on the cheek, before turning and heading for the door]

[guiltapalooza]

[Awww, he's really kind of awkward about this, isn't he? It was funny how he seemed to waver between being overeager and completely unsure, but Willow could empathize with the feeling. She often found herself caught between the same thing.

She lets him go without protest this time, and turns away herself to grab a change of clothes out of the chest.]

[wwaterboy]

[He hadn't expected it, but he doesn't even have a breakdown. He hurries to his respite block, grabs a change of clothes - and tries not to leave too much blood around the room for Taiki to pass out over - and has a thorough shower.

Then he walks back to Willow's room and knocks, nervous and fidgeting. Maybe she's changed her mind in the twenty minutes he's been gone. Maybe he should have researched human romance before getting to this point. Maybe he's a big finned waste of space and should just go crawl into a hole and die before he screws this up]

[guiltapalooza]

[She really did feel better now that she was clean and in her PJ's, a pair of gray lounge pants and an overly large cotton basketball jersey done in bright red and white. As she waited for him to return, she sat on her bed, taking the chance to meditate for the several minutes she had.

Though it wasn't long, it did bring home to her how badly she needed to meditate for real, sometime in the near future. The black magic from earlier was still roiling around inside of her, waiting for an opportunity Willow couldn't afford to give it. It preyed on her guilt and uncertainty, her feelings of loneliness, things that were never too far from the surface for her.

The knock interrupted her at just the right moment, when she was getting melancholy. She jerks unsteadily to her feet and rushes over to open it, grateful for the change of thought. She breaks into a shy smile when she sees him there.] Hey, you. [Taking one of his hands, she draws him into the room and closes the door behind him.]

[wwaterboy]

[Oh wow, she looks cute. He's wearing his usual clothing, and takes her hand uncertainly, squeezing and returning the shy look with a very faint smile of his own. He glances around the room, chewing his lower lip with one fang]

Hey yourself.

[guiltapalooza]

What's that look for?

[She tugs him toward her bed, walking backward so she's still facing him.] Come on, sit with me. Sitting and being normal, remember?

[wwaterboy]

Oh right, I forgot. [He's growing more nervous the closer they get to her sleeping rectangle, but he doesn't pull away. He sits down and takes her hand, fidgeting]

[guiltapalooza]

[They sit side by side on the edge, and she tries to soothe him by rubbing her thumb back and forth over the back of his hand.]

Talk to me, [she says, a bit quietly.] Are you really nervous about this? [Now that Willow's put herself out there, officially gotten herself into this, she isn't going to hold back. She's comfortable being supportive, would much rather be thinking about this than what she'd been doing earlier.]

[wwaterboy]

[He feels like an idiot. Really, he is a complete idiot. He draws in a breath and lets it out, staring down at their entwined hands]

I... I don't wwant to disappoint you. That's all.

[guiltapalooza]

Oh, honey, you won't disappoint me. I know that I'm not... completely over Tara, and it makes me mopey and-- and withdrawn, but that's nothing about you.

I don't want anything from you but who you already are. Okay?

[wwaterboy]

Okay. [He doesn't sound like he believes her in the least.

They're sitting on her bed, and he's pretty sure he knows what's going to happen next, and the whole thing fills him with dread. What if he panics in the middle? He's probably going to get himself dumped before he's even begun. He hasn't even considered the possibility that their anatomy might be different, he's just worried about his own reactions.

He's just waiting for her to do something, and the anticipation is killing him. Should he start? Maybe it'd be better if he started. He'd feel more in control.

Okay.

Here goes.

He leans a little closer, as if to kiss her, then his fins flatten and he leans away again.]

Fuck... Wwill, I don't knoww if I can do this right noww.

[guiltapalooza]

Wha-- do what? What are we doing? [It takes a moment for it to click, because Willow hasn't been thinking about having sex at all, assumes it's some ways off for them. But the contextual cues are there, and soon she's alarmed. It seems like the second they made it official, he'd started putting all sorts of pressure on himself.

Almost like... he'd never done this before. Which wasn't implausible.] We don't have to do anything, [she says urgently, trying to reassure him,] not now or ever if you don't want to.

Is this... your first time having a, a matesprit?

[wwaterboy]

[His fins are still flat in that panic reaction that he hates, and his eyes are slightly wide, but now she's saying they don't have to do it, not now or ever - which seems a bit ridiculous, but is reassuring even still.

Slowly he relaxes and his fins come up a fraction of an inch]

Wwe don't? I...I mean, I wwant to, really. I just...

[He droops]

...it's my first time, havvin' a matesprit, yeah.

[guiltapalooza]

[Willow would be lying if she said that she didn't want to get physical ever, but she was hardly going to push it if Eridan didn't want to. His expression right now was enough to kill any mood, and flare up her worrying tendencies.]

Just because you want to doesn't mean you're ready, [she says gently, leaning in towards him and hoping it doesn't make him feel pressured.] Even if you've done it before, we haven't, so it's different.

The way it works is that the most important thing to me is that you're happy. I would never hold something like this against you.

[wwaterboy]

[The tension is thrumming through his body, but as she leans against him and says that, he lets out a breath and much of it drains away. He lifts his arms and hugs her tightly, making a soft glubbing noise through his gills]

I'vve nevver done it before, properly. Not evven wwith Sol, only he thinks I'm just bein' stubborn wwhen I say no, but reely I'm just not... I don't knoww... I'm sorry.

[He cuts off the babbling and glubs again] I'll wwork on it...for you.