#a-sides

“Have you ever been up there?”

Eridan looked up to where Sollux was pointing. “Up... what, on the mast?”

“Yeah. There's a platform up there, isn't there?”

“The crow's nest. It's not a 'platform'.”

Sollux stuck his tongue out at the seadweller; Eridan rolled his eyes in return. “It looks like a platform, it is a platform, just a platform with a fancy name.”

“Platforms don't have walls.”

“Some do!”

Eridan shoved the other with an elbow to the ribs. “For fuck's sake, Sol, quit bein' such a dumbass,” he growled; but there was no real anger in it, and Sollux knew it.

“When you stop being a self-righteous prick,” the yellowblood responded, sidestepping the second attempt at a shove. “You haven't answered the question.”

“What- oh. If I'd been up there, right?” Eridan let the argument go. “Once.”

“Just once?”

“What do you think I am, some kind 'a cat? I don't feel the need to climb everythin' in sight, thank you very much. Once was plenty.”

Sollux allowed the silence to stretch after Eridan's response for a few moments, concentrating on the road as they approached the seadweller's ship.

“Why?” Eridan finally asked, when Sollux didn't seem inclined to say anything more.

“Dunno. Just curious, I guess. Seemed like something you would've had fun with, as a wriggler, you know? You were all kinds of nautical obssessed, you can't tell me you never wanted to play lookout?”

Eridan shrugged, looking away. “Seahorsedad wouldn't let me up it, when I was real little, an' I guess by the time I was older it didn't really have all that much appeal,” he replied; but there was something in his tone that made Sollux narrow his eyes.

“Why wouldn't he let you up there?” he asked, trying to probe out what exactly it was.

Eridan turned to him with an eyebrow raised. “Your lusus let you go climbin' around on thin's a hundred feet in the air when you were little?”

“Well, when you put it that way...”

The seadweller snorted. “Yeah, so. No. Just cause he could fly didn't mean he wanted to be rescuin' my ass when I got stuck up there.”

“...when?”

Sollux watched with interest as Eridan half-choked and flushed brightly.

“I- if, fuckin' hell, if!”

“You said when. ...Actually, you said 'when you got stuck'. That pretty heavily implies you did.” Sollux raised a brow.

Eridan refused to look over at him and hurried his steps. “Well, would you look at that, seems like it's comin' on rain or somethin', we'd better focus on gettin' back- gah!”

Sollux snickered at the entirely undignified noise Eridan made when he was abruptly stopped by the red and blue of Sollux's psionics. “Oh no, you don't. There's not a cloud in the fucking sky.”

Eridan huffed and crossed his arms.

“So, want to tell me about how you got stuck up there?”

“Fuck off.”

“Rude. No. Spill.”

“Fuck you!”

Sollux didn't respond to that one; just watched the petulant seadweller and waited.

“Will you just let me go?” Eridan asked after a bit of (what he probably thought was) surreptitious wiggling to test the psionics holding him.

“When you answer the question.”

Eridan narrowed his eyes. “Your answer is no, now let me go.”

Sollux had to mentally rewind the conversation to make sense of that answer; when he realized how he'd phrased the question, he sighed. Of course Eridan would answer the letter and not the spirit of it.

“Fine, fine, keep your secrets. Whatever,” he grumbled, keeping his word and releasing his control over the psionics even if the answer wasn't what he wanted.

Eridan made a show of dusting himself off before resuming walking in silence.

----

Sollux had long since relegated the mystery of the crow's nest to the 'forever unsolved' category by the time, a perigree later, that he came out onto the deck to find Eridan staring up the mast.

The yellowblood stopped where he was to watch, confused but curious, as the seadweller hesitantly touched, then gripped, the lowest rungs of the ladder that led up the mast.

Is he going to-?

He was.

Sollux raised his eyebrows as Eridan slowly but surely pulled himself up rung after rung, testing each to be sure it would hold his weight before committing to it.

His pace slowed drastically as he got higher, almost halfway up the mast now; and then the wind started to pick up, and Eridan stopped entirely.

Sollux frowned, squinting. It didn't look like he was just waiting for the wind to die down or anything, it looked like he was...

“Just cause he could fly didn't mean he wanted to be rescuin' my ass when I got stuck up there,” Eridan had said.

But how would he have gotten stuck on a ladder?

Unless...

He was scared.

Things snapped into place in Sollux's mind. Eridan's bluster, his discomfort, his avoidance of the topic; the determined refusal to talk about it...

The way he clung to the mast above, swaying fifty feet in the air - eyes squeezed shut, Sollux now saw as he rose closer on sparking red and blue - like it was going to drop him and he would splatter to the ground below.

As he rose even with the other, Sollux reached out with his psionics to surround Eridan - not taking his weight, not yet, but keeping a cushion there in case he had to quickly. “Hey, ED, you okay?”

Eridan startled violently and almost lost his grip in twisting to look at the source of the noise; the yelp of pure terror that that provoked immediately crushed any desire Sollux might have ever had to tease him about any of this.

“S-sol-? Wh-what, how-w-”

Sollux let the sparking psionics behind Eridan take up just a little of his weight now in a way he knew the other would be able to feel it, without removing Eridan's own control over his position. “Easy. It's okay, I can get you if you need it,” he said soothingly, floating a little closer.

Eridan's fins were flattened against his skull; Sollux doubted the wind, however strong it was up here, had anything to do with their position. The seadweller's hands spasmed on the rung they were clutching, and he squeezed his eyes shut again, forehead against the wood of the mast. “I... wh-what are you...”

“I saw you climbing,” Sollux replied, guessing that that was probably what Eridan was trying to ask. “And then you stopped, and I was worried. Are you okay? Do you want me to get you down?”

“...you're not laughin'...?”

Sollux kept his sigh strictly mental and floated close enough that he could gently rest a hand on Eridan's shoulder. “No. Why would I laugh?”

“'Cause a s-stupid fuckin' w-wriggler can't e'en manage t'climb 'is ow-wn fuckin' m-mast w-without cryin' like a f-fuckin' grub...?”

Sollux blinked and looked a little closer - and yes, there they were, little tracks of water filigreeing along Eridan's cheeks with the wind.

“There's nothing to laugh about in any of this, Eridan,” he replied quietly, moving his hand from the seadweller's shoulder to his upper back. “There's nothing to be ashamed of.”

Eridan hiccupped but didn't respond, his forehead still pressed against the mast.

“I mean it, Eridan. If it had been me, without my psionics, I would've started freaking out five feet off the fucking ground. It's not some sort of failing in you that you aren't a squirrel or something to not care how high up you are.”

He thought he caught a sniffle; he knew he caught the way the other's fins fluttered a little, even against the wind.

“You... really...?”

“Yeah. Heights are fucking terrifying, all right? There's nothing weird about that.”

Now Eridan dared to open his eyes again, meeting Sollux's; his expression was the most open and vulnerable Sollux thought he'd ever seen it.

“Do you want me to get you down?” Sollux asked again, gently.

This time, Eridan visibly seemed to think about it.

“...You... you can? You're sure...?”

Sollux bit back the urge to snark. “Yeah. Positive.”

Eridan swallowed, gaze flickering between Sollux and the mast, seemingly trying to make a decision. Sollux waited him out.

“...U-um... maybe, just... after...?”

“...'After'?”

“...after we, I... get to the top?”

Sollux blinked, feeling a little stunned. All of this, and Eridan wanted to... keep going?

“Holy shit, ED, seriously? You want to keep going?”

Eridan wouldn't meet his eyes; Sollux suspected that, if the wind hadn't already brought all the color to his cheeks that they could handle, Eridan would be blushing at that.

“...yeah?” the seadweller answered quietly.

“...Okay. Yeah, I can do that. Do you-”

But before he could even finish his sentence to ask if he wanted him to carry him up there, Eridan swallowed hard; shifted his weight; released and flexed first one, then the other hand; and then resumed climbing.

Sollux watched in astonishment, keeping pace as Eridan continued to move up the mast; fear was etched in his every tense muscle and flickering fin, but the seadweller overcame it with sheer determination, eyes fixed on the now rapidly approaching base of the crow's nest above.

Eridan didn't stop until he reached it; and even then it was only because he clearly wasn't sure how to get through the opening on his own. But Sollux read the question in the look the seadweller sent his way; he answered it by gently bolstering the other up, catching his weight while Eridan scrabbled at, then managed to grab, the metal handles set in the floor for this very purpose.

He didn't release his psionic grip until Eridan was well away from the hatch and leaning against the outer wall; landing on the platform himself, he crouched down next to the violetblood, out of the wind. “That was amazing, Eridan,” he said quietly, smiling a little at the startled look he received. “I mean it. You did all that, even though you were scared? That's fucking amazing.”

Eridan looked away, hunching in on himself; but his fluttering fins spoke volumes. “It... it w-wasn't, really...”

“Bullshit.” But his tone was affectionate, and he reached out to take one of Eridan's freezing hands in his. “It's really fucking cold up here, though, and I don't really feel like being turned into a trollsicle, so, can we go back now?”

Eridan swallowed, then nodded. “Yeah. Let me, um... let me just... look, first, though?”

Sollux nodded in turn and stood, reaching out a hand to help the seadweller up; Eridan took it with both of his, and the two of them managed to get him upright, though he stumbled a bit into the yellowblood in the process.

“...Shit, Sol, you are freezin',” he said, startled. “I, I'm sorry-”

“Shut up. No apologies,” Sollux cut him off, then grinned. “You can make it up to me with something hot to eat when we get back down.”

“...Deal.” Eridan nodded, then turned a little to look around.

His expression as he took in the (admittedly pretty amazing) view from up here was so precious that Sollux wanted to box it up and treasure it forever.

“Wow...” Eridan whispered, his waver gone in his wonder. “It's... beautiful.”

Not as much as you, Sollux thought - then caught himself in that thought and hurriedly backpedaled. “Yeah, seeing everything from up here is pretty cool, right?” he managed, trying very hard to pretend he hadn't just been thinking of something entirely different.

“'Cool' is an understatement.” Eridan sighed a little in pleasure, expression soft and wondering as he looked out to where the first moon was just beginning to dip into the ocean to the west. “I... cod, this is amazin'.”

“...was that a fish pun?” Sollux couldn't help but ask, humor bubbling up.

Eridan's face was too flushed in the wind to show any more blushing, but the way his fins flipped down and fluttered broadcast his embarrassment just fine without it. “Fuckin'- look, it wasn't intentional! Quit laughin'!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Sollux replied, doing his best to stop. “It's, it's cute, really, that's all.”

Eridan huffed and turned away, crossing his arms.

“I'm sorry, okay?” Sollux reached out to gently turn him around again with a hand on his shoulder. “Blame it on the thin air or whatever, it's fine. But I'm getting really cold now, and I'm pretty sure trollsicles don't have psionics, so...”

“Okay, fine, geez. Can't even let a troll get a good look around,” Eridan griped; but when Sollux held out his hands, Eridan took them without hesitation. He kept his eyes fixed on the yellowblood's face as psionics lifted both of them out of the basket-like crow's nest and floated them both to the deck of the ship below - probably so that he didn't freak out, Sollux suspected - and didn't let go until Sollux himself did after they both had solid footing again.

“...Thanks, Sol,” the seadweller said quietly once they stepped apart, eyes on his hands as he rubbed a cramp out of the muscles of one with the other.

Sollux smiled, and guided the shorter troll inside with an arm around his shoulders. “No problem, ED - but next time, get me first, okay? I don't want to wake up to splattered seadweller soufflee.”

Eridan snorted and let himself be steered inside. “Nice as that view was, I don't think there'll be a next time. Once is enough.”