#fefsoleri

For some fucked up reason, your mind thinks that a good idea to avoid tonight’s dream-related thoughts is to conjure Aradia-related ones, and you spend a mile thinking about the last time you had a dream about one of your friends dying. You were fifteen with braces and a bad haircut and, in your stupid adolescent mind, she was the love of your life. One night, you went to sleep and had a dream that she had just gotten her learner’s permit and was driving her dad’s car through a parking lot when she was sideswiped by a logging truck and killed.

When you told her about it the next day, she laughed at you and said that cars are so slow in parking lots that she wouldn’t have a scrape on her, and what the fuck was a logging truck doing in a parking lot, anyway? Her, God Sollux, you have the dumbest dreams sometimes! got a laugh out of you. You didn’t think anything of it until some dumb bitch rolled AA's car five days later when she was pulling out of a gas station. She slammed right into the driver side door.

She was killed instantly, they tried to console you. She didn’t feel any pain.

What bullshit.

You were mad because she hadn’t listened to you when you told her to take it seriously and she was so fucking young and she wanted to be an archaeologist and she would never get any of that now, and for some reason, the world’s biggest shitstain Sollux Captor got to live to see another day.

Within a year, you were on mood stabilizers and your braces came off and you started moving on with your life, dreading dreaming because you were convinced you’d realized she was doomed before she was a bloody smear on her dad’s upholstery. Three years later, you went to college and met Feferi. Within weeks, Eridan came into the picture, since they were joined at the hip. Months later, you were falling into whatever relationship clusterfuck you could call what you have now.

And it might not last, because you had a dream about Eridan.

Whenever you don’t think you’ll sleep well, you take some melatonin, and that’s why you thought the dream you just woke up from was reality—it felt too mundane to be hormone-induced. You woke up from a lame dream about kaiju in San Francisco, the bed was empty except for you, and there was a certain ache in your chest that told you something was wrong.

You got up and went in the kitchen to find a newspaper sitting on the counter, and somehow you knew what it was going to say before you read it.

The guy who wrote the obituary for one Eridan Ampora had somehow made him sound like a half decent human being instead of a raging asshole. Even though the paper didn’t state his cause of death, you remembered snippets of a conversation with Eridan’s dad that was vitriolic and scathing, because he didn’t want to accept that his son had shot himself in the head.

Feferi was back home in Florida helping with funeral preparations. You told her you wanted to stay here until the very last second, and she pursed her lips like she was angry but didn’t protest. You started going through a six pack a day and your old chain smoking habit reared its ugly head until one night when you, drunk and disoriented, went to the railroad tracks about two miles from your apartment, laid your head on them, and waited for the rumble of a train.

Now, you think that’s fucking dumb. You’d never kill yourself just because ED did. Sure, you love the guy, but Fef would need you and you wouldn’t want to be selfish, plus if you didn’t give up when Aradia died, there’s no way in hell you’d decide to end it all at this point.

You wander aimlessly, feet dragging on the pavement, and you grope in your pockets of a pack of cigarettes (you gave up chain smoking, not the act itself). However, the pants just went through the wash, so there isn’t a pack in them. Rubbing a hand over your eyes, you yearn for nicotine or caffeine or something that’ll get you home.

Your foot catches on metal, and you almost fall flat on your face. Flailing your arms to find your balance, you look down and realize you’re in the middle of the same set of railroad tracks from your dream, and there’s a train coming.

Of course, you weren’t so deeply engrossed in your thoughts to become terminally stupid enough to walk right in front of a train. It’s about a quarter mile up the tracks, just starting forward from the loading station. You watch it come towards you, standing about three feet away from the tracks, and when it’s about fifty feet down, a voice yells, “Hey, kid!”

You startle, taking a few steps back and blinking hard. There’s a guy in a polo shirt with CSX on it running over, and he stops in front of you, panting. You think you’re about to get chewed out for trespassing, but then you remember why you were staring transfixed at the tracks in the first place.

As the train whizzes past, you flounder a bit, trying to find your words. “I… I wasn’t going to—”

“What?” the guy yells over the clamor, and when you open your mouth to respond, the horn blows. It rattles your teeth and aggravates your budding headache. Your lips press together in a thin line until it has passed, and when the final wagon full of coal is disappearing from your field of vision, you repeat, “I wasn’t going to… y’know. Do you have a problem with that or something?”

“They hit a record in Chicago last month, no one wants it to be broken,” the man says, wiping at his brow with a handkerchief. “That was the last train for an hour, we just made a pot of coffee. Come have a cup.”

You really hate nice people sometimes. The only one you can stomach is FF; the rest of your friends have such abrasive personalities that they just rub against yours. If someone is kind to you, you feel bad about being such a sardonic asshole all the time, but you don’t feel guilty enough to change your behavior. You really could use some caffeine, so you nod and follow.

A window’s reflection tells you that you look like you just rolled out of bed, and it’s pretty accurate for your state of mind. ED would pitch a fit about being seen by anyone in the condition you’re in right now, since he’s so fucking prissy, but you don’t care. You look like you had a rough night, so it’s no wonder some fucktruck decided to invite you in for tea and crumpets or whatever. The guy prepares a cup for you, and you drink it with two sugars and no cream.

You hear about four guy’s life stories over the next half hour. One’s wife is an air traffic controller that’s never home when he is, another just went into remission, the man who chased after you—Steven, his is the only name you remember—collects fishing lures, and the only woman just left her third husband. When the last person stops talking, you get some expectant looks. You don’t give a shit that it’s your turn, taking a gulp of bitter coffee and looking at the carpet.

“If you weren’t gonna bite the bullet,” Steven breaks the silence, “what the hell were you doing?”

Shrugging slightly, you say, “I just had a weird dream, that’s all.”

“Must’ve been pretty fucked up if you decided to take a walk in the middle of the night,” the woman snorts.

You aren’t about to confide in a bunch of strangers, that’s for sure. Before you can think of an answer, your phone starts blaring, and you thank Feferi’s perfect timing. “Hey, FF.”

“Sollux, where are you?” she asks worriedly. You can practically hear her twisting one of her curls around her finger. “You’re not in the house and your car is still here—”

“I went on a walk,” you tell her, rubbing your thumb up and down on the handle of your coffee mug. “I’ll come back now, it was dumb anyway.”

“But you hate exercise,” she says so earnestly that you have to snort a laugh. You cover it up with an awkward cough. “How far away are you?”

“I’m at Railway Express.”

You knew what she was going to say the second you gave your answer, and you feel grateful when she responds, “You walked all the way out there? Oh Sol, I’ll come get you.” You hear her grab the keys off the kitchen counter. “Just go near the front gate, I’ll be there in five minutes.”

“Thank you,” you tell her.

She makes a kissing noise before hanging up. You smile a little as you slip the phone back into your pocket, and one of the guys questions, “Girlfriend?”

“Yeah,” you say, downing the rest of your coffee and setting the mug on the counter. “Thanks for that, I needed it.”

“Don’t let me see you here again,” Steven warns, not a single threatening quality to his tone, and you nod minutely before heading outside to wait.

Feferi doesn’t take long, pulling up in her nice BMW and unlocking the door so you can get inside. When you rest your arm on the center console, she reaches over to squeeze your hand, but otherwise does nothing to acknowledge your presence.

When you get home, you go up three flights of stairs and head into your apartment. FF put on the latte maker before she left, so she fixes both of you frothy drinks before joining you at the kitchen table. “Okay,” she says, “what’s up?”

“Shitty dream,” you say truthfully. You take a sip of the latte and get foamy milk on your lip, so Fef giggles and leans over to kiss it off. She tastes like her sugary drink with a tinge of mint from her mouthwash, and you appreciate the warmth that flows through you even as she sits back down.

“What was it about?” she asks, fingers drumming on the side of her coffee mug.

Your throat dries up, and you’re suddenly afraid because she knows all about the Aradia situation and once again this is plausible, seeing as Eridan is a dumbfuck that refuses to take medication or go to therapy for his depression, and it would break her inside out if something happened to him. Sighing, you trace the rim of your mug with your thumb. “Is ED okay?”

She blinks, startled. It’s sudden, but she knows you’re not simply asking if he’s still sleeping. “He’s… no more upset than usual, I guess. I’d even go as far to say he’s having a good stretch. Why?”

Swallowing, you think of ways to be delicate with the news. “I had a dream that he committed suicide.”

Good job, Captor, it’s not like that was blunt as fuck or anything.

Feferi reaches across the table, patting your arm. “Sol, I used to have dreams like that all the time, and he’s still here. Your brain realizes you’re afraid of that and picks at it.”

“But what about Aradia?” Fuck, your voice just broke, can’t you have a simple conversation with your girlfriend without looking like a dope, why the hell is she even with you?

“Hey,” she says, curling her fingers around your wrist. She has such nice piano hands, with long digits and soft skin. “That was some dumb little fluke, okay? Eridan isn’t going to off himself just because you dreamt it, I promise.”

You take a few deep breaths, trying to steady yourself. FF’s thumb runs right along your pulse, and you faintly feel hers beat in response. You lay your head down on her hand and just think for a minute, trying to figure out why one pathetic little dream is fucking you up like this. ED isn’t going to kill himself, you’re definitely not going to kill yourself, so there’s absolutely nothing to worry about.

“What the fuck are you guys doin’? ‘s too early for this shit.”

Lifting your eyes to the archway as Fef turns, you see Eridan standing there, hair wild and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He doesn’t have his glasses on, and you’re surprised he even knows you’re here without them. He’s bare-chested and clad only in Spongebob boxers that FF got him as a joke for his last birthday. The idiot grins as Fef extends her free hand to him, and he lumbers over to the table, taking her hand and kissing it as you get up. The second he’s not entirely preoccupied by FF, you pull him into a hug.

“Woah, what’s this?” he questions, squirming a bit as you clutch him tighter. He sounds more awake now. “Jeez, Sol, I think this is the first time in forever that I didn’t have to get on my knees and beg for a bit of affection from you.”

“You’ll use any excuse to get on your knees, so—” The end of your sentence is cut off as he jabs you in the ribs. His stubble is rough on your cheek, and when you pull back, he looks pleased but a bit befuddled.

“Really, what’s going on? Did someone die or something?”

Clearing your throat, you take a step back and decide not to tell him. You told Aradia, so maybe it’ll end differently this time. “Just… if you decide to do something monumentally stupid, consult FF or me first, alright?”

Snorting, he drags himself over to the latte maker and pours himself one. He leans back on the counter as he sips his drink, making a face the second it touches his lips. “Too hot.”

“Oh that pot has been sitting for half an hour, you’re just a delicate little princess,” Feferi teases.

“Shush,” he says, cheeks turning pink. “At least it doesn’t take twelve hours for my hair to dry.”

They start squabbling, and you’re so used to it by now that you know as long as no venom bleeds into their tones, no matter how loud it gets, they’re doing it for fun. You love how FF’s voice is the slightest bit strained with repressed giggles, eyes shining with mirth as ED melodramatically sticks his nose in the air and acts even more like an entitled bastard than usual, putting his coffee mug down so he can make exaggerated hand motions. Feferi just rolls her eyes at him and keeps pulling out new quips and teasing him about everything except for his actual insecurities. They’re adorable and even if each one can get on your last nerve in different ways, you love them.

They are together when a highblood flaunts his caste-position and threatens Sollux, Feferi and Eridan defend. (“You okay, Erifin?” A pause, a snort. “’Course I am. That fuckin’ blue blood wasn’t that bad.” One boy shoves another’s shoulder, there’s an exchange of snickers and glares. “You sure, ED? You’ve got a bruise the size of a bulge on your cheek.” “/You’re/ the one who needed our help.” A shrug, another faintly familiar pause. “Yeah, I know.”)

When Eridan slips into his own world - one of masochism and killing and angels and murder and blood, so much blood - they are there to pull him back out. (“You okay?” An awkward brush of a hand against a shoulder. “No, I’m not okay.” “Shore, everyfin’s bad now. But it’s going to be fine! /We’re/ going to be fine.” “So calm your stupid fins.” “You’re such an assw-whole.” “Thanks, I never knew.”)

The times that Feferi worries and overthinks and doubts, comforting comes like second nature. (“Don’t w-worry, Fef, you’re fuckin’ amaz-fin’.” “Yeah, ED might be an idiot but he’s right.” A hiccupping laugh. “T-thanks.” “It’s our job.”)

They fight (A swing, a hit landed, blood hitting the floor. Whispered words and shouted insults, silent ‘sorrys’ and murmured reassurances that ‘it’s okay, everything is okay’.) and there are tears (Her tears are like a storm against the ground, painful and deafening.), it is a struggle. But throughout it all, they stay linked, together.