#hswc-

major content tags: none word count: 797 pairing: Equius<3Eridan game: chess When the fist came down into the middle of the chessboard, Eridan had already been moving back to avoid the splinters from the board. They went through a chessboard a week, these nights, and they weren't even kismesis. Equius stood over the shattered remains of the table , breathing heavily, dripping with his own sweat. "I know I said it's kinda hot when you do that," Eridan said, deliberately casual, "But I'm thinkin Nep might be missin you." Equius went limp, the anger visibly draining out of him. "I...apologize. I broke another one of your kings." He held up the head of the chesspiece that he'd broken off, triggering his current tantrum. "As well as the rest of the board." Eridan went over and put his hand on Equius' shoulder, patting him briskly. "Look, we all got our insane rages outta nowhere, you know? But this is three in a row." "I need my moirail," he acknowledged. "I know." "Look, you smell like somethin I dragged onto the boat half-eaten," Eridan said. "Get in the bath with me and then shove off. I got stuff to do next night anyway." Equius enjoyed when Eridan used highblood terms like "bath," and he liked when he was commanding (along with the way the commands chafed, coming from a seadweller. He enjoyed that disgusting feeling more than anything.), so he complied. He also, not incidentally, enjoyed the way Eridan's lips tasted whenever he had the impulse to claw his way up Equius and kiss him. They sat in the abulation trap, and Eridan washed his hair. "I was gonna win, you know. No way I wasn't." Equius won with uncomfortable frequency, considering Eridan's obsession with strategy. He could tell his visit was chafing, and Eridan meant it when he said he wanted him to leave. "No. I would have had you in check in ten moves." "Yeah, right," Eridan scoffed. His long, manicured claws scraped comfortably along Equius' scalp. "Sure, I'd give you that, fine, but I'd have had you in the end. I wish I remembered where everthin was. I got another board around somewhere, plus one on the husktop all else fails." Equius found himself relaxing, slowly, in the warm water while his matesprit massaged his head. "I remember." "Sure, except a few pieces'll be someplace different than what was actual and suddenly you're in checkmate and fuck you," Eridan said, "I know how this goes." "I wouldn't need to," Equius said. "I was going to win." Other than a burst of uncontrollable rage when he lost, he wouldn't care if Eridan won. They mostly just played because Eridan decided they would. It was starting to get light, by the time they got out of the trap, so they decided that Equius would stay through the day. He intended to sleep, but Eridan loaded up a chess simulator on his husktop and they fussed over it trying to remember exactly where the pieces had been. Equius seemed to remember better, so Eridan finally let him choose where everything went. Equius fudged the pieces a little, in his own favor, correcting an earlier mistake that he was regretting. Eridan didn't realize trick until after Equius won the game, and then it was too late in the day to reset the board. Eridan pulled out an energy rifle and put a hole straight through his own husktop. "You cheatin landgrubbin spawn of a--" Eridan broke off and frowned at his smoking laptop. Equius was also looking unhappily at it. "I've stayed too long. I am not the only one who needs his moirail." "...no kiddin, I guess." He looked tired. "Let's just get some sleep, fore the moons sneak up on us. I still got shit to do tomorrow. Probably be gone before you even get yourself up." He would be hunting, Equius assumed. He couldn't approve, even though it was necessary, so Eridan apparently wasn't going to say where he was going. "I see." "I'll miss you," Eridan said, "I mean it, Eq." Equius nodded. "I will see you again." "Soon." "Yes." Eridan kissed him, and then pulled him to his recuperacoon. ---- When Equius awoke, Eridan was gone. He'd left a note telling Equius to make him a new chess set and keep his ganderbulbs peeled for the drones. They were coming soon--he had a feeling. And then he went on for a paragraph about how the feeling wasn't magic intuition, or anything stupid and fake like that, but obviously it was some kind of science based instinct. And then he had kissed the bottom of the note, leaving a smear of purple lipstick, and signed his full name and title. Equius tried to fold the note, crumpled it by accident, and took it with him when he left.

The air was so hot and wet it felt thick breathing it in. Kanaya knelt in the soil, carefully digging, the knees of her gardening pants turned black from a day's hard work. The sun, which should have burned her, touched her skin and made her feel glad to be undead. Off in the distance, she heard the *BANG BANG BANG* of her dear matesprit's second best friend, after her dog. Kanaya got up, neatly swapped her dirty clothes for clean ones, and took out her lipstick. Green was a good color, on such a bright day so early after the vernal equinox, and anyway Jade liked it better than the black. She found Jade right inside the edge of the forest, blasting away at an oncoming horde of zombies. A pile of smashed pumpkins were at Jade's feet, explaining her anger fairly well. "Vegetables don't have brains, you dumb butts!!!" Jade shouted, during a brief pause while she reloaded. She noticed Kanaya, then, and gave her an irritated half smile. "Hey! These fucking things! Augh!" She waved a hand in adorable frustration, brushed some rotted corpse flesh out of her hair, and picked up her gun again. "It would be best if you saved your waning energy for the next wave," Kanaya told her, before Jade started shooting. She held up her lipstick and it switched to her chainsaw. "All right! Go kick ass, honey!" Jade said, nodding. She didn't lower her gun, but she took her finger off the trigger. Becoming a rainbow drinker had given Kanaya increased speed, agility, and grace. She slashed at the oncoming horde with such practiced skill, it was almost like she was dancing. Jade kept watch, making sure nothing got the jump on her hot vampire girlfriend. They took turns until the sun started to go down, and the undead returned to their graves. Most of the pumpkins were safe, but when they headed back to their shared hive, they discovered a swarm of blood locusts had devastated the topiary. The trunk beast was stripped to sticks, and the enormous intricate topiary replica of Troll Bella Swan as a Rainbow Drinker had lost her left rumble sphere. Jade could tell that Kanaya was devastated. They set out the insect poison before heading inside, and Kanaya cheered up at the thought of dinner. The meal was plant matter, hoofbeast flank, and a long drink from Jade's neck. They fell asleep on the television viewing platform after some half-hearted attempts at fooling around. They just never had the energy after a long day tending to their garden.

The obsession was becoming an illness. Even Nepeta, who saw the world through the greasy chalk painted lenses, had expressed concern. When Aurthour tended to him, Equius thought he could see worry, and perhaps a slight distaste, in his expression. His lusus was correct. This obsession was unhealthy. Sickening. Disgusting. Perverse. Equius stopped working for a minute and closed his eyes, shuddering in delighted disgust. He could not blame the mutant, though he wanted to. The genetic reject was simply acting out his role as an outcast and attempting to gain a legitimate footing within society by changing society to fit him. Gosh, it would be so easy to despise him, to grasp that hateful role and allow himself at least that much legitimacy for his revolting feelings! It would be normal to hate him, and while it would be unacceptable for someone so high up in the social order to allow himself the freedom to pursue someone so low he was no longer low, he was nothing, those feelings would be normal. But they had been friends. They were still friends. He had felt pity for the reject when he learned of his condition, along with an almost overwhelming disgust for allowing himself to become close to him. And then things had changed, and now Equius had fallen into a trap that would inevitably lead to his destruction and death. He followed a new Empress, and she had let the mutant live. So he still existed, and those feelings of pity stayed and festered instead of fading away as the sweeps went by after his necessary culling. Equius stepped back from his new creation. It stood like a statue, now, but it would not take much more work before its bright red rhinestone eyes glittered with a light behind them. Before it sputtered curses from its carefully programmed AI that Equius had felt euphorically nauseated putting inside its thinkpan. This was disgusting, and wrong. And perverse. But compared to what it would mean to actually pursue a relationship with such an unfit partner... He touched its metal face, brushed his thumb against its dark black lips. It would love him. He would keep it here, safely tucked away, in the very top room of his hive. He would pity it like it was him. A slight uneasiness in his digestion sac told him that this would not be enough, would not fix anything. But he would cling to the delusion, because there was no other pathway he could see that would not lead to his utter annihilation.