Chapter Text
This started as a practical joke, honestly.
A spin the bottle turned seven minutes in heaven that landed two boys in a closet and weren’t even allowed out until they actually kissed, fighting the awkwardness and saying they nearly threw up at the really ridiculously quick peck. That was all the way back when everyone was just thirteen years old, going through puberty for the first time, experiencing crushes, acne, B.O. and trying to start learning how to navigate a cruel world that had only been introduced to the internet five years prior.
At thirteen everything feels like a slop, too much oil, not enough meat to throw in, and the Hawaiian rolls used to keep it all together the only saving grace of the dish. That’s how it felt for Sollux Captor, local Asian-American nerd and apparent computer-genius, current college student and getting underpaid by a large corporation that took advantage of those that were suffering, as if he cared as he is also suffering from the lack of resources that could have maybe helped keep the company a bit more stable. This conversation is way above his pay grade though, so moving on.
The kiss had been forced back in February 1998, a sleepover masked to fool around and cause some chaos in the house on Valentine’s Day and that just resulted in everyone sitting in the living room, some rented horror movie playing in the background with an empty Coca-Cola bottle acting as a center for the circle they’ve created. Sollux could clearly remember the cheering and loud ‘whoop’ and ‘yay' mixed with laughter as he spun the bottle and it landed on the new boy in town who was already getting enough hate for being rumored to be gay, so this really was just fuel to the fire that everyone created.
He could also vaguely recall them awkwardly sitting in the closet, bickering about something from a previous conversation and the door opening after seven minutes were up, disappointing the entire group when they didn’t see either macking on one another. They weren’t allowed to sit back in the circle for over thirty minutes until Sollux had finally given up and quickly pecked the other after grabbing the boy by the collar and acting so disgusted that he even mocked up an entire death scene on the spot, getting squirted on with ketchup and making all the girls laugh and fake cry.
That night Sollux spent staring at the ceiling, trying to recall the soft feeling of the boy’s lips and touching his own while questioning what that sudden spark he felt was.
Sollux never bothered to remember his name upon their first introduction, never even bothered to learn that the party was actually his birthday party, but after that moment there was just that small voice at the back of his head yelling to learn everything about the kid. So he did.
Every day something new was learned, the name, birth date, the things he liked, the things he disliked, the things he enjoyed and hated enough to get him to rant for hours, worse than his best friend that they both shared, though their title was less official and more a formality and to use against each other when a new romantic comedy popped out of nowhere. Sollux never liked those, but it got them both to talk.
Eridan Ampora was a hard name to forget and get out of the back pages of each notebook that was brought and scribbled on, hearts and stars, signature practices near it, but Eridan always had a special place in the middle of the page, small, chicken scratch letters so that no one would recognize it, but it was there and Sollux could daydream about it all he wanted during classes. The grades were immaculate, the tests nearly always getting a score above 95% and he never disrupted the classes, so teachers could give less of a fuck what was going through his still developing brain. Surprisingly finding more information wasn’t even hard anyways, just having to sit and listen to the captain of the swim team ramble on and on about him all she wanted, complain even enough to make his blood boil but never commenting on it to avoid confrontation, and Feferi was just a girl anyways, a middle schooler like everyone. She meant no harm, no foul by just bitching about someone that she likes to call her best friend and the only person that “knows” her.
Maybe letting her just talk wasn’t one of the best decisions Sollux ever made, looking back on it, thinking this might have been the reason why everyone thought they were dating and then having the Ampora throwing fists left and right and maybe even fucking up his teeth enough to require braces for the next few years after entering adulthood. Though that day he at least learned that Eridan was stronger than he looked, equipped with rings that delivered the nastiest blows one could think of.
The fight initially caused a small rift, quickly patched with superglue, and everything seemed to be right back to normal until the next time that they had fought. This time this was all but Sollux’s own fault. That day he learned Eridan came from a wealthy family that taught him how to use slurs a little too well and forced the Captor to break his nose and throw another hit to the gut. They were only fifteen, no one knew that it would result in a mutual friend trying to step in and her getting hurt to the point of needing surgery because a rib lodged itself god knows where, and no one could have predicted Sollux temporarily losing his eyesight and Eridan getting his spine crushed so bad that he couldn’t walk for a while.
Of course, this resulted in all three of them getting pulled out and sent to different schools, making contact practically nonexistent between either unless someone wanted to revive an old forum where they used to speak between each other, but Eridan was promptly kicked out of it so that was another piece of hope lost.
It took until 2005 for Sollux to find him again, on Facebook of all damn places, posting party pictures and family photos that were saved in a private folder to look at later, examining every bit of detail and noticing the many differences from when they were just kids and only just entering adulthood.
From Facebook he learned that Eridan’s Hispanic and French, spoke both languages perfectly and got very tan during the summer, joke photos of how pale his hips looked in comparison to the rest of his body plaguing the Captor’s mind and thinking about holding them himself, pressed close and- he was getting too ahead of himself now… He also learned that his family was quite big, recalling all of their names in order from oldest to youngest, Cronus, his second cousin, sticking out like a sore thumb as he was the only one that looked like he didn’t belong dressed like a shitty biker with a leather jacket. His father refuses to retire, Feferi was his best friend and ex-girlfriend, his favourite foods, drinks and the places that he frequents and the place he works for all something he learned about in less than a day.
As Facebook continued to get more and more elaborate, there were more things he learned, and by the time 2007 rolled around, Sollux had moved into the same neighbourhood, the same street and apartment building, but having to settle for living on the floor below his. And settle into the same shitty company that he works for as the “computer guy” that makes sure the internet doesn’t essentially die, but their schedules couldn’t have been more different nor the floors they worked on. It made him so pissed off as there was never an opportunity to glance and see the changes for himself. The shuffling feet on the floor in the early morning wasn’t enough, Sollux needed more and nothing was going to stop him from getting the more he needed.
Sadly this went on for half the year and the other half Sollux spent continuously stalking for any updates, any moments that could be taken advantage of or used to try and finally muster up some sort of courage to go upstairs when it wasn’t late after ten in the evening after Eridan clocks out to talk to him, but never to any avail.
September and October passed, November bitterly disappointing, but in December he’d had enough. In December, he finally gathered some courage and Sollux left his empty hole of an apartment late one Saturday evening, quickly hopping over to a bar to cool some steam off and have a drink while hopefully forgetting the disaster of events that keep leading to nothing. Thankfully that evening proved fruitful as with one glance - there he was.
Tall, six feet exact, chestnut brunette and a purple front swooped to the side in a stylish choice, gorgeous emerald eyes behind glasses that made him look like an absolute douchebag. And you knew for a fact that the clothes he wore were bought at some rich fancy store - he posted about it two days ago - size M t-shirt and it’s tight around his chest, riding up every few seconds. Every time it did, he noticed that Eridan would pull it back down with delicate fingers. There were no memories of the pants or belt, but it wasn’t necessary anyways since they were all the same; tight, skinny and it made Sollux bite his lip every time back at home. The smile that pulled his corners, the little laugh and the way his face faintly scrunched beautifully in disgust at the taste of alcohol were perhaps the best few hours spent in a bar.
Sollux spent that day dreaming of what it could have been if he had the initiative to actually walk up and properly speak to Eridan, apologize for the past, make up for it by desperately kissing him and maybe more.
Just like every picture till now, the one that followed the next day was also saved in the private folder. This one was labeled with the name of the bar and the time that he saw him there and it seemed to click something in Sollux’s mind that almost seemed desperate before. But after seeing Eridan there, he just had to again. Anywhere, anyhow. Even though it meant the desperate measures that could land him in jail.
That work week while on taking lunch breaks Sollux would spend them trying to make routes and connections on where his beloved would go next. Last Saturday was a mere accident, but it was posted about three weeks before that, a week after that Eridan apparently spent time at a restaurant and the next week at the same bar. The images were all posted Sunday afternoon at two pm sharp no matter the occasion and somehow he had never noticed that until then, making the task a little easier in figuring out when and where.
The whens were always every Saturday evening, the door to the apartment always getting locked, but it was all at different times depending on the where. If it was at one of those fancy restaurants that required a suit and tie, Eridan would leave at six thirty pm and grab a taxi that returned at a quarter past ten. If it was at a bar, Eridan spent much longer getting ready, he could hear the songs that he sang to the radio, the hair dryer and then the amount of shuffling to try and put together a good outfit and then left at either ten or eleven pm, returning somewhere around two in the morning. The restaurants were always different, always managing to remind Sollux that he grew up lower-middle class with his family and having to wear hand-me-downs from his brother and even now the crisp white shirts were from his father.
Never mind any of that though.
As Saturday rolled around again, Sollux found himself in the same bar just like last week, sitting in a booth and watching out while sipping a tall beer, masking the excitement that bubbled through his system just like the alcohol that made him feel a bit sloshed up. That night he didn’t show though.
Sollux had to return home bitter and upset, scowling at the world only to find out he had gone to a different location. What a fucking bitch.
The only reason that he forgave him was that Eridan wore the pants that he liked most - bleached low rise skinnies that had vertical stripes and somehow made his legs even more delectable.
The next Saturday rolled and again Sollux went to the same damn bar, ordered the same damn gross beer and sat and waited, noticing how emptier it looked this time, but it was probably because of Christmas rearing its head around the corner, so many people would obviously go spend it with their families before coming here to drink.
This time Eridan actually came, wearing a turtleneck shirt that Sollux swore made him look like some kind of model, as if he already wasn’t. By some miracle he even actually got close to him on the bar, leaning over to order a drink and then go sit by a crowd of similarly well-dressed people that greeted the Ampora - work colleagues maybe? The closeness still lingered though, having even had the opportunity to smell the strong scent of the cologne that he wore that night, the grip to his bear tightening at the sweet aroma. Did he taste just as sweet, Sollux wondered. He also wondered if his skin was just as soft to touch as it looked, would the taste of the perfume overwhelm his tongue or would it encourage further action.
Sollux wondered all of that while sitting at his chair in the morning, sitting in front of the computer as he looked through the folder, scanning every small detail of the Ampora’s features while palming himself through the thin fabric of his boxers.
He wondered if maybe he’d be allowed to worship him. To praise or degrade, trying to imagine all the faces that Eridan would pull when every sensitive spot had been pushed, bitten or touched. Would he mind hickeys? Maybe. Eridan looked like the type to want to upkeep public image, meaning that every bit of privacy had to be covered up, but what if it were in a more private place? Maybe his hip, or sides. Sollux could maybe bite there, to make sure his ass was sore. Was Eridan a masochist? Thanks to Kanaya’s girlfriend Sollux learned that kinks and fetishes come from some form of trauma or through genetics, maybe during their fight when they all got crippled somehow he became a masochist. Or maybe a sadist?
Would he take it? Would he give? He looks like he would give. He’d be tight, maybe. There was no way someone had popped his cherry yet and Sollux felt like it would be perhaps one of the best experiences if he was the first to do it.
Steady and slow as Eridan got used to being stretched, perhaps hiding his face in the pillows and softly crying into them until those cries turned into begging and screams of the Captor’s name, commenting how good he felt, how amazing it was that it was him of all people doing this.
The thoughts only got more overwhelming from there, thinking about the many positions that they would find themselves in, the many ways that Eridan would beg and plead and the many ways that - shit.
Sollux sighed heavily while leaning back in his chair, staring at the mess that he created on the desk and deciding to call it a night after cleaning up. having stayed up too late just to watch and make sure Eridan got home safe without someone else there too.
Next year he would start planning on how to get closer to the Ampora.
Next year they will be together and living happily. No more jokes.