Work Text:
Eridan let out a sigh of relief as he spotted his shipwreck in the distance. He was all turned around, and had been agonizing to himself whether it would be where he thought it should be. He slowed down and circled around. His guard monster might be hungry, and he wasn't armed with more than a couple rocks and a rusted metal rod he'd picked up on the swim home. Sure, he was a kickass hunter and could defend himself with his fists and some cutting words, of course, but that didn't mean he was against packing a harpoon gun for backup.
He came to a stop when he noticed a deep ridge in the ocean floor that he didn't remember. It looked something huge and heavy had been dragging along towards his ship. There was a boulder where there wasn't supposed to be one, and as he got closer it shifted and he realized it wasn't a boulder.
It was so covered in barnacles and plantlife, Eridan couldn't tell if it was a giant sea turtle, or some kind of magically sentient giant rock. He could deal with the first all right, but there was no point fussing with something like the second.
He circled around, trying to keep his distance, when sudden motion caught his attention. A long black tentacle shot out of a hole in the side of the shipwreck towards the boulder, grasping at some of the plants growing on it. It just managed to do a little underwater weeding. The boulder shifted and Eridan could see that it had a head. He was reassured that he knew what was going on.
The tentacle wrapped itself around the turtle's lumpy gray neck, another tentacle emerging to join the first one. The turtle stepped backwards, dragging the tentacled beast along with it. There was an irritated screech from the wreck and the monster let go. The tentacles quickly went back in the wreck, and the turtle put its head back in its shell. Eridan wondered how long this had been going on.
He circled around the ship, entering through a small hole in the side hidden by debris and overgrowth. He found himself in a hold blessedly filled with lots and lots of beautiful stuff. Dammit all, he had missed having things. He flung himself against a giant treasure chest and hugged it. Nearby, barely visible in the unlit space, there was a pile of weapons and ammo.
By the time he left again, he was fully dressed and almost blindingly sparkling with various jewelry. He was carrying an enormous harpoon gun, had another smaller gun strapped to his belt, and three swords with glittering scabbards strapped to his back. He wore a golden crown and carried a bundle of sea turtle teeth.
He was ready to go home.
No one had broken into his house while he was gone, for a fuckin' change. He dumped the teeth and the swords and headed off to the bank. He recognized a few people, but no one seemed surprised to see him.
Outside the bank, a large male mer was holding a spear and looking a little stiff and stern. He had straight dark hair, and Eridan felt a little odd, looking at him. Something about the size of his muscles and the stiffness of his back reminded him of Equius.
"So, uh, hey," he said, to the guard. It was always a bad idea to greet these guys. You were supposed to pretend you didn't see them until they yelled at you, and then you just prayed they didn't get it into their heads you'd done something illegal. Like keep a secret stash of treasure outside the Empress' reach, for instance.
The guard glared at him.
"I couldn't help noticin', they've changed the uniform lately," Eridan said. "It looks pretty good, I think."
Now he just looked baffled.
"I've been out a town for a while, and--" Eridan broke off for a second. What the hell was he doing? This was the stupidest idea he'd had in ages. "--and anyway, I don't have anyone to be celebratin' my return with so how about you let me take you out to dinner?" God, this was going to win an award for the dumbest way anyone had ever died.
The guard looked him over, and said, "Well, why the fuck not? Sure. But I'm working now, so buzz off until seven."
He was mildly surprised to not be pulling a spear out of his gut. "All right, seven, then." He went inside the giant clamshell purse shaped building. Had he just asked a merman out because he looked vaguely like some land-dwelling horse-man he'd met?
A few hours later, he had another question to ask himself: had he just slept with someone because the guy looked vaguely like some centaur he knew?
He started to notice that a lot of the navy men looked pretty good, with strong looking arms and straight posture. They had mouths like garbage pits, though, which fudged up the illusion a bit.
"Hey, watch your language," he said, kicking one of them out of his bed.
"You got some kinda bug up your ass?" asked yet another handsome guardsman. He swam right out the door, tugging his uniform back on.
"Would you kiss your dad with that mouth?" Eridan yelled after him.
"Nah, but maybe your dad!" the confused and annoyed man yelled back. "Have him get in touch!" He then disgraced his uniform, flicking Eridan off with both hands, and disappeared probably off towards a bar. Drunken shittail.
It was time to admit he had a problem. He had been home for a week and he hadn't had an empty bed in that entire time. On one hand, he had never had this much luck before. He had somehow stumbled onto a secret cache of mer who actually thought he was attractive. Maybe his new earfin scar gave him a certain rugged handsomeness. Maybe it was the crown he had barely taken off since he found it in the stomach of that giant turtle.
It was probably just that they could tell he didn't care that much if they said "no." After all, none of them were actually the guy he wanted.
He needed help.
Fef would be perfect for this, if they still talked. He considered taking a trip out to her palace, breaking his personal pact not to talk to her again. But there was actually a better option, without the whole risk of getting over the centaur thing by falling in love with his first crush all over again.
"Okay, but if this ship gets too weird you'd betta have more bullion on you," Meenah said, sitting across from him in a dimly lit and extravagantly expensive restaurant.
"Sure, piles a the stuff," Eridan said, lying. He had a small amount of extra gold on his person. "See, when I was off dyin cause a the storm your mom made, I met this guy. It wasn't goin' to work out, but now I keep sleepin' with all a these big guys who even have like the same eyebrow arch he did and I'm startin' to think I shouldn't've left."
"Well, fancy, here's my advice," Meenah said. "Quit glubbin' around and go back to the big guy."
"You don't get it, Meen," he said, despairing. "It wasn't ever gonna work, all right? Sure he was handsome, and he saved my life, but we just wasn't compatible."
"Then don't go back," she said. "You'll get over it."
"What if I don't, though? What if I just keep on fuckin' all these guards and I get some dick pouch disease and my junk falls off?"
"That solves the problem, then, too, right? We done here?" She started to get up.
"Meen," he whined, "you don't understand. I even think he was into me just as much as I was into him."
The waiter came over with their drinks, so Meenah settled back down into her bench. "So, go back. Give me all your treasure, since you ain't takin' it all that way with you."
Eridan sucked down his drink and slammed the bottle onto the table. "Okay, I'm gonna tell you, Meen, exactly why that ain't gonna work, and then maybe you can tell me what I'm supposed to be doin'. You see, this guy...this guy...he had...fuckin' horse legs."
She frowned.
"And like...a horse back, and a horse tail. Because he was a glubbin' centaur, Meen. Don't you get it? It's impossible." Eridan groaned and planted his face on the table.
"Okay, I'm just gonna go."
Eridan fished out a handful of gold chains from his pocket and let them float down onto the table, without looking up.
She sat back down. "Shell, so you're a huge perv. Not a surprise."
"It's impossible," Eridan mumbled into the table.
"Look, just go to this guy, give it a shot. Have him send the body to me; I'll make sure it's closed casket and I'll even tell anyfish asks it was a huntin' accident. I mean, you'll have to pay me in advance for the service."
Eridan groaned.
"Or, I don't know. You can just--"
He could feel the water moving, like she was moving her hand. He looked up and saw she was making a wanking gesture.
"You ain't takin' my problems serious and I paid you a good price to do that for me," Eridan said.
"Hell, just climb on up, fancy!" She started to make another gesture, and he put his face back on the table.
"Meen, think about it. Like, imagine for a sec like this well made human ship. Like, it's still pretty new, maybe a few marks from some bad storms, but still more than seaworthy. It's floatin' along and suddenly it runs into the Maelstrom, the biggest whirlpool in the world. I've never seen it, but I've heard stories. What happens to that ship when it gets too close to the whirlpool, Meen? It gets sucked right in and--"
"I'm gonna need you to pay me more to keep me from gettin' up right now, fancy."
He ended up giving her his crown.
"Listen up. This is all I'm gonna say about this. So maybe you can't fuck this guy--you're asking yourself if it could've worked out, anyway, so you might as well give it a shot and find out positive it's too screwed up to happen."
"I did say I was goin' back, anyway," Eridan said. "Maybe sooner than I meant, though, keep my essentials from rottin' off."
"Dump off fifty gold in my mailbox before you go--I'll make sure no one knows what did you in. I was serious about that."
--
"Eridan! It's been a million years!" Feferi clasped his hand in hers, and pulled him into her palace. A servant stood nearby, ready to take Eridan's jacket and offer him something to drink.
"I almost died in that big storm the Empress made, is what happened," Eridan said, bitter.
"Oh my cod, tell me all about it!" she said, lighting up. She didn't normally get that excited about hearing about his hunting expeditions, these days, but she did always like to hear about brushes with death. She had a morbid streak for such a lively fish, he thought.
He added a few details, here and there, remembering himself bravely struggling against the current, ducking debris and swimming just out of the way of rocks as the current battered him around like he was nothing. "But then everythin' all a sudden went purple, like maybe the land witches was puttin even more elbow grease into whatever it was they was tryin' to accomplish, and I guess I was dazed momentarily and then bam right in the temple," Eridan continued, tapping his forehead. That hadn't actually happened, or, he reassured himself so he wouldn't feel like he was lying, he didn't remember it happening. "I didn't even see what tore a chunk a my earfin off." He pushed back his hair to show off the new ragged edge of his ear.
She eyed it. "One of the healing witches might be able to fix that." She didn't look as impressed or horrified by his terrible affliction as he had been hoping.
"Eh, I've kind a gotten fond a it, the last few weeks," he said. "Like, maybe I'll have 'em make somethin' in gold to line it, show off the pattern."
"I like that!" she said. She took a sip of her fizzy pink drink, out of a decorative bottle. "So you don't remember the moment when you were closest to death, right?" She sounded disappointed.
He almost wanted to lie to cheer her up. "Nah, I was out. I got pulled ashore and next I know I'm in some dry hut gettin' tended to by a four legged brute just as like to kill me by accident instead a healin' me." He told her the rest of the story, as briefly as possible. He didn't mention Equius' name, or even his species, and the whole visit to the wizard's tower was skipped over with an "and then the storm finally quit and I hauled myself back here."
"I can't bereef the centaur didn't krill you right away!" she said. There was only one species with four legs that could have taken care of him, so he wasn't surprised she guessed.
"It's not somethin' I'm enjoyin' comin' out and sayin', but I wasn't much of a threat when he took me in," Eridan admitted. "It's more a surprise he didn't just leave me to die on my own, save himself some effort." He wanted to talk about Equius, but at the same time every word about him felt like he was trying to push a lead brick through his esophagus. He swallowed, heavily. "Kind've a weird guy all around, though."
"He sounds nice," she said. "You shouldn't be so down on someone who saved your life, Eridan, even if he isn't one of us!"
"Hey, 'weird' is me bein' nice about it," Eridan said. "Didn't even wear clothes, this guy. Worst archer I've ever seen, and would practice day in, day out, wastin' a forest's worth a trees bein' terrible at it."
She rolled her eyes. "Who cares? Like you said, he didn't have to save you!" One of her cuttlefish swam over, and she brushed her hand against it as it passed by. She watched after it, appearing to rapidly lose interest in the conversation.
He sighed and downed the rest of his drink. "I know. I glubbin' know it, all right! There's just a thousand things wrong with him and if I ain't remindin' myself--" he broke off.
"Have you met her, before?" she asked, gesturing at her pet. "Mostly they just ignore me, but I think she likes people."
The cuttlefish circled around his head and swam off.
"What?"
She looked at him, and sighed. "Eridan, it's all right to be grateful to whoever that guy was, okay? I know we're supposed to hate everyone else and treat them like the enemy, but they aren't! I won't tell the Empress on you, I promise. I hope you thanked him, or at least didn't kill him before you left."
"That's kind of like thankin' him, right?" he said, uncomfortable. "No, Fef, I did, actually. Thank him, I mean, not kill 'im. He deserved a punch in the jaw, he was so disrespectful at times, but I didn't do anythin' worse than insult his haircut a time or twelve."
Feferi let a piece of her appetizer drift off, and Sherry returned to them. She reached over and pet it. "Whale, good."
"Though, maybe I didn't say it as well as I should've," he admitted. "At the time, I was so bent on comin' back, I didn't even think that much a what he was doin' for me. When, you're right. Like, he'd've been better off with me dead and not interruptin' his pointless exercises."
"We have a very dangerous reputation, thanks to mom," she said.
"Should I pay him back?" he asked. "Like, that's not too weird, right?"
"Eridan, of course it's weird. But it's really nice, too, and I think you should do it. We're supposed to be so mean, but I don't think we are, not really! Even during the war, when you look at reasons why we were executed, sometimes it was because we were being too nice! I think it's actually our nature, no matter what she says we're supposed to be like. She decided that we were all nasty and cruel like she was, but I think she's the one who's actually weird."
That had gone off in a direction he hadn't wanted it to go. "Shh, Fef, c'mon."
"She won't hear us, here," she said. "Eridan, she knows I talk bad about her behind her back. If I didn't, she'd wonder if I was her real daughter! She expects me to be planning and plotting and scheming against her every second she can't see me!"
Eridan was pretty sure he was on the list of people who the Empress had down for disloyalty when she got tired of waiting for Fef to make her move. "You know, you could probably take a long swim and you wouldn't have to worry about her anymore. People die and disappear all the time."
"Maybe you cod, Eridan," she said. "But not one of her kids."
Eridan swam away, a few hours later, in a dark mood. He had gone there to get some advice about his romantic troubles and maybe say goodbye, and she had just wanted to talk about the revolution or whatever it was she was planning on doing to get herself killed. Everyone here was caught up in their own lives and not interested in him.
God, of course they were. He felt sick to his stomach. Was he being shellfish? Selfish. Sure, of course, but, god, no wonder he never had a shot with her.
Well that and like a hundred other reasons.
He was starting to wonder if there was really anything for him here. He had moved around so much as a kid, he only had a few friends. His dad was off who the hell even knew where. His last few visits, Eridan had been off on his own hunting trips, and they had managed to miss each other. He was probably never going to see him again anyway. Maybe he was dead.
He deliberately wrenched his thoughts in another direction.
The only thing really keeping him around was his amazing pile of loot. He didn't want to leave that behind. He had so much great stuff! Rings and crowns and gold pieces and a stack of powerful magic wands he didn't have the slightest idea how to use but were worth as much as Fef's fancy palace.
He had a pretty nice set of enchanted luggage, too, barely used. It was too bulky for hunting trips. You could shove three times as much stuff into a suitcase as should sensibly fit in there, and it still weighed less than a full regular type suitcase.
Maybe there really wasn't anyone or anything keeping him here. He quickened his pace and changed direction. He was still relieved that he had gotten a chance to say goodbye.
The journey was a pain in the backside, from start to finish. Hauling an entire full set of luggage behind him, enchanted or not, turned out to not be the most efficient way to travel. There was a certain standard he was going to live up to, and he had a particular finger to show off to anyone who had something to say about it. Probably Eq would, but he could just stuff a stack of broken bows in his mouth and keep his opinion to himself.
He got jellyfish tendrils in his stomach as more and more light from the surface reached him. He was going to play this dumb, he decided, like he wasn't there for anything other than fulfilling the promise he'd made. He certainly hadn't made a habit of finding mermen who reminded him of Eq and screwing their brains out. That sure wasn't a thing that had happened on a nightly basis.
The light was almost blinding now. He took a little break to get out his favorite pair of sunglasses. He also checked his hair and clothes to make sure there wasn't seaweed or small fish hiding in them. He got out a little mirror and checked his fangs to make sure they were clean.
He looked handsome as ever.
Even with the sunglasses, the light was incredibly bright. He popped up over the water and held up a hand to shield his eyes. Eq was nowhere to be seen. He was about a mile down the shore from where he had first met him. He groaned, grabbed his luggage strap again, and went back under.
He decided to also never tell Equius about his embarrassingly unromantic miscalculation.
Next time, he came up over the water in the exact place he'd been when he first spotted Eq practicing his archery. Just like he was supposed to.
Equius was outside his little hut, oblivious to Eridan being there. He was carefully tugging on a bowstring, squinting as he aimed, like there was a chance in hell anything was going to come of all this. His biceps strained as he painstakingly tried to pull the string juuuuust enough--
It snapped. The string lashed out and whacked him in the face. Equius let out an embarrassingly non-explicit series of swears.
"All right, no, that was absolutely the worst shootin' I've ever laid my eyes on," Eridan called out. "You've gone and outdone yourself and I'm almost impressed."
"Eridan?" Equius' sunglasses slipped down his nose and he turned towards the water. "I never thought--" He cut off there, struggling to figure out what to say.
"You got a look like the fish I ate for breakfast," Eridan said, swimming in closer. "I made a promise I'd come back and what kind a ass are you thinkin' I am? I'm insulted."
Equius galloped out to greet him.
The sand suddenly dipped and Equius was up to his neck in salt water. He let out a surprised whinny and Eridan snorted in amusement. They were face to face.
He felt an impact, like a dolphin butting into his side, and he realized Equius had gently put his hand on his side. Equius was very close, not saying anything, like he was waiting for something to happen.
Oh.
Eridan kissed him.
Equius responded, as much as he could allow himself.
Eridan pulled away and cleared his throat. "Uh, hey, Eq. It's been a little while, but I had to get my shit arranged, you know how it is."
Equius was smiling at him, and it made him feel light all over. Like everything was going to be all right.
"Yes. I am...glad to see you. I wasn't expecting to. See you, I mean. But also..." His smile faltered, and he looked down, embarrassed, "...be quite so glad as I am."
"Well, I guess it's mutual," Eridan admitted.
Neither of them said anything, for a minute.
Eridan finally broke the silence. "Oh, hey, since you came out here...." He handed Equius the luggage strap. "Give me a hand because I'm sick a haulin' this crap."
"...of course."
They made their way back to land. Together, somehow.