The hunt through Eridan's second hive half wasn't an easy one, the area hadn't been used since it was built and the wood was weak from years of storms and lack of chemical treatments. Not to mention it appeared that he had just shoved all the debris from the ship's interior over here. Sollux had almost skewered his foot several times on stuff sticking up off the floor.

But finally, they found something. It wasn't a good something. What they found was a trail of violet blood that grew thicker as they followed it. Both of them were increasing worried, speeding up their pace as they went along until they made it to their goal, a sight that froze both of them in their tracks.

Eridan was pressed up against a wall, a deep gouge in his side that appeared to have come from some sort of beast, and claws marks clearly made by his own claws covering his arms. He was huddled up with his legs pressing against the gouge in his side with his eyes wide and fearful. Nobody in the room could speak.

Slowly Karkat tried to move towards him, only to stop when Eridan flinched and tried to force himself back against the wall. His breath was shallow and quick, and Karkat came to the realization that if he didn't calm Eridan down then he was going to hyperventilate, so with Sollux still being a useless asshole with no social skills it was left up to him to try and calm him down. Taking in a deep breath he spoke in his calmest voice.

"Eridan, fuck what happened to your side, that's not good. Please come out of the corner, we really need to get you patched up."

It was a strain for him to keep his voice down and calm, even moreso with the amount of blood that was covering Eridan, but it was all for naught. No more then a few seconds after Karkat began to speak, the seadweller seemed to come out of his state of shock and to life.

With panicked movements, Eridan threw himself backwards against the wall, trying desperately to push himself away from them. His claws dug further into his flesh and his eyes widened beyond what should have been possible.

"Fuck, sorry, don't do that." Karkat stammered as he quickly took a step back, doing his best to shrink down his size and not corner the other. He knew what happened to highbloods when they lost it and he really didn't fancy having his blood all over the walls.

Unlike Karkat, Sollux had no social skills or instincts to tell him what he was about to do was a horrible idea.

"Look fishdick, I know you're really stressed out but you're hurt and we need to get you patched up so get out of the corner, Fef will be comin' with a medical kit soon enough."

Which, while something in another time might have jarred him into a sense of normalcy was the worst possible thing he could have said.

Strange mixes of hate at the words, fear and raw unfiltered pain ran through Eridan's veins It was overwhelming and the straw that broke his back. Both the others in the room jumped back as he let out a snarl, his eyes snapped into pure violet.

For a few seconds there was nothing but heavy breathing from the other two in the room, both prepared to run though even with Sollux's power there would be little they could do to stop or outrun his rampage. And then suddenly Eridan's eyes snapped closed and he folded in on himself.

All that rage, all that destructive power was forced upon his own body. It wasn't a pretty sight as claws and shark's teeth tore into harden skin. Schoolfeeds had been quick to educate both the lowbloods in the room as to what happened to others when a highblood raged, but they'd never seen what happened when the rage was turned on themselves. Later they would wish that they still hadn't.

No more then a few second passed of Eridan's claws slicing his own flesh then Karkat snapped back to something close to his senses and in a moment of pure, horribly thought out impulse, he moved across the room, faster than he ever had before, and wrapped the other up in a hug.

Everyone froze, Karkat with his stubby arms half circling, half pinning Eridan's. Eridan with his claws still sunk into his own skin. And Sollux with his piisonics poised to yank Karkat away from the other.

Somehow, it was Eridan that moved first. All the rage had been forced out of him by the shock and replaced with a tired sadness. The seadweller's body went limp as he collapsed into tired, weak sobs. There were hardly even any tears, his eyes were dried out but his words were not.

Nothing could be heard clearly, but there was words mumbled out that sounded a lot like wiggler, fault and monster. Karkat was rubbing his back as best he could and making little shushing noises at the other, but nothing was calming him down.

Sollux, who was now very unsure of himself, fired off a quick text to Feferi to let her know where they were and that she needed to bring medical supplies before turning off the phone and awkwardly shuffling up to the pair of them. He'd already fucked up once and he didn't want to do it again.

It was awhile before either of them could work a story out of Eridan, they'd pressed some cloth scraps up against his wounds while waiting for Feferi to bring them a proper medical kit. After getting his sobs under control, he had fallen silent for a bit, with Karkat trying to get him to talk. It took some pressure but he finally broke down.

"I-I fucked up, okay? I wwas s-supposed to be gettin' food for Fef's lucus an' I fucked it u-up. I tho-ought it wwas wwild prey b-but it wwasn't. I-i wwasn't prepared for there to be a wwiggler there and I t-took my eyes of my target. I-i mishot. I h-hit the wwiggler and the lucus g-got in a b-blow. But Kar, I killed t-them. T-they were l-little a-and t-they looked l-like K-kan."

It was all he could get out before dissolving into sobs once again, but it was enough for the two of them to understand. They shared a look where Sollux gave a glaring Karkat a helpless shrug before the small mutant reached out, grabbed Sollux by his shirt edge and tugged him down to join the two of them.

All of it was awkward and there were too many elbows and far too much crying, but finally Karkat managed to get the two of them at least somewhat close to cuddling without leaking eyes. Feferi had yet to show up because as they had discovered, Eridan didn't have a medical kit. Something Karkat would have been ready to scream his lungs out about were it not for the ashamed look Eridan had given him when he'd managed to get that information out of him.

It'd taken Sollux's pii to move Eridan back to his main hivestem, despite several attempts to walk from Eridan the blood loss was affecting him more then he would admit. But when the three of them had finally settled down into a couch area, Karkat decided it was time to talk.

"Alright, I know you've already been through a kraken's shit of a day, but let me add a fuck ton of seaweed on top of that. Sollux and I looked through your chat logs where you were talking to yourself. I am more than aware of the fact that it was a fucked up thing for us to do, we're both pre-sorry about that but Eridan the shit we found in there wasn't anything within a fuckwidth of healthy."

Karkat took a pause from his rambling to let Eridan take everything in. The range of the seadwellers emotions was pretty much stuck between upset, betrayed and self loathing. Already the mutant could see him curling up on himself, so before he could, Karkat continued.

"Listen, I know this hard for you to here, but you can't keep doing this to yourself. Your morailship with Feferi isn't good for either of you and you're forcing yourself to take on way to much shit to deal with. You can't keep going like this Eridan."

There had been many things Karkat had been expecting when he'd told the other that, he'd expected a shitfit over it, he'd expected Eridan to blame himself for something that just wouldn't have worked. He'd expecting anger and blame and tears.

But he didn't expect what happened.

No, he didn't expect a quiet, resigned nod from Eridan. It was shortly followed by short, muttered sentences.

"I. I know. It's bad for me to escape in those stupid fantasies. I know I can't keep doing this. But I can't stop either."