Just keep running.

He panted heavily as he ran. Each heavy, tired footfall sounded thunderous in the night, angry sobs and snarls fighting their way from his chest.

Run far away, Eridan. No one loves you anyway.

Memories of Feferi's anger from just hours before still blazed in his mind. They couldn't have a relationship; they couldn't even have a fucking friendship.

—-

"Just get the fuck out of here, Eridan!"

Whack.

Feferi had hit him square in the face with a heavy book that she had thrown in frustration, breaking his glasses— he didn't need them for anything but reading anyway— and causing purple blood to drip from his nose onto the white carpet of Feferi's home. This earned him a burning look of disgust.

"But, Fef—"

"I said leave!"

She pushed him out of the door and slammed it behind him. He heard her lock it tightly.

Eridan fished a flask of whiskey from a pocket in his jacket and took a deep swig, breathing shakily afterwards. He then turned to face the closed door.

"Well, fine, Feferi! No one needs you anyway!" He kicked her front door hard and ran in the opposite direction.

—-

And now he was here. Still running, hoping to get lost in this desolate forest. Maybe if he was lucky, he would fall and break a leg. No one would find him and he would die here.

But he just couldn't run anymore.

He threw himself down onto a log and let the tears he was holding back spill from his eyes. He retrieved his flask again and downed its contents relatively quickly, warm numbness seeping through his body.

"Who needs Feferi, anyway?" He mumbled, hiccupping softly between every few words. "The hemospectrum's fuckin' obsolete now. There's no fuckin' Empress anymore. The only reason any o' us that have money actually have it in the first place is 'cause o' our old lives!" He stood and let a choked sob ring into the sky. "Fuck her!"

—-

Sollux Captor ambled along the dimly lit sidewalks of the city, returning to his little apartment after visiting Karkat.

Karkat's middle name should be, "Headache."

Sollux squinted against the streetlights into the night, trying to fight the dull pain behind his eyes. Visiting Karkat always frustrated him a bit, but he still loved Karkat— platonically, of course. Karkat was his best friend.

He just got on Sollux's nerves.

—-

"Hey, douchebag, do you think you could step away from your computer for, oh, I don't know, five fucking seconds and pay some damn attention to your best friend?" Karkat paused for a second, then threw a pillow at Sollux. "Hello?"

"KK, stop. I've got to finish these codes so I can get paid. I've got to put food on the table somehow." Sollux stood, looking at Karkat's short, slightly plump figure. He himself stood almost a foot taller than Karkat, and was very skinny and lanky. Almost unhealthily thin, really, due to the fact that he would get so wrapped up in coding that he would forget to eat or sleep, sometimes for days on end. "I don't have ridiculous amounts of money like your windy derp of a boyfriend does."

Ow.

Sollux's remark earned him a rather forceful punch to the gut.

"Egbert isn't a derp, jerkass." Karkat waited and analyzed what Sollux had said, a bright red blush creeping to his face. "John isn't my boyfriend, either!"

"Your blush is telling me otherwise— oof! Stop punching me!"

—-

Sollux rubbed the sore part of his stomach gingerly as he walked. Karkat punched hard.

A sharp sob and heavy footsteps caught Sollux's attention. Someone was running.

"Hey," he bellowed, breaking into a run to tail whoever it was. "Hey! Where are you going?"

The figure kept running deep into the woods. When he— Sollux had deduced that it was a male— had stopped running, Sollux took shelter behind a tree. He heard a flask crack open and the sound of needy gulping followed it. Whoever this was had a lot on his mind.

Sollux peeked around his tree to try and get a better look at who it was that he tailed. The figure was only a silhouette, but this man was obviously muscular and did some strength training. He looked to be a few inches shorter than Sollux. He appeared to be a troll as well, since Sollux could see what appeared to be horns; as for their shape, he couldn't quite make that part out. He looked closer at the other man's head. Were those fins?

Wait…

Sollux heard the other man's voice and his eyes widened. Even through slurring and hiccups, he could pick out that distinctive stutter over "w" and "v" sounds.

That obvious drawl.

Ampora.

—-

Eridan shook the last few drops of whiskey from his flask onto his pointed purple tongue, then tossed it away in frustration. He didn't want to go home. He didn't want to see all those pictures of himself and Feferi together, strained smiles on both of their faces that Eridan had chosen to ignore on blatant display. Eridan had secretly thought that their friendship wouldn't work out a second time. He just wasn't prepared for the violent ending to it.

Snap.

Eridan looked up with wide eyes and froze like a deer in headlights. "Who's there?"

Sollux's breath stilled. Shit, this was inconvenient. He took a tiny flashlight from his pocket and shone it near Eridan.

"Oh, it's you. Long time, no see, I guess. Listen, if you could maybe hold off on the antagonizin' for tonight, that'd be great."

Sollux's brows lifted in surprise. Was Eridan being… civil? Sollux didn't particularly feel like making problems for himself either. Instead he turned his attention to Eridan's bleeding, swollen nose. He sat next to him and peered closely at the injury.

"What the hell happened to you, Ampora?"

Eridan glared at Sollux through eyes clouded with tears and strong whiskey. Sollux could smell it on him just sitting beside him.

"What makes you think I trust you enough to tell you?"

"Eridan, please, can we not do this tonight?" Sollux propped his left elbow on his knee and rested his head against his fingertips. "I didn't know it was such a crime to show a little concern for s—"

"Fef hit me."

Sollux fell into a stunned silence. Feferi Peixes? Sollux's ex-girlfriend, Eridan's ex-moirail? That Feferi? All he could choke out in response was a whispered, "What?"

"Fef threw a tome at me. Broke my glasses an' gave me a splittin' headache."

Sollux listened carefully to how Eridan was speaking. His voice sounded nasally. "I'm gonna shine this in your face for a sec, close your eyes." Sollux examined the bridge of Eridan's nose and made a small noise. It was crooked and blood was dripping from it at an alarming rate. He reached out to brush his fingers gently against it. "Does it hurt bad when I—"

Eridan hissed sharply and pulled back from Sollux's touch.

"Okay, okay. Eridan, it's probably broken."

"Fuck. Wouldn't it be just my luck? Lose my only friend and have her break my fuckin' nose all in the same night."

"How long has it been bleeding, Eridan?"

His silence gave Sollux a bad feeling. He slid an arm around Eridan tentatively and dragged him up.

"I'm taking you to the fucking emergency room."

"Sol, it ain't that bad—"

"If you can't even tell me how long it's been bleeding, it's bad enough to require medical attention! Fuck, Eridan, why do you always have to make things so difficult?"

Sollux wondered briefly why he was showing concern for this haughty asshole, but his thoughts were interrupted when Eridan dropped to the ground, unconscious.

"Shit! Eridan? Eridan! Wake up, asshole! Don't you fucking die on me or some shit!"

He lifted Eridan onto his shoulders and ran as quickly as he could out of the forest. He saw a taxi not long after reaching the streets of the city and tried to flag it down, but to no avail. The driver was probably a Dersite.

"Fuck this shit, it's easier to walk!" Sollux shifted Eridan's body on his back and a worried chill spread through him as he felt his blood trickle down his neck. He shouldn't be bleeding this much…

—-

Eridan awoke in a bed some time later, finding himself attached to tubing from which a violet liquid was dripping into his arm. From there, he made two observations; his nose was sore as hell, and he wasn't alone.

Sollux glared at him from a chair a few feet away.

"Next time, tell me when you're about to pass out on me, asshole. Maybe you shouldn't have drank so fucking much whiskey when you were, oh, I don't know, bleeding profusely and dehydrated?

"Anyway, just count yourself lucky other purplebloods actually donated blood. Count yourself lucky I brought you here. Just count yourself lucky, alright?"

Eridan's brows lifted reflexively.

Ow, wait, shit, don't do that.

"From the sound o' it, I might almost think you gave a fuck about me, Sol." He didn't use a particularly nasty tone, just one of confusion.

"Of course that isn't the case! I just couldn't let you die there, that's all. Don't need that on my conscience."

"Figured as much."

"And I only stayed for the same reason, so don't get any ideas, Ampora!"

"What the hell do you take me for, Captor?" The anger in Eridan's voice made Sollux jump a bit. "You know, contrary to popular belief, I'm no longer a fuckin' quadrant-whore, so I wish people would just drop the assumption that all I'm lookin' for is to get laid! That's not who I am, okay? There's more to me than that! So get that through your thick fuckin' skull right off the bat." Eridan propped himself against the pillow on his bed with a sour pout on his face. "I know all I'll ever be is alone anyway, so it doesn't even matter. I don't have a single friend in this damn world."

"Well, that's really sort of your own fault," Sollux popped off before he could stop himself. Shit.

Eridan's expression changed from anger to remorse. "Don't you think I fuckin' know that? Don't you think I know I've burned all my bridges? That I've used up all my second chances for any o' those who would give 'em to me? Just… just leave me alone, alright?"

He flipped onto his side and pulled his blanket over his head, not wanting to look at the other troll anymore.

Sollux glanced at the floor, honey-gold eyes filling with shame behind his red-and-blue glasses. Then he walked nearer to Eridan, clearing his throat awkwardly. "Hey, I'm sure it's not as bad as all that," he tried to comfort him. "I think you're overreacting a bit, Eridan. I'm sure there's… someone out there who's willing to give you another chance."

He was answered with a mournful wail. Shit, wrong thing to say. This wasn't working well at all.

"Eridan, stop!" Sollux rubbed his temples in frustration. "Stop crying. You're not gonna win anyone over that way."

"What if I ain't tryin' anymore, Sol? Fef was my only fuckin' friend! The only one in the whole damn world who could even halfway tolerate me."

"Ed, listen to yourself. Don't you think you've got it wrong? I mean, if I wasn't tolerating you, would I be here talking to you? If I wasn't your friend, would I have carried you all the fucking way here on my back? Or spent the night to make sure you were okay? I think you've got one more friend than you realize. So stop crying, it's pathetic."

Eridan wiped at his eyes gingerly.

"They straightened your nose, by the way. Whatever book Feferi threw, it must have been pretty heavy. They also somehow managed to stem the bleeding— don't ask how they managed to pull that one off—"

"Sol."

Sollux paused his rambling to glance down at Eridan.

"Were you bein' serious?"

"About what?"

"About… about bein' my friend. I thought you loathed me."

Sollux glanced out of the window at the sunrise over the city and put his hands into his pockets. "Time changes people, Eridan. Yes, I'm willing to put up with you enough to be your friend, but if you get all clingy, I swear I'll sever these ties so fast, it'll make your fucking head spin."

"I won't, okay? I ain't a wriggler; I don't need no one to hold my fuckin' hand."

"After last night, I'm not so sure."

"I don't!" Eridan's voice took on an angry tone that made Sollux turn to face him again. Whatever shreds of pride he had left seemed to be very sensitive. "Things like last night don't usually happen!"

"You'd be in the hospital a lot more often if they did." Sollux hesitated. "How often do you drink?"

"I'm not quite sure," he mumbled. "I've been drinkin' more as o' late. Mostly 'cause it helped me to tune out that Fef's an' my friendship was fallin' apart."

"That's… not good, Eridan."

"I know." Eridan flipped back over to face Sollux, who made a note that the purple bag of blood draining into his arm was nearly empty.

"I'm slightly concerned. That flask from last night was full, wasn't it?"

"Not quite." Eridan waited. "Why are you so concerned, anyway? You call yourself my friend, but how do I know you're not just messin' with me? Everyone seems to love playin' headgames with Eridan 'Gullible Quadrant-whore' Ampora."

"I just told you: would I have stayed if I was just messing with you?"

"No," Eridan replied sheepishly.

"Exactly."

Sollux could understand why Eridan was so paranoid, though. Everyone he had ever come into contact with had antagonized or abandoned him, and Sollux had been part of that number. It had sent Eridan spiraling down a path of angry, crazed nihilism. He had apparently mellowed out over time— although Sollux wasn't sure how much of that was the influence of booze— and it was obvious that he was feeling honest remorse over his choices. Eridan needed a friend, and by being there for him last night, Sollux had inadvertently volunteered himself for the job.

Even though he needed another commitment like he needed a hole in the head.

A Prospitian nurse ambled into the room to check Eridan's IV.

"Hold still, dear."

She removed the tube from his arm and covered the small hole it left with gauze and tape. Then she took the empty bag from the room.

"So, um," Sollux started, grabbing a sheet of paper and a pen. He began scrawling furiously. "This is my cell phone. Call or text if you need anything, just not every five minutes."

Eridan took the paper when it was handed to him with a look of shock on his face. He continued staring wide-eyed at Sollux as he shuffled out of the room, hands once again shoved in his pockets.