As politically incorrect as Kankri would claim it was, the flavor of blood varied from caste to caste. Nothing as drastic as the difference between sugar and blood, candy and meat. More of varying brands of bitter on a range from lowblood citrus and highblood salt. Each bloodtype also came with their own added boosts, though she was never entirely sure if they were actual side effects or placebo echoes from her recent meals. Medigos made her feel as if time had slowed for a short while, Captors left her veins buzzing, Pyropes fueled her focus and that one time with Makara… well she’d rather not dwell on that. She had never, however, tasted violet blood before. As much as Cronus had tempted and taunted her in the past she never wanted to give him the satisfaction.
Eridan tasted like… he tasted like licking brine off a scallop shell. Porrim personally had never done such a thing, but that was the closest thing she could imagine to compare the taste. It lacked most of the hearty warmth and richness of fuchsia and left a sour aftertaste.
1 / 2 / 3 / 4
Ao3
CA: por
CA: por
CA: porrim please youre killin me here
[GA delete 245 messages from CA? Y/N]
CA: wwait wwhat
CA: thats not real is it
CA: wwhy am i seein that i shouldnt be seein that
CA: it cant be real it wwouldnt post that shit ive nevver seen that shit before
[GA delete 249 messages from CA? Y/N]
GA: Y.
CA: rudeass bitch
[Data cleared.]
GA: I am surprised yo+u have never seen that no+tificatio+n before. Yo+u must have very patient friends.
CA: fuck you okay it just goes to showw howw shitty your chat client is compared to ours
CA: unlike you lot wwe havve the decency to not be so clumsily blatant wwith our snubs
CA: spitin people is a delicate process and you cant just throww that negativve shit around like its nothin it looses its impact
CA: but you flush huggers wouldnt knoww that wwould you pitch really is a lost art on you lot
[GA delete 5 messages from CA? Y/N]
GA: Y.
[Data cleared.]
CA: fuck you
GA: Are yo+u wearing the skirt that I gave yo+u?
CA: wwere gettin off point
CA: seriously por
CA: wwhat do you wwant
CA: i wwasnt kiddin wwhen i said id make good on my promise
CA: just fuckin tell me wwhat you need so wwe can be done here
GA: Yo+u never made any promise.
CA: shut up
CA: wwhat do you want
GA: Here is the pro+blem.
GA: While I’d be mo+re than happy to reap the “fruits of my labo+r” so+ to+ speak, I am afraid that there is abso+lutely no+thing yo+u have that I want.
CA: amporas always repay their debts its a matter of fuckin honor
GA: Ho+no+r?
CA: its a high blood thing
CA: you wwouldnt understand
GA: I’m sure I wo+uldn’t.
CA: just tell me wwhat you wwant and ill get out of your hair for good
GA: Yo+u really are set o+n this, aren’t yo+u?
CA: yes!
GA: …
GA: Fine.
GA: If yo+u must pro+vide me so+mething I co+uld always do+ with a light snack.
CA: …
CA: wwait
CA: you talkin like fried grubs or
CA: the other thing
GA: The o+ther thing, Eridan.
CA: oh
CA: wwell
GA: Yo+u did say anything.
CA: yeah I fuckin knoww wwhat i said
CA: ill do it
CA: just givve me a second to collect myself
GA: Pardo+n?
CA: ill be ovver in an hour
GA: Eridan.
GA: This isn’t so+mething yo+u must do+ immediately.
CA: I wwant to do it noww
GA: Is this what this is all abo+ut? Getting o+ut o+f yo+ur hive?
CA: is kan there?
GA: Eridan.
CA: or ros?
GA: …no.
GA: They are not.
GA: They are o+ut fo+r the day.
CA: thank god
CA: ill talk to you later
CA: see you in an hour
[CA has disconnected.]
GA: Talk to+ yo+u later.
[GA has disconnected.]
If Porrim had nothing kind to say about Eridan, she’d at least be able to say that he was punctual.
According to the pester log, the last message he had sent her had gone out at 2:13 in the afternoon. Sure enough, 3:13, a sharp rap echoed down the entry hall of her hive. So exact it may have frightened Porrim if she wasn’t already used to tediously meticulous schedules such as Kankri’s. That and she had caught a glimpse of him out the window at 2:32. Chances were he arrived early and waited at her front stoop until the hour mark was reached. It’d been funny if the behavior wasn’t so eerily similar to Cronus’s.
The last thing anyone needed was another Cronus.
“Excited?” Porrim hedged when he cut past her and walked into her hive without greeting, without even slipping his boots off.
Eridan shrugged, taking off his sunglasses and tucking them into the collar of his shirt. Unlike their last encounter he was flaunting a 12-going-on-13-sweeps look, a head taller than her sans heels and a facial structure so aristocratic it physically painful to look at. He glanced back at her over his shoulder. “In a hurry.”
Porrim was as inclined to believe that as she was to believe Kankri when he claimed he would wrap up his sermon within an hour. But alas, the Ampora ego is a fragile thing and she didn’t want to hazard breaking it lest she’d have to walk him through another mental breakdown. So instead she followed him into the living room, stepping around him and sitting on the far end of the couch when he stopped three strides from the entryway. She patted the cushion next to her. “Let’s get this over with, then.”
He nodded but didn’t move beyond that.
She arched an eyebrow. “Second thoughts?”
“No.” He snapped.
“Then sit.”
“I will.”
“If you’re waiting for a cue, this is it Eridan.”
“I’m not—“ He cut himself off and pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes with a sharp exhale. “Okay yeah. Second thoughts. I’ll get over them.”
Porrim’s brow furrowed. Worried, confused, maybe a bit nauseous. Whatever it was, she had no clear idea what kind of emotion that particular statement roused. “You don’t have to Eridan. It’s perfectly fine to walk out if you want to. I won’t be offended.”
“It’s not fine and also it’s okay I’m over it. I’m over it.” He dropped his hand and opened his eyes, rigidly moving from his spot and settling down next to her on the couch. “I’m over it.”
“…If you say so.” Porrim muttered. The boy looked stiffer than the couch they were sitting on and that was further confirmed when she placed a hand on his shoulder. It was a wonder his muscles hadn’t snapped with how taunt they’re pulled.
She scooted closer and in what she assumed was misguided anticipation, he tilted his head to the side, exposing his throat. Tsk’ing she reached up and took hold of one of his horns and pushed his head back into place. “I’m not using your throat.”
“Why not?” He huffed, straining against her grip.
“I’d tear your gills. One of your major arteries run right through them and I’m not about to take away your remaining pair because I want a light snack.” She knew the moment she’d finished her statement that the mention of his damaged gills pushed the topic a little too far for his comfort, his annoyance visibly melting into a chilly pool of wariness.
“My gills are fine.” His voice was level. So flat it was detached. “There’s nothing wrong with either pair.”
She let go of his horn. “Fine or not, I’m not inflicting any more damage than I have to. Now give me your arm.”
He did. “How do you even know that? You haven’t… been with…”
“Feferi? No. Meenah? Yes. And trust me I’ve gleaned more than I could ever desire from the experience.” Porrim undid the cuff buttons of his shirt and rolled up the sleeve, turning his arm over to expose the thin skin of his inner elbow.
Eridan leaned back against the couch, watching as she searched for a vein with the tip of her thumbnail. “You took from her arm?”
“…At times. Depended on the mood.” She pulled her thumb back, gripping his forearm as she leaned down. “Ready?”
“Obviously.”
“This will pinch a bit.”
“I know.”
She sighed. “Of course you do.”
With that, she sank her teeth into him.
As politically incorrect as Kankri would claim it was, the flavor of blood varied from caste to caste. Nothing as drastic as the difference between sugar and blood, candy and meat. More of varying brands of bitter on a range from lowblood citrus and highblood salt. Each bloodtype also came with their own added boosts, though she was never entirely sure if they were actual side effects or placebo echoes from her recent meals. Medigos made her feel as if time had slowed for a short while, Captors left her veins buzzing, Pyropes fueled her focus and that one time with Makara… well she’d rather not dwell on that. She had never, however, tasted violet blood before. As much as Cronus had tempted and taunted her in the past she never wanted to give him the satisfaction.
Eridan tasted like… he tasted like licking brine off a scallop shell. Porrim personally had never done such a thing, but that was the closest thing she could imagine to compare the taste. It lacked most of the hearty warmth and richness of fuchsia and left a sour aftertaste.
There was, however, a note of an energized something.
Highblood rage or the remnants of yesterday’s shot of sopor Porrim didn’t know. But the more she drank the stronger it was. It coated her tongue and down the back of her throat thick and visceral causing her heart to pick up and pace. Made her shiver even though it was downright balmy out and she had sweated half her water weight over the course of the morning due the humidity. The shaking was tethered by tenseness that had bled from him to her, leaving her charged like a spring and she didn’t know if she wanted to strike out or come undone. She struggled to put a name to it.
It was a note of hope, a note of madness. A note that occupied her attention to the point she almost didn’t notice how labored his breathing had become or the cold sweat that had broken out across his skin in a steady sheen.
It was no small effort to pull back.
She hadn’t taken much, this she was certain. Especially with highbloods being highbloods she knew there was no way that she had drawn more than what a healthy violet could handle. So when she looked up to see how glassy Eridan’s eyes had become a multitude of red flags went up. She pressed the back of her hand against his forehead.
He was warm.
Burning fever for a highblood.
“Why’d you… stop…?” He muttered.
Her stomach turned. Good God, Ampora. Stop being so damn tragic.
“I’m getting you some water.” Porrim gingerly set his arm down onto his lap and stood. “And a bandage.”
She had turned to head into the kitchen when he caught her wrist. “You didn’t take much. You didn’t… you didn’t like it?”
“Eridan you’re ill.” She pried his fingers off of her. Unlike his forehead they were frigid. “You’re in no condition to give blood.”
“I’m fine.”
Porrim took the time to shoot him an exasperated look before ducking into the kitchen. She quickly filled the nearest glass she could get ahold of with water and forced it into his hand when she returned. He spat out the first sip, cursing tap water.
The second sip took a lot more coaxing on her part but eventually he got it down followed by a few more. “Have you eaten today?”
Eridan shrugged. “Wasn’t hungry.”
“You should still eat, dear.”
“Dear?”
“Yes. Dear.”
He stared at her as if she were the insane one. When she asked him if he had a problem with it he shook his head. “Never been called that before.”
That came as a shock. “Never?”
“Never.”
“You’ve had a moiral. You currently have a… matesprit.” The last word gnawed on her. It was such a gross misuse of the label but she had nothing else to call his relationship with his dancestor. “Yet you’ve never been called ‘dear’?”
Eridan shook his head again.
He might as well tore her heart out of her chest, he was being so damn pitiable.
For the next few hours Porrim drifted in and out of the living room while he drifted in and out of sleep. Light naps, quick thirty minute long siestas that didn’t invite daymares even without the aid of a coon. His arm was patched up easily enough and by the time the afternoon came to a close she’d gotten him to swallow down three glasses of water. He’d rejected every offer to food however. Claimed it was due to his discerning pallet though she knew better to buy that crap. The fucker was too damn neurotic for his own good, afraid to ask for help that they both knew he needed but couldn't get because of his twisted sense of honor.
Fuck honor, Porrim just wanted to make sure he wasn’t about to double-die on her.
By the time Kanaya and Rose returned from whatever romantic escapade they’d been pursuing through the day, Eridan was still curled up on the couch draped in a spare quilt. Predictably Kanaya was less than pleased. Thankfully though it was late enough for her to be tired and instead of grilling Porrim right then and there she waved the issue off for the next morning. Rose wasn’t so much bothered than bemused by the situation, flaunting her signature smirk as she watched Eridan sleep as Kanaya wrapped up her conversation with Porrim.
When they retired for the night Porrim followed after them. As concerned as she was, she couldn’t stay by his side the entire night.
Should he want to leave between naps, the front door was unlocked for him. Porrim told herself she wouldn’t care if he did, that she had done her part to make sure he was getting well and that it wasn’t her concern from here on out. However part of her, that traitor bleeding heart part, clung to the hope that he would stay. To give her an excuse to further look after him. To make sure he wasn’t starving himself or getting his gills further ruined by the only troll across the span of bubbles that’d claim to love him.
Angelmaker is a sad creature.
She tucked a second blanket over him before she left. The shiver simply wouldn’t leave him, wracking him so bad that she had to pull out a third for herself thanks to the false connection she felt thanks to sharing his blood. Porrim brushed his hair to the side and attempted to recall the softened edges of a child’s face in place of the harshness of his current mask but failed. Still a child. She stepped back, pulling the blanket more snug around her shoulders before exiting.
It wasn’t until she had slid into her recouprecoon that she realized he’d never taken off his boots.
Parrotfish Gills and How They Tear :: or :: How Porrim Grew Fond Of An Immature Douchebag
She had spotted, out of the corner of her eye, two sets of scratches dragging up from his navel and across the sides of his ribs. Possessive claws. That’s what gave it away. The filaments of his teleosteian gills were still oozing violet, operculum torn almost entirely off. This near-dead skin fluttered and bent loosely as he moved, causing him to wince and flinch.
Porrim asked how he was still standing.
He responded by saying he’d show her by kicking.
Part 1 / 2 / 3 / 4
Ao3
It had been girls night.
The group of once-dead damsels—Latula, Meulin, Aradia, Meenah, Feferi, Kanaya and her human matesprit Rose—had been gathered at Porrim’s hive. Meulin had filched some kicking soporific and booze from Kurloz and the group had been enjoying themselves a game of truth or shots. It was nearly one in the morning and Latula was in the middle of her third attempt at tricking Feferi into taking her top off. Things were light. Fun, even.
Then.
Then the knock heard ‘round the hive.
Porrim had assumed it was Nepeta. The girl had promised she’d drop by and she had a tendency to be egregiously late to every venture she was invited to. So with glass in hand and uncharacteristically tipsy the eldest Maryam went to answer, laughing at something quippy Rose had said as she pulled the door open. Something about the curiosity of sea dweller gills and how she’d gladly back Latula albeit for “research” purposes. “Very likely.” Porrim called back before her eyes fell onto the newcomer.
She stopped in her tracks.
Lanky not short. Lightning bolts in place of cat ears. Violet instead of olive.
Ampora.
She slammed the door shut on impulse. It wasn’t until the initial shock wore off, leaning against the door with painted claws digging into the wood, that she processed that it was the younger of the two violetbloods. No scars, no sneer, no “authentic” human cigarette.
Eridan. She was fairly certain that was his name.
Angelmaker.
Despite the brief horror that came with facing the young rendition of the Beforan legend—matesprit killer child culler lunatic beyond even Cronus’s ilk—she was relieved. If it had been Cronus the rest of the night would have been shot. The bastard had a way of clinging to her like a leech to a leg and not going away until everyone in the vicinity had been drained. Eridan, while exhausting, could be easily shooed away.
Taking care of him would be a five minute job, tops.
Assuming.
Porrim opened the door.
Child. For the second time that night she was taken aback. Very few of the dreaming dead who had died young allowed themselves to appear their death age. They usually instead opted to masquerade older. Everyone knew everyone else was older than an eon and a day, nothing made it harder to be taken seriously than looking like a six-sweep-old. So the Alternians, these young ancestors, dressed up. Bent the ever-expansive creative space of the dream bubbles to appear more mature and closer to their Beforan counterparts. Ten, eleven, even twelve sweeps old. Eridan typically favored older as to match heights with Cronus, and that only made seeing him standing on her doorstep as a soft-faced bundle of too-long limbs an even harsher slap in the face.
It had been raining for the past hour and the poor creature was soaked to the bone and on top of that, he was wearing next to nothing. Boxers a size too large hanging off hips two sizes too narrow. A white cotton shirt—one of Cronus’s—was bunched up at his shoulders, translucent, wet and clinging to his ash-pale skin. Despite her having opened and closed the door twice his gaze remained downcast. The top half of his face was curtained from view by seaweed clumps of black and violet as he stared fixedly at his bare feet. His arms were crossed tightly across his chest, combating shivers even though he was an ice blooded sea dweller and it was downright balmy out.
“Is there anything…” Porrim began, her tone measured. Eridan lifted his gaze. When his eyes met hers her jaw snapped shut with an audible click.
There was no need to ask why he was there. The answer was scrawled all over that broken-angle face of his. Looking straight-on it became obvious his nose didn’t bend that way naturally and what appeared to be shadows were actually a smattering of black-purple bruises. These mingled with the bags under his eyes—daymare hand-me-downs—and his pupils were so dilated that she had a tough time making out the violet ring of his iris. Suddenly, his shaking seemed more pronounced. More vulnerable. Porrim had to resist the urge to reach out and take hold of him before he rattled himself to pieces right in front of her.
Oh child.
He cleared his throat. “…Is Fef here?”
His voice was as measured and quiet as her own had been, which was conflicting. Porrim chewed on her lip. Composure was not an Ampora trait. Eridan especially was one to overplay his troubles, not underplay. The fact he was treating aftermath worthy of academy award winning drama like a casual evening visit put her off. In her experience this could only mean two things—either he was currently on the verge of a meltdown or that he was filing all that turmoil away to whip it out when everyone least expected it. The last thing she needed was to accidentally trigger the prior, but she had no idea how to circumvent that.
Thankfully she was saved from answering when a voice chimed in behind her. Latula. “Hey! Is it Nep or no?”
“No. It’s not.” Porrim sighed.
Pyrope snorted. “Then tell whoever it is to piss off. I’m tryna get fish princess here to do the bare naked macarana and I know you don’t wanna miss it.”
“What?” Eridan’s eyebrows shot up, the first real emotion he’d expressed. Soaked in nothing but his underwear and still overprotective as hell. Porrim was hit by another unwanted pang of pity. In the meantime Latula had wandered up behind her to peek over his shoulder at the doorstep She could feel her friend’s mood sour when she saw Eridan.
“Oh fuck. Who invited lil’ Ampora?”
“Let me in.” He scowled. However it was more sad than threatening with the way his hair kept getting stuck in his eyes.
Latula whistled. “Dude. You should go get some help. Looks like somebody fucked you up real bad.”
“Latula.” Porrim snapped but it was already too late. Whatever blood that was left in Eridan’s face evacuated in a hurry, leaving him looking like a proper ghost. There was a hanging moment where Porrim was prepared to swoop in to catch a breakdown, to collect him up in her arms and try her damnedest not to get any of his blood on her dress.
That didn’t happen.
Instead he plowed right by them. As fragile as he looked he was packing a lot of power in that twig body of his. He was stumbling down the hall in no time, the two woman lagged momentarily out of sheer shock before chasing after him.
The next few minutes were a cluster fuck. Eridan started shouting something about royal chastity as he stormed into the living area where Feferi already had her shirt stuck over her head, the loose material having been snagged on one of her horns. Meulin was picking past the frizzy bush of hair intertwined with the frothy fabric, attempting to pick and claw her free before hopping back with a yowl when Eridan drunkenly crashed on scene. Her hands firmly caught in Feferi’s deathtrap hair, Feferi went tumbling backward with her just as Porrim and Latula came skidding in on Eridan’s heels.
Kanaya was the first on her feet, diving between Eridan and Feferi in no time and shoving him back before he could get to her which sent him flailing back into Porrim. She made no hesitation to wrap her arms around him in a vice grip, easily holding him back as he continued to thrash and shout. He wasn’t the only loud one. Everyone was talking at once.
Where the fuck—
Who the fuck—
Why the fuck—
Get.
Him.
Out.
By the time Feferi, the poor confused girl, got her shirt off and wised up to the situation all the rapidly mounted tension in the room had already crested. Kanaya had been shepherded into the kitchen by Rose. Meenah had thrown her hands up and left the hive all together because she wasn’t about to have any more Ampora bullshit. And Eridan. Eridan had gone stock still against Porrim staring wide-eyed down at his ex-moirail.
Porrim, she could feel every taunt wire holding that boy together. How they strained with his every intake of breath, the shift as he reached out to her with one pathetically shaky hand muttering a mantra of “please, Fef, please I need please” under his breath. From the looks of it she had gone equally as rigid, not moving from her spot and clutching her shirt conservatively against her chest.
Eridan reached further, voice cracking. “Please.”
She bolted.
He crumbled.
Latula was the only one who helped Porrim haul him back to his feet, albeit with far too much commentary of how gross his sobbing was to be couth. Aradia and Meulin, the only two others left in the room, watched quietly as he was shepherded up the stairs (Not out the door, Porrim wasn’t so cruel) and to one of the empty respitblocks on the second floor.
Faintly, from up the stairwell, Porrim heard Aradia chirp to Meulin.
“And here I was worried it was getting boring!”
—
Porrim had chewed her lip raw.
Hell, her left fang was dug in so far she might as well put in another piercing. Nerves, while something she could handle, were a real pest in this way. The slow cut of her incisors moored her mind, keeping it from drifting too far as her thoughts flitted between downstairs and the troll that stood before her.
Stood is putting it charitably.
Slumped is far more accurate.
Eridan was pawing through her wardrobe. Well, one of her wardrobes. It was one of the burdens of being one of a pair of seamstresses sharing a hive: there never seemed to be enough closet space. They had just spent the hour arguing, and things had come to a head of sorts. He wanted to leave, embarrassed for having shown weakness so publicly or because of some other strange violations of Alternian custom. Their entire spat, he never once looked her in the eye. Hound with his tail between his legs, speaking as if they were near a shed and she was toting a rifle.
Which is ridiculous, since melee was more her style.
But pointing that out would be digressing.
He wanted to leave. To where, it was clear he didn’t know. Likely back to his own hive where Porrim would rather gnaw her lip off than see him go to in this state. While he never was explicit, never attributed reason to his injuries she knew damn well whose knuckles were imprinted along the curve of his cheekbones.
(She had spotted, out of the corner of her eye while he was changing out of his soaked clothing, two sets of scratches dragging up from his navel and across the sides of his ribs. Possessive claws. That’s what gave it away. The filaments of his teleosteian gills were still oozing violet, operculum torn almost entirely off. This near-dead skin fluttered and bent loosely as he moved, causing him to wince and flinch.
Porrim asked how he was still standing.
He responded by saying he’d show her by kicking.
The subject dropped.)
It had been silent for at least a quarter of an hour, the only sound being the clicking of coat hangers and the steady tap of Porrim’s nails against the wall. The party had disbanded shortly after Eridan’s arrival, Kanaya and Rose down in the kitchen being the only other occupants left in the hive. Porrim knew Kanaya would rather Eridan leave even though she likely wouldn’t voice it. Rose would probably make a passive aggressive stab at it in a weeks time in an attempt to once again psychoanalyze Porrim’s “maternal fixation”.
But none of that mattered at the moment. What mattered was the poor child who needed asylum from both his hive mate and his own idiocy.
“You should rest.” She finally urged.
Eridan scoffed. “You sound like a broken record.”
“I know. If that’s upsetting you I recommend you sleep it off.”
“Why are you still here.”
“Not for my health.” She chuckled flatly, “that’s for sure.”
“Then piss off. I already told ‘ya I don’t do charity.” Metal hooks screeched against the metal closet rod as he pushed several shirts to the side in favor of scrutinizing a collection of skirts. Typical Ampora prude disdain.
“We’ve been over this. It’s not charity. It’s common sense. You’re in no state to—“
“—You pity me—“
“—I worry for you.” The statement tasted wrong leaving her lips. It wasn’t quite true, or at least she didn’t particularly want it to be true. Angelmaker. This is the Angelmaker. He murdered your ancestor in another life. He tried to kill Kanaya. Don’t get close. However it was impossible not to feel something, a quiet care that somehow burrowed deep into her bloodpusher. Similar to what she had felt with Kankri, now that she thought about it. Logic be damned, this boy’s injury demanded that she be gentle.
Yet speaking on this troubling fondness felt wrong. Stilted. And despite Eridan being one of the more oblivious trolls from the Alternian twelve he could sense it too.
“There’s no reason to.” He plucked a skirt from the bunch, running the fabric between his fingers.
The idiot was setting her up to rebut, trying to spark yet another argument. She refused to take the bait a second time. “You like it?”
“Hm?” He didn’t take his gaze off of the skirt. It was nothing special. Knit. Red-and-black checks. Very niche-fashion, something Porrim personally wouldn’t be caught dead in.
“The skirt.” She finally pushed away from the wall, risking to step closer to him and take hold of one of the skirt’s corners. Examining it with him.
He kept his body angled away from her, but at least he didn’t shrink away like he had been doing earlier. Progress. “It’s nice fabric.”
“It’s from Kanaya’s loom.”
“And the pattern—“
“—Atrocious—“
“—Eye-catching.” He muttered, running a thumb across its hem. “It seems like her.”
The fondness of his tone made Porrim uneasy. Any interaction between he and Kanaya did. “You like the style.”
He nodded. “Fef would sometimes borrow Kanaya’s things. Wear them around. Wreck them underwater. She wore them well, though.”
Another landmine topic Porrim would prefer to avoid. Focus on the fabric. “You wanted to borrow some, too?”
“No.” His answer came a beat too early to be believable, eyes flickering between Porrim and the skirt. “I had what I wanted.”
“I’m… sure you did.”
“I did.”
“You did.”
“Yeah.” He paused. “I borrowed one once, from Fef.”
Porrim let go of her portion of the skirt. “Did you wear it well?”
“She laughed at me.” Eridan draped the skirt back over the hanger. “Was a real bitch about it, actually.”
Porrim sighed. “Let’s not talk about her anymore.”
“She was such a fuck’n bitch.” He muttered, snapping the hanger back on the rail with a sharp click. “Lowblood-lovin’ air headed cunt. I fuckin’ hate her.”
“Hypocritical, coming from you.”
For the first time since his episode downstairs, he faced her straight-on. “Fuck you.”
“I’m not interested.
“Fuck you.”
“Maybe if you wore that skirt.” Porrim smirked. “Then I might consider.”
Color splashed across his cheeks, restoring some much-needed life to his face. Success. She plucked the hanger back out of the closet, handing it back to him. “Keep it. It’s not being worn, anyhow.”
“No.”
“You really do not know how to take a favor.” Porrim hooked the hanger on the closet doorknob, leaving it on display so he could take it if he so chose.
He didn’t, or at least, not right then. The way his eyes kept drifting back to it implied it might be gone by morning. “I already said. I don’t do favors. I’m above them.”
She patted him on the shoulder, careful not to accidentally strike an unseen injury.
“I believe you, hun.”
—
Eridan was gone the next morning. Slipped out before the rest of the hive woke up. One night of refuge, nothing more, which was probably all either Maryam could bear to offer. Kanaya was thrilled at his departure, Rose once again was noncommittal with her opinion.
Porrim wasn’t sure what her thoughts were concerning him. Relieved, certainly, consoling him was more exhausting than an argument with Kankri. However as the day progressed she couldn’t help but find herself wondering how he was. Fussing. Worrying.
She filed all this away into the back of her mind. There was no use for concern. Despite the trauma, despite the snapshot of desperation she had the misfortune of witnessing, things would resume their regular pace. He’d fade back to the periphery of her social circle, only coming up in the casual mention or brief glance across a dream-bubble crossroads. Sure she’d see another facet of Cronus’s sneer, speculate over the sincerity in which the Beforan Eridan had killed her own ancestor, wonder if it was possible for such a child to be born with that sort of sociopathy. She had a hard time imagining that scared boy doing anything so wretched.
All this stewed as she tidied up the guest respitblock Eridan had stayed in, combing the room for anything he could have left behind. He came with nothing so naturally there was nothing.
Except.
The skirt.
Porrim plucked the empty hanger from the closet door handle and smiled.
Imagine Eridan having a strange, nagging feeling that something was out of place for most of his life, but always attempting to brush it aside because he couldn't figure out what it was. Fast forward to the dream bubbles, where he meets up with Porrim after a disastrous date with Cronus.
They start talking about their lives back home, and on a whim he mentions this feeling. To his surprise, Porrim's genuinely interested in it, and asks him to describe it further. After some discussion and introspection, Eridan realizes that feeling, which he always ascribed to perfectly normal alternian paranoia, evveryone has it, was a dissatisfaction with the concept of masculinity in general, as well as in relation to himself.
With Porrim's help, Eridan tries on various feminine and non-feminine genders, experimenting with pronouns and presentations, until settling on neutrois (mostly because it sounds sophisticated). Although some ghosts are less understanding and make fun of them for wearing dresses sometimes, Porrim is always accepting and understanding of their true identity.
