Chapter Text
You’re just a little drunk. You’re not too drunk to pay attention to the documentary playing on your laptop. You’re also not too drunk to look outside your window and realize that it’s snowing. You’re just drunk enough to have your vision blurring a little and your fingertips feel warm. Not drunk enough, you think, taking another swig straight out of the wine bottle.
Why’d you even get this stuff anyways? It’s cheap shit that tastes like ass. Maybe another hour and you’ll be too far gone to care. That’s the plan, anyways.
You stretch out on the top bunk, taking a moment to stare out the window. You hope that it stops soon, because you want your friends to get back on time. Kar flew all the way back to Maine for this weekend, and if the snow keeps going he’s going to have to stay there for another few days. Fef said she’d drive up and visit you Sunday, but you don’t want her to put herself in any danger just to see your sorry ass. You take another drink.
You know, you’d even kind of like Sollux’s company right about now. If you could call it company, really. He hasn’t said more than a few words to you since move in day in August.
“I’m Eridan,”
“I’m Sollux,” Thollux, more like. You laughed at him a little bit.
“Stay out of my shit, and I’ll stay out of yours, alright?”
You nodded in agreement.
You have stayed out of each other’s shit quite well, actually. But it’s kind of nice when he’s sitting at the desk tapping away at the keys on his laptop. It’s comforting, watching him work so hard and all. He falls asleep at the desk chair a lot, head smashed on his keyboard. You think about moving the guy into his bunk sometimes, seeing as you could easily pick him up, but you never do. He’d probably yell at you. Instead you always just save his work for him and shut off his computer.
He looks just a little bit cold there when he’s sleeping face down on the desk. Your room is always cold, and it’s getting worse in the winter months. Sometimes you cover him up with the quilt that Fef made you for your dorm. A purple fringe thing that has waves embroidered into it all over. Every time you give it to him, you find it folded neatly at the end of your bed the next morning. You wish that he didn’t wake up so early.
Come to think of it, God damn, you were a gonnor from the minute you met him.
You’d like if he was here right now, instead of home having a great time with his family.
He calls his little brother every other night. You wish your skeevy brother cared about you that much.
Ironically, your brother’s probably the only one in your family that celebrated Thanksgiving. It was probably with instant stuffing and an equally skeevy girl, but you still kind of hate him for it.
You take another sip out of the bottle and wipe at your face with the sleeves of your sweatshirt. Are you crying? You can’t be crying. You started drinking to forget about all this shit and watch Food Inc. You cannot be seriously crying right now.
You think the sweatshirt belongs to your lispy roommate. Not like you’re being a creep or anything, but all your clothes are dirty and he won’t be home until Sunday. In fact, since you share a closet, you kind of picked the grubby yellow thing out by accident. You were already a lil drunk.
When the door opens, you jump a bit. Mostly, it’s to grab your comforter to cover yourself up. You’d rather the intruder not see you crying alone in your boxers and roommate’s sweatshirt.
“Eridan, what the hell?” yells Sollux, “why are you here?” He’s wearing this knit little bee hat that makes him look kind of like a mentally challenged Holden Caulfield. He’s not wearing his weird 3D glasses, so you can see his mismatched eyes clearly by the light of your laptop. Blue and brown. When he wears the glasses, the tint makes them both look kind of purple. You have no idea why he wears those glasses.
“I’d ask the same of you, asshole” you reply, not really sober enough to think of a lie, but not drunk enough to tell him the truth.
“My dad sent me back early. He didn’t want me driving in all the snow we’re supposed to get tomorrow,” He shrugs off his blue coat, placing it on the bottom bunk of your beds. He places his backpack on the floor by the desk, and you think that he’s probably going to pull out his laptop and start coding again. You don’t want him to do that. You want him to talk to you with his nasally lisp and all until you feel a little better.
So you turn off your laptop. “Where’d ya get that hat?” you ask. You’re not the best conversationalist, granted, but you really don’t want to be alone tonight.
He turns to look at you, a little bit taken aback. “Brother gave it to me.”
Knowing it was a gift from a little kid, you kind of feel bad thinking that it made him look mentally challenged. “I always wished I had a lil’ brother.” You sort of stumble on your w sounds, and slur your words together at this point. “I just got an older brother, n’ see, he’s a real sack a’ shit.”
Sollux rubs the back of his neck, replying, “Mituna is older than me.”
Oh.
Oh.
Now you feel really bad about the Holden Caulfield thing, and you thank God you were still sober enough to keep that to yourself.
“Sorry,” you mutter.
He doesn’t respond and pulls out his laptop.
You take another sip of cheap wine.
“Eridan, are you drunk?” you hear him ask.
You nod.
He turns to you, asking somewhat apprehensively, “have you eaten today?”
You shake your head. You also attempt to take off his sweatshirt underneath your comforter, because damn is it really creepy that you’re wearing it. Even if you picked it out drunk, you weren't that drunk and you know you picked it out on purpose you creepy bastard.
He pulls what looks to be the last of Thanksgiving dinner out of his backpack. All of it is squashed together in two little tupperware containers. “My mom gave me this to last two nights, but we might as well finish it off now.” He crosses over to the miniature microwave that the two of you share.
“I can’t accept that,” you slur.
The microwave beeps, and he switches the containers. “Don’t be an asshole. I’m really tired so just accept my damn kindness.”
When both containers are done heating, he pulls out a fork for each and climbs up to your bunk. You shift the sweatshirt under your pillow in hopes that he doesn’t see it.
He crosses his legs, and thrusts a dish of Thanksgiving leftovers into your arms.
“Eat it, asswipe. Then you can get as shitfaced as you want,” he mutters, “hell, I might even join you.”
“There’s always room for one more person on the self loathin’ express, Sol,” you say back, drawing out the ‘L’ sound in his name a little too long to be completely okay.
He gestures to the bottle of wine leaning against your lap. “Are you seriously not even using a glass?”
“What would be the point a’ that? ‘S just me here.” You shove a forkful of mashed potatoes into your mouth.
You’ve never had a Thanksgiving dinner before. You suppose, since it’s black Friday and your eating leftovers out of a scorching hot tupperware container, you still technically haven’t. You think that you’ll count this, though, because the food tastes like home should. You wonder what your roommate would think about you kissing him.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you weren’t going home for Thanksgiving,” he asks you.
He probably wouldn’t like it if you kissed him. He gives off such a straight guy kind of vibe. Lord, what a shame.
“I dunno, family doesn’t celebrate it,” you respond lazily. You look past him. You look at the way the moon lights up the snow on your windowsill. You bet if you kissed your roommate he’d make some sort of point about avoiding you. Like, more than he does now.
“You’re missing out, then. My family would have loved to have another guest. I mean, if you wanted. We always have guests on Thanksgiving.”
“You don’ even talk to me for the four months you’ve known me n’ then you tell me that I should be meetin’ your family? You’re crazy, Sol.” There it is again, the extra long ‘L’ sound.
“I just don’t like to see anybody spending the holidays alone is all. You’ve got somewhere to go for Christmas, right?”
You nod furiously. “Yeah, Fef- m’ best friend from high school, her name’s Feferi, she wants me to spend it with her n’ her family.” That was a pretty complicated thought for someone in your state. You’re pretty proud of yourself for getting it out, actually.
He’s silent for a second. “Not your family?”
“Fef’s is nicer to me. Besides my parents ain’t too big on Christmas either. N’ I don’t think Cronus is comin’ home on Christmas.” You trail off, looking out the window again, “Cronus- m’ brother- he hasn’t come home in a while.”
“Would you go home if your brother did? I thought you told me he was a ‘sack of shit’.” He makes little air quotes, mocking you.
You prop your head up on your hands. “Oh don’ get me wrong, he totally is. I miss him, though. N’ I wanna know if he’s doin’ okay n’ everything, since I ain’t heard from him since I was still in high school.”
“I’m sorry, Eridan,” he says a little sadly, “I don’t really know what to say to that.”
“S’okay. I just kinda wish he left an Indication” you trip over that word a little- indication, indication, “I wish he left an indication about whether or not he was still alive or somethin’. Or I wish he’d write me a letter to let me know what he was doin’.”
“A letter?” he says mockingly, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
You smile. “I like gettin’ letters. That’s enough of my shitty family, though. Tell me about your brother. You guys seem close as balls.”
He spoons some stuffing into his mouth. The homemade kind, too. With his mouth full, he says, “Mituna’s twenty. Smartest person I ever met. You know he played chess with me this weekend, and damn, he had me in checkmate within 10 turns. I kid you not, he’s a genius.”
You nod at him, hoping he continues. You like watching his lips move. They’re a little chapped from the cold, but you like the way that they’re shaped.
He swallows and adds, “he loves shopping. He likes giving people gifts and stuff. Black Friday is his favorite day in the entire year. Me and TZ- best friend growing up- we went with him this morning, and he had everything mapped out. He dragged us out shopping at 1 a.m. this year. I got a lot of video games that I left at home, but he bought me some CDs that I brought with me,” he laughs, “and also this dumb hat.”
“It ain’t dumb,” you reply quickly.
“No, it’s pretty fucking dumb. I love it, though. You can love something even if it’s dumb.”
That sticks with you. Even if you get drunk off your ass tonight and can’t remember any of this conversation, you want to remember that. It’s not even profound or anything, you just like the way that sounds. So blunt, but sort of sweet at it’s core.
“Tell me more about your brother,” you say, looking at the way his hair kind of falls in his right eye. The blue one, the right one. It’s just one loose curl, and you wonder what he’d say if you pushed it out of his face for him. That would be creepy, though. Almost as creepy as the sweatshirt still sticking out from under your pillow.
He shakes his head a little. “He likes to skateboard. I mean, he’s not really very good at it, but it helps him with his motor skills. It’s ridiculous, the way he just walks around talking about how great he is at skating. It’s just ridiculous,” he shakes his head and laughs again, and it’s really fucking endearing. “You know he has a girlfriend? An honest to God girlfriend? It’s amazing, I want to punch him for it sometimes. She’s hot as all hell. Smart too. I’m a little jealous, honestly.”
You squirm a little bit uncomfortably. Ugh. It was kind of nice just assuming his sexuality, because there was always a little bit of hope for you. Knowing is kind of a let down. No, not kind of. A real big let down that makes you pretty sad.
“Last time I saw Cronus he was tryna’ tell me about some chick he banged. I knew it was a lie, though. He was the biggest fuckin’ liar about that stuff.” You finish off the rest of your dinner, and the snow hasn’t let up at all. You take another long-awaited swig from your wine bottle. The cheap, bitter taste is a stark contrast to the home-cooked meal that you just ate.
“God, you’re a mess,” says Sollux looking past you, “you know if you ever need to just talk this shit out, I’d listen. And KK’s right down the hall, man. I mean it’s probably not too healthy to drink away your problems like th-” he narrows his eyes at you. “Is that my fucking sweatshirt, Eridan?”
“Probably,” you reply, against any better judgement. That was not a ‘probably’ question. That was a ‘please explain yourself you sad creepy asshole’ question. You’re pretty far gone at this point. Not just a little drunk anymore. You’re very drunk and sad and happy all at the same time. Even though your roommate’s straight you still want to kiss him more than ever and then vomit over the side of the bunk bed.
He sighs, and takes the wine bottle out of your hands. “It’s really time for you to get some rest.”
Okay, now that makes you really sad. You wish you hadn’t been drinking when he came back, because then he wouldn’t be treating you like a little kid. You also wish that he didn’t take his sweatshirt off of your bed when he took the tupperware and forks back down.
You lay your head against your pillow, sprawling out across your bunk and looking out the window. “‘S too fuckin’ cold here.” You want the snow to stop now, even though it looks so pretty out there falling in the dark.
Sollux turns off the lamp in your dorm, then crosses over to the desk and begins working on his laptop. Tip tap, tip tap on the keys. Here’s to another four months of the guy you’ve been pining over not to give a single shit about you. Tip tap, tip tap like the same as always. You hope, just for your own sake that you wake up and still remember this conversation. You hope that you remember the way he looked when he was talking about his brother. You squint in the dark to see that he’s still wearing that bee hat that he told you was dumb.
You’re almost asleep when you feel something soft hit you in the face.
“Keep it,” he tells you, completely monotone.
You smile, pulling the thing back over your head. “S’too cold, Sol. Too cold in here.”