Chapter Text
Your name is Sollux Captor, and you are not a romantic. It’s never been a problem until now.
Honestly, forget ‘romantic’ and all the images of flowers and violins and silk loungeplanes the word evokes; you’ve never been one for romance as a concept. Other people, sure, you get it. But while you like friends and you like sex, that secret gushy ‘romance’ part of the equation that Karkat speaks of relentlessly has always been mostly absent from your relationships.
The thing with your pan is, it sinks its teeth into concepts and refuses to let go. You’ve maybe liked someone once or twice enough to be serious, but the other thing is, as intense as your fixations are, they’re never long-lasting. It’s always more of an interest, a challenge, that propels you to date. Any actual infatuation makes you uncomfortable, control-freak that you are, and rarely lasts more than a few weeks.
Most of the time, you just meet someone you want to fuck, fuck them, and move on. Hit it and quit it, and other charming human phrases. Once someone gets possessive and smothering and over invested in your life, it’s time to go.
So waking up next to someone you didn’t know last weekend wasn’t something new or exciting, not really. You’ll admit it got more interesting when you rolled over to leave, looked over - hey, wait, fuck, you do know that guy - and woke him up by crashing out of the bed.
“Wwhat the-“ A familiar, pointy face leans over you. Blue eyes narrow. “Captor?”
Well, fuck.
That dude over there? The attractively naked one all wrapped up in silk bedsheets (dead giveaway)? That’s Eridan Ampora.
You don’t know him very well, to be honest. You know his bff - she was your lab partner, you used to hook up - but the two of you have always ran in different but overlapping circles. The first time you met him, KK introduced him as ‘from that obnoxious private school’ and then he pissed you off so much, you decked him and he challenged you to an actual duel.
Being sixteen is fucking crazy.
Anyway, you almost took him up on that duel, until KK told you he was a nationally ranked junior marksman. No way, no how, you’re out. Good call, you would later find; Karkat visited his family’s summer house once and came back traumatised. Apparently they have a hunting room? Full of dead animal trophies? Jegus christ, you’ll never understand humans.
From that point on, you only really saw Ampora at parties, across the room, with all your friends making a concerted effort to keep you apart. You’ve watched over sweeps as he got taller (not much) and dressed worse (incredibly) and finally discovered the full range of possible resting faces other than ‘bitch.’
…he’s pretty, okay? You’ll just confront the elephant in the room. Objectively, Ampora is very conventionally attractive. He’s got stupid glossy hair and perfectly clear skin and walks like a fashion model, you’ll admit it. That doesn’t mean shit, though. If anything, the way he’s so ridiculously overprivileged - rich, good-looking, seemingly mentally competent, if KK’s friends with him - makes him more irritating. The only way for his perpetually-scowling face to make you more pissed off would be if it was attached to the body of a frat boy hosting a kegger.
So yeah, you can acknowledge that he’s hot. It’s still a surprise to find yourself rolling out of his bed, though (god, there’s fucking satin everywhere, this man is insane), because, you know, you’ve got standards. They aren’t high, but they’re higher than ‘my family goes summering at the Hamptons and my father owns a yacht.’
“My father owwns twwo yachts an’ I wwouldn’t be caught dead at the Hamptons,” Ampora breaks in, brows crinkling. “You knoww you’re talkin’ out loud, right?”
“Oh, god, you’re thuch a prick,” you muster, voice coming out hoarse and disgusting. What did you drink last night?
“Approximately one beer,” he continues. You groan feebly. “Shit, Captor, you look like death wwarmed ovver.”
“Yeah, well, you look like…” you peer up at him crankily, then get distracted. The blue loungeplane is draped just so over his pale, slim hips that he looks like he’s emerging, sirenlike, from a cascade of water. The sun from his bow window is arcing along his back. Your mouth is dry. “Uh.”
“A pornstar, I knoww, you said it sevveral times last night,” Ampora interrupts. “Flattered, truly, but-“
“Thhut up, I did not thay that.”
“I’m pretty sure ‘Radia has a vvideo,” he tells you, reaching out with a long, slender arm to his side table.
Who has a side table??
“That’th not-“
He barks out a triumphant laugh, scrolling through his phone. “She sent audio.”
“No, no thhe did not-“
“You look like, like a fucking- fucking porn thtar.” You wince as your voice, slightly more slurred, echoes clumsily through Ampora’s room.
“Oh really,” he responds, just as smug last night as he is this morning but much looser with the accent. “Howw so?”
“You fucking jackass-“ you hiss, because he was egging you on, and you can hear AA’s honking, goose-like laughter distorting the audio, and this is just humiliating.
“You got- what’th it- Bette Davith eyeth.”
You cover your face and groan again. You can hear Ampora laugh again, kinda surprised, which is fair, because how did 80s music get involved in this?
“I havven’t heard that one before. I’m-“
Your voice sounds again, closer to the speaker. “Really? But look-“
“Wwatch the eyeliner-“
“They’re tho big. And blue. Not regular blue. Deep blue. Holy fuck, you have pretty night thky eyeth, who put me in Wattpad?”
Oh god oh god why.
“I’m pretty sure Bette Davvis ww-wwasn’t a pornstar-“
Aradia hoots distantly. You presume you’d just done something stupid.
“Okay, whatever. Bette Davith eyeth and blowjob lipth, whatever, we’re all thinking it-“
“I’m not,” your traitorous, alleged best friend chimes in.
“And you’re thmall, holy thhit, let me jutht-“
Ampora pauses the clip. “That wwas wwhen you tried to pick me up.”
“Tried?” You grit out.
“You grabbed my wwaist, got distracted, an’, you knoww…”
“Oh my god,” you exhale. “Oh my fucking god, I’m never getting drunk again.”
“I’vve nevver heard such romantic nothin’s.”
You turn your face to glare. “Good! I don’t do romantic nothingth, thank you very much.”
“I don’t knoww, wwaxin’ poetic about my eyes-“
“Oh my god thhut up.” You roll over and pray for death. “Thith ith why KK waterth down all my drinkth.”
“You wweren’t that drunk,” Ampora sniffs. “You wwere recitin’ pi to the fifteenth decimal, or some shit. I do havve a concept of decency, thank you.”
You roll back over to scowl at him, particularly his long, distracting back and swanlike neck and everything. “Thure you do.”
“Don’t undress me if you can’t handle the sight, dipshit,” he retorts, and your attempts at retaliation are stymied by the flashes of memory-
Fingers racing through buttons, sliding under shirts to find smooth, cool skin, hue legs locked around your back, his face, his mouth, the clear sweet taste of him-
-no, no, nope. That way lies madness. Ampora might be attractive, but he’s way too fucking high maintenance to screw around with, not to mention how embarrassing this whole scenario is. Hit it and quit it, it’s time for you to go.
“Okay, well, ath fun ath it ith to lie around in thtudied regret, I have thhit to do with my life.” He doesn’t reply as you pull on the clothing strewn over his floor, which you’re pretty sure is yours based off the way they’re worn and covered in Tetris shapes. “Thee ya.”
He hesitates, stretching. “Are you- do you havve a wway home?”
“It’th called the thubway, dickh-“ wait, that might’ve been him being decent, “uh. No thankth, or whatever. Bye.”
You get home in record time, thankfully do not walk in on KK jacking off again, and lie down on the loungeplank. Time to forget your mistakes and move on.
Little did you know this would be a recurring issue.