Actions

Work Header

Snags

Work Text:

“You have got to be fucking kidding me!”

Stomp stomp stomp stomp.

“ERIDAN. What the fuck did you do to my computer?”

“…Is there somethin' wrong with it?”

You cannot believe what you are hearing. This is quite possibly the heaviest load of Eridan’s ignorance-laden bullshit you’ve ever head to bear, and now he’s just sitting there staring at you like you did something wrong. He has no right to glare at you the way he’s doing right now. He has pulled some pretty careless crap in the past regarding the use of your personal electronics, but this is too much. This is really too much.

“Fucking… really? ED, it has a Trojan. Do you know what in the skullfucking Christ that is? Do you even give a shit?”

He’s closed the book he was reading, and he’s taken his glasses off to give you a better view of his less than impressed expression. He raises his eyebrows at you and sort of half-rolls his eyes. He shrugs as if to say, am I supposed to?

”Like… how did you even manage to do that? It… my mind is fucking boggling right now, seriously. What the hell? What could you have possibly done to get a goddamn virus?”

You tangle your fingers in your hair and yank at the strands in frustration. How the hell can he possibly be so nonchalant? This is quite honestly the equivalent to stabbing an infant in your opinion, and he’s just sitting there like there’s nothing wrong.

“First of all Sol, I got no idea what you’re screamin’ about.”

You are primed to scream at him some more, but it seems like he isn’t done talking.

“Second of all, I’m not gonna fuckin’ sit here and listen to you harangue me about somethin’ that I probably didn’t even do.”

“Okay, ED.” You rub your temples, frustrated. “Let me break it down for you. There are two people living in this house.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Me and you, yes?”

He rolls his stupid eyes at you and that makes you bristle even further.

“Yeah, Sol. I’m pretty fuckin’ sure.”

“Okay. So, providing that that holds true – only two people ever touch my computer, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Right, so given that fact, what the fuck makes you think that I would be responsible for infecting my own goddamn computer with a virus?”

You pause for his response, and he just stares at you dumbly.

“Fucking…” You sigh, exasperated. “Eridan, I developed the anti-virus shit we’re using. I did not download that trojan.”

“…Okaaaay.”

“Okay? Oh my god.” You drag your palms over your face in desperation, and he throws a sigh your way. Clearly he isn’t getting it.

“What… ugh. Did you download anything during the last few days? Like… I dunno, a game or something?”

There’s silence for a moment as he looks down and brings a finger to tap at his upper lip thoughtfully. He looks like he’s having some trouble remembering whether or not he actually did download anything, but then a lightbulb seems to go off over his head and he looks back up and confirms your worst nightmare.

“I guess, I dunno. I downloaded a couple a torrents – um, Queen’s discography? And… I think I remember tryin’ to get ‘The Devil wears Prada’ but it fucked up halfway through the download, so I gave up on it.”

Casually, he picks his book back up, licks his thumb and leafs over to the page with the folded corner. On the glasses go, and as far as he is concerned, this confrontation is over. You, on the other hand, have reached your boiling point and you swear that if you were a thermometer, you’d have spilled mercury all over the floor by now.

“I cannot fucking believe you!” You screech at him.

Irritated, he slams his book back down on his lap and glares daggers at you.

“How the fuck can you not care about this?” You make a sound that is something between a growl and a whine. “Do me a solid, ED. Next time you suddenly have the uncontrollably moronic burning desire to go ahead and get my computer anally raped with malware like the complete fucking jackass you are, just don’t fucking do it. Okay? Just… go destroy your own shit. You are such a fucking idiot, I swear.”

You stand there in front of him, shaking with rage. You can feel that your face is flushed, and he’s getting a little rosy around the cheeks as well. You notice that sort of glassy sheen in his eyes. He’s pretty much on the verge of crying, and frankly, you could not give even a quarter of a shit.

He stands up and chucks the book against the sofa cushions, then walks over to you and makes sure to get right up close to your face. For a second, he doesn’t say anything, but you can see his lower lip quiver a little. All you can think is ‘Sure, go ahead and cry you big fucking baby’.

Almost as if he’s read your thoughts, tears start sliding from the corners of his eyes. He swallows thickly.

“You know w-what, Sol? Fuck you.”

And with that, he strides past you. You stand there for a moment, but somewhere in another part of the house you hear the bedroom door slam, and it makes you jump just a little.

Fine, he can lock himself in there and cry until he doesn’t have any more tears to waste. You decide that he got just what he deserved, and you have absolutely no reason at all to feel bad about what you did. You had put a lot of work into that computer. A lot of fucking work, money, blood, sweat and tears. For all intents and purposes, it pretty much is your baby, and you still cannot even comprehend how stupid he has to be to not understand that.

Finally, you manage to unclench your fists, and you realize that you had been digging your nails into your palm. Ouch.

When you get back to the computer, you inhale and exhale, mentally prepping yourself for the task at hand. You didn’t really get a chance to look at what kind of virus it was or if it had actually done any damage, so you are prepared for the worst. You situate yourself at the helm of your proverbial ship, and get to work.

You are actually kind of surprised that the virus ends up not being anything that serious. It’s actually just a keylogger, not a Trojan – and you’ve never had any problems obliterating those.

It takes less than fifteen minutes to do.

As you recline in your well-worn office chair, you wait for the final scans to complete. You are still kind of having a hard time getting over the fact that your dumbass boyfriend didn’t seem to give a shit about your computer. He knows how much you love that thing. How could he be so thoughtless? You sigh. Who are you trying to kid, ‘thoughtless’ and ‘Eridan’ might as well have the same general definition. Again, you decide that he definitely deserved what you gave him.

…Well, okay. Maybe you were a little preemptively harsh, given the circumstances.

It was just a little keylogger, but still…

Ugh.

Stupid ED.

You spin around in the chair, facing away from the monitor. Alright, so maybe you didn’t have to be quite that much of a douche, but come on! This is serious business, here. He just doesn’t understand what kind of damage he could have done with his torrents and his Queen Prada or whatever. You guess you didn’t really mean to bring down the wrath of God on his head, but… augh. Okay. So maybe all that screaming was kind of a dick move.

You figure that while the scan does its thing, you can go and make some kind of attempt at an apology or something like that. He’s probably still moping and crying, and you can’t stand to see him like that. Partly because when he cries he makes really gross faces, but mostly it’s because you don’t really like knowing he’s upset… especially when it’s basically your fault.

You make your way down the hall, and as you approach the bedroom, you accidentally step on that one floorboard that squeaks really loudly. Before you can get your hand around the doorknob, you hear the mattress squelch and you hear Eridan’s clumsy footsteps running to the door. The lock clicks.

Oh, okay. So it’s got to be one of those apologies.

You put your hand on the doorknob even though he’s just locked it, and you give it a twist just to make sure.

Yep, definitely locked.

“ED, open the door.”

“Sol, fuck you.”

He sounds congested. He’s been crying, all right.

“Come on, seriously. Open the fucking door.” Despite your choice of words, you try to keep your voice relatively gentle. Well, as gentle as you can get it after screaming, anyway.

“How about no, and also go fuck yourself with a hot iron rod.”

You raise your hands “Uh-oh, we’ve got a badass over here.”

“Wow, really? Just go away. Leave me alone.”

“You know I’m gonna get this door open one way or another, you can either open it or I’m gonna go get something to open it with.”

He’s silent.

“ED?”

Still nothing.

“Alright fine, we’ll do it your way.”

You remember when you bought the skewer you are now using to jimmy the door open. It was after one of Eridan’s particularly bad tantrums. You had gotten into an argument with him about how stupid it was to spend money you both didn’t have on some overpriced pair of leather shoes, and he’d thrown that argument right back in your face, citing that ridiculously expensive (and awesome) processor you’d just bought to upgrade the computer. You had gone to the hardware store and asked about how to open a bedroom door lock, and the sales guy directed you over to the barbecue section.

As you slide the tapered end into the little hole in the doorknob, you listen as it scrapes around for the spring (you’re guessing it’s a spring) and eventually a click sounds off. Thank god for the barbecue section.

You turn the handle and it’s unlocked all right, but you still can’t open the door. It only opens a crack, but there’s something pressing on it from the other side. You realize that Eridan is sitting with his back pressed against it, and he’s not going to let you in.

Your hand drops from the doorknob and you sigh heavily to yourself.

“ED. Come on.”

“No, fuck you Sol! You scream at me like some kind a fuckin’ lunatic about somethin’ which I definitely did not mean to do, and then later when it’s convenient for you, you want me to play nice and let you in? Fuck that noise. Go back to fixin’ yer precious fuckin’ machine.”

You groan and kind of bonk your head against the door. If there is anything Eridan is good at, it’s definitely holding grudges. You figure he has every right to, though. You are kind of a jerk.

“It’s… the computer is fine.”

“Oh, well fan-fuckin’-tastic,” He chirps with mock-excitement. “I’m so glad I didn’t give it some kinda serious malaise. Oh wait, no I’m not! Cuz if I had, maybe that stupid piece of shit would just die already and you’d give more of a damn about me instead of your beloved box a fuckin’ wires and electricity.”

Wow. Okay, so that kind of hurts. Not the fact that he totally delivered a sick burn to your computer, but the fact that he, at this moment in time, legitimately feels like you love your computer more than you love him. You heave a sigh – mostly at yourself – and put your hand back on the doorknob. Love isn’t something you are particularly adept at expressing, but still, it kinda stings to know that he feels that way.

“I’m sorry, okay?” The apology comes hot from your lips and you realize maybe you should’ve put a little less defense behind it. You try again.

“I’m just… I’m sorry. I got kinda freaked out when that warning popped up, and like… I dunno. I didn’t think. I guess.”

He doesn’t reply.

“ED?”

Still, he remains silent. You swear you can hear him moving around, though.

After a moment or two, you turn the knob again and push against the door to find that there’s no more pressure against it. The door swings open freely, and you let yourself into the room.

Eridan is laying on the bed, splayed out in dramatic fashion. He’s got a pillow placed firmly over his head, and he’s gripping it pretty hard. You roll your eyes at him. He certainly has a penchant for the dramatic, and even though it can be downright irritating at times, right now it’s just endearing.

You walk over him and grab a free corner of the pillow.

“ED, come on. You’re gonna suffocate yourself.”

He gurgles a muffled response, and you yank the pillow. “I cannot understand anything you just said.”

Frustrated, he flings the pillow away from his face, and it hits the closet door with a soft sound as it falls harmlessly to the ground.

“I said I didn’t fuckin’ care.”

Now that you can see his face, it’s really kind of hard not to smile at him. He just looks so pathetic. His nose and cheeks are completely pink, and his eyes are still glittering with tears behind those absurd coke-bottle frames. You kind of wonder how he can even see through them, considering the lenses are so smudged.

He just glares at you, and you can tell how pissed he is. He crosses his arms over his chest sternly and gives you the stare-down of your life.  You are almost expecting him to hop up out of bed with a revolver and challenge you to a showdown at high noon in the middle of a dusty street, somewhere. His expression is just priceless.

“Listen, I didn’t mean to explode at you.”

He looks away.

You sit down next to him on the bed, and he continues to glare at you angrily.

“I’m sorry, ED. Okay? I didn’t mean to be an asshole.”

“Well you fuckin’ were.”

“I know.”

You don’t say anything, after that. Apparently, he is done glaring at you for the time being as he’s sort of staring hopelessly at the ceiling now.

Despite the smudged lenses, he’s still adorable.

You really do love him. You wish you could work up the gall to say it more often, because it seems like he is always the one saying it first. Plus, you know it makes him happy. It would be nice to make him smile instead of cry, as you are apparently very adept at doing.

The more you look at him and his almost painfully sad face, the more that weird heavy feeling called affection grows inside your chest, and you suddenly realize that you really want to kiss him. You want to kiss that ridiculous purple streak in his otherwise gorgeous sable hair. You want to kiss those big angry eyebrows, those flushed cheeks, his perfect frowning mouth and even that stupid adorable dimple in his chin. You feel really fucking awful for being such a shithead to him over a goddamn computer, and honestly you would be totally fine with it if he were to get up and dropkick you to the curb. You are well aware of the fact that you deserve it.

Apprehensive, you lean forward and press your face against his hair. Your hand settles against his chest, and you just inhale. You don’t know which cologne he used when he got up this morning, but Jesus Christ he smells good.

Your computer never smells this good.

“What’re you doin’, Sol.” He sounds a lot less angry now, but his voice is still serious and a little exasperated.

For a second, you don’t really know what to say. ‘Um, sniffing your hair like a creeper and groping up on your manboobs?’ Boy, who wouldn’t be charmed by such a declaration? You almost roll your eyes at yourself and your completely embarrassing lack of ideas for what to say to your god damned boyfriend.

“Loving you, I guess.”

It’s a lot less impressive and Casanova-y than you hoped it would be, but by George, it does the trick.

Slowly, he unfolds his arms and puts one of his hands over yours. He turns his head a little bit to the right, and looks up at you with those pathetically huge, incredibly blue puppy dog eyes. His eyebrows are still a little scrunched together, but that just makes you smile.

“More’n your computer?”

You make a face like you have to think about it for a second, and he obviously disapproves, because he slaps your arm. You laugh at him, scoop him up into a hug even though he protests a little bit, and you kiss him right on the top of his head. He sighs at you.

“Way more.”