One Plus One Equals Three (Erisol fanfic)

Chapter 9

Sollux returned to the living room to find Karkat perusing his video game collection. "Jutht make yourthelf at home KK," the yellow blood said sarcastically. Karkat turned to roll his eyes at his friend but continued rummaging through the storage cubes of games stashed under the entertainment center.

"Whatever. You left me alone to bring water to His Royal Pain in the Ass so I had to find something to keep me entertained," the nubby horned troll extracted a game from one of the cubes and waved it around. "Since when do you keep your games in these things? I thought you just left them laying wherever the fell." Sollux stared at his friend for a moment before deciding to finally answer.

"ED thaid it looked tacky keeping the gameth where everyone can thee them," he explained with a tinge of embarrassment.

"Wow. Just fucking wow," Karkat responded. He stood from where he had been seated on the floor and handed the other troll the game he had been holding. "You need to play this with me," he commanded. Sollux took the game and hesitated. He knew Eridan had to stay in the back rooms of the hive while Karkat was over which wasn't exactly favorable. On the other hand, Eridan had seemed pretty engrossed in discussing nursery plans with Kanaya so perhaps he wouldn't notice if Sollux played just a couple of levels with Karkat.

"Alright, but jutht a few levelth. I've got thome thtuff I have to get done today," he relented before popping in the disk and tossing Karkat a controller.

"What? Like the princess will need dinner served in the respite block?" the mutant blood teased.

"Oh shut up," Sollux groaned and playfully pushed the other troll's shoulder as he set up his player on the screen.

"Where is he anyways? Was he so repulsed by my blood color that he refuses to be in the same room as me?" the Cancer inquired sarcastically.

"Come on KK he doethn't give a shit what color your blood ith. He'th jutht not feeling good today tho he'th probably lying down," Sollux tried to cover for his matesprit's lack of presence. Karkat seemed to accept that excuse and didn't ask any further questions on the matter. The two began their game with a steady flow of banter between them.

They were midway into level three when Sollux's phone buzzed again. He immediately paused the game which earned him an exasperated groan from Karkat. The yellow blood ignored his friend and unlocked his phone to reveal that the text was indeed from Eridan. He opened the message and felt his breath hitch in his throat.

CA: I need you here NOW

No typing quirk. Eridan would only abandon his typing quirk in extreme cases because it meant 'I'm not fuckin' playin' around this is serious business'.

"Oh shit," Sollux whispered before jumping up from the couch. "Jutht thtay right here KK I'll be right back! Jutht- keep playing or thomething," he instructed frantically before rushing off down the hall. When he reached the office he threw the door open to find Eridan laid out in the middle of the floor on his back wearing nothing but his boxer briefs.

"Eridan!" Sollux nearly shouted before running over to his matesprit and crouching down beside him. "What'th wrong? What'th going on?" The Gemini grabbed the violet blood's hand and immediately realized what had seemed off about him earlier when he had brought him the glass of water. The sea dweller didn't feel icy cold to the touch like he normally did. It was still quite cold in comparison to Sollux's much lower blooded warmth but it was definitely missing the stinging chill that the psionic had grown accustomed to.