personalapocalypse | Untitled Rough Drafts [Homestuck, various relationships, T]

I wrote these over the past couple of days, and it all still feels... unfinished. I figured I'd throw it up as a rough draft, then look at it again later and figure out what it needs. At least then I'll be able to get it out of my head for a while.

1. A couple of ficlets about some rather silly Nepeta♠Eridan shenanigans. Non-SGRUB/doomed AU. I guess it's not technically March anymore, but here it is anyway. (Also, hints of Nepeta♥Terezi, Nepeta♦Equius and Eridan♣???♣Feferi.

---

Every relationship has its boundaries and you're just starting to get the hang of them, because really, the only long-term quadrant you'd had before you were seven sweeps old was with your meowrail, and you aren't really sure you two are exactly typical! I mean, you sort of grew up wild, and he didn't have a lot of contact with other people because he thought he was too good to socialize with them, and so neither of you were exactly good at doing things in a normal way. It worked just fine for you, and you wouldn't trade that sweaty bossy grump for anybody, but it didn't exactly prepare you for this!

So yeah, you're learning, and so is Eridan. So far he's figured out not to intrude on your other quadrants - not that he was going to mess with you and Equius, because you're pretty sure that behind all of that feigned indifference is some genuine fear! But he came pretty close to messing up some of your other dates before you finally pinned him down in front of your flush-crush and a bunch of your mutual friend and tied him up so he was hanging upside-down from a tree as you... how did Terezi put it? Read him the riot act? Either way, it impressed her so much that you two ended up making out right in front of him, and it was hilarious watching him turn purple and try to struggle his way out of the ropes!

He hasn't tried that again, though. You definitely taught him a lesson! And you and Terezi are still matesprits, so you guess that worked out purrfectly well for everyone!

As for his boundaries, well, you've only ever found one that you wouldn't break to make him mad, because you're a pouncebeast and nothing can hold a pouncebeast down. But that one's a big one, and you figured it out all on your own, and you figure that you'd better stick to it.

So you never, ever, ever talk about his ex-meowrail. Or you guess she's one of his auspistices, now? You know that if someone wasn't helping them out they'd be at each other's throats all the time - you know because she's told you, because you and Feferi are still be very best of furr-ends. She's even told you things about him that she said would really roast his gills if you ever get the chance to use them! All she asked in return is that you never, ever tell him it was her who said so, and you're okay with that, because all's fair in love and war, right?

Still, you've seen how he gets when people talk about her! He gets mopey and boring and weird, and that's no fun at all. It's almost like he hates himself more than he hates anyone else at those moments, and maybe he does - but he's going to have to deal with that on his own, isn't he? It's definitely not your problem!

And... well, okay, so that's it for boundaries, so far. I mean, he said he had some more, and you've said the same thing, but you've both shown up at each other's homes and you've both smashed each other's things and no one's really gotten that sore about it! Not in a bad way, anyway. You suppose that if one of you pushes too far you'll find out fast - everyone knows that kismesissitude can go horribly wrong in a hurry if you don't have enough self-control - but so far you think you've got this down.

And to think you once said that hating someone like that would be a big, nasty chore, like cleaning up after your kills, or sitting through your lusus's forced baths. It's amazing, how much fun this is!

---

You're not sure what's come over Eridan today!

You thought it was just going to be another little game - you do love sneaking around on his ship, mostly because he's always flailing and telling you to stop it, and you both know he never actually means it because he loves throwing you off as much as you love trying to leave your mark without him finding you. It's one of your favorite things to do, now! Last time you managed to get in while he was in the old ablution trap, and you left his most expensive cape in shreds. Oh, he was so mad! That was probably the best thing you've ever done to him so far!

This time, though, it's like he was ready for you as soon as you hit the deck! Literally, even - you landed, right after sunset, and boom! One second you're fast and fierce and in control like a pouncebeast should be, and the next you're on your back and don't hardly remember what put you there, and Eridan's standing above you in - wait, what is he wearing? A miniskirt? A tube top? He's just standing there, one hand stuck on his hip and the other clutching one of his silly wands, hair all tied up in tails, makeup on his face, and you'd laugh if you weren't stuck on your back!

He'd probably hate that, too, so it's kind of a shame you're too busy struggling to get up and snarling at him. "Hey!" you shout. "Let me go! This isn't fair!"

He tosses his hair. "Since wwhen is anyfin in this fuckin quadrant fair?" he answers, and even his voice is different, more... what? Confident, like he actually means it? It's really kind of weird! "You get the drop on me all the time, Nep. 'Bout time I could turn the tide on you."

"Okay! Fine," you say. "Maybe you got the drop on the terrible pouncebeast once! Now lemme up so that we can have a real fight, you scardey-cat!"

"Calm dowwn, little kitten," he says, and he's not sneering his usual way anymore, the way he does when he's losing and he knows it. This is just a cute little smile that looks so adorable with his lipstick and his little pointy teeth that you'd claw it off of his stupid fishy face, if you could get your claws free! Unfortunately he's done something with that weird magic energy, and your paws are stuck, and you're totally lying on your back on the deck of his junky ol' ship and there's really not very much you can do about it! "I'vve got more important carp to deal with than you right now."

"Yeah, right," you hiss. He's probably gonna leave you alone up here for hours, since he hates it when you do that to him and you figure he's going to do things he hates because he knows about as little as you do about this stuff. Well, Eridan's seriously underestimating the power of a furocious predator's patience! "You'll be back!"

"Wwe'll see. Get some rest, Nep - it might be a little wwhile before you wwalk outta this one." And with that he struts off, hips gyrating as he walks in those high heels - how did he talk Kanaya into letting him borrow that stuff?? You're not sure, but really, you're not gonna complain. In fact, you'll never tell him, but you think you hate him a little better this way!

2. Cute Feferi♥Aradia non-SGRUB/doomed AU. Does pretty much what it says on the tin. Also includes hints of Nepeta♠Eridan, Aradia♦Sollux, and some Feferi♣???♣Eridan. I'll fix the logs later - I need to look up the HTML and edit it in, but that'll be fairly easy.

---

You're a pretty busy troll these days! You have to be, if you're going to be the Empress someday. You might not be able to do anything yet, not for a few more sweeps, but you've got to conduct yourself in the way that'll get you more followers, and that way when you challenge you'll have lots of people to cheer you on and help you when you win.

Everything you do now is meant to help you meet that goal. Right now, for instance, you're working on designing a new hive, one designed in the same way as the forests of seaweed in the shallows, the ones with the air bubbles that keep them bouyant. You're still in the early phases, but you're pretty sure that once you figure out how it's supposed to work it'll be really nice, and you'll be able to build some rooms in the deeper parts of the sea and others close to the surface. You have a lot of motivations for doing it - you don't want to be the sort of Empress who scares people away, you want them to know that you're approachable, that you want to help them.

You have more personal reasons too, though. You'd kind of like to have a hive that your friends from the shores can come and visit and stay over for a few days! You have the machines that one of your friends made, the ones that let landdwellers breathe underwater for a while, but they're not perfect - he gave you all kinds of warnings when he sent them to you, like not letting people hold their breath underwater and not staying down too long or coming up too fast, and really, it's awfully dangerous for a simple visit!

Still, it's fine for a once-in-a-while thing, and some of them really love the challenge and the danger. Aradia loves it - she comes down and swims with her as often as she can without risking a serious injury, and she always has so much to say about how exciting and awesome it is when they can talk again, and it's pretty infectious - it's like seeing it all over again, in a way, and that's really awesome! Sometimes you forget how pretty it really is, and she's really good at reminding you.

Aradia hasn't been coming to see you for long, but so far she's pretty much been the best matesprit you've ever had. She's not afraid of having a little fun, and she doesn't mind listening to you when you talk about feelings and doesn't get mad when you ask her to talk about hers - and boy, you've dealt with enough people who either don't want to talk about them or get mad when you try to get a word in edgewise to be really sick of them. Seriously, you have a lot of horror stories! But Aradia's not like that - the only thing you've ever really seriously fought about was when she tries to do reckless things and scares you, and usually you can work things out so that she'll at least wait for you when she wants to go exploring a shipwreck or undersea cave or whatever, so that if something happens you can help her out. It's not that you don't want her to have fun, but you're really kind of scared of losing her down there! She understands it, though. She understands a lot of things.

Your glubbing auspistice - or at least the really obnoxious one, the one that you still can't believe you pitied for so many sweeps, really, what were you thinking - likes to call her your trophy. Or your publicity stunt, but he only calls her that when he's sneaking messages to you behind your other auspistice's back, because you both know how mad it would make him. And yes, you're not stupid - of course you've thought about how the other trolls would react to their heir apparent arriving on the scene with a red consort who happened to have the lowest blood on the hemospectrum. You know that it would probably make a lot of waves, and you know what? You don't care. Or maybe you do, but you think it's a good thing, because you're going to be doing a lot of things that are going to make waves, and it's probably best that you do the same thing with your personal life. Show them that you really mean it, even when no one was watching!

Still, it doesn't matter, you know? You don't care what color her blood is, you just like her. And she likes you and doesn't care what color your blood is, and that's what counts, right? Not like him, who kept saying how you two were hatched for each other and probably never would've noticed you if you hadn't been the pretty little princess. Really, you're not sure why you were his moirail for so long. You guess you thought you could've changed him if you'd tried hard enough, made him see that the hemospectrum didn't matter as much as he thought it did, but he never changed. Or maybe he has, a little, but not enough to make you happy. You're a lot better off this way! Besides, it's not like he's found a matesprit - he doesn't ever stop pitying himself long enough to pity anyone else, and you're not sure he ever will!

...you guess you're still a tiny little bit jealous of him, though. He has something you don't have too. But then, you're not sure you can hate anyone as much as you hate him - not that you'd want to be his kismesis, because that's way closer than you really want to be to him, and you're pretty sure that if you two tried it you'd just get mad and stick a trident through his stomach and pin him to something, and you're pretty sure he'd end up dead and it'd be all your fault! Which is why you two are glad there's someone who's willing to help out, because you still have to talk to him way too often and he's always insufferable, and he's too important to just kill like that. You figure that Nepeta can have him, and you'll even give her a few pointers - you know plenty of things that stick in his gills, and she's not so mad that she'll really hurt him with those things, and that's good, you guess. You're trying to be happy for her, really! You're just not sure you can be happy for him.

Maybe once you build your hive you won't tell him where it is. That'll show him. You'll just tell your landdweller friends - including Aradia, of course - and the bunch of you can go there and have fun and talk about how you should change things when you challenge for the throne, and you and Aradia can have a respiteblock all to yourselves at the end of the night and watch the sunrise for a while and then snuggle, and that'll be nice. Just because you're an Empress-to-be doesn't mean you have to work all the time.

---

You're following Aradia down into the depths, and you have to admit you're more than a little nervous. You aren't entirely sure where you're going, but you have a few guesses, since it's Aradia leading you - you've never been this far into this area of the sea before, and Aradia has a sixth sense for dangerous places. Or maybe it's those few voices that she says still whisper to her sometimes, although you're not sure you understand that at all. She says that they sound really resigned now, that they used to sound really insistent but then stopped talking because they seemed to have lost hope, but that now they're talking to her again but it's just not as important as they used to be. She said it stopped about the time she saw that strange white person during that one FLARP campaign, and you're not sure you understand why that would make any difference, but she gets so lost when she talks about it and it just puzzles you to no end.

Your goggles flash her symbol. You could talk down here just fine, but she can't, not while she's wearing that breathing apparatus in her mouth. But Equius built a chat client into it when you asked him to, so that's okay.

AA: L00k, Feferi, there it is! Just like they said it w0uld be!
AA: Isn't this great?

You peer ahead through the murky darkness, see what looks like dark shadows at the bottom of the sea, tall spires and arches. It's a ruin, all right! You know her way too well.

CC: T)(at IS really somet)(ing!
CC: It looks pretty dangerous, t)(ough! We'll need to be extra careful.
AA: D0n't w0rry! I've d0ne this kind 0f expl0rati0n L0TS 0f times!
CC: On land, silly! Not down HER---E!
AA: It'll be fine! Y0u're here, aren't y0u?

You find that you don't have much to say to that, and you just smile back at her as reassuringly as you can and swim along with her, wishing that you had as much confidence in yourself as she does.

The ruins are pretty grand, you have to admit! Or maybe Aradia's so excited that everything around her seems really fantastic in response. Either way, there are a lot of tall buildings down here, and it looks like the whole thing was carved out of some kind of undersea stone. Maybe they used to be houses? Maybe the old seadwellers used to live down there, and ran some old empire or whatever it was far under the sea. It sounds like the kind of thing they'd do! But that would make this place really old, sweeps and sweeps and sweeps, long before even your ancestor would've hatched. It's the kind of thing that makes your head swim!

You can't find much down there, though. Whatever was left is probably long gone. Honestly you're amazed there's anything left at all!

After a while your goggles flash a warning light - you always make sure to keep track of time down there, because Aradia's pretty good at it but likes to pretend that she isn't.

CC: OK, we've got to go back up now!
CC: You do remember w)(at Equius said about going up slowly, rig)(t??
CC: I don't want you to end up )(urt again!

Aradia gives you a look through her own goggles, then shakes her head.

AA: I kn0w, I kn0w. 0_0
AA: There's just s0 much d0wn here, and I want t0 expl0re m0re 0f it!
AA: There's never en0ugh time with these things and I hate it!
CC: )(ee )(ee, I'm )(appy you're so excited, but it's not my fault, or )(is!
AA: I get it, it's just danger0us. Fine!
AA: I guess I sh0uld g0 up and get warmed up, anyway.
AA: As much as I wish I c0uld just stay here.
CC: We'll just find a way to make a B--ETT--ER breathing device someday, okay? 38) Then we can bot)( stay as long as we want!

You can tell she's grinning, even though you can't see her mouth very well; her eyes have a way of crinkling up when she smiles.

AA: I'm g0ing to h0ld y0u t0 that, y0u kn0w!

With that she's ascending, slowly as you hoped, the bubbles from the airtank on her back rising just faster than she is. You swim up above her, in case she decides to get mischievous and try to rise too fast again; she got really sick last time! You're lucky the medical drones were able to help her out.

You get to the top easily enough, though, after a few rest stops and such. Looks like she learned her lesson after all. "So," you say when you take her hand, stepping onto the surface - a risk you know you shouldn't be taking without some drones, or at least a lot of friends around, but you think it'll be okay - "I'll see you again soon, right? And are you shore you don't want me to send a drone back with you?"

"I'm certain, thank you!" She's already stripped off the apparatus - her hair is an absolute mess underneath where the strap had been, and her bodysuit is soggy, and and her red-tinged eyes are a bit tired and squinting under the harsher moonlight of the surface. She's still one of the prettiest trolls you've ever seen, though! "And yes, we'll definitely be back. Sollux and I are just going to go exploring, it'll be fine!"

"It'd better be," she said. "Anyone hurts you, they'll have to tangle with me." She kisses Aradia, not caring who sees - you can never be sure who's watching anymore, can you? "Tell your moirail not to be a stranger, okay? He can come visit too sometime if he wants."

"I will!" She gives you a big hug, then turns away. "See you soon!"

You step back into the ocean and watch her as she runs away, and you know you shouldn't send a drone after her because you know she's not going to like it if you do - she can take care of herself and you know it! Still, you can't help but worry. You have big plans, but there just hasn't been enough time to change things the way you wish you could, not yet. What are you going to do if anything happens to her?

You watch her run off until she's out of sight, and you know for sure you won't feel better until she sends you a message from home. You never expected this relationship to be easy! You just wish you felt a little more confident about things sometimes.