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You pay your own rent. You pay your own bills. You had a full ride to college and now you're attending medical school. You even wash your own clothes! You cannot see how the universe deems it fit to give you the biggest annoyance in your life to date, and that includes the time Terezi peed on you while you slept.
Someone moved into the apartment above yours a week ago, and already you have sent them ten death threats, all of them notes that you slip under their door. They play music day in and day out. You'd think that they would stop for one day, but not a day has passed that was not filled with what sounds like an entire band.
You lie awake at night, staring at your ceiling as it practically shakes at all the noise, and ask whatever deity there may be why the hell they hate you so much.
When you ask your next-door neighbor, a small girl whose name you always forget, why she hasn't sent in a formal complain yet, she smiles at you indulgently. "You're the only one with a problem," she tells you. "I think it really livens up the place!" You gawk at her until she excuses herself to call her girlfriend.
You think that it is a great crime against the earth that someone who habitually wears a blue hat in the shape of a cat's head has a better love life than you do.
It's during the next week that you are caught red-handed with the note. You are pushing it in as usual before you leave for your shift at the restaurant you work at, and the door opens as you are straightening up. You very nearly wobble into jeans-clad legs, and that is when they decide to shut the door again―right in your face. You grumble a very long string of curse words as you stand up, rubbing your nose and forehead. "Fuck you, too!" you finish in a shout and kick the door for good measure before walking off.
When you return, a piece of paper is taped to your door. It reads simply, "You should invest in some earplugs." There is no signature, but you know who it's from. You can't stop your lips from quirking into a smile.
You unlock the door, thinking that maybe they're actually respectable after all, and then from upstairs there is the most headache-inducing cacophony you have ever heard. You think you can hear someone playing the tambourine over the clanging of cymbals. You hate everything and it is all your neighbor's fault.
("I am never going to get any sleep," you hiss into the phone. "Save me, or I'm going to be in the newspapers as 'the guy who went batshit insane and killed everyone in his apartment building with an axe'."
There is a sigh on the other end. "You don't even have an axe," Sollux tells you with more patience than he usually has at this time of night. "You've sent the dude like twenty death threats already. He's just doing it to piss you off now."
"Thank you for that stunning revelation. I would have never realized that without your help. Truly, you are the most outstanding citizen I have ever met, and I've been saved by Spiderman and Batman."
You can hear the faint clacking of keys and the slurp of a drink. Aradia probably got him Coke. "Knock on his door and offer to give him your virginity or something. Have some whipped cream on hand to spray in his face if he doesn't agree. While he's blind, you can terrorize his apartment, and maybe he won't piss on you like TZ did."
"Yeah, and if you keep this up, one of these days you'll get an apology from Gamzee for vomiting on your dick," you retort snidely. There is no shortage of humiliating experiences for any of you.
"KK, I don't know if you realize this, but you are the biggest asshole I know," Sollux says. You might have felt bad if he didn't add, "You really should do what I said, though." And he hangs up, just like that.)
Your first real meeting with the one who is undoubtedly sent from the depths of Hell is surprisingly caused by the girl who lives on the other side of you, a disaster by the name of Vriska Serket. You know her name only because the police have knocked on your door no less than three times and asked if you knew her whereabouts. She is pulling out her keys when you step out onto the hallway of sorts, clutching your twenty-fourth death threat, and you have time to curse your rotten luck before she is turning to you with a wicked grin, asking, "Are you going to go on and bequeath a love letter to someone now?"
She is the only one you know who would drop the word "bequeath" in a casual conversation with a mere acquaintance without realizing it made her sound like a mock-intelligent douchebag. "It's none of your business," you reply, but of course that makes her snatch it right out of your grasp.
"Oh, God," she says as she reads it, as though it is a true laughable tragedy, and it probably is. What you don't expect is for her to continue, "This is for Ampora, isn't it?" You look at her blankly until she prompts, "The guy living right above you, dumbass."
You would very much like to ask what the hell kind of shit name is Ampora, but you can always ask the man himself. Maybe in your next letter. "You know him?" you ask because that is clearly the more important part.
Her laugh is more like a cackle, befitting a Disney villain. "Jealous, are we?"
"You could not be further from the truth," you say, "and if you wouldn't mind, I really do need to deliver that." You nod at the note still in her hands. Her cerulean nails match her lips in color and they are long, probably long enough to puncture your eyes without her fingertips touching your eyeballs. It makes you think that that might be why she got charged with assault a while ago.
"Let's deliver it together!" she proposes enthusiastically, and it is less a suggestion than an order. You figure that it would be easier to agree to it, and that is how you find yourself in front of his now familiar door. You're waiting for her to knock, at least, but instead she opens the door and lets herself in.
The door was unlocked this entire time. You are absolutely fucking astounded.
The interior is neat and organized; you see your notes taped to a section of the wall behind an armchair that seems fit for tales by the fireplace (if he had a fireplace, anyway). There is a black sofa and a coffee table, and free space to their right containing three people: a boy with oversized glasses and a guitar, a curly-haired girl playing the keyboard, and―this makes your mouth open a little―Gamzee, having the time of his life with a drum set. They're playing a sort of upbeat tune that you feel like you could listen to without complaints.
It's Vriska that interrupts them, like they didn't even realize the door had opened, so lost were they in their music. "Hey, shut it, losers," she shouts, and the trio comes to a halt, their fingers and hands stilling.
"Who's your friend?" asks the girl right away, her mouth curving. Her face seems like the type a smile finds a home in.
"Oh," says Vriska off-handedly, "he's the guy downstairs with the crush on Ampora."
You are the only one to gape at her; the rest, when you turn to them, aren't hardly as shocked. They're probably used to this sort of behavior from her. "Okay, just for the record, that's an assumption that is not at all true," you insist, cheeks reddening. Even your hair might be sticking straight up in indignation.
The male―Ampora, you think―quirks his lips at you, undeniably amused. "Easy, tiger," he drawls. You did not think that you would ever see the day where someone said that particular phrase, ironically or otherwise. "Ain't like we're accusin' you of murder or somesuch." He sounds vaguely English and a little southern.
"I wish I'd killed you the day you moved in," you say unapologetically and emphatically.
Vriska snickers and claps you hard on the back, almost sending you staggering. "Look on the bright side―a few more nights of their godawful excuse for music and your eardrums will burst!"
The three with instruments begin insulting her, all of them striving to be louder than the other two. They create a ruckus, but fuck, they're kind of funny. You figure you might as well give them a chance.
Ampora is actually the guy's surname. Eridan Ampora is his full name. The girl's name is worse―Feferi Peixes. You are beginning to seriously consider making a club for people with terrible names because their parents hated them from birth, with you as the president and Gamzee as the vice-president.
("I didn't call you just to have you prattle on about your new boyfriend," Terezi complains and talks over your denial. "Ever since he moved in, it's been 'my neighbor this, my neighbor that'. Just go and make out with him already! I will even be your lawyer if he presses charges."
You are understandably horrified. "Oh my god, Terezi, stop right now. You have no idea what you're talking about. How did they let you enter law school?"
"Because I'm not a pussy like you," she retorts and proceeds to do the sort of goosebump-raising cackle only she has ever mastered.
You think you need better friends.)
You have a sort of comfortable relationship with Eridan by the next week. You still send him death threats, but he sends you some too, now. You've stepped up to giving him things. It brings you a sense of victory when you remember how you had placed Vriska's snake in a box and set it outside of his door. Eridan's shriek of terror will live on forever in your heart.
In return, he sent you a case containing a letter to the M&M company and one lone M&M. On the package he had attached a Post-It saying, "Mail this for me?" You did when you read that the M&M was a goddamn champion.
When he knows you're home, he starts playing every instrument in his house, by himself or with friends, just to be a little shit. You know this because the first time, the girl with the cat hat asked you wonderingly, "What did you do to him? There hasn't been any noise for hours!" Just when you think he might have heeded your threats for once (the latest one saying that you would climb in through his window and club him to death with his own guitar), it starts up again.
You have finally found a worthy opponent and another reason to ask yourself what kind of people you live near. They never do anything to the packages or the notes or complain about all the chaos upstairs! That is definitely highly suspicious activity.
"Why do you play so much, anyway?" you ask one day, stirring sugar into your coffee. You give a look of disdain to the guitar that has caused you many sleepless nights. "Do you ever even sleep?"
Eridan sips his tea. You have no idea how he's able to drink the stuff. "I'd die without sleep," he tells you, all seriousness, before succumbing to a half-smile. His long fingers curl tighter around his mug. "I'm in a band, so all these tunes are just us practicin'."
You frown at him with mock severity. "Couldn't you practice in a garage like in the movies?" you inquire, sounding plaintive even to your own ears. "It's so fucking retro, c'mon, you'd love it. Build a garage just to play music in it. Have garage shows. Invite the whole family."
"I hope you know the world ain't like that no more," he says.
"Your grammar should not exist," you inform him, and he laughs. He always laughs like he means it, his head thrown back with the force of it, a hand rising involuntarily to hover by his throat. You admire the curve of his neck, distracted until he yelps, jerking upright. He spilled his tea on his pants. You are dying of laughter while you scramble for some napkins.
His face is very red when you dab at his jeans. "I'm not usually this clumsy," he says, embarrassed, like it matters. Hell, it probably does to him.
"It's okay, man," you reassure him, still chuckling. "I got pissed on once, so this isn't as bad." And then you may or may not accidentally brush your hand against his crotch. If it's you telling the tale, you definitely didn't, but if it's Eridan, he will say that you definitely did, to which you say that he's full of shit.
Either way, he grips your wrist and pulls your hand away. "I'll just go and change pants," he says, voice a little higher than it was a minute ago. "It ain't no big deal."
"Just stop talking," you say as he shuffles away. "The way you use words is a crime against the English language." He flips you off before disappearing into his bedroom.
Sollux and Terezi are going to visit you for part of their spring break. You decide to make cookies. It's not from scratch, so it won't be made with love or the intent to kill them, but they'll like it. Eridan invites himself over with the excuse of helping you out, but he mostly just leans against the counter and tries to sneak tastes of the batter.
"I will fucking murder you if you try it one more time," you threaten, jabbing the end of your spoon at him. "Don't think I won't. I will ninja your ass to the ground and impale you with this spoon and use your blood to flavor these cookies."
He gives you his best shit-eating grin. "Girl scouts would start askin' you what the hell kinda recipe you use, they're so goddamn delicious. You'd have to start killin' people off the street to keep up with demand." Then he has the audacity to try to take the entire bowl.
You let loose a battle cry and snatch it back. It swiftly becomes a push-and-pull war for the container, and you'll be damned if you let him win. Keeping the bowl in the crook of your arms, you pick up an egg and toss it at him. It splatters open on his shirt. He scoops up a handful of flour and hurls it at you before taking the bowl while you are distracted by the powder.
It is a goddamn all-out food fight, one that ends with the bowl thrown carelessly onto the table and the two of you wrestling on the floor, your faces and clothes dirty with leftover ingredients. He gets you in a headlock and you shout, "Mercy! Uncle!" He releases you and you shove him to the ground, moving quickly to straddle him. "Looks like I win," you say, and he laughs like it's impossible not to.
"Okay, okay, you win," he concedes breathlessly, and you take a second to look at him, his face red and his hair in complete disarray. You grin and get off of him, offering a hand; he takes it and you pull him to his feet. His hand is a little sticky, after having had a yolk on it, and you think that you could get used to this.
("Aw, boy," Gamzee says to you once in that lazy-slow way of his, "I recognize that look in your eyes. Who're you sweet on, bromosapien?" Lately he's busted out all these puns on 'bro', and they never fail to make you smile. It turns into a frown when you comprehend fully what he just asked.
"Nobody," you answer, and perhaps if you say it often enough, it will be true.)
"Medical school?" Eridan says sometime at the beginning of your second year, an arm around your shoulders and his legs kicked up on the coffee table. "You've got big dreams."
You shrug and allow yourself to burrow a little closer into his side. "Bigger than yours, sure, but not anyone else's." Somehow your relationship has progressed from simply being little shits to each other to... something you can't really name. It gives your heart a whole lot of exercise.
"Wantin' to be famous ain't that small," he returns. "I'll be makin' big bucks outta this gig sooner or later, you'll see."
"You mean never."
"Fuck you." But he's laughing, just a little, an effortless, breathy sort of laugh that reassures you of his ability to be able to tell when you're joking. "Bet you'll even be sayin' that when I play in Times Square."
You smile as you lean forward to grab the remote by his feet. "I'd be saying it even if you played for the United Nations." His arm, having been dislodged from its place around your shoulders, slithers around your middle when you resume your previous position.
His hand is very warm on your waist. "And if I played on the moon."
"And if you played on Pluto. Now shut up and watch Criminal Minds with me."
On Christmas Eve, Eridan surprises you by giving you a present. It is a ring, a simple golden band that he slips onto your finger. It is similar to what he himself wears, and your cheeks are steadily becoming hotter and hotter. "I didn't know it was our wedding," you say for lack of better words.
"Gettin' married in Vegas, baby," he replies, sing-song, and brushes his lips against your knuckles before letting go of your hand.
You are dying slowly of a disease by the name of Eridan Ampora. It is tortuous and very, very sweet. "If you think that I'll let myself get married in Vegas when there is a lovely chapel a few blocks away that would gladly wed us there, you are stupid as shit and I will be your runaway bride."
"Well, shit," he says. "I better go book us a fuckin' wedding."
You smile like the doofs you are at each other, and you may or may not consider it the best Christmas Eve of your life. It trumps even the time when Sollux and Terezi presented to you a sculpture made of chocolate with Cool Whip on the genitals.
You couldn't buy a gift on such short notice, so you spend the next few hours wondering what the hell you can get for him. You inspect your apartment, thinking of things that you could wrap, to no avail. You even text your friends to see if they knew what you could get for him. They either don't reply or tell you to offer yourself.
In the end, you walk up to his apartment and, when he answers it, you kiss him very quickly on the cheek. "Merry Christmas, asshole," you say, and turn sharply to go back down.
"Merry Christmas!" he calls after you, and your ears burn with embarrassment.
One warm day on your spring break, you enter his apartment―he'd given you a spare key a long time ago―and find him lounging on his sofa, half-dressed. "Put a shirt on," you order. "I got a bag full of goddamn chocolate, and I'm not eating it with someone who looks like a caveman."
He groans, overdramatic like usual, and rolls over to pluck his shirt off the floor. After pulling it on, the two of you sit on the couch and basically stuff your faces with chocolate while watching television. Your eyes are glued to the screen until he reaches over and rubs the corner of your mouth with his thumb. It is all so cliche that you think you might actually die. "You had somethin' on your face," he says defensively, like he knows exactly what's running through your mind.
You are almost positive you know where this is going. You have seen enough romance movies to recognize the signs. The surge of hope that rises in you almost hurts. You force it down. "Huh," you say, "because it's not like faces are supposed to have things on them or anything."
He rolls his eyes, flushing. The light freckles scattered across his cheeks seem a little darker. "Now you're just bein' obtuse."
"I'm pretty sure I'm not a triangle."
He heaves a sigh, like you are such a chore to deal with, and reaches for another chocolate bar. It's quiet for a time, the only sounds being chewing, the snap of chocolate, the crinkling of wrappers, and the TV. It is generally very awful, the kind of terrible chocolate can't make sweet, and you wish you hadn't ruined what could have followed what could possibly have been a moment.
When you leave, he seems almost melancholic, and you can't say you blame him.
The next time you come over, Feferi is just leaving, and the look she directs toward you is positively radiant. You smile uncertainly back, slipping inside. Eridan is sitting on the couch, a sort of fervent energy about him that you aren't sure what to make of. "What's up?" you ask, and he jerks his head up, beaming.
"Guess who just got a part in a fuckin' theatre production," he announces, wonderfully proud, and you are by his side before you even know it. Your grin stretches so wide that your mouth aches. He has told you of his love for the theatre, as intense as his adoration for producing music, and his smile is as bright as your own, vibrant with joy.
You are so happy for him that you hold either side of his face, lean down, and kiss him. It is a spontaneous act of passion, and you would be ashamed of yourself if he wasn't kissing back just as eagerly. His glasses press into your cheekbones. While you could lose yourself in the sensation of his lips against yours, you are actually in a sort of uncomfortable position, and you pull back. He follows you about an inch before stopping himself.
"Congratulations on the part," you tell him as you let go of his face, and he laughs. He is a little bit beautiful and you have to stop yourself from kissing him again. "You're garbage, but at least you're gold-coated garbage," you tease, sitting down beside him.
He mock-scowls, sliding an arm around you. "See, I told you. Could be playin' in Times Square and you'd still be sayin' I'm shit."
You quirk your lips. "Oh, I don't know," you say ponderingly, nudging his leg with your knee, before relenting. "I guess I can admit that you're pretty damn fantastic." This time, he is the one to kiss you, and it is nice and easy.
("I don't have to be your lawyer?" Terezi asks, sounding only a little disappointed, after you tell her that you and Eridan are sort of a thing.
You smile, subconsciously twisting the ring he'd given you on Christmas Eve. "On the bright side, you can be Sollux's. I hear he's going to murder his coworker."
"Yeah, I should make sure he doesn't do that." There is a brief silence before she adds, awkwardly sincere, "I'm glad that you found someone who makes you happy."
It isn't often that any of your friends let themselves say something like that. Discussing emotions is certainly not their forte. You feel touched that Terezi―hot-headed, sweet-as-a-shark Terezi―would even attempt to convey her feelings on the matter. Well, that or you've just been watching so many romance movies lately that practically everything makes you a little choked up. "Thanks," you say. "Now none of us are doomed to be alone.")
He is honestly gorgeous, and you prop yourself up on an elbow to look down at him. Something about him makes tenderness settle in the thrum of blood in your veins. You brush his hair out of his face, and he shifts, turns a little away from you.
You ease yourself out of bed and get a glass of water. Deciding that you are in a pranking mood, you come back and dump it on him. He awakens with a gasp, sitting up very quickly. He looks like a drowned cat, and you are laughing, incriminating yourself even more. He pulls you down and does his best to wipe his face on your shirt.
"I will literally kill you," he says in his best menacing voice, "after I brush my teeth."
"Yeah, go on and run," you taunt, even though you still need to do that yourself. "Brushing your teeth will definitely save you from another sneak attack."
He shoots you a dirty look as he makes his way to the bathroom. You give in and join him in brushing your teeth. His hair is still damp and you are certain that he is glaring at it in the mirror. Both of you are silent until he spits into the sink and tells you casually, "Oh, by the way, I used your toothbrush to clean the toilet."
You almost choke.