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Fic: Taste Test (Feferi♥Sollux & Sollux♠Eridan)
For the "candy" square in my cottoncandy bingo card.
Homestuck | Feferi♥Sollux, Sollux♠Eridan | 2900 words | PG | at AO3
Summary: Sollux didn’t plan to start Fourth Year playing terrible travel games with Slytherin aristocracy, but the honour of Ravenclaw House is at stake. Apparently.
Sollux kind of assumed he'd hang out with Aradia on the train, since they hadn't seen each other all summer, but he lost her on the platform when her lusus got into a scuffle with Jade's devilbeast. Somehow in the scramble to get them away from each other Sollux ended up in the Harley party, using his psionics to try to hem Becquerel in and keep him from teleporting while Jade dragged him away.
By the time they got the dog back to Jade's grandfather, the train whistle was blowing and they had to levitate their trunks and run to push them through the closest doors.
Jade dropped her trunk in the corridor and flopped down on top of it. "Whew!" she said. "Bec sure is strong! I think I will ask Grandpa to leave him at home next time."
Sollux dumped his own suitcase. "Wow, JD," he deadpanned, "really, you think that's a good idea? Because it's not like your freaky not-a-lusus barkbeast has caused chaos every single time you've brought him to Platform 9 ¾ or anything."
Jade looked up. "He just gets excited being around all the lusii!"
"Whatever, we should find a compartment." Sollux pushed his glasses back up his nose. "They're probably all full of yappy first yearth by now."
Jade wrinkled her nose at him, laughing. "Ooh, Mr Cool Fourth Year, am I sophisticated enough for you?"
There was a sharp tapping sound as somebody came through the door between the carriages. Sollux looked up with a start, a skitter-spark of psionics escaping from under his glasses.
Terezi tapped her cane again and grinned, her red shades glinting in the light. "Miss Lime Zest, you are exactly sophisticated enough!"
Jade grinned back, her front teeth showing, and scrambled to her feet. "Thank you, Terezi."
"Eheheheh, you know she basically called you gross sour grated citrus peel."
Jade punched him in the arm. "She called me something much nicer than that, even if that's what it technically means."
The whistle blew again, chased by the sound of steam escaping in a shriek somewhere nearby, and the train started to move.
Terezi grabbed for Sollux's shoulder for balance, and got his neck instead, her hand fastening on the blue and silver of his loosely knotted tie and tugging it looser. Also nearly strangling him.
"It's all full that way," Terezi told them, righting herself. "Come on."
The compartments were mostly full the other way, too. The windows they looked through were packed with kids chattering and shoving suitcases under seats and up onto racks. A large contingent of them did seem to be first years. You could spot them by the nervous showing off and painfully awkward shyness that permeated their compartments. They reminded Sollux way too much of being painfully awkward and a nervous show-off as a first year. He'd been a fucking disaster. He was embarrassed just thinking about it.
"Aw, look at them!" Jade said. "How many of them do you think will be Ravenclaws?"
"God, none I hope."
"I would like lots," Terezi decided. "I would like dozens of baby Slytherins with big frightened eyes and clever twisty minds. I will make them all draw me satirical comics. The comics will have subversive themes and hilarious anatomical inaccuracies!"
"Ooh, ooh, I want those too!" Jade said.
"You can share mine," Terezi allowed, sharp teeth flashing as she grinned.
At the next compartment, Jade's face lit up and she pushed the door open. "Rose!" she cried, bounding inside to hug her.
Sollux had already levitated his suitcase inside and followed her in before he realised that he'd been betrayed by the details. Jade greeting Rose had made him think he was stepping onto home ground, when in fact it was a nest of snakes.
Well, a nest of two snakes, but they were snooty seadweller snakes, and so twice as venomous as the regular kind.
His eyes met Eridan Ampora's, and they both curled their lips.
"Wrong compartment, finless," Eridan drawled. "We don't want none a your lowclass mustard bringin' down the tone in here."
"Oh my god, you're such a tool," Sollux said, pained.
Feferi Peixes had been lying with her head in Eridan's lap, the glossy weight of her hair falling over his knees, but now she sat up. "Eridan!" she said, her ear frills curling back. "That is not nice."
"Theriouth - seriouthly, JD, there hath to be a better compartment. Thith one's full of thnaketh." Goddamnit, he usually had a better hold on his lisp than this.
Terezi wacked him on the ankle with her cane. "Rude!" she pronounced.
"Ok, wow, so I obviouthly didn't mean you, TZ."
Jade was ignoring everyone else anyway. "Oh my god, Rose, were you on the platform? I couldn't see any of you!" She went in for another tackle-hug.
Rose was tilting her face away from the rest of the compartment to hide her expression, but Sollux could just see the corner of her mouth tilting up as Jade squeezed her. "I came to the station with Dave, but he went to look for you and John while I was talking to my mother, and we didn't find one another again before the whistle." She set Jade back, carefully, and patted her hair band straight.
Jade turned her grin on the rest of the compartment. It went crooked and awkward as she realised who else was there. "Oh, um, hi, Feferi." She hesitated, her mouth squinching to the side and down. "Uh, and Eridan."
Eridan nodded, sulkiness in every line of his body.
"Hi-ii," Feferi said, tilting her head to the side and giving them all the brightest smile Sollux had ever seen. "We were just glubbing about an interest Rose and I didn't know we shared! Isn't that amazing?"
Sollux needed her to stop smiling that smile, or he was going to get dizzy. He already had that skewy thing going on with his vision that meant he had a migraine coming on.
Rose sat back down under the window, crossing her legs. "It turns out that Feferi and I are both enthusiasts of the writings of certain woegothic scholars of dread lore, who scribed of the dark many-limbed monstrosities of the deeps upon whom to look is to lose sanity and hope forevermore."
"I think they're so interesting," Feferi contributed. "And so misunderstood."
"Oh nooooooo," Jade said. "Not the horrible squid things you put up pictures of in the dorm last year, Rose. Can we not talk about them?"
The rattle of a trolley sounded from the corridor, and Terezi turned on her heel and out the door, shutting it in Sollux's face when he instinctively went to follow.
"Wow, what the fuck," he said.
"I hesitate to ascribe motives to Ms Pyrope, but I would hazard that she wants you to stay in the compartment," Rose said, smirking.
Sollux sighed and turned to his trunk, levitating it up to the rack. He took a certain pleasure in dumping it heavily on the most ostentatiously purple of the cases already there.
Eridan started up, glaring at him and moving the cases again. He turned back around and crossed his arms tightly. "I realise a person a your calibre probably doesn't know what it's like to have possessions a walue –"
"Eheheh, 'walue'."
Eridan took a step forward, flicking his scarf over his shoulder. "Oh, please," he said, his eyes narrowing to a glitter. "That is upright funny to me. Want to tell me your name, Thollucth?"
"That is enough," Feferi said, standing and stamping her foot. "You are both being so stupid right now."
Sollux jumped, shooting her a look. Fuck, why did seadwellers have to be so pretty? It was fucking with his head. And the way she'd just reduced Eridan to shoulder-hunched pouty silence again was kind of hot.
He had to stop this line of thought, it was going nowhere good. Eridan was just your basic highblood Slytherin jerk who thought he was living three hundred years ago when the hemocaste hadn't been totally goddamned debunked yet. Feferi Peixes, though ...
Sollux didn't know her very well, but he knew plenty about her, because everyone knew about her. She was the fishy queen of Slytherin, or at least of their year, and maybe the hemocaste didn't mean what it used to but that didn't mean people didn't pay attention to the hatching of a fuchsia blood. Sollux had heard people whispering that she might be the descendent of the actual Condesce, only history's most pants-wettingly terrifying tyrant. He didn't know if he believed that, but the rumour sure gave her a lot of social cred. And was a good reason to keep away from her.
Jade elbowed Rose. "Ummmm, were they just doing that troll hateflirty thing?" she asked in what she probably meant to be a whisper.
"No," Sollux and Eridan both said, turning on the human girls. Then they shared a look of horror at how accidentally compromising that had sounded.
"God, sorry," Jade huffed. Rose only raised her eyebrows at Sollux, an awful intrigued light in her eyes.
The compartment door opened behind Sollux before he could do anything else mortifying, and Terezi came back in with her arms full of sweets from the trolley. She shoved Sollux in the back, chivvying him forward till he sat down next to Jade.
"What have you got?" Eridan asked Terezi, avoiding everyone else's eyes.
She dropped them all on the seat with a flourish: about seven packets of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, and nothing else. "Who wants to play a game?" she asked. "Slytherins versus Ravenclaws!"
"Ooh, Every Flavour Assassin?" Jade asked, leaning forward.
Jade wasn't usually very into games, and this one was actually kind of dumb, unless you were a crazy blind girl who got off on new colours and tastes. Jade was probably only eager to play because the other options for passing the time seemed to be fighting or talking about goth tentacle monsters.
What Sollux mostly wanted to do was to spend the rest of the trip curled in a corner waiting for his headache to come on, and ignoring everybody else in the compartment.
"Uh," he said. "How about no."
Feferi curled her legs underneath her, sitting up straighter. "He's such a grumpy motherglubber," she said to the others. "Seariously," she added, and Sollux could hear the pun in the way she elongated the word. She laughed merrily. "I think it sounds like fun! You aren't nervous about salmon beating you, are you, Sole-lux?"
Oh god, the nautical puns were both terrible and weirdly amazing.
"A course he's worried about bein' a loser, Fef, losin's all he ewen knows how to do," Eridan put in.
Ok, wow, it was on. Sollux straightened. "You in, LL?"
Rose had pulled out a book sometime since Sollux last looked at her, and had it balanced on her knee, one finger holding her place. "As appealing as I find the prospect of placing my palate at the mercy of three Slytherins and the sense of humour of a long-dead wizard sweet maker with the dubious taste to go by 'Bertie' –"
Jade put her hands over her ears. "Bluh bluh, I'm Rose and I'm a huge wimp," she said loudly. "Also I don't care about the honour of my House!"
Rose rolled her eyes. "What an incredibly Ravenclaw-esque argument. My House pride is swelling like the bloated corpse of a magnificent eagle as we speak."
Sollux thought that in Harley-Lalonde speech that might mean 'yes'. Even without Rose they were kind of a shoe-in, though. Jade would put literally anything in her mouth that had ever been called food, if she was dared to, and Sollux had had a mind honey accident in his hive over summer that had seared off most of his taste buds. They were beginning to grow back, but he was still tasting most things in various shades of cardboard.
Terezi pulled out her wand and transfigured a seat cushion into a wide bowl. Then she set to tearing open the packets and tipping Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans into the bowl in a bouncing cascade of colours. She placed the bowl on the narrow table between the facing seats, away to the side so there was a clear space for her to lay her wand.
"The rules are last person standing wins for their team," she announced. "The penalty for using charms to change the flavours is a cane drubbing of the most senseless severity!" She gave her wand a flick with her claws and it spun, sliding to a stop with the point facing Rose.
Sollux watched Rose's competitive urges war with her desire for cool detachment, and then she sighed and drew out her own wand, setting her book to the side. She carefully selected and levitated a sickly yellow-orange bean and looked up at the row of trolls opposite her. "Terezi," she chose, and Terezi stretched out her cupped hand, showing the points of her teeth in a grin. Rose dropped it into her palm.
The revolting little yellow thing disappeared into Terezi's maw, her shark teeth making short work of it. Her eyebrows shot up. "Keratin," she announced. "Mmmm."
Sollux was horrified despite himself. "Oh my god, whothe horns have you been gnawing on, how do you know what that tastes like?"
Terezi only cackled, taking her wand back. Rose laid hers in place and spun it, landing on Feferi.
Feferi bent low over the bowl, thinking deeply. Finally she selected a poisonously blue bean. "Put your hand out," she sing-songed at Sollux.
Sollux took the bean and dropped it into his mouth. The faint whiff of flavour his deadened taste buds were able to detect was something with a chemical tang, like washing detergent. He made a show of rolling it around on his tongue like a jerk. "Mmm," he said. "Bubble gum."
Feferi laughed. "All right, you got lucky that time."
Feferi spun and got Jade, who chose a mustardy-brown bean for Eridan.
Eridan held it between his claws with his face twisted in distaste. "What ewen is this, essence a lowclass knowitall?" He dropped it in his mouth, and immediately started choking and gagging. "Earwax," he got out, breathless and flushing purple.
Sollux snickered until he couldn't breathe. This game was awesome.
Rose got a bright red bean that made her gasp and conjure water. "Chilli," she told them when she could speak again. Then Jade got a shiny brownish black one that she pronounced, after thoughtful chewing, to be Cockroach Clusters.
Sollux wasn't surprised when the next time it was Eridan's turn, he picked Sollux. Sollux took an unholy amount of joy in pretending that the dull green bean (brussels sprouts, maybe?) was delicious peppermint.
Feferi got tuna, to her delight, and then Jade immediately picked her again and she got furniture polish. Eridan had to put a hand over her mouth to keep her from spitting it out as she coughed and made faces.
She retaliated by giving Jade something that turned out to be charcoal. Jade liked it so much that she hunted through the bowl looking for another one.
Sollux pretended his third bean was buttered toast. Feferi narrowed her eyes at him. "Reelly," she said. He wasn't sure how much of the emphasis was pun and how much was scepticism. He gave her a crooked smile. His vision was wavering more, letting him know that his migraine was going to hit really soon now, and he was pretty sure at that point he would go back to hating the whole world impartially. He was flying high right at this second, though.
It was Terezi's turn to choose next, and she tapped her claw tip to her mouth, her eyes on Sollux. She was oddly solemn as she selected a radioactively green bean and presented it to him. Feferi was watching him closely too, and Eridan was fiddling with his scarf, his eyes glued to the sweet in Sollux's claws. He was projecting a sort of desperate hostility that Sollux wanted to breathe in deep.
He put the bean in his mouth, chewing. "Lime jelly," he started to say, and Feferi straightened abruptly. "I don't believe that," she said. Then she leaned over the table, grabbed Sollux by the collar of his robe, and kissed him on the mouth.
Sollux scrabbled at her hands, too overwhelmed to know whether he was pushing her away or pulling her closer. She ran her tongue along the haphazard points of his teeth, chilled and sweet against the heat of his mouth, and he shuddered hard. He’d lost all feeling in his fingers and toes.
Feferi pulled away, flushed and triumphant. "Sopor slime," she announced.
Sollux slid down in his chair, dazed.
"Fef, what the shell," Eridan squeaked. Sollux blinked and focused on him. He looked shattered. It was amazing. Even if Feferi was fucking with Sollux with that kiss, it would be worth it for that look on Eridan's face.
But he hoped she wasn't fucking with him.
Feferi laughed again, bright as coral. Sollux sneaked a look at her and thought, with dawning disbelief: This year could actually be freaking awesome.
Homestuck | Feferi♥Sollux, Sollux♠Eridan | 2900 words | PG | at AO3
Summary: Sollux didn’t plan to start Fourth Year playing terrible travel games with Slytherin aristocracy, but the honour of Ravenclaw House is at stake. Apparently.
Sollux kind of assumed he'd hang out with Aradia on the train, since they hadn't seen each other all summer, but he lost her on the platform when her lusus got into a scuffle with Jade's devilbeast. Somehow in the scramble to get them away from each other Sollux ended up in the Harley party, using his psionics to try to hem Becquerel in and keep him from teleporting while Jade dragged him away.
By the time they got the dog back to Jade's grandfather, the train whistle was blowing and they had to levitate their trunks and run to push them through the closest doors.
Jade dropped her trunk in the corridor and flopped down on top of it. "Whew!" she said. "Bec sure is strong! I think I will ask Grandpa to leave him at home next time."
Sollux dumped his own suitcase. "Wow, JD," he deadpanned, "really, you think that's a good idea? Because it's not like your freaky not-a-lusus barkbeast has caused chaos every single time you've brought him to Platform 9 ¾ or anything."
Jade looked up. "He just gets excited being around all the lusii!"
"Whatever, we should find a compartment." Sollux pushed his glasses back up his nose. "They're probably all full of yappy first yearth by now."
Jade wrinkled her nose at him, laughing. "Ooh, Mr Cool Fourth Year, am I sophisticated enough for you?"
There was a sharp tapping sound as somebody came through the door between the carriages. Sollux looked up with a start, a skitter-spark of psionics escaping from under his glasses.
Terezi tapped her cane again and grinned, her red shades glinting in the light. "Miss Lime Zest, you are exactly sophisticated enough!"
Jade grinned back, her front teeth showing, and scrambled to her feet. "Thank you, Terezi."
"Eheheheh, you know she basically called you gross sour grated citrus peel."
Jade punched him in the arm. "She called me something much nicer than that, even if that's what it technically means."
The whistle blew again, chased by the sound of steam escaping in a shriek somewhere nearby, and the train started to move.
Terezi grabbed for Sollux's shoulder for balance, and got his neck instead, her hand fastening on the blue and silver of his loosely knotted tie and tugging it looser. Also nearly strangling him.
"It's all full that way," Terezi told them, righting herself. "Come on."
The compartments were mostly full the other way, too. The windows they looked through were packed with kids chattering and shoving suitcases under seats and up onto racks. A large contingent of them did seem to be first years. You could spot them by the nervous showing off and painfully awkward shyness that permeated their compartments. They reminded Sollux way too much of being painfully awkward and a nervous show-off as a first year. He'd been a fucking disaster. He was embarrassed just thinking about it.
"Aw, look at them!" Jade said. "How many of them do you think will be Ravenclaws?"
"God, none I hope."
"I would like lots," Terezi decided. "I would like dozens of baby Slytherins with big frightened eyes and clever twisty minds. I will make them all draw me satirical comics. The comics will have subversive themes and hilarious anatomical inaccuracies!"
"Ooh, ooh, I want those too!" Jade said.
"You can share mine," Terezi allowed, sharp teeth flashing as she grinned.
At the next compartment, Jade's face lit up and she pushed the door open. "Rose!" she cried, bounding inside to hug her.
Sollux had already levitated his suitcase inside and followed her in before he realised that he'd been betrayed by the details. Jade greeting Rose had made him think he was stepping onto home ground, when in fact it was a nest of snakes.
Well, a nest of two snakes, but they were snooty seadweller snakes, and so twice as venomous as the regular kind.
His eyes met Eridan Ampora's, and they both curled their lips.
"Wrong compartment, finless," Eridan drawled. "We don't want none a your lowclass mustard bringin' down the tone in here."
"Oh my god, you're such a tool," Sollux said, pained.
Feferi Peixes had been lying with her head in Eridan's lap, the glossy weight of her hair falling over his knees, but now she sat up. "Eridan!" she said, her ear frills curling back. "That is not nice."
"Theriouth - seriouthly, JD, there hath to be a better compartment. Thith one's full of thnaketh." Goddamnit, he usually had a better hold on his lisp than this.
Terezi wacked him on the ankle with her cane. "Rude!" she pronounced.
"Ok, wow, so I obviouthly didn't mean you, TZ."
Jade was ignoring everyone else anyway. "Oh my god, Rose, were you on the platform? I couldn't see any of you!" She went in for another tackle-hug.
Rose was tilting her face away from the rest of the compartment to hide her expression, but Sollux could just see the corner of her mouth tilting up as Jade squeezed her. "I came to the station with Dave, but he went to look for you and John while I was talking to my mother, and we didn't find one another again before the whistle." She set Jade back, carefully, and patted her hair band straight.
Jade turned her grin on the rest of the compartment. It went crooked and awkward as she realised who else was there. "Oh, um, hi, Feferi." She hesitated, her mouth squinching to the side and down. "Uh, and Eridan."
Eridan nodded, sulkiness in every line of his body.
"Hi-ii," Feferi said, tilting her head to the side and giving them all the brightest smile Sollux had ever seen. "We were just glubbing about an interest Rose and I didn't know we shared! Isn't that amazing?"
Sollux needed her to stop smiling that smile, or he was going to get dizzy. He already had that skewy thing going on with his vision that meant he had a migraine coming on.
Rose sat back down under the window, crossing her legs. "It turns out that Feferi and I are both enthusiasts of the writings of certain woegothic scholars of dread lore, who scribed of the dark many-limbed monstrosities of the deeps upon whom to look is to lose sanity and hope forevermore."
"I think they're so interesting," Feferi contributed. "And so misunderstood."
"Oh nooooooo," Jade said. "Not the horrible squid things you put up pictures of in the dorm last year, Rose. Can we not talk about them?"
The rattle of a trolley sounded from the corridor, and Terezi turned on her heel and out the door, shutting it in Sollux's face when he instinctively went to follow.
"Wow, what the fuck," he said.
"I hesitate to ascribe motives to Ms Pyrope, but I would hazard that she wants you to stay in the compartment," Rose said, smirking.
Sollux sighed and turned to his trunk, levitating it up to the rack. He took a certain pleasure in dumping it heavily on the most ostentatiously purple of the cases already there.
Eridan started up, glaring at him and moving the cases again. He turned back around and crossed his arms tightly. "I realise a person a your calibre probably doesn't know what it's like to have possessions a walue –"
"Eheheh, 'walue'."
Eridan took a step forward, flicking his scarf over his shoulder. "Oh, please," he said, his eyes narrowing to a glitter. "That is upright funny to me. Want to tell me your name, Thollucth?"
"That is enough," Feferi said, standing and stamping her foot. "You are both being so stupid right now."
Sollux jumped, shooting her a look. Fuck, why did seadwellers have to be so pretty? It was fucking with his head. And the way she'd just reduced Eridan to shoulder-hunched pouty silence again was kind of hot.
He had to stop this line of thought, it was going nowhere good. Eridan was just your basic highblood Slytherin jerk who thought he was living three hundred years ago when the hemocaste hadn't been totally goddamned debunked yet. Feferi Peixes, though ...
Sollux didn't know her very well, but he knew plenty about her, because everyone knew about her. She was the fishy queen of Slytherin, or at least of their year, and maybe the hemocaste didn't mean what it used to but that didn't mean people didn't pay attention to the hatching of a fuchsia blood. Sollux had heard people whispering that she might be the descendent of the actual Condesce, only history's most pants-wettingly terrifying tyrant. He didn't know if he believed that, but the rumour sure gave her a lot of social cred. And was a good reason to keep away from her.
Jade elbowed Rose. "Ummmm, were they just doing that troll hateflirty thing?" she asked in what she probably meant to be a whisper.
"No," Sollux and Eridan both said, turning on the human girls. Then they shared a look of horror at how accidentally compromising that had sounded.
"God, sorry," Jade huffed. Rose only raised her eyebrows at Sollux, an awful intrigued light in her eyes.
The compartment door opened behind Sollux before he could do anything else mortifying, and Terezi came back in with her arms full of sweets from the trolley. She shoved Sollux in the back, chivvying him forward till he sat down next to Jade.
"What have you got?" Eridan asked Terezi, avoiding everyone else's eyes.
She dropped them all on the seat with a flourish: about seven packets of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, and nothing else. "Who wants to play a game?" she asked. "Slytherins versus Ravenclaws!"
"Ooh, Every Flavour Assassin?" Jade asked, leaning forward.
Jade wasn't usually very into games, and this one was actually kind of dumb, unless you were a crazy blind girl who got off on new colours and tastes. Jade was probably only eager to play because the other options for passing the time seemed to be fighting or talking about goth tentacle monsters.
What Sollux mostly wanted to do was to spend the rest of the trip curled in a corner waiting for his headache to come on, and ignoring everybody else in the compartment.
"Uh," he said. "How about no."
Feferi curled her legs underneath her, sitting up straighter. "He's such a grumpy motherglubber," she said to the others. "Seariously," she added, and Sollux could hear the pun in the way she elongated the word. She laughed merrily. "I think it sounds like fun! You aren't nervous about salmon beating you, are you, Sole-lux?"
Oh god, the nautical puns were both terrible and weirdly amazing.
"A course he's worried about bein' a loser, Fef, losin's all he ewen knows how to do," Eridan put in.
Ok, wow, it was on. Sollux straightened. "You in, LL?"
Rose had pulled out a book sometime since Sollux last looked at her, and had it balanced on her knee, one finger holding her place. "As appealing as I find the prospect of placing my palate at the mercy of three Slytherins and the sense of humour of a long-dead wizard sweet maker with the dubious taste to go by 'Bertie' –"
Jade put her hands over her ears. "Bluh bluh, I'm Rose and I'm a huge wimp," she said loudly. "Also I don't care about the honour of my House!"
Rose rolled her eyes. "What an incredibly Ravenclaw-esque argument. My House pride is swelling like the bloated corpse of a magnificent eagle as we speak."
Sollux thought that in Harley-Lalonde speech that might mean 'yes'. Even without Rose they were kind of a shoe-in, though. Jade would put literally anything in her mouth that had ever been called food, if she was dared to, and Sollux had had a mind honey accident in his hive over summer that had seared off most of his taste buds. They were beginning to grow back, but he was still tasting most things in various shades of cardboard.
Terezi pulled out her wand and transfigured a seat cushion into a wide bowl. Then she set to tearing open the packets and tipping Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans into the bowl in a bouncing cascade of colours. She placed the bowl on the narrow table between the facing seats, away to the side so there was a clear space for her to lay her wand.
"The rules are last person standing wins for their team," she announced. "The penalty for using charms to change the flavours is a cane drubbing of the most senseless severity!" She gave her wand a flick with her claws and it spun, sliding to a stop with the point facing Rose.
Sollux watched Rose's competitive urges war with her desire for cool detachment, and then she sighed and drew out her own wand, setting her book to the side. She carefully selected and levitated a sickly yellow-orange bean and looked up at the row of trolls opposite her. "Terezi," she chose, and Terezi stretched out her cupped hand, showing the points of her teeth in a grin. Rose dropped it into her palm.
The revolting little yellow thing disappeared into Terezi's maw, her shark teeth making short work of it. Her eyebrows shot up. "Keratin," she announced. "Mmmm."
Sollux was horrified despite himself. "Oh my god, whothe horns have you been gnawing on, how do you know what that tastes like?"
Terezi only cackled, taking her wand back. Rose laid hers in place and spun it, landing on Feferi.
Feferi bent low over the bowl, thinking deeply. Finally she selected a poisonously blue bean. "Put your hand out," she sing-songed at Sollux.
Sollux took the bean and dropped it into his mouth. The faint whiff of flavour his deadened taste buds were able to detect was something with a chemical tang, like washing detergent. He made a show of rolling it around on his tongue like a jerk. "Mmm," he said. "Bubble gum."
Feferi laughed. "All right, you got lucky that time."
Feferi spun and got Jade, who chose a mustardy-brown bean for Eridan.
Eridan held it between his claws with his face twisted in distaste. "What ewen is this, essence a lowclass knowitall?" He dropped it in his mouth, and immediately started choking and gagging. "Earwax," he got out, breathless and flushing purple.
Sollux snickered until he couldn't breathe. This game was awesome.
Rose got a bright red bean that made her gasp and conjure water. "Chilli," she told them when she could speak again. Then Jade got a shiny brownish black one that she pronounced, after thoughtful chewing, to be Cockroach Clusters.
Sollux wasn't surprised when the next time it was Eridan's turn, he picked Sollux. Sollux took an unholy amount of joy in pretending that the dull green bean (brussels sprouts, maybe?) was delicious peppermint.
Feferi got tuna, to her delight, and then Jade immediately picked her again and she got furniture polish. Eridan had to put a hand over her mouth to keep her from spitting it out as she coughed and made faces.
She retaliated by giving Jade something that turned out to be charcoal. Jade liked it so much that she hunted through the bowl looking for another one.
Sollux pretended his third bean was buttered toast. Feferi narrowed her eyes at him. "Reelly," she said. He wasn't sure how much of the emphasis was pun and how much was scepticism. He gave her a crooked smile. His vision was wavering more, letting him know that his migraine was going to hit really soon now, and he was pretty sure at that point he would go back to hating the whole world impartially. He was flying high right at this second, though.
It was Terezi's turn to choose next, and she tapped her claw tip to her mouth, her eyes on Sollux. She was oddly solemn as she selected a radioactively green bean and presented it to him. Feferi was watching him closely too, and Eridan was fiddling with his scarf, his eyes glued to the sweet in Sollux's claws. He was projecting a sort of desperate hostility that Sollux wanted to breathe in deep.
He put the bean in his mouth, chewing. "Lime jelly," he started to say, and Feferi straightened abruptly. "I don't believe that," she said. Then she leaned over the table, grabbed Sollux by the collar of his robe, and kissed him on the mouth.
Sollux scrabbled at her hands, too overwhelmed to know whether he was pushing her away or pulling her closer. She ran her tongue along the haphazard points of his teeth, chilled and sweet against the heat of his mouth, and he shuddered hard. He’d lost all feeling in his fingers and toes.
Feferi pulled away, flushed and triumphant. "Sopor slime," she announced.
Sollux slid down in his chair, dazed.
"Fef, what the shell," Eridan squeaked. Sollux blinked and focused on him. He looked shattered. It was amazing. Even if Feferi was fucking with Sollux with that kiss, it would be worth it for that look on Eridan's face.
But he hoped she wasn't fucking with him.
Feferi laughed again, bright as coral. Sollux sneaked a look at her and thought, with dawning disbelief: This year could actually be freaking awesome.
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So at least you know? ♥?
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This 'verse is so very much fun, I really should stop messing around aimlessly with the next ficlet and actually write it.