#I WILL POST EITHER FEISTY FOUR OR CLOVER!!!

[indigo-flowers09]

I WILL POST ART TMRW RAAGHHHH!!!!!!

[khemi]

Fishbowl Punch

So this is a story I wrote for a Discord Secret Santa, and I’m going to finally post it here! It’s kind of... a mix, but I had a lot of fun writing it.

Slickpaint, and a Solfef/Eriara mash. Cw for alcohol.

You realise you’re boned the moment she slaps some shine on your shoes and hands you a brand new tie like it’s a pleasant surprise instead of a portent of coming doom, all bright pink and the sort of thing you’d laugh off the face of the earth before putting on if it was being presented in any hands other than those soft round ones of hers that could hand you your best friend’s head on a stick and still get an earnest, aw, thanks doll in reply.

Either she knows that and is playing you like a fiddle or she doesn’t and is sincere in everything she does, and one is hot and one is cute and both just make your traitorous heart beat a little faster as you take the tie and loop it under your shirt collar and lean forward just enough she can reach up to you and do it up in a neat knot you absolutely couldn’t have managed with two hands, let alone one. Lousy knots. The woman’s a wizard at them, weaving ties and bows in shapes you’re pretty sure are non-Euclidean in nature, but if an Elder God ever comes knocking looking for some help dolling up for their prom they can take a hike because those magical hands and the bustling body of joy they’re attached to are taken, and adored right the fuck where they already are.

Dolling up is something best left to her, anyway, and she paints her face pretty as she paints a canvas, all subtle colours in the right places that are barely noticeable but could make a sculptor weep jealousy over the perfect shapes they come together to form. You call up into the bathroom if she’s going to wear that one dress, she knows, the sparkly one with the green. She asks you if you’re going to wear your nice eyepatch if she does.

You do not want to wear an eyepatch that makes you look like you’re some anime-obsessed twelve year old’s character on some shitty online collection of art that you have too much pride in yourself to know the name of. There’s a silence while you consider how best to let her down.

She’ll wear the headscarf you like with all the pastels, she calls down into the pause.

Well then.

It’s time to find your nice eyepatch.

You know you’ll find it right where you left it, shoved underneath everything else you never wanted to see again, like the full ream of love notes Clover kept posting through your door before he caught sight of that new guy with all the shouting and the hair that defies at least three laws of physics. The collection of letters seeking your wife’s affection- and also, to your continued distaste, your own- are pushed to one side and reveal a poster with your own face on it, like a further descent through the circles of hell that will end with an eyepatch or with eternal damnation, both of which would suit you about the same. The reward above your leering mug is severely out of date. There’s been at least four major incidents since then, and at least two extra zeroes slapped on the end by the powers that be.

What will be the third level of hell? You lift the poster and- oh. Er. You lift a hand to shove the lens of some imaginary viewing device aside, leaving the purely hypothetical viewer staring at a picture of the finest breed of dog ever bred, sitting on a cushion with a little tartan hat at a jaunty angle upon its noble head. If said viewer were to have briefly caught glimpse of any pictures of you in any kind of canine-based outfit, say the kind used by platonic connoisseurs of all things furred, you would tell them that first of all, they’re seeing things and no such pictures have ever existed, kid, shut your dirty lying mouth.

Secondly you would tell them that mouth better stay shut, or else.

No one can know.

Especially Droog.

And- Look, it’s not your fault that that gal at the store with the fuzzy ears was so persuasive when she started talking about that convention thing and the need for extra guests and discount rates and getting to experience the carefree life of a perfect Scottie-

Oh thank fuck there’s your eyepatch you’ve never been so happy to see it in your life.

After a little business, you return to the stairs just in time to find the missus slipping down it with all the grace her stout body can pack, dress clasped gently in one hand to lift it high enough it doesn’t get in the way of each of her steady steps. She smiles at you, cheeks dark and eyes surrounded with a pastel rainbow that sets off the dark colour in them nicely, and you’re halfway to a goofy smile back before she stops and sniffs once, then again, her eyebrows dropping with her dress and her arms coming into a tight fold over her chest.

What’s that smell, she asks you.

What smell, you say.

The smell of burning, she replies without a minute of time for your shit. And why is there ash on your fingers?

Spring cleaning, you tell her with a very serious nod.

What did you do.

You didn’t do a damn thing.

She said, what did you do.

You squeak. Damn, she’s got that look in her eye that says if you want to make it to the diner in one piece you better buck that shit right the fuck now or she’ll be packing what’s left of you in her handbag. She’s a feisty little thing, really.

You adore her.

Alright, alright, maybe you burned something, obviously accidentally, like some kind of incriminating photo that definitely, one hundred percent does not exist any longer, if it ever did. A tragedy! A disaster. How will you live without that unproven photograph haunting your every-

Was it the dog photo, she asks.

What dog photo? There is no dog photo. Was there ever a dog photo? You doubt it.

She smiles and finishes her descent, bustling past you with a very gentle pat to your arm.

Don’t worry, she says, she has copies.

Your wife is the single worst thing to ever happen to you. You set your jaw and roll your eye into the patch as you turn and sulk your way out behind her, pouting as she settles in the driver’s seat and reminds you that if she’d been looking for a child to take care of, she’d have gone looking for an adoption, not a wedding.

The place is basically empty when you show up, except for two assholes in the corner who both look like the only reason they’re even here is to hide from the fashion police and the laws of decency that forbid the wearing of stupid shades everywhere but mostly indoors- oh, and a group of kids who apparently haven’t heard dress codes have updated a little since the middle ages, given there’s one more cape involved than is acceptable in a modern public place, meaning there’s exactly one cape.

Of fucking course the waiter takes you to the table right next to them, ignoring the many, many empty tables that are literally everywhere else.

“-I’m not saying you can’t wear a cape in your own space,” one of the guys behind you is saying, slow and steady but not escaping the flat hiss the attempt at each s makes when it hits his teeth, “but that’s in your own space, where no one else has to experience its- what did he say?”

“Majesty,” a girl replies, tone so dead you’d think she was if she wasn’t speaking.

“Right, right, its majesty, because that’s totally a thing it’s got in droves.”

“My cape is fine,” hisses back becaped asshole, showing a staggering lack of self-awareness you thought only Deuce was capable of. “In fact it’s more than fine. They asked us to dress smartly and you’re all fuckin’ underdressed and jealous, that’s what you are.”

“Oh yeah. That’s exactly what’s happening here. I’m not embarrassed, I’m devastated by my stupid clothing choices that led to me being caught in this part of town without a cape. I must look like a beggar, barely able to afford a napkin for a makeshift cloak-”

“Put that down,” Cape hisses, informing you along with the chorus of giggles that a napkin had in fact probably made its way across Lisp’s shoulders. “God you wanna talk about embarrassments? You’re an embarrassment.”

“How can I argue with that? You are a professional in the field of huge fuck-ups.”

“You little piece of-”

“Can I get you a drink?” The waiter interrupts, and you’re almost annoyed at him for distracting you from the possible soap-opera in the making over your shoulder until you see your doll giving you a look and hastily sweep up the menu so you can jab at something without looking at what it is. “Oh- An excellent choice, sir. And for the lady?”

“Scotch,” she hums, and you stare at her as she adds that she’d like it on the rocks, maintaining eye contact with you the whole time as your brain filters Scotch to Scot to Scottie and you get the joke being made at your expense. Absolutely hilarious, you mutter at her once the waiter is gone. Her wink tells you she agrees.

You give it a reasonable pause before you filter back into the conversation playing out behind you, irritated to have missed some of what might actually be passable entertainment.

“-not my fault Kanaya enables him,” the girl who didn’t speak before is protesting in the kind of voice that’s bright and loud even when it’s cramped into a whisper. “She says he’s very persuasive when he wants to be!”

“Yeesh, there’s a whole thing I don’t want to know about,” Lisp answers, and you know the affronted sniffle is Cape before he starts complaining.

“There is nothing between Kanaya and I and I don’t much appreciate you implyin’ anythin’ to the opposite effect! Ain’t my fault she’s got a sense of style you’re lacking, or that she’s the only one around who listens to my voice of reason- except you, Ara, obviously, you do plenty of listenin’ to me and I appreciate it constantly, sweetheart.”

“A noble sacrifice that won’t be forgotten by those of us getting our poor ears spared.” It sounds like Lisp just reached and pat her hand in sympathy, and as your glazed eyes roam the menu you gotta say you don’t think you blame him. “A terrible burden, the path you’re walking down…”

“Eridan is more interesting than you think,” Ara replies, revealing herself as the voice of death and still sounding just as excited as the crayfish you’re considering for a starter. “He has a lot of interesting stories about the socio-political imbalances that led to historical conflicts, and also wizards.”

“And also wizards. Fuck, I’m pissing over here.” Yeah, you too, Lisp. You too.

“Wizards are cool,” Cape protests, pout audible in his voice. “Better than fucking bees.”

“Hey the only thing fucking bees right now is other bees and also humanity’s disregard for the most important species on the planet.”

“There I was thinking humans were pretty fuckin’ important.”

“Get back to me when humans can function in perfect harmony with nature to keep the whole world alive and I’ll reconsider.”

This is sounding dangerously like a synopsis of that fucking film Deuce keeps sending you sped up versions of, and this time you’re grateful for the waiter interrupting it right up until you see the monstrosity of a drink sitting beside a small, sensible glass of ice and whiskey.

“One scotch on the rocks,” he explains, placing the glass down in front of your wife even as she continues to stare at the new focus of all your barely contained hatred, “and one fishbowl punch.”

Well you can’t pin them for false advertising because that is a fucking fishbowl in front of you, filled with punch, umbrellas and straws, turned luminescent pink by the flashing ice cubes inside that are pulsing to the beat of a rave being held all over the corpse of your dignity. You stare at it, the waiter stares at you, your missus stares at the waiter and he holds up his little pad like a shield and taps frantically at the scrawled note on it you couldn’t read if you were a code breaker.

“It’s what you ordered, sir!”

Of course it is.

Before you can get out a protest he’s absconded and you’re left gazing at the mesmerising jacuzzi of poor taste that only the sort of person who wears a cape unironically would find appealing, opening and closing your mouth a few times before your dear, darling wife takes pity on you and pushes her scotch into your hand.

You could both share it, she suggests as you down her drink in one, although that would involve consuming it, and you’re not sure what shit the colour of potpourri windex would do to your insides. Come on, she prompts. You can both have a straw each and drink together and it’ll be romantic.

And then you can both get food poisoning or- if it’s a drink it’s just straight-up poisoning, right? And you can have a romantic hospital stay together!

Exactly, your missus smiles, and waits patiently until you cave in and lean forward to take a tentative sip of what you can only assume is the milk of a mutant hybrid between a cow and a stick of fruity bubblegum. Ugh. You make a face that’s probably just a redraw of the same disgusted face everyone seems to make in this godforsaken town, but your doll looks happy and you guess in some deep-down secret part of the withered thing your doctor would hesitantly refer to as your heart, that’s what really matters.

“Oh man, that looks delicious, you think I can order that?” Cape is whispering on the table behind you, and look at that, who would’ve guessed it, who could possibly have foreseen he’d want to drink the atrocious insult to cocktail menus everywhere that is glittering obnoxiously between you and your lady.

A chair creaks, once as someone turns towards you and once again as they turn away.

“We could share,” Ara monotones, “but I want the umbrellas.”

“Of course, love, you can have every umbrella that you want.”

“Ugh,” Lisp starts, “you guys are-”

“I want one.” Bubbly interrupts him, and all of a sudden her sugary voice is like a candy-cane made of cyanide. “Please, Sollux? You said it was my treat today!”

“Fef, I said my willing participation in an event involving sitting next to Eridan for an hour was your treat.”

“No, you said dinner was my treat, and that I could’ve have whatever I wanted!” She’s whining like a kicked puppy and you can perfectly picture the sort of satisfied smirk that must be lighting up Cape’s- Eridan’s? Why do you even care what their names are- face right now. “I want one of those! It’s in a fishbowl, Sollux! It’s so cute!”

“It looks like poison.” A man after your own heart.

“It looks great! Stop being a wet fish and drink it with me! Please? Pretty please? Pretty please with a cherry on top? Pretty please with a cherry on top and-”

“Fine! Oh my God, fine. You can have that, I’m not going to stop you.”

“And you’ll drink it with me?” Her smile is so bright it’s making you cast a grouchy shadow.

“...I- guess. Sure.”

Fef squeals, and it’s the delighted nail in Sollux’s coffin. Maybe you’ll see him in the emergency room later, and you can both share a knowing nod about the dangers of flashing cocktails served in pet housing.

Another sip confirms it still tastes like bubblegum.

Sollux manages to bargain his way into ordering the food before the fancy drinks, which is a valiant attempt at escaping the pink-tinted death you’re currently bearing half the brunt of. Maybe he hoped they’d forget or fill up and no longer brave the sugary terror, but his zero hour arrives and you shake your head sadly as you listen to the now fully identified Aradia order two fishbowl punches, and on purpose, which is a whole new level of shame.

The waiter asks her to repeat the order, to make absolutely sure of what she wants. You can’t imagine why.

He passes you shortly after with a tray laden with not one, but two bowls of fuschia piss, and you hear an enthusiastic thank you from Eridan and Feferi and flat ones from Sollux and Aradia, although in the latter case God only knows, that’s probably cheerful for her. You watch the waiter’s reflection turn back towards you in your own fishbowl of death, and as he hurries past you pause and wonder… Maybe if you just.

Your wife quietly enquires after what you’re doing as you reach and start slowly adjusting the bowl sideways.

Upgrading your radio to a television, you explain patiently.

You aren’t spying on anyone, are you? She told you to stop doing that.

It’s not spying if it’s in a public place, you told her that before.

And she told you that as soon as it involves a reflective surface, it’s spying.

You wore the eyepatch, you plead in a muted hiss.

Her fingers tap against the side of the glass and she inclines her hand, her other hand lifting to gently adjust her scarf. Alright, she agrees, and you continue moving the bowl until she adds an ominous but-

But what?

But she gets to take one of the pictures of you in that adorable outfit, blow it up nice and big, and make a painting out of it for her gallery.

Your eyes narrow. She drives a hard bargain.

You know what, maybe you can live without-

“What do you mean it’s stuck?”

On second thought, that sounds lovely, you hope it brings in lots of discerning patrons.

The bowl slides the rest of the way and you finally get a view past yourself, back to the table you’ve been entertaining yourself with on-and-off all night. It isn’t perfect, and you can only see the thick tresses of the two girls, but you have a fair angle on the faces of their dates as Eridan attempts to reach past Sollux’s swatting hands and grab the umbrella that is somehow jammed between his two front teeth.

“‘O! ‘Eth ‘ethethi oo ih-!” Those are probably words but between the teeth and the blockage you’ve stopped being able to pick out much more than what you’re guessing is Feferi, though you’re more amused by how the umbrella is wiggling every time Sollux’s mouth opens and closes. Sollux continues to force Eridan back, turning and leaning across the table. “‘Ethehti!”

“Oh gosh oh goodness-” Feferi is on her feet and leaning over the table, as though walking around it isn’t the option. She leans forward, over the bowl that caused this misery, planting a hand on Sollux’s cheek and bracing the other against the table that they’d been sitting at, one of two pushed together to make a four. Her fingers are spread just in front of the drink, the whole thing tipping forward under her weight. “Okay, I’ve got this! You just hold still and I’ll get this right out-”

“Wait-” Eridan starts but Feferi has got her hand off the table and on the umbrella, and you see her realise her mistake just as the umbrella pops free and takes her balance with it, feet sliding on the ground looking for a purchase they don’t find. She yelps and drops, Aradia moving to catch her but not before Feferi’s legs have flung up and kicked the table hard enough the whole unbalanced thing is flying forward and the bowl of pink murder juice is gracefully arcing up through the air.

Sollux had fallen back into Eridan’s arms and jerked back up just as fast but you know he’s regretting it as his eyes widen behind his glasses the smallest fraction before the wall of pink that’s spraying from the soaring bowl has splashed into him, splattering him and the floor behind him with the punch it also packs. You cover your mouth as Sollux opens his and lets out a pained sound, and Eridan swoops to grab some serviettes for his face but his foot hits the punch dripping onto the floor from the still shaking table and there’s an instant between him being there and him being gone, sneakers up in the air.

One knocks that table, and the punch starts to slide but Aradia catches it and lifts it above her head, sighing and handing it to a frantic Feferi as Sollux gropes blindly forward to try to find the serviettes now accompanying Eridan all over the ground. What he manages to find instead is the punch bowl, which he shoves his hand into just as it’s finished rattling around and then flings his fingers back out of in disgust, the bowl ricocheting away towards Feferi and ending up barely caught in her hand as she balances the first against her shoulder before- in an astounding show of idiocy- lifting her knee to try to steady the table she isn’t even standing in front of.

For a moment, she looks like she’ll pull it off.

She does not.

Aradia has just grabbed Sollux’s glasses and started wiping them as Feferi’s balance gives way for the second time, and you see the glass go sailing up before it comes hurtling down. Feferi barely manages to tuck and roll out of the way in time to avoid the glass or the fresh torrent of punch but her skillful youth roll takes her straight into the path of the waiter rushing to help, knocking him off his feet and sending him crashing down on her as his glasses bounce off in what promises to be a further level of hilarity.

“Fuck!” There he goes, scrambling for them, as Feferi squawks under him and Sollux finally regains vision in time to let out his assumed girlfriend’s name in indignation. The waiter gets shoved off, the dame rescued, and the glasses sit in pooling punch and await their retrieval with growing, sticky impatience.

Eridan’s hand has regained ground on the table, and Aradia is attempting to help him up but from the choked wheezes about fucking cape fucking stuck fucking hell you’re guessing he’s a little wrapped up with a fashion disaster that you’re sure is soaking up its lovely new pink ombre wonderfully as he wiggles around on the ground trying to escape his own poor taste.

Your missus moves and you think she’s going to call you off until you glance her way and see her leaning to see over your shoulder, eyes wide and lips pursed. Hah! Even she can’t fault quality entertainment like this, and you know this is the best date both of you have had in years, not including that one time in France with the accidental diamond heist. You grin at her and she rolls her eyes, but her cheeks are tinted darker as she looks back to the action and so do you.

Eridan is up, but the cape has become the second tragic casualty of the punch war after the waiter’s nose, going by the way the kid’s clutching at it and cursing up a storm with words you don’t even recognise. The cape collar, however, has remained as a delightful reminder of what was, turning Eridan into a smart casual dracula who is clinging to Aradia like she’s the only stable thing nearby- which honestly, yeah, you can believe it. She pats his back gently, before picking him up bodily and tossing him into a chair outside of the punch disaster zone, ignoring his confused wheeze as she hops over the table with perfect balance and sweeps the second pair of glasses she cleaned recently up off the ground to wipe them on her dirtied skirt before dropping them onto the chest of the bemused but thankful waiter.

Feferi is still a little unsteady and Sollux appears to be figuring out how to help while also not touching her in anyway lest he dirty her pink-splattered body with the punch that covers his own, but Aradia sweeps her up instead, up onto her arm as she thrusts the serviettes she collected during her sumersault at Sollux and then hooks her second arm under Feferi’s legs.

With that she walks over to the waiter, who has barely sat up and clearly isn’t expecting the looming figure of Aradia with all her curls cascading down her back and a fish-out-of-water hugging her tightly with legs dangling over her arms and punch dripping down the both of them.

He stares up at them both, full of the stupid kind of awe that only shows its face during spectacular shit like this, and then carefully unbuttons his apron and draws out a little notepad, with a little printed label stuck to it, which he offers up with a few dazed blinks.

“Cash or check?”

You’re going to die laughing if you start so you shut yourself up by shoving a straw in your mouth and slurping down glorious, wonderful, life-saving fishbowl punch with the sort of gusto that might get an umbrella stuck between a distracted idiot’s teeth.

Your wife joins you, your eyes meet, and she finally lets her face crack into the sort of gorgeous smile that reminds you why you married her.

You’ll have to come here again, she tells you. She’s a big fan of the drinks.

Yeah, you agree. Yeah.

Turns out, so are you.