"Ugh, thank whatever God is out there, It's finally over!"

 You dropped your bag beside your moirail Eridan. He jumped back, startled from the flying bag, glaring back at you as it fell with a thump onto the ground beside him. It was heavy enough to knock him out with all the things you needed to bring back home (you were going to end up just trashing most of it) from school now that the year is over for good. 

 "Wwhat's your problem?" He pouted, pushing his bottom lip out and eliciting a laugh from you.

 "School," you dropped down beside Eridan and crossed your legs, arms pushing on the ground behind you to help sit yourself up and glancing over at your finned friend. "But that's all over now."

 The long grass was practically irresistible lying back in it was the only logical thing to do. It was damp, but comforting, brushing against your face with each gust of wind that passed. Eridan soon joined you, for once a smile on his face.

 He had just been through a complicated break up, and you were determined to make him happy again. He's been through a lot and it seems as if you're the only person who's there for him and has stayed to keep helping him through everything. 

 He does the same for you too, he's helped you through countless panic attacks: 

 "(Y/N)!"

 A familiar voice echoed through the dark and cold halls in the lower level of your family home. Everything was cold, winter leaving it's mark as always as goose bumps danced across your skin, but you couldn't feel the piercing cold right now. 

 You were inside of your closet, back pressed against the wooden walls as your breathing - so quick that it was barely there - bounced off of the walls in the tight and tiny space. You found yourself feeling claustrophobic, but every part of your body was tingling, the lack of air making you shake and twitch. Your eyes were so wide they were almost popping out of your head, panic seeping through your skin as you heard something slam, a loud thump and footsteps speeding up as someone ran towards you. 

 "(Y/N!)"

 The voice was louder now and suddenly the doors that had kept the space you were in dark and comforting were swung open, a distressed looking Eridan standing in front of you. Your eyes snapped to where he was, wondering how he knew and how he got here until you noticed your phone ditched on the floor by your bed. You'd texted him "help," before you'd climbed in here without even realising, and he'd come to your aid thank Gog. You didn't know how much longer you could go on breathing like this, first your fingers were tingling and now they're numb, the sensation moving up your arms as your chest heaves and your head aches, running out of air and coming in and out of conciseness.

 He seems to gather his thoughts suddenly, dropping down in front of you and arms reaching out to press against your forearms. "Please breathe," he begged, taking dramatic breaths to encourage you to follow him. Slowly but surely your breathing slowed back to a normal pattern, fingers no longer numb and the air ridding the tingling sensation that had spread to your legs by now, tickling at your ankles.

 "Thank you," you mumbled, still a little shaken up as Eridan helps you out of the closet, offering you a hand and pulling you out and up. When you couldn't stand, knees giving out underneath you he picked you up, mumbling unhappily to himself about having to 'carry you like you're some kind of royalty when he's the royal one,' but really, it was an act, he wanted to help you and he didn't care what he had to do to achieve that.  

 "Noww, tell me wwhy you're all shaken up."

 He helps you every time your stressed:

 "I'm quitting! I'm going to drop out of school and become a stripper!"

 You dropped your binder down on your bed, throwing your pen somewhere across the room with as much power as you possibly could to kill the frustration burning in your body. The pen narrowly missed Eridan's head. "Hey! Wwhat wwas that for!"

 "Sorry Eri," you sighed, massaging your temples as you felt a migraine starting in the back of your head. "I honestly can't do this anymore."

 Eridan sighed, dropping his own work down beside the chair he was sitting in and moving over to sit next to you. "Let me help."

 You raised an eyebrow, before this Eridan had always been so cold and dismissive, but now he had his right hand - bejewelled in golden rings - held out for your binder filled with blank sheets of paper that by now - if you could focus - should've at least had two pages worth of writing.

 Your failing study session was slowly getting to your head. Every question you Googled didn't have an answer, instead coming up with pages and pages of the wrong information. Misleading titles lead to articles that didn't make any sense and were completely unrelated - nothing was working out the way it should be. You wanted to scream and cry knowing the test was tomorrow and though you were hesitant, you passed the binder to Eridan and watched as his hand clutched around the gold pen he'd got from his father a few months earlier (you'd been there to watch him unwrap it) scribbling down a different question for you to ask, and when you typed it into the search bar and hit enter, you found just the answers you were looking for. "Thank you Eridan."

 "Wwhatever," he sighed, a smile etching across his lips as he slid back off of your bed and went back to his own studying, sinking into your arm chair. "By the wway, if you fail, I think you'd make a great stripper."

 "Eridan!"

 He's helped you through every breakup you've been through:

 As soon as the class ended, you rushed out into a part of the hall no one is ever in, right outside of the almost always unused bathrooms and letting your back hit against the wall, falling down now that your knees no longer had to struggle to hold you up. 

 You had just caught your boyfriend moments ago with his tongue down some other girl's throat, hands tangling in her hair as her hands pushed the hem of his shirt up so she could reach and run her fingers along the skin of his stomach. They weren't even trying to be discreet, standing in the corner of the bathroom, her pushed up and onto the counter as she moaned against his mouth. 

 His eyes met yours, pulling away from the girl who groaned and tried to keep her arms around his neck, sighing as he tugged her off. She wiped at her smudged lipstick as she looked over at you. "(Y/N)," he started, but before he could finish you flipped him off and ran off down the hall. 

 You knew it wasn't a good idea to camp out here, everyone was in the cafeteria eating lunch, and you'd already made it your business to tell the most gossipy girl in the entire school what had happened. Just like you hoped, the news spread like wildfire and now everyone knew your ex as the dirty, lying cheater that he is, he'd have no chance of getting another girl once the one he was cheating with finds a better man and leaves him. 

 The only con really to hiding out here was that you had left Eridan on his own. 

 Clouded by emotion, you didn't realise he'd skip eating to come and find you. He cursed under his breath when he didn't see you in the cafeteria and came storming down every hall, searching every bathroom which luckily were all empty so he didn't get caught angrily searching the girls bathrooms for you, until he finally saw you fall to the ground in a huff. Your head was buried in your arms, face pressed against your knees - which you had drawn closer to you - folding your arms over them. 

 "Hey," Eridan cleared his throat and he felt his heart drop out of his chest when you lifted your head, eyes filled with tears pooling on the rim of your lower eyelid and tipping over, spilling slowly down your cheeks, salty liquid meeting your lips after sliding down the lines created by the agony and melancholy that had brought a frown to your face. "Hey wwhat happened?"

 "He h-he," you hiccupped, Eridan nodded. It's not like he hadn't heart the rumours, everyone had. He sighed and dropped down beside you. 

 As soon as he did you let go, arms no longer holding your knees to your body and instead resting your head on his shoulder that he had offered to you, extending his arm to wrap around your shoulders, pulling his head closer as you hiccupped and tried to let out all of the ugly emotions on the inside. He found himself trying to shoosh pap you, knowing full well it wouldn't work but still smiling when you started laughing at the action, slowly forgetting why you were even crying and thus, no longer crying anymore. 

 He's helped you and been with you through everything. And you've done your best to do exactly the same, which is why you're always the one inviting him over to your house, knowing full well that his brother and father have never uttered the words 'I love you,' or anything close to it, leaving him feeling empty and avoiding his family at any cost just to stay with you and watch movies or help you through something to distract himself. 

 And also why you decided to buy him a gift to remind him of you when you can't be there to support him and he's stuck there at home. 

  "Oh! I almost forgot." You sat up, uncrossing your legs and reaching into your bag. You pulled a box tied with a purple ribbon out of one of the pockets. You handed it to Eridan as he sat up, watching the confusion and curiosity fill his eyes. You passed the carefully wrapped gift to him and watched as his hands gripped it, confusion taking over curiosity but smirk never falling from his face.

 He looped the ribbon around his fingers, admiring how soft the fabric was before tugging it and unfurling the neat bow. He opened it, eyes wide and staring down at the present in front of him. It was a blue scarf, one striped in two different tones and it looked softer than a cloud. His eyes widened as his fingers grabbed at the material. "Wwow, you really didn't havve to."

 "Ah, nonsense," You laughed as he instantly wrapped it around his throat. He already had a scarf on, a dull, deep, dark black colour like the night sky when clouds angrily cover stars, but he seemed to like the one you had bought him more. "I wanted to, plus you seem to really have a thing for scarves." Eridan looked down at the grass in front of him.

 "I don't like my gills is all," he was lying through his teeth and you could tell. "They're wweird." You knew the real reason, but you tried to nod and let it slide anyway. "I feel bad, I didn't get you anythin." Eridan turned back to you, dodging the subject efficiently.

 "You don't need to. You deserve that scarf for dealing with this year from hell. We're finally done with high school!" You laughed and stared up at the beautiful sunset.

 "At least its ovver."

"Now you're really thinking," you lifted your bag from the ground lazily zipping the opened pocket before jumping up and glancing playfully at Eridan who as quickly as he could, shoved the box and the ribbon along with his old scarf into the pocket in his bag, zipping it as you dashed down the hill, challenging him silently to a race as your bag bounced on your back, feet pattering against the dirt.  

 "Wwait up!"

 "C'mon slowpoke!" You huffed back, watching as your moirail began to speed down the hill attempting to chase after you but lagging quite a few paces behind.

 "Sloww dowwn," Eridan took shallow breaths, huffing as he caught up for you. "You're cheating."

 "Never." You sped up.

 "Howw dare you, you evvil landwweller."

 "You're just jealous because you don't have legs like these," you pointed down to your legs, flipping your hair as Eridan snickered. 

 It took a while to escape the field that surrounded the school grounds but before you knew it, the road came into view and you slowed, resting against a fence as Eridan slowly walked his way towards you. You smirked, knowing that you had beaten him and he huffed in response, knowing that you'd never let him live it down. 

 The night was setting in and there didn't seem as if you'd have much time before it gets dark. Continuing on your walk, you spin around to Eridan but before you could speak, he does. 

 "So, noww wwe aren't runnin a marathon, do you wwanna come back to my hive?"

 You gave Eridan a look of disbelief. You knew he hated his house and his family, this was a huge surprise, you gawked, especially since it sounded like he was hitting on you and trying to bring you home with him. 

 "In a morail wway," Eridan made a face of disgust, though it faded at the sound of your laughter. "I knoww someone wwho wwants to meet you."

 "Oh?" Your curiosity spiked.

 You stopped walking and turned back to look at Eridan who was still slightly lagging behind you. Once he caught up, you both began to walk together again. "Well it's nice to see you've finally decided to join me Eridan," he mumbled a shut up back to you to which you laughed and sighed. "Who?" You nudged him in the side, hoping to coax an answer out of him but unfortunately to no avail.

 "You'll havve to wwait and see."

 "Damn you Ampora."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Dualscar clutched a mug in his left hand and a newspaper in his left, eyes barely trailing over the words, not giving a damn about the contents of the article he was disinterested in and yet for some reason unbeknownst to any of the other Ampora's and you, he continued to read it. As the screen front door slammed behind the two of you, you dropped your bag on the floor by the door and the grumpy old dad lifted his eyes from his newspaper. 

 He looked at Eridan, flashing him what you could only assume was a smile but barely lifted his lips. He seemed incredibly tired, taking another long sip of his coffee. It was five at night. "Uh, isn't it a bit late for coffee Dadscar?"

 "It's nevver too late for coffee livin with these two," Dualscar groaned, ignoring the nickname you've decided on giving him and taking more long sips from his mug.  "Havve you met Cronus?" When you shook your head, Dadscar continued. "Seriously, Eridan wwent this long wwithout tellin you about Cronus?" You nodded again. 

 Eridan had always mentioned a brother, but never uttered his name. He'd only ever say things like: "I wwent to the beach wwith my brother and dad or wwhatever you humans call them again." 

 "He didn't evven complain?"

 "Nope," you laughed, "Well, sometimes, but barely ever really."

 "It's a miracle."

 You kicked Eridan slightly, he was lying half across the sofa beside you, pointy nose down in a Harry Potter book (you have no idea why he likes them considering he spends hours arguing with you over why it is wrong in so many ways and the difference between white science and magic, but who are you to judge. They are pretty good books after all). He glared at you over the top of his glasses. "Wwhat?"

 "Who's Cronus?"

 "My annoyin brother," Eridan looked back at the book, now ignoring you and falling back into his long whisper rant to himself about how 'spells like that can't exist.' You let out a huff and decided to explore the house, walking around with hands thrown into the pockets of your hoodie. 

 You found yourself gawking. The front room looked perfectly normal, like an everyday house but the further into it you walked, the fancier it got. You found yourself slipping off your shoes as your feet met dark purple carpet that felt like silk. Glancing at the door at the end of the hallway and deciding to open it, you peeked into the hall and took in it's features, it was beautiful. Inside the hall grew thicker, roof higher and you couldn't help but stare at the crystal chandelier hanging from the roof. 

 "Holy hell," you gasped, "why would Eridan ever leave here? Yet alone to come to my house, this is... Wow."

 Each door lead to a perfectly normal room to your surprise, there were no rooms filled with rings or things like you expected but instead much fancier normal rooms. The bathroom had a spa bath big enough to fit five or maybe even six people in there at once, violet towels draped over the sides that you couldn't help but reach out and touch, gasping at the soft feel against your skin. If a towel could feel like a cloud, this is what it would feel like. 

 There were lavender scented candles sitting around the bath, decorative rocks, soaps of thousands of different scents, bath bombs, shampoos and conditioners, everything you find in normal bathrooms, but fancier. The whole room smelt of lavender, even the shower that was again big enough to fit five or six people in it at once. 

 Eridan's bedroom was no exception to the fancy rule. You didn't want to intrude, so you only popped your head in for a moment. His bed had silky sheets as well, many, many pillows fluffy like clouds, a chandelier, some foreign brand of computer with face recognition as a lock, an entire golden jewellery box filled with rings, a what you assumed was fake but really could be real crown sitting on his desk, a bookshelf made of dark wood filled with books written in Alternian and a few in English hidden at the back, a wardrobe filled with capes and to your surprise, a few cardboard boxes filled with photos of the two of you and other things from your high school years. 

 Finally your curiosity was quenched and you stepped out of his room and decided against searching through any others, dropping down to sit on the seat in front of a large fancy window instead. The seat had so many pillows on it you found yourself laughing as you sank into the sea of comfort.  You trailed your fingers along the window frame you were leaning on, sighing and blowing away the tiny amount of dust that had formed on your finger. It was pretty nice outside, but you could tell it was going to rain soon just by looking out there. Speaking of things outside...

 Someone was standing outside, a cigarette sitting idly hanging between their lips and teeth. You could see fins and horns similar to Eridan, but when the figure turned around and faced towards the house, you noticed his white eyes. They were almost soul sucking, but strangely attractive. You assumed this was the Cronus Ampora you had heard of. Interesting. Cronus' hands moved to the pockets of the leather jacket he was wearing as he lent against one of the walls. He looked down at the ground and sighed, taking a long breath and blowing out the smoke from his cigarette when he pulled it from between tightly clenched teeth. 

 It wasn't long until he noticed you looking at him. He winked at you through the window, before crushing the cigarette underneath his foot and beginning to walk towards the house. You avoided eye contact as Cronus opened the door to the fancier part of the house and strode into the room still smelling of smoke. Usually you'd find that smell a huge turn off and you'd encourage him to drop the bad habit, but you found yourself inhaling the scent and finding it nothing short of perfect.  Your cheeks were redder than cherries.

 Suddenly out of nowhere while you were trying to act stoic and cool, moving away from the wall and sitting up straight, dismally staring out the window, two hands landed on your shoulders making your entire back stiffen, especially when said hands moved and Cronus' lips nearly met the soft cartilage of your ear as he whispered into it, the smell of smoke still wafting towards your nose. 

 "Vwhats up kitten."