2.

So what had ended up happening was, while Eridan was gazing longingly up at the sky, Nepeta had manhandled the elder Ampora in his sleep and left her calling card tucked into his shirt. Quite literally. Eridan hauled his snoozing boyfriend back to their dwellings, floating gently in the marina^[1] besides the bustling metropolis Cronus fell in love with. Poking out of the collar of his shirt, tucked under Cro's chin, was a scrap of paper.

She'd scrawled her number and the coordinates for her hive's transportalizer, which was kind of a redundant gesture since everyone already knew where they all lived anyway, but it did come across as more genuine than he'd initially thought. Weird. So fucking weird. He stared at it for a long while, drowning in that pernicious optimism, while Cronus slept half-submerged in the sopor besides him.

So what ended up happening after that was that he did take her up on the offer, and they'd met up in a cafe that was, naturally, crawling in cats, and it turned out that Nepeta was kind of cool and funny and nice? And she knew everyone and got along with every individual person she spoke with and was basically awesome in every way. And nobody had ever bothered to tell him? Typical.

"Why the hell are you being so nice to me?" he asked, squinting suspiciously at her. The cat in his lap was a black mackeral tabby with these big pale gold eyes, and Eridan wasn't allowed to leave until she determined she'd had enough ear scratches.

Across the table from him, Nepeta was totally in her element, swathed in two or three layers of loose clothes, foot propped up on her seat and arm balanced on her knee. She took a sip of her own tea, gazing coolly at him over the rim of the shades she wore, unfazed by his suspicions. Her eyes were a dark olive, maybe a sweep out from flushing out the last of the dark grey pigment of her wigglerhood. Eridan gave her the privilege of being the only person wearing sunglasses indoors he didn't immediately think was a massive tool.

"I'm always nice," she claimed, snickering over the rim of her tea cup. "We just nefur efur hung out so you missed out on allll the prime Nepeta time."

"Hmm, I 'nefur' remembered you scramblin' to come kick it with me either," he pointed out. "Especially after I rescued you from deadly asteroids and everything. No big deal. You're welcome, by the way."

"Ohhh, my goodness," Nepeta set her cup down. "You can't be bringing up stuff that happened a bajillion years ago! I've had, like, five distinct lifetimes since that dumb game."

Eridan pouted, but ultimately let his old wound sit in its soreness. "Fine. Question still stands, though. Why are we suddenly deciding that now is the moment for prime Nepeta & Eridan time?"

She shrugged. "Hero of heart stuff, I guess. It just feels like we probably would have gotten along? And, you know. New beginnings!"

New beginnings. They'd all been roaming around this new planet for half a dozen extra sweeps, give or take, and he still felt like he was on the outside looking in. Eridan watched her for a moment before turning his attention down to the cat purring away on his lap. Her collar said her name was Jelly Belly, and she was four years old. He was still a little unused to the way the orbit was measured here. The seaons were different, the moon was singular, the sun wasn't an oppressive force of deadly UV radiation to the terrestrial trolls, though it still bothered his own eyes and he couldn't stand being out during the daylight for too long. Compared to spending a "bajillion years" in stagnant, recycled memories, tamping down old grievances that were too far away to care about anymore, an extra fourteen years to adjust to being alive again should have felt like nothing.

But then, one night, he stood besides Cronus in the mirror and realised that for the first time in epochs they were the same height, and the gut-wrenching sensation of inevitable change hit him like a pile of damn bricks.

"Sure, girl," he said, clinging to his skepticism. "New beginnings."

Nepeta lifted her teacup to her lips again. "I'm actually nyan-binary, I mean non-binary, by the way."

Eridan paused, leaving Jelly Belly's ears un-rubbed for a second. She continued purring, unbothered. "Oh," he said. Then, "What. Wait. What? Why?"

Nepeta snickered and held a gloved hand up to her... their? mouth. "I love how you sound when you say all those 'W' words, hee hee! Do you want me to answer those in that order?"

"No, sorry, I mean. I don't, care, actually," he staggered out, successfully parrying the humiliating truth of being caught off-guard.

"Okay," Nepeta grinned, seeing straight through him. "She/they, if you were wondering."

"I wasn't wondering."

"Okaaaaaay," they rolled their eyes. "Anyway, you know what you should do? You should come to the beach!"

Brushing off the shell shock, Eridan resumed rubbing at the cat's ears, setting her motor off anew. "I've been to the beach before, Nep."

"Yuh, doy," Nepeta dropped their foot from the chair, leaning both elbows onto the table. "But I mean a specific, purrticular beach! Meulin signed up for a big clean-up next weekend and I'm going to go help! Aaaand you," they pointed a finger directly at the bridge of Eridan's glasses, "should come, too!"

He focused in on the point of her finger before raising an eyebrow at her. "In exactly what fuckin' universe do I look like the kind of guy to go picking up trash?"

"I, saw, you, put a cigarette in your pocket."

Eridan sucked his teeth. Touché.

"And, um," Nepeta continued, lowering the offending finger. "Not to be like, mean, but. Well, maybe it's a little mean, but—"

"Cro wouldn't even want to come to something like that," he cut her off with a raised hand. Nepeta did nothing to hide her relieved exhale. Eridan couldn't blame her. "I'll think about it."

Nepeta's eyes lit up in that damning, pernicious way, and it was all he could do to drop his head and focus in on Jelly Belly, who had arched her head back in demand of chin rubs.

So, what had ended up happening was that Eridan did go to the fucking clean up, even though it was in the middle of the day and the overcast skies did little to stop the glare of the sun from stinging his eyes before his lenses had properly darkened themselves. He wasn't so stubborn as to turn down an invitation given with such eager excitement, and perhaps it made him feel nice to be on the reciving end of enthusiastic attention from someone else. Not that he was getting his hopes up, mind you. He didn't have a shred of hope left in him to lead him astray any longer, mind you. But he was in the midst of seeing dear Nepeta in a new light, and this did seem like an opportunity to see what that was all about. Not that he expected to get anything out of it. Mind you.

The event was on a rather nice stretch of beach, nowhere near his city but besides somewhere a bit more suburban. He scouted out maybe twenty or thirty people, mostly strangers, all in casual sunny-season clothes. It was an odd mix of mostly humans with a few scattered trolls, and Eridan could feel his urge to be xenophobic rising. Like those dirtwalkers actually knew how much of their trash even made it to shore after they'd dumped it into the waterways. He'd once found an entire discard bag of White Claw cans sunk to the bottom of their marina, and had pulled a bitch fit so massive that he was fairly sure the offending family moved out. Good riddance. Fucking piss drinkers.

Anyway. He spotted Nepeta and their clone further down the shore, standing besides some flavour of blueblood that always seemed to be where a Leijon was. The trolls in general seemed a bit concentrated in that general area. Eridan was reminded that not everyone was like Cronus, cozying up to humans. Nepeta was without their trenchcoat but still wearing a pair of cargos like it wasn't seatroll-melting weather outside.

He also spotted another familiar form basking in the sun amongst the crowd. At first he wasn't certain which Nitram it was, because in the sweeps since their group reincarnation he'd done a pretty good job of keeping himself nice and isolated. But the elder Nitram had wings and this one didn't, so he assumed it was Tavros, and that he had done a lot of growing since they were kids.

"Fucking hell," he said, coming up on the group from Tavros' back. "You're a damn barge, man. The fuck happened to you?"

He'd finally grown into his rack, wide at the shoulders to carry the weight on his head, and apparently the rest of him needed to bulk up to compensate as well. Tavros, surprised, turned to see who had joined them, and his eyes were already a deep bronze all the way in to the pupil. Eridan's were just barely stained purple in splotches by comparison, and it made him feel woefully immature compared to many of his same-aged peers.

"Oh," Tavros said, displaying the sort of wavery reticence he'd had since he'd learned to speak. After a second of staring down at Eridan, who was a proper half a head shorter than he was, he figured he should keep talking. "Hi, Eridan. You look. Normal." Grand.

"Heya! Gang's all here!" Nepeta hooted, shooting a fist into the air. Besides her, Meulin mimicked and let out a giggle and a toss of her hair back over her shoulder. A quarter turn behind her, the elder Zahhak grinned and followed suit, raising his fist in the air. Tavros gingerly raised his own, visibly confused. Eridan did not move. Nepeta reached out and patted Eridan on the shoulder, an act that triggered his bite reflex. "Eridan! You remember Tavvy."

"Unfortunately," he sighed, wriggling out of their grip and pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose.

"Wow, hah," Tavros rubbed his arm, expertly making himself appear small. "That was, really, kinda mean for no reason at all."

"Aaaand, this," Nepeta swung their arm out and blindly grabbed at Meulin's, pulling her into a side hug. The elder woman was made mostly of hair charms, and her arms were heavy with beaded bracelets and bangles almost up to the elbow. Eridan could picture one of them falling out and joining the refuse on the beach easily. "This is the most beautiful girl I've efur met in my entire life, and afterlife, Meulin Leijon."

Eyes trained on Nepeta's face as they spoke, Meulin had the same sly and playful expression Nepeta usually wore, stretched out into a wide, toothy grin. "Hi, little Ampurra!" she squeaked, giving Eridan a little wave. She spoke as much with her voice as she did with her hands, though Eridan had quite a bit of issue deciphering either. "You are such a cutie pawtootie! Sooo much more purrecious than your other half. No offense!"

None taken. "Offense taken," he said.

Meulin squeezed Nepeta in closer, pointing between their two faces. "Not like the two of us," she emphasised, pressing their cheeks together. "World's cutest pair. Do you see the resemblance?"

"We definitely see it," Tavros answered. The question wasn't exactly directed towards him, but Eridan couldn't be bothered to care.

Behind Meu's back, Nepeta grabbed at their final guest. "And this is Horuss!" she announced. Horuss sidled up besides Meulin, offering Eridan a wide grin. Somehow, with an energy completely antithetical to Equius', he still managed to set off major creep vibes. He dabbed some sweat from his brow above his own shaded eyewear, apparently not much better at handling the sunlight than Eridan was. Or maybe it was genetic.

"This is Horuss, my boo," Meulin clarified.

Horuss tilted his head so it rested on Meulin's. The three of them painted an odd picture. He was wearing a rash guard that covered him neck to wrists to ankles and somehow still left absolutely nothing to the imagination, a stoic sillhouette in comparison to his moirail's jingly decorations. "Pleased to meet yo—"

"Right," Eridan clapped his hands together before he was forced to balance the purrbeast pun pair with the musclebeast pun man. "I'd love to keep this party going, honest, but I'm actually real interested in touching as much salty trash as I can at the moment."

"I also, uhh," Tavros interjected, "I would rather not go through the introduction dance, for the second time. If that's cool with you."

"Boo, hiss," Nepeta jeered them both. "We worked really hard on our dance!" But the weary, impatient look on Eridan's face was maybe enough to sway her from continuing on with the charade. "Fine, I can see how pawsitively enthralled you are to help keep the beaches beautiful."

"Areeee we not doing the dance?" Meulin inquired. Nepeta unwound them from one another, and the posse got to collecting their various beach-combing equipment.

Eridan had brought his own field gloves, familiar as he was with sticking his mitts where the sunlight didn't reach.^[2] As he placed his rings into his windbreaker pockets and pulled the dyed leather gloves over his hands, Tavros remarked from over his shoulder, letting out a low whistle.

"Wow, those are pretty."

"I know," Eridan replied without missing a beat. Still a bit incensed over what he thought would be some quality Nepeta & Eridan time morphing into a whole group thing, he adjusted the fabric around his wrists, turning back towards Nepeta. "Nep, how long is this lasting?"

They were holding hands with Meulin, the latter sign-whispering something with her unocuppied hand. Eridan instantly recalled that she had been deaf, and had probably come back deaf for whatever reason. Nepeta turned their face to Eridan, and Meulin followed suit, and their twin looks were completely untrustworthy. Something was up.

"Oh, like, mm," they made a big show, tapping their bottom lip with a sharpened claw. "Like, two hours? Probably only like two hours."

"The mane part of our outing is an hour and a hoof," Horuss piped up, utilizing one pun that was nearly audibly indistinguishable from its original word and one that was almost incomprehensibly slant. He held a big black trash bag in each gloved hand. "Once everyone is stable, we can rein the groups back together and turn in our haul." Delivered with a million-watt smile, of course.

"Purrrrfect," Nepeta trilled. She turned towards her clone, look of infinite regret on both of their faces as they held hands. "We'll go north, you two go meow-th?"

"I'll miss you so furreaking much, bestie," Meulin sniffled.

"Girl, you know I'm just one pounce away," Nepeta reassured her.

"I knowwww, I'm just kitten ya!"

"This is givin' me the creeps," Eridan turned his back from the hideous display of mutual affection before he could heave and started walking. "Tavros. Bag."

Tavros Nitram, who was struggling to put on the blue nitrile gloves the organisers handed out to volunteers, looked up in surprise. "Uhh," he said, before registering the instructions, snagging a bag from Horuss and hurrying along on the sand. Nepeta and Meulin shared one last faux-tearful farewell before Nepeta skipped off, taking up the rear of their little trio.

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