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All work and no play makes for a very dull boy.
Though those weren't the words he would use to say it, that is what Electric Eel wholeheartedly believed. It did not matter if one was a boy, girl, in-between, or neither—to spend all of one's energy working would leave you a husk of a being.
Abyss Monarch Cookie didn't necessarily work, but they did spend most of their time holing up in that broken pot that had unceremoniously fell atop the city one day. Even when they did emerge, they were insistent on fading into the shadows, on making themselves "as minimally invasive as possible."
Sometimes, Electric Eel couldn't help but wonder why they spoke so formally. It was none of his business, and he knew it, but so long as he didn't speak to it, the rule regarding not asking about one's past was upheld.
There he went again with those drifting thoughts of his. The matter of Abyss Monarch's formality could be handled later. First and foremost was getting them outside.
Electric Eel knocks on the plywood blocking the broken pot's entrance.
"Hello? Abyss Monarch Cookie, are you in there?"
Some sort of shifting sound comes from inside the pot.
"You should leave."
Something in their voice sounds different from usual. Electric Eel isn't quite sure what the difference is, exactly, but it almost sounds as if it's been subjected to some sort of filter. Reverbed, perhaps.
"Really?" he pries, intentionally raising his voice to be just the slightest bit more annoying. "Why should I?"
"It is not safe here. Go."
Well, that was harsh. Definitely harsher than usual. Sure, they were known to let him down, but they usually did so far more gently.
"I'm pretty tough, you know?"
"Please," they beg, in a tone he's not heard them use, even without the filter. "Go."
"Do you want me to go?"
Abyss Monarch thinks he’s annoying. They think he ought to die, and they ought to be the cause, but that thought only lasts a split second before the hooks of regret begin to pierce them, causing them to further sprawl out into the walls of the pot.
Convincing yourself that you are not your intrusive thoughts was far easier said than done.
"Yes," they respond after a moment.
They watch themselves bleed into the sand, thick like paint and equally as staining. Eyes bloom from the ichor and pulse like beating hearts, pupils darting as each new eye erupts from the ground and finds another to stare at.
How ironic it was that the darkness they had inherited only seemed to set their eyes aglow.
They begin to count the eyes, the way they used to count jellyfish to fall asleep, when their ears catch the sound of the plywood outside their home being moved.
"Eel," they somehow say, even without a mouth or a throat to do the talking, "do not—"
Like moths to a flame, their pupils all turn to him.
Cool white-yellow light bathes Electric Eel's face as he steps into their very heart, skin stewing and bubbling beneath his feet as he makes his way inside. They can't tell if they're freezing cold, boiling hot, or perhaps both at once, because Electric Eel keeps his composure as he makes his way to the pot's center.
"Huh."
Their many eyes stare him down, blinking one by one, out of sync. Were he not aglow, he would probably have become one with them by now, dissolving into the very tar that makes up the pot at this moment. Consumed before he could even speak.
Yet he knows better. He keeps himself glowing, even gradually intensifying the light. Their eyes begin to crowd around him, swimming like ducklings following their mother.
"Whoa. Hey there," Electric Eel mutters. He reaches out to pet one, only to stop mid-gesture. They were eyeballs, after all.
"This happen a lot?"
"Sometimes," the walls answer. "When my thoughts get particularly frightening, I… I sometimes lose my body, so to speak. My instincts would leave me to consume anything that crosses my path."
"Seem pretty okay just looking at me, though."
"You know my weakness. If you switch yourself off, you will die."
"Figured as such."
"If you do that, I would never forgive myself."
"Well, don't worry about that. I can stay like this for as long as you need. Can I sit?"
Abyss isn't sure how to answer.
"If you feel so inclined."
And Electric Eel does sit. They can't tell just what part of their body he'd be sitting on, but it has become so massive that he feels no heavier than a bouquet of coral.
"Breathe with me?" Electric Eel asks.
"I don't have a mouth, you know."
"But you're speaking. There's gotta be something in there. Can you pretend to breathe with me?"
"I guess…"
One by one, they will their hundred lurid eyes to close. And in their mind's eye, they imagine their body in its humanoid form, stomach expanding with the sound of Electric Eel's inhales.
The process repeats for a few minutes, or perhaps a few hours. Time becomes indefinite in this form, and Electric Eel isn't the type to wear a watch.
Electric Eel opens an eye as a drop of black falls into his hair.
"That's it."
Some specks of their body continue to rain down on him. Other parts of them begin to peel, warbling like laminated paper, heavy and thick. They bubble and ooze as the walls reveal themselves.
Electric Eel’s thumb grazes the smooth side of a tentacle.
Unable to consume him, but caught in his splendor, the other tentacles emerge from the darkness, coming to inspect him with their suckers.
It's the dance of a predator inspecting its kill just before a bite.
And yet Electric Eel welcomes the poking and prodding, even chuckling as they snake his way around him.
Pleased by the light and the pets Electric Eel is giving them, Abyss Monarch feels the remainder of their body pool against the ground, eyes fizzing away and skin emerging from the puddle, taking the shape of the long, lanky body they know as their own.
They open their eyes, the ones that actually belong, to give him a glance.
Electric Eel smiles.
"You're back."
"That I am…" they mutter, almost wanting to laugh. "The 'peeling' phase usually takes longer."
"I'm glad I could help!"
"You somehow always seem to know how to calm me down…"
"Well, it's my job to keep the lights on around here. And you just so happen to be the number one cause of power outages.”
"…Thank you," they reply, unsure of what else to say, a faint smile tugging at the corners of their lips.
Electric Eel leans his head against them. It's a foreign gesture, and they find themselves the slightest bit shaken by it as he initiates it, but he insists upon the spot with a nuzzle.
Abyss Monarch relents.
Something in the back of their mind knows that, for him, they always will.