A dark clad figure crouches in the darkness. The place had grown accustomed to its presence, made it as if the trash cans, the dark walls, the filth and the figure were all part of the same alley. The figure shifts and huddles deeper in the shadows when someone passes. Face hidden so deep in a black hood not even the pale glint of eyes is visible. Another person passes, his grey skin a little paler than those who had preceded him, two horns rather than one and swaying on his feet, the last not entirely unexpected in this part of the city. He looks like the posterboy for everything the higher ups think of the Lower Ring. High on some illegal substance, vomit on his shirt, and a smell that suggest that it is has been there for quite some time, in dire need of a decent haircut and wasting his life away in shady bars. He stumbles past and takes a sharp left, nearly hitting his head on a wall. The figure moves, follows his shadow, becomes his shadow. He goes up some stairs on all fours, falling down every other step and leaving a faint yellow trail. The figure follows without disturbing the blood trail once he's all the way up. He's still fumbling with his door when the figure catches up again, it waits unmoving as he tries to punch in the correct code. When he finally does the figure lunges forward, grabs him by his neck and practically throws the two of them inside.

Sollux lies on his stomach wondering where today went wrong. It had started just like any other day, he'd woken up at noon with the urge to vomit and a horrible headache. The pain had passed by four am and he'd eaten. He'd checked his mail to only to see that he didn't have any new job requests. Not that he needed it right away, his last job had paid quite well. He'd checked his bank account to see that he had gotten the last deposit for the job he finished two days ago and had gone to spend that in one of the bars on the Lower Ring. He couldn't find a single thing different with any other day and yet here he was, face pressed against the floor, a hand on his neck assuring his face stayed there and a knee below his shoulder blades to keep the rest of his body down. He feels the weight on his back shift as the figure leans forward.

"well now mister captor, is it safe to assume that you will cooperate with me?"

The voice is a mere whisper next to his ear, he guesses it's a girl. The urge to laugh wells up, why would he cooperate, he hadn't even fought back yet. He plants his hands firmly on the ground and rolls to the left, taking the girl with him. She hits the wall with a hard thud but doesn't let go of his neck. Her other hand grabs a hold of his throat and he's forced on his back. The his neck feels sore already. His glasses got knocked off when she threw him inside and he feels them bite in the back of his head, he cringes slightly when he hears the distinct crunch of breaking glass. A knife being held close to his left eye makes him push his head further in the broken glass involuntarily. He looks up and sees her stare at him with a smug smile on her lips. She glares down on him and all Sollux can do is stare back. Her hood had come down during their struggle and he was looking at sickeningly pale skin. He was being held down by a human.

"Well at least you have stopped fighting. I will make this short for both our benefits. You use some drug that messes with your system, it severely pales the colour of your hands, nose, ears and other extremities and pales your skin overall after long usage. I'm guessing it's illegal by how hard you try to hide it, which means that you can't exactly run to the officials. It does mean however that you posses gray body paint, something that I could really use at this point."

Sollux continues to stare. There's a human in his apartment and she's asking for body paint? Where, oh where, did today go wrong? The knife glides over his skin, coming closer to his eye, he can feel the warm blood trickle over his cheek. He tries to hunch back even further, the back of his head protests heavily as more glass bites in his skin. He nods and immediately feels the pressure on his throat lift a bit. Before he can make use of his regained freedom however, she ties his hands together. She looks around quickly and pulls him up. He follows and watches her tie the other end of the rope, is that a scarf?, to his heating. The scarf gives enough for him to sit down on his couch.

"Where is it?" She asks, her voice is still a mere whisper as if she's afraid his neighbours might hear.
"Bathroom, top shelve." Sollux says, his current condition in combination with a lisp making the last word nearly unintelligible.

He pulls at the knot while she's away, but gives up when he notices that he's only making it tighter. He leans forward and rests his head on his knees, the want for the sweet oblivion of sleep becoming almost overwhelming. He notices too late that she has returned, something hard makes contact with the back of his head, and for a moment all he knows is pain. His body slumps sideways, his head hitting the heating with a loud clang.

-

Sollux wakes up from a restless sleep covered in sweat, that's what he gets for not sleeping in his cocoon. He stands up and nearly falls over, he's got a terrible headache and a dull throbbing all over his body. What the hell did he do last night? He limps to the bathroom. The mirror shows his body in all its battered glory, did he get beaten up last night? A familiar taste makes itself known in the back of his mouth, he really should stay away from that stuff. He sighs when he gently feels the back of his head, he's gonna need help with that. A loud beep drags him back to reality, he grabs his laptop and sits back on the couch. Every part of his body seems to ache.

AA: S0llux y0u said y0u w0uld fix my keyb0ard t0day
TA: ii know
TA: ah 2hiit, that ba2terd me22ed wiith my keyboard two
TA: ju2t briing iit over
AA: 0k
TA: and briing bandage2, ii'm gonna need 2ome help
AA: anything seri0us
TA: ii thiink ii got beaten up ye2terday, ii don't really remember
TA: my head iis pretty banged up
AA: give me half an h0ur

He works on some codes while he waits. Well, he stares at his screen, not really thinking at all. He loses focus, everything becomes blurs. A moving blur enters his vision. Dark, disheveled hair, horns that curl back resting upon it and torn up clothes. The figure comes closer. A pretty face, eyes with a faint red glint to them, red lips in a disapproving frown.

"Sollux, what did you take?" She asks, as she inspects the cut on his face.
"Aradia?" He manages to slur out.
"You smell sweet," her angry expression becomes one of worry, "oh dear god, did you take mind honey?"
"I don't know, could be."
"You shouldn't take that stuff, I hear it's especially bad for psionics."

They fall back into silence as Aradia picks the glass out of the back of his head. He winces every time he hears a new shard fall on the plate she had put down next to him. The shards are covered in his blood, giving a disgusting yellow hue to the otherwise red and blue glass. It seems to take forever before she declares that she got them all. Her gentle fingers leave the back of his head and go to the large bruise on his face.
"I'll get something for you to hold against that, all I can really do is try to prevent it from swelling up too much."
She returns with a damp cloth and a little note. Pressing the first against his face.
"What did you do Sollux?" She asks, giving him the note
It's a small business card, a pink purrbeast-like creature and a purple squiddle on one side and a single line written on the other side.
Thank you for your cooperation, I look forward to doing business with you again -TT
"I have no idea and something tells me I'm better off not knowing. Give me your laptop, I'll fix it now."

-

Aradia left a long time ago, unlike him she actually had a legal job, as legal as jobs got in the Lower Ring anyway. Sollux is flipping the little card between his fingers, memorizing the two icons displayed upon it. He moves his laptop to his lap, quickly hooking it up to a separate keyboard. His fingers caress the the flat plate, a small white line on the otherwise black surface follows in his wake. It had cost him a lot to get his hands on a deck like this, though if he's honest his pride had been the biggest price, but watching the white lines light up on the smooth surface made it all worth it. He places the deck over the his laptop and quickly enters his password. The screen springs alive, buzzing slightly. The right half of his screen gives off a faint blue hue, the left a red one. The light becomes intenser, absorbs him until Sollux Captor is no more.

He's flying. Who is he? What is flying? He's falling. What is falling?

And he's Sollux Captor once again, but so much more. He checks his body, making sure all the modification he'd made were still clean. What is a body in this place? What is a body when you're part of something so much bigger?
He forces his thoughts back to him, forces him to remember Sollux, to be Sollux, to not lose himself in the matrix. Maybe he should've waited until he'd healed before he looked for the origin of that card, or at least until his head wound had healed. He brings the image up, the pink purrbeast and the purple squiddle. The matrix forms itself around him, the images he sees are unclear. The world around him starts to resemble a net, black holes were some half assed safety measure tries to prevent him from calling up the data. He calls up the colour of the text and the initials on the other side of the card. Darkness falls over him, he drops everything but nothing happens, the darkness continues to be absolute. He really should've waited until his head wound had healed, what kind of rookie mistakes was he making? He's just about to run one of the hacks he'd installed when the darkness shifts.
Hello Sollux, how nic of you to join us.
*nice
lol, wat a graet first impression amirite?
He runs the hack. A wave of nausea hits him as his consciousness is roughly thrown back into his body. He pushes the laptop of his knees and barely makes it to his toilet before he throws up. One arm and half his upper body hanging over his toilet he dry heaves for a while. His knees have become numb when he finally moves again. He drags himself to his cocoon and crawls in. He's asleep the moment he closes his eyes.

oops completely forgot to upload this here
let me know if you spot ooc-ness or other errors and I'll try to fix them