Image credit goes to Ikimaru on tumblr. You should look her up she's amazing. I'm gonna put a death tw up here, and also say I don't own homestuck. Duh.
Sollux was seven when his dad took him to the festival.
Every year their town held a festival for the beginning of summer, complete with a parade, a few games, like ring toss, for prizes, food vendors, and various booths advertising things. This year Sollux's dad had finally let him tag along with him and Mituna, Sollux's brother. Mituna was ten, so their dad let him run off as Sollux dragged him to the booths. His 'cute' lisp, wonky teeth, and huge eyes inevitably got them saddled with free trinkets: Pencils with the company's logo on the side, tickets to free karate classes, and candy from the bowls that were always perched on the plastic fold out tables. Sollux giggled at how silly his dad looked, balancing everything, but his attention was stolen a few moments later as his mustard-yellow eyes were drawn to a booth wrapped in burgundy cloth.
A lady sat patiently inside, swaddled in red scarves and shawls, a table with a single deck of cards and a fold out chair in front of her. He'd never seen anything like that before.
"Dad?" He asked, tugging on his father's muscular arm, "What's that?"
"Looks like she's selling tarot card readings. They tell your future. You want one, Sol?" His father replied.
Sollux nodded excitedly and watched as his father slid three dollars towards the lady. He plunked down on the folding chair opposite the reader and grinned.
"Will I get a prophecy? Like Harry Potter?" His voice squeaked in anticipation as the lady calmly smiled and shooed away his dad. When he was far enough out of earshot, she leaned forward to whisper.
"I can sense a deep prophecy in you, little one." Her voice was like water, ancient and rumbling. The words made the hairs on Sollux's arms stand up. "But you can never tell anyone what you hear, or else something bad will happen, okay?"
He nodded in silent awe, and she spread out the cards effortlessly. "Pick three. Your past, your present, and your future. Let your hand be drawn to the energy of the cards, and feel the pull of electricity and fate. Choose wisely."
Slowly, carefully, he pulled three cards, and she flipped them over, gazing intently, as if she was having a conversation.
"Your past is not much, small one. I see playfulness, intelligence, and a jealousy for…a sibling. Older or younger?"
"Older," he replied in a hushed whisper. How did she know? "He gets dad's attention a lot because he's louder than me."
She simply nodded. "Your present is full of cheer. Life is good. Is this your first time at the festival?"
"Yes."
"You must be having lots of fun with your father, especially since your brother is off having fun with his friends. You have your father all to yourself, and the whole festival loves you and gives you toys. Your present is joy incarnate with the sin of pride in the background, although I hardly blame you. It's nice to be wanted." Her eyes darkened. "Relish this time. Live in the present, love, because your future,"
She touched the last card, darker than the others, a muted color palate, "Is a bleak one."
The ominous tone scared him and he cast a fervent look at his father, who flashed him a smile and a thumbs up.
"What's going to happen to me?" He whispered.
"Not to you, sweet child. I see greatness in you. An indescribable power, a shining light. As for the people around you… You'll be a beacon of death and doom. Your loved ones perish around you, Sollux Captor, and waste away while you live on, a king on your mountain of once cherished corpses and skeletons."
His voice was only a horrified breath. "What?"
"I see sorrow for you, golden boy. You must fight through it, and let it make you stronger. Always focus on your power, not your love, because everything you love," She flipped the cards back over with a flick of her ashy pale wrist, "will die. Don't tell, remember?" A deep, throaty chuckle made its way out of her red lipsticked mouth, and he slunk away from the chair and ran back to his father, clinging to his pant leg babyishly.
"What'd she say, Sol? Is there a tall, dark, and gorgeous person in your future?" His dad asked cheerfully.
"Bad things," He whispered into the jeans he clutched.
"She did look kinda creepy," Dad knelt down to Sollux's level, "But don't worry, pal. Fortune tellers make everything up, it's just a trick! You're gonna be fine, and she has an extra three bucks to go back home with. Everything'll be okay."
"What about you and Tuna, dad?" Sollux whimpered, "Will you be fine?"
"Of course we'll be fine. We Captors are extraordinarily durable. Didn't I tell you about the time I was in the Navy and was captured by the enemy? I lasted for years! She even fell in love with me, if you can believe it, haha…"
The words of his dad's story filled his ears as they walked away, but the fortune teller's creepy smile echoed in Sollux's brain like a ghost, and no amount of shuddering scared it off.
Sollux was thirteen when his dad and brother were suddenly not fine.
It was a large, open road, and Dad said Mituna could try driving, even though he hadn't started Driver's Ed yet. Sollux was avidly describing one of his many nightmares from the backseat, rambling on about skeletons and rotting flesh, gaping open mouths that wanted his lifeblood and flesh. The road was long, and none of them saw the other car coming up in front of them, fast and sloppy, until it was too late. The driver was a bank robber, too excited with his successful heist to drive his getaway car properly, in the right direction.
A one in a million chance that'd he'd pass the Captors. A one in a billion he'd hit them.
Wasn't it their lucky fucking day?
Mituna screeched, and Dad lurched in front of him to try and spin into the other lane, but Sollux just watched in transfixed horror as the maniacally laughing man in the other car headed straight for them. He tried to remember what he'd last said to his family, his thoughts scattered like he was sure their bodies would be.
"What song is this?" to his father, and "wear a seatbelt, idiot" to his brother. Not notable last words. Should he scream 'I love you' before it was over? No, they'd be fine. This car had airbags. But maybe, just in case, and then it was too late, the impact hit, the window glass shattered and his eyes were burning splinters of pain.
He woke up without pictures flooding into his retinas, and started to hyperventilate.
"Sollux, Sollux, calm down," An unfamiliar voice shushed him and his panic only increased. Tears weren't forming, only a block in his throat and his wheezing alerted a loud, frantic beeping.
"Where are they?" He shrieked, voice raw and ripping through his throat, surprisingly loud to him. "Why can't I see? Where's my dad?! Where's Tuna?! What the hell happened?!"
Only stressed chattering met his ears, which faded as cold filled his body and he went numb. Was he dying? Was this the end? No, no, he had to have better last words-
It seemed like seconds had past when he woke up again, and still darkness reigned where sight should be.
"What the fuck happened?!" He roared, and he heard the metal clanging of something being dropped. He'd startled somebody.
"I-I-I-I-I'll go get a doctor right away!" The voice was shrill, probably a girl's, and he was temporarily appeased that he'd gotten a little bit of an answer, at least. He was being looked after by a doctor. That was inevitable, right? They were all being looked after doctors. After all, it was a car crash, and none of them were invincible, not even his Navy Seal dad.
Several sets of footsteps smacked into the room, and Sollux strained his head in every direction to try and 'look' at whoever it was.
"You're awake."
Fucking idiot.
"The medicine doesn't seem to be having the desired effect, I'll speak to the nurse and up the dosage."
"Or you could tell me what the hell happened," Sollux said as scathingly as he could manage.
"Your family was hit by an attempted robber making a getaway. The police have apprehended him and he'll be charged soon. Shards of glass from the window cut up your face, and particularly your eyes, which are being healed to the best of our abilities as we speak." The doctor said calmly. Sollux hated overly calm people. Show some empathy, numbnuts.
"What about my dad? And my brother? They were in the front seat!"
"Your brother was hit strongly, I'm afraid. He suffered acute brain damage and trauma."
"What about my dad?"
Intake of breath. Pause.
"What the fuck happened to my dad?!" Sollux screamed again. Did hospital people not respond unless you shrieked at them? Christ.
"Your father…" The doctor began wearily, "took the brunt of the damage. He threw himself over your brother and was hit first. His lungs were compressed, glass cut around his throat…He passed shortly after the police arrived. I'm sorry."
"No." Sollux said, eyes opening wider than he thought possible. "That's not true. My dad's fine, probably just a little beat up, like the rest of us. He's a fucking Navy Seal, he can't get killed by a stupid car crash." Sollux babbled, "He survived for years under enemy control, and got the leader to fall in love with him. He raised me and Tuna on his own, except for help from Aunt Rosa, after Mom left. He can bench press 300 pounds. He's too strong to die. He's fine, you're lying. Check again."
"Sollux, I-"
"Check again!" He insisted, heart pounding and setting off those stupid beeps again.
"If you don't calm down we'll have to sedate you agai-"
"Check again!" He shrieked, and the cold came again, his bitter, soothing enemy.
It couldn't be true. He was in a hospital under medication, he was hallucinating. Mituna having brain issues, he could handle. If Sollux had to wheel him around for the rest of his life, that'd be fine. But their dad had to be fine. He was fine. He was a Captor and he was extraordinarily durable.
Sollux lost track of the days the two remaining Captors spent in the hospital. He eventually stopped screaming at the general vicinity of the doctors, and the nurses too, especially that high strung nurse that was apparently a guy. When Aunt Rosa came, the doctors said he had two more months until his bandages would be taken off. She still smelled the same, like peaches and vanilla, and unlike the doctors and nurses, took his hand and squeezed it so he knew she was right there.
"Hello my little bumblebee," She murmured. Dad and her used to call him that when he was little and all he ever wanted to do was run around in his bee onesie. She'd even bought him a bee pillow pet before she moved to California.
Sollux wanted to cry, if his fucked up eyes would let him. "Hi, Aunt Rosa." His voice was rough and unused.
"Guess what tomorrow is, sweetheart?" She asked softly, using her other hand to brush his greasy hair out of his face.
"I dunno. The day I get to take a shower and not a creepy sponge bath?"
"It's your birthday," Rosa whispered. "And I brought presents. I've been here for a little while, but you were always asleep. But you're awake now, and soon you'll be fourteen! Isn't that nice?"
"Have you seen Tuna?" He ignored his birthday. Dad wouldn't have any more, why should he?
"Yes."
That was it, no elaboration. She didn't want Sollux to know. Honestly, he didn't want himself to know either. That way things felt a little normal than they could be. Of course Aunt Rosa wanted to celebrate his birthday at a time like this. Even currently blind and an orphan, she just wanted him to be a kid. Come on Sol, his father's voice said in his head, put on a smile for your beautiful Auntie Rosaline.
When dad told him that, things were different. He'd been a sulking kid pouting that his favorite aunt was moving. But Sollux smiled anyway. "Fourteen. That's four years from being legal. Cool."
"Yes, it is cool." He could hear her breathe a sigh of relief. "Your cousins are here too. Porrim and Kanaya, remember? They're playing Mariokart with Mituna."
"Is he still kicking their butts?"
"Vigorously."
"That's good." If he could still kick animated video game ass, how bad could brain damage be?
"Sollux…." Rosa's voice took a serious tone, "I know it's soon and you've just woken up, and things are very…difficult and strange and hurting right now, but…How would you like living with us when you two are better again?"
You two. There was three, there was always three. 'Two' stung like wasps, repeatedly and without you having to agitate it first. It attacked him without giving him a chance to catch his breath, always present when he awoke, eyes still shut like he was asleep.
It made sense. He and Tuna couldn't live on their own, especially not now. Sollux could have cyborg eyes for all he knew, and Mituna was still only sixteen for another couple of months. Rosa was family. Kanaya and Porrim were okay, although too polite for him sometimes. Their family was rich and lived in California, and wouldn't they be shipped off to an orphanage or something otherwise? Going with Rosa was the right choice, after he got out of this overly sterile prison.
Besides, did he really have a choice?
"Yeah, I'd love to, Aunt Rosa," He spoke through clenched teeth, voice monotone. Reading the words straight from the projector in his head. "Thanks for taking me in. "
