A/N: A sort of a sad start to a story. It's written in humanstuck, and the Vantas family is made up of neko boys. Why? Because trolls with red blood are mutants; when you make them human, you have to give them some kind of mutation or the effect is lost.

It was a very sad and battered Vantas that the Ampora met that evening. In the park, bound upside-down to a remote tree and covered in mud was a short neko boy in a long red sweater. The wool garment fell with gravity and bared his stomach; drawn there in incriminating black marker was INSUFFERABLE MUTANT. The Ampora had run over and quickly untied him, carefully lowering him to the ground. His nose had been bleeding earlier, and the streak had dried all the way down his chin-So, he'd been beat up before strung up…-; a vicious blue-violet bruise also wrapped around his eye. He groaned softly and started coughing, and the Ampora suddenly realized he recognized this boy.

"Vantas?" he murmured, and the boy glanced fearfully up at him. "Kankri, right?" The cat-boy didn't answer; instead, he ran, quickly yanking up a hood attached to his sweater. The Ampora knelt there, stunned; so it had been Kankri that he saw the football jocks at school punching around during the lunch periods…Him and his little half-brother. It quickly reminded him that he was wearing his letter jacket from the baseball team. All the jackets they gave out at Skaia High looked the same; that gaudy purple and gold could be seen from a plane. It was probably what freaked out the kid so much. He stood and picked up the athletic jump ropes and tape that had been binding him; it was definitely from the football team. No doubts for a second. He hummed to himself softly, standing up and leaving. He knew they could be jerks, but this was just criminal…

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

The Vantas boy had run home, cutting through backyards to escape public eyes. He opened the back door to his house, crying softly. His younger half-brother, Karkat, was at the kitchen sink dressed in a robe; his clothes were piled on the floor and covered in paint. Their father, Karmene, looked up at him sadly, his pointed grey ears folding back as he sighed, continuing his venture of washing Karkat's newly purpled hair.

"Take yours and your brother's clothes to the wash." He said, his tone suggesting it wasn't an order of highest priority. "I'll get to your hair after I'm done here."

"I'll wash it myself…" he sobbed softly, scooping up Karkat's clothes as he walked out of the kitchen.

"Are you bleeding?!" Karkat called after him. "And your eye! What the hell did they do to you?! I swear, next time I see them-"

"I'm fine!" he shouted out the biggest lie he'd ever told, and he hadn't told many lies. He stomped up the stairs and into the room he shared with Karkat, stripping off the muddy sweater that one of his best friends had made for him. She was always making him these sweaters, and those bastards were always ruining them. He tossed it and his grey jeans into the pile of clothes, grabbing some pajamas before going into the bathroom.

"Kankri?" Karkat called softly as he entered the bathroom, the older brother looked up at him as he dried his hair, twisting the towel in his ear. "Are you okay?"

"I'll live." He mumbled. "Are you?"

"You know they don't get me as rough as they get you, Kankri." The elder boy huffed, wringing his tail over the bathtub.

"Has anything happened to Dad?" he asked.

"Not today… He's lucky he's not in school anymore…" Karkat sat on the edge of the tub beside his brother, wringing out his own tail over the drain.

"Yeah… It is rough." Kankri picked up a wire brush from the edge of the sink, motioning for Karkat to turn so he could brush his tail back to its normal fluffiness. This was their life though: they were constantly harassed for their mutations. Both his and Karkat's mothers had been berated by the community for loving Karmene and creating them; Kankri's mother had abandoned them, saying she couldn't be surrounded by freaks anymore. Karmene had been the stronger man and told Karkat's mother to leave in fear that she'd be abused as well. He and Karkat were hated by a fair 90% of their respective communities, and they held a pact not to put too much trust in anyone but a very select few and each other; and never to someone in a letter jacket. They wouldn't lie: they prayed for the day they could break that pact, but it seemed like it would never come. Kankri sighed; he didn't hold his breath for it. He lightly kissed Karkat's forehead and nudged him toward the bathroom door, ushering him to bed for the night. After putting all their clothes in the washing machine, he turned in as well.

()()()()()()()()()()()()

"Hey, Dad?" the Ampora called to his house. "Dad?! I want to talk to you!"

"He's not here, Cro." His younger cousin called from the couch. "He's on a date."

"Can I talk to you then, Eridan?" he asked, leaning over the back of the couch.

"I guess, if you must."

"You're friends with a loud little boy with cat ears and a tail right?"

"You mean Kar? Yeah, we tolerate each other, I guess. I'm only 'friends' with him because Sol is."

"Do you know his older brother?"

"I've seen him around, and Kar talks about him sometimes."

"…Did you know they get bullied at school?"

"Well, the others and I, we see him crying sometimes, and he's come around with black eyes and scars. He just screams at us to mind our own business. We've been suspicious though, I guess…"

"Well, they do get bullied. Pretty badly too. It's criminal what people do to them just because they look different."

"Are you gonna do something about it, or are you just preaching? Kar says that Kankri does that a lot."

"Of course I'm going to do something, Eridan. Besides, Kankri is in some of my classes… I think he's kind of cute."