TRIGGER WARNINGS: language, blood, injury, VRISKA, discrimination based on blood color, mentioned character death, victim shaming

~On LOTAK~

~Dirk's POV~

I hear screaming over the music I was blasting. Turning the music down, I make my way from my workroom to Hal's room. By the time I reach my little android's room, the screaming has stopped. Knocking on the door, I say, "Hal? You okay, kid?" When there's no answer, I open the door just a little. I don't see him in his bed, where he should have been napping. "Hal?" I ask again.

I see movement out of the corner of my eye. A blur of red light bolting from behind the bed, across the room, and into the vent. I curse under my breath as I rush to try and catch him before he gets lost in the air vents. Again. This happened earlier this week. By the time I finally found him that time, he was curled up in a ball and crying. Times like this, when he gets so scared that everything startles him, are when I regret programing him with emotions.

My phone rings, pulling me from my thoughts. "Hey, I'm kinda busy," I immediately say when I put the phone to my ear.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Jake says, sounding a bit disappointed. "Do you mind my asking what's going on?"

I sigh. "Hal had another nightmare. He's in the vents again."

"He's an android, Dirk. How on Earth does he have nightmares?"

I stick my head in the air vent a little way down the hall as I respond, "I programed him to learn and have emotions and an active imagination." He's not there so I continue down the hall to the next opening in the vent. "Combine that and you get an android with dreams. Some of those dreams are bound to be a bit scary. The fact that he's the emotional equivalent of a five-year-old only makes it worse when he has bad dreams."

I hear whimpering coming from the living room as Jake says, "You never did explain why you programed him like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like a child. Why exactly did you program him to be like a child?"

I shrug, almost to the living room, "It just felt right, okay. I'll come by your planet later." I don't wait for a response before hanging up. "Hal?" I call as I flip on the light in the living room.

"GO AWAY!" he shouts, fear in his voice, from where he's curled up in the corner with a kitchen knife.

"Hal, kid, it's me," I calmly say, putting my hands up. He just looks at me skeptically. "Can you put the knife down?" He shakes his head. "Why not?"

With synthetic tears in his glowing red eyes, he stutters, "I-I don't wa-wanna die. P-please don't ki-kill me, daddy."

Normally I like hearing him call me that, but right now he's worrying me. "Is that what you have nightmares about?" He nods his head, dropping the knife in favor of wiping the tears from his eyes. "Hal, I'm not going to hurt you," I say as I pick him up and cradle him in my arms. "You know that, right?" He doesn't say anything, just snuggles closer to me.

I sigh as I carry him back to his room. I tuck him in and sit with him until he falls asleep again. He's been having these nightmares ever since we entered our session. I'll have to talk to him about it later, when he's awake and calmed down a bit. And why did he think I was going to kill him? That's another thing I need to talk to him about.

I wake up to Lady Antebellum's "Bartender" playing on my phone. Hitting answer and putting the call on speaker, I say, "Hey, Rox. You're on speaker and the kid's asleep. What's up?"

"Finally you pick up!" she practically shouts.

I flinch and quickly check to make sure Hal's still asleep before leaving the room. Careful to be as quiet as possible, I close the door hissing, "What part of 'the kid's asleep' did you not fucking understand?!"

"Oops, sorry," she whispers. "How is he, by the way? Jake said that you said lil' Hal's been having nightmares. He's also pissed you've been ghosting him for the last few hours."

"Wait, hours?" I ask, finally looking at a clock. I had put Hal back down to finish his nap at around two. Now it's almost seven. I look down to my phone. Twenty missed calls from Jake, ten from Jane, and this call from Roxy. "Shit. I must've fallen asleep. I'll go see him when Hal wakes up. What were you calling about?"

"Oh yeah. Janey asked me to invite you and Hal to her place. Also, the clown got to your kernelsprite."

"What?"

"Yeah, he put your AR and some of that weird dark blue potion in it. Looks like a Troll and Fefeta looked kinda excited to see him."

I immediately throw on my gas mask and run out the door. I'm greeted by a red and white ghost-like troll, flexing like there's no tomorrow. I feel the color drain from my face when he practically begs me to touch his muscles. I know that Hal's an android, but he can still learn and he's still basically my kid. This thing is NOT something I want anywhere near him.

I immediately run back inside, remove my mask, and say, "Roxy, how the fuck did this happen?" The only thing on the other end of the call is laughter. "Damn it, Roxy! This isn't funny! I can't have that thing anywhere near Hal," I whisper yell.

"Oh, he's not that bad," she laughs.

"Not that bad? He's flexing like there's no tomorrow and begging me to touch his muscles! You know Hal's basically five. Would you want something like that near a five-year-old, Rox?"

"No?"

"Right!" I take a deep calming breath before asking, "Do you know it's name? I didn't stick around long enough to ask."

"I didn't catch it either, but Fefeta says he's called Arquius."

~On the Meteor~

~Signless' POV~

I wake up in a dark room, on a soft bed, with two warm bodies on either side of me. I look to my right and see Psiioniic, sound asleep, with his head rested on the pillow next to mine. I smile and look to my left. There, I find Karkat curled up against my side. He, too, is sound asleep, with his head rested on my shoulder. I look around the room and spot Sollux passed out with his head rested on a small desk in the corner, a red and blue husktop open in front of him. The screen is dark aside from several lines of green text that I can't read from here.

"Signless?" Equius whispers. I turn my head to see him rise from the chair he had been sleeping in in the corner of the room. "How are you feeling?" he asks as he makes his way over to me.

"Sore," I whisper back, trying my best not to wake the other three in the room. I'd sit up but my sleeping mate and descendant have me pinned. "What happened? I thought I got shot."

He looks sad. "You were," he says quietly, picking up a small, clear jar from the nightstand. In the jar is a metallic blue shard and a small amount of mutant red blood. "When the arrow hit your rib, this piece broke off. It tore through your lung and got stuck behind it. Feferi was able to heal the tear in your lung and most of your other injuries." He sets the jar back on the small table. "She was unable to heal the burns on your wrists, the incision on your side, and the lacerations on your back."

I look at him, completely confused, asking, "What incision?"

He seems to find fiddling with the hem of his shirt very interesting as he explains, "We couldn't remove the metal without surgery. Feferi and Rose kept you alive and sedated while I located and removed the shard."

He looks almost ashamed as he briefly glances up to me. "Equius," I calmly whisper.

"Are you mad at me?" he asks.

"What?" I say a little louder than I intended. "Equius, no. I'm not mad at you, my child." He looks back up to me, surprise in his eyes. "You saved me. Why would I be mad at you for that?"

"He's paranoid as all hell," Karkat mumbles, his bright red eyes fluttering open. He sits up, freeing my almost numb left arm, and turns his attention to Sollux. "Sol, wake up." No response. "Bro, I will throw perfectly generic object at you." He gets a quiet snore in response.

Karkat growls in annoyance. He holds his hand up and a green cube drops into his palm. Putting as much force as he can into the throw, he chucks the small object at Psii's descendant. "FUCK!" Sollux shouts when the cube hits his shoulder. Unintentionally, he wakes Psii, whom instinctively shoots a bolt of psionic energy at the wall near Sollux's head. "FUCK!" the young psionic shouts again, staring wide eyed at the singed spot on the wall, a few inches from him.

I ignore the pain, and Equius and Karkat telling me not to, as I sit up and pull Psii into my arms. "It's okay, Psii. You're okay," I whisper. He calms slightly, but still searches the room for any threat.

After a moment, he turns his attention fully to me. "Are you okay?" he asks.

"I'm okay," I reply, putting some emphasis behind my words. I'm already tired of people asking me if I'm okay.

There's a knock on the door before Dolorosa and Disciple come in, followed closely by Nepeta and Aradia. Disciple squeals. Nepeta squeals. Seconds later, both of them tackle me in a hug. It hurts but I'm laughing anyways. My whole family's here and safe.

"Guys," Aradia says from the door, "Equius is too nice to say it, but all four of you are in the way. He needs to check that wound on Signless' side."

"And change the bandages," Equius mumbles. Reluctantly, Disciple and Nepeta move off the bed, allowing me to sit back up. Disciple pulls up a chair and sits patiently, probably waiting to hug me again. Karkat refuses to move, so Nepeta takes him by the arm and drags him away. She says something about going to find Kanaya before she runs out the door, dragging a complaining Karkat along with her.

"You know I'm not moving, right" Psii says from his spot beside me. He wraps his arms around my shoulders protectively.

Equius sits on the edge of the bed and starts unwrapping the bandages around my chest, saying, "You don't have to. As long as I have access to this injury, you're fine right where you are." Disciple flinches when the last of the bandages are pulled away.

"C-can't you feel that?" she asks, a worried look in her eyes.

I glance down and am shocked to see a large cut with purple stitches a couple of inches above my grub scar. As he starts to spread a medicated ointment over the large wound, Equius speaks up, "It shouldn't hurt very much, if at all. I gave you a very strong pain killer. It won't wear off for another few hours. I'll give you another dose before then, though. Really, the only pain I expect you to be feeling right now is from the burns on your wrists and a few pulled muscles in your back and shoulders." He looks up at me through his bangs for a second before returning to his work. "Unfortunately, the only thing we have here that is theoretically strong enough to completely numb those injuries is toxic to Trolls."

"It's perfectly fine for Humans, though," Sollux adds. "Which is why we don't just throw it all out."

As Equius begins to rebandage my injury, a rather annoying voice calls from the door, "Eeeeeeeequius. Hey neighbor, long time no see." A cerulean blooded girl in a short white dress makes her way over like she owns the place and leans on Equius.

Not too sure of what to do, I just watch as Equius takes a deep breath and says, "Go away, Vriska."

"I haven't seen you in almost a full human year," she whines, poking Equius' cheek, "and you're telling me to go away? That's not cool, Equius. Not cool at all. I thought we were friends, seeing as there are only three of us blue bloods on this rock," Equius freezes, looking as annoyed as I am, "and one of them is teal. I mean, that's practically green."

He finishes with the bandages before turning towards Vriska and lightly shoving her away from him. "First of all, while blood color really doesn't matter, that teal blood you're referring to is your sister. Have at least an ounce of respect for that fact. Second of all, DON'T touch me. You do not have my permission to touch me. I do not want you to touch me. Don't. Touch. Me. And lastly, we most certainly are NOT friends. When you killed Tavros, Gamzee went into rage mode!"

"That was pretty cool, wasn't it?" she says, a sadistic smile on her face.

"I-it most certainly, w-was not," he stutters, hands flickering and shaking. I lean over and hug him, silently assuring him that he's okay.

Laughing, Vriska says, "'W-was'? What, do you have a stutter like that idiot Ampora now?"

"Leave Eri out of this!" Sollux snaps.

"And I thought you didn't want anyone to touch you."

"Signless is an exception, he's my guardian." She looks both angry and sad at hearing that. "And you're part of the reason Nepeta and I got hurt in the first place! You killing Tavros sent Gamzee into rage mode." He tilts his head up a little and lightly touches the scar on his neck. "This is just one of the scars he gave me when he was like that, before Aradia sent me to Signless."

She laughs, "Yeah, I heard what happened to you. Aren't you supposed to be the stroooooooongest of us all?" She laughs again, moving closer to him. She rests an arm on his shoulder, twirling a lock of his hair around a finger on her other hand. "Why didn't you fight back? Oh, I know. You wanted it. It's in your blood to be dominated by someone higher than you."

"You have GOT to be kidding me!" Dave snaps from the door. "Vriska, I swear to god, I will fucking stab you if you don't stop victim shaming." He pulls her away from Equius. "You know as well as the rest of us how powerful Gamzee is. Equius couldn't fight back." He shoves her, hard, towards the door. "Now get out before I send you to the dark ages." She runs, almost scared, out of the room.

A light thump draws everyone's attention back to the spot where Equius has dropped to his knees. Dave gets to him before I can even move, dropping to his knees in front of him. "I-I couldn't f-fight," Equius whispers, arms wrapped tightly around himself. Once again ignoring my own pain, I slide off the bed and pull Equius into my arms. He flinches before realizing I'm the one holding him.

"Shh, my child," I whisper, running my fingers through his hair.

"Hey, Equius," Dave says, catching Equius' attention. "You listen to her and she gets what she wants. She wins." A cocky smile spreads across Dave's face. "Don't give her the satisfaction, okay. You want some advice?" Equius hesitates for a moment before nodding. "When she's around, smile. No matter how much you want to cry or hide or whatever, don't. Not until she's gone. People like her are only ever going to hurt you. Everyone on this rock knows how strong you are, but she's going to push you to your limit. Don't let her find it. Can you do that?"