/ / " Y O U   M E A N T   S O   M U C H  ;  H A V E   Y O U   G I V E N   U P ? " / /  

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After Aradia died, Sollux locked himself away from everyone. He never left his house, or his own room, at that. When someone called, he’d ignore the phone. When someone knocked, he’d pretend that he wasn’t home, even when that person knew he was. He was stick-thin from going days on end without food. His face, sunken. His normally tan skin, greyed and paled. His pastel eyes, one coated in blue and the other lightly painted green, became dead; his brown hair became greasy and stringy. He hadn’t talked to his older brother, Mituna, or his dad, Mr. Captor, in months. He hadn’t even said a word to one of his best friends, [name]. Sollux felt as if he lost his voice, and his entire being. He felt as if Aradia had taken him to the grave with her.
What worried his family the most was that this wasn’t the first time Sollux had gone silent. When he first stopped talking, he was thirteen—[name] never knew for sure, but she figured it had something to do with his mom. Sollux never liked to talk about how his mom died, but he had the courage to tell [name] over the phone, when one particular night was bad enough. It was a car accident. She was driving home from the store with Mituna, who was nineteen. A driver, presumably a drunk one, hit them and sent her flying through the window of the car. Her ribs, broken; her nose, fractured; lips, arms, legs, everything stained in thick red. Glass stuck on every end of her face. Mituna suffered consequences similar to hers, but it was him who was able to live with them.
And just like that, his mother was gone.
Honestly, [name] figured he never got over it. He won’t step foot in a car anymore.
Sollux was fifteen when Aradia died; fifteen when his isolation became prominent like it once was before. Before she died, he was so filled with life. He loved to go outside with her, and feel the warmth of the day radiate onto their skin, and watch her hair fall in curls down her back, and watch her rusty brown eyes light up when they kissed. But now she was gone; those eyes didn’t shine with light anymore, and that hair didn’t grow anymore, and her skin was no longer soft and tan and red tinged. She was pale and lifeless and stiff and dead. That word really got to him. Sollux didn’t want to believe it—she couldn’t be gone. This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. She was too amazing; she was too beautiful; she deserved so much better. Every day, he’d sit at his desktop, and he’d listen for her to waltz through the door like she always did. Every day, he’d bitterly remind himself that it couldn’t happen. Because she was dead, and she was buried six feet underground, and she was nailed inside a coffin, and it was probably very hard to breathe in there when there was piles of dirt laying over her—
—Oh, wait. Never mind.
Sollux’s fingers touched the computer mouse lightly. His eyes scanned the screen—it was too bright, but he couldn’t care less than he already did. He stuck his tongue out and sipped water through a straw, until the slurping began to annoy him and he stopped. He clicked on another website, reading through the article that depressed him more and more every single damned day.

March fifteenth; Daily News

THIS JUST IN: Aradia Megido [15] was killed today instantly after being hit head-on by a car. Bystanders say that the man who hit her was supposedly drunk, and swerved onto the side walk that the Alternian High Academy student was walking on her way home, when he crashed into her and killed her on impact. Her body was bruised and her neck was broken; doctors confirmed on sight that she was killed instantly, and her body was taken away by ambulances on hold. The car crashed into a resident’s house, and both the house owner and parents of Megido sued Martin Mason [driver], who was then taken to court and later on, jail. Megido’s funeral was held two months later.


Sollux had forgotten how many times he had read that damned article since she was killed. It had been nearly three months now. Thinking of her funeral made him sick—she laid in that casket so peaceful, but when she died she was not that at all. Her corpse was a lie. She looked peaceful, but she was not; why would that turn her into such a fib? The idea of it made Sollux burn with anger. He wanted to hurt whoever fixed her up, and put her in that stupid white dress instead of something she would wear, like a black shirt and a skirt, or worn shoes, or anything else. Anything but that stupid dress would have fit her; but that exact thing was not like Aradia at all.
It just didn’t make sense to him that they went to a funeral for Aradia, and then when they fixed her up, they did the exact things she would never want them to do to doll herself up. That drove him completely insane. The ceremony was entirely for her, but did they even know her? Did they even care like Sollux did? Even just a little?
See, that’s what made him angriest. Everyone should have cared, but no one cared as much as Sollux did. No one loved Aradia as much as Aradia deserved to be love; that love seemed unobtainable, but Sollux wanted to be the closest to that feeling with her.
Wanted. Because she’s dead, and he can’t be her number-one anymore, or her number-two, or her number anything—because she was gone.
The idea made him angrier. Everything made him angry, and sad. He wanted to punch something. He wanted to cut something. He wanted to kill someone. He couldn’t decide which of the two he wanted dead more.
Sollux hated Mr. Megido for only suing the guy for killing her. That driver killed her. Sollux wanted that man dead. He killed Aradia and Sollux wanted him dead—it was that simple.
Sollux hated that man for killing her.
He wanted that man totally gone. Not dead, no—destroyed. In ruins. He killed the most beautiful thing in life; in Sollux’s mind, that man didn’t deserve life any longer.
And Sollux could admit to himself that he was a wreck without Aradia. He knew he was. He hadn’t seen himself in a mirror, or smelled himself yet, or even taken the time to hear his own hoarse, weak voice, but he knew that he was a wreck.
Sollux Captor hated that man. Sollux Captor hated this situation. Sollux Captor wanted that man dead. Sollux Captor wanted himself dead. Sollux Captor admitted to being the biggest wreck in his life.
Sollux Captor had given up.

---

[name]’s fingers twined together nervously as she knocked on the Captor’s door, hoping for an answer. She saw Mr. Captor’s car parked in the driveway, so she figured he was home. Maybe she could talk to him for a little, to see how Sollux was doing. She hadn’t seen Sollux since he had gone silent. She was beginning to forget the sound of his voice, which seemed very hard to do when she first met him. He had a lisp that made her heart stop; his voice was high pitched and rasped. She really loved that noise. She loved the sound of his own voice. At this point, she’d do anything to hear it again.
The door flew open. Mr. Captor, whose messy dark hair laid in strands on his face, rose his brows. “[name]? What are you doing here?”
“I—I’m sorry to come here so uninvited, sir, but…” [name] gulped down the sadness of it all. “I just wanted to check up on Sollux, and see if he’s doing alright. He hasn’t been at school for days.” She said, her voice laced in hopeless depression that loomed into the air with the rest of it. There was a lot of that in the Captor household, now that Sollux had gone silent again.
When he first went silent, Mr. Captor and Mituna counted exactly four months that Sollux had kept his mouth shut. He hadn’t said a word, except for when he slept. When he slept, Mituna said that Sollux would scream in his sleep, things about his mom about her death, and how it wasn’t fair. That was the only thing that kept the memory of Sollux’s voice fresh in Mituna’s brain at that time; now it was home videos that dad had captured, like birthdays, and baby videos; anything to get Mituna to remember the sound of his brother. Things had gotten bad enough for him to forget that sound, too.
Mr. Captor’s brows furrowed. “Come in, [name]. It’s very nice to see you again. Hopefully Sollux will rise up to the occasion and come visit. He hasn’t been the same since Aradia…” his voice fell silent. He shook his head at the floor. [name] already knew what he was going to say.
“I understand, sir.”
Mr. Captor led her into the house. She followed him into the living room, where Mituna was playing video games and screaming curse words at the screen in his twenty-one-year-old man-child voice. After Mituna’s brain damage from the car wreck, Mr. Captor made the boy live at home instead of moving out like he had planned, when he was nineteen. He always wore this yellow, bulky helmet to protect his head. It made [name] a little sad to see him, and to think about all the Mituna would have been but now could never be. Nothing made her as sad as thinking of Sollux. There were no words to describe how she felt when she thought of him. No word was intense enough.
“Hey, Mituna,” [name] called sweetly anyways. Mituna turned his head around, his scruffy black hair hiding away his oddly colored eyes. He grinned, and crooked, yellowing teeth poked out of his mouth.
“Sup, [name]!”
“Nothing much. Do you know where Sollux is at?” She asked, trying to sound lighthearted, but the idea of Sollux only made her sadder than before.
The room fell quiet.
[name] stared at her hands. “S-sorry.”
“I think he’s in his room. If you’d like, I can take you to him.” Mituna said, staring at [name] intensely. She couldn’t see his eyes through his messy hair, but she could feel his gaze on her face. [name] nodded her head.
“That’d be very nice of you, Mituna.”
“Come on, [name]!” He said, picking himself up and grabbing her arm. His walk was too fast for [name] to keep up, but she managed.
The hallway was dark. Not a single light showed the way, but Mituna had memorized it. To the right, closest to the living room, there was his room. On the left side further down was dad’s room. Then the door at the very, very end was Sollux’s bedroom, where the door was always locked except for when he’d leave to go to the bathroom, or seldom snack on something when his hunger pains became too much for him to handle. The darkness of the house scared [name], but she didn’t dare say anything about it.
Mituna stopped himself in front of Sollux’s door, coated in black, chipped paint, and he knocked on it. “Sol, get your ass out here, [name]’s here to see you!”
No answer.
“Sol?” Mituna’s voice was becoming quiet. He knocked again, harder. “Sol, c’mon out already! [name] hasn’t seen you in months and she really wants to!”
“If it’s too much trouble, ‘Tuna, I can go…” her voice was a scared whisper. Mituna looked to her, an awkward and out of place smile beaming on his pale lips, and shook his head.
“Nah, it’s fine! I don’t mind. He’ll come out, just give him a second or two—damn it, bro, get out here already!”
The door flew open.
[name] didn’t mean to, but when her eyes connected to Sollux, she gasped.
Every inch of him, every single flawed detail made her want to cry. From his messy hair to his dull eyes, rimmed with blue-red reversed glasses, to his sunken face and the black bags that rested underneath every angle on it. From his ratchet odor to his anorexic weight. He didn’t look like a wreck—he was a wreck.
Sollux only sighed, turning back into his room. Mituna stuck his foot in between the door. “Hey, Sol, you can’t just—ow!” He cried, but his foot didn’t move from the door side. [name] pictured Mituna to be glaring under those messy bangs. “Not cool, bro!”
Sollux opened the door again, giving [name] another up-and-down look. His brows fell low on his face, making him look tired and bored. [name] wondered when he last slept. It must have been days. It had been days. Every time he’d dream, he’d think of her—he didn’t want to think of AA anymore. He was so tired of her reoccurring image in his head. But at the same time, that’s all he wanted to think of. He loved the idea of her black curls, and her brown irises, and her beautiful smile, and that little beauty mark just beside her left eye. He loved the idea of her curves, and the way that his fingers fit perfectly in the spaces between hers just perfectly. He loved a lot of things about her. He missed even more things about her.
The dual-eyed boy grumbled, not as much words than just a disdained sound of obvious annoyance. His arms crossed on his chest. Mituna grabbed it and pulled him out of the room. “Come on, Sol, dinner’s gonna be ready shortly and—”
—Sollux growled, and slapped Mituna’s hand away. The helmetless boy drew his hand back and snarled, his scream tearing through the air and at [name]’s ears. She winced, and backed up until she was out of the hallway.
“I-I’m sorry, Mituna, this wasn’t a good idea—I’ll just—”
“—No problem, [name]!” Mituna grinned, pulling her back to stand at Sollux’s doorway. Sollux, with bored eyes and falling glasses, drew his brows low on his face. “Maybe you could stay for dinner? I’m sure Sol will like it if ya do!”
“[name], you’re staying for dinner?” Mr. Captor chimed in, poking his head through the entrance of the hall. [name]’s face, paled in worry, sported the largest frown she could make. She didn’t want to be a bother to the family—obviously, they had enough going on. But they wanted her to stay. How could she disagree to that?
“If it wouldn’t be too much of a bother, sir,” [name] smiled at Mr. Captor. He grinned back.
“Not at all.”
Sollux grunted, something that wasn’t quiet or lost in the wind, but loud, and low; something that made its mark on the world. Like a scar, something scratchy and painful. He turned back into his room. Mituna tried to grab him.
“Sollux!—”
—Then he slammed the door closed.

---

Sollux shut off the lights of his bedroom; his curtains hung over the window that casted daybreak, covered so thickly that he couldn’t see a trace of it. His computer, turned off. There was no such thing as light in here.
He trudged to his bed, through the mess of clothes and food and plates, and collapsed on the thing. Sollux buried his face in the pillows, taking in the smell of rot and flesh. His breathing was irregular, his palms shaky. At first, it was only a quickened pace of the heart—heavy bump, bump, bumps, but his thoughts raced; all he could think about was her.
And not Aradia.
Her. [name].
He felt so bad for thinking of her like this, because he has AA—
—Had.
And he wasn’t supposed to feel this way about [name]. She was just his friend. That’s it. That’s all he wanted to believe.
But Sollux did like [name]. And Sollux did miss AA. And Sollux was really confused of this all, because in his mind, it was wrong to like someone else when he loved AA, but he liked the way that her [color] hair framed her face perfectly, and the way that her nose scrunched when she spoke, and her eyes that were the best shade of caring he’d seen in his entire life. He wasn’t sure why she was so intriguing to him anymore; he couldn’t get over the part where he felt too bad to want to find out.
He was supposed to love Aradia. And he did; she was just gone. And [name] was not. [name] was here; [name] was in his own house, because she wanted to know if he was okay, and he wasn’t. He really, really wasn’t.
Thinking was too painful. He couldn’t stop thinking. First fifty thoughts a minute, then two-hundred; five-hundred, infinity. Sollux couldn’t stop thinking.
So, instead, he laid on his bed, he buried his head in his pillow, he thought of Aradia’s ugly white dress she wore in her funeral, and he cried. He cried because it was too early, and [name] was here, and because she was not, and he missed her so much, and he couldn’t remember if he was talking about AA or his mom, and everything was bad and that was all that there was left for him to do. So he just cried, and took heavy, painful breaths, and listened to his throat become raw, and that was it.

---

[name] knocked on Sollux’s door gently, her fist shaking with nerves and anxiety. He probably didn’t want her to be here. He was probably sick of seeing her—[name] couldn’t help it, though. She wanted to know he was okay. She knew he wasn’t, but she at least wanted to know that eventually he would be okay.
When he went silent the first time, he was only thirteen. He wasn’t nearly as depressed or reckless like he was now. Now, he was a teenager, who knew of the existences of alcohol and pills, or sharpened points that could cut veins, or anything deadly. She didn’t want him to catch himself in the mix of poisonous thoughts and thoughtless contemplations and then nothing. She didn’t want him to be six feet underground. Not him. Definitely not him.
[name] was just so worried that he’d get to that point.
And the idea that he wouldn’t be okay eventually scared her, because he was older, and he did know that bad things existed, and maybe he had wanted to do those bad things to himself, and she couldn’t stop him. All [name] could do was watch Sollux destroy himself.
“He’s destroying himself.”
“Sollux? Sollux? Dinner’s ready—your dad asked me to get you up.” [name] waited patiently at the door. Her fingers glided over the knob. It was cold to the touch. The entire door felt cold, like behind that door was the artic. But it wasn’t the artic behind that door, it was just the boy who was destroying himself. That’s all.
A few minutes went by without an answer. The silence was worrying, especially for [name]. “Sollux, are you coming? Dinner’s ready.” She shook the knob, but it was locked. “Sollux?”
Sollux heard her calling. He stopped himself from crying, whipping away the tears that stained his cheeks, and blurred his vision. He lifted himself up, trying out for tall and proud, but he felt too weak to even move. He had to move. [name] was at the door.
[name] took a step back in surprise when the door swung open, and Sollux glared back at her. His brows drew low in the way that they did when he was angry. His nose twitched. [name] bit the inside of her cheek.
“I’m sorry, Sol… I didn’t mean to disturb you or anything. Your dad asked me to come get you, because dinner’s read—”
—Sollux grabbed her arm and pulled her into his room. He put his back to the door, shutting it, and then locking the two inside. [name] could barely get a gasp out because everything was done too quickly. She just stared, like his room was an alien planet and he was the leader. His room was trashy and dark. The air smelled disappointed in him. The smell made her eyes water.
“Oh, Sol…” [name] murmured, but she couldn’t remember what else to say. She couldn’t say anything that didn’t sound like distilled pity, or unwanted sympathy. Sollux didn’t want sympathy, and she knew that. [name] wasn’t quite sure what he did want out of this.
Sollux just wanted someone to listen.
He just wanted her to listen. He wanted her to listen, and stay quiet, and not give him sympathy, because sympathy was pathetic, and unneeded, and he was tired of feeling like that.
“L-look, [name],” his voice croaked, sore as hell from nights before, when Sollux allowed himself the luxury of sleep. He had started screaming in his sleep again. Sollux had woken himself up enough times to know what was going on—when he was thirteen, it was scary. But now, it was routine.
[name]’s eyes widened. “Sollux, you’re speak—”
“—[name]!” Sollux’s eyes were angry, but sad. The combination made bitter sense. Her mouth shut closed. Sollux’s mouth quivered. He tried not to cry. “I jutht want you to lithten, pleathe. Thith ith going to thound really thupid—really, r-really… really…”
Sollux’s mind went blank when he stared at [name]. Her cheeks were a bloody blush. Her eyes, full of light. Her hair, not like string but like silk. Shiny, expensive, beautiful silk. The kind of silk that you would brag about, even if it wasn’t yours. Just knowing that it existed, that was brag worthy enough—that’s what [name] was. She was alive and smart and beautiful and brag worthy.
She was alive. [name] was alive. Aradia… Aradia wasn’t.
He started to cry.
“Sollux?!” [name] called, getting over the mess to run to his aid. Her hands wrapped around him without a second thought, embracing his cold skin against her, who was so warm, and so gentle, and so alive. He loved her hugs, even though this was the first time in a long time that he had gotten one. He was too lost in the sound of his own anger and mourning to realize that he needed a hug. He needed one of [name]’s hugs.
Sollux wrapped his arms around her waist, burying his face in her neck, and he cried. His tears fell on her skin but she couldn’t care less. His chest was heaving for air that he couldn’t seem to get.
“Sollux, I’m so sorry… I’m so, so sorr—”
“—Thop!” Sollux’s voice was angry. Pleading. “Will you jutht lithten to me? I don’t want your goddamn pity, I want you to lithten!”
“Well,” [name] gulped. “I’m all ears.”
Sollux sighed; his exhale was rickety. “I’m tired of people telling me it’th going to be o-fucking-kay. I’m tho tired of it. I know that I’ll be fine thooner or later, I already know that. I jutht want to wallow in my thadneth and have thomeone tell me that it’th okay not to be okay. I want thomeone to tell me that thith ith normal, and that I don’t need therapy, because I don’t need therapy, I jutht need a fucking hug. Ith that okay, [name]?”
He hugged her tightly. His arms, wrapped around her entire being like if he were to let go, in the midst of a second, she would disappear into the sound that drove him mad. She’d disappear into the nothingness, and she’d be gone, just like mom, and just like Aradia. He didn’t want her to be buried under ground like them, where it was dirty, and there were bugs, when [name] hated dirt and bugs. It was lonely down there, and if she were buried in the dirt, she’d become so belittled. So vilified. And it was probably so lonely down there. He always thought about it; that AA and mom were so lonely down there. So belittled, and vilified, and so goddamn lonely.
[name] hugged him too, and patted his back, and ran her thumb on the same spot over and over, hoping it would be comforting, but his heart was still beating too fast. His breathing was still too shaking to be his. He was quaking too much to be himself.
“Sollux…” [name] whispered in his ear. A shiver went down the boy’s spine. “Sollux, it’s okay to be sad. But you can’t treat yourself like this because she’s gone. I mean, god, Sollux, look at yourself,” she pulled herself away, her arms still wrapped around his neck as she stared up at the boy. He had grown so tall in a few years. She had gotten so short. “Sollux, you’re so pale. And scrawny. You look so…” [name] bit her tongue.
Sollux’s scowl made his eyes narrow, his lips thin, his gut burn with sudden anger. “Oh, ith now really the time to thart inthulting me? What am I? Ugly? Atrociouth? Dithgratheful? A fucking—”
“—Defeated. You’re so defeated.”
It went quiet.
And it stayed, the silence, for a very, very long time.
[name] cleared her throat. “You’re not those other things, Sollux. You’re just so defeated.”
“That’th not the point. [name], the’s gone. W-What am I thuppothed to do? I love her, a-and t-the’s…fuck.”
That word broke her heart. Love. That word, that was so intense, and so overplayed, yet so powerful, and so meaningless and full of definition. That word that [name] hated, but [name] loved, because all she wanted was for him to be happy. And she was happy that he loves her, but Aradia was gone as she was here, and it was selfish, but she wanted that to be enough. She wanted to be enough for him, at least once, because it was always Aradia, and Aradia was gone. She was not.
[name] couldn’t get over that.
Why wasn’t that enough for him?
“Sollux, listen to me,” [name] said, grabbing his face. Her fingers cupped his cheeks, which were once chubby but now thin, and she couldn’t tell if it was from under-eating or from growing up. He had grown up so much. “I know that it’s hard to lose someone, but you absolutely cannot treat yourself like this. It’s okay not to be okay, but it’s not okay to treat yourself like complete and utter crap. You are not crap, you are a person, and you are the king of your own body, and treating a kingdom like this,” her eyes looked up and down his skinny, sad body, “is not okay. Not at all.”
“That’th thuch fucking crap, [name]. I’m not a kingdom.”
“So what if you’re not actually a kingdom? You’re mistreating yourself, and that’s not okay. You can’t recover from this by hurting yourself.”
“Well, then, Mrs. Fucking-Know-It-All,” Sollux’s voice was harsh, but the words didn’t hurt [name] in the least bit. He was just angry, and depressed, and in the heat of the moment. She understood that. “What if I don’t want recovery in the firtht place? What if I jutht want her back?”
“Sollux,” [name] cried, grabbing onto his shoulders and shaking the life out of him. His eyes were wide with shock. Her lip wobbled. “Aradia is not coming back. Your mom is not coming back. They are dead, and they are not coming back, and I know it’s hard, but you have to—”
Sollux pushed himself away from her, his shove making her grunt. “—Th-hut up!” He screamed, his entire body thrashing, but he couldn’t control it. His entire being was an itch that he couldn’t scratch. That’s all it felt like, anymore. “Th-thut the fuck up, [name]! Jutht thut up! I don’t care! Thut up!”
“Listen to me, Sollux! They’re dead—”
“—Thop thaying that!”
[name] grabbed his shoulders tight. “They’re dead. You don’t have to forget them or even get over them, but you have to learn to function without them!” Her grip was so tight. Sollux didn’t even try to fight back; he just stared at her, wide eyed, glasses laying on the brim of his nose. Her eyes swelled with tears. “Being sad is okay. This is not okay. You cannot continue on like this.”
“Get out! I don’t want to talk to you anymore! I thought that you’d be a little leth thupid than the retht of them, but I wath wrong! You’re jutht like them!” Sollux pulled himself away from [name], so roughly that he backed into his wall. His back slammed with a loud thud that made [name] shake in her own skin. He was still shaking so badly. His eyes were intense with anger that burned [name] to the core. He was the fire and she was the alcohol; this was an explosion in the making. “Jutht get out!” Sollux shrieked, his eyes rimmed in tears that didn’t quite fall. [name] knew better than thinking that he’d let them just fall; she knew he wouldn’t. His false pride wouldn’t let him.
[name] saw through him, though. He wasn’t just transparent. He was raw.
The door swung open, and the fresh air rolled in with it. Sollux’s face, red and covered in tears, were clearly shown as the light filled the empty spaces. He squinted, his hands covering his face. Sollux retreated to his bed.
“[name], what’s going on?” Mr. Captor said, his voice soft, and nervous. Sollux continued to scream “get out!” and [name] wasn’t sure who he was screaming it at anymore. She ran her fingers through her hair, and snarled in frustration.
“I’m so sorry, sir,” her voice, though, was very, very sad. Mr. Captor took a step back as she walked through Sollux’s door, slamming it shut to muffle his angered screams and cries, and continued to strut down the hall. Mituna’s eyes were wide in shock, but it wasn’t like [name] could even see them. Mr. Captor followed her to the door.
“Wait, but aren’t you staying for din—”
“—Thank you, sir, but I can’t. I—I have to go.” [name] stormed out of the door. She wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. She even left her bag, the thing that carried the rest of her life, on the couch. She was that desperate. “I’m so sorry.”
The door slammed shut before Mr. Captor could answer back.