Tham lay still on his bed, a mostly empty glass bottle lying on the floor next to him, obvious in its displacement from the bottles which had been so neatly stacked in the box in the corner. Unlike the other bottles, this one had no label, no information on it to tell anyone what might be inside it, or if it was alcohol, how strong it was. His colour had faded, gone from the brilliant red his skin normally bore to a more dull, muted pink.
His breathing was nearly imperceptible, and while he didn’t have a chip like TO did, he did have a watch which, among other things, tracked his heart rate. Currently, it was not detecting a heart rate.
“This isn’t going to work.” Tham muttered from the bed, “And I doubt Vik keeps track of my vitals, anyway. Also, I hate it. Get this ice pack off my back.”
“Give it another few minutes.” TO said. “We don’t know where Vik is, and he could be here any second!”
Tham’s heart rate was a little low due to the ice pack on his back–it was essential to make him look a bit unwell–but he was actually fine. TO wasn’t an expert at programming like DH was, but they know the basics. Maybe DH could have come up with a more elegant solution to what TO wanted to accomplish, but the quick-and-dirty feedback solution TO came up with was linking into the watch and changing a number in the relay feed. This meant that while the watch still tracked Tham’s heart rate, it wasn’t sending it to his communicator anymore, and if Vik was watching, he would see a non-existent heart rate on his own feeds.
“You didn’t need to put the ice on my back, though.” Tham grumbled.
“Shh.” TO said from where they hid under a pile of blankets in the corner. Ok, TO’s own hiding place wasn’t that great but with hope Vik would come into the room via one of the vents or something, see Tham laying there looking pale and lifeless and come in to check on him properly. TO hoped that Vik would be too worried about Tham to notice that TO was in the room.
And they hoped that Vik wouldn’t be too angry at them.
It wasn’t long after when TO heard the soft scratching of Vik’s claws on the inside of the air vent overhead. They gestured to Tham and pulled the blanket overhead with just enough of a split in the fabric for them to see into the dim room.
The clicking got closer, then stopped. A moment passed, and they could hear the sound of metal on metal, getting faster and faster until the vent came loose on one side and Vik jumped down from the vent.
It was a flurry of movement after he jumped down. TO jumped to the side wall and pushed the vent back into place so Vik couldn’t escape easily, the sudden movement from the pile of blankets in the corner caused Vik to jump up with a high-pitched squeal before landing on Tham’s chest, his tail whipping behind him as crouched down.
He jumped again when Tham said, “Aww, you’d fight TO for me?”
Vik jumped away from Tham and onto the table, his little tail swishing back and forth, “What the fuck!?” he demanded, his tiny voice several octaves higher than it normally was, “That wasn’t funny!”
“I wasn’t.” TO agreed, and they honestly felt bad about the fact that their ears twitched to tell of their lie, “But you weren’t answering him, or DH, and you ran away from me and we didn’t know where to find you. So, this was the plan we came up with.”
“Not funny.” He snapped again. “Do you know how worried I was?”
Tham slowly rose up into a sitting position, taking the cooling pack from off his back and tossing it onto the floor. “No, I don’t.” He said as he turned up the heat in the room, “Because you’ve not fuckin’ spoken to me in ages!”
Vik huffed, his tail flicking, his ears twitching. “Well, if you’re going to play pranks on me like this, then no wonder!” he said. He turned as though he was going to jump to the vent, but saw that TO had quickly put it back in place. He sighed and glared at TO, “What, you’re keeping me as a hostage?”
“No! of course not!” TO said as their ears flicked back, “But I needed to talk to you and you ran away last time I saw you!”
“Fair enough. Not exactly a hostage situation. You’re kidnapping me.”
Nearby and still warming up from the cold, Tham huffed, “Kidnapping my ass; your’re older than me,” he muttered.
“He is?” TO asked.
“By two years.”
“Well, you have me. What do you want?” Vik said. “If you want me to put something together for you or look up something, you’ll have to let me go. I came here without my equipment.”
“It’s nothing like that!” TO insisted. “I just wanted to see what was up with you and DH! well, and I suppose you and Tham.” They looked at Tham, their ears dipping down, “Pearla said that you and Tham had been friends for a while, but Tham said you suddenly stopped talking to him. DH said that you weren’t talking to them either, and I can tell it bothers them-“
“Well, that’s something they’ll have to get used to, isn’t it?” Vik said with a huff, “All of you, actually.”
There was silence for a moment as the two took in what Vik said. TO was confused. What happened that Vik would be like this? What did DH, or Tham, or even TO themself do to make Vik want to cut them off like this?
Tham was apparently just as confused. “What do you mean?” He asked, finally warmed up enough to slide off the bed and approach the table. “What did we do? Why do we have to get used to not talking to you?”
“You know exactly why.”
“No, I don’t.” Tham said.
“DH doesn’t know either.” TO added. “I asked them what was going on, and they had no idea. In fact, they don’t know I’m here talking to you.” Their ears dipped down. “I didn’t want to worry them.”
“They wouldn’t be worried. I doubt they’d even care.”
“Hey now.” TO said, their ears pinning back, their eyes narrowing. “DH cares a LOT. How could you think they wouldn’t care!?” They leaned forward, crouching down with a grunt as they forced their prosthetic leg to cooperate. It was surprising how quickly the thing worked. TO had avoided crouching and kneeling since the operation unless they were training, but this casual movement seemed to work out.
Of course, they weren’t kneeling down to put themselves ‘on Vik’s level’. They wanted to get closer, to look directly into the pupils of this creature who just suggested that DH could be in any way heartless.
Vik looked up, and took a sudden step back, their tail stilling as their eyes widened in fear.
“TO, er, maybe back up?”
It was only then that TO noticed they had their teeth bared. With a long breath, they closed their eyes and calmed themself. Why did they react like this? It wasn’t a nice thing for Vik to have said, but their reaction was a bit much.
“DH is the nicest, sweetest being in the galaxy.” TO said, the words coming out in a hiss, “Why would you think they wouldn’t care?”
Vik didn’t respond right away. Instead, he huffed and crossed his little arms, his tail twitching behind him.
“Vik?” Tham asked, “Come on now. Why don’t you think he’d care?”
“Obviously, because you’re done with me.” He said, “I did what you needed. I did all the tech work, I helped make prosthetics, I worked my way into so many systems and took control of a synth vessel, and now you don’t need me anymore and you’re all just going to take off to Apoopia, or wherever!” He said, “But that’s fine. I’ve been on my own before. I left home and survived on Arkane before getting involved with the lot of you, and I can survive just fine here, too.”
A moment of silence followed. “A-poop-ia?” Tham said, chuckling.
“Why aren’t you coming with us?” TO asked as their ears flicked down once more. Even as they asked, they realized that while a part of them had just assumed that Vik would go with them, they never confirmed it with Vik.
Tham, for his part, glanced aide, his color paling. “I... I figured DH would have asked you.”
“He didn’t. And why would he have? I’m not family!”
“Well.” TO said, “family is a stretch, anyway.” They said. “But I assumed you were-“ They stopped, paused, and sighed, “I assumed. And never asked you. And all this time…” their eyes widened, and they suddenly sighed and pinched the bridge of their snout. “It makes sense. Pearla said you ran off the first time after they were talking about going to Apoika”
“I didn’t run off,” Vik huffed. “I just left.”
“Yes, without saying anything,” Tham added. “And I assumed you’d be coming too.” He glanced at TO, “I’m told this whole family thing is flexible, and has fuck-all to do with blood.”
“Not wrong.” TO muttered. “I was reading as much as I could get while I was bedridden, and it seems to boil down to just collecting people you like.”
“Then why didn’t DH ask me to go with you all?”
TO sighed. “Alright.” They said, taking out their communicator. “Come on. We’re figuring this out.”