You're crawling Idly along through the damp vents in an attempt to make the least amount of sound. The light air currents that waft about your smell stale. You hope their whispering noises will help to muffle the clangs of your movement.
And of course you’re scared for Equius, your meowrail. He’s brilliantly smart, overly strong, and supremely proud, but too many seem to forget or ignore the first in favour of letting the latter two expand to cover their every perception of him. It’s certainly an advantage, but you don’t know if it’ll be enough. Gamzee has never been the brightest of your group, of course, and everything but the most blaring and obvious stimuli seem to sweep right over his sopor-addled thinkpan. Yet, despite all of that, he’s beyond dangerous and all you can hope that Equius won't be too big an idiot.
And that he won’t be too angry at you for exploring the vents while you wait for him to return. You don’t think you’re really in any danger, he’s just being protective of you.
You know you would have been just as protective of him if you were in his position!
But he still probably would have protested you going, saying that it would be “too dangerous”, and that it was “his duty to to calm the highbl00d”. You didn’t really have any skills that would be useful for this mission anyways. What would you do, purr him to death? Your kitty claws might be sharp but Gamzee was-
Well he was…
You don’t want to think about it.
Up ahead you see several strips of faint light strung over the walls and floor of the vents. You guess that there’s an opening up ahead. You scoot along a bit faster even though it’s really awkward with your elbows rubbed raw along the riveted sides leaving streaks of olive along your trail. You hope that it’ll heal soon once you stop.
The pain quickly leaves your mind in favour of the light but is quickly caught again by something else.
A whiff of a stale, salty scent similar to the smell of a kill left too long gutted in the sun. You’d smelled it before on long hunts of brutal predators when you’d followed the trail left by their kills.
Your best guess was that someone had left a batch of expensive grubpaints lying around for too long.
When you reach the side tunnel that ends with the vent, you don’t hear much- your own huffing breath and the sound of metal creaking under your weight.
You pluck your claws from your specibus and use them to pry apart several of the metal slats so you can see inside the room.
The stench is strong, with a warm brown splattered all over the remains of Pucefoot, Berrybreath, and Doctor Honeytongue? Terezi will be distraught! Who could do this?
Backing up into the main tunnel, you spot another set of lines further down. The smell is even worse here!
Gamzee seems so be playing games, wanting you to be next and all. Why would Equius be so scared of a game of hide-and-go-seek?
The next bend only seems to contain more darkness, but as you turn the corner you see a final green great- you mean grate. Upon entering you find a room with two non-functioning transportalizers and a chest containing the miracle that is a shitty wizard figure. You use your claws to pry open another grate on the other end of the room. The stench is horrible here, even for you and all your hunting experience. The tunnel fades into jet with only a single grate to tell you that you’re going in the right direction. You tug your trench coat over your nose - no beast you’ve gutted has ever smelled this bad!
You sit behind the grate as you year voices-
And-
And-
A pale fury ties up the edges of your vision and your scream rips through your throat as you tear into the vent cover. You spring with muscles taut and he spins, distracted from his volt-blue paints. He honks in revolting, apathetic surprise.
Cobalt frames his juggalo paint and Capricorn symbol with a collage of others. The blue shines sinfully pale in the harsh lighting as your blue claws flash as your fly at him. You aim for his face.
For his dull eyes and his lightning-grin, pinching line of a mouth.
You want to cover the blue with indigo.
He inflicts pain simply to see it happen blunt, then sharp, and blunt again - first to your wrist, but then to your thighs, your ribs, your hips, your back. Fast and then slow- no pattern, no way to ignore it.
Crawling back you find a hand curled in on itself - still faintly warm. Your head is filling with numb, staticky fluff that crowds the edges of your vision as you search further, finding glasses split with spider-webbed cracks.
You cradle your head in the hand which smells like the grip of a bow, stale sweat, and spilled milk.
White encircles your vision, filling in the dripping olive translucence
The honks stop.
It goes very quiet.
And you lie in the cottony-white and quiet comfort.