Chapter Text
Karkat was walking through the corridors of the stupid meteor-hive, away from an altercation with a dumb, uninformed human “cool kid,” when he stopped in his tracks, hearing a strange, echoing noise. Karkat’s eyes narrowed as he searched the seemingly empty space for the source of the noise. “HEY, FUCKWAD!” he called out, thinking the stupid human boy was stalking him for some dumb, ironic reason or something. Karkat spun in his tracks, looking for where the sound emanated from. He rubbed the back of his neck, slightly embarrassed, “I must be going fucking crazy,” he whispered to himself, “probably need to fucking sleep more.” His hands tightened into fists when he thought about his sleeping struggles, it’s not like he wasn’t trying. He started walking again, annoyed when he heard the noise a second time. It sounded like a pained moan, it didn’t seem like it was too far away either. Karkat started to worry, he bit his lip and thought about where the noise could be coming from. His eyes shot open when they came across a metallic vent. Gamzee. Fuck.
Karkat pried open the vent grate and lifted himself inside, careful to close it after him. He really couldn’t let Kanaya get to Gamzee first, especially because the dumb fuck was moaning and shit. What the fuck was he thinking!? Karkat followed the pained noises through the vent, trying to ignore the malicious feeling that the walls were closing in on him. Fuck, how did Gamzee live like this!? Karkat shivered a little and took a deep breath. Now was not the time to get claustrophobic. This was the exact opposite time to do that thing. He stopped for a moment, putting each hand on the side of the vent, he made a mental note. That is exactly how big the vent is. It’s not getting smaller. That would be impossible. It would be foolish to think that the metal vent could close up around him like some metal monster. Every part of Karkat was telling him to try and claw his way out of that god forsaken vent but he willed himself to go foreward. If Gamzee could crawl around in these all day than him just fitting in it should be a fucking cakewalk. Karkat, Proceed.
He found his moirail, laying on his back with his arms draped over him. Karkat sighed, “Gamzee, what the fuck?” Karkat was careful to keep his voice down. A necessary precaution. Gamzee replied with another moan, less loud than the others. His eyes were closed and it didn’t look like he was going to bother to move any time soon. Karkat sighed, jamming himself between Gamzee and the wall of the vent and wriggling to the other side of the larger troll. He took him by the collar of his shirt and started dragging him, much to Gamzee’s discontent, through the vents.
It wasn’t long before Karkat came to an opening in the vent, peering into it to see the room bellow. Looked like Strider’s room. Karkat counted the openings ahead of them. The third one down was his own room. He would make sure his stupid, inconsiderate, juggalo friend was safe there. Karkat continued hauling Gamzee through the vents until he got to the right opening. He kicked the grate into his room, so close to escaping this confining, metal fucking prison. He crawled out of the vent, taking a deep breath, as if he had just clawed his way out of his own coffin. He let himself fall to his knees, catching his breath, happy no one was around to see this awful dramatic display. He wiped away some tears that had formed in the midst of his anxiety.
Karkat reluctantly picked himself up, his legs still shaking from the trauma inflicted on him from that stupid fucking vent. He pulled a chair toward the vent opening and stood on top of it to collect his sick friend. He picked Gamzee up from under his arms and hauled him out of the vent. He wasn't quite sure at this point whether he was shaking from the dead weight or the claustrophobic encounter. After struggling, he managed to get Gamzee onto his bed, which under normal circumstances would have probably been too short for the lanky troll had Gamzee not immediately curled himself into a tight, little ball. Karkat let himself collapse again from the exhaustion of going through that much fucking stress for this clown-fetish, tool.