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Shrimpo’s steps echo throughout the floor, thudding against the carpet as he marches around wherever the elevator had taken them this time. It’s not easy to see in the dark, but he hasn’t found anything of interest yet, pushed away from every machine ever since that one time one broke from his habit of hitting his head against it a little too hard. One mistake and they’re casting him aside. Typical. Fine, Shrimpo will let them turn those wheels and get covered in disgusting ichor and get eaten by those freakish infected toons all they want. See if he cares.
The darkness stretches throughout the entire room and the shrimp quickly grows bored of it. He hates that he can’t see clearly. He hates that he’s pulled along to this when he’s just standing around doing nothing anyway. He hates it.
He drags a nail across a wooden wall, he’d carve his name in it if he had anything sharp with him. If he was back in his room he would’ve punched a hole in it. He could do so now, too, but he’s got enough mind not to alert those weird slimy toons with how much they seemed to want him dead.
His exoskeleton is littered with cracks and scars and bandages, crevices that run along his arms all the way down his back and legs. Fissures that break and scar and leave him a little different each time – ichor seeping out underneath staining his pale red skin. Sometimes Shrimpo just watches it drip from his fingertips. He knows he’s not as durable as the others and he hates it and the others hate him for it.
It isn’t logical to walk around stomping and yelling with life-threatening danger all around him ready to sink their teeth and claws into his neck at any moment but to Shrimpo that shouldn’t matter. He can do whatever he wants to and there is no one who can ever steer him off track once he makes up his mind about something.
“Heya, Shrimpo!”
Well, maybe someone.
If Finn manages to crawl his way underneath Shrimpo’s skin like a parasite that nests inside his gills the shrimp wouldn’t admit it. And if that clear-headed fish bowl was too dumb to see it, then who’s Shrimpo to admit anything?
The shrimp turns his head around to see Finn giving him a toothy smile, jogging towards him from another room, waving giddily. Shrimpo doesn’t do anything but glare at him in response.
“WHAT?” Shrimpo huffs, clenching his fists defensively. Finn hushes him.
“Pipe down! We don’t know if there’s anything here, I already got sea-riously hurt trying to extract a machine earlier,” Finn says in a tone that borders on concern, a weird middle ground between a whisper and a yell. Shrimpo glances down, seeing a mark on the bowl’s arm that seems like a dark scratch and his chest swells with something he cannot put a word to.
“DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO. I HATE MACHINES!”
The water in Finn’s head sloshes around as he giggles absent-mindedly, looking off to the side as if not moved by a word Shrimpo says. And for some reason, he’d always do so. It leaves Shrimpo’s anger snuffed out like a light. He can’t explain why it feels so natural.
“I know you do, but clam down. We’re almost done with this floor,” he smiles.
“WHY ARE YOU TALKING TO ME? GET TO THE ELEVATOR!” Shrimpo blinks, pointing demonstratively to where he thinks the direction to the elevator is. It’s hard to tell. He doesn’t have the best sense of location.
Finn looks around, always better at being aware of his surroundings than Shrimpo ever was. Not that it’s hard.
If Finn hangs around him because he wants something out of the angry boy he should’ve gotten it over with ages ago, Shrimpo thinks. For some reason he keeps coming back, acting like the insults are friendly banter and the angry instinctive glares are smiles and sunshine and rainbows. The idea almost makes him laugh. Chances are higher that Finn is an idiot with a heart too large for his chest and too much affection in his body not to let it out. His love for hugs almost rivals Goob.
The fish bowl grabs Shrimpo’s wrist, which manages to squeak out a surprised noise from him.
“I wanted to check on you to make sure you were okay! You tend to get a little roughed up sometimes,” Finn exclaims and it takes a second for the shrimp to realise he’s answering his earlier question.
“I’M FINE. THIS IS NO MATCH FOR SHRIMPO!” Shrimpo shouts. “YOU ARE WAY MORE FRAGILE THAN ME! I HATE YOUR GLASS HEAD!”
“ Whale, I’ve been betta, ” Finn chuckles and waves him off, still holding onto him. “But don’t worry about me. A captain only goes down with the rest of his ship.”
To think that he’d ever worry about someone so insignificant as Finn was about the most ridiculous thing Shrimpo has heard yet, and somehow the anger that bubbles doesn’t feel like it normally does. It spreads to his face, a warm heat that clutches his entire body and contorts his into a pink shade much like his tail. He shuts his eyes in fury.
“I AM NOT WORRIED ABOUT YOU! I HATE YOU!” Shrimpo exclaims, all but ready to punch the blue toon. He was not expecting to see Finn’s face so close to his and to feel something brush against his mouth when he opened his eyes, twisting his body to the side.
Finn seems to retract immediately, putting his free hand to his mouth with a mixture of surprise and embarrassment in his eyes.
“Oh my cod! Sorry, Shrimpo, I didn’t–” he stammers, flusters. “I meant to give you a little, you know, peck on your cheek! Not your mouth! I was just making a joke! Oh, crab. ”
Shrimpo blinks dumbly. Well, that was a first. Why do people kiss, again? Why do they insist on pressing lips and swapping spit? Is there a science to it? He couldn’t care less. To him it was gross and he hated it and he hated relationships and love and everything else he never had and everything that he did have. There is no point to it. But some people say love is one hell of a drug and sometimes he almost thinks he wants to feel it. He could never hug and cuddle and be gentle because that is not in his nature, but a kiss?
He supposes it isn’t too far from a headbutt. And those Shrimpo know.
Finn is also still rambling, gesturing wildly.
“FINN.”
“Gah! Sorry, Shrimpo! Carp! Don’t be mad at me!” Finn shrieks, expecting the worst.
Shrimpo surprises them both by leaning over and closing the gap between them in a frenzied kiss that feels more like it’s trying to knock the other boy’s teeth out with his own. Finn is left paralysed from the sheer surprise of it, barely even registering it when it ends after less than a second.
The bowl sputters and stammers and blushes in a way Shrimpo has never seen him do before.
“Why– Why’d you do that!?” Finn squeaks in confusion, but doesn’t seem too mad about it. He’d sworn that hell would freeze over before Shrimpo ever even hugged him on purpose.
Truth is that Shrimpo doesn’t know. That Shrimpo does whatever he wants whenever he wants. That he wants to prove that he’s a good kisser, that he’s not as alone and pathetic as others think him to be. Everyone else seems to love this whole kissy-lovey-dovey stuff, so why shouldn’t he find out what the fuss is about himself? He’s Shrimpo! Shrimpo always wins!
“SHUT UP! GET TO THE ELEVATOR! NOT A WORD ABOUT THIS TO ANYONE ELSE, YOU HEAR ME!?”
Finn shakes his head in disbelief, a smile on his face and giggles leaving his body as he follows the shrimp to the elevator where everyone is waiting, dodging creatures left and right. Shrimpo doesn’t know how much he loves him, how long he’s been waiting to just hold his hand only for him to turn around and kiss him like that. That shrimp couldn’t tell left from right unless someone told him out loud. What a fin-tastic fool. What a gill-iant dummy.