Chapter Text
Gregory had only been on the streets for two miserable weeks when he found his first slugcat.
He didn’t remember exactly how he’d gotten onto the streets. (Big fat lie, that, he remembered every excruciating second.) There had been shouting, and screaming, louder than usual, and he’d fled out into the warm summer morning with bruises on his arms, a backpack full of snacks, the clothes on his back, and not much else. He’d just been desperate to get OUT of there, so desperate he hadn’t stopped to think about what he was doing until he’s already used some of his meager allowance to buy a bus ticket and was halfway across the city. He’d shacked up in a cardboard box behind a 7-Eleven that night, uncomfortable, achy, and so, so tired, and had, in the dead of night, made a promise to the stars that he was NEVER going back.
But junk food could only last for so long, especially when it was all you had, and the streets weren’t safe at night – most people weren’t kind to a small street urchin, and the weather was no better, afternoon and evening thunderstorms lasting long into the night at this time of the year. Gregory had lost count of how many times he’d fallen asleep only to wake up with rain and hail battering him, forced to scurry somewhere much nastier smelling just for cover from the elements.
It was hard to get to sleep those nights, paranoia that falling asleep might DROWN him keeping him up until the wee hours of the morning. Despite his vow weeks before, Gregory found himself longing for a roof over his head again, no matter how shitty the family living under it was, how often he walked away from arguments with bruises and ringing ears. At least there he’d been well-fed and safe from rain and hail and thunder, never wondering if today would be the day a bolt of lightning stopped his heart. At least there he didn’t have to sleep curled up around his belongings to keep them from being stolen by other, just as desperate people.
(Would it be worth it, to be guaranteed shelter at the cost of wondering if today would be the day that the bruises from too-hard grips turned to bone-breaking bea tings? )
Gregory might have gone back if something hadn’t turned the tables one day. It’d been another rainy, soggy afternoon, puddles gathering on the tarmac and dripping into his eyes. He’d been fishing through the trash bags behind a department store, looking for anything useful. His clothes had been slowly but surely getting more run down even BEFORE he’d run away, and his jacket had gotten torn – he’d been hoping to find a replacement that would keep the wet out. But, when he was half buried in old, forgotten clothing, too ratty to be sold but more than good enough to be a homeless kid’s lifeline, he’d heard the pitter-patter of something coming up behind him, and he’d risen from the grave of clothing with a sock more holes than fabric in one hand, waving it like a threat.
“Don’t you even TRY it, you dick, I’ll stuff this up your -!”
Gregory paused, staring.
The weird cat-salamander thing that had come up behind him, all blue and pink with the biggest purple eyes Gregory had ever seen, stared back, unblinking. He SWORE he could see it vibrating in place, like the rush of a million sugar highs was rushing through its body all at once. It didn’t seem bothered by the rain, water rolling off its back, and the boy felt suddenly, unfairly jealous at it’s obvious lack of discomfort when here HE was, standing there, shivering and miserable and soaked to the bone.
“What the hell are YOU supposed to be?” He snapped.
It squeaked. Gregory stared into those huge eyes, pupils big enough to see his soul reflected back in them, and balled up the old sock and threw it at the thing before bolting off into the rain.
The sock hit him in the back of the head with a wet splat a second later, and the pitter-patter of little paws followed him back to his box.
Twitchy was what he ended up naming the thing after a while. The slugcat, as he eventually settled on calling whatever its species was, was a stubborn, annoying thing, not sitting still for even a second and trailing after him no matter where he went. He wanted to go dumpster-diving? There was Twitchy, hopping up onto the edge of the dumper next to him, batting at the things he pulled out or diving into the garbage itself, wiggling and waving its paws at him. He wanted to steal some food when some rich prick left a bag of take-out on a bench? Twitchy was there first, bounding ahead to grab the bag in its little webbed hands and taking off running, too fast for Gregory to keep up. He wanted to sleep? A wet, slimy weight would wriggle into his box on top of him, laying over him and making excited squeaky toy noises, keeping him awake. It just. Wouldn’t. LEAVE.
He snapped and screamed at it, after a week. But Twitchy didn’t flee. Didn’t so much as flinch. Instead, Gregory was offered a spit-soaked bag of chips that the slugcat had, somehow, swallowed and then hacked back up, whole and still good to eat.
… he took the bag of chips, reluctantly, and named Twitchy two days later. If it was going to stick around, then he might as well have something to use when he was yelling at it.
And slowly but surely, as days passed, the hyperactive critter grew on him. Gregory had never been really interested in cute things, he wasn’t a girl, but Twitchy was USEFUL when it wasn’t being annoyed. It was a warm body to curl up next to when the rains got too cold. It’d make urgent noises when it was about to rain or hail, giving him precious warnings that let him avoid getting soaked most of the time. It’d help him when dumpster-diving, able to sniff out the stuff that was still mostly good to take for later. Sure, half the food they found went to feeding the hyper thing, but Gregory was filling his own belly more easily now even with that – his stomach wasn’t eating him alive anymore, and that was worth it.
Most of all? Twitchy was FAST and SMART. He’d never seen anything move so quickly before, so fast it was practically a blur to him, able to dance circles around people and slide across rough ground like a penguin on ice and do freaking BACKFLIPS over people’s heads to land on them and knock them out with a rock to the back of the head. And its brain, he realized after a while, ran just as fast as it did, constantly moving behind those big, soulful eyes, never caught off guard and always wary even as it played in trash piles or snoozed with temporary calmness against his back. The slightest noise, the smallest movement would catch their attention, and they would be ready to run in a moment. Nobody would ever catch him off guard again, with his new lookout constantly on the search for danger.
Or so he’d thought before he’d woken up one day to find huge white eyes, cloudy and blank and glowing in the dark, centimeters from his.
He did NOT scream. He’d reiterate that as much as he needed to. He did NOT scream. He was just startled, thank you, he hadn’t been expecting it. He wasn’t a baby. Let’s see YOU try not to be startled when you woke up to freaking ghost eyes hovering over you and staring into your soul when you’d gone to sleep with assurance that your friend weird pet would wake you up if something happened!
At least Twitchy had seemed apologetic about not warning him. As it should be.
The new slugcat couldn’t be more different from Twitchy if it TRIED. Twitchy was a constant state of noise and movement, bouncing from place to place and chattering as it did. This slugcat was quiet, permanently so, because on top of the creepy ghost eyes, it had no mouth, and every move was calculated and efficient. It STALKED instead of bounced. Twitchy didn’t care about being seen, dancing about with no care for watching eyes unless they were hostile, bright colors flashing be it rain or shine. The newbie lurked in shadows, its dark purple fur camouflaging it in the gloom, and it never came out when there were other people about, only when Gregory and Twitchy were alone. Twitchy was round and sleek, just a little chubby and a little slimy to the touch. The purple slugcat was thin and pointy, with taller ears and a narrow snout, its hide still soft to the touch but dry, more like thick peach fuzz or some sort of velvet, countless whiskers sprouting from all over its back and tail and along its forehead.
Twitchy would RUN from fights. The new slugcat would END them. Gregory would never forget the first time he saw the new one in action when some drunkard decided it’d be fun to do really gross things to a little boy living on the streets. Those ghostly eyes in the dark, the menacing snick snick of spears being pulled out of the creature’s tail like the cocking of some organic gun. The way it MOVED, white needles flying with expert precision and accuracy to pierce the man’s soft flesh.
It hadn’t been a FIGHT, really. It had been a massacre, and Gregory had gone to sleep that night somewhere between relieved and terrified, the sound of those needles echoing in his not-quite nightmares.
He named the slugcat Stabby, the next day. He’d meant to come up with something better, but the name had stuck after a while, so he didn’t bother. Besides, it was fun to point at some dick who was bothering him and go “Stabby, stab him,” once he stopped having nightmares about it. He got a giddy kind of glee from it – there was something very satisfying about watching grown men and women wet themselves when a ghostly little predator pounced on them from the shadows.
(He was pretty sure Stabby was a predator. He never saw them eat, since, again, they had no mouth, but sometimes he saw the threads that connected their needles to their tail sucking stuff up from people and animals they’d stabbed, like a weird mosquito.)
Though the slugcats had an annoying tendency to get in his personal space, Gregory found himself tolerating it. Enjoying it, sometimes. There was something soothing about sitting down next to a small creature and petting it, or laying down between two small bodies and drifting off to sleep. When they weren’t getting up in his face they could be pretty funny, too – Stabby and Twitchy DEFINITELY talked sometimes, he could see conversations passing between them even if it was in the form of squeaks and chirps on one slugcat’s behalf, and with huffs of breath and pointed thumping and tapping of tail and limbs on the other’s. Sometimes it turned into scuffles, especially if Twitchy just bopped the other slugcat on the nose and then took off running, making them give chase. He’d watch them run around in circles, the slimy critter keeping ahead of the other with sheer speed, only for some well-placed needle stuck in the ground to trip them and send them sprawling – or, sometimes, a slippery paw turning the tables last minute.
(When was the last time he’d laughed so hard?)
Though he’d grown to grudgingly like the two of them, two slugcats were MORE than enough, he’d thought. Any more and he’d start getting crowded out of his box, with how the other two liked to curl up with him, and he did NOT want to share any more food.
The world decided to flip him the bird and give him more anyway because Gregory woke up once more to find an incredibly large and ROUND sandy-colored creature loafing on his chest.
“OH COME ON!” Gregory exploded, nearly throwing the new slugcat off of him. “Where are you all COMING FROM?!”
Stabby and Twitchy were both quick, nimble creatures. The slugcat that Gregory eventually (irritably) named Bowling Ball was definitely NOT. Where the other two darted about like little acrobats (albeit one much faster than the other), Ball would waddle around like a particularly obese penguin, slow and plodding. Where the other two were energetic, never seeming to tire, Ball would flop over exhausted after too much physical activity, or seemingly just by watching the other two slugcats do their thing. Gregory lost count of how many times he’d turn around to find the new critter snoozing on its side, back, or belly, its body spreading out in a puddle of feline. And while the other two only ate in small amounts at a time, Twitchy snatching little bites on the run and Stabby just sucking up creatures’ life-juices, Ball would GORGE themselves, diving into dumpsters along with Gregory and eating easily three times their weight in garbage without a care in the world.
Gregory was this close to tossing the huge thing out on its stumpy tail before Ball waddled up to him one day and offered him an entire armful of food. Even after that, the boy barely tolerated the big lump… at least until the day that gave the creature its name, when a group of jeering bullies was trying to corner the younger kid in a mall he’d snuck into, calling him names and reaching out to grab him – only for a sandy blur of fat to come barreling in and sending them flying, the older kids shrieking and tumbling and one screaming about a broken foot even as Gregory grabbed his newest slugcat and RAN.
“I didn’t know you were THAT fat,” he told the slugcat, once they were safe. Ball had only blinked at him.
And so Gregory lived on, three little creatures now tagging along with him and giving him a bit of breathing room to be Gregory, not just a kid on the street. Ball had been kept at arms length by the other slugcats at first, despite being relatively easy-going – Twitchy seemed uninterested in them since they weren’t nearly fast enough to be a good playmate, and Stabby just seemed distrustful. Now, though, Gregory would sometimes find them “talking,” Balls oddly rumbly mrps and warbles a soothing backdrop to peaceful evenings, with the other two slugcats hanging onto their every word like children sitting around a campfire, listening to stories. Sometimes, the boy would join them, laying down and listening until the rumble lured him to sleep.
It was – peaceful. Ball was a calming influence on the other two, it seemed like, able to let out put-out noises if they were being too rowdy and have them calm down in an instant. Made it much easier to get things done, especially since Ball seemed to have a sixth sense that told them when the token human of the newly formed quartet was reaching his limit for the day. This state of affairs continued for a good long while, too, all the way through the rest of summer.
And then Grenade arrived. If Gregory had thought that TWITCHY was a handful, then oh boy, they had NOTHING on Grenade. He’d come back to his little makeshift “den,” as he was starting to think of it, with a plastic container of soup he’d managed to steal from a picnic table, only to come back to chaos as Ball restrained a hissing, spitting, caterwauling blur of blood-red fur and flashing white eyes, with Stabby holding them at spear-point. Grenade, unlike the other three, had been flat-out FERAL, lashing out at everything that moved and wild anger in their eyes, sharp claws lashing out and its odd, armored skin hissing with smoke and steam in reaction to their rage. Gregory had been TERRIFIED, for the first time in a while, when he’d met its single good eye – he’d honestly thought, when the new slugcat tore free of Ball’s grip to come charging at him, that he was about to DIE, and he’d been on edge around it for ages even after the other slugcats managed to pin them down, holding it down until it calmed. Gregory had no idea what Grenade’s problem was and had gone to bed that night with screaming cats with foaming mouths biting him in his dreams.
He’d woken up to find Grenade grooming his hair. Because apparently this slugcat had mood swings like nobody’s business, and when it wasn’t a screaming ball of rage it was a helicopter parent who hissed at anything that even looked at him wrong. So he just flipped off the god who seemed so determined to mess with him and kept going. He learned to tolerate the rages. He noted the quiet moments, when Grenade seemed oddly hollow and empty, eyes devoid of life, and would gingerly pet her when she butted her head against his hand, pretending to forget that she’d ever tried to murder him. Eventually, the fear faded. He got used to her, figured out how to hold her back himself so she wouldn’t maul any passerby that scoffed at him. Got used to her particular brand of crazy, including the fact that she could explode like a bomb and spit explosive saliva because of course she could. Found, somewhere along the way, that he’d started referring to her and Twitchy as girls, and Ball and Stabby as boys. For a while, life was good, even as things slowly got colder as summer turned into autumn.
Then Grenade trotted up to him one day, dragging a smaller yellow slugcat by the scruff, followed by a slightly larger white one, a pink one covered in scars, and a fluffy green one that was practically nothing but fur, the former two giving him pleading looks, and Gregory finally threw up his hands in defeat.
“UGH FINE, they can stay! Stop looking at me like that!”
His slugcats mrped and chirped and mewled in animalistic cheers, and Gregory just went and curled up in a corner, joined shortly by the brand new green slugcat who stared into his face for a long, pregnant moment with its squinty eyes before seeming to decide he made an acceptable pillow and curling up on his chest.
Autumn marched on. No more slugcats came out of the wood-works, thank GOD, but there were already so many of them that Gregory honestly wondered if he’d even notice new ones turning up. The new slugcats had settled in easily – oh there were arguments and fights breaking out, with so many different personalities in one place, but with Ball (and, surprisingly, Grenade) working together to keep the peace whether it be in the form of ferocious scolding or gentle disappointment, they were quick to be smoothed over. And if Grenade, she of the unending rage of a thousand suns, was willing to tolerate them, then so would Gregory. He resigned himself to the new company and got to know them, one at a time.
The blunt and scarily efficient Hunter, pink hide decorated in scars and strange, bulbous old growths, who vanished with first light and came back dragging some huge dead animal behind her. Brisk and to the point with the noises she made, except for when she was enjoying scratches behind the ears - then she’d purr with an odd inflection that sounded like she was gargling something in the back of her throat. Sometimes, he’d catch her looking off into the distance with a melancholy that Gregory couldn’t put a name to, and sometimes Stabby would join her in staring off into the distance.
The mischievous Bandit, a bright yellow ball of baby fat who seemed well and truly determined to rob Gregory (and other nearby humans) blind, making a game out of it that the others got roped into with some frequency. The youngest slugcat, the boy figured, based on how Grenade treated him – she was just as liable to hiss and spit at anyone looking at Bandit wrong as she was anyone looking at Gregory, and would take time to groom him if he got dirty. It made it all too easy to slip mischief under her nose, Bandit taking advantage of her adoration with all the sly cleverness that a kid could possess, though Ball was quick to keep Bandit from going too far with his mischief.
The skittish Lookout, at first keeping their distance and keeping an eye on all of them for threats before slowly warming up to the group, slowly joining their games until they would spring about and dance with all of them without a care in the world, spinning themselves and others dizzy with their enthusiasm. They turned out to have a streak of mischief just as big as Bandit’s, all too willing to suddenly sprawl out to trip the other cats as they walked by or springing on them without warning, and considering that shared impish streak and how similar they looked, Gregory was pretty sure that Bandit and Lookout were siblings.
And finally, there was Tongue. An odd slugcat, compared to the others, with their thick coating of fur. Fluffy and warm, the lightest and frailest of the slugcats – under all that fluff, Gregory could feel a frame so thin and small that he wondered if they were a baby, before noticing the white and gray peppering their muzzle. They were calm and pondering, watching the world go past with a distant look on their face – though they had their asshole moments, as the boy had learned one day when he’d woken up to find them staring down at him before their long grappling-hook tongue shot out and hit him in the eye.
Even with how annoying they all could be, Gregory realized he was a lot happier with this pack of strange creatures than he was with his old family. There was a companionship here that he’d never felt under a human roof before, one pure and totally accepting, and they worked together seamlessly despite the countless, countless arguments that he KNEW broke out among them when he wasn’t looking. They had his back, and he had theirs.
This was why, after the horrible night in the Pizzaplex was over, when he had a moment to stop and think and calm down after the worst night of his life, he decided he REALLY should have expected them to follow him in. AND the chaos they left in their wake. Slugcats were not to be messed with.