#catamari

• the mere idea of Scratch NOT hating him is something impossible for Shrike to wrap his head around and has never crossed his mind whatsoever so whenever he catches the smug pudgy furball glancing at him sometimes or noticing when he's not that quick to throw any sort of insult or immediate look of disdain towards his direction all of a sudden, he just assumes he's silently judging him instead.

• don't get it twisted. Scratch LOATHES the conflicting feelings he has for the scrawny pizza loving merc. Why couldn't he just hate him? Why is that reckless squidheaded moron so stupid that it's disgustingly amusing to him? Why did he have to find out his taste in men is complete a s s from HIM!? OUT OF EVERYONE IN THE ENTIRE GALAXY- REALLY? THAT GUY!??

• Scratch refuses to fully come to terms with and acknowledge it. He finds himself blaming Shrike for it even happening because how dare he cause him to catch feelings for him outta nowhere just by being himself?!

• Scritch is the only one who knows about his feelings as Scratch practically complains his brother's ears off about Shrike whenever he has the chance.

• there was a time when they both found each other tolerable. Saw the other as friendly competition, you could even say friends at some point. But the two slowly began to notice the differences in what they had in mind for goals.

• I like to see Shrike and Scratch as two sides of the same coin in terms of personality-wise. Their falling out a result of being made aware of the other's selfishness but never their own. Friendly competition turned into an actual forming rivalry to ultimately finding each other unbearable to be around until it all came crashing down in a huge heated argument.

• Scratch doesn’t "love" Shrike as much as he somewhat misses the pieces of a potential companionship they had together. He'll never admit it though.

• Shrike wants it all to be left behind and ignored (preferably buried). He believes he dodged a bullet, distancing himself from ever working with the condescending feline again.

• Scratch does know some Spanish, albeit very little because of Shrike, but he never made an effort to learn more or speak it clearly himself. He enjoys butchering words on purpose to get under his skin tho (which it easily does lol >:3)

They should be simple to understand, and that's that. Why must everything be complicated??

With his brother Scritch, he could easily tell what he was saying and thinking thanks to their strong tight knit brotherly bond, forget even needing to sign (which Scratch totally fully knows how to do, a natural at it really— leaves Scritch even more speechless by how good he is at it but that's besides the point-)

The stout black cat let out a heavy sigh as he buried his face into the cushion he was currently attempting to sleep on. Sleep. Oh, Trinity give him strength how sleep has been leaving him for the past few days now, yet something was keeping him awake. And he hated it. Loathed it.

He hated whenever those stupid memories would just come out of nowhere, unprompted.

He'd much rather deal with a furball that's been lodged in his throat than to think back about those times again.

Sometimes, he'd stare at the Walrinian in those few encounters they had. The one who was the sense, the rational thinking to the squidhead's idiocy. Sometimes, he'd see how well he could wrangle that reckless moron without the promise of a share of pixels. Without a single teasing jeer. Without a scoff or an eyeroll.

He made it seem easy.

Had he not done it right?

Had he not been a good frie-

An annoyed low growl left from the feline's throat as he rolled over onto his side to try and push that thought away, push it far down so it could never resurface. He hated that he even thought of that, or at least was going to.

Friends? Yeah right.

"I KNOW you"

Oh Shrike knew Scratch fully well.