#percel

He sighed and closed his eyes as he pushed a hand through his sweaty white hair and took in a deep breath of the bunkers warm air. The familiar smells of fur, flowers and old books were a comfort as well as a reminder he really needed to dust more often as always. Percy sat up and let the blankets puddle around his waist as he looked around the room. “Scraps?”

The pumeras weight on the bed next to him had not gone unnoticed. Despite having plenty of spaces to sleep (and his own bed for flora’s sake), the great blue cat had always preferred shoving Percy over and claiming half of the Mordesh’s bed for himself. Percy complained sure, messing with the cats ears and ruffling his fur and shoving back, but the animals presence was more of a comfort than he would ever admit. Shoving the blankets away, he slid out of bed to pad to either side of the room to look into both kitchen and bathroom alike. He found pumera fur to be sure, on his reading chair, on the floor, on the dinning room table that Scraps knew he wasn’t supposed to be on, but no pumera.

“Exactly how do you lose a cat that size?” He pushed open the door to his makeshift studio and looked around into the floor just below it. The library’s fire, thanks to the refillable Protostar© gas tanks that fed it, crackled in the hearth and filled the place with a warm glow. Here the smell of fur and books and dust was stronger, the dark wood of the many bookcases that lined the walls of the room deeper in color under the flickering light cast from the flames. The mounted animal heads on the walls cast long shadows at his feet, pictures on the walls dulled where the light did not reach them. The sight of the room alone was enough to push the rest of the fear his nightmare had summoned away as he walked around to the front of the hearth. There was no missing the large blue cat that was sprawled on the rug looking like he owned whatever space he happened to be in at the time. 

“Fat cat.” Scraps lifted his head to give Percy one quick look before he lay it back down and rolled over to his stomach, his front legs stretching out over his head as he kneaded the air. Percy knew this was a trap, but it didn’t stop him from sitting down next to Scraps and running both hands through the thick fur of the pumera’s belly. Instantly Scraps curled around him with a growl, rubbing his large head against Percys own. “Yeah, you’re an asshole. My favorite asshole, but an asshole. An UNGRATEFUL ASSHOLE!” HE sputtered as he felt the pumera’s claws knead into his bare back before he disentangled himself from their grip. “I could have left you in that trap, you know.”

No, he couldn’t have and he knew it. Even if it hadn’t been something large and willing to claw his eyes out, a dying animal with a bloody neck caught in a trap would have been rescued. The wheezing the pumera had been making had hit too close to home that Percy could almost feel the breathing tubes in his nose again, the heavy weight of an oxygen tank behind him. The pumera had offered up no resistance, his nearly dead weight hard on the Mordesh to carry. 

“Good thing we had Aurin nearby, huh?” His rubbed a hand under the cat’s large, low hanging jaw, a purr rumbling from Scraps’ body as the long blue tail began to sway back and forth. The trap was Dominion, they had explained, something to do with the Chua intelligence (Chua intelligence, had to be an oxymoron) division called S.C.R.A.P.S. What it meant no one knew, but it was pretty self explanatory to him. Catch something and if it wasn’t useful, toss it aside. Scrap it. It had become the pumera’s name, his background and identity. It had taken weeks for them to get comfortable and trusting around each others company, but it chased away the loneliness for Percy and the uncertainty of life for the pumera.