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@colmofdualum
I'm making you terrible spicy candy on Valentine's day now just for this even though you aren't even Kantonese
“...”
The question “why” was dripping from his expression, but he said nothing about that.
“I like fantasy,” he stated instead, “Mythology too. Can you work with that?”
However much is the thing you want. What do you even want?
“...”
He straightens up a bit, chuckling and scratching the back of his head.
“Listen, if I want something, I can get it. Just...think about what you’re doing, Poppy.
You’ve come to me, to ask me for a raise during the holiday season...to BUY me a present. With money I’m giving you.”
And now he’s laughing even more, that laughing sounding more like a ghostly cackle now.
“Oh no, I want you to buy presents for others and yourself. Treat yourself really well, I insist. THAT will make me happy.”
i just want to buy you christmas presents why are you making this so difficult
“Because people still have their eye on me AND you, and I can’t just play favourites without any kind of repercussion.”
-and look at that shoulder pat, and he’s whispering to her now-
“How much do you need? We can negotiate.”
Do you think opiates and anticonvulsants just grow on trees, boss
“...well, no. But I...”
-sighs, rubs his temples-
“I still can’t give you a speci--...”
-smiles wide, a little mischievously-
“Well, you HAVE been doing a lot of dangerous work, and have contributed amazingly to the company. And this WITHOUT any kind of bonus...”
IT'S TO BUY YOU PRESENTS YOU DORK BLACK FRIDAY IS THIS WEEKEND
“But...where did all the money go?”
-cocks his head-
“I pay you quite a bit...”
BOSS I NEED A CHRISTMAS BONUS BECAUSE REASONS.
-blinks, staring at her with a brow raised-
“Poppy, you haven’t been spending your money on a bunch of clothing again, right? I mean, I know you have...” -looks away and sheepish smile- “...an expensive taste, but...well...”
“You need to slow down.”
Hangovers are very annoying. Noir at least managed to get her to chug a bunch of water - that and her own powers made this nothing but an annoying headache but it was still an annoying headache she preferred to sleep through. So other than waking up, realizing where she was and going back to sleep again, she didn’t do much.
Chances are great she won’t be awake by the time Colm gets up. Noir already got her some food, after all.
That left Noir with a conundrum.
[“So what exactly do you do?”] She meant when nobody was awake. Was Colm awake? Was Gengar awake? Who knew.
Well, Colm wasn’t too far different from Poppy’s state. A lot of things happened during his absence. One of which events was being forced by his love interests to see a DOCTOR about certain depressive episodes once they got a little overwhelming (as in he couldn’t even do his work properly without having breakdowns). The result was being put on antidepressants.
Antidepressants that he was forced to wake up and take by Gengar. But once Colm did swallow the pill, he conked right back out on the couch.
Which left Gengar and the other ghosts in the same situation as Noir.
[”Our own thing?”] Was Gengar’s response, [”Wishal’s probably gonna go out and do groceries, since she’s th’ least scary here. Somov’us just move ‘round. I normally just chill an’...”]
And look at Gengar pointing at the Wii U in the corner there.
[”Yeeeaaaaahhhh...got Smash, if yer interested.”]
Gengar, no. That isn’t necessary. Noir just shrugged her off, ignoring her whining, and said -
[“She doesn’t MEAN it, she’s just drunk right now and I mean…”] She blinked. Noir’s first plan was to steal/borrow Colm’s shower to get Poppy somewhat sober but after being exposed to Colm’s ill-controled empath powers this long…bed seemed like a better idea. Poppy wasn’t in danger of actually choking or anything. Empathy was starting to overpower intoxication anyway.
“I’m sleeeeeeeepy…” She whined.
[“We’ll take the guest room, I suppose - I’ll be out in a minute, just let me…”] Noir yawned and teleported to said room - walking is for schmucks - and then just.
Kind of fell asleep along with Poppy after everybody got settled. Whoops.
Well darn it, Colm! Look what you did, being all tired and losing the grip on your powers like that! Tsk tsk, being so tired that you’re...practically falling asleep now...isn’t an excuse. But it kinda is. The guy looks ready to externally and internally collapse from exhaustion, dear Grieden.
[”...Sure,”] Gengar had answered the air by the time he opened his mouth. Well, Colm was pretty much out, and sleeping on the couch never bothered him before.
Well, time to cover the loser aaaaand...yep, everything was set.
Hopefully, he’d wake up before his guests. It was either 2 hours of sleep or 20, with this guy.
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Her face lit up. Colm’s place, yay! “Not - not Dualum - too far. Driftveil.” You know, in case he forgot where his own apartment was.
That gave Noir an out to not have to answer Gengar. Honestly, this was so embarrassing. But no sooner did she deposit everybody on Colm’s couch when suddenly Poppy made a grab for her face and -
“So hey - HEY - hey did you know - did you KNOW - Noir has these - these tiny - ” And she pried Noir’s mouth open and shoved it in the general direction of Colm and Gengar, showing off tiny fangs.
“Aren’t they cute!? I found out - Noir ATE a demon - it was so cool - also scary - I mean I knew the chest fin was her actual heart but - ” Here came the return of the chatterbox.
Arceus, did that couch feel like heaven right about now. Colm immediately sank into the cushions as they landed, almost drifting to sleep right there, when Poppy shoved the poor Gardevoir’s face right at him (and Gengar, who was right beside him wowee when did he get there?).
Now, Colm did read about Gardevoirs a while back, simply out of curiosity. He remembered that Gardevoirs held certain interesting features in their anatomy, but the details of those features escaped his tired mind currently. So seeing these fangs up close did not give the typical reaction of “oh my god let the poor pokemon go!”, but instead made Colm’s eyes sparkle as he looked closer. Only Gengar looked truly annoyed by this unusual torture.
And so, Colm stayed silent as Poppy chattered on. Gengar was THIS CLOSE to just pry Poppy’s hands off of Noir, but wasn’t sure how to do that without starting some kind of ruckus that would get everyone in trouble.
If she were sober, she’d be totally impressed that Colm even knew what tetanus was. But she wasn’t, so that flew right over her head.
“Your place has more beds.” More beds was good, yes? It should be. More of a thing was always better than less of a thing, wasn’t it?
Actually, her place had more beds, technically, but the basement didn’t count.
Noir blinked. [“I suppose this means we’re spending the night…if you don’t mind?”]
Wait, but her place had hospital beds. Did those count? Probably not, for the current purpose.
“So we can go to my place,” Colm nodded, though his eyelids began to weigh too much for him to keep them properly opened, “Sounds like...a plan, eh. Yup.”
Gengar grinned, [”’Eyyy, that’s no problem at all. Honestly, Colm’s missed you guys a whole lot more then he can express right now. So it’s cool.”]
“Benjamin, then! My name is N. Pleased to meet you.”
A girl with healing abilities– one whose name was something along the lines of Poopy. There were only so many people that could fit that description. N blinked.
“Are you talking about Poppy?” He was a bit surprised to hear the Spoose talking about her of all people. “Ah, that’s right… She did mention that she knew your trainer before, I think.” And it could be assumed from what Benjamin said that Colm too was aware of her powers. For someone who wanted her abilities hidden, she apparently wasn’t very good at being secretive. “Would you like to meet her? I’m afraid I’m not sure of her whereabouts… But she’d likely be fond of you.” Though she did have Felis. And Felis might have liked Benjamin a bit too much.
His chat with Benjamin was derailed as Colm made his approach. N looked up, continued to smile.
“Fine. And you, Colm? It’s been a long time…” Or at least it felt as if it had been. N’s smile finally began to falter as concern surfaced in his eyes. “Are you– okay?”
Colm’s brow rose at the mention of Poppy. Sure, Colm could read emotions pretty well now, and having a relatively strong psychosymbiotic relationship with most of his pokemon made it easier for him to actually understand what they were saying, but he still wondered what that Spoose had said. Benjamin was always one of the chattier ones, for sure. But what he found more surprising was that N knew Poppy. Not just of her, but from how he worded that...
The shy smile broadened a bit on his face. It made Colm happy when he found out that some of his friends met each other and were on good terms...or at least, that’s what all the signs pointed to.
But then N replied to Colm directly, and even Benjamin stopped his chatter to listen on this conversation.
“...” the way that last sentence rung in the air, it left him with a pinching feeling in his chest. Ah yes, guilt, because disappearing for a while with barely a word was definitely the sign of a good friend.
But he gave N a nervous half-smirk, chuckling nervously but softly still, “Yeah...it’s been a while. But I think...I’m good? I just needed a break from...well...”
How do you tell a person that you nearly had a nervous breakdown entirely and NEEDED to isolate yourself from the world to think?
“...I needed time to sort my thoughts out,” he sighed, smile fading, “I’m sorry to have worried you so much, my friend.”
Hm, perhaps assuming was wrong, but Colm was the one plucking up poor word choices to string together sentences. Kidnapping had such negative connotations. The implications were there. Still, that wasn’t why John’s smile dropped altogether. He’d so forgotten Colm was insufferably difficult to get a rise out of now.
“You can ask any time, my dear. Pity though, you used to be more fun than this. I had this erring hope that you’d become fun again in your absence, but it seems the soul you searched for was one of stronger stuff. Disappointing.”
Poor word choices? Why, they were the BEST choice of words for what Colm wanted. Ruffling little JJ a bit, making his smiles turn sour or his skin crawl. Showing some form of annoyance or, better yet, anger and sadness through his “smily masks”, this is what Colm liked to see.
But now Jay wasn’t willing to play more? The mental stimulation he got from the man was only tantalizing when it was this man giving it to him. The term “Schadenfreude” rang all the more clearly in his head, a term that used to disgust him now seemed acceptable. And now, Jay didn’t even want to play?
And now an innocent blink, “Sir, I am indeed hurt. I come to find you once more, to chat a bit because, apparently, you missed me,” and here, his oddly symmetric smile grew wider, “and you simply call me less “fun” than before?”
With the next sentence, a certain low, vicious excitement dripped from every word, though Colm truly did try to hold back on it a bit.
“I thought you liked g a m e s ?”
“Nah, like. Like it’s been AROUND. For a while. Probably has tetanus-” Wait, was that for wood or metal? Eh let’s lump it in for both to be safe.
“We should go somewhere with PILLOWS.” Which meant either her place or his. It was the same distance so Noir could make either jump with ease. Speaking of Noir…
“Say hiiiiii~.”
Noir waved. Hello. Sorry that Poppy is. Like this tonight. Not a good thing to reunite to.
“Tetanus...” Colm repeated, looking at the bench thoughtfully. Well, it did look old. And worn. And splintery...
“Tetanus is transmitted via deep puncture wounds from dirty nails, metal tools, wood splinters--” he began reciting like some Wikipedia page but stopped at wood splinters. Ah...but he never got that before...right?
Obviously that was something to question when the only thing really keeping you awake was the company around you and a fizzling adrenaline rush from...something he did earlier. Guess he was forgetting that now, huh?
But then Poppy suggested a place with PILLOWS(TM), and suddenly that was the best idea in the universe. Not even Arceus could think better, for sure.
Oh, gotta say hi to Best Gardevoir(TM) (sorry, Lucille’s Gardevoir, but Noir is more important). So Colm simply waved, a tired, crooked smile on his face that radiated “welcomness” (and maybe exhaustion, whoops).
And as for Gengar....
[”Yo,”] he raised a hand as he shot that, looking at Noir then away. Because big, strong pokemon aren’t even supposed to blush Grieden-damned!
The playful edge of John’s grin turned hard, eyes flickering with a curious confusion before settling on annoyance. That expression shifted, carefree and calculating as hands vanished into pockets. A shrug, shoulders never quite coming down all the way. Defensive, small, hurt.
“You w o u n d me Colm. I rescued those children because they wished to be rescued.” Shoulders dropped, smile turning absolutely wicked. Best shift focus away from his darling kits. Colm had no business talking about them, and really, was that anyway to respond to a off the cuff proposal for dinner? No.
“If you must know, when need a hole filed, I go to a bar to find someone willing to fill it.”
Admittedly, Colm agreed with Jay and his actions. After Poppy had told him about these events in a drunken stupor, he looked for a bit more information about all of that, found the context it all fell into, and simply agreed with it. There was a sense in the other’s actions, obviously, but it was easier to accept them now, even if they were a bit childish in reasoning at times.
“I never said it was a bad thing,” and Colm crossed his arms, tilting his head a bit to the side with a low cackle, “Assuming is rather r u d e of you, don’t you think? If anything, I should be the one wounded here.
And another thing,” he readdressed himself, narrowing his eyes, the disgust being more apparent but a pleasant chill still going up his spine, “Very appropriate, that last comment. Well, I now have the answer to a question I never asked.”
“Decent? Oh no no, C o l m, dear man, I hoped we could do better than that. Surely life has been better to you than merely decent. My own has been wondrous, really, barring a few personal problems. They would bore you really. Hm, or perhaps not. Who knows. I could tell you all about it perhaps. Over dinner.”
“...” Definitely a pause, a moment to reflect on that reaction. Simply watching Jay’s mannerisms over peeking into the emotional state was safer: Jay could pick that out if Colm tried to brush on those walls of his.
But yes, this was definitely the John Colm had been missing. Oddly enough, he wanted to see the other again. Even now, when he started to feel some discomfort from the other’s mere presence, he knew that he also oddly enjoyed it. And why not slip back in and be uncharacteristic of himself?
He’d been doing it before his break from everything, at least now he had the mind to accept that he was nearly as strange as this one.
And with a strange new smile, one that would make you think of a Haunter, Colm replied, “Well, decent certainly skips all the mundane activities and thinking I’ve done in the past months. But I take it kidnapping more children to add to your mismatched family is your way of filling holes?”
Well, that was horrible. And Colm knew that was horrible of him to say. But gosh, did he hope John would bite. He really missed that.
N merely nodded before going right back to talking to the Spoose.
“You see? I know you’re excited, but it’s best to tread carefully.”
“Now… can you tell me your name? Colm’s introduced me to a few of his Pokemon before, but I don’t think you and I have met.”
[”Benjamin!”] the ghost mouse squeaked with glee, [”And really? Well, a lot of the others talk about some of the funny friends that Colm has! Like that little girl who can do the heal-y thing on people and pokemon! Poopy? No, I think that was wrong...uhhh...”]
As the Spoose though on, Colm finally got the courage to approach N, just a few extra steps in his direction.
“So...how...have you been?”
