@starkillerthedreaded , @foolstojoinmyevilarmy , and myself before we split ways for the weekend. It was loads of fun and I can't wait to see them again.
My friends and I being dweebs with a statue of a guard at the Nelson Atkins Art Museum in Kansas City. With @starkillerarts and @foolstojoinmyevilarmy.
This is the first of two gift fics I’ll be posting for Christmas. This one’s for @starkillerthedreaded, who requested pure fluff and silliness. It’s primarily a fic for her adorable animation project Wrong Hand, but there are plenty of appearances by special guests from some of her other projects and favorite canons.
Melanie Blanc had just opened up the Wrong Hand Bar for the evening. The only customer who had arrived yet was the one who’d been waiting outside for her to unlock the place. “It’s early even for you,” she commented as she poured his first drink.
Torrid tried to shrug as nonchalantly as possible. “I left him. This time, forever.”
Melanie stopped pouring. “I would say congratulations, but . . . Torrid, if I set you up this early, you’re not going to keep drinking until you call Danny again, are you?”
“Nope.” Torrid reached into his pocket. “Here, you can keep my phone behind the bar. I’ll get it tomorrow when I come back for my car.”
“Okay, then.” Melanie poured the last two fingers into the glass and took the phone. “Congrats. I’ll just grab myself a soda, and we’ll drink to a Danny-free future.”
When the next person walked in, Melanie experienced a brief moment of dread. She thought it was Danny at first, because of the hat and the overpowering weed smell. But a second look assured her that it wasn’t Danny—just a completely different weed guy with equally awful taste in hats.
“Oh, heeeeey,” he said, looking around the bar as if he’d been expecting something more alien. “I was in the neighborhood yesterday, and I found this bunny. I think it might be somebody’s pet, so I made some missing bunny fliers, you know, in case anybody around here lost a bunny. Can I put one up in here?”
“On one condition,” said Melanie.
“Okay. What’s the condition?”
“You must come back tomorrow and bring the bunny. Capiche?”
“Sure.” The guy broke into a grin and took a slightly rumpled flier out of his knapsack. “The name’s Wacky Tabacky, by the way. I mean my name, not the bunny’s. I don’t know the bunny’s name. If nobody claims him, I’ll probably call him Cheez-Its.”
“Melanie Blanc.”
“Cool. Maybe I should call him Pickles instead. He won’t eat Cheez-Its, but he loves pickles.”
Torrid’s eyebrow twitched, but he remained mercifully silent.
Sunni Syde wasn’t feeling all that sociable when she walked into the Wrong Hand later that night. She’d been on the first shift at Sundollar Coffee, and she’d spent the afternoon helping her mom deal with a plumbing emergency. Sunni had given strong consideration to staying home and going to bed early. But she figured that hanging out in places where wrong-handed people gathered was her best chance for meeting her match. Where big groups of people who were literally wrong-handed like Sunni went, the people who suspected they were meant to be with a wrong-handed person followed. And if Sunni kept going where the other wrong-handed people were, someday the woman who was looking for her would turn up. So Sunni went out every weekend, no matter how tired she was, even if she couldn’t stay long. She had to see and be seen. Any given night might be the night that her match came to town, or the night that someone who had seen a mark just like hers on a friend of a friend noticed her hand.
Sunni greeted the bartender, then made a beeline for the bulletin board to check for any announcements of upcoming events where she might be likely to meet her match. Pyro was standing in the way, bouncing on the balls of his feet and humming to himself as he read the notices.
“’Scuse me, Pyro, can I see what you’re looking at?”
Pyro turned to her with the look of childlike excitement that was so often a sign of trouble to come. “Hey, Sunni, do you want a bunny? Oh my gosh, that rhymes!”
“Huh?”
“Somebody’s advertising a pet bunny . . . well, a found bunny that might be a missing pet. I’m not allowed to have pets, but I was thinking you could claim it, and we could share the bunny. You could keep it at your apartment, and I’ll buy its food and stuff.”
Sunni did like bunnies a lot, but she saw major flaws in Pyro’s plan. “Wouldn’t that be dishonest? What if the real owner shows up later?”
Pyro bit his lip and looked slightly guilty. “I guess it would be a little bit bad, but it’s for a bunny.” The bright smile of doom reappeared. “I think we’d be better bunny-parents than anyone else who tried to take the bunny. And what if someone who wanted to eat the bunny pretended to be the rightful owner? We should protect the bunny!”
Sunni sighed and shook her head. Whoever Pyro’s match turned out to be, the poor guy really had a life of adventure to look forward to.
“I’m so sorry about this,” Lefty said when Miles arrived. He’d apologized at least five times over the phone, but he was pretty sure telephone apologies didn’t count if you could apologize in person.
“Yeah, so you said a couple hundred times.” Miles got out of the car and picked up one of the large shopping bags with the Pet Place logo. “You don’t have to apologize. It’s not like I mind spending extra time with you.”
Lefty could feel his cheeks burn. “Thank you. I know this is the first weekend you’ve had a Friday night off in a long time, and it means a lot that you want to spend it with me. Even if we’re spending it hauling pet stuff to another guy’s place.”
“Here, I’ll get the trunk, and we can put it all in there. What is all this stuff anyway?”
“Mostly rabbit food. Wacky found a bunny he’s keeping until someone calls to claim it. I figured I’d better make sure it gets all the right nutrients for a rabbit. God knows what Wacky’s been feeding it.”
Miles chortled. “They’ll probably both be high by the time we get there.”
“Oh, come on, Wacky doesn’t smoke that much.”
“He smokes enough that he developed a marijuana leaf for his hand mark, for fuck’s sake.”
“Well, yeah, okay. But I don’t think he’d try to give any to a bunny. I was mostly worried he’d give it, like, Cheez-Its or something.”
After placing the first bag in the trunk, Miles reached for the smaller bag that Lefty was holding. It made a jingling noise. Miles looked inside and grinned. “This bag is all toys. Does Christmas come early for bunnies?”
“I, uh, don’t know how long it’ll have to stay with Wacky,” Lefty said, feeling mildly embarrassed. The truth was, he’d found it pretty fun to pick out pet toys. “The girl at the pet store said bunnies get bored easily and need to play a lot.”
“You are too cute,” said Miles.
“Hey, Wacky, I brought something for the . . . oh my god, is that what you’ve been calling a bunny?” Lefty stared at the large pink animal sitting in Wacky’s beanbag chair, looking up at him curiously with wide blue eyes. While Lefty’s face cycled through fifteen different expressions of disbelief, Miles started laughing so hard he had to lean against the doorframe for support.
“What’s wrong?” asked Wacky.
“Audino?” asked the “bunny.”
“Wacky, that’s not a bunny,” said Lefty. “It’s a Pokemon.”
“Seriously?”
“What do you mean ‘seriously’?” said Miles. “You didn’t really think that thing was a bunny did you?”
“Well, it was dark when I found him,” Wacky said with a touch of defensiveness. “And I’ll have you know that ‘thing,’ as you call him, is provisionally named Pickles!”
“It’s pink,” said Miles. “That should’ve been your first clue. And it’s huge. And it says ‘audino!’”
“How does that mean it’s not a bunny?”
“You think bunnies say audino?”
“Nobody ever told me what bunnies say! When I was a kid, everybody was all, ‘Dogs say bow-wow! Cats say meow! Cows say moo!’ But nobody would ever tell me what bunnies say. Why wouldn’t it be audino?”
“Because bunnies don’t say anything,” said Miles, shaking his head.
The old woman across the hall opened her door. “Keep it down. You boys better not be doing the drugs again.”
“No, ma’am, we’re not doing the drugs,” said Lefty. “Sorry about the noise, ma’am.”
“Oh, my! What is that?” Having caught a glimpse of the Pokemon through the open door, she stepped out of her apartment. “It’s adorable!”
“Well, at first I thought he might be a bunny,” said Wacky.
“What?” said the woman. “But it’s pink!”
“See?” said Miles. “It’s obviously some kind of Pokemon.”
“Audino,” the subject of the conversation chimed in.
“Yeah, this is an audino,” said Lefty, “a normal type Pokemon that likes to follow nurses around for some reason. And I think it’s female.”
“Really? I’ve been assuming it’s a guy because he—uh, she—or they, yeah, they—wouldn’t use my sister’s sleeping bag.”
Miles broke into a laughing fit. “It’s big enough to use a human sleeping bag, and you thought it was a bunny?”
“Hey, I’ve seen some big bunnies on the internet!” Wacky protested.
“You shouldn’t believe everything you see on the internet,” said the woman from across the hall. “They have a shop that makes false pictures, and anyone can put them anywhere. Your pink friend there is bigger than any seven bunnies.”
Wacky returned to the Wrong Hand on Saturday afternoon, with Lefty and Miles and Pickles the Audino in tow. Miles didn’t have to work in the bar that weekend, but he had informed Lefty and Wacky that he “wouldn’t miss the look on Melanie’s face for a million dollars.”
Haru was on duty at the door already. When he saw the Pokemon, his face lit up. “Is that an audino?” he yelled.
“Audino!” said Pickles.
“Sounds like it,” said Miles.
Haru, in spite of being 24 years old and 6’7”, ran to the audino and hugged her like a little kid. Miles watched him pet and scratch the Pokemon for a little while, then said, “Uh, Haru? Five middle school girls in cat ears just walked right by you. Now they’re drinking what Torrid Warwick is drinking.”
“Wha- Oh, very funny, Miles.” Haru got up off the floor and brushed dust and audino hair off his pants. “You better go on in before I remember to ask about your Pokemon license.”
Wacky nervously shuffled his way to the bar. “Hi, uh, Melanie? About that bunny . . .”
Melanie’s eyes glinted dangerously. “You’d better not be going back on your bunny word.”
“Thing is, Pickles isn’t really a bunny. She’s a Pokemon. She’s bigger than seven bunnies, and she’s pink, and she says audino. I’m sorry. Do you still want me to bring her in?”
“Yes! Of course I do! What are you smoking that you have to ask—never mind, don’t answer that. Just bring the adorable critter to me!” Melanie emitted an ear-splitting shriek of delight when the audino walked in.
The pink Pokemon became the bar’s main attraction for the evening. Everyone who came in at least wanted to pet Pickles or take a selfie with them. Ruby Rox and Sappho Sneed taught the audino some dance steps. Pyro was positively euphoric. Even Torrid was unable to conceal how endearing he found the audino, although he insisted that the name Pickles wasn’t good enough for them.
Sometime around nine, a tall woman walked in and scanned the bar. Ruby and Sappho were coaching Pyro and Pickles through a waltz. The tall woman approached them and cleared her throat.
“Excuse me. My name’s Aura. I’m from the Society for the Promotion of Pokemon Welfare.”
“What?!” cried Wacky. “Who called the Pokenarcs?”
“I did,” said several people, including Lefty.
“You obviously don’t know how to take care of an audino,” said Melanie.
“We don’t even know anyone who has a Pokemon license,” said Lefty.
“You’ve probably been feeding her pickles and Cheez-Its,” said Sappho.
“How does she know?” Wacky whispered.
Miles clapped him on the shoulder. “She just knows things, man. It’s kind of spooky.”
“I don’t work for the police,” said Aura. “We’re just people who care about the well-being of Pokemon. Is it true you’ve been feeding this audino pickles and Cheez-Its?”
“They won’t eat the Cheez-Its,” said Wacky. “They hates ‘em.”
“And the pickles?” asked Aura.
“Yeah, Pickles loves pickles!”
Lefty gently nudged Wacky with his elbow and said, “Not that you’d feed a Pokemon pickles all the time. You’d have to read up on it and make sure pickles aren’t bad for them, right, buddy?”
Wacky rolled his eyes. “Nobody would eat that much of something that’s bad for them.”
Torrid cackled and got out a wad of cash. “Hey, Melanie, when the show’s over, I’m ready to escalate to Kentucky bourbon! And I can afford it this time!”
“This,” Aura said carefully, “is why Pokemon licensing is a thing that exists.” She slapped Pyro’s hand away when he tried to offer the audino Pixie Stix.
“Oh my gosh, you’ve got a sun mark!” Pyro exclaimed.
“Er, yes, I do,” said Aura. “Why?”
Pyro grabbed her left hand for a closer look. “I know her!” he said excitedly.
“I already called her,” said Sappho.
“See?” whispered Miles. “Spooky.”
Sunni put on her best blouse, pinned up her hair, and hurried out to the bar. She’d received a call from Sappho and a flurry of semi-coherent texts from Pyro about a woman with a matching sun mark at the Wrong Hand tonight. There was something about a Pokemon dance too.
When she arrived, a slow song was playing, and an audino was out on the floor, dancing with a tall woman who had long, dark hair. Sunni squealed—she’d never seen an audino in person before, and it was even cuter than in pictures. Then her friend Ruby called for the strange pair to turn. Oh! It was a woman Sunni had never seen before, with the most beautiful eyes and the sweetest smile!
“Isn’t she the cutest?!”
Sunni screamed and nearly jumped through the ceiling when Pyro popped up behind her and clutched her shoulders.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you! She is super cute, isn’t she? Look at those eyes! You should dance with her next! Her name’s Pickles. Well, Miles’s friends have been calling her that. Torrid might make them change it to something prettier.”
“You’re talking about the Pokemon, aren’t you?” said Sunni.
“Yeah! Come ask for a dance—I don’t think Aura would mind if you cut in.”
“Aura—that’s the dark-haired woman?” Sunni asked. She heard Aura’s laughter ring through the music and the conversation.
“Yes. You’ll want to dance with her too.” Pyro’s smile turned shy. “Her mark matches yours.”
“Does she—did anyone tell her I’m a woman?” asked Sunni.
“Mm-hmm. She didn’t act very surprised.”
That was a relief. Sometimes people who had their mark on the hand that you would expect didn’t take it well when they found out they had a wrong-handed match. It always worked out eventually, but Sunni had hoped she wouldn’t have to go through that hurtful early stage. Sunni took a deep breath. “I’d like to dance with Aura first.”
“Good idea,” said Pyro. “You can keep her distracted.”
“Distracted from what?”
“She’s with the SPPW,” Pyro whispered conspiratorially. “They don’t let Pokemon eat candy.”
these two adorable characters belong to @starkillerarts
lefty rogers and miles write from her animated short/comic project wrong hand, which is a really cool idea and something i’m pretty excited about, if you have a moment do check it out, it definitely deserves the exposure
theyre probably one of the cutest couples i’ve ever seen tbh
What guilty pleasure are the main Strayer cast into? Like book or show wise?
Poe loves musicals and even though he wouldn´t admit it, he also enjoys the stuff like the Highschool Musical franchise.
Victoria is into scripted nonsense shows like Hell´s Kitchen, Drag Race or Keeping up with the Kardashians. Like stuff that is supposed to look real but totally isn´t.
Cort likes very clichéd fantasy or horror novels. He´ll be bragging about how bad they are, but he enjoys doing so. He also likes shows that involve cooking, baking or gardening but would never admit it.
I think Ela doesn´t really understand the concept of guilty pleasure. They like pretty stupid or bad stuff unironically.
