#these are. exactly. 30 thousand 5 hundred words.

[randomwriteronline]

(A Day)

The sun was pouring in through the window, calmly, stretching like a drowsy Liepard. They had forgotten to get the blinds down, yesterday - but in their defense they had been too horrendously tired by the end of their snickering dinner to remember to do that, or to move back to their respective rooms for that matter. It still felt incredible that Elesa had managed to remain lucid and awake enough to go home on her own.

Emmet was asleep still, his cheek resting on his brother's sternum and arms wrapped in a loose hug around his neck. Ingo patted his back softly, intermittently, trying to follow along to vague memories of songs.

He wasn’t used to being awake before anybody else - usually he would continue snoozing only to be quickly yanked out of his torpor by a sudden sound caused by the activity of somebody already up and about, whether that be Tangrowth stumbling out to get some sun, a clansman checking on him, a Pokémon prowling around in an attempt to strike him unprepared.

It had taken just a moment to assess that his twin, even trembling so fiercely and twitching uncomfortably with his brow furrowed deep, muttering something like ‘viva’ in a pleading tone, was very much not conscious.

His nightmare had been dissipated quickly, thankfully, when his nape was scooped into a scarred hand and his hair kissed by a dry mouth that began to soothe him by muttering a litany from the Icelands, with a soft beat like patta-pat, pat, pat - patta-pat, pat, pat - patta-pat, pat, pat, patta-pat.

It was a sort of nursery rhyme, if memory served him well, to scare away Ghosts and bad dreams; and now Ingo struggled to recall the words to it.

There was one about Bergmites, but it had their ice armor melted in the sun, and this one was more of a playful march. He was half sure it featured an increase in number of some sorts - or maybe he was confusing it with the Aipoms swinging across the side of a river? Very likely; though he still had a feeling math played some part in all of it. What Pokémon do scare off Ghosts... Well, that’s easy, Dark or Ghost types, but it certainly wasn't about Glalies or wandering spirits. Might have been about... Riolus? Or Glameows. No, no, Riolus was more likely. Walking in rows after a Lucario acting as their teacher, or training together by attacking and blocking. Ah, but that didn’t have anything to do with shielding from apparitions - they couldn’t even touch them, Fighting types that they were! Though Steel is very effective against Ice... But what did Ice have to do with anything? Now he was thinking of Irida and Gaeric.

He rushed back to focusing entirely on the beat against his brother’s ribs before his mind wandered into territory that turned his own chest into a suffocating iron cage collapsing under the deep sea pressure.

Patta-pat, pat, pat - patta-pat, pat, pat - patta-pat, pat, pat, patta-pat.

Not remembering the lyrics was making this quite a challenge.

Did he at least know the melody?

Ingo tried humming a note or two, just to hear how that would sound like. He remembered to draw them out a little, like chant, or a lament. When he had heard Lian sing it to one of of Kleavor’s smallest Scythers while swaddling it in a blanket, his young voice had sounded a bit akin to the whine of a Swinub; Ingo traced over the fuzzy memory of his singing with his own buzzing throat, as if the still incomplete tune were a drawing and he himself an unskilled child learning to draw by following someone else’s lines on a paper held against the sun.

Had he ever listened to it properly? No, probably not. What a shame.

A part of him thought it was a relief. That meant it would have been easier to go back to everything being normal, being right; he would leave all of Hisui behind himself in some lost nook of his brain like he had left it behind in time and space alike, and he would return to being whoever he had forgotten he was, and it would have been good.

Not a trace of change.

(The warden that was bound to fade away from his self eventually was fiddling with the stark white kimono Irida had given him, lamenting without words how he wished he could still see in its place the pale pink of his former tunic, and mumbled that he didn’t like the idea of forgetting. It was just something that nobody could stop, Ingo tried to reason with him, sheepish and defensive: it wasn’t out of malice, but simply how things are. The warden looked at him very sadly, with that pale unhappy face of his.)

(I think it was about stars, the warden said: I’m not certain, but I believe the words sounded a little like this.)

The head on his chest lowered for a moment, nuzzling his ribs, and its shoulders moved as if trying to properly push down or take off a shirt too tight.

“Oh,” Ingo said, interrupting the string of vowels he had begun singing and stilling his hands over the bony back. “I apologize. Did I wake you up?”

Emmet shook his head with a sleepy groan; his arms stretched and tensed to make his joints crack imperceptibly, imitated by his legs; his eyes were still closed, and his mouth felt full of clay-like paste that stuck his tongue to his palate and his teeth to his lips.

“Already awake,” he lied.

“I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“Don’ worry.”

He tucked his knees against his chest and curled up a little more to be more comfortable, slightly tightening the hug he had his brother ensnared in. He couldn’t remember sleeping like this, like a rock placed on top of an ironing board, in what felt like ages. It felt warm, and nice, and familiar.

His twin’s hands rested back on his spine, as light as feathers, no longer patting it. Emmet hoped he wasn’t embarrassed by it, nor that he thought himself silly for it. It was calming, really.

He could have stayed like this for another hour.

Huh. Weird for him to want to keep sleeping. He was the early riser. Could have been the sleeping pill again. No, no way. He must have had digested it by now.

But his brother definitely would not wake up before the alarm.

“What time is it?” Emmet asked, groggy voice a little gurgling despite the fact that his mouth seemed drier than the Route 4 desert.

“I don’t know,” Ingo replied, “But considering the sun, it’s morning.”

Considering the what?

The sun doesn’t rise anywhere near 5:30 in the morning in early spring.

Emmet furrowed his brows and slithered, with some difficulty, one of his arms away from under his twin’s neck. Forcing his eyes to open (shutting them for another moment with a groan as the light bothered his not yet constricted pupils) he squinted at the numbers on the Xtransceiver. It took him a hot second for his brain to once again comprehend any written sign.

It was currently 9:03.

“Shit,” he croaked out with a wheeze.

With all the gracefulness of a nightstand falling down a spiral staircase and launching itself through the wide enough hole in its railing to bounce with a horrid crunch directly into a den of hungry Bidoofs, he began climbing down from his brother’s hold face-first, possibly emulating Eelektross when the dastardly Mold Breaker emanating from Haxorus would reduce him to pitifully crawling on the floor like a wet tube in disdainful protest.

His attempt at not worsening his disastrous delay was however quickly vanquished by a pair of arms slipping right back under his armpits and around his neck, which pulled him back up, and by the body attached to them, which turned and squashed him against the back of the couch.

“Fucker,” he spat out.

“You’re still tired,” Ingo commented casually like he wasn’t constricting his younger twin in a grapple: “From what I understand, you spent the entirety of yesterday extraordinarily drowsy. It can be dangerous to go about not well-rested, you do know that, right?”

“Let go. I am verrry late.”

“By how much?”

“Three and a half hours.”

“Ah! That’s quite a shame. At this point it might be better for you to take another nap and head out later, if not at all entirely.”

Punches began pelting his back.

As a response, he leaned a little heavier; his younger brother made a sound that reminded him of a Magby whose paw got stepped on, and started hitting him even harder.

“You’re a little weak,” Ingo noted, genuinely slightly concerned: “Have you been eating enough?”

“Fuck you.”

“I am very serious.”

“So am I! Fuck you!” and seeing as brute force was having no effect, Emmet was now trying to wiggle his legs back up to his chest in the hopes that he would manage to punt his feet directly in the older twin’s stomach. “I am already late on schedule! Don’t make that worse!”

Hm. A reasonable complaint. Very well then.

With a final squishing that got him another fist banging on his shoulder in an attempt to stab him with air (as there were no knives or other silverware available) Ingo sat up, stood on his creaking legs, and began making his way to the kitchen so his poor mess of a baby brother could sit down and get something in himself stat, before he decided he did not need to ingest anything before spending a whole day doing Sinnoh knew what with nothing to keep him standing upright on those bony ankles of his.

He spaced out for a moment once in the room, right before the fridge which still buzzed as loudly as the day before, wondering why his arms seemed to be occupied when he could have sworn he wasn’t holding anything in them.

Once he actually opened his eyes - must have been tired himself, trying to sleep even as he walked - he noticed he was indeed holding something.

That something happened to be Emmet, whose hands were holding extremely tightly on the fabric of his older brother’s shirt and whose legs were wrapped around his sides in a similar iron grip as to not fall onto the ground despite the fact that firstly, the arms keeping him airborne were very much not going to let go of him, and secondly, he could have easily stood on his own feet if he just put them back on the floor since they were the same height.

Emmet might have forgotten that in the throes of being picked up like a packet of potato chips, because he seemed slightly terrified by the current situation.

Ingo gently put him back down.

“Sorry.”

“I don’t like that you can do that,” his brother stated plainly. “You could use that for evil.”

"I most certainly would not," Ingo scoffed. "And you are just thin. Please sit down and get something to eat."

His twin fake-slapped him to shut him up. The slaps turned more frantic as he unceremoniously picked Emmet from under the armpits and hoisted him back up in the air, completely deaf to his string of no-no-no and sorries and ingos and put-me-down-put-me-down-Dragons-above-put-me-down until he planted his ass on a chair.

“You are going to eat,” he declared.

Excadrill, who had just scuttled into the room, agreed loudly with the sentiment.

In true younger brother fashion, Emmet pouted: “See,” he argued as he slumped in his seat: “I was right. You used it for evil.“

“I wouldn’t call making sure you don’t starve an ‘evil’ motive.”

“It is! Because I’m late.”

“By three and a half hours.”

“Exactly.”

“Which is so late, at this point the schedule must have been already rearranged to accommodate for your absence,” Ingo rationalized, trying to search through the fridge: “So might as well take your time and eat properly first.”

He then spent a few moments looking mesmerized as Emmet struggled on his chair against apparently nothing with such violence that, after rocking it over and over in all directions, he finally slammed so hard on its back that he should have by all means launched himself right onto the pavement tiles. Instead, he stopped just short of that, winning against gravity in a way that made no sense; the chair settled very gently back on all fours, and the younger twin whipped his head around to stare directly into Chandelure as she deflated in the relief of having caught him in time.

He then turned back to his brother older by eleven minutes exactly. His mouth was flat and his eyes told of unspeakable rage.

Ingo turned to the haunted light fixture: she gracefully showed him her back.

He could hear the younger twin wheeze and whistle in fury like a kettle left too long on a burning stove as he retreated back in the metal parallelepiped in search of something that could have constituted a good first meal. He sighed, re-emerging from the cold.

“Please let him go,” he demanded politely.

His brother gave a victory groan and slammed his face on the table to make sure the Psychic bindings on him were completely gone.

Archeops took the opportunity to sit on his nape.

“No!!” his trainer’s shout was muffled by the weight pinning him down as he reached up and harshly scratched the scaly body covered in feathers with hands hardened into claws. The overgrown snake-headed chicken gargled delighted by the annoyance of his mischief accompanied by Excadrill’s snickering chitters while Ingo reached out to get something in the pantry he was pretty sure he had seen yesterday.

Resuscitated fossil manhandled off of himself with the help of a couple belly rubs, Emmet jumped to his feet and shot him a glare.

“I am Emmet,” he announced irritated, “I am tired of being bullied.”

His brother hummed: “When are you set to return home?” he asked, completely ignoring the other’s demand.

“Eleven thirty at night.”

“I see,” Ingo commented.

The strange conciseness of the sentence set off alarm bells.

The second he tried to move forward to grapple him again, the younger dropped into a defensive stance and grasped the table to keep it as a barrier between the two of them.

“Nooo,” he growled.

“I will not pick you up again,” Ingo promised, only half-lying.

Emmet pointed at his face: “No!”

If the older took a step to the left, he moved to the right, and vice versa. They did that old comedy routine for maybe less than a minute before juvenile impatience overwhelmed the younger brother, and his brain suddenly shot to a completely different topic: had their Pokémon eaten? He glanced around to find their bowls, planning to pull off a fulminous move in some way or another and disappear first into the livingroom to somewhat set up breakfast for their teems and then into his own room to change shirt at record time and teleport out the door before he could be wrestled into a chair again.

The bowls were missing though, and the cabinet holding the various Type-specific foods had been left open to reveal its insides empty if not for a variety of edible pellets that must have fallen out as they were moved out.

Right. They were smart. And Gurdurr had sort of human-like hands. They probably got tired of waiting but didn’t want to wake their humans up. Especially not with one of Crustle’s spoiled baby tantrums. Dragons, how come that crab of a Bug was still behaving like an unsocialized only-child Dwebble? They had trained him like everybody else. Maybe it was because of that time they made him a fancy shell. Now he exploited the fact that they loved him to death and back. Verrry unfair.

The crackle of a clear plastic packet being opened got him focused on avoiding his brother again.

“Emmet,” Ingo sounded a little exasperated.

“I am Emmet. I am verrry late.”

“If you do not eat anything, you risk fainting in the middle of the day and putting yourself in danger.”

“False! I didn’t eat anything for a whole day once. Twice. I am alive. I survived. Cease and desist.“

Hm.

Considering the wide-eyed, pale-cheeked, brow-furrowed, very noticeably worried look he was getting, maybe that had not been the best thing to reveal to his renownedly protective twin at this time.

“Forget that,” he ordered in the bossy tone of baby brothers.

“I think I will singe it into my brain instead,” his brother replied in a horrified tone. “Emmet, what the hell do you-”

“I survived!” Emmet repeated.

Ingo ignored that and approached him directly: “Two days, you forgot to eat?”

“Not consecutively!”

“That doesn’t change anything!”

“It does. And I’m still alive!”

“That alone is surprising,” the older brother replied, nonchalantly handing him something no larger than his palm, “And your survival is not an indication that you are safe to repeat that experience whenever you want.”

The younger stuck out his tongue as he took what was being offered to him without even looking and opened it, almost as a reflex: “I can handle it.”

“Not if you faint in the middle of the street.”

“I am Emmet. I have never fainted ever in my life.”

“Maybe so, but I’m afraid that I truly cannot remember an occasion in which you have not fainted before.”

“I have not! You-”

He interrupted himself, biscuit halfway bitten through. His face fell into such an annoyed frown so fast that Ingo couldn’t help snorting a bit.

“First you lift me. Then you Psychic me. Now you use your amnesia to bully me.”

“Chandelure was the one to Psychic you, I unfortunately lack the power to make you sit down consistently with my mind.”

“You’re the worst.”

The lifeless delivery stung a little, hit a bit too seriously. But the comically disgruntled grimace that accompanied it, similar in every way to how a Pachirisu tries to fold its face into itself after biting into a horribly sour Rawst Berry, both eased any possible tensions and felt so familiar that he couldn’t help cracking a misshapen dastardly smirk at it.

“I am only looking out for my baby brother,” he defended himself.

Emmet groaned at being called that, shoving another biscuit in his mouth.

“I am not hungry anyways,” he still argued back as he chewed, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “I don’t need breakfast. I’m fine as I am.”

Ingo only looked down at his hand and replied: “Alright.”

His twin followed his gaze to the clear plastic.

He squeezed it with a crackle, the last few biscuits inside it swimming in crumbs.

“Fuck you.” he spat through the fifth bite he was taking.

Ingo snorted horrendously loudly.

Boldore peeked in to somewhat chirp at them, with its strong tripod legs clicking very gently against the floor and Eelektross in tow, who wrapped around his trainer in a loud gurgling hug. He rested his huge mouth on his head careful not to scratch him but all the same insistently reminding him, in his own very loving and very deadly enormous electric tube of a lamprey kind of way, that they were supposed to go, possibly as soon as they could, and he was notably being very slow this morning.

As Emmet grabbed his long head and swayed it back and forth, sputtering something like a whiny ‘I knooow’ through his mouthful of biscuits, Klingklang tried to persuade their impatient flatmates by whirring that he likely deserved a lie-in, or at the very least that they should have let Ingo have a bite to eat first.

Before Durant could agree or Galvantula could sneak off to try and get some jam for herself (because she was one bastard of a lady) Archeops began screaming wildly, jumping up and down all antsy and obnoxious in the hopes of speeding up the process until Crustle got bored of the other crybaby and threw a pebble at his coarse bald head to shut him up.

That worked for approximately ten seconds. Then the overly scaly chicken turned all teary eyed and wobbly lipped and broke out into wailing sobs, waddling away to Haxorus to get some comfort from his fellow reptilian.

“Harsh but fair,” the twins sentenced in favor of the hermit Bug.

The fossil bawled harder.

Excadrill interrupted the heart-breaking scene to ask her trainer if he was going to sit down and eat something himself or if her, Gurdurr and Chandelure would have to make sure he did that in his stead with a stern chitter.

In response, he showed her three ravaged clear packets, without even crumbs inside: “Ah, don’t worry! I’ve already met my stomach’s needs for the morning.”

His brother eyed the spoils with mild bafflement: “What- when?”

“Earlier, while you were making a fuss about not eating.”

“How do you eat so fast?”

For a moment, a rush of paranoia made him inclined to just lie. His common sense managed to shove through it, however, reasoning that he just had to not say one single stupid word, and how hard would that have been? So he looked straight into his twin’s eyes, praying his voice wouldn’t shake in a way that made it clear something was up, and told him, dead serious: “Sneasles are horrible little thieves.”

After a long second of confusion, the reply he got made him almost deflate in relief: “Oh right. You were on the mountain.”

“Yes.”

“Lots of little burglars.”

“Exactly. Heaps and nests of them, to be quite frank.”

“Man.”

A loud wail distracted them.

“YES!” the younger twin almost yelled, launching the clear plastic into the sink - or at least trying to, as it was so light that it got caught in the air and fell to the ground with a miserable pirouette of sorts to be picked up by Garbodor’s slinky arm for her to snack upon it. “I AM AWARE! We are going. Hold on.”

He marched out of the kitchen to a variety of jubilant shrieks of Joltiks waiting for nothing other than to be left alone to wreak havoc (accompanied also by the distraught beeps of the ones who didn’t want him to leave) and fetched his Pokéballs in a somewhat swift movement, trying to recall all six members of his team to varying degrees of success.

As he watched him fumble, Ingo suddenly remembered something he’d been aching to ask since yesterday.

With barely any fanfare or build up he ensnared his brother’s wrist in an iron grip; he hadn’t meant to spook him into stillness, but before he could apologize different words were already leaving his mouth as fast possible, as if afraid they wouldn’t have gotten through otherwise: “May I come with you?”

Emmet blinked for a moment.

“Where?” he asked - a little stupidly, he had to admit.

“To the Station.”

“... Why?”

“I’d like to see it. The inside of it, I mean. I’ve never... I’ve yet to see one. Since I’ve gotten my amnesia.”

Ah. Yes. Good point. Reasonable request.

Problem: nobody was aware of the fact that previously-missing-for-years Local Minor Celebrity Guy was back in the region, except for people who definitely were not going to disclose such a detail to the public before the man in question was allowed some time to at least re-acquaint himself with everything in a geographical sense and also with his own family instead of letting the doors of the media circus swing wide open to drown him in unwanted attention.

Second problem: previously-missing-for-years Local Minor Celebrity Guy was perhaps one of the most recognizable people in the region after a maximum amount of three glances in his direction.

In conclusion: fuck.

Emmet stared into his twin’s eyes for a span of time that would have made anybody nervous and uncomfortable, and to be completely fair, Ingo himself wasn’t necessarily enjoying the situation either.

Finally he clamped his older twin’s shoulders between his hands, tightening his grip around them for a moment: “Dress up,” he only ordered.

“Pardon?”

“Yes. You can come. But. Dress up,” he repeated, trying to formulate a proper sentence in the chaos of having to change and trying not to worsen his delay and making sure hordes of journalists wouldn’t materialize as soon as his brother stepped out of home: “Change clothes. Get normal ones. Random ones. Not much attention. Unrecognizable. Otherwise. You know. Newspapers.”

The last word clued Ingo in on the bigger problem, as his eyes widened and he nodded with an air of great gravitas: “The Sewaddles of life...”

“The Sewaddles...” his brother repeated with a horrified expression, agreeing.

Now the older twin clamped his hands over his shoulders, tone growing almost comically determined as he reassured him: “I shall endeavor to give myself as generic an appearance as possible!”

His brother gave him a thumbs up and launched himself in his own room.

It dawned on him, suddenly, that he’d been wearing the same clothes for something like 48 uninterrupted hours.

An invincible itching took over his limbs.

If he didn’t change immediately he was going to physically explode.

-

Ingo had only gotten a glimpse of the station when Elesa had kindly taken him to the fairgrounds the day before: despite his eyes feeling almost magnetized in its direction he’d barely seen it as they had passed it in a rush, an imposing cement shadow colored in a light muted yellow intervalled by steel blue veins.

Its entrance was framed by white stairs and pillars, he could notice now that he was walking directly towards it, and each of them was topped by what resembled an opaque petrol green gem, the same color as the roof.

Its windows seemed rather dark from the outside. From the upper floor a sort of balcony stuck out; he recognized red and yellow banners hanging beside it.

The style reminded him vaguely of the Galaxy Team’s headquarters, though notably smaller in size and completely different in coloration, and otherwise void of elaborate rooftop decorations or visible chimneys. It’s rather modern, professor Laventon had commented when he’s seen him look at it intently once, to tentatively try and strike up a conversation before he found out the warden’s love for his study subjects: I suppose it wouldn’t look quite as out of place if it were in Galar instead of here among much simpler architecture, don’t you think?

He stumbled on his own feet for a moment as he attempted to take the whole thing in as it came closer and closer, becoming larger and larger. Emmet was still pulling him by the wrist, and kept him from falling.

There must have been some kind of carpet before the door even though he hadn’t noticed it, because the clack of his soles was muted for a few steps.

In a moment he was hurtling down a flight of stairs, barely getting the time to acclimate to a strange sort of artificial light that gave them an orange hue (no, it didn’t give them anything, they were simply colored like that, he realized as he looked  better) - and then the sound beneath his feet turned completely different again, shoes hitting unfamiliar terrain, yellow tiles looking like bricks that had been worn and smoothed and dimmed and lightened by constant passage, almost vibrating from the way they were illuminated until somebody walked in front of him and cut him off, and he stumbled back, head rising from where it had been stuck staring mesmerized at the floor to catch brownish veins slithering through it before fixing his eyes on the face of a large clock, the glass encasing its hands gleaming in a way that burned his retinas against the dark grey behind it; he shut his eyes only to be shoved off by a passing shoulder that was already gone when he turned to apologize, and a different golden shine made his pupils hurt enough for him shove the brim of his cap down on them - but now that he couldn’t see came the noise, an incessant downpour of noise, voices talking, someone screaming, music playing, metallic words being spoken garbled and aloud from all around him at once, something rushing hurriedly making the air tremble, discussions about food school work outings did you see what they and then she said are you coming to the damnit i told you it’s not I’ll see what I can that lying piece of next train for delayed by ten arriving in platform 3 unavailable mother what is the it not clang twang you to stop here! where what minutes hour drift theater route 14 8 20 12 1 9 sand of to which go by from juice next close crack rrrrrrrrrrr up at in nacremistrusveilton bank multi single ville train track grrck see now then soon when down here him? in in an the that this it’s those go! ahead behind he’s she you how we’re sorry for ‘scuse me get off open on buzz go! inconvenience it not got rot thought hold on--

Suddenly he felt cotton on his skin, and a force yanking him away, and then he gasped for breath and saw his own face looking back at him in a dim light.

A hand was exerting pressure intermittently on his palm. He was holding that hand’s wrist.

He gasped again. Then took a deep breath.

“I-”

“It’s a lot,” Emmet preceded him. He kept pressing intermittently. “It’s a lot.”

Ingo nodded, staring at their hands.

It was a welcome respite from the overload of that unfamiliar environment.

(But it should have been familiar, shouldn’t it? He had worked here. He should have known its every nook and cranny. It shouldn’t have been so disorienting and frightening, to find himself inside it again.)

“It’s alright,” his brother reassured him. “It’s always a lot. Weird light. Weird sounds. Too much light. Too many sounds. Too many people. Many bump into you. Verrry bright. Verrry loud. Verrry intimidating. The first impression is always like that. Always a lot. I cried the first time. It was too much. Verrry much too much. The first impression is always a lot.”

The older twin swallowed, feeling his mouth dry: “But it gets better?”

“Yup. You get used to it quickly. Stops being so scary. And the hat helps.”

The conductor hat did have a rather large brim, he noted absentmindedly. Must come in handy against the golden sheen of everything.

Speaking of that, wherever they were at the moment was notably azure in hue.

Ingo blinked at the four walls around them.

“Where are we right now?”

“Elevator. We’re going down to the control room.”

“Ah. ... Wouldn’t an elevator go up, considering its name?”

“That’s the good part. Goes both ways.”

“Fascinating...”

Emmet snickered a little at his very honest delivery. His thumb began squeezing slower, slower, slower on the scar of a cut on his brother’s palm, until he stopped pressing completely.

They waited a moment more in silence.

“Better?” he asked.

Ingo nodded; he watched the gloved fingers leave to press a button, and held onto Emmet’s wrist a little tighter for the surprise when the elevator moved.

“The control room is better,” his twin reassured him: “A lot less lights. Dimmer ones. And less sounds. And less people. A lot of beeping but it’s not bad. The Depot Agents will be there.”

An extremely vague idea of what the title meant struggled to resurface, so he felt safer asking: “Is that bad?”

“What’s bad?”

“The Depot Agents being there.”

“Nope! They work here. They know you.”

“Ah,” Ingo noted in a weird tone.

The thought of a room of people who knew him made him uncomfortable. Pokémon were one thing, to have re-introduced to himself in bulk, but humans - so far they’d shown up one at a time divided by fairly long intervals, giving both him and them some time to assess and handle the whole thing. Would they have asked a lot of questions? Did they even know he likely didn’t remember them? Would he freeze up on them? He feared this would have ended badly.

His brother waved beside his hand with a wide motion, snapping him out of his worried musings: “They know about the amnesia. They won’t be mad.” he smiled. “I bet they’ll be verrry happy to see you.”

The older deflated a little: “That’s a relief.”

For now, he would blindly believe in his little brother and hope for the best.

His hand was squeezed intermittently again, slowly, softly. It hushed away his worried thoughts, allowing his eyes to wander.

The elevator whirred very quietly as it descended.

“There’s something misspelled on your coat,” he noted.

The other blinked: “Something what?”

Ingo pointed at what seemed to be a paper square of sorts hanging for dear life on the white fabric through a piece of tape: “It’s misspelled,” he repeated, “I would guess it’s meant to be ‘substitute’, with an additional ‘s’.”

Emmet plucked the makeshift tag to examine it; then he gave a short wheeze; and pocketed it without a single explanation.

A soft ding: the elevator’s sliding doors opened upon a dark colored corridor, much more pleasantly lit than the upper level had been. It wasn’t particularly long, opening into what, even from the relatively limited angle they had as they stepped out of the machine, appeared to be a fairly large room out of which was running a young person in dressed in green from the bottom of their trousers to the top of their hat - very similar to Emmet’s in shape.

“Cameron,” the conductor greeted.

The man blinked twice and stopped in his tracks with a little difficulty, skidding across the pavement for a moment, genuinely surprised.

“Boss!” he exclaimed; he sounded rather young. “We thought you weren’t--”

His boss interrupted him: “I am verrry late. Didn’t hear the alarm. Awfully sorry.”

“Oh, I mean, we got everything under control, sir, that’s no problem, it’s just that we’ve already, uh, we’ve... We’ve... Uh... We’ve...”

His words had begun trailing as soon as he’d spent just a moment too long on the man who was standing a little hunched and awkward next to Emmet, just long enough to recognize the shape and color and brightness of the eyes stuck between the face-mask and the brim of the hat.

Under the intense gaze of those vaguely disbelieving ever-widening eyes Ingo realized there was little to no reason to keep his frown hidden in a so deeply underground place, where media outlets very likely had no chances of hounding him. Should he have taken the mask off in the elevator? Should he take it off now? Should he leave it on? His time in Hisui hadn’t exactly left him looking, as the kids and various medical professionals who had been one breath away from declaring him legally dead say, good. Was this a good time to be self-conscious?

Emmet picked up the conversation again: “You have?”

“Oh, uh, yes, we’ve - we’ve adjusted shifts and everything to cover for, to cover for everything, so, so, yeah, you know? Yeah,” Cameron stammered, struggling to take his eyes off of Ingo.

He fiddled with his hands a moment, looking about to ask a question but holding himself back. At that point the amnesiac decided to try his luck: mask hastily taken off with a little titubancy, he watched the Depot Agent’s face turn bright with recognition and, more concerningly or heart-warmingly, genuine excitement.

“Good morning,” Ingo cawed out on instinct.

The young man flashed him a huge smile: “Good morning, boss!” he replied, almost a little out of breath: “It’s been a while!”

That was oddly sweet.

“He asked to come,” Emmet butted in.

Cameron turned to him with his fingers shaking: "Is... Does, the press--?"

"Absolutely not."

“So we’re the first to--?”

“Yup.”

That seemed to throw the agent for a loop. A very awed, clearly happy loop, but a loop nonetheless - one that was keeping him planted where he stood, entire body jittery with a joyous energy that couldn’t find any release.

“Cameron,” his boss called him.

His shoulders jumped a little as he turned to fully face the white clad subway master: “Y-yes! Boss!”

“You were going somewhere.”

 The enormous grin on the young face faltered in an instant to be replaced by pure terror: “RIGHT!” the poor boy shouted; his head sunk into his shoulders immediately in utter mortification at the realization that he had yelled in their faces, and he repeated with a squeak as his legs began anxiously attempting little steps to bypass them (offering apologetic glances as they helpfully moved away to let him get to the elevator): “Right, sorry, sorry, right, I should- sorry, I’ll-! I’ll be, I’m going now, sorry, sorry - right on schedule, right, sorry— ah, boss!”

Both twins raised their chins in his direction and widened their eyes ever so slightly, to assure him they were all ears.

Cameron smiled again, all wobbly and earnest: “Have a good day!”

“You too!” they replied in unison.

His excitedly waving hand vanished behind the sliding metal doors, and they were once more by themselves in the short tunnel.

It had gone… well.

It had gone well. All things considered.

Ingo repeated the sentiment to himself a few more times as he was turned around until the moving machine was no longer in his line of sight. It had gone well, with a single person and his brother by his side. Maybe it would have gone well for a whole room of people with his brother by his side, too.

A gentle pressure on his palm asked him if he felt ready to go into the control room.

He nodded without a word; they began walking again, a little slower.

It was definitely darker than the main hall, which was a pleasant surprise: the deep petrol green of the roof coated the walls, light bouncing off of them with a slight metallic sheen, coating the entire chamber in a nice penumbra. A few doors broke their compact appearance, leading deeper into the entrails of the earth, away from civilization, from the noise, from everything. Perhaps they opened upon spaces specifically designed for quiet and repose, or dedicated to specific functions or people. He imagined Emmet must have had his own private quarters of sorts.

Illumination was provided by thin insertions between the panels glowing a bright neon green, as well as coming from the wide curved screens that took up half of the room itself, all blue gradient backgrounds and dark magenta squares popping up on them every so often, azurish words blinking or typing themselves into existence. The floor too was of a deep blue that made it almost seem, if one were caught up in their own thoughts enough, like a large shallow puddle of semi stagnant waters, like those of underground springs or basins. Ingo had moved his first steps on it very carefully, holding onto his twin’s arm, convinced he would have heard a muted splash each time he shifted his feet.

Emerging from the pavement was an imposing hexagonal table emitting a dull glow from whatever the screen upon it was displaying. He noticed several chairs, and long desks full of dark buttons and small lights and smaller screens like those of old televisions, and a few strange stiff metal stalks with what looked like porous round petal-less flowers on the end protruding forward.

Those are microphones, you dollar-store poet, a little voice smacked him from inside his head. Hopefully his embarrassment wasn’t obvious.

A small concert of beeps, trills and cues filled the air just enough to be noticed without resulting as totally overwhelming as the cacophony a few hundred meters above his head. Even the chatter, although very much present, was also notably more subdued.

It felt comfortable, all in all.

He’d likely spent hours upon hours every day in here.

It really was no wonder that he’d taken to caves as naturally as a Zubat might have. Him being constantly magnetized towards them made so much sense now.

Also it thankfully meant that it did not have anything to do with the electromagnetic field around the mountain, or the enormous space-time distortion directly above his head, which certainly gave him some manner of confused relief from a vague concern he was still unable to articulate.

The rubber soles of his shoes were awfully quiet as he advanced into the room, in stark contrast to the click-clack of his twin’s.

That did not stop a fairly older man from noticing him near instantly and making his way over to them at a fairly quick pace, his face ever so slightly contorted into a gentle reprimand as his hand already stretched out to stop him.

“Sir - sir, I’m sorry, passengers are not allowed in this area of the station, I must ask you to return to the upper level,” he explained in an amiable tone; his gaze shifted onto Emmet for a moment, with almost a hint of exasperation in his eyes as he noted how he was holding onto the dark sleeve trying to slip away in mortification at the scolding: “Boss, what about following the rules?”

“I am following them.”

“Bringing some other person here like that is following the rules? You more than anybody else know only personnel have access to the control room, it’s a…”

His pupils had shifted back onto Ingo as he’d spoken, and while the vowel dwindled in the man’s mouth he could tell the cogs of recognition apart as they grinded as fast as they could to process every bit of visual information available to them. Finally the agent smiled in a vacant manner, like someone who struggles to believe what they’re seeing, and adjusted his cap.

“It’s high time I got myself a pair of glasses, it is,” he corrected himself with a short laugh. His hand, square and wide, stopped halfway over to the younger man: “The name’s Ramses, by the by. Sorry for the scare, you’re not in trouble.”

He quickly shook it, surprise overtaking his momentary fear of having messed up.

The strangest part was that the agent had immediately recognized his anxiety. Had he suddenly grown more expressive?

Then he realized he had moved to be almost completely behind the back of his (by barely above ten minutes) younger brother, actively trying to make himself smaller, and in order not to crumble into twelve thousand little bits from the embarrassment he hid his face all the way behind Emmet’s shoulder blade.

In part also because he noticed, not without a slight apprehension, that more and more people were turning towards them to stop everything they were doing and stare, very pointedly, very specifically, at him.

Ramses cackled without any malice to turn over to his boss again: “While you are rather late, aren’t you.”

“I am Emmet.” his interlocutor replied, unamused: “I am aware.”

“May I ask just what happened to cause such a strange lapse?”

“Didn’t hear the alarm.”

“Only that?”

“I was. Verrry tired. Also a victim of a conspiracy.”

“A conspiracy!”

“Yes.”

“And what would that have been all about?”

“Nobody wanted me to get out of the house.”

“A tragedy, truly.”

“Ah ha. Ah ha. Ah ha.”

“By all means, I admire your dedication, boss, but I really don’t think it would’ve been that bad for you to–”

Somebody gave a loud, gross cough with the specific intention of focusing the general attention onto their person.

That happened to be a gaunt young man who seemed to have been clenching his jaw from the second he had begun having enough teeth to grind them together, who had still had the courtesy of spitting up that racket into the crook of his elbow instead of the open air.

A less intentional cough wracked him as eyes settled on him.

Must have been the nervousness.

Finally, he found a way to articulate the words he was trying to get out of himself: "Emmet, sir, sorry - but are- are we allowed to perceive-" and he made a nervously stiff wide motion with his arm to indicate the man in dark clothing, though there was still something respectful about the way he flailed his hand about, "-This? And, and acknowledge, the situation currently happening? Or is there an unspoken rule to not... Do that?"

Emmet did not answer right away.

"Hm!" he eventually replied, not necessarily responding. He turned to his brother, who had remained all but frozen in place where he had been pinpointed, and looked right into his eyes: "Since you're the one this will be impacting the most: do you wish to agree to subjecting yourself to the mortifying ordeal of being known?"

Ingo blinked.

"That was very verbose," he noted flatly.

“Please answer.”

Ah. Yes, right.

He turned to the agent who was trying to singe holes into his head by staring at him with the intensity of a billion suns concentrated through a magnifying lens that he couldn’t decide if it was enormous or minuscule - whichever made the light burn hotter.

He retreated a little more. The man must have realized how impressively intimidating he was being and moved his gaze a few inches away, to allow him room to breathe.

Masking a cough that was meant to give him courage, Ingo forcibly dragged himself out of his brother’s shadow and extended his forearm in his direction, lying only a bit as he said: “But I can assure you that I have no problem about my existence being acknowledged by the people in this room, mister...”

"Isadore, sir!" his interlocutor replied. He rushed to shake his hand - his arm nearly dislocating for the speed at which he had moved.

His stalwart grip wasn't particularly strong, and unlike the nervous warmth of Cameron's gentle if slightly trembling hold it or Ramses’ jovial light pressure it seemed to almost carry a sort of chill, an attempt at maintaining the correct distances at all costs in the name of professionalism; despite his best efforts, however, his dark eyes shook a little as he tried to set them somewhere on Ingo's face, failing.

He opened his mouth - a small mouth all in all, more akin to an isosceles trapezoid than a circle or a line - to suck in a breath: "I'm honestly glad to see you again," he said, tenser than a well-pulled rope, serious. A little emotional.

Ingo nodded and hoped not to come off as too stilted: “Likewise.”

He thought he heard something crack weakly, in a way that did not inspire alarm - like a thin layer of half-melted ice breaking between the soles of a boot and steady ground.

Then his brother nudged him a little, and the comfortable murmuring arose again.

Suddenly, he felt fine.

The people in the room no longer appeared as oppressively terrifying as they had been just a few moments ago, not even when they reached out to him to introduce themselves all over again.

He took note of each name being offered to him, each differently built face smiling at him, to store them in pairs somewhere in the back of his mind. It felt familiar.

(It was the same as the first few days in the Icelands, the warden reminded him in an absentminded tone: he was more disoriented than nervous, and more trying not to freeze where he stood than to keep himself from hiding somewhere he could find enough air to breathe, but his modus operandi had been the same - associating sounds to as many somatic traits as possible to minimize the embarrassing chances of mixing people together.)

(He didn’t have the heart to slap his mouth shut, feeling as though that would have been uselessly cruel.)

(It was completely different now, he reasoned with him gently. And as he had noted earlier, they needed to stop thinking about Hisui. It wouldn’t be good for them.)

(The warden looked at him sadly as he slowly greeted more people.)

(It’s not that different, he murmured.)

(Then he fell back into silence.)

The green and yellow of their uniforms also felt familiar, comfortable, easy on the eyes, and the worn cotton of their gloves gave him the strangest sensation, like an incorrect deja-vù: he recognized the texture, yet found the lack of stitches running along the sides of his fingers awfully weird.

He must have worn plenty of these for days on end across the years before everything had happened if that specific feeling was so ingrained in his brain.

And he had forgotten he hadn’t been wearing gloves for about three years, after all, hadn’t he?

Not forgotten, actually - just, assumed he was wearing a pair.

Hm. Yes.

He had definitely spent a lifetime in gloves like that.

An entire lifetime.

…

They must have reeked.

Heavy steps bounced off of the floor with a notable stomping rhythm; he turned his head around for a moment to find the source of the noise together with a few others until he ended up facing towards the corridor that led in from the elevator.

Something was there which had certainly not been there beforehand.

It appeared to be a smaller replica of Emmet, head turned to the side.

One that had not seen the gentle hand of a cleaner in quite some time, if the spent dullness of its form and the heavy grey patina covering every inch of the subway master uniform was of any indication.

An even smaller humanoid form trotted next to it, dragging around a black ponytail larger than their entire body without any apparent struggle.

It took him a moment to realize that those were not long black gloves, nor black shoes, nor wide, pleated, bright yellow pants - though in his defense he had been misled by both their shape and the presence of a red vest, which instead was, indeed, an additional garment.

And of course nothing could have prepared him to see the supposed hair snap open to reveal a sparse set of sharp teeth and what looked like the inside of a mouth.

His shoulders had jolted at that, he was certain.

He turned his head left and right, to check if anybody else had seen it: not a single person in the room seemed to have any interest in whatever was happening at the room’s entrance, glancing over in silence and returning to work.

Was this a common occurrence?

Was he having some kind of hallucination?

When he turned his gaze back to it, the head of the replica was definitely in a different position.

Which distinctly did not help.

His fingers grasped his brother’s white sleeve, pulling gently if with a very obvious urgency to direct his eyes to the very uncanny sight of a smaller, dirtier, technically (hopefully) unmoving version of him standing not that far away.

Thankfully, he followed his gaze without question.

Puzzlingly, he smiled a little wider, and waved.

The eyes of the statue twitched, the head shifted slightly to look at them.

And then the mouth opened with a squeaky, delighted sound.

“Oh!”

The dusty miniature living copy of Emmet was not, in fact, as he could now tell while it approached very quickly with a gait that was nothing like his brother’s save for the intensity, a copy of Emmet.

For starters, it was not nearly as pure white or extreme in pallor, skin taking on a faint maybe yellower undertone, hair being a grayish brown whilst also lacking their distinctive sideburns, replaced by braids. The nose also bumped forward around the eyebrows’ height and hooked to fall straight down instead of pointing outwards - possibly having been broken once, too. The mouth was much too thin as well, while the shape of the eyes was almost exactly an inversion of the twins’ hooded ones: a flat line underneath, turning rounder towards the eyebrows.

And obviously neither had irises of such a dusty, rotten green.

A small hand in a white glove was extended out to him before he could fully process just how quickly the distance between them had been traversed: an incredibly angular turn of the lips’ corners forced the previously emotionless neutral expression into the amiable squint of a smile.

“Pleased to meet you!” a voice that sounded the way overly saccharine artificial strawberry tastes squeaked at him: “Briosa Crociera, Substitute Subway Master! I’m a recent development.”

He greeted her just as enthusiastically, noticing vaguely the lack of even the slightest budge at his volume or handshake: “My name is Ingo!”

He liked that description - recent development.

Something about it put him at ease. Perhaps it was the somewhat elegant way it managed to completely remove his amnesia from the conversation’s equation. Of course he wouldn’t be aware of any recent developments even under normal circumstances, like taking a three year long vacation or moving to a new region or getting himself another job, or something similarly plausible.

“She’s deaf,” Emmet filled him in, as though the fairly crucial detail was little more than an afterthought.

Almost as if to corroborate or prove the statement Briosa continued cheerfully without taking her eyes off of the man she was replacing, oblivious to the fact that she was repeating the same exact information: “I cannot hear a single thing!”

That explained her total stillness when he’d yelled his name in her face.

Hearing people tended to shirk away afterwards.

“If at any point you need to communicate with me, please refer directly to my hearing aide, Mawile, so she can translate you!”

His gaze shifted even lower to encounter a pair of crimson eyes on a short yellow snout looking back up at him. The Pokémon greeted him with a nod that had the black flaps (hair? Ears?) framing her face sway a little, small arms folded behind her back.

He could read now, on her vest, a proudly displayed SUPPORT POKÉMON written in big bold letters.

She seemed surprised, or perhaps amused, when he somewhat awkwardly sat on his heels and extended his hand to her as well, to shake her paw as he had done to every other human in the room with him at that moment.

“It is a pleasure to meet you!” he told her, as genuine as they come.

She chirped her own greeting and shook on it.

Her black paw felt less fuzzy than he would have expected, as well as cold but receptive, like Klingklang’s core, Excadrill’s claws or the surface of Magnezone’s body: she must have been a Steel type then, despite not looking like one at all. The unusual appearance and more lively texture must have come from a secondary Typing. Psychic, perhaps, considering her role?

“Pardon my curiosity,” he added following that train of thought; she craned her neck and listened intently. “I hope it’s not a bothersome question, but, ah - may I ask how exactly does a translation work? I’m not quite sure I can imagine it…”

The little creature nodded. He would have assumed she might have simply redirected his words into her trainer’s brain or something of the such through a telepathic power; instead, much to his surprise, she let go of his hand, unfolded her other arm, turned to her aidee, and began making a slew of quick signs with outstanding precision despite how small and stubby her fingers were.

Briosa waited for her to finish before looking at Ingo and gesturing to the proud beastie: “Like that,” she answered in her stead.

“Ah!” he noted loudly, impressed, eyes very wide. “I see!”

Mawile huffed a cackle through her nose. What a whimsical human. He’d known him again for less than five minutes and yet his at times sort of awkward propriety and excited politeness were already bewitching her body and soul, as she liked to exaggerate. Which was an impressive feat considering only Briosa herself had won the throne of her affections in more or less the same minuscule amount of time.

(Unseen, Emmet shot her a glance and signed: “Be nice.”)

(“I am nice,” she replied in equal silence: “He is fun and silly. I like him.”)

(“You never told me you like me. In two years.”)

(“I did not.”)

(“You wound me.”)

(The Fairy snickered and discreetly signed a little ‘love you’ at him. His small triumphant smirk made her cackle in silence again.)

The substitute snapped her face with a sudden stilted movement: “By the way, good morning! Did you sleep well?” she asked the twin in white, using a particular inflection on certain words that made them almost sound like rubber being bent and released to produce a goofy kind of wobble.

Emmet placed his nails against the underside of his chin and lazily thrusted his fingers forward, producing a soft ‘twhip!’ noise as his skin was pulled along.

Briosa turned to Ingo: “Did he sleep well?”

Being addressed made his shoulders jump for a moment, and he forgot she could not hear him: “Oh, uh, I - yes, yes, I believe he has, at least, for the most part.”

Thankfully he’d nodded vigorously as he’d spoken, so the other had still managed to get the gist of it: “Yes, I could tell,” she reassured him, “His eyebags are looking a lot less sapient today.”

Emmet repeated the gesture with an added stiff emphasis.

He regretted it as his brother asked: “Does that mean something?”

“Nope.”

“That means fuck you,” Briosa helpfully corrected, helped by Mawile’s snitching.

“Does not.”

“He’s telling me to go fuck myself.”

“Am not.”

“He’s denying it, isn’t he?”

Ingo nodded.

“Ingo,” his brother said in his most betrayed monotone.

“Hold on,” his substitute stopped Emmet before he could go on and turned around, once again repeating the gesture: “Anybody know what this means?”

Several hands left their duties to spell and an equal amount of voices arose to reply, in a slightly confused tone since she should have known that well: “Fuck you?”

She triumphantly faced Ingo again: “See, that’s a fuck you.”

To which he craned his neck towards his younger brother and exclaimed quietly, flabbergasted: “Emmet!”

“She’s being mean!” was the explanation he got.

“Well, you cannot just walk around telling people to go fuck themselves whenever they are mean to you!”

His brother groaned loudly.

Then, a mischievous glint overtook his eyes.

“You’re right,” he conceded.

His hands then carefully signed a sentence that caused Briosa’s amused expression to morph into a puzzled one, furrowing her brow and reducing her mouth to a thin austere line as some of her fingers joined together to attain a peculiar shape that seemed to ask ‘what do you mean?’.

The thin strip of paper that read ‘susbstitute’ was handed over to her.

She held it for a moment, staring at it quizzically.

“It’s not misspelled,” she objected.

A helpful finger pointed her to the superfluous S.

It took another few seconds before she spurred into action, but when she did she slammed her hands closed, trapping the heinous label between her palms before hastily shoving it in one of her pockets.

The look with which she gazed up at Emmet was mostly barred from Ingo’s view, as he was still sitting on his heels, but he did catch the glimpse of an absolutely furious smile wobbling with an attempt not to laugh; her hands flew with the quickness of intense, snickering anger at his brother’s face, probably promising who knows what sort of retaliation, and he wheezed out a cackle of his own.

Ah! So they were friends.

The realization felt like a strange weight off his chest.

-

The agents were, of course, laser focused on their job.

A subway station, especially the region’s central subway station, needed constant care and supervision, after all. There was always something lurking out there ready to create a Situation of some kind which would then require to be remedied somewhere between ‘as soon as possible’ and ‘if we could do it instantly it would be great but alas we are mere humans incapable of even the simplest Skullbash without caving our heads in so we will be handling This as best as we can, Please Hold On, We Are Very Tired’, and the more brain and muscle power available, the better.

However.

In their defense.

It was really hard not to want to look at what Ingo was doing.

Partially because, of course, he had disappeared from the face of the world three years ago and then re-emerged out of the entrails of a snowy mountain in a foreign region with said region’s most powerful teenager in tow, which to be honest felt a little bit unreal, so it was nice to see that yes, it had indeed happened, and yes, he was physically present in the room.

But in larger part it was because Ingo reacquainting himself with the machinery he used to operate daily was a joy to watch.

He looked around the control room like a kid in a candy shop.

Granted, neither twin had been too enthusiastic about duty calling Emmet onto the Battle Lines, and everybody could see how their boss had very clearly wished he could tear himself in half to keep one eye on his brother and do his job at the same time; but in the end he had been forced to compromise with the promise that Ingo would remain with at least an agent at all times, even in the case he would leave for the upper levels.

Luckily for him the chaos and brightness and noise that had first welcomed him had not made leaving the underground chamber particularly appealing to the just repatriated man, who had gladly preferred watching the subway’s hidden machinations behind the trains for entire hours now.

At first he’d stuck to looking at screens and wandering very carefully, with an exceptional silence to his step, in order not to bother anybody.

The pose and attitude reminded Furze of an old man watching a construction site - the kind that stands there a little hunched, with their hands held behind their backs, just above the hip bones, that always waves back at polite Gurdurrs and Conkeldurrs and tries to yell instructions at them sometimes because ‘he knows how it should be done’.

Ingo had not the faintest idea what he was looking at nor how it worked, so he refrained from offering suggestions or tips.

Instead, at some point, after gathering enough courage and being as certain as possible that he wasn’t being bothersome, he very shyly approached Eloise and bashfully asked if she could explain what an ATO was.

Once he knew all about Automatic Train Operation, he asked about everything else.

It was pretty fun actually, to split the various topics between them to sort of teach him the ropes as though he’d been a newbie - he was an attentive listener after all, making pertinent questions, interrupting explanations only when necessary, and by the way he looked at both the agents explaining and the object or program being explained he was very much one notebook and pencil away from compiling an entire work guide where he stood.

It also helped that the various explanations took up a discrete amount of time, meaning that it was almost midday and the entire control room had successfully contained the still sort of flighty ex-conductor.

Not that they didn’t trust him to be out and about, of course!

It was just… Well, they’d been worried about him.

As everybody had been.

And now he was back, and there was still a sort of fear that any wrong move would have had him bolting away and disappearing into the fog again.

So knowing he was there with them, asking questions, being interested… Showing how, despite the time passed, despite the amnesia, he was still indeed very much enamored with their job…

To call it a relief would have been putting it mildly.

But when the bulk of the questions were over and Ingo’s presence had melted back into familiar commonality again, their attention to where he was at all times might have sort of faltered slightly.

It did not lead to losing track of him, thankfully - but it did lead to them all freezing in horrified realization as an announcement about the train to Undella experiencing a five minute delay rang out across the correct platform by a voice that was notably not coming from any of their mouths.

Furze met his boss’s eyes just in time for the older man to widen them in a sudden shared awareness.

“I should not have done that,” Ingo peeped, guilty as charged, hand still near the mic.

The agent did not reply yet.

He turned around quickly, checking a couple of things. One: Isadore was notably absent. Good. Two: were the others thinking what he was also thinking?

Jackie definitely was, because he and Jackie had a lovingly defined “telepathic connection” since they were kids that came with people who grow up together and are obsessed with trains to the point of either exploding or phasing through the floor about it, so he knew they were absolutely down for what he was thinking; Josh had a notably vacant gaze that would not express anything beyond a very intense dial-up tone, so jury was still out on him; Hank, one of the older agents, seemed very intent on waiting for him to proceed with the plan - he definitely knew exactly what it was about, and as a fairly important figure to the youngsters in the room he wanted to make it very known through his expression that he thought it would have been funny as hell; Eloise on the other hand was gripping her desk in an attempt to repress or at least hold herself back from beating him to the punch with a delighted scream that might have scared the hell out of the poor man.

Everybody else in the room approached his inquisitive gaze with either trepidation (like Vip) or a shy attempt at stopping him that didn’t quite work (like Billie).

Oh come on. They’d done way worse bits when prey to boredom before.

Strengthened by the general agreement, Furze raised both hands and took a big breath through his open mouth, making Ingo worry. Then he curled his lips inside his mouth, held still by his teeth as he appeared to be trying to eat his own chin, and cocked his head to the side.

“Technically, that’s… Not good,” he admitted. He clicked his tongue very loudly before continuing: “Because, you know. You’re, uh… Not here yet. In the region. Technically.”

“I apologize,” the poor amnesiac cut him off. “I don’t-”

“HOWEVER!” the agent cut him off now, both index fingers outstretched to point upwards - causing a few to actually look up.

Pause.

“However. I don’t think. That anybody, here, would be too sad about having some… Help, with announcements. You know. Since we’re all busy with other stuff…”

Ingo’s face lit up at the prospect of being helpful.

Oh hell yes.

This was going to be so funny.

Would anybody even notice that the missing Subway Master was now warning about staying behind the yellow line? Probably not, since even when newly maintained the intercom still garbled voices just enough to make them hard to recognize.

Even if a few of them did, they would probably just be really confused - which only added more fun to the bit itself.

The problem with this assumption is that Furze’s brain was so overwhelmed with the love for anything related to railwork that he had completely forgotten a couple of fundamental things: firstly, that humans are extremely nosy creatures that really, really like to make friends or strangers aware of any weird business they come across; secondly, that the Subway Masters were still immensely popular figures in the region with their fair share of fans and an indescribable amount of clips of their voices readily available on the internet, so it wasn’t that hard to recognize them.

Also, thirdly, this was Nimbasa City.

A not insignificant percentage of the urban populace probably met the twins more times than they could count properly.

So imagining that the Nimbasians wouldn’t have near immediately recognized the voice of a minor local celebrity who was technically still missing through the vague garble of the speakers was like imagining that a shiver of Sharpedos wouldn’t have found a wounded swimming tourist bleeding profusely in the Hoenn seas.

Which is to say it would have been incredibly stupid.

But Furze (and Jackie, and Hank, and Vip in a way) lived in a world that did not account for such silly things, and so the control room had a bit of a blast for the better part of an hour listening to their boss bellowing out warnings like nothing had changed..

Then a little crackle coming out of nowhere made them all jolt, and a well known voice calling out for an answer had them all getting a little heart attack.

Josh fumbled a little with his radio and finally replied: “Yes, boss?”

“Why is Ingo’s voice doing the announcements?”

“OH you know!” Josh quickly replied as he began sweating buckets. His voice failed him for a few more instants before he wheezed out: “Briosa. And her... Impressions.”

The other end remained quiet for a moment.

“Sure, I’ll take that,” Emmet said cheerfully.

Then the radio went silent and the depot agent gave out a wheeze.

Billie would not, however, let him take a break: “BRIOSA?” she nearly shouted, “The ONLY deaf person here?”

“I panicked!” the poor man shrieked back.

“And you chose HER?”

“What was I chosen for,” the Substitute asked roughly at that moment, her small size and light weight allowing her to make her way over to barely two centimeters away from Vip unnoticed until it was too late for the agent, who proceeded to jump and smack her in the face with her elbow by mistake as they retreated for the spook.

The hit did not make her budge in the slightest; the girl, on the other hand, immediately clutched said joint in pain.

Her Mawile's large mouth snapped sharply when the small gloved hand pointed at her: "Apparently I got chosen," Briosa stated plainly. "Chosen for what?"

She had not seemed that threatening when Ingo had first looked at her earlier.

The agents, frozen in place, with eyes wider than tea saucers and cold sweat coating their brows, clearly had a different opinion.

Hank at last waved a hand with a sort of airy, light-hearted motion, smiling as amiably as he could despite the anxiety making the stubble on his abundant chin wobble: "Oh, you know, we were just comparing out impressions of Mr. Ingo here - and in the end, see, we concluded yours might've been the best!"

He swallowed a knot in his throat as the small three-fingered hands signed.

The Substitute read them intently, laser focused; then her mouth produced a squeaky sound, as if her tongue had been made of whistle grass, that couldn't have come out of Ingo's lips after a thousand years of practice.

"Sure, I'll take that!" she replied cheerfully.

Immeasurable relief swept through the depot agents in a fairly noisy cacophony of wheezes and sighs and held back breaths being released.

Completely oblivious to it, Briosa turned her attention solely on Ingo, gazing at his face with a small smile, flat lips barely curved upwards: “Have you been to any of the train platforms yet?”

He shook his head.

It dawned on him, in the time that it takes for the thunder to crack a small distance away from where the lighting has struck, that he hadn’t seen a single train so far outside of the ones in the books they had at home.

“Would you like to?”

His eyes widened slightly with interest.

Could she read his mind?

Ah, no - the subject was different. Still, the outcome was the same.

He nodded.

Or at least, he was fairly along in the motion when Jackie slithered between him and the small conductor and hurriedly began signing: “Maybe it- maybe it would be better not to, actually! Right?” they turned to Ingo for all of two seconds before deciding he agreed with the sentiment: “Right! Right.”

Briosa stared directly at them and blinked, slowly, leaving a long beat of silence: “Why?”

Even with their reputation as the most off-putting of the Depot Agents, Jackie couldn’t help but shrink a little at the weird inflection and pause. Their fingers felt as though they could only move in a small area, mimicking their voice as it came out in a whisper: “It could be dangerous. For, for, you know. News.”

The only answer he got was a second, slower blink.

Ingo felt the weirdest kind of deja-vù, like he was looking at a Purugly intimidating a Beautifly into submission, with the main difference being that the Purugly was excessively small and the Beautifly was not flying at all.

Point being, it was so utterly alien that he could not tell what was happening other than that it was comically strange.

Eventually Jackie began slinking over behind him, gently pushing him forward to take their place (to shield themselves or not to hinder him?) as they conceded with nervous signs: “But he’ll probably be fine, it’ll–”

“He’ll be fine,” Briosa finished for them.

“Yeah, yeah, it’ll be fine, you’ll be fine boss, don’t worry, you’re in good hands, right?”

A chorus of ‘Right!’ replied from the rest of the room.

Rotten olive eyes shifted back onto Ingo: dusty eyebrows raised beneath the cap to silently repeat a question, and he nodded again.

The sudden grip on his wrist did not hurt, but it did make his heart jump in his throat from the scare; not even the time to yell out a prayer into his head that he was already being dragged away with the same ease as a fairly large leek.

In the tunnel preceding the elevator the substitute casually remarked: “Sorry for throwing you back into the pits of hell that’s the upper level but I’m imagining that whatever you did that got pinned on me is not something you could do outside of the control room, right?” and turned to him briefly, staring him down with an unblinking gaze inside the azure walls.

With a foreboding feeling crawling along his spine, Ingo nodded. An apology, stuck in his throat, decided to get swallowed back down just in case it attracted her ire.

“Nice!” was the calm reply; at the hit of a button the elevator doors closed, and the machine began rumbling upwards. “Remember to pull your face mask back on once we arrive. Do you have any Pokémon with you?”

He shook his head.

Maybe it had been a bad idea, in hindsight, to leave without any of his Pokémon in tow; but Emmet had reasoned that being back in the subway after all that time would have filled his team with the urge to launch themselves into battle thus causing a rather destructive commotion, an hypothesis which had instantly proved itself to be correct when they’d all perked up at the mention of any sort of scuffling, each quivering excitedly with sportsmanlike bloodlust.

Ingo also still hadn’t properly reacquainted himself with their movesets, their personalities, their dynamics and the ways they each took on the battlefield, so he would have likely been left at the mercy of their enthusiasm, unable to handle them nor lead them into a satisfying match. It would be better to practice on their own somewhere quieter.

Briosa clicked her tongue in a rather curious manner at his answer, the hint of a sympathetic smile on her face. Her small hand reached wordlessly to her belt to pull out a Pokéball, opening it without even looking.

The beastie emerging from the metal sphere was relatively stout and not too big, easily standing without too much trouble on her arm. Its paws were relatively small, white much like the fur on its belly, while the flaps of skin between them were of a bright yellow replicated on the round cheeks, or at least on one of them. The other had an enormous gash of naked skin ripping through it, joined by a few more which forced one of the black eyes into a perpetual squint and one of the nostrils to reach almost up to a lacrimal duct. One of the black ears also seemed to have been halfway through a rudimental shredder.

“This is Emolga!” Briosa cheerfully introduced the defaced rodent: “He will make sure you’re not getting bothered.”

“Ah,” the man only commented. “It seems he’s gone through quite a lot.”

“He has! A Mandibuzz tried to have him for lunch but he disemboweled it and ate it instead!”

“Oh my!” Ingo noted, now genuinely impressed.

She grinned, handing her partner over to him: “He’s not going to bite off your face, don’t worry,” she reassured him as she made a motion for him to cover his mouth and nose while holding the door closed for a moment more. “These days he’s more into fruit and Type-specific food, you know, like a normal apex predator.”

He waited until Emolga had crawled onto his shoulder before pulling up his facemask and following her out: “Perhaps he’s related to Gligars.”

“Hm! Never saw one,” she replied, easily bulldozing her way through the crowd via a one-armed iteration of Emmet’s patented terminator walk as she held Mawile aloft on her other hand to keep on listening to her ward.

“They are fairly common on Mount Coronet,” Ingo helpfully explained: “Their main means of sustenance is sucking the blood from prey.”

“Hm! Intriguing! You ever got bit?”

“No - luckily, my quick reflexes have left me unscathed from Gligars and Gliscors, their evolution, alike.”

“Ah, good for you!” she spoke louder now, to be heard above the chatter of the station: “I can’t stand getting blood taken to be honest! Even when it’s just for a blood check I have to look away and clench my fists really tight, so I guess if something tried to suck it out of me I’d freak out and knock it clean off. No clue why it bothers me so much!”

“It’s always more comforting knowing one’s blood is not out and about,” Ingo noted thoughtfully.

She nodded, solemn in her motion: “So it is, so it is.”

Emolga squeaked gently on his shoulder as if to join the conversation while getting comfortable; kind scritches behind the round ears had the mangled rodent chittering in delight.

They must have kept talking about blood or Gligars or similar small death machines, if anything because while he struggled to retain information he could still feel the way the facemask molded and stretched around his mouth as it kept opening and closing. He was rather glad of her determination in keeping this somewhat gruesome small talk going, as he was so concentrated on replying to her that the mass of bodies and sounds and colors and lights couldn’t pierce through his senses as it had when he had first entered the station: it still hung all around him, waiting to strike him at the worst possible moment, but so long as he had the muted grey coat to follow and answer to he found himself powering through the sensory overload with relative ease.

It somewhat helped that the rest of the crowd wading through the station seemed to magically part at the first glimpse of her, likely repelled by her potent aura of menace.

Her voice was squeaky as it raised in volume, her words getting lost along the way between the chatter and the fuzziness of his senses but still managing to lead him along through the dark and dull gold with a candy rose trail. He wasn’t perfectly aware of where they were going, though he did thankfully take notice of the stairs; otherwise he would have likely catastrophically crashed along them knocking out anybody who accidentally happened to be in his way like a Golem down Bolderoll Ravine.

The rush of wind from the tunnel distracted him as he was answering something. While not daring to step over the yellow line he still leaned a little towards the darkness snaking away into the earth, just in time to see the blinding light of a pair of beady Bug-like eyes rise out of it as it kept approaching.

It was almost more reminiscent of an Onix than of a Steelix, if he had to be honest; and if he really had to ponder over the matter a moment more maybe he would have even preferred comparing it to a Gyarados, between the roaring and the fairly evenly sized sections of its long body. Of course none of them blasted light from their eye sockets, nor did they travel on long threads of metal or carry dozens upon dozens of people inside them, opening their enormous bodies to let them in and out.

Emolga’s paws kneaded into his shoulder, and he realized he was heaving inside his facemask. A hand went to place itself on the black and white fur so he could ground himself while its twin reached out beneath him to be sharply stopped by a firm palm around its wrist.

“Are you ok?” he heard being asked to him.

Ingo swallowed and looked down, meeting Briosa’s unmoving eyes. Something in her and Mawile’s faces read like slight worry.

He nodded as he absentmindedly caressed the electrical rodent’s ear.

“It’s... Awfully loud,” he explained, like it was an apology.

The substitute tilted her head sympathetically once it was signed to her: “So I’ve been told,” she replied, and without him noticing she pulled him away from the crowd pouring in and out of the steel shell, towards the end of the platform. “Can’t know from experience, I’ve never been on a train before I was twelve - but it sure does look like it’s real loud.”

“You were not deaf at twelve?” he asked, to unconsciously distract himself.

“I was, actually! But not before that.”

“May I ask what happened?”

“No.”

“Understandable. My apologies for prying.”

“Don’t worry.”

The train huffed and puffed and groaned, and at last it pulled itself forward, gaining momentum faster and faster until the lights of its tail disappeared behind a curve of the dark tunnel.

Emolga squeaked and bumped his soft head against Ingo’s. A tepid comfort washed over him at the contact.

Furred Pokémon were such blessed creatures to have around. Ah, why did he have to favor the ones with harsh skin, jagged scales, impenetrable carapaces and cold metal bodies? No, that was not the right question - why did the universe have to be so cruel not to grant his most beloved beasts with at the very least some kind of plush texture, just to let them be hugged more often? Why did it have to make his body so delicate to the point where he could not hug them without bruising himself?

Not that their rough exteriors deterred him all that much, but it would have been nice to lay his head on a comfortable tummy that wasn’t Excadrill’s yet again. The others deserved to have their own chance as living pillows, too.

Doors sliding shut spooked him out of his musings. What was it with making doors slide? Who was making them slide? Wouldn’t they slide open due to centrifugal force?

This was going to drive him insane.

Much like the noise.

The noise might have done him in first.

Luckily, the rumbling beast was off somewhere else already, dragging a wide number of people and its infernal chatter along with it. Those whom it had deployed onto the platform slithered away like generous swarms of frightened Zubats into the tunnels leading upwards, towards the main hall, and the void they left was quickly filled again by other commuters arriving from the opposite direction.

He scratched behind Emolga’s ears again; the sight of Briosa still leaning against the fencing by his side quieted down his worries.

She locked eyes with him for a moment and gave him a tiny smile.

“Better?” she asked.

“I’m… Not sure, actually,” he admitted: “I fear I’m not used to so many people and lights and noises all at once anymore. But I’m certain exposure will help me.”

“You were on a mountain, right?”

He nodded.

“Without anything around you?”

“Aside from the occasional Pokémon cries or small avalanche, there was not much clamor, no.”

“Yeah, a large city’s subway station will do that to you then. Must have been real quiet.”

“It was.”

“Do you miss that?”

(No. Not at all. Not in the slightest. The quiet had been horrifying at first, maddening, and then it had curled around him and prevented him from resting. It felt impossible that ever since he left he’d been able to sleep so easily when it had become such an arduous feat.)

(Not even the warden could deny that.)

“I prefer the noise, in truth. Even though it’s not always pleasant.”

Briosa hummed: “I feel you.”

(Ah. Of course.)

(She more than anyone must have understood the restless terror of the quiet.)

A second loud cacophony quickly approaching had Ingo startle out of his skin and try to back away into a trashcan, stopped only by the conductor’s titanium grip and Mawile’s jaw very quickly wrapping around his leg to put it back on the ground with a surprising amount of gentleness for an appendage made specifically to maul and chew.

He looked on with dismay and disbelief as the train returned, causing everything that had happened barely a few minutes before to repeat in a nearly identical manner.

Did it…? How the - no, there was no way. It had just-

“That’s not the same one, is it?” he asked just to get confirmation on his doubts, because otherwise that would have been absolutely batshit.

“Same what, train?” she replied. When he nodded, she clicked her tongue: “Aaah… No, it’s a different one, that’d be way too fast even for our standards. These ones pass every three to five minutes. It’s a busy commute, so there’s usually a very small waiting time between them.”

Oh, thank goodness. He wasn’t fully sure of how long the whole journey might have been, but certainly the train wasn’t just running in circles in three minutes.

Speaking of the second train, the beast had already departed with no more additional fanfare than a derogatory flash of the headlights on its tail, dragging its body into the tunnels with as much clanging and roaring as it could, and the new passengers were already congregating on the cement floor, all careful to stand by behind the yellow line.

It was frankly a little amazing how the chatter and general noise never subsided at any point. It was less like waves washing upon the shore before being pulled back and more like a school of extremely young Magikarps jumping constantly in shallow water.

Despite that, however, he couldn’t help but sense a sort of disturbance among the disharmony - some kind of even less pleasant sound intermingling in it.

Almost on the other end of the platform a woman let out as high a shriek as possible.

She then proceeded to yell at length at the top of her lungs.

A second similar voice replied in the exact outrageous volume.

Ah.

So that was the additional worse noise.

Oh joy.

On his shoulder, Emolga growled.

Everybody else either shut or lowered their voices, turning to the extremely loud argument before facing away, not interested in joining the two screamers who very much looked ready to tear each other apart from what he could see among the sea of passengers dutifully waiting. Glancing at Briosa to figure out what the right procedure in this case would have been, he found her blissfully continuing to lean onto the railing of the platform’s end with not an ounce of concern in her eyes; Mawile on the other hand, sitting next to her on the same railing, had a paw to her face pinching the bridge of her snout, approximately five seconds away from taking a long inhale before sighing just as deeply, ruefully and tiredly as a Fairy could.

Hm. Perhaps he should help.

His hand was blocked by gloved fingers before it could gently nudge the substitute’s shoulder to get her attention, eliciting the same desired effect of having her turn to face him in an inquisitive manner.

The problem of communication returned to his mind at that moment, though in the span of a second he had already opted for the simplest of solutions: without a word, he pointed his index finger straight at the two commuters violently yelling and making threatening gestures at each other without a single concern for the space nor the people around them.

She turned towards the source of the commotion. Clearly being too short to properly visualize the matter, she then effortlessly pulled her body to stand completely vertically upon the metal bar through the strength of her arms before settling her feet down on it and getting a better look.

The groan she let out was more like the sound of a revving motorcycle with chainsaws for wheels.

“These types again,” she lamented, flat lips parted in an annoyed grimace. As Mawile climbed up her coat to get on her shoulder she extended her hand over to Ingo: “Can I have Emolga back for a moment?”

He complied, allowing the electrical rodent to climb into her palm.

The little scarred beast laid on it on his belly, pointed directly towards the disrupters; his trainer then reeled her arm back, snapped: “Get’em, GGGuts!” and launched him into the air, apparently attempting to splat him against the opposite wall - which thank Palkia did not happen, as he opened up the flaps beneath his arms to stall in the atmosphere a moment and angle himself so that he would land right on the head of one of the screaming idiots on the platform.

Said screaming idiot shrieked even louder for the surprise.

Hm!

Interesting technique!

Briosa patted his arm as she jumped back on the floor: “Gonna be back in a hot minute, do NOT move,” she simply instructed, and before he could even just nod off she was, cutting through the crowd like a Mamoswine through a snowstorm.

Ingo might have kept on looking (and if had indeed been solely focused on her he might have eventually gotten to take in the rare sight of Substitute Subway Master Briosa Crociera, roughly as tall as two lemonade cans and as heavy as a Leppa Berry and a half, lifting two entire women three times her weight and height into the air to hurl them up the stairs to the platform like a pair of feathers after harvesting at least a couple molars from each of their mouths) if the next train hadn’t rushed into the station at that moment, distracting him.

Rivers of people poured out once again, blocking his visual. Hundreds of feet tried to cover the enraged yelling with the sound of their stomping - thank goodness he’d been shoved a little away or he would have been right in the middle of the flood - passing over the gap between metal and cement in either direction.

Among the indistinct clamor rang out the name of a flower.

He turned immediately, as though he’d been called.

His eyes searched immediately, feverishly, looking for something or someone like he knew exactly what he was searching. A bloom? Sprouting from the cement, from the paint on the walls? From the lamps? The faces rushing past him?

(The flower had roared before talking, and roared straight at him, with the viciousness of a little prune moving little hands like little claws, but he couldn’t remember that.)

Pupils fixed onto the heads slowly disappearing left and right, all unfocused as they passed faster and faster despite his attempts at… At what? He had no clue, no clue at all. He sifted through them over and over, left and right, left and right, only managing to catch glimpses of each of them, not finding anything, anything, not even the slightest thing.

Somebody called out once more to a flower.

Bodies passed, eyes and noses and hair and mouths and ears, and he just kept on searching, and searching, and searching, without even knowing what to look for, so focused that he didn’t even notice every head he looked like was turned to show the profile except one.

Hold on.

He just lost that one, actually.

A sudden panic struck him and closed his entire digestive tract in a painful knot.

The impact on his stomach had him double over, but at least it completely obliterated that terrible feeling.

His face’s disastrous descent towards his own knees was stopped only thanks to his chest hitting something soft and voluminous that was doing its absolute best to lodge itself into his body just below his sternum; arms were wrapping his waist in as tight a grip as it was humanly possible, holding onto him like a lifeline, trying to sway and strangle him all at once.

He choked something out as a reflex, though the words were completely unintelligible even to himself. His hands found small, sturdy shoulders, with the kind of still wiry muscle that kids who haven’t yet finished growing have - he pushed them away from himself as the embrace around him loosened enough for him to actually manage that.

While he struggled to inhale after getting the breath knocked out of him so suddenly, the girl came into his focus very slowly - first her hair, of a dark and deep violet color, held fast by some yellow bands of sorts, then the brown of her eyes, the shape of her nose and mouth, the little faded scar next to her ear from when (she’d run into the edge of a table faster than a Blitzle as a tiny itty bitty prune and started to cry as loud as she could and he had cried even louder with her in solidarity so that she would stop to try to console him while her dad fixed her up, but he couldn’t remember that), the hunch of her back that made her seem so small, the strength in her hands as she still held onto his middle, onto his clothes.

She seemed about to apologize, but between her huffs and humid eyes she could barely make a sound.

A boy shouted for the flower again.

A half-asleep conversation came back to mind.

His grip on her shoulders tightened slightly.

“Forgive me for the strange question,” Ingo asked with a sudden hurry: “Would you happen to be my cousin?”

She inhaled in a noisy, watery way a few more times, a trembling smile creeping up on her face as it lit up.

She nodded.

A moment later arms were lifting her into the air from under her armpits in a bone-shattering hug, so tight she could feel her chest being compressed and yet filling her with such an incomparable wordless joy that she couldn’t help shrieking out a laugh as she wrapped her legs around the man’s middle, holding onto him like a Komala to its log. He swayed the both of them left and right, faces buried in each other’s hair, gripping so hard they were probably bruising - then suddenly pulled away to face her again, eyes wide and shining like he was about to cry.

“I’m sorry!” he apologized, “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you, I wasn’t aware that you were such a beautiful young lady!”

Iris laughed even louder and found it impossible to stop herself from tearing up a little, and gently slapped his cheeks over and over, forgetting her soon-to-be nineteen years of age in favor of returning the five-year-old who didn’t like to be called like that because she was a Dragon Tamer, not some noblewoman.

She buried her face in his shoulder again, heart beating frantically. Ah, why did words have to be so hard now of all times!

A sob wrecked through her, unable to be contained.

Before she could chastise herself for it, an absent minded hand had already started patting a song on her spine.

She hugged him even tighter.

She knew it.

She knew he still remembered her.

She knew they couldn’t have been that unlucky.

A male voice called for her: she unwound herself from her cousin to turn around, his white arm still gripped tight in her palm, wide and tearstained grin illuminating her still somewhat child-like face.

“Marshal!” she cried out, waving at the man whose approach was slowing down more and more the closer he came to the formerly missing Subway Master as though frightened by the possibility of doing something too brash, too wrong, to come off too strong, “Marshal, come here, quick! He knows me! He knows me!”

(That would have been an exaggeration, but this wasn’t the time to make it known.)

He looked at the empty expression on the ghost of a man before him as bright white eyes stared into him.

He’d been stuck in situations that sparked and screamed with tension before, competitions and brawls and battles alike, close calls and last hits the anticipation of which had made time stretch endlessly as though it were a long, infinite rubber band struggling to return to shape after being released in an ocean of air denser than drying cement, but this - this had his heart and throat in an iron grip, squeezing them so hard that he could feel every single vein pulse with how desperately quick his heart was beating against his chest.

Speaking didn’t come hard to him usually. He’d honed that skill like many others, balancing himself as he always had been taught to do. And yet now his tongue felt dry and tangled, and his mind was blanking hard.

Should he have even said anything at all? Should he have just waved? He could have always turned around and left. He would have been ashamed of it for the rest of his life, like any fighter with some self-respect, but it was still an option. He could have just gone.

But could he, really?

How much had he missed him? That idiot who’d gotten poisoned by toxic trash enough times to become immune? To whom he’d tried to teach capoeira with no success at the tender age of seven, only managing to flail him around despite their difference in height? Was he seriously going to leave him like that, staring, not even offering a simple greeting, an introduction of even the barest kind?

His cousin was looking at him.

Not vacantly.

With purpose.

He raised a hand to give a little wave, offering a small bashful smile with it, but didn’t get to accompany either with any sound: the taller body slammed into him after carefully setting his sister back on the platform so quickly he barely saw the motion, and squeezed him in the spindly arms.

It took him a second for him to fully feel the hug.

A few moments after he heard a loud bony pop coming from a spine that wasn’t his own and reverberating against his arms, he realized he was hugging back.

Oh boy.

That must have hurt a bit.

“I did need that,” Ingo thankfully wheezed in his hold.

Marshal coughed out a laugh. These guys - they had such a way of being goofy…

His embrace grew a little softer as he nestled his face into his cousin’s shoulder, and he allowed himself to chuckle again: “Good to see some things don’t change, eh?”

The grip around him seemed to grow fonder.

-

Ingo was not there.

Locating him in the control room should have been easy. For starters, he would have stood out by being the only person not wearing any uniform; then, even if he could have melted into the penumbra with his dark clothes, the area of his head was so white between eyes and hair and pale skin that it would have been impossible to miss.

So, vice versa, the fact that he was not immediately recognizable among the small crowd and dim lights made it all the more obvious that he wasn’t there.

And if he wasn’t there, either he was somewhere else, or he had never been there to begin with.

Both of which were equally terrifying possibilities.

Cloud jumped a little when a hand grabbed their shoulder with a grip strong enough to just yank it off of their body in one go like a dangling baby tooth waiting to be pulled out of a child’s mouth.

“Where is Ingo?” Emmet asked with a face that could have effortlessly killed a man.

Luckily for the Depot Agent, their gender crisis which had decreed them to be no such thing decades ago spared them long enough for the moment of blinding terror to subside and let them answer in a peep: “With Briosa, boss.”

“Where is Briosa?”

“She should be on one of the platforms - she wanted to show him the trains, I think-”

“Which platform?”

“I - I don’t know, boss, it’s-”

“When did they leave?”

“I, ah - uh,” they scrubbed their brain to recall what the other had said and checked the clock: “About, uh… Maybe an hour ago, an hour and a half at most, by now.”

Perhaps they should have lied - whatever little color was in Emmet’s face was draining rapidly leaving him almost transparent, and based on how his grip was trembling, how his chest was squeezing quicker and quicker, how his eyes were shaking to find something to focus on, he was very close to breaking down.

They needed to fix the mess they made now, before it turned into a catastrophe - but how, how, how…

By chance their eyes fell on a printed copy of the staff schedule.

The subway master jumped when a palm laid on his wrist: kindly furrowed brown eyes forced him to look into them to ground him.

“Boss,” Cloud spoke more securely, “Briosa’s on the Single Train right now, right? Her shift started a while ago and she didn’t come back to the control room, so she likely went straight to the train. Ingo seemed interested in seeing one, so maybe she decided to let him tag along and let him watch some matches!”

It sounded right; it sounded plausible. Emmet gave a few small nods: “Yes,” he conceded, “Probably. Maybe. Possibly."

“You can check in on her on the radio,” they continued, “Just to make sure.”

Radio! Right! Right. He had the radio. He could contact her. He could ask her.

He should have done that.

He should have thought of that.

He would go do that.

He would go.

His hands unclenched: “I’ll call her,” he managed to force out of himself.

Cloud offered him a smile and gently patted his forearm: “Sounds like a good idea, boss. Your office is probably better for these sorts of things - we’ve got everything under control here.”

“Yes. Thank you.” he breathed. “Verrry much.”

“Anytime, boss.”

Bless whoever had ever decreed the existence of the Depot Agent profession.

Who knows where he’d be without them by now.

Emmet counted the long swinging steps that covered the distance spanning across the control room, the short corridor opening from its wall, and the office it lead into; then he counted them again as he marched laps around the furniture, trying to find a spot where he could lean onto (sitting would have worsened his panic, he just knew it, he had had a taste of that on his own skin enough times before that he was certain he had to keep moving) while searching around in the pockets of his coat.

At last having found the small radio, it sizzled to life as he tuned the correct frequency and spoke into it: “I am Emmet. Calling Briosa.”

He could feel a panic attack climbing up his leg.

It hurt like hell when he slammed his shin against the side of his desk, but at least it staved off the spiraling thoughts for a moment as he hissed.

He waited for the snap of Mawile’s maw to come through the receiver and urgently asked: “Is Ingo with you?”

The answer came a moment later, extremely calm: “He’s outside.”

“Where?”

“The city.”

“Alone?!” he almost shouted, stopping in his tracks..

“Nope,” Briosa popped her lips: “Two people came over to pick him up I think, one girl looking younger than I do, one guy not older than me, both from the Opelucid train. Ingo said they were his cousins and they were all sort of crying in the middle of the platform, so I figured I could let him go with them.”

Opelu - oh!

The tension in Emmet’s shoulders completely dissipated as they uncorked with a snap when he laid against a wall, like the cap of a heavily carbonated drink flying away, and he let out a relieved sigh.

Oh, alright. This changed everything. Thank goodness. 

“Champion Iris and Elite Four Marshal?” he asked just to be sure - though that was most definitely them. They must have heard about that mess with the announcements somehow, and the girl had probably dragged her half-brother to see Ingo as soon as possible. They had both missed him dearly, after all, he was certain of it.

The other end remained quiet for a bit longer than usual.

“If that’s a code I don’t know what it means.”

“No - question. Were the people Champion Iris and Elite Four Marshal.”

“I don’t know.”

Confusion settled on Emmet’s brows, making them furrow.

“What do you mean?”

“That I don’t know.” Briosa repeated.

“Don’t know what?”

“I don’t know if they were who you said.”

“The Champion and Fighting member of the Elite Four?”

“Yes.” now she started to sound annoyed. “Should I know them, anyways?”

Out of all the new things to learn about his co-worker today, this was not one he had remotely considered.

Also!

It was possibly the worst thing to short-circuit him at this precise moment, while he had no clear whereabouts of his brother and was beginning to doubt if his company was indeed who he thought they were and not somebody else.

His Xtransceiver decided that was the right moment to start ringing: an unknown number blinked on the display.

“Please hold until further notice,” he ordered automatically, too torn between panic and bewilderment to think, and just as he shut down the radio before getting an answer he opened the call.

His own eyes, magnified, replied.

A distinctly much louder and more expressive voice then made the speakers shriek: “HELLO! EMMET! CAN YOU HEAR ME!”

“No,” the conductor replied thoughtlessly with a wheeze that almost collapsed him.

“OH NO!”

“No no no, he can - he can hear you just fine, don’t worry, maybe just- just lower your voice a little, actually, I don’t think the speakers can survive that,” a definitely darker hand said as it came into view to gently pull Ingo away from the screen so that he wasn’t trying to shove his head through it.

The video feed trembled as it was yanked a little lower, revealing bright maroon eyes and an enthusiastic smile: “Hi Emmet!!”

“I am Emmet,” he replied fondly, out of breath: “Hello Iris. Hello Marshal.”

After another adjustment, the Fighting Elite Four member also properly came into view, waving back at him.

“You’re looking nice,” was the first thing he said.

His not-quite-cousin’s eyes narrowed, smile turning playfully angry: “Ah ha. Thanks.”

“No, seriously, you seem well-rested! That’s a relief!”

“It’s likely due to the fact that he slept in today,” Ingo snitched.

Iris gasped: “Slept in? Did a shooting star pass by? Did someone pray for a miracle?”

Oh no. Not this again. “I have been bullied enough about this already.”

“Oh yeah?” Marshal egged him on, “By who?”

“Ingo. My team. His team. The Agents. Briosa. Elesa, if she finds out.”

“That last one doesn’t count.”

“Yes it does.”

“She doesn’t even know it!”

“She will. And she will bully me.”

“Can I call her on this as well?” his twin instantly asked their cousins at that, feigning innocence: “She will surely be glad to hear he’s gotten enough sleep.”

“No.” Emmet prohibited.

Iris ignored him candidly: “Oh, you can call her right now if you want-”

“Nooo,” came from beyond the screen, and she giggled. “Stop that.”

“You only need to get the number pad open down here and then you type in–” Marshal began to coach him.

“Stop that!”

Ingo snorted loudly at his furious pout: “Don’t worry, don’t worry - I will delay the inevitable as of now. I shall save her contact and call her later in the day to let her know of your prolonged nap, which I’m certain she’ll approve of.”

“Do not.”

“I cannot make promises.”

“Yes you can. Promise you will not.”

“I would have to make a promising gesture in order to do so, but unfortunately both my hands are occupied.”

“No they’re not.”

His supposedly free hand came into view, very much held by Marshal’s own in an invincible grip. The young man’s smug grin followed suit.

Emmet almost forgot he was behind a screen and tried to physically wipe it off.

Remembering he was behind a screen, however, brought him to a slightly delayed realization - together with the much needed question, as embarrassing as it might have been, of whether or not he was still suffering from the excessive sleepiness of the day prior in order for him not to be noticing horrendously obvious things.

If anything, he concluded, getting more rest was proving to be much more detrimental to his attention than getting less, so he probably shouldn’t have slept at all instead.

Everybody he knew would have likely strangled him for coming to such a conclusion, but even they couldn't have argued against the stone cold facts his lackluster performance was serving up.

Anyways.

“You have an Xtransceiver,” he noted with no shortage of relief.

“Took you long enough!”

A gentle elbow playfully pushed the girl’s head away: “Give him some slack, Iris, he was busy letting us make fun of him.”

“Ha ha. I was also verrry worried. I didn’t know where Ingo was. I got verrry scared.”

Ingo’s mouth was already halfway open to offer an apology, but Iris beat him to the punch, throwing her arms in the air triumphantly: “Well you won’t have to worry about that anymore! Now you can just call him whenever you want!” she added, moving her hands in a very goofy way as if to showcase an invisible product: “On his brand new welcome back gift we got for him so he never loses track of anybody of us again! And we don’t lose track of him!”

“Which I’m assuming was the main point,” her constantly frowning cousin pointed out.

“Good job making him feel like we’re putting him on a leash,” Marshal mumbled at her sort of jokingly, getting a slap on his arm for it.

“Oh no, by all means, it’s perfectly sensible! It will certainly be much easier for you to keep track of me than the opposite - I’m still not sure how to use most features on this blasted thing, I’d likely mess up any simple function spectacularly…”

“Trust me, we’ve seen worse.”

“Yeah, nothing can beat Grandpa Alder on that.”

“He took out the batteries by accident once, I don’t even know how, just pulled them out manually somehow. We brought it over to the manufacturer and even they couldn’t figure out what he’d done. You’ll be fine.”

“You’ll figure it out super quick.”

“You still should have told somebody. Have them send a message to me. I was worried.” Emmet brought the three of them back on track sternly. He still allowed a smile to creep up on his lips, relaxing his shoulders a little: “But I admit, it’s a verrry good idea for a gift. Yup!”

“Of course it was,” the girl gloated, “I had it.”

“She did not,” her brother shot her down.

“Yes I did!”

“For the sake of truth I must confess,” Ingo interrupted their argument: “It was Marshal who first proposed it.”

Iris gasped at him in furious outrage: “You’re supposed to side with me! I’m the baby!”

“I thought you disliked that definition?”

“It’s situational,” Emmet predicted.

“It’s situational!” she replied a moment later. Her piqued finger took up the entirety of the screen: “You shut up.”

The conductor wheezed in her face.

Overwhelmed with righteous fury, the current Unovan Champion loudly stomped her foot: “Whatever! I had a better one right now!” she declared, “And it’s to go get lunch because it’s midday and I’m kind of starving.”

Then she gasped again, and smiled wider: “You could come too!”

“No.”

Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Too abrupt. Damn panic.

“I’m working,” Emmet added hastily before she thought he was denying out of anger or annoyance. “I can’t. Sorry. I should not leave the station. Sorry. Sorry.”

“It’d be quick!” she pleaded back to him, and the saddened look on her face made him want to crumple into a dead leaf and turn to dust. “It could take what, maybe fifteen minutes? While you’re on your way we can get a sandwich or something, we hide Ingo in the bushes so he’s safe–”

“Excuse you-”

“-Shush, and then we can eat out here! And maybe once we’re done the three of us can go around to see the city and you can go back to work, just–”

“My,” he started, and then stopped. He had a hard time swallowing the lump in his throat, but there was no need. It was the truth. “My lunch break. It’s not now. Later. I’m working. Sorry.”

“We can wait then!”

“No. You’re hungry. You get cranky when you’re hungry.”

“No I don’t!”

“It would be disastrous. Can’t put Marshal and Ingo in that kinda danger. Better appease you verrry quickly.”

Iris furrowed her brows at him and pouted.

It would have been funnier if looking at her didn’t feel like getting stabbed in the gut.

“Not sure if it’s a good idea though,” he decided to change the subject, “Walking around with Ingo.”

“Why not?” Marshal asked.

“You know. Paparazzi. And other Sewaddles of life.”

“We can deal with those.”

He doubtfully scrunched up his face in response.

His cousin took that personally: “What, you don’t trust the Champion and her loyal fist-fighting knight to be able to handle a couple flashing cameras?”

That had Ingo turn to the still somewhat distraught Iris with eyes as wide as the moon itself, shining brilliantly with absolute surprise and a pride that was undoubtedly going to explode into a sonic boom in roughly eight seconds: “You’re the Champion?”

“Yeah?” she just replied.

Emmet quickly pulled the Xtransceiver down and stuck it close to his back. His fulminous reflexes saved him from the shrieks of the speakers as the latest contender for the title of world’s loudest BRAVO rippled through them in an attempt to make them explode.

He could envision the ear-ringing state of deafened daze Iris and Marshal were in at the moment extremely clearly, which likely said something about either himself, his brother, his cousins, or all of the above.

“YOU DID NOT MENTION THAT!” his brother was continuing in the same volume of voice, too caught up into the prideful euphoria to lower it: “CONGRATULATIONS!”

Faintly he made out Iris shakily replying her thanks.

“THAT’S INCREDIBLE! WHEN DID YOU MANAGE SUCH A FEAT?”

She responded it had happened around four years ago.

Whatever Ingo shouted next was completely unintelligible, so perhaps he should have intervened before the Xtransceivers completely gave up and burst into flames on their wrists, which would have been notably distressing.

.

“Fine! Fine.  I am Emmet and I’m convinced. He’ll be fine. Go for it. I trust you with him. Show him the city. Catch up with him. Hide him in the bushes.”

“Emmet.”

“I am Emmet.”

“Please do not advocate in favor of shoving me in any nearby shrubbery.”

“Would be a good hiding place.”

“Emmet.”

“It’d be much more effective than having you pretend you’re a lamppost.”

“Marshal.”

“It’s true!”

“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” Iris insisted. “We can wait just fine, seriously…”

“I am Emmet. I am sure. My lunch break is at… “ fuck. When was it? “Two. Do not worry for me. I will eat. Have a good meal. Go see the rest of the team home. They’ll be verrry happy, I bet. And Elesa. But don’t tell her I slept in.”

At least she smiled mischievously: “Immediately tell her you slept in, got it.”

“Nooo - avoid.”

“Instantly.”

“No!”

“Right now.”

“Iris Wittle Wyvern Lophiris. Stop that.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Call you what.”

“You know what you did!”

“I do not. Anyway!” he decided to cut it all short, before the credibility of his excuse began to dwindle: “Enjoy yourselves. And avoid paparazzi like the plague. I love you.”

They must have answered. He wasn’t sure he heard that.

By the time the call was closed and he wasn’t under their eyes anymore he was fairly sure the only thing keeping him still upright was the wall against his shoulder and the grip of his soles on the dark pavement.

Maybe he should have fainted for a while. Just slumped right down on the cold floor and lost consciousness for about half an hour. Maybe he could have gotten himself a nice little cardiac arrest for all of two seconds to ragdoll his way out of the wildly spinning tornado of thoughts passing by his neurons so fast they were essentially incomprehensible, some shifting amalgamation of panic and shame and a general desire to slam his head very hard somewhere and cause a dent either on the unfortunate surface of the day or in his skull.

What was even the matter? He hadn’t even talked to them. He hadn’t shut his door in their face. He had just not answered after the first two calls.

He hadn’t even been rude.

(I love you.)

(What a stupid fucking thing to say after as prolonged and obstinate an avoidance as his own. He was going to–)

Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

How did that… The stupid one… How did that song go? About the, uh… The stupid… Ugh. He scratched at his forehead. The one… With… The fish. Captain.

Ca-pitan Findus, controilran-cido As-do-mar…

He couldn’t scrape the rest from his brain, but at least it cleared it enough.

Should have used this instead of medicine. Then again, he’d been half asleep and easily conditioned by his brother’s own less than stellar feelings, so he was excused.

Normal things now.

Things to do.

… Save the number. That would have been verrry useful.

He opened his eyes as little as possible to check on the display, so that he wouldn’t fuck it up by trying to do that blindly.

A warning; he selected ‘yes’ without even reading.

That was something he’d have to figure out later. Or tomorrow. No matter. Just… Not now, please.

Breathe.

Breathe.

Things to do.

The ringtone made him first jump, then cuss.

Dragons help him. These five minutes were feeling even more never ending with every millisecond that passed.

Breathe.

Marshal nodded at him in greeting from the screen as he walked leisurely.

“Heya.”

“You just called.” Emmet noted dryly. He bit his tongue at how annoyed he sounded to himself; luckily for him, it came out just as monotone as always.

“I wanted to talk with you for a moment more. Without the whole…” he moved his arm in a fairly eloquent way towards a couple of louder voices off-screen. “You know. And it was Ingo who called you first, to be precise.”

“Tamayto, Tamato. Same thing.”

“Ugh, whatever,” the younger man stuck out his tongue at him.

“Unsportsmanlike. Penalty.”

“Hey!”

“You taught me that.”

“Can I talk to you for a second or are you going to keep doing this?”

“Hm. Perhaps.”

“Cuz…”

He was smiling. He was smiling - he wasn’t angry. A little annoyed, but in the way one is annoyed at a friend being a little too goofy. He was even chuckling a bit - his chest shook slightly from it.

The relief the sight of such a simple expression gave him left a disgusting aftertaste all over his mouth, not sparing even a singular cell. It was similar to that of gastric acid.

“I’ll be quick, I know you’re busy and all,” Marshal got to the point, now that the interruptions seemed to have finally stopped. “I just wanted to say it’s good to see you again, too. Even if you’re only on a screen.”

Emmet’s throat dried up.

Marshal didn't notice: “Maybe another time we can all meet up, with Mom and Dad too, and Grandpa. I bet I could rope Grimsley in if you wanted,” he laughed a little.

“Maybe.” his cousin conceded faintly. “Another time.”

“You’d be up for that?”

No. “Yup. Sure. Another time, maybe.”

“Of course! Of course.”

It was still weird to see white teeth when he grinned. He was so used to him wearing that teal guard over them in recent times (recent years, a few years ago, which meant they weren’t so recent anymore, and it made him want to look away and leave and curl up in a ball and apologize and never talk again) that he’d almost forgotten that wasn’t their natural color.

“I’ll see you then,” his cousin waved.

The conductor waved back a little: “Bye.”

“Have a good day!”

“You too. Love you.” (what a stupid thing to–)

“Love you too!”

The image sizzled away; Emmet breathed in again sharply through his nose, swallowed, and slid down the wall until he was sitting in midair.

He waited in a limbo devoid of thoughts for a few seconds that felt more like a couple hundred minutes, eyes closed, trying to quell any tremor that attempted to make his muscles quiver with nervous antsyness.

They’d looked honestly happy to see him.

Honestly it was going to make him cry.

Or have a breakdown.

Calm down, calm down - other things to do, there’s other things to do first.

Work to do first.

Briosa to call first.

To tell her.

And also for the other thing.

He turned the radio back on and spoke into it without registering the action, clawing his way back into his body as the words left it. Mawile’s snap arrived right on schedule to assure him his messages were being received.

“It was our cousins,” he confirmed.

“Oh, nice.”

“But.”

Silence.

“But what.”

“You don’t know what the champion looks like?”

“No.”

Emmet willed himself to calm down. Maybe she hadn’t kept up since Alder had gone off in grief; champions change often. That made sense.

That could not be applied to Marshal.

So he changed his question: “You don’t know what the Elite Four look like?”

“No? Should I?”

He could not answer that in a way that kept him sane. So he remained silent, absolutely stunned.

“Am I supposed to know them?” Briosa insisted.

Was she - “They’re the League!” he replied.

The response came in the same unbothered shrug of a tone as before: “I don’t know the League.”

She what.

“How.”

“I’m not into competitive battling.”

…

Huh??

“This is. This is the Battle Subway. You work at the Battle Subway.”

“Yes! And here we just run over trainers. By the way you should get over to the Multi Line as soon as possible, would be better somewhere around uhhhh this precise instant, there’s an obnoxious pair that’s been very slowly making their way through the twentieth car with some kind of stalling strategy and should be done in about fifteen minutes. If they come in and you aren’t here I will not guarantee for the safety of their tendons.”

Alright. Yes, he should have returned to the train. Ingo was safe with family, so he had nothing to worry about.

And he could have continued this hell of conversation much more easily, too.

-

Emmet was notified of Ingo’s return to the control room somewhere around six in the afternoon, while he was still rushing through the tunnels of the Double Line. Moments before the arrival of the next challenger, he was then notified that his brother was currently snoring away on one of the breakroom’s couches.

When he peeked his head in a little less than two hours later, he was still asleep.

Iris did have a tendency to drag people around as though they had as boundless an energy as hers, and while Marshal had trained for years and had enough stamina to actually keep up with her, her not-quite-cousins definitely did not; so his poor twin was probably exhausted from being flung around the city like a gymnastic ribbon on a go-kart passing through a wind tunnel, or a wacky inflatable tube man being pulled into one of Tornadus’s storms.

A weight settled on his bones.

Ah, damnit. He should have eaten his lunch after all. Not his fault he forgot about it.

His glove scratched his eyelid a little as he rubbed it.

Hm, yes, had to be sugar withdrawal. Nothing else. Nothing at all. Not sleep, definitely. He was Emmet. He wasn’t tired. And certainly it wasn’t having stayed here instead of going to see his cousins. Nope. No way.

He’d been busy. Verrry busy. He was working. He couldn’t just go around. Sorry. He could not. Nope. Sorry. Sorry. Verrry busy.

He repeated the words to himself ad nauseam as he mindlessly chewed through his previously abandoned sandwiches with all the glee of a thoughtless automaton spending its days stamping bottle caps. He could have sat for a moment, just to stretch a bit and get this torpor out of him - yes, he nodded with a yawn, he’d do that, timing himself with Ingo’s snores.

A hand shook his shoulder: “Boss, you’re needed upstairs.”

Emmet opened his eyes to find himself hunched on his knees.

When did that happen?

“How long?” he asked vaguely, feeling his tongue stuck to his palate.

Thankfully, Hank had a degree in barely awake communications and was currently getting a coffee not too far away: “About ten minutes, maybe,” he replied.

“Yeah, that sounds right,” Ramses nodded.

Their boss hummed; like a Purrloin, he snapped his back into a sitting position, listening to his spine as it popped while stretching his arms upwards.

Well, that didn’t do him good.

He was going to need a chiropractor. Or maybe Marshal could have just realigned his backbone with some kind of grapple.

If he ever managed to crawl back to his cousin in shame.

“I am Emmet,” he groaned to ignore his own thoughts: “I’ll be there in a second.”

Ingo was still sleeping. His brother gave him a gentle pat on the arm and left him to continue resting.

-

By the time he opened his eyes again he felt like a few geological eras had passed.

He checked the nearest clock, squinting to figure out what he was looking at: the hands told him it was 10:23. Most likely in the P.M.

He was suddenly very hungry.

They probably would have eaten once they were back home though, right? In the meantime he should have probably had some water. He felt like a dried up Petilil slowly shriveling under the midday summer sun.

On second thought, where was he, exactly?

Because this did not look like home, or the control room, or his hut. Perhaps he had been abducted, which however sounded unlikely as he did remember finding the elevator with Cameron (Cameron? That was his name, right? Not Cloud. Cloud had longer hair. Hm, yes, that was Cameron.) and descending away from the piercing golden glow all around himself.

“Oh! Finally. We were thinking you had a heart attack.”

His eyes shifted groggily onto some gaunt young man almost glaring at him..

“Is… Adore?” he tried, unsure whether it was that or Isaiah but feeling a preference for the former.

The agent nodded and reached for some weird large thing standing against the wall to stick a sort of key in it before poking at it repeatedly with one finger: “You’ve been asleep for four hours and forty-seven minutes,” he let him know with surprising precision. “Did you sleep at all before coming here today?”

“Yes,” Ingo replied dryly. “The whole night.”

The weird thing spat out something similar to a very small paper cup.

Isadore looked at him in bewilderment as something trickled into the tiny container; he shook his head after a moment, as if remembering something: “No, that makes sense.” he nodded again.

A hiss escaped his heavily clenched jaw as he grabbed the little cup in his palm for all of one second before retreating his hand.

By the time Ingo had finally managed to sit back up without almost falling asleep in the process the liquid must have finally cooled down a little bit, because the young man was finally able to pick it up and bring it over to the couch. He took note of how carefully he maneuvered the little thing, gripping it with the precise grip of a machine, moving in perfectly strides so that the contents of the cup could not have so much as moved in the slightest.

He stood for a short while, narrow eyes fixed on the beverage.

“Do you like lemon tea?” the agent asked finally.

Oh, that sounded nice: “I believe so, yes.”

“I hate it.” Isadore replied, and with the same precise robotic motions he lowered the cup down so he could take it from him. “But I messed up my order and ended up with this, so if you’d rather drink it than let me waste it I’d be fine with that.”

“Ah! Thank you.”

“It was a mistake.”

“Still, thank you.”

Like he couldn’t tell that he’d done that deliberately, just to be nice - especially from how he insisted it hadn’t been intentional and how he’d left in an embarrassed hurry. He might’ve not had that good a relationship with Ingo before.

And the tea tasted just fine. He didn’t know what he was missing.

-

The Battle Lines were officially closed.

As much as he loved them, Emmet sighed in relief. They could really drain one’s energy worse than a whole candelabra of Litwick.

Now all that was left to do was ensure that all passengers left the station for their final destinations, return the trains to their rightful resting platforms, close down for the night, and go back home.

And make sure his brother still existed.

Because there always was the possibility of him not existing.

Which was the worst possibility, right next to him being found dead.

(Him being found dead was so close to the former in the scale of worst things to be real because by ‘not existing’ he meant specifically ‘not existing here and now back home’, not ‘not existing since the beginning’, and that left the window very terrifyingly open for the latter to happen.)

Briosa cracked her phalanxes with her thumb one at a time.

Once she was done, she moved onto those of her left hand.

She did not say anything. He focused on the quiet snaps muffled by the cotton gloves and tried to relax his shoulders.

The tension suffocating him in the elevator thankfully disappeared as soon as he stepped into the control room and an incredibly pale head all but literally lit up at the sight of him.

Ingo waved at him as though they were twelve kilometers away from each other, remaining perfectly still right where he was. Emmet waved back in the exact same manner, smiling as wide as he could.

Mawile found them impossibly silly and held back a cackle.

Billie decided to interrupt their silent waving by gently launching the older twin towards the younger with a hand on his back, promising under their breath that Vip was going to help with the last few things to check, and the man took the momentum in stride and slammed directly into his brother so quickly that neither even had the time to outstretch their arms for a hug, headbutting the shit out of each other and ending up stumbling a little for the recoil before they grabbed each other’s forearms to keep themselves from falling on the pavement.

“I apologize for falling asleep for nearly five hours!” he told him once they had established some distance again: “Iris and Marshal have the same terrible grip and powerful legs. I was no match for such behemoths.”

“Marshal was pulling too?”

“Yes!”

Memories of getting thrown around by an eight-year-old who could wrestle a Fraxure made the other at once smile and wince: “Oof. Did you try any opposition?”

“Absolutely not. They would have run me over like a herd of Piloswine.”

“Good call.”

He took a long breath through his nose and groaned.

“I am Emmet. I will admit. I am verrry tired.”

“Preach!” Vip (short for Venipede - her mothers were from outside the region and really, really liked Unovan bugs) hollered back at him unprompted before slinking her head down onto the desk in defeat. Josh, ever the sweetheart, patted her back in solidarity; Billie preferred shoving her a little out of the way.

Emmet was very tempted to imitate her, but pulled all of his remaining willpower to resist, only hunching his back forward in a slump and giving a long sigh: “Exactly. Let’s go home.”

“Oh! Is the Station shutting down for the night?”

“Yep.”

“I see! It is very late after all…”

Noticing the saddened tone, the younger tilted his head: “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing, just a silly thing. It could be handled tomorrow, or another day - it’s not a big deal anyways.”

“What is it?”

“... I would have liked to see the inside of a train,” Ingo admitted bashfully, like he was confessing something embarrassing or ridiculous: “I know the vague layout of an old locomotive from the books I’ve read a little from at home, but I have no idea how current trains look…”

“Ah! That’s fine. We can do it an-”

“The last train to Anville Town departs in a few minutes,” Briosa helpfully interrupted him out of nowhere.

Mawile must have filled her in while they weren’t looking.

Josh checked on one of the monitors and nodded: she was right, the last run for the day would have left in a moment or two.

“I can accompany him,” she continued simply.

Emmet tensed: “It’ll be verrry late for you,” he tried to dissuade her.

“I’ve gone home later. Plus I’ve got business on it.”

“I know. But it’s late.”

“I know. And I need to go anyway.” she turned her head towards Ingo: “Do you wanna come along?”

“Briosa.” Emmet signed before his brother could reply, not smiling. “Look at me.”

She did.

“It’s late. We can do this another time. It’s fine.”

She gave a short hum. Her fingers moved quick in the total silence: It’s forty-five minutes of ride at most. We’ll leave around 10:50 and we’ll be back by closing time. Rapid and painless.

It’s late, Emmet insisted equally quiet: It’s verrry late. We can do it tomorrow.

Do you want to come along?, the substitute asked then.

He hesitated; then he shook his head imperceptibly.

Being on unmoving ground was making the prospect of getting back on a train worse than anything, almost to the point of nausea. It happened, sometimes. It had happened several times, in the past years. Once the seasickness had even had the horrid idea of manifesting physically, and it had been mortifying to clean that cab.

At the same time, he didn’t want to leave Ingo alone on a train launched towards an unknown destination. Anything could have happened, literally anything, and instead of arriving at Anville Town he could have ended up across the world again, or somewhere he could have never returned from, or the train could have derailed with him on it, or he could have fallen out, or, or, or…

He couldn’t know how much Briosa could have known about what was going on in his brain since she couldn’t read his mind, but she didn’t smile.

Her stout fingers just moved, with as much understanding as they could have: I’ll be with him. I’ll make sure he’s fine and return him home right on time. Nothing else will happen. I’ll protect him. You know I’m good at these sorts of things.

Yes, she was. And yes, he did.

He took a long breath.

“Is everything alright?” Ingo asked softly.

Emmet waved a hand to reassure him: “Technicalities,” he replied, hands signing as he spoke: “You can go. If you want. Briosa said she can come with you. I’ll stay here. I’m feeling a bit lightheaded. Is that ok?”

“Of course! Please take care of yourself.” then, after a moment of nervous pause: “Are you sure I can go? I can stay here if-”

“Woof, train leaves in seven minutes,” a little voice interrupted them again. “Better go now unless you want to wait a whole day. There’s other ones, actually, but this one actually gets out of the ground, which is much niftier.”

(“Woof?” Vip mouthed.)

(“Niftier?” Billie mouthed back.)

Briosa fixed her rotten green eyes directly in Ingo’s: “So! You wanna go?”

Ignoring the brief sensation that she was challenging him to a hand-to-hand combat match to the death, he looked to his twin.

Emmet gave him a thumbs up.

The older nodded; the minuscule Substitute smiled, stuck her entire arm down Mawile’s open enormous maw so the little thing could safely dangle from it instead of having to scuttle after her, grabbed his wrist with her free hand, and left without any additional words to anybody in the room.

Had the tightening deadline put wings at her feet, or was he so baffled by the fact that she had just consciously and willingly had one of her limbs swallowed by her hearing aide that he forgot to take time into account?

Either way, he could have sworn they had taken much longer to reach the platform earlier today.

He also could have sworn that they had returned to the same exact platform.

He blinked hastily several times, finding a definitely smaller amount of people than he had seen on his first visit waiting for the mechanical beast to come pick them up, and turned left and right before looking down to find his guide’s translator - still happily dangling from the arm she was chomping on..

“Are we going to-” he began, stopping himself for a moment out of uncertainty “-Opelucid City, I believe?”

“Anville Town,” Briosa corrected after raising Mawile to her eye level.

“Are you sure?”

“Perfectly certain.”

“I don’t want to doubt your expertise - you know much more than me, that’s without question - but are you absolutely positive this is the right platform? It looks a lot like-”

He couldn’t finish that thought as the conductor howled: “OOOH - oh ok, no, that’s fair, they’re all designed to look the same. They have signs before the entrance though, and Anville Town trains and stations and signs all have a brown line on them? Like that one over there.” and she pointed to a long bright brown line painted across the shorter wall of the platform. “It’s because it’s the oldest train line in the region and all stations were initially decorated with brown lines. Did you know that the slang for railway officials is brass collar?”

Actually, he did! From the moment she mentioned ‘slang’, but he did. Huh. He nodded, genuinely surprised by himself, and even added: “Or main pin.”

“Yeah!” Briosa grinned, squinting a lot: “Funny stuff to know.”

Funny indeed.

The train still made a horrid amount of noise, causing Ingo to regret not having asked for Emolga’s support again before Mawile very gently patted his leg to offer him some comfort. The sliding doors hissed open; the Substitute Subway Master positioned herself perpendicular to them and extended her arm towards the brightly lit interior of the rumbling millipede titan.

“All aboard!” she encouraged him - stretching the first word and rushing through the second, in a perfectly opposite intonation to his own and Emmet’s.

Ingo complied, stepping onto the train.

They were in the cab directly behind the locomotive (Briosa seemed to privilege this placement, as she had moved them towards the end of the Opelucid platform earlier as well) and if he turned his head to his left he could see a corridor made of long sections like the abdomen of a Bug stretching all the way into infinity, all identical as far as he could tell: same two lines of blue plastic seats built almost like sofas, same metal bars right above them, same handles dangling from them, same grey doors with wide windows, same openings into new cabs, same rows of glass separating the inside from the outside wind, over and over and over and over.

Gently buzzing above him, the neon white lights didn’t hurt as much as they could have.

(He remembered dreaming something like this once or twice.)

(Hadn’t he dreamed it in Sinnoh?)

(Not Hisui - Sinnoh. On the couch of Johanna and her child’s house… Yes, he recognized it now. He’d dreamed of sitting here, on a train, headed who knows were; he recognized now, the more he thought about that dream, the scratch of Marshal’s hair on his nape, the scent of Elesa’s Persim shampoo coming from his shoulder, Iris’s weight pressing on his lap, Emmet’s face leaning against his arm. He wondered who it had been, then, on whom he was sitting.)

A mechanical voice instructed him to stand away from the doors as they closed, and a rumble startled him so much that he almost jumped.

Briosa, at his side, made no motion nor betrayed any emotion.

The man looked around for a moment, thinking back to the plane and the car and finding a glaring problem.

He turned to Mawile with great urgency: "Where are the seatbelts?"

Both she and her aidee gave him a funny look.

"Trains don't have them," the substitute told him.

What?

The gigantic wretched beast moved with a jerk, and Ingo felt his entire body, completely stiff and as straight as a perfect line, get yanked back like a catapult towards the floor.

A thin arm pressed harshly against his back to stop him from actually making contact with the ground, keeping him upright despite the notable difference in height almost effortlessly, and as his freefall was stopped in time he became fully conscious of the fact that, oh! Yes! He had, indeed, been descending right into a concussion!

So he screamed.

The body under him seemed to shake incredibly hard for a moment; he was then grasped between two hands, manhandled for a hot second, and firmly planted on one of the smooth plastic seats.

Briosa looked directly into his eyes. Her vaguely square smile had an air of disbelief, and her hands trembled a bit.

"PLEASE MAKE SURE TO HOLD ONTO THE HANDRAILS OR TAKE A SEAT BEFORE THE TRAIN DEPARTS!" she said, not quite screaming but almost, sounding incredibly shrill. "ALSO DEAR DRAGONS YOU ARE LOUD!"

Ingo sunk in his mortified shoulders.

"I - I apologize, I did not-" he only managed to babble.

"I'M NOT MAD BY THE WAY, I'M REALLY IMPRESSED!" the Substitute interrupted him (not out of a lack of manners but because she could not have heard him if she wanted): "I DON’T THINK THE HUMAN BODY IS MEANT TO BE ABLE TO MAKE A SOUND AT THAT VOLUME! THE CLOSEST THING I CAN COMPARE IT TO IS WHEN I ACCIDENTALLY LAID AGAINST A VERY BIG SPEAKER AND A BASS LINE RIPPLED STRAIGHT THROUGH ME AND JUMBLED MY MARROW LIKE GELATINE!"

This must have been what roughly half of Hisui had felt when he spoke to them most of the time, Ingo managed to think for a moment before his brain focused on imagining how exactly something like a ‘bone marrow gelatine’ would have looked and tasted.

In a fraction of a second he concluded that it would have been abysmal, and not for the shape or ingredients; despite having apparently never eaten gelatine as far as his brain could remember he could feel it in his mouth, and the texture made him want to shrivel and implode.

He quietly snuck it on the shelf of his mind reserved for Things I Forgot I Found Abhorrent And Would Like To Forget Again.

Blissfully unaware of the plight her boss had unleashed upon himself through the power of recalling horrendous attacks at his senses, Briosa then made her tone and volume drop drastically to much quieter ones as her whole body relaxed: "But seriously, make sure to secure yourself next time you're on a subway car. You can get really hurt and injure other people along with yourself. If you screamed again you could also probably bust their hearing."

She smiled again, looking right into him as if pinning him like one does to the wings of a Beautifly, with that flat smile that stuck the corners of her lips up in a sort of strange parenthesis and her rot green eyes a little squinted.

"You can't hurt mine in a way that matters," she chirped, as if to reassure him.

That actually was a relief. He’d had enough complaints about his shouts risking avalanches and attracting dangerous Pokémon, without counting all the ringing ears he had caused; he was truly glad the only living beings in this car were himself (naturally immune to his own volume), a completely deaf person and --

His head retreated inside his shoulders as a horrified realization hit him and he turned, absolutely mortified, to the small beast sitting right beside him.

“I am - so sorry,” he started off as her big red eyes tilted curiously, “I did not mean to - I am honestly, earnestly sorry, this is - probably very bad, considering what you - did I, did I hurt you? Did I hurt your ears, was my voice...? Again, I am terribly sorry, I, I hope I did not cause you any harm...”

Mawile blinked twice before snapping her smaller mouth open with a chirp of sorts, not looking cross at all. She began twisting her tiny fingers at him, but before he could apologetically remind her he could not understand sign she realized so herself, and turned towards her aidee: Briosa read her paws and furrowed her brow, replying in the same silent language with a certain puzzlement to her motions.

There was a moment of stillness that followed - their equivalent of a beat of flabbergasted silence. Mawile then gestured something with a very amused shit-eating smirk on both lesser and greater mouths, and her owner quickly clamped her hand in front of her little face as though to force them both shut.

“Vai a ciapa’ i Patrat, bimba, vai - che sarò stanca pure io a quest’ora, eh?” she sneered softly, chuckling a little as her fingers repeated whatever completely incomprehensible thing had just come out of her mouth. The little Fairy insisted on something with a grin, getting a gentle swat from a gloved hand: “Stocazzo che glielo dico, me lo posso anche tenere per me che mi son scordata che tu ci senti per lavoro.”

She then turned her gaze on Ingo’s face, ignoring her snickering companion.

“Steel types are actually virtually immune to hearing loss!” she explained chipperly: “They’re often employed in dangerously loud jobs because their organs can only get deformed under extreme pressure from all sides, like at the bottom of the ocean! But in that case they’d already be dead before the compression could do the trick so it barely counts really. But yes. No matter how hard you scream you cannot deafen this little beast.”

Three-fingered paws waved to get her attention once more and added something else.

“She still appreciates your concern!”

The poor man wheezed out a sigh of relief. Oh thank goodness. No harm done. He would have climbed out of the train window out of mortification otherwise.

Mawile seemed to be amused by his reaction, considering the gentle chittering laugh that left her lesser beak-like mouth and the cackling snap of her larger one. Her little three-fingered paw went to pat his arm in a comforting manner, as though she understood his feelings perfectly: maybe this had already happened on a previous occasion? Or perhaps she was simply very empathetic, as Fairies tended to be?

She and Briosa appeared to be on the exact same wavelength, that was certain, since they understood each other perfectly despite the language barrier.

Wait, no, they had no language barrier.

The both signed.

Right.

Yes.

That made sense.

Wait.

He furrowed his brow suddenly: “You translated her right now, did you not?” he asked the substitute, realizing only at that moment what had happened.

She turned her attention to the beast next to her and answered him with a slight lag and a fairly satisfied smile once his words were made understandable to her: “I did! It’s a mutually beneficial kind of deal. Makes it a lot easier to understand other Pokémon as well.”

“Your communication with your team must be on another level!” Ingo replied.

“I doubt that!” she struck him down airily: “I don’t want Mawile to work overtime translating every single thing my lads say. They’ve learned to be real expressive for that. My communication with her is on another level, that’s true - I forget that five-fingered sign exists sometimes.”

“Five-what?”

“Five-fingered sign,” and she waved her fingers in a sort of cheeky goodbye. Then she held down her thumb and pinky, moving the other three as she spoke: “She only has three fingers, so she most usually tends to use three-fingered sign. She’s also fluent in five-fingered, but that takes her two hands so, you know, it’s much less convenient.”

Ingo nodded, eyes enraptured by the fluidity of her signing: “It’s as though you were trilingual,” he commented in awe. “Or quadrilingual, perhaps? I believe you were speaking something else, before...”

“Ah. That. Yes.”

The stilted way she said that had him shrivel in his own shoulders, convinced he’d overstepped another boundary.

Mawile laughed louder and mischievously gestured something at her aidee.

“Zitta.” she was shushed.

She laughed even harder.

“I apologize,” the much taller man peeped as quietly as he could, which admittedly wasn’t that much: “I didn’t mean to bring back any animosity.”

The beastie found his addition even more hilarious clearly, because she leaned her back down on the plastic seat and kicked up her feet as she wheezed and cackled uncontrollably to the point where she had to grab her stomach as it started cramping. Still coughing a little she wiped away tears of absolute mirth from her eyes as she pulled herself up once more before launching in a series of signs so fast and naturally that it would have likely caused him to short circuit in an attempt to follow had he been able to understand her.

He turned to Briosa with a frown that told of being completely at a loss.

She replied by keeping her mouth perfectly shut.

Mawile egged her on.

“Stocazzo, t’ho detto,” the substitute insisted.

Not at all deterred, the Steel Fairy snapped her maw as though accepting a challenge. As she turned back to Ingo she clearly threw sign to the wind and began, instead, to mime at him: whatever they had talked about, he pieced together from her performance, regarded Briosa asking her a question related to her hearing.

His comprehensive noises with which he began commenting on the show clearly sent the subway master into a short panic, launching herself forward to grasp her aide to shut up her theatrical endeavors before she could get to the point.

She did successfully delay the ending of the story; she also however got laughed straight at her face with each miss.

After not even thirty seconds she threw her patience out of the window with wild abandon: “Basta!!” she softly shouted as she trembled with an exaggerated cartoonish rage, “Guarda che ti mangio!”

Not frightened in the slightest, Mawile signed back a retort.

“Va bene!” the substitute caved in.

She rubbed at her eyes to try and mask her snickering as she attempted to recollect herself enough before she could properly turn to Ingo, who had been left a little concerned by their interaction.

“It’s stupid,” she reassured him immediately with a wave of her hand and an easy smile. “I just. When she told me you were worried about having destroyed her eardrums, I got confused. Because I forgot that she can hear. Even though that is literally her job.”

“Oh!” he sighed in relief. That was kind of humorous. “I see.”

“She’s not letting me live this down now because she’s mean,” she then specified, putting a special emphasis on the last word as she eyed the utterly remorseless Fairy, who seemed proud of her mischief. A gloved hand pressed onto her flat nose: “You’re lucky lip reading only gets me so far or you’d be still stuck back over there in Kalos.”

Mawile made a motion as if to hug herself before pointing back at her.

“Love you too.”

“If I can -” Ingo began, lifting a finger to catch Briosa’s attention, but he stopped and retracted it as he reminded himself she couldn’t hear him right when she actually looked at him.

His attempt at turning towards her Pokémon was however stopped by the substitute herself, who quickly motioned with her hand towards her face to incite him to speak directly to her. Had she forgotten he couldn’t sign? It seemed very much unlikely. Still, if she was encouraging him to engage with her instead of Mawile, she must have had her own reasoning, right?

“You mentioned lip reading,” he tried.

“I did,” she replied without missing a beat, staring at him. Her eyes seemed to be focused a little under his own.

“I... Assume it would be something akin to... Figuring out letters from how the mouth moves?”

“I’d correct you since I’m reading the individual words, but yes actually, it’s mostly telling letters apart.”

“Is that what you’re doing right now?”

“Yep.”

“Ah! It seems more convenient than the translation.”

“It’s not!”

He tilted his head in surprise: “How so?”

“It’s hard,” she explained matter-of-factly: “The mouth can only move in so many ways. A lot of letters end up looking exactly the same. Plus I can’t do it on phones or radios, I can’t read multiple people at once, if I’m in a group swapping between person to person is a whole struggle that gets annoying real fast, sometimes it’s just plain difficult, like when Emmet’s got his neutral face on--”

“His neutral face?”

“You know--” and she gave him a somewhat vacant smile, forcing her mouth into what she probably believed to be a V shape of sorts. “This face. The bane of my eyes. You know how he doesn’t speak much? Makes a lot of pauses? That’s actually perfect since it’s little bits of information. Easy to read and digest. But this face makes everything so much harder.”

“Ah,” he nodded without much conviction. He did remember that specific expression now that she mentioned it, but he still failed to see what she actually meant. “Why does that make lip reading difficult?”

“Because his face gets locked in place and he speaks real small and cramped keeping all his words to himself, like this,” she answered: following her finger as she pointed he noticed then that her lips moved quickly, although describing them as ‘moving’ almost sounded like an exaggeration (a more apt verb could have been ‘twitching’), barely parting as they did. “Every single sound looks the exact same. It’s a nightmare.”

“I can see that…”

 She then began switching between expressions as she continued, her entire face shifting in ways that conveyed all sorts of emotions like a theater actor’s might have: “But when he’s actually reacting to things it’s so much easier, because he uses every single muscle he has to show what he means and his mouth gets dragged along, like this! See? He’s verrry expressive. Verrry readable.“

Ingo nodded again, transfixed: “You’re very expressive yourself!”

Briosa giggled at that: “Thanks! It’s the circus training!”

Thefuckingwhat.

He shook his head to clear it of the dozen barely comprehensible questions that clamored to be asked. Keep focus. No getting off-track. We’ll be here all night if you keep changing the subject.

“I imagine I’m giving you a lot of grief then,” he noted as he got back on his train of thought, “Since I’m... Not quite good at conveying emotion through my face.”

“No, actually. You’re really loud.”

Her knowing such a detail should not have come as a surprise, because she had already remarked on it previously when he had thanked her for saving him from a concussion after almost slamming his head against the metal floor with a blood-curdling scream directly in her ear.

However, she had mentioned she could tell because the vibration had vigorously coursed through her like an electric shock.

So in the end, he was again left completely baffled.

She seemed amused by how wide his eyes had turned when he finally got her back into the focus of his gaze, cheeks almost red with embarrassment, and asked: “Is it... Is it visible?”

Her smile curled a little more; she opened her mouth as large as she could and replied at a fairly high volume, to show him properly: “The louder someone speaks, the wider they tend to open their mouth! You do that all the time! It makes it much easier to tell the individual sounds apart since there’s a little lag between each of them and they’re enunciated fairly well!”

Huh! She was right!

At least, it helped her understand him better. He’d been worried about the opposite, so it was nice knowing that.

“You are extremely observant!” he noted.

She laughed with a rubbery sound: “And you’re trying real hard to make your lips as readable as a book!”

“It seems to make it much easier to converse!”

“It does! But watch out.”

“For what?”

“Long sentences. My brain fries a little if I’ve got too much on my plate.”

“Oh! That’ll be a problem. I’m fairly talkative, as far as I’m aware.”

”I figured.”

“I must admit this feels more natural than on-the-fly translations - I mean no offense for your line of work,” Ingo specified quickly (Mawile reassured him with a thumbs up) “But it is easier to speak directly to you instead of having to relay the information to a third party first. I suppose it’s a matter of awkwardness, or perhaps just a feeling of strangeness in the process of having to first speak to you, Mawile, who then has to translate it all to you, Briosa, in order for you to give your interlocutor an answer. To put it much more simply, it just... It feels a little weird. Is it not a little weird to you?

The Fairy nodded sagely in wholehearted agreement. It was very likely surreal for her, to have the vast majority of her daily conversations be in actuality a game of telephone between two other people.

Briosa instead looked at his face intently, mostly without any emotion.

It dawned on him a little too late that his musings had been in fact expressed in a tempestuous river of words which had likely stunted her comprehension.

She shook her head repeatedly for what felt like the span of a second, very quickly, in a very brisk movement: “Got the gist of it but lost half of that, hold on,” she apologized before turning to her hearing aide: “What’s weird?”

A few quick signs.

“Oh, yeah, absolutely,” she then immediately agreed as well, “I forget it is because I live like this but it’s weird as all get out for everybody all the time, everytime. Ramses still tries to talk directly to me even though he's known that his mustache covers his entire mouth and I cannot read a single syllable since I first told him five years ago.”

Five years?

But she’d said...

Wasn’t she a recent development?

Five years was not necessarily recent.

Five years...

"Then -” Ingo noted, confused: “We do know each other."

"No," Briosa's reply was quick, sharp, completely flat in tone.

The train hit a harsh curve; unbothered, she simply leaned in the opposite direction and remained upright on her feet, not changing her stance in the slightest, as though it were the easiest thing in the world.

"You were definitely aware of me, but we didn’t know each other,” she explained: “You hired me and I worked here. And anyways we probably wouldn't have made much progress because I'm not particularly sociable and as far as I'm concerned you didn't sign. I've gotten to know Emmet because it's been about two years, but I didn't know him either before the promotion."

"Before you became a substitute?"

"Yep."

But he had been in Hisui for at least three years. He mentally counted the seasons that had passed again: yes, the math made sense.

The tracks had returned straight; his interlocutor had returned upright.

"Why didn't you replace me as soon as I went missing?" he asked then, confused. It made no sense to wait a year or so - running such a network alone would have taken a toll after a few months, probably.

"Oh, I'm not replacing you," she corrected: "I'm a temporary solution. Speaking of -” and before he could ask her what exactly that meant she seemingly changed the topic of conversation entirely: “How much do you remember about how to drive trains or running a station in general?”

The man blinked.

He simply shook his head.

Briosa loudly clicked her tongue in a way that briefly reminded him of how Mawile’s larger mouth would sometimes snap when opening: “Huh. Then I guess it’ll be a while before I get demoted back to depot agent. If you want to be a subway master again, of course, which is likely. Not a fan of having to wait, because I hate being responsible for things, but oh well!”

“Why should you be demoted?” the man asked, furrowing his brow. She had seemed to be doing a fine job, hadn’t she?

“Because you’re back,” the substitute replied: “I told you. Temporary solution.”

“But you are already a subway master! There’s no need to for-”

“I am not!” she interrupted him before he could finish. Mawile hadn’t even gotten to the beginning of the second sentence.

Her thin, gloved finger pointed at her dusty face, at her broken nose and flat-lipped, straight-lined mouth: “I am a Substitute,” she repeated a little slower, spelling out each syllable carefully. “I am temporarily filling in for one of the two Subway Bosses. You are said Subway Boss. You were before and you have remained as such.”

“... For all three years I’ve been missing?”

Mawile did not translate that. She answered him herself, nodding. Her owner probably had already understood.

Ingo was still, on paper, a Subway Boss.

No, actually - he had never stopped being a Subway Boss.

For all that was worth it, the whole world might as well have hallucinated his disappearance: checking Gear Station documents one would have been certain to have found him in the tunnels, or maybe in the control room, in a locomotive or one of the stops, casually making his rounds, checking maintenance, battling, driving, working as if his own friends and family weren’t desperately looking for him in every nook and cranny. Like a ghost, or a cutout. Empty air in a shape that resembled his, doing what he ought to be doing, unseen, unfelt, unheard, mindlessly performing tasks it was convinced it could achieve while being completely mute and deaf and blind and incorporeal, incapable of feeling hungry or tired. Housing the station like some kind of specter.

He had remained a Subway Boss, in Hisui. He had held onto those rags of a uniform like his life depended upon them and worn them religiously every second he could - but that was different. That was him trying to preserve and maintain whatever scrap of his own identity he had left. That was not important to others, nor did it conflict with the reality of his situation.

It was just yet another symbol of his many statuses: he was a part of the Pearl Clan, as his tunic showed; he was Sneasler’s warden, as his bracelet showed; he was a strange foreigner, as his old clothes showed.

Why was he a Subway Boss?

Why was his replacement something that should have lasted what sounded like a couple of days, maybe a week, always ready to be replaced back?

What if he had never met that kid, Sinnoh bless them, and had never had the chance to come back home?

“Why?” he only managed to say.

His throat felt weirdly dry.

Mawile made a quick gesture. The train swerved again, and the overhead handles leaned to Ingo’s left; Briosa’s body shifted towards his right with the fluidity that comes from practiced ease while her feet remained unmoved on the ground, and he watched how the corners of her rectangular smile eased downwards until her mouth was a perfectly emotionless straight line.

She looked at him intently, with her rot green eyes; she blinked.

“I don’t think anybody could ever really understand just how stubborn your brother is.”

So it had been Emmet’s decision?

What was his plan? To go on his whole life like that? Pretending his brother was still there, somewhere, doing everything he always did, just always out of reach? Was he ever going to give up, eventually? Bury an empty casket? Or was he going to keep convincing himself that somebody was still just sleeping coated in dust in that empty room until the day he dropped?

Something abnormally cheery snapped him out of his spiral.

He looked up. Briosa was smiling again, in a strangely stiff way, and looking right into his eyes like she was trying to drill through his pupils.

Her words reached him with a slight delay, her voice squeaky and disgustingly dripping with sugar-coated honey.

“I collect teeth!”

Ingo was so taken by surprise that he completely stopped thinking.

Alright.

“This is a conversation stopper!” she continued, tone unchanged, the shade of her visor over her unblinking eyes making her suddenly appear mildly terrifying. “I would like for the conversation to stop!”

Frankly, that sounded like a marvelous idea.

He gave her a thumbs up.

She cheerfully nodded in thanks. One of her hands shot up from where she had held both behind her back, pointing somewhere behind her passenger.

Ingo followed it.

The world outside the glass rushed past him, an endless cave carved by fulminous winds and globes of light flying towards the end of the train; and then the walls ended, and it was bright.

Not bright as in daily - bright as in bright, deep blues, and bright, swaying greens or golds. Bright as in bright, far off stars, illuminating houses in dots or clusters with hundreds of different colors against the shadowed backdrop the night draped over hills or plains or mountains in large blue paint strokes.

Raising his head skyward he found only bright, small white sputters in that waveless celestial ocean - all their brethren fallen to inhabit a poor thing like the Earth, to shield it from the fear of a dreaded something hiding in the same shade humans could not see through: their sparks pierced apart the foliage of any trees they found to reach bright, murky waters flowing away, streams like long sleeves of light fabric left out to flutter in the wind.

The mountain coming closer colored itself a bright, luminous silver as the night peeled back from it momentarily only to return all at once when the train ran right into the tunnel dug through its entrails, fitting within it perfectly. The lights were back once more, rectangular in shape, and began zipping past the metal giant, eager to reach what to the passengers had been the entrance - he couldn’t help but wonder where they would have gone next, once out of this cave, if they would have flown away into the sky they’d been taken away from or if they planned to head towards the cities instead to escape the monotony of their previous home - as the clanging of the rails spurred them onwards between the empty patches of carved rock left in the wake of their travel.

Outside there was a long line of darkness, extending bright, golden beams into the night sky to lead the winged beasts trying to lower themselves to the ground with utmost care: the Mistralton City Airport. How weird, when looked at like this, from the outside in! Skyla’s bright red hair would have certainly glowed in the dark, even if such a big distance would have shrunk her to the size of a doll; if she’d been out he would have been able to spot her and wave at her. But how could she notice him back? He strained his eyes looking for her, but it was too bright and too dark at the same time.

Fields of crops distracted him, black soil ready for sowing interwoven with already matured stems. He found himself half entranced by the way the latter danced in the cool wind and how they rustled, piqued, like Staravias furiously preening their feathers back in place after a gust of wind left them in disarray, as the train passed them by. Under the nightly veil they looked like a cobalt sea; beneath the sun they must have seemed like forests of green algae misplaced, somehow, on land, moved by invisible currents...

So Unova was this, too? Beyond the paved cement roads and the sturdy buildings and the endless man-made light? He looked up again: more stars had come out, but nowhere near the galaxy the Pearl Clan so adored to gaze upon, the same he’d watched up there near the peak of Mount Coronet. They seemed lonely in the same strange way that makes melancholy feel lovely.

Those were Unovan stars. The Hisuian ones had gone, had left with their era. Somewhere out there they were traveling, maybe in a train.

Maybe they were resting on the ground, in the many lights of the many cities.

He liked both of those ideas.

(He needed to stop thinking of Hisui.)

Ingo turned back to Briosa after what had seemed like ages spent looking out the window like a little kid, bright white eyes wide with wonder.

She smiled, the corners of her mouth curling it into a square bracket.

“It’s a beautiful place,” he only managed to say.

She read his lips and conceded, sweetly: “It’s nice.”

Mawile chirped in agreement.

Anville Town introduced itself first with the sight of its bridge closing in, its station appearing only once the train was fully out of the thick forests around the small settlement. From above the bricks, once everything was quiet, the breeze carried what seemed like the sound of a flute.

Through the glass on the other side of the car he watched as the few passengers still on the train stumbled out and hurried back home as instructed by the conductor over the speakers.

They awaited a minute, maybe two, in near perfect silence.

The buzzing of electric lines above them was becoming comforting.

Mawile clacked her large maw and signed something; Briosa made an indescribable face ascribed to some sort of yet undiscovered emotion, though certainly leaning towards negative and vaguely malicious.

“Excuse me,” she began.

Ingo nodded, excusing her, as she turned towards the cab.

“JACKIE! FURZE!” she screamed so loud that he jumped in his seat: “I KNOW YOU’RE STILL IN THERE! YOU’RE NOT GONNA HAVE ANOTHER STATION SLEEPOVER! IF BY THE TIME I GET TO TEN I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU GET OUT OF THIS TRAIN I’M TEARING THE PHALANXES OUT OF YOUR FINGERS AND BOILING BROTH OUT OF THEM! ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX-”

The door leading into the car slammed open: scrambling messily as though the pavement was covered in oil, the two Depot Agents forwent any friendship between them in favor of avoiding the very real threat, even at the cost of sacrificing the other.

They barely had the time to raise their hats as a goodbye with a pair of hasty ‘goodnight boss!’ before they quickly disappeared into the station.

Briosa watched them without changing expression. She took their place in the cab naturally, her composure utterly unbroken, and made quick work on the control panel to set the Grade of Automation to 4 so she wouldn’t need to drive it herself. Ingo looked as she activated the intercom for one last warning, her cavity-inducing saccharine voice reverberating through the empty Steelix carcass on wheels.

Then the sliding doors closed with a gentle, dull sound; the metal beast set itself in motion, inertia pulling the overhead handles to the side before they settled back into their unsteady stillness, shaking with every rumble on the tracks.

The Substitute walked out the cab and closed it behind herself.

“Sorry about that,” she said with such simplicity that it almost scared him. “They’re idiots.”

Ingo blinked heavily.

He turned away from her, looking instead Mawile in the eyes: “May I ask why such a harsh sentence was warranted?” he asked, watching as she translated.

“Remaining in Gear Station at night, let alone overnight, is strictly prohibited,” her aidee replied, “But those two have camped in there before and will try to again. Furze because he’s obsessed with trains and Jackie because they like making it seem like they’re a ghost infesting the station.”

Ah. “That is reckless behaviour,” he conceded, “But I’m not sure the bodily harm was necessary.”

She shrugged: “It works! And I like making colorful threats.”

As mean as that was, he could believe that. It was still an exercise in creative writing or improvisation after all - even if maybe not that pleasant for others to hear, especially if it was directed at them very specifically.

“Speaking of which, I would like to ask you a favor.”

Ingo studied her face: nothing about it said that she was going to request he lend her one of his bones willingly or otherwise, so he nodded.

“Emmet should not come to work tomorrow,” she began: “It’s a scheduled break day. Every Gear Station employee including him has one and it’s a regular occurrence specifically so nobody risks overworking themselves.”

That sounded like a very useful idea. Commanding the station seemed like stressful work for everybody involved, even despite the fact that by now they were probably used to it. Between conducting the trains and the myriad of things to keep in check in the control room, departures and arrivals and delays and scheduling maintenance and whatmore and whatnot - it really wasn’t any wonder such a decision had been taken. He doubted he would have managed such a routine.

(But he had, hadn’t he?)

(He had, once. It had been his routine, once. His life. Not even four years ago, it had been his life.)

Briosa tilted her head slightly, snapping him out of his musings with the slight movement of her braids: her right one draped itself along her cheek, while the left one - which started at the front of her temple and ended up tied at the back of her head - moved away enough to show the thin sideburn following the curve of her jaw, ends split into diverted scissor blades.

Oh!

So she did have them too.

Something about them suited her face.

“Please tell him that if he so much as tries to walk in tomorrow I will fold him like a shirt and hurl him straight home through a window, frisbee-style.”

Ingo replied with a blank stare.

On one hand, that sounded a little extreme.

On the other hand, this was about Emmet.

He gave her a solemn thumbs up.

She adjusted the brim of her cap to cast a dark shadow over her rotten green eyes and gave him a toothy, rectangular grin: “Thank you for your cooperation!” her sugary voice chirped: “We hope you enjoy the remainder of your ride home.”

Mawile gently pulled at his sleeve and helpfully pointed back to the glass, to the world breezing past the three of them, only living beings in the rumorous stomach of a wheeled Gyarados, as if to steer him into a more pleasant experience with her beak-like smile and the slight snap of her much larger maw.

Ingo thanked her with a deep nod, and let himself become absorbed once more by the beauty of nighttime Unova.

-

The train arrived at 11:31 p.m., with the slightest delay. Emmet notably deflated in relief when the doors to the last car opened, his brother’s silhouette stark against the neon white light as he rushed to greet him. Briosa only peeked through without getting on the platform, upper body bent at a forty-five degree angle and face inscrutable; Ingo, though he lit up as soon as his younger twin came into view, seemed a little worn by the rather busy day he’d just had.

“You’re back,” he said. He could have sounded a little more emotive, or at least not as overwhelmingly flat - even more than usual - but evidently he was also pretty exhausted.

“I am!” his older brother replied without missing a beat. “It was a very interesting journey! It was quite enjoyable, despite a minor accident.”

“Oh? What happened.”

“Nothing to be too worried about - I simply had not expected the train to ricochet me into the floor when setting into motion,” Ingo commented (getting a slight wheeze out of Emmet), before turning a little bashful: “Briosa was kind enough to catch me before I actually fell... And regrettably, I repaid her by almost deafening her.”

His white-clad sibling furrowed his brows almost imperceptibly. He turned towards the substitute, who looked back at him with the gaze of someone who has no idea what the hell is happening but does not want to interrupt.

“That’s an achievement,” he noted.

“I would not call ‘causing irreparable damage to the senses’ an achievement.”

Emmet signed as he spoke: “It’s hard to deafen the deaf.”

Ingo did not reply to that.

Briosa, on the other hand, threw her head back and cawed out a single rubbery laugh before gently slapping the very embarrassed freshly returned (if not going to be operative for a long while) subway master’s back a couple of times, in a sort of attempt at comforting him while also sharing in Emmet’s amusement.

She pushed him a little closer to his brother: “That’s a sign you need some sleep, boss,” she said airily: “I’ll handle things here.”

The younger twin signed something at her, probably a question to make sure she was certain about that, if she didn’t need any help at all; she waved back at him as if to shove away his worries and replied silently with a formal salute - two fingers leaving the brim of her cap and a squinty-eyed smile. Mawile chirped her own goodnight to them from her shoulder when Ingo waved, jaws snapping merrily as the two men departed.

Golden lights had dimmed to dirty silver in the rest of the station to match the eerie silence dripping from the walls. Gone was the noise and the chaos; exiting into the night lit up by the spherical lights of the street lamps somehow felt as though they were still underground, rushing through a now spacious tunnel.

“Was it good?” Emmet asked as they walked: “Coming along?”

“In spite of how tired I am, I’d say so, yes,” Ingo nodded. “It’s been an interesting day, despite the noise. And I got to see Iris and Marshal!”

“That was a nice surprise, yep.”

“I wish you’d been able to come along too. They were so excited at the prospect of seeing both of us.”

“Were they?”

“Yes, I’ve told you. But maybe for another time.”

“Hm. Another time.”

“Oh - I saw Unova, you know? While on the train?”

“Oh?”

“Yes! I saw the fields and the mountains, the city lights - the airport at Mistralton City, even. It’s a beautiful place.”

“The airport?”

“Everywhere. The whole region.”

His brother smiled, and nodded.

They both yawned.

Good thing they still had some leftovers from yesterday. They probably wouldn’t have managed to cook on their own if they had to.

“And Briosa?” Emmet asked suddenly.

“Hm?”

“Briosa. How is she. What do you think of her.”

“She’s...” several words he wasn’t sure he could have found in any dictionary come to his mind, but for the sake of being at least somewhat comprehensible he had to compromise: “A lot, to be completely honest with you. But I cannot say she wasn’t also quite kind and overall pleasant company to have.”

“She is, yup! Nice. And a handful. I’m glad.”

“Of what?”

“That she was nice. And that you enjoyed her.”

“Ah! I’m glad as well.”

The faintest buzz of electricity and metallic rattling within trash cans accompanied their silence for a while.

“That reminds me, she had a message for you.”

“A message?”

“She politely asked me to tell you that if you come to the Station tomorrow, which is your scheduled free day, she will - and I quote - fold you like a shirt and hurl you straight home through a window, frisbee-style.”

The younger wheezed.

Ingo stared at him awfully stone-faced.

“She meant it.”

“I know.”

“Do you also know I too will enforce your free day upon you?”

“I know.”

“I am serious.”

“I know.”

#pokémon #pokemon legends arceus #submas Ingo #submas emmet #Depot Agents #pokemon iris #pokemon marshal #briosa pokemon #mawile #emolga #random writing #IT IS DONE AT LAST. AFTER ALMOST A YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #these are. exactly. 30 thousand 5 hundred words. #this ENTIRE CHAPTER. is less than 2k words away. from being the length of a 43 chapters long novel of mine. #WHAT the FUCK is it about POKEMON that does THIS to me #ALSO FINALLY HELLO BRIOSA YOUVE FINALLY BEEN INTRODUCED IN THE STORY I SPECIFICALLY CREATED YOU FOR #+ ALL the depot agents (including josh and hank (everybody forgets him)) #+ 3 spur of the moment depot agents ocs (Eloise Vip Billie) bc theres no fucking women in this station i need to fix that STAT #I AM FREEEEEEE (to start the next chapter)

[fuzzysparrow]

'Dek kvar' is Esperanto for which number?

'Dek kvar' is Esperanto for the number 14.

The numbers zero to ten have specific words: nul (0), unu (1), du (2), tri (3), kvar (4), kvin (5), ses (6), sep (7), ok (8), naŭ (9), and dek (10). The numbers 10 to 19 are formed by adding the word 'dek' before each number, for example, dek unu (11), dek du (12), dek tri (13) and dek kvar (14).

Numbers in the tens (20, 30, 40 etc) are formed by adding the word 'dek' after the matching digit: dek (10), dudek (20), tridek (30), kvardek (40) and so forth. The other two digit numbers are formed by saying the ten first, followed by the digit separated with a space, for instance, dudek kvin (25), kvardek ses (46).

The hundreds are built exactly the same way as the tens. 100 is written 'cent', so the following are ducent (200), tricent (300), kvarcent (400), and so forth. Similarly, the thousands are mil (1,000), dumil (2,000), trimil (3,000) etc.

Esperanto is a language that was constructed by the Polish eye doctor L. L. Zamenhof (1859-1917) in 1887. He intended for the language to make international communication easier and designed it in such a way that people could learn it much more easily than any other national language. As of 2022, there are around 2 million fluent speakers but only one thousand speakers use it as their primary language. Esperanto is based on European languages, such as French, German, Polish and Russian, and is written with a modified version of the Latin alphabet.

#Trivia #Esperanto #Language

[guldagermacgregor13]

Exactly what is Cool About Sport?

Could it be just all of us or do people else detest worn-out sporting activities clichés? In particular, with each one new NFL season, you will read about cornerbacks who live alone on island as well as about someone being placed under a bus. Can an individual please create some new materials? It's a chance to locate new material and shake up the lingo. Here are some unusual suspects: "He may stretch the field" How can anyone stretch out a 85 yard sports field? It's not always like the particular field is made of Silly Putty. Is it possible for a handbags fan as well as announcer to be able to the word purpose without expressing "goooooooooaal? inches Now that's annoying. "Sports heroes" Really? Soldiers who also died in WWII had been heroes. Therefore were the authorities officers and fireman whom died upon 9/11/01. Whenever athletes are heroes, how do they beat deceased troops, policemen and firemen? Athletes receive thousands to play a good kid's video game. Call them athletes, not heroes. "He's on an tropical isle by himself" A celebrity cornerback will play man-to-man policy on an enemy football team's best receiver. Although she has a great cornerback, he's not by yourself because soccer is a group sport. Should the defensive line reaches the quarterback, the receiver doesn't receive an opportunity to receive open-forcing the cornerback to stand in the field twiddling his thumb. "Cheating" So why do people act shocked when athletes cork bats or apply steroids? I actually am considerably more surprised when they don't defraud. Professional players resemble prostitutes because both survive on their physical features. Regardless, every time money is usually involved, cheaters will always continue to be ahead of the rules. "The workforce is some games more than 500" I really hate this. For instance, each time a team is the winner 30 activities and manages to lose 10, the announcer will explain the team is definitely 20 video games over five-hundred. In reality, whenever they experienced 40 games, wouldn't twenty games always be 500? Merely because won 32, the team is actually 10 games over 5 hundred. "He just simply willed those to a win" How? Really does he include mental forces? No one can will certainly their crew to a earn. Many elements must appear before an important team victories. For instance, without getting a great entry line, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning would be Abbott and Costello. "Thrown within the bus" Every other day, someone inside the media studies that someone has been placed under a car. With all the following throwing business enterprise, it's astonishing that more players aren't incarcerated. I also want to know whom drives this bus. There has to be Sportslivepro.com of body stuck underneath. How does that ever push? "A Gamer Strike" For 1987, After NFL avid gamers called a strike; scabs suitable up and took to the gridiron. We can still remember watching these people play considering I wanted to look at football. Besides, you don't know who's who until the truth is a hat with a identity attached to your back. Pro runners on hit should be gracious they aren't required to find actual jobs. "Drinking the Kool Aid": This might be the most insensitive and irrational sports analogy. This stating is based on the Jonestown Bataille: an episode from the seventies when Reverend Jim Burt and his readers committed self-murder by sipping Kool Aid mixed with Cyanide. Is there anything at all related to sporting activities that even compares to a mass suicide? Sportsperson interviews and tweets: Who also actually listens to player interviews or reads the tweets? Although I love athletics, I avoid follow interviews or go through tweets mainly because athletes not often say whatever useful. Of course, if they did, who are able to understand these people? Many sportsmen speak like they have a mouthfull of berry loops. All right, back to you physical activities announcer dude, that's my own take. A few see if the industry may come up with new sports language.

#website

[extreme-investor-network]

Former Trump aide Steve Bannon guilty in Jan. 6 contempt of Congress case

Former Trump White House aide Steve Bannon was found guilty Friday of two counts of contempt of Congress after a trial in federal court in Washington, D.C. Jurors deliberated for less than three hours before convicting Bannon of willfully failing to comply with subpoenas demanding his testimony and records, which were issued last September by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump. He faces a minimum punishment of 30 days in jail and a maximum of one year when he is sentenced on Oct. 21. He also faces a fine in the range of $100 to a maximum of $100,000. “The subpoena to Stephen Bannon was not an invitation that could be rejected or ignored,” said Matthew Graves, the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. “Mr. Bannon had an obligation to appear before the House Select Committee to give testimony and provide documents. His refusal to do so was deliberate, and now a jury has found that he must pay the consequences.” “We respect their decision,” Bannon, 68, said outside of the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse, referring to the jurors at his trial. “We may have lost a battle here today, but we’re not going to lose this war,” Bannon said. “I stand with Trump and the Constitution, and I will never back off that, ever.” Bannon plans to appeal his conviction, which came a day after the Jan. 6 committee held a public hearing that featured evidence that included his own words. The committee played an audio clip of Bannon, speaking to a group of people on Oct. 31, 2020, days before the presidential election, in which he said that Trump would claim to have won the White House race regardless of the actual results. “What Trump’s gonna do is just declare victory. Right? He’s gonna declare victory. But that doesn’t mean he’s a winner,” Bannon said. “He’s just gonna say he’s a winner. That is exactly what Trump did for weeks after losing both the popular election vote and the Electoral College vote to President Joe Biden. On Jan. 5, 2021, the eve of Congress holding a joint session to confirm Biden’s Electoral College victory, Bannon spoke to Trump on the phone for 11 minutes, and then went on a radio show where he made a dark prediction. “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow,” Bannon said on that show. “It’s all converging, and now we’re on, as they say, the point of attack.” “I’ll tell you this: It’s not going to happen like you think it’s going to happen,” he said. “It’s going to be quite extraordinarily different, and all I can say is strap in.” The next day, thousands of Trump supporters who believed he had won the election besieged the Capitol, with hundreds of them swarming through the halls of Congress, disrupting for hours the session confirming the official results. The leaders of the Jan. 6 committee lauded the jury’s decision Friday. “The conviction of Steve Bannon is a victory for the rule of law and an important affirmation of the Select Committee’s work,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who is chair of the Jan. 6 committee, and Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said in a joint statement Friday afternoon. “As the prosecutor stated, Steve Bannon ‘chose allegiance to Donald Trump over compliance with the law.’ Just as there must be accountability for all those responsible for the events of January 6th, anyone who obstructs our investigation into these matters should face consequences. No one is above the law,” Thompson and Cheney said. Bannon had served as chief strategist and counselor to Trump for about a half-year before being ousted in mid-2017. Since then, however, he has been an ardent backer of the ex-president and the so-called MAGA — “Make America Great Again” — movement. Two weeks after the Capitol riot, on his last night as president, Trump issued dozens of pardons, including one to Bannon, who had been criminally charged in federal court in New York with swindling donors in a purported effort to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico. Prosecutors in that case said Bannon received $1 million in funds from the We Build the Wall group, and diverted that money to a separate nonprofit he had already created, whose ostensible purpose was “promoting economic nationalism and American sovereignty.”  In her closing arguments Friday morning at Bannon’s contempt trial, assistant U.S. Attorney Molly Gaston told jurors he “chose allegiance to Donald Trump over compliance with the law” by refusing to appear for testimony and give documents to the Jan. 6 committee. “When it really comes down to it, he did not want to recognize Congress’ authority or play by the government’s rules,” Gaston said. “Our government only works if people show up. It only works if people play by the rules. And it only works if people are held accountable when they do not.” Bannon’s lawyers did not present a defense during the trial, which began Monday with jury selection. His attorneys were hamstrung by pretrial rulings by the judge in the case, who severely limited the evidence they could present at trial. During his own closing arguments Friday, Bannon’s lawyer Evan Corcoran tried to suggest that Thompson did not sign a subpoena for Bannon, NBC reported. Corcoran dropped that line of argument after the prosecution objected. Corcoran also asked jurors to set aside memories of Jan. 6 in their deliberations. “None of us will soon forget January 6, 2021,” Corcoran said. “It’s part of our collective memory. But there’s no evidence in this case that Steve Bannon was involved at all. For purposes of this case we have to put out of our thoughts January 6.” Jurors began their deliberations just before 11:40 a.m. ET, after closing arguments concluded. The verdicts were read out in court at around 2:50 p.m. ET. Another former Trump aide, the trade advisor Peter Navarro, was arrested in early June on charges identical to the ones that Bannon was convicted of. Navarro failed to appear to testify on March 2 in response to the subpoena from the House panel and also failed to produce by Feb. 23 the documents sought by that same subpoena, according to the indictment issued by a grand jury in Washington federal court. Original Article Here: Read the full article

[grabyourluck-blog]

4 Myths The "Experts" Tell You

New Post has been published on https://www.referral-master.com/4-myths-the-experts-tell-you/

4 Myths The "Experts" Tell You

Every time you turn around, there’s another guru offering a high ticket item that will save the day and put a fortune in your pocket – but will it? The thing about selling information to Internet marketers on how to market is that they are effectively creating their own competition – training others to do what it is that’s making them rich.

Now, if you were going to train YOUR competition to compete against you and try to take away your business – would you tell them everything? No way. For that matter, would you be tempted to tell them things that were – shall we say – not exactly true? Possibly. Here are 4 common myths the “experts” would love for you to keep believing…

1. Long sales copy always out pulls short sales copy. Not true – if you’re selling a low ticket item ($5 to $30) then short copy will often out pull long copy – especially if you state the price UP FRONT rather than trying to hide it at the bottom. If you’re selling more expensive products, then long copy does out pull short copy.

2. Video sells more than written copy. Not true – split testing of squeeze pages shows that the pages without video nearly always out pull the ones with video. Moreover, sales pages with just video and no copy tend to not do as well as sales pages with copy and no video. And a combination of the two really needs to be split-tested, because it could easily go either way. Don’t assume video sells – depending on the product and the video itself, it can hurt as much as you think it might help.

3. You should split test everything. Yes, as we just mentioned split testing is great – but only so long as it doesn’t slow you down. When you’re just getting started, the last thing you need is to delay your actions until you’ve split tested everything down to a science. Better to roll out that sales page today and begin making sales now than to wait until it’s perfect. Do split test, but don’t make it a priority. Taking action, rolling out new products and building your list should be your priorities. Get the money coming in and then focus on improving your systems.

4. Affiliate marketing is the way to go. Think about this – do you want to compete with a hundred or a thousand other affiliates to sell a product – or do you want to sell your own unique product that no one else on the planet can offer? By creating your own products, not only do you eliminate the competition, but you also build a relationship with your customers who come to know you, trust you and love your products. And once this happens, then you can sell them all the affiliate products you like.

Never be afraid to question anything anybody tells you – including me. And always look at the possible motives that might lie behind a word of advice. As my grandfather used to say, “Follow the money!” If someone is teaching you how to compete with them, odds are they’re not only omitting key information – they may also be leading you astray.

[icinch]

4 Myths The "Experts" Tell You

New Post has been published on https://www.cinchhomebiz.com/4-myths-the-experts-tell-you/

4 Myths The "Experts" Tell You

Every time you turn around, there’s another guru offering a high ticket item that will save the day and put a fortune in your pocket – but will it? The thing about selling information to Internet marketers on how to market is that they are effectively creating their own competition – training others to do what it is that’s making them rich.

Now, if you were going to train YOUR competition to compete against you and try to take away your business – would you tell them everything? No way. For that matter, would you be tempted to tell them things that were – shall we say – not exactly true? Possibly. Here are 4 common myths the “experts” would love for you to keep believing…

1. Long sales copy always out pulls short sales copy. Not true – if you’re selling a low ticket item ($5 to $30) then short copy will often out pull long copy – especially if you state the price UP FRONT rather than trying to hide it at the bottom. If you’re selling more expensive products, then long copy does out pull short copy.

2. Video sells more than written copy. Not true – split testing of squeeze pages shows that the pages without video nearly always out pull the ones with video. Moreover, sales pages with just video and no copy tend to not do as well as sales pages with copy and no video. And a combination of the two really needs to be split-tested, because it could easily go either way. Don’t assume video sells – depending on the product and the video itself, it can hurt as much as you think it might help.

3. You should split test everything. Yes, as we just mentioned split testing is great – but only so long as it doesn’t slow you down. When you’re just getting started, the last thing you need is to delay your actions until you’ve split tested everything down to a science. Better to roll out that sales page today and begin making sales now than to wait until it’s perfect. Do split test, but don’t make it a priority. Taking action, rolling out new products and building your list should be your priorities. Get the money coming in and then focus on improving your systems.

4. Affiliate marketing is the way to go. Think about this – do you want to compete with a hundred or a thousand other affiliates to sell a product – or do you want to sell your own unique product that no one else on the planet can offer? By creating your own products, not only do you eliminate the competition, but you also build a relationship with your customers who come to know you, trust you and love your products. And once this happens, then you can sell them all the affiliate products you like.

Never be afraid to question anything anybody tells you – including me. And always look at the possible motives that might lie behind a word of advice. As my grandfather used to say, “Follow the money!” If someone is teaching you how to compete with them, odds are they’re not only omitting key information – they may also be leading you astray.

[kouomi]

Counting Down To You

Summary: When meeting your soulmate is a matter of life or death, is it possible to beat the clock and find them in time? (F!Reader x Sakusa Kiyoomi)

Warnings: talking about death, some sadness, fluff at end, sad to happy

Word count: 3,010

A/N: sorry for not posting in a while! Pulled this out of my drafts, there might be a lil sequel/separate ending to this later!

Masterlist

Posted: April 27th, 2021, 5:30 PM EST

Everyone had countdowns from the moment they were born. It was a ticking time bomb within every person that would be lethal to not only them, but their soulmate as well when it detonated. The whole system of having a soulmate was a double edged sword; sure, if you managed to escape it you met your soulmate, but the slightest slip up could lead you to a grave.

The timer started when you or your soulmate was made aware of the other, such as hearing their name for the first time or seeing a picture. Everyone’s timer was set at different times, most people having a couple decades while some of the lucky ones have a hundred years, or the unlucky only a few years, months, weeks, or even days. When the timer starts it’s simply your soulmates initial and a date on your wrist, but when it got to the last 7 days, the timer turned into one that looked like a clock, slowly ticking off the seconds until left you had to meet them or die.

The death wasn’t immediate, it was more like a sickness. It wasn’t able to be cured even by meeting your soulmate, for as soon as the timer ran out, so did your chance of survival. Once the last second ran out the timer disappeared and was replaced with your soulmates name as if it would be any help at that point. Three days was all you were given after the timer ran out. Three measly days to say goodbye to everything and everyone you knew.

There were other ways other than seeing someone’s timer to tell if their time was running out. Once it turned from a date to hours the person started to become “sick” their body weaker and more noticeably a cough. It was horrible to watch but an even worse feeling was it happening to you.

When your timer started, you were given exactly a year. It felt like a cruel joke that at the age of fifteen you were only given a year to find your soulmate or die, but the date on your wrist was a constant reminder it was reality. You tried for almost that entire year to find him, to find the one with a matching timer and who matched the initial on your wrist but it was useless. Even if you managed to find them you’d have to kiss them to stop the timer and you couldn’t go around kissing every stranger who’s name happened to start with K. By the last two weeks you’d given up, finally coming to terms with the fact you were going to die and there was nothing you could do about it.

You were in Tokyo for the national volleyball tournament as you were accompanying the team you managed, happy to at least be in a beautiful city for your last few days on earth. A gentle breeze picked up your hair and blew it around your shoulders, a few stray strands waving in front of your face as you stared at the quiet city streets below. It was oddly peaceful, a sense of a calm before the storm blanketing the night and preserving the moment around you.

“Y/n/n?” A familiar voice asks from behind you, “What’re ya doin out here, it’s freezing.”

Turning around you see one of your closest friends, Miya Atsumu walked out on to the balcony where you stood, leaning on the railing. You’d noticed the freezing air nipping at your bare skin but hadn’t paid much mind to it, your mind to focused on other things to care about the cold.

“Waiting.” You answered, returning your gaze to the sky as he walked over to stand next to you.

“Waitin for what?”

You glance at your phone screen, seeing it read 11:59 before moving your arm up so it rested underside up on the metal railing. Just as you did so the date on your wrist disappeared and was replaced with a timer, the seconds slowly ticking away.

“That.” You sigh, taking notice of the way the normally positive atmosphere that followed Atsumu had faded, “167 hours, 59 minutes, and 47 seconds left.”

“Hey, maybe we’ll find them here!” He exclaims, a smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes crossing his face, “There’s thousands of people!”

“I can’t go around kissing thousands of random people, Tsu.” You chuckle, pushing off of the railing and walking back to the door, “Come on.”

“I have an idea!” The blonde gasps before rushing inside, making you give him a quizzical look as he frantically looks around the room.

“Why are ya yelling at midnight?” An authoritative voice asks, making Atsumu freeze momentarily before he turns around.

“Kita! Yer name starts with K right?”

“Do I really need to answer that?”

“Atsumu, I know what you’re thinking and no.” You say, watching as his shoulders droop.

“Why not?!”

“Kitas timer hasn’t even started yet.”

“It’s worth a shot! He has the right initials, doesn’t he?”

Both you and the captain blink at him before glancing at each other and shaking your heads.

“They’re backwards.” Kita states, Atsumus face falling at the realization, “Hers say S.K. mine are K.S.”

“Thanks anyway Tsu.” You smile, your hand resting on his shoulder as you walk past him and down the hall, “Don’t worry about it. I still have a week to watch you guys win. Good night.”

The two boys watch you leave, a sad feeling encompassing the room as you disappear down the hallway. The silence hangs in the air as if saying it’s own piece to the drastic weight of the situation, the weight pulling down on the two making their shoulders visibly slump as they continue to stare where you once stood.

“Stop looking at ‘er like she’s already dead.” Kita says, making Atsumu jump. “Yer just gonna make ‘er feel worse.”

Almost as soon as you’d slipped through the door of your room you collapsed on to your bed, an empty feeling filling your chest as you pulled your blanket over your head. Sure, you’d come to terms with the fact you were going to die, but it didn’t stop the horrible feeling that weighed down your heart as it set in that this was your last week. In another week you’d probably be in a hospital bed with all of your friends giving you sad pitiful looks as you slowly withered away, left with nothing other than the name of the soulmate you’d failed to meet in time.

Were they panicking as well? Were they doing everything they possibly could to find you so you could both survive? This was the greatest chance you had to find them seeing as you were in the city and at a large event, but what were the chances of them even being there?

Your worries and questions followed you into your sleep, dried tear tracks staining your face as you fought to get any rest.

Even in your dreams you found yourself on the brink of death, a man standing just out of reach. He was so close, you could feel the fabric of his jacket just barely brush past your fingertips. He was so so close, yet so impossibly far, you found the last slivers of hope you held for finding this stranger in time slipping away just as he began to walk out of your view.

-

3 hours 26 minutes and 17 seconds

They’d lost. You watched with a hallow expression as the boys dressed in orange and the entire stadium cheered for Karasuno and their victory, while your team was almost frozen in time in disbelief at the final score. After what felt like hours you all walked off the court, silence haunting the group as they all sulked.

“I’m sorry Y/n.”

You turn around and see a few of the boys standing in front of you almost at the brink of tears, their sad gazes only getting worse as they fell upon you.

“Ya said that you’d be watching us win until...” Atsumu continues, his hand clenching into a fist as he trails off, “But we lost. Sorry.”

“Stop being so dramatic, Tsu.” You say, making his expression turn to one of surprise as he and his brother look to you, “Just being able to see you guys play like that was good enough. Especially seeing that quick attack. Man, that was cool!”

They both smile slightly and so do you, walking closer and hugging them both with one arm. You close your eyes for a moment and relish in the hug, imprinting the feeling on your mind as one of your favorite. They squeeze you to themselves though you don’t mind, the three of you standing there for what felt like hours. You wished you could stay there for hours, stand in the arms of the people you considered family. You wanted to stay with them, with the whole team and make more memories, to keep living with them. Your heart ached for the wish as you knew it was an impossible request, knowing this most likely would be the last time you could hug them. If only there was more time, just a few more days. But the timer on your wrist continues to tick, the seconds going by and your time running out.

After a while you finally let go and walked out with the others, the air not as heavy as it previously was though the discord in your head running wild.

0 hours 10 minutes and 43 seconds

“Hey Y/n, are you coming?” Aran asks, standing on the first stair of the bus and looking to you.

You look down at your wrist and read the numbers, feeling a pull at your heart.

“I’m gonna take a walk really quick, can you guys wait a few minutes?” You ask.

He nods, hiding his worry for you behind a slight frown before he climbs into the bus, the doors shutting behind him and the engine starting as the bus waits to leave.

You sigh as you turn around and start walking down the sidewalk, a cough racking your sore body as you did so. Everything hurt and your legs resisted every movement, but you refused to spend these few minutes stuck in the bus.

0 hours 2 minutes and 24 seconds

Finally you came across a bench where you collapsed, a grunt leaving your body as you finally relieve your legs of your weight. Your head was thrown back on the back of the bench and you stared up at the cloudless sky, the stars seeming to laugh as they stared at your disheveled state.

“Could you not sit so close?”

You turn your head to the side and see another person on the bench next to you. With a sigh you scoot over, wincing at the burning sensation in your arms as you do so. The stranger hunches over himself and you hear the all too familiar sound of coughing, their fit lasting almost an entire minute before they straighten themselves out again.

“Are you okay?” You ask, turning your gaze away from the sky to look at them.

“Fine.” He mumbles though another cough gives away his lie, “There’s not enough time for me to care.”

You give a light laugh, a cough of your own stopping it short. “Time’s a bitch, huh?”

“Sure.”

0 hours 0 minutes and 53 seconds

“What’s your name?” You ask after a few seconds of silence.

“... Sakusa. Sakusa Kiyoomi.”

Your heart seems to stop as you hear this, the world around you suddenly coming to a halt as you blink at him.

“You’re joking right?” You ask in disbelief. Surely this was some kind of messed up prank, it wasn’t possible.

“Why would I be joking?” He responds, “Who’re you?”

“Y/n. Y/l/n.”

You see his eyes widen as he turns to face you, his once defeated appearance gaining new life though the exhaustion is still visible in his droopy shoulders and bags under his eyes. Despite the mask covering half of his face you could tell he was attractive, dark brown eyes that bore into yours slightly obscured by long curls. There were two moles on his forehead that were hardly visible in the low light, his intense expression almost forcing you to look away.

0 hours 0 minutes and 32 seconds

“Are you...” He starts, eyes glancing down for a moment, “Your wrist.”

0 hours 0 minutes and 27 seconds

You read the number in your head as you held out a shaky arm for him to see, a small gasp leaving your lips as he holds out his own for you to see a timer in sync with your own and your initials just below it.

0 hours 0 minutes and 20 seconds

“I’m... we’re not gonna die.” You breathe, your eyes moving up and meeting his again, “I know we just met but I don’t think there’s enough time for us to spare.”

He blinks at you, almost too shocked to respond.

0 hours 0 minutes and 16 seconds

“Can I kiss you?” You ask, anxiously waiting for his response.

0 hours 0 minutes and 13 seconds

Sakusa doesn’t say anything, his other hand unsteadily reaching up to pull his mask off.

0 hours 0 minutes and 8 seconds

Almost in slow motion he leans closer to you, his body almost towering over your own as he rests on one of his hands.

0 hours 0 minutes and 5 seconds

You see your breath in the cold air as you tilt your head up to look at him, fighting back the cough in your lungs as everything around you seems to be slowly clicking into place.

0 hours 0 minutes and 3 seconds

You lean closer to him, his breath dancing on your lips. Just before you meet your body seems to give out beneath you, this small slip up seeming as if it’s been waiting to rip away your last few seconds to save your life.

0 hours 0 minutes and 2 seconds

Sakusas other arm shoots out and hooks under your back, holding you up and closer to himself.

0 hours 0 minutes and 1 second

As soon as you were supported in his grasp you leaned up and pressed your lips against his, your eyes fluttering shut as you put all of your hope and fear into this one moment. The kiss is short but it felt as if something you were missing all your life, your body feeling reenergized and the air escaping your lungs as you pull away.

You blink at each other for a moment before you both look at your wrists, joy filling you both when you see the timer stopped at one second. Below it where there was once only two letters is now each other’s names, the sight making butterflies fly through your stomach.

Realizing his arm was still around you, a light blush dusts your cheeks as you suddenly acknowledge how close you were to each other.

“Y/n?” You hear Atsumu yell from down the street, Sakusas arm pulling away from you as he approaches. “We were lookin all over for you, are ya okay?”

“I’m okay.” You smile, “And you don’t need to find a replacement for me just yet.”

“Huh?” He asks, finally noticing the boy next to you, “Oh hey Sakusa, what’re ya doin- wait.”

“Hi.” He says, cringing as Atsumu seems to explode.

“Y/n, you and Sakusa?!” He exclaims, “I can’t believe this!”

“Why are you yelling so much Tsu?” You ask though give him a smile, “Why were you looking for me?”

“Oh yeah, Coach wants to leave.” Atsumu answers, “And ya were gone a while, we got worried.”

“I’ll be there in a second.” You say, nodding for him to leave. He gives a loud “ohh” when he finally understands what you were implying, giving a thumbs up before jogging back the way he came.

“I should probably head back too.” Sakusa says, standing from the bench and stumbling slightly.

“Sakusa?” You ask, standing as well. He turns around, pulling his mask back over his face and shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Kiyoomi.” He says in an almost shy tone.

“Kiyoomi.” You repeat, smiling slightly at his name, “Can I get your number?”

“Y/n yer back!” One of the boys yells as you climbed on to the bus, taking one of the free seats.

“Yep.” You grin, all of them giving you a strange look before you hold up your wrist, the once gloomy atmosphere turning joyful as you’re practically tackled out of your seat and into a giant mess of a group hug.

“Yer not gonna die?” Osamu asks in a whisper, his chin resting on your shoulder.

“No, I’m not.” You respond, your arms wrapping around all of them and squeezing. “Now can you all stop crying? You’re gonna make me cry.”

There’s a small series of laughs as you’re somehow held tighter, the tension the last thing on your mind as you close your eyes. What had once felt bittersweet now brought joy to you as you relished in the feeling of being with the people you considered family. Finally, after a year of living your life as if it was your last moments, you were able to stop; to take a moment to breathe. That one kiss had freed you of the chains of a ticking clock and given you the thing you’d only ever dreamed of: more time.

As you all were forced to pull away by your coaches telling you to get in your seats your mind wandered to the boy who’d made this possible. Sakusa Kiyoomi, though he was still a stranger to you, had made a spot for himself in your thoughts as well as bringing butterflies through your stomach. Maybe with the extra time he’d given you, you could spend it with him.

Kiyoomi. You thought, thanks for being my soulmate.

#haikyu x reader #haikyuu fic #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x you #haikyuu!! #haikyū!! #sakusa kiyoomi x reader #sakusa kiyoomi x you #sakusa kiyoomi x y/n #sakusa kiyoomi imagines #sakusa x reader #sakusa x you #sakusa x y/n #sakusa imagines #kiyoomi x reader #kiyoomi x you #kiyoomi x y/n #inarizaki #sakusa kiyoomi #sakusa #kiyoomi #sakusa kiyoomi smau #sakusa smau #kiyoomi smau #haikyuu smau #haikyuu scenarios #itachiyama #inarizaki x reader

[slipping-through-my-fingertips]

peace

Part of my folklore series

Summary: Blaine is a famous singer and just wants a day to himself; Kurt wins a meet and greet contest. 

Notes: my first fic of the new year...sixteen days into it! I’m so happy with how this one turned out. 

AO3

Blaine sat up, white hotel sheets wrapped around him. His personal assistant was talking into her earpiece and opening the curtains letting the morning sunlight in. Amelia gestured for him to get up and shower. 

Another day, another packed schedule. He looked at the alarm clock he never had to set and saw it was 5 am. 

Right, the morning show interview. 

It was a quick shower, he didn’t bother doing his hair knowing as soon as he stepped out of the bathroom, his usual hair and makeup people would be set up. Blaine sat in their chair, still naked under his hotel robe, allowing them to get to work. 

Meanwhile, Ameila talked him through the day as she always did. 

“Morning show at 6:30, brief fan meet and greet after. They assured me it’s only thirty people.” 

More exclusive than he’s used to but he has a concert tonight. There will be more fans to meet later today. 

His first of three hometown shows. Well as close to hometown as he can get; Columbus is the closest city to where Blaine grew up. There’s not a big enough venue in Westerville to play. This show is the reason why he woke up in a hotel room as opposed to his tour bus. Multiple shows in one city meant an actual bed for a few nights. 

“Quick lunch with Bobby at noon.” Blaine’s manager. “Your parents will meet us at the stadium for soundcheck at 2.” 

After soundcheck, Blaine knows he’ll have exactly 40 minutes to himself. That time will be spent taking a nap or eating again. His team has him ready to go in less than 20 minutes, Amelia has a coffee in her hand for him and a cronut for the ride to the studio. Blaine makes sure to thank everyone before exiting the hotel room. 

The interview is generic. 

How’s it feel to be back home? 

Favorite song to perform on tour? 

Plans for the next album? 

Best city you’ve visited so far? 

Which city are you most looking forward to? 

No questions he hasn’t answered a thousand times before. The meet and greets are always better. 

Blaine loves meeting fans. They always have the best stories of how they found his music and make him feel like he’s actually changing minds with his lyrics. He takes photos and shares smiles. The line slowly gets shorter and shorter. Amelia is next to him keeping time. 

The studio’s photographer, who will send professional photos to the fans, is having a blast. Creating funny poses as well as big smiles. Everyone is having a great time. 

Still, Blaine has this sinking emptiness in his chest. This is all he ever dreamed of—making music, singing to crowds, meeting fans—yet he isn’t whole. There’s a piece of himself he hasn’t found. 

Then a blue-eyed boy approaches him. 

** What the fuck do you say at a meet-and-greet? 

You’ve changed my life. Made it feel possible to be gay and sing and be from Ohio. I wanna leave this place just like you did. 

Everything Kurt could come up with sounded lame and overdone. There were no words to encompass what Blaine Anderson’s music had done for him. 

Blaine Anderson was only three years older than Kurt. While still in high school, he signed a record deal. Rather than taking the SATs, he went on tour playing in small venues. He didn’t walk at graduation because he was promoting his second album. This was his third national tour and first with international dates. 

Kurt was lucky to score tickets for tonight’s concert. He had begged his dad to let him go alone, reassuring him and Carole a hundred times that he’d be fine driving alone. Burt, of course, insisted Kurt stay the night in a motel and drive back the next morning. Kurt knew once the concert was over, he’d be thankful to only have a ten-minute drive until he could crash in bed. 

Before tonight’s show, he was watching Blaine’s “Good Morning Columbus” interview and was one of thirty lucky fans getting to meet him afterward. 

Kurt had won the meet and greet in a radio contest. Asked to use the restroom during third period to call in. 

The line for the meet and greet was moving quickly. At least, it felt fast to Kurt. he was trying to distract himself with his phone but he could still hear the eagerness of the fans around him, see the flashes from the camera, and hear laughter from whoever was currently with Blaine. 

All of a sudden, a lady was asking for his phone and name. 

“Professional photos will be emailed to you within 48 hours, I can take some casual ones on your device.” 

She had bright red hair, Kurt noticed. 

“Thank you,” he said, handing over the phone. 

“Name?” she asked, smiling at him. 

“Kurt Hummel.” 

She made an ‘o’ with her mouth and walked over to Blaine. Kurt could hear her whisper, “he’s the contest winner.” 

Blaine beamed at him when Kurt introduced himself. He asked how old he was and if he lived in Ohio. 

“18, born and raised in Lima.”

“No way!” Blaine exclaimed, “That's like an hour from my hometown.” 

I know. Kurt held his tongue. 

“Wow, that’s so cool.” 

“Okay, smile wide,” Blaine instructed. 

He wrapped an arm around Kurt’s shoulder and put their heads together. Everyone else had only gotten three photos with Blaine but Kurt went home with six. 

After the meet and greet, Kurt went to the coffee shop across the street. He had a whole day planned out before the concert. There was no point to just sitting in his hotel room all day when there was a whole city to explore. But first, mocha. 

He had just gone over his itinerary one last time and had opened his photos app when someone slid into the seat in front of him. 

**

“Hi again,” Blaine said. 

Contest winner Kurt looked over his shoulder and Amelia waved to him before putting a finger over her lips. A silent plea to keep this on the down low. 

“Hey.” 

“I don’t mean to interrupt but I wanted to talk more after the meet and greet but you had already disappeared. Usually, fans stay and...sorry that’s not the point,” Blaine said, stumbling a bit with his words. “Um, we—that is Ameila and I—we were walking to the car and saw you here. I had to stop.” 

The boy across from him simply stared. Blaine had just dropped a lot of information onto him after all. He wasn’t quite sure he had explained himself very well either. 

“I’m not sure I understand.” 

“Right, well,” Blaine paused. “Do you have plans today?” 

Kurt gestured to his itinerary on the table between them. “I do.” 

“Oh, of course you do.” Blaine stood up. “I’m sorry to have bothered you. This was weird, I really am sorry.” 

He went back over to Amelia, who was as usual on her phone. Undoubtedly typing out a message to Bobby about lunch. 

“We can go now,” he told her. 

She nodded, knowing not to mention Kurt until they were alone in the car. Blaine can’t remember the last time a boy had him tripping over his words like that. He hadn’t ever embarrassed himself so badly in front of a cute guy until Kurt. At least not since high school. Since his career imploded, Blaine had been pretty smooth talking to guys. Flirting came easy but today, oh boy, did Kurt have his insides tied in a knot. 

“Wait,” someone said, just as Amelia was about to shut the car door. 

Blaine leaned forward to see Kurt standing there. 

“You didn’t ask to join me on my plans,” he said. 

He was smiling shyly at Blaine. 

“Amelia,” Blaine said, “do you think we can reschedule with Bobby?” 

“Already done,” she told him. 

Blaine got out of the car and joined Kurt on the sidewalk. “I’ll see you at 2 for soundcheck,” he promised. 

“I’ll hunt you down otherwise,” she smirked. 

The car pulled off the curb. 

“So, where are we headed?” Blaine asked. 

** The last time Kurt Hummel had been in Columbus was with his dad. Burt had business with a tire company based out this way and little Kurt had been roped into a short road trip. Being with Blaine Anderson was different. 

For one, they were walking to a museum not driving to negotiate tire prices. Blaine was happily chatting about shops they passed and guided Kurt into a shortcut he knew about. 

Another thing, people occasionally stopped Blaine to take photos or ask for an autograph. Kurt had offered to play cameraman for a few fans. All of whom had assumed he and Blaine were lifelong friends. Who was Kurt to correct them? Especially, when Blaine said nothing at all about it. 

“I’m sorry for being weird at the coffee shop,” Blaine said, as they crossed the street. 

“It’s okay.” Kurt shrugged. 

It wasn’t every day a famous person wanted to hang out with him. 

“I’m sorry too,” he added, “I wasn’t the nicest to you. I was just confused, still am, to be honest.” 

Blaine sighed. “I’m so not doing this right.” 

“I’m Blaine,” he said. 

“I know, I’m Kurt. We’ve met already,” he teased. 

“Okay, okay, make fun of me all you want,” Blaine replied, “but in all seriousness when I saw you earlier, I just knew I had to get to know you better.” 

“So tell me, Blaine Anderson, how did you convince your team to let you have the day off? Don’t you have a show tonight?”

Kurt knew very well that the man next to him would soon be on a stage. He was actually looking forward to it. 

“Amelia, she’s my PA, is a godsend. She’s the one who was with me at the coffee shop.” 

Kurt nodded. The slim redhead with a bright pink manicure. 

“I only had lunch with my manager until soundcheck though,” Blaine continued, “luckily concert days are usually left empty. No one wants a drained superstar.” 

“Ah, gotcha.”

“So, if you’ll have me…I’m yours ‘til then.” 

Kurt looked Blaine up and down, pretending to size him up while actually checking him out. “I’ll have you.” 

Blaine laughed. 

Google maps told Kurt they were about 4 blocks from the museum now. Honestly, he could get used to the convenience of city life. New York was waiting for him when the summer ended. He was about to ask Blaine if he had any favorite spots in the city when he heard his companion’s stomach grumble. 

“Don’t they feed you, pop star?” 

“I was on my way to lunch when we bumped into each other,” Blaine said. 

“You mean when you were stalking me,” Kurt corrected, smiling.

“I wasn’t…” 

“Anyway,” Kurt interrupted, “wanna grab food?” 

Blaine nodded, “yes please.” 

On the next block, they find a sandwich shop that’s not too crowded. After a waitress took their orders, Kurt asked, “so, what exactly did you want to know?” 

“Hmmm.” 

“You said you wanted to get to know me better.” 

“I did…” he replied, “everything I guess, you’re a senior right? You said you were eighteen.” 

“I’m a senior, yeah.” 

“So, what are your plans after you graduate?” 

“College in New York City. My best friend and I are getting an apartment together.” 

“Wow, that’s exciting!” Blaine said, “I love New York.” 

“Tell me about it, I’ve only been once for a show choir competition.” 

“You do show choir?” 

“Yeah, I’m in the New Directions.” 

“Didn’t you go to Nationals last year?” 

“Twelfth place but yes we were there. Do you follow high school show choir?” 

Blaine blushed. “I do, I used to be a Warbler. I got into the habit of reading those blogs and just never stopped.” 

Kurt smiled. “They’d freak out if I said I had lunch with you.” 

“Really? Maybe I should send you back with signed headshots.” 

“Please don’t, they’ll never stop interrogating me if you do.” 

“Maybe just one for you then,” Blaine suggested. 

Kurt had to stop himself from saying yes, that’s exactly what I want.

**

Blaine did end up telling Kurt all about New York over lunch. He suggested some good places to shop and eat that Kurt wrote down in his notes app. In exchange, Kurt told him about his life: his dad’s shop, McKinley, glee club, and his future dream of being on Broadway. 

“You’ll get there,” Blaine said confidently. “Half the battle of stardom is ambition and drive.” 

“And the other half?” 

“Talent.” 

Long after their plates were emptied and cleared, the pair was still sitting at their table. So long, in fact, that Amelia found them there demanding Blaine get his ass over to soundcheck. 

“Sorry about the museum,” Blaine told him. 

“It’s fine, I can still make it before the show starts.” 

“You’re coming tonight?” 

“Yeah, I didn’t drive all the way to Columbus for an interview,” he said, “no offense.” 

“None taken.” 

Despite the fact that Blaine had turned away from Kurt, he could still see the bright smile on his face. Kurt took one last sip of water while Blaine seemed to be talking telepathically to Amelia. Exchanging weird eye contact. 

“Come to soundcheck,” Blaine finally said, taking one of Kurt’s hands. “I’ll get you backstage and everything.” 

Kurt looked to Amelia for permission but she was busy typing away again on her device. Probably scheduling the whole thing. 

“Okay.” 

The three of them got into the car. Amelia took the front seat to give them the semblance of privacy. Which would’ve worked if she had stopped turning her head around to relay information to Blaine. 

“Your parents are running a little late due to high traffic even though we told them to leave an hour early.” 

“Is this the final setlist?” 

“Bobby is meeting us there since we skipped lunch, he has some stuff to go over.” 

Sensing how overwhelmed Kurt was, Blaine reached over to squeeze his hand. 

Kurt had been to the stadium here in Columbus before but he had never seen it so empty. There was plenty of crew rushing around putting the final touches on everything but all the seats were empty. 

“I hope you won’t be upset at losing your seat,” Blaine said. 

“Oh, I thought I’d hang out here until the show started then go sit.” 

“Not if you want to stay backstage, you can watch from here.” 

Blaine guided him to the edge of the stage pulling aside a short black curtain. 

“Wow,” Kurt said, stepping forward a little. 

“It’s a nice view, right?” 

Kurt nodded. 

“Blaine, you have to get ready.” 

“Come on, wait ‘til you see the dressing room.” 

Amelia led the way, Blaine kept them several feet behind her. Occasionally stopping to thank a crew member. 

“I want you to know I had the best day today with you,” he told Kurt, “I don’t get many days off and I certainly don’t get to spend them with someone like you. So, thank you for letting me interrupt your plans.” 

Kurt was silent for a moment taking in everything. Had he really spent hours of his time today just talking to one of America’s biggest names in pop? He wouldn’t have changed today’s outcome if he could. He had the time of his life. 

“Me too,” he said, “I had a wonderful time.” 

Blaine beamed. “I hope we can do it again soon.” 

Kurt nodded. 

****

2 years later

“Is this the final setlist?” Amelia asked. 

Blaine nodded. 

It’s been just over a year and a half since he last played here in Columbus. Once again, he has Kurt Hummel at his side, well, backstage.

During that brief period, Kurt had started college in New York and Blaine spent a lot of time at his New York apartment. Six months ago, when Kurt finished his semester, he gave up on the dorm life in favor of moving in with his boyfriend. 

They hid from the public eye for as long as they could but eventually they were found out. It wasn’t even in the city, they were on a long weekend vacation in the mountains. A remote cabin. Yet, paparazzi found them on one of their outings into town. 

Blasted their relationship over every magazine cover, exploding on the internet as the newest craze. The couple opted to spend the week at the cabin. 

One instance, just a few weeks into their official relationship, Kurt was bombarded at school, came home sporting a decent bruise on his right arm from where he was grabbed. That night when Blaine came back from the studio, he tried to break up with Kurt. Except, his stubborn boyfriend was having none of it. 

“I see you finished it,” Ameila said, smiling. 

“I did.” 

Someone waved him onto the stage, the crowd was deafening. Blaine looked around the floor for the white tent he knew Kurt was standing under and blew a kiss in his direction. 

“I’d like to slow things down a bit, if that’s okay,” Blaine said. 

The crowd cheered. 

“It’s just me and the guitar now. I’d like to test out a song on you tonight. I wrote it when I was at a really low point. Struggling with what my fame meant for my life, what it meant for my boyfriend’s life, and what it would do to our budding love.” 

The stadium is quiet now. 

“It’s called peace and it’s for the love of my life.” 

“Our coming-of-age has come and gone

Suddenly the summer, it's clear

I never had the courage of my convictions

As long as danger is near

And it's just around the corner, darling

'Cause it lives in me

No, I could never give you peace”

Kurt held his hands over his heart. Never had he imagined having songs written about him, let alone love songs. 

A hand squeezed his shoulder, “he’s a keeper, you know?” Burt said. 

Kurt nodded with tears in his eyes. His dad, Carole, and Finn (and a few bodyguards) were under the tent with him. He was overwhelmed with their support for his relationship with Blaine. They loved him as much as Kurt did. 

“It’s for the love of my life,” Blaine had said.

God, he was so lucky to have fallen in love with him. 

They had been dating just over 2 years now. They lived together. Blaine made it a point to call it their apartment not his. 

Those 2 years were some of the best of his life but they had their fair share of trouble. 

Kurt had never thought of love songs being about him because he never thought he’d be dating someone in the public eyes. Sure, Kurt thought he might catch the public’s attention whether it be on stage or in a fashion magazine. He thought he’d be the one protecting a partner from the spotlight. 

But they agreed, nothing was coming between them. 

“But I'm a fire, and I'll keep your brittle heart warm

If your cascade ocean wave blues come

All these people think love's for show

But I would die for you in secret”

A month after they moved in together, a gossip site published a series of articles about Blaine’s “publicity stunt of a relationship.” He was dating Kurt to prove he could date a man and not lose the public’s approval, he was dating Kurt to prove he could appeal to the “common man” by dating someone who wasn’t famous, he was dating Kurt….

Kurt came home crying that day. He collapsed at the front door. 

“Sweetheart,” Blaine said, instantly wrapping Kurt in his arms, “what’s wrong? Please tell me.” 

Through his sobs and tears, Kurt managed to say, “they hate me. They think it’s fake.” 

“Who, darling, who?” 

“Everyone.” 

Later, Blaine got the whole story. He vowed to never make Kurt feel like that again. Kurt would be so loved that he couldn’t be phrased by petty gossip. Especially not gossip about their relationship. 

They spent that night wrapped around each other on the floor in front of the fireplace. Outside, a blizzard was brewing giving them a much needed day off. 

Two days later with the city still cleaning up the snowy streets, Blaine told him he loved him for the first time. 

Kurt was sitting with his feet dangling off the kitchen countertop while Blaine added semi-sweet chocolate chips into their pancakes. It was noon but still dark outside. The thick clouds put the entirety of New York to sleep. 

“You know it’s nice not having classes on Friday.” 

“You could schedule that for next semester. I’m afraid the snow won’t be here that long.” 

“Scheduling is coming up,” Kurt said, “and I wanted to talk to you about it.” 

“What about it?” Blaine flipped a pancake. 

“What if I went fully online for the spring?” 

He turned around slowly, “and why would you do that?” 

“Well, a little birdie told me Blaine Anderson is touring and I’m feeling like the groupie life is for me.” 

Blaine smiled. “Oh yeah?” 

He stepped closer to Kurt, who quickly wrapped his legs around his boyfriend’s waist. Their foreheads touching. 

“It won’t affect your graduation date?” 

“No, most students study abroad their sophomore or junior year, I’m basically doing that but instead of one country I’ll be seeing the world.” 

“Let’s do it,” Blaine said, before pressing their lips together. 

“And you know that I'd swing with you for the fences

Sit with you in the trenches

Give you my wild, give you a child

Give you the silence that only comes when two people understand each other

Family that I chose, now that I see your brother as my brother

Is it enough?”

The crowd loses their mind when Blaine sings about a child. 

He knows they’re still too young. But dammit, if he doesn’t want to have everything with Kurt. 

There are plenty of reasons why ‘right now’ doesn’t work. 

For 1, Kurt has to finish school, start his life as an adult, and figure out who he is without classes to stress him out. 

Two, Blaine has to get out of the spotlight before they have a family. He doesn’t want to be on tour and miss his kid’s first word. He’d step back for a while to raise them alongside Kurt. 

Thirdly, they aren’t even married yet. Blaine has plans, no ring, but plans aplenty. 

Maybe they’ve only been together for 2 years but Blaine knew from that first day this was his happily ever after. Kurt Hummel was it for him. 

**

“He don’t mean…” Burt said. 

Carole shushed him. 

Kurt was sure the crowd was loud but to him the stadium was silent. He couldn’t hear anything but Blaine. 

If Kurt said didn’t want anything and everything with that man on stage, he’d be a liar. 

Blaine was the best thing that had ever happened to him. 

Kurt was sure his dad was worried about the child line but it’s not like two cis gay men such as themselves could just jump into the whole baby thing. There’s way more planning for them than the average couple. 

All Kurt could hear was that last line. He and Finn had had their own disagreements in high school but they were brothers now. Blaine had his own issues with his older brother Cooper over the years too. It was nice to know Blaine found a second brother in Finn because Cooper and Kurt were two peas in a pod. 

Maybe they weren’t officially family yet but Kurt knew in their hearts the two families were already one. 

“I'd give you my sunshine, give you my best

But the rain is always gonna come if you're standing with me”

Kurt ran to the dressing room after the show. Lost his parents and Finn in the crowd but he knew they’d find their way back here. He pushed open Blaine’s unlocked door. He never locked it when Kurt was at his shows. No one else barged in like Kurt did. 

Blaine was pulling a new shirt over his head ridding himself of the sweat-soaked one. His hair looked like he had freshly showered but Kurt knew it wasn’t. 

Still, regardless of how gross his boyfriend currently was, Kurt launched himself into his arms almost knocking the both of them to the ground. Luckily Blaine found balance along the back wall and held them up. Kurt wrapped his limbs around him and peppered kisses all over his neck. 

“I love you so goddamn much.” 

“What do I have to do to get a reaction like this every time I come off stage?” 

Kurt laughed and pulled back to look at Blaine. It was then Blaine noticed his tears. 

“Woah woah, what’s wrong?” He brought a hand up to wipe them away. 

“Nothing,” Kurt said, smiling, “absolutely nothing.” 

“I love you too. So much.” 

Blaine eventually moved them onto the couch but Kurt refused to get off his lap. 

“I’m all gross, Kurt.” 

Which only made Kurt dig his face farther into wet Blaine’s neck. 

That’s how the rest of the Hummel’s found them. 

“I just wanna get one thing straight,” Burt said, entering the room, “no grandkids until Kurt’s settled in a good career.” 

“Ay, ay!” Blaine replied, saluting him. 

“And no proposals until Kurt’s outta school.” 

“Understood,” Blaine said. 

“Not that he can dictate that,” Carole told them. “It was a beautiful song, Blaine.”

“Thank you.” 

“Like hell I can’t,” Burt said, “no fatherly blessing until there’s a diploma in his hand.” 

“Well you’ve got step-motherly blessings out the wazoo,” Carole said, “that’s plenty to go to the chapel right now.” 

While the two of them went at it, jokingly of course, Kurt whispered to Blaine, “I’d marry you in a second, Blaine Anderson.” 

“I’d marry you in a second, Kurt Hummel.” 

“But I do wanna wait until after college.” 

Blaine smiled, “you always were a daddy’s boy.” 

“Just hope our kids take after me.” 

Knowing there was no better way to stop an argument, even one made up of jokes, Blaine kissed him. 

#klaine fanfic #klaine fanfiction #klaine #my fics #folklore series

[volturialice]

For author asks: 1, 8, 14, 15? ❤️

I: 

do you prefer used, borrowed, or new books?

used! as I put it to @gashousegables last night, “I want everything I own to be pretty and haunted.” this is also a function of a) doing my level best not to use amazon, and b) absolutely loving used bookstores and having some cool ones close by. I love antique shit and will buy anything that is both cheap and pretty

I also love those cheesy, like, shiny barnes and noble hardback editions of classics (recently got a sick new Jane Eyre with SHINY FLOWERS on it), and I will drool for hours over Folio Society editions.

what are your hobbies?

other than reading/writing/fandom, I do a bit of crafting (crochet, hand lettering, floss bracelets, attempting to learn embroidery), play ACNH, and spend time outdoors when the weather is nice (which it hasn’t been in many moons. why did I move to one of the snowiest parts of this country??)

VIII: 

longest book you've read?

probably Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (highly recommend!), but I can’t be sure. I like long books in general (I just finished Priory of the Orange Tree.)

any book recommendations?

I think everyone should read Angela Carter’s short stories, especially the ones in The Bloody Chamber. not for the faint of heart, but yes for the broad of mind

I also recommend Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi for anyone who would like to read something beautiful and healing and relatively short, or if you just wanna sample her writing but aren’t sure you’re up for the thousand pages of JS&MN.

N.K. Jemisin’s works are fascinating and have incredible worldbuilding—she didn’t rack up all those Hugos for nothing. I think the Broken Earth books are her most popular, but I prefer the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms myself.

for nonfiction, I found Nabokov’s Favorite Word is Mauve super fun and I think How to Suppress Women’s Writing is a great sort of foundational text to get you fired up about reading and writing.

And back to fiction: I think Gideon the Ninth/the Locked Tomb books are unmissable if you like good prose but want something utterly unique that will both challenge you and provide amazing payoff. like, when I realized the amount of thought and significance that went into even the most minor details of characterization and worldbuilding in these books I had to lie on the floor staring at the ceiling for an hour

XIV: 

favorite book?

growing up, my favorite books were Charles de Lint’s The Blue Girl, Libba Bray’s A Great and Terrible Beauty series, and Water by Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson (especially the Mermaid Song and Kraken stories! I dreamed about that kraken constantly.)

but if I had to pick my favorite book as an adult, it’s gotta be Annihilation. It’s so fucking good and so well-written it makes me angry. Jeff knows exactly what he’s doing with his mysteries, characters, and themes and he also writes women better than any male author I’ve ever encountered.

honorable mentions: I recently reread A Room With a View and forgot how great it is, and I love Daphne du Maurier’s works, especially Jamaica Inn.

are you a morning person or a night owl?

morning person! I never knew I was one until college, when I was finally allowed to sleep in as late as I wanted and discovered that “as late as I wanted” was like 8-8:30. I had simply never been allowed to discover that waking up at 5-6 for the first 18 years of my life lol

send me book asks

#ask games #book asks #ty ty for this one!

[prorevenge]

Ridiculed, accused of lying and incompetence, I shoved burning facts down their throats and made a successful business in the process.

"The best revenge is massive success." -Frank Sinatra

TL;DR; Told I was lying and didn't know anything about game design. Made a spite video game that became a huge hit. Jackass is also forever immortalized within the game credits.

PREFACE

This is a very unusual story compared to the typical posts you've read here. There's a lot to unpack but I'll try to summarize everything as best I can.

I hope you'll find it as entertaining as I did. And, what's great about this story is that it happened very recently, it happened here, evidence is searchable, and it's still kinda on-going. It's a tale of trolls, video game addiction, self-righteous arrogance, harassment, winning an impossible bet, a viral hit in Russia, and massive success with even some little revenge sprinkles for added measure.

Quick background about me: I've worked with game developers for decades and I'm an avid researcher and supporter of unorthodox and ethical video games used for educational and clinical purposes.

HOW IT STARTED

Two months ago, there was a new reddit post about "using video game to ease depression" that caught my attention.

The reason it caught my attention was because it was a game & study that I had in-depth knowledge of (from over a year prior.) Unlike everyone else in the thread, I was the only one who had actually seen the game, played it, knew the developers, and even had the original technical game design documents.

The article discussed a variety of topics but never addressed exactly HOW the video game was able to ease depression. So, I provided a quickly summary of what the game actually did.

[SKIP THIS SECTION IF NEUROSCIENCE & GAME DESIGN DON'T INTEREST YOU]

A quick side note about this article, for those that like extra details: One of the cool properties of ketamine is that, not only can it provide rapid and temporary relief for depression, it also actively heals damaged brain circuits. Then there's dopamine. A chemical that we internally produce, that has similar but less potent effects. There is no cure for depression, but these are promising treatments for some. The article focused on what's called "flow". Using certain game design methods you can induce a "flow state" by causing a sustained dopamine release. When used ethically, it can be highly beneficial in stimulating/training the brain to perform certain activities, improve or learn memorization, adapt to challenges, learn new concepts, exercise motor skills, and meanwhile rebuild pathways/synapses. While all of this is happening, the user is receiving pleasurable rewards without realizing it. This process can create new pathways, repair old circuits, and increasing their neuroplasticity. Increased neuroplasticity means improved cognitive functioning, reducing impairment of the reward process, and improving the effectiveness of antidepressant medications. Video games can be a unique non-drug option to accomplish this while easing symptoms. Research has already shown that many popular games can already accomplish this (unintended effects by the game developers). By comparison, the game design they used in this theoretical study was highly limited in scope, so permanent benefits were negligible compared to the temporary respite brought about by basic dopamine release. Science is still barely scratching the surface of neurotransmitters and flow state. There are still many unknowns, but dopamine isn't just a pleasure chemical that the media would like you to be believe. It can do quite a number of things. Research has shown that "flow state" can modify synaptic plasticity, improve connectors between cells/synapses, ultimately helping cells in the brain communicate better as a network and improve neural system intrinsic properties.

My summary posting was fine for a while, until predictable trolls arrived led by an "armchair game developer". Dr. Armchair definitely did not appreciate my post. It was an affront and insult to his profession. Within a few minutes, it dropped 30 karma. I don't care about imaginary internet points but I don't like being accused of lying. Dr. Armchair and his pals started with the usual "do you even lift?" Then it was quickly asserted, from their armchairs, that I knew nothing about flow, psychology, dopamine or game design at all. From their high horses, they contributed nothing useful; only taunts, defamation, attacking my character and physical appearance, and accusing me of being a liar and incompetence.

Apparently it was a very sensitive topic. Who knew?

It quickly devolved into Dr. Armchair gleefully, and repeatedly claiming, that he won, he was right, and I was wrong. He demanded that I essentially write a 300 page peer-reviewed study to prove him wrong, and when it couldn't be provided within 5 minutes, there were more gleeful cheers of "HAHA! I WAS RIGHT! I WAS RIGHT! I'M NOT LISTENING TO YOU LALALALALA.."

Obviously, it was going to be impossible to reason with Dr. Armchair and his buddies. But actions speak louder than words.

So, I claimed that I would provide undeniable proof in the form of a video game "a few months from now" that he could actually play for himself. Once again, claiming that I was lying and it was impossible. And more of the usual "It's been 5 minutes, where is it? Oh, you can't do it can you. HA! I was right! I BEAT YOU! I BEAT YOU!"

It was weird.

Eventually the mods had enough. Dr. Armchair and his cronies harassment, ad hominem attacks, accusations and inflammatory attacks resulted in multiple posts being removed. But my promise still stood and I fully intended on keeping it.

THE BOLD CLAIM

The plan was simple:

Create a proof of concept that demonstrates just the critical neuroscience principles that induce flow. To prove it beyond a doubt, I intended to also prove that MOST COMMON INGREDIENTS of a game are completely UNNECESSARY to accomplish this.

So, I made the very confident claim that the game would still be fun, addictive, and demonstrate flow state, even after ripping everything out:

No extras or frills. Built within a short period of time.

No music. No sound effects. No animations. No story.

No expensive art. In fact, hardly any at all: I would use ONE SINGLE ART ASSET for the gameplay (plus some lines.)

No feature creep. No sign-in system. No gacha mechanics.

No level design. No achievements. No RPG gamifications.

I could get at least a couple hundred people to play it.

I should have also mentioned that it would be built with ZERO BUDGET and NO MARKETING.

If this sounds like a strange way to make a game, it is. For a typical game developer, this would raise many eyebrows, and they'd consider it highly risky or improbable to achieve any success with both arms figurately tied behind your back while blindfolded.

HOW IT ENDED

While I was preparing to stress test the game online, it was discovered by .ru bots that were scouring the web for new games. Even before the game was ready, they published the game link on several Russian gaming sites.

The game exploded.

It has graphical similarities to Tetris, so it was a nice coincidence that the game essentially launched and did so well in Russia at first. After that, other game sites started discovering the game on their own too, even before I had a chance to submit the game myself. Most importantly, the proof of concept and everything I claimed worked (high ratings and retention). It proved so effective that the game is currently being played by hundreds of thousands of users worldwide. And it's a clear demonstration about the importance of combining psychology and game design.

I suppose you could say that there are many layers of revenge happening here, maybe even karmic justice or backfiring on their part, it's really hard to classify. The best kind of revenge is always massive success, and shoving it in their faces, however. But, on top of that, I also fully kept to my promises while proving these ignorant individuals so wrong they look like fools.

I also added some extra salt to the wound. I figured that success of the game was partly due to Dr. Armchair's ignorance. It was only fair that I included his name within the Game Credits. So, I officially gave this very wonderful human being a very "special thanks" for their support in making this success possible.

(source) story by (/u/postfu)

#prorevenge #by /u/postfu #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

[latenightsleuth]

(Image from: https://disappearedblog.com/disappeared-episode-list/)

The Loxahatchee Horror – Could It Happen to Your Aviary?

© Howard Voren. Click here to use this content.

If everyone in your household should suddenly disappear, would anyone notice? If they did notice, would they have the initiative or the authority to break into your house to rescue your birds from starvation? In the case of Moses Lall, the well-known bird importer, the answer was no–at least not in time to save the lives of most of the approximately 1,000 birds whose cages lined the open field behind his rented house. On June 15, l994, after the continued urging of several concerned parties, local authorities entered the property. The gruesome sight that they beheld was something that should appear only in ones’ worst nightmare.

What Happened

Moses Lall and his aunt, Lila Buerattan, both natives of Guyana, South America, had lived on a rented 5-acre ranch in Loxahatchee, Florida, since December of 1992. They had moved to the rural community with the idea of starting a large bird-breeding farm. They spoke with no one in the local avicultural community, nor did they interact with anyone at any of the surrounding ranches. They lived extremely private lives, and no one, except their veterinarian, was ever permitted to see their birds. In fact, they even refused to purchase a license that would have allowed them to legally breed and sell birds within the state of Florida. When approached by Florida Fish and Game officers the previous year and urged to purchase a permit and undergo the minimal inspection procedures, they declined. They claimed that the birds were not for sale or breeding, and were being maintained for their personal pleasure. Most of us locals who knew of them never saw them, and were aware of their existence only because we all used the same feed company. In fact, it was the feed company that began sounding the alarm that something was wrong.

On June 9th, the driver for Bird Haven Feed Company arrived to deliver the weekly supply of primate biscuits, sunflower seeds and dried corn to Lall’s farm. No one was there to let him in. Finding no one at the gate to receive the feed was highly unusual. Realizing that they never purchased reserve supplies, and not wanting the birds to go hungry, he piled the feed up in front of the gates. They tried to reach Lall by phone to make sure all was well, but no one answered. Feeling uncomfortable about the situation, they returned the next day. The feed was still piled up outside the gate and had been ruined by the rain. At this point, they called several local aviculturists, as well as Lall’s veterinarian. The questions put to all of them were the same: Do you know where Moses and Lila are? Do you now them well enough to jump the fence, walk through the pack of dogs and go around to the rear of the property to see if someone has been feeding the birds? They all gave the same negative answer.

Between the 11th and the 15th of June, several concerned parties, including the seed company and the veterinarian, began calling the authorities and demanding that action be taken. As birds were starving to death, the concerned parties were sent in a circular motion from one agency to the next. The Palm Beach County Sheriffs’ Department, upon hearing the story, said that animal abuse was the jurisdiction of the Palm Beach County Animal Control. When Animal Control heard the words macaws and parrots, they explained that jurisdiction over exotic birds had been taken way from them and given to Florida Fish and Game. Florida Fish and Game explained that since the facility was not permitted by them, they had no right to enter. They added that if, in fact, birds were starving, a misdemeanor had been committed and that was the jurisdiction of the Sheriffs’ Department.

On June 15th, the feed company contacted Bob and Liz Johnson, who rescue abused, mistreated and crippled birds through a branch of their nonprofit organization, Life Awareness Inc. At that point, Liz contacted me and Dr. Susan Clubb to get a full update on what avenues had been pursued. Upon discovering that pleas for action had been thwarted by “red tape,” she called the Sheriffs’ Office and made demands. After “much insistence,” they reluctantly agreed to send out someone to investigate. The deputy immediately called the Johnsons and reported that our worst fears had been realized. The Johnsons, Dr. Clubb, I and my daughter Stacie raced to the scene to offer assistance in the feeding and care of the birds. By that time, all three of the previously contacted agencies were present.

We were totally unprepared for the sight that we encountered. It was a horror beyond belief: row after row of cages with either dead or dying green-winged and blue-and-gold macaws. Literally every pair of macaws had at least one dead member. Several had succumbed to starvation and dehydration, with their heads in their empty food bowls–a final desperate move with the hope that food would arrive before their last breath was drawn. Although the collection was made up predominately of large macaws, there were also hundreds of smaller parrots and toucans. These included Amazons, hawk heads, African greys, Jardine’s, Pionus and mini macaws. Most of these had succumbed. There were several cages with 25 to 30 birds in them that had either one or no survivors. It was a miracle that any of the birds were alive.

The feed company had told us what the farm’s approximate weekly consumption was. By taking inventory of the feed that was left in the garage, we were able to determine that the birds had not been fed in at least 10 days.

Inside the house awaited another horror. Incubators, still operating, contained dead babies that had hatched but were never fed. Aquarium brooders that were lined up against the wall all had one or two dead baby blue-and-gold macaws. All had starved to death, sitting on clean bedding, while waiting for their next meal. An open bucket of handfeeding formula was on the kitchen counter with a bowl and spoon next to it. It appeared as if someone had changed the bedding in the brooders and was ready to mix up some formula when he or she was interrupted. With our assistance, Dr. Clubb was able to tube-feed those that were too weak to eat or drink. One died in Bob Johnson’s hands while it was waiting to be tube fed. Another 60 birds that were too far gone died the following day. In all, there were only 335 birds left alive from the flock of almost 1,000. The following morning, the birds were taken to the Palm Beach Animal Control facility. Food donations, as well as volunteer labor from all the local bird clubs and organizations, began pouring in. When Lall’s family from Guyana tried to claim the birds as family property, they were presented with a bill for $130,000. The majority of this bill was Animal Control’s standard charge of $10 per animal per day for the care of confiscated animals. Ten dollars per day multiplied by 335 birds adds up very quickly. As the Lalls fought to regain the birds at a more reasonable price, the bill rose to approximately $180,000. On August 22, a judge ordered that the birds be auctioned off individually to the general public in order to raise the most money. Exactly what happened to Moses and Lila is still officially a mystery. Those who knew them said that they truly loved their birds and would never have deserted them. Moses and Lila are now considered dead. The murder investigation cannot proceed any further until their bodies are found. There were also two other people staying at the farm that were originally considered missing. They were Daljeet “Harry” Gobin, a fellow Guyanese, and Felix Eyuom, a reptile dealer from Africa. Harry Gobin is being sought for questioning.

The purpose of this article is not to try to solve an unsolved crime. It is to make everyone aware that such things can and do happen. Although this situation may be unique due to its magnitude, it is not unheard of on a smaller scale. It is not uncommon to read about animals dying from lack of care due to the undiscovered death or incapacitation of those responsible for their care.

What You Can Do

To prevent such a calamity from happening again, each and every one of you should have a plan. This plan should ensure that, should anything happen to you, it will be discovered without delay and your animals will be cared for. This can be as simple as a regularly expected phone call to a friend, a relative or someone’s answering machine. A simple statement like “I’m okay” is all that is necessary. The receiver of the regular call must be ready to notify someone who has been given written authority by you to break into your house and aviaries to care for your birds if you cannot be located. It must also be specifically stated, in a notarized document, who will hold and care for your birds until your whereabouts are discovered, or until your estate is settled. Your birds must never be allowed to be considered legally abandoned.

Lall’s birds were considered abandoned. They suffered the ultimate fate of being sold to the highest bidder without regard to the bidder’s expertise. Two thousand people converged at the auction on September 10th. Most were there to buy a cheap bird for their kids. Most bought bronco wild breeder macaws with the intention of turning them into pets.

Luckily, due to some generous monetary donations, the Johnsons were able to purchase the birds that were blind or crippled. These were purchased to be retired to the parrot sanctuary that they maintain.

All the birds were sold in small temporary holding cages with no doors and with two tiny metal cups. The idea behind no doors was to keep the public from opening the cages at the auction site after the purchase. It was explained to the buyers that the birds should be transferred to suitable housing after they were removed. Unfortunately, two weeks later buyers were still showing up at local vets with their purchases still in the temporary cages with no doors and nothing but the two tiny cups for food and water. As time went on, a large percentage of the birds were diagnosed with papilloma infections.

All proceeds from the publication of this article will go to support the parrot sanctuary run by the Johnsons. Private donations are also appreciated. Their address is Life Awareness Bird Sanctuary, P.O. Box 641032, Miami, FL 33164.

#moseslall #moseslallandlilabuerattan #lilabuerattan #missing #missingadults #missingrelatives #missing person #disappeared #thecharleyproject #charleyproject #lifeawarenessbirdsanctuary #voren #latenightsleuth

[infinitypassiveincome]

Latitude Review

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This digital currency became prominent and attracted a lot of attention because it has 3 characteristics that hold users back.

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LATITUDE REVIEW – WHY SHOULD YOU GO WITH THIS ONE?

NFTs are the hottest crypto-driven profit opportunity online right now. In fact, NFTs became famous and popular when many billionaires and celebrities used and entered this goldmine market. Latitude will help you start earning and executing trades quickly even if you have no knowledge or skills like these folks are making:

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As far as you know, Crypto is the hottest topic of the year. But making money from it is risky and hard. That’s why you need to switch to NFTs which will be hotter than crypto & risk-free and bring you more profit than affiliate marketing. Because Latitude is 100% free software, it allows you not to build a list or social following with zero upfront costs or monthly fees.

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If you’re a newbie, it’s well worth the experience. I know this product will help you make it happen.

LATITUDE REVIEW – PRICE AND UPGRADES

LATITUDE FE

You just need to spend $12.95 for the software helping you earn up to $2000 per week. It is hard to believe when a 12 year-old boy can do it so why don’t you? But this shoe-basement price is not for good, you can find this same price when the short launching time ends.

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LATITUDE REVIEW – THE UPGRADES

During 30-day trials, you also can refer to some upgrade options below, hope that they are intended to help you to make more money and more easily:

OTO 1 – LATITUDE PRO: $37 – $47

Latitude Pro is the hands-free way to cash in with this unique system.

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Direct access to the insider’s only club where the richest NFT players share up-to-the-minute shortcuts & strategies.

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Past customers LOVE the reseller bundles – they’re getting an entire library of digital products to profit from forever… and it handles all support.

To make sure you won’t encounter any hassles setting up, that’s why the vendor has added guides not only for the set-up process but also for effectively deploying the product for maximizing profits. Let’s take a look:

WHO SHOULD BUY LATITUDE?

Everyone is equal and has the same right to make money, so there is no reason to stop you no matter who you are. However, in order to exploit as well as make advantages of all the functions of this systems, it is a perfect match for:

  ♥   Freelancers who want to double their income daily

  ♥   ECom Marketers

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  ♥   Anyone who starts to play crypto but want to get a huge profit without a large investment

  ♥   Even Teachers, Salesman, shop owners and other professions.

LATITUDE REVIEW – PROS AND CONS

PROS:

  ♥   This product provides 5 figure per month push-button system

  ♥   Developed & proven by a 12 YEAR OLD – you’ve never seen anything like this!

  ♥  Latitude is a Free software

  ♥   Free buyer traffic from a leading platform!

  ♥   Cash in from the crypto explosion without risk or investment

  ♥   Absolutely NO boring, saturated, BS online marketing crap

  ♥   10,000% beginner friendly – if a 12 year old can do it, why not you?

  ♥   30 days money back – guaranteed

  ♥   Banking crypto profits without risk, investment or expertise

  ♥   Getting paid while you’re asleep or on holiday

  ♥   You can do this without any art skills or  even creating a thing yourself

  ♥   You don’t need to be famous or have any social following for this to work

  ♥   Latitude shares a free software that lets you turn OTHER PEOPLE’S art into your own 100% legally.

  ♥   It’ll show you the top FREE traffic source (over 330 million buyers)

  ♥   No websites, products or funnels to create

  ♥   There’s no video creation, blogging or forum spamming

  ♥   It will be a perfect hassle-free way for even newbies to profit online ASAP.

CONS:

  X   Fortunately, you can rely on this product.

CONCLUSION

All in all, the decision is still up to you, but I just want you to purchase this product at a low-cost. The world is usually the reverse of what happens and meant to put us down so the winner is the one who sees and catches up with. I hope my review puts two and two together and helps you know how worthwhile this product is.

[dumbstoriesandwhatnot]

The Army in White

It all started in the winter of 1916. I was stationed in the trenches in a forest somewhere in the French country side. I don’t recall the name of the forest, but it doesn’t matter much. It was a blistering winter, and we were all freezing our asses off in those godforsaken holes in the ground. At that point, the fighting had been going on for 5 days, and we were all feeling the strain. The snow and rain had been coming down in droves for weeks, coming down so heavily we could hardly see the trenches our mortars were aimed at.

Maybe it was all my imagination, or maybe not, but it all started December 13, 1916. I was alone in the trench, standing guard that night. The fighting had been fairly quiet, a few brief shots volleying across the no-mans land. I was looking out over the field, when suddenly I saw a man in all white, walking across the field. I almost didn’t see him, as my eyes were droopy from lack of sleep, and the snow on the ground had near blinded me from staring at it.

“Halt!” I shouted to the figure. “Who are you?”.

But the figure just stood there, staring at me. After a second, I got to thinking, and realized that the man hadn’t exactly walked up. He’d just kind of... appeared. Like he had walked out of an alternate dimension. I put it down to a lack of sleep. Besides, it didn’t matter much how the man had appeared, as much as simply the fact that they had.

After a minute, I called out to them again.

“Who are you? What is your business?” I called out. Still, no answer. The mysterious stranger wasn’t wearing any real kind of uniform that I could see. They didn’t appear naked, but they weren’t wearing clothes either. All I could really make out was that they had a body. I could make out the vague form of arms and legs, and that they were wearing a gas mask and helmet.

Eventually, a couple minutes passed, and the figure turned, walking off into the snow. They faded off into the white blur, but it seemed to me that they did so too early. Like they were still in sight, until they just... weren’t. Maybe faded isn’t the best word to describe it after all.

After a minute of standing there, staring, I walked back to the small room where we all slept, shook Jack awake, and went to sleep. It was quiet for the rest of the night.

******

The next few days were relatively quiet. We couldn’t hear much, at least not in the way of fighting. There were sounds, but they were indistinct. German, we supposed, as even on a clear day it all sounded gibberish to us. All was quiet on the front. Finally, the night shift for guard circled back to me, and I was out there once again.

It was very late, even later than last time. I had been out there only 30 minutes this time when the mysterious white figure showed up again. Because that's really the only description for it. They didn't walk up, run up, march up, crawl up, sneak up, or anything else "up". They just... showed up. It was definitely the same person or thing, no doubt about it. They had on their gas mask, and their figure was pure white. This time, the soldier stood closer. The thing stood not 5 yards from the trench, and I jumped when I realized they were there. I raised my rifle, loading a round as I did.

"Who the devil are you?" I yelled at the figure, shaking slightly as I did. "What is your business? Who are you, and who's side are you on?". But still, my calls had no answer. The soldier just stared at me, and I stared back. We went on like this for a long time, staring in silence. My rifle still sat at my shoulder, ready for action. This couldn't be an illusion, or a hallucination, or anything like that. I don't know how, but I knew that much.

After a couple more minutes of this, I realized there was more than one. There were tens, hundreds, maybe thousands of soldiers in white, all just standing. Staring. Yet again, there was several minutes of silence. Finally, the one who appeared to be in the lead, the one closest to the trench, slowly raised their hand to point. I looked with horror as I realized that the hand was not covered in skin, nor was it the indistinct white haze of the rest of the body. It was a skeletal hand, bleached white by sun and time. I started to scream, but my cries were drowned out as the army in white opened their mouths, their horrible, gas mask filter mouths, eerily round and blood red, and screamed a terrible battle cry. It was the most atrocious sound I have ever heard, like a thousand tortured animals crying out in unison with a thousand tortured humans, an unearthly and ethereal roar. After a minute of this, I ran screaming into the night, before blacking out. When I awoke the next morning, I was face down in the mud and snow, bruised and scared. What? What on God's green Earth could possibly make that sound? I was terrified, shaking in my boots. I had no sleep that night, or for 5 nights following, for I could not shake the feeling that I was being watched. Always, silently, watched.

*****

It was a week after I started sleeping again that they finally decided to send us over the trenches. There had been no sound or sight of the Germans for a little over a week now, and it was decided we would charge the trenches. Shaking I slowly loaded my rifle, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 rounds. I strapped on my helmet, barely able to close the clasp as my fingers fumbled and quaked. Finally we were all gathered. We waited for the order. 1 minute to go. 30 seconds. 10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. And over we went.

We charged headlong across the field, ducking and dodging around, but something was wrong. We all slowed, first to a jog, then to a walk, and then stopped as we realized what was off: there was no shooting. We were charging across an empty, silent field. We looked around, at each other, and across the field at the German trenches. After a minute, and urging from our commanding officer, we walked the rest of the way across the field, slowly and tensely.

Finally, we reached the trenches. With one last look at each other, we hopped down. What we found will surely haunt me for the rest of my life. I cannot sleep without seeing those faces. God, those horrible faces.

What we found in those trenches was bodies. Hundreds of them, hundreds of dead German soldiers. They were all in various states of dress, from stripped to their undergarments to fully clothed and armed. Yet all of them, every last one, had on a snow-white gas mask. When we checked, there was not a single mark on any man. Despite the fact that several of them had guns, and most had emptied their magazines, there was not a single scratch.

Finally, we could think of nothing else to do, and gingerly removed one soldiers gas mask, but we were met with a fresh horror. The mans face was covered in blood, the stuff was caked, having run from his ears, eyes, mouth, and nose, and the deathly pale face was frozen in a scream of mortal terror. I felt sickened by the sight, and hunched over, retching. What could possibly cause such horrible devastation? Finally, we headed back to our trenches. There was nothing more we could do here.

Though it's been years since that day, it still haunts me. Whatever horrible, ghostly army did that still follows me. At night, I feel watched. Even in the day, as I go about my business, I can still feel eyes on me. They will catch up with me one day, of that I am sure. But for now, I walk free still, and I tell my story here, lest it be forgotten to the dusts of time. And, if in some future war, in some far off land, you see the army in white, give up all hope. You are already dead.

#short story #short horror #my writing #ww1 #gas mask #horror

[bobasheebaby]

200 Brooklyn 99 Prompts

Rosa

1 “Talk to him, that's what friends do.” “Nope. I'm gonna wait 'til I'm on my deathbed, get in the last word and then die immediately.” “That's your plan for dealing with this?” “That's my plan for dealing with everything. I have seventy-seven arguments I'm going to win that way.”

2 “I'm already seeing somebody, NAME.” “Oh, and just like that, things got interesting.” “And just like that, I left.”

3 “NAME is even wearing his/her formal leather jacket.” “It's the one without any blood on it.”

4 “Right, that's the guy/girl you said the lame stuff about. Like he’s/she's a good listener.” “Sorry, what do you look for in a guy/girl?” “Real stuff, like the shape of his/her ass.”

5 “Sorry I'm late. I had to go back to the deli and return my Everything Bagel. In what world does everything not include beef jerky?” “All of them.”

6 “He/She also likes to look up recipes online and go, "Who's got the time?"

7 “Thank you, NAME. Your entire life is garbage.”

8 “NAME , tell us about your family.” “I have one.”

9 “Anyone over the age of six celebrating a birthday should go to hell.”

10 “I am dating his/her nephew/niece. Now we are hanging out on weekends. What is next? Oh! Small talk.”

11 “Wait, is that a smile I see?” “Possibly. My immune system is too weak to fight off my smile muscles.”

12 “Whoa, what happened? You know what, forget it. I'll just read NAME’s notes.”

13 “NAME? Are you stuck in there?” “No, I'm in here by choice.” “Oh, 'cause I hear some banging noises as if someone was struggling to open the door.” “No. That was the pipes.” “Or, is it the sound of you learning how to ask for help? You know, you can't spell ‘independent’ without ‘dependent.’” “And you can't spell ‘Go [bleep] yourself’ without ‘[bleep] you.’”

14 “I've said "excuse me" more times this morning than I have in my entire life. Twice!”

15 “Oh, nothing better after a long shift than coming to BAR NAME. It's like Cheers, where everybody knows your name.” “A place where everybody knows your name is hell. You're describing hell.”

16 “So, what is this? Casual, serious? I need to know how to make fun of you.”

17 “NAME and I broke up. He/She ate soup too much.” “What, like every day?” “It happened twice.”

18 “So, what are you drinking?” “I'll have a margarita. But, like, a skinny margarita. So, like, tequila, lime, and a tiny splash of agave.” “Mm. I refuse to order that.”

19 “What are you looking all wistful about?” “Just thinking, about relationships and love, and how I'm way better at them than I thought I'd be. Should I do a TED Talk on it?” “Doesn't seem any dumber than all the other TED Talks.”

20 “Why didn't you tell me? I had no idea things were getting that serious.” “Yeah, it's very embarrassing having feelings.”

21 “So are you bringing someone to the wedding?” “No, I'm taking a break from dating for a while.” “What?” “I'm sick of asking people how many siblings they have. Oh, is it somewhere between zero and two? How fascinating.”

22 “I grew a goatee and it looks amazing, and I know you can see it.” “Of course we can see it, NAME. It's horrible.”

23 “It feels like you're being a little harsh.” “Thanks, good note. I was going for extremely harsh. I'll turn it up.”

24 “Are your senses heightened?” “I think I might be pregnant, not bitten by a radioactive spider.”

25 “You're what sneezes are!”

26 “Seriously, you guys should stand up once in a while. You know, for your hearts.”

27 “NAME, this is dumb. I'm just gonna go.” “No, no, no. You promised me more time. I still have seven minutes.” “I really don't want to miss my flight, and I cannot physically stand the way that room smells anymore.” “Just breathe through your mouth.”

28 “You know, some people say, ‘Mo money, mo problems,’ but those people are idiots. Money's amazing.”

29 “Dude, just admit you ruined everything and turned our lives into a living hell. No biggie.”

30 “We don't want anyone getting alcohol poisoning, so if you throw up, you're disqualified.” “I never throw up. I just tell my stomach to deal with it. My body is terrified of me.”

Jake

31 “I also have a hairline fracture in my thumb. Mankind's least important finger, am I right?”

32 “I wasn't hurt that badly. The doctor said all my bleeding was internal. That's where the blood's supposed to be.”

33 “How much could I possibly owe you? Fifty, sixty bucks?” “Two thousand, four hundred and thirty seven dollars.” “Dollars?! Wait, of course dollars. Why was that the part I was surprised by?”

34 “So, I'm going to grab a healthy breakfast.” “Are those gummy bears wrapped in a fruit roll-up?” “Breakfast burrito, but yeah.” “I pity your dentist.” “Joke's on you. I don't have a dentist.”

35 “I'm talking to my credit card company. I tried to get an online subscription to the New Yorker and they declined me. Apparently, based on my previous purchases, they assumed it was fraud. That's crazy. I'm fancy. One time I had coffee-flavored ice cream.”

36 “Rules are made to be broken.” “They were made to be followed. Nothing is made to be broken.” “Uh, piñatas.” “Glow sticks.” “Karate boards.” “Spaghetti when you have a small pot.” “Rules.”

37 “Hey, can I ask you something?” “Mm-hmm.” “If the toilets drain into the ocean, does that mean a tiny shark could swim up and bite me in the butt?” “No, not at all.” “Psh, lame.”

38 “NAME, super important question. Which one of these shirts should I wear to dinner with your dad/mom tonight?” “Those are exactly the same.” “I have a signature look, NAME.”

39 “Hello, good sir, I'd like your finest bottle of wine, please.” “That will be $1,600.” “Great, I'd like your $8-est bottle of wine, please.”

40 “I am straight-up depressed. NAME’s been doing her best to cheer me up. He/She gave me this sticker this morning just for waking up.” “Ew, it's like you're dating your teacher.” “I know, it's so hot.”

41 “Wait. Before you say anything, I want to guess what happened based on your face. Someone died. No! You won a prize. I'm not getting better at this.”

42 “What is the bandwidth on the wifi here? We have much content to stream.”

43 “Oh, you sweaty, chair-spinning morons. You're gonna get us out of here.”

44 “Sir, I think I speak for all of us when —“ “He/She doesn't.” “He/She doesn't.”

45 “So, your brother/sister's a bit of a nightmare.” “I wouldn't say that. I mean, at most, he’s/she's a daymare.” “Those are so much scarier.” “Yeah.”

46 “Look, NAME, I burnt two hundred calories.” “That's your heart rate.” “Yeah, that checks out.”

47 “I don't slump, people. I opposite of slump. I pmuls. That's slump backwards and it's what I do. I pmuls all over this bitch.”

48 “Excuse me. We were just looking for a place to —“ “Boink.” “Yes, boink. That's my preferred term for it, too.”

49 “Thank you for doing this. I love you.” “Noice. Smort. I love you too.”

50 “Adult parties? I believe they're called orgies.”

51 “I have a sexy voice!

Champagne.

Mountain range.

Hugs.”

52 “Has anyone ever told you you look just like a statue?” “Yes.”

53 “NAME, you're smiling. It's very weird. Like seeing a turtle out of its shell.”

54 “You look happy. Let me guess. Your egg sandwich fell on the floor, and they gave it to you for free.” “No. Can you do that? Why doesn't everyone just drop their sandwiches on the floor?” “I was trying to insult you.” “And instead you gave me an amazing life hack!”

55 “So, we gonna talk about what happened back there? I haven't seen someone cry that much since NAME heard they were remaking ‘First Wives Club.’”

56 “Hey, there, NAME. Everything okay?” “No, I'm having a meltdown.” “Props. That was amazing.” “Thanks. It was a lot of work.”

57 “Almost makes me wanna take things seriously all the time. But then I'm like ‘boobs, farts, boobs, whatever’.”

58 “Ahh, babe, this is so nice. There are hot stones on our butts for no reason.” “Not on mine. My butt stones keep falling off, because I'm so tense about NAME being here and ruining everything.”

59 “Okay, don't shoot! That's how people get shot.”

60 “Rule number 3: Let's not have sex right away.” “Cool. Cool cool cool cool cool. No doubt, no doubt, no doubt. Good rule. No sex. Good rule.”

Charles

61 “Okay, but I thought since you were in charge, maybe I could be your right hand man? Your Tinker Bell?” “Tinker Bell?” “Let me tell you something about Tinker Bell. Tinker Bell is a loyal lieutenant and a real thorn in the side of Captain Hook.”

62 “NAME, why don't you show Danger what a fax machine is.” “Okay. Imagine a letter had unprotected sex with a phone.”

63 “Hey, NAME, are you ready to go streaking?” “What?” “That's what my dad/mom and I called getting blonde streaks in your hair. We used to do it to our ponytails on road trips. You just take a little lemon up top, and let the sun do the rest. We called it giving each other road head.” “You just said you called it going streaking.” “It had a couple names.”

64 “So we have good news, and we have bad news.” “My Nana always said, ‘Bad news first because the good news is probably a lie.’ Fun fact: she made me cry a lot.”

65 “What about me? What if something happens to NAME, and he never gets to meet my baby? I don't want to hang out with some stupid baby who's never met NAME.”

66 “Oh, you're right. I'm gonna tell him/her. It might not be today. It might not be tomorrow. It definitely won't be later than tomorrow. So pretty much today or tomorrow then.”

67 “No! I was eavesdropping. I'm always eavesdropping.” “I don't like it.” “Look, I didn't spend the last seven years watching your love ripen, only to have it sullied by a city hall wedding. You're getting married right here, right now.”

68 “I know you think my judgement's clouded because I like him/her a little bit.” “You doodled your wedding invitation.” “No, that's our joint tombstone.” “My mistake.”

69 “How many times have I smacked you in your face?” “Lost count.” “And you still have no fear of me.” “I'm trying to read your womb vibe.” “Exactly. Knock it off.”

70 “Okay, first of all, NAME, you look amazing. Secondly, I made an appointment at the salon with Nikki, for you, under the name Gabriella Fuentes de San Miguel Estrada. I had fun with the name.” “Clearly.”

71 “He’s/She's got a type, which is really any one but you.” “Yeah, that was my ex-husband/ex-wife's type, too.”

72 “Sexy train is leaving the station. Check out this caboose. Later, sluts.”

73 “I can't wait to see you, my luscious little breakfast quiche. I just want to draw you a bubble bath and spoon-feed you caviar. I think we should open up a joint checking account. I love you. [pause] What am I doing?” “It's okay. I hung up right after ‘Chucklebunny’.” “Help me. I've gone Full NAME.”

74 “Do you desire a crispen potato?” “Oh, don't mind if I do-ble. Wait a minute. Crispen potato. Why are you fancy talking.” “How dare you, sir/madam. I speak the common tongue.” “There it is again. You only do that when you're lying or hiding something.” “Hiding? Ha. Pish-posh.”

75 “Hey, donut holes. Don't mind if I do. Eurgh! Fish? Fish donuts, NAME? What is wrong with you?” “It's takoyaki. I'm drowning my sorrows in octopus balls.”

76 “Put on a T-shirt for all I care. It doesn't matter what you wear.” “Of course it matters. He has to wear the smaller checks. Big checks wash him out. Where are you, NAME?”

77 “Ooh, if they have your phone, we can track where they're going. I have ‘Find My Phone’ set up to track you. What? I do that for all my friends, not just you.” “Show me.” “There's no time!”

78 “You okay?” “Yeah, no burns. The doctor said I was lucky my body was so damp.”

79 “You guys have been down here for two hours. What, did you have sex forty times?”

80 “What? You don't need closet space. You have, like, one outfit.”

81 “You just graduated pie school, bitches. [pause] Sorry I said bitches, I'm just really worked up.”

82 “So, I know you're NAME’s best friend, and —“ “Did he/she say that? Did you get that on tape?” “No.” “No, he/she didn't say that or no, you didn't get it on tape? Doesn't matter. Either way, you screwed up big time.”

83 “What you did is the culinary equivalent of unprotected sex.”

84 “That's right. Boom. Just kicked Santa in the testicles.”

85 “No, there's no one in my life. [wink] Sort of a sad thing to wink about, I realize now.”

86 “NAME! Were you dreaming about NAME again?” “Why did you wake me up?! I told you never to wake me up!”

87 “You used all the touching time, NAME. I get 100% of the goodbye touching time. 100%.”

88 “Do you wanna know why he/she went out with him/her and not you?” “Yeah.” “Because he/she actually asked him/her out.”

89 “NAME, will you taste this batter?” “Mm-hmm. Hmm. I think it's a little off.” “You know what's off? Your mouth! Why NAME lets your stupid tongue anywhere near him/her I'll never know. Nope, I forgot the sugar. That's on me.”

90 “There's no need for NAME to see me unleash the beast.”

Captain Holt

91 “Look at you. Always working. What happened to my fun big/little brother/sister?” “Fun? I was never fun. You take that back.”

92 “It's the most fun day of the year. Something you wouldn't understand because you're not programmed to feel joy.” “Yes, but my software is due for an exuberance upgrade.”

93 “Sticks and stones, NAME.” “Describing your breakfast?”

94 “NAME, how are you feeling?” “Better today. I even managed to eat some plain toast this morning.” “Smart. Something bland.” “That's my favorite breakfast.”

95 “Joining us for lunch, Sir?” “Oh, no, I've already consumed the required calories for this day period.” “Yummy.”

96 “You all right, NAME? Tough weekend?” “I went to Barbados with my husband/wife. We wove hats out of palm fronds and swam with the stingrays. I've never been happier.”

97 “Maybe I should wing it. Love, it sustains you. It's like oatmeal.” “Okay. Okay. Not bad for winging it.” “I lied. Took me two hours to write that.”

98 “I do not have a problem. If I want to play Kwazy Cupcakes, I will play Kwazy Cupcakes. Kwazy is a difficult word to say in anger, but I think I've made my feelings clear.”

99 “This place is so romantic.” “Yeah, and so intimate.” “Don't worry. I'm not listening to you. I'm just thinking about how this sea bass is cold but not as cold and cruel as the hands of fate that have thrust my entire life into darkness.” “Ah, damn it. I just ordered the sea bass.”

100 “Yeah, and your new shirt is very aggressive and confusing. Is the pineapple the slut, or is it calling someone else a slut?” “Clearly the pineapple is the slut.” “Huh.”

101 “Oh, I've caused a problem. I think I am getting a text message. Bloop. Ah, there it is.”

102 “So nice of you to greet us, NAME. I thought surely you'd still be crushed under that house in Munchkinland.”

103 “So, do you NAME --“ “Yes.” “And do you --“ “Yes. Yes. We do. We're married.”

104 “I mean, don't people call you NAME?” “How dare you.”

105 “So you lied to me? Out of pity. You pity me.” “I wouldn't put it that way.” “I would. I am offended. I am angry. I am very tired. So I'm gonna take a nap, but when I wake up, oh, you are in for it.”

106 “Look at that. You've helped me find my smile.”

107 “Huh. Meat from the street. Sounds like a fun treat. Hah. I'm a poet and ... I didn't even know I was rhyming those words. But it happened anyway.”

108 “Oh, look at that. An alert. I'm probably trending already. What? My account has been deactivated?” “Twitter thinks you're a bot.” “Why? I am a human. I am a human male/female.”

109 “Care to sit? I'm sure you'd like to take some weight off your cloven hooves.” “Call me the devil, NAME? How original.” “Actually, I was calling you a goat. You goat.”

110 “NAME! I'm coming with you.” “Thank you, NAME.” “I'm also coming.” “Not necessary.”

111 “Spot checks are done. Needless to say I'm thoroughly underwhelmed.” “Huh. From your expression, I would have guessed constipated. Or chilly.”

112 “NAME, you have a pretty low bar for what you consider drama. Once, I used an exclamation point in a email. You called me Diana Ross.” “I assure you, in this case, I do not exaggerate.”

113 “I know they say it's not good to have a TV in the bedroom. Which is why I don't.”

114 “NAME, did you just laugh?” “Uproariously.”

115 “You know when you play along with the robot jokes, it kinda ruins my enjoyment of them?” “Yes, I know.”

116 “And what do you hope to get out of this, NAME? Let me guess revenge on Dorothy for killing your sister?”

117 “It was a good game though for a dumbass.” Okay, you're kinda overusing that one. Maybe switch it up a little bit.” “Oh, good note. You dick.” “That landed good.”

118 “Dancing over. Situation defused.” “No!”

119 “All right, NAME, I'm sick of you wasting time. So, yes, I spilled some minestrone on my pants and I'm sitting in my underwear. Happy?”

120 “You found me. Drinking seltzer in the shadows.”

Gina

121 “It's a sloppy Jessica. Mac n cheese, chili, pizza on a bun. Its everything I've wanted to eat for the last 48 hours.” “What happened? I thought you were gonna 'last forever bitches.'” “Turns out I gave up easy. You hear that bitches? I gave up so easy.”

122 “If NAME had a twin, he/she would have eaten him/her in the womb.”

123 “Wait a minute, I think I just figured something out. I got to go.” “Aren't you forgetting something?” [person a gives Person b a kiss on the forehead] “Uh no, pay your bill! Damn, who raised you?”

124 “The English language can not fully capture the depth and complexity of my thoughts. So I'm incorporating Emoji into my speech to better express myself. Winky face.”

125 “All right, gang. Diet day 4. How's everyone holding up?” “Honestly, I'm going to last forever. You hear that bitches? I'm gonna last forever.”

126 “If I die, turn my tweets into a book!”

127 “The only reason I didn't tell you is I don't value you as people, so why be honest?”

128 “Breakups are a cartoony thumbs down. They make people feel face-with-Xs-for-the-eyes.”

129 “I'm sorry. I just don't think this is something you're good at.” “What? The only thing I'm not good at is modesty, because I'm great at it.”

130 “Click. I just captured the exact moment you realized you had failed. I guess we all got something out of this.”

131 “It's so addictive, right? I play so much that when I close my eyes at night, I just see cupcakes instead of my normal dizzying array of flashing lights.”

132 “Forget your ex with meaningless sex. It rhymes because it's true.”

133 “NAME. NAME. NAME, I screwed up, big time.” “NAME, given your daily life experiences, you're gonna have to be more specific.”

134 “So, talk to me, goose. How are we looking?” “Sexy, but not like we're trying too hard. Like, sure, we're trying, but it's almost effortless.”

135 “Give me the ring.” “You sound like Gollum.” “That means nothing to me. I don't see those movies, I'm too pretty.”

136 “Oh no, six drink NAME isn't fun. He’s/She's just sad. Damn it!”

137 “I never have second thoughts. That's the luxury of having great first thoughts.”

138 “Ugh, constantly getting NAME’s approval is the worst.” “Yes. I can only imagine.”

139 “You think you can just bully people, but you can't. It's not okay. I'm the bully around here. Ask anyone.”

140 “This just might work out after all.” “You're damn right it will, 'cause we're a ragtag, scrappity, fart-dumb, moron parade, smart-ass team!”

141 “Okay, NAME, stop freaking out. I have the day off. I can step in and help.” “Yeah, me too. I'm not off, but I come and go as I please. It's part of my charm. I'm like an outdoor cat.”

142 “Gina, please keep an eye on NAME today. He's/She’s gonna say something to the wrong person and get himself/herself punched.” “Sure, I'd love to see NAME get punched.” “Try again.” “I will stop NAME from getting punched.” “Correct.”

143 “Oh, I want him/her out. But I'm too scared to tell him/her. “ “All right, listen. I know that your spirit animal is a caterpillar that's been stepped on —“ “Mm-hmm.”

144 “What are you creeps doing? You made me look away from my phone. You better pray I didn't miss a text.” “In the two seconds you looked away?” “Seventeen texts. All of them important.”

145 “What is my favorite soup?” “Chicken noodle.” “Potato leek.” “Corn frickin' noodle. I mean, chowder, damn it.” “You're all wrong. I've never had soup.” “Don't bother. They all suck.”

146 “Okay, so that plumber was useless. But we are two smart and capable people who can definitely figure out how to fix a toilet.” “Of course we can. The internet will tell us what to do. She always does.”

147 “It's crazy how much he/she flirts with me.”

148 “Good morning.” “For whom?” “For you-m.”

149 “So he/she didn't say what happened, which can only mean one thing.” “He's/She’s in a fight club.”

150 “What's up? How can I help?” “Well, when I was a kid, I invented a magnetic flashlight clip so I could read under the covers. This clip and I went all around the world together the Shire, Sweet Valley High, Terabithia.” “But never to a friend's house, huh?” “Uncalled for.”

Amy

151 “That stuff with us is in the past. We talked about that.” “I know, but that was before you saw me in this dope ass tux. I mean you must be freaking out.” “Oh, I really am. I'm really into rented clothes. I love how many butts have been in them.”

152 “You know, we're birds of a feather, you and I.” “I hate cliches.” “Cliches are the worst.”

153 “And now I don't know what to do.” “I think you do know what to do.” “Thanks, NAME.” [leaves the room] “I have no idea what he’s/she's gonna do but that's the safest way to give NAME advice.” “Yep.”

154 “Insult me all you want, for I have only this to say —“ “Victory shall be mine!” “I heard you practicing in the shower. You can't surprise me. Letting me into your life was the worst mistake you ever made.” “Cool, fun take on our relationship.”

155 “NAME, where you at?” “Four drinks.” “What's four-drink NAME again?” “Why don't you come over here and find out?” “Right, Horny NAME”

156 “I'm sorry. We only excluded you because you're kind of an over-texter.” “Over-texter? That's not even a thing.” “Oh really? So you don't remember the time you sent 97 unanswered texts in a five-minute span?” “My phone vibrated itself off the desk. I think it was committing suicide.”

157 “What the hell? I used NAME's exact recipe. I know I'm not a great cook, but I love following instructions.”

158 “What's going on? Is this a dream? No, I'm not holding a label maker.”

159 “My power went out last night and my alarm didn't go off.” “Your alarm is power dependent? You brought this on yourself, son.”

160 “I'd also like to apologize for my friend. His /Her parents didn't give him/her enough attention.”

161 “I'm in! A bet which improves someone's manners? Double score.”

162 “He’s/She's scared.” “He’s/She's not scared. With all due respect, NAME, NAME has no feelings.”

163 “I'm so cold even my fiery dance moves aren't keeping me warm.”

164 “I'm sorry. I tried to be myself and they hated it.”

165 “All right, someone's gotta go out there and kill that feathery bastard. NAME, you're always looking for an excuse to behead something.”

Sergeant Jeffords

166 “It was like taking candy from a baby.” “Why are you giving candy to a baby in the first place? Don't give candy to a baby! They can't brush their teeth!”

167 “I was raised on disco. Little NAME loved to hustle.”

168 “Or is your favorite artist really Taylor Swift?” [Scoffs] “No.” “Lie.” “All right, fine, she is. She makes me feel things.” “She makes all of us feel things!”

169 “Urgh, what's in these?” “Potatoes, butter, a little milk. Oh, and I ran out of salt, so I used baking soda.” “Why wouldn't you? They're both white powders. Of course they're interchangeable.” “Yeah.”

170 “I warned you against using donuts. They're my trigger food.”

171 “Hey, NAME, you know how you're really good at doodling?” “I know you think you're complimenting me, but calling them doodles is an insult. You a big fan of Picasso's doodles?”

172 “Your tone's braggy but your words are real sad.”

173 “See, NAME? Tough love works.” “Damn it! NAME proved the wrong point.”

174 “Now, be respectful and grieve your asses off.” “I don't know why this is happening.” “NAME, I love it. Everyone follow his/her lead!”

175 “Everything's spoiled. My lunch is ruined. My chicken, my potatoes, pasta, my meatballs, ham, my yogurt.” “Wow, that's a lot of yogurt.” “I love yogurt.”

176 “Kind of seemed like you were gonna get up and leave after saying all that.” “I was, but I think I hear NAME.”

177 “You better look cute in this picture, or no one's gonna want you. Do something with your damn paws!”

178 “My tolerance has really changed since I had kids!”

179 “I'm hungry!” “Oh, you're in luck; the fanny pack is filled with granola.” “Mmm! Loose granola.” “I don't want fanny granola! I want steaks and whiskey!”

180 “You probably can't tell, but I'm flexing my brain like crazy right now.”

181 “What's that smell? That's lavender. NAME loves lavender.”

182 “Okay. Excuse me. Can we please eat? My body is starting to digest itself. NAME needs nutrients!”

183 “Don't look at me. NAME wastes all that time building muscles, make him do it.” “Oh, come on, you all know these are just for show.”

184 “Sorry? You bumbling son of a bitch. You just ruined my life. I hope you get hit by a truck and a dog takes a dump on your face.” “Nothing to see here. Just a little hypoglycaemic rage. Move along.”

185 “I feel like a proud mama hen whose baby chicks have learned to fly!”

Hitchcock

186 “NAME, why do you have your shirt off?” “Can't spill food on your shirt if you're not wearing one.”

187 “What bet? What are you guys talking about?” “Seriously? The bet? They've been keeping score all year. It comes up all the time. What are you doing all day?!” “Nothing. Why, you want to hang out?”

188 “So you just want us to lie on the ground and do nothing like a bunch of losers?” “Yes, precisely.” “No!” “Jackpot!”

189 “I don't like it. Something stinks.” “Well, I'm sorry, but I refuse to mask my natural musk with a bunch of chemicals.”

190 “My God. NAME, are you the only person still making sense?” “Yeah. It's bad.”

191 “All right, food is ready, decorations are set, guests should start arriving any moment, and the chairs are still perfection.” “He/She said they're perfection. I'm so proud of you, buddy.” “It was you. You made this happen.”

192 “Who do you think it's gonna be?” “I've no idea.” “I bet it's me. I just hope I'm ready.”

193 “Okay, look, this was maybe a weird way to start the night, but the good news is, we can still make our dinner reservation and no one got hurt.” “Actually, I cut myself real bad.” “Of course you did.”

Scully

194 “Oh, so your plan is to not take this seriously at all?” “Oh, I am as serious as a heart attack. No offense, NAME.” “Nah. Mine are never that serious. I call 'em ‘oopsies’.”

195 “I miss my home chair.” “You miss a chair?”

196 “Are those thumbtacks? What the hell, NAME?” “I thought they'd make good confetti.” “Why?”

197 “All right, anyone else have questions? NAME, NAME, you've been weirdly silent.” “We didn't want to say anything that would get us uninvited.”

198 “Okay, first of all, I want to say that this was one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make. There is so much talent in this room.” “Just tell us, bitch. Act as if you already have the role.”

199 “I'll be back. Don't move.” “Not a problem. I hate moving.”

200 “Where should we begin? Do you have any experience with puzzles?” “Yes. I've never solved one.”

#brooklyn 99 prompts #brooklyn 99 quotes #jake peralta #rosa diaz #amy santiago #gina linetti #captain holt #sergeant jeffords #terry jeffords #charles boyle #scully b99 #hitchcock b99 #bb 99 prompts #bb 99 quotes #quaratine sucks and making these keeps my mind busy #i live in covid 19 hell

[tattooed-alchemist]

It’s what happened to Jews in Germany in 1938 when their passports were declared invalid. That is what is beginning to happen here, now, to Hispanic citizens along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Oh, is it bad to compare the GOP to Nazis? Well, if members of the GOP do not like being compared to Nazis, they should consider not behaving exactly like Nazis.

Hispanic U.S. citizens, some of whom were in the U.S. military, are not being allowed to renew their passports. This is reportedly happening to “hundreds, even thousands” of Latinos, according to a report in the Washington Post. They’re getting letters from the State Department saying it does not believe they are citizens. The government claims their citizenships are fraudulent. “I’ve had probably 20 people who have been sent to the detention center—U.S. citizens,” Jaime Diez, an attorney in Brownsville, told The Washington Post.

The Washington Post also reports on ICE officials coming to citizens' homes and taking their passports away. This is an escalation from a few months ago, when Americans were detained by ICE officials just for speaking Spanish to one another.

The administration is currently launching an effort to take citizenship from people who they suspect of fraud in obtaining it. Fraud in these cases is exceedingly rare. The last time the government tried to strip people of their citizenship was, according to Columbia Professor Mae , during The Red Scare of the 1950s. As Ngai remarks, McCarthyism is not typically remembered as a good period in American history.

There is good reason to believe that this could portend still worse things to come for the U.S. Hispanic population, unless people begin to speak out loudly, and fast.

Edited to Add: English/Spanish legal advice for if you are a Latinx American citizen whose citizenship is being challenged.

And FLOOD YOUR SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES WITH YOUR FEELINGS ON THIS SHIT!  Here’s how to do it for free by text.

2nd Edit:  Someone asked “What Can Be Done Abroad?”

Thank you for asking!  

1) Get the word out in your home country’s print and broadcast media and internet.  People in the USA really don’t get how suppressed our press has become and it’s only getting worse by the day.  Part of it is getting any one topic to surface long enough above the churn, which is an intentional tactic being successfully used by the political party in power.

2) The one thing that no one is the USA is not seemingly able to do at all is get attention onto the Republican party as a whole for how complicit they are in all the illegal activity.  If anyone can throw some weight in that direction, it’s an elephant in the room that we REALLY need to get lots of attention on.

3) Support sanctions against the US for our human rights violations.

4) Donate to US groups fighting in the trenches 

https://www.aclu.org/

https://www.hrc.org/

https://www.plannedparenthood.org/

http://refusefascism.com/

https://www.splcenter.org/

https://resist.bot/

5) Check how your own country is doing on ethnic minorities and immigration.  Some bad shit is going around.

Edited AGAIN On Sunday November 4, 2018:

1) Black activists are being murdered and no one is reporting it.

http://www.blacklivesmatter.com

2) More tent cities keep going up.  Where do you really think this is going to end?

https://www.afsc.org/action/stop-ice-and-cbp

3) Anti-Semitism in the USA has gone up 60% over the last year.

https://www.adl.org/

4) Native American disenfranchisement ahead of the midterm elections is at an all-time high.  

https://www.narf.org/cases/voting-rights/

NO MATTER WHAT THE RESULTS ARE OF THE 2018 USA MIDTERM ELECTIONS, NONE OF THESE PROBLEMS ARE GOING TO STOP UNLESS WE GET TO WORK STOPPING THEM.

Edited Nov 17, 2018:

More than 14,000 immigrant children are in U.S. custody, an all-time high

from the SF Chronicle 

EDITED ON JULY 30, 2019

It’s now estimated there are upwards of 50,000 humans being held in American concentration camps.  Here’s a map of how many there are now in the US.

https://concentrationcamps.us/

And they are dying.  If history has taught us anything it’s that this is the point of a concentration camp.  It’s very cheap and easy to allow people to die from neglect.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/24-immigrants-have-died-ice-custody-during-trump-administration-n1015291

Legal American citizens,with multiple forms of ID, who ICE spots and decides just don’t look white enough are starting to be arrested and detained with them.  They aren’t allowed to contact anyone once they are picked up.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/25/us/us-citizen-detained-texas/index.html

WHAT TO DO, HOW TO HELP

https://www.neveragainaction.com/

http://www.notonemoredeportation.com/

https://www.raicestexas.org/

https://www.immigrantdefenseproject.org/raids-toolkit/

#citizens #passports #genocide #latinx americans #hispanic americans #as a descendent of German Jews I have to agree with this completely #ICE are the secret police #black lives matter #disenfranchisement

[forever-rogue]

Autumn Dialogue Prompts

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

1. “It’s spooky season! Finally! My favorite time of the year!” “It’s August...it’s still summer?!”

2. “Who ate all my candy?!!”

3. “You’re too old to go trick-or-treating.”

4. “I hate costumes. There is no way in hell I am dressing up.”

5. “Time to get spooky!”

6.  “After being freaks, are we gonna get freaky?”

7. “What are you supposed to be?” “A mortician, obviously.” “Can you be a sexy mortician?”

8.  “Well, one of us has to change and it’s not going to be me.”

9.  “And just what exactly are you supposed to be?”

10. “Nope, I’m not scared. Not at all.”

11. “Is that red syrup? Please tell me it’s syrup.”

12. “I paid $50.00 for this haunted house. I better die.”

13.  “You should hang out with me later. I’m gonna marathon a bunch of movies.”

14. “I came in here expecting a trick, but you’re a real treat.”

15.  “Making out in a graveyard?”

16.  “Did you seriously injure yourself carving a pumpkin?”

17.  “Can you please help me carry this pumpkin inside my house. It’s like three times bigger than me.”

18.  “Oh, pumpkin spice. You make me so happy. You’re the love of my life.”

19.  “Let’s split up.” “Let’s not.”

20.  “Why are you just sitting there, RUN!”

21.  “We should do a couples costume.” “We’re not a couple though.”

22.  “How many caramel apples do we need? Two? Twenty? Four hundred? I’m buying four hundred.”

23.  “There’s nothing quite as satisfying as stepping on a super crunchy leaf.”

24.  “You ever realize that the fall smell everyone loves so much is just the scent of dying plants?”

25.  “It’s staring at me.”

26.  “Remember that IOU you gave me? Well this is it. You are wearing this couples costume.”

27.  “I’m going to presume that dead body in our garden is a decoration.”

28.  “Why have I woken up in our car, in the middle of a graveyard, in the middle of the night, may I ask?”

29.  “You are NOT having a pumpkin spice latte after what happened last year.”

30.  “No?? Of course I’m not scared…who gets scared of…floating objects or…um weird sounds? Not me, that’s for sure.”

31. “Can you help me rake? I’ll let you jump in the leaf pile.”

32.  “I don’t usually do anything for Halloween.”

33.  “I’ve got a collection of horror movies and pizza delivery on speed dial. Want to come over?”

34.  “Let’s go for a walk. The trees are beautiful.”

35.  “Million dollar question: Nightmare Before Christmas or Hocus Pocus?”

36.  “If you carve a dick on this pumpkin, I swear to god.”

37.  “Is it too cliche to visit a cemetery on Halloween?”

38.  “Gourds are so ugly but also so cute. I want a thousand of them.”

39.  “I’m just not in the Halloween spirit yet.”

40.  “A ouija board on Halloween: what could go wrong?”

41. “You left your candy unattended and therefore it is now mine.”

42. “The candy is for trick or treaters! Stop eating it all!”

43. “Why does the dog have a leg bone? Please tell me that’s a toy.”

44. “Why are the dog and cat covered in toilet paper?” “One word - mummies!”

45.  “I hate the woods…especially at midnight on flippin’ Halloween! How did we get so lost?”

46. “OH MY GOD SHUT UP THEY’RE GOING TO KILL US!”

47.  “So babe, how do I look?” “Honestly I can’t tell a difference. You look like a zombie most days.”

48. “Why does that pumpkin look like me?” “Well you wanted something spooky?”

49. “There’s blood on your shirt.” “Oh, babe, don’t worry, it’s not mine. I’m not hurt.”

50.  “Is that a pumpkin carving tool in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

51. “The house is not haunted.”

52. “Mmm, I appreciated that little murmuring you did in my ear.” “….That wasn’t me.”

53. “There will be a lot of screaming tonight.”  

54. “Did someone spike the punch?”  

55. “UGH, why am I stuck with a bunch of babies?”

56. “Halloween is my aesthetic.”

57. “What are you gonna do? Burn me at the stake?”

58. “Get the blankets, we’re going star gazing!”

59. “My famous recipe, White Chocolate Pumpkin, with a dash of bat wings,” ‘Really?!?” “Nah, just some cinnamon,”

60. "If you say Halloween one more time-” “You’ll kiss me.”

61. “Would you rather kiss me or die?”

62. “10 pumpkins for our porch? That seems excessive…”

63. “It’s hand holding season.”

64. “Get the flashlight! We’re telling spooky stories!”

65. "Tell me the scariest story you know!”

66. “How did you manage to get us lost in a corn maze?”

67. “Has that scarecrow always been out there?”

68. “I just drank a whole gallon of cider by myself! I regret nothing!”

69. “Look! There’s a bat hanging from the doorway. Better kiss me under it.” “Nice try, never going to happen.”

70. “I don’t do horror movies- no, puppy dog eyes are against the rules, you can’t make me- fine, I’ll watch a scary movie with you.”

71.“Look, a full moon!”

72. “You’re beautiful. uh, u-um i mean the weather. It’s beautiful. Not that you’re not beautiful, because you are. I’m just gonna shut up.”

73. “I thought you said you knew how to start a fire!” “I said I could probably figure it out.”

74. “I think my fangs are coming loose, ugh.”

75. “I hate Halloween! EEEKK!! Don’t scare me like that!!”

76. “You have bits of leaves all over in your hair! Let me help you.”

77. “Did you hear that?”

78. “Lock the doors!”

79. “This can’t be the zombie apocalypse. I’m not caught up on my favorite shows.”

80. “Should we be drinking this much?”

81. “I’d let you haunt me all night long.”

82. “Do you think this is Harry Potter or something?”

83. “Dead men tell no tales, but we do bend the truth alot.”

84. “Oh, this isn’t a costume. This is my natural state of being.”

85. “We all know, that you will be the first to die.”

86. “What are you doing?” “Decorating for Halloween.” “It’s not even September yet…” “Halloween is a year round tradition.”

87. “Okay, no more cider for you.”

88. “Your laugh does not sound like an ugly witch cackle now will you please open the door.“

89. “You know, you have really pretty eyes but they’d look so much better without… all the blood.”

90. “What kind of childhood did you have if you never ate Halloween candy?”

91. “Black cats and pumpkins and stuff, it’s all just based on old superstitions and legends.”

92. “A walk in the woods seems like a bad idea. Ever seen Blair Witch Project?”

93. “How do you still look beautiful in zombie makeup?” 

94. “The scariest looking houses always give the best candy, it’s fact.”

95. “Wouldn’t you like to see something strange?”

96. “I think our house is haunted.”

97. “Was that someone knocking? It’s not time for trick or treaters yet.”

98. “You almost scared me to death. I’m never going to forgive you for that.”

99. “What are you going to do? Sue the ghosts?”

100. “It’s Alive! It’s Alive!”

#prompts #writing prompts #challenge #challenge prompts #autumn #fall #halloween #halloween prompts #fall prompts #autumn prompts #spooky season #spooky prompt #writing challenge #dialogue prompts #dialogue #sentence starters #prompt starters