squeeelch.

ah.

despite nagi’s best efforts, his foot sinks ankle-deep into a leaf-hidden pile of muck, with the wet, echoing fanfare of worn sneakers being suctioned into viscous mud. the noise reverberates through the still woods, startling the sheep — and the young man that had come up beside it, unnoticed.

nagi almost steps clear out of his stuck shoe at the sound of keenan's voice. he raises his arms above his head. slowly. no sudden movements.

"...don't shoot."

he wriggles his foot, until the mud deigns to give his sneaker back with another wet, drawn-out squelch. with both his shoes now on semi-solid ground, he approaches the clearing, his arms still raised.

"is it hurt?"

Keenan Toral

☉

“...’sup.”

with the assurance that he’s not going to get shot — or bruised on the head by a impulsively-hurled pokeball — nagi steps over a few more mud puddles, picking his away across the clearing to the mareep’s side. it bleats as he approaches, but doesn’t attempt to flee. up close, he can see the mud caked into its tangled mess of wool — and the spots of dirt on the other man as well.

“a pressure wash might work better,” he suggests dryly, before offering his own name in response to keenan’s introduction. “i’m nagi.”

he crouches down, peering closer at the collar around the mareep’s neck that keenan had been studying a few moments ago. petalburg ranch. not too far from here, then, though he’d still have to check for the exact directions.

“how did the both of you even get here?” — and get this dirty, he decides to leave mercifully unsaid.

Keenan Toral

☉

"supplies for a few days." nagi eyebrows arch under the cover of his bangs. "...how lost do you usually get?"

with one hand, nagi endeavours to rub off some of the dirt encrusted across the mareep's collar; his other hand attempts to key in the name of the ranch into the phone's search bar. the resulting effect is that he gets dirt under his nails, and finds out that prtsslbirg rsnch is too egregrious a mispelling for his autocorrect to rectify. he'd scratched off enough of the dirt to make out the name of the sheep at least: whitney.

he glances over at whitney — doe-eyed and bleating sadly — and at keenan — doing the adult-male version of much the same. saddled with two lost lambs. he sighs.

"when we get to the ranch, i'm going to borrow a hose for you and whitney," he says, standing up and trying to brush the mud off his knees. nope. i've got brown tie-dye jeans now, i guess. giving up on that lost cause, he instead wipes his hands on the cleanest part of his jeans he can find, and pulls a portable charger out of his bag. he holds it out towards keenan. "you'll have to find your own way back after that."

Keenan Toral

☉

"... why wouldn't i have my clothes on?" he says. not sarcastic nor snide; purely befuddled — the simple cluelessness of someone who has never been come onto, can't put together that he's being come onto, and is faced with what seems to be a complete conversational non-sequitor. [break][break]

keenan's tearful reaction to being handed a portable charger — like a man in a desert coming across an oasis, he notes with a measure of bemusement — is a welcome shift in the discussion away from nagi's state of undress. [break][break]

"most decently-sized electronics stores should have them." he types as he speaks — managing, for the first time in the day, to get through a whole phrase without a single misspelling. the loading bar stretches, agonisingly slow, over the top of the page. "there are more affordable varieties." he hms, and adds. "even the lower-end ones are a good investment if you get stranded in forests a lot." [break][break]

the map on his screen lights up. [break][break]

Petalburg Ranch via Petalburg Woods [break]
     19min[break]
     1.5km[break][break]

eyes on the dotted blue path traced out by his map app, he reaches down to give whitney an encouraging pat on the head.[break][break]

"not too far. let's... try to step around the mud puddles, instead of into them, from now."[break][break]

he says it to the mareep, but the advice is sound enough for every member in their messy, muddy train.
[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] Keenan Toral [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

it's nagi's turn to blush.[break][break]

red spreads up, splotchy and vibrant over the back of his neck to his cheeks. he's possessed by a sudden, juvenile urge to pull up his hoodie, tug on the strings and cocoon his burning face deep in the fabric. [break][break]

"ah, that's. hm." he picks at the frayed ends of the drawstrings instead. "... i'd get weird around anyone with no clothes, to be fair."[break][break]

he's been called an assorted variety of 'a's in the short course of his life. "annoying" is common; "asshole" is frequent. "abjectly terrible" is a fun descriptor he came across once, in a review of tales.[break][break]

adorable is a first.[break][break]

he's still gathering his wits when keenan plunges out of view.[break][break]

the sight of the mud-variant muk emerging from the dirt before snaps nagi out of his stupor. he pulls out a wad of napkins from his bag, holding them out to keenan as the other man attempts to wipe the mud painted over his face. [break][break]

“here,” he says. “you’ve got a bit of mud left on your —” he starts to point a finger at his chin, winces, and then switches to gesturing in the general, vague and extensive direction of keenan’s entire front. “... everywhere.” [break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] Keenan Toral [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

keenan's swan-dive into mud appeases whatever fickle gods are looking down upon them. the rest of their journey goes uneventfully, with nagi eyeing the road ahead, careful to point out any potholes in their path before anyone in their conga line of lost lambs can sink their feet into them again. [break][break]

they pick their slow, steady way between pools of still rainwater and fallen branches — until, finally, the trees start to thin, and the worn, red siding of a barn comes into view, just beyond the boundary of the woods. [break][break]

at the sight of it, the mareep starts to bleat. it noses at both of their hands, baas high and cheerful in what nagi assumes is sheep-ish thanks, before prancing off to the green pastures ahead.[break][break]

with one final glance at his screen to ensure that they didn't deposit their princess at the wrong castle, nagi slips his phone into his pocket, watching the brown-speckled coat of the mareep shrink into the distance. [break][break]

"right, then." he looks sideways at keenan. "... i'll go ask around about that hose."
[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] Keenan Toral [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]