Kepler went sixteen rounds with the Doordash driver before finally giving in and heading off into the great unknown. He knew, for a fact, the store had his favorite flavor of Bangs in stock, but the delivery driver kept asking for substitutions. No matter. Kepler would just go out and get his own.

Except he hated going outside. The last time he’d done it, he’d been kidnapped and almost sacrified, then forced to run around half naked and soaking wet fighting cultists. Being in Rocket was supposed to stop him from having to do this stuff. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t far enough up the ladder to be able to call in any executive perks, but he did have a low enough pride threshold to do one thing:

Do you want to go to the grocery store with me, he texted to Isaac Merlo , I’ll buy lunch or smth.

His logic was strong: going in pairs reduced the risk of kidnapping, and he already knew Isaac was capable of taking care of himself. His own self. Not Kepler’s self. Though he wouldn’t mind that, either.

Flanked by his newly evolved Combusken Gaia, and his ever-present companion, Mercury, Kepler stepped off the bus and shaded his eyes against the glaring, out doors light. Any outdoor light looked painfully bright after absorbing the boreal halogen of the sub. Devoid of Flying-types, he’d asked Isaac to meet him at the transit stop just across from the store.

Ashley Shepard Isaac Merlo

☉

Listen, the boy had anxiety. He didn’t think cultist ninjas were going to jump out of the Hoennian wilderness and kidnap him while he was ass deep in weather balloon foil, either, but Arceus loved to make Kepler uncomfortable.

Also, if he had to be honest… it was nice, feeling like he had a friend.

Gaia and Mercury both waved. Kepler looked down at the grocery list on his phone, feeling slightly embarrassed that he’d come out to meet a friend with his Fire-types out like freakin’ bodyguards. “Hey.”

Isaac did the nice thing and heralded him into the grocery store, and Kepler did admit he calmed down a little.

“So how’s it been?” he asks, voice flat, disconnected. Normal Kepler programming. If it’s not science he ain’t hype for it. “Murdered any other cultists?” It’s flippant, detached, a flimsy screen of humor used to protect, deflect. Normal programming.

He almost jumps out of his fucking skin when the stranger approaches them; so much for his bodyguards. But the person just seems to be friends with Isaac. Not a strange instance, given that Kepler was here for that selfsame reason. Or, rather, Isaac was here with Kepler for that reason.

Ashley Shepard Isaac Merlo

☉

"Sounds like you've been busy."

The point of contact at Kepler’s wrist is both strange and comforting, and Kep flushes red immediately, given that Isaac is, essentially, holding his hand to stop him from freaking out or turning around and rabbit bolting right into oncoming traffic. Which may be preferable at this time, given that Kepler apparently needed his fucking hand held.

“Real chill,” Kepler parrots, sarcasm-high, voice hitched up on the back half of his panic, and he clears his throat. “It’s fine. I got kidnapped recently. I’m still a little jumpy.” And that, really, should explain that. Because how many people do you run into that have been kidnapped? It’s probably pretty uncommon and, also, should be a blanket statement explanation for why I have problems.

“Thank you. My parents picked it out.” The sarcasm is still strong with this one, but at least his heartbeat is regulating.

Ashley continued to talk and Kepler forced himself to look up, stop being a shying violet and acting like you’re going to faint at any given time.

“We can split lunch?” he finally says, forcing his vocal chords into action, determined to not, at least, be a total asshole. Even if he mouthed off too much. “Least I can do for dragging you all the way out here to babysit me, Isaac.”

Ashley Shepard Isaac Merlo
local dweeb attempts making friends

☉

He doesn’t even realize the faux pas. Kepler doesn’t socialize much. Isaac jumps in to help explain things but doesn’t really help, at all. “It’s rather a short story, actually,” he adds, equally as unhelpfully. But he squints up at Isaac when he mentions Mew-Man.

He doesn’t realize Ashley’s been staring at him, waiting for the punch line. There is no punch line, Ash-- or if there was, it’s just Kepler’s life.

Funny. Kepler looks back towards the ground. “Thanks.” Actually, I’m brilliant, dies on the back of his tongue, because no, Kepler, this is how you alienate yourself, and then you have no friends to help you when your bullies handcuff you to a chair on a trampoline.

Another long story.

So he tells the truth. “I don’t get that one a lot.”

Isaac chimes in with splitting ingredients and Kepler squints at him, again. When was he going to understand this boy? His gaze flashes from Isaac to Ashley and back, because apparently, they were all in on the same plan.

“I was just going to buy you food. From a restaurant.” He makes a vague gesture around them. “We’re in Mauville. The whole place is a stove, essentially.”

Kepler could calculate inertia’s effect on a supply line to the moon without blinking, but he could not cook. Which was ironic because it was essentially just chemistry. Eurgh, chemists.

Ashley Shepard Isaac Merlo
the autism is strong in this one

☉

And lo, Isaac and Kepler engaged in a very strange, very comical battle of facial expressions intended to replace an actual verbal conversation about what the fuck was Mew-Man and Isaac really doesn’t want to tell this story again does he and that was kind of why they were friends.

You could’ve mentioned Schrodinger’s cat, Isaac; Kepler’s a physicist. He gets it.

An unusual sense of humor. Kepler’s face heats at the praise, such that it is. He was used to being called unusual, though usually it was you fuckin’ weirdo and pinned in place by a clenched fist.

What he doesn’t understand is this apparent mutual desire to, like, scrounge for ingredients and cook a meal. Kepler frowns, bottom lip sticking out in slight petulance.

“I don’t much care for adventure,” he says, but goes along when the other two go, because he may be nervous but he’s not stuck so deep in the mud that he can’t be flexible.

He thought about what he was craving and didn’t come up with food-- instead, he saw his lab. Smelled the autoclave. Light gleaming off the metallic surfaces. His spectrophotometer, curettes all in a line.

“Seafood sounds fine,” he says, punching the nerd in him back down into hell where it belongs. “But if you’re cooking--,” and he emphasized the you’re over the we’re, “--I better not get food poisoning.”

Because, what the hell. Let’s camp in Mauville. Why the friggidy fuck not.

Ashley Shepard Isaac Merlo
the autism is strong in this one

☉