"Why not?" he asked. He doesn't ask but it's obvious he's making the connections in his head. So much of the gym challenge in Galar was the crowds, the notoriety across the region the further and further you went. So was he just really good as suffering through them? Had it all been for battling? [break][break]

"It was...a long day...I'd never actually been in the forest for that long." He'd also never walked that far, and while he had been a bit knowledgeable about building a shelter and finding water- none of that mattered when he was too weak to go more than a couple of miles and misidentifying plants. [break][break]

He blushes, embarrassed at the memory. He'd touched it thinking it something normal at first and then before the rashes kicked in he fell after tripping over a root. They'd found him tangled and dragging it around, covered in mud with his glasses cracked. The last one back for a good couple of hours. And swollen like a pufferfish no less. [break][break]

"Yeah...I couldn't move much because the itching got so bad I sat down and scratched instead of walking." That and he'd given up on getting out without somebody else's help. That unit had been to give kids a leg up if they managed to get into the Gym Challenge, which was many of them. After all, it was a popular thing. Andres hadn't cared much for it...until Onyx had shown him he did.

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+ onyx straub [break][break]

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Andres watches, looking back at the stars to keep Onyx form feeling like a fish in a tank. He hadn't known that and it felt...odd. Different. Very few things bothered Onyx. He wouldn't thought his fears- dislikes would've been something more different. Not contradictory to what Andres knew him as: confident and wild and- [break][break]

He pushes the thoughts down as the word strong comes up, a memory of bone meeting metal flashing for a moment. He dared not think about those things while with Onyx. He didn't know what it'd make him do- or say. [break][break]

So when Onyx moves on, so does he, happy to forget. Eager to, in fact. "Well, there was a reason I didn't like PE." Team sports, cardio, basketball shorts too big on his skinny frame, borderline asthma- The list had been endless. He never excelled like that, not matter how much he'd wanted to. [break][break]

And As he says that the world id dyed blue, then yellow. Trails of colorful like cross creating a faint green for a moment before separating again. "Yeah...I guess you're right." he sips from his glass, awed by the poor Minior. For once he was at peace, his mind slowing down and focusing on a single thing again. "It's the one good thing I found out there." he said.

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+ onyx straub [break][break]

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Distantly, there's the sound of excited barking at Chuchi finds and herds away another Minior to who knows where. It doesn't break Andres' concentration. He doesn't turn to Onyx, not noticing the man's eye on him. [break][break]

He smiles before opening his mouth to correct something as she realized he misspoke. "It's one of good things I've found out here." He doesn't dare look at Onyx, dare offer insight. He only grins at the night sky before downing the last of his glass and setting it back down with care on the picnic blanket.


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+ onyx straub [break][break]

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"Do you hide out here when you're not visiting me?" Andres asked, shifting himself so he can wrap his arms aorund his knees and rest his chin on his arms. He really had no idea where Onyx went when he wasn't appearing out of thin air in his apartment. [break][break]

He hadn't know where the man had left to fully recover. His home had been offered, of course, but...he hadn't stayed. And of course he'd worried but... here Onyx was. Having a picnic under the stars and talking about their lives together. It gives him a sense of relief. It felt like Onyx cared enough to let him know he was ok. In his own way. [break][break]

Or at least trusted him enough to drop his dying body at his door step. He digs his nails into his arms trying to push away thoughts of the hospital and the surgery and Onyx- [break][break]

A squeeze of his eyes and the memory is gone, suppressed. Andres would never gather up the courage to really say what he's thinking. It was better to just set it aside and forget.

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+ onyx straub [break][break]

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Andres blinks, slow and stupid as Onyx spoke. "What?" He processes it all slow. Like what Onyx said hadn't been buck wild. He stays still, frozen as the gears in his brain turn the word 'submarine' over in his brain. And then something in his brain makes him jump right over that slip of the tongue, ignoring it in favor of hotel sheets. [break][break]

His own linens and the dried blood on his balcony something he'd had to deal with too. How many times had he stopped to cry the day after? Even more after Onyx disappeared from the hospital. [break][break]

His nails dig into his jacket as he tried to keep his thoughts from wandering. "You were bleeding out. I wanted to make sure you were ok." Andres said firmly, eyes on the grass and the stars. "You picked the worst time to not impose." He added, voice shaking as he forced it level, not wanting to be angry with Onyx. [break][break]

"I wish you hadn't avoided me after the hospital." Maybe it was a pride thing, but then Onyx was forgetting he'd already seen him laid so low.


[break][break]

+ onyx straub [break][break]

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

Despite choosing to ignore word choice, Onyx doubled down. His head buzzes when he says Rocket. He doesn't think, lifting his head and snapping golden brown eyes at Onyx as a streak of pink blooms in the sky, scattering out of place mood lightning. The shivers that run his back aren't the usual goosebumps he gets around Onyx. [break][break]

It feels like their reunion all over again. With his survival instincts screaming at him to turn back, to run and Andres frozen in place. Then again, Andres was never a man of action. So this was no different to anything in the past. [break][break]

To Onyx its nothing, but to Andres, it's catastrophic. Horrifying. It's a life sentence. He shakes under the weight of the realization as he put pieces together. His brain races to process, to understand and suppress the emotion suddenly bubbling in his chest and his eyes. His hands curled into fists as he stares Onyx down in the darkness. [break][break]

He can't stop Onyx as he talks. Part of him softens and grows warm. Sympathy, affection, flattery. The other half grows hard and cold. Logic that begs he run back home and take a sabbatical. Make himself scarce like he had in Galar.

Everything Onyx said half registers with the undertone of a building fury- an indignancy he can't quite place. Was he protective? Was he jsut angry Onyx had done so stupid? Did it matter? Did he have a right to feel so possessive? [break][break]

Andres wants to comfort Onyx but he's about to snap. He wants to tell him to shut up and at the same time he knows if he does this badly Onyx would never tell him something this personal ever again. His breathing strains to keep up with his racing pulse. He takes the glass and watches him finish at his own peace while knocking back the wine like a jello shot. Its gone in 3 gulps before he sets it down. Wine drops dribble out of his mouth. He doesn't care. [break][break]

"What the fuck, Onyx?"

[break][break]

He cuts through the mood, the softness. The vulnerability of it all that he can't even take care of. Because he cannot suppress this. The question holds so much weight. Because why the fuck did he think it was ok to- to just- [break][break]

"Rocket?!"

[break][break]

Because here he was worrying and panicking and losing his mtoher fucking mind over this stupid, stupid man and he's explaining how he didn't consider- didn't think Andres cared. And he does. He cares so fucking much. He had never stopped fucking caring about Onyx and it felt like such a slap in the face.ike he was still invisible, and trying so hard to reach him and never quite catching. Frustration boils over in full display as his jaw clenched shut. A pair of eyes flash from the tall grass. Chuchi had crawled back towards the picnic sensing distress. [break][break]

"Ohmy GODS! Onyx, I forgive you for not realizing I give a fuck about you- but what the fuck?!" He runs hands through his hair. He can't balance conflicting emotions like this. He wants to hold Onyx and throw him at the same time. Chuchi waited, chewing on a poor pink Minior and waiting for Andres' orders.


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+ onyx straub | CONFIDANTS BUT NEVER FRIENDS. WERE WE EVER FRIENDS? [break][break]

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