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[attr="class","wiingtop3"]BI ING BI ING

[attr="class","wiingtop4"]EVEN THE REVOLVING EARTH, AS IF MOCKING ME, KEEPS TWISTING AND TURNING

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Lam spent a fair amount of his alone time in the bird house. But when he stole away these days, it wasn’t to see the pidove that roosted there. Well, for the most part. Tucked away in the desk in the corner, he’d hidden a pokeball– and it was there that he let the shiny stunky out to stretch its legs and have some socialization. “You are a gift,” he’d told it the first time he set them loose and cradled them in the crook of his cast-arm. “A really super special gift. And I want you to be a friendly one.” Unlike his own stunky, who liked to set off stink bombs for fun. Though Rook coddled even that one as much as his own.[break][break]
As far as stunky went, this one had a pretty nice disposition, and didn’t really require all that much temperament training luckily. Sweet and lazy–and obviously keen on being pampered, rather than spend its time trotting around the confines of the birdhouse, it wasted no time in draping itself over Lam’s lap to accept the idle smoothing of Lam’s hand over its fur. His own stunky’s fur was sorta coarse, but this one was plush and soft. Attention given to the brushing of its bright magenta and cream fur whenever Lam let it loose.[break][break]
“Think we can pull this off?” he asked them absently, which only earned a purr from the pokemon. Reaching into the drawer again, he fished for the ring box hidden behind a bunch of brushes and paint tubes in the back of his drawer.[break][break]
As he let the stunky droop its chin on his plaster cast arm, his fingers scratched at its belly. His other hand flipped open the snap lid of the box with his thumb so he could look at the contents. Two rings nested together, but it was the one with the inscription of Rookidee on the inner side of the band that he smoothed over with a finger, a dopily soft smile perched on his lips. Rubbing away a smudge against the white gold he thought he saw. “Maybe the matching rings are too corny,” he muttered, “maybe all of it is.”[break][break]
It was pointless fretting. And the stunky emphasized this by cracking one eye open at him, and then promptly shutting it again as it hunkered down closer for more attention. “Yeah, you’re right. He loves that sorta thing.” Lam knew that the superficial concerns weren’t the real source of his nerves. All of them borne from that night after the island.[break][break]
The what ifs about his job and his safety and Rook’s safety. The instant self-chiding that immediately followed the thought as he reminded himself that Rook had told him he didn’t need protecting. Sure, by the time he actually…did this, it would have been a few months later and it had mostly blown over and he wasn’t actively getting himself hurt, but… [break][break]
Dumb. He was being dumb.[break][break]
He shouldn’t have been worrying about whether or not Rook would say yes. He’d been given no reason to think he’d say no. Maybe that was just a natural part of the whole ordeal– he didn’t know. It wasn’t like he’d ever proposed to someone before, let alone entertain the idea that he actually wanted that finality with someone. Not before Rook anyway.[break][break]
He couldn’t even smoke to mellow those jitters, because knew as soon as he did, the secret would come tumbling out. And he felt that nervousness at a near constant rate now, always humming in the back of his mind. Ever since he’d affixed a date to it, despite having this stupid set of rings since the summertime. After Sinnoh. He just couldn’t shake the subtle feeling that he was so obvious, or that Rook would know he was up to something at least.[break][break]
There was excitement too, of course. The thrill that came with knowing what he wanted, and how he wanted to spend the rest of his life. The surety in it, and the butterflies that erupted in his stomach at the imagining of how Rook would react, and the look on his face that Lam tried to picture. None of his ideas would do the real thing justice. This right here was a symbol of what mattered most to him. That everything they’d fought about, all those responsibilities and obligations and pressures fell to the wayside next to this. Next to Rook.[break][break]
“Lam, you out there?”[break][break]
The sound of his voice made Lam startle, like his aggressive, spiraled thinking had summoned Rook right to him. His shoulders hitched, fists closing tight around the velvet box. Hopefully the sound of its hinge snapping shut was muffled enough and didn’t echo through the space to reach Rook’s ears. Okay, maybe that was a little bit paranoid.[break][break]
“Uhh, yeah!” he called back, scrambling to replace the box back in the far corner of the drawer before gingerly sliding it shut. “I’ll be right there.” He made a show of scattering some more seed for the excited pidove, who flocked to the new feeding spot. His hand smoothed over the plush fur of the stunky again.[break][break]
“Sorry, friend,” Lam cooed, scratching their ears as a low rumble came from their throat. His own voice dropped to a hush “Time to go back into hiding. I’ll come back and let you exercise some more later, okay?” The pokemon tilted their head, demanding one last pat before it disappeared back into its pokeball again.[break][break]
A plaintive noise followed the question that had been called out. A sure sign that if Lam didn’t hustle he’d be met with more whining, or Rook would finally give up and come into the room. Which normally wasn’t an issue, but the last thing he wanted was to be caught red handed. He tucked the pokeball next to the box and slid the drawer shut again once his decoy supplies filled the front space of it again.[break][break]
“Coming!” he called, hoping he’d managed to assuage his partner. Just in time, too, as he met Rook in the doorway. “I guess it’s time to go?” An astute observation delivered as he registered the sight of Rook in his coat, shoes on.[break][break]
“You think?”[break][break]
He grabbed his own off the hook, awkwardly slipping it on as one sleeve caught on his bulky cast. He definitely wasn’t gonna miss that. “Okay, let’s go get this thing off.” It was a relief, really. One less visible reminder of their argument from weeks ago, and his consequential guilt over worrying Rook.[break][break]
A surer hope that things would only go up from here. He just had to successfully keep it a secret for a little while longer, and not blow his own cover.

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1227 words

[attr="class","wiingbot2"]post-rt / mid-late novemberish

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