when elijah is not toiling under the slateport sun, he works out of the quietest corner of oldale. there, with his chipped wood door, overgrown drawers, and rooted chairs, he hides away like a drilbur.[break][break]

away from the metal disconnect of the submarine. away from the convoluted circuitry of society, the sharp bioelectricity of presence. of touch.[break][break]

elijah pulls the newspaper down from his face. he grumbles and crumples the latest hnn, tossing it aside for his gogoat to chew.[break][break]

"hello." the apothecary makes it a point to cut his greeting at the proper length. "whaddya need?"

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"]

ambrose orion

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

he needs oh so many things. he needs some bubbly prosecco and he needs mila alexopoulos to cut him his newest dress and he needs to lose a couple to wriggle his way into it and he needs someone in his bed tonight and he needs to take vivi to the track otherwise she starts to get antsy.

more than that, he needs to be anywhere but here.

this pocketful of nowhere. this dusty corner of the world that's been left forgotten. he's here by recommendation of friend of a friend of a friend of a friend, about the au naturale remedies that plants can provide.

but saying it out loud sounds stupid so he doesn't. he shifts his weight to the side. the white latex boots creak. a finger traces the knobbly wood of the counter.

"not a fan of the tabloids?" he asks instead with a pretty smile, eyes much like a cat's locking in on their newest toy.

elijah gardner

☉

elijah's lips flatten like the very font he had folded and thrown. his gaze cuts above and across the wooden grain of his table, purposefully placed above the frivolous fingering below.[break][break]

"and you are?" the apothecary says. "they're all sensation, no sense. briefly, his eyes perceive latex and the redundant number of straps. "too showy."[break][break]

he lifts himself from his chair slowly, limbs uncrusting themselves from the furniture like a registeel finally awakening.

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"]

ambrose orion

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

greens half-hidden by the hooded lids of a working man over and done with all the shit in the world thricefold. he's no nonsense, cut and dry; ambrose ought to cut his own losses and meander his way out, but he doesn't do meandering.

or leaving without getting what he wants.

"oh, everyone needs a little sensationalism. what's the point if we can't pretend we're larger than life?" he chuckles and when the man stands, he leans his hip into the counter, lazing with his million dollar smile.

"honestly, i miss when the only newsworthy stories were," and with a sweeping display of his arms, gold bangles clinking against each other, "is top champion kyle lopez a top or bottom? FERNANDO SILPH and Stormy Silph - more than siblings?"

he sighs and then hums, considering. "so why do you read it?"

elijah gardner

☉

the newspaper didn't say the carnival was in town—nor did it say it was making a stop inside his ramshackle shack. [break][break]

"tabloids aren't news." elijah's face crumples, embouchure shifting in compounding discontent as if he were chewing on something bitter and rust-ringed. "but it's all the same now."[break][break]

his eye tracks the hip against the counter. the cacophony of excess dangling from ambrosia's wrists.[break][break]

"i read to remind myself of all the bullshit," elijah says, "now answer my question. what do you want?"

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"]

ambrose orion

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

"that's where you're very, very wrong, mon chéri. there's always truth in there. garish, terrible truths hidden under steaming piles of colorful shit." he would know. sallow photographs, violent slander, a lifetime of climbing and crawling and begging on his hands and knees cut down with knobbly fingers against a keyboard and snap decisions put to paper for the world to see. 

the buttons have been pushed and he delights in seeing the other's face fold in on itself like a moldy pretzel.

it makes it easier, asking. "appetite. the food here is just so unappetizing," he drawls, voice rich as the butter that fills kalosian cuisine. "i hear your paltry pantry is the place to pinch something that might help."

each p annunciated with a drumming of his pointer finger on the counter. 

elijah gardner

☉

the longer ambrose speaks, the more elijah worries for his plants. such hoity-toity language can be poisonous for them: a linguistic overwatering.[break][break]

"so you're a cook?" elijah raises a brow. "let me guess. fine dining?"[break][break]

his gogoat stops chewing the paper and drops the wet, chunked pages.
[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"]

ambrose orion

[break]
[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-gogoat"]

the misunderstanding knifes through him quite painfully, but he can't correct him now. he can't say, 'no, i mean my appetite, for me, so i can eat, because it's hard and some skinny bitch at a show told me certain plants can help and i think it's a load of horse shit, but i will get on my hands and knees now, but for more than one reason actually, even though you probably smell like dirt down there, and also the last time i made mac 'n cheese i forgot to pour the water out before putting the cheese mix in.'

"very astute," he says lavishly, nonplussed at the other's attempted dig.

"mushrooms then? any chanterelles? truffles?" look, just because he can't cook doesn't mean he can't appreciate fine foods. 

elijah gardner

☉

"yeah, i got 'shrooms."[break][break]

elijah is too dense to overcome his preconceptions. there is no doubt in his mind that the noodley nuisance with a penchant for alliteration is able to cook an egg a dozen different ways.[break][break]

"you want them fresh?" he takes a few heavy steps toward the rear-end of the shack. the darkness seems to emanate. "i got 'em fresh."
[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"]

ambrose orion

[break]
[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-gogoat"]

he doesn't say 'i will have no fucking clue what to do with these,' and even though it is self-evident by the slight panic pulling at the corners of his eyes, the nervous scratching of his thumb into the meat of his hand, the other man doesn't seem to notice.

vivi takes one look into the deep dark spooky interior and nopes out, wishing ambrose luck with a fluffy wave and a shake of her hips back out the front door. ambrose swats a pothos curl away from his head and follows.

"what is this place?" he thought it might be an exotic plant store, all gentrified and stuff, but if it's gentrified, the interior hasn't gotten the memo.

into the deep dark they go. a squat piece of furniture sits against a wall. the little workbench has hanging herbs and flowers, littler drawers with scrawl ambrose can't make out, and a couple of bowls with little...clubs beside them? his brows furrow, head sideways, clearly not paying attention as he walks.

elijah gardner

☉

"just someplace to grow shit and if people want to buy it? then it's a win-win for me."[break][break]

elijah's hand reaches for the lightbulb's pull chain and yanks it. it comes to life. barely. it sparks and flickers as the beaded chain swings.[break][break]

alongside what ambrose has catalogued with his nosy eyes are shelves. musty, musky, earthy shelves housing inoculated blocks of substrate. mushrooms grow out from these packed squares, looming outward like curious little lamps.[break][break]

his PARASECT scuttles somewhere in the room.[break][break]

"if it smells like shit, it probably is shit." elijah says. "see anything you like?"
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[attr="class","ooc"]

ambrose orion

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

"lovely," he says dryly, drawing as much snark into the one word as he can manage. the tink of metal tapping against a lightbulb, followed by the swift chk-chk-chk of an old-timey, horror-movie-esque pull is what clues ambrose in that maybe he should stop walking. 

too caught up on shit, on trying to access empty library shelves in his brain where an answer might be to 'do mushrooms grow from shit,' he is too slow to stop. 

especially in his heels, he has a considerable few inches on the man, and so it is all the more embarrassing when he walks right into him like an airheaded ninny. whatever semblance of sophistication he felt he held over him is gone as he rights himself, brushing away the embarrassed heat in his cheeks.

he does not apologize.

"those," he says, waving a hand at some ruddy colored caps. reishi. not at all cooking mushrooms because of course he finds the one thing that might undo his little fib. 

"where do you even get shit?"

elijah gardner

☉

"the mushroom of immortality."[break][break]

elijah raises a brow, debating whether to be pleased or skeptical of ambrose's selection. nevertheless, he is quick to grab the corky stem of one to twist off.[break][break]

"dementia run in the family? you got a cold sore?"[break][break]

after his plethora of questions, he answers his colorful customer finally:[break][break]

"from my ass."
[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"]

ambrose orion

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