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POSTED ON Aug 28, 2024 8:28:37 GMT

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[player]https://file.garden/ZpgjcajufVyGrPnv/ADRIAN%20MALCOLM/MP3/everything%20works%20out%20in%20the%20end%20(%20slowed%20%20reverb%20)%20%5Bbest%20part%20looped%5D.mp3[/player]^{kodaline - everything works out in the end (looped)}[break]
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Adrian had not seen or heard of Rowan after disembarking towards Sootopolis. Had he lived? Had he died? Normally, he might have been worried sick... But it seemed neither of them had stayed in touch. The hand stroking through Howitzer's fur pulls away for a second, that he could fidget with the otherworldly ring that constricted his finger, causing light irritation.[break][break]

Everything was going contrary to his expectations... Life was strange.[break][break]

- WHILE YOU WERE AWAY -

[break]

It was here he'd found his comfort, a moment of clarity—time enough to process his thoughts... And he had thought little of others. Only himself, his pokemon. Perhaps that made him selfish...[break][break]

But he did not recoil at this newfound apathy.[break][break]

...Still, a small part of him felt guilty, and his curiosity gets the best of him as he attempts to contact Rowan through a messenger service...[break][break]

All he sends is a picture of where he's sitting.[break][break]

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ARMISTICE DAY

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April 14th

Wyndon, Galar

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Grunt

Ex-Rocket Beast

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POSTED ON Sept 1, 2024 3:17:13 GMT

Adrian Malcolm likes this

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[attr="class","rowwtw"]"Hey, stranger." Rowan smiled softly as he approached, Team Rocket disguise shed in the aftermath of the battle. "Mind if I sit?" A seemingly rhetorical question as he sat down on the shale beside Adrian. [break][break]

A soft sigh escaped his lips, the strength leaving his body with the adrenaline of battle. "I'm glad to see you're okay, both of you." Rowan reached up and rubbed the back of his neck, unsure how to compose himself.[break][break]

Everything had happened so fast, there hadn't been any time to discuss where the two of them stood. "None of my Pokémon died, but my house is a flooded mess." The clothes he wore were damp, salvaged from what wearable in his abode. [break][break]

"Adrian..." He trailed off, unsure how to broach the subject.
[attr="class","rowwttag"]Adrian Malcolm

[attr="class","rowwtpokes"][break]

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Fonz

Masculine

October 19

Sootopolis City

Bisexual

N/A

6'1" height

I picked the stitches, now I can't stop bleeding

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TAG WITH @fonz

POSTED ON Sept 1, 2024 4:39:54 GMT

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Why shouldn't he sit? This was his place... or so one might believe. Adrian's narrow-sighted nature works against him now, as he stops fidgeting with his trinkets, putting them away to give Rowan his undivided attention. There's a pleased look he wears—but for him, it's almost forced—acting out of expectation, rather than coming naturally.[break][break]

...When had it started, Adrian wondered quietly.[break][break]

"M' glad you made it in one piece, too," he offered in solidarity. It would have wasted so much precious effort, and dashed away a thousand-thousand memories, for it to have ended any other way. But still, he felt to be under great duress. Something worked under his skin...[break][break]

...Something about Rowan, as he was now.[break][break]

"Suppose you made out well, if that's the worst of it," he offered with a faintly humored, chiding remark. Why can't I just be happy? What is this feeling that troubles me so...[break][break]

Masking his emotions doesn't seem to help avoid the underlying issue. Rowan calls out to him in a way that betrays his emotional awareness—they've seen right through to him. Perhaps that's to be expected, when you share someone's life...[break][break]

Adrian allows his eyes to flicker over to Rowan, seeing how they struggle to find their place beside him. It's not something he feels alone.[break][break]

"There's a point back there where I realized," Adrian begins, choking out the words.[break][break]

"You had chosen something without me." It was meant in more ways than one.[break][break]

It wasn't just that Adrian felt betrayed—surely he could be forgiven for feeling that way—but it was how, it seemed to him, there had been no considerations made for him. He had fallen out of the equation almost entirely, it seemed.[break][break]

"And I don't think I agreed with any of it."[break]

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ARMISTICE DAY

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April 14th

Wyndon, Galar

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Grunt

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POSTED ON Sept 1, 2024 5:01:12 GMT

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[attr="class","rowwt"]

[attr="class","rowwtw"]"I know." He spoke softly now, his tone somber. If only he'd possessed clarity then to truly understand what he wanted, as he did now. Rowan scooted closer to Adrian, reaching out to take theirs in his own, if they allowed. "I'm sorry, for the person I was."[break][break]

A bullet to the head was often the end to ones journey, but Rowan felt as though his was just beginning. The person he once had been was confused and unable to be happy with what he had, Rowan cursed that version of himself with every waking moment. [break][break]

"You...fell in love with someone deeply broken, someone who had their freedom stripped from them all their life and became so...selfish because of it." His voice waivered, on the edge of breaking.[break][break]

Rowan reached up with his free hand, pulling the blindfold away from his face, the first time he'd done so in front of another person. Scar tissue spidered outward from his eye socket, the damage unable to be fully repaired even with the healing power of a Legendary Pokémon. [break][break]

"I'm still broken..." He choked out, on the verge of tears, feeling more vulnerable than he had in months of captivity.[break][break]

"...but I know what I want now, who I want."
[attr="class","rowwttag"]Adrian Malcolm

[attr="class","rowwtpokes"][break]

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Fonz

Masculine

October 19

Sootopolis City

Bisexual

N/A

6'1" height

I picked the stitches, now I can't stop bleeding

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POSTED ON Sept 1, 2024 9:56:13 GMT

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Adrian can see that Rowan has grown—perhaps enough that this conclusion was final. He'd never a reason to doubt Rowan's resolve... It was simply that he couldn't stomach what he'd committed to. Leaving him alone while he pursued his own agenda—he had his misgivings about that—but when had Adrian ever been inclusive of Rowan, in his similar endeavors?[break][break]

Yveltal had trampled over his life—and never had he allowed Rowan near that side of him. It was different, sure, but he could never hold that againt Rowan without accepting the hypocrisy. But the part of him that, despite any rationalization, came crawling back to Team Rocket...[break][break]

Maybe he didn't understand just how bad it was. But to him it was nothing short of Stockholm syndrome. Gavin had damaged Rowan enough, poisoned his mind and broke his body—no sane person would forget that. Could forgive that.[break][break]

That was part of the cancer, the CHANGE in Rowan, that nurtured the divide. The part of him that could allow murderer and brother to coexist. Maybe this, too, was something Adrian could be accused of—perhaps a parallel could be drawn to illustrate the double standard. But Adrian could not see how Rowan could afford to live with himself after. How he could ask Adrian to overlook it, knowing full well the culprit?[break][break]

But that was not all that troubled him.[break][break]

In abandoning him and leaving him to be... In deciding where it was they, together, might be happiest... Adrian felt he was denied any agency in their relationship. Why could he not give voice to his stakes? Rowan had not seen his heart.[break][break]

"Rowan..." Dropping the use of his pet name, Adrian tried to level with him, though he found himself exhausted by the tedium of choosing his words carefully. Where to even begin...?[break][break]

Adrian wears a troubled, furled brow.[break][break]

"...I fell for that perfectly flawed idiot." They didn't have to be perfect, or always right, or always acting towards their shared interest—there were so many things that could be forgiven.[break][break]

But this...? This was just insane.[break][break]

"You... threw away a chance I've been looking for for so, so long—to appease someone who—who might've killed you," Adrian manages crossly, his disappointment apparent. As far as he saw it, Rowan very well may have died that day...[break][break]

They had broke him down, and made him their own. Adrian wasn't sure he could reconcile, being so unsure of Rowan's volatility, of the sanctity of his mind. There could be no trust after this.[break][break]

Adrian's already taken their hand into his, but he's taken to shaking his head slowly, his chin dipping low while he tries to express himself in earnest.[break][break]

"I don't think you realize WHO you've chosen," he allows himself to utter, dispirited.[break][break]

'...And to think we spent a lifetime together.'[break][break]

The stars shine shakily against his eyes.[break][break]

"...'Cause I don't think it was ME."[break][break]

Adrian shows a moment of vulnerability: Clearly distraught by the day's events, and of the revelations and consequences leading up to them, he seems to be drifting away from Rowan... Or Rowan from him.

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ARMISTICE DAY

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Banished

He/Him/His

April 14th

Wyndon, Galar

Bisexual

Grunt

Ex-Rocket Beast

5'10 height

It's a long way forward, so trust in me.

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POSTED ON Sept 8, 2024 1:27:02 GMT

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[attr="class","rowwtw"]A few moments passed where Rowan didn't speak, unable to form the words necessary. What could he possibly say to make this better? No words could ease the pain he'd passed onto Adrian with his past actions, unbreak the heart he'd broken. "Adrian..." The beginning of a sentence croaked out, gently squeezing their hand in a subconscious effort to ground himself.[break][break]

"...You're right." His tone was defeated in the face of their truth, laden with remorse for their circumstance. "How...do I fix this?" Rowan thought that dying had freed him of his fear, but there was terror welling up inside of him in this moment. He didn't want to lose Adrian, not after everything they'd been through.[break][break]

"You're still here because part of you hasn't given up on me, right?" He looks into their eyes, pleading. "Let me earn that love again, Adrian...please." It was obvious Rowan was sincere in his request, he wanted to things to be right between them again and would do anything to that end.

[attr="class","rowwttag"]Adrian Malcolm

[attr="class","rowwtpokes"][break]

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Fonz

Masculine

October 19

Sootopolis City

Bisexual

N/A

6'1" height

I picked the stitches, now I can't stop bleeding

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POSTED ON Sept 8, 2024 7:30:34 GMT

Rowan Wrynn likes this

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Adrian doesn't push off the CONTACT, but their touch is something of a bother—like when a stranger becomes too familiar. He feels a compulsive need to wash his hands of it...[break][break]

He offers a faint grin, but it's ingenuine. The pad of his thumb keeps drawing delicate circles against their hand, a soothing gesture, perhaps consoling... "I don't know if you can."[break][break]

It's not as though he hadn't given it a thought.[break][break]

The worst of it was that it wasn't even Rowan's fault. He might have made the choices, or acted under the guise of autonomy—but Cillian's interference, that act of subversion—it compromised everything Rowan was or had been up until then. And everything that came after?[break][break]

It had to be put under a microscope of scrutiny.[break][break]

It's hard to look into his eyes—but he tries.[break][break]

"...You're welcome to try, but..."[break][break]

Spanning between them was a vast rift...[break][break]

"I can't just force it—even for you."[break][break]

His lips draw into a pout as he discloses his thoughts. They had shared years together—and a lifetime in preternatural mediocrity—only to somehow end up growing apart... It must seem so strange and sudden to Rowan, and even to Adrian.[break][break]

But there was always a part of him that could never commit—and had only settled for that distant dream they shared, whiling away eternity...[break][break]

"I'll give you that chance... But," he makes a grab for his offhand, wresting the strange stone jewel from his ring finger, leaving it clasped in their palms—and withdraws their contact.[break][break]

"...You should keep this, until then..."[break][break]

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ARMISTICE DAY

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He/Him/His

April 14th

Wyndon, Galar

Bisexual

Grunt

Ex-Rocket Beast

5'10 height

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POSTED ON Sept 16, 2024 2:24:11 GMT

Adrian Malcolm likes this

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[attr="class","rowwtw"]The weight in Rowan's palm was familiar, known to the former Beast before he even looked down. "I see." He swallowed, hard. Emotion would need to be stifled for the moment, Adrian didn't deserve to feel guilty after everything he'd done to bring them to this point. "I will take good care of it." [break][break]

Voice trembled ever so slightly as Rowan slipped the ring into his jacket pocket, feeling his chest similarly sink into the blackness all the while wearing an insincere smile on his face. "Hopefully one day, then..." [break][break]

Rowan pushed himself up from the rocks abruptly, stepping away from Adrian to wrap his face in the dark cloth once more, discreetly wiping away tears that formed. "Are you planning on staying with Rocket?"[break][break]

It was a question that deemed asking, considering Adrian had only remained for his own sake after he'd defected to the League. "You don't owe Cillian anything, anymore." Whether or not that was fully true, Rowan didn't know.
[attr="class","rowwttag"]Adrian Malcolm

[attr="class","rowwtpokes"][break]

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Fonz

Masculine

October 19

Sootopolis City

Bisexual

N/A

6'1" height

I picked the stitches, now I can't stop bleeding

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POSTED ON Sept 16, 2024 8:21:44 GMT

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It felt worse than anything he'd done to someone before. A MISTAKE?[break][break]

"Please do." It had meant the world, once.[break][break]

He's not sure. But he wouldn't back down now. At least for the moment, he wanted SPACE to himself. He needed time to dig deep into himself, and find out what really mattered. Beyond physical and emotional needs. But what was Adrian Malcolm prepared to stake his life on—or risk it for? WAS IT ROWAN?[break][break]

And then there was Cillian and his sins...[break][break]

...So much to be reconciled with, or not at all.[break][break]

Yet he hated to see Rowan like this. Defeated. He choked down the empathy, and tried to ignore the tremble in their syllables as they sounded out the words. But he still had to listen and bear it.[break][break]

"I don't think there's anything out there for me, Row," he nearly sobbed back to him.[break][break]

"I think this is all I have left." Him and a wish; Howitzer whined at Rowan's withdrawal.[break][break]

IT WOULD HAVE TO BE ENOUGH.
[break]