'i'd rather feel pain than nothing at all.'

parker doesn't rip her wrist away from him. no need. she's certain, avatar powers or not, she could clobber him before he could get those stupid, clunky swords (swords, really?) in the way. 

"slapping some sense inta ya," she says, lip curling. "thinkin' a punch woulda been better."

quite suddenly, it comes to her that maybe, just maybe, someone has died. it's not abnormal in their line of work and with his standing in the ol' machine, him and his loved ones see more action than she does. 

well, than she used to, anyway. 

so before she tells him to shut the fucking music off, she decides to be somewhat tactful. 

"who pissed in your cheerios this mornin'?"

jayden cross

☉

parker still spends most of her time in her old apartment in slateport. her dickhead slum lord had tried to extort her when she came back with her tail between her legs, but a firm reminder that parker could break every bone in his body had given her back her shitty, square box. 

the box that had once contained all of her belongings and is now populated with a tv console, a tv, a gamecube, and a blow-up mattress. 

nomi wanted to stay in sootopolis - close to rocket, close to the wreckage, close to the stupid insurance hq. something like that. parker hadn't really listened. she'd just listlessly accepted that the one step forward they'd taken together had become two steps back. 

parker answers the door stone-faced, but bits of her old self are tempted to the surface by aurelie's tantalizing handful of goods. her mouth waters instantly. all five of her stomachs growl in unison. she reaches out to help her with all the bundles. 

"nomi, aurelie's here," she calls over her shoulder. to the blacksmith, she says, "you're a fuckin' saint."

Naomi Sato Aurelie Lefevre

☉

"oh, bigggg man," she jeers with a smarmy laugh, pitching forward and nearly dragging gideon with her. snot dribbles down her nose from the force of her snorts. the togedemaru running around in the part of her brain that houses her motor skills works double time to keep her steady on her wobbling legs. 

"my hero. my gahhhh-llianananant knight."

she tries her best to shrug him off to prove that she is parker jones and she is invincible and she can do more than walk, she can fly, baby, but somehow she ends up with her ass cracking right back onto the curb. 

her boots split apart a discarded cigarette butt. a half-eaten, mostly flattened bag of chips waves piteously at her in the breeze. she reaches, stomach growling. 

"i frew it at the wall. m'phone. or, emmm, s'm'ne's face. no. wait." she turns her hand over. her knuckles are bruised. "thah wash my fist."

GIDEON GRAVES

☉

clack go the balls. it's a sound that sends a rush of seratonin through her and for a static shock split second, nomi's joy is her own, only she's buck-toothed and freshly black-eyed, and really hungry, and a little scared, and the happiest she's maybe ever been in her entire life. 

it comes, and it washes over her, and then it goes, and as it fades away, she loses it. permanently, she thinks. not the memory, but that feeling. it's tainted by the present, stained orange by salt and too much light. 

so long, she's kept those parts in the dark. it was always easier, shutting off. 

nomi's fingers find her wrist and she startles out of her head, jerking into a freeze with a sharp breath. she trembles. she says - "you're it, nomes. for better 'r worse, you're it. my everything. my all-that's-left."

Naomi Sato

☉

it's all they want. connection. through the blood and tears and the bodies piling up all around them, they want - no, need - a tether to keep them grounded. to keep them from absolutely fucking losing it. it's not about winning this silly, stupid game. this game that means the entire world to her because every clack makes her think of her sister's smile, of sal's laughter.

it's that spark of wonder in nomi's eyes when she completely whiffs it, about that vein of joy that splurts in parker's body when nomi looks at her, pink-cheeked and almost breathless. 

"yeah," she says and when nomi scoops it up again, parker catches her wrist before she can shoot again. she untucks her thumb, carefully readjusts, and says, "not so hard this time. just a little flick. yeah, you got it."

Naomi Sato

☉

parker stares, gaping, in the doorway. jayden is about as emo as they come, as far as rockets go, but even this is just too fucking cliche. she can practically hear the insufferable shitstain singer word-for-word blasting out of his headphones. 

oh my fucking gods.

she steps in, tromps closer, fists her fingers in the back of his hoodie, yanks him upright, and slaps him in the face. 

jayden cross

☉

all that matters is this one-two step 'cause she's like a sharpedo. if she stops, she dies, so it's just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming, and oh, wait, she's singing it out loud and it's drowning out the person talking patiently at her side. 

muddied and muddled, a filter goes over the now and the concrete under her is cobblestone again. mudsdale pull carriages. that same voice in her ear, sounding concerned as ever after the last attack, telling her it's gonna be okay. they'll get home. they'll get back home. 

but she's got no fucking home to go to now. 

"giddyyyy-onnn, you better get giddy-goneee," she slurs, waggling a finger in front of his face. "'fore i gotta pow wow wow y'gain. 'cause what's it matter anymore? all the lines 're gone."

GIDEON GRAVES

☉

cars press in around them. metal screeches. parker rubs the dash as it rumbles and tells her girl to hold it steady, that she can do it, she'll give her so much loving by the time this is all over. the flames don't make it even halfway thanks to nina's carracosta, but some of the steam and smoke does find its way into the cabin. 

parker's eyes smart and she resists the urge to sneeze. 

there, up ahead. the charmeleon drivers veer sideways after realizing they're outclassed and move up to the car hemming parker and nina in. parker waits, and waits, and as soon as she hears a pop on the tires to the right, she yanks the wheel. 

vertigo hits her as she slams her heel in. she jumps ahead of the fuckers to their right as soon as they hit their brakes, rims screeching on asphalt. they sail forward and she sees her. 

a few cars ahead, hunched like a purrloin over her bike, golden mane streaming behind her. 

it's gotta be her. skyler. 

"i need another opening, nina."

nina larson

☉

"marbles," she says because she doesn't know it to have any other name. although her and avery called it jawball once or twice when sal hid the marbles and they were forced to raid his jawbreaker stash for replacements. that didn't stick, though. they liked the simplicity of marbles. 

that's what they are, that's what the game was. sometimes things just get to be simple.

parker's knees creak a little when she straightens. so much of her is still sore. there's pain with every movement, but she's used to that, and she's not one to complain. still, where she'd usually crouch to get a shot in, she just plops right onto the sodden floor - criss-cross, applesauce. 

the rest of the marbles from the bag are already in her makeshift circle. she tucks her biggest under her thumb, sizes up a shot, and flicks. 

it bounces into one and sends it, and another nearby, rolling up and over the torn fabric. she grins and scoops them. 

"you take your biggest marble. like yours would be this one - " she says, pointing to crux's absolite, "and you just shoot the rest of 'em outta the ring. go on. try."

Naomi Sato

☉

and a suck and a fuck and a duck, duck, duck. and a fwip and a fwap and a brip brap brap. and a chunk and a thunk and a schllllluuuuurunk, oop. ope, nope, that's her spinnies stayin' no longer innies. all that sugar up and out in a great big fount and oh boy, wow, it's such a shame 'cause the girl dancing beside her has tits of an angel and deffo, deffo shouldn't be sporting puke au parker. 

and a kick and a dick and a "dick, dick, you're a dick, fuck, shit - "

ass on the concrete, bouncer's foot on her back, face on the concrete, don't feel bad. pick yourself up. bum your way down. 

ain't no way the next bar's taking you in, you sorry ass clown. 

can she make it there? can she pick up her feet? can she even get her mouth workin' right or will it keep spilling shit? she barks through the pain and that fire in her throat, and she laughs and she grins and she screams, "FUCK THIS SHIT, BRO!"

GIDEON GRAVES

☉

she's not so far gone that she starts sniveling on his shoulder, or burying her face in his neck. she holds him and her mouth screws up a little, but mostly she's just blank. tired. running on empty. 

been like that a while. feeling kinda soulless, killing nomi with every quiet assurance that she's fine, they're fine. all her passion wrapped up in the wettest, rattiest, never-dries-all-the-way towel there is. 

howard has the bottle. parker used to have the gym. or fucking. now she's got sonic 2 and an empty house and a head that's never, ever empty enough. a head that's so full of one stupid, panicked second that stretches into eternity. 

he rubs his head and he talks to her like she's a fucking moron, which isn't fair, because can't golurk fly? 

she slumps back regardless, knifes her fingers through her hair, makes all the red pointy bits stick up every which way. it's a bit of a shocker, but not really, when he goes all christian bale on her. she shrugs. 

"that you're the league's dark knight? whatever keeps you sane, man."

she sits in the quiet. well, the mostly quiet. the chaos make their weird, little guy sounds. the garden music is pleasant. the sound is a bit distorted, more echo to it than there should be, on account of the only piece of furniture being a legendary golem that most certainly cannot fly. 

after a while, she exhales a, "thanks."

and then she picks up the controllers, hands him first player, and says, "this time, i'll be shadow for a bit."

howard slayte

☉

the marbles clank, clank, clank as she walks and it's ridiculously nostalgic. makes her think of late nights up with avery, playing with their dumb marbles in the dark, sal none the wiser and conked out on the couch after watching reruns of old soap operas. 

it was that first night. avery was talking too much, and parker was talking too little. she couldn't do it. her mouth would go all dry and she'd choke on some sarcastic comment, consonants too thick with the iron tang of blood. they had nowhere else to go, so they went to sal's. 

and he showed them the marbles. 

nomi ghosts past her. it's just the sounds of the two of them, glass crunching, debris shifting underfoot. and then a weight catches before it bursts; parker's shoulders sag. she doesn't have the right words to comfort her right now. she doesn't have any.

but she has the marbles.

so she tromps around, kicking a path clear. wood crunches. tchotchkes, unrecognizable, most of them broken or swollen with water, tumble away from her. the toe of her boot scrapes heavily against the ground, raking aside glass. 

she finds one of her old tees, wrings it out, and strips it into butchered cloths. it's not exactly string, but whatever. they can make due. 

then she goes to nomi, and she holds out three of the marbles. forgets, or doesn't realize, that one of them is an absolite, and she says, "you ever played this before?"

Naomi Sato

☉

right brain parker wants to mimic nomi's reprimand with baby speech, but left brain parker is where the dick-for-brains pilot is from and captain shithead makes her sigh and makes her frown and makes her shrug her awfully big shoulders at nomi. 

"i'm givin' solutions, nomi. no house? check, got us a place. no bed to sleep in? check, makin' plans so we don't gotta sleep on concrete."

she prowls around a little bit more, traipsing through the wreckage of where their second floor bedroom had crashed through the ceiling. all of their clothes are sodden and musty. ugh, damn it. avery got her that worn and torn shirt from sloppy sam's years ago. 

but shit, is that...?

she yanks aside a couple of broken boards and hauls a fat piece of concrete to the side. it crashes into their broken wardrobe, where all of nomi's dresses have spilled out in tatters. 

the bag is wet, but it's intact, and when she opens it, only a few of the marbles are cracked. they once sat in a bowl on the back of her toilet, interspersed with her mega stones (before nomi pointed out to her what those were). 

"damn. sal's old marble collection really is fuckin' indestructible." she shakes them out of the wet bag and tucks the marbles in her back pocket. the weight is a nice comfort. 

"anything else you see we can salvage?"

if she wants a fight, parker's not having it. 

Naomi Sato

☉