it's me, the stranger says, as though it's obvious, but saying it so only makes it obvious. saying it with the amount of pain in her eyes - pain you gave to her, because you didn't say it back to her, you idiot. she loves you and you were too chickenshit to say it back and now - a groan wells up in her throat, pressure in the back of her head, but thankfully no blood dribbles down her nose. 

her throat should be dry and scratchy. she should feel pain, with how croaky her words are, but it's all so far away.

i'm nomi. your nomi.

all of her nightmares chased her to the brink. all of her nightmares brought her back to the surface. ink had bled all over the grey, brutal in technicolor. names of the dead and damned and long, long gone lay on the tip of her tongue. 

you brought them back, would be accusatory. 

you made me remember, would be damning. 

you made me bleed, would break her. 

she smiles a wolfish smile and chapped lips threaten to split. 

"'course y'are, cupcake," she croaks and goes to lift her left arm. it's bulky, almost dead to the world. her gaze slides lazily down to it and she blinks groggily a couple of times, registering the thick gauze wrapped around her. 

"did we get 'em?" she asks slowly.

Naomi Sato

☉

she's bobbing in the water and every time she comes up for air, she cannot stop herself from screaming. and it's like that for an eternity, this feeling of drowning and then of not drowning, but when she's not drowning, she's dying. she's on fire and she's dying and she doesn't want to die but she doesn't want to drown either because someone she loves is dying/dead out there. 

we're keeping her under because of the shock, they tell nomi. the skin graft was successful, they say. she'll be okay, they promise. 

they don't know that under those sterile blankets, smothered by the morphine, she is being chased in circles by her monsters. red fire burns her house down. black fire destroys her nerve endings. blue fire kills her love.

when she wakes up, really wakes up, without a start, hooded eyes take in her surroundings. her pain feels far away. her brain feels sluggish. her arm feels heavy. and where is - ?

"who're you?"

Naomi Sato

☉

there are bits and pieces of her cooking in the flame and all around her is a world on fire - the happiest parts of a life she doesn't remember go up in smoke. and how is it that after all this time, she's ended up here again? stumbling through the ashes of a house she could never call home, boots crunching on familial bones. 

where is her sister?

she'll take the money they squirreled away. she'll take on the debts so they don't take avery too. she'll let rocket string her up and she'll let rocket eat her alive; she won't make the same mistakes her parents made.

she knows better than that. she knows her place in this world.

the woman who comes out of the smoke is not the same one she watched over these past few hours. remus holds her back as hands reach to cradle her face, her arm, and her teeth are white, eyes wild and white like a dog's, too lost in all the pasts that have erupted from these horrors. 

the sterile walls blind her. someone is screaming (is that her? could that be her?). the stranger with the blue hair isn't a stranger at all, but by the time she realizes it, by the time she's screeching, "NOMI, NOMI, NOMI, PLEASE," she's already halfway under from the needle, medics crowding her, pushing the one remaining tether to her sanity out of arm's reach.

Naomi Sato PENELOPE LIVY Gunner Graves

☉

it's not fair that nomi knows her well enough to expect the way she snatches at her waist, because now parker's the one letting out a surprised and turned on mmmm when nomes immediately tousles up her hair. she drags her close, one hand dropping possessively to her ass, but before they can show becky what it means to really make love, nomi finds her sense. 

parker nuzzles affectionately at the side of her neck, planting kisses, and saying, "i wanna live here with you too. you 'n maisey 'n hell even alphabet soup can come too. i'm sure they'd love it."

maybe she can teach them how to play fetch in the backyard. wouldn't that be something. 

there are things about slateport she's going to miss. her routine, for one thing, but hell that's been screwed since the day she met nomi. that's just it, isn't it? everything's gotten all turned upside down since she had bodyguard duty for this drop-dead gorgeous super genius. 

once, that would have frightened her. now she wouldn't have it any other way. 

"'kay, now let's go tell becky we're gonna take it at asking price 'cause we fuckin' can and then tell her she's invited over for dinner 'cause i bet ya that shit husband of hers don't cook."

Naomi Sato

☉

amulius lands on the ground with a thud, sending sparks flying. he gives up his search through the smoke and parker raises the crook of her arm to her mouth, crouching low where she can take in lungfuls of less dense air, but it's a moot point. all around her is fire. all around her is smoke. 

"mul," she chokes out and her feathered companion watches his own flames as he hunkers over her as a makeshift blanket, staving off the worst of the heat. "we gotta - ack - find nomes."

and maybe she could have, if not for the amalgamations that emerged from the smoke. a splitting headache knifes its way through her as her brain scrambles to forget what it's seeing, but layer upon layer of truth burns away those protective barriers and exposes her nerve endings. 

a ghost glints gnarled teeth, swiping with the fractal shards of its pronged arms. monsters from nightmares too close to nostalgia make her stumble back, away from the gathering cataclysm and remnants of ruination. 

she feels the heat second, the panic first. every ounce of her being switches from fight to flight in an instant before amulius is hauling her back out from the lava. angry, shrieking chirps are leaving his mouth by the time it hits her and she screams. and she screams, furiously raking her hands down her arm, watching it bubble like putty underneath her fingers and slough to the ground in a mixture of blood and flesh and molten rock. 

her bravado is gone. there's nothing else in the world. not even nomi, in the face of this pain. just - IT FUCKING HURTS AND I'M DYING AND I'M DYING I'M DYING I'M DYING AND

I KNEW WE'D DIE HERE. I KNEW WE'D NEVER GET HOME.

Gunner Graves PENELOPE LIVY Naomi Sato

☉

nostalgia wraps around nomi in a different way it does parker. she thinks fondly back on honey-colored memories with her grandmother and when avery looks at parker like she's seen a ghost, parker is treated to a rapid-fire snapshot of their own bittersweet history, stained sepia. 

hands in the candy jar, legs swinging off the counter, an old man's drawn face while he sutured her skin back together. nights curled up on the floor, then on an air mattress, then a cot in the garage, promises of this isn't permanent, kids, but knowing that was a half-lie. 

"yeah," she says, "yeah, 'e is. devoted wholly to the candy business now, s'posedly." 

parker slings her arm around nomi's waist and starts wheeling their ragtag procession over to the next street. maisey dutifully picks up her ball and carries it in her mouth, chewing it as though it were bubblegum. 

"sal," parker confirms and scratches her neck with her other hand. "'ve brought sweets home from 'im before. he's the alfred to our batman 'n robin, but like, ten million years old."

the mouthwatering smell of grease and grease and more grease hits the roof of her mouth as they near the rundown brick building with a takeout window. they're busy as all fuck and the line's long 'cause everyone in slateport knows sloppy sam makes love to these potatoes. 

avery jones Naomi Sato

☉

parker can't summon magma from her fingertips. parker can't curve a bullet in the air. there's a lot of things parker can't do, but parker can fight, and right now that's all that matters. her adrenal glands squeeze and her brain strips away all the excess, all the shit that doesn't matter - like the stinging in her eyes and the burning in her lungs and the way they're definitely, probably royally fucked. 

remus barks and amulius reacts, but the jackal can't deflect the bullet and the bird's too busy keeping the flames away from them. parker lurches to the side, into a thick plume of smoke. red, angry pain spurts in her shoulder, lancing down her side. 

(the nerve damage is permanent this time)

nomi, crying, fumbling over a ring, saying her name over and over again. parker wipes her nose, can't see the ash mixed with blood, and she steels herself. her friendship bracelet glows and amulius emerges like a phoenix, screeching bloody fucking murder as he aims a blast of fire toward the man they once called brother. 

PENELOPE LIVY Gunner Graves Naomi Sato

☉

parker doesn't mind the fact that becky doesn't seem to give two shits about her input. it'll be nice, pretty womaning her when the time is right. nomi's putting a good chunk of change into the place, but parker's insisted a lot of it be hers. she's always wanted a house. 

always thought it was a pipe dream too. 

it has character to it. someone who cares about aesthetics lived here, for sure. the paint on the walls is a little scuffed; some of the plaster is worn down in places. but parker squeezes her way into any small crawl spaces to check for water damage or shoddy craftsmanship. 

"yeah, for cooking," parker says, every bit of it dripping with sarcasm, complete with a brow waggle. neither of them partake in the Devil's Lettuce, but it's fun to see becky look a little uncomfortable.

parker tromps up the stairs and then pokes her head back over the open air walkway. "becky, can ya watch maisey? haaates stairs and nomes, come look at this bathtub," she says, fiending by the door, waiting to snap her hand out to snatch nomi by the waist and yank her close. 

Naomi Sato

☉

somewhere, someone lets out a disjointed howl after stepping on a fucked up stunfisk. but avery and parker are too far away to hear it, so does it really exist?

"uhh, speak for yerself. i clean up good." there was that time she went to the holiday party. even put on mascara? which made her look kinda crazy, but in a hot butch kind of way. the glitter she could've done without, but her hair stylist had thought otherwise. 

yoinky sploinky the murder machine comes back with a half-dead mawile and some of the people enjoying their lattes beside them gape with open mouths. parker waves. 

"sure, yeah, next week. and uh, y'know," she starts, "if you gotta hit your quota, i got some time to take a couple jobs. can hit my beat too. got a couple people i needa shakedown soon."

avery jones

☉

she is, by all accounts, completely oblivious to nomi's fidgeting and bumbling on account of any jealousy or existential trauma. she notices enough to raise a brow at her, but then she squats down right next to avery while she squeezes maisey's perfect chubby cheeks and pushes the pupper down. 

she whines, exposes her belly for the not-so-secret-secret belly rubs and nips playfully at the toes of avery's shoes. 

"oh right. i forgot to tell ya 'bout the ciders ave sent. ave, nomes used to own a brewery." then real life and saving the world and every other bullshit got in the way of that, but y'know, that part can remain unsaid.

"'kay, so i'm starvin' 'n sloppy sam's is still around." she jerks her chin real quick over to nomi. "best chili dogs in town an' their fries? slap. then was thinkin' maybe we'd stop by the candy shop?"

avery jones Naomi Sato

☉