being out of her depth is something parker's slowly getting used to. she's an oxymoron at her core. had her life shook up like lives get shaken up when your parents don't follow through on their end of the bargain with a crime organization. walking up the steps, holding avery close like she did, staring down with cold blue eyes at the unmoving shapes of her mother and father - that should have rocked her to the core. 

and it did, in a way. but she still went on doing the same shit she always had - scrapped her way through it all to survive. did what she had to in order to put food on the table for avery, give them both a roof over their heads. 

but she was always complacent. rocket took her in for real and she signed it all away because 'all' wasn't much and besides, avery had already made her choice. was she always destined to follow those she loves deeper and deeper into hell? 

how is it only ever being going at throwing a good right hook, and getting up when she shouldn't be able to, has landed her in the middle of all this supernatural bullshit? is she just the main character in some terrible campy horror movie? or did she really just draw that shit a hand when it came to the fates? 

whatever it is, being with Naomi Sato for so long and getting flung headfirst into Weird City is certainly helping. either that, or she's finally cracked. 

because isaac starts talking with the voice of fucking arceus and she's thinking to herself, oh, he's the green mist stuff and is calmly accepting that as fact. on the plus side, isaac doesn't seem too bothered by it. 

she's a silent observer. for once, parker jones has nothing to say. but she gets the feeling she's witnessing something monumental. she's witnessing something important. said between two cloud versions of her friend. 

did i die? am i dead? if this is death, the afterlife fuckin' sucks. 

ghostly shapes pass by overhead, drifting across rivers and through mountain passes. she does not see them. instead, she coughs as smoke plumes and more shapes emerge from the mist. barely held together isaacs. she looks down at the one in her hands. 

stop multiplying, she wants to say, but she's so, so tired. they keep their fighting and parker gently lays isaac's body down on the ground, turns her head to the side to look at him proper. and then she walks up to the chain, wraps calloused fingers around it. it's cool to the couch and flakes rust down her side as she hefts it back. 

"isaac," she calls to her fraying friend and with one spin, a grunt, a trickle of blood on her palm, she throws the chain and says, "you got this. hook, line, and sinker."

Isaac Merlo

☉

it had been a rhetorical question, but parker's smile loosens just a little bit at nomi's exuberance. she sounds more like herself. but just in case...to keep her distracted, she keeps tracing patterns over her collarbone. kisses her cheek and her chin and her nose and listens with sleepy blue eyes while nomi tells her that her levitating eyeballs have feelings. 

"it's okay," she reminds her, brushing some of her fluffy bangs out of her eyes. she kisses her brows. 

and then she draws back at nomi's frown. a roll of her eyes later, broken with a hum of surprise when nomi kisses her. blue holds crimson and then she hides her face by pressing a firmer kiss against the side of her neck. the arm propping herself up folds as she sinks into her warmth. 

"can kallistalulu go away so i can take my shirt off?" she says teasingly into nomi's ear. 

Naomi Sato
yes, that is how she said it.

☉

parker isn't really hearing isaac anymore. her fear has finally gotten the better of her. granted, being swallowed by a writhing mass of malformed human bodies with gnashing teeth on elbows and unblinking eyes slipping over calves will do that to a person. but she hears his sentiment, his attempt at buoying her. 

she's taking breaths, trying to stay as calm as she can and just think about nomi's face. 

and then she slips. on some torn and bleeding scrap of a rocket's uniform. it whispers traitor, traitor, traitor, as she falls, pinwheels, looking back and seeing isaac's lips move, somehow understanding, but not quite hearing him through all of this, and knowing, knowing, he's going to get them out of this. 

then his wrist slackens and the rest of him crumples. parker, out of reflex, jerks back and grabs him before the clawing hands can get at him. she grunts, fighting a tide, and glares daggers at puppet isaac...

she'll never forget what that thing looks like crawling towards them like it is. 

"wakey wakey, eggs and fuckin' bakey, isaac," she says, voice rising a few octaves as she gives him a rough shake. his head lolls and she wants to scream. out of frustration. anger. fear. grief?

everything around them freezes. the shadows stop crawling along her arms and she does not think about it. in typical parker fashion, she reacts. 

her left arm sweeps isaac's legs out from under him and she hoists him, bridal style, into her arms. and then she runs. a glance is spared down at his face. fuck, she can't even check his pulse. but that doesn't matter, right? even if he's dead, she's gonna haul him over the portal anyway. 

fucking hell. 

mist leaks out of him and she moves a little faster, cheeks huffing with exertion. eldin and amulius manage to struggle free from their own fleshy prisons and flank her. the ceruledge, up ahead, swings its bladed arms toward the portal as though to say hurry the fuck up. 

but she stops. there's only a little distance left, but...

"isaac, you're in there, right?" she pleads. "i can't leave ya behind, buddy. you gotta let me know you're in your body and i'm not carrying some fucked up version of you out there."

Isaac Merlo

☉

"i'm a lesbian, you prick," parker yells over her shoulder and digs her fingers in deeper. she's afraid if she lets isaac go he's going to end up getting lifted back up into the air or shoved into this sea of flesh or maybe a cavity will open up in the earth or or or or. 

all she knows is she can't let go. she can't fucking let go of him. 

and it seems the rockets can't either. what was a clear path converges on them. the parted black sea comes upon them and there are fingers hooking in her cheek, pulling at her teeth, twining in her hair, tugging at her heels, calves, back. spitting one word, over and over and over again.

a recurring nightmare made worse by Cillian Quinn's MIASMA. the burrowing promise that if she steps a toe out of line, looks in the wrong direction, that will spell her end. 

to want out is to be a traitor. 

but how could she ever want to be part of this?

she's straggling, nearly sinking, when she thinks of her reason, and with a grunt she shoves forward. shoves isaac too, yelling and tasting salt and not realizing that she's crying. 

behind them, ceruledge holds as best as it can, but it's not amulius. it's not eldin. its ties to parker are thin. at first chance, it disengages and sprints towards freedom. 

Isaac Merlo

☉

oh, this might be the very worst thing she's ever seen. and she's seen a lot of terrible things. but nomi's eyes, red from crying, face puffed from exhaustion and stress. no amount of running her thumbs over nomi's cheeks can change that. only time, and patience. 

but despite all of that, nomi is laying in parker's bed, a newly fashioned, incredibly sexy avatar. the word still stings, still makes her think of the miasma crawling up her leg, but she is already trying to rewire her brain to think miasma = cillian. freakish white eyes = nomi. and those didn't hurt parker, right?

that's sound logic. 

nomi's voice drops to a murmur. parker cranes her neck to look at the blue unown, unmoving and unblinking down at them. "mmm," she hums and begrudgingly gives an awkward nod of acknowledgment to the thing. 

"well, if they saved you and isaac, then they're...man, nomi, why couldn't you get obsessed with something cute...like shaymin? or even that cool electric bird you told me about?" she bites her lip and shakes her head. 

propped on one arm, she slips her fingers from nomi's cheek over her lips, her jaw, down the side of her neck. touching her to remind her she's there. touching her to...distract her from it all. 

"granted, ya got a track record for likin' ugly things, i s'pose."

Naomi Sato

☉

chalk it up to it being somewhere around 4am and with nomi in her arms, despite the situation, she could quite easily doze off. or some part of her that just doesn't want to admit to the truth after seeing nomi's eyes, but she still doesn't piece it together. 

that is, until nomi looks down at her with smarting eyes and a promise that she would never hurt her. and alarm bells are ringing while parker's brows furrow in confusion, hands moving up of their own volition to cradle her face and tell her of course not, silly, why would ya'ever hurt me? but the words don't come out because she is realizing it. 

her eyes. the blue unown is a new unown. and holo wanted to stop her from...

"fuck." it's on accident. she doesn't mean to say it. it's made better by the fact that she doesn't flinch, at least. just blinks a few times and thumbs nomi's cheeks, brushing stray tears. 

"okay, uh, fuck. sorry. i mean -" you're never getting out of this now.

"nomes," she says with a breath. and then she slides her hands down her arms and rolls them over, bedhead falling over silver-blue eyes. "it's okay. i'm sorry. so you're a weirdo, so what? you're still you." except your eyes, but that's all better now. maybe i was imagining it. i should tell her that. wait, no, i definitely shouldn't. 

later. maybe.

"and i know you're not gonna hurt me, okay?"

Naomi Sato

☉

splatter. gore spreads down her head, her neck, her back, and she swallows the urge to vomit. the brackish ichor is sticky and cold and is definitely not something she's keen on touching her skin. what if it gives her a rash?

eldin and amulius don't have their own doppelgangers so parker orders them into the fray. isaac's pokemon are able to handle themselves well, but they provide support when needed, though amulius never strays far. he eyes the limp chains, wavering over the ground, with distrust. 

earthquakes and stone edges erupt into the crowd of faceless humanoid shapes. a scarlet pathway starts to form and in the distance, parker can see the rippling shape of the border's portal. she throws out another pokeball to help eldin; the ceruledge cuts into the wall of flesh with a violent grace.

relief sweeps through her and is promptly yanked away in the same breath. 

her fingers fumble for isaac, pulling uselessly on his jacket. she screams as he's pulled upward. the cruel laughter of rattling chains only adds insult to injury as parker's forced to stare uselessly at her friend's struggling form.

"you bring him back here right now, you piece of shit!" she yells. wait no NOT LIKE THAT, FUCK!

she trips forward as isaac is smashed back into the ground, but stutters to a stop, hand flung to the side to stop amulius too. the cannon slides off of her and makes its way tauntingly towards isaac's other pokemon. 

the implication, quite frankly, goes over parker's head. die is not what comes to mind. instead, steel eyes flicker to the portal in the distance and then over to the ceruledge. 

it can't follow us out of here. 

"isaac, we're getting the fuck outta this nightmare. switch him out, bud." the ceruledge's blue flames flare and then suddenly he's underneath puppet isaac instead, bitter blades swinging up into puppet's midsection. 

parker, knowing isaac's probably disoriented from the ally switch, yanks on his arm and starts running. 

"we gotta go, go, go!"

Isaac Merlo

☉

across multiple realities. part of being with nomi is having to bear the astronomically ridiculous bullshit she wants to sink herself into. the look in her eyes is cute when she talks about it, sure, but parker's convinced she doesn't really understand just how badly this is going to end up fucking her. 

parker used to chase fantasies in the park during her jogs. it was fun, at first, thinking about owning a candy shop or some bullshit with nomi and only doing domestic things. like running a business and cooking and cleaning and eating and vacationing (but not too often, because vacationing is expensive) and all the lewd acts they can manage in between. 

but whatever hope she'd had for a normal life was gone when...well, she doesn't really know when. not when she first laid eyes on her, but sometime after that. sometime through the falling, as it crept up on her, and - her nose scrunches. a headache teases her temples.

she scatters the thoughts.

parker shudders. it's good to know isaac's okay, but at the mention of cillian, parker's anxiety gets the better of her. she tucks her chin against nomi's head and squeezes their entwined legs tighter. 

"can't fault her for that, can i? avatars are fuckin' scary, cupcake. cillian's fuckin' scary. 'm just glad you 'n isaac got outta there."

Naomi Sato

☉

maisey tends to put up somewhat of a fight when someone new tries to crawl into parker's bed, but not nomi. either the damn dog is too sleepy to do anything about it, genuinely likes nomi, or nomes is small enough not to bother her (all of which are highly likely), parker doesn't know. but it's still a nice enough thought to make her lips quirk as nomi snuggles up against her. 

"yea, i remember," parker says; that blissful smile on her face becomes a bit more strained. she doesn't really like reliving her bad memories and dealing with yumi on top of the whole reliving her worst memories ever didn't really make her jazzed to go back in. 

she thought (still does think) nomi's fascination with it was crazy. 

nomi doesn't notice she's started shivering, but parker does. with nomi all tucked against her, she can't see the expression on her face. but she looks down, chin grazing the crest of nomi's head, and tightens her arm protectively around her side. 

anxiety rises. her stomach does a couple of flips. usually any time the DRK triad shows up, shit goes sideways. and usually in a bad way. a people get hurt kinda way. nomi's here in one piece, rattled, but...no, isaac must be okay. nomi would be inconsolable if he wasn't. 

"she's the hot one you showed me a pic of, yeah? i remember." she chews the inside of her cheek. "she hurt you? i gotta beat her ass up? fuck, nomes, you're shakin' like a dog in heat."

Naomi Sato

☉

the coffee helps. not by much, but it helps. and if anyone knew parker, they'd know she'd nearly blown her gasket because she's hangry as all hell. food is the way to her heart, through and through, and it makes it worse hearing rat boy's order. he takes the blueberry bagel and slam dunks it with the toppings. 

y'got good taste, vestri, said with a cocksure smile and sugared rhubarb still on her tongue. her stomach growls and her head hurts and she smacks her tongue, looks down at her coffee. 

the next sip tastes normal again, with milk and sugar. 

"i hate you," she mutters in response, but she sounds more confused than anything when she says it. and that only annoys her further. and who or what the hell is 'vestri?'

"vestri? angelo?" wait, did she make that up? did she heart that right? she blinks and looks from the clerk waving a brown paper bag and looking pointedly at angelo, and back to angelo. 

"that's your name?" she says incredulously. 

angelo vestri

☉

parker has a brita filter. she reaches in the fridge for it and reaches up in the cabinet for a glass for nomi. her body stays mostly turned to nomi, watching her walk through her apartment like it's the most normal thing in the world. well, not really. she looks like a lost little deerling, puttering around and wired after...whatever made her come here in the first place. 

nomi doesn't excuse herself to the bathroom to change. which makes sense. but there's something intimate about the silence and parker thinks, maybe don't look, but does so anyway. appreciates the drop of her skirt, the brief flash of skin when shirts swap, and then a swelling pride when one of her old shirts falls over her curves.

parker tucks the brita filter back into the fridge and snorts when nomi tosses her shirt on top of the pink shape.

parker comes up behind nomi and holds the glass of water out to her. she palms the granbull's head and scratches her roughly behind the ears, earning her an affectionate growl turned yawn. one eye stays open to watch the unown-k. her disinterest to the thing ought to speak volumes, but parker doesn't care. 

"this is maisey," parker says.

she nods to the water. "drink." she rubs one of her eyes and flops into bed, shimmying up against the headboard and holding one arm out for nomi in invitation. 

"and tell me 'bout the drugs you definitely didn't take tonight."

Naomi Sato

☉

okay, now parker's mad. there goes her superhero moment. amulius scuffs the final blow - and what a doozy it would have been too - and lands on his talons with a huff. sticky ichor makes him straighten and shake out fluffed up legs. parker's lips curl in disgust. 

"his legs are on the ground, isaac," parker says while staring at the still-bleeding (???? is it blood????) midsection, devoid of chest and shoulder and head and y'know, the other half of a person that makes them a person. "his legs are on the ground and he's still talking, isaac."

and then, suddenly the chains yank and he yeets into the air. parker squints up at him, looks down at the legs, and turns to give isaac a thumbs up. 

"so 's 'at mean we wo - OH FUCK." she nearly jumps out of her skin when the loud crack of thunder is followed by puppet isaac's meaty arm slinging over her shoulder. that almost peeled apart face is dangerously close. it smells rank and now that he's so close, parker notices that his skin doesn't quite fit. like latex stretched poorly over a wire frame. 

with something icky crawling underneath it. 

you step in line, or you get stepped on.

but it's not puppet isaac's misshapen mouth forming those words. it's a cracked, blistered mouth, puckered around a damp cigarette. smoke curls lazily above a pug nose, ringing steel blue eyes. he's laughing a smoker's laugh and parker is looking up at him, feeling impossibly small. 

and she hears it again, whispered through her own split lip, the rest of her body a million miles away, save for that thud, thud, squelch. 

she comes back down to earth with a shuddering, shaking fury. not scared. not annoyed. not even just 'angry.' but fucking furious. 

"i'm gettin' real fuckin' tired of this and," she snarls just as they're wheeled around and held up like some bloody offering for - "TECHNO LEGS?" 

amulius barrels into the genesect monstrosity with a good shove of his flaming shoulder. more flames sputter from his angry, clicking beak. whipping tendrils snap around his arms and at the creature at the same time parker ducks her head down and slams it back against their captor, hoping to split him open like an egg. 

"fuck off."

Isaac Merlo

☉