[attr="class","text"]Onyx sleeps that night-- really sleeps-- for the first time in years. For the first time in years he sleeps without keeping one eye open; for the first time in years he sleeps without booze-addled dreams; for the first time in years he sleeps without setting his mental alarm to be up before dawn and out of wherever he is.
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He sleeps so fucking good he drools.
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He wakes up confused, muddled, gummy-eyed, and sore, fucking gods is he sore. His leg hurts-- I got shot, he recalls-- but his arms also hurt? And his neck, kind of? And as more pieces fall into place he realizes that’s because he’s fallen asleep crammed into the crescent of andres buenaventura’ body, fetal-positioned between the man’s throat and thighs, and one of his arms is trapped under Andres’ bulk, and the other has gone to sleep from where it’s thrown over Andres’ broad shoulder.
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His throat his dry and his eyes all but peel apart.
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Unlike all the other times, waking with Andres, though, there’s no urgency. There’s no fire to leave. His engine has died, and instead of disentangling himself from his semi-uncomfortable position, he sinks into it, sighing through his nose and leaning his forehead against Andres’ clavicles.
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“Sunshine,” he says, voice raspy-- from all the fucking crying, he remembers, though even this does not bring with it the same shame it used to-- “I have to go pee.”

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[attr="class","text"]“That’s me. Professional Chatot in the coalmine.”
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Everyone’s attentions turn to him. He grins, bright-toothed and shit-eating, and offers a little finger wave.
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Streams of sand are whipped up into stinging cascades. The desert heatwaves bend and warp, and then there’s something inside of them. Onyx pulls a mask up over his nose and mouth to protect against the sand, clicking his tongue admonishingly.
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Of course their opponent had to be smart.
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In that case, it would be wise to help support the brainy member of their rag-tag… team, he guessed. You could call it a team. All of them staring down the barrel of empty Sigilyph eyes. Yeah, a team.
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“Your time to shine, brainiac,” he says, somewhat sad his smile is hidden behind his mask. He likes to think his wink helps contribute to the swagger Rana puffs at Daikenki.
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[attr="class","text"]One might ask themselves… what was Onyx doing fucking around in the desert with a bunch of Leaguers?
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With everything exploding it seemed sensical that Rocket would shoot out feelers. Feelers that could be easily chopped off and that they didn’t mind losing. Like an anemone, of sorts, if there were a Pokemon for that.
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He just ended up with this lot. Rolled up like dryer lint in a ragtag bunch of… whomever the fuck they were.
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He recognized one person, at least.
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“What are you going do about it, girl scout?” he asked Yuina Higashi , cracking his knuckles in some sort of preparation.

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[attr="class","text"]Andres’ hands sear into his skin as they wrap him, bind him, gather him up. Onyx goes when Andres leads, turning to goo and falling in the cracks, in the empty spaces, just as Andres surges up into his own, and they swirl together into something holy, something complete.
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Then Andres bodily picks them up with a whisper of warning and Onyx swallows the man’s groan, making a pained noise of his own--- not from his own discomfort but from the fact that Andres is hurting on his behalf. “I can walk--,” but it’s too late and they’re on their way, all thoughts of Pokemon forgotten as he is deposited in the soft, dark cocoon of Andres’ bed.
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He wants to protest, wants to say he’ll probably bleed on his sheets, that he’s sweaty and bloody and dirty, but Andres is stripping out of his clothes, and Andres is warm in the dim light, and Andres is touching him. Onyx huffs a laugh, taking Andres’ wrist and directing his hand up to kiss his palm, the pulse between his radius and ulna, before sliding his own shirt off and disrobing down to his undies. His leg aches, but his soul is full and free as he reaches over and wraps his arms around Andres’ waist and pulls them flush together, nuzzling into the man’s neck.
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“You’re insane,” he says, huffing a breath against Andres’ skin, “and I am, too. Because I’m not going anywhere.” He kisses Andres’ throat and stifles a yawn. “Get some sleep, sunshine. Been a long day.”

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[attr="class","text"]“Yes,” he says, without hesitation, because it’s true, and because he does not care. The only person he’s ever been worth anything to has been dead and in the ground for years.
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The trick of it all was that no one mattered, not a one of them, not anything at all.
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The footsteps of her strange, mechanical horse, the whirring of its knees and the thunk of its hooves-- not as heavy as he’d imagined them to be, to be honest-- signaled that she was following him deeper into the labyrinth.
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Her voice echoed around them. Onyx didn’t turn back to look at her but he did grab a Pokeball in his hand, leaning against Ignis.
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“Better do something about it, then.”

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[attr="class","text"]Onyx stared up at her with every ounce of unbothered, unfazed, unimpressed blankness he could conjure (indeed, he was working very hard at portraying very little).
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What Yuina perceived as ongoing aggression between the two of them based on how they met was, to Onyx, little more than a drop in the bucket of a long life of short knives.
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He huffed a laugh through his nose, reaching around Ignis’ head to splay a hand over the Rapidash’s cheek.
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“It’s the truth,” he said, turning away from her to walk deeper into the caverns, slowly. “You don’t see any Silphs or quinns or crosses down here, now, do you?”

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[attr="class","text"]After everything-- the time, the distance, the blood, the wounds, the words, the tears-- finally their orbits have aligned, sinking together to become one, a singular gravitational event, a schism of universes that unwrites and rewrites.
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Time slows and stretches, warms and unmakes, dripping saccharine syrup to swaddle and ensconce them in golden resin. There’s nothing ahead of him but Andres’ mouth, his body, him.
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“It’s fine,” he says, not wanting to take the time to talk about it, because talking about it meant they weren’t kissing, “never better.”
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You could kill me right now, sunshine, he doesn’t say, and I wouldn’t feel it.

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[attr="class","text"]Rocket was looking to gain information on this wonderful new hole in the ground like it was looking to gain information on the rest of the fucking region.
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Onyx wondered, sometimes, what life would be like if he really cared what happened to the faction he was a part of. How frustrating it must be to be so deeply rooted in a place and yet have very little actual power, to be unable to control the shifting or changing of the land itself, and have to face every day with an inherent suspicion because you didn’t know what shadow the new teeth would shoot out of.
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Such was the plight of Team Rocket.
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Either way, he was getting bored of standing here. He didn’t think she had it in her to attack him in cold blood. And he wasn’t really looking for a fight, either. He let his hand drop, fingers trailing over Ignis’ pelt, and stepped into the cavern, looking along the walls with blatant disinterest.
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“I’m not an intel guy. I’m a Chatot in the coalmine. Like you, apparently.”

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