Onyx, unfortunately, had a tendency to pick up the lost and unwanted Pokemon in the world. It was apparent in almost every single member of his motley crew. If he’d been the type to stop and think about things, maybe he would’ve taken it as a sign… but he wasn’t a thinking man. He was a doing man. Preferably, a punching man.

So it was even more strange that Andres made him want to do things other than punch. It was a virile reaction bordering on cute aggression but just this side of the line of wanting to squeeze him till his eyeballs popped out.

Onyx watched Andres disentangle himself from the situation, his own fight or flight response ticking down. After Andres checked to make sure the coast was clear, Onyx strode confidently forward. One weirdo acting suspiciously was one weirdo acting suspiciously. Two was a trend. Before he could get too far he felt Andres’ hand on his arm. He opened his mouth to protest but before anything could come out he was being pulled forward by a strong grip.

He finds, suspiciously, that he is happy to be led. Well, maybe ‘happy’ isn’t the right word. Content. Unwilling to protest. It’s sickening.

He’s quiet as Andres leads them home-- leads them to his home-- and Onyx realizes it’s because he’s still relishing the feeling of Andres’ grip on his arm, the strange sort of chill that’s crawling through his skin. Andres is talking to fill up the space caused by the silence and he’s sort of half-listening. It isn’t awkward-- not to Onyx.

He’s not entirely sure what he’s feeling. He lets the chatterbox talk. Because there’s this sort of foreign sensation in his bones and it’s deliriously closed to relaxation. Part of it is he doesn’t feel threatened by Andres. Part of it, unconsciously, is noticing that Andres has done nothing but try to placate and please them since their reintroduction. It’s deceptive. It’s dangerous. Onyx isn’t the type of person that can relax, not all the way. He doesn’t get that luxury.

But you can dip your feet, every once in a little while?

Juliette makes a little aborted noise of protest when Pepino leaps from her arms and then they’re at Andres’ apartment and they’re in the elevator, together, alone, but not really alone.

Onyx stands helpfully (read: useless as a wet blanket) in the doorway, sizing Chuchi up with a raised eyebrow of expectation. He is, at all times, ready to throw down with the obese, rabid rat. But Andres puts a stop to it before anything can happen and he’s coming out of his own bedroom and--

Onyx narrows his eyes.

“Parfait?” he parrots back, stepping in and pulling the door closed behind him. Out of instinct, he locks it. A habit. A survival technique.

He sort of just… stands near the doorway. Waiting to see what happens. Ready to run at a moment's notice, taking everything in with an eye for detail. Escape routes. Windows. Objects to hide behind. A survival tactic, all wrapped up in the guise of a judgemental look.

This is fine. He doesn’t like this. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t like this. It’s too familial. It’s too comfortable. It’s too safe.

He notes something wedged between the cushions on the back of the couch and, without thinking, reaches out to grab it. It’s fabric, an article of clothing-- a lace-embellished bralet in a rosy shade of pink.

He holds the offending thing between two fingertips, dropping it on the floor.

“Yours?” he asks, unable to bite back the snark that rises from somewhere twisting inside of him, unbidden.

andres buenaventura
local jackass processes the first positive emotion he's felt in sixteen years

☉

Onyx wasn’t the type to go slinging names and personal information around. If these wackos wanted to hunt down Unown, that was their business. When they wanted someone punched out without bruising their own knuckles, that’s when he would come in. Not that they were pansies, of course. But every now and then, people with something to lose had to keep their hands clean; it was just a fact of life.

People like Onyx didn’t have anything to lose.

So he shrugged, hands in his pockets. “Didn’t catch his name. Tall, dark, mysterious.”

He turns to let Adrian walk past him, following a half-step behind and to the side with steady footsteps. It’s a Gallade and a Dottler, the former’s physical blows beings reflected off the latter’s hard shell; though the Dottler’s pulsing lights were getting dimmer with each strike.

Onyx whistled, shrill and sharp, and Ziadem shot past them, blindsiding the Gallade and allowing the Dottler to make a hasty retreat. She caught one of the Gallade’s arms in her talons and bore it to the ground, savaging it with a flurry of drill pecks.

Onyx bounced a Pokeball off the Gallade’s lower half.

Zia retrieved the Pokeball, dropping it in Onyx’s outstretched hand.

“What’s all the hubbub with Unown?” he asked, making casual conversation, trying to convince himself he wasn’t at all curious.

catch attempt gallade
Adrian Malcolm

☉

Onyx’s gaze was pure poison, acidic and corrosive-- but for once, it wasn’t aimed at Andres. He was shooting it at Romeo, who Juliette was still clinging to by the tufts of hair on his head. “No,” he spat, repulsion evident in his tone, “he came that way. I found him trying to climb up skirts at an Oldale Farmer’s Market and someone didn’t want to leave him behind or kill him.” His eyes shot up to Juliette, who, at least, had the grace to look sheepish. “Though it would’ve been doing the world a favor.”

Juliette turned her head, preening under Andres’ praise.

Onyx was about to insist they split up-- like hell he was going back to Andres’ place-- but he had to admit, the asshole had a point. The part of Onyx that had been integrated, trained, broken down and beaten into, reshaped for this life, this job, couldn’t argue with the promise of another bolthole-- especially one as inconspicuous as the house of someone he blatantly hates.

“Sure,” he says, pushing up off the SUV and cracking his neck. He shoots Andres a withering glare when he holds up his pilfered trophies, and was about to say something about good for you, a participation award when Andres has to bring up his fucking tits. Having spent a decent portion of the last ten minutes imagining Andres on his knees and begging for-- for something, Onyx really did not need the man pointing out that, for all his faults, physically he was an amazing specimen of a human being.

With amazing tits.

He honestly would've been totally fine to never think of them as 'tits', either, but the rush of heat running to his groin showed that it was apparently, cranking his gears, and he hated it.

He had already turned away, luckily, so Andres didn’t see the red blaze that exploded across his face.

“No,” he grit out through clenched teeth, willing himself back under control. He shoved a hand in his jacket pocket and found Romeo’s Pokeball before zapping the little perv back where he belonged. “And stay in there,” he said, holding the Pokeball up to his face, “or else next time I’l let Ziadem have you.”

Juliette shifted Pepino to both her arms, holding him like an actual puppy, before looking at Andres and asking tuff-Wigglytuff?

Where to?

andres buenaventura

☉

Onyx didn’t really do awkward. He had enough self-confidence for that, at least. He also couldn’t be putting the beat down on loser nerds like Andres in public, which is what he used as a reason to explain away the sudden lack of an urge to actually put the beat down on loser nerds like Andres. Or, really, just Andres. He didn’t want to hurt Andres. Because they were in public, you see.

“Too late for that!” Onyx grunted back, hauling Andres along in his wake. Listen, one of the two men was a career criminal, and he knew when their ship was sunk. The moment Juliette had turned the corner to return Romeo, that had been the final nail in the coffin. Honestly, bringing the little pervert along had probably been the first nail, but whatever, hindsight was 20-20.

He didn’t even realize they were running together-- and doing it well, damn it-- as he blasted through the double doors, shoulder first. Andres said exit strategy and Onyx was already all over that shit-- career criminal, remember-- banking a hard left and running down towards the truck bays at the very back of the store. “Through here,” he barked, turning sideways to slip through the gap between the unloading truck and the bay wall, still holding onto Andres’ forearm-- his grip slipped towards his wrist during the squeeze-- and out into the back parking lot.

Outside the air smelled like hot asphalt with just a hint of the ocean. Onyx paused for a half second to listen for the sound of sirens before continuing onwards. The employee/merchandise parking lot backed up to a steep upwards embankment, at the top of which was a line of tended trees and cultivated greenspace, and beyond that, other businesses. Onyx cut right at the slope, feeling it would be too exposed should anyone continue to hunt for them, and ducked behind a large, crappy, off-white SUV that most definitely belonged to an employee. He dropped to one knee, keeping the car between them and the store, looking back over his shoulder to make sure the entourage was in tow.

Which is when he realized he was still gripping Andres’ wrist and coming dangerously close to his hand--

--he dropped the limb like it was on fire, the press and squeeze of his fingers still evident on Andres’ skin.

Juliette peeked around Andres to give Onyx a shady look and a smirk. She was still holding Pepino and Romeo under her arms and was completely unaffected by the mad dash out of the supermarket.

“Fuck off,” Onyx snarled at his Wigglytuff. “And fuck you.” He pointed at Romeo, who looked happier than a pig in shit. “Little freak.”

andres buenaventura

☉

Onyx forced himself to take a breath, flexing his hand and drawing his fingers over his palm. He froze when Andres reached for him, already standing still in the throws of combating his fight or flight response. Just punch him, his brain roared-- because that was his immediate reaction to anything and everything-- but he painstakingly pressed down on that retrogression, cracking the knuckles along his right hand with sedulous slowness.

“‘M fine,” he managed to say, voice coming out more of a husky croak than anything that might instill confidence in another, “just… cheap ass carts.”

Juliette was still fawning over Pepino, making goo-goo eyes at the baby Zigzagoon, while their trainers were locked in the stalemate. Andres tried again to extrapolate himself from Onyx’s orbit, and Onyx wanted to just move the fuck on with his day-- did health stores have whiskey?-- but then--

“OHMYGOD!”

There was a shrill shriek from the aisle over as a woman stumbled backwards, slapping at-- at her breasts, from which there hung a tiny, pink, grinning orb of--

“Fuck,” Onyx hissed, just as Juliette said ‘tuff, in the same tone. Which is Wigglytuff for ‘fuck’, if you didn’t know.

The woman was wearing a rather low cut v-top cotton t-shirt and had been reaching over the sweetmelons to grab at a particular one when one of the melons grabbed onto her boob, wherein he was currently trying to nestle in between them, oblivious to her panic.

“I vote we just leave him here,” Onyx whispered, to which Juliette parked her hands on her hips and admonished him with a tuff-TUFF! “Don’t look at me. I should’ve let Zia kill him when she had the cha--,"

Juliette hit him, then. Deadlegged him right in the thigh, and the muscle immediately tingled and lost feeling. Onyx yelped gracelessly and slouched forward over the cart, jostling it into Andres’ again.

“F-fine,” he grunted, standing back up, “you go get him then.” There was a brief stare-off wherein each tried to glare the other into submission, before Juliette relented with a ‘tuff-Wigglytuff, and walked around the edge of the fruit stand.

Romeo was now well and truly entrenched in the woman’s bosom, and a crowd was beginning to gather; someone was calling the police, or animal control, or whomever that specific individual thought had the authority to control the situation.

Juliette walked up to the lady, grabbed her by the hem of her t-shirt, and dragged her down. She reached into the startled woman’s breasts and seized Romeo by the fluff on the top of his head, jerking him free with little effort, and turning to walk away.

“Don’t bring him back over here!” Onyx yelled, a little too loudly; he’d turned his cart and stepped back to stand closer to Andres, without realizing it.

“Hey!” someone else yelled, pointing an accusatory finger, “It’s THEIR Pokemon!”

Onyx's face turned redder than a tomato. "We're not toge--!"

“The police are on their way!” someone else helpfully added.

Tuff-tuff! Juliette said, holding the still grinning Romeo by his head. She scooped Pepino up in her other hand, holding him round the middle like a loaf of bread.

“What Jules said.” Without thinking, Onyx grabbed Andres’ forearm, sliding around him to head in the opposite direction. “Time to cut and run.” Tugging-- more like dragging, honestly-- Andres behind him, he started running for the back of the store.

andres buenaventura

☉