Say what you want about the Joneses. They couldn’t get a read on a person if they were inside that person’s own skin.

A large part of it is survival. You wall yourself off from threats (people, generally, being the biggest). In the shaping of it, you become a blunt object. Your brain is used for other things (Avery can tell you how to kill a person in about 52 different ways, but social cues? Bunk.)

“Oh, wow! That sounds really neat. Was it a family thing? Those get passed down, right? Shrines, I mean.” she thought about what she knew from some really awful books.

She doesn’t say anything when Parker confirms that Sal is still around and kicking. Because now she has to go look at the guy who gave her nickels for her baby teeth and tell him she was a war criminal.

Well. She didn’t have to tell him. But all of her felt so paper thin at times she was sure anyone could see through it.

“Have you been to Sloppy Sam’s, Nomi?” she asks, instead, pointing to the menu. “They make a pretty good burger, too. Or burger dog. Which is a hotdog with cheeseburger toppings. Which you probably… coulda guessed.”

parker jones Naomi Sato

☉

Avery sits back in the dirt, slobber smeared palms making mud that sticks to her skin. She didn’t know exactly what reaction she’d been expecting so Nomi’s slightly fumbled admission that the valentine’s gift was tolerable didn’t rankle her as much, maybe, as it should have. She had, after all, purchased something on a whim for someone she’d never met and only knew through the lens of her sister’s often-blacked eyes.

She’s rubbing slightly dirty handprints into Maisey’s belly as Parker continues to sing Nomi’s praises.

“Oh, neat!” she chirps, genuinely excited. She opens her mouth to say I once left an old glass in my room so long it grew mold that may have been yeast or something and then shut it again, because no one really needs to know that, so she asks, “What got you into brewing?” instead, as she stands up and wipes her hands off on her pants.

“Sloppy Sams sounds great. Me want trashcan fries.” But the mention of the candy shop makes her pause. What little color she has in her face drains.

“...Sal still around?”

parker jones Naomi Sato

☉

She stumbles upon a Rookidee, and is about to zap it with a Pokeball when a massive hammer swings out of the brush and crushes it.

“Oop.”

The Tinkatuff is distracted smacking the baby bird into the ground, which makes it simple for Avery to find that Pokeball and zap it, instead.

normal/grass/fairy
catch attempt tinkatuff

☉

The first thing that Avery pings about Nomi is that she, like the rest of them, has no goddamn idea what she’s doing.

In a good way! In the best way.

Avery had been concerned Nomi would’ve been a hedged-off know-it-all, prissy and frosty and holier-than-thou. But she runs her mouth without meaning just like the rest of them. She says things she wishes she hadn’t, just like the rest of them.

She’s good people.

“I hope they’re nicer and sexier than what she calls me,” Avery says, mouth curling into the first genuine smile she’s had in ages. She turns on a heel to greet Maisey, slender fingers finding familiar facial folds, wet with drool. She flaps them lovingly, familiarly.

“I calls you babe, doe, right, babes?” she oozes, wubba-wubba-wubbaing the bulldog’s face, breaking out of it easily to snap, “don’t worry, I got it,” in an equally as familiar, loving fashion, the one-two switch of how their relationship flows, back and forth and back again, like the moon and the tides and easy, known, trodden.

Like Parker coming into her room for no reason and laying on her, holding her down while Avery wails and thrashes. Like Avery snapping hairbands at Parker from across the room until one hits home and they’re crashing through the house. Like Parker eating Avery’s leftovers and Avery eating Parker’s leftovers and this eternal, swirling spiral, this fibonacci daydream of how things used to be, how they are, how they will never change no matter how much blood gums up the gears.

She keeps her hands on Maisey’s face for grounding, unsure of what she’s expecting as she looks up into the shiny blue eyeball. It’s… less intimidating, than she imagined.

“They’re cute! I expected… more tentacles? For some reason?” she waggles her fingers as though to illustrate. “Did you get the valentines candy? I hope that was okay.”

parker jones Naomi Sato

☉