emma stone's never been told no a day in her life.

not in the ways that matter. and why would she? adele doesn't have to know her personally to understand what it seems the rest of hoenn does: that she has a sharp tongue and an even sharper wit, that she has a taste for wines that cost more than their entire net worth and that she knows what she wants. lying there, her head resting soft against their desk with her hair like a crowning halo.

her viridian eyes, equal parts entertained and inviting: who would pass up the opportunity to be wanted by someone like her? who would deny her?

"that can't possibly be comfortable."

adele retrieves their hand from her side, allowing their knuckles to fall against their lips in mock defeat. a break, and don't they deserve that? they sit back in their chair and the wheels spin just slightly beneath their weight as the thought of continuing their work falls off to the wayside in favor of thinking of what people might say were they to cross the paths to their desk now. they reach out anyway and gently tuck a few strands of gold behind her ear. away from her face.

( she doesn't think of this, and they wonder privately if she has ever let anything that she wants go without first reminding them that they've always been hers. )

emma stone

the moment splinters, and adele sees all the horrible ways that this interaction could go.

all of it ends the same way: adele exits stage left and leaves. there's no good reason to find a person in an alley. even less with a pokemon that cries as pitifully as this. they don't really stop to think on the why, but the how it is that they've unwittingly placed themself in this situation and the what it was that they were supposed to say to depart without drawing unwanted attention.

hoenn is full of infinite troubles and they decided a while ago that they need not invite more of it.

"um."

but. but.

their attention flicks briefly to the creature hidden behind the stranger. they can't really pick it out. but, it's small. probably a young one, or at least something that wasn't evolved. not someone's kid, they have to assume, and so their conscience absolves itself of responsibility to intervene. they've never had much luck with pokemon. they had three of their own, but those were kind of things that they just ended up with.

calming them down was—well, they had a psyduck.

they got flung across the room often.

their acupuncturist could confirm it.

the pause becomes a protracted silence. their lips seal together and they steady themself before pointing behind the stranger with a weak gesture. "you draw more attention by letting it out here," adele sounds certain, at least, even as they hastily construct their sentences one word after another. "might want to do it somewhere crowded." another brief quiet. they inhale.

"if you're going to abandon it, i mean. pokemon control, or—someone will pick him up. don't have to leave it here. it'll just cry louder." they mumble.

"someone might get the wrong idea."

cassidy

comparison is the killer of joy, and adele replies:

"not by a long shot."

there is adele veronesi, then ada. neither led compelling lives. it was work, then home, then work again until the weekends came. then, it was lounging about their apartment browsing online catalogs for anything that might've given them something to look forward to. that was how they ended up with manual arm massagers to use while watching whatever broadcasters saw fit for daytime television. "plenty of more interesting people on this floor." nevermind the rest of the building.

nevermind, their desk. their reply comes without missing a beat. no self-loathing, nor are their words saturated in that piteous need for reassurance that they've heard now and again. adele does not require placating. emma—in all their vague memory—does not.

they rifle through their papers with feigned interest, then take another passing glance at their screen.

still more things to fill out. another eternity. they gesture toward one of the chairs left at a vacated desk in quiet invitation, but leaves it at that if she saw fit to claim their desk. they should be grateful that they never put up anything personal to mark it or they might've found any personal photos and knick-knacks swept into the train. feel blessed, she says, and adele barks out a laugh.

that didn't even deign an answer.

instead, they pluck a pen from their desk and scratches a little black line into the cheap facade—just in the space against her thigh. a would-be barrier between this would-be heiress and everything else, including them. "whatever you have to tell yourself." they answer, anyway, because it's hard to help themself.

emma stone

"mm, i believe you."

the coffee is better this time. it hadn't been to their taste before. emma doesn't know them. emma would like to know them. adele doesn't make it easy. less sweet, but not black either. they try, poorly, to hide their amusement. it isn't convenient. they glance at the logo on the side of the cup. la belle is not an easy place to order from. not at this time of the day. it'd be more convincing if she'd at least thought to change them out in the breakroom for their cheaper, flimsier cups.

but, that would beg the question of what a stone was doing in the league breakroom.

not even the good breakroom, either.

ada, right? she'd asked. and so, they don't call attention to it. they want to keep getting free coffee. the games that come with it, however—"i couldn't even if i tried." as in to say, have they ever made themself unavailable for her attention? as in, they'd both be bored if adele actually gave an answer. she still came looking for them.

be it when the situation had been different before, then now: her graceful return from wherever elsewhere that she'd flitted off to for a time.

they couldn't help but feel a little bad for her.

as emma leans forward on their desk, adele does not flinch away. they peek up through their lashes instead. cross their legs. take another sip.

"haven't found anyone more interesting to talk to yet? or did those people avoid you?" they set the cup back down on their desk, then retrieve a few of the papers nearby.

emma stone

lilycove sleeps.

for a city, it's awfully quiet this time of night. adele half-wonders if it is more tourist than it is resident. the streetlamps guide the way back to their hotel. most of the businesses turned out their lights before they'd ever reached this street corner, though they spy the distant, but inviting lights of the department store just over the hill. when they blink, the windows blink back too as if in greeting. if they're lucky, they'll find a bar. if they're luckier, they'll find someone who can buy them a drink.

adele isn't lucky by a long shot.

instead, they hear a loud, strangled cry of something that sounds halfway to human but isn't as they walk. ignore it, because they can't do anything about it either way. not their job. not their circus. not their mankeys.

not their problem to deal with.

their steps fall a little faster. there it goes again, the wailing louder. not human. probably a pokemon. not any pokemon that they know. home was always full of those. little odd and quiet pleas. sometimes, it was people mourning. most of the time, it was pokemon realizing that they weren't what they thought they were.

adele walks a little faster.

it cries again, louder, and their tired mind works ahead.

were there pokemon that mimicked crying? pretended to be? break room trivia doesn't serve their memory well. their fault for thinking the reading out of dex entries was inane. it screams, louder, and their pace slows to a stop at the mouth of an alleyway and their gaze falls on the retreated back of a stranger and asks outloud unconsciously: "is everything alright?"

cassidy

somehow, they knew waking up was a bad idea.

nothing was exceptionally different. just the same procedures and protocols that they droned on about in the event of an emergency. exits are there. try to avoid breaking windows. leave your things behind. avoid confrontation unless absolutely necessary. barricade yourself inside with the furniture until rescue teams could arrive. whatever. the thought occurs briefly that they wouldn't really need to hear these more than once a year if the league stopped painting a target on the doors of a building that was mostly civilians.

it never really feels like they're the ones who suffer for it. no one likes to hear that.

adele idly picks at their cuticles.

their pinky bleeds a little.

it's always going to be people like them. them, and this spunky little ranger trying her best to engage patent indifference to keep them up to date. a few weeks ago, it'd been fires. last tuesday, it'd been about floods and tsunamis. yesterday, earthquakes. every eventuality was possible when you co-existed with little monsters that could reshape the earth they stood on as they knew it. monsters is thought with just a touch of fondness, still. it's fine. an hour-long seminar about safety was doable.

what wasn't is being called upon for a demonstration.

adele glances up slowly, staring down robin's index finger like it was the barrel end of a gun. "volunteers are—" voluntary, as is implied in the word. don't sigh. don't make it obvious. they step out of the crowd and shuffle towards the center of the room at her invitation. pokeballs click together as they settle in and they pluck one after another off their snap locks. upon release, each look to their owner, then back to the stranger girl beside them. "alright, now what?"

robin coello

they didn't even like cider. they don't even know why they ordered one when all logic said they would've been better off with water. their eyes flick to him, then back ahead to the vendor, who pretends to not see them pleading with their eyes for an out. nervous tick. they hope it doesn't show. he seems like the type that would insist that they should have a drink. they've been to enough work outings to know.

maybe they're being unfair.

he just kind of looks like that kind of a person.

he was just that kind of a person. you're being unreasonable—nevermind. he won't let them leave.

they're not being unfair and the discomfort shows. sharp shoulder pinch together unintentionally, a half-open mouth sharpening into something halfway between a smile and a frown: they poorly conceal it with another nervous sip made with zero eye contact. the houndour staring doesn't help their nerves or their embarrassment anymore. another thoughtful sip. still too sour. still too sharp. not enough spice.

why does it feel worse being judged by a pokemon than it does by a person?

( their own sit dormant inside of their pokeballs hanging from a belt chain, unwelcome as to keep any of them from making things worse. )

"maybe," adele answers plainly, rigidly allowing the cup to return to the countertop. no point in pretending he was entirely pleasant to be around. index and middle finger taps the perimeter of the heated trays in a ' v ' and mochi kinchaku is exchanged in turn. maybe they should just eat. "you're easier to talk to online." they heft the pouch up off their plate and bite down, broth gushing out the sides. adele lifts a hand to catch it. just keep eating.

makes them think less.

"less of," a vague gesture with their dripping hand, "this. more of ..." another pause, and a thinly veiled attempt at trying to think of a word that didn't just point blank say he was a dick in-game. they take another bite instead.

Aris van der Veld

a twitch of a frown curves on their lips.

fingertips stall over the keys again. they didn't know people still even used hella. "YEAH, ME TOO." enter, typing, backspace, backspace, backspace. their caps key still won't unstick. another thing to replace. also another thing that's annoying but not impossible: something to fix but at the back of their to-do list. an endless, endless to-do list. "ANOTHER ERRAND?" a harder enter, pause, then they keep typing. less accusatory, less judgmental.

dee works for a stupid company.

adele does too.

just with more government clearance checks.

their chatot preens on the perch just beside them in reality. "DIDN'T YOU JUST GET BACK?" a breathless laugh to themself as they hastily type out their next message. "THEY MIGHT AS WELL JUST STRAP YOU TO A CORVIKNIGHT AT THIS RATE. HOPING THEY AT LEAST PAY FOR TSA PRE-CHECK." complaint is easy to lapse into when they get the chance to talk as adele disregards what they can only assume is more lag until a lone message pops up on bakingfeuille's behalf: oh ****. they don't even get to turn before the game unfairly lapses back into real time and the hulking quadruped behind them takes a heavy swing.

their avatar goes flying across the map, conversation exchanged for their glaive as they catch themself mid-air but manage to do little else to stifle the blow. their health was—well, it'd be fine. a couple of powders or potions. radial menu opens and they lock into an animation, scattering orange dust to boost their defense. "REGRETTING NOT LEARNING HAMMER + AX TREE NOW TBH" it would've been one thing if they were at least fighting a hariyama or something. tanky, but not impossible. a duraludon? they wish they had their webcam on. at least they could. mouth it or something.

could dee lip read?

"DO U RMBR WEAKNESSES?"

their messages get sloppier as adele maneuvers their avatar to skirt the monster's periphery to draw its attention. they weren't really built to be a tank. but, if it got its hands on the bow user of the two of them: they might as well just log out for the day.

et09XapM

Fenelle Miller

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warmed milk is spun through a dark galaxy. flecks and splatters compose a night sky as a deft hand guides a constellation into a delicate-looking bird. what the bird is, and what it looks like is up to interpretation. there's a beak and something that looks like feathers. slender digits rest against a saucer and push it towards its receiver in a silent, but welcome invitation.

this isn't part of their job.

adele half-thinks to go to ask hr. adele half-knows most of their complaints have likely been disregarded.

probably because they submit them all the time.

they swirl the milk in its container a bit absently, lifting the lid to inspect to see if there was anything left before sloppily pouring what remains into the second cup. less effort, but coffee that would do fine. they rinse out the frother—brought from home at the insistence of some of their other anonymous coworkers—and set it aside again. "ah," the arrival of a quiet realization, "i forgot to ask." they stare at the cup a little longer. maybe they already asked. was it supposed to be iced or? hot? could've been both. maybe she liked things lukewarm.

she kind of looked like she would.

they tuck that comment in cheek. probably would sound weird. adele leans back against the low-lying countertop, inspecting their own coffee cup for a beat before they looked back in their would-be co-worker. at least, that's what they think is happening here. someone had told them to onboard this girl, but they—well, they have to think that they might've seen her in passing once or twice before. maybe when she was getting hired or something. or maybe it was for something else? there was chatter from their other colleagues.

she was someone important. her name is—"you were saying something earlier." not her name. but, at least they remembered the conversation. that's already better than most days in the office. everything seems to go over their head or, well. around them.

"about where you were working before this, you were doing what exactly?" pause. "mari—lee." they remembered the rest just in time.

adele sips quietly at their coffee. weird name.

marilee beaufort

they used to be good at this.

mouth falls open. a choked back word. mouth seals shut again, and adele takes a cautious sip of the pinap cider sitting in her hands. it's too sour. maybe something about the rind? could've been that it was fermented wrong. there's a nice warmth to it. maybe it would've done better with a little bit more cinnamon? star anise? they take another sip. they take a passing glance—a look from the corner of their eye, really—at the near-stranger that sits beside them at this oden stand as they return the plastic glass to the counter. fingertips play off an unsteady rhythm against the sides.

beneath the drum of the night market, they pick out the sound of their arms sticking to the counter.

they used to be good at this.

talking.

they don't really remember when it was that they became a first draft. a collection of half-finished thoughts and sentences that don't quite make it out into the final submission. that was every talking point they'd had available thus far if you could call anything that they'd talked about an actual exchange. nails rattle off a slightly louder rhythm. he was supposed to carry the conversation. he just has more questions instead.

( they forgot how talking works. )

adele never really has the answers. they say awkward, clumsy things instead:

• they heard about this place from a coworker, but don't know if it's good. a quick search online said there were a few health code violations but the odds are pretty low that they'd get sick.
• their real name is adele, but they're fine if he kept calling them apple. actually, no. they don't like when he calls them apple in person. it sounds weird and they'd prefer adele. ada's a non-starter.
• it's weird that they serve cider here. they thought it would've been strictly traditional alcohol. the kind that would match the food.
• they don't like this cider, either.

even the vendor seems uncomfortable. "sorry," comes the apology, uncertain. the tapping stops. the rattling starts. "maybe i should go."

Aris van der Veld

hm, hm, doing this with Aris van der Veld!

taking with Fenelle Miller!