Impromptu Oran Sleepover

[quirkynote]

Who: Oran newbies
What: Having fun with communal dens
When: Sometime after Mightyena gathered them up
Where: The Spire, low tier dens
Warnings: Will add if anything comes up, but not anticipating anything

[As everyone knows by now, the Oran Berries depend heavily on communal living, sharing a bed is simply to be expected. For some, this experience was temporary. Mightyena was kind enough to lend the mysterious misplaced Pokémon a place to rest, but now some of them have moved on.

For others, this is now a part of life, and it's time to get used to it. The Oran Berries value treating everyone like friends and family, after all, so you're expected to do the same! Why not have some fun with it?

Whether you've noticed your fellow newcomers are all gathering in one den, or you suddenly find yourself dragged into the the party against your will, everyone is invited! Everyone's going through the same thing, belong to the same guild, you gotta stick together.....right?]

[[ooc: Feel free to use this as a mingle log! We have nine Oran Berries (I think???) and although the dens are said to hold up to eight, I think some members are small enough that we should be able to include everyone!]]

Comments

[offtracks]

Of course.

[He'll wait, then. There's certainly things he could say, would like to say, but that doesn't seem very helpful.]

[outbounds]

Hmm. Okay. [ He resettles himself, posture straightening a little. ] Your question first. I am trying to make it easy, because why wouldn't I? Why would I want it to be hard? For you or for me? I do not see the point in feeling bad about how things are, because it doesn't do anything. I do not want to be angry, or sad, or afraid, or anything like that. So the fact that it is happening anyway because of these dreams is actually kind of annoying.

[ And only because of the dreams and nothing else, right. ]

But also, what you were saying. Uncertainty being difficult, and how it might have been better if I had closure, or let myself. Maybe! That might be true. I have heard it. 'I'm sorry for your loss.' 'This isn't healthy, Emmet.' 'Are you okay? How are you holding up?' 'It might be time to accept that he's gone.' A few days, weeks, months, years— time to move on! I am Emmet and I have heard it all and I understand—

[ Red fur ripples, counting out the seconds in time with his words. ]

I got tired of it. Tired of worrying people, tired of them acting like I was made of glass. So I reassured them. I am Emmet, I am a Subway Boss. Operating at 100% capacity. No need to worry.

But I wanted to hold space for you so I did. The feelings that come with that, they're on me. I wanted to and I chose to. That's what I meant earlier.

[offtracks]

[Ingo watches the red fur as it ripples. Emmet makes things sound so...simple? As if a person can decide they don't want to feel a thing, and then it goes away, just like that. Plainly it did not. He may as well have been dead; a person doesn't maintain a room for years on end because they're operating at 100% capacity.]

That sounds as though you were not doing well at all. Dreams or no dreams.

[outbounds]

Haha. You too, huh? I didn't want to say anything, you know. You weren't supposed to worry because you have your own stuff to deal with.

[ In an ideal world it would work that way. Mind over matter, this is hardly the time for misplaced and, more importantly, unnecessary grief, so it will not happen. Simple, clean, no fuss, no messiness. He's already done his fair share of it. Hasn't he? ]

I will be fine. Maybe— maybe it isn't right now, but I will be. Promise.

[offtracks]

...you should probably do a little more than just sit and wait, then. Of course you do not have to talk about it with me - [How could he possibly, when Ingo is the problem?] - but you should find someone to speak with.

[outbounds]

Ingo, I promise, I'll figure it out. I am Emmet; I do not say that lightly. It isn't like— I was just pretending, or anything. I kept everything running. I took care of our Pokemon, I took care of everything at Gear station, I took care of our passengers and employees. I didn't fall apart, or anything like that— [ or at least, if he did, it was privately, and not for long enough to be overly disruptive, ] isn't that enough?

[offtracks]

It is more than enough!

[Ingo keeps on feeling like he's derailed the conversation somewhere without realizing. He should really just pull the brakes. If Emmet wants to insist he's okay - maybe he really is okay. And that just has to be that.]

Of course - it's perfectly fine.

[He reaches, hastily, to try and pour the tea. It's clumsy, and a decent amount spills, but he's at least able to get their cups filled.]

[outbounds]

[ That honestly is the same as how Emmet's feeling right now too, because that's— he can tell when Ingo's trying to convince himself as much as he is the person he's speaking to?

(Right? He can, he thinks. And that was a somewhat abrupt motion for the tea; Emmet almost startles and makes for it himself.) ]

Ah, don't— well, I guess you are a fire-type now, you probably will not be burned, will you...

[ And so the cups get filled. A little clumsily, but they got there, and Emmet accepts one with care to try not to spill it. ]

... Thank you.

[ There's more he probably could, and wants to say, but it also feels like the more he's said, the more things got... Nevermind. Tea first. Maybe that'll settle the both of them some. ]

[offtracks]

Of course.

[He lowers his head to lap carefully from his own bowl; at least that much is a maneuver he's had to learn already. He'll keep quiet too, for the moment. He doesn't know what he's supposed to do, he thinks. He does not know how he and Emmet are supposed to fit together; he doesn't even really know Emmet's shape. Is this really just how he works? Maybe there's nothing wrong at all. How would Ingo know?]

closes eyes in my missing closing small tag up there

[outbounds]

[ Emmet, for his part, still makes a token effort to try to lift it up in his paws at first ... then gives it up as a bad job and also lowers his head to lap carefully at his own bowl.

He's quiet for a while, watching Ingo. Eventually, once he can't sit with the silence anymore: ]

... I don't know what you want me to say. Is there something I can do that would make you feel better about ... all this?

[offtracks]

If you are really alright, then I am as well.

[It's not entirely true. Not all of Ingo's worries are about Emmet. He's disturbed by how his failures have impacted him, and how he's refusing even now to acknowledge the great failure to remember, but he's also...worried, a little, about what comes after this. It feels distant, but - is he supposed to leave Hisui behind now? For someone he barely knows? Is he a bad person if he isn't...sure he wants to?]

[outbounds]

If you say so.

[ Is that ... it, then? He's said something wrong again, hasn't he? He's tried to convey what he needed to as clearly as he can, but, well. Ingo was always the one of them better with words.

(Needy, overly reliant, codependent, 'the younger twin'. Attaché rather than an independent entity. Well, it's all wrong, isn't it, he kept everything afloat, he did—

But the thing is, it's easy to think Emmet can't stand on his own, that he has to be part of a pair to function. Ingo seems to have been perfectly fine without Emmet.

If he dwells on that for too long...)

(In his dreams, waking or not, it isn't always that he wakes up to a too-empty apartment in Nimbasa. Nor is it that even here, Ingo simply disappears again, same as the first time.

Sometimes, the shadowy figure that is meant to be Ingo looks at Emmet, evaluating and assessing, and turns away of his own accord, having found nothing to keep him there without the obligation of a life spent together first.)

... He's not going to push. If Ingo asks, he'll talk. If not ... then Emmet will refrain, and let Ingo decide whatever he wants to. ]

[offtracks]

{Ingo's clumsy attempts to ask about Emmet's feelings have always just seemed to make things worse. He'll take Emmet's cues. Ingo certainly owes him that much.]

Very well, then! [.....] I suppose it was tea, then.

[It's not terrible. Certainly not the best cup of tea he's ever made, but at least it is identifiably tea. Not a guarantee, after how that whole process went.]

[outbounds]

[ It isn't really Ingo's fault, maybe. Five years, you learn to live with the absence, one way or another. You adjust. You convince yourself you're fine enough, and the rest follows.

You forget some things. From some angles, letting someone try to support you sure seems like you're burdening them unduly instead. ]

Congratulations. You found tea and not peppermint or basil.

[ Tentatively, faintly teasing. It's not terrible. It's tea, to be sure, a perfectly serviceable drink. ]

[offtracks]

Peppermint might not have been so terrible!

[Yes, teasing! This is much safer, let's just go to that.]

[outbounds]

Hmm, maybe not. Depends on how strong? Might've forgotten about it a little too long and then we'd just have mouthwash.

[offtracks]

Mmm, that's true. But it might have been pepper flakes.

[Spicy water...it couldn't really have happened, of course, not as sharp as his new nose has proved to be. But imagine!]

[outbounds]

Not very easy to sleep after that, I think. If you wanted me to stay awake, should have just asked.

[ Spicy hot water... ]

[offtracks]

Oh, not at all. I would have found some calming herbs if I could.

[You clearly need to sleep...]

[outbounds]

'If you could.' And that's when you discover that they keep those kinds of herbs in the clinic rather than in here. Just leave hypothetical me here in the kitchen with my hypothetical spicy hot water. How could you.

[ though, hm, a thought. ]

I am curious. Does being a fire type now make you like spicy food any more or less than you did before?

[offtracks]

I'm not sure! I have not had anything terribly spicy since I have been here!

[He's...fairly neutral about spicy food in general, he thinks? He doesn't get a lot of it; he doesn't usually have a great variety of spices on hand to begin with.]

[outbounds]

Could always give you a Figy Berry and see how you react to it. [ if they really wanted to know, anyway. ] But that is fine. It was not a serious thought.

[ he'll instead return to lapping at his tea. ]

[offtracks]

An interesting idea, though...

[He's always preferred sweets anyway. He cannot imagine that's changed.]

Have you noticed any changes like that? In yourself? [He clarifies, because the changes he must have noticed in Ingo are a lot more fraught, whatever they are.]

[outbounds]

[ He lifts his attention from the tea, head cocking. ]

From just before I got here, you mean? ... Huh.

I don't know. Hard to say. There's a lot new or different; hard to tell what is just the new senses, what is adjustment, and what is just ... me.

[offtracks]

Yes, I suppose that's true. I am not sure if there's anything that has come to me with this body, or if I am only still adjusting.

[He's used to this sort of thing, after a fashion, but even then - this has all been very different from his arrival in Hisui.]