The dark's always nice...

Chances are great she won’t be awake by the time Colm gets up. Noir already got her some food, after all.

That left Noir with a conundrum.

Antidepressants that he was forced to wake up and take by Gengar. But once Colm did swallow the pill, he conked right back out on the couch.

Which left Gengar and the other ghosts in the same situation as Noir.

[”Our own thing?”] Was Gengar’s response, [”Wishal’s probably gonna go out and do groceries, since she’s th’ least scary here. Somov’us just move ‘round. I normally just chill an’...”] 

And look at Gengar pointing at the Wii U in the corner there.

[“She doesn’t MEAN it, she’s just drunk right now and I mean…”] She blinked. Noir’s first plan was to steal/borrow Colm’s shower to get Poppy somewhat sober but after being exposed to Colm’s ill-controled empath powers this long…bed seemed like a better idea. Poppy wasn’t in danger of actually choking or anything. Empathy was starting to overpower intoxication anyway.

“I’m sleeeeeeeepy…” She whined.

[“We’ll take the guest room, I suppose - I’ll be out in a minute, just let me…”] Noir yawned and teleported to said room - walking is for schmucks - and then just.

[”...Sure,”] Gengar had answered the air by the time he opened his mouth. Well, Colm was pretty much out, and sleeping on the couch never bothered him before. 

Well, time to cover the loser aaaaand...yep, everything was set.

2015 MASTERLIST FOR INDIE POKEMON ROLEPLAYERS.

* This blog was made to allow the pokemon community to connect more & find their favorite muses/muns! So please, can you reblog if you’re a Indie Pokemon roleplayer?

That gave Noir an out to not have to answer Gengar. Honestly, this was so embarrassing. But no sooner did she deposit everybody on Colm’s couch when suddenly Poppy made a grab for her face and -

“So hey - HEY - hey did you know - did you KNOW - Noir has these - these tiny - ” And she pried Noir’s mouth open and shoved it in the general direction of Colm and Gengar, showing off tiny fangs.

Now, Colm did read about Gardevoirs a while back, simply out of curiosity. He remembered that Gardevoirs held certain interesting features in their anatomy, but the details of those features escaped his tired mind currently. So seeing these fangs up close did not give the typical reaction of “oh my god let the poor pokemon go!”, but instead made Colm’s eyes sparkle as he looked closer. Only Gengar looked truly annoyed by this unusual torture.

“Your place has more beds.” More beds was good, yes? It should be. More of a thing was always better than less of a thing, wasn’t it?

Actually, her place had more beds, technically, but the basement didn’t count.

“So we can go to my place,” Colm nodded, though his eyelids began to weigh too much for him to keep them properly opened, “Sounds like...a plan, eh. Yup.”

A girl with healing abilities– one whose name was something along the lines of Poopy. There were only so many people that could fit that description. N blinked.

“Are you talking about Poppy?” He was a bit surprised to hear the Spoose talking about her of all people. “Ah, that’s right… She did mention that she knew your trainer before, I think.” And it could be assumed from what Benjamin said that Colm too was aware of her powers. For someone who wanted her abilities hidden, she apparently wasn’t very good at being secretive. “Would you like to meet her? I’m afraid I’m not sure of her whereabouts… But she’d likely be fond of you.” Though she did have Felis. And Felis might have liked Benjamin a bit too much.

His chat with Benjamin was derailed as Colm made his approach. N looked up, continued to smile.

The shy smile broadened a bit on his face. It made Colm happy when he found out that some of his friends met each other and were on good terms...or at least, that’s what all the signs pointed to.

But then N replied to Colm directly, and even Benjamin stopped his chatter to listen on this conversation.

“...” the way that last sentence rung in the air, it left him with a pinching feeling in his chest. Ah yes, guilt, because disappearing for a while with barely a word was definitely the sign of a good friend.

But he gave N a nervous half-smirk, chuckling nervously but softly still, “Yeah...it’s been a while. But I think...I’m good? I just needed a break from...well...”

How do you tell a person that you nearly had a nervous breakdown entirely and NEEDED to isolate yourself from the world to think?

But now Jay wasn’t willing to play more? The mental stimulation he got from the man was only tantalizing when it was this man giving it to him. The term “Schadenfreude” rang all the more clearly in his head, a term that used to disgust him now seemed acceptable. And now, Jay didn’t even want to play?

And now an innocent blink, “Sir, I am indeed hurt. I come to find you once more, to chat a bit because, apparently, you missed me,” and here, his oddly symmetric smile grew wider, “and you simply call me less “fun” than before?”

With the next sentence, a certain low, vicious excitement dripped from every word, though Colm truly did try to hold back on it a bit.

“We should go somewhere with PILLOWS.” Which meant either her place or his. It was the same distance so Noir could make either jump with ease. Speaking of Noir…

“Say hiiiiii~.”

“Tetanus is transmitted via deep puncture wounds from dirty nails, metal tools, wood splinters--” he began reciting like some Wikipedia page but stopped at wood splinters. Ah...but he never got that before...right?

Obviously that was something to question when the only thing really keeping you awake was the company around you and a fizzling adrenaline rush from...something he did earlier. Guess he was forgetting that now, huh?

But then Poppy suggested a place with PILLOWS(TM), and suddenly that was the best idea in the universe. Not even Arceus could think better, for sure.

Oh, gotta say hi to Best Gardevoir(TM) (sorry, Lucille’s Gardevoir, but Noir is more important). So Colm simply waved, a tired, crooked smile on his face that radiated “welcomness” (and maybe exhaustion, whoops).

And as for Gengar....

“You w o u n d me Colm.  I rescued those children because they wished to be rescued.”  Shoulders dropped, smile turning absolutely wicked.  Best shift focus away from his darling kits.  Colm had no business talking about them, and really, was that anyway to respond to a off the cuff proposal for dinner?  No.  

“I never said it was a bad thing,” and Colm crossed his arms, tilting his head a bit to the side with a low cackle, “Assuming is rather r u d e of you, don’t you think? If anything, I should be the one wounded here.

But yes, this was definitely the John Colm had been missing. Oddly enough, he wanted to see the other again. Even now, when he started to feel some discomfort from the other’s mere presence, he knew that he also oddly enjoyed it. And why not slip back in and be uncharacteristic of himself?

He’d been doing it before his break from everything, at least now he had the mind to accept that he was nearly as strange as this one.

And with a strange new smile, one that would make you think of a Haunter, Colm replied, “Well, decent certainly skips all the mundane activities and thinking I’ve done in the past months. But I take it kidnapping more children to add to your mismatched family is your way of filling holes?”

“You see? I know you’re excited, but it’s best to tread carefully.”

As the Spoose though on, Colm finally got the courage to approach N, just a few extra steps in his direction.