#senan

They could tell Aspen was getting ansty about it, last night. Looking out into the forest with a sort of yearning.

Velvet hoped to satisfy the mewtwo's wanderlust, and very soon.

Velvet clutched one of the two packed bags from their hiding place, and stood up, their back and shoulders popping from the weight.

Shoes make sounds behind them, and they freeze.

Senan's voice. Oh his voice was the last thing Velvet had hoped to hear this morning.

They could hardly believe this was happening.

Velvet swallows dryly, and turns to face their supervisor.

"Y-you're uh. Here early." Velvet's voice comes out a bit higher pitched than they intended, and they hug the bag close to their chest.

"I was hoping it wouldn't come to this. But you know I have to battle you, right?" Senan is hard to read. He's definitely serious about this, though.

Velvet's face pales, and nods.

"I never expected insubordination from you, Velvet." His arms cross, stern expression becoming clearer. "If you win, I'll give you two days to get as far away from here as you can manage."

"If I win, Aspen and Amaranth will never see you again."

Velvet's heart is racing by the time the terms are said.

"O-okay." The bag gets placed back into the hiding place, and they grab two pokeballs out of it.

Velvet locks eyes with Aspen, and a lump forms in their throat. They had been so focused on Senan and his words, they'd completely missed the sound of the door opening.

Oh it keeps getting worse.

Their blood roars in Velvet's ears, and they feel a tendril of Aspen's psychic energy reach out to them, and them coming to their side.

The sound of birds chirping suddenly reaches their ears, and a dizzying feeling assaults their senses.

Velvet's legs give out from underneath them. Fluff hugs them from all sides, as dew dampens their slacks. Their ears are ringing. They can't get enough oxygen, their face is numb.

[A/N: This was fun! Morgan is a TA for a big music history lecture, as well as a vocal tutor for younger underclassmen, so this fit him pretty well!]

When Morgan’s voice cracked on the very first note he sang, the group knew something was up. But he cleared his throat and kept going, and they dismissed it. When it happened again, Avi held a hand up to stop the rehearsal, and the instruments faded one by one into silence. He insisted he was fine. We can keep going, he’d said, but within five minutes he darted out of the room without a word of explanation, leaving the rest of the band confused and worried.

“Do you think he’s okay?” Elizabeth asked. “Should we go check on him?”

“I’d give him a few minutes. You know how he is,” Senan said, but his own eyes darted toward the door, brows clearly knitted together in concern.

“It’s probably the fuckin’ nor-.. Noro-…” Adam hesitated, searching for the word. “Norovirus!” He finally exclaimed. “It’s been goin’ around the underclass halls, and he said one of his students was sick at their desk the other day. Poor fucker had to clean it up.”

This earned sympathetic hums from the rest of the group, before they fell into an awkward silence. Shortly, the sound of muffled heaves came through shared bathroom wall.

“Definitely not okay, then,” Elizabeth said with a grimace.

Another silence followed. Adam plucked at the strings on his bass, and Senan shuffled his feet, unsure what to do.

“I’m gonna go check on him,” Avi said finally, before sweeping out of the room. They knocked lightly on the door of the bathroom, but when they didn’t get a response other than retching, they tried to door handle. It swung open easily, just as the red-faced Morgan spewed a massive torrent of sick into the toilet, face ducking into the bowl as it thundered into the water. He came back up with a gasp, and Avi gathered his dreads back from his face.

“Shit, Morgan,” they breathed as another plume splattered noisily into the basin.

“God,” Morgan croaked when he could finally get a breath. “I think– urp!– I think I might be sick,” he said wryly, wiping the tears of exertion from his cheeks. He reached for the box of tissues, but had to duck back into the toilet to vomit again.

“Understatement of the millenium,” Avi said, placing the box next to him and patting his back as he choked on a bit of sick that got lodged in this throat.

He shuddered under their slender fingers, but that last bout seemed to have emptied him out and he collapsed back against the bathroom wall.

“See, this is why I don’t go to college,” Avi said, earning a halfhearted chuckle from Morgan as he cleaned himself up and pitched the soiled Kleenex into the toilet when he was finished.