Love Lost, Chapter 11b: Excesses, concluded.
#22 of Love Lost
Love Lost, Chapter 11b: Excesses, concluded.
A small travel alarm clock sounded. Burner hardly responded until after Alice turned it off and started playing with the feathers on his chest.
"I told you you'd fall asleep after I took care of you, mister I'm just going to rest my eyes for a couple minutes."
Burner realized that his constitution had failed him, and that daylight was waning. "I'm sorry. I didn't ruin your plans for today, did I?"
"Burner! You made my afternoon. You were gone all summer long and when I finally got to see you again, it was after I almost blasted you through one of the walls downstairs." She snuggled against his body as tightly as she safely could. "After months apart, this, right now, is the way we were supposed to get together again." After a moment, she asked Burner to hand her the clock. She advanced the alarm time by about an hour and armed it again. Then, she laid him back down and herself with him.
Burner questioned if this was how they were supposed to meet again, specifically, the physical arrangement. Her best attempt to press against him was spoiled by her spike. He thought back to times they had gotten close, and realized that she almost always faced him, despite her chest spike; something she did not have when she was a riolu. "Alice, Let's lie a little differently. Face away from me, like when you evolved."
Alice turned somewhat reluctantly and muttered his name as he pulled and pushed on her limbs and body until finally she felt his strong arms take her up and pull her in against his chest. His feathers seemed to fluff up slightly providing a warm and plush layer between her body and his firm muscles. She realized that this way, he could hold her close without any of her points digging into his flesh or damaging the bedding.
"This--this is nice, too. Burner?" she whispered.
"Alice?"
"Never stop loving me."
He cooed faintly and shifted slightly, perfecting their fit. With the aid of her aura sensors, lifted slightly and surrounded by his fluffy mane, Alice felt Burner fall asleep without a single concern on his mind, and a spark of envy in her own a second later. Then, two seconds of embarrassment. Three seconds realizing that she was why he felt that way, four seconds realizing that he was why she should feel that way. Five seconds later, fifteen in total, she too was asleep in absolute peace.
When Alice's alarm roused them a second time, only fading twilight and one precocious street lamp illuminated their room. Burner realized that Joe might be getting worried that his pokemon failed to return from its day trip. He stretched as he got to his feet, feeling much more loose and limber. Alice was slower to rise and fumble for a light, her body protesting a sudden absence of the comfort it was enjoying.
"Oh, I forgot. I got you a gift today." Burner sifted through his bags and presented Alice with her new phone.
"Burner, you--really, just for me?"
"The salesman said this model is popular with physically active human-shape pokemon because it's the right size for a small, tough holster that you can wear tight near your ankle or wrist so it won't get in your way and you won't need a purse or bag. I got the holster for you, too." He produced both the telephone and its strap, offering them to her as she turned to a seated posture on their bed. "Because they have to register it to a human, technically it's under Joe's name since I belong to him. So, when you need more minutes let me know and I can buy them with my money through his account."
"Oh, wait, no, B, I don't want to be spending your money like that. This is too much already."
"I did spend most of my money today. But, I wanted to spend it on my family. Please accept my gift to you."
Alice sliced through the plastic packaging with a spike and tried her telephone holster on at a few places, unsure which would become her preference. "Burner, you don't know what this means to me." Burner would have blushed if redness of flesh could be a visible change on his face. "I mean it, Burner. To see my daddy, I have to be ready at a moment's notice. Until now, I haven't been able to get called when there's a chance. Now, I can give them my number in the morning and--it could be as soon as tomorrow afternoon if I'm lucky!" She channeled her excitement into practically dragging Burner downstairs. "Come on, let's go to your place. I'll fix you all something nice to eat."
Gil slowed up as he approached a thing known only as "the buoy" to the few who knew about it at all. Its name was fitting since that is what it looked like--a large conical buoy, colored yellow with a "6-A" stencil painted on its face. "I'm ready," he thought to himself, and with absolute faith, he stepped off of his boat into the air beyond it, walking aloft until he stood on the buoy, screwed in its yellow light bulb atop, opened a door to its conical body, and stepped inside.
Within the cabin, Junior quit concentrating on telekinetically supporting Gil's stride and returned his attention to a game of dice he was playing with Carlos. Slurping at his fifth bucket of soda that afternoon, Junior replaced five dice into a cup and cast them out with his mind. "I told you, I'm not cheating!"
Carlos knew he had now caught him. "You wouldn't know that I was thinking you were cheating without reading my mind."
Junior grunted and bowed his head. "Sorry, Mr. Velasquez," he projected.
"Promise you won't do it again and you're forgiven. And give me back that candy bar since you probably didn't earn it."
Junior slid it across the table before popping one of his own candy cheques into his mouth. It had peanuts, which was a flavor worth losing a bit of his bankroll for.
Carlos took the cup and rolled a set of dice for himself. "I can't believe this. I'm actually sitting here, face to face, with a lugia. Don't take this the wrong way, I don't mean anything personal by it, but what I wouldn't do to have a master ball in my pocket right now."
Junior raised and re-rolled three. "If you weren't going on your trip today, and you only wanted to have a lugia capture on your League record to make you proud and feel better, you wouldn't need a master ball. I'd let you catch me for a moment with whatever ball you liked."
"Really?" Carlos said incredulously as he rolled two. He missed his straight.
Junior won, fair-and-square this time, and collected four candies. "To make you feel better."
"I don't know if it would make me feel better. What if it was a master ball? I wouldn't feel better to take you away from your family, but it would seem like a waste of a rare product to release you."
The lugia started sucking on a jawbreaker. "I would open it if you didn't."
Carlos lowered his eyebrows as the pokemon anted and re-cupped his dice. "I said, 'master ball.' That's a ball that--"
"--can capture any pokemon. They don't admit it because it's bad for advertising, but a very powerful pokemon can still break out."
"Bullshit! I work for a guy whose whole life has been dealing with pokemon, including legendary species. Master balls don't break."
Junior ate his ante and replaced it with a different candy. "The old man, right? He always owes Father a favor or two. When I told Father I wanted to come with him to the surface and meet his human friends, he got some master balls from the old man and, with Uncle Gil's help, used them on me after teaching me how to break them. The first time was hard. I was in it for fifteen months and was really sick when I got out. Mom was mad about it but Dad insisted. Once I felt better he got me put in another one. That one I got out of in about three weeks. The third time felt easy because I understood what I was doing. I broke it after about twenty seconds. Father said that would be good enough as long as I didn't fly away someplace where he and Mom couldn't protect me without hurting people who might accidentally get in their way."
Now, Carlos wanted to trap Junior just to see a master ball be broken before his own eyes.
Junior raised his left wing and concentrated; Gil was ready to return to his ship.
The Sphinx came under its own power and started to move toward the co-ordinates that Gil received. Junior got one last refill and exited the cabin behind Carlos, and commented inside the minds of both humans, still not bothering to direct his projections, "Are you unhappy because no one told you goodbye?"
Carlos turned, and asked, "What?"
Junior wrapped his wings around Carlos, who stood with his arms warily held out to his sides, not sure what to do with them. A gentle force guided them until they wrapped around the small lugia, sliding between and meeting within the spikes arrayed on his back. "Don't be unhappy. Even if they didn't or couldn't tell you goodbye, your friends remember you, and they'll be happy to see you when it's time for you to be with them again." Junior did not mind that Carlos let their contact linger long enough to seem awkward, and once released, Junior dove into the water without hesitating or looking back.
Gil approached Carlos, lighting his pipe anew. "That kid's got his mother's intuition, his father's power, and most importantly, neither of their tempers. He's going to make a great gatekeeper one day, in about a hundred years."
Carlos turned with a strange expression to look at the old salt as he walked away, headed toward the cabin door.
"You can watch the stars come out if you like, but if you know the sky like a seaman does, all that'll do is make you question your faith."
The brightest stars were already visible. Carlos looked at them and recalled something he read in a dirty old book not too long beforehand that sounded similar to Captain Gil's warning.
Joe gripped his deck firmly with his left hand, preparing to aim it at Alice, then Grace, then Burner, before turning it on himself and firing four more volleys in kind. "Two, then three, then two, then three; then three-two-three-two?"
"That's fine," the lucario affirmed.
Alice continued answering Grace's question while Joe dealt out most of the cards. "I hated it. It made my paws hurt, and I didn't think I would ever need to write anything important. But every time we were at a pokemon-friendly diner with paper place-mats, he'd make me take dictation and write until either the food came or the paper was covered. And if I wrote too large he'd switch his with mine and have me start over. Pass."
Grace examined her cards and stalled for time with an "um," hoping Joe would look at his hand.
Alice knocked on the table. "Hey, I warned you it's two points for cross-boarding, that includes scanning brain waves."
Grace slumped a little. "Pass."
Burner studied his hand intently while Alice continued. "Anyway, thanks to that, and the greatest gift he ever gave me--and I'm not forgetting my freedom--a complete name, I've been able to avoid a lot of hassles in getting things I need--"
Burner glanced at Joe. "Pass."
"--and the things I can't get--"
Joe passed.
"--let's just say I've found the right friends to take care of me."
"No," Burner interjected, startling Alice out of a demure smile, "you've found the right family."
Alice's eyes widened as she looked at the others at the table, before trying to look at nobody. "Burner, that's the second time you've said something like that today."
"That is, if you find us acceptable," Burner conceded.
Alice's ears lowered and her aura sensors raised. "I--I really don't know what to say."
Joe leaned forward over the table's edge. "Your phone's already activated through my account. If there's anything else you need me for, I'll be happy to help."
Grace spoke next, telepathically. "Don't tell the boys, but since we met I've felt like it would be nice to have someone like a sister."
Alice nodded and hummed an acknowledgment but still avoided anyone's gaze.
Burner reached across the table and laid his scaly hand palm-up before her. "You can say 'yes,' if you think it's the right thing to do."
Alice reached out, and almost touched Burner's palm with her own, but hesitated, withdrew, and choked. "Uh, give me, a--I need a minute." She ran out of the kitchen.
James and Marianne rubbernecked as she dashed past them, locking herself in the bathroom and turning the water faucet on full blast. Joe looked to Grace and spoke her name. Grace responded with a gentle shake of her head. "No, her mind--it's trying to defend itself, like it did when I synchronized with her a long time ago and went too far. I shouldn't pry."
James changed channels.
Marianne pressed a tendril against his right temple and began pushing, tilting his head and threatening to penetrate it. "You're bad with women."
James swatted at her. "What? Go away."
Marianne pressed two tendrils against him. "See? There. That's what I mean."
James pulled a lighter from his pocket and lit it beneath her.
She lassoed his hand, pulled his thumb from its button, and kept pulling until he yelped. "Don't tempt me, J.R." Seven seconds passed. "Fine! I'll take care of her!" Marianne shouted, then she whispered into his ear, pressing firmly against his head, "You will die alone because of your attitude," before gliding south.
Alice glanced into the mirror when she felt something sinister approaching her aura sensors. "Please don't pull my ribbons."
Marianne coiled up her tendrils. "What makes you think I would do that?"
Alice glowered at Marianne's reflection.
"I do what I have to do to survive. Fright, surprise, a constant atmosphere of anxiety; that keeps me going. But pulling your bows right now? That would've just made you feel hurt and abused. I'm a parasite with a short fuse, but I'm not a sadist." Marianne drifted up against Alice's sensors, leaned over her head, and turned the water to half its previous rate. "What the hell is wrong with you, Alice?"
"I don't know."
"That must be a first; no wonder you're shaken up. You aren't shy about getting--or taking--what you want: attention, dinners, houses. You didn't take Burner's hand. Why?"
"Because, because everything I've done on my own since my Daddy had to go was something he told me to do. Find shelter, make trustworthy friends, protect myself."
"Is that all?"
"No. Find happiness."
"I think yours is in the kitchen, if you forgot what it looks like..."
"I broke one of the rules, though. I told myself I didn't, but I did: Never let anyone follow you home."
Marianne drifted around and turned the water's flow back to full blast, and began to diffuse her tendrils into a hazy cloud around Alice. The lucario started to resist, the ghost tightened her grip and asked, "Please don't struggle. I told you, I'm not here to pull your ribbon."
Alice calmed down, looking at Marianne's face's reflection in the mirror. Backwards, it somehow seemed honest. Then it cracked a slight grin, tilted slightly to the side, and sang with the lilt of a lullaby over an eerie wail that harmonized with the water's hiss. "I'm not going to hurt you, close your eyes. Let me feel your dreams, reach behind their guise. When my work is done and it's time to wake; Marianne'll tell you which path to take."
Influenced by a taste of a perish-song, Alice nodded off and collapsed during Marianne's clumsy rhyme, but remained upright, suspended by a purple fog. In the kitchen, Joe snacked on some potato chips and watched Grace as she became suddenly alert. Burner had hardly moved, and only to decline offered snacks.
"The ghost is doing something," Grace said in a low tone. "Something weird."
Joe crunched a chip. "Weird?"
"Marianne is hard for me to sense clearly. She's shadowy and mixed up, and if I try to pick something out it overwhelms me. But right now, she's doing something... kinda Psychic. I've felt that from her sometimes, but it was always cold. This feels warm for some reason."
Alice's eyes opened again with a flutter and her feet kicked around instinctively to find footing that she did not yet require.
Marianne pulled her gently back and released her into the care of her own sense of balance. "You didn't break his rule, because you've never had a home. Never in your whole life. He didn't follow you home; you followed him home, and his door is standing open to you." Unsatisfied with looking at the lucario's reflection, Marianne yanked Alice's head to look straight up as she leaned over her upside-down face. "Don't let your Daddy down. Don't let that door close on you. And, don't forget what the wise snake told you."
Alice squinted with confusion.
Marianne's expression became fierce as her tendrils coalesced tightly around Alice's torso and limbs. Punctuating each word separately, the ghost practically growled, "She said: Don't screw this up!" and underscored her statement by slapping the faucet handle to stop its flow.
Alice's vision turned purple and blurred as Marianne yanked her with great speed through the door and wall, and the next wall, into the kitchen, standing her just behind the seat where she had been playing a card game. In the same instant that Marianne released Alice, she dissipated into invisible nothingness, leaving Alice to stand alone in the spotlight. Alice regained her sense of location and looked ahead. Grace was staring at her. Joe was staring at her. Burner was staring at her, with his arm still stretched across the table's minor axis. Alice drew her seat aside, took his claw with both of her paws, and gave it a strong tug, pulling him a few inches up out of his chair. Then she climbed across the table and hugged him. "Thank you. Thank you, Burner. Thank you all."
James listed to a side to see what was happening at a better angle. He leaned back and counted to himself softly. "Grace, Burner, Alice, Marianne--"
"What?" Marianne said flatly, instantly appearing before James and obscuring his vision of anything else.
"Augh! Shouldn't I have to say your name three times before you do that?"
"Be more fun, J.R."
"What's fun? My home is turning into a zoo."
Marianne drifted aside to float over the love-seat's empty half. "For shame! Jealous of your own son. If you go any lower, I'll sign you up for a limbo competition."
James was about to take a drink, but halted. "What the hell do you mean by that?"
"I think they used to do that on the third Thursday of every month, but the last time Harvey participated was about nine years ago. Maybe they've changed it since then." Marianne watched James stare at her, and readied an insult before realizing it was her mistake. "Oh, by low, jealous?"
James' expression did not change.
"Do you deny it? He's picking up all those cool pokemon without even trying, and a gym badge too. The only pokemon you ever got along with was what, a buizel?"
"I deny it because it ain't true. We were perfectly happy before any of your kind started imposing. All of you are nothing but trouble."
Marianne thought for a moment. Her expression lost its sarcastic texture. "You really think you two were perfectly happy, don't you?"
James shot her a quick glance and returned to viewing his television. After another moment of quiet between them, he shot another glance, and let his patience break. "Well? Where is it? You never say something like that without twisting the knife."
Marianne twiddled two tendrils and, perhaps, feigned innocence. "Didn't I already?"
James noticed the can he was drinking from had become rather light. "If I'm going to deal with your shit, I'm going to need something stronger than caffeine. Make yourself useful and bring me a beer."
The ghost leaned against James and tussled his hair. "Now you're talking!" She flew off in a direction away from the refrigerator.
James turned in his seat and saw her punch through the wall twice then make for the door, as though she needed to pass through it to depart. "Hey, what are you doing?"
As a swift violet blur she appeared directly before him again. "Taking a lot of your money. You told me to bring you a beer. You know what that word means to me."
"I do now," James admitted with a hint of annoyance.
"Hey, I'll bring back a pirate hat for you. James, be more fun."
Alice entered the living room alone as Marianne departed, and sat beside James.
"Mister Rainier, I want to thank you for your hospitality. You and your family have always made me feel welcome here, even Marianne in a strange way."
James interrupted. "The ghost has a strange way, but it is not part of this family."
Alice whimpered faintly. "With Joe's blessing, Burner has asked me to become part of his, this family. I've accepted, uh, I mean I want to accept, but this all went backwards: Burner and I became, well, friends, then he asked Joe, and now--"
James held his palm toward Alice and rose to enter his kitchen.
"Grace, I'm going to have a discussion with Alice. You are not going to read her memories of tonight, and you are not going to start probing around for clues, got it?"
Grace nodded enthusiastically, "Yes, Master James!"
He turned to his son. "Joe, I respect that you are a young man now and it's time to start making your own decisions. But, that doesn't mean you make decisions that aren't completely your own. Understand me?"
Joe looked away slightly. "Yes, Dad."
"Burner. You remember what we discussed."
Burner sat stiffly upright. "Yes, Sir."
"Good. Alice, get in my car."
Neither she nor James spoke a word till they were on the path toward Linalool City, whereupon he turned off his radio. "I've heard that lucarios are naturally loyal. Is that a fact?"
"I think so. I really don't know any but myself and my father. He protected us."
"Us?"
"His mistress's husband was a very angry man. I was only a couple weeks old I think, but I'll never forget how his aura felt."
"Will that loyalty extend to the members of this family you think you want to join?"
She demurred again. "Mister Rainier, it already has."
"Clarify some things for me. You do have a trainer, right?"
"Yes, sir."
"Where is he, exactly?"
Everything about her drooped. "Palmitoy Penitentiary."
"That's not exactly away on business like you've made it sound like, Alice."
"The way I've explained Daddy's situation let you assume one thing, and now that I've told you exactly where he is, you're assuming another thing. Either way, you're filling in the gaps for yourself. I can't help that, so I chose the way that was safest."
"The one that doesn't reveal that you were trained by a criminal?"
She drew her legs against the edge of her seat. "One that doesn't admit that I'm one broken ball away from becoming anybody's pokemon."
"You want to stay his, then? I'll assume after a nickel or dime, he can get out on parole or something. Let's say he wants his dog back. What are you going to do to MY family? What would he do to it?"
She sat quietly for almost a kilometer. "I will have to follow my heart. He gave me my freedom at the cost of his own, so I know he will honor my decision."
James nodded and continued along Route R-L until a left turn put him on a winding path traveling up the eastern slopes of Mount Buchu. He stopped at a small roadside clearing that provided a great view of surrounding landscape, dominated by bright lights of Linalool's night life plus the faint glow of Coumarin near the horizon beyond Lake Muramis. Alice followed him as he left his car and leaned against the ledge's guard rail.
"Nothing of what we say here will be repeated or even acknowledged in the future. Understand?"
"Yes, Mister Rainier."
"I am not well. Joe is slightly suspicious. Grace is concerned, but I told her to mind her own business. Marianne knows; she has been doing things she thinks will help me... I think. Don't ask why, because I don't know. I don't want to think any of it has helped, but she is keeping my medication hidden from everyone and providing cover stories when my symptoms show up, so I'm keeping the peace with her. That medication is being provided gratis by a dangerous man named Simon Well. He tried to capture Grace when she was in the wild to turn a quick buck by putting her on auction. Joe wound up with her first and ruined those plans, but he's keeping himself in the picture. We have a little history, but I don't think he's the sentimental type. That worries me. Anyway, his pills might be helping, but they aren't a cure."
James pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. "I thought I gave these up for good, but always kept one around just in case I needed a crutch to lean on. Since Grace came into my life, I'm halfway back to where I was. I thought the same about pokemon, and did the same, too. Alice, I brought you here and told you this because you deserve to know what you're getting yourself into. It's not going to be swimming pool parties and ravioli dinners and fawning over your hunky chicken alternatively at his place or yours. When push comes to shove, Joe's going to need someone to lean against. I've got a good friend, a retired rear-admiral, Nigel Biltmore, who was something of a second father to me for a while, and he's agreed to take care of the legal custody side of things if I go before Joe's of-age, but Joe hardly knows the man and Skipper doesn't have enough energy to really deal with a teenager and his poorly-trained pokemon. You've proven you can stand on your own two feet. If you're going to be part of this family, you're going to be ready to stand fast. I hope he can weather it, but if he can't, Grace is going to suffer with him because she's hitched her wagon to his mind and emotions. I don't have to tell you that Burner is strong, kindhearted, and devoted, but he's also very immature. He thinks going shopping by himself today is a great feat. You might find that cute and endearing, but I see it as something he needs to grow out of, quick. If they become a mess, I need Joe to have level heads that he trusts to turn to and rely on."
They stood silently, hearing nothing but nocturnal insects and a passing owl.
"Is your interest in Burner worth getting involved with all this?"
Alice took a deep breath and held it momentarily. "No. But I don't have an interest in Burner like you are thinking; like I'm looking for a plaything. No, because my interest is in having a family, not just companionship. Mister Rainier, my earliest complete memory is the sound of a man yelling at and hurting his daughter, the smell of his blood after my father stopped him--" Alice's voice started to waiver. She slipped beneath James' arm and pressed alongside him. "I felt all of their auras ripple as it happened. Her terror, her mother's despair, my father's resolve, that man's rage. I--I didn't know what to do. Daddy told me to run but I could feel it in him, he didn't want me to go, it broke his heart to tell me to go but he knew he couldn't take a chance that he couldn't protect me and I wanted to tell him I loved him but I didn't know how; it was just some feeling inside me, a word I couldn't say stuck inside my head and then he shouted at me and shoved me and I ran and I ran and I--" Alice fell to her knees around James' legs and bawled. "I felt him die when he killed him."
A minute passed before Alice recovered enough to stand again. James felt impotent, this having caught him completely unprepared, and without any idea what he should do about it.
"But, before that, my earliest incomplete memory: I don't remember seeing anything, or hearing anything, or smelling anything. It's just a feeling, a faint sensation. I didn't even know what it was for a while. It was my father's aura, when he picked me up and held me for the first time. I've felt something like it since then. I felt it from my second Daddy, when he heard me agree to leave the pokemon center with him. I felt it from Burner after I evolved in his arms. It's a feeling of pride and optimism. It's a feeling I want to share with people I care about, even though they can't feel it in their auras the way I do. James, I'm thankful to you that you brought me here and warned me about this. I'm thankful, because it means that you do care about me, and you want to protect me from maybe making a mistake. That tells me you already see me as part of your family." She slipped beneath his arm again, wrapping her left around his lower back, and pressing against him as her right reached about to join with its complement. "That tells me that my new family is a good one, and whatever happens, I'm not going to feel any regrets."
James finished off his cigarette with one last drag. "It's had its share of downs in the past," James hesitatingly ran his fingers' tips along Alice's scalp as she looked up to him, returning to her ears their typical erection, "but the average has been improving recently."
Walking back to James' car, Alice stopped him and commented, "Look at that. The whole sky is clear, except for that one little cloud peeking around the mountain like it's spying on us. See it, lit up by the moonlight. Isn't that weird?"
James looked and noticed it, too; smiled, and chuckled. "Not at all."