Nix landed gently on the ground outside of Spinda's Café, taking extra care not to jostle his three passengers in the process.
"Here we are, ladies." The tropius said courteously to his party members, leaves aching from the long flight. "Take your time - there's still three hours until six."
With a mixed chorus of giggles, Tropius's three teammates slid off his back and onto the cobbled road, one at a time. He sighed inwardly as each did, wondering why he volunteered to join - and for that matter, was let into - their party, when they always seemed to be a step above him in every way.
First came Vel the gardevoir, who did a good job of leading the crew in their various explorations and missions. Despite having just flown among the currents of rushing wind, she looked as she always did: stunning. Sure, she was a pretty standard example of her species, as far as they went, yet her confidence and determination as a leader could only increase her natural beauty, leading her to be somewhat famous among the guild.
Next came Dia, the lucario. While her other two female companions were social, Dia was more or less the silent one; she was content to simply lean back in her chair after supper and watch the younger pokémon talk. However, despite her normally laid-back appearance, she did enjoy poking into other's buisness. As for appearances, her blue fur had been dyed a midnight hue, rather than the aqua that grew naturally - no one really knew why. In addition, the black stripes that crossed over her face and body glowed in the dark - a little ability inherited from a long forgotten ancestor.
And finally came Rita, sliding off last and finally giving Nix a free moment to stretch. The slim marowak brushed herself off out of habit, and making sure that the long hammer-shaped bone she kept in a sling at her back was still there, began to walk over to the café behind the others. Nix admired her the most, despite her slightly lower status among the guild. Her only distinguishing feature was her skull helmet; instead of the smooth, flawless white that nearly all marowak skulls consisted of, Rita's was a light, metallic grey. This was, of course, because it was made of metal.
Shaking his head to clear his thoughts of his team, he snapped his massive broad leaves once, and propelled himself out of the road and onto the grass across the street from the café.
'I'll just take a little nap while they're in there...' He thought, looking at a long black pokémon worm its way through the sky, much higher than he could fly. 'They should be awhile... After all; they said it's tradition to drink a lot... Today...'
Letting out a small sigh of mixed contentment, drowsiness, and sadness, the tropius let his head sink to the ground, the sights before him slowly blurring away as he succumbed to the all-consuming embrace of slee-
"Hey! Nix!"
With a groan, Nix grumbled a little to himself, and then raised his head, looking towards the café, where a figure stood in the massive doorway and stared at him, hands on hips. His mind was still midway between 'on' and 'not', so he simply looked blankly in that direction, neck and leaves waving a little in the wind.
"What?" He called back.
"By 'let's go to Spinda's', I meant all of us!" The figure laughed at him, beginning to tromp over. The voice eventually registered in Nix's mind, and felt his heart beat a little more erratically.
'Arceus, why?' He thought to the clouds before standing up and shifting his wings.
"I thought it was one of those unsaid 'girls only' things." The tall plant pokémon replied, frowning. "Or maybe the unsaid 'veterans only', or 'not you' things. It's always codes with you guys after all, Rita."
The marowak reached him and looked up at him, a curious expression conveyed through her sky blue eyes. "Huh?"
"...Nothing. It's nothing." Nix said, sitting back down with a thump and causing a tiny quake. "I'll be fine out here."
Expression switching to concerned, Rita rephrased her answer - 'huh' just wouldn't cut it this time. "Nix, you know better than all that."
Nix said nothing.
"And besides, we're a group, no 'girls only' or 'not you'." She went on, shifting a foot in the terribly overgrown grass. "And you've been with us for seven months! That's half the time Team Hero has been together, Nix. You're just as much a veteran as we all are. Now c'mon, let's get a drink to a job well done, inside!"
He still looked a little blue.
Rolling her eyes, Rita walked up to him and grabbed his head. Time for plan C. "Nix..."
Immediately, the large grass-type tried to look away, but the marowak, who served as their hand-to-hand combat specialist, didn't let his head move an inch.
Plan D.
"Alrighty." She said, letting a smile touch her lips. Time to reenact some old times. "If you won't go in, I'll take you there myself!"
Nix's eyes shot wide open. 'Oh she wouldn't possib-'
And Rita turned around, tucking his head under her arm (turning his face red from embarrassment in the process), honking him on the head lightly. "Last chance to stand up and come over yourself."
Nix did nothing. His mind was slightly fried by this point.
Rita shrugged, and then began to drag him across the ground.
-oOo-
Ten minutes later, the two arrived, Rita shoving Nix through the massive doors. Dia and Vel looked at them, both a bit bruised, before simultaneously breaking out into loud laughter. Fortunately, nobody cared -after all, it was quite the special day.
"Heyyy Dia" Groaned Rita, the tropius she was pushing trying his best to not go an inch further. "Mind giving me a hand here?"
The lucario kept laughing for a moment, then wiped a tear from her eye and pointed at Nix, a purple glow surrounding him and levitating him an inch off the floor.
"Impressive that you got him here." She said, still chuckling. "Just goes to show how big your c-"
Immediately, a tropius flew at her, the lack of ground contact allowing the furiously blushing Rita to hurl Nix without trouble, much to his (paralyzed) dismay.
"Whoa!" She shrieked in shock before pointing at Nix again, dropping him next to a large table before promptly blasting Rita over there, then rooting their feet to the floor - all with Psychic.
Dia nearly stood, but Vel put a hand over her chest, bumping her back down. "Let me handle this one."
Grinning, Dia sat back down and took a drink from whatever was in the mug in front of her (knowing the occasion, probably something with a serious kick - why not, half of the town was probably drunk by now) and watched happily as their teammate sat up and walked over to the struggling Dia and Nix.
"Alright, something's up. I can feel it." The gardevoir said, sitting down on a third chair. "Now let's see what it issss..."
Vel turned her head to Nix, then closed her eyes and began to focus. She felt a little guilty using a trick so low, but she was curious; the two had been acting funny all day, and the gardevoir could guess what was wrong, based mainly on the date.
"Now don't try to resist, it's futile, Nix." She said, nearly bursting into laughter from the images that began to pour into her head - daydreams, hopes, hidden emotions... "It only takes a second..."
A second of clenching his eyes shut later, Nix poked one open. Vel had probed his mind before, and it had always felt more... Probey. Why, despite having hidden everything behind a rock hard wall of focused thought, nothing was assaulting it! But then why did Vel look like she was getting answers?
"Ooohhhh... I seeee now..." The green pokémon said, letting out a massive grin. "You want-"
"NO!" Rita shrieked, as embarrassed as physically possible. "NO NO NO!"
Nix's head twisted towards Rita in a flash. Vel must have been probing *her* mind!
"Rita!" He said loudly, immediately concerned. "Are you okaarrrghhhh!"
A foreign entity immediately crammed itself into his head. Vel.
"Nix! Bra-"
-oOo-
|Get out of my head!| The tropius shouted mentally, the message getting through clearly to the greenish blob that was Vel's consciousness flowing around in his mind.
|Oooh, what's this...| Vel thought to him, finding what was, quite obviously, a massive, chained door smack on the very front of Nix's mind. |Well, I have my hunches. I saw something a lot like it in Rita, too!|
Nix paused, knowing what was inside the mental door. Could Rita possibly...
|Ha!| Shouted Vel as the chains gave way. Nix had let his guard down at perfectly the right moment! |Now to see what's inside!|
|Nononononono!|
But it was too late. With a single peek inside, Vel laughed triumphantly and was gone, leaving Nix alone in his mind yet again, the massive gates wide open and letting whatever was inside pour out in a torrent.
-oOo-
"-ce yourself!" Finished Rita, knowing was much too late.
A second later, Vel's eyes snapped open and she stood up, knocking her little stool over, a huge cheesy smile on her face.
Turning, she pointed at Spinda. "Two of today's specials for Nix and Rita here!"
Spinda, used to Vel's semi-drunken outbursts by now (yet not scared, due to the odd disability of pokémon's attacks whilst drunk) simply smiled and poured a pink mixture into two glasses, each one adorned with a simple luvdisk, and Psychic'ed them over, using Odor Sleuth at the same time.
"Here you are!" She said, jumping onto the table. "Although your alcohol levels are a bit too high. I'm going to have to make you go out, you two."
"'Kay." Said Dia, standing up. "Seeya guys."
"Bye!" Said Vel, quite lot less intoxicated. "Put it on our tab, Spinda! We'll be... Out back!"
Spinda raised an eyebrow, but didn't object. Nix, however, knew exactly what was happening: they were going to stay in range, keeping the psychic shackles on, until they were satisfied. Or they passed out. Whichever came last.
The two went out, Dia hanging on to Vel and trying her best to get the gardevoir to stagger, before taking a turn and going down a back alley, to do things better left untold.
Immediately, the café was quiet again, save for the idol talk around the sides. No one gave a second glance to the marowak sitting across from a tropius, each trying to look at anything but each other. Vel had opened their floodgates, and the emergency ones that went by 'politeness' and 'fear' were rapidly crumbling.
A moment passed, then another. Eventually, Nix cleared his throat and looked down at the extra-large mug of pink - with a straw in it - in front of him. He wondered what it was, but judging by its color he could only guess that it was themed around that day. He didn't feel like drinking any just yet.
"Nix?" Said Rita, breaking the silence.
'Arceus WHY!'
"Yeah?"
"... I... Wanted to ask..." The marowak said timidly, poking her fingertips together. "Um... Will, you, um..."
Nix blinked. He wanted to say it so much. He couldn't even begin to describe how much he wanted to. But, frankly, he was scared out of his tail to actually do it. Instead, he stiffly lowered his neck to his mug and took a long drink, the big straw proving much better then he thought it would be. And as for the drink? He couldn't taste it; his tongue was tied up in so many knots.
In response, she looked down at her own, and seeming to shrug down, brought it up to her helmet and pushed the snout up with the rim of the glass mug, keeping with marowak instinct and never fully taking it off.
Several more moments passed, and both of the glasses were empty. Nix looked at his, nudging the straw with his nose while Rita scratched at the luvdisc on hers. The seconds ticked by slower than ever.
Without warning, at exactly seven point six seconds until three, Nix felt something click deep inside him. It might have been the silence, the annoying ticking of the clock, or even whatever he just drank.
But in that split second, Nix felt his courage swell. He locked eyes with Rita at the same time she brought her head up. And the tropius answered the unsaid question in the only way he could.
"Yes. Yes I will."
Nobody really knew what happened in that split moment, but somehow, in the following five seconds, Nix had brought his face up to Rita's, gently nudged her mask upwards, and kissed her.
There were simply no words powerful enough to describe what passed between them as their lips locked, eyes wide open and staring into those of the other. The walls faded, the clicks of the clock on the wall drifted apart, and the entire universe was wiped away, until all that was left was them. Nothing else mattered.
Their lips stayed together for what seemed like a lifetime, and in the split second that they separated, only to breathe softly, Nix felt every ounce of admiration, awe, and respect that he felt to the one in front of him; the one that he had worked with around the clock for the past few months, and the one that he come to fall in love with.
That's why, as their lips met again, in that short space of slightly more than a minute, everything was perfect.
-oOo-
And then, at about 3:09, life came back into play. The floor reappeared, time resumed, and all of existence continued. Only, it was different.
Their first hint to this was when, as they broke apart for the fourth time, a flash came out of nowhere, shattering their shared moment. Their heads remained pressed together for several seconds, noses touching, before all of a sudden, a cheer came out of nowhere. Then another, louder one. And another!
Nix snapped his head back, feeling all of the blood in his body rush to his face, changing it from a nice yellow to a deep red. Rita had a similar reaction, and even though he couldn't see her face as the mask flipped back down, a red tint shot down her neck and stopped halfway down her chest; blushes didn't get much bigger than that.
Half a second later, they noticed that the entire café was either cheering or clapping loudly. If it was possible to blush more, they would have.
And then came the bombshell.
A pounding on a window got Nix and Rita to look, which promptly got their eyes to widen in horror.
It was Dia and Vel, grinning insanely huge, with a camera pressed up against the glass. The expression on Dia's overly happy face said it all - they got a photo.
-oOo-
Four hours later, after chasing the drunken lucario and gardevoir back to the guild and trying (and failing) to find out where they hid the camera, sub sequentially giving them some nasty status conditions that would sting in the morning, Nix and Rita flopped into bed, the latter shoving a pillow into her face and the former shoving his face into a pillow. Heaped into one bed were the other two members, who were going to have massive hangovers, no memories of that afternoon, and with their arms wrapped tight around each other.
Feeling the adrenaline in his system finally fade away, Nix listened to the cricketot outside, bringing his head out of his pillow and sneaking a look over at Rita. Of course, he caught her in the middle of her own gaze at him, and that set off another round of blushing.
Sooner than later, though, Nix brought up the courage to think back on what happened. They had kissed. For a long time. In the café.
He smashed his face into the pillow again. Before long though, he drifted back to the subject. Did he really love her? Did she really love him? Was it just that pink elixir that brought it on? After all, he had only known her for seven months, most of which was spent fighting wild pokémon in dungeons. Would something grown off of that really flourish?
Without warning, he felt a hand on his shoulder and nearly jumped out of his skin. "Nix."
'Arceus - why do you hate me? Then love me? Then hate me twice as much?'
"Yeah?"
She didn't move for a moment, but with a quick, awkward motion, grabbed Nix's head and planted a kiss on it.
And somewhere deep inside, the seeds of doubt scattered in both of their hearts withered and died.
Rita climbed back into her bed, and turned up towards the roof, an odd, hollow tingle ringing in her chest. She blinked once, and turned to Nix, who was staring into her eyes - the only part of her face that he could see - without shame. Swallowing once, she met his gaze and put on a little smile - her first in hours.
"Happy Valentine's day, Nix... And... goodnight."
"Sleep well... My valentine..."
o
|~-~-~-'oOo'-~-~-~|
o
Well that was my first posted writing in FOREVER. (Well, a year and a sixth.)
Frankly, I'm not even sure where it came from. Last night at 7(:36), my laptop was being very dead and I had nothing else to do. Soooo, by 12:12 I had finished this monstrosity and DANG I DUNNO WHERE IT CAME FROM.
So yeah. I'm sure that this will be completely drowned in the flood of valentine's stories, but just so long as at least one person gets a smile from this, for any reason... It's worth it :)
Happy Valentine's day, y'all.
-Xaviertrix