Free Talk: I reviewed a fair bit of constructive criticism and enjoyed a front row seat to a debate on the nature of my prose, the message I'm attempting to get across, and the motivations and contents of the characters of Johannes and Viola; it was quite the spectacle, let me tell you. I'd like to thank cge and an anonymous fellow for their thoughts and comments and hope that my writing reflects their critique and continues to engender enjoyable discussion.
I've also taken the liberty of making up some laws for the Kanto and Hoenn regions. I trust you'll bear with my utter destruction of canon.
Explicit language and content.
Johannes tossed and turned as he slept. It was a dream that reminded him powerfully of something quite pleasant and something decidedly unpleasant colliding together, and it left him uncomfortable, guilt-ridden and aroused.
Viola's tongue ran the length of his member and stopped at the tip. In his head a pastiche of scenes from an old flame in a rather similar position to Viola were playing at breakneck speed. Viola's eyes seemed to be focused on something past Johannes for a moment before she resumed. Memories, it seemed, were just as effective at teaching as his words were – though they could potentially teach Viola volumes when it came to more common aspects of communication (though he'd yet to try), they certainly did wonders with teaching sexuality.
Soft petals clasped about him and ran along his length in time with her rhythm and Johannes at last forgot himself. Gone was the tree he was leaning against, the fortunate patch of forest ground upon which Viola knelt and the only partially-obscuring brush around them. Now, it seemed, lust reigned supreme.
But it would be a short-lived monarchy. A sharp, barking voice rang out in the trees and pulled Johannes out of the endless plain that had stretched out around him. In just one moment he had gone from blissfully ignorant to painfully aware. The next half-hour or so blurred together in his dream turned nightmare. He walked, head hung low, behind the Ranger. Somewhere far outside his head, words of admonishment and incredulity mixed with pity and disgust bounced uselessly off his ears. He turned his head and saw Viola following beside him quietly – no commentary chimed in his head and her eyes stared forward. The forest gave way to a town and it was here Johannes was unceremoniously dumped at a Ranger Station. Here too, words of hostility, disgust, and incredulity bounced off him as he vaguely nodded. He signed papers, presented a passport, proffered Viola's PokeBall for examination and answered a few choice questions. All the while she remained seated beside him, silent.
"Do you know why you were taken here?" He nodded. "Do you understand that what you've done was not only indecent, it is in direct violation of laws in place to prevent it?" Another nod. "Do you know that you could have your Pokemon taken from you for this violation?"
Johannes squirmed a bit in his chair. The Ranger looked much taller from where he sat, and felt almost like a child as defiance welled within him. He looked the Ranger in the eyes; defiance now twitched on the edge of his mouth before he said, "No. You can't." The Ranger looked taken aback, and the angry expression he wore faltered for a moment before hardening.
"We are perfectly within our rights to do precisely that," responded the Ranger coolly, "As mandated by Kanto law." He drew himself to his full height, a self-satisfied smirk on his face.
Johannes scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Kanto. Not Hoenn. Laws regarding Trainer/Pokemon conduct do not change for tourists visiting a region with laws different than their own except in cases of direct bodily harm and murder." He dug into his pocket and produced a Trainer card and handed it to the Ranger. "As it stands, what I did is protected by my position." This was a stretch. A lie probably. He was a Behavioral Specialist. A researcher. What he was caught doing was a behavior, but not exactly one that came up in his manuals or textbooks, and certainly not the focus of his research, but still, it seemed to sound officious enough to cover him.
The Ranger caught his retort in his throat and turned to consult with another Ranger for a moment. Behind the desk a few feet away, their dispositions both soured as the conversation dragged on and a musty book was brought out from beneath a desk. Finally, one of them picked up a phone, then hung up and threw Johannes a nasty look.
The Ranger he'd been talking to walked back to Johannes, a look of supreme irritation on his face. A hand came up to his temple and rubbed it intensely. "You'll be deported back to Hoenn. No further charges. Your deportation is final."
Johannes sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. He felt terrible. His eyes ached, his head pounded and the whole of his body seemed disconnected. The deportation weighed heavier on him than ever, and neither his rationalization that a welcome respite from his travels here in his home is what he needed, nor Viola's own insistence that he needn't worry so much could remove the feeling of dread and guilt that sat in his stomach like a stone. He got up and trudged to the kitchen amid vague thoughts of a soothing cup of tea. It was nearly daybreak, the creeping shades of orange rising in the sky and bringing much needed light into his cold kitchen. He set a kettle on the stove and pulled a mug from his cupboard.
Was it his deportation that bothered him so much? By all accounts, he should have been happy, but something in him seemed to be eating away at his conscience. An indistinct feeling of wrong. His mind wandered briefly to his travels, to the quiet, lonely forest roads.
The kettle boiled. He shook his head wearily and sighed. "I'm over-thinking things again. Just like Viola said I was," he muttered, before he helped himself to tea. He took a sip and jumped at the loud ringing that came from the living room. He looked about for the source for a few minutes before pulling his forgotten C-Gear from his bag. He frowned, as he hadn't been sending regular reports back to the Institute he was registered with for some time, he figured perhaps they were finally checking to see if he was even alive. He fiddled with the gadget for a moment and found he had voice mail.
"Johannes, it's been ages since we last heard from you!" It was the head researcher of his department, Eric, and he sounded both annoyed and amused. "Send a report back after you get this message, please. You've got a job to do and you haven't exactly been doing it if the radio silence over last four months are anything to go by."
Johannes frowned as the voice mail ended. Regular reports were only necessary for Class A studies - Viola's case had hardly managed a Class B rating. Something had to be wrong if Eric was contacting him... He groaned as realization dawned on him – he had been formally checked into the region once again, and this information had to have shown up in his institute's systems. They knew he was back and likely expected the report to be in person, not simply a video call – and he hated giving reports in person.
He rose and walked back to his bedroom. The sun had only begun to filter through his blinds, casting the dust upon most of his furniture into sharp relief. Viola still slumbered and upon seeing the thoroughly peaceful expression on her face, he settled on returning to the kitchen and waiting for her to wake. He flipped idly through his most recent notebook and felt a pang of guilt absorb itself into the ball of guilt already sitting in his stomach. He really should have taken more notes.
So he did. He documented Viola's increased capacity to reference herself with personal pronouns, to not simply mimic behaviors but apply them to socially appropriate situations. He wrote off her capacity for empathy as being exactly what is to be expected of Gardevoir: it was a mark of their entire species to resonate strongly with the Trainer's emotions. He paused in his notes and then added,
"Though it is curious that Viola continues to exhibit a marked interest in communication. Sheer luck alone seems to have dropped a partner into my lap that is not only uninterested in combat, but extremely interested in my research, having taken exceptionally well to my teachings."
He tapped his pen against his lip for a moment then closed the notebook. That was good enough. The report would be dull, he imagined, simply a catch-up for Eric to keep him from telling him off for slacking. Johannes leaned back in his chair and stretched. He didn't want to stay much longer in Hoenn, though with Kanto now likely to simply turn him away at the border and Johto already largely traveled during a case study with his ex Talia and her Misdreavus, Luna, he was unsure where to head next. He grimaced. With any luck, Talia would be out in the field when he went to deliver his report, as he didn't fancy running into her with Viola in tow.
He raised his mug to his mouth and poured a sizable portion of it down his front when he jumped at the soft caress on his cheek. Sputtering and sopping wet, he turned to see Viola looking both alarmed and at a loss for what to do beside him. "Th-this one apologizes, master!" rang pleading tones ins his head, "Truly, truly apologizes!" She scanned the kitchen and then pulled a towel from the counter and began pressing it into his soaked shirt, pleading apologies still ringing in his head.
"Don't sweat it Viola," he said reassuringly, "Let me just change shirts." He pulled the towel from her hands and soaked a bit more of the tea into it before he returned to his bedroom. He reemerged in his kitchen, now fully dressed and set about making breakfast, occasionally stealing glances at Viola, who remained seated the entire time, watching him with an expression of guilt plastered on her face. He noticed, and so, as he laid overly fried eggs onto a plate for her he asked, "Viola, why the long face?"
Her hands came up, confused and groping, to her face as she said, bewildered, "What? What happened to my face?"
Johannes's brow furrowed. "Sorry, that's an expression. Usually means that you look sad, or bothered. Make sense?"
She shrugged. At least she picked that up from him. "I suppose? It doesn't make much sense. Human faces don't elongate when they're troubled. I would have noticed it happen to your face."
He chuckled. "No, you've got a point there. Uh...I guess, the idea is that when you're sad your face looks longer because of the way a frown shapes your face?" The scent of burnt toast greeted him. "Damn. I dunno Viola, it's an odd expression that just gets used. People know what it means but not really where it's from." He tossed the toast onto a second plate; it was still palatable from the looks of it. "It's kind of just how things are when it comes to most idioms I guess. Some of them make more sense but a good chunk of them would probably just go over your head." To his surprise, she nodded. Perhaps he had taught her more than he thought.
Breakfast was eaten in relative silence, and on Johannes's part, at uneven speed. He couldn't decide if he wanted to drag the meal out to stave off giving his report or finish quickly to get the whole thing over with. He settled on the latter.
The Fallarbor Research Institute remained more or less how Johannes had remembered it – as clean and unusually quiet as ever. He approached the front desk and said tentatively, "Uh, Behavioral Specialist Johannes Talburn here to submit a report directly to Head of Behavioral Research Eric Logan?" He offered the receptionist his card.
He took it from him and after a few taps on their keyboard returned it to Johannes. "Ah yes, you were expected some time today or tomorrow according to Eric. He's in his office at the moment, I can direct you there if you like." Johannes shook his head. "Very well. However, Eric filled me in on what you were studying and made it clear that your Gardevoir was also due for an evaluation on how the efficacy of your study. Routine testing – nothing physical I imagine, just your typical pen and paper exams. Maybe verbal."
Johannes frowned. "I don't think Viola has said much to anyone other than me. At all, even." He looked to her. "Can you?"
She nodded. "Yes, I'm quite capable of communicating telepathically with others, Johannes. There simply hasn't been much need to since you've been doing so," chimed the voice in his head placidly. "I apologize if that was unclear to you."
Johannes turned to look at the receptionist and nodded. Satisfied, the receptionist said, "Through the second door on the left for the Gardevoir then. Do you need a copy of your study materials for the examiner?" Johannes shook his head and pulled his C-Gear from his pocket before heading off with Viola.
He knocked on the door to the testing room and felt his stomach nearly drop out of his body. "Talia... How are you doing?" He did his best to sound normal. It was only just enough.
Talia regarded him for a moment before finally responding, "Doing fine. I take it your Gardevoir is here for testing?" He nodded. "Alright. Do you have a copy of your study so I know what I'm testing for? Any supplementary materials that I'll need for the tests?" He handed her the C-Gear, and after a few moments to download the report, she returned it to him. "Alright. This shouldn't take long."
Johannes nodded and tucked the C-Gear away. "Viola, I'll be back in a bit, I'm off to go talk to Eric," he explained from the threshold of the door. He scanned the room for a moment - none of the other testing terminals or the desks associated with them were occupied. He felt the ball of nerves he'd been wrestling with earlier that morning tighten uncomfortably in his stomach. "See you soon." Really, that was more to himself than to Viola.
Talia waited for the door to snap shut. "Viola is it? How's your master been?" she asked as she tapped away on the keyboard of her terminal.
"Johannes has been quite fine," answered a flat, cold voice in her head, "I forgot he was even conducting a study, honestly." Talia looked up at the Gardevoir from her chair, a slight frown on her face. That voice unsettled her, and it was compounded by the soft expression and genuine smile upon Viola's face. "Talia?" asked the voice.
The examiner shook herself from her thoughts and focused on the documents on her monitor. "Sorry, I was distracted," she mumbled, "Let's begin." Privately, she wondered how Johannes ever could have fallen for such a creature.
Johannes knocked on the door to Eric's office. "Enter," came a voice, muffled from the other side. It hadn't changed much since the last time he had been in it - the oppressive collection of books now had spilled successfully onto the floor before their shelves, more stacks of paper than ever before were piled upon Eric's desk, and the corkboard opposite his desk had been moved aside to make room for another. And Eric, Eric remained as messy-haired, perpetually grinning as ever. "Jo! About time we got some word out of you," said Eric genially, flashing his colleague a grin, green eyes twinkling from behind bushy eyebrows and wayward locks, "I was beginning to think you'd actually kicked the bucket out there." He held out his hand.
Johannes shook it and sat down across from him. "Sorry, I've been a bit, uh, preoccupied?" He paused, biting his lip in nervous thought. "I guess that's a good way to put it anyway. Sorry again. Was there something specific you wanted out of me or just a report?" He pulled his C-Gear and his notebooks out preemptively. Eric said nothing but instead nodded and held his hand out to take them from him.
For ten or so minutes, Johannes sat idly by and Eric read through the notes. The researcher's expression fell slowly from a wide grin and morphed into a cool expression of concentration. A few times he saw his eyebrows raise or the corner of his mouth twitch, but little more. At last, when Eric had finished, Johannes mumbled nervously, "Uh, so...is that it?"
Eric sighed. "Not really Johannes. Your report is interesting though, to say the least." He sat back in his hair and pressed the tips of his fingers together. His cool expression and cold, bespectacled stare fixed itself upon Johannes. "I'll be frank, these notes are almost worthless. Outside maybe the set of notes found in this book here." He picked up Johannes's oldest journal for a moment before dropping it back on the pile. "What the hell have you been doing out there? You certainly had the right idea at the start. Your notes were meticulous, left nothing to the imagination and were very clinical. Clearly, the subject is quite capable as far as her ability to learn is concerned. But I have to ask why your notes just start to become a muddied mess the further I read into them. They're hardly notes by the end of it, just a journal." He chuckled mirthlessly. "Johannes, we publish a Journal, not a journal. The capital "J" is there for a reason. I'd be embarrassed to have this published. Wouldn't you?"
Johannes frowned, scratching at his scalp - he must have looked like an idiot. "I don't understand, there's hardly anything in there that I'd consider unworthy of being published. Sure, I used the notebooks for personal notes a few times, but it still documents her ability to respond to emotion, to understand language and grammar, even to understand expressions. She can understand idioms, Eric, isn't that impressive?"
"Johannes, we already know a great deal about Gardevoir's emotional response to their trainers. Their psychic abilities make them psychologically attuned to you as a matter of course. What you were studying was the ability, the capacity, for a Gardevoir to obtain a sufficiently advanced understanding of communication in all its aspects: verbal, physical and, time allowing, written. There's nothing here about your Gardevoir understanding written text, or properly interpreting it. What we have instead is your Gardevoir understanding a painfully limited portion of communication. And it is troubling. She knows language and grammar, yes, but to what extent? Does she understand idioms or the concept behind what idioms are? Does she know when they're applicable? What about sarcasm? What about the subtle changes in body language and facial expression that might as well be shouts to the trained eye?"
Johannes chewed on his tongue for a moment, defiance beginning to flare up within him. "I don't understand what the problem is," he said at last. "In these notes is a clean explanation of what I've been doing." This was beyond belief to him - his notes, while perhaps less professional the last several months, were nonetheless extremely informative.
Eric sat back in his chair and sighed. All at once, his cold expression fell away into one befitting a man twice his years. "Yes, 'doing', in more ways than one." Johannes felt a chill run down his spine. "We received word from a Ranger station a couple of days ago with news that a researcher of ours had been, ahem, 'stumbled' upon in the middle of a sex act. Naturally, that gave us cause for alarm, as public decency is endemic to just about any citizen. Then they told us that it was with a Pokemon. And that it was you, Johannes. Our star researcher."
"Don't flatter me Eric, I haven't been your star researcher since Talia's project," muttered Johannes bitterly. "And what do my personal matters have to do with my research?"
Eric reclined in his chair and rubbed his face. "Everything, clearly, Johannes. If I were a psychologist, maybe I'd have seen what your behavior on Talia's project was hinting at. Your notes are meaningless drivel – it's all your thoughts and feelings about your interactions with your Gardevoir. What scientific value does that hold for us? You're a behaviorist, but this is about the Pokemon's behaviors, not yours. Look at these notes:
Viola is exceptionally receptive to the concepts that surround human intimacy and capable of properly understanding the complexities that underlie it. From body language to the obfuscating spoken language and innuendo that surrounds human sexuality, she continues to show a remarkable sharpness for catching onto the meaning of actions and words. In situations where she is unsure, her ability to recognize her own lack of understanding and posit questions – and properly process the answers she receives. This speaks volumes for Viola's abilities to properly process and wholly understand all of human communication – it is simply a matter of time, and not a matter of if."
He paused to stare at Johannes. "The point of your study was to investigate all aspects of communication, not just an aspect that seems to have appealed greatly to you."
Johannes shifted uncomfortably in his seat, but remained defiant. "I don't think what I have here is useless. Focused, yes, but far from useless. Besides, it's made talking with Viola much easier to do. Trust is a pretty important facet to a relationship, and I know that Viola trusts me. Talking with her and teaching her has been really easy because of it. That should count for something Eric." His last sentence was noticeably louder, more pointed. He had focused rather intently on just one thing, yes, but was that really so bad? It was, technically speaking one less thing to study.
Eric, however, had had enough. He stood and dropped his hands forcefully onto the desk, his mouth turned down in an almost pitying frown. His tone was sharp, exasperated, and accusing. "Johannes. You're completely out of touch with your study. With what you've done. With what your research implies. Your Gardevoir is not your research subject anymore, but she's not a companion either, she hardly seems to even be your lover. Just something to warm you on cold nights."
Johannes stood as well, an angry scowl etched across his face. "You're in no position to talk about the personal aspects of my relationship with Viola, Eric. I would thank you to not do so."
His colleague's laugh was hollow, and now, definitely pitying. "Listen to yourself Johannes! You're so far down the Drilbur hole you don't even know what you're doing anymore. The last goddamn thing Viola's learned from you is what your cock feels like halfway down her throat."
The words hung heavy in the air, ringing in Johannes's ears. "What did you just say?" he whispered at last.
Eric sat down again. "Get out. This is pointless. Johannes, go and ask Viola if she even knows what love is. If she does, come back and I'll at the very least take back what I've just said, but I maintain that you're not performing any kind of study at this point. I'm closing it out, you'll be assigned an E-Class study within the week. I'll keep it fieldwork so I don't have to worry about you getting caught doing something unsightly at work. Just make sure you don't get caught out in the countryside as well." He turned the back of his chair to Johannes.
Johannes strongly considered wheeling the chair back around and punching Eric in the face, but thought better of it. "Fine." He turned and stomped out of the room.
Talia handed the results to Johannes somewhat awkwardly, with little more than, "Here," attached to the entire exchange. He skimmed halfheartedly through them as he and Viola exited the Institute and began their walk home. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the test results – they confirmed everything he already knew about Viola. Nothing new, and most definitely, nothing to answer Eric's question. Really, it was his question too.
Johannes stopped in his tracks, staring intently at his feet. His mouth felt dry. "Johannes?" asked Viola, turning back to him. "You are preoccupied. Very preoccupied. Shall we stop somewhere?"
He looked up at her and sighed. "Viola, do you know what love is?"
Viola drew a delicate hand to her chin and cocked her head. "No, what is it?"
Eric was right.