(A/N: Just a quick note, just like the first Part had a name (Memento Mori), this one is called Carpe Diem. Forgot to put it in chapter fourteen, but it's there now.)
"So presumptuous
Falling at your feet
So presumptuous
Don't agree with your negativity"
—"Presumptuous" from Omnium Gatherum by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
Every step kicked dust up and into Max's face. Pokémon had hit her with sand attacks before, but she'd never had this much of a problem with it when just walking. Now, though, as per Neb's instructions, she was stuck on all fours. Apparently, the best way to get better on all fours was to stay on all fours.
Another stream of water threatened to slice through Max's ear, but she rolled out of the way just in time. The attack missed, but now she had even more dirt in her face (and everywhere else). As if the walking wasn't bad enough, she had to completely change how she fought—she couldn't exactly hide behind her tail like this without tripping on it.
Right as she pushed herself back up, Cori's next water gun drenched her face and sent her tumbling backwards. Somehow, her balance was worse on all fours. She needed to close the distance between her and Cori, but any one step forward sent her two back. Cori had been practicing. A lot.
"Should we take a break?" they asked. Again.
Max didn't give an answer, or didn't say one, at least. She was too frustrated to be sure she wouldn't slip into pika-speak. Her face stung—another great feature of being stuck on all fours—and her shoulder didn't appreciate her waterlogged weight. It was mostly healed, now, and wrapping it up tight took care of the rest, but now she was exhausted, and the bandages were soaked. A break was probably a good idea.
She shook her head and started to rush for them again. Front left and back right, front right and back left, back and forth as fast as she could. Cori started aiming another shot—she needed to prepare to dodge. She slowed to a stop (not like she had to slow much) and, once she had all four on the ground she jumped up and over the stream.
Cori hadn't fired the stream yet; it stabbed into her chest from below and sent her flying back with no idea how she'd land. Luckily, she didn't need to worry about that. The wall she slammed her back into made the decision for her and graciously let her scrape down it.
"Sorry!" Cori shouted.
Max tumbled the rest of the way down and smacked into the ground with a weak thud. "God. Dammit," she growled to herself. At least she landed pretty close to a sitting position. Cori ran up to her, spewing out a stream of apologies fast enough it felt like another water gun. "It's fine," Max mumbled. It wasn't, but oh well. She started to shake herself dry when a towel swooped down over him.
"I can't imagine anyone withstanding so many blows as gracefully as you, my love," Eleos said.
"Still not talking to you, traitor," Max said. It didn't seem to mind and kept rubbing his fur dry beneath it. "You're supposed to be on my side." The towel pressed and shook along his face as Eleos tugged it down and went to do the same to the rest of him.
"Oh, but I am, my love," Eleos went on. Max ignored it. "You've simply no idea which side is truly yours." Max tried to figure out if he could glare at and ignore it at the same time.
"What did it do?" Cori asked.
"Ratted me out," Max said. While Eleos worked on drying his right side, Max started peeling the bandages off his shoulder. Despite all the water, it hadn't come even the slightest bit undone, but it was still rubbing against his fur in every uncomfortable way. "I told Neb I wasn't healed enough to start walking on this thing, so it told her I said I didn't even think I'd need to wrap it today." As he unwound the first wrap, the lessening compression let more blood flow in.
"P-piiiii kaa," he groaned with a wince. The blood flow let it heal, sure, but it also let all those nerves speak their mind, and he did not like what they had to say. "Can you—" Eleos held an oran up to his mouth. "Thanks." Max snatched the berry out of its paw and chomped into it.
"Ah, it's so nice to hear you speak to me again, my love," Eleos cooed.
Max rolled his eyes. A reluctant smirk forced its way on him with a chuckle. "Just shut up and dry me off," he said. Eleos suddenly stopped and watched him expectantly. Waiting for. Ah. Of course. Max chuckled again. "Fine, shut up and dry me off. Dear."
Eleos smiled like a puppy and continued its mission. A mission Max hadn't really given enough thought to, unfortunately. It tipped him over onto his back and lifted him up by the hindpaw to vigorously dry between his legs.
"Ch-CHU! Pi pik—" A fountain of sparks spewed out of his red patches while Max tried to kick his way out of its grasp. Eleos quickly obliged and let him flop back to the floor. Max hopped back up and sat against the wall. Not like he could've taken his eyes off the floor, but he could easily see Cori shaking with poorly repressed laughter without having to look. If anyone else was looking, he was better off not knowing.
"Eleos?" Max said, careful that each syllable came out right.
"Yes?" Eleos asked. "Is something the matter, my most beautiful and delightful thrall?"
"B-beautiful?" Max stammered. His ears began to accompany his sparking embarrassment with a light burn of their own. Great, it was getting the hang of flattering its way out of trouble, too. He tried to steel himself and prepare a proper answer, but panicked a bit when his paw reached for his scarf and met with only air. "Pi—" More time, he needed more time, evidently. A few more breaths, and he tried again. "Please give a bit more thought to where you grab me in public."
"Oh, but love," Eleos said with regret a bit too thick. "How am I expected to keep my paws off your wondrous, corpulent form?" Cori started losing the battle against their giggles which only made Max's embarrassment deepen. He didn't even know if it experienced attraction. Maybe its body—no, he wasn't going to think about it, and Eleos helped him out of his own head by scratching at the back of his neck and kissing him on the forehead. "As you wish."
"Thanks, honey bun," Max whispered. He took the towel from Eleos to finish the job himself. Looking around, he spotted his bag on Eleos's shoulder and nearly lunged for it to pull his scarf out. It was a bit harder to wrap around with only one paw, but even then, it only slowed him by a few milliseconds.
He felt like he regained access to both lungs with its fabric in his paw. Even if he ran the risk of tripping, he wasn't taking it off again. Neb or Eleos could scold him all they wanted, he didn't care. It was humiliating enough to amble around like a hatchling. He didn't need the added horror of not having his scarf on.
Also, while it didn't matter to pokémon—and he'd assumed it didn't bother him anymore, either—it made him feel a bit less naked. Apparently, he'd just never had it off long enough to realize as much before today. It might not cover anything important, but he needed to not think about that, so he didn't.
"Were y'all gonna spar, now?" Max asked, looking at Cori and Eleos.
Cori's lingering chuckles disappeared. "What? But what about typing?" they asked. Their paws raised up to wring over each other.
"Not like it helped me," Max said with a quirked brow. Cori's eyes opened a bit wider and they shrunk in on themselves more. "Cori, it's gonna have to fight a water type sooner or later. Besides, it's not like—," he glanced around and whispered to make sure no one overheard him, "—it's even really a charmander."
"I do wonder how it might feel to have my flame extinguished," Eleos mused. It wasn't helping, but its enthusiasm made up for utterly ineffective contention. "A chance at using flames in a fight, as well, has its own allure." Cori looked at Max for help, but he was busy trying not to feel his shoulder. "I'd perhaps prefer a spar with my soft, sweet little bolt, but he needs his rest, as you can see."
Max glared at it—what did it mean by soft, exactly?—but held himself back. "I'm sure it'll be fine, all right, Cori?" he assured. The thought his shoulder could use another oran struck him at the same time that Eleos's paw appeared with another.
"Well," Cori mumbled. Their eyes traced the ground for a moment, but they eventually shrugged. "All right, I guess."
After chomping down on the oran, Max smiled to encourage them (and hide the wince from a particularly bad throb in his shoulder), and turned to pull his bag off Eleos. "Good luck," he muffled through the half an oran in his mouth, then tossed the other half in to free his paw. Two paws at his disposal, he started digging through his bag for the old roll of bandages he'd had for a while.
Cori and Eleos went to square off; Max pulled the nearly spent roll out and held it in his paw. This roll, the one he'd taken from Neb after…. It had only been a few months since then, yet it felt like an entire lifetime ago. And now, after all the healing they'd helped along, he felt a bit bad when he started unwrapping it around the new injury.
"Secure," he recited to himself as he rolled it out around his bicep. "Tight enough to be uncomfortable, but not tight enough to hurt." A bittersweet smile pulled at his muzzle. For all he'd forgotten, he could still remember that perfectly.
It took some creativity wrapping it around his back on his own with just the one paw, but he managed. The fight started as soon as he started on the second wrap around. He barely had enough left in the roll to finish the wrap, and honestly had to pull it a bit too tight, but it worked out. With a little test-moving of his shoulder, the wrap resettled itself as it stretched itself out. Not quite tight enough to hurt, but certainly close.
A flash of light engulfed Eleos. Max couldn't even look without burning out his retinas until the brunt of the attack burnt itself out. The wave of heat crashed over him and singed his fur the rest of the way dry. Once the white hot flame dimmed to yellow, he managed to make out Eleos laying prone in the center of it.
"E-Eleos?!" Max shouted. Fight rules be damned, he ran into the arena as fast as his shoulder and awkward gait let him. He threw Eleos over onto its back and listened for a heartbeat.
"Hello, Max," Eleos said. Instead of moving along with what it said, it only moved its mouth to speak. Like the first time they'd talked in the Void Lands. "Am I right to assume the fight is over?" It glanced down to his forepaws resting on its chest. "Just as well. I don't believe I can move."
"What did you do?!" Max said. He could barely keep himself in check enough to avoid slipping.
"I-I did—it wasn't—I just used water gun!" Cori stammered out.
Max couldn't spare even a glance their way—why they thought he could even pretend to hold them accountable for this, he'd never know.
"Perhaps I could have been more conservative with my first attempt at summoning flame," Eleos said, more saying it like a note to itself. "Forgive me, I didn't mean to make you worry." It still only moved its mouth to talk—and even then, barely—but it was stable.
Max let himself flop back and took a deep breath. "Jesus, you scared me," he mumbled. Eleos was okay. At the very least, it would be. With that a practical certainty, she started to chuckle. "So, was blowing up a fun introduction to fighting, my sweet little nuke-mander?" Cori joined in the chuckles a bit; Max hoped Eleos would if it could.
"Oh, it was all I'd ever hoped it would be, my rat of bountiful softness," Eleos tried to coo, though its tone was a bit flat. Cori started laughing harder and got a side eye from Max that only made them laugh harder.
"Well, maybe next time," Max said. "Can you get up?"
Eleos paused for a moment. It went entirely still, though its eyes seemed to strain for a moment. "I cannot," it answered.
"Oh," Cori said. They bit their chuckles down and turned to Max. "Think an oran would help?"
"No, but a leppa might," Max mumbled to himself, already turning to head for his bag. When dropped down to head for it, all his weight landed on his shoulder, and it fell out from under him. "Chu kachu," he growled. "Go ahead and bring the whole thing over." At least Neb convinced him to bring the sling just in case.
Cori muttered some mix of apologies and agreement and dashed off to follow the order, leaving the injured lovers together. Max rolled over and twisted around to rest against Eleos, who remained completely motionless.
"Could you be more upset?" Eleos asked. Max turned to face it with one ear up. "So that I may feed on your pain and use that energy to mend this body." Well, it made sense, at least. "If not, don't fret. Cori has a more than sufficient supply of anxiety for me to feast upon."
"Right, they're…," Max trailed off, watching them run back with his bag in their paws. He rolled up to sit and grabbed the bag with his right paw when Cori offered it. "Orans for me," he mumbled, dropping two in his lap, "Leppa for you." Once Max had told Cori about the opportunity Jake offered him, the conversation didn't exactly come to a conclusive end. They couldn't spar for a minute, so might as well check in.
"Hey, Cori," Max said with heavy reticence. As much as he wanted them to come with him, it wasn't like he could just decide that for them. "Look, about yesterday." Cori stiffened, and all their nervous fidgeting ceased. Max worried that they'd stopped breathing. "I'm not going to force you to come. If you don't want to—"
"That's not it," Cori said. Eleos brushed its paw into Max testing its movement ability—was Cori anxious enough to heal it that much, or Max? "I want to come. I'm just…," they stared at the ground and clicked their claws over each other, "worried." They took painstaking glances up to gauge his reaction as if self-conscious about admitting that.
Max softly smiled, closing his bag and tucking it to his side. "Well, of course you are," he said. Cori looked up at him with their head tilted and narrowed eyes. "What?" Had he slipped? For the life of him, he couldn't figure out what part of that confused them. "It's a big change. I mean, I don't remember moving out of my parent's place…," he trailed off for a moment, but shook his head back in gear. "Yeah, anyone'd be worried about this."
That suspicious look of theirs only grew. Max started to worry if he'd said the wrong words. "Wh-what?" he asked.
"N-nothing," Cori mumbled. Their paw went to the back of their neck, and they looked back to their hindpaws. "I just figured you were gonna make fun of me for being nervous."
"Oh," Max said. It took some effort to hide the hurt from that, but if they really expected that from him, then they probably had good reason. "Sorry." He shrugged and tried to force on a nervous smile. Maybe a smile wasn't the right expression for an apology, but it's what he had. "I didn't realize I treated you like that."
"You don't," Cori said. It was Max's turn to look at them with confusion. He tried to rein it in, though, since they still looked pretty nervous. "It's just, I dunno, I'm used to people making fun of me for being nervous about stuff." They gave a half-hearted shrug. "I didn't mean to say you do that, sorry." Their weight shifted from side to side, yet even the motion couldn't hide that their expression growing even further downcast.
"Hey, it's all right," Max said with a warm smile. "I'm not mad about it, all right?" Based on what they said about their family yesterday, Max had a pretty good idea where that experience came from. "Feelings are feelings. I'm not gonna hold it against you that you're worried, all right?" Cori looked at him to check for deception, but he only offered sincerity. "Hell, I'm a bit nervous, too."
Cori stared at him a bit longer. A question, or some other kind of follow up hung on their muzzle for a bit, but they couldn't get it out. Eventually, they gave up on it and let the weight off themself. "Thank you," they said.
"Yeah, no problem," Max said. God, he could only imagine how much they'd thrive without all that holding them back. "Was there anything particular you were concerned about?" He started to lean back and let his arms help hold him up, but the tight wrapping reminded him about his shoulder before it was too late. Eleos's arm came to help him back up and tugged him in to a better spot to lean on. "Or was it just the whole thing?"
That little display (and probably a good bit of help from Eleos considering it could already sit up again) made Cori chuckle. Max could almost swear he heard them coo when he nuzzled into Eleos and hugged its arm.
"Well, I mean, I've thought about leaving before," Cori said. "I'm honestly excited to leave." Even though they were smiling, a twinge of guilt stung their cheeks. "I just, I don't know. How's my family gonna react?" Their right arm reached over to scratch at their left. "What if they get mad?"
"Oh, no worries," Max said. He came close to blowing a razzberry but held it back just in time. Not the time for that. "We'll be there for you, all right?" He gave a little wink and went to flex his left arm—the wink turned to a wince. "P-pi pika pika chu." On the bright side, the flex displaced the bandages a bit more than he'd expected. Made sense, he'd probably done some strength training to prepare for last time.
"Okay, bad example," he chuckled. "But, y'know, it won't be a problem by tomorrow."
Eleos pulled him tighter and gave some firm pats to his (somewhat jiggly) side. "Yes, this ponderous little pikachu is plenty capable of protecting you," Eleos said; Max shrunk away a little. "And what he cannot provide, I am certain we can supplement."
"Ponderous?" Max mumbled, suddenly a lot less comfortable where Eleos decided to rest its paw. Hadn't it called him 'corpulent' earlier, too?
"Um, okay?" Cori asked. "That's not really why I'm worried about them getting mad." They stared between Max and Eleos with eyes narrowed in confusion. "I guess it's nice to know, though?"
Max pulled himself out of his insecurities and tried to ignore it. He could ask Eleos about it later. "My bad," he said with a shrug. "I just figured, well, that sounds like worst case scenario of them getting mad, so." He shrugged again. "Why worry about them getting mad, then?"
Cori stared at him in abject confusion. "A-are you kidding?" they asked. Max tried to rack his brain for the problem, but he came up empty. "Max, they're my family."
"Yeah?" he said. That much was obvious, but their family didn't treat them well at all. It didn't even take a lot to convince them much of it was abusive; they seemed to already know as much. "And they treat you like shit."
Cori's glare branched out from confusion and into anger. "I know," they forced through grit teeth. "They're still my family." They kept glaring at him, waiting for it to click. It felt like the same glare they gave him after he told them their first mission was in Thunderwave Cave. This time, though, he couldn't see their issue in the slightest. They kept up their glare for a bit before rolling their eyes. "I don't want them to hate me."
Max nodded along, trying to be sympathetic, but it just didn't click. "Well, I'm sure they won't," he said. Giving a parting pat to Eleos, he pushed up and went over to Cori. "They might get mad, but I'm sure they won't hate you." He rest a paw on their shoulder to make up for the deficit of empathy. "But, hey, not like they'll be around if they do," he offered with an encouraging smile.
Cori did not smile back. "Them hating me," they forced through as even a tone as they could manage, "Would still be bad. Even if they don't do anything about it."
"Right, right, sorry," Max mumbled, pulling his paw away. "Sorry." Every attempt at helping seemed to be having the opposite effect. The more he tried to empathize, the more he felt an irritating sting under his skin. "I just, I don't get why it matters." It's not like arguing his case would help, but he needed help piecing together Cori's thought process. They'd probably understand—they'd been more than patient before. "It's not like they really show you love now."
An echo shifted his expression subtly enough that he couldn't notice it in the moment. "They're horrible. I don't understand how you can even stand going back there," he said. His own jaw started to clench tighter; a mix of fear and anger rubbed against him at that thought. "You're not obligated to give a shit about them just because they're family."
His paw clenched into a fist. He already knew he was shorter than Cori, but he all of the sudden felt particularly small. They stood over him with a glare that tried to rip into his skull. A part of him tried to get ready to run, but he forced it out of his mind. They were his friend. He wasn't in danger.
And yet, Max couldn't help bracing for the worst. It all felt familiar, so familiar. He felt small, so small. In the face of his building terror, though, he could only match it with growing anger. Somehow, it felt like the only way to stay safe. "Fuck them, y'know? Who care's what they think."
Cori's open palm slapped him across the face and down to the ground; Max instantly remembered why the idea of making amends with family rubbed him the wrong way. "I CARE!" Cori screamed.
A torrential flow crashed through Max's mind—barely any of the thoughts feeling like his own. He couldn't call on any memories, but he felt the impressions they left. Why he didn't understand Cori; why he'd been jumpy even before prey instincts came; why he could so easily turn to leaving it all behind; why he was so used to feeling small, yet still felt wary about it; why he couldn't stand the thought of being less than completely capable of protecting himself; They were all impressions from the one mold.
If it weren't for the sting of his cheek, he might've drowned in the current. Even then, he didn't know if he could pull himself out of this one. A thousand scars from a thousand forgotten wounds. It all clawed at his insides, but he could only make out echoes and after-images of any of it.
If anyone was around him, he'd never know. He sat in the twilight of memory: the sting of his cheek burned like fading sunlight, slowly giving way to all encompassing darkness. Distant stars, impressions of images of which he couldn't make out more than a twinkle. A dark, new moon that Max could only make out because of the sheer darkness.
Her ear twitched. The blur of her surroundings settled into a decipherable image. A heavy blanket sat on her shoulders, wrapped tightly around her. She felt her arms wrapped around each other. The gym, she was still in Makuhita's Gym. Despite knowing that, she didn't know where she was. She hummed something, tried to talk, but she couldn't quite make herself out. Her cheek still stung, but in a different way.
Cold, it felt cold. She strained her eyes down to see the edge of an ice-pack. The weight of her head kept it in place with her cheek smushing into her shoulder. Her neck hurt a bit. She'd been in the position for a while. Probably not too long, though, since that would put a crook in her neck pretty quick.
"Kid, you there?"
Max blinked. The voice, she didn't recognize it, but it sounded familiar. The ice pack fell down, and she realized she'd pulled her head up. A carapace rubbing at the top of her head made her stiffen, but she could tell it was friendly. Probably the person who'd talked to her earlier. It took a few more blinks and a slow shake of her head, but she managed to come to.
"Great, glad to have you back," the same voice said. Max looked up at the pokémon for a minute. Red, bipedal, big, meaty claws: it was a scizor. The scizor chuckled. "Well, almost, anyway."
Looking back down, Max shook the blanket off. "What happened?" she mumbled. More habit than anything. For once, she blacked out in a way that didn't erase her memory. Still, the last thing she remembered wasn't being swaddled into a weighted blanket by a scizor.
"Not sure," Scizor said with a shrug. He tugged the blanket back over her. "Guessing the spar got a bit personal. I wouldn't worry about it too much, kid." He smiled down on her; Max felt a bit warmer. "Happens to the best of us. Your friends are outside." He reached down to scritch at the top of her head again, and this time didn't unsettle her quite as much. "Think they said they didn't want to scare you when you came to."
Max nodded. It was all she could really do. She understood him, albeit after a moment to process, but she didn't know what to say back. Hell, she didn't even have the energy to shrug the blanket off again. It was probably good that Scizor had tugged it back onto her.
"You got a name, kid?" Scizor asked.
Well, she could manage an answer to that, at least. "Yeah," she muttered. She nuzzled into the blanket more, then looked up at him. "What about you?"
Scizor gave her a funny look. "What, this tit for tat?" he chuckled, and Max realized she'd forgotten to give her name. Maybe she was more out of it than she thought. "Yeah, I got one: Jones." Jones rubbed at the top of her head some more to intercept the building embarrassment.
"M-Max," she mumbled. The touch of a carapace started feeling less and less weird, which was nice, but it also meant she had to fight against the urge to lean in for more pets. "Sorry, I guess I'm still out of it."
"Don't you worry 'bout it, I know how it is," Jones said, pulling his claw back. It was a mercy, all considered, but one Max wished he hadn't granted. "Well, not personally, but I've got an old friend who went through it."
"It?" Max asked. She tilted up to look at Jones with one ear raised. Cori just knocked her out. What was he talking about?
Jones tilted his head to mirror her confusion. "Yeah, feral," he said. Max flinched. Jones had said that as casually as mentioning the weather. "Or, sorry, there a better term for it? My old friend, she didn't really mind, but that was a while ago."
"N-no, or, I don't know," Max stammered. "But I'm not—that's not what happened." She grabbed the blanket tighter and pulled it in. She hadn't blacked out. She hadn't even been near a Dungeon for the past few days. She'd only fainted. "That kind of thing only happens in Dungeons."
Jones squinted at her a bit before nodding in understanding. "Oh, don't worry about it, ki—er, Max," he said. "Look, I know the rescue cooperative or whatever has their rules, but I'm not gonna snitch on you." Looking down, Jones rubbed where Max assumed his nose either was or would be. "Don't gotta play dumb, got it?"
Right, that was another problem. She definitely didn't want people to know about that, but she shook her head. That wasn't her concern. "Well, thanks, but I-I still couldn't have blacked out," Max said. She tried to think back to what happened, but… she couldn't remember.
A weight started building in her stomach as she thought back to after Cori hit her. Her racing thoughts, the overwhelming everything around her, and waking up somewhere else. It all matched, but still, it felt different in a way she couldn't place. "D-did I?" she whispered. She couldn't let anyone else know, but Jones had at least promised not to tattle, and she was too shocked to keep her reaction under wraps anyway.
"Hey, don't worry about it," Jones said softly, bringing his pincer back down to her. Petting had a stronger hold over her, too. She hadn't even realized that had any connection to instincts. "Nothin' much happened. You just got scared and ran." The weight in her stomach started to smolder. "I only caught on 'cause I've seen it before."
"Ch-chu ka—" Max started, but instantly muzzled herself. Did the petting feel more distant, or was she just imagining it? The endless chatter and buzz of instincts started interrupting her thoughts, so she clutched at the bracelet on her left wrist with a vice grip.
She had blacked out. It happened so fast. She thought she had a handle on it, that she could at least feel it coming. Apparently not.
"C'mon, Max, stay with me," Jones whispered. He'd knelt down to get closer to her level, though he was still at least double her height. He kept one claw petting her while the other one went to adjust the blanket. "You've got it. You're here. Look at me."
Her vision started to clear up. She looked at him as best she could, though she wasn't really sure which part she was looking at.
"Yeah, see? You're good, you've got it," Jones said. When the part of him she was looking at opened up to poke at her cheek, she figured out it was his claw. It traced down to her chin and nudged it up to look at his face. After a second to process it, she went to his eyes and felt a tiny spike of panic when trying to figure out which one to look at.
Max pulled away to shake her head. Her claws clinked against the beads on her bracelet, and she could even trace the engravings, feel the slight imperfections in the texture with her pawpads. Jones certainly had a different approach from Neb, but it got her out of it.
"Oh," she whispered. There wasn't any denying it at this point. Obviously Jones already knew better, but now, she couldn't tell herself otherwise, either. "I did." She kept running her paw over the beads.
"Sorry, thought you knew," Jones chuckled. "Prolly coulda been more gentle there, yeah?" He squeezed her shoulder and smiled. "You held on damn well, though, nice job." Max nodded along, not really able to show gratitude in another way. "You'll beat this sooner'n you know it."
Max tried to smile, but the encouragement singed into coal when she heard it. "It, but, it's already been so long," she muttered. Neb never gave her a timeline of any kind. Come to think of it, she'd never mentioned a cure at all. Max had just assumed that she'd get back to normal eventually. "What if I never get better?"
Jones lightly tapped her on the head. "Well, you're better'n you used to be, right?" he asked. She didn't honestly know for sure but nodded anyway. Her memories were coming back, at least. "I wouldn't worry about it. It'll end when it ends, y'know?" Max couldn't help shrinking into the blanket more from that. "Besides, you ask me, everyone's feral in their own way."
Max had to bite her inner cheek to resist a glare. That hit her ears wrong, but she couldn't quite tell why. Another impression from a forgotten mold, probably.
"We all got instincts," he went on. He must've thought that comforted her, or maybe he was just making conversation to keep her lucid. "Dungeons bring 'em out a bit more, but they're all hardwired." A few more pets helped disarm Max a bit more. "Well, except for those humans that keep saving our skins," he chuckled. "I always figured they get called in 'cause they can't lose it like we can."
At the very least, Max had good reason to believe Jones had no idea what he was talking about, now. "Y-yeah, ha, maybe?" she mumbled. If that was a prominent theory, though, it would explain Neb's interest in his particular case. "Guess the rest of us have to deal with it, though." Admittedly, it made a lot of sense. If she wasn't a living, breathing, pika-speaking refutation of the idea, she'd probably believe it herself.
"Guess so," Jones said. He gave her another smile and clapped her on the shoulder. "You good, Max? Want me to go get your friends?"
The weight in Max's stomach started its slow return. "No," she said. Facing Cori terrified her—she'd never seen them that mad—but she had to own up. "I'll go talk to them myself." She'd apologized to them for worst, at least.
Somehow, that thought didn't make her feel better.
Jones nodded, gave her another pat, and gently tugged the blanket off her. Max obliged, shaking out of it and stood up. They gave their partings, and she started heading for the door. After a few steps, though, she remembered her assignment with a groan. Could her shoulder even take it? She'd rather not bother, but apparently Eleos knew what 'her side' was better than she did.
Right, Eleos, Max needed to fix up his head space for it. He gently leaned down and took a few gentle steps. His shoulder was tight, but it could take it.
"Dammit," she—Max grumbled. He didn't hate masculine pronouns, but thinking of himself as 'she' had an addictive draw to it. He told himself it was just because of novelty and managed to believe it. If it didn't hold up in the end, at least he won't have confused Eleos.
After a short stroll, he nudged the door open with his right forepaw and tried to hurry out before it closed on him. It started dragging his tail along with it—he yanked it away just in time and let out a sigh of relief. "Stupid fucking thing," he grumbled. It did nothing but annoy him and cause problems. He hated looking at it and tried not to think about it if he could help it.
He'd never really understood why he hated it until more recently when he caught himself thinking about Libré's. Maybe if he could have one like that, but he didn't let himself consider it. Not like he could really get a new tail. It was just wishful thinking.
That black hole of thought managed to distract him from the terror of approaching Eleos and Cori. The spell dropped once his eyes met Cori's. It wasn't raging as much as earlier, but he could still make out the anger in their glare. They forced a smile and tried to relax, but Max could feel the tension shifting everywhere else.
It felt fitting that Max was basically crawling towards them, as if he was about to beg forgiveness. His drooping ears and dragging tail really helped to sell the look, too. He couldn't bring himself to look at them, but he didn't need to look to know they didn't appear the slightest bit less upset with him walking up like that. No use stalling—just get it over with. "Sorry," Max and Cori spat out in unison.
"W-what?" Max mumbled.
Cori crossed their arms and turned away, saying with forced neutrality, "I didn't realize what was going on. I'm sorry I made you black out."
"Oh," Max muttered. "Well, thanks." He couldn't really blame that on them, but it wasn't worth arguing as much. "I didn't know, either, but, it's f—," Cori glared at him before he finished, "—f-not your fault." A terrible save, but Cori seemed to accept it. "Still, I was…." For a moment, he felt even smaller than he had before. The creeping dread crawled right up to him before he snuffed it out with a growl.
"What I said was worse. That's what caused all of it," he said. He kept a tight rein on his thoughts to keep himself from falling back to that moment. "I wasn't thinking… right. I'm sorry." He wanted to go into more depth, but saying anymore about it felt like making more excuses.
"If I may," Eleos offered, its paw gently extended. Max and Cori shared a glance before looking at it to give their assent. Eleos slightly bowed in thanks. "From what I felt from him, Max was terrified of you at the time." Cori stared at it in disbelief. When they glanced to Max for confirmation, he was looking away in shame. "He lashed out from fear, not anger."
The slightest trickle of shame started invading Cori's eyes, and Max leapt to clarify the moment he saw it. "N-not you," he said, but Cori's head had already started collapsing into their shoulders. Telling more was bound to clear this up, now, which should've removed the hurdle in his way.
Except, that wasn't the problem, not really. It was just a convenient excuse—an excuse that had left. He never wanted to share in the first place, because that needed him to think it through himself.
He didn't know if he could. He'd gone feral from the vaguest memory resurfacing barely ten minutes ago. As he saw the guilt take over Cori, though, he felt a deep cut more severe than he'd ever felt when Eleos was in his head. If he didn't set this right now, it would eat at him until he did. Sanity be damned, he dug back into that moment to excavate whatever he could for Cori.
"My dad," Max blurted out. A distant echo of his words rang in his ears. Not in his voice, though. It was Eleos. If it was repeating after him, it must have been translating. He tried to talk again, listening to his own voice and heard exactly what he feared.
A warm paw landed on his back and started scratching at it. A few rubs here and there. With the expertise it went from spot to spot, he didn't need to look to know it was Eleos. The distant world started to come closer. Max tried his best to speed it along by focusing on his breath and doing what he could to resist the ebbing tide of instincts.
"Sorry," Max said. Eleos's paw went to his head, and he couldn't help leaning into it—especially once it started scratching behind his ears. "Piiii ka," he hummed—and immediately yanked himself away from Eleos. As if he didn't already have enough to be ashamed about.
Alongside the growing tide of shame, he almost didn't hear Cori ask, "Are you mad at me?"
Max looked up to see them staring at the grass. Given his stance, though, it wasn't very far from him anyway. "No," he said gently (careful that he wasn't slipping). While he didn't like his own response to it, Eleos' comfort helped him enough that he could manage a light smile. It wasn't much, but it proved its worth when Cori caught a glimpse of it. "You have a lot more reason to be mad at me, honestly."
Cori's mouth turned down for an instant, but they stopped themself before arguing the point. For the first time since Max got there, they took in a full length of breath; that let Max do the same. Once they let it out, Cori had their own little smile. "Thanks for understanding," they said.
"Well, y'know," Max mumbled, fighting the urge to argue that all of this happened specifically because he couldn't understand. Besides, he had a much more pressing concern. It felt like a bad time to ask, but he couldn't bear to wait. "Do you think you'll come with me?" The trepidation came through in his voice despite his best efforts.
The question didn't sour Cori's mood in the slightest. "Yeah," they said, smile still standing strong.
Max threw himself at them and yanked them into a hug. His shoulder raised its concerns, but he didn't care enough to listen. "Thank you," he practically sobbed. All the terror he'd not let himself confront dissolved. He couldn't even care that he'd slipped again. Eleos could translate.
Cori rested their claws against his back and squeezed him back. It lessened the strain on his shoulder when they did, and he realized that he'd leapt onto them completely . Even his hindpaws were getting in on the hug. And his tail.
Maybe it was good for something.
While he didn't mind the light pain he was inflicting on his shoulder, Cori did mind the extra weight. They gave him light taps on the back and asked, "H-hey, can you get down?"
Max reluctantly obliged with a nod. His shoulder greatly appreciated it, too, and showed as much by throbbing in pain. At the same time that he winced, Eleos stuck its hand between him and Cori to shove a sitrus in his mouth.
"Must you neglect your own well being, my portly delight?" Eleos asked.
Max's ears fell along with a few stray, embarrassed sparks. "Eleos," he grumbled. The moment had soured, so he pulled out of the hug without any trouble. Cori probably didn't deserve this conversation. Unfortunately, he probably needed someone else to corroborate with him on why being called various transmutations of fat wasn't the height of romance. "Can you stop calling me fat?"
Already, he felt Cori starting to grow tense. "But I love you," Eleos argued. "Therefore, I love everything about you." That. Was almost sweet, but its tone hit Max's ear like it was answering a test question instead of talking about what it loved about him. "You are fat, and I love you. Thus, I love that you are fat."
Max bit back a growl while Cori held back a chuckle. Max certainly wasn't thrilled at the repressed chuckles, but Cori was trying to control themself, and Max needed to focus on the wonderful idiot he was now dating. Thinking back to how it reacted to him reciprocating the pet names as well as its clinical approach to explaining love, he was starting to suspect a critical misunderstanding.
"Okay," he said through grit teeth. Being called fat again was making it really hard to stay on topic. "But do you?" Eleos stared at him for a moment, then overacted confusion by squinting one eye and tilting its head just a bit too much. "I mean, do you actually like… that about me?"
Without hesitation, Eleos said, "Yes, of course." Max stared at it to draw out more of a response. "As previously stated, if I love you, then I must love your overweight build."
"Must?" Cori asked. Their interruption barely helped keep Max from yelling. "Eleos, that's not how that works." Its face went back to its overacted confusion. "You don't like things because you should. You just… do."
"And maybe I don't feel great about it," Max grumbled to himself. Honestly, Cori was probably going to do much more productive work than him.
"Come on," Cori said. When Max looked their way, he didn't like their little grin. "It looks good on you."
Max was never going to trust anyone with anything ever again.
