Paralogue Two: The Weekend Before Classes Start
It was 9:30 at night, and Markus sat in his office with a stack of syllabi on one side of his desk and a bottle of whiskey on the other. The office was dark. Markus claimed it was for Gengar's comfort, but deep down he knew tonight was a bad night. He closed his eyes briefly and he saw it, again. White was in his arms, bleeding, while Giovanni pointed a pistol to his head. "Good night, Special Agent Vaughn." He'd been about to pull the trigger when Pikachu's volt tackle took Giovanni to the ground.
"I'll never be done being grateful, Red." He said to himself as he took a swig of whiskey. There was a knock at his door. "Please come in." The nurse walked into his office, paused, and avoided turning on the light.
"The staff kick-off party is starting in like 15 minutes. Are you coming?" She looked over Markus's desk, spotted the whisky, and smiled. "Is that premier Galarian?" Markus shook away the last of the dissociation and passed the nurse the bottle.
"Yeah, I'm friends with a couple of the gym leaders over there." He turned his chair around to face her as she took a big swig from the bottle. Markus's eyes widened. "No face. Nice. You're Miriam, right? The nurse?" He asked as she passed the bottle back to him.
"That's me alright. If you don't want to share that, I'd keep it in your desk. Around week five of the semester there will be a queue if the other teachers know you "Got the sauce". She surrounded the last bit in heavy air quotes. Markus put the bottle in his desk and stood, a little wobbly. It was Gengar who slipped out of his shadow and steadied him.
"Thanks, girl." Markus said as Gengar slipped back into his shadow. He looked to Miriam. "Shall we?" he offered her his arm playfully. She chuckled without taking it, and the two left the dim office and made their way to the lounge, where the party was just getting started.
"Yeah," Markus said to Miriam as they walked into the staff lounge. "I think I'm going to like it here."