victory_road | catch all

Who: Lio and YOU
Where: Violet City and Route 31
When: Throughout June
Summary: Lio travels to Violet City and deals with the horrors of... grocery shopping, child trainers, and fashion.
Rating: PG... probably

A. Fashion Victim

[In the middle of the road on Route 31, there's an interesting scene. Lio is sitting there, cross legged with his Vulpix, which isn't quite the interesting part. What is odd is the his bag is set aside and laid out in front of him are the standard provided trainer clothes. For a little while, he's staring at them, arms crossed and deep in thought.

After long enough, Lio is digging scissors out of his bag and taking to cutting the sleeves off every shirt and jacket he has. It's a painstaking, methodical process for a rough looking result.

If someone is still watching, when he's done, he's holding the edge up to Vulpix who proceeds to help burn the edges. Afterward, he'll proceed to sit right there still and eat some, frankly, disgusting crushed looking snacks.]

B. Sweet Children

[Lio is standing just at the outskirts of Violet City, his Vulpix looking proud and happy while Lio is crouched in front of a small child. His frustration is slowly accumulating but he's forcing a smile.]

It's really all right. Do not give that to me. I don't want your money. [The kid keeps trying to shove the money at him but Lio's hands stay firmly placed on his own knees.] I'm not taking that. Just get better at battling. Or don't challenge adults passing through here anymore.

[The kid, seeing Lio won't take the money direction, lays it down on the ground between them.]

Don't you have parents?!

C. Outsider

[In Violet City proper, sometime before lunch, Lio is standing outside a general store struggling. He starts to put his hand to the door, then hesitates and pulls back, stepping to the side to let someone else go in or come out.]

...This is stupid. [It's what he tells himself after about five minutes of the repeated process.

Inside, he's looking at the assortment of goods with wide eyes and looking lost. Between having never been shopping before he was a Burnish to not being allowed to after, this is all new to him. Maybe help out a guy who looks like he's about to panic running out the store?]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[A big guy with a metal arm (well, metal hand; the arm is mostly hidden by a jacket) is inside right now, in fact, checking out a basket full of random foods. Including a large jar of peanut butter. The Absol at his side and much smaller Absol on his shoulder show him to at least be some stripe of trainer or breeder or something, and the metal hand proves he's also not a local.

As he's heading for the door, it's not like he can help spotting the poor kid (Maybe a kid? It's hard to tell with some of the people around here.) looking so unsure just outside. And. Well. Ain't like he doesn't understand that. If he didn't have the mission to take care of Entrapta, requiring dealing with shopping, he'd probably be the damn same way.

So as he pushes the door open, he stops, tilts his head, and says as gently as he can (which just kind of amounts to bland and quiet; the Winter Soldier is not great at tone yet),]

Everything okay?

[As soon as he's addressed, Lio stops and looks up. Then sees the glint of the metal hand and his eyes focus on it. God, why is it always the left hand. Lio apprehensively takes a step back; while he knows no one has powers here, he can't help but think back to Kray right before this place.]

Yes-- I'm. [ugghhHHHHH.] Not used to this. That's all.

[The Soldier nods, understanding.]

Neither was I. Still kind of not.

[And, because it seems like the right thing to do, he inclines his head back at the door.]

Want me to show you?

[On the one hand, he doesn't trust anyone least of all someone with a prosthetic metal left hand. Last time he let himself get close to it, he almost died.

On the other hand, not feeling quite as awkward buying food.

If Galo were here, he'd say do it. He knows he'll regret this.

Lio nods.]

Please.

[Shifting his bag to the crook of the metal arm, the Soldier holds the door open the rest of the way for Lio to step inside.]

The layout it straight-forward. Paper goods to the left, frozen food and dairy in the middle, dry food goods and produce to the right. What do you need?

[Lio stares at it all before them. What Bucky is saying makes sense. The layout makes sense. The order is okay.

He shakes his head.]

I don't know.

[Living on the run in the desert looking after everyone else for so many years, you forget what having options is like. He thinks again, tries to focus and not feel overwhelmed.]

Food.

[Yeah, okay. His own first grocery store run had been a lot of staring at things in confusion, too.]

You can get the things I got for my first supply run. They worked out okay. There's. A lot of choices. It's hard to pick.

[He starts with the dry goods. Everybody needs peanut butter and cereal.]

[The most he remembers of those last few months before everything happened was making sure the children got food - and that was. Spam. Instant noodles. Whatever they could get their hands on and run with.

So peanut butter and cereal? Sure. He follows Bucky - still cautious, still wary of that hand - but starts carefully picking out things he sort of recognizes that they had grabbed for the Burnish they rescued too. Before long, he's got a small basket of enough food to last a while.]

You did this before?

[The Soldier nods once, expression shading just a little rueful. Making choices is still hard after two weeks, and he only really makes it in grocery stores not because he has a list.]

I spent an hour in the grocery store in New Bark just staring at all the options. Didn't remember ever having to buy food before. And there was four different kinds of everything.

[Didn't hardly remember ever eating food, given how HYDRA kept him fueled up, but that's probably an over-share.]

[Lio nods in turn. He didn't even try the store in New Bark. He just left as fast as he could.]

It is always overwhelming going from no choices to too many.

[God he hopes he has enough.]

Thank you. I. Think this should keep me for a while.

[Since he had to look after Entrapta, the Soldier had been careful to keep enough supply on hand so she wouldn't be hungry. It just wound up also being enough for him, too. Looking over the items, the Soldier nods.]

Should hold you for a week or so, if it's just you. I've just. Been buying the exact same thing each time I go. So I don't have to make the decisions again. Though I guess if you find you don't like something, you can change it.

[The Soldier doesn't really have many opinions on food, as long as it's actually food.]

[The good news about food being so scarce and being the leader is that he's very well versed in just. Not eating for a couple days and making it. So this food? Will last him a month more likely.

He looks at the bag now that he's paid for it all and nods, like reaffirming his choice here.]

Thank you.

[Oh, to be able to skip meals... the Soldier might not have the metabolism he used to, but he's still hungry pretty much all the time. Still, he nods, wishing he knew how to smile properly, so he just settles for a polite neutral expression.]

You're welcome. People have been really good about me having. Troubles. Might as well help where I can.

[The Absol at his side adds, with as motherly a tone as a Pokemon can manage,]

Absol.

catch all | ota

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