victory_road | Great googly moogly, it's all gone to [extremely loud incorrect buzzer]

It is right around this time that Heather sidles back into the room, turned slightly so as to partially conceal something in her arms.

But while Twojo IS significantly smaller than Cujo, she's still a little bit too big to hide in this manner.

So Heather doesn't bother building up the suspense too much before turning to reveal the PERFECT BEING that is a Hisuian Growlithe, grinning broadly.

"This... is TWOJO."

Extra emphasis on the name, because it's still funny to her.

The puppy in her arms wiggles curiously at Henry, her little snub nose quivering. She is, fortunately, absolutely nothing like a Silent Hill dog, in appearance or temperament, so there's no wild desperate struggling to escape her trainer's hold to lick Henry's face or otherwise alarming motions on her part. She does, however, smell the cheese and lets out a beseeching little whine. OH PLEASE SIR CAN SHE HAVE SOME CHEESE TOO??

Assuming that Henry's dog tolerance threshold isn't pushed over the limit by Twojo's presence, Heather adds her own offhanded remark to the conversation topic that she'd just walked back in on-- "Oh yeah, we have so many fucked up dogs. The ones Dad saw had writhing masses of worms instead of heads."

This doesn't answer Envy's question, but it is a fun fact that they can all appreciate! :)

Things seem to be going okay so far. The little dogs aren't jumping. And a very fat Pikachu was in his lap begging for bites. It was okay. For a moment, Henry feared he'd bitten off more than he could chew, but he's safe here. This is Johto.

When Heather returns, Henry looks up and sees the familiar orange and white and for a moment isn't sure what he's seeing. Did Cujo shrink? Then Heather reveals the brilliant name as the Growlithe wiggles and whines for cheese.

"Twojo...oh my God, Heather." Henry shakes his head, his nose wrinkling. Heather's just the same! With the fantastic names. "Okay, okay, everyone gets a bite. But just one..

He was gonna give them more than one. Especially Guglhopf, he's Henry's favorite.

"I don't know why anything was messed up the way it was. Well. I have kind of an idea. Let me tell you about the giant two-headed babies sometime."

As the room fills with more Pokemon, the Espurr scramble up onto the couch to join their trainer.

"The more I hear about your world, the worse it sounds. I thought where we come from had some monstrosities..." She shakes her head. Well, it's no wonder Henry and Heather enjoy it here. It may be odd, and of course there's crises sometimes, but it's overall quite benign.

Something it had taken years to adjust to.

She reaches for her cup of tea and finds it empty. Hmm. Staring down into it, she wonders. Would a second cup be a good or a bad idea right now? She can't quite tell.

Envy hums thoughtfully, mind drifting in the tea zone.

"We have some fucked up dogs. Those lab chimera that were part snake, you remember."

Hm. More thinking about what's been mentioned.

"Lots of fucked up stuff with heads, too. You guys' monsters have..." He searches for a word. "Themes."

Guglhopf and the terrible three (although they are being very polite for the new person who might give them a snack! Big ol' puppy eyes and all) are all much too focused on Henry's cheese treats to pay Heather and Twojo much mind. Margrave the Zorua, though, gives Twojo a little yip--ever since coming to the future, he's always been much more willing to be nice to his fellow time-traveler than he is to...most. However, he also sidles a little closer to the cheese bearer. Not that he'd lower himself to looking interested. Just. Y'know. A little closer.

While everyone's mainly focused on all the little creatures, though, Envy's noticed Lust looking down at her cup. He still has no idea what to think about what happened (especially not two cups of tea in himself), but, while nobody's going to be really watching...

He does awkwardly reach to pat her shoulder a few times in sympathy for the Feelings. Yes. Very normal.

Henry's groan is met with a giant grin and a self-congratulatory snicker-- Heather might be several years older than the last time he saw her, but she is clearly still the little sibling here. Then again, he's the one who named one of his Pokemon "Alien Baby".

She sets the little Growlithe down, knowing that Twojo's manners are better than her namesake's-- sure enough, the pup wiggles up between the Poochyena trio and her pal Margrave but doesn't otherwise jump up on or crowd Henry. She will wait politely for her portion of the cheese!

"To be fair, the monstrosities aren't normal. They're just the world's sweet and sexy little secret prize for lucky people like Henry and me."

With the worst of the awkwardness past, she's apparently feeling at-ease enough to talk about That Stuff. Flopping back down next to Henry, she waffles over the pizza boxes for a moment before settling on a slice of Alolan-- which she waves airly as she speaks.

"Envy's seen a few of mine. Remember when you got stuck in that closet in my dream? We weren't even super good friends yet back then."

Henry passes out little bites of cheese with the reverence of a priest giving communion. Of course he doesn't stop at just one, they all have such cute begging faces. And he's stoned and he wants everyone to feel good. Cheese for everybody!

When Twojo joins in, Henry reaches out to gently pet her between the ears. "Don't tell Cujo, but I think I like you a little more."

He tips his head to the side when Envy makes his statement. They...did kind of have themes didn't they. "I guess...the ghosts weren't really themed. They were just the spirits of Walter's victims...but maybe. Oh, maybe, the babies were. And that...worm..." He squints. "It wouldn't die. I unloaded an entire clip into it and it just kept...eating or whatever it was doing."

"Our monstrosities weren't normal, either. But we dealt with them in a much different capacity." A great deal less fighting them. And that's about all Lust is saying on that subject right now. Good god, how did they get on such a morbid and bizarre topic anyway? Socially partaking of drugs was supposed to be a pleasant and silly thing.

Oh well. Nothing here is normal, not the topic of conversation nor they themselves or the whole damned night.

She glances over at Envy curiously when he pats her shoulder. What in the world is he doing?

"That's very nice of you, but it isn't going to fill my teacup."

Lust!! He was trying to be subtle!!

He huffs though and moves to stand, heading for the kitchen, "Fiiiine. Only since you had to run here."

He's off to fix her some tea, he'll be back with it in a few minutes to present it to her.

"Here you go. ...Don't drink it all in one go."

No, he's not thinking to clarify why someone doing that might be something vaguely on his mind.

He stands still as a pillar in the cold spray, eyes open, not seeing the shower wall inches from his face. The desperate sprint of the last three days is finally over, and it's spat him out at the precipice of a sheer cliff.

Scar is not one for half measures. A lifetime of deprivation has galvanized his penchant for extremes. How viciously he can hate. How endlessly he can love. He doesn't expect to be met here.

So, while he had known that she cared, every sign of it had always been a splash of cold water in his face. Her pride whenever he had managed to hold down a job. Her understanding when he couldn't. Meeting him in the quiet outskirts of large crowds, boisterous parties, and the absurd abundance of fireworks in this odd world. Her patience when the raw tangle of nerves between them flashed too bright for his starved body and soul to stomach.

It follows, then, that waking to a house perfectly preserved, to his face enshrined in precious places, to his keys and his coat waiting, just in case, to his shirts in her dresser, worn thin but carefully maintained, is like falling through ice.

Only… the water is finally starting to feel not like a cruel cosmic joke, or the punchline to a parable without a moral, but like where he belongs.

He is loved.

Not because he deserves it. There is no deserve, in this revolving door of lives and memories the two of them are trapped in, alone and together.

It simply is.

They're burned into each other, for better or for worse. But in two lives who have so rarely glimpsed anything that could be called better, it's hard to call such a bond anything but.

I thought I'd lost you. Again.

God, but so had he.

It stings, it aches, and it soothes all in one terrible swoop. The blow of time lost is so heavy that he stands in the shower, stunned, for entirely too long. The surreal hiccup of seeing her for only a moment, of prying each other open as they do, then immediately returning to the contemplative silence he’s been trapped in for days…

He’s alive. Still. Again.

Clarity hits him the same way the bracing spray does, and Scar’s eyes narrow. He stares down at the shower knob with defiant skepticism.

Nothing is stopping him. No law of land or God dictates that he can't.

He reaches for the shower handle with the steady focus of soothing a stray animal, and tests the modern marvel of unlimited hot water for the very first time.

When Scar finally emerges from the shower, he smells like he could get a stranger’s social security number in five minutes flat.

His water bottle can’t quite fit in the bathroom sink, so he has no choice but to brave the downstairs once again. He towels himself dry, shakes out his hair, and emerges from the bathroom in a cloud of steam. His pruned feet pause at the top of the stairs before he descends in well-practiced absolute silence.

He had thought, in the flurry of decisions made in the heartbeat between the bottom of the stairs and the living room threshold, that he would do his best to respect the barrier Lust maintained between them and everybody else.

This calculation failed to accommodate the possibility that she might be curled up on the couch and covered in Espurr.

All of his thoughts! There they go! Bye! They are now in the woman-with-many-tiny-cats shaped honey trap!

Once again, you've got a serial killer looming on the outskirts of your gathering. Only now he is watching the Kitten Cluster with stunned, singular focus, and he smells like his boobs could convince you to invest in bitcoin in 2023.

“What is a mermaid?”

God, that really just. Came out of him. Hi, Scar’s here now.

If Heather had still been High (tm), she probably wouldn't have noticed Scar's entrance-- but once the heavy, stomach-churning dread of an oncoming emotional collision between two of the most intense people (not the MOST intense people... but they're up there!!) she's ever met had dissipated, she'd been able to relax enough that Henry's bitter Persim tea was no longer necessary.

It was now time for lukewarm pizza and watching Henry feed cheese to his flock of believers. And for noticing when the giant awkward man shows up in the doorway in a cloud of Lust's aromatic shampoo vapors.

She doesn't say anything right away-- doesn't want to scare him off or shove her foot down her throat. She figures that he'll announce himself when he's ready-- probably to Lust.

So she takes another bite of her pizza.

And then he hits them all with 'What is a mermaid?' and she starts to choke for the second time that evening.

(Far less dramatically, and with a glass of water next to her. She's fine. Physically.)

At Envy's advice, Henry lets out a small, strangled snort. It had been quite the spectacle to watch Scar suck that stuff down like a wetvac. He even opens his mouth to say something, to SNITCH, when a large shape enters his periphery.

Henry looks up with a delayed expression of surprise before it turns into a mellow smile.

"Hey, I bet you feel better." He still needs a shower himself, but he's busy. "A mermaid is like...a fairytale thing. Half woman half fish."

Lust is well into her second cup - taking normal sized sips like a reasonable person - when Scar returns to the living room. Even had he not announced his entrance, the scent alone would have been enough to announce him. There's no doubt he's well and truly clean.

She turns to look with a somewhat sleepy smile, shifting over on the couch to ensure there's plenty of room. Seeing him again settles any little lingering distress of him being upstairs, behind a closed door. He looks just as he did, in his old clothes that still fit him just as they should. Once more there's a surge of emotion, but muted this time by her tea.

Why in the world is he...oh. Of course, she'd been at work. Her work had been bound to come up.

"There you are. What Henry said. It's a popular figure from legends and fairy stories. And a summer costume staple. Everyone loves the mermaid outfit."

She does hope it was clarified that she's not doing anything indecent.

Envy's feeling particularly relaxed too. Things are settled down, he's also had his second solidarity cup with Lust, and there's no more impending mystery drama. At least he hopes there won't be any more when Scar comes back. Surely that was the maximum amount of big emotions the two of them could've leaked all over the place, right? They wouldn't both cry again, right?

He can't help but be a little tense when he notices Scar coming back downstairs. What if they do start crying again? What if they start doing all that on the couch directly next to him?

...OH. MERMAIDS INSTEAD. GOOD!!

"The fish part is on the bottom half. Not the other way around."

The Poochyena trio also sees the new person, and briefly abandon Henry and his cheese to scurry over to him and circle his feet, yipping and sniffing excitedly. They want to check and see if this guy's going to be easy to beg off of.

At There you are, Scar forgets, for a moment, to be awkward. Lust's voice and smile echo in his empty head until Henry and Envy pull him back to the present. His brow furrows as he spins together the mental image of a mermaid, holding onto it long enough to decide that it's...

"That's absurd."

More words!! Just! Coming out of him!!

Unfortunately for Poochyena³, while Scar is a weapons grade sucker, he doesn't have anything to hand out other than pats. Which he does. For all three of them.

Lust scoots over, and Scar's incessant internal refrain of give her space fails yet again. He settles beside her gingerly, eyes still flicking between her, Espurr 1, Espurr 2, Espurr 3...

Don't worry, Envy, he's leaving plenty of room for Ishbala. The resident Diet Coke is being extremely careful about the resident Mentos.

As her master chugs down that glass of water like her life depends on it, Twojo politely ambles over to Scar once he's seated and waits to receive her own pats, her fluffy bobble of a tail wiggling in patient excitement.

TWO new friends, and she got a piece of cheese. Everything's coming up Twojo tonight. :)

Henry is abandoned--except for his good pal Guglhopf who he continues to pet. Now that his audience is narrowed down to one, he takes a bite of of his pizza slice before holding it down for the rotund mouse to bite directly off of.

Because fuck it.

"If you think that's absurd you should hear about centaurs."

She hadn't been sure if he'd sit down or not, and she feels a silly little flutter when he does. It's impossible to miss where he's looking, and at least one of the little lavender cats stares up at him with giant eyes. Lust picks that one up - Jean Luc, by the red ribbon around his neck - and plops him down in Scar's lap. The other two are curled up on her own, while one is nestled on her shoulder.

He'd always been fond of cats.

"I suppose it is, but it's still popular for summer. I do not have a centaur costume." In case that question was to follow. That would be truly absurd. And likely require engineering skills she simply doesn't have.

"I've just been having dinner. You've eaten, yes?"

She wants to be sure. It's been quite a night, and god knew what state he'd been in before she arrived.

Guglhopf may never leave Henry's lap again. A whole bite of pizza all to himself! A fitting reward for the last remaining cheese believer.

Envy's honestly surprised when Scar comes over and just. Sits on the couch semi-casually. Something about him is definitely different, than it was seven years ago. And even earlier that very night, getting him to even come into the living room with everyone had been a struggle. He hadn't even sat down then!

He's had way too much tea to try and mentally dissect this...whatever it was. But he's paying attention.

"...I think there would need to be another person for a centaur costume. For the back legs."

He's also had too much tea to not start musing to himself about costuming.

"Yes."

He can sort through whatever nonsense they're talking about with chimera costumes later. Or not at all. Because, you see,

"Your Amestrian friends drugged me."

It was a WHOLE THING he had to defrost a turkey he was so scared she would turn up while he was still doing hot girl shit in the kitchen :(

Scar's flat statement is juxtaposed by how gently he rests a hand on Jean Luc Espurr's tiny, purple head. God help him, they're even color coded... Having an Espurr to focus on is making it easier to ignore the quietly crackling space between them.

Jane Austen Rising Action Stank can be redirected into Really Loving Cats.

Heather has finished her glass of water.

But she keeps drinking ("drinking"), because she does NOT want to make eye contact with Lust after Scar says the words 'your Amestrian friends drugged me'. She doesn't even remember what Amestrian means in the heat of the moment. She feels bad. She is experiencing White Girl Guilt (tm), even though none of them expected Scar to swallow an entire teacup of the stuff in five seconds, or rubbed two brain cells together long enough to realize that he might not know that Henry's tea was drugs.

There is no more water in her glass but by god she is thirsty.

Meanwhile, Twojo lets out a very soft whine at Scar's feet. Um, excuse her, but she did wait her turn like a very good girl but it looks like you are petting a cat instead??? Even though Twojo was here first??? :( Maybe he didn't see her down there.

A small rust-colored paw appears on his knee.

Henry winces when Scar spills the beans and he hunches his shoulders. He forgets he's holding his pizza down for his lap buddy. He's never going to finish that slice.

"It's my fault...I was only thinking about myself. I'm sorry, Scar."

It may have been the first time he'd said his name since learning it on Route 29. Friend was nicer sounding to HIM but that was him thinking about himself again.

SNITCHED ON! Envy also makes himself busy by joining Heather in sipping at the cup in his hands--his is, at least, not quite empty yet. He'd been sort of hoping that maybe the snitching had already happened while they were upstairs because he doesn't know if Lust is gonna scold them or not.

He knows what Amestrian means in this particular context. So he's not going to correct Scar about Heather and Henry's actual nation of origin. Although oh no Henry actually clearly does feel very bad about it.

"I didn't think you were gonna drink it all at once immediately."

However he will not deny the allegations because welp. They did in fact drug Scar.

Whatever Lust was going to say on the subject of complicated centaur costumes and the likelihood of it being enjoyed by her audience is forgotten immediately.

Your Amestrian friends drugged me.

She manages to mostly choke back the immediate laugh that threatens. She will not laugh. This is not a laughing matter. Even if it's hilarious at the moment. She isn't even sure what's funnier, that Scar had partaken or that he'd called Henry and Heather 'Amestrian'. She knows what he means.

She also knows Envy and Heather very well. She knows full well neither of them would deliberately give Scar drugs without his knowledge. And certainly Henry meant no harm. It's easy enough to see what had happened. Henry had simply made tea for the household, and no one gave it a second thought. Scar hadn't known to ask and had drank a cup of tea. It was nothing but a simple misunderstanding.

That had led to - she assumes - a somewhat stoned Scar. Honestly she's rather sorry she missed it.

Now Envy's warning makes a bit more sense.

"I'm sure no one intended to 'drug' you." Said as much for everyone else's benefit as Scar's. "Are you alright?"

Scar shoots a brief conciliatory glance in Henry's direction.

Envy, however.

Envy gets a sideways glare from right over the top of Lust's head.

"Clearly," is all he says to her question. He's sober now, so there are no black marks on anyone's permanent record. Just a sour expression. The next part comes out partially under his breath: "God knows why I would want to be intoxicated right now..."

The haze of Woman and Cats finally clears enough for Scar to notice Twojo, ever-so-politely waiting at his ankles, a single paw on his knee. Scar has two hands. One for kitty, one for Dog.

Great googly moogly, it's all gone to [extremely loud incorrect buzzer]

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[1/2] - melodramatic introspection, ignore at your leisure

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