Intermission [New Year's Extravaganza]
Jan 4, 2019 22:15:34 GMT
Post by girl-like-substance on Jan 4, 2019 22:15:34 GMT
This is my first piece for the New Year's Extravaganza! It's for Bay, using this prompt:
A snapshot of Nanu, Looker, and Faller together. Perhaps they're catching/studying a UB, or when they're not working and unwinding at a restaurant/bar. Just want to see the three interacting before the incident. Nanu/Looker appreciated but no pressure!
No real warnings to speak of here, save I guess for alcohol, since I went for the suggested bar setting; it's just an insubstantial little vignette about Looker, Nanu and their mysterious dead friend. So, without further ado:
INTERMISSION
NOTE: In compliance with International Police regulations, the name of active agent [REDACTED] has been replaced with his codename.
“That seems like a long way to go for a drink.”
“Oh my god, you sound like Nanu,” sighed Avani. “It's like ten minutes on the L. C'mon.”
“You know I'm standing right here,” said Nanu.
“Yeah, I'm aware.” She smiled. “Just follow me, guys. I was born here. I know Chicago like the back of my hand.”
“In a different universe,” pointed out Looker, but it was too late; she was already moving off down the street.
He glanced at Nanu, who glanced back, one eyebrow ever so slightly raised.
“It had to be her hometown, huh.”
“Apparently,” agreed Looker. “Where do you think she is taking us?”
A weary shrug.
“Eloquent as ever, N― Chief.”
“Eh. You know me.”
“Well, are you coming?” called Avani, over one shoulder.
*
The L was so ordinary that it felt like madness, after the day they'd had. It was just a metro, that was all, and it was full of people: a young mother with a son who kept trying to wriggle off her lap and go exploring; a man with a sableye that eyed every watch it saw hungrily; two art students with dyed hair and big portfolios, talking slightly too loudly about Foujita.
None of them knew. None of them had even the slightest idea that a mere two miles away in Streeterville, a creature from another world had just been destroyed in the basement of the Northwestern Memorial Hospital. They probably never would. By the time Looker's team had left the grounds to drop their partners off at the Pokémon Centre, the InterPol legal team had already arrived with sympathetic smiles and thirty-page contracts, ready to bribe, cajole and litigate the story out of existence.
Looker held tight to the strap as the train clattered past the high-rises, trying to beat the sense of vertigo, and listened to Avani chatter on:
“… and so like I practically grew up in Boystown, you know? It was our secret. My brother and me, I mean. We corroborated each other's stories for our parents. I told them I saw him on dates with the kind of nice Marathi girl that they wanted him to marry, and he told them he'd seen me at tuition. Meantime he was out cruising and I was writing these awful poems for pretty much any girl who even looked at me.”
“Mm,” said Nanu, without taking his eyes off the window.
“Aaaand that's the signal that the old man's no longer listening.” Avani shook her head. “Hey, you're paying attention, right Looker? Gotta have my validation.”
“Yes, of course,” he said, although he wasn't sure he wanted to listen; it all seemed too pointed. “Please, go on.”
“Well, that's probably a good place to leave it.” The train turned a corner around another tower, throwing her face into shadow for a moment. “It wasn't long after that when I, uh, fell, if you catch my drift. What about you, huh? What did baby Looker do, rocking the mean streets of Lumieuse?”
(A lock of blonde hair. Bruised knuckles. The motorbike that wouldn't start.)
Looker sighed.
“What does any young man do?” he asked, pushing the past firmly away. “A lot of regrettable things.”
“Hmph,” said Nanu, still not turning around. “The more things change, the more they stay the same, huh.”
“Okay, look,” said Avani, looking indignant. “He's not that incompetent.”
“Ah, thank you very much,” said Looker acidly. “Who is it that managed to pick the lock on that door earlier?”
“Not sure if lockpicking is a skill you want to advertise,” Nanu remarked.
“Sure it is,” said Avani, with the kind of grin that set warning bells ringing in Looker's head. “It tells you that Looker's great with his hands.”
Oh dear. Was anyone listening in? Looker honestly didn't want to know; he closed his eyes, felt the passing sun on his face.
“Truly, there is no depth to which your mind will not sink,” he said. “We are on a metro train―”
“Hey man, this is Chicago, not Lumieuse. It's the L.”
“It is a public place!” He opened his eyes again, directed a beseeching look at the back of Nanu's head. “Na― Chief, can't you order her to stop?”
Nanu turned then, just enough for Looker to see the edge of his face.
“I guess I could,” he admitted. “But that seems like a waste of effort. She'll just do it again.”
“Oh, for the,” began Looker, but then he saw it and had to stop and frown. “Are you smiling?”
*
“It's here,” Avani insisted. “I know it is.”
“Maybe it closed,” suggested Looker. “Bars, you know, they often do not have the very long life …”
Maybe it was never here, he didn't say: maybe it only existed in your Chicago, in the 2004 from which you vanished to reappear in our 2006. Maybe it's like your favourite brand of yoghurt, or that model of car you say you used to drive, or that poet whose book you took everywhere with you. Maybe it's like your family.
“It's here,” she repeated. “Look, maybe it's on the other side of this block, it's been a while since I was here.”
She kept walking, moving in short, erratic bursts, slipping past pedestrians and ducking under the arms of a startled machamp. Looker threw a desperate glance at Nanu, a meaningful kind of glance, and with a tired sigh Nanu stepped forward to catch Avani by the shoulder.
“Kid,” he said. “Let's go somewhere else.”
She froze beneath his palm like a deer caught in the breath of a beartic, breathless, shivering. But only for a moment: in the next instant she turned, laughing, and shook Nanu off like a teenager escaping parental affection.
“You're right,” she said. “It's probably not as good as I remember, anyway. C'mon, old man. This place will do, I guess.”
She slipped in quickly through the door, but even in the brief glimpse he had of her face, Looker could see her smile didn't reach her eyes. He looked at Nanu again, got a scowl back.
“What?”
*
“To another successful mission, then,” said Avani, raising her glass.
“Sure, why not,” said Nanu.
“Wouldn't kill you to sound a little more enthusiastic, old man.”
“You may perhaps be hoping for too much there,” said Looker, raising his own glass. “Santé!”
It was a weekday, and barely past five. Aside from the three of them, the bar was almost empty: an old man who seemed half asleep, a silvery taillow clinging to his shirt; a couple of white-collar workers who must have knocked off early, a zigzagoon and a poochyena snapping playfully at each other beneath their table. Looker would have liked a little more bustle, to better mask their presence, but he supposed it couldn't hurt. They were here for pleasure, after all. Nothing confidential was up for discussion tonight.
“So,” said Avani, sipping her drink. “How'd you like Chicago? Our, uh, friend in the basement notwithstanding.”
She was good. Looker almost believed that she wasn't still thinking about the bar that didn't exist in this universe.
“Eh.” Nanu shrugged, took a sip of his whisky. “It's okay. Weather's been all right, I guess.”
“Says the guy from Alola.”
“Always seems to rain where I live.”
“Oh my god, you are literally a cartoon. You know that? With a little black raincloud over your head.”
Looker smiled, which he suspected was all Avani was looking for; she grinned and gestured at him with her glass.
“See, Looker has a sense of humour,” she said. “You could learn from him. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?”
“I'm not going to dignify that with an answer.”
“Looks like you just did.”
Triumphant grin. In moments like these, she seemed so young; back when she had first been assigned to their team, Looker had worried about this kid who barely seemed old enough to drink, let alone secure and contain monsters from another world. But that was then and this was now, and as it turned out Avani was a better pokémon trainer than he was; her rhydon had pulled his croagunk out of the fire at least a dozen times.
“Hmph,” said Nanu. “You kids are so much work.”
“You including Looker in that one, old man?”
“Yeah, sure. Why not?”
“You want the honest answer or the polite one?”
“And what is that supposed to mean?” asked Looker, his heart suddenly leaping halfway up his throat. “I hope you are not suggesting anything untoward―”
“No, dude, I think you did all the suggesting for me,” she said, her grin broadening. “Look, guys, I know there are rules about fraternisation and all, but come on. At this point it's just getting really awkward pretending not to notice.”
Looker froze. He wanted to look at Nanu, to see how he was taking this, but he couldn't seem to take his eyes off Avani's face.
“And hey, all jokes aside,” she continued, “that's getting in the way of our work. I don't know what that argument earlier was about, but you guys being distracted almost got you electrocuted.” She actually looked serious now. Focused. Less like a kid, more like the agent who had pushed Looker out of the way of the UB's tentacles earlier that day. “So. Get it out in the open, yeah? We're relying on each other here. If you're bringing your baggage to the mission, that's gonna get someone killed.”
A long pause. Three people came in, trailing pokémon, calling out to the bartender like old friends. Looker tried to calm his heart, to slow down and process the fact that this conversation was happening, that this woman he kept thinking of as a child had not only found him out but was giving him advice about how to conduct himself on missions.
“Heh.” The corner of Nanu's mouth turned up, just a little. “Not such a kid after all, huh.”
Avani shrugged.
“I have my moments,” she said. “And a lot of messed-up friends. So. Are we all gonna be more honest with each other?”
“As long as you don't go blabbing to headquarters.”
“Are you kidding? Ruin everything just when I've discovered that you're actually capable of love? Fat chance, old man.”
And there was the grin again, bright, infectious. Looker couldn't help but smile back. All right; they'd been found out, and even told off. But somehow it was impossible to be angry, when it was her doing it. Something to do with the grin, maybe – with that deft lightness of touch, that carefully-studied childishness.
“Perhaps the old dog can learn a few new tricks after all,” he said, feeling mischievous, and was rewarded with that particular furrowing of Nanu's brow, the one that meant that he couldn't make up his mind whether to be annoyed or amused.
“Sometimes I have no idea what I see in you,” he told Looker, after a moment.
“Maybe it's your lockpicking skills,” suggested Avani, with a devious twinkle in her eye. “Never hurts to be good with your hands, huh.”
Looker turned his eyes demurely down to the tabletop, trying to suppress the urge to look around and see if anyone had overheard.
“Avani, Avani. You are, uh … uncorrugated.”
“What?”
“Incorrigible,” corrected Nanu. “And he's right.”
“Okay, well, I don't know what that means but I feel like I'm being victimised here.”
“Oh, you think you're the one being victimised, huh.” Nanu clicked his tongue. “Anyway, drink up. Message from HQ.”
“Huh?”
Looker reached for his phone and read it for himself: new sighting, head to the airport, someone will meet you there with your pokémon.
“Hm,” he said, scrolling through the details of their flight. “Alola, is it? Your home green, Na― Chief.”
“Home turf. And it's Poni Island. Not my home turf.” Nanu hesitated. “And … Nanu is fine, when we're off-duty.”
Looker coughed and hurriedly drained his glass.
“Right you are, Ch― Nanu,” he said, standing up. “Er – shall we be going?”
“To Alola?” asked Avani. “Hell yeah! It's meant to be beautiful. Y'know, monsters aside and all.”
Nanu sighed.
“You'll fit right in,” he said, climbing stiffly to his feet. “Everyone there is just as exhausting as you are.”
“Well, like you always say, old man, misery loves company.”
They settled up and walked out into the light and bustle, the wandering pokémon and the smell of exhaust fumes. It didn't feel like they were towards another UB, Looker thought; it just felt like a holiday. Two old men and their niece, perhaps, in town to visit the Field Museum and whatever else it was that tourists came here to do.
“It's this way back to the station,” said Avani, as if he and Nanu had forgotten, and set off with the easy confidence of a lifelong city-dweller, slipping between pedestrians like a fish between branches of coral.
Without either of them saying anything to the other, Looker and Nanu fell a few paces behind, shared a glance behind her back.
“What d'you think?” asked Nanu.
“I think we are all three of us very fortunate,” replied Looker.
Nanu wrinkled his nose slightly.
“Hmph,” he said. “Any less sentimental thoughts?”
“No,” said Looker, with a smile. “Not at all.”
“Well, I guess that'll have to do, then.”
“Are you two trying to be late or what?” called Avani, pausing up ahead of them. “Come on!”
“I suppose that's our cue,” said Looker, letting his hand brush Nanu's. “Time to go.”
