Where the wild Starly are
Okay so the problem with telling you stories about things that happen to me is that a lot of the time, I'm not telling you what I remember. I'm telling you things I've picked up in the days or weeks or months after the event. And that’s not always a good thing when you think about it, is it? I mean, people lie. No one’s going to be the one to tell me the truth. Like the time last Christmas, when we were all down in Azalea Town for the holidays. It’s a pretty secluded place, right? No one cares what you do down there unless you're making a scene or something. Then the people that live there get a bit annoyed with you. But if you’re just hanging out and having a good time over Christmas with some of your closest friends, one of which just happens to be the leader in that exact town, no one will call you out on anything. And that’s why I didn't find out until March that I’d fallen asleep halfway through dinner. Jasmine eventually made me apologise to Bugsy for the months of complaints about him not even having the decency to make us dessert on Christmas. Apparently he made about six different kinds of pie. I swear, that kid is a genius. No one even considered waking me up.
But I digress. The story I'm going to tell you today has nothing to do with Christmas except in the most round-about and possibly vaguely metaphorical way possible. It’s also a bit awkward in retrospect. Just a bit. A lot. Depending who you ask. And typically it’s one of those things where it’s my word against someone else’s and both versions of the story are almost completely opposite. Well, if you ask me it wasn't my fault but if you ask Falkner, it was most definitely my fault. He thinks that none of it would have happened if I’d be sober. I think it would have but that’s not really the point either. The point is this: that Sunday afternoon happened. And to tell you the truth, I kind of hope it happens again.
We were out on Route 37 together. Falkner was doing some research into the local birdlife; lately there have been a few reports of stray Starly in the area. Obviously they’ve gotten lost somewhere because they’re native to Sinnoh. Incidentally, I’ve got Falkner about sixty percent convinced we should go over to Sinnoh sometime. Because it’s such a rare event Falkner decided that he wanted to collect as much data as he could before the opportunity passed. So I let him do that. He was climbing trees and crawling through the grass trying to do counts of the wild Starly. He calls it research and it probably was, but he seemed like he was having so much fun that research didn't seem to be the word. I know I spent a good half an hour trying to think of a new word for what he was doing, a kind of ‘fun-research’ hybrid. I know that when I do research it’s not the most exciting thing in the world, but that’s because I have to read through ancient history books a lot of the time, not climb trees. But climbing trees is research to Falkner and I wasn't going to tell him otherwise. But he did not appreciate it when I laughed so loudly at the grass in his hair that half the flock flew away.
“Morty.” He sighed.
“What?”
“Why did you do that?”
“Do what?” I sniggered.
“You know what.”
“I don't know what.”
“You do, you jerk.”
“It was an accident, I swear.” I sniggered again here, the grass was still in his hair. I think it was actually a twig.
“Morty.”
“What?”
“Do you realise what you just did?”
“I accidentally scared the birds?”
“Yeah. You know what that means?”
“I know I'm hungry.”
“You're an idiot.”
“You know it’s just part of my charm.”
“No. Just, no, Morty.”
“No what?” I asked. Gengar had come back by then; he'd been off playing with the wild Stantler. There was no one else out on the road except for me and Falkner. Neither of us were going to be scared of a Gengar diving at us for attention. Small children, on the other hand, they usually scream. It’s hilarious even when you're not off your face.
Falkner spent about fifteen minutes yelling about one thing or another, about how I’d ruined his research and messed up his count and now he’d have to wait for hours just so the Starly would calm down and settle again. I wasn't listening the whole time because, well, he was boring me. And seriously, the area we’re in looks fucking amazing in Spring. The grass smells incredible and the flowers are so much brighter than they are any other time. Maybe they get tired halfway through the season and stop being so colourful. And I fucking love Winter, don't get me wrong. There is nothing better than snow. There were so many things happening that were more interesting than getting yelled at though. There was a Stantler chasing a Pidgey, a Pidgey fighting for territory with a Starly and a Ledyba slowly creeping up behind Falkner. That one I didn't want to tell him about. He’d figure it out eventually. Or maybe he wouldn’t but I really just wanted to see him freak out; he’s not the biggest fan of bugs. I asked him a while back and he didn't really admit it but that’s part of the reason he trains birds. Which makes sense, I guess. Birds eat bugs, sometimes anyway. What was my point again?
Falkner was being boring and yelling at me. I’ll admit that I’d probably gotten a little bit carried away. I like a nice Sunday out in the sun like anyone else and yeah, I'm going to do whatever I like on the one day a week that I don't take any Gym battles. And unless there’s something that I really have to do on a Sunday, ‘whatever I like’ usually means ‘getting wasted and watching infomercials for six hours’. Which isn’t as boring as it sounds. That was in the middle of winter at least. Now that it’s Spring again and nice outside, I'm not going to waste that. I spend most of the week inside because that’s the way my Gym is set up. Seriously, kids these days are impossible to scare. I’ve decked out the Gym with the dimmest lighting possible and I deliberately haven’t had any repairs done to the dripping drainpipes, and to top it off I let the Ghosts run about freely as long as they don't interfere with battles. Not one kid in over a year has been even a little bit scared. Can you imagine if I set up my Gym with a kind of warm, friendly, open to the sunshine kind of feel? Bugsy gets away with it. It’d look like a moron. And considering this was one of the nicest days of the season so far, I got a bit carried away. So sue me. Now I’m just stalling because I really can't remember anything that Falkner was saying.
Right. That Ledyba was closing in on him and I was finding it even harder to keep a straight face. He was still yelling about how I ruined his research for the day. I was off my fucking face by that point. Sound about right? It’s close enough. I had to stop him, I really did. If I just kept laughing at him he’d start to think that I’d lost all respect for him.
“Falkner?”
“What?”
“How about some tea?”
“What?” He was frustrated. I don't blame him. Here he was trying to make a point and I was just ignoring him.
“Tea.”
“What about it?”
“Do you want some tea?”
“No I don't want some tea, I want you to fucking listen to me. I don't come into your study and tear out pages from your books so I don't know why you’d go out of your way to fuck up my research. Once in a lifetime, Morty. No one has ever seen Starly in the wild here before. Do you know what that means? It means that first hand data, that’s what I'm trying to collect, by the way, is really fucking important.”
“I know Falkner.” I didn't know. I was still watching the Ledyba behind him.
“So what the fuck is your problem? Do you want me to go and burn your manuscripts?”
“My manuscripts are eight hundred years old.”
“So they're important to you.”
“Of course they are.” I was on my feet by then for some reason. I'm pretty sure that once I was up I’d forgotten the reason I’d left the ground. “Turn around.”
“What?”
“Turn around.” I said. Even in the state I was in, I knew how to end the conversation. It took me a minute to remember the reason I was standing but I got there in the end. So Falkner turned and finally saw the Ledyba sitting only a few inches from his feet. Then, in what I can't possibly describe without laughing, he made the strangest noise I have ever heard. It was a kind of panicked scream that was only half as manly as he'd hoped it to be. I swear, I almost fell over I was laughing so hard at his reaction. “Come on.”
“What was that? You knew that was there the whole time, didn't you? You prick, you did!” He added. I was probably grinning like an idiot so I wasn't exactly keeping very good secrets.
“Okay, I did.” I tried to tone down the whole ‘grinning like a maniac’ thing once I had my hands on his shoulders. There’s nothing reassuring about having a madman hanging off you, is there? “But that scream? What was that all about?” Cue maniacal grin.
“Those things are huge.”
“I know.” It was condescending and I knew it but if it was going to stop him from sulking for the next six hours, then I had no other choice. If Falkner sulked for the next six hours, he’d totally kill my mood.
“You're silently laughing at me on the inside, aren’t you?”
Yeah. I was. I was laughing hard and to this day I’ll still bring up that scream if I need to win an argument. But I needed to pretend that I wasn't laughing so hard on the inside or, like I said before, Falkner would just get even more annoyed with me and that’d ruin the afternoon. I have no idea why the shouting didn't affect me that way. But anyway, I had to shut him up and prove that I wasn't being a total jerk about it, so I kissed him. Nothing special, nothing dramatic, just enough to let him know that I was kind of a little bit sorry for ruining his research for the afternoon.
“Morty.”
“What?”
“That doesn’t count as an apology.”
“It doesn’t?”
“You ruined my research into something that hasn’t ever been seen before, let alone studied.”
“So?”
“So? Seriously? Once in a lifetime, Morty.”
“Relax. They’ll be back at about six o’clock.” I said.
“How do you know?”
“I know what colour your underwear will be on Tuesday. The birds will come back. Now can we go? I’m starving.”
“I,”
“Shh, you’ll scare the birds.” I said. I remember that I pressed a finger to his mouth to stop him talking any more. I was really hungry by then and seriously, he tried to bite my finger off. I'm not going to forget that anytime soon. I guess I kind of deserved it for that kind of comment but he didn't have to get violent about it. I don't know what I got for that, by the way. Falkner says that he just rolled his eyes and we went back to my Gym, but I think he at least slapped me in the face. He couldn’t punch me if he tried; I’d know he was going to do it before the thought had even started to form in his head.
“Do you think that my Nurse is really your Nurse as well?”
“Just pour the tea, Morty.”
“No, seriously. You never see two Nurses together, do you? Maybe there’s only one and she visits all the Centres somehow.”
“It’s stewing.”
“Maybe she’s got a matter-transporter. That’s how she moves so fast.”
“Okay, you’ve ruined it now, it’s going to be bitter.”
“What? Oh, shit, I was making tea, wasn't I?”
“No, you’ve been ruining tea.”
“How did I ruin it? It tastes fine, oh shit, why didn't you tell me it was hot?” Yes, that did all come out as once sentence. I don't really remember the walk home but I remember burning my throat on bitter tea. Hey, I was wasted, not braindead. I can tell when I’ve let the leaves stew for too long.
“Give me that.” Falkner stacked my cup into his empty one and stood up from the floor. He took the pot as well and started to make a fresh batch. That left me to drop my head onto the table. I didn't even consider resting my head on my arms. The table was there, its job is to hold things up, it made sense at the time, probably.
“Top shelf.” I said without looking up.
“Thanks.”
That’s one of the things that I like about Falkner. He never really gets angry when I tell him things that are about to happen. Like telling him where I moved the tea leaves to? He appreciated that. Knowing what the wind will do before he has the chance to predict it through patterns? It takes out the guesswork on his part. Whitney will completely flip out if I tell her to be careful with the glass she’s about to knock over, let alone that time I told her she was going to lose all her Gym matches for a week. She did. And then she told me to stay the hell out of her future because it felt like I was invading her space. I'm pretty sure she just didn't like the fact that she lost. So I don't tell her things like that anymore. Falkner though, he’d listen for hours if we both didn't have our own Gyms to run. On Tuesday when we were eating dinner I told him all about the dream I was going to have that night. I don't remember what it was about now but I knew then. He just listened, nodding once in a while and indulging me like a child. When we woke up on Wednesday he asked me if I’d dreamt the dream I’d seen myself having. I had. So he listened to me repeat myself while we had breakfast; he had to leave as soon as we’d eaten though, the first Gym challenges usually begin just after nine.
“Morty.”
“Hm?”
“Tea.”
“What about it?”
“Do you want some?”
“Yeah. Oh, there’s a tin of cookies on the shelf as well, can you bring those as well?”
“Morty.”
“What?”
“Look up.”
“Why?”
“I’m already back at the table.”
“Oh right.” I laughed. “But the cookies..?” Falkner would have rolled his eyes at me here. Come on, you should know by now that I'm much better at remembering the future than the past. So Falkner made possibly the biggest mistake he could have at this point and went to collect the cookies without asking what kind they were. Big mistake on his part. See, I was sobering up by then and I knew it. But it was only three in the afternoon and that meant I had a lot more of the day left to waste. I had every intention to waste it properly and not even Falkner was going to talk me out of doing just that.
You can guess why I wanted those cookies, can't you? What? You can't? Seriously, try to keep up. I ate three of them before Falkner caught on to what I was doing. I'm not sure where the tin went after that but I guess he hid it in the back of the cupboard or something because that’s where I found it a few days later.
“Falkner?”
“What?”
“It’s raining.”
“And?”
“So it’s cold outside, right?”
“Right?”
“So why is my face cold if I'm inside and the rain is outside?”
“Maybe it’s because you’ve got your face pressed up against the window.”
“But the window is inside. Or is it? If the window is the window, is it inside or outside? Because the window is the thing that tells you where the outside starts but does it start on the inside of the building or the outside?”
“Morty,”
“Shit, what did I just say?” I laughed.
“I have no idea.”
I tore my face off the window just in time to see Falkner peering at me through one eye. I remember that he was sitting cross-legged on the futon like he was meditating; he wasn't, he was watching me acting like an idiot and secretly loving every minute of it.
“Can we go for a walk?”
“In the rain?”
“Yeah, I bet it’s nice outside.”
“I bet it’s cold and raining.”
“It’s still light.”
“Barely.”
“It’ll be fun.”
“It won't.”
“Falkner.”
“What?”
“Why is it raining if it was sunny before?”
“It’s early Spring, the weather can be unpredictable. You should have known it was going to rain.”
“My head’s been a bit... hazy. Today. Yeah.”
“You told me the Starly would come back.”
“They did. They’re up in the trees trying to stay out of the rain. Oh! We should go and visit Bugsy, you know he heats his Gym. It’ll be warm there.”
“I’m not walking all the way to Azalea in the rain.”
“It’ll be great.”
“You’ll catch a cold. Again.”
“You can catch a Starly.” Obviously, I meant that as some kind of deal-closing chat-up line. It didn't come out nearly as smooth as I’d hoped.
“You have met yourself, right?”
“Once or twice, yeah.”
“So you know what you’re like when you’re sick.”
“I want to go outside. Do you want to come or not?”
And I don't know if it was because I managed to sound like I was halfway sober or because he knew I’d go alone anyway, Falkner sighed and stood up and went to find an umbrella.
He would never admit it but getting stuck in the rain like that was actually a pretty nice moment. If you remove the fact we were wet. And that we couldn’t actually see any of the Starly because they’d hidden themselves so well. And that I was still wasted. And that Falkner wasn't entirely happy with me because I’d let the umbrella get caught in an updraft and that’s why we were wet. But aside from that, it was nice. I mean, the whole ‘sitting under a tree together because it started to pour and we didn't really want to run back to Ecruteak when there was a perfectly good dry patch under said tree’ thing. That was nice. And the part that involved a decent amount of groping. I am all for remembering that part, especially the bit where I somehow managed to pin Falkner to the ground without laughing. And the bit where I managed to get a hand down his pants without him noticing until it was too late. That was nice. It was just after that when I fucked it all up though. It wasn't all my fault and technically, although he’ll argue you on it, it was Falkner’s fault for taking advantage of me when I was in a very, very influential state of mind. Or so I like to call it. Anyway, I knelt on a rock and started laughing and sort of just collapsed on top of him. I couldn’t take it seriously after that. I tried, or I thought about it but that meant moving. It was probably for the best though. Remember how way back at the beginning I told you that something pretty embarrassing happened and that was the whole point of this story? It could have been a lot worse.
So, Falkner lying on his back, me collapsed on top of him still sniggering like a fifteen year old, my hand down his pants. Then, a group of kids out of nowhere suddenly come rushing around the corner presumably trying to get to the Pokemon Centre in Ecruteak before they get any wetter. You know where this is going, don't you? You can probably guess. And you’d be right. Cue the kids laughing, me getting hysterical again, Falkner removing my hand – reluctantly, I’ll bet – and then him not speaking to me for two days. It might have only been a little bit of a grope out in the dirt, but it was fucking worth it. Falkner didn't get any more research done that night that I know of and I fell asleep on the kitchen floor as soon as we got back to my Gym. The prick didn't even get me a pillow. As always, it’s my word against his and he says it was a lot more than ‘a little bit of a grope’ which is why it was so embarrassing. He says it was a lot more than that. I don't remember getting that much action so it couldn’t have happened.
There isn’t a neat ending to this story because a lot of shit happened in the days after that, like Falkner not talking to me and me having to go to Violet to win him over with a poor little Starly with an injured wing (that was a convenient, if sad, find on the walk there). And it wasn't all that long ago so he still brings it up every time I fuck something up, but still. It could have been a lot more embarrassing for both of us. And seriously, I was the one with my hand down his pants and those kids had to challenge me the next day. I think I’ll leave you with that image, those kids’ faces when they realised their next Gym challenge was against the guy they’d seen off his face the afternoon before, probably doing more than innocently groping another Gym Leader under a tree in the rain. Yeah, they were laughing. And seriously, me telling them not to laugh at something that isn’t funny? It’d be just a little bit hypocritical, don't you think?
But I digress. The story I'm going to tell you today has nothing to do with Christmas except in the most round-about and possibly vaguely metaphorical way possible. It’s also a bit awkward in retrospect. Just a bit. A lot. Depending who you ask. And typically it’s one of those things where it’s my word against someone else’s and both versions of the story are almost completely opposite. Well, if you ask me it wasn't my fault but if you ask Falkner, it was most definitely my fault. He thinks that none of it would have happened if I’d be sober. I think it would have but that’s not really the point either. The point is this: that Sunday afternoon happened. And to tell you the truth, I kind of hope it happens again.
We were out on Route 37 together. Falkner was doing some research into the local birdlife; lately there have been a few reports of stray Starly in the area. Obviously they’ve gotten lost somewhere because they’re native to Sinnoh. Incidentally, I’ve got Falkner about sixty percent convinced we should go over to Sinnoh sometime. Because it’s such a rare event Falkner decided that he wanted to collect as much data as he could before the opportunity passed. So I let him do that. He was climbing trees and crawling through the grass trying to do counts of the wild Starly. He calls it research and it probably was, but he seemed like he was having so much fun that research didn't seem to be the word. I know I spent a good half an hour trying to think of a new word for what he was doing, a kind of ‘fun-research’ hybrid. I know that when I do research it’s not the most exciting thing in the world, but that’s because I have to read through ancient history books a lot of the time, not climb trees. But climbing trees is research to Falkner and I wasn't going to tell him otherwise. But he did not appreciate it when I laughed so loudly at the grass in his hair that half the flock flew away.
“Morty.” He sighed.
“What?”
“Why did you do that?”
“Do what?” I sniggered.
“You know what.”
“I don't know what.”
“You do, you jerk.”
“It was an accident, I swear.” I sniggered again here, the grass was still in his hair. I think it was actually a twig.
“Morty.”
“What?”
“Do you realise what you just did?”
“I accidentally scared the birds?”
“Yeah. You know what that means?”
“I know I'm hungry.”
“You're an idiot.”
“You know it’s just part of my charm.”
“No. Just, no, Morty.”
“No what?” I asked. Gengar had come back by then; he'd been off playing with the wild Stantler. There was no one else out on the road except for me and Falkner. Neither of us were going to be scared of a Gengar diving at us for attention. Small children, on the other hand, they usually scream. It’s hilarious even when you're not off your face.
Falkner spent about fifteen minutes yelling about one thing or another, about how I’d ruined his research and messed up his count and now he’d have to wait for hours just so the Starly would calm down and settle again. I wasn't listening the whole time because, well, he was boring me. And seriously, the area we’re in looks fucking amazing in Spring. The grass smells incredible and the flowers are so much brighter than they are any other time. Maybe they get tired halfway through the season and stop being so colourful. And I fucking love Winter, don't get me wrong. There is nothing better than snow. There were so many things happening that were more interesting than getting yelled at though. There was a Stantler chasing a Pidgey, a Pidgey fighting for territory with a Starly and a Ledyba slowly creeping up behind Falkner. That one I didn't want to tell him about. He’d figure it out eventually. Or maybe he wouldn’t but I really just wanted to see him freak out; he’s not the biggest fan of bugs. I asked him a while back and he didn't really admit it but that’s part of the reason he trains birds. Which makes sense, I guess. Birds eat bugs, sometimes anyway. What was my point again?
Falkner was being boring and yelling at me. I’ll admit that I’d probably gotten a little bit carried away. I like a nice Sunday out in the sun like anyone else and yeah, I'm going to do whatever I like on the one day a week that I don't take any Gym battles. And unless there’s something that I really have to do on a Sunday, ‘whatever I like’ usually means ‘getting wasted and watching infomercials for six hours’. Which isn’t as boring as it sounds. That was in the middle of winter at least. Now that it’s Spring again and nice outside, I'm not going to waste that. I spend most of the week inside because that’s the way my Gym is set up. Seriously, kids these days are impossible to scare. I’ve decked out the Gym with the dimmest lighting possible and I deliberately haven’t had any repairs done to the dripping drainpipes, and to top it off I let the Ghosts run about freely as long as they don't interfere with battles. Not one kid in over a year has been even a little bit scared. Can you imagine if I set up my Gym with a kind of warm, friendly, open to the sunshine kind of feel? Bugsy gets away with it. It’d look like a moron. And considering this was one of the nicest days of the season so far, I got a bit carried away. So sue me. Now I’m just stalling because I really can't remember anything that Falkner was saying.
Right. That Ledyba was closing in on him and I was finding it even harder to keep a straight face. He was still yelling about how I ruined his research for the day. I was off my fucking face by that point. Sound about right? It’s close enough. I had to stop him, I really did. If I just kept laughing at him he’d start to think that I’d lost all respect for him.
“Falkner?”
“What?”
“How about some tea?”
“What?” He was frustrated. I don't blame him. Here he was trying to make a point and I was just ignoring him.
“Tea.”
“What about it?”
“Do you want some tea?”
“No I don't want some tea, I want you to fucking listen to me. I don't come into your study and tear out pages from your books so I don't know why you’d go out of your way to fuck up my research. Once in a lifetime, Morty. No one has ever seen Starly in the wild here before. Do you know what that means? It means that first hand data, that’s what I'm trying to collect, by the way, is really fucking important.”
“I know Falkner.” I didn't know. I was still watching the Ledyba behind him.
“So what the fuck is your problem? Do you want me to go and burn your manuscripts?”
“My manuscripts are eight hundred years old.”
“So they're important to you.”
“Of course they are.” I was on my feet by then for some reason. I'm pretty sure that once I was up I’d forgotten the reason I’d left the ground. “Turn around.”
“What?”
“Turn around.” I said. Even in the state I was in, I knew how to end the conversation. It took me a minute to remember the reason I was standing but I got there in the end. So Falkner turned and finally saw the Ledyba sitting only a few inches from his feet. Then, in what I can't possibly describe without laughing, he made the strangest noise I have ever heard. It was a kind of panicked scream that was only half as manly as he'd hoped it to be. I swear, I almost fell over I was laughing so hard at his reaction. “Come on.”
“What was that? You knew that was there the whole time, didn't you? You prick, you did!” He added. I was probably grinning like an idiot so I wasn't exactly keeping very good secrets.
“Okay, I did.” I tried to tone down the whole ‘grinning like a maniac’ thing once I had my hands on his shoulders. There’s nothing reassuring about having a madman hanging off you, is there? “But that scream? What was that all about?” Cue maniacal grin.
“Those things are huge.”
“I know.” It was condescending and I knew it but if it was going to stop him from sulking for the next six hours, then I had no other choice. If Falkner sulked for the next six hours, he’d totally kill my mood.
“You're silently laughing at me on the inside, aren’t you?”
Yeah. I was. I was laughing hard and to this day I’ll still bring up that scream if I need to win an argument. But I needed to pretend that I wasn't laughing so hard on the inside or, like I said before, Falkner would just get even more annoyed with me and that’d ruin the afternoon. I have no idea why the shouting didn't affect me that way. But anyway, I had to shut him up and prove that I wasn't being a total jerk about it, so I kissed him. Nothing special, nothing dramatic, just enough to let him know that I was kind of a little bit sorry for ruining his research for the afternoon.
“Morty.”
“What?”
“That doesn’t count as an apology.”
“It doesn’t?”
“You ruined my research into something that hasn’t ever been seen before, let alone studied.”
“So?”
“So? Seriously? Once in a lifetime, Morty.”
“Relax. They’ll be back at about six o’clock.” I said.
“How do you know?”
“I know what colour your underwear will be on Tuesday. The birds will come back. Now can we go? I’m starving.”
“I,”
“Shh, you’ll scare the birds.” I said. I remember that I pressed a finger to his mouth to stop him talking any more. I was really hungry by then and seriously, he tried to bite my finger off. I'm not going to forget that anytime soon. I guess I kind of deserved it for that kind of comment but he didn't have to get violent about it. I don't know what I got for that, by the way. Falkner says that he just rolled his eyes and we went back to my Gym, but I think he at least slapped me in the face. He couldn’t punch me if he tried; I’d know he was going to do it before the thought had even started to form in his head.
“Do you think that my Nurse is really your Nurse as well?”
“Just pour the tea, Morty.”
“No, seriously. You never see two Nurses together, do you? Maybe there’s only one and she visits all the Centres somehow.”
“It’s stewing.”
“Maybe she’s got a matter-transporter. That’s how she moves so fast.”
“Okay, you’ve ruined it now, it’s going to be bitter.”
“What? Oh, shit, I was making tea, wasn't I?”
“No, you’ve been ruining tea.”
“How did I ruin it? It tastes fine, oh shit, why didn't you tell me it was hot?” Yes, that did all come out as once sentence. I don't really remember the walk home but I remember burning my throat on bitter tea. Hey, I was wasted, not braindead. I can tell when I’ve let the leaves stew for too long.
“Give me that.” Falkner stacked my cup into his empty one and stood up from the floor. He took the pot as well and started to make a fresh batch. That left me to drop my head onto the table. I didn't even consider resting my head on my arms. The table was there, its job is to hold things up, it made sense at the time, probably.
“Top shelf.” I said without looking up.
“Thanks.”
That’s one of the things that I like about Falkner. He never really gets angry when I tell him things that are about to happen. Like telling him where I moved the tea leaves to? He appreciated that. Knowing what the wind will do before he has the chance to predict it through patterns? It takes out the guesswork on his part. Whitney will completely flip out if I tell her to be careful with the glass she’s about to knock over, let alone that time I told her she was going to lose all her Gym matches for a week. She did. And then she told me to stay the hell out of her future because it felt like I was invading her space. I'm pretty sure she just didn't like the fact that she lost. So I don't tell her things like that anymore. Falkner though, he’d listen for hours if we both didn't have our own Gyms to run. On Tuesday when we were eating dinner I told him all about the dream I was going to have that night. I don't remember what it was about now but I knew then. He just listened, nodding once in a while and indulging me like a child. When we woke up on Wednesday he asked me if I’d dreamt the dream I’d seen myself having. I had. So he listened to me repeat myself while we had breakfast; he had to leave as soon as we’d eaten though, the first Gym challenges usually begin just after nine.
“Morty.”
“Hm?”
“Tea.”
“What about it?”
“Do you want some?”
“Yeah. Oh, there’s a tin of cookies on the shelf as well, can you bring those as well?”
“Morty.”
“What?”
“Look up.”
“Why?”
“I’m already back at the table.”
“Oh right.” I laughed. “But the cookies..?” Falkner would have rolled his eyes at me here. Come on, you should know by now that I'm much better at remembering the future than the past. So Falkner made possibly the biggest mistake he could have at this point and went to collect the cookies without asking what kind they were. Big mistake on his part. See, I was sobering up by then and I knew it. But it was only three in the afternoon and that meant I had a lot more of the day left to waste. I had every intention to waste it properly and not even Falkner was going to talk me out of doing just that.
You can guess why I wanted those cookies, can't you? What? You can't? Seriously, try to keep up. I ate three of them before Falkner caught on to what I was doing. I'm not sure where the tin went after that but I guess he hid it in the back of the cupboard or something because that’s where I found it a few days later.
“Falkner?”
“What?”
“It’s raining.”
“And?”
“So it’s cold outside, right?”
“Right?”
“So why is my face cold if I'm inside and the rain is outside?”
“Maybe it’s because you’ve got your face pressed up against the window.”
“But the window is inside. Or is it? If the window is the window, is it inside or outside? Because the window is the thing that tells you where the outside starts but does it start on the inside of the building or the outside?”
“Morty,”
“Shit, what did I just say?” I laughed.
“I have no idea.”
I tore my face off the window just in time to see Falkner peering at me through one eye. I remember that he was sitting cross-legged on the futon like he was meditating; he wasn't, he was watching me acting like an idiot and secretly loving every minute of it.
“Can we go for a walk?”
“In the rain?”
“Yeah, I bet it’s nice outside.”
“I bet it’s cold and raining.”
“It’s still light.”
“Barely.”
“It’ll be fun.”
“It won't.”
“Falkner.”
“What?”
“Why is it raining if it was sunny before?”
“It’s early Spring, the weather can be unpredictable. You should have known it was going to rain.”
“My head’s been a bit... hazy. Today. Yeah.”
“You told me the Starly would come back.”
“They did. They’re up in the trees trying to stay out of the rain. Oh! We should go and visit Bugsy, you know he heats his Gym. It’ll be warm there.”
“I’m not walking all the way to Azalea in the rain.”
“It’ll be great.”
“You’ll catch a cold. Again.”
“You can catch a Starly.” Obviously, I meant that as some kind of deal-closing chat-up line. It didn't come out nearly as smooth as I’d hoped.
“You have met yourself, right?”
“Once or twice, yeah.”
“So you know what you’re like when you’re sick.”
“I want to go outside. Do you want to come or not?”
And I don't know if it was because I managed to sound like I was halfway sober or because he knew I’d go alone anyway, Falkner sighed and stood up and went to find an umbrella.
He would never admit it but getting stuck in the rain like that was actually a pretty nice moment. If you remove the fact we were wet. And that we couldn’t actually see any of the Starly because they’d hidden themselves so well. And that I was still wasted. And that Falkner wasn't entirely happy with me because I’d let the umbrella get caught in an updraft and that’s why we were wet. But aside from that, it was nice. I mean, the whole ‘sitting under a tree together because it started to pour and we didn't really want to run back to Ecruteak when there was a perfectly good dry patch under said tree’ thing. That was nice. And the part that involved a decent amount of groping. I am all for remembering that part, especially the bit where I somehow managed to pin Falkner to the ground without laughing. And the bit where I managed to get a hand down his pants without him noticing until it was too late. That was nice. It was just after that when I fucked it all up though. It wasn't all my fault and technically, although he’ll argue you on it, it was Falkner’s fault for taking advantage of me when I was in a very, very influential state of mind. Or so I like to call it. Anyway, I knelt on a rock and started laughing and sort of just collapsed on top of him. I couldn’t take it seriously after that. I tried, or I thought about it but that meant moving. It was probably for the best though. Remember how way back at the beginning I told you that something pretty embarrassing happened and that was the whole point of this story? It could have been a lot worse.
So, Falkner lying on his back, me collapsed on top of him still sniggering like a fifteen year old, my hand down his pants. Then, a group of kids out of nowhere suddenly come rushing around the corner presumably trying to get to the Pokemon Centre in Ecruteak before they get any wetter. You know where this is going, don't you? You can probably guess. And you’d be right. Cue the kids laughing, me getting hysterical again, Falkner removing my hand – reluctantly, I’ll bet – and then him not speaking to me for two days. It might have only been a little bit of a grope out in the dirt, but it was fucking worth it. Falkner didn't get any more research done that night that I know of and I fell asleep on the kitchen floor as soon as we got back to my Gym. The prick didn't even get me a pillow. As always, it’s my word against his and he says it was a lot more than ‘a little bit of a grope’ which is why it was so embarrassing. He says it was a lot more than that. I don't remember getting that much action so it couldn’t have happened.
There isn’t a neat ending to this story because a lot of shit happened in the days after that, like Falkner not talking to me and me having to go to Violet to win him over with a poor little Starly with an injured wing (that was a convenient, if sad, find on the walk there). And it wasn't all that long ago so he still brings it up every time I fuck something up, but still. It could have been a lot more embarrassing for both of us. And seriously, I was the one with my hand down his pants and those kids had to challenge me the next day. I think I’ll leave you with that image, those kids’ faces when they realised their next Gym challenge was against the guy they’d seen off his face the afternoon before, probably doing more than innocently groping another Gym Leader under a tree in the rain. Yeah, they were laughing. And seriously, me telling them not to laugh at something that isn’t funny? It’d be just a little bit hypocritical, don't you think?