Dorm Log!
Who: It's OPEN. (Anyone)
What: Dorm hijinks and etc. Whatever you want.
Where: Student and Teacher dorms, and quite possibly beyond.
When: January 20-31
Warnings: Not even gonna.
Remembuh me? The roomie log turned out to be a success, and a lot of really awesome interactions took place. Because of this, I've decided it was about time to post ( Read more... )
What: Dorm hijinks and etc. Whatever you want.
Where: Student and Teacher dorms, and quite possibly beyond.
When: January 20-31
Warnings: Not even gonna.
Remembuh me? The roomie log turned out to be a success, and a lot of really awesome interactions took place. Because of this, I've decided it was about time to post ( Read more... )
He touched Vinnie's side with a nervous hand, but the touch was brief, quickly replaced by the soft rustle of a leaf against his leg. Bulba kept quiet, not knowing what to say. Then again, he was pretty sure Vinnie might have preferred that he wasn't saying anything about it. Instead he padded around him and gently nudged the side of Vinnie's head with his own, before taking a seat besides him.
Now he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do about it. "Should..." he started quietly, sounding every bit as confused and unsure as he felt, "... I... uh. Climb up there or...?"
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Lying down was still a bit of an annoyance with his bruised ribs, but he managed by folding his front legs under him. This only made Vinnie look even more withdrawn than he already was.
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Bulba ducked his head slightly under the canopy of petals, treading carefully towards his stem and minding the still present leaf over there. The sight of the damage up close only conjured up a slightly nauseous feeling, so he tried focusing more on the rough brown stem.
Now... how exactly... was he supposed to do this? Nurturing a little sapling was one thing, but this was... It hadn't really occurred to him when he first agreed to it, but now that he was standing there trying to figure it he realized that this was essentially the most intimate moment he could share with someone. Bulba was suddenly glad he was up where Vinnie couldn't see his face because he was gradually becoming more and more flustered the more the knowledge sank in. Oh god this was not what he needed right now.
Well. Whatever. It didn't mean anything. Probably. Just helping a guy out. Yeah. So with a deep breath, he leaned forward and softly pressed his forehead against the base of the plant. Bulba shut his eyes and let the rest of his feelings go.
Except for one. He was searching for that particular one. It was elusive, hiding deep away until Bulba went to look for it. It always felt warm, from the base of his back to the tip of his toes. A feeling like sunshine, condensed into something that he could touch and feel and use... It wasn't something he fully knew how to understand just yet. It was a connection that probably came as naturally as breathing to a Venusaur, but required quite a bit more coaxing on his part. Actual effort. But when he could feel it creeping through the edges of his leaves and building in the base of his flower, he didn't doubt that it was far more satisfying now than it would be if he didn't have to think about it.
Slowly, without any real thinking on his part, vines crept from beneath his own leaves. They reached out, intertwining around the pink flowered plant. And there, within it, the connection he was looking for. Ahh, it was there. Bulba edged a little closer, and gently began to push the feeling through to it. Feelings of warmth and life and the desire to grow, to flourish. Soft whispers of encouragement. A tender stimulus to awaken that which was sleeping.
He needs you.
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Ears flattened unhappily against his skull, Vinnie laid his head down and closed his eyes. It was a futile attempt to brick up the butterflies that were flying wild his stomach as he waited, and for a good while he was unsure exactly what to expect from Bulba's jumpstart.
He'd never been on the receiving end of a floral push, except... in the back of his head, (only it wasn't his head - it was a deeper, encompassing presence,) Vinnie remembered feeling this way before. Only last time, back before he had a name, it hadn't felt like a push at all. It was... a great, warm embrace that took his hand in its grip and lifted him off the ground, onto his feet. A gentle strength that towered over his memories - he called it his father, and with an almost effortless tug he had pulled the Bulbasaur into an Ivysaur.
This, what Bulba was doing, was a far cry from the ease that his father wielded. This was a tease, a tickle, a slight trickling of power - but Vinnie could feel his body recognizing it. Not quite sure how he could nudge his own stubbornly latent energies to life from his end, the Venusaur opted to pour his focus into the memories of his evolution instead. Trying to spark it into a similar growth.
There was a very soft, very low whine that escaped his throat as he did. His family... his other family, his father and his brothers and his sisters... The memories were already so fuzzy. When did that happen? He knew they were there, but trying to grasp at them only chased them farther away.
On Bulba's end, it seemed like something was starting to react to his attempts. Simply looking at it, the change would've been so subtle that the eye could barely catch it - but the shift of energy was happening somewhere.
Slowly, the stub began to shrivel as the flower cast it off.
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His head drooped a little. Effort came with a price after all, and once he slipped away from Vinnie's flower he became aware of just how tired he suddenly was. Now all he wanted to do was curl up and sleep forever. He groaned a little, lifting his head to look over at the stubs as he opened his eyes. He had felt something happen, but what was...
They weren't there.
He physically did not know how to register this. His thoughts came to a sudden, jarring halt in shock. His mind was a complete flatline. But then the shock registered a small blip on his system and jumpstarted it. The panic quickly swelled after it, and Bulba just had no idea what to do with himself. What had even happened what did he do oh god did he fuck up oh god no no no no no no no no.
Bulba looked behind him, nervously pulling his vines back to himself. He tried very hard to keep his voice sounding calm, which weariness seemed to help with. "Did... did Erika mention what was supposed to happen...?"
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The process was so innocuous that Vinnie didn't even notice it at all. There wasn't the slightest pain, or any indication that something had happened. So he was still lying there waiting on some tangible reaction. The tingling in the base of his stem had stopped, but that seemed to be the only change.
When Bulba finally spoke, the Venusaur sleepily opened his eyes. "Uh... I dunno, she didn't really say. Why?"
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Perhaps if Bulba were to put forth the common sense and general amounts of knowledge he possessed, he might have realized that there really wasn't anything wrong. This was actually quite a natural process and good job, it had worked fairly well on a dormant plant. It was really quite unfortunate then that all of those things had been, at the moment, completely tossed out the window in his tired and moody state. Oops.
So it was with great trepidation that the Ivysaur crept over Vinnie's head, peeking down over his forehead.
"... Do you feel any better?"
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Bulba was acting a bit odd. If nothing was going on, then he could've just said so. Vinnie had pretty plainly stated before that he hadn't expected miracles or anything.
"Don't think I feel that different." If Venusaurs had eyebrows, they would have been raised. Again, he repeated, "Whyyy...?"
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In a very, very, very hushed voice-- that was hard to miss when he was sitting between your ears-- Bulba told him.
"... They fell off."
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In an instant, those three words grabbed his heart and squeezed it so hard that Vinnie swore it stopped beating. He definitely stopped breathing. And blinking. And thinking.
Everything shut down as alarm bells instantly, instinctively assumed the worst. It didn't even register that up until the second before Bulba spoke, everything seemed fine. But no, Vinnie felt like he was collapsing in on himself, ripped back to that moment in the snow. A mantra of denial flashed before his eyes, no no no no no no
Pop!
All of the Venusaur's size and mass was suddenly sucked into the nothing of his compact human form, sending both saurs sprawling onto the ground. The leaf stubs, now completely removed from his body, didn't even change with him. They just dropped sadly onto the ground beside them.
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He was up like a flash though... Or as well as he could, anyway. Everything was just a bit sluggish. But there they were. Bulba stared at them blankly and then darted his eyes to Vinnie. He should have been saying something but he couldn't get his mouth to work or words to form or anything at all.
What what what what oh no oh no oh no oh no
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Carefully, he tried to sit up, hissing as he pushed himself off the ground. Coherent thoughts began to find their voice again, but mostly they were the same incessant echos of fear and doubt and helplessness that plagued the Venusaur's subconscious. Why was this happening? god What was he going to do? he was useless what next please no?
The look in his eyes was utterly, utterly haunted. couldn't focus Bulba barely registered in his line of sight at all.
All he could see where those dead, shriveled stubs that used to be part of his body. That... used to be part of him now it wasn't and Vinnie couldn't stop staring.
He wanted to pick them up and hold them. He was too scared to touch them.
He was quiet, save for the rasping of each aching breath.
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The pity parties and self-loathing were put on indefinite hold. Now wasn't the time. He could deal with it after he made sure that Vinnie wasn't completely broken. Bulba might not have been able to deal with it, but someone had to and he sure as hell wasn't going to make Vinnie do it. The look in his eyes had left him shivering and he was certain it was going to follow him forever. Even if he couldn't do anything right, he could at least try to get him to someone who could.
Yet he was afraid to touch him, as if something even more horrible would occur just because he made contact. Still, he rose a shaking hand. He hesitated, but finally gave in and clasped his hand on the other saur's shoulder. Bulba tried to say his name but the sound still wouldn't come out. Instead he squeezed, trying to pretend that maybe he wasn't trembling. He let the adrenaline pick him up on his feet and try to get Vinnie on his.
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He waited for it. But save for the effects of his own anxiety, there was no fresh wave of lightheadedness, no vertigo. No new hurt on his back. If anything, his body felt... clearer, if that made any sense.
It was either his disbelief had become so strong that the power of delusion was blanking out the symptoms, or Vinnie actually didn't feel wrong. He blinked slowly, trying to register what his body was trying to tell him. The panic of the moment eased its grip on his chest just enough for the Venusaur to consider that maybe, just maybe, this was the right step forward.
Just like autumn, right? Like his berry plants, sometimes. The shedding of leaves sometimes... happened, as they should.
He still wasn't ready to call anything a success, but the pure, naked terror was dissipating from his eyes. As Bulba helped him to his feet (he complied unthinkingly, still confused by everything), Vinnie had enough clarity to notice that the usual blackouts of his vision hadn't happened either.
Speech had to be gently forced from his throat, coming out in only whispers. It was a tiny echo of what the Ivysaur had asked before, but hesitation barred him from trying to hope. "Was this... supposed to happen?"
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It almost seemed a little too much to hope for that this was the way things were supposed to be. But alright, ok. Put things in perspective now. It was unreasonable to expect that something magical would happen and the damaged leave would just... be alright again. That's not how things worked. Things had to start over, and if something was already there... then it would have to go for the cycle to renew. He didn't imagine things would have felt so right if something was actually wrong.
It made sense when he thought about it, but it didn't really make it any less alarming when you didn't know what to expect.
"Maybe?" Bulba managed to croak out, turning his face back towards Vinnie with wide eyes. He lacked the benefits of knowing how the Venusaur felt, and could only go off of his reactions. So while the idea was sound, he had no idea if that's what happened and he was still just a little terrified.
"Are you still okay? I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."
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If it were somehow possible to separate the psychosomatic effects and the genuine processes his body was going through, it'd make things so much easier. The panic attack, at least, was passing, but now that Vinnie could see the shrively stubs for what they were, it suddenly made him ill to look at them. Like someone had just given him a box with his severed pinkies inside, all gift wrapped.
This made some sort of sense, he supposed. But he and Bulba didn't exactly follow all the normal rules of plant growth, being half classified in the animal kingdom. And it certainly didn't dull the shock. For all Vinnie had convinced himself that he wasn't dwelling on the past, this only proved that this particular wound had yet to heal over. (He might have been turning a tiny bit pink, suddenly self-conscious about his spazzing.)
He glanced back at Bulba, dazed red meeting nervous gold. There was only one thing he could think of that could give them the resolution they needed. "I think... we should ask Erika..."
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