Taleska Ghost Town, N/A

[Jackie Cat]

A sound ripped its way out of Jesse's throat. It sounded like the word 'no', at first – before it turned into an animal's howl. It didn't even sound dramatic, just a creature in distress, crying out (scared it would be him next). The weight of the phantom townsfolk on his body pressed his lungs, made him squeak, pathetic and miserable and useless. The gaslamps guttered, as if to mock his strangled sound.

Beneath the howling, the calculations continued, like they always did, the nauseous planning he could never quite turn off (not without getting blind-drunk, which was worse) and for a few seconds his restless brain stabbed and searched for a way to save Dave, even now. Blow air into his lungs, beat on his chest, move the blood in him with his psychic fucking powers that didn't fucking work. Then the struggle stopped, and with it, the tick-tick-tick problem-solving.

His mind presented a single, simple, beautiful solution. Cold and sharp and serrated as a steak knife.

Jesse stared at Thievul, the ghost without a mind to read, willing him to show an expression real enough to come off like a living 'mon. And though he didn't have the air in his lungs to howl it, he thought I'm killing you next.

The gaslamps went out, and the wind howled for him.

 

[Butterfree]

Dave woke with a ragged, heaving gasp and immediately had a mouth full of dirt. Loose, dry earth pressed in on him from all sides, an impossible smothering weight. His limbs flailed desperately for any room to move, lungs clawing for breath. All his brain could process was the blaring alarm of get out of here now, bursting out of him in the form of metal.

Dave used Relentless Soul!

He dragged himself free in a spray of sand and dirt, coughing and spluttering, and found himself face to face with a Delphox who looked like he'd seen a fucking ghost.

Well, he sure wasn't home with Jean.

Dave coughed up another helping of dirt. "Jesus Christ," he rasped out weakly. "You buried me without checking if I was actually fucking dead?"

 

[Jackie Cat]

When the first sounds came up – thumping and scraping from beneath the earth – Jesse had fought down the impulse to blast a crater in the gravesite, or flee, or cry out like a spooked kid. As the buried dog emerged, all he could think of was did I fuck up and what the fuck is happening and is it still him. It was, apparently. Now, Jesse fought down the urge to retch as Dave forced cold soil clear of his throat.

"No," he said, firmly, shaking his head at first, only to stiffen up at the feeling of the shakes coming over him. (If he kept still, maybe they wouldn't hit him too hard.) "No, I checked. I fucking checked, Dave. You didn't take a breath for..."

An hour? More; less? In a dungeon, who could fucking tell anyway. He shuddered miserably.

"You were gone, Dave. Trust me, I know what that looks like."

For once in his life he didn't have any curses strong enough for the occasion. He thought about asking Dave what did you see, while you were dead? and then thought better of it.

"It's good you're back," he said instead, and felt stupid for it. At least he'd said something. (Anything was better than silence.)

 

[Butterfree]

Dave spat out a last helping of sand. About as good as it got, probably. "For some value of good. Here I thought I was finally going home to my daughter."

His heart was still racing uncomfortably, his throat aching and raw. He coughed again, and for a moment his stomach lurched with ringing panic, the phantom sensation of hanging suspended, limbs flailing, lungs burning.

"Fuck." He swallowed, forced himself to breathe. Well, he was fine. He almost started arguing with Jesse's insistence that he'd been gone, but it was hard to actually believe he'd simply survived that and then Jesse'd just somehow missed it, the literal guy who investigates murders. For all he knew, maybe if you kicked it in this dungeon it'd just undo it once you got out of it. Why not? It'd just be some more dungeon bullshit.

"What happened?" he said instead, looking back up at Jesse.

 

[Jackie Cat]

His daughter...?

Jesse was still processing that when Dave asked what happened.

"Mm? ....Right."

No easy way to say it.

"Did what was needed," he said, flatly. Then, knowing that wouldn't be enough for Dave (why did he know that? wasn't like he'd read the fuckin' guy) he elaborated: "Fox was the killer, of course. Don't even know if my reads on his means and motive were true to life. All I know's he needed to go down for me to get outta that hell. So I put him down."

There'd been more to it than that, of course. There'd been shouting and bullshitting, fear and strangulation. But Dave would know that, and Dave would know not to press for it. (He'd better.)

"You, uh. Said you had a daughter?" he asked, half just to move the hell on from what he'd just had to do.

 

[Butterfree]

Of course it was the fucking Thievul. Maybe they could've turned the tide on day one if Lopunny'd just actually spoken up about what'd happened right in front of his nose.

"And what then? They just let you go?" Jesse'd brought his body with him out of the dungeon, apparently. Even though he'd been apparently dead, and remained apparently dead long enough to actually bury him, and clearly Jesse hadn't expected him to come back to life or he'd presumably have skipped the burial part. Dave felt some kind of way about that.

"And yeah, one daughter. Her name's Jean. She's ten. Bit of a handful, but she's great."

 

[Jackie Cat]

Jesse shrugged. "Whole fuckin' town went empty the second we were rid of the culprit. Story over, I guess."

He didn't know what to say about the intervening time. Hauling a corpse through the rest of the rift, emerging with the river to a bleak dawn. Wondering if he'd have to explain himself to the guy's comrades, if he could find them. Fuck. He shuddered, and shook his head clear of it.

"There's scarce a parent whose kid ain't a handful, 'least some of the time," he drawled, forcing a weary grin. "My kid still occupies a permanent fuckin' space in my head, and she's old enough to have kids of her own by now." He frowned. "Not that I imagine she's gonna."

Ah, but Dave knew Brisa, didn't he? Yeah, some way or another. They'd talked on the subject for a minute, before.

"I take it your Jean weren't liable to do serious injury to her peers while roughhousin', eh?" he asked, unsure what he was even feeling at that moment. Some kind of weird, pained nostalgia for years long-since turned sepia, maybe.

 

[Butterfree]

That easy, huh. Almost anticlimactic. Kill some guys, get the right one and then the whole thing just disappears, no fanfare.

He half-chuckled at Jesse's question. "Well, she isn't, but it's been an uphill battle convincing anyone else of that. I guess you'd be familiar." Kind of absurd, really, to be standing here with Jesse Stranger after everything. God. Another fucking guy with a half-human daughter persecuted by assholes.

"We, uh, we got Ignatius Voclain deposed, by the way."

 

[Jackie Cat]

"Yeah, I'd say I was." Jesse returned the half-chuckle, and wished he still had any goddamn whiskey in his flask for the moment. There was a fella standing there who'd just risen outta the grave with a mouth full of dirt, man deserved a goddamn drink.

"We, uh, we got Ignatius Voclain deposed, by the way."

Jesse did a double-take. (If he'd been drinking whiskey, he'd've spewed it.)

"You what? You gave Voclain the boot? Huh."

He considered this news for a solemn moment.

"Fuckin' nice one. Son of a... Look, I gotta buy you a fuckin' drink, alright? Voclain, really? God damn. Goddamn."

He ground the heel of a paw into his eye, trying to push down the fatigue in his skull. He could make it further. There'd be a drink on the other end of the trek. (There'd better be.) From their crisp, bleak surroundings, this was Taleska in wintertime. Novelux was reachable. And from there, anywhere. Anywhere but here.

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