[FIN] Need a Little Distraction

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

A man dressed in a trainee uniform mopped the corridors with unwarranted fury. The ex-Rocket traitor felt sure he was going out of his mind. Whether it was a trick of fate or his experimenters or Arceus or who/whatever else, he wasn't sure, but they must have been having a good laugh about now, because this was ridiculous.

He couldn't properly focus on anything or do anything right without thinking about that night and how he had acted. He must have replayed it a million times over in his head, but even then, he didn't have perfect memory. He kept worrying if he'd said this or done that. Worse yet, had this person seen? Had that person heard? What had they thought of him and his behavior? How much did they remember?

As absurdly desperate for attention and out of character as he must have seemed, Izaya had no doubt that night had been engraved into everyone's minds. All he could hope was that they had been too occupied with each other or the games the KSO had to have given him much mind. Well...some people he was fairly certain wouldn't have been able to put his actions out of mind, but hopefully most would have. Argh, why had that had to happen?!

No. No, he wasn't going to think about it. He was going to think about something else. What had he spent his long hours of chores pondering prior to the ball? That was right...the mysteries surrounding Team Rocket's members and research and what he could find out about them without overstepping his boundaries. Currently Faleen was in Camphoreon, so he couldn't do anything about her until his next trip there. What about those on base? Yes...the ones who were supposed to be. Aila and Kirk.

He wondered if Aulus had found out anything more on the matter. The agent was probably too busy batting eyes at Elite Agent Tambrey. Ugh... Would it be easier for them to date now that they were of separate ranks and no longer partners, or harder? Crap, they had both seen him that night, too, hadn't they?! And he'd teased them about it and - argh, no! Not going to think about it!

If he couldn't ask Aulus what he'd found out, then he'd just have to do a little digging on his own. But what could he do? Gaia...she was in the trainee barracks with him, but she was roomed with a bunch of women. Besides, he'd told himself to stay away from her lest his emotions got the better of him and he started acting weird again. He had to constantly remind himself he still wasn't positive she was Aila.

If only he could check her back to make sure...but how? Anything he did, whether asking her roommates or sending a pokemon of his - even a tiny, near-undetectable female one like Mika - to spy on her would seem like the actions of a pervert. He didn't want to see her naked; he just wanted to see if her body had scars on her back from shrapnel. From protecting him.

Scars on her back...wait. She wouldn't have been the only one with scars either, would she have? Kirk's words from their last conversation came drifting back to him. Izaya's mouth set in a thin, hard line. He sloshed the mop head back into its bucket and leaned the handle against the cart before whipping out his dex to send a message.

[From: Izaya
To: K.O.

That offer you made a while ago about meeting in private so I could examine your scars...is that still on the table?]  

[TawnyAngel]

It would be a few minutes before Izaya received a response; KO had heard his 'dex buzz on the bench but he was too preoccupied with analysing the latest readings from his two borrowed tanks to pay it any mind initially. Once he had entered the data on his tablet however he straightened from his intent hunch, stretched, sighed, and wandered over to read the message.

He then read it again.

He raised an eyebrow.

[From: K.O.
To: Izaya

Well well, this is quite the change of heart. Yes the offer is still on the table, potentially. What changed your mind?]

This was too interesting a turn around for him to just flat out refuse, if he didn't like what he heard he could back out at any time with or without a witty quip.

While he waited for a reply to his message KO busied himself with scrubbing out a third tank he'd been allowed to use for his experiment, an old low capacity thing with scratched fogged glass but good enough for his purposes. Now he just needed to decide what to put into the third tank, should he try a sample of Lombre to see if it reacted as the Lotad was in tank one? Tangela was his other thought but the cell culture would take a while to grow enough yet.... Lombre then, he had a good amount of that and if it turned out to be just like Lotad, well, better time wasted than something missed.  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

The black-haired man had just picked up his mop again when his 'dex alerted him of a response, causing him to drop the handle. His lips pursed upon reading the reply and he considered what to type back.

[From: Izaya
To: K.O.

Does it matter? You're alive and well, though you shouldn't be. I'm a curious person interested in human kind as well as, I'll admit, the possibility of immortality. I can't very well check Trainee Gaia's scars, so I figured you're the next best thing.]

There. That was impersonal, right? He couldn't help feeling as though he were treading on dangerous ground, but really, when had he ever not? Of course, this was a whole different kind of danger than those he was familiar with, but he was determined to not let it affect him. Reading the text over again before he sent it, perhaps it sounded a little too impersonal, though. He deleted the message and changed his wording.

[I've been feeling a little...out of sorts as of late.]

He allowed himself to recall that forbidden night once more in order to remember if he'd seen Kirk there. He thought he had witnessed the dapper gentleman participating in the game and it really didn't seem like Kirk to turn down an invite to a ball when there was the chance to show off his oh-so-fashionable taste. But had KO seen him? Perhaps not. At least they hadn't interacted.

[You remember last we met. I'd hate to think I would have turned down a perfectly good chance to gain some potentially priceless information simply because I was taking personal offense to the implication of your offer. I was emotionally impaired. Even you must understand how that might happen from time to time, mustn't you?]

Much better. He pressed send.  

[TawnyAngel]

After a bit more scrubbing and mulling over of sulphur balances KO picked up his 'dex again to read the new message. "Priceless information, hum?" he mused aloud, his free hand coming up to touch his chest where he knew the ugly knot of purple scarring lay under his shirt. He hadn't let anyone see him since coming back, besides the medical team of course, but he couldn't hide forever and if Izaya might know something....

After some deliberation KO composed a response.

[I've got a little more work to do here but I can meet you in an hour or so. My room is B5-10. And I'm sure I would never judge a man for being emotionally impaired.] Not much anyway, not all that much, as in a great deal. Izaya explanation still didn't ring quite true to him or at least he felt as though it wasn't the whole truth, it was so sudden and so complete a turn around! Had something happened? Had he found something out? If he had than he certainly couldn't pass up the opportunity to meet with the informant. He just hoped that Sync was out.  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

[Take your time; I'm in no rush. I should be finishing up my own work here soon anyway.]

Despite his casual reply, Izaya gripped the 'dex hard in his hand and stared at it. His room? He wanted them to meet at his room? He supposed he had guessed from the start what KO had had in mind, but at least he'd managed to convince himself up until that point that maybe he was wrong. Maybe they could have met in a private doctor's office or something since this was like a medical examination of sorts, but no such luck. The man took a deep breath.

He was being stupid. What was he so scared of? Not of Kirk, certainly. But then...what? Worst of all was that this feeling was mildly familiar to him. At Andre's...yes, that was it. When they'd almost gotten too intimately close. Andre had offered him a distraction and Izaya had turned him down just as he'd turned KO down before that. He'd told himself part of it was out of self-restraint, out of knowing he had better things he needed to do with his time and that hanging around Andre was a big mistake, especially while he knew he was being monitored.

So what had changed? Even then he'd wanted a distraction. He had wanted one very, very badly, but he told himself he couldn't do it. He had his pride and reputation to think of. And yet, after that stunt he'd pulled at the ball, both of those things were in shatters. Not just because of how he'd behaved there, but because of how he'd let himself completely come undone, and in front of Andre no less. He couldn't deny it any longer; not to himself or anyone else. He was an absolute mess. Izaya no longer just wanted a distraction - he needed one badly. That must have been what he was so scared of: how much he felt needed to be distracted and what he was willing to do for it.

Well...where was the harm? After whoever was monitoring him had watched him dissolve in tears under a snack table, what did he care what they thought of him? Let them see whatever they saw. If they wanted to confront him about learning more than he should have known regarding KO's scars, then they would have to admit to having shared Izaya's view of Kirk. He would certainly have fun asking them what they thought of that.

And Delic...ah, Delic. Izaya still had mixed feelings about that pokemon. He couldn't believe the little mastermind had had the gall to drug him and to convince Psyche to help. But at the same time, deep down, he'd known the Chingling must have tried to do it for his trainer's sake.

And now the little Psychic type was going to be taken from him. Wonderful. Was he actually getting upset over losing the clingy little bell pokemon? s**t... If he needed a distraction, then yes, now would be good. This time, though, it sure as hell wouldn't be under the influence of any synthetic substances. This time it would be on his terms.

Finishing up his furious mopping, the man in the trainee uniform put away his cleaning supplies and went to take a shower. He had just enough time to do so before putting on a new uniform and heading to room 10 on floor B5. He hoped no one would question him on the way because he wasn't sure what he would tell them. As good as he usually was at talking his way out of undesirable situations, he didn't trust himself to be able to do so just then with the disarray his mind was in.  

[TawnyAngel]

[Alright, see you later then.]

Once he'd finished everything he needed to do in the lab itself KO headed to his room to go over the data.

The red-head's half of the room was of course impeccably decorated; there were stone coloured drapes on his wall and the back wall, and as there were no windows for them to frame attractively they framed a full length mirror at the back and an abstract art print over his bed. Besides the wall decorations there were a couple of potted plants - one either side of the mirror - and KO had replaced the standard issue bedding on his bunk with a heavier grade cotton in a deep purple that complimented the drapes.

His desk however was tiny, boring, standard issue; once upon a time his sewing machine had taken centre stage on it but the last couple of months had seen the pretty cherry red machine shoved onto the floor at the end of KO's bed, its prime position supplanted by a laptop and stacks of papers.

When he heard somebody at the door KO saved his work, closed the laptop and headed over to let his visitor in. Why had Izaya changed his mind so suddenly and what was it he really wanted? Hoping to find out the answer to both of those questions KO opened the door and greeted the trainee with a smirking smile. "Well hello, do come in! Forgive the mess," he gestured to his half of the room, which was impeccably clean other than the disorderly papers on his desk, "I've found myself rather busy with work of late, I'm sure you know how that is." Ha, mopping and serving in the canteen was such a drain on the mind.  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

"A giant mirror," Izaya commented first thing when he was invited into the room, forgoing the trivial greetings and disarming smirk in favor of stepping past KO to examine the decor. "Why am I not surprised? And it looks like a shrine the way you've done it up."

He did a 180-degree pivot to face the red-head. "Does that actually work for you?" the other man asked with a flourishing gesture. "The whole pretending to be humble thing, I mean. 'Forgive the mess?'" He spread his arm to indicate the impeccably clean room. "Or is that just how you brush up on reciting smooth lies?"  

[TawnyAngel]

KO raised an eyebrow at Izaya and pushed the door closed behind him. "Well forgive me for trying to lend a little style to my half of this box. If I had a nice apartment in the fashionable area of the city my drapes would be framing windows and the plants would probably be on my balcony, though I'd still have the mirror somewhere of course. Surely you understand the important of appearances? You do spend a lot of time watching people don't you?"

Something was definitely eating at Izaya, he was so... so.... Direct. KO didn't claim to know that man at all but from what he knew it didn't seem like him and along with the sudden change of heart he had to wonder what was going on here.

KO crossed the room to the end of his bed, where his sewing machine and a mini fridge sat on the floor. "You need to loosen up if you can't even recognise a joke when you hear one," KO continued, opening it up and taking out a bottle of soda and one of vodka; he waved them at Izaya. "Can I tempt you? I suppose you could call it lying if you wanted though, if that would make you feel better." And to be fair his desk was a bit of a disaster but it was hard to keep things neat when you needed to look at several different documents for one piece of work.  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

The informant listened to KO while staring at the mirror, his mouth eventually turning up in a bittersweet half-smile. "Yes, yes, sorry. It's very nice what you've done with the place. I suppose I'm just jealous since I've been demoted indefinitely to being shoved into a barrack with seven trainees who are sweaty and smelly from training at the end of the day. Don't mind me."

He regarded the other man curiously before his half-smile contorted into a sour scowl. "'Loosen up'? Me? Usually I'm being told to take things more seriously." He reached for the soda in his host's hand. "I guess I just haven't been in the mood to joke around." Izaya's eyes fixed on the floor. "You were right, by the way. About the pokemon talking."  

[TawnyAngel]

Ha! KO smirked and grabbed a glass to pour himself soda from a second bottle, seen as Izaya had passed on the vodka he decided to do the same albeit with some reluctance. "I know I was," he replied once he'd taken a sip, "what type did you get? Humm, and I suppose I would feel the same if I were in your situation. I did not enjoy my time in the trainee barracks, to say the least." Somehow he had ended up with seven very manly men who hadn't taken too kindly to... well, to him in general. They'd never actually done anything to him or his possessions but the fear that they might had made it a sleepless couple of months.  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

"You can drink if you like. I don't mind," Izaya told KO, noticing him put aside the vodka. "No need for politeness on my account. Evidently I'm worth less than a normal person." He took a big gulp of the soda and waited a minute for the carbonation's sting to die down before attempting to speak again.

"Bug," he all but spat. "Fitting, maybe, for someone constantly compared to a flea, louse, mosquito, and all other manner of blood-suckers and parasites." Izaya shrugged. "Normally I wouldn't mind the opportunity to get to know my beloved humans a little better at close quarters, but it gets hard to think when others are around and I can't concentrate."

He cast KO a sideways look. "Oh? Other than the wonderful hygiene levels, what else was there for you to dislike? I was under the assumption you preferred men."  

[TawnyAngel]

"Oh no a good host is never rude regardless of who their guest is, I'll abstain for the time being," KO replied with a smirk and a shake of his head. In truth he couldn't care less about being polite, he just didn't want to dull his wits if Izaya wouldn't be doing the same or at least not until he got a better feel for what was going on here.

"And don't be so quick to dismiss what you've found yourself with," KO continued, sauntering around his bed to take a seat on it and lean back against some cushions set against the wall for the purpose of making a comfortable place to relax. "Bugs may not be glamorous but they're certainly plentiful, distracting if there's a lot of chatter perhaps but potentially full of interesting gossip!" Fairy types were quite rare, he would have preferred to stick with poison but he hadn't been given a choice in that any more than he had been in... well, the circumstances around the change.

"And you're right I do, but I don't prefer men who don't prefer me," KO shrugged slightly and made a gesture towards Izaya with his free hand. "Surely you've noticed that the... shall we say hyper masculine type can be rather hostile to those of us are less so? And all the more if they think you're checking them out, which I wasn't." The red haired man made a small noise of distaste and shook his head. "I do have standards you know, starting with basic hygiene and not giving me dirty looks whenever I enter the room. Being gay doesn't mean I want to instantly leap upon every man I see. What about you?" KO tilted his head to the side and looked Izaya up and down. "I haven't figured out what you like, if anything at all. Are we humans too interesting to watch for you to want to get up close and person?" As he spoke another idea popped into his head and KO smirked again. "Oh, is that it? You prefer to watch? Naughty!"  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

"Easy for you to say. I'd already had enough of hearing pokemon talk from the time Aila's Jirachi used to follow me around," he muttered. "I'm sure it has its advantages. But I still don't like the idea of having to content with pocket monsters for the love of my precious humans. Even if some of us can understand them now, I still don't think they can match human beings. Not by a long shot."

He sulked. "I'm not quite sure I want to include those wall-crawlers in my information network just yet. They may be useful, but I still don't like the idea of treating them like anything other than the monsters they are." True, he had already obtained a Joltik for the very purpose of spying for him, but KO didn't need to know that. It wasn't like he was suddenly going to be friends with all these bugs just because he could communicate with them. They weren't humans.

"Ugh...you mean the idiots who are so concerned with heightening their testosterone levels that no one dare question their masculinity? The ones so insecure with their sexuality that they worry that being around anyone who's anything other than straight might give them 'gaybies'? That type?" Izaya gave a hollow laugh. "Ohhh, but those are the most fun to mess with. Why wouldn't you check them out, if only to get them scared?" He grinned. "I figure if they're going to assume you're like that anyway, why not just play along?"

"Surely they didn't actually rough you up or anything of that sort? In my experience, that type is all threats and big talk, but in reality they get too nervous to even touch guys they suspect might be gay because they worry the other party might like it. Which is, of course, the last thing they'd want to encourage." The ex-Rocket sneered. "Did you know research has shown that homophobic men get more aroused by watching videos of gay sex than men who are secure in their sexuality?"

The black-haired man sighed. "I don't doubt you of all people have standards. That's why I was seriously concerned about your mental state when you first suggested we have a private meeting." His dark brows knitted. "I'm the scum of the Earth, remember? I know you must have heard it around, but it was the fact that you still seemed yet to be convinced that surprised me."

At the mention of what he liked, Izaya snorted softly. "It's not that you're too interesting," he answered. "And true, I do like a good show. I'm among the lowest possible ranking beings within a criminal organization; I think it's pretty common knowledge that I'm 'naughty'. But...regarding getting up close and personal with people, I'd imagine that'd be obvious." He cocked his head at Kirk with a knowing smile. "At least to someone like you, I would think, who would likely be versed in such things. Why do you think I keep my distance; keep apart? I mean there's always the god complex aspect about being 'above everyone else' and my name does mean 'one who looks over the crowd'...but there's also a simpler reason."  

[TawnyAngel]

"Mmmh." KO shrugged but then nodded agreement. "I can't say I like it all that much but on balance I suppose I'm pleased it happened to me. I wouldn't want to be without the ability when other people had it." Being without a skill that a lot of other people had put you at a disadvantage and that was not something he liked in the least.

"And yes, that's the sort of idiot I meant," he continued with a snort and a shake of his head. "They may be completely pathetic I wouldn't want to push one just in case; I like my face the way it is and I'm not willing to take a risk on them being too scared to rearrange it for me." It had happened in the past on more occasions than were comfortable, most recently in that bar he'd visited in Mau; true the man hadn't actually managed to land a hit but he'd meant to and that was bad enough.

"I had read that, about the videos, but it's certainly not something I'd ever raise with somebody in the aforementioned category." Ahhh, and now they were coming onto the crux of the matter. KO took a lazy sip of his drink and watched Izaya's expression with interest. "Well at the time I was seeing if it would scare you," he said with a smirk, "as you didn't strike me as the face rearranging type. I was expecting you to say no so I was intrigued to get your message earlier. Humm, why have you changed your mind and why do you like to keep apart?" Were they related? Honestly he had no idea, he didn't know Izaya at all and was not as incisive a judge of character as he liked to pretend. "Don't tell me you keep away from people because you're afraid of getting your feelings hurt, and you've contacted me today because you've finally decided to let somebody in through your shell?" KO drawled, quite clearly not being serious.  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

Izaya drank a few more gulps of soda. "Well, sure. And I'd love to know that I could come back from the dead after dying, but I wouldn't want to be gored by a stampeding herd of pokemon to do so. Guess we'd better make due with what we have to work with, though. Even if I was able to sleep better without thinking those little abominations had the sentience to discuss me behind my back."

He chuckled a little at KO's mention of liking his face the way it was. "Fair enough. I guess there's always the possibility that they're in denial and they'd want to punch you because that's the only excuse they could think of to touch you. Or that they might not like you for some other reason and have no qualms about coming into contact with you whatsoever."

Izaya smiled sedately at his soda as he swirled the liquid in the bottle he held with a slow gesture. "Oh, so that was it. You just wanted to see if you could get to me, hm? Then it was no different from your flirtations when we'd first met at the pool with Miss Ally. Well the first time I was more startled than anything, but the second time, in the state I was in, it certainly seemed to have worked. I hope you were satisfied."

The smile gradually faded. He took another long swig of soda and walked over to set the bottle down on top of the mini fridge. "I contacted you today because I was curious about your scars," he answered evenly. "If you have them, that means Trainee Gaia should, too, assuming she is who I suspect she is and they used the same process on her that they did on you. I wanted to know how cleanly or badly your wounds healed; if they were indeed caused by something that could have been fatal or if maybe they were just made in such a way and it caused you such pain that you only thought you were going to die."