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Who: Envy and Tulio
Where: Route 31
When: October 20th, early evening
Summary: Envy is an idiot who eats strange berries he finds in the woods. Have fun taking care of him Tulio :D
Rating: PG-13
Log:

Envy was sulking, wandering through the trees a little ways away from where the stupid human was working on getting the fire started. He'd said he'd go to get some extra wood, but maybe he'd take a little longer than necessary, just because. He was hungry damn it, who cared about "not eating everything", he'd only wanted a little. It wasn't like Tulio had been doing anything besides walking, Envy'd had to keep training himself too so he'd be able to get at least somewhat stronger. He kicked at a small rock in his way, looking very much like a ridiculous angry sixteen year old. Eventually he started gathering up some branches from the ground, wishing he could just kick the trees down like he would've been able to before.

But wait!

There was a very tempting sight: a bush with some interesting looking yellow and green fruits growing in bunches all over it. He grinned; they looked pretty big and juicy, it'd be fine if he ate one of those, surely. What could it hurt? He picked one and took a big bite out of it, grimacing at how damn dry it was, not juicy at all. He swallowed anyway, he was hungry enough, and wound up eating the rest of it too. Deciding that he wasn't going to bring any back to that stingy bastard, he started heading back with his wood. A few minutes later he started feeling…very off. Shivering and feeling flushed, it wasn't long before he was more staggering than walking. Shit, he couldn't afford this now, how was he gonna get to the city like this? He wouldn't put it past Tulio at all to leave him behind at the first opportunity, or take some kind of revenge for Envy's tricks. He'd just have to put up with it until it went away and hope it wasn't noticed. The wood was hanging out of his arms, some of it falling onto the ground when he finally got back to the little clearing they'd picked. He just swayed in place, trying not to fall over. "Hey…I got the stupid wood…" he tried to make his mouth form a smirk, but it came out more like a lopsided grimace than anything.

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Tulio hadn't been impressed with Envy's survival skills at all, bemused at how the kid didn't even seem to have any basic ideas of what to do and not to do in the wilderness. Sure, Tulio wasn't much for the wilderness himself, but he'd gotten stuck in a freaking jungle without managing to die or having anything else horrible happen to him (except oh some leeches and people-eating fish but that didn't really count as lack of survival as much as being unlucky, in his opinion), and just the general idea of reason and logic seemed to evade Envy altogether.

He just didn't seem to care about what he was doing, where he was going or what he was doing to the provisions and Tulio in the process. They'd been at each other's throats quite a lot lately, actually, but they'd still managed to steal money off people so at least that part of the partnership was working out. That didn't really change the fact that neither of them liked each other, though.

When Envy returned and threw him the firewood, he barely looked at him, muttering something that could've been "Took you long enough" and put one of the branches in the fire that crackled up nicely. Stretching where he sat, he glanced up at Envy and raised his eyebrows in question but without saying anything. He didn't look too good.

Envy sat down by the fire much more heavily than he'd intended to, almost collapsing onto the ground. He managed to remain upright just barely, before frowning at Tulio. It was starting to get harder to form words, and he could feel his face getting more flushed and all the strength draining out of his muscles, "Yeah, well...I got it didn't I?" His back spasmed with sudden shivers, and he leaned closer to the fire, but then that was too hot. So he sat hunched over, trying to make his mind work enough to figure out what he was going to do and act normal.

"What else did you catch?" Tulio asked with sarcasm easily recognized in his voice. Served the kid right, really, if he'd caught something or eaten something bad, so he'd learn to pay attention and shut up and listen. Not that Tulio had explicitly stated to not do something stupid, but again, he relied on that little thing called common sense, that little voice in your head, unlike other people he knew.

Then again, he did seem to have a knack for getting stuck with those particular people.

"Yeah...fuck you..." Envy attempted to glare at him, then blinked. When he opened his eyes, he was on his side, with nicely cool dirt against his face. Huh, how had that happened? In reality, he'd had his eyes closed for a solid minute or so, and had collapsed, but he was having some difficulty figuring anything out right then.

Wait wait what? Tulio stared at him for a second, before actual (but sort of reluctant) concern had him next to the kid, frowning, but he didn't touch him, just study him.

"Uh ... are you alright?" Stupid question, but it was a stupid situation with a stupid person _{(in a stupid forest in a stupid place)}.

Tulio's voice hit Envy's ears through what felt like a tunnel, but after a short while he managed to respond, "...'m fine, I can keep up..." he could barely process anything, but he did remember enough that he had to be fine, or he'd be screwed. He tried to push himself up, and actually got himself almost sitting again before he just slumped right back over.

Chimera had been snacking on some of the tasty dirt a ways away, but at the sound of Envy collapsing he'd come running, making a distressed noise and trying to nudge his trainer up again. When that didn't work, he looked up at Tulio beseechingly, "Laar?"

Tulio felt a bit worried. He wasn't a total jerk, after all, despite what he might want people to think, or what people did think, but he was still reluctant to show this or act on it. And hey, knowing Envy, it might've been another one of his crazy acts. Yeah.

"Cut it out." He watched Envy fall over with a bit of alarm. "Stop that! I'm serious!"

The Larvitar wasn't helping matters. Bicho was in Tulio's pokéball in his pocket, so he couldn't help keep the rock-type away, but Tulio didn't really want to have to deal with him as well. He just made a a shooing motion at him, keeping his frown on Envy.

All he got in response to that was Envy mumbling some slurred curses at him, making a half motion to shove off the ground and failing yet again. "Gonna go to sleep...nothing's wrong."

Yes, surely if he just made an excuse for why he couldn't get up off the ground then it would be his idea to stay down. He was starting to sweat and breath more shallowly though, and shiver more often. Chimera didn't look at all pleased with the idea of going anywhere, but took a few steps back in case Bicho's trainer would be able to help his own.

"Yeah, right", he muttered, taking in the shivering kid in front of him. This really wasn't anything he'd want to have to deal with. Tulio's experience of illnesses was pretty much that if you catch it, you're lucky if you live to talk about it. He'd been sick, once, with the sweating sickness, and that had been a horrible experience he didn't really like to talk much about. But that was a long time ago, and he had no idea how to treat things other than hoping it'd just go away.

Some people would pray, of course, but he'd turned his back to God a long time ago. Even if he'd start again now - if this place even had a god - he was pretty sure he wouldn't get any miracles.

He felt pretty helpless, actually, and he didn't like that at all.

Chimera, deciding that Tulio wasn't going to be able to do anything went back to Envy's side and lay down beside him. The cool skin of the rock pokemon actually felt pretty good to Envy's fever-confused brain, and he curled around the little pokemon to get as much of that coolness as he could. He'd never felt like this in all 400 years he'd been a homunculus, except for maybe at the very beginning when he hadn't managed to put himself together yet.

That wasn't something he wanted to remember at all. But through the fog it was happening anyway, the feeling of being dragged violently out of some horrific dark place with eyes, of waking up in searing pain with blood and bones and insides everywhere...and then before that, a hint of how he'd died in the first place. The memory was old and foggy after so long, with the unpleasant sensation of it being not his own, of him lying in bed for months, condition growing steadily worse as the mercury poisoning killed him. It had felt kind of like this. Suddenly feeling panicked, he made a noise that sounded almost like a whimper, muttering to nobody in particular "...don't wanna die again..."

It wasn't something he'd ever say or even think if he was lucid, but right now he didn't exactly have that going for him.

Tulio had this thought of maybe getting help. He wasn't an idiot and knew he could do nothing for the kid lying in a pitiful shivering mess on the ground. He didn't like looking at him - he looked away, out at the path they'd veered off a while ago, hoping that someone would come along and know what to do. The thing was, though, that he didn't really dare to leave Envy, not like this. If anything happened, he knew he didn't want that on his conscience.

He breathed deeply, trying to think, feeling more and more stressed with each passing second that he further realized that he was absolutely worthless in this situation. He hated it, hated not knowing, not having a plan, and all he really knew at the moment was that any plan he might have had was now irrelevant. None of his plans had ever included anything like this.

Damn that kid. Damn him and-

At hearing him speak, Tulio froze. Die again? Again? Ludicrous, but he decided not to think about it further, opting for trying to get his attention instead.

"Envy. Hey, Envy." He hesitated, feeling awkward. "Can you hear me?"

It took Envy a minute to respond, but he managed to look up at Tulio blearily. He was still here? He hadn't left already? "Yeah...why're you here?"

Yeah, that was a pretty good question, actually. Tulio wasn't sure how to answer it, so he ignored it.

"What the hell did you do?!" he snapped, with a rather vehement tone. He felt out of control which made him feel frustrated and would probably end with him being pretty damn angry. And, again, he reasoned, and this reason was fighting with his concern, the kid must've done something incredibly stupid to end up this way.

In response to being snapped at he just gave a rather pathetic defiant glare in return "Screw you, I just ate...some stupid berries, that's it. Thos're s'posed to be food..."

"Y- You what?!"

Tulio often had this feeling - of being the only sane man. He couldn't have been the only one to actually read that handbook-thing, right? The only real information source he'd gotten, coming here, that anyone in their right mind would have read? The one that explicitly stated to not eat berries?

"You ate the berries?! I can't believe this- you- argh-!"

Great. This was just great.

If Envy'd been a dog he would have growled at Tulio, as it was he still bared his teeth in a weak grimace, "I was hungry!" Something had definitely snapped, but it was about time. Fortunately he was in no shape to take out his anger with punches or kicks. "I don't...I don't get hungry! Or...tired, or cold, or hurt...I don't get fucking sick like this, not ever! Not until I came here! I'm. Not. A damned. Human."

He took a few deep breaths after that, having used up most of his air on the yelling, and let his head drop back down, mumbling something barely intelligible about how he hated this.

"Sure, what are you then?" Tulio fired back, not taking what Envy was saying at face value. Of course he was human: he looked it, acted it and certainly behaved like most other humans Tulio had had the pleasure of meeting.

People, in his experience, were idiots. It was a fact that was easy to confirm, and Envy, if nothing else, certainly fit that description. Because even if you're not an idiot regarding one thing, what makes people so undoubtedly human is the ability to be an idiot regarding something else.

_{_{_{[OOC: I feel so profound right now. xD]}}}

He wasn't sure what he'd expecting, but disbelief wasn't exactly unexpected. He wheezed out a laugh, "Homunculus...not that you'd know what that is. I'm just a monster...shouldn't exist. Maybe you should just leave me here to die."

He laughed again, a little more strained, before returning his attention to breathing and curling a little closer around Chimera. Tulio was gonna leave anyway, he might as well speed things up.

"You won't die", he said flatly, leaning back from where he'd been leaning forward, looking at the kid he'd been travelling with for almost a week now. He fell silent, mulling over the new information somewhat, turning it over in his mind to look at it, but without delving into it, taking it apart to scrutinize it. He still didn't really find it believable.

Then again - this world wasn't believable.

He glanced at Envy, considering him. At the moment, he was really quite pitiful, and though Tulio couldn't really blame him, he was mostly impatient for him to get his wits back together so they could keep going.

Envy just made a disbelieving noise, but didn't feel like continuing to argue. He was just too tired. After a while of Tulio not saying anything more, he drifted off. It wasn't until hours later, when it was completely dark save for the firelight, that he finally stirred again, making a plaintive noise.

"W-water..." he didn't know if anyone was there, he didn't really know where he was anymore, but he was so overheated that all he could think about was getting some water.

Tulio'd been sleeping sporadically, but when Envy woke up, he was sitting up, leaning his head in one hand and using the other to poke around the fire with a stick, trying to keep it alive. He was tired, but he'd never managed to sleep well in the wilderness. He didn't trust nature enough to be helpless in it the way sleep would make you - he was just too uneasy, and he'd lay awake more than he'd find rest.

He didn't hear Envy's stirring, at first, but was slightly startled to hear his voice. Not saying a word, he found a half-empty water bottle (useful, brilliant things as they were) and chucked it at the kid, not bothering with any pleasantries. He wasn't really mad at him anymore, but he was bothered with having lost time like this and was anxious to keep moving.

Envy startled a little when the bottle seeming flew out of nowhere and bounced off his shoulder, but he heard the liquid sloshing inside and fumbled to grab it, then to open it. He quickly drank everything that was in it, then dropped it once he determined there wasn't anything left. Feeling slightly more alert, he looked up at the direction the mysterious bottle had come from. His vision was blurry with sweat, and he couldn't even remember where he was, much less who Tulio was. Al he saw was a tall, skinny man with black hair, and he could only think of one person who looked like that who might give him water.

"Leo...?"

"You must be mistaken", Tulio answered dryly, not looking at him. Great - he was still out of it. This conclusion didn't really help his mood, and he quickly became involved in a staring contest with the small fire remaining in the ashes. The fire won and he fed it another branch, before trying for revenge.

Basically, he was, as Miguel would've put it, worrying.

Whether Envy didn't hear what he said or just didn't care, Tulio's dismissal of the name just didn't connect at all. Clearly this must be Leo, because who else would care about him? He knew Leo was dead, he'd helped kill him after all, or at least done nothing to stop it, but who was he of all people to question people coming back from the dead? He started slowly moving himself towards Tulio around the fire, his movements small as he tried to still stay as curled up as possible, and eventually pushed himself up into Tulio's lap. He gripped one hand in the other man's pants leg, mumbling something about having missed him and sounding completely delirious.

Tulio froze. He didn't really like people touching him - especially not people that were practically strangers - especially people he didn't trust. If it wasn't for Envy's tone, he would've thought it to be another trick again, another taste of his seduction skills to get his way, but this was entirely different - there was no clarity, no purpose, just an awkward kid who was trying to find some kind of comfort in the wrong place.

Putting down the stick he'd used to poke the fire with, Tulio moved his hands to Envy's upper arms, holding firmly and pushing him away from him. He wasn't gentle about it, but he didn't exactly shove him off, either; he was merely making his point, releasing the other person as soon as he had. He didn't care if Envy'd gone mad, he didn't want him touching him, especially not in a familiar, intimate way. Tulio wasn't calm about this, not in his head, it was roaring, but he figured it would be unwise to lash out at a sick person and repressed the urge to yell at him and put about a mile of distance between them.

Normally Envy would have just persisted if he wanted to be somewhere, but since he thought this was Leo, it was a little different. He actually shrunk back a little, looking at Tulio sadly. If Leo didn't want him, it must be because he was still angry for how Envy'd just let Dante kill him before. But this rejection stung exponentially more than it would have if he'd been aware that "Leo" was actually Tulio. He looked back down at the ground, and it was a minute or two before he mumbled "...sorry..." He seemed to lose his train of thought for a bit longer before continuing, "I didn't want you to die....I should've protected, or done something, I didn't...I couldn't..."

He just continued to babble, caught up in the memory of the one thing he'd ever regretted.

Oh, god. Tulio wasn't good with these kind of things. He rubbed a hand over his face, listening with increasing alarm, feeling himself growing more jittery by the second. It was obvious Envy was seeing things that weren't there, or mistaking him for someone else, as he'd sarcastically dismissed it from just a few minutes ago. What was that Envy'd called him anyway? Leo?

Envy just kept going on, on, on, and Tulio hated listening to it, didn't want to hear it and didn't want to be involved with the kid's problems. "For god's sake, Envy!" he snapped at him, hoping it'd shock him into silence and stop the flow of words.

Tulio stared at him, realizing he should at least try to calm the kid, to try to snap him out of it. That would be with some people would call 'the right thing to do', wouldn't it? He didn't want to do it, to be the only one around and to be in this situation to begin with, this world altogether, but he couldn't just let it be, either.

"I'm not dead. I'm not Leo. Just stop it!"

Tulio's insistent tone did seem to finally have some effect on Envy, and his babbling slowed down and then stopped altogether. He wasn't going to be happy if he remembered this later, to put it lightly. But for now he just wound up falling back asleep, curled near Tulio's legs but not touching him.

Tulio drew up his legs a bit, grimacing slightly. If he'd known this is what he'd been signing up for by inviting Envy along, he wouldn't have. He was worrying again, but it was something he couldn't help but doing. Still, he fell asleep well before dawn.

Envy remained quiet for most of the rest of that day, occasionally tossing or muttering something or requesting more water, but no more major outbursts. And as evening began approaching again, he started becoming decidedly more lucid.

He mumbled a few curses and looked around, raising an eyebrow when he saw Tulio still around, but not commenting, "How...how long's it been?"

"Since you started this fine mess?"

Yeah, he was agitated. They'd been wasting so much time on this, and sure, he was glad to see Envy's gradual improvement, but as a result of that he found it easy to be angry with him again.

"A little more than a day", he muttered, almost spitting the words out after a brief silence.

He pushed himself up on one elbow, giving him with an odd, suspicious look, before shrugging, "Well we're almost there aren't we. Why're you in such a hurry anyway?"

He gave Chimera, who was still lying beside him, an absent pat on the head. Maybe the little thing was okay to have around after all. He hadn't taken his eyes off of Tulio, still looking wary. He couldn't remember much of what had happened while he'd been sick at all, but it probably wasn't anything he'd ever want anyone else to see. He considered his words carefully, "...What did I say?"

"Because this place is nuts." He'd never quite gotten over the fact that the creatures would all try to attack him randomly. Bicho could always ward them off, and nothing had happened during the night, but he still couldn't shake off that they kept doing that. And he could hear them and sometimes catch sight of them and he'd probably never get used to that.

It was a half-way lie, of course, covering up the fact that he really was just anxious to find Miguel. He didn't really feel like telling Envy this in case Miguel wasn't to be found - telling someone that "yeah, I'll probably just replace you once we get there" isn't a good idea if you find you could still make use of them.

At Envy's other question, he looked at him with a frown. He didn't remember? In many ways, this shouldn't have been surprising, but Tulio hadn't considered that he might not.

"You said you weren't human. And that you're sorry you killed me. I forgive you, by the way", he said with biting sarcasm, giving Envy a dark look, "if you tell me what the hell that was all about."

Envy was getting used to the attacking wildlife, but then again he enjoyed fighting them off. It was something to do at least, and Chimera was really starting to get stronger from it. But he could definitely believe that it was all crazy, because it really was. And he was anxious to get out of the woods too, so it made sense that Tulio was. That he could believe. But it made it even more curious as to why Tulio had stayed with him instead of just going on without him.

Then Tulio relayed what he'd said, and he didn't really want to think about why he might have apologized for anything, but the first part he could go with. "Yeah, that's 'cause I'm not human. Or I wasn't until I came here anyway."

"Right. So what were you, a horse?"

He'd known a horse who'd seemed surprisingly aware of what was going on. That didn't mean he believed Envy had been one, or for the record, that Envy'd been anything other than human. You didn't just change species like that. It didn't make any sense.

But, having thought of this before, his mind returned full circle to the constant conclusion that right now, nothing made any sense.

He snorted, "No, I was a homunculus, not an animal. I was supposed to be human when I was created, but it didn't exactly work out how my creator planned," he smiled in a way that wasn't happy in the slightest. "Some of the others wanted to be human, they were looking for a way how. Figures it'd be me that it happened to."

Tulio wasn't sure how to process this information, so he settled again for skepticism. Raising his eyebrows in part question, he answered.

"Right. Okay. So, what-" he threw out an arm "- what exactly were you?"

"I was created by alchemy, continue to exist because of it, I'm a golem, a monster. Is that enough for you?" he snapped, "I don't need to tell you everything, and I don't care if you believe me or not."

"Fine, then I won't!" He paused, giving Envy a good glare, measuring him mentally. If he fought like this, he was probably fine by now. "Are you done now? Can we leave?"

"Yeah sure, I'd be glad to get the hell out of this forest as soon as possible."

He pushed himself to his feet and grabbed his bag. He was still shaky, but he could walk and that would work out fine. As they started walking, he continued to give Tulio that odd look from earlier. Eventually he spoke, a bit quietly, "Well, thanks I guess."

He decided to let Bicho out of his pokéball after having grabbed his pack as well, and made sure the fire was put out properly. The Yanma was a happy bug, making little loops and small noises before swooping down to Chimera, presumably to play. Tulio stopped paying attention to them, knowing the big bug would be back in an instant if he needed him. It was strange, but he'd sort of started to trust the dragonfly.

He walked in silence and kept his eyes on the road ahead until Envy spoke up. He gave him a sideways glance, not entirely sure what he was talking about, but decided not to ask expand on it. He simply shrugged and kept walking. "You're... welcome, I guess."

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