[PKMN FULL] Cornered On The Market! [T](IC)

Druag With a hint of Gabriel

Druag took another slow sip of his drink and felt someone patting his back.

He looked down at Gabriel with his one eye as the latter said "Hey, Druag, you okay there? You look a bit out of it. You aren't sick, are you?" Druag blinked slowly and took another sip, not answering the question and not immediately realizing who he was looking at.

Druag's eye sprang open and he spun in place, slamming his cup onto the counter and facing the Weavile with a mixed expression of terror and rage. Gabriel naturally jerked back at the sudden noise and now that the dragon was facing him he could see that it was a reaaaaally bad idea in stirring him from… whatever trance he had been in.

And then Druag calmed down when he remembered where he was. He wilted and rubbed his chest. His leg hurt. He picked his cup back up and drank some more before taking a deep breath. Too tired from his mental trial moments ago on memory lane to be angry and too ashamed of his conversation with Blair to feel any right in confronting Gabriel for her sake, he turned back toward the counter and spoke dismally into his cup. "What do you care? I won't fall over dead in front of the customers, so you have nothing to worry about."

Gabriel's didn't relax his body one bit as he let out the deep breath he had sucked in. "... No, just wanted to make sure that you were ready, that was all." He slowly said, "Not saying that you aren't, but just making… sure." An awkward silence persisted as Gabriel squirmed, "... Um… so you are ready. Just checking."

Druag paused in mid-sip and put his cup down on the counter, turning his head to look at the Weavile more critically, the lopsided quality of his one-eyed gaze at once as unsettling as it was incongruous. Gabriel had never struck him as the timid sort. Especially not a little bit ago when he was talking to Blair. "Are you sure you're ready?" Draug said, now.

"O-Of course." Gabriel accidentally stammered out, "I mean," He let out a soft cough, "Of course. Just, you know, making sure you were here with us. You seemed to be lost in your thoughts. Not that I should know those thoughts or such."

Druag sighed and refilled his cup from the pitcher. Although the vessel had proven to have a truly admirable capacity, it was under half-full now at Druag's constant nursing of it. He swirled the black juice, watching the liquid swish about. Druag, you miserable dolt, who do you think you are? Not only do you come in here and find out that Blair's probably had it just as bad as you in the most tactless manner you could, but now you're scaring this guy half to death! You were ready to tear him in half twice already today, don't you think he noticed?

Druag looked at Gabriel again, but with a dull eye, now. You think you have it bad Druag, who knows what these others have been through? Think you have a right to complain? Druag obstinately thought that he did have that right, and to prove it to himself he said, "Tell me about yourself, Mr. Gabriel." His fingers drummed on the head of his cane.

Gabriel paled a bit, not quite sure on what to say. Was this guy trying to figure out where he lived? Or what his schedule like? The Weavile took in a deep gulp of air, "Well… I'm a Weavile. And… er, I moved here about a month ago or so." He shrugged, "What… do you want to know?"

Druag smacked his lips on the aftertaste of the Black Aprijuice. Turned out it took about forty small sips to remind your tongue of just how nasty it was. "I came here about a year ago, myself," Druag said, the cold liquid pooling in his insides and doing wonders at calming his temperament. "Where were you hatched?"

"Er…" Gabriel frowned, "I don't know." He admitted. "My father never really told me."

Druag nodded easily, eye fixed on the far wall now as he settled into a proper platitudinous posture. "Mm. I never met my father. Mated my mother and disappeared before I ever hatched." He finished off his cup and despite his better judgement poured himself another. "You close with your father?"

"Not at the moment." Gabriel stated, "We were close when I was little. He taught me everything I know. But now he's… preoccupied. And we haven't really talked in the past five years."

Druag stopped in the motion of moving his cup to his lips and set it back on the counter, instead. Ah, there it is! Familial discord! Just like you, Druag! Or, you know, something like that. You stupid buffoon. Druag leaned on the counter with his elbows, letting his cane dance about in his hand. "You have any other family you're close to, Mr. Gabriel?"

Gabriel slowly shook his head, "I had no brothers or sisters. My mother is dead. My father is the only connection I had, but that went south." He crossed his arms, "Why do you ask?"

Druag took a deep breath. Why had he asked? "Most of my family's dead. Well, my parents had been taken by humans way long ago but, you know, that's pretty much the same thing. My uncle died of a tumor after that and then my aunt died after she couldn't take living without him." Druag took a long, slow drink from his cup as he resolved to omit one of his late relations. "My only living relative is my cousin. And he's usually in Johto with his wife and kid, so I'll probably never see him again." He looked at Gabriel out of the corner of his eye, now. "Who all's left in your life? You know, to help you through the day?"

Gabriel smirked at that query, "Friends." He stated. "For one, a friend named Cici. She traveled here with me. She's just… off doing her own thing at the moment." He explained. "My family remains locked up in a jail many cities away from here. It is not something I like to talk about."

Druag nodded and drained his cup. He put it down instead of refilling it immediately. "The only person who I ever mattered to is buried about northeast of here, out in that forest with all the caves in it. When I came here I didn't have a Cici, just a parade of nobodies to whom I was also a nobody." Druag slumped forward onto the counter, his arms splayed out haphazardly and his cane teetering over onto the floor as he exhaled hard. "They're right, I don't belong here … How do you get through every day, Mr. Gabriel, when nothing ever goes right?" He straightened back up, abruptly, and fell on his rump when he couldn't find his cane. He sat there on the floor as he pulled his cane onto his lap. "Can you tell me about Cici?" Druag asked suddenly.

Gabriel smiled a bit and sat down as he began to feel sentimental, "... She's a ghost, sort of like Castiel." He began, "But she's… she's able to get with you on a personal level. Sort of like watching out for you. She listens to what you say and just generally is fun to be around. Though I met a wise mon a while back. He said when things go bad you take a deep breath in and you just relax. I'm not good at taking his advice though."

Druag's tail flopped the ground lazily as he leaned his head back and spoke at the ceiling. "I heard a lot of wise things when I was young, too, but I never listened to them until it was too late." Druag inhaled deeply and then exhaled with a sort of deep moan in the back of his throat. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Ms. Cici sounds like a great person," Druag said, turning to Gabriel. "Like a really great person." He clapped one of his hands over his eye and made the sound again, but deeper and longer.

He snapped to attention and started getting to his feet. What are you doing, you crying mongrel? You suppose getting yourself chilled in front of your coworkers is any way to start the day? The excess cold fluids Druag had allowed himself had lowered his temperature significantly, and he was beginning to get tipsy. "My apologies, Mr. Gabriel," Druag bumbled as he got to his feet, "I don't know what's come over me." The big Dragon turned and started hobbling for the restroom.

"Um… no problem?" Gabriel stated as he watched Draug hobble off. "Um, want me to get your cane? Or something? I'll just be mozzing around when you get out, we can continue then, if you want."

At that, Druag realized he had indeed forgotten his cane: he was scrabbling across the floor with his arms and good leg like some crippled crocodilian. Druag stood up on his legs to try and recover himself and immediately regretted it when his leg reminded him why he needed a cane to begin with. "Hrmph!" he grunted as he clutched his thigh and teetered over with a thud against the ground.

Gabriel grabbed the cane and walked over, holding it out to Druag, "Need some help?" He asked. "Everyone needs help. A crew needs to stick together."

Druag looked up at the Weavile. Scavenger, interloper, trespasser, thief. Do it, Druag, take his hand and show the world how low you've fallen! Do it! Druag swallowed dryly and managed to get himself to his feet without Gabriel's assistance, although he did still take the cane. "I'm fine, I'm fine." Druag looked at Gabriel awkwardly. Maybe it was the chill in his stomach. Maybe it was the ire of his monologue. But for some reason, Druag couldn't remember why he had been angry with Gabriel earlier. He took Gabriel's offered hand in a handshake, instead. "Thank you for the chat, Mr. Gabriel, we'll have to do it again some time."

Gabriel shook it back, "Likewise." He stated.

Druag
Having ended his heart-to-heart with Gabriel, Druag resumed his mission towards the restroom, reaching it in short order and working himself through the small door, closing it behind him.

He took a deep breath now that we was away from the others. That pervasive peppermint scent that had been flooding the store all morning wasn't quite as pronounced in here, but it had that curious artificial soap smell to it that Druag had by now learned was often attributed to the residences of older Pok?mon. Druag distantly wondered at just how old Castiel was: Ghosts didn't age quite as obviously as most other Pok?mon did, and lived a good deal longer than average besides that.

He padded the cool tile floor with his feet, leaning on the wall as he brought the top of his cane into his hands. With a practiced jerk he pried the top of it sideways, and it screwed off to reveal a miniscule hollow compartment, only just big enough for the small pill bottle and equally-small paper cup, and a pathetic collection of small Pok? coins.

Druag's shoulder quivered a little as he took the items out and set them on the side of the sink, leaving his change in the cane in the hopes of being able to buy something from a food stand later. He hadn't managed to look at the clock, but judging from the last time he looked at it, he figured it was about half past seven or so now. He propped his cane against the wall next to him and picked up his pill bottle.

The small white container was a sturdy plastic, a monochrome no-nonsense label declaring its contents to be Celsux, followed by some ten-part chemical name in smaller font and a note that each capsule contained mucus from Magmars and Heatmors, or something. The back of the small container gave dosage instructions, but by now Druag already knew to take one every four hours or as needed, and not to take more than eight in a single period of twenty-four hours.

Druag did the math in his head: he'd taken one at four thirty that morning, just before being held up by that Duosion patrol guard that thought he was popping Secret Potion or something. To take one now would technically be an hour or so early, but after the chill he'd given himself with Castiel's Aprijuice, Druag was inclined to consider this to be a use "as needed." He made a private note to himself to look into taking another one later at half-past eleven, or probably just around lunch.

He sighed and pried the cap off the little bottle, shaking one of the sickly rust-colored tablets into his old paper cup. He resealed the Celsux bottle and returned it to his cane before reaching over toward the sink and turning the hot faucet on.

He leaned deeper into the wall as he let the water build up some heat. Performing some more maintenance, you broken beast? Honestly, Druag, you could manage to make a Drampa look like an Altaria. Maybe you should just find one of those homes for old has-beens that're waiting to die? Oh, but that probably costs two canes of change. You simple oaf.

Druag rubbed his face tiredly and placed his cup with its capsule under the hot tap, filling it up and setting the Celsux to bubbling. He brought the steaming cup of bubbling orange-brown water to his mouth and drank it down in one gulp, doing his best to keep the stuff off his taste buds. He winced at the caustic feel of it against his cheeks as he held the cup under the tap and rinsed it out.

A hot sensation like a burning sludge ran down his throat and sat into his stomach, chasing out the delirium the cold beverages had brought upon him and waking his limbs up with the vivifying warmth.

"Ah," he said to himself, letting out a hot puff of breath. "That's a little better." Druag pinched the little cup together and shook it off in the sink before setting it back into his cane and shutting off the tap. He limped carefully off the wall so he could stand at the sink properly and look at himself in the mirror above it as he twisted his cane back together, his weight spread between his right leg and tail to allow him to handle it without falling over.

He looked into his eye sadly, and examined the bandages around his left eye. He had stopped changing them some months ago when the socket stopped its occasional bleeding and he had decided buying new gauze was unnecessary if it wasn't getting dirty. Indeed, it was perhaps an off-white now but wasn't really dirty, and the skin on his face didn't let it chafe him. He finished working on his cane and leaned it against the sink before leaning in toward his reflection.

Druag had never spent a whole lot of time around mirrors. Nothing in his caves properly served the purpose and he had always preferred to drink at the pond rather than stare at himself in it. And he certainly didn't own a mirror at the old park bench he had to consider as his home most nights. He reached behind his head and found the safety pin that held his gauze tight, pulling it out carefully with his claws and placing it on the sink as he unwound the bandage from his face.

It came off rather clean, except for the last round where it had pressed against his socket, where it was a tad sticky and moist. Druag looked at the wet spot on his bandage confusedly and then looked at his face in the mirror and flinched a little.

Weeping Weezings, Druag, that face could make a Bastiodon feel pretty!

Druag had spent very little time around his reflection, and now that he thought about it, he couldn't recall ever having looked under his eye-patch before. He had thought that he still had his eye in there and that it was just unfocused or glassy or something, but they had taken his eye out entirely, and now there was an unnerving hole in his face, and he could see the pink muscles in the back of it writhe as he moved his other eye to examine it.

He inhaled sharply and averted his eye. Hideous, Druag. Even for a cragface. He looked himself in the eye again and saw the writhing form of his thoughts in his gaze as surely as the he saw the pulsating hole on the other side of his face. Wow, Druag, you're more of an alien monster than you thought! You hideous thing.

Druag suddenly considered how Gabriel and Blair and Errol and Silver must have been looking at him this whole time. He had considered himself just a pitiable cripple; he hadn't noticed just how terrible he looked. No need to fear for your job, you miserable animal, Castiel probably hired you as a freak show to draw in all those people that like to stare at the broken thing that used to be a Dragon. No wonder Gabriel was so scared and Errol was nervous! No wonder Silver's been ignoring you and Blair didn't want to talk to you!

Druag saw his empty eye socket start to well up with a weak stream of tears. He interrupted his monologue with his own curiosity at this: he hadn't cried tears for a long time. Or at least he thought he hadn't: evidently his dead eye still cried under his bandages. Druag didn't know what to think of that. He looked at the wet spot on his gauze and remembered the cooing sound he'd made when he was talking with Gabriel.

A little too old to cry, aren't you Druag?

Druag snorted unconcernedly. He started wrapping his bandage around his face again and talked to himself to keep from hearing his monologue. "Maybe I should get a glass eye or something so I don't have to walk around with a hole in my head." He tightened the wrap up and reached for his safety pin, but it snagged his claw awkwardly and went tumbling down the sink's open drain.

Druag looked after it and grumbled under his breath. "Muk-sucking Magikarp, anyway." He huffed agitatedly and shared a look with his reflection to see how angry he looked. All in all, his face didn't change a whole lot, but the intensity was obvious in his eye. Druag made a private note to himself to remember that he evidently showed his emotions through that eye. He'd have to remember to keep it turned away from anyone that got him worked up.

He tapped his foot and considered his options before looking over at the toilet. Druag was still uncomfortable with the things and was pretty sure that they hadn't been made for tailed entities at all, but his drinking spree would probably see him paying the porcelain shrine its respects later in the day. He kept one hand holding his bandage taught before reaching over and tearing off a longish piece of toilet paper. He wrung it out into a single-ply rope of sorts and with a good deal of clumsy fumbling managed to get it secured to his bandage.

Some more half-blind fumbling and low cursing managed to tie it into a tight knot, and he found his bandage looked much the same as before and felt quite secure, except that now he had two spun-together lengths of toilet tassel trailing from the back of his head to his shoulders. He sighed. "Well maybe no one will notice it's toilet paper."

He took a deep breath and looked himself in the eye again. "You can do it, Druag. You got this."

Pft, no you don't. You simple oaf.

Druag took his cane and left the restroom.

Now that Druag was gone Gabriel couldn't help but feel the need to snap his head in the direction of where everyone else had basically gone. There Castiel was, giving personal touches to Blair and ensuring that she would keep his attention for some time. The seed of jealousy that had burst into Gabriel's mind but a few minutes ago was quickly fertilizing among his many thoughts. He HAD to show Castiel that he was better than that fox. Determination now swelled up in Gabriel's chest. He made his way across the room, eyes sweeping for crumbs as he used a wipe to pick them up and clean the areas they had infested. Errol had, of course, not managed to put his food box up, so Gabriel found himself doing the task for the Qwilfish.

With that task done, Gabriel grabbed the trash bags out of their containers, proceeded to tie their tops, and dragged them outside, making sure to be careful enough so that they wouldn't rip open and spill their contents everywhere. He had seen far too many sitcoms where such a travesty had happened and the audience had laughed uproariously while the protagonist had to clean up the mess once more. He figured Castiel wouldn't be in the mood to laugh. Once he was outside the Weavile dragged the bags to the dumpster and with a simple grunt threw them into the metal box.

Now that he was outside Gabriel couldn't help but feel his curiosity peek a bit. What were the other stores doing to attract potential customers? He saw that a few decorations were up with most being colorful to gain some needed attention. Still, Gabriel was confident that Spirited Away would be getting good business today. It was already well established in the community, AND Castiel wasn't half bad. Far more pleasant than that plant across the street.

"Excuse me!"

Gabriel slowly turned about...​

Druag
Druag emerged from the restroom and swept his eye over the store: no one immediately visible from his position. He glanced at the clock and it was just about half-past seven. He decided he'd might as well see if everyone had cleaned up their breakfasts.

He moved to the counter and found the boxes stacked just as Castiel had asked, and hardly a crumb left anywhere. A tad surprised that someone else had completed the mundane and boring task of cleaning-up, Druag instead went to check the trash cans, as he hadn't emptied them after sweeping. But they were all totally empty, too.

Druag raised an eyebrow at this, and figured it must have been Gabriel, as pretty much everyone else seemed to be engaged in preparing Blair for her act. Perhaps he had been too quick to judge earlier: Gabriel evidently wasn't afraid of working and was actually rather on-the-ball, really. Druag wondered inwardly whether or not the Weavile would be quite so effective when it came to the customers. The nervous way he'd talked to Druag didn't seem particularly like it could sell trinkets.

The Druddigon rubbed at his thigh absent-mindedly, at a loss. He supposed he could dust, but it was too close to opening time to be whipping dust out of the shelves and into the peppermint-polluted air. He decided he'd might as well just go ahead and put fresh trash bags in and then mill about for a while. He didn't think he was up for trying small talk with Silver: she had gotten rather sluggish since the Kecleon incident, and Druag didn't want to impose on her. She might well not have a strong-enough stomach for back-to-back Heal Powder doses.

He hobbled into the backroom again, pointedly ignoring some of the stranger figures in the room. Druag didn't have to wonder as to why Castiel didn't leave such things out on the floor proper: besides being rather cumbersome in size, some of them seemed eerily lifelike. He had noticed them earlier, of course, when he was getting stuff for Blair, but he had been moving with a purpose and hadn't paid them any mind. Druag wondered what purpose such curious statues served: he couldn't quite make himself believe anyone would want the visual equivalent of a rigid corpse for purely aesthetic reasons.

He spied the box of trash bags on a shelf near where he had returned the broom, and took a bag for each can on the floor. He turned to close the storage room door (it wouldn't do to leave it hanging open for the customers to wander into, after all) and cast one last anxious look at the statues arrayed among the boxes and shelves along the wall: a squint-eyed Meowth in robes smiling and with one paw raised, a Cacturne in a thick haggardly dress perched in what seemed to be a mortar-and-pestle, a Lucario with its face covered with red wrappings, a Drampa wearing a rosary and with a staff in one hand and a ball of sorts in the other.

Druag shuddered and closed the door tightly.

He made a limping circuit around the store to replace each trash bag and found himself ending it near the bookshelf. Druag had never been big on reading anything other than correspondence, but he could think of nothing else prudent to do for the remainder of his time. He found a heavy metal-spined book labeled as The Way of Things: an Extensive Foray into the Enigmas of Reality. He opened to a random page of tightly-packed text.

| ... such that it is not truly an infant individual but rather another body held to the soul in the same manner as the bodies of the Exeggcute or the Magneton remain linked.
| From these examples we see the true power of the soul at work, allowing a single mind to hold over multiple bodies. The soul is thus shown to be on a higher plane that the body, and when the latter gives way the former returns to that mystical place. But the soul is ignorant, for lo, it does not remember its origin and fears leaving its body, and where that fear is strong enough, where that will to remain is stronger than this plane can quash, the soul remains, free and without a vessel. Such are what receive various names throughout cultures both civil and feral: spirit, bogey, haunt, spook, and all manner of thing. The most common of these is ghost, but this term is to be avoided as it causes confusion with Ghost-Types, who are only distantly related to this phenomenon and may undergo it themselves.
| In the cases of Ghosts, the soul is in a state of ...

Druag furrowed his brow and put the book back. A tad dense for his tastes. He plucked out another one, this time thinner and with four other books near it with similar spines. Bound in fresh leather and with a portrait of some bearded human man, it was titled proudly in golden letters as Mister Merlin's Manifesto of Mysticism and Magic, Volume Three of Five: Potions and Poisons of the Eldritch Sort. Druag checked the back of the book expecting to find some meaningless quotes from meaningless people praising the book, but instead found a small paragraph explaining it to be a collection of spells and magic rituals gathered from cultures and sources throughout history and from all over the globe, along with the complementary note that it was for hobbyist interest only, and that results are not guaranteed from performing or creating anything the book talks about. He whipped it open to a page near the end.

| ...and has now been recreated as an alcoholic beverage sans the Muk secretions for very nearly the same purpose, ha!
| The same village also very heavily believes the Eevee line to be tied closely with the powers of nature, and that the Eevee holds within it a potential greater than most other forms of life. They have a recipe for something they call the "Kamangyan na Mahusay na mga Elemento," which I will abbreviate to KME. The KME cannot be made with materials from Eevee, but rather from any one of its Evolutions. One must simply take about one gram of fur from the back of the head and mix it with the juices of an Apricorn of a similar color to the species the fur belongs to. From here, the mixture needs to receive a single drop of the venom found in the spines of a Qwilfish and then left to set for five minutes. When the KME is ready, simply ignite it and breathe the fumes deeply to receive its effects.
| What are these effects, though? Well, they vary depending on what species the fur is from, but usually only last about an hour, regardless. Sylveon fur, for example, beautifies the user and clears their body of blemishes and wrinkles. If a Jolteon's fur is used, the user receives a palpable surge of energy and strength, and becomes extremely nimble. The effects seem tied to the donor's Type in some small way, but there are also a few truly unanticipated outcomes. Why, if an Umbreon's fur is used, the user...

Druag closed the book and put it back, losing interest. He was already bothered enough that his pills apparently had Magmar snot in them, and he didn't think much of the idea of using parts of other Pokémon for things like that. He made a private allowance for his cane, considering the circumstances under which he had received it, and grudgingly extended that allowance to that Trevenant as well. Druag wondered how she was doing, and regretted not having gotten to know her better.

He reached out and pulled down one of the thicker, older books there, with not a word on its cover and only a picture of an elderly Swanna on the front. It looked juvenile for some reason, but also had an air of dignity about it. He opened it to a random page and found most of the pages played host to their own little stanza or poem of sorts. Seemed to be nursery rhymes and limericks, mostly. Druag smiled a little at the childishness of it and found one titled A Wizened Old Owl.

A wise old owl lived in an oak
The more he saw the less he spoke
The less he spoke the more he heard
Why can't we all be like that wise old bird?

A wise old owl looked out from his hole
And what he saw ate at his soul
His soul was hurt and he lost all hope
How should any of us learn to cope?

A wise old owl heard the sound
And grew scared of what he found
The things he found haunted his dream
When will we learn things aren't as they seem?

A wise old owl sniffed at the air
But he couldn't find a reason to care
He didn't care so he didn't try
What place do we have to want to fly?

A wise old owl tasted his food
He found himself in a sour mood
In a bad mood, he just couldn't smile
Who of us can when a foot becomes a mile?

A wise old owl felt the chill
And he knew he was falling ill
He was sick and he would die
Wouldn't any of us start to cry?

A wise old owl died in an oak
His life had seemed to be a big joke
Funny but offensive and far too long
What is there we can learn from his song?

Druag swallowed dryly at the dark limerick that had evidently qualified as a children's nursery rhyme and put the book back shakily. He blinked nervously and decided not to open any more of Castiel's books.