rivalkidneypunch | Phone Post

They were the manliest giggles. There were a few kind of laughlike dargon sounds being rumbled into Bulba's palm, too, though they were sorta muffled, on account of the whole nosesmooshing thing going on.

Char popped over to human form -- Rasputin wasn't always quite so good at understanding commands in poglespeak, after all. The most vicious and savage of spiders was wrestled away, mere moments before Bulba would surely be spiderhugged beyond all hope. "Down, boy. We want him to live to see nineteen, don't we?"

"I would appreciate such a future," Bulba laughed breathily as he wiped his face. He surely would have been decimated had the onslaught continued, having already been knocked back on his rump. Truly they were the most fierce of foes, and this mercy was a blessing.

He got himself back up again, and gave the terrifying beast a very fond rub. "Thanks, buddy."

Rasputin made some of those horrifying rustly clicky Skulltula noises and kinda wiggled two of his many many legs in the air.

"I'm guessin' that means happy birthday," Char offered, ever the helpful translator. "You ready to go, kid?"

Awwww who was an adorably horrifying monster awww. It was you, Rasputin, oh yes it was.

"Heheh. Yeah, probably about as ready as I'll ever be."

Char nodded, and soothed his adorably horrifying monster with promises that he'd be home later and also to be good. (Probably Char's definition of "be good" included some amount of "if you leave a dead thing in Genny's sock drawer I won't be mad.") Once spiders had bid goodbye to the birthday boy and the door was shut and locked, they were off on their noble adventure.

"So, I gotta ask," Char announced before too long. "What's the story behind the neuron-forky-thing, anyway? It mean something, or is it just 'cause it looks cool?"

The Venusaur had to laugh at the prospect of it just looking cool, considering the way it looked in his more-than-amateur scrawls. "Yeah, it looked really cool when you saw it, definitely."

His smile grew a bit more bashful though. He'd dodged actually talking about it before, which he had been a bit grateful for because gosh it was just saptown all over the place. "It's, uh... more or less a 'know your roots' kind of deal."

Char's keen and cunning predator senses must not have been working that day, because he failed to smell the incoming sweetness of saptown. "Hey, it was cool for a pitchforky-lookin' thing," he clarified with a laugh of his own.

He could appreciate the sentiment of knowing your roots, though; he couldn't say his own logic behind the tattoo he wanted was all that dissimilar, even if his case was a lot more broad than Bulba's. "So we talkin' about Green, or is this, like... the Garden with a capital G kinda roots?"

He shook his head. "It's a family tree," he explained enigmatically. Bulba glanced over at him, still looking weirdly shy about the whole thing. Trying to explain it without it being right there was clearly just doing to sound silly.

"It'll make more sense when it's done."

Family tree? If anything, Char was more confused than before. That turn of phrase usually summoned up mental images of likes of great-aunts and grandparents. Something, as far as he knew, lab starters didn't know all that extensively. Saurs might have been a bit different, being more parent-bonding than Charmanders and all, but biological parents tended not to be a common topic of conversation for... any of Green Team's members, really.

Char shrugged, not sure what to make of the grand mystery of the family tree canoe paddle thing. "Well, alright, but that means I'm askin' for an explanation once it's all finished."

"Done deal," Bulba promised with a chuckle. "There will be plenty of visual aid and everything, aren't you lucky."

"Super lucky," Char agreed. "Maybe you can tattoo on a few arrows explainin' what everything means for me, too. Just in case. I'm real bad with symbolism."

"Maybe I'll just have some lines so you can play fill in the blanks or something."

"Oh no. Don't do that. You know anytime I get Mad Libs-ass blanks handed to me I'm fillin' every blank with dicks."

"Whoa, hey now. You might be catering a bit too much to my preferences there, Char."

For a moment, Char looked puzzled, but recognition quickly sunk in, and laughter came with it.

"Whoa, okay. We can maybe save that for the second tattoo."

"Probably the best plan for everyone involved," Bulba snickered.

And lo, somewhere along the line they had made it to their destination. The hype was mounting.

There were no brakes on board the hype train. Char's tail twitched restlessly -- his first time under the needle hadn't been the most wonderful of times, and he hadn't set foot in a tattoo joint since.

His eyes slid up from the sign over the place to his brother beside him. "You ready?"

Bulba's gaze had also been trained on the sign. Luckily, he didn't have any previous bad experiences, but that didn't stop him from being a bit nervous. Vinnie had said it was fine, even if it pricked and stung a little, but the shiny Venusaur had a feeling the other was made of stronger stuff than he was.

He glanced to Char, mustering up an encouraging little grin after a moment. (It was for both of them.) He nodded. "I am if you are."

The Venusaur reached out to place his hand on the door, easing it with a very slight push to get it started.

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