“I don’t remember much about my trial,” Haley said, her eyes fixed on a vision beyond the prison walls that none of her companions could see. “Everything these past few days has been a bit of a blur. I think they tried to get me into the exercise yard a couple times while I was in the solitary cells, but it’s pretty fuzzy. I do remember one of the guards looked a bit like Greg. When I tried to go to him, they beat me with their sticks.” The typhlosion seemed to huddle in on herself, forepaws hugging her haunches. “It hurt.” Her voice cracked. Her expression made it clear she hadn’t meant the blows.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Pam murmured, wrapping a paw awkwardly around the larger ‘mon and pulling her close. “Greg sounds like an amazing partner, the kind of guy anyone would love to call a friend.”

“He was.” The words were a combination of a whisper and a sniffle from the fire type, nearly drowned out by the metronomic scraping of the zoroark’s makeshift tool. Haley looked up, glancing between Pam and the mightyena, who had paused in his pacing and sat, scowling. “Thanks for listening. All of you. I think this is the first lucid moment I’ve had since the... accident.”  

Pam nodded, hugging the typhlosion again, and this time receiving a grateful return gesture.  

“How sappy,” muttered the mightyena, looking away.

The audino giggled suddenly, a high-pitched cackle that made all but the zoroark jump. “Red,” he chortled. “Red! Pretty, pretty red!”

“W-what?” said Haley.

“Red! Red red red red red red red red red!”

Haley began to tremble, her eyes brimming, all of her gathered resolve beginning to melt like candle wax. “N-no...”

“Hey! Stop that!” shouted Pam, rising to her feet and glaring at the audino. “You’re upsetting her!”

“Redredredredredredredredred!”

“Please...” Haley groaned, beginning to rock back and forth, her paws over her ears, trying desperately to block out the world.

“Stop it!”

“Red! Red!”

“Shut UP!”

The audino’s mouth closed with an audible click. Pam stumbled back a step, her mouth agape in shock. The mightyena advanced on the audino, his fur bristling, eyes narrowed to slits, staring down the blue-eyed tormenter. His body moved with the lithe grace of a hunting predator, and somehow, he managed to loom far larger than he really was as he stood over the pink-furred ‘mon.

“What. Is. Your. Problem?” the mightyena ground out, his voice dropped to a deadly calm after the enraged roar. “I hate all that lovey-dovey shit, but even I’ve got more class than to spit on someone’s grief.” He glanced at Haley for a moment, his eyes softening marginally, before once again spearing the other male with his gaze. “Even if she is too noisy. You dig me, you little pink shit? Well?”

The audino stared back at him, unmoved and silent. The corners of his mouth quirked up, drawing a soft, dangerous growl from the mightyena’s throat.

“Well?” If his voice had been cold before, now it was steel in winter.

“Oh, I dig you, hot-shot.” The voice seemed far deeper than it should have, compared to the insane laughing mockery of before. “I dig you real good.” Now, the words were sing-song, light and cheery. It was almost as if whatever spirit had previously possessed the little creature had fled, and now a new intelligence sat behind those bright blue eyes.

The mightyena blinked, unsure how to respond at first. The audino’s lips skinned back, exposing teeth in what may have been a smile. All trace of his former outburst had vanished like smoke, leaving behind a cool, unflappable air about him. He waved nonchalantly at the canine still standing over him. “Be cool now, baby.”  

With a snarl, the mightyena spun around, bravado deflated, and stalked away from the other, towards where Pam sat comforting Haley. He flopped down on his belly against the wall, glaring at nothing in particular.

Through it all, as through Haley’s story, the zoroark’s efforts never ceased, a small pile of concrete dust accumulating in the corner.

Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.

“Hey,” Pam said after a moment, prodding the dark-furred canine lightly with a footpaw. “That was actually really sweet of you.” She glanced over at the audino, shivering, her voice dropping to a whisper. “That guy gives me the creeps. I’m sorry I called you a jerk earlier. You’re really not so bad.”

“Whatever.”

“Truce?”

“If it helps you sleep easy.”

“Got a name?”

The mightyena rolled his eyes. “Oh for- Fine. It’s Jax. Happy?”

Pam shrugged, unfazed by the acerbic response as she massaged Haley’s shoulders. “Works for me. Least I don’t have to come up with one for you.”

Haley’s sniffles were beginning to quiet, the typhlosion rubbing the tears from her eyes and pulling her shattered composure together. She looked up at the canine, studying him intently. “You lost someone too, didn’t you?”

Jax’s lip curled, his eyes wandering over to stare at the audino, who appeared to be sleeping, or perhaps merely pretending to be. “Yeah. What’s it to you?”

Haley shuffled over, disengaging from Pam’s touch and reaching a hesitant paw out to the mightyena. She recoiled when he whipped his head around to fix her with an incredulous stare.

“What?!” Jax growled.

“I’m sorry,” Haley whispered, looking down at her paws, fiddling her clawtips together. “I just thought... maybe...”

“What, that I’d wanna pour my guts out in front of you? Share my ‘deepest feelings’ with some random fucks I’m forced to share my last night alive with?” Jax was snarling now, half rising to his paws and piercing the stammering typhlosion with a practiced glare. “I got news for you, sister, I ain’t lookin’ for pity!”

“Down, boy,” Pam growled, folding her arms over her chest and interposing herself between Jax and her self-appointed charge. “You know as well as I do she’s just trying to be nice. Like you were a moment ago. Guess you only have a limited supply of that, huh?”

Jax’s tail flicked in irritation. He looked away from the two females -one the very image of a stern matron, the other retreating back into a shell of bad memories. His paws flexed, claws scratching at the unyielding floor, mimicking the sound of the zoroark’s unceasing toil.

“Dammit,” he muttered under his breath. Summoning his resolve, he turned back to Haley and Pam. “Fine. You really got your panties in a twist over knowin’ my story? I’ll tell you.”