companionwolf

(a/n: hehhrhrhrhrhrgh it’s hazel time)

It takes a little driving around, but they find Hazel’s tree of misfit toys eventually. Pillow Central parks on the curb opposite, and with Alice tucked into his hoodie pocket, approaches.

Even without words, as he gets near, he sees the hurting. He feels eyes on him as he reaches up and gently pets the head of a mismatched pokemon plushie- part of it is a Jolteon, the other a Umbreon. The prices alternate, paws and ears and tail. He sees the pupil of the red eye move; it looks toward his fingers.

“Those aren’t real,” it says, and its voice is raspy.

“Hello,” says Alice from the hoodie pocket. The Frankenstein-Pokemon looks down at her, and Pillow Central is glad the attention is off him. “Are you... what is it like,” she continues, “to be in your state?”

“What do you think?” snaps the plushie, and both eyes narrow. Then they soften again, and a smaller, kiddish voice says “It hurts. I’m scared.”

“Be not frightened,” says Alice, but she trials off, and Pillow Central feels her shift uncomfortably in his pocket.

“I’m sorry she did this to you,” Pillow Central says. Louder, he says “I’m sorry she did this to all of you.”

Somewhere, higher in the tree, a plushie begins to wail, ignoring the hisses and shushes it brings. Pillow Central looks nervously around, but the occasional cars just continue pass, and there are no walkers on the street.

“She’s selling us now,” says the one at his hands. “She puts things inside us.”

If it was possible for his ears to perk, they would. “Things?” he asks.

“We don’t know what they are,” says the Jolteon side. “We’ve never seen stuff like it before. It’s metal bits and green rock...”

Alarms go off in Pillow Central’s head. Metal bits and green rock sounds uncannily like alien weapon fragments. “Do you know where she got these things?”

The plushie shakes its head. “You could buy one and see for yourself,” it says, and then laughs bitterly.

“Perhaps we will,” Alice says, and Pillow Central glances down at her.

“We will?”

“It would be interesting to get to know one of these souls better, and you stiffened when it described the things— you think there’s something there.”

“So I’m gonna... have to talk to her.”

“It really isn’t that hard,” Alice says. “Humans are very very easily manipulated, and are very unperceptive.”

He shifts foot to foot. “Okay,” he says finally.

“She’s home now,” says a plushie hanging above him from a string around its neck; it wears a face similar to Espeon, and it hurts to look at. “You should hurt her. Hurt her like she’s hurt us.”

“I can’t do that,” he says.

“Sure you could,” it says, and it rattles its body at him, a mockery of laughter, something inside making a sound similar to the noise he’s heard from rattlesnake videos. “You’re just enamored.”

“Human lover,” hisses another.

“They’ll cut you up!”

“They’ll burn you alive!”

“They don’t really care about us! We’re just toys.”

The one at his hands nods affirmatively at the jeers. “If they cared, they wouldn’t do this.”

“Like all her kind, she doesn’t know,” Alice begins, only to be drowned out by louder wailing and the angry calls of “Seasonal prop!” “Doorstop!” “Dog toy!”

One of them, slightly elevated, sneers at Pillow Central as he passes on the way toward the woman’s front door. “I bet your ‘owner’ doesn’t even love you. Not like they would a real toy. You’re not even a animal,” it says, flicking its Flareon ears.

“You’re just a soft thing for their heads! You’re not better then a teenager’s fuck toy!” howls another, lashing a long Vaporeon tail.

The jeers fall quiet as he stiffly steps up onto the porch and knocks on the door. Pillow Central tucks his hands into the hoodie, gently rubs one of Alice’s ears between his fingers; he feels her place a paw on his hand, and the touch makes the hot red anger pooling in his stomach cool.

“Listen not,” she murmurs. “They are only saying what they know.”

He does not get a chance to answer; the door opens, and the woman who he guesses is Hazel is standing in the doorway, staring at him from beneath her auburn bangs.

She’s in a tank top, and jean shorts that fray at the bottom. Pink flip flops clash with the black and neon rainbow leggings. She twists her nose piercing as he gapes. “You want something or what?” she asks, and her voice drawls Texan more then the owner’s ever has.

“Your— uh, the tree—“

“Yeah? You from the city? You can’t make me take it down, it’s my property—“

“No, no,” he says quickly, “I- I want one.”

She blinks. “Well,” she says, “that’s something. I haven’t had a order in a while.”

Pillow Central frowns. That contradicts what the plushies on the tree told him. But maybe she’s keeping those under wraps, if she really is sending out toys with weapon fragments hidden in them.

“My, uh, my nephew bought one from you,” he says, “and said there was weird hard things it in it? So I came to personally get them a new one.”

Hazel squints at him. “I don’t remember selling to any boys recently,” she says.

“It might have been late last year, you know how busy the holidays are,” he says.

“You got the old one? I don’t take kindly to people claiming my products got something in it,” she says.

“Um, they uh, they removed the items themselves,” he says, and goddamn it he’s stammering. “But they’re... their sewing skills aren’t great and I don’t know how to do it myself and we thought this would be easiest.”

“What they do with them?” she asks.

“Oh, it’s still with them—“

“Not the plushie, dumbass,” she says, “the stuff inside.”

“Oh, uh, I think they kept a few pieces of it; said it was some kind of rock? And they uh, collect rocks...” If he could sweat, he’s certain he’d be sweating now.

Hazel studies him. “You’re too fidgety,” she says finally. “And no one would be wearing that get up at any point in this state.” Her eyes narrow. “What do you want, really?”

He feels Alice press her paw harder against his hand. He glances around, and steps a little closer. “I know there’s something weird going on,” he says. “I want to help.”

Hazel is quiet.

“A - a anonymous source told me you’re putting unknown materials inside your orders,” he says. “And I really— you really shouldn’t be doing that. Not with what you’ve got.” He shifts. “I’m with the government,” he says, and wow now he’s barreling toward XCOM levels here we go, “and we’ve had a few other instances like yours-“

“So you know what it is?”

He avoids her eyes. “Yes.”

“Then you’ve caught me, govie. And I guess then I’ve got something to show you. Maybe you’ll know what to do with it,” she says, and gestures for him to come inside.

He hesitates, the words from the tree plushies echoing in his head, Espeon’s fearful expression in the forefront of his mind.

Then he thanks her for her cooperation, takes a breath, and steps through the doorway.