Just Like Them

The pair dropped off Suds’ cloudee at his home, and have now spent around a half hour together in near silence. Suds keeps trying to decide if he should speak or not, as he wants to have a conversation with the fallen ghost who seems to be content with not saying a word. Maybe, he thinks, it's worth a shot.

"So," he begins, forcing some confidence in himself as they approach a bench, "how long have you been here?"

"Only a day," the ghost signs with a pleasant smile on their face as they sit to his left. A soft blue light is only partially noted from an unknown source.

The signing catches Suds off guard for a second. It's something he's been learning, he just hasn't met anyone who uses it yet.

Since he's learning, he doesn't know much, and his own isn't great as far as grammar goes. He does, at the very least, know the basics. Through the top left hole of his shell, he peeks out to assist his flipper.

"What's your name?" he signs back after a minute, speaking as he does so.

Frankly, the cappari thought the conversation would've ended on their own response - most usually do, as it isn't common for others to know much sign. To see someone else signing and engaging with him has him over the moon.

"You know sign?" the fallen asks instead, smile growing more sincere.

"I'm learning," is the trabble's nervous response, once again speaking as he signs.

Suds' shy chuckle only seemed to comfort the spirit further. A slight chill passes by his face as the other's chest heaves with their growing smile, which he can only assume is meant to be a slight chuckle of their own.

"My name is Gallo," they answer alas, "and my pronouns are he/they. What about you?"

Unfortunately for the mollusk, about half of the sentence was guessed - he could understand the first part, and he knows the fingerspelling, so the rest are context clues pieced together. Fortunately, he knows enough sign that it's not too much of a struggle.

"My name is Suds," he responds carefully, calculating his own movements as he finishes piecing together Gallo's sentence in his head, "and my...what was the sign you used? 'Pronoun'?"

Gallo shows him the sign for "pronoun" slowly upon seeing the final word spelled, and then Suds continues with the new knowledge.

"My pronouns are he/him. It's very nice to meet you!"

“It’s nice to meet you too!” they sign in response. “It’s so nice to be able to communicate with someone else again. Most give up when they realize I can’t speak.”

“I like meeting people,” he signs the best he can, speaking still. Upon realizing he doesn’t know how to sign the rest of his thought, he can only hope he doesn’t sound rude upon asking: “Are you deaf?”

“No,” the cappari signs back with a smile upon seeing him struggle, “I can hear you just fine. You can ask me to slow down if you need help.”

Suds releases a deep sigh of relief, feeling himself instantly warm up. “Thank you,” he signs as he speaks again, tucking himself back into his shell. “As I was saying, language barriers make it harder to make new friends, so I’ve been learning sign to make it easier to meet people.”

The fallen’s smile turns bashful, growing wider at the sincerity of his statement.

“That’s so cute,” they sign, a giggle leaving their lips in a whisper. “I love the way you think of things.”

They turn to face the other fully, and Suds can’t help but gasp upon getting a full look at their cursed eye. Suddenly, they’re ducking their head, covering the cloud coming off their eye with their right hand, and guilt hits the trabble like a freit train.

“I’m sorry,” he says quickly, covering his beak with his flippers. “It’s not bad, really! I-It just startled me is all! You don’t have to - ”

“It’s fine,” they sign a bit too quickly, the air quickly becoming tense.

“No, really!” he’s quick to defend, feeling awful for triggering seemingly a preexisting insecurity in a new friend. “I’d forgotten it was there, and - ”

“It’s fine,” they sign again, bigger this time. “Don’t worry about it.”

Nothing about this seemed fine, necessarily, and still Suds shuts down a bit in lack of words.

After a moment or two of uncomfortable silence, both nearly jump at the sudden rustling in the bushes behind them. Suds’ breath catches in his throat, both refusing to look away from the source of the sound, adjusting themselves to be fully looking at the plants and bracing for the worst. A blue hue flows through said bushes, growing with the volume every second. The trabble bites back a yelp and the ghost lets out a soft gasp as a small creature jumps out of the shrubs.

A pale grey mothmin with bright blue eyes, similar to the cappari’s right eye, begins to cower at the staredown, seemingly not expecting anyone to be around.

It’s then that Suds remembers the faint blue light when the duo first sat down, and only now really paid attention to his surroundings. Underneath the bench, he finds, is a blue tinted lantern, and he can only assume that the mothmin saw the light and followed it.

When he looks back up, he notices the creature is a little less timid as it keeps its eyes locked on the spirit’s - particularly the right eye that he learned the hard way is a very touchy subject. Slowly, cautiously, Gallo gets off the bench and kneels on the ground, offering their hand and curling his fingers to keep their claws from touching the timid familiar.

Just as hesitantly, the mothmin takes a step or two forward and pets itself on the smooth edge of their claw. After a minute or so, the ghost opens his hand a little more in a silent question to pick it up, which is accepted shyly - the fallen still staying on the ground to not make it too uncomfortable.

Watching the two earns a soft smile from Suds, who recalls a similar interaction when he caught his ubra a summer or two back.

“It looks like you,” he says gently, keeping his smile for the other.

Gallo looks over to him, reciprocating the smile as the atmosphere returns to its previous mood.

“Yeah,” they sign with one hand, looking back at the mothmin, “it does kinda look like me.”