COWT; Pokemon; When you don't run anymore
Apr. 1st, 2020 08:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ephitomisTitle: When you don't run anymore - Ch.1
Fandom: Pokemon
Notes: Written for the prompt "Rimpiangere ciò che non è stato (e porvi rimedio)" for COWT10.
Wordcount: 4784
Summary: Losing the Champion Title is the worst thing in Green's life. Not because he lost, but because he felt like no one believed in him in the first place. And so Green hates. But also grows.
When Green was little, he remembers, his grandfather was the one person he looked up to. He was renowned across the region for his prowess and his intelligence, once one of the best Pokemon trainers and now on his way to become a professor that would shade the future generations of Pokemon trainers.
He asked him, once, if he thought Green could be as successful as him and his grandfather had smiles, patted his hair and told him he was sure Green could surpass him.
Green doesn't know when his grandfather stopped believing in him. He has thought about it at length, tried to pinpoint a single moment in time where Green could have lost the respect of the one person he admired, but he just can't see it.
He would ask his grandfather, but at this point in Green's life he has decided to avoid hurting himself on the sharp edge of other people's disappointment in him.
In his head the voice of his grandfather congratulating Red, telling him he was proud of him when he couldn't even show up for Green's success... well that tells him everything he needs to know, right?
-
Right after Red's victory in the league, Green decides not to go back home. He wants to see his sister, and judging by her messages she wants to see him too, but he thinks it would be too much. So instead he travels around Kanto and he trains.
He thinks that if only he gets a little stronger, if only he trains a little harder, he would defeat Red, finally, and win back the affection of his grandfather.
Someone would tell him it's not healthy, he knows, but it's not like he can stop. There's something gnawing at his chest: envy, jealousy and anger that swirl around his ribcage, and a flame that’s impossible to extinguish.
He trains. He defeats random trainers, he goes back to train against the gym leaders and asks them to use their regular teams and not the ones they use against trainers. They do, they battle him, but there's compassion in their eyes.
Erika is the one that stops him one day, after he had defeated her, and asks him "Does any of this make you happy?"
Happiness has never been a priority of Green's. Happyness, he thinks, has been forgotten and left behind on that first route outside of Pallet Town. He doesn't answer them, that terrible feeling obstructing his lungs, his throat. Eevee, faithful companion that she is, nudges him with her snout from her position on his shoulder.
She's been worried about him ever since their defeat in the league, but her worry has only made him angrier somehow. His grandfather told him that he was defeated because he didn't care enough for his Pokemon, and seeing Eevee so concerned only makes his hurt deeper. He loves his pokemon, he trains them hard, but he also rewards them.
They love him, and he doesn't know why his grandfather can't see that.
Erika doesn't wait for Green to finish, she walks up to him and smiles. "I think that maybe you just need to find something else to work towards. I don't pretend to know what you're going through, but maybe this could help."
She slips him a piece of paper and leaves. He crushes it in his hand without reading it and storms out of the gym.
_
He trains in the forest, fighting against wild pokemon and he defeats them easily. Eevee is strong, he knows, stronger than any gym leader's pokemon, stronger than any wild pokemon. She's strong but Green still couldn't defeat Red because it's not his pokemon that need to become stronger, but Green himself.
Only there is no training to be done, no one to fight. There's nothing Green can do and isn't that the crux of the problem? Green just isn't enough.
He collapses on the hard, cold floor of the forest, the crunchy leaves cold against his trousers. He doesn't cry, but he wants to.
What can he do now, when he has lost everything he ever wanted?
Eevee pushes his hand with her snout, trying to catch his attention, but Green shakes his head, closes his eyes. He can't bear to see the disappointment in her eyes as well.
She pushes at him again, and then another time when Green doesn't relent, and he knows from experience that she'll start biting next so he opens his eyes, tired and frustrated. "What?" he asks, angrier than he would have liked.
Eevee doesn't even blink, unmoved by his harsh tone. Her eyes are kind, a little sad maybe, but determined. She looks at him and for a moment Green feels the waves of her loyalty to him.
It's hard to see her, the shadow of the forest covering both of them and cloaking them in darkness. It's night, Green realizes. Have they been training for that long? He wonders if she's exhausted, if what she wants from him is to go home. He would understand, but he's not sure where home is anymore.
Then, Eevee starts glowing.
Green knows what it means, of course, he has seen countless of his pokemon evolve in his career as a Pokemon trainer but Eevee... Eevee is different. Just as Pikachu is different for Red, he thinks.
He knows that Eevee doesn't want to evolve, but she's doing it for him. The darkness around them starts glowing and Green can see the shapes of Umbreon's circle start to grow on Eevee's head and he immediately know this is wrong.
Eevee isn't doing this for herself, she's doing it because she thinks this is what Green wants from her. She loves him, and he's been a rather shitty trainer lately, but she's still willing to evolve for him. To become an Umbreon and it's wrong.
So he puts a hand on her neck and calls desperately "Stop! Don't do this!"
The glow flickers for a second and then fades, leaving the confused frown of his Eevee behind. "Uee?" Eevee asks, and Green can't help but hug her.
There aren't any words for what Green is feeling, he thinks. The loss, the joy, the sorrow, the guilt. He doesn't think he can correctly convey them to Eevee, even if he tried.
So he only says one thing: "We're going home, okay? We're going to rest."
-
Green goes home. His sister frets over him, he sees his grandfather exactly once and then he pretends to have a meeting somewhere and flees.
Red isn't home. He doesn't exactly know where he is, but when he goes to say hi to his mother, he discovers that he hasn't been home ever since he won the league.
Life in Pallet has never been duller, especially now that Green knows what lies beyond Route 1.
He's been home an entire week before he remembers the paper Erika gave him, still crumples in his pocket. He smooths it out as best as he can and reads it for the first time: "We're looking for the new gym leader of Viridian City. Do you think you have what it takes?"
Green has never imagined himself a Gym leader, he's not much of a teacher, he thinks, doesn't have the patience, but at the same time... he's not doing much else in his life, right?
"Do you think they've found anyone?" he wonders out loud, showing the flier to Eevee. She looks up and wags her tail.
Well, that settles it.
-
The gym leader's position is still open. Actually, from what he gathers, no one even tried to apply and Green can see why.
The moment he steps into the Viridian city gym, there's a heaviness that immediately consumes him. The place is clearly abandoned and it looks like even when someone was taking care of it, they weren't doing a great job.
The entire place is dark, the window long shut. There is a lot to be done, that's for sure, but Green thinks that taking care of something that was so clearly forgotten and unloved... he's trying very hard not to see the metaphor here, but it's kind of hard.
"You think we're up for it?" he asks Eevee, unsurprised when she simply wags her tail.
-
He doesn't fix everything in a day. Not even in a month. It takes one year before the gym is back to being functional, and even more than that before people come back to train at the gym.
Trainers passing through Viridian think the gym is supposed to be easy, since there are no trainers beside the gym leader, but Green crushes them with pride. He has created another team, one specific for the trainers that come to challenge him, and it's rewarding to battle with them.
Eevee usually doesn't battle in gym matches, content to just watch them from the side. She's his strongest Pokemon, and not something he can throw at random trainers. It's okay, she doesn't mind the calm.
Green grows. He buys a house in Viridian. It would be easy to just commute from Pallet, but he finds that he enjoys the idea of leaving home. He goes back to the village to see his sister almost once a week. And he pays a visit to Red's mom once a month.
He almost never sees his grandfather, but they're both busy. That's what Green tells himself.
His sister is happy for him, and she tells him every time they meet. "You look happier, healthier..."
Green agrees. He feels happier and healthier, and maybe it's still a work in progress, but he's sturdier now.
Most of his time is spent in the gym, but he frequently visits other gym leaders and takes part in meetings all over the region. His life is fuller, now, and having an objective again, having to prove himself in another field, motivates him.
He hasn't heard from Red in almost two years and he doesn't know how to feel about it. Sometimes he feels like his entire life was wasted running behind Red and trying to catch up to him, and now that their path has diverged so much, it's like a part of him is still falling behind.
But he has his gym, and his trainers, and a life outside of someone else's shadow.
Green is doing fine for himself.
-
The first time he has any real updates about Red, he’s at a gym leader’s meeting and he hears Sabrina say that Red has left his position as Kanto’s champion and retreated on Mt. Silver to train.
Maybe to wait for someone stronger than him to appear.
Selfishly Green thinks that Red could have just left him the title if this was what he was going to do with it, but he doesn’t voice his opinion. He’s trying to be better, after all.
Erika approaches him after the meeting, mirth in her eyes, but Green has been getting better at dealing with her in these years. She might be his closest friend right now, but he’s not ready to face whatever this is.
Green isn’t proud of the way he runs away, but the better part of valor and all that.
Still, he thinks about it. What is Red doing up on that mountain on his own and, most importantly, does his mother know?
Red’s mother has been kind to Green all his life and he likes her more than he does her son most of the time.
It’s possibly the reason why he visits her that afternoon, even if their scheduled tea isn’t for a week.
She seems surprised but happy to see him, and greets him warmly.
“Do you have any news from Red?” he asks her, in the middle of tea and she smiles sadly.
“Oh, some. He never was one to say much, does he? He sends letters, sometimes, but he must be busy…”
Green looks at her, the hopeful expression of a mother that just loves her son and he realizes he can’t do it. He can’t tell her that Red has chosen to isolate himself on top of a mountain. How could he ever explain it?
So he lies.
“Yeah, I’ve heard he’s making a name for himself.” It’s not his most outrageous lie, but it still leaves a bad taste in his mouth.
She doesn’t deserve it, but there’s not much else he can do for her.
-
That night he arrives home and he writes a letter to Red.
Well, he writes a lot of letters to Red, actually, but none of them stick. What should he say to him? They haven’t seen each other in more than two years, and it feels like they haven’t talked in even more.
Green strangely feels like they haven’t really talked since they were kids.
In the end he asks Arcanine to burn all the letters he wrote and decides to forget all about Red and his strange mountain ways.
Building himself back again hasn’t been easy, and it still feels new. Fragile.
It might be selfish, but everyone has always accused him of being just that. He doesn’t mind proving them right, this time.
Eevee doesn’t even seem to be judging him too much.
So he forgets about it for two months. And then he meets his grandfather.
-
It’s not like Green has been avoiding his grandfather, of course, but if they never managed to meet… well, he hasn’t been seeking him out either.
Green doesn’t think his grandfather has noticed, and even if he had, he doesn’t think he would care.
It’s strange to see him outside of his gym, one day, hovering like he doesn’t know what to do with himself.
The vision shocks Green enough that the others interrupt their training. He would feel bad, but for a moment he fears that something might have happened to his sisters.
What other reasons would his grandfather have to show up at his gym?
“Grandpa?” he wonders out loud, hurring closer to him “is everything all right?”
“Oh? Oh, yes,” the older man shakes himself, and smiles at him. “Everything is alright, dear boy. I was just passing by for a field research and I thought I could come and see how you were doing. And what you’ve done with the gym. You’ve done a marvelous job.”
He sounds honest, even if a little unsure.
Green nods, and then looks behind himself, at everything he has built.
He’s proud, he realizes. Proud of what he has accomplished and he doesn’t need his grandfather to recognize it. But he appreciates it all the same.
“Thank you,” he says, and then, as an afterthought, “I think I did well for myself. I arrived here on my own.”
“Of course you have, my boy,” the other says. He sounds proud now, but all Green can think is that day at the league. The day where his grandfather cheered on another boy.
His rival.
He thought that maybe two years could have culled the pain, but he feels it flaring up again, like an old wound that hasn’t healed properly.
Green wonders if he’ll ever be able to let go.
“I have to go back to training, if there’s nothing else,” he says, hurriedly. A dismissal if he has ever given one.
His grandfather hears it clearly and he nods. His smile wavers, dims. Green can’t feel it in himself to take back his words.
“Of course, don’t make me keep you. Just…” he stops, hesitates, “if you’re ever in Pallet and you want to come by the lab… I wouldn’t mind.”
Green nods. Promises he will.
He doesn’t.
-
Still, the exchange lingers in his mind.
Green feels cruel for how he ended things with his grandfather, but can’t find the strength in himself to remedy.
He was so young, he thinks. After the loss, he didn’t want anything more than a little comfort. A “good job”. Anything but what he got.
Green isn’t much older now, of course, just barely nineteen. But back then, almost three years ago… he was so fucking young.
He doesn’t want to go back to how he was three years ago, and so he promises himself to try and not think too much about him or Red.
Considering Green’s life, is probably the reason why everyone can’t fucking shut up about Mt. Silver.
It appears that the rainy season is starting, or so the old lady at the market says. She can tell because most of the wild pokemon are migrating from the mountain itself, scared of the harsh precipitation.
Green doesn’t know if Red has come down, or if he even knows that there’s a storm incoming, but… but.
Red has never been the most perceptive guy. What if he just doesn’t notice? What if he’s up there when the rain arrives?
“Why can’t they just leave me alone?” he wonders out loud, and Eevee nips at his ear. “Oh, shut up.”
He doesn't have much of a choice, does he?
So he writes a letter that night, one he doesn’t erase or reread or burn. With a huff he lets Pidgeot out of his pokèball and hands him the letter.
“I’m sorry, it will be a long journey, but I promise I will give you plenty of treats when you’ll be back, okay?” he purrs to him, petting his flank. “I just need you to find Red at the top of the mountain and then come back. Don’t wait for him to reply.”
Pidgeot trills, nudges Green’s head and then flies away.
There, he thinks, he’s done. Now he doesn’t have to think about it anymore.
Or at least so he hopes. Pidgeot returns that night, a little cold from the icy air on the mountain, but not less for the wear.
Green did his good deed of the month and now... now he's going to just forget everything about it.
-
The next day he returns home from a rather hard training at the gym and the first thing he sees is the Charizard parked in front of his house.
Green is sure that it's not the pokemon of one of his trainers, nor someone else in Viridian. Everything clicks after he turns his gaze just a little bit to the left and he sees the man sitting just beside his front door.
Red isn't even looking at him, he's playing with his Pikachu, as he usually does, while Charizard holds his tail between them, probably keeping them warm.
Green really has no idea what the fuck would Red be doing in front of his house.
"Red?" he asks, surprised. "What-- how?"
Red looks up, having finally noticed him, and he just holds up the letter Green wrote to him the day before. His own scratchy handwriting taunts him.
Fuck off and go home is neatly written in the paper. Maybe not the most elegant letter, but Green thought it would get the message across.
Considering Red is here and not, in fact, home, he must have miscalculated.
"I meant your home," he says, since he's not sure what else he's supposed to say. There was nothing in his brief message that could have hinted at Red being invited into his home.
The fuck off in the beginning, he thinks, should have been a clear enough warning not to show his face.
Red has always been kind of slow.
Still, the other doesn't seem deterred by Green's tone and he just stays there, looking at him with kind of a vacant expression.
Eevee, the fucking traitor, jumps down from Green shoulder to greet Pikachu and Charizard and Green wants to reach out to her, hold her back. He doesn't know why he doesn't want her to be so friendly with Red's pokemon.
It's this that convinces him to move. He's not acting like Green the gym leader, but like Green the little kid who was too bitter, too hurt, too fragile.
He has grown, he thinks with vindication, far from Red and his grandfather. He's a new person now and he won't allow them to ruin everything he has built.
"Fine," he mutters, advancing. "You can stay for one night. And then tomorrow you'll go home and talk to your mom, okay? She's lonely."
Red seems taken aback for a second but he nods, once, and then he follows Green inside his house.
-
Red has always been a kid of few words. Ever since they were little, playing in the streets of Pallet, Red was always quieter than most.
Green, who was a kid who liked to talk and talk, never really minded. He learnt to read the silences, thought of it as their own secret code.
It was probably mostly in his imagination, because Red has never treated Green like a true friend, but it has made him one of the foremost experts in Red.
Still, today, while they eat the soup Green has made for them, he has no idea what Red is thinking. Why is he here, instead of with his mother, why did he go up that damn mountain?
There's a vast divide between them, one born of years of resentment and distance. Green feels like he should make an attempt to fill the gap, but he's so very tired.
"Why haven't you written to your mom?" he asks, at one point. It's really the most pressing question, after all, and the one that makes no sense to him.
He talks with his sister frequently, and maybe he doesn't talk with his grandfather enough, but Red was always close with his mom.
The other doesn't look up from his soup, and shrugs. It's not a nonchalant shrug, nor the one Red uses when he doesn't know the answer.
It's a shrug that means that Red doesn't really know how to explain it. Doesn't know how to put into words what he's feeling. it's more hurt than anything else.
Maybe there's something that Green doesn't know. His cheng pings with sympathy, and he can't help but think about his own situation.
He should stay silent, he thinks, just let the other deal with his own problems but... but.
"If you don't want to stay with her," he says, against his better judgement, "you can stay here until the rainy season stops. Just... just go talk to her tomorrow."
Green doesn't wait for the other to answer, picks up their empty bowls and hurries to the kitchen, feeling out of sorts.
Eevee follows him, and simply watches him.
"Don't look at me like that," he mutters, angrily. "I just..." I just wanted to help him, I just couldn't help myself. I don't know what else to do.
I just want him to need me, just once.
"Fuck," he murmurs quietly.
Eevee, thankfully, stays silent.
-
The next day he leaves early to go train in the gym and doesn't bother waking up his guest. There's a part of him that hopes that Red won't be there when he returns home. He could decide to go back home to his mom, after all, or maybe to brave the terrible precipitations in the mountain.
He could up and vanish from Green's word exactly like three years ago, leaving nothing but emptiness in his stead.
Green trains, fights a couple of trainers, and then he closes the gym and goes home. Not a minute later, not a minute earlier than usual.
He doesn't hurry to cover the short distance from the gym to his home, nor he drags his feet. Whatever Red has chosen to do, Green won't let it affect his day or his life anymore.
Green arrives home and he sees light from his window. He gets closer and he can see Red, seated in front of the chimney, and Pikachu curled in his lap,
He stayed, then. Red stayed.
Green opens his door, drops his bag in the front porch and walks towards the living room. Red is still there, looking at Green with what someone would think it's a placid expression.
Red knows better: he's uncertain, a little scared. He looks like an Abra ready to teleport away. Beside his chair there's a bag, probably filled with clothes he took from home.
The other looks like he intends to say a while. Until the rainy season closes, Green thinks.
There are many things that Green could say, of course, but instead he just walks into the kitchen and says, making sure to raise his voice so that Red could hear him: "The next time you could at least cook."
Green doesn't know how Red reacts, doesn't turn when he hears someone enter the kitchen, but he simply holds up the onion and the knife for Red to take and help him cook.
It's really the least he could do.
-
The rain arrives the next day, and while Viridian doesn't suffer the worst of it, there's a proper storm wrecking the top of Mt. Silver. Sometimes Green looks at it and can't regret his decision to write that stupid letter.
Red is quiet, but in the way Red always is. He's relaxed, and most days he follows Green to his gym and just sits quietly in a corner and watches.
It's obvious a part of him wants to battle, but he never makes a move to actually join in the training.
Sometimes Green wonders what it would be like to just call him, challenge him to a duel. No stakes, no titles. Just for fun.
They both love Pokemon and battling so much, but it feels like they lost the joy of battling each other along the way.
But Green never asks him to and Red never joins in the training and so they never battle.
Still, at night they cook together, spend time in front of the chimney where Green talks and Red listens and sometimes grunts and it's... peaceful.
It reminds him of the easy camaraderie they had when they were young, and it warms him more than the fire can.
Red smiles in his direction, sometimes, while Green is in the middle of telling him a match at the gym, and Green has to stop for a moment and savor the image.
Maybe... maybe they can still be friends, he thinks. After everything. Maybe, while he was trying to move one, he managed to actually overcome that day in the League.
Is he stronger than Red? Probably not, but his own self-worth isn't tied to that anymore.
He has a gym now, and he's doing right by it. He's been restored the title of eight gym in Kanto. The last one, the hardest.
He doesn't need to fight Red to feel accomplished. He's doing fine like he is.
-
The next day he challenges Red to a duel and loses. It's a close call, and they're both down to their last Pokemon and it's the most fun that Green's had in a while.
Red seems to have enjoyed it as well, and there's a light in his eyes that shines for the entire day.
They fight every day, and every day Red wins... Green doesn't really care. It's fun, and that's all he cares about.
One day he goes to one of the gym leaders meeting, and at the end Erika joins him, smiling: "You look more settled," she tells him, with a proud look in her eyes, "I don't know what you're doing, but keep doing it."
"I don't know what you're talking about," he answers, with a smirk, "leave me alone you crazy person."
Erika laughs, quick and light. "Tea at my gym next week?" she asks and Green nods.
Maybe he will tell her about Red then.
-
Not that there's much to say beside the battling and the eating in silence. They haven't really talked about anything really important, or so it seems to Green at least.
They fight, they train, they eat, but Green still has the same question he had when Red appeared that day on his door.
Every night he promises himself he would ask and demand some answers, but he never does.
-
Two months go on quickly, and Green has lost track of the season when the same lady from before tells him: "Rainy season will be over soon," she says, looking at the thundering sky, "isn't that a blessing?"
Green looks up as well and thinks of nights spent around the fire, and childish pokemon battles.
He forgot there was a time limit on this new normal and he shivers at the reminder.
"Yeah, what a blessing."
Fandom: Pokemon
Notes: Written for the prompt "Rimpiangere ciò che non è stato (e porvi rimedio)" for COWT10.
Wordcount: 4784
Summary: Losing the Champion Title is the worst thing in Green's life. Not because he lost, but because he felt like no one believed in him in the first place. And so Green hates. But also grows.
When Green was little, he remembers, his grandfather was the one person he looked up to. He was renowned across the region for his prowess and his intelligence, once one of the best Pokemon trainers and now on his way to become a professor that would shade the future generations of Pokemon trainers.
He asked him, once, if he thought Green could be as successful as him and his grandfather had smiles, patted his hair and told him he was sure Green could surpass him.
Green doesn't know when his grandfather stopped believing in him. He has thought about it at length, tried to pinpoint a single moment in time where Green could have lost the respect of the one person he admired, but he just can't see it.
He would ask his grandfather, but at this point in Green's life he has decided to avoid hurting himself on the sharp edge of other people's disappointment in him.
In his head the voice of his grandfather congratulating Red, telling him he was proud of him when he couldn't even show up for Green's success... well that tells him everything he needs to know, right?
-
Right after Red's victory in the league, Green decides not to go back home. He wants to see his sister, and judging by her messages she wants to see him too, but he thinks it would be too much. So instead he travels around Kanto and he trains.
He thinks that if only he gets a little stronger, if only he trains a little harder, he would defeat Red, finally, and win back the affection of his grandfather.
Someone would tell him it's not healthy, he knows, but it's not like he can stop. There's something gnawing at his chest: envy, jealousy and anger that swirl around his ribcage, and a flame that’s impossible to extinguish.
He trains. He defeats random trainers, he goes back to train against the gym leaders and asks them to use their regular teams and not the ones they use against trainers. They do, they battle him, but there's compassion in their eyes.
Erika is the one that stops him one day, after he had defeated her, and asks him "Does any of this make you happy?"
Happiness has never been a priority of Green's. Happyness, he thinks, has been forgotten and left behind on that first route outside of Pallet Town. He doesn't answer them, that terrible feeling obstructing his lungs, his throat. Eevee, faithful companion that she is, nudges him with her snout from her position on his shoulder.
She's been worried about him ever since their defeat in the league, but her worry has only made him angrier somehow. His grandfather told him that he was defeated because he didn't care enough for his Pokemon, and seeing Eevee so concerned only makes his hurt deeper. He loves his pokemon, he trains them hard, but he also rewards them.
They love him, and he doesn't know why his grandfather can't see that.
Erika doesn't wait for Green to finish, she walks up to him and smiles. "I think that maybe you just need to find something else to work towards. I don't pretend to know what you're going through, but maybe this could help."
She slips him a piece of paper and leaves. He crushes it in his hand without reading it and storms out of the gym.
_
He trains in the forest, fighting against wild pokemon and he defeats them easily. Eevee is strong, he knows, stronger than any gym leader's pokemon, stronger than any wild pokemon. She's strong but Green still couldn't defeat Red because it's not his pokemon that need to become stronger, but Green himself.
Only there is no training to be done, no one to fight. There's nothing Green can do and isn't that the crux of the problem? Green just isn't enough.
He collapses on the hard, cold floor of the forest, the crunchy leaves cold against his trousers. He doesn't cry, but he wants to.
What can he do now, when he has lost everything he ever wanted?
Eevee pushes his hand with her snout, trying to catch his attention, but Green shakes his head, closes his eyes. He can't bear to see the disappointment in her eyes as well.
She pushes at him again, and then another time when Green doesn't relent, and he knows from experience that she'll start biting next so he opens his eyes, tired and frustrated. "What?" he asks, angrier than he would have liked.
Eevee doesn't even blink, unmoved by his harsh tone. Her eyes are kind, a little sad maybe, but determined. She looks at him and for a moment Green feels the waves of her loyalty to him.
It's hard to see her, the shadow of the forest covering both of them and cloaking them in darkness. It's night, Green realizes. Have they been training for that long? He wonders if she's exhausted, if what she wants from him is to go home. He would understand, but he's not sure where home is anymore.
Then, Eevee starts glowing.
Green knows what it means, of course, he has seen countless of his pokemon evolve in his career as a Pokemon trainer but Eevee... Eevee is different. Just as Pikachu is different for Red, he thinks.
He knows that Eevee doesn't want to evolve, but she's doing it for him. The darkness around them starts glowing and Green can see the shapes of Umbreon's circle start to grow on Eevee's head and he immediately know this is wrong.
Eevee isn't doing this for herself, she's doing it because she thinks this is what Green wants from her. She loves him, and he's been a rather shitty trainer lately, but she's still willing to evolve for him. To become an Umbreon and it's wrong.
So he puts a hand on her neck and calls desperately "Stop! Don't do this!"
The glow flickers for a second and then fades, leaving the confused frown of his Eevee behind. "Uee?" Eevee asks, and Green can't help but hug her.
There aren't any words for what Green is feeling, he thinks. The loss, the joy, the sorrow, the guilt. He doesn't think he can correctly convey them to Eevee, even if he tried.
So he only says one thing: "We're going home, okay? We're going to rest."
-
Green goes home. His sister frets over him, he sees his grandfather exactly once and then he pretends to have a meeting somewhere and flees.
Red isn't home. He doesn't exactly know where he is, but when he goes to say hi to his mother, he discovers that he hasn't been home ever since he won the league.
Life in Pallet has never been duller, especially now that Green knows what lies beyond Route 1.
He's been home an entire week before he remembers the paper Erika gave him, still crumples in his pocket. He smooths it out as best as he can and reads it for the first time: "We're looking for the new gym leader of Viridian City. Do you think you have what it takes?"
Green has never imagined himself a Gym leader, he's not much of a teacher, he thinks, doesn't have the patience, but at the same time... he's not doing much else in his life, right?
"Do you think they've found anyone?" he wonders out loud, showing the flier to Eevee. She looks up and wags her tail.
Well, that settles it.
-
The gym leader's position is still open. Actually, from what he gathers, no one even tried to apply and Green can see why.
The moment he steps into the Viridian city gym, there's a heaviness that immediately consumes him. The place is clearly abandoned and it looks like even when someone was taking care of it, they weren't doing a great job.
The entire place is dark, the window long shut. There is a lot to be done, that's for sure, but Green thinks that taking care of something that was so clearly forgotten and unloved... he's trying very hard not to see the metaphor here, but it's kind of hard.
"You think we're up for it?" he asks Eevee, unsurprised when she simply wags her tail.
-
He doesn't fix everything in a day. Not even in a month. It takes one year before the gym is back to being functional, and even more than that before people come back to train at the gym.
Trainers passing through Viridian think the gym is supposed to be easy, since there are no trainers beside the gym leader, but Green crushes them with pride. He has created another team, one specific for the trainers that come to challenge him, and it's rewarding to battle with them.
Eevee usually doesn't battle in gym matches, content to just watch them from the side. She's his strongest Pokemon, and not something he can throw at random trainers. It's okay, she doesn't mind the calm.
Green grows. He buys a house in Viridian. It would be easy to just commute from Pallet, but he finds that he enjoys the idea of leaving home. He goes back to the village to see his sister almost once a week. And he pays a visit to Red's mom once a month.
He almost never sees his grandfather, but they're both busy. That's what Green tells himself.
His sister is happy for him, and she tells him every time they meet. "You look happier, healthier..."
Green agrees. He feels happier and healthier, and maybe it's still a work in progress, but he's sturdier now.
Most of his time is spent in the gym, but he frequently visits other gym leaders and takes part in meetings all over the region. His life is fuller, now, and having an objective again, having to prove himself in another field, motivates him.
He hasn't heard from Red in almost two years and he doesn't know how to feel about it. Sometimes he feels like his entire life was wasted running behind Red and trying to catch up to him, and now that their path has diverged so much, it's like a part of him is still falling behind.
But he has his gym, and his trainers, and a life outside of someone else's shadow.
Green is doing fine for himself.
-
The first time he has any real updates about Red, he’s at a gym leader’s meeting and he hears Sabrina say that Red has left his position as Kanto’s champion and retreated on Mt. Silver to train.
Maybe to wait for someone stronger than him to appear.
Selfishly Green thinks that Red could have just left him the title if this was what he was going to do with it, but he doesn’t voice his opinion. He’s trying to be better, after all.
Erika approaches him after the meeting, mirth in her eyes, but Green has been getting better at dealing with her in these years. She might be his closest friend right now, but he’s not ready to face whatever this is.
Green isn’t proud of the way he runs away, but the better part of valor and all that.
Still, he thinks about it. What is Red doing up on that mountain on his own and, most importantly, does his mother know?
Red’s mother has been kind to Green all his life and he likes her more than he does her son most of the time.
It’s possibly the reason why he visits her that afternoon, even if their scheduled tea isn’t for a week.
She seems surprised but happy to see him, and greets him warmly.
“Do you have any news from Red?” he asks her, in the middle of tea and she smiles sadly.
“Oh, some. He never was one to say much, does he? He sends letters, sometimes, but he must be busy…”
Green looks at her, the hopeful expression of a mother that just loves her son and he realizes he can’t do it. He can’t tell her that Red has chosen to isolate himself on top of a mountain. How could he ever explain it?
So he lies.
“Yeah, I’ve heard he’s making a name for himself.” It’s not his most outrageous lie, but it still leaves a bad taste in his mouth.
She doesn’t deserve it, but there’s not much else he can do for her.
-
That night he arrives home and he writes a letter to Red.
Well, he writes a lot of letters to Red, actually, but none of them stick. What should he say to him? They haven’t seen each other in more than two years, and it feels like they haven’t talked in even more.
Green strangely feels like they haven’t really talked since they were kids.
In the end he asks Arcanine to burn all the letters he wrote and decides to forget all about Red and his strange mountain ways.
Building himself back again hasn’t been easy, and it still feels new. Fragile.
It might be selfish, but everyone has always accused him of being just that. He doesn’t mind proving them right, this time.
Eevee doesn’t even seem to be judging him too much.
So he forgets about it for two months. And then he meets his grandfather.
-
It’s not like Green has been avoiding his grandfather, of course, but if they never managed to meet… well, he hasn’t been seeking him out either.
Green doesn’t think his grandfather has noticed, and even if he had, he doesn’t think he would care.
It’s strange to see him outside of his gym, one day, hovering like he doesn’t know what to do with himself.
The vision shocks Green enough that the others interrupt their training. He would feel bad, but for a moment he fears that something might have happened to his sisters.
What other reasons would his grandfather have to show up at his gym?
“Grandpa?” he wonders out loud, hurring closer to him “is everything all right?”
“Oh? Oh, yes,” the older man shakes himself, and smiles at him. “Everything is alright, dear boy. I was just passing by for a field research and I thought I could come and see how you were doing. And what you’ve done with the gym. You’ve done a marvelous job.”
He sounds honest, even if a little unsure.
Green nods, and then looks behind himself, at everything he has built.
He’s proud, he realizes. Proud of what he has accomplished and he doesn’t need his grandfather to recognize it. But he appreciates it all the same.
“Thank you,” he says, and then, as an afterthought, “I think I did well for myself. I arrived here on my own.”
“Of course you have, my boy,” the other says. He sounds proud now, but all Green can think is that day at the league. The day where his grandfather cheered on another boy.
His rival.
He thought that maybe two years could have culled the pain, but he feels it flaring up again, like an old wound that hasn’t healed properly.
Green wonders if he’ll ever be able to let go.
“I have to go back to training, if there’s nothing else,” he says, hurriedly. A dismissal if he has ever given one.
His grandfather hears it clearly and he nods. His smile wavers, dims. Green can’t feel it in himself to take back his words.
“Of course, don’t make me keep you. Just…” he stops, hesitates, “if you’re ever in Pallet and you want to come by the lab… I wouldn’t mind.”
Green nods. Promises he will.
He doesn’t.
-
Still, the exchange lingers in his mind.
Green feels cruel for how he ended things with his grandfather, but can’t find the strength in himself to remedy.
He was so young, he thinks. After the loss, he didn’t want anything more than a little comfort. A “good job”. Anything but what he got.
Green isn’t much older now, of course, just barely nineteen. But back then, almost three years ago… he was so fucking young.
He doesn’t want to go back to how he was three years ago, and so he promises himself to try and not think too much about him or Red.
Considering Green’s life, is probably the reason why everyone can’t fucking shut up about Mt. Silver.
It appears that the rainy season is starting, or so the old lady at the market says. She can tell because most of the wild pokemon are migrating from the mountain itself, scared of the harsh precipitation.
Green doesn’t know if Red has come down, or if he even knows that there’s a storm incoming, but… but.
Red has never been the most perceptive guy. What if he just doesn’t notice? What if he’s up there when the rain arrives?
“Why can’t they just leave me alone?” he wonders out loud, and Eevee nips at his ear. “Oh, shut up.”
He doesn't have much of a choice, does he?
So he writes a letter that night, one he doesn’t erase or reread or burn. With a huff he lets Pidgeot out of his pokèball and hands him the letter.
“I’m sorry, it will be a long journey, but I promise I will give you plenty of treats when you’ll be back, okay?” he purrs to him, petting his flank. “I just need you to find Red at the top of the mountain and then come back. Don’t wait for him to reply.”
Pidgeot trills, nudges Green’s head and then flies away.
There, he thinks, he’s done. Now he doesn’t have to think about it anymore.
Or at least so he hopes. Pidgeot returns that night, a little cold from the icy air on the mountain, but not less for the wear.
Green did his good deed of the month and now... now he's going to just forget everything about it.
-
The next day he returns home from a rather hard training at the gym and the first thing he sees is the Charizard parked in front of his house.
Green is sure that it's not the pokemon of one of his trainers, nor someone else in Viridian. Everything clicks after he turns his gaze just a little bit to the left and he sees the man sitting just beside his front door.
Red isn't even looking at him, he's playing with his Pikachu, as he usually does, while Charizard holds his tail between them, probably keeping them warm.
Green really has no idea what the fuck would Red be doing in front of his house.
"Red?" he asks, surprised. "What-- how?"
Red looks up, having finally noticed him, and he just holds up the letter Green wrote to him the day before. His own scratchy handwriting taunts him.
Fuck off and go home is neatly written in the paper. Maybe not the most elegant letter, but Green thought it would get the message across.
Considering Red is here and not, in fact, home, he must have miscalculated.
"I meant your home," he says, since he's not sure what else he's supposed to say. There was nothing in his brief message that could have hinted at Red being invited into his home.
The fuck off in the beginning, he thinks, should have been a clear enough warning not to show his face.
Red has always been kind of slow.
Still, the other doesn't seem deterred by Green's tone and he just stays there, looking at him with kind of a vacant expression.
Eevee, the fucking traitor, jumps down from Green shoulder to greet Pikachu and Charizard and Green wants to reach out to her, hold her back. He doesn't know why he doesn't want her to be so friendly with Red's pokemon.
It's this that convinces him to move. He's not acting like Green the gym leader, but like Green the little kid who was too bitter, too hurt, too fragile.
He has grown, he thinks with vindication, far from Red and his grandfather. He's a new person now and he won't allow them to ruin everything he has built.
"Fine," he mutters, advancing. "You can stay for one night. And then tomorrow you'll go home and talk to your mom, okay? She's lonely."
Red seems taken aback for a second but he nods, once, and then he follows Green inside his house.
-
Red has always been a kid of few words. Ever since they were little, playing in the streets of Pallet, Red was always quieter than most.
Green, who was a kid who liked to talk and talk, never really minded. He learnt to read the silences, thought of it as their own secret code.
It was probably mostly in his imagination, because Red has never treated Green like a true friend, but it has made him one of the foremost experts in Red.
Still, today, while they eat the soup Green has made for them, he has no idea what Red is thinking. Why is he here, instead of with his mother, why did he go up that damn mountain?
There's a vast divide between them, one born of years of resentment and distance. Green feels like he should make an attempt to fill the gap, but he's so very tired.
"Why haven't you written to your mom?" he asks, at one point. It's really the most pressing question, after all, and the one that makes no sense to him.
He talks with his sister frequently, and maybe he doesn't talk with his grandfather enough, but Red was always close with his mom.
The other doesn't look up from his soup, and shrugs. It's not a nonchalant shrug, nor the one Red uses when he doesn't know the answer.
It's a shrug that means that Red doesn't really know how to explain it. Doesn't know how to put into words what he's feeling. it's more hurt than anything else.
Maybe there's something that Green doesn't know. His cheng pings with sympathy, and he can't help but think about his own situation.
He should stay silent, he thinks, just let the other deal with his own problems but... but.
"If you don't want to stay with her," he says, against his better judgement, "you can stay here until the rainy season stops. Just... just go talk to her tomorrow."
Green doesn't wait for the other to answer, picks up their empty bowls and hurries to the kitchen, feeling out of sorts.
Eevee follows him, and simply watches him.
"Don't look at me like that," he mutters, angrily. "I just..." I just wanted to help him, I just couldn't help myself. I don't know what else to do.
I just want him to need me, just once.
"Fuck," he murmurs quietly.
Eevee, thankfully, stays silent.
-
The next day he leaves early to go train in the gym and doesn't bother waking up his guest. There's a part of him that hopes that Red won't be there when he returns home. He could decide to go back home to his mom, after all, or maybe to brave the terrible precipitations in the mountain.
He could up and vanish from Green's word exactly like three years ago, leaving nothing but emptiness in his stead.
Green trains, fights a couple of trainers, and then he closes the gym and goes home. Not a minute later, not a minute earlier than usual.
He doesn't hurry to cover the short distance from the gym to his home, nor he drags his feet. Whatever Red has chosen to do, Green won't let it affect his day or his life anymore.
Green arrives home and he sees light from his window. He gets closer and he can see Red, seated in front of the chimney, and Pikachu curled in his lap,
He stayed, then. Red stayed.
Green opens his door, drops his bag in the front porch and walks towards the living room. Red is still there, looking at Green with what someone would think it's a placid expression.
Red knows better: he's uncertain, a little scared. He looks like an Abra ready to teleport away. Beside his chair there's a bag, probably filled with clothes he took from home.
The other looks like he intends to say a while. Until the rainy season closes, Green thinks.
There are many things that Green could say, of course, but instead he just walks into the kitchen and says, making sure to raise his voice so that Red could hear him: "The next time you could at least cook."
Green doesn't know how Red reacts, doesn't turn when he hears someone enter the kitchen, but he simply holds up the onion and the knife for Red to take and help him cook.
It's really the least he could do.
-
The rain arrives the next day, and while Viridian doesn't suffer the worst of it, there's a proper storm wrecking the top of Mt. Silver. Sometimes Green looks at it and can't regret his decision to write that stupid letter.
Red is quiet, but in the way Red always is. He's relaxed, and most days he follows Green to his gym and just sits quietly in a corner and watches.
It's obvious a part of him wants to battle, but he never makes a move to actually join in the training.
Sometimes Green wonders what it would be like to just call him, challenge him to a duel. No stakes, no titles. Just for fun.
They both love Pokemon and battling so much, but it feels like they lost the joy of battling each other along the way.
But Green never asks him to and Red never joins in the training and so they never battle.
Still, at night they cook together, spend time in front of the chimney where Green talks and Red listens and sometimes grunts and it's... peaceful.
It reminds him of the easy camaraderie they had when they were young, and it warms him more than the fire can.
Red smiles in his direction, sometimes, while Green is in the middle of telling him a match at the gym, and Green has to stop for a moment and savor the image.
Maybe... maybe they can still be friends, he thinks. After everything. Maybe, while he was trying to move one, he managed to actually overcome that day in the League.
Is he stronger than Red? Probably not, but his own self-worth isn't tied to that anymore.
He has a gym now, and he's doing right by it. He's been restored the title of eight gym in Kanto. The last one, the hardest.
He doesn't need to fight Red to feel accomplished. He's doing fine like he is.
-
The next day he challenges Red to a duel and loses. It's a close call, and they're both down to their last Pokemon and it's the most fun that Green's had in a while.
Red seems to have enjoyed it as well, and there's a light in his eyes that shines for the entire day.
They fight every day, and every day Red wins... Green doesn't really care. It's fun, and that's all he cares about.
One day he goes to one of the gym leaders meeting, and at the end Erika joins him, smiling: "You look more settled," she tells him, with a proud look in her eyes, "I don't know what you're doing, but keep doing it."
"I don't know what you're talking about," he answers, with a smirk, "leave me alone you crazy person."
Erika laughs, quick and light. "Tea at my gym next week?" she asks and Green nods.
Maybe he will tell her about Red then.
-
Not that there's much to say beside the battling and the eating in silence. They haven't really talked about anything really important, or so it seems to Green at least.
They fight, they train, they eat, but Green still has the same question he had when Red appeared that day on his door.
Every night he promises himself he would ask and demand some answers, but he never does.
-
Two months go on quickly, and Green has lost track of the season when the same lady from before tells him: "Rainy season will be over soon," she says, looking at the thundering sky, "isn't that a blessing?"
Green looks up as well and thinks of nights spent around the fire, and childish pokemon battles.
He forgot there was a time limit on this new normal and he shivers at the reminder.
"Yeah, what a blessing."
