[fanfic] They Harder They Come - Act I (Part 2/2)
Click to return to Act I (Part 1)
Act I (continued)
It goes on like this for days. Weeks.
Each day, Archer calls out strong pokémon to battle them, and they lose each and every time. There are no breaks in the routine - battle, loss, punishment.
When it comes to punish their pokémon for losing, Red still won't raise a hand to his pikachu. So Archer raises his hand to him. They are mostly punches, the punishments for insubordination - Archer seems to have reconsidered using his pokémon as the sources of punishment - and Red takes it without making any noise. There is a map of bruises and cuts underneath the loosely fitting uniform. Green catches glimpses of them whenever Red is sleeping. It gets less and less hard to see each time.
Green stopped intervening after the third time. There is something insane about throwing yourself into the same situation again and again expecting a different result, and in the end his sense of self-preservation wins out. He does not want to get hurt.
(He does not want Red to get hurt either, but there is isn't anything he can do about that.)
One day, when Archer has Red sprawled on the floor from the force of a slap, Pikachu lets out a keening sound and struggles to his feet. His right ear, which never quite healed from the onix's rockslide, twitches at his side. Green expects the rodent to try and attack Archer, but instead, it slams its head against the floor once, twice, three times, staring at the Rocket all the while.
Archer barks out an astonished laugh at the pokémon's actions, and Green's eyes can only widen in comprehension.
"Pikachu… no…" Red murmurs. There are tears shimmering in his eyes.
It's clear that the pokémon wants to be punished, Green thinks. Why can't Red see that? He strides over to it kicks at it, face stony.
Green stares down at Red, sees the betrayal in his face. Sneering, he kicks at the rodent again.
Archer's laughter seems to grow even louder at this.
After training, Archer lets them shower and use an actual bathroom instead of a corner of the arena. They're allowed a change of clothes into uniforms that actually fit, and are allowed to sleep in the room from before instead of the cold hard floor of the training room.
It's the first night Green doesn't feel guilty for what he's done. He stretches his sore body out on the mattress, buries his face in the softness of his pillow, and inhales the clean smell of detergent. These things are nowhere near as pleasant as they were back home, but there is something about having earned these comforts that makes it more enjoyable. It doesn't matter that Green earned it by kicking a pokémon until it passed out - that isn't the point of it at all.
The point is that Green knows the rules now, and now that he does, he's playing for keeps.
- . . . -
Some men are born heroes, and then there are those that need a push in the right direction.
Green clearly belongs to the latter category. Left unguided, he would spend his days seeking out a noble title for all the wrong reasons. He would long to taste fame and renown, for those are the only things that would even begin to sate his hunger for recognition and adoration, his thirst for approval and acceptance. He would run across fields and mountaintops, caves and forests, trying to keep ahead of a boy with fire in his eyes and an instinctual talent that far surpasses his own. It is only at the end of his journey, when that boy with the indomitable will of fire shoves him off the crest of his ambitions and into the position of second best, that Green would learn how to be unselfish, how to subsist on the love of his pokémon partners and friends. And that man would be a good hero - perhaps not remembered by the history books, but loved and loved well.
But alas, that is in another life.
- . . . -
Red isn't talking to him again, but Green doesn't care.
They were beaten because they were weak, so maybe they deserved the punishment. Strength is the only thing that counts in this world they've been thrown into. There is no room for compassion, patience, or friendship, especially not with their pokémon. All they have is each other-Red and Green. If Eevee and Pikachu are too weak to protect them, then they're useless.
These thoughts run through Green's head in time with the throb of his arm and the dull ache of the bruises he'd received from the last training session. His eyes, gone hard and dark, stare at nothing, so he does not realize that Eevee is drawing closer until she is but a few inches away.
He jerks back at the sight of her, and her eyes, wide and brown, shine with something that Green faintly recognizes as hurt. She steps forward again, limping, and Green draws back again, unable to look at her anymore.
She mewls softly and lies down by the foot of his bed, her head resting on the floor dejectedly.
Green won't let himself feel guilty for what he's done anymore, so he won't let her - no, it show him any sympathy either.
- . . . -
One day Green figures out the pattern.
They are battling a particularly savage rhydon. Pikachu and Eevee are darting about the field in an attempt to hold out as long as they can. Evading their attacks until Archer orders the use of a devastatingly powerful move that ends the battle in one fell swoop is just a stall tactic, but it is the most effective available to them. The tail whip/growl strategy, while effective in theory, always ends up getting their pokémon hurt when they get close enough to use the moves. Even if the strategy works, it would take Eevee too many tackle attacks to knock out their opponent, weakened defense stat and all. It certainly doesn't help that Pikachu is useless in every scenario - his electric attacks barely making the resistant rock and ground types blink in irritation.
At least evading their opponent altogether let them delay the inevitable a little while longer…
The rhydon lunges at Pikachu with a roar. The rodent just barely manages to avoid the beast by throwing himself down and through the space between his attacker's colossal legs. He makes it under its swinging tail just as the rhydon's horn drill strikes the ground, causing a horrible, earsplitting screech as it cuts through to the concrete underneath.
Green doesn't even bother covering his ears, eyes squinting through the pulverized dust that fills the air around the rhydon's bowed head. When it manages to pull its horn out from the floor, it will have them in its direct line of sight. This means that it'll attack them next, in all likelihood. Biting his lower lip, he starts planning their exit strategy with the intense foresight of someone who has had a colossal attacker come after him many times before.
Roll out of the way… then get up and run? No, rhydon are quicker than that… it'll be on us before we can get up…. Run in opposite directions… have the pokémon come in to cover us… no, that won't work -
And then it hits him.
He's supposed to be a Rocket - why not take a page right out of their book of tricks?
"Tackle, now!" he orders.
He can hear Archer's amused chuckle from across the field, "How many times will it take for you to learn -" he begins mockingly.
But Green isn't pointing at their pokémon opponent now…
The Rocket is cut off with a grunt as the air in his lungs leaves him all at once. He crumples in on himself just as Eevee pushes herself off his middle and lands a few feet away, growling menacingly.
Beside him, Red tenses with understanding.
"Don't let him get back up!" Green commands.
As Archer tries to get back onto his feet, Eevee snarls and lunges at his arm, sinking her sharp teeth into the flesh there.
Finally, the rhydon manages to dislodge its horn from the ground. It stumbles for a moment, its giant hind legs backpedaling as it attempts to regain its balance. Then, it turns its red eyes onto the boys and lets out a roar.
He reaches out and taps Red on the elbow. The other boy looks at him with widened eyes, his face devoid of all the righteous anger it had held toward Green as he slowly drags his fingers up his arm. Green's face twists in a smirk momentarily, then he lifts his hand off the other boy's shoulder and points it at the ceiling. Red's eyes follow, his eyes squinted as he searches for what Green means and -
They narrow in realization when, his eyes catching a glint of metal.
"Pikachu!" Red yells without looking away from the ceiling.
The yellow mouse turns away from Archer's crumpled form and looks back to follow his trainer's gaze. It breaks into a run, heading straight at the rhydon.
Before the rhydon can begin running at its new targets, Pikachu leaps onto his opponent's tail, making it cry out in confusion and whip the rocky appendage about. But Pikachu holds on, steadfast and stubborn, until the rhydon's tail whips towards the ground, then up -
There is a blur of yellow flying through the air, towards the ceiling, up, up, up…
Green's hand falls over Red's - a signal, and the boy's mouth twists in concentration. His body moves in the exaggerated manner that he uses to communicate his commands…
The room is illuminated in a blinding flash of yellow light. The electricity that surges from Pikachu's cheeks seems to have no intended target. Arcs of it crackle through the air, striking the ground and licking the ceiling, but most of it is directed towards the rhydon's horn. Like a lightning rod, it channels the electricity to it, where it strikes harmlessly.
That's when the sprinkler system activates.
It is almost a repeat performance of their first battle in the forest. Pikachu's electricity bounces from water droplet to water droplet, except this time, the water itself is both a medium and a weapon.
The water soaks into the thick skin of the rhydon, and it cries out in agony for the first time in the entire battle. Conducted by the water, Pikachu's electricity penetrates the rhydon's rocky hide, illuminating its seven-foot form in in crackling gold.
After that, it's all over.
It sways a few times, eyes glazed and listless, before falling forward. It doesn't get back up. Belatedly, the sprinkler system stutters to a stop.
Green wouldn't be able to suppress the smile that tears across his face if he tried. They won.
They won.
The feeling that begins permeating every layer of his being is similar to the trill of superiority he'd get when Leaf would back down from a fight. At its base, it is exactly the same - heady and lightheaded, pride swelling his chest. With this victory, the feeling is hundreds of times more intense.
There is a high-pitched squeal as Archer throws Eevee off his prone form and gets back to his feet, teeth bared in a snarl. "How dare you?" he roars. Green's eyes widen - it is the first time Archer had lost his composure so completely.
"A true Rocket stops at nothing to claim victory and accomplish his mission," Green recites, eyes fixed gleefully on the red indentations on the man's arm. "Isn't that right, sir?"
He could beat them now and Green wouldn't care. He's been defeated, beaten at his own vaunted game. The odds were all stacked in his favor but he still lost. The bite wounds, gleaming rubies nestled among torn strips of cloth in the cutting black of his uniform, are only half of it. Archer isn't invincible. He's mortal. All the power he had over them doesn't matter anymore; it's gone.
Green spent most of his life exploring rolling fields and staring into endless blue skies, but this, this is the first taste of freedom he has ever had. It runs through his veins, spikes the skin along his arms into goose bumps and a sets a shiver running down his spine. Punches and kicks won't take this feeling away. Nothing can.
Archer seems intent to try. His dark eyes flash dangerously with the lust to strike at him, chest heaving with each violent intake of breath. For a moment, Green grits his teeth and scrunches his eyes up into narrow slits, steeling himself for the pain he has been conditioned to expect for the last three weeks.
But it doesn't come.
The Rocket's breathing quiets gradually, disappearing into the pregnant silence that hangs in the air, heavy upon their shoulders. His face, which had been contorted with fury mere moments before, relaxes into his usual mask of apathy, vigilant and sharp. Yet even as his posture relaxes and the tenseness begins to fade, his eyes retain a fragment of that predatory wildness. It glares at them from behind the dark blue of Archer's eyes, a caged beast waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike.
Green's taunting smirk is like a confident child's hand waved in front of a newly captured gyarados's tank at an aquarium; eventually the creature will break free of its confines and strike.
But the shackles hold, and their victory is unmarred by violence.
"Mission accomplished. Congratulations, recruits," Archer grits out, voice teetering precariously on the edge of control.
Green surreptitiously sneaks his arm around Red's waist and squeezes hard. Red stiffens at his touch but stays silent, only moving when Pikachu prances toward him and jumps into his arms. Eevee hesitantly approaches them and gives Green a baleful look, her tail drooping so that it drags on the floor. They have won, but Green hasn't been taught how to reward them for a job well done.
Beside him, Pikachu nuzzles his face into Red's, and Green watches with a mixture of longing and hypocritical disapproval. Worried that if he goes about it the wrong way he'll derail the training process and give Archer the excuse he needs to lash out at them, he just gives her a curt nod and looks away.
The trick to being happy, he's learning, is just to pretend not to see anything.
So Green doesn't look at the way Eevee's looks dejected and crestfallen, or think about how much he'd like to follow Red's example and hold her the same way he's holding Pikachu.
Green won. Green is finally strong.
Nothing can take this feeling away.
Nothing.
- . . . -
Giovanni is in the process of watching the tape for what must be the umpteenth time when the boy is finally shown into his office. He waves off the grunt that brought him in without looking away, eyes focused on the screen. The resolution is rather grainy, but he can make out the exact moment Archer was tackled to the floor and, moments later, the triggering of the sprinkler system by the flash of electricity.
Turning away from the screen, Giovanni appraises the Oak boy. The boy was bathed and given a change of clothes before being brought to see his office, but that does little to hide the fading splotches of yellow along his jawline. The Boss knows that Archer's training methods were extreme - the extremity was precisely the reason why he had chosen Archer to do it (one needs to break a wild ponyta before it can be trained, after all) - but Giovanni is still a bit uncomfortable at the sight of those method's results. His lip curls with distaste.
Almost as if in response to his change of expression, the boy cocks his head up, keeping his eyes on him all the while. There is certainly fear in those forest-green eyes of his, but it is tempered by the defiant jut of his chin. It is more the look of cornered prey than a terrified child.
Giovanni smirks at the sight of it. He is impressed.
"Do you know why you're here, Green?" he asks.
The boy jumps at the sound of his voice. Then his face twists with self-deprecation and effort. Within moments, all trace of fear is gone from his face. It has gone stony and flat, as if quickly and meticulously peeled off by a razor.
"The last battle you had with Admin Archer - the strategy you used to claim victory… did you make it up? Or was it your friend's idea?"
The change is drastic.
His face seems to cave in on itself before flaring with something the Boss had rarely, if ever, seen in any of his operatives. Protectiveness.
"It was me - I made it all up! I just told Red what to do!" he blurts, eyes meeting Giovanni's head on
"Are you telling the truth?" the Boss insists. "Or are you just lying to me to protect your friend?"
Now there's something else warring for dominance on his face - indignation.
"Red's too much of a wimp to think of something like that," Green replies hotly. There is derision in his tone, overlapping and melding strangely with the protectiveness. "It was Eevee who attacked him because I ordered it to tackle him. Pikachu just shot its thunder where I showed Red."
The Boss lets silence hang for a few moments before speaking again, keeping his eyes on the boy. There is no regret in his eyes, nor is there fear. Instead, he has returned to that same look of defiance, eyes almost challenging.
"If you think that I called you here to punish you for what happened to your instructor, you are mistaken." The defiance is overcome by a wave of confusion, his green eyes wide. "You are here so that I can offer you my congratulations. The task you were confronted with is not designed to allow for easy victory. The fact that someone as young as you was able to overcome it is very -" He pauses, considering. "- telling of what your future in Team Rocket will be."
Even as the boy flushes pink with pride, he has a retort ready. "Who ever said I wanted to be in your stupid team, anyway?" The Boss's eyes narrow dangerously, but Green plods on, undeterred. "You made us. We never wanted to."
Coming from anyone else's lips, those words would constitute insubordination.
Coming from little Green Oak, an eight-year-old boy, it is simply surprising. Perhaps it even verges on the impressive.
He is either fearless or stupid, the Boss thinks, and neither of those are particularly good qualities to have in an organization like Team Rocket. Bravery usually does nothing but get people killed, and stupidity has the potential to enable operatives to botch even the simplest of tasks.
But there is something else about this boy, something that speaks to the Boss on another level entirely. It feels familiar and slightly mocking; an off-kilter reflection of himself when he was the boy's age, standing in front of his mother's desk and just daring her to lash out at him. It is an eerie sight, especially since this boy isn't related to him at all. His mouth sets into a thin line at the thought, thinking that perhaps this isn't a bad thing.
"You're right," Giovanni says, voice flat, "but I'm afraid we didn't have another choice."
The boy doesn't miss a beat. "You could let us go home, then!"
"That is not an option. It is my duty to place the welfare of Team Rocket and its goals over your own."
Green crosses his arms petulantly. "I don't care about that."
Giovanni wonders how much of this is an act. Surely he can't be this defiant, this reckless?
He rises from his high-backed leather seat with a scrape of wood against tile, and the boy flinches. Paying his reaction no heed, Giovanni walks past him and toward the door, an unreadable expression on his face.
"Do you know about the chain of command in this organization, Green?"
Green, body tense, arms stiff at his sides, nods. "Y-yeah. He told us about it one time."
"Then you should know that there are different types of Team Rocket members. There are the grunts, or those who are assigned menial tasks and follow the orders of their superiors. And then there are operatives. Unlike grunts, operatives are sent on important missions. They are skilled, resourceful, strong." Something flashes in the boy's eyes at that, and something within Giovanni says ah, so that's it. "In order to be promoted from grunt to operative, you must pass a series of tests."
"Like gettin' your trainer card…" Green murmurs to himself.
Giovanni nods at him approvingly.
"The victory you claimed and the way you went about obtaining it say a great deal about what kind of trainer you'll become. In your thinking I can already recognize a great deal of resourcefulness, skill, and perseverance - all of which are traits Team Rocket operatives must have. You learned quickly and accomplished something that many of the grunts hoping to be operatives never do." He turns toward the boy and meets his wide eyes. "You have the potential to become someone important in Team Rocket, Green. Someone strong."
The boy's face glows for a moment, and Giovanni smirks to himself.
"You really think…?"
"I know," Giovanni interrupts him, and he finds that he is even being truthful. "We are doing great things here, and we need skilled trainers like you to help us bring our goals to fruition."
Standing in that office, Green begins to hesitate. Giovanni can see his childish conviction in the opinions of Team Rocket he clings to so desperately begin to waver, the certainty replaced by a penetrating doubt.
"Team Rocket's bad…" Green mumbles. At his sides, his hands tighten into fists.
"Good and bad are hard to distinguish sometimes, even for adults. You've been taught that stealing and hurting others is wrong, so I can understand why you would think that about Team Rocket," Giovanni concedes, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder. "But just because Team Rocket occasionally does bad things doesn't mean that it is bad, however. Our intentions are not bad. They are anything but."
"What do you want?"
Unconsciously, Giovanni's hand tightens a bit on the boy's shoulder. "To protect our culture from forces that would have it destroyed."
"Who?"
"Ourselves, Green. Ourselves."
The boy bites his lip, confused, and Giovanni pats his shoulder, an indulgent half-smile on his face. "There's no need for you to understand everything about Team Rocket's goals now. There is still plenty of time for you to learn. I only wanted you to know that I am very impressed by your progress."
Green nods, the pink returning to his cheeks and belying the yellow along his jaw.
"As a reward for your success, you'll be granted grunt-level clearance. You are now allowed to visit the areas the grunts are allowed to whenever you like, such as the general mess hall and gym, where battles take place." The boy's eyes light up, and Giovanni suppresses the urge to chuckle at how easy he is to please. "All I'll ask in return for this privilege is that you reflect on what we've discussed here today."
The boy nods, too excited to realize that despite the fact his cage just significantly grew in size, it is still a cage nonetheless.
"Okay," he says. Then, much more hesitantly, "sir."
The Boss quirks an eyebrow at the new development but otherwise stays silent as the boy slowly makes his way to the door of his office. Then, without turning back he asks, "What about Red?"
His first reaction is to ask after who Red is, but then he remembers the other boy - the collateral damage. Stubborn, as Archer had described him in his report. He was unwilling to punish his pokémon or follow any orders to that effect, even when threatened with physical harm.
That's the stupid one, Giovanni thinks.
"The same applies for him," replies the Boss.
When the door is shut and the boy is gone, Giovanni takes a moment to consider when mercy had become a liability. Sitting himself back down in his chair, he pulls a bottle of old scotch (one of the last ones from his mother's old collection) and pours himself a glass, considering.
He thinks of his decision to keep the boys alive and the red-eyed child's refusal to punish his pikachu. Perhaps the two of them aren't so different, the Boss admits, the burn of the alcohol in his throat making him too honest for his own good.
But it is his mother's voice that sneers in his mind, laughing mockingly at him for his shortcomings.
You're both too stubborn for your own damn good.
- . . . -
When Green returns to their room, he is quiet and starry-eyed. Red notices immediately, mostly because Green almost always has something to say and likes to affect being cool too much to ever go starry-eyed over something.
But Red makes it a point not to ask why.
Everything may be upside-down here, but Red still remembers how to tell right from wrong. He knows that hitting pokémon is wrong, especially good ones like Pikachu and Eevee who had done nothing wrong. All they had done was try to protect them. It wasn't their fault that the other pokémon were too strong. They shouldn't have to fight such strong opponents anyway.
There's no question about it to him. What they're making them do is wrong. It won't change how many times they make him repeat their lessons or how hard they hit him. It's wrong. Red won't do it.
He wishes Green would remember that, too.
"I met the Boss," Green eventually says. His tone is boasting, and Red can't understand why meeting the man who had them taken is anything to be proud about.
"He says I did a really good job in beating that giant rhydon today." There is a pause, Green clearly expecting Red to reply. The younger boy doesn't plan to indulge him. "He even gave me a reward," Green continues, a bit impatiently. "Do you wanna know what the reward is? Huh?"
Red keeps quiet, staring at the indentations in the whitewashed walls. He presses his fingers to the patterns there, though he's careful not to extend his muscles too far. Archer kicked him in the shoulder the week before, and it still hurts if he moves it too much.
Still, it's nothing compared to how Pikachu must feel…
"Hey!" Green all but yells, "Are you even hearing me?"
He keeps his back to Green and runs his hand over Pikachu's poké ball. The smooth surface has already started to get scratched up.
"Fine! See if I care!" There is a long silence occasionally interrupted from the squeaking springs of Green's mattress as he moves around and the exasperated, dramatic huffs he makes.
After just five minutes, the older boy speaks up again.
"Because I won the Boss said I could leave this room whenever I want!"
The prospect of being allowed out of the room is enough to pique the younger boy's interest. Wincing against the sharp ache of the bruises on his abdomen, he tenderly rolls over to face the other boy. When he's facing him, he can see the smug look on Green's face. He always had taken some kind of pleasure in being able to break Red's stoic silences.
Smirking, Green goes on, "That got your attention, huh? Well, yeah. The Boss said I was smart and resourceful and strong, and that because I beat that rhydon I have grunt-level privileges now. Pretty cool, huh?"
But Red frowns.
"Eevee and Pikachu beat Rhydon," he corrects, "not you."
Green's cocky grin falls to a scowl, lips twisting downwards and eyes narrowing.
"What do you know, anyway? All you did was stand there like a baby while I did all the work."
Red doesn't quite know how to respond to that. He's never been good with words, so there's no way that he can say something to make Green see how wrong this all is.
So he doesn't even try.
Eventually, Green's scowl ebbs away and is replaced by a self-satisfied look. It's not quite a smile - his eyebrows are furrowed; the vestiges of the annoyance Red made him feel with his accusation still lingering - but there is something burning in his eyes. The flame makes his eyes murky and not quite as starry anymore. Red blinks, thinking it's just a trick of the light, but it's still there whenever he opens them.
"He said I was going to be important," Green says softly. His hand rests over his heart - over the red 'R' emblazoned there. "He said I was strong."
Red grits his teeth as he turns on his side again so that his back is turned to the other boy.
At least that way he won't have to see the beginnings of something ugly blooming on his best friend's face.
- . . . -
Later that night, when he is sure that the other boy is asleep, Red slips out of bed and gingerly tiptoes across the small space separating their beds. From the bedside table near Green's bed, Red takes Eevee's poké ball, careful not to make a sound that might wake the older boy.
Red thinks of the night he and Green shared a bed. It had been cold (it still is), and Red had wanted his momma more than anything. He and Green had shared the same bed during sleepovers, but there had been something different about that time.
Lifting the sheets and sticking the hand holding Eevee's poké ball under it, Red's fingers run along the nicked surface and press at the button. The light, smothered by the thick linen, only brightens his side of the room for an instant. It was dim enough that Green, sleeping on his side with his back to Red, was almost sure to have slept on, undisturbed. Just to make sure, he pauses for a moment, listening hard for any sign of wakefulness.
But Green's breathing stays deep and even, and before he knows it there is the wet press of a nose against his hand. The poké ball he was holding goes slack in his grip with surprise, the sound of its fall muted by the cocoon of sheets enveloping it.
Peeling back the entwined layers off, his hands eventually find the soft fur of Eevee. In the dark she is but a formless blur to his eyes, but when he presses his hands against her back Red can feel her agitation in the rigidity of her muscles, the slight trembling of her skin.
Perhaps she thinks it's time to fight again.
Or maybe she thinks she's going to be punished for something.
The boy runs his hand up and down her back soothingly, easing the tension away as best he can. The process is painstakingly slow, but eventually she goes boneless, collapsing onto the bed with a small, quivering exhale.
Carefully, Red eases himself back into bed around Eevee's small form. From underneath his pillow he retrieves his own poké ball and, stuffing it underneath the sheets, presses the round button to let Pikachu free.
The electric mouse burrows through the sheets, tail brushing against Red's leg, to poke his head out. Despite the shroud of darkness that hangs around them, Red can make out the twitch of Pikachu's injured ear. Like always, the sight strikes a pang of sorrow deep within him, one that makes his eyes sting with useless tears.
"Pi?" the electric mouse says, something like a question in his tone.
Red is a boy of few words. Language is heavy and cumbersome on his tongue, so he only speaks when he finds it necessary. He likes pokémon because language is often unnecessary. They express themselves in the cock of their head, the emotion hovering in their intelligent eyes. Communication is instinctual, bodily. Red finds this much easier to understand than the inflection in someone's voice, the words they use. They say one thing and do another, like the man who brought them to this place. With a pokémon, there is no deception; what he sees is what he gets. There is no subtext, no layers to peel back and interpret. They're not offended by his silence, and Red is grateful for this.
A human wouldn't understand what the press of the boy's small hands against their back means, what the patterns traced along the bumps of their spine spell out.
But Pikachu does. Silently, the pokémon makes his way to Eevee, settling in close to her to share his warmth. Red follows the mouse's example, curling his small body around them, laying a hand so that its heel lies against Pikachu's side and its fingers buried in Eevee's fur.
He concentrates on conveying what he wants them to know, thinks it and feels it as hard as he can.
You are good. You are important.
I'm sorry.
It feels safe.
Distantly, he remembers that night when he and Green slept pressed together on the older boy's narrow bed. That had felt safe, too. But somehow Red knows that it probably wouldn't, not anymore.
(He wishes it still would.)
Eventually Eevee's trembling stops, and despite his exhaustion, Red can't fall asleep until she does. When sleep claims her, it rushes up and out of his sore limbs, his aching bruises, his heavy bones. It shuts his eyes, carrying him to a place where there is nothing but warmth and darkness.
- . . . -
Act I (continued)
It goes on like this for days. Weeks.
Each day, Archer calls out strong pokémon to battle them, and they lose each and every time. There are no breaks in the routine - battle, loss, punishment.
When it comes to punish their pokémon for losing, Red still won't raise a hand to his pikachu. So Archer raises his hand to him. They are mostly punches, the punishments for insubordination - Archer seems to have reconsidered using his pokémon as the sources of punishment - and Red takes it without making any noise. There is a map of bruises and cuts underneath the loosely fitting uniform. Green catches glimpses of them whenever Red is sleeping. It gets less and less hard to see each time.
Green stopped intervening after the third time. There is something insane about throwing yourself into the same situation again and again expecting a different result, and in the end his sense of self-preservation wins out. He does not want to get hurt.
(He does not want Red to get hurt either, but there is isn't anything he can do about that.)
One day, when Archer has Red sprawled on the floor from the force of a slap, Pikachu lets out a keening sound and struggles to his feet. His right ear, which never quite healed from the onix's rockslide, twitches at his side. Green expects the rodent to try and attack Archer, but instead, it slams its head against the floor once, twice, three times, staring at the Rocket all the while.
Archer barks out an astonished laugh at the pokémon's actions, and Green's eyes can only widen in comprehension.
"Pikachu… no…" Red murmurs. There are tears shimmering in his eyes.
It's clear that the pokémon wants to be punished, Green thinks. Why can't Red see that? He strides over to it kicks at it, face stony.
Green stares down at Red, sees the betrayal in his face. Sneering, he kicks at the rodent again.
Archer's laughter seems to grow even louder at this.
After training, Archer lets them shower and use an actual bathroom instead of a corner of the arena. They're allowed a change of clothes into uniforms that actually fit, and are allowed to sleep in the room from before instead of the cold hard floor of the training room.
It's the first night Green doesn't feel guilty for what he's done. He stretches his sore body out on the mattress, buries his face in the softness of his pillow, and inhales the clean smell of detergent. These things are nowhere near as pleasant as they were back home, but there is something about having earned these comforts that makes it more enjoyable. It doesn't matter that Green earned it by kicking a pokémon until it passed out - that isn't the point of it at all.
The point is that Green knows the rules now, and now that he does, he's playing for keeps.
- . . . -
Some men are born heroes, and then there are those that need a push in the right direction.
Green clearly belongs to the latter category. Left unguided, he would spend his days seeking out a noble title for all the wrong reasons. He would long to taste fame and renown, for those are the only things that would even begin to sate his hunger for recognition and adoration, his thirst for approval and acceptance. He would run across fields and mountaintops, caves and forests, trying to keep ahead of a boy with fire in his eyes and an instinctual talent that far surpasses his own. It is only at the end of his journey, when that boy with the indomitable will of fire shoves him off the crest of his ambitions and into the position of second best, that Green would learn how to be unselfish, how to subsist on the love of his pokémon partners and friends. And that man would be a good hero - perhaps not remembered by the history books, but loved and loved well.
But alas, that is in another life.
- . . . -
Red isn't talking to him again, but Green doesn't care.
They were beaten because they were weak, so maybe they deserved the punishment. Strength is the only thing that counts in this world they've been thrown into. There is no room for compassion, patience, or friendship, especially not with their pokémon. All they have is each other-Red and Green. If Eevee and Pikachu are too weak to protect them, then they're useless.
These thoughts run through Green's head in time with the throb of his arm and the dull ache of the bruises he'd received from the last training session. His eyes, gone hard and dark, stare at nothing, so he does not realize that Eevee is drawing closer until she is but a few inches away.
He jerks back at the sight of her, and her eyes, wide and brown, shine with something that Green faintly recognizes as hurt. She steps forward again, limping, and Green draws back again, unable to look at her anymore.
She mewls softly and lies down by the foot of his bed, her head resting on the floor dejectedly.
Green won't let himself feel guilty for what he's done anymore, so he won't let her - no, it show him any sympathy either.
- . . . -
One day Green figures out the pattern.
They are battling a particularly savage rhydon. Pikachu and Eevee are darting about the field in an attempt to hold out as long as they can. Evading their attacks until Archer orders the use of a devastatingly powerful move that ends the battle in one fell swoop is just a stall tactic, but it is the most effective available to them. The tail whip/growl strategy, while effective in theory, always ends up getting their pokémon hurt when they get close enough to use the moves. Even if the strategy works, it would take Eevee too many tackle attacks to knock out their opponent, weakened defense stat and all. It certainly doesn't help that Pikachu is useless in every scenario - his electric attacks barely making the resistant rock and ground types blink in irritation.
At least evading their opponent altogether let them delay the inevitable a little while longer…
The rhydon lunges at Pikachu with a roar. The rodent just barely manages to avoid the beast by throwing himself down and through the space between his attacker's colossal legs. He makes it under its swinging tail just as the rhydon's horn drill strikes the ground, causing a horrible, earsplitting screech as it cuts through to the concrete underneath.
Green doesn't even bother covering his ears, eyes squinting through the pulverized dust that fills the air around the rhydon's bowed head. When it manages to pull its horn out from the floor, it will have them in its direct line of sight. This means that it'll attack them next, in all likelihood. Biting his lower lip, he starts planning their exit strategy with the intense foresight of someone who has had a colossal attacker come after him many times before.
Roll out of the way… then get up and run? No, rhydon are quicker than that… it'll be on us before we can get up…. Run in opposite directions… have the pokémon come in to cover us… no, that won't work -
And then it hits him.
He's supposed to be a Rocket - why not take a page right out of their book of tricks?
"Tackle, now!" he orders.
He can hear Archer's amused chuckle from across the field, "How many times will it take for you to learn -" he begins mockingly.
But Green isn't pointing at their pokémon opponent now…
The Rocket is cut off with a grunt as the air in his lungs leaves him all at once. He crumples in on himself just as Eevee pushes herself off his middle and lands a few feet away, growling menacingly.
Beside him, Red tenses with understanding.
"Don't let him get back up!" Green commands.
As Archer tries to get back onto his feet, Eevee snarls and lunges at his arm, sinking her sharp teeth into the flesh there.
Finally, the rhydon manages to dislodge its horn from the ground. It stumbles for a moment, its giant hind legs backpedaling as it attempts to regain its balance. Then, it turns its red eyes onto the boys and lets out a roar.
He reaches out and taps Red on the elbow. The other boy looks at him with widened eyes, his face devoid of all the righteous anger it had held toward Green as he slowly drags his fingers up his arm. Green's face twists in a smirk momentarily, then he lifts his hand off the other boy's shoulder and points it at the ceiling. Red's eyes follow, his eyes squinted as he searches for what Green means and -
They narrow in realization when, his eyes catching a glint of metal.
"Pikachu!" Red yells without looking away from the ceiling.
The yellow mouse turns away from Archer's crumpled form and looks back to follow his trainer's gaze. It breaks into a run, heading straight at the rhydon.
Before the rhydon can begin running at its new targets, Pikachu leaps onto his opponent's tail, making it cry out in confusion and whip the rocky appendage about. But Pikachu holds on, steadfast and stubborn, until the rhydon's tail whips towards the ground, then up -
There is a blur of yellow flying through the air, towards the ceiling, up, up, up…
Green's hand falls over Red's - a signal, and the boy's mouth twists in concentration. His body moves in the exaggerated manner that he uses to communicate his commands…
The room is illuminated in a blinding flash of yellow light. The electricity that surges from Pikachu's cheeks seems to have no intended target. Arcs of it crackle through the air, striking the ground and licking the ceiling, but most of it is directed towards the rhydon's horn. Like a lightning rod, it channels the electricity to it, where it strikes harmlessly.
That's when the sprinkler system activates.
It is almost a repeat performance of their first battle in the forest. Pikachu's electricity bounces from water droplet to water droplet, except this time, the water itself is both a medium and a weapon.
The water soaks into the thick skin of the rhydon, and it cries out in agony for the first time in the entire battle. Conducted by the water, Pikachu's electricity penetrates the rhydon's rocky hide, illuminating its seven-foot form in in crackling gold.
After that, it's all over.
It sways a few times, eyes glazed and listless, before falling forward. It doesn't get back up. Belatedly, the sprinkler system stutters to a stop.
Green wouldn't be able to suppress the smile that tears across his face if he tried. They won.
They won.
The feeling that begins permeating every layer of his being is similar to the trill of superiority he'd get when Leaf would back down from a fight. At its base, it is exactly the same - heady and lightheaded, pride swelling his chest. With this victory, the feeling is hundreds of times more intense.
There is a high-pitched squeal as Archer throws Eevee off his prone form and gets back to his feet, teeth bared in a snarl. "How dare you?" he roars. Green's eyes widen - it is the first time Archer had lost his composure so completely.
"A true Rocket stops at nothing to claim victory and accomplish his mission," Green recites, eyes fixed gleefully on the red indentations on the man's arm. "Isn't that right, sir?"
He could beat them now and Green wouldn't care. He's been defeated, beaten at his own vaunted game. The odds were all stacked in his favor but he still lost. The bite wounds, gleaming rubies nestled among torn strips of cloth in the cutting black of his uniform, are only half of it. Archer isn't invincible. He's mortal. All the power he had over them doesn't matter anymore; it's gone.
Green spent most of his life exploring rolling fields and staring into endless blue skies, but this, this is the first taste of freedom he has ever had. It runs through his veins, spikes the skin along his arms into goose bumps and a sets a shiver running down his spine. Punches and kicks won't take this feeling away. Nothing can.
Archer seems intent to try. His dark eyes flash dangerously with the lust to strike at him, chest heaving with each violent intake of breath. For a moment, Green grits his teeth and scrunches his eyes up into narrow slits, steeling himself for the pain he has been conditioned to expect for the last three weeks.
But it doesn't come.
The Rocket's breathing quiets gradually, disappearing into the pregnant silence that hangs in the air, heavy upon their shoulders. His face, which had been contorted with fury mere moments before, relaxes into his usual mask of apathy, vigilant and sharp. Yet even as his posture relaxes and the tenseness begins to fade, his eyes retain a fragment of that predatory wildness. It glares at them from behind the dark blue of Archer's eyes, a caged beast waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike.
Green's taunting smirk is like a confident child's hand waved in front of a newly captured gyarados's tank at an aquarium; eventually the creature will break free of its confines and strike.
But the shackles hold, and their victory is unmarred by violence.
"Mission accomplished. Congratulations, recruits," Archer grits out, voice teetering precariously on the edge of control.
Green surreptitiously sneaks his arm around Red's waist and squeezes hard. Red stiffens at his touch but stays silent, only moving when Pikachu prances toward him and jumps into his arms. Eevee hesitantly approaches them and gives Green a baleful look, her tail drooping so that it drags on the floor. They have won, but Green hasn't been taught how to reward them for a job well done.
Beside him, Pikachu nuzzles his face into Red's, and Green watches with a mixture of longing and hypocritical disapproval. Worried that if he goes about it the wrong way he'll derail the training process and give Archer the excuse he needs to lash out at them, he just gives her a curt nod and looks away.
The trick to being happy, he's learning, is just to pretend not to see anything.
So Green doesn't look at the way Eevee's looks dejected and crestfallen, or think about how much he'd like to follow Red's example and hold her the same way he's holding Pikachu.
Green won. Green is finally strong.
Nothing can take this feeling away.
Nothing.
- . . . -
Giovanni is in the process of watching the tape for what must be the umpteenth time when the boy is finally shown into his office. He waves off the grunt that brought him in without looking away, eyes focused on the screen. The resolution is rather grainy, but he can make out the exact moment Archer was tackled to the floor and, moments later, the triggering of the sprinkler system by the flash of electricity.
Turning away from the screen, Giovanni appraises the Oak boy. The boy was bathed and given a change of clothes before being brought to see his office, but that does little to hide the fading splotches of yellow along his jawline. The Boss knows that Archer's training methods were extreme - the extremity was precisely the reason why he had chosen Archer to do it (one needs to break a wild ponyta before it can be trained, after all) - but Giovanni is still a bit uncomfortable at the sight of those method's results. His lip curls with distaste.
Almost as if in response to his change of expression, the boy cocks his head up, keeping his eyes on him all the while. There is certainly fear in those forest-green eyes of his, but it is tempered by the defiant jut of his chin. It is more the look of cornered prey than a terrified child.
Giovanni smirks at the sight of it. He is impressed.
"Do you know why you're here, Green?" he asks.
The boy jumps at the sound of his voice. Then his face twists with self-deprecation and effort. Within moments, all trace of fear is gone from his face. It has gone stony and flat, as if quickly and meticulously peeled off by a razor.
"The last battle you had with Admin Archer - the strategy you used to claim victory… did you make it up? Or was it your friend's idea?"
The change is drastic.
His face seems to cave in on itself before flaring with something the Boss had rarely, if ever, seen in any of his operatives. Protectiveness.
"It was me - I made it all up! I just told Red what to do!" he blurts, eyes meeting Giovanni's head on
"Are you telling the truth?" the Boss insists. "Or are you just lying to me to protect your friend?"
Now there's something else warring for dominance on his face - indignation.
"Red's too much of a wimp to think of something like that," Green replies hotly. There is derision in his tone, overlapping and melding strangely with the protectiveness. "It was Eevee who attacked him because I ordered it to tackle him. Pikachu just shot its thunder where I showed Red."
The Boss lets silence hang for a few moments before speaking again, keeping his eyes on the boy. There is no regret in his eyes, nor is there fear. Instead, he has returned to that same look of defiance, eyes almost challenging.
"If you think that I called you here to punish you for what happened to your instructor, you are mistaken." The defiance is overcome by a wave of confusion, his green eyes wide. "You are here so that I can offer you my congratulations. The task you were confronted with is not designed to allow for easy victory. The fact that someone as young as you was able to overcome it is very -" He pauses, considering. "- telling of what your future in Team Rocket will be."
Even as the boy flushes pink with pride, he has a retort ready. "Who ever said I wanted to be in your stupid team, anyway?" The Boss's eyes narrow dangerously, but Green plods on, undeterred. "You made us. We never wanted to."
Coming from anyone else's lips, those words would constitute insubordination.
Coming from little Green Oak, an eight-year-old boy, it is simply surprising. Perhaps it even verges on the impressive.
He is either fearless or stupid, the Boss thinks, and neither of those are particularly good qualities to have in an organization like Team Rocket. Bravery usually does nothing but get people killed, and stupidity has the potential to enable operatives to botch even the simplest of tasks.
But there is something else about this boy, something that speaks to the Boss on another level entirely. It feels familiar and slightly mocking; an off-kilter reflection of himself when he was the boy's age, standing in front of his mother's desk and just daring her to lash out at him. It is an eerie sight, especially since this boy isn't related to him at all. His mouth sets into a thin line at the thought, thinking that perhaps this isn't a bad thing.
"You're right," Giovanni says, voice flat, "but I'm afraid we didn't have another choice."
The boy doesn't miss a beat. "You could let us go home, then!"
"That is not an option. It is my duty to place the welfare of Team Rocket and its goals over your own."
Green crosses his arms petulantly. "I don't care about that."
Giovanni wonders how much of this is an act. Surely he can't be this defiant, this reckless?
He rises from his high-backed leather seat with a scrape of wood against tile, and the boy flinches. Paying his reaction no heed, Giovanni walks past him and toward the door, an unreadable expression on his face.
"Do you know about the chain of command in this organization, Green?"
Green, body tense, arms stiff at his sides, nods. "Y-yeah. He told us about it one time."
"Then you should know that there are different types of Team Rocket members. There are the grunts, or those who are assigned menial tasks and follow the orders of their superiors. And then there are operatives. Unlike grunts, operatives are sent on important missions. They are skilled, resourceful, strong." Something flashes in the boy's eyes at that, and something within Giovanni says ah, so that's it. "In order to be promoted from grunt to operative, you must pass a series of tests."
"Like gettin' your trainer card…" Green murmurs to himself.
Giovanni nods at him approvingly.
"The victory you claimed and the way you went about obtaining it say a great deal about what kind of trainer you'll become. In your thinking I can already recognize a great deal of resourcefulness, skill, and perseverance - all of which are traits Team Rocket operatives must have. You learned quickly and accomplished something that many of the grunts hoping to be operatives never do." He turns toward the boy and meets his wide eyes. "You have the potential to become someone important in Team Rocket, Green. Someone strong."
The boy's face glows for a moment, and Giovanni smirks to himself.
"You really think…?"
"I know," Giovanni interrupts him, and he finds that he is even being truthful. "We are doing great things here, and we need skilled trainers like you to help us bring our goals to fruition."
Standing in that office, Green begins to hesitate. Giovanni can see his childish conviction in the opinions of Team Rocket he clings to so desperately begin to waver, the certainty replaced by a penetrating doubt.
"Team Rocket's bad…" Green mumbles. At his sides, his hands tighten into fists.
"Good and bad are hard to distinguish sometimes, even for adults. You've been taught that stealing and hurting others is wrong, so I can understand why you would think that about Team Rocket," Giovanni concedes, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder. "But just because Team Rocket occasionally does bad things doesn't mean that it is bad, however. Our intentions are not bad. They are anything but."
"What do you want?"
Unconsciously, Giovanni's hand tightens a bit on the boy's shoulder. "To protect our culture from forces that would have it destroyed."
"Who?"
"Ourselves, Green. Ourselves."
The boy bites his lip, confused, and Giovanni pats his shoulder, an indulgent half-smile on his face. "There's no need for you to understand everything about Team Rocket's goals now. There is still plenty of time for you to learn. I only wanted you to know that I am very impressed by your progress."
Green nods, the pink returning to his cheeks and belying the yellow along his jaw.
"As a reward for your success, you'll be granted grunt-level clearance. You are now allowed to visit the areas the grunts are allowed to whenever you like, such as the general mess hall and gym, where battles take place." The boy's eyes light up, and Giovanni suppresses the urge to chuckle at how easy he is to please. "All I'll ask in return for this privilege is that you reflect on what we've discussed here today."
The boy nods, too excited to realize that despite the fact his cage just significantly grew in size, it is still a cage nonetheless.
"Okay," he says. Then, much more hesitantly, "sir."
The Boss quirks an eyebrow at the new development but otherwise stays silent as the boy slowly makes his way to the door of his office. Then, without turning back he asks, "What about Red?"
His first reaction is to ask after who Red is, but then he remembers the other boy - the collateral damage. Stubborn, as Archer had described him in his report. He was unwilling to punish his pokémon or follow any orders to that effect, even when threatened with physical harm.
That's the stupid one, Giovanni thinks.
"The same applies for him," replies the Boss.
When the door is shut and the boy is gone, Giovanni takes a moment to consider when mercy had become a liability. Sitting himself back down in his chair, he pulls a bottle of old scotch (one of the last ones from his mother's old collection) and pours himself a glass, considering.
He thinks of his decision to keep the boys alive and the red-eyed child's refusal to punish his pikachu. Perhaps the two of them aren't so different, the Boss admits, the burn of the alcohol in his throat making him too honest for his own good.
But it is his mother's voice that sneers in his mind, laughing mockingly at him for his shortcomings.
You're both too stubborn for your own damn good.
- . . . -
When Green returns to their room, he is quiet and starry-eyed. Red notices immediately, mostly because Green almost always has something to say and likes to affect being cool too much to ever go starry-eyed over something.
But Red makes it a point not to ask why.
Everything may be upside-down here, but Red still remembers how to tell right from wrong. He knows that hitting pokémon is wrong, especially good ones like Pikachu and Eevee who had done nothing wrong. All they had done was try to protect them. It wasn't their fault that the other pokémon were too strong. They shouldn't have to fight such strong opponents anyway.
There's no question about it to him. What they're making them do is wrong. It won't change how many times they make him repeat their lessons or how hard they hit him. It's wrong. Red won't do it.
He wishes Green would remember that, too.
"I met the Boss," Green eventually says. His tone is boasting, and Red can't understand why meeting the man who had them taken is anything to be proud about.
"He says I did a really good job in beating that giant rhydon today." There is a pause, Green clearly expecting Red to reply. The younger boy doesn't plan to indulge him. "He even gave me a reward," Green continues, a bit impatiently. "Do you wanna know what the reward is? Huh?"
Red keeps quiet, staring at the indentations in the whitewashed walls. He presses his fingers to the patterns there, though he's careful not to extend his muscles too far. Archer kicked him in the shoulder the week before, and it still hurts if he moves it too much.
Still, it's nothing compared to how Pikachu must feel…
"Hey!" Green all but yells, "Are you even hearing me?"
He keeps his back to Green and runs his hand over Pikachu's poké ball. The smooth surface has already started to get scratched up.
"Fine! See if I care!" There is a long silence occasionally interrupted from the squeaking springs of Green's mattress as he moves around and the exasperated, dramatic huffs he makes.
After just five minutes, the older boy speaks up again.
"Because I won the Boss said I could leave this room whenever I want!"
The prospect of being allowed out of the room is enough to pique the younger boy's interest. Wincing against the sharp ache of the bruises on his abdomen, he tenderly rolls over to face the other boy. When he's facing him, he can see the smug look on Green's face. He always had taken some kind of pleasure in being able to break Red's stoic silences.
Smirking, Green goes on, "That got your attention, huh? Well, yeah. The Boss said I was smart and resourceful and strong, and that because I beat that rhydon I have grunt-level privileges now. Pretty cool, huh?"
But Red frowns.
"Eevee and Pikachu beat Rhydon," he corrects, "not you."
Green's cocky grin falls to a scowl, lips twisting downwards and eyes narrowing.
"What do you know, anyway? All you did was stand there like a baby while I did all the work."
Red doesn't quite know how to respond to that. He's never been good with words, so there's no way that he can say something to make Green see how wrong this all is.
So he doesn't even try.
Eventually, Green's scowl ebbs away and is replaced by a self-satisfied look. It's not quite a smile - his eyebrows are furrowed; the vestiges of the annoyance Red made him feel with his accusation still lingering - but there is something burning in his eyes. The flame makes his eyes murky and not quite as starry anymore. Red blinks, thinking it's just a trick of the light, but it's still there whenever he opens them.
"He said I was going to be important," Green says softly. His hand rests over his heart - over the red 'R' emblazoned there. "He said I was strong."
Red grits his teeth as he turns on his side again so that his back is turned to the other boy.
At least that way he won't have to see the beginnings of something ugly blooming on his best friend's face.
- . . . -
Later that night, when he is sure that the other boy is asleep, Red slips out of bed and gingerly tiptoes across the small space separating their beds. From the bedside table near Green's bed, Red takes Eevee's poké ball, careful not to make a sound that might wake the older boy.
Red thinks of the night he and Green shared a bed. It had been cold (it still is), and Red had wanted his momma more than anything. He and Green had shared the same bed during sleepovers, but there had been something different about that time.
Lifting the sheets and sticking the hand holding Eevee's poké ball under it, Red's fingers run along the nicked surface and press at the button. The light, smothered by the thick linen, only brightens his side of the room for an instant. It was dim enough that Green, sleeping on his side with his back to Red, was almost sure to have slept on, undisturbed. Just to make sure, he pauses for a moment, listening hard for any sign of wakefulness.
But Green's breathing stays deep and even, and before he knows it there is the wet press of a nose against his hand. The poké ball he was holding goes slack in his grip with surprise, the sound of its fall muted by the cocoon of sheets enveloping it.
Peeling back the entwined layers off, his hands eventually find the soft fur of Eevee. In the dark she is but a formless blur to his eyes, but when he presses his hands against her back Red can feel her agitation in the rigidity of her muscles, the slight trembling of her skin.
Perhaps she thinks it's time to fight again.
Or maybe she thinks she's going to be punished for something.
The boy runs his hand up and down her back soothingly, easing the tension away as best he can. The process is painstakingly slow, but eventually she goes boneless, collapsing onto the bed with a small, quivering exhale.
Carefully, Red eases himself back into bed around Eevee's small form. From underneath his pillow he retrieves his own poké ball and, stuffing it underneath the sheets, presses the round button to let Pikachu free.
The electric mouse burrows through the sheets, tail brushing against Red's leg, to poke his head out. Despite the shroud of darkness that hangs around them, Red can make out the twitch of Pikachu's injured ear. Like always, the sight strikes a pang of sorrow deep within him, one that makes his eyes sting with useless tears.
"Pi?" the electric mouse says, something like a question in his tone.
Red is a boy of few words. Language is heavy and cumbersome on his tongue, so he only speaks when he finds it necessary. He likes pokémon because language is often unnecessary. They express themselves in the cock of their head, the emotion hovering in their intelligent eyes. Communication is instinctual, bodily. Red finds this much easier to understand than the inflection in someone's voice, the words they use. They say one thing and do another, like the man who brought them to this place. With a pokémon, there is no deception; what he sees is what he gets. There is no subtext, no layers to peel back and interpret. They're not offended by his silence, and Red is grateful for this.
A human wouldn't understand what the press of the boy's small hands against their back means, what the patterns traced along the bumps of their spine spell out.
But Pikachu does. Silently, the pokémon makes his way to Eevee, settling in close to her to share his warmth. Red follows the mouse's example, curling his small body around them, laying a hand so that its heel lies against Pikachu's side and its fingers buried in Eevee's fur.
He concentrates on conveying what he wants them to know, thinks it and feels it as hard as he can.
You are good. You are important.
I'm sorry.
It feels safe.
Distantly, he remembers that night when he and Green slept pressed together on the older boy's narrow bed. That had felt safe, too. But somehow Red knows that it probably wouldn't, not anymore.
(He wishes it still would.)
Eventually Eevee's trembling stops, and despite his exhaustion, Red can't fall asleep until she does. When sleep claims her, it rushes up and out of his sore limbs, his aching bruises, his heavy bones. It shuts his eyes, carrying him to a place where there is nothing but warmth and darkness.
- . . . -