![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fye4z5hQr2mfBVH0nUhEd7Hau9SYIO6NMyPZeQWtvWU/edit
Red arrives in Viridian City later than he means to, though that implies an awareness of time that doesn't really exist. The sun has already lowered by the time he goes into the pokécentre, hidden long ago behind the trees of Viridian forest. When he comes out, the street lights have turned on and twilight has cast over the city in a way that makes him pause, think about where he is, and wonder if the far off hum of grass pokémon had been there before — if he hadn't somehow been transported elsewhere, or had mistaken one city for another.
But he sees his next destination, a building tucked away in a corner of the city, but in no way hidden. Soft glow of lights seep out through the windows, and Red spots one in particular on the upper levels that rings to him a name in his mind.
Familiar, in a city that feels like any other.
It's that familiarity that leads him there, to that building, to what could be just any other in his eyes.
---
"You can't see Green tonight—we're closed."
The gym trainer- Red guesses he's a gym trainer, but what does he know about gym goers and positions?- repeats himself again, more tired and exasperated, and maybe a little on edge with the way that Red's Pikachu growls and crackles tiny sparks from his cheeks in response. He knows he should probably explain himself beyond 'I want to talk to Green', but after the days of travelling and night already in the sky, maybe he simply doesn't care to, and so he stands silently and allows the far more expressive companion on his shoulder to speak for them instead.
(Though the one he wants to see is far more shorter, more feminine, and maybe just a tiny bit fluffier figure than Red does.)
The boy sighs, biting back an obvious frustration, and he turns and walks back into the gym. Red doesn't know if he's won, if he's made him submit, or if he'll be camping outside on a bench that night or maybe right in front of the gym.
But as the thoughts of deciding which one would be more convenient bounce around in his head, Pikachu's ears having sunk at the realisation that he might not get to see his friend until morning, the automatic doors open again, and this time, the face Red's met with is more straight forward in its anger than the previous had been.
"What are you doing here?" Green demands. It's the sound of his voice, a sound Red knows and recognises as well as he does the sight of him, that he hears first before the words.
But the question does reach him, and Red answers as he adjusts his hat. "I came down—thought you wanted that," he adds, half honestly and half jesting. He thinks, anyway.
Green doesn't say anything at first, and there's nothing more Red has to add to fill the silence (except maybe a warning about Pikachu if he keeps them too long), until he finally sighs and motions a hand towards the door.
"Come inside," he instructs, face already turned away. "Some of us aren’t as fond of the night chill as you."
Red walks on in first, seeing the boy from before, standing perplexed—maybe at the sight of Red actually being allowed entrance.
"Don't worry Bonita, I've got this," comes Green's voice from behind, overtaking him where he's temporarily stopped in wait and flicking his hand in command again. "C'mon."
Red shares with the person, Bonita, a look as he passes him, but nothing more. An excited cry rings from Pikachu bounces against the sleek wall, making his voice sound louder than Red's heard it in a long time. It's a sound that clashes with the air of the room, of Red and Green as they walk, quiet and suspicious.
--
Eevee and Pikachu tumble into each other almost instantly, Pikachu's voice announcing the three of them before Green barely opens the door and the mouse dating between his legs. There's a sour look Red catches on Green's face at the spectacle, but it disappears as he moves comfortably within his own apartment. Red follows some steps in and stops, taking in the sight of the room's open layout. There's little divide between the living area and the kitchen, a table that could fit four chairs easily but owns two sitting in the middle beside a protruding bookcase and the back of a worn couch (hosting magazines, Red notices).
Green only stops briefly, hands on his hips and looking like he doesn't know what to do next (or with him, he figures he's thinking), before he heads over to the kitchen counter and starts searching through the overhead cupboards. His eyes continue to move about the room, taking in how ordinary it all looks despite how he wouldn't really know what ordinary looks like. And though he thinks that, it feels more foreign to him than trekking through Johto had, out of place with what he's known for so long.
"Stop standing around like an idiot." There's a noise of chair legs thudding against the floor, and Red catches Green pulling out a chair. "Here." Despite the rough of his words, Green's voice is much softer now than before. He returns to the counter top and to the sink where a bowl sits turned over to drain, accompanied close by with plates and cups (mostly cups) that have yet to receive the same treatment.
But even with the chair pulled out for him, Red doesn't go to it right away. He listens a while to the clattering of Green moving around and the taps of his footsteps, the noise of another electronic hum coming from the microwave that Green decides to fold his arms and stare at, and he realises then that Eevee and Pikachu have become oddly quiet, and why; they had moved on to a different room, gone to somewhere more private.
Because unlike some, the two of them rarely ever danced around the things they wanted to do or say.
He goes to the table finally, knowing there'll be little difference between standing a sitting, and feels the hard of the wood underneath him and against his hands. He almost wants to take them away, but doesn't want to fidget, and so lets them sit there as the only sound comes from whatever food Green is heating up for him. The thought of eating pangs the inside of his mouth; he can't remember when it was he last ate.
It's only after he's put the bowl in front of him, soup, and found a spoon to go with it, that Green finally speaks again. Red stirs the liquid as he hears the question he knew would come.
“... does anyone else know you’re back?”
“... Viridian City’s Nurse Joy. That’s all.” He hopes that would be all, but he knows it won't.
“Your mom doesn’t know?"
And there it is, sooner and quicker than he had wanted it to come. But it's natural too, undramatic- Green is only ever dramatic when it suits him. His once eager mouth now takes in the soup with a sweetness that's too strong against his tongue, each taste that he takes unwelcoming despite how empty his stomach had felt in smelling the scent of food against his nose just seconds ago.
He decides the silence is unwelcoming as well for the first time, lifting some of the contents up and staring at it like something might change about it. "This is disgusting. Is this all you eat?"
The judgment hits the right spot, and Green shoots back, “What’s wrong with it? -you came off a damned mountain and you’re insulting my food?”
“This is worse than anything I ate up there," he responds, and he settles the spoon back down and avoids touching the hard table and linking his fingers together on his lap under it. He keeps his gaze away from Green, his thumb brushing idly at his hand before stopping when he realises what he's doing. The silence settles in again, before Green huffs once more and creaks in his chair.
“I just thought you’d be hungry. But if you aren’t… the bedroom is down the hallway. I’ll take the couch.”
He feels his body relax before he notices it happening, and though it's a place to go to next, he doesn't move as Green continues on. “So. Just. Dump the bowl in the sink when you’re done. Trash is under the sink. Extra toothbrushes are under the sink in the bathroom. Which is, uh, at the end of the hallway.”
The words come out slowly, but in Red's ears he wonders if Green's said them to another before, and that's why he knows to say them at all. Leaf, maybe; he wouldn't be surprised to know that she's been here already before him many times, weaving in out of Green's life more erratically yet stable than he ever did.
Green rises from his seat, and it's only then that Red thinks to thank him with the single word. He continues sitting lost for a moment, but rises himself and politely washes away the soup and the bowl in the sink until all traces of the food is gone, and then leaves down the hallway, turning to try and catch the sight of Green on the couch but seeing nothing behind the back of it when he does and giving up. The bedroom is easy to find, if only because he opens the wrong door first and finds himself there than instead the bathroom. But he didn't need the bathroom anyway, so it doesn't matter, and he closes the door behind him without even thinking of finding the light switch first.
But he knows the search for the wall beside him, or some part of him still knows, and the button catches his palm and the light flickers on instantly. room before hadn't been dark, but the suddenness of it causes him the wince before he takes in everything that's before him, things he knows but hasn't seen in so long.
The bed is a double. It surprises him to see that, and he wonders if Green had been the one to pick it. He can't tell what it is his mind thinks then, but he peels his eyes away from it and looks around the room. It's the same as the living room; messy, lived in, and yet somehow bare at the same time.
Yet the longer Red stands there, even when he takes steps forward into the room and looks again at the bed, he knows it isn't the same as the living room. Because here he's alone stuck in silence, save from what he thinks might be a ticking of a clock that he heard all the time but couldn't acknowledge for long without it drawing him in.
More importantly, here there is no Green, where Green has been the only familiar thing he's felt and seen. Here is just a room that could belong to anybody, a bed that's too big and calls him an intruder. He almost wishes he had taken the couch, smaller and less intimidating, but it's too late now, and he's not about to go to Green where he would have to explain why he wants to kick him off his own couch and onto his bed.
Eyeing the distance between the light switch and the bed, he swallows himself into a darkness and makes his way to the bed, pushing back the sheets awkwardly before he climbs onto it and slips his feet underneath the blankets. They're heavier than what he knows and it's strange, and the bed even more feels like it's swallowing him than the darkness ever could.
Because he knows darkness, the darkness is familiar, but what isn't familiar is the way that the air feels and doesn't smell. There's no lingering chill in it, and if there's a smell in the air now, Red doesn't know what it is.
If there is any smell, it would be Green. The thought makes him turn against the pillow, slipping a hand against its edge and pushing it closer to him in a way that makes him feel perverse, yet comforted enough that he doesn't care.
But even so, Red knows that he wouldn't be able to tell if the sheets or rooms smell like Green, when the matter of the fact is that he doesn't know how the other man smells at all.
===
----
When he wakes up, he doesn't know where he is. He doesn't know, yet he knows there's no reason to worry, so he lays half awake and still, hearing the sound of something far and intangible beyond the window hiding behind curtains that fail to keep out a sliver of light. The surface beneath him, springs and cotton and whatever else that makes a bed, feels too soft and unusual to his body after days and months and years of stone and rock that a flimsy and worn sleeping bag can't keep out.
It isn't comfortable, not like it had felt before he had fallen asleep. It isn't anything.
But it's steady and firm, and Red doesn't think about leaving it right away. He tries to listen out for more, wondering- finally remembering where he is- if Green is awake. But as he keeps still, all for except the rise and fall of his breathing, he hears nothing for the longest time until a sort of scratching, too close to be coming from outside he realises. He turns then in the bed, and as if on cue, two figures pounce up onto the covers and join him on the bed, yellow sitting on his chest and brown close beside.
"Vui?" Eevee questions, knowing exactly where she is and who isn't. Red shakes his head, hums a sound along with it and pats Pikachu on the head. "He's on the couch," he tells her soft and quietly, even though there's no reason to.
The two are enough encouragement for him to finally wake himself from the bed, and he notices the time before he gets out by the digital clock that sits on the table beside it. It's later than he thinks he usually wakes, but it's not often he falls asleep so late at night as he did. The two pokemon follow his feet as he walks first into the living room, spotting a mess of hair on the arm of the couch before he's completely entered the room. Eevee wanders on over, licking the hand that's over the side and hangs in the air, but doesn't look too offended when it disappears with a shift and a groan that's then followed by nothing more. Red could almost rolls his eyes, but he decides to head for the bathroom instead.
In there, he remembers what Green said last night and takes a look under the sink, finding the mentioned spare toothbrushes in the cabinet built around it. He eyes it, turning it in his hand the simple design for no real reason, and it's then that he spots the mirror above the sink. In it he sees a person staring back at him, almost spooking him for the expression that he knows shouldn't be strange, but still isn't quite what he imagined he was making.
It's the first time in a long time he's seen himself so clearly before, and it only really hits him then where he is and what he's doing. Or so he thinks, but he isn't sure if it's true. Everything around him is too strange- natural to itself, but not to him. And when he looks away from the mirror and uses the toothbrush like it felt like he had been silently instructed to, the action feels clumsy and the effort half-hearted. He doesn't try any better though, rinsing out his mouth with the plastic cup on the side and washing the bristles of the residue.
He leaves the apartment soon after finding there really isn't much that can be called food in Green's apartment. Tinned foods, ready-to-eats and frozen goods are all he can find, and while his mouth has been less than picky for a long time, he sees no reason to go for oversweet soup again and the bitterness that still lingers with it when he could experience his first real breakfast in a long while.
It's only once he's outside that he realises he has no idea where to buy any groceries not pokemon-related, and he begins the day by searching out for his way, taking in at the same time the morning of the city.
Just as it had in the night, everything meets his eyes as something new and unknown. A place he's been to and through times before, but stays like a route than anything more. The sounds are louder now than they had been blocked by window pane, chattering and other noises he can't comprehend (but thinks electronic, since it's been the answer to every strange sound thus far); the air is fresh but not as much as he knows it could be, and there's something sweet as he walks by an already busy café that clatters more loudly than Green had with the dishes.
It's by that café that he finds the grocery store, the doors glass and large but not automatic as the ones at a pokécentre. Instead, Red finds himself being the one to move automatically, no purpose to his steps as he makes his way through the aisles without actually knowing what it is he wants or needs. Breakfast had been the agenda, but he doesn't remember what that is until boxes of cereals jog his memory, lined by types and brands and varying prices.
He goes for the default in his mind, corn flakes, and it's from there he tries to recall from there what would be normally found in a home: bread, eggs, butter, milk, and fruit. The basket he had picked up upon entering feels heavy in no time, but the amount looks meagre despite being more than he's ever had at once by himself.
He looks through the shelves idly and by the teacakes and muffins, he notices a packet of pre-made pancakes. His thoughtless wandering ceases almost instantly, and home and breakfast become one at the sight.
Home for him isn't just a house in a quiet near-forgotten town in Kanto. It's a mountain of white, cold and stone and rock; trails down to a pokémon centre where the workers become nearly as common to him as the snow. On some visits, pancakes were cooked up and served as he waited for the check up on his pokémon, and he never failed to share a slice with the Pikachu that has food of his own to already nibble on.
'Doesn't your mom know?'
He takes last a bag of flour, and walks out a full bag in each hand.
---
Finding Green as he'd left him, asleep and half-naked (why had he stripped down to his boxers?) on the couch, Red this time really does rolls his eyes, then goes into the kitchen to set down the bags and make sense of the space.
Eevee and Pikachu both welcome him home, and he decides at the sight of them at his heels to take care of their breakfast first. He searches through the cupboards, bringing out a bag of premium brand name food. Probably the most expensive food that Green owns, and not even for him- Red doesn't expect any less.
He sets some of the contents down into the bowl he suspects to be for her, and the Eevee takes a place in front of it after giving a happy sound in thanks for the meal. She doesn't start before inviting Pikachu over, who questions her with a small "pika?" and his gaze. But she motions him to her with her head, and next the two are sat at the food munching away.
The two never cease to make Red smile.
"Thanks," he tells Eevee, and then reminds Pikachu, "You thank her too." The rodent pokemon obeys, rubbing his cheek against her and receiving the same back. The sight makes Red laugh soft and lightly.
All the while Green sleeps, Red somehow tidies up bits and pieces of the apartment around him while also scheduling in trainer challenges that come for him (it's odd to him that people do that, but he doesn't question it). A phone call even comes through from a room he suspects to be some sort of work space, and somehow that- nor the the person on the other end- wakes up Green from his slumber.
He must be dead, he thinks, as the voice on the other end shrills out his name.
Questions come tumbling in at a rate he can't process them, so he answers it all with a, "I missed you too, Leaf."
"Don't you I missed you too me!" But it gives the voice time to calm down, softening as she goes, "You finally came down?" And ends with a chiding but soft, "It's about time."
"Sorry."
"Are you?" He fidgets, but she quickly continues. "Nevermind- is Green there? He's asleep, isn't he." The voice turns deadpan, knowing.
"Yeah."
"Figures. I knew it was going to be too early for him to pick up the phone, and what a surprise I get when it doesn't go to voicemail!"
Leaf is cheerful, and it's familiar even after so long, and over a phone, yet he hesitates. He doesn't know what to say, or if Leaf expects him to say anything. But he does anyway. "I can wake him."
"No, no- I'm not going to make you put up with that," she laughs, and it's comforting to hear. He takes a seat in the desk chair he's been standing by (strangely lumpy, a texture he's not used) as he continues to listen.
"I just wanted to warn him that I'll be over in- three weeks? Give or take. I would be there sooner now that I know you're there, but you know how travelling is."
He hums an agreement, but he doesn't. Not really.
"How are you? Is he treating you well?" Leaf continues.
"Yeah." There's a silence on the other end, Leaf expecting more he guesses, so he adds, awkwardly, "... He is."
"Good, good... and how is he? Is he eating right?" There's a change in her tone as it lowers. "I had to tell Eevee on my last visit to remind him to eat once in a while. He gets so caught up in that gym work, I honestly don't think half of it is necessary."
She laughs at the end like it's a joke, but something about it doesn't sound natural to his ears. He tries to think about her question, and what he remembers surprises him- he hadn't seen Green eat at all.
"I don't know," he admits. "I got here last night."
Maybe he had eaten before he'd arrived. But the way Leaf had ask makes him feel put off.
"Oh, you did?" There's a short silence, before Leaf sighs into the phone. "Well, watch out for him, will you? Or be prepared to be the one to cook. Do you know how to use the oven? Or even the microwave will do. I know he's still buying those cheap ready meals."
The conversation continues, Leaf listing off and telling him how to use everything with ease. There isn't room for him to intervene, only when she allows him to, but he doesn't mind. There isn't much he can think to say, and there's no need to with Leaf. Words come naturally to her.
When they finally exchange their good-byes, Red putting the phone down with a click, the silence that had been there before her call settles back in with a heaviness that doesn't feel right. He's forgotten what he was doing before, and he stares at the phone for a while, hoping she might call back and instruct him as she just had. But she doesn't.
It's strange to think that it's been almost three years since he's heard her voice, with how everything feels suddenly so empty without it.
---
Red arrives in Viridian City later than he means to, though that implies an awareness of time that doesn't really exist. The sun has already lowered by the time he goes into the pokécentre, hidden long ago behind the trees of Viridian forest. When he comes out, the street lights have turned on and twilight has cast over the city in a way that makes him pause, think about where he is, and wonder if the far off hum of grass pokémon had been there before — if he hadn't somehow been transported elsewhere, or had mistaken one city for another.
But he sees his next destination, a building tucked away in a corner of the city, but in no way hidden. Soft glow of lights seep out through the windows, and Red spots one in particular on the upper levels that rings to him a name in his mind.
Familiar, in a city that feels like any other.
It's that familiarity that leads him there, to that building, to what could be just any other in his eyes.
---
"You can't see Green tonight—we're closed."
The gym trainer- Red guesses he's a gym trainer, but what does he know about gym goers and positions?- repeats himself again, more tired and exasperated, and maybe a little on edge with the way that Red's Pikachu growls and crackles tiny sparks from his cheeks in response. He knows he should probably explain himself beyond 'I want to talk to Green', but after the days of travelling and night already in the sky, maybe he simply doesn't care to, and so he stands silently and allows the far more expressive companion on his shoulder to speak for them instead.
(Though the one he wants to see is far more shorter, more feminine, and maybe just a tiny bit fluffier figure than Red does.)
The boy sighs, biting back an obvious frustration, and he turns and walks back into the gym. Red doesn't know if he's won, if he's made him submit, or if he'll be camping outside on a bench that night or maybe right in front of the gym.
But as the thoughts of deciding which one would be more convenient bounce around in his head, Pikachu's ears having sunk at the realisation that he might not get to see his friend until morning, the automatic doors open again, and this time, the face Red's met with is more straight forward in its anger than the previous had been.
"What are you doing here?" Green demands. It's the sound of his voice, a sound Red knows and recognises as well as he does the sight of him, that he hears first before the words.
But the question does reach him, and Red answers as he adjusts his hat. "I came down—thought you wanted that," he adds, half honestly and half jesting. He thinks, anyway.
Green doesn't say anything at first, and there's nothing more Red has to add to fill the silence (except maybe a warning about Pikachu if he keeps them too long), until he finally sighs and motions a hand towards the door.
"Come inside," he instructs, face already turned away. "Some of us aren’t as fond of the night chill as you."
Red walks on in first, seeing the boy from before, standing perplexed—maybe at the sight of Red actually being allowed entrance.
"Don't worry Bonita, I've got this," comes Green's voice from behind, overtaking him where he's temporarily stopped in wait and flicking his hand in command again. "C'mon."
Red shares with the person, Bonita, a look as he passes him, but nothing more. An excited cry rings from Pikachu bounces against the sleek wall, making his voice sound louder than Red's heard it in a long time. It's a sound that clashes with the air of the room, of Red and Green as they walk, quiet and suspicious.
--
Eevee and Pikachu tumble into each other almost instantly, Pikachu's voice announcing the three of them before Green barely opens the door and the mouse dating between his legs. There's a sour look Red catches on Green's face at the spectacle, but it disappears as he moves comfortably within his own apartment. Red follows some steps in and stops, taking in the sight of the room's open layout. There's little divide between the living area and the kitchen, a table that could fit four chairs easily but owns two sitting in the middle beside a protruding bookcase and the back of a worn couch (hosting magazines, Red notices).
Green only stops briefly, hands on his hips and looking like he doesn't know what to do next (or with him, he figures he's thinking), before he heads over to the kitchen counter and starts searching through the overhead cupboards. His eyes continue to move about the room, taking in how ordinary it all looks despite how he wouldn't really know what ordinary looks like. And though he thinks that, it feels more foreign to him than trekking through Johto had, out of place with what he's known for so long.
"Stop standing around like an idiot." There's a noise of chair legs thudding against the floor, and Red catches Green pulling out a chair. "Here." Despite the rough of his words, Green's voice is much softer now than before. He returns to the counter top and to the sink where a bowl sits turned over to drain, accompanied close by with plates and cups (mostly cups) that have yet to receive the same treatment.
But even with the chair pulled out for him, Red doesn't go to it right away. He listens a while to the clattering of Green moving around and the taps of his footsteps, the noise of another electronic hum coming from the microwave that Green decides to fold his arms and stare at, and he realises then that Eevee and Pikachu have become oddly quiet, and why; they had moved on to a different room, gone to somewhere more private.
Because unlike some, the two of them rarely ever danced around the things they wanted to do or say.
He goes to the table finally, knowing there'll be little difference between standing a sitting, and feels the hard of the wood underneath him and against his hands. He almost wants to take them away, but doesn't want to fidget, and so lets them sit there as the only sound comes from whatever food Green is heating up for him. The thought of eating pangs the inside of his mouth; he can't remember when it was he last ate.
It's only after he's put the bowl in front of him, soup, and found a spoon to go with it, that Green finally speaks again. Red stirs the liquid as he hears the question he knew would come.
“... does anyone else know you’re back?”
“... Viridian City’s Nurse Joy. That’s all.” He hopes that would be all, but he knows it won't.
“Your mom doesn’t know?"
And there it is, sooner and quicker than he had wanted it to come. But it's natural too, undramatic- Green is only ever dramatic when it suits him. His once eager mouth now takes in the soup with a sweetness that's too strong against his tongue, each taste that he takes unwelcoming despite how empty his stomach had felt in smelling the scent of food against his nose just seconds ago.
He decides the silence is unwelcoming as well for the first time, lifting some of the contents up and staring at it like something might change about it. "This is disgusting. Is this all you eat?"
The judgment hits the right spot, and Green shoots back, “What’s wrong with it? -you came off a damned mountain and you’re insulting my food?”
“This is worse than anything I ate up there," he responds, and he settles the spoon back down and avoids touching the hard table and linking his fingers together on his lap under it. He keeps his gaze away from Green, his thumb brushing idly at his hand before stopping when he realises what he's doing. The silence settles in again, before Green huffs once more and creaks in his chair.
“I just thought you’d be hungry. But if you aren’t… the bedroom is down the hallway. I’ll take the couch.”
He feels his body relax before he notices it happening, and though it's a place to go to next, he doesn't move as Green continues on. “So. Just. Dump the bowl in the sink when you’re done. Trash is under the sink. Extra toothbrushes are under the sink in the bathroom. Which is, uh, at the end of the hallway.”
The words come out slowly, but in Red's ears he wonders if Green's said them to another before, and that's why he knows to say them at all. Leaf, maybe; he wouldn't be surprised to know that she's been here already before him many times, weaving in out of Green's life more erratically yet stable than he ever did.
Green rises from his seat, and it's only then that Red thinks to thank him with the single word. He continues sitting lost for a moment, but rises himself and politely washes away the soup and the bowl in the sink until all traces of the food is gone, and then leaves down the hallway, turning to try and catch the sight of Green on the couch but seeing nothing behind the back of it when he does and giving up. The bedroom is easy to find, if only because he opens the wrong door first and finds himself there than instead the bathroom. But he didn't need the bathroom anyway, so it doesn't matter, and he closes the door behind him without even thinking of finding the light switch first.
But he knows the search for the wall beside him, or some part of him still knows, and the button catches his palm and the light flickers on instantly. room before hadn't been dark, but the suddenness of it causes him the wince before he takes in everything that's before him, things he knows but hasn't seen in so long.
The bed is a double. It surprises him to see that, and he wonders if Green had been the one to pick it. He can't tell what it is his mind thinks then, but he peels his eyes away from it and looks around the room. It's the same as the living room; messy, lived in, and yet somehow bare at the same time.
Yet the longer Red stands there, even when he takes steps forward into the room and looks again at the bed, he knows it isn't the same as the living room. Because here he's alone stuck in silence, save from what he thinks might be a ticking of a clock that he heard all the time but couldn't acknowledge for long without it drawing him in.
More importantly, here there is no Green, where Green has been the only familiar thing he's felt and seen. Here is just a room that could belong to anybody, a bed that's too big and calls him an intruder. He almost wishes he had taken the couch, smaller and less intimidating, but it's too late now, and he's not about to go to Green where he would have to explain why he wants to kick him off his own couch and onto his bed.
Eyeing the distance between the light switch and the bed, he swallows himself into a darkness and makes his way to the bed, pushing back the sheets awkwardly before he climbs onto it and slips his feet underneath the blankets. They're heavier than what he knows and it's strange, and the bed even more feels like it's swallowing him than the darkness ever could.
Because he knows darkness, the darkness is familiar, but what isn't familiar is the way that the air feels and doesn't smell. There's no lingering chill in it, and if there's a smell in the air now, Red doesn't know what it is.
If there is any smell, it would be Green. The thought makes him turn against the pillow, slipping a hand against its edge and pushing it closer to him in a way that makes him feel perverse, yet comforted enough that he doesn't care.
But even so, Red knows that he wouldn't be able to tell if the sheets or rooms smell like Green, when the matter of the fact is that he doesn't know how the other man smells at all.
===
----
When he wakes up, he doesn't know where he is. He doesn't know, yet he knows there's no reason to worry, so he lays half awake and still, hearing the sound of something far and intangible beyond the window hiding behind curtains that fail to keep out a sliver of light. The surface beneath him, springs and cotton and whatever else that makes a bed, feels too soft and unusual to his body after days and months and years of stone and rock that a flimsy and worn sleeping bag can't keep out.
It isn't comfortable, not like it had felt before he had fallen asleep. It isn't anything.
But it's steady and firm, and Red doesn't think about leaving it right away. He tries to listen out for more, wondering- finally remembering where he is- if Green is awake. But as he keeps still, all for except the rise and fall of his breathing, he hears nothing for the longest time until a sort of scratching, too close to be coming from outside he realises. He turns then in the bed, and as if on cue, two figures pounce up onto the covers and join him on the bed, yellow sitting on his chest and brown close beside.
"Vui?" Eevee questions, knowing exactly where she is and who isn't. Red shakes his head, hums a sound along with it and pats Pikachu on the head. "He's on the couch," he tells her soft and quietly, even though there's no reason to.
The two are enough encouragement for him to finally wake himself from the bed, and he notices the time before he gets out by the digital clock that sits on the table beside it. It's later than he thinks he usually wakes, but it's not often he falls asleep so late at night as he did. The two pokemon follow his feet as he walks first into the living room, spotting a mess of hair on the arm of the couch before he's completely entered the room. Eevee wanders on over, licking the hand that's over the side and hangs in the air, but doesn't look too offended when it disappears with a shift and a groan that's then followed by nothing more. Red could almost rolls his eyes, but he decides to head for the bathroom instead.
In there, he remembers what Green said last night and takes a look under the sink, finding the mentioned spare toothbrushes in the cabinet built around it. He eyes it, turning it in his hand the simple design for no real reason, and it's then that he spots the mirror above the sink. In it he sees a person staring back at him, almost spooking him for the expression that he knows shouldn't be strange, but still isn't quite what he imagined he was making.
It's the first time in a long time he's seen himself so clearly before, and it only really hits him then where he is and what he's doing. Or so he thinks, but he isn't sure if it's true. Everything around him is too strange- natural to itself, but not to him. And when he looks away from the mirror and uses the toothbrush like it felt like he had been silently instructed to, the action feels clumsy and the effort half-hearted. He doesn't try any better though, rinsing out his mouth with the plastic cup on the side and washing the bristles of the residue.
He leaves the apartment soon after finding there really isn't much that can be called food in Green's apartment. Tinned foods, ready-to-eats and frozen goods are all he can find, and while his mouth has been less than picky for a long time, he sees no reason to go for oversweet soup again and the bitterness that still lingers with it when he could experience his first real breakfast in a long while.
It's only once he's outside that he realises he has no idea where to buy any groceries not pokemon-related, and he begins the day by searching out for his way, taking in at the same time the morning of the city.
Just as it had in the night, everything meets his eyes as something new and unknown. A place he's been to and through times before, but stays like a route than anything more. The sounds are louder now than they had been blocked by window pane, chattering and other noises he can't comprehend (but thinks electronic, since it's been the answer to every strange sound thus far); the air is fresh but not as much as he knows it could be, and there's something sweet as he walks by an already busy café that clatters more loudly than Green had with the dishes.
It's by that café that he finds the grocery store, the doors glass and large but not automatic as the ones at a pokécentre. Instead, Red finds himself being the one to move automatically, no purpose to his steps as he makes his way through the aisles without actually knowing what it is he wants or needs. Breakfast had been the agenda, but he doesn't remember what that is until boxes of cereals jog his memory, lined by types and brands and varying prices.
He goes for the default in his mind, corn flakes, and it's from there he tries to recall from there what would be normally found in a home: bread, eggs, butter, milk, and fruit. The basket he had picked up upon entering feels heavy in no time, but the amount looks meagre despite being more than he's ever had at once by himself.
He looks through the shelves idly and by the teacakes and muffins, he notices a packet of pre-made pancakes. His thoughtless wandering ceases almost instantly, and home and breakfast become one at the sight.
Home for him isn't just a house in a quiet near-forgotten town in Kanto. It's a mountain of white, cold and stone and rock; trails down to a pokémon centre where the workers become nearly as common to him as the snow. On some visits, pancakes were cooked up and served as he waited for the check up on his pokémon, and he never failed to share a slice with the Pikachu that has food of his own to already nibble on.
'Doesn't your mom know?'
He takes last a bag of flour, and walks out a full bag in each hand.
---
Finding Green as he'd left him, asleep and half-naked (why had he stripped down to his boxers?) on the couch, Red this time really does rolls his eyes, then goes into the kitchen to set down the bags and make sense of the space.
Eevee and Pikachu both welcome him home, and he decides at the sight of them at his heels to take care of their breakfast first. He searches through the cupboards, bringing out a bag of premium brand name food. Probably the most expensive food that Green owns, and not even for him- Red doesn't expect any less.
He sets some of the contents down into the bowl he suspects to be for her, and the Eevee takes a place in front of it after giving a happy sound in thanks for the meal. She doesn't start before inviting Pikachu over, who questions her with a small "pika?" and his gaze. But she motions him to her with her head, and next the two are sat at the food munching away.
The two never cease to make Red smile.
"Thanks," he tells Eevee, and then reminds Pikachu, "You thank her too." The rodent pokemon obeys, rubbing his cheek against her and receiving the same back. The sight makes Red laugh soft and lightly.
All the while Green sleeps, Red somehow tidies up bits and pieces of the apartment around him while also scheduling in trainer challenges that come for him (it's odd to him that people do that, but he doesn't question it). A phone call even comes through from a room he suspects to be some sort of work space, and somehow that- nor the the person on the other end- wakes up Green from his slumber.
He must be dead, he thinks, as the voice on the other end shrills out his name.
Questions come tumbling in at a rate he can't process them, so he answers it all with a, "I missed you too, Leaf."
"Don't you I missed you too me!" But it gives the voice time to calm down, softening as she goes, "You finally came down?" And ends with a chiding but soft, "It's about time."
"Sorry."
"Are you?" He fidgets, but she quickly continues. "Nevermind- is Green there? He's asleep, isn't he." The voice turns deadpan, knowing.
"Yeah."
"Figures. I knew it was going to be too early for him to pick up the phone, and what a surprise I get when it doesn't go to voicemail!"
Leaf is cheerful, and it's familiar even after so long, and over a phone, yet he hesitates. He doesn't know what to say, or if Leaf expects him to say anything. But he does anyway. "I can wake him."
"No, no- I'm not going to make you put up with that," she laughs, and it's comforting to hear. He takes a seat in the desk chair he's been standing by (strangely lumpy, a texture he's not used) as he continues to listen.
"I just wanted to warn him that I'll be over in- three weeks? Give or take. I would be there sooner now that I know you're there, but you know how travelling is."
He hums an agreement, but he doesn't. Not really.
"How are you? Is he treating you well?" Leaf continues.
"Yeah." There's a silence on the other end, Leaf expecting more he guesses, so he adds, awkwardly, "... He is."
"Good, good... and how is he? Is he eating right?" There's a change in her tone as it lowers. "I had to tell Eevee on my last visit to remind him to eat once in a while. He gets so caught up in that gym work, I honestly don't think half of it is necessary."
She laughs at the end like it's a joke, but something about it doesn't sound natural to his ears. He tries to think about her question, and what he remembers surprises him- he hadn't seen Green eat at all.
"I don't know," he admits. "I got here last night."
Maybe he had eaten before he'd arrived. But the way Leaf had ask makes him feel put off.
"Oh, you did?" There's a short silence, before Leaf sighs into the phone. "Well, watch out for him, will you? Or be prepared to be the one to cook. Do you know how to use the oven? Or even the microwave will do. I know he's still buying those cheap ready meals."
The conversation continues, Leaf listing off and telling him how to use everything with ease. There isn't room for him to intervene, only when she allows him to, but he doesn't mind. There isn't much he can think to say, and there's no need to with Leaf. Words come naturally to her.
When they finally exchange their good-byes, Red putting the phone down with a click, the silence that had been there before her call settles back in with a heaviness that doesn't feel right. He's forgotten what he was doing before, and he stares at the phone for a while, hoping she might call back and instruct him as she just had. But she doesn't.
It's strange to think that it's been almost three years since he's heard her voice, with how everything feels suddenly so empty without it.
---