The Thing About Teenagers
Red had always been an odd sort of kid. If Green ever wrote a biography about his best friend, that was how he would start it. (Not that he had any writing talent whatsoever, but hey.) Because, really, that sounded like a far more marketable first sentence than "My best friend is fucking insane."
Even if it was true.
"You're going to go live in a cave," Green said, trying desperately to pretend he hadn't just heard those words coming out of his best friend's mouth.
"Yup," Red replied as he shoved a pair of underwear into his suitcase. "There's something I have to achieve."
"Well, if that something is 'go completely crazy and become some tripped-out hermit', then you're on the right path. Otherwise? Not so much."
"No," Red said firmly, shaking his head. "This isn't crazy. This is important, Green."
There was an edge of desperation to his voice that made Green pause for just a second. Had he gotten into legal troubles? Problems with a gang? What could possibly make his best friend try something this stupid?
"Hey," Green finally said, plopping himself down next to Red's suitcase. "You know you can come to me if you're in trouble, right? I mean, Leaf and I, we'll always help you out. You don't need to run away like this."
"No, no it isn't like that. I just…" Red blushed, paused, looked away.
"Yes?" Green prompted.
"I really, desperately need to develop psychic powers."
"What."
Red nodded, carefully avoiding Green's gaze.
Perhaps mental breakdown was the answer after all. "I swear to Mew, Red, if this is some sort of Woobatman hero worship thing you've got running through your head-"
"I told you," Red yelped, glaring at Green, "I got over Woobatman man when I was twelve!"
"And anyway," he added quietly, "Woobatman didn't even have psychic powers. He made all the stuff he used to fight crime."
"Okay, then. Let's assume I believe you." Which he didn't, admittedly, but Green could pretend to ignore the action figures scattered all over Red's dresser. "What is this about, then?" He folded his arms and did his best to give Red a menacing stare.
Amazingly, Red managed to turn even, well, redder than he had been before.
"It's, well, I'm…" Red took a deep breath and stared up into Green's eyes. "I'm doing it for love."
Green's first thought was, Oh sweet merciful Mew, Red is hitting on me. A moment later, the sheer absurdity of Red attempting to develop psychic powers in order to get in his pants hit him, and he managed to calm down enough to stop just flailing around indiscriminately. Another moment later, Green managed to put together love and psychic powers, and realized what was going on.
"No way," he said, grinning. "You have a thing for Sabrina, don't you?"
"No I don't!" Red shrieked, with an expression on his face that clearly said yes I do.
But by this time Green was too busy laughing his head off to even hear any of Red's denials. (Not, of course, that he ever listened to Red anyway.) He was still laughing right up until the moment that Red finished packing, released his Espeon, and teleported away.
"Oh, this is bad," Green said to himself as he stared at the spot where his lovestruck best friend used to be.
In the end, Green ended up exiting Red's house through the upstairs window. It was uncomfortable, yes, and meant he would be picking thorns out of unmentionable areas for the next few weeks, but all things considered it was far safer for his health then explaining to Red's mom why her son was no longer at home.
(Actually, being trampled by a rampaging herd of Tauros would also be safer than facing Red's mom.)
He just wished Leaf would stop laughing at him. He didn't look that terrible.
"Sorry," she said, giggling at him from across the table, "But you actually really do. In fact, I think you still have a piece of thorn stuck up your nostril."
"I am going to kill that boy," he snarled into his cup of coffee, trying to avoid scratching at the thorn—the people around Green were already giving him enough strange looks. He wasn't sure how they'd react if he started picking his nose.
"Well, look on the bright side." Leaf grinned. "I bet this café's never had such an interesting sight as you!"
Green flipped her the bird. Leaf stuck out her tongue. After that, it developed into a miniature insult war until their waitress came by and they both had to pretend they were normal.
"Anyway," Green said once she'd taken both their orders. "You need to do something about him."
"Me? Why me?"
"You're a girl, and you know him best. Can't you like, seduce him or something?"
Leaf pulled a face. "Yeah, and why don't you have me go seduce my dad once that's done? He's basically family, Greeny-boy."
Green cringed. When she started pulling out the cutesy nicknames, it was time to back off. "Well," he blustered, "It's not like I can seduce him."
"Why not? I'll bet you five bucks he's bi, anyway."
There was a long pause as they both entertained the thought of Red and Green dating.
"On second thought, never mind," Leaf said, voice dull with horror. "I actually think I just threw up a little in my mouth. That's worse than the thought of you and Daisy dating."
"And anyway," Green said, shaking off the mental images, "I'm pretty sure he still hasn't fully forgiven me for taking the Eevee Gramps was going to give him."
"Wait, seriously? I thought he loved Pikachu. And it's not like he didn't get one anyway."
"Yeah, I know. And so does he. But you know Red," Green said. "He's…"
"He's Red," she finished, smiling indulgently.
They both sipped at their drinks for a moment, pointedly ignoring the people staring at Green.
So what if he was missing a few chunks of hair (and a few chunks of skin), he thought viciously. He was looking pretty damn good for a guy who'd spent last night picking leaves out of his skin.
"So," Green finally asked, "If you're not going to seduce him, and I'm not going to seduce him, who is?"
"Nobody's going to be seducing anybody," Leaf said, rolling her eyes. "I have a plan."
Any details on what that plan was, though, were lost in the commotion as the waitress finally brought out their food. Never let it be said that the Pallet Town kids didn't eat like a hoard of starving Snorlax.
"You know, when you said you had a plan I was sort of assuming it would be a good one," Green said desperately, wishing he's spend a little less time inhaling his fries and a little more time interrogating Leaf yesterday afternoon.
"Oh, this plan is wonderful and you know it!" Leaf flashed him a predatory little smile. "Now, go on in there and tell the nice woman at the front desk that you need to talk to Sabrina."
"What? Why me?"
"You're the gym leader, aren't you?" Leaf asked playfully, giving him a little push towards the doors of the Saffron City Gym. "I'll be right behind you."
It was definitely a little nicer looking than the last time he'd been there, Green noticed as they walked inside. They'd redone the floors and added a little lobby area where challengers could sit and wait their turn to be horribly humiliated by the psychic-user. Classy.
"What are you so afraid of?" Leaf whispered when she noticed him lingering near the door.
"Look," Green hissed back. "When you're a gym leader, you hear things. Rumors. They say she learned how to bend spoons when she was six years old, that she can read minds, that she used to turn her defeated opponents into dolls, that she's in a relationship with Erika from Celadon."
"That last one doesn't seem so scary," Leaf said doubtfully.
"It does when you're depending on her to seduce your best friend out of the cave he went and buried himself in."
"It's not seduction!" Leaf protested. "It's more…romancing. Now go up there and get us an appointment, Greeny-boy."
Metaphorical tail tucked firmly between his legs, Green sidled up to the lobby desk.
"Hello," he said, turning on the charm. Suave, he thought to himself. Cool. Sophisticated. "My name is Green. I'm the Viridian City Gym Leader, and I'm here-"
"To see Sabrina. Yes, I'm aware," interrupted the receptionist. "She's with a challenger right now, but she can probably see you in about fifteen minutes, if you're willing to sit and wait."
"Ah, thank you so much," Green said. Inside, he was going, Holy shit, she's psychic, they're all psychic, we're screwed. "But, ahm… If you don't mind me asking, how did you know?"
"Mr. Oak," said the woman, giving him a Look, "You are in the lobby of the Saffron City Pokémon Gym. I gather you're not here to order a meal, yes?"
"Ah, of course," Green said, feeling like an idiot. Somewhere behind him, Leaf giggled.
"As I was saying," the receptionist continued, "Please take a seat. We should be hearing some screams of humiliation and dejection any minute now. "
"Ah…" Leaf said, suddenly not laughing anymore. "Is there any chance the challenger will win?"
"There is," said the receptionist, scribbling something onto a memo pad, "But I highly doubt it."
Fifteen minutes later, as if on cue, miserable screams echoed through the lobby. Leaf gave a little shriek, and Green nearly fell off his chair. The receptionist didn't even flinch.
"Party of Green and Leaf, you may go in," she announced as a man ran down the hallway and out of the gym, sobbing.
"Wow," said Leaf as she watched him pelt down the street. "Did he really yell that loudly?"
"Huh? Oh, no," the receptionist said. "We had an amplifier put in when we redid the floors. It goes a long way towards keeping our waiting challengers respectful."
"I…see," Green said as they started down the hallway towards Sabrina's room.
"You know," he whispered to Leaf, grinning slightly, "I should-"
"No," she interrupted with a snarl. "That is the last thing your gym needs."
"But!"
"Anyway," she said happily, a manic glint to her eye, "I believe this is the door to her room, yes? Lead the way, o brave warrior!"
That, of course, shut Green up immediately.
To his slight surprise and immense relief, Sabrina's room had not been remodeled to look like a medieval torture chamber.
In fact, it actually looked very similar to Green's challenge arena. (He chose to ignore anything this might suggest about his own character.)
Sabrina was standing in one corner, dropping her pokeballs into a small recovery machine.
"I'm not accepting any challenges at his time," she said as they entered. "I apologize if-" she broke off as she turned around. "Oh, hello, Green Oak. What a surprise it is to see you here today." Her tone implied that it was about as surprising as the fact that the sky was blue and water was wet.
"Um. Hi," he said, trying desperately to clear his mind of absolutely all thought.
"And who, may I ask, is your friend?"
"Hi," Leaf said, sounding a lot more confident than Green felt. "My name's Leaf. Nice to meet you."
"Pleasure to meet you as well," said Sabrina, giving her a tiny smile. "Now, to what do I owe this honor?"
"…You may want to sit down for this," Leaf said.
Fifteen minutes and quite a few repetitions of 'Is this a prank? Have I missed April Fool's Day?' later, Leaf and Green had explained the situation to the best of their ability. Green had to admit that it sounded even stranger out loud.
"So what you are saying," Sabrina said slowly, "Is that your friend Red has been harboring a hidden attraction for me, and in order to further this end he has decided to become a hermit in the hopes of developing extranormal abilities to win my love?"
"Yeah, that's about it," Green replied.
"Oh, Mew," Leaf whimpered, massaging her temples. "We've all gone freaking insane."
"Well," Sabrina said, and blushed. It was only noticeable for a split second before she erased not only the blush but the very idea that it was even humanly possible for her to blush from existence completely, but Green knew what he'd seen.
Wow, Green thought. He very dearly hoped that Sabrina was not a mind reader, because a variety of interesting expressions followed the wow, most both unfit for polite company and quite anatomically impossible. (Especially not that one about the pineapple he'd picked up from a sailor down in Vermilion.)
"While I am not going to make any promises," she said slowly, making Green snap back to attention, "I suppose it would be prudent of me to discuss this with him rather than ignoring him. I have nothing but the highest respect for Red, of course." And there it was again—another little blush.
Yeah, thought Green. Absolutely nothing.
"While I cannot afford to leave my gym as often as some seem to able to," she said with a pointed look at Green, "I'm sure I can afford a trip to Mount Silver next weekend. I'll talk to him." Green wasn't sure if he was imagining it, but he thought her eyes softened a little when she talked about Red.
"Well, is that all?" Sabrina asked, standing up.
Huh. Maybe she's not so scary after all.
" Yep. Thank you so much!" Leaf said as they began to walk out the door. "You're a lifesaver, I swear."
"No problem," Sabrina said. "Oh, and Green?"
"Yeah?" he asked, turning around.
"While I appreciate a creative mind, I must say that I don't believe it's actually anatomically possible to do most of what you described. Especially not that bit about the pineapple. Have a nice day!"
And the door slammed shut.
"Wait, what?" Leaf asked, looking at him oddly.
No way. No freaking way.
"I…nothing," he said finally. "It was nothing."
Part of him actually hoped it wouldn't work out between Red and Sabrina. Red attracted enough chaos without a psychic girlfriend along for the ride.
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