oldrival has been my otp since i was probably 10 but i never wrote anything for them, mainly because they are so difficult! to! write!
they're around their mid-twenties in this fic. i can't decide exactly how old.
the title is tentative bc i'm fickle af
this is also canon compliant, though i dont keep track of where pokespe even is nowadays. all im aware of is that blue and red got crushed by some rocks and green is still in kalos and has adopted the kalos dexholders. so in other words the three of them might just keep adventuring well into their elderly years, since they're literally in their 20s and still doing the same things they've been doing for ten years
the deconstruction of falling stars
"Green?"
The voice is soft, yet resounds in his mind all the same. It is both familiar and not, like coming home after so many years spent fighting evil and playing the hero. It takes Green a minute to realize he's been staring blankly at an apple, before he calmly sets it down and turns at the sound of his name. Blue smiles at him, her teeth just a little crooked—she had, after all, missed out on typical childhood experiences, like getting braces and also getting them savagely pulled out. But even then, her smile is no less charming and disarming than the rest of her, all an illusion to most. Green almost doesn't recognize her without the white hat or the blue legwarmers, the battle- and travel-worn attire she'd donned for countless years. She looks startlingly normal in a light sundress and plain sandals, especially with the backdrop of the local farmers' market. Her hair—had it always been that reddish?—falls down and around her shoulders, stopping just above her waist. It's shorter than when he'd last seen her, years and years ago, before she'd left to go backpacking across Sinnoh and Unova and Kalos, and he surrounded himself with nothing but Pokémon and work. Still, he hadn't seen her since the years before she went on that eat, pray, love excursion, nor had he made an effort to contact her. Or anyone, for that matter. Red's whereabouts are always a mystery, and Yellow, he knows, resides in town, though he never runs into or hears of her. He makes no effort to do either, and assumes the best for his ex-protege.
"Blue," he says, the name sounding almost foreign despite its utter plainness, as he'd always been more partial to other, more derogatory monikers. "It's been a while."
"You noticed?" She laughs, always a little too loud and a little too high. Before he could make an annoyed retort, she continues, "I ran into Daisy when I was visiting my parents, and she told me you'd settled here in Viridian. She also asked me to check on you 'cause she thinks you're lonely, but I know you're above things like human emotion and companionship."
Punctuated with a shit-eating grin, of course.
Green sighs, then suppresses the urge to roll his eyes at his sister's unnecessary concerns and Blue's quips. He's got an image to protect, after all, and so he moves to sidestep past Blue. "It was nice seeing you. I'll be going—" She steps back to block his path, and he turns the other way to find it crowded with people. He could crawl in the space under her arm, but he doubts that'd be received well by the people, not to mention the fact that Blue could make a big deal out of it just to blackmail him.
"Hey! We haven't seen each other for years and you're already trying to get rid of me?" She pouts and he scowls, a simple summary of their relationship. "I know you've forsaken human emotion and friendship, but I have not. So, lunch tomorrow?"
Friends, he thinks, is a bit of a stretch to call this, whatever this is. They have fought alongside one another, seen each other at their worst, but friends? Maybe he's going soft, or maybe he's too old and tired to protest against Blue's shit, but something makes him give in so easily that he can't remember how he'd brushed her off in the past. He's grown up, too.
—or maybe he just doesn't want to admit that Daisy might be right. Lying is more appealing than being wrong when it comes to one's own circumstances. And it's not like Green Oak ever gets lonely. So, through a clenched jaw, he agrees to meet her for lunch the following day.
"Great! Now, could you pay for this for me? It seems I forgot my wallet!" She makes a worried expression that anyone but him would believe, complete with a finger over her lips, but he ends up begrudgingly paying not only for his month's groceries, but also her years' worth anyway.
"You really have changed." He scrutinizes her after he'd dished out almost half of last week's paycheck, the sunlight reflecting off her namesake eyes. It occurs to him that Blue has always been beautiful, though it is not as though he would ever truly admit that, whether it be in his head or out loud. Especially not to her and her sizable ego. Nonetheless, her cheeks are a bit fuller than he remembers, a side effect of normalcy and domesticity, and her shoulders are softer, less defined. He wonders if, to her, he appears any differently in the same ways.
"What d'you mean?"
"You asked for me to pay instead of just stealing my wallet."
The air is quiet without the wind. She stretches, a lazy cat in the haze of summer, and folds her fingers behind her. He's clutching both of their groceries in his hands, the strain basically nonexistent as he watches her. The heels of her shoes clack lightly on the pavement, and the thought that she is not dressed appropriately for travel swings by his mind just as quickly as it disappears. They are no longer children, after all, and even he would not fare well in his business-casual outfit, out in the wild where they'd spent so much time doing instead of thinking.
"Not that I'd ever doubt my purr-loining skills—" She grins cheekily, eyes crinkling at the corners, before continuing, "but it's been a while. I may not be a gym leader or a researcher or employed, for that matter, but I grew up, too, you know."
"Then what're you doing for money?"
"Odd jobs here and there. I worked as a receptionist for Silph, but it was way too dry, you know, without any crime organizations infiltrating." She chuckles and he does not see the humor in it. "The pay was good, though, better than most. Definitely better than the time I worked at the Game Corner. Did you know there's a bar in the basement? New development, apparently. Way too many drunkards. And my manager was super creepy, but I guess I shouldn't have expected any more than that. I also considered going out for a job as an exotic dancer." At the incredulous look on his face, she continues, "but after my stint at the Game Corner, I really did not feel like being ogled by more men. The pay would've been phenomenal, though." A sigh, almost wistful, slips from her. "What about you? Anything new in the life of the illustrious Green Oak?"
He tries to swallow the redness from his face. It's almost painful. "No."
"Thought so."
He grunts in response before stopping at a crossroads. Viridian's streets are tree-lined and its buildings stout. If he had to, he might picture Blue somewhere else, someplace different, like the glitzy, always fashionable Lumiose in Kalos; or seedy downtown Veilstone; even Castelia's congested streets. Blue is a survivor, someone who can make a living practically anywhere. Viridian seems a little too homey for someone as flighty as her, however. The very image of her flying comes to mind, the way her wigglytuff would inflate and carry her away with her whims. Sometimes, he doesn't see Blue anywhere at all, but at the same time sees her everywhere, bouncing from place to place. Long enough to explore, short enough that she won't want to stay.
And yet, there is still that layer of her that makes him think otherwise, that Viridian is just perfect for Blue. The Blue who is no longer afraid of birds, the one who is not her past. Green supposes it is this Blue that decided to settle here, in the not-quite city streets of Viridian, so close to home but without all the memories—the good and the bad.
"So where exactly are we going?" He gestures as best he can with his hands full, keeping his eyes trained forward.
"On," she says, nodding toward a point in the distance, and he can't even be annoyed at her vagueness as she tugs him along the sidewalk, grass growing between the cracks like her fingers around his arm.